Every human being has critical need for spiritual growth. It’s what drives the human race to continue to develop. We can’t restrict it or fight it because it’s what nature requires of us. As children it comes naturally. All children have an insatiable thirst for knowledge because it’s their natural instinct to grow spiritually.

Somehow as we become adults and we take on responsibility we subconsciously restrict our growth through emotions like fear and often people become stuck in a bland situation where results are predictable and there is no opportunity to learn and experience new things. The feelings of frustration that people in this situation experience come from the fact that their natural instinct is to take on some uncertainty in the quest for more knowledge and experience.

To become successful you have to allow your soul the opportunity to develop the drive to succeed. This will come naturally when you step outside your comfort zone and try something new. As you allow yourself to experience new things your mind will naturally open up to possibilities you never dreamed of. This will help you to build the confidence to overcome the negative emotions which currently hold you back.

It’s true that the comfort zone will safely transport you to the end of you if that’s all you wish to achieve.

The fact that you have come to this website tells you that you are looking for something more than that. The fact is that it takes a lot more strength to hold down your natural instinct for growth than to let go and open your mind up to the endless possibilities for the direction your life could take.

Nature is a powerful force and is designed to make you flourish so there is nothing to be afraid of and absolutely no reason to restrict it.

Bye for now

Tim

There are people out there who seem to constantly find themselves in financial trouble because they invest their money into ventures promising outstanding results in no time at all with very little input or effort. What these people fail to understand is that unless you win the Lotto or inherit a pile of money, to accumulate wealth takes time, effort, education and above all commitment.

If you are not prepared to educate yourself and be committed to a plan to achieve your goals you will not be capable of managing a large sum of money.

Building a business or investment portfolio from nothing is a structured step by step process which starts very slowly with education and gradually builds as you start investing and building self confidence. When you find the formula that works for you and you become confident with it and the process begins to speed up. Before you know it you wake up one morning and wonder what you are going to do with all this money.

Once the process begins to speed up it will continue to speed up at a pace which is equal to your own personal growth.

Most people get frustrated after a couple of years because their bank balance hasn’t doubled and give up. The problem is that most people when they start investing, they will over estimate what they can achieve in 12 months but massively under estimate what they can achieve in 10 years.

In order for your investment to grow your level of awareness must grow. This takes time, commitment and patience.

The important thing is to take action! If you don’t change your actions you can’t change your results. But you have to start at the beginning with the appropriate education, even if you have a significant amount of equity to get started.

Start with education, build your self confidence and then start investing. If you follow this simple approach you will achieve your goals a lot quicker than failing consecutively on schemes which sound too good to be true.

Bye for now

Tim

A cold call is when someone rings you, who you have never heard of, claiming to be from an investment company offering amazing results with very little input.

The information I am about to give you comes from my own experience. Many years ago when I was a lot younger and as it turns out quite naive and vulnerable, I allowed myself to be cheated of US$16,000 in an international investment scam.

These organisations are a sophisticated group of talented individuals who are extremely persuasive. They have extraordinary marketing skills and websites they will direct you to that are extremely professional and very realistic business profiles.

The way the system works is you get a random phone call from someone asking if you would like to learn more about an investment strategy which offers high returns with no risk. They then explain that one of their investment advisors will call you to discuss the investment. The caller will be Australian but the company will operate from overseas.

A couple of days will pass and you will get the second call. This person explains the strategy with quite an astounding level of detail and professionalism. At this point they tell you that you’re such an important potential client that they will refer you to their institutional division where you will be treated as an extremely important portfolio.

If you have come this far through the process, it’s fair to say they have got you and you are about to lose a lot of money. Generally you will be told your investment type is an option contract or a futures contract which expires in 30 days.

Their paperwork is an impeccable fraud to the untrained eye and they have people claiming to be from the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) in the USA explaining what you are about to enter into and that the company is registered with them, to give you the secure feeling that you are dealing with legitimate people.

As soon as you transfer the money into their overseas bank account it will be gone forever!

It is worth noting that there are legitimate companies that engage in cold calling but they are invariably Australia companies which can be checked out by the Australia Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC).

What I now know is that the best brokers and investment companies don’t engage in cold calling because their business thrives on its reputation and they consider it unethical.

My advice to you is that if anyone cold calls you to be firm and even rude if necessary and tell them never to call you again. Store their number and hand it on to the Australian Federal Police to investigate.

