16.DECISION TIME
When do I start?
There is no better time to start working towards a better future than NOW, today. Start making plans to move towards your future life today. There will never be a better time. You must start acting on your future NOW. Don’t procrastinate.
Be decisive
This can be very stressful for people who are used to other people taking decisions on their behalf. In life, especially when you are independent, when you are self-employed, I must repeat this here, you are not independent when you work for someone else. You depend on the company. People who are independent make hard decisions about their life and future all the time because the direction their lives take depends entirely on the decisions they make. They are independent. No one tells them what to do; it is up to them to decide.
It is very important that you get used to making hard decisions and be decisive. Know what you want and go for it. There is no room for hesitation. This will result in procrastination and more stress because the more something stays in your mind without you taking any action, the more stress you experience. You need to take actions.
Another thing to remember when it comes to taking decisions is that there is often no wrong decision, especially when it comes to investment. The decision only becomes wrong when you don’t get the results you desired when making that decision. Sometimes your options are so close that it is hard to tell which one is the right decision to take. When the results are not favourable, we tend to forget that our intentions were good, which makes the decision you made a good decision at the time. So you must not hesitate when taking decisions. No matter the outcome, you must decide. This is how you take actions.
It is very important to be decisive. You don’t leave things to fate when you make decisions; you are able to avoid loss because you make your decision before things get worse. Being decisive is vital to your success; don’t wait for situations to force you into a decision. Decide without any pressure. Instead of circumstances influencing your decisions, instead of waiting for the situation in your workplace to get worse, or for them to fire you, you decide while times are still good to leave. This is how you influence life circumstances, when you decide what happens in your life.
When you let circumstances force you into a decision, you don’t get to the destination you wanted because when you are forced by circumstances to make a decision, you have to make a move. You are not given a lot of options to work with compared to when things are alright. When there is no pressure you decide and make moves without any difficulty. This is very important to consider. You choose your destiny by deciding your fate. Don’t wait for situations to get bad for you to make a move. Make a move, and decide when times are favourable.
This reminds me of something. There was a wild fruit we used to eat when I was young. You had to peel it and suck on the sweetness on the inside attached to its seed. But when you sucked it for a long time, it started getting sour and not so nice anymore. It left a bad taste in your mouth. The trick was to suck it and leave it when it was still sweet to avoid the bad taste. I see this phenomenon in business as well, including when you trade on the stock-market. It works well to sell your shares when they are still on the rise, but don’t be greedy. Don’t wait for the share price to start falling, as that’s when you will lose your money.
This is a good example of what I mean when I talk about being decisive. It is about not overstaying your welcome; it is about taking actions when there is nothing forcing you to do so, at will. Remember that everything comes to an end. You must catch another wave before the one you are riding on fades away. This is how you keep up the momentum, and this is how you stay afloat in your life as well. Especially regarding your business, career and financial decisions, you must be decisive. Make moves when times are still good; don’t wait for them to turn bad because that will be too late already.
We all have to make difficult decisions from time to time. People who succeed in life don’t hesitate when it comes to this; they know that most of the decisions they take have no right and wrong decision attached to them. It is one of the reasons we like blaming other people or things for our decisions. When we make a decision and things go well, we are proud and happy about our decisions, but when things don’t go as expected, we disown our decisions and start blaming the outside world.
It was like in class in my school days, when they used to tell us that there was no wrong answer. You learn from trying. The same principle applies to life. We learn from trying. They say get rich or die trying, that’s how it is. You have to try and try again until you find your fortune. The only thing you must keep in mind when you make your attempts at wealth is not to take risks that will take you years to recover from if things don’t go as planned. What is most important is to learn from your mistakes and failures. That’s how you progress, and that’s how you find success.
Career choice
When choosing a career, it is very important to consider and to choose wisely. Now don’t go and research everywhere for this. As much as you must look at what is out there and what your career choice might entail, the most important thing you must consider is how you feel about it. Does it involve your strengths? You must look more inside you than you do on the outside. Do some self-assessment, and be sure that what you are choosing as a career is something you will really see through.
It is important that we choose a career. It allows us to grow at what we do, it makes us commit to what we do, and it becomes our identity with the world. When you choose a career you must be sure that it will get you to the desired dreams, and the money and material possessions you aspire to have. You must take the value you create and make it a career, something that you get known by. It also makes it easy for you to sell your value. You get known for what you do, and it makes a brand of the value you create.
