Moneywise24 Personal Finance

Honestly, it costs me quite some effort and perhaps a bit of courage to write this article; finally, after having seen the book quite some times in my local bookstore but having ignored it due to its simple title, I decided to buy Rich Dad, Poor Dad - if it would have been called “an empiric study about the financial development of… ” I would have bought it sooner, in the end I currently live in Germany. I have still not read the entire book, and read through the first two chapters only yesterday. But still, I can say that those first two chapters have pretty much enlighted me. It is a funny thing, because many of what is written I know in some form of the other, but my entire life I have failed living it.

The book Rich Dad, Poor Dad is a story told by Robert T. Kiyosaki, who grew up in Japan. During childhood, he grew up with two ‘dads’: his real dad, a highly educated man with a good job, but constantly struggling with his financials, and the rich dad of his friend Mike, which is much like his second dad. Mike’s dad is a successful entrepreneur, and the main difference is how the two dad look at money, and the goals they pursue in life.

In the first chapter of the book, Robert T. Kiyosaki writes about how people are told during childhood and adolescence to get good grades, perform well through high school and university, in order to get a good job and a good salary. Thus, young adults graduate from college or university, obtain good jobs, and work hard on their career. They get themselves credit cards, they buy a fancy car, and with the first salary raise perhaps a home on a mortgage. People get married, get children, and as life gets more expensive, they work harder and take on second jobs… I do not want to lose myself in Robert Kiyosaki’s words, but the bottom line is that most people live in an illusion; the illusion of having a secure job, building a secure retirement, and that working hard for a large and well-known company is going to make them rich on the long-term. However, in the end these people end up working solely in order to be able to pay their bills and their liabilities.

In order to lead a truly fulfilled life (and I do not mean rich, simply fulfilled), it is necessary to find ways to let money work for you, in stead of the other way around. This means, for example, investing in stocks in order to see them rise in value, and to obtain dividend pay outs. It means investing in other forms of businesses, hire people to let them do the work for you. It means identifying opportunities, entrepreneurial opportunities, and be in charge. The biggest problem, however, is that most people are so caught up in their thinking of “education / good grades / getting a good job”, that these opportunities pass by without them even noticing.

I let the first chapter reflect for a moment yesterday, and the more I thought about it, the more I identified opportunities in the past, which I had let pass by due to my focus on making a career. I still remember vividly, that when I was 19 or so, I got interested in international trade. I bought some books on international trade, and how to become a trade agent, and in a newspaper I saw some offers from manufacturers of cellphones looking for agents. The costs for starting up an agency were extremely low, and it was a time at which cellphones were just starting about to hit the market… but I was discouraged by my family and friends, and unfortunately I listened to their advice, to get a job. One year later the cellphone business started booming for real…

Throughout my entire life, I have been looking for better jobs, better salaries, promotions, and the like. And I believe this will be one of my top priorities for 2010:

I pledge to stop focusing on making a career and losing myself deeper in the treadmill until I cannot get out. In stead, I will be on the outlook for business opportunities, aiming at gaining financial independence. And I will do anything, that is necessary.

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I have to be completely honest with you: I have always wanted to become a millionaire… I think since I was 16 or so. So then, why am I not already. I mean, I have had 16 years of my life to achieve that goal…

I believe life is so exciting, fast paced, and emotional, that we quickly tend to lose sight of our goals. At least I do every now and then. For this reason, I was extremely surprised, or perhaps call it relieved, to find a “Million Dollar Club” on the web. The Million Dollar Club is a non-exclusive, no-nonsense club for those who want to become a millionaire. The introduction is simple, followed by a number of statements, that the author pledges to.

Hell, why did I not think of that? I want to join, enhancing my life and my blog… and being remembered of what I pledge each time I review my blog by the badge on the side bar.

On my way to becoming a millionaire, I pledge the following:

1. I will not lend money only for the purpose of real estate and education: I consider these investments in my life, aiming at generating money.
2. I will not make more transactions on my credit card than I can pay off with my one month’s salary.
3. I will not spend at least 20% of my net salary each month (after deduction of taxes, social security payments, and retirement contributions).
4. I will start investing in stocks, and perhaps options with smaller amounts. I will ensure my money will start working for me on the long-term.
5. I will continuously look for opportunities for increasing my regular income base, either via employment or through entrepreneurial activities.
6. I shall keep working on increasing my knowledge and education continuously.
7. I shall always think about the value of my purchase, and how it enhances my life.

Now, I realize that I am still at the very beginning of my journey, unfortunately I have to admit that I have literally failed to save or invest virtually anything during the past 15 years. But thank God I have recognized this and am willing to make a change!

As a result, I will be thinking of posting regular financial updates at Moneywise24.com about how I am progressing… I will keep you updated.

