Dr. David Phelps believes the average American not only deserves financial freedom, but that they have a duty to their family, community, and country to achieve it.
And he’s built his entire life around this concept.
This dentist turned real estate investor is on a mission to help as many people as he can to achieve their own financial freedom with his latest book, Own Your Freedom.
His Backstory
In his previous life running a successful dental practice, Phelps earned a substantial income, but he didn’t have the freedom that he does today. That’s because, like many high-income professionals, he was trading hours for dollars. This meant anytime he was away from the practice, his income stopped.
He didn’t see a problem until his daughter faced a health crisis—leukemia and late-stage liver failure—when he realized that despite his income, he didn’t really have any financial freedom. This was something he desperately needed now so that he could spend time with his daughter and support her through this challenge.
Most everything worked out in the end.
His daughter not only survived, but went on to become a healthy, happy, and successful adult. His marriage didn’t survive, as is often the case in these situations. And his dental practice—well, he sold that shortly after learning of his daughter’s health condition.
“I knew that my practice was going to stand in the way of supporting my daughter in the way I knew I needed to. And I knew I had to restructure my life in a way that provided both the income and the time I needed to give her the best shot at winning this battle,” he explained.
So Phelps evaluated his options, ran the numbers, and decided that real estate was his best path forward.
Investing Lessons Learned
Then he went all in, investing the proceeds from the sale of his practice into real estate. He took a financial hit at first, but as he continued to acquire more assets, his passive income grew.
It wasn’t long before he was making more from his real estate investments than he had in his dental practice. Along the way, his friends from the industry, fellow dentists, began asking him about his new lifestyle. They wanted to know how he was supporting himself after selling his practice, especially since they saw that he now had far more freedom in his own schedule.
At first, he simply shared what he had learned. And he learned a lot, which completely changed his perspective on investing.
Phelps explains, “Most financial professionals push a model where we are told to invest in securities like stocks, bonds, and CDs, and then when we retire, begin selling these assets off to fund our lifestyle. This is backward thinking because you’re depleting your assets. But when you invest in real estate following the right strategies, you’ll earn passive income while your assets appreciate in value, and over time, the passive income from that asset will increase as well.”
His advice quickly turned into them wanting to invest with him in the real estate deals he was doing. This later evolved into Freedom Founders, which is a combination between a mastermind group and an investing community, where members pay a fee to join the group and are then taught financial principles, work on mindset, and collaborate on real estate deals together.
But because of travel, time, and cost commitments, joining Freedom Founders simply wasn’t within the grasp of most Americans.
Genesis of the Book
Phelps wanted to find a way to help more people achieve financial freedom. He wanted to empower everyone, regardless of their current financial situation, to become wealthy. So he set out to put his principles into his latest book, Own Your Freedom. He sees the book as a blueprint for the average American to build true wealth regardless of the circumstances we face.
“We’re facing an uncertain economy between rising inflation and national debt, the pandemic, cancel culture, and government intrusion into our businesses and lives. And in the near future, that’s probably only going to get worse.
So I wanted to help others achieve more stability and wealth. I wanted them to have the same success I have because when they do, the positive impact goes far beyond their own families.
Their wealth then helps support other entrepreneurs, their local communities, and even the nation, through increased economic activity. This is how we create a profound positive impact in the world,” Phelps explains.
