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How does hitting financial independence in your early thirties sound?
After two layoffs and a rocky start to his career, Grant Sabatier taught himself Google advertising, got a certification, and built a six-figure business. At his max, he had 52 clients and 11 income streams coming in. He put his head down for 5 years, working as hard as he possibly could and saving over 80% of his income. He came out in the end with $1.25M (enough money to live on for the rest of his life). He has since quit his business to focus full time on his passion, which is spreading awareness of personal finance and financial independence.
We chat about…
- Controlling your own career path
- Graduate degrees
- Data science & SQL skills
- VW campers
- Entrepreneurship
- Time vs Money
- His NEW book coming out!
Enjoy this chat with Grant, and please subscribe to us in iTunes if you enjoyed it!
Show notes and links from today’s episode
- Millennial Money– Grant’sblog
- Millennial Money Minutes Podcast–which Gwen & J have both been on!
- @millennialmoney Twitter
- Kaggle.com– data science challenges
- Coursera, W3 Schools – places tolearn technical skills
- Ep 36: The State of FIRE: Holiday Chat with Erin Lowry
Key takeaways from our chat with Grant of Millennial Money
1 – Focus on building skills
It doesn’t matter what your degree is in or what your experience has been.
Focus on collecting skills and you’ll open your own doors.
This is especially important when making decisions right out of college.
Don’t pick a job that pays $10,000 more but doesn’t give you the same hands on experience.
The job that pays less but teaches you more may be better for you in the long-term.
2 – Experience trumps formal education any day
Many people think that if they want to switch career paths, they have to go back to school (and pay for it).
Both Grant and J think that it’s possible to build your skill set and your experience without formal education.
In some ways, experiential learning can be better than formal learning.Academia can also be 1-2 years behind what’s out there in the industry.
Pick up a side project and grow your skills for free.
3 – Data analytics is hot right now
The ability to work with data is HUGE right now.
Gwen, J, & Grant have all dabbled in building this skill set.
They recommend:
- Learning SQL
- Challenging yourself to dive in
- Considering a communications or liaison role if you don’t want to code yourself
The best part is that you can teach yourself these skills online for free.
Pick a side project related to your personal passion and build your skills.
J gave the example of how she practiced accessing the Twitter API by searching for Mr Money Mustache’s most popular tweets.
You can seriously pick any topic that interests you to practice these skills.
4 – There is a certain point where you have to pick your life over money
Grant had achieved a crazy amount of success (he was managing $250M of media spend, he had a team of 52 people, he reached $1.25M and had 11 income streams coming in), and yet he found that he was no longer fulfilled. He decided he was ready to move on to the next phase of his life and pursue his passions.
His crazy high savings rate and years of hustle, gave him the savings he needed to make that move.
Now, Grant has the space to exist without being anxious about creating, traveling, and doing everything.
He has a new book coming out next year with Penguin and it’s going to be epic.
Questions? Like or dislike? Leave us a comment!
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