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Financial Samurai

Slicing Through Money's Mysteries

Pretend You Have Arrived So You Can Become

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If you want to achieve greatness, you need a strong mindset. Pretend you have arrived so you can become. Believe in your abilities if you want to achieve greatness. For example, before every tennis match, I watch a short video on Youtube of a favorite tennis pro to get inspired. All that goes through my mind are beautiful strokes and luscious sounding *thwacks* each time the ball leaves my strings. 

I prepare my tennis bag with the right equipment: grip, Advil, Gatorade, a change of clothes, flip flops, hat, and sunglasses. My outfit matches, down to my shoes and I say a little prayer. Essentially, I go through a routine that any pro would go through. I pretend to be a tennis pro myself in order to get ready for battle.

Pretend You Have Arrived

Whatever it is you want to be, pretend you have arrived. This will put you in the right frame of mind to tackle many of your challenges with full vigor. For ex, if you are not mentally tough on the court, you will defeat yourself before even giving your opponent a chance to defeat you! In essence, you are your own worst enemy if not properly trained.

Some may think that if you pretend you have arrived, you have a risk of becoming delusional. See the Dunning Kruger effect regarding delusion. There’s no doubt we often over estimate our own abilities, however, I encourage all of us to increase the believe in ourselves. If you don’t believe in yourself, nobody else will.

PRO BLOGGER

Anybody who has a blog knows that it’s a lot of work. There’s a  statistic that says most bloggers don’t make it after six months. I don’t know exactly what “not making it” means. But, suffice it to say many quit due to burn out.

Every time I sit down to write an article, I pretend like I blog for a living. It doesn’t matter I work ~50 hours a week at my day job. What matters is that in order to successfully compete, I must realize there are those who are able to spend 50 hours a week just on their sites! As a result, I’m constantly in search for new marketing ideas and thinking of ways to write better content.

I often envy journalists and columnists of large publications. They are in a field they probably aspired to be in since college, and they have editors to make their writing perfect! As a blogger, I am the editor, writer, content director, marketer, and tech help. I don’t have a multi-million dollar marketing campaign behind me, and it takes a long time to get noticed. Oh well! I’m just going to have to try that much harder.

Because I’m motivated to compete with professionals, I don’t mind the the challenge. Besides, creating this site is simply one of the funnest things ever! If Financial Samurai can rank higher, or be recognized by some mainstream publication like it did on The LA Times a couple weeks ago over a professional blogger, that makes the time spent all the sweeter.

The beauty of the Internet is that anybody can start a website and compete against anybody in any field. Every single big site started small, so keep the faith you will one day get there. Pretend you have arrived, and one day you’ll get there.

NBA Baller

Basketball is actually my first true love. There’s no more beautiful a sport than basketball, where you actually have to use your entire body to play. The problem is that injuries rack up in a hurry, and if I want to be able to walk when I’m 50, I better tone it down. I’ve got the sleeveless jersey, loose fitting shorts, and Jordan retros as a point forward.  In my mind, all I think about is “making it rain” from beyond the three point line.

Basketball culture is very strong. If you don’t look the part, you won’t be taken seriously in my local gym.  People from all over the city come to compete, and you will get hooted and hollered all night long if you look out of place.  Ballers travel in packs, and it’s showboat central sometimes.  Showboating is showing off to the crowd, while trying to make your opponents look bad in the process.  We never showboat, because we aren’t idiots.

We play fundamental basketball, always moving, swinging, setting picks, and taking high percentage shots.  And guess what?  We are 80% winners.  When we don’t win it’s because our opponents simply outsize with 6′  6″ point guards who can take one jab step, fake me out, and end at the rim with a dunk.  Remember, this is my local gym, not the NBA!  Our tallest guy is 6′ 4″ and plays center.

By getting into the mindset that you are an NBA player, you start believing your shots will go in upon release.  Without the proper mindset, you’re going to brick it every single time.  When the last buzzer sounds, if you’re the winner, you’ll get respect no matter what you look like.  It’s all about respect in the end, but not so much in the beginning.

Musician

My 10 year old acoustic guitar has given me more pleasure than I could have ever imagined. With a beautiful cherry wood top, and a lemon oil smell emanating from the fret board, just touching the guitar brings an instant smile. Unfortunately, I’m quite mediocre at musical instruments. I’ve tried them all, including the violin, trumpet, saxophone, and drums and I’m not very good at any of them.

