Unfiltered Advice to Someone Who Wants Financial Freedom

let's have a chat so I have this friend that I love dearly let's just call her Lisa and she is a product manager at one of the big tech companies very successful and the other day we were hanging out and she tells me Rose I would love to have Financial Freedom like you one day and every time we catch up she says some version of this and she always says it in this sort of wistful tone like I really wish I could have but I can't that's always the vibe and it frustrates me because there's

so much that I want to say to her to me it's like if you want Financial Freedom like I see it for you here's how we can do this boom boom boom but I also don't want to overstep because she's not coming to me for advice necessarily I'm her friend and so in this video I just wanted to sit down and give my unfiltered advice to anyone who wants Financial Freedom this is what I would say to them I'm just going to let it rip because I see it for you I believe in you if

you want Financial Freedom we can do this it's just that for the vast majority of people they don't believe that Financial Freedom is Within Reach it's kind of like we're all living in our own sort of mental box and that box represents what you believe is possible for yourself your life will be a direct reflection of what you believe is possible for yourself it's a reflection of your box and the reason why the vast majority of people on this planet aren't financially free is because for for them Financial Freedom exists outside of their box but

I believe in you if Financial Freedom is something that you even remotely want I want to talk about how we can remove that box to make Financial Freedom something that does seem attainable for you and just give you some tough love unfiltered thoughts on what it will really take before we can get started with anything the first step is always Clarity it's really good to get clear on what does Financial Freedom mean to you because Financial Freedom means very different things to everybody and Financial Freedom actually might be more attainable than you think however if

you don't even know what the finish line is then you definitely will never get there whereas if you at least have a rough idea of where the finish line is then you have a fighting chance so it always starts with Clarity what does Financial Freedom mean to you to some people it could mean just having enough to pay the bills and not stress about money every month to somebody else it could mean having enough money to not have to work full-time so they can spend some more time on their creative hobbies and travel more to

another person it could mean being debt-free or being able to be a stay-at-home parent so Define what it means for you knowing that your definition of Financial Freedom could evolve as you go so for example at one point for me Financial Freedom meant not having any debt it just meant Zero and as you advance now my definition of Financial Freedom means having enough Investments and money to completely cover all of my expenses so that all work becomes optional because I don't need to to work to earn money at this point in my life that definition

of freedom involves millions of dollars so it's really good to get clear because depending on what your definition of Financial Freedom is you're going to have to take different steps to get there for example if all you want to do is have enough to pay the bills and retire at some reasonable age then it's actually quite achievable you will need to invest and raise your income and save more but it's very attainable for the average person however if you want to have hundreds of millions of dollars and a yacht and a a private jet then

you'll probably need to start a business and sell it there's different steps for everyone but getting clear is where it all starts first okay and now going back to the idea of that box I really like this visual because I really believe that everyone on this planet is walking around with their own mental box and like I said that box represents what you believe is possible for yourself and the reason why the vast majority of people on this planet don't have Financial Freedom is because Financial Freedom exists outside of their box at one point for

me when I was in debt and had no amount of Freedom Financial Freedom existed way outside of my box for me my box was I live paycheck to paycheck I'm always in debt and the reason why I have the freedom that I have today is because by working on myself I was able to expand my box to include Financial Freedom as something that was possible for for myself now we can't help the boxes that we are born into a lot of the times we just inherit the boxes that our families have so if you're born

into a family whose box is we don't own homes we live paycheck to paycheck and we don't build generational wealth and we're always in debt then likely that's the type of box that you have so we can't help the kind of boxes that we're born into that we inherit but we do have a choice to change that when were older and more conscious the point is everyone gets to create their own box once they become aware like you get to decide what is possible for you that choice is up to you so even just the

awareness that you do have a box that limits the possibilities in your life and therefore limits the actions that you take that's already a huge step like for my friend Lisa for example she's really smart she's completely capable of investing all the money that she earns and creating Financial Freedom taking certain measures which we'll get into but because she doesn't believe Financial Freedom is something she could attain that's not within her box she doesn't take the time to learn the things that would get her Financial Freedom she doesn't put any focus and energy on that

part of her life because it's just not something that's possible for herself do you see how that works you're not going to learn the things or take the actions if it doesn't exist within your box so that's a concept that I really love really look at your finances and be honest with yourself your finances are a direct reflection of what you believe is financially possible for yourself let's just take full responsibility it can be a little bit triggering but it's also extremely liberating and if you want different finances then you have to also look at

your beliefs like what is your box and try to expand that so now let's talk about how you can actually expand that box when I entered College I was this really ambitious 20-some I really wanted Financial Freedom and to some level I could understand that the people around me whether it's my peers my college roommates my parents my friends none of them had the Financial Freedom that I was looking for so part of me knew that I really needed to get new inputs that I wasn't going to find the mentorship and inspiration and possibility that

