CONCEPT NOTE FOR BUILDING A COMMUNITY OF ACHIEVERS AND ASPIRANTS OF FINANCIAL FREEDOM
By
Lt Col Prakash Joshi (Veteran)
CONCEPT
In life, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Most of us do plan whether by choice or by default, may be for too short a period or periods not long enough to derive maximum from such planning. Sometimes planning covers only some aspects of our lives like work or an event like constructing or buying a house or organising a marriage but it fails to consider planning in the larger perspective to enable us to get entire satisfaction and happiness from life. Such planning requires taking a holistic view of life. Earlier this is done the better but it is never too late.
Due to not planning early enough in life and due to reasons beyond our control we land up educating ourselves in fields which are not necessarily our passion or major interest and sequentially land up in jobs of similar kind. For those lucky few for whom this is not true the other principle of any job becoming monotonous with time holds good. How can we get out of this predicament and can we get out of it? The answer is a very positive yes.We need to realize what we want and make disciplined efforts to generate choices in life which will enable us correct our future path. Another prerequisite is the need to plan and achieve Financial Freedom. What is meant by Financial Freedom? It can be called as the financial state for the individual when he does not have to work for money or remuneration because his money works for him. This ensures that his normal needs and desires in life are fulfilled. Now, he is free to work on what he really likes and enjoys.
It hardly ever happens that things go perfectly as per the plan.We have a higher superior authority called by different names by different religions and faiths, who is monitoring and guiding our destiny by modifying our plans. He is our faith and we must believe in Him to do what He thinks is best for us.We may not even perceive it as some thing good for us at some points in our lives. We need to help Him by doing our bit to plan and not sit idle and wait for Him to deliver.
The concept assumes that there will be some achievers of the concept and many aspirants of the concept. If achievers are willing to help and aspirants are willing to take such help it is possible to build and grow a community of such achievers and aspirants, which will make our earth a better place to live our lives with satisfaction and happiness for the community.Aspirants too will be at diffrent stages in their progress path to achieve Financial Freedom and thus will have a lot to share among themselves too.
HOW IT EVOLVED
Money matters and investments along with financial planning were my need based hobby while in the Army. Long range planning was a gift I had from early days. Some of my life goals were decided by me when I was about 16-18 years of age and training as a cadet in National Defence Academy.These were as under:
1. To get married at 25 years of age.
2. To take care of basic family responsibilities like childrens' education by 50
years of age.
3. To do two careers in one life
4. To achieve financial freedom by the age of 50
5. To work for making a social contribution after achieving Financial Freedom.
This is an effort towards it too.
In our case some goals were achieved in time and some were delayed but the fact that all goals were achieved was a source of great satisfaction. We are two years into our Financial Freedom now and working on making a social contribution.
A word about the contribution and support provided by Kunda, my wife, is necessary here. She could understand the need to go in for a house as soon as possible after marriage. She had seen the difficulties faced by her parents when they retired because they did not have a ready house to move into.She was also aware of my plans to go in for a second career. Kunda, had always wanted to study psychology and enjoyed working with children of all ages After we achieved our Financial Freedom ,she rejoined a school for her post graduate diploma in School Psychology and completed it with distinction and even topped the university. She is truely enjoying being a students' counselor now and getting a lot of satisfaction too.
I too decided to reflect on my own journey of life so far..I observed that while money or lack of money and credit was a problem for some people, many others did not make full use of the money as they either lacked awareness or did not develop the correct attitude towards money or did not understand the investments that they made.
Thus,I decided to work on Personal Financial Freedom, Awareness and Planning as a mission. Based on my own life experiences, I prepared two power point presentations.
1. Personal Financial Planning and Awareness
2. Understanding Investments
In the last year or so I made these presentations to some groups in defence establishments, corporate and other formal and informal groups which have been well received. In addition, I have also been providing services to those who approached me for facilitating their Personal Financial Planning and Retirement Planning.
While doing this, it came to my notice that many were desirous of learning to understand equity markets and make investments but needed some hand holding. To meet this need I started the practice of "Separately Managed Accounts". (please send me a mail to know more about it, if interested)
PATH FORWARD
It was felt that the concept of Financial Freedom was worth reaching it to a larger population. Another aspect which came to my notice was that while many people felt inclined to plan their finaces and achieve Financial Freedom, they lacked the motivation to spur them to action and needed a facilitator or mentor to do the same. This is when I started thinking of developing a web site to build a community of achievers and aspirants of Financial Freedom. A blog was designed to have more interaction among the community members on various topics of mutual interest. As the community of like-minded people grows in size, it will be possible to find among them facilitators, mentors, club developers and marketers as torch bearers to make the mission successful. While members benefit from each other it is necessary for members to give some part of it to charity and thus make some social contribution This is presently left to the people themselves.
MY VISION FOR THE COMMUNITY
It is my vision to build a strong and large world wide community of achievers and aspirants of Financial Freedom through this web site and blog. Such a community will be able to share their knowledge, gain from the knowledge imparted by others and develop themselves as well as contribute to the development of others in the community. As many of the community members achieve their financial freedom, it will be possible for them to contribute more to the social causes of their choice individually or as a community.
There is a lot of scope to achieve, this is but just a beginning; like what Swami Vivekananda said, " Arise awake and stop not till the goal is reached"