Retire Young To Pursue Your Dreams And Passion – NaijaGists.com
RETIRE YOUNG TO PURSUE YOUR DREAMS AND PASSION
“If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much”- Jim Rohn
Kevin Ngo said, “If you don’t make the time to work on creating the life you want, you’re eventually going to be forced to spend a lot of time dealing with a life you don’t want.” Retirement is one of the most important financial goals in a person’s life. Retiring young is one of the most rewarding financial decisions you will ever make in your journey to wealth. You are never too young to retire, it all depends on the length of time you think is needed for you to pursue your passion and dreams. There is nothing as fulfilling as retiring young so that you can free your time to pursue your passion, dream and life goals.
The rich work harder on their dreams and passion more than they do on their jobs while poor people do the exact opposite. The zeal and energy you are using for your present job will not be there again in the next 20 years. Build your dreams and your passion with the strength you have now so that when you are old and retired, your dreams can then pay your bills. Build a business that pays you for the rest of your life.
The most financially productive and rewarding year range for women is 35-55 and that of men is 40-65. Sympathetically, this is actually the year range that most civil servants or employees spend earning salaries! If you are a salary earner between 25-60years of age without having a strong investment base, you will likely end up being poor. One of your financial goals must be to retire young and to invest your energy and resources into your dreams and passion. The will of God for you is not to be living from paycheck to paycheck. His will is for you to retire young so that you can pursue fulfilment and abundance through your passion.
In his mind-blowing book, ‘Retire Young, Retire Rich’ by Robert Kiyosaki, the financial guru provides practical insight on how to work towards an early retirement age and gain control over our financial destiny. If your idea of retiring well is centered around your pension and gratuities, you will seldom find financial freedom and fulfilment. A secure retirement is one where money works for you via cash-flowing assets. The issue we must all deal with in retirement is cash-flow.
The evolution of Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) underlines the fruitlessness of getting addicted to your salary and pension at the detriment of your passion and dreams. Colonel Harland Sanders was an American business magnate best known for founding KFC and later acting as the company’s goodwill ambassador and symbol. Sanders went through traumatizing experiences that eventually shaped his life. In 1903, he dropped out of school and lived on a farm after arguments with his stepfather. Between 1903 and 1930, Sanders was in and out of job several times, living a life of absolute dependence on salary. He took a job painting horse carriages, worked as a farmhand for two years, worked with his uncle in a street car company as a conductor. He enlisted in the United States Army prematurely at the age of 16 and was discharged after three months. He moved to Sheffield and worked as a blacksmith’s helper and two months after as a train cleaner. He later enrolled as a fireman, worked as a salesman thereafter and also sold life insurance. None of these actually brought him fulfilment.
In 1930, Sanders finally quit working as a result of the Great Depression and decided to look within for what he could do to make a difference. The turning point came one day as Colonel Sanders was sitting on his porch in Corbin, Kentucky. That morning, the mailman came up the walk and handed him his first social security check. Then, he was 65 years old. Broke and defeated, he looked at the check and said, “My government is going to give me a hundred and five dollars a month so I can eke out an existence. Surely there is something I can do for myself and other people.” He was internally motivated and began to engage himself in deep thinking, and deep thinking always produces results.
The thought of his mother’s special recipe for fried chicken came to his mind. It was a particular formula which he considered somewhat special. Sanders began to cook chicken dishes and finally opened a little restaurant. Sanders decided to sell franchises for marketing his fried chicken formula but was turned down by scores of restaurants. After much rejection, he rounded up some investors and the legendary Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) was born. Harland Sanders’ impact was so significant that Kentucky Governor, Ruby Laffoon, in 1935 made Harland an honorary Kentucky Colonel in recognition of his awesome impact. Their advertising logo says it all – ‘We do chicken right’. There will always be something that you can do so well that people will be willing to pay for it. I want you to take a deep breath to ask yourself this one question: what is that one thing that I can do right? Herein lies the secret to your wealth.
Sanders’ life pointed towards the fact that there is value that we can add to the world as long as there is something that we do so well. You can’t fully live life until you learn to give expression to your passion. What is your passion? It can be music, writing, acting, painting, sports, fashion designing, teaching, arts etc.
Don’t wait until you are old to pursue your dreams and passion. Your dreams and passion will put a very high demand on youthful zeal and energy. Redesign your life to retire early so that you can give a larger part of your youthful energy to drive your dreams and passion.
Deepesh Arora said, “To live a happy retired life, you have to make your hard-earned money work hard for you”. Banking on your children for a comfortable retired life is a big financial mistake. Many people believe that if they provide the best of everything for their children and ensure their success, they will be able to have a comfortable retired life. This is a blatant lie! The best way to take care of yourself in your old age is to have a retirement plan that is built around your passion. Hear this: Your parents are not your emergency fund and your children are not your retirement fund. Create wealth by designing your retirement around your passion and not your pension.
Mark Twain said, “Plan for the future because that’s where you’re going to spend the rest of your life”. One of the greatest financial decisions you will ever make is to think outside the box and design your life beyond your salary and pension. Design your life around your dreams, gifts, and passion. Farrah Gray said, “Build your own dreams, or someone else will hire you to build theirs.” Design a future that makes you less dependent on salary and pension, and doesn’t confine you to a lifetime of living on someone else’s schedule. You must discipline yourself to work more on your dreams, vision and passion than you work on your job.
No matter how lucrative your job is, you must always design your exit plan. The best time to write your resignation letter is the first day on a job. This is because as time goes on, you may become emotionally engrossed in your work that it beclouds your sense of judgement. Whenever you get a job, sit down to write the resignation letter with specific dates attached to it. Begin to work towards your resignation by working towards the experience you will love to gather, the skills you will want to acquire, the connections and relationships you want to build and finally the financial base you want to attain to in order to build your own business. For every job you get, there is always a REASON and a SEASON attached to it.
Finally, I advise youths to invest in real estate. Intelligent investment in properties can take you out of poverty. Resist the urge to upgrade your lifestyle as your income goes up. Take the excess and invest it. That’s the simplest way to build wealth.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “Don’t work 8 hours for a company then go home and not work on your own goals and dreams. You’re not tired, you’re uninspired”- Dwayne Johnson
