By Grace Agada

There are only three kinds of life you can have at the end of your active career life. The first and most common is the low-quality life. You create this life when you retire to passive income that is less than the income that currently sustains you. The second is the same quality life. You create this life when you maintain the same quality of life by retiring to passive income that is worth the same income that sustains you now. And the third is the wealthy retirement life. This is where you create a life in retirement that is bigger and better than your active career life. Assuming you are to choose from these three lives, which of them would give you a restful retirement life? Which would make you an asset in retirement and which will make you a liability? The answer is for you to decide. But if you are ever going to maintain the same quality of life as you do now in retirement you must create passive income that is at least the same size as your current income package. Failure to achieve this is what makes people suffer from the financial disease I call “The Rich Dad, Poor Dad, The Same Dad Syndrome” – a disease condition where children watch their dads move from a rich and admirable lifestyle to a poor and deplorable lifestyle within the same lifetime. If you must escape this disease, you must stop doing what the middle-class do with their money and start doing what the upper class do with their income.

What the Middle and Upper-Class do with Income

One of the big differences between the middle and upper classes is what they do with their income. No income is stationary so when you earn income you must use it. But how you use your income will determine where you end up in retirement. When the middle class earn income, they convert most of it into riches. They buy income- consuming rich symbols like the latest car, a luxury home, expensive gadgets and pay expensive school fees. All these make them appear rich but in truth they are poor people with a temporary high income paycheck most of whom can go broke in 60 days without income. Building and maintaining a rich lifestyle cost money and is an income-consuming activity. Thus, at the end of a 30-year high income career, the middle-class end up with memories of their high income paycheck long spent, money they cannot account for and rich symbols that are liabilities rather than assets. The biggest mistake the middle class make is that they fail to create the source of their riches – the stable income. And because their riches must be sustained by earned income, they keep working to earn the next paycheck. Unfortunately, the retirement clock stops ticking, and when it’s time 80% of them take a deep dive downward.

The upper-class use their income differently. They convert most of their earned income into wealth. Wealth is different from riches in that wealth is primarily derived from what you own and control and not what you do. What you do gives you earned income. Earned income gets spent and is 100% mobile. Wealth is more stable and permanent. Thus, if your livelihood is primarily derived from earned income you will have to keep working to sustain it. Thankfully, the upper-class solve this problem. To cancel the need for ongoing work, the upper-class use their earned income to create and buy income-producing assets that produce both present and future incomes. And then use that income to create their rich lifestyle. Since they own and control their own income producing assets (wealth), retirement is no longer a threat to them.

READ ALSO: How To Create Your Own Personal Prosperity This Year (2)

So how do you create your own wealth and enjoy a restful retirement life?

To create your own wealth, you need to do three things.

The first is to own your own passive income-producing assets. The second is for your assets to produce the size of passive income that can give you self-sufficiency in retirement. And the third is for your passive income to maintain its value throughout retirement and preserve your purchasing power.

 Owning Your Own Passive Income Producing Assets

All investment assets produce some level of passive income, but not all assets produce the kind and size of passive income that can sustain you in retirement. The only asset that fits as a retirement income producer are those assets that have the advantages that your current income has, but not the disadvantages. All income sources have advantages and disadvantages and your goal is to end up with a retirement income that carries more advantages. For example, your salary is regular, safe, consistent, and readily available in cash at the end of the month – that is its advantage. But its disadvantage is that it requires hard labor, only reaches its peak after sacrificing your youthful life, it is difficult to multiply without multiplying your back-breaking workload and it has an expiry date. To choose a suitable retirement income source you need assets that carry the advantages salary carries without the disadvantages. The correct asset class must have some of what I call the perfect retirement income attributes. It must produce both present and future income and must last for a lifetime. It must be 100% passive and must not require ongoing work, maintenance or further investment once matured. It must be difficult to lose and free from market fluctuation and volatility. It must be liquid in nature and easily accessible when needed – your life runs on liquid cash and not assets. And it must have the capacity to produce passive income that can give you self-sufficiency. The more stable, and guaranteed your passive income the more restful your retirement life will be.

