Monday 4 January 2010

Becoming a financial genius

(Biz tool Kits)
BY BRIDGET OLOTU
SOME weeks back, we treated Harmonising the three parts of your brain for wealth creation. There, I identified the fact that we have three parts of our brain that need to be coordinated for wealth creation.
The left brain, which is concerned with reading, writing, speaking and logic, and the right brain which is often associated with pictures, art, music, and other non-linear relationships that require creativity and imagination still need the third brain, which is the subconscious or primitive brain to function effectively.
It is the third brain, which is our intra-personal intelligence that controls most people’s addictions, fears and decisions.
People with high intra-personal intelligence have the ability to control the subconscious brain’s desire to fight, flee or freeze.
Instead of flee, they may decide the best thing to do is freeze. If frozen, they may choose to fight. The point is, they have the intelligence to choose the appropriate subconscious response. If angry, they can speak calmly. If afraid, they can confront their fear.
But the challenge has always been getting the three brains to cooperate and coordinate the activities of and in the human mind.
True education therefore isn’t simply teaching students to read, write and memorise answers.

TO be effective, true education has to align the power of all three brains. Instead of the three brains working against each other, they have to work together. If a person could align and develop all three brains, he or she would have greater chance of success in the real world. To win the battle of the brains, it requires personal efforts for two reasons: Our school system does not teach us anything about money. We are told to earn good grades, get more degrees, get better employments, especially those that offer retirement benefits, live below our means, save money, stay out of debt, and then by and by attain our middle-class aspirations. This is not bad in itself; it all boils down to what kind of life we want. Our schools do not strengthen the subconscious mind. In fact, rather than educate, schools depend on fear to motivate, threaten rather than teach, imitate rather than innovate, punish mistakes rather than encourage, play it safe rather than think bigger, and say what a person wants to hear rather than what a person needs to hear. Due to these factors, many people buy when they should sell, save when they should spend, spend when they should save, are fearful when they should be brave, and are brave when they should be fearful.
Growing your financial genius will require the following: Build up your library around books that can help you grow your financial genius. Your learning ability today is critical to your earning capacity. All those who have legitimately succeeded financially today were once students of some financial genius who knew about an investment or business better than most average people. Have a financial mentor. All my life, while growing up, I like to ask questions about why certain things are the way they are. I discovered that one of my financial mentors whom I have quoted copiously in these series shared that idea. He started his financial freedom sojourn when he was just nine years old. His poor but very educated dad was even the one who advised him to go to his classmate’s father who was “unschooled” but very wealthy to teach his son how to make money. His classmate’s father became his rich dad and mentor, raising for us today one of the world’s most successful and celebrated entrepreneurial and investment educators in the person of Robert Kiyosaki, a Japanese American. Robert’s concepts have changed my life, even though they came very late when I’d committed so many financial blunders. You need a mentor, too.
Strengthen the subconscious mind. You and I need to strengthen the subconscious mind to serve us rather than to dominate us. Many beautiful plans, ideas, investment decisions, business proposals, etc, are sitting with us because deep down we think they won’t fly, will fail and they’re too risky. What would the world have been if those who have made it such a beautiful place just sat down with folded legs and arms, daydreaming about the change they wanted in place? Developing your financial genius is your responsibility, and you cannot afford not to be financially intelligent if you must live a higher standard of living, expand your means and thrive in this hard global financial period. The choice is yours today.

Olotu is the CEO/Lead Consultant, DEAIM Innovative Resources Ltd, bridgetolotu@gmail.com







Why you behave the way you do

(LIFE COACH)
BY AGBOLADE OMOWOLE
THERE are points in our lives when we begin to think about our actions, the effect of our actions on our lives and on the lives of others, and how our actions have made us become better or bitter. To some of our actions, we are satisfied. To some, we may have regrets, thinking…had I known.
If you have ever thought about the reason that you do the things you do consciously or unconsciously, and wish to learn the behaviours that will make you successful, then this article is for you.
Your thought determines your behaviour. Before you do anything, you would have thought about it. Your behaviour will be positive if your thoughts are positive. If you think negatively, then you may act negatively.
Your thoughts determine how you feel. If you think about one thing consistently for thirty minutes, you will develop some feelings. Your feelings are an expression of your emotion towards a thought or a person. Your feelings then motivate you to a state of readiness to act.
Your decisions affect your behaviour. While thinking, you compare your present situation with your past experiences. Everything you have experienced in life has been interpreted and stored in your brain in a certain way. Your past experiences then serve as a yardstick for making decisions. Anthony Robins counseled “Additional references (or experiences) offer us the potential for mastery.
Get experiential knowledge. One major experience may worth more than reading fifty books. Furthermore, maturity is not a measure of one’s age, but a measure of your experiences in life.
Our judgments may be based on our past experiences. When you notice a pattern similar to a previous experience, then you can predict the outcome. By changing your concept and approach, you will be able to explore another way to achieve the same result. In the process, you will experience new things, and that gives you a psychological advantage.
Your values shape your behaviour. What do you value most in life? The things you value most in life are central to every decision you make, and every action you take. Take for instance, a youngster who values hard work and honesty will not get involved in unjust get-rich-quick schemes.
Your emotional state determines your behaviour. Emotions are part of a complex dynamic process and they determine how you interact with people and ‘things’ in the world. Your emotional state may influence your mood and your actions. In some survey research, people often report more than one emotion in relation to a specific event over time. These changes are referred to as emotional episode and may last from minutes to days.
Emotional states are not permanent. You can decide how you feel. You are sad not because someone made you sad, you are sad because you have not decided to be happy. Choose to be in a positive emotional state. Don’t let others determine your emotional state for you.
Your knowledge influences your behaviour. Some of your emotional responses result from your stored knowledge. Intuitive feelings occur when you cannot explain why you acted in a certain way. You can add to your knowledge base by learning from others. Life is too short to experience everything. Learn from other people’s experiences.
Your behviour starts from your thought, which is sieved by your reference frame which includes your values, beliefs and past experiences. You often compare your situation with your stored knowledge and your past experiences to make a judgment in the form of a decision, and then you act. That’s how you behave.
Ultimately, behaviours operate on the Hedonic principle. The Hedonic principle states that you approach pleasurable experiences and withdraw from painful ones. Most of the major decisions you have made in your life have been to avoid pain. In the words of Henry Ward Beecher, “Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody else expects of you.”

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