18-year-old Tray-Sean Ben Salmi is a proud Harrovian, TEDx Speaker: Tray-Sean Ben Salmi: Financial Education is Kids’ Stuff | TED Talk, Guest Speaker at the Steve & Marjorie Harvey Foundation: https://theharveyfoundation.org, an Amazon #1 Best Seller & Award-Winning Author, Stock & Shares Trader, Publisher, Property Mentor & Investor, Award-winning Public Speaker (Virgin, The Beat You Expo 15,000 attendees) and Child Advocate. Tray-Sean participated in Channel 4 Child Genius 2017 and went on to be recognized as one of the top 20 smartest children in the UK. Tray-Sean went on to be 1 out of 34 boys to be invited to sit papers at the prestigious Eton College 2017.
Success means different things to different people, and for me, success is about personal growth and fulfillment. It’s about setting goals and working towards them and feeling a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction when those goals are achieved.
To me, success is not just about material wealth or career advancement. While those things can certainly be a part of success, they are not the only factors. For me, success is also about being true to myself and living a life that is authentic and meaningful to me. It’s about developing strong relationships with the people around me and building a supportive community.
I believe that success is a journey, not a destination. It’s about the small victories and the lessons learned along the way, as well as the bigger achievements. It’s about continually striving to be the best version of myself and making a positive impact on the world around me.
As for how I’ve succeeded to become Tray-Sean Ben Salmi, it’s been a combination of hard work, determination, and a willingness to take risks and learn from my mistakes. I’ve always been driven by a desire to learn and grow, and I’ve worked hard to develop my skills and knowledge in the areas that interest me. I’ve also been fortunate to have a supportive mother, siblings and grandmother, mentors and role models who have helped guide me along the way and encourage me to pursue my dreams. I’ve learned that success often requires stepping out of my comfort zone and taking calculated risks, and I’ve tried to embrace those challenges and use them as opportunities to grow and learn.
We have countless ways to build multiple streams of income, along with 101 things to purchase, so we ought to allocate time to ensure that we’re handling our finances both efficiently and effectively. When I was invited to write a piece on personal finance, I was ecstatic as it’s a subject that I’m very passionate about, and I had the opportunity to do a TEDx Talk on this topic. I’m an 18-year-old Amazon Best Selling Author of 10 Seconds to Child Genius (Book Series: Kidz That Dream Big, I’m That KID, Can I Ask You A Question About Wealth?), proud Harrovian, Coach, Stocks & Shares Trader and Mentor as well as the proprietor of Influencer Publishing House.
Over the past decade, I’ve made it my mission to immerse myself in various environments with people from all walks of life to amalgamate this into the person I am today. Before we delve into personal finance, we ought to clarify what it is precisely and the fact that when you work on your finances, the tools gained in doing so apply to all areas of our lives, so let’s begin. Personal finance is a term that delineates how we go about managing our finances, both short-term and long-term. It’s such an essential topic as living in today’s day and age. We have countless newly found ways to build multiple streams of income along with 101 things to purchase, so we ought to allocate time to ensure that we’re handling our finances both efficiently and effectively. To make this easy to digest, I’ll be breaking this into four parts to get you started, so you can get your finances under control both on a day-to-day basis as well as planning for your financial future.
This will help with setting realistic goals whilst making sure that you are able to meet long-term goals. Despite there being several areas of personal finance, however, I believe that they fit into one of the 4 pillars: Income, Spending, Saving to Invest, and Security. I also think that your network plays a role in how you approach personal finance, but we’ll delve into that later in this article. Before we proceed, here’s a quote from Leon C. Megginson that we all ought to adopt:
“It’s not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”
As mentioned above, we have the 4 pillars of personal finance:
Income
This is the foundation of personal finances which should include all money that comes from any source. Note that it’s imperative that you work on having diversified multiple streams of income, e.g., business revenue, salary, and investment portfolio, etc.
By assessing how much you receive each month you’re able to take control of your financial future as if you are unable to manage your money people could exploit your lack of knowledge and you can be lured into these get-rich-quick schemes.
Spending
This includes any outgoings that you have. By clarifying what these 2 pillars look like for you, you are able to come up with a definitive plan for the preceding 2 pillars. As you break down your monthly spending habits you are able to eliminate pointless purchasing that aren’t contributing to your long-term financial goals as sometimes in life you have to sacrifice short-term gratification for long-term goals.
Saving to Invest
Typically, this is broken into 2 parts (Saving and Investing,) however I like to merge them. As it’s great to put money into a savings account but, it’s a lot better to use the money saved up to invest with greater returns than you’d get if you were to leave it just sitting there, especially with how inflation is rising. The act of investing consists of you purchasing assets in hopes of its rising and generating an income for you such investments include things like mutual funds, stocks, bonds, real estate and so much more. But understand that such investment comes with risk. Also, one of the biggest things that are often overlooked when it comes to being a profitable investor is the power of giving back as you are able to pay it forward and inspire other individuals which could positively affect a number of individuals not to mention the tax benefits attached with doing so.
Security
This will prove to be vital as it protects you from the financial risks we encounter daily and allocating funds to maintain your financial security allows you to focus on long-term financial goals such as generational wealth. Such protection can be sought through several financial products such as annuities, insurance, and trust funds to name a few of the various ways you can go about securing your financial future.
The world of finance is ever-evolving along with the accessibility to knowledge, and with so much knowledge out there, one can get lost in the countless gurus and get-rich-quick schemes so it’s important that we clarify that there is no one way to achieve your financial goals. It would be worth setting some time aside to delve into the pillars mentioned above to work out what these figures look like for you in doing so, you are able to set realistic amounts you able to commit to putting towards the final 2 pillars. In addition, the people you surround yourself with play a key role in your mindset towards personal finance, and it tends to be disregarded even though if you nail these pillars above and consistently surround yourself with those who have an opposite set of goals and beliefs attached to finance it will hold you back. I’m currently taking my A levels at the prestigious British school, Harrow and I’m proud to be a part of the 1 Million Future Leaders™ at the IKAR Global Institute.
Being surrounded by such individuals has aided in extending my knowledge around the areas of finance by partaking in various societies and electives it has pushed me to question more and I implore that you do the same as by immersing yourself in environments that challenge your thought process you are able to gain new perspectives and tackle obstacles in a variety of ways. I thoroughly enjoyed writing this article and hope it has been an informative read for more tips on how you can start your journey in personal finance please feel free to reach out to me via social media.
Ultimately, success to me is about finding happiness and fulfilment in life and using my talents and abilities to make a positive difference in the world. It’s a constant journey of self-discovery and growth, and I’m excited to see where it takes me next.
I am enjoying my journey so far.