Article # 2 in CWB magazine : From a good life to a great life !!

After the first article was published in the "Complete Well Being" magazine in the July 2014 edition, we got a stupendous response and the magazine wanted us to publish more articles for them. The below article then appeared in the September 2014 edition of the magazine..

I am not dying ordinary...

We all were born different. We all will die different. 

But some sanity may prevail in our lives if we make an attempt to answer some of the "common sense" questions. 

So, here you go...

4 Things you may be missing to plan in your lives, at your own peril

We recently had a wonderful and interactive workshop on Financial Freedom last Sunday (12th Jan 2014). This was organised by Sartrac Global in Faridabad (NCR). During my interaction with the audience, i realised that most of us tend to miss out on these 4 vital things in our lives..and of course, we do so at our own peril.... Just if someone could point us towards these things, life can take a completely different dimension...Read on...

Meet another Freedom seeker : Mr. Rishi Diwan

Last time, we met a Marketing Director from Dubai, UAE : Ms Rita Cooper who is on the journey towards financial freedom now. The response to that post was overwhelming. You can read more about her journey and experience till now by clicking here.

In continuation with our effort to interlock you with some common men and women who have been seeking financial freedom, today, it is a chance to meet a General Manager - Plant Operations from Himachal Pradesh, India.

Lets meet a Freedom Seeker : Mr. Sailesh Damani

Well, it has been almost 6 months since so many of the financial freedom seekers have connected with me one-one over telephone and email, and shared their life's situations, dreams and also their financial portfolios. I have tried to mentor them to build a financial freedom plan of their life. This monthly track-able plan, once executed, has the potential to bring them out of the rat race and allow them to chase the true dreams of their lives. This plan can make them experience "freedom" in life.

I thought it would be a great idea if you could meet a few freedom seekers - to know who they are, what their dreams and goals are, why they are chasing financial freedom, and above all, how has been their experience since they have set themselves on this journey to financial freedom. So, here we go, lets meet with the first such freedom seeker : Mr. Sailesh Damani.

True Independence Day

As our nation celebrates its 66th independence day on 15th August, it is definitely time to rejoice, celebrate and look to the future, while we continue to learn from the past. We have come a long way, though there are miles to go before we sleep. Exactly 8 years ago, during one such celebration, a strange series of questions struck my mind - What is so great about freedom? 

Are you blindly following everyone around you?

"Go with the crowd" mentality is so typical in any corporate work environment. It is also not uncommon to notice this in our personal lives. You will see people just following what people around them have been doing for many years, sometimes, not even knowing the rationale behind what they are doing and why.

There was a real experiment (scientific study) done involving 5 monkeys (10 altogether, including replacements), a cage, a banana, a ladder and an ice cold water hose. Some of you may have heard about this experiment before, but the fact that this was a real experiment amazes me every time i read this story and relate the same to the real world.

14 ways to know if you are stuck in the rat-race and 1 way to come out

Many of my friends and colleagues understand that they should not be in a Rat Race for the rest of their lives. But in most cases, confusion harbingers clarity. How would any of them know whether they are on the right path in their life or they are also a part of this dreaded and mindless rat race?

The irony is that most of them are in the rat race and don't even know this. If i tell them the fact on the face, no one is going to believe me. On the other hand, i am also shirking my duty as a friend if i am not letting them know that they are a part of this vicious circle which has no end. I want that they should have a fair opportunity to come out of this race. They will keep running throughout their life and in the end would not achieve anything substantial to be proud of. They ought to take decisions and do something different in their lives else the time is running out for them. They can make an impact on this world, it is just that they need to wake up to the fact that they are also a victim of how we were brought up in our society. They need to take charge of their lives before it is too late.

Faced with this dilemma, i thought of giving a list of symptoms of being stuck in a Rat Race. How do i know these symptoms? I have been through each one of them at some point in my life, and so i have a first hand experience. These symptoms will help anyone find out whether they are also running this meaningless race. So, here we go..

If you face one or more of the following situations in your personal or professional life, you are very likely running a Rat Race - a race which may not yield anything worthwhile in the end in spite of all the hard work you are putting in.

1. You work long hours at a job you are not truly passionate about.

You may have friends at your workplace, you may be able to work through your day happily but do you truly get charged up by thinking about what you do at your job everyday? Does each morning bring excitement to you when you think about your work? There is a very simple way to find out whether you are truly passionate about your work or not. Assume for a moment that you do not have any financial worries in your life. Would you still opt to go to your workplace everyday even if it does not pay you anything ? If the answer is No, then you are surely a victim of this social setup which trains you to be a rat in this rat race. You better try and find a mission of your life. You are working hard but you do not know where you are headed. It is just like driving a car at a great speed but don't know where to go. It is like paying any game with no target in mind, which would ensure victory. What will happen if you keep doing what you are doing today? You life will end up in frustration and you will not achieve anything meaningful. You will only regret at the end of your life.

