By: Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
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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
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By: Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
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In Stocks, Insider Trading is illegal. In Real Estate, Insider Trading is essential.

In any market, there are insiders and there are outsiders. When corporate executives on Wall Street buy or sell stocks in their own companies with “insider knowledge”, they go to jail. When a real estate investor gets first chance to purchase a property privately without public knowledge, he gets rich.

Markets like Wall Street are set up like Casinos and TV stations like BNN are funded by Stockbrokers to create excitement and encourage trading. The brokers get paid when trades happen, so they want their audience on BNN to get emotional and make trades. BNN will run stories that pump the emotions of the audience just to make money, the information is not provided to make actual sound decisions.

When emotions go up, intelligence goes down and the house always wins… and you are not the house.

In my opinion, the Stock market is not designed for you to win. It’s a game played by insiders and institutional investors who control their own information. For the average retail investor, there is very little control in stocks, unless you are an insider.

I prefer to control my investments, control the management and control the outcome of my returns. I also prefer to make purchases as an insider with access to the necessary information to make profitable decisions.

Information is king in the market and he who controls the information, controls the market.

In Real Estate you can become an insider by:

1)   Having a large network of other investors

2)   Having a large network of lawyers

3)   Posting private advertisements for deals

4)   Offering referral programs

5)   Having a large network of Realtors

6)   Public speaking in front of groups of investors

7)   Creating content, blogs and videos for consumption

8)   Having a network of property managers

9)   Having a network of private lenders

10)                   Becoming the biggest, most visible person in the market

The truth is, becoming an insider is quite simple in Real Estate. The best deals always come to those who are 1) The most visible 2) Most connected and 3) The ones who control the information in the market.

When a real estate deal hits the local market with a Realtor, the deal has already been cherry picked by at least 8 sets of eyes. The fewer sets of eyeballs that see the deal before hitting the market, the higher the chances are to profit.

In high school it’s easier to date the girl who is the bookworm than it is to date the prom queen.  The prom queen has so many more sets of eyeballs on her so her value is way over-inflated and there is a line up of guys dying to get a chance with her. Avoid the prom queen at all costs and go for the bookworm. With some lipstick and high-heels she can easily be the prom queen, but with a much lower cost.

This analogy applies directly to Real Estate. By the time a house hits the retail market, multiple Realtors have looked at it, at least one broker, a few secretaries, assistants, everyone in the immediate circle from the seller, all of the realtor’s best clients, all of the broker’s best clients, contractors and then other buyers who get to it first.

By the time the property gets to you, everyone has explored any easy chances for profit and you and you are usually too late to the party. Plus, you now have to pay the price that the seller wanted plus the commissions of 2 realtors and 2 brokers. Negotiating becomes muddled because the realtors always have their own interests above their clients and sometimes the brokers can complicate negotiations as well.

When all of these “professionals” get involved, prices begin to rise and favorable terms disappear. All options for good terms or no money down deals go out the window because the Realtors will kill any chances of a “creative deal”. They want to get paid their commissions immediately and do not care about the price or terms of the deal: They just want the transaction to happen regardless of outcome.

However, when you become an insider, or partner with an insider, you get first access to deals before anyone else gets a chance to look.

The best deals I have done have come from:

1)   Other investors who could not close on private deals

2)   Private ads I have placed

3)   My networks and relationships

Being active in the market, participating in local investor groups, having an online presence, private advertising and public speaking have created an insider position for myself in my market. Being visible and sending a clear message that I am “always looking for deals” has attracted excellent opportunities that are well under market value, under appraised value, 100% vendor financed, or no money down. The average person believes that these deals do not exist or are not possible in their local market. The truth is, these deals are available everywhere, but you need to become an insider or partner with an insider to take advantage of them.

The best deals are made and are not advertised on the market because they never ever make it to market. This rule applies to any market: the best girls to date are not advertised on e-harmony, match.com or at the local bar. To find real value in life and in the market, we must become the insider, become well connected, become visible and control the information around us.

The best deals are reserved for insiders, everyone else can pay full price.

Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
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By: Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
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“Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” 
― George Bernard Shaw

So many people spend their lives trying to "find" themselves. The sad thing is, often, there is nothing to find.

In my own life, I spent much of my late teens and early twenties trying to "find" my identity. I worked at different jobs, I dressed differently, tried different hair-styles, played in different music groups, and struggled to answer the question "what do I want to do with my life"?

Sometimes I felt like I was chasing the wind. After many years of chasing, I learned that there was nothing to chase in the first place.

Everyone at some point gets to experiment with identity. We try different things, we experiment, we find things that work and things that don't. Some of the most successful people in history have shifted their identities and morphed as the world changes with them.

Some people I admire for re-inventing themselves are: Madonna (who is still relevant after 25+ years in pop music which is like 1000 years in real life), Steve Jobs (a man who re-invented himself and his company, Apple, many times) and Johnny Cash (who went from mainstream into obscurity and back into the public's eye).

These people have all gone through the highs and lows of identity by becoming relevant, obscure and then relevant again. They all created identities that were true to themselves and re-created them when necessary.

We are all human "be-ings" and not human "do-ings".

I always find it interesting that people ask on a daily basis "what do you DO for a living?" what do you "DO" with your time? What do you want to "DO" with your life?

Doing implies actions, which is important for success, but I think that being is much more important because we are human BE-ings.

If we know who we want to "BE", then we can quickly find out what we want to "DO".

For myself, I have stopped asking myself the question of "what do I want to do"? and have switched to the question of "who do I want to be?"

Since changing this one question, my success rate has sky rocketed.

I keep a list of 25 people that I admire and want to "be". Of course, I don't want to directly copy these people in every aspect, but what I will do is copy the things that I like about them. These 25 people that I want to be are "targets" for myself that I can attempt to emulate.

What I find most exciting about the list of 25 people that I want to "be", is when I write the things that I like most about them, I can find the common traits that I admire most.

For example, some of the people on my list are:

BRAD LAMB - Expert retailer, sales genius, branding genius
DONALD TRUMP - Branding genius, luxury developer, luxury brand, luxury retailer, maverick, media genius.
RICHARD BRANSON - Conceptual thinker, Venture capitalist, extremely prolific, branding genius, media genius, knows how to get press, risk taker, maverick
STEVE JOBS - Artist, Icon, Rebel, challenged the status quo, came from nothing, has ultimate career comeback, more relevant after death, maser retailer.
JOHNNY CASH - Artist, Icon, Rebel, challenged the status quo, came from nothing, ultimate career comeback, more relevant after death.

My list of people I want to be includes: Real estate entrepreneurs, retailers, developers, inventors, musicians, artists, military generals, chefs, movie and fictional characters.

What is more important than the specific people on the list, are the traits that I associate with each one.

For example, most of the people on my list are: Artists, Iconic, rebellious, mavericks, prolific, branding geniuses, luxury, media stars and retailers.

If most of the people on my list have those traits, and I want to "be" them, then those are the traits that I must focus on and strive for in my own life and business.

After finding 25 people for your list and taking an inventory of the traits that you admire in each person, you can quickly find out what kind of identity you must create for yourself.

What I find interesting about the "list" is that there are many successful people that I can think of that didn't make the cut. These are people I study and admire, but they are not people that I would want to "be". 

For example: Robert Kiyosaki is someone I admire and have studied in great detail, but I do not wish to be Kiyosaki. He is a great teacher, but I don't want to be a teacher.

The more specific and detailed you become with this list, the more you will find your identity.

We can see ourselves only when we see our reflection in the mirror. The list of 25 people is our way of creating a mirror to see into ourselves. This mirror allows us to see what we are on the inside.

Once we can see who we want to become, we can begin the process of reverse engineering our identity so that we can become the person we were destined to be.

Thanks for reading,
Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
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By: Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
facebook.com/stefanaarnio
https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
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It’s the unconquerable soul of man, not the nature of the weapon he uses, that insures victory.” – General George Patton.

Why are some people absolutely unstoppable while others quit at the first sign of difficulty?

Why do some people manage to make it to the gym every morning while others only show up on January 1st and quit by January 7th?

