After the weekend’s experience of checking out my first piece of real estate, the hubby and I started looking at other properties in Melbourne on an Australian Real Estate site. There were quite a number of houses going for sale at my old neighbourhood in Melbourne – North Balwyn. Properties ranged anywhere from AUD 500K to well over a million dollars, depending on whether you were looking at a villa, townhouse or bungalow.

When you consider that the exchange rate for AUD 1 is about RM 2.78, even that AUD 265k single bedroom apartment is starting to look pretty expensive for an investment. Certainly, one might even consider it unaffordable given the situation that we are in – with a baby on the way and a new homeloan on our first house together. However, as Kim Kiyosaki advises in Rich Woman, if we are truly determined to succeed in investing, the words, “I can’t afford it,” must never uttered. Instead, the question should be, “How can I afford it?”

The reason I started reading books from the Richdad series was to expand my context beyond my limited scope of vision. It is by being aware that things are possible that you learn the truth to the statement that anything is achievable. This philosophy is true of anything that we desire to achieve in life.

Taking an example out of rock climbing, one of my passions, I’ve often observed a group of climbers attempting a route on the wall. Everyone in the group will take turns to attempt the route and will continue to fail. Some might even deem the route “impossible” to climb, that is, until one person makes it. Suddenly, in rapid succession, the rest of the group are able to complete the route as well. The reason is because they have “seen” with their own eyes that it IS possible. It is like having a switch turned on in your brain which results with a sudden realisation that what was once believed to be impossible is actually achievable.

Thus it is with anything in our lives that we desire to achieve, including money and investing. A lot of us look at the successful with envy and wonder how they could have achieved so much when the rest of us are still struggling. Kenny Sia wrote in his blog about an ordinary guy called John Lee who achieved success at the tender age of 24. Admittedly, when I first read the post, I, too, felt a pang of jealousy. John Lee built himself an extremely profitable business from the simple concept of providing translation services – now why didn’t I come up with something like that?

When we hear of such stories, we have one of two choices:

1. We can continue to look at John Lee (and other people like him), envy his success and never get any further with our own success, or

2. We can use his experience as a source of inspiration to achieve our own success, much in the same way that the other climbers (from my example above) used the first climber who completed the route as their source of inspiration that the route was indeed climbable.

Sometimes we make excuses to cover up why we have only achieved as much as we have today and why we haven’t done more. We might say those people were lucky, or they had the right talent, or they were supported by the right people, etc., etc., etc. The list can go on and on. While it is true that some are luckier than others for various reasons, whether they were in the right place at the right time or they were gifted in some way, there are others whom, despite all odds against them, were able to rise up to the challenge and still achieve greatness.

I heard about the Honda story after reading Anthony Robbins’ “Awaken the Giant Within”. Soichiro Honda was a man who began from very humble beginnings. His first engine design was rejected by Toyota. He went through a great number of set-backs and challenges to create the Honda Motor company that we see today. Having to pawn his wife’s jewellery for money to build his dream and suffering the loss of his factory from bombing during the war were only a few of the difficulties that he went through. Now there’s a man with perseverence, determination and a dream.

Another example closer to home is Yvonne Foong, an amazing young lady suffering from Neurofibromatosis who has been undergoing surgeries every year since she was first diagnosed with the condition. To raise money to pay for her medical treatments, she started her own online store and wrote a book to increase awareness of her condition, Neurofibromatosis.

Each excuse we make limits us to the kind of life that we continue to live. Both Yvonne and Honda could have made plenty of excuses not to fulfil their dreams, but they didn’t. Instead, they kept on going and achieved the kind of greatness that most of us only dream about.

So before I say, “I can’t,” the next time I encounter anything “impossible”, I will remember these great people and realise that where there is a will, there is ALWAYS a way…