2. You hate traffic.

You are one of those who spend at least an hour commuting to and from office. I often hear my colleagues cribbing about it, but they wont do anything other than cribbing. They never start thinking about what they can do to change the situation. They are all driven by situations.

3. You worry about the next day at office.

At the end of the day, you do not fancy cooking. You just want to have a drink or have a dinner and go to bed, because you have a planned set of activities for the next day. Your mind is planning for the next day as you go to bed. You have stopped finding happiness in smaller things in life.

4. Hobbies !! What are they?

You used to have a few hobbies, which you feel, are a thing of the past. You may say that you would revive them some day but nothing is going to change unless you change what you do on an everyday basis.  If you look at the last few years, you have just gone busier by the day. The competition at your workplace just got a little more, as you climbed a few corporate ladders. To climb further, it needs more of your time and energy. With all this, who has the time to pursue the old hobbies, which you have come to believe are only a children's forte.

5. You have stopped finding happiness in smaller things.

With all the hours that you and your spouse work, you have forgotten the habit of doing things together. The joy of making a meal together, the joy of watching the TV together, the joy of playing with the kids together, the joy of just chatting and spending time together - all these do not seem to have a great value in your life anymore.

6. The children are more a burden than joy.

Kids want your time, not the jazzy toys. They can happily play with a broken and a shabby toy if you are ready to spend your time with them. Instead, we go the other way. We do not have time for them though we have money and are ready to buy a new fancy toy for them. Sad, doesn't work that way at all. The equation just needs to be reversed.

7. You feel that you are becoming more and more alienated from your family.

Family vacations, once or twice a year, is the only family time you spend with the joy, assuming you do not carry your office mobile or laptop with you during the vacation. You deserve the same joy everyday in your life.

8. You believe in TGIF.

TGIF (Thank God Its Friday) has become synonymous to your Freedom today. The excitement,  energy and bliss that you get on Friday evening are some of the traits of what a financially free person experiences everyday in life. How good would that life be?

9. Your weekend just flies by.

Come the weekend, by the time you have fixed the dripping tap, cleaned the messy areas of your house, done the grocery shopping, watched the TV soaps, caught up on washing and ironing, dealt with the paperwork in preparedness for Monday morning's presentation at your workplace, your weekend has gone. As it happens every week, it turned out to be an anti climax. You have to now wait for the weekend once again for another 5 days.

10. You are always connected.

There is no escape either on the weekdays or the weekends from some thread at your workplace because the new technology ensures that you can be intruded in any part of the world at any time of the day or the night.

11. You never have enough money.

You earn good money but it never seems to be quite enough. There is always something extra to buy - for your spouse, for your kid or for your house. The bills just drill a bigger hole in your pocket every month. You are always waiting for the next salary credit in your bank account. Perhaps, if you changed jobs or got the promotion or worked something extra, it would have helped you meet your expenses. Sad, but you know that this change is not going to help. It has not helped till now and is not likely to work in future also.

12. You have a lifestyle (disease).

Though long working hours have brought in a nice car, a nice house and a nice overall lifestyle, it is very likely to also bring stress, and with it , all the lifestyle diseases. It has helped you stay ahead of your friends, both in lifestyle and lifestyle diseases.

13. You don't know how to effectively deal with the money you earn.

You are earning a lot, but you are not dealing with what you are earning. You always seem to be short of time to think on how to invest and manage your money wisely. Sad but true, you leave your family and your health to earn money but do not know what to do with the money you earned. Isn't it sad and ironical ?

14. Your gadgets are more a stress than help.

You have accrued a lot of modern gadgets, with the assumption that would at least bring some comfort to your life, if not happiness. They definitely did bring excitement for some time. But as your greed for the latest gadget went spiraling up, you see yourself spend most of your weekend time dealing with these gadgets and the issues that come with them.

Now, if you sit back and think through all of the above points, you might feel like you are on a hamster treadmill. You are running hard, very hard, just to stay at the same place. 

It is not necessary that you are experiencing all the above traits, but even if you are experiencing a few of them, you are a part of this race, which is self defeating.