Achieving Self-sufficiency in Retirement

Not all sizes of income can give you self-sufficiency in retirement. You achieve self-sufficiency when you have passive income that can pay your bills, take care for your loved ones, help you pursue your dreams and goals and engage in charitable activities. Any size of income that prevents you from doing these is insufficient. Thus, owning passive income-producing assets alone is not the answer. The key is to own assets that can produce the size of passive income that can give you financial freedom. The closest size of income that can give you financial freedom is the income that is currently sustaining your life. The even better size is income that can give you the boldness to hands off your current job without financial fears. To build this size of passive income you must save big, make your savings fail proof and convert your savings to income producing assets and not riches. You must also resolve to stick to a zero-lose investment strategy – where you can have a consistent uninterrupted progress and where your investing success cannot be undone. The truth is without self-sufficiency you will become a liability in retirement.

READ ALSO: How To Create Your Own Personal Prosperity This Year (1)

Protecting the Value of Your Income and Purchasing Power

The income that you earn today has a high value in today’s market and would be sufficient for you for the first few years of retirement. But earning today’s income 10 or 15 years from now is a disaster. Your income will lose its value and you will gently slip from an independent person to a dependent person. Thus, achieving self-sufficiency might be a great start but what is even greater is maintaining your self-sufficiency throughout retirement. To maintain your self-sufficiency throughout retirement you must create a system that regularly or occasionally infuses and increases your main income.  Constantly increasing your income in ways that keep you ahead of the market is the most effective way to preserve your purchasing power in retirement.

If you want to have a restful retirement life and want to know how to carry your current income into retirement, we can help you. Send an email to info@createsolidwealth.com

About the Author

Grace Agada is the most sought-after financial freedom expert in Nigeria. She is a renowned author, financial freedom advisor and keynote speaker. Agada is popularly known as the Queen of Financial Freedom, the Breadwinner’s Advocate and the Middle-Class to Upper-Class Mentor. Her goal is to help working professionals and breadwinners move their success and livelihood from a paycheck to their own solid passive income sources. Agada  is the author of three books and possibly the most widely read financial articles. Her articles are spread across seven national newspapers and four of the most popular Nigerian blogs. Agada is also the Founder of the University of Wealth, the Rich Retirement Life Quarterly Publication, the Wealth Creator Quarterly Report, and the Wealthy Business Blueprint Programme. Agada has been featured on BBC Africa, Business Day TV, Inspiration FM and inside Naijatv. And she consults for numerous top organizations, company directors, CEOs, c-suite executives, and high-income professionals. To connect with Agada, send an email to info@createsolidwealth.com

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By

Grace Agada

 As far as this world is concerned, the only prosperity that truly benefits you is your personal prosperity. You achieve personal prosperity, when you convert a part of the global wealth into your own personal wealth. To do this you need two things – advantages and opportunities. Your advantages are what you must bring into the year to make that year prosperous for you while opportunities are what the year must offer you to enable you  to create wealth in that year. This means that in any given year, there is no pre-existing wealth waiting for you. What you have are potential opportunities which you must then convert to wealth using your advantages. Unfortunately, not many know how to convert opportunities into wealth. While the year comes full with numerous opportunities, only a few can convert those opportunities into wealth. But unless you learn how to identify and convert the opportunities within the year using what you have, prosperity will elude you. In Part 1 of this article, we discussed the nine advantages that you must have to leverage the opportunities this year. In this article we will discuss the other three factors that can affect your prosperity this year. The first of them is your disadvantages and the limitations that you bring into the year. The second is the kind of opportunities that a year offers and whether you can convert them into wealth. And the third is how you live within a year and whether that life increases or decreases your disadvantages. So, without further ado let’s look at each of these factors and how they can affect you this year.

