Success Factors – Is this the Key to Success in Just About Anything?
Although success can mean slightly different things to different people; it’s fair to say that success can broadly be described as peak achievement in a particular area of focus. Successful people essentially achieve results. In this article you will discover simple yet highly useful ways of unlocking and igniting your passion.
Passion is a Source of Unlimited Power
We’ve often heard self-development gurus telling us to live our lives with passion. Passion excites our minds which in turn drives our actions. To achieve greatness in anything requires passion. People who love what they do have passion by the truckload. If you love what you do, you’ll be passionate about it and people will love you because of your passion for what you do. Passion is a source of power. It is an infectious energy that some people have. People with passion simply love what they do-and it shows. They stand out in a crowd like a supernova in the sky and their enthusiasm catches like wildfire.
Why Passion is Critical for Success
Why is passion so important in the achievement of success? Simply put, if you’re not passionate about what you do, you’ll never stick with it long enough to become truly successful at it. Whilst you can set goals and achieve results in the short-term without passion, to sustain results requires burning passion. You will literally stay up all night to pursue something you’re passionate about. If you’re passionate about what you do, you become an unstoppable force that can literally jump over train stations and move mountains. Passion is like rocket fuel except it doesn’t burn out!
Would You Do It For Free?
The really great thing about passion is that when you have it, work becomes effortless, tasks become enjoyable and life is purposeful. Unless you love the work you do, you cannot possibly see yourself as successful. True success extends beyond achieving results for yourself and involves helping others achieves their goals. If you have a sense of ‘mission in life’ about what you are doing, I guarantee you will attain a very high level of success.
People with passion will even do it for free! In other words, they will do what they do regardless of whether there is a monetary pay-off. This is the litmus test. Asking yourself “Would I do this for free” is a great question to ask yourself to find out if you’re truly passionate about something. I’m not suggesting you actually do it for free as you do need to be generating a sustainable income from your work life but if you can answer yes to the question, then you are not only will you achieve results in your chosen field but this passion will positively impact all areas of your life.
A Final Word of Caution about Passion
Whilst I totally believe passion is a catalyst to success there are also other requirements. Can you be passionately stupid, passionately wrong and passionately incompetent? Ahmm, unfortunately yes. So there are a number of other skills required (leadership, management, sales and marketing, finance, etc.) and a number of personal characteristics (discipline, strong communication and interpersonal skills, self belief etc.) that are not only vital ingredients of business success but also success in life general.
We will be exploring more about the Science of Success in a series of articles on Success Factors. Why not sign up NOW for more insider secrets on Success Factors at http://www.MillionaireMindsetSecrets.com for FREE. In addition, you’ll discover more about personal and business success factors, building wealth and how to get rich at www.MillionaireMindsetSecrets.com for FREE.
Retirement Planner – Don’t Plan Your Retirement Until Your Read This First!
If you love doing what you’re doing you’ll most likely never want to retire. It’s often said that most of the wealthiest people in the world still work in their own companies not because they have to but because they want to and enjoy it. However, I bet you they all have retirement plans folded away neatly in their back pockets.
For many people their job-description becomes their self-description and so when they retire from work they can feel worthless and wither away fast. To cap things off, many retirees at 65 die within 2 years of retiring. Jeez, what an anti-climax! It’s no wonder people don’t bother planning their retirement!
No Job, No Stress, No Pay!
A popular rule-of-thumb claims you need roughly 70% of your pre-retirement income (90% if you wish to maintain your pre-retirement standard of living). Work-related expenses will decrease whilst healthcare, leisure-related expenses increase. This assumes you’re in relatively good health and medical care costs are modest. If your health is poor your healthcare expenses will escalate.
Financial security during retirement is probably priority no. 1 for most people. To live securely and comfortably in retirement for many people means at the very least generating sufficient income passively by means of some retirement savings plan or other financial assets to allow them to live according to their usual standard of living.
