In this post I wanted to talk a bit about why making more money is currently not my focus. I am trying to be more intentional with my life because being purpose driven with my actions brings me more joy! Hope you enjoy, and hope my thoughts make sense, haha.
Why Making More Money is NOT My Focus
Transcription
Below is a transcription of the podcast. This transcription was taken from Otter.ai so it might not be completely accurate:
Sharon Tseung 0:00
Hey guys, it’s Sharon from digital nomad quest. And today we’re gonna talk about why making more money is currently not my focus. Now if you guys are new to the channel, welcome, I’m all about teaching y’all how to build passive income, become financially free and design your best lives. So if you guys are interested in that, make sure to subscribe and hit the bell button to be notified on my latest videos. So a lot of you guys are probably wondering, Why would you say that? You know, your whole channel is focused on passive income and financial freedom, you are offering all this financial advice, why do you not care about making more money. So I’m going to cover this in this video. Basically, last month, I kind of felt like what now I wasn’t sure what my purpose was and what I was doing with everything. I didn’t feel motivated to work on my projects or anything like that this kind of probably sounds like a first world problem. But essentially, I’m having a decent amount of cash flow, because I’ve built all these passive income channels, as well as having my full time position and everything like that I have decent cash flow coming in. And you know, during COVID, I can’t really do much without money anyway, I can’t go travel, I don’t care that much about buying clothes or anything like that. And all I’m really doing with that money is using it to eat saving up investing and putting it back into my businesses and stuff like that. And that’s cool and all but because I don’t care too much about making more money, because I’m not really spending it, you know, I realized I’m not really driven by money. And basically when I was in Chiang Mai, while I was nomadic, around the last few months of my journey in March of 2018, February 2018, I definitely was feeling like what is the point of focusing on this money, I would keep looking at the passive income figures per month and try to increase that amount. And think that was my purpose. And I really felt like it did not fulfill me, every time I hit a goal, I would just want more, you know, essentially like, I’d be happy with my progress. But obviously, I’ll keep looking to the future and try to make more money and more money. And a lot of people do ask me like, what’s my number or I can just like chill and whatever. And I used to think oh, maybe like 20 K or more something like that per month. But here’s the thing, like, I don’t feel like you need to hit those figures if you’re living a life that you don’t need to escape from. And lately, I’ve been feeling pretty content. You know, I like my job. I like the passive income streams and businesses that I have, I don’t think I need more money in order to retire. And I feel like retiring is essentially a boring thing to do if you don’t have things to work on. So if you were to stop working, and then you end up just chilling on a beach, I feel like you wouldn’t be fulfilled, you’re probably going to want to work on some creative project or do things that you just love, right? So for me, I still would be working no matter what if I did retire early. And then I came across this book by Jay Shetty, and I started reading it. I’m not done with it yet. But there’s a section where he really hones in on intention, purpose and values. So he says that you know, a lot of things you do should have intention behind it. And one part of it says higher values propel and elevate us toward happiness, fulfillment and meaning lower values, the modus towards anxiety, depression and suffering. And they talk about how the six lower values are greed, lust, anger, ego, illusion and envy. While the higher values are purity of mind fearlessness, gratitude, service and charity acceptance. Like there’s a bunch more, there’s way more higher values than the lower values. And there are two exercises that resonated with me. One of them was they told us to reflect on three best and worst decisions you’ve ever made. And why did you make them? What were the values behind them? Essentially, they also talked about how you spend your money, as well as how you make plans with your free time ask what value was behind those choices. So as I wrote these things down a lot of my best choices was when I traveled as a digital nomad, when I built my brand to teach people how to build passive income and stuff like that, as well as even buying my car when, you know, my parents told me to go get a new car, I decided I wanted to go with what I wanted and buy a used car because of my values. So I think the decisions behind the travel as well as the car purchase was that I decided to go with what I wanted versus what other people wanted of me. And I guess I don’t know what the value is behind that. But it’s a lot about listening to my own heart. I guess I would also say adventure is one of my values because I went nomadic. And I still, you know, crave that travel. Because right now, during COVID, I can’t go to Europe, like I mentioned, but I’ll constantly think about it. And I realized that’s a value of mine, like I need to do a spontaneous trip. And that made me break it down even more that I didn’t need to go all the way to Europe or do anything like that, I probably can just do these mini trips or do something spontaneous, and even start different business projects that would be adventurous for me. So that’s why I kind of like testing all these different income channels because I like to learn a lot of new blueprints. Speaking of which, I also love learning. You know, that’s why I like to pursue these business models as well as read books and everything like that. Like I like to learn new