There is No Freedom Without Financial Freedom

I’m not a very materialistic person.

In fact, I own little more in this world than the contents of the suitcase I travel with.

And yet, a few years ago, I obsessively threw myself into the business of making money.

I’m writing this article to explain my motivation.

These days, I see money as potential, countable freedom.

I used to have different ideas about freedom. Then, an event happened that made me reconsider all of those ideas.

Background

I may not have cared about money for a long time, but for as long as I remember, I’ve been obsessed with the idea of freedom.
Early 2010, I thought I had it all figured out.

I was working as a dating coach in Melbourne. The nature of the job meant that I mostly taught intense weekend workshop with 2-4 participants. I would take home a few thousand dollars from that weekend – and that was about all the work I had to do for the month. That’s right, I was living the 4 day-work-month.

I had no boss and owned my time, which is more than I could say for my many friends living life in 9-5 corporate jobs they all but tolerated.

I lived on Chapel street, in a pretty cool part of Melbourne. There were lots of cafés to spend my days in, bars to spend my evenings in, and delicious affordable restaurants to eat in.

I had cool friends who I loved and trusted, and Melbourne had more than enough beautiful awesome girls to date.

If I ever wanted to go somewhere, I had my reliable, beat-up 1989 Ford Laser called Jill – the first car I ever owned which I planned to keep for as long as I could.

I wasn’t trying to keep up with the joneses or compare myself favourably to anyone. I was living an unconventional life of my own design, and living true to my highest value – freedom.

I was free. Or was I?

It All Started On A Skype Chat

Meagan was my first real love, an ex-girlfriend turned good friend, and one of my favorite people in the world.

We dated back when I lived in Brisbane, Australia.

In 2007, after breaking up, we both moved far away – her to Berlin, Germany and me to Melbourne, still in Australia.

In 2009 she came to meet my family and me in Israel. We travelled around together for a few weeks, driving a rental car around Israel from bottom to top.

Fast forward back to 2010, we still cared a lot about each other (in the way ex’s turned good friends do).

Every so often, when it felt like we were due for a deep and meaningful catch up session, we negotiated a time that somehow worked for her German timezone and my Australian one.

And so it happened that one day in November 2010, Meagan and I were scheduled for a Skype call.

When we chatted, she seemed a bit down. When I prodded her, she said she was suffering from an intense, shooting back pain. The pain was too much to bear, nothing was helping, and it had already been 4 sleepless nights.

“You have to go to the hospital! Go see a doctor!” I said.

She told me she would go to the hospital immediately after we finish our call.

I was worried. Meagan had a cancerous mole removed from her leg the year before.

For all we knew, all throughout that time, the cancer cells could have still been in her body and her bloodstream, multiplying.

Bad News

The next day I called her to see what the doctors found.

Meagan said she had tumors in her brain, tailbone, spleen and lungs. She mentioned the word ‘terminal’. She said the Australian government had a policy to fly terminal patients back home and so she would be flown to Brisbane soon.

“Terminal patient”.

In 24 hours, my 28-year-old friend went from having a sore back to dying.

3 weeks later, on a phone call, she sounded exhausted. Chemotherapy took its toll. Spending time with all of her well-wishing Berlin friends was also draining her of energy, so we didn’t talk long.

She asked me: “When they fly me back to Brisbane, you’ll come visit me, right?”

“Of course!” I said. And I meant it.

But that never happened.

Her doctors never gave her permission to fly. She was too unwell.

A week after that phone call, on the 13th of December 2010, she died, barely a month after entering the hospital.

I never got to see her again. I didn’t get to look into her eyes one last time and tell her how much she meant to me, how much I would miss her, how much I loved her.

I wasn’t there.

I wasn’t there, because I couldn’t afford to be there.

Realization

That was when I realized that I was full of shit. I wasn’t really free. I wasn’t free to make the decisions my heart wanted to make.

I was living a pretty limited version of freedom. I had very limited options. I didn’t have any savings, definitely not enough for an impromptu trip to Europe for an unknowable amount of time.

No money, no options.

No options, no freedom to do what I really wanted to do.

There is no freedom without financial freedom.

Following that realization, my life changed completely. I stopped working as a dating coach, and immersed myself in online business. I found an Internet marketing job, and built my own ventures on the side.

I obsessed myself with business and making money like I never had before. It happened a lot quicker for me than for other online entrepreneurs I know, due to this blind, slow-burning motivation and a whole lot of luck.

In May 2012, 18 months after Meagan’s death, I left Australia and moved to Colombia.

I could now run my online ventures anywhere that had an Internet connection, and I made a full time living from it. I was free in ways that I never was before – not just a master of my time, but I was also financially and geographically liberated.

A year later, in June 2013, my grandmother passed away unexpectedly in her sleep. Less than 48 hours later, I was back in Israel to support my family and be with them. There was no question that it was the right thing to do.

And this time, I was able to do the right thing.

Meagan, I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for you. Your death made me a better man. I live a life truer to my highest core values. I’m more free than I could ever have imagined 5 years ago.

I still think of you often, little Angel. Rest in peace.