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3 Secrets to Financial Success

Photo by Andrea D'aquino

Financial success is not the property of the privileged, neither is it the bounty of the fortunate few; financial success is the certain possession of the individuals who are willing to follow the principles of financial success.

These principles that I’m referring to will work for anyone who applies them; no one can apply these principles and not succeed, anymore than someone can add 1+1 and not get 2.

What I will be discussing in these next few moments does not entail a get-rich-quick scheme, because there are no quick fixes. It is in the chasing of “fool’s gold” that the priceless gift of time is squandered and dreams lost.

This article contains a concise compilation of the primary principles requisite for the attainment of financial success.

You can look at the lives of any financially successful person and see these principles readily at work in their lives. It was these principles that I utilized to manifest the funds for a seven bedroom home when I was 24, and these principles will work for you just as surely as the sun rises in the east and lays its head to rest in the west.

You may be thinking, that’s all fine and dandy, but “money won’t make you happy!” Yeah, and your feet don’t talk either; the purpose of money is not to make you happy; the purpose of money is to solve problems. You need money to solve problems!

I wrote this article as a guide to help you solve problems.

Note that the advice in this article is based on my personal experiences as well as my private observations.

The 3 Keys to Financial Success:

 

1. Experience

“Good judgment comes from experience.

Experience comes from bad judgment.”

~ Jim Horning

We live in a society where people often want something for nothing, or at least very little. They want to diet for a week and then be thin for a lifetime, they want to save for a month and spend for a year, they want to invest a dollar and make a million, but it doesn’t work that way.

To succeed financially you need experience; you must first “put in the time!” There are no overnight successes; it takes years of focus to grow into an individual that it is capable of providing enough value, to enough individuals, to reap a significant financial harvest.

There may be people who “seem” to have had overnight successes, but things are not always as they appear. You are unaware of the summation of their childhood experiences, you are ignorant of the price that they have paid; while you were “hanging with your friends,” they were preparing for greatness.

It takes time to succeed! This is why it’s critical to work in an area that you love! It will serve you well to do something that you thoroughly enjoy, something that you’re passionate about. It’s your love that will allow you to work when everyone else has gone home; it is your passion that will drive you to the finish line.

Financial success takes time and experience! Often someone will see an individual who seemingly experienced an overnight success and try to duplicate that success. The problem is that they don’t know the story in its entirety. They are unaware of the many years of preparation this individual had to tread through; they see the results and assume they’re easily duplicative. They don’t recognize that for every “one” person who succeeds “the right way,” 10,000 individuals attempt to duplicate that same success overnight only to fail.

It takes time! Bill Gates spent years learning about computer software before he succeeded financially, Michael Jordan spent years learning about basketball before he became a financial success. Name the person, if they’ve succeeded financially, they’ve put years into becoming an expert in that field.

You are paid for your expertise.

There was a time when Michael Jordan never scored in a basketball game; there was a time when Bill Gates wasn’t exactly sure how to create the Windows operating system. But through failure, determination, time and experience success was born.

Never despise small beginnings, the giant oak tree slumbers in the acorn, the bald eagle waits patiently in the egg. If you are consistent, and if you commit to put in the time, you will become an expert, and it is your expertise that is the doorway to your financial success.

2. Impact

“Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle,

and the life of the candle will not be shortened.”

~ Buddha

Who are you impacting? Put it another way, “Who’s problems are you solving?” You will only be rewarded in this lifetime for the problems that you solve for other people. To have great financial success you must solve the problems of a great number of people.

Michael Jordan has entertained millions of people, which is why he has millions of dollars; Bill Gates’ software has improved the lives of billions of people, which explains why he has billions of dollars. How many people are you influencing, your financial success lies in your ability to impact the masses.

This is why growth is so important. When you take time to grow and to expand your mind through reading, studying and experiences, you become a better you.