Why do some marriages fall apart after 5, 10, 15 or the 20 year mark while some last "until death"?

Why do immigrants who come to a new country with nothing manage to get rich while others born with every advantage slip into poverty?

The people who manage to push through adversity all have one thing in common: They have a strong "Why".

A wise man once said "Some men have 1000's of reasons to fail, but they only need 1 reason to succeed".

Simon Sinek, a brilliant speaker, educator and researcher discovered the concept of "The golden circle".

Simon wanted to know what the difference was between the average person and the exceptional person. 

What Simon discovered was that behind every person, organization or business there is a WHY, a HOW and a WHAT.

The average person, business or organization focuses on the WHAT first, the HOW second and may never address the WHY. These people work from the "outside-in" and focus externally.

The exceptional person, business or organization focuses on the WHY first, the HOW second and the WHAT last. These people work from the "inside-out" and focus internally first.

The results between the average and the exceptional are both shocking and yield completely different results.

Consider two computer companies: Apple and Dell.

On one hand, communication from Dell operates from the outside-in:

1)    WHAT We make great computers,

2)    HOW they are beautifully designed and easy to use, "want to buy one"?

3)    WHY - ????

Communication from Apple on the other hand is from the "inside-out":

1)    WHY - With everything we do, we believe in challenging the status quo,

2)    HOW - the way we challenge the status quo is that our computers are beautifully designed and easy to use,

3)    WHAT - we make great computers, want to buy one?

To compare the results of Apple to Dell in the last 5 years: Apple has become the most respected brand in the world many years in a row and the most valuable company in history, while Dell has fallen off the radar.

The golden circle can easily be applied to fitness as well.

The average person approaches the gym on January 1st every year with the following mentality:

1)    WHAT – I want to get fit this year and lose some weight

2)    HOW – I am going to buy a gym pass

3)    WHY – This is my new year’s resolution

This person is usually delinquent on gym attendance by the time February rolls around because a new year’s resolution is not a strong enough reason to ensure success.

The exceptional person approaches the gym with the following mentality:

1)    WHY – I must go the gym consistently to create and maintain the body I desire. This is integral to my self-image, self-esteem and personal success.

2)    HOW – I will go the gym every day

3)    WHAT – I will have a fit and healthy body that reflects my self-image, self esteem and personal success.

If I were a betting man, I would bet on the “exceptional” person every time for success because the “why” is much stronger and I know that the mission will be accomplished. 

When you compare the emotional strength of a “new years resolutions” vs. “my personal self esteem”, self-esteem will win every time because it is a much stronger emotion than an arbitrary goal set at a new year’s party.

When the golden circle is applied to marriage, it is very easy to see which married couples will “make it” and which ones won’t.

Divorce rates are at an all time high right now because many people set up their marriages with the following mission:

1)    WHY – We’re getting older, balder and fatter; we both want to raise some kids before it’s too late.

2)    HOW – We will get married because marriage is required to have kids.

3)    WHAT – Kids, aren’t they wonderful?

This relationship will last at a maximum 16-20 years because these people got married on the premise of raising kids. As soon as the kids are old enough to leave home, the marriage usually falls because the marriage was not built on the premise of a primary relationship; these two people are not committing to each other - they are committing to the kids.

A stronger marriage that would last “until death” would be:

1)    WHY – We are in this relationship to help the other person become the best he or she can be. My partner spiritually compliments me and I spiritually compliment him or her.

2)    HOW – We will spiritually commit to each other, make it official and get married

3)    WHAT – A spiritual union between two committed people through marriage - Children may happen.

The reason to succeed needs to be greater than the reason to fail; if the WHY is strong enough, then success is ensured.

Unfortunately, finding the “why” in our businesses, personal lives and relationships is not an easy task.

What can be even more cumbersome is the fact that many of us may be in our businesses or personal endeavors for the wrong reasons.

If you are in a business or relationship for the wrong reason, correct the mistake, establish a new “why” and watch your success reach new heights. 

Remember: a man can have thousands of reasons to fail, but he only needs one reason to succeed.

