In
Suze Orman's 9 Steps To Financial Freedom, Suze saves the largest step for last. The ninth of the nine steps to financial freedom is really the spiritual journey of a lifetime.
Step 9 - Recognising True Wealth
There is a famous story about a farmer who heard about the California gold rush. He sold his farm to raise the money to buy a set of prospecting equipment, and travelled to California to make his fortune.
Eventually, he ran out of money and, with nothing to show for his time on the goldfields, he made his way sadly back to his home town.
When he arrived, he discovered that the family who had bought his farm had tested a black sludgy substance from one of the springs, which turned out out be oil. The new owners of the farm were now fabulously wealthy.
This story is often used to illustrate how "tunnel vision" can blind us to our true wealth.
We may look at our situation, decide how much money we need to be truly wealthy, and then set about accumulating that money. In the process, we may miss the opportunity to make money from doing something we truly love to do, because it doesn't look like it would be enough money.
However, if you really loved the work you were doing each day or each week, perhaps you might be happy to carry on doing it for the rest of your life, which means you wouldn't need the massive plie of cash your plan included to fund your retirement from work within 5-10 years.
And if the work you truly loved involved working from home, then you would reduce your expenses dramtically in terms of expensive suits and shoes for office wear, travel to and from work, and the stress-relieving treats that you need to enable you to keep going back to a job you hate.
"True financial freedom lies in defining ourselves by who and what we are, not by what we do or do not have." Suze Orman
You cannot put a price tag on your life. No matter what financial ups and downs happen in your life, you will be truly wealthy when you understand that none of that stuff matters. Not really.
The 9 steps to financial freedom are designed to set you free in your mind, and in your soul. Freed from the constraints of your limiting eliefs about money, and all the stressful emotions associates with those beliefs, you can start to spread your wings and discover who you really are.
When you reconnect with your true self, when your life is moving in accordance with your own inner compass, you will experience ongoing, daily, joy and fulfilment.
The people you love will respond to the warmth and spontaneity of the new you with open arms. Relationships flourish when you remove financial stress from the picture.
You will be capable of making a difference to the causes which matter most to you, and you will be free to do the work which makes your soul sing, the work you were born to do.
Financial freedom is so much more than having a fat bank account - and so much less. Financial freedom is a lifestyle, a mindset, a way of being.
"Money itself cannot make you financially free. Only you can make yourself financially free, and you can do it - and so much more. You have that power." Suze Orman
Read more of Suze Orman's 9 Steps To Financial Freedom at the
Emergency Refinancing web site.
Photo: setev
Comments (1)
everytime I see Suze Orman, I think of SNL's version of her:
Remember children: First people, then money then things, then jackets.