Success Is Attainable When You Believe Life Is Filled With Solutions, Not Problems
Do you ever feel like everyone around you is succeeding, leaving you behind feeling unhappy and unsatisfied
with your life? Don’t be that person who dreams of success but never quite gets there. As a successful chartered accountant and owner of his own accounting company, Patrick Daniel understands that real victory in the "business of life" comes from achieving success both professionally and personally. His inspiring book, Finding Your Road to Success - How to get there without getting lost (PDCA Publishing), shares a step-by-step approach to building roadmaps that lead straight to the top!
"Our definition of success is unique
to us and unless we have a clear
vision of what success personally
means to us, we will be unable to
work towards it."
~Norm Goldman, publisher and editor
Patrick Daniel became independently wealthy by the young age of 30–a fact that validates his credentials for writing a self-help motivational and inspirational book that is filled with great lessons, personal experiences, and strategically placed quotes, from both unknown and famous individuals, that support tips to encourage readers to achieve goals beyond their wildest dreams.
Although many of us work hard to reach success, we often get lost along the way for a variety of reasons. Finding Your Road to Success is interactive in the sense that it gets you thinking about your life. As you read, you find yourself analyzing exactly where you are in your life versus where you want to be; the more pages you read the more you discover who you are and what true success really means to you - and you get the tools to steer you in the right direction.
The author demonstrates how it’s possible for anyone to achieve success and he willingly shares the secrets to happiness, wealth, and ultimate success in his book. Written in simple terms that make for easy reading, he uses entertaining stories from his own life experiences as lessons in this well-written, basic guide for anyone wanting to begin their journey on the path to a successful life.
Patrick’s mantra, "life is filled with solutions, not problems," is at the core of his "glass half-full" attitude, which makes Finding Your Road to Success a must-read for anyone needing a shot of optimism. The author realized at a very young age that true success is achieving goals that go way beyond monetary, and his book shatters all notions that success is a myth!
Patrick Daniel is a successful chartered accountant and owner of his own accounting company, author, featured radio guest, life coach, sought-after speaker, and an avid volunteer for numerous organizations and charities that benefit children and poor families.
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Q&A with Patrick Daniel
1. Describe how you became
"independently wealthy" by age 30:
I come from a family of entrepreneurs, so
I always knew that I wanted to be my own
boss someday. So toward the end of my
university studies, I decided that I was going
to be my own boss by the time I was 30 years old. I had to act fast because I was around 22 years old at that point.
I took the time to envision my life at age 30, and I could see myself with my own company, money, my own home, and a beautiful wife. I did not see myself having millions and millions of dollars at the time, but I pictured myself financially independent and happy. Working backward, I knew that I would not be able to achieve financial independence by being an employee in an accounting firm, so my goal was to have my own company by 30 years old..... Less than 5 years into my career, at the age of 28, I felt I was ready to leave PricewaterhouseCoopers to start my own accounting company.
According to the CNN Net Worth Calculator, by the age of 30, my net work was almost 17 times higher than the average 30 year old American. Now, at age 36, my net worth is 52 times that of the average 36 year old.
2. What is a key tip for building financial wealth, which you learned from your personal experience? One of the most important tips is to know how to make your money work for you, instead of against you.
A lot of people are determined to ‘save’ their money and talk about "saving up." But what many don’t realize is that saving money works against you: $10,000 saved today will be worth much less down the line because of inflation, and this money saved in a bank account will earn almost no interest at the very low rates the banks provide.
The key to making your money work for you is to invest it, not save it, in a variety of things such as real estate, stocks, bonds, or some other form of investment. For example, rental properties provide monthly net revenues from rent and, over time, will most likely provide appreciation in value resulting in capital gains. So your initial investment increases with all the net revenues collected over the years, and the investment is further increased by any capital gains incurred upon selling the property years later.
When investing, people need to understand how compounded interest, or dividends, works. To demonstrate the power of a compounded investment, if you make a one-time investment of $1,000, this investment, untouched, will grow to approximately $19,300 (10% interest compounded quarterly) in 30 years. And if the investment was held for 60 years, it will be worth approximately $374,000 at the end of this period. Isn’t it fascinating how just $1,000 can grow into $374,000?
3. Did wealth allow you to experience genuine happiness? I gain most of my happiness from the time I spend with my family and friends, and volunteering. Most of this happiness has nothing to do with wealth. Where having money matters is when I need some flexibility and can afford to take certain days off of work to do things that make me happy....
What many people need to realize is that having money in itself does not bring happiness, and there are many studies that have shown this. What money can do is bring momentary satisfaction and a short-term thrill, but the happiness you derive from it is short lived and easily lost.
4. What advice can you offer others about experiencing true personal satisfaction vs. feelings of frustration "watching others succeed"? The reason for much of the frustration people experience is because they do not truly understand the meaning of success.
Society has us believing that true success is based on things like being a millionaire, owning an expensive car, being famous, having a big mansion, or wearing designer clothes. So what’s happening is that many people are trying to fulfill society’s definition of success and are running out to buy cars that they can’t really afford, buying homes that are way too big for their needs, and overspending on things such as clothes they can do without. As a result of all this, people find themselves digging deeper and deeper into debt, which brings with it much unhappiness and the feeling of failure.
