Episode 345: The Basics of Financial Independence (FI): What Is FI & What You Need To Start Your Journey – Part 2

Jamila Souffrant 0:02

The two tangible but necessary factors you need to even make this journey possible is you have to believe that you can do it and you have to have the habits and develop the mindset that you can do it. In order for you to want to achieve it to embark on it to take the long road because it is a long road you have to have the habits and mindset so that you can actually enjoy the journey, experience it fully and know that it's possible for you.

Intro 0:53

T-minus 10 seconds. Welcome to the Journey To Launch podcast with your host, Jamila Souffrant. As a money expert who walks her talk, she helps brave Journeyers like you get out of debt, save, invest, and build real wealth. Join her on the journey to launch to financial freedom in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

If you want the episode show notes for this episode, go to journey to launch.com or click the description of wherever you're listening to this episode. In the show notes. You'll get the transcribed version of the conversation, the links that we mentioned and so much more. Also, whether you are an OG journeyer, or brand new to the podcast, I've created a free jumpstart guide to help you on your financial freedom journey. It includes the top episodes, so listen to stages to go through to reach financial freedom, resources and so much more. You can go to journey to launch.com/jumpstart to get your guide right now. Okay, let's hop into the episode.

Jamila Souffrant 1:38

Hey, hey, hey journeyers welcome back to another episode of the journey to launch podcast, I am your amazing host Jamila souffrant. This now will be what I call part two of the intro app to become a better name. But right now let's call it the intro to financial independence or financial independence one on one episode, I wanted to do a refresher on who I was. So you can hear that in part one and some learning more about my journey to financial independence and how embarking on it changed my life. Now I want to get into more on just the details of financial independence, what it is how you reach it, the stages you go through to reach it, the things you need to know to at least start your journey. And then why everyone should be pursuing this. So let's get started. By the way, my book, Your journey to financial freedom a step by step guide to achieving wealth and happiness is out December 5 2023. No matter when you're listening to this. So if you listen to this before that date, you can preorder now get you a special bonus, a free course, that really actually breaks down a lot of what I'm talking about with more resources, workbooks, and even a 25 times calculator for you to put in your numbers. So you get that for free by ordering one hard copy of the book now, as a pre order bonus before the book comes out. So again, you can get that by going to your journey to financial freedom.com. The book is available everywhere online. So Amazon target, you name it, you'll find out all the places you can, you can buy it when you go to your journey to financial freedom.com. Alright, so let's get into this.

Now, what is financial independence? What is it and why should you pursue it? Financial Independence is the idea. And not just the idea. It's the ability to not have to actively work for money ever again. Because your investments, the income from that investment allows you to pay for your lifestyle. It allows you to pay for your expenses. So you have enough money in your investment accounts through passive income sources and overall assets to never have to actively work again. I know that sounds amazing, because when I first heard about that, or heard that what that acronym stood for, I was like this is it. What is it and how do I get there? So again, financial independence, the FBI and fire movement. So the acronym fire stands for financial independence, retire early movement. And part one of this kind of series I talk more about how I discovered the fire movement and began my journey. But essentially, financial independence when you really think about it is a very audacious big goal. Because think about this idea of you never have to work again because you have enough income from your investments paying for your lifestyle. You know, think trust fund baby. So someone who had a lot of money Grandpa Joe created a lot of investments and businesses and then left that for their great great grand daughter or son that great granddaughter so never have to work because you're pulling from this money, but instead you are doing that for yourself in your own lifetime. And obviously to do that it does require a lot of effort and the type of effort that it requires and the changes to your finances, they're going to be different for each person, depending on your starting point. But you'll need to have that money to be ultimately financially independent, you'll need to have enough.

And so the first idea or thought that most people have is well hot, like, what is the financial independence number? Like? How do I know how much do I need, and it's going to be different for everyone, depending on your lifestyle, and how much you want to spend. Because remember, it's a function of being able to cover your lifestyle expenses. So if you don't need a lot of money to live, you don't have to accumulate as much money. If you have a certain lifestyle expense, or you want to have a lot of money, then spend a lot of money that you're going to need a lot more on your financial independence number.

