Financial Freedom

What is financial freedom?
Some people see financial freedom as having more than enough money to cover their cost of living without having to work actively.  While for young people, they may see financial freedom as the ability to earn sufficiently without the need to burden their parents.  It could also relate to the freedom of being able to do things whenever they want.

People do not want to worry about money should something unexpected like the loss of a job or a natural disaster strike.

Are we in a position to say that we have financial freedom?

Something for us to ponder

Money is the root of all evil

Most people believe that the love of money is the root of all evil. In the long history of mankind, there are many examples of how money led to the destruction of many societies.  Even now, whether we like it or not we live in an age where life is centred on money.

We need money to buy things, be it for our necessities or our desires.  We may ask ourselves, why we do have to work and spend eight hours or more at our office, even though we may not like the environment, our superiors or our colleagues?

The fact is we must go to work every day simply to earn money.  We need money to maintain our health, to pursue our studies and much more.  Seen in the right context, money can give us a meaningful life.

Something for sharing.

Never say never

At times, I ponder whether it is too late to start planning financially or too old to think about investments.  When we are younger, we were too busy with our lives to plan financially as our priorities were different as we were establishing our foothold in our career.  We sometimes also lack the experience and knowledge to invest financially.  Later, we think we should have done more to organize our financial investments.  Our excuse now is that it is too late to do anything more.

Looking backwards will never get us to the finish line.  Forget and forgive your past mistakes.  If we believe we can start now, there are many areas for improvement in our financial life.

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Reactions vs response

At a restaurant, a cockroach suddenly flew from somewhere and sat on
a lady. She started screaming out of fear. With a panic stricken
face and trembling voice, she started jumping, with both her hands
desperately trying to get rid of the cockroach.

Her reaction was contagious, as everyone in her group also got
panicky.

The lady finally managed to push the cockroach away but ...it landed
on another lady in the group.

Now, it was the turn of the other lady in the group to continue the
drama.

The waiter rushed forward to their rescue.
In the relay of throwing, the cockroach next fell upon the waiter.

The waiter stood firm, composed himself and observed the behavior of
the cockroach on his shirt.
When he was confident enough, he grabbed it with his fingers and
threw it out of the restaurant.

Sipping my coffee and watching the amusement, the antenna of my mind
picked up a few thoughts and started wondering, was the cockroach
responsible for their histrionic behavior?
If so, then why was the waiter not disturbed?
He handled it near to perfection, without any chaos.

It is not the cockroach, but the inability of the ladies to handle
the disturbance caused by the cockroach that disturbed the ladies.

I realized that, it is not the shouting of my father or my boss or
my wife that disturbs me, but it's my inability to handle the
disturbances caused by their shouting that disturbs me.

It's not the traffic jams on the road that disturbs me, but my
inability to handle the disturbance caused by the traffic jam that
disturbs me.

More than the problem, it's my reaction to the problem that creates
chaos in my life.

Lessons learnt from the story:
I understood, I should not react in life.
I should always respond.
The women reacted, whereas the waiter responded.

Reactions are always instinctive whereas responses are always well
thought of, just and right to save a situation from going out of
hands, to avoid cracks in relationship, to avoid taking decisions in
anger, anxiety, stress or hurry.

The WHY factor

Great Leaders, companies and even innovators always start with the WHY and then the HOW and lastly the WHAT.  This inside out model is unconventional compared with the conventional outside in model where we tend to focus on WHAT needs to be done.  HOW it has to be done and lastly WHY it has to be done.

Great companies like Apple have a very strong WHY which inspires the HOW and then the WHAT is the end outcome.  For example, Apple's WHY is to `Think different', this is its compelling reason for existence and this inspires the HOW which is to create innovative, easy to use computers and lastly WHAT happens at the end.

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Sharpening your axe III

Sharpening the axe is an activity.  You too can sharpen the axe of your life.

Here are examples of axe-sharpening activities:

o  Read a book every day;
o  Get out of your comfort zone by changing jobs.  A new job forces you to learn;
o  Have deep conversation with ome one your find interesting.  Sharpen your axe through that interaction;
o  Pick up a new hobby.  Stretch yourself physically, mentally or emotionally;
o  Study something new;
o  Overcome your fear you have or quit a bad habit;
o  Have a dily exercise routine or take part in some competition;
o  Identify your blinds spots.  Understand, acknowledge and address them;
o  Ask for feedback and get a mentor;
o  Learn from people who inspire you.

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Sharpen your axe II

So, what is exactly is sharpening your axe?  It simply means increasing your personal production capacity by daily self care and self maintenance.  Most people fail to understand what it means and mistake it for taking a break or vacation.  If you are overworking yourself and your productivity drops, take a break.  However that isn't sharpening the axe - that's putting the axe down.

When you put down a dull blade and rest, the blade will still be dull when you pick it up. The woodcutter does need downtime to rest, but it is not `sharpening the axe'.  The woodcutter only becomes more productive by sharpening his blade, analyzing new wood cutting techniques, exercising to become stronger, and learning from other woodcutter.  That is what is mean by sharpening the axe.

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