Thanks for reading,
Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
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By: Stefan Aarnio

Freedomway.ca
facebook.com/stefanaarnio
https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
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“We have this notion in America of the Lone Ranger/Batman type - you know - someone who takes on the world alone. But in reality, all successful people need help. We need advisors, coaches, lenders, customers, and clients. True we ourselves have to do the work, but our "team" that we put together - makes it all worth-while. The sooner we realize this, the sooner we can reach our goals.” – Robert Shemin

Although many entrepreneurs enter the field of business alone, achieving success in just about any field is impossible without a team.

This is especially true in business where “lone rangers” get squashed on a daily basis by teams of professionals.

1)   The local “mom and pop burger shop” gets wiped out by McDonalds,

2)   The local “mom and pop hardware store” gets crushed by Home Depot

3)   The local “mom and pop” department store gets destroyed by Wal-Mart.

These small “lone ranger” businesses may provide better services than Walmart; They may provide better burgers than McDonalds and they may offer more expertise than Home Depot. However, they cannot compete with teams of professionals that make up the talent at Wal-Mart, Home Depot or McDonalds.

One thing that separates “mom and pop” from the Walmarts, Home Depots and McDonalds is that “Mom and Pop” have to sleep: Walmart, Home Depot and Mcdonalds don’t.

Kevin O’Leary, Canadian Investment Guru, once said that he prefers investments that make money while he sleeps.

Investors make decent returns when their money grows during business hours... However, the same investors get rich when their money keeps working for them after they have gone to sleep.



In real estate investing, many investors don’t consider themselves to be entrepreneurs. Most investors manage their own properties, hammer their own nails, paint their own walls, lease their own suites and pick their own deals.

Most real estate investors do not get ahead because they are too busy pinching pennies at the $10 an hour level to make serious dollars at the CEO level.

In order to break out of the $10/hour mentality, it’s up to the entrepreneur to break the link between time and money.

Most of us are taught from an early age that:

Time = Money

In reality, time does not equal money:

·      Sales = money

·      Assets = money

·      Brand = money

·      Press = money

·      Information = money

When time equals money, we are stuck in an advanced form of slavery. We must trade hours for dollars. The problem with this model is that we only have a limited amount of hours and cannot make money while we sleep.

Sandman Empire: (noun) An empire of business or real estate created passively through a joint venture or partnership between a passive money partner and an active working partner. The active working partner handles all aspects of the business and the money partner is only responsible for financial backing. The passive partner is removed from all operations and can essentially sleep; hence the word “sandman”.

Investors who can create a “Sandman Empire” can earn serious returns in a completely passive way and have unlimited earning potential: Investors who fail to create a “Sandman Empire” are limited by time, focus, management, skill sets and capabilities.

But how can one create a “Sandman Empire”?

In investing, there are two types of investors: Active Investors and Passive Investors.

Active Investors are essentially entrepreneurs. They pick their own deals, manage their operations, manage their contractors and run the enterprise. Naturally, these entrepreneurs get the highest returns possible and in many ways, they take a risk on themselves to perform and run the enterprise profitably. Active investors may or may not invest money into their enterprise. Since they invest their entire lives into the business, usually they do not have money invested.

Passive Investors are more like silent partners who park their money with an Active Investor. Silent partners trust the Entrepreneur to run the enterprise profitably. Silent Partners need to be proficient at analyzing people and deals. These Passive Investors are the ones who get the benefits of building a “Sandman Empire” if they can select the right Entrepreneur to grow their money.

Usually passive investments have lower returns than active investments. However, Passive investors can get much higher returns by partnering with an Active Investor and splitting the profits.

If a Passive Investor can find the right Active partner, the possibilities are endless. When financial backing is paired with time and talent, tremendous value and profits can be created.

However, if the Active partner is not chosen correctly, massive financial destruction can occur; including losing the investor’s capital or worse.

A Passive Investor must perform proper due diligence on their Active Partner before “taking a leap of faith” and making a final decision to place their money with him or her.

Some questions that need be answered in the due diligence period are:

1)   Does the Active Investor have experience with these types of assets?

2)   Does the AI have experience with this strategy?

3)   How do we recover if things don’t go according to plan?