information. I also care about my health. I also care about my family and friends. And I love teaching you guys so I love that side of things. So I guess I like the whole teaching aspect as well. So this kind of made me reflect and realize that every time I focus on the numeric value of what number I need to hit, it ends up actually making me unhappy and unfulfilled because right now I don’t have an issue with cash. flow, they say money buys happiness up to $75,000. Once it’s past that, it doesn’t really increase. And that’s what I’m kind of finding that after that certain point, the more you chase it, the more you’re like, Okay, what’s the point of this? Right? So now that I’ve kind of honed in on my values, I would say it’s adventure, love, creating, learning, teaching, and Health and Family and friends. There’s a lot of different values. But I think those need to really drive my decisions. And once I focus on that, like this past week, I’ve been way more fulfilled and happy that I’m like thinking about those aspects more versus how do I grow my Tick Tock? Or how do I grow this YouTube channel? Or how do I get more money? And all this stuff? Like, how should I hit those numbers, the more I think less on that the happier I am, even though I like to teach you guys this material, because up to 75,000, obviously, it’s going to make you happier, it’s going to open up opportunities. And this financial freedom will allow you to design your life, that’s according to your values. That’s what I really truly believe that learning this knowledge and diversifying your income can really help you create that sense of abundance and limitlessness. And you don’t want to be stuck in a situation where you’re stuck in a nine to five job you hate. And you feel like there’s no other opportunities out there that you can’t find other ways of making money, and you just hate your life. And you wish it were something else. This is why I teach this stuff. Because I feel like it’s really important to understand that you have opportunities, life is limitless if you learn these different methods. And you know, obviously, I talked about ways to make money through low capital or zero capital means right there are ways to come up even if you have nothing and I want to try to teach this type of information. If you are in that situation, I do feel like you can still take action. That is intentional. For example, if your intention is to make sure that you can feed your family that has value and intention behind it. Or if you want to build wealth, because you can have more time with your family and things like that, that definitely has intention behind it. I think right now, my intention is to create to learn to have adventures, all the things I named, you know, earlier, I also find that I get excitement from learning these new business models, like I mentioned. So I think that part of me is the adventure value as well as the creation value of like, I love creating things with my own hands. And I love learning new methods. So I feel like yeah, if I can make more money from that, that’s like a side bonus. But like I would happily buy a laundromat and start learning the process just because of the learning I would get from it. For example, also, when I bought my out of state properties, I didn’t think of it as like, I’m gonna make so much money from it, I thought of it as if I lose money from this, this would be a learning experience. And that’s what I care about those types of decisions where I care more about the process versus the outcome. Like I think those are the best decisions. And I also like mastering skills. So if I am working on my businesses, and if there’s more to learn, I like to do that. And I also love teaching you guys this info. So relaying that back to you guys is really interesting to me. So if I pursue another method, I like to report it on this channel. So I would say on the money and entrepreneurship side, this is what makes me keep going with this stuff. It’s not the money that I care about as much as learning new things, mastering skills, and giving back teaching people as well as the adventure behind it. I do feel like it’s really adventurous to try these new business models. So my last couple of thoughts is, you know, I’ve been saying that financial freedom is not the goal, it’s a means to an end, I still believe that that you know, if you have financial freedom, you’re allowed to design your life, you are allowed to spend more time with your family, you’re allowed to create the projects you want without worrying too much on the financial side of like how much money you need to make and things like that you can pursue creative projects, you can have time for yourself, and you also have time and money to give back to others. But another thing to know is if you are happy with your life, then you don’t actually need to be pursuing all these different side hustles there’s no need to escape from anything. So I would say just make sure like your life is always intentional, you are living with purpose, you are defining the values behind your choices. For example, if you valued health, and you’re drinking a Starbucks coffee every day $4 or $5 a day and then you’re saying you don’t have enough money to spend on that extra walk or avocado for your meal that’s actually going to be nutritious and healthy then you kind of need to think about your choices and what drives your choices and are they value driven or not if you don’t want to spend money on daycare for your kids but then you’re spending more money on your clothes again, you might need to figure out the values behind your choices if you actually do value you know your kids and your family so essentially that’s my takeaway always live your life based on the values you care about and the intention behind it and that’s pretty much why hitting income numbers although you know it’s exciting and fun to make more money it’s not what I really care about at this moment. So I hope you guys enjoyed this video if you guys liked this video make sure to comment below and let me know what you guys think smash that like button subscribe, hit the bell button to be notified of my latest videos and I’ll see you guys in the next one.Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Hey guys, it’s Sharon from digital nomad quest. And today we’re gonna talk about why making more money is currently not my focus. Now if you guys are new to the channel, welcome, I’m all about teaching y’all how to build passive income, become financially free and design your best lives. So if you guys are interested in that, make sure to subscribe and hit the bell button to be notified on my latest videos. So a lot of you guys are probably wondering, Why would you say that? You know, your whole channel is focused on passive income and financial freedom, you are offering all this financial advice, why do you not care about making more money. So I’m going to cover this in this video. Basically, last month, I kind of felt like what now I wasn’t sure what my purpose was and what I was doing with everything. I didn’t feel motivated to work on my projects or anything like that this kind of probably sounds like a first world problem. But essentially, I’m having a decent amount of cash flow, because I’ve built all these passive income channels, as well as having my full time position and everything like that I have decent cash flow coming in. And you know, during COVID, I can’t really do much without money anyway, I can’t go travel, I don’t care that much about buying clothes or anything like that. And all I’m really doing with that money is using it to eat saving up investing and putting it back into my businesses and stuff like that. And that’s cool and all but because I don’t care too much about making more money, because I’m not really spending it, you know, I realized I’m not really driven by money. And basically when I was in Chiang Mai, while I was nomadic, around the last few months of my journey in March of 2018, February 2018, I definitely was feeling like what is the point of focusing on this money, I would keep looking at the passive income figures per month and try to increase that amount. And think that was my purpose. And I really felt like it did not fulfill me, every time I hit a goal, I would just want more, you know, essentially like, I’d be happy with my progress. But obviously, I’ll keep looking to the future and try to make more money and more money. And a lot of people do ask me like, what’s my number or I can just like chill and whatever. And I used to think oh, maybe like 20 K or more something like that per month. But here’s the thing, like, I don’t feel like you need to hit those figures if you’re living a life that you don’t need to escape from. And lately, I’ve been feeling pretty content. You know, I like my job. I like the passive income streams and businesses that I have, I don’t think I need more money in order to retire. And I feel like retiring is essentially a boring thing to do if you don’t have things to work on. So if you were to stop working, and then you end up just chilling on a beach, I feel like you wouldn’t be fulfilled, you’re probably going to want to work on some creative project or do things that you just love, right? So for me, I still would be working no matter what if I did retire early. And then I came across this book by Jay Shetty, and I started reading it. I’m not done with it yet. But there’s a section where he really hones in on intention, purpose and values. So he says that you know, a lot of things you do should have intention behind it. And one part of it says higher values propel and elevate us toward happiness, fulfillment and meaning lower values, the modus towards anxiety, depression and suffering. And they talk about how the six lower values are greed, lust, anger, ego, illusion and envy. While the higher values are purity of mind fearlessness, gratitude, service and charity acceptance. Like there’s a bunch more, there’s way more higher values than the lower values. And there are two exercises that resonated with me. One of them was they told us to reflect on three best and worst decisions you’ve ever made. And why did you make them? What were the values behind them? Essentially, they also talked about how you spend your money, as well as how you make plans with your free time ask what value was behind those choices. So as I wrote these things down a lot of my best choices was when I traveled as a digital nomad, when I built my brand to teach people how to build passive income and stuff like that, as well as even buying my car when, you know, my parents told me to go get a new car, I decided I wanted to go with what I wanted and buy a used car because of my values. So I think the decisions behind the travel as well as the car purchase was that I decided to go with what I wanted versus what other people wanted of me. And I guess I don’t know what the value is behind that. But it’s a lot about listening to my own heart. I guess I would also say adventure is one of my values because I went nomadic. And I still, you know, crave that travel. Because right now, during COVID, I can’t go to Europe, like I mentioned, but I’ll constantly think about it. And I realized that’s a value of mine, like I need to do a spontaneous trip. And that made me break it down even more that I didn’t need to go all the way to Europe or do anything like that, I probably can just do these mini trips or do something spontaneous, and even start different business projects that would be adventurous for me. So that’s why I kind of like testing all these different income channels because I like to learn a lot of new blueprints. Speaking of which, I also love learning. You know, that’s why I like to pursue these business models as well as read books and everything like that. Like I like to learn new information. I also care about my health. I also care about my family and friends. And I love teaching you guys so I love that side of things. So I guess I like the whole teaching aspect as well. So this kind of made