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I trade for a living now. When I was in “the real world” working for a living, I recalled an axiom that changed my view on work and life. “Are you living to work or working to live.” Psychologists tell us that satisfying work is essential to emotional and mental well being. However, so many of us are attempting to climb the corporate ladder or just slugging it out day to day to make a living. What kind of a life is that?

I spent 25 years in the corporate world and was a loyal corporate soldier until I got wise to what’s really important. I was the poster child for corporate commitment. I drank the Kool-Aid. The corporation wanted my blood, my first born and my soul. I was “living to work”. OK, so why I am I telling you all of this!? I came to my senses. I realized my personal satisfaction and well being was not the corporation’s first priority. You think you have security but you don’t, not really. The only real security is relying upon your ability to create your own freedom. Trading can do that for you.

I now call my own shots, which includes defining how I want to handle my trading business. We’re talking today about “Time Commitment” to your trading business. There is obviously ramp up time and effort needed to learn the business but once you are comfortable with your knowledge base and the infrastructure of the market, you can then determine your trading style which directly correlates to your “Time Commitment”.

I do this full time but I don’t trade all day long. I experimented with Day Trading and made money doing it but it didn’t fit my personality and what I wanted out of trading. I thought, “Why am I exchanging one high pressure situation for another Bell to Bell job”!? I had to define my willingness to commit my time.

I opted for a much more relaxed style of trading that allowed me to actually have a life and still reap the tremendous rewards of trading. There are those that crave the adrenaline rush of one minute charts with eyes glued to the computer all day long and I say, “If that’s for you “Go For It”! My typical trading day comprises reviewing the before market activity and my positions for about 20 minutes in the morning, a quick mid day glance (I really wouldn’t even need to do that) and an end of the day assessment of my positions after markets close. If I need to consider adjustments to any of my positions, I will make those plans and execute them at the next day’s open.

My aftermarket review takes about 45 minutes. I do most of my due diligence over the weekend and that can take up to 4 hours. I am a voracious reader of market information, so as a matter of course, my reading is market related material which is fun for me. So in assessing the amount of time I spend in my trading business, it’s about two hours a day and 4 hours on the weekend. I can live with that. The rest of my day, I go to the gym, I meet friends for coffee, and help my fellow traders learn how to trade successfully. Then there is always the “HONEY DO LIST” at the house to deal with, but it’s not too bad.

Your trading plan needs to include the amount of time you are willing to commit to this business. Time is precious. Once it is gone, it is gone and it’s not coming back, so plan wisely. My most gratifying times now are the time spent with my wife, children and close friends. I also get tremendous satisfaction in helping others succeed at trading. My life is very different now. I am in control and I can pursue my daily activities without worrying that I am stealing time from the corporate monster. However, I must warn you that you can exchange one monster for another if you do not carefully assess the time commitment that you are willing to give to your trading business. This is a vital part of your business plan. You need to be very realistic, especially in the beginning because it will take an extra amount of time as you learn the business.

In order to become proficient at trading, you must be willing to make a commitment of time and energy. You must align your trading plan to be consistent with your lifestyle and what you want to achieve from your trading business. If you make a commitment to be good at this marvelous business, you will never regret it. The whole idea as far as I am concerned is to create total financial freedom and security and having the time to enjoy it. Be careful not to get trapped into another job. Keep your trading fun. You must ask yourself, “Do I want to live to trade or trade to live?”

Resources: Mark Espy (aka RobinHood Trader)is a full time trader and professional educator. Mark loves to help others master trading skills and is co-founder of a rapidly growing trading education company. Receive a free lesson and learn more about how to improve your trading skills.

Property booms come and go, they always have and they always will. Is it conceivable that in another ten years we could have another property boom here in Ireland? Resoundingly, YES. Its unlikely to be quite as strong or of such long duration (and you never know), but what is certain is that over the longer term that property prices will resume their upward trend. Quite simply, they always do and will again.

The thing is many of us are interested in eating, going on the occasional holiday and enjoying ourselves over the number of years, and the idea of waiting for another property boom doesn’t really appeal.

The trends or patterns that stand out during the property boom do however apply to all small businesses, and when we recognise that the same skills learned as part-time landlords can be transferred to other business opportunities, then we begin to get a glimpse of the light at the end of the tunnel.

