By: Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
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https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
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Get Stefan Aarnio's book "Money People Deal: The Fastest Way to Real Estate Wealth" at MoneyPeopleDeal.com!

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A wise man once said: " Entrepreneurship is living a few years of your life like most people won’t, so that you can spend the rest of your life like most people can’t." -Unknown

Everyone dreams of having the rewards of a successful entrepreneur. We all want more free time, less work, less stress, more money, more vacations, the best spouse possible, a great family, more satisfaction at work, a creative outlet, independence and more cheques in the mailbox than bills. However, everything in life has a price and usually in life, the higher the benefit, the higher the cost.

The truth is that entrepreneurship can provide all of the above benefits that we all want, but it can also become a burden that is far too costly for most to bear. Most employees have dreams and fantasies of quitting their job, firing their boss and living on a beach with lots of passive income. Many employees who have this kind of dream will join a network marketing company, start dabbling in investment real estate or start a traditional business. Some of these employees will dabble with entrepreneurship through all of the above methods and may eventually decide to make the leap and quit their job. However, very few survive.

Entrepreneurship has one of the highest failure rates out of any career path. There is no traditional school that teaches entrepreneurship correctly, and in reality, it is something that cannot be taught or learned from one source. It takes many years, many experiences, many sources of knowledge, coaches, mentors, seminars, books, tapes, mistakes, failures and relationships combined with consistency and a commitment to success at all costs to become victorious in entrepreneurship. The process takes at least 10 years, likely more, and it can never be mastered.

So why do most people fail?

In my opinion, most WANTrepreneurs (aka entrepreneurs who still have day jobs and practice business on the side) are generally crippled by one under-developed skill set.

What is more amazing is that this skill set is not even considered a skill by most educators and it is rarely taught (or poorly) taught in schools and business schools of the world.

The secret sauce that most entrepreneurs are missing is the ability to sell.

When an employee attempts to make the leap into entrepreneurship and then is forced back into his job because he cannot survive, it means that he cannot sell.

I have "quit my job" 3 times in my life. The first two times, I didn't know how to sell and foolishly quit without the adequate skills, credit or cash to survive. The third time I quit and never looked back.

What made me different on the third time? When I was ready to quit the third time, I had worked for a direct sales company and had learned how to become a top performer on the team. I knew how to hire, how to fire, how to train, sell, present, cold call, farm a database, build a database, put on events, sell from stage, fill events and watched my mentor build one of the fastest growing companies in Canada.

The experience was scary at times, it was stressful, uncomfortable and I wanted to quit, but I became successful at my vocation and earned the right to become a full time entrepreneur and never need my resumé again.

When you consider Robert Kiyosaki's cashflow quadrant (as it's displayed in the photo above), there are 4 quadrants. 2 of them actively work for money on the left, (the E for employee and S for self-employed), while the quadrants on the right (the B for large business owner and I for investor) do not work for money.

So many E's and S's dream of being on the right side of the quadrant and they wish they had residual "passive income" to fund their ultimate lifestyle, but they try to "make the leap" to the right side of the quadrant without knowing how to sell.

Selling is the difference between the left and the right. The right side of the quadrant must sell to survive and grow, the left mostly trades time for money.

Too often, people on the left try to go from the E quadrant and make the leap to the B or I without becoming an S or self employed. This, in my opinion, is one of the most dangerous moves a person can make.

The S quadrant is a great training ground for becoming an entrepreneur and it is the place that most professional salespeople live in. Robert Kiyosaki explains in his book that the most natural progression towards financial freedom is to start as an E (or employee), become a salesperson (self employed), then become a B or (Business owner) then finally end up as an I (or investor).

This progression is very natural and the skills learned in each quadrant compound on one another. For myself, I had been in the S quadrant for most of my life and my progression looks like this so far: S E S I

1) My first S - I was a self employed guitar teacher running an all cash business out of my mother's home in university

2) My first E - I was a phone sales employee taking inbound calls in the middle of the night.

I quit this job and tried to become a "B" (or business owner) and failed.

I then became a merchandiser "E" (or employee) stocking chips on shelves for one of the largest chips companies in the world.

I then quit my job and tried to become an "I" (or professional investor) (I failed and had to get a job)

3) After failing again on my own, I became an "S" again, worked for a direct sales company, got the skills I needed and built my own "I" (investor) company.

Today I am out of the rat race and run my own successful business. I work when I want to on projects that I am excited about and have the honour and privilege of growing the business of my dreams. My life is better in every way because I know how to sell. Selling is the #1 skill in my business and I continue to study it meticulously to become a superstar. As my sales skills improve, so does my income, and I love being in control of how much I earn.

Ever since I learned to sell, I have earned the right to operate in the "B" and "I" quadrants on the right side of the diagram and survival is no longer a concern for me. Instead of trying to "scrape by", I use my energy towards thriving, building a legacy of value and anything I set my sights on is possible!

Action Step: Can you survive on your sales skills alone? Have you become a student of selling? How can you benefit from improving your sales skills? Please share your comments below!

By: Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
facebook.com/stefanaarnio
https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/stefanaarnio

Get Stefan Aarnio's book "Money People Deal: The Fastest Way to Real Estate Wealth" at MoneyPeopleDeal.com!

P.S: Please share this article if you found it enjoyable!

By: Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
facebook.com/stefanaarnio
https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/stefanaarnio

Get Stefan Aarnio's book "Money People Deal: The Fastest Way to Real Estate Wealth" at MoneyPeopleDeal.com!

Remember: Please share this article if you found it enjoyable!

I was having a conversation with a friend of mine and I asked her for her opinion on the local Asper school of business.

Her answer surprised me "needed for some, not for others."

Formal education usually has mixed reviews in the business world. Some people love it and swear by it, others think that it is an outdated dinosaur of the industrial age.