So, again, financial independence is the idea that you don't have to work ever again. Now, typically, and this is where I actually, when I first learned about fire, I got interested because there's a difference between basic personal finance ideas and concepts that you most likely heard about. And then the fire movement, a lot of what the basic personal finance concepts teach you are the foundations of fire or the financial independence movement and how to get there. But they are different. And so you may have heard with basic personal finance, you know, you are, you are encouraged to invest maybe 10 to 15% of your income, you are encouraged to look at and keep a good credit score, you're encouraged to pay off debt or not to continue to get into high debt, but you pay off debt eventually. And you're you're encouraged to invest enough to be able to retire by the standard age, maybe, depending on how much you're investing of your income. So that's like mostly basic personal finance stuff. And there's so many great concepts are people teaching basic personal finance. And again, it's important, you can't really jump to fire concepts without understanding basic personal finance, because they translate, and they're, and it's the basically the foundational blocks for the fire movement. So the difference with financial independence and the fire movement is that in order to reach financial independence, you have to be a bit more not a bit more, you have to be more aggressive in your finance habits. Because instead of investing maybe 10 to 15% of your income, you will be encouraged or in order to get to that goal may need to invest 50% or more of your income, you may have to focus on frugality in certain areas. So not spending on like the typical things people spend around you, in order to have more income to invest to get to your goals, you are focused more on income. And the difference is not just earning more so you can live the lifestyle you want. So maybe in the basic personal finance, or just in the regular world that we live in, that does not talk about money. When you earn more income, it's like, okay, now I reward myself. Because I'm earning more, I need a better house, I need a nicer car, I need to live the life I deserve. Right? If you're following the traditional concepts of the fire movement, or financial independence, the income that you are gaining, so the more money you're making, is not to pour into only your lifestyle needs and increases it is to invest and be able to get to financial independence. And the idea is that you still pay off debt, but you pay off debt aggressively. It's not something you pay off eventually, it's not that you manage that, and you keep it going. And this is probably a whole nother topic, or episode about managing debt and how you choose to handle it, or your financial independence journey, because I'm actually not opposed to having debt. But it's about if you really want to hit this number in the traditional sense of fire you paid off aggressively. And then the idea here is that you retire early, or you have the option to retire early. So you're not working or needing to work to the standard retirement age of 59 and a half, or 65, or whenever you want to retire earlier in life, but that you can opt out of traditional work and quit your job way earlier than that standard age in your late 50s or 60s, you can retire at 3040 Even 50 is still consider depending on where you are retiring earlier than the standard age. And so fire is a bit different or the traditional sense of financial independence retire early that the concepts and what you need to do to get you to that involves more work and involves a lot more intention on what you do with your finances. And so there's nothing wrong again with following basic personal finance like if you're a person that when you hear what maybe traditional people talk about in the fire movement and you're like this is not for me because I don't want to leave live completely frugal, I want to spend my money I am okay with working forever until I am 70 So that's fine, but I hope that throughout this episode I can still come into that the pursuit of fire is still for you. Even if you don't want to quit your job early, even if you love your job, even if you don't mind working, the pursuit of financial independence is a pursuit everyone should be on. Now, okay, financial independence versus financial freedom. So those can be used and change throughout like someone speaking and someone can mean financial independence in one way and financial freedom. And another way, I'm going to talk more about how I use it, and especially how I use it in the book when your journey to financial freedom.

So for me, and the way I like to talk about it is that unlike financial independence, financial freedom is not about having all the money you ever need, and never having to work again. Financial freedom is more about the options you have and the joy, it allows you to have day to day. So you don't need millions of dollars in the bank to be or to be completely debt free to have financial freedom. So financial freedom can look like your ability to pay for childcare, or go out to eat at your favorite restaurant without going into more debt and feeling guilty about it that you should be doing something else. It's about the freedom and flexibility and how you earn and spend your money. So financial freedom is something you can experience on your way to complete financial independence, I'm going to say that, again, financial freedom is something you can experience on your way to financial independence. And it's important to understand or know what freedom looks like to you, or what financial independence looks like to you. So those two things are going to be different. No one journey is the same. No one, you know, you may have similar goals as someone else. But everyone is just like your, your fingerprints are individual and no one else has your fingerprints, I believe you're what makes you happy is going to be different. And because everyone has different desires, different goals, or different things that make them who they are. And understanding what it's going to take to get you to be financially independent, is going to require a look at your finances.

