21st Century Academy

We kind of stumbled along through the last two posts where I talked about how you need to be wealthy so that you can take wealthy actions and go on to have wealth. It’s something of a difficult concept to explain, but I hope that you followed along with me. I think from here I can start to make this clearer.

Define What Wealth Is To You

We know that the first step to being wealthy is to be that person—to start living today as a wealthy person; to accept and believe that that is who you are. Because you cannot be both wealthy and poor, right?

Now, let’s take some time and try to work out how you can do that, even now, even without six figures in the bank.

Before you can be something you need to know what it means to be that person. To be wealthy, you have to figure out what that means. Now, I can’t give you all the answers here. Being wealthy means different things to different people. And there are different levels of wealth, and more ways than one to be wealthy. To start being wealthy, you have to compile a list of attributes and characteristics that wealthy people have. You have to know what it is that you are striving to be.

The best way to do this is probably to just get in touch with your own thoughts and goals. Figure out what wealth means to you so that you can start incorporating that into your mind process. Brainstorm a list, as long or short as you want, but probably the more the better, of characteristics of the wealthy—a list of what wealthy people are. And this doesn’t have to be a list of numbers. Wealthy people are not numbers, they are people with strengths and weaknesses (but let’s focus on the strengths here). This list could include words like

• Strong

• Smart

• Educated (not necessarily university educated, could be a wealth creation education like the 21st Century Academy, or a real-world education)

• Confident

• Savvy

• Comfortable

• Motivated

Find the words that work for you, even on a general level. Look within yourself, too, and find characteristics of the wealthy. Also look for what you might need to change.

When you know what it is to be wealthy you can start being that person. You know the next step; it is to start taking wealthy actions. And you know where it leads from there. Take the first step now. Know the wealthy person you want to be. And be it!

To Your Continued Financial Success

Sean Rasmussen
21st Century Academy
Universal Wealth Creation © 2004 - 2008

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We’ve been talking about empowerment and prioritising how your money is managed. Something that goes hand in hand with that conversation is the system of values that you place on how you spend your money—what some refer to as a hierarchy of values. Get intimate with what you value, and you may just find the key to wealth creation success.

Top Values Get Top Billing

The things that you value most are what will get the lion’s share of your money. This may or may not have anything to do with what you think you value. But if you look at where your money goes, you’ll begin to see what you have valued most highly, and quite probably see how you’ve valued yourself very little.

What you value most is the first place you spend your money. From there there is an order of values that goes down the list of expenditures. At the end is what you have been placing the least value on; if something goes untended, it will be what is at the bottom of the list.

The problem is that most people have themselves at the bottom of the list of values. They are their last financial obligation each month. And so they get the least attention, the least money, and are first to be cut from the list when money limits dictate. With you at the bottom of your list, you will never be the financial priority that you need to be. If you do not value yourself, you will not win your own wealth. You will not choose to attend to your own wealth creation.

Values And Awareness

Up until now there is a good chance that you were not even aware of your own system of values. Largely, this is something that lies in the subconscious or just above it in a place we pay little attention to. But a look at where your money goes will give you clues as to what you have been valuing. If you do not see your own wealth growing, there is a good chance you have not valued yourself enough.

So can this be changed? Definitely yes. In many ways this ties into the concept of rewiring your subconscious that Jamie McIntyre talks about in the 21st Century Academy materials. Once you learn to rewire your subconscious and place a value on you the direct result will become apparent. When wealth creation suffers, more often than not it is time for a change in your value hierarchy.

To Your Continued Financial Success

Sean Rasmussen
21st Century Academy
Universal Wealth Creation © 2004 - 2008

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Being a parent, I am constantly thinking about how to help my children gain a firmer understanding of the financial world, so that I can help them succeed even before they get started. If you are a parent, no doubt you want this for your kids as well. And if you are not, I’d venture that there’s a very strong chance you have children in your life, or will have in the future. So whether you have kids or not, this is a post for you.

Open Up About Money

Finance and wealth creation is not something that should be hidden from children. Admittedly, finance is not something parents used to talk about with kids. More likely, it is something parents work to hide from their kids. For some reason, money and finance seem to be right up there with big ‘S’ word in conversations we’d love to avoid with our kids. And that is why most of us grow up with limited financial intelligence. But if you start your kids young, you can change the financial future for them, and you can prevent the kind of financial pain, associations, and struggle that we’ve been discussing.

