What is Freedom?

Freedom is free. It always was, and always will be. It is inside you, and it is inside me. Freedom is free, so long as you believe it to be.

Do not take my words at face value. DO consider them thoroughly now, and forget them for the rest of your day. The beauty of a person’s two cents is simple: That is all a seed costs. Now I will tell you what freedom means to me.

Freedom is the perceived breadth of choices you deem to be possible in your life. It is a mindset. It can be small and impoverished. Or it can be vast, and quite possibly infinite.

Your job, your spouse, your home and your career are all choices that you have made at a certain point. Your choices often appear to build up and influence each other. Freedom is the absence of that influence. More freedom means you have made more choices based on their own merit rather than by necessity based on previous choices.

If you tell me that your work is necessary for your mortgage, and that your mortgage is necessary for your family, and that your family is necessary for your happiness, I simply ask you this.

Can you imagine yourself doing anything different?

If your answer is an absolute no, then no it is. Accept it, and move on. But know that one decision does not define who you are. The key to freedom is to nurture the belief that endless possibilities exist and will always exist. Your destiny is the culmination of your choices, and your choices are much more numerous than you think. You can have the stuff of your dreams. The tools for achieving whatever you want are already within you.

Instead of saying someday, you need to cultivate the mindset of some way.

Below I outline a few pearls of personal wisdom to start on the road of freedom. The caveat is that freedom cannot be taught, and what I am doing in this article is merely showing you some vehicles. But you must learn to be the driver. If you stop reading here, just know this:

The truest and only freedom you will ever need is the intrinsic freedom granted to you by the human mind.

Nothing else matters. Enjoy these tips.

One. Live below your means.

Strive to not buy things on credit. Pay for things with what you have earned, never with what you will earn. Living with debt is a shackle for most people because there is constantly advance payment owed to others, and is therefore not much different than indentured servitude. Having money in the bank means nothing if the money is not truly yours. Having a car that can be taken away from you because of debt means you do not own it 100%, thus you do have it at all.

If you live below your means there is no shadow weighing on your mind every time you make a purchase. You will then be able to enjoy what you buy a lot more. Moreover, you will see that material goods are a means to serve you, and never the other way around. Consider this thoroughly before convincing yourself of any purchase or investment on credit, no matter how tempting.

That said, living below your means does not mean you do not cultivate an abundance mindset. It means you make smart investments that lead you closer to your goal. Whether that investment puts you into debt is up to you. If you think that temporary debt is necessary for you to reach the next level (i.e in regards to school, investments, or career), then go for it.

Two. Strive for self-employment.

It is never too late or too early to start on the road of self-employment. It is a key aspect of many people who have achieved freedom. The beauty of self employment is that you (or those you chose) are the sole benefactor of your labor. Do not discount this idea, because the more you think about it the more powerful it becomes. It means that the harder you work (i.e the more money/resource you bring in) the more PROPORTIONAL reward you will receive. You will hardly ever see this in the corporate world. After all, the goal of any company is to make the company and its leadership wealthy, not the employees. You may be a valued, even irreplaceable part of a company. But when the employer has to make a choice between who gets richer, do not count on them to chose you over themselves.

Other benefits of being self employed include more flexible hours, less bureaucracy in decision making, and mobility.

No one is forcing you to work the job you are working. Instead of looking for the ideal business to work for, why not create it and work for yourself? To start, you only need to understand one fundamental principle: A business is always defined by one simple concept:

People pay for a product or a service. Money or time goes in, and a product or service comes out.

Grocery shops, banks, and even the government are all businesses operating on this model. No matter the size, no matter the middlemen, no matter the labels of morality, a business is simply a business. The better service out, the more money in. It doesn’t work like that in the real world, of course. The higher you go, the more corruption and monopoly you will see, and the more stress you will likely experience. However unless you want to be a high profile multi-millionaire, you do not have to engage. If you goal is to be fairly wealthy, you can do it without many people knowing about it at all. This is what I call “stealth wealth”, and is the route I recommend. After all, not everyone needs to be public like Mike Cernovich.

The beauty of the FREE market is that it is as infinite as the human imagination.

We live in an age of technological boom. There are perhaps infinite possibilities given the advent of the internet, and we as creators can serve our goals by riding the waves of this combustion.

As Jack Ma, the extremely successful businessman and founder of Ali Baba once said:

“If the internet [market] is a marathon; we have run but perhaps ten meters.”

Start that YouTube Channel, write that blog, create that website or e-product. Do anything. Do it for you, attain money and freedom, and let your light be an inspiration to others.

