My dreams of being a young and retired 35 year old went up in flames on my 35^th birthday. Having to face the gloom of another 30 years working for the man was just too much to think about. It is not just turning 35 (no it was no mid life crisis) it was more the fact that another one of my dreams didn’t come true.

I had done all the work on home businesses, and wasted a lot of money, yes they are a great learning school, but really all I was doing was replacing my job with a business which was another job. I have had my fair share of business failures as well. Yes, you do more hours than if you were employed, and you pay yourself a lot less while you are getting your business off the ground, but you hope that happy staff would come in and take over and run the business while you sit back and let the money roll in.

It doesn’t always pan out that way, certainly not with traditional business in my experience.

When you realise that the staff don’t have your interests in mind, your world comes down with a big bump and you find yourself spending even more hours trying to correct the ship.

After getting out of traditional business I was looking for a way to become rich, have a neat lifestyle with minimal risk. A few more years of my life drifted by and my thoughts turned to “yeah right, you’re just a dreamer”.

Then I came across an advert on the Internet for Jamie McIntyre’s 21^st Century Academy Homestudy Program. When I got the free DVD my partner, Fiona, and I watched it and chatted about all the opportunities available. We immediately became members and started on our journey by watching the DVDs.

Then came the 4 day Education for Life event. I knew I wanted to go into share trading, but needed help (and lots of it) to know when, what and where to put my hard earned money into with as little risk as humanly possible.

After going through the first day of mindset, Aussie Rob (Rob Wilson, Lifestyle Trader) came on stage to speak. He stated quite simply that his programme, Lifestyle Trader, is exactly as the name suggests – easy to manage trading leading to the lifestyle you want. The program allows you to trade in the affluent US market, starting with relatively small margins. Of course, there are risks involved, but you can minimise the risks in various ways, the most common being putting stops in place.

The Lifestyle Trader software looks at the buyers and sellers in the market, not the price of the commodity. So if the market has more buyers than sellers then the market is going long (or up). This usually means the price will go up. If the market has more sellers than buyers then the market is going short (down) and the price will generally come down.

This is basic economics of supply and demand. How hard is that? Not hard at all!

When the lines cross on the software program, then that is the optimum time to get in and out of the market. No analysing endless amounts of data – whew!

As Aussie Rob said you can trade in any market – a bullish market (rising) or a bearish market (falling). Even better, there is the opportunity to trade options, commodities or forex. Recently a type E-minis was added to the fold.

Fiona and I had a bit of a chat but we both knew this was the way to go for us. We bought the program knowing that without action we will be in the same place we were in right then and there.

We spent the next week diligently watching the DVDs a couple of times … we still had to be sure. We started paper trading to ‘test the waters’. In fact, as part of the program you must paper trade to learn how to read the signals, and see the results you would get had you entered the trade for real.

We were doing so well paper trading, we thought we were doing something wrong … we were going in on any signal as we’d been instructed. The shame of it was that it was only paper. We were making some fantastic money on paper!

Yes, we had some losses too, but we were being taught how to minimise our losses and how to let our winners run. Thus our losses weren’t that great, especially in comparison to the huge gains we were making.

The best thing about the Lifestyle Trader program is the hands on lab training. Fiona went away to do the training at the Aussie Rob offices on the Gold Coast and learnt so much in that three days. The training really helped crystallize what we needed to do to be successful traders.

We set up our trading strategy and for the next five months (yes, we did ‘practice’ for a while because the markets were so erratic) we continued to paper trade but this time using the simulator platform which we now use to place our real trades. It was fantastic to have access to the platform and get a really good feel for how it worked, how to actually place the trade and see it all happening as if it were real.

Then came the day of reckoning, our first real trade. This is putting our money on the line!! The heart pumps as your finger gets closer to the transmit button. We knew we could be up for a loss of $800. But, the upside was that we could potentially make much more than that, and we had limited our losses to an amount we were ‘comfortable’ with. Within two days we were up $1,000. How cool is that? Not a feeling I can describe!

Since then we have had a lot more successful trades. Keep in mind, we have had some losing trades too. That is just part of being a trader. We have always minimised our losses and let our winners run … that is part of OUR trading strategy (everyone’s strategy is different and has to be in line with their thinking, levels of risk etc).

These days I am a day trader and have given up my job … which is pretty cool and means I’ve finally realised my dream (one a short five years overdue). Some days I struggle to find enough things to do. I go to the gym in the morning, spend 30 minutes putting on my trades … then spend time doing things I enjoy doing.

