I Wish I Knew This in my twenties: The Truth About Money and Freedom

Key Takeaways

So, if I could go back and talk to my 20-year-old self about business and wealth, I certainly wouldn't tell him to try and climb the corporate ladder a lot quicker, and I wouldn't tell him to save as much money as you can for that mortgage. I'd actually tell him to wake the up because the path I thought to success was the classic, you know, get the mortgage, get the have the career, get a flash car, you know, the the safe plan. Okay? And this is the trap that 99% of people fall into. And I was told the same story that everyone else my age was. Okay, you have to get a job, get a mortgage, have a family, okay, then you'll be happy. Now, some of those things are absolutely correct. You have a family, you get a house, you know, you will be happy. But you don't need to do those things until you're over the age of 30. So, I'm going to break down this video into five parts and explain to you why you need to start your own business and accumulate wealth in your 20s. So, before we get started, hit the like button, hit the subscribe button. My spot's still there. That's why I'm wearing the cap, even though I wear the cap most of the time anyway. I just thought I'd give you an update on it. Um, yeah, hit the like button, hit the subscribe button, and let's get on with the video. So, part one, the system is designed to keep you comfortable. It rewards you being compliant. It will not reward you for being creative. And society trains you to trade your time for a paycheck. And funnily enough, it never trains you to question why that is. And they give you a promotion just enough to keep you motivated. And obviously nowhere near enough for you to turn around to your boss and say off. I'm done now. I'm over this. So then you take on more debt. Okay? You you get a nicer car. You get a bigger house. Your bosses will say, "You deserve it. Treat yourself." All you're doing is actually building yourself a bigger prison. That's all you're doing. Look, I'm not starting a conspiracy or anything like that. This is just how it is, okay? This is it's all a game. This is how it's played. Society wants you to fall in line. They want you they want to control you and they don't want you being creative. They don't want you to question why you have to live this life. And look, if you're happy with that life, then that's great. You go for it, okay? You enjoy your career, enjoy your Netflix or, you know, your Love Island or your Gardener World or whatever you want to watch in the evenings, that's fine. You go for it. But for the people who are questioning this and they're thinking to themselves, I don't want to be in this stuck in this in this trap for the rest of my life. I want to be creative. I want to I want to express myself. I want to be me. I want to have the opportunity to make wealth and and have more time. Then you need to carry on watching this video. And when I was in my early 20s, I thought owning a house was the the bees knees. You know, that was the that was the pinnacle. Okay. getting your own house, having that mortgage, something, you know, something that you own, my m my retirement is now sorted. The problem with that is, as great as it is having your own home, don't get me wrong, it's it's amazing. You know, you can do what you like to it, have your own space, fantastic. The problem is once you get that once you get that mortgage, you're locked in. There's no escape. You're you've then got to pay the mortgage off. You know, nowadays you're looking at probably in mortgage between a th00and 2,000 or dollars a month or whatever and you've got to find that every single month. So you can't escape that 925. You're then stuck in that position for the next 25, 30 years. Now I don't want to make this sound really depressing, but that is the honest truth. And again, if that's what you want, if that's what you think will make you happy, then you absolutely go for it. Okay? I'm not going to stand in stand in your way and say don't do it. It's the wrong thing to do. This is for the people who want to live their life who who who think that when they get to their late 30s or early 40s and have not acquired any wealth, you know, they're they're stuck in this cycle of doing a job that they hate and not having any spare money and living paycheck by paycheck and they can't get out of it because they're locked in this 30-year prison sentence that we are led to believe is the right thing for everyone. Well, it's not the right thing for everyone. Okay, I can tell you that now because I'm in my early 40s. I'm at that position myself. You know, I I'm happy with my family. I'm happy with the fact that I do have a house now. But if I could go back, you know, to my early 20s, I would I would tell myself, I say, forget trying to get the house. You know, you need to build wealth first. That's the key thing. You need to you need to think about your life in 20 years time, not just, you know, living and spending money at the weekend or saving putting in a savings account. None of this is financial advice. I'm just going to say that now. None of this is financial advice. If you want to put your money in a savings account and do that, absolutely fine. You go for it. But I'm just telling you what I would tell myself and and it wouldn't