PowerGems
The Useful Science of Numbers, Money, and Retirement
Speaking of the science of numbers, and how to use that science to your early retirement benefit. If you wish to retire to your current residence and happily watch your flowers grow, you will need approximately 80% of your lifetime income to retire on.
If you wish to travel and taste some of life's costlier gifts, you can figure that, in order to retire comfortably, you'll need at least three times your lifetime income. Naturally, you question the mathematical possibility of possessing more than one hundred percent of anything, and may even ask how in blazes so many people enjoy retirements if they're unable to accrue triple their lifetime earnings.
Well, in the first place, their retirement comforts do NOT come primarily from Social Security or their primary savings. It comes from investments that have grown. More often than not, those investments were tiny little modest sums that were invested with weekly or monthly regularity, with the occasional windfall tossed into that retirement investment fund as well. Almost none of our comfortable retirees made their retirement nest eggs in a single lump sum, or even in two, three, or ten large lumps.
Again and again we keep hearing the same comment from rich people. "It's not about home runs;
it's about singles, every month of your life."
In 1992, approximately 72,000 Americans became millionaires.
By 1994, it jumped up to nearly 150,000 (3,000 new millionaires every single week).
Month after month, mostly as the result of "a home-based effort of four or more hours per week," we've seen tens of thousands of new millionaires, for many months in a row.
By 1996, when America boasted more than three million AND eight hundred thousand people not merely worth, get this, when we hit 3,800,000 Americans EARNING an average of eighty thousand dollars per month, the IRS, Forbes, Fortune, and others began defining millionaires as those who earn a million or more per year.
Then comes 1999. A million new millionaires added to the other six million who are earning many thousands of dollars per week, and you're not, so be quiet.
Because my lifetime goal is to give half of all my minutes and dollars to others who need it more, I've made a passion of studying, and personally interviewing, thousands of self-made masters and millionaires.
Is it possible they know something about attracting money that you don't? One thing every one of us can be certain of: If you knew better, you'd do better.
We know that half of all Americans have no written plan for their retirement. We also know that they don't have the money to retire. Even if you wish to deny the scientific certitude that writing your dreams on paper instantly multiplies their probably of achievement. why not just take it on faith and try it?
Ten days. Each day, you invest a perfect one percent of your time, equal to fourteen minutes and twenty seconds, writing down the five biggest wishes you have, and each day, add just two or three names to a growing list of people or organizations you can ask for help.
One percent of your time, fourteen minutes per day, for ten days.
If you don't see enormous changes in your actions and results, give it up and call me a fool.
It just seems to me that, win or lose, the people who swing the bat are the only ones with a legitimate right to an opinion. They are certainly the only opinions that an intelligent OR hungry person would listen to.
No one says you personally must earn 80,000 dollar per month. For starters, you are incapable of earning such amounts until you believe that you can, and believe that you're worth it.
Each and every time you work on your map, which is just another word for "written instructions for how to get there," you can take a ten- or twenty-dollar bill out of your pocket, and place it in an envelope that will end up being deposited in a totally separate account from your normal funds. This new account is NOT an emergency fund. It is never, ever, ever to be touched before your retirement, no matter the cause. Since you've already gone through many of those 2000 lifetime paychecks, you can do your own math to figure out how many such checks you still have left.
Hopefully, this one examination of where you are, and where you are headed, and where you most want to be at a specific, identified date down the road, might very well be the catalyst that we've been waiting for: the one event that stimulates you into identifying one thing you can get paid for while enjoying your development of excellence in that area. Such excellence will definitely bring you joy and fulfillment, and also a significantly higher income. Even if only one tenth of this new side income is placed into the "NEVER TOUCH" account, you will find two things happening, one hundred percent of the time.
Your retirement fund will grow faster than your calculations would indicate. The more it grows, the better you're equipped to visualize that retirement, simultaneously building desire to protect your own old age and also motivated to increase the perceived, visualized quality of that retirement. Generally, you can expect that in the first three to four years alone it will triple whatever you've put away in the previous ten years. Acknowledging that this may not seem to make sense on the surface, it has nevertheless worked for countless people.
