The Financial Security Bible

How to Build Wealth and Be Happy

Mike Summey

• Publisher: G&D Media
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781722521141
• Topic: Persönliche Entwicklung
• Subtopic: Private Finanzen

Take a journey through life with Mike Summey and you'll never view money and finances the same way again. You'll learn what financial independence really is and how to overcome the problems and obstacles that keep most people from ever achieving it. In the Financial Security Bible, Mike chronicles his journey from the poverty stricken coal fields of southern West Virginia, to wealth and financial independence. He does this by using parables and stories that teach you how to extract life lessons from personal experiences and how to put these lessons to work to build wealth and be happy. The first sentence explains Mike's feelings about sharing his knowledge. This book could easily be the best investment you will ever make. Mike Summey is an entrepreneur in the truest sense of the word. He is a successful author, speaker, business owner, and investor who lives on a beautiful private gated estate, flies his own propjet and has all the trappings of wealth, but it's not because of his high paying job, it's because of the income stream he has accumulated from his investments. Rarely does someone with his real world experience have the ability or desire to share what they have learned in the process of earning a PhD from the University of Hard Knocks.

[PART I]

Beginning the Journey!

You are about to embark on a journey that will challenge your thinking, upset the status quo, and change your life. Many self-help books are based on research and theory and read much like textbooks. This book also includes research and theory, but what sets it apart from so many of the others is that I will open my heart and mind to share many personal stories; some very emotional, some painful, and some downright funny that have helped me develop a unique way of thinking about financial success and happiness.

In this section I will define what financial success is, what it isn’t, and the positive effects it can have on your life when you understand how to use it. Financial success is not something magical, it doesn’t require a college degree to understand, and it proves that you don’t have to be born with money to enjoy financial independence. What it will prove to you is that ordinary people can achieve extraordinary success.

In this section, I will define the difference between the Lifestyle of Success, the Lifestyle of Failure and the Lifestyle of Ordinary. As you read about the similarities and differences between these lifestyles, it will encourage you to identify the traits and characteristics you possess and help you determine which of these lifestyles you are living. Until you establish where you are, you can’t set a course to get you where you want to be. If you’re in Pittsburgh and you want to go to Dallas, it doesn’t make much sense to map out a route to get there from Orlando. Likewise, if your goal is financial independence, and you’re currently in debt, have poor credit and no job, it doesn’t do you much good to study how someone with great credit, cash in the bank, and a good job would do it.

As you journey through this book, you will be able to pinpoint your position in life and determine the course of action you need to take to reach your goal of financial independence. As I share my journey from a very modest background to achieving financial independence, you will see that I encountered many of the same obstacles you encounter and what I did to overcome them. You’ll learn that I relied on patience and persistence, rather than luck; that setting aside time to learn each day had more to do with my success than any specific events. You’ll also learn that I haven’t done anything you can’t do if you really want to.

Achieving financial success is not an event; it’s a course of action. What you’ll find in this text is how to learn from day-to day-events and use common sense to build a successful financial future. Whether it’s having to earn the money for your first bicycle, building a business, learning to fly airplanes, or becoming a millionaire, you can’t arrive unless you’re willing to take the journey.

Yes, life is a journey. It consists of a changing, shifting series of events that ultimately leads us all to the same place … death. While that’s a sobering thought, the amount of joy and excitement, and of accomplishment and reward, and the peace of mind we get from the journey depends on our willingness to keep learning new skills and seeking additional knowledge. Since we all know what our final outcome here on Earth will be, shouldn’t we focus on doing or not doing things between birth and death that will make our life more enjoyable rather than more miserable? And the beauty of it all is that we get to decide how much or how little of the trip we enjoy. It all starts with our mindset: how we approach problems, how we react to outside influences, how well we control our emotions, and what we decide we want from life. We get to choose whether we face the future filled with excitement and anticipation or whether we view it with fear and despair.

My goal with this book is to help you to establish a roadmap to wealth and financial independence that you will feel comfortable traveling. That’s important, because your willingness to follow the map will be strongly influenced by how much you enjoy the trip and how soon you are able to arrive at the destination. In all walks of life, there are people excelling and people failing. Although sophisticated financial planning and exceptional investment knowledge can help, achieving financial success doesn’t require these. Following simple commonsense principles has created more millionaires than all the gimmicks combined. When you finish this book, I want you to say, “Wow, I can do that!” Now turn the page, and let’s get started.

[1]

Preparing for Your Journey!

One of the things that constantly astound me about life in this great country is not so much the great contrast between the rich and poor, but the astonishing contrast between the successful and the unsuccessful. Some people seem to achieve great wealth with seemingly little effort, while all too many are unable to survive without the help of others. And this is the wealthiest country the world has ever known!