Although I did attend the University of Manitoba, and did take classes at the Asper school of business, I am a business school drop-out. My ambitions for taking classes at the school were quickly quenched when I learned that they were grooming me to become an employee and not an entrepreneur. No matter how much education is received from an institution like Asper, the teachers are employees and they train people to think like employees.

Many of the world's greatest entrepreneurs were drop outs: Steve Jobs of Apple, Bill Gates of Microsoft, Mark Zuckerburg of Facebook, Henry Ford and others. These men build their businesses on passion, experience, and practical hands-on-study in their fields. 

"Formal education will make you a living, Self education will make you a fortune." - Jim Rohn

With enough hands on study and experience, these great entrepreneurs build the most valuable asset of all - sound business acumen. The greatest difference between most WANTrepreneurs who have day jobs and real entrepreneurs who derive their livelihood directly from their businesses is:

1) Entrepreneurs live off of their business acumen
2) WANTreprenerus trade time for money

Where entrepreneurs can turn their ideas and passions into assets that create strong enough income to reach their dreams, many WANTrepreneurs are stuck trading time for money building someone else's dream.

In Robert Kiyosaki's game CashFlow, there are two circuits:

1) The Rat Race, a wheel that the players circulate around in collecting pay checks. In the Rat Race, these players have jobs and trade time for money. It doesn't matter if the player has a low paying job like a Janitor or a high paying job like a Doctor. All of the players in the Rat Race trade time for money, have a limited earning potential, are susceptible to the pitfalls of relying on a fixed income i.e.: players may become downsized and lose 100% of their income for a short period.

2) The second circuit in Cash Flow is called the Fast Track and on the Fast Track players move much faster. The Fast Track is reserved for players who have strong enough business acumen to create enough passive income to exceed his expenses. In other words, these players have become smart enough to not need their jobs  and live off of their ability to invest and create income. Players on the fast track make disproportionately more money, have larger deals, cannot be downsized, and are unaffected by many other disadvantages of the rat race.

One circuit relies on trading time for money, the other relies on business acumen.

Many new investors and WANTrepreneurs want to make the transition from the Rat Race onto the Fast Track, but the sad thing is, many of these WANTrepreneurs refuse to invest in their financial education - the most important asset of all.

Your education and business acumen is the greatest asset, far more valuable than Gold, silver, cash, stocks, real estate, companies. All of these "real" assets mean nothing if there is not a strong base of skill and education backing these symbols of wealth.

But if formal business school teaches most people to be employees, then where can one get an entrepreneur's education.

There are many places to get an entrepreneur's education:

1) Books written by real entrepreneurs
2) Seminars for teaching business put on by real entrepreneurs
3) One on one coaching from real entrepreneurs
4) Mentorship or apprenticing under a real entrepreneur

The key word with all of the above is REAL entrepreneurs. When choosing to learn about entrepreneurship or business from someone, it is counterproductive to learn from a good employee. Employees are trained to think differently from entrepreneurs and they collect pay checks instead of build companies.

ACTION STEP:

In your life, ask yourself; "are you living off of your business acumen?" Or are you trading time for money?

What do you need to get to where you want to go?

Who do you need to help you get there?

Thanks for reading,
By: Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
facebook.com/stefanaarnio
https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
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Get Stefan Aarnio's book "Money People Deal: The Fastest Way to Real Estate Wealth" at MoneyPeopleDeal.com!

Remember: Please share this article if you found it enjoyable!

By: Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
facebook.com/stefanaarnio
https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/stefanaarnio

Get Stefan Aarnio's book "Money People Deal: The Fastest Way to Real Estate Wealth" at MoneyPeopleDeal.com!

Remember: Please share this article if you found it enjoyable!

Jim Rohn, an american entrepreneur, once said "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."

I always struggled with the idea of getting a job. Some people call their job a J-O-B which stands for Just, Over, Broke.

From age 17 to 24 I struggled every year with employment. When I was in university, every summer, I had to go out and "get a job" to pay for next year's tuition. Every year I would procrastinate, the idea of a job bored me, and I felt in my heart that I didn't want to work for someone else. Every summer was different, I worked at Tim Hortons, local restaurants, odd painting jobs, and even had a short taste of direct sales. Nothing felt good and every year as the summer would approach I felt myself feeling depressed.

In 2008 when I graduated from university with an Arts degree, the game was over. My parents and society both agreed that it was time to leave the fantasy world of school and join the "real world" and get a "real job".

I had made most of my money in university by teaching guitar lessons out of my mother's living room and had made a good little cash business out of it. I also played numerous music gigs throughout the city and had experienced the life of being self-employed. Now that I was done school it was time to "wake up", shut down my little business and join the real work force.

I followed the advice of my parents, society and the status quo and got a real job in telephone sales. I worked in the middle of the night, on straight commission and although I was one of the top performers in the office, I only made about $10 an hour selling on the phone. My life was completely upside down, I was making less money at my "real job" than I was making it my guitar teaching business, my quality of life was the lowest it had ever been, and I was isolated by working the graveyard shift.

After a few weeks of working my real job, I fell into a depression. Everything I had done was "right". I went to school, got a degree, and got a job, but I was living a miserable life and was making less money than I made in school doing things I enjoyed less.

What was wrong with me?

Looking back, I realize that I was living a life of convenience, not a life of choice. Everything that was in my life came to me by way of convenience. Nothing was consciously chosen by me and this was the source of my unhappiness.

They say there are only two sources of unhappiness in the world:

#1 is not getting what you want
#2 is getting it (not what you want)

When we get something we do not want, unhappiness ensues.

The downward spiral of unhappiness and dissatisfaction continued for years until I learned to take control of my own mind and use it towards endeavours of my choice.

As the great Napoleon Hill writes in his book "Think and Grow Rich":

Everyone comes to this world with the privilege of controlling the power of his mind and directing it to whatever ends he may choose.

