Tuesday, February 28, 2006

Why Cashflow Is King!

Why Cashflow Is King!

Hi! As I write this, the water supply in my town of Seremban, Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia, is disrupted. Sigh!

My office hasn't had running water all day and my home is experiencing low pressure in the mains.

Apparently, there's some work being done on the pipes at a nearby reservoir, so I believe we should get back our normal water supply within a few hours. Until that happens, we'll need to rely primarily on water stored in the reserve tank.

This situation has got me thinking about the tremendous freedom people experience when they have strong sources of income pumping cashflow into their lives, and of the extreme terror they experience when they go through a phase of having little or no cashflow.

There are essentially two primary categories of cashflow - active and passive.

The terms are self-explanatory, but for the sake of completeness let me just elaborate a little:
  • Active cashflow comes from the sweat of our brow - from our salary for a job or profits from a business we run directly.
  • Passive income, which is by far my favourite - flows from our savings and investment portfolios, rental properties and businesses we don't need to get involved in regularly.

So, which type of income contributes mainly to your current economic wellbeing? Which type would you like to come to the fore in the next five or ten years?

It may be depressing, but it is vital that each of us bites the bullet and asks this painful question: "What's the situation in my life right now?"

In case you want it, here is a follow-on question you can then ask yourself...

"Am I in the happy position of being able to say that if one particular source of money dries up, I'll have a few others that will tide me over as I look for ways to unclog the problematic channel or even to lay a fresh pipeline from some other source?"

What's tragic is that the average person simply isn't prepared for the possible drying up of his or her primary source of cashflow. While I was thinking about this, I did a bit of surfing and came across an awesome blog entitled 'In Cash Flow We Trust'. It's written by Steve Mertz of Denver, Colorado, USA, who used to be an investment advisor. He now speaks on money across the US. I think you'll enjoy Steve's blog. Here's how to get there:

http://incashflowwetrust.blogspot.com/

Just in case you plan on returning here to The Cool Time and Money Blog, you might want to try the old faithful keyboard combination of Control + D to bookmark this page. If you do that, I suggest you also organise this bookmark under some appropriate heading like 'Rajen's blog' or 'Useful blog' or 'Blog to free articles'... whatever makes sense to you.

OK, if you are serious about wanting to make a start on expanding your cashflow resources, you're welcome to read this free article entitled Create Many Income Streams For Yourself. And if you're super-serious about putting together a goal-setting programme that will help you move toward that hoped for destination of achieving true financial freedom, then the lessons taught in my goal-setting ebook UNLEASHED might be helpful to you.

Have fun reading. I wish you all the best in your push toward true financial freedom.

Warmest regards,


Rajen


Rajen Devadason is CEO of RD Book Projects and its sister company RD WealthCreation Sdn Bhd. He lives in sunny, peaceful Malaysia with his gorgeous wife Rachel. He's a Malaysian Securities Commission-licensed financial planner, a life planning consultant, a professional speaker and a serial author... which probably explains why he's so exhausted! Some of his books are available here.
Enjoy This Free Time Management Course

Enjoy This Free Time Management Course

Welcome back to The Cool Time and Money Blog.

Have you ever wished you could squeeze 36 or even 48 hours into a single day, just so that you could 'get it ALL done'? If your answer is yes, then we're in the same boat!

Unfortunately, just like you, I've found I can't add even a single nano second to any one of my packed, busy days!

What I have found, however, is that if I take the 'time' and force myself to focus on just a few core time management skills, that process eventually allows me to get more of the truly important things in my life done.

I'll be honest with you, I'm still not as effective as I would like to be. But I am better than I used to be... so that's something, I guess! You see, now at least, those things that fall by the wayside are the less important items on my ever overflowing To-Do List, and not the less urgent but more important projects that have the potential to improve things dramatically by helping me reach my major life goals.

So, if you're interested, a few of the best lessons I've learnt about time management are found in my free 5-day eCourse entitled:

"How To Manage Your Time & Regain Your Life"

You're welcome to learn about this free time management course here.

But, while you're right here, I'd be interested to find out what your major time management challenges have been and what effective strategies you've learnt to employ in your personal bid to get vital things done in a timely, sensible fashion.

If you have the time(!), please share those challenges and strategies with those who pop by here intermittently to read this blog. I'll certainly look out for your comments as I know that there's a great deal I can learn from you. Bye for now.

