2 out of 3 millennials have nothing saved for retirement.¹

Yet everyone feels they need $1.8 million to retire comfortably.²

If your reaction to this data is to think you’d better stop buying lunch out, you’re still playing a rigged game:

• A game in which the rules change without notice
• A game in which your options are severely limited
• A game in which your winnings decrease in value over time

In this post I’m going to show you how to play a better game:

• A game in which you make your own rules
• A game in which there are infinite options
• A game in which your winnings can easily outpace inflation

If this sounds too good to be true, you’re in good company: it sounded that way to me, too…

Until I started playing.

Then, very quickly, the old game started to look absurd.

Once I figured out the rules of the new game, I did my first $10K month within just 5 months of playing.

And I did it in one of the most difficult niches to monetize: spirituality.

I did this by educating myself and taking guidance from a mentor whose philosophy aligned with my own.

Somehow, I moved faster than everyone else, and ended up working with that mentor of mine.

Everyone else was struggling with:

• Overwhelm
• Impostor syndrome
• Creative block
• Procrastination
• Uncertainty
• Self-doubt
• Time management

Eventually I realized I’d already dealt with those issues by cutting to the core of spiritual practice (and comparing notes with my neuropsychologist wife).

That’s how I was able to move so fast—and find so much opportunity—in so little time. So I knew I had to find a way to teach people the spirituality and the business in one place.

In the 15 months since then, I’ve taught over 1,000 people how to get over their obstacles and do what I did.

Now I’ve finally packed all my knowledge into a cohort course.

If you want to get my personal guidance to move as fast as I did through:

• Affirming your life’s purpose
• Representing it authentically online
• Growing an engaged audience
• Selling them something that’ll really benefit them

Then click here for more info.

And click here to get my free Foundations course.

Or—if you’re super keen—enter code FOUNDATIONS at checkout for a $25 discount.

(Note: the cohort begins Sunday 22nd of September with the live “Introduction to Natural Wellbeing” teaching. There are limited seats.)

Why Saving For Retirement Is A Gamble

Imagine I ask you to give me 40 hours of your life every week for 45 years. During that time:

• You must do exactly as I say.
• You must already have acquired the knowledge, skills and experience to do what I command. This will cost you roughly $168,000. (Loans are available.)
• You may not enjoy or believe in what I ask you to do. (This is irrelevant to me).
• You can have weekends and evenings off, but you must use that time to ensure you’re ready to serve me when you return to your duties.
• You can have a few weeks off per year, but you’ll have to schedule these around your coworkers. (I can’t have you all vacationing during the most popular weeks of the year.)

In return:

• I’ll pay you enough to take care of your basic needs (but only half as much as it costs to raise a family).
• If you make it to the end of the 45-year term, I’ll set you free. (But any wear and tear on your body, mind and spirit is forfeit—you’ll have to deal with that at your own expense.)

I won’t guarantee you’ll make it to the finish line, nor will I guarantee how long you’ll live after reaching it. (It’s not my problem if you die a year after I release you.)

Do you accept my offer?

Traditionally, most people took this offer because it was the only one they could get.

But in 2024, you can do better. Much better.

I’ve demonstrated in many past issues how starting a purpose-based business online is the solution to the outdated retirement model. And I’ve demonstrated how using spirituality is the ultimate fuel for your efforts.

What I’m going to do in this post is detail exactly what my week looks like as an established Freetiree.

It took me 2 years of trial and error to settle on this system.

That trial and error was, itself, immensely valuable.

It’s highly unlikely that my whole system will work for you. But if you try it, you’ll learn tons about what does work for you. Then you can tweak it, bring in parts of other people’s systems you learn about, and run your own experiments.

Take it as a blueprint but, most importantly, as proof that you can live an uncompromised life on your own terms—and earn a living making the change you want to see in the world.

How I Earn $10K Per Month Teaching Spirituality (My Exact System)

• If you’re not aligned at the core of your being, your vision won’t be authentic.
• If your vision isn’t authentic, you’ll try to pull the wrong levers in your purpose-based business.
• If you try to pull the wrong levers, your daily actions will be wasteful.

So you must start with alignment—even if it seems slow; even if deep contemplation seems unproductive. It’s not.

Alignment

The first thing you must align with is your own true nature.

This is what all genuine spiritual teachings and practices are about.

I’d always felt called to figure this out, and that’s why I dedicated over 30,000 hours to the study and practice of understanding myself.

But don’t worry—it doesn’t have to take you that long.

Students of mine regularly figure this sh!t out much quicker than I did—because I show them shortcuts that have never been written down elsewhere, unique to our time and context.

This is a deep and subtle topic, much more suited to conversation than writing. But you can get a glimpse of what I’m talking about right now if you follow this guided meditation:

If you didn’t glimpse anything, don’t worry: this isn’t a “one and done” thing.