All people are created equal, we are told. Look through the maternity ward window at your local hospital and look at the newborn babies. Can you tell which of them will be successful? I doubt it. They all look physically much the same, and they all have many more brain cells than they will ever use. Which one will be building an empire of wealth and influence, and which one will be standing on a street corner saying, “I’m homeless. Can you spare some change?” It’s really hard to tell, isn’t it?

Why do some people zoom down the highway of financial success, while others end up as road kill on life’s economic highway? That’s what happens to so many well-meaning, hardworking individuals. Sometimes it’s shortsightedness. They spend more money on casino gambling or lottery tickets than it would take to build a safe and secure financial future. Others are so cautious they are afraid to take any risks at all; they want a sure thing. Although their styles are vastly different, the results are often the same: they are rarely able to build wealth and achieve financial security.

Is the willingness to take risks a key to financial success? That sounds right. Most wealthy people will tell stories of the giant risk they took on the way to success. Beware of coming to that conclusion. It’s deceptive, because we always hear about the people who successfully take risks; we don’t hear about the thousands who take similar risks and lose. We hear about the $10 million lottery winner, but we don’t hear about the many millions more who lost a dollar trying to win. What I’m going to teach you is that the willingness to take informed risks is the key to developing financial independence, not simply the willingness to take risks.

In this book, you’re going to learn about the characteristics of informed risk taking and why it is so different from just blind risk taking. I’m going to teach you how changing the way you think will change your life and especially your financial future. In fact, until you change the way you think, you’re never going to change either your life or your financial future. I’ve heard it said that doing the same things today that you did yesterday and expecting different results is a good definition of insanity. Think about it, the same actions usually produce the same results. It takes different actions to produce different results.

Take a different approach. Instead of thinking, “What do I have to do to become rich?,” start thinking, “What am I doing wrong that’s keeping me from already being rich?” The United States is the greatest economic engine the world has ever produced. If you’re not doing well financially in this country, it’s your fault. This country is filled with economic opportunities that people throughout the rest of the world have only dreamed about in past centuries. Not since Venice was the most powerful merchant state in Europe during the Middle Ages has this kind of opportunity existed. And the incredible thing about America is that the opportunity to build wealth exists for everyone, not just a privileged few. If you’re not financially successful in this country, you’re doing something fundamentally wrong, and the first step to improving your future is changing the way you think.

You read a book by starting at the beginning and reading through to the end. You build a life by starting at the end – deciding what you want to become – and then mapping out a route that will take you where you want to go.

Those who are destined to become road kill on life’s financial highway probably fall into one of two categories. If you pay a visit to the Financial Road Kill Café and read the menu, you’ll see that most dishes are made from tortoises and hares.

Hares get run over because they are always in too much of a hurry to stop and look both directions before bolting into the road. They are the folks who want quick financial success with little or no effort. They are the people who buy into every get-rich-quick scheme that comes along. They aren’t interested in the hassles and responsibilities that come with building financial success. They want big success, and they want it now. They’re the ones who continue to buy lottery tickets, play slot machines, and bet on the horses in spite of the fact that they’ve already lost a small fortune over the years. They are firmly convinced their big hit is just around the corner.

You’ve heard them talk. They have a friend named Joe who has an uncle who has a son-in-law who lives in another state that once won a million dollars in the lottery. These are the people who are easily seduced by the siren song of instant riches. I’ll even confess that I feel a little giddy when I see that the Powerball Lottery prize has reached over $300 million. Somebody has to win it. Why not me? Wouldn’t it be great to have all that money! It causes the right side of my brain to take off on a delicious fantasy that could easily drown out the logical-thinking left side of my brain when it screams, “You idiot, don’t you realize that for the prize to be $300 million, there are probably way over 300 million losing tickets.” Anyone with an ounce of common sense knows that the odds are absurdly against you. I was recently listening to a radio ad for the lottery, and it contained a quick disclaimer stating that the odds of winning were one in 195,000,000. That’s not informed risk-taking, and it’s not for me!

Hares don’t seem to realize that when they are running in a dozen different directions and always looking for that “lucky break,” they are asking to get run over. These are people who are failing to take advantage of the genuine opportunities to achieve true financial independence that exist in this country.