Despite my lack of musical talents, I still try to play the guitar until my finger tips turn purple from one too many slides. I lock myself in the back room of my house pretending to be Jack Johnson playing his latest songs.  Whoever I pretend to be, I realize they are gifted because of practice. And so, I practice and practice and sing as if no one is listening.

The guitar has been my outlet when my body is too sore from tennis and basketball. After a 2 hour long singles match, my feet blister and my knees ache. It takes me at least three days to fully heal now from just one or two before. It actually pains me more to have to rest and not play, but that’s where my guitar comes in. When the time comes when my fingers are just too raw to continue, I’m ready to play sports again.

Conclusion

A positive attitude is tantamount towards progress. When we were kids, we wore costumes and turned into our favorite superheroes and fairy tale characters. Sometime during adulthood, we forget what it’s like to pretend.  That joyful feeling of being someone else eludes us as we grow up.  How sad.

If you’re going to do something, you might as well aspire to do your best. Pretend you have arrived, so you can one day become. I guarantee that if you do, you’ll have a grand old time in the process!

Is Faking It The Reason Why People Don’t Make It?

Start A Website That Makes Money

It’s been over 10 years since I started Financial Samurai and I’m actually earning a good passive income stream online. The top 1% of all posts on Financial Samurai generate 31% of all traffic. And the average age of the top 1% posts is 2.3 years old. In other words, after putting in the hours to write some very meaty content over two years ago, 10 posts consistently generate a monthly recurring income stream that’s completely passive.

I never thought I’d be able to quit my job in 2012 just three years after starting Financial Samurai. But by starting one financial crisis day in 2009, Financial Samurai actually makes more than my entire passive income total that took 15 years to build. If you enjoy writing, connecting with people online, and enjoying more freedom, see how you can set up a WordPress blog in 15 minutes with Bluehost. It’s cheap and easy to start!

Keigu,

Sam @ Financial Samurai – “Slicing Through Money’s Mysteries”

Follow on Twitter @FinancialSamura and subscribe to our RSS or E-mail feed.

Nick Vujicic Shows Us How to Get Up And Never Quit

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Nick Vujicic was born with no arms and no legs. He admits to us there were plenty of times when all he wanted to do was give up. Nick didn’t understand the point to his life and therefore wanted to end it. Thank goodness he’s alive because he’s shared his story with millions of people around the world. Nick Vujicic inspires us to keep on going.

Just the other day, someone forwarded me an article about a young woman venting because everybody is a workaholic at her office. She tells us how incredibly amazing it is that she gets in at 8am and works until 6:30pm everyday. In other words, she’s asking for praise and sympathy for working normal hours. It shocks me how many people work just 40 hours or less a week and complain they can’t get ahead.

Nick Vujicic Is An Inspiration: Get Back Up, Never Quit!

Whenever I feel like complaining about how unfair life is, I stop and think about people like Nick who have it just a little bit harder. Is he complaining? No. He is trying harder, and so shall I. Perhaps so shall we all! 

Let’s eradicate the sense of entitlement that lingers among everyone of us; some more than others. We shall not whine about our jobs or complain why our love lives crumble. Let’s take ownership of our own actions. If you are a complainer, please go somewhere else!

I hope this video of Nick Vujicic will inspire you to try harder every day. You have more than you think. Carpe diem!

Get Inspired And Improve Your Future

I hope you enjoyed the video on Nick Vujicic. Here are some other articles that I hope will inspire you to improve your future.

Readers, who inspires you to keep on going?

Regards,

Sam @ Financial Samurai – “Slicing Through Money’s Mysteries”

Follow on Twitter @FinancialSamura and subscribe to our RSS or E-mail feed.

Searching For Love And A Little More Money

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Are you bored at work, searching for love and a little more money? Oh, the monotony of it all! Imagine clocking in, day in and day out with really no change to your job. You’ve got little risk of getting fired. And in 10 years you’ll retire with several million to last you a lifetime. But, in the back of your mind, you wish you didn’t have job security because you despise boredom. At the same time, you realize you’ve got it made and shouldn’t be so spoiled in your thinking.

One day a headhunter gives you a ring asking if you want an opportunity to make 50% more money a year, guaranteed for two years. The catch? You’ll be working for a startup with no such promises of job security after year two. You’ll also have to move to a different city where the cost of living is also 25% higher. The hours and stress will most certainly more as well. So forget about searching for love for a while. Welcome to Kathy’s world.