I was seeking in my immediate surroundings and so the first thing that I did was well moving to a bigger city and going to a university where you can meet different people that helps a lot just kind moving outside of your comfort zone physically but the other thing that I did was I read a ton of books so back then audio books weren't really a thing so I would read a lot of physical books and you can believe me I read every classic money book out there thinking Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill Rich Dad Poor

Dad by Robert kosaki all of Robert kiyosaki's books really the 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris and it was so incredible to read these books because the idea and the possibilities that these books opened up for me it was just life-changing and that is what started expanding my box because when you read about people that you can relate to who have done amazing things you can start seeing yourself doing those things also and so that's the key new inputs you need new inputs new information new inspiration new data and the only way to get that

is by going out and seeking it and in this day and age with books and the internet and social media it's so easy to to get that kind of access and make no mistake people who are at the top of their game financially or just killing it at life they did not get there by not investing in themselves they all have invested in themselves heavily like coaches programs mentors books training therapy whatever it is they have probably invested tens of thousands of dollars if not hundreds of thousand thousand of dollars in their personal growth because

the thing is the version of you that has the finances you have now versus the version of you that has the Financial Freedom that you want those are not going to be the same people you have to essentially become a different person and then you have different finances and that doesn't just happen by default you need to invest in yourself so books $ 2030 that's a small investment and at this point I would tell my friend Lisa about different programs and courses that have helped me and she'll she'll say something along the lines of oh

I've never invested in courses like that like I don't know if I'd want to spend $1,000 on on stuff like that I think I could just figure it out on my own and my comment to her is but if you think about it you invest $1,000 and that helps you make a million dollars over your lifetime then isn't it worth it so if you think of it that way investing $11,000 in yourself or whatever amount is actually nothing you have to think about the return on that investment and not just think of it as a

sunk cost and that's actually a powerful signal when you invest in yourself you're investing in your growth and you're saying that you're worth it and that you're going to make this pay off and a lot of times sometimes it just takes that First Leap of Faith to tell yourself that you can do this that you're worth it and that's what really breaks you out of that cycle of playing small thinking small and never really making huge leaps forward so my perspective on books and learning and anything that going to expand your box is that whatever

money it costs it's cheap it's nothing even if it's $10,000 if learning this information and expanding my mindset and my box in this way is going to make me financially free in my lifetime then this is very worth it yeah so can't get around it you need to invest in yourself what and I'm not saying go out and put a bunch of money on your credit card that you can't afford but even books $ 20 $30 if you can afford to go to events and seminars and personal development things then do that also okay now

I think what I'm going to say next might be triggering to some people but I'm going to say it because again this is unfiltered advice right something that I hear Lisa say a lot is whenever I make start making these soft suggestions about what you could do I'm always met with these excuses of yeah but that sounds really risky or um I don't have the time that's a that's one that I hear very often is I don't have the time well I go to work and when I come back it's like 900 P p.m and

I barely have any energy let alone time to think about creating something else I'm just focused on my job that's great and everything but if you're saying that you want Financial Freedom but then you're also making excuses as to why you can't then what I like to say is well then it's just not a priority for you like Financial Freedom just isn't a priority for you of course we all have circumstances there's limited 20 4 hours in a day sometimes things cost money and there's limited resources maybe you have kids so you don't have time

maybe you have a super demanding job like Lisa therefore it's really hard to dedicate any time to create something new and there's always going to be reasons but it's much more empowering to put yourself in the driver's seat and say well if I'm not doing the things and taking the actions and carving out the time that is required to create Financial Freedom then it's just not important to me that's so so much more empowering than viewing yourself as a victim where you want something but because of circumstances outside of your control you can't that's a

very disempowering place to be so if you're like I don't have the time because my job is too demanding or XYZ sucks up too much time I don't have the time to learn about investing and making more money and getting good with money then it's because Financial Freedom is not a priority my job is a priority or my kids are a priority or whatever else it may be that is a lot more empowering it's like the difference between saying I can't versus I won't saying I won't implies that it's your choice versus when you say

