H.J. Chammas's Blog, page 4

Shall You Work Hard For Your Job? Or Shall Your Job Work Hard For You?

Shall You Work Hard For Your Job? Or Shall Your Job Work Hard For You?
Almost all of the poor and middle class were programmed to graduate from school to seek a high-paying job that would provide them security and eventually lead them to wealth. This might hold true for CEOs and other corporate executives with hefty paycheques.

But to the majority of employees, this remains a dream they chase until one day they retire, only to be surprised by a bank account and pension plan that can barely sustain their lifestyle for a few weeks or months. Then reality kicks in—when it is too late. The fact of the matter is that a job, for the majority of us, merely supports the basics of life, the essential expenses.

The drug that keeps all employees addicted to their job is seeing their income increasing from the day they start working till the prime of their income-earning years. This false evidence of prosperity leads to a false feeling of security. As a result, more and more of their income gets channeled to discretionary expenses, and those who can afford it start to spend on the appearances of wealth. One day their income starts to go downhill, and like a drug addict who cannot have the same high doses of drug anymore, they wake up to the fact that this fantasy is over and that they have to cut down on their expenses. The few exceptions will be corporate executives, who are only a minority of the general population.


I encourage you to start looking at your job in a different way. Consider it as a form of leverage that acts in your favor. It is about having your job work smarter for you while you work hard for your job. It's a win-win term.

You need to learn how to leverage your position as an employee to qualify for bank loans (good debt) to purchase income-producing assets that will generate unearned income (or passive income) in excess of your monthly expenses and therefore put you on the road to being wealthy.

As you may know, banks generate profits from lending money to people. The interest they charge the borrowers is the bank’s income. Banks like to lend money to creditworthy people. They want reasonable reassurance that borrowers have steady incomes that will enable them to repay their loans. Banks will look at the length of time the borrowers were in their current jobs as their reassurance of steady income. The first step of the wealth-building process is to take advantage of the fact that you have a steady income that qualifies you for a loan that you can take to purchase income-producing assets.

You might start asking yourself some questions now ... "what kind of income-producing-assets shall I purchase?", "How to purchase them?", "How to qualify for loans?", "How to fund my investments?" ...
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Can Debt Set You On The Road To Wealth?

Can Debt Set You On The Road To Wealth?It was considered a privilege to carry a credit card back in the eighties. Nowadays, credit card companies harass people who have steady incomes to offer them free-for-life credit cards. Things have evolved in a manner that you can take a cash advance with zero down payment and zero interest for a number of months. The trick here is that most people will fail to repay those credit card loans within the few months’ window and then get penalized with huge interest rates that can range anywhere between 24 to 36% per year. This is when the borrower becomes captive to those high-interest loans.

With good marketing campaigns that play on consumers’ psychology, bankers and big companies convince us to buy goods and services that will provide instant gratification. They have also made it easy for consumers to get a suite of credit cards, personal loans, and car loans with reasonable monthly payments to make it a no-brainer to buy those goods and services even if we cannot afford them. It is normal to see offers from retailers tempting consumers to use their credit cards to buy now and pay later at zero interest over three, six, nine, or twelve months. The caveat is that by the time the debt is repaid, those goods and services are worthless.


Most of us have fallen victim to tempting instant gratification offers with delayed payment plans. We started to fear being captive to debt. Our parents, the school, and the community have each played a role in teaching us that debt is bad and that it must be avoided at any cost. And they are correct when it comes to bad debt.


On the other hand, good debt, which is debt incurred to purchase income-producing assets, sets you on the road to wealth. In an earlier article, I shared the idea that you will become as rich as the amount of good debt you take in your life. I would even dare to claim that you can almost never become wealthy without incurring good debt. Think of it as borrowing yourself to wealth. Pay attention: I mentioned good debt, which is the kind of debt you incur to purchase income-producing assets.

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Attention: New Buyers Are About To Lose Their Money To Earlier Buyers

 

Attention: New Buyers Are About To Lose Their Money To Earlier Buyers
The blocks of computer data known as “cryptocurrencies” continue to receive widespread hype from their fans, coupled with resentment towards anyone who believes this bubble is about to pop. Most crypto fans don't really understand how those currencies are created and why they have a perceived value. They are just riding the bubble and think they nailed it. To Crypto fans, you are either with them or you “don’t get it.” For me, this is gambling, and not investing!
True investors research what they're getting into, look at the big picture, learn from the history of many other similar bubbles, research all sides of an argument, and adopt a humble perspective. Investors put their energy into understanding (and controlling) their investments, rather than participating in social media battles and rallying for something they don't even understand.
To people who lack the perspective of the history of bubbles, this current fad seems exciting, easy to access, doesn't require any research or study, and perhaps like the “new normal”. They simply open a stock trading account and grab a crypto wallet and then just quickly get themselves rich by placing wild bets on recent fads and doubling their money in a short span of a couple of weeks.