READ ALSO: How To Create Your Own Personal Prosperity This Year (1)

The Disadvantages And Limitations That You Bring Into The Year

Disadvantages are factors that reduces your chances of success within a given year while limitations are the obstacles you must overcome to make progress each year. While limitations are inevitable and are present in your life until you achieve all your goals, disadvantages are avoidable and should be eliminated or reduced within the year. Some of the common disadvantages that can reduce your chances of success are having a high maintenance lifestyle, making poor health choices, making dangerous investment decisions, increasing your financial load and wealth-inhibiting or -draining relationships, poor savings culture, and debt . The most beneficial thing to do to your disadvantages is to eliminate them. To do this you need to grow in knowledge and develop a more disciplined and accountable lifestyle. While everyone can claim to have discipline, only a few have discipline in areas that can create wealth for them. Most people have discipline in areas that increase their liabilities and expenses. Thus, to create wealth and prosperity this year you must develop discipline in areas that matter to wealth.

Your limitations can also hold you back from achieving success this year. Some of the common ones include a low or single income,  job-based or low-income skills, lack of wealth creating relationships, lack of a wealthy mindset, lack of purpose and a clear life direction, lack of the right mentorship and accountability partners etc. The only way to overcome your limitations is to develop new and advanced knowledge and to discipline yourself to apply that knowledge. The best way to upgrade your knowledge this year is through reading, positive exposures, positive relationships or mentorship etc. This means that to create wealth this year you must push yourself outside your comfort zone. Doing what you have always done will only give you the results you already have. To get  different and better results you must do the things that your next level of success requires you to do.

The Opportunities That Exist In  A Year

Every year brings with it two kinds of opportunities. The first is the opportunity to make money and the second is the opportunity to lose money. Everyone must choose within the year where they belong. The dilemma is the same opportunity can make money for one person and lose money for the other person. This means that what truly counts within the year are not the opportunities themselves but whether you can leverage them to create wealth for yourself without losing money. Many increase their chances of losing money by coming into the year with unrefined and low quality advantages. Only a few people enter the year with refined advantages that increase their chances of creating wealth. Thus, if all you bring into the year is ignorance in wealth creating matters, low-income skills, poor relationships, low savings culture and so on you will end the year on the side of those that lose money. If, however, you bring in better quality advantages you will end up with more prosperity. Thus, what will create your financial miracles this year has a lot to do with you than the society, your employer or any other person for that matter.

READ ALSO: How To End Up In A Better Place Than Your Parents At the end of Your Career (2)

How You Increase Your Disadvantages

There is a significant difference between the advantages and disadvantages that you begin with at the start of the year and what you exit with at the end of the year. This means that during the course of the year you affect your advantages and disadvantages. The challenge is most people do not know how they affect their disadvantages and what they do to reduce their odds. Thus, during the course of the year most people lose their advantages and increase their disadvantages. To succeed this year, you must know how you increase your disadvantages or the things that can reduce your odds of success. There are three things that can increase your disadvantages. The first is financial ignorance. Financial ignorance is the absence of the knowledge that you need to create the financial results that you desire. And there are three types of ignorance. The first is zero knowledge – no one has absolute zero knowledge, but you can have zero knowledge in a particular area of your financial life. The second is wrong knowledge – the more wrong knowledge you have and apply within the year the more disadvantages you will create. The third and most dangerous is the right but unapplied knowledge. Most people know what to do, it is the ability to apply that knowledge that is the problem. The more unapplied knowledge you have, the more disadvantages you will create this year.

The second is relationships. The wrong relationships can increase your disadvantages. And there are two types of wrong relationships. The first are parasitic relationships – that is relationships that drain your income. And the second are wealth inhibitive relationships,  that is relationships that have negative and anti-wealth influences on you. If you hang around the wrong people, you will increase your disadvantages this year.

