Stages to financial freedom

Wow what an amazing year 2012 was, My business grew by just over 70% and I'm getting closer to my goal of being financially free. Financial freedom is a varied term though in that it means different things to different people, for me it means never having to work again if I didn't want to! So that every month all my bills and living costs would be covered by multiple streams of income and residual income at that.

I have several stepping stone goals to reach this one big goal

Firstly I need about £950 (before tax) per month, now that would cover all my contribution to the household ie utilities, food, rent etc and at this point (and I'm already on the way to this goal with my Utility Warehouse business)  I could be financially free, if I never went out again or did anything else! That would be pretty boring though, so that leads me onto stage 2.

Stage 2 I need around about £1800 (before tax) a month coming in on a residual income basis, to cover other bills like fuel, mobile phone, going out for a meal once per month, car insurance and so on, Then I'd be pretty happy with that, I'd pretty much never have to worry about bills again. Of course I'd still have a linear income at this point by that I mean I'd have an income where I get paid for the hours I work.

Stage 3 is around £3250 (before tax) I think this is a nice figure for me to be able to have and do what I want when I want, also if I wanted I could drop the linear income sources, although I probably won't as I'll take the income from that and invest in to a residual income such as shares.

Final stage of financial freedom would be around £6500+ (before tax), Now I say plus, because why limit yourself, but on this sort of income for me it means not only will I never have to work again (if I didn't want to) but then neither would my wife (well you need someone to share the time with). This would mean being able to have what we want when we want it, going on holiday at the drop of a hat, go to any restaurant we want and not have to look at the right hand side (the cost) you get the picture.

So why do I have these four figures? 

The £6500+ figure is nice and I will get that within the next ten years but it's much better to have those smaller goals on the way to tick off, otherwise it's be a bit like having a 20 ft ladder with only 2 rungs! Of course I have other goals in between and there aren't only four rungs on my ladder, I've just written this to give you an idea, so what are your goals to your greater goals, get it written down and have it clear in your head, it is very motivational.

If you want to share your stepping stones, feel free, I'd love to know.

To your success

Paul

Another reason why goal setting doesn't work.

I have had a goal for a while now and that was to lose weight and become fit and healthy again, but until recently I just couldn't stick at a healthy eating plan (I'm not a fan of diets) and although I'd go running I just couldn't seem to stick it for more than about 2 weeks! 
I used to be really fit and eat healthy all the time, I used to exercise about 6 or 7 times a week, run marathons  and I loved it, So I couldn't understand why I couldn't get back to even a half decent health and fitness routine! even though I wanted to, it was one of my 'goals'. Then one day a few weeks ago I did a values session to see where my values were, what was important to me. 
Now in case you don't know, our values are what drive us and give reason to what we do, to give you an idea here is a very short list of some values;

• Integrity
• Creativity
• Independence
• Financial freedom
• Family
• Security
• Friendship
• Personal development
• Respect

If you have a value of having fun and that's important to you, you will find ways to have fun and depending where it is in your hierarchy of values you will look to have fun before a value that is lower on the list is catered for. If this value of having fun or any value is not catered for you'll find that your life may become 'out of balance' and you may start to feel demotivated about things, until it is then met. also this is how some issues can happen between partners and other people, if a partner stops you from meeting a value or having fun, you may start to feel resentment to them and this is where some relationships break down.


We tend to have between 10 and 15 values and the top 5 are the really important ones, you can do this now, get 15 cards or bits of paper and spend 5 minutes writing down one thing that important to you in life on each card, you can then sort through each card by taking 2 and asking 'if I could only have one of these, which would it be?' the one you choose goes up the list, until you have a hierarchy of values. You may at this point have an ah ha moment and understand why something is happening in your life or happened in the past! You can do a values session for your whole life, your work or business or relationships and so on.


So back to my goal of health and fitness, when I did a values session I found that health and fitness were unconsciously not even in my list of values! All of a sudden I understood why I wasn't reaching or starting my goal it just wasn't important to me unconsciously, therefore I kept sabotaging the goal, consciously I really want to get fit again so now I have changed my values and health and fitness is in the top 5. Now I've managed to keep at it for the past several weeks and still going strong, I've cracked it and health and fitness is again becoming a habit and I'm enjoying it.


