{"id":107143,"date":"2019-02-04T00:02:12","date_gmt":"2019-02-04T07:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/renewsblog\/?p=107143"},"modified":"2023-04-26T22:42:24","modified_gmt":"2023-04-27T04:42:24","slug":"biggerpockets-money-podcast-58-optimizing-channel-achieve-financial-freedom-grant-sabatier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/biggerpockets-money-podcast-58-optimizing-channel-achieve-financial-freedom-grant-sabatier","title":{"rendered":"Optimizing Every Channel to Achieve Financial Freedom with Grant Sabatier"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Grant<\/strong> grew up knowing his parents didn\u2019t have much money. He recognized their constant stress about finances throughout his childhood, and one of his first memories was his dad telling him, \u201c<a href=\"\/renewsblog\/2016\/03\/28\/financial-freedom\/\" target=\"_blank\">Money is freedom<\/a>.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Graduating from college in the middle of the Great Recession didn\u2019t do much for his financial outlook. After bouncing around four different jobs, he landed back at home, unemployed and sleeping in the same bed he did when he was seven.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Then, one day he woke up and wanted to go to Chipotle but had less than $3 in his bank account. He was 24 years old. As trivial as it may seem, this was the wakeup call he needed to turn the corner and figure out his finances\u2014once and for all.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Enter Google Mobile Ads. Grant realized the demand for digital advertising professionals was rising; he made a goal to make $1 million in that arena as soon as possible.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Google taught him everything he needed to know\u2014for free\u2014and Grant landed the first job he applied for. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He hit the million dollar mark in five years, six months, and three days. Grant now spends his time helping others figure out their finances so that they can live their best life, doing things they love every single day, through his blog Millennial Money and new book\u00a0<\/span><em><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/2UviQzG\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Financial Freedom: A Proven Path to All the Money You Will Ever Need<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/biggerpockets-money-podcast\/id1330225136\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Click here<\/a>\u00a0to listen on iTunes.<\/p>\n<h2>Listen to the Podcast Here<\/h2>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/playlist.megaphone.fm?e=BIGPOC9531082234&#038;light=false\" width=\"100%\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h2>Read the Transcript Here<\/h2>\n<div style=\"overflow-y: scroll; max-height: 400px; background: #eee; padding: 20px; border: 1px solid #ddd;\">\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><i>Welcome to the BiggerPockets Money Podcast, show number 58 where we interview Grant Sabatier from Millennial Money.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><i>The financial freedom I think has never been more accessible to more people and I almost think it\u2019s a human right that people shouldn\u2019t have to wake up every day stressed about money. They should be out living lives that they love because we only get one shot at this.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><i>It\u2019s time for a new American dream, one that doesn\u2019t involve working in a cubicle for 40 years barely scraping by. Whether you\u2019re looking to get your financial house in order, invest the money you already have or discover new paths for wealth creation, you\u2019re in the right place.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><i>This show is for anyone who has money or wants more, this is the BiggerPockets Money Podcast.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott:<\/b> How\u2019s it going everybody? I\u2019m Scott Trench and I\u2019m here with my co-host Miss Mindy Jensen. How are you doing today Mindy?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy:<\/b> I\u2019m doing fantastic Scott. How are you today?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott:<\/b> I am doing great. I love Grant. I think we think about things in a very similar manner when it comes to money. And I just really enjoyed the discussion we had with him today, I think it\u2019s going to be a fantastic episode. Really he\u2019s kind of putting a lot of thought I think for anybody that\u2019s interested in financial freedom.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">But we both kind of share that approach that\u2019s a little hyper aggressive and then in the early couple of years in the journey to kick start the approach towards financial freedom, and then to begin settling back into exactly what you like once you\u2019ve kind of made some of that quick progress in those first couple of years.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy:<\/b> Yeah. I liked the episode today because it\u2019s not just the same spend less. And while I think spend less is a very valid point I think most people do have a lot of things that they can cut out of their day to day lives that they won\u2019t miss, one thing that he says is there\u2019s only so much you can cut. But there\u2019s no limit to how much you can make.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">And that\u2019s something that I think that a lot of people don\u2019t really think about, they don\u2019t really consider, \u201cOh I make $60,000 in my day to day life, that\u2019s what I can do, that\u2019s my income.\u201d Well it doesn\u2019t have to be. Like we said in the side hustle episode with Nick Lopper, it doesn\u2019t have to be just your income. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">You can have side hustles, you can make more in your day to day life just by reevaluating what your market rate is. This episode was just tip after tip after tip after bombs of knowledge and it was just fantastic.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott:<\/b> Yeah I mean you\u2019re going to hear his incredible story for the first 30 minutes or so and then we go right into tips how do we help people in various scenarios starting on the journey to financial freedom? And I loved like you just mentioned that he approaches it from an income perspective rather than savings perspective.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Obviously we\u2019re not diminishing the importance of savings, it\u2019s just there\u2019s more scalable opportunity there. And look, I operate I think sometimes from too much of the assumption personally that most people are doing everything they can to optimize an income front and there\u2019s no more room for growth. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">And I think he\u2019s just such obvious common sensical tips of how to approach your career and just take a step back. And do this in the next month and see what happens, really do offer a way to significantly increase income for potentially a lot of you who\u2019re listening in a pretty short period of time, three to six months maybe a year.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy:<\/b> Well and he attended YouTube University I mean or Google AdWords University whatever it was called. He learned how to do an entirely new thing in what did he say- two weeks or four day or something like- it\u2019s just this really small amount of time, you can change your whole career direction. There\u2019s never been a better time to- what did he say- there\u2019s never been a time where you can make more money?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott:<\/b> I forget his exact quote, you\u2019ll hear it later on the show but I think it was something to the effect of hey never before in history have you been able to get so much data on exactly what you should be paid, and what your benefit should be, and then be able to apply it so instantly to positive effect. I\u2019m sure I\u2019m butchering that but-<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy:<\/b> Yeah well and we\u2019ll let him say it in a few minutes. But what I\u2019m talking about is he graduated- I didn\u2019t really bring this up- he graduated with a degree in philosophy which is not the most lucrative degree you can get. It\u2019s got some practical applications and thinking and whatever but there\u2019s not a lot of hard and fast jobs at least not in 2010 that were looking for degrees in philosophy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">He saw Google AdWords or mobile ads or something, he clicked on that he\u2019s like, \u201cWow, I can change the whole course of my career.\u201d And he did so and it took very little time. What did he say? Like two weeks I think it took him to learn how to do this and start making money.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott:<\/b> Yeah absolutely and I can relate entirely to that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy:<\/b> Yeah. Okay but let\u2019s not rehash his whole story let him tell his story. Before we bring him in let\u2019s hear a note from today\u2019s show sponsor.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><i>Okay if you know anything about BiggerPockets you know we love business books. 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That\u2019s Blinkist spelt B-L-I-N-K-I-S-T.com\/biggerpockets.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><i>If you\u2019re like most of us, food is one of your biggest expenses. Don\u2019t you wish you could get tasty affordable meals delivered right to your door? EveryPlate does just that. They offer America\u2019s best value meal kit from only $4.99 per serving. That\u2019s a meal for the price of a fancy cup of coffee. You\u2019ve heard of other meal delivery kits but the price is what sets EveryPlate apart.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><i>And it\u2019s a healthier alternative to take out a delivery leaving you with a full plate and a fuller wallet. Recipes come together in about half an hour plus you don\u2019t wind up with rotting groceries because you bought too much. EveryPlate is expanding its shipping but check out your zip code at Check Out. <\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><i>For six free meals in your first three weeks and free shipping on your first delivery go to EveryPlate.com and enter money6, M-O-N-E-Y-6.again that\u2019s EveryPlate.com and use the code money 6 to get started now.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy:<\/b> Okay, huge thanks to today\u2019s show sponsor. Before we bring in Grant I wanted to just share that he has written a book called Financial Freedom: A Proven Path to All the Money You Will Ever Need. And this book is available at financialfreedombook.com in like 5,000 languages. So if you\u2019re listening to this show in English but you speak a different language you can order in every language that it\u2019s available at financialfreedombook.com.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Grant Sabatier from Millennial Money, welcome to the BiggerPockets Money Podcast. How is it going to day?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Grant:<\/b> It\u2019s great. Glad to be here, excited.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy:<\/b> Very excited to have you. Let\u2019s jump right into it because I know you\u2019ve got a ton of things to talk about. Can you walk us through where your journey with money begins?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Grant:<\/b> Yeah so my journey with money really begins about the time I was four or five. My parents grew up with very little money. When I was six months old, they moved to the Washington DC suburbs and were very kind of low class compared to the neighborhood they moved into, the city they moved into. Like my father used to get one pair of pants for a year and my mother grew up on a really small farm.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">So they moved east to give me a better opportunity. And I always kind of felt that, they talked about it. It was very present in our household. But money was a really stressful thing. And interestingly enough, one of the first things that I remember my father telling me was that money is freedom. I was probably four or five and I never knew really kind of what he meant by that until I actually had him on my own podcast.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">He was the first episode of the Financial Freedom Show and we got to dive deep into what he meant by that. and he really saw money and moving east as kind of a way to get out of this cycle of poverty that he grew up in. so it was always very present, I knew my parents didn\u2019t have a lot of money, I knew that they talked about it a lot.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">And it was something that was always present in our household. And yeah so it\u2019s played a huge part in my life. It was a lot of stress for most of my life and I think it\u2019s not lost on me why I now write about money and I\u2019ve thought so hard about it since that time.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott:<\/b> So what did your money journey look like kind of entering into adulthood?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Grant:<\/b> Yeah so I went to college, studied philosophy. I took out some loans, I got some good scholarships. I went in just wanting to think, wanting to write. I got out and bounced around about four different jobs, this was the great recession this is 2007 to 2010. I never kind of found my right fit. Worked at like a call center analytics company, I worked as a researcher at a small newspaper. I got laid off two of those four times.