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It used to be that a man could work an honest 40 hour week, pay his taxes, follow the law, and he’d be able to:

•  Have a nice house

• Marry a good woman

• Take care of his family

• Have a nice pension saved up when he retired at 65

Those days are gone.

Most young people now spend their first 20 years of adult life:

• Broke

• Single

• Childless

• Living in an apartment

• With a negative net worth until their 40’s

And, in the words of Tyler Durden of Fight Club: they’re very, very pissed off.

The pain and frustration of this “new normal” is what made Oliver Anthony’s song Rich Men North of Richmond such a runaway success.

And it’s a brilliant song.

Catchy tune, clever lyrics, and it resonates with what a lot of people are feeling.

I know all the words and even learned to play it on guitar. Safe to say I’m a fan.

And just about everything he says in the song is true.

But there’s one big problem…

The problem is that if you think this way, it’s going to ruin your life.

It’s All True

The song references that:

• Politicians make the average American family pay 50% of their income in taxes (income tax + sales tax + capital gains tax + property tax…etc.)

• While they inflate away the value of the dollar

• Try to control everything you do

• And everything you say

• All while “looking out for” minors on their private islands

All of this is true.

And it’s not surprising that it makes a lot of people feel angry, frustrated, and hopeless.

But there’s a difference between what’s TRUE and what’s HELPFUL.

And oftentimes we focus on something unpleasant that’s true…not realizing that we’re ruining our lives as a result.

Just because something is true, doesn’t mean it needs to be the focus of our attention.

The Big Problem

The problem is: when you blame your life situation on some OUTSIDE circumstance….you’re giving away your power.

You’re making it IMPOSSIBLE for your life to get better…unless that other person or situation changes.

Do you really want to wait for politicians to stop being evil for you to have a happy, fulfilling, successful life?

If so, you’re going to be waiting a long time.

Here’s the thing: there are always going to be people, institutions, and circumstances getting in the way of you getting what you want in life.

They’re kinda like walls blocking you off from your pot of gold.  

You have a choice.

You can focus on:

• Politicians

• Woke corporations

• Taxes

• Inflation

• Discrimination

• Affirmative action

• Economic recession

•  Job market

• Or any of the other “walls” blocking you from success

…which kinda feels good in the moment, because then you don’t have to take the blame for your own life situation.

But it also keeps you angry, bitter, and stuck.

OR the second option is: you can accept the walls for what they are, and find a way to go around them.

Find a way to be successful anyway.

And there is ALWAYS a way to be successful, no matter how many walls are in your way.

If you remain free in your heart, all the combined forces of evil in the world can NEVER control you completely.

There’s always a way to win your freedom…IF you have faith and you’re willing to take responsibility for your own life and work for it.

There’s a great book called How I Found Freedom In An Un-Free World by Harry Browne that I recommend if you want to dive deep on this topic.

He goes pretty extreme, but it’s an eye-opener in terms of changing your thinking to focus on what YOU can do, rather than expecting the government to change.

Having more money will also buy you more freedom.

(as long as you don’t sell your freedom to get the money in the first place)

You can buy passports to other countries that give more freedom, and you can set up bank accounts and companies in other countries.

You can even mix and match.

That is, you can:

• Live in the country where you have the most personal freedom

• Bank in the country with the best banking laws

• Set up your companies in the country with the lowest business taxes.

There’s an excellent YouTube channel called The Nomad Capitalist, which goes over the specific strategies of how to do this.

Worth a look, even if you don’t have much money or a business yet. It will give you ideas of what’s possible, and show you that you CAN be free—if you’re willing to work for it.

Your Thoughts Create Your Reality

What I just showed you is an example of positive thinking.

Or solutions-oriented thinking.

Most people don’t think this way.

They focus on their problems.

They focus on the negative.

And by focusing on negative things, they bring more negative things into their reality.

You don’t have to believe in anything “woo woo” to see that this is true.

For example, I used to spend A LOT of time complaining about the government.

It didn’t do me a bit of good.

It just wasted my time and made me angry.

I could have used those THOUSANDS OF HOURS of lost time to do something productive, that would have helped me have a better life.

(that’s the hours I spent complaining and fighting with people on the internet…PLUS the hours I spent not thinking straight afterwards because I was so angry)

And not only was I wasting an enormous amount of time, I was also pushing people away.

