I’ve been working my ass off getting Finance Your Freedom ready, and it launches in 22 days.

But before FYF launches, I want to give you a flavor of what’s to come.  So tonight I’m not-so-subtly “leaking” (ha!) part one of a series of “Interviews With Work from Home & Lifestyle Design Renegades.” Go check it out here.

A little about Chris . . .

• It takes Chris between 1/2 hour and 2 hours each day to run his immensely successful Orange County personal training company.
• Chris is a married father of two girls, an Orange County personal trainer, and a fitness marketing blogger.
• In a past life, Chris was a marijuana trafficker and has (at various times) been both homeless & incarcerated.
• Chris is an amazing person and one of the best lifestyle designers I know.

In the interview we talk about…

• How Chris turned an 70+ hour work week into a 7-hour work week;
• How Chris went from making NOTHING as a personal trainer, to making more than 99% of personal trainers; 
• The most important first step towards leaving your day job;
• How Chris liberated himself from a traditional work environment and created the life of his dreams;
• Renegade time management; and
• Internet marketing and empowerment.

But enough talking already. . .

Just go here and listen to Chris droppin’ knowledge.

For more marketing hype surrounding Finance Your Freedom, subscribe to The Growing Life.

Announcement #1: The Finance Your Freedom blog is now in pre-launch mode.  See here for a sneak peak (see here for more information about Finance Your Freedom).

Announcement #2: Next week I’ll be interviewing my friend Chris, who does what he loves and makes mucho dinero. And get this: it only takes him 2 hours per day to run his fitness business. I wouldn’t believe it either if I didn’t actually KNOW this guy. Check back soon for that interview.]

Announcement #3: This week in the VERY FIRST Finance Your Freedom newsletter, I’ll be answering a questions by Frans D. who asks “If you had to start over tomorrow from scratch (day job) to funding your freedom; how would you do it, what would be the most important thing to do and what do you suggest I do to get a jump start?”  Sign up here to see my response:

Most people can work from home and make a living if they’re determined and don’t mind working their asses off. That part’s doable. Working at home and actually loving it, however, is a different story: it can be hard as hell.

It’s Hard as Hell Because of . . .

The blue circle represents things you really like to do. Something doesn’t have to be ostensibly important, significant, worthwhile, or respectable to fall in this circle. If you really like to dance, go camping, cook, or play with your children, then those things go inside this circle (something tells me you know what’s in your blue circle, but read this if you don’t).

The green circle represents the realm of things you can do IN THE VERY NEAR FUTURE to earn money, support your family, and live comfortably. Your green circle isn’t just determined by you: it’s also determined by market forces, supply and demand, the global and local economy, etc.

For many people, there’s very little overlap between the things we really enjoy doing, and the things we can to do make a healthy living in the very near future. That’s part of the reason why so many people hate their jobs: they just can’t get paid for doing things they like to do.

By the way, I know plenty of people who work from home AND hate their jobs: working from home or owning your own business doesn’t necessarily fix your problems (it often makes them worse).

The Three-Percent Problem

The Three-Percent Problem is the reality that — for a hell of a lot of people — there’s only a 3% overlap (i.e. a VERY SMALL overlap) between the things we love to do and the things that pay the bills (as illustrated by the circles above). 3% is arbitrary. The point is that the overlap is small.

In fact, the overlap is so small that most people don’t even see that such an overlap exists at all.

At any rate, the Three-Percent Problem lies at the root of . . .

You’re about to read a long-ass post. But before you grab a cup of coco and put on your reading glasses . . .

Here’s What I Want You to Do

If you support the spirit of this blog and have gained anything from The Growing Life, then I’d really appreciate your completing this “Finance Your Freedom” questionnaire. If you wax the survey then the gods of good luck will shower benevolence upon you for all eternity. I promise.

Also, if you have any questions about funding your freedom, please email them to me at claycollins [at] gmail [dot] com; I’ll be answering as many questions as I can on the Finance Your Freedom mailing list: you can sign up for it here:

Ok, now to the part about me almost shutting down The Growing Life. It all begins with . . .

A Series of AWESOME Conversations

About a month ago I started having daily conversations with readers of this blog. What I discovered OVER and OVER again was that most everyone reading The Growing Life “gets” all this liberation stuff I’ve been talking about. I’ve heard over and over again that I validate your alternative lifestyle aspirations. And I’m happy to have done this. Really.

So you may be thinking . . .

“So Why Shut Down The Growing Life?”

