It was 2004, the year i started working. I was working in Security firm, that’s how i always refer to my first job. It was a company providing network security services for corporates and banks. My first job is not what i wanted to tell you, but rather an encounter that always stuck to my mind.
In the same year i got to know a friend from a team building programme and he invited me to a seminar, talk or something like that. The talk was about financial freedom and the content of Robert Kiyosaki’s book had been promoted during the seminar, and my friend even briefed about an interesting game they will be playing, it’s a board game called Cash Flow 101. A brief about Robert Kiyosaki; he is a highly motivated self-made multi-millionaire in a career of building many successful businesses, real estate investment, provide motivational seminars and financial coaching. Several of his famous books such as Rich Dad Poor Dad, Cash Flow Quadrants and Rich Dad’s guide to investing. Cash Flow 101 is a game invented by him aiming to simulate the real life financial experience, objective of players are to generate enough passive income to jump out from the rat race.
I turned my friend’s invitation down, then went on with my life.
Nearly four years after this encounter, along the way i have flash back of my friend, and his enthusiastic invitation, being sincerely just for the best of myself and i turned him down. The loser is me.
This four year i can’t say i’m poor but i’m not rich either, i manage to save some money from my job but it hardly making any impact. Being the average income earner, it will just put me into the main population, the majority population, where we call the middle class.
Only until recently, in a hot afternoon when i was surfing the book store, browsing books about investing topics, i read a few books about Warren Buffet on stock market and also from some other author. So then i saw his book, Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad’s Guide to Investing, so i read a few chapters.
The first few words that caught my attention was when he said a person’s internal reality determines a person’s external reality. For example if we used to say; I can’t afford it, or i can’t be rich. He said these words are from a poor man’s reality because he saw a world where money is scarce resource. Instead, people with a rich internal reality will usually say; how can i afford it? or how can i be rich? – with question mark and these will keep them thinking and find their way. Saying words like I can’t afford or i can’t be rich will only stop them from doing anything or think and hence they will remain poor.
Another word of Robert Kiyosaki attracted me, it sounds like this; I always find people telling me; i would rather be happy than rich. I find it’s strange to compare rich and happiness. Since i have been both poor and rich i have been happy or unhappy. But i find that i was always more unhappy when i’m poor and unhappy than when i’m rich and unhappy.
The other words sounds like this; I always find it’s foolish for people to pretend money is not important, and money is evil when they spent their whole life working for money. To me, life is the most important, but money is important in supporting life. I don’t want to spend my entire life working for money, instead i want money to work for me, so i can enjoy my life.
There goes the preface of future money. In this blog where i will be drawing my path to financial freedom. This blog will serve as my or maybe your guideline, and as reminder, whenever i lose motivation. It is a reminder to myself of my objectives and ultimate goal – to achieve financial freedom.