The Secret to Buying Your Freedom Without Owning Personal Assets
From the Founder's Desk:
If 2020 has taught us anything, it’s that opportunity doesn’t go away, it just switches places. At Aerial, we used this time to examine, pivot and thrive - and that is because we knew we had plenty of resources at our disposal.
The problem that many people face in times of stress is feeling like there aren’t resources for them to use. And that is a limiting mindset! Society has taught us that, to obtain wealth and freedom, you have something of your own to leverage. For example, if you want to buy a home, many people believe that you have to have a ton of cash or great credit. That’s false (I’ll come back to this.) Another example is people believe that to make money, you have to trade your time (whether that’s by working a job or providing a service). It’s simply not true.
In my G-FORCE Mastermind community, I discussed how you can use this time to buy back your freedom, live anywhere and fund your purpose.
First: Conduct the “You’re Crazy!” Audit
A “crazy” idea gave us Amazon. The thought that you could ship anything to your house with the click of a button was unheard of in 1999 and now it is one of the largest and most valuable companies in the world! Most people simply don’t take the time to tap into those ideas for fear of failure or worse, unknowingly arguing for their limitations by believing it’s impossible without exploring nontraditional routes to succeed.
My “crazy” idea came when I was still in my teenage years listening to a man speak at my survival training school. He told us all about flipping houses to make money and create cash flow. After understanding what was this completely foreign concept, I realized that I could use real estate as the means to live out my purpose of building orphanages in Africa. So I ran with it. As a broke 20 year old entering the real estate industry in 2008 and living out of my car, people literally thought I had lost my mind.
I won’t lie and say it was easy; it’s really hard to continuously put yourself out there and try something even though everyone around you is telling you that it won’t work. You have to believe so strongly in your purpose and know that others are depending on your vision to come to life.
For your audit, make a list of all the CRAZY, big, scary goals you have and below each of them write all the traditional ways you could reach them. Now let me share how you can achieve them without using those things you listed.
Asset Hacking
Asset Hacking means making money on things that you don’t even own. You can use them to pay for the beautiful life you want, giving you the freedom to live anywhere and focus on what you most want to do. I can definitively tell you that it is possible. I’ve been doing it successfully for years.
Early on, I knew that entering the real estate market could generate the type of income needed to build the orphanages and end poverty at its root. But I was led to believe it was a rich man’s game. Determined to find a way, I learned how to hack houses I didn’t own into cash-flowing rentals.
There are a few ways you could do this:
- Rent your home to pay for your vacation home
- Rent a room out of your home or apartment to generate additional income
- Leasing a house and subleasing it for more - I still do this today and it’s an amazing source of revenue in my business. It may take digging to find someone willing to let you sublease, but one yes is all it takes to get the ball rolling.
The goal is to figure out what other people need and offer that to them. Sure, Joe down the street may say he needs cash down on his home (which you don’t have), but what he really may need is an extra $1000/month to support his mother or put his kid through college.
By offering to pay him that $1000 above the mortgage price for the next 10 years, you may be surprised to find that he’d rather have guaranteed income instead of a lump sum. You simply would need to make sure to deliver on your promise. There’s always risk but by getting to their root desire you can often mitigate it enough to make it work. You simply have to ask the right questions.
Of course this is just an example. You should definitely seek out an attorney, financial advisor or real estate professional before making any decisions to insure you’re doing everything right. My point here is that people can be motivated by something other than what you assume motivates them. Go find it.
Hacking Your Lifestyle
What’s great is that this idea extends beyond real estate. You can hack any asset - your time, your business, your coaching, your home, your health and wealth - to make it work for you like this. All it takes is a bit of creativity and willingness to step outside of the world’s comfort zone.
If no one thinks you're crazy, you're not yet operating in the outer limits of your potential. Take the opportunity to blaze a new frontier, and then wait for the naysayers to ask you how you did it.
Every single week in G-FORCE Mastermind, we give members the tools to hack their lifestyle and live a life of purpose and freedom! Join us for even more insights by scheduling a discovery call with our team here.
You can also learn how to be a #ForceforGood by listening to our G-FORCE podcasts wherever you stream podcasts - including Apple Podcasts and Spotify!
