Using Freedom And Constraints To Create A Life You Love: An Interview With Adam Baker, ManVsDebt.com

I’ve had a bunch of people asking me to share examples of people who are living Agile lives so that you can see the Agile Living values in action. This video interview with Adam Baker from www.manvsdebt.com is part of this “Agile Profiles” series. Adam and his family are a great example of folks who’ve dropped the “boxes and ladders” lifestyle and created a life based on what they love – and they’ve managed to do it with a toddler! So those of you who use children as an excuse for not doing what you’d love to, this one’s especially for you!

The video unfortunately came out rather poor quality, but luckily Adam is a lot clearer than me and he’s the focus anyway. For those of you who’d prefer to download the 40min interview and listen later on your ipod, you can download just the audio below.

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Right click & select “save as” to download the audio and listen later

What’s in the video/ audio

2:12 - Adam shares his thoughts on how to discover your passions and strengths and how to decide what to focus on if you have many interests, so that you can shape your work around that and do what you love (at 2:46 he shares about the thing that’s most likely to trip you up if you’re working at creating an online business!). For someone doing work in the very left-brain-directed world of personal finance, you’ll be surprised by his answer!

7:46 - Adam shares his tips on dealing with fear and internal resistance so that fear doesn’t stop you from doing what you love.

10:56 – We talked about ways of responding to constraints so that they don’t prevent you from creating what you love (this is great stuff!).

12:05 – We both got all excited about the paradox of creating greater freedom by creating constraints or boundaries for yourself.

14:02 – We talk about dealing with stuff that happens that’s out of your control and doesn’t fit your plans.

17:36 – Adam talks about the types of freedom that he and his family are focusing on creating, and shares their story of how they shifted their priorities to create these types of freedoms.

22:38 – Adam shares his perspectives on parenting and the impact of having children if you want to live an Agile life and travel and prioritize having intangible experiences over collecting tangible stuff.

25:55 – We talk about whether you have to create financial freedom before you can have the other types of freedom (and what financial freedom actually is!)

29:18 – Adam talks about why automating your finances can be very dangerous and why it’s so important to un-automate your finances if you want to create financial freedom and live a more Agile life.

33:34 – Adam talks about how much detail to drill down to in your management of your finances, what details you shouldn’t waste your time bothering about, and the importance of taking a flexible approach to managing your finances.

Create Financial Freedom: Un-Automate Your Finances

The program that we talked about in the video is Adam’s “Un-Automate Your Finances” program. Financial freedom is 1 of the 7 freedoms, and I have to say that this is the first time I’ve found financial advice that I resonated with and wanted to share.

I’m not big on “how to make money/ save money/ manage your money” programs because I’m a firm believer that most people are making the mistake of trying to create financial freedom first, in the hope that it will get them emotional and mental freedom. My belief is that the emotional and mental freedom can and should come first if you want a healthy relationship with money and your life in general. Well, what I love about Adam’s program is that his advice for managing your finances and creating more financial freedom for yourself is wrapped in all sorts of great advice that’ll help you to create emotional and mental freedom for yourself while you’re working on creating greater financial freedom.

Here’s what I mean. I really resonated with the 3 core principles that Adam’s process of un-automation is built on:

• Consciousness – The ability to earn, spend, and save deliberately. Ensuring that the primary influence over your money is… you.
• Sustainability – Rejecting consumerism, bucking lifestyle inflation, and ditching clutter. The ability to adopt financial habits that are healthy and sustainable.
• Focus - Ditching the “you have to do everything” mentality. The ability to prioritize your financial goals and passionately attack them one by one.

And I loved Adam’s focus on simplifying your finances and his perspective that, “Simplicity is a journey to increase intimacy.” How true. Simplify your finances for a richer, more intimate experience of life.

Adam’s guide is a good mix of inspiring expedition leadership and practical tour-guide leadership where he gives you concrete self-coaching questions and specific action to take. He even provides templates to help you with your budgeting.

Who the guide is for

This guide is not going to give you the ins-and-outs of the stockmarket and investing, and it doesn’t go into strategies for increasing your income. If you already feel confident and in control about your finances, you know what you’re doing with your money and feel good about it, then this isn’t for you. This guide is for those of you who are anxious and stressed about money, and those of you who have no clue where your money goes every month because you’re just managing it hap-hazardly and you have no idea how to figure out how to get on top of it. If you’d like to feel more confident and in control of the money you’re receiving and spending, and to make decisions that will help you to set up the simple systems to ensure that it’s easy for you to keep track and stay conscious of what you’re doing with your money, then this is a great guide for you.

As for the price? It’s just $17. Yes, I know it’s cheap, so don’t make the mistake of thinking it must be a dodgy 20-page ebook created over the weekend like many $17 ebooks. This is 83 pages of solid advice and much more like the quality of a book than the average ebook, and you’ll get a few bonus interviews, case studies and templates with it. Pack a sandwich from home instead of buying lunch one day this week and you’ll have saved the cash to grab your copy of Unautomate Your Finances, along with the bonus interviews.

Full disclosure: I’m an affiliate for Adam’s Un-Automate Your Finances program and I did not pay for my original copy – we’ve both shared our work freely with each other to support and encourage each other and to get feedback and improve our programs. Having worked through this program myself, I can tell you that it’s solid information and aligned with my values and a lot of the principles that I teach my clients, and so I’m very happy to give it the Agile Living stamp of approval!