21st Century Academy

Do you have what it takes to get wealthy – the courage to do what you need to in order to get rich? If you are like successful students of the 21st Century Academy, you may have done your research on making money but initially doubted your own ability to stick to the right path on your way to gaining wealth. This is a losing attitude.

So what is the key to getting wealthy? There are actually five maxims which can help anyone achieve success.

Get Motivated

Without motivation, your desire will never be anything more than that: an ambiguous emotion. True motivation is translated into ambition and ambition results in action. Only action can create wealth.

Manage Your Time Efficiently

Gaining wealth takes time. Take it from Jamie McIntyre, there are no shortcuts to this step. Do only those things which result in the generation of income. Let me repeat that: only spend your time on income generation. This means you will have no extra time for leisure pursuits, at least until you have amassed a sufficient amount of assets.

Frugal Cash Management

If you own your own business, you know that taking all the income earned from it and using it to buy things for yourself is not the way to become successful. You must first make a good profit before even considering spending money on extras.

The Law of Attraction

If you can desire it, you can obtain it. Enough said.

Set Clear Goals

How you can obtain anything if you don’t know what it is you want? Jamie McIntyre knows this rule firsthand. Only by writing down exactly what it was he desired was he able to develop a plan with the steps necessary to obtain it.

Now that you know what it takes to create wealth, do you have the courage to do what needs to be done?

“…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

It’s important to go further than to achieve a dollar-figure for wealth. We talked last time about the 1% who will be “rich” by age 65. But what we didn’t do is qualify that categorization in terms of achieving real wealth.

More Than Money

Here’s the thing—being wealthy is about more than just reaching a magical number. It’s not about having one million dollars in the bank, or about owning your home, or several homes. It may be in part about those things, but achieving wealth (at least what we are trying to achieve through the 21st Century Academy) is really about achieving lifestyle. So what is lifestyle, then?

What Is Lifestyle?

Jamie McIntyre defines lifestyle with this simple equation:

· Lifestyle = Time + Money

You see, achieving a wealthy lifestyle is not just about getting money into your bank account. It’s not just about owning property and “things.” Achieving the wealthy lifestyle is about having money, but also time. You can, and many people do, have money without the time—these are the people, probably most of the world’s population, who work and have money, but need to continue working to maintain those properties, life needs, and possessions. If those people stopped working tomorrow, they’d lose their things. So they have not really achieved a wealthy lifestyle. Obviously you could have time on your hands and not have money, but that would leave you without the lifestyle you are dreaming of, unless that lifestyle is to be penniless and homeless.

You do not have freedom in lifestyle until you have the financial flexibility to make your choices and pursue the lifestyle you want. That comes from having an abundance of not only money, but time, too. When you can say truthfully that you have a level of freedom, comfort, and flexibility in both, you can say that you have successfully achieved financial freedom and a wealthy lifestyle.

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