for an immigrant like me who came to the us as a teenager with my family with no savings no knowledge of the English language and no idea what I was getting into becoming financially free just doesn't seem possible so it always surprises people when they find out that I quit a sixf fig full-time job at Google in my 20s to work for myself and Achieve Financial Freedom around that same time now what I wanted wasn't just Financial Freedom I was getting paid well at Google so my finances at that point they were fine six figures
stock options the best health insurance and benefits they even paid for my travel and education so I could have stayed there for a while and I could have just saved up the reason why I quit what to most people is a dream job is because I wanted location and time freedom on top of Financial Freedom I wanted to be able to work from anywhere I wanted to travel live anywhere I want and I wanted to be able to take time off whenever I felt like if I want to work 2 days a week I can
make that happen I'm My Own Boss I make my own schedule I wanted total freedom and that's why I worked really hard towards becoming financially free so when people tell me Alex I want to do it too I want to be financially free free like you I always ask why why do you want to be financially free and it seems like a dumb question right who doesn't want to be financially free but the truth is most people give me different answers just a few days ago one of my friends was visiting me and he told
me that he was sick of working he wants to be financially free so naturally I ask him why he says he hates his job doesn't get enough days off so he feels stuck going into the office every day and then he said he's not getting paid well he gets paid just enough to cover his bills and have a little leftover for his social life so he's he's not saving any money right now he's 29 years old by the way so I think he's really feeling that pressure of turning 30 which is totally normal so I
asked him the same question one more time why do you want Financial Freedom because you've only told me the reason why you hate your job not why you actually want to be financially free so he takes a few seconds to think about it and then he finally told me that he wants to spend more time with his family who lives in Texas he lives in California he wants to have a savings account with enough funds to feel safe because he wants to have his own family soon and is scared that he won't be able to
provide for his family as a man by the way that's really scary he wants to work on meaningful things instead of wasting time working miserable jobs that don't really fulfill him and that is a much better answer now we know what he's looking for what his goals are instead of the problem which is the job that he hates now I like doing this exercise for everything in my life a lot of times we focus on the problem because that's all we can see the bank account with low funds the job that you don't like the
apartment with no air conditioning or the relationship that you're in that doesn't bring you Joy anymore those are the problems right but I like to focus on the solution what's the solution what are your goals and so if you're someone who wants Financial Freedom I ask you why what are your goals everyone has different motivations for Financial Freedom and not only that everyone has different definitions for Financial Freedom too so what does it mean to you does it mean being able to quit your job or go part-time do you want to own a house that's
fully paid off do you want to be able to give money to charity do you want to be able to fly business class every time you get on a plane or do you want to fly private jets or maybe you want to be able to hire a Chef or a full-time assistant or babysitter to free up your time so that you can spend more time with your friends you need to know why you need to visualize what you want out of this only then will you be able to create a plan because if you're not
sure of the goal you can't make a solid plan and that means that you should also know how much you need to achieve that goal right because like I told you I grew up in Brazil right if I was making $55,000 a month in Brazil I would be very well off that's about 27,000 hiis which is our Brazilian currency and that goes really far there I could own a big house drive a nice car eat at great restaurants every week invest money every month it's a lot of money to put into perspective the top 1%
in Brazil you only need to make 20,000 hiis a month to be in the top 1% so side note if you get a remote job that pays you 5 grand a month in USD Brazil might be a good option for you but if you make 5 grand a month in Los Angeles Miami or especially San Francisco or New York City you're in trouble the average monthly rental price for a studio apartment in New York is $3,590 there's barely anything left over and we won't even get into income tax deductions and all that right so in
those places Financial Freedom is more like making 20 $330,000 a month and even then there are levels to this I have friends in my building paying $30,000 a month for a three-bedroom apartment this is where a lot of people go wrong they start by thinking their goal is to make $100,000 a year but really that's just a random number that looks good it's round right but it's a madeup goal and it's funny because today you might think that a $100,000 salary is amazing but usually as soon as you hit that goal you're going to want
more and you're going to say well 100 isn't really enough because I upgraded my apartment I have a girlfriend now and she likes to travel all of a sudden your expenses go up because you're making more so you want to make even more now now you're making 100K which was your goal initially and you're still not financially free and you think you need to make 150k to get there but the same thing will happen when you make that extra 50k I guarantee you $100,000 a year won't seem like a lot when you get there so
