1. Understand that you’re not born to be in debt.

In the movie, the kids were kidnapped and brought into the clan and trained to think that they are in the “family”.

Like debt, you may have grown up and subliminally conditioned that debt is part of life and family. However, no matter how deeply ingrained some family values have with the mismanagement of debt and finances, the truth is that you were never born to be in debt.

2. There will be blood …

… with sweat and tears in your battle out of debt.

Have you heard of peers who goes through their lives saying how hard it took — toiling for days with no end — to clear of their debt, and they said that after finally clearing off part of their debt payment that was in monthly installments?

Every single step we take from the start of your debt cancellation journey may be painful; you might need to deliberately cut away some expenditures on stuff that you truly enjoy in an attempt to clear of a bigger slice of the debt.

3. Freedom don’t come easily.

The part where a female ninja was trying to get away but got caught immediately signifies that freedom ain’t going to come easily.

It’s like being able to clear a first small debt — I won’t use any loans to illustrate this point — only to be caught in another bigger one at a later point of time.

However, it is still possible to be free—you’ll learn why at the end point of this post.

4. Got into a small debt? Ain’t seen the bigger ones yet.

Having the main character completing his first assignment signifies how any individual may have got himself into a “small” debt.

The bad news is that there are bigger debts that have yet to come. The main character came to that realization and decided to want out.

You too can decide to want out from being easily suckered into debt after debt that would usually snowball into bigger amounts.

5. Go train.

Understanding that there are bigger debts and that by being able to pay them off in monthly installments is no means to an end.

You’ll be better off by mastering the art of unconsuming, and train up on being frugal along with the existing things that you already have.

6. Mask your scent.

Or put on a new identity. Sometimes we can’t solve problems at the level that had been created in.

You need to go one level further, be equipped with financial knowledge that makes sense and that works to your advantage, and go battle against your debt again.

7. Use shurikens.

A ninja is equipped with various weapons, and I’d talk about 3 of them. The first is the hira-shuriken, which is a small “throwing star” that plays a supportive role to the warrior’s main weapon.

Similarly to debts, there are many “supportive” or “add-ons” to an existing main service that you may probably can do without. Clearing them out first helps to trim off a huge ton of “fats” from your debts.

8. Use kusarigama.

The second in your arsenal should be the kusarigama, or “chain sickles”. These are the ones where you can throw it at a longer distance, meant to immobilize an opponent’s arms or legs.

There are debts that are there for the long-term. Clear them consistently to ease your burden against the one in the next point.

9. Use katana.

Go blade rage with your katana. The samurai-sword is your trusty weapon when you’re ninja assassinating your debts.

As written in Unautomate Your Finances (yes, instant download) by Baker (Man vs Debt), the type of debt that you want to clear off first is the one that you hate most (page 65, Pay Off Debt with the Debt Tsunami)!

There are debts that may have a 0% interest, but holds you emotionally down (family, friends, colleagues) … pay them off first, then refocus on clearing the ones in #7.

10. Be free.

Set yourself free every day by conquering one debt at a time. Once you’ve done with fully eliminating all of them, go celebrate.

You deserve to be free.

1. Share this post with your friends (retweet and stumble links below).

2. Be equipped with financial knowledge that works:

• How To Be Debt Free: 10 Liberation Tactics To Breaking Out Of Debt Hell
• Unautomate Your Finances: A Simple, Passionate Approach To Money

3. Go ninja assassin on your debt and be free.

1. Close email, Facebook and Twitter tabs.

I know, I know. It’s one of the hardest things to do especially when we are too connected to the Internet today.

You don’t have to go sabbatical on your email, Facebook, Twitter, and any other social media sites that you are on. What you could do (or try for a start) is to close them and only check at the end of the day (eg: 5pm and 9pm onwards).

One benefit? You won’t get to hear people moaning about their “Mundane blues” (I mean Monday blues) throughout your social media stream. :)

2. Go slow.

Been going too fast throughout the last week? It’s time to take things slower in the next 7 days.

What you need is momentum. Start by going slow (easy pace) on a Monday, understanding any complications in the new work or task to be done, and buid up experience and gaining momentum by working on it.

3. Set deadlines.

You’ll definitely need to set a deadline for a specific task to done.

