Moneywise24 Personal Finance

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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We hear stories about self-made millionaire and people who made it from being a cook to owning a private jet. We often tend to treat such people as ‘being lucky’, or we feel the need to state that they probably had the help of a wealthy uncle or family. Seldom, however, we really try to understand what goes on in the mind of someone who truly ‘made it’, and more importantly, trying to learn from it.

 Responsibility

 If you take the time to read and compare different biographies from the rich and the famous, such as Bill Gates or Donald Trump, you will soon find that they have one big thing in common: they take responsibility for their lives. They strongly believe, and live by, the fact that every person is in the position to shape his/her future. The saying “your life as it is today is the result of your past actions” could not apply more.

 The first step in adopting the mindset of a millionaire is to be responsible for your own life. Life does not just happen to you; you are in control of it, as far as it is possible. Understanding what you do today shape your future is where you want to begin. Sometimes, you may experience faith, how unpleasant it may be. However, a true winner will simply accept this as a part of life, and move on, self-confidently, and write the next chapter in his life.

 Value your time

 Be honest to yourself for second: could you imagine Donald Trump sit in front of the television, watching a soap opera? Of course not, millionaires value their time, since they understand this will bring them further in life. In fact, television, computer games, or any activity which does not intend to enrich your life in some way or the other, is a waste of time.

 In stead, go out and become active. Engage in social activities, do sports, keep your living place tidy and clean, study, travel, and do whatever is necessary to keep moving forward in life. Spend your time as efficiently as you can, and grasp the opportunities that cross your path. Becoming active on the one side will also stimulate you to become pro-active, a key characteristic of wealthy people. Being pro-active means identifying opportunities, and doing something constructive with it. The best time to do things is not later, or tomorrow. It is now.

 Insist on quality

 No matter whether you are buying an item, making an investment, or delivering work yourself: insist on the highest possible quality, always. It is completely useless to buy a low-quality item which needs replacement after a short time, in the end you will spend more money on buying countless of low-quality items than you would have on one high-quality item. The same applies if you are delivering work as an employer or entrepreneur: your own image and that of your product will depend much on the quality you deliver. Delivering a high quality of work, for example, will make you stand out above the masses, and your managers will identify you with the quality you deliver. This makes your position for salary raises or promotions stronger.

 Do not fear

 Fear is the enemy of any successful person. Fear is nothing more than a physical reaction of the body, which indicates that you are about to enter into a situation, which might be life-threatening. However, being successful also means taking risks. Building a business means investing money, with the potential of losing it. The same applies for investments, or even switching jobs. However, with the right mindset, you can limit any potential negative outcome. If you insist on efficiency and quality in your life, you are likely to deliver an excellent job, which will only astonish your future manager.

 The four characteristics described above are only the tip of the iceberg. By the way, this does not only apply to building wealth, but also applies to being successful in general and leading a happy and fulfilling life. Once you understand, and live by, the main principles of what make people successful and happy, nothing can stand in your way.

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