What is rat race?

Accordingly to Wikipedia, rat race is a term used for an endless, self-defeating or pointless pursuit. It is just like a rat trying to escape whilst running around a maze or in a wheel.

In an analogy to the modern city, many rats in a single maze run around making a lot of noise bumping into each other, but ultimately achieve nothing (meaningful) either collectively or individually.

Rat race is a term often used to describe work or excessive work in particular. If one works, one is in the rat race. This terminology contains implications that many people see work as a seemingly endless pursuit with little reward or purpose.

The increased image of work as a "rat race" in modern world has led many to question their own attitudes towards work and seek a more harmonious Work-life balance. Many believe that long work hours, unpaid overtime, stressful jobs, time spent commuting, less time for traditional family life, has led to a generally unhappier workforce to enjoy the benefits of increased economic prosperity and a higher standard of living.

Are you stuck in the rat race?

If you work minimum 8 hours a day and trade your time for paycheck in order to pay bills, there is a high possibility that you are caught in rat race.

Escape from rat race? Why?

Don’t get me wrong that rat race is something very bad that you must escape from it. It is your choice whether you are happy to stay in the rat race or not. The only challenge that I see in rat race is that even if you win the race, you are still a rat. No matter what you do in the rat race, success is uncertain. However, if you do nothing about it, worry about your retirement is on the way.

Accordingly to surveys performed in US, it showed that if we take any group of 100 people at the beginning of their working career and follow them for 40 years until they reach retirement age, according to the Social Security Administration:



- Only 1 will be wealthy

- 4 will be financially secure

- 5 will continue working because they have to for a living

- 36 will be dead

- 54 will be dead broke and dependent on the Social Security checks, relatives, friends and even charity for a minimum standard of living.

These, of course, are US statistics. In the rest of the world, especially the developing world, the scenario might be far worse.

In short, there is only 5% of the population have enough to retire by age 65. There will be a high possibility of 95% that we will be either dead or dead broke by 65 years old. Isn’t that scary?

How do the rich escape from rat race?

The rich who is financially successful do not trade their time for money. Conversely, the rich leverage on other people money and time to make money.
Instead of working hard for money, the rich ensure money working hard for them through investment.

Property investors leverage on other people money by borrowing from banks to purchase properties or assets. They rent out the properties and have the tenants pay off the loans. Other than getting the tenants to pay off their assets, the property investors make even more money when their assets appreciate in value. Property investors leverage on other people money to make money.

Business owners like Bill Gates leverage on other people time by hiring employees to work for them. Investors, who invest in stock market, leverage on business owners and employees time to make money for them through capital gain from stocks.

Can an average ordinary person escape from rat race?

Absolutely Yes!

No doubt it is difficult to leave our comfort zone and risking the secure regular paychecks to pay off our bills. We need to take the first step and action to start somewhere. We need to change our mentality and reprogram our minds to mirror the millionaire minds.

At the same time, we have to start financial planning and saving to cumulate capital. Acquire the skills to generate passive income. Learn how to invest in assets like properties, stock market, etc or own and run businesses.

As our assets growing which in return generating more money, more money will increase our capability to increase the number or size of assets. The same “money working hard” cycle repeats by itself until such time that we no longer need to trade our time for money where we can live, work, play and give freely.

Congratulations! That’s the time that we are out of rat race and achieve financial freedom!

How People Made A Fortune With “Fool Idea” II

3. Setup Own Business

The other avenue to financial freedom is starting own business with an idea and be an entrepreneur.

Why?

“Money is just an idea!”

The richest self-made people in the world are successful entrepreneurs who turn ideas into money such as the founders of Microsoft, Walmart, Yahoo, Google, and many more.

Accordingly to Investopedia entrepreneurs are the people who have the skills and initiatives necessary to take good new ideas to market and make the right decisions to turn the ideas profitable. The reward for the risks taken is the potential economic profits that the entrepreneurs could earn.

So, if we have the creativities and determination to turn ideas into money, we can start to run our businesses. Most of the multimillion dollars business is started small by a single person or its founders who subsequently acquiring and leveraging the right resources, talents and leadership skill to expand the business idea nationally or globally.

How People Made A Fortune With “Fool Idea”

After exploring the mindset required to achieve financial freedom, are you eager to achieve financial freedom now but do not know how?

Or you have an idea but do not know whether the idea can achieve financial success?

Whatever ideas we have, the critical factor is “leverage”, simply means “the ability to generate more and more income with less and less works”. If the strategy is to get paid for our time, we are not leveraging.

For example, if we are in the business of beauty products and get an order amounting to 10,000 bottles of facial mask, we just need to call the supplier and order 10,000 bottles of facial mask. Then, we can happily count our profit to the bank because we are leverage on the supplier’s capital and time to make money.

On the other hand, if we are a home based facial therapist, we are so popular to have 10,000 customers lining up waiting for facial appointments. Most likely we have to disappoint majority of the customers and especially the last on the queue that she has to wait till the Monday at 12 noon, 3 years from now!

In this case, we are not leveraging because we are trading our limited 24 hours a day for money. There is just a limited of 24 hours max that we can serve the customers each day. What about hire more people to serve all the customers? In this case, we are leveraging on other people time to make money. People who don’t know how to leverage will work harder for those who leveraged.

Today, more and more leveraged tools are being created such as computers, internet, wireless and many more to help us generate more with less. If we want to keep up with the rich and be rich, we need to understand the power of leverage and use the leveraged tools that the rich are using. The average use fewer leveraged tools than the rich. People who do not learn to use leveraged tools like computers and internet will fall behind financially or work harder and harder just to keep up.

Let’s explore some of the latest leveraged tools and ideas to attain financial freedom…

1. Make Money Online

One of the latest tools to achieve financial freedom is leveraged on internet whereby we can practically work any time and any where.

Why internet?

Internet spending is growing significantly year over year. More and more people are buying or spending online. Currently, there are over 1 billion users all over the world and we can practically sell to every internet users without geographical restriction to a country or region. In 2006, there was a total of US$170 billion spending by the internet users and it is reported by Forrester Research recently that this number will grow to US$229 billion by year 2008.

How to leverage on internet marketing as a way to financial freedom? The most common way is generating huge traffic to market and sell our websites. To drive a huge volume of traffic to our websites, we need to have the right skills making the content interesting and running some advertisement campaigns. In return, we can make money by selling services and/or products (digital or hard goods) to the visitors. We can earn money by getting people to advertise in our websites for instance through Google Adsense. On top of that we can redirect the traffic to other’s people websites and earn referral fees and lots more other way through Ebay, Amazon.com, etc…

For someone who likes to write, we can even make money by creating blog with interesting and niche contents. The most profitable blog use a mix of affiliate marketing and Adsense type advertising to make money.

No doubt internet business needs more time and effort at the initial stage but which business does not have the same requirement? Once it is up and running, we just need a minimum amount of time to monitor and maintain this business. So, practically, it is a great passive income tool to make money while we are sleeping or on vacation.

2. Network Marketing

The rich look for building and leveraging on networks.

