Happy Wednesday, Wise Owl Nation!

It's July 7th here in the United States.

This past weekend was July 4th or Independence day.

Many Americans go out and celebrate the holiday, but many more Americans take the time on July 4th to reflect on the freedoms they have taken for granted.

So that is the inspiration for this week's newsletter

There are many types of freedom, and I write about how to get more of them below.

Let's get into it.

You can find all past issues (including this one) here.

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🧠 Wisdom Tip(s) of The Week: Some thoughts on life/freedom

There are many types of freedom.

There is mental freedom, where you are able to let go of the worries of the world that you have no direct control over.

There is financial freedom, where you have amassed enough assets that your expenses each month are 100% covered by those assets.

There is the physical freedom to go out into the world and do whatever you want with your time. Don't ever take your ability to physically get out of bed and walk around. There are many who are dependent on others for this, and what they would give for the independence to simply get out of bed on their own.

There is the freedom given by knowledge, and the ability to think. The ability to think is grossly underrated. I can't tell you how many times the answer to my problems was right there in front of me, a simple puzzle just waiting for me to gather the energy to solve it.

Then there is the freedom to do meaningful work, or the agency to choose how to spend your life. In America, our children go to school to learn and work on topics that are prescribed to them. Meaningful Work is confined to adulthood. Who can blame children and teenagers for thinking that schoolwork is meaningless if we are literally prescribing meaningless or close to meaningless schoolwork for the first two decades of their existence?

The older I get the more I discover how much I don't know. The massive gaps in my own knowledge are startling, and I am someone that works my ass off to learn as much as I can.

Agency - the capacity, condition, or state of acting or of exerting power

There is a reason computer programming has become such a rampant and yet still in-demand vocation. The ability to create whatever you want using a programming language is the present-day version of Magic.

It is one of the few acceptable activities that are prescribed to the world's youth (that has the privilege of being born in a country developed enough to provide this kind of education) that empowers everyone to build their own future through creativity, imagination, and taking action.

Not everyone has the passion or desire to be a software developer, and that is okay.

💪🏻 Health Thought of The Week: Live long, live strong

if you follow the tenets of this newsletter consistently you will eventually become wealthy, and you might eventually become wise.

The hardest section for met o follow faithfully is always this section - the health section.

This section is arguably the most important, though, since the other two sections don't matter if you can't live long enough to enjoy the fruits of your wisdom and wealth.

The freedom to do the things you want to do is wholly dependent on the strength and usability of the body you were born with.

It is so critically important then, to strengthen that body as best you can.

A few things I try to do every day to ensure my body is ready for the long haul:

• Stretch - Flexibility is how we keep ourselves from getting injured out in the world. Stretching can alleviate all sorts of aches and pains you've acquired by letting yourself become stiff.

• Drink water - Our bodies are comprised mostly of water. We run on water. Water is used to create blood, plasma, spinal fluid, etc that our bodies need to function. It is ridiculous how many people allow themselves to walk through life in a constant state of mild dehydration.

• Get up and move - Your body changes based on the needs of its environment. If you walk outside in the heat every day, your body will get better at withstanding the heat. If you do ten pushups every day, your body will send energy to building up the muscles you need to do pushups. Your physical appearance, for the most part, is a byproduct of what you let your body do every day.

• Sleep - Everything above is made easier by getting enough sleep. Sleep is everything. A lack of sleep is fatal. Everything and I mean everything is easier if you get enough sleep.

In the end, your physical health is up to you. At least the parts you can control.

If you care about your own freedom and want to increase the amount of it you can enjoy, then you need to take ownership of your health.

🤑 Wealth Thought of The Week: Wealth is just "Freedom Points"

There is a reason that the financial term for not having to rely on others for money is "Financial Freedom" or "Financial Independence."

The importance of this is something I frankly don't have the skill to put into words. When you rely on a singular job, person, or organization for money, you are completely vulnerable.

For most of us, this is a very real necessity of life, and it is tragic.

There is a very specific reason I tend to harp and harp on the same basic principles of wealth building. They are the one, true path to wealth.

• Reduce your expenses
• Increase your income
• Pay-off/eliminate debt
• Invest

You can't change the world without resources. Right now the most valuable resource I can think of is money.

Money is literally defined as both a store of value and a medium of exchange. It is the bridge we all usually have to take to get from want to have.

Wealth can buy power, time, health, and even beauty. I'd argue that it can even buy happiness, to an extent.

Let me rephrase that last part. Wealth can buy temporary happiness. Human nature prohibits anyone from always feeling happy. Think about it - the feeling of happiness is simply the emotion of a positive change of some kind.

• the change of not getting a raise at work to getting a raise at work
• the change from not being a parent to becoming a parent
• the change from unemployed to employed

Eventually, the emotions of that change go away, and our emotions return to baseline.

Money cannot buy permanent happiness, but it can buy permanent freedom. And with freedom, you can pursue a life that brings an abundance of happiness, fulfillment, and contentedness.

Why cryptocurrency is an evolved form of money

Oh look, the newsletter is now twice as long as I expected it to be...whoops.

It may be a little late to say this, but I will try to keep the rest of this brief.

Currently, money is just how we denote value, and how we exchange that value with others. This is fiat money.

Cryptocurrency and specifically smart contract blockchains like Ethereum takes money to an entirely new level.

Ethereum the coin is programmable money.

The Ethereum Network is programmable value.

Cryptocurrency is the software of digital value that can be updated and improved upon over time.

Not only that, cryptocurrency can enable individuals to become free from banks.

Cryptocurrency enables agency over one's money.

Quote/Meme of the week:

Have a great week!

This concludes our issue this week, I hope it gave you some perspective or injected a little motivation into your life!

If it helped, let me know! I read every newsletter response I receive, and I absolutely love hearing from all of you. This newsletter is for you, so I need your help to make it as great as possible.

If you'd like to show me some love for writing all this free stuff, you can always buy me a coffee.

More Resources

I will be adding to this section over time as we find resources that will help you all.

• Check out the Wise Owl Store
• All Wise Healthy Wealthy Articles on Medium
• Start your own Sendfox Newsletter
• Free products to help you level up

Crypto Resources

The Bankless Podcast: This is a link to the bankless podcast on Spotify. Start from the very beginning and learn why I am so positive about the power of Crypto and Ethereum in particular. You can find the podcast easily on the internet, but I am linking to episode 1 on Spotify for your convenience.

Buy your first ETH or BTC:

• On Coinbase - this is the easiest starting place for the newest beginners
• On Gemini - Another great option founded by the Winklevoss brothers. They are based out of New York.
• On Kraken - Kraken has a bit of a harder user interface, but they already have ETH staking enabled with the push of a single button.

Earn interest on your crypto

• BlockFi - Currently, you can earn 5% interest on BTC, 4.5% interest on ETH, and a whopping 8.6% on stable coins like USDC. Use the referral code b09f24fd to support the newsletter.

Other tools:

• Argent Wallet - This is the best mobile wallet for Ethereum, Defi, and all things on the Ethereum network, including staking. They even have plans to implement Layer 2 to remove network fees.
• Ethhub - this is a weekly newsletter that lists out all the interesting news, articles, and tweets that have happened in Crypto that week. It's free and awesome.
• Ethdashboard - A simple dashboard to look at various metrics in the ethereum space. I mainly use this as a quick tool to check ETH gas fees.
• Cointracker - this is one of the better tools for tracking all of your various crypto across all of the various wallets, exchanges, etc. You can also use them to do your crypto taxes each year.
• Metamask - this is a crypto wallet that you can access from your browser and allows you to easily interact with blockchain apps online.