Archive for the ‘1: Financial I.Q: Learn 2 Earn’ category

It’s a ‘funny’ thing how a consistent effort towards Living The Perfect Lifestyle pays off

May 3rd, 2010

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Living The Perfect Lifestyle – A journey of many, many, many little lessons.

As a young country boy growing up, I was lucky enough to have a loving family and it’s because of that fact, that I’ve been striving towards Living The Perfect Lifestyle for myself, and my own family ever since I decided that working for someone else wasn’t going to cut (for me).

Every Monday morning I meet a buddy of mine for coffee. I’m sure a lot of people do the same thing… except for the fact that we meet every Monday morning with a purpose – To reflect on the week past and look forward to the week ahead.

This morning we were talking about how long it’s been since we started our meetings and we concluded that it has approximately 1.5 years. It’s a coincidence that that topic came up this morning because over the last week I had also been reviewing the ‘Big Picture’ goals I had set out for myself 1 year earlier and it was really cool to see that more things than I thought were, or had actually occurred… and when I asked Matt if the same thing had happened to him he whole-heartedly agreed.

So whats my point? Well, it’s simply that a consistent effort, and a commitment to something usually pays off. We’ve been meeting for over 1.5 years, every Monday morning to keep ourselves on track with our life Vision AND because we both have a belief that the ‘Universe’ is there to help us we continuously challenge each other to maintain our energy and make sure that we are putting out the right ‘signals’ in order to attract the things into our life that we want.

For example, one of my challenges from my past programming was that I had always heard that “money is hard to make” and I believe that it was something that has seriously held me back in the past. Since we’ve started meeting, I’ve worked on ‘changing the roots, so I could change the fruits’ and I’m seeing results.

That’s just a small example, but I can honestly say that this mornings reflection on what has happened over the last year really confirms a lot of things that I’ve heard in the past.

Things like…

  • Little by Little by Little by Large
  • As long as I’m closer to my goal this week than last week then, I know I’ll get there
  • Focus creates results
  • Thoughts become things

If you have a something that you want, and it hasn’t happened yet, I challenge you to commit to a weekly review of what went good and bad last week, and a weekly projection of what you want to accomplish this week. AND BE HONEST With yourself.

If you can find a partner to go along with you on that, do it anyway. Living the Perfect Lifestyle for yourself depends on it – at least in my opinion anyway.

Cheers to your success, and remember… “as long as you are further ahead this week than last week, then you will reach your goal.”

A Picture Says 1000 Words

Donny Watson

Its all in your head!

April 26th, 2010

Its all in your head!

I’m reading a book called The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People By Stephen R. Covey.  Amazing Book!  And I would like to share a part in the book that I think might be beneficial to everyone.  The author goes into detail about how all things are created twice.  Once as a mental creation, in your head, and second, the physical creation.  For example, take a business.  If you want to have a successful enterprise you clearly define what you’re trying to accomplish in your mind.  You have to come up with goals, strategies, market research, competition, budgeting, etc.  If you want your company to be successful you must picture the end result in your mind and in your mind create things to get there.  This principal also applies to many areas of life.  For example, if you are planning a vacation, you have to think about it first, then put it into action.  You have to determine the destination and plan out the route and activities and so on.  I have learned from personal experience that the mind is such a powerful thing!  And if we learn how to control our mind and thoughts, we would be able to do anything we want!  Can you remember how many times you wanted to do something, but the little voice inside your head stops you?  Imagine if we could overcome that little voice, and have no doubts or worries, we would be unstoppable.

I wanted to put this principal into practice in my life to prove something to myself.  That if my mind can actually focus and have a mental creation of some thing, then it has to have a physical creation also!  A couple months ago, I decided that I was going to focus my thoughts on creating an extra $500.  What I did, was I posted $500 on sticky notes everywhere around my house, so that my mind was constantly thinking of it.  Soon enough, I started noticing the number 500 everywhere I went.  On billboard signs, in magazines, prices on items were 5.00.  I set a constant reminder to myself on my blackberry so I always thought about this $500.00.  A week later, I received a cheque in the mail for $541.63.  From where?  It was from my previous job that paid bonuses once a year based on sales productions.  Even though I had quit the job just before the year ended, they still paid me for that bonus!  This story sounds crazy and obviously I could have thought of a million dollars instead of $500!  But the reason I choose $500 in the first place was because I knew that I could come up with the $500 somehow.  In my current job now my wage is based purely on commission,  So I knew I could somehow make $500 with work, I also knew I could somehow come up with $500 by getting a loan or even borrowing it from my mom.  The whole point of this story is that I focused on something realistic and achievable, I thought it of it constantly and mentally creating it in my mind that I would somehow get $500 dollars, and I did.