The average look for works.

At the same time, the rich believe in “Your networth is your network”.

What is so great about network then?

Network marketing is also known as multilevel marketing (“MLM”) which is a business model that combines direct sales with franchising. MLM functions by recruiting people to sell products through word-of-mouth and offers additional bonus or commissions based on the sales of people they recruited into their organization who are known as downline. A downline includes direct recruits, recruit’s recruit, and so on.

The beauty of MLM is leveraging on people and the power of networking to turn the organization into a million dollar MLM business. The business leverages on word-of-mouth advertising which is the easiest and cheapest way to generate sales through personal sharing of experience and recommendation.

The start up cost is usually low and we will be given an established business system, services and/or products to sell directly to end users. MLM is a flexible business model where training will be provided and we can choose when, where and who to work with.

Despite the potential of earning significant passive income by leveraging on network marketing, people are skeptical because MLM does not have a good image. After hearing a lot about MLM scams, people are doubtful because it is hard for those who don’t understand the differences to differentiate a legitimate MLM business against the pyramid or Ponzi scheme, which is illegal in most countries.

The key difference between a legitimate MLM vs pyramid or Ponzi scheme is the latter can make money solely from recruiting people and receive “sign up fees” WITHOUT delivering any product or service to new recruits. If there are greater incentives on recruiting people and no focus of selling the products, or if downline are required to buy more products than they can sell, it is likely an illegal pyramid or Ponzi scheme.

Will explore more in the next post...

Financial Freedom? What is that?

The definition of financial freedom can be very different from one person to another. Some may think that as long as we are debt free, we are financially free. Others believe that having the luxury to spend money in a worry-free way is financially free.

In accordance to Wikipedia, financial freedom is defined as a well-planned lifestyle where one no longer is required to work for income to cover their expenses. Contrary to popular belief, it does not require being free of debt, as a debt payment is just another expense.

Typically, "Financial Freedom" can be attained in one of two ways (or a combination of the two):

1. Enough passive investment income to cover one's expenses.

2. A large enough "nest egg" that can be liquidated over time to cover one's expenses.

Simply said, financial freedom is one point in life when you do not work for money anymore.

A passive income stream is one where money is received usually on a regular basis, without continuing effort. This does not mean no effort at all; most passive income streams require great effort to start with. For example, rental income from property, royalty income from patent rights or writing a book, bonus income from network marketing or set up internet businesses by selling digital products like ebooks, softwares, etc whereby you can still generate income while you are sleeping.

I personally believe that financial freedom is having adequate money to survive without working while still maintaining my preferred life style. It eliminates all the unnecessary stress from work and enables us to stay healthier. It provides a comfortable life at present and in future whereby we can have worry-free early retirement. Financial freedom practically enables us to do absolutely anything we want and we have total control of what, where, when and how with minimal restriction.


Only the rich deserve to have financial freedom?

Of course, Not!

Everybody deserves financial freedom. Yes, everybody includes you, your family, relatives, friends, neighbors, etc.

If we have the mindset that “achieving financial freedom is something very hard and impossible for us”, “financial freedom is just a beautiful dream”, “money is the root of evils”, “I don’t have capital to start off like the rich”…etc, these are all excuses that we have created for ourselves.

“Achieving financial success is something very hard and impossible?”

Nothing is harder than when we realize that we don’t have enough money to retire by 65 years old.

“Financial freedom is a just beautiful dream?”

If we are going to dream any way, why not dream big since dreaming is free whether big or small.

“Money is the root of evils?”

Think about it again… Lack of or no money is the root of all evils.

“I don’t have capital to start off like the rich?”

We have to take immediate action to start small and make a difference. If not, we will be stuck with no capital forever.

The list of excuses that prevent us from financial freedom can go on and on…These are mind block that stopping us from making any move to improve our life.

To be rich or millionaires, the first thing that we need to do is not learning the best strategies on how to make or invest money but having the right mindset. Acquiring knowledge and skills about running business, marketing, investment, etc are great “tools” to be rich. We will eventually lose the tools if we do not have the right mindset which is acting like a “toolbox” to keep the tools.

If we want to get rich, we must think like the rich.

If we want to be millionaires, we must develop the millionaire mindsets.

What is the different between the average and millionaire mind then?

Stay tune for more on this...

A typical way of a success story of rat racers supposed to go...

This is a typical way of a success story of rat racers supposed to go...

A youngster, Samuel Lucky, gets out of school, finds a good job and slowly works his way up the corporate ladder. In the process, he finds Lois, the girl of his dreams and they get married to start a family.

As time goes by the Luckys improve their life while continuing his rat race. That is, at first they drove a second hand car but after a while they graduate to a new Japanese car. Children come along and they sell their first house and buy a newer and larger one out in the suburbs of a nicer section than they could at first afford.

Most of the neighbors drive luxury cars and Mrs. Lucky complains that she isn't dressed as well as her friends. So Sam Lucky brings home work from the office in the evenings and working late into the night, and Lois gets a job as secretary to start her journey in the rat race. The children are left at a nursery school during working hours.

Sam continues to bring work home and three times a week he goes to night school where he takes some pretty stiff courses to increase his worth to the firm and be a much more competitive rat racer. After awhile he gets another promotion and merit increment. They can afford luxury car and desired items even though Mrs. Lucky has to continue running on the treadmill in order to afford those luxury items.

Time goes by and there are more promotions and the Luckys are able to move to an even better neighborhood. Lois, of course, can finally quit her job and escape from the rat race.

Later, they hire a cook and a chauffeur to improve their life. However, in order to achieve these, Mr. Lucky continues to bring home work at night. His only recreation these days is playing golf which is invariably done with company customers so that Sam can work on sales at the same time he plays. Mrs. Lucky entertains quite a bit these days—mostly the wives of executives of company customers.

By now Sam Lucky has an ulcer and Lois is going to see her psychiatrist every week. The children are off in finishing and prep schools.

At the age of 65 Mr. Lucky, who is a vice president in the company now, decides to retire. They do and buy a place in Miami Beach, taking the maids, the cook and the chauffeur along with them.

Next year, at the age of 66, Sam drops dead of heart failure. He hadn't been having a very good time anyway. After 45 years of continual work he would have forgotten how to have a good time.

Is this the way a success story supposed to go…?

Even though this might be the life that a lot of people dream of, Mr and Mrs Lucky do not appear to live a full life. Mr Lucky end up retired at 65 and barely enjoy life.

Furthermore, we didn’t even deal with the fact that the life of Sam had a fine chance of becoming an alcoholic along the way in view of the pressures upon him. Or that Mrs. Lucky, in spite of her psychiatric visits, had a strong chance of winding up in a mental institute under the tensions of her frustrated life.

While Mr and Mrs Lucky are busy with their life and hardly able to spend time with their kids, the kids might be out on the streets and probably taking their master's degree in juvenile delinquency.

We haven't dealt, either, with the probability that after the age of 30 or so, while busy chasing what they want in the rat race, there was no longer any real love between Sam and Lois.

