Robert Kiyosaki talks about the Robin Hood syndrome in his book "Rich Dad, Poor Dad"

Robin Hood steals from the rich

Most people were thrilled with the idea of ​"stealing from the rich to give to the poor", after all it was just that the rich could contribute in taxes to support poor people's needs.

This helped to pass the first law forcing people to pay taxes to the state.

Robin Hood is cheating us all

In England the king asked all citizens contributions for the financing of specific causes, such as war or the construction of a special building.

Just till 1874 when they created a new law forcing the rich to pay taxes permanently, this law was extended to the United States and then to the other countries as we know it today.

How governments are deceiving people

At first these taxes were intended only for the rich and the people who had properties and the middle and working class where duped to voting for such laws believing that it would only affect the rich.
But the government became greedy and forced the working and middle class to pay taxes even more to fill up state reserves.

How do governments spend taxes?

They spend taxes to pay all government workers salaries and to pay the rich in the form of contracts with large corporations.

Kiyosaki explains how the rich use large corporations to hold and make more money.

A corporation is a legal entity protected by the law, so money is also legally protected and they will always find a way to pay less taxes but increase revenues even if taxes rates are higher.

Seeing al this the working and middle classes are the main support to the poor

Robin Hood steals from the poor

Do you think that Kiyosaki was right? Do you find similarities to what is happening in your country now?

I think he was right and that is why there is the rat race and they are the real poor in modern society, the slaves of credits and loans.

That is why it seems so important to focus on financial freedom, it is not necessary to be a millionaire to get it, all you've got to do is to change your way of life and follow a few simple steps:

• Pay off ALL your debts
• Save money
• Generate passive income

What do you think?

Sometimes it happens that I get discouraged when I have a hard day and my goals seem distant. There are just days that seem to be less inspiring than others because the struggle has been long and the rewards are less evident.. or just because pure human weakness.

What can you do on a day like this? Who can work in these conditions? If you have no motivation, maybe you should take a break to behold your own sadness, to sleep a little bit or watch TV to evade yourself.

But, is it better to escape from reality or to take responsibility and accept the moment you're living right now?

Act according to your convictions not according to your feelings

When things go wrong I try to decide to act on the vision I've had, it is like being faithful to the commitment to myself that goes beyond any state of mind or mood in which I may find myself.

In this case I try to separate feelings from the way I've decided to take. It seems difficult, but look at it this way: feelings are momentary but you way and goals are always there.
You can get discouraged, but you will not be discouraged for ever.

There is something I enjoy immensely about Mozart's life when he was saying that he did not wait to feel inspired to work. Mozart did not wait for a muse to whisper to his ear the musical notes to write.

Mozart was always working and then inspiration came along.
His work is so amazingly perfect and we know that he had hard times too. Fortunately for us and because of his willpower he left us a remarkable legacy and a work so extensive despite his short existence.

But you will tell me:

- "I'm not Mozart".

Neither Mozart knew that he was Mozart at that moment ..

How to develop willpower

You've go to focus your energy on a target and attack against the weakest point until the problem will crack and then you can go all the way to overcome it completely. You have to choose the initial goal and create a plan of attack and execute it quickly without thinking.

Willpower will bring out the passion in you and with discipline it will be easy  to act under any circumstances and this will become a habit.

Consistent hard work and effort always give good results .. But if at any time you feel sad or discouraged, accept it and live for a moment just long enough to transform it, but do not stay there!

Remember the horse from The Never Ending story film? He died sunk in the swamp of sadness, it was going down, down, down till the end, so do not stand there because there is nothing to gain!

Willpower to change things

If you feel sad, angry, discouraged .. maybe it's a sign that things must change. One of the things may be your environment, be more selective with people around you. Start a plan to change things and give priority to those who are a boost for you.

Remember: to win something or to be something you have to become that something.
A choice that you can make with a little bit of willpower.

The world is a fair place and so it is manifested for you.

The world is a fair place if you want to see it that way, and in the same way we are invaded by advertising, so it is that information and media are in charge of feeding you each day with catastrophic information.

I'm not saying you have to close your eyes to what is happening out there, but I am saying that it is not the only thing that's going on out there, there are good news every day  too.

Every day when you wake up you have the sun light, the air that gives life and all you've got to do is to take advantage of the opportunities right in front of you, but our mind is poisoned with negative information and conversations.

Conversations with others and with ourselves is that we have to monitor, negative information that feeds us is that we have to eliminate. You have to lighten yourself for the journey.

I 'm not saying that there are no injustices, but there is also justice out there and the world is a fair place too.