10 Years Down, 10 Years Left To Go

Kathy is a brilliant woman with an equally brilliant resume. She graduated #8 in her class of 6,000 from Berkeley and did a stint at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. What drove her during her twenties was her unquenchable thirst for knowledge. Everything she did was to answer a why or a how. How can we increase inventory turnover to improve revenue? Why are competitors expanding in the northern region while reducing capacity in the south?

A week before she turned 30, however, something happened. She stopped wishing to learn how to do things better. Instead, she began searching for love and thinking about starting a family. Despite all the progress women have made, she still feels that no matter how far she climbs, there’s a void without a man to share her life with. This was 3 years ago. She’s still searching for love.

Climbing The Ladder While Searching For Love

At 33, she’s sadly still alone. Her ex-boyfriend broke up with her largely because she spends too much time at work.  He would tell her that working more than 60 hours a week isn’t healthy. She realizes it’s unhealthy, but as a Senior Vice President, she has responsibilities that cannot be shirked. What really irks the ex-boyfriend is Kathy’s workplace seniority and far superior earnings.

Kathy makes up her mind that she will be retired in 10 years at 43. She hopes that within a couple years she can find someone to start a family with. But, she’s not forcing the issue. She strongly believes in destiny. If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be she often tells herself. Her insecure ex-boyfriend can go screw himself for all she cares because she won’t settle.

Related: Career Or Family? You Only Need To Sacrifice For 5 Years At Most

An Opportunity For Work & Love

The firm loves Kathy. She’s hard working, praises her employees openly, and generates a tremendous amount of revenue. Her revenue generation is so impressive that her competitors secretly call her “Killer Kathy.”

Killer Kathy’s phone rings one afternoon. A headhunter asks if she’s willing to move to New York City from San Francisco for a new start-up firm. Along with her transfer is a two-year guaranteed pay raise that’s 50% higher than what she’s currently making. We’re talking more than a couple hundred thousand a year more guaranteed.

If you include school, 14 years is a long time in the Bay Area. Perhaps it’s time for a change. Despite generating large amounts of revenue for the firm, she’s basically flat-lined over the past three years because she’s already at the top of her game. Instead of progress, she’s just maintaining, trying to keep her competitors at bay. It’s no fun being the senior player at an established firm. When she slips from #2 to #3, she feels the pressure.

Instead, the idea of starting over at a new shop where she can create a new business model and watch her company grow sounds intriguing. She longs to build something from nothing, and hear the praise of going from nowhere to Top 10! Kathy is given a rare opportunity to build something new, with the security of a guaranteed income.

Searching For Love

What’s equally interesting is the thrill of being in a bigger city with the opportunity of meeting that someone to share her life with. She’s been to New York City plenty of times before. And each time she’s impressed with the amount of available bachelors. Searching for love in Manhattan excites her. And, if finding someone is a numbers game, perhaps she should be there!

There’s something to be said about security and comfort. To know that you’ll likely never be unemployed must be a wonderful feeling. Furthermore, San Francisco is a beautiful place! And she can certainly continue searching for love in SF. It’s not like Kathy is just surviving either. As a department Vice President, she’s making a nice six-figure income money and will undoubtedly retire in 10 years if she stays with her firm.

Despite Kathy’s security, she can’t stop thinking about the opportunity in New York City. Even if things implode after two years, she’ll have a hefty savings cushion due to the increased compensation. Mathematically, working for 50% more for 2 years is like working for 3 years at her existing place. Deep inside though, Kathy knows that if she found someone here in San Francisco, she’d most certainly never leave.

Related: You’ll Always Regret Sacrificing Love For Money

Further Reading

Readers, if you were Kathy what would you do? Should Kathy leave her cushy job to find new adventure, or be satisfied with what she has?

Is it reasonable for her to feel that a life is not worth living if she doesn’t have a man to share it with?

As a woman, would you choose career or family if you had only one choice?

Keigu,

Sam @ Financial Samurai – “Slice Through Money’s Mysteries”

Follow on Twitter @FinancialSamura

Doing Anything You Can to Survive – Silence And Surprise In The Night

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Are you doing anything you can to survive? You are not alone. Grit, hustle, perseverance all come to mind when I think about survival. I want to share with you an experience that happened to me in 2010 that made me think about how far each of us will go to survive.

One night, I was playing poker into the wee hours of the morning with some buddies. The poker game ends and the team of entrepreneurs and new media types say their good-byes. I leave up $51 bucks, which is a nice return given my $100 buy-in. But, it’s a pittance against others leaving with wads of cash big enough to substitute for butt-cheek implants if so desired.