There are 4 typical sources of retirement income:
- Social security benefits
- Employer-sponsored retirement plans
- Post-retirement employment income
- Personal savings and investments
Whilst you may be diligently putting away for your retirement, the real challenge is to know your retirement income needs way before you ever want to retire. Try one on the many retirement income calculators available online to work this out.
When calculating the expenses you will have in retirement, keep in mind that they are in today’s dollars. To get a better idea of what they will be when you are ready to retire, you should adjust them for inflation. A current income need of $20,000 per year adjusted by 4% inflation year on year translates to a requirement of $43,800 per year 20 years later.
Cat Food or Caviar!?
A standard employer-sponsored retirement savings plan such as a 401(k) is the mainstay in most financial retirement plans. Individuals can utilise a standard IRA or Roth IRA also. Many self-employed people opt for a Self-Directed 401(k). Relying on a standard retirement savings plans will prove unsatisfactory as it generally will fall way short of your retirement income needs. However, faced with a choice of having a standard retirement savings plan (e.g. a 401(k), standard and non-standard IRAs etc.) versus having no retirement savings plan at all, I would definitely prefer to have even a standard 10% of my earnings invested in standard retirement plan than in nothing at all. If nothing else it’s a good habit to “save and invest” a % of your income. However, unless you are putting away large chunks of cash into your retirement plan, it alone is probably not going to give you more than a lower-middle class lifestyle during your retirement.
Typically, if your retirement income needs are modest, social security benefits may provide 20-30% of your retirement income whilst employee-sponsored retirement plans may provide 20%. Therefore, it is your personal savings and investment strategies that will be the key differentiator between you living off cat food or caviar!
P.S. If you’re serious about retirement planning then why not sign up NOW for more insider secrets on Retirement Planning at http://www.MillionaireMindsetSecrets.com for FREE. In addition, you’ll discover more about how to build wealth and income using clever savings and investment strategies at www.MillionaireMindsetSecrets.com for FREE.
Property Investing Secrets – Why Property is the IDEAL Investment
As a young investor you may be more focused on the rise in capital value; whereas someone in their golden years can be more focused on generating income. Property is one asset class that does both, rising in value and generating income. It is often referred to as the “IDEAL” investment. “IDEAL” is a simple acronym that highlights just some of the key benefits of owning real estate:
1. Income
One of the key benefits of property investment over many types of investments is its inherent ability to generate passive income. When investing in property the key thing is to focus on net income. Many real estate agents will quote gross yield figures i.e. the annual rent as a percentage of the property price. Whilst this is a reasonable indicator of your potential return on investment, I prefer to focus on net yield or net income.You absolutely must have net positive cash-flow otherwise you haven’t got an investment on your hands but a burdensome liability. The challenge in property investment is to minimize the down payment (which will maximize your mortgage) whilst at the same time generating positive cash flow each month.
2. Depreciation
A rental home is seen as a depreciable asset just like a car or piece of factory machinery. Rental properties with positive cash flow can show an accounting loss, granting the owner a tax deduction, or, as Robert Kiyosaki calls it, “Phantom Cash Flow”. Depreciation is an accounting loss and only shows up on paper. It can result in you being able to turn a small economic profit into a small tax loss. So, even though you could be “loosing” money on paper you could actually be making a monthly cash profit.
The building value (Purchase price – Land Value = Building Value) of residential property is usually depreciated over 27.5 years. Commercial property is usually depreciated over 39 years.
3.Equity Build Up & Expenses
As you pay down the principle of the mortgage loan you are gradually building up your equity stake in the property. So, even if there is no increase in the value of the property over the term of the loan you still end up with an asset with 100% equity at the end of the mortgage loan term. Expenses such as property management fees, maintenance, insurance, mortgage interest etc., are deductible from the rental income, thereby reducing your tax liability.
4. Appreciation
Your asset should appreciate in value over time. Often the largest part of a return on an investment in real estate is in the appreciation in the value of the asset and the resultant gain in equity. Property prices can sometimes reduce in the short term due to changes in demand, access to finance, etc. but over the long-term you will benefit from appreciation.
