It Took Me 30+ Years to Realize What I'll Tell You in 22 Mins

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In the free training. What if everything you've been told about money, how to earn it, how to save it, how to build wealth, was actually keeping you stuck? If you felt like no matter what you do, no matter how much you make, no matter what you do, it feels like it's just not enough, or you're constantly chasing that next financial milestone or that there's got to be something else that's going to make you feel secure, well, this episode's for you. Because I've spent over 30 years, three decades in the space working with people to help build financial freedom, to help build financial security and do it for myself. And I learned some things, and I'm going to save you decades of time, decades of mistakes, mistakes that I've made, mistakes that my clients have made to help you navigate your path to financial freedom.

All right, so I think the first thing that we need to realize is this idea of how much is enough. Now, this takes me back to a time. June 27, 2009. And all I remember was waking up face down on the pavement with someone's hand on my back, hearing a voice that says, I'm Mindy. I'm a registered nurse, and you've been in an accident. And.

I don't remember anything, but evidently what had happened is I was on a mountain bike ride. I was riding down the hill, and I was getting up speed because it was an uphill. So I didn't want to. I didn't want to have to work so much on the uphill. So I got as fast as I could go, and then right at the crest of the bottom, lo and behold, my shoelace gets caught in the chain. And evidently, I must have clipped the brake or something, but the bike ride turned into a flight. I flipped the bike. I came down. Evidently, she saw the whole thing on my head. I was completely unconscious. And when I woke up, I had a grade four concussion.

When the paramedics got there, they put me in the ambulance. They were putting an IV in my arm, but they couldn't get my veins because actually my veins roll a lot. And they're apologizing, saying, sorry, sorry, this is probably bothersome. And I said, I actually don't feel it. And they said, what? I had no feeling in the right side from the accident. So they took me to a neurological hospital.

And I was treated there for a few days, released. And a dear, dear friend of mine, who.

Were like brothers, he retired at 35, 36 years old, came out and said, I'm taking you out to lunch.

And so we go out for a pastrami sandwich when I used to eat pastrami. And he looks at me and he says, how much is enough? I go, what are you talking about? I'm in a neck brace. I got a headache that won't stop. I had a grade four concussion. You want to ask me about life's philosophical questions? I said, I don't understand. He says, no, no, I'm serious. He said, realize this. You got on that bike, you were angry, you were frustrated.

You were just running and running. He says, now you're going to. You're going to survive, you're going to heal, you're going to be okay. The challenge is that the reason you were on that bike is because you don't know what your enough is. You don't know what your finish line looks like. You don't know if it's way behind you. You don't know if it's way in front of you. You don't know if you're standing on it. He says, and the fact is, because you don' Know it, you won't even know when you get there. How many of us are doing that with our financial life. I know, for me, I was chasing a number. I was chasing that magical number. I don't know what that magical number is, but the magical number isn't what we want. He was right. I didn't know my enough. And until I was had enough, he said, you're going to get back on this bike. You're going to go run the race again. You're going to keep going and going and going. You're never going to know when the finish line is. And then the concern is that the next time this happens.

You won't recover.

I think the first point is to ask yourself, how much is enough? What is it that you want? Not a number, but a lifestyle. The lifestyle that you want, the lifestyle that you crave for, the lifestyle that you envision. And this is one of the reasons that when we work with our clients. The first thing that we do is, hey, let's craft your vision. It's not about the money. It's about the life. It's about the life that you want to make that happen. So the first thing is getting really clear on how much is enough for you. Not the number, but life. What does life look like? And if you're in a committed relationship, if you're in a marriage, this is something to be done together. My wife and I do this together. So you define the life and then you use the money to create the life, not the other way around. Too often we are chasing the money, thinking that once we have the money, it will create the life. It's the other way around.

That was a realization that took me. A grade four concussion, a bike accident that almost took me out of this world to make that happen. So that's the first thing. The second thing is this illusion. I call it the illusion of wealth. And most people get it wrong. They sit back and they look at things from the eyes of if I just made more money, if I just had an additional 10,000, if I just did this, and then I would find that satisfaction, I would find that. That happiness. Here's what I can tell you.

Is that I did the same thing.

And I found that number I made. The more money I had, the more income I had, the bigger bank accounts. But I was stuck in that same cycle of always chasing in that I thought that it was the more that was making me feel secure, and it wasn't. The more that made me feel secure. It was not going to change how I felt inside. And that the illusion is that having the wealth will change how you are on the inside. But the fact is that money doesn't change you. It amplifies you. It expands you. So if you're stressed out to begin with, you'll be stressed out when you get the money. You're just going to be more stressed out for whatever reason, you might lose it or the tension behind it, or the judgment around it or any of that stuff. The fact is that.

