Margaret Ntifo's Blog

I Bargained With Life For A Penny

"I bargained with Life for a penny,
And Life would pay no more,
However I begged at evening
When I counted my scanty store.

For Life is a just employer,                        
He gives you what you ask,
But once you have set the wages,
Why, you must bear the task.

I worked for a menial’s hire,
Only to learn, dismayed,
That any wage I had asked of Life,
Life would have willingly paid."

I first came across this poem in Napoleon Hill’s classic ‘Think and grow Rich’ years ago, and it just about spoke volumes to me. I love it! Every time, I recognize that I am asking for peanuts, or pennies I am quickly reminded that ‘this world really is my oyster’!

How about you? What exactly do you want in your life? Think big, and know that ‘whatever you ask for, you will receive’.

Movement Creates More Wealth

“If you borrow a thousand Pounds, the bank owns you. If you borrow a million pounds, you own the bank.” John Maynard Keyes (paraphrased)

These days the banks and financial companies are fighting to control your money because they know a fundamental truth about Wealth Creation:

‘The more money moves around, the more wealth is created.’

The banks make money when your money moves around, and the higher the frequency with which that happens, the more money is created. Why do you think that despite the administrative work it creates for the banks they have continued to make it more and more simple for you to move your money around? More and more ATMs are springing up everywhere, even in corner shops.

Technology today has enabled money to move around in a heartbeat, and all this liquidity is good for the general economy. Every time that money moves around, value is created, and someone somewhere, usually the banks harvest some of this value. They either charge you direct fees, or there is either unpaid interest or hidden cost inherent in every transaction.

For example, every time you get towards the end of repaying the bank a loan you owe them they are quite happy to give you another loan, to restructure the first. Often when this happens you can bet that you are paying hidden costs. They calculate it in such a way that you probably think you are saving money, which is seldom the case. What they are offering you is only convenience. They are the ones making money while you pay for the convenience.

Don’t get me wrong; it is not a bad thing for your bank to make money so long as you are making money as well, or getting something in return for the transaction. Always look out for the win-win situation, not a lose-win one.

There’s an interesting old banking adage, which is known as the 3-6-3 Rule:

‘Pay 3 percent interest on savings, charge 6 percent interest on loans and head for the golf course at 3 o’clock.’

Banks earn the bulk of their profits from the fees they charge for arranging your loans. Then they turn around and sell these loans, including its income to other banks. They are all making money using your assets.

One way to accelerate your wealth faster is to learn to do what the banks do, not what they say. Banks are known to encourage you to leave your money in savings accounts to earn pittance in interest. Then guess what, they turn around and do the exact opposite. They start moving your money around as fast as they can to earn them more money.

What do you think will happen to your money when you learn to accelerate its movement? You will be able to capture more interest and other income hitherto only being captured by the bank. You most definitely will be able to gain more ownership and control over your money. You will reach your financial goals faster.

Wealth comes through ownership and control, and from the movement of money.

Not many people realise how much wealth can be created by the controlled movement of money. I found this to be extraordinarily true last year when I helped a client of mine septuple her net worth in one year. By a combination of movement of assets from stocks and shares into property and some creativity, we did not double, nor triple, but managed to increase her net worth SEVENFOLD by simply moving her assets from one asset class to another creating value along the way. Despite what I did know, to see this done in real life was just phantasmagorical! How would you like to do this every couple of years?

So when the banks tells you that the longer you leave your money with them, in savings accounts, guaranteed ISAs etc. the more money you will have in the future, think again. Instead, find a way to leverage your money with controlled movement to create more money for yourself. If you don’t know how, just learn how. It’s as simple as ABC. Better still, you will reach your money goals sooner.

Ownership and Control of Wealth

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:

1. Income is not Wealth
2. Wealth comes from ownership of the right things
3. Ownership and Control go hand in hand
4. Take Personal responsibility for your money

Wealth Through Ownership

The key to creating wealth is using your earned money to acquire ownership of certain types of investments that will make more money for you. The minute you consider putting your money to use to create more money you become an investor. An investor is someone who makes a purchase or expenditure with a view to making a potential profitable return in interest, income or appreciation in value.

Let’s consider some types of ownership that can enable you create wealth. Although there are many more asset classes to choose from most beginner investors have found it simpler to focus on three or four of the basic categories of ownerships available. These are:

1. Property – This is a tangible place to use your money to create wealth
2. Stocks – A way to invest wealth in the general economy
3. Ideas – Intellectual property, inventions, businesses etc.
4. Business – A good way to add value to the general economy

Nothing stops anyone from acquiring ownership in all four categories above. Notice too that a salaried job is not among the list. So why on earth does everyone think the only way to survive is to go and find a job and that’s it? I speak to many people whose sole aim in life is to get a better job, and another better job, and so on. These people have missed the next fundamental step of true wealth – ownership.

There are loads of opportunities to become an owner. Also, when I talk about certain types of ownership I do not mean depreciating items such as fancy cars or a designer wardrobe. Too many people try too much to own the wrong type of things, and worse still they do so by using credit.

Once you have done your groundwork and acquired the right type of ownership, at a later stage you will always have more left over to buy anything you want, and then you will not need credit to do so.

