How Can You Retire Early?

The 5 Keys to Early Retirement… and Freedom

Everyone wants more time. I don’t even just mean longer life. Everyone wants to be the master of their own time, to do the things that they’re passionate about, with the people they love.

The problem is that most people get stuck in a rut, or a grind. They work at least 8 exhausting hours a day, their job has a very locked and set income, and their only hope of moving above and beyond is to give MORE of their time away in a higher paying position.

This doesn’t usually work out. Your family drifts further and further away, as you pour increasing amounts of your precious time to build wealth, to get your freedom. By the time you’re finally retiring, well into your 60’s, you’ve lost a near lifetime worth of memories and adventure… ironically… just seeking the financial freedom to buy more time.

The truth is… none of that is necessary. These are the 5 keys I’ve found to retiring young, and seeing more of the world as I am in that picture above, with my wife, on a hike. On a weekday. At the age of 23.

Diversifying Income Flows

Please pay attention here, because this is one of the simplest but most important concepts to building wealth, and achieving freedom of time and money. It was emphasized to me by one of my mentors, and I have never regretted it.

Note: this does NOT mean to get a second job, and work MORE hours away from home.

Instead, pursue something on your own time, making your own hours, that has more lucrative potential. This may seem impossible for some, but there are millions of people that could take advantage of this. Self-employed people. Teachers who have a 3 month summer break where they’re not working regularly. A stay-at-home parent. A young person still living at home, working a small job. Even those working full time, but able to find empty hours to fill.

For example, getting licensed to sell insurance, or real estate. I got licensed in insurance soon after graduating from college, and became an independent agent. It takes a while to learn, and study how to market yourself, especially with commission based income, but you could pursue this as a side-gig while working a part-time job very easily. You make your own hours.

Just to put this into perspective: you can land a single annuity sale with a paycheck over $50,000. I have business partners and friends who have sold Life insurance plans for paychecks of over $150,000. On. One. Sale. It takes some creativity and strategy to get to these potential clients, but you can pursue it on your own time. Think about how even managing to land one of these every few months could boost your income, or even double it.

It may be even more possible and realistic to begin diversifying your income flow ONLINE. This is where I went: Wealthy Affiliate. It’s an education system on how to build an online business. It helped me do almost ALL of the heavy technology lifting for free, and then trained me, and gave me access to a massive network of helpful people for an incredibly small cost.

Building a brick-and-mortar side business could cost thousands a month. This business builder was only $360 for an entire year of website building, training, etc. And this is just one of several methods you can use.

Eventually, with enough action in the beginning, these website businesses can bring in hundreds, and even thousands per month.

Not only could you double or even far surpass your regular income with these side jobs, but with enough time and persistence, they can fully replace your day job, leading to total control of your time.

Residuals

This second part is just as valuable as the first. If you don’t get how residuals work, stick with me here.

With most commission based incomes, the greatest and deepest value they present is actually in the long term. The slow burn.

Going back to the insurance side-gig, for example. Selling home insurance is pretty simple. It also, initially, doesn’t pay much. Selling a single policy, if it’s not included with a car plan, might pay you $100-$150. You’d have to sell a boatload of that to quit your day job. EXCEPT… you get paid that $100-something every. single. year. In other words, as long as the client keeps their policy, you’re still getting paid for it.

Say you manage to sell 100 home insurance policies on the side, over the course of a year. You might add $10,000-$15,000 to your income that year. But here’s the cool thing. If you didn’t work a single day the next year, you would STILL be making about $10,000-$15,000. Now say you manage to sell about 100/year for a few more years… Do you see where this is going? Not all insurance types pay residuals as big as the initial sales, but these small ticket ones usually do.

I’m very new in the insurance world. My residual income from selling insurance is just beginning to build up. I have associates who have been doing this for 10 years that are making over $90,000 a year just in residuals. In other words, it’s what they make even before they start working and hustling.

Wealthy Affiliate works in a similar way. More than most other online ventures, affiliate marketing can create POWERFUL residual income. You could publish a promotion on your website, with the guidance of a couple experts, in about 45 minutes, and be making thousands on that promotion for years.

This kind of success doesn’t happen immediately. Overnight millionaire strategies are generally scams. The idea of building residual income is to do a big chunk of work on the front end, to do almost nothing on the back end and be making money almost on auto-pilot. With patience, effort, and action, you get there.

Motivation

This picture above is one of my inspirations. It may not make sense off the bat. Many people picture exotic cars or expensive clothes to motivate them to pursue and keep putting one foot in front of the other. I AM a car enthusiast. And I like dressing sharp. But getting to be out in the natural world, adventuring, and seeing things I had only imagined, is what really gets me motivated.

