Starting on the Road to Financial Freedom

A formal education will make you a living, but self help will make you a fortune.

-Jim Rohn

For many of us , especially those that grew up in an African setting. We constantly heard, go to school, get A parallel (straight A's) if possible, pass JAMB,SAT or A levels and get into University , and if you are from Nigeria, you were expected to get a job in Shell ,Chevron,Mobil or one of the other multi national oil companies. These days University graduates hope on getting a well paying job in one of the telecom companies and dot com companies where they can have "job security" and get a pension to retire on.

It does not take a genius to figure out that you are never going to make a fortune by being an employee of a company on a salary . Even the CEO and President of companies can be fired and out of a job at anytime.

Many people have the fantasy of becoming celebrities,singers, actors ,sports stars, where we make millions every year and are living la vida loca. This is a very false path to wealth. We have all read the head lines. We know the story of MC Hammer , who was one of the most successful in his hey days, within the blink of of an eye he became penniless and declared bankruptcy.

Coolio ,was one of the most aired rappers in the 90's ,Gangsta's Paradise was a hit all around the world. Where is he now ?

We have known the stories of sports stars; Football players,Basket Ball Players who get injured ,are dropped or retire and from having 6 cars ,and 4 homes are now filing for bankruptcy and appearing on "has been" celebrity reality shows. They have lost their homes, their cars have been repossessed and all their assets have been sold to pay off debts and pay the tax man (Uncle Sam).

Only in the past ten years have we seen celebrities wised up and started making investments and diversifying their portfolio. As teenagers and college students, many of us have worn the Sean Johns, Roca Wear ,Wu Wear etc . People like Jay Z have invested in real estate, own restaurants. People like 50¢ (Fiddy) have branded them selves . We know the story of his $300 million vitamin water he has his G Unit shoes and clothing line, his record label, and many other investments.

I use theses names not to glorify or exalt what they do, but to point out a key thing with is INVESTMENT. Now, they could have sat down and waited for their royalty checks to come in, which would have been more than enough to live a very good life. They could have been satisfied with the comfort of only using their time and talent for money just like their predecessors . They however choose to be different they saw a chance to live larger than their dreams and they took it. They made investments, in companies,businesses and ideas. Which have made them 300% more fortune than they would ever have made performing and selling records.

Many of us will never become platinum selling recording artists, nor would we be paid $20 million per movie, but does this mean that we can not be financially free? Does this mean that we have to live a 9 to 5 life exchanging our time for money?

THANKFULLY NO.

There is a saying that goes

"Success is not something to be pursued, but something that is drawn to the person that you become.

There is another saying that goes

"You have got to build the man before you build the money"

I guarantee you that if you do the research of 99.9% of lottery winners all around the world, within 2 years time or a maximum of 7 years if they last that long ,they are completely broke, even worse off than they were before they won the lottery. Why is that? Because they do not have the right or appropriate mindset. They did not sit down to think of how this new situation would remain permanent, all they had on their minds was SPEND SPEND SPEND. Their minds were not changed despite their situation.

Look at it this way, imagine you find a house,one of those creepy old houses from the movies.One that has faulty foundations, shaky walls, creaking ceilings, and peeling paint. What if you paint that house ,with the most expensive emulsion paint, and get it looking brand new, the key word being "looking". We have the house looking new, but it is still the same old house. It has changed on the outside but not on the inside, and pretty soon it would return to it's former state.