One of the hardest things is wanting to save but not being sure about how to go about it. It feels like all of the books about money and investing are written for people whose jobs pay them six figures. They all say things like “you can totally buy that brand new $100 sweater and save for a Maserati! We’ll show you how!” Where is all the advice for people whose budgets and needs are more about groceries and mortgage payments?

Right Here.

Step One: Open a savings account at your bank and link it to your checking account. You don’t need anything fancy right now; a basic account will do—especially if you can’t afford a hefty initial deposit. When you open the account, check the fees to make sure you don’t get dinged for a low balance. You can usually avoid these by setting up direct deposit or finding a free checking option.

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In my last blog post I told a murder story, so to stay in alignment with my doomsday streak, I think I’ll write about either you or I dying. That sounds much more interesting anyway! But really, all jokes aside, have you thought about it yet? Have you thought about what will happen to your family if something happens to you? I guess what I’m getting at here is, as an entrepreneur, do you have a life insurance policy?

Life Insurance for the Self Employed

I’m sort of a late starter when it comes to life insurance. I’ve only been to the doctors office once in the last decade or so, but recently, I started thinking about all the other factors of life that could happen, leaving my family in an extremely hard spot. Naturally, my solution is to continue building my business, which will continue to pay them monthly, even if I’m not around. But what if something happens to the company I work with, then what will they do? With the economy as sensitive as it has been in the past several years, anything could happen.

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Mastering personal financial management is essential no matter what level you’re at financially. When you’re an entrepreneur or an investor, you may have the basics figured out, but there are plenty of strategies that you can use to take your finances to the next level. Here are three personal finance strategies that you may want to try out as an entrepreneur or an investor:

1. Set a Net Worth

When you’re starting out on your financial journey, setting a savings goal may seem like the way to go. As you get further along financially, you should consider switching over to a net worth goal. If you have a specific net worth in mind, this will help you work toward your goal in all areas of your finances. Your net worth can be increased by paying off debt, increasing your income, and the increase in value of your assets.

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Next up to bat in the 5 Categories of Success is the fourth and most sought after category, Financial! I don’t really know anyone, anywhere, that would say “no” to making a little more money. Some pursue money as if it is the very thing they depend on to sustain life, money being the very air they breathe. Success to many means having lots and lots of money and plenty of time to spend and enjoy having all that money. It’s all about being the P.I.M.P. with the 20 inch rims, the huge mansion and money all over the place. It’s amazing to see someone rise to the top and become wealthier than they have ever been, become the high roller they had always wanted to be, spend all of their money, and end up broke, depressed and out of luck.

The Fourth Category of Success – Financial

Having a mansion, cars, boats, ATV’s, planes, maids, employees, nice clothes and all that can dress up your appearance is NOT financial success. Financial success is about having assets. An asset is something of value, or something that can bring your more income…consistent income. The only thing in the list I just mentioned that may be an asset is the mansion. Everything else is a depreciating deficit…..things that cost you more money. Having the cars, boats, atv’s, planes, maids and nice clothes are results of having assets, if you so choose to accumulate those things.

Now, I know many people think that once they achieve financial success that all the other categories will fall into place. They will then have the time and money to improve themselves, their families and their spirituality. To most people, the money fixes everything and makes everything possible. Not the case! If you were a broke, miserable person before falling into financial success, you will eventually become a broke, miserable person again unless you change you! The financial success comes and STAYS because of who you are being. If you have not become the millionaire in your mind first, then you will not remain a millionaire for long, because your money thermostat is set much, much lower than that. To learn more about how to reset your thermostat, read “Secrets of a Millionaire Mind” by T. Harv Ecker. Great read!

Now, financial success to me, is after all of my expenses (ie bills, groceries, mortgage etc) I still have plenty of money to put a portion away for savings, donate a portion for a good cause, invest some back into strengthening my assets and to live an abundant lifestyle. That’s financial success. It’s not about having  just enough to get by. That’s three months away from homeless should tragedy strike. It’s true. How many people have lost homes because they were making just enough to get by and tragedy struck, they lost their job? Too many! I apologize, but I have to recommend another book here. It’s “The Richest Man in Babylon” by George S. Clason. That short, little book will teach you a bit more about what to do with the money you make.

The portal to creating financial success is Entrepreneurship. You must become an entrepreneur. By doing so, you are in control of how much or how little you earn, and the cool thing about entrepreneurship, is you can make a lot of money doing exactly what you love to do. If that is eating donuts all day, you can own a donut shop. If you enjoy teaching kids how to play basketball, you can organize basketball camps and three on three tournaments. If you enjoy it, chances are, you will do well. It’s about finding a way to make it happen. Most likely, things won’t be laid out perfectly for you with ABC instructions on how to create success. To me, that’s the exciting part of it all. You get to take ALL the credit for what you create!

If I can give you a few tips of advice in creating your financial success, it would be this:

1. Know what you want. Get very clear. Be creative with your ideas. Be different.
2. Mastermind with those people who have the results you desire to have.
3. Persist without exception until you get what you want. Learn that “The Buck Stops Here!” To learn more about that you can read “The Travelers Gift” by Andy Andrews.
4. Burn your boats, meaning, leave no escape routes or back doors. Play with all out MASSIVE action. Play small, get small results. Play big, get big results.
5. Be extremely consistent.

