Strategy to Financial Freedom

The ultimate goal of of the individuals in the corporate rat race is financial freedom. Freedom to do what your hearts desire without worrying about the monthly bills or debt that kept us working day in and day out. Freedom to enjoy your time with your family and freedom to travel as often as you like. It may seems like a dream, but it is achieveable. Below are some strategies that can be used for us to obtain financial freedom.

1. Start a side business as soon as possible.
The strategy is to create as many sources of income as possible. If you depend on just one stream of income only, the possibility of reaching financial freedom will not be as quickly as you want. Making money out of your hobby is the best way to start.

2. Buy at least one property.
Peter Lynch once stated in his book One Up on Wall Street "Before you do invest anything in stocks, you ought to consider buying a house, since a house, after all, is the one good investment that almost everyone manages to make. I'm sure there are exceptions, such as houses built over sinkholes and houses in fancy neighbourhood that takes a dive, but in 99 cases out of 100, a house will be a money-maker."

3. Knowledge is everything.
To win a war, you must know the enemy inside out. To win a game, you must know the rules of the game inside out. To win the game of life, you must know the rules that govern our everday life. By reading books, and I mean real books, not newspaper, magazines and etc. you will gain the advantage of shortcutting your life experience by learning other people's experience who have gone through life before us. By knowing and learning other people's success and mistakes, we can make the right judgement beforehand and therefore leaping ahead successfully.

Knowing the strategies to financial freedom only gives you potential power. You can only be on the road to financial freedom and achieve it when you put knowledge to action. So, to achieve financial freedom, TAKE ACTION !

Consistent Actions breed Success

"In essence, if we want to direct our lives, we must take control of our consistent actions. It's not what we do once in a while that shapes our lives, but what we do consistently." - Anthony Robbins

Success has a funny way of arriving in your doorstep. You may have well done everything that you can done but if success has not arrived yet, it may probably just around the corner. It may just waiting for you to give up. Consistent actions are one of the characteristic of successful entrepeneurs. Eventhough sometimes their target have not been met, they will constantly stayed on the same path without faltering. They believe that by doing constant action and not be swayed by any challenges or problems coming their way, success will be theirs. They knew that by doing consistent actions, someday they will reap the reward. 

Secret of the Riches: Small Step at a Time

"People who write their financial goals get rich. It's a fact." - David Bach, The Automatic Millionaire

I once have been asked this riddle, "how do you eat an Elephant?’. After pondering it for five seconds and thinking that it might be a trick question, I answered, "Eat it with your mouth, of course." It was a nice try but it turns out it was not the answer. The answer to the riddle was a very simple one "Eat the elephant piece by piece."

Even though the riddle is just for fun, the answer for the riddle has made me thinking in terms of financial perspective. I change the question and ask to myself "How can you get a million dollars?" The answer to that of course, similar to the eating the elephant's riddle, is "small step at a time". Your goal can be as large as an elephant, but the step towards it can be one step at a time. The trick is to keep on moving and never stop. Slow and steady progress is better that a stagnant position. Do not feel dwarf by your ambition and goals. With patience and perseverance, you can achieve impossible dreams.

If you look at all the giant corporations, you must remember that they are all once a small corporation and was started by a small group of people. With perseverance and hard work, this small corporation blossom into giant and successful corporation as we can see them today. Individuals who have attain great wealth today also starts somewhere small. Richard Branson started his business empire small with selling student magazines. Steve Jobs started his Apple Computer business in his home garage. The only thing that stayed the same was their passion in achieving their dreams. In achieving your dreams, you must always take small step towards your goal in a constant basis. With determination, you can achieve mammoth dreams with small step at a time.

A Video Interview with Richard Branson

Belief of Success

Wealth creation and distribution is actually a vicious cycle that can be seen in every society around the world. The rich become richer and the poor become poorer. In reality, the glass ceiling that separates this both societies is only a mere different mindset of how they perceived the world. The rich will always look at the world in a positive manner and how to capture opportunities so they can become even richer. As the poor societies, they will always look into the world in a negative mindset. They always consider themselves as victims of the environments and can never change even opportunities are laid down just in front of their face.

The statement that we choose our belief is very true. We choose consciously or sub-consciously to be afraid of trying something new, we choose to not achieve financial freedom and we choose a lot of things that seems to be protecting ourselves from danger in the short term but actually is detrimental to us in the long run. Therefore in being aware that we can choose our beliefs, we can then determine our destiny and not depended on the pre-programmed subconscious beliefs that have been implemented in us by our parents and the environment.

Our beliefs also effects on how we solve our daily problems. We face problems in our everyday life. The only difference is how we perceive the magnitude of the problem. The only time that we are not burden with problems are when we are dead. As Albert Einstein once quoted that we should not solve problems based on the mindset and level of thinking when the problem occurs. Our belief and that current state of mind will eventually determine whether you can solve the problem or not. You must be ahead one level as to know what exactly the possible solutions that can be. Be above your problem. Be ahead of your problem. Break out of the box. You will tackle your problems more efficiently as ever before and create wealth for yourself and the people around you.