Never in the history of any nation has there been such a large percentage of a people in mental institutions. Never has there been such a degree of juvenile delinquency. Never have there been so many divorces. Never has there been such insecurity in the hearts of a people, and the suicide rate is climbing sky high.

Calling all rat racers! It’s time to wake up from your dream of success this way because this is not a dream but nightmare.

It’s a nightmare to wake up in the morning and go down to a hurried breakfast and then to work. At work he spends eight hours or so, with a short lunch period during which he again bolts his food so as to get back to the job again on time. In the evening he comes home to a dinner, hurriedly prepared by a wife who either works or whose time is so taken up with the children and household duties that she too is exhausted at day's end.

After dinner he sits for an hour or two watching television or perhaps going to the local bar or movie. In the morning, the same routine goes on again. By week's end there is a day and a half or two days for relaxation, so that work can be resumed at top efficiency on Monday. For two or three weeks each year the family can pile into the car and dash off on a hurried tour of some national park, or an attempt at rest in some mountain or beach resort. Then back to the grind again. Year in, year out, and the best that can be hoped for is occasional increment in pay—and that a depression or lay off will not come to steal one's livelihood.

The greatest men that the world has ever produced did not, could not, live such a life. No great scientific discovery, no great work of art, no great book, ever came from a man or woman who remained in such a rut.

The great inventions, the great scientific discoveries of our world have been made by men who were able to pursue their driving interests in freedom and escape from meaningless rat race treadmill.

Man makes his great discoveries; he leads a good and full life; he enjoys and gives enjoyment; only when he has leisure and the opportunity to develop himself.

No man can enjoy the potentials nature has awarded him without freedom from the pressure of modern existence. He must escape, he must free himself from the rut in which most are sunk, he must get off the treadmill.

The best manner in which a man or woman can serve the society to which they belong is to be happy and at peace with themselves. You cannot make others happy unless you yourself have achieved happiness and financial freedom. The persons who are best suited to making this a better world are those who have achieved financial freedom, serenity and peace of mind.

Inspiring Journey To Financial Freedom

Thanks for visiting this blog, a life transformation blog.

This blog is right for you, if:

You feel that work-life balance is missing in your life.

You are currently struggling at work.

Fed up with your bosses, colleagues, office politic, etc.

Tired of running in the rat race with no direction in life.

Looking for “the secret” to financial independence.

Or, you are confused with what does it means by financially free?

Personally, my definition of financial freedom does not mean debt free but generating adequate passive income to maintain my desired lifestyle.

At time, financial independence is misunderstood as being rich.

While we know that the rich have millions of dollars in their net worth, they might over commit millions of expenditures which could also mean that they are not as financially success as they seem.

Therefore, financial freedom is a concept attuned to our lifestyle and the money that we need to maintain our desired lifestyle. In this perspective, to be financially free is not as hard to achieve as I first imagined.

To me, financial freedom is also time freedom. I am tired of the meaningless life running around the rat maze without time freedom.

A financially independent person will see that money is time. Once we are able to develop a sense of time freedom, then, we are in a positive direction to acquire financial independence.

Financial independence allows us to take time on our desired activities without trading our valuable time for money.

How to achieve financial freedom?

If you want to be financially free, it requires:

1. The right YOU
2. The right Knowledge
3. The right Tools/Vehicles at the right Time

The right YOU relate to the inner you, your mindset, your attitude and habits. According to T. Harv Eker, to obtain our desired outer results, we must first master the inner game of wealth. It is interesting to note that unless a person’s whole mind changed toward the acceptance of wealth and being a creator of wealth internally, we would get nowhere.

Not until we mastered both the “inner game” and the “outer game” of wealth, would our lives be transformed.

The “outer game” here is referring to the right KNOWLEDGE such as business knowledge, sales and marketing skill, information and money management, investment strategies, etc.

The right VEHICLE at the right time can be running a business, for examples, online business that sells digital products, network marketing, coins machines operated business, etc that generating multiple streams of passive incomes. In these instances, a business is not a job. It is a vehicle to wealth.

Then, probably, you will ask:
“How can I have the right Mindset, right Knowledge and running the right Vehicle at the right Time?”

Learn!

“Any Master Was Once A Disaster!”

Invest in ourselves and learn the right Mindset, acquire the right Knowledge and skills to operate the right Vehicle now!

With the latest technology and internet, our world is flatter now. Technology creates a “level playing field” in which previously marginalized people and countries can play a competitive role in the world economy. It has increased the risk of losing our traditionally “secured” jobs to others if we failed to maintain our competitiveness and equip ourselves with the right education and skills.

On the other hand, with the internet, we can now invest in our education and learn from the best any time any where. Other than the traditional offline resources such as books, attending seminars and courses (some might not be readily accessible to us due to the distance), we can also gain the right knowledge from internet, websites, blogs, ebooks, online seminars, audio, video, etc.

After wasted some time wondering around, I realize that it is either we learn from the best, or die like the rest (in the rat maze)!

Learning from the masters or gurus (who have been there, done that) is the short cut to success and the highest form of leverage. It saves us a fortune in time and money by leveraging on other’s people knowledge and learning.

Trust me. The best investment in our life is still US! (not United States!)

What we invest in self education will stay with us.

What we learn will stay with us.

What we deposit in our “minds” will stay with us.

Our knowledge will stay with us.

We can never know less.

At the same time, the investment in personal development will pay off quickly because we make decision everyday. Equip ourselves with the right mindset, knowledge and skills will help us to make the right decision which will affect our end result.

If you think investment in self education is expensive, try ignorance!

The World Is Flat And More Competitive. What's next?

The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century is a national bestseller book by Thomas Friedman. The title is a metaphor for viewing the world as flat in terms of commerce and competition where all competitors have an equal opportunity to compete and win.

In view of the globalization, people careers are in danger and sad to say that they still do now know it. Nobody is aware of this new inevitable trend that will negatively impact their career and their ability to protect and secure their financial future.

The world has changed. Everything has changed. Economy has changed to highly competitive environment globally. Technology has changed from time to time to improve and increase efficiency. Society has changed to much more fragmented and self centered. The workplace has changed in term of more information is required to process rapidly that an average worker might not be able to handle. This has resulted a much more demanding and pressurizing working environment.

Hence, calling all the rat racers! Time to take action planning out of rat race before your jobs are impacted. Even though you win the race, you are still a rat running around the highly competitive flat world.

In addition, with easy access to Internet and telephone connections has become a level playing field. This has added intense pressure to people at high cost locations whereby a job can now be done anywhere in the world, just as long as the person is qualified and connected.

Friedman tells us that 'There are 245,000 Indians answering phones from all over the world or dialing out to solicit people for credit cards or cellphone bargains or overdue bills.' These would constitute low-wage and low-prestige jobs in America, 'but when shifted to India they become high-way, high-prestige jobs'.

The world we live in is completely different from what it was 20 years ago. Changes are now taking place at a faster rate than ever before. Distances have shrunk, accessibility has increased, new territories have been discovered and jobs have been broken down into processes and anything that can be digitally transferred and worked on by the person who is the most efficient, fastest and cheapest without the constraint of boundary.