While most tasks can be left to be finished by Friday, aim to complete them earlier, like on a Wednesday.

The amount of time you’ve defined to finish a task is the amount of time that it’ll take to complete it.

4. Go “byte-sized”.

Most work (especially the ones you love) aren’t always done as a “one-off” event. Take time to enjoy every moment working on it.

There’s no need to go mega and be intimidated by the ever growing tasks. Instead, do it one byte at a time.

And celebrate after every single part is done.

5. Spend little.

Even after getting a bumper of a harvest, the smart owners would know that they have to sow back into their work in preparation for the next yield.

You don’t want to catch yourself overspending what you’ve made for the last week and have little to sow back into your work.

Yes, you’ll still get to enjoy part of what you’ve earned. Just spend little or use your money only on the necessities (eg: knowledge, home, food, or transport).

1. Become frugal.

Starting the year with $200 and no guaranteed source of income meant that I had to live way below my means. Coming from someone who used to easily squander a previous income of $1,800 in less than a month (I had no idea how that happened, except that my take-home pay back in 2009 was in the average of $1400), it was a quite a change.

Transitioning was easy. The first step I took was for the meals. Instead of eating $8 dishes (usually consisting of meat, burgers, fast-food stuff, and drinks), I went for the economical food places where a plate of rice with veggies and an egg (I’m not vegan, sorry!) costs $2.30. No drinks.

2. No meetings.

I cut back on meetings. Almost all of them. No movies, no window shopping, no energy draining meetings. I have a friend who’s very persistent in asking me out for window shopping after job hours in the evening. It’s still a no.

The only outings that I had limited myself to were for church services and cell-group meetings. The rest of time were spent working from home on 8 businesses and this blog.

3. Trim mobile and Internet bills to maximum $100 per month.

Go samurai on your monthly bills. If you don’t need that much of a bandwidth for your Internet, downgrade. If you don’t need to use the Internet 24/7, don’t sign up for the wireless data plan. My bills went down from $143 to $71. Your $70 of savings can actually help you start 1 new business.

4. Decision to reject all job offers.

I’ve rejected 16 job offers from 2nd half of 2009 onwards. Turned down one more in Feb 2010. Best decision ever.

5. Adopting a minimalist mindset.

Minimalism is the ultimate lifehack. It’s knowing what you need (the essentials) and removing everything else that doesn’t matter (the non-essentials). Both Leo and Everett had written excellent ebooks on minimalism that’s both practical and rational.

Read Leo’s book: The Simple Guide to a Minimalist Life

Read Everett’s book: The Art of Being Minimalist: How to Stop Consuming and Start Living

6. Accountability.

I never hide the fact that I was in debt. A small group of friends know another layer of the incidents that sparked this post on Why You Should Do The Things That You Love Now. I have a tiny group of friends who help keep me in check, and allowing me to have a public and private life that’s consistent. Leaving everyone in the dark is the fastest way towards disaster. You can avoid that by having great friends whom you can be accountable to.

7. Focus.

One reason why I’m able to get so much done is because of the legendary ninja secret of laser-like focus. If you’ve noticed, I’ve removed almost everything that has numbers on this blog except for the Facebook fan page (I’m active on Facebook so this area stays). From comments to feed numbers to Twitter count, I had them all gone. It took a while before getting used to ditching stats for good and being able to focus on building the small businesses up.

8. Creating new habits.

It takes 21 days to create new habits. Habits creation doesn’t require any discipline at all when you’re enjoying every moment working on them. They require deliberate action, especially when getting started. However if you’re in a similar situation that I’m in, no worries—it’ll be a natural transition to forming your new habits.

9. Gave my way out of debt.

Did I mention that I’m in church? Yeah, and I continued giving (no reduction) to the tithes and offerings even when I was out from a “stable income”. Beyond that, I gave my parents the help needed for the expansion of their web businesses.

10. Work your passion.

I wouldn’t be at the highest value today if not for the early days of hard work through the nights creating, launching, and marketing the new brands that has grown pretty fast in these 3 months. And I’m thankful for every single one of them to be very fruitful.

1. The debtee is in the mercy of the debtor.

How would it be like for you to have your finances, wages, and time to not be in your control? A person’s value decreases (or is non-existent) while the debtor gets to decide the worth of a debtee’s hour. Not cool.