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">One time my boss clearly told me you\u2019re not making our company enough money. So I was just like my head was all over the place. I realized that I traded about 4,700 hours of my life for $85,000 after taxes during those four years. So some jobs paid okay, most of them didn\u2019t so really my kind of real journey with money starts at the age of 24.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">I moved back home with my parents. They said that I could crash with them for three months but they weren\u2019t going to give me a dime. So literally I was like 24 years old sleeping in the same bed that I slept in as a seven year old kid. And I go down to dinner and I just get this kind of extremely disappointed looks from my parents being like, \u201cHow did you end up back here?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">And I would say I really didn\u2019t have great money habits as a young twenty something. I went out and spent everything that I made and the first paycheck that I ever got I just blew it. And my real actual money journey didn\u2019t start till I was 24 when I was like, \u201cHey working in a cubicle sacks, getting laid off sacks. I don\u2019t want to be doing this forever.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">And the same token, I was 24 my parents were at that time in their late fifties, they were both still working. My parents are in their 60s now they\u2019re both still working. A lot of their friends are still working in kind of the middle class America, retirement is talked about nonstop. So it\u2019s something my parents talked about, it\u2019s something their friends talked about.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">So for me I was like there has to be some other way to do this thing than just bare down because even my parents were like, \u201cYeah you\u2019re going to have save 30, 40 years.\u201d And I was just like, \u201cI can\u2019t do this.\u201d I literally had post-traumatic stress syndrome from I had the crappy, crappy cubicle job, crappy bosses and I was like, \u201cI can\u2019t do this again.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott:<\/b> So you mentioned a couple of points that I think, hey four years of my life for $85,000 after taxes, I\u2019m back living with my parents. I don\u2019t want this kind of concept of working till I\u2019m 60 and not being able to retire, all that kind of stuff. Was this a gradual buildup of these things over time or was there a moment in time where you kind of made a hard transition in how you\u2019re going to approach your finances?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Grant:<\/b> Yeah. So it was August 25<\/span><span class=\"s2\"><sup>th<\/sup><\/span><span class=\"s1\"> 2010 was the \u201caha\u201d moment for me.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott:<\/b> So specific.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Grant:<\/b> I remember the day man I took a screenshot of my bank account it\u2019s on my website, it\u2019s in the book. And it was the day I woke up and I had two dollars and 26 cents in my bank account. I\u2019d wanted to go to Chipotle, I knew I didn\u2019t have a lot of money left but I was just like, \u201cI\u2019ve got to have enough for a burrito.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">And I literally didn\u2019t have enough to buy a burrito. So I was like I just felt terrible, I\u2019d already sent out over 200 resumes the past couple of months to different jobs, all different types of industries everything you could think about. And I hadn\u2019t gotten a single email back so I was pretty low that day. And I went out and I literally just laid down in my backyard that I\u2019d laid down as a kid. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">And I was just like in tears and I was like, \u201cI got to figure this thing out.\u201d So that was kind of the hard stop for me. About a week later I was doing a search on my phone and I saw a Google mobile Ad and I\u2019d never seen one before. And I was like, \u201cOh what\u2019s this?\u201d and then I just Googled Google Mobile Ads.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">And I read pretty quickly the demand for people who ran Google campaigns was growing, that you could get between 10 and 20% of media spend to run these ads that they were jobs. So I was like, \u201cI need to have a whole new skill set,\u201d because I really didn\u2019t have any marketable skills and I also didn\u2019t know what I wanted to do.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">But once I had that sort of resolution to try to make a million dollars as quickly as possible, sometime in the next couple of weeks after that kind of breakdown in August I was like, \u201cI want to make a million dollars as quickly as possible.\u201d And then that was my sole goal for the next five years pretty relentlessly nonstop. That was the big aha moment for me.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott:<\/b> Once you made that change things turn- you have a pretty incredible story over that five years. Could you start walking us through some of the highlights of that? Like let\u2019s talk about the first step with the mobile ads.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Grant:<\/b> Yeah absolutely. So learned that there were jobs running Google campaigns and best of all you could get certified by Google for free. So at the time it was called Google AdWords University. And you could learn how to run Google campaigns and get certified. It\u2019s simple you take a test you get the certification.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">So I did that, I put it on my LinkedIn profile, I put it on my resume. And literally the first digital marketing agency job that I applied to, I got the job. They were looking for people to run Google campaigns and the first client I actually had was this website called Cubs World. So I was running Google campaigns selling Chicago Cubs hats and jerseys. And I\u2019d never run-<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott:<\/b> You supported them in their World Series right?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Grant:<\/b> Yeah absolutely. But Google AdWords I mean literally probably every dollar that I\u2019ve made in my entire career, my entire FI journey all traces back to the series of free YouTube videos and getting this free Google certification. I mean and this is something- I shout it to the rooftops, every Lift, every Uber I\u2019m in I tell people about become Google AdWords certified.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">You don\u2019t even need a college degree and go run campaigns. There\u2019s so much demand it\u2019s just growing. And I feel very grateful that I did that simple Google search. So I got the job, I was making $50,000 at a small agency in Chicago and I went in with the explicit goal of okay I\u2019m going to save a million dollars. How do I do it?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Okay $50,000 is not enough money to get me there as fast as I want to. But I moved to Chicago I lived in the crappiest apartment ever. My wife then girlfriend wouldn\u2019t even come over to my apartment. I needed a car to get to my job and so I bought a $700 Nissan Maxima on Craigslist. And I just banked every dollar I made.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">And I stayed at the office and I felt grateful because it was about a 30-person company so I spent a lot of time with like the SEO guys and the web developers and the designers. But most importantly I spent time with the sales team. And one of the things that I realized was that they got all these calls from companies that wanted digital marketing help that just didn\u2019t have budgets that were at the level that my agency wanted to work with them.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">So I was able to eventually start working with some of those clients that didn\u2019t have enough money to work with my company but needed someone to help them with digital marketing campaigns. But that was a little bit later further down the road. Probably about three and a half months in I looked on Craigslist and I got my first side hustle client what was for a small law firm.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">I built a $500 WordPress website. And I\u2019d never built a WordPress website before. So once again went to YouTube, watched the videos watched the tutorials built somewhat junky website now in retrospect. But I got the $500, I was like, \u201cThis is incredible,\u201d it was the first money that I\u2019d like really ever made outside of a full time job.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">So I felt empowered, I felt in control and I was like, \u201cI\u2019m going to do more of this.\u201d So I really got on this lawyer, I was like, \u201cCan you help do that? You know anyone else who needs websites, know any friends.\u201d He ended up introducing me to kind of a little association of small lawyers in Chicago and through that I was able to get more and more engagements.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">And then finally three months later I sold a $50,000 website to kind of a midsized firm in Chicago and I underbid a big agency by about half. And literally I just swung for the fences. I was like I\u2019ll get this started in two weeks, $50,000, I used the same template that I\u2019d used for the $500 website and they bought it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">And I did the website in like four days I made $50,000, I remember going down to my mailbox and my hands were clammy when I opened the mailbox because of the first check. They\u2019d paid me $25,000 cheque and I was like, \u201cAnything is possible in life.\u201d And I felt so happy and I invested all the money at that time in index funds.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">I was a huge fan of like the Coffee House Investor and the Bogleheads Guide to Investing and I was off to the races. And by the end of that year I\u2019d made almost $300,000 from my side hustles doing so many different things, not just website building but flipping Volkswagen camper vans, flipping vintage mopeds, I was writing whitepapers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">I invested in a small moving company, I was like watching my neighbor\u2019s cat, I just literally every minute that I had, I was like a 24 year-old just like all the time always on all energy. And I was investing all the money. That year I saved about 82% of the money that I made. And then it was off to the races and kind of the next five years were a lot of the same.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">I launched two digital agencies myself, I continued side hustling as much as I could. To be honest I was a lot more hardcore now in retrospect that I probably would have been. I mean it took me a while to realize that I had a lot of the freedom that I was looking for much earlier. I didn\u2019t need to have a million dollars or get to FI, I really already had a lot of that freedom.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">But it almost felt like post-traumatic stress where I was like, \u201cI got to escape.\u201d And then once I started seeing my investing balances grow I just kept at it. And it took me five years, three months and six days to get there to when I had $1.25million in my investment accounts. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">And that day I also took a screenshot of my bank account. And I\u2019d never had taken a deeper breath. I remember just waking up and just literally sobbing being like oh my gosh I made this happen. And then I slept for like a week.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy:<\/b> Slept for like a week. So I think this is really interesting. So many people have this mentality of oh no I can\u2019t do this, I could never do that. You didn\u2019t just sit around. And like Patrice Washington from episode 50, they were real estate agents and mortgage brokers in 2008 when the whole economy crushed.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">And instead of just sitting around and licking their wounds, her husband took a job as a Taco Bell manager just so he could make sure he had food on the table. And here\u2019s you telling basically the same thing, look you\u2019re not going to sit there and just somebody is going to give you a million dollars. You went out and you tried this and you tried this, and you tried this.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">And you were watching cats. That can\u2019t pay a lot of money but it\u2019s also how difficult is that to do. I mean as long as you\u2019re not allergic to cats you basically just have to give them food and water and scoop their litter. I mean it\u2019s not a difficult thing, it\u2019s just a few more dollars in your pocket and you were flipping mopeds. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">I don\u2019t imagine there\u2019s a huge moped market either but hey every dollar is another dollar. And you were saving 82% of like all income and still living kind of well. Where were you in Chicago when that your girlfriend wouldn\u2019t even come to your apartment?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Grant:<\/b> Yeah so I lived in Bucktown it\u2019s like Western in McLain. It\u2019s over in this area it\u2019s a nice area but I lived like right by the train so the train was really loud. I live right next to an exhaust shop so there was always like people coming in, there were two shootings when I lived there the first year that I lived there in the alleyway. