06 Reflection: Entrepreneurial Journal

 

This week's lesson was fascinating. And the book Field Guide for the Hero's Journey was useful, but my favorite one during this semester was Launching leaders. My favorite video was Hero's Journey, Corey Bell. His first job was with his grandfather, which was a brick mason when he was eight. He worked with Nabisco, Chrysler, Centurion Holding, and even Dell, but he wasn't happy. One day he got home and wrote his vision on life and wrote down the fifteen to a twenty-year plan of where he wanted his life to be. And he didn't know how to get there from there. Even if he worked as hard as he wanted to, he didn't even see that happening. So the only way he knew to change it was to break it and do something different because he wanted to have a way to touch people's lives. Being able to go in and see all of the people whose lives have changed, it's just been a remarkable thing to be able to see lives touched from an idea that we hatched around the dinner table. I love the fact that he discusses this with his wife, and he said: Honey, I can always get a job. I can always go work for someone else, but I don't want to live at the end of my life, thinking, "What if?". This is important for me because I was right there. And I have the same talk with my husband, and I'm fighting to pursue a goal, a dream. He read somewhere in a book that the richest place in the world is the graveyard. People die with dreams that are never fulfilled, businesses that are never started, loves that are never found, and I think all of those people died with one question, and it is "What if?". Wow, this impresses me a lot; I don't want to be one of those. "And the goal of my life is to figure out how to live my life in such a way that there is no "What-if? questions", said Corey, "if I believe I can do it, I'm going to try." 

This is super inspirational. Corey said that after his parents passed away, he and his wife brought nine of his siblings to live with them. What?! And that running a new business? And people said they are busy and can't do more, definitely, this is not the case for The Bell's family. I love people going through challenging situations and become stronger. That is why Corey's story stood out. 

 Another great video this week was Financial Fitness. Jim Richie talks about how in 11 years starting from scratch; he found enough opportunities to create the future that he now has. His answer is threefold:

1. The 6 step success formula
2. Terrific Marriage partner
3. Principles from "The richest man in Babylon."

In this lecture, he explained the third one. "The Richest Man in Babylon sets the stage for the formula of success without applying Clayton's valuable principles, all of the hard work and getting up early would never have allowed us to retire financially independent at the ripe old age of 35." He shares two of his now-famous ideas, and then he shows us a financial plan that will dramatically impact however financial future. 

      1.- Pay yourself First - Invest a part of every paycheck. Invest a fixed percentage of every paycheck dividend or profit into an investment account. This percentage will be adjusted each year or every time your revenue stream is impacted. And then live during that particular cycle. 

     2. Part of what you earn is yours to keep - Never touch the principle. First, set up an independence account. You need to put a predetermined amount from your income into a separate savings account, too; you can see the budget account. This account allows you to manage your good design and meager budget with frugality. The more frugal you are with this account, the more considerable amount to be sent to your independence account or wish list. Note, never use a credit card if it can't be paid in full from the budget account when it's due. Number three is a non-budget savings account; this account is budgeted for Christmas birthdays, medical emergencies, vacations, vehicles, etc. Budgeting for these items over time allows us to pay in cash for specific emergencies without robbing our budget account. Going into credit card debt or heaven forbid, borrowing from your independence account. Number four is a wish list savings account. Most of us like to dream about a bucket list of things we'd like to do or acquire when our ship comes in. And number five, which is probably the most important, is your gold account. The gold account is the repository of all of our investments, appreciating assets, business entities, and even our ventures. Here's how it works. The money we first pay ourselves with goes into our independence account until we have sufficient funds to invest in stocks, bonds, land, etc. This is anything that will become an appreciating asset capable of generating profits, dividends, interest, or appreciation. When they do appreciate or create a cash reward, that profit or compensation goes into our independence account, which then starts accumulating cash at a faster rate, allowing you to buy more stock, etc. and ensuring the cycle at a quicker rate. This cycle continues until the dividends, profits, interest, or capital gains kicks off sufficient cash that it would sustain your lifestyle if it was put into the budget account and the two savings accounts. 

We will note that we still do not ever touch the principal in the gold account. It remains the corpus to generate more cash flow profits and dividends to sustain our family's needs. Once we reached a predetermined goal, and our needs are met on a perpetual basis without further investments. By definition, we will become financially independent, a quest that is desired by nearly all but achieved by only a handful of people.