Home | 4000+ Japan Directory | Post Your Offer | Consultant Service |  About SIJ | SIJ Newsletter Archives | Contact

Strategies, Support and Empowerment For Success-Focused Entrepreneurs Yearning For Ever Greater Achievements In Japan

 Mastermind Group For Entrepreneurs Who are Having Trouble Turning Strategies Into Cash...Fast!

Begin Power Networking NOW.  Join the SIJ Mastermind Today

I hear ya!

Is life slapping you upside the head?  

Are you putting on airs of normalcy when underneath your skin a category 5 hurricane is swirling 24/7?

Are you tired of chasing other people's rainbows and lending up in the un-promised land?

Are you doing unsuccessful things the same way as you have always done them because you don't know how to change gears?

Is the best you can do very lame and fully unappreciated?

Are there days where you want to disappear or go meditate in the Himalayas until you turn into a Popsicle?

Do you always feel like something dramatically good might happen to you, lifting you higher than Lazarus into your own private Lear Jet cruising over the Pacific with voluptuous or hunky cherubs feeding you grapes from the Tree of Knowledge in transit?

Are you obsessed with being a do-gooder and yet feel shat upon?

Do the people who tell you they are different and want to help you all seem to be pulling out their order pads or sending you to a fulfillment page?

Is your whoa-man or hubby on your case because the money of your dreams isn't in the Bank of Tokyo account...yet?

Does all the soothing babble of positive thinking and vibration come out in your stools?

When you hear the entrepreneurial slogan, Fire Your Boss!, are you already on the dole with not a prospect in sight?

Do you wake up with a million things to do, yet do next to nothing?

Is someone or something the blame for all your woes?

Do you scratch your butt and does a question mark bubble appear over your ear simultaneously when somebody tells you that you are not responsible for why you see yourself as a failure?

Does everyone seem to be better off then you and more secure emotionally?

Here's what I know:

1) Money does grow on trees for some people, but that phenomenon is as rare a find as a bird in flight after sunset.

2) Poor people are not really disadvantaged, just misinformed and surrounded by the underpowered.

3) Your success depends on extricating yourself from the opinions - good and bad - of others.

4) Vanity and surliness cannot clothe the hurts' of life indefinitely.  

5) Eventually, we must all disrobe our pretenses and redress our pain and anger.

6) One must not wait for the consensus approval of others or for the ducks to line up before proceeding up the path to glory.

7) We must believe we have a right to wealth and abundance in all affairs in spite of what we think we see.

8) Yes, we are all probably unworthy and fraudulent in our daily comings and goings.  But nobody gives a Saddam-Hussein hoot about our pitiful claim to shame other than ourselves?

9) Being poor is no more holy or virtuous than being rich, though becoming the latter gives you a chance to become a human character worthy of true respect.

10) Nobody's going to rescue us, nor should they.

We need to meet, cooperate and treasure each other.  

There IS strength in numbers.

I hate to clue some of you people in, but the go-it-alone, I-don't-need-anyone attitude is sure to lead to your moral and financial bankruptcy down the road, if it hasn't already done so.

There isn't a soul on this planet who can wear your shoes, walk your paths or show your scars' of struggle and victory.  That is a blessing in disguise, whether you choose to believe so or not.

What you have become - though a work in progress - is beautiful, real and a starting point for long-lasting, meaningful growth and happiness.

Sorry to get so personal.  Unfortunately, the first step toward the higher self and becoming the rich and happy person which is your birthright is to smash through pretensions and layers of fraud surrounding our essence.

We deserve much better and I plan to deliver it to your doorstep.  

When we work together I will demand of us all that we check our defenses, sour grapes, anger and justifications in the baggage claim area.  If you later want to go running back to the comfort zone that has brought you to a state of desperation, your garbage will certainly be waiting for you with open arms.

What is it that makes you happy?  Is it your mate?  Your Mom and Dad?  Your gleeful children?  Your money?  Messaging to faceless strangers?  Standing up to bullies?  Playing the martyr?  Being the boss?  Graciously being the slave?  A day in the country?  A life of ease?  Escaping from your mate or crotchety in-laws?  God Almighty?  Sex at 50,000 feet?  Bungee jumping?  Wiling away the hours, days and weeks?  Listening to Bach or Sex Pistols?

The sad truth is that these are events.  The highs and lows make us real, so that we can feel the pains and ecstasies more intensely.  But the good and the bad of it is that these events don't last. 

You are still trapped in your body with your thoughts, no matter where you may be or with whomever.  If your thoughts are good, good will pass your way.  If your thoughts are bad - and thoughts are vibrations not sweet words masking intent - then all that is hellish will knock at your door.

Begin Power Networking NOW.  Join the SIJ Mastermind Today

Friend - and I do want to be able to call you that without being presumptuous - the world is in a screaming flux.  We are overloaded with opportunities and educational resources, but remain horrifically undereducated about how we can survive on a fixed income which is occasionally meant to sustain us no more than 85 years and is more often premised on the notion we must not live past the next paycheck..

Of course, I do not jest for a majority of folks.  Many are living one tragedy away from bankruptcy and Skid Row (the place where junkies and drunkards hang out and ruminate about the good, old days when they had a job and a ray of hope).  

While we watch the sports matches on TV or download the latest movies or play the hottest PlayStation war games, the makers, athletes and creators of our diversionary activities can sleep tight, dine like royalty, bask in elegance, and plan their legacies.  

Their glaring successes punctuate our failures, though we obviously may choose not to think too deeply about that stark truth.  

It hurts the psyche a tad when you can see the yawing gap between those who produce and provide and those who reduce and abide.

