you reach your financial goal. The dream may be, “I will have the freedom to sail around the world.” “I will take up photography.” “I will have the time to spend with my granddaughter.” “I will open my gourmet food shop.” “I will contribute my time to Habitat for Humanity.” Although the goal is financial, the dream is much more than money.
The do of ASPIRE is that you must:
• Choose your dream or your want.
• Have a clear vision of what the dream looks like in your mind. You can create this visual in your mind or create a physical drawing or collage of pictures and words that represents your dream.
• Refer to this visual regularly, ideally every day. This is the vision of why you are doing what you are doing.
2. ACQUIRE
This is the education part of do. Acquiring knowledge includes reading books, attending seminars and classes, online research and study, talking with experts, working with coaches and mentors, and on and on. You are gathering the information you need in order to take action. Which leads us to step number 3…
3. APPLY
This is the put-what-you’ve-learned-into-action stage. Applying the knowledge is where you do such things as make the offer to purchase, put your money on the table, take on your first client, buy the stock shares or gold, make the sales call, or ask for investment dollars. The technical phrase for applying knowledge is “putting your butt on the line.” Without the APPLY step, nothing happens.
True knowledge comes from putting what you’ve learned into real-world practice.
Confucius said it best:
“To know and not do, is to not yet know.”
It takes all three parts of the Triple-A Triangle to achieve your goals and dreams. Many women accomplish the ASPIRE step and move into the ACQUIRE step and get stuck there. They attend all the seminars, read all the books and are online constantly researching. The problem is they never move into the APPLY stage. Why? My guess is fear—fear of making a mistake, fear of losing money, fear of looking stupid, fear of people saying, “I told you so!”
It is only by applying the knowledge after you acquire it that those fears will dissipate. All three steps are necessary to achieve your financial dreams. It is primarily the apply stage that stops so many women.
The purpose of It’s Rising Time! is to offer clarity to define what you ASPIRE to, to offer information for you to ACQUIRE and then, and most importantly, to use real-life stories and encouragement as the catalyst for you to APPLY the knowledge in your life to have what you want.
These three stages are constantly in motion. You don’t move from one to the second and then to the third and then you’re done. You aspire, you acquire, and you apply. Then you acquire more and apply more, and acquire more and apply more, all the while holding onto your vision of what you aspire to. It’s an ongoing dynamic cycle. And while you have your big dream and aspiration, you also have many smaller goals leading up to your main dream. Each one of these goals has its own Triple-A Triangle.
As you move towards achieving your financial dreams, pay attention every now and then to how much of your doing is spent in acquiring knowledge and how much is spent in applying knowledge. If you notice one is becoming much more weighted than the other, you may want to make a slight adjustment. You should notice a constant flow between all three stages of aspire, acquire, and apply.
What It Means to You Today
As I write, it is September 2011 and the United States and the world economy are… (How can I put this politely?)… one huge mess. My prediction is that the global situation will get quite a bit worse, long before it gets better.
What does that mean to you and me? Given where we are today, it means three things:
1. I am not waiting for, or depending upon, the government or government legislation to solve any of my financial concerns. I do not believe they have the answers that will help you or me.
2. Now is the best time to take your financial life into your own hands, to not depend upon the government, your spouse, your parents, or some financial “expert.” Your financial future is up to you.
3. Your financial life, your wealth, does not have to be at the mercy of the economy. Yes, it’s important we pay attention to what is going on, but the economy does not have to have any significant impact on you, your money, or your financial well-being. You can prosper, no matter what the economy is doing. You will see evidence of that throughout this book.
To the Adventure!
As you embark on this financial journey, you will find that your financial life is an essential part of, and not separate from, your day-to-day life. Face it, your financial life will always be with you. It is not a hobby or something you work on once or twice a year. It is ongoing and alive. If you give it daily attention and do one thing every day that brings you closer to your financial goal, then you will see other areas of your life rise up as well.
I promise you this: Whether you are brand new to the world of finances and investing or you have been successfully investing for years, It’s Rising Time! will speak to and support any woman striving to elevate her financial life. The women who share their stories do so with a passion to light a spark in other women to take control of their financial lives, as they themselves are doing.
I also promise you this, that in pursuing your financial dreams, you will experience countless rising-time moments, those personal breakthroughs where you will grow mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. That is the beauty of true knowledge. That is the hidden magic of this journey.
So women, I applaud you. IT’S RISING TIME!
To rise to your money smarts and more takes…
The headline read: “Eddie Murphy’s ex-wife is broke!”
A 2010 news story reported that Nicole Murphy received a $15-million divorce settlement from Eddie Murphy in 2006. She opted for that one-time payment instead of monthly installments. In less than four years, she spent the entire $15 million and still has a few outstanding bills to pay. She now owes $846,000 to the IRS (Internal Revenue Service), $600,000 to a law firm, and $60,000 to a landscaping company. She was forced to put her home (on which she owes $5 million) up for sale. She not only spent the $15 million, but accumulated at least another $6.5 million in