Be alert about your decisions
You always have to be conscious and alert that you don’t act against your intentions. Never lose sight of the goal; stick to one goal and see it through. Don’t let outside influences take your focus away from your intentions. It is up to you what matters most. People might not understand why you behave the way you do, given the external circumstances, but know that it is your destiny calling, not theirs.
Be aware of your choice of actions
The only thing you need to keep check of is that you are not doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results each time. This is very important. When we find ourselves in a situation where we are not sure of our strengths, what we are good at is not that easy to spot, even for ourselves. As a result, we need to try out various things. That’s why I talk about being adventurous in your career. That’s how you experience things and how you learn what you are good at and love to do.
We all go through trials. We experiment, and go through our incarnations, doing this and that. The only thing that guarantees success is that you keep check of what you are doing by asking yourself if it is working. If you are not getting the results you are looking for, change things around. Don’t use the same strategy over and over again even when you don’t succeed. Try a different approach and see what happens. Learn from your failures; they make up the steps towards your success.
Be conscious of the consequences of your action. For every action there is a reaction. Act consciously because you will experience the effects of your actions in the near future. Watch your move, for what you do now can be fun at the time and miserable in the future. Be aware of this.
Take informed decisions
Life is about choices. You make good choices when you are well-informed about your situation. Knowledge is important when you make decisions. Make informed decisions, and take calculated risks. Depend on knowledge to guide your way, never fly blindly.
17.WEALTH IS INDEPENDENCE
Take leadership and responsibility for your life
Be the leader. Taking leadership is taking ownership of every part of your life and your wellbeing.
Exercise, eat healthily, take care of your health, work hard and play hard, maintain a balance, wake up every day with a mission to enjoy life, and take actions that make you happy and leave you feeling fulfilled. Work towards financial independence. Have a healthy bank account, and take actions to make sure that you can afford the things you want in your life. Take responsibility and leadership for your life.
This just can’t be said enough. Independence is leadership. It is taking responsibility for your life, not leaving your future to the government, or waiting for fate to take its course. For true independence and notable success you need to be a leader. Study all the successful people. Self-made millionaires are all leaders. They all position themselves in a leadership position, by starting trends and companies, and by creating value. The rest of the support they receive from other people is just the support. These people are just followers.
For notable success, as is evident in the world, you have to be a leader. You have to aspire to be a leader in your work, in your business field. Even the few people who do become successful through company employment are in management. Only people in management get paid a reasonable salary that can afford them an attractive lifestyle. Even the management post comes with its added pressure because you are still working for someone, and you still have to report to someone. That’s why I preach self-employment. Wealth is ownership. A lot of money in any business goes to the owner, that’s why business owners make the most money. They control the wealth, so true wealth is achieved through self-employment, ownership and independence; this is what will make notable success achievable.
Finding your place in the world
People are discouraged by the challenges life throws their way. They don’t realise that it is part of them finding their place and purpose in the world and fulfilling their life. Your financial challenges are there to push you towards finding yourself and understanding yourself better. They also push you towards creating your own value and expressing the real you.
Independence
As discussed throughout this book, independence is one of the vital drivers of success. There is no true freedom when you are not independent. You need to strive for independence, and work to have everything in your life taken care of by yourself. Independence is taking responsibility for your life. Don’t wait for the government; they will promise you the world for your vote, but they know they can’t give you the world even if they wanted to. You have to make things happen for yourself.
Independence becomes wealth when you use your mind, when you stop looking to other people to solve your challenges, and when you face them and sort them out by yourself. It is about recognising your ability and your strengths, and the fighting spirit in you, to win no matter what. That’s why it is vital for you to strive to be truly independent and to be fulfilled with who you are, so that you are able to create the life you want to live.
NO MISCONCEPTION
I just want to point out a few things here on which I am afraid I might be misunderstood. First is the issue of education. When I say there is no formal knowledge, I don’t mean that we can replace formal education. Education is still vital for your success. In fact, it makes things easier for you, and also, most importantly, careers need you to be educated in order for you to be able to practice. You cannot be a doctor by just reading about medicine; you need to qualify. No one will trust a doctor who has just read about the profession. Imagine a heart surgeon who has read about his subject on the internet? Who will agree to be operated on by this man? Even a qualified heart surgeon won’t operate on me if I am aware that he or she has had no experience.