Because people don’t really like to hang out with people who are angry all the time.

I mean, except other angry people.

But those people don’t exactly help you to have a better life.

The 4 Levels of Awakening

There are four levels of awakening that people go through when it comes to unpleasant truths:

Level 1: The Sheep

This is the person who believes everything The Empire tells him to believe.

You know, the people who say stuff like:

• “Trust the experts”

• “I believe in science” (really means: “I believe in propaganda”)

• “I’m on the right side of history”

• “We’re the resistance”…even though they’re on the same side as the media and the corporations and the miseducation system on everything.

You know the ones.

People who are completely unconscious and incapable of critical thinking.

Level 2: The Discontents

This is what I used to be when I complained all the time…

The person who sees through the lies of the mainstream, who sees the corruption, and is very unhappy about it.

And this is the level of awakening of Rich Men North of Richmond.

People at this level do 2 things: complain and protest.

Neither of these two strategies are very effective.

Complaining just keeps us focused on the negative, and brings more negativity.

Protesting is even worse.

It doesn’t do any good, and you’re putting yourself at the risk of being set up.

Even if you personally don’t do anything illegal, the government can (and has) put people in jail just for showing up at a protest.

The US Constitution says we have a right to protest. But it’s not really true in practice.

You know…unless the government happens to agree with your protest.

So protesting and complaining are useless.

If you really want to end the corruption and make the world better, there are more productive things you can do.

For example, do you think you’d make more of an impact as a:

1. Broke guy on the internet complaining about injustice?

2. Or a wealthy business owner who CREATES alternatives and workarounds to make yourself and others more free?

If you said “2”, then you could spend your time doing something like building a business, rather than complaining and protesting.

Level 3: The Blissfully Ignorant

If you’re on the same page as me so far, you might be thinking it’s best to just ignore everything going on in the world and bury your head in the sand.

You know, stop focusing on negative things and think positively instead.

This is where a lot of “spiritual” people end up.

And it makes sense to a certain degree.

After all: why are you going to spend your time and energy getting worked up about some war on the other side of the world, when there’s nothing you can do about it?

Better to focus on the things that you can control and that are relevant to you.

But trying to isolate yourself and block out the outside world comes with 2 big problems:

1. You don’t know to prepare yourself for the things that happen.

2. Your energy is vulnerable. You’re never going to be able to block out bad news 100%. You need to learn to handle it in a healthy way.

Level 4: The Integrated

This is the person who is aware of the outside world and its problems, but reacts with positivity.

He doesn’t bury his head in the sand and ignore what’s going on.

Instead, he sees the positive in everything.

Because the truth is: everything in the world is both positive and negative.

That is, there are both positive and negative ways to view anything and everything.

Challenges feel bad in the moment (negative), but they give the opportunity to get stronger (positive).

Every crisis (negative) brings opportunity (positive).

Here’s how an Integrated person might view the political situation right now:

“It’s an HONOR AND A PRIVILEGE to be chosen by God to be on the Earth at this time in history. To be part of this epic battle of good vs evil. We have a duty to help the world and set things right. And I’m EXCITED to help bring in the new and better world that is within our reach.”

See the difference?

It’s recognizing the evil, but at the same time focusing on the opportunity to fix it, and the rewards that are to come as a result.

That’s positive thinking in its most healthy and productive form.

The Integrated person is also GRATEFUL.

Instead of complaining about working overtime hours for low pay, he’s grateful to have a job and food on the table.

(especially considering that getting a US minimum wage would be a dream come true for people in most countries of the world)

If you make enough to survive, it’s enough to sustain you while you reach for something better.

(such as by writing songs and posting them on the internet)

I had a mentor tell me a long time ago to think of my job as an “overhead partner”.

That is, my job keeps me fed and clothed while I pursue my dreams.

Definitely something to be grateful for!

…

So those are the 4 levels of awakening.

Maybe there are more than 4, but these are the ones I can see.

If there’s a 5, I’m not there yet.

How To Escape The Empire (In 5 Steps)

If you’ve listened to me for any time at all, you know that everything I do is about helping you earn your freedom from the corrupt system that I call The Empire.

If you want those rich men north of Richmond to stop ruining your life, here’s how:

(without waiting for THEM to change)

Step 1: Figure out what you DO want.