At birth, everyone carries the equivalent of two sealed envelopes:

1. The RICHES You May Enjoy If You Take Possession Of Your Mind & Direct It To The Ends Of Your Own Choice.
2. The PENALTIES You Must Pay If You Neglect To Take Possession Of Your Mind & Direct It

In the contents of the first envelope named RICHES are the following blessings:

• Health
• Peace Of Mind
• A Labor Of Love Of Your Own Choice
• Freedom From Fear And Worry
• Positive Mental Attitude
• Material Riches Of Your Own Choice & Quantity

In the envelope labeled PENALTIES are the prices one must pay for neglecting to take control his/her own mind:

• Ill Health
• Fear & Worry
• Indecision & Doubt
• Frustration & Discouragement Throughout Life
• Poverty & Want
• The Evils of Envy, Greed, Jealousy, Anger, Hatred and Superstition

For many years I allowed others to take control of my mind and I drifted through life living a life of convenience with very few elements being of my own choosing. After I hit "the bottom" through depression, poor health, fear, doubt, worry and debt, I began to design the life that I wanted.

Today, I have made drastic changes and every aspect of my life has been chosen by me. Perhaps there are parts that are not 100% of my choosing, but every single aspect is improving steadily towards my vision and my ideals.

All of the improvements in my life came from having a concrete vision of what I desired. I began to write down my goals, my wants, and my vision. I began to reverse engineer and design the life that I wanted. I am very happy to enjoy the blessings that Napoleon Hill names above and be free of the penalties he warns against.

In your own life, ask yourself: Are you living a life of convenience or a life of choice? If you are living a life of convenience, begin to write a vision plan detailing every aspect of your ideal life. When your vision is put into words and written down, the subconscious brain will begin working towards the life of your dreams.

Thanks for reading,
By: Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
facebook.com/stefanaarnio
https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/stefanaarnio

Get Stefan Aarnio's book "Money People Deal: The Fastest Way to Real Estate Wealth" at MoneyPeopleDeal.com!

Remember: Please share this article if you found it enjoyable!

By: Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
facebook.com/stefanaarnio
https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/stefanaarnio

Remember: Please share this article if you found it enjoyable!

What would you do if you had all of the money in the world? What is money anyways?

One of my favourite quotes about money/success/business is by Donald Trump:

“I wasn’t satisfied earning a good living. I wanted to make a statement”

What I love about this quote is that the money doesn't matter, the deals don't matter, the success doesn't matter, the lifestyle doesn't matter... What matters is the statement that is made by the work. 

Great Artists make statements, for that is the purpose of Art. An artist produces art to make a statement, Donald Trump builds buildings to make a statement, in many ways Donald Trump is an artist.

Donald Trump certainly does not have to get out of bed in the morning and go to work to pay his mortgage or put food on the table. Necessities like food were never a concern for Trump. Life would be empty if he could not create through his work. A starving Artist is the same, he has no material possessions, money doesn't matter and his life is empty without creating through his work.

When you make a commitment to excellence and stand for something, others will be attracted to your message. In a roundabout way, making a statement is what branding is all about.

Today I was sitting in Starbucks with a couple potential Joint Venture Partners and we were interviewing potential contractors to flip houses with. After one candidate left I made the statement to my partners that the contractor was an old "has-been". After a few minutes of discussing the contractor's flaws, a man sitting at an adjacent who had been listening to us talk said to me "you have to have your own crews!"

I replied "I do have my own crew"

We started talking to the man and he said "you were really arrogant with that last contractor". We continued to talk to him and he said "you remind me of me when I was your age".

It turns out that the man who had been listening in on our interviews owns over 5500 rental units in Winnipeg and is one of the most successful investors in the city. We continued to chat for 30 minutes about the business of real estate and he invited myself and my partners to spend some time with him in the new year.

What is amazing about the experience was that if I had not made such a bold statement, we would not have been approached by the very successful investor at the adjacent table. The connection with one of the biggest investors in the city could be very important in the future and I would have never made the connection if I did not make a statement. If I had cold called this successful investor, he would not take my call. However, since he had observed me and saw what I stood for, he reached out to make the connection with me.

Like attracts like and birds of a feather flock together. Put up a flag, show people who you are and what you stand for and you will attract those who think like you do. People are magnets and we attract other people who are charged like us; this is why branding is so important.

Make a statement, make it strong, make it bold and stand by it.

If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything.

Thanks for reading,
By: Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
facebook.com/stefanaarnio
https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/stefanaarnio

P.S: Please share this article if you found it enjoyable!

By: Stefan Aarnio

Freedomway.ca

facebook.com/stefanaarnio

https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio

http://ca.linkedin.com/in/stefanaarnio

 

Remember: Please share this article if you found it enjoyable!

 

For centuries, alchemists searched for the "Philosopher’s Stone"; a magical instrument that could turn lead into gold and they never found it. Every day fools buy lottery tickets hoping to turn “lead into gold”.

 

Explorers searched the globe for centuries looking for the "fountain of youth" only to never find it. Every day women in department stores spend millions of dollars to cling onto their fleeting youth.

 

Every night audiences in the hundreds of thousands stay up late into early morning watching infomercials promising "get rich quick schemes", "get rock hard abs now" and dating programs that promise that the woman of your dreams is "one phone call away".

 

We all want success to be easy.

 

We all want the silver bullet or the magic wand that will make things “easy” and change in an instant.

 

We all want the secret sauce that will make us an overnight success. These days, it takes 10 years to become an “overnight success”.

 

Success is never as easy as it looks!

 

What if we could increase our probability for success by focusing on one certain personality trait?

 

There have been hundreds of studies on success and scientists have found that it has nothing to do with intelligence, talent, luck, resources, contacts or education. However, studies have proven that there is a specific personality trait called "grit" that is directly correlated to success.