Keep returning to that meditation and maybe check out some of the others on my YouTube channel. (And if you’re really keen, join my upcoming cohort where I’ll shape live meditations to your needs—and you can ask me as many questions as you like.)

So the first thing we must align to is our true nature as undifferentiated awareness.

The second thing we must align with is our environment and biology. ****If you’re out of touch with your body, life will be a struggle.

I have a keen sense of when I need rest. I trust my body when it tells me to slow down, and trusting this process keeps me aligned with circadian rhythm.

Many people rely on an alarm clock to wake them up.

I wake naturally every day before 6am, ready to get to my desk and start writing posts like this one.

As you align with your true nature, wisdom will begin to occur spontaneously.

The difference between knowledge and wisdom is that knowledge is acquired, but wisdom is naturally occurring.

The reason most people don’t demonstrate wisdom is that it’s blocked by conditioned thinking.

Take the example of the heartbroken lover who keeps going back to his toxic ex. He tells all his friends that he knows she’s bad for him, but he needs her. Of course, no-one truly needs anyone. Our lover is demonstrating one side of what’s called codependency.

Here’s what’s cool about wisdom: everyone who ever got quiet enough became wise. (This is why people meditate.) And when they did, they discovered several natural benefits:

• Clarity: No more doubt regarding what to do, say or think. The Buddha called this “unification of mind”—in which the experience of inner conflict is dissolved.
• Compassion: Mutual benefit becomes the only game worth playing. (And yes, I do mean mutual benefit—genuine compassion includes oneself.)
• Ingenuity: Talent hits a target no-one else can hit; genius hits a target no-one else can see; wisdom hits a target no-one else can imagine. (Example: a talented content creator builds a large audience; a genius content creator monetizes that audience; a wise content creator works through their audience—regardless of its size—to realize their unique contribution to humanity.)
• Flexibility: Wisdom doesn’t hold one idea above another. If circumstances change, plans may need to change. Most people are attached to their plans, but the wise are not. This enables great freedom and efficiency.
• Peace: Regardless of what’s going on, I feel a deep, unshakeable sense of peace. This is not something I cultivated. It’s something that was revealed when I stopped cultivating anxiety.

That’s a pretty convenient stack for any entrepreneur.

But it gets better.

As you align with wisdom, virtues will begin to occur spontaneously:

• Honesty: The idea of lying will seem absurd to you.
• Integrity: You’ll see very clearly that acting with good morals is not only to everyone else’s benefit, but to yours too.
• Empathy: You’ll appreciate the depth of other people’s suffering—but not in such a way as you’ll start crying about it—because you’re already aligned with compassion, which uses empathy as fuel for beneficial action.
• Courage: You’ll see failure as just another part of your process, which means there’s nothing to be afraid of.
• Understanding: When you understand how the mind works, you understand how everyone works.
• Confidence: You won’t feel tempted to speak on what you don’t truly know. As such, when you do speak, you’ll be convicted.
• Gratitude: Seeing things as they really are, you’ll feel more and more each day that you’ve won the cosmic lottery.
• Perseverance: When you do what you do out of compassion, it’s like there’s no other game in town. For me, writing these posts and helping my clients is as natural as eating when hungry.
• Respect: You’ll naturally respect everything and everyone, flaws and all, because you’ll see them as part of the grand unfolding pattern of nature.
• Patience: Freed from selfish needs, you’ll be much more capable of playing long-term games.
• Generosity: If I could give all my services for free, I would. It’s on my 50-year plan to give away thousands of scholarships once my business can accommodate such a thing. Because making positive change in the world is literally experienced as a greater payment than any amount of money.

Pretty cool, right?

But we’re not done yet…

As you align with these virtues, positive qualities will begin to occur spontaneously:

• Quality: Knowing the positive impact of your work, you’ll naturally want to present it in the best way possible. (Everyone tells me how well-presented my social profiles and website are.)
• Consistency: Being aligned with what really matters, you’ll naturally want to apply effort every day. (I’m at my desk writing these posts 7 days a week.)
• Transparency: When you have nothing to hide, there’s no reason to not be supremely open.
• Inclusivity: The idea of drawing a line between one group of people and another will seem absurd to you.
• Innovation: Freed from old patterns of thinking, you’ll come up with inspired solutions no-one else could have seen.
• Speed: Free of the drag of emotional baggage, you’ll be able to move much faster than everyone else (like how I Freetired myself in 5 months.)
• Balance: You’ll no longer second-guess your need for rest or socializing or fun—because it will all be in service to your greater beneficial intent.

Yes, this all comes from simply realizing your true nature as awareness.

You may need to sit a few more meditations before all this good stuff begins to manifest in your life, but again—everyone who ever got quiet enough realized these truths.