So, what is going on and threatening the security of our jobs?

What are the forces forcing us to leave the rat race?

The "story" of The World Is Flat begins with the 3 different phases of globalization from the days of Christopher Columbus to our present day which can be summarized as below:

Globalization 1.0
Start: 1492 (Columbus Discovered America)
End: 1800
Player: Country



Globalization 2.0
Start: 1800
Interrupted by:
- World War I (1914-1918)
- Great Depression (1929)
- World War II (1940-1945)
End: 2000

First Half of Globalization 2.0:
- Falling of Transportation Cost
- Steam Engine
- Rail Road

Second Half of Globalization 2.0:
- Falling of Telecommunication Cost
- Telegraph
- Telephone
- Personal Computer
- Fiber Optics
- World Wide Web

Player: Multinational Company



Globalization 3.0
Start: 2000
Player: Individual


The 3 eras of globalization started from Columbus's first journey in 1492 to around 1800 (Globalization 1.0), when the discoveries of new lands shrunk the world from large to medium; from 1800 to 2000 (Globalization 2.0), the era of industrialisation to the hegemony of the multinational which made the world small; and Globalization 3.0, the new, flat, tiny world where 'the creation of a global fibre-optic network has made us all next-door neighbours'.

The Globalization 1.0 dealt with countries, Globalization 2.0 with companies and Globalization 3.0, the last between individuals. It is the personalization and simplification of the Internet and telecommunication industries that has made the individual into a powerful entity regardless of the background whether he or she is back by any company or country.

The World Is Flattened #1: Fall of Berlin Wall (Nov 1989)
The collapse of the Berlin Wall broke through the symbolism of those promoting authoritarian rule with centrally planned economies such as the Soviet Union and led the way towards building democratic, consensual and free-market governments. The event not only signifying the victory of capitalism and end of the Cold War era, it allowed people from other side of the wall to join the economic mainstream and “allowed us to think about the world differently - to see it as a seamless whole” and ” think about the world as a single market, a single ecosystem, and a single community.”

The World Is Flattened #2: Netscape (1995)
The invention of Netscape Internet browser has dramatically increased the universal sharing of information. Prior to the invention of Netscape browser, only geeks and software engineers were able to navigate through the complicated procedures of the Internet. Netscape browser made the Internet user friendly and accessible to the common user from 5 year olds to 85 year olds to communicate from anywhere using any type of system.

The World Is Flattened #3: Workflow Software
The development of Free workflow software such as Outlook, Ebay, Paypal, allowed people from around the world to collaborate and connect together on projects and conduct commerce from remote locations using a shared medium. By connecting applications to applications, we could now manipulate digitized content and send it to someone across the world through the Internet. Work Flow software enabled us to utilize the best talent available regardless of physical location.

Friedman believes these first three forces have become a “crude foundation of a whole new global platform for collaboration.”

The World Is Flattened #4: Open Sourcing
Open Sourcing was a global movement where there was free access to software, web hosting, blogs, encyclopedias and numerous other tools. This enabled software engineers, students, professors or anyone else to contribute to the innovative and creative growth of Internet applications. Open sourcing has forged a culture of information-sharing that has dramatically reduced costs. Friedman considers the phenomenon "the most disruptive force of all."

The World Is Flattened #5: Outsourcing
Outsourcing started during Y2K crisis, when Indian software professionals were required to do an intensive code review that no one else had the manpower to conduct. Since then, outsourcing of off-site services such as call centers support, has branched out into countless forms of business and attracted a lot of press.
Friedman argues that outsourcing has allowed companies to split service and manufacturing activities into components, with each component performed in most efficient and cost-effective way.

The World Is Flattened #6: Offshoring
When China joined the World Trade Organization in December 2001, foreign companies were assured that standard business practices would be followed under international law. This worked to flatten the world as it attracted relocation of factories to China. Hence, offshoring is the manufacturing's version of outsourcing whereby the Chinese manufacturing sector has forced other developing countries to try to keep up with their low cost solutions, resulting in better quality and cheaper products being produced worldwide.

The World Is Flattened #7: Supply chaining
Supply chaining means using the new Information Technology tools to track purchases, reduce inventories, and streamline distribution of goods. Friedman uses Wal-Mart as the best example of a company using technology to streamline item sales, distribution and shipping. Wal-Mart has proved that it no longer matters where you are located in this flat world. Only how well you do your business and deliver your company goals which are much more important.

The World Is Flattened #8: Insourcing
Insourcing means the importation of one company’s workers into another in order to perform specialized tasks more efficiently. Insourcing is a new form of creating value horizontally, which has been made possible by a flat world. Smaller companies are able to compete with the larger ones in a flat world by taking care of processes that are closely related to their core competency.
Friedman uses UPS as a prime example for insourcing, in which the company's employees perform services--beyond shipping--for another company. For example, UPS repairs Toshiba computers on behalf of Toshiba. The work is done at the UPS hub by UPS employees.

The World Is Flattened #9: In-forming
Access to information is the greatest equalizer in a flat world. Anyone with an Internet connection has the ability to find information on the web now. Internet search engines like Google, Yahoo! and MSN Search can provide almost any information to anybody anywhere in the world. "Never before in the history of the planet have so many people-on their own-had the ability to find so much information about so many things and about so many other people", writes Friedman.

The World Is Flattened #10: "The Steroids"
Personal digital handheld devices and wireless communication such as mobile phones, ipods, Personal Digital Assistants (PDA), instant messaging, wifi systems and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) are connecting people with other people, with companies and flattening the world with greater speed than ever before.


The Triple Convergence

In addition to the 10 flatteners, Friedman adds another 3 components, "the triple convergence," that acted on the flatteners to create a new and flatter global playing field.


The World Is Flat Convergence #1: Converged Flatteners
Up until the year 2003, the 10 flatteners were semi-independent from one another. However, around the year 2003, all the flatteners converged with one another. This convergence could be compared to complementary goods (e.g. paper and pencil), in that each flattener enhanced the other flatteners; the more one flattener developed, the more leveled the global playing field became.

The World Is Flat Convergence #2: New Business Platform
After the emergence of the 10 flatteners, a new business model was required to succeed. Instead of collaborating vertically (the top-down method of collaboration, where innovation comes from the top), businesses needed to begin collaborating horizontally. Horizontalization means companies and people collaborate with other departments or companies to add value creation or innovation. Friedman's Convergence 2 occurs when horizontalization and the 10 flatteners begin to reinforce each other.

The World Is Flat Convergence #3: Emerging Regions
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, countries that had followed the Soviet economic model—including India, China, Russia, and the nations of Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Central Asia—began to open up their economies to the world. When these new players converged with the rest of the globalized marketplace, they added new brain power to the whole playing field and enhanced horizontal collaboration across the globe. In turn, Convergence 3 is the most important force shaping politics and economics in the early 21st century.

