Goals: Reloaded
Money! Power! Fame!
I recently read a great article in the Harvard Business Review about not basing your leadership on money, power, or fame. Rather we should be basing our leadership off purpose, passion, and humility. This got me thinking. Are my goals oriented toward money, power and fame or are they directed toward purpose, passion, and humility? I find myself struggling with desires to seek fame or fortune, but is that really the leader I want to be? Leading because I have a lot of money or leading because I have fame of some sort?
Great leaders don't see themselves at the center but rather their purpose. They lead with this sense of passion that attracts others to their cause. They are humble throughout the whole process.
Share on Facebook"Humbition is one part humility and one part ambition," they wrote. "We notice that by far the lion's share of world-changing luminaries are humble people. They focus on the work, not themselves. They seek success — they are ambitious — but they are humbled when it arrives. They know that much of that success was luck, timing, and a thousand factors out of their personal control. They feel lucky, not all-powerful. Oddly, the ones operating under a delusion that they are all-powerful are the ones who have yet to reach their potential...[So] be ambitious. Be a leader. But do not belittle others in your pursuit of your ambitions. Raise them up instead. The biggest leader is the one washing the feet of the others."
The First Million is the Hardest Million to Make
The following is an excerpt from Your Financial Playbook: A Guide to Navigating the World of Personal Finance.
Why does the 1st million seem so difficult to make? It’s the principle of compound interest that makes the 1st million the hardest million that you will ever earn. Here are a few examples.
- If you started with $100,000 and would like it to grow to $1,000,000 than you would need a 900% return on your money. ($100,000 + $900,000) = $1,000,000
- If you started with $10,000 and would like it to grow to $1,000,000 than you would need a 9,900% return on your money. ($10,000 + $990,000) = $1,000,000
- If you started with $1,000 and would like it to grow to $1,000,000 than you would need a 99,900% return on your money. ($1,000 + $999,000) = $1,000,000
- If you started with $100 and would like it to grow to $1,000,000 than you would need a 999,900% return on your money. ($100 + $999,900) = $1,000,000
As you can see it takes astronomical returns on your money to make $100, $1,000, $10,000 and $100,000 grow to a million dollars. Suppose that you already had $1,000,000 dollars and would like to turn it into $2,000,000 dollars. What type of return would you need to achieve that?
($1,000,000 x 100% = $1,000,000) You would need a 100 percent return in order to turn $1,000,000 into $2,000,000 dollars. A 100% return seems paltry compared to the returns listed above. So, what does all of this illustrate? This explains why it is easier for a millionaire to become a multimillionaire than for an individual with a few thousand dollars to become a millionaire. Remember it’s not impossible to become a millionaire just remember two simple rules.
Share on Facebook1. You need to continually increase the amount that you are investing. The greater the amount that you are willing to invest can help lower the return needed to achieve your goals. Saving more money today means that you don’t have to chase high returns tomorrow. It’s better to be in a position where you can accept a 10% return on your money rather than chasing a 1,000% return.
2. You need to give yourself ample time to reach your financial goal. The principle of compound interest works best for you over longer time periods. All things being equal an individual that invests for 20 years has the potential for a greater return than someone who invests for 5 years.
Six Things Your Parents Never Taught You About Money
The following is a guest post from Life Cover.
Most parents try to teach their kids about money such as how to make it and how to manage it but only life experience can give us the full picture. With that in mind, here are six things your parents never taught you about money.
6. Hard Come, Easy Go
Making money is hard work. However spending money could not be simpler or easier. Not only are there the things we want to buy for ourselves (whether they be necessities or treats), but when you factor in bills, mortgages and debts and so on - our pocket might as well have holes in them.
5. Just the Tax, Ma’am
There’s only one way for lessons about taxes to stick and that’s by paying them. When you’re a kid, the idea of taxes is hard to wrap your head around. But once out in the real world, taxes become a fact of life. Death and taxes. And sometimes the latter can help bring about the former.
4. Hold The Gratification
The word child must, in some forgotten Latin dialects, mean Instant Gratification. Cravings are continuous when we’re young and patience is pretty hard to come by. Well, who knew it takes money to fulfill those cravings? Sometimes a lot of money. And once you’ve lived the first two items on this list, you know that the carrot on the stick must occasionally stay out of reach a lot longer than we would want.
3. What’s it Worth?
We’ve all heard it, whenever we didn’t want to finish our peas. You remember: “Don’t waste food, there are people starving in Africa.” Remember that one? Well, when the fridge is always full and our allowance isn’t the reason there are groceries in the house, wasting food does not seem like that big a deal. And so we learn how much things like food, shelter, clothes and gadgets are actually worth only when we start paying for them ourselves. Suddenly wasting things we shelled out our hard earned money for isn’t the picnic it used to be.
2. What Do You Want To Do With Your Life?
Astronaut. Fireman. School Teacher. Mailman. The answers to this question roll off the tongue when we’re kids. Realistically, though, the only true answer to this question comes through the benefit of life experience. It’s only after we’ve test driven various jobs do we begin to get an idea of where our destiny lies and whether or not we can earn a living at the job we choose.
1. Happiness, Not For Sale
When we’re kids, it seems obvious that money buys happiness. After all, our needs usually consist of whatever passes in front of our eyes when we’re dragged along on shopping runs. It’s on the store shelf, things in the store cost money, you’ve got to have this doodad or life isn’t worth living, therefore money gets you that item and saves your life. Well, it doesn’t quite work that way in the grown up world, does it?
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