You can continue to stay in this race as long as you want. It is a very comfortable zone, because you have got used to it. You can spend your entire life in this because that is what you see the colleagues around you doing. But in case you want your life to have a some meaning and do not want to regret at the end of your life, you need to come out of this race.

Financial Freedom provides one such way to come out of this race. I have shared my learning during my journey from rat race to financial freedom in a book with the same title. You will have to chart your own path and walk your own journey. You have to face your own challenges and you have to find your own ways to deal with your situations. But you can definitely reap the benefits from what i experienced and documented in the book.

Key is to take a decision and take the first step. Rest will follow. I wish you all the best

Cheers

Manoj Arora

9 Life lessons from "Snakes and Ladders" Game

 As i watched my two daughters play the traditional Indian game of "Snakes and Ladders", i was realizing, at every step, that there was a striking similarity this game has with our life's journey. There are so many lessons that this game can teach us, including how to go about executing the biggest game in our hands i.e. "our own life". 

Let me give you some background about the game just for those unfortunate souls who did not have the pleasure of playing this classic game during their childhood years, and then i will share how i look at this game from life's perspective and what do i learn from it.

About the Game

Snakes and Ladders is a traditional Indian board game played in almost every household. Today, it is regarded as a worldwide classic. The historic version of this game was designed to teach moral lessons to the players and to show the game's similarity to life and its teachings. A player's progression up the board from 1 to 100 represented the journey of a life while the snakes and ladders represented the vices and virtues along the journey.

Here is my take on the learning from this game. Some of these learning were historically intended the way it is documented here, while most of them are based on my own personal experience in life's journey thus far.

(1) Virtues and Vices

The game has been interpreted and used as a tool for teaching the effects of good deeds versus bad. The ladders represent virtues such as generosity, faith, and humility, while the snakes represented vices such as lust, anger, murder, and theft. As in life, the game shows that the number of ladders will always be less than the number of snakes as a reminder that a path of good is much more difficult to tread than a path of sins. In spite of this, stick to this,

(2) Life is Dual

One of the biggest implicit in the game is unchanging two-ness of things, the duality of up & down, good & evil, Alpha & Omega, Day & night, etc. Life is not meant to be a one sided affair. You will face both the good and bad times. You will face ups and downs. Just like ladders(ups) and snakes(downs), you will meet good and evil around you and you will also do both the right and the wrong things as you go through the beautiful journey of life. Life is dual. Accept it that way and you will be able to live much more happily. If today, things have not gone your way (you may have encountered more snakes), that is a part of the game. You must keep focus and move forward. You are likely to get hold of a ladder soon. Keep moving.

(3) Identify your Goal

The goal in the game is pre identified for you. It is very clear that to win, you need to reach 100. Those who have played the game might have realized that how focused we stay in the game to reach 100, in spite of getting any ladder or getting stung by any snake. Irrespective of what is happening to our competitor in the game, we continue to stay extremely focused to reach 100 defying all odds and not getting bogged down by any snake bites. 
That is exactly how the bigger game (life) is supposed to be lived. First, you ought to define the goal of your life before you set out of your house to do anything else. This is the toughest thing for many people to do and most of us struggle till the end of our lives to find the goal of our life. I always recommend my readers to stop doing everything else before they have found the purpose of their lives. Living a life without a definite purpose is like playing the Snakes and Ladders game without knowing that your mission is to reach 100 . All that you are doing in your life today is useless unless you have defined the purpose of your life. 
If you are running hard in a vicious circle and are a part of the so called rat-race, and you are not sure that how would you find time to identify or pursue your true goals of life, you can adapt a process that i adapted a few years ago. First strive to get financially free doing what you are doing today. Post your financial freedom, you would have bought the time in your favor and then you can truly work towards your life goals. Make Financial Freedom as one of your biggest ladder in this game of life to reach your ultimate goals or pursue your passions of life.

(4) Keep your focus on the goal
Having once defined the purpose, align all your daily actions with the purpose of your life. You got to keep your focus on that end goal and that will drive your daily actions to make sure that they are aligned with the purpose. If you encounter things that you do everyday that are not aligned with the purpose of your life, start thinking and finding ways to eliminate them from your life slowly.

(5) Be humble but never give up. 

Don’t look down on people who are less fortunate than you. Everything that you have with you today is temporary and can be destroyed within a fraction of a second. Be grateful with what you have. Likewise, when you fall down, don’t give up. Try again. Isn't that exactly what you do when you fall in the game. You just look forward once again with renewed energy and fight back to the top. This is exactly how the life is supposed to be lived. Never Never never give up in life.