me reflect and realize that every time I focus on the numeric value of what number I need to hit, it ends up actually making me unhappy and unfulfilled because right now I don’t have an issue with cash. flow, they say money buys happiness up to $75,000. Once it’s past that, it doesn’t really increase. And that’s what I’m kind of finding that after that certain point, the more you chase it, the more you’re like, Okay, what’s the point of this? Right? So now that I’ve kind of honed in on my values, I would say it’s adventure, love, creating, learning, teaching, and Health and Family and friends. There’s a lot of different values. But I think those need to really drive my decisions. And once I focus on that, like this past week, I’ve been way more fulfilled and happy that I’m like thinking about those aspects more versus how do I grow my Tick Tock? Or how do I grow this YouTube channel? Or how do I get more money? And all this stuff? Like, how should I hit those numbers, the more I think less on that the happier I am, even though I like to teach you guys this material, because up to 75,000, obviously, it’s going to make you happier, it’s going to open up opportunities. And this financial freedom will allow you to design your life, that’s according to your values. That’s what I really truly believe that learning this knowledge and diversifying your income can really help you create that sense of abundance and limitlessness. And you don’t want to be stuck in a situation where you’re stuck in a nine to five job you hate. And you feel like there’s no other opportunities out there that you can’t find other ways of making money, and you just hate your life. And you wish it were something else. This is why I teach this stuff. Because I feel like it’s really important to understand that you have opportunities, life is limitless if you learn these different methods. And you know, obviously, I talked about ways to make money through low capital or zero capital means right there are ways to come up even if you have nothing and I want to try to teach this type of information. If you are in that situation, I do feel like you can still take action. That is intentional. For example, if your intention is to make sure that you can feed your family that has value and intention behind it. Or if you want to build wealth, because you can have more time with your family and things like that, that definitely has intention behind it. I think right now, my intention is to create to learn to have adventures, all the things I named, you know, earlier, I also find that I get excitement from learning these new business models, like I mentioned. So I think that part of me is the adventure value as well as the creation value of like, I love creating things with my own hands. And I love learning new methods. So I feel like yeah, if I can make more money from that, that’s like a side bonus. But like I would happily buy a laundromat and start learning the process just because of the learning I would get from it. For example, also, when I bought my out of state properties, I didn’t think of it as like, I’m gonna make so much money from it, I thought of it as if I lose money from this, this would be a learning experience. And that’s what I care about those types of decisions where I care more about the process versus the outcome. Like I think those are the best decisions. And I also like mastering skills. So if I am working on my businesses, and if there’s more to learn, I like to do that. And I also love teaching you guys this info. So relaying that back to you guys is really interesting to me. So if I pursue another method, I like to report it on this channel. So I would say on the money and entrepreneurship side, this is what makes me keep going with this stuff. It’s not the money that I care about as much as learning new things, mastering skills, and giving back teaching people as well as the adventure behind it. I do feel like it’s really adventurous to try these new business models. So my last couple of thoughts is, you know, I’ve been saying that financial freedom is not the goal, it’s a means to an end, I still believe that that you know, if you have financial freedom, you’re allowed to design your life, you are allowed to spend more time with your family, you’re allowed to create the projects you want without worrying too much on the financial side of like how much money you need to make and things like that you can pursue creative projects, you can have time for yourself, and you also have time and money to give back to others. But another thing to know is if you are happy with your life, then you don’t actually need to be pursuing all these different side hustles there’s no need to escape from anything. So I would say just make sure like your life is always intentional, you are living with purpose, you are defining the values behind your choices. For example, if you valued health, and you’re drinking a Starbucks coffee every day $4 or $5 a day and then you’re saying you don’t have enough money to spend on that extra walk or avocado for your meal that’s actually going to be nutritious and healthy then you kind of need to think about your choices and what drives your choices and are they value driven or not if you don’t want to spend money on daycare for your kids but then you’re spending more money on your clothes again, you might need to figure out the values behind your choices if you actually do value you know your kids and your family so essentially that’s my takeaway always live your life based on the values you care about and the intention behind it and that’s pretty much why hitting income numbers although you know it’s exciting and fun to make more money it’s not what I really care about at this moment. So I hope you guys enjoyed this video if you guys liked this video make sure to comment below and let me know what you guys think smash that like button subscribe, hit the bell button to be notified of my latest videos and I’ll see you guys in the next one.Transcribed by https://otter.ai