The gamblers playing this game are calling themselves investors, but in reality, this whole situation is just the age-old game of stock speculation based on price momentum – which is in turn just another form of gambling and speculations.

With speculation, you get massive highs and crushing lows.  The main separator between ending up a millionaire or bankrupt is your "luck".

Related: Warning: Investing is Not Gambling
Irrespective of how this game is going to end up, there are always winners and losers. While speculators are counting on luck to win, those online trading platforms are always winners. They charge speculators transaction fees irrespective of the performance of their portfolio.
Further compounding the hazards, the people who are on the lucky side of this game (while riding the bull market) will tend to attribute their success to skill, which boosts their confidence and increase their exposure to risk when the bubble pops.


As the bubble is still forming, there are small ups and downs, which are creating winners and losers. The winners share their success with the world, while those who have lost money tend to hide their heads in the sand. When the tide inevitably goes out, those winners who did not exit and cash out their profits will lose a large portion of their gains.
The sad part of the story is that there have been countless similar bubbles throughout history, which only a few seem to learn from them. Let's see how a bubble is formed with the help of speculators.
The Bubble Hype CycleSomebody believes the price of "something" should go up. They could be acting on their own or rewarded by the operators of this "something". They share their story of why it should.With some marketing boost from those concerned with this "something", this story catches on and gains influence, so people start buying this "something" and the price really does go up.Other people notice the bull performance of this "something" and join the game. They become the new ambassadors of the story, which makes it reach a much larger audience.The more this story spreads, the more speculators join the game and/or double down their investments, the more the price keeps on increasing.Those who made paper profits (unlocked profits) become strong believers in this "something" and personally attack anyone who disagrees with their views.The media strives on such stories and shares news of young adults becoming millionaires overnight. This adds credibility to this "something", which leads even more people to join the game out of the fear of missing out.As earlier speculated price peaks are exceeded, here come the financial experts making up new, plausible reasons why this new price is justified instead of just warning it’s a bubble in the making.Eventually, the cycle ends and everything comes crashing back to the ground. Anyone who was smart enough to sell does well, everyone else loses.

The sad ending of this bubble is the redistribution of money from later buyers to earlier buyers.
So, How To End Up On The Winning Side?To become a winner in the financial game, you need to become an investor, and not a speculator riding on bubbles.
An investor is somebody who invests the right time to get educated and what they're going in. They follow a process and make informed decisions. They select an investment vehicle they fully understand and they know how to manage risk. Their investments deliver value to them and to others (offer affordable rentals, produces innovative products, or provide competitive services). Their investments are worth holding for a long period of time, or like Warren Buffet suggests, forever.
Related: Do Investors Have Specific Knowledge That Most People Cannot Have?
A solid investment is an investment that can remain relatively stable through all ups and downs in the market. The companies, properties, or assets behind those investments provide needs to their clients; and therefore, can withstand the test of time.
No one can predict exactly which way the wind will blow, but the only thing you can be sure of is that financial history runs in cycles, and you’ll do just fine if you invest in sound assets, and not in a speculative "something".

The Mindset and Plan for Financial Resurrection

The Mindset and Plan for Financial Resurrection

We go through many ups and downs throughout our life. Everyone celebrates winning but our failures make us feel anger, frustration, bitterness, stress, or anxiety. If we keep ourselves stuck in this negative mindset, we will miss the lessons that are ought to be learned from this experience. Those are times of test of our faith!

“So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” ( Isaiah 41:10)

We have the opportunity to rise above oppression by standing on the Truth of the Word of God and by equipping ourselves with the right mindset and plan to go out on the positive side of all that experience.
Jesus triumphed over death through His resurrection, and today we triumph over our financial failure by recognizing that our current financial reality is the result of our previous mindset and actions and by changing our mindset and actions for a new financial reality. We need to break out of the darkness: lack of faith, lack of knowledge, lack of guidance, lack of a plan, and lack of confidence.

“but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” (Isaiah 40:31)