Last but not least, wealth and power will increasingly accrue to those countries, companies, individuals and groups who get three basic things right:
1. The infrastructure to connect to this flat world platform;
2. The education to get more of their people innovating on,
working off of, and tapping into this platform; and
3. The governance to get the best out of this platform and cushion its worst side effect.

In the nutshell, technological advancement is creating a "level playing field" in which previously marginalized people and countries can play a competitive role in the world economy. Hence, we need to continue to learn and improve ourselves to stay ahead and be competitive in this flat world. Personal development and self improvement are key to success.

If you do not know whether to start with, I would highly recommend SkyQuestCom.com as the tool to future success and achieve financial freedom. It has changed my life and I hope it helps to change yours too.

Time and Money

Today, I read something very interesting about time and money. It is definitely worth while to post it here to share with my dear friends for you to think about the questions in your life:

Time and Money?

Generally, there are 4 categories of people in the world:

(1) No time, and no money.
Most employees or rat racers fall into this category. You are trading your time with money and can’t go vacation whenever you like before somebody approval or fire your boss whenever you like. Most employees can’t even save enough money in their pension to last 3 years! What a sad and terrified news to hear...

(2) No time, lots of money.
Self-employed, professionals and small business owners are in this category.
They are slightly better off than the rat racers because they earn more, but they
have to work even harder than employees to keep up with the diminishing profit margins, competition and servicing their customers.

(3) Got time, no money.
A lot of farmers, villagers, college dropouts or bums have lots of time but no
money. Maybe ignorance is bliss, but without a stable source of income, how
long can you last many days forward?

(4) Got time, and lots of money.
It is the category that big business owners, landlords, investors are in. Imagine,
not having to work for money, but having money to work for you by investing
them and earning profits by using your money to make money.

Questions for you:

1. Which one of the four categories are you currently in?

2. Which one category do you desire to be in tomorrow?


Have you ever thought of working on yourself to be in the 4th category - Got time and lots of money? I am sure that's your dream too.

Probably, it is time for you to start investing in yourself to learn how to let money working hard for you instead of the other way round...

Rat Racers, What's Your Financial Future?

Naturally, most if not all of us want and crave for something better. It is all part of us if we want a bigger car, a better house, buying good things for the family.

We keep hoping for more, however, we don't understand that in order to get what we don’t have, we must do something that we have never done before.

That simply means:
Doing the same thing over and over again YET expecting different results!

For those who stucked in the rat race, you can’t stay at the same job forever and hope that a miracle will happen and your boss will suddenly give you a raise. You will be lucky that there is no downsizing in your company especially when US is in recession and facing huge challenge from surge in oil price and inflation. Switching to another company will only provide a short term solution to a long term problem. That's not really doing something different because you are still stucked in the rat maze looking for your cheese.

Sure, you can take up a second or even third job, but do you have enough hours and stamina in a day to sustain it?

The bottom-line: Trading time for money isn’t wise financial sense in the long term. You keep on increasing the hours just to win the rat race, but in the end of the day, you are still a rat on the mill! It is just like, even though you win the race, YOU ARE STILL A RAT!

Increasing your wages only puts you in a higher tax bracket. Your salaries increase, so does your expenses on your house and car.

How can you invest in yourself when all the time you spend working for a company, working for the government paying taxes and working for the bank paying off your house and car?

What if you fall sick and can’t work tomorrow?

Will the government take care of your family?

I highly doubt so.

So, it is time to take care of your finances seriously.

Something for you to ponder and plan for your future...

Financial Freedom?

People Careers Are In Danger, Yet, They Are Still Unaware Of The Danger!

In view of the globalization, people careers are in danger and sad to say that they still do now know it. Nobody is aware of this new inevitable trend that will negatively impact their career and their ability to protect and secure their financial future.

The world has changed. Everything has changed. Economy has changed to highly competitive environment globally. Technology has changed from time to time to improve and increase efficiency. Society has changed to much more fragmented and self centered. The workplace has changed in term of more information is required to process rapidly that an average worker might not be able to handle. This has resulted a much more demanding and pressurizing working environment.

Hence, calling all the rat racers! Time to take action and plan running out of rat race before your jobs are impacted. Even though you win the race, you are still a rat running around the highly competitive flat world.

In addition, with easy access to Internet and telephone connections has become a level playing field. This has added intense pressure to people at high cost locations whereby a job can now be done anywhere in the world, just as long as the person is qualified and connected.

Thomas Friedman tells us that 'There are 245,000 Indians answering phones from all over the world or dialing out to solicit people for credit cards or cellphone bargains or overdue bills.' These would constitute low-wage and low-prestige jobs in America, 'but when shifted to India they become high-way, high-prestige jobs'.

The world we live in is completely different from what it was 20 years ago. Changes are now taking place at a faster rate than ever before. Distances have shrunk, accessibility has increased, new territories have been discovered and jobs have been broken down into processes and anything that can be digitally transferred and worked on by the person who is the most efficient, fastest and cheapest without the constraint of boundary.

So, what is going on and threatening the security of our jobs?

What are the forces forcing us to leave the rat race?

Click here to find out more...

5 Tricks To Achieve Financial Freedom Through Real Estate

With the subprime mortgage crisis and a sharp rise in home foreclosures in the United States. Have you ever thought of this might be the opportunity to retire early and wealthy?

Traditionally, real estate investing is one of the most attractive ways of making money and retire wealthy (that is if you do it correct). There are a lot of people practice real estate investing as their core profession and, in fact, make a lot of money through real estate.

Real estate investing is really an art and, like any art, it takes time to master the art of real estate investing. The key, of course, is to buy at a lower price and sell at higher price and make a profit even after paying all the costs involved in the two (buy/sell) transactions. Generally, people are of the opinion that real estate investing makes sense only when the rates are on the rise. However, real estate investing for profits is possible just about any time (and as I just said, real estate investing is an art).

Here is a list of tricks that can make real estate investing profitable for you:

1) Look for public auctions, divorce settlements and foreclosures (like now during the subprime mortgage crisis): Since quick settlement is the preference here (and not price), you might get a property at a price that is much lower than the prevailing market rate. You can then make arrangements to sell it at the market rate over a short period of time. However, make sure that the property is worth the price you are paying.

2) Looking for old listings: The old listings that are still unsold may provide you with good real estate investing opportunities. Just get hold of an old newspaper and call up the sellers. They might have given up hope of selling that property at all and with a bit of negotiation you can get the property for a real low price.

3) The hidden treasure: A really old (and dirty) looking house may scare off buyers. But this might be your chance for real estate investing that can yield good profits. So, explore such properties and check if spending a bit on them can make them shine. You can get these at very low prices and make a big profit in a short time.

4) Team up with attorneys: There are a number of attorneys who handle property sales on behalf of sellers or in special circumstances (like the death of the property owner). They might sometimes be looking to dispose off the property rather quickly and hence at a low price. Be the first one to grab such real estate investing opportunities and enjoy the profits.

5) Keep track on the newspaper announcements: Property sell offs due to deaths, divorce settlements, immediate cash requirements and other reason are frequently announced in local papers. Keep track of such real estate investing avenues.

