The Five Critical Steps to Financial Freedom…..

Here’s a quick reminder for you……you become financially free when your PASSIVE income pays for your desired lifestyle. When you earn enough PASSIVE income to pay for the life you want to live, you win.

Notice, I’m not talking about you earning billions of dollars. I’m not talking about you earning hundreds of millions of dollars. I’m not even talking about you earning a million dollars. That amount, that total is completely up to you.

What I am telling you is that once you know how much PASSIVE income you want to have coming in every month, you have a clear target to shoot for. And you increase your chances of achieving your goal when you know exactly what it is you are going after. As Napoleon Hill and W. Clement Stone wrote in "Success through a Positive Mental Attitude", knowing what you want combined with a positive mental attitude is the starting point for all success.

There are 5 factors to becoming financially free. Here they are…..

Working Income + Savings + Investments + Passive Income + "S"

If you integrate all 5, then creating financial freedom is almost assured.

Most people work on one of the factors. Guess which one it is?

If you said working income, you are 100% right. And if people do work on the other factors, it’s minimal.

How would you like the secret to cutting your time to financial freedom dramatically? The secret is “S”. And “S” stands for simplify, simplify your lifestyle.

Some people set up their lives in such a way that it makes it virtually impossible to become financially free. Instead of reaching financial freedom on an acceptable scale, they have a huge mortgage, 2 large car payments, consumer debt that grows by the month, and a monthly expense total that will keep them slaves to their work for the rest of their lives.

On the other hand, others learn to live within their means, keep their life simple, and reach their financial freedom total much quicker. Of course, once they reach it, are they allowed to go for more? Of course they can. But they do it in stages.

OK, so the key to financial freedom is to pay attention to each area individually and in combination. And this formula is often the first clue as to why you may not be reaching your full financial potential right now.

The first key to change is awareness. You cannot change something if you are not aware of it. Part of what you want to do is turn the invisible into the visible so that you can see things on paper that have been stuck inside your head. You can now see exactly where you are focusing your thoughts and energies and where you are not.

So, here’s what I want you to do. I want you to describe how you are doing with each of the 5 financial freedom factors. Rate how well you are doing with each from 1 to 10. Give yourself a 1 if you are doing a very poor job with the factor, and give yourself a 10 if you are doing great. Actually write it down. Turn the invisible into visible.

Once you’ve completed doing this, circle those factors that could use major improvement. There’s a saying that where attention goes, energy flows and results show.

You need to focus your attention on all 5 financial freedom factors.

Remember what they are?

Working ……..
Sav……..
Inves…….
Passive…..
Sim……..

Get to know these 5 factors. Get to know them intimately. Focus on all 5.

Understanding this post is critical to anyone who sincerely wants to win the money game and become financially free.

This is one huge step forward for you. But there’s more to come. Stay tuned.

Namaste.

Jeff

A Huge Step Forward.....

Imagine how your life would be if you had enough money coming in every month to pay for your lifestyle without having to go to work anymore. That’s the goal here.

Remember in the last post where I wrote that most people don’t get what they want because they don’t know what they want?

Later, you read that in order to win the money game, the key word you need to focus on is CHOICE.

And when it comes to winning the money game, you read that the key to CHOICE is financial freedom.

Financial freedom is the ability to live the lifestyle you desire without having to work or rely on anyone else for income. This way, you work because you CHOOSE to, not because you have to.

So, by definition, financial freedom means having income without working. Income without working is called PASSIVE INCOME.

And so if you want to be financially free, you have to create enough PASSIVE income to pay for your desired lifestyle.

Unfortunately, virtually no one spends even a moment thinking about creating PASSIVE income. No one except the financially free! Everyone else spends all of their time focused on working income. We’ve already determined that the problem with working income is that you have to work to earn it. As soon as you stop working, so does your income.

But you are now equipped with the knowledge that for you to become financially free, you must begin to think about how you can create sufficient PASSIVE income to pay for your desired lifestyle.

So, how much income do you need every month to be financially free? How much do you need in order to decide that you don’t need to go to work tomorrow? Is it $2,000 a month? $3,000? $5,000? $10,000? $20,000? More?

You need to determine exactly what that magic number is. Also, remember that you reach financial freedom in stages. You’re first level of financial freedom may not include all the bells and whistles. It may not include driving the Mercedes or traveling first class around the world.

What is your magic number? This is the most important number you’ll write down this year.

Once you write down that number, you’ve got your goal.

You can begin at once to think about how much you’ll need to accumulate in order to create your amount of monthly income.

Let’s begin by assuming you want to generate $5,000 a month of pretax PASSIVE income. That works out to $60,000 a year.

