Five Cents Ten Cents

Flickr image "Johnny Bunko #1" by Cameron Maddux

I was reading a post on Garr Reynolds Presentation Zen website and was introduced to Daniel H Pink, who has written a few books and the one that caught my attention was “The Adventures of Johnny Bunko”.

The interesting thing about this book is that it is a career advice book with a twist. It’s written in manga or japanese comix fashion by a graphic artist Rob Ten Pas besides Daniel H Pink.

This post is not about career advice but rather to take the advice given in the book and to draw out lessons for those of us who are on our journeys towards financial freedom.

The six rules of “The Adventures of Johnny Bunko” are as follows:

1. There is no plan
2. Think strengths, not weaknesses
3. It’s not about you
4. Persistence trumps talent
5. Make excellent mistakes
6. Leave an imprint

1. There is no plan

This is possibly the most important lesson from the book. As I look back at my career and how I got into this journey towards financial freedom where I learnt about the fundamental principles of financial freedom, I realise it’s really true. There is no plan.

What this means is that there is no prescribed plan on how you can achieve financial freedom “by the book”. There’s no step-by-step guide that will GUARANTEE that you can achieve financial freedom. There are only principles that guide you. The rest depends on your day-to-day actions to invest in habits that bring you closer or further from your financial freedom targets.

Thus, we are all free to start our own journeys towards financial freedom based on our own life situation, our own abilities and interest in developing unique paths towards financial freedom.

2. Think Strengths, Not Weaknesses

Many times, we believe that to be financial free, all of us need to do what Robert Kiyosaki prescribes in his book, “Rich Dad Poor Dad” and to be business owners. I have seen with my own eyes how my parents achieved financial freedom from working as civil servants for 30-40 years of their lives. They managed to achieve financial freedom through mostly living within their means, saving and investing.

Many of our strenghts are our talents and abilities we bring to our jobs that pay us a reasonable income that sustains our living. The savings from such careers can help propel us towards a high enough net worth that can generate passive income to be financially free.

I intend to continue my career for the next 20 years but will focus on more work-life balance because I’ve cleared my home loans and will clear my car loan by early 2010. Thus, my CPF is really accumulating for retirement purposes and not to pay for housing and the 20 years allows me to put aside retirement savings even as I look out for investments to grow my net worth sensibly and with risks I understand.

3. It’s not about You

Financial freedom is not and ends in itself. If once you’ve achieve financial freedom, you find you don’t know what to do with your spare time, then it’s a sad reflection of how you are living your life.

Happiness for me when I achieve financial freedom would be the amount of time released for me to spend with family and loved ones, as well as choosing the type of work that I want to do with my life.

Truly, financial freedom is not about us, it’s about freeing us up to do the things that matter in life!

4. Persistence Trumps Talent

I am appreciative that I am still in the market and have not given up when my equity portfolio was once down 55%. Persistence is important as the very best of fund managers, investment bankers, financial planners could not and did not forsee the risks of subprime and how it unleashed the devastating global financial tsunami which we are still recovering.

Working consistently towards living within our means, savings and investing and growing our means helps us persist in the positive habits that create the environment towards financial freedom.

5. Make Excellent Mistakes

Mistakes are inevitable in our journey towards financial freedom. Even as I started actively managing my own monies since 2003, I’ve done my fair share of mistakes in selling out of equities too early and too late. Not managing my cash flows sufficiently and succumbing to the occasional bouts of fear and greed.

Making excellent mistakes means to learn from those and to NOT REPEAT them in our future actions towards financial freedom.

6. Leave an Imprint

Ultimately, my aim of achieving financial freedom is to give myself the work-life balance and freedom from being scared about losing my job. I aim to be able to support myself from the passive income and to give myself a strong financial base from which to launch many experiments in lifestyle design.

Life is about the experiences to be savoured.

Be well and prosper.