So the next question I typically get asked is all right, you financial independence sounds awesome. Like, alright, what like, what's next? How do I know that I reach financial independence? Or how do I even start to plan my journey to financial independence. And you know, most people when they think about or they first hear about it, they're not starting from a point of complete stability in their finances, they're starting from a point maybe where they have a lot of debt, they're not earning a lot of money, they're still living paycheck to paycheck. So I can totally see why hearing about it sounds great. But then when you think about it for your life, you're like, okay, like, that doesn't make sense to me, or it doesn't feel like it's applicable to my life. So I'm not even going to try, I'll just live my life because this is what my money is for I work hard, I want to go on that vacation. I agree, I can see why the concept may have turned you off, when you really tried to sit down and think about it. But I hope that do this, this episode, you can start to see that it's a worthy journey to embark on.

So in order to know how much you need. So there's two things, there's a lot of things. But there's two things I want to talk about in this episode one is your starting point. So where you currently are. And then the next thing is where you ultimately want to be your financial independence number, I'm actually going to start at your financial independence number, even though that can be a little jarring or scary for someone to calculate. Because typically, depending on what you want to spend your money on, it's going to be a bigger, it's gonna be a big number. And so you can decide or figure out your financial independence number, your FY number, by taking your current expenses or your expected future annual expenses in financial independence, and multiply it by 25. So essentially, you're taking what you think you want to spend. So you can use your current income, or you can think ahead and say, Well, if I want to reach financial independence, and not work again by unknowing, 15 years, what does my life look like in 15 years? Do you still have a mortgage? Do you still have childcare or you know, do you have to pay for more health care now, if you don't have health care in another area? So you look at your expenses, you multiply it by 25. When you multiply it by 25, you'll get a big number. And remember, it's your annual expenses. And when you multiply your annual expenses by 25, it gives you a number that basically tells you how much you'll need to have accumulated in your investment account in order to be considered financially independent. Because that number is based. It's a 25 times rule, and it's a very quick rule of thumb. By the way, there are more sophisticated ways to figure out what you need, but it's a quick way for you a year to your financial independence number not wait sorry. 75, if, okay, in my portfolio, because maybe you want to spend a bit more or even a million dollars if you are starting at a point where you have zero. If you have negative, right, if you're in debt, you have no assets.

You're like okay, Jamila, how do I even get there? Because this seems very impossible. And I want you to know that those feelings are valid and normal, I experienced that myself, when I first started to hear about the fire movement, because I the one of the first things I did was, well, what is my number? And how much do we want to spend? And when I calculated it, I was like, Well, how am I going to do that? And but instead of I mean, you know, after a while after knowing and say to myself talking myself down and saying it's okay, let's figure this out. I didn't X or say to myself, it's not possible, I said to myself, or x, how can I make this possible? Because there are things that at that point, I did not know. And I was like, I know there are things I don't know, there are things that I don't have in my toolkit yet that can get or that I can learn that will help that number be become something realistic. And that's how I want you to think also, this is why while in this episode, I'm really primarily focused on the tangible things like that fine number, we're gonna talk a little bit about your income and expenses and assets. And those are tangible things you can measure and count a big part of this journey. I mean, a big part are intangible things you cannot account for or almost, you know, there's no number to put by it, then it's your mindset. And it's your habits. The two intangible, but necessary factors you need to even make this journey possible is you have to believe that you can do it and you have to have the habits and develop the mindset that you can do it. So those are two important things that we're not going to focus on here because I do want to get to the actual just meat of financial independence, but just know that in order for you to want to achieve it to embark on it to take the long road because it is a long road you have to have the habits and mindset so that you can actually enjoy the journey, experience it fully and know that it's possible for you.