Most people are stuck thinking about the things they DON’T wan

The things that they’re unhappy with now or afraid of in the future.

And they don’t put much thought into what they DO want.

What would make you free and abundant and happy WITHOUT any change in the political situation?

Could be:

• Have more money

• Live in another place

• Have multiple passports

• Social circle of successful people

• Grow your own food (so you don’t have to eat bugs)

• Etc.

Don’t worry about the HOW just yet. For now, list everything that would make your ideal lifestyle.

Step 2: Visualize yourself having it

Set aside some time every day to paint a picture in your mind of having everything you want.

See it, feel it, hear it, taste it, smell it.

Make it as vivid as you can.

Success in getting what you want ultimately comes down to 2 things:

Information and Motivation

That is, you need the information of how to get what you want. And the motivation to put in the effort to take action on that information.

Visualization gives you both the information and the motivation.

Step 3: Practice gratitude

Most of us are addicted to complaining.

It’s a bad habit that we have to break.

The best way to break the habit is to replace it with a better habit.

In this case: gratitude.

It can’t be something that you just happen to feel occasionally. You have to practice it.

Set aside some time (could be right after your visualization) to find things to be grateful for.

It’s super easy once you get a bit of practice.

Even in my worst moments I can be grateful that:

• I’m alive

• I have two arms and two legs

• I can see, hear, feel, taste, and smell

• I have food

• I have a roof over my head

• I have air conditioning

• I have a machine in my kitchen that washes my dishes for me

• I can go to the nearest grocery store with $5 and buy fruits from the other side of the world

• I have access to just about every bit of information that’s ever existed via the internet

It’s a lot to be grateful for, right?

The truth is, in a lot of ways even a “poor” person today lives better than the richest king a few hundred years ago.

And if you were born in the United States, you pretty much won the lottery.

You can work at McDonald’s flipping burgers and make more money than a doctor in some other countries.

That’s true. That’s not an exaggeration.

You can also practice gratitude for what’s COMING.

You know all those great things you’re visualizing in Step 2?

Just because they haven’t materialized yet, doesn’t mean you can’t be grateful.

Practice being grateful for those things NOW, before they’ve even come into existence.

This helps build your faith, which makes your goals become reality faster.

Step 4: Emotional Freedom Exercise

Things will happen that will trigger you.

That will make you angry, afraid, jealous, resentful, etc.

Whenever you react to some situation with negative emotion, you’re not able to act rationally.

Often, the emotion causes you to do something stupid and you make the problem worse.

I have an exercise that I do whenever I react emotionally to something.

I call it the Emotional Freedom Exercise.

It neutralizes the negative emotion and helps me think clearly, so I can make rational decisions.

And fast.

When something “bad” happens, you could be angry for:

• A week

• A day

•  An hour

• A minute

That time you spend being angry (or afraid, jealous, etc.) is time flushed down the toilet.

(At best. At worst, you do something crazy that you can’t undo.)

So is it better to waste a week? Or a minute?

HERE’S A LINK to the full Emotional Freedom Exercise.

There’s a lot to it, so I won’t go through it all here.

But it’s well worth the time.

Step 5: Do the things that get you closer to what you want

…and throw out the things that don’t.

Like we said, everything is achievable.

You have the WHAT, so now it’s time to find the HOW.

The best way to start is to find someone who already has the things you want, and learn from that person.

If you want to be a millionaire, learn from a millionaire.

If you want to move to Costa Rica, learn from someone who moved to Costa Rica.

If you want to have a happy marriage, find someone who has a happy marriage.

Then figure out how the person did it.

Talk to him personally, if he’s someone you know.

Get him to mentor you.

Or read his books, buy courses, watch videos, etc. (if they exist)

If you can’t find a way to learn that person’s secrets, find someone else.

Where you want to start depends on what your goals are, but here are a couple resources I have that might be helpful for you:

• Get into a high-paying, fast-growing, possibly remote, job as a data analyst: https://www.chdataanalyst.com/data-analyst-training-wf

• Start your own online Digital Freedom Business: https://www.dominatethemarketplace.net/freedom-business7

• Or if you want personal help, send me a message on Twitter: 
  https://twitter.com/thechrisshupe

You might not be totally clear on exactly where you want to go.

That’s OK.

Just start somewhere. You can (and will) adjust along the way.