This is the transcription from the Be Wealthy & Smart podcast, episode 68.

Happy New Year! 2015 is here and that means a fresh start. A new year of income and calculating your income taxes! Hopefully you had a great 2014. I’m going to show you how to make 2015 even better.

On today’s show you’ll learn to Focus on 5 Steps to Create Wealth in 2015!

Before I do, I want to give a special shout out to a listener that really impressed me.

I got an amazing review from someone name Luke who I’ve never met, but he sure made an great impression on me. Here’s what Luke had to say about the Be Wealthy & Smart podcast:

So Thankful

I absolutely love this podcast. Linda’s energy, passion, and thoughtfulness radiate from each episode. I have followed her steps and suggestions since finding episode one a few months ago and since then the money has been flowing and continues to come in from unexpected places each week. Linda’s wisdom, advice, and suggested actions are life changing. So happy I stumbled onto this great gem and so grateful for Linda sharing her knowledge with everyone. The theme song is pretty catchy as well, just sayin’. On my way to being wealthy and smart, Luke

Thank you, Luke! That’s a tremendous compliment! It really means a lot to me and thank you for letting me know I’ve made a difference. Congratulation to YOU for putting what I teach in action, because I know it gets results. That’s why I’m here and why I do what I do! To get you results!

Thank you to everyone who has left a review for the show. I really really appreciate it.

Alright, let’s get right to our 5 steps to focus on to create wealth in 2015. These are 5 things I came up with for you because I think they can be easily overlooked. Many people start their year without having real goals or deadlines for their goals. Most peoples’ New Years resolutions are already thrown by the wayside after only a few weeks! Creating wealth is a marathon, not a sprint, so it’s going to take some time and attention to get you where you want to go. But working at it steadily and following the tips I’m giving you today will help you get there faster. At least that’s my hope for you.

Here we go. The first step to focus on is to create a vision statement. Write down how you want 2015 to go & what you will have accomplished, then read it daily!

Having written goals is HUGE and a secret that a Harvard study showed yielded huge results over people who didn’t have written goals. Only 3% had written goals at graduation, and they made over 10 times what everyone else did!

Some people have a tough time creating goals and visualizing what they want. You might have a hard time seeing it and making the decision, “this is what I’m going for.” It’s hard to commit because you feel like you might be a failure if you don’t reach them so you never really set them so you can’t be disappointed. If that’s you, you want to have a talk with your future self. After all, you future self is you, just a few years away. Everything you need to become that person is already within you, you just don’t realize it consciously yet. I go through this in my course, Your Personal Wealthy Mindset Blueprint audio book.

It’s for you if you feel stuck, can’t decide what you want, and feel like you’ve got one foot on the gas pedal and one foot on the brake.

Who you are today is who you were 5 years ago, only you learned and experienced things that made you grow and change. Five years from now you’ll be the same person except for what you’ve learned and experienced between now and then.

The important thing is to put yourself in the driver’s seat, because most people are riding through life as passengers, not drivers. Most people are riding along with what other people want for them, not what they want. You’re riding along with what your parents expected of you, your spouse, your kids, your boss, society at large, etc. and not what YOU really want. That’s why it’s so important to make the decision what you want and to start taking the steps to believe you can have it. If not now, when? Do you really think you’re here on the planet to watch TV and work at a job without making a real contribution?

It’s time to get your goals written down. Read them daily. Also write and use positive affirmations the way I teach them in podcast #23, How to attract more money. IF you’ve been listening to me for a while, you KNOW I was going to mention your wealthy mindset as an important starting point, right? I’ll just say 2 things about that: feed your mind and make sure you’re the one driving the car!

The second thing to focus on to create wealth is to make better personal financial decisions. That’s spending mistakes. It’s important to avoid the 5 big money pits: new cars, frequent moving, eating out, shopping & grown up toys.

These are the things that can really take money from you quickly. They are the things that are the big ticket items.

It’s not so much the latte’s, it’s the shiny new cars that do you in. Put off buying cars as long as you can. Buy cars that last longer. Don’t buy brand new cars because you lose thousands of dollars just driving off the lot since they depreciate substantially. Think of it this way, it’s guaranteed they will go down in value and thereby you’re losing money. You want to minimize that as much as possible.

If you haven’t listened to podcast #10 Opportunity Cost, please go listen to it now. Among the things I share with you are the 10 cars that last more than 250,000 miles. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. You really need to understand opportunity cost if you’re going to create wealth.

Every dollar you spend on depreciating assets is one you can’t invest and grow into wealth.

Another very expensive proposition is moving homes too frequently. Every time you move you are paying real estate commissions to sell and paying movers thousands to move you. Then there’s the remodeling, home furnishings, window coverings, etc. that make a new place yours. By the time you add it all up, it’s very expensive to move.

You also want to be aware of how often you eat out and how much of your income is going to eating out. I’m all for an abundant lifestyle, but thousands of dollars a month on restaurant tabs is not going to get you to your financial goals. Be conscious of how much you’re spending, go to happy hour instead of paying full price, go to matinee movies or watch ROKU streaming internet movies. Also be aware of shopping for expensive items like handbags, designer clothes, and even small items like electronics, CD’s and DVD’s.