Your children have a fair life by your side with abundance and wealth and not only material things but they are receiving all the inner wealth that you carry within you right now, they are your heirs.

"Yeah, but look at my boss how he has enriched himself and how bastard he is."

Your boss may be a bastard, but he wasn’t always rich and all the rich are not bastards.

There are many rich people who start from nothing and got rich in a fair way and for them the world is a fair place, because they are getting the return of their investment.

What is your choice

What I want to show you with all this is that the world is a fair place if that's your choice.

I remember one of the favorite phrases from one of my mentors:

    Instead of complaining about how rotten this world do something to impact it.

If you're sinking, despairing, discouraged, May be it is because without you're complaining without realizing it ? Or you are adopting an attitude that is not yours that it doesn’t belong to you and therefore you are living the life of another.

Gold inside you

Stop complaining and make your world a fair place. While you are there watching all the misery on tv, others are seeing gold.

The social networks are also there to catch you with shared news and events that fill your human consciousness with all that dirt.

I'm not saying that Facebook and Twitter are bad, they are tools that transmit the information in a viral way but if you are dependant of these things you should change your habits: it is better to make a phone call than to have a virtual exchange in the Facebook wall for example.

Do not forget that Facebook was created by an asocial person.

You can only see the gold that is in yourself with a clear mind.

It is not surprising to see so many people discouraged nowdays, depressed and whatnot, but people who have achieved great things see that the world is a fair place just because they are living in it and they have been able to project it.

It is better to put your energy into changing your situation and improve it than in sinking and thinking about what you haven’t got, it is better to see the gold in you.

And believe me, we all have that gold inside, we are all born equally and without discrimination with the same potential the difference is that some believe that the world is a fair place and manifest so.

Tell me, how is the world for you?

Education is important but the school fails to teach us the essential things to navigate through this world.

What should we learn at school?

1. To understand money

What do teachers know about financial education? Do we learn about how to invest, save,  how to buy things and control our money?
When young people begin the adventure of life all they know is:

1.     Finish your studies
2.     Take the job that will pay the best salary
3.     Buy your house

2. Teamwork

At school they tell you do not copy, do not share anything with others and get find things in life all by yourself. Do not trust the others: they might steal what you are doing.

But in the real world to know teamwork is of utmost importance.

3. Stop wanting to be always the smartest.

Many rich people or those who have chosen an independent lifestyle are not technically smart. They just need to know the mechanisms to handle people and the necessary funds to achieve their goals and that's it.

Knowing how to get surrounded by the right people is much more important than being the best ever in all disciplines. as Napoleon Hill says: knowing how to use the collective brain.

If you think you’ve got all the answers then you’ve lost as there always be somebody smarter than you are that will beat you.
The real smart thing is to learn how to collaborate how to motivate and work with others and you will get things done much faster.

4. To say I don’t know

To be always wanting to have all the answers is one of the biggest obstacles to teamwork. Do not be afraid of looking ignorant in front of others. Is is better to say: I do not know but I will investigate it, than to give an stupid answer.

You do not have to know everything that's what Google is for, nobody expects you to be an encyclopedia and you may not know all the answers but if you know how to find them it will be enough.

5. Trust in yourself

Respect for authority is the first paradigm that school teach us to venerate superiors and to blindly obey.
It is very clear that respect for others is the universal paradigm, but is not necessary give more power to those who already have power over us.
You may follow the flow and obey to feel safe, but are these really your convictions?

6. Act on your convictions

The need to act always in accordance with the approval of others destroy our convictions and our potential.

It always amazes me to see people following the accepted procedure without ever questioning. If you have an idea that you think is good, defend it.
It is better to try and be wrong than to belong to the mass that has never even tried to.
If you try and make a mistake, at least you'll have the experience and you will learn.

7. Learn all the time

Now you have your college degree, that’s good! We’ll see you in 40 years when you reach the retirement age!
But to learn all the time is very important because you have to work for yourself more than you work for others.

8. Accepting failure

Failures and errors are a sign that you are near your goal. He who thinks that knows everything without experience is missing the great teachings that come from mistakes.
To live is to make mistakes and learn from failure.

    "Success is a lousy teacher because it makes you think you cannot lose". Bill Gates

9. Stop wanting to get the best grades

Today we have no right to error: if you mess up and fail you'll have bad grades and repeat course next year.
What will your mother think of you if you fail?

It is better to work towards your goals instead of getting a good grade for a subject that you will forget later.

10. Take control and say enough!

What is the phrase that you hear the most in school?
Shut up, hush!
The teacher is so boring that puts the whole class to sleep.

But what are you accepting with this? Boredom! But will you wait for the bell to ring to speak?
Life is too short.