The third is self-discipline and accountability. You can achieve any goal that you set for yourself if you have the discipline to pay the price. Self-discipline is the ability to do what you should do, when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not. And the most successful people in the world all live self-disciplined life. But if self-discipline is not working for you the next best thing to do is to submit yourself for accountability. Accountability is choosing an external source of discipline when self-discipline is not giving you the desired results. Thus, the key to reducing your disadvantages this year is to reduce your ignorance, elevate your relationships and increase your discipline and accountability

If you need creating more prosperity in your life this year we can help you. Send an email to info@createsolidwealth.com

About The Author

Grace Agada is the most sought-after financial freedom expert in Nigeria. She is a renowned author, financial freedom advisor and keynote speaker. Agada is popularly known as the Queen of Financial Freedom, the Breadwinner’s Advocate and the Middle-Class to Upper-Class Mentor. Her goal is to help working professionals and breadwinners move their success and livelihood from a paycheck to their own solid passive income. Agada is the author of three books and possibly the most widely read financial articles. Her articles are spread across seven national newspapers and four of the most popular Nigerian blogs. Agada  is also the Founder of the University of Wealth, the Rich Retirement Life Quarterly Publication, the Wealth Creator Quarterly Report, and the Wealthy Business Blueprint Program. Agada has been featured on BBC Africa, Business Day TV, Inspiration FM and inside Naijatv. And she consults for numerous top organizations, company directors, CEOs, C-Suite executives, and high-income professionals. To connect with Agada, send an email to info@createsolidwealth.com

  By

 Grace Agada

There are two kinds of economy that must prosper to make this year better than last year for you. The first is the global economy. This is the economy that affects the prices of goods and services. This economy has the least impact on your personal prosperity. The second is your personal economy. This is the economy that affects your purchasing power, financial stability, and personal peace of mind. This economy is the economy with the greatest impact on your personal life. Thankfully this economy is within your control, and you can create a prosperous personal economy regardless of the state of the global economy. This is true because in every economy and at the end of every year there are two categories of people. The first are the winners that end the year with more prosperity and the second are the losers that end the year losing their prosperity. Thus, there is no question that every year brings with it prosperity opportunities. The big question is will you locate your own prosperity this year? What do you need to do to prosper regardless of the state of the global economy? And what steps must you take different from last year especially when you have a track record of carrying over unachieved goals every year?

The answer is simple.

To create a prosperous personal economy this year you must master how to do three things well.

READ ALSO: How To End Up In A Better Place Than Your Parents At the end of Your Career (2)

The first is to understand the advantages or upsides and the limitations or downsides that you bring into the year. Everyone comes into a year with upsides and downsides. Thus, one of the things that will determine your success this year is what you bring into the year. The second is the opportunities that exist in the year and whether you can position and leverage those opportunities well. And the third is understanding how not to Increase your disadvantages or downsides within a given year. The more disadvantages you end up with at the end of the year the lower your chance of achieving success next year. So, let’s look at each of these components and how they can affect your prosperity this year.

1. Understanding What You Bring into The Year

Everyone comes into the new year with something and there is never a time in your life where you will have nothing to begin with. This means that your success this year will depend on the quality of what you bring into the year. And there are two thing that you bring into a year. The first are advantages or upsides and the second are disadvantages or downsides. The advantages you bring into a year are what you need to move from where you are now to where you want to be. Without advantages, there will be no way to move from where you are now to where you want to be. The disadvantages or limitations that you bring into a year are all the things that can hold you back. To move ahead in any given year you must overcome, subdue, or eliminate your disadvantages. Thus, the worse way to think about success in a year is to have the notion that the year itself will perform some magic to make you wealthy. And even worse is to think that the help you need will first come from outside sources. Help comes from outside sources when you have first begun to help yourself. This means that true financial breakthrough begins with you, and it begins with leveraging  the advantages you already have. There must be something you have, own, control, can do, or can get, to begin your prosperity this year. And until you master the art of starting with what you already have, you will not make significant progress this year.

