I have a Facebook Group called Financial Independence: It's All About The Attitude. If you're not a member, go and request to join because there's some seriously good stuff in there to help you on your path to financial independence. And now there will be EVEN MORE things in there because...
 
There are two new contributors to the group!
 
I am no longer coaching or mentoring in any form. I will be blogging and my website is slowly becoming the hub that I want it to be. My focus from here is to CONNECT people with the resources & support they’re looking for and, true to form in my life, stuff has happened since I put the article/message out.
 
I’ve met a lot of coaches / mentors / authors / experts in the last few years who know an awful lot  of stuff and who provide the most incredible support & who are committed to making a difference in the world in all sorts of ways - health, fitness, financial, personal development, mental health, relationships, business, real estate, spiritual, emotional, and so many others ways – and my website will provide an easy connection to them for other people. In talking to some of these other people, it became obvious that I can still provide the kind of education to this group that I’m committed to providing without actually doing it myself (duh!). To that end, I approached two friends and asked them if they’d like to get involved and they jumped at the chance. Tamsin Young and Merryl Seibert both have decades of experience in off-line coaching and both are newbies at the whole Facebook thing. Jumping into this group is a win-win for all of us, for sure. Over the next few days/weeks, you’ll see more stuff from them in the group plus I’ll still be around, too.
 
I’ve also created my own social network platform! In other words, I have my OWN version of Facebook on my website! How cool is that? I feel uncomfortable on Facebook for several reasons: the lack of notifications, weird things appearing on my newsfeed and the amount of ads, among other things. So, I’ve established my own social network and it literally works like every other social network: you log in, there’s a newsfeed/homepage, there are groups, photos, videos, you can friend people, unfriend them, message them, whatever. The advantages are huge: no one is listening to you, no one is deciding what you do and don’t see, you can post without fear of all your extended family and vague acquaintances seeing what you’re writing. Over the next few months, a number of the coaches & experts that I know will be establishing their own pages & groups on the network so the resources on there will keep on growing. I’m not suggesting that we all go on there instead of Facebook, but it is a safe, closed, protected space that will allow us more freedom of expression.
 
Click here to request to join: http://www.social.karenoconnor.net
 
I’d love to hear your thoughts on all of this, let me know.
 
K xxx

The ultimate aim in financial freedom is twofold:

- create a mindset that allows you to live a life of freedom

AND

- create an income that you receive without having to put in time or effort.

True financial freedom is about being able to live in such a way that you feel totally free to do whatever you want to do, right? Free to travel, play, have fun, spend time with your family, go places, do things, have whatever you want to have. Total and complete freedom to just live the kind of life you've always dreamed of living.

Take a look at your life right now. The likelihood is that you're exchanging all your time to earn not very much money.
The likelihood is that you feel trapped and frustrated. That's probably why you're reading this article and on this website, right? To move from the trapped frustration and into freedom & choice? Your effort needs to be divided: work on your mind, OPEN your mind to the possibility of doing things in a different way, while creating ways of allowing more money into your life. Right now, it's highly likely that the only way you're receiving money is through some kind of work, and you've got to keep doing the same amount of work to carry on receiving that money. To be financially free, you must create income that might require work at first but eventually become residual income: income that you receive whether you do any 'work' to get it or not. A normal job isn't ever going to be a residual income: if you don't work, you don't get paid. This distinction is one of the keys to being financially free: create passive/residual income streams.

The residual income streams might be real estate investments or blogging or affiliate marketing or writing a book or renting out a spare room on AirBNB, it might be a vending machine of some kind or part or full ownership of a business that doesn't need much input such as a laundromat. It's highly likely that you're going to have to start small and work your way up so have some kind of plan in place, some path that you want to take doing this first to get some cash behind you, then invest that in the next step up, then the next step and so on. You don't have to stick to the plan, but at least you've got a clear idea that you can get there, right?

What path are you going to take to get to where you want to go? What will your residual portfolio look like? Mine has always been predominantly in real estate because I like real estate. I'm also working on a few affiliate marketing things that you'll hear more about soon, I have a book that is sitting there, waiting to go to market (I'm thinking September for the launch). It's taken me quite a while of hard work to get to this point and, of course, everything happens at once! But my priority is to establish income streams that allow me to do the things I want to do, when I want to do them. So, what can you do to start creating residual income? You may only have a few hours to put into this each week right now (trust me, I know about that one), but let me make this clear: if you don't put effort into creating residual income, you will never be financially free. Instead of watching TV or scrolling through social media, spend the time researching, looking at opportunities, BUILDING YOUR EMPIRE. I know you're tired, exhausted, drained, you're sick of things and you need some time to yourself, but that's never going to change, not while you're exchanging your TIME, and therefore your LIFE, for money. Do it another way: put aside a few hours a week to begin creating residual income. There's no other way to do it.