Ad 19:07

Financial Independence is not having to work for money anymore. But financial freedom is about having options. You can have financial freedom while on the journey to financial independence and my brand new book your journey to financial freedom a step by step guide to achieving wealth and happiness. We'll show you exactly how to achieve that. Your journey to financial freedom comes out December fifth, but you can pre order today and get my brand new course fire starter, the financial independence blueprint for free to get started on how to chart your course to more money, less debt and more freedom today, discover how to define FYI and financial freedom for yourself. Work on the FY component and the FY formula. Calculate your FY number and more with this brand new course. The program includes four video lessons taught by me a companion workbook to help you implement the lessons and more, you can get the course for free immediately, when you preorder one hard copy of my book, Your journey to financial freedom today, go to journey to launch.com/book To order the book and get your free course.

Jamila Souffrant 20:19

Alright, so now you've calculated your 25 times number, hopefully you're still listening. But if you're hearing my voice, you're still listening. Now, let's talk about getting there. Right? Because you're not probably thinking, Well, how do I get there, Jamila, because, you know, I am not starting at a place where I have a lot or have a lot of income. So let's talk about that. So the next thing you need to know or one of the things you need to know, is your starting point, your legit true starting point to reach financial independence. And that's going to look like the tangible numbers that you have. So those tangible numbers and things include, what are your current assets. So what the financial independence number is or your assets, it's what's in your investment accounts, whether it's retirement accounts, or taxable accounts. So non retirement account, that's the main source. Now, there are obviously other ways in which you can get income for your financially independent lifestyle or retired lifestyle through real estate. So income from real estate does count from maybe a business's a passive business that all counts. But for now, we're just going to talk about the numbers that are within your retirement accounts and investment accounts. So in order to know you really do have to just look at where am I with my retirement accounts, taxable account? What are those numbers? What are my assets? How much do I have in assets. And of course, if you're doing this with a partner, you would be combining your assets if they are on the journey with you, same way as you would be considering what expenses it takes for you and them or your family to live completely. So that's one thing you need to know what are your current assets, you also need to know your current liabilities. So assets are what you own. Liabilities are what you owe. So what do you currently owe? Who do you currently owe, you need to know that you need to know your income. So how much you make for some people, that's really simple, because they get an annual salary or their your checks are consistent. But for some, if you're a gig worker, or you're more in the creative space, you might have to really look at what is my total income, how much can I expect every month or every year. And then importantly, you need to know your expenses. So those four main things, what you own your assets, what you owe your liabilities, your income, what you bring in, so your income and inflow to your household, and then your outflow your expenses, those four numbers matter a lot, because it's going to determine how you'll get to that endpoint that we talked about.

So let's talk about getting to the endpoint, from your starting point, you'll need to invest enough to get to that financial independence number, right that you just calculated. And so the way that you'll be able to invest to get there is that you need your income, you need to know your income, you need to have the difference between your income and your expenses. And the difference between that is what you'll have leftover to pay down your debt, to pay for your lifestyle expenses are the discretionary ones that you enjoy and that you want to indulge in and then also to build your assets. And so in order to do that, you have to have a sense of how much can you invest over time. And it's why when you figure out and you'll you can do calculations, there's things and ways to figure that out. But let's just say you calculated your number at 1 million, you have assets or current investments that are 10,000, you would do the math how much and the simple math would be how much do I need to invest on a monthly and then annual basis to get to a million from 10,000. And you can go based on what you currently have. So let's just say you're only investing. And when I say only that's not a bad thing. But let's just say you're only investing $200 a month that at this point. If you only invest $200 a month, for the next 2030 years, where does that get you at a let's just save 7% return, right, you'll do that calculation, and there are calculators that future value calculated to allow you to do that. By the way, my fire cap allows you to do that. And that's something I will be sharing in the future. So stay tuned with me on this journey as you'll get that resource. I'm not sure how I'm going to distribute it to you guys. But I definitely I know that it will be helpful. So I'm just figuring out a way to share that with you. But that's a side note. So figuring out how much you need on a monthly annual basis or how much you have to invest gives you a timeline. And that's where you now begin to map out your journey to financial independence because if let's say you do the math, you figure out like wow, based on what I'm doing now I'll never reach my number because I'm not investing enough because I don't earn enough, or I'm spending too much, whatever that is, that then allows you to make some conscious choices here. How much do you need to invest to get you to your number? Do you have it? Maybe you'll see, okay, if I have 30 years to invest, how long? How much is that going to look like? And you might say to yourself, I don't want it to take me 30 years, I want it to take me 15 years, then how much do you need to invest over 15 years. And so this journey, and the calculations are not just one time things, they are constant calculation, it's not something you have to obsess about. But as you gain more information or knowledge, your situation changes, you come back to the journey and to the layout of what you want to do. And you adjust. And it's one of the things that we did when we first started our journey, it's how I really got my husband on board is because I showed him, if we continue to invest what we are doing now, which was the bare minimum, we we'd barely be able to retire in the sense that we have enough to spend the way we want. And I showed him but if we increase our investments by this much, we can have a million or 2 million more in 30 years. And if we do it by this much, you know, I could quit my job and retire or reach financial independence. And we can live this lifestyle in 15 years. And so being able to see and play around with the numbers was important.

