21st Century Academy

Particularly in a volatile market atmosphere, many less savvy investors rely on old myths they believe to be true. It is a natural tendency to panic as the market swings downward and begin selling off assets. Other investors take the opposite tactic, developing a laissez faire attitude and failing to act when they should. Both of these tactics are doomed for failure because they rely on some of the commonest investment myths.

When the Market is Bad, Hold

A long-term investment plan is often built on the premise that no matter what the market does, leaving investment dollars where they are is best. After all, the market will rebound eventually, right?

Sure, the market will rise again, but a stock worth little to begin with will almost never rise to a level that makes it highly profitable just because the market turns. Just like buying antiques, items that were originally worth a lot of money will still be the highest valued decades later. Low-priced stocks need to be purged from your portfolio before they result in even greater loss.

Besides that, how long are you willing to wait? Consider this example. Say you bought shares of a top-rated stock prior to the correction of October 1987. How long would it have taken you to regain the same value? The answer is ten years. Still other stocks have yet to reach the same level of value they once enjoyed. Obviously this is too long if you are ever going to attain financial independence in this lifetime.

When the Market is Bad, Sell

At the opposite end of the spectrum are those investment gurus who maintain you should withdraw from a declining market immediately and place your remaining investment capital elsewhere. This could be just as bad a mistake as holding onto your all your stock certificates in the hopes they will regain value.

Highly valued and strongly performing stocks are always a good investment, no matter the whims of the market. This is just one part of a successful portfolio that will create wealth in the short and long run. Diversification is important. Assess the performance of each investment and make decisions to sell based on more than just the recent activity in the stock market.

When it comes to creating wealth via investments, there is one principle that always holds true and that is to buy low and sell high. Forgo rash decision making and stick to your financial goals – but only when it makes sense to do so.

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Motivating ourselves to achieve our goals is not an easy thing to do. Somehow, as conscious as we think we are of our plans and goals, we continue to lose sight of them as we go about our lives. Sometimes this is the result of not having set solid goals and not having planned for action on them, but sometimes it is just the result of too many other things getting in our way—of life happening.

We need all the tools we can get to help us stay focused and achieve the end we desire . Since we so often are putting ourselves last, one tactic that works (usually without your even realizing it) is to help others.

Intrinsic Assistants

If you think about, most people are intrinsically motivated to help one another. If you need an example of that, think about how quick you are to drop what you are doing, even though it may derail your plans, and help someone else out. Think how eagerly you will share your knowledge with someone who asks for your help, even though it is often a case of “giving away the goods.” As you think about that, think about how painless that feels for you to do.

Your Reward

Now think about how you could apply this same painless concept to creating wealth, or motivating yourself to create wealth. Even though you might find it difficult to attend to the tasks at hand, think about how much easier that might be just by sharing your knowledge, plans, and resources with someone else.

This is a great reason not to keep your plans and efforts at wealth creation to yourself; going public with your goals so that you can share that knowledge with others can have many return benefits. Not only do you get the satisfaction of helping another, but you also get the benefit of living, being what you want to be. Your selflessness becomes your reward, in more ways than you would ever have thought.

Sean Rasmussen
21st Century Academy
Universal Wealth Creation © 2004 - 2009

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It probably goes without saying that in order to build wealth you have to invest in your own financial empowerment. That’s true in terms of what you do with your money, but it’s true of other related aspects of building wealth. Investment, however, can mean many, many different things. Let’s explore.

Financial Investment For Creating Wealth

At some point you have to make a financial investment in some form in order to build financial prosperity. That probably sounds very simplistic. The reason that I bring it up is to point out that there are many ways that can be done. Stock market or share market investing may seem like the most obvious, and is often what people think a financial education program will teach, and nothing more. Realistically, though, financial investment can refer to others forms of investment such as real estate and property, insurance investing, businesses and much more. You will need some type of vehicle, but it does not necessarily need to be stocks, or not only stocks.

