How to become financially free
How do I become financially free?
It’s a question I used to ponder a lot without really trying to do anything about it. I knew what it meant to be financially free - make enough money to do whatever you want whenever you want to do it. Make that money from anywhere and never have anyone tell you what to do. Ever.
I knew I wanted it, and I knew I had to find a way.
Fast forward 5 years and I have done exactly this, freeing myself from the 9-5 rat race and making more money than I know what to do with - all at the tender age of 26. Do you know how powerful that feeling of TOTAL freedom is?
It’s something only a few will ever experience.
But you can.
I’m not here to sell you anything, I just want you to realise your potential.
So this blog post is going to outline absolutely EVERYTHING that has ensured I live each and every day to its fullest, maximising my output, my time and my wealth creation.
You can pick at this list like a buffet. No need to do it all, but maybe build up with 4 or 5 and add a new one every week or two. When you are doing every single one of these consistently every day, you simply won’t recognise the person who you once were.
I know I did.
START USING GOOGLE CHROME
This is a non-negotiable if you are serious about optimising your life. Safari is absolutely god awful.
Not sure of the capabilities of Mozilla Firefox, Duck Duck Go or whatever weird browser you may use, but Chrome allows for lots of amazing extensions, which leads me onto…
DOWNLOAD UNHOOK FOR YOUTUBE
I have been using this for at least 6 months now. It gets rid of your suggestions, home feed, sidebars and all other bullshit that sucks you down rabbit holes of pointless nonsense. You can still click your subscriptions but it will really take the addictiveness out of YouTube. It's insane how much this cut my pointless YouTube watching time.
DOWNLOAD FEED ERADICATOR
Another game changer. This gets rid of every social media feed on desktop. Instagram, FaceBook, LinkedIn, etc. This will again free up another one or two hours of your day and stop you getting sucked into comment sections, tangents and other stupid stuff that ruins deep work.
DELETE INSTAGRAM
Go ghost mode for at least a month and see how you feel. You will realise how much time we truly spend checking stories, feeds, reels, explore page and just doing meaningless bullshit. This will free up at least 2 hours of your day.
I have written about this at length here.
DON'T WATCH TV OR MOVIES AND DON’T PLAY VIDEO GAMES
If you're serious about winning your day, you can gain an extra 2 to 3 hours just by not consuming mind numbing content. How dare you think that you can play video games and watch TV for dozens of hours every single week whilst being productive?
I used to think maybe you could strike some sort of balance, but it’s just not possible. Your brain will never focus on problems to overcome in business and life because it’s too busy thinking about all that dopamine-laden entertainment that you fill your head with.
Grow up.
HAVE A SET SCHEDULE
Get up and go to bed at the same time every day. Know at what time you will eat, brush your teeth, do your hair, have a shower - absolutely every second needs to accounted for.
By doing this, you reduce the fatigue placed on your brain. If your clothes are ready to go from the night before, you know at 7:05 you take a pee and at 8:00 you sit down to work then these things become automatic and your mind registers them as non-negotiable.
Even when you don't want to do them, you just simply *do* because that's what you do. To not do these things would be as weird as not walking.
Run your life like clockwork and the results will come in every aspect of your being.
TURN ALL NOTIFICATIONS OFF ON YOUR PHONE
Why even have them on?
I have calls on. Everything else I need to physically go into the app to check. That's it. If you don't go in to check, how important are those notifications really?
By doing this, you reduce the allure of your phone. It's not constantly reeling you in with red dots and it allows you to develop momentum without needless distractions.
SIDENOTE
So you can see the above are all based around optimising your time and making your day as long as possible. By cutting out all of this stuff that saps your attention, you can genuinely gain up to 6 or 7 hours of dedicated focus time back. Imagine that compounded over just one week? If you put the work in every weekend (and don't fall victim to the calendar effect like a civilian moron) then imagine how that compounds over a month? A year? In 5 years you'll be so far ahead of your peers you won't even be able to see them.
You'll be so far in the stratosphere of success that they will be infinitesimal little specs of dust.
GET A BUSINESS, GIVE IT A NAME, DEVELOP A WEBSITE AND SECURE A DOMAIN & EMAIL
This is the fun part. Develop a sick business idea, give it a name and make it real by getting a site, domain and associated email (and pro signature to adorn all outbound emails).
To become who you want to become, you need to look the part. A website and online identity for your professional life does this with aplomb.
Also, if you ever need a site. Head here.
PITCH TWICE A DAY, EVERY DAY
Your ideal client doesn't exist on one time zone. Pitch in the morning and in the early evening. Make it easy for them to talk to you by including a Calendly link.