It really makes so very little sense for us to be closed-lipped about money, wealth, and finances with our kids. In fact, that reluctance to address the issue is one of the things that leads to the impression that money is somehow bad, evil, or painful. And we all know where that leads now, don’t we!

An Ounce Of Prevention Is Worth A Pound Of Cure

You’ll find that by being open and honest and including your children in your financial education with the 21st Century Academy, and even just with everyday finance, that you will open the minds of your children and in fact take down barriers to financial success before they are ever built up. Children are, as any parent knows, extraordinarily resilient. They are capable of grasping so much more than we ever thought possible. We do them a great disservice by assuming that they cannot benefit from a financial education from an early age.

Jamie McIntyre and the 21st Century Academy understand this. The programs offered even include provisions for kids and teens. Take advantage of that, but also make financial education a part of your child’s everyday life. Talk to them, be open and honest, include them, and ask their opinions. Empower your children towards financial success from the beginning, and save them the lifetime of struggle and frustration that you’ve endured. Be a child’s financial hero!

To Your Continued Financial Success

Sean Rasmussen
21st Century Academy
Universal Wealth Creation © 2004 - 2008

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In each of the 21st Century Academy courses, Jamie McIntyre has outlined an effective, yet beautifully simple way to reveal your true financial attitude and rewire your financial subconscious. It starts very easily with a process of holding a candid interview—with you!

Qualify ‘Easy’

I feel I should qualify that statement a bit. By ‘easy’, I mean that the process itself is simplistic (yet effective). It’s a simple question and answer process. And I’d love to tell you it is painless, too, but as we all know, sometimes reigniting old thoughts we’ve worked to forget can cause some emotional pain. I hope for you that this is very limited. But above everything, I do not want that to deter you from this process. You cannot heal something that you cannot confront. And like so many others, I do believe that you will find that pain to be therapeutic. And through this process, you can let go of it once and for all.

Ask Yourself This

Do you equate money with pain or pleasure? What do you really equate money with? Not sure? You’re not alone. Start this process off by figuring out what you really think of money. Ask yourself a few questions:

• When is the last time money made you feel pressured?

• Are you experiencing financial pressure right now?

• If you had more money, would that relieve the pressure?

• Was there a time in memory that you felt no pressure from money at all?

Of course, there are no right or wrong answers here, just yours.

When you reflect upon these answers, you will gain some perspective on the pain vs. pleasure that money represents to you. From there, you’ll have to work to make sure that money represents more pleasure to you than pain. That’s quite a process, but it can be and is done. And you can do it too! Join us again and we’ll start talking about some ways to bring more pleasure into your life than pain—to stop letting pain and negativity rule your world, both financially and personally. Come back and we’ll talk more about the methods that Jamie McIntyre has used in the 21st Century Academy to improve financial attitudes, and bring more positivity to life.

To Your Continued Financial Success

Sean Rasmussen
21st Century Academy
Universal Wealth Creation © 2004 - 2008

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The most surprising thing for people coming into the 21st Century Academy programs is that Jamie McIntyre isn’t teaching big life change so much. The impact is big, but the path to that change is built brick by brick in much smaller ways.

Start Small

The kinds of changes that the 21st Century Academy will teach you to make in the interest of financial freedom—and in fact overall better living—are not huge adjustments. The sum of the whole is a big overall change that results in better living, more financial control, and financial freedom, but to get there you will go through many small changes.

It is amazing to see how small, really simple, life changes can affect your overall outcome. There are many little things that Jamie McIntyre and the 21st Century Academy will show you that will start changing your life the minute you learn about them. You’ll learn little things about

• Your attitude

• Your spending and saving

• Simple lifestyle changes, like de-cluttering your life to make room for abundance

• Thinking more positively to attract more positivity in your life

• Changing your perception and attitudes about money

• Many more small ways to change big!

All of these are things that you can do step by step, day by day to elicit big change and make room for financial success in your life. It doesn’t have to be painful to learn with the 21st Century Academy. It doesn’t have to consume all of your time. You can make room for these changes, because you can take a small, simple step, every day. And one of these days, unbeknownst to you, you’ll wake up and see how Jamie McIntyre’s small suggestions have changed your life big-time!

To Your Continued Financial Success

Sean Rasmussen
21st Century Academy
Universal Wealth Creation © 2004 - 2008

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