Our trading success paid for a month long holiday to the USA and a Caribbean cruise in November 2008. It was a fantastic trip and we’ll always remember the fun we had and the reason we were able to do it – we took ACTION.

I love this program and highly recommend it. Find out whether you think Lifestyle Trader will work for you by clicking here and getting your free introductory DVD. You never know, it could be exactly what you’ve been looking for.

Making money can be easy if you have the right recipe.

The thing is, you have to know what the right money making recipe is for you and your family.

The place to start: get financially educated about what you need to do to make money in today’s economic times and for your future.

Get your free DVD here to start the process, click on this link fill in your information, and I will send you the wealth creation DVD

I am currently reading Jamie McIntyre’s latest book “Think and Grow Rich” based on the best selling book by Napoleon Hill with commentary from Jamie.

This is one of the ‘must’ reads of the your lifetime. Even though this book was written over 80 years ago, it is insightful, and relevant to the way you think.

“Think and Grow Rich” is similar to “The Secret” in the fact that you must have a goal or a vision that you want to have come true.

There is one key difference: in “Think and Grow Rich” you must take ACTION. From Action a result must occur, be it good or bad you still will get a result.

Then you must take knowledge from the result and change the action, to create a different result (if you didn’t get the result you wanted). You must always persist till you have the result you want in life.

Would you hate it if you quit before you got the result you would like. And then you see someone else get that result because they kept on going.

The same goes for investing: if you have a few setbacks in the beginning, look at your results; change your actions; and invest again – till you get your desired result.

In “Think and Grow Rich” Napoleon Hill always said the ongoing improvement to your knowledge is a must to success. You do not have to go to school to receive this knowledge, as a lot of very wealthy people have come from a background of little education. But having a formal structure to your learning is important.

That is where the 21st Century Academy and the Homestudy Program is perfect. It helps you with the important parts of investing and does not overload you with what you do not need to know.

To see an overview and get a couple of basic investment strategies to start you on your way to a successful 2009 and beyond, click on this link, fill out your details and we will send you a FREE wealth creation DVD.

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This is a really important subject but most parents tend to leave it till after the ‘birds and bees’ talk and in some cases not discussed at all.

Growing up in New Zealand (which, let’s face it is remarkably similar to growing up in Australia), and looking back on my childhood and teenage years, I’ve come to realise that my parents had life pretty good. In New Zealand, unlike many other countries of the world, life is fairly good and, to a great extent, easy. New Zealand doesn’t really have the very poor nor the really well off – the majority are middle income people or families.

Back then (and I’m only talking about 20-30 years ago) there was no real need to learn how to invest as the world didn’t truly value the way money would help in all sorts of ways. The real choice was about lifestyle – but not in the way we now look at and value lifestyle.

Today the world has changed. Life has become faster, mainly due to our high use of technology.

Think about this: my parents have seen air travel go from being a complete luxury to almost everyone being able to afford to fly (and in some cases it’s cheaper to fly than take the bus or drive!). And my grandparents: they grew up with the horse and cart!

Heck, the first computer I used was an old Apple which a selected few of us at school were allowed to study with. I remember it had a green screen and we had to learn Basic language to program in! These days, all screens are in colour and no one learns ‘Basic’.

At school I took a number of subjects you’d think would teach me life skills, such as:

· Accounting: but I wasn’t shown how to budget

· English: taught me to write for pleasure, not a detailed report on the progress of the company I work for

· Math: sure, it taught me how to count, and calculate how to fly to the moon … but not to understand why the graph changes are important to a business

Fortunately, technology has moved on, but sadly the education our children receive at school has not caught up nor improved from when I was a youngster.

When I left school my parents could not even suggest how or why I would buy a house; information was hard to come by and their recommendation was to see a lawyer and he would explain this to me!

Information is now freely available on the web. But, who can you trust? There are so many conflicting pieces of advice it’s next to impossible to work out who is right, who is wrong and who you should trust.

I believe a child will get majority of their real information from their parents, right or wrong. I urge you not to rely on others; family, friends, teachers, lawyers, accountants or financial planners; to give your children information and advice about what to do with their lives. As an example, studies have shown that the majority of parents who have gone to University will have children who will do the same. Likewise, a lot of parents who were self employed will have children who will become self employed.

So, as a parent, where do you start? My advice: passive income is the way to go. Passive income is income you do not have to keep working for: interest on your savings account; rental on an investment property; dividends on your share portfolio – these are all forms of passive income.

Personally, I love to start by getting the kids to think about and write down their goals or dreams (as you have read or heard before people who have a list of goals are likely to achieve more in life than the ones who do not!). By writing down their goals or dreams they’ll start to understand why they do things (like saving). Having a goal or dream gives purpose to what they do to achieve the goal.

