Wealth and Our Standard of Living – (Residual Income)

All of us hear the term from different people and read about it in different articles but do we really understand what ‘Residual Income’ really is and the effect it has on our wealth and standard of living.

A definition of ‘Residual Income’ provided by Investopedia states:

“Residual Income – The amount of income that an individual has after all personal debts, including the mortgage, have been paid. This calculation is usually made on a monthly basis, after the monthly bills and debts are paid. Also, when a mortgage has been paid off in its entirety, the income that the individual had been putting toward the mortgage becomes residual income”.

According to this definition your ‘Residual Income’ is the money left over every month after all your bills and debts have been paid and your mortgage is completely paid off. Period.

The money left over after you pay all your taxes, rent or mortgage, credit card bills, Lines of Credit, your heat and hydro bills, phone bills, grocery bills, gym membership, student loans, car payments, plus any other monthly bill you may have. This is the money you have for personal enjoyment, investment and philanthropy. This is your ‘Residual Income’. This is your wealth. This is your standard of living.

Take a few minutes to work this out. Think about it. What do you really have at the end of each month that you can call ‘Residual Income’? What is your wealth? What is your standard of living?

Like most people today, we find ourselves living from paycheck to paycheck and using Credit Cards and Lines of Credit, carrying huge debt and large mortgages that are 20 or 30 years long with little left over we can call ‘Residual Income’.

But it doesn’t always have to be like this.

What we most need and are lacking today is an opportunity and the guidance to help us establish a plan as to where we are today and where we need to go tomorrow to reach or exceed our ‘Residual Income’ goals, increase our wealth and improve our standard of living.

Once a plan is established and an opportunity is being worked, many people begin to realize that even a small increase in their ‘Residual Income’ establishes a long term substantial increase in their wealth and standard of living.

In today’s world it is imperative that all of us establish a ‘Residual Income’ plan and be diligently working that plan to help us ensure our wealth and standard of living is maintained well into our future.

Michael Stafford is an Independent Business Owner and Social Entrepreneur with over 20 years of Sales and Marketing experience and a dedicated desire to share his passion and experiences in making a positive difference by helping others lead a Happier, Healthier and Wealthier Life through “Self-Reliance”.
Michael invites you to take the first steps along the path to a changed life and visit this information site www.Qwhiteboard.com and then contact him through his Professional Website and join all of us that have embraced “Self-Reliance” and are on the journey to a Happier, Healthier and Wealthier life together.

“Traditional 9 to 5” –VS- “Self Reliance”

It’s not what you do, but how well you do it that counts!

How many times have we heard this said?

This one statement defines us and how we are perceived by those around us.

When it comes to the career path we have chosen, it may or may not always be true.

In the traditional “9 to 5” career path this statement, in the past, was used to reflect directly on our standing and compensation within the business or company that employed us.

At one time, if we went above and beyond our job description, worked overtime every day, took minimal vacation time off, worked when we should have been home sick or spending time with family and displayed a commitment and dedication to the business or company that could not be rivalled, we could expect to receive a substantial raise in compensation and/or promotions within the business or company.

However, in today’s “9 to 5” business and company environments we are beginning to see that this is no longer true and that these habits are no longer viewed as dedication above and beyond but an expectation for minimal compensation.

For those of us that have chosen a non-traditional “Self-Reliance” career path, “It’s not what you do, but how well you do it that counts” has become a mantra that is more valid and true than ever.

What we as today’s entrepreneurs, small business owners and independent contractors are finding; if we go above and beyond, put in the hours needed to succeed and a commitment and dedication to our venture rivalled by none, we receive compensation far exceeding the effort, we have total control over our future compensation, we have vacation time when we want and can enjoy more time spent with family and friends. We find ourselves leading more satisfied, less stressed and more meaningful lifestyles than we did just a few short years ago.

“Self-Reliance” is now becoming the norm and the “Traditional 9 to 5” commitment is slowly disappearing.

For those of us embracing “Self-Reliance” as the norm, we are becoming Happier, Healthier and Wealthier beyond all expectations and look back on our “Traditional 9 to 5” as something that happened in a bygone era.