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">And it was just a crappy building you know what I mean. It was crappy I mean the thing about me is like I\u2019m pretty flexible and I probably actually would have stayed there longer than I did. But my wife was just like, \u201cYou got to get out of here.\u201d And thankfully that I started investing in real estate. But I think when you really firmly commit to something especially trying to reach FI as quickly as possible, I mean the gains compound. The energy compounds.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">It\u2019s like I realized pretty quickly that I could accelerate the rate of compounding that was my huge thing. It was no longer like save five to 10%, I was like if I can save a million dollars by 30 I probably don\u2019t need any money for the rest of my life. I realized that the whole idea of saving as much as early and often as you can was a much sounder strategy than kind of rolling the dice and banking on a really uncertain future in a lot of cases.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy:<\/b> So you\u2019ve mentioned a million dollars several times. And there was actually a tweet over the weekend where someone was like if I have to read this thing about finding a million dollars or saving a million dollars again I\u2019m going to get to frustrated. Why is a million dollars such a thing? And Aaron Brooke Millennials said, \u201cWell a million dollars allows you to live off of $40,000 per the 4% rule.\u201d Had you heard of the 4% rule? You said a million dollars but where did you come up with that number?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Grant:<\/b> Yeah so a million dollars was pulled out of the air. I mean it was just like middle class like I haven\u2019t seen a million dollars, like I don\u2019t even know any millionaires I\u2019m going to be a millionaire. That\u2019s just as sophisticated as I was when I started. And interestingly enough it wasn\u2019t until about two and a half years, late 2012 when I first discovered Brandon the Mad Fientist. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">He was the first FI blogger that I discovered and at first I was like, \u201cWhoa other people are doing this. And this guy has got a lot of great strength, jeez.\u201d So finding him, I remember finding his site and just reading everything that he\u2019d written and I was like, \u201cOh my gosh this is pure gold.\u201d And then I discovered Pete and there were a few other at the time but not many.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Mid-2012 there were not many people writing about this at all. So I felt really kind of happy that there were other people out there doing this because I didn\u2019t feel so alone because that was the big thing for me, is that I tried to read books on retirement. But they were all so dry and so boring. I read some great investing books, I read some great entrepreneurship books during this period.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">But in terms of like retirement, planning for retirement, none of it was built around trying to retire as early as possible. And early retirement like the stuff that was written it was like really academic and written for people who like retire at 51. And I was like, \u201cI don\u2019t even know how to make sense of any of this. And when I discovered Brandon it was like such a great- I\u2019ve told him that story many times, just like oh man.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">I was like seriously man I wouldn\u2019t exist without you, I\u2019m such a fanboy. Once I got into it, then obviously the trinity study, all these numbers. But the thing about it, even the more I research and the more I dive in, those models are nice starting points. But one of the things I quickly realized when I did my first retirement calculator calculation, it said I needed $3.5 million to retire.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">And I had like nothing and I was like $3.5 million, how am I going to get there? So I was just like I got to get to a million first. That\u2019s the first stop on this journey. And one of the things is I think the FI community, the personal finance industry, the money world, I think they sell a level of precision that\u2019s just completely unrealistic.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">So I also realized that how can I even begin to figure out how much money I\u2019m going to need for the rest of my life when who I am this year I\u2019m very different than who I was two years ago and three years ago. So I think what\u2019s more important is understanding what you enjoy and how much money it takes to live a life you really love.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">And then longitudinally make sure you\u2019re moving in the right direction. And I knew there was going to be a lot of margin of error but I didn\u2019t sweat it too much because once I got to the million dollars then I kept saving more and making more. And for me it\u2019s kind of does it pass the sniff test? <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">And one of the things I know in the future is if everything breaks down and the stock market blows up, I\u2019ll at least have enough saved and can really ratchet back my own lifestyle in order to live forever. So I never got super granular with the spreadsheets. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">I was just like instead of spending all my time trying to optimize my expenses and track everything perfectly, I\u2019m going to go out and try to make as much money as possible and invest my energy there. And then I eventually got to a point where I was like completely burnt out and I was like okay, I have enough for now. I\u2019m going to exit the corporate world, leave my agencies.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">And I also realized that I hadn\u2019t taken advantage of all the freedom that I\u2019d been able to buy myself. So now I\u2019m at a point in my life where just having the space and time which leads to meditate and grow and exist and be is so much richer, and has made my life richer than money ever could. And yeah that was I\u2019m not very focused on the numbers now.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Money to me has a lot of diminishing returns. Now I\u2019m more focused on helping my friends who\u2019re really stressed. And I think most people are kind of two or three steps away from a life that they\u2019d really love. So I\u2019m writing more about that and thinking more about that. Money often factors into that but a lot of people are stuck in their lives.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">And I got unstuck and now I\u2019m completely dedicated to helping those around me and anyone else out there that feels stuck find a way out. Because it\u2019s literally never been easier in history to make more money. And even like Brandon says it\u2019s like here in the US it\u2019s like because of the favorable tax treatment, because of all the income opportunities because of the ability to control your cost of living, it\u2019s never been easier to reach FI.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">So incredibly exciting time for those people who are willing to make some small changes in their life. Financial freedom I think has never been more accessible to more people. And I almost think it\u2019s a human right that people shouldn\u2019t have to wake up every day stressed about money. They should be out living lives that they love because we only get one shot at this.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott:<\/b> So earlier on and I want to kind of jump back to this because when I look at your remarkable story of how you kind of went from two dollars to $1.2 million in five years, it seems like the key leverage points that you went after were entrepreneurship and then an extraordinarily low savings rate. So it was basically earn as much money as possible, spend as little money as possible, and then attempt to build assets and I\u2019m assuming invest aggressively.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">So you\u2019re really optimizing every channel of financial independence. And the one that stood out the most for me was that you went and took the free online course. And I want to chime in because when I graduated college, I was going to start a job as a finance professional. And I felt that my four year degree in economics with a minor in finance gave me no preparation for on-the-job training.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">And I tool a free YouTube course took me two weeks. I did it two weeks before I started my job and that propelled me to be way more effective at that job. And I think that that is really one of the things that sticks out to me is you going out and doing like most people don\u2019t do that. Most people don\u2019t read a book or study a subject to learn a new skill. You can literally do Google Ads.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Grant:<\/b> Oh yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott:<\/b> In two weeks and be right up there with any industry professional not any industry professional but get a job and begin working on it within four days, right. And that mindset applied to a bunch of different things, applied to all these different side projects; watching cats, whatever it is you\u2019re going to find an opportunity that\u2019s scalable that you enjoy that you can go after if you\u2019re trying them one after the other relentlessly, right.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">So if you\u2019re listening to this and you\u2019re in your early to mid-20s like this is it, right. That\u2019s your chance. You can\u2019t do this if you have a family and it\u2019s 10 years down the road, it\u2019s much harder, right and you\u2019re likely to miss out, right.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Grant:<\/b> Yeah. No even energy, I mean just the amount of energy that I had at 24 compared to now at 33 is vastly different. So the whole idea is the paradox is that when you\u2019re younger, time is more valuable from an income building and compounding perspective. It\u2019s also more valuable because you have more of it and you can leverage it in that sense.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">But time seriously collapses as you get older, and in a way that as more- there\u2019s kind of like the curve you have more responsibilities but then you literally have less time. And I\u2019ve studied this intensely just the fact that we have at least half of our life experiences by the age of seven. And by the age of 26 there\u2019s actually a marked acceleration of time because that\u2019s the moment in which we\u2019ve had over 80% of the experiences that we\u2019re going to have in life.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">So new experiences actually elongate time in a way that few other things do. That\u2019s why you go on vacation and the first couple of days that you\u2019re there it feels so new, time feels like it slows down. That\u2019s the beautiful thing about travel, it actually expands time. And for me I\u2019m infinitely fascinated by both time and money as human inventions.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">And the thing is we embed both of them with so much meaning, so much power. We put all of our emotions into them but if you actually step back and look at money and time as both human inventions, and you embed them with your own meaning, I mean the relationship between time and money, this is the biggest myth in I think the entire world.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">One of them is that people think that time is money. And time is not money, time is so much more valuable, so much more rich than money. And you actually can get to a place whether it\u2019s through investing in real estate or hiring some employees to do the work instead of you. You can get in a place where the relationship between time and money is no longer linear.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">And once you get to that place, it gives you more of both. And that\u2019s one of the things, is as long as people keep believing that time is money and that they need to trade their time for money, they\u2019re always going to be kind of held hostage by that simple idea. So that\u2019s why when you\u2019re young you have more time, so make the most of it in that sense.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">And it\u2019s all about not wasting time at the end of the day. So if you just do a couple of things right you\u2019re going to buy significant amounts of freedom not even in the future just in the next couple of years. And that\u2019s the biggest takeaway for me on this whole journey is that you don\u2019t need millions of dollars or to become FI to get so many of the benefits. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Just get like two years of expenses saved, and then figure out what you want to do with your life. You know what I mean, leave the crappy job, take some time off, take a deep breath whatever it may be, like you do not need millions of dollars to be financially free.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott:<\/b> Yeah and I think what your story demonstrates, what this is, is that all out approach, right. Maximizing a potential in all these areas, saves you time right. Because time is money until you create a situation where it\u2019s not, right.