If you hear a successful person tell you to reduce your grind, take it with a grain of salt. Your chances of becoming successful without grinding are slim-to-none.
Why are these successful business people, entrepreneurs, leaders, and content creators telling you to slow down?
They say things like “work-life balance” and “mental health” because these are popular terms and ideas for the new generations. However, these beliefs are dangerous and costly.
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What is work-life balance? Work-life balance is paying all of your bills and having enough to fund your savings and lifestyle. Read my three articles on work-life balance (part 1, part 2, part 3).
You read that correctly; a work-life balance takes a lot of money. How do you increase your income to support work-life balance? You’ll have to grind your way to the top.
Why do I base my work-life balance around money? Because without money, you will not have successful relationships. You simply cannot provide and assist your spouse and kids without understanding (and making) money.
The cost of making money. Making a lot of money has a price—usually time away from family. Let’s take NBA players, for example.
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Everyone wants to play in the NBA and make millions of dollars. I presume they spend 50% of the year away from their families. Why does no one talk about this?
Why don’t people tell NBA players to have a work-life balance? Precisely, because they make a lot of money.
However, an NBA player will tell YOU to have a work-life balance. They will say enjoy your youth and don’t practice too hard.
These players and other successful people spent an ungodly amount of time becoming extraordinary at their professions. Now that they made it, they can become softer and more in tune with their lives.
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Surviving in a hostile workplace. Grinding does not mean working randomly or staying late for no reason. The key to mastering your work-life balance is becoming wealthy.
Wealth means having excess income versus expenses. Therefore, you can be wealthy if you make $60,000 per year.
Once you understand how to control your budgeting, spending, saving, and investing, your work-life balance will magically improve.
Work sucks when you are in debt. You are literally working today to pay for yesterday. You want to work today to fund tomorrow. Eventually, you can walk away from your job—here’s how.
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The secret to being happy at work. How do you become a happy worker? You must know how long you will be in the workforce.
The first thing you must determine is your financial freedom number. This is the passive income you need PER MONTH to free yourself from the rat race.
Let’s say your family needs $5,000/month to live a decent life—this now becomes your family’s mission to achieve.
Yes, your spouse and children need to come along for the ride. You achieve your work-life balance by working together on the financial freedom number.
New Year’s Passive Income Resolution 2023
The wandering worker. Most people don’t have a goal while they work. They go because the education system preprogrammed them to be workers.
This mindset destined us to fail. We received (money) limiting beliefs from our parents as children. Going to work without knowing your financial freedom number will lead to stress, anxiety, and depression.
When you have misguided money habits, you’ll feel something is not working deep down. You’ll put in the hours but never get ahead of your debt or start saving—the system doesn’t work without the information.
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Back to your financial freedom number. Now that you recognize you’ll need $5,000/month to escape, you can start working toward your freedom.
Luckily, there are thousands of ways to achieve your $5,000/month. It doesn’t all have to be passive income; it can also be active.
Getting promoted may be the best way to escape if you are on a high-paying corporate ladder. You’ll escape rather quickly if you can increase your savings rate to 50%.
If you have a big home, getting roommates or Airbnbing your garage can give you a decent income.
If you are creative, you can write, record, talk, produce, draw, or shoot your way to passive and active income.
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If you understand business, you can start an automated business like vending machines or an active company like consulting, coaching, or mentoring.
If you love to play video games, you can make $1,000 to $2,000/month by making content or streaming. You can start a garden, create a running club, resell items on eBay, or help older people jump into the Metaverse.
The only thing holding us back from escaping the workforce is ourselves. There are other things you can do towards your $5,000/month.
Budgeting, saving, and investing. Adding income is a top priority, but we can also be good stewards of our current resources.
Starting a Business with One-Hour a Day Available
We can reduce how much we eat out, watch free stations like FreeVee (my favorite), and use coupons when we see them.
Learning to invest is the ultimate way to free ourselves for the long term. Eventually, we want to have $5,000/month in dividends to live on our terms.
However, don’t stay in the workforce until you reach that $5,000 in dividends (roughly $1 million). Using a combination of budgeting, saving, investing, creating, working, and bartering will get you out sooner (rather than later).
The Perfect Life: Homesteading and Dividends
Conclusion. Work-life balance comes when you and your family work together to free yourselves from the workforce.
Working until oblivion is not an option. Working until 70 is not an option. You’ll have to Frankenstein your escape by doing many little things right.
Don’t make climbing the ladder your only means of escape. Use 5-10 different sources and resources to facilitate your escape quickly.
How to Become Financially Independent in Your 20s
My wife and I are retiring this year at ages 42 (me) and 39. Yes, our military pension is great, but that alone is not how we freed ourselves.
We grinded at work, saved, invested, added roommates, became landlords, and started businesses. Combining these things got us on the same page and bought our freedom.
Our proper work-life balance came when we decided to escape the workforce together. You will have a similar feeling once you discover your financial freedom number. Good Luck!
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