THE FREEDOM GAME®
The Freedom Game is a framework for playing more strategically.
You define what winning actually looks like, understand the board you’re on, choose the moves that take you closer and build systems that support the life you actually want — while knowing when you have genuinely won.
Freedom is not a feeling. It's a system.
Created by Marie Cowgill
Founder of The Freedom Game® | Level 5 Coaching Professional — Distinction | EMCC Accredited Coach & Mentor — Practitioner Level | 250+ ambitious people personally coached | 500+ people supported through workshops and accelerator programmes | COO, Finanze
A different way to think about freedom.
The Freedom Game didn’t start as a course.
It didn’t start as a business model.
And it definitely didn’t start with the idea that everyone should follow the same path to financial freedom.
It started with a question:
Why do some people seem to make decisions from a completely different position to everyone else?
For more than a decade, I’ve been fascinated by money, success, work and freedom.
Through my career, I’ve also spent time around people with significant wealth, businesses and investments. Many of them were not simply working harder, earning more or getting luckier.
They understood the game differently.
They understood the vehicles available to them. They thought about trade-offs, timing and leverage. They considered several moves ahead and made decisions based on where they ultimately wanted to end up.
The Freedom Game exists to help more people think about their own lives with that same level of intention and strategy — without having to copy somebody else’s definition of success.
The point is:
Better strategy creates more options.
Stop playing your life like it's a game of chance.
Life can sometimes feel a bit like playing Snakes and Ladders.
Work hard. Move forward.
Something changes. Slide backwards.
Earn more. Expenses increase.
Make progress. Life happens.
Recover. Repeat.
You cannot control every roll of the dice.
Economic cycles happen.
Personal circumstances change.
Relationships, families, health, careers and priorities evolve.
The Freedom Game is not about pretending you can control everything.
It is about building a stronger position before the next roll.
• Understand the board.
• Know the rules and vehicles available to you.
• See how your decisions interact.
• Think several moves ahead.
• Choose the next move based on where you ultimately want to go.
But unlike an endless game where the finish line keeps moving, The Freedom Game has a win condition.
You decide what winning means.
And when you achieve the outcome you deliberately chose to build, you're allowed to call it what it is:
A win.
"You don't have to play somebody else's game. But you do need to understand the one you're playing."
YOUR GAME.
YOUR DEFINITION OF WINNING.
Freedom for who?
Much of the advice we hear assumes we're all trying to reach the same destination.
We're not.
NOT EVERYONE WANTS TO BUILD A BUSINESS
A business can create income, flexibility and opportunity.
But entrepreneurship is not the only route to freedom.
And that's okay.
NOT EVERYONE WANTS TO RETIRE EARLY
Some people want to stop working.
Others want to keep doing meaningful work for the rest of their lives — just with more choice over how, when and why they do it.
And that's okay.
NOT EVERYONE WANTS A PROPERTY PORTFOLIO
Property can be a powerful vehicle for building wealth and income.
But not everyone wants to own investment property.
And that's okay.
"Before you build the plan, you need to know what you're actually trying to create."
THE FREEDOM GAME® METHOD
Play to Win. Then Hold the Dream.
The Freedom Game® has two separate but connected games.
Game 1: Play to Win is the active strategic game. You define what freedom actually means to you, understand the position you're in, choose deliberate moves and build the systems that take you towards a clearly defined win.
Game 2: Hold the Dream begins once that particular game has been won. It is a new, lighter game focused on protecting what you've created, maintaining what matters, enjoying the freedom you worked for and adapting as life changes.
You are not supposed to stay in Play to Win mode forever.
Game 1: Play to win
DEFINE THE WIN
What does freedom
actually look
like for you?
SEE THE WHOLE BOARD
Where are you now — and how do your money, time, work, family, energy, responsibilities and goals interact?
CHOOSE THE NEXT MOVE
Which move puts you in the strongest position for the freedom you're
ultimately trying
to build?
BUILD THE SYSTEM
How do you make progress repeatable and less dependent on luck, motivation or everything
going perfectly?
WIN THE GAME
Has the outcome you defined as winning become true?
When it has, pause.
Recognise it. Celebrate it. Let yourself be proud of it.
Do not immediately move the goalposts simply because somebody else's version of success is bigger.
Winning one game does not mean every area of your life is perfect.
It means you achieved this win.
And that counts.
YOU WON.
A NEW GAME BEGINS
Game 2: Hold the dream
You've built it. Now make sure you get to keep living it.
You are not supposed to stay in Play to Win mode forever.
Once you've won a game that matters to you, you don't need to keep playing it with the same intensity.
A new game begins:
Hold the Dream.
This is a simpler, lighter game.
It is less about aggressive building and more about protecting what you've created, maintaining what matters, enjoying the freedom you worked for and adapting as your life evolves.
PROTECT THE WIN
What could threaten what you've created and what needs to be in place to protect it?
MAINTAIN WHAT MATTERS
What needs to continue so the life you've created keeps working?
ENJOY THE DREAM
Are you actually allowing yourself to live what you worked so hard to create?
REVIEW & ADAPT
Does the dream you are protecting still fit the person and life you have now?
"Hold the dream. Not necessarily the thing that once represented it."
Your dream is allowed to change.