Personal Investment For Creating Wealth

The other form of investment that is imperative to building wealth (and it is the one the 21st Century Academy is really all about) is personal investment. Investing the time and energy, and yes money, in yourself so that you can learn to be wealthy and take wealthy actions.

Personal investment is the much more important of these two. When you invest in yourself you invest in something with unlimited potential. You invest in an investment vehicle with innumerable opportunities for replication.

Investing means that you put something in to get something out. The more seeds you plant, financially, but more importantly personally, the more you get out of that investment. It’s a must if you will succeed and be wealthy, but investing, especially in you, is the best return you will ever enjoy.

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

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The point that I’ve tried to drive home in all the conversations about personal choice is that you do, in fact, have money now. You may even have wealth now, depending on your perspective. Understanding that is to your direct advantage because having money takes away one of the largest impediments to creating wealth.

It’s Your Money

You do have money. Chances are you have a good amount of it—an amount that would do quite well applied to what you learn through your wealth building education. The reason that you may not feel as though you have any wealth, and I know we’ve said this before so please bear with me, is that you also have a great many financial obligations and demands placed upon you and it—too many homes for your money. The smallest home for it is probably your own accounts.

Anyone with money can be wealthy. That is one of the first things Jaime McIntyre speaks to. Actually, he takes a step further back and shows you how you can fund an investment program and personal wealth even with a lack of funding. But to get back to the point, if you have money you have financial opportunity. All that you need to do to capitalize on it is make the right choices-the choices that build wealth and do more than just pay the bills.

Making Wealthy Financial Decisions

Now that I think we are all starting to understand this, let’s talk about bridging that gap between having money, meeting your financial obligations, and building wealth. I wouldn’t blame you right now if you are thinking that that is easier said than done. Because it is. But that does not mean that it’s impossible.

There are many strategies that you can employ that begin right now to start utilizing your money for your financial good and future wealth. Jamie’s program will give you many (all very real, all proven). If in doubt, just remember that Jamie McIntyre himself started hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. But he found a way to put himself first and still satisfy his debtors, and become a true millionaire in just a matter of years. So there are ways for it to be done. And they start with taking control of your money. You’ll see.

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

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The 21st Century Academy and Jamie McIntyre’s work is just one part of a larger plan for creating wealth. It fits seamlessly into this plan and provides an important part of it that is needed for success—the part of educating for financial success. To really harness the power of what you learn though, you need a larger plan, and you need to know how and where everything fits together so that you know how to utilize your new tools.

Developing A Plan To Build Wealth

When you have a plan, you have something to fall back on. You have a framework for success that serves as a roadmap to financial empowerment and success.

The framework itself is very basic. Given here is an example of one that includes the major elements of a successful wealth creation plan. It begins very simply with your decision to commit to wealth creation. Without a commitment to yourself, there will be no sustainability to the plan. Once you have committed to your own financial program, the next step is to take the action that results in building wealth and becoming rich. Those include:

• Financial/Wealth Education; such as that you get from the 21st Century Academy, but also through other forms of reading and researching. This is necessary to learn what is missing and what you need to learn in order to enjoy and thrive while building wealth.

• Setting goals; goals are benchmarks that tell you how you are progressing and give you something to aim for. They are an important test of your financial success, and also an important motivator.

• Thinking wealthy; This we covered a lot as of late. Mindset is, as Jamie McIntyre will tell you, at least 80% responsible for your financial future.

• Taking action; thoughts rely on your taking actions to build wealth.

• Continuous commitment to creating wealth; to be sustainably wealthy you have to commit to following through. Plan to build wealth in a way that is continuous and continually commit to your ongoing prosperity and life success.

This framework gives you the basic means of how to get there. Your job is to personalize it and internalize it. You decide how you will achieve each of these steps. You decide how you want to go about achieving financial empowerment, financial freedom, and wealth. You decide how large you should aim and live. You get to call the shots and take the actions, and enjoy your own flavor of success with money.

To Your Continued Financial Success

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

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