So my challenge to you who is reading this blog, is to really try to control your thoughts.  Focus on something that you want.  And if you focus long and hard on something you want, you can get it.  That’s what I’ll be doing!

Cheers to your success!!

Vanessa

Cleaning, Communicating and Organizing in order to Live Your Life Vision – My Story

April 25th, 2010

Your path to Live Your Life Vision will be different than mine, but here’s what I learned what is working for me…

Over the last number of years I have been walking the road less traveled in an effort to have live my life vision. Along the way I have learned a ton of valuable lessons. Some of those lessons, I had to learn numerous times so I guess you’d call them mistakes until the last time I did it, when I finally learned my lesson (If that makes any sense at all) It makes sense in my head right now so hopefully it’s making sense for you as well.

I learned a long time ago that there really isn’t such a thing as time management and that it really should be called priority management instead. I’ve written articles on this before but I’ve never really expressed how my personal journey went along with that.

There are couple of things that have occurred over the last year that have really forced me to become a true priority manager and also learn a lot about the importance of ‘Flow’. The first thing that occurred was that I had a baby boy named Charlie. He’s an awesome little dude and when he smiles he makes me forget about a lot of the little things that used to ‘bug’ me.

The other thing that happened was that I found the perfect compliment for my network marketing business and something that fit into my life vision better than anything has in the past – this was a company called Train2Invest. They just happen to be in my home town of Winnipeg and they have allowed me to add an additional revenue stream to my portfolio, learn how to invest my own money for much higher gains than what my financial planner used to get, and to help other people do the same.

My point is that because these 2 great things have come into my life, I’ve really had to pay attention to my priorities and more importantly, I’ve learned a lot about what works for me. Have you ever the read the book ‘You Were Born Rich’ by Bob Proctor. In that book, he talks about the importance of keeping your life ‘clean’ (that’s what I call it – he calls it making room for abundance) so you can allow for things that you really want.

Here’s what has become abundantly clear to me as I’ve been challenged by the ‘Universe’ to adjust my life so I can excel, and focus, on more things that are truly important to me.

‘I Need To Have Organization and A Routine’

this might sound like a simple concept but the interesting thing is that I thought I had a routine before any of this happened but when I chose to have the above 2 things come into my life, I was forced to adjust accordingly or they would both be mistreated – and that just wouldn’t be any good at all.

What I’ve learned I need to do is…

  • have a completely open communication path for Christine (my life-partner) and I where we can openly discuss our personal challenges and develop a plan to fix them – TOGETHER
  • Have clean space – meaning, we couldn’t afford to have anything that weighed on our minds. For example, if we have areas of our house that weren’t neat and tidy, it would do 2 things that were detrimental to our progress.
    • #1 – it would take of space and slow down our flow – meaning it would not allow for new things to come into our lives that we really wanted because it shows that we can’t take care of what we’ve already got
    • #2 – it would be something that could/would take focus off of the more important goals because our minds would be thinking that one thing should be done (cleaning out a messy storage room) when we should be focusing on Charlie or learning how to ‘do what we do’ better.
  • I need to exercise and make time for myself in the morning so I can plan my day. It took me 10 years to accept this fact but, for me, if I don’t exercise regularly, my production goes down. I’m sure that’s the case for most people, but understanding it, and actually doing something about it are 2 different things.

