Financial Freedom Starts out Being Absolutely Brutal
Everything looks easy until you sit in a room for a day with a person who created something out of nothing and unlock their process.
When I used to hear about financial freedom it made me want to buy a pony.
Ponies equal the good life.
Get on a pony and ride your life away, they say. If I was filthy rich you’d find me in the backyard riding a pony, eating a vanilla ice cream.
The problem with financial freedom is it isn’t the fantasy glossy images on Instagram make it out to be. What nobody tells you about financial freedom is it’s absolutely brutal. A friend of mine has just quit their job. They want to be financially free, and already have two kids under six.
In-between babysitting and picking up toys, she’s creating a learning app. Her day is jam-packed. She has no idea if she is ever going to make money from her idea, especially in a deep recession.
Another friend set up a chain of restaurants. The first one was a hit. After about twenty restaurants he was exhausted. He tried to sell the whole franchise and got peanuts for it. Turns out it’s easy to copy a glorified sandwich without bread.
I became financially free too. But I did so mostly through the elimination of the unessential, as opposed to a smart idea. The amount of money I needed to become financially free was a number I was willing to compromise on. Why?
The feeling of financial freedom is far better than owning material stuff you don’t need.
It Starts out like a Nightmare
I started my path towards financial freedom with an extreme disease of the mind. The world looked dark. I didn’t trust anybody. It was exhausting just to live, let alone create anything.
The early days felt like a nightmare because I had the burden of mental illness combined with the painstaking effort required to get anything off the ground. I wanted to be a blogger, but finding the time to write when you hate yourself and can barely get out of bed is near-impossible.
The lie of financial freedom makes it look easy. If it were easy then everyone would be financially free. It takes effort to create enough value that you don’t have to stress about money anymore. Expect there to be a decent amount of effort and you’ll be well on your way.
The Income Stream You Discover Won’t Be Obvious
You start out with one idea in your head about how you’re going to make money. Once you get started, the path to financial freedom will change. You might think Youtube will make you rich, at first, until you do it. “Doing it” is what gives you the next idea and the one after.
Eventually there will be enough ideas that lead on from each other. One of those ideas will be your vehicle towards financial freedom. You don’t need to spot the money-making activity in advance. You just need to start somewhere, anywhere. I didn’t believe you could make money writing.
As I went deeper into it I thought plastering ads on my blog would be the answer. Then I thought it was going to be running Meetups. The idea that a book could generate money seemed impossible to me. I assumed you had to actually be an author to sell a book. I was wrong.
You never know how you can create value until you try.
Talking About Financial Freedom Is Dangerous
As I progressed through the different ways to start online businesses I met others who wanted to do the same. Talking about financial freedom with them was dangerous. I quickly found myself comparing my level one to their level one-hundred and fifty.
Everybody’s version of financial freedom is different. For me, driving a Honda Civic, living in a student apartment, and eating cheap vegetarian takeaway is the dream life. You might want more or less than that.
Be aware: if you talk about financial freedom you will find people who become angry with you for no reason. They may call you selfish or hurl abuse at you. Don’t listen to them. You do you. If you don’t want to be shackled to an office cubicle for the rest of your life then that’s your choice.
The Effort You Need to Build Momentum Is Bigger Thank You Think
Effort over a prolonged period of more than a year builds momentum.
Momentum turns into money.
The trouble for me was it took a heck of a lot more effort than I expected. I made zero money for many years and was forced to work in sales to pay the bills. If you’d told me in advance how much effort was required to make a living from doing something you love, that has no job application, I’d have laughed. I’m not laughing now.
What worked for me was putting in a lot more effort than most other people in my field. Effort wasn’t just hard work either. Effort was also caring.
I cared more about what I was doing and that led me to communicate differently. Instead of ignoring people I did my best to be helpful.
The challenge with momentum is you can’t see it.
You feel like you have zero momentum as you progress towards your goal. Then one day, you wake up, and all of a sudden you’ve done something people think is extraordinary. What those people didn’t see was all the effort you put in behind the scenes.
The illusion of financial freedom is you can’t see the work a person did to get there. This is my biggest annoyance.
Everything looks easy until you sit in a room for a day with a person who created something out of nothing and unlock their process. Then you see how hard it really is to create, instead of consume.
It’s More than the Hours
It’s the disappointment that takes its toll. Whenever you try and make a large enough dent in the world to get a piece of your own financial freedom you face a lot of setbacks. Things don’t go your way, regularly. The sure thing fails. The thing that took you really far, ends. The people who helped you build it, move on to build their own thing.
Your ability to handle the disappointment is far more important than the number of hours you work. The disappointment is what can set in and stop you putting in the effort you need to build momentum.
That’s why you need to learn to manage your state — have a disappointment state. When you experience extreme disappointment, what’s your plan?
Here’s my disappointment plan:
- Turn off the computer
- Stay away from email
- Sleep on it
- Talk to my Yoda mentor
- Visualize the other side of the problem
- Have a warm shower and think about the solution
- Go to bed early
- Eat food that gives me energy, not depletes it
- Knock myself out with a documentary
Beyond the Momentum Is Investing
The thing you do to earn money towards your financial freedom won’t get you there. Investing is how you reach financial freedom. The primary vehicle you invest in is yourself through books, events, and online courses.
Then you invest your money with a professional to help it compound. Otherwise, you become a slave to inflation, who sleeps in your bed and leaves you with nothing.
The better you get at reinvesting the money you make into productive activities that make you more money the quicker you reach financial freedom. But don’t be stupid. Take calculated risks and diversify the heck out of your strategy — in case a random event you could never see coming forces you to stay locked in your home for most of the year.
You Can Be Financially Free
It’s not a special title that is too good for you. Of course it won’t be easy, because nothing worth doing ever is.
You can be financially free when you set yourself the difficult task of staying the course. The journey to financial freedom is five solid years of effort towards a single pursuit.
You may not start out knowing how you will monetize that goal but you’ll figure it out with the help of momentum. The idea of how to charge money for something is the easy bit.
Having a strategy for the guaranteed disappointment is what will make you financially free.
This article is for informational purposes only, it should not be considered Financial or Legal Advice. Consult a financial professional before making any major financial decisions.