Anyone and everyone that has a desire to succeed and the willpower to pursue their dreams has to potential to achieve them. One of the most important concepts that I have learned on the path of financial success, is to simply “Enjoy the Journey!” Life is good and because of you, it will become better and better. Money isn’t everything. Money is a tool, or a gateway to achieving greater things in life. Use it to bless your life, the life of your family and the lives of others in a positive way…….and guys, there’s plenty to go around!

I’m going to ask you a very simple question and I want you to answer it as honestly and in as much detail as you can. Okay….are you ready for it? Here it is. How do you pick an apple?

I know….tough question right? So take a moment to think about it.

So what was your answer? Just for fun, let’s see how you measure up to the answers of others. The most common answer to this question would go something like this: Well, I stand under the tree. I reach out with my arm, open my hand, grasp the apple firmly and yank the apple downward. That my friend, is how I pick an apple!

So was that somewhere close to your answer or were you a bit more analytical in the exact same process? Maybe your answer wasn’t even anywhere close to the same. Maybe yours involved a longer process, the true process of picking an apple.

So here’s the correct way to pick an apple:

1. You pick a spot of land. Preferably on your own land.
2. You dig a hole.
3. You buy the tree.
4. You put the tree in the hole.
5. You water the tree.
6. You fertilize the tree.
7. You brace the tree up to protect it from the wind.
8. You put a fence around the tree to protect it from wildlife, such as Elk and Deer.
9. You spray it with chemicals to protect it from insects.
10. You trim the tree from time to time.
11. You then repeat steps 5 and 6, until one day, your tree finally produces apples.
12. You then, stand under your tree, reach out and pick the apple!

That, my friends, is the way to pick an apple! Would it have been easier if I had given you another question as an example, such as: How do you become wealthy? You don’t just reach out an grab the money. There is a process that comes before you “pick the apple”, or get the money.

So many people, in fact the majority of people, prefer to just simply “pick the apple.” They want someone else to take care of the “process” for them, which is exactly why most people will never get to pick the apple or become wealthy. You can’t just skip to the end. That’s a fairytale. Luckily, with modernization and grocery stores, we have people who take care of “process” so that we don’t technically have to pick the apple. That’s their way to create wealth and unfortunately, you can’t just pick up a box of wealth at the store like you can an apple. You must go through the process of creating wealth for yourself.

I teach others how to go through the process, but you must be willing to put in the time and effort before you can reap the reward. But, the process is proven….meaning, it works. I, along with thousands of others, have done it. It’s a lot like picking an apple, but with a few more steps along the way. If you can follow steps, bring a little creativity and a lot of ambition, you too can become wealthy!

One thing we have going for us as humans is our own ability to create something out of thin air. Especially when it comes to our time. We have the ability and resources to spend it in an array of ways. How we spend it has a direct reflection on our results in life. If someone isn’t getting their desired results in life, chances are, they just simple aren’t spending their time doing the things they must do to get the result. The hard part for people is knowing how to change the way they spend their time. It’s so easy not to change, right?

My point is….so many people have time working against them instead of for them. It seems that most people are in a hurry to die, to put it bluntly. The sooner they get off work the better, the quicker the day goes by the better, the faster the time goes by so that they can sit there on their couch, the better. Most people want time to fly by and in my experience, thinking of all the times that I wanted time to fly by, these were the times when I was most miserable. I was either at a job I hated, with someone I didn’t enjoy being with, terribly sick, in pain or just flat out sick and tired.

These were the moments in my life that I wanted my time to go faster. These were the times that I wanted to speed up time and literally get closer to my end. I wanted time to pass by faster, I wanted to waste that time just to spare myself of the misery I was experiencing at the moment. I wanted to get older, just by a small bit, so that I could move on with doing what I wanted to do and enjoyed doing. In doing so, I wasted a small section of my life…..a section that I will NEVER get back. Your TIME is your LIFE. It’s a simple concept….if you waste your time, you waste your life.

Don’t Waste Your Life

So let me ask you a question: Who in their right mind wants their life to pass by quicker? Who, having a sane mind, wants to die sooner? Because that’s basically what you’re doing when you spend your time doing what you can’t stand to do, hoping it passes by quicker. Now, fifteen minutes of time wasted at your job may not seem like you are wasting your life, but what is fifteen minutes multiplied by five or six days out of the week times 52 weeks in a year times the number of years you have been wasting 15 minutes a day. That adds up to a lot of wasted time, doing something you cannot stand to do. And if you are just working that job or business just for a paycheck and get no personal satisfaction or enjoyment from it, what are you doing?

So let me rephrase the question: Who in their right mind, who is following their passions in life, wants their life to pass by quicker? Who, having a sane mind and is living life to it’s fullest, wants to die sooner?

So how do you live life to it’s fullest or at least know you are? Here are a few questions for you:

• Is there something you have wanted to do for a while but haven’t taken the action?
• Do you feel like you should be doing something more with your life?
• Do you hate your job?
• Do you feel like you are just going through the motions just so the time will pass by?
• Do you find yourself thinking of all the great things you could have done in your life up to this point?

These are just a few questions and if you answered YES to any of them, chances are, you are not living your life to the fullest. My suggestion to you: Time is ticking, get to it!