(6) Accept the outcome

Whatever the result (win or lose), accept it with grace. Do not be too elated in success and on the other hand, do not be demotivated in your failure. Everything is temporary and life is supposed to have a mix of both. That’s also the spirit of sportsmanship. Make losing a motivation, not an excuse not to play again. Convert your negative outcome into a positive energy to fight back again and reach the top.

(7) Have Patience 

Patience is another virtue we can learn from this game. You may be down and out. You may be the last in the lot but if you keep patience and continue to do what is the right thing to do, you might soon be surprised at how quickly life can give back to you, exactly the way how it happens in this game. So, be patient, keep doing the right thing, do not get distracted, annoyed or demotivated. Life will take a turn...yet again. Give it a chance and continue to follow the right path.

(8) Keep Moving

At the end of the day, it’s not the number of ladders or snakes that you face in your life that will determine your fate. Has anyone won this game just because he or she got more number of ladders? No. Your future in the game of life is determined by one thing, and one thing only – "movement". Just keep moving ever forward. Don’t stop at the foot of a snake and throw away the dice. Just keep moving. Get up again, and keep moving. You might like to pause for a moment to recharge the batteries, or even have a little cry, but then keep moving again. On the way learn from your mistakes or misfortunes – until you reach the finishing line as a seasoned victor.

(9) Enjoy Life

This is the biggest lesson of them all, according to me. Never be in too much of a hurry to reach the end of the game. Enjoy the lucky breaks, but realize that the steady patches and the snakes prevent us from getting to the end too quickly and add spice to our game. Enjoy your journey of this game, the twists and turns, the snakes and ladders equally. In the end, everyone will reach the end goal - sooner or later. Be a good player, making the most of all the journey brings. Enjoy and cherish every moment of life.

Cheers

Manoj Arora

Dont regret while you die

 

Bronnie Ware, who has been a nurse by profession, has shared incredibly special times with aged people during the last three to twelve weeks of their lives. 

In her blog "Inspiration and Chai", Bronnie shares that she  experienced a variety of emotions, as expected, denial, fear, anger, remorse, more denial and eventually acceptance. Every single patient found their peace before they departed though, every one of them.

When questioned about any regrets these patients had or anything they would do differently if given a chance to live their lives once again, common themes surfaced again and again.

Here are the most common five:

1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me. 

2. I wish I didn't work so hard.

3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

These reasons and her blog attracted so much attention worldwide that it culminated in a book " The Top 5 Regrets of the Dying". I would encourage you to go to her blog and read in detail about all these regrets because these will definitely help you get the perspective of how people feel at the end of their lives and what matters most to our lives. We can take a learning, and also make required corrections in the way we approach our lives.

While all these 5 regrets are so heartwarming and true, i want to specifically focus on one of these regrets as a topic of discussion for this post - "I wish I didn't work so hard".

If you go on to read her blog, she describes more about this regret specifically:

"This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children's youth and their partner's companionship. Women also spoke of this regret. But as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence."

I see most of my friends around me so engrossed in the "treadmill" or a "rat race" that it is truly worth halting for a moment and harping upon the fact that it is very likely to become a "regret" by the end of our lives, as it did with "all" male patients and "almost all working female" patients she nursed. 

We may still try to ignore this known fact that life has to be much more than earning money for the 2-5 people in your family. It has to have specific goals beyond your immediate family needs - goals that provide you bliss, true happiness and a reason to exist on this planet. You have got to find those goals and dreams if you have not found them yet, lest you might not even be lucky enough even to express the regrets of your life to someone like Bronnie Ware.

We do not know the last day of our lives. It could be 50 years from now. It could also be tomorrow. No one knows. I am not trying to inculcate a fear of death in you but i definitely want to push you so that you do not keep procrastinating this critical aspect of your lives and have a sense of urgency towards creating some worthwhile goals for yourself - goals that go beyond your daily treadmill of earning money. Do not breathe easy till you have found those goals. 

While i was fortunate enough to identify my dreams / goals almost 10 years back, the biggest obstacle in front of me, at that stage, that was hindering me from going all out in pursuit of my dreams was the fact that i was not sure of who was going to take care of my family if i start pursuing my goals. I have a responsibility towards my spouse, my parents and my children. I just cannot ignore that responsibility in pursuit of my dreams. It is at that stage i realized that i need to find a solution to this obstacle first. 

I read thousands of books, explored hundreds of websites and within 2 years i realized that the solution is in my hands. It is at that stage i started off on my journey towards financial freedom. I realized that financial freedom may not be an end goal but it can definitely become a means to help me achieve my end goals. You can achieve it too. If you want to be "free" in life so that you can pursue your dreams, make sure you are able to take care of your family first by achieving financial freedom. 