So, what kind of advantages do you need to have to make this year a prosperous year for you?

There are nine of them.

The first is knowledge. Knowledge is the seed for growth and the beginning of financial transformation. This means that the number one problem in most people’s financial life is ignorance. When you know and have more relevant and refined knowledge you will do better. Thus, the quality and type of knowledge that you bring into this year or acquire during the year will affect how far you go. Unfortunately, most people are busy acquiring the wrong knowledge. They are acquiring knowledge that has little or no impact on their financial prosperity. There are about five common sources of knowledge for most people in a given year. The first is the news, the second is social media, the third is through formal education, the fourth is by observing other people and trying to be like them and the fifth is from religion. Unfortunately, none of these sources currently give you the kind of knowledge that enhances prosperity. The news only increases your fear and anxiety as it thrives on bad rather than good news. Social media increases your fantasy and unrealistic expectations as it thrives on the fake lives of other people. Traditional education and certifications load your mind with theoretical knowledge that has little or no power to elevate your income. Following the lives of other people who are also trying to figure out their lives is the fastest way to walk and live in error. You will only achieve your greatest success living your own life. Religion focuses on doing and carrying out busy religious activities rather than abiding, knowing, maturing, and becoming. Thus, at the end of the year you have not only acquired irrelevant and unimportant knowledge, but you have also become more ignorant in the knowledge and affairs that can truly produce wealth. If you must prosper this year you must focus on the kind of knowledge that creates wealth.

READ ALSO: How To Know You Wouldn’t End Up Dependent Like Your Parents (1)

The second advantage you need is skills and there are two types of skills. The first are high income skills and the second are low-income skills. High income skills are skills that produce high income with minimal workload, responsibility, and time investment. Low-income skills in contrast are skills that require enormous workload, responsibility, and a long time to produce significant income. You acquire high income skills by developing knowledge and skills that can create, own, and control your own income producing assets. When you own income producing assets you move from hustling for wealth to positioning for wealth. You acquire low-income skills when you develop knowledge and skills that make you a good laborer or worker in the income-producing field of another person. When you are a worker or laborer hustling becomes your default way of life. Thus, the more low-income skills you have and develop this year the lower your chances of ending with a more prosperous life.

The third advantage you need are assets. Wealth creation is all about owning and controlling income- producing assets. This means that you must own or control something of value to create maximum wealth this year. Thus, if you come into the year owning nothing and do not create, acquire, or own your own income producing assets this year wealth and prosperity will be far away from you.

The fourth advantage you need is rich relationships. Relationship is a valuable wealth currency just like money. In fact, rich relationships can do for you what money cannot do for you. Thus, the more rich and wealth-creating relationships you bring into the year or develop during this year the higher your chances of success. Rich relationships expand your opportunities, possibilities, leverage, and options. Wealth-draining relationships expand your liabilities, stress, and financial load. This means that the only way to succeed this year is to significantly improve the quality of your relationships.

The fifth advantage you need is sources of income. The worse number to have as far as your income source is concerned is one. One source of income is too weak to give you the kind of prosperity that you desire this year. Besides, all income sources have advantages and disadvantages. And the only way to truly optimize your income is to combine it with sources that can make up for or cancel its disadvantages. Your salary for example is a regular and consistent income. But its disadvantage is that it is a laborious source of income that only reaches its peak after sacrificing years of your youthful life. To optimize salary, you must combine it with another source of income that complement this disadvantage.  This means that multiplying your sources of income is not a random process, there is a science and formula to it. If all you do is add and combine any source of income that you find you may end up with more stress and workload than income. Worse of all is that some sources of income are channels of losing money rather than making money.  Thus, the best way to create your own solid income portfolio is to choose income sources that complement each other and cancel each other’s disadvantage.

