The Why, The Vision, Financial Freedom
Achieving Financial Freedom –
The Why
If you have a big enough Why, you can overcome any How, says Tony Robbins.
So, the first thing to do is to decide why you want to become an epic millionaire. Is it a dream? Is it peer pressure? Is it for an innate desire to make your parents proud? This is a decision that only you can make possibly with some input from some significant people in your life. But at the end it’s really your decision. Oh sure, you’re going to need some help along the way. You’re going to need lots of support and lots of encouragement. You’re going to need a team of people to be your cheerleaders. So if you have negative ninnies telling you why you can’t do something, then you’re going to need to make a change.
You’re going to either need to tell them to get on board with your plan and only give you support and encouragement, or you need to have them get off the train because they will only hold you back. I do talk about this in my book in the section on ecology and environment and why it is so important, but for now know that this is going to be tough, so you need all of the positive energy you can muster around you. You are going to be making some tough choices and your brain, in addition to many of those around you, is going to want to keep you the same, because that is “safe.” No change is safe in neurological terms.
If you have a big enough why, the HOWs will come easily.
So, back to our WHY. If you have a big enough why, the HOWs will come easily. Let’s now focus on why you want to become an epic millionaire. This is important.
In fact, I think this is so important that I suggest that you grab a piece of paper or better yet, your journal and you to fill it in now. But please keep it somewhere where you can refer to it often because this will be the cornerstone of your epic millionaire plan, the basis of your roadmap to financial freedom!
So I’ll ask you again: Why do you want to become an epic millionaire? I want you to write it out in detail. What does being debt free look like, what does it feel like? Will you start investing in the stock market? What will your lifestyle be like? What does financial freedom mean to you? Details, details. Write them out!
THE VISION
A vision is a mental picture of the desired result you want – a picture so vivid and emotionally charged that it will help make that result a reality. It’s not hope. Hope is not a strategy. It is not a wish. It’s a picture of what happens when you get the results you desire, that you work for. A vision is inspired by the future but is brought into the present.
Professional sports teams use vision exercises to improve performance (there is a famous study illustrating that basketball players who practice free throws only by “imagining” the ball going through the basket improve their shooting percentage nearly as much as those who actually throw the ball). I knew someone from a leading college swim team who would visualize his swim, his practice and the real race every day – with emotion. The whole team did this and they became one of the top teams in every swim meet.
Here’s why a vision is so powerful:
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A vision inspires action. A powerful vision pulls in ideas, people and other resources. It creates the energy and will to make change happen. It inspires individuals and organizations to commit, to persist and to give their best.
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A vision is a practical guide for creating plans, setting goals and objectives, making decisions, and coordinating and evaluating the work on any project, large or small.
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A vision helps keep organizations and groups focused and together, especially with complex projects and in stressful times.
Not every picture is a vision. Your vision and you should have these traits:
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Be clear
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Be positive
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Be big
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Adjust your attitude
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Adjust your expectations
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Don’t overthink
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Come from the heart
A vision is a mental picture of the desired result you want.
So now I ask the question…What is your vision? (Monthly Income, net worth, lifestyle, people, etc. – describe in detail). The more detail, the better! You might even want to create a vision board, create a roadmap. The more your images describe or depict how you will feel, by adding the emotion, this will amplify your results.
Financial freedom is when your passive income exceeds your living expenses.
FINANCIAL FREEDOM
Great. So you’ve just determined your why and your vision. That’s a big step! Now let’s further define some of the things that I am talking about in my book. The main one is financial freedom. Many books talk about it but let’s actually define it here.
Financial freedom is when your passive income exceeds your (standard of) living expenses.
That means that if you spend a lot of money, you’ll need to make a lot of income. And throughout my course, we are going to be striving to set up your life for Passive Income. By the way, passive income is further defined as income that you make without having to work for it. I talk more about it in my book. For now, just think about passive income as money coming in while you sleep: like from rental payments, book royalties, or interest income. On the other side of the equation, if you can keep your expenses low then it will be easier for you to get to financial freedom.
The problem in our society is that we are victims of it. What? In the United States 70% of our economy is driven by consumerism. Consumerism is the need to buy things to satisfy the norms of society. It’s the programming that our society gives us so that we can fit in. We always need to have the nicest cars or live in nice homes, or have the latest technology or the biggest TV. We need to dress in nice clothes, and be seen in the nicest places, with the right people. We are bombarded daily with messages from the environment: television, magazines, our schools, our friends, and our family. All believing that, if we have these things, then our lives will be great.
That’s the irony of my book. We are talking about becoming an epic millionaire which means we are talking about the goal of money, but let me just clarify that to me life is not about the things I have, but the experiences that I have. For me, it’s about more stamps in my passport – and more magic moments with the people that I love – than the items that I have.
Take it from me. I’ve had all of the stuff. I’ve had waterfront in Florida. I’ve had the fastest German convertible sports cars. I’ve owned the fastest airplanes. And you know what? None of it made me happy. I know it’s a cliché to say, but it’s true. None of that stuff made me happy. So I sold it all, and now my money is spent on experiences around the world. But that’s just me. Maybe it’s different for you.
But if you want to have financial freedom you’ll have to decide at some point where you will stop spending money on your standard of living. The reason that most people don’t become millionaires is because they end up spending more and more as they make more and more. Consequently, they never can get ahead, and they always have to keep working. They never amass enough savings to transform it into passive income. Epic millionaires know that if they can live a comfortable life and maintain a certain level of spending without increasing it, then, as they increase their income, they move towards financial freedom. In my book, I actually show you how to create a blueprint to build your own passive income streams as you move towards financial freedom. In my upcoming Blog Posts, I will touch on this topic again, I hope you will join me!
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