So, how are you going to do this? What is your residual income going to look like? I'd love to know.

K xxx

“If I ask people for money, they won’t like me”

This interesting little gem has just come up for me. And I’m working my way through the massive implications. It’s very, very interesting. I’ve done lots of money exercises before but this one has never come up for me.

Here’s the exercise for today: grab a pen & paper. Think back over your life and write down all the incidents that you can think of that happened for you around money. Not just the things you thought, the actual incident and all its details. For example, I went into the kitchen and asked Mum for some money. She said “If you can find any money in my wallet, you can have it” and there was no money in her wallet. I remember feeling really sad for mum and really horrified that there really wasn’t a single penny in her purse. Not one. Or, Listening to dad talking about how his business partner had taken all their products and the money and how he was left with nothing from all that hard work again. It was the “again” that really hit home for me.

Really get present to the incident and where you were, what you were doing and what you felt. We know what our money stories are when we start doing a little digging, but really getting present to the actual incident can quite often open up an entirely new world of things.

So your mission today, should you choose to accept it is to dig DEEP.

Let me know how you go. Remember, it’s all about the attitude

K xxx

There is a difference between Financial Independence and Financial Freedom. Suze Orman, author and wealth coach, describes it this way: "A big part of financial freedom is having your heart and mind free from worry about the what-ifs in life."

In all the years that I’ve been on this path of wealth creation and abundance, learning what I could, doing personal development courses, reading books, attending seminars, everything, heading surely towards financial freedom and a life of abundance and luxury, something that escapes many people (including us) is actual INDEPENDENCE from money. Independence from our money stories. Independence from money worries. Independence from anxieties and concerns. Independence from our fears around money. We do all the work, we do the vision boards, we journal, we develop ourselves, we do affirmations, we work on our stuff and letting go of things, replacing our beliefs, doing something different. We do all sorts of things but one thing we don’t aim for is INDEPENDENCE. Freedom, financial or otherwise, has been touted round for years and is synonymous with get-rich-quick schemes and scams now. But getting rich, whether that’s quickly or not, will not change our day-to-day experience with money, regardless of how much we have.

The only way to change our day-to-day experience, and from there our ability to create the kind of life we want to live is to have total INDEPENDENCE around money. To not be concerned about how much money is in our bank accounts. To not be worried about where our money is going to come from. To KNOW that we can create what we want to create, when we want to create it. To KNOW that we live in total abundance and that our fears are the only thing that stop us. We think that “financial freedom” will do all that, we think that if only we had a million dollars… ten million… a hundred million in the bank… then we’d be okay… then we’d be financially free… then we’d feel good… then we wouldn’t worry about money… then we could relax and enjoy life. That’s how it is, isn’t it? We think that the problem is that we don’t have enough money and if we did just have enough money, then everything would be good and we could concentrate on other things.

That’s not how it works. If you don’t become INDEPENDENT from money, if you don’t release your fears, beliefs and anxieties around money, they’re going to stay with you no matter how much money you have.

This isn’t just a mindset thing. Our fears and anxieties stop us from taking care of our money. We’ve all stuck our heads in the sand and not balanced our books because we don’t want to look at the awful truth, right? We all avoid things that we don’t like. If we want INDEPENDENCE, we have to be able to take care of our money and not have it affect us emotionally. We have to take responsibility for our money. We have to respect our money, just like we respect ourselves or our loved ones. We have to care about it… But not be attached to it. Not see it as finite. Not see it as scarce.

So, we work on our minds – our beliefs and fears – as well as day-to-day practicalities. We can’t do one without the other, it won’t work. This is about INDEPENDENCE, separating ourselves from our fears and beliefs, putting structures in place to support ourselves and creating a powerful freedom for ourselves around money.

K xxx

#epicfail Facebook
 
I’ve spent almost 2 years now, working on trying to build a business, trying to put myself out there, trying to win people’s trust and make a difference, but I was doing all this, putting all my effort into doing this, on a medium that I basically don’t trust and wondering why things weren’t going as I expected them to.
 