 

Grit is a psychological trait that indicates a person's passion for a particular long-term goal. Grit is associated with perseverance, resilience, ambition, need for achievement and tenacity.

 

To make a long explanation short, the grittier a person is, the harder they will fight to succeed.

 

People with high levels of Grit are concerned with winning the marathon, not the sprint. They are long-term thinkers that aim to achieve long-term goals and are less concerned with short-term challenges and failures. A person with a high level of Grit will move from failure to failure and keep their eyes on the prize.

 

To quote Winston Churchill; "success is moving from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm". Churchill understood Grit and he was able to capture the hearts and minds of the British people in World War 2. Throughout nearly the entire war, Britain was the underdog; suffering defeat after defeat from the Nazis. However, Churchill was able to inspire his people to become gritty, dig in and hold on. In the end, the Nazi war machine ran itself to destruction and the British were able to claim victory by sheer tenacity despite being the underdog for nearly the entire war.

 

Many of our parents/grandparents who were who were born in 1920's became extremely gritty due to the fact that at age 10 they were in the great depression, by age 20 they were fighting in a world war. If they were strong enough to survive those two events, they came home, built themselves a house with their bare hands, raised four or more children and worked like a slave until they retired (or died).

 

The World War 2 generation was a very gritty group of people compared to the baby boomers or the echo boomers. The World War 2 generation understood that:

 

1)    Life is not easy

2)    Persistence wins

3)    Hard work is required for success

4)    Giving up is not an option

5)    Life is not always fun, but keep going

 

Today’s young people are not conditioned to be gritty like their grandparents/great-grandparents. Today we live in a world of instant text messaging, facebook, twitter, video games, instant microwave dinners and soccer tournaments where the losers are taken out for ice cream.

 

Gritty people are able to delay gratification and often, this is the #1 key to success. Unfortunately, we are conditioned today to want instant gratification and many of us forget how tough our grandparents had to be to survive and thrive in the last 90 years.

 

If you are a success-minded individual, you should focus on becoming more “gritty”. To do so:

1)    Set long term goals

2)    Train yourself to not be discouraged by failure

3)    Learn to delay gratification

4)    Become passionate about your cause

5)    Never give up

6)    Focus on winning the marathon, not the sprint

7)    Reward yourself for lasting power, do not become a flash in the pan.

 

Consider Aesop’s fable; The Tortoise and the Hare. The Hare is speed, he is flashy, he is loud and in the end he is the loser. The Tortoise is slow, persistent, consistent and gritty.


Be the Tortoise, not the Hare: the future belongs to you.

 

Thanks for reading,

Stefan Aarnio

Freedomway.ca

facebook.com/stefanaarnio

https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio

http://ca.linkedin.com/in/stefanaarnio




P.S: Please share this article if you found it enjoyable!

 

By: Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
facebook.com/stefanaarnio
https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/stefanaarnio

Remember: Please share this article if you found it helpful

If you were offered $35,000 a year to sit at a toll booth and collect change from cars crossing a bridge, would you take the job?

Or would you decline and look for the next opportunity?

What if you were paid $100,000, $200,000 or $300,000 for the same task? Would you take the job?

What if you were paid $1 a year to sit at the same tollbooth?

For myself, I would not sit at the tollbooth for any amount of money because money earned at the tollbooth is “dead money”.

We are human “be-ings” not human “do-ings”.

Daily tasks that help us become the person we want to become create life, energy and success. These tasks have purpose, feed our spirits and nourish our souls; By performing tasks we enjoy, we become the person we want to “Be”.

If a task or job does not bring us closer to the person we want to become, we earn dead money and in some ways, waste our time, effort and energy.

Eventually if you earn enough dead money, you won’t be able to get out of bed in the morning.

Dead money is a term I learned from Raymond Aaron, a New York Times best selling author. Raymond explained that the money he earned from his published books that were unaligned with his core purpose were “dead money”. In some ways, these books hurt his brand, wasted years of his life and were very expensive in opportunity cost.

In my own business, I make sure every action I do advances my career by building brand-equity or by earning cash AND brand equity. If I am able to monetize my actions and build my brand equity at the same time, I make the biggest gains in spirit and in my bank account.

My mentality is: Even if I earn $0 at the end of the year, but have built a $1,000,000 brand, I succeed. Steve Jobs paid himself a salary of $1 while he was the CEO at apple because his mission was to build the company and put a dent in the universe by challenging the status quo. I have a similar philosophy to Steve Jobs who I have idolized since 6th grade when I first learned about who he was and kept a picture of him on my desk at school.

I am fortunate enough to aware of my brand and purpose, the average person does not consider his or her brand, his brand equity, who he is, who he wants to become or where he is going in life. For the average person, this is very unfortunate.

These people are stuck in “dead end” jobs that are either high paying or low paying and every dollar they earn is a “dead dollar”. The dollars they earn do not build their dream or advance their career.

If you earn enough “dead dollars” you will eventually build the bars of an emotional prison.

Money is a medium of exchange and a currency because it needs to move in order to be relevant and useful like electricity or water.

If money stops moving, money dies.

If people stop moving for long enough, people die.

If the spirit stops moving, the spirit dies.

If you are earning money in your career, but are NOT moving towards becoming the person you wish to become, your career and spirit will eventually die.

Years ago I used to work Frito-Lay, the company that makes Lay’s chips and Doritos. I used to put chips on shelves at Wal-Mart every morning at 4:00 am and I earned a disproportionately high salary for doing so. Walmart employees stocking chips at 4:00am were making $8 per hour, I was making closer to $20 per hour to do the exact same task.

However, every dollar I earned was dead money.