Home businesses, which is what most peoples property ventures really were, whether full-time or part-time are the next wave of business growth in Ireland. Large scale manufacturing and factories are a relic of the past, and the future is in personal responsibility for your own financial success.

The business buzzwords for the future success of this mini revolution will be low overheads, the internet, network marketing, and exponential growth.

There are a world of opportunities like this on the market at the minute, and although we don’t know it, Ireland is one of the best places in the world to set up such a home based internet, network marketing or other similarly themed venture.

The fact of the matter is that the Irish talk a lot, to each other and to everyone else. We speak the English language with our own unique accents and people love it. They’re automatically more receptive to us. We can sell, often without trying very hard at it, and we already have some huge “networks” before we even start, simply by virtue of the fact that Ireland is a small country. We often stay in touch with people from school, university etc, come from larger families than many other countries and
just know more people.

I’ll give you an example, a few years ago Curves the ladies only fitness franchise came to the Uk and Ireland at the same time. In both places the franchisees had the same issues to deal with primarily getting their message to the market, allowing them to demonstrate the strength of their product and its unique benefits, those being a 30 minute workout that combines strength and cardio training, but more importantly a facility only for women.

While the membership take up in England was quite slow, the gyms in Ireland took off like a rocket. It was so significant that the owners of the Curves franchise decided to find out exactly what was going on to make such a difference, and their conclusion was that in Ireland we just talk a lot. Because communities were smaller and family/ friends connections larger the news spread so much quicker.

So when you sit down later on to think about how exactly you can best take advantage of the current economy, remember the unique benefits of this fantastic country and plan to make your fortune.

Resources: Did you know that an elite group of home based business start up experts, and by the way also multi millionaires are coming to Ireland soon? Check it out at - http://www.ThinkAndGetRichBootcamp.com, and sign up for your FREE Success Tips.

There may be many strategies for financial freedom, but the most important is probably your focus.

Whenever you are walking or driving, you have to keep your eyes ahead of you, otherwise you would swerve away from your path. An archer has to take aim in order to hit his target. When a football player goes to score a goal, he has to see the ball hitting the back of the net before he kicks it.

It is the same with creating wealth. If you want to be rich you need to focus on what you want and keep focusing.

You start by deciding exactly what your financial goals are and, most importantly, what you want the money for. Visualize what you will do with the money. Think about how it will help others: your family, your friends, charities or others. Think about the lifestyle you can have. When you have all this in place, you will know how much you need, either on a monthly or yearly basis. Write this figure down. Visualise having the things or the lifestyle that this money will bring, and do this daily.

When you set clear financial goals you are doing something constructive for your future and ensuring your success. Relying on luck, or just drifting, is destructive because you are denying yourself the power that you have to create your dreams.

Setting goals can appear scary to some people because they are unsure how they are going to achieve them. Often we prefer to only commit ourselves to something once we understand how we can achieve it.

In fact, this way of thinking does not work. Without commitment, your mind will not apply itself to discovering how to get there. When you commit yourself to achieving something by setting a goal, without knowing how you are going to get there, your mind will begin to work on ways to fulfil your goal. You will see opportunities that you may never have seen otherwise, and you will find ways of getting round the obstacles that are in your path.

Deepak Chopra, the world famous guru of wellbeing, said you would not have a desire if you did not have the means to fulfil it. Each of us has the power to create whatever we want.

When you do not have clear financial goals you will simply drift along, moving into the future without any decision or definite purpose. You may become a victim of circumstance, subject to the whims of dominating personalities and without the strength to set your own course.

A vague idea of some day being rich is simply not enough. If you really want to achieve wealth and financial freedom you must have a specific figure in mind AND a clear idea of why you want it. If it feels easier for you, you can start out with a relatively small figure and then expand it when you reach it. An easily achievable goal will provide you with the confidence to set a higher goal next time.

Your goals may not happen overnight, but by thinking, visualizing and affirming them every day, the ways and the means to achieve them will gradually become clear and you can then take the action that you need to take.

In all strategies for financial freedom you must always start with a very specific goal and focus. Ask yourself “how much?” before you start thinking about “how?”