Financial Freedom Day For Us

The day you become financially free and independent, will be the financial freedom day for you. It will be the day, about which you have always dream of. It will be the day when you can do whatever your heart says, without calculating the pros and cons of it. Understandably, it will be the biggest day of your life and each day before it will be an exciting journey towards your dream destination.

For most of us, there is a gap between our current financial condition (financial baseline) and the desired one (financial freedom day).

Impulsive, unplanned steps will never bridge this gap. To reach your long-term goal successfully, you would need to chalk out a clear and result-oriented plan.

It always helps to have specific, measurable targets to reach a financial goal. Making concise and no-nonsense plans will help you know what you exactly want and so decide how you want to achieve.

To reach the final destination of your journey, your plan will work like a road map, directing you at every step and helping you when you go wrong. By being able to identify your mistakes, you would better know how to overcome them yourself. Clear, measurable targets will even make it easier to figure out how far you have come and how much more you need to go.

Try and answer the following question at the beginning of your journey:

How much money do you need every month?
What should the total value of your assets?
At what age do you want the above?
What day, month and year will it be then?

Most of us get scared by the very idea of having to deal with numbers. But don't be daunted by numbers. In this case quantitative goals will help you in monitoring.

Set practical goals in the beginning and start working on them. Always keep them flexible, so that you can change them if need be. You will be able to make adjustments according to what suits your needs, as you start understanding them slowly.

People, who have the passion to make money, do not simply want to become 'rich'. They want to earn money because for them money is not the means to an end, not the end itself. It enables them to do whatever they have always wanted to do. Money is also the result of something higher - that is their will to work hard and nurture higher thoughts of life.

Rich people always use their money in several noble ways like setting up foundations trusts and corporate bodies. They don't ever stop at the money making venture, but come up with ever new ways and means to increase their income. Most rich people make investments in stocks, real estate, and art and antiques etc. They always have new horizons to look forward to. They never stop dreaming about making more and more money.

Even you can set your own goals right away. A little foresight and planning will help you achieve your financial freedom. Make a checklist of the following attributes when you set up your targets:

1. They should be specific

Make an extensive plan as to how you want to achieve your financial independence. state specific facts and figures so that you exactly know what to do and how to do it.

2. They should be measurable

Mention dates and amounts in dollars to monitor your rate of success. Put down in numbers, the amount of business that you managed to do and the money that you have made, in dollars.

3. They should be achievable

Set goals that you will be able to achieve. Also put down what you will need to achieve them.

4. They should be realistic

Make the most of your resources. Pick out someone who has already reached his financial goal. Ask for his advice as to how he managed to complete his task. He will point out your mistakes more effectively.

5. They should be timely

Set deadlines for yourself. A fixed time frame will provide you the required motivation to achieve your financial freedom.

Financial Freedom?! All In Our Minds!

Financial freedom is a much talked about issue of our times. Millions of people are on the lookout for financial freedom. What is real financial freedom? Can we really get it or is it just a theoretical idea?

Well, you would be wrong if you thought that I am going to tell you about how to make more money. What I am going to tell you may not be about making money at all.

It's all in the mind

The essential idea of financial freedom is not about money-making in the least. The idea of financial freedom is all in the mind. It is your attitude towards the amount of money you have. Some people are very happy with little money and some are not, even with loads of it.

Money may buy you the ingredients of a happy life, but it cannot buy you happiness, for sure. It may buy you a house, but not the attribute that go behind making a house a house. Sounds complicated? Well it is not. If I were you, I would not only set a financial goal, but also see that what good it is doing to me.

Do your own thing

For some people it is a bad idea to earn more money or even save it, for that matter.

Some others feel that it is not proper to be spending on oneself or even give out money on charity. What I feel is there isn't a hard and fast rule to these things. Financial freedom is ideally the freedom of the mind, the freedom to make one's own choices. I would put here one of my favorite Charles Wesley quotes to make it clearer to you - "Earn all you can, save all you can, give all you can". Well, that's what I call financial freedom.

Avoid "bad" debts

I would share with you another secret of gaining financial freedom - always stay out of debt. It hampers your financial freedom the most. When you borrow money, your lender obtains the freedom of it and you lose it. Most people fail to realize this. I did not want to get into debt, so I drove an old car. Even though it wasn't quite a looker, it saved me from running into debts. I consider myself financially free because apart from my house loan, I have no other debt to repay.

Be patient

Always wait a while before fulfilling your desires. We buy things in a hurry, thinking it will make us happy, but in this way we put ourselves into financial constraints which only make us unhappier in the long run. Rather if we wait for something, till we can actually afford it, which will bring us more pleasure. Because there will be no financial problems to handle after that.

Get organized

Better management is another watchword to financial freedom. Most of us earn enough to sustain ourselves. So the best way to go about it is setting up a personal budget. This will be more disciplined as far as expenses are concerned. At the end you will find you have money left even to indulge in little things that you always wanted to do.

Take out time to think about your mental set up towards the idea of money. All you might need is to change your thinking a bit and you never know - it may show you the path to real financial freedom!

The Dummies Guide To Financial Freedom -Dedicated to help you make money online and achieve financial freedom online.


Feed Shark

Financial Freedom For All

Have you been living for the day and been happy about it? Do you think that someday you will pay down your loans and make it all even? Or the plans of early retirement are a far cry for you?

Well, if you think that everything will turn out to be fine for you, by God's grace, I am afraid you are wrong my friend. If you've always wanted to make it big someday, you have to work on it from today! It is not one of those things that happen on its own.

If you thought that for millionaires it just happened one fine day, like a miracle, you are wrong again.

People, who made it big, had their financial goals set from before. They had to work their way to it. They did not just get lucky suddenly. They did it on their own.

The first step towards achieving financial freedom is fixing up the day when you plan to reach your financial freedom. Let us call it the financial freedom day. This will give you the ability to have a foresight.

Your financial future

Your foresight will help you figure out what you may expect in your near future. Always remember, that unless you have a fixed vision in mind, you will not know what to do next. People without vision sail aimlessly like a ship that has no rudders to it, towards the desired destination.

Your visions should have the following attributes to keep you moving. They should be:

-Interesting enough to trigger your action
-Within the limits of reality, so that you can achieve them
-Ethical enough so that you don't have to give up your values
-And along with all these you should also be able to think limitlessly. You should never think that you may fail in your attempt.

Your financial freedom day

There will be a day when you reach your financial freedom-lets call it your financial freedom day. It will help you set your future goals, if you decide your own financial freedom day. The three things that you need to figure out before setting your day are:

-Interesting enough to trigger your action
-Your monthly income
-The net value of your assets like investments, stocks, real estate etc.
-The particular day, month and year, when you intend to be financially free.

If you are writing these down in numbers, I can well understand that this is getting a little daunting for you. It would have been different if you would have had an income of $30,000 a month and a net value of $3 million at 50 years of age. But when you are 40 years old with a current cash flow of $35,000 and $20,000 in debt, then it would seem a little difficult.