Bye for now

Tim

If you look closely at your social network you will find that everyone in that group are of similar mindset and have very similar incomes and general net worth.

Very rarely will a group of people who regularly interact socially be made up of a combination of wealthy people and average people. The only exception I have seen to this is in the remote opal mining communities.

The reason for this is that all of the people in that group have a similar attitude and a similar level of awareness, therefore, they can relate to each other. As your level of awareness grows so too will your income and you find that your social network will also evolve.

I’m not suggesting for a moment that you need to throw out all your old friends and start hanging around with wealthy people. They would probably just think your stalking them and have you arrested.

What I’m saying is that to develop the mindset of a wealthy person you have to have some exposure to wealthy people and also people on your level which are looking for the same thing you are, so you can grow together.

There are plenty of self made wealthy people who are prepared to teach you the skills you need to become successful. The best way I have found to get that exposure is to invest the time and often the money to attend a wealth creation seminar. In my opinion the best seminars are the ones which will cost you to attend. These tend to attract a more focused and committed audience.

We have met some amazing people from around the country at these seminars and stay in touch with them regularly. These are the people that will help you stay focused on your goals and offer support not negativity.

As you become successful you will usually lead your regular social network on the same path which will strengthen your relationship with them.

Bye for now

Tim

Why do you want to be wealthy? You may think this is a silly question. Doesn’t everybody want to be wealthy? The problem is, is that not many people understand exactly what being wealthy is. Generally people who aren’t wealthy believe that being wealthy means to have a lot of money.

Having a lot of money is only a by-product of being wealthy; it’s not the definition of wealthy. If you want to become wealthy, simply to have a lot of money then in actual fact you want to be rich. The term rich refers only to money. Rich doesn’t necessarily equate to a happy and fulfilling life. It does however; provide a better quality of misery.

The simple fact is that anyone who thinks a large sum of money will make them happy and fulfilled is in for bitter disappointment. This is why a lot of Lotto winners wind up wishing they never won. The reason is that they never understood the responsibility involved in having the money and the potential negative impact it can have on your life if you don’t first develop the tools required to handle and distribute large sums of money.

In my opinion, being wealthy means creating the lifestyle that most suits you by using money to make more money and being able to sustain that lifestyle without the requirement for a massive commitment of time and effort.

So the first thing you have to do is define what lifestyle is. How much free time do you want? What activities would you like to pursue and what will it cost? This will help you to choose the types of investments you will make.

Do you have a particular skill which you would like to use as the basis for a business venture? If so, how are you going to invest the profits? What is your exit strategy? Do you want to build the business up and sell it and retire, or do you intend to develop it to a point where you don’t need to be there anymore?

These things must be clearly defined and take careful planning. Every business or investment strategy requires direction to remain focused and to survive. It also has to have a clear cut purpose otherwise there is nothing driving it.

The majority of businesses that fail do so because there is no plan or purpose, so define these things first then do your research before you start. Then you will understand the difference between having money and becoming wealthy.

Bye for now

Tim

There are a lot of mum and dad investors out there who are completely overwhelmed by investment choices and different companies offering different products. Often they don’t have the confidence to manage their own investments and are looking for someone they can trust to manage their life savings for them.

There is nothing wrong with that and if you don’t have the confidence to manage your own investments then you probably shouldn’t.

One option in this case is a term deposit or a safety deposit bond. These are very safe and generally come with a guarantee. Remember thought that anything which is safe and particularly guaranteed will be very low return.

This is where people can leave themselves open to catastrophic failure because although they like the safety of these products, the income is too low so they will risk their portfolio by investing in higher return products without understanding what it is they are investing in.

This doesn’t mean you are stuck with low performance investments. The key is to learn what questions to ask of the fund manager when assessing a particular fund. This way you can make an informed decision and properly assess the risks.

Never ever invest in anything purely on recommendation of a friend or family member unless that person is an experienced professional in that type of investment.

Remember you are dealing with your life savings! Think about how long it took to accumulate it and what impact it will have on your life if you lost it. Given that it has taken your whole life to accumulate it, why wouldn’t you invest a fraction of that time to educate yourself on how to protect it?

