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The Graduate's Guidebook to Creating Wealth and Financial Freedom While Navigating Life's Illusions

by Peter Alan Dennis

297 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #03-1803; ISBN 1-4120-1425-5; US$23.00, C$25.95, EUR19.00, £13.00

How to create wealth and financial freedom while planning for the rest of your life.

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about the book      about the author      excerpts      catalogue info

About the Book Any era can be described as "uncertain", but this one more than most. Many "things" of value aren't as solid as we thought. Jobs vanish, even from profitable companies. College tuitions rise faster than a parent can save. An offer of early retirement may carry the subliminal message "take it or else". And, after September 11th, we dare not count on being totally safe. Yet neither can we put our lives on hold. Our days progress toward personal goals that are deeply held and widely shared: to enjoy our work and our homes; raise and educate our children and grandchildren, and provide for our futures. We hope to improve our standard of living and secure our older age. We have choices to make about when to borrow, what to save, and where to invest. A shiver of doubt may urge more caution than we felt a few years ago. But life can be long and assumptions change. In good years, we should build safety nets, in case our prospects take a turn. In bad years, we should be laying plans for the better times that lie ahead. This book was designed to help find a balance point between safety and enterprise, to address our fears without putting limits on our hopes. It's a step-by-step system for being responsible for your own lifestyle and financial planning. By working with these chapters one by one, you will master the fundamentals of money, build a base to keep you and your family safe, then begin to accumulate the kinds of investments that best suit your age, goals and circumstances. Don't hesitate to make these decisions by yourself. The chief difference between you and a professional planner is information. This book, I hope, will close that gap. Some of the details will change over the years that you use this information, but the broad principles of personal finance will stay the same: save money, borrow intelligently, invest for growth.

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About the Author Peter Alan Dennis was the CEO and principle shareholder of First Canadian Capital Management, the founding president of the Association of Canadian Pension Management and a director of the International Bank and Trust Company. He has authored three books: This is Your Life, The Best Years of Your Life, and Building A Life. He is semi-retired and lives with his wife Mary Ann in Brampton, Ontario and Stuart, Florida.

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Excerpts

Congratulations and welcome to this guidebook. I would like you to consider something extraordinary. I would like you to consider the possibility that this dialogue was created just for you. If you can accept this hypothesis, I believe you are about to have a very worthwhile experience, which may change how you see your life. This guidebook, like your life, is a gift. A gift of appreciation and recognition along with a legacy of affection from those who believe in you and what happens in your life.

Any era can be described as "uncertain", but this one more than most. Many "things" of value aren't as solid as we thought. Jobs vanish, even from profitable companies. College tuitions rise faster than a parent can save. An offer of early retirement may carry the subliminal message "take it or else". And, after September 11th, we dare not count on being totally safe.

Yet neither can we put our lives on hold. Our days progress toward personal goals that are deeply held and widely shared: to enjoy our work and our homes; raise and educate our children and grandchildren, and provide for our futures. We hope to improve our standard of living and secure our older age. We have choices to make about when to borrow, what to save, and where to invest. A shiver of doubt may urge more caution than we felt a few years ago. But life can be long and assumptions change. In good years, we should build safety nets, in case our prospects take a turn. In bad years, we should be laying plans for the better times that lie ahead.

This book was designed to help find a balance point between safety and enterprise, to address our fears without putting limits on our hopes. It's a step-by-step system for being responsible for your own lifestyle and financial planning. By working with these chapters one by one, you will master the fundamentals of money, build a base to keep you and your family safe, then begin to accumulate the kinds of investments that best suit your age, goals and circumstances. Don't hesitate to make these decisions by yourself. The chief difference between you and a professional planner is information. This book, I hope, will close that gap. Some of the details will change over the years that you use this information, but the broad principles of personal finance will stay the same: save money, borrow intelligently, invest for growth.

Even in a chancy economy like we are now experiencing, I urge you not to hunker down and play it absolutely safe. Making a judicious stretch is the classic path to higher rewards. The error of the 1990's was to jump without a parachute. The wisdom of the new millennium is always to know where the ripcord is. That's one of this book's major themes: how to reach for growth while still protecting what you have.

Holding on to a ripcord - a fallback position - carries a price. You will be spending less in order to save a little more. But postponing consumption isn't so bad. There's more to life than money can ever buy.