5. Leverage
Leverage is the principle of using a small amount of your own money to control a large value asset. One of the unique aspects of real estate over other investment classes is your ability to borrow up to 80% or 90% of the purchase price of the asset. This is leverage i.e. using Other People’s Money (OPM).
By fully understanding and utilizing these characteristics of property investing you can take advantage of this powerful investment asset to build wealth quickly and get rich fast.
If you’re serious about property investing then why not sign up NOW for more insider secrets on Investing in Property. You’ll discover more about how to build wealth using real estate investing and other wealth building strategies at http://www.MillionaireMindsetSecrets.com for FREE.
Wealth Building – Better to be Wealthy than Rich!?
There’s a massive difference between being wealthy and being rich. Not all rich people can be wealthy but all wealthy people can be rich. Confused!?…let me explain.
If you are a millionaire, are you by default wealthy?
Ahmm, not necessarily so. A millionaire by definition is someone whose net worth (asset value minus debt) exceeds a millionaire dollars/euros etc. However, if a person did have 1 million in assets but these assets were not generating income then that person by my definition is rich but not wealthy.
Why Making Money Won’t Make You Rich
You can make a lot of money and still be broke. I know many people who have made millions of dollars in the course of their life but are now neither rich nor wealthy. Why is this? Well, not all people are blessed with naturally good money management and investment skills. Some people can be more interested in living a certain lifestyle now rather than planning and building an asset base that will enable them to live the lifestyle they want for the remainder of their lives. It’s not how much money you make that matters, but how much money you keep.
How Rich is Rich?
We often say so-and-so is rich because he or she has a high-income corporate job, buys brand new luxurious cars, dresses in fancy clothes and so on. Although these are outward demonstrations of ‘rich’, crucially, that does not mean these people are wealthy (they might very well be of course but it’s not a given).
It’s actual quite hard to define in a dollar amount what rich is. It can be subjective and mean different things to different people. In addition, it can depend on where you live and the cost of living in that place. In 2003 Gallup poll of Americans the public’s median definition of “rich” was an income of $120,000 – or assets of $1 million. But if you ask someone who already has $1 in assets they are likely to say being rich would be to have $5 or $10 million in assets. Some people are never happy!?
Is “Rich” a Feeling?
In a way being rich is a feeling and you probably never think you’re truly rich or as rich as you could be. Someone making $30,000 per annum will probably say that if they made an income of $100,000 they would see themselves as ‘rich’.
How someone defines rich depends on their expectations and how they feel about it.nSo the less money you have, the less money you think you’ll need to become rich. And the wealthier you are I suspect the more money it takes to make you ‘feel’ rich.
Wealth is Best Measured in Time
If there was one defining difference between being rich and being wealthy it’s this: rich people can generate money now, wealthy people can generate income always. The best definition I know of for being wealthy is if the passive income from all your assets is greater than all your liabilities then you’re essentially wealthy.
The key here is the time it takes to manage your money. If you are working 60-80hr weeks just to make enough money to pay all your expenses, even though you could be making more than say $200,000 per year; then you are not wealthy.
Wealth is best measured in time, not dollars.
The longer your money or assets work for you the wealthier you are. The longer you can live without having to work and still pay all your expenses and maintain your standard of living the wealthier you are. So, for example, if your expenses are $2,000 a month and you have $10,000 in savings/liquid assets then your wealth is equal to 5 months.
The moral of the story is this: if you are rich, don’t be fooled into thinking you’re wealthy.
If you’re not already rich, don’t worry about it, focus on being wealthy and you will be rich anyway. Whilst it may be difficult to know if you are truly “rich”, you’ll definitely know if you’re truly wealthy and for how long! Strive to build wealth rather than focus on being rich.
You can build wealth by starting or running a profitable business, investing in real estate, etc. The key thing is to focus on generating future income from these assets. Now you are creating wealth. Discover some fast wealth building strategies and tips at www.MillionaireMindsetSecrets.com
Debt Reduction – The No. 1 Way of Eliminating Debt!?
