Questuosus

6 Key Traits of the Financially Independent

#4: Positive Thinker
You can sit in front of a mirror every morning reciting positive affirmations if you wish. You might even convince the guy on the other side of the mirror. It won’t make any difference to your success or failure on the road toward financial independence though. You have to develop an internal belief system that empowers you to achieve your goals and gives you the self-confidence to take the appropriate action.

If your inner-self doesn’t believe you are going to make it then you won’t. I used to keep a little plaque on my desk with a quote from Walter D. Wintle that read:

If you think you are beaten you are,
If you think you dare not, you don’t.
If you’d like to win but think you can’t,
It’s almost certain you won’t.
Life’s battles don’t always go
To the stronger or faster man,
But sooner or later the man who wins
Is the man who thinks he can

You can be every bit as successful as almost anybody you choose. The difference between those who succeed and those who fail begins with self-confidence. The world has many folk heroes who started with nothing and built a fortune for themselves using nothing but a solid and unshakeable determination to succeed.

Many experts believe that we are programmed to fail from early childhood. The thought patterns and belief systems that determine our destiny are deeply ingrained in our psyche from childhood. We are programmed to conform, to obey rules. These are behaviours that will severely impair our ability to successfully become financially independent later. In order to win we have to break out of that very limited mentality and make our mark in the world. That often means breaking the rules.

Fortunately, there are techniques to override early childhood behaviour training. It is worthwhile investigating them and, perhaps, taking some motivational courses. Our minds are like sponges that soak up ideas and external stimuli. If we expose our minds to new ideas we can overwrite self-limiting old ideas.

As Oliver Wendell Holmes once said:

Man’s mind, stretched by a new idea, never goes back to its original dimensions

But, of course, positive thinking alone will not guarantee a positive outcome for a business or investment venture. On the other hand, negative thinking will almost certainly guarantee a bad outcome for the same venture. “If you think you are beaten you are..”

Always go through life looking for new ideas. Never stop learning. Weigh the possibilities of using each new idea to serve your own purpose. Try to anticipate the highest and most profitable way of using the new idea; develop a plan to do it. Don’t sleep on it. Tomorrow will bring its own new ideas. Act now. Think positive, act positive.

One of the most interesting ideas I ever learned was that if we deeply believe something to be true, our minds will only be receptive to evidence that supports that belief. If we focus our minds on the worst outcome of a venture, our minds will be closed to ideas that could change the outcome for the better. On the other hand, if we focus only on the best outcome of a venture we greatly enhance the probability of finding opportunities that will lead to the desired result. It is magic. Try it.

Administrator General Topics 6 Key Traits of the Financially Independent, Positive Thinker

6 Key Traits of the Financially Independent

#3: Action Super Hero
After many years of mixing with people who have been, apparently, seeking financial independence I have observed that many of them will study an opportunity six ways from Sunday but never take any action. Their reluctance stems from uncertainty. “What if?” they think to themselves. “Have I covered all the bases?”. “I think I’ll sleep on it”. “I’d like to get another opinion, maybe there’s something I’ve missed”.

Then an ad appears in the newspaper. An investment expert is holding a seminar in town next week. “I’ll wait until I’ve been to the seminar, then I’ll be better informed”. The free seminar is a pitch for a paid course. The procrastinator signs-up for the course, lays down his nickel and decides to do nothing until the course is over. “Better to learn from an expert, then I’ll be able to make better decisions”.

The course is one night a week for six weeks. At the end of the course the instructor reveals a sure-fire investment opportunity and invites his students to participate. Some eagerly accept; others hold back. “I want to digest what I’ve learned, then I’ll make a decision”. Browsing around on the whirled wild web one day, the procrastinator discovers an offer of a free ebook and a 30-day free course, by email, on financial independence. He signs up.

A British duo called Flanders and Swan once recorded a song called “Busy Doing Nothing”. The song’s lyrics are: “Busy doing nothing, working the whole day through; trying to find lots of things not to do. Busy going nowhere, isn’t it just a crime? I’d like to be unhappy but I never do have the time.” Those lyrics paint a very good picture of our procrastinator who is very busy studying opportunities, but never straps on his super-hero cape to leap fearlessly off a tall building and fly into action.

Many years ago, I made the decision to become a real estate investor. I took the courses and read all the books. Then one day opportunity knocked. My realtor found a townhome with a motivated seller who was open to offers. I studied the opportunity six ways from Sunday. For a couple of weeks I agonized over whether I should jump on the opportunity or let it go. I guess I made the right choice. I called the realtor. I made an offer. The offer was accepted. I was transformed from a procrastinator into a real estate investor.

I never procrastinated again. I know some of my fellow students on the real estate course graduated with a head full of knowledge and a belly full of butterflies. The were too afraid to take the next step. Those who procrastinate never become financially independent. If you have decided to follow this blog for a while before taking the plunge, you have already made the wrong decision. Oh, certainly follow this blog (please) but don’t let me hold you back. Go get your super-hero cape, now.