Money is an expander. It won't change you. And so we need to get right with ourselves first. Because it's not the money that's going to give us the security. It's not the money that's going to make us feel satisfied. It's not the money that's going to make us do the things that we want to do. It's us. It's us. That leads me to the third thing. And the third Thing is really this. The real goal isn't the money. I thought it was hell. I was an accountant, and so I was looking at things through the eyes of the profitability, the money, the bank account, all the data, all the statistics. But really looking at what really matters is freedom. What really matters is the ability to have choice in our life. That's why we do it. That's why we want the money. That's why we. We're building the wealth. It's not the wealth itself. It's the real goal is freedom. And the real goal of that freedom is choice. To be able to have a chance to decide. I'm going to do what I want to do, where I want to do it, how I want to do it, with whom I want to do it. If I want to travel for a month, I get to travel for a month. If I don't want to work for a month, I don't have to work for a month. If I want to work hard, if I want to give to a cause, if I want to get into a mission, I get a chance to make a decision and do it my way. And.

That was huge. And now you're looking at all of this realizing that a lot of this has nothing to do with the dollars and cents, but it has a lot to do with the life account. And I think that's the big lesson here. The next one is to realize the mindset shift is necessary to change everything.

This is something that I. God, I wish I learned this so much earlier in the money game, and I just didn't, and it took me a while. We have to realize that money. I hear people say this, that money is a tool. I actually don't know that it's a tool. Money is a result, for sure, okay? But it's not a purpose. I see money as a paintbrush. I see money as the paintbrush that you use to paint the masterpiece called your life. And so we need to decide what we want on a paintbrush. I mean, the fact is, is that if we don't use the paintbrush, right, if we don't use money, right, it won't give us the freedom we want. It will trap us. There's so many people that I know that have. Have tens of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars, but they're not free. It's why I say that we should be measuring our wealth in time and not dollars. Because he or she, who has a lot of money in the bank account but does not have the ability and agency over their time to choose is still a poor life. It's still a trapped life. And I look at it and say, I want to have the ability to choose Earth. Earning more is great, but if you spend it all, you're still stuck. Saving is crucial, but saving alone isn't going to make you rich. The reality is that investing is where the real wealth happens. We need to invest. And that investing, when we do it right, will build the money machine, like I talk about in my book. And that's going to give you the freedom, because all of a sudden, your money's working harder for you than you did for it. And when you do that, now, it's true freedom because you have choice, because you have the ability to choose. And so the growth that comes about in this.

It'S not just financial, it's personal, too. Your financial journey is a personal growth journey because you have to become the person that can hold the money, that can grow the money, that can use the money for good, and that can appreciate it along the way. Okay? And so this was huge. And that leads me to kind of this next point of why do people.

Struggle even when they're financially successful, but why do they struggle with money? Why is that the case? And I think that the problem is that many of us, including myself, we fall into a trap. And that trap is the I will be happy when trap. I will be happy when I make more money. I will be happy when I have a million dollars. I will be happy when I have $10 million, whatever it is. I even did this with my book. I remember having this conversation with someone. I was stressed out. Book was to come out in June. I was in February having lunch. And I could tell, tell I was stressed out because I really wanted this book to hit. But what happened is the stress was being caused by this insecurity, this thought. And I didn't realize it was in the back of my head until someone asked me the question, you know, what are you focused on? And I was at that moment, when I first wrote the book, the whole focus was to serve to make a difference, to give you the pathway to take control of your finances and be in control and on the path to financial freedom. Because I believe financial freedom is a birthright, and yet people don't know how to claim it. And we're told not to talk about it. And I want that to stop. And the challenge is that somewhere along that line, I started to look and focus on God, I want to hit the best seller list. I want to hit the best seller list. I want to hit the best seller list. And so I started to focus on it. And this person that I was having lunch with, he said, why is that so important to you? And without thinking it came out of my lips, I said, because I think that maybe, just maybe, if I hit the best seller list.

People would accept me more. And as soon as it came off my lips, I realized, oh, my God, I'm walking to the wrong drum. Because.

If that's what it takes to get the acceptance, do I really want it? And even if I hit the bestseller list, I didn't know that people would accept me or not accept me. And the reality is, should it have mattered? Should I have been looking at it that way? And I think that there's some things in our lives that we. We put off because we think that I will be happy when I have more money. I will be happy when I earn more money. I will be happy when I get that promotion. But the reality is that we need to find our happiness now. We need to find that fulfillment today. We need to look at what we have and appreciate what we have. Because like I said before, money doesn't change you. It amplifies you. And if we don't find that happiness, if we don't find. Find that satisfaction today, having more money isn't the solution. Now.

