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The Financial Freedom Day
Are you one of those people who never think about their financial future? Or maybe you vaguely dream about it all the time, but never seem to make any progress in getting there? Neither of these behaviors will create lasting wealth in your life. To be a millionaire, you have to be clear, be decisive, and take action. And the first thing you need to do to get there is to create a concise vision of what you want.
“The first step on the road to making you a millionaire is to create and clarify your vision,” writes Loral Langemeier, author of The Millionaire Maker. “People who lack a clear vision are like ships without rudders: they sail aimlessly and without a final destination. They may head toward opportunities that appear on the horizon, but then veer off course, unable to reach them.” She should know. Loral literally creates millionaires, even people in massive debt and low-paying jobs.
So what is a vision, exactly? A vision is not the same thing as a goal. “A vision is bigger than a goal. A goal might be to buy a new car or pay for the kids to go to college. But a vision is the greater umbrella under which all these goals and objective come together.”
In other words, a vision is your ultimate picture of not only what you want to accomplish personally and financially, but of how you want to be living when you accomplish those goals.
Vision essentials
In order to keep you motivated, your vision must include three elements: a) it should:
a) be exciting enough to fuel your energies,
b) be realistic enough to be doable, and
c) never compromise your values.
“It’s a balancing act between your ultimate wish list, perhaps even the dream you put aside when you were a child, and your life as it is, and has to be, at the moment,” Loral says.
Although realism is an important element in developing your vision, to create an effective vision you need to exercise what Loral calls No Limit Thinking. No Limit Thinking allows you to uncover your deepest desires, ones that may have been squelched over the years because of your current beliefs and less-than-ideal financial situation.
“You have to imagine what your life would look like if it were impossible to fail,” Loral writes. “With this type of thinking, your vision will expand. We all have the capacity to be financial free. It’s our responsibility to choose that course.”
Your vision should also include an emphasis on producing income. “In 1991, when Donald Trump was $900 Million in debt, it’s pretty clear he didn’t shrink his life and focus on reducing debt,” Loral reminds us. “Instead, he found a way to rebuild his wealth so that it surpassed and soon eliminated his debt, creating one of the greatest financial turnarounds in history.”
Although it might be good fun to envision a future where money just flows to you without any action on your part, that kind of daydreaming isn’t going to make you rich. It just isn’t realistic, and as with any long term project or goal, you need to have patience and stay committed to it. “It’s similar to the decision to walk from San Francisco to Washington, D.C.,” Loral begins. “That’s an excitable and doable objective. But even if you can manage 20 miles a day, it will still take half a year. The number of reference points you have to pass (each city and state along the way) and the hurdles you must overcome (bad weather, sore feet) may all seem daunting, but if you keep walking, you know you’ll make it because you’ve got your vision set for the nation’s capital and the course is defined.”
Financial Freedom Day
Once you’ve defined your overall vision for what you wish to achieve, it’s time to declare your Financial Freedom Day, the day when you’ve reached your financial goals. You declare this day by quantifying your vision with a measurable goal in order to best map out a strategic plan to get you there. Loral asserts that there are three things you need to decide in order to declare your Financial Freedom Day:
1. How much cash flow you need to receive each month
2. What you want your net worth to be
3. The specific day, month, and year that you want this to occur
“I know very well that if you start writing down numbers, they can get a bit discouraging,” Loral says. “It’s one thing to say that you’d like to have a net worth of $3 million and a cash flow of $30,000 a month by the time you’re 50 years old. But it’s another to make those commitments and then look at where you are now. That gap can scare you away and make you abandon any vision, no matter how compelling. It is vital that at this point you see these numbers as reference points and measurements, and every hurdle as an opportunity to learn a new lesson and make a better choice.”
Massive action
So now you have your vision and Financial Freedom Day clearly defined and written out. Great! But if you fail to take this next step, you won’t move forward. The next step is simply taking action. "The Wealth CycleTM is about massive action," Loral writes, pointing out that millionaires are always in motion. To produce big results, you need to take big action – massive action. This means doing many things at the same time and the right things at the right time, so as to achieve your vision.
Many people want to act on their financial goals but don’t, simply because they don’t know how or where to begin. Loral maintains that to take massive action you need to do three things. The first is to define your vision (which we’ve already explained), the second is to develop a strategy, and the third is to implement the strategy through multiple tactics.
Developing a strategy To generate wealth, you need a specific plan for doing so. For instance, this might mean a plan for a new business that will increase income, and the reallocation of your existing assets in such a way to bring in more passive income. This is where you need the guidance of experts and mentors.
Using tactics Tactics are the means by which you will be executing your strategies. For instance, this means breaking down all the steps involved in reaching your Financial Freedom Day and putting them in the most effective sequence.
A key element in taking the kind of massive action Loral is talking about is the idea of just doing it. You can think about your goals and write them down as much as you’d like, but without action there will be no results. Action is the fuel that propels you forward. “I want to assure you that at this point there is no need to actually believe you can do this. Getting started just takes getting started," Loral writes.
Yes, even you can do it
Many of you reading this article might be thinking, “Yeah, this all sounds great for someone else, but not me. I’m just not the millionaire type.” Creating wealth, however, is a decision. And it’s a commitment to act on that decision by honestly looking at where you are now and creating a realistic plan that will get you to where you want to be. It also requires assembling a quality team that will help on this path.
“You can make the decision to make a lot of money at any age and in any stage of your life,” Loral writes “Whether you have a solid net worth and are looking to increase your returns or are deeply in debt, can’t forego your day job, and want to be free of money worries once and for all, I can help you become a millionaire and beyond, depending on your personal goal. No matter who and where you are, wealth building is well within your grasp. You just need to step up to the plate.”
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