If you have spent your life with a limiting belief system of "I can't afford that", it’s time to make a change to an empowering belief of "how can I afford that?"
This simple shift in mindset opens the doors to a world of possibilities. Your brain will start exploring means and creative solutions of how you can overcome your current limitations and create a new reality where you can make a change in your life to achieve the things you dream of. The main obstacle is "you"! You are standing in your own way to success. You have to be willing to acknowledge changing your reality requires re-learning, re-thinking, and re-engineering your finances.
Related: Did You Ever Make a Self Talk to Understand the Current State of Your Finances?
If you find yourself being motivated or identified completely by money - or the lack of it - then you’re wrestling with financial slavery. But it doesn’t have to stay that way.
So, how do you start down the road to financial freedom? Here are some steps to get you going.
1. Acknowledge the ProblemThe first step to healing is always acknowledging that you have a problem. Unfortunately, it's not always that clear when it comes to money, because our financial struggle is something that we don’t often share with our friends and acquaintances who might have similar struggles. This makes the whole problem seem like the norm since everyone has more or less a level of financial struggle in their lives.
2. Change Your Set of Beliefs Around Personal FinanceMoney problems aren’t just issues with income and expenses, they’re rooted in our set of limiting beliefs. To overcome your financial problems, look first inside your set of beliefs about money, unravel the personal truth about each of those beliefs, and then learn how to transform them into empowering beliefs.
3. Learn From Others Who are Few Steps Ahead of YouThere’s an incredible amount of financial wisdom to be found in books, courses, blogs, podcasts, webinars, and much more. My advice is to follow the steps of those who are few steps ahead of you. This makes it easier to relate to them and learn from their action and mistakes.
Following the gurus and billionaires might seem overwhelming at times since it might feel that achieving their level of success is something out of your world. Their actions might be several steps ahead of what you need to take in your current specific situation, and this might lead you to miss on important baby steps that will help you get up and running at your own pace.
4. Take ActionThe final step of financial freedom is the application. Once your mindset about money has been renewed, you still have to do the work of paying off bad debt, saving money, and investing in income-producing assets. Those things can be incredibly difficult if you're left to do them on your own without any guidance.
Apply yourself wholeheartedly to the hard work of financial liberty, and you’ll find yourself out of financial slavery once and for all.

Warning: Investing is Not Gambling

 

Warning: Investing is Not Gambling

When it comes to investing, there are three guiding principles, if followed carefully, you're set up for success:

Free is not necessarily a good thing;Free advice is the most expensive advice; andDon't invest in something you don't understand.

There has been a sudden surge in the number of online investing accounts being opened in the past year, driven by brokers not charging clients any commission. This was like an open invitation for many to jump on the ship with no idea where they're going. The fact there is no cost for trading online on those platforms made more people treat investing like a game or a side hustle that they don't understand.

Those same platforms offer free courses and webinars that appear as expert advice, which makes their clients feel they understand what they're investing in. The result is more exposure to things they don't really understand or even explain to others.

The other day, a friend was talking with a very high level of confidence, like a guru, about the profits he has been making in cryptocurrencies. Everyone in the room opened their eyes and wanted to jump on the ship. I then asked him to explain what he's investing in, he started to use all technical jargon about blockchain and farming to an extent he was lost and had everyone else lost in the room. The thing is he doesn't really understand what he's into. He just got lucky when the trend in bitcoin is going up... before the roller coaster moves down at high speed (but it's only my opinion).

Related: Brace Yourself For The Bitcoin Roller Coaster Ride

Warren Buffet recommended that investors never invest in a business they cannot understand. He also added, “What counts for most people in investing is not how much they know, but rather how realistically they define what they don’t know.” In other words, investing in what you don’t know or understand cannot be classified as investing. Actually, investing in something you do not understand is pretty much like gambling. Buffett has three boxes for investment ideas: in, out, and too hard. If a company's business or product is too difficult to understand, it's better to just file it in the "too hard" category and move on to another opportunity.

I can’t believe I need to say this, but here goes: Investing is not gambling.

Related: Do Investors Have Specific Knowledge That Most People Cannot Have?

Never Invest In Something You Don't Understand

Many people are putting their hard-earned money into investments they don’t understand in the investment world. They just follow a friend's advice or a contact's post on social media on how they made a profit. They want some of the same things these people are getting without a minimum level of understanding the dangers and risks. The online world facilitates all of that with easy sign-ups and instant activations with instant payments using credit cards.

Let’s review some key questions each investor needs to have answers to before signing up and going in any trade.

When is it time to sell?

The barber, taxi driver, or colleague who offers stock tips is a cliché. They might be very good stock pickers; however, making money in the market involves two points: When to buy and when to sell. The thing is you're becoming dependent on advice from a person who isn't an investment professional and who even can't explain why it's a good investment to go in.

Let's assume their advice was sound (or just lucky), and you bought at the right time, you're in the game. Do you know when it's time to sell? Will go again and ask them for advice? If you answered yes, then again you're relying on cheap or free advice.

Liquidity

There are investment products that might be attractive and solid but investors can't get their money if they suddenly need it. Some examples are investing in real estate crowdfunding, REITs, real estate syndications, insurance products, limited partnership investments, private equity, or hedge funds. While those might be solid investments (and most are), there might be hefty surrender charges because the buyer is supposed to be making a long-term commitment. Those solid investments often come at a cost.

Are Their Potential Losses?

Every investment, whatever safe it appears to be, comes with an inherent risk of losing some or all your capital. This also holds to money parked in the bank, which could be insured up to a certain limit. This means, if the bank gets bankrupt, you're covered up only to the limit of the insured amount.

