You can find foreign hot spots by yourself

By Linda Stern

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. stocks have returned 6.47 percent to investors so far this year. But the rest of the world has doubled that performance, chalking up 13.4 percent in total returns, as measured by the Standard & Poor's/Citigroup market indexes.

So yes, you should have a piece of your portfolio in foreign stocks. Perhaps even a large piece.

The United States accounts for less than half of the global stock marketplace, yet very few American investors have more than 10 percent of their portfolios in foreign stocks, if they even have that.

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4- Find Investments

As your Financial Freedom Fund grows bigger and bigger you will be able to take some risks. But if are going to take Calculated Risks you have to have studied the markets and followed certain stocks for a while. These stocks don't have to be expensive Blue Chip stocks. You will get there later. There are great stocks available at prices you should be able to afford if you are working faithfully at your Financial Freedom Fund.

So my advice is start early. Before you have a lot of money and while you are still building up your FFF, commit to learning all you can so that when the time comes that you have a Fat FFF you can just seize the opportunity.

Once you invest in something (and by the way this same advice applies to any business you might own or join) support it, promote it and grow it. How do you do this:

1- Support It – If you own Starbucks Stocks (SBUX – Nasdaq) make sure you drink their coffee even if the other guys coffee is a few cents cheaper.

2- Promote It – If you are meeting someone meet them at Starbucks not at some other place whose stock you don’t own. Buy the stock if the fundamental and technical analysis makes sense but you also must love the company.

3- Grow It – By telling your friends about it. If they use the product because you promote it the company will be more profitable and your stock price will rise. If your friends buy the stock the price will may rise as well.

What ever you do, don’t be passive!

Bees don’t make honey by sitting around wishing and praying for their luck to change. You won’t make money unless you work and learn to be like that queen bee that leverages the efforts of others.

3- Start or Join A Business – Any Business!

Fortunately for me I have always been an Entrepreneur. Coming up with creative ideas was never a problem – staying focused was the challenge.

However, I must admit I had treated most of the small Home-Based Businesses I had been involved in more like a hobby. And when you treat a business like a hobby you make hobby income or it costs you like a hobby does.

So while I was working on the foreign currency trading I had already started working real hard on a Network Marketing Business I had signed up for but had done nothing with. That is another thing I leaned from T. Harv Eker, he said get into a business – any business by the end of the 3 day seminar. I was already in one – I had just not been working it.

Soon the business had turned into a roaring success and the FFF got even fatter.

Robert Kiyosaki of Rich Dad, Poor Dad fame says that the fastest way to get very wealthy is to build businesses and sell them. Study his stiff to see what he means.

We live in a booming economy and in a country where opportunity abounds. There is no reason not to succeed if you are willing to work. And that is the problem I run into most.

I find people today have a Lottery Mentality. They want to get rich overnight and are not willing to do anything more than go down to the corner store and buy a ticket. Yet, all they are doing is buying a dream. Don’t get me wrong – I buy Lottery tickets too because there is a guarantee. The guarantee is that if you never buy a lottery ticket you are guaranteed not to win. With a ticket at least you have your line in the water.

But to live your life just wishing and praying that you hit the big one is ridiculous.

This lottery mentality leads to people who want businesses where there isn’t much work or sacrifice or investment or time required. These same people work harder than you can imagine for someone who has no loyalty to them – their boss! They go into work sick! They can’t even take vacation when they want! They work long hours, sometimes without pay! I know – I used to be one of them! When anyone approached me about joining them in business my famous quote was, “Are you kidding? I don’t have any time!”

Sounds familiar? How about “I don’t have any money!” or “As it is I hardly see my family”. In retrospect these were exactly the reasons why I needed to do something.

One day I decided to Stop Making Excuses and Start Making Money! I made Time – I found the Money – And I got my family involved!

There are so many business ideas out there even if you can’t come up with one of your own. Just read Entrepreneur Magazine or any magazine on Home Businesses.

Or if you have enough money buy a franchise. Type Franchise Magazines or Franchise Opportunities into Google and see what you can find. It doesn’t have to be costly! I have seen franchises for as little as $10,000 and off course they run into the millions.