READ ALSO: The Big Financial Education That Will Speed Up Your Financial Freedom

The sixth advantage that you need is a disciplined savings culture and solid cash reserve. Having a disciplined savings culture is the fastest and easiest way to elevate your financial life. If you lack the discipline to save, then you also lack the discipline to acquire or improve any of the other advantages listed here. Thus, having a disciplined savings culture is your first step to freedom. Your second step is to make your savings fail proof. This means that you must shield your savings from losses due to bad investment decisions and unplanned expenses. The third step is to give your savings a clear and specific mission. And the most profitable mission for your savings is to help you gain financial freedom. Thus, your savings must be structured to give you financial freedom. And there are only two ways to do this. First you must save big portions of your income- 25%, 50% or 70% is the recommended. Second you must build cash reserves that can produce stable passive income that is worth the value of your salary. Building stable passive income that is worth the value of your income is the only way to transfer your source of livelihood from active income to passive income. And this is the fastest way to achieve financial freedom. If all you focus on this year is to save big, make your savings fail-proof, and build stable passive income that is worth the whole or certain percentages of your current income, you would have prospered more than 80% of the population.

The seventh advantage you need is good health. Health is wealth and a very potent destroyer of accumulated wealth. Thus, the quality of health you bring into the year can either support your wealth creation activities or deduct from them. When you have good health your productivity, energy, attention, and focus increase and so does your wealth. When you have poor health, symptoms of bad health choices or even fears of impending health dangers your productivity, energy, attention, and focus are distorted. Thus, the only way to prosper this year is to increase the activities and habits that promote health and reduce the activities and habits that promote disease.

The eight advantage you need is productive time. Time by itself carries little or no wealth advantage. The only time that has impact on wealth is productive time. Thus, if all you do this year is worry, fight, do more of the same old things, try to be like others, or do all the junk activities that waste time, you will end up broke and miserable at the end of the year. But if you choose to invest time in productive activities that create wealth and increase your odds of success then you will enjoy prosperity. Thus, the place where you spend time and how you use your time this year will determine your level of success.

The ninth advantage is the supernatural. There are certain things that are beyond your effort, understanding or capacity as a human being. To get through these things you need the help of the supernatural. While you may be able to achieve some level of success on your own, there are certain heights in wealth that may be difficult to achieve without the help of the supernatural. To get the kind of supernatural help that leads to wealth you must develop a close relationship with your source. Intimacy with your source is the only way to gain insight into certain truth that will help you on your wealth journey. This same intimacy will keep you grounded during difficult times, help you stay glued to your values, and standards, and help you find your true wealth path and succeed in it. Regardless of what or who you believe, you must know that there are certain heights in wealth you cannot attain without the help of the supernatural.

Now that you know the nine advantages that will affect your prosperity this year, we will review in the part two of this article the disadvantages and limitations that will affect your prosperity this year and what to do about them. We will also look at what a new year truly offers you and how to live in a year without increasing your disadvantages. Stay Connected.

Perhaps you need help developing your advantages and maximizing your odds of success this year, we can help you.  Send an email to info@createsolidwealth.com

About The Author

Grace Agada is the most sought-after financial freedom expert in Nigeria. She is a renowned author, financial freedom advisor and keynote speaker. Agada is popularly known as the Queen of Financial Freedom, the Breadwinner’s Advocate and the Middle-Class to Upper-Class Mentor. Her goal is to help working professionals and breadwinners move their success and livelihood from a paycheck to their own solid passive income. Agada is the author of three books and possibly the most widely read financial articles. Her articles are spread across seven national newspapers and four of the most popular Nigerian blogs. Agada  is also the Founder of the University of Wealth, the Rich Retirement Life Quarterly Publication, the Wealth Creator Quarterly Report, and the Wealthy Business Blueprint Programme. Agada has been featured on BBC Africa, Business Day TV,  Inspiration FM and inside Naijatv. And she consults for numerous top organizations, company directors, CEOs, C-Suite executives, and high-income professionals. To connect with Agada, send an email to info@createsolidwealth.com

Read more authentic news on our social media platforms