How much would you have to accumulate in one lump sum (we’ll refer to this as your Golden Goose) if you earned 10% on your money and wanted to generate $60,000 a year?

By multiplying $60,000 by 10, you come up with $600,000. This now becomes the goal for your “Golden Goose”. That way, if you had $600,000 earning 10%, you would have $60,000 a year of income.

What can you invest your money in? CD’s. Money Market. Stocks. Bonds. Mutual funds. Mortgages. And some others that you've probably never even thought about! (I'll share more with you about them in another post) We’ll refer to these as “money working for you.” You will need to learn and study how to invest your money to get the best returns possible.

You might find that accumulating $600,000 is daunting. Would you like to reduce that amount?

You reduce it by also investing in businesses that can create PASSIVE business income. You can start or purchase a business that eventually can run without your having to be there. The key word to remember here is systemization. Any business that you can systemize so that it can perform successfully without your needing to be there will dramatically reduce the amount of time you need to reach your goal of $5,000 a month of PASSIVE income.

What businesses can you invest in to create PASSIVE business income? Today, the number 1 way to achieve this goal is to create an Internet web site using any number of systems offered these days. With a successful site, once it’s been set up, auto responders and fulfillment houses can take care of all of the work, and all you need to do is check in on it from time to time to make sure that everything is working right and to deposit your checks.

Another business many people are turning to for PASSIVE income is Network Marketing. While you get the business going, you’re working the business. And as you grow your organization, you get a residual, or a small commission from the sales of the members of your organization. But if you’ve set up your organization properly, and have trained your people the right way, you can eventually retire, and then the income will become PASSIVE income rather than residual income.

There are lots of other businesses you can get involved in that can create PASSIVE business income. You can invest in vending machines. You can buy storage units. You can write a book or a song and get royalties. You can buy video arcades. You can invest in rental properties with positive cash flow. Also, there’s parking lots, coin operated car washes, ATM machines. The list is endless.

We’ll refer to this as “business working for you.” You will need to learn and study how to invest your money in businesses to create PASSIVE business income streams.

Between your Golden Goose having money working for you and your PASSIVE business income, you can accumulate sufficient streams of PASSIVE income to reach your stage 1 financial freedom goal.

From this day forward, you should ask yourself on a daily basis, “How can I create streams of PASSIVE income?”

There’s an expression that goes, “where attention goes, energy flows, and results show.” Once you begin to pay attention to creating streams of PASSIVE income, opportunities that you never noticed before will present themselves to you. But before that happens, you have to make the conscious decision to really want to create streams of PASSIVE income.

By now, you should understand at the conscious level that your goal is to become financially free. You understand that to achieve this goal you need to create streams of PASSIVE income. You understand how much PASSIVE income you want to generate to reach your first level of financial freedom. You understand that you want to start stuffing your “Golden Goose” with as much money as possible. You understand that you want to have money working for you, and also that you want to have business working for you.

PASSIVE income. PASSIVE income. Focus your attention on creating PASSIVE income.

We’re going to go much further down this road in the next few posts. They’ll build on this concept.

But if you understand what we’re talking about here, you understand that for you to join the top 5%, the elite, the happy and productive group enjoying the life of their dreams, you know where you have to focus your time and energy.

I promise you, it’s worth the effort, and even more important, you’re up to it.

Namaste.

Jeff

What's Your Financial Goal?

When it comes to your personal finances, do you know exactly what it is that you want?

Ask this question to 100 people, and do you know what the most common answer is? A lot! Or, I don’t know.

The main reason most people don’t get what they want is that THEY DON’T KNOW WHAT THEY WANT!

Have you ever heard of the law of clarity? It’s based on the concept that you have a far greater chance of achieving what you want once you clearly know what your goal is.

How can a marksman hit his target if he doesn’t know what the target is? But the marksman who knows exactly what his target is increases his chances of hitting it many times over.

I like an expression I learned from Harv Eker of Peak Potentials Training during the Millionaire Mind Intensive Program, “Clarity leads to Power”.

So what are your financial goals? What do you want to accomplish financially? Do you want to earn enough to survive? Maybe you just want enough to pay your bills and maintain the lifestyle you have now? Do you want to become a millionaire? Do you want to be able to retire someday? What exactly is it that you want to achieve financially?

Here’s the plan for a lot of folks. They want to work and make a lot of money. Right? They hope to save some of it. Right? Then at some point in their life they hope to retire. Right? And finally, they get to enjoy their savings in their retirement years.

The big problem with this thinking is that using this approach, there’s a very good chance they’ll run out of money before they die. This plan is flawed, but unfortunately, it’s the plan that is used most often. It is the completely wrong way to approach financial success.

