Financially Free

Picture a commercial airliner just leaving the runway with 155 passengers on board. As it climbs rapidly and gains speed there is a sudden thud and the passengers and pilots are thrown forward in their seats against the pressure of their seat restraints. Both engines lose all thrust while the ascent and speed of the aircraft quickly decelerates. After climbing to only 3,000 feet before the engines quit there is very little time to figure out how to get the plane down safely and save the lives of passengers and crew. After a few seconds of processing what is going on the pilot immediately swings into action. He considers turning the airplane around and trying to make it back to the airport but realizes they will lose too much altitude in the turn and won’t make it. He considers putting the plane down in the direction they are flying but realizes the tremendous loss of life that will occur because it is a densely populated urban environment. Not only will passengers and crew likely be killed but many people on the ground and in buildings as well. At about this time the pilot remembers the Rolex watch on eBay he had bid on the previous day. Curious to see if he won the auction and now distracted from the task at hand, he pulls out his iPhone and logs into eBay to check the status. You know what the end of that story would be. By losing focus on the task at hand the pilot would cause the certain demise of all the passengers and crew on board including many people on the ground. If there were a way to land safely he would not have found it. In this same sense staying focused on your financial objectives is just as critical to your financial freedom as the pilot’s focus was for the safety of the passengers and crew.