Using your dreams and goals to create wealth Part 1

I always wanted to be millionaire. I clearly didn’t inherit this desire, because my parents weren’t rich. My father seemed to work as hard as anyone trying to create lasting wealth as an entrepreneur and I guess by the time he retired he had created a nice little nest egg, but that was his retirement and probably not much more than someone retiring from a big company.

For me, I always wanted freedom. I saw that the lack of money bothered my father.
He felt trapped in a business he didn’t like, and he didn’t know how to break out. He didn’t have a money mentor. There was very little finance-related information or education available to people like him (particularly when you think about what is available today).

So what he did was do what he knew and learned from my grandfather, work hard, send their children to college, and set aside money for retirement by making small investments in real estate. That was his plan, and he followed it.

I wanted more. Why? Because, as I saw it money gives people freedom. With money, I thought, you can go where you want to go and do what you want to do, when you want to do it. What I had to discover—and in fact didn’t discover for many years—was that having the money wasn’t as important as knowing what to do with the money once I got it. In reality, as it turned out, money was only a tool. In order to use that tool properly, I needed to first control my mind. I needed to aim my thoughts in a direction that had meaning and importance.

In fact, I miscalculated in my early quests for financial freedom. With the benefit of hindsight, I can now see that not only do you have to plan for how you will achieve financial freedom, you also have to know how you will keep that freedom once you get it. With wealth comes responsibility—not only to yourself, but also to your family and others who mean the most to you.

Unfortunately, that lesson was a rather expensive one to learn. I sincerely hope that you won’t have to learn it the hard way, as I did. Thus the pay it forward blogs. For now, suffice it to say that making it and keeping it are really two separate parts of the equation. If I can help you understand that, you’re likely to make more and keep more.

The next blog will tale about the first steps you need to take and how to set your mind on the right course for financial freedom.