Welcome to The Accelerated Investor Podcast with Josh Cantwell, if you love entrepreneurship and investing in real estate then you are in the right place. Josh is the CEO of Freeland Ventures Real Estate Private Equity and has personally invested in well over 500 properties all across the country. He’s also made hundreds of private lender loans and owns over 1,000 units of apartments. Josh is an expert at raising private money for deals and he prides himself on never having had a boss in his entire adult life. Josh and his team also mentor investors and entrepreneurs from all over the world. He doesn’t dream about doing deals, he actually does them and so do his listeners and students. Now sit back, listen, learn, and accelerate your business, your life, and your investing with The Accelerated Investor Podcast.

So, hey, welcome back to Accelerated Investor, this is Josh. I’m so excited that you’re back with me again. And I just want you to know how much I appreciate you, how much I am grateful for you. When I wake up in the morning and fill out my gratitude journal when I go to bed and I think about all the blessings in my life. One of them for sure is the ability to have so many amazing conversations with people. So many amazing people that I’ve had the privilege of being impacted by and have an impact on. And so I just want to say thank you.

Today this is a podcast on the pursuit of personal freedom. It’s a solo cast. It’s just me. And today we’re going to talk about how entrepreneurs, real estate entrepreneurs and business owners when they’re a true entrepreneur, how it’s not about the money. It’s not about being a billionaire. It’s about the relentless pursuit of personal freedom. That’s what drives us.

So, hey, listen, I want to spend some time with you today discussing and talking about personal freedom. You know, in this last maybe six months or so, in this COVID environment, this election environment, everybody says how divided we are as a country. There’s the left. There’s the right. There’s Democrats. Republicans. There are people who believe in masks. People who don’t. People who believe in vaccines, people who don’t.

And all of this stuff is out there in the world for us to pay attention to. And we decide the beautiful thing about it is we get to decide how much we want to pay attention to it or not. We get to decide how much time we spend on social media, how much time we spend watching the news, how much time we spend. Haven’t connection with our friends and our family and talk about those things.

And what I’ve recognized about myself and about my friends who are entrepreneurs, is even in this time of COVID, one of their main objectives is personal freedom. The ability to do whatever they want, whenever they want with the people that they want.

And so when you look at personal freedom and you look at real estate entrepreneurship, it’s the pursuit of real estate entrepreneurship. It’s the pursuit of entrepreneurship that really is about personal freedom. If that’s your dream to have personal freedom, then you are an entrepreneur. OK?

People who have a day job, a regular job, a W2 nine to five or nine to six job or, you know, 7:00 in the morning till 7:00 at night job. They really have no personal freedom. It’s all about what does their boss want? What are their customers want? What does the company want? That they have to give up. Now, they might have some freedom working from home, but they have to get on Zoom calls when their boss says, they have to call customers when their boss says, they have to do things that their boss says they have to do.

I am a boss and I have a lot of respect for my employees and my staff. But that’s just the fact when you are an entrepreneur, your dream is personal freedom. That’s what it’s all about.

And personal freedom means having the freedom of time. The freedom of decision. The freedom of relationships, the freedom of movement.

OK. It’s not really about the freedom of money. OK? It’s not about being a billionaire. It’s not like I’m going to be the next billionaire. I see guys who are. It’s funny. I see things on social media podcasts and guys like he calls his podcast the billionaire code. And the dude’s not even a billionaire. So how do you call it the billionaire code when you’re not even a billionaire? Like, what do you know about being a billionaire?

So it’s not about the money. It’s not about being a billionaire. It’s not about the Lamborghini’s, the Ferraris, the twenty thousand square foot house on the beach. Sure. All those things are things that we have on our vision board, our dream board that we’d love to have. But really, it’s not about the money.

It’s not about being a billionaire. The money will come as the business grows. Right. So as the business grows, it’s about personal freedom. Now, most entrepreneurs that I know, they have personal freedom, but they’re also hustling and working their faces off, OK? They’re up early. They’re planning. They’re executing all day. They take time. Maybe they have, you know, dinner with their families and then they go back to work at night. They’re just hustling. But they love it because they have the personal freedom to decide what they want to do and when they want to do it.

So it’s almost like a thrill. It’s almost like an adrenaline rush. And one of the the biggest aspects of being a successful entrepreneur is momentum. So entrepreneurs, especially me as I was building my businesses and continue to build my businesses when I have momentum, when we’re starting to make more money and more money and products are selling or buying properties. We have an apartment building that we’re closing in on, another apartment building right behind that, and we’re raising capital. That momentum is addictive.

