Redefine Success: Pursue Freedom Over Finances in Your CrossFit Gym

9 questions to change the way you see your future...

There is nothing wrong with money, it gets a bad rep. It's not the root of all evil, or the shackles to which you are bound. It's just that money itself is a topic of fixation, and it in and of itself cannot do anything for you. Money, simply put, is a tool, it's a means, and having more of it isn’t inherently bad, but it should likely be a byproduct of output, not a pursuit.

If I find 10 people, and ask them about their views of money, as in what it means or will do for them. I will get 10 different answers, but all will be similar in foundation. Money means freedom to most people, but it's not the money that free’s you, it's the ability to give up the work for money that gives you freedom. So, we have to change the way we see the goal, so we can change the way we measure and manage.

1) What's the number?

If I grab those 10 people, and ask them about the money, and they list off the dream. At least 9 of those 10 can’t give me an actual number. What will it take financially to achieve that dream? Instead, they will give me a whole number like a million dollars. Which is really code for I have no idea. You will need to know exactly what you need, to know when you succeed. The problem is for most, it's not a conversation of money at all. Instead, it's a conversation of lifestyle. That does not have a financial qualification.

2) How long will it take?

Any project, at least one worth doing should have at least two known dates. Start, and completion. The research clearly shows that almost no projects without completion dates every truly get completed. None. So, if you know the answer to question #1, the number, how long at your current growth rate and strategy till you get there. Example, everyone wants to make a million dollars, its sexy, how many have a plan to get there? This is weird. Particularly because most people have fixed or regular income. In that they make mostly the same amount of money each week. Even these people cannot tell me how long. The main reason is that the reality is often scary, they won't get there, not in their current behavior. So, they ignore it. How long before you achieve your number?

3) What levers can you pull to speed it up?

Equipped with the answer to #1 and 2, you can now optimize your behavior and actions to improve your success rate, and timeframe. As you can imagine this follows the same trend, few know 1, and 2, and as such what to change is impossible to consider. Further, most people do not truly believe in their dreams, as they haven’t spent much time investing in those dreams. The reason people don’t bother to quantify #1 is they feel foolish, impossible even, so they land on hope. Hope does not equate well to behavior.

As you are starting to see, in just three questions we are uncovering the root issue. It's not about money at all, it's about behavior and belief. The sad reality is that very few humans believe in themselves, and instead consider themselves the victim. Part of this victim mindset is placing things outside of their control. Therefore, it's not their fault, but this “things” fault. Money is a perpetual villain in many lives, not because money is evil, but it's easier to blame it, its lack of, its scarcity, etc. as to why you are suffering. Money is not the problem, we are, perception is, and as such it's also not the solution, freedom is. 

4) How do you earn time?

For most its simple, they trade their time for dollars. Which is the main antagonist in this relationship with money. The rigid concept that you must get up and go to work at a job you don't likely love every day just to receive money, is a very challenging construct. Humans are reward and fulfillment wired. Not money. We simply need money to complete life tasks. If you work X number of hours, in exchange for X dollars, the equation is simple. At this rate I will earn X. The better question is how to decrease time and maintain the same money. Most would agree that would be ideal. Now we are getting closer to freedom over money.

5) How do you spend your time?

Those same ten people I grabbed up above, if I asked them what they do, they will likely tell me their career. But I didn't ask them what was their profession, I ask them how they spend their time, who are they? For the 99% what they do for work is who they are, and that's never going to change, not until they realize freedom is what they are after. If I open your calendar, can I see what you are working toward? Or will your schedule be full of appointments? Meaning, will I see in your calendar intentional efforts for a future state, or will I see a bunch of appointments for yesterday's problems. In most cases, like almost all of them, the answer is the later. People do not set aside their time for their future, instead they spend their time responding to the past. Money won't change this, freedom will. Intention will.

6) Would you rather have more money, or more time?

Context for sure matters here, but I can caution you, only one of these can be infinitely obtained. The other is consistently slipping away. Money is the great focal point of scarcity to many people, and time overly abundant. However, a quick step back reveals just the opposite. There is no shortage of money, there is a shortage of time. Spending more time earning money, is a fool's errand. Wouldn't it be better to spend money to increase time? Yes, and this is the goal you are actually after.

As you can see if you aren’t careful with your pursuits, we end up enslaved instead of free. There is a whole world of people seeking freedom, confused by money, and they are spending their time amassing money, and that's not helping them. All the money in the world with no time left seems terrible to me. Be wary friends. The following three will set you free.

7) What are your costs?

Life, business, love it's all got a cost, the life we live has associated expenses. The life we aspire too as well. Few however have stepped back and reverse engineered it. Starting with what your life costs now, is a great place to start, or your business, or better yet all of the above. I don’t mean your budget. I mean if you were living life the way you wanted, latte’s and all. What's it cost? Awesome, now, imagine it better, like 10x better. What does that look like? Are you buying more latte’s, more expensive clothes, or experiences? Probably not. You likely are buying a nicer car, and house though. So, what's that look like? What's it cost? Add it up. What you will realize is that it's not that unattainable. Once you have the number, divide it. Divide it by the number of days you want to work. So, for example you all these things, house car, spending. What salary do you need to cover the mortgage, payments, trips? Let's call it 300k a year conservatively. Thats 5500 a week, that hardly seems like an outlandish dream. You need $700 factor that against where you are per day $300 you need to close the gap on 400. That says nothing of time spent, only money needed.

8) How do you close the gap?

For most people working more is not an option. The hours might not even be available. So, the only option is the option it should have been all along. We need to create money, not earn money. This is a clever way of saying have money work for you, not you work for it. Owning a business as I assume you do, is the first huge asset at your disposal. In fact, if anyone is going to become wealthy it almost exclusively happens through business, not labor. Through business you can utilize leverage, and that's code for people, software, machines, tech, etc. doing the work for you, while you receive the revenue. Then you can offload that revenue into even more money producing endeavors, like investments. Little by little the number drops, and your time is still yours.

9) Who are you doing it for?

The data is clear, humans aren't that self-motivated. They will become selfishly motivated when there is no other fulfillment. But there is a reason almost all success stories speak of wives, children, clients, partners, etc. The dream is bigger than you. You just won't work as hard for yourself as you will for others. Humans are only motivated by the avoidance of discomfort. Truly, that's not made up. As it turns out, hard work is discomforting, and most often we settle. However, failing someone or something that matters, like a cause, a family, a purpose? Thats way more uncomfortable than work. If you are going to do anything amazing, its 100% going to be bigger than you. Who are you going to do it for?

And that's how you know it's not about money, it's about time, and particularly freedom. There are four freedoms, time, money, purpose and relationship. This is just about freedom of money. Freedom of money does not infer a pile of cash that you can pull from. That can just as easily enslave you to its amassing. Freedom of money is simply your ability to create money, absent of your time. When you learn to create money from thin air, and use leverage to increase it, you will never need money again, it will always be present. This is the number people seek, it's not a number at all, it's a reality, a mindset, the amount of money you seek, is to not seek money. Therefore, it's not about money at all, it's about freedom. Learn to create money, you'll learn to control it.

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