Um, if you're watching this and you have the goal for financial freedom This would be my honest advice now just in case you happen to be new to the channel Then hi, my name is ali and I used to be a doctor I had a day job working in the uk's national health service earning about 40 000 pounds 50 000 a year And after doing that for two years I decided to take a little bit of a break from medicine to focus full-time on my youtube channel and my business And i've actually been documenting the journey of starting off as a medical student through to junior doctor through to full-time entrepreneur through to author I've also written a book i've been documenting that on this youtube channel for the last seven years So you can literally see like track the progress from when I was a cute little medical student with a gap between his front teeth Uh making almost no money to now kind of having a team of like 20 people and running my own business And i'm now in a position where I would consider myself to be more or less financially free And so I feel like there's potentially some useful things that I can offer to someone who wants to be in that position Okay, so point number one is that we should really think about why do you want financial freedom?

What does financial freedom get you that you do not already have because money is just a psychological and social construct Financial freedom is also a psychological and social construct.

What specifically?

Do you want that financial freedom will buy now in my case in the early stages of my journey when I had a day job There was something very specific.

I wanted I wanted the ability to go part-time The happiest doctors I knew were the ones who worked three days a week rather than six days a week And so I thought hey to maximize my chances of happiness and fulfillment Which is the thing I think we all want at the end of the day, you know I quite enjoy being a doctor but I can see myself not enjoying it if I had to do it full-time So I just wanted to have a way of making an extra few thousand dollars a month A few thousand pounds a month because that would buy my freedom to be able to work three days a week and not have to worry about like I really should take that extra shift because like Mortgage payments are a bit high today and cost of living crisis and all all of this sort of stuff to me Financial freedom meant buying my free time.

I felt like if I wasn't financially free then I would be almost by definition financially Chained to something and that something happened to be my day job This is the position that most of us are in we happen to be Financially chained to the thing that we do for work now for most of us that thing is one job For a single employer now, this is not necessarily a terrible thing There are plenty of people that I know who love their lives and are very happy and very fulfilled while also being proverbially Financially chained to a single employer various people in my team Are in many ways financially changed to me as an employer But various people in my team seem to really enjoy their jobs because the job comes with freedom And flexibility to an extent and they can work from anywhere and they do work that they think is meaningful Um, and it's just you know, good vibes.

Similarly a lot of people I know who work at startups Uh, not the incredibly high growth really stressful kind but you know A small company a bit of a lifestyle business also really enjoy their jobs and have a lot of happiness and fulfillment Even though technically they are financially chained to an employer so the reason i'm saying all of this stuff is because When it comes to this desire for financial freedom, we really want to understand why What are we going for here?

Is it that you want to be able to go part-time in your job?

Is it that you want to be able to quit your job altogether?

Is it that you want the lifestyle that you think rich people have?

Is it that you want a private jet?

Is it that you want a yacht?

Is it that you want a house with the mortgage paid off so that you don't have to worry about paying the mortgage?

Is it that I don't know you want to be able to take your family on four holidays a year and ideally fly business Like whatever the thing is everyone has different motivations for financial freedom And so it's worth figuring out what those motivations are And the reason it's worth figuring out what those motivations are is because financial freedom runs the entire gamut Someone can be financially free with two thousand dollars a month if for example you live in pakistan Uh, which is where i'm from and you're making I don't know three or four k a month usd You're going to feel pretty financially free If you're living in new york city or in palo alto or in central london and you're making three to four k a month You're going to feel like you're somewhat on the poverty line.

It just sort of depends right similarly if your Lifestyle costs if the sort of things that you would do if you had all the money in the world Don't cost a lot of money again You will feel financially free with a much lower amount of money If however the sorts of things you want to do if you had all the money in the world require Blowing large amounts of cash on yachts and dom perignon.

Is that an expensive drink dom perignon cristal?

I've heard of cristal whatever the like bossy whatever whatever these rappers buy if that is your idea of a good time You're going to need more money to feel feel financially free The thing to take away from this is that financial freedom is a feeling rather than a reality And we want to figure out What are the boxes that we would take that would give us that feeling and then once we have figured out those boxes?

We can reverse engineer How much money do we need to feel financially free?

It's not the only part of the equation There's also a good amount of inner work I know people who have tens of millions in the bank who don't feel financially free At that point clearly it's not about the money.

