Your Financial Blueprint

I observed that due to the different financial blueprint of individuals, their reactions to the inspiring real life stores varies tremendrously. Some of you may be wondering what is financial blueprint. Here the blueprint I'm referring to is the model or prototype. So financial blueprint is the model with which one plans their finance.

This financial blueprint is usually set or influence by the experiences that one have had when they are young and usually with their parents or whoever living with them. So far T Harv Eker has the most wonderful and easy to understand explanation about financial blueprint and his book "The Secrets of The Millionaire Mind" is a must-read book. He has shown many examples of how financial blueprint affects the amount of financial success that one can have.

Maybe just illustrate what I mean, the following is the inspiring story that I have heard and what is the reactions that I received from people.


The Real Life Inspiring Story:

Many years back, this Chinese lady, who is a client of my insurance friend, came across a old Malay lady. This old Malay lady was all alone in the street and apparently has no where to stay in and no one to take care of her. So this Chinese lady went up to her and offered to take her in, so that she can take care of her and fed her.

Coincidently this Malay lady was an expert in making Malay Kuehs and this Chinese lady learnt from her all her skills. She went ahead to set up a little kueh stall.

Fast moving forward, you know what happen to this Chinese lady? She now owns 5 coffeeshops in various strategic locations in Singapore and has massive passive income that she, her kids and her grandchild, do not even have to work for the rest of their life. BUT she still stays in the 3-room flat that she has been staying all these while and she even bought the room besides for the old Malay lady to stay in.

So tell me now what goes through your mind when you hear this? Let me tell you what is the reactions I have come across.

1) "She is so lucky" - To me this has nothing to do with luck, if she did not manage her money well, she may not have the success she had now. There are so many people selling kuehs and I bet there are also many Malays who know how to make fantastic kuehs. Most importantly she took the steps to open the stall. If she chooses to just cook for the family, would she has earn the money she is earning now?

2) "Oh, not many people can be like her?" / "Is this true? Where is her coffeeshops?"- This is a pessimistic people who does not believe that they too can have the same financial success and they even want to go about proving that they are right.

3) "Wow, that's fantastic! How does she do it?" - These are the words from people who are one step closer to achieving the financial success that they want in life. They believe that this is true and that they would like to model rich and successful people, so that they can achieve the same success.

To me, this tells me a couple of things.

a) You do not need fanciful products to earn good money.

b) With proper money management, even small simple product can also bring in good money.

c) Frugal people can also be generous people.

So what do you think? Do you have the right financial blueprint to bring the level of financial success that you want in your life?

Reading News to Keep Abreast Market Movement

There is alot of hard work to be put in but it is all worth it. You have to constantly reading to keep up with the market movement. What I learnt is that once you have developed a habit of doing it, it comes naturally.

The added bonus is it makes your conversation with people more interesting and makes you looks really intelligent. Your friends or associate who are talking to you will be very impressed with what you have to share and sooner or later they will approach you for advice too.

I know because I experienced that. I used to hate reading news and even find it a chore to do it. Even if I read, I would prefer the sports, life and entertainment section. However now, I love to read those business and money section, then analyse the news to see how it would affect the stock market.

Then when I shared with people, you can see the awe in their eyes when they find you really knowledgeable. In fact I even have my office manager approaching me for investment advice. She even scehduled a monthly meeting to talk to me.

No Action Leads to No Results

When there is no action, there will be no results. Even a small steps forward, it still a improvement, rather than not doing anything at all. The same thing goes with investment.

Many times I will hear people complaining that they have no money but yet they are not doing anything to improve their financial status. They are also not willing to give up their present spending habits to save the money required for investment, and then they will continue to complain that they have no money every month end, that's if they still can last till month end.

There will be all sorts of excuse for not able to save money... blah blah blah... they are all nonsense and excuses for not cutting back their expense. I always believe that when one have the will there's a way.

In fact, it happens to me. I have seen the change as I embark on my journey in value investing. Although I do not have the huge capital to invest, nor am I able to make back the course fee when I attended MIP in the short period of time. Nonetheless I'm making progress and every day I'm learning to be a better investor that brings me closer to my financial freedom goal.

With each steps I make, I began to see how there seem to be much more money flowing in, no matter how small they are, I'm grateful as every cents count.

I strongly urge you to make that step forward and start to plan for your own financial freedom. Just do it!!

Declaration: "I Produce Excellent Working Income"

You must be wondering what this topic has to do with value investing. It has everything to do with it because it is the basis of everything.

If you dun have a steady income, you will not have the capital to start investing and all these learnings will amount to nothing. As you can't start something, your interest will fade off soon and you will think that value investing is not for you.

Besides it will take a while for your investment to grow and give you the dividends, while you still have a income to maintain your current expenses.

By the way, you are supposed to re-invest the dividend, so that it will give the compounded interest effect and brings you more and more money.

Sounds right?! Then what are you waiting for, start to save and start investing NOW!! It's NOW OR NEVER. Happy INVESTING!!

Assessment of Companies

A good book to read to find out more how to assess a company's management is Philip A. Fisher's "Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits". It gave a very detailed description how to go about doing scatterbug. However it is written in not too easy to read English, so for me, it really takes me a while to digest the information and I'm still struggling to complete the book.

Nonetheless from the first few chapters that I managed to complete, I have gained much insights.

Lucky for you, my coach has produced some short videos to provide you with some glimpse into how we should be assess company. The following is the video for your viewing.

Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xM2EikxybkU&feature=related

Importance of MasterMind Team

This term was first introduced after our MIP course. During the course, we are divided to groups to participate in the game. When the course ended, we told that this would be the group for us to have our MasterMind Meeting with.

I did not really take it seriously and find it a chore initially. Nonetheless, I took my role as leader of the group seriously and faithfully ensure that we have our regular meeting.

Then after reading Napoleon Hill's "Think and Grow Rich", it changed my mind. He stressed the importance of having a MasterMind Meeting, how it will help to grow yourself and the team. By having a team of like-minded people around you, you passed on the good supportive energy when you can share and learn more through each other.

Now I looked forward to my MasterMind Meeting even more and I want to set up other MasterMind Meeting group to learn how to make more money.

What is Financial Freedom??

So what is Financial Freedom?? Does everyone has a good understanding of these words? I doubt many people actually know the real meaning. If they do, their happiness level should be high, just like the people in Bhutan.

So what is Financial Freedom? Is it just being debt free or does it mean you dun have to work hard for it?

NO!!!

Being debt free, just simply mean you have no debt but you still have to work for your daily expenses and basic necessities like food etc, unless you are telling me that you can survive just by breathing in air.

There is also nothing in this world that is gaining something without doing anything. You have to work hard initially, but once you have the proper mechanism running, you dun have to run it everyday and you just sit back to relax.

So what do you have to do to get Financial Freedom??

Create your own passive income streams!! To have your money works hard for you and makes you money even when you are sleeping or doing nothing. There are just so many ways that you can do it. For example, rental from your house, dividends from your stocks holding etc... These are just some examples and there are many many more ways.

The main point is passive income streams does not need you to be working hard for it from 9 to 5. Money just works hard for you, if you know how to do it. When you are financial free, you work because you choose to and not because you have to.