Mar 19, 2018
Hey guys! Welcome to the wrap up party for this little intro series
Well done if you’ve made it to this point listening. I know a lot of it could have come across pretty confusing …and don’t worry I was quite confused myself by this point. So, I decided to do a bit of a summary on everything that’s covered; all of the problems that we covered and talked about, and then also the potential solutions that we hope to be able to provide.
The first one we went through was, where are you aiming, and why? There’s a bit of a problem if you’re not quite sure what you want to aim at. And, without an aim, it’s hard to actually put a value to it, to not only put in place a strategy to get you there, but measure progress as well, and help provide some positive motivation along the way. You can constantly tick off little achievements say, every month, of reaching that target (because you’ve got a figure on it) and you know how much you’ve got to do to achieve it. It’ll actually help provide some forward momentum towards the goal, and that’s the only way to start.
So, without that motivation behind it as well, it’s hard to keep going …especially when there’s the new shiny thing that will give us the same satisfaction (really just momentarily).
And it’s very fleeting because you get something that satisfies, any really, and the next day another problem takes over, and life and is back on track, and that thing that we had that was making us happy yesterday is now just a thing that is “good to have”. And slowly over time there’s [another] new thing that comes around.
[By] defining the aim, it’s really just about having a clearer idea about where you want to be and why. And helping define the aim as well, actually means that you don’t need to know as much. So that’s the second puzzle problem solving piece – where if you have the knowledge and understand what you need to do and how to do it (back in one of the earlier episodes we used the translation analogy) then that will go a long way to actually getting there as well.
So, we want to help provide this - through not only the podcast - but also through just some education online material as well; few calculators and tools just for you to be able to work out simple savings targets of how much you need to do consistently to get there. And rather than trying to reinvent the wheel, we just picked what works. And that’s just between making the correct choices and having the ability to follow a structure and plan so you don’t get lost along the way…and trusting yourself to make that happen, as well.
So, the next one - number three - is having the ability. Which comes in the form of a clear idea about what you’re doing and how.
And then lastly choices. Making the correct choices and sticking on track. So that’s the forth one. So, if we could come up with a solution; to build a system, to help you define your aim, what your goals are and why you’re planning to achieve them, exactly what you need to get there, how you’d do it (so, with some strategy), providing a framework and the knowledge to help put it all in place, and then allowing you to monitor and actually keep track of the progress… That’s generally the aim behind the whole concept of “F.U.R.Y”.
FURY is a little acronym for Financial Understanding and Responsibility Yields… independence… and the whole framework (the podcast will make up a small amount of that) is really designed to help reduce misunderstanding. Because misunderstanding is where a lot of problems come from. We do things not really knowing what the long-term outcome will be. And that misunderstanding really is the first step that we’re going to try to solve. So, that’s built up of defining the aim, and providing the knowledge.
Financial responsibility is the second part. And it’s not meant to say that responsibility (in terms of, “you’re obliged to do something ‘cos you have to”) is because you really want to, and you’re able to, do it. It’s not trying to say that you’re bad people or any negative connotations normally involved with “responsibility”, instead it’s meant to really give a message that you’re in control. Because no one else, unfortunately, will take the journey for you to give you financial independence. You can structure everything and have everything sorted… but unless you take that first step… it’s really hard to get there! So, the next part we’ll deal with and I’ll talk about a bit in the next episode is the responsibility side of the picture, which is having the ability and making the correct choices.
What we’ll cover for the rest of this is just mainly the financial understanding side, and having an aim and the knowledge, because that will be the first thing that we’ll be targeting to try to solve. The misunderstanding piece - what this podcast will be about - is just trying to reduce a few misunderstandings, and complications, and problems that people run in to. And we misunderstand things all the time. It’s actually very easy to misunderstand things if they’re not presented in an easily understandable way.
And there’s not much in finance that’s actually easily understandable!
So, having the financial understanding, and knowing exactly where you’re going and why, is all about just building your knowledge in what you want to achieve.
And that’s what this podcast will try to focus on, in conjunction with a later course, to help increase the knowledge base as well. So, an online program to help you go through step by step and figure out what’s the best strategy as far as knowledge and build up a base to achieve your goal.
Before we end there’s one critical point that I will point out to myself – where this can actually go wrong (and it’s the big elephant in the room) is, “will your means of financial capacity, actually matter?”.
And this is the first part of the “F.U.R.Y” – the finance part. Because obviously if you’re planning, say, [to] generate a passive income of $100,000 by tomorrow, and you currently aren’t earning an income, it’s going to be fairly hard to actually achieve that!
But with means it doesn’t actually go as much in the direction of “you need a lot to make a lot” initially, because it’s all about choices. You can choose to direct the majority of something that’s not as large as someone else’s (who has a lot more that doesn’t actually do anything with it).
One of my friends, when they were going through their medical degree they had someone come in and talk to the students about the issue with a lot of doctors - once they get to a certain point of life, they’ve been on big incomes and unless that’s been directed in a way, they have to keep working. And there’s issues there because obviously the older you get the less capable you might become, and they have to medically retire some doctors because they have to keep working. And that’s a sad outcome.
And that’s where having a lot of means doesn’t actually really give you, firstly, the responsibility to get there. Definitely it gives you the vehicle to do it… but you’ve got to have the feeling of needing to become financially independent without work. So, pretend this little mini-series is all about a journey – “where you want to go and why”. And like all journeys, one of the favourite ones is Lord of the Rings, so Tolken’s quote “It's a dangerous business … going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to”…like all great quests or journeys begins with one step.
And we take ours’ next week with the system... So, thanks for listening and I’ll see you next time.