Freedom First

CHAPTER 6Putting freedom first

Making freedom your Dominant Value.

I talk to people who tell me ‘I want to be rich’, and so I share with them the financial planning path that, if you start along it early, and with a few tweaks, could allow you to at least retire with a good sum of money after many years of work. But then they say to me,

‘That’s too far away, I want to be rich much sooner.’

And I say,

‘Okay, so you want to be rich, but only if you can do it quickly?’

Then I share with them an ‘entrepreneurial path’ that could see them rich in a couple of years. But they say to me,

‘That sounds too risky.’

So I say to them,

‘Okay, so you want to be rich, but only if you can do it quickly, and with no risk?’

Then I share with them an accelerated ‘earn-save-invest path’ that requires that they get the highest pay they can, do the most overtime, save the most amount of money possible, invest every cent and postpone any luxuries like a nice home, car or hobbies and, with only a bit of luck, they can be rich within 5 to 10 years with little risk. Then they say to me,

‘That sounds too hard’

to which I say,

‘Okay … so you want to be rich, but only if you can do it quickly, without any risk, or without too much effort … are you sure you really want to be rich?’

We saw earlier that values are subconsciously desired states or feelings, not to be confused with things that you consciously value having or doing. Because of this it’s not obvious to most people what it is they value. I touched ...