Last night, we were at dinner at Oasis Taiwan Porridge with a good friend, and the subject of career planning came up. My friend was asking about the book I'd been working on, which is a guide to career planning from the perspective of one who's made a career transition. He thought it was targeted only at jobseekers, the gainfully employed and those looking for a career change.
I sought to correct him by clarifying that actually, the current marketplace trend was away from the Job=Income=Stability formula and towards making oneself employable through alternative sources of income, such as entrepreneurship, investments, training. We got on the subject of e-books and CDs which are downloadable for a fee on the Internet. His beef was the credibility of the gurus who claimed that if you signed up for their courses or bought their training products, you could become financially free in a short time. He was particularly miffed that they were charging people for sharing their knowledge; if they were so successful and so rich, why couldn't they give away the info for free?
With the very little I had gleaned from my own research, I pointed out that one tell-tale sign of authenticity was whether the guru had become rich solely through his ability to persuade people to sign up for his courses/buy his products, or whether he was already rich by his own efforts to begin with. I gave the example of Adam Khoo of AKLTG, who claims to have made his first million at 26 by learning the secrets of self-made millionaires and other successful persons. He now teams up with other motivational training experts to conduct seminars for underachieving students, entrepreneur aspirants and anyone who wants financial freedom.
I checked out his affiliated website recently and downloaded (FOC) his CD on 7 Steps to Financial Freedom. It's a 39-minute CD that gets you thinking (and excited!) about the wealth of possibility that exists in your mind, which he calls your greatest asset.
Today I bought his Secrets of Self-made Millionaires package. I figure I've nothing to lose (other than the purchase price of US$67). After all, how do you put a price on knowledge? If what he says is true, then US$67 is a small price to pay to learn about financial freedom and managing my cashflow from someone who's been there and done that. And if I want to be able to comment intelligently the next time someone disses the idea of paying to learn financial freedom, surely I owe it to myself to at least pay the price and find out the hard way, rather than relying on hearsay, presumptions and old habits of thinking.
As Jim Rohn likes to point out, the difference between those who make it and those who don't is that the former are willing to do what the rest are not.
As for my friend's grouse that one has to pay for info, I don't see an issue. I mean, don't we all pay good money (without complaining!) for things/services we value? If I really think a piece of info is going to make a huge difference in my life, would I be willing to pay a small price for it? The question answers itself.
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