you're going to want more I remember when I got a job I was making 5,000 a month at the time I thought it was insane I felt so rich and honestly within a few months of making that money I wanted to make more what happens is you end up realizing that it's not about the number the amount it's about the life you want to live the feeling you get from being financially free so instead of giving yourself a numeric goal first like you know $100,000 a year think of the feeling that you want the life
that you want to live before you just randomly pick a number for your dream income that will finally make you financially free stop and go through what I call L life L is for location costs where you live you need to consider the cost of living in your specific area or in the area that you want to live in I is for your individual lifestyle this is your desired lifestyle including you know your car preferences like your shopping you know restaurant Hobbies vacation habits F is for financial career goals so you have to decide if
early retirement is your goal how many hours a week you want to work you know what kind of work you want to do if any and E is for your end goals so your long-term life goals personal Ambitions like starting a family big passion projects that you want to pursue or maybe supporting your friends and family financially once you have those answers then you can work backwards and figure out how much you need in order to feel financially free this is the new number and it's now in line with your dream life and and Financial
Freedom right instead of just a madeup number that just sounds good like oh I need 100K a year or I need a million in my bank account so let's start with L location costs if you want to be financially free in a big city like LA or New York City your cost of living is going to be high right your rent let's say is $5,000 a month which by the way that's just like a one-bedroom like a nicer one-bedroom apartment in New York City you should aim to make at least $200,000 a year to follow
the golden rule of rent costing 30% of your income if you want to be financially free in a small town and rents let's say 2500 then your cost of living goes down so your salary should be at least $100,000 a year which follows the 30% of your income for rent rule then we move on to your individual lifestyle so your spending habits and preferences in New York City you're not going to need a car which is great so you're saving a little bit there but you're going to spend on Ubers let's say right each ride
is going to be an average of $30 both ways that's $60 let's say only three times a week which is not a lot that's $180 per week $720 per month if you like going out to eat once a week good restaurants are not cheap in the city you're going to spend around $200 per dinner for two people so that's $800 a month if you're going out once a week just those expenses at up to $78,200 then we add on supplies fund spending on shopping let's say two vacations a year that sounds nice your $200,000 salary
doesn't seem like much anymore and if you have Financial career goals to retire early guess what you have to save you have to invest so there's a lot more that you need to do in order to to achieve your goal of being financially free and last but not least your end goals starting a family passion projects helping out your family financially your salary honestly it just evaporates like this I just want to be real with you because being financially free isn't coming up with a round number in your head like a million in the bank
100,000 a year you have to know what kind of life you want then you start to work backwards to achieve that goal so many people make that mistake in the very beginning and it's the reason why they get lost along the way and if you want to have enough money to live a urious life with no care in the world no looking at prices before you buy things no checking your bank account every day to make sure that you you know have enough money to pay rent or go to a restaurant or maybe go to
a vacation if that's what you want and I know a lot of you do then here's what I recommend you do step one is you need a mindset shift look when I moved to the US it was the first time that I realized that my family didn't have money you know my friends at school they wee nice clothes I wear clothes from yard sales or in a good day I would wear clothes from a sale from a discount store which you know they would sell like slightly defective items but from good brands so that was
like I was so happy when I could buy that my friend's parents they drove nice cars car brands that I had never even heard of we bought a car for $500 so that we could get around they bought extra food at the cafeteria every lunch every breakfast I couldn't afford that I got free lunch from the government and I never spent a dollar extra because I didn't want to burden my parents with more bills now most people in that situation either get jealous and frustrated because others have what they don't or they just feel bad
for themselves right they become depressed they become unmotivated they kind of just cave in I don't know why but I was different seeing what was possible seeing those cool cars the good food the nice clothes the smile on their faces man the way that my rich friends were just happy right with not a care in the world it fired me up I didn't know it at the time but I learned years later that thankfully even though I was technically poor I didn't have what's called a poverty mindset a poverty mindset is when you believe you
will never have enough money that getting ahead is way too difficult or that Financial Freedom is just a fake dream people who are stuck in this mindset believe they will never make enough money to go on nice trips to buy nice things to have a fat savings account or an investment account something that I've noticed too is that people with a poverty mindset they tend to hate people who make a high income they call them cheaters they get upset when they find out how much luxury items cost and they act as if they would never