4)   Has the AI lost money before? How did he or she handle the loss?

5)   What is the track record of the AI, does it show success? Is he or she hiding anything?

6)   Has the AI built an adequate team? Can the team handle the additional business that the Passive Investor is funding?

7)   How has the AI handled himself when things went wrong? Can he turn bad luck into good luck?

8)   What transparency is offered?

9)   What options does the Passive Investor have to exit if things don’t go right?

10)                 Does the AI have good relationships? Is he loyal and in what way?

11)                 What is the brand of the AI? What does he stand for?

12)                 Is the AI 100% focused and committed to the venture or does he or she have a day job? Do you want a “weekend warrior” managing your money?

13)                 What is the X-factor for this AI? What makes him the over-the-top best choice for your dollars? Are you investing in someone who takes care of the details and provides an excellent product and experience? Or just another “real estate guy”?

If an Active Investor can provide satisfactory answers to all of these questions, then he or she is a prime candidate to build a “Sandman Empire”.

Of course you will have to trust and verify all of the answers to make sure that the “walk” matches the “talk”. When it comes to money, people will say whatever they have to get your dollars. Don’t be a victim of bad due diligence, put your potential partner through extensive scrutiny, ask the hard questions and make sure that you have a competent, trustworthy partner to build your empire while you sleep.

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

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
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By: Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
facebook.com/stefanaarnio
https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
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“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
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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
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In North America, the middle class is quickly becoming an endangered species.

In many ways, opportunity for middle income jobs is disappearing quickly as the jobs migrate overseas to India, China, Brazil and other up and coming economies.

In both Canada and the USA, we are quickly becoming a third world country.

The best definition can find for a third world country is: A country where there is no middle class – only rich and poor.

There are many factors that threaten and endanger the middle class, some of which are:

1)   Unions and inflated labor prices in North America that keep the USA and Canada from competing on the world market

2)   North American consumer demand for the lowest possible prices of consumer goods aka: Wal-mart. North American consumers will not pay premiums for locally produced goods.

3)   The death of American manufacturing

4)   The Federal Reserve, Quantitative easing and inflated money supply

5)   Rising oil, food and real estate prices as a result of Quantitative easing.

6)   Rising minimum wage while middle income earners have stagnant earnings

7)   Technology that eliminates certain jobs every year, ie: Clerical jobs replaced by automation.

8)   Rising taxes and fiscally irresponsible governments

All of the above factors are a threat to the shrinking middle class and as the world becomes more global, many more middle-income jobs will disappear.

Why hire an assistant in Winnipeg for $12-$15 per hour when you can hire a virtual assistant who speaks perfect English with better education in the Philippines for $1.50-$4 per hour?

An MBA graduate in the USA costs a company $300,000 a year while the same MBA graduate from India costs $30,000 a year.

The world is changing rapidly and, for many, it is time to make a decision between joining the ranks of the rich or poor.

Eventually, there will be no middle ground in the North American economy. If a person wants to keep living a middle class lifestyle, he or she may have to move to Brazil.

If given the choice between living rich or poor, everyone always says they would choose to be rich. However, when you survey the actions of the average person, it is quickly evident that most people choose  a life of poverty over a life of wealth.

The top 5 reasons why “Poverty Sucks” and why you need to be Rich in the next 10 years.

1)   You don’t get what you want in life: People who choose a poverty mindset over a wealth mindset ask themselves “what is the cheapest thing I can afford?” For these people, life is controlled and dictated by prices – not value. When you go to a restaurant for dinner, do you order the cheapest thing on the menu? Or do you order what you actually want to eat?

2)   Lack of Freedom: When you have a poverty mindset, other people make critical decisions for you. Most people are 100% controlled by their government and their employer. If you want the freedom to make your own decisions, it may be time to build a wealth mindset. Every great experience in life has a price of admission, if you want the experience, you have to pay for it. America’s jails are filled with people who have absolutely no freedom. Most American prisoners made less than $10,000 per year before entering the prison system. When you are impoverished, you are stuck in survival mode and cannot get into “creation mode” where you can freely create wealth and the life you want.

