These Are The First Eight Questions That Every Person Answers Before Achieving Money Success


While triumphs start in many different ways, some of the greatest achievements known to man started with just a simple question.

Indeed, Ben Franklin used the power of questions to achieve remarkable success. Franklin started and ended his day by asking two self-improvement questions: In the morning he asked himself, “What good shall I do this day?” In the evening, he wrapped up by asking, “What good have I done today?”

Can you imagine how those questions guided his daily life? These two simple questions bookended each day, and surely kept him on the right path to success.

And we know this about success, everyone wants more of it.

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They read books, listen to podcasts, and try to improve themselves. But I wonder how many people actually question themselves? Not in the sense of doubting their abilities or the decisions they have made, but rather asking yourself the right questions so that you can achieve greater success.

My guess is that many people overlook this important habit. In this essay, I am going to walk you through a few questions to consider asking yourself. As you embark or progress on your own mission to be financially free, these same questions can provide an effective strategy for achieving not only freedom, but just about anything you can imagine:

What is my enemy? I know that may sound a little weird, but psychologists tell us that we pursue actions of “avoiding pain” much more aggressively than we do actions that “bring pleasure”. What is it that you most want to avoid in life? Is it to not be able to retire early? Maybe it’s that you don’t want to be largely absent in your children’s life as they grow up because you’re working so much? What’s the financial enemy for you? The enemy for me was a life of poverty and that’s what I would have lived had I not identified that dragon so that I could slay it so long ago. Identifying the obstacles up front will allow you to see them clearly along the journey. Think about what could derail your efforts, and build a strategy to overcome. Know thy enemy.

When can I begin? Greatness starts today, not next week, or when you have time, or when it’s convenient. A burning sense of urgency is far more important than waiting for that perfect time. The reason it’s important to ask this question of yourself is because there’s no hiding from its ubiquitous answer – right now. When can you start saving? Right now. When can you read that book that could change your life? Right now. When’s the best time to start. Right now. Begin.

What hard thing am I not doing enough of? This is why I disagree with people who claim that the secret to success is to “find your passion.” While there’s merit in liking what you do, learning to like things you don’t like doing is far more valuable. Yes, you have to do the hard or boring things you don’t like to get ahead. Then, instead of getting caught up in liking what you do day to day, teach yourself to like the results that what you’re doing brings. No, saving is not fun. But getting the bank statement and seeing multiple commas in your bank balance is a whole lot of fun!

What easy things am I doing too much of? Dale Carnegie said, “Do the hard jobs first. The easy jobs will take care of themselves.” If you need to spend more time doing the hard things, then what do you need to do less of? The easy things! Look, it’s real easy to lose the entire day doing urgent, yet unimportant things. Yes, the laundry needs washing and yes, you need to run by the grocery store, but are those tasks the best use of your Saturday mornings, when you’re energy is high? Take time to identify all of your easy, low-energy tasks. You know, those things you always find yourself doing in the morning so that you can procrastinate on the really hard projects until the afternoon. Start forcing yourself to get those low-energy tasks done during a pre-determined time like late in the day or at night. Think about the tasks that you’re always procrastinating or avoiding. Are they ultimately critical to your success? How can you reframe them to focus less on the task at hand and more on the reasons that task appears “important”?

What am I thinking? Warren Buffett said that “rational thinking” is the very key to his success. Your success in life starts and stops in your head. Your thoughts guide your every action, relationship and habit. Successful people guard their thoughts religiously, insuring that they only rent space to positive ones. They place border guards around their mind that maintain a singular perspective: focus on the positive and filter out the negative. They have little patience with purveyors of negativity—think 24/7 news channels—and constantly feed their minds mentally positive nourishment. What are you thinking? Is it serving you well?

Who am I attracting? While success begins in your head, it bears fruit in relationships with people with whom you invest time with. As Jim Rohn reminded us so well, “You are the average of the five people with whom you spend the most time.” Successful people guard their relationships like their thoughts, insuring they invest time only in positive ones. They have firm social boundaries that limit availability to negative persons—“emotional vampires”—and focus on attracting positive, successful people in their life. They know that the people you associate with either affect you or infect you. Are the people you associate with helping you or hurting you?

Am I learning from my mistakes? I’ve talked about the importance of failing before. You can’t fear failure. You have to be able to accept it and learn from it. The most successful people do this all of the time. There’s a myth that successful people don’t fail as often as non-successful people. That’s not true. They actually fail more often, simply because they try more. They are not immune to mistakes. So how do they continue to succeed? They learn from their mistakes.

Do I believe in myself? This is the biggest one of all. You have to believe in yourself. If you don’t, then you will most likely fail. Learn to build your self-confidence and become a better person. It’s only when you believe in yourself and your abilities that you will be able to start experiencing success. Think back to leaders you’ve had. You could probably spot the ones who doubted themselves easily. I know I could. It made it a lot harder to trust them and push through to reach goals simply because their self-doubt made everyone else have doubts as well. If you want to be successful, you have to have self-confidence.

Before we wrap-up this essay, here’s a couple of bonus questions you can ask of yourself to really break-thru to success:

What mess in my life do I need to clean up? You can’t clean the junk out of the garage if you don’t admit that it’s junk. Don’t keep dragging financial problems into every new year. If you’ve made a mess of things, start fixing it now. Make it a priority to pay off that bad debt of so long ago, so that you can lift your head up high again and get on with life.

What must I no longer tolerate from myself? When do big financial problems go away? When the person becomes bigger than the problems. Money problems don’t just happen overnight. They are a result of something ignored over time. If you have something you feel that’s wired into your DNA that keeps you from being successful with money, then un-wire it. As Jim Rohn said, “you’re not a tree, you can change.” Tell yourself that today marks the end of that bad money habit and the beginning of new, better money habits, and then do the most important next step – take action on the new money habit.

To reach your goals and succeed, sometimes you have to take a hard look at yourself. The most successful people aren’t happy with the status quo and understand that asking tough questions is a life-long process helping them to achieve more.

What questions do you ask yourself in order to reach your goals?

Be free. Nothing else is worth it.

Financial Freedom Monty Campbell

P.S. Why aren’t you wealthy yet? It’s because of something you don’t know. Otherwise you’d already be rich. Isn’t it time to learn what you don’t know? Consider signing-up for my newsletter below, to help you build wealth faster.

P.S. Why aren’t you wealthy yet? It’s because of something you don’t know. Otherwise you’d already be rich. Isn’t it time to learn what you don’t know? Consider signing-up for my newsletter below, to help you build wealth faster.

P.S.S. Looking to make an overnight fortune? Don’t sign-up to receive my newsletter  below. There’s no magic secret. Becoming financially free takes time and dedication. But learning professional-grade money skills can have a life changing effect. If you’re ready to put in the work and learn, I can show you how to achieve financial freedom faster than normal. 

P.S.S.S. There’s nothing for sale on this blog or in my newsletter.  That’s right. Unlike other sites who claim to help people achieve financial success, I’m not trying to sell you anything. In fact, I find it a little disgusting that some sites insist that you buy something before they teach you how to become rich. Here on my blog and in my newsletter, I just provide actionable advice for free. It’s my way to give back. What do you have to lose? Subscribe today. 

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Ready for more tips on how to achieve the free life? Check-out more articles from the blog archives below:

It Is What It Is? The Most Commonly Used Clichés Of The Unsuccessful…And What To Say Instead!

Money Is A Great Servant. It Makes You Wonder Why Many Choose To Make It Their Bad Master?

What’s The Biggest Obstacle Holding People Back From The Good Life? Answer: Little Screen Doors

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