Three. Invest in people, yourself included.

Many people who are on their last breaths realize that their biggest regrets in life were either not spending enough time with significant people or not being true to themselves. In both cases the absence of investing in human beings plays the pivotal role.

You may think having a great business and the right investment portfolio will take you furthest in life. Those things help, but they do not, and will not provide you with one important thing: Fulfillment on a human level.

Both relationships and self-realization require time and effort to become fulfilling. Choosing to spend quality time with others and by oneself are decisions that hold tremendous value down the road. Creating a solid social network will see your business and social network thrive. Investing in a meaningful relationship translates to someone who will always have your back (provided you chose the right person, and not fall prey for superficial traits). Investing in a passion will see you become a specialist, if not a down right master at a craft, which will almost always result in a healthy money AND happiness income stream.

Regarding family and friends who you do not see eye to eye with, my advice is to be kind. Be nice to those closest to you, even if you do not always agree with them. Realize that even though they may not share your sense of freedom, they can enrich your life while bettering themselves. People are all looking for happiness, so be the light and lead them by standing with them.

Do not take yourself that seriously in dealing with other people, but take your self-development journey very seriously- Or at least, with earnestness. To do that, you absolutely need to spend time alone. Down times are opportunities to truly understand who you are. Discard the labels that society has affixed onto you. Develop your values, and seek to align them with your thoughts and actions. A free man does not bend his values under the pressure from the external world. In turn the external world is at his mercy.

“The whole world steps aside for the man who knows where he is going.” -James Allen

Speaking of going…

Four. Strive for freedom of location.

I will not tell you whether you should place family, job, or logistic convenience above physical freedom. The first and only tenet of freedom is that anything can be done, if not one way then another. If you think you cannot move, then simply don’t. But never hold yourself back from your own imagination. If there is even a sliver of hope that you are able to physically relocate, consider the following words.

The world is a vast and beautiful place filled with fates undiscovered and friends unmet, with pieces of good life waiting for you to discover.

Do not wait for retirement to travel. Do not wait for an excuse to create a new life elsewhere. Un-domesticate yourself and go see the world. Once you see the world through the eyes of an explorer, you will never settle for a life of mediocrity. I will not tell you where you should live, but just know that it may not be where you are now.

“But what about my job?”

Remember tip number two. Once you develop your gift to the world, you will be able to work from anywhere. Your job will then FOLLOW YOU.

Five. READ.

Read like your life depends on it. That is literal.

Make sure the words that you feed your mind are aligned with your desire, because your words become your destiny. Read the great works of history, because the patterns of history are often cyclical, and thus their lessons are eternal. Reflect on your readings, and consider their meaning in the context of your own life. Always seek to apply what you read.

Do not laugh a self development books, for they belong to the oldest field of knowledge known to man. I like to read books written by men and women of great achievement and insight. Two books I currently recommend are: Man’s search for Meaning and The Art of War.

Finally, here is a cool acronym: Reason is the driver. Emotion is the fuel. Action is the pedal. Discipline is the wheel.

Six. Command yourself to do the work.

Work is not only necessary, but fulfilling. The moments where you are lost in your work is where true progress takes place. Your life will be sculpted by the hours you put in with complete focus.

That is as blunt as I can put it. A powerful analogy to mastery of any craft is bodybuilding. Treat every second spent in progression like the reps of an exercise. The more time and repetitions you dedicate to something, the more competent and powerful you will become. If you don’t believe me, go down to your nearest pub and challenge someone who is always there playing pool or shooting darts at their game. Would you bet money on yourself, or the guy who has put in many hours?

Do not fall into the trap of analysis paralysis. Sometimes we think that we need a plan or blueprint before we are ready to tackle a task. However, in order to reach mastery, there needs to be moments where you simply go into a task without any outline.

Quite often, you will find that the plan reveals itself. For example, if you were in the gym lifting weights, you do not need to adhere 100 percent with a set of routines, especially if it was made by someone else. Simply listen to your body and create variations as they present themselves. That way, you not only gain knowledge of different movements, but also begin to understand the workings of your body. The same is with any endeavor. Instead of learning and performing a simple guitar song, learn about the chords and scales it features and create something out of it.

Start now, adapt as you go, and put in your reps every chance you get.

Life is like a vending machine. Telling it how much you need something yields you nothing.

Putting in your deposit in the form of time, effort, and discipline yields everything. If you take nothing from this article, remember this.

Freedom is free, so long as you want it to be.

Until next time.

Your friend,

-Tie