The money was dead because although I was earning money daily, I was not advancing towards my goal of becoming an entrepreneur. The money was good, but my soul was dying. I was becoming a professional shelf stocker and not a professional entrepreneur. I was NOT advancing towards the person I wanted to become. The life that I wanted was not being built with my actions and consequently I was earning dead money that did not help me in my pursuit of happiness.

Many people think that earning money in itself is a good return on time, but in fact, earning dead money is a complete waste of time, waste of spirit and a waste of life.

Would you rather live a life of poverty doing what you love or a life of riches in a life of indifference?

Most people will say that they would rather do what they love and live in poverty. However, 70% of people are not happy with their current jobs or current careers.

70% of people earn dead money every day.

A wise man once said “Talk is cheap and money buys the whiskey.” What this wise man is saying is that most people say whatever makes them sound good: “I would rather do what I love” but their actions do not align with their words.

Remember: Talk is cheap and Money buys the whiskey.

I’m not saying that we should choose a life of poverty out of passion to pursue what we love. I’m a firm believer that we can “have our cake and eat it too”.

I think it’s 100% possible to do what you love, monetize it and become rich. 

I believe you can have it all, happiness, love and money. When it comes to happiness, love and money; there is always enough for everyone.

Obtaining happiness and money is a topic of major study for myself at this time in my life. What I find is that the more I love my career, the more I love my daily routine, the more fun I enjoy, and the more money I make.

Fun = money.

Love = money.

Enthusiasm = money.

Money = life.

The more fun, love and enthusiasm I enjoy, the more life I have, and my wallet benefits as well.

I have abandoned the pursuit of “dead money” and if a task or job doesn’t line up with my mission, my vision and who I want to become, I will not perform it.

Do what you love and the money always comes.

Complete the mission and the money always comes.

Provide enough value and the money always comes.

Money is a result of a job well done; it is an effect, not a cause. Actions performed at a level of excellence equate to money earned. Money itself can never motivate someone to be better, achieve excellence or create more value because money intrinsically has no value.

Money is intrinsically dead, we are the ones who breathe life into money. People are the ones who attach external value to money and we use it to build our dreams.

Money is neutral and money doesn’t care. Money doesn’t cry for you when you are sad and money won’t drink champagne with you when you want to celebrate.

Money will, however, buy you a bottle of champagne.

Money can either be alive or dead depending on how we earn it. It is up to us as the wielders of money to respect the neutrality of money, breathe life into money and allow money to flow through us in our personal pursuit of happiness.

Money, life, spirit, happiness, enthusiasm and joy are all currencies and we must allow them to flow.

If we allow money, life, spirit, happiness, enthusiasm and joy to flow through us, we will become congruent. We will prove our integrity and the universe will reward us for respecting it’s laws and creating abundance.

If we shut off our spirit, enthusiasm and joy, then we also deactivate the spiritual power of money and the power of life.

If we deactivate the spiritual power of money, the money we earn will die the moment it touches our hands. Instead of using our earned money to build our dreams, our dead money will build an emotional prison around us where we are forced into slavery for the all-mighty dollar.

When we align with the person we want to become, we earn the Midas touch and everything we touch turns to gold. When we are out of alignment, we earn the touch of death.

Ask yourself; do my daily actions help me become the person I want to become? Am I earning dead money? What is my purpose? How am I achieving my purpose?


We all have the Midas touch if we can find our purpose deep down inside of ourselves. Respect money as a tool; respect the neutrality of money and the power of money. Allow money to live and money will let you live the life of your dreams.

Disobey money, kill money and you will find yourself in financial prison. Don’t let money die.

Protect money and it will protect you.

Thanks for reading,
Stefan Aarnio

Freedomway.ca
facebook.com/stefanaarnio
https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/stefanaarnio

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By: Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
facebook.com/stefanaarnio
https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/stefanaarnio

Remember: Please share this article if you found it helpful

“Suppose a farmer has some land, and it's good, fertile land. The land gives the farmer a choice; he may plant in that land whatever he chooses. The land doesn't care. It's up to the farmer to make the decision.

We're comparing the human mind with the land because the mind, like the land, doesn't care what you plant in it. It will return what you plant, but it doesn't care what you plant.

Now, let's say that the farmer has two seeds in his hand- one is a seed of corn, the other is nightshade, a deadly poison. He digs two little holes in the earth and he plants both seeds-one corn, the other nightshade (a deadly poison). He covers up the holes, waters and takes care of the land…and what will happen? Invariably, the land will return what was planted.

As it's written in the Bible, "As ye sow, so shall ye reap."

Remember the land doesn't care. It will return poison in just as wonderful abundance as it will corn. So up come the two plants – one corn, one poison.”

-Earl Nightingale

Earl Nightingale who was one of the best self-development minds of all time had an unbeatable analogy for the human mind.

Nightingale compared the human mind to a fertile piece of land where we can plant whichever seeds we choose to plant.

The mind is neutral and much like fertile land and will return whatever we choose to plant.

What I find amazing on a day-to-day basis is to see what people plant in the fertile earth of the mind.

Instead of studying success, listening to lectures, reading books on success, attending seminars, creating visions, creating plans, and visualizing what we want; most people fill their brains with garbage.

Most people “mind feed” on mainstream news, mainstream radio, CNN, Fox News, Dr. Phil, Maury, daytime television, infomercials, video games, soap operas, sitcoms, Hollywood movies, magazines, pornography and trash fictional novels (which can also be pornography aka fifty shades of grey).

Finish this sentence…

Garbage in…

Garbage out?

Most people will finish the sentence “garbage in” with “garbage out” implying that if we put garbage into our brains, we will receive garbage as output.

The truth is, the results are much worse…

In reality, Garbage goes in, it festers and multiplies by three. “Garbage” has “Garbage Babies who turn out to be triplets” and morphs into a debilitating emotional cancer.

All of the above “garbage” in our mind feed sources can create a cesspool of poison in our emotional brain that breeds fear and inhibits our ability to take action.