The debt crisis, or the crisis of the euro area that everyone's talking about what it is and where it comes from.

In simple words this is the explanation of why we have a crisis today, the economy of countries works very much as home economy: if you spend more than you earn then you are really in trouble.

What is the cause of the crisis

Interest rates were exceptionally low after entry to the euro in the countries of southern Europe and there was a boom in demand for credit from businesses and households.

Eveyone wanted money: individuals to buy homes and businesses to build them.
This reminds me: please do not borrow money and learn to live without credits.

Obtaining loans and mortgages from banks was very easy and that was what created the credit bubble that exploded with the comming recession in 2009.

Why Greece is in trouble?

Greece is a country that was living beyond its means, when they first became part of the European Community and adopted the euro, the Greek government was obtaining loans at an interest rate as low as Germany and that public spending exploded and got out of their hands.

Greek officials rose their salaries 50% between 1999 and 2007, much faster than in other euro area countries.

And while revenue came out of the state reserve, money ran away with tax evasion, a widespread practice in Greece, therefore after years of spending the deficit so high was out of control.

It is simple: money goes out but doesn't come in, what could happen?

In the 2008 crisis, Greece was not ready to cope. The debt reached such high levels that the Greek government could not pay loans and was forced to borrow huge emergency funds from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The strict conditions of the loans of the European Union and IMF aggravated even more the problems of the Greek economy.

How the Greek problem affects the rest of Europe

The european economy is inter dependent, that means that what happens to one country affects all the others.

If Greece fails to pay its debt investors, insurance, banks and other entities, investors will not invest in all the other countries at risk, such as Spain and Italy, and a domino effect will have an outstanding effect.

What will happen if Greece leaves the euro zone

If Greece leaves the euro area the government will reintroduce the old currency and the drachma immediately will lose 50% of its value against the euro.

Creditors immediately lose half of the investments, this would cause the bankruptcy of many European banks that are inter connected.
European banks rely on each other to finance, and lending between banks would stop suddenly causing a sort of economic infarctus.

The European Central Bank should act and give everyone as a last resort to avoid bankruptcy and the flood of investors and savers who were going to retire cash from their accounts.

Out of the crisis: the hope of Iceland

The crisis has no easy way out, but the Iceland model gives us all hope and it is a key model. When Iceland's financial system collapsed, the government immediately accepted an IMF loan to nationalize their banks.

Then the government implemented a strict change control to prevent a collapse of its currency and imposed heavy losses on foreign creditors, protecting local savers and investors.

Iceland chosed to save local depositors and investors at the expense of banks.

A key model for a healthy solution to the crisis.

What do you think?

What is greed?

The ambitious and the greedy are two different personalities.

Greed is an attitude associated with the behavior of wanting to preserve your properties and money for yourself, it is to want to earn money all the time and never spend it.

Money is safely stored in bank accounts in the house of the greedy whose only purpose in life is to accumulate more and more and more.
The saver controls its budget and avoids useless expenses and save money to invest it and use it in the right time. So money flows in and out...

But every day I see greedy people lose money or cause enterprises and others to loose money too. If you are in the stocks investment you can loose everything just because you want more, more and more.

The greedy cannot imagine that we must give in order to receive, sow seed to harvest later and the return is back exponentially higher, a hundredfold.

Greed is insane

Remember Mister Scrooge? I think greed it's one of the forms of insanity that causes more suffering.
The greedy is irritable, unsociable, unbearable.
He spends only what is indispensable to the lowest possible price and rots the entire life of those around him. The greedy is a thief.


The greedy associates money to his own body: this has costs me an arm and a leg!
To spend is seen as an amputation of a member of their bodies so they show themselves cold, distant and always uncomfortable when it comes to spend.

And they want everybody else to behave like them, let's all take a bath in misery!

How to overcome this deadly sin?

Greed, which is also called avarice can be overcomed by focusing on all the good things in your life, all the other aspects of life that have been abandoned and neglected because of this avaricious obsession.

You need to allow yourself to enjoy life and pleasures and learn the basics of emotional intelligence.
Then you can try to make certain "useless" expenses, allow yourself to be happy and change your beliefs about money.

Set yourself limits: for example if you are winning with stocks investments tell yourself to fold them when you get 200%, that way you will follow an strategy and not an insane impulse.

Look for inner security and balance by better knowing yourself and understand that you cannot take money with you the grave or wherever we'll go there.

But do not think ambition and greed are the same, ambition is a passion, a desire. Healthy ambition of course, not the kind that become other pathologies that give nothing but suffering, because if ambition is exaggerated and out of control it can be the seed of greed and become a rotten weed in your beautiful garden.


