Today I’m out in Nashville working with a lot of different speakers and seven figure mentors that have come in for our asset protection and wealth conference.  I have a lot of stuff we want to give you as far as ideas and topics and maybe just plant a few seeds with you to get your thoughts moving. 

First,  I want to go to the quote of the day so if you haven't downloaded The Daily Mastermind Mobile App on iTunes or Google I encourage you to do so.  There's some great stuff for your daily rituals whether it's meditation, affirmations, eBooks, audiobooks, etc. It's all free and it's there to be able to keep you on track and keep you going.   I've even added a new tab to the mobile app which is for daily rituals. It's something you can use to basically check the boxes of daily rituals that you do and submit them for prizes and gifts but I'm doing it primarily just to keep you accountable and keep you on task with creating your daily rituals and your habits for success. One of the things I do every day is pull up the quote of the day.  The quote today was by Aristotle:

“Hope is a waking dream”

It's something that we carry throughout the day to be able to take us closer to our dreams.   

We talked about

• I create a win-win.   
• I always think win-win 
• Starting from abundance 

Realizing that in order to be successful, positive, and create a win-win, it's not just about negotiating.  It’s about always starting with the way you think, and the way you think has to be from abundance. We also talked about creating belief because you have to believe you can have both.  You have to believe that you can do both in your life. That leads us into the topic I want to talk to you about today which is your finances. I am around so many different experts and seven figure mentors that I think I’d like to transfer some of that knowledge to you as well.  Sometimes people have a hard time justifying wealth and the focus of money. But the bottom line is, money isn't evil. Money isn't bad. It's just a reflection of who you are. Sometimes we feel like we have to choose between wealth and happiness, or fulfillment and money. You can believe you can have both.  Successful people have both in life, prosperity and money. They think both, they don't think either or. It's not about having money or family, ...success or happiness. It's about having both. When you start from a place of abundance, you realize that you can have both and that both are available to you.

Today I want to just talk to you about finances, wealth, your net worth.  I don't know how often you think about those or if you just think about them in general.  We're doing a three-day summit in Nashville right now where we’re hitting topics like asset protection, tax reduction, estate planning, stock and real estate investing as well as businesses and entrepreneurial topics.  

I want you to ask yourself these questions:

• What are you doing to build your wealth? 
• What are you doing to build your net worth? 
• Do you even think about your net worth? 
• Do you even think about what your life is creating and accumulating?

I have a feeling that most of us don't.  We think of it in general terms. I want you to think of it in very specific terms.  There's a couple of myths and a couple of excuses that we have. One of these is that wealth is just going to be created automatically one way or the other by working most of our lives.  However, the bottom line is this, net worth or wealth does not create itself. It doesn't just happen by default. It has to be purposeful. I realized that keeping a budget of your money is time-consuming and it's a little bit of brain damage.  We think about paying bills and expenses, but what you focus on grows. If you don't manage your money when you don't have a lot of money, you’re not going to be able to manage your money when you do have a lot of money. What you focus on grows. To get you from where you are to where you need to be, you have to track and be conscious of that.  How many times have we seen super successful people that worry over a little sum of money. We say to ourselves, “Man, why is that such a big deal for them”. Most successful people I know worry about their money before they have it, so when they have it, they have more of it. Wealth does not create itself. You need to be able to have a plan. You need to focus on it.   I've found over time from meeting tens of thousands of people at our events and throughout the last couple of decades, it doesn't take a lot of money to start accumulating wealth. I think sometimes we use this as an excuse. That’s all it is as an excuse. Money is the result of what you do, and it doesn’t take a lot of money to make money. Now, yes, with money you can make more money, but I want to identify this because I think it's a barrier that a lot of us set for ourselves…

I don't have enough money to invest 

I don't have enough money for this and that…. 