When you are goal setting you should check that the goal is congruent with your values or you may find you'll sabotage it, if you have the goal of getting money, wealth, financial freedom or security and they are not in your values or very low down chances are you will not reach that goal. If you're serious about it, it may be time to move it up the list.
Financial freedom is one of my goals and until I did the values session it was in the top 5 and another value of mine is helping others however this wasn't in the top 5 so I decided to switch them round as I know that helping others will lead me to my goal of financial freedom. I now work to find ways to help other people where I can and also it's very satisfying too! On that basis as this blog is about wealth and I'd like to leave you with 2 of my favourite quotes and they are:


Try not to become a man of success, rather try to become a man of value - Albert Einstien and 


Service to many leads to greatness...Find a way to serve the many - Jim Rohn (Re-worded from the bible)


To your success
Paul

Build your wealth bit by bit, it'll make it easier.

The journey of a 1000 miles starts with a single step - Chinese proverb

Nearly everyone has heard this proverb and if you hadn't then you have now! Along with others like how do you eat an elephant - one bite at a time.... building wealth is often massive for a lot of people (again asking the question what does wealth mean for you?) and so become overwhelmed by the thought of it, but the key is to just start, just start. start getting into the 'Mindset for Wealth' whether that means start saving 1% of your income in a savings account or other investment vehicle.


Failure to start.
When we get overwhelmed  by something, if we think it's too much we become like a rabbit in the headlights and do nothing, the key is to pick something and then do it. 'Failure to plan = plan to fail' is another saying but then there is another saying 'Ignorance on fire is better than knowledge on ice' now both are very valid sayings and I've seen people on both ends of the scale people that spend all their time planning and not doing and those that jump straight in and then mess something up when their should be a bit of planning. The key is to be balanced and recognise where you are now on that scale.


When you start grow your wealth the quickest way is not to put masses of money into a mindset of growing that wealth and start bit by bit whether that is putting £1, £10, £100 in to an investment or 1%, 5% or 10% of your monthly income into it. By doing this small activity on a regular basis you'll see your wealth slowly at first in which it'll seem hardly worth doing but eventually it'll hit what's called a 'Tipping point' where it will grow rapidly.


To you success
Paul




ps If you want to know more about applying the theories in this post to any part of your life to get a big change then I'd recommend the following 3 books.


Slight edge - Jeff Olson


   

Want to earn income while you sleep?

What would it be like if you could earn money without leaving the comfort of your seat in front of your PC? or even earn money and increase your wealth while you sleep? or earn money while you're doing something else to earn money!
Well you can with Google Adsense. So what's Adsense all about? Businesses all across the world advertise with Google Adwords, Google's advertising programme, they advertise to their target market and when someone searches for a 'keyword' their ad will be shown in the search on Google at the top of the page and on the right hand side of the page in the 'sponsored ads' boxes, every time you click on an ad the business pays for that click, not for it being shown. This is great as it is very targeted so the business only pays for people who are potentially interested in their product or service.
What's great is if you own a website or blog then you can use Google's Adsense programme to have these Ads shown on your site, when a visitor to your site or blog clicks on an ad to go to the site that's advertising with Google  Adwords you get paid a percentage of the income that Google makes from that click.
Adsense will only show ads on your site that are relevant to the content on your site so if you have a site for your business and use Adsense it's likely your competitors ads will be show and then you could lose business however you will be earning money from your competitors which is pretty cool. The best thing to do is to develop a site that is about something you are interested in like a hobby.
You do need to have content on your site that will be relevant to the viewer or Google may not let you run Adsense on that site also you want people to keep coming back to see new content. Once you've set up the site you then only need to do a bit of maintenance and update the site and promote it on social media sites and maybe even your own PPC campaigns but the rest is pretty much automatic. 
One thing to be aware of is don't click on the ads on your own sites as for obvious reasons Google don't like that and will ban you from the Adsense programme if you're getting an unusually high amount of clicks, also this is essentially theft.
Once you have a site up and running you can then earn other income through being an affiliate, which I'll talk about in another post.


To your success
Paul

Are you 'Towards' or 'Away from' - financial freedom?

You're reading this because like me you're not wealthy (whatever that means to you) yet! It may even be that like me  you have some debt.


Now for many people thinking about that debt and worrying about it, how they may get out of it, has a tendency to keep them in debt and never get to a goal of wealth. For people who say things to themselves such as 'I don't want to be broke', 'I don't want debt' is called having an 'Away from' strategy, the thing with this kind of thinking is that they are still thinking about the negative side of finance and even using the statement 'I want to be debt free' isn't the answer! this is because the word 'debt' is a negative one and the unconscious mind picks up on this and then delivers what we think about most!


