Many people find themselves under financial enslavement and couldn’t find a way to unshackle themselves. But breaking those chains will lead you to total freedom. In this episode, Cosmos Dar, the Podcast Host of Extraordinary America, talks about how he breaks the barriers to find the path of financial freedom leading to total freedom. He also shares the steps for people to get out of debt and his method to educate people on what financial freedom could do to them. As we delve further into the conversation, Cosmos emphasizes the value of shifting your inner self to reflect that energy externally, which will establish a sustainable structure fostering peace and prosperity. Let’s join Cosmos Dar in rectifying the financial bondage and enslavement. Tune in to this episode today.
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Uncovering Financial Freedom: Strategies For Financial Liberation With Cosmos Dar
Hello, Cosmos. I’m so glad to have you join me on this episode.
Thank you for having me on the show. I appreciate it.
I’m excited what we’re about to chat about today because it is so important. You have a purpose about financial freedom. That is so vital because we can get so caught up in the power of money that we misuse money, and we take it for granted. I just want you to go into a little detail of what does that mean about financial freedom.
Let me first get into how I got to that stage in the first place. I was born in India, but then I grew up in a country called Kuwait, which is a country in the Middle East. A lot of people would know about it because that was the nation that Iraq invaded in 1990. That was also the nation from which the American military invaded Iraq in 2003. I grew up during that time. One of the things that I noticed as an Indian immigrant, and I became a naturalized citizen of America later on. At that time, when I was an immigrant from India, I noticed that there’s a lot of people came to the Middle East, to all these GCC countries, and they would work for starvation wages. They would get paid less than $100 a month.
They’re either drivers or they’re construction workers. They’re basically either cleaning or cooking. A lot of these people are barely able to make ends meet, but they’re sending their money back home. What I noticed is that because they did not know how to start a business back in their own country, or they did not know how to monetize and did not understand how money works, and because they came from a scarcity mindset, they had to go to these countries where they were treated pretty bad, especially in Kuwait. The natives of that country treated the Indian immigrants and immigrants from other nations, similar to how White people have treat Black people in the pre-1950s, 1960s era, before that time.
When I came to America, that’s when I realized that “Segregation is not okay.” When I was over there, I noticed that the way they treat the immigrants is different. All of this could change. It could be different if we were financially free, and we could choose the environment that we were living in. What I realized during my time in Kuwait as I grew up, and I saw my dad working in business and all that trying to start his own business, is that if you are financially free, or if you have control over money and all that, then you can change your environment. You can change your circumstances. You can determine who you’re exactly living with, you interact with, and don’t interact with. There’s a lot of bad people out there. There’s a lot of xenophobia, racism, all that.
You don’t have to hang on with those people if you’re financially free and if you’re having your own business and you basically understand how finances work. That’s one of the lessons that I learned when I was in Kuwait. If I only knew how to make a business work and how to make finances work, and I make it work for me, I can go wherever I want. I can do whatever I want. I don’t have to answer to anybody. A lot of times, even in that country, when you go and work for these bosses, and even in America, and anywhere you go, there’s a lot of work environments where it’s not right. The people treat you is not right, but you can control that if you have your own business.
I finally came to America, and then I thought the American identity was all about freedom. It’s still the same in America. It’s different, but people are still suffering from living paycheck to paycheck. Some are working only two or three jobs, and they’re basically barely trying to make ends meet. There’s staggering wages. There’s inflation going on. They’re stuck in debt, and something has to be done about it.
Do you see financial freedom being only possible as an entrepreneur, or you can be financially free as well and working a job? Just so I’m clear on how you are seeing how a person can become financially free.
I think I read this book called Cashflow Quadrant by Robert Kiyosaki. He talks about four quadrants, namely, you’re an employee, you’re self-employed, and then you’re a business owner in control of a system, and you’re an investor. Essentially, if you, let’s say, have a job, but you’re taking a part of the money, and you’re investing it into assets that appreciate, that over time you can be financially free, but you’re still being an investor. Ideally, the other effective way is having your own business or doing entrepreneurship. By being like an employee or being self-employed, it’s difficult to do that.