Your circumstances are allowed to change. And the vehicle that once helped create freedom may eventually start taking freedom away.
A home you once dreamed about may become too expensive or too demanding.
A business that once created opportunity may eventually consume too much of your life.
An asset that once represented security may no longer serve the person you've become.
Holding the Dream does not mean clinging to something simply because you worked hard to get it.
It means continuing to protect the underlying life, freedom or outcome you actually wanted.
If the dream changes, you are allowed to redefine the win and play a new game.
Your whole life doesn't have to be finished before you're allowed to feel successful.
Different areas of your life can be in different games at the same time.
You may be already holding one dream while actively building another
You do not need every part of your life to be perfect before acknowledging how far you have already come. Recognise the wins. Protect them. Keep playing strategically where you still want something to change.
STRATEGY IS NOT ALWAYS LINEAR
Sometimes the move that looks backwards is the one that takes you forward.
For years, some of my own goals were quietly competing with each other.
I wanted to own my home.
I wanted to build more passive income.
And I wanted to move my family to Dorset — where I grew up and where my parents lived.
Once I had children, being close to family mattered more than ever. Dorset also offered the outdoor, family-centred life I had loved when I lived in Australia.
The problem was that Dorset was considerably more expensive.
Moving meant higher outgoings and, on paper, stepping backwards in my journey towards owning my home outright and greater financial freedom.
For a long time, I treated those goals as though they had to happen in the most financially efficient order.
Eventually, I realised something:
Dorset wasn’t an optional reward waiting for me at the end of financial freedom.
It was where I wanted my actual life to happen.
"You can win the financial game and still lose the life you were trying to build."
Delaying that move until every financial goal had been achieved would have meant spending years building in the wrong place.
Sometimes the strategically right move costs more today. Sometimes it creates more work in the short term. Sometimes it looks less impressive on a spreadsheet.
But if it puts you in a stronger position for the life you actually want, it may still be the right move.
You can win the financial game and still lose the life you were trying to build.
The Freedom Game is about making sure the two move together.
Moving to Dorset did not mean I had suddenly won every game I was playing. It meant I had achieved something that mattered enormously to me: building our day-to-day life in the place where I genuinely wanted it to happen.
That is a win I can recognise and protect while I continue playing other games around income, debt and long-term financial security.
The right game isn't always the easiest one. But you are not supposed to grind forever.
The Freedom Game isn't about pretending you can create your dream life without difficult seasons.
Some moves require sacrifice.
Some require patience.
Some make life harder before they make it easier.
A grindless journey is rarely realistic.
But permanent grind should not be the goal either.
The point is to understand what the difficult chapter is building towards.
To prioritise the moves that matter.
To reach the win condition you deliberately chose.
And eventually move out of intensive build mode and into the lighter game of protecting what you've created.
A hard season with a purpose is very different from spending decades climbing a ladder that was leaning against the wrong wall.
START WHERE YOU ARE
You can start playing your own game today.
You don't need to have your entire life figured out.
Start with the resource that matches the move you need to make right now.
DEFINE THE WIN
The Freedom Audit
Define your version of freedom, work out what it actually costs and identify the first move that could take you closer to it.
SEE WHAT'S GETTING IN THE WAY
The Freedom Leak Map
Find where your money, time, energy and opportunity are escaping — and choose the first leak to fix.
CHOOSE THE NEXT MOVE
The Freedom Build Plan
Choose the freedom you need most right now and turn it into one focused, practical 90-day move.
WATCH. LISTEN. READ.
Follow the game as it unfolds.
I'm playing my own games too — building towards new wins while protecting the parts of my life I've already worked hard to create.
I share what I'm learning about money, time, work, business, multiple income streams, confidence, strategy and building a life by design.
WATCH ON YOUTUBE
Long-form videos, practical frameworks and deeper conversations.
LISTEN TO THE FREEDOM GAME
The Freedom Game with Marie Cowgill — conversations about money, work, business, freedom and the decisions that shape our lives.
READ MY ARTICLES
Longer written ideas, stories and practical thinking — all archived here on mariecowgill.com.
Want help working out your next move?
You don't have to work through everything alone.
If you're trying to create more freedom around your money, time, work, business or life, a Freedom Strategy Call is designed to help you understand where you are now, where you're trying to get to and what your strongest next move could be.
Need support with something outside The Freedom Game?
THE FREEDOM GAME WILL KEEP GROWING
Help shape what comes next.
The Freedom Game is a growing body of work built around one central idea:
Freedom can be built more deliberately.
I want it to grow around what people genuinely need — not what I assume they need.
Tell me what you are trying to create, what you want to protect, what is getting in the way and what kind of support would genuinely make a difference.
You don't have to play somebody else's game.
Define what winning looks like for you.
See the whole board.
Choose your next move.
Build the system that supports it.
Win the game you chose to play.
Then start a new one:
Hold the Dream.
Stay close to the conversation
I write about money, work, business, freedom and the decisions that shape the lives we build. No noise. No daily barrage. Just thoughtful ideas worth making time for.
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Marie Cowgill and The Freedom Game® are trading styles of Cowgill Consulting Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales under company number 16478115. Registered office: 124 City Road, London, United Kingdom, EC1V 2NX. Email: [email protected].
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