3)   Lack of confidence and health: Lack of funds creates stress. Everything in life is difficult if you cannot pay the price of admission. Stress is a major threat to health and wealth. Lack of funds also creates a lack of confidence, which can be a vicious cycle. No funds equals no confidence and no confidence equals no funds. If you are in this cycle, break it immediately.

4)   Broken Homes: The #1 cause of broken homes and divorce is financial stress. Financial infidelity aka: hiding bank accounts, secret spending and secret credit cards ruins trust and relationships. Divorced families are much more likely to be faced with poverty and financial problems.

5)   Debt: Nearly 50% of the families in the USA are 1 paycheque away from bankruptcy. We live in a paycheque to paycheque society where overspending and money mis-management makes debt a necessity for survival. Today with credit cards, it’s easier than ever to get into debt. Although debt is a convenient way to take care of immediate problems, it is a double-edged sword. Debt will let you do the things you want today while robbing you of the things you want in the future.

All of the above reasons can create cycles of poverty that are very difficult to break.

Unfortunately, in the future, there will only be rich and poor in North America unless some major changes are made. I have heard many experts say that next 10 years will be the biggest wealth transfer in history and best time in history to become very rich... or very poor.

The USA is in a recession that may turn into a depression and this means that businesses, real estate and other assets will be on sale. There will be more opportunity than ever to become wealthy.

The best part of living in a free country like the USA or Canada is that each of us has the ability to choose between becoming Rich or Poor.

Thanks for reading,

Stefan Aarnio

Freedomway.ca
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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
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In the early 1900’s, an author by the name of Napoleon Hill was commissioned by Andrew Carnegie (The steel magnate) to interview the top 500 richest people in the world and create the common formula for great riches. After many years of hard work, Napoleon Hill published his masterpiece “Think and Grow Rich”. The book contained the formula for great riches and Napoleon Hill became very wealthy himself by teaching people around the globe the secret to creating great wealth.

Throughout history, many people have searched far and wide for the formula for riches. Some people would call it the Philosopher’s stone (the stone that could turn lead to gold) or the fountain of youth.

The truth is, Napoleon Hill’s formula for great riches is all of the above. It can turn lead (or even thin air) into gold and can also preserve youth and beauty if used correctly.

Man has scoured the earth for these arcane abilities and yet, everything a person needs to know about success is in the book “Think and Grow Rich”.

Relatively recently, a Canadian entrepreneur and author by the name of Doug Vermeeren studied the formula for wealth and decided to do a modern study of Napoleon Hill’s work.

Doug interviewed the top 500 achievers in the world including CEO’s of major corporations, sports stars, actors, athletes and many types of people that were excluded from Napoleon Hill’s list (which were mostly industrialists, inventors and entreprneurs).

Throughout Doug’s study, he has been able to add extra insight to Napoleon Hill’s work and in some circles Doug Vermeeren has been given the title of “the modern day Napoleon Hill”.

I recently had the privilege of spending a day with Doug Vermeeren and I was fortunate to have him pass on some knowledge to me.


One concept that Doug shared was “the 3 pillars for achievement”.

Throughout Doug’s studies, he found that there are 3 things that top achievers all have:

THE 3 PILLARS FOR TOP ACHIEVEMENT:

1)   Affectionate Loving Parents

2)   A supportive partner

3)   A deep religious faith

The common denominator between affectionate loving parents, a supportive partner and a deep religious faith is that every one of the “pillars” supports achiever in the mental, physical, emotional and spiritual realms.



In other words, the top achiever is not succeeding alone, but has extra support in all aspects of life. This person has the power of many, but is perceived as succeeding alone.

To paraphrase T Harv Ecker, money is created in the physical realm because it is a “print out” of the mental, emotional and spiritual realms.

Wealth and riches are created inside of us in intangible realms and the results are manifested through physical success. We see the results of the wealth physically, but do not see the mental, physical, emotional changes, shifts and support systems that manifest physical wealth, money and success.

When we examine the three pillars for top achievement, we can easily see why top achievers have a higher probability of success if they possess all three pillars.