If you're trading on margin, you're most probably aware you will need to put up more money if the investment moved against you. But what is not commonly understood is your brokerage firm has the right to sell your investments, especially if the market moves sharply. You've already agreed to all those conditions when you signed up and checked all those small boxes on the screen that say you've read and understood the disclosures.

Many people invest without having all the facts. Adding perspective and highlighting risks are some of the ways investment advisors add value.

Bonus: Book your free discovery and strategy call with your personal finance advisor

Should You Buy A House Now Or Continue Renting?

 

Should You Buy A House Now Or Continue Renting?

Since the 2008 global recession and with the pandemic hitting the globe in 2020, most governments are offering economic support programs to bring the economy back on its feet. This has resulted in record-low interest rates, which might make buying a house seem like a good idea. When asking yourself 'Should I buy a house now?', run the numbers to see if the time is right.

The pandemic is still having a negative effect on most businesses, and we're still witnessing many companies restructuring to manage their overheads. With millions of people out of work, why is the housing market hotter than it’s been in years?

We've seen a recent increase in the sales price of properties across most major cities like Dubai, the UK, Singapore, and the US since December 2020, but why?

If so many people are out of work in the financial crisis of the Covid-19 pandemic, how can others afford to buy a house?

The answer is "low-interest rates" offered by most central banks to boost the economy and the purchase of properties. We're now seeing mortgage rates hovering between 2.8% and 3.9%.

Yet, just because the real estate market is hot and mortgages are made more affordable than before, it doesn’t mean you should call up a real estate agent and start looking at houses.

Is Buying a House Right For You?

When contemplating buying a house, ask yourself the following questions:

Is the monthly mortgage installment lower than or equal to the monthly rent I am currently paying?Is my total monthly housing cost lower than 1/3rd of my gross monthly income?Have I saved a 20% down payment? If not, can I get a higher loan to value so that I pay a lower down payment?Do I know how to evaluate the real property value, negotiate to purchase it at its real value, be eligible for financing from lenders?

If the answer to any of these questions is a hard 'No', then it might be worth reconsidering the purchase of a home. It might not be your time to buy now, but it's definitely your time to educate yourself on how to purchase a property that will serve as both your home and an investment.

Let's take each of the above questions and drill down further to trigger your thought process and help you come up with your own questions.

How does the monthly mortgage installment compare to the rent?

Many get scared from the idea of taking a home loan and feeling indebted for a long period of their lives. But when you look at this from a different angle and compare the would be monthly loan installment to the current monthly rent that you're already paying, the idea of paying an installment for a home loan becomes more digestible.

Now, what might comes to your mind is the idea that you need a 20% down payment. We will cover this is in a while.

Would you agree with me that if both the monthly mortgage installment and the rent are in the same vicinity, then it makes more sense to have this same monthly expense buy you a house over the years?

What's your total monthly housing cost?

People love to live in big houses and in houses located in rich neighborhoods. For most, it is a projection of an individual’s wealth, and a lot of people like to be perceived as financially capable of affording to rent or own a good-looking house in a high-end neighborhood. In fact, who doesn’t like big, good-looking houses? But a prudent person may want to keep the amount he or she pays on a personal home, be it a mortgage or a rent, to a maximum of a third of total income.

The monthly housing cost is computed by dividing total housing expenses over total income, where total housing expenses is the sum of real estate taxes for personal home, home mortgage or rent, utilities, personal home maintenance, personal home insurance, and personal home household improvements. The rule of thumb is to have a maximum of one-third of your total income allocated to housing. The higher your income, the better and larger house you can afford.

Have you saved a 20% down payment?

The down payment would be one of the largest obstacles to owning a house. Lenders would want you to have your skin in the game and would lend you 80% of the property purchase price (often referred to as LTV or Loan-to-Value). This also acts as a cushion for lenders should the property lose value in times of recession and when it needs liquidation given the borrower's default on repaying the loan.

All lenders assess the LTV ratio in relation to their risk exposure level when underwriting a mortgage. The smaller the difference between the property’s appraised value and the total amount borrowed, the riskier the loan. The higher the LTV ratio, the closer the loan amount is to the appraised value and therefore, the greater is the lender’s risk exposure. In such cases, lenders perceive that there is a greater chance of the loan going into default because there is little to no equity built up within the property. Should foreclosure take place, the lender may find it difficult to sell the home for an amount sufficient to cover the outstanding mortgage balance and make a profit from the transaction. For that reason, the most-often-used LTV range is between 75% and 80%.