Because of the Law of Accumulation, it will grow at speeds you probably won't fully understand. The Law of Accumulation, like all laws of physics, is not always understood regarding how it works; it is invariably understood by learned people to be axiomatic. It simply states that, for every dollar you save on a so-called permanent basis, never to be touched before retirement, another dollar and change will come along from a perfectly unexpected source to enrich that retirement fund. It's the same as charity, wherein the more you give away, the more you get back from other sources you never expected to benefit from. As with every other opinion offered by a human being, you can respond to this with an opinion that is based on your experience with this PowerGem, or with empty words of someone who thinks they know better. As with every other opinion about money, your bank account tells us the story, doesn't it? More importantly, it reminds YOU of who you need to be listening to: those who have already done it, and those who are doing it now; true, or not?
One thing is certain of the very few perfectly common threads that run through the daily actions of literally millions and more millions of Americans who work up to earning an average of 20,000 per week. The day that you defy everyone around you and have the nerve to believe you can make thousands per week, you make instant progress towards making it happen. Do you understand how critical, how instantaneously this power becomes yours when you do nothing more, or less, than grab it with all your heart and guts and simple belief?
Mathematically, every single step you take brings you at least one step closer. You cannot change the laws of physics. If you could, you would. You'd shut up and show us this very minute. Is this correct, or not? Can you decry or deny it? Hush up and do it. Do it at least enough to be able to say, "Hey, I tried three hundred times and only succeeded fourteen times." Because then we'll have even more proof of who and what you are, because we'll then know what is required to make it happen again, and then more often, don't we?
What high school or college teacher ever taught you how to get happy and wealthy in a big way?
How many? Here is your blueprint, your map for making this particular trip we call Life.
Follow the map and you'll follow your dreams. We can even tell in advance precisely how many of your dreams will come true in this life. Oh, yes. That's why I'm the only man in America to offer 100 times your money back. Try any one of my tiny shortcuts at least 100 times in any month OR in any year of your life. If you don't get life-changing, excellent results, I'll give you 100 times your money back. Thanks to people smarter than you and I put together, I possess hundreds and hundreds of the greatest, most powerful shortcuts and techniques in the world.
In 22 months in between dozens of radio shows, continuing to read a book or two per day, and doing an average of three hours per day in community and pro bono service, I've been fortunate enough to have created more than 4,150 documents in this time. As well, I've written perhaps a dozen gorgeous songs on several different instruments, continued to test-drive between one and three hundred new (and usually fun) computer programs each month.
These are just some of my many activities. Where do I find the time? Oh, that's easy.
Each day, just like a bank teller issued with so much money, I am issued a whopping number of resources. For starters, I have an incredible 1,440 individual minutes to do with as I wish.
About 7 of every one hundred people reach inside themselves, and reach up, pulling up to fourteen minutes of excellence out of every 1400 minutes they are issued. These seven of every one hundred generally earn at least 84 times what you do. Some are smarter, some are dumber, some look nicer, some don't, the only thing they all have in common is that they ask for what they want more than you do. They make it their business to devote at least one percent of their time, fourteen point four minutes per day, asking other people and organizations to give them what they want. Every else is coming from somewhere not the horse's mouth; much, much closer to the other end.
Mathematically, it's so simple that even you can understand it. Intellectually, there is very little chance you can or will understand it. That's because the only true demonstration of intelligence is demonstration of whatever information you possess that you believes entitles you to be considered intelligence. Knowing something has value only as far as the knowledge is applied.
Let's put it simply. My mother, not for the first or last time, lied to me when she said that knowledge is power. Knowledge is not power. Look at all the super-intelligent people who are always at the end of the line. No, knowledge is not power, knowledge is potential power.
When does it become power? There you go, perhaps you are catching on. Ah, what's the use? As soon as you're done reading this, you are going to nod your head with determination, and say, "Yeah, that guy is really on target!" Within 24 hours you are expected to be back at your normal moronic level of effort.
That doesn't make you a moron, necessarily, only that your effort level is approximately that of a moron. If you wish to be considered as more than a moron by, let's say a visiting dignitary or rich relative, they only have one way to know if you're a moron or not. Who did you help today?
Who did you ask for help today? If you haven't committed one of these two activities today, you have definitely put forth a sufficient approximation of the moron's effort level to be justifiably viewed, well, as a moron; one without power. Knowledge is simply insufficient to produce results. Power is as knowledge does. Keep telling yourself this: Power is as knowledge does.
For those of you who have already given help to another today, or asked for help from another today, you are already on your way to living more of your life's dreams than literally dozens of your neighbors all added up together - at least those neighbors who are not either asking for or giving help.