The tortoises, on the other hand, religiously get up and go to work five, sometimes six or seven days a week, receive a regular paycheck, pay their house payments, car payments, and credit card bills on time and choose to save a portion of their salary each month rather than wasting money gambling. They are much more conservative than the hares, and as a result, they don’t take a lot of chances. They plan for the future, make regular deposits to company-sponsored retirement plans or IRA accounts, invest in mutual funds, buy a few shares of stock, and keep a respectable amount of cash in the bank. They are convinced that by continuing to invest a portion of their earned income, it will assure them of a safe and secure income in retirement. Twenty, 30, and 40 years ago that wasn’t such a bad plan. You could get a good education, go to work for a large company, religiously contribute to their profit-sharing and retirement plans, and retire with enough income to live comfortably, but not today. Depending on corporate pension plans to see you through is Pollyanna thinking these days. Look at what happened with companies like Enron, K-Mart, WorldCom, and even some of the nation’s largest financial institutions. Tens of thousands of good hardworking people saw their futures eradicated by corporate greed or incompetence.

Eagles are different! That’s why you won’t find them on the menu at The Road Kill Café. Unlike the tortoises and hares that make up the vast majority of the financial road kill, the financial eagles soar above it all. Their lofty perspective gives them wisdom. They see tortoises and hares scurrying about in their own little worlds unable to see the big picture. The Financial Road Kill Cafe is full of tortoises and hares, but for two very different reasons. The hares tend to bolt into the roadway without looking, often right under the wheels of oncoming traffic. Tortoises, on the other hand, ease onto the road, not realizing that there’s a semi truck two miles down the road that will run over them because they move so slowly. Some will even venture halfway across the road, pull their head in their shell, and just sit there. Maybe they’re trying to decide whether to go ahead and cross to the other side or come back to the side where they started.

People who are failing financially can nearly always be classified as tortoises or hares. Those fitting the hares’ mold are always rushing into get-rich-quick schemes and never develop a long-term financial strategy. I’ve watched tortoises agonize for days or weeks over a decision, only to second-guess themselves after making it, change their mind, and fail to see it through. They are like the tortoise frozen in the path of a speeding semi truck, not knowing whether to advance or retreat.

Have you ever seen an eagle hit by a truck? It just doesn’t happen! A soaring eagle doesn’t dive into oncoming traffic, because he views things from a different perspective. As he soars over the countryside, he can see the cars coming from a greater distance. Although he moves at faster pace, he does so with the knowledge that comes from knowing his surroundings and acting with the wisdom that comes with seeing the big picture. Financially successful people are like this. They develop the ability to look beyond the end of their noses, to anticipate pitfalls and avoid them, but they also plan a strategy to deal with setbacks in case they do arise.

The tortoises and hares of the world share thoughts such as, “Those people were luckier or smarter than me. They were in the right place at the right time. If I’d had the same opportunities they had, I’d be more successful too. If I had their courage, I’d be as wealthy as they are.” Some of these types of people would rather make excuses than put forth the effort that success requires. Others put forth the effort but are like ditch diggers sweating in the hot sun with pick and shovel, while a backhoe sits idle because they won’t take the time to learn to use it. They have yet to learn that nearly all luck is nothing more than the intersection of preparation and opportunity. The tortoises and hares spend more time looking for excuses than it would take to solve most problems. They have discovered that making excuses takes much less effort than developing financial strategies and making them work.

There’s no doubt that it is difficult to admit that what they have been doing in the past was wrong and taking responsibility for it is not pleasant. The fear of accepting responsibility for their financial shortcomings causes these people to continue trying to cross the same highway. Of course, the results never change, and they ultimately end up as more economic road kill.

The concept of wealth building is foreign to most people because personal financial literacy isn’t a top priority of our educational system. We graduate students who can plot the course of a rocket to the moon, but they can’t balance their checkbooks. This is a real shame, because all people need to know how to prepare a budget, pay their bills, and deal with credit whether they plan to be a ditch digger or a doctor. In this book I’m going to share the basic commonsense principles that have enabled me to achieve financial independence long before I become eligible for Social Security. I’m going to show you how anyone can build wealth and do so in an honest and honorable way.

While the concept is simple, it does require you to look at life from a different perspective. If you develop the ability to anticipate problems and prepare to deal with them when they arise, you will always enjoy more success than those who are surprised by problems and don’t have a clue what to do next when confronted with them.

In this book I’m going to explore what it takes to develop this ability and show you how it can guide your life decisions in ways that will lead you to achieve financial independence. We all have bad things happen to us occasionally, but if we realize that there are valuable lessons embedded in negative experiences, we can turn them into learning experiences that would make us stronger. A big part of developing the ability to anticipate and deal with problems is learning to distill positive lessons from what appear to be negative experiences. Throughout life, we are faced with the age-old question, “Is the glass half full or half empty?” Those with positive outlooks on life see the glass as half full, while negative thinkers see it as half empty. (As my college-educated children pointed out to me, this assumes that you want the glass to be full. If it were half-full of hard-to-dispose-of toxic waste, you might want it to be empty!) Step one in developing the proper thinking is to look for the good in life, not the bad. Nurture the good things, learn from the bad ...