Why should entrepreneurs consider how they manage their personal and business debt? Because how we manage our resources strongly influences the health of our local economies and our communities!
Following on from my recent post: Healing OUR Economy--Toward Alignment With Our Higher Purpose, it occurred just how ludicrous it seems that our world leaders and media are grappling to paint a rosy face on economic recovery. Why is that? To cover up their deeds and their motives? To hide just how thoroughly we have been tricked into working and struggling out our entire lives to serve our debt?
You see, the modern banking and debt concept was created out of thin air by our banking system. If you took a look at the Federal Reserve 101 link in my last article you could see how quickly it becomes apparent that this system has effectively no checks and balances. The fox is guarding the henhouse and has been since the Central Reserve Act ink was dry. I feel it is imperative that as entrepreneurs we understand just what forces are at work behind our investments, our market and our banking institutions. We really owe it to ourselves to be better informed and able to vote and speak with our elected officials regarding decisions being made on our behalf!
Zeitgeist an independent movie released in 2008, addresses how we have gone along with the accepted structure of our international monetary systems as fact. These systems are designed to produce one thing: debt. Heaping interest upon this debt is making the rich richer and the poor poorer. The mindless application of interest to debt is quite simply, human slavery.
Zeitgeist addresses the true source of the instability in our society and how this was engineered. Check out these key sections from the movie on the creation of the Federal Reserve:
Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dmPchuXIXQ
Part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBZne09Gf5A
Part 3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjUrib_Gh0Y
Part 4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BVNN1wqw3k
Part 5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPPFgHF9VR4
Briefly, Banks and the wealthiest families in this country got together to create the debt wheel to make them rich. JP Morgan and friends helped forge the Central Reserve Act in secret and handed it over to congressional leaders to put it into action. Americans were told this would bring about economic stability. Sound familiar?
Woodrow Wilson signed the Central Reserve Act into law two days before Christmas. He wrote: "I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country".
Fortunately, we are witnessing a major shift away from interventionist banking methods of the Federal Reserve. Banks and Congress have gone too far and revealed themselves to be greedy and dishonest. We now have oversight committees and ordinary watchdogs and traders using the power of free blogs and business networks to get the word out. It's clear: our systems are fallible. We are no longer able to pretend we don't see the inequality and suffering of poverty and lack of education and hatred that feeds these inequalities. This is hardly political. It's just about making a personal decision to be fair to myself and others. To take what I need and give what I can. To live with dignity and respect toward a more meaningful life.
While participating in a recent Biznik Seminar with Lynne Brisdon and Cyndi Pree my little fire got stoked. I have a voice so why not use it? Let's start something....spread the word about choice. About where we will go and what we will do in our own lives to bring ourselves back into balance. Standing on our own values is a start.
First we need to understand different financial vehicles: Their subtleties and how they serve us or make us serve them! If you are really serious about taking control of your financial life and getting off the debt wheel, take a look at your biggest commitment, typically your mortgage. Work up an amortization chart. Take a close look at it! In reality: your 30 year fixed rate loan is paying your bank for two houses with your money over time. If you were to make a $100 additional principal payment each month, you will likely knock years off your loan and save thousands. So why don't we do this?
There are lots of banking experts who will discredit such a program. Precisely because they want YOUR long term income. To beat the banking system, you must first understand the key banking principle: interest on your mortgage is calculated on the 'average daily balance'. That average daily balance stays the same for the entire month of before you make your payment. So what happens when you learn how to use this principle to your advantage? People who rigorously employ a mortgage reduction plan pay off their home loan years sooner. Imagine years unchained by a mortgage payment--living with immense freedom!
Why am I hot about this topic? Well, to be fair, I am in the mortgage business. And I think there are certainly bad practices that have been perpetrated onto an unsuspecting public. I believe it’s my responsibility to find a better way to practice my profession. So I can feel like a whole being and not some split up mess. It’s important to acknowledge that I am also a flesh and blood spiritual and emotional being. I want more meaning and satisfaction in my life through better relationships. This helps me build a life of purpose.
By fabulous coincidence, while I was typing this article, an email from Tshombe Brown, Biznik ambassador and coach, popped into my inbox! Tshombe says we are ‘used to struggling’ but we don’t have to accept this. Many of us have a deep sense of distrust and tendency to struggle. We don’t enjoy taking risks. Familiar things feel safe. So check books and credit cards and stocks and 401K accounts work for us on some level. So just what is stopping us from looking deeper and understanding more in order to grow beyond our attachment to these beliefs in things that may not actually be serving us?
“Everything you want is just outside your comfort zone”. Robert Allen, co-author of One Minute Milionaire
Are we willing to step outside our comfort zone and look more deeply into our buy-in to our familiar systems? Maybe --just maybe-- we can reach beyond our habits and learn something different?
Getting off the debt wheel takes a lot of discipline. First comes awareness! To understand how to discipline yourself; to learn to use 'other people's money' to your advantage the way your government does with your taxes. I seek to educate people about their financial options because I was shocked at the lack of basic financial understanding many people exhibit. We have been lulled into becoming consumers with little understanding of the impact of living in debt. It's no wonder that our financial industry has been able to hoodwink congress and the financial regulators.
As I was researching options for people to better understand how mortages and debt obgliations work, I ran across a program I had used when I lived in New Zealand to pay down my mortgage faster. My New Zealand bank actually recommended it! Everyone there seemed to own their own homes outright in their early thirties. Later, I ran into ex-banker, Harj Gill, the Australian creator of the original mortgage reduction system, living right here in Yelm, Washington. We share a motive that banks do no necessarily share: that your personal financial success will bring you more choice about how you spend your precious life and you will have more money to give back to your family and your community.
The basic tools of financial awareness are all around us. They include pencil and paper and your checkbook register. Opening your bank statements and checking the figures. Noticing how much comes in and how much is going out every month.
I had a friend going through a 12-step program called "Debtor's Anonymous" a few years back. They taught very basic self awareness skills. One was carrying a small notebook in your pocket and writing down every item you bought in a day and what you paid for it. Week after week she wrote down everything in that book. Even a pack of chewing gum or bus fare. This simple process changed her life. Anyone can do that and what a great start to financial freedom. Here's to creating and sharing your abundance and building a fabulous successful life -- on your own terms!
Biznik is an MLM free zone. Read our 
Bookmark article
Follow article
Email to a friend
Share 
Bizniks are talking about 
Bizniks are talking about 