The momentum is addictive. OK. And so money will come as the business grows and as the business grows, you’re going to have more momentum. That more momentum that you have is what’s going to be the result of that is money at the end of the day.

Many people will tell you, entrepreneurs that I know that have the big ten thousand square foot house, that have the time freedom. What they’ll tell you is, look, it’s not about the house. Matter of fact, a lot of people that I know that have a big house like me, I often hate taking care of it.

I’d rather have a small house, but more time freedom. For those of you to say, like, oh, I’d love to have a bigger house, I’d love to have a mansion. Trust me, it’s cool, but it’s not all that it’s cracked up to be. Because on a Saturday when we want to go do some personal things. We want to go out and run around and have fun. Sometimes we’ve got to get our house in order. So I grew up with a mom and a dad that believed my wife Lisa grew up in a house where her mom and dad believe you don’t leave the house unless the house is clean.

It’s about respect, it’s about taking care of your belongings. It’s about having, you know, some respect for yourself and your space and what you own and not taking things for granted. So clean up your house, do your chores before you leave the house. So my point about having the big house is the bigger house you have. And the more things you own, right, the less time freedom that you’re going to have.

So you got to have to find some balance between having a big house, having a lot of land, having a lot of toys, and then the freedom to be able to go out and do whatever you want. OK. So trust me, it’s not about the money, it’s not about the material thing. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. It’s not about the material because even the material things could be something that can remove your ability to have personal freedom.

Because now you don’t have freedom of time because you have too much stuff. So don’t fall in love with the stuff. Fall in love with the relentless pursuit of personal freedom. OK. Refused to work for anyone else.

Refused to have someone else dictate your time, refused to accept mediocrity, refused to conform to the average right. Willingly accept the risk of not having a regular consistent paycheck in exchange for personal freedom.

You know, I’ve had years where I’ve made personally made millions of dollars and I’ve had years right after I made millions, where I actually have a negative on my tax return because the business went down, an offer didn’t convert. We lost money on a real estate deal and all of a sudden I had a negative income on my tax return. That’s happened to me over and over and over again over the last 15 or 20 years. Now thank God we’ve had many, many, many years where things have been much better and we’ve been able to just have unbelievable years that have made up for the bad years.

But that relentless pursuit of personal freedom comes with a willingness to accept the risk of not having a regular, consistent paycheck in exchange for personal freedom to create something of your own. So my question for you is, as I wrap this up. Are you really pursuing personal freedom? Are you pursuing a false sense of security by having a regular consistent paycheck?

Only you can decide, but if you’re ready to pursue personal freedom, it’s not about the money. Is it about being a billionaire? It’s not about the yellow Lamborghini or the red Ferrari or the 10000 square foot house. It’s about the relentless pursuit of time and personal freedom, the freedom of time, the freedom of decision, the freedom of relationships, the freedom of movement, the freedom to wake up. The freedom to coach. The freedom to share.

The freedom to disappear like I did this past week on a Tuesday and go to we have a camper on a lake, says one of the toys that we bought, which is a 40-foot camper. We have a lakefront lot. We wake up. The lake is right in front of us. It’s beautiful. Just a little thing. It’s not very expensive, but it’s an easy place for us to leave and disappear and unplug. So personal freedom is about. It was my anniversary. It was a Tuesday. My wife and I left the house at three o’clock in the afternoon on Tuesday. We went to the camper. We hung out. We’d made a fire. We had dinner with drinks, beers. We’d enjoy just a lot of personal time together. We woke up the next day, relax a little bit, had coffee by the lake.

Got up and drove home in the middle of the week. I could do that any day I want. Matter of fact, with a good Internet connection and a phone number. I mean, a good Internet connection and a computer and the ability for people to reach me. I could do that any day I want. I could go to the lake. And work from the lake, that is personal freedom.

OK, so now let me give you four tips on ways to create personal freedom in your life today, even if you have a regular job, even if you’re working 40 or 60 or 80 hours a week, even if you feel like you don’t have any personal freedom. Let me give you a few tips on some things that you can do regardless of your situation, regardless of your work situation, regardless of your family situation. Let me give you four things that have been impactful in my life that you can implement in your life today that will give you personal freedom.

Number one, identify what makes you most happy and do that, OK? What makes you most happy? Is it going for a bike ride? Is it going to some adventure park and trying zip lining or skydiving? Is it spending time with your elderly mother or father? Is it spending time with your husband or wife? Just alone time? Is it coaching your kids? What makes you most happy? Identify that. Write that down right now.

What are some things that you do that when you do them, you’re thinking, oh my God, this makes me so happy. I love this. So much fun. I get so much energy from this. That’s number one. Identify what makes you most happy and do more of that. Number two, after you’ve identified what makes you most happy. And that gives you the feeling of personal freedom. Schedule it in to your calendar. Now. Schedule it in.

