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From Pinching Pennies to a Six-figure Portfolio In Just Three Years

''Do not wait until the conditions are perfect to begin. Beginning makes the conditions perfect.'' - Alan Cohen

Four years ago my wife and I moved from Hawaii to California. Many people asked us why we would leave such a wonderful place like Hawaii. The answer is simple – we needed change. As wonderful and indulging Hawaii can be, if you live anywhere for several years, even in paradise, you may come to no longer appreciate what you have.

That happened to us and we soon began to want to start something new. Our new dream life would involve some sort of business that could help people achieve prosperity and abundance in their lives.

We arrived in California with two suitcases each and a few thousand dollars in our savings account. As we didn’t know where we wanted to live, we cruised around for several months living in cheap motels as we explored different areas.

Our savings dwindled quickly and we decided to switch to renting a room in areas that we wanted to check out more thoroughly. That turned out to be a good decision as we met more people and spent less on room and board.

It was during the time The Secret had come out and we loved it. We loved it so much that some of its ideas sparked the creation of our own vision board as a way to give substance to our dreams.

Our first idea was to do an actual physical version of a vision board but we soon realized that this would be very limiting so we decided to create a software application that would allow anyone to create one on their computer.

We were excited. . .

We Finally Had an Idea

We started to pour all our energy and effort into it. Lots of decisions had to be made. We founded Dream Manifesto, LLC and started to build a website. I worked day and night and sometimes I had so many obstacles to overcome that I didn’t know where my head was anymore.

I do have some knowledge of computers and electronics, however, I had not a clue how to begin creating what was needed for an electronic vision board. Where to begin? I studied programming techniques for days only to get endless error messages on my screen. Many times I was ready to call it quits. But slowly I made some small progress and things started to work out.

We moved into a small apartment complex and spent our weekends going to garage sales to get our new home furnished. Ah, the joys of having a bed, a table to eat on and some desks to work on. At that stage we were quickly running out of funds so we started to make calls to friends and relatives to borrow money.

Every month we did not have one penny in income but we did have about $3,000 in expenses. It was very challenging to come up with the money each time. However, we were excited about our vision and what we were creating. We knew that things would work out eventually.

After only five months we were able to break even and did not need to borrow any more money. I remember the day we finished including the online payment option on the website. We waited in anticipation for the first order to come in. It did soon enough, and by the end of the day, we had a total of five. We were so happy – it was a huge success for us.

A friend of ours recommended that we customize our e-mail client to play a specific sound when an order came in. I decided to go for an applause. From then on every time we got an order we got a huge round of applause to cheer us up. It was like getting a shot of adrenaline where we needed it most.

My First Getting Rich Book

Back in Hawaii I had started to read some financial books. I remember how awkward I felt when I had picked up my first book on getting rich. I certainly had a lot of beliefs and concepts around this topic both pro and con. My middle class upbringing did little to instill a sense of excitement about the possibility of becoming wealthy.

My parents both worked for the government and strongly believed in good education and hard work. Success was measured in very small doses and in years of toil – any other approach was seen as a mere pipe dream.

At that time it was all about saving money and living on a budget. I remember that my parents sat together in conference once every week to go over the monthly budget. My mother used paper envelopes to hold the amount of money she was allowed to spend for different things. My father also got his monthly allowance and I always wondered how he could ever be satisfied with the little money he got.

The Concept of Paying Yourself First

In one of the first get rich books I encountered a new radical idea: The concept of paying yourself first. That was a slap to my face as I never ever had considered paying myself first.

Money came in and immediately went to the most pressing bills and expenses first, and anything left over was good enough. However, I learned quickly that if you don’t follow this pattern, you will never have anything to invest.

It took a while to understand that all investing comes from what you can pay yourself first, not something that may or may not be left over from paying others first. The truth of the matter was, I seldom had any money left over for investing in my future even during the times I earned a lot. I had trained myself to spend it all, updating my living situation or car or something else and by the end of the month, there was indeed nothing left in my account to save or invest.

Like most people, I also strongly held the belief that saving (investing) money is not a good idea because it does not allow for instant gratification, which seemed to me to be a cornerstone of personal happiness. I was basically doing nothing more than reacting to my parents' own financial belief system. For them it was all about saving so I just did the opposite – I spent everything. I felt very good about it – I really believed this is it – I am on the right track.

Finally I realized that without paying myself first, there would never be enough money left in my account to save and invest. More realizations popped into my head. I also came to the conclusion that time is limited and that if I based by work on getting paid by the hour, my income would always be likewise limited. That definitely did not feel good.

Imagine making only what you can command in terms of the hours you spend on the job! There had to be a better way.

The Future of All Business Will Be in Cyber Space

There was, and this turned out to be an excellent reason to invest the time needed to establish an online business that allows us to replicate a product instantly without further demands. In this way, time is invested wisely once but has big payoffs that quickly multiply the return on this investment. The idea is pure genius.

No wonder Bill Gates made billions with it. There is no limit on how often you can replicate a program, which also means there is no limit to your income.

Paying ourselves first was the most crucial and important step into shifting our mindset. It was the start of financial education and I see now after five years of intensive research on this topic that getting a solid financial education is one of the most important tasks an intelligent person can undertake.

Being financially educated means that we now make more money from our investment accounts than from our business income. Our next step will be to convert some of these cash flow incomes into assets that pay us residual income over time. It was in our initial search of these residual income options that we came to understand how all the pieces of the money puzzle had fallen into place.

Why Am I Telling You Our Story?

We want to help you create your own success story by understanding ours. Very simply, we probably had fewer start-up resources than you have right now. You are probably in a better position than we were when we started. But sometimes the oddest things can turn out to be wonderful resources. You see, I may have a slight advantage over you in an unexpected way.

I was kicked out of school when I was 18 years old. Why would that be an advantage? Simply because I have had the benefit of a few more years of creative freedom when it comes to problem solving and a few less years of the rigid indoctrination each of us undergoes in the public education system. Perhaps I ended up with less garbage to clear out of my head. Perhaps I had fewer filters that imposed limiting beliefs on my mindset.

In any event, I learned sooner than most that for any good idea to become successful in the world, a certain amount of original thinking as well as some dissatisfaction were both essential ingredients in getting those ideas out into the world where they could do the most good for myself and for others.

After my first internship with a major electronic company I realized rather quickly that continuing along this avenue would not bring me happiness and satisfaction in life.

Even getting another two years of education in electronics and computer science, things I really enjoyed, would not guarantee me solid employment let alone rapid advancement. Realizing this, I started my first company when I was in electronics school.

If you are employed or even self-employed your income is limited and you are also in a high tax bracket. The goal is to become a business owner and an investor. Both distinguish themselves from the usual employment roles by providing potential capital gains and cash flow, things employment alone cannot provide.

In the following chapters I will help you lay the groundwork for preparing yourself to take advantage of one of the biggest transfer of wealth transfers in human history.

You can be part of it and create huge capital gains.

It will require a certain ability to take a chance now and then, a solid education in how the marketplace functions, a commitment to learn from your mistakes and a deep understanding in your own strengths and ability to handle change.

The middle class will soon be wiped out and you need to make a choice if you want to be poor or rich.

If you do not make this decision on your own, most likely you will end up being poor because a decision will be made for you by someone else.

Chapter 2