The Six Steps, Introducton

The six steps to financial freedom
1. Manage and eliminate debt
2. Increase cash flow
3. Create an emergency fund
4. Ensure proper protection
5. Build long-term asset accumulation
6. Preserve your estate

If you go to a financial advisor, most focus on the last three steps in relation to your long-term goals. Debt managers focus on the first two and send you on your way when you get out of debt.

But what I find is that most people have a particular mindset about money and about how they think of the rich and the poor and where they are in the continuum of wealth. Rarely, if ever, do financial advisors address these underlying values that shape our thinking and actions around money. Part of my job is to make people aware of their mindset and how other socioeconomic classes think about money and wealth so they can see where their ideas are on the continuum. As always, bringing awareness to our thinking and actions helps us make more conscious decisions in the future.

You will find tools to help break up old patterns and mindsets and ways to build new ones under Tools.

The six steps to financial freedom work first to get you to the positive side of cash flow (steps 1 and 2) and then to protect your money (steps 3 and 4) and then create and pass on your wealth (steps 5 and 6).

For each step you will find tools and resources for the beginner to the experienced (one hopes you are not very experienced in creating debt!). The mechanics, in some ways, are the easiest to manage. By far the more difficult is managing the mindset, which takes discipline, will, and persistence.