A few basic and simple questions to ask when assessing your investment products will help you make an informed and confident decision:

- What are the exit fee’s if I wish to get out of the investment?
- How long has the fund been operating and show me proof of its performance?
- Is it just shares or a combination of shares, property and other business interests?
- Is the property commercial, industrial or both?
- Is the property in Australia or some overseas?
- Is the share portfolio on the Australian market or overseas market or both?
- Are the shares protected with a put option?
- Are the shares blue chip or speculative – show me proof?
- Do you write call options on the shares?
- Is the property portfolio tailored for capital gain or income?
- If the property portfolio is tailored for income, what is the occupancy rate?
- If the portfolio underwritten, if so who is the underwriter?
- Are there any margin loans on the shares and what percentage is financed?
- What fees are involved?
- How does the fund manager get paid? Is it commission or percentage or both?
- What reports will I receive and the frequency?
- Will I get to make decisions on my portfolio?
- How do I contact someone and who do I contact to discuss my portfolio?

If you ask some of these simple questions the fund manager will quickly assume you are not a mum and dad uneducated investor and his body language will change. If he takes a defensive position he either can’t answer because he doesn’t know or he has something to hide.

If the fund manager doesn’t know about the investment portfolio, how safe do you think your money is?

In my experience a professional in the industry will recognise an educated investor and will open up and freely give information. Professionals want to deal with educated people because they make confident informed decisions.

It doesn’t take much to learn the basic principles of investing but it is the only way to guarantee peace of mind.

Bye for now

Tim

Everybody’s heard of ‘mum and dad investors’, but what does it really mean?

This is a subject that I am extremely passionate about and if I had one goal in life it would be to help turn every mum and dad investor into an astute and well educated investor; so that they could guarantee the safety of their life savings and provide them the lifestyle I so strongly believe they deserve.

That is what the essence of this website is all about!

So if my words in this passage seem strong I apologise but it rips my heart out to think that a little education can save these people a lot of pain and yet it keeps happening.

It saddens me to know that these are the most vulnerable people in any investment market and the people who deserve to be ripped off the least.

To me a ‘mum and dad investor’ is the typical household parents (generally baby boomers) who have worked hard their whole lives, saved as much money for retirement as they possibly could while at the same time making sure their children have every possible opportunity by sacrificing their own. These people are the back bone of our society and a group I have enormous respect for!

Unfortunately their whole life right up to retirement is so focused on just getting to retirement that they never had the opportunity to properly educate themselves on what best maximises the return on their life savings in retirement while at the same time minimising the risks.

Too often to their own detriment they seek advice from ‘experts’ without knowing what questions to ask or they will settle for a low performance safety deposit bond not providing the income they had hoped for in retirement.

I couldn’t begin to imagine how gutted these people must feel when some worthless cockroach rips them off and leaves them with nothing or worse, a pile of debt.

The good news is that all investors, not just mum and dad investors can completely protect themselves from this type of event. This can only happen through proper education. I believe that I am obligated to pass on the information I have as a successful and well educated investor to the most vulnerable group of people to protect them in return for the free and abundant society loaded with opportunity that they have provided for me.

Purely through lack of education a lot of people planning for retirement don’t even realise that they have the opportunity to bring retirement forward in some cases to today just using the assets they currently own with virtually no risk.

I have made it my mission in life to change the fate of as many mum and dad investors as I possibly can and to show them how to educate themselves to recognise good from bad opportunities and how to protect their hard earned and well deserved retirement lifestyle.

Bye for now

Tim

In this blog I will talk about share trading with Options. I am not a stock broker or licensed financial advisor, I am not aware of your current financial situation and the information contained in this blog is not intended to be financial advice.

I am however, an astute and well educated investor and the intention of this information is to open your mind to the possibility of minimising or even eliminating the risks involved in share trading. I recommend that you speak to a stock broker who has a proven track record and is licensed to trade Options.

If your broker tells you that trading shares with options is risky then I would urge you to hang up the phone and find another broker.

If you’re a ‘mum and dad’ type investor who buys a parcel of shares on advice from a broker whom you trust with the intention of holding the shares long term for capital gain, then you might be interested to learn that it is possible to protect your investment in a similar way to which you would insure your car using a put option.

You can purchase from the market an Option to sell your shares at any time at an agreed price regardless of what’s happening in the market. This is called a ‘put option’.

You can set whatever price you like; however, the higher the price to more expensive the option. Insurance is no different.