Story of Personal Finance - An Ant and a Grasshopper

A long time ago,in a land far away, lived two insects - an ant and a grasshopper. These two insects have two distinct personalities and also two different habits in life. During the warm summer days, the ant are busy collecting foods and stockpiling it in their nest. The ant view the summer season as an opportunity for it to collect as much food as they want and also preparing the ant for the winter. As for the grasshopper, it have a different view from the ant. It see the summer season as the time to have fun and laid back for a while. "Why worked so hard?", it said to the ant. "Enjoy the summer, because you definitely will not enjoy winter", said the grasshopper as it happily hopping around. The ant ignore the grasshopper and worked hard as ever in stockpiling it nest. Finally, as the days grew shorter and nights longer, winter finally sets in and the ant is comfortably sitting in its nest knowingly that his foodstock can last the whole winter. But unknown to the ant, the grasshopper was freezing above ground, searching for food that was no longer available abundantly during the summer.

This story is a story of personal finance, and how you view your life during hard times and good times. Always practised delayed gratification and always be prepared for the bad times as whether you are prepared for it or not, it will happen.

Think and Innovate, Do not Follow and Imitate

"What we think determines what happens to us, so if we want to change our lives, we need to stretch our minds." - Wayne Dyer

"I found that when you start thinking and saying what you really want then your mind automatically shifts and pulls you in that direction. And sometimes it can be that simple, just a little twist in vocabulary that illustrates your attitude and philosophy." - Jim Rohn

As Henry Ford once said, thinking is the hardest thing to do and therefore many people choose not to be thinking and leave the thinking part to someone else. This 'someone else' can be the internet, tv, media, newspapers, magazines and even your boss or friends. This is why this group of people will lead a normal and mediocre life. By letting other people think, and you just follow the patterns and trends set by 'someone else', you will never achieve your true potential. Patterns and trends are being set all the time by people, and this group of people that will benefit from the creation of wealth that comes with it. The famous quote "Innovate and do not Imitate" is very true if you really want to create wealth. Only the person who thinks harder than anyone else will truly explore their true potential and therefore achieve success and wealth.

Create and Design Your Life

Try and ask yourself this question, "Are you going with the flow or making the flow as you go along?" Successful people tend to have an attitude of delayed gratification. Every action they made takes into consideration of short term and long term gain. Think wisely of any actions you made as some actions would lead to instant gratification but in the long term will cause negative outcome. For example, the attitude of buying the latest brand new car or the latest gadget available in the market. This are in the short term gratification as you only can enjoy it in a short term duration only. The misery of losing a huge chunk of money will cause negative consequences in the long run. The money spent can either wise be invested in a long term gain that will last much longer. Learn the attitude of the rich so that in return you will become one.

Are you an "I create my life" person? or are you a "Life happens to me" person? The "I create my life" person is a proactive person who does not wait for any favors. This type of person always believes that wealth will come by active action by their side. Misfortunes or problems arise from their own doing and it is up to them to resolve it without blaming on others. In a work environment, this type of person will always climb the corporate ladder fast as he does not blame others but only themselves in moving upwards in their career.

The "Life happens to me" person is a passive person who always tries to blame others for their misfortunes or problems. They believe that if they are poor, it is because it is destined that way. They always treat themselves as victims. In a work environment, this type of person will not move very far in their career. They will always complain about office politics or not being appreciated for their work. They will always have a victim mindset.

Don't Worry Be Happy

Here is an estimate of the things most people worry about:
40% - Things that have not happened yet
30% - Past things that already occured
12% - Health conditions that may or may not be true
10% - Petty things, such as office gossips or etc.
8% - Real problems

Based on this percentages, the only real reason for people to get worried is only a mere 8%. Therefore you have another 92% for you to free your mind from worries and simply to be happy. Happiness is a choice made consciously and subconsciously in our mind. If you have set your mind to focus on all the negative and shortcomings of your life, the mind will be set to autopilot and be on worried mode all the time. But in the otherhand, if you learn to master the focus of your mind, then you will free yourself from needless worries. As the law of the universe stated, an empty gap will always be filled by another matter, the same goes with our mind. As the negative thoughts been weed out, this will leave a gap in our mind for the positive thoughts. Happiness is the pre-requisite for success. Happiness will set the foundation needed for a higher level of success.

Set your goal and achieve it

Goals are a powerful tool in shaping your future. Therefore plan your goal carefully and aim towards achieving it. Goals that are too high can cause self paralysis and a sense of failure while goals too low can make it easily achieveable and does not promote significant growth. Therefore goal-setting is a critical decision that will ultimately impact your action and success.

You can overcome the obstacles to your goal by having a positive attitude and believe that the goal is achieveable. Passion, determination and discipline must be strong in your heart and mind for you to achieve the goals that you have set for yourself. And finally, do not let anyone tell you that you cannot achieve your goal, even yourself.

Passion overcomes Procrastination

"Procrastination is the thief of life" - Edward Young

"Procrastination is the bad habit of putting of until the day after tomorrow what should have been done the day before yesterday.” - Napoleon Hill

Everyone procrastinate. It is a fact in life. But successful people procrastinate rarely then ordinary people do. The reason for that is simple, successful people usually are doing things that they are passionate about. Every action brings joy to them and therefore it creates them no reason to procrastinate. So, the key to avoid procrastination is to learn to enjoy what you are doing. If you do not like what you are doing but it is important, try making fun out of it. Time is the only thing that we cannot get back once it is lost. Therefore, procrastination can be consider one of the culprit of our life that steals the most important treasure from us - 'Time'.