Vision

As you become more aligned, you’ll find it easier to affirm your vision. Specifically, you’ll be able to identify the greatest potential good you can do in your life.

For me, this is normalizing effortless wellbeing for 1 billion and 1 people. I’ll do this by helping parents dissolve their emotional baggage, then teaching them how to homeschool their kids. If I can establish an alternative system of education which prioritizes wellbeing and curiosity then there’ll be a lot less emotional mess to clean up in the kids who come through that system once they reach adulthood. Then they, in turn, can get on with being forces for good in the world—with much less inner resistance. In other words, they’ll be more aligned from the beginning.

My free course, Freetirement Foundations, walks you through crafting your own 50-year vision.

Levers

Once my vision was intact, I started to think about the big things I had to do to realize it.

Levers are small in the beginning, so require a lot of effort for little return. But as they grow, you can move more weight, so to speak, with less and less energy.

1. Cultivation: At each step of my journey I need to learn a ton of stuff, develop a ton of skills, and continue basic life maintenance. The beginning of my journey was my own spiritual growth, into which I invested over 20,000 dollars and 30,000 hours. I took what I learned into my purpose-based business, where I invested more thousands of hours and dollars. But I was able to move fast because of all the work I’d done on myself. I still dedicate substantial time to learning, but it only gets easier and more impactful.
2. Creation: Products and services are the things which have the most power to make positive change, but they take a long time to put together. As such, there’s always some form of development going on behind the scenes while I work on…
3. Content: In a typical week, I send out a long-form piece like this one, a thread on X, 18 short-form posts, countless messages, and usually a little visual media too. This all requires an ever-improving stack of skills, but it all gets easier the more I do it. And it reaches more people as my audience grows.
4. Collaboration: I’m constantly networking with other creators. We engage with one another’s content, share tips, and look for opportunities to collaborate more deeply to help one another’s audiences.

So those are the big pieces and it’s very important to have those well-defined. But that’s worthless unless they inform…

Actions

This is my daily program as of right now:

I run it 7 days a week, with some flexibility on weekends.

The non-negotiables are tweets, promote, yoga, write, Kortex, telegram. I complete these tasks every day, without fail.

My secret is that I want to complete these tasks every day, without fail.

If you’ve been following me a while, you may have noticed that my program has changed.

I’m constantly tweaking it to balance structure with spontaneity.

Sometimes I like to have many items on my program, other times I like to keep it simple.

I’m always looking at my output as the measure of what’s working.

Tweets (Lever: Content)

I’ve published 3 tweets per day, every day, since 22nd of August 2022.

Back at the beginning of my account I posted dozens of comments each day too.

In total, I’ve posted 14,400 times on X.

It used to take me up to 30 minutes to write a single post.

These days, they just fall out of me.

I wake up around 5:30, make coffee, then check my queue in a tool called Tweet Hunter [affiliate link].

Sometimes it’s full, sometimes it’s not.

Sometimes I have ideas, sometimes I don’t.

If I don’t, I might check my analytics and sort my recent posts by engagement to see what’s been resonating with people. I’ll scroll through a few and wait for inspiration to strike.

Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t.

So many creators have said the following line that it’s become something of a mantra:

X is about saying 1 thing 1,000 different ways.

And it’s true.

If I tried to say something I’d not said before each day I’d have run out of ideas months ago.

But people who are interested in a given topic like to be reminded.

My job as a creator, then, is just to keep it interesting.

I do this by considering the psychology of attention, engagement, entertainment, education and empathy.

I add some practised wordplay and formatting and that does the trick.

Check out my profile for thousands of examples.

Promote (Lever: Content)

Beneath one of my tweets I link to a newsletter post like this one.

I don’t ask anyone to subscribe, I just give them an opportunity to dive deeper into the topic at hand.

This demonstrates permission marketing, which is the art of having people opt in to your offerings at every step of your outreach:

• If they want to read my social posts, great
• If they want to read my newsletter, great
• If they want to take my free course, great
• If they want to take my paid course, great
• If they want to work with me one-to-one, great

If you’re reading this post, it’s because you either opted to receive it as an email or clicked on a link between one of my social posts.

You volunteered to get more information from me.

Running permission marketing means the people on my email list are actually interested in my content and I don’t have to use slimy, outdated sales tactics to earn my living.

Yoga (Lever: Cultivation)

Nothing much to say here: I’m nursing a recurring back injury and I need my whole body to be strong for the musical renaissance I’m currently enjoying (getting to it…)

Write (Lever: Content)

This is the main “deep work” block of my day, in which I work on posts like this one and/or my next product or service.

It’s my chance to flesh out my ideas, educate, and inspire those of you who are seeking more guidance than I can give you on social media.

