3 Bad Habits Holding You Back from Financial Freedom

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3 Bad Habits Holding You Back from Financial Freedom

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Transcript
00:00All right, so in this video,
00:00we're gonna be talking about three bad habits
00:03that could potentially be holding you back
00:04from getting to financial freedom.
00:06Now, if you're new here, hi, my name is Ali.
00:07I'm a doctor turned entrepreneur,
00:09and for the last seven years,
00:10I've been documenting the journey on this YouTube channel,
00:12starting off as a medical student, making videos,
00:14helping students study for exams,
00:16and eventually building a business
00:17to the point where I am financially free.
00:19Now, for me, that journey has been very long
00:21and very windy, and I've been trying
00:22to get to financial freedom for the last 15 years,
00:25and it took me maybe 12 years
00:26to get to the point of financial freedom.
00:27So I'm hoping that by watching this video
00:30and the other videos on my channel
00:31where we talk about this stuff,
00:32you're able to shortcut that process.
00:34So we're gonna talk about three bad habits
00:35that are potentially holding you back,
00:37but before we do that, let's talk about
00:38how should we even think philosophically
00:40about what financial freedom is and how do we get there.
00:43All right, so what is financial freedom?
00:45Well, I really like Professor Scott Galloway's definition,
00:48which is financial freedom is when your passive income
00:51exceeds your burn rate, i.e. there is more money coming in
00:54without you having to do stuff
00:55than there is money that you are spending.
00:58This means that if you wanna be financially free,
00:59you've kind of got two levers to play with.
01:01You can increase the amount of passive income
01:03you have coming into your life,
01:05or you can decrease the amount of money that you're spending,
01:07and ideally, you would do some sort of combination
01:09of the two things, and you probably won't want to retire
01:11and just not do anything because that gets boring
01:14after a while, and then people who retire get depressed
01:17and have heart attacks and stuff,
01:18but you'll have the freedom and the ability
01:20to do what you want, when you want, with whom you want,
01:23and you will probably realise that you want to do work
01:25of some sort, but you'll have the freedom
01:26to choose what sort of work you're actually doing,
01:28and that's really the true value of financial freedom.
01:30So that then sort of begs the question,
01:32how do you arrive at this point of financial freedom
01:34where you're increasing your passive income
01:35and that passive income is greater than your costs?
01:37Well, based on this equation, we can basically see
01:40that there are two levers you can pull.
01:41You can decrease your costs
01:42or you can increase your passive income.
01:44Now, broadly, there are actually two paths to this.
01:47MJ DeMarco, in his book, The Millionaire Fast Lane,
01:49which is a good book, says there's the slow lane path,
01:53and then there is the fast lane path,
01:55and even fast lane, for the record,
01:57he defines as being about 10 years long,
01:59so that's considered fast in this world.
02:01So the slow lane path is where you have a job
02:04and your job generates income,
02:06and then you put that income into savings
02:08or into investments or into slowly buying out a property
02:11every now and then, or maybe putting it
02:12in a stock market index fund like the S&P 500,
02:14and eventually, you use what's called the 4% rule,
02:18which is that let's say you end up having a million pounds
02:21in the S&P 500, which is a stock market index fund,
02:25you can withdraw 4% of that safely every year
02:27without touching the principal,
02:28so your passive income in that case would be 40K per year.
02:33Now, if you can live on less than 40K per year,
02:35inflation adjusted, et cetera, et cetera,
02:37now you are financially free
02:38because your passive income has exceeded
02:40your lifestyle costs.
02:42This is the slow lane path.
02:43This takes a very long time to get there,
02:45and there is an alternative approach.
02:47The alternative approach is the fast lane path,
02:49and the fast lane path is where you really figure out,
02:52can I build some sort of asset
02:55or can I build some sort of business?
02:58The slow way of getting to financial freedom
03:00is by having a job and by saving and investing well
03:02and doing that over a very long period of time.
03:04The faster way, which still probably takes about 10 years,
03:07is to build some sort of asset
03:08or to build some sort of business,
03:09and so in this video, I really wanna focus
03:11on this fast lane approach.
03:12There are other videos, and we might do one in the future,
03:14that is aimed at people where the goal is,
03:17you know what, I just wanna have a job
03:18and I wanna put aside 20% of my income into investments
03:21and 20 years from now, I will then be financially free.
03:24To me, that doesn't hold much appeal
03:28because I don't really wanna be financially free
03:31when I'm 50.
03:31I'd like to be financially free when I'm 30 or 35 or 28
03:35or 25 or 23 or whatever the thing might be.
