Financial Freedom – keep counting the gains – live your life

A lot of times we get obsessed with saving for investing because we are unsure of the actual amount we could need for the future. It becomes a moving target. If you get to 100K you think you need 500K to survive. When you hit 500K you think you 1M to survive. This way you are never happy with what you have. You never learn to live your life in the moment and value what you have.

Something which I have mentioned earlier also, which I learnt from reading Dan Sullivan’s books and watching his videos, is the concept of counting gains.

So I started writing the blog posts on financial independence and freedom not because I had become wealthy but because I saw that I could find systems of investment which can help me grow. As these investments started growing I could take up activities which enhanced and expanded my life. And I wanted to share these learnings with everyone , so that others need not go through the same challenges which I went through.

From a stage where I had zero investments and zero financial backup, I kept clawing upwards. Now I can decide to feel sad that my investments have still not made a dollar denominated millionaire or I can feel happy that I was at zero and today I have hit some value while also living through lovely experiences along the way. This gives me the feeling of abundance.

When you are driving down from Washington DC to NewYork City you see the milestones for the amount of distance pending to reach NYC. Since the destination is fixed, it makes sense to know how much time and distance is left to reach it. However if you were to change the destination en-route from NYC to Rochester, then to Albany, then to Toronto, you will go crazy trying to figure out when you will eventually hit your destination. It then makes sense to think in terms of how much distance you have already gained towards your destination rather than how much is pending.

With your finances also you need to keep counting your gains and feel happy that you have been able to achieve some intermediate targets. Tony Robbins also had this concept of creating buckets and making investments according to the buckets. Once the bucket is full you need to use it. Like if there’s a bucket for vacations, then once the bucket gets full based on the target you need to go out and have a vacation. This way you will actually live your life.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Financial freedom – expand your mind

Abundance, experiences, Financial Independence, Happiness

I have always had this opinion that you need to get new experiences and expand your mind. Once your mind expands, it does not go back to its old state.

Do you even remember that you used to crawl once upon a time. Today you will actually find it very difficult to crawl. But there was a time when walking was a dream, but when you learnt how to balance on your two feet, you quickly forgot what it was to be on your knees and hands crawling. That was because once your brain gets new experiences it expands its ability and tends to forget the old ones.

I got this ability to think for getting new experiences from my father. He was of the view that saving money for itself had no significance if you didn’t get new experiences. New experiences also make you happier and give you a feeling of abundance.

While some experiences you can get without spending too much money, for most of them you need to have the financial backing. That’s where investing helps. After a certain period of time, when the magic of compounding starts to come into play, you need to take out money to sponsor these experiences.

Once the mind starts expanding it also gets the ability to think better. Then you are also in a position to think how you can increase your income further and invest more to earn even more and expand your mind even further. This becomes a virtuous cycle.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Time – Money – Ideal state

assets, Financial Independence, passive income

Most of us end up selling time for money at a broad level. Except for people like authors, actors and people with some kind of intellectual property or investors, most of us, are generally selling time for money. Some might be selling it at a higher value than the others.

I was analysing various phases in my life and what my situation was. There was a time when I was overworked and with less income. We were always in an anxious state of mind. The ideal state where you have the freedom of time and freedom of money is the upper right corner in the picture.

Now I have not reached that situation of the blue box but I have at least moved from the bottom right hand corner box to the upper left. One of the reasons that could happen is because I started doing investments which started working for me in parallel to me selling time for money.

The earlier you can get involved in making investments – not savings (if you don’t know the difference, please see my my posts on financial freedom written in the earlier years) – the earlier you will reach this stage where you will not have to work at the same ratio. Obviously during this time as your experience grows your per hour rate at which you sell time could also grow.

The ideal situation is when you work once and you get paid multiple times over as in the case of movie actors and authors whose royalties keep coming. But for most of us who do not have any intellectual property to our credit – making investments in different types of assets is the only way to create a non linear relationship to time and money, such that your money works for you as hard as you work for the money.

Once your passive income grows to such a level where you don’t have to sell time for money that’s when you would reach the blue box area and have the freedom to do things of your choice. That’s the ideal place where I would like to eventually be, but lets see how it goes.

Living abundantly

Abundance, compounding, dreams, Financial Independence, Human Brain, mindset

I keep talking about getting financial freedom or financial independence and how you utilise the magic of compounding to help you get financially free. However compounding is a very very long term game.

While you should be investing, it does not mean that you stop living your life Today. It does not mean scrimping through life. I was telling one of my relatives today, on this same philosphy, that you should learn to live abundantly . What is the point of having money which you save all through your life, but you yourself never enjoy it.

If you’re scrimping to save everything, so that you have something in the future that you will enjoy, then by the time you reach the age when you think you can enjoy, you will be too old to enjoy.

That’s why I mention, that you need to save also for your dreams and tick of the things on your bucket list while you are saving money. I have a huge bucket list of my own, which keeps growing. So while there’s some amount you are investing for the long term, you also need to have a fund to achieve various dreams that you have. And when you hit that target you need to actually go out and do that activity to achieve your dream.

At the moment because of the Covid restrictions, we cannot travel out of India, I am right now active every weekend exploring different countries on YouTube and listing out what I will do when restrictions get removed. Not sure in what shape and form travel will be allowed but I am still putting things on my bucket list.

Now your dreams could be making a boat, or weaving a carpet or going on a hike, take your time to do these activities. Because when you achieve your dreams, it helps improve the performance of your brain. If the brain performs better you actually achieve more and you get more abundance overall. You trick your brain by living abundantly and therefore get more abundance. Its a mindset issue. I am not taking about taking loans and living out of your means. However I am definitely asking you to invest money for your short term dreams, mid-term aspirations and long term goals, instead of only long term goals.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!