How you make your money is more important than how much you make

Welcome to episode 33 of the Free and Fearless podcast. This will be a short but empowering one. I have one simple point to make, which I’ve shared with my audience many times before. But wanted to dive deeper into its real meaning, how I apply this principle in my life, and how much it improves the quality of my lifestyle. Tune in below: It’s totally okay if you don’t share that opinion. Many people don’t, and that means they won’t be a good fit for the entrepreneurship lifestyle and mindset. Or at least they won’t enjoy the business model I’ve chosen. But here’s the thing: I believe that how you make your money is more important than how much you make. This isn’t a sentence I thought of, but a quote I heard from Gary Vaynerchuk many years ago. I can’t find any mention of it now so maybe he just said it in a video or it was in a book or something. But still it’s crucial that I give him credit. He said it well. I also know many other entrepreneurs who say this, but don’t live by it. So that’s quite inauthentic.  I live by that rule though and the last year is the perfect example of it. I just published my year in review and annual income report. The conclusion was that I earned $8K less in 2021 than I did in 2020, and actually my income was lower than in the last 3 years. But I was happier, lived a better life, traveled more, got all the things I wanted to and did whatever I felt like. I also invested in my business more than ever. Both years were during a pandemic so the outer factors were the same. In 2021 I also had more progress in my personal and spiritual growth than ever. I started dreaming bigger and am entering 2022 with a vision that would have scared me just 2 years ago. You’ll hear more about that soon, but let’s say I’m about to massively upgrade my lifestyle and environment before my income has grown. So, back to the point I wanna make today. My business started as a hobby. It wasn’t about money then, it’s not about money today – 7 years  later, and it won’t be when I hit 6 and 7 figures either. Money is a byproduct of all the time and energy put into such a special project, and it’s directly related to my level of personal and spiritual growth. I’m one of those people who don’t just teach you how to start and grow a business. I don’t want you to just start any business or to follow the money. I want you to follow passion.  Your first or second passion project might not be profitable, but if you stay on that path, you will get to it. The rewards then are much bigger than the income. When I take decisions in my business, money is rarely the first factor I consider. I’ve found out that quick or easy money is a risk we don’t understand, and it costs us a lot down the road. For example, many people enter a profitable niche only to end up being bored to death. At some point they won’t have any more content ideas, won’t enjoy talking about the subject and creating products around it. So the business will slowly die. Others choose a business model based on what’s trendy. And even if they get to 6 figures in 1 or 2 years, they end up creating yet another job for themselves as they work too much and need to...