and it would be absolutely do not save for a mortgage. Okay. So, part two, the truth about building wealth. Okay. So, this is what I'm learning. so far whilst I'm on my journey. And this is something that I wish I understood when I was in my 20ies. Wealth doesn't come from an income. You're not going to get wealthy by being paid by someone else. Wealth comes with ownership. You can't save your way to freedom. I know lots of people who have tried doing that and they just end up with, you know, nowhere near as much money as they they started, mainly due to inflation. Look, I'm not going to go deep into into inflation. There's loads of videos on YouTube about that. You can go and watch those. So, you know, for example, say you've got 10 grand now. Now, in 20 years time, you might have 20 grand, okay? But that 20 grand is not going to be the same 20 grand as it was 20 years ago, if that makes any sense. You know, then you've got other things like you you've got bills that come on emergencies, you know, your boiler packs up. That's a big one. That's annoying. You know, you you're living paycheck to paycheck. You can save 300 quid a month or $300 a month or whatever and then your boiler packs up and there goes your money. Okay, it's it's not it's such a thing to spend your money on. And that happens all the time, okay, with with your own house and and and bills in general, okay? You're going to get loads of that sort of stuff. So save it. For me, saving is not an option. You cannot save your way to freedom. What you need is leverage, okay? And I'm not talking about leverage trading. That's suicide. Do not do that. I'm talking about leveraging as in you need a business or skills or you know some sort of assets or something like that just to give you that edge. Look, and you don't even have to go all in on something big straight away. You can just start with something small. You know, something even if something makes you $200 a month extra, that's $200 that you didn't have before. That's $200 you can then put towards something else. You know, improving your skills further or putting into an asset or something. All of those things sort of compound over time and it just it will just make the whole thing the whole process a lot easier. You know in that you know if that compounds over 10 10 20 years then you know you're going to be in a completely different place to what you would have been if you didn't have that extra $200 income. And I wish I'd knew all this when I was 20 years old because the way I was told you know and our our parents tell all of us is that you need to work hard at school and you need to work your way up you know in a business. That's that's how you become rich. That's how you become wealthy. Not that's not how you do it. Yes, you can earn a good living from from being, you know, 1% of the population earn a decent enough salary to be able to have several holidays a year and pay their mortgage off by the age of 50. But for the vast majority of people, you're not going to be able to do that. And I've preached this in loads of my videos. Okay? You live in a time now where it's never been easier to make money online. We've we've got AI, we've got social media, you know, YouTube. There's there's so many outlets that you can make money now online. It's just ridiculous. And if you're in your early 20s, you've got you you'll have that edge where you've got the energy, you've got the time because you don't have the mortgage, you don't have the family. For someone like me, it's really hard. Okay? It's not impossible because that's why I'm here. I'm doing it. I'm living proof. It can happen. Even though I'm not there yet, I'm on my way there. I can feel it. It's coming. But anyway, but in your 20s, you can really accelerate this. You may not have the experience. That's that's where the over 40s will definitely have the advantage over you, but you you'll definitely have the energy advantage. You're, you know, you're not tied down to 1,500 quid a month. You probably don't have a flash car cuz the insurance will be too much money. So, you obviously won't be getting a flash car. And I've completely lost my train of thought. Anyway, anyway, that's the game that I wish I played when I was 20 years old, not trading all my time for a pittance of a paycheck. Part three, don't build a life around trying to impress people. Cuz I'll tell you exactly why. No one gives a Okay, no one cares. Why would I care? I'm not impressed. I I I don't know a huge amount about cars. You might be getting the trying to get the next Tesla M. I don't know what any Tesla models, okay? You you you might be striving to get that and you're going to be think driving around thinking, "Yeah, everyone thinks I'm really cool. Everyone thinks I'm the bee's knees. I've made it." Literally, no one thinks that. Okay? And no one cares. And how does it matter if they do? It's like, what's that? What is that going to do for your life? Is that going to make your life drastically better? And I can tell you now, I would not be jealous to see you driving around in the latest Tesla or BMW or, I don't know, whatever car. It ma it matters not to me. I don't I do not give a But you know what I would be jealous of? What I would be slightly envious of? It's seeing someone in their early 20s posting all over social media about