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Grant:<\/b> Absolutely.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott:<\/b> An immediate income earner earning 100 grand with little to no relative invested wealth, time is money, right.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Grant:<\/b> Right, absolutely.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott:<\/b> But as you save your first $500,000 million dollars you\u2019re moving towards that and building a really solid financial freedom foundation, the change that you\u2019re talking about becomes true. And the stakes I think are so high to do this, and that\u2019s why I\u2019m so passionate about this job, what I do here, what me Mindy and you do.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">I think the stakes are really high. You need to get on the other side of this as early in life as you can with regards to where you\u2019re starting. But you need to do this, the stakes are very high and life becomes very different afterwards right. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">And the time that you can apply that pressure in that extreme way that you did in all four of those areas, extremely low savings, extreme effort on every front with a much vast majority of your time on a daily basis, both earned income and entrepreneurial efforts. And then total dedication of your portfolio to the most aggressive assets, right. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">The time to do that is in your 20s because the risk becomes intolerable later and later. So I just like want to point that out, if you\u2019re listening to this and you know someone who\u2019s in their 20s and could be persuaded like this is the right approach, two three four years of this and the rest of your life I totally, the world is your oyster.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy:<\/b> I\u2019m going to jump in here really quick because you are both slightly younger than me, and I\u2019m going to stick up for all of the people who did not discover this in their 20s. When I was in my 20s this was not a thing, nobody- well except Vicky, nobody was talking about this. There were no blogs I mean there wasn\u2019t even the internet when I was in my 20s.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">But you can still do this even if you\u2019re older, even if you have a family. I don\u2019t recommend you quit your job that is putting food on the table because you have nothing in savings, I don\u2019t recommend you quit your job and then go try to figure out YouTube University. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Maybe Google Ads isn\u2019t the thing for you but there are always things you can do on the side. So I just want to clarify that I\u2019m sure neither of you guys are saying don\u2019t do this unless you\u2019re 20, but you just have so much more room for growth when you do it when you\u2019re 20. But you can still do it when you\u2019re older, okay.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott:<\/b> Absolutely.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Grant:<\/b> Yeah I think money only matters if it helps you live a life that you love. And that\u2019s one of the things that I actually didn\u2019t even realize when I was going through this process. I had to get out the other side and kind of detox from it until I realized that. And when I read Scott\u2019s book Set For Life, I\u2019d already become FI and Scott was on my podcast.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">And literally it was kind of like looking in a mirror but I was saying, \u201cOh man this dude is so hardcore. I\u2019m not this hardcore.\u201d But then I realized that oh yeah I am this hardcore. But one of the things you\u2019re absolutely right it all comes down to tradeoffs and this is the big thing. We live in such an all or nothing world where people are like, \u201cI\u2019m either an entrepreneur or I\u2019m not.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Or, \u201cI\u2019m either going to dive into this thing, do everything perfectly or I\u2019m going to do nothing.\u201d And what this all comes down to is you get like 90% of the benefits just doing a couple of these things, you know what I mean. Just realizing that there\u2019s a limit to how much money you can cut back. There\u2019s just going to be a limit.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Things like even as you write about Scott, there\u2019s a limit to how much like those small things in your life, those are the ones that are probably giving you the most joy, so don\u2019t cut them out. Focus on just cutting back your housing expense. Just the path is so simple and you don\u2019t have to go all out, you don\u2019t have to change your entire lifestyle.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">No matter when you\u2019re starting, just a few of these simple switches are going to give you a lot more options and choice and freedom in your life, and then you can do whatever you want with that. It\u2019s incredibly empowering I mean that\u2019s the beautiful thing about this, it\u2019s like you\u2019re in a crappy situation you\u2019re not stuck there.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">These tools are out there they\u2019re available. There\u2019s more and more people that are doing this. It\u2019s not like we\u2019re the first people treading this path, there\u2019s everyday success stories of people who\u2019ve done it different ways and been creative about all their different streams. And that\u2019s the beautiful thing because it\u2019s like so empowering.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">I mean it\u2019s so empowering just to live life on your own terms and you can do that at any age no matter where you\u2019re starting. I get emails from people in their 50s and they\u2019re like, \u201cI\u2019m just getting started.\u201d And I\u2019m like, \u201cHere are the four things that really matter and it\u2019s up to you to make the choice of actually implementing this or not.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy:<\/b> Okay. So let\u2019s shift a little bit and start looking at how we can help people who may be just coming to this concept for the first time. Where does somebody start? What is a good first step for somebody maybe just discovered this concept of financial independence and, oh I want to do that I don\u2019t know where to begin.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Grant:<\/b> Yeah so I think the personal finance industry always tells you to start with your expenses and to start with your budget. But I think that\u2019s absolutely one of the worst pieces of advice out there. First off I think that budget reinforce the scarcity mindset. They force you to look at those small purchases that in reality are the things that often make you happiest or give you the most joy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">So let\u2019s put the budget to the side for a second and focus first on optimizing where you\u2019re currently making money. So there\u2019s always going to be a limit to how much you can cut back but there\u2019s not going to be a limit to how much you can make. But a majority of Americans are actually leaving money on the table just because they\u2019re not doing things like taking full advantage of their benefits at work.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">This is one of the things that just blows my mind is that your company no matter where you work they likely have some benefits that you\u2019re not taking full advantage of. So schedule a 20 minute meeting with your HR department, go in and ask about all the benefits that you have and if you\u2019re taking full advantage of them.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">And then the second thing I recommend once again on the income side of the coin is making sure that you\u2019re making as much money as you can in your full time job. A majority of Americans are actually getting paid under their market rate, and it\u2019s never been easier to go out for example and figure out how much money you should be making in your job based on your skills and experience.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">So we spend literally over 2,000 hours working for money per year, but we spend like less than 30 minutes on our own career optimization. So go out and dedicate a couple of hours to for example going on Glass Door or Due.com checking what people with your experience and job title are getting paid for their jobs.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">One huge piece of advice, go out and talk to recruiters in your industry, because these recruiters are literally paid when they help you find a job. These are people are going to know what jobs are out there, how much money you should be making based on your experience. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">And they\u2019re going to give you tips around skills that you don\u2019t have that you can add to your current skillset in order to be more marketable either at your current company or in other companies. I always say that skills are future currency. The more diverse your skillset, I can guarantee the more money you\u2019re going to make not only today but for the rest of your life.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">So talk to recruiters and see what you should be getting paid. And then the final thing is just go out and actually look for research in your industry. And this is one of the things I get emails all the time. Hey I\u2019m living in Syracuse New York and I work in IT and I\u2019m making $70,000 but I really don\u2019t see how I can make more money.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">The beautiful thing today is that so many companies are looking for remote workers that you can literally live in Syracuse and with a decent cost of living and get a job in New York City doing the same thing that you do but do it remotely. Make twice as much money and then bank the difference. And you don\u2019t even have to move to a different city.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">And you can do that just simply no matter where you are, look at the biggest city near you and just Google Chicago IT recruiting company. And then call them up, talk to some recruiters and be like, \u201cHey I like in Des Moines Iowa but I\u2019m looking for work remote opportunities with companies in the IT industry in Chicago.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">That\u2019s the fastest way to get paid more money as well as be able to do it in your own time. So a lot of people focus on the expenses and how much money we\u2019re spending. But like I said there\u2019s a limit to how much you can cut back, there\u2019s not a limit to how much you can make. And even if you don\u2019t like your full time job, that\u2019s the place right now where you\u2019re going to be able to make more money in order to save it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">And if not, you\u2019re going to talk to some recruiter who\u2019s going to find you a better job or you\u2019re going to learn hey instead of going after being an art director I should be a creative director and I can make $70,000 more dollars in two years. And that was the biggest thing for me is like I think the Google AdWords in a vast majority of US cities you can get to six figures starting from nothing in two years or less because there\u2019s such a high demand.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">The acceleration path, the promotion path is so clear cut. So focus on optimizing your full time job first because you definitely don\u2019t want to be leaving any money on the table. And the last thing is a vast majority of companies now are willing to negotiate work remote opportunities but most people don\u2019t even ask.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Just start at one day a week and see how you feel and see how your boss feels, because in this sort of time-money linear relationship, there\u2019s nothing that\u2019s going to have the biggest quality of life impact than being able to work remotely, and have more control over your time instead of having to show up at an office and commute. Even if you want to go into the office, just having the flexibility and the opportunity leaves you a lot more freedom in your life.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott:<\/b> That\u2019s awesome advice. That\u2019s really for hey I got a job and I want to earn more money on the income front. And I agree that probably one of the fastest ways you can really begin scaling your income at a meaningful way in a short period of time. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">But suppose that you\u2019re in a profession that doesn\u2019t have the ability to rise the ranks like that. Like maybe you\u2019re an accountant or something like that where there\u2019s a kind of a set career track even in various different companies. How do you think about earning more money outside of that career track?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Grant:<\/b> That\u2019s a great question. So first you always want to start with the skills that you currently have. So one of the things before I get into that, a majority of people think about side hustling all wrong. They think, \u201cOkay I\u2019m going to go out and drive for Lift or drive for Uber, pick up a couple jobs on Upwork. But there\u2019s a huge difference between side hustling for someone else and side hustling for yourself.