spend that much on a car or a watch or a house as if they will ever get there with that mindset they won't unless you change your mindset you will never believe that you can achieve it how would you achieve something if you don't even believe it yourself so you have to rewire your brain you have to change your thoughts your outlook on the world and it starts with developing an abundance mentality an abundance mindset which means believing there are plenty of opportunities out there and that you are capable of seizing them that's why you
need to Sur Sur yourself with the right people it's so important it's the reason why I started an exclusive Community for men who want to reach that next level and by the way it's free to join all right we have over 2,000 members and we're opening up another 500 spots this month but we only accept members who are serious we're committed to look better to earn more to elevate themselves it's also first come first serve so if you want to join Men's image lab for free hit the link in the description below and let us
know why you want to be a part of our community look Community is important and there are three things that I found that have the most impact on developing the right Financial mindset one is consuming success stories I started watching videos TV shows reading books about people who came from nothing and made it big right and and it showed me that it's possible right I wasn't watching fiction things I was watching non-fiction I was watching real stories right a couple of months ago I met and shot a video with Kevin oer if that immigrant kid
from Brazil at age 15 could see into the future I think he would have a hard attack sure I didn't have a poverty mindset but I definitely didn't think that anything that I've achieved today was even possible possible back then mostly because I didn't even know that you could buy a watch for more than $11,000 right $11,000 to me was so foreign flying business class or private I I didn't even know what that meant so you have to learn what it means you have to see that it's ahead of you that it's it's palpable it's
reachable the second thing is you need to surround yourself with ambitious people I started hanging out with people who had Big Dreams and were working towards these dreams their energy was contagious right it made me want to work harder to build the life that I wanted instead of just dreaming about it that's one of the biggest reasons why I created Men's image lab and number three you have to practice gratitude I know it sounds like Kumbaya whatever but it's so true man every week I I like to write down three things that I'm grateful for
it keeps me grounded it makes me happy you know when you have a busy schedule you tend to kind of forget right you don't really look back you don't have time to look back and see all the things that you've accomplished whether they're big or small so be grateful if you started a new job if you learned a new skill if you made advancements into your career or if you made a new friend you know those are all things that should make you proud that feeling that Pride feeling grateful it snowballs into more actions into
more WIS consistently doing these three things will open your eyes to what's actually truly possible but changing your mindset that's just the first step once you have that abundance mentality you need to know what to do with it and step two is something that I wish I mastered way earlier in fact most people start this step way too late in their lives you need to budget it's not the sexiest topic right but this is the foundation that's going to set you up for all the other steps for example when I started working at Domino's Pizza
at 14 years old I was making like $200 per paycheck right and I remember for months I would just save half of that if I could $100 each time and eventually I saved enough to buy my first car it was a green 1995 VW Jetta I loved it I was so proud of that car and saving up to buy that car taught me a lesson to always think about the future right think about a goal and to not spend all your cash cash right away on dumb things my car cost less than $2,000 I saved
for a long time I could have blown all of that money on closed very easily over that period of you know a year that it took for me to save that money so spending less and saving your cash is a necessity if you want to be financially free according to a recent survey actually 27% of American adults have no emergency savings at all and another 28% have less than $1,000 save that means that over 50% of Americans are just one unexpected expense away from financial trouble from debt don't become a part of that statistic I
actually recommend you follow a very simple easy rule to get started 50 3020 rule if you want to budget efficiently it's really simple 50% of your income goes to your Necessities housing food utilities things that you need to survive number two then 30% goes to your personal expenses you know the fun things like clothes entertainment whatever makes you happy the final 20% goes straight into your savings and any debt repayment so if you stick to this you're going to start seeing a difference in your bank account within a few months if not a few weeks
so you need to realize that budgeting is not just about restricting yourself right it sounds so boring it sounds so frustrating to have to budget to restrict myself it's actually about giving yourself the freedom to spend on what matters to you later on like my car without guilt it's about taking control of your money instead of letting it control you so many people are controlled by their income you have to control your income and if you're only making enough to cover your bill no amount is too small to save start wherever you can and then
