The Big Dreamer

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The Importance of Your Environment

To be successful, you need both the right skills and leverages to propel yourself to success. One of the leverages required is a ‘Mentor’.

And a mentor need not be a person. It can be an accident, an event, an experience, a book, a TV programme, etc. It can be anything that lets you learn a lesson.

Your environment can be a great mentor too. Research has shown that your environment can create a significant psychological impact on your moods, attitude, behaviour, and it has a great deal of influence over you.

Now imagine if you were in an environment where mistakes were not tolerated and creativity was suppressed, do you think there’s any chance you can grow as a person? Very unlikely.

To achieve success, we need a lot of positive energy to move us forward. Negative energy will only hold us back.

So, if you were to immerse yourself in an environment where there’s tremendous flow of positive energy, it’ll take you less time and energy to generate the same amount of work.

And human beings are creatures of emotions. Whenever our positive emotions are evoked, we tend to engage in positive actions, which will translate into positive results. However, the opposite is true as well.

Hence, it is imperative that you are constantly working in a positive environment so that you will only do what’s positive and get what’s positive.

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Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Angela Chang

We all experience ruts at some point in our lives, whether it’s in the form of a divorce, being laid off, a death of a loved one, or just simply boredom. But how do we go about turning our life around?

Some people suggest introspection and setting passionate goals. Other people recommend listing our fears, and consciously connecting with them. A simpler way to think about life is through the lens of 3 major areas in our life: the body, the mind, and the spirit.

When we live life in peace and harmony, these 3 areas are in synergy, and life feels awesome. We feel joyful and energetic. We don’t struggle with life – rather, things just flow smoothly. Even when we have problems, we fully accept that everything is still okay.

When one of these three areas is out of sync, we can feel subtle sensations that something is wrong. It may be a feeling of sluggishness or apathy. On the extreme end, we may question the purpose of living and consider suicide.

Addressing these 3 areas and methodologically optimising each area is something we can do that brings our problems down to earth. Rather than soul-searching, and spending days discovering our purpose in life, we can start to take simple, practical actions that can get us back on track.

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A month ago, I read an article written by J.D. Roth on Get Rich Slowly, a personal finance blog named the ‘Most Inspiring’ money blog in 2008 by Money Magazine.

In the article, J.D. offered some great advice to one of his readers who emailed him to ask for financial advice because she was in serious need of help.

The reader, Kay, said in her email that she’s never developed good financial habits and at 39 years of age, she has no savings (no emergency and retirement funds) and she’s about $28,000 in debt.

Next May, she will lose half of her child support when her son graduates from high school, and the rest the following May when her daughter graduates.

She has a list full of high-priority financial needs, but trying to do everything at once is getting her exactly nowhere. The only thing she’s done so far is cutting up her credit cards.

What would you do if you were in her shoes?

In the comment section, I left my thought about a few things that Kay could consider on top of J.D.’s advice. But first, let’s hear what advice J.D. offered Kay.

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In my previous post, I mentioned that starting your own side business is your best insurance and retirement plan. And I’ve also linked to 3 lists of excellent business ideas you can start during your spare time. But I’ve not mentioned what are the characteristics of the most ideal business. So in this post, I’m going to talk about the 5 characteristics of the most ideal business.

5 Characteristics of the Most Ideal Business

1. Minimum cash. Risk in running your own business is inevitable. While you don’t have to risk the no-paycheque days running a business only during your spare time, there is still a risk of losing your start-up capital should the business fail.

So the most ideal business is one that you can start with very little money; one that doesn’t require you to risk your life savings.

Commonly, service businesses such as designing, consulting, coaching, programming, and the likes, are some of the kind of businesses that require a low start-up fund. Sometimes, you can even start one with no money down.

However, that doesn’t mean you can’t start a business selling physical products with very little money. If you choose to sell your products online instead of a brick-and-mortar shop, you can indeed start with very little money.

A good example would be Steve Chou of MyWifeQuitHerJob.com. Steve and his wife started their online wedding linen store with a mere US$629.90. They’d literally risked next to nothing to start their online venture.
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OK, I don’t mean to ask you to go start a business which requires VC funding, although you could if you have a great business idea, a FAN-FREAKING-TASTIC business plan, and a dream team to execute the plan.

The business I’m referring to here is a business which you can start and run on the side during your spare time that does not require a substantial start up capital.

But before I let you in on what are the businesses anyone could start without quitting your job, let me first explain why a business is your most ideal insurance and retirement plan.

First, let me ask you two questions.

1. What is the primary purpose of insurance?

2. What is the main objective of a retirement plan?

1. The Primary Purpose of Insurance

Insurance primarily serves to provide financial support to you and/or your family in the event that you met with a mishap that causes you to lose your ability to work or even your life.

2. The Main Objective of a Retirement Plan

A well-thought and implemented retirement plan serves to allow you to enjoy your retirement without having to worry about your finances.

So…

Why is a Business Your Best Insurance and Retirement Plan?

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