10 Secrets To Achieve Financial Freedom

In this article I share 10 secrets to achieve financial freedom. Hope you will find this helpful, as I did when I watched this on YouTube. Here are some of my takeaways. Let get to it.

1. Understand the function of money and be indifferent.

You have to respect money and be indifferent towards it. The way you view money is extremely important. There two problems with how people view money;

• People not understanding the function of money, and why it exist. If you don’t understand why money exists and the value of money and it purpose you end up not having respect for it.
• Emotions towards money, having some sort of emotional barriers towards money itself. For instance, many believe money is the root of all evil, money doesn’t make you happy, the more money you have the more problem you will have. People need to imagine the world without money, and by so doing they will be able to respect and value it, they will realize money has a function. Money makes society work. They also need to understand the double coincidence of want. In a barter economy, an exchange between two people requires a double coincidence of wants, which means that what one person wants to buy, is exactly what the other person wants to sell. This is harder than it sounds. Double coincidence of wants, this occurs when two people have goods they are both happy to swap in exchange. i.e. a perfect barter exchange.
• Money solves the double coincidence of wants problem. First, since money is generally accepted as a means of payment (or medium of exchange) See function of money.

Types of greed

When it comes to money there are two types of greed.

One, is positive greed, this is where you want to good for yourself and your family. Second, negative greed is where you have harm other people for your own sake, to be wealthy. Money is not the root of all evils, greed is, in this case negative greed.

If you manage your money well, you won’t have problems. More money doesn’t mean more problems if money is well managed. It doesn’t make you happy, but it does help become happier. Reduce to zero your money emotional barriers by being indifferent, money doesn’t think anything of you, it is neutral.

Table of Contents

• 1. Understand the function of money and be indifferent.
• 2. Rent to own
• 3. Build and own your own Infrastructure.
• 4. Go travelling; get perspective, get your dream life.
• 6. Seek out alternative education.
• 7. Learn to value your time properly 
• 8. Ditch the smart phone
• 9. Mainstream Media is useless, don’t consume it
• 10. Choose role model that suit your objectives.

2. Rent to own

Don’t buy a mortgage it is a liability buy in cash. Buy everything for cash.
Because freedom is an asset, when you’re in debt you don’t have an asset (freedom)
Avoid borrowing money.
Own an asset upright and now. Even if the asset goes higher, it doesn’t matter you have a freedom, so don’t buy because of fear that it will be expensive in the future/costly.
People borrow money to eventually own asset and have a liability in between, this infrastructure is not designed to benefit you but the owners of the infrastructure.
Own infrastructure with no liability in between.

To achieve financial freedom, AVOID LIABILITY at all cost. You need to know define assets and liabilities properly. Rich Dad Poor Dad author Robert Kiyosaki defined an asset as anything that puts money in your pockets and a liability as anything that takes money out of your pockets. That is best definition of the two terms.

The Art of Money Getting by P.T. Barnum is a quick read, outlining 20 steps and pointers on how to grow one’s wealth and business, in this little book Mr. P.T said that young men should avoid running debt. He continued to say that there is scarcely anything that drags person down as debt. It is a slavish position to get in. Borrowing and repaying, repeat is adopting a habit that will keep you in poverty.

3. Build and own your own Infrastructure.

So how do you own or build infrastructure?
Save and build your asset base.
If you don’t have Liabilities you will save.
Start small and built an asset base.
Saving and having no liability is the way to build your infrastructure.
Build your own pension don’t wait for the government.
Avoid insurance policy, why stay in fear that one day you’ll have an accident to be wealthy. To be paid premium.
Do opposite of everyone else. If you keep doing what everyone else is doing, you will only have the same result- mediocrity. To have quality life or to be of good quality, you have to excuse yourself from the presence of shallow and callow minded individuals.

You achieve that by thinking differently from the herd. Genius are people who see things differently, but in the republic of mediocrity, genius is dangerous.
Be genius in your own way by building your own infrastructure, it will be difficult at the first, it takes 20 years to be overnight millionaire. Mediocrity thinks you can’t purchase your house without borrowing.

4. Go travelling; get perspective, get your dream life.

Travelling allows you to experience your greatest asset- freedom. How do you know what you love if you don’t travel, if you know it is out there you can choose it. If you see that perfect life out there you will come and save and build that perfect life.
Travelling allows you to experience freedom it gives you clarity on what you want.