Because now then, having that data, it made us now have a clearer choice on what do we do? Do we want to continue on the way we are? And if you love your life the way it is you have no no. You don't mind working and doing what it is then? Fine. But I would send some majority of people want something different, and we wanted something different. And so it forced us to look at, okay, let's look at our income, how are we maximizing it, let's look at our expenses are we being smart about where we are and what we're spending on. And let's look at how we can push our investments where we can still live a balanced lifestyle. So that's one of the things you'll need to think about and do. And trust me it is a ongoing process. I talk about this in the book your journey to financial freedom, that we we create your plan. So in part two of the book, we create your financial independence plan. But I say over and over in the book that we you got to come back to this because part three is all about execution. So there's four parts of the book. So we start to execute your plan and part three, but you may need to go back to part two to figure out, okay, I need to adjust some endpoints, maybe I need more money. Or maybe I need less money in financial independence because I realized this about myself and, and because I'm doing the work now.

Alright, let's talk about the five journeyer stages. So I talked already about financial independence, the difference between general personal finance and like the fire movement concept. And then we talked about financial freedom versus financial independence. And we just talked about figuring out your financial independence number quickly doing the 25 times rule, and then understanding your starting point and playing back and forth with getting there. Now, as you are playing with the numbers, figuring out what you're doing, you'll see that the journey to reach financial independence, whatever that means for you is a long one. This is why I broke out that journey into five stages. And the five stages consists of stage one is called the Explorer stage. This is the stage where you are trying to get to a place of stability, maybe you're not able to pay for all your expenses without going into debt every month, you're spending more than you're bringing in. Right. So that's stage one. And your whole point in this stage is to reach financial stability, where you can cover just cover your expenses and minimum debt payments. Once you get to that stage, you can move to stage two. So once you get to stability, you move to stage two, which is the cadet stage, that is the stage where you're working on getting out of debt, consumer debt. So credit card debt or any debt you wish to include. In this stage, I typically do not include mortgages or student loans, because those typically are larger amounts that take a long time. And I don't want you to not feel like you can move through the stages if you're not completely debt free. But the second stage of that stage is all about getting debt free. The third stage, once you become debt free, is the aviator stage. That's the stage where you're building financial security because you are able to build your assets. So you no longer are in consumer or in consumer debt. And you can spend your income in a way that allows you to invest and save more money to build up your assets and create security for yourself. Stage four is the commander stage. So once you reach a period or a feeling of security and the numbers are secure, you can reach a stage where your work flexible. The commander stage which means you can take a break from your job, you can quit your job, you can take time off to do something different whether that is to start a family to travel the world start a business because you are in a place where you have security and you're finanses, it doesn't mean you never have to work again. But you're at a great place where if you want to take a five year break, or to take a lower paying job, because you just love the job, you're able to do that. That stage is the stage, I believe everyone can get to. Okay. And then I'm actually in the stage right now. And the last stage is the captain stage that stage five, that is when you have reached complete financial independence, no longer have to work for money, you have enough that you can choose to work or not work.