go from there you want to focus on building The Habit right building that muscle not just chasing a savings amount like you have to actually every month save a little bit whatever you can but to become truly wealthy the truth is like you know savings they can only take you so far this is because most savings account they give you such low return in simple terms the purchasing power of your money is like actually decreasing over time because of inflation so it's like having a bucket with a little hole in it right you're putting money
in there but it's slowly leaking and you're not even realizing that so that's why step three is one of the most important steps that you can take and that is educating yourself about investing look I'm no financial adviser by any means all right I had to learn it by myself I figured it out I have a team now so I learn from my team and I'm just passing on what I've learned and the earlier you start the better younger investors people in their 30s or below they actually earn about 15% higher returns when compared to
older investors and this is just because they started earlier because they have more time for compound interest to take effect when I first started I was terrified of losing money I was so scared so I started small I worked I've always worked really hard but when I was younger I had no money to lose you know so anything I put into my savings into my investments I thought I cannot lose this this is this is all I got you know so I started as small as I could and I would use apps like Robin Hood
for stocks coinbase for crypto and I just got a feel for it you know just trying to understand how things work and that's okay starting small and investing consistently over time is way better than not starting at all so let's break down three types of Investments that I focused on the first is of course the stock market this is usually where people start you can buy individual company stocks just don't spend all your money on a specific stock because your friend told you that it's going to blow up all right make sure that you study
it consult with a professional if you can or you might lose your investment crypto is the second one and as you know this is even more volatile right it's exciting it's cool but it's risky anything that's exciting like that tends to be a little riskier so I started with very small amounts on coin based and I learned as I went three is real estate which is obviously a great way to just diversify your Investments one thing I want to say is that there's always a trade-off between risk and reward generally speaking Investments with higher potential
returns like crypto for example have higher risks lower risk Investments like bonds or index funds you know typically they offer less returns but with less volatility I started small I learned as much as I could along the way and over time I got more comfortable I started to Branch out now I have invested Ms in stocks crypto I own properties in La Miami I've done a lot of Angel investments in startups and I've even invested a ton of cash into starting my own businesses which I know will pay off in the end but I just
want to remind you again this didn't happen overnight it took time a lot of research tons of learning lot of mistakes so that's why it's important to start early so that you can learn and apply it as you get older anyone can make money with a lucky invest but the key is actually to become a smart investor not just a lucky one read books take courses follow financial news it might seem a little overwhelming at first but trust me it gets easier and it's totally worth it I I love it I nerd out on that
stuff I like checking what's going on on Zillow checking the prices of properties around me I think it's fun also remember that diversification is crucial diversify your portfolio don't put all your money all your Investments all your eggs into one basket spread your investment across different types of assets balance out the risk and always think longterm the stock market it's going to go up but it's also going to go down historically it's always trended upwards over long periods of time like I said I'm not a financial adviser and what worked for me might not work
for everyone so always do your own research and obviously consider talking to a professional before you're making any big financial decisions if you want to know what resources that have helped me the most you should definitely check out these books I think this would be super helpful if you want to write these down or I'll probably just list them Below in the description to make it easy for you but I really like the millionaire fast lane by MJ Demarco this one completely changed how I think about wealth creation really like this book called $100 million
offers by Alex horoi if you want to know how to create amazing offers this is like the Bible for creating offers Rich Dad Poor Dad was probably the first ever Financial book that I've read it's by Robert kosaki it's a classic and it's going to shift your whole perspective on money a lot of people on this book but honestly it's a really good way to start the obstacle is the way by Ryan holiday it's not a financial book but it's a book that will turn challenges into opportunity never split the difference it's by Chris Voss
and he covers negotiation skills that they're going to serve you not just in business but in life overall so highly recommend that one too The Power of Habit by Charles dug and grit by Angela Duckworth this book really taught me the importance of discipline the importance of perseverance and achieving long-term goals but don't stop just the books you know dive into podcasts YouTube channels online courses whatever works for you the key is to make learning a daily habit just keep upgrading yourself it's like you're getting an upgrade every single day like a software upgrade so
you're better and better and better and you know what's Wild according to research the way you look has an impact on your income so if you want to make a higher income you have to present well you have to look your best so check out this video right here on how to look your best to boost your income your confidence and to finally have the looks that you've always wanted
