“Financial freedom is more than not having to worry about paying your bills each month or even quitting your job. Financial freedom is true freedom because it allows you to own your time!”
Now imagine for a minute…
You have money coming in every month…
Your money is automatically deposited into your account…
You don’t have anything you have to do to get money…
You haven’t had a job…in six months…
In fact right now you are sitting on a beach…
You are in a spectacular tropical getaway…
The waves lazily roll in and splash upon the shore…
You just had a one hour massage and feeling truly relaxed…
Now you’re indulging in an icy cold drink…
While eating the best guacamole of your life…
You’ve been here for a week already…
And the best part…
You can stay as long as you’d like!
A month? Ok! You are financially free so you own your time!
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That’s the possibilities of financial freedom for you. Living in a society controlled by what’s in our bank account, the only way to free our time is to not have to trade our time for dollars. Passive income is the key!
Passive income allows you the opportunities to decide what you want to do with your time. Would you choose to quit your job or do you love it? Would you love to volunteer at your child’s school but never have the time? Or just play video games all day just because you can? It’s your choice!
Financial freedom doesn’t equate to the “lifestyles of the rich and famous.” As you learn from Robert Kiyosaki’s books and playing CashFlow, financial freedom is just about having enough passive income coming in to cover the expenses of your current lifestyle. Or strive to generate enough passive income to equal your current earned income (job).
I love playing CashFlow 101 & 202 and running our SFV Financial Freedom CashFlow Club. However the emphasis in the game is on real estate investing and stocks. Those are great assets I’ll definitely invest in, but my passion is businesses. I hope to inspire more of our members to think in the business direction. Yes, it is the most challenging asset class to master but I absolutely love it! As a small business coach, my ultimate goal is to help my clients think differently about being self-employed and make the transition to a true business owner of a passive income producing asset.
My Financial Freedom Journey Update
I set the intention for the New Year (not resolution) that I will be out of the rat race in 2014. I have no doubt I will achieve it but 
journey has been incredible and unexpected. I’ve been open to opportunities and this has been the best year of my life! I set out for financial freedom for money freedom. Well that’s when I realized it actually has to do more with time freedom and very eager for that. The most unexpected development has been on a personal level. I am truly expressing myself more and more each day and coming into my own. I am so happy and it feels natural. I didn’t realize what a negative, repressed person I was before. My new friends don’t even believe me when I say I wasn’t like this all the time. And my old friends don’t even relate this this new person I am (I’m too positive & happy, I guess!) – the majority of those friendships have fallen away. My financial freedom journey has given me the gift of LIFE – of being able to appreciate everything and really live!
Personal Development Is Paramount To Success
Back in December I was re-introduced to the Law of Attraction and my personal development has skyrocketed. I am a happier, positive person. I feel good about myself and am constantly working on feeling better. Having rejected religion as a teen, I haven’t given spiritual guidance a second thought for years. My separation from religion came from struggling with an eating disorder. I didn’t like my body but I also didn’t like the constant battle with food I had unconsciously chose to give power to. After I realizing the only way to free myself of these feeling was to rely on myself since praying to something wasn’t working. I couldn’t pray for something else to take away my feelings of low self-worth, negative self-image, depression, etc. I had to find the desire within myself to make the change and that was the turning point in my life. So I chose to stop my disorder “cold turkey” because that was not something I wanted to keep in my experience. That was the first time I ever consciously made an intention and stuck with it. I learned: I am solely responsible for all of the outcomes in my life. If I want or don’t want something, it can only happen if I set the intention and stick with it.
About a year later I was introduced to Rich Dad Poor Dad. Everything that Robert Kiyosaki taught resonated deep within me and manifested into a burning desire for financial freedom. At 15 I knew financial freedom was the biggest thing I desired. I eagerly devoured financial books from Kiyosaki along with the classics like Think and Grow Rich, The Richest Man in Babylon, etc. I’m not sure at exactly what point my four life goals were ingrained but they’ve been firmly rooted sometime after age 15 from all those personal development books.
- Start First Business By Age 20
- Have Kids By Age 25
- Financially Free Millionaire By Age 30
- Retire by Age 40
I started Reptacular Animals at 19 and my kids came at right before I turned 25. I’m halfway there and achieved my first two goals right on time. Looking back my goals were set perfectly according to the Law of Attraction: I didn’t get too specific and dictate how they had to come about. My goal never left my subconscious but interestingly enough I didn’t even realize I had achieved my first two goals by my deadline until my 20th and 25th birthdays! I had unconsciously manifested them both!
