Babis' Weblog

Introduction

In the UK, and elsewhere, there is a lot of focus on inflation, hyper-inflation, austerity measures, rising taxes, lying and thieving governments, pension shortfalls (and thefts by successive governments), massive job insecurity (my neighbour just told me that Tesco’s are cutting back her hours and firing people, so times must be bad) and job losses (my window cleaner just told me that many of his customers are losing their jobs or are seriously worried). The media love it of course because they have plenty of doom and gloom to write about. If you are not looking to make any improvements to your, or your family’s, lives, then you might not want to read any further, and that’s ok.

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I am glad that you have decided to read on.

I learnt from the brilliant Jim Rohn (RIP), within the last 2 years, that anyone can live their life as they choose to, and that’s fine, but if you wish to, IF YOU WISH TO, you can change your life for the better within any 2 years. You can change between the ages of 18 – 20, 30 – 32, 45 – 47, 64 – 66, 71 – 73…any two years you can think of, you can change, if you wish to.

Until I grasped the significance of that last paragraph my future was filled with the prospect of having to work for someone else until I dropped dead – not a great way to live my life I thought. If you keep blaming others, or circumstances, for your lot in life you give them the power to control your life and keep you where you are. In order to succeed a positive decision to succeed needs to be made, to banish all the excuses (alibis) and ignore all the dream stealers (negative people) that try to bring you down by telling you that it cannot be done. Some brilliant quotes from successful people that I look up to probably convey what I am trying to say better than I can:

“The people that get on in this world are the people that get up and look for the circumstances that they want; and if they can’t find them, they make them.” ~ George Bernard Shaw

“The best way to predict the future is to create it.” ~ Jason Kaufmann

“If you don’t like where you are, then change it! You’re not a tree.” ~ Jim Rohn

“The common man uses the word luck to defend his normality. Luck doesn’t exist. It is merely the prepared man ready for future opportunity.” ~ Robert Kiyosaki

“The more you seek security, the less of it you have. But the more you seek opportunity, the more likely it is that you will achieve the security that you desire.” ~ Brian Tracy

Personal Development

Why bother with this? It’s all mumbo jumbo and who has time for it anyway. If this is what you are thinking, I know how you feel because I felt the same way until I took one small step one day and the penny dropped. The light bulb in my head exploded!

This is why I bothered:

“Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune.” ~ Jim Rohn

“There is little difference in people, but that little difference makes a big difference. That little difference is attitude. The big difference is whether it is positive or negative.” ~ Robert Collier

“Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude.” ~ Zig Ziglar

“If you want to be successful, find someone who has achieved the results you want and copy what they do and you’ll achieve the same results.” ~ Anthony Robbins

I love positive quotes like the ones above. The reason is that they empower me, inspire me and keep negativity at bay that surrounds us every day.

Personal development and inspirational quotes are crucial if you want to free yourself from all the negativity in society that automatically gets into our heads. The reason being that to become successful takes effort and this is not possible with a negative mindset. This negativity comes from our environment (society) and it has become so entrenched that it has become accepted as the norm, sadly. Just as we need to wash every day to stay clean so we need to cleanse our minds of all this negativity with a daily dose of personal development.

For me, personal development didn’t start at school or university because these institutions did not teach me about these things, and they still don’t. They only teach you to become a good employee to make someone else rich and they certainly do not teach practical financial skills for daily life. One of the reasons for the recent credit crunch, in my humble opinion.

Personal development for me started with a very helpful colleague at my day job called George. George recommended a fantastic book by Robert Kiyosaki called Rich Dad, Poor Dad 2: Cash Flow Quadrant – Rich Dad’s Guide to Financial Freedom. This brilliant book gave me some fantastic insights into why the rich get richer and the poor or middle classes stay where they are, or go backwards. Now I know why and I have discovered that my situation was all my fault! Whether I succeed or fail in life it is my fault, no one else’s. I have taken full responsibility to change my life for the better. After reading that book I understood why the only way to succeed was to start my own business, in partnership with Angela, to build up an asset that would generate an inflation proof and recession proof income for life. It has been over a year now since we started in November 2009 and we have never looked back.