Or if you don’t have a lot of money look at a different type of franchising. Where they have the Shipping Department and they have the Call Centre and they take the Orders and the Payments and they just send you a check. All you have to do is tell your friends about it. You already tell your friends about deals at Wal-Mart and a Movie playing at the local theatre. I bet you Wal-Mart has never sent you a check to thank you for referring someone. Same goes for the Movie Theatre. This type of franchising is called Inter-Personal Marketing or by its other name Network Marketing. This type of Marketing is not on trial anymore. Doctors, Lawyers and other professionals are all doing it. Big corporations are using Network Marketing companies to distribute their products.

The only problem with this type of business for most people is that they all know someone who has not succeeded at it. The reason most probably is that they had no Training or they treated their business like a hobby. When done properly, there is no need to harass family and friends – there is a MUCH EASIER WAY and Dani Johnson can show you how! You just have to See This Dynamic Trainer in action to understand why so many Network Marketers are so excited about her.

Finally if none of the above is for you and excuses are still flowing from you like a leaky faucet then here is the straw that is going to break the Excuse Camel’s Back.

Imagine coming up with a few witty words or a unique design or idea and allowing people to put them on T-Shirts, Mugs, Mouse Pads, Calendars and all sorts of stuff. You create the design, upload it to a free website they give you, they take the orders, they ship the items, they take the payments, they handle returns and at the end of the month they send you a check. Sound too good to be true? Check out this incredible online business – I use it – I know how good it is and how profitable it is – It is called Café Press!

2- Start A Financial Freedom Fund (FFF)

Every year when a farmer harvests his crop he leaves some of the seed in the barn to plant next spring.

Every pay check that you earn you should be taking some of that seed and putting it in the “Barn” (Your Financial Freedom Fund) so that you can grow more money.

When I first started my FFF I thought it would take me forever to make it big enough so that I could do anything with it. After all, at first I could only put very small amounts of money into my FFF. But as it grew so did my obsession with making it even bigger. I had my Money Magnet Jar at home and I threw in anything I could Every Single Day.

Meanwhile I studied and studied. There is a saying that “Success happens when Knowledge Meets Opportunity”. I had acquired much knowledge over the years but everytime opportunity knocked I had no money or very little money. As a result I was afraid to risk what little money I had.

Soon I had $800 in my FFF and I had studied enough that I had decided to spend $300 of it on all I had learned about Foreign Currency Trading. I promptly lost almost a third of it as I realized that trading real money was not the same as trading in a practice account. However, I still had $500 left so I dipped in to it to replenish the trading account because I felt I had learned some valuable lessons. In the next few months I had great success until I got cocky and lost my focus. I still made a lot of money and that helped me pad my FFF.

The more money I made the more I put into my FFF. The more seed my FFF had the more I could plant and diversify. I bought stocks, invested in businesses and I quickly learned the secret of how the rich get richer.
“They Don’t Spend EVERYTHING They Earn.” They keep some of it for seed!

1- Make Learning A Passion – Especially About Money

Before you can take action you must off course set yourself on a course of learning. We live in a time of great knowledge and information. Besides great books like the Rich Dad, Poor Dad series by Robert Kiyosaki, books by Robert Allen and Mark Victor Hansen and The Secrets of The Millionaire Mind by T. Harv Eker, there are also great websites you should subscribe to.

Set your home page to one of these and / or bookmark these links:

Robert Kiyosaki has written a phenomenal set of books as mentioned above and has an excellent website with discussion boards and all at http://www.richdadpoordad.com Become a free member or a paid member – but visit the site often.

In Canada Robert Kiyosaki has a facilitator named Darren Weeks. Darren has helped numerous people through his seminars. Visit Darren and see what he does at: Fast Track To Cash Flow.

At the Millionaire Mind Seminar they implored people to read something, study something each day about money. “Spend even 15 minutes a day” said Harv Eker, a self made Millionaire. And that is what I did even though I had always disliked reading anything about managing or investing money.