The average person receives 2000 paychecks in a lifetime. That's just not much, is it, once you subtract all the necessary, often unanticipated expenses of life.
I'd like you to think about a young college kid, going around to spectators at a school football game, asking each person for a fifty-cent donation in order to fund a basketball team for the school.
Approaching a very distinguished gentleman, he makes his pitch. The older man says, "What you're doing is great. Did you realize, however, that I am an alumnus of this school?"
"Yes, sir," said the young man, "still and all, the school won't pay for the team, so we're asking each spectator today to donate fifty cents each so we can buy the equipment and uniforms we require."
"Aren't certain courtesies extended to alumni of our institution?" asked the older gentleman.
"Certainly, sir, I just don't see it necessarily applying to our raising money for a basketball team. May I ask you for a fifty-cent donation?"
Pulling himself up to his fullest height, the alumnus asked, "Do you realize that I am a former President of the United States?"
To which our brave student, all of 18 years of age, politely replied, "Of course I recognize you, Sir. That being said, may I ask you again for a fifty-cent donation?"
The retired President promptly reached into his pocket, gave the student a dollar and told him to keep the change.
"Oh, no, sir, that wouldn't be fair. We're only asking for fifty cents per person," as he gave two quarters back to the former U.S. President.
The older gentleman continued. "Young man, I am firmly impressed not only by your sense of fair play but as well by your remarkable persistence. Tell me, what's your name." To which the student replied, "Calvin, sir. My name is Calvin Coolidge." |
It's an interesting side note, pertinent to this story, that the young man did successfully raise enough money for a school basketball team, yet when he himself tried out for the team, he didn't make the cut. No favoritism shown there. So, he made the best of what resources he had, which in his case was his mind, and became the coach of that ultimately rather successful college basketball team. He both asked for help and gave his help. This is how he went from zero to hero, from a merely friendly neighbor to President of the United States.
While you surely knew that Calvin Coolidge became President, there's probably little else that most of us do in fact know about this interesting man. His Presidency had no great monuments to it, although he certainly did leave something vital behind. It was a statement he made towards the end of his life, containing the strongest adjective available in the English language.
He said,
"Nothing can take the place of persistence. Talent will not, for nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Education will not, for the world is filled with educated derelicts. Genius will not, for unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Determination and persistence alone are omnipotent." Wow. "Omnipotent." A word normally reserved exclusively when referring to the Architect of the Universe, meaning "all powerful." When we consider that this word was used by a man who rarely used adjectives in his speech, AND when we consider that he raised himself from obscurity to win the most coveted and powerful position on the planet, we'd have to pretty foolish to diminish the life-changing potency of his words. Indeed, determination and persistence alone are omnipotent.
One tiny pebble at a time will ultimately build the largest castle on earth. Even the World Trade Center, whose twin towers loom higher than anything and everything within eyesight from their roofs, are made up of millions of tiny little pieces that were added just one at a time.
As for stock market investment, the only consistently successful approach that has ever been measured, observed, and enjoyed is the method whereby you take whatever amount you wish to invest, divide it amongst twenty or so of your best picks, and then forget about your investment, not even bothering to stress yourself checking the progress of a stock, for at least twenty years. At the end of the twenty years you'll find that sixteen of your stocks don't even exist anymore, or if they do, they're at rock bottom, while the remaining three or four will have earned you a fortune. From Percy Ross, who became famous as the millionaire with a newspaper column who invested another twenty years giving away all those millions, to the most successful non-institutional investors in our history, this method has proved itself through the ravages of time and market volatility. You can like it, or not, this method works consistently. Because you are using thousands of fewer steps than other, more 'conventional wisdom-oriented' approaches, it certainly qualifies as a major shortcut to an independent, pleasured retirement of greater solvency and financial freedom than getting there otherwise.
Those 2000 paychecks you receive in a life can contain little pebbles that grow into big boulders, or you can apply the omnipotence of determination and persistence to finding a way to get paid, on the side, part-time, for doing something you love. What that something is, well, that's for you to decide. The only certitude we have here is that your life is zipping by at high speed. The quality of your retirement is being determined by what you do this month, this week, this very day. You're urged to tap more into what you already possess, in order to provide yourself, long-term, with the freedom to do whatever you believe you were primarily placed on this earth for. Aren't you worth more effort?
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