Resources: Ros runs her own online business and is also a successful writer and life coach. Ros’s coaching site is at Career and Home Business Coaching Find opportunities at her website at Financial Freedom Online

One day as a teenager I saw an advertisement that read, “Challenge a chess grandmaster”.

A Russian chess grandmaster who was visiting my city had claimed that he could play 20 people simultaneously and beat them all. I signed up for the challenge. While I had never played

seriously and had developed no particular playing strategy or system, I was quite familiar with the uses of the individual playing pieces and felt I knew how to exploit the strengths of each. I had been playing regularly with friends for the previous six months and felt that my skills were pretty well honed and that while I would not match the Russian, I could at least compete. To my surprise, within 30 minutes of the challenge starting, the chess grandmaster had already won multiple quick victories.

His history of studying chess strategy and specific offensive and defensive systems easily defeated our collective labored efforts. To each of our moves, he had a predetermined counter move which he employed, seemingly without thought. He always seemed to know ahead of time what he would do in each circumstance. While we each grew frustrated, he enjoyed the confidence that came from playing with a well-mastered strategy.

As a stock and options trader, I have come to realize a trading system can be just as valuable in ensuring consistent profits in the market as the chess grandmaster’s strategy had been in enabling him to easily and effortlessly defeat me and others at the chess match. The challenge in trading, as in chess, is to understand how to integrate the knowledge we have into a trading strategy.

It is relatively easy to understand the separate components. As in chess where you can master the movements of the pawns, rooks, knights, and other pieces quite easily, developing a strategy that optimizes those moves and applies them appropriately in each situation, is the key to ensuring a consistently winning game.

One chess book I glanced through recently was hundreds of pages in length, but only a small fraction of those pages was spent outlining the concept of the game and the movement of the individual pieces. Similarly, learning trading instruments that will afford you the opportunity to profit in bullish, bearish, and stagnant markets is relatively straightforward and can be learned quite quickly and easily. The challenge is in learning to combine those instruments into an overall strategy that will provide consistently winning trades.

There are many investment training books and courses that explain how to use trading instruments and even when to use them. Few, however, take the next critical step of integrating the various disparate components into an investment system and strategy that works consistently. That is why so many investors continue to trade unprofitably, even after taking training courses.

Conversely, the training program at Stock and Options Training provides the knowledge and tools to be able to react effortlessly to any market condition. So when I purchase a stock only to see it move in the wrong direction, I’m able to employ a predetermined strategy and turn that potential loss into a winning trade.

I’m now able to profit in every market condition “up, down, sideways, volatile, flat” you name it. I know when to enter and when to exit the market. And if a stock moves against expectations, I’m able to adjust my strategy to minimize loss or maintain profit. No longer a challenger, reacting to the market, I’m now prepared for any event like the grandmaster. The grandmaster ended up winning 19 of his 20 matches that day. Just think of the profit potential with a 95% winning record!

Resources: Mark Espy (aka RobinHood Trader)is a full time trader and professional educator. Mark loves to help others master trading skills and is co-founder of a rapidly growing trading education company. Receive a free lesson and learn more about how to improve your trading skills.

Thousands of people every year pick up the hobby of treasure hunting. Many use this hobby as just a way to relax but there are also many who have been able to make a stable and rewarding career when they find and sell gold as well as other precious metals found from their hobby.

Gold is a very desirable metal. If you get lucky one day then you may be receiving a nice sum of money which will come in handy for a variety of things such as paying off a bill or holiday spending money.

The first and one of the most popular treasure hunting methods used for gold is panning. This is the process in which a treasure hunter takes a pan and goes to normally a river sight known to have gold. The pan is then filled with rocks and gravel from the water body that may potentially contain gold sediment. They then use water to sift through the rocks and gravel which subsequently causes the gold to rapidly settle on the bottom of the pan. The hunter will then pick out the larger rocks and slowly get rid of the other products in the pan until only the gold sediments remain.

This is a long and arduous process yet many people find it thrilling and enjoyable especially if they have had some luck with it. After finding the gold through panning, they can then sell gold that they acquired through the panning process for a nice sum of money.

Another popular treasure hunting method is through the use of a metal detector. A metal detector is a device that can detect specific metals within open spaces of dirt or sand across the land. In this treasure hunting method the hunter will slowly walk though a known or suspected area that may contain gold or precious metals with the metal detector.

