21st Century Academy

Jamie McIntyre came to learn a very important lesson that we all need to embrace before we can move on to wealth and prosperity. Continuing on from the last discussion, Jamie goes on to say,

“At the time, I did not realize it, buy by letting go, moving on, and forgetting about it I was creating the space for a lot more new money to come into my life. In the same situation, many other people would have been tempted to hang on and be upset, angry, and peeved off about what happened to them. I am not the only person that has been taken advantage of financially in one way or another, probably half the population has. For those who have not, what do you think is likely to happen in the next 10, 20, or 30 years? The question is how will you deal with it?”

–Jamie McIntyre, What I Didn’t Learn At School But Wish I Had

The Potential Is There For Everyone

The potential to find a reason in the past for our current lacking or limited success is there for all of us. As Jamie says, at some point in your life there is a great chance that something unfortunate will happen. The risk of these unfortunate events is not in the event itself, but in how you deal with it.

If you continue to dwell on the past or focus your energy on unfortunate occurrences, you do two things:

1) You use up all your time and energy wishing for something you can never get back, and
2) You fill up your life with that failure, leaving no room for anything better.

It is easy to feel sorry for ourselves and dwell in the past, and let someone else be to blame for the way we are today. It is far too easy. But it is painful, too. As I like to say,

“Life is not short. It’s the longest thing you’ll ever do!”

You deserve to do it well, and to enjoy the time spent doing it!

To Your Continued Success!
Sean Rasmussen
21st Century Academy
Universal Wealth Creation © 2004 - 2009

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Not unlike many of us, the blame and excuses that Jamie McIntyre was using often focused on issues in the past.

“One of my favourite excuses was, ‘If I could just get back all the money that is owing to me then I could turn my business around.’ When my millionaire mentor heard this he said, ‘Jamie, you could focus your energy on your past and try to collect all this money that is owing to you, that is called ‘old money’. Most people live in the past and they devote their energy to the past. If you want to become wealthy you need to devote your energy to your future. That is called new money.’ Then he gave me another pearl of wisdom. He said, ‘I guarantee if you take that energy and dedicate it to the future you will be a selfmade millionaire well before you ever collect the money that is owing to you.’”

–Jamie McIntyre, What I Didn’t Learn At School But Wish I Had

Letting Go The Past

We all seem to have something from our past that we can blame for not being rich now. Most of us will even have some instance similar to Jamie’s where we are owed money, or some outside influence caused a loss of money, and if we could just get that money back now, we could use it to seed our prosperity. However, the past is in the past, and wishing it back gets us absolutely nowhere.

It is a far better use of your time and personal resources to focus on the future and to take actions that will result in success, and in wealth and financial freedom. Do what we learned before—do the opposite of what most people do, and capitalize on living for the future, instead of dwelling in the past!

To Your Continued Success!
Sean Rasmussen
21st Century Academy
Universal Wealth Creation © 2004 - 2009

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“…you can make excuses in your life and you can make money, but you can not do both at the same time.”

–What I Didn’t Learn At School But Wish I Had

We are continuing today to move on through Chapter One of Jamie McIntyre’s book, where the discussion is centered on why people fail to be wealthy. We are looking for the answers to why 96 percent of people (the people Jamie calls the “96 percenters”) end up dead, broke, or dead broke by the age of retirement. One reason for this that cannot be ignored is blame and excuses.

There’s Always A “Reason”

It seems almost human nature to create excuses and blame other people and situations for what we have not achieved. Mind you, when we do achieve and succeed, we are much less likely to do this, and much more likely to take the credit, but in the case of continued financial failure there is always a “reason” why things are the way they are (of course, these aren’t really “reasons” but excuses, but we’ll get into that later).

For example, Jamie used to say that the reason he wasn’t wealthy was that he was owed too much money by other people, or that he needed money to make money, or had too much debt, that he wasn’t born into money or handed a leg-up, or simply because he wasn’t interested in money (but we’ve already talked about living in financial denial). Or he would imagine that the solution was evading him, and if someone would just help him out, or if he could find the “right” career, then everything would fall into place.