A Modern Day Definition of Wealth

”Money is a good servant, but a bad master” – Old French Proverb

If you want to be wealthy you must not only fully understand what wealth is, but you must have your own personal definition of wealth!

Here is my definition of wealth: "Having money from many sources that flow in faster than I can spend it."

Most people think they are wealthy simply because they earn a lot of money. Far from it! The people who think like this are the ones who always manage to spend even more than they earn, which makes a non-sense of the large paycheque.

The most important step to becoming wealthy is learning how to make your money WORK for you, as opposed to constantly working for money. One makes you a master of money, and the other makes you a servant to money. Which would you rather choose - the servant, or the master? Isn’t it great that you even have a choice in this matter? Yes, you do!

What this means is that you earn the money, make the money work for you, and then you spend what is left of it. Notice that I do not say that ‘you earn the money, spend most of your earned money and see if you can make what is left work for you’, which is what the masses do. Then they wonder why they are perpetually poor.

Your priority is to make your money work for you before you start spending any of it. That means delayed gratification before instant gratification.

Too many people these days confuse income with wealth. These are the people who believe that a large salary makes them rich.

True wealth comes from ownership of the right types of things. Rarely would items such as fancy cars or a designer wardrobe, which only depreciate in value make you wealthy.

What To Do When You Come Into A Million

Coming into a million happens to be a dream for a lot of people. But those who do come into a sudden windfall confirm that it is not exactly roses and confetti. Not least, the kind of problems that comes with it.

The most important thing about sudden wealth, whether you inherit it, win it, or make it, is not what to do with it but how to ensure it fits smoothly into your current life without wrecking it. Call me biased, but even as a wealth mentor I’ve always believed that money should fit in smoothly with your life, and not take over, or wreck your life.

So what do you do with your sudden windfall?

Living In The Space Of Thankfulness

By Oprah Winfrey

I live in the space of thankfulness - and I have been rewarded a million times over for it. I started out giving thanks for small things, and the more thankful I became, the more my bounty increased.

That's because what you focus on expands, and when you focus on the goodness in your life, you create more of it. Opportunities, relationships, even money flowed my way when I learned to be grateful no matter what happened in my life.

"Say thank you!" Those words from my friend and mentor Maya Angelou turned my life around. One day about ten years ago, I was sitting in my bathroom with the door closed and the toilet lid down, booing and ahooing on the phone so uncontrollably that I was incoherent.

"Stop it! Stop it right now and say thank you!" Maya chided. "But - you don't understand," I sobbed.

To this day, I can't remember what it was that had me so far gone, which only proves the point Maya was trying to make. "I do understand," she told me. "I want to hear you say it now. Out loud.

'Thank you.'" Tentatively, I repeated it:

"Thank you - but what am I saying thank you for?"

"You're saying thank you," Maya said, "because your faith is so strong that you don't doubt that whatever the problem, you'll get through it. You're saying thank you because you know that even in the eye of the storm, God has put a rainbow in the clouds.

You're saying thank you because you know there's no problem created that can compare to the Creator of all things. Say thank you!"

So I did - and still do. Only now I do it every day. I kept a gratitude journal, as Sarah Ban Breathnach suggests in Simple Abundance, listing at least five things that I'm grateful for. My list includes small pleasures: the feel of Kentucky bluegrass under my feet (like damp silk); a walk in the woods with all nine of my dogs and my cocker spaniel Sophie trying to keep up; cooking fried green tomatoes with Stedman and eating them while they're hot; reading a good book and knowing another awaits.

Life – A Holiday Fit For A Queen

What would you do if you had nothing left to loose, and nothing to be afraid of?

I recently re-watched ‘Last Holiday’, the 2006 remake of the 1950 Alec Guinness film with the same name. (Better late than never, huh?) In it, Queen Latifa plays Georgia Bryd, a timid unassuming employee who comes to terms with the news that she has about three weeks to live.

Prior to her diagnosis, Georgia has led a mundane mechanical life only dreaming of possibilities until the day she realised she had nothing left to lose, and not much to be afraid of as she faced the ultimate – death!

She started off by asserting herself more with Adamian, her self-absorbed supervisor who is constantly dismissive of her. She quits her job, and back at home as she flips through her Book of Possibilities, her private scrapbook chronicling the hopes and dreams she had for her life, she realized that she had been deferring her hopes all her life. She decides to spend her last three weeks living her dreams. She liquidates her savings and IRA and goes on a dream vacation fit for a queen.

'You've Got To Find What You Love'

Not only do I love speaking. I love great speeches, and today, I want to share with you a great speech that always re-inspires me every time I read it. I must add how more powerful it is actually hearing it. Enjoy.

This is the text of the Commencement Keynote speech, given by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005 at Stanford University.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

Money, Wealth and Happiness

By Margaret Ntifo

‘Money, Wealth and Happiness’ was my initial consideration for the title of my e-program. Although, I settled for ‘prosperity’ in place of ‘happiness’, I still consider the latter worthy of discussion.

Happiness has been defined as a state of well-being that is characterized by emotions ranging from contentment to extreme joy. My best definition of happiness is:

1. Doing what you love

2. Having someone to love, and

3. Having something to look forward to

The ability to do what you love seems to elude most people in today’s workforce despite the fact that we spend more than a third of our waking moments at work.