Freedom is a motivator. Wanting to go out on a drive with some friends, on any random nice day, to see rolling hills (those who know me well are all too familiar with my love for rolling hills, maybe driving over them is an acquired taste), to see waterfalls, mountains, canyons, anything. The desire to take more control of the time I’ve been given is a motivator.

Wanting to provide for my family, and the future of my family, is a motivator. Wanting to end the fear, burdens, and stress that comes with living paycheck to paycheck.

Money… is not a good motivator. Not in of itself. It’s just paper. Weightless. Meaningless. Freedom and provision are good motivators. This is a key. Choosing what it is within you that motivates you to succeed. Setting goals. Pursuing them.

And when you find that it isn’t as easy as it seemed, keep persevering. Keep pushing. Keep growing. Staying motivated is a key.

Investing

The more people I meet, the more I find that the subject of investing creates dread in a lot of people. There are many people that see investing as something that you start when you have a lot of money. People that believe investing is something that is incredibly risky. Or worst of all, something that you start looking into when you’re almost a senior citizen, and FINALLY begin thinking about retirement.

The problem with investing, for most people, is that they let their fear and uncertainty prevent them from taking action! Investing is almost always something that is far better when you take action EARLIER.

Please, especially to my young readers, don’t wait. But also don’t go in blind.

There is still, of course, such thing as a bad investment. A car is a bad investment. If you’re not making much money yet, don’t go out and spend most of what you’ve made to buy a brand new Audi to impress your friends, or gain some short-lived respect. It’s a depreciating asset. It drops at least 1%-5% in value the minute you pull it off the lot. Use a decent, pre-owned car and be content with it until you can afford something extra.

There are a lot of different ways that you can invest. Bank accounts are some of the weakest, but some online bank accounts have recently been increasing interest rates. Use them. And consistently put allotted amounts of money towards them.

There are other safe investment vehicles you can use to make great gains. An IRA, or a ROTH may be a good place to start (look into them first, of course). Annuities also offer an awesome way to build a safe retirement fund, especially if you start early.

Believe it or not, an Indexed Universal Life policy, with the right company in the right way, can be one of the best ways to invest for your retirement. I didn’t know this until I start learning it and selling it. Not only are all of the cash value withdrawals you make in retirement 100% free of taxes, but they’re also making gains of up to 12% interest, and have the added benefit of giving your family a massive chunk of tax-free money if you die, and can give you a nursing home fund when you’re older. It’s too complex to get into here, and is ideal for only certain clients, but its powerful.

Yes even the stock market has a lot of potential. There are thousands of people that believe the stock market is little more than a lottery, and is an incredibly risky investment. This is not exactly accurate. If you educate yourself first on how it works, and learn techniques and strategies, you can minimize your risks, and make absolutely enormous gains off of the markets.

Don’t go in blind. And don’t put more than you can afford to. Use just what you can. Especially if you’re putting money into volatile penny stocks or cryptocurrency. But if used carefully and cleverly, it may be the only way to turn tiny amounts of money into multi-million dollar payouts in under a year.

Networking

Last but not least, I encourage you to connect with people. Connections may be the single most powerful tool to success in existence.

The people you surround yourself with will inevitably shape you, just as you shape them. They will influence your motivation, and even possibly the way you think. Even for those with a solid world view, and strong self-awareness, those around us will influence us. They will either help us, or hinder us.

Reach out to people. You want to start building a side business as an insurance agent? Stop miserably cold calling people, and get to know some Certified Public Accountants. They could be anywhere from LinkedIn, to Facebook groups, to your local church or gym. Many of them have hundreds of clients, and for a little cut of the commission they would gladly contact the clients and recommend you for retirement investments, life insurance, etc. A friend of yours is succeeding in the field? Get coffee with them and ask questions!

You want to sell home insurance? Get to know that Realtor friend of yours, and maybe slip him a few of your business cards to hand over to his clients. My Realtor friend starting setting me up before I even realized I wanted it! He was glad to help a young guy just starting out in business.

The one that I have an actual link to is Wealthy Affiliate. That’s where you can find a community of hundreds of online entrepreneurs. This may be the easiest and the cheapest place to start, and they will advance you light years ahead, just by directing you from their own experiences.

Remember: Diversifying Flows of Income, Residuals, Motivation, Investing, and Networking.

Financial freedom. Time freedom. All of it is possible. Take action!

I’m here if you have any questions,

~Jordan