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I read an utmost interesting article today at the Financial Samurai website, about rational decisions and how it may impact the lives of individuals. Although the story itself is about rational or irrational decision making processes, I find it utmost interesting how in some examples within the article, the subject decides to make a change in his or her lifestyle, whereas in other examples the individual does not.

 This automatically led me to the following thought:

Often we have good intentions and ideas around New Year’s Eve, but we tend to implement only a small part of it, if at all. We usually kick off in the new year following our good intentions, only to find ourself following old habits in February again. Additionally, perhaps we still remember how we definitely and enthousiastically made decisions years ago, only to find today that the idea has never turned into action.

The power of habit

People are very habitual creatures, and generally we don’t like change; whether it is a new job, starting to do sports, quit smoking, or any form of activity which requires some form of effort. Through our habits, which we have trained over years and years, we are conditioned to act and respond in certain ways during certain situations. Not uncommonly, such habits develop during childhood and adolecense. We have grown to become accustomed to them, perhaps even emotionally attached, which makes them even hard to change.

Such habits may include smoking, eating too much, or doing (too little) sports. It can be extremely hard to permanently break through the barrier of bad habit, since in many cases there is some form of physical reaction involved. As an example, take a person eating too much, who would like to change his eating habits in the new year. To those, who are already in the habit of eating not too much and healthy, it might seem as an easy task. However, we tend to neglect the fact that a body has the capability of adapting itself to the conditions it is faced: an overweight person, suddenly reducing the amount of food he/she consumes each day, will start to feel a contunious hungry feeling.

Or take the example of an individual, who spends a lot of money each day for shopping. Shopping temporarily releases endorphines in the body of an individual, causing a bliss of excitement and happiness. Much like smoking, giving up shopping will reduce the daily amount of endorphines in the body and may cause unhappiness or even slight depressions.

The belief system

In addition to habits, people develop a belief system throughout their lives. Usually, beliefs are unconsciously formed through experiences (both pleasant and unpleasant), and generally dictate the unconscious behavior of an individual. Together with a person’s genetical programming, it makes each person unique. It is the reason why one person loves to take risks, whereas another does not; Some people can start conversations with people easily, whereas others are too shy to do so.

Beliefs also have a great impact on how we see things, and the habits we develop. For example, many people are holding on to their own jobs due to insecurity, or perhaps fear of the unknown, and fear of change. Additionally, the ability to build large social networks or the ability to build a business is not uncommonly the result of previous experiences in life.

The cycle of change

Changing old habits or beliefs requires a lot of persistance. Usually, there are four stages of change:

• The unconscious “old” behavior refers to specific behavour or habits which we are unconscious of. We do them without thinking, and we do not realize that changing them may improve the quality of our lives.
• Conscious “old” behavior refers to the stadium where we have identified the behavior or habits which need change, but we still do them.
• In the stadium of  conscious “new” behavior, we have actually changed our behavior and habits to where we want it to be, but we still have to push and remind ourselves to keep it up. We are continuously doing these things consciously, and there is still a huge risk of falling back in our old and unwanted behavior.
• Unconscious “new” behavior is when we unconsciously have adopted our new behavior and habits, and do them without thinking about them.

Planning your initiatives for 2010

If you want to plan your initiatives for 2010, you will need to develop a method in order to be able to do this effectively. Each person is different, so your method will surely be unique. However, the following guidelines are intended to help you plan a bit ahead, and make some change in 2010:

Do not plan too much: many people plan too much for the new year; they want to quit smoking, eat less, do more sports, change jobs, buy a new apartment, buy a new car, get married, and so on. When thinking over your personal changes for the new year, think them over carefully and prioritize them. Do not plan too much, but stick to two, three, perhaps four major changes in the new year. This will let you keep the overview.

Be specific: Be as specific as you can. For example, if you would like to lose weight, plan how much you want to lose within which time span. If you want to do more sports, think about what kind of sports you want to do, where you would do it, how much it would cost, and how often a week you want to do it. Make a plan, and stick to it.

Be realistic: Keep your changes as realistic as possible. It is great if you plan to do sports each day, but if you work two jobs and have a family to take care of, this is simply too ambitious. You may want to reduce it to two or three times a week, which is much more realistic.

What will make the difference?: Last, you may need to think about whether the planned change is indeed going to have the desired effect. For example, you may plan for 2010 to cut down further on necessary expenses. However, are you really spending that much, or are you simply in need for the next step in your career? Or perhaps you are thinking about buying a nice sports car? But then, why haven’t you bought a sports car until now? Or are you rather referring to financially being able to buy youself a sports car? Perhaps in that case it is necessary to focus on cutting down expenses, or advancing your career, in stead of focussing on the car.

