“Freedom is the oxygen of the soul.” — Moshe Dayan

For our U.S.-based readers, today is a big day, as we celebrate our Independence Day, so this post is especially relevant. But for our readers who live elsewhere, you can gain something from this post, too. It’s about something we all crave, treasure, and work to have: freedom.

But despite how hard we work to attain freedom — by whatever measure we choose to use, whether it’s time, finance, choice, creativity, or otherwise — sometimes we can never seem to get there.

That can change. By doing one thing — Owning. Something.

Freedom comes to those who own. So if you want to have freedom, you’ve got to own something of value. For writers, speakers, entrepreneurs, and others who share ideas and information, that means creating content. Think right now about one product you can create to add to your business. This goes for you, whether you have a tiny, little side business to help add a few dollars to your family’s budget or you run a multimillion dollar company that employs hundreds.

Many of us writers are service professionals, so we sell our time. While that’s important, if it’s not done right — if we continue to trade our time for dollars, rather than quote for the value of the project — we will remain slaves to the clock. So we’ve got to step it up. We must create something that we own and can sell.

No matter who you are, if you are in business and you’ve been selling your time, skills, or expertise, then you can create a product or some other thing you can own and sell to others.

We want time, choice, creative, and financial freedom

We want time freedom. Time freedom means we are no longer slaves to the clock. We can build into our schedules the time to do many of the things we want and enjoy, including traveling, attending our children’s events, and pursuing other interests.

We want the freedom of choice. We want to be able to choose how we live our lives. We don’t want to be told how we have to live every single second of our lives. We don’t want bosses who dictate how we spend every minute. We don’t want to be beholden to pain-in-the-rear clients we feel we must take because we can’t get any others. We don’t want to be stuck doing uninspired work on a consistent, everyday basis. We don’t want to be in the position of having no choice in the work we do, whether we work for someone else or ourselves.

We want financial freedom. We want to feel that we have some level of control over our finances. We want to know we can pay our bills. We want to have savings and investments. We want to be able to drop money on a great vacation or put our children in the schools we want. We want to be able to make the big house repair when it’s needed, and not have to wait until it gets so bad we must find a way to do it. We want never again to rob Peter because Paul is breathing down our necks.

We want creative freedom. We want to be able to do work that feeds who we are inside and inspires others.

Well, ownership can make it all happen

It’s hard to be free, if you don’t own.

So after the barbecue grill and time at the pool, set aside some serious time to think about something you can create and own that will add value to others’ lives and dollars to your bottom line. Focus on something you can create one time and then sell over and over again. Maybe you sell it outright. Maybe you license it.

Is it an ebook you’ve been meaning to write but haven’t gotten around to just yet? Is it a course that answers the questions you get over and over from clients and others? Is it a piece of software that will make everyone’s life easier? Is it a gadget that totally flips how we do something today? Is it … well, is it that thing that you haven’t even thought up yet, but could absolutely rock our world?

So yeah, enjoy the break that this Independence Day brings.

But then create independence for yourself by creating something that others will pay to have, use, or see.

Owning something good is what creates freedom.

What thing do you need to create?