Based on what I’m hearing here, then a person can work a job, however, use a portion of their income from that job to either receive money to either invest in something or to launch their own business. However, they only invest being limited because they still won’t have the financial freedom unless they invest in something like property or maybe some business where they can silent investor or some business that they can do part-time. For instance, like selling direct marketing. Is that what I’m standing?
Yeah, basically. You have to ultimately invest your money or let’s say you’re not doing business, you’re an employee, you have to invest your money in assets that appreciate it. Let’s say you bought real estate, and then you rented it out. Now you’re having passive income. You still did the job, but then you’re basically utilizing the money you made from that to basically invest in assets or you’re investing in a business. That’s how you do it.
You have to invest your money. Utilize the money you make to invest in assets or businesses, and that's how you do it. Share on XLet me ask you this. Let’s say they have debt. What steps can they take to start getting out of debt to become financially free?
This is normally the conventional wisdom where you pay off your debts. During my time, when I was interviewing other entrepreneurs and especially multimillionaires, they came up with a specific process, which is called a coin strategic debt, to basically get assets that appreciate and then use that to pay off existing debt. Let’s say you have about $10,000 of consumer debt. Let’s say you took a line of credit and then utilized it to buy, let’s say, for instance, Bitcoin, and let’s say Bitcoin shot up in value from $10,000 to maybe $30,000. You can now use that money to basically pay off your existing debt. You’ll still make a profit at the end of it. That’s just an example. Obviously, don’t take my advice on it. Bitcoin goes up and down.
A lot of things I see is a lot of these millionaires, what they do in order to pay off their debt, they take on, let’s say, a real estate, and then they rent it out. Basically, the real estate value appreciates, and then they might later on sell it. That profit that they make from that, they use it to pay off debts that they already have. It’s not linear where they’re utilizing liquid money to pay off the existing debt. They’re using strategic debt for the accumulation of assets, which are appreciated.
I like that word you said strategic debt. The one thing about real estate that you point out, though, is that it takes a period of time for the appreciation to occur. I get the point. The point is, is to invest in something where you can appreciate your value of money to help you then turn, pay off the debt that you owe. That’s the process. Finding those opportunities that will create avenues for you to build some form of wealth to then decrease your debt.
I was just giving an example.
I just want to make sure I’m clear for someone else that’s reading. The whole thing about the financial freedom because you went over to what happened to you in Kuwait and the disparity in treatment. What methods are you utilizing today to help educate people on just what the financial freedom could do for them? What are you doing?
One of the things that I’m doing right now is that I’m the podcast host of a thing called Extraordinary America, where I’m basically interviewing entrepreneurs and business people. Basically, I ask them for their stories, and I see how they succeeded in their own business. Basically, I’m asking for the mindset. A lot of times is, they’re all about the mindset. You have to think and act in certain ways, and you have to do things in a certain way. When you do those things, you become successful in business. A lot of things involve perseverance. You have to basically be the architect. You got to have a vision. You got to know how to monetize.
Mindset is half of the battle, or the war comes in our own self and our belief in ourself and the confidence in that. The other half comes in techniques and tactics in business and all of that. At this point, it’s about 70 to 80 people that I’ve interviewed. I’ve noticed a certain pattern. These are the patterns that all successful entrepreneurs and business people do, and they achieve success. Also, I’m part of organizations where I meet entrepreneurs and business people, and I have conversations with them, and they also talk about all of this.
A couple of different things that you raised, and one is mindset. I want to go back to that for a minute because I was listening to a message, and it talked about the words that we speak to ourselves. That’s part of mindset. Our mind is trained to be in the negative realm. It’s always focusing on the negativity. You have to train your mind to be positive. To train your mind to be positive is that you have to develop habits and mantras that you say to yourself every day. For instance, I think if you want to be successful, you have to speak words of wealth. You don’t say, “If only I could, would, or should.” You have to say, “I am, and I will.” Put it and speak it out there to become reality because what you think upon is what you expand upon. Mindset is powerful.