AFFECTIONATE LOVING PARENTS: Affectionate loving parents are very important for top achievers because parents form the base of a child’s self esteem. Self-esteem is crucial to becoming a top achiever because it allows a person to take a risk. I call self-esteem “emotional capital” and people with high self-esteem are able to take risks and withdraw from their “emotional bank account”. People with abusive parents or absent parents may have depleted emotional bank accounts and will have a much harder time taking risks. Unconditional love from a parent is very important when taking risks because the risk taker will know that no matter how bad they fail, their parents will always be there to support them emotionally, physically, mentally and spiritually.

A SUPPORTIVE PARTNER: When Warren Buffett was asked to give advice to a graduating class of Ivey League students he bluntly offered one pearl of wisdom: “Marry the right person”. When a top achiever is going to “put it all on the line” and chase their dream, they require their partner/spouse to do one of two things:

a)   Actively pursue the dream with them OR

b)   Passively support their partner emotionally, physically, mentally and most importantly, spiritually

Top achievers will go through hell and back to become the best in their field. There is an unwritten law in the world that states, “When you push on the world, it pushes back” and oftentimes, people who pursue excellence in their field are met with great adversity at every turn. Whether it is jealous peers, rivals or other unsavory people, the road to the top is not easy. Emotional and spiritual support from a primary relationship is absolutely essential for success to take place. Without this key support, a person will easily be crushed when faced with enough pressure and adversity. A supportive spouse will make a top achiever twice as strong and twice as resilient when “the world pushes back”. If you are single, make sure you heed Buffett’s advice and marry the right person.

A DEEP RELIGIOUS FAITH: Faith is a key ingredient to great success and achievement. I have shifted my spiritual belief system many times in my life but have always retained one key factor called “faith”. Faith is an extremely important part of success because faith allows a person to make leaps in logic.

For example, if we want to be the best salesperson in the country, but have only made a handful of sales, logic would tell us that our outcome of becoming the best to be very unlikely. If we listen to logic, we will always give up without trying.

However, if we feel it in our heart, guts, mind, body, and soul that we believe that we will become the best salesperson in the country, then faith will allow us to leap over the logical argument and pursue our vision with burning determination.

Faith is one of the most powerful techniques that top achievers use because it can help us to achieve things that are unbelievable, improbable and super-human. Faith allows us to harness the greater invisible spiritual forces around us that some would call “the power of intention”, “infinite intelligence”, “the universe” or “god” and use these forces to achieve our wildest dreams against all odds.

WARNING: Although faith can be extremely powerful in the positive sense, faith itself is a double-edged sword. Faith allows the user to leap in logic, which can be used in a positive way to achieve greater goals with no prior experience. However, faith can also leap logic in the wrong direction and create a closed off mind that can completely cripple a thinking mind. Use faith wisely and consider the cause and effect of such a wildly powerful tool. As the label often reads on potent substances: read the manual, consult a professional and use with extreme caution.

Although we often see success in it’s physical manifestation, true success is first created in the non-physical realms of the spiritual, mental and emotional. Only once “inner” success has been found can “outer” physical success be manifested through wealth and riches.

Having a strong support system in the intangible realms through loving parents, a supportive spouse and a strong religious faith are the foundation of the structure that is required to reach the stars and become a top achiever.

Take a moment to take an inventory of your life and your support system. Ask yourself “Which parts of this system do I have today?” and “which parts are lacking?” find ways to strengthen your deficiencies and create stronger relationships.

In the end, no one succeeds alone and great relationships can make the difference between wild success and crushing defeat.

Like grass, relationships require watering and maintenance. Take care of your relationships, water them, fertilize them, manicure them and watch them grow. Consistently be mindful of your support network, treat your support network better than gold and your results will be startling.

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
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Retirement for many North Americans is a dream that many people wish to have. The first wave of baby boomers is starting to retire in the next few years, however, many of them are not prepared to stop working.

The definition of retirement is “to take out of useful service” and what happens to so many hard working people is that they die shortly after being “taken out of useful service”.

Working at a job is a a social pursuit that can add purpose and meaning to a person’s life and so many people highly value the social aspect of working.