2. Interest and the avalanche effect.

Think credit card debt and 20% interest rate. That’s scary.

3. Turns men into monsters.

People (even with good intentions) turn into monsters when they are desperate for money. And things may turn ugly when the person has no regard or respect for the other party.

1. Visualizing.

Instead of visualizing on what I want to “have” this year, what you would be better off is to start visualizing yourself 2 years ahead into the future. If you can see yourself doing the same thing for the next 2 years, then you’re in the right track. But if you can’t see yourself in the same work and situation 2 years later, it’s time to make change now.

2. Wishing the best for others.

There’s a fun birthday “custom” that my friends and I practice, where we can make 2 good wishes with one being a wish that’s made public while the other we can keep it for our own. Since there’s 2 available, what I’ll do is to keep the private one for myself while make a great wish for everyone else with the other.

The 1 that I’m wishing everyone right now is to have journey mercy.

Your life is a journey of growth and constant self-discovery. Doing things that you really love is a huge journey to begin with. Yes, there will be storms, and what I want all of you is to have the perseverance and faith (both from within) along with the mercy and strength (external events that will wow you) to get you seeing through storms and emerging from every single one of them triumphant.

What’s your wish for others?

3. Begin working on your legacy project.

A legacy project goes beyond working for an income. Your legacy project has to have a goal, runs with a purpose which fuels also as a huge motivator to get things going, and raise the value of others who you are impacting with your work.

I’ve always desired to accomplish 2 things this year, one is to become a better writer in the personal productivity and personal development field, while the other is to give an excess of half a million dollars worth of value that will help build up, encourage, and empower friends and to an audience that this work is able to reach in 2010.

So, like what I’ve revealed to a very small group of friends, a new book is in the works.

Let’s say that it’s largely sparked off by the incidents that occured in my previous post on why you should do the things that you love now.

I’ll be revealing more as the writing for the new book goes on—one step at a time.

1. Nothing will be impossible.

When you move, the whole world starts to move with you. When you start sowing yourself into your future, your once imaginative future starts becoming a reality to you. When you do something epic, epic things starts happening for you.

Suddenly, people will start taking notice and it’s only going to be a matter of time when you’ll be in awe of the massive changes that happened when you start working your passion.

That which you once thought as impossible, probably due to reckless conditioning from external sources, becomes easier for you.

2. Life extended.

As how I’ve mentioned about the two people earlier in this section, being laser focused in their cause allows them to not be bothered by stuff like having a bullet in their body, or having a knife shown at them.

There are bigger things to worry about than that. Like the people whom they have yet to serve, to the uplifting words that they have yet to speak.

When an individual have something bigger than them to look forward to, the miracle is that they will live beyond “their time”, and will accomplish more than they first set out to. Hence having their life extended.

1. Seek out to solve problems in areas you are strong in.

Think of this scenario where a ship is being pounded by torrents from all sides, and everyone on board is being rallied to get it back on course.

You being the captain, would you:

• Randomly get people to do “stuff” and hope that they can pick up the skills quickly
• Or get people to be at their best position—pronto

Isn’t the majority of the population doing the former right now? While in their pursuit to be the best in a field where they aren’t good enough to begin with, countless of man-hours are wasted, and perhaps, many get bitter and weary after nearly a handful of years go by.

The scenario of the waves against the ship was used as it implies the factor of urgency. If things and results are needed to get done, it makes sense to do things that you are already equipped with, and are extraordinarily strong in.

2. Simplify.

It’s in the beginning when aspiring entrepreneurs want to build up the best web application, being the best in everything, and continuously trying to create the most complex e-commerce platform ever. Usually they end up getting nowhere for the whole of the initial stage.

The one change that you can start implementing immediately to steer your course and propel you to your destination, is to simplify.

Here are 3 areas in which you could simplify in:

• Processes. Find out how your customer can buy in 2 steps (instead of 4). Or how you can batch tasks to a day of the month to be done.
• Knowledge. You do not need to know everything. Be a master of a handful, and build a reputation around them.
• Solutions. A solution got to provide 2 things: assurance and the ease of use. Have those 2, and you’ll already be on the right track to succeed.