Higher LTV ratios are primarily reserved for borrowers with higher credit scores and satisfactory mortgage history. Full financing, or 100% LTV, is reserved for only the most creditworthy borrowers. But there are also creative ways for the highest LTVs on mortgage loans. such as:

Favorable sale is a term used by banks in certain markets when the borrower buys a property below market value. In some markets, purchasing a property at a lower price gives you immediate equity, and some lenders have excellent policies that allow you to maximize the amount you can borrow when buying a property below market value. Gift of equity refers to a gift that represents a portion of the seller’s equity in the property, transferred by the seller to the buyer as a credit in the transaction. This scenario can apply when the negotiated purchase price is less than the property’s fair market value. The difference in the purchase price and the appraised value is considered a gift of equity. This strategy can be perfectly acceptable by some lenders in some markets, as long as the necessary documentation to prove the amount of the gift and confirm that no repayment is expected or required is filled out by the seller. Trade for equity happens when the buyer trades something other than cash for equity. This could be another property, land, a car, or any other valuable. This form of trading equity for a down payment is legal and could be acceptable by many lenders. Pay “all cash” at a discounted price and finance at market value is a straightforward strategy that can work well for buyers who either have the cash available or can get access to the necessary cash.

A range of possibilities is available for you on getting the most possible leverage after all the hard work in getting a seller to agree to sell at a well-negotiated, discounted selling price. All you need to do is investigate what works best in your market, with your lender, for the seller, and for you.

Bonus: Book a free discovery call for creative strategies for 100% financing

How to evaluate the real property value?

When searching for a house, you will be tempted to move on and put offers on those select few that meet your search criteria. Before you get excited and make an offer, it is important to understand two guiding principles for determining your offer price:

The listing price, which is the seller’s asking price, is not the real value of the property.The property value is based on its financials. This means, you determine the property value, which becomes your offer.

Value is the amount of money that you are willing to pay for something, while the price is the amount of money that you are asked to pay for it. Value can be perceived differently by different people. For home seekers, the value perception can be emotional. Therefore, the offer for a property may reflect those emotions. In most cases, offers made on such emotional decisions are often much higher than what real estate investors offer for the same property. For real estate investors, the decision on the price they offer is based purely on numbers. No emotions are in play. In good deals the numbers work; in bad deals, they don’t.

The message here is that you need to learn how to buy a house as if you are a real estate investor who runs the numbers to determine if this investment makes sense.

Related: Learn how to invest in real estate like an investor

Having banks more flexible to lend you a mortgage for low-interest rates is not enough to get you one. There is also the matter of your creditworthiness, or simply said, how likely you will pay your debt and interest on time.

Related: Free book and resources for determining your creditworthiness

How An Abundance Mindset Will Make All The Difference

How An Abundance Mindset Will Make All The DifferenceIt's true, what you feed your mind becomes your reality.
It has been scientifically proven that our mindset is a critical component of success in business, sports, and life. Psychologists at Stanford have concluded through research that children who have a growth mindset are better able to overcome academic challenges than those who have a fixed mindset. Other researches on adults also revealed that those with more positive beliefs around aging lived 7.5 years longer than those with less positive self-perceptions of aging.
When it comes to financial success and success in business, Stephe Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People explained how people with a scarcity mentality see life as a finite pie, so that if one person takes a big piece, that leaves less for everyone else. Whereas an abundance mindset refers to the paradigm that there is plenty out there for everybody.
How To Make The Shift From A Scarcity To An Abundance Mindset 1. Recognize the possibilitiesMost unknowledgeable people are cynical about investment. They often claim that all good investments are taken and that only the mediocre and bad investments are left over for small investors.
Savvy investors wouldn’t miss opportunities to make good investments.
Why can’t you join the league of those investors?
In fact, the marketplace is a dynamic place, with economic forces and personal forces always at work, generating a continuous flow of investment opportunities.

Economic forces such as interest rates, employment rates, population growth, population shifts, and area developments all have a major impact on the market. As a result, the prices of properties might be driven up or down. Such economic forces are big and are on the news to an extent that they may often mask the impact of personal forces in putting opportunities in the market.

For example, personal situations like marriage, divorce, increase in the size of a household, relocation, death, inability to pay a mortgage, and family disputes over inheritance all present opportunities in the market.

Those personal forces present more opportunities at discounted prices just because those people want to get rid of a property for personal reasons sooner rather than later. Such personal factors have always been there and will always remain there.
Do you still believe opportunities at a bargain price tag are all taken?

When you learn how to purchase real estate at a below-market price, you can increase the loan to value (LTV) that banks will be willing to offer you to finance those deals.
If you want to learn how to structure such deals, with up to 100% financing, click here.
2. Surround yourself with people that have an abundance mindsetWe all know people in our circles of friends who always seem positive and see the glass as half-full instead of half-empty. Make sure you spend more time with them and allow their positive attitude to rub off on you.
As Jim Rohn says, "You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with." Have a reality check and ask yourself if you look up to the people with whom you spend time. If not, you may need to make friends with other people whose life and attitude you aspire to.
3. Incorporate gratitude into your daily lifeMany have spoken about how being grateful for what you have in life will allow you to have more, whereas those who focus on what they don't have, will never have enough. Practicing gratitude is one of the most widely recognized methods for improving one’s overall well-being.
A 2007 research at the University of California showed how expressing gratitude improves mental and physical well-being. The same research also proved how being grateful impacts the overall experience of happiness.
Ultimately, just remember what you believe is what you receive.