This pitch has been BUSSIN for me of late. Keep it simple, show them the work and make it as smooth as possible to discuss further:
"Hi,
{NAME} here. I’d love to {WHATEVER SERVICE YOU PROVIDE} for you. As an {WHAT ARE YOU?}, I can guarantee a flawless service.
You can find my full portfolio at {PORTFOLIO LINK} but I’ve picked a few examples I think you’ll like below:
LINK TO EXAMPLE 1
LINK TO EXAMPLE 2
LINK TO EXAMPLE 3
If you want to discuss things in more depth, please book in for a call at a time that works for you here: {CALENDLY LINK}”
Make it even easier for YOU by including all the places you pitch every day in a Trello card.
For your reference, here are the links to places I pitch that reside in my personal Trello:
Peopleperhour.com
Dribbble.com
Behance.net
99designs.co.uk
Worksome.co.uk
Linkedin.com
Upwork.com
Facebook.com
I would recommend looking for lots of other platforms too such as Freelancer. This is one area where spreading yourself thinly is a good idea. I caught one of my biggest on Worksome and haven't had a client there since, but because I was on there every day I managed to snag them. Imagine you do that across every platform every day. You might snag 3 clients a week that you would have otherwise missed because you weren't putting yourself in the right shop window and forcing the initiative.
Optimise your online profiles
Your website, LinkedIn, People Per Hour, UpWork, Behance, Dribbble, etc. All of these profiles need to be a coherent narrative that describes who you are, what you do and why you're the best.
Don't you dare be humble here.
Clients want THE best and THE best doesn't talk themselves down.
I guarantee if you don't talk about how amazing you are, someone else will do about themselves and they'll be the ones getting the clients.
Be confident.
USE LINKEDIN LIKE YOUR DIARY
Just post win after win. Jazz up how big it is, it doesn't matter if it's not - just make it sound like it is.
You may think people aren't watching, but they are. You'll also need to optimise your profile to be found by people looking for your service. Make sure it’s clear what you do and that you are available for hire. Commit to being one thing and be it. Don’t have a jack of all trades vibe going on. No self-respecting client will ever hire you if you present yourself like this.
learn more about How I became financially free and how you can too
If you want to find out how I became a digital nomad using this blog and how you can do exactly the same thing, check out my course here. For more information about how to free yourself, check out the video below 👇
Or if you want to jump ahead, feel free to skip this.
It teaches you everything you’ll need to create a successful blog, freeing yourself from the 9-5 and allowing you to travel the world for free, making crazy money whilst doing it.
What are you waiting for?
PROFESSIONALISE YOUR ENTIRE WORKFLOW
Onboarding form > Proposal / Contract > Deposit > Deliver > Final payment > Handover
This is how your workflow should look. You should set up a Google form to get all the info you need from your client.
Then you should send over a proposal/contract document that outlines what you will deliver. It should be mocked up in Canva and sent via Signwell which is a free e-signature software. This covers you and the client.
Once this is signed, send over a professional invoice. Bite the bullet, pay for a professional bookkeeping subscription and use their invoicing tool. This ensures zero mistakes can be made and looks extremely professional.
Deliver your work with a watermark somehow. Google how top players in your industry do this to see how you can supply work that you still have jurisdiction over. You don't EVER want a client to take the work and bail on payment. Always have your power play so they pay on time.
Then when they pay, you can deliver it to them via your project hub, which you should always set up for new clients to encourage repeat work. You can repurpose my project hub here.
JOIN FB GROUPS
Join some that are based around your industry, offering free advice to those looking for it and look around for people requesting paid help or recommendations.
INVEST IN SOFTWARE
If you know of software that will help cut your working time down and allow you to pump out more projects then do it.
PAY FOR A COURSE
Further down the line, but one to keep in mind. Up-skilling yourself and learning from the very best in the world will be invaluable.
I’ve invested in around 4 courses so far and each has propelled me to a different level in some way or another. Sometimes you will just get one beautiful little nugget of info that changes the game.
This is what makes courses so valuable to those who want to be the best at what they do.
DO IT EVERY DAY
Don't go balls to the wall one day and then take the next off. Even if you feel lazy, just do the easy stuff. Pick that low hanging fruit and box your admin off. Add portfolio pieces across your site and online profiles - just at least tick some boxes and you can go to bed knowing you moved the needle forward. If not directly that day, then for future you.
If you do this every day for even just a month you will be a completely different animal.
Most of all, you need to believe you are that guy.
Become who you always knew you were.
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