The other thing that you brought up was your community and your circle because I think a lot of people fail to realize that it’s okay to be a loner, but together, you can help lift each other up. That’s saying that if one person falls down, it’s a shame that they have no one to lift them up. Let’s elaborate a little bit on that because it’s important to have someone if you fall down, that’s able to help you stand back up. You alluded to that a little bit in your comment there.
I couldn’t agree more because you’re the five people that you hang out with the most. One of the things I noticed is that a lot of successful entrepreneurs, they have to get out of environments where people are naysayers. You could have your friends and your family that have a negative mindset, and that’ll affect your ability to do business. Ultimately, what do you put into your subconscious mind plays a huge role. You have to be surrounded with people that are positive and that are also in the same entrepreneurial mindset. A lot of times, it’s a lonely road because most people they’re not on this path. They have very negative views on how money is, and all rich people are evil or greedy and all. No, money is ultimately neutral. It’s how we use it. Is it for good or for bad that truly matters.
You’re right. You have to surround yourself with people that are positive and that have the same similar mindset of where you are and where you want to be.
One other thing I want to go back to that. You came over here from Kuwait. Did you have family already living here?
I had my aunt and uncle in New Jersey. I had family in the New Jersey, New York area. I’ve come to visit them for vacations and everything.
How was it making that adjustment? I go through the fact that we just talked about community. You had to start over and build your circle, correct?
Yeah, I came to Texas. I came there for university, and I had to start from scratch. I was doing college and university and then I started from there, but I didn’t know a single person. My family, they were all the way to the East side of America. I was all the way in Texas.
How did you adjust? Tell me about that. The reason why I’m asking this question because you came from a place of where you were known, and it was comforting and then you came into an environment where you knew no one and you stretched yourself. I’m sure there had to be some fear there because a lot of times, I talk about the fact that we have to be willing to break out of what we know in order to go to somewhere that is unknown to become the person that we need to be. That’s what I see what happened to you. Tell me, how did you do that?
Haseena, have you seen that movie Avatar where the guy comes from to another planet and then you have to learn how to not be thinking that? That’s literally how it was when I came to America. I was pretty excited because it was new and it was different. The culture is so radically different from the Middle Eastern and Asian culture altogether, that it was just like I had to learn everything from scratch, the culture, the male-female social dynamics, how people view the world and how they do things and all of that. I was like a scientist observing. It was like the American human nature and just different people had different beliefs and everything. What I would consider totally strange and normal was just considered normal to a lot of Americans. I was like, “How did they come to this conclusion?”
There were some things that I took for granted when I was in Kuwait and India, and then I realized that “It’s different.”
You had to make that big adjustment. For you to see that based on that adjustment, you found the path of financial freedom. How did you break those barriers to be able to connect with people to say, “I’m trying to help you?” What was the challenges that you faced getting people to listen to you?
I’m still on my way to financial freedom, first of all. There’s all this work to do. One of the things that I realized over the period of years is that everything stems from identity. The biggest challenge we have is identity and what comes with it because from our identity comes our beliefs, and from our beliefs come our capabilities and the actions that we take. A lot of people have certain identities that need to be transformed. Basically, the root cause of success and failure, notice, is that they’re holding on to identities that don’t work for them anymore. That’s basically causing them to go into scarcity mindset altogether, which in turn causes poverty. You have to have an identity that is healthy and whole.