We are given the most powerful, fertile land known to man and unfortunately; most of us are negligent farmers who fail to plant corn.

Even worse, instead of planting corn, or better yet – planting NOTHING; we plant an abundance of the deadliest poison of all.

THE DEADLIEST POISON

If good, clean, positive, empowering, affirming thoughts are corn, then what thoughts account for the deadliest poison?

Steve Chandler, a man who spent the majority of his life studying how the brain works as an psychological warfare specialist, defines the brain as working in one of two ways:

1)   The brain either functions with an OWNERSHIP mentality

2)   OR the brain functions with a VICTIM mentality

The ownership mentality represents the brain working as it was designed and this is where creativity, success, opportunity, fearlessness, and happiness come from.

Those of us with an ownership mentality are planting corn on a daily basis.

The opposite of an ownership mentality is a victim mentality. The victim mentality is the exact polar opposite of the way that the brain actually works. From an early age, through school and traditional upbringings, most children are taught to use their brain in the exact opposite way that it functions.

We teach people in our school systems to plant nightshade instead of corn and most people plant far more nightshade then corn every day.

Lets briefly compare an OWNERSHIP mentality to a VICTIM mentality.

18 differences between an OWNER and a VICTIM:

1)   Owners are Positively charged, Victims are negatively charged.

2)   Owners are happy from the inside (all children are born happy), Victims believe that happiness comes from the outside.

3)   Owners see and seek opportunity; Victims expect to have opportunities “presented” to them.

4)   Owners use the brain for creating; Victims do not create and feel needy instead.

5)   Children are born as owners: 90% of young children believe that they are good at poetry, dancing and singing. Most adults have become conditioned to be victims: 75% of people aged 30+ believe they have no ability at dancing, singing and poetry

6)   Owners are fearless; victims are fearful

7)   Owners actively seek wisdom in every experience; they say “what can I get from this situation”? While Victims turn their brain off and passively float from experience to experience. Victims say “I don’t want to know” or “I’m trying to get through this experience”.

8)  Owners actively create situations, Victims passively react to situations

9)  Owners are the authentic YOU; Victims are YOU reduced down to an animal level

10) Owners say “I use life”’; Victims say “life uses me”

11) You were born an Owner; Victims are “added on” to your personality through conditioning.

12) Owners say empowering words of intent like “I want to”, “I will”, “I Choose to”; Victims say de-motivating words that crash the higher brain functions like “I should”.

13) Owners eat to live; Victims live to eat

14) Owners pull up their socks and complete tasks that others don’t want to do. It’s “horrible” to work 12 hours a day towards a goal that you have chosen. However, Victims take no action and live life as “miserable”. Life is a choice between the horrible and the miserable.

15)  Owners have an internal self-rewarding belief system. Victims have an external belief system that was inherited from someone else.

16) Owners operate from a place of LOVE while Victims operate from a place of FEAR.

17) Owners find satisfaction in measuring small improvements and tasks over time. Victims seek success with an “all or nothing” mentality. If they don’t have 6 pack abs after 10 sit-ups, they quit.

18) Owners create a vision of who they want to be and start living in that reality NOW while Victims are living a life as one half cynic and one half skeptic.

In my own mind, I have become a diligent farmer and have “weeded out” most of the nightshade that has grown in my brain. To me, planting corn is very important and I have hired a coach to ensure that I can produce the best crops possible.

The mind can be a brilliant machine that creates wonderful art, health, wealth and life or it can be a prison that kills dreams.

Take some time to go through the list of the 18 differences between owner and victim mentality and isolate any limiting beliefs you may have.

Strive to become a diligent farmer and produce the sweetest crop of corn that has ever grown.


Thanks for reading,

Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
facebook.com/stefanaarnio
https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/stefanaarnio

P.S: Please share this article if you found it helpful

By: Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
facebook.com/stefanaarnio
https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/stefanaarnio

Remember: Please share this article if you found it helpful!

Two men are laying brick, and one man is miserable. He lays brick after brick and curses each brick as it’s laid upon mortar. The other man is excited and filled with joy to be laying the exact same brick.

What makes these two men different?

One man has vision: he is building a beautiful cathedral.


The other does not: he is merely laying brick.

These men are identical men, performing an identical task in an identical way, but one is energized and overjoyed while the other miserable and depressed.

I recently hired a coach to take my life and business to the next level. The first thing my coach had me do was fill out my “vision” board. I was unprepared for a vision board because I had not spent much time creating a vision for my business and myself.

After being assigned to create a vision, I started to spend serious time to thinking and took action to construct the vision that will fuel my life and my business.

What do I want my life to look like? What do I want my home to look like? What do I want my health to look like? What do I want my bank account to look like? What do I want my workday to look like? Etc.

The list goes on.

Vision is so powerful because once we have a great vision, we can literally reverse engineer our reality from the blueprints of a great vision.

Just like the two men, one can see the lines of a cathedral in his vision and he feels like he is contributing to a larger mission and a beautiful creation.

The other man can only see bricks and mortar. Each brick he lays is painful, his body is exhausted and he works like a slave.

Which man would you rather be?

After becoming more conscious of vision and spending some time to create my own “vision plan”, I feel like I can no longer offer advice to the people who ask me for advice.

When someone asks me for advice, I always ask, what his or her vision is.

It startles me to find out that very few people have visions for their lives. Most people are satisfied with just laying brick. Only a very select few are building a cathedral.

Many people have goals, hopes, and dreams but few have a vision. The vision, in many ways is more far more powerful than transactional goals, baseless hopes and action-less dreams.

The reason why I prefer a vision plan to all of the above is because a vision can be reverse engineered into actionable steps that can be executed each day.

Goals are often one-dimensional, hopes are for the hopeless and dreams are for dreamers. However, a strong vision that has been reverse engineered into daily actionable steps is unstoppable.