So I broke down the journey to financial independence, because I know that if you're just looking at from where you are now, if you just, if you if you looked at all your assets, income, expenses, liabilities, and then you looked at what you needed to reach financial independence, that seems like an impossible jump. But breaking it down into these five stages, I believe allows for one to see where they are to identify their stage, and then realize that their steps within that stage need to take but that there's still freedom to be had in that stage. So even if you are still in debt, you're still in the cadet stage, every time you pay off $100 of debt, that's $100 Less you owe someone that you can now use for something else. And so or even if you're still working, and you don't love your job, but you meet, you're working there because of necessity, and you're in the aviator stage, you know that, okay, I'm in the asset building stage. So this stage, I know what I'm doing here, because, you know, I need maybe two or three more years in the stage before I can leave my job. And the amount of time in each stage is going to be different for everyone, because it's going to depend on all those factors. I talked about your income, expenses, liabilities and assets, if you have a high income, and you're able to get your expenses to a place that's lower and feels good still, you can leapfrog through the stages are up the stages a bit faster than someone who is not earning enough, who needs to focus more on their income, right and get to a place of stability. And so what can take one person two years in a stage can take someone five, but I do want to encourage that within each stage. No matter how long it does take you that there is freedom within each stage. The other things that might impact how long it takes you within each stage, or just the quality of your financial independence journey is your desired lifestyle and spending. Again, if you need a lot less to live on, our more simple you enjoy frugality or you actually see frugality. Even though you don't necessarily love it, you can turn it on, you can turn on your frugality superpower in certain areas of your life. Because you know, there's a bigger purpose. So what that might look like is maybe you do love to travel. And you realize that if I pause traveling for two years, I can get myself out of the cadet the having debt stage faster, I can then enjoy more travel later on. And doesn't mean you have to wait decades to do it. But you're, you're realizing I'm gonna turn on that frugality superpower just for a short time, so that I can live the way I want to live indefinitely, right. And so if you find joy in you can do that. That's where you would be able to say, okay, I can turn things on and off, I can take time or take a break from spending in this area, or maybe spending as much in this area. So I talk also about walk levels in my book that might need to be a whole nother episode, because it's important to understand where you are, and what really makes you happy and your lifestyle. And how do you balance that? How do you balance going through the journey or stages and reaching your number, and living a lifestyle that feels good for you where you feel content and fulfilled? Now you still may be asking yourself, why would I pursue financial independence, I might as well just live my life the way it is now. What is the real benefit. And there is a benefit still in pursuing financial independence, even if you love your job, and what you do, even if you're earning good money and are okay with your lifestyle, because you never know what will happen in the future. Meaning your mind may change your job may change the desires you need or want to have may change and you want to be in a position to make a choice about what you're doing. And if you don't have the building blocks and the understanding of financial independence and have started to incorporate that into your life, you'll won't have or you won't be able to make the option of quitting your job or taking a break because you'll still be on the hamster wheel of needing to work for money. And so if you love your job, like first of all, congratulations, because that is the whole point is that I don't think it's about not never working again. I think most people even myself, we want you want to do something. You just want to do something where you feel you're contributing to the world and you're getting compensated for that and you're working with people you enjoy and you're making a difference right so if you feel like

this journey is still for you. Because in one or two or five years, you don't know what can change, you know, you don't know if your circumstances will change, your mind will change. And isn't it better to eat still have the opportunity to work and do something you love and the choice to make that you can walk away if necessary, or to do something different? You again, you might say, Well, I just hate my job I so I really just need to embark on this journey, because I want to quit. And I still say to that, yes, you can still embark on this journey, but which is why I focus a lot on who you become on the journey. Because just trying to walk away or run away from a current situation or job, without figuring out what it is that makes you unhappy, you may still end up unhappy even if you have all the money in the world, even if you reach financial independence. So it's really important to figure out what it is that's making you unhappy, and how you can begin to shift your mindset habits, of course, leave situations that are unhealthy for you, but what is it that you are potentially running from because you really can't run from the internal issues or problems that you have, right. And so it's important to figure out and, and not wait until you have all the money or you think you are going to be financially independent to work on those things within

yourself. Ultimately, it doesn't matter whether you're starting this journey with the intention to quit your job or just to own your own business, or just have more options, or retire. Like you really do want to live the quintessential retired early lifestyle where you just sit on the beach all day and drink Mojito. Hello, can I join you if you do that. But what happens is and why I think everyone should be embarking on this journey is it's not about the end goal. Of course, we want to reach a place where we don't have to listen to anyone and do our own thing. And we're on our own schedule. But what happens is, you can't help but level up and gain the skills and knowledge that will improve your life.

