How to Achieve Career Freedom on Your Terms: Insights from The Freedom Frameworks by Jack Cohen

Infinite Possibilities to Achieve Career Independence On Your Own Terms

Discover actionable strategies for career independence with Jack Cohen’s “The Freedom Frameworks.” Learn how to invest in yourself, master essential skills, and build powerful relationships to unlock infinite career possibilities. Start your journey toward professional freedom today!

Ready to transform your career and achieve true independence? Dive into our in-depth review of Jack Cohen’s “The Freedom Frameworks” and uncover practical steps to build the career-and life-you’ve always dreamed of. Keep reading to unlock your path to success!

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Looking to up your career growth and development game? In this engaging book, real estate investor and “mentor capitalist” Jack M. Cohen proposes an evergreen mix of “freedom frameworks,” drawn from his personal experiences, to help you thrive in your career. He explains why you are your most valuable asset and why skills, experiences, and relationships are the three keys to professional success. Cohen draws upon 43 years of business knowledge and industry influence to share what he learned. Follow his advice to create a mental tool belt to build the career of your dreams.

Take-Aways

• Face your demons to pursue your dreams and cultivate freedom.
• Clarify who you want to be, and plan your path forward.
• Invest in your most valuable asset: yourself.
• Skills, experiences, and relationships are the core components of professional success.
• Set quarterly priorities and protect them from distraction.
• Learn how people behave to improve communication and team dynamics.
• Facilitate collaboration by establishing a common context.
• View experiences as neutrally as possible.
• Learn from mistakes, embrace your journey, and be yourself.
• Be honest with yourself, mitigate your weaknesses, and be caring yet direct with others.

Summary

Face your demons to pursue your dreams and cultivate freedom.

Dreams are the future you want. Demons hold you back. Typically, demons arise in the form of “resistance”: fears that keep you from taking actions that would bring you closer to achieving your goals. Dwelling on these challenges paralyzes you. Face your demons by identifying them. You might feel nervous about public speaking, for example. If you scrutinize that worry, you see that it’s absurd — if you perform poorly, you’ll recover from any embarrassment. The experience will be valuable — providing lessons for the future — and it’s doubtful that anybody will shame you.

“To achieve career or economic independence, we have to recognize one simple, yet profound reality: Change is inevitable. More than that, it’s required.”

To clarify your dreams, ask yourself, “Who or what do I want to become, and on what sort of timeline?” These aspirations inform the qualities, values, and character you must develop to breed the kind of excellence you desire. When resistance shows up, reframe it as helpful. Think about it this way: If you want to improve your tennis game, you’ll need to play against people who are more skilled than you — which will mean facing defeat until your abilities rise to match theirs. If you learn to work with fear, fear can work for you — driving you to grow. Fear is a “productive emotion” that helps you develop the courage and confidence to progress. If you’re afraid to fail, for example, you can use that fear as motivation to take action. Staying complacent means letting your demons hold you back.

Clarify who you want to be, and plan your path forward.

Define who you want to be by clarifying what you must do to gain what you want to “be, do, and have.” Defining your ideal self or intended future provides a context, or “container,” for your actions, giving greater purpose to your daily experiences. For example, if your goal is to run your own business, the challenges of working for others will feel more meaningful if you frame them as essential preparation for that desired outcome.

“If we don’t clarify for ourselves who/what we want to be, and then do the things to get us there, we will never have what we want.”

When you have identified the correct context, divide a piece of paper into three vertical columns, with “intended future” as the header on the right-hand column. Visualize that future moment in detail, listing everything that defines it — skills, possessions, relationships, and more. Wait a week. In the left-hand column, under “current reality,” take notes on your present state, including relationships, finances, and health. Wait another week. Title the middle column, “bridge the gap.” Outline specific steps to move toward your intended future. Each step is a “source activity” that helps you get where you want to be. If you want to get a raise, for example, two source activities will help: doing good work and creating value.

Invest in your most valuable asset: yourself.

Economic independence provides the freedom to make career choices without immediate financial pressure. That freedom depends on your most valuable asset: yourself. Investing in yourself means building skills, gaining experiences, forming relationships, and getting things done better, faster, or more effectively than others. Learn to connect the dots between past and present; apply something you learned last Tuesday to something new this Thursday. The ability to work smarter demonstrates your value to employers and clients and leads to you earning more.

“The number one asset anyone owns is themselves and their resulting earning power.”

To turn your value as an asset into greater earning power, be reliable and responsible. Deliver consistent results by knowing what others want and creating processes that yield predictable outcomes. This allows others to rely on you. Be trustworthy by being accountable. Own your responsibilities and admit your mistakes. Don’t deflect blame onto others for a missed deadline, for example.

Skills, experiences, and relationships are the core components of professional success.

Success in your career depends on three pillars: skills, experiences, and relationships. Continuously developing all three makes you more capable, adaptable, and interesting. When doing this work, balance depth — focused expertise and close relationships — with breadth — varied skills and diverse connections. And push yourself outside your comfort zone.

“Skills, experiences, relationships. Continuously. Always.”

In time, your skills should become second nature. Being “Unconsciously Competent,” comes after being “Unconsciously Incompetent” — not knowing what you don’t know; “Consciously Incompetent” — knowing that you don’t know; and “Consciously Competent” — knowing what you need to know but requiring concentrated focus to use that knowledge correctly.

