Of course, when we’re young in life and we have student debt and we're getting started in our business or practice, then yes, we have to work hard. We have to go hard at it. But the longer it takes to get to freedom —or putting that day off till the future— means that you live your life under constraints or compression. That's no fun, and it doesn't do any good for you or your family.

Remember, you may be okay with paying a price, just like I was when I was actively practicing, working hard and doing everything I needed to do (or thought I needed to do). I was okay, but what was I doing to my family? What price were they paying? 

I had the wake up call when my daughter was sick several times and finally had the liver transplant. That was my final wake up call to jerk me out of my thinking, “Well, everything I'm doing is important for the family.”

If I'm not there and not spending time with my family, then what's it all for? This is the lack of clarity and lack of specificity that I find from so many people. I don't care what age, whether young, middle career, or at the end of their career: They don't know how much they really need.

I ask people for actual numbers. In fact, I was at a conference recently, and there was a young doc, 41 years old with several kids, and he is likely hitting the prime of his earning capacity.

I asked him what his goals were, and he answered that he was merging a practice and doing some good things with his practice, so the practice model is working. And he said, “I'd like to go from four days to three.” Okay, good, because that's Time Freedom. It’s important to have a model where you can do that. Then he asked me a really strange question: 

He said, “David, do you think it's possible for someone at my age and with where I'm at in life to get to $50 million in net worth?” And I looked at him and said, “Well, anything's possible. But why that number?” 

You know, 50 million is a big round number – there was no calculation for that. It was a “throw it at the dartboard” number. I hear things like this all the time from people when I ask them how much they really need. For what you want to do, whether that's just to have more time off or to end up selling your practice someday, how much do you need? Well, nobody knows. 

Your financial advisor doesn't even know. They tell you just to keep working as long as you can work. Without specificity and knowing what you really need in order to live the life you want to live, you'll never get there. Honestly, you'll never get there. 

Yes, someday you will retire with whatever assets you have, but the journey is never fun and there's always tension. It's always stressful. Your kids grow up and they're gone, and you're still stressed out. And then when you finally “retire,” you’re still counting pennies and dollars because inflation is in front of us now, and we don't know how much it'll take. 

Until you learn to get specific on what you need to replicate from your active income using passive income to live your lifestyle, you'll never have the numbers right. Until you learn how to replace your active income with asset-based income – whether it's your passive ownership in a business, or my favorite, real estate – you’ll never get free.

It’s part of what we do in Freedom Founders. I show our members how to calculate those numbers and how to reverse engineer it, so that they know exactly what they need. Then they have milestones to hit, and you know what? Even before they get to pure financial freedom, it takes the weight off their shoulders – because now they have a plan that actually has mile markers. They can measure along the way. It changes everything.

The financial world doesn't want you to know this. They want you to put all your money on Wall Street, abdicate it to the 401(k)s and the tax deferral “magic” that they talk about – and it's totally wrong. You're playing into their game, and it's not a game that you're going to win.

You've got to do something different with your life. You're hardworking: You went to school, you learned the technical skills, and you do your trade or profession well. But don't you want to know what the next step is?

I learned it the hard way, and I also learned from mentors and other people who taught me. And now we’ve created a community that has the collective wisdom to move people from where they are today to where they really want to be – and able to do it in 3-5 years, rather than a distant 15-20 years. 

But you have to be committed. You have to be intentional. You have to know what you want. And if you don't know, don't worry – we help you do that. Clarity and specificity are the keys to reaching freedom.