Posts Tagged ‘finances’

Be careful who you listen to; you might end up with their results

Posted: December 9, 2017 in Finances, Freedom, Leadership, Success
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chosen to beWe are exactly where we have chosen to be, by the people we associate with, the things we watch, read, and hear.

A speaker had said that at a leadership conference and I wanted to argue with him; I did in my head a little bit. I thought… I didn’t choose to have the job I did at the pay that I got; I would have chosen more! I didn’t choose to be very shy. I didn’t choose for the air conditioning in my car to break!

But then I got to thinking about the people I hung around with up to that point, and other than my A/C not working, they were all in similar situations. You might say we were all just trapped in the financial matrix (which we were), but the main reason I was stuck in it was because I was always around others who were too!

I’ve learned that our results come from our actions, which comes from our thinking, which is influenced by the people we listen to, and the advice we get.

Where do you get your advice from?

Be careful who you listen to; you might end up with their results!

When it came to finances, since it’s not taught in schools I got it from the media, the banks, and the people around me. The media is the advertising, trying to get me to buy their stuff now and pay later, while the banks are happy to help out and make me their slave for my debt. The people around me were other people who were broke!

I don’t know about you, but I wanted to be rich. If that’s the goal, I needed to stop taking financial advice from people who were broke like me! If they had the solution, why were they still broke?

How about relationships? Does it make sense to get relationship advice from someone who has been divorced 5 times? They may be able to tell you what NOT to do, but unless this person has now been happily married for 10-20 years, they may not have the right advice yet.

Sometimes it’s tempting to take the easy way out though, and take advice we shouldn’t.

I remember when I just started college, and I had to take a class in which I had absolutely no interest. At this time I hung around with people who loved board games like me, and who also thought that telling me to skip a class to finish a game was good advice.

I did just that. In the class I missed, the teacher gave us the main class project, explaining what we had to do for something that was worth 50% of our mark!. I had made a new friend in that class though, and asked him what we were supposed to do, and he gave me what I thought was a satisfactory answer

I did what my friend told me, and gave my paper to the teacher on the last day of class. The teacher looked at the paper, looked at me, and said “THIS isn’t what I asked for!”

I took advice from someone who didn’t have the results I was looking for, and got the same results. I failed that class along with my friend. Years later I found out that this friend missed the same class as me! He didn’t even have the information I was looking for, let alone the results!

Be careful who you listen to; you might end up with their results.

This goes for listening to ourselves too. For most of my life I was a very shy person unless you were a close friend that I was comfortable with. I was constantly telling myself that I couldn’t talk to people, so I never did. After all, why would I bother trying to talk to someone if I didn’t believe I could?

I needed to start listening to people with the results I wanted, which in this case was people who could talk to people.

I have since been going through the program put together by Life Leadership, and listening to people who have what I’m looking for in all the areas of my life. By reading good books and listening to CDs like those found in the public speaking pack, I can now talk to people.

By going through their Total Personal Development program, I improve in my ability to lead people, to resolve conflict, to have confidence, to be persuasive and to just win in general. I’ve been able to build the belief that I CAN win and that I will. In essence, it has changed my thinking. It has changed me from thinking like I am who I am and stuck with what I have, to thinking like I can be who I want to be, have what I want to have; if I just follow the formula for high achievement!

By going though their Financial Fitness Program, I’ve started learning financial principles from the millionaires, from those who have the results I want from the principles being taught. I’ve learned how to save money, how to make more money, and even how to pay less taxes!

Be careful who you listen to; you might end up with their results.

Be purposeful in who and what you listen to; you can end up with their results!

The Financial Matrix

Posted: June 6, 2015 in Economics, Finances, Freedom
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Financial MatrixThe book ‘The Financial Matrix’ is awesome! The Financial Matrix itself is pretty terrifying. When you understand a bit about history and human nature it should come to no surprise that it exists though.

The Matrix from the movie was system of control enslaving the human race without their knowledge. In the same way, the Financial Matrix enslaves people; it hides the enslavement from those trapped in its net like the machine in the movie, but no one is forced into this one. No one is coerced into it. People are brought up into it and enticed into it.