Warmest regards,


Rajen


Rajen Devadason is CEO of RD Book Projects and its sister company RD WealthCreation Sdn Bhd. He lives in sunny, peaceful Malaysia with his gorgeous wife Rachel. He's a Malaysian Securities Commission-licensed financial planner, a life planning consultant, a professional speaker and a serial author... which probably explains why he's so exhausted! Some of his books are available here.

Monday, February 27, 2006

Recapturing Lost Dreams Through Goal-Setting

Recapturing Lost Dreams Through Goal-Setting

Hi!

If I had to pick a single life skill that I believe is the most important of all, I'd have to choose 'effective goal-setting'. With this skill, even people without a firm educational base can catapult themselves to the highest reaches of personal success.

But... without the ability to set effective goals, I've seen phenomenally smart, superbly qualified individuals spend huge chunks of their lives trapped in frustrating mediocrity.

What's strange is that it isn't all that hard to learn this vital life skill. I guess the real issue is how badly we yearn to achieve dreams we cherished as kids!

If that strikes a chord with you, then you might enjoy reading this article on recapturing lost dreams.

Ciao!

Warmest regards,

Rajen


Rajen Devadason is CEO of RD Book Projects and its sister company RD WealthCreation Sdn Bhd. He lives in sunny, peaceful Malaysia with his gorgeous wife Rachel. He's a Malaysian Securities Commission-licensed financial planner, a life planning consultant, a professional speaker and a serial author... which probably explains why he's so exhausted! Some of his books are available here.

Sunday, February 26, 2006

The 6 Steps of the Financial Planning Process

The 6 Steps of the Financial Planning Process





Hi, again!

I thought you might find it useful to consider the steps that should be taken whenever you deal with a professional financial planner. Of course, precise approaches vary with individuals, but the official '6 Steps of the Financial Planning Process' advocated by the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards is, in my opinion, a cornerstone of good practice.

So, if you decide that financial planning is something that you want to learn more about, even if only to make sure you stand a better chance of putting together a D-I-Y financial planning programme for yourself, then I'm pretty sure you'll find the official CFP website, www.cfp.net, a useful one to know about.

According to that Board of Standards, those 6 steps are:

  1. Establish the client-planner relationship
  2. Gather data
  3. Analyse the data
  4. Develop a plan or a few possible plans
  5. Implement the chosen plan
  6. Monitor the plan

Of course, if you decide to go down the do-it-yourself (D-I-Y) route, then all you'll need to do to fulfill step 1 is smile at the person in the mirror! It may take a long time to go through all 6 steps but making a start on them will increase the chances that over the long haul you and your family have a better life.

To help you make a tangibly useful start today, if you want to, here's something that you might find helpful:

If you'd like to learn a little bit about how to set up a reserve account, or what I refer to as an emergency buffer account, you're welcome to do so here.

Till next time...

Warmest regards,

Rajen


Rajen Devadason is CEO of RD Book Projects and its sister company RD WealthCreation Sdn Bhd. He lives in sunny, peaceful Malaysia with his gorgeous wife Rachel. He's a Malaysian Securities Commission-licensed financial planner, a life planning consultant, a professional speaker and a serial author... which probably explains why he's so exhausted! Some of his books are available here.
Welcome to The Cool Time and Money Blog

Welcome to The Cool Time and Money Blog

Hi! It's so nice of you to drop by The Cool Time and Money Blog.

My name's Rajen Devadason. I'm a licensed financial planner based in sunny, equatorial Malaysia.

I also own the life planning resource site, www.FreeCoolArticles.com, which contains free articles on three main subjects:

  1. Financial planning
  2. Goal-setting and
  3. Time Management

These articles tend to be read by people from around the world who need quick, easy tips on those subjects. You're welcome to drop by there anytime and read whatever articles strike your fancy. Chances are high, I reckon, that you'll find something of interest to you and, perhaps more importantly, information of value to your family's long-term wellbeing.

But, since you're right here right now, please stick around and check out my blog! Read some posts, click on links, bookmark it, and come back as often as you like... I'll be right here!

Oh..., I almost forgot! If you'd like to leave a comment or observation about anything you read here, or about financial planning, goal-setting and time management in general, please do so! This space exists just as much for you as it does for me.

As with all things in life, we'll reap what we sow! Stay well and bye for now.

Warmest regards,


Rajen

Rajen Devadason is CEO of RD Book Projects and its sister company RD WealthCreation Sdn Bhd. He lives in sunny, peaceful Malaysia with his gorgeous wife Rachel. He's a Malaysian Securities Commission-licensed financial planner, a life planning consultant, a professional speaker and a serial author... which probably explains why he's so exhausted! Some of his books are available here.