03:37Really, I'd like to be financially free
03:38as soon as possible because then I'm able to use my time,
03:41which is my most valuable non-renewable resource,
03:44on things that I actually want to use my time on
03:46rather than necessarily on my day job,
03:48which if I was able to design my life however I wanted,
03:50chances are I wouldn't do the day job
03:52that I'm currently doing.
03:53So the goal really is the fast lane approach
03:55to financial freedom.
03:56How do we build an asset or business
03:57that boosts our passive income
03:59while keeping our lifestyle costs reasonably low
04:00so that we can get to this equation for financial freedom?
04:03And so in this video, I wanna talk about three bad habits
04:05that are holding you back from this fast lane approach
04:08and hold a lot of people back.
04:10The first one is, what's the first one?
04:14All right, so let's talk about bad habit number one.
04:18Now, if we understand this equation,
04:19we know that the goal is to build some sort of asset
04:22that gives us enough passive income
04:23such that we can feel financially free.
04:26And the way we do this is a skill.
04:30It is a skill.
04:31It is not luck.
04:32Of course, luck is involved, as with everything in life,
04:34but the ability to build businesses and assets is a skill.
04:37If you were to take all of Elon Musk's money
04:40and connections and stuff away,
04:41he would probably become financially free fairly quickly
04:44because he has the skill of building businesses and assets.
04:47And with me, I have less of a skill
04:48of building businesses and assets than Elon Musk does,
04:50but I've been trying to make money on the internet
04:52and building businesses for about 15 years of my life now,
04:55so I would say I have the skill.
04:56So if I were to lose all of my money and all my clout
04:58and all my fame and my YouTube channel and everything,
05:00I suspect within a year,
05:01I would probably be able to get to a point
05:03of financial freedom because I have the skill
05:04of building assets and businesses
05:06that have developed over the last 15 years.
05:08Now, given that this is a skill,
05:11I think this is one key important thing to keep in mind
05:13that a lot of people who aspire to financial freedom
05:16just don't appreciate that the skill
05:17of building these assets is a skill,
05:19and like all skills, skills can be learned.
05:21And so really bad habit number one
05:22is the habit of ignorance,
05:24where you A, don't recognise that it is a skill
05:26to build assets and businesses to get to financial freedom,
05:28and B, even if you do realise that,
05:30you're just not putting in the time to absorb the stuff
05:33that will give you a sense of what this map is.
05:35But one good financial habit
05:36that you can start right now is investing,
05:38and you might wanna manage it with a service
05:40like Trading212, who are very kindly sponsoring this video.
05:43Trading212 is a fantastic app that I personally use
05:46that lets you invest in stocks and shares
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05:58Both the Cash ISA and the Stocks & Shares ISA are flexible,
06:01meaning you can withdraw from them
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06:06And they also have a new Trading212 card
06:08that gives you 1.5% cash back,
06:10which will be allocated to your invest account
06:12for each deposit that you make into your ISA.
06:14They also have an awesome Pies & Auto-Invest feature,
06:16which are powerful tools
06:17for creating diversified portfolios
06:19and automating the monthly investing process
06:21with scheduled deposits.
06:22So if any of that sounds up your street,
06:24then do hit the link in the video description,
06:25and that will take you to this page
06:26where you'll be guided on how to sign up for an account.
06:28And if you use that link,
06:29then you'll also get a free share
06:31up to the value of 100 pounds,
06:32so you might as well, it's just free money.
06:34So thank you so much Trading212 for sponsoring this video,
06:36and let's get back to it.
06:37So how do you learn about the skill?
06:38Well, you carve out time in your day to read books,
06:41to listen to audio books, to listen to podcasts,
06:43to watch YouTube videos
06:44about building that skill of building businesses.
06:47On my podcast, for example,
06:48there's a bunch of videos I've done with other entrepreneurs
06:50where they break down the exact methods they used
06:52to grow multi-million dollar businesses
06:54and to become financially free.
06:55Similarly, there are a bunch of books.
06:56There's Million Dollar Weekend by Noah Kagan,
06:58there's Millionaire Fastlane by MJ DeMarco,
07:00there's Cody Sanchez and his new book coming out
07:03that's very good,
07:04Make Epic Money by Ankur Waraku.
07:06Just looking around at my day,
07:07like there's Dotcom Secrets by Russell Brunson,
07:09there's Anything by Alex Huamose.
07:11There are literally hundreds and hundreds,
07:13probably thousands,
07:14maybe even tens of thousands of business books out there.
07:16Lots of them are inaudible.
07:17You can listen to them in audio book format.
07:19How many of those have you read?
07:20If you're like most people I speak to
07:21about financial freedom,
07:22the answer is probably not very many.
07:25I'd say maybe about 80% of people don't really read enough
07:28or listen enough or watch enough stuff
07:30about building the skill of building businesses.