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">So you can only drive so many hours with Lift or with Uber. And what you\u2019re getting paid is still being controlled by someone else. You only have so many hours of your life that you can trade and drive. You can\u2019t drive 24 hours a day. But what there\u2019s not a limit to is connecting supply and demand. So I always tell people, become your own Uber.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Uber doesn\u2019t drive their own cars, all they\u2019re doing is connecting people who need rides with people who will give rides. And anyone can become an Uber in their industry. So as long as say you\u2019re an accountant to your point, if you\u2019re going out and you have to trade your time, sure you can charge more per hour, if there\u2019s demand for your services. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">But even better, instead of selling your own time, start brokering other\u2019s time. And so start an accounting firm that specializes in helping online entrepreneurs for example. And then hire a couple young accountants who are familiar with creating courses and building online communities and who are accountants. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">And all of a sudden go out and connect online entrepreneurs who need accountants for their online businesses with accountants who are experienced in that industry. So all of a sudden as an accountant you\u2019re no longer just trading your own time for money, you\u2019re brokering others. And that\u2019s the beautiful thing today because you don\u2019t have to hire a bunch of full time employees in order to broker this type of supply and demand.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">So instead of just doing the work yourself, sell it and then have someone else do the work and facilitate that connection. And you can do that in any industry with any job whether you\u2019re a lawyer or an accountant or no matter what you\u2019re doing. And the second thing is side hustling is so amazing. It\u2019s an amazing way to get paid for doing something that you love.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">And I think a lot of people they see people making money online and they\u2019re like, \u201cOh I want to go do that, or I want to do this.\u201d But like anything in life you can only do something that you don\u2019t like doing for so long even if you\u2019re making money. And the chances that you\u2019re going to be successful if you\u2019re doing something that you don\u2019t like or love are much lower anyway.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">And that\u2019s the beautiful thing today because if you compare your skills and your hobbies and you look for overlap between the two, it\u2019s never been easier to go out and actually get paid to do something you enjoy as opposed to just something that you of as a job.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott:<\/b> I think that\u2019s fantastic advice and I love that what you\u2019re talking about is something that\u2019s scalable. Right it an outcome based thing rather than a time based side hustle, right. I think that\u2019s correct but what if I\u2019m earning $50,000 a year and I feel optimized in that front in my full time job and I\u2019ve got less than $10,000 in liquidity and savings that I can access to go after this. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">I may feel that point and may be hard for us to convince that person from this podcast that there are position to go out and hire a couple of accountants for example, right, but they\u2019re not even paid level one accountant how are they going to pay three accountant salaries right? <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Grant:<\/b> Right.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott:<\/b> So what\u2019s kind of that baby step in that direction that you might say? What\u2019s the path toward- because when you\u2019re talking about your side hustle right, you earned $500 with one website and then a couple of progressions later now you\u2019re earning 100 times that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Grant:<\/b> So like anything in life it\u2019s all about feeling it out and seeing what works and what doesn\u2019t. so for someone who\u2019s making $50,000 in their full time job and they\u2019re like, \u201cHey I want to make some money on the side\u201d, we live in a world that tells them, \u201cOh you have jump off and now be a full time entrepreneur.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">But the best thing for that person to do is go out no matter where you can and find one person to offer accounting services to on the side and see how it makes you feel. Just feel it out because maybe you won\u2019t like doing it. Maybe you\u2019ll do it and be like, \u201cOh I had to chase down my clients and they wouldn\u2019t pay their invoices and this got really complicated. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">And getting emails at 2AM from this person really stressed me out and gosh I\u2019m happier in my full time job because I can leave at 5:30 and then I can go home and not have to think about work.\u201d And that\u2019s completely cool. Like if that\u2019s you, great. Then if that\u2019s the case and you don\u2019t want lump something on the side, make sure that you\u2019re at least on the career track based on the skills you have. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">And that\u2019d be the second that I\u2019d note. Look at those people who are above you and figure out how you can jump levels faster. So what\u2019s the difference between a Level I accountant and a Level III accountant or the person at that next level? Is it simply hours of experience? We used to live in a world where you had to put in your dues, two to three years and then you\u2019ll get your promotion. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">I don\u2019t believe in that at all anymore, like yes experience is extremely valuable. But I think in a lot of cases skills can tramp experience. So figure out okay what are the people at the higher level of my firm doing that I could do and how can learn that. And if you don\u2019t have an answer to that, it\u2019s probably enough evidence that you should be looking to work at a different firm when you could accelerate that process. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">I mean it\u2019s not lost on anyone that whenever you look for a new job your market rates are then reassessed. So if you look at people over their career, if you jump jobs every two to three years, you statistically end up making between two and $300,000 more in your career lifetime simply because leaving to a new company forces you to reevaluate your market rate. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">You don\u2019t have to do that by any means but test it out, see how you feel. Get a client on the side. The one big piece of advice that I have for everyone that wants to side hustle that tells me, \u201cOh well I can\u2019t go out and sell a client.\u201d This is the biggest bear, \u201cHow do I get my first client or how do I build a business?\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">And the whole idea is there\u2019s so much demand for example for accounting services or digital marketing services and in some cases legal services, that simply just act as a back office freelancer or a contractor. And then work for agencies who are doing the selling for you. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">So just a simple case study, I had a buddy who was making about $4,000 a month running digital marketing campaign and agency. He hated his boss, hated the company, was forced to work just like so much overtime. And he was like, \u201cI want to be a freelancer.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">But he\u2019s kind of a shy guy he\u2019s like, \u201cI can\u2019t go out and win clients, how do I go against these big agencies?\u201d And I was like, \u201cDude just contact the recruiters in your agency and tell them that you\u2019re willing to work as a freelancer to agencies that need back office, back campaign management support. And let the agencies do the selling.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">This is the big thing in the digital marketing world, is that agencies often hire contractors or freelancers because if they lose a big account and they don\u2019t do that then they have to fire everybody. So what he was able to do is he actually got hooked in with eight different digital marketing agencies in Chicago and now he\u2019s the contractor for these agencies. He\u2019s making $100,000 a month.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy:<\/b> A month?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Grant:<\/b> A month. He went from $4,000 to $100,000 a month now working as a back office. Doesn\u2019t have to do any selling, these agencies reach out to him and they say, \u201cHey we got this client can you do this, can you do that?\u201d and now he has so much work he tried to do all himself but he can\u2019t. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">But he\u2019s hired another one of his friends. So all of a sudden going from being a salaries $4000 a month employee he is a backend, he runs PPC campaigns for big agencies in Chicago who there\u2019s so much demand for that. He\u2019s making over $100,000 per month.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott:<\/b> I think it\u2019s fantastic and I could not agree more with the concept that skills should tramp experience, right.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Grant:<\/b> Right<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott:<\/b> When I started my career I was a financial analyst right and in that world, it\u2019s not as true. The time and experience really does seem to tramp whether or not you can just do the work or not, right. And because of that, in my first year I was on the short path to my financial freedom, it became glaringly obvious that if I stayed in that track, and there\u2019s not really like a lot of financial analyst contractors out there.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">You really need to be like an employee of a company to get all of the sensitive information. So it became exceedingly clear very quickly that there was no upside in this career unless in a similar company setting unless I quit and do something like investment banking and put in the ridiculous hours or went in a totally different direction.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">So I left and went on a different career track that had scalability, right exactly what you\u2019re saying. Start a bunch side hustles, I did all that. If you\u2019re working at a job that is super time consuming and all of the skill comes as a result of years and years of experience in that career, then that\u2019s a slow path toward financial freedom. And you got to assess and you got to make the assessment early. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Now I got a tough question for you. Suppose that I\u2019m 10 years into that career, right. I\u2019m assuming that should I have 10 years into that career and I\u2019m a director of finance, right. And I\u2019m making 125, so that\u2019s not a joke money. What do I do then? Do I really consider this? Because the upside is there, but I\u2019m also potentially foregoing my very nice salary that I\u2019ve now earned into because of those years of experience going in.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Grant:<\/b> Just because you\u2019ve earned something isn\u2019t enough to keep you there. I mean I hear this all the time, people are, \u201cI put in my 10 years I got to the job. Even though I don\u2019t like it I spent 10 years getting here.\u201d What matter is do you love your life? Are you enjoying your life? Does it make you happy? <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">So I flip that on you and ask if that person\u2019s making 125K and they like their job and they like their co-workers and they\u2019re showing up every day and they go home at 6PM and hang out with their kids and they like their life and they take a couple of vacations a year and they\u2019re happy, congratulations. You won the game. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">That\u2019s it, you\u2019ve won the game. You know what I mean you don\u2019t need millions of dollars in that case, you don\u2019t need to financially independent. You\u2019ve won the game. You\u2019re living a happy life that\u2019s sustainable that you can afford. Hopefully you\u2019re saving 20, 30% of your income. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">But if you\u2019re 10 years in and say you\u2019re 38, and you\u2019re making 125K and you\u2019re hearing this and you\u2019ve been stressed all week and you haven\u2019t slept. And you\u2019re not spending time with your young kids. And you feel like they\u2019re growing up too fast and you feel really stuck in your life, that\u2019s a whole different scenario, right. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">And I would encourage that person to make a transition or plan for a transition in the next three to six months and start unpacking where you\u2019re at. How much money do you have saved? Can you take a couple months off to make a pivot? And then like I said, let\u2019s go back to talking to recruiters. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Dude, you have 10 years of experience in this particular industry with probably a great skillset, is there a company that you could move to where you could get paid the same amount of money but work less time? Then you free up time to spend more time with your kids or do something. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Is there a less stressful job? Is there another more lucrative career that might pay you double the amount of money but have the same amount of time tradeoff? Move over into private equity. I get these questions all the time where, \u201cOh my gosh I\u2019m working 100 hours a week I\u2019m in private equity. And I can\u2019t sleep and it\u2019s so crazy.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">You have to remember that a vast majority of companies, they\u2019re just legal pyramid schemes. That\u2019s what they are. They\u2019re built to make people at the top more money, whether it\u2019s a shareholder or whoever it is. So you have to just decide am I willing to climb this pyramid and make those tradeoffs in private equity?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">That tradeoff is insanely high. You make 80K a year for three or four years then bump up to like 350, you know what I mean. So the net ROI over time, but at the end of the day, the most important question is are you living a life that you love? And if you say yes to that no matter how much how much money you\u2019re making or where you\u2019re at or what you\u2019re doing, then you\u2019ve won the game.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">But if you\u2019re stressed out, there\u2019s often a couple small decisions that you can make that can give you a lot more happiness and flexibility in your life.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy:<\/b> Okay so, this brings up a really great comment and I\u2019m glad you said this, because I have a job that I love. I see myself doing this for at least another 10 years, I\u2019ve got kids in school. But it\u2019s like 35hours a week for 40 weeks a year. So I need something to do with my time and I had the job that sacked and I quit when I got pregnant and had a baby and I was very happy to quit.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">And now I\u2019m very happy to stay here. And I think that not all jobs sack and you don\u2019t have to have this FI mentality, \u201cOh well I hate my job so I\u2019m leaving.\u201d My sister loved her job, absolutely could not talk more great things about it and then her boss left and she got a new one. And she\u2019s like, \u201cOh my God now I know what you\u2019re talking about when you hated your job so much.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">She didn\u2019t go down the FI path because she loved her job she never wanted to quit. That\u2019s just a really great reason to do this to, because you love your job, what\u2019s to say you\u2019re not going to get cancer tomorrow? I have a friend whose husband has metastatic pancreatic cancer, that\u2019s not a great diagnosis. You go through your FI because you want to lead this best life.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">You want to make sure your kids are taken care of, you never know what\u2019s going to happen. And just because you love your job now doesn\u2019t mean that your boss is not going to leave and you\u2019re going to get some-I don\u2019t want to say the word Nazi but you could get some really awful person who comes in and changes absolutely everything that you love about it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">So just because you love it now doesn\u2019t mean that you\u2019re always going to love it. And I love that concept you\u2019ve won the game. I totally won the game with this job but I went through a lot of really crappy losing seasons to get to this winning super bowl win that I have.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Grant:<\/b> Yeah this moment is all there is I mean that\u2019s all there is. And the thing is you might not have the next moment and so I also think me personally I was addicted to FI. And FI can be money addiction in another form just like chasing that next promotion or the million dollars, over optimizing. I mean Brandon had talked a lot about this, just deprivation generally.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">And honestly I probably going back I feel very grateful for what I went through and what I learned. But I probably would have stopped to smell the roses a little bit more along the way. And I feel grateful that I made it through. But that\u2019s the thing is FI all this comes down to is money gives you the ability to have more control over the time and space in your life to do what you want with it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">And that\u2019s why I call the book Financial Freedom because it\u2019s like financial freedom means something different to so many people. FI is one thing. It\u2019s like, how much money do I have? Do I have enough money for the rest of my life? But financial freedom for someone might be just not having any debts so they can sleep at night.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">For someone else it might be having a year expenses, so if they get fired they don\u2019t have to worry so much. So they whole idea is once again we live in a world where there\u2019s so much precision around money that\u2019s being sold, and so much fear that\u2019s cultivated. And we have to make sure especially sharing the FI path that we don\u2019t share that as well or support that as well.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">All that money is for is to help you live a life that you love, to help other people live a life that they love, to impact the world, to change lives whatever it may be. And there\u2019s no perfect number, there\u2019s no perfect strategy. The whole idea is are you waking up an enjoying your life and how is money helping you do that?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">And that\u2019s what it comes down to and the beautiful this is that it\u2019s never been easier to have a great moment, have a great time, have a great day, spend more time with your kids. And asking yourself that question of what kind of life do I want to live as the leading question, and then maybe saying, \u201cI\u2019m willing to get paid half the amount of money because I get off at three and I can pick up my kids and that\u2019s what makes me happy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Or I can take a month off but I\u2019m not making as much money as I could. And this is the thing. It\u2019s not all money, money, optimize, optimize. And in fact I think that kind of the quantified self-movement often how do you live when you\u2019re scheduling every 15 minutes of your day? I don\u2019t think I could live that way because to me life happens when you\u2019re open to it, when you exist.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">When you put your phone in your pocket or leave it at home and take a breath and say hello to the person next to you. That\u2019s where life happens. Life is the unexpected, it\u2019s not the optimized in my case. And it took me a while to learn that, I mean these are all perspectives, that\u2019s what I learned since I read the book. Because I\u2019m like, \u201cI can close that door, I can shut that chapter.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">And looking back I did some things that I wouldn\u2019t do again, I made some tradeoffs that I wouldn\u2019t do again. But the beautiful thing is that it\u2019s so easy for so many people to get more freedom and time in their life no matter what that freedom means. And it\u2019s a joy that we get to share that with others and help others do it. Because like I said this is all we have. Time is much more rich and valuable than money.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy:<\/b> I love it, I can\u2019t top that. Time is much more valuable and rich than money. Okay. It is time now to move on to our famous four questions. These are the same five questions that we ask of all of our guests, four questions and a command. I will command you at the end.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Grant:<\/b> Cool.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy:<\/b> What is your favorite finance book?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Grant:<\/b> Your Money Your Life Vicki Robin Joe Dominguez. I read in September 2010. Simple premise, what are you willing to trade your life for? Completely changed my life. I interpreted it, now knowing Vicki and working with Vicki, I interpreted it much different than she intended. My interpretation was, \u201cOh if I\u2019m trading my life energy for money, I need to make as much money as possible.\u201d Which wasn\u2019t her intention at all. But yeah best book on money period.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott:<\/b> Love it. What would you say your biggest money mistake in maybe those first couple years were?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Grant:<\/b> Probably my biggest money mistake was I actually didn\u2019t invest in real estate soon enough. So I\u2019m a huge believer now after talking to so many people and reading so many books and just spending my life now writing about this, that real estate is by far the fastest path to FI hands down. I mean just two or three properties-<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott:<\/b> After entrepreneurship and these side hustles after 350k.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Grant:<\/b> Yeah, preaching to the choir here. But I would have invested in real estate sooner and I probably would have made more investments in real estate. I never actually house hacked myself, I just lived in a crappy apartment. I probably could have lived in a nicer apartment and had a couple of roommates. So that would have been the biggest thing that I would have done.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott:<\/b> Love it. I love how your mistake is an opportunity cost right. I think most people say, \u201cI took out a bad debt on this car or whatever.\u201d No it\u2019s if you\u2019re really kind of optimizing here it\u2019s always I failed to invest in the appropriate opportunity. That\u2019s has been my philosophy. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Grant:<\/b> Yeah saving is an opportunity not a sacrifice. And even debt I wish people stopped talking about debt because debt is the biggest excuse and crutch that most people use not to save or not to go out and make more money. Like I had like over $20,000 in credit card debt in 2010 and I was just like, \u201cIf I just let this hold me back, it\u2019s counterproductive. I\u2019m going to go out and make $20,000 and pay it off in one fast swoop instead of try to chip away at it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott:<\/b> Love it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy:<\/b> Yeah that\u2019s fantastic. And you\u2019re right, debt is the biggest crutch and excuse that people use. Oh I can\u2019t do it I\u2019m in debt. Well then get out of debt. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Grant:<\/b> Or just don\u2019t think about it for a while and go out and make more money and then deal with it later. It\u2019s just like gosh any excuse, people just come up with excuses and that\u2019s fine. I mean that\u2019s up to them. But you can\u2019t say that this isn\u2019t rocket science. None of this stuff that we talked about is rocket science. It\u2019s like just do it for a little while. You don\u2019t have to do it forever, do it for three years. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">And you\u2019re going to be better than 99.9% of people in the world and then go back to living that life that you were living before if you want to. But it\u2019s all about having that cushion and just doing this for a little while. It\u2019s not all or nothing, just because you don\u2019t like your living situation or your apartment sucks doesn\u2019t mean that you have to live there in two years.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Just do it for a while and bank the difference. I figured that every $700 that I was saving per month living in a crappy apartment now, because of all the investing that used, I saved like over $20,000 in two years, that\u2019s worth over $300,000 now because I invested it in Facebook and Amazon. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">And I feel grateful that I started investing in 2010. And that\u2019s the one question I get are like, \u201cOh you got lucky you started investing in 2010.\u201d And I was like, \u201cWell I set myself up for luck, it\u2019s like I was ready when it came. Sure it would have taken me maybe three to five years longer.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott:<\/b> You also got lucky by investing in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, here 2018. Right so you\u2019ll be lucky again maybe you won\u2019t but-<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Grant:<\/b> Yeah set yourself up for luck. I just wish that people took some pressure off themselves. I think money people feel so much pressure and you can just feel like do better than you\u2019re doing and keep doing better every month. But don\u2019t stress if you fall off the boat and spend too much money this month and spend too much money.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">It\u2019s one of those things where it\u2019s like as long as you\u2019re moving in the right direction, good is better than nothing. You don\u2019t have to be best, you don\u2019t have to understand everything, you don\u2019t have to have it all figured out. Just get started and it\u2019s going to be messy for a while and you\u2019re going to mess up and you\u2019re going to fall off.