Be conscious of your spending and realize wealth is a choice. You choose what to do with your money. Are you going to choose to let it wash through your fingers or are you going to choose to be conscious of it and use it wisely? To me, using it wisely means the 6 steps to wealth…step 2 is saving a nest egg, which you MUST do to build wealth. IF you can’t save some capital to start with, it’s very difficult to build real wealth. Get your savings automated and taken out of your account first and moved to another account. You can set that up with your bank if you haven’t already.

Last on spending, avoid buying adult toys like motorcycles, RV’s, jet skis, boats, extra cars, 3 wheelers, etc.

These are expensive and depreciate over time so you are guaranteed NOT to get your money back. Again, think of Opportunity Cost and what you could be doing with the money, like investing it instead of spending it on these things. Often the missed opportunity can add up to $250,000 or more over your lifetime. Of course, once you’re wealthy, then you can spend on these items. Usually though, once you become wealthy you don’t want them anymore because you understand the opportunity cost is so great! Even Warren Buffet lives in the same house and drives his cars a long time and openly admits the cost is too great to forgo his investment opportunities to buy other assets.

The third thing to focus on in 2015 is to start a side hustle. A side hustle is when you use hobbies, skills, and talents to start a business or to find investments. While I was still working in corporate, my side hustle was to invest in tech stocks. I also investing in real estate on the side and had rentals.

It’s going to take you some investment in addition to your income to build wealth. That’s the truth. If you want to have wealth, you’re going to have to do something extra to get there. Otherwise you might make it when you’re 70 and I’m sure you’d like to be wealthy a whole lot sooner than that.

Please realize a high income is usually not enough to create wealth. Income alone rarely creates wealth. You have to take an additional step to invest and GROW your money into wealth. A side hustle business or investment is what you need to identify and start working on.

The 4th thing to focus on is this: for retirement, start early. Wasted time is the enemy of money. I’ll say that again. Wasted time is the enemy of money. Time is a limited resource. We only have it once. If you squander your time, it becomes your enemy for wealth building. If you are conscious of time and use it wisely, like starting early to invest, then it is your friend. Even if you are starting late, I want to encourage you and say you can still become wealthy. It’s never too late! Just get started!

The last thing to focus on to create wealth in 2015 is to get over perfectionism. Perfectionism stops a lot of people from ever getting started.

You may also get down on yourself if you’ve made some mistakes like losing money in real estate or stocks, or something else. Allow for mistakes, and forgive yourself, you can still become wealthy! Even billionaires have gone bankrupt, it’s actually not that uncommon. Of course, we don’t want anyone to have serious financial troubles. My intention is to get you to forgive yourself if there’s been a problem. Maybe you’ve lost some net worth, or lost a property. Forgive yourself and move on. Start over. Start right where you are. If you’ve had a great year, awesome! Go from there and continue to prosper.

Action Step: Identify what your side hustle is that is going to compound and create wealth for you. What are you interested in investing in? I suggest you read Harry Dent’s Demographic Cliff to show you the best opportunities. Harry’s research helped me see that at the time I was investing, stocks were in the best cycle. Use the momentum of the economic cycle to help you make investment decisions. I’ll leave a link to Harry’s book on my website.

What you learned are the how to Focus on 5 Steps to Create Wealth in 2015! What the 5 steps are:

1. Create a vision statement. Write down your vision for the future and specific goals.

2. Spend wisely. Avoid the 5 big money pits: new cars, frequent moving, eating out, shopping & grown up toys.

3. Start a side hustle. Learn to invest and compound your money.

4. Start early on retirement. Time is your enemy if you don’t start early.

5. Overcome perfectionism and procrastination. Take action. Also forgive yourself. Allow yourself to start over and forgive your mistakes. You can still reach your loftiest financial goals.

IF you are not getting the results that you want, that you could be, in your business life or in your personal life, you are not sure where you want to go or are not going at the speed that you want to go at,

or you may feel stuck, you may feel like you’ve got one foot on the gas and one foot on the brake and aren’t really able to make any headway or really get started doing something. There’s something that you have wanted to do for a period of time, but just can’t seem to really start,

or you may feel directionless. You may not be sure which direction to go next, which way to head,

or you may have big ambitions, but you can’t seem to get launched. That’s called failure to launch and that’s when you’re just not really sure how to get your big ambitions off the ground. Maybe you want to write a book, but you can’t even sit down and start writing. Sometimes those big ambitions seem so big that we can’t even get started.

Those reasons may be because of your subconscious. It may be due to gunk in your subconscious – something in your subconscious that’s holding you back. There are many reasons why that could be. It could be something from your childhood, it could be, for example, the way that your parents thought about money or thoughts that your parents have about rich people that were communicated to you. It could be that your parents believe that wealth is bad or that wealthy people somehow didn’t come by their wealth honestly.

If this sounds like you, my Personal Wealthy Blueprint will get you moving forward. I guide you through how to get unstuck and start going for what you want.

Quit watching everyone else achieve their dreams. It’s time for you to achieve yours. All you need is some gentle guidance and you will soar too. If that sounds like you, I’m giving a special 50% for a limited time because you listen to the Be Wealthy & Smart podcast. Go to my website and get your personal wealthy mindset blueprint, here. Enter “save50” as a coupon code and get it for under $50 for a limited time. I’ll walk you through how to create your blueprint for your life, step by step. You’ll feel more energy, more motivated and excited about life. I know you’ll love it and will get great results! Click HERE and use the code, “save50”.

That’s all for today, until next time live the good life and be wealthy and smart!

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