Most people have identities they need to transform because it won't work for them anymore. Your identity is the root cause of success or failure. Share on XThe biggest lesson that I learned, and the biggest challenge that there is, is understanding that you are not who you are. Your identity is temporary. You’re basically the consciousness. You’re basically the son and daughter of a higher being, of God. This is your temporary identity. It is through this that we project our reality, but that identity can be altered. Let me give you an example. When I was three years old, I had the identity that I was an Indian. I came to the Middle East, and I had the identity that I’m part of Arab culture, whatever. I came to America, and I became an American citizen. Now, I took on the identity of the American. You notice that there’s like, whether I’m an Indian with the Indian traits or an American, you realize that these are two different identities. Eventually, you converge them, and you take the best of both of them, and you leave the negativities out of them, and you create what is called a super identity, which basically benefits you.
You have to understand, sounds like to me. You still have a basis of who you want to become. If you say, leave the bad things behind and pick up the good things, you have to have some sense of purpose and belief in self that you can be your best self. You try to pick up all the best things about that you have and put them together into this new identity that forms to make you into the best person that you can be. Am I saying that right, or no?
Yes, your identity in this world is all temporary. That’s the biggest thing you got to know. You are not your nationality. You’re not your gender. You’re not your ethnicity or something much more than that. A lot of the problems in this world happen because we identify with these temporary identities. You got to realize you are the best of all of everything. Who you are is who you want to be. It comes from your core purpose, understanding who you are and what God wants you to do. Regardless of what religion you’re from and what ethnicity you’re from because that ultimately is part of the national context, but you are something much more than that. It comes from a higher place.
One thing you have to realize is that when you die, you’re no longer the identity that you thought you were. You become something completely different. I think if people realize that, and that they are meant to be free, that freedom is their birthright, and it’s something that transcends even their deaths, then that’s something I think would be a core part of who they are, regardless of what their nationality is.
I liked that because I was reading, and it’s always ironic when you have a conversation with someone and it goes back to what my reflection was for the day. I was reading because I have my quiet time and I was reading the inscription where it talked about the different parts of the body. Every part of our body is for a purpose. I can’t tell my eyes. I don’t want them to be my eyes because then I wouldn’t be able to see visually. I can’t say I don’t want a nose because my eyes can’t be my nose. Everything has a purpose, and it comes together into this melting pot that we can all be together in a community, and there’s no disparity. One part is not no better than another part. There might be some sensitive parts like it says, but the point is that collectively, all these pieces need to work together, and that’s what we need to understand.
When someone goes through life challenges and our diversities and things happen, they need to take the good pieces out of that challenge and adversity and apply it to themselves to move forward to become a better person. I don’t say bounce back. I say, bounce forward. I’m segueing into that because you just hit it on the head with taking the components of the self as you grow to form this person that you need to be and not beating yourself up because of the things that happen to you.
Haseena, you bring up a great point and I wanted to add on to it. When we’re talking about challenges and overcoming it, when I was in Kuwait, I had an inferiority complex as an Indian immigrant because I was like, “The Kuwaitis are superior and all of that.” I just thought that was just how it was and everything. If I did not have those experiences, I would not be where I am, where I’m so passionate about financial freedom. I came to America, and I realized that whatever happened to, let’s say, in the 1920s, 1930s era where there was segregation, I looked at this, and I was like, “This sounds like what happened to me with the Kuwaitis and everything.”
The way I deal and process with it is that I decide that something must be done about freedom, and what created those conditions was that if I was financially free or if my parents were financially free, then they would have the choice of going wherever they want where people would treat them well. You don’t have to be in that place. A lot of immigrants right now all over the world, and I’m not just talking about America. They go to these different countries out of necessity to make money. Let’s say the money was not an issue and they had a positive identity or relationship and understanding how money works, then they would basically not put themselves in those positions and be wherever they want. Freedom, I think, plays a very big role.
Ultimately, these challenges that we have in our life if we take the positive out of it, we can use that to help a lot of people. A lot of people think that there’s a lot of negativities that happen to their life. Think of it as God basically giving you that so you can have compassion for other people. You can help other people and then your story becomes the inspiration to create a change that will last for a long time.