If you keep spending money without replacing it, what’s going to happen? You’re going to go broke! Therefore, you need to have another approach.

How would like to have the CHOICE to be able to do what you want with your time without having to worry about earning a living? Especially when you’re 65 or 70? Therefore, the important word here when it comes to success in your personal finances is CHOICE.

The key to having CHOICE is based on having financial freedom.

So, what is financial freedom? How do you define financial freedom?

Again, using the definition that Harv Eker uses, it’s "the ability to live the lifestyle you desire without having to work or rely on anyone else for money." That way, if you work, you work by CHOICE rather than by necessity. You work because you want to contribute to society rather than work because you have to.

Of course, living the lifestyle you desire is going to cost money. Right? For some of you, more than others.

So, to be free, we need to have money coming in without working. And money coming in without working is called PASSIVE INCOME.

Until you realize that without passive income you MUST work to generate the money you need to cover your expenses, you will be a slave to work for the rest of your life. As soon as you stop working, what happens to your income?

Virtually everyone in our modern society is completely focused 100% on WORKING INCOME. And the big problem with working income is that you have to work to get it!

YOU CAN NEVER BE FINANCIALLY FREE IF YOU JUST FOCUS ON WORKING INCOME.

Do you get it?

So let’s begin by identifying exactly how much you need to have coming in each year in order for you to live the lifestyle you desire? In fact, it might be easier to think more about how much you need coming in each month to live that lifestyle?

What’s the MINIMUM amount of money you would need to have coming in WITHOUT WORKING so that you would have the CHOICE of whether or not you wanted to work anymore? Remember to add enough to cover your taxes too!

Do you need $3,000 a month? $4,000? $5,000? $10,000? $20,000? $50,000?

Exactly how much money do you need coming in every month to be able to say, “Even though I can’t buy the yacht or drive the Mercedes, I have enough coming in that I don’t really have to go to work today, or ever again if I don’t want to.”

This becomes your first level of financial freedom. Are you free to shoot for more? Of course you can. But let’s find a baseline, and then add more to the party once we get there.

Here’s an assignment for you. Reflect on exactly how much money you need to have coming in each month in order for you to reach financial freedom. As I mentioned before, be sure to add enough to that number to pay your taxes. Add 30% for that. So, if you want $5,000 a month to live on, you will want to have $6,500 coming in pretax. Got it?

Clarity leads to power. Once you know what your monthly financial goal is, you will be far more likely to hit the target.

There are systems that will assist you to get to your goal automatically. You’re going to be learning a lot more about these systems in the upcoming posts. Don’t miss them!

Namaste.

Jeff

The Bigger the Goal.....

Before you can achieve great results, before you can join the top 5%, you must learn this lesson. Not only must you learn it, you must understand it completely.

You want to become financially free, right? You want to be able to spend your time doing what you want without having to worry about working to earning an income, right?

How many people do you know who are in that situation right now? Zero? One person?

How many people do you know who would like to be in that position? Everybody?

The fact is, virtually everybody would like to become financially free. Yet only a very few actually achieve it.

Why?

To achieve anything extraordinary in any area of your life, you will be faced with challenges. Let’s face it; if it were easy to achieve extraordinary results, everyone would be doing it.

In your life you will be faced with different levels of challenges. Some will be easy to overcome. Some will be more difficult. And some will be virtually impossible.

To achieve the extraordinary, chances are you will be facing some pretty big challenges.

Imagine that there was a scale from 1 to 10 to measure each challenge you face in a day. The easier challenges might measure a 1 or a 2 on the scale. The toughest challenges might rate a 9 or a 10.

Also, imagine that there was a scale from 1 to 10 to measure you’re skills and abilities to handle challenges. If you are skilled and prepared to handle virtually any challenge, you might measure a 9 or a 10. If you aren’t skilled or prepared to handle even the easiest challenges, you might measure a 1 or a 2.

If you are a 1 or a 2 on the scale, and you are facing a challenge that is rated a 5, your challenge will be greater than you, and more than likely you will not be able to overcome it. Got it?

But what if you grew yourself into a 6 or a 7? Would you be able to handle a level 5 challenge? Sure you would, because you are now bigger than that challenge.

In order to join the elite, top 5% of the crowd, those who are living the life of their dreams, achieving personal and financial success at the highest levels, YOU HAVE TO GROW YOURSELF INTO A LEVEL 10 KIND OF PERSON.

Do you understand this?

You have got to become a person capable of handling and overcoming the major challenges that separate you from where you are now and where you want to be.

Once you grow into a level 10 person, you can take on any challenge with the knowledge and confidence that you will succeed. And once you know that you can succeed at any challenge you take on, what can stop you? Nothing!