A Familiar Feeling

I’m willing to bet Jamie’s litany of excuses sounds familiar to you; it seems as humans we are not all that original in finding excuses for why we are not wealthy. But whatever it is you are telling yourself, you need to start realizing that those are not reasons for your lack of wealth.

The only way these sorts of excuses become reasons you are not wealthy is because you give over your power to them. You allow them to become hurdles to success, but only because you choose to. These are hurdles that are easily removed because all you have to do is stop playing the blame game and stop making excuses. It may be a familiar and comfortable place, but it’s not a productive one, and it will never make you wealthy. Take back your power and start putting it to better use.

To Your Continued Success!
Sean Rasmussen
21st Century Academy
Universal Wealth Creation © 2004 - 2009

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In the last post we looked at what Jamie McIntyre had to say about looking at our failures as clues to our current financial status. We introduced the concept of denial, whereby people use excuses like saying that money is not important to them, or that there are more important things in life. A lot of people have a hard time arguing against that, but if you read what Jamie and his millionaire mentor have to say, you start to figure out that yes, indeed, most of us are living in denial of how important having money is to each and every one of us.

More Important Than Money

Jamie McIntyre’s mentor explained it best:

“You know most people would agree with you that there are other things more important than money. A lot of people say they are not interested in money, but can you guess what the people do who usually say that? They go and work for it because they are just like you Jamie. You go off and work your whole life for money and the whole time you say you are not interested in it. Would you not say that is a classic case of denial?”

No doubt, put that way, you can deny this no less than Jamie could. It is entirely self-defeating to say that you do not care about money, but then allow your entire life to revolve around it.

The beauty is that it really does not have to be this way. You can find a balance in which you can create wealth, make money, and live life—and right the balance so that making money by working your life away does not have to rule your life and times.

Think about it. You may say, and certainly believe, that there are more important things in life; things like family, security, and enjoying life. That is even true. But if you spend the majority of your time chasing the dollar by traditional means, are you really attending fairly to those things? No, you are not. And therein lays the paradox. If money is not the most important thing in life, you have to stop letting it rule yours. Easier said than done? For most people, the answer is yes, until they get a real financial education, an education for life.

To Your Continued Success!
Sean Rasmussen
21st Century Academy
Universal Wealth Creation © 2004 - 2009

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By now you are probably getting the point of the last few posts:

If you want to be rich, you have to do things differently. The best way to put this is the way Jamie McIntyre puts it in his book, which is the way his millionaire mentor put it to him:

“…If you want to succeed, you need to figure out what…[most people] are doing and do the exact opposite.”

You’ll notice my edit there—all I did was replace “Australians” with “most people”—because this is a universal message and I wouldn’t want any international readers to think this applied only in Australia. This is as applicable anywhere in the modern world. The statistics and results are really not all that different for any of the wealthy, developed nations.

Doing It Differently

What “most people” do is follow that traditional formula for success; and end up broke, dead broke, or relying on family if they are lucky enough to live beyond a few years past retirement. Does this make any sense?

Certainly not. There’s more to life than this. Life is not just one journey to and from work. It’s an experience worth living!

Stories And Morals

The moral of the story up to here then, is that if you want to live a life outside of the norm, you have to do something different. You have to achieve the real wealth equation:

• Lifestyle = Time + Money

You cannot achieve that through the old formula for success, but you can do it by doing something different—just like what Jamie McIntyre did. Jamie’s formula was a bit more like this:

• Commit to building a better life for you and yours
• Discover what it takes to be different
• Find new paths to wealth that do not rely on time-consuming employment (Get educated!)
• ACT to build wealth and achieve your lifestyle of choice

The key to this is figuring out how to do it differently—precisely what the 21st Century Academy is for. Find out how to do it bigger and better, and live the best possible life that you can live!

To Your Continued Success!
Sean Rasmussen
21st Century Academy
Universal Wealth Creation © 2004 - 2009

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