Flickr! image "Dance Class Ballet" by Oude School

I just attended a dance performance put up by young people and was amazed by the level of professionalism and dedication they put into their hobby, i.e. modern dance. Their moves can rival any of those you see on MTV or VH1!

That performance inspired today’s post that’s all about finding your passion in life.

Establishing your base towards financial freedom

In your quest towards financial freedom, most of us need to first establish our base of investible savings as the foundation for growing our passive income. Typically, this comes from our careers or our businesses. Your success in your career or business is the key to starting to build that foundation of investible savings.

Let’s examine the key principles of financial freedom. They are to [1] live within our means, [2] save and invest, [3] grow our means and [4] protect our means. The common element in the principles are related to our “means” or how we earn our living.

If you read personal effectiveness or self-help books, most of them will tell you that to be successful in anything, we need to have a passion for it. Do what you love and love what you do. Then the money will come.

My own experience has been that it’s true that we tend to do better in things we have a passion or interest in. There will be exceptions as some people can be very good at something that they are not interested in because they are naturally gifted in that area. But the majority of us will tend to do well in things we have a passion for.

Determining your passion
How do you go about knowing what you are passionate about in business or in your career? You just have to try and try and experience for yourself what gets your juices going in the morning! To know what you are passionate about is to know more about who you are and what you are about. This type of self-discover doesn’t come easy for some and can come easy for others.

I’m inspired by Danny Choo who build for himself a lifestyle and living based on his passions – love for Japan and Japanese otaku culture. He is living proof that you can live your dreams if you start doing the necessary steps one step at a time, one day at a time.

I didn’t know what I was passionate about until I tried different things in my life as well. Besides working as an internal auditor, external auditor and accountant, I’ve gotten involved in running a non-profit association starting from a sub-committee member helping out in editing the newsletter, to being the webmaster and rising to secretary, vice-president and finally president of the association.

These helped me learn more about working with other volunteers and professionals towards a common goal. Managing differences in views and team-work with your peers. And also managing different personalities and peeves.

My next significant involvement in after-work activities was in toastmastering. I am still in the toastmasters movement but have significantly reduced my level of activities after my daughter was born.

Going through the toastmasters programme helped me become a more confident speaker in work and has triggered ideas for backup careers and lifestyle opportunities when I have achieved financial freedom. It has also helped me advance in my career but allowing me to articulate my ideas and to share my skills, experience and abilities through my career to them. The confidence I gained is immeasurable and made me mentally stronger to overcome challenges in work.

It was only from experiencing different roles, tasks and activities both within and outside work that I realised what my passions were and true interests lie. The understanding came from trying out different activities over the course of a few years.

For instance, my involvement in the non-profit association was about 8 years while that of toastmasters was 5 years plus. It took the full measure of experience gained from doing different roles and fully immersing (as opposed to just playing around) myself in the various roles within the volunteer activities that I gained insights about what I was about and who I was.

What is Panzer’s Passion?
My mission is to be financially free in 7 years’ time. It is my target. I may get there or I may not in that 7 years but I’m working hard in many aspects of my life to be able to achieve it.

But what underlies that passion? When I have achieved financial freedom, I will have all the time in the world to touch lives for the better. That was what I discovered through toastmasters and through volunteering in my kidsREAD activities.

It is about touching lives. This blog is about touching your life in getting you to think about what you are about and who you are in your quest towards financial freedom.

If you are just trapped in your normal 9 to 5 routine and going home to vegetate in front of the television over evenings and weekends, untrap yourself!

Do a few hours of volunteering once a week if you can commit. Learn something that will help you in your work or business. Explore public speaking, web 2.0 technologies, blogging, writing, singing, journalling, exercising.

Do something active and creative to unleash your own potential.
Write your life-list, consider your goals, dreams and how are you going to get there.

If you are serious about financial freedom, you will be serious about getting better in aspects of your life to help you live a life that will help you achieve financial freedom.

Be well and prosper.