My biggest (I’ll omit mistake and instead say…) learning experience in my first business was that I only worked IN the business and didn’t make the time to work ON the business or myself. I let the unending demands of customers, animals, and employees dictate my time and fell into the self-employed trap. In my case, I lost sight of my financial freedom goal, happily chanting “Reptacular for Life!”, (even considered getting that tattooed!) and planned my entire future around that one business for many years. It wasn’t until I adopted my children and didn’t want to work 7 days a week anymore that I realized I was enslaved to trade my time for dollars. (We had setup the business to pay the owners a consistent salary instead of profits or an owner’s draw.) I’m so grateful I made the decision to have kids earlier as they became my wakeup call. I guess worked out perfectly since I was unconsciously achieving my goals! I was self-employed and deep in the rat race. It was time to make a change and get back to my financial freedom journey. I am consciously setting my intentions now, always working on personal development and loving every minute!
My Financial Freedom Journey Recap (to date)
August 2012 – August 2013
Happily taking full paycheck from Reptacular but business partner and I had reduced our workdays to 4 days a week (after working 7 days a week for 5 years we were tired and felt entitled to work less but of course couldn’t afford a pay cut)
August 2013
– We had been bleeding the business by taking higher pay with not enough workdays (skyrocketing employee payroll costs) so had to go back to full-time plus receive pay cut in order to stabilize business
– Reread Rich Dad Poor Dad and realized [horrified] I was only self-employed and not a true business owner
September 2013
– Take a 75% pay cut to work part-time
– Get idea for a new business
– Discover Rich Dad Seminars and decide to get back to roots
October 2013
– Attend Rich Dad Education preview and signed up for workshop
– Realized not enough money or time to grow new business
November 2013
– After still struggling to balance part-time Reptaclar + part-time new ventures, realized it wasn’t going to work
– Hire staff to take over all my day-to-day responsbilities in Reptacular
– Attend Rich Dad Education 3-day Real Estate Investing (REI) seminar and signed up for Elite Classes
– Started Rich Dad Coaching
December 2013
– Attended Rich Dad Elite class for REI
– Connected with AWESOME mentors
– Jumped into live REI
– Introduced to internet marketing
– Weeks of personal development including Law of Attraction (LAO)*
*This is when everything changed!
January 2014
– Stopped receiving ANY earned income (paycheck) from Reptacular
(only form of income now is adoption assistance money)
– Attended Rich Dad Symposium
– Started promoting my financial freedom journey
– REI
– Deeper into LOA & personal development
February 2014
– LAO brought me a personal hypnotherapist coach for breakthroughs
– MAJOR personal development work
– Wrote my first book on financial freedom journey
– Learning internet marketing
– REI
– Manifested fantastic seminar in Vegas (for free!!)
March 2014
– Old relationships crumbling & new ones with like-minded people forming
– REI
– Became a small business coach with daily webinar & weekly live training (and LOVE it!)
– Worried about money since it had been two months of no income
– Cashed out the last of my ROTH-IRA – yikes!
April 2014
– Founded SFV Financial Freedom Club
– Daily internet marketing webinars
– Weekly live training group growing
– Still stressing about money so have a severe case of “shiny object syndrome”
– Not focused, very concerned with what can make me money the fastest
May 2014
– Made decision to downgrade lifestyle since committed to building business & won’t have a job
– Lost 2-3 weeks dealing with moving
– Manifested going to seminar for business owners (for free!!)
– Manifested a mini vacation with my kids! (subsidized!!)
June 2014 – Hitting it hard now~!
– Downsized from a 4/3 house to a studio! Ahh!!
– Ready to sell my half of Reptacular
– Hire assistant to get stuff done!
– Building my business coaching / online marketing business
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The Next Step
As much as I love and treasure my experience building Reptacular Animals, it was not built as an asset that can grant me financial freedom. The decision has finally been made that I will cash out my half of the business, freeing me for other ventures. It’s bittersweet coming to the end of the six years building my first business. (It’s like your first love who always has a special place in your heart.) Selling now positions me perfectly for the next exciting part of my financial freedom journey. And it gives me some capital for new ventures along with some passive income (I’ll be getting equity payments as well)!
Financial freedom awaits!