So on the way to financial freedom do not let ambition control you and become something else, remember: money is a tool that we must learn to use and not the opposite, that's all.

It is hard to live without debts nowadays as publicity and marketeers are constantly bombarding you with buy credit card messages.

How would your life be without debts and credits?

First, you will get peace of mind knowing that you owe to no one and second you can start your passive income project to get financial freedom.

Pay cash as much as you want
Credit and visa card push you to spend without control. When you are paying stuff via innocent credits your money expenses start going out of control, but can try a new way to buy things.
Decide what you want and set your self a saving goal to buy it. Let’s say you want a new TV that costs 600 euros, then you can set aside 140 euros/month and you will have it in four months. You will be paying by cash at no interest rate.
You are going to say: Yes but, what if I want a car. Perhaps for some really big things you will have to finance it, but you can always advance an amount to reduce monthly payments and interest.

Leave your credit car at home

Try this for awhile take some money in your wallet ad leave all those cards at home. Just for some time, the time necessary to learn a new habit.
If you don’t know how much money to take make a monthly budget and divide it in four parts then you will know how much to take by week.
Remember that this is an exercise to learn a new habit to control your money and reduce expenses.

Keep one credit card only

Or at least reduce the number of them as credit cards are expensive even if you don’t use them so you will save lots of money that way too.
But the main reason to keep one single credit card is because it is very hard to control expenses when you’ve got a bunch of them.

Why you should live without credit cards

Because you are expending money that you haven’t got, expending money that you owe not your own money that’s why debs are the opposite to investment and prosperity.
To get financial freedom you need a new mind set of prosperity with money coming in from passive income, investments, your projects and whatever, making your money work for you not the opposite!

Do you decide where to live, with whom you live and how you spend your time? What is your level of freedom?

Level 1: You can not decide how to spend your time

Someone asked me recently at work what was my opinion about the social differences between men and women in our modern society. You see, this kind of the question is a tricky question that can not be answered easily without causing friction over differences of opinion.

I had answered that the true social difference in this world is between people that can go on vacation without having to ask permission for it and being the decision makers in all they do and all the others that need to ask permission for everthing.

The others work 40 hours a week for 40 years to obtain a minimal retirement amount, a tip payed at the very final period of life for having commited all of their life to society.
This is a system in which we all participate just because we have accepted it, but this is the real discrimination and a form of modern slavery.

I firmly believe that financial freedom is for all who want to have it and all who strive to achieve it.

But for now you have to ask permission to go on vacation and justify any absence from work, even half an hour to go and drink a coffee.

Neither you can decide the geographical location where you want to work and live unless your company allows geographical mobility.

Your job has many demands all the time and you are constantly answering these requests from others by phone, email and everything else and you think you are indispensable.

Please do not believe in the illusion that you are indispensable and that the company can not operate without you.

Level 2: You can choose how to manage of your time

And you can take time for you just by preventing that you will be away for a certain period. But preventing is not the same as asking for permission.

You can also decide where you will work at least part time and you can organize and keep things up to date while working at a distance.

You've started your own business or system in parallel with your work and expect to make at least as much money as your salary to jump out by yourself.

Level 3: You manage your time freely with very few limitations

Ah, life is beautiful, you make a living with passive income that supports your real activity is and you manage your time freely respecting only very small obligations.

You spend time doing the things you love without forgetting to study how to make new investments that will make your way to financial freedom a way of no return.

What do you think? What do you think is your level of freedom?

1. Make the decision, take action

To achieve financial freedom we have to change our beliefs about money to leave room  for a new lifestyle.
What is the motivation to change your life? Are you ready to become financially free and make your own decisions? What will you do in your free time?

As for me, it was the fact that I worked for people so many years creating web sites and I had never
 thought of creating my own web site and my project to achieve financial freedom.

One day a web master came to our company to explain his project, my boss had bought one of his web sites.
In the meetings I realized how was his lifestyle: independent because he was his own boss and with lots of revenue that came from their web sites and also dedicating a few hours.
He had created a system to make money.

I said to myself: I want that for me, so then I was inspired and decided to take action.

2. Pay all your debts

To pay all your debts is to overcome the addiction to credits, changing your buying habits and establishing a plan to pay everything you owe.
Make a budget to control expenses and sell what you do not use to pay debts faster.

The first freedom to discover is to live a live without debts!

3. Create an automatic savings system

Put a fixed amount each month aside into a separate savings account, you can create a monthly bank transfer to an account without a credit card, just a savings account to save money and get interest of investment in return.

Do not worry if at first is a small amount perhaps just 50 euros, but after 10 months you will have 500 euros!