This page on this blog contains books and CDs that I have read or listened to, or would like to read or listen to, in order to improve myself further. The following are the ones we have read and strongly recommend, in order, if you are new to personal development:

1. The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason
2. Seven Strategies for Wealth and Happiness by Jim Rohn
3. Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
4. Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki
5. Rich Dad, Poor Dad 2: Cash Flow Quadrant – Rich Dad’s Guide to Financial Freedom by Robert Kiyosaki

Mind your own business

“Profits are better than wages.” ~ Jim Rohn

“Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo Da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.” ~ H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Robert Kiyosaki, and many other successful people, strongly recommend that people run at least one of their own businesses if they want to have a financially secure future. It is much simpler than I thought, and most people think. One can get started from home in a part time business in less than an hour for less than a couple of hundred pounds because technology has made this all possible. In these tough economic times many people feel that they don’t have the kind of money to get started. Some people have managed to find the money despite these obstacles by analysing how much they spent on their annual satellite / cable TV subscription, the pub, cigarettes, eating out, take aways and making small sacrifices that paid big dividends. Others were convinced by the tax refunds they would be entitled to if they ran their own business.

“Most things make no difference. Being busy is a form of mental laziness.” ~ Tim Ferriss

On the issue of time, and being “too busy” to take something new on, some people asked themselves how much time they spent watching TV every night or how long the commute to their job took every day. They figured that if they used this time productively, say 2 – 4 hours per day, to read a good personal development book or listen to the same as audio CDs (if they were driving for example), they could build a massively successful business in a year or two. After that, if they wanted to, they could watch TV 24/7 and not have any money worries for the rest of their lives.

Which would suit you better, putting in a little effort into your own business for 2 – 5 years to build up that royalty income for the rest of your life or working for someone else for another 20, 30 or 40+ years until you retire and are too old to enjoy life to the full?

Here are a couple of great books / CDs that I recommend if you are serious about securing your financial future, or you know of someone that might be:

1. The Business of the 21st Century by Robert Kiyosaki
2. Building Your Network Marketing Business by Jim Rohn *This is exceptionally good!*

Network marketing is now a well respected business model endorsed by Warren Buffett, Donald Trump, Robert Kiyosaki, and of course, Jim Rohn. Thousands of people in the UK, and around the world, are building their successful business using this well established business model. Some of the benefits of network marketing are as follows:

• earn a royalty income for life, like authors or musicians – do the work once and get paid forever
• start up the business in about an hour
• very low start up cost
• big tax savings for ordinary people, not usually available through the day job
• a good company will include free training and support
• can easily be run part-time alongside the day job or existing business (it can also help an existing traditional business)
• can easily replace a company pension within a couple of years of consistent effort
• time leverage (creates more income for less time invested)
• build a revenue generating asset that is willable to your children or a charity
• the business or extra money could help a charity on a regular basis
• more time with the family (the family can help with the business too)
• be your own boss.

There are many great home based businesses (not stuffing envelopes) all over the world that you could choose to get involved in, but if you are in the UK, this one might be worth having a look at.

“Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires courage.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The most expensive advice is free advice from a poor person.” ~ Bradley J Sugars

“Money isn’t the most important thing, but money does affect everything that is important: health, education, quality of life.” ~ Robert Kiyosaki

Follow up

If you would like to follow me / us you can do so via Twitter @BabisGakis or our business @FreeBills4Me.

Alternatively, you can also post a comment to this post to get in touch, or, if you prefer, please contact the person that retweeted this post to you as they might have a great opportunity that would help you to secure your financial future.

If you take nothing else from this blog post please do yourself and your family a favour and just order any of the books / CDs mentioned and read / listen to them. It could be the best thing you ever did.