Wednesday, December 30, 2009

A Zen Story for those who want to achieve financial freedom

Recently, I have shared my plan of achieving financial freedom with some people around me. However most of them don't seem to be very interested. I believe that most of the people are "too educated". They can do certain task very well for other but are not willing to try out new things to improve their own financial status. Perhaps, this story will explain why many people are not able to achieve financial freedom.

Once upon a time, there was a wise Zen master. Many people would come and ask him for enlightenment in the ways of Zen. One day, a general came to visit this Zen master. He said arrogantly and proudly to the master, “After fighting so many battles successfully, I really tired of it. So how can you enlighten my mind?” He began to laugh loudly while waiting for the master to reply.

The master slowly raised the teapot and began pouring tea into a cup. It was slowly filled up and the tea started to overflow onto the table. The general stopped his laugher as the tea began to drip onto his clothing. The general shouted, “Stop that, can’t you see it is full?”

The master stopped the pouring and smiled at the general, “You are like this cup of tea. It is full and cannot be filled up anymore. Come back to me when it is empty.”

The morale of this story is one must clear his or her opinions before learning new thing.

For those who want to achieve financial freedom, please remember to keep your mind open for any opportunities. Search for opportunities rather than waiting for the opportunities to come to you. And one more thing, "Less educated" sometime can be a good thing too.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

as i know, you have stocks and rentals for your passive income on top of your own salary.
For someone like me who don't own any property and the stocks are too high to buy now. (i don own any stocks currently) What do you suggest?
I draw a less than 2k salary per month.
Trying to save 300 to 400 per month.
Please advise.

Freedom Achiever said...

Hi wongtcsg,

Open up your mind for other income sources.

There are full of online opportunities which allows you to earn money. For some, you do not need to sell anything.

One example: Setup a website on the topic that you like, and you can earn money through referrals and advestising. You just need to put in one hour per day and preservance in building up your website and make it popular.

You can also type "how to make money online" in my google search box to find out what other thing you can do.

Please note that I can only show you the path, whether you want to do it is completely up to you.


Regards
Freedom Achiever

hayah77 said...

Hi I found your blog by coincident and love very bit of it. My savings now is minimal. But your blog has encouraged me, hence I would like to save up as much as I can and invest. Before I embark on any investment, I need to know where to start. Please advice as to how to begin searching for stocks and make investment. How much saving can I start invest in stock? There are many stocks listed. How and where to start selecting stocks to analyze? And how and where do I get the technical analysis? Do I have to buy software to plot the chart myself? Appreciate your advice. Thanks.

Freedom Achiever said...

Hi hayah77,

Thank for visiting my blog, I will share my experience with you.
1) Normally I will split my savings into two parts. 50% will go into bank1 for pure saving and 50% will go into bank2 for investment.

2) For choice of stock, normally I will choose stocks that I understand and hard to fall. Eg, Singtel and Singpost. For a beginner, Singpost might be a better choice as it gives out quite a good dividend and the price fluctuation is not that much. Property stocks normally give low dividend and high fluctuation in prices, so not very suitable for beginner.

3)For TA portion, you can download the free version of chartnexus software. You have to learn to draw trend line, and look at moving averages, MACD, RSI, Stochastic indicators. One thing I have learnt is that market direction cannot be predicted. I use TA only to position myself for long term investment. I am not a trader, but an investor.

For more tips on investment, you can go to my other blog @ http://myinvestmentportfolioinsingapore.blogspot.com

Regards,
Freedom Achiever

KLVaughn121 said...

Thanks for posting this one, and thansk for spreading the positivity toward financial freedom. I am also aiming for that one and I have to be pretty determened to achieve that, right now I am investing on binary options and I am seeking help through www.ouroptionfairreview.com optionfair broker review sites to be able to make a good judgement on my trading. I simply deal with this kind of investment because I wanted to earn more extra just to save more for my future so I could be able to do what I wish to do before I became powerless to do so.

Have you started your journey towards financial freedom?