If you are thinking that it is too difficult, then let me re-assure you that anyone can achieve financial freedom within a span of 6-8 years even if you start from scratch. It is a matter of discipline, knowledge, planning and execution. If you are serious about not "regretting" at the end of your life, this will be your first step in pursuit of your dreams. My upcoming book "From Rat Race to Financial Freedom" will guide you step by step on how to achieve the same.

I sincerely wish you all the best to be able to find your dreams and then also be able to chase them.

Regards

Manoj Arora

Related Posts:

Dreams

Goals

Rat Race
Financial Freedom

Which race are you running?

One of my blog followers (and my former boss) forwarded an article from the local newspaper to me which referred to a management alumni taking a "sanyas" in a remote small flat and leading a peaceful life thereafter, completely cut off from the modern world and perhaps leading a more peaceful and relaxed life. He was perhaps trying to say that each one of us have a limited time span in this life and are running our own race to reach one or the other milestone before our time on this planet comes to an end.

Well, that raised a very interesting train of thoughts in my mind - each one of us is busy, each one of us is running a race, then what is the difference among all these different races..Who is running a rat race and who is not..as i was pondering over these questions through the afternoon today, i finally had the answer by the end of the day, and this happens to be the topic of my post today

To me, Rat Race is just another race. The key attributes associated with Rat Race are that it is "mindless", the end result is not worth running the race for and the worst of all, it makes you "compete" with other racers in this race. The last point happens to be the source of our unhappiness as well. Whether we like it or not, most of us are running this kind of race whether we are in a job or run our own business. It is a world of competition - as we hear it. The Rat Race has just been becoming more global as we start competing globally as a business or as an individual. We are stuck in this. There seems to be no way out of it. Can we do anything about it? Wouldn't life be boring if we were not competing? What have we come here for?

The fact is that a selected few who decide not to run this rat race, are also running a race, but of a different kind. I realized that i am also in a race even if i am financially free, though i object to this being called as a Rat Race. Here is why i say so. My race is not against anyone or not in competition to anyone. I don't have to beat anyone but myself and the goals that i have set for myself. I am running a race against time where i have to make sure that i provide education to at least 1 million underprivileged children and also plant at least 1 million trees. I too have a limited life span. I am fully in this race..i have to run hard, i have to compete hard but only with myself. I am very likely to be more happy during the journey of this race (which is not a small one by the way) compared to so many others who are involved in the Rat Race.

Some of you may be running other different races. Each one of us runs a race that we feel provides happiness to us, though most of us are stuck in the mindless rat race, wanting to come out but not knowing how to. The book "From Rat Race to Financial Freedom" shows you the way - for the first time, it gives you a choice that it is possible to come out of the rat race and join a different race of your choice. You chose which race you want to run. The book gives you step by step method to start from scratch and attain financial freedom.

So, which race are you running now a days ? and which race would you love to run ?

Cheers

Manoj Arora

Do I need Life Insurance ?

What is Life Insurance?

There are many complicated definitions about Life Insurance, but in subtle and simple terms, life insurance, as the name suggests is to economically , insure a life. This means that if a person whose life is getting insured, dies because of any unforeseen circumstances, the insured sum is handed over to his nominees as per the insurance contract between the two parties.

Is it necessary to have Life Insurance?

Family Security is the key motive behind life insurance. Though Vehicle Insurance is mandatory in India, some critical elements to be insured like Health Insurance and Life insurance are not. This discretion does not mean that we should not get our lives insured. In most cases, my recommendation would be to make sure that the family is secure, at least from an economic point of view, under any eventuality.

What kind of Life Insurance should be done?

There are so many insurance products available in the market that it can definitely become confusing on what insurance product is right for which family member. The book "From Rat Race to Financial Freedom" digs deep into what kind of insurance products should we buy to have maximum security with min investments and what should be the amount of insurance for each family member. There is logical reasoning and common sense in buying life insurance but most of us buy the wrong insurance products at the wrong time and pay unnecessarily high premium. The book will explain you what you need exactly.

Why do we do Life Insurance?

The whole objective of doing life insurance is to make sure that that the family whose bread earner has been lost unexpectedly, does not suffer at least on an economic front and the family is able to take care of its financial needs to a large extent in the unfortunate eventuality of the bread earner's death.

Whose Life should be ensured?

