I was reading my bible the other day. Whenever I am feeling overwhelmed or a bit down in the dumps I like to read my bible. Somehow the wisdom from thousands of years of experience and relationship with God soothes my nerves…not to mention that God points things out to me.
As usual I was looking through Proverbs, my favourite book in the bible. In case you don’t know it is mainly written by King Solomon who is considered by many to be the wisest man and the richest man who ever lived. I was reading ‘The Message’ version which is a modern day paraphrase of the bible and I came across one verse that struck me.
“Sell everything and buy Wisdom, forage for understanding”
Ever since I was a kid it was always my prayer to get wisdom. I was inspired by the story of Solomon, who God gave one ‘wish’. God said he could have whatever he wanted, he only had to ask. Instead of asking for riches, or women, or power or glory he asked for wisdom. Because he asked for wisdom and not the other things God gave him wisdom, but he also gave him everything else as well. Ever since reading that I have always asked for wisdom.
Ask my wife, or my friends and they will tell you that I love learning. When it comes to business and investing my main priority is not to make money right off the bat, but to learn and get wisdom. Because the more wisdom you get, the more money you make.
The other day, when I read this verse, I was feeling overwhelmed. I have just become a dad to my baby girl Sasha, and my head has not exactly been in the game. I have been torn between caring for her, trying to get sleep, trying to close on my first investment property and trying to microtest and start a new business. It has been a fairly full on process. Trying to make a decision on what to focus on has been hard.
But this concept of doing everything you can in order to gain wisdom really drummed home for me what I needed to do. Property is great, and I will continue to invest in property, but without income and borrowing power it can be extremely difficult. More importantly it can be difficult to become financially free quickly through property (without any income to support your investments).
My business on the other hand, could gross me over $120k/year with minimal time investment. Costs would probably run at around $40k/year so that is an almost passive income of $80,000/year. Not bad seeing as I am currently earning $15-20k/year at my current job. If I could completely outsource the running of the business then I have effectively created a passive income for myself of $80,000/year an I am effectively financially free.
There is not one way to financial freedom there is many. Sometimes you have to deviate from your original plan in order to pursue something better, or to make your plan work better. This business will make it easier for me to invest in property and make money in property, and become financially free all over again in property.
Wisdom said to me, sell everything you have in order to obtain me. That means, if you have to, sell the idea of investing in property for the time being. That also means, focus some time on learning how to build businesses and growing wisdom in that area. Because of spending some time reading the bible I am now emotionally stable, and I have reestablished my focus and I am moving forward.
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