Thought literacy is being aware of and managing your thoughts.
The benefits of thought literacy are largely intangible.
The consequence of not being thought literate are financially costly.

You’ve likely heard about the importance of mindset and focusing on your thoughts. You have also likely seen quotes like:

“You are what you think.” – Buddha
“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.” – Marcus Aurelius
“The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change their future by merely changing their attitude.” – Oprah Winfrey

But quotes from philosophers, religious teachers and billionaires aren’t relatable enough to help you see the importance and value of thoughts.

So let’s talk about something that will motivate you to focus on thought literacy…let’s talk about, MONEY!

dolla dolla bills y’all

It comes down to two questions, if you focus on your thought literacy:

how much money would you make?
how much money would you save?

Since thought literacy is an intangible skill, this is a hard question to answer. But there are some numbers we can gather to generate a realistic estimate.

Thought literacy: how much money would you make?

We are going to calculate increase in wages with the following numbers:

$30,000 (average increase in salary for those with higher Emotional Intelligence (EQ)—thought literacy is the foundation of (EQ))
$64 per hour (average freelance r pay)
43.27 years (averag e American career length)
2 hours (time average person spends worrying pe r day)

And with the following formula (for the first time in my life I’m actually excited to show my math work):

$30,000*42.37=$1,298,100.00
$64*2*43.27*5(days per week)*52(weeks per year)=$1,440,025.60
$1,298,100.00(additional wages)+$1,440,025.60(freelancer wages)=

$2,738,125.60

How much money would you save?

The numbers:

$3,768 (aver age money spend on impulse buys every year)
77 years (average American lifespan)

The formula:

(77-18(age of legal majority))*$3,768=

$222,312.00

Total: $2,960,437.60

Conservative estimate

Three million dollars is a very conservative number considering thought literacy affects every area of your life, including sleep, how you feel about yourself and how you feel about your place in the world.

And while people would pay $27k to get rid of insomnia, it doesn’t mean insomnia isn’t causing a lot of damage to their lives. How much would you say sleep is worth? Sometimes a good night’s sleep is priceless.

We also cannot calculate the cost of:

missed opportunities,
medical bills, and
money wasted on scams and purchases due to societal pressure

Just think of all the money people would save if they didn’t think they should get married by a certain age, have a certain amount of house and keep up appearances. And think of the money they would make in interest if they removed financial blockers with thought literacy.