Is Financial Freedom Your End Goal?

I often post blogs or threads on various forums to prompt people’s thinking. My aim is to improve people's lives and help them think critically.

That's how I learned crucial lessons in my life. That’s how I learned to go from point A to point B, advancing towards my desired goals and ultimately to the freedom I now enjoy. 

That is what we all want in life: the freedom of choice.

The “Secret” to Financial Freedom

I recently posted about the secret to financial freedom. The secret is to translate your active income into assets that create income for you. This means you don't have to work for that income; that asset is working for you.

You do this enough times (rinse and repeat) until you don't have to work anymore. It's very simple. 

Someone responded, “That's not a secret.” Well, if it's not a secret, then why isn't everybody doing it?

I had to learn this “secret” myself. It wasn't natural to me. It's not taught in schools. In this society, we’re taught to go to school, seek training, and be good workers.

Don’t get me wrong – we should have a good work ethic. That's what this country is built on. But the failure lies in this being all there is to it. Just do the same work for 40+ years, without changing the model ever? That's where things have gone awry.

The Sunk Cost Fallacy We All Fall Prey To

There is often a sunk cost fallacy when investing in one's own education, particularly the more one invests in it.

We invest a lot of time, capital, and debt into our education. Then, we finally graduate and start a business/practice. This is more capital and debt, making it very difficult for us to say, “I'll just do that for a few years, then I'll move on.” That’s not likely.

This is one reason doctors and professionals feel trapped in their profession. They feel they have to do that one thing they invested so much in for the rest of their lives.

This is not true. You can choose a different career or even the same career applied differently. What do I mean by that?

There are still opportunities, even within the context of our training, to transform work into something we love. We can do what we trained for many years to do – just not in the way that everybody else says you have to do it. (I explain more about this in a  recent podcast episode on reaching financial freedom.)

Why I Still Have an Active Career and Business

Another response I’ve received is, “Well then, why do you still work?” This is a naïve question, but it is a common one.

If I have achieved financial freedom and have the Freedom Founders community as support, why am I still working? The person who asked that question is not qualified to ask it, and I say this with all respect to someone who surely has worked hard in their life, but doesn’t know what they don’t know.

To be fair, neither did I. I was born with a good work ethic and I went through a sacrifice period. Unless you're born with a silver spoon in your mouth, we all go through a sacrifice period.

The goal is to shorten that sacrifice period by acquiring assets that you manage with the help of others. These assets then provide the income necessary to give you time to do what you really love, whether that’s the same profession in your own way or something entirely different.

For me, it was something entirely different. I loved the aspect of orchestrating deal flow and financial structures via tangible assets like real estate, but I also had dentistry. I did both in tandem and eventually combined the two with Freedom Founders. 

My response to his question was: “Hopefully, you'll be able to answer that question for yourself sooner vs later.” And then I posed back to him: “Why does Warren Buffett still work? Because it’s not work. He loves what he does.”

Pick anyone who has been successful in their life. Do they reach a point when they have enough, mega millions of dollars, where they just go lie on a beach?

Absolutely not. That is not what got them to where they are. What got them there was curiosity, being inquisitive, and finding purpose and meaning. They want to have impact and significance. 

When you get beyond having to trade time for dollars (work), then it turns into a passion. That’s how it is for Warren Buffet – he loves what he does. When you are no longer forced to do your profession or do it in a specific, designated way, you know you have achieved freedom. 

Achieving Financial Freedom

You can achieve freedom sooner than you think. You just haven't been taught the concepts or models to do so. There is much to learn about this, but it is not complex.

You cannot achieve financial freedom just by hitting some Hail Marys with some crazy investment strategy. That’s like going to Vegas to get rich or depending on the stock market or crypto. That’s what I call gambling.

You can do those things, but they will not take you where you want to go. Many people run towards bright, shiny objects, chasing silver bullets that will turn into diamonds. Searching for these opportunities will only end in frustration.

I had to learn this in my own way, through my own provocations. What forced me to re-evaluate the way I was doing things was my daughter’s health crisis.

I came to a fork in the road. I had to make a decision. Even though I was “successful” in providing for my family, I wasn't able to put my time where I wanted to. I was chained down by trading time for dollars. This is what we’re all trained to do, but this does not lead to freedom.

Fortunately, I had been acquiring assets like rental properties for over 15 years. Many of the properties were paid off, so I could make the decision:

“Do I keep doing what I have been doing, or do I take the income from the assets I have been building and compounding over time, and go to freedom?”

At the time, I wanted freedom for at least a period of time so I could spend it with my daughter. This eventually turned into everything I love to do today.

I'll never quit working because what I do is not work. I love what I do and the people I work with. I don't deal with people or staff that are not fun to work with. Back in the day, when I had to work to pay the bills, I put up with a lot of stuff, as I’m sure you do.

But don't put up with it any longer than you need to.