The Proven Path to Financial Freedom | Grant Sabatier | The Financial Independence Show Podcast

In today’s episode, Cody and Justin bring you an awesome episode full of philosophical discussion to go along with the background of Grant Sabatier who went from $2.26 in his checking account to $1.25M in 5 years!

Our main hope is you come away with a little more insight into Grant's brain as we tackle some interesting questions like

Do people optimize too much?
Can a journey to FI be harmful?
Does someone need to know their why?
Is becoming an entrepreneur the answer?

If you enjoyed this episode or want to get to know more about Grant, we encourage you to pick up his new book Financial Freedom today!
Episode Summary

Graduated with philosophy degree
Bounced around 4 jobs after college
Was laid off twice
Spent what money he had going on a big trip to Africa
Ended up back at his parents with $2.26 at age 24
He was also carrying credit card debt
His parents gave him a 3 month time limit to figure things out

This was during 2010

He started googling for books about money and landed on Your Money Or Your Life as well as Automatic Millionaire

Grant realized if he was going to be trading life for money, he became focused on how he could make as much as possible

He sat a goal to make $1M and retire as soon as possible

A few weeks later he discovered Google Mobile Ads as well as a free certification course

He was immediately hired upon completion

He started making $50k

It was until 2.5 years later that he found others on the path to financial independence at a young age

He working extremely hard working 7 days a week most of the time

He started building websites plus flipping VW vans and mopeds, and flipping domains

Today he still has over 800 domains

He began to gain a lot of traction with his main job of managing Google campaigns

He attributes this to understanding how he's perceived, knowing what value he brings, and understanding what his clients need to do to impress their boss

One tactic he had was actually writing messages for the client to express how this deal would be good for them

Then he talks about how easy it is to see the difference between someone just putting in a lot of hours and those they put out quality work

The discussion then swaps to skills which Grant refers to as the future currency

Also to make sure that you learn skills that may not tie together at surface level like analytics, sales, and coding

Great quote I don't know how to do that is no longer an excuse in this digital age

He talks about how at 18 when graduating from high school, you simply don't know what you want to be so a structured plan can be tough but you have a huge opportunity to take risks

He argues that too much personality finance writing is about cutting out things that we enjoy or being too afraid of debt

To worry more about making more money vs stressing about something like student loans

He talks about knowing where you want to go and then focusing on how much you need to make to get there instead of settling on what you think you're worth

Grant talks about knowing where you want to go and then focusing on how much you need to make to get there instead of settling on what you think you're worth

He also talks about the risks of climbing the corporate ladder and what that can do to your life and family

Then we talk about over optimizing our lives and our budgets

This ties into how much of our life we miss by not living in the moment and how Americans struggle with this more than some countries

He also admits that he gave up to much life and experiences by being so hyoerfocused on retiring

You can be just as addicted to saving money as someone who is addicted to spending it and both are dangerous

His wish is that everyone who finds themselves in a job they didn't love would take 6 months off without a concrete plan to discov...