GETTING STARTED WITH YOUR DREAMS AND GOALS! By now you’re getting the gist of Rich Dad’s thinking —and no doubt you’re anxious to get started. Getting started requires two actions. First, you have to decide what your general financial goal is. Do you want to be secure? Comfortable? Or rich? The answer to this question is important because it will determine which quadrant you stay in or enter, and how you go about making money inside that quadrant. Second, you have to become financially literate so that you learn to think like the rich. What is your financial goal? To be secure, comfortable, or rich? Bear in mind that a goal is different from a wish. You may wish to be rich, but that doesn’t mean you’ve ever taken any practical steps to make it come true. If you’ve ever earned enough money to put some aside, like most people, you’ve probably invested it with an eye toward security, since you can’t imagine yourself ever getting rich. Be honest with yourself. If you had to list the three choices in order of priority—as goals rather than just wishes—you’d probably put security at the top of the list, comfort in the middle, and wealth at the bottom. Like most people, you probably want, if you don’t already have, a job with a steady paycheck and with good health and retirement benefits. Next you’d like a house, a car, and enough money for extras like vacations. Then, of course, you’d like to be rich, but that’s only something that will happen if you “get lucky.” Or so you think. “Most people dream of becoming rich, but it isn’t their first choice,” Rich Dad said. That’s because the effort and uncertainty of becoming rich disturb them, and they seek refuge in the easier goals of security or comfort. People who make security and comfort their first and second choices are often seeking a single hot investment tip, a simple, risk-free way of getting rich quick. Some people do get rich on one lucky investment, but all too frequently the money they amass is later lost. EXAMINE YOUR LONG-TERM GOALS If you’re really serious about achieving financial freedom—about moving from the left to the right side of the CASHFLOW Quadrant and staying there—it’s time to examine closely how you order your long-term goals. Knowing what you value most will save you many agonizing decisions and sleepless nights later. A good way of getting started is to write down what you perceive as the pros and cons for each possible goal: Depending on how the pros weigh against the cons, you may actually find yourself re-ordering your goals. This can be a priceless exercise, for it suggests possibilities that you might not have previously imagined. “Nothing is more tragic than to see people who have sold themselves short on what’s possible for their lives’. They try to live frugally, scrimping and saving, and they think they’re being financially smart. In truth, they’re limiting themselves. Most people spend their lives imprisoned by financial ignorance. It shows up in their faces and in their attitudes as they get older. They begin to look like wild lions trapped in their cages, pacing back and forth while they mull over what happened to the life they once knew. DRAFT FINANCIAL PLANS FOR EACH GOAL How can you escape this fate? Start by drafting a series of personalized financial plans—one for security, another for comfort, and a third for rich. Carefully written plans will you give a clearer idea of the possibilities ahead. You might be motivated to move beyond mere security and on to comfort, which would expand your horizons, or even on to becoming rich, which would give you unlimited horizons. At this early stage, of course, you may not be financially literate enough to draw up detailed plans. That’s okay. The purpose of this exercise isn’t to map out your route to financial freedom—but rather to get a general idea of possibilities that you might not otherwise entertain. If you have a financial advisor, he or she can help you with a rough outline for your plans. Here’s what you do: • Write up a plan for lifetime financial security. What does security mean to you personally? The absence of sleepless nights? Being in a better mood more of the time? And what do you need to do to achieve your vision of security? If you’ve decided your first priority is to be rich, this step might seem mechanical or boring. When you plan for security, you’re planning for a world of not enough. One of the points of this step is to motivate you to reach beyond a goal that will only curb your potential. • Next, write up a financial plan for lifetime comfort. What does comfort mean to you? A big house and two cars? A house, a vacation cottage, and three cars? How can you go about achieving your level of comfort? Obviously, this plan will be a little more aggressive than the first one. And it will be less boring because when you plan for a world of enough, there are more choices open to you. Your challenge will be to choose. • Finally, write up a financial plan for becoming rich. This will be your most aggressive plan and your most exciting, for now you’re anticipating a world of more than enough. You’ll be faced with a myriad of choices, for although you may not be aware of it yet, opportunities to make money are all around you. As with the previous plan, your challenge will be coping with the abundance of possibilities. You don’t want to wander through life like a child in a candy store, so distracted by choice that you never make one. Think this plan through carefully and thoroughly. The point of the exercise is to show you that you have choices, more than you may have ever imagined—and that you need to make decisions about those choices. Too many people go from job to job or business to business without getting where they want to be financially. They wander through life without a plan, and all the while their most precious asset, time, is dwindling away. This doesn’t have to happen to you
Posted on: Wed, 07 Aug 2013 18:05:42 +0000
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