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Financial education: The key to building real wealth

DO you want to learn how to become wealthy? Your journey into building your financial education and long-term financial success starts right now.

Here is where the success strategies meet the know-how.

From here on in I am hoping for that moment. The moment when you “get it”. If it hasn’t happened already, that’s fine.

Don’t just read each post and say “yeah, I got it”. You need to read them over and over to internalise the material, so your subconscious is working on your better life all the time.

I aim to deliver these technical topics in an easy to read and understand fashion. You don’t need to become graduates in financial planning or finance, but you must understand the basics. From there you can choose to read further into the topics of interest.

Gimme’ now

It appears to be a natural human tendency to want to get rich quick. The get rich quick scheme. If it’s a scheme, does a scheme ever sound good? Delayed gratification is a dirty term these days. I want it NOW!

Unrealistic promises and outright lies appear as a great opportunity when the emotion of greed mixes with laziness. And if getting rich can’t happen quickly then it’s not worth the effort.

The lotto life

The only ways to get rich quick is to win the lotto or receive an inheritance. The chances of winning lotto are next to zero and the chances of getting a substantial inheritance are slim too.

Stories abound of people’s lives going out of control, relationship breakups, money blown on pointless material objects and bankruptcies when large sums of money are received in a short timeframe.

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In 2003, British teenager Callie Rogers won the equivalent of $3.3 million at the age of 16. Just years later she claims the event had “ruined” her life.

And James Hayes, who won $US19 million prize in the late 1990s. After the win the 35-year-old security guard’s life changed dramatically, however within a decade he was a bankrupt drug addict who turned to robbing banks to maintain his lavish lifestyle. He was sentenced to 33 years in jail.

Regarding inheritances, one study found that one third of people who received an inheritance had negative savings within two years of the event.

The bottom line is that many lotto winners or inheritance beneficiaries end up losing it all because, wait for it,

……….. drum roll ………

they don’t have the right values to drive better decision making and the right mindset combined with the right success habits. And they certainly don’t have the skills and knowledge to manage and grow their money so they can set themselves up for life.

Ultimately, the lotto or an inheritance are not reliable wealth building strategies.

If you find yourself as the recipient of an unexpected large sum of money it is vital that you seek professional advice before you spend a cent.

This can be an opportunity to pay off debt, boost retirement savings, invest, save for your kids’ education or to even donate it.

Set yourself up first and then you can use the remainder as play money. NOT the other way around.

Asking the wrong question

Instead of asking how you can get rich quick, as this leads to thinking about “schemes”, a better question might be ….

How fast can I become wealthy?

If you’ve read all my blog posts so far, you may already have your plans in place. To me, the answer to this question involves the creation of a strategy.

You have created an exact financial goal that gets you excited, you have created a precise plan of how you will reach your goal and the timeframe for its attainment, you are in the process of gaining the necessary skills and knowledge, and you are taking action everyday towards the fulfilment of your goal.

All this time you are building a new you who is financially competent and capable of being successful.

The BEST ways to become wealthy

  • Invest in your income-producing capabilities. That is, your knowledge and skills.
  • Save and invest.
  • Build a business that provides huge value to your clients/customers.

All of these things take time. You need to build a solid pyramid (as discussed in the success training) to gain and maintain wealth/success.

How many people make the effort to build their skills and knowledge base to improve their career?

How many people save and invest first before spending the rest of their pay packet?

How many people try to build a business? (Hint: This may start as a side hustle)

As discussed in the success training post, taking action is essential to creating the life you want.

The wrap

You WILL NOT get wealthy by

  • “Investing” in the latest get rich scheme.
  • Waiting for that lotto win.
  • Not investing.
  • Spending more than you earn.
  • Holding on to bad money habits.
  • Not making wise money decisions
  • Not continually trying to increase your value to the world (be that your employer or your customers)
  • Not being financially literate.
  • Watching hours upon hours of TV, YouTube, Netflix etc.

You are the source of your wealth and success. You and you alone. Investing in yourself is the most important investment you’ll ever make as long as it is in line with your overall plan.

Up next …..

The secrets to boosting your financial success (Part 1).

Take action in your life.

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Posted in Personal Finance Training.

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