The two roads to financial freedom

These are the two roads to financial freedom. The first is to make more money now, for a better today. The second is to build a residual income, for an amazing tomorrow. Those are the doing steps, and I keep all of my attention on those two, all the time.

There are people out there who only think about today. They never start putting a future out there for themselves, and here is what happens: their future ends up sadly average at best. If we are honest with ourselves, that is what most people quietly fear will happen to their life.

Then you see the opposite type, people working only for the future, and for some reason they cannot enjoy today. Too busy, and busy broke, too focused on tomorrow to live. That is not a life I want either. There is a middle road, one in between, and I am telling you, that is the road you need to travel.

Zero to hero, then back to zero

Let me tell you my own story with this. I spent about fifteen years in the energy business making good money now for a good today. But here was the problem: I started every Monday at zero. I worked and worked and worked, and by Friday I had gone from zero up to hero. Then Monday came and I was back at zero, doing it all over again.

That treadmill can pay you well and still own you completely, because the moment you stop pushing, the income stops with you. Money now, with no tomorrow attached to it.

So we got smart, and we started American Power and Gas. I will tell you something: the first three years were brutal. Money going out everywhere, and then a huge winter storm hit America, energy markets went crazy, and the company very nearly did not survive it. We worked our way through.

The piece of paper that changed my mind

About two and a half years in, we had paid off our debt, and my finance guy handed me a little piece of paper with a number on it: what the residuals had paid that month. My eyes went boom.

Relative to what the business pays today it was a small amount, but it blew my mind, because it was money that arrived whether or not I had personally gone from zero to hero that week. I was still making good money now for a good today, and then the residuals kicked in on top. That is the magic, my friends, and it sneaks up on you. Residual income is quiet for a long time, and then one day it is the foundation under your feet.

The law underneath it all

There is a natural law in business, and here it is: compensation drives behavior. You will start doing the activities that pay you the most. Every salesperson proves it, every founder proves it, you prove it, whether or not you have ever said it out loud.

So use the law on purpose. Arrange your work so that the things that pay you today and the things that build your tomorrow are the same set of activities, and you will stop needing willpower to do either one.

This is also how you judge an opportunity, a job, or a business you are thinking of building. Ask two questions of it. Does it pay me now, so today gets better? And does anything about it accumulate, so tomorrow gets better on its own? Plenty of work answers yes to the first and never to the second, and that work will keep you comfortable and stuck forever.

Walk both roads at once. Make more money now, for a better today, so your family feels the difference this month. And build the residual, for an amazing tomorrow, so that one day somebody hands you a piece of paper with a number on it, and your eyes go boom too.