Ouch!  Living can be cheap, if you decide to set up a crate under a bridge, fish for mercury-laden perch in a polluted canal and carve off some tree bark to gnaw on when hunger creeps in.  

But I am dead certain you don't have that picture in your mind.  If you did, it could easily become a self-fulfilling prophesy.

You have bigger dreams deep down inside, even if they may have been squished and mashed by loved ones and other ne'er-do-well, well-meaning friends.

OK, let's do that math.  Ahem, you know what?  I can't!!!  Nobody ever taught me the value of money in school or elsewhere...and I was too depressed to deal with that.

I've been money dumb for a lion's share of my 50+ years' of life.  I dabbled and gambled away almost all of my meager earnings over the years.  The highlight of my winnings was when I bought NTT stock during the Japan bubble years and made over a million yen in a few days. 

Other than that, my financial plan was non-existent - a Titanic disaster.

The old saying goes:  "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail."

Please take your hands away from your ears.

*****

How Much Money Do You Need For Retirement? Here’s How I’m Figuring My Number

By Trent Hamm of the SimpleDollar.com

Many people have no idea how much they should be saving for retirement and thus quite often they do whatever their retirement counselor suggests without actually knowing if what they’re doing is right. I wanted to understand the full process better, so I spent some time figuring out what I would need for retirement and doing the math on it - no investment knowledge required.

How old will I be when I actually start drawing retirement benefits? That’s a question you need to ask yourself. It’s not exactly the same as “when will I retire?” because, for example, I never plan to actually “retire” in the traditional sense. I will always have some sort of business or activity going until I’m literally incapable of doing anything at all. For me, though, I’m targeting age 62 to start getting out benefits.

How many years will I actually live after retiring? I used a life expectancy calculator to get a very thumbnail approximation of my age to start with. However, this number is flawed in a lot of ways - the younger you are, the more likely it is that medical techniques will extend your life. Plus, it’s only a rough number.

To account for medical advances, I take the number that calculator spits out (for me, it was 70), subtract my age from it, then round that number to the nearest 5. The number I got was 40. Then, divide that number by five, leaving 8, then add that to the age estimation, giving 78. Why divide this by five? The average life expectancy of an American over the last hundred years has gone up roughly a year for every five years that pass. The younger you are, the more likely medical advances will benefit you.

Since this is just an “average” estimation, I also add on half a standard deviation of the normal lifespan, which means add nine years to your earlier number to cover yourself if you exceed the statistical average of how long you should expect to live. This would bump me up to 87.

Then, take this final age calculation and subtract your retirement age from it. I want to “retire” at age 62 and start drawing my benefits, so that means I’ll have 25 years of retirement that need to be covered.

How far are you from retirement? Take the age you want to “retire” and subtract your current age, rounded to the nearest year. This leaves me with 34 years to retirement.

How much will you need your first year in retirement? I don’t believe that Social Security will be a factor at all in my post-retirement income, so I figure what I’ll need without it. My belief is that I’ll want 75% of my current salary each year in retirement, so how much will that be the first year I retire? If I make $50,000 now, 75% of that would be $37,500. Over the last two decades, inflation has been somewhere around 3%, so we also need to figure in 34 years of inflation (that’s how many years I need to retire). Using a basic compound interest calculator, with a current principal of $37,500, no annual addition, 34 years to grow, and an interest rate of 3%, I get a value of $102,446.45. That’s how much I’ll need the year I retire to have 75% of the value of my salary today. Wow.

How much will you need during your whole retirement? Since my investment will still be growing at retirement, I figure that I just need the first year’s dollar amount for the number of years I’m in retirement. That would be $102,446.45 times 25 years, or $2,561,161. I have 34 years to get there.

How much can I afford to put away? If at all possible, you should always put away the maximum amount that you can into your retirement plan; that way, you don’t absolutely need spectacular returns in order to retire. For me, I can put away up to 15% of my salary ($50,000) into a retirement plan, so I put away $7,500 each year.

What retirement plan do I pick? This is the trickiest math part. Fire up that basic compound interest calculator again and plug in how much you currently have in retirement as your current principal, the amount you’re socking away each year as your annual addition, your years until retirement as your years to grow, and 4 as the interest rate. After you hit calculate, the calculator will spit out a “future value.” What you need to do is keep raising and lowering that interest rate until you find a rate that, when you hit calculate, the future value is close to what you need to have for retirement. For me, that was 9%.

Once you have that percentage, get a hold of the person who manages your retirement and ask for help in choosing a package. Tell them that you did the math on your own and you need to have a specific return in order to retire. Ask them which investment plan is most likely to average that level of return over the long haul.

Some people will note that if you put 15% of your salary away every year, your annual addition will increase each year. That’s absolutely correct - I view that extra money as breathing room so that if the return isn’t quite as strong as you hope, it won’t dash your plans.

That’s it. Just start pumping money into the plan just like that and just forget about it until you need it. This is exactly what I’m doing - I’m putting away my 15% into my retirement plan after picking a Target Retirement one that worked for me and I’m just sitting on it and forgetting it.

I don't think so, Trent.  With the volatile, inflationary economy we live in, if you are over 40 and struggling to make ends meet, then the Trent formula is as failsafe as unprotected sex in a red light district.  The Trent Hamms of the world are either filthy-rich, anal-retentives already or obedient, don't-rock-the-boat, time-clock slaves willing to deny themselves all earthly pleasures until they reach retirement age or die.

If you have read thus far, I have absolute certainty that you are.....

COPYRIGHT NOTICE.© 2003-2010 PriorityDigital.com Prepared for: Success In Japan ,All rights reserved.

My Privacy Policy     Mission Statement     Website Terms