If a person decides to retire and loses the social environment that they have been in for the last 10, 20 or 30 years, they can suffer a serious blow to their happiness and life can become very difficult.

If you look at human history, there are virtually no examples of societies that have a “retirement” with golf courses, meal plans and retirement homes.

Life spans have been short throughout history and people generally worked until they died. In some cultures, the elderly would live with their children and help out around the home, but they still did a considerable amount of domestic chores and kept “working” without retirement.

Many baby boomers have the vision of retiring on a golf course like their parents did and sadly, I don’t think this will be a reality for most of them. My opinion of the “golf course” retirement is that it has been an anomaly that only one generation in human history has been able to enjoy.

Unfortunately, the “golf course” retirement has been artificially created by the WWII generation before the baby boomers.

The WWII generation financed their “retirement” on debt and fiat currency. Like most debts, they have been able to pass the bag onto their children (the boomers).

Historically speaking, the “golf course” retirement was created early in the industrial age and it was mathematically engineered by highly skill actuaries. They calculated that for every year a person worked after age 55, the worker’s lifespan decreased by a proportionate amount of years.

“67” is the magic year because it the shortest amount of retirement that the company would have to pay. Age 67 is the year that the average worker would statistically die after working until age 65.

What this means was that many retirement plans were designed around a worker working from age 18 to 65 with a 2-year retirement followed by a quick death at 67.

“Retirement” plans were never designed to support people and their families into their 80’s, 90’s and 100’s. These retirements span 20, 30, 40 or even 50 years and they were fundamentally designed to support 2 years.

Most companies with defined benefit plans were betting on their employees dying 2 years after 65. Statistically today in North America, both men and women live to be nearly 80 years of age and the number is climbing as healthcare improves.

I saw a statistic the other day that said that between Obamacare, social security and medicare, the United States has 80 Trillion dollars of unfunded liabilities. The amazing thing is, 80 Trillion dollars is more money than the entire world’s money supply.

No one can pay this liability, not even the USA with it’s unprecedented money printing abilities.

The USA could print their way out of the problem, but would completely devalue their currency into oblivion in the process.

Many of the pension funds, retirement funds and mutual funds that the Boomers are relying on for retirement are all invested in the paper assets that are extremely vulnerable to market fluctuations.

Furthermore, these assets are all timed to liquidate at the same time. The baby boomers are the largest demographic in North America and in other parts of the world as well. These people will be selling their large family homes at the same time (in specific suburban sub-markets), liquidating their stock portfolios and will begin systematically withdrawing from the markets in 2016.

What happens when everyone reaches his hand into the cookie jar? Although there should be, there are not enough cookies in the jar for everyone and some of us won’t get a cookie. The stock market works like this and when everyone wants to sell, values deflate and many people will not get their full (inflated) value on their assets.

When the baby boomer garage-sale begins, who will be in line to absorb these large suburban family homes, stock portfolios and other assets?

My prediction is that the younger generations, namely the echo boomers, will not have the purchasing power to absorb their parents’ assets. There has been a large shift in the middle class and the entire middle class workforce has migrated from North America to Asia.

As well, the purchasing power of the echo boomers has been damaged by long term no-value university programs and many do not enter the work force until mid twenties or later.



Furthermore, many echo boomers are loaded down with student debt racking up into the hundreds of thousands.

It is common for students nowadays to leave school with a houseless “mortgage of student debt”.

What is most unfortunate is that these students cannot go bankrupt to get out of their debt obligation.

I don’t have a crystal ball to predict how these demographics, fundamentals and laws will pan out, but there will be chaos and chaos brings opportunity.


If you are a savvy investor, you will be able to find some serious bargains on assets in both Canada and the USA.

However, if you are on the other side of the equation and expecting to retire in the next few years, you may need a back up plan to hedge against your current investment portfolio.

I don’t want to preach doom and gloom; I prefer to be optimistic about the future. However, we are set up for a perfect storm in the next few years and I truly believe that we will see a major transfer of wealth.

It’s up to you to get educated on the things I have written about in this article and do your best to prepare for the perfect storm… Otherwise, it may be better to die at 67.

Thanks for reading,

Stefan Aarnio

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

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