So here’s what we did/do

  • Christine and I chat daily about progress but we’ve also committed to meeting once week to make sure we are on the right path
  • We designated a weekend to get all of the ‘junk’ out of our lives and now prioritize a minimal amount of time to ‘upkeep’ these ‘junky’ things on a weekly basis
  • I have negotiated (it’s tough to do when you have a little one) an hour every morning where I can workout, listen/say my money mantra’s, review my vision, plan my day and review the markets which gets my day off to a great start. I know that sounds like a lot to do in an hour but it can be done when you have system – and truth be known, when you get an hour, you can always stretch it a minute or 2 to get finished (but don’t tell Christine)

I wouldn’t say that we’ve made it all the way yet (in terms of perfecting our lives) but we’re having fun and our focus is able to be put where it is most deserved. It’s a tough thing to figure out sometimes because everyone is different but for me, cleaning, communicating and organizing are vital actions that we have to take in order to live our life vision.

Cheers to Living Your Vision

Donny Watson

204.223.3655

Christine and I on Fraser Island

Tax savings and tax expenditures, how can you benefit?

March 31st, 2010

How can your home business benefit from these so called savings and what are the differences between savings and expenditures?

With the Canadian income tax deadline approaching on April 30, 2010 there is a rush of people trying to get that anticipated return. As a graduating business student and entrepreneur I have realized how important it is to understand how tax credits and tax expenditures can impact any business. There actually is a big difference between tax expenditures and tax credits. So how can your business benefit from these tax options?

One of my textbooks refers to tax expenditure as “a revenue loss caused by the exclusion of some item from the tax base (Rosen).” Non refundable tax credits are tax expenditures because they count as deductions from the tax base but yet no actual transaction of money exists. Meaning that any deduction such as education tax credits, business tax credits, personal tax credits that are non-refundable, are simply exclusions to the tax base on behalf of the government. This is a benefit to us.

The Government’s goal for offering tax credits to students and business owners is to reward them for the commitment to getting an education or starting a business. It’s more of an investment by the government on students and entrepreneurs with the expectation that they will bring value to the work force. Educated people tend to earn more, or are more likely to start a business and become assets to the Canadian economy. This investment in the work force is beneficial to the future

Non-refundable tax credit options include: public transit passes, home renovation expenses, interest on student loans, tuition, textbook, and education credits, home buyer credits, and many others. For a complete list of non-refundable tax credits, check out the Canada Revenue Agency.

Tax savings such as the $2,844 you get back after the two years of being enrolled in my diploma program, are paid out in the income tax return. Therefore a payout of cash is a tax savings, as you are actually receiving the money based on your income; another benefit to us.

It’s really important to understand the difference between these benefits so that us as business owners and individuals can get the best possible return. The government doesn’t make these rules for nothing! IF you file your taxes yourself, you need to have a clear understanding of how to maximize each category. That being said, even if you have a good accountant it is important to have a clear idea of what you’re entitled to when it comes to taxes.

As a business owner, you are also entitled to “write off” tax deductible expenses. These expenses are still incurred by the business however the government waves the tax come tax time. Tax deductible expenses include: advertising and promotion, administrative fees, business taxes, bank fees, conventions, dues and subscriptions, insurance, interest, licenses and fees, meals and entertainment, office supplies, professional fees, rent, property taxes, travel, telephones, etc. The deductible expenses vary depending on where the office is located; if it’s a home office, if there is automobiles involved, etc. Important: All business expenses must be incurred to earn income to be considered tax deductible. Again, you should consult with an accountant or the Canada Revenue Agency for their list of allowable expenses.

One of the many benefits of owning a business is the tax advantages. It doesn’t have to be expensive or complicated, and can make a big difference in your finances. If you don’t use an accountant, I highly recommend finding a good one. I have never met anyone who regretted it.

Cheers to a healthy tax return,

Mike Perrin

6 Passive Residual Income Options For You To Choose From

February 11th, 2010

Contrary to popular belief, there are only 6 Passive Residual Income Options that you have to choose from if you want to earn passive income and live your perfect lifestyle.

There millions of dollars of books, courses and training material that supposedly teaches people how to earn multiple streams of passive income BUT when it comes right down to it, you can only do one of these 6 things to create passive income.

