Unlock Financial Freedom

Last updated on January 3rd, 2025 at 06:17 am

Looking for ways to improve your financial situation?

Today we are going to discuss how you can stabilize your finances, maximize your earning potential, and build wealth!

Stabilize Your Financial Situation First

Drop the Entitlement

This may be controversial but we believe that entitlement is the primary reason why people in developed countries struggle financially.

Obviously, there are exceptions to this. There’s no denying that some individuals have been dealt a bad hand in life through no fault of their own. Meanwhile, others have lucked out largely due to favorable conditions.

That being said, we would argue that being born in a developed country could be seen as winning the genetic lottery in and of itself because the opportunities available right now are truly unprecedented.

However, entitlement can prevent you from taking advantage of those opportunities so we recommend examining the idea that you “deserve” a certain standard of living.

This is not avocado toast moralizing, it’s pragmatic advice that can help you get ahead in life: if you can drop your sense of entitlement, you will have a much easier time living below your means, which is the first step towards building wealth!

Reject Temporal Parochialism

Historians often speak of “temporal parochialism” where our perspective is limited to our own era. This concept can come in handy for getting your finances in order. How so?

Despite all the gloom and doom in the media, the societal standard of living is continuously increasing: what was once seen as a luxury becomes normalized and then comes to be regarded as a necessity. 

Some examples of this phenomenon include:

• Living by yourself as opposed to either with your family or roommates.
• Regularly ordering food and eating out as opposed to making most of your meals at home and packing lunch to work.
• Vacationing abroad as opposed to choosing affordable locations in your own country.
• Upgrading tech devices such as laptops, tablets, and smartphones when a new model comes out as opposed to when the device stops working.
• Buying a new car instead of a used one. Obviously, safety is something that you need to take into consideration here. Never drive used vehicles that are unsafe!

…etc. 

However, if you step out of the 2026 bubble and start rewinding the clock, it will become obvious that these are not necessities at all.

In fact, in just a few decades, most of the stuff on this list was something that only the upper middle class and the rich could afford.

Once you realize that, it becomes clear that the connection between subjective well-being and standard of living is not linear. 

Yes, you need a safe place to live, enough nutritious food, warm clothes, etc. But the further you go beyond that, the more the relationship between spending and happiness disintegrates.

This perspective can make it easier for you to step off the hedonic treadmill, reduce your expenses, and resist lifestyle inflation as you increase your income. 

Start Living Below Your Means

If you are currently living paycheck-to-paycheck, your first priority should be to cut your expenses as much as possible and start living below your means.

In fact, our friend Alex Hormozi advises ambitious people to live like they are broke, which he himself did as he was building his wealth.

As a young man, he lived on $1,500/month despite making $20,000/month because:

1. He was incredibly risk-averse
2. He wanted to have money so that he could go on the offensive later

He took it to the extreme but this kind of stuff is pretty common if you look at the come-up stories of self-made millionaires. 

It’s also a good example of how valuable dropping your sense of entitlement can be: very few people who are making $240,000/year are willing to live on just $18,000/year but the ones that are have a massive advantage over the ones that aren’t.

If you want to get some practical advice on how to live below your means, consider watching the video below in which Alex explains how he did it. You don’t have to be as extreme as he was but it can give you some perspective!

Build an Emergency Fund

Once you are living below your means, you want to start building an emergency fund.

Ideally, you should save up at least one year’s worth of expenses before you even think of doing anything else with your money.

Yes, that’s a conservative approach and it could be argued that a few month’s worth of expenses should be enough for the average person living in a developed country. 

However, contrary to popular belief, self-made millionaires tend to be more risk-averse than the average person when it comes to money, not less.

It’s easy to focus on them making “high risk, high reward” plays but the only reason they can do that is because they have a stable foundation.

So if you want to be able to take big risks in the future, build that stable foundation for yourself first in the form of an emergency fund!

Maximize Your Earning Potential Within Your Career

We live in a culture where regular employment is often seen as undesirable while being an entrepreneur has become a high-status occupation.

The problem is that the glamor surrounding entrepreneurship can blind you to the reality of it. Want to hear something that business gurus won’t tell you?