One thing I want to touch upon because we’ve used the word so many times and I would like to get your thoughts, the word freedom. What does it mean to be free? I’m not talking about the slavery part. I’m thinking about the freedom part in terms of your mindset and the actions, and behaviors. What do you think about that, to be free? That’s the thing about the financial freedom. Freedom is the result of the actions that we take that allow us to be not bound to things that can hold us back.
I would say that freedom is not having attachments because, a lot of times, we are attached to the things in our life. A lot of people have a lot of money, but they’re still not free because they’re attached to the materialism around them. If you’re attached to a certain lifestyle, if you’re attached to, let’s say, consumerism where you have to get stuff all the time, you cannot live without this or that, you’re not free. Freedom is the ability to master your mind and to have a sense of non-attachment. It has to come from within, and then it plays out external. Even the financial freedom. If you’re not already free within, you don’t feel free within. It’s not going to come outside. You have to have a sense of non-attachment and letting go of the outcome, giving it to the higher power. When you’re free inside, naturally, it starts manifesting outside.
Opportunities just show up. The energy that you attract, basically from that sense of non-attachment, ultimately leads to your freedom. You’re right about that.
You hit it on the head, yes.
It comes from mindset. It comes from within. It comes from not meeting the external validation of other people or external things to make you happy. You have to be self-reliant on your own internal state, and you’ve got to create that. From that internal freedom comes eventually external freedom. That’s just my opinion on it.
That’s what I was thinking because we’re talking about the financial freedom, however, that’s only a component of actual freedom. We have to get free first within our own mind and our body so that we don’t think we are in control of things that we can’t be. Also, to know that we have to release those things that we allow to place us in bondage, to hold us back to being our true self, to just go forward and living a life of fulfillment and being at peace. Another thing I was contemplating was the concept of thriving, which goes back to financial freedom. People think that thriving means that I’m going to have this mass amount of money and things, but that’s not what thriving is. To me, thriving is equated to freedom, which we’ve been talking about in some ways.
It comes down to basically an abundance mindset. A lot of times, the difference between freedom and not being free is the scarcity versus abundance mentality we have towards everything in our life, including our relationships. I think there’s the saying, and it is one of these groups. I learned this law called a first bank versus a second bank dynamic, where if you show willingness or desperation and people outside sense that scarcity mindset or there’s not free mindset within you, they’re not going to give you what you want. You have to display that non-attached abundance mindset or the letting go of the outcome mindset, and that’s when things come to you, and that’s ironically how you become free.
It’s all about that emotional state and the mental state. It’s hard to do when there’s financial trouble there, but if you always have that state and you master your mind, then that’s when things start to change.
There’s so much that goes into freedom. Financial freedom is a component. There’s spiritual freedom, and there’s emotional freedom. Freedom, we need to look at how we can become free in all aspects of our life to become the best person that we can be. One of your things that you’re pushing is a financial freedom, so we need to learn how to not allow debt to rule our lives, but instead find ways to get out of debt that we can be free in that aspect. The financial stress causes us to be so weighed down, then become overwhelmed in other aspects of our life because money, as you said in your bio, causes us to live a life being totally desperate and uncomfortable and making unwise decisions that it rules us instead of us ruling it.
No, Haseena, you nail in the head because a lot of times, it does dictate our conditions and where we are and what do we do in all of that, like the environments that we’re in and the time frames that we have. I would say most of this world, especially if you go to third world countries, it’s dictated by their financial conditions. To change that, we have to change our mindset and the way we see that world and then we got to find people that are like us and then create that synergy all together and then that’s how it happens. That’s why communities and groups are so important because you feed off each other.
One of the things I learned, Haseena, is that environments tend to be more powerful than willpower. If you are one positive person and then there’s a hundred negative people, eventually, they’re going to wear you down. They’ll be stopping all your ideas and all that stuff and then your attempts to help yourself add them. In order to maintain that, you have to sometimes go within, or you got to find like-minded people, and then you got to change the environment by gathering the scattered people and then bringing them together.
