Starting out in life, everything’s just hanging by a thread.
You build confidence and experience, and you grow. You’re able to weave that thread into a much stronger, more reliable, rope.
Only the rope is a point of weakness. It’s easily cut, burned, or frayed. This happens to MANY younger people during recessions, lay-offs, losing your job, industry changes, etc.
When these things happen, you’d be forgiven for believing you need to build something much stronger.
Something that can support more weight, and take more pressure, like a chain.
Building a Stronger Chain
You start over again with one job, or one business. Work hard, build it up, and gain income.
Once the first business becomes sustainable, and no longer needs all of your attention, you start another business. This one’s closely related to the business. They’re connected. And so you begin to build your chain.
10 years down the line, you have a solid, strong chain, of connected income, feeding each other, getting stronger at the source, where it’s coupled.
But just like the rope, or the thread that came before it, the chain also has a weakness.
All it takes, is for just ONE link to break, and that chain falls to the ground, leaving you with nothing.
Now, building a chain is wise, its strong, you can lift more with it. A chain will provide better support. But, your weakness can be just as devastating as the thread from which your whole life hung from at the beginning.
Each link of the chain must be the same size, and once the chain is built, you can’t remove a link. All must function together, in unison.
Instead of focusing on building a chain, you must think of your life as a keyring.
Why Build a Keyring?
Keys are useful, versatile tools. They unlock doors. Some keys unlock more doors than others, bigger doors, with more rooms.
Other keys open lock boxes, safes, and places you keep valuable items.
Another key allows you to drive your vehicle, giving you freedom, the ability to go places much faster than your physical capabilities.
As we get older, many of us have key-rings, with many keys.
Your keys are an extremely valuable part of your existence. without them, you can’t go anywhere, get into anywhere, or store many things securely.
Think of yourself as that hub. The ring that binds these keys together, and organized.
Unlike the chain, you can see all the keys at the same time, and get access to them.
Each key has a different function, or purpose in your life, too.
Starting with the first key, each and every one of them are important.
The Keyring – Your Health
You’ll never not need to be a healthy person.
If you die before you get to retire, you’ll work for the rest of your life.
Even of you DO retire early, beng unhealthy will mean you’ll never be able to enjoy it anyway.
You must be fit, healthy, and able to use your mind.
These are the things that hold everything together.
So, exercise regularly, eat well, don’t abuse alcohol or drugs, and try to stay sane.
The First Key – Shelter
The first key anyone needs, is the key that unlocks your living space, food, shelter, bills, luxuries, hot water, etc.
You need shelter, a roof over your head, a place to eat, sleep, procrastinate, etc.
Your Second Key – Income
The second key, should ould be your job, or your business. Your income.
You can’t survive without income, to keep the roof over your head, food in the cupboards, fuel in the car, etc.
Which leads me to the third key.
The Third Key – Transportation
You might need a car to get to work. Or, you might need ot use a bus.
Sure, you COULD walk everywhere, but most people need transportation of some kind, for many varied reasons.
Therefore, once you have shelter, food, and income, a key for transportation shortly follows.
The Fourth Key – An Emergency Fund
Your fourth key sould be your savings, or emergency fund.
This key keeps your money secure, in a lock-box. One you can unlock at any time, and help yourself through a financial issue.
The unexpected CAN happen, and WILL happen, so you need an emergency fund, which is there as a safety net to protect you from the unseen.
The Fifth Key – Investment
Once your income, and emergency fund is taken care of, the next thing you need is financial growth. Both for now, and for the future, such as retirement.
The next key you need to add to your ring, is investment. Passive income, through growth.
Stocks, retirement accounts,real estate, etc. A key that unlocks the door to your future.
This key could also be a business you invested in.. This is leveraged income.
Once the business is running, it will bring you more income, possibly even free you from your job income.
You can build this key, into something bigger, but beware of zero diversification.
Adding More Keys to the Key Ring
As you grow, you continue to add many different keys, all unlocking different doors, income sources, future security, and wellbeing.
Don’t ever remove the key to your health, either. For getting older, and dying younger, means you’ll never enjoy the keys you’ve built. Instead, you’ll only get to pass them onto someone else to carry.
Start with a key-ring.
You.
Add as many keys, as you possibly can, but never build a chain.
Once you’re older, and have a huge collection of keys, you’ll be able to use them however you wish, to unlock any door, or go through any obstacle in your life.
Many people start out believing it’s not possible for them. These, and many other self-limiting beliefs could be holding you back.
If you’ve ever suffered from self-limiting beliefs, or just want to ind out a little more about them, I have a GREAT blog post that can help you identify and kill off any self-limiting beliefs you may be suffering from.
Check it out, right here.
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