Hi guys, if you're new here, I'm Nisha, I'm a banker based in the UK and on this channel we explore all things personal finance, self-development and business.

So let's get straight into it.

Number one, close the learning gap.

If you don't know where to start, start with this one.

It sounds like such an obvious one but it is so, so overlooked and it's single handedly the most important one out of the list and that is to close the learning gap that the schooling system has created.

Education at school is tailored towards getting a good job, getting promoted, earning a high salary and then we're told to save part of our pay, the pay that the tax man doesn't rate for us.

They tell us to put that money into savings accounts with interest rates that don't even keep up with inflation and they tell us to invest it in ISAs and 401ks which are managed by someone else who is making money doing it.

That's where the problem is, building true wealth under this paradigm is mathematically impossible.

In fact, the schooling system is designed to keep most people poor or at least working hard their entire lives just to keep their head above water and we've been so indoctrinated in this ideology that most people just think this is the way it is and that there is no alternative, there is nothing else to do.

They don't teach us financial literacy in school, they don't teach us about mortgages, about taxes, about corporate structures, managing your finances, none of that.

So it's up to us to close the financial literacy gap and educate ourselves on these topics.

Read the books, watch the YouTube videos, listen to the podcast because a lot of building wealth and building income streams is about keeping the money you make and making it grow for you.

Number two, the spotlight effect.

This is one that used to really hold me back but when I got over it, it was a very kind of monumental and liberating feeling for me.

I always worried about what other people thought about me doing something, what my family would think, what my friends would think, what my colleagues would think but as you get older and I guess you learn with time that no one actually cares about what you're doing.

There's this phenomenon in psychology called the spotlight effect and the basic idea is that we go about our lives thinking that there is a spotlight trail on us and only us and everyone is looking at what we're doing and they're judging it but in reality we are only the centre and focal point of our own story.

We are just a small snippet in everyone else's.

And there's a famous quote that says we would worry less about what other people think about us if we actually realised how rarely they do.

So stop worrying about what other people think and if you fail or succeed publicly and when you do you'll be willing to take on more opportunities that you would have otherwise been too afraid to take before.

Number three, question the answer.

Once I learned that I need to do this, so many more doors opened up for me.

Just because one person said they can't help you or that your business idea isn't viable, it doesn't mean it's a no and that you should pack it all in.

There are 101 ways to get to the same destination so it may just mean that you need to knock on another door or take another path that no one has trodden down before.

When I was 23 I made up in my mind that I was going to hit six digits before my 25th birthday and that I wasn't going to let anything stop me from getting there.

I worked super hard that year and at the end of the year I made a case to my boss at the time and said okay this is why I deserve that pay rise and he took it away and basically came back and said it's not possible and gave me this reason and this reason and this reason and I could have either just sat there and said okay this is the reality, I'm going to accept it, there's nothing I can do about it or take the matter in my own hands and say okay this isn't the answer that I was expecting but that doesn't mean there isn't another way that will get me there.

That's when I started living below my means and saved up enough to buy my first investment property which then led to me hitting that goal.

So if you want to get from A to B it's not just one road that will get you there, it's not just one person that will help you or one company that will help you achieve it.

You may have to take a couple of detours and a load of rejections and setbacks but honestly and you'll hear me say this time and time again, when there is a will there is a way so if you want to take away one thing from this video let it be that.

Number four, money out equals money in and this is one of the most important ones and I wish someone had drilled this into me earlier.

I know so many people who work in well paid jobs, they earn a lot and they say they want to start all these side hustles and start building passive income streams but they don't want to spend any money to get started and I think this is really quite a self-limiting thought because they're spending on all these depreciating assets, they're going out on all these fancy holidays and extravagant restaurants but once it comes to actually investing that money they don't want to do it, they don't want to invest that money in themselves or on courses or on the better equipment for their podcast, they won't be willing to part with that money.

There gets to a point with almost any venture where to be able to scale it or take it to the next stage you're going to have to spend some money and sometimes that means spending money to free up the time so that you can even start that venture in the first place.

As Naval says in his book The Almanac, set an hourly rate for yourself, be it $20 an hour, $50 an hour and anything you can outsource at less than that hourly rate then do it.

You'll find that doing this will free up so much time for you that you could spend working on your ventures or your own business ideas or educating yourself.

Before I used to think okay I'll do everything myself, I'll just spend 10 days on trying to learn this by myself instead of paying someone else to do it but that mindset of saving money at the cost of your time can't follow you through to financial wealth and Number 5, FOMO will hold you back.

FOMO is fear of missing out, fear of missing out when you see your friends living their best life on Instagram, eating out all the time, buying the latest iPhone, a new car, going on a big holiday and it takes a lot of willpower to say no to these things when everyone around you is doing it.

But if you let your FOMO get the best of you then you're sacrificing your own narrative, you'll be throwing away unnecessary amounts of money trying to keep up with the lifestyle you're seeing other people live, you'll be wasting unnecessary amounts of valuable time that you could spend on working yourself or working on your side hustle just because of FOMO.

And everyone is going to get a level of fear of missing out at some point but I've learned that the only remedy for FOMO is finding meaning in what you're doing.

It doesn't mean it has to be the most fulfilling thing in the world or the most satisfying thing that brings you the most happiness.

Meaning just means that it's part of a bigger narrative that you're building in your life.

Now I'm very clear with the direction I'm going and where I want to be in my life in 5 years time and in 10 years time and whenever I see something that someone else posts on social media that makes me feel like I'm not living my best life and going out all the time and living completely in the here and now then I just remind myself that it's all in the idea or all because of this meaning.

And at the end these small little sacrifices that I make now will all be worth it in the end.

Number 6.

Action before overanalysis.

This is one that's probably had the biggest impact on me.

If there's one thing that was keeping me in the same place year after year after year it was the tendency to overanalyse versus just doing the thing.

Before starting this YouTube channel I must have thought about doing it for a good 6 months while I was thinking about what my niche should be, what would people care about hearing from me, what should my thumbnails look like.

It's great to think about that new project and think about investing for the future but what's really going to make the difference 10 years from now is whether or not you actually did the thing.

Even if it feels scary at some point you become acutely aware that the result of not taking action will be far more painful than whatever may happen if you take action.

Even if you don't have it all planned out by virtue of just getting started you're naturally going to be taking on feedback along the way.

Just get going, you can always change the path if you need to based on the feedback you're getting you'll learn and improve just by doing.

Jeff Oslund in the book The Slight Edge says that the more you overthink preparing to start your goal the more overwhelmed you will feel and the less likely you are to take the action.

So keeping your thoughts about your plans simple helps you get out of your own head and into action more quickly.

Just take the opportunity and you'll learn the most just by doing it.

So that guys is what's kept me motivated and kept me going.

If you enjoyed this video I've linked a few others here which you may also enjoy.

Thanks for watching and hopefully see you there.