How To Be The Best You Can Be Everyday
The Danger of Success
I love using Pat as an example, because she is so extreme and has more money than common sense. She had a variety of income sources whilst I knew her.
Hairdressing Salon
Rooms sub-let for massage and hair removal.
A whole floor sub-let to a beauty salon.
50% share in a nursery producing bedding and Christmas plants.
Bred Lhasa Apsos which Buddist Monks used as guard dogs and bed warmers.
A seaside cottage rented out
2 large 6 bedroomed H.M.O,s (Flats and bed-sits.)
This is what I can remember, I am sure there was more but it is now 20 years ago. Having more than one source of your income is good, however, get one right and working and you can use that model to develop others.
Is This Crazy?
One day, over lunch, she asked me if I would accompany her to the bank, she wanted to withdraw some cash and was a little nervous walking around with a lot of it on her person. After assuring her my Tai Chi skills were inadequate for body guarding, she mentioned a large amount of cash she wanted me to help her carry it. I imagined lots of coins and notes for a float in the hairdresser’s. How wrong can you be?
We arrived at the first bank, (yes first,) and she withdrew £10,000. My jaw dropped when she said that was only the first call. At the next bank she withdrew enough money to buy a 6 bedroomed detached house, in a prominent part of the city. We look the cash to the current owner and Pat did the deal with a solicitor present. She had bought a large house for cash.
The Bad Side
Now, my point is this; Pat had plenty of money and a sizeable income. She also had problems moving cash, collecting debts and rents. She had savings accounts in at least 7 banks and a lot of cash in a floor safe at home. Her maths was rubbish and she hated paying taxes. Being wealthy does not solve problems; it just changes the problems you have to deal with. People who are very, very rich often do not know who to trust. When you are rich, everyone is your friend. Everyone wants a part of the money you have earned. You end up only mixing with other neurotic rich people. People with crazy money-making schemes will want you to use your money to invest in them.
The Good Side
You can choose where you live, where you go on holiday and what kind of plane you fly in. You will no longer buy those overpriced lottery tickets each week and nervously double check your numbers. You can afford to pay for good professional advice when you want to invest in a business or project. You will no longer worry about the price of petrol, clothes, laptops etc. Those worries will go.
Prepare Yourself for Success
My advice is for you to prepare yourself for success and imagine what it would be like to have a steady stream of money coming in. Make decisions about how you will manage it. Where will you put your money? Cash depreciates and so you need a return on your savings which will keep the value of your money. (See “Depreciation.)
Depreciation
Money loses its buying power over time. As prices rise, the £ or $ in your pocket buys less. That is depreciation. To keep the value of your savings, you need to get an interest on it which is as high (or higher) than depreciation.
Some people buy bonds, some buy stocks and shares, gold or antiques. Some people invest in businesses or property. Some things give a higher return of interest and are usually riskier.
Part of your planning your future should include how much you are going to spend on holidays, homes, cars or your personal dreams. How much will you protect your savings from losing value or being taxed?
Tax and Pat
Of course, it had to happen eventually. Pat was summoned to the Inland Revenue and got away with a fine and a modest tax repayment. (She had a very good accountant by now.) She pleaded poverty and turned up in a brand new canary yellow sports car, which she had just bought for cash. She was lucky. I do not recommend this way of behaving and I hope you, my readers have more common sense than that.
Magic
So you can think, then plan, then find problems as much as it makes you feel comfortable. In the end, if things are going to change and you are going to succeed in a new venture, you have to take action and go to “Do!” The magic is that you will quickly get used to what you are doing. It will become familiar, comfortable and a lot easier.
The real magic is inside our brains and how we can learn, year after year. We can absorb new things, simple and complicated, whilst we do them and practice them. Can you ride a bike or drive a car? Remember how complicated that was in the beginning? How easy it is now. Remember tying a shoelace for the first time, or spreading butter on bread? How easy is it now? I have not even started talking about computers. Since you are reading this, you must have learnt how to use a computer. That is the magic of our brains.
Pat never considered failing, yet she failed many times. She always believed completely in her ideas.
Risks
Yes everything you do has risks attached. Keep your risks to a minimum and your profits at a maximum. Study your business and learn from experts, those who are good at it. Everything in life has a risk of some kind. Life is about facing those risks and finding your threshold; the point where you feel really uncomfortable with that level of risk. Some people enjoy the thrill of taking big risks for big returns.
Comfort Zones
Most people like to stay inside their comfort zones and never move out. Life sometimes throws us a curved ball and we get nudged out of our comfort zone. It is possible to gradually move out into unknown territory and become accustomed to the new comfort zone, to grow as a person and take on new things. After all, at one point in our lives we had no comfort zones. We tried everything as a baby, even putting caterpillars in our mouths. Comfort zones are flexible if we stretch them from time to time. Big leaps are difficult.
Get it Wrong
Everyone makes mistakes. That is how we learn new things. If you get it wrong, ask advice, take the advice and change your strategy. Remember to keep “doing.”
If you always get things right without a struggle, life can be boring and you will never learn anything new. The most successful people have failed many times before they succeeded.
Give yourself some time to imagine your success and what changes it will make in your life. This will give you much stronger will-power to press on and achieve your intentions. Every time you get things wrong, regard it as a lesson in what to avoid or do differently.
Power of intention
Pat always intended to be rich, drive a yellow sports car and live abroad. She knew what she wanted and thought about it a lot. She got a lot of things wrong and a few things right.
Please do not follow her methods, simply remember that even if you are not a genius, if you keep doing things, eventually you will get it right, as long as you change your strategy. Despite all Pat’s disadvantages, she kept doing, kept taking action and as far as I know she is still doing it that way.
Confidence
The magic of small successes is that you become more confident and can upgrade your goals as your confidence grows. To achieve small successes, you need to take actions, even small ones. Actually, it is our natural way to learn; to move slowly into new areas of life, test them out then practice and repeat.
A Wish
We can only succeed if we know what we want; otherwise we can only succeed at failing.
What happens is that we are drawn towards what we think about. Something deep in our unconscious works away to give us that. We need dreams and wishes because that gives us Hope. There is an old song “Happy Talk” from the Film / Show, “South Pacific:” “You gotta have a dream, if you don’t have a dream, How you gonna have a dream come true?”
Read more please click: South Pacific – Happy Talk Lyrics | MetroLyrics”
For You
Combine “Think, Plan and Do.” With hope and action all the best wishes can come true in your future.
If you don’t have a dream……