Michael Stafford is an Independent Business Owner and Social Entrepreneur with over 20 years of Sales and Marketing experience and a dedicated desire to share his passion and experiences in making a positive difference by helping others lead a Happier, Healthier and Wealthier Life through “Self-Reliance”.
Michael invites you to take the first steps along the path to a changed life and visit this information site www.Qwhiteboard.com and then contact him through his Professional Website and join all of us that have embraced “Self-Reliance” and are on the journey to a Happier, Healthier and Wealthier life together.

An Opportunity Is Never Lost

An opportunity is never lost. If you don’t find it, someone else will.

Take a moment to reflect on this statement.

We have heard people talk about lost opportunities and how, if we had only acted then, how things may have been different now.

Do we ever stop to think about those that did see the opportunity and that grabbed hold of it and rode the opportunity to success?

Perhaps those are the ones we speak of that seem to always have all the luck, that money seems to follow them and that are so lucky they could walk through a barnyard without anything sticking to their boots.

In reality, these are the people who aren’t afraid of becoming Self-Reliant and are seeking and grabbing hold of opportunities that will help them reach the life goals they have set forth for themselves.

These are the people who are finding the opportunities that most of us think have been lost and through their hard work, dedication and a persistency to succeed are reaching goals that most of us are afraid to set.

Opportunities are only lost through our own fears.

There are many fears that prevent us from grabbing hold of opportunities and becoming one of those that others speak about, with all the luck, but there is a solution to all those fears and that solution is US. We are the ones that need to control and tame our own fears. No one will do it for us.

When we set our own life goals down in writing and commit to reaching the goals we’ve set for ourselves, we then have no fear and seek out opportunities that will help us become successful in reaching our goals.

With our goals clearly defined, we then become the “someone else” that found the opportunity and not the one reflecting on the lost opportunity.

Michael Stafford is an Independent Business Owner and Social Entrepreneur with over 20 years of Sales and Marketing experience and a dedicated desire to share his passion and experiences in making a positive difference by helping others lead a Happier, Healthier and Wealthier Life through “Self-Reliance”.
Michael invites you to take the first steps along the path to a changed life and visit this information site www.IsQforYou.com and then contact him through his personal website to join all of us that have embraced “Self-Reliance” and are on the journey of a Happier, Healthier and Wealthier life together.

5 Keys To Success

What is success?

Success takes on many forms and has many interpretations.

Success is as varied as we are as individuals on this planet.

We all have our own meanings and views of success, however there are 5 keys common to all of us that allow each of us to reach our individual interpretation of success and they are as follows;

Goals
The very first thing needed and the foundation to all success is to set specific goals as defined by ourselves as to how we view and personally rate success for ourselves. These goals need to be written and as detailed as possible with specific assigned dates for completion of each goal. We need to keep these goals close and read them regularly to remind ourselves of our direction to success that we have set forth for ourselves. How else will we know if we are successful if we don’t know what successful looks like or when we’ve reached our own success.

Desire
Without the desire to reach our goals we will never become successful. Desire will help to guide us to reach our goals by constantly forcing us to evaluate our direction as well as our decisions made along our journey to reach our success. Desire for success without our own written goals to success are just dreams not desires.

Dedication
Dedication to our desire for success and written goals will drive us on when we begin to run into those hurdles that life throws our way. With dedication we will view these hurdles as a challenge rather than a defeat. Dedication will keep us on the path to our success.

Persistence
When we are persistent with what we do and how we do it, always with our goals in mind, we then become more and more confident with our chosen direction and we begin to fuel our dedication and desire to our goals. We begin to revel in the momentum that persistence offers.

Consistency
The jet fuel that drives the vehicle to our success is called consistency. By consistently reading our goals, we consistently fuel our desire to become successful. By consistently fueling our desire for success we consistently strengthen our dedication to our goals that then fuels our drive for increased enthusiasm for persistence.

When we have these 5 keys in place; Goals, Desire, Dedication, Persistence and Consistency, we then have created our very own formula for success.

 

Michael Stafford is an Independent Business Owner and Social Entrepreneur with over 20 years of Sales and Marketing experience and a dedicated desire to share his passion and experiences in making a positive difference by helping others lead a Happier, Healthier and Wealthier Life through “Self-Reliance”.
Michael invites you to take the first steps along the path to a changed life and visit this information site www.IsQforYou.com and then contact him through his personal website to join all of us that have embraced “Self-Reliance” and are on the journey of a Happier, Healthier and Wealthier life together.