  1. Real Estate
  2. Stocks
  3. Network Marketing
  4. Big Business
  5. Royalty Business (Singing, Writing, Acting, Speaking, Branding, Etc)
  6. Internet

Of course there are a lot of different areas in each one of the options above but those are the only 6 options that give you enough leverage to produce passive residual income options.

The best part is that if you learn how to do one really, really well, then you’ll be able to stop spending time earning linear income and start spending time doing what ever is that you want to do. That may just be spending some time learning how to earn additional income from one of the other options.

The other thing you’ll realize when you get into earning passive residual income is that there are a lot of ways that you can leverage the time you put into one option into another options.

For Example, as you may or may not know, I’m a supporter of using a combination of Network marketing, the internet and personal branding to create multiple streams of passive income. I started out doing network marketing but quickly realized that I could be more effective in building that business if I also became efficient in marketing online. It was actually easier to build the 3 things together than it was to build one of them by itself.

So what’s the point here? Well, you’ve got 6 options to produce passive residual income and put yourself in a position to live you perfect lifestyle, the thing you need to do is decide which one fits your situation and needs the best.

Cheers to you living your perfect lifestyle,

Donny Watson.
Me and My Shirtless Nephew

Me and My Shirtless Nephew

Millionaire Mind Wealth Principles

February 8th, 2010

T. Harv Eker’s Millionaire Mind Wealth Principles

The following Millionaire Mind Wealth Principles were used to develop the foundation of the Quit Your Job Early Plan. 

Millionaire Mind Wealth Principles:Harv Eker's Secrets of the Millionaire Mind

  • If your motivation for acquiring money or success comes from a non-supportive root such as fear, anger, or the need to “prove” yourself, your money will never bring you happiness
  • If you want to make a permanent change, stop focusing on the size of your problems and start focusing on the size of you!
  • If you want to change the fruits, you’ll have to change the roots first.
  • If you want to change the visible you’ll have to change the invisible
  • If you want something you’ve never had you’ll to do something you’ve never done
  • You can choose to think in ways that support you in your happiness and success instead of ways that don’t
  • When you are complaining, you become a living, breathing “crap magnet.”
  • If your goal is to be comfortable, chances are you’ll never get rich. But if you’re goal is to be rich, chances are you’ll end up mighty comfortable.
  • The number reason most people don’t get what they want is because they don’t know what they want.
  • If you are not fully, totally and truly committed to creating wealth, chances are you won’t.
  • The secret to success is not to try to avoid or get rid of or shrink from your problems; the secret is to grow yourself so that you are bigger than any problem
  • If you say you’re worthy, you are. If you say you’re not worthy, you’re not. Either way, you will live into your story.
  • Money will only make you more of what you already are.
  • There’s nothing wrong with getting a steady pay-check unless it interferes with your ability to earn what you’re worth. There’s the rub. It usually does.
  • Never have a ceiling on your income
  • “Where attention goes, energy flows and results show.”
  • Until you show you can handle what you’ve got, you won’t get anymore!
  • The habit of managing your money is more important than the amount
  • Either you control money or it will control you.
  • Action is the bridge between the inner world and the outer world
  • It isn’t necessary to get rid of fear in order to succeed
  • If you are willing to do what’s easy, life will be hard. But if you are willing to do what’s hard, life will be easy.
  • Training and managing your own mind is the most important skill you could ever own, in terms of both happiness and success.
  • You can be right or you can be rich, but you can’t be both.
  • “Every master was once a disaster.” T. Harv Eker
  • To get paid the best, you must be the best.

Rich People Mindset vs Poor People Mindset

  • Rich people play the money game to win. Poor people play the money game to lose
  • Rich people are committed to being rich. Poor people want to be rich.
  • Rich People think big. Poor people think small
  • Rich people focus on opportunities. Poor people focus on obstacles.
  • Rich people admire other rich and successful people. Poor people resent rich and successful people.
  • Rich people associate with positive, successful people. Poor people associate with negative or unsuccessful people.
  • Rich people are willing to promote themselves and their value. Poor people think negatively about selling and promotion.
  • Rich people are bigger than their problems. Poor people are smaller than their problems

It’s amazing how important it is to have the correct mindset as you work towards financial success. You can learn more about the Millionaire Mind Wealth Principles by purchasing T. Harv Eker’s book called Secrets of the Millionaire Mind (you can find it in our ‘books’ section on the right of this page).

