What Does Financial Freedom Actually Mean?

I got something kicking around in my brain recently that I would like to run on you. And it's kind of a concept that I have been pondering in my brain recently. I'm motivated by freedom. I think a lot of us are. The idea of pursuing freedom. And I'm fascinated by something that I've been kicking around, which is really what the word freedom means. And because. Because the idea of freedom is actually just a blank idea. It's an. It's an empty space. It's like. It's like, how. What is the cost of free? The cost of free is. Is nothing. Free means nothing. It means empty. It means free. It means there's nothing there. So the idea of freedom is actually an empty concept. It's. It's actually this idea of there being nothing there. It is like empty space. It's like an empty room. The analogy that I like to bring to this is freedom to me is kind of like an empty room. And you hate the furniture, so you clear all of it out. But as soon as it's clear, you're like, well, the hell do I do now? It doesn't mean anything to you. It doesn't have anything to it until you actually make a choice of how you're going to fill that space, of how you are going to fill the rest of the room. And so there's these two ideas, these two polarizing ideas of there's freedom from the things that hold us back, and there's also the freedom to pursue whatever it is. So if you keep the room example, the room analogy, there's like the freedom from what was in here previously, so that I have the freedom to fill it with something that I choose to fill it with something that I want to pursue. And so often in our world, especially when we talk about money, when we talk about the ideas of cash flow and wealth, we wrap it in this idea of it giving us freedom, the freedom from whatever the situation is. I want to have 10,000 or $100,000 a month show up automatically so that I can be free. Which is really like saying, I want this thing. I want. Want this tool to give me nothing.

To give me the space to.

Make choices. But it's not really a complete concept until we have chosen, until there is movement towards something else. But a really strange thing seems to happen, and this is really what I have been pondering, is that at some point what we've chosen, what we have, what we have are free to move towards, stop serving us in the way that we hoped it would. And we once again have to clear it to have space for the next thing again. And so there is this perpetual cycle of freedom that seems to have a desire to remove whatever it is that was there before, whatever has been holding us back, this empty space, and then choosing and filling it with whatever's next. And then it kind of goes out of style and we recycle that. And every time we go through a reset, every time we go through a time in which we're clearing for that space, it's really painful, it's really difficult. There's an attachment to whatever we have filled the space with. There's almost a need to defend whatever it is we have filled the space with. So in some ways, an example would be like a relationship. You know, you might hear people say, I don't want to get into a relationship because I want to stay free. I want to keep my options open until you meet somebody that is worth filling. Like, you know, making the choice, clearing the space. Right. You choose that over something else. And most actually all relationships end in either breakup or death. Yay. What a happy ending for all. And when it ends, there is usually a grieving period, there's a reset, and then you clear out old space for the next relationship. Right. And we tend to fear the letting go of whatever the previous stage was. We're fearful of going and being single again. We're freeing of giving up the freedom once we're single. We're scared of it ending one day once we've made a choice. And it seems that way in business, it seems that way in life, that whatever we have built, whatever structure is there, we tend to cling to. But in order for us to make the next step of choices that will best serve us, something has to be cleared, something has to be removed. And that's a really difficult choice. It's a really painful process. And so there's this idea that I've been kicking around of freedom can only really exist within the chaos. Freedom can only really exist on the other side of a system or of a structure crumbling. We are only free to choose once there has been some sort of a removal of what has been built in the past. If we look at it from the American context, there. There's only freedom when we rebel against the previous system, when. When we reject the. The rule of us as a colony back in the 1700s. That's when we're free to messily build whatever it is that we choose until it comes time for us to buck the system again, buck the trend to upend the system and to create something new. And this long diatribe is kind of a journey that I have been going on as an entrepreneur of realizing that in order for me to go to the next stage of my career, there's almost a grieving process or a letting go process of the identification of who I was as an entrepreneur previously. And before that. My temptation was like to defend that, to keep that. The analogy that I use with some today was like, I know the system for building seven figure businesses. I got it nailed. Like I know how to do it. Literally writing the book on it. I might be the most seen expert on that topic of building million dollar businesses. I got it nailed right. Million dollar business doesn't excite me anymore. Million dollar. I don't even enjoy talking about it anymore because I've said it so many times. So in order for me to see the next stage of my journey as an entrepreneur, if I'm gonna own the Cleveland Indians or build an entrepreneurial compound or just see how far I can go, then I've gotta be willing to let that go so that I can messily find, Messily stumble my way to the next stage of that journey. And that's painful for me personally, and I share that with you because I know as entrepreneurs, we're wired to pursue growth. It's the only thing we know how to do. Our brains are literally orchestrated in a way to reward growth. It's a happy hormone called serotonin. And serotonin comes from comparison. Our brain literally only knows how to compare our situation to somebody else's situation or our position, to our previous position or to an idea of where we think we should be. And.