We must create the vision of our cathedral and then begin laying brick – one brick at a time.

If we are consistent and persistent in our “bricklaying” actions, eventually our Cathedral will begin to manifest and the vision will come to life.

The people with the strongest visions are the leaders in all facets of life. Visionaries like; Steve Jobs, Gandhi, and Henry Ford all saw the world differently and worked towards their vision.

Through a powerful vision, reverse engineering of that vision into a blueprint, and execution of the small actionable steps of the blueprint, the world can be changed one “brick” at a time.

The future belongs to those of us with strong visions, clear blueprints for achieving the vision and a specific plan of daily actionable steps.

In your life today, are you laying brick or building a cathedral?

Whose cathedral are you building? Your own? Or someone else’s?

Thanks for reading,

Stefan Aarnio

Freedomway.ca

facebook.com/stefanaarnio

https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio

http://ca.linkedin.com/in/stefanaarnio

P.S. Please share this article if you found it helpful!

By Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
facebook.com/stefanaarnio

A wise man once said "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade."

Today was an exciting day in my life. Less than a month ago, I was nominated for Joint Venture Partner of the year in the Top Investor Awards by Canadian Real Estate Wealth Magazine. Competing in my category were 5 other very competent investors, all of which I admire greatly.

I had a fair amount of time to think about the strategic possibilities of my nomination and ran through all of the possible scenarios that such recognition would bring.

My competitors were all very successful investors, and depending on the metrics used to determine a "winner", any one of us could have won the award.

Three ways to determine a winner would be:

1) The winner could be determined by dollar volume, in which I would certainly NOT be the winner.

2) The winner could be determined by profits, in which I would certainly NOT be the winner.

3) Or the winner could be determined by story, in which I would have a chance to win.

I had to prepare myself for two scenarios:

1. A scenario in which I win
2. And a scenario in which I do not win

It is truly an honour to be nominated alongside such successful investors and the nomination alone is worth a tremendous amount of value to me.

I thought about the two scenarios above for a long time and determined that I would rather lose to a champion than win over an inferior competitor.

In my head, I created a no-lose scenario.

I would either win the award and run with the temporary boost to my brand/marketing or lose and still run with the temporary boost to my brand/marketing.

The only way to create a no lose scenario is by learning to create profit from failure.

I have failed in my life more times than I have succeeded.

They say that the formula for failure is to try to please everyone.

The formula for success is to take your current rate of failure an double it.

I have doubled my rate of failure many times over and continue to  increase my quota. I am not afraid of failing because when life gives me lemons... I have learned how to squeeze out a delicious glass of lemonade.

I have made lemonade so many times in my investing career that I could open up a lemonade stand.

Although, I have had many chances to wrestle with failure, many people have not had the luxury of having so many experiences to study and learn from failure.

The school system conditions us to avoid failure at all costs. In school, we treat failure like the same way we treat death: if you fail, you don't get good grades, you can't get into a good university, you can't get a good job and you will starve to death on the street because you have no money.

In many ways, we are learned to treat failure like death.

In reality, failure is the essence of life.

We learn our greatest lessons when we fail and often, we use these experiences to craft our identities, our character, our philosophies and our stories that make us into champions that can press forward against all odds.

My thinking has changed dramatically over the years when it comes to failure.

I used to get upset when I failed. However, I no longer get upset. When I fail in my current endeavours, I identify and correct my mistake as fast as possible. I then ask myself, "how can I prevent this in the future?". Failing is no longer a negative emotion for me, in fact, I get excited to fail now because it means that I will get an opportunity to learn a lesson. Lessons make me smarter and increase my chances of winning in the future.

FAILURE MANAGEMENT 101

Imagine you are an olympic athlete for an obscure sport like Javelin in which you take a running start to throw a single spear as far as possible.

You train for 10 years, put in 10,000 hours plus of training, forgo sex, good food, alcohol, sleep, professional career opportunities, children, money and lifestyle for a chance at winning the olympics.

The day of the olympics comes and you get one chance, one throw and in that moment you will become one of two things:

1. A winner, a medalist and you will become immortalized in the olympic hall of fame
2. A nobody, you do not qualify, you miss the distance required by inches and your javelin efforts vaporize into thin air

On monday morning, when you get back to your home, what do you do when you sit down at the kitchen table and ponder your next move?

Had you achieved success, you would have got a sponsorship, a great career opportunity, recognition, and fame, etc.

However, you failed... What next?

How do you make lemonade out of the lemons?

How can you create success from the experience?

I have been in situations like this many times. Life is a performance based sport, you often only get one chance to make something happen and if you don't, how do you deal with it?

It's not what happens to you in life that matters, it's how you deal with it.

Today when I was waiting for the speaker at the podium to announce the winner of the Joint Venture Partner of the Year award I had fully prepared myself for failure.

I desired success, understood that it was possible, but the final decision was out of my hands - I did not worry.

In hindsight, I was 95% prepared for failure and only 5% prepared for success.

I was shocked to learn that I had won the award and did not have a speech ready. I winged a few words at the podium, thanked everyone I could think of and proceeded with my "success plan" that I had to quickly engineer.

I was so convinced that my competition would win the award that I had given up the idea of success. To avoid disappointment, I had created a plan to deal with failure and had a solid plan to create an asset out of failing to win.

I have become so good at losing and dealing with situations that go wrong that I had forgot to plan for situations that go right.

Getting good at losing, however, is one of the major pillars of success. It helps us take risks and allow us to win - even when we lose.

Life becomes very easy when you can find ways to win from failure, especially when we learn to monetize these situations.

When I think about the Joint Venture award that I won, I am convinced that my story is what captured the judge's imaginations.

I did not have the biggest deal, the biggest profit, the highest dollar volumes or the sexiest deal.