Since the aim of life insurance is to maintain continuity of incoming money to the family with or without the presence of the income earner, it has to be the person(s) in the family who is contributing to family income whose life must be ensured.

Does a Financially Free person need Life Insurance?

That was a very interesting question that came up during one of the discussions on my blog. Once you become financially free, you are no more a source of income for the family. Sounds difficult to gulp, but this is the fact !!. Yes, this is the fact that a financially free person is not a source of income. This is exactly that person comes out of the Rat Race. The source of income in such a case is the portfolio or the nest egg that has been built. It is the nest egg that is generating family income and not the person who created the nest egg. Thats the magic of financial freedom. 

In such a case, if something needs protection or security, it has to be the nest egg and not the person who created the nest egg. In nutshell, if you are financially free, your family is not dependent on you trading your time with income for the family and hence you need not get any life insurance done for yourself !!. This happens to be one of the bi-products advantages of being financially free !!

Post your comments on the blog if you have any queries and i would be happy to answer.

Cheers

Manoj Arora

Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/RatRaceToFinancialFreedom
Twitter : @manoj_216
Blog : http://ratrace2freedom.blogspot.in/

Dont be Frog in the Pan

While i was watching Satyamev jayate this Sunday on Television, i heard the host saying a very interesting story.

There was an experiment done by the scientists with a Frog. A live Frog was kept on one side. On the other side, there was a pan with boiling hot water. The Frog was taken and dipped in the pan with the boiling hot water. Guess what happened..The Frog immediately realized that it needs to do something, else it will not be able to survive in the pan's environment. It immediately jumped out of the pan.

However, the story does not end here. Now the next experiment was undertaken. The Frog was kept in another pan with the water in the pan being at room temperature. The Frog started enjoying being in this pan. It went on like this for about 30 min till the frog was extremely comfortable in the pan. Now the temperature of the water was increased very gradually. Though the Frog felt a little uncomfortable with the slowly rising temperature, it just could not gather enough courage or wisdom to come out of the pan. It made some half attempts also to come out but they were never like the big jump it made from a boiling pan. This went on for some time, till the frog eventually died within the pan because of the intolerable high temperature, never being able to take a decision to jump out of the pan.

We are all Frogs in this Rat Race (Pan), never being able to gather enough courage or wisdom to take a decision to come out of this race. Many of us, like that Frog, keep talking and thinking about taking that decision but never realize what we are losing while so many others are in such comfort zone that it is even painful to think that they can ever be financially free. A vast majority us have even stopped thinking about this aspect and do not even believe that such a freedom is ever possible in this lifetime. When i talk to my colleagues around my office and around my neighborhood, there are so many reasons that everyone has as to why this freedom cannot be achieved or is not meaningful enough. The whole point is that you got to act before it is too late and the temperature in the pan becomes intolerable.

I am here to tell you that it is possible to achieve financial freedom for you or for anyone who makes a commitment to go ahead and achieve the same. It is not tough. It needs planning, discipline and enough time to bear its results. Does it take ages? No, just 5-8 years. Does it need special skills? No. Does it need huge income? No. But you got to take the first step.

I would encourage each one of you not to be the frog in the pan and take a decision to come out of this pan before the time runs out for you. Time is not far when life will stare at you and ask a blunt question : What meaningful you achieved in this life time?. Lot of my friends also ask me that money is not everything. Yes, it is not everything but is a means to achieve so many things. Is Financial Freedom the end goal? No. It is a means to achieve what you really wanted to do as a human being but never ever enjoyed the freedom to do so.

Keep watching this blog and i can tell you step by step how to come out of this pan. I have done it myself and i know each step of it. The only issue is that my writings will make sense to you only if you have a strong reason to come out of this pan (your dream) and you are ready to sacrifice the comfort zone that you are in today to achieve something meaningful in life. I also know that only 1% population in this world will understand this and have enough courage to reach the end.

Take a decision, take the first step and rest all can be planned and executed.

Cheers !!

Manoj Arora

Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/RatRaceToFinancialFreedom
Twitter : @manoj_216
Blog : http://ratrace2freedom.blogspot.in/

How much time does it take to be financially free

During my recent interaction with some of my friends who are following my blogs, i realized that one of the top apprehensions in the mind of these Financial Freedom seekers is that they can never imagine themselves accumulating the corpus that is needed to get financially free.[Refer to the post -We are all so different... Know your own Corpus Amount ]
As per them, this amount is too big to be accumulated. Well, i do not blame them at all. First reaction can very well be of hopelessness.