You might have nicer things, you might be able to take more lavish trips, but there's plenty of times that you do that. It's still an empty thing. All right? And then that leads me to. To really the last. The last two things, you know, one thing and a big realization, and that is this. There's a path to financial freedom. And that path actually works. It's a recipe. It's a math equation. And math, maths, anytime you do it. So if you do the right things in the right order, in the right way, then you will get there. Now, it doesn't mean that it's going to happen overnight. It doesn't mean that it's going to be easy, but it doesn't mean that it's impossible. It doesn't matter your age, stage, or circumstances, you can get there. And so when it comes to building wealth, if we just break it down to the bare, bare minimum, the reality is that you have to. You have to control your cash flow, the ins and outs. How much do you earn? How much do you spend? How is that dealt with? We have to spend less than we earn, and then we have to use the difference to build the money machine. Like I talk about the in my book and if we don't, we don't have a path to financial freedom. We are in this spending pattern, this, you know, earn and spend, earn and spend, earn and spend. But we're standing still and we're not growing and we don't have that freedom. And no matter. There's no magic bullet. There's no magic way to do it. We have to create the excess in our life to use that to build the wealth. The second thing that I think is paramount in this journey is that you have the liquidity, an emergency fund or a peace of mind fund as I call it in my book, because that's going to give you peace. And when you have peace, that if there's a downturn, if there's a problem, you're okay and you're not worried about your own survival, that changes things for you. But not only that, having that liquidity is going to give you the space and the ability to fund opportunities when they come to take advantage of things as they present themselves. To be in a position to leapfrog your wealth. If you do that. Number three, invest early and invest often. If you're not investing now, you need to start. I don't care if it's $5, I don't care if it's $10, I don't care if it'S $100, I don't care the amount. I care that you're doing the effort, you're doing the exercise, that you're exercising the habits, the behaviors and the decision making wealthy people do. And that is that they invest early and they invest often. And so if you've got a 401k at work that has a match, let's get to the match. If you don't, let's put it in a Roth IRA or an ira, let's get money, start working for you, and get it done. The problem is this. A lot of people will say, when I make more money, then I can do it. But if you don't develop the habit when the money you make is smaller, you won't use the habit when the money make you make is bigger. So it's important for you to do that. Then. Number four is to create multiple income streams. Now, here's what I'm saying. I don't want you to create multiple income streams at the same time. I want you to get one income stream that is spinning and working for you.

At an optimal rate. Then we can look at other income streams. And I did a whole show on the 12 different income streams that I have. The Reality is that I want you to have multiple income streams for a couple reasons. One, if one income stream happens to go away, like I shut down some income streams when I was dealing with my cancer. I had other income streams that were coming in to support me that paid the bills that kept us going. I want you to have the security of not being dependent on a single way to make money. The second thing is that that it gives you a bigger shovel of money and cash flow to build your wealth. And then number five, the last thing is this, is that you need a dynamic plan. You cannot map your path to any destination without having a plan. And that plan is going to be built.

Knowing what your enough is, what we started with, knowing what your current reality is and creating the plan to fill the gap, to fill the void. And when you do that, you have a path to creating financial freedom. The path to your dream life. But without a plan, you might make it, but by happenstance or coincidence. I do not want your financial future to be coincidence of your life. I want it to be an incident of your deliberate choices based upon a plan and a vision to make that happen. So with that, I think like my biggest realization.

That I think I can help you with is really this. At the end of the day.

Money is just a means to an end. It's a paintbrush, it's a tool, however you want to call it it. The real goal is control. The real goal is choice. The real goal is freedom. The real goal is the ability to live life on your terms. To not stress about how the bills are going to get paid. To not stress about am I going to be able to take care of myself in retirement years? To not stress, am I going to be able to fund the children's college or education? To not stress about that. The real goal is living a fulfilled life. The real goal about living a life that is aligned with your vision, with your values, with what you were put here to do. I think that you were put here with a special gift. And that gift is meant to be nurtured and then given back to the world and do it in that way. So the biggest lesson that I think I've learned in 30 plus years of doing this on my own journey to financial freedom and helping others navigate, is that you have everything you need. It's within you to create that financial freedom. It starts with how you use today. It starts with the choices you make today. It starts with how you show up now. Doesn't mean that you may not have a steep hill to climb or a big boulder to push. But just because it's difficult doesn't make it impossible. Let's do this together. I'll guide you, I'll help you. I'll answer your question questions. And I'll keep you on the path to living the life that you were meant to live, the life that you deserve to live, the life that you dream to live. It may not be today, but it will come. Because I believe your dream is coming. Alright? I hope you found this valuable. I hope that you'll take some of the things that I talked about here and put it into your life. Let's cut some decades off, let's cut some frustration, let's cut some stress off, and let's get you on the path to financial freedom. All right, Until I get a chance to see you in another one of these episodes, always, always keep dreaming big and always, always strive to live a life that outlives you. All right, I'll see you in the next one. Cheers. Bye.

Thank you for listening to the affluent entrepreneur show with me, your host, Mel Abraham. If you want to achieve financial liberation to create an affluent lifestyle, join me in the affluent entrepreneur Facebook group now by going to melabraham.com group and I'll see you there.

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