However, don't worry. If you decide on the following five things beforehand, the gap between the present and future would become easy to bridge-

-Your current financial status
-Your financial goals
-People who will help you reach your goals
-Financial activities or steps that you will take
-Your mental set up or level of motivation

Take small steps at a time. Don't rush things in the beginning. Take the help of a guide if need be.

Little failures that come in your way should not daunt you. Treat them as lessons that will help you reach your goal. I can assure you that with the right kind of knowledge, motivation and action, the big day of your financial freedom is not far away.

What Does Financial Freedom Mean To You?

Well, different people may interpret the idea of financial freedom differently. Whatever it may be, rest assured that we all want it badly. Most working people dream of it, but have they ever given it an in-depth thought? Perhaps not. It will do you good to give some time to figure out what it really is, because it is difficult to pursue something unless you know what it really is.

Consider this - you may pay someone to do a work for you. It may be mowing a lawn or doing a research. In any case you would be saving time for yourself. So that means money can buy time and vice versa. So time and money are inversely related to each other.

So if the above case may be true, then financial freedom in the real sense would mean an end of trading money for time. You would not have to exchange the value of money for your time anymore. That implies you would have the freedom to do anything under the sun. Sounds utopian? But it's true - real financial freedom will enable you with the power of doing whatever you want.

However, some people may choose to work even after they have reached a stage of financial freedom. A person may continue to work if he doesn't need to or may even switch over to a better job. A man may have adequate money but he may want to continue with his own business. Now that's a matter of individual choice. For these people it isn't essential to be free from trading their time for money.

Financial freedom is also dependant on the level of a person's ambition. Someone may be happy with a modest standard of living while someone else may want to live a lavish life and continuously upgrade his present status. For the first kind of people, it is easier to find financial freedom.

However, financial freedom isn't attained unless you are capable of making money without giving your time to it. You may reach a certain level of income to gain financial freedom. It may be through a business or an investment or both. If you can make money even without trading your time for it, you've reached the goal of financial freedom.

And lastly, financial freedom is a lot about one's personal choice. It is about how much you can control yourself into accepting things. Learn to make your own choices and don't be bogged down by situational pressures. The day you would be able to do that, you would have achieved complete financial freedom.

The Dummies Guide To Financial Freedom -Dedicated to help you make money online and achieve financial freedom online.

9 Steps To Financial Freedom

You might have read Suze Orman's "The 9 Steps To Financial Freedom" which outlines how you can achieve financial freedom by following nine principles that revolve around exploring peoples attitudes towards money, educating them to save money and how to manage their finances, then finally, showing them how to invest their money for the future.

This has been one of the favourite books on the subject of creating wealth. However, in today's fast paced world, I also feel that a more practical and hands-on approach is necessary in helping people to achieve financial freedom.

Therefore, I have outlined a 9 step plan of my own that will help you attain financial freedom as follows:

1. Take a full inventory of your income and expenses
Take a blank sheet of paper and on the left hand side of the page write down all your monthly out-goings. Once you've done that move to the right hand side of the page and write down your monthly income. The difference between your total monthly income and your total monthly expenditure will determine how quickly you achieve financial freedom.

2. Control your spending habits by creating a budget and sticking to it
Create a budget by examining your monthly out-goings and determine how much money you really need to pay all your bills and cover your monthly expenses. Also, stop purchasing goods using your credit cards and pay for goods using money that you have in the bank. If you don't have the money, then don't make the purchase. The only exception to this rule would be for larger purchases, cases where it would be simply impractical to pay by cash. In those cases, make sure you submit an additional payment along with your usual monthly repayment to cover the cost of any large purchases.

3. Look at immediate ways to reduce your expenditure
There are many ways that you can start saving money. For a start I'm sure that you can save hundreds of dollars by switching to cheaper suppliers for your household utilities. Another easy way to save money is to transfer any outstanding credit card balances to 0% credit cards (or low interest rate alternatives).

4. Look at immediate ways of increasing your income
The simplest ways of making more money is working harder or working longer hours. Volunteer to work weekends or put in a few extra hours during the week if you have to. Perhaps you can get a part-time job working on the weekends at a local store. You might also be able to supplement your income by doing various odd jobs (e.g. providing tuition to local school kids on the weekend).

5. Pay off any debts and loans as soon as you can
You are always going to struggle to achieve financial freedom if you are up to your neck in debt. The first thing you need to do when you start making any extra money is to pay off your existing loans and debts. Take a look at how much you are paying on credit card payments and loan repayments per month. Does it make sense taking out one larger but cheaper loan to repay all your existing debts? Can you pay off all your loans any sooner by doing so?

6. Get independent financial advice and create a long-term investment plan
Once you've started controlling your expenses and have some money left in your bank account at the end of the month, then I strongly advise you to get independent financial advice on managing your money. Create a long-term investment plan so that you are investing your hard-earned money into savings, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, investment plans (there may be certain tax-free plans that you can take advantage of depending on which country you happen to be living in).

7. Create additional income streams
Look at other ways of making money both offline and online. You might consider investing in a low-cost home business of your own. Additionally, there are many ways that you can start making money online. One of the easiest ways is to start your own online business is by selling goods on eBay. To learn several other profitable and effective ways to make money online, subscribe to the Dummies Guide To Financial Freedom newsletter.

8. Use other people's money to purchase long-term assets
If you analyse how wealthy people have accumulated their wealth you'll notice that the majority of the richest people in the world have made their money in real-estate (property), and they used just a fraction of their own money to do so. If you don't already own your own home, I strongly suggest that you plan to do so as soon as possible. You only have to put down a small percentage of the money as a deposit (in some case no money at all) and use the bank's money to purchase your home.

9. Re-invest surplus income into your long-term investment plan
The secret to achieving financial freedom is to invest your money and build up your own portfolio of long-term assets (such as stocks, bonds, mutual funds and real-estate) which will provide you with an income in years. Eventually, the income you earn from your assets will be far greater than the salary that you're earning from your 9 to 5, and you will never have to work again.

That concludes my 9 steps to financial freedom. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this simple yet effective plan to achieve financial freedom.

The Dummies Guide To Financial Freedom -Dedicated to help you make money online and achieve financial freedom online.

Financial Freedom and Self Improvement go hand in hand

Financial freedom and self improvement go hand in hand to achieve success in life.

How do a person know whether they need to continue learning and growing themselves?

This is a question with no definite answer.

It will all depend on the individual.

Many people have goals, dreams or ambitions but do not know how to go about achieving them. They may have thought about what would self improvement can help them to achieve their ideal life or financial freedom. However, they have no idea how to even begin to make the plans and take the actions required to make them a reality.

Some people have a vague idea on how to go about self improvement. These are the ones that believe that if only they had a better job, or had been given better opportunities, or met the love of their life, or whatever else, everything would be fine and they would be happy.

They feel that their happiness or lack of happiness is decided by external factors and their thoughts and actions are of little consequence.

Some believe that if only they had more money they could have whatever they want and be on their way to self improvement.