You’re going to be learning some extraordinary systems here. The purpose of the systems is so you automatically do the things necessary to have extraordinary success without having to think about it. But in order for you to carry out the steps involved, you need to dedicate yourself to constant learning and improving to become a level 10 person. Do you understand?

This is critical to your success. The challenges will always be there in your life. If you never develop yourself beyond being a level 3 or 4 person, you will never be able to overcome anything greater than a level 3 or 4 problem. The more you grow yourself as a person, the greater the level of challenge you will be capable of overcoming.

Promise yourself right now that you will strive to grow into becoming a level 10 person. The greater you grow as a person, the greater the challenges you will be able to overcome. And in time, you will force your way into the top 5%, and achieve a level of success in every important area of your life that will amaze and astound you.

Is it worth it? You bet it is.

So keep on learning. Keep on growing. Keep a great, positive mental attitude.

And keep on coming back here for the kind of information that is designed to transform your life forever.

Namaste.

Jeff

You Gotta Have a System....

Can you imagine knowing that you are on your way to financial freedom and success in every area of your life, and there is nothing that can stop it from happening?

Think about how you’ll feel when you realize that you’ve found the keys to success and that from now on, you control your own destiny.

There is no greater feeling in the world than knowing that you are now in charge of your life, and that there are no more ceilings on what you are capable of achieving in any area of your life that is important to you.

Of course, let’s be reasonable. If you’re 55 years old and out of shape, you’re never going to be the heavyweight champion of the world no matter how hard to work at it.

But for the most part, the principles and ideas you are learning here will transform your life once you study them and adopt them as your own.

Today, you begin a brand new chapter in your life. Your life will never be the same once you learn the system we are going to be discussing in the next few sessions.

If you’ve been following along with this blog, you read that the one common characteristic of virtually all millionaires is that they are excellent money managers. Over the next while, you will begin learning the simplest, yet most effective money management system ever developed, and has been taught by Harv Eker to thousands upon thousands of students throughout North America at the Millionaire Mind Intensive Programs offered by Peak Potential Training.

Oh, and by the way, this system isn’t just being learned by those who are trying to build a financial foundation, but by millionaires who want to become multi-millionaires. It works equally well for virtually everyone.

Before we get into the details, let’s make sure we’ve laid the groundwork.

You’ve managed your money your way all of your life. Are you rich? Are you getting rich? Do you have a system that works?

For 95% of the general population, the answer to all of these questions is NO. Most people have never been properly educated in the correct management of their money.

You’d think that since it is such an important part of everyone’s life, somewhere along the way, the education system would have taught you how to be successful in this area. Somehow, that hasn’t happened. Everyone has been left to try and figure it out for themselves.

Do you think this may be the reason so few people achieve financial success? Could this be why so many people struggle financially their whole lives? You bet it is.

You are going to learn a system. It has been proven to work. If you simply do what the system tells you to do, you will not fail. But if you think you are smarter than the system, you will almost assuredly fail.

That’s one of the reasons why so many smart people fail. They think too much. They have to improvise. They’re certain that whatever the system is that they’re learning, they can improve it.

When I was the Director of Operations at Peak Potentials Training, we sold tee shirts that said, “DON’T THINK” all over it.

Here’s what I want you to do. I want you to DON’T THINK. At least until you’re a millionaire. Once you’ve got your million, if you want to, go ahead and think then.

McDonalds is a hugely successful franchise. They have their systems. Every single McDonalds restaurant that you go into will have the exact same menu, and serve the exact same burger cooked the exact same way.

If you buy a franchise, you’ll learn the McDonalds system. You don’t think. You simply do exactly what the system tells you to do. You learn the system until you can do it in your sleep. You don’t decide that you’ll find a bigger bun. You don’t decide that you’ll cook the fries in a different oil. You do what the system teaches you to do.

Why?

Because the system is proven. It works.

This is a critical lesson, not only for the money management system you’re going to be learning about, but also for every system you will learn in every area of your life.

You’ll be learning many systems that will guide you to the top. You’ll be learning the same systems used by the top 5%, and these systems separates them from the rest of the crowd.

You do understand, right? You don’t think, you simply follow the system.

Do you get it? I hope you do.

Read this post again. It’ll only take a couple of minutes at most.

Think about what you’ve read.

Promise yourself that you will learn the system and not change it. Remind yourself over and over again, DON’T THINK.

If you can be true to yourself, you can take a deep breath, relax, and put a huge grin on your face. Because once you overcome this hurdle, nothing will ever stop you again.

You can count on it.

Stay tuned. Some pretty exciting stuff is right around the corner!

Namaste.

Jeff