As you grow, your ability to influence increases; you must “grow-up” before you can wield your influence. Two people stuck in quicksand can’t help each other. To the degree that you grow, is to the degree that you will attract people who want to be influenced by you. If you become worthy of being duplicated, then people will want to duplicate your activities, they will want to do what you’re doing, but this only happens when you make the conscious choice to “grow-up.”

If you want little financial success, grow a little, and help a small number of people. If you want great success, grow big, and help a great number of people. The choice is yours, no one can stop your growth except you.

If you want to succeed financially, you should always be asking yourself, “How can I increase my influence? How can I grow-up?”

We’ve now covered the financial success principles of Experience and Impact, but if you don’t get this next principle right, you will never be able to stay focused long enough to get the experience required, and you won’t grow enough to make a significant impact.

The final installment in the trilogy of financial success is Vision.

3. Vision

“Where there is no vision the people perish.”

– Solomon

Helen Keller said, “It’s a terrible thing to see and have no vision.”

You can’t get to a place you can’t see! You can’t become a financial success if you relentlessly see yourself as “poor.” You can never rise above the image that you have of yourself. If you see struggle, you must struggle.

Your vision must be fixed on your goal like the commander of the ship is fixated on the dock in the port in which his ship is being directed.

This is why the imagination and visualization is so important. Your imagination gives you the ability to pre-play your future; your ability to visualize may be the greatest gift you possess. Are you using it? Its visualization that allows you to conceive the possibility of a better life; it is through visualization that the gift of financial success is conceived.

Conception first takes place in the mind, and through the process of “experience” and “impact,” financial success is birth into your world.

But you must first see it in your mind. If you can’t see it, you can’t have it. Your financial success must first be conceived in the very real world of your imagination.

When you see it in advance, you’re not surprised when it happens. If you would be astonished with a million dollars in your bank account, then that’s a sign that you’re not ready for it, it’s a sign that you’ve not yet had the experience, the impact, or the belief in the vision to turn that thought into a reality.

If you can’t see it, you won’t manifest it, and you will consistently grasp defeat from the jaws of victory. But if you can see it! I said, …”But if you can see it!” The word “but” disqualifies the previous statement, and places the emphasis on the upcoming statement.

But if you can see it, if you can see your success, if you can see it when you lay your head down to rest, if it surrounds you in your imagination, if you can sense it in the atmosphere, then it is only a matter of time before the un-manifest becomes manifest.

It’s only a matter of time before the clouds have filled with a sufficient amount of condensation to cause a downpour of rain.

In Closing

If you can see it, if you can see it when you close your eyes, if you can believe that vision as so, then you will gain the experience, you will make the impact, and your vision will cease to be a vision, it will become your reality.

What once was a dream on the inside of you, you will literally step into. What you conceived in the dark, will be made manifest in the light. Financial success will indeed be yours. It will be yours because you labored for it. It will be yours because you deserve it. It will be yours because it is the reward for helping your fellow man.

Thank you for reading, and be sure to pass this article along!

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About the author

Mr. Self Development is an author who teaches a practical guide to success and wealth. Please visit him at Mr. Self Development.com. If you’ve enjoyed reading this article, then you may want to subscribe to his feed, follow him on Twitter, or read one of his most popular articles, “How I Manifested a Seven Bedroom Home at 24.”

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27 thoughts on 3 Secrets to Financial Success

  1. Tiffany

    What an amazing article….thanks for sharing…!

  2. Hey Mister – this is a great strategy. I especially like your focus on “whose problems are you solving?” Because that’s one little step we often forget when we want to get to our own needs.

    I love the quotes, as always. :) Off to check out the story of the 7 bedroom house now!

  3. Awesome article Derek. “You need money to solve problems”. Good point and sadly pretty true in most cases. Money at least provides a quick solution to a lot of problems. But if you don’t have money then you better have Experience, Impact and Vision to make it happen! That is an unbelievably powerful combination. The Experience reminds me of those 10,000 hours that Gladwell talks about in Outliers.