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">But the beautiful thing about money is that it grows if you keep adding to it and if you keep investing. Even if you didn\u2019t invest this month or didn\u2019t invest as much. And at the end of the day I always recommend to people, it\u2019s like look back at what you spent the past month, and look through that lens of did we enjoy what we spent our money on?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">And maybe you spent too much money but you had a killer month and it was amazing, you won the game. Sure you didn\u2019t save as much as you wanted but you had an awesome month. That\u2019s a month that you\u2019re never going to get back. So take deep breaths, start over again and then maybe use that information to re-optimize how you\u2019re spending money.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">And in January when you can\u2019t go outside spend less but in July when you can travel all the time, spend more. So don\u2019t be so hard on yourself. Take it easy this is all relative. This is life we\u2019re going to make mistakes. So make sure you\u2019re having a good time.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy:<\/b> Okay. Well I think that kind of jumped the gun for the next question which is what is the best piece of advice for people who are just starting out? Kind of everything you just said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Grant:<\/b> Yeah. I mean I think the biggest thing whether you\u2019re in a relationship or doing this by yourself, just sit down and write down what the perfect day looks like for you, the perfect week. Just write some things down. It can just be a scribble like what do you enjoy doing? Okay I like walking my dog in the park I like having bears with my friends, I like playing in fantasies football league.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">I like reading books, I like doing XY and Z. and then step back and actually ask yourself how much money it costs to live that day or live that week or live that life. And this is one of the things is a vast majority of those things that tend to make us happiest cost very little if any money at all. So realign your life so that you can do more of those things. You know what I mean.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">It\u2019s like you talk to like I don\u2019t know if you know Alec Honnold the really famous mountain climber, he just climbed El Capitan in Yosemite, Free Solo great documentary I highly recommend it. But he\u2019s just like, \u201cI get paid to do what I love and I mean that\u2019s what it\u2019s about. He gets to do what makes him happy, he gets to go out.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">So if you really enjoy reading and writing and travelling just make sure you set your life up to do a lot of that and figure out how much money it costs to do that. Don\u2019t just think, \u201cOh I need this promotion or this job,\u201d because arguably with more money and promotions often comes more expectation and more responsibility.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">So even thought you might want that promotion and want to make $50,000 more, your boss is going to expect you to stay later and they\u2019re going to expect a lot more from you. So if you\u2019re happy with how much money you\u2019re making and it fuels your lifestyle, once again you\u2019ve probably won the game. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott:<\/b> I love it. Alright what is your favorite joke to tell at parties?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Grant:<\/b> Gosh I was thinking about this. So I\u2019m kind of a spur of the moment joke person. I\u2019m not someone that comes prepared with jokes to tell, that\u2019s kind of not me. So I\u2019m kind of more opportunistic where I look for that particular thing that\u2019s happening in the moment. And I often make reference back to for example maybe a current event. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">So I often have a lot of political jokes which I make sure I will not bring here on this podcast. But I\u2019m more of opportunistic. I don\u2019t think that I have like a prepared party joke. I\u2019m more in the moment and that\u2019s kind of how I live my life.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott:<\/b> Alright. We often get a good one from our audience.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Grant:<\/b> That\u2019s fine I mean I think they\u2019re often inappropriate. That\u2019s one of the things too.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy:<\/b> We\u2019re not against inappropriate jokes as long as it\u2019s well just say in advance.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Grant:<\/b> These are like after three glasses of wine inappropriate jokes. I might have said some to you Scott after a drink.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott:<\/b> Alright I got one from Ivan here. He says, did you hear about the claustrophobic astronaut?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Grant:<\/b> No.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott:<\/b> He just needed a little space.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Grant:<\/b> That\u2019s good.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy:<\/b> Thanks Ivan, that was awesome.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott:<\/b> Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy:<\/b> Okay. Grant Sabatier, tell me where people can find out more about you.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott:<\/b> Yeah. So I\u2019m going to do the shameless plug. I have a book that\u2019s coming out this week, Financial Freedom there you go. A Proven Path to All the Money You\u2019ll Ever Need, financialfreedombook.com, millennialmoney.com, @millennialmoney on Twitter and yeah. I\u2019m so stocked 2019 I\u2019m doing a 40 city book tour starting in March and then 17 international cities.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">So I\u2019m going to take this message around the world and help people hopefully have less stress around money and live lives that they enjoy and realize that money is not the goal time is.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott:<\/b> And by the way I\u2019ll say I got the chance to read the book early and loved it. And I think that we think very similarly in terms of how we kind of approach the challenge or money and really kind of out it so. Yeah go check it. When is it getting released again?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Grant:<\/b> February 5<\/span><span class=\"s2\"><sup>th<\/sup><\/span><span class=\"s1\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott:<\/b> February 5<\/span><span class=\"s2\"><sup>th<\/sup><\/span><span class=\"s1\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy:<\/b> That\u2019s tomorrow Scott.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Grant:<\/b> By it today and you\u2019ll get delivered tomorrow.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy:<\/b> Perfect. Alright Grant thank you so much for taking time out of your day to share just knowledge bomb after knowledge bomb. I\u2019m typing furiously trying to get all these quotes in and I\u2019m failing miserably. I\u2019m going to have to go back and listen to it again to get these all in but this was fabulous. Thank you so much.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Grant:<\/b> Yeah thank you. Thanks for all you do it\u2019s fun to be on this journey with you both and hope you have a good day.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy:<\/b> Thanks you too. We\u2019ll talk to your soon.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott:<\/b> Thank you. Alright that was Grant Sabatier from Millennial Money or should we say new author here of Financial Freedom. Again you could by that at financialfreedombook.com. I thought it was great so go check it out and that will be released tomorrow so congrats to Grant for releasing a book.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy:<\/b> Yeah that was really one of the best episodes we have had so far Scott. Just knowledge bomb after tip after actionable bit of information that you can take and apply to your life and really just further yourself down the financial path. I really thought it was very interesting, he said you only have to do this for a few years.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">You don\u2019t have to actually reach financial independence, and like I said, my sister has a job that she doesn\u2019t really love anymore but she used to. And having the freedom of having a large cash cushion would have allowed here to go and find a new job without having to worry about being able to pay her mortgage and put food on the table and sort of thing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">So I think that\u2019s a bit of information that we haven\u2019t heard before is you don\u2019t have to follow this all the way to the end. Anything you\u2019re doing, any progress that you\u2019re making is better than doing nothing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott:<\/b> Yeah and I can relate to that entirely because when I started on the journey to financial freedom as an individual I remember going through that phase of just optimizing and depriving of everything, right making these like fairly large sacrifices, moving to places that were well below my means, biking in cold weather, preparing six days\u2019 worth of meals in advance.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Having minute by minute the whole day planned out to maximize opportunity maximize learning maximize income potential future growth all that kind of stuff. And I did that for a year or two it was pretty hardcore. Sometimes I forget how hardcore it was. But after that I built a base of financial stability from which I could scale and that became less meaningful.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">So now I don\u2019t have to optimize on every single front, and I can kind of enjoy and I\u2019m going to continue course through have my wealth grow and all that kind of stuff. I can relate exactly to what Grant is talking about. And we got another guy here at the office called Craig Cullop he\u2019s been on one of the episodes I forget which one.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy:<\/b> Show 45.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott:<\/b> Yeah he\u2019s currently doing that, right. And again all of us know like the goal is not to live 50 years in complete all out optimization every front in the pursuit of making more money. That\u2019s ridiculous right. That\u2019s totally defeating the purpose of life and financial freedom. But if you can do that for a couple of years you might explode past all of that and be able to do whatever you want and live exactly the lifestyle you want within three, four, five years to the letter especially if you started the position of little to nothing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy:<\/b> That was great. Scott I wanted to mention because this is BiggerPockets Money but primarily BiggerPockets is real estate investing. And while Grant\u2019s primary investment is not real estate his biggest money mistake was not investing in real estate early enough. And I wanted to just remind everybody that BiggerPockets.com is a real estate investing website.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">We have a forum where you can talk about all of the things that you are interested in doing. You can ask questions to get answers to specific situations that you\u2019re encountering. There\u2019s a blog, we have two podcasts, the money podcast and also the real estate investing podcast. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">And we have this new thing called Deal Diaries where you can go onto your profile and share your experiences. It helps give a little bit of I don\u2019t want to say legitimacy because that makes it sound like if you don\u2019t have this you\u2019re not legitimate. But it helps lend to your site credibility, right. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Filling out all the information about deals that you\u2019ve had, partnerships that you\u2019ve made with people that you\u2019ve found on BiggerPockets. That\u2019s another great thing that you can use BiggerPockets for. So I just wanted to remind everybody, it\u2019s a new year new you, all of that BiggerPockets.com is a really fantastic place to go to learn how to invest in real estate.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott:<\/b> Yeah and our philosophy always boils down to your odds of success increase if you can see and hear and learn from stories from people who are like you, near you succeeding on the journey to financial freedom through real estate. And that\u2019s what we\u2019re trying to do enmasse with these deal diaries. So please do post them and go check them out if you\u2019re interested.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy:<\/b> Awesome. Okay should we get out of here Scott?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott:<\/b> Let\u2019s do it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy:<\/b> Okay from episode 58 of the BiggerPockets Money Podcast, this is Scott Trench and Mindy Jensen saying sayonara<i>.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<h2>Watch the Podcast Here<\/h2>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Optimizing Every Channel to Achieve Financial Freedom with Grant Sabatier | BP Money 58\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/SWBfe4Qd7HQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h2>Help Us Out!