You see, whatever is on the schedule is gonna get done. Whatever is in the calendar is going to get done. Whatever you and your spouse and your kids agree on is important. Is going to get done if you say this is great. I would love to be able to do this when time allows. OK. We don’t have that perception that time allows anything we control time. Time doesn’t control us. So number two, scheduled into your calendar, number three, create boundaries.

OK. What I mean by create boundaries is you are in control of your life. You have complete responsibility in control over what you’re doing and when you’re doing it. So if you need to create boundaries around certain friends that you don’t see as much, create those boundaries. If you have to create some boundaries around family members that bring you down, create boundaries. If you need to stop with some of your obligations and things that you’ve committed to that are no longer part of this journey of yours, this personal freedom journey.

Stop doing them. If you need to get up earlier so you can get in the gym, maybe spending more time in the gym and being in better health and better shape. That gives you the feeling of personal freedom, then create boundaries. OK. If you need to schedule in time during the day to go have lunch with a friend. And that makes you feel like you have personal freedom, create boundaries that says, hey, I’m going to allow myself twice a month.

Schedule a long-extended lunch and spend that time with a friend. Or spend that time networking with someone else in your real estate business. So create boundaries. And number four is give up, give up on leeches, TV, Netflix, Hulu, Disney, Plus, Social Media, Facebook, Instagram.

You know, in this in this very divided society that we live in right now. If I get into Facebook and I want to get into a fight with someone, it’s easy. Everybody’s looking for a fight. Everybody’s looking for a discussion. Everybody’s looking for, you know, something about the left or the right. You know, Democrat, Republican people who have money, people who don’t. Everybody’s looking for a fight.

So just give it up and then use that time, that 30 minutes that you have spent bickering back and forth on social media. Give it up and do something that makes you happy. In the meantime. Number one, identify what makes you most happy. Number two, put it in your calendar and your schedule. Number three, create boundaries with your life, with people, with obligations of things that you’re going to do and you’re not going to do. And number four is give up.

Give up things that are not rewarding for you and take that time to reschedule things into your calendar that give you the feeling of personal freedom, create more boundaries so you have more time for personal freedom. Put them in your calendar. Write them down. Look at them. Think about what gives you makes you feel like you have personal freedom. Again, I talked about this little camper that we own. It’s not expensive. It’s not a ten-million-dollar house on the beach. It’s a little forty thousand, fifty-thousand-dollar investment to have a lake lot and a 40, 42 foot camper.

But what it does for us is it’s a very quick 45-minute drive. What it does for us is my kids are there with their friends. What it does for us is it’s gated. So my kids can’t, you know, disappear. What it does for us is that it allows us to have time on the lake, what it does for us, it allows us to unplug for all those things, gives me the sense of personal freedom.

So there’s four things that you can do right now to create more personal freedom in your life today. So, hey, I hope you really enjoyed that podcast about the relentless pursuit of personal freedom. If you enjoyed it, please go into iTunes. Go into YouTube right now. Leave us a rating. Leave us a review. Share it with your friends and your family. Thank you so much for being part of this Accelerated Investor community.

Thanks for engaging with me and allowing me to be inside of your brain, inside of your ears, inside of your head and share some of these ideas. I hope they had a huge impact on your life today. And I can’t wait to talk to you again on the next podcast with Accelerated Investor. We’ll talk to you soon. 

Hey, Josh here. And do you want to win a free Accelerated Investor T-shirt? All you have to do is give Accelerated Investor our podcasta rating and a review on iTunes. OK. Do that now then send us a screenshot on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. What we’re going to do then is every week we’re gonna pick our favorite rating in review and we’re going to send that person a free T-shirt and maybe again, some other cool fun stuff as well from Accelerated Investor. So, again, don’t forget to take a screenshot, leave a rating review, take a screenshot, send it to us so we know exactly who you are. And then once a week, every week on the podcast, we will announce a new winner. Don’t forget to take a screenshot and send it to us so we know exactly who you are. We’ll announce a new winner every week.

You’ve been listening to Josh Cantwell and the Accelerated Investor Podcast. Leave a comment on our iTunes channel and let us know what you want to learn next, or who you’d like Josh to interview. While you’re there, give us some five-star rating and make sure to subscribe so you can be the first to hear new episodes. Follow Josh Cantwell and his companies, the Strategic Real Estate Coach and Freeland Ventures on all social media platforms now and stay up to date on new training and investment opportunities to start your journey toward the lifestyle you’ve always dreamed of. Apply for coaching at JoshCantwellCoaching.com.