Ever since I sold my investment management company almost 10 years ago, I have been asked many times for financial advice by several people; these include friends, relatives and casual acquaintances. The advice that I have often given is prefaced by the fact that there are just so many changing factors governing individual investment decisions, that without specific information to analyze, advice can be often misleading and dangerous to your wealth.

Consequently, I decided that perhaps the best help and advice I might proffer, could be in the form of a book, which you have now just begun to read. After you have finished thoroughly digesting this book, I hope that you will come up with your own satisfactory answers and enjoy the prosperity that you deserve.

This book represents many of my thoughts, experiences and observations during my business career. In addition to it being a learning tool, I hope that you will find this book an interesting read, given the various personal stories and anecdotes spread throughout its pages.

This book is literally three books in one. A refined distillation of the most prescient theories and experiences presented in my first three publications along with updated material covering the latest events. Due to the co-relation of the subject matter, I have attempted to present the material accordingly, in one single volume divided into three separate sections. This guidebook incidentally, does not require chronological reading.

SECTION ONE: "YOUR FINANCIAL PLANNING CHOICES" - covers the general areas of financial planning, investment management, buying a home and spending disciplines.
SECTION TWO: "YOUR LIFE PLANNING CHOICES" - covers credit and debt issues, bankruptcy concerns and many aspects of personality and character under the aegis of "Your Plan For Life".
- covers all of the various personal, psychological and financial considerations needed in order to implement a satisfactory retirement plan. (I maintain the theory that one should plan for retirement as early as possible in one's life). If you are a young graduate, you may want to consider giving your parents this section of the book to read.
"YOUR PLAN FOR LIFE" came into being out of my concern that no book that I was aware of had created a set of guidelines to help readers increase their quotient of happiness and prosperity along with a very specific plan. I now know that my life would have been more useful and fulfilled had I learned at an earlier age the principles described herein.

During my life, I have certainly made my share of mistakes. But I thought it best to stress those experiences and thoughts, from which the reader may derive a useful lesson. In order to overcome the various problems that faces each one of us (and no life is problem free), it is crucial to have a plan to live by.

The plans that this book suggests are by no means complete. Many principles for a happy and successful existence (what you might call the laws of life) are not all included, simply because I have not as yet, learned them all. Nor will I ever.

These plans are written for those who consider themselves students in the school of successful living. Each student should study the steps included here and then try to add to them. Nothing can be more beneficial for your growth than to put down in writing what you believe are the most important rules for happiness, usefulness and success.

Webster's College Dictionary describes the word "legacy", as being something received from the past. But legacy is also about life. About past experiences and the times we've lived in, the people and events that have helped shape us, how and whom we have loved, what has stirred us, and how we have tried to make a difference. What goes into living a life during that time and in that particular set of circumstances. This is what we want to know. This is what I would like to share with you. It's an affirmation of the familiar phrase, "We're all in this together", something we seem to sense when we are young, yet understand more deeply as we have time to reflect on our lives.

In real life, everything is connected to everything else. The end can rarely justify the means; the means is life, as we live it, in the present moment. When we read of ancient paupers who die on a bare mattress stuffed with cash, we recognize their delusion; but at times we can lose that clarity and find ourselves justifying practices that we know are undesirable in the service of a desired end.

Means that involve injustice or deprivation are never justifiable. We cannot ignore experience. We may have our sights set on a law degree or a sports car, but the experience of law school and of budgeting for the car are what we live. The quality of our life isn’t measured by our degrees or possessions but by our behavior. If we have love and fulfilling work, nothing else really matters.

For this moment, let's concentrate on today; it's all we have. Within this day we have many choices to consider along with a rich texture of experience. We can't control the outcome but the moment is within our grasp. We must seize it, savor it, and learn from it. It is the truth of life itself.

This law of ecology, it seems to me, may also apply to life-planning. For prudent planning is developed in an environment provided largely by the planner, but importantly sustained and nurtured by many others either consciously or unconsciously.

I am convinced that the basic principles for happiness and success can be examined, tested and agreed upon so that the best ones can be combined for greater enlightenment. No subject seems more important to me than one that can help each of us fulfill our potential as human beings.

It is my vision that more and more people worldwide will lead lives of happiness, usefulness and prosperity if we work continuously toward growth and better understanding of the principles by which we should govern ourselves. It is my sincere hope that not only each of you, but also your children and grandchildren, will one day benefit from reading this book.

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Catalogue Information

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