07:32Oh, by the way, if you're enjoying this video so far,
07:34you might like to check out my book,
07:35Feel Good Productivity.
07:36It's about how to do more of what matters to you
07:38in a way that's enjoyable, meaningful, and sustainable.
07:40And a big part of this journey to financial freedom
07:42is finding the time and energy to actually do the things
07:44that will help us on our route to financial freedom.
07:46So you can check this out.
07:48It's on Kindle, it's on Audible, it's on a hardback.
07:49You can listen to it in the car in your spare time.
07:52I hope you'll get some value from it.
07:53And so at this point, some people might be saying that like,
07:55okay, well, it's a skill,
07:56but you can't get the skill just from learning about it.
07:58And yes, that's true.
07:59You cannot just get the skill by just listening
08:01and learning and reading and all that kind of stuff.
08:02You have to take action as well.
08:04But essentially what the learning does
08:05is that it gives you a firmware update in your own mind.
08:08It lets you see what the map looks like.
08:11It's like, imagine you're navigating a forest
08:12and the destination you're trying to get to
08:14is this destination of financial freedom.
08:16But it's like this dark forest and there's a lot of fog
08:18and you don't know what's going on.
08:20You don't know what the map to that destination looks like.
08:23But when you listen to podcasts where entrepreneurs
08:25who have made millions of dollars
08:26are breaking down exactly the path that they followed,
08:29it's like, oh, okay, that's one route to financial freedom.
08:32You would listen to another podcast
08:33where someone breaks down
08:34how they built a ghostwriting agency
08:36to get to a million dollars a year.
08:37And like, oh, okay, there's another path.
08:39You would watch a YouTube video
08:40where someone like me talks about
08:41how I got to financial freedom
08:43through the vehicle of a YouTube channel.
08:44And that's another path.
08:46And the more you read and listen to
08:48and absorb this sort of stuff,
08:50the more you'll realize that
08:51the pathway from where you are right now
08:53to where you wanna be, which is probably financial freedom
08:55if you're watching this video,
08:56you'll realize that, oh,
08:57there's all of these different paths to getting there.
09:00And then you can decide
09:02which of these paths do I wanna take action on.
09:04You don't need to know what are 100 different paths
09:06to get to financial freedom,
09:07but it's useful to appreciate maybe like 10.
09:10What are 10 different ways
09:11where you could theoretically start
09:12from where you are right now
09:13and get to the goal of financial freedom
09:15within a timeframe that seems reasonable to you.
09:17And you do that by reading, by listening to,
09:19by watching stuff.
09:20And once you have those 10, at that point,
09:21you can move on to habit number two,
09:22which is we've talked about how you can get a sense
09:25of what this map is based on the learning.
09:28But bad habit number two is where
09:29even when you do have a sense of what this map is,
09:31you decide to stay exactly where you are
09:33and you don't decide to go on this journey.
09:36You don't take action.
09:37Bad habit number two is the habit of inaction.
09:41There are a lot of people I know
09:42who aspire to financial freedom,
09:43who don't do any learning about it at all.
09:45But then there's also quite a lot of people
09:46who do aspire to financial freedom,
09:48but who are stuck in this sort of paradox
09:49of just consistently consuming content
09:51and never actually taking any action.
09:54Maybe you're in that boat.
09:55If you're watching this video,
09:55maybe you've seen all of my videos about financial freedom.
09:57Maybe you've listened to my podcast.
09:58Maybe you've read these books that I've mentioned.
10:00Maybe you've been watching every video
10:01that Alex Huamose has ever put out,
10:03but maybe you haven't actually taken that first step
10:06to try and make your first dollar on the internet.
10:08Maybe you're not carving out the time
10:09to actually take action on the thing.
10:11Now, how do you do that?
10:12How do you do that if you're busy,
10:13if you're, maybe you're a student
10:14and you've got stuff to do in the day,
10:15maybe you've got a full-time job,
10:17so you have stuff to do during the day.
10:18Maybe you're a parent, you've got kids,
10:19so you've got stuff to do during the day
10:21and like not even during the day.
10:22Firstly, it's important to realise
10:23that almost everyone who ends up becoming financially free,
10:26very few of them got there
10:27by having a completely empty calendar
10:29and they just had swaths and swaths of spare time.
10:32And that's how they were able to build that business.
10:35Mostly, you know, I've interviewed probably
10:36hundreds of people at this point who are financially free.
10:39They were all busy.
10:40They all had life commitments, family commitments,
10:44job commitments, the whole shebang.
10:46And they found a way to build this asset
10:48or build this business
10:49if they're going down the fast lane approach
10:51in their spare time.
10:52So what might this look like?