Next, work out the steps to achieve the goal by working backwards. For example; if the goal is to win a local golf tournament, the second last step is to practice putting. The step before this is to practice chipping. The step before that will be to practice driving, and so on. So, as you can see, the plan will come together pretty quickly.

Another example could be purchasing a bicycle in November at a cost of $350. Sit down and work out with them how much they’ll need to save each month and how much of their pocket money, or income from their paper round or whatever it is they do to earn some money, they’ll have left over to spend on other things. This is, effectively, a budget.

I strongly recommend and urge you to teach your children how to budget. Starting with a specific and focussed goal that they want should help get them motivated to learn. And, don’t forget to include the passive income from interest they will earn on their savings.

Teach your children about compounding interest and how they can benefit from putting in the work, saving and then having the money work for them, creating additional income, passive income. This naturally leads on to investments – looking for the opportunity to earn passive income. Remember kids learn from their parents, so you’ll have to get a good grasp of this subject yourself in order to teach them.

My goal with children is to open their minds to the fact that there are many ways to make money. Not to look for one big pay day, but to have many forms of income which together equal a large monthly pay day – a pay day that they do not have to work for over and over and over. To live the life they really deserve because money is not an issue. And we all know how many problems can be caused by not having any or very little money!

I always tell people my and their education will, or at least should, never end. I have studied and have attended numerous seminars to help my study so that I could become and stay financially well off.

You need to understand that you have to keep up your education, to keep up with the changing technology and financial times. Staying educated and up to date will help you to teach your children the important things they need to know about their financial future … they certainly won’t be learning it at school!

To start your financial learning click here and fill in your information, we will send you a FREE DVD to watch, which a great starting point

This weekend I went to 21st Century Academy’s only Women’s Seminar for 2000.  Even though I’m a guy, I was fortunate enough to be allowed to listen to the amazing speakers on the first day - hidden in a back corner and helping out.

The first speaker was the inspirational Lisa Curry Kenny.  This quote really sums up her speech:

“You see, in life, lots of people know what to do, but few people actually do what they know. Knowing is not enough! You must take action.” ~ Anthony Robbins

Lisa has dared and has done more than most people think is possible because she was positive and knew that she only depend on herself to achieve her goals.

A couple of other great things I got out of Lisa’s presentation are:

1.    Discipline yourself to finish what you start in life.

2.    Take the risk that you will ALWAYS achieve your goals and never lose sight of the bigger picture.

The financial education I would like you to consider is not for everyone. It will only work for the committed.

Are YOU committed to your financial success? Or do you plan to be average - earning and average income, having an average lifestyle.

If you want to be ABOVE AVERAGE then click this link fill out your information. I’ll send you a wealth creation DVD, then it’s up to you to TAKE ACTION and WATCH IT!!

I recently read a review that said if you do not learn something new your brain will get old very quickly.

For most of us, once we’ve put in a few years at something (say our job) we stop learning and just hope we get to retirement soon. In this frame of mind, we will never reach our full potential of having a fantastic life.

I have been fortunate and have followed the road less travelled. That road may have a few more bumps but I have learnt so much that it has kept me young.

21st Century Academy has been a huge inspiration to me. I learning new things, daily, that I can and do apply to my life. These are the things are taking me forward to the next level of richness.

Sometimes it is money that I get … most of the time it is the knowledge gained that is really priceless.

Yes, I am richer today than I have been at any other stage of my life. All this came about because I wanted to learn.

Start your learning TODAY with a free DVD from us by clicking this link and filling in your full name, address and phone number and your copy will be one its way.

A builder uses a set of plans to build a house. If he didn’t, the bathroom might get overlooked altogether

On the flip side of this, an architect puts a plan together which is then followed by the various tradespeople to get the result the architect has pictured.

You want to be the architect and the builder! Put a good plan in place and then follow it.

And yet most of us go blindly out into the world without an inkling of an idea about finances and without any plan at all.

Not very smart of us, is it? Many of us have the “it will all be alright” attitude.

A money plan is called a budget and it is crucial to get us to our desired financial goals. I always asked myself “how much am I saving?” And “how can I save more?”

First you have to know what your financial goals are, the ‘purpose’ to why you are doing this. Is it to buy a new car, a new house or (if you are like me) where can I travel too?

Without a plan we will drift without direction and end up marooned on a distant financial atoll.

If you have a spouse or a significant other, your budget should be made together. Sit down and figure out what your joint financial goals are … long term and short term.