Because we're wired for growth, because we have this idea of we're always supposed to be expanding and growing, that means that there has to be a continual shedding. There has to be a there, there has to be a, a letting go process of the things that got us here. A letting go of the, the belief patterns, a letting go of the processes, a letting go of the way things used to be in order for us to be able to grow. So in like a super tactical sense of this, in, in this crazy entrepreneurial world, there's usually a change that happens in the marketplace. People are resistant to that change because it's how they got up into this, it's how they got to where they are. And so there's like a big surge of complaining that happens because things change, the marketplace changes. And the people who let that go and move in a new Direction, the fastest usually win. And the people who hold on to the old ways of doing things usually, usually are killed off. And we resist that. Like, we resist the change. There's all. There's like a grieving process of that. To me, it's kind of like.

The faster you can be willing to burn it all to the ground, the faster you are free to build what it is that you are building. It's. It's this, like, the idea of what's the scariest part of skydiving? The scariest part of skydiving is right before you let go and you're on the outside of the plane. Like, you can kind of rationalize, I'm going to make this decision. You can kind of rationalize when you're on the way up. Like, this is going to be great. You can be excited the whole time, then your brain starts to kick in. And then right when you're here, when you're holding onto the plane, that's the scariest part. And what happens as soon as you let go? Pure freedom, like, pure joy, pure excitement, pure being in the moment. It's right on the other side of chaos that the freedom happens. Perfect example of this is I have a business that we've been trying to resuscitate. I have a business that has kind of been stuck at the level that it is. It's not profitable enough for us to really smash. And so as a result, it's kind of just been staying where it is. And then like a lot of physical products brands, we got hit by some changes in the marketplace, the way that Amazon does reviews, and we couldn't depend on one of our best performing product.

To carry us anymore. And everybody on the team relaxed as soon as it happened. We had been stressed about it until that asset went kerplunk. And as soon as it went kerplunk, everybody was like, oh, well, now we can just build what we want. I don't know why we were so resistant to just have the conversation of, why don't we just build what we want in the first place? Place. But I guess I would guess that it came something from holding on to what is because of fear of what happens when you let go and go into the chaos. So it's the same thing of, like.

In relationships, we tend to default to the pattern that we've always operated in in relationships, or the pattern that other people have given us. And there's something magical that happens. Just like, what if we built this in a way? What if we operate in a way where we were just both happy. Like, what do you need from this? What do I need from this? And that's true in business partnerships. It's true in romantic relationships. And so the big tie in here is always be willing to burn it to the ground. Because that's when freedom happens. Freedom starts by being willing to burn it to the ground. Freedom is always being powerfully at choice. And choice being powerfully at choice happens when you are willing to let previous choices die off. And we spend so much energy holding on to what is, or defending what is, instead of being free to operate in this chaos so that we can choose, whatever it is, where we want to go next. That's. That's the thought I'm having tonight over my wine colored smoothie. See? Money. It's weird to not get any verbal feedback from anybody up here. Yeah, yeah.