Education is vital to your success. However, if you are not fortunate enough to afford education, which is reality for many people, it is not an excuse for not making it in life. There are many careers that don’t need formal education. Many successful people have very little education. Some are college drop-outs. This means that not having education is not an excuse. Knowledge is all you need, and if you are considering what I call a formal career, careers like a doctor, engineer, and so on, or in simple terms, careers where it is required by law to have a qualification to practice legally, you will need formal education. There is no other way around it. Optionally, you must have money to hire qualified people to do the job for you. A lot of people who are very wealthy are doing just that. There is nothing wrong with this, as long as you pay them for their services.
I hope I am understood. Education is vital to your success, but it is not the only way. That’s if you cannot afford it, or you are just not gifted in that department. There are people who are just not cut out for education. This doesn’t mean they can’t be successful; there are many ways to make it. Formal education is just one of them, and what better way to access skills than just pay those scholars to do the job for you? All you need is business acumen. Many people who are wealthy are not in the least intelligent; they just have business acumen. They hire educated people to do the job for them. You probably have a higher IQ than your boss, and you are even cleverer than the president, but the difference is that he holds a high-ranking position, and you do not. Wealth and success are attainable. Well-educated or not, you can still make it if you take the tools discussed throughout this book to heart.
Another part I need you to understand me clearly on is when I refer to investors and the government as people who run the show. I don’t mean for you to point fingers, or to place the blame for the poverty in the world on these people. I know pointing figures won’t help you at all. I am just telling you where wealth exists; where money is. Most of it is with investors, and some of it is with the government. The government is also an investor. It also runs a lot of companies such as the water supply, electricity, infrastructure, and so on. Most of these are run by the government. That is why I see the government as a business, just like any organisation. Remember that I said where money is involved, it is business. Don’t be fooled.
Here is what you must understand. Everyone can be an investor; anyone can be in the government or own a stake in a big corporate. In fact, everyone invests. By just working for someone you are investing your time for a salary. This book is just teaching you that there are other more profitable ways in which you can invest your time. For you to become successful, have a stake in the government or in a corporate. As an investor, that’s the only way you will achieve wealth. I can tell you now, you cannot beat them. Just join them.
So every time I mention the elite group, big corporates or their weaknesses, it is not who to blame, it is just to make you aware of what is going on. The government is here to stay, and the big corporate is here to stay. They are vital to our existence. They afford us all this quality of life that is available. We just need money to access this quality of life, and money is in leadership. Leadership goes with independence, which is why I preach self-employment.
The last thing you must not get me wrong on is the issue of employment. I am not saying that there should not be people working for other people. This is not even possible; it is just the order of things. Here, I am still trying to show you where wealth is. Everyone goes through an employment stage; even successful people have once worked for other people. The issue is that only a few people are able to live well in an employment situation. These people are mostly in management, like Chief Executive Officers, and so on. Only a few people reach this level through employment. Ask yourself; what are the odds of a cleaner ending up being CEO of that company, or a receptionist, or a salesperson? And how many people have the opportunity to hold this position? The odds of entry level employees becoming CEOs are zero, and very few people achieve these levels of employment.
Employment will always be there, and there will always be employees. You will also need employees to grow your business when you are self-employed. It is also impossible to make millions on your own. You will need to build an organisation, and you will need to organise people who can support you in creating your value and selling it in the marketplace. I was hard on e
mployment because I know that it fails to make people reach true financial freedom. It is a step to financial freedom, and for most people, it will not allow you to achieve wealth if you depend solely on your job to make money.
I hope this is clear and that you understand my aim. Some of my arguments will raise objections, and you will not agree with me. Firstly, understand that it is my aim to provoke your thoughts, and next, some of my writing is based on the way things are. For example, I am strongly criticising job employment because I know that most people make a living through employment, and that most people are stuck in jobs they don’t like. Most people are not happy with their work; they just work because they have to, given that most people are probably working for other people. I know that this is the cause of failure to achieve true financial freedom. I also know that most people believe in finding a job to make a living, and that the chances of achieving wealth through employment are limited. This is why I preach self-employment.
But that doesn’t mean employment has to be written off. It is just a stage towards wealth. You must not dwell on job employment if you want wealth in your life. You must move up to owning your own business to ultimately being an investor, with stakes in different companies, making your money work for you. That’s the ultimate goal. As demonstrated in the last pages of this book, money starts with the investor, and passes through the working class, the employees, and goes back to the investor. You must be the investor to become wealthy. You must control wealth to become wealthy, and that’s what investors do. They control the movement of wealth. I hope I am understood.
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