How to stop building your tomb and instead create streams of income that will enable you live life to the fullest and pass away in bliss. Many of us will never be wealthy as long as we are breathing, but on our death we shall have achieved that evasive ambition. It is unfortunate that we have the mentality of an Egyptian Pharaoh who kept building his pyramid throughout his life in anticipation for the glory of enjoying its splendour in the afterlife. This is a very grim situation as we fail to live, and tie too much to our death, making us the living dead. Let us stop building pyramids but instead create streams (as in flowing water) of income that will enable us to live our lives to the fullest and pass away in bliss. You take up a 15 year mortgage and secure it against a monthly paycheque; then to protect your loved ones you take out a life policy to secure it, so that in the event that you die before paying off the mortgage it will be paid off and your family will have a roof over their heads. How come you are securing against an act of God, yes death that comes in the night like a thief, but not against an act of man: retrenchment, right sized, down sized, or horizontally shifted! Ponder this Has it ever occurred to you that in the event of your payslip disappearing, your mortgage insurance will not protect you from losing your home (it’s actually a house) when you cannot meet the instalments? At such times you wish you could tell when you are in line for earthly termination then you could find a way to die accidentally thus maturing the mortgage insurance cover, allowing you to leave your loved ones with a roof over their heads and a perceived high value asset. In the blink of an eye you will have gone from a negative net worth, when alive, to a positive net worth at death. Like pharaoh you will have become wealthy by death. Yet you forget that your loved ones still need to eat, pay for water, electricity & service charge (those damn apartments), go to school, fuel the vehicles, maintain the vehicles, pay insurance for the vehicles, pay the house help, get medical cover and all those other costs than the living need. I can see you disagree with me; you had thought about these things, so you had taken a life policy, funeral policy and education policy. Your life policy has a face value of KShs4 million and the education policy KShs500,000 per child. For how long will this lump sum keep your family at the standard of living you have accustomed them to? Which explains why Pharaoh was buried with all his close relatives and servants so as to spare them the costs of the living? The irony Yes, you have successfully given your loved ones a roof over their heads which is fast turning into a tomb, their options after the mourning period are; sell the house and invest (skills required) the proceeds, move out and rent out the house hoping that the rent will be able to cover rent for alternative accommodation, and meet those other human needs, remarry (option for widows) or pray. You have come full circle. What you were protecting your loved ones from has still befallen them, their standard of living has deteriorated, the security of a roof over their head has instead become a guillotine and your absence has become more than heartfelt – it is physical. To those women who call in on radio talk shows and brag about how their husbands are assets, be weary and become active in the wealth creation process and stop following KBF advice on how your husband must provide. Marriage is a partnership not a parasitic relationship if yours is, note; when the host dies so does the parasite. I wrote an article titled “weddings killing marriages?” for which I was labelled an anti marriage advocate which I strongly detest; as my wife once reminded me a wedding is for a day, a marriage for life. I pride myself for being a problem solver and I do not intent to change today, there is a solution to this dilemma, take control. In a previous article I gave you the opportunity do an audit of your life, and out of the people who received the article, only 4 percent (130) requested the FREE template and of this, less than 10 actually completed the template. I now know what Noah was going through when he told his village mates about investing for the floods and no one but his immediate family heeded his warning. For those who never requested the template send an email to financialfreedom@quadrantshift.org with the subject “living to live”. After you have done an audit of your current status then take action to develop a wealth plan that is skewed towards life, relegate the insurance policies and pension schemes. Leverage your payslip for income generating assets and reduce on personal image assets, 55” LCD TV screen, which add no value but lose value fast. For those who have not read a good book recently I recommend Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad Poor Dad and Cashflow Quadrant. Fine you can do it after the World Cup. Become an active trader on the stock market by using the right tools, such as http://live.mystocks.co.ke. For those of you who seriously want to make money on the stock market I am offering you a 7 day trial period on the live.mystocks.co.ke website at KShs700 value. To access your trial offer please click on this link http://live.mystocks.co.ke/rl=7021ae1a00000000 (offer valid up to 30th June 2010). It is time to take that little business seriously, be it a stall, taxi, tent hiring, green house farming or fast food restaurant. Create a business plan for it; however small a lack of direction at inception is a recipe for sudden death in the future. Systematise it so that it can run efficiently and with time stand on its own without sipping the live out of you. Last and most important, do not fear your landlord, he is a good fellow as he houses you while you invest your income in real assets, do not die to live like flies. Invest in income generating real estate. For those who are already entangled in “home” mortgages, think of equity release and invest the proceeds in a profitable income property. I highly recommend that you read a book called Real Estate Riches by Dolf du Roos. The most that I can do is preach: it is for you to take up the responsibility for your life and that of your loved ones. A dependence on insurance, pensions and mutual funds is abdication of your responsibility be you male or female.