Within weeks the topic had become interesting and soon I was spending 45 minutes to sometimes over an hour on this subject. 6 months later I was successfully trading foreign currency and reading everything I could lay my hands on about making money, managing money, growing money etc.

Today, it amazes me how far I have come. Can you imagine someone who two years ago knew virtually nothing about money and the economy or commodities, today doing a seminar called The Money Seminar? Today I teach people to do what I did. I teach them to become wealthy – that’s amazing for a guy who has been bankrupt twice.

Here is what I discovered about Learning:

1- There are many, many courses you can take to fix your stinking thinking. I took them all but one or two would have been sufficient. Though I would now highly recommend The Millionaire Mind Intensive. It is the least expensive, most intensive and the most effective.

2- Once you have your mind fixed only take courses that directly affect your business or chosen profession. For example if you are in Network Marketing only take courses that apply to Network Marketing like the Dani Johnson Training, so that you can become an expert in that area. Or if you want to trade foreign currency then become an expert at it by studying anything you can get your hands on.

3- Always keep a journal and take notes. This is critical! I am amazed when I see people at seminars just sitting there listening. There is no way they could remember or retain everything they hear. When you take notes you can at least review them later – in fact that is strongly recommended.

Cornerstones of My Success

Less than two years ago I was still struggling as I had been for most of my life. I had attended seminar after seminar, read motivational, inspirational and educational books and no one worked as hard as I had. I even had millionaires mentoring me for much of that time. Yet, my biggest struggle continued to me a lack of money.

During a seminar called The Millionaire Mind Intensive as I was leafing through a journal I was writing in, I found a note I had made while I was being coached by one of my Millionaire Mentors. What was so ironic about this note is the MMI facilitator was telling the attendees to do one of the things in my note that I had not been doing.

Immediately upon leaving the 3 day Millionaire Mind Intensive course I implemented the 4 points in the note. In fact the first point I had done for years. Here are the Four Points that I call the Cornerstones of Success. I will cover each of these in detail in future posts.

1- Make Learning a Passion – Especially about Money!

2- Start a Financial Freedom Fund (FFF).

3- Start or Join A Business – Any Business!

4- Find Investments.

Less than 2 years from the time I began to consistently act on these four cornerstones my Networth had grown to over a Million Dollars.

Alan Marston 

The Inaugural Post

Money does talk folks but for most people it just says goodbye. The aim of this Blog is to help you make money, save money and help you not lose too much money. Your input is certainly welcome but what I don’t want on this Blog is you promoting your deal. Here’s why:

I am sick and tired of jumping head first into every deal that came my way and I am sick and tired of seeing people get hurt by scams, short term schemes and just totally dumb opportunities that make its founders a fortune.

The people that are subscribing to this Blog want to know what the heck I am doing because I have hit one home run after another over the last 6 years.

8 years ago I had gone bankrupt for the second time and that was where the turning point came. I knew I was doing something wrong even though I had been mentored for over 25 years by some of the richest men and women around – many of them millionaires.

I realized that I had learned a lot from these people but I had not acted on what they had taught me. And there in lies the rub. I was going to seminars, reading great books and being mentored by people who I wanted to be like but I was still doing my own thing.

In 1999 I decided that my plan was not working and if I didn’t start paying attention pretty quick my life would continue spiralling downwards.

So stick with me and you will learn what I have learned and if you use what I have used there is no reason why you can’t become even wealthier and more successful than me or many of my millionaire mentors.

Subscribe to this Blog right now (Enter Your Email On The Right Side Of This Page) so you don’t miss a single post. I am a busy guy and I will post whenever I can. Most importantly tell your friends and family about this Blog. Here’s why:

When I say surround yourself with successful people here is the first problem. Your friends and family are probably not very successful and are probably broke, like mine were. So when I was using them as a sounding board I was getting the wrong information back. Information that was keeping me broke and unsuccessful!

In my case I ditched my friends and stayed away from my family as much as possible. That is not the answer! The answer is to help them get educated and inspired while you are doing the same. If they don’t follow your lead then don’t talk to them about business or investing. Theirs is not the plan that will set you financially free.