Your experiences should take you outside your comfort zone, which you can visualize as the smallest of three rings: what you know, what you know you don’t know, and what you don’t know you don’t know — the largest ring, where real growth takes place.

Surround yourself with the right people to support your potential. Volunteer for industry groups or causes, for example, to find mentors for long-term growth and coaches for immediate guidance. Play the long game, with a mindset of building relationships rather than seeking quick wins.

Set quarterly priorities and protect them from distraction.

Treat time as a valuable, depreciating asset and manage it wisely. The Red, Blue, Black method helps you determine which activities to prioritize for 90-day goals. Red covers essential administrative tasks, Blue focuses on current revenue-generating work, and Black emphasizes activities that create future value. Reassess and readjust your allocations quarterly. For example, if you’re in a growth phase, devote more resources to future-focused Black activities.

“Life is about making the most of our finite resources.”

Alongside clarifying your quarterly priorities, set due dates and do dates for different projects. A due date is a deadline; do dates outline what tasks you and others need to do and when you need to do them. With those set, establish “border protection” — eliminating your habit of social media scrolling, for example — to maintain uninterrupted focus. Ask intelligent questions — and manage your red, black, and blue calendar — to determine whether a meeting or interaction could offer a new idea or perspective.

Learn how people behave to improve communication and team dynamics.

Relationships are essential for success, but building relationships requires time, trust, and a genuine effort to connect with people similar to and different from yourself. To build successful relationships — your “relational capital”— understand different behavioral styles. According to the Market Force method, there are four behavioral styles: control — visionaries who love strategizing; power — workhorses who follow quarterly plans; influence — relationship experts who connect people and ideas; and authority — executors who make the vision work. The best teams include all four types.

“People do not care how much you know until they know just how much you care about them.”

Understand how people make decisions. According to Darren Shirlaw, there are three main ways people make choices: They think in their head, feel in their heart, or know in their gut. Thinkers want facts and data; feelers want stories and experiences; and knowers want summaries and bullet points. By asking “tell me more” and listening for words related to thinking, feeling, or knowing, you can categorize people and adapt how you present information to suit each person’s natural style.

Facilitate collaboration by establishing a common context.

Team success requires a clear, shared goal and team members who are accountable to their stated commitments. Establish a “common context” — the center of a Venn Diagram where “your world” and “my world” intersect — that pulls teams toward shared objectives and a higher purpose.

“Life is about collaboration.”

Collaboration includes addressing conflicts among team members. The “issues clearing model” helps you do so constructively. One person begins the exercise by stating the following:

• The facts of the situation, as the speaker understands them.
• How the facts make the speaker feel.
• What judgments or conclusions he or she has drawn about the situation.
• What the speaker would like to have happen next.

The other person listens and repeats the speaker’s words to ensure he or she has heard and understood them correctly. Then, the pair switches roles and repeats the process.

View experiences as neutrally as possible.

Experiences are neutral. The positivity or negativity you attach to an experience derives from the story you tell yourself after the event. You have 60,000 thoughts per day. Research shows that around 80% of those thoughts are negative and 95% are repetitive — so if you make up a story, make it positive. Better yet, avoid making up stories and aim to view all experiences as neutrally as possible. See them as learning opportunities taking you closer to your goals.

“Things happen to us in life, but it’s the story we tell ourselves that makes us feel good or bad about the event.”

Get curious and ask better questions. This improves your decision-making, as better questions lead to better data, which leads to better decisions. Instead of asking, “Which job should I take?” ask, “Which job will foster growth toward my intended future?” When making decisions, use “Shark Theory” — named after the fact that sharks need to move forward constantly or else they sink — to avoid analysis paralysis. Small steps forward ensure steady progress until you reach the tipping point that triggers you to act.

Learn from mistakes, embrace your journey, and be yourself.

Instead of dwelling on errors, view them as lessons that build good judgment over time. Focus on overdoing rather than overthinking, as overdoing leads to experiences from which you can learn. Instead of dwelling on what you don’t have, focus on what you do have, particularly the source activities that get you where you want to be. This choice helps you progress, find happiness in that progression, and avoid the joy-killing trap of comparing yourself to others. Instead, compare where you are now to where you used to be, which shows you how much progress you have made toward your intended future.

“Mistakes are lessons in disguise.”

Embrace your development journey, even when it’s slow or you feel lost. In those moments, tap into your grit to see your goals through and develop a self-sufficient mindset. If you don’t know something you need to know, find a way to learn it; if you don’t know someone you need to meet, find a way to meet that person. Trust in yourself, and don’t be afraid to stand out from the crowd. For example, multibillionaire real estate investor Sam Zell was irreverent, provocative, and weird. However, his success and talent meant most people thought of him as merely eccentric.

Be honest with yourself, mitigate your weaknesses, and be caring yet direct with others.

Know your strengths and weaknesses, and manage any liabilities in your temperament through self-awareness and practical strategies. If anger is a liability, acknowledge it and maintain a strenuous exercise regime to release it. Inventory your “behavioral balance sheet”: Write down the strengths you bring and can leverage, the weaknesses you carry and can mitigate, and the Market Force participant you are — control, power, influence, or authority. Summarize this information into a “behavioral bottom line” to guide your actions.

Surround yourself with supportive, energizing people and avoid those who drain you. Aim for constructive relationships built on “radical candor,” which entails caring for others while communicating directly with them.

About the Author

Founder of Darkknight Ventures LLC Jack M. Cohen is an entrepreneur, manager, consultant, and investor.