It is a matter of creating new habits and learning a new financial education.

4. Invest

In the previous steps to learn about how to achieve financial freedom we have been really talking about controlling money, see?

Pay off debt, budgeting, saving .. and investing now!

Study diversified financial products and investments in simple and compound interest.

 Einstein spoke of the wonders of compound interest and he was a genius, so this is good advice.

5. Work for yourself

This is the big extra step and not only for economic reasons, it is to discover how to create residual income for things coming from you .. products, ideas, services ... something that comes from your creativity to provide value to people.

Discovering your creativity will give you great happiness, is a great personal satisfaction and a joy that increases your confidence in yourself.

This is the ultimate goal of having financial freedom: discover your creativity through your freedom.

It is simple: the more income you have the more you will invest and the more freedom you will gain.

It must be something that does not make you work until you drop down exhausted, although at first you have to give it a push and put effort into it.

You are not leaving the rat race to start the horse race and work even more, right?

Create a passive income system to get to a point where you will not need to exchange your time for money anymore. I'm not necessarily talking about starting a business on your own, it is just to work less but smarter.

If I were asked to explain in one sentence how to achieve financial freedom I would say: control your money or the bank will do it for you.
It takes discipline to manage money and acquire new habits and in no time you'll see that you'll get fantastic results!

We've never been told how to handle money or what to do with it once you start working and getting your salary.

But the way we handle money is a reflect of our inner successes and shortcomings, a reflect of our inner reality.

A lack of money is the manifestation or an inner lack or scarcity, a person greedy for money manifest personal troubles too.

Money coach

We see many money coaches on tv and the Internet, they all try to teach us new habits and that's alright but not good enough.

You can learn new habits about money but you also need to transform your inner beliefs system and you inner self by opening your mind to new ways of seeing things.

A money coach will give you lots of practical counsel to track and control your finances and the way to reduce unnecessary expenses, for example by telling you to change you mobile contract to a cheaper one because you don't need so many features.

But how to stop and transform all this problems?

All past experiences may have left a mark: the way we've learned things when we where children and our parents example and influence towards prosperity.

If your parents always answered to all your wishes with: "We don't have enough money for this".

A child would think: "My parents have no money at all".

Our bank account is a reflection of our system belief, but we can certainly change things as someone wrote this phrase that I really love:

"He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past." George Orwell.

The only way now is taking responsibility for the present, yes, just think about it! Who else is responsible? Your wife, boss, children...?

Do not say: "I am this way because my parents treated me so and so when I was little", if it is so, go to talk to your parents and explain what they've done to you and why you are this way and what you want as a compensation, and then forget about it and act in a new way.

Just right now: your idea of the past is all the thoughts you've got about it today, if you've got remorse from the past today you are creating a poor future.

You cannot change the past but you can change your idea and perception of the past. Time has formed you and all past experiences make you a wiser person, a very valuable person and you need to see the positive way because it is the only way, really.

If an old experience is too painful you've just got to let it go like a balloon up in the air to be dissolved by the universe to never come back again.

And you can start a new life right now and leave room to good things they are waiting to get to you. Think about all the good things you have right now, I'm sure it is fantastic.

Be happy, enjoy.

If you are looking for financial freedom the main key to get it is to switch from your way of thinking about life and money.

With financial freedom you are the owner of your own time and decisions, creating new sources of income besides your usual work that make more and more money until you will not need your current job no more!
But don’t tell your boss about it.

Two years ago I decided to start working for myself in my free time and look for financial freedom.
I've given my talent and efforts working for others for a salary creating web sites, programming features and even helping others for free.
It was the time to start a professional project for myself experiencing the way I can receive money in return for my creations.

I'm still working for others (aug-2012) but my personal projects are on the way and running well!
I get an extra income each month, for now is about 50 euros but this amount is like gold tome it is li a seed:
"If I can make 50 euros each month, then I can make 500".

Inner freedom

Financial freedom means inner freedom too, kind of you've got to be free inside and be willing to attract new things and experience a new way of life to attain it.

If you are happy just being a number and being like everybody else then this way is not for you, stay in the Rat Race as R. Kiyosaky said.

To me life is so beautiful that looking for financial freedom it is worth trying and I want to have an extra income of money for myself to enjoy more time with my loved ones and to dedicate more time to do what I really like: writing.

Financial security

Financial freedom starts with financial security that means earn your living and live debts free. To overcome material "addiction" you may have to learn new habits and a new way of thinking, as you see life otherwise.
Every time you ask for a credit you are giving away some time of your future life.
So if you are looking for financial freedom the first step is financial security.

What do you think?