Yes, the target Corpus amount definitely seems big relative to the current corpus that anyone may have. But in all such cases, my friends do not still seem to have realized the amazing power that compounding has. If they allow Compounding to work in combination with Time, it is never a linear extrapolation of your savings. Those who have studied mathematical and geometric progressions would quickly understand that Compounding is an exponential extrapolation. This, in simple terms, means that what they can accumulate in 10 years - the same amount can be accumulated in just one more year, if they allow it to grow. Refer to another post that was published just a few days before ie What hell will break loose by the "Amazing Power of Compounding"

Let us assume for a moment that they come to truly understand the power of Compounding and Time (though most always feel that they understand it). The biggest question that people have after this is how much time will it take for them to achieve that Corpus amount. While that is simple to calculate with reasonable accuracy, my personal experience has been that if you start from scratch (Zero Corpus), it takes anywhere between 5 - 8 years for anyone (yes, anyone) to get financially free.Well, if you start with some initial amount, the time duration obviously goes down. Beware that the assumption is that you would continue with the same lifestyle as you are having today (and would not suddenly want to shift to a different luxury zone, knowing now that you are financially free !!)

Does this time period depend upon your income? This is the next standard question i often get. But the answer to this surprises most people. The answer to this question is a clear"No". It does not matter at all how much you earn. What matters is how much you save and invest, rather than how much you earn. What matters is how much of time and compounding you are able to leverage. What matters is whether you have the fundamental understanding about money and money management. What matters is whether you can sustain the discipline needed to invest and manage money wisely. Someone earning twice the amount as I am, may never be able to get financially free in his or her whole life while i got financially free in 8 years time starting from scratch.

So, go on and get started. Calculate your corpus and get going. Time is the biggest factor to multiply your money. Every day you delay starting in your goal, you are diluting the power of compounding.....

From Rat Race to Financial Freedom provides you with a step by step guide starting from calculating your corpus and time duration needed to creating your monthly goals and also provides great free downloadable templates to track your goals.

Get ready as the book gets ready for a launch in less than 2 months from now..

Happy Starting !!

Cheers !!

Manoj Arora

Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/RatRaceToFinancialFreedom
Twitter : @manoj_216
Blog : http://ratrace2freedom.blogspot.in/

We are all so different...Know your Own Corpus amount

We are all so different...Know your Own Corpus Amount

  Every human being is different. Every family is different. Each individual's earning potential and spending habits are different. Success to everyone is likely to look different. We stay in different cities, states, countries, regions and also varying economic conditions. The way each one of us invest is different. The way we utilize the returns on our investment are different. There will always be something "unique" to each individual's economy.

Well, with so many differences, do you think there can be one single magic number for the "minimum Corpus" you need for financial freedom? The answer is very obvious....Absolutely NO. It has to be different and very unique for each and every person who wants to get financially free. It has to be very very specific to the person's earning and spending habits, cost of living, individual and family behavior, economic environment in which the person is staying...even to the extent of attitude and discipline that the specific person possesses.

Let me first try and explain you what this minimum "Corpus" is and why is this important for Financial Freedom. Literally, "Corpus" in English dictionary means a "large collection". In economic or financial terms, the word "Corpus" is generally referred to as that minimum collected amount of money that an individual needs to be financially free. To elaborate this further, what it means is that if i collect that "Corpus" money, then i have crossed a threshold value and from then on, i do not need to "earn" any more money (though i may still willingly continue to do so). The Corpus becomes "self financing and self reliant" to fund itself, fund your and your family's lifestyle, negate inflation and continue to do so till you survive on this planet.

 We are all running after money. I don't say that is bad at all. We all need money. In fact, one of my earlier blogs this month was titled "Yes, Money can buy Happiness". It surely can, because money is not bad at all. So, we all need to earn money. We all need to maximize our earnings without creating an imbalance in our lives. But hold on, take a step back... what is my target? How much money do i want to earn? what is that Corpus amount that will be enough? Is it endless? Does it keep changing with time? If not, then can it be calculated? Yes, of course it can be calculated to a reasonable degree of accuracy, based on certain fundamental inputs.

And here is the biggest irony of all so called "smart money earners" in our generation. Of all the people i have met in 40 years of my life, i have never met a single individual who knows what Corpus he or she is targeting? If we do not have a target and we keep running, what happens? We are very likely to get exhausted soon with no goal to reach. One of my earlier blogs also talked about "The Power of Goals" and another one about "Hope". So, before you run another day, try and see if you can have a Goal in mind. You will feel better and more satisfied with yourself and your life.