I can't you're saying that no matter what you just can't you're helpless that's very powerful because one day when you decide you really really want Financial Freedom you're going to stop making excuses you're going to rise above all circumstances because Financial Freedom is the top priority and so right now if you haven't been focusing as hard on Financial Freedom as you would like and therefore you don't have the finances you would like yet just own it that perhaps it just hasn't been a priority maybe being comfortable has been more of a priority maybe spending time

with friends and doing other fun things maybe that has been your priority and that is okay that's cool right but let's just be honest with ourselves we are always in charge if you want Financial Freedom badly enough you will make it the top priority and all excuses will drop away so I'm just going to get really vulnerable with you here but back when I was really unconscious about money and in a lot of debt I had no idea how much I owed I was living paycheck to paycheck I would overdraft my bank account regularly the

excuse running in my mind of why I could never get ahead is because there just wasn't enough money I don't make enough for everything that I need to spend on and sure enough that is what happened month after month but one day when I just decided I'm going to dig myself out of this debt like that became the top priority then all of a sudden I had extra money to pay off debt and I cut out all the other expenses that I was kind of mindlessly spending on and all of a sudden my debt started

going down because I made that the priority versus my excuses so let's just stop making it complicated for ourselves if it's important enough to you you will make it happen and if you're not making it happen it's because you're making something else more important to you your excuses all right so hopefully this unfiltered advice is coming across the way I want it to I mean it all with love because I just want to help you get past yourself you are the only thing stopping yourself and you are capable of so much more than you know

and a lot of times money is one area that keeps us stuck and playing small and I really want you to break out of that something else I think I really need to touch on is comparison itis it's a word I made up but it's just that tendency to compare yourself to others especially when it comes to finances it's really easy to think that everyone else is doing better than you how are they affording that vacation to Europe how does this guy Drive such a nice car and mind is so shitty and then you feel

that pressure to keep up and overspend and say yes to invitations that you can't even afford cuz you don't want to feel left out like there's really nothing good that comes out of comparing yourself because every time I look at people on social media who are doing all these amazing things I also feel like crap about myself and then all the plans that I had to better my life to create more Financial Freedom they just seem really silly and useless and then I have no energy to do them it's really about protecting your own energy

and making sure you do what you need to do to feel good about yourself and one of the best things you can do is to stop watching what other people are doing in this day and age social media makes it so easy for us to compare constantly 247 and it could take a really big toll on your mental health but my point is the best asset you have on your journey to Financial Freedom is yourself so do what you need to stay in your lane you got to be like a racehorse with blinders on Financial

Freedom is a race between you and yourself there's nobody else involved and yes some people have more privileges some people are doing better than you um but you also don't know how they got there maybe they're financing that with credit cards maybe they have a trust fund you don't know right and some of us had to go to college and pay for that with student loans and and other people had parents who paid for their college and bought them a house as soon as they graduated so we've got the whole range of things and everyone

has different advantages and disadvantages in life so what's the point of comparing it's just going to make you feel bad about yourself you really want to make sure you're always in an empowered state that encourages you to take action and comparison ittis is really something to watch out for okay so I mostly talked about the mindset part of Financial Freedom but let's get into some of the specific and the action part of it so like I mentioned earlier Financial Freedom means different things to different people but I'll tell you what it means for me and

I think this is a could be a pretty Universal definition of Financial Freedom which is the concept of the crossover point the crossover point is the point at which the passive income from your Investments covers all of your living expenses and I think where differing levels of Financial Freedom comes in is some people have a $3,000 a month life lifestyle that's what makes them happy other people have a $10,000 a month lifestyle and still other people have a $50,000 a month lifestyle so in that sense your definition of Financial Freedom will be different I think

this is a pretty good solid definition of Financial Freedom that sort of applies to everyone and obviously it takes a lot of financial literacy to get to this point because you have to be really Savvy about investing money to turn that into a passive income stream and you also have to be very Savvy about earning money in order to have money to even invest in the first place you also need to be Savvy about saving money because you can earn but if you spend it all then you're not going to have anything left to save