10:53In the case of one of my friends,
10:55what he does is that he carves out Monday
10:57and Tuesday evening after work every week
10:59without fail to work on his YouTube channel
11:01and his courses business because he has decided
11:03that YouTube channel plus selling a course
11:05is the vehicle that he wants to do
11:06to get to financial freedom.
11:07If a friend says,
11:08hey, do you wanna hang out on Monday evening?
11:09He's like, nope, sorry, I'm busy that evening.
11:12He does Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday
11:13to hang out with friends,
11:14but Monday and Tuesday evening is carved out
11:16for work on the YouTube channel and work on the course.
11:18Alternatively, you might decide
11:19that an hour every morning before work
11:21is the amount of time you are carving out
11:23to work on your dream of financial freedom.
11:24That is the time you are gonna spend taking action.
11:27It's not the time you're spending learning the skill
11:29because you can learn the skill while doing the laundry,
11:31while doing the washing, while commuting to work.
11:32You can listen to stuff,
11:33you can watch videos in those spare moments
11:35throughout the day,
11:36but it's those concerted hour long at least blocks of time
11:39where you're actually taking action
11:40and actually trying to build the thing.
11:42So many people aspire to financial freedom.
11:44Very few people put in the time
11:46because if you look at someone's calendar
11:48and you see what they spend their time actually doing,
11:51for most people who aspire to financial freedom,
11:53you'll probably find that the calendar
11:54does not reflect this goal of financial freedom.
11:57And then finally, we come to bad habit number three.
11:59And this is a habit that I like to call
12:01environmental inertia.
12:03Inertia is sort of where you just let things happen
12:06as they already happening.
12:07You're sort of operating with the default mode.
12:09Now we've talked about how an important habit
12:11in getting to financial freedom is learning the skills
12:12and appreciating what the map looks like.
12:14We've talked about taking action,
12:15but there's a third aspect,
12:16which is intentionally designing your environment
12:19so that you're able to come into contact with people
12:23and with inspiration that will help you out on your journey.
12:25You know, one of the easiest ways to get to financial freedom
12:27or rather to speed up your process
12:29in getting to financial freedom
12:30is to surround yourself with people
12:32who are also on that journey.
12:33Now, these people might be exactly
12:35where you are on that journey.
12:36There might be a couple of steps in front of you.
12:37There might be a couple of steps behind you,
12:39but if you have friends, colleagues, relatives, a network,
12:42if you have people around you
12:43who are also on the journey to financial freedom,
12:45you're all more likely to make it
12:47because you all benefit from this compounding effect
12:49with the people that we have around us.
12:50People around us give us a lot of energy.
12:52It like means that when motivation dips,
12:55which it always does on this journey to financial freedom,
12:57it's not really a straight line,
12:58it's more like a sine wave where motivation waxes and wanes.
13:00In those moments where you're feeling down,
13:02where your business isn't working,
13:03you just got rejected from a sales call that you did,
13:06your YouTube video absolutely flopped,
13:07no one bought your course, all of that stuff,
13:09you have people around you who understand.
13:11They get the journey that you're on.
13:13If all of the friends that you have
13:15are people who have normal jobs
13:16and who do not aspire to financial freedom,
13:18chances are you will find it very difficult
13:21to go on that journey on your own.
13:22It is a lot easier to go on that journey
13:24when you're with other people.
13:25So environmental inertia
13:26is when you're not putting any effort
13:27into designing your environment.
13:28You're not putting any effort into going to events
13:31for aimed at entrepreneurs or aspiring entrepreneurs.
13:33You're not putting any effort into going to classes.
13:34You're not putting any effort into going to meetups.
13:36You're not putting in any effort
13:37to reach out to people in your local area
13:39through Twitter or Instagram
13:40who you might be able to send a cold message to.
13:42Be like, hey, you're an entrepreneur, I am as well.
13:44I've checked out what you're doing.
13:45Would you like to grab coffee or lunch sometime?
13:47Creating this network of other entrepreneurs,
13:49other people trying to build assets and businesses
13:51on this fast lane to financial freedom,
13:53I think is one of the biggest things you can do
13:56to massively shortcut your process of getting there
13:58and to ensure that you don't allow the dips in motivation
14:01to completely stall your progress on this journey.
14:04Now, if you vibed with this video,
14:05firstly, I would love to hear a comment
14:07in terms of if you're at this point,
14:08what is one action point you're taking away
14:10from this video on your journey to financial freedom?
14:12And secondly, if you want a whole video
14:14where I break down the journey in more detail,
14:15you should check out this video over here,
14:17which is my honest advice
14:18to someone who wants financial freedom.
14:19And in that video, I recommend a bunch
14:21of different resources that you can use
14:22to also improve your odds of getting to financial freedom.
14:25So thank you so much for watching.
14:26Have a lovely day and I'll see you in the next video.
14:27Bye-bye.