Many rich people were never distracted by a desire to be rich. They were never obsessed about wanting to make money and wanting to become millionaires or billionaires. They were instead obsessed about wanting to be successful at their ambition; and the fortune they amassed in the process was just the reward for the time and effort they put into the journey taken from desiring success to achieving it.

People distracted by a desire to be rich and obsessed about wanting to make money but who have no ambition behind their obsession are unlikely to ever get their hands on the millions of dollars they desire. These are usually the people who are looking to get something for nothing. They are the ones who Google terms like, "get rich quick doing nothing".

In reality, you have a better chance of getting rich slowly working excruciatingly hard than of ever getting rich quickly doing nothing. But few people are interested in having to work excruciatingly hard even if there’s a possibility that the hard work might pay off in millions of dollars. They’d prefer to just spend a dollar on a lotto ticket every day and hope to eventually get lucky and win the millions they desire.

Being obsessed about making money can work for you if the obsession is accompanied by a fierce determination to do whatever it takes, within the law of course, to manifest the millions you desire. If you don’t have a willingness to work that is equal to the size of the fortune you hope to amass, you can expect to find yourself forever living amongst the dreamers and wishful thinkers, the lottery your only hope of one day becoming rich.

Modifying your obsession so that your goal becomes one to succeed at a specific ambition might be more helpful to you than focusing all your mental energy around thoughts of money. Just wanting money is not good enough. It’s not like you can go out and collect money like pebbles. Unless you plan on stealing it, money has to be earned; and even if you plan on stealing it, you need a plan for how you are going to steal it and the courage to do whatever is required of you to steal the amount of money you want, just as you need a plan for how you’re going to earn it and the courage to do whatever is required to earn the amount of money you want. So your time will be better spent figuring out a method by which you can obtain the money you desire.

Think of money as a fruit. Imagine that in order to have an abundance of this fruit you must necessarily have a tree for the fruit to sprout from. The tree comes before the fruit, but you can’t have the tree without first planting a seed. The seed comes before the tree. And you won’t have fruit instantly upon planting a seed. In fact, you have no guarantee your seed will sprout or that if it sprouts it will grow healthily and eventually become a tree that bears fruit. In that case, the more seeds you plant the better your chances; but how many ever seeds you plant, there are things you have to do once you plant the seeds to coax them to grow into healthy trees that will flower and bear fruit. You can’t just plant them and leave the rest to fate.

We all wish we had magic beans we could throw out a window that instantly sprout up and grow hundred dollar bills by the millions. People search the Internet every day looking for magic beans in the form of ideas for how they can make millions of dollars over night. Everybody wants to be rich; but not everybody has the patience or interest in growing a plant from seed to fruit. The fact is there are a number of roads that lead down a path to wealth. Some are shorter and surer than others, some are darker and more dangerous, some are long and winding and fraught with obstacles, and yet some take you to one dead end after another, like traveling through a labyrinth that has a single entrance and a single exit but no straight line from beginning to end. Rather you find yourself in a giant maze getting lost and frustrated at every turn. It would behoove you to know beforehand whether or not you have the fortitude to endure a journey through a maze or if, perhaps, a shorter, surer route might be right for you.

The trouble is, not every path is open to just anybody. If you can’t sing like Mariah Carey for example, becoming an overnight singing sensation and amassing a fortune before you’re 25 is not going to happen. If you’re shy of people and can’t bring yourself to going up to them and striking up a conversation, you probably won’t have much chance of becoming a wealthy salesman. If you don’t have a law degree becoming a wealthy attorney who specializes in high profile criminal defense cases like the OJ Simpson Trial isn’t a possibility. If you don’t have a cosmetic surgeon’s license you can’t expect to become plastic surgeon to the stars and amass your fortune that way. What path you take will need to be determined by your abilities as well as by what is suited to your personality type. Someone who quits easily when the going gets tough for example might not fare well in a maze.

So spend your time figuring out viable methods by which you might be able to achieve your goals. Then focus your time and energy on the journey rather than on the prize. The prize will be there for you to take if you succeed at completing the journey. So worry about completing the journey. And even then, take it step by step. Focus on the obstacles in front of you and on conquering them one at a time. Anguishing over how many obstacles there are and dreading having to surmount them all will only deplete you of mental energy; and no one has ever conquered Mount Everest under the influence of a drained mind.