One of these posts typically takes 14 hours across 7 days.

You might wonder how I can afford to put that amount of work into something that’s free to the reader.

Well, the keenest among you regularly reply to these posts and request that I coach you through some of the territory I explore in them.

Recently, one of these posts earned me $2400. But that’s not even where the real return is…

These posts will exist forever. They’ll continue to generate high-quality clients for me for years to come. As I continue to grow on social media, more and more people see these ideas, and more and more people reach out for further guidance.

I can release as many products and services on the topic of Freetirement as I like, and each one is likely to generate more revenue.

And since this topic is so close to my heart, I also get paid in fulfilment. Each time you read one of these posts, I’m one step closer to my 50-year vision—even if I never hear from you at all.

I’ve detailed the process I use to create these posts before. If you’re interested, click here and scroll down just a little to the section titled “Middle-of-Funnel: Newsletter”.

Handpan (Lever: Cultivation)

At this point in my day I like to get on my feet (I have my handpan on a stand).

I’ll play for anywhere between 15 and 60 minutes, depending on whether inspiration is stronger for music or writing.

(Expect to see some video once I’ve familiarized myself with the instrument.)

This fits into my purpose-based business by giving me something visual to post on video platforms, and enabling me to provide my own musical accompaniment for my guided meditations.

Thread (Lever: Content)

A lot of people think a lot about the algorithm on X.

And a lot of people tell you not to think about the algorithm on X.

I like to focus on what’s in my control while being realistic about the fact that, broadly speaking, it’s become harder to grow on the platform since Elon bought it.

I have an engaged audience. I know this because of the ratio of comments to likes under most of my posts.

Still, for months now, I’ve seen zero account growth from single tweets.

The only content that grows my audience is threads.

Here’s my process:

1. I use Tweet Hunter X to find a proven viral thread format I like
2. I insert my own into the hook format
3. I write at least 10 iterations of the hook
4. I write a “lead” as my first tweet that expands on the hook and demonstrates why the reader should continue to give me their time
5. I write 10 standalone tweets on the theme of my hook
6. I list the main points of each tweet (like a table of contents) for my penultimate tweet
7. I sign off with a “follow me” call-to-action
8. I revise my hook
9. I find or create an attention-grabbing image to attach to the hook
10. I add videos to my first 3 tweets

Threads are the most difficult writing format. If you’re new to them, you’ll constantly feel like you’re bumping up against X’s character limit.

I used to spend up to 20 hours on a single thread—before adding video was a thing. These days it’s more like 5, with video.

If that sounds high-effort, that’s because it is! But nothing will improve your social media writing more than figuring out how to write a good thread.

Kortex (Lever: Collaboration)

I’ll usually eat and take a walk at this point in my day, then come back and check in with the Kortex community.

This is where I coach hundreds of creators on one-person business.

It’s the experience I gained doing this that I’m now fusing with my spiritual teaching to create Freetirement Frameworks.

Retweets (Lever: Collaboration)

I run an X List that features a dozen or so creators with accounts around my size.

We each scroll that list daily and check each other’s content, sharing what resonates with our own audiences.

This helps us all get more eyeballs on our work.

DM’s (Lever: Collaboration)

Once a day I’ll check my DM’s on X, where I typically have a handful of conversations going with other creators.

I’ll also use this time to answer enquiries from people who are interested in my products or services.

Telegram (Lever: Collaboration)

Same as above, only Telegram is also where I check in with existing clients once per 24 hours.

Telegram is great on mobile, which is why I save it till the end of the day to stack with my…

Workout (Lever: Cultivation)

Answering Telegram messages during cardio is a great double whammy.

It works between sets during weight training too, though that’s trickier to manage.

How to Live Life On Your Own Terms

I love every single day of my life as a Freetiree.

I never force myself to do anything on my program.

I hope you can see how the actions I listed are just the natural results of the lower levels of the pyramid in my graphic:

• I align with my true nature, which manifests wisdom, virtues & positive qualities
• I set my vision from there
• I decide what levers I have to pull
• I take the obvious actions to do so

Of course, there’s tons more detail I can share with you on how to get aligned yourself, lock in your vision, then write content, promote your products, grow your network and sell life-changing sh!t to people who really need it.

If you want to dig super deep into all of it—and get my guidance and feedback as you go—consider joining me and a bunch of like-minded friends on the upcoming Freetirement Frameworks cohort. (Enter code FOUNDATIONS at checkout for a $25 discount.)

With love from my desk,
dg 💙
‍

SOURCES:

¹ https://www.nirsonline.org/2018/02/new-research-finds-95-percent-of-millennials-not-saving-adequately-for-retirement/

² https://www.businessinsider.com/american-workers-need-nearly-2-million-savings-to-retire-2023-8

‍