A few months ago, with all the hoo-haw about privacy and Facebook selling its users details and everything, I deleted the Facebook app from my phone. But, to be honest, if you’re trying to do livestreams, it’s a bloody nuisance not having the app on your phone, so I reinstalled it. Today, I’m scrolling through my homepage and what do I see? An ad for sleep apnoea. I’d been discussing that with John this morning. So Facebook is still listening in to conversations even when I’m not using the app.
 
I’ve spent 2 years learning how to build a business on Facebook, how to advertise on Facebook, how to best utilise Facebook, how to keep Facebook happy and stay out of Facebook jail, what words to use on Facebook, what words to not use on Facebook. I’ve learned a lot. And I’m not comfortable with any of it. I basically don’t trust Facebook: I don’t trust them to be their word (er, privacy laws), I don’t trust them to protect my information (er, privacy laws), I don’t trust them to do anything other than look after themselves.
 
Facebook business users were encouraged to have pages, so they could reach their audience easily. Once we all did that, Facebook began charging for posts containing ads. If I put up a post containing no link to my website or anything, each post might reach up to 500 or more people. If the same post has a link in it, the reach might be 9 or 20 people. Next, Facebook encouraged us all to form groups, that way, we can be sure that everyone in the group will have access to our posts. What I’m noticing is that notifications about posts in groups aren’t happening and Facebook are talking about charging people for being in groups.
 
I’m not against anyone making money but here’s the thing: if I’m going to do business with someone, I want to know that I can trust them and that their values are aligned with mine. I want to know that I can count on that company to act with integrity and in the best interest of its customers. When I deal with Facebook, I’m left feeling that I’m being led a merry dance, sucked into relying on something in order to have a successful business, counting on certain things happening, but all the while, knowing that the ONLY people Facebook are interested in is themselves. They have no interest in anyone other than how much money they can make out of them in the long term. And they constantly break one of my core values: Integrity.
 
I spent last night going through my “interests” in the advertising section… again, and deleting everything… again, telling them I don’t want to be tracked… again, confirming that I don’t want targeted ads… again. Then this ad about sleep apnoea comes up. Coincidence? Maybe. More than likely it’s a #epicfail on Facebook’s part.
 
Now, all of this has been gurgling about in the back of my mind while I’ve been trying to build a business on FACEBOOK. What an idiot! Almost every.single.thing I’ve learned about building a business online has been centred around building that business on Facebook. AND I DON’T TRUST THEM. I would not do business with Facebook in the “real” world. I don’t like their ethics or their methods. What was I thinking? And I couldn’t understand why things weren’t working for me online? Really?
 
I had a conversation about all this with a friend of mine who runs her business pretty much totally from Facebook. Her view is that’s just the way things are; they’re going to listen in, they’re going to track you, they’re going to change the rules to suit themselves. I mean, that’s exactly what they do, right? The question for me is, do I want to be a part of it? Do I want a business that’s based on Facebook? That’s easy to answer: no. Unequivocally, no. When I look at it from a values space, it’s a very easy decision, but I also think it’s an age thing, too. I can only dig myself into a hole with that conversation, so I might just leave it there, lol; it’s definitely an age thing, and I suspect most of my friends – all those ladies of a certain age – will agree with me!
 
I will SOCIALISE with my friends and family on Facebook, I will keep up with what the Jones’s are doing, I will share stuff with the people I love and care about and I’ll make new connections. But do business with Facebook?
 
I only do business with people I trust, like and admire.
 
My gut feeling about this whole thing has been off from the start, but I forced myself on, thinking that I was just unsure about ‘putting myself out there’ and ‘being vulnerable’. That wasn’t the hesitation at all; the hesitation was an unconscious observation that I actually wouldn’t do business with this company. It’s a lesson, and one that maybe we can all look at: if we’re not doing well at something, if it’s a struggle, if we’re unsure or not achieving what we normally would, what else could be going on? Take ourselves out of that scenario and look at it from a different angle, like I did if I thought about doing business in a “normal” way with Facebook.

Life is all about the attitude.
 
K xxx

We can budget, we can manage, we can learn how to make extra money, we can work two, three or four jobs, we can scrimp & scrape, count the pennies, work smarter not harder...

But until we take control of the thoughts that are running around in our heads, we are NEVER going to be wealthy or financially independent. Never.

Getting to financial independence, financial freedom, wealth, rich, living a life of freedom and choice...

...is 90% in our minds. It's literally all about the attitude.

The other 10% is in our daily actions.

Where do you put your focus? Maybe it's time to put the effort elsewhere...

It's all about the attitude!

K xxx