The Literary Route to Financial Freedom: Top 10 Books

Welcome to the Freedom Nation podcast with Jeff Kikkel. On this show, Jeff shares his expertise in financial and retirement planning from a different perspective. Planning for Your Freedom Day, which is the first day that you wake up and have enough income or assets and do not have to go to work that day. Learn how to calculate what you need, how to generate income sources, and listen to interviews from others who've done it themselves, get ready to experience your own Freedom Day.

Hey, everyone, it's Jeff here with Freedom Nation and with the Freedom Day method. Today, I want to begin a series of videos where I'm going to talk about some of the books that had a profound effect on me, when I began the process of creating my freedom day. Now, for many of you, you know that my Freedom Day started roughly about eight years ago and culminated July 1 of 2022. That was the time that I reached my work optional lifestyle, July 1, I was able to wake up that first morning and not actually have to go to work if I didn't want to. Now many of you know all the work that I've done here recently says that I am not just not working, I'm focused on really trying to help you to be successful. And I wanted to share this list of 10 books that for me, were books that are seminal things that have helped me to be successful. Not all of these were read during the last eight years, I will say that the, the groundwork and the foundational work began probably 20 years ago, it just took me a while to get to the point where I would take the risk and go out and launch my own freedom day process and become an entrepreneur. So the first book on the list is probably one of the books that had the most effect on me, of making me realize that I wanted to be an entrepreneur at some point. Now the book is called Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Robert Kiyosaki. One of the things I loved about this book is it really helped me to understand who I am inside. It took me a while and I will say I read this book in the early 2000s. And I didn't really attempt My Freedom Day, or I didn't attempt to be an entrepreneur until you know, roughly 2015. So it took me a while and a couple of readings of this and a couple of readings of Roberts other books to really help me to take that first step. But this was one of the foundational documents and one of the foundational books that helped me to get started. The next one on the list is probably one of my favorite business books of all time, four hour workweek with Tim Ferriss. Tim is the granddaddy of, you know that work efficiency, productivity, elimination from your life. Tim was a major reason why I created the idea philosophy, which those of you that know about the idea, principles that I use for making myself more efficient. They were adapted from something that started with Tim, the next book in the list, from a monetary standpoint was probably the best money I've ever spent. Total Money Makeover with Dave Ramsey. This is probably I think the best book Dave Ramsey ever wrote, is the the simplest book that encompasses everything that he teaches into one book. It helped me to go from a financial mess. Even though I was in the financial services industry, my wife and I had gotten ourselves into a financial mess. And it was the one book that helped me to develop a philosophy around staying out of debt, focusing on you know, putting money in the right spots, getting just getting my finances in order and giving me a touchstone and a philosophy for moving you know, along in life and moving along through the the baby steps. It also encouraged me to become part of the Ramsey organization as a smart investor Pro, and continued that relationship with Dave Ramsey for the last nine years. Because I believe in the philosophies and I know that it helped me. The next book on the list is an oldie but a goodie, Think and Grow Rich. One of the books that it took me a long time to read it's one of the ones that is recommended by a lot of people. I'm not really sure a lot of people have read it in depth, like they should, but they listed on the list of of great books of all time. I will say that the one thing I took from this and I'll talk about it more in depth later on another video, but the one thing I got from it was the concept of a mastermind and Really getting around other people that have similar goals in life, not necessarily similar backgrounds, but similar goals in life and combining your efforts together to create almost like a third mind. And that's what the mastermind concept is. The next book in line, it was one that came along later, I really wasn't really introduced to Robert Allen, until much, much, much later. In fact, it was almost after my freedom day. But Robert Allen, the best book I think he's ever written, is creating wealth. It is really good for retraining your brain to think wealthy. And to think along the lines of how to create income and create wealth. That income is not an income and wealth are not just given. They're not received, they are created, and really how to have that mindset of creating wealth. Next book on the list number six is Millionaire Next Door, Thomas Stanley and William Danko. I read this book, early on, when I was in the financial services industry, one to basically understand the clients that I was dealing with, I was dealing with this client, that Millionaire Next Door, and I wanted to understand them better. But what I learned from the book, and also working with the clients that I worked with, was what has really developed my philosophy of not being flashy not being showy, you're never going to see me, you know, in a garage with a Lamborghini behind me, by the way, it's a rented house and a rented Lamborghini, for most of these internet, influencers that are out there. That's not me, it's never going to be me, I'm never going to show you that might go out and rent one and race it around a track or something like that. But I don't really need to own one. And that was what I learned that a Millionaire Next Door, you don't have to be flashy to be successful in life. And the people that are really the most successful usually are the ones that are the least flashy that are out there. The next book in the list is a really old D biggity. From the early 1900s, richest man in Babylon, George Classen. This was really written actually, I think George Classen was an insurance agent. And he was teaching people, the concepts of savings of the thing I took from Richest Man in Babylon more than anything is the concept of making sure that part of the money that you earn is yours, that is your money, and it should be saved, it should be redirected. And that's a founding principle of what we do on Freedom Day. And the Freedom Day method. It's also a founding principle of what I believe in and what I, you know, do in my own life. The next one is the power of passive income. It's by Nightingale comments. It's so Nightingale comments, big training company, they are the ones that kind of signed on to this deal with the power of passive income. This is a core tenet of what we do at Freedom Day, we believe in, in creating passive income and cash flow, we focus less on assets and more on that passive income and cash flow, so that we can reach our Freedom Day. And so this is a core document for what we do in the Freedom Day world. The next book, I have literally read probably about 15 times the second most read book for me, next to the four hour workweek which I traditionally read a minimum of one time per year, sometimes twice. Expert secrets by Russell Brunson is one of the best books that I've ever read on marketing. But more than anything on expert communications. This is a book that I go back to over and over and over again, I own probably six copies there in every office that I have there, usually on my desk most times, because I go back to it and refer to sections of it all the time. The concept of frameworks that Russell teaches, I think are just key, the hero's journey, all these different things that are in that book, all of them teach how to be a successful communicator, especially if you're someone that Lee is leading a movement and for me, that was a major part of my move towards creating Freedom Day and being able to share it with you. I needed to understand how to communicate that out. The last book on the list, and certainly not least of the whole group is the book of investing in real estate with no or low money down. Brandon Turner. Brandon is the founder of big bigger pockets. The internet sensation. Brandon has one of the greatest Instagram accounts ever. I watch literally every single week I walk through the 3d As he posts per week, I believe this book is probably one of the most important things for me, because it helped me at a time where I didn't know that I was gonna get my freedom day. But I knew that real estate needed to be a big part of what I was doing. And I read this book, it is an update of a lot of the No Money Down philosophies, a lot of them started by Robert Allen, who wrote creating wealth. But Brandon really updated this book for the 21st century. And really what works today. And it's a wonderful introduction to the concept of creative financing and thinking differently and not just thinking about, well, I've got to save 20% so that I can put a downpayment down, there's so many ways that you can buy real estate without having to do that. So that is my list, make sure that you subscribe to the channel, and hit the little notification button because I'm actually recording including today, a whole bunch of these videos. And I'll be dropping them over the next several weeks of my individual analysis of these books, and helping you to understand a little bit more why these were important to me and certainly why they should be in your library or certainly on your device or whatever it is, wherever you're going to do that. So thanks a lot for joining me today. I thank you for taking the time, and let's get ourselves to Freedom Day.