Thank you so much. This conversation has been very enlightening for me. You’ve given me some food for thought. I love what you said about trying to find avenues to pay off your debt. Sometimes you might have to go back into debt again, but you have to be mindful of the opportunity because, like you said, VidCon, you use that example, but that’s not what you’re saying to do. You’re saying to look for opportunities where you can accumulate some finances to pay off the debt that you have and that’s where we have to be open to opportunities and not limit ourselves based on our job. Instead, you have to look outside the box, and we’re not saying not to have a job. It’s just to find opportunities where you can have multiple sources of income. I think that’s the best way to say it.
Parting thought that you want to leave with the readers? Is there something that you want them to think about, to reflect upon, to help them take the next steps forward in finding their path to financial freedom, but also freedom overall?
I would tell to your readers that the path to freedom is all through knowledge and education, not only just in finance, but also understanding yourself, knowing who you are, knowing your why and knowing your purpose. When you have that fire within, then naturally, the answers will start coming from an intuitive place. You have to understand what you’re passionate about, what you love doing and then you got to monetize that. Most importantly, I would advise everyone to practice meditation and try to master the mind because when you master your mind in an emotional state over a period of time, and you get that calm, non-attached state, and then you come from that area, then magical things happen because now you’re unfazed.
A lot of times, we go through suffering because we are attached to impermanent things. The things that are in the world. They’re eventually going to go. If you’re going to get sadder with things that are impermanent, then you’re going to go through the ups and downs of life. If you’re in your core and you believe enough, and you understand that there’s something immortal within you that doesn’t die, and you have that calm, non-attached state, and you’re centered around yourself, then that’s when you start getting everything you want in life.
When you raise that interesting point, and I just want to leave people with that, is that if you say to yourself every day that I am going to be successful, then your mind thinks of ways to achieve this success. If you say to yourself every day, I must suffer, then your mind will find ways for you to suffer. You have to place the words in your mind that you want to meditate and reflect on so that it will help you create and think of the opportunities and actions that you can take to realize that word that you planted in your mind that you want to focus on. Like I said before, “What you think upon is what you expand upon.” I thank you so much, Cosmos, for what you have enlightened us with your knowledge, wisdom, and your own experiences. We all are here to learn from each other and to grow, and to just keep moving forward.
You have to place the words you want to meditate on and reflect on in your mind. It will help you create and think of the opportunities and actions you can take to realize the word you planted in your mind. Share on XI think we must keep leveling up in our life to become the best person that we can be and that’s taking all the things that happened to us and putting them together to become that best person.
Thank you, Haseena, for taking the time to interview me. You’re enlightening as well, and I appreciate that.
We’ll be back on again soon.
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About Cosmos Dar
Cosmos Dar is deeply engaged with these ventures because he recognizes the pervasive financial challenges people face globally, including in America — issues stemming from debt, job loss, stagnant incomes, and relentless inflation. Operating within a Fiat monetary system, where money’s purchasing power erodes due to continuous printing unsupported by scarce assets, he is committed to educating individuals on safeguarding their wealth from devaluation amid heightened inflation forecasts. For Cosmos, financial freedom hinges on more than legal compliance; it requires a commitment to higher moral standards. He advocates for a shift toward human-centered capitalism rooted in spiritual principles to establish a sustainable structure fostering peace and prosperity.
As the host of the podcast “Extraordinary America”, Cosmos delves into topics surrounding financial freedom for the 99%. He contends that while America symbolizes freedom and opportunity, a significant portion of its population grapples with financial enslavement — a contradiction he aims to rectify. Cosmos Dar’s vision involves transforming individuals into entrepreneurs and investors guided by morals, values, and ethics. Through interviews on “Extraordinary America,” he shares stories of those who overcame challenges, started from humble beginnings, and achieved financial freedom, hoping to inspire others to take action and break free from financial bondage.