Be careful of letting your egos get in the way, and not telling the whole truth about your financial predicament. This may put unwanted pressure on you and your partner’s plans for the future.

Then, plan a route to get to those goals. Every journey begins with one step and the first step to attaining your goals is to make a realistic budget that both of you can live with.

A budget should never be a financial starvation diet (like all diets, they will not work if you feel forced into doing it). That won’t work for the long haul. Make reasonable allocations for food, clothing, shelter, utilities and insurance and set aside a reasonable amount for entertainment and the occasional luxury item (I always put some fat on the figures so I will never leave myself short).

Savings should always come before any spending (even if you only put $5 to your savings, it is something). You also have to learn to never touch your savings account until you reach the goal you have been saving for.

Steps to Creating a Budget:

Step 1: Determine the goal you want to work towards

Step 2: Track your spending over the next 2 months – every cent

Step 3: Analyse what you spend your money on and work out whether it is all necessary

Step 4: Create a budget (base this on how frequently you get paid) for your basic living expenses (food, utilities, housing, transport etc)

Step 5: If you have outstanding debts, pay these off as quickly as possible

Step 6 SAVE toward your goal

Step 7: Keep tracking your spending and analyse where your money is now going

Step 8: Enjoy your goal once achieved

Step 9: Consider investment education (go to www.dynamitewealthcreation.com for more information on financial education)

Step 10: Start at Step 1 again

Always remember, if you make a mistake, tomorrow is a new day and you can start again!

If you don’t wake up feeling that the world has so many possibilities, then there may a small issue or two with your life.

I always found it hard to understand how someone could jump out of bed with energy looking forward to going to work. I thought these people were crazy!

And what about the people who said you should have a passion for what you do. I was just trying to make a living.

I’ve since learnt that the reason I was looking at these people in such a negative way was because I had lost my dream – that’s right, it had nothing to do with them and everything to do with me!

Everyone’s dream is different, and most people’s dream changes from time to time.

Having spent the last 20 years working for “the man”, I had lost my dream.

Have you been there? Are you there now?

I came across an advert for a free wealth creation DVD offer, and thinking ‘it’s free, what can it hurt’ requested a copy not realising that it was all about teaching me how to be financial free … “yeah, yeah, heard this one before” I thought, feeling like a sucker for all the marketing. Once it had arrived I put it to one side, thinking “I’ll watch it ‘one’ day”.

That ‘one’ day didn’t take that long to come around as there was nothing on TV so Fiona and I decided to give this DVD a go … are we glad we did!

Three hours later we knew we had to watch it again and write notes – it was that good! And, we put what we learnt into practice.

We didn’t earn much when we started, but we did earn … and we didn’t lose money.

For your chance to start earning too, I highly recommend getting this DVD, so click here and fill in your full name, address and phone number and we will send you a free DVD to help you make money – remember to start small and the money will compound.

What’s up with the currencies at the moment? Last time I was buying currency to travel overseas it cost me a lot less.

Before I watched Jamie McIntyre’s DVD I would have thought it was some scam by the government!

But the light has clicked on and I now realise I can make money from this.

When Fiona and I attended Jamie’s 4 day Education for Life seminar we were even more inspired by a fantastic trading program pioneered by a guy called ‘Aussie Rob’ – the program is called Lifestyle Trader.

After just a year we can say we have earned a 6 figure income from our trading. That’s nothing to sneeze at. Some of our trading buddies have far exceeded this.

Get your free DVD to learn the basics of trading (amongst other things) to see if this might work for you. Follow this link and fill in your information.

It really does work … and we didn’t have to invest our life savings to get started.

Every day there seems to be more doom and gloom in the world. Why?

I have a view, and I know it will the hurt the journalists out there … it’s to sell newspapers!

Most people like to focus on others and the angst in life rather than focusing on where they are at and how they could get to a far better position in life.

The number of opportunities available in Australia and New Zealand is endless. That’s why people who come from these countries tend to achieve more. They are not scared of being poor, of trying to do something different, to succeed. They do not have to get over their egos and concerns of what others think.

What they do is gain knowledge and then get on with it.

What is your knowledge like when it comes to making a secure financial future for yourself and your family?

If it is anything like mine was, not very good.

Start a new path to making a secure financial future. Get your copy of Jamie McIntyre’s wealth creation DVD (we should charge for this but we don’t as we want to help as many people who want to learn as we can) by clicking on this link and filling in your full name, address and phone number.

We’ll send you an information packed DVD … make it a priority to watch – your life may change for the better just by watching it!