As a free agent, my strongest desire is for my personal
freedom. I seek to interact with the world on my terms,
spending my time with the people I desire when I desire
doing what I want when I want to do it.
People may seek free agency because they desire greater
creative leeway than they experienced in Corporate America,
maybe they just want to be their own boss or have the
flexibility to be with their families more. Whatever the
reason for free agency, all free agents must understand the
rules of money if they are to be successful in the world as
a free agent.
Money is an expression of life force and energy and as such
it follows very specific laws...rules and regulations.
Everybody has their own money rules, but these rules may
not be the actual rules of money.
As an example someone may have a "rule" about saving. Money
follows thought, feelings and actions in that order. This
is why a person who has persistent thoughts and feelings
about poverty will never learn to live a rich life no
matter how many actions they take to save money. In fact,
a person whose thoughts are dominated by feelings of
poverty and lack may find that no matter how
well-intentioned their actions toward money "something"
always happens to prevent them from accumulating money.
During my journey as a free agent I have discovered 3
infallible rules of money:
1) You must have a purpose for your money. If you do not
have a purpose for money, money will leave your hands and
wind up in the hands of a person who does. Yikes!!! The
implications of this law are staggering. Subsistence
living and paying your bills is not good enough. The
people who focus on paying their bills as their highest
purpose for money rarely have enough to pay their bills.
Your purpose for money must be authentic for you. If you
decide your purpose for money is to give a large sum to a
charity, but you do not give regular energy in terms of
thought, feeling and action to tithing or charitable
giving, that purpose is not authentic for you and it is the
same as having no purpose for money. That authentic
purpose can be as simple as taking your family on vacation
or paying off your home. So the law is you must have a
purpose for money that is authentic for you.
2) You must pay yourself first. By not paying yourself
first, you are saying on a thought, feeling and emotional
level that you have no value in your money equation. When
I began paying myself first, I went from believing I could
not save a dime to saving $50 dollars every 2 weeks. That
was quite some time ago. Now, let's just say, things are
quite different. You must start somewhere, just to build
the belief that you can do it. Then save according to your
purpose for money. The more you save, you may find that
your purpose for money changes a bit. It may become
bigger, broader, that's great! So, rule number 2 is pay
yourself first.
3) You must spend consciously. Now what in blazes does
that mean? Well it means that when money leaves your hand,
you know why it is leaving your hand and you understand its
connection to your purpose for money. What that may look
like in actual practice is that if your purpose for money
is to take your kids to Disney World by the time your
oldest is 13, you may make different spending choices each
time money leaves your hand. In fact, with that purpose
in mind, you may seek higher value propositions for each
item you purchase and in situations where you might have
spent money in the past you may choose to retain that money
in favor of situations that support your purpose for money.
Most people spend money on an unconscious level without a
purpose or plan. A recent article on CNN money showed that
the average American loses track of $50-60 dollars per
week. In a nation where the average American has a
negative savings rate, that fact is staggering. Taking
into account the number of working adults in America that
is literally a loss of over $2 billion dollars per year. A
quick jump over to Hugh's Calculators shows that
consciously putting that "lost" money into a savings
account at 5% amounts to $300, 000 dollars over a working
lifetime. On an individual level that loss can easily mean
the difference between a comfortable retirement or one
depending solely on social security. So rule number 3 is
spend consciously in total awareness of your purpose for
money.
Free Agency is an absolute joy to live for it truly gives
each of us the opportunity to live according to our highest
creative potential and personal freedom. However to
successfully navigate the waters of free agency, you must
understand and use the rules of money on your journey.
----------------------------------------------------
Like most people I went to school to get an education and
learn a profession. When I graduated and began working, I
realized something was very wrong. The path that I thought
would lead me to freedom was instead leading me into
quicksand. I got out of the quicksand when I joined the
Free Agent Nation. You can find out more about the Free
Agent Nation at http://www.freeagentnationonline.com
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