Time and Money Freedom?

There are two aspects of freedom which are somewhat different from those I discussed last time.

These two are frequently referred to in the network marketing and personal development circles as ‘Time and Money Freedom’.

But what does that mean?

I regard them as ‘second level’ freedoms because they’re based on artificial concepts.

‘Time’ and ‘Money’ are simply ‘yardsticks’ put in place to measure what we do with and in our lives.

It’s always about ‘how much’ time and money we have available to do what we wish to do within the freedom of self-determination.

Time and money are also controls we place on ourselves in an attempt to manage our lives and by doing this we limit our overall freedom.

We as people have decided we cannot be ‘free of time’ or ‘free of money’ – if we could it would lead to a completely different society to the one we live in now – more like that of some so-called ‘primitive’ tribes who don’t recognise either of these ideas.

When people talk about ‘time and money freedom’ they mean finding a way of life where there is always more than enough money coming in to meet their needs and wants, and always time for us to do whatever we wish, whenever we wish, regardless of how long it may take.

What usually happens however is that to generate the income we think we need, we sacrifice our ‘time freedom’ to get it, or vice versa!

Various ways around this conundrum are proposed, usually by changing the way we generate the money.

Offers abound for ‘business opportunities’ such as affiliate marketing, network marketing (also known as MLM) or creating online shops, and for training programmes in developing ‘multiple streams of income’ (MSIs) which ‘generate money while you sleep’ and so forth.

Some of these really do work but what they don’t tell you is the investment of time, and money, required to make them work, really work, is much higher than they usually indicate.

Despite having multiple streams of passive income, you often end up in the same state. It takes a decade or more of hard work and long hours to get to the situation they describe at the beginning.

Is there a way around this?

Can you and I really achieve ‘time and money freedom’?

Yes, we can.

If . . .

If we stop using money and time as yardsticks to measure everything we do in our lives.

That sounds simple, and in a way it is, but it requires us to take a completely different approach to life, something which others won’t understand.

They’ll think we’re crazy and try and stop us, they’ll try to ‘save us from ourselves’ if we decide to stop worshipping the ‘false gods’ of time and money and allowing them to rule or lives.

I said it’s simple, but it’s not easy.

We have to ‘let go’.

My friend and mentor Peter Thomson has a saying –

“Everything has an equal and opposite measurement”

He’s absolutely right, but –

It depends how we do the measuring.

We can include time and money in the criteria, but the key measure is more personal.

Whatever it is you’re measuring – how does it (or did it) make you feel?

You can do this on a simple Good to Bad 1 to 10 scale or use something more detailed like the Hawkins scale of consciousness (17 levels from Miserable to Perfect)

What ‘value’ (not monetary) did it create in your life?

To what extent did whatever it was ‘serve’ you?

Not ‘how much money did it make?’ or ‘how much time did it take?’

That second question is interesting – we feel ‘time’ is being taken away from us rather than we are ‘using it up’ like we feel about money.

There is nothing wrong, in fact it’s a good idea, to look at how we might be able to generate more income or spend less time generating income by changing our method of operation, but time and money must not be the main or only criteria by which we measure.

We need to stop using them as a yardstick and look inside instead.

Next time I’m going to talk about ‘success’, the ‘pursuit’ of it and what we really mean by it.