Be committed: Being committed is like making a promise to yourself. Stick to you planned changes, and always keep them in mind. Keep to your own promise, and be faithful to yourself.

Whatever people plan for 2010, many of them fail to keep up with them. Usually, changes are not kept up with due to light heartedness or a lack of commitment. Also many people tend to have too many things on their New Year’s wishlist.

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Author: Ev Nucci

“Humankind cannot bear much reality.” T. S. Eliot

No matter how bad things are, like millions before you, you can create a new future. I have, so I know what I’m talking about. You find out who people are in the bad times, not in the good.

Re-writing your future is a state of mind

You are never too old , it’s never too late to start anew. And if you think you can’t take steps backwards in order to take steps forward, think again.

Danny Aiello began acting at 40, Rodney Dangerfield at 42, Gloria Stuart was 78 when she was nominated Best Supporting Actress for Titanic, Peggy Ashcroft was 77 when she won Best Supporting Actress, and Jessica Tandy won an Academy Award at 80 for Driving Miss Daisy.

Grandma Moses (one of the most important self-taught artists of the 20th century) started her painting career in her seventies and Bill Traylor started drawing at age 83. In business Irene Wells Pennington became known in her nineties when she straightened out her husband’s oil business, Colonel Sanders started Kentucky Fried Chicken in his sixties and Taikichiro Mori founded his business in his 50s and is the richest man in the world.

So you think you’re too old to start anew? I think not!

1. Failure is part of success. Don’t avoid it. You need to fail in order to succeed. Every failure is one step closer to success. If failing is a problem for you, then change your mindset. The one percent fail- up and perceive failure as learning opportunities. Without learning opportunities, or practice, how can you get better? Many people are so afraid of failing that they spend their lives avoiding their gifts; or worse, they failed a coupled times and gave up because of it. For years I gave numerous speeches that went well. Then I gave one speech that bombed and it was so humiliating I froze, months later I had a meeting that didn’t go very well. Those two experiences sent me to Toastmasters where I learned how to give a speech.

2. Become extraordinary. Do what you say you’re going to do. Accept responsibility and criticism. Being extraordinary takes work. Go the extra mile. Go above and beyond. Do what the normal person won’t do…be the extreme! And learn what extraordinary people do, study them, learn from them. While at Toastmasters, I learned I had an issue with criticism and had to learn how to accept criticism, to thank the person sharing it with me and to understand that it wasn’t personal. This was an issue I had to learn how to deal with from a professional coach. So the point is that I went from one problem and solved it, to discovering another problem and solved it to back to the original problem. That is what extraordinary people do–they don’t give up. Ever. And when people tell them they can’t achieve something, they think to themselves, “watch this!” Extraordinary people never stop learning, and it’s not about how many letters you have after your name, or what you school you went to, it’s about continuous learning–and knowing that the more you know, the more you don’t know.

Be extraordinary, handle criticism with grace and dignity.

3. Study your successes Take out a yellow pad of paper. Write down your successes. What were you doing? What value did you bring? What are you really good at? What does everyone say you are great at? What’s staring you in the face? What is your gift? What and where have you repeatedly succeeded? Where is there a cross between extreme anger and happiness? That is passion.

4. Study your failures The one percent fail- up. Failures are learning opportunities. Without learning opportunities, you can’t get better. What have you learned? What patterns emerge? What did you do that could have done better? Use this time as a time to evaluate and learn. I have learned the most in my life from my failures—not from my successes. In the next post we’ll address structured achievement relative to goals that will address setting a weekly fear/dream goal.

5. Happiness is not the key to success. It is a choice. Money does not make you happy. I know people that have jobs they hate because of the money they make, relatives that are wealthy, miserable and alone. Money doesn’t fill your home with laughter and love. Money is nothing more than a by-product of your job. Success is a choice. Happiness is a choice. You choose to do the job your were hired to do and choose when and how to leverage that job into another. Life is a series of choices.

6. Trust yourself. Watch for the yellow lights or listen for the voice inside. If something doesn’t feel right, it isn’t. I call it, “validate and verify.” Check out what it is that your voice is telling you. Don’t rush. What is that yellow light? Generally, I count how many yellow lights I see in a situation and if I count more than three, it turns to a red light and I don’t move forward. It signals the requirement to have a conversation, and flags that something isn’t right. Every time I didn’t trust myself or ignored the yellow lights—mistakes were made.

7. What miracles have you created in your life? Go to a quiet place and on a yellow pad of paper, write out every miracle you have accomplished in your life. Everything you achieved or created that you never expected to and is a miracle in your mind. List every one. On an index card write down the ten that are mind blowing to you. You simply cannot believe you ever achieved that goal. This is only for you, it doesn’t matter how big or small it is. This is your Miracles card. I put myself through college; it’s a miracle I went and graduated. That is one of about 50 on my yellow pad. Save the back of the index card for the next assignment which is in the next post. Until then, when you get a little depressed one of the things you will do is look at your Miracles card and remind yourself that nothing is impossible.

