Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Do You Have "Multiple Sources Of Income" Flowing Into Your Bank Account?

Copyright © David Lazear

There's a well-known cliche that says “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.” This is what is behind the concept of "Multiple Sources of Income". It is key to creating more wealth in your life.

Why are multiple sources or multiple streams of income important?

Most people have just one income source – their job. However, if you have only one source of income and that source dries up, you'll be in trouble. This has been dramatically demonstrated over the last year as the unemployment rate in the United States has soared to 10% and higher!

When you have multiple sources of income, you are assured that if one source of revenue stops producing profits for you, you still have money flowing into your bank account from other sources. Diversification is very important.

For example, lets say that in addition your regular job you have an online business that sells different products. At the same time you could own a couple of rental properties and be invested in the stock market. When you diversify your investments, if something fails you still have other streams of income.

The idea is not to jump from one thing to another to another and never settle down on anything. The idea is to work hard on one thing and, once it is generating profits for you, move on and get into a creating another income stream without neglecting the first stream.

So here's the formula: set up a stream of income, place it on autopilot, and let it produce profits for you while you are setting up another stream. If you repeat this process several times you'll eventually become financially free!

This is one of the true keys to wealth. Many people become rich not by doing something huge, but by doing many small things that work.

Monday, December 14, 2009

How To Change Your Financial Blueprint

Many successful people today are finding tons of ways to pursue their financial freedom while helping a lot of people. While these stories are indeed inspiring, most see it as impossible or out of their reach.

In order to achieving financial freedom or financial independence it is very important to change that mindset.

Napoleon Hill's ground-breaking book Think and Grow Rich is all about what we can do to change that mindset. Although it was written more than 70 years ago, it still communicates the same message known by every successful person – achieving financial freedom is an endless task of evaluating our thinking and making necessary shifts in our thinking.

Think and Grow Rich argues that whatever your mind can conceive and believe it can achieve. Napoleon Hill interviewed 500 of the wealthiest men in America during his time, including such people as Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Henry Ford, Elmer Gates, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson and many more.

In some ways, Hill's book is a summation of the thoughts of these great men. At the core of their thinking was "...whatever your mind can conceive and believe it can achieve."

Background of Think and Grow Rich

Think and Grow Rich
was "brain child" of the famous Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie was Swedish immigrant who move from poverty to great wealth. In fact, he was one of the wealthiest men of his day. Andrew Carnegie saw the need for communicating the "how to's" of money making.

Carnegie convinced Napoleon Hill to undertake the ambitious project. Today, the book has sold over 7 million books and is the main source of inspiration for highly successful people, 70 years after it was written!

It outlines 13 steps to achieve financial freedom. Napoleon Hill first talks about desire as the starting point of all achievement.

Desire is not a wish or a wild dream. Desire involves passion, which allows one to focus on their goal at all costs. For example, Thomas Edison had the desire or passion to invent. This controlled every aspect of his life and thinking. It allowed him to to become what he was. In short, desire is raging fire, all-consuming in your being, not just a silly figment of imagination.

Second, Napoleon Hill talks about faith or the belief that one's desire can be attained. Faith allows us to be continually focused on our desire because we know without a doubt that we can achieve what we desire in the future.

Faith and desire are therefore indispensible factors in achieving financial freedom.

A Step by Step Approach to Changing Your Mindset

While there are thirteen very helpful steps to achieve wealth creation, Napoleon Hill also outlines the process of our mind. He discusses the art of decision making and the mastery of procrastination.

Procrastination and our ability to make decisions go hand in hand. Most people tend to postpone making decisions because they lack a sense of judgment, or they do not like risk taking.

Napoleon Hill states that successful people tend to act quickly and decide often. Therefore procrastination is not a matter of "taking time to think things over" but rather a mistaken understanding of the decision making process itself.

Hill suggests that our practice should be to decide quickly and decide (or re-decide!) often. Take action quickly and make decisions quickly, then change those decisions and actions when necessary.

Think and Grow Rich is definitely a must read for people who do not understand the relationship between thoughts and wealth. While most people mistakenly believe their status quo is their plight and the way it must be, the truth is that this thinking puts them at the bottom of the "financial food-chain".

Taking steps to financial freedom starts with what goes on between your ears – namely, your thinking! Think and Grow Rich will help you change your values and see the world in a different light.

10 Impeding Beliefs That Prevent You From Getting Rich

Copyright © David Lazear
 

At one point in your life, you may ask yourself why other people are so successful with money when you're not. Depending on how closely you look, you will have several answers.

Do these sound familiar?

- They are just luckier than I am.

- They have a better education than I do.

- They were born into a rich family.

- They are white and have better opportunities than I do.

- They already had money to start a business.

- They already had money to invest in real estate.

- They are smarter than I am.

- They are younger than I am.

- They look better than I do.

- They probably work harder than I do.


The list probably continues to fill several pages. Money is the topic that generates the most beliefs, followed by the topic of relationships. I once led a seminar where we investigated peoples' beliefs about money. After only 30 minutes we came up with 3 full pages!

Beliefs Are A Blueprint of Your Reality

You may not know this yet, but your beliefs are the blueprint of your reality. If you knew that, would you deliberately create one from the list above? Probably not, because these beliefs are not supportive at all. These beliefs create a reality that leaves you "playing the victim", and on top of it, keeps you right where you are. You are not improving your life one bit.

Why are we creating these beliefs in the first place, when we know that they are not constructive at all? The answer lies in the nature of our consciousness. Most of us were told that there is a universe out there and this universe shapes our reality.

It is the basic belief that life happens to us. Most of us get these beliefs confirmed several times per day. The result is that our consciousness gets imprinted each day with the same message. The message with the same old belief.

Meanwhile, as adults, we are not even aware that our life as it happens is built around a belief. It becomes a profound reality that we prove to ourselves in each moment.

So how do we get out of this dilemma? We need to take a step back and look at our beliefs. Take a piece of paper and a pencil and write down all the beliefs you have about money. Don't think too much, be spontaneous. When you have run out of your own beliefs, think about what other people's beliefs are about money.

Then mark each belief with an "I" or an "S" depending if the belief is impeding or supportive. Impeding beliefs do not support creating wealth, supportive beliefs do.

Now, look at your list and count each supportive and impeding belief. What is your score? How many impeding beliefs do you have, and how many supportive beliefs do you have?

Imprinting New Beliefs

Realize that all the impeding beliefs do not support the creation of fortune. Now, take a new piece of paper, and brainstorm beliefs that will exactly create the wealth you would like to have.

When you are done with the list, go over each of your new beliefs and create a mental image. Hold this mental image for at least 10-20 seconds. You may need some practice, but every time you do it, you will get better with it. Do this exercise in a quiet, calm, and relaxed environment, as this will help to imprint these beliefs into your consciousness.

Remember, beliefs are the blueprint of what will manifest in your life.

With a little training, you will be able to move on to the next stage, which is feeling your beliefs. Feel as if these new beliefs, that foster what you really want to create, have actually been manifested.

- How does it feel to be a millionaire?

- How does it feel to have abundance in your life?

- How does it feel to have more money than you can spend?

- How does it feel to give to others?

- How does it feel to buy without having to look at the price?


Whenever you catch yourself thinking or speaking an impeding belief about money, stop what you are doing. Go back to the place in your mind where you recall one of your deliberately created beliefs about money, and connect with it.

The more you do this, the more you will train your mind to think in a new way. A way that leads to being rich.