The bottom line is you need to learn to live below your means so that you have money. The problem is most of us live above our means and so we don't have money.  But there is always a way to live below your means, so that you can take that money and save, invest, or even create a business or whatever it is you want to do. It does not take a lot of money to start accumulating wealth.  Some of the most successful people have accumulated wealth utilizing principles that the wealthy utilize. You just have to be willing to make some sacrifices short term and live below your means.  

One of my partners, Robert Stuberg always talks about three different numbers.  If you don’t have these numbers now, then you’re not focused on growing your wealth.  

The first number is your financial protection number.

This is being able to have enough in the bank, whether it’s cash or savings, to cover your income if you were to lose your income.  Basically to cover your income for one to two years. If you don't have that emergency cash, that financial protection number, then you need to determine exactly what that is.  How much money do you need to have set aside in case something was to happen.  

The second number is your financial independence number.  

Your financial independence number is what it’s going to take to cover your income needs not your wants for life.  If it's a hundred thousand dollars a year you need and you know you can find some reasonable investments at ten percent year, then you need a million dollars.  A million dollars will cover your needs. I want to clarify what we think we need. We’re talking about food and shelter.  

The third number is your financial freedom number.

Your financial freedom number is enough money in the bank that the interest off that will cover your wants or your lifestyle for life. That number may be five million dollars so that you can live off three four five hundred thousand a year.  It might be a million dollars so that you have a hundred thousand a year, and it might be a couple hundred thousand. I know those numbers may sound big to some of you, but what happens is the more and more you accumulate wealth, the more and more you realize with an abundant mindset that's very doable. 

What is your number? What are your numbers? If you don't know what your numbers are, then you have not spent time thinking about creating financial security for you, your family, your loved ones, the people that you're around.   The bottom line is you have to start thinking about this stuff.  

Thinking about this stuff is important.  I guess as long as we're on this subject I’ll mention a couple of other things you may have heard before, but it's time to start thinking more about them.  How about the power of compound interest. We talked about not having enough money, but you have time on your side whether it's 2 years or 40 years. Compound interest is a powerful thing.  It’s something that can work to help you. Compound interest is basically the interest off investments that's added back to the principal sum you’ve had that can compound and gain more interest. Einstein talked about compound interest as the eighth wonder of the world. He had said if you understand compound interest and who earns it and who doesn't and who earns it and who pays it, then you're going to be one step ahead of most people. But the most important point is not at the end of compound interest, it's getting started so that you can apply the power of that compound interest.  It's the starting point that most of you are having trouble and barriers with. Some of you have accumulated wealth, but I'm talking about continuing to build and accumulate your wealth. It's about using that compound interest power.

I want to just identify a few areas I'm going to be talking about over the next week or two and these are areas I want you to be thinking about.

Asset protection: Protecting your assets whether it's anonymity or corporations.

Estate planning: Planning the difference between a will and a trust.  The difference between what’s going to happen with your estate and how you want to grow it and protect it.

Tax reduction: The simplest, fastest, easiest way to increase your wealth is to reduce or cut your taxes.  We all know this but we don’t learn the strategies that are needed.

Active and passive income opportunities: Ways to increase your current income and I'm not just talking about your job. There are active and there are passive ways to increase your income.

Strategies for investing: Some of these are conservative, some of these are aggressive.  But based on where you’re at, what are you doing to invest your money.  As much as you're excited about entrepreneurship and business and your job, you should be excited about creating wealth through investing.   That’s your roadmap to financial independence and financial freedom.

So my suggestions are

• Get educated
• Think about it more often 
• Make commitment
• Learn the numbers that you need so that you at least have a target to shoot for
• Learn some systems to make it automatic whether it’s automatically budgeting, automatically saving, automatically investing. 

The more you think about it, the more you know, the more you’ll do it. Get thinking about and focus on growing your net worth. 

Remember... Life will give you what you ask of it.  

What you have to do is to be willing to build an overall life.

It's never too late to start living the life you're meant to live.  But that includes all areas both personal, family, relationships, business and financial planning.

George Wright III

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