Billy Keels  0:00  

The simple way to recognize when you've achieved freedom. Today's conversation is sponsored by the Billy Keels advisory program. If you want to learn more about how to make your nine to five optional, just go to Billy keels.com forward slash advising. Once again, that's Billy keels.com. Forward slash advising. The simple way to recognize when you've achieved freedom is something that I wish I would have had early on. Well actually, just the clarity I wish I would have had that early on as well. But today's episode I want to really share with you. This is one of the things that I feel like in a lot of the calls that I have, there is a common theme of really wanting to to get to freedom, get to figure out how you get financial freedom, how you want to have location freedom. And a lot of the different concepts that you hear out there that we talk about, but recognizing that there's this constant struggle. And the other day, I was, believe it or not, I was scrolling through social media, and there was this video that came across by a guy named Dan Martell, and he was in this video. He's talking about a concept about freedom, right? A lot of different people talk about freedom, and what it made me realize is this whole concept of of being free, right, and being financially free. It really made me think about the, like I said, the conversations that I have with high paid executives that are many would see on the outside as already like free or rich, right? I think about it, and, you know, I think that there was a time when you would have asked, I would have maybe not said it out loud. But other people have thought, hey, you know what? Like, I was rich, but the thing is, I didn't have my freedom. I wasn't free. And that was this whole Dan Martell video talked about, which was freedom. And so this concept of like, being rich and being free, like that can be very, very it can get really convoluted, right? Because at the time, if I think, think about my my bank account, someone say, Hey, man, rich, well, that's why. Why do you say that is it? Because I had enough money in my bank account to buy the stuff that I wanted to buy to not have to think about the prices that were on the on the tag, possibly, yeah, and that, when you go through that, that's just a moment in time, having money is one thing. But the reality is, if you would have asked me, like, what was the thing that was keeping me up at night, was really like, saying, hey, look, can you actually weather a financial storm, things, everything goes south. Can you, can you weather that? Can your family, whether that, can you take care of of your children? So at the end of the day, those are the things that matter. And I guess when I started realizing this is, you know, like, I think in my I'm in my late 30s, this happens to a lot of people talking this whole concept of, you know, to recognize when you're when you're actually free. It's in my late 30s. I realized, like, life was getting ready to change. I stopped looking. I stopped. I realized that I was very fortunate, because I was stopping. I didn't look at how much things costed anymore. I just simply didn't think about it, because I was focused on work. I was earning a lot of money, I was traveling, I was most of the time out working, and because I didn't realize how things were going. Then ultimately, I had a conversation that kind of changed my life. But more importantly, I had this realization, like, if I stopped working, and once again, this is my late 30s, my mid to late 30s, probably around 36 I realized, if I did, if I stopped working at that point in time, like there would literally be no other income to come in every month, because I couldn't count on the stock market, because I kind of played that game early on, and I didn't do very well, not because I didn't do well, because I didn't understand how the stock market worked, and the amounts that I was putting, the bets, quote, unquote, that I was making, were so small that it didn't really change anything. So I knew that if I stopped working, then I was going to be in trouble, even though I was in a point in my life when I wasn't thinking about how much anything costed. And so as I was going through this point in life, and it's coming back, thinking about this whole concept of freedom, and getting confused many times, because people say we're not free because they're they're making a lot of money, but they're not free. And they're free but they're making they're not making money. So all this whole concept got to be really weird. But then I started realizing that I was meeting execs from different countries, starting to be in roles that were global. So I had contact with a lot of different people, and I started realizing that there were corporate executives that were actually living stressed, right? A lot of stress, because usually when you're making a lot of money and you're you know that you want to over deliver because you realize that you are overpaid. Sounds crazy, but you know, if you feel like you're overpaid, so what do you do? You overcompensate. You work harder, you put in more hours, because you want to show everybody your boss, your company, your family, you. That you are more than worth the money that they're paying you. But then I started getting this insight into these very specific groups of execs that you know these people would have, or these execs would have less worries and have more control over their time, right? Because they were also doing things differently. And so I started trying to understand, like, what is it that they were, that they were doing? And I knew that eventually, because this is over a period of time now, I'm in, you know, in my in my late 30s, I knew that if I could take these investments that I had been investing in I could get to a point where I could make them scale. And if I was thinking at the point in time, if I can get these to truly scale, then there's few investments could actually lead to something bigger. I could start to build a business. And why am I telling you that? Because I sat down