In this episode, we discuss how you enjoy the uncertainty of doing what you want to do in life because it is a much better life to live than to live a life you don’t want to live.
Full Transcript
Hi Everyone, welcome to the You’re Daily Cup of Joe Podcast, with your host Joe Bautista. In this podcast, my goal is to give you quick lessons on how to grow yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually so you can have better careers, better relationships, and better personal finances.
I’m also the author of the book “More You Know, More You Grow: How to Get Better Every Day”. In this book, I wrote down over 30 tips to help you grow in those four cornerstones. I’m also the founder of Grow With Joe, where I combine self-development coaching and financial planning for Latino Professionals.
In today’s episode, we’re are going to talk about the quote “It’s better to fail in freedom than to succeed in chains.” and I heard this quote on the Tim Ferriss Podcast and its one that I think about a lot. I’ve said this before but right now I’m running my own business and it’s a struggle but at least I know I’m free. I’m free to choose my day, which clients that I choose to work with, and I’m allowed to speak my mind. No one really tells me what to do on a day to day basis and I love it. I do have to work a lot because I’m trying to establish something but I’m okay with the struggle because I love coaching people one on one to get better financially and personally.
If I can help one person take control over their finances and start to take steps closer to a life with more control in it, then I did my job. I always found that I work best in small groups than in large groups and I like working one-on-one with people so doing one-on-one financial coaching and advising is right up my alley. I tried to do it with another company, but I found them too restrictive and I felt that I wasn’t really running my own company as they promised.
As a heads-up, if you work for a franchise, you don’t own the franchise and you do control many aspects of the franchise when it comes to marketing and operations. It basically getting a business in a box and you just follow their system and this how it was with my previous firm. They wanted us to market in a certain way and to focus on selling certain things and they changed the comp structure to incentivize us to focus on those products. So if you don’t agree with the message and don’t want to change much, then a franchise is the way to go. Owning a franchise can give you freedom if you want, but you have to be okay with the rules that are laid out.
I wanted to focus on a different niche than my previous company wanted and I wanted to be more focused on financial planning than selling financial products. So decided that I wanted to leave the company and do my own thing, which I’ve been doing for the past seven months and I love it. There have been struggles with waiting on my licenses to be approved and just figuring out my operations but I’m getting the hang of it and anytime things start to get tough, I just tell myself that it is better to fail in freedom than to succeed in chains.
Even if I do fail at this, I can just go to some other financial planning firm and I know the association that I’m apart can offer me an opportunity to do some financial planning work. So things are really not as bad as it seems. Plus I’m gaining so much valuable experience right now that I know that I can get hired by another company.
I could be fine in the right organization though. You don’t need to start your own company to have freedom. To have freedom, you’re fine within living with the rules and people that are surrounding you. If you have an amazing boss and work environment than that can give you freedom. You just don’t want to end a place where you’re working for a salary but you actually hate what you’re doing with your life. This is succeeding in chains and it’s not a fun place to be at.
I would say the best thing to do that will give you freedom is to figure out what you want to do in life and ask yourself five whys for why you want to do it to make sure you actually want to do that thing. For me, I want to have my own financial planning company because I want to help Latinos with their money, why do I want to do that? because Latinos need a lot of help and there are not many people to help them out, why is that important? it’s important to me too because I’m the son of two blue-collar workers and my dad is an immigrant from Mexico and he didn’t really know what to do with his money. Why is that important? It’s important to me because I saw that money can be a cause of stress and it can limit opportunities. Why is that important? It’s important to me because I don’t want to have scarcity in my life and I don’t want to have limited opportunities and I would hate to see the same thing for others.
Since I really understand my why for why I’m doing Grow With Joe, it helps with the struggle of starting my own thing, plus I have my 24-month runway so I’m fine for the next 24 months so the struggle isn’t that bad but it’s the uncertainty that can get you and you wonder if you’re doing the right thing but since I got my first couple of clients so far, I know I’m on the right track. Plus by running my own thing the way I want to run it and focus Latino Professionals, I know I’m making some difference in the world.
So if you’re working for yourself or for someone else, just make sure it aligns with who you are as a person. The money can only make you happy for so long. Also, you have to realize that there isn’t be a problem-free life. Something is going to give you a problem in your life, you just have to know which problems you want to deal with. If you work for someone else, your schedule is going to be redistricted but at least you know you have benefits and a good work environment that gives you meaning. If you work for yourself, you can call the shots, but then you are responsible for when things go wrong and you have to make decisions and those decisions have consequences.
It all depends on the life you want to have but the idea i that you have to design and then actually live it. You might fail on your way to the life that you want to have but if you do, you can always get back up and try again. It might take ten years, it might take 25 years, it’s probably not going to happen in a year, but you just have to love the process. If you’re trying to make some social change, that is going to be even tougher but you just have to love the journey and not get jaded by what’s happening around you. You just have to live your life and ignore the people telling you otherwise.
Do you want to say that you lived your life the way you wanted it to go or do you want to live your life with regrets? Life is short and being in chains makes even worse. Even if you’re in prison but it is for something you didn’t do, you can design your life around prison life so that you can still live your life on your own terms like Ruben Hurricane Carter the boxer who went to prison for 19 years for a murder he didn’t commit. When he was in prison, he told himself that he was not in a prison and that he just there to work on his appeal case. He might have not ever gotten out of prison but he found freedom in the way that he treated his life. I’m sure there were moments of doubt but he is one strong individual for doing what he did. So whatever position you are in life right now, make sure the chains are removed.
That’s it for today’s episode, to summarize it, it is better to fail in freedom than to succeed in chains. You only have one life, so it’s best to be free than to be tied down doing things that you don’t love to do. A millionaire can be a slave to their circumstances and a person with nothing in the bank can have more freedom than the millionaire. It just depends on your definition of freedom is. So make sure you’re living your life on your terms and not being miserable following a life that you really don’t care for.
To get a free copy of my book “More You Know, More You Grow: How to get better every day” just go to my website growwithjoe.me/book and just pay for shipping and handling.
I have a quiz on my website that grades your inner circle, so if you want to find out if your inner circle is an A, B, C, D, or F, you can take that quiz at growwithjoe.me/quiz
I’m also trying to do a feedback Friday episode, so if you have a question that you would like to have my answer on the air, just e-mail me at [email protected]
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Thanks for joining me today and remember if you go with Joe, you can grow with Joe, cause Joe knows Dough.
*Music outro