Cheers to Your Success

Hanging out at the lake

Hanging out at the lake

Donny Watson

You’re actually closer to success than it seems…

February 6th, 2010

The reality is; you are actually closer to success than it seems.

It seems that most successful people have some sort of opinion or advice to offer in terms of what it takes to achieve success, or simply what success even means. There are all kinds of personal development books, blogs, training programs, and even consultants out there that all focus on the keys to becoming successful. However there is one message that seems to pop up no matter where you look, and it happens every day. You’re actually closer to success than it seems, and it shows all the time.

Its simple, almost too simple however it is very important. One of the biggest mistakes people make is giving up when they are so close to succeeding! It doesn’t matter if it is a large corporation, small business, personal relationship, or playing a sport. The same challenge exists, and more often than not, most people are actually closer to success than it seems

2009 was a real eye opener for me when it comes to realizing how crucial this mistake can be. It was just today that a peer told me they lost over six thousand dollars because of a mutual fund that was hit by the recession. The problem here wasn’t that the fund took a dive, the problem is the cold feet kicked in and they got out of their investment and put the money into savings at a much lower interest rate! Since the time that the fund dropped and the loss took place, the mutual fund has regained almost 40%! That money would not have been lost had it be left in the fund.

You don’t have to be taking part in investing, or making crucial business decisions to learn from this mistake. You just need to be human. Everyone makes mistakes, in fact that’s one of the best ways to learn. The message here is that too many times when something is a little out of our comfort zone, we panic and react. Most of the time if we would take a little extra time, or get a couple more opinions, we would realise the reality that around that corner usually lies success! Don’t let cold feet set in, you’re actually closer to success than it seems.

Cheers to your future success.

Mike Perrin

big white

beautiful day on the mountain

6 Passive Residual Income Options For You To Choose From

November 15th, 2009

Contrary to popular belief, there are only 6 Passive Residual Income Options that you have to choose from if you want to earn passive income and live your perfect lifestyle.

There millions of dollars of books, courses and training material that supposedly teaches people how to earn multiple streams of passive income BUT when it comes right down to it, you can only do one of these 6 things to create passive income.

  1. Real Estate
  2. Stocks
  3. Network Marketing
  4. Big Business
  5. Royalty Business (Singing, Writing, Acting, Speaking, Branding, Etc)
  6. Internet

Of course there are a lot of different areas in each one of the options above but those are the only 6 options that give you enough leverage to produce passive residual income options.

The best part is that if you learn how to do one really, really well, then you’ll be able to stop spending time earning linear income and start spending time doing what ever is that you want to do. That may just be spending some time learning how to earn additional income from one of the other options.

The other thing you’ll realize when you get into earning passive residual income is that there are a lot of ways that you can leverage the time you put into one option into another options.

For Example, as you may or may not know, I’m a supporter of using a combination of network marketing, the internet and personal branding to create multiple streams of passive income. I started out doing network marketing but quickly realized that I could be more effective in building that business if I also became efficient in marketing online. It was actually easier to build the 3 things together than it was to build one of them by itself.

So what’s the point here? Well, you’ve got 6 options to produce passive residual income and put yourself in a position to live you perfect lifestyle, the thing you need to do is decide which one fits your situation and needs the best.

Cheers to you living your perfect lifestyle

Cheers to Your Success

Cheers to Your Success

Donny Watson.

Robert Kiyosaki’s Cash-Flow Quadrant

November 14th, 2009

Robert Kiyosaki’s cash-flow quadrant example really simplifies your income choices.

