I have become really interested in uncovering and discovering the ways in which other people approach their life in a different way than the “norm”. There does seem to be a growing interest in this area with programmes like “Escape to the Wild” where Kevin McCloud meets people who are choosing to live differently and off grid.

So the first person I am going to profile is Lisa Nichols who took an alternative approach to looking at her income and has gone on to become a multimillionaire in the States. A single mom she found herself a government job and for a couple of years she wrote cheques to herself and posted them to a bank where she did not have access to the funds with the message “Funding my Dream” written on the cheque.

Every two weeks, she took the money that she would have spent on going out for dinner or getting her hair done and started to write cheques to herself that were going to fund her future!

Unclear about what her dream was, she kept putting money aside into a bank account. She did not check any statements to keep track on her funding her dream project.

She then took a second job and sent the money from that job directly into the same bank account.

After three and a half years, she went to the bank and asked how much she had in her account. The bank officials told her that she had managed to save $62,000! She took the money and put it into two accounts. She put $31,000 into each accounts. She lived off one account and opened a third where she put all of her earnings for that year into the account. She had began a great process of accumilating wealth on a government wage.

She has now built a company called Motivating the Masses which aims to teach entrepreneurs, business owners and executives to live their dreams and build their own personal legacy. (business and professional development training and courses).

She looked at money in a different way than I have thought about it previously. Whereas I have saved a certain portion of my money each month, I have never thought of doing anything like Lisa Nichols…..food for thought!