The First Step towards Wealth Building: Take Risks

If you look at any successful individuals, the most common trait that you can find is the willingness of the individual to take risk. As Henry Ford once quoted “Problems and risks are the thing that distracts you from the original plan.” That’s why the more longer a person have been living on a paycheck, the more reluctant he would take the risk of leaving his job and venture into a business of his own. The more comfortable you are with your status quo, the more heavily the decision you have to make in quitting your day job. But as the status quo of the industry is also right now, not many people can get rich by just working for other people. You can only get rich by employing others to work for you. Try to rethink your current position now and probably it is high time for you to take that calculated risk and dive in towards uncharted territory.

Want to solve a problem? Get your hands dirty

Just want to share with you a very interesting story about the management principle of Kiichiro Toyoda, the founder of Toyota Corporation.

One day Kiichiro Toyoda was walking through the vast plant when he came upon a worker scratching his head and muttering that his grinding machine would not run. Kiichiro took one look at the man, then rolled up his sleeves and plunged his hands into the oil pan. He came up with two handfuls of sludge. Throwing the sludge on the floor, he said: “How can you expect to do your job without getting your hands dirty!” - Excerpt from Toyota Way

This story clearly shows that in order to fix a problem, you must be prepare to get yourself to dig into the problem even if it requires you to dirty your hand in the process.

Plug the holes

Imagine that you are set to begin a new era of your life by embarking a journey towards financial freedom. Imagine that you have set sail and ready than ever to begin on the voyage of your life. You lift the anchor and cruised towards the open sea heading the destination that you dream of. But suddenly, hard fact hits you back as you realized that your ship is not moving as fast as you wanted it to be. Even worse, the ship starts to sink as you embark from the port. Why does this happen? As you check your ship, you then realized that your ship is full of holes and water is fast flooding your ship. Your exciting journey comes to an abrupt end as more and more water floods the ship.

How can this story related to your journey to financial freedom? The hole in the ship can be analogous to debts that you have acquired in life. A life with a lot of debt will either slow you down or cripple you to the ground. So, if you have a dream of living a life of financial freedom, the first thing you must do is to eliminate your debt or analogous to plugging the holes in your ship. A ship with no holes will cruise faster and better than a ship with even one hole. You will arrive to your destination even faster.

The importance of Goal Setting

Here are some quotes from famous people that clearly stated about the importance of goal setting.

“ I don't care how much power, brilliance or energy you have, if you don't harness it and focus it on a specific target, and hold it there you're never going to accomplish as much as your ability warrants. ” - Zig Ziglar

“ If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal. Not to people or things. ” - Albert Einstein

“ Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal. ” - Henry Ford

“ Man is a goal seeking animal. His life only has meaning if he is reaching out and striving for his goals. ” - Aristotle


The true defintion of living a life is by living with a purpose. Living with a purpose means living with the aspiration to achieve something. That is why goals are the most critical factor in determining whether we will have a happy life or not. The notion that we have something to achieve for that will bring much joy and impact to our life will definitely fuel and motivate us to learn, develop and take action. Set your goals today and write it in a piece of paper and commit to take action and achieve the goal that you have set for yourself.

Constant Improvement on a daily basis? Why not.

"We place the highest value on actual implementation and taking action. There are many things which one does not understand and therefore, we ask them why dont you just go ahead and take action; try to do something?. You realize how little you know and you face your own failures and you simply can correct those failures and redo it again and at the second trial you realize another mistake or another thing you did not like so you can redo it once again. So by constant improvement based upon action, one can rise to the higher level of practice and knowledge” - Fujio Cho, President, Toyota Motor Corporation, 2002

The quote above made by Fujio Cho really sums up the essence of Kaizen, a Japanese Management philosophy. The spirit behind kaizen is making changes in incremental way that will eventually in time creates big changes. The key factor here is very simple... Action! Just act and do something whether it is the wrong way or right way is much better from not doing anything at all. Either way, you definitely will learn something and in the process makes you a better and stronger person than yesterday.

The Man who shape his destiny

Besides many admiration for his powerful martial arts, Bruce Lee is also admired by the principles that he holds and the belief that he controls his destiny. Therefore, he have become a legend in his own rights. Below are some quotes made by him during his lifetime that we can reflect and learn.

"I fear not the man who has practised 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practised one kick 10,000 times." - Bruce Lee

"To hell with circumstances, I create opportunities." - Bruce Lee

"If you love life, don't waste time, for time is what life is made of." - Bruce Lee

" Notice that the stiffest tree is most easily cracked, while the bamboo or willow survives by bending with the wind" - Bruce Lee

Tend your Mind

Everyday our mind will filter an enormous amount of information from getting through to our mind. Just imagine if we start to focus on everything that we see, hear or feel at every moment of the time. Even the buzzing of mosquitoes or the beat of your heart sometimes are filtered by your brain so that you can focus on more important matters. Therefore, it is important that we select appropriately what we focus everyday in our life. Focus on negative things, magically or by coincidence, bad things keeps on happening around us. Because the mind will delete the positive things happening around you and therefore amplified the bad things that is happening. And you keep wondering what has happened to the world? Actually is not the world that have gone bad, but it is more of your perception of the world. Clean your mind and the world will become a better place for you.