and invest and then of course you have to learn how to spend money in a way that feels good not be too stingy with yourself but also in a way that doesn't deplete everything you have so those are really the four skills for Financial Freedom it's earning investing saving and spending so let's talk about each one one by one so earning so this is where it all starts because if Financial Freedom is attained through investing but you need money to invest in the first place that's where earning comes in and so for earning this is

where I encourage you to decide what is your cash cow going to be everybody needs a cash cow and for many of you the cash cow is going to be your job hopefully it's a high earning job where it brings in enough to pay more than your subsistence needs so that you have a surplus to then save and invest and of course if you do not have a surplus you might either have an income problem like you just need to make more and learn higher income skills and learn to negotiate your pay and all those

good things or even switch Industries or you might have a spending problem which is where you just spend more than you earn so whichever one it is figure it out but bottom line is you need to have a cash cow and for other people that cash cow can be entrepreneurship starting an online business I personally decided at some point that I wasn't cut out for corporate and I really wanted to start a business I also saw that my earning potential as an entrepreneur would be a lot higher than at a job so I built a

business that would be my cash cow but bottom line is you need a cash cow it could be as successful employee or as a successful entrepreneur whatever it is you've got your cash cow that takes care of the earning side of things and now the next part of the equation is saving you got to save some of what you earn otherwise what's the point of having a cash cow if all the cash that comes in goes right back out the door and really let's not complicate things saving can be simple it can be as simple

as setting an automatic transfer from your checking account to a savings account or brokerage account somewhere out of sight out of mind just setting an automated transfer for $500 a month $2,000 a month whatever you can afford and setting it and forgetting it that way you don't even see the money it's already routed towards savings and you just spend what's left of course we can get into budgeting I use wab I'm like pretty detailed and accurate with my budgeting but if you don't want to do that you don't have to just set an automatic transfer

let's stop complicating things and making it all sound so hard Financial Freedom can be as simple as learning these four things earn save invest and spend and saving money can be as simple as setting one automatic transfer once let's just stop complicating things okay so that's the save part of it set an automatic transfer okay and now investing this is where the rubber really meets the road my friend Lisa is very good at working for money but she hasn't mastered the idea of making money work for you that's really the key that's the missing step

to Financial Freedom that so many people Miss we're all really good at working for money that's something everyone knows how to do we're very used to that but then turning that money around to put to work for you that's the part that really unlocks Financial Freedom make the money invest it in reliable Investments that will grow your money over time throw off passive income in the form of dividends profits rental income what have you and have that money support you so to kind of create a visual graphic it's like you've got money coming in through

your cash cow and then for a lot of people it goes straight back out the door to their expenses but what you really want to do is have money coming in from your cash cow then you put it to work for you and then that money then goes around and pays for your expenses so it's sort of this extra step that creates this flywheel that's starts taking care of you so that you can start working less and less now in terms of where to invest this discussion can go in a million directions but let's also

not complicate this there are some tried andrue ways to invest your money that will grow your money reliably over time that you just can't go wrong with there is real estate and there is stock market I think a lot of people get sucked into sort of Investments that sound like Investments but aren't Investments like cryptocurrency is not an investment day trading is not an investment investing in your friend startup that's not an investment these are speculations they're not proven of course I'm not saying they can't make money sometimes you can hit it big with them

but they're not Investments that have a track record over hundreds of years of reliably growing your money over time and as of now real estate and stocks that's really where it's at and of course bonds but that kind of goes with the stock market so let's just talk about each one real estate is great rich people love investing in real estate however for someone like Lisa it can be a little bit Out Of Reach because you need a lot of money for the down payment and then it also takes a lot of time to find

a property and manage it so people like Lisa who are busy professionals it's probably not the best place to start although maybe later on down the road it could make sense but the stock market you can do it all from the comfort of your computer at home and a lot of you have something like a 401k where you can get started with that so I have great videos on my Channel all about getting started investing in the stock market there are actually six accounts that you need to open for Financial Freedom and if you just

follow all the steps that we talked about get your cash cow save it into these accounts and then invest that money you're going to be well on your way to Financial Freedom so to break it all down for you and make it super easy and doable I actually created a free resource called the Financial Freedom starter kit the six accounts you need for Financial Freedom like I said let's stop complicating things like Financial Freedom can be as simple as opening these six accounts putting as much money as you can into them every single month and