<\/h2>\n<p>Help us reach new listeners on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/biggerpockets-money-podcast\/id1330225136\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">iTunes<\/a>\u00a0by leaving us a rating and review! It takes just 30 seconds.\u00a0Thanks! We really appreciate it!<\/p>\n<h2>Podcast Sponsors<\/h2>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-102654 no-display appear\" src=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Blinkist-Logo.png\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 275px) 100vw, 275px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Blinkist-Logo.png 3000w, https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Blinkist-Logo-300x72.png 300w, https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Blinkist-Logo-768x184.png 768w, https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Blinkist-Logo-1024x245.png 1024w\" alt=\"\" width=\"275\" height=\"66\" title=\"\">Almost none of us have the time to read everything we\u2019d like to read. Yet we lose countless hours to activities that bring us little joy such as commuting, chores and staring at our phones. What if we could turn these little blocks of unallocated time into precious and rewarding moments for learning and reflection? Founded in 2012 by four friends, Blinkist now connects 6-million readers worldwide to the biggest ideas from bestselling nonfiction via 15-minute audio and text.<\/p>\n<p>Blinkist has a special offer for YOU. It\u2019s a FREE 7 day trial \u2014 just go to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.blinkist.com\/biggerpockets\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Blinkist.com\/biggerpockets<\/a><\/p>\n<h2>Second Sponsor<\/h2>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-107203\" src=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/EveryPlate-Logo.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"239\" height=\"133\" title=\"\"><strong>EveryPlate<\/strong> is America&#8217;s best value meal kit delivering filling, familiar, pre-measured ingredients with simple recipes, at only $4.99\/meal. Flexible menus, plans and deliveries.<\/p>\n<p>Get six free meals in your first three weeks by visiting <a href=\"https:\/\/www.everyplate.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">EveryPlate.com<\/a> and enter code: <em>money6<\/em><\/p>\n<h2>In This Episode We Cover:<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Grant&#8217;s <strong>money journey<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>On looking at money as a <strong>stressful<\/strong> thing<\/li>\n<li><strong>Living with his parents<\/strong> again after working in a cubicle for four years<\/li>\n<li>How <strong>Google Mobile Ads<\/strong> helped him<\/li>\n<li>Getting Google AdWords <strong>certification<\/strong> for free<\/li>\n<li>How running Google Ads campaigns helped him achieve <strong>financial freedom<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>On earning almost $300,000 building websites and flipping mopeds as a <strong>side hustle<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>On <strong>saving<\/strong> 82% of his income<\/li>\n<li>How he got <strong>$1.25 million<\/strong> in his investment account in five years<\/li>\n<li>On having the &#8220;<strong>spend less, save more<\/strong>, and take free online courses\u201d mindset<\/li>\n<li>Looking at <strong>time and money<\/strong> as human inventions<\/li>\n<li>Good step for people who just discovered the concept of <strong>financial independence<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>The advantages of <strong>working remotely<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>The difference between side hustling for someone else and side hustling <strong>for yourself<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>On <strong>living a life you love<\/strong> regardless of the amount of money you are making<\/li>\n<li>The <strong>differences<\/strong> between financial independence and financial freedom<\/li>\n<li><strong>And SO much more!<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Links from the Show<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"\/renewsblog\/biggerpockets-money-podcast-28-how-anyone-can-easily-make-extra-money-using-side-hustles-with-nick-loper\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">BiggerPockets Money Podcast 28: How Anyone Can Easily Make Extra Money Using Side Hustles with Nick Loper<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"\/renewsblog\/biggerpockets-money-podcast-35hacking-life-live-almostfree-craig-curelop\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">BiggerPockets Money Podcast 35: Hacking Your Life to Live for (Almost) Free with Craig Curelop<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"\/renewsblog\/biggerpockets-money-podcast-24-getting-financially-naked-with-your-significant-other-with-erin-lowry\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">BiggerPockets Money Podcast 24: Getting Financially \u201cNaked\u201d with Your Significant Other \u2014 With Erin Lowry<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"\/renewsblog\/biggerpockets-money-podcast-50-rebuilding-financial-life-after-bankruptcy-patrice-washington\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">BiggerPockets Money Podcast 50: Rebuilding Your Financial Life After Bankruptcy with Patrice Washington<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/adwords.google.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Google AdWords<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/podcast\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">BiggerPockets Podcast<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/moneyshow\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">BiggerPockets Money Podcast<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/forums\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">BiggerPockets Forums<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/forums\/522-investor-deal-diaries\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">BiggerPockets: Real Estate Investor Deal Diaries<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lyft.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Lyft<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.uber.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Uber<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.coffeehouseinvestor.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Coffeehouse Investor<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.madfientist.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mad Fientist<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"\/renewsblog\/biggerpockets-money-podcast-18-accessing-retirement-funds-mad-fientist\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">BiggerPockets Money Podcast 18: Accessing Retirement Funds Before Age 59\u00bd with The Mad Fientist<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.glassdoor.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Glassdoor<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Amazon<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt7775622\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Free Solo Documentary<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/finconexpo.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">FinCon<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.upwork.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Upwork<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Books Mentioned in this Show<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/2MJb8ze\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>The Bogleheads&#8217; Guide to Investing<\/em><\/a> by Taylor Larimore and Mel Lindauer<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/2TrIRj8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>The Coffeehouse Investor<\/em><\/a> by Bill Schultheis<\/li>\n<li><em><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/2Toxf0o\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Set for Life<\/a><\/em> by Scott Trench<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/2ML72qq\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>Your Money or Your Life<\/em><\/a> by Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Tweetable Topics:<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;I think when you really firmly commit to something, especially trying to reach FI as quickly as possible, the gains compound, the energy compounds.&#8221;\u00a0(<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/home?status=%22I%20think%20when%20you%20really%20firmly%20commit%20to%20something,%20especially%20trying%20to%20reach%20FI%20as%20quickly%20as%20possible,%20the%20gains%20compound,%20the%20energy%20compounds.%22%20BP%20Money%20Podcast%2058%20biggerpockets.com\/moneyshow58%20%40biggerpockets\" target=\"_blank\">Tweet This!<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;The whole idea of saving as much as early and often as you can was a much sounder strategy than rolling the dice and banking on an uncertain future.&#8221;\u00a0(<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/home?status=%22The%20whole%20idea%20of%20saving%20as%20much%20as%20early%20and%20often%20as%20you%20can%20was%20a%20much%20sounder%20strategy%20than%20rolling%20the%20dice%20and%20banking%20on%20an%20uncertain%20future.%22%20BP%20Money%20Podcast%2058%20biggerpockets.com\/moneyshow58%20%40biggerpockets\" target=\"_blank\">Tweet This!<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;As long as people keep believing that time is money and that they need to trade their time for money, they&#8217;re always going to be held hostage by that simple idea.&#8221;\u00a0(<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/home?status=%22As%20long%20as%20people%20keep%20believing%20that%20time%20is%20money%20and%20that%20they%20need%20to%20trade%20their%20time%20for%20money,%20they&#039;re%20always%20going%20to%20be%20held%20hostage%20by%20that%20simple%20idea.%22%20BP%20Money%20Podcast%2058%20biggerpockets.com\/moneyshow58%20%40biggerpockets\" target=\"_blank\">Tweet This!<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Money gives you the ability to have more control over the time and space in your life to do what you want with it.&#8221;\u00a0(<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/home?status=%22Money%20gives%20you%20the%20ability%20to%20have%20more%20control%20over%20the%20time%20and%20space%20in%20your%20life%20to%20do%20what%20you%20want%20with%20it.%22%20BP%20Money%20Podcast%2058%20biggerpockets.com\/moneyshow58%20%40biggerpockets\" target=\"_blank\">Tweet This!<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Life is the unexpected, it is not the optimized.&#8221;\u00a0(<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/home?status=%22Life%20is%20the%20unexpected,%20it%20is%20not%20the%20optimized.%22%20BP%20Money%20Podcast%2058%20biggerpockets.com\/moneyshow58%20%40biggerpockets\" target=\"_blank\">Tweet This!<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Time is much more rich and valuable than money.&#8221;\u00a0(<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/home?status=%22Time%20is%20much%20more%20rich%20and%20valuable%20than%20money.%22%20BP%20Money%20Podcast%2058%20biggerpockets.com\/moneyshow58%20%40biggerpockets\" target=\"_blank\">Tweet This!<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;With more money and promotions often comes more expectation and more responsibility.&#8221;\u00a0(<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/home?status=%22With%20more%20money%20and%20promotions%20often%20comes%20more%20expectation%20and%20more%20responsibility.%22%20BP%20Money%20Podcast%2058%20biggerpockets.com\/moneyshow58%20%40biggerpockets\" target=\"_blank\">Tweet This!<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Skills are future currency.&#8221;\u00a0(<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/home?status=%22Skills%20are%20future%20currency.%22%20BP%20Money%20Podcast%2058%20biggerpockets.com\/moneyshow58%20%40biggerpockets\" target=\"_blank\">Tweet This!<\/a>)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Connect with Grant<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/millennialmoney.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Millennial Money<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/financialfreedombook.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Financial Freedom Book<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/financialfreedompodcast.com\/Millennial\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Financial Freedom Podcast<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/millennialmoney.com\/podcast-episodes\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Money Minutes Podcast<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/millennialmoney?lang=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Grant&#8217;s Twitter Profile<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Grant grew up knowing his parents didn\u2019t have much money. He recognized their constant stress about finances throughout his childhood, and graduating from college in the middle of the Great Recession didn\u2019t do much for his financial outlook. Tune in to hear how he discovered and achieved financial freedom!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":353007,"featured_media":107148,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6473],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-107143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-biggerpocketsmoney"],"acf":[],"comment_count":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/353007"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}