Here’s the Secret to Financial Freedom: Do the F*cking Work
"Money does buy happiness, if you earned it."
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Financial freedom is a popular idea dressed in a clown suit.
I just can’t take it seriously anymore because of all the gurus. They make it sound like a 7-figure passive income machine is as easy as paying for a lap dance in Las Vegas.
“You just click this button and WHAM!”
Let me bust the myth and get you on the right path.
Nobody is that smart
The thing with the internet is everyone looks like a genius. Even me.
But most of us who’ve achieved financial freedom are ordinary. Our secret that we don’t want anyone to know is we worked harder than most.
The hard work was the result of a burning obsession for what we do that stopped any rational thoughts of “should I be working this hard” from grinding our progress to a halt. We’re more mad than smart.
Thinking people are smarter than they are stops you from implementing their same ideas. And those basic ideas are where financial freedom is found.
Anyone can figure it out as they go
The desire to have a plan upfront is what ruins people.
Corporate jobs teach us this bad habit. You can’t plan for financial freedom because your path will be different from everyone else. You’ll have to experiment a bit to find the 1-3 income streams that’ll get you there.
It’s less about a plan, and more about experimentation followed by iteration.
I thought I’d get rich off real estate. But when I tried to enter the market I found it hard to sleep at night with so much debt. So I found another way. Yay.
(By the way, real estate rarely leads to financial freedom in most countries. Being a landlord is a part-time job and most people can’t stomach all the debt.)
Financial freedom is driven by curiosity, not IQ.
A job isn’t gonna make it happen
Just stop believing this lie.
Financially free people rarely get their F-U money from a job. Entrepreneur Naval Ravikant says it best:
“If you don't own a piece of a business, you don't have a path towards financial freedom.”
Hard work isn’t all the same.
Hard work at a job means someone else keeps the upside. And they can use the tool of layoffs to take you back to zero whenever they want.
A business is where you own the equity from the hard work you do. That equity pays dividends and can even be invested to make more money.
There’s no way to avoid it. If you want financial freedom then start a business. Just don’t call it a business because the label will destroy you.
Call it a side hustle. Or making money online.
It won’t be freaking easy
Financial freedom isn’t for those who love comfort or want to live life on easy mode.
Financial freedom is playing MarioKart 64 on hard mode for no good reason and loving life. Financial freedom is fun. It hits different.
You should want to do hard things in life because there’s almost zero competition. It’s just you, your laptop, a few big ideas, and a mountain of books to read.
You’re never ready
The need to do hard work forces people to procrastinate.
“When I have time”
“When the kids are older”
“When I finish this course”
“When I leave my current job”
It’s tragic. Nobody told you: you were born ready.
Harsh truth: you may die while waiting on the sidelines.
A near-miss with cancer in 2015 taught me. If you sit around and wait for stuff to happen a random cancer you could never have predicted may end it all too soon. Then you’ll die in one huge mess with zero chance to go back and change things.
Freedom feels good right now.
So start working towards it and don’t piss your time away endlessly waiting. It’s never a good time to do anything.
This is how doing the f*cking hard work turns into freedom
After work hours you build whatever your online empire is going to be.
Sometimes you work on it during weekends or on the commute to the office. Other times you sacrifice annual leave to do it.
When you do hard work for long enough you pass an invisible threshold of participation. After that, the work compounds and the income eventually goes exponential. All of it will feel like nothing and then everything you ever wanted coming at once.
Focus less on the feelings and more on automating the system that produces the work.
"Money does buy happiness, if you earned it."
(Naval Ravikant)
President Nixon had some great advice.
He said nice things that money can one day buy mean a lot to average people. Once you reach financial freedom and can afford those things they mean jack sh*t.
Nixon said some of the most unhappiest people he ever saw hung out at golf courses, yacht clubs, and exotic island locations in the Caribbean.
They were retired. Nothing to do. Comparing luxury items.
He says many of us dream of a life full of riches with time to do anything. But that’s not true financial freedom.
What Nixon says makes life worth it is a purpose. A goal. The battle we have to fight to achieve our dreams. The struggles we face. The kickass sense of fulfillment we get even when we don’t win.
That’s the point of doing the f*cking work. It’s not about the results. It’s about the journey you go on and all the people you meet. It’s about helping people, some of which can never repay you. This is how money buys you happiness.
Do the f*cking work so you have a meaning for your life. And forget about all the get-rich-quick pyramid schemes that distract you with wealth instead of true meaning.
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A job isn’t gonna make it happen !!!!!!!!!!!! I have been deceived my entire life. I will be 28 before the end of the year and ever since I started working at 15. I thought I could save my way to the life I wanted. I was not taught to invest or look at other streams of income outside of a 9 to 5. I am so happy that people are talking about being financial free. Living is greatest thing we can do while we're on this planet. The knowledge I have gained since 2020 has been exceptionally and I plan to make sure the generation behind me will have something to look forward to in their futures not just working until they die.
Tim, thank you for opening people's mind and showing them they dont have to work forever.
💯