investing them constantly over time you do that and you will become financially free so I created this resource for you it's really good very actionable I tell you what these accounts are how much to put in them where to open them so check it out I'll put the download link right below this video but that basically covers the investing part this is a skill that you'll have to learn so Lisa once told me how even though she's really really good at her job something about money is kind of stressful and intimidating to her because it

seems to be super malale dominated or the jargon all of that just seems so intimidating and complicated I actually refrained it for her because I was like like wait you do all this badass stuff at your job like you also work with a lot of men in your field you're working at one of the top companies in the country and you kick ass at your job why do you think you can't figure out investing investing is nothing compared to all the stuff that you do on the daily at your job and so that was a

really cool reframe for her I think she just needed that validation that it's actually not as hard as it looks okay so that covers the investing part now let's talk about the spending part because this is something that's not talked about enough when it comes to the whole Financial Freedom conversation I think probably because of all the sort of shaming culture around spending money like it's actually okay to spend money we all need to spend money it's good to spend money just because you spend money doesn't mean you'll never be financially free and every time

you spend on something that is not an absolute necessity you if you guilt yourself and shame yourself about it that's probably not going to change even if you have millions of dollars in the bank your relationship with money is always going to be there and the way you spend is a really great place to look at to see what your relationship with money is like make no mistake if you don't feel financially free now when you spend money even when you have a lot more you're still not going to feel free you're still going to

have all that guilt and ickiness so I just want to talk a little bit about this energy of spending money My Philosophy is even if you're in debt even if you don't have as much savings as you would like it's okay to spend money not only on things you need for survival but also on things that make you feel good that help you enjoy life a little bit of course there's a balance of being responsible and also making progress towards other goals but like I said the most important asset on this Financial Freedom journey is

yourself so you need to make sure you feel good and that you're happy and in order to do that some of that requires spending some money so I don't believe in this 100% frugality cut out everything have a 90% savings rate type of crazy Financial Freedom School of thought like I think it's a balance okay and there was a quote that I saw on Instagram I screenshotted it that really resonated it said an unhappy Journey will never produce a happy ending like that really resonated with me because I don't believe in depriving yourself of everything

in order to get out of debt as quickly as possible but not but being miserable while doing it because when you get to your financial goal you probably still won't feel happy and all those years that you spent miserable cuz you never went out and did anything fun like you're not going to get that time back I think it's more important to create a good relationship with spending money now no matter how much money you have and the way I approach that is first of all if you need to spend money for Necessities rather than

complaining about it and feeling crappy that this money is going out the door and it's never coming back why not choose the feeling of gratitude and value like you need to spend the money on rent you need to spend the money on groceries it's not like that's an expense any of us can avoid so why not choose to feel good about it why not choose to think I'm so happy that I have a place to live I'm so happy that I have food that nourishes me and allows me to be healthy I'm so grateful for

this exchange of value it feels so worth it to me like why not choose that right My Philosophy is if you can't change it then might as well get on board with it and of course if you can change it like if you can take actions to reduce your rent or reduce your groceries and shop at Trader Joe's instead of Whole Foods by all means do so but once the expense is what it is let's just choose to be happy about spending that money because you are actually getting a lot back for it so I

encourage you to really feel that equal and fair exchange of value every time you spend money because that feels so much better than viewing it as money just leaving you going out the door down the drain and then when it comes to discretionary expenses if you're going to spend it then feel good about it if you don't think you you can feel good about it then don't spend it it's really just having that intention like if you really want that $6 Starbucks latte and you really want that moment of indulgence and relaxation and even though

$6 for coffee doesn't seem reasonable to you you really want to have that then spend it and enjoy it with no guilt and then on the other hand if you really don't think you can do that then don't spend it it's really just the practice of choosing to feel good about where your money goes that really is a choice so that's my two cents on spending money these were also my unfiltered thoughts on Financial Freedom I would love to know what you think in the comments what if any of this resonated with you if something

that I said triggered you I'd also love to hear about it let's start up a discussion but in the next few weeks I'll be posting some more videos about Financial Freedom about what it really takes how to invest to get there we'll be talking a lot more so stay tuned for that and yeah thanks for sitting with me and watching this video and I'll see you in the next one bye [Music]