The most reliable way to financial stability is:

1. Choosing a high-paying career
2. Maximizing your earning potential
3. Investing your money in something like the S&P 500

Of course, this assumes that the stock market will continue performing as it has historically, which is a big assumption. Some crazy black swan event might wipe out your investments.

Unfortunately, there are no guarantees in life but this is arguably the safest way to make your money work for you. It has much higher odds of success than launching your own business!

Get a Job if You Don’t Have One

We see way too many people put themselves in precarious financial situations by pursuing entrepreneurship when they don’t have a stable source of income. 

That’s a terrible idea because you can’t think strategically when you don’t know where your next meal is coming from.

So get a job if you don’t have one at the moment. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy, just something that allows you to pay the bills.

In fact, if you have followed the advice in the previous section and reduced your expenses to the bare minimum, even flipping burgers at McDonald’s might be enough to have some stability. 

Of course, if you already have marketable skills, you might be able to find something better but don’t scoff at minimum-wage jobs and gig economy work if you don’t have higher-paying options. 

Consider Switching to a Higher-Paying Career

If you already have a job but it’s a low-paying one and there are no career advancement opportunities, you should probably switch to a higher-paying career.

In that case, assuming that you are working 40 hours per week at your current job, you want to start spending 20 hours a week on top of that on your career transition.

For example, if you are currently working full-time at McDonald’s making a minimum wage but want to transition into software development, start spending 20 hours a week on:

• Learning how to code
• Building projects for your portfolio
• Applying to jobs
• Prepping for job interviews
• Going to job interviews

…etc.

That’s a much more reliable path to increasing your income than attempting to build a business on the side.

Focus on Maximizing Your Earning Potential Within Your Career

Once you are in a high-paying career, maximize your earning potential within it. 

For example, if you have successfully transitioned from a minimum-wage job at McDonald’s to working as a junior developer, focus on working your way up to getting a job at Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix or Google (FAANG).

FAANG companies are well-known for their willingness to pay big bucks for top talent, so if you can become that top talent, you can make those big bucks. We are talking low-to-mid six-figures per year in total compensation.

If you continue living like you’re broke while making six figures and divert all your discretionary income into saving for retirement, paying off your mortgage and investing in something like S&P 500, you might be able to reach a seven-figure net worth in 10-20 years, depending on how the market performs in that time.

Sure, that may not be as glamorous as making it big as an entrepreneur, but this approach has much higher odds of success – and is arguably much less stressful – than running a business!

Start a Side Hustle and Grow it Until You Can Go Full-Time on it

Okay, but what if you are not content with maximizing your earning potential within your career and accumulating a low-seven-figure net worth over a decade or two?

Forget “Get-Rich-Quick”, Embrace “Get-Rich-or-Die-Trying”

Building a sustainable business that can be sold for a life-changing amount of money will require consistent hard work over an extended period of time. It will probably take you at least a decade.

That’s why you can’t afford to have a get-rich-quick mindset: if you go into it hoping to make a ton of money in just a few short years, you won’t have the mental fortitude to stick with it for long enough to succeed.

In fact, considering that successful entrepreneurs often fail several times before they hit it big, we would argue that you should only pursue entrepreneurship if you are committed to seeing it through and won’t stop until you succeed, regardless of how long it takes. 

Also, success is not guaranteed. You can do everything right and still fail. That’s a real possibility that you need to accept. It can help you put things in perspective: is this something that you really want to do with your life?

Play it Safe With a Low-Risk Business Model

First of all, you want to choose a low-risk business model that doesn’t require significant startup capital. That way, even if you fail, it won’t wreck your finances, which means that you will be able to try again.

Here are three paths that you might want to consider:

• Launching an online service business where you start as a freelancer and then transition into an agency model. It probably won’t make you rich but it can be a great way to learn fundamental business skills.
• Launching an e-commerce business where you start by dropshipping, then transition into white label, and finally into private label.
• Creating software products by yourself and either continuing as a solopreneur indefinitely or hiring people and building a company. This is known as “indie hacking”. Pieter Levels’ book “Make” is a great introduction to it.

Next, look at your schedule and rearrange it so that you can consistently put in 20 hours a week into your side hustle on top of your full-time job.