A much more positive way of thinking is to use positive phrases such as 'I want to be financially free' or 'I am working my way to financial security' this is known as a 'Towards' strategy. If you imagine a line with 'Away from' at one end and 'Towards' at the other end, when you think about your current wealth situation and the statements that you make, you'll be somewhere on this line. The trick is to make your statements more 'Towards' than 'Away from'.


Reframe
If you are in debt and when you think about it and think about paying it off, if it brings up negative feelings is to reframe that thought, a great reframe is to think of that debt that you are paying off as if you are paying off for your education, however much it may be and whatever the circumstances may have been for you getting into your situation, thinking of it in this way takes the edge off think of it as a learning experience and then allow you concentrate on a time when you'll be financially free. This reframe certainly works for me, and I'm sure you can come up with your own reframes and let me know.




To your success
Paul

So where am I in my Journey?

While I've read a bit on wealth and wealth creation over the last few years, really I'm just at the start and still learning and looking for a means to become wealthy. 

I believe that it is easy to make money and become wealthy which differs to the common held belief with wealth.

I started an electrical business back in 2005 and employed people too but totally lost heart in doing it in 2008 and then got into debt in 2009, while I still run the business, I do so with a view to closing it in the future or selling it on. At the end of 2008 I joined a Direct selling/ Multi Level Marketing business (see last post) and have been growing that ever since and I'm currently doing a NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) Master Practitioner  Certification and I'm currently working to get a business off the ground in that area.

The goal is to then create other income streams and some ideas are to write some books, set up affiliate websites, savings, investments and property.

Whatever happens I hope you'll enjoy following me on my journey and find tips that help you on your journey to wealth.

To your wealth

Paul

Multi Level Marketing Business

In 2008 I joined a business industry called Multi Level Marketing (MLM). MLM comes under different names such as Network Marketing, Relationship Marketing and direct Selling. Companies use MLM as a route to market rather than advertising on TV, radio and papers and magazines which can be expensive. Entrepreneurs who become involved in MLM become what is know as distributors to sell the products and services of the company they are then compensated for doing so. They also find and recruit other people who want to do the same and build a team they are then compensated for doing that too. 
By doing this the costs of the company are reduced as the cost of acquiring a customer is known because the distributors do not get paid until a sale has been made as opposed to advertising where the cost of a customer is not known until the sale has been made, therefore the spend that would normally be spent on marketing is shared between the distributors of the company
By building a team a distributor can build a residual income so whether they work or not they still get paid.
Unfortunately some people who join an MLM business believe it to be a get rich quick scheme and think that they will not have to put in effort to build their business, they then blame the business when they fail instead of their own laziness. It does take time effort and commitment to build an MLM business as it does any business and the rewards for those that do are great, more millionaires have been made from the MLM industry than any other.
MLM is a great way to build your wealth but to be truly wealthy do you need to have millions in the bank or would an income of £2 or £3,000 coming into your bank account every month just like when a writer gets paid a royalty for writing a book or singer for writing a song be okay?


Paul




PS. See more about my MLM business here

the Big Idea

I have had many ideas in the past for growing my wealth but I have come up with one in the last few weeks that I believe to be the best, It's a simple one and also one that can help many people and I believe that, that is the key to growing wealth, not just having great ideas but having ideas and ways that are valuable to others and help many people, Unfortunately I can't say what it is yet but I'm really excited about it.

This post though is about ides, helping others and giving great value for if we are to achieve the wealth that we desire then then reaching that goal lies in keeping an open mind for opportunities or niche in markets that you can seize and convert into money and that will help others get to whatever their goal is.


Reading great books is key, books that help you to develop personally and in business and reading the biographies of people you admire so that you model what they do, when you do that by adopting their attitudes and actions you can become successful.


The key with many ideas though is to keep going and if it fails at first take what you learn from it and change your approach, in NLP there is a presupposition that says 'There is no failure only feedback' this means that even if you have at first failed you've still had a result, you can then use that result to carry on and get the result you want. Edison had thousands of attempts at perfecting the lightbulb and at one point almost killing himself and a friend in an explosion but he carried on until he'd reached hiss goal.


So never give up on ideas that may help others and bring value as that is where success lies.