The last time I was out until 3:30am was when George W. proclaimed we won the war. There are so few cars on the road, when I do see one, I wonder what trickery lies ahead. There’s a certain tranquility one feels when others are sleeping. Dim yellow lights glow in San Francisco’s misty haze. Nobody bothers you because nobody is conscious enough to care.

Almost home, I decide to instead drive towards the Bay and take in the silence of black murky waters and a revolving spotlight that perpetually emits from Alcatraz. I wondered if this calm is how Frank Lee Morris felt before he tried escaping The Rock some 48 years ago.

TAP, TAP, KNOCK



Read More…

The Elegance Of Failure: Appreciate Success

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The Elegance of Failure is a guest post from Neal Frankle at Wealth Pilgrim. Neal is a dedicated father, insightful financial adviser, and honorable Yakezie Challenger who always writes with a breath of fresh air  You can join his 2,500+ followers on Twitter @NealFrankle.  Enjoy!

Failure is not only a necessary part of life, it can be a beautiful part of life.

This may sound like crazy talk.

After all, if you are a hardworking person, you work hard because you want to succeed, not fail.

And failure stings.

It hurts.

Man….it hurts.

That pain is real….but despite that temporary pain, those set backs are likely key ingredients to your future success. And the success I’m talking about dwarfs financial or career gains.

Let me explain by telling you about an experience I had several years ago.

BACK IN THE MOTHERLAND

When I was in my 20’s, I started a Masters program at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. My goal was to study in Hebrew with the local students and complete the degree.

This isn’t such a lofty goal in and of itself, but when you consider that I didn’t speak a word of Hebrew 9 months prior to my enrollment, I think you’ll agree that it was quite a challenge – if not insane.

I studied as hard as I could.  I worked night and day using every opportunity I could to improve my language skills.

Sure enough my hard work paid off – sort of.

Within 9 months I passed the entrance exam and was admitted to the Hebrew University’s Masters Program for Political Science. My language level tested out as fluent.

And that’s when my problems started.

While my conversational ability was pretty good, I couldn’t understand a word my professors were saying from day 1.  I mean not one meshugunah word.

I doubled my studying and put everything I had into it… but it was no use. I didn’t have the skill or ability to learn as quickly as I was required to.

Within 3 weeks, I dropped out and returned to America.

I felt like a complete failure.

It took me years to let go of that experience.

IN AMERICA WHERE MY BUSINESS GROWS

When I came back, I focused all my energy on starting a business and this time, the universe said “YES”. I was fortunate enough to build a very successful business from ground up.

You could say that the door had to close on my Hebrew Political Science dreams in order for the door to open for my business aspirations.

That’s true of course. But had I just stopped there I would have missed a gift far more valuable.

You see, I felt like a loser when I didn’t make it in Israel because I confused having limited skills (in this case, language skills) with being defective myself. Then I felt like a winner as my business grew.

My emotional peace of mind was completely tied and dependent upon my success or failure.

For me, that’ s no way to live.

The elegance is seeing that your success or failure in an endeavor, doesn’t say anything about you as a person. I have limited skills – we all do. So what?

It doesn’t mean you are flawed as a person.

You can apply this lesson if you have financial stress, problems in your career or trouble at home.

If something doesn’t work out, it’s just the universe’s way of telling you to try something different. It’s not a statement about my value as a human being.

There’s a lot of freedom in that. At least I believe there is.

Understanding this makes it easier for me to be objective about how I spend my time. I have less invested in the outcome. All I have to do is my best and let the result go. And if I do my best, what more can I do? In fact, if I have done my best, what right do I have the right to beat myself up?

Please don’t get me wrong. I still believe it’s important to do the best I can. Put everything I have into it. But when things don’t work out, I don’t want to repeat the mistake I made all those years ago. I hope you feel the same way.

CONCLUSION

Don’t let your outcomes define you. It’s unhelpful and it’s untrue. Failure is elegant because it provides a lesson in self that no other classroom or experience provides. It allows us to value ourselves separate and apart from what we can and can’t do.

Related:

Perpetual Failure Is The Reason Why I Save So Much

The Secret To Your Success: 10 Years Of Unwavering Commitment

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Keiju,

Sam @ Financial Samurai – “Slicing Through Money’s Mysteries”

Follow on Twitter @FinancialSamura and subscribe to our RSS or E-mail feed.