And your ability to make money when you're on the journey. You become a different person and not in a bad way. But you become a more evolved person. Because you're working on yourself, the mindset, the habits, the learning how to use your skills, to make money, speaking up for yourself to ask for that raise, understanding your strengths to build that side hustle, managing your money or learning about investing, all those things happen on the journey. And what those things do for you, it creates a asset that cannot be measured, and that asset is you. And it's why many people or people have listened to this podcast journeyers myself that we start the journey, we have ideas about what we want. And even before reaching the end goal, we have experienced and achieved so much freedom and or money or opportunities that we didn't think were possible before starting And furthermore, even if you fail at your ultimate financial independence number, let's say you calculated your number at 1 million or 2 million. And you said you want to reach that in 15 or 20 years or less. And just say you, you know, you're like alright Jamila, I'll go on the journey and you do your best. And by the end of the time, maybe 15 years, instead of having 2 million, you only have $750,000. Is that really a failure? It's not because without starting the journey, you might have had zero or negative or maybe 10,000 or nothing, right? So this is really an audacious goal, endpoint. And I and I agree with that. It's a it's a privilege journey.

I have to say that I tried to say that each time because I don't want to leave out the fact that there are some people where you don't they can't even fathom what this is because they're just trying to pay and live day to day. Right I get that. But I also know that you're listening to my voice and and in the position to do something different for your life for your family or just you that even if you fail at doing this because you don't get to your ultimate goal and the time you set for yourself that there is actually no way to fail. Because you'll do and you'll be in a better position for it. And any stability you create for yourself out pours to anyone around you. And so that's why I believe that this journey is something everyone should embark upon. Because you you will achieve more freedom on it. Alright. That was my, I guess commercial for why you should be trying to achieve financial independence why you should buy my book your journey to financial freedom because this is exactly what I talk about, and even more and break it down in a way you can follow and create your own pathway.

Your journey to financial freedom comes out December 5 2023. You can buy it right now, if you're listening before that date, if you buy it now, I do have a free course that you get by buying a hardcopy that walks through a bunch of the concepts in here that gives you some workbooks and worksheets to help you calculate your FYI number. And you can get that by going to your journey to financial freedom.com. Again, I have so much more information and what I hope will be tools and resources and motivation for you to reach whatever your idea of freedom and independence looks like. Keep on journeying with me. I'm here and until next time, keep on journeying journey airs.

Outro 40:42

Don't forget, you can get the episode show notes for this episode by going to journey to launch.com. Or click the description of wherever you're listening to this. And you can still grab your jumpstart guide for free to help you on your journey to financial freedom by going to journey to launch.com/jumpstart.

If you want to support me and the podcast and love the free content and information that you get here, here are four ways that you can support me in the show. One, make sure you're subscribed to the podcast wherever you listen, whether that's Apple podcasts, that purple app on your phone, your Android device, YouTube, Spotify, wherever it is that you happen to listen, just subscribe so you are not missing an episode. And if you're happening to listen to this and Apple podcasts, rate review and subscribe there. I appreciate and read every single review number to follow me on my social media accounts. I'm at journey to launch on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. And I love love love interacting with journeys. They're three support and check out the sponsors of this show. If you hear something that interests you, sponsors are the main ways we keep the podcast lights on here. So show them some love for supporting your girl for and last but not least, share this episode this podcast with a friend or family member or co worker so that we can spread the message of Journey to launch. Alright, that's it until next week, keep on journeying journeyers

Transcribed by https://otter.ai