As I said earlier, I talk to a reader of this blog nearly every day. And nearly everyone I’ve spoken to has the exact same reason why they can’t quit their 9-5 job and live the life they want. Want to take a guess what that reason is?

You’re right: it’s money.

But it’s really more complex than that. You see, quitting your 9-5 job and recreating your life takes a LOT of time. Creating alternative sources of income takes time. And building a lifestyle from scratch takes time. And the list goes on.

And most people can’t afford their own time. This bears repeating . . .

If You’re Like Most People, then Large Corporations Can Afford Your Time But You Cannot

If you’re like most people, then you can’t survive without selling your time to someone else.

How fucked up is that?

So the real problem really isn’t money, it’s our inability to buy our own time. (Most people could liberate themselves if they could just buy enough of their own time).

So I Almost Shut Down The Growing Life Because . . .

So yeah, I almost shut down The Growing Life forever.  And this isn’t where the story ends: the plot thickens and reaches a climax when someone offers $12,000 for this blog and I turn them down.

Long story short: instead of selling The Growing Life or shutting it down, I ended up taking a vacation.  I’m on it now.  Look for the full scoop on Tuesday  Wednesday (or just stop by for more of the same ‘ol armchair nonsense).

For more riveting blog drama, pick up a free subscription to The Growing Life.

 
photo by Leo London

About two months ago I wrote about how I’d quit my job and was going for broke. I’m happy to report that since then, things are going better than ever. I’m making more than I ever have before, I have unprecedented levels of free time and flexibility, and I’m the happiest I’ve ever been.

But I’ve talked to enough people going through similar situations to know that I’ve had some really lucky breaks, and that some of my circumstances aren’t easily repeatable. So I’ve written this post to address some of the most frequent problems people face when trying to fund their freedom and liberate themselves from traditional work environments.

Let’s get started.

One of the most damaging myths perpetuated by our society is . . .

The Myth that if You Do What You Love, the Money Will Follow

There is this insane myth in our culture that if you do what you love, the money will naturally follow. It’s one of those deceptive half truths that often leads to humiliation.

[Note #1: If you're reading this post via an email or RSS reader, you won't have access to the embedded video and audio elements contained in this article.  Please click here to view the full article.]

[Note #2: I've been on a small summer hiatus.  Thanks for sticking around.]

In this conversation on Duff McDuffy’s Precision Change , we talk about…

• Why computer hacks probably shouldn’t be considered “life” hacks…and what should.
• Why “if there’s a path, it’s not your path,” and how to find yours!
• How no Firefox add-on is going to help you ask the tough questions of what life’s about.
• Why there’s no “there” there in doing things that are “going to lead to somewhere.”
• Why you should never affirm “everything I touch turns to gold” or risk ending up like King Midas!
• The many forms of lifestyle design, and why only a custom design will do.
• Why if you are truly lifehacking, you might appear flaky for a while, but eventually you will work out the bugs.

Related links of possible interest:

• Precision Change, an awesome personal development podcast
• The Life Hack Misnomer, an article that goes more in depth into the “lifehack” language, and where it goes wrong
• The Cult of Abundance, Goal Autoimmune Disorder, & Abundance 2.0

For more more accidental crotch pointing, grab a free subscription to The Growing Life.

[If you read nothing else in this article, read about the income snowball. It's halfway through this article.]

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be.  Now put foundations under them.
-Henry David Thoreau

Most of my articles focus on the “inner game”? of personal liberation (from traditional work environments and lifestyles). That’s because I — like a million other people in the personal development space — believe that change usually manifests on the inner plane before it manifests on the outer plane (see Socrates, the Bible, Thoreau, Stephen Covey, etc.).

But it’s hard to leave even a horrible situation and begin re-envisioning your life if you don’t believe you’ll be able to support yourself. Because if you can’t get around the money issue then what’s the point?

Here are two reactions to my last post . . .

Go ahead, tell the government to fuck off, go live in cardboard box if that is such a great improvement on your career.
-Ufia

I think many of us "real" people would happily become "unreal" if we could figure out another way to get money. Homeless people would fit into this "unreal" category, but I don’t want to resort to that to simply shed the title.
-Disillusion

In addition to the money issue, people also hold the self-limiting belief that all this lifestyle design stuff is for those who don’t have to financially support children. I usually hear guys making “the kid argument”? — it probably has something to do with our urge to provide). On the other hand, I’ve spoken with several women who are living creatively with children. (They believe that if you feed a child, love them, and spend time with them, that they’ll be OK. I couldn’t agree more).