They may have spent little time thinking about what they actually want from life, and do not really believe there is anything they can do to create their fuzzy version of utopia anyway, apart from buying more lottery tickets.

There is another group who does not even know what they actually want from their lives and may even have little idea what would really makes them happy. They seem to just drift from day to day, week to week, month to month, and year to year, and do little more than just about get by.

Those who stuck in the rat race may have seemingly secure jobs and be earning enough to live relatively comfortable lives. They may seem happy enough and have no great ambition to achieve anything more from their lives than they currently have.

So, is self improvement really important?

The reality is that throughout our lives we are all constantly growing and developing. If we are not learning and growing everyday, we are dying.
Circumstances make us grow and develop, even if we do not make the conscious decision to do so. Up to a certain age, we learn through formal education and we continue to learn through our experiences for the rest of our lives. We have to learn and grow to deal with everything that life throws at us. We all have to go through self improvement.

Modern life moves at a dramatically faster pace than at anytime in history. For anyone living in modern society there are more opportunities to do anything that you want to do with your life than ever before.

However, there is also more competition than ever before, and ever changing technology means that there really are few, if any ‘jobs for life’ anymore.

It is now normal not only to change jobs quite often throughout our working lives, but even to completely change careers and industries.

Because the workplace is so competitive, people who are ambitious and hungry for success know they need to learn new skills and knowledge to keep ahead of the pack.

To attain this, self improvement is critical and needed.

These are the people that will be most likely to keep their jobs, or progress within their chosen field, or that will be readily employable in different organizations or industries.

A commitment to self improvement and personal growth may well be the deciding factor in achieving success in life be it financial or time success.

I have gone through this whole thought process. Procastinate. Wasting time. Stuck at the junction and do not know where to head to...

Don't wait any longer if there is an amazing tool that can accelerate our self improvement process by learning from the world experts and gurus at our comfort any time any where. Your goal is to learn and grow the most in the shortest period of time.

What is stopping you from growing?

What is stopping you from achieving what you want?
Nothing except you...

This tool has helped me a lot to keep learning and improving myself and get out of rat race and I hope you can benefit from it too.

"SkyQuestCom is one of the best resources in the world today to help you learn the skills you need to be successful." ~ Brian Tracy

SkyQuestCom Helps Me To Be A Winner In Life

We all have the ability to make decisions that will determine the ultimate destiny and purpose in life! Before we can do it, we need to know what is our purpose in life. What do we want to achieve in life?

The No.1 reason why most people don't achieve what they want because they do not know what they want.

For me, I want to achieve financial freedom that will free up most of my time to help and add value to others life. I don't want to stuck in the rat race and selling my soul to the 9 to 5 job. I want to be a winner in life.

What is a winner in life then?

In fact, there is a very thin line between a Winner or Loser.

Just like the Olympic Games, we could win a Gold Medal by beating our competitors by the tiniest one thousandth of a second!

When we compare life to the Olympics, it is the same. We need to always maintain a "Winner's Mindset" in order to attain our purpose in life!

Below is a comparison of Winners vs. Losers' mindset:

Winners are always part of the answers;
Losers are always part of the problems.

Winners always have programs;
Losers always have excuses.

Winners say, "Let me do it for you";
Losers say, "That's not my job."

Winners see an answer for every problem;
Losers see a problem for every answer.

Winners see a green near every sand trap;
Losers see two or three sand traps near every green.

Winners say, "It may be difficult, but it's possible;
Losers say, "It may be possible, but it's too difficult."

Are you a winner or loser?

BE A WINNER!!!

We need to make a conscious decision to be a Winner and always
maintain a Winner's mindset in order to win the Gold Medal in OUR life! Just
like Olympian athletes, we need to train ourselves each and EVERYDAY
CONSISTENTLY to win our Gold Medal!

The ultimate sure fire training method is to continually feed our mind with world class mentality and motivational nourishment.

Everyday, I feed my mind with winner's mindset and mentality by watching at least one video seminar of world class gurus like Robert Kiyosaki, Jay Abraham, T Harv Eker, Blair Singer, Joe Girard, Robert G Allen, Brian Tracy, Dr Dolf De Roos and lots more.

All these positive energy from world experts are available any time any where as long as there is internet connection. Thanks to SkyQuestCom. SkyQuestCom has been a great inspirational and personal development tool to help me getting out of rat race and achieve financial freedom faster...

It is definitely one of the greatest decision and investment that I have invested to grow myself.

I am glad that I have been learning and growing everyday...if not, I am dying!

How about you? Don't wait. Make your decision now...

What do you want in life?

Relevant Squidoo for more info:
http://www.squidoo.com/how-to-escape-rat-race

Tips#10 Escape Rat Race For Good

Tips#10 Grab the right timing

I still remember what my first millionaire mentor taught me on how critical it is to take advantage of timing. When you understand this strategy you will be able to quickly narrow down all of the potential business opportunities out there to just a few.

The fast track to escaping the rat race is to take advantage of perfect timing!

Coincidentally, one of the common key to incredible success of all my mentors is taking advantage of timing when opportunities lie in front of us!

They also explain and highlight to me that their success was mostly due to the fact that they get the right timing was perfect.

So, the key to accelerate our success is to look for an opportunity in which we can take advantage of perfect timing.

For instance, those who grab the opportunity and go into the business when the business is building its foundation, most of the time, they achieve rapid success. If we are fortunate enough to recognise a brilliant opportunity during its foundation stage, we can take advantage of timing.

When we are positioned in the foundation of a business, we will be there when it goes into hyper growth. Those who are involved in the foundation of a company usually enjoy the benefits of hyper growth. Hyper growth is where true wealth is created.

Now, I am not saying you can’t be successful by joining a more mature company, but it is certainly easier to get there during the foundation period.

So, do as my mentors did and position ourselves in front of a business or
industry that is about to go into hyper growth.

We can definitely accelerate our success easier by taking advantage of perfect timing!

Tips#9 Escape Rat Race For Good

Tips#9 Stay Focus.

Once we have found the right opportunity and made a positive decision to get involved then we must focus all of our efforts in the right manner.

One of the key reasons that people fail to create a successful
home based business is that they fail to focus all of their efforts
in a laser like manner.

They become easily distracted by everything else that is going on in their life. Every new business opportunity that comes along they join and then do
nothing.

If we want to be successful and live our dream lifestyle, we must learn to stay focus like a laser.

What do we want to focus on then?

We could easily focus on what many other people do and focus on the things that is not critical or do not carry any impact to our success like …

- The product was delivered a day late or somebody was terribly late
- Someone said no or reject the request
- We fail to make a million dollars in our first week

… but the question is ‘Is this the most important thing for us to focus on to achieve success?’

Of course NOT!

We must focus on critical areas in our new business that will lead us to
success.

Yes, there are always going to be things that go wrong.

Yes, there are always going to be negatives if we look for them or find fault with them.

Unless we learn to stay focus on what is most important to us in achieving our success and financial freedom, we are destined to immerse ourselves in those things that lead to failure or perpetually stucked in rat race.

Last but not least, just focus all of our efforts on areas that will lead us to success!