BIRTH OF THE PRIVATE ISLAND IDEA

To get people to think about owning their own private island, the question I asked was simple: If you had disposable cash to do whatever you wanted to do in life, what would it be?

I've almost never received the same two answers, other than traveling the world and buying mom and pops a new pad. I've heard liposuctions and space travel. There's paying off student loans and building a casino. I've even heard producing a five-part movie series of one's life, paying off third world country's debt to the western world (how noble), growing a marijuana farm and smoke the rest of one's life away (how, ummm, unnoble) and smacking George Bush and getting away with it. Well, Josh gets my award for most original answer. He showed me a web site that sold private islands and that was his plan, to buy an island.

Thus, I hijacked his answer and that has become my goal. When I land on my own island, that's when I'll know I have achieved financial freedom.

DEFINING FINANCIAL FREEDOM

For the most part, financial freedom to some people is simply living debt free and being able to travel here and there at will. I'll then dive deeper into people's mind and nowhere is there evidence of thinking about how much work one has to do to be financially free. I'm not talking about the diligence, perserverence and dedication required to achieve Thomas Crown status. I mean whether or not they plan to continuing to work 40+ hours a week asking high high when asked to jump.

The consensus is financial freedom is achieved by not having to worry about bills, debt, owing people their entire pay check and buying a nice car.

I follow-up with the comment: Did you know that if Donald Trump only made a million bucks this year, he would consider himself a failure? Why is his idea of financial freedom so different than ours? When he was born, did God bless him and say, "You are obligated to make multiple millions a year, if not a month, and be more financially free than the rest of the plebes"?

If there is a point you're looking for, it is to raise your level of expectations when it comes to your ultimate fate in achieving financial freedom. Understand that in order to achieve true financial freedom, you have to have a definition of it that does not limit you to continuing to work a day job, look for bargains in the Sunday paper and envy the house next door or the car next to you at a stoplight.

Know that your mindset about being financially free will dictate whether you achieve that status or not.

OWNING YOUR OWN ISLAND BEGINS WITH YOU

Eker's book, Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, points the finger at you. He exposes your "money blueprint," help identify past experiences that has shaped your understanding of being financially free and gives 47 tips on how to develop yourself, your mind and your attitude about being unshamely rich. Is unshamely a word?

There's no sense in me giving a book report, considering no one is grading my paper. All I can do is highly recommend it to anyone who is ready to take that first step to achieving financial freedom. If you're happy working for the man, be my guest. If you're content with your only sources of future financial stability being a 401k, savings account and stock options, so be it. If you're cool with working 51 weeks out of the year for a week's vacation, go right ahead. In a few years, you can even take a vacation to my island.

But if you are sick and tired of being sick and tired, put down the fantasy novels, the bluespapers and the remote (you're) controlled, and pick up his book. Check it out from the local library if buying it will disrupt your master plan for financial freedom. Do what you have to do to purchase his book.

Understand that only you are obligated and responsible for your financial future. No one is going to spoon feed you the information you need to reaching and achieving more in life. Nary a soul is going to come by and drop off a few bills with Salmon P. Chase printed on them.

So what are you doing about it, David?
I can hear the skepticism right now.

Not having a car has become part of my blueprint for achieving financial freedom. I can guarantee the amount of money you spend on a car is the amount of money I invest towards my future. Gas, maintenance and repairs, insurance, taxes, and especially the loan interest is probably enough to buy enough shares in Google to own it. Perhaps most of you do not have METRO to get around. All good. Figure out what can be sacrificed now to have an abundance of it later.

NOTE: I also highly recommend David Bach's book entitled, The Automatic Millionaire. He'll teach you the Latte Factor to determine how to find that extra bit of cash to begin your journey to financial freedom.

And do you realize how many people have good paying jobs because of rich people? Think about the number of employment opportunities created by the Henry Fords, Phil Knights and Rupert Murdoch. I've yet to see someone living comfortably and especailly a broke person give away a couple hundred cars in one minute like the neo-rich Oprah Winfrey did. And the foundations of stupid rich people like Bill Gates, Ted Turner and those Carnegie cats give away more money yearly (if not monthly) than we make combined all year.

Here's another question for you: Have you ever seen a broke person, or someone living comfortably, on an infomercial? I'm not saying purchase those RonCo knives or invest using Options Made Easy, I'm just saying realize those individuals are financially free. Remember when Tony Robbins dominated the infomercial hours? He isn't sweating overtime to take a trip to Madrid on a whim. Thus I take that last expression of skepticism as a compliment.

I realize I'm not financially free, yet; and most of you may be more comforable than I am; and that islands are not cheap these days to buy. But I do know that I have not only committed to achieving my goals (and not those that others say should be my goals), but I have decided to put it out there for the world to know to show my confidence that I understand what has held me back all these years. It was me. And I will succeed.

What am I doing about it? After reading T. Harv Eker's book, the first thing I'm doing is redefining what being financially free means to me. It used to mean be able to travel to the islands on a whim whenever I wanted to. Now, it's to purchase my own island, call it Reality Island, and invite you over to start you on that journey to buy the one next to mine.