However, I had a great "rags to riches" story that explains my investment career. My story for 2012 begins with failure and ends with success.

Most people give up when they fail, I have learned to push through failures until I can turn them into successes.

In your own life, learn to spot the "good" in the "bad" and package it into a marketable asset that you can use to your advantage.

Failure is a necessary ingredient to success and many people do not understand that success comes in cycles and is more like a wheel than a destination.

Picture the ferris wheel at the local fair. When you are at the top of the wheel (success), the only way to get back to the top (success) is to go through the bottom (failure).

Life is much like a ferris wheel: to get the top, we must rotate through the cycles at the bottom.

By Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca

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Yesterday I had the pleasure of giving a talk to a group of 50 local real estate investors in Winnipeg. The subject of the talk was "how to raise capital and take the limits off of your real estate investing career."

In business, raising capital is the #1 skill any real estate investor or entrepreneur needs to be in business. So many entrepreneurs fail because they can’t get funding for their businesses initially or they can’t expand to a profitable level.

While I was giving the talk to the 50 investors in the room, I was shocked by the following:

• 0 people claimed that “Sales and Marketing” was their #1 skill
• 0 people had raised capital for a “no money down” joint venture (1 person may have raised his/her hand, but wasn’t confident so I wasn’t sure)

• 0 people had a “Capital Raising” binder/presentation ready to show to investors

Many of the investors in the room have purchased at least one or more investment properties in the past few years, but were still using their own cash and credit.

Statistically, most seminars have a 2% success rate. In any given room of 100 people , 2 people will apply the knowledge they are learning and 98 will fail to apply anything.

Statistically speaking, out of the 50 people I was speaking to, 1 will apply the knowledge shared, 49 will not.

Yesterday, there were many real estate investors in the room who wanted to take their businesses to the next level. I think most of the audience in the room saw value in learning how to raise capital. Most investors want to use“other people’s money” to purchase investment properties, but many do not know how to do it.

Although, what I was teaching was the "missing piece of the puzzle" for many of the people in the audience:

• 0 people approached me after the event for any for of help or advice.

Perhaps I gave a bad talk.

Perhaps not.

I did receive numerous compliments on the content and delivery of the speech and I think the audience enjoyed the presentation for both entertainment and content.

More often then not, when I attend a seminar, talk or presentation, I approach the speaker after the event to

1. Thank them for speaking and
2. inquire about how I can learn what they had to offer (whether I can afford it or not)

My primary objective with attending a seminar, talk or presentation is to learn something and find a way to bring change into my life.

Why don’t we change?

Why don’t we take action? 

Why don’t we pursue freedom at all costs?

The answer is simple.

A wise man once said “everything we want is on the other side of fear.”

Some call this invisible wall of fear the “terror-barrier”. 

The Terror-Barrier is the only thing that keeps us from having what we want in life.

In my life, the terror barrier has held me back many times, and the only way I could break through it was by getting myself in a “no options” situation.

For change to occur, the pain of staying the same has to be greater than the pain of making a change.

People are mysterious creatures and I find that we are all motivated more by pain than by pleasure.

The average person will go to great lengths to avoid pain but will do very little to achieve joy or pleasure.

There are two decision making centers in the body:

1)   The head (The brain)

2)   The body (made up of the gut and the heart)

All thoughts pass through the head, but all actions are made through the body.

There are 4 phases of change and only in phase 4 do we achieve freedom.

Phase 1)

In phase 1, we have an “old idea” in our head, and our body (who controls the actions) performs the “old actions”.

An example of this would be a person who says: “I’m a smoker” and as a result; he or she smokes regularly.

Phase 2)

In phase 2, we get a “new idea” in our head, but our “old idea” co-exists with the "new idea". The body, who controls our actions, still acts on the “old idea”.

An example of this would be a person who says “I’m a smoker, but I’d like to quit” and as a result; they smoke regularly and show no actions that indicate quitting.

Phase 3)

We get a “new idea” in our head, and our “old idea” co-exist. The body who controls the actions acts on both the “new idea and the “old idea”.

An example of this person who says “I’m a smoker, I’d like to quit” and as a result; this person will smoke sometimes and quit sometimes.

Phase 4 is where freedom and change happen. However, few people achieve phase 4 of change because they are held back by the Terror-barrier.

The terror-barrier is a fancy way of saying “irrational fear” and the cure for fear is a disciplined, rational approach or "the luxury of no options".

However, I know first hand how hard it is to break through the barrier and in my own life, I have most often penetrated the Terror-barrier against my will.

The Terror-barrier is so strong for most people that they will never change unless they experience a divorce, job loss, large financial loss, bankruptcy, cancer, death or deadly illness.

These catastrophic life experiences push you through the terror barrier because most often “the worst” has already happened.

Once we have experienced "the worst", we become free of fear. We suddenly play the game with nothing to lose.

Usually people in these very uncomfortable situations have “the luxury of no options” and become very successful after failing. 

Phase 4)

In Phase 4, we achieve freedom. We have a “New idea” in our head and the body, who controls our actions, acts on the “new idea” only.

An example of this would be a person who says “I’m quitting smoking” and as a result, they quit.

Change is never easy, but it’s a necessary process in life. 

Einstein used to say “change is the only constant in the universe”. 

Learning how to adapt and change ourselves according to the fluctuating conditions of life is the new primary skill set in this modern world. 

This skill set is especially valuable in the new economy that we live in today.

In the past, a man or woman could count on having a career from college to retirement. Today, young people change career paths every 4 years or less.

The future does not belong to the fastest, strongest, best looking or smartest. It belongs to those who can change the fastest and re-adapt to surroundings as external change occurs.

In the information age, we experience accelerated change at an unprecedented rate and learning to change will be #1 skill set in the very near future.

Thanks for reading,
Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca

P.S. Please share this article if you found it helpful