There are many different strategies for getting on top of debt. One popular technique is known as the debt snowball. The reason it’s named ‘debt snowball’ is because you start with the smallest debt and work your way up to the biggest one, like rolling a snowball. When the first loan is paid in full you allocate the payment from this first loan to the next highest one. As each loan gets paid, the pay down amount getting applied to the next largest one gets larger each time – hence the term ‘debt snowball’.
The reason this method is so popular is that paying the smallest debt off first gives you a quick win early on, giving you momentum and so you are more likely to stay with the plan.
Debt Snowball Step 1: List all your debts starting with the smallest balance
List all your loans starting with the smallest balance first and ending with the largest balance. Credit cards, personal lines of credit, bank loans, student loans, car loans, 2nd mortgages (yes that’s debt too), home equity lines of credit, overdraft credit lines are all included. The most distinctive feature of the debt snowball strategy is that the order is determined by amount owed, not the rate of interest charged. However, if two debts are very close in amount owed, then the one with the higher interest rate would be moved above in the list.
Debt snowball Step 2: Only pay the minimum amount on each debt
Find out from each lender what the smallest payment you can make on each loan is and only pay this minimum monthly payment. The reason you pay only the minimum amount on all other loans each month is so you can quickly pay off the smallest one first and not have to unnecessarily struggle to pay off all the others simultaneously.
Debt snowball Step 3: Make extra payments on the smallest debt
For the smallest amount owed you determine how much extra you can pay off whilst maintaining minimum monthly payments on the others. (It is this step that differs with other debt reduction strategies, focusing on paying off quickly the smallest amount owed rather than the amount with the highest interest rate)
Debt snowball Step 4: Once the smallest loan is paid in full, celebrate!
I don’t think this step needs much explanation! Needless to say don’t use any additional lines of credit to pay for your celebration!
Debt snowball Step 5: Tackle the next smallest loan
Now that the smallest loan is paid in full, you add the old minimum payment (plus any extra amount you were paying) from the first loan to the minimum payment on the second smallest one, and apply this new sum to repaying the second smallest.
Debt snowball Step 6: Repeat until all debt is paid
Repeat the process with each subsequent debt. In theory, by the time the final ones are reached, the extra amount paid toward the larger debts will have grow quickly, similar to a snowball rolling downhill gathering more snow (thus the name).
Note: A first home mortgage is generally not included in the debt snowball method, but is instead paid off as part of a larger financial plan. Many financial plans recommend pay off home mortgages in a later step, along with any other debt which is equal to or greater than half of one’s annual take-home pay.
Should One Make Retirement Contributions During the Debt Reduction Process?
Some financial advisors argue that all contributions are to be put on hold during the debt snowball, thus freeing up more money to make payments. However, if this is the case, it is recommended that retirement contributions should not be put on hold for more than 2 years. Others dispute this practice, citing the cost of compounding interest to be greater than the gains made from paying off debt. It’s really your call to make based on your financial priorities.
Debt Snowball vs. Avalanche
There’s a lot of debate over whether debt snowballing is better than other techniques such as the debt avalanche method (paying the highest interest rate loan first). The mathematics favor the avalanche, the psychology favors the snowballing. Should you have a $2,000 balance at 10% interest, and a $6,000 balance at 18% interest, it would make no financial sense to focus on paying off the lower amount first. So when there are large differences in the interest rate on each account then the snowball method would not make the most financial sense.
People with more financial discipline can make quicker headway by paying off the loans with the higher interest rates first. However, attacking the smallest loan first, whilst still maintaining minimum payments on everything else is a great strategy so long as you follow through on the plan and step up to the next smallest loan each time and knock those loans on the head for good!
The power of the debt snowball is in the momentum you obtain as you eliminate each debt. As well as that there’s the financial power you get from applying payments from previous loans onto the next ones, snowballing your payments. If you’re serious about eliminating debt, creating wealth and achieving financial freedom then why not sign up NOW for more insider secrets on debt reduction at www.MillionaireMindsetSecrets.com for free.