Part 1: Your Journey To Financial Freedom By Chris Wise

Dear lovely people, 

One of the most thought provoking question that I was asked last week by a young entrepreneur in Yaounde was about how to get funding to grow his business.  I was almost speechless because I know the realities of Cameroon as far as the funding climate for small businesses are concerned. As a small business owner, funding can certainly be a struggle from time to time. After all, it’s hard to get access to cash if you don’t have great collateral, and it’s also hard to grow your business without the cash. 

I invited this young man for a talk and I plan to give him an interesting article to read. I now share it with you. In this essay, you will learn from world-renowned and self-made millionaire, Chris Wise, about his secrets on obtaining funding. Having started his first business at the age of 12, Chris has gained an impressive amount of experience through the years and knows what it takes to build a successful business and investments that will generate passive income and lifelong financial wealth.

Don’t block your mind with the thoughts of Chris’ context rather figure out how that could work for you right where you are and then try it out.

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Part 1: Your Journey To Financial Freedom
By Chris Wise

“We can’t afford it!”

Did you ever hear that growing up? I was brought up in your average middle class American family. My parents didn’t have a lot of money. We drove a big brown station wagon to school and dining out was only on special occasions. Like any child, there were always things that I wanted that cost money. In our family, when I wanted something, the usual answer was, “We can’t afford it.” Well, being a strong willed first born child, that answer didn’t work for me. So I determined, in my mind, that I would do whatever it took to get the things I wanted.
 
For the past 12 years I have been studying the principles of success, goal setting, and how to bring my dreams into reality. During those years, I was exposed to ideas like, “Money is all around us.” “We live in abundance,” and that “Money is everywhere.” I would take on those beliefs with great intention and then I would look into my bank account and see a different story.
 

I have been in business all of my life. I started my first business at the age of 12, sharpening chain saw chains for equipment rental stores, but I didn’t always know how to create wealth. It took me 16 years to finally become a millionaire at the age of 28. It was a long, hard, grueling process and it didn’t happen by chance. I now show individuals how to go from broke to millionaire in as little as two years.

The Foundation of a Billionaire Mind Set

After becoming a millionaire, I began to look at what was next. I thought billionaire by the age of 40 sounded like a good goal; something that would make me stretch a little. So I started to study billionaires and how they think because it is how a person thinks that determines their results and if I began to think like a billionaire then there is nothing that could stop that from coming into reality. From this education, I have boiled down all the financial information and wisdom that I have ever received into two foundational building blocks.

-          Get access to Capital

-          Invest it Wisely

If you master these two building blocks, then there is NO LIMIT to how much wealth you can create.
 
The Importance Of Knowing How To Access Capital

To build and grow a business or to invest into anything requires capital. The number one reason that businesses fail is under-capitalization. In other words, the business didn’t have enough money to grow and operate. Any business requires capital to get it off the ground and for it to continue to grow. Any investment that you make requires capital. The understanding of how to access capital is critical to creating wealth. You could even say that knowing how to acquire financial resources is a multiplier to your ability to creating wealth. The greater your ability to access money, the greater your ability to create wealth. When you master the knowledge of how to access capital, the world opens up to you in ways you never thought possible. If you make getting access to capital a priority for you to master then you will never have to worry about money again. Why? Because you will be a master at getting more. Businesses come and go, life happens and you could lose everything. However, if you are a master at acquiring financial resources you can always rebuild and nothing will be able to stop you.

 

Two Keys To Having and Keeping Money: Mind Set and Knowledge

1.      The mind set to attract and keep money. How you think and feel about money has everything to do with whether money flows into your life and stays there. 95% of people who win the lottery loose the money within two years. They don’t have the right mind set to keep the money. Whereas, individuals who have the right mind set, even if they loose all of their money, have the skill set to create it again and many times at even greater levels than before.

2.      The knowledge on how to acquire it. The knowledge on how to acquire it is where most people fail. I have met so many people who attend countless seminars, have read numerous books on wealth yet still don’t feel they are where they should be or want to be. The biggest mistake wealth builders make is failing to understand how money is created and how to acquire it for themselves.

 It is said that if all the money in the world was evenly distributed among the entire population that in 10 years 97% of the wealth would be back in control of 1% of the people. This is because the individuals who have mastered the two keys will always have control of capital.
 
Creating The Desire For Unlimited Funds

In talking with people about money and asking them if they would like more money for their business or investing, occasionally, I have people tell me that they don’t need any more money right now. I have only heard this answer from one person in my life whom I really believed. He was in his 60’s, retired, enjoying his grand kids and racing Formula-1 race cars as a hobby. He was worth about 50 million, wanted to keep life simple and was set. If someone hasn’t reached the point of financial independence—which I define as the point where one doesn’t have to work and can still maintain their current lifestyle—they are either fooling themselves or they haven’t created the right mind set for building wealth. What I have found is that people have a certain level to the amount of money they feel comfortable borrowing. If you want to become a millionaire, deca-millionaire or even a billionaire, then you need to make a commitment to have access to as much money as possible.

The Best Time To Access Money

When is the best time to access money? The best time is when you don’t need it. The best time to get credit from a bank is when you don’t need it. One of the biggest mistakes wealth creators make is not making the acquiring of capital a high enough priority. They don’t take the time to understand how to get it or think that it is out of their reach. If you don’t need money right now then NOW is the best time to start getting access to more of it. If you do need money now then NOW is the best time to get it. If you want to master creating wealth, then you need to understand that NOW is the best time to acquire the skills to access capital.
 

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Note:  You also need to know the four ways to access money. To learn more about these ways and Chris’ journey for financial freedom, keep your eyes glued to Living Lectures for Part 2 of this article in the days ahead.