It's about the inner work But when I was sitting across from this chap over dinner Let's call him john and he said his goal was to be financially free and I was like, okay And in my mind we're going through all of this Psychological stuff was going through my mind to be like, are you sure that's the goal?

Like why is that the goal?

Like what's the real motive?

What are you hoping financial freedom will buy that you don't currently have etc, etc, etc But like it was pretty obvious in john's case that he had a job that he sort of enjoyed but didn't enjoy all the time He has kids and he would like ideally to be able to do what he wants To be able to spend more time with the kids to be able to go on holiday and not feel as if he's tied to A job that requires him to be at a particular location at a particular time every single day, which is fair enough And so I asked john the next question which is And this is the advice that I would give if someone's looking for financial freedom after you've figured out why you actually care about it What is the dollar amount that right now you think you need to feel financially free?

I guarantee that number will change as you get closer to it, but that's okay We'll just pick a number for now because it's useful to have a goal To aim towards and then in the process of working towards that goal We're going to shift the goal posts and that's actually totally okay In fact, I would say pause the video now and have a think What is the amount of money you need in income before expenses and all that stuff How much money do you need coming in every month to feel financially free?

Worth having a think about what is that number right now?

For me, I would have said oh man if I could have 5k a month coming in In passive income, I would feel really financially free Cool, so that's 60k a year By the way Once you've gotten to a point where you've made all this money and achieved the financial freedom Then you're going to definitely want a place to invest that money Which is where the sponsor of this video comes in and that is trading 212 Trading 212 is a fantastic app that I personally use that lets you invest in stocks and shares in a commission-free fashion In particular, they have a new feature that gives you 1% cash back Which will be allocated to your invest account for each deposit that you make in your ISA So any money you deposit into your ISA, you'll get 1% back on that money completely for free They also have a new debit card that helps you save and invest your money automatically Which is designed to seamlessly integrate with your trading 212 invest account and lets you earn interest on your uninvested cash In 13 different currencies, my goodness, the card is also free and there are no sneaky fees or subscription plans So if you've been looking for a platform to help invest your cash and that sounds up your street Then do please click the link in the video description and that will take you to this page Where you'll be guided on how to sign up for an account and if you use that link You'll also get a completely free share up to the value of 100 pounds So thank you so much trading 212 for sponsoring this video and let's get back to it My friend Lawrence Yeo has a great blog moretothat.com, amazing stuff, and he has a great article about this He talks about how as you become the sort of person who is able to make 5k a month in passive income your identity changes You learn new skills and you literally become a new person And so by the time you're getting to 3, 4 or 4.5k a month The sort of person you are is no longer content with just the 5k a month And so the goal becomes 10k a month or 20k or 50k or 100k or a million a month or you know Whatever the thing might be and again It's less about the money and more about what sort of person you are en route to becoming En route to being able to earn that sort of money.

So that was a bit of a tangent But the point is let's pick a number and let's then figure out What we need to get there.

So in the case of John I didn't want to overstep too much too much by turning this into a whole like business coaching session with John and so like You know what he said when I asked him what his number is He said oh man If I could have a million pounds in the bank In the next eight years, then I'd feel really financially free.

Now when he said that a million in the bank by age 45.

I was like There's there's more exploration that needs to be done here We need to untangle the reasons why like why is a million a special number for a lot of people a million is a really Nice round number because it's a million it feels like a lot of money All of this kind of thing and it absolutely is a lot of money but I suspect with a little bit more back and forth conversations if John and I were having a private coaching session we could have got that number down because We could have found ways for John to feel financially free even without a million in the bank And so there was a bunch of a bunch of things I was thinking on that front But let's just go with that.

Let's say That your goal for financial freedom is I want a million in the bank in the next eight years Okay, fine So then we want to reverse engineer that so how much money do we have to make each year?

Well million divided by eight is 125 000 now in order to have a million in the bank then that 125 000 presumably needs to be in savings and so like You actually need to be making let's say 250 000 a year in order to pay off all your taxes and all your expenses and stuff Or maybe should we say 200 000 in order to be left with 125 000 in savings So reverse engineering from this john needed 200 000 pounds a year In income in order to get to his goal of millionaire in the next eight years, okay, cool We've established that we need 200k This is what is called a goal and it's useful to have a goal, right?