Living Your "Dash"​ Will Determine The Legacy You Leave

 

Living Your "Dash"​ Will Determine The Legacy You Leave

One of the coaches who left a big impact on my life, Stewart Black, once asked a team of executives: “What is your dash?”

Sitting on the table, we all looked at each other with an exclamation mark drawn on our forehead. I thought it was a trick question.

When he saw me a bit confused between answering him and being hesitant to look stupid, he paused for a few seconds to allow me some time to think and then gave me a hint to imagine what might be written on the tombstone of a person who died.

I immediately made the correlation that he meant the dash that separates the date of birth and date of death of a person, which is the time a person spends alive on earth.

He asked me again: “What is your dash? When your eulogy is read, would you be proud of the things they will say about you and about how you spent your years from birth till death?”

Then he addressed everyone around him at the table and recommended not to answer his question then. But he strongly advised each one of us to reflect on our dash and to think of anything we would like to change in our lives now.

I thought of this as an opportunity for any person to rewrite their dash. With those words, I came to realize that what matters the most is how we live and love during our years on this earth. It matters not how much wealth we accumulate for the sake of wealth, but we can think of wealth as an enabler to spend quality time with our beloved ones.

What Are You Cut For?

With the help of Stewart during several coaching sessions, I managed to clarify my purpose in life: Adding value to people’s lives. This became the filter for every decision I make in my life, including writing those articles and my best-selling books.

When Stewart helped me identify my priorities in life, serving God, my family, and the community were on top of the list. Everything else became secondary or an enabler.

This is exactly how I see creating wealth and having plenty of money—as an enabler. Being wealthy and financially free can offer you choices in life. You can choose to retire early and spend more quality time with your family and serving the community; you can also choose to open a business you have always wanted to venture into; or you can choose to remain employed for a company you enjoy working with, especially if you have reached a senior position and if you really love your job.

Whatever you choose, being financially free will allow you to have more conviction in your decisions. Gone will be the days where you will be forced to stay in a job that you hate!

What Are Your Priorities?

Thinking about what your own dash is will always be time well spent. I rarely have seen people giving their lives adequate thought and figuring out what their purpose is. On the contrary, I often see people taking ample amounts of time planning for their day-to-day things or their vacations.

Don’t get caught in the daily stuff. You will be better off thinking of your life beyond material things. If you make it a practice to revisit your big why list every year and often refer to it to remind yourself of it, that would be a great start.

Related: What Is Your Big Why?

Seek the Help of Gardeners, Not Mechanics!

It is amazing how a coach can help you in figuring out the important things in life that you want to achieve and how a mentor can help you achieve those goals.

While digging in my notes, I found a simple definition that differentiates a coach from a mentor. “A coach has some great questions for your answers; a mentor has some great answers for your questions.”

The coaches I had the honor to work with within my life asked me many challenging questions that have triggered my thoughts and made me look for answers. In parallel, I have worked with great mentors who have helped me with the answers to the questions triggered by my coaches.

On that topic, I reflect on what Stewart used to always talk about in differentiating between the gardener and the mechanic. A gardener creates an environment that nurtures personal growth and allows the person to stretch and expand their mind beyond their comfort zone. Whereas a mechanic fixes things... or people.

How many of us want to be fixed? Not many.

Without the help of coaches and mentors, our mistakes could have been plentiful, and we might not have achieved whatever success we have so far in our respective lives.

You will need the help of coaches and mentors to guide you on the journey you would select for yourself. You will need someone to hold you accountable for achieving your objectives. You will need someone who will help you unfold priorities you will have in your life down the road a few years from now. You will be amazed how your priorities in life will evolve throughout the years, especially when you grow in experience, skills, and wealth.

Will You Take Action and Change Your Life?

I will leave you now with this question, which I trust you will reflect on and hopefully make meaningful changes to your finances and your life.

Once you decide on what you want to achieve in life, don’t get caught in “the captivity of passivity”.

Get out there and make it happen... Take action!

Related: Book your free discovery call with me

Living Your "Dash"​ Will Determine The Legacy You LeaveO...

 

Living Your "Dash"​ Will Determine The Legacy You Leave

One of the coaches who left a big impact on my life, Stewart Black, once asked a team of executives: “What is your dash?”

Sitting on the table, we all looked at each other with an exclamation mark drawn on our forehead. I thought it was a trick question.

When he saw me a bit confused between answering him and being hesitant to look stupid, he paused for a few seconds to allow me some time to think and then gave me a hint to imagine what might be written on the tombstone of a person who died.

I immediately made the correlation that he meant the dash that separates the date of birth and date of death of a person, which is the time a person spends alive on earth.