8. Have the courage to self-reflect. It’s takes courage to reflect on your dreams, vision of how you want your life to be, who you want to be, how it is currently structured. The reality is that we structure our lives around other people’s constraints. Our dreams and our visions are bigger than the constraints around us. If those constraints are too much, you must be willing to ask yourself some dangerous questions.

Take an honest look at your own life. How much is your life in alignment with how you are spending your time and energy? You have to take responsibility to thrive and flourish wherever you are. Think of yourself as a social architect, you create the rules of the game. Whoever has the goal, makes the rules. You may decide that you need to change some of the dynamics in your life in order to get yourself to the next level. You may have to change some of the players and your environment. Have the courage to look at your life and make those decisions.

About the Author:

Ev Nucci is CEO of Nucci Consulting Group, a retained search firm that specializes in the asset management industry. She spent the last three decades building high performance organizations. She started 5 companies, worked as an executive for Johnson & Johnson where she was part of starting two divisions, then ran 15 operating companies, did a start-up for Baxter, started her own company which she grew to to be an industry leader and she sold five years later to the industry giant. In 1996, she founded NCG and leveraged her talent for building high growth organizations to Wall Street. In 1998, she started working with a small fixed income firm, by the name of BlackRock and spent the next ten years working with founders and they have grown into the largest asset management firm in the world. Most recently she served as a consultant and Director for Armored Wolf, LLC a global macro hedge fund. She has interviewed over 15,000 people over the last three decades.

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com – Laid off? Out of work? Life is all about creating yourself!

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I am currently visiting my parents for Christmas in my home town in The Netherlands, where I occasionally meet up with old friends while I am here. Yesterday, I met up with a very good friend of mine, and we started discussing our intentions for 2010, as New Year’s Eve is approaching. Besides the well-known health issues, and our intentions to do more sports, we had a long discussion about money. My friend had recently read a number of books and articles on career making and growing wealth in general, and his idea was that we had simply learnt many wrong things from our parents and relatives.

We are both from non-entrepreneurial families, and our belief of earning money is that of taking on a paid job, and earning one’s money through employment; in the end, this is what we had learnt from our parents our entire lives. In a sense, I can still hear my parents tell me to get a good education, work for a large and multinational company, work hard, and the rest will follow automatically, I can be assured of that.

Although this might have worked in the 1950′s (and I know it did, since this is what has made my parents pretty wealthy), they do not apply in the modern world. Young, well-educated men and women graduate from university, apply for jobs with titles bearing the word ‘manager’ in 80% of them, only to find out that the title “International Customer Relationship Manager” is virtually the same as “call-center clerk”. Additionally, a request for a salary raise during the annual review meeting is responded to by

You know the economic situation is a difficult one, and I will never be able to obtain approval from my superiors. You have done an extraordinary job, but 1.5% is the most I can give you.

1.5%? I am sure last year’s inflation was at least 2.5-3%.

The world’s globalization has simply brought countries closer together, more and more people have the opportunity to go to college or university, and corporations are simply faced with an increasing offer of well-educated employees on the one side, and on the other side the competition from companies from low-wage countries is increasing.

As we were talking yesterday, my friend made an extremely interesting point:

Who we are today is the result of our learnings and experiences in the past; What we do today will define who we are tomorrow. But how the hell does a person break out of the downward spiral of being a regular employee, if this is all he knows?

And let’s be honest: college and university will teach you everything about doing business and entrepreneurship, except for how to be one yourself. So, how does someone, who has been taught to deliver hard work through employment only, break this habit?

I believe it is not an easy task, with which many men and women are faced nowadays. The most feasible method for most people is to create an additional income, at the side of any regular income. A popular strategy is investing in stocks, stock options, futures, real estate, or any other form of investments. The anticipated income is firstly the growth of the investment value itself, second the yield it generates year after year. Additionally, many people attempt to earn a regular second income. Many people choose the internet as their preferred method, since the investments are extremely low. The boom in blogging sites is a great example of this phenomenon. Moneywise24 Personal Finance is also a blogging site following this example, but still it does not (yet) generate revenues. This is in itself the great challenge of starting up something online: you think you have a great idea and insight, thinking you are taking charge of your own life and ready to make a difference, only to find out that everyone else is already doing the same.

I believe the next ten or twenty years or so will be very exciting; we see that trends are coming and going fast, we are experiencing a growing competition on the international marketplace, we recognize that the old and proven methods for making a career do not work on-demand, and we are in search of new methods for achieving personal growth and development.

How it will end? I honestly do not know…

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