What does it take to become financially secure? What does financial freedom mean? What does this have to do with NLP and Huna?
Both NLP and Huna have a focus on the Lesson of Mastery, which will be a topic for many upcoming posts here on my blog.
Here is the deal: Whether we like it or not, we live in a world where finance is a necessity.
Now I know that there are places you could move to in order to go back to the barter system, but for most of us this is not an option. I have a wife, two children, a house, a business, and many of the same concerns that my students have. One of my concerns over the past few years has been my future earnings and financial stability.
You see I just turned 41 this year. That’s still a young kid for some of you, but for others, 41 is starting to get old.
Either way, my grandfather taught me the importance of saving. When I was 8, he helped me to open a savings account, and we would go periodically to check the interest that I had earned and to put more money in. By the time I was 11, I was sweeping in a local store making $1 an hour (yes I know that was a while ago).
I worked over 200 hours to save up my money to buy a cassette player, and boy did I take care of it! I treasured that “boom box” all the way up until the CD “revolution” ruined my desire for the stereo player!
Having learned these strategies at an earlier age was so helpful. When I teach strategies in the NLP classes, I will sometimes discuss effective and ineffective strategies for dealing with money and finance. Please understand I have no idea who has the best strategy. What I am wondering though is this: is your strategy working for you?
You see my strategy was working great all the way up until about a few years ago. I had opened an investment account for my son Ethan before he was a year old. My calculations were that we would have $50k to $60k a year for his college, and in addition to that, my wife Sumi and I have investments for our future.
I did the same for my daughter back in 2007 and that year, I must say, I was very proud of my strategy and approach! Wow, did I feel good!
And then things changed dramatically. Everyone experienced the change in the economy in a different way. I experienced it with real estate and finance in a big way. From the time the stock market crashed, I have experienced non-stop years of putting more into our 401(k) investments and kids’ college funds than I earn. In fact, many times, I didn’t want to open the statements, because the balance would be lower every period!
In other words, I put more and more in, and my math goes funny! For example, I start with $2, I put in $2, but my statement says $3…. I thought 2+2=4.
Now before you respond and reframe me, I know, when you buy low, you make money because it will go up. I do realize that investments made while the economy is down will eventually go up. However, that does not change the fact that my son is going to college in six years, and my financial advisor is saying we may not hit the initial goal that we thought we would ten years ago when we set up the account!
That last statement got me to take action. You see my strategies were developed in another market. They worked in another time. However, times have changed. Heck, I have a blog! Things must be changing!
I quickly realized that I did not have the time I did over ten years ago to figure this out myself, so I did exactly what I teach my students. When you don’t know how to do something, find an expert you have rapport with and model what they do. I did that, and I have been very happy with my results for the past six months.
Now, before I say any more, that is the advice I want to give. If you are in uncertain times and you do not have the ability to find certainty yourself, you need to find someone that can help you. Period.
So now I am going to do something I rarely do, because I am sharing what I do personally. I have come to learn that it is helpful to share with you what I am doing to see if it may work for you. Many of you who have been to my ANLP Practitioner Training, know that I now work with an individual named George Fokas FokasBeyond.com. He has helped me to learn the current strategies of investment and finance, and all I can say is wow! I am really enjoying being a student and learning from him.
I discovered a long time ago that the more I learn, the more I realize I don’t know. You can’t expect to know everything, and when you don’t know something, find someone that does. This is true for all areas of your life!
Mahalo, Matt James
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BTW, I get no kick backs from this referral to George, and he doesn’t even know I am making this recommendation. I just felt like sharing who I work with. I’ll keep doing this on future posts!
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