you know how many businesses or sasses or digital products stuff that they're selling online and and how much they're making a month. Okay? Because I would turn around and think to myself and it happens. I've seen it. It happens a lot. Okay? And I always think good for them. They are absolutely smashing it. They've made the right decision. you know that that's the path that I should have gone down, you know, but the problem is a lot of this technology wasn't available to me at at this age. Like I said before, you're you're living in this golden opportunity age now where you can really capitalize on this. But anyway, I would not be impressed with you having a flash car. I would be impressed with you posting, you know, about have this amazing lifestyle that you've got with killing it with your businesses, having a healthy lifestyle, traveling the world whilst doing it. That is something that a lot of people would be envious of. Part four, build your skills and leverage early. So, say you're fresh out of university or you're you've just finished college or school and you're thinking to yourself, I'll just get a job and I'll just spend my evenings bumming about. I'll worry about with the money later on in life. Okay, I'll wait until I'm 30, then I can really push for it. That's the wrong way to do it. Don't do that. I pretty much did that and I regretted it ever since. Don't do that. You've got to use this time, the time that you don't have huge amount of commitments. You've got to use use your energy because you're going to have tons of energy at that age. And really think about what floats your boat, you know, what keeps you going. That that's the thing, okay? Something that you're motivated with. And like I said before, you don't have to start big. You can always start small. You know, you're young enough to be able to build these skills up over time and build wealth that way. You know, I'm being your age, you're probably already techsavvy. You probably know social media inside out. You know about AI. Use that to your advantage. Don't go home and play bloody Halo or Fortnite or whatever. Don't spend that your evenings doing that cuz it's a waste of time. You don't. Yes, you might get a bit of dopamine from it, but trust me, when you when you start your own business, when you're creating something, you get more of a dopamine hit. It does for me. All of the the video games, you know, I used to do that a lot in my 20s. All it did was just it's like a temporary relief. That that's all it was. I'm not saying don't do that at all, but all I'm saying is that don't spend all of your evenings doing that. You know, commit to two or three hours in the evenings learning new skills, launching some digital products, something like that. Okay? create value. You don't need to have a big business plan, you know, you don't need to seek investors or anything like that. You just need to create some value and try and get some attention for it. You youngans have got the most valuable asset of all time. You know, us over 40s, we don't have that. Okay? Yes, we're not hopefully not in death's door, but even so, you've got you've got that advantage of having time. You can get so much further in 20 years than we can now in 20 years. So, I was going to do a fifth part, but I've decided I've been banging on for too long on this uh this video so far, so I'm going to just leave it at four. Look, I hope you got some value from this. Don't make the same mistakes a lot of us have made. Yes, I'm happy with a large portion of my life, but there is a portion that I really do need to sort out ASAP. I'm on my way to sorting that out, but it's a lot harder for me because I have that I've made those commitments. You know, I have that mortgage. I have huge amount of responsibilities and like I said if I could go back in 20 years time we all go back to when I was in my early 20s. I give myself a real bollock and you know a real rock it up the and just say sort it out now. You know what you're doing is not the right thing to do. You're making a complete of yourself. So to to sum it all up, we're the society is telling you to get the mortgage, have the career, get a nice flash car because the Jones will be impressed next door. Okay? None of that is true. In my opinion, none of that is true. And if you're happy doing that, then you absolutely go for it. If that's your dream to to work for someone else and work your way up the ladder, then I'm not going to stop you. You know, best of luck. Hope it all goes well for you. But if you're like me, you want to experience life outside of that of that bubble. Um then, you know, if you're and you're watching this in your early 20s, then you've just got to act on it now, guys. Okay? Don't make that mistake. Act on it now. Cuz otherwise, you may come to regret it later on in life. I'm not I'm not speaking for everyone. A lot of people don't mind doing it. They're all there just contempt doing it. They think this is how life is and they accept it. I'm not one of those people who are willing to accept that. Okay? And I know there's a lot of people out there who are exactly the same as me. Anyway, so I'm going to end this video now. Let us know if you know if you want any any help or advice or guidance. I'm happy to help in the comments. Yeah, best of luck. I'll see you in the next