The overman represents the highest potential for human creativity, strength, and achievement – a sort of ultimate affirmation and embracement of life.
This quotes describes 19th-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s concept of the “Übermensch”. That word means “overman” in English.
There are different interpretations and misconceptions around Nietzsche’s overman philosophy. But on the surface it’s a simple idea.
Nietzsche suggested that life is individual in nature. That is to say, we each experience life as an individual. And the highest purpose for each of us is to become the best version of ourselves possible.
To do this, we must let go of ego, petty conceits, and external expectations. And we must focus our energy only on thoughts and acts that make us smarter, stronger, and more virtuous.
Notice how this is very much in alignment with the more popular work of Abraham Maslow. Maslow explained man’s “hierarchy of needs” in a 1943 paper titled A Theory of Human Motivation.
According to Maslow, humans are motivated by five basic categories of needs.
The first is physiological. We all need water, food, air, and sleep. The second is safety. We need to be secure from physical and emotional harm. The third is social. We need to feel a sense of acceptance with our personal relationships. The fourth is what Maslow called “esteem needs”. To put it simply, we each need to feel important.
Only when these first four categories are met can we move on to the fifth – self-actualization.
To Maslow, people who get to this point are self-aware and laser-focused on personal growth. They are striving every day to fulfill their potential. And they do not care much about social expectations or the opinions of others.
It’s clear to me that Nietzsche’s “overman” and Maslow’s self-actualizing individual are the same thing. And the only way to get there is to become financially independent. To achieve financial freedom. That’s the only way we’ll have the time we need to focus on our higher callings.
When I talk about financial freedom, I’m referring to a situation where we don’t have to trade our time for money anymore. Instead, we can spend our time doing only things that are meaningful to us. To get to that point we must do two things…
First, we must build a significant reserve of assets such that we always have access to plenty of money should we need it. Part of this is simply saving money for a rainy day… but that’s not enough in today’s world. We also need to allocate some of our reserves to other asset classes. Gold, real estate, stocks, Bitcoin, private notes, and early stage investments each have a place.
That’s the first step to financial freedom – building financial security. From there we must create passive income streams. We need our passive income to cover all our expenses.
There are plenty of ways to do this today. Online business is one. There are countless books and articles out there on all kinds of online business strategies.
That said, building cash flow with rental real estate is my top choice for passive income.
With the proper network, real estate cash flow is about as passive as can be. Plus, real estate provides incredible tax advantages. We won’t owe taxes on our rental income.
But here’s the thing – no matter which approach to passive income we take, it’s going to require incredible discipline. The road to financial freedom requires us to walk a lonely path.
For most of us we’ll need to be incredibly diligent with our spending. The less we spend on entertainment and consumer goods, the faster we’ll be able to build passive income. Especially when it comes to real estate.
That means those who pursue financial freedom have to opt out of the “live for the weekend” lifestyle that’s so popular today. We’ll have to say no to things that we’ve always said yes to before. And chances are we’ll have some friends who won’t be supportive or understanding of this change.
And this brings us back to the self-actualization concept. To Nietzsche’s overman…
The institutions of this world are largely hostile to free-thinking individuals. That’s baked right into the cake.
The power, wealth, and influence of any institution is proportionate to how much individuals think they need it. Thus, our power institutions strive to make us dependent upon them in some capacity.
In fact, that’s the primary purpose of the public education system. It’s designed to make everybody exactly like everybody else.
We’re all supposed to think, speak, and act in ways that conform to the institutional norms. That’s not said explicitly, but it’s drilled into students every day. This creates a dynamic where most students will ostracize anyone who questions the norms or tries to be different.
Again, it’s all about ensuring that everyone believes the institutions of this world are necessary and superior. The late author and “longshoreman philosopher” Eric Hoffer described this dynamic quite well. Here’s Hoffer:
When watching men of power in action it must be always kept in mind that, whether they know it or not, their main purpose is the elimination or neutralization of the independent individual – the independent voter, consumer, worker, owner, thinker – and that every device they employ aims at turning men into a manipulable ‘animated instrument’ which is Aristotle’s definition of a slave… but humans weren’t born to be slaves.
All that’s to say, the path to financial freedom and then self-actualization is difficult. We’re going to face opposition… which means we’ll need strength, courage, and discipline.
As I sat and reflected on this concept, it occurred to me that this theme has played out over and over again throughout human history. Self-actualizing individuals have always faced steep challenges.
We’ll look at some prominent examples tomorrow.
-Joe Withrow
P.S. The first step to financial freedom requires us to build financial security. Saving money in the bank just doesn’t cut it within a fiat monetary system. We have to build a strategic asset portfolio that’s impervious to inflation and intervention.
And that’s exactly what our flagship course Finance for Freedom focuses on. The course pulls back the curtain on the existing monetary system. Then it lays out exactly how to build a bulletproof asset allocation model.
You can get more information on our system right here: Finance for Freedom