Option contracts (on the Australian Market) can only be done on parcels of approximately 1,000 shares and the contract period is a minimum of one (1) month. With the right shares you can purchase an Option over 12 months or more.

This means that if the price of your shares drops below the agreed price you can choose to (but you’re not obligated to) sell your shares at that agreed price. Therefore, the only loss you will sustain is the difference between what you paid for the shares and what you sold them for plus what you paid for the Option and the brokerage.

H.I.H was considered a blue chip company before it went broke and thousands of investors lost a fortune because their investment was not protected.

Would you spend $250,000 on a house and not spend $2,500 to protect it with insurance? Of course not, so why do so many people invest their life savings in something and not protect it? The answer is, they didn’t invest the time educating themselves and took the advice of ‘experts’.

If your life savings are invested in a Managed Fund, ask the fund manager if your investment is protected with a Put Option. If not, why not? You looking for a straight answer, not the traditional “Trust me, we know what we are doing” response.

It’s worth noting that you can really only trade Options on high end blue chip shares in lots of 1,000. However, would you rather spend $50,000 on a properly protected investment or would you spend $10,000 on speculative shares with the potential to lose it all. If you going to do that – you’ll get better odds on the Melbourne Cup.

Bye for now

Tim

It’s a commonly held belief that investing your hard earned money in the share market or business or to a lesser extent property is risky. So is it really risky?

To answer that question you first need to have a clear understanding of what risk is. My definition of financial risk is to invest a set amount of money into something which has the potential to reduce that amount of money but not eliminate it. To invest in something with the potential to eliminate the investment is stupid not risky!

The belief that share trading or business ventures are risky generally comes from people who have either lost significant amounts of money (or know someone who has) because they chose that investment on the advice of someone but didn’t have their investment properly protected.

Protection of your investments is best done with a combination of two things. The first is insurance. Even shares can be insured to minimise the risk. I will explain that in detail in my next blog. The best protection will always be your own education. Don’t invest in anything you know very little about and are completely reliant on an ‘experts’ advice. Only a very small percentage of ‘experts’ actually know what they are doing. This is because the vast majority of their clients are uneducated.

Choose a stock broker or real estate professional (notice I didn’t say real estate agent) that only deals with education institutional investors.

Think about this for a moment…

If you took a loan 10 years ago for $25,000 and purchased a parcel of shares in Woolworths what would your investment be worth now?

On the other hand if you took a loan 10 years ago for $25,000 and purchased a Holden Commodore what would your investment be worth now?

The answer to this question seems so obvious and yet the vast majority of people will actually buy the car.

The fearful uneducated will say ‘well if I could see the future of course I would buy the shares but there’s no guarantee’. My answer to that is if you want a guarantee, you’d be better off buying a Plasma Screen TV, they come with a 5 year guarantee! But seriously, when they purchased the car 10 years ago they were guaranteed that after they paid the bank around $32,000 for a $25,000 vehicle in 10 years time it would be worth $5,000. Even with that guarantee they still went ahead and invested the money.

It’s important to remember that the key to becoming a successful investor is education! Learn how to protect your investment before you invest. A proper education will teach you that what you have been doing in the past is far riskier than any properly protected investment portfolio.

Bye for now

Tim

A very important element to success is to be firmly decisive, have crystal clear direction. Make an informed decision and stand by that decision regardless of what people say to you.

Often people are unsure of themselves and make a decision without proper consultation or firm facts as a foundation, this leads them to constantly doubt the decision because someone heard ‘this’ and someone else said ‘that’. Before they know it they’ve changed their mind several times and more often than not the decision they started with was the one they should’ve stayed with.

This process is one of the most destructive things you can do to your self confidence. On the road to self improvement and success, self confidence is everything! If you damage your self confidence you will begin to doubt everything you have learnt and quickly revert back to old habits.

If you don’t have the information you need to make a proper decision you are better off to not make a decision at all until you have completed your research, rather than make a hasty decision and then change it constantly.

The time will come where you will have to make a prompt decision and you want to be prepared for that. To make a prompt decision you will need all of the self confidence you can muster.

Therefore, you must consciously look after your self confidence by ensuring that decisions are made with solid information and as many facts as possible. That way you can confidently make a decision and see it through no matter what happens in the mean time.

Bye for now

Tim