Money = Freedom

When you can make your own money, you have freedom. You have control. You have time. But our society isn’t built for that — it’s built to keep you dependent. Your job is your lifeline. It pays for your rent, your groceries, your car, your health insurance. Lose your job? You lose everything.

Those old memes about being three paychecks away from homelessness? They're feeling more true every year as the cost of living keeps climbing. Most of us are just scraping by. We are closer to being homeless than we’ll ever be to becoming billionaires.

Then came social media — a new way to monetize attention. But let’s be honest: nobody’s creating content “just for fun” anymore. It’s all about the money. So take every creator with a grain of salt. Are they here to help… or to profit?

The people with real freedom are the ones who don’t need to monetize. They make videos for joy, to help others, or, sure — for the ego boost of having 250,000 followers. Everyone else? They’re caught in the same trap as the rest of us: capitalism.

Wanna be a full-time content creator? Gotta monetize: Sell courses. Sell coaching. Sell one-on-ones. Promote products. Endorse brands. And the platforms? They love it.

TikTok literally offers tasks like: “Grow your audience and earnings!” Complete a checklist, win a $20 coupon. Use a trending song, earn “up to $800!” — but only if you hit 300,000 views. Translation: promote a new artist’s song for free in hopes of a payout that might never come. And the desperate will do it — because they need that shot at $800.

Then come the TikTok Shop coaches, selling you the dream.
“Did you know this creator made $12,000 selling MOPS? You can too!”

OMG! $12,000?!
::buys mop, makes video, earns $10::

Who wins? The coach who made the video.
The mop salesman who got extra exposure.
And most of all, the mop company — now with thousands of creators flooding the market for free.

Next up? “Mops are out. Electric tile scrubbers are in!”
And the cycle continues.

But when you have your own money?
You don’t need to whore yourself out to a mop brand.
You don’t need to sell anything.
You can create because you want to — not because you have to.

That’s how you avoid sell-out culture.

“Ohhh, bro’s doing a brand deal? Bro sold out.”
Maybe. But not if he didn’t need the brand deal.

I always think of that old Arnold Schwarzenegger story — how he used money from bodybuilding and fitness routines to buy apartment buildings. That gave him the freedom to choose his movies, not take every role just to pay the bills.

Buying real estate today miiiiight be out of reach for most of us, but the stock market is still accessible.
It’s still a path to freedom.

Personally, alongside long-term investing, dividend stocks, a Roth IRA, and the occasional day or swing trade, I make most of my income through something called covered calls. I have a full full YouTube playlist playlist and guide if you want to learn about it.

The key? It gives me the freedom to make content because I love it — not because I need to monetize it.

Because I have my own money.
And that changes everything.