This is the reason why I’ve written my book. I want to guide and teach people how to define their own success, how to create a roadmap to achieve it, and finally how to reach their final destination, which is their ultimate success. There is so much more to life than money, and with my book in hand people can discover their own road to success and final destination, which results in true happiness, satisfaction, and the feeling of great success.
5. Why do you continue working and volunteering? I’ve been volunteering since 1998.... Volunteering has definitely added more meaning to my life. Through my volunteer work, I’ve realized how it’s the small things in life that make a difference, and helping the less fortunate makes me appreciate what I have in my life more. It’s not always easy to find time for volunteering, but I make it a point to fit it into my schedule because most people who are successful are well rounded; they think about the well-being of others as well as themselves. People who say they don’t have the time to volunteer really mean they prefer not to make the time.
In addition to feeling good about yourself, volunteering has many benefits, which I discuss in greater detail in my book. Some of these benefits include learning new skills, becoming a leader, and finding new job opportunities.
1. Describe how you became
"independently wealthy" by age 30:
I come from a family of entrepreneurs, so
I always knew that I wanted to be my own
boss someday. So toward the end of my
university studies, I decided that I was going
to be my own boss by the time I was 30 years old. I had to act fast because I was around 22 years old at that point.
I took the time to envision my life at age 30, and I could see myself with my own company, money, my own home, and a beautiful wife. I did not see myself having millions and millions of dollars at the time, but I pictured myself financially independent and happy. Working backward, I knew that I would not be able to achieve financial independence by being an employee in an accounting firm, so my goal was to have my own company by 30 years old..... Less than 5 years into my career, at the age of 28, I felt I was ready to leave PricewaterhouseCoopers to start my own accounting company.
According to the CNN Net Worth Calculator, by the age of 30, my net work was almost 17 times higher than the average 30 year old American. Now, at age 36, my net worth is 52 times that of the average 36 year old.
2. What is a key tip for building financial wealth, which you learned from your personal experience? One of the most important tips is to know how to make your money work for you, instead of against you.
A lot of people are determined to ‘save’ their money and talk about "saving up." But what many don’t realize is that saving money works against you: $10,000 saved today will be worth much less down the line because of inflation, and this money saved in a bank account will earn almost no interest at the very low rates the banks provide.
The key to making your money work for you is to invest it, not save it, in a variety of things such as real estate, stocks, bonds, or some other form of investment. For example, rental properties provide monthly net revenues from rent and, over time, will most likely provide appreciation in value resulting in capital gains. So your initial investment increases with all the net revenues collected over the years, and the investment is further increased by any capital gains incurred upon selling the property years later.
When investing, people need to understand how compounded interest, or dividends, works. To demonstrate the power of a compounded investment, if you make a one-time investment of $1,000, this investment, untouched, will grow to approximately $19,300 (10% interest compounded quarterly) in 30 years. And if the investment was held for 60 years, it will be worth approximately $374,000 at the end of this period. Isn’t it fascinating how just $1,000 can grow into $374,000?
3. Did wealth allow you to experience genuine happiness? I gain most of my happiness from the time I spend with my family and friends, and volunteering. Most of this happiness has nothing to do with wealth. Where having money matters is when I need some flexibility and can afford to take certain days off of work to do things that make me happy....
What many people need to realize is that having money in itself does not bring happiness, and there are many studies that have shown this. What money can do is bring momentary satisfaction and a short-term thrill, but the happiness you derive from it is short lived and easily lost.
4. What advice can you offer others about experiencing true personal satisfaction vs. feelings of frustration "watching others succeed"? The reason for much of the frustration people experience is because they do not truly understand the meaning of success.
Society has us believing that true success is based on things like being a millionaire, owning an expensive car, being famous, having a big mansion, or wearing designer clothes. So what’s happening is that many people are trying to fulfill society’s definition of success and are running out to buy cars that they can’t really afford, buying homes that are way too big for their needs, and overspending on things such as clothes they can do without. As a result of all this, people find themselves digging deeper and deeper into debt, which brings with it much unhappiness and the feeling of failure.
This is the reason why I’ve written my book. I want to guide and teach people how to define their own success, how to create a roadmap to achieve it, and finally how to reach their final destination, which is their ultimate success. There is so much more to life than money, and with my book in hand people can discover their own road to success and final destination, which results in true happiness, satisfaction, and the feeling of great success.
5. Why do you continue working and volunteering? I’ve been volunteering since 1998.... Volunteering has definitely added more meaning to my life. Through my volunteer work, I’ve realized how it’s the small things in life that make a difference, and helping the less fortunate makes me appreciate what I have in my life more. It’s not always easy to find time for volunteering, but I make it a point to fit it into my schedule because most people who are successful are well rounded; they think about the well-being of others as well as themselves. People who say they don’t have the time to volunteer really mean they prefer not to make the time.
In addition to feeling good about yourself, volunteering has many benefits, which I discuss in greater detail in my book. Some of these benefits include learning new skills, becoming a leader, and finding new job opportunities.