He asked me again: “What is your dash? When your eulogy is read, would you be proud of the things they will say about you and about how you spent your years from birth till death?”

Then he addressed everyone around him at the table and recommended not to answer his question then. But he strongly advised each one of us to reflect on our dash and to think of anything we would like to change in our lives now.

I thought of this as an opportunity for any person to rewrite their dash. With those words, I came to realize that what matters the most is how we live and love during our years on this earth. It matters not how much wealth we accumulate for the sake of wealth, but we can think of wealth as an enabler to spend quality time with our beloved ones.

What Are You Cut For?

With the help of Stewart during several coaching sessions, I managed to clarify my purpose in life: Adding value to people’s lives. This became the filter for every decision I make in my life, including writing those articles and my best-selling books.

When Stewart helped me identify my priorities in life, serving God, my family, and the community were on top of the list. Everything else became secondary or an enabler.

This is exactly how I see creating wealth and having plenty of money—as an enabler. Being wealthy and financially free can offer you choices in life. You can choose to retire early and spend more quality time with your family and serving the community; you can also choose to open a business you have always wanted to venture into; or you can choose to remain employed for a company you enjoy working with, especially if you have reached a senior position and if you really love your job.

Whatever you choose, being financially free will allow you to have more conviction in your decisions. Gone will be the days where you will be forced to stay in a job that you hate!

What Are Your Priorities?

Thinking about what your own dash is will always be time well spent. I rarely have seen people giving their lives adequate thought and figuring out what their purpose is. On the contrary, I often see people taking ample amounts of time planning for their day-to-day things or their vacations.

Don’t get caught in the daily stuff. You will be better off thinking of your life beyond material things. If you make it a practice to revisit your big why list every year and often refer to it to remind yourself of it, that would be a great start.

Related: What Is Your Big Why?

Seek the Help of Gardeners, Not Mechanics!

It is amazing how a coach can help you in figuring out the important things in life that you want to achieve and how a mentor can help you achieve those goals.

While digging in my notes, I found a simple definition that differentiates a coach from a mentor. “A coach has some great questions for your answers; a mentor has some great answers for your questions.”

The coaches I had the honor to work with within my life asked me many challenging questions that have triggered my thoughts and made me look for answers. In parallel, I have worked with great mentors who have helped me with the answers to the questions triggered by my coaches.

On that topic, I reflect on what Stewart used to always talk about in differentiating between the gardener and the mechanic. A gardener creates an environment that nurtures personal growth and allows the person to stretch and expand their mind beyond their comfort zone. Whereas a mechanic fixes things... or people.

How many of us want to be fixed? Not many.

Without the help of coaches and mentors, our mistakes could have been plentiful, and we might not have achieved whatever success we have so far in our respective lives.

You will need the help of coaches and mentors to guide you on the journey you would select for yourself. You will need someone to hold you accountable for achieving your objectives. You will need someone who will help you unfold priorities you will have in your life down the road a few years from now. You will be amazed how your priorities in life will evolve throughout the years, especially when you grow in experience, skills, and wealth.

Will You Take Action and Change Your Life?

I will leave you now with this question, which I trust you will reflect on and hopefully make meaningful changes to your finances and your life.

Once you decide on what you want to achieve in life, don’t get caught in “the captivity of passivity”.

Get out there and make it happen... Take action!

Related: Book your free discovery call with me

Brace Yourself For The Bitcoin Roller Coaster Ride

Brace Yourself For The Bitcoin Roller Coaster Ride

It seems like almost everyone in our circles of friends and colleagues is into bitcoins, even though they don't understand what they're getting themselves into nor the high risk of investing in digital currencies. When they read how other investors were able to make thousands of dollars in a few days, during 2017, with the help of cryptocurrencies, they jumped on the wagon when the ride going up is smooth. Only time will tell whether the ride is still going up or if Bitcoin investors need to brace themselves for a downward ride at a speed that might make it derail and throw everyone out!

Before we discuss the outlook for Bitcoin, let's go back on how it started for us to better understand the whole concept.

The Bitcoin Genesis

As the 2008 global financial crisis was unfolding, a person, whose identity remains mysterious, under the name of Satoshi Nakamoto published a paper in October of the same year titled "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System". This paper proposed creating a system where payments can be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution. This form of alternative currency is not controlled by any central bank and it could be accessed by anyone.

Following this paper, the first 50 bitcoins were born on January 3, 2009, and were grouped into a single unit called a "block", the first of which was called the "genesis block". From then on, every new block was attached to the one that came before it, creating what is commonly known as a "blockchain".

Afterward, Satoshi Nakamoto made the first-ever transaction using bitcoins to another account. Bitcoin's first value back then was 0.076 US cents, which was the cost of production. About a bit more than a year later, a person paid 10,000 bitcoins for a $41 pizza delivery order. Those bitcoins are now worth more than $200 million!

