Want it? Believe in Yourself & Go for it

To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe. ~ Anatole France

You are destined to be a millionaire.

What was your reaction to that? Was it disbelief? Were you cynical? Did you go "Yeah right. Sure I will..." and then roll your eyes?

Yes, I totally understand why you'll think it impossible. Firstly, how many of us "normal" people have ever seen a $1,000,000 before? Yes, I can relate to that. Couple of years ago, I barely saw $5,000 in my account at any point of time. And when I did see it, mostly thanks to the December bonus, it was gone really quickly too. So lets not even think of a million dollars right? Don't answer that. Secondly, you'll probably say you aren't earning enough or aren't earning period, especially if you're a student, to even begin to amass such an amount. Lastly, you'd probably have truckloads of bills to pay & things you'd want to get. So that'd mean you'll be paying for all those goodies and not have much left to save.

Truth to tell, if you're gonna think like that, you aren't gonna be able to. If you want to be financially free, you got to think financially free. BUT most important of all, you have to believe that you can become financially free. Remember that it all starts from your mind. And there are many aspects of the mind that hinders the path to wealth and financial freedom such as fear, disbelief, no confidence in one's ability, laziness, procrastination, unwillingness to learn, false perception, inertia and many others. Only you can set right these sabotaging thoughts and prevent them from being an obstacle to your goal of being financially free.

I recommend reading these books in helping you change your way of thinking.

1. Think and Grow Rich - Napoleon Hill

2. Secrets of the Millionaire Mind - T. Harv Eker

3. The Rules of Wealth - Richard Templar

These books are packed with valuable content and is too much to lay them out here in this blog. Nonetheless, I'll touch briefly on those that I feel are especially noteworthy in future posts.

Till then, think rich, think free.

You are destined to be a millionaire. Believe it.

Cheers,

~K

Mindset to Financial Freedom

My greatest challenge has been to change the mindset of people. Mindsets play strange tricks on us. We see things the way our minds have instructed our eyes to see. ~ Muhammad Yunus

While you're saving your hard-earned cash & building up your reserves, perhaps also clearing your debts too, lets turn our attention to something we can work on together while waiting for your savings to grow substantially.

As Muhammad Yunus realized, mindset is extremely important in how we perceive things to be. For example, if you grew up not liking the colour green, chances are you'd be fussy with your vegetables. Or, if you had a bad fright in a plane due to the horrible turbulence you experienced when you were a child, chances are you'd still feel this unreasonable aversion to flying every time you go for a trip. As you can see, the mind has a tendency to develop biasness due to the experiences we gather during our childhood development. Fear of insects, snakes, cats and/or dogs or distrust of foreigners, people of authority, etc. can mostly be traced back to bad childhood experiences.

My mother, for one, used to be terrified of swimming because she nearly drowned as a child in the sea. So for the great portion of her years she used to cling to the edge of the swimming pool or to my dad (who used to grumble or tease her about it heh). However, one day she decided to overcome her fear. She first started forcing herself to be comfortable in the water without holding onto the edge. Later she ventured into wading around and in a couple of months was swimming the breath of the pool. She never let her head go underwater though but the distance she's come & the achievement she's gained, is impressive. How did she achieve this feat? Simply put, she had a change of mindset.

Similarly, if you want to become financially free and/or rich, your mindset needs tweaking. A lot of times people say they want to get rich, even attempt to get rich, but their mind is not ready to get rich and so these people fall by the roadside frustrated & stop trying eventually. Therefore before the person can become rich, the mind has to become rich & think rich first. Only then can you change your attitude and attain the level of richness you sought.

Simply put:

Mindset leads to Thoughts which leads to Feelings which leads to Attitude which leads to Actions which leads to Results/Outcome

In the next couple of posts, I will expound on how to prepare your mind in order for you to attain that financial freedom you deserve.

Till then, keep saving!

Cheers,

~K

Aim to be Debt Free

Debt is the slavery of the free ~ Publilius Syrus

Hooray! It's the weekend again. So I won't bore you with long-winded posts (I'll save that for another time heh). I'll just make this quick.

In a previous post, I mentioned reducing your expense as a means to increase your savings. However, if you have an outstanding debt to pay, please try your best to clear that off as soon as possible. Now I don't mean housing debts that take eons to pay off. What I'm referring to are debts arising from things like credit cards & installment plans for luxury items, like a new iPhone for example, that you bought from furniture and/or gadget shops like Courts or Harvey Norman. The simple reason for this recommendation is that the interest kills! Instead of saving up precious cash to earn your financial freedom, you'd be wasting potential savings putting the money into someone else's pocket. So be smart. Pay it off as fast as possible.

Another alternative strategy is to portion out a sum to save while using the remainder to pay for your debt. To reiterate, I did say that paying yourself 20% of your gross income per month is a good way to earn your financial freedom. But if you've debts to be paid off, perhaps keeping 10% in your savings while using the other 10% as debt payments would be ideal if you'd like some emergency cash in hand. Or you could portion out 5% savings & 15% debt repayments if you're more comfortable or have a larger payment to clear. Either way, discipline is key and with time, your debts will be cleared and you'll be another step closer to financial freedom.

K, have a good weekend & a great Hari Raya Puasa!

Cheers,

~K

The Saving Attitude

"Planting rice is never fun. Bend from morning till set of sun. Cannot stand and cannot sit. Cannot rest for a little bit."

How many of you have heard that nursery jingle before? Well, my parents taught this catchy rhyme to me when I was just a child. And what did I learn from it? That it must be a heck of a lot of work & dreadful business planting rice, that's what! During mealtimes, every mouthful was a reminder by my mother of the hard work put in by farmers to give me this plate of rice. Did I grow up wanting to be a padi farmer? Definitely not! I just wanted to enjoy the fruits of their labour. =)

So, although seemingly out of topic, the point is this. Attitude matters.

You'll notice that when you're having fun, time seems to fly by without any realization but when you're dreading something, work for example, time somehow slows to a crawl. Similarly, when engrossed in a hobby, you'll find that nothing seems like work to you. Heck, you'll even complete more than necessary. But when compared to actual office work for example, how many times have you heard/seen/been in the situation where the bare minimum is all that gets done? Rhetorical question.

Therefore the question of the day is, what is your attitude towards saving money?

If you want to save and hold onto your savings, I'd recommend you start enjoying that you have money in the bank. Not only that. Every time you see this amount increase, even if it's by a couple of cents from the bank interest rates, you should congratulate yourself and look forward to the next increase. Clap your hands, pat your bank, shout out your joy if you feel like it. Such an attitude, though seemingly loony & obsessive at first, will help you grow your savings faster. By reprogramming your mind to enjoy having saved cash, this will lower your impulse to spend by making you think twice as you'll start feeling "heartache" when you do have to spend, thereby ensuring that you only spend on the necessary and not on the luxurious.

Personally, I use a tip I picked up from Blair Singer's Sales Dog Training program to help reinforce my want to save. Every time I reach my goal of an intended saved amount in the bank, I clench my hand into a fist, curl my elbow to 90 degrees, tuck it into my body rather quickly and go "Yes!". I find that helps as my positive reinforcement. On a flipside, don't complain about saving your cash. Don't bitch that you aren't able to buy such & such. That's a surefire way of spending everything you accomplished. Negative reinforcement you see. So think about it, and do whatever works for you too.

Yes!
~K