No matter how you slice, Robert Kiyoski’s cash-flow quadrant clearly identify’s the four choices you have when it comes to earning income. There isn’t 5 ways to earn income; there isn’t 3 ways to earn income; there is only 4 ways. This video and the diagram that follows displays the 4 ways:

Robert Kiysaki's Cash Flow Quadrant

If you want to control your time and your level of income, the only place you can do it is if you join one, or both, of the options on the right side. I’ve said it 1000’s of times and I will continue to say it, “if you are working as an employee, you are being leveraged and your employer controls your level of income and the amount of time that you work.” That is saying that employment is good or bad, I’m simply stating the facts. The way that the right side quadrants fit into the quit your job early philosophy is that you need to have a business that produces cash-flow (preferably passive income). This income will replace the employment income and have the potential to become very lucrative if the right leverage strategies are put in place. The intention with the passive income business is to build enough cash-flow so that you can take a portion of that cash-flow and build wealth through investments (real estate and stocks).

I have a ton of respect for Robert Kiyosaki and his message. He believes in raising your financial IQ so that you can control situation. The difference between him and us is (besides the fact that he is incredibly loaded) is that he talks a lot of theory. We intend to not only teach the theory but also offer a solution.

To learn more about our solution CLICK HERE.

Until we meet again, give a kid a dollar today. I can guarantee it will make your day more than it will make his. Cheers,

Donny Watson
Me and my Favorite 'little man' - Charlie

Me and my Favorite 'little man' - Charlie

204.223.3655

How to plan to live your perfect lifestyle

November 13th, 2009

Unbeknownst to most people, it is actually possible to plan to live your perfect lifestyle and then actually make it become your reality.

What do you think about this thought

“we all have a vision of what our perfect lifestyle would look like; the challenge is trying to figure out

how the hell to actually live it in your lifetime.”

That’s the million dollar question isn’t it. Well here’s a little exercise that can help you get there

How to Plan to Live Your Perfect Lifestyle

The theory behind this exercise is that you need to know where you’ve been, and where you are at this moment in your life, before you can determine what the right course of action is that you want to take.

So, for this example, I’m going to use 30 years of age as our starting point. You can replace that with your current age. Take as much time as you want with this exercise and it may even help to write some stuff down. The important thing is to get of it is to know what you want in your life. What type of lifestyle do you want? So just follow along, think about questions and answer appropriately for what fits into your life.

  1. Take a snapshot of what your lifestyle is like right now. What does it include? What parts do you like and what parts don’t you like?
  2. Now follow the red arrow back to 5 years ago in your life. What was your life like then? What did it include? What did you like about it and what did you want to change? And Most importantly, what did you want your life to like 5 years from that day 5 years ago (which of course is today – I know it’s a little confusing but this is a powerful exercise to go through)
  3. Now follow the ocean blue arrow back to the present day ask yourself if your vision from 5 years ago is what you are living today? Then realize that regardless of what the answer is, it doesn’t matter, all you can do is take what you have and build on it.
  4. Dark Blue Arrow – Start to project what you want your life to like in 5 years time. In an ideal world what would it include? Who is part of it and what are you doing? How much money do you make? What things are you experiencing? These are all important questions.
  5. Green Arrow – Ask yourself the same questions from #4 only this time it’s 10 years into the future.
  6. Purple Arrow – Ask yourself the same questions as in #4  again. This time it’s 20 years into the future
  7. Orange Arrow – Depending on how old you are right now you can project yourself into the future 40 years and ask yourself the same questions as in #4.

The point of this exercise is to simply get you thinking about what you really, really want and ask yourself if earning passive income streams would make that lifestyle you envision easier to attain? Can you see how you can use this process to live your perfect lifestyle. The first thing you need to do is make sure that you’ve got a clear vision of what that lifestyle is. The second thing you need to do is go through this self-evaluation process on a daily, weekly, monthly and annual basis.

The bottom line is that you need to make sure that you are always moving towards your goal.  There is no way to do this unless you know where you want to go and then keep ‘score’ of where you are at in relation of where you want to be.

If you don’t keep score, how do you know if you are winning or losing? The best business’s in the world keep score every month by doing there financial analysis. Professional athletes keep score of their fitness every day so they know where they’re at so they know whether they have to push harder. By training at the optimal level they will be able to perform at the ultimate level.

You can do the same by going through this life projection exercise on a regular basis to make sure your plan to live your perfect lifestyle is on track.

Cheers to your perfect lifestyle,

Pretending I'm Cool on a Sail Boat

Pretending I'm Cool on a Sail Boat

Donny Watson