Let us now come to the process of Corpus calculation. Is is SIMPLE.
Here are the 4 essential inputs that you need illustrated through an example.
1) Family Monthly Expenses as on date (if you are not tracking it, better start doing !!) (Lets assume it is Rs. 50000)
2) Average Inflation Rate (Lets assume it is 7%)
3) How many more years would you live in best case (Lets assume it is 60 years - I am already 40 and i target to hit 100 !! :)
4) Annual Rate of Return on your investments (again, i am so sorry if you do not know what you are getting back on your investments !! - better start doing) (Lets say it is 11% - wont happen if you are not investing in stocks or real estate)

With all the above assumptions, you would need a corpus amount of Rs. 15,500,000 for the corpus to be self financing. Well, of course if you cant manage the rate of return of 11% or the inflation goes up beyond 7% or if you survive beyond 100 years, this corpus amount goes up. In the same fashion, the corpus amount similarly can come down as well. No one can predict it with 100% accuracy, but this amount reflects reasonable accuracy of the target money you should be going for.

The "Corpus Amount Calculator" would be available for free download to all my book readers (From Rat Race to Financial Freedom) from my website that would be launched with the book.

If you have any queries on your individual Corpus amount, you can let me know your 4 essential inputs and i can try and respond to a few of you with what amount you should be targeting. Once you have a target, you can divide it into shorter goals and milestones to achieve the target. Life becomes all the more meaningful with such goals to look forward to, instead of endlessly running in this Rat Race.

So, go ahead, and have a target money in mind...and go all out to achieve that money target !!

Happy Earning !!

Cheers !!

Manoj Arora

Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/RatRaceToFinancialFreedom
Twitter : @manoj_216
Blog : http://ratrace2freedom.blogspot.in/

What hell will break loose by the "Amazing Power of Compounding"

"Time is the most powerful element". No other mathematical formula proves it better than the formula to calculate the Compound interest.

Each one of us have studied "Simple Interest" and "Compound Interest" as a part of our mathematics education in our primary schools. Most of you understood the formula, though there must have been  many like me, who mugged them up. We also might have also scored 100% marks in the questions related to these topics. We also knew (and still remember) that Simple interest was about getting interest on the principal amount while Compound Interest talks about giving interest on the Principal as well as the interest.

Fundamentally, that is it about Compound Interest. It is so simple. So, what am i trying to prove with this article.? I am trying to shake you up and trying to help you realize the immense power that lies behind the simplicity of these definitions and formulae.

Most of us think that what big difference does it make. I mean, if i am earning a meagre interest on the Principal (via Simple Interest), what hell will break lose if i earn a fraction more interest on the interest (Compounded Interest). I mean, it does not have any major impact on my life...may be i can afford one extra ice cream with that. Though anything "extra" is welcome in life, well, most of the times it may not be worth paying that extra effort. It is just "some extra money".

That is exactly where we all missed the point. That is where all the hell broke loose. That is where the "Time" played its magic and we were not even aware of the same.. Let me ask you a very simple question. I give you a normal sheet of paper (lest say roughly 0.1mm thick)paper and ask you to fold the paper once. Now, i ask you fold it once again all over. Remember, it is becoming thicker as you are folding. OK, hold on, before you lose patience, just try and judge the thickness of this sheet if you were able to successfully fold it just 50 times. Well, let me tell you.... the paper will become so thick that the thickness would cover the distance from the earth to the moon. Cant believe it? I also did not believe it in the beginning but you can do the calculation..it is very simple to calculate. It is the power of compounding - remember - you did not take out any of the thickness when doubling the next fold (that is earning interest on interest)... and do you want to know what "Time" did. If you did just one more fold - just one more - you new thickness can take you back to earth as well. What you achieved in the first 50 folds was achieved in the last "1" fold.

Is the hell breaking lose now? It really breaks lose if you let the same concept apply on your money.

You have literally no idea what magic can happen to your wealth if you allow time and power of compounding to work together in an undisturbed manner (don't touch your money or its interest while it is compounding to realize its amazing power)

So, we all studied the definitions of simple and compound interest, mastered it but never realized the potential it has when applied to your own money. It is the single most important cog in the wheel if you are looking to achieve Financial Freedom in life. Just one extra year of compounding can separate a millionaire from a billionaire. It is that powerful !!

As you would go through my book (From Rat Race to Financial Freedom), you would find various ways to utilize the power of compounding to your advantage on your journey to your own personal financial freedom.

Happy Compounding !!

Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/RatRaceToFinancialFreedom
Twitter : manoj_216
Blog : http://ratrace2freedom.blogspot.in/