At the time, the best way to get bitcoins was to "mine" them by using computers to solve difficult puzzles that release bitcoins from a block. The electricity costs were offset by bitcoin's real-world value. The puzzles get more difficult with the rise in the number of users, making their mining progressively more expensive.

The Bitcoin Premature Death

4 years after its genesis, a two weeks malfunctioning in the main bitcoin exchange in Tokyo, known as Mt. Gox, caused it to file for bankruptcy protection claiming it was hacked and it lost more than $475 million in cryptocurrencies. This exchange house's former chief was charged by the Tokyo court for embezzling millions from client accounts.

The Bitcoin Resurrection On Life Support

3 years after its death, the currency resurrected and hit the global headlines in 2017 when its value soared from less than $1,000 in January to $19,511 on December 18. The virtual bubble burst in the subsequent days, with bitcoin's value then fluctuating wildly, dropping below $5,000 by October 2018.

The Bitcoin Fire Booster

Bitcoin began its latest meteoric rise on October 21, 2018, after PayPal announced that it would enable account holders to use cryptocurrency. Following this, the US Federal Reserve and European Central Bank started looking into the possibility of launching their own virtual currencies, while China's central bank started experimenting with digital payments in four cities in April.

The Bitcoin Scams

The fact that cryptocurrency is still unregulated by governments makes it private for investors but at the same time ripe for fraud by con artists and hackers.

According to The Insider, In 2019 alone, cybercriminals were able to siphon away $4.26 billion from cryptocurrency users and exchanges, according to a new report by CipherTrace. These thefts of investors' funds continue to take place through any or a combination of the below potential scams.

Fake Bitcoin Exchanges

Many of the cryptocurrency exchanges, which offer a platform for trading digital assets, remain unregulated and susceptible to scams. There have been many scammers who created fake cryptocurrency exchanges or manipulated trading volumes on seemingly reputable exchanges to lure potential investors and deprived them of their funds.

In 2017, South Korean financial authorities exposed a fake exchange called BitKRX, which scammed investors by presenting itself as part of the largest trading platform in the country.

Cryptocurrency holders are advised to turn to only well-known and respected cryptocurrency exchanges, with an extensive social media presence, website, and verifiable employees, in addition to an established history among researchers and the cryptocurrency community.

Ponzi Schemes

Bernie Madoff and Riyad Salameh (governor of the Lebanese central bank) may be the most well-known Ponzi schemers in recent history. They did it with mainstream investments. But the principle of a pyramid scheme, in which you take money from new investors to pay previous investors, can be applied to Bitcoin scams, as was the case in 2019 when three men were arrested in a $722 million cryptocurrency fraud scheme. Those men operated BitClub Network for years where they solicited money from investors in exchange for shares of cryptocurrency mining pools. Those investors never got any returns on their investments in the end.

Fake Cryptocurrencies

A common scam is to present a new cryptocurrency as an alternative to Bitcoin, claiming that's too late to cash in on Bitcoin and that you need to invest in alternative cryptocurrencies. As an example, the fraudsters behind My Big Coin took $6 million from customers to invest in a fake cryptocurrency and then redirected the funds into their personal bank accounts.

Imposters

Con artists faking their identity as government representatives and asking people to pay taxes by wiring money via Western Union, bank transfers, and recently bitcoins.

Government agencies wouldn't contact you that way and won't ask for bitcoins as a form of payment.

Malware

Malware has long been a way for hackers to get your login credentials needed to access your bank account numbers. This type of scam is now being applied to Bitcoin accounts. Once they access your Bitcoin account, they can drain your funds.

You can download malware by clicking links in your email, from websites, and on social media. There might be a post, for example, where someone claims a certain program allows you to mine bitcoins for free. Download it, and you could get malware.

Bitcoin is a volatile enough investment. Stay alert for potential Bitcoin fraudsters. If something seems too good to be true, it probably is!

Cryptocurrencies Are Incredibly Risky Investments

Bitcoin is not backed by a major government or asset, so its value is based on others' willingness to use and trade the cryptocurrency. While it has been growing, it can easily fall (as it previously did), and it can come crashing down quickly. For this reason, it is important for Bitcoin investors to only put in what they are willing to lose.

Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase CEO, believes Bitcoin and other digital currencies are a fraud when in 2017 he said “It’s just not a real thing, eventually it will be closed.”

There May Be Money to Make, But Not Without Risk

Bitcoin may double in price, but it is also possible it will fall to zero. Because they are not backed by a government or asset, Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are only worth what someone is willing to pay for them.

Others could have made thousands of profits from Bitcoin, but when the recent charts started to look a lot like the start of a stock market bubble, many probably cashed their money and exited. Whatever you do, do not invest more than you can afford to lose. Cryptocurrencies are a risky place to invest, and you never know what tomorrow will bring.

Related: Which Assets Build Wealth – Stocks, Bonds, or Real Estate?