5. Know that risk is subjective not two dimensional.

Risk is subjective to your own scenario. Look downside and upside of your actions.
If you have a job that pays 500k per year and you quit you can earn through entrepreneurship infinite amount in the world (upside) or zero (downside).
If downside is smaller and upside is bigger go toward for it. To achieve financial freedom  you must be a risk-taker remember, if there is no risk there is no reward and if you dare nothing, then when the day is over, nothing is all you will have gained.

6. Seek out alternative education.

Avoid relying on traditional education.
The curriculum was not designed to make you rich but poor, employee.
Jim Rohn the author of 7 Strategies For Wealth and Happiness said, “Formal education will make you a living. Self-education will make you a fortune.” It is self-education that have assisted many to achieve financial freedom.

One way to achieve alternative education is to find a mentor who have NO CONFLICT of interest in what you or what you do. Your parent/wife/girlfriend/boyfriend have a conflict of interest (emotions). Any mentor who is emotionally invested in your cannot be you mentor. Such a mentor won’t tell you the truth only what you want to hear. People who attain financial freedom are those who seek alternative education.

7. Learn to value your time properly

Many people go to corporate jobs, get their monthly pay, pay liabilities and what is left is spent on other obligations.

We’re working for nothing, our salary is coming in and immediately it goes to our liability, it pays out bills/debt and what is left we spent. Essentially we are swapping out time for free. It is the end result of traditional education. You cannot attain financial freedom until you learn how to manage your time well.
The corporate have given us some sort of titles that we put on our offices but when we put our card in the ATM there is nothing. The most important card is the one we put in the ATM. The number that looks back at you on the ATM that is your score; it tells you whether you are right or wrong.

Learning to value your time is major key to be successful. See Your Life or Your Money, this book helps you to see how your Money=Life Energy (Life) and how to get most out of your time and money. So, if money is life energy it is important to track where that energy goes. You can do this by tracking your dollar. The money you spend is a portion of your life (time) you gave away.

If you are keen enough you will realize that sometimes poverty is the picture of poor time management. Most people in poverty you never see them wearing a watch because they don’t value time.

Seneca on Shortness of life admonish his readers not be frugal with their personal property, but wasteful in one thing that they are supposed to be stingy with, which is time.

8. Ditch the smart phone

Smart phone is a sign that people don’t value their time well WhatsApp, Facebook, games, messaging. Those tools are engineered to steal your attention. Everywhere you turn on the internet they have customized ads just for you, anything you search on google they will use your search and with targeted ads that is what algorithms does. All social media are free, but free things are expensive, here is why? On the internet users of social media are the products, in others words social media is selling you.  You have become the merchandise and the advertiser has become the customer.
You’ll always be inefficient with a smart phone.  Unless you’re making money out of social media, you have no business spending hours glued on that screen. Stop giving your smart phone all your attention.

In their book An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook’s Battle for Domination by Sheera Frenkel, Cecilia Kang said, “If you are not paying for it, you’re not the customer; you’re the product being sold.”
We pay for FB by having our personal information sold to whomever wants to target us. For a small sum, you can target your post or ad, to a certain demographic audience, in a certain area. It’s effective for finding crooks, making targeted commercials and milking the users, who should spend as much time as possible on the site.

9. Mainstream Media is useless, don’t consume it

Consume what helps you to achieve your goals, know your objectives, don’t consume all the information. How will this help me achieve my goal? Should be you question.
Consuming all those stuffs will put you in their agenda. Celebrities are just wider media agenda,
Celebrities are entertainers you pay celebrity in some way through advertising, and you pay them to entertain you.

On shortness of life Seneca said, “All those who call you to themselves draws you away from yourself.” To achieve financial freedom stop consuming useless media.

10. Choose role model that suit your objectives.

How do you seek role models?
Look for role model that suit your objective, people who have long lasting success and track record of what you want to do. Don’t ask divorced person how marriage works, don’t ask broke person how to manage money or how to invest.

“I am indebted to my father for living, but to my teacher for living well.” Alexander The Great.

Those are 10 secrets to achieve financial freedom. They are so simple but very profound.

My Copious notes from Managing Partner of the Institute of Trading and Portfolio Management Anton Kreil who was interviewed in 2015 by interviewer Tom Murray. I have also added my personal notes to make my notes easy to understand and relatable. If you want to watch the 2 hour documentary follow this link to watch 10 secrets to achieve financial freedom. Click the above link to watch it on Youtube.

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