and I actually figured out like, All right, well, what do I need to do? How do I need to get there? How do I start to get control over this? And so I actually sat down and figured out what, what, what is known. What I talk about is my optionality number. And if you want to find out more about that, go listen to episode 457, take you a bit more into the details. Exactly what I did to figure that out. I started realizing that, okay, I want to move in this direction. I want to continue to do that. I want to also make sure that I'm continuing to perform in my role, at my job, at my company. I wanted to make sure that I continue to perform there, because that was the basis, the foundation for everything. And then at that point, I realized that also I was wanting to move my energy was taking me more in the direction to build this business, because I knew I would have more control over the business, over the income, and also that would give me more control over ultimately, what was important is how I utilize my time. But there was this moment where I was completely conflicted, and pretty much every executive that I talked to, that I that I work with, goes through the same thing. You're in a highly visible role making a lot of money, and you want to prove your worth. And many times, there's this internal conflict that will start to happen. This comes, this is all going to come back to freedom, right? It because it's a matter of saying you're you're earning so much money from your job that you're putting your company's priorities in front of your own life priorities. And usually your life priorities aren't crystal clear. And so it's much easier to focus on something that is clear, like your revenue target, the number of people that need to be promoted, the profitability number that you need to hit, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And so I was also going through a very similar like putting companies priorities in front of my own. So when you start to realize that, is that something that's getting you closer to your quote, unquote freedom, or is it not, but it's an internal kind of struggle that I went through, and that so many others go through, which is one of the reasons of kind of give you some perspective on what what can be done, and also the simple way for you to recognize when You have achieved freedom, it's something very simple, because what I started realizing is that, yes, I built the business, and I focused on it, and over the span of 10 years, got to a point where even the companies that I had built in in the companies and the businesses were were built, had brought in over ten million of revenue, right? And doing that in a span of, really, towards the towards the end, a span of three, four years, right? So most people from the outside would say, Yeah, you were absolutely free. You were doing all the kind of things that you wanted to do. But the question is, is, was that truly freedom? Does that mean you've achieved freedom just because it's a number? That's the whole point here. Like the point here is it wasn't. It's not the numbers, not the continuing to chase the number, trying to continue to make more money, do more things. The biggest way that I realized that I started to have freedom, and that I want you to realize that you have freedom. It's not chasing a number, but it's being able to say that you have the ability to own your time so that you can do the things that are most important to you. For instance, for me, I started playing video games with my kids like I'd never done like that was important, like, to take the time to invest to play video games with my son, or to make sure that I was at every basketball game, even if it meant that I had to fly overnight from the United States to be at a game first thing on a Saturday morning to see my son play, having control over your time. That is when you truly understand that's the simplest way to recognize that you have truly achieved your freedom because you are employing your time in the way that you want, when you want, with whom you want.

That's the key, right? And if I got lost along the way, the thing that I want to share with you. Day is about, are numbers important? Yes, I will never say that they're not important. At the same time, it's about getting to the goal where you're in control of your time and you employ it, you invest it the way that you want, the way that makes the most sense to you, to your family, to your loved ones, to the people that are important in your life. It's the simplest way to know that you have achieved freedom is when you can do that. No numbers know, any of that kind of stuff. So I wanted to share that with you, like I said, it was inspired while I was scrolling through through some social media channels and seeing that Dan Martell video, and it just thought, you know, I want to share that with you, because it's something that I also talk about very frequently with executives. And I, my goal is that this gives you some perspective on what are the things that are truly important, what is the thing, and how will you understand in a very simple way when you have achieved or getting very close to owning your your freedom? So with that, if it's not you, you know somebody is struggling with this, this concept, this episode, is the exact thing that you can give them. Just send it to them. It's free. Doesn't cost you anything. It's gonna take a couple minutes. That's why I want to make sure that these episodes are short, brief. And listen, I would also say, while you're doing that, while you're sharing, guess where I'm gonna be. I'm gonna be right here, because I'm going to be preparing the very next episode. And so I want to say thank you very, very much. Today's conversation was sponsored by the Billy Keels advisory program. If you're looking to make your nine to five optional and need some help, just go to Billy keels.com. Forward slash advising, once again, that's Billy keels.com. Forward slash advising you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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