Administrator General Topics 6 Key Traits of the Financially Independent, Action

6 Key Traits of the Financially Independent

#2: Risk Taker
When I started my real estate investment career I had a full-time job. It helped. It gave me good credit to help me qualify for loans. It also gave me a peanut gallery full of mocking co-workers who made fun of my ambitions. It also gave me a boss who doubted that I was fully committed to my job. He was right and eventually I quit the job to pursue my investment career full-time.

One of my co-workers resisted my enticements to participate in real estate investments. A great boom in the local real estate market was in progress and I achieved early success. Then, one day, he announced that he had decided to leap into real estate investment too. But he didn’t want to do it in partnership with anybody else. He was an eagle, he wanted to fly alone looking for opportunity and seizing it wherever he could. He took the risk alone and became even more successful than I did.

My own investments multiplied and fed off each other. I bought and sold, bought and sold, day after day. Sometimes I never even saw properties that made me thousands of dollars for a couple of phone calls. I grew bold and ambitious. Knowing the principles of leverage and using the power of OPM (Other People’s Money) I knew that I could use the risk/reward ratio to reap even bigger profits.

Risk can be a drug. There is an enormous thrill about taking a big risk, knowing the potential reward is equally big. Gamblers feel the same high in the casino. I had “gambler’s high”. The big deals started appearing on my radar screen. Big deals carry big risks. I recall pitching one big deal to an angel investor who wanted me to risk all my assets – including my home and retirement savings – as collateral. I was ready for it but the deal fell through.

I flew out to western Canada and with nothing but testosterone backing me I wrote an offer on a 200 suite apartment building worth six million dollars. My offer was unsuccessful, fortunately. The local real estate market collapsed a week after another of my offers was accepted on a $1.3 million dollar property across town. That was when I had to learn to be a “magic carpet jockey” to find a way to make it safely down to the ground after proverbially leaping out of an airplane without a parachute.

The moral of this post is that you have to be a risk-taker to succeed. But always remember that taking risks has a downside too, so be ready with the magic carpet. And that’s a key trait of the financially independent that we’ll deal with in another post.

Administrator General Topics, Uncategorized 6 Key Traits of the Financially Independent, Risk Taker

6 Key Traits of the Financially Independent

#1: Independent Thinker
I have always been amazed at the willingness of most people to let others do their thinking for them. Thinking is an extremely easy activity; it requires almost no exertion at all. So why is it that the overwhelming majority of people only ever entertain thoughts that have been placed in their heads by other people? Why do so many people abdicate the responsibility for original thought to others?

Failing to think for themselves exposes people to having their mind controlled by somebody else. Advertisers, government and the media can manipulate the opinions of the masses to achieve whatever purpose is on their agenda. Evidence of this is readily apparent during election campaigns. Pollsters publish trends of the voting intentions of representative samples of the population.

Polls are often sponsored by vested interests and the results can be influenced by how the poll questions are constructed. Once the results of a poll are published, voters’ intentions can and often do follow the trend of the perceived majority.

Another example is the “climate change crisis”. The media has informed us that the world’s climate is changing – and humankind is responsible. Furthermore, we are told that anybody who questions the existence, or cause, of this crisis is a “denier”, a potentially dangerous subversive. So the majority of people accept what they are told for two reasons. First, “everybody else” believes it, so it must be true. Second, unbelievers will be ostracized.

So is it true? The answer to that question is irrelevant to this post. The point is that most people accept both the existence and cause of the “crisis” without thinking it through for themselves. They have blind faith in what they are told by the media. They have allowed their thoughts on the matter to be implanted by others.

Now, let us extend that idea to the pursuit of financial independence. The majority of people in the industrialized western world are “poor” and a very tiny minority are wealthy. If we ignore those whose wealth was inherited, or obtained fortuitously, the remainder of the “rich” obtained their wealth by conscious effort. Do rich people think the same thoughts as poor people? Obviously not. Let me introduce the idea of “contrarian thinking”.

The majority of the world’s population is, relatively speaking, poor. So when it comes to financial decisions, the majority are wrong more often than they are right. If you choose to follow the financial practices of the majority, you will be poor. The rich man does not care what the majority thinks. He thinks for himself and will act upon his own decisions.

A contrarian thinker may observe what the majority is doing, but his first inclination is to consider doing the exact opposite.

So, a prerequisite for aspiring to financial independence is to first acquire the trait of independent thinking. Ignore what the great unwashed masses believe. The vast majority of them didn’t think things through for themselves; they believe what somebody else wants them to believe.

Incidentally, always remember that most people don’t think for themselves and try to work that to your own advantage. If “everybody” believes the sky is going to fall on their heads tomorrow, sell them a shelter!

Administrator General Topics 6 Key Traits of the Financially Independent, Independent Thinker