Next to ownership another fundamental rule in creating wealth is control. Beware of any type of ownership that requires you to relinquish control. Personal responsibility and ownership should go hand in hand where wealth is concerned. No one, and absolutely no-one will care more about your financial position than yourself. Unless it is tightly linked in with their own financial success, and even so I would be very wary.
I always smile when I speak to some people about investing for themselves and they turn around and go straight to their bank, hand over the control of their money and let the bank choose financial products for them. Hello? Whose interest do you honestly think the bank is concerned with? Theirs, or yours! Do you honestly think that the advisor you see at the bank cares two hoots about your wealth than about his next bonus?
The problem with most investment products being offered today, especially insurance products is that they deny you both ownership and control. In most of these cases what you will realise is that your money is put to work to enrich the shareholders of the companies involved. To add insult to injury you incur charges and fees to give them the privilege of making themselves richer with your money. What an irony!
Granted, most people claim to find investment products out there too confusing, which confirms that the financial world has achieved its objective – To confuse you enough for you to hand over the control to them! Too many people would rather keep to their jobs, and keep on doing courses upon courses to get that elusive better position or promotion than to sit down and begin to sift through to understand what it takes to create true wealth. If you are one of these you owe yourself the time to learn what is at stake.
You do not have to know about everything. I am first to admit that I don’t know the half of what is out there. Despite what I have achieved, I still meet so-called financial gurus who try to bamboozle me with their financial knowledge. These are mostly the ones who know a lot but have nothing to show for their knowledge. I simply recognise these people for what they are, and quickly find somewhere else to be.
What I do know is that the little quotient of finance that I have made the time to learn has stood me in good stead. And I have no interest in people who would rather show you what they know than what they have achieved. After all, we all know that talk is cheap! Action is what counts. Learning is one thing, but it is the application of what you learn that gives you the key to solve problems, overcome obstacles and achieve any goal that you set for yourself.
Above all else, there are four things to remember:
- Income is not Wealth
- Wealth comes from ownership of the right things
- Ownership and Control go hand in hand
- Take Personal responsibility for your money
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