As the hunter gets closer to potential gold deposits, the metal detector will signal to the gold hunter that the presence of gold is in the immediate surrounding area. Normally it is detected with a beeping which slowly occurs when metal is detected and as the gold hunter approaches the metal the sound becomes louder and faster until the hunter is standing above the area that contains the precious metals or gold. The hunter can then manual dig, locate the gold, and then sell the gold on the market.

The great thing about treasure hunting for gold is that anyone can do it. You can either be above ground searching the land pr do it through shallow water bodies that gold may have sunken to. Also, you do not have to be a specialty dealer to sell gold or sell the gold jewelry that you have made from your discovery. That is why every year more and more people take up this hobby. Not only is hobby a relaxing one, but it can also be quite rewarding when your efforts pay off.

For information on selling old gold jewelry, please visit GoldPawnShop.com.

Jay Withers writes about the jewelry industry and different ways to Sell Gold Jewelry.

Recently, books like Rhonda Byrne’s “The Secret” and the older book by Napoleon Hill, “Think and Grow Rich” have become extremely popular, teaching us that wealth can be achieved through focused thinking. The Law of Attraction, with its philosophy that you attract to your life whatever you think about is big business. But is it really possible to achieve financial freedom through thought?

Well, it may not be quite as simple as that, and most of the gurus who teach it will tell you the same. But achieving what you want in life, including wealth, really does start with the mind. What you focus on in your head will create your future, but you must also take action to achieve what you want.

Your thoughts, though, are father to the actions you need to take. For example, if you think of yourself as poor, you will close your mind to opportunities and be unable to see the action you need to take. If, however, you think of yourself as rich, you will be able to see the opportunities for obtaining wealth and take the necessary action.

Here are few ways in which you focus your mind for wealth.

1. Be careful of the words you use.

When you hear yourself say or think things like: “I can’t afford it”, or “I have no money for this”, you are thinking with a poverty mindset. Instead, switch your thoughts or words to something like: “This is something I am working towards” or “How can I achieve this?” Your mind will then be set towards finding a solution.

The difference between the two is a matter of focus. When you focus on the problem, the problem will tend to stick around. When you focus on achievement or a solution, that is what you will find.

2. Work to learn

If you are happy in the work you do, that’s great. However, if you dream of being able to hand in your letter of resignation, what are you doing about it? It’s not enough to play the lottery every week and hope. If you really want financial freedom and independence, you need to focus on what you want and then find the route to get there.

This will mean learning as much as you can while you are in your current job so that one day you will know how to be an employer, or set up your own business and be your own boss.

3. Set goals.

It has been proved that people who set goals and write them down are far more likely to achieve their dreams than those who don’t. Writing your goals down creates a commitment in the mind and focuses your thinking. Once commitment is made, the means of achieving your goals will present themselves.

Visualizing your goal, feeling the emotion of it, and believing that you already have it, is a strong way of making sure that you do achieve it, but you also need an action plan for getting there.

4. Create a budget

All successful companies have a budget that they stick to in order to control cash flow, and they also track spending and review regularly.

As individuals, we often do not to do this, or we do it and don’t stick to it, and then find out that we have spent more than we have earned and end up getting into debt. Having a budget is a sensible way of controlling your spending and making sure that your income outweighs your expenditure.

5. Control your fear.

Many people are afraid of starting up their own business because they fear they might lose their money if it fails. They think that it is too risky. However, with the present economic situation, it may be riskier to stay being an employee. What will happen if the company you work for goes down, or makes you redundant?

The fact is that if you want to achieve great wealth, you have to take action and there will always be an element of risk. But staying in one place is almost guaranteed to stop you from achieving it, no matter how much you think about it. If you want to be rich you have to work through your fears and take action.

You can achieve financial freedom through focus and thought. However, it will not fall into your lap without action. The archer has to take aim and focus on his target, but he also has to fire the arrow in order to reach it.

Ultimately, it will be a combination of focused thought and action that will allow you to achieve the wealth that you dream of.

Ros runs her own online business and is also a successful writer and life coach.

Find opportunities at her website at Financial Freedom Online

Ros’s coaching site is at Professional Coaching For Your Change of Career