Like, uh, warren buffett has a great phrase.

I think it's from warren buffett Which is you can do anything, but you can't do everything.

So there's like a zillion things that you can do right now Yeah, you've literally got infinite life possibilities but if you have a clear goal, then that narrows down your list of possibilities to Assuming you want to go for the goal to things that would help you get to the goal Now I have a kind of conceptual framework for this that I call gps Goal plan and system by the way Uh, this is the sort of stuff i'm teaching in my upcoming productivity course in my productivity lab Which is a new community for aspiring and ambitious entrepreneurs creators and professionals That'll be linked down below if you want to check it out productivity lab.com Anyway, gps stands for goal plan system i.e.

What is the goal cool?

What is the plan of how we're going to get to the goal?

And then what is the system for how we're going to stick to the plan now in this case?

Let's say the goal was two hundred thousand pounds in income every year again We can quibble all we like about the why behind the goal Should we really have the goal of millionaire in the next eight years?

Does it really matter who really cares etc, etc?

We can quibble about that all we like but let's let's just Take it as a given because there's so much quibbling that can be done with financial goals I I love quibbling with people about their financial goals, but like I'll put that off to the side So let's say we do have that goal of two hundred thousand pounds a year.

That's the goal.

Okay, cool Then we think what is the plan?

What is the plan that you are currently following And what is the plan that you need to follow to get to that goal?

Everyone is always following a plan whether they are conscious of it or not in john's case His goal was two hundred thousand a year But the plan he was following was being a teacher teaching in a secondary school in london and earning I suspect Somewhere between 50 and 70k maybe slightly less than that.

So let's say he's earning 50k just for the sake of argument John's plan Is getting is is on track to earning 50k a year in income.

John's goal is 200k a year in income.

Okay, cool We have established very clearly that there is a discrepancy between the goal That john has and the plan that john is following to get there So in your case, what is the goal that you have and what is the plan that you're currently following?

And no plan is also a plan for example in my case if my goal was to get six-pack abs and the plan that I was currently following was Eating burgers every day and never going to the gym and doing 500 steps a day clearly That plan is not going to get me to the goal of six-pack abs So when we notice in this gps model when we notice that there is a discrepancy between the goal that we say we want And the plan that we are currently following to get to that goal At that point we have to make a choice Do you want to change the goal or do you want to change the plan?

Because you can't have a goal.

I mean you can but like you are just setting yourself up for Unhappiness and misery if you clearly have a goal that you really want But the plan that you're following is not actually going to get you there So like let's try and align these things i'm all about living an aligned life You know aligning our the things that we're doing right now with like where we want to go in the future something to something I talk about in My book feel good productivity which is about how to do more of what matters to you without burning up And in a way that's actually fun and sustainable and meaningful.

You can check it out link down below So there's a discrepancy right between the goal and plan now I asked john this I said john It seems like we've got a discrepancy mate like between the goal that you say you want And the plan that you currently are following i.e being an re teacher in a school in london So which one would you like to change?

Would you like to change the goal or would you like to change the plan?

The answer is not obvious here If for example john really really really liked being an re teacher And loved his life and loved the fact that he has half of the year off on school holidays Where he can spend time with his family and do things in the house, etc.

Etc.

Great John might decide you know what?

I actually really want to continue being an re teacher and therefore i'm totally okay with changing the goal My goal is not going to be financial goal.

My goal is going to be a fulfillment goal I'm not going to worry about getting a million in the next eight years instead I'm gonna worry i'm gonna focus on taking care of my health and making sure I can show up With full presence for my family for my wife and kids and etc, etc That is totally fine.

If you find yourself wanting to change your goal.

I think that is amazing Because there is nothing more sad than working towards a goal and only finding out when you're close to it or getting there That actually the goal itself was not what you actually wanted You wanted something else Which is why i'm very bullish like whenever I kind of have these sorts of conversations with people and it results in them changing The goal I feel very happy because i've just saved you a ridiculously large amount of time and effort and pain because In one fell swoop you've decided to change the goal that you're working towards The goals that we work towards the goals that we choose to work towards are literally the thing that dictates our entire life Right because when you set a goal or set an intention That generally hopefully informs the actions that you're taking to work towards it and those actions Are what actually gives you your day-to-day experience of life?