    I recently wrote a review on ReadingForYourSuccess of The Snowball (Warren Buffett’s biography) and let me tell you, that guy has a bit more than 10,000 hours under his belt. In the press and at his annual meeting he talks about his approach to investing as being common sense and pretty simple. And it is. But what he does not mention much is the fact that he has eaten, slept and breathed investing and financial statements since he was in his teens (at the expense of some other very important things). It’s crucial to know the whole story if you plan to model someone.

    Your triad is right on! Nicely done Derek.

    -Scott

  4. Hi. This is such an inspiring article. Not just about financial success but about passion and achieving one’s dreams. It gives one hope that success isn’t only in some financial tactics. You’re written with such power and clarity. Thank you. For putting together financial success , peronal growth and the incredible spiritual lesson of always giving. God bless

  5. The Truth.

    I only read the first section, it was enough for me. It was riddled with enough fallacies that I (personally) question the validity of the article and its author.

    I would first like to point out the Author stereotypes poor people as unexperienced and non-visionary. This is an obvious fallacy.

    To the Author:

    You first state that a financially successful person is an experienced one. You then go on to point out that Bill Gates was successful for exactly that reason. In all actuality: He was VERY inexperienced. He had little-to-no education and was merely 20 years old when he became a success. You need to get your facts straight. Bill Gates was successful because: A) He had a great idea. B) No one beat him to the idea. C) The circumstances permitted him to market his idea.

    That sounds like a TON of luck to me.

    On the same principal you claim that Michael Jordan was successful because he was experienced at playing basketball. The fallacy in this is rather obvious: You are stating that regardless of talent, disability, injury, or circumstances a person who acquires enough experience in a field can be successful in it. This is NOT the case.

    Examples: A) Michael Jordan had an exceptionally RARE talent in playing basketball. B) He was lucky that no one was better than him. C) He was lucky that he did not sustain a crippling injury early on in his career.

    All these point to the fact that he was VERY lucky.

    All-in-all: What you are trying to convey is honorable, but unrealistic. Also, There are two main things that kill a good article: Lack of credible information and assumptions/fallacies. It would be wise to avoid them in the future.

  6. Aloha! Thanks to everyone who’s responded to and/or read this article…I’m on vacation in Hawaii so I don’t have access to the web outside of my blackberry so forgive my delayed response…I appreciate your comments and thoughts….

  7. Derek, my appreciation for a simple post that taught me something new. I hadn’t ever considered ‘impact’ as key to financial success but I do now. Am I helping or solving for others? What is that worth in its impact? Questions that came up when reading the passage and self-analysis of this will prove of real value to me, thank you indeed.

  8. Derek,

    Excellent read! I couldn’t have said it better myself.

    If you’re ever looking to guest post elsewhere, drop me a line. ;-)

    Regards,

    Marc

  9. Awesome post Derek. It’s true that no overnight success is really an overnight success. I think it’s also true that those who seem to have worked hard and “put in the time” also didn’t feel like they were putting into the time. It was a joy for them, which allowed them to be so committed and to “work” so tirelessly.

  10. I want to like this article, because it’s great for those in business or who want to dream big. But some of us, librarians, teachers, social workers – we can’t simply “work hard & impact the lives of others” and expect the money to follow. I work hard & impact the lives of others, but I’ll never be compensated like someone who works in a business industry. I love my job, & while I do plan to have financial success in my life – there’s nothing I can do to make my salary jump several thousand dollars. Your plan simply doesn’t work for a lot of people out there.

    Sarah

  11. Derek,

    Very valuable notion to focus on developing a vision. Particularly, I feel developing a vision of the self is valuable to cultivate greatness and esteem for future success. We must envision ourselves at the point and place we want to be, regardless of our current circumstance. This can be difficult, but by practicing seeing ourselves in the ideal scenario we can begin to work toward this view. Very great insight!