Orrin Woodward does a beautiful job explaining the whole concept in one chapter of his book (and in large part on this blog post he did). I encourage you to take a look at the post, along with all the other followup posts he did on the subject.

Just as Morpheus explains to Neo in the movie, so is it true for us today. (more…)

Are your decisions based on your present or your future?

Posted: September 23, 2013 in Finances, Leadership, Success
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I had a chance to hear Claude Hamilton talk in Kitchener yesterday, and part of what he said was so profound that I have to share my interpretation of it. Understanding the concept I’m about to share can drastically change your life.

There are three time frames to consider: your past, the present, and your future.

The first thing to consider is where you are in life right now. How much money do you have, or how much debt are you in? How much of your time do you own, and how much is owned by others? To explain that last part, take my situation for example; I’ve sold 40 hours a week of my time to my employer (if you don’t count lunch breaks and travelling) for a certain amount of money – this means he owns that time and not me. How many friends do you have, and how good of a friend are they? How fit are you health-wise?

The answers  to those questions is simply the way things are right now in the present. You can’t change the present. Everyone is where they are in life because of what they did in the past. You can’t change anything in your past to make anything different today.

Since you are where you are because of past decisions, you need to start making decisions with a different level of thinking if you hope to change anything. If you are worse off today than you were in the past, then to not change your thinking means your life will actually get harder. (more…)

Are you Financially Fit?

Posted: July 19, 2013 in Economics, Finances
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Financial FitnessA couple of years ago I went through a finance pack from LIFE that cost me almost $50, but has saved me between $70-$100 every month since. That pack consisted of a small book and 4 audio CDs which proved to be invaluable.

Well, LIFE has outdone itself this time, with a new product; the Financial Fitness pack. It doesn’t leave anything out when it comes to finances. I’ve never really looked into any finance materials before, other than my accounting class in school or from reading Robert Kiyosaki’s ‘Cashflow Quadrant’. From what I understand though, financial education usually only covers one side of finance.

What I love about this new pack is that doesn’t just cover how to spend less or just how to get out of debt. It doesn’t only cover how to save properly. It doesn’t just cover how to make more money. It covers ALL of that in the offense of defense sections of finance. But there is more! It also covers the ‘playing field’ which goes into how money works, giving you the information you need to prosper in any economy.

It goes through 47 principles of finance that make total sense when you read them, but that can really set you back when you don’t even know about them. (more…)

The 3 Ways Money is Spent

Posted: December 15, 2011 in Economics, Finances, Freedom
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During my study of Austrian Economics, it has become very clear how government spending is bad economics. However, when I engaged in conversation with someone on the issue, it has always been difficult to have them understand the rational behind the school when they have not themselves studied the work of the Austrian school. This all changed the other day when I found a simple way that is easy for everyone to understand.

To really understand why taxes are bad, I believe it is important to understand how money is spent. I was listening to a CD about freedom called ‘Freedom Isn’t Free‘, in which Bob McEwan (6 term member of the US congress) was giving a speech. Based on everything I’ve read and heard, I’m going to share that information along with some of my own thoughts.

When you spend your own money on your behalf, you care about two things; the price and the quality. Nobody can make that decision for you as good as you can. Let’s take the example of bananas. When you stand looking at the bananas in the market, you look at the price and make a judgement on how long they are going to last. You also consider if perhaps you will have the nephews and nieces over this weekend because they might go bad.  Not only are you considering the price (you are probably buying them here because this store has cheaper bananas, or it’s cheaper than spending gas to drive further for them) but also the quality. You want to buy the banana’s that will bring you the most satisfaction – like not going bad before they are eaten.

It’s also important to remember here the subjective value theory. It basically says that people value things in different ways, and it is impossible for an exchange to be equal between two persons. For an exchange to be made, person A who has item X must value item Y possessed by person B more than he values item X. On top of this, person B must value item X more than item Y. If A & B gave the same value to the items, there would be no exchange as at least one of them was not gaining anything. In the example above, the buyer of the bananas values those particular bananas more than the money he would be spending.

So when you spend the money on yourself, you spend it at its peak value and, again, no one can spend it like you can. You decide whether you need the shoes, the clothes, etc. This is 1st party spending; something for you, using your money.
(more…)