Finally, start working on your business. You’ll probably find that getting it off the ground to be more challenging than you expected.

In fact, if you don’t have any previous entrepreneurial experience, it will probably take you a few years to get to the point where you are making the equivalent of the minimum wage from it. 

Don’t be disheartened by this because it’s completely normal. Growth is always slow initially but it will start accelerating eventually as you get better at running a business. You just need to stick with it.

Study Online Marketing if You Want to Get Your Side Hustle Off the Ground Faster

Beginner entrepreneurs often make the mistake of underestimating the importance of fundamental business skills.

This is especially common among people who are attempting to build a business around something that they are already good at.

For example, if you are a software developer who wants to build a software business, the chances are that you are overestimating the importance of writing good code and underestimating the importance of marketing, copywriting, and sales.

That’s why you need to study online marketing if you want to succeed as an entrepreneur.

We recommend starting with our co-founder Russell Brunson’s “Secrets Trilogy”:

• “DotCom Secrets” will teach you how to build a sales funnel
• “Traffic Secrets” will teach you how to drive traffic to your sales funnel
• “Expert Secrets” will teach you how to use storytelling to turn online visitors into lifelong customers

In addition to that, we recommend reading our friend Jim Edwards’ “Copywriting Secrets” which was written specifically with busy entrepreneurs in mind.

All four books are available on Amazon but you can also get them directly from us for free. All we ask is that you cover the shipping!

Only Go Full-Time Once Your Side Hustle Has Been Making You More Money Than Your Job for at Least a Year Straight

Beginner entrepreneurs often quit their jobs after their businesses have a few good months. It does work out sometimes but it’s extremely risky. Why?

Because revenue can fluctuate drastically due to various factors outside of your control. For example, you might make a ton of money one month due to going viral and then go to zero the next month because your ad account got suspended. This kind of stuff happens all the time. 

That’s why it’s best to wait until your side hustle income has been exceeding your salary for at least a year before you even consider quitting your job.

In fact, it’s ideal to prepare for it by dumping all your business income into savings for a few years so that you will have a massive runway by the time you hand in your resignation letter!

Build to Sell if Your Ultimate Goal is Generational Wealth

We would argue that selling a business is the most viable path to creating generational wealth.

However, in order to accomplish that, you need to build a company that can run without you. Otherwise, it’s not really a business, it’s just a job where you are your own boss.

Of course, if you are just starting out, you will need to do everything yourself, but as your business grows, you want to start working on it as opposed to in it. 

Meaning, that you should systematize various business processes and gradually extricate yourself from them so that eventually your company could run without you. 

We recommend reading “Built to Sell” by John Warrillow. It’s a great book that provides practical advice on how to create a business that can stand on its own.

Make Sure That You Are Prepared for Success!

Do you know how lottery winners tend to go broke because they mismanage their newfound wealth?

Well, the same thing can happen to entrepreneurs, which is why you need to prepare not just for failure but also for success.

Here’s a thought experiment: what would you do if you made $1M in profit next year? What about $5M? What about $10M?’

Would you pay off your mortgage? Put it into savings? Dump it all into the S&P 500? Buy rental properties? Reinvest it into your business? 

It might feel silly to be thinking about this stuff when your business isn’t making any money yet but it’s important to create a financial strategy in advance.

That way, should you ever experience “overnight success”, you’ll be able to make the most out of it!

Want to Learn How to Build Sales Funnels That CONVERT?

Our co-founder Russell Brunson used sales funnels to take ClickFunnels from zero to $100M+ in annual revenue in less than a decade.

He is now widely considered to be one of the top sales funnel experts in the world. Want to learn from him?

His best-selling book “DotCom Secrets” is the best place to start because it covers everything you need to know in order to build sales funnels that convert.

This book is available on Amazon where it has over 2,500 global ratings and a 4.7-star overall rating.

But you can also get it directly from us for free… 

All we ask is that you pay for shipping!

So what are you waiting for? 🧐

Get “DotCom Secrets” for FREE!

P.S. Here’s What Readers Say About “DotCom Secrets”…

What Readers Say About “DotCom Secrets”