  12. Hi,
    good post, Simple and sweet,
    my appreciation for a simple post that taught me something new

    Niluka

  13. Hey Derek and everybody else at TSN! I’m new around here and I’m really enjoying the vibe.
    Firstly, to Derek (which, by the way, I prefer of Mr. Personal Development), congrats on a spectacular article. It wasn’t at all what I expected to encounter in an article about finances. In particular, you provide fantastic probing questions for those seeking to earn more money, such as, “how can I solve more problems for more people?” I have a couple of my own thoughts:

    Firstly, towards “The Truth,” if you read Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers, or any biography on Bill Gates for that matter, you’ll learn that he had indeed invested thousands upon thousands of hours in programming before his big break. You might say that his experience was catalyzed by his lucky circumstances (namely, having one of the premiere early computer labs available in his high school, as well as coming of age at just the right time to take advantage of a burgeoning new field), but it was the Experience that was the deal breaker, not the luck. Luck opens the door, Experience grants you passage.

    Sarah, you bring up the good point that not all problem-solving is compensated. It’s called service. Sometimes, it’s also called work. However, having a job is not a barrier to conceiving of other problem-solving methods by which you could earn money. Your job is just ONE of your income streams, and while it may not be scalable, surely you could create others that are that prescribe to the principles Derek outlines here.

  14. Seeing without vision, somehow reminds me of a blind person being offered a lantern to walk through the night “so others can see him”

    He walks and walks… and eventually bumps into someone.

    “Can’t you see my lantern?!” “Nope, it’s cold as well, I guess it was never lit…”

    So many of us wander around with such a lantern. Being handed something that seems to be a solution but doesn’t exactly work out because we have no idea how to use it properly. (The experience bit)

    So many blind people out there, so few honest lantern providers.

  15. Hi Derek – I love both of these posts – I also read the one on manifesting your house and I wanted to know if your experience was similar to mine. And I was interested to learn that like me, you didn’t deliberately go about trying to manifest the house but you did imagine yourself living in it etc.

    The house I accidentally manifested wasn’t even for sale – it probably never would have been. But when I visited it, I remember thinking what a dump it was and how I would really like to live there and improve it.

    I guess I imagined what the house would look like if I acquired it but I don’t recall doing that constantly. I didn’t do anything about it, or make an offer for the house because I knew the owner would never sell.

    Anyway, the owner accidentally set fire to the house, through her own carelessness and didn’t want to move back there after the fire. And of course the fire devalued the house and created a bit of work but it was in a mess before the fire so that didn’t matter so much.

    I felt a bit guilty and I hope my manifestation didn’t contribute to the fire. But I’ve now lived here for a good few years and it’s time to move on, so I guess I need to figure out how to manifest another place.

  16. Awesome article. Thanks for all the valuable points. Keep updating like that. Awaiting for your next post.

  17. Excellent !!!

    Wow, nicely done !

  18. Nice post Derek. Success definitely comes from screwing things up over and over again. It’s a good idea to follow Edison’s advice that said not to be “discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.”

  19. Paul

    bla, bla, bla. Thank you Tony Robbins. I highly doubt Michael Jordan was thinking, “what is my impact? I know, I’ll entertain millions of people” when he was shooting hoops. How does one work in a ‘critical area that they love’ if they are under the thumb of student loans/credit cards/mortgage? How does one visualize an economic empire when they don’t even know if they can afford diapers month? Reality check.

  20. My apologies for the delayed response (I’ve been in Hawaii).

    Thanks for all the comments everyone and a special thanks to Trav for your words.

  21. hi tina!
    remove nityanand books from your reading list.
    Do you not know his scandals in India see in Wikipedia.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swami_Nithyananda

  22. This is a very insightful post. Your right there are no quick fixes. People always want something for nothing, then complain when they don’t make as much as the guy working all the time.

  23. I was just discussing with my wife the bad judgments we’ve both mad thus far in our lives and how we’re growing from it. She can be skeptical sometimes, but I’m forever the optimist. Hopefully I can show her the growth thus far.

  24. Great tips! Most success comes from mindset and you’ve illustrated that you understand that. Thanks for sharing!

  25. Vision is the key of all. If you dont have any vision on what you are up to, then the rest are useless. Find your vision first and then do the rest.

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