More Money Podcast - 196 Looking at the "Why" of Financial Independence - Grant Sabatier, Author of Financial Freedom

Episode Date: May 1, 2019

What was going to be an interview about how Grant Sabatier, blogger at Millennial Money and new author of Financial Freedom, was able to become a million in only 5 years, sure turned into something quite different! Maybe it’s because I’ve interviewed so many guests on the show about how they’ve reached millionaire status at such a young age, or because Grant majored in Philosophy, but in this episode we dive deep and talk about the “Why” behind wanting to reach financial independence. For Grant, saving up a million dollars meant freedom. All he wanted was freedom. He wanted to be able to dictate his own schedule and essentially not be forced to make life decisions based on the balance in his bank account. I know many other people working towards F.I.R.E. also seek freedom, but for others it’s security or a way of laying a foundation to take more calculated risks in life. What I’d suggest after listening to this episode is to define your financial independence “Why”. So many people think the goal is to become a millionaire, but money is just a tool at the end of the day. There are plenty of examples of unhappy and unfulfilled millionaires out there, just take a look. You need to find your “Why” or your purpose first, and then determine how much you need to save to get there. Then, you need to figure out the “How”, which you can do by grabbing a copy of Grant’s book. For full episode show notes, visit https://jessicamoorhouse.com/196 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to Episode 196 of the Mo Money Podcast. I'm your host, Jessica Morehouse. Thank you for joining me for another episode of the Mo Money Podcast. For this episode, I'm interviewing Grant Sabatier. He is called the Millennial Millionaire by CNBC. He's the founder of MillennialMoney.com, which has reached over 10 million readers. And his new book out called Financial Freedom, A Proven Path to All the Money You Will Ever Need. It came out this February. You can find out more information in the show notes for this episode, jessicamorouse.com slash 196, or go to financialfreedombook.com. I met him a few, yeah, I think it's a few years

ago now at FinCon. And I think at that point, he was just writing his book. And now it's out. And so once I learned that he has this book, I knew I needed to have him on the show because, you know, financial independence, fire, millennials and becoming millionaires, all these are very trendy things. And I wanted to talk to the guy that is, you know, has the moniker millennial millionaire. I think we need to talk about what, how, how, right? Right. So that is what we dive into in this episode. So I know you're going to love it. Before I get to that interview with Grant, I just want to share a few words about this episode's sponsor. This episode of the

Mo Money Podcast is supported by TD Direct Investing. What are you investing for? Retirement? Sure, that's a common investment goal. But what about a major purchase or simply building wealth? With TD Direct Investing's new Goal Assist tool, you can build your confidence as a DIY investor by setting investment goals and creating a plan to help you reach them. Once you open your TD Direct Investing account, or maybe you already have one, navigate to the Goals tab on the top menu. That's where you can use Goal Assist to help define your investment goal, validate your plan, and monitor your progress all in one place. You can even set up multiple goals with different time horizons and investment profiles.

Want to learn more? Visit the show notes for this episode or go to jessicamorehouse.com slash goal assist to watch my video tutorial. TD Direct Investing is a division of TD Waterhouse Canada Inc., a subsidiary of the Toronto Dominion Bank. Thank you so much, Grant, for joining me on the Momentum Podcast. I'm excited to have you on the show. Yeah, happy to be here. Yeah. So we met a few years back at a party at FinCon. And I remember you mentioning that you

had a book in the works and it was all kind of under wraps because it was all very new. And now the book is out. And that's very exciting. Before we kind of dive into the book, which is called Financial Freedom, and there's a ton, just going through the book, there's so much information in there. I'd love to kind of start from the beginning, which is kind of where your book starts anyways. Your story is very interesting. Your kind of splashy you know, at 24, you had $2 in your account. And then by 30, you had over a million. Can we go back to that 24-year-old who had no money in their account? Very relatable story, by the way. I think when I was reading that part of your book, like, oh, yeah, we've all been there. So do you want to kind of bring us back to kind of where you

started from to and then we can kind of go to where you ended up. Yeah, sure. So at the age of 24, I found myself living back home with my parents. I'd bounced around a number of different jobs after college and just never quite found the right fit. I ended up getting laid off twice, you know, just tried a bunch of different, you know, jobs and just, you know, wasn't really passionate about any of them, didn't kind of find a groove, was spending a lot more money than I was making. And so I ran out of money and had to move back home because I literally couldn't afford rent. So my parents said, okay, that's unfortunate. You can crash here for three months, but we're not going to give you any money. And so I was literally sleeping in the same bed that I slept in as a seven-year-old kid.

And it was pretty rough there for a couple of months. Pretty humbling, I bet. Oh, totally. Because you went to university and, like many of us, went to university, maybe got a job after university and thinking, all right, this is it. This is the start of my new life. And then having to go back to the parents, which is also, I think, pretty relatable for a lot of millennials these days. Like what, what was your kind of thought process? Like, did you just like, well, this sucks. And did it have a lot to do with the recession? Do you feel like?

Yeah, I think it definitely had a lot to do with the recession. It also had a lot to do with, you know, we all live in that world where, you know, we're told, find your passion and find your why and what makes you happy. And I never knew, I never had, you know, sort of a why. And that can be pretty stressful when, you know, you're in your mid 20s and you want to live this amazing life and you don't really know what you want to do and who you are. And you live in a world that tells you you need to figure that out, but you don't know how. And so I was pretty sad, pretty upset. And then my parents, they invested a lot in me in a lot of different ways. And so I felt like I was letting them down. I was letting myself down. I think it definitely had to do with the recession, but at the same time, you know, your early to mid twenties are very tough in a lot of ways. Especially if you don't

know what you want to do with your life. And I just felt a lot of pressure to figure that out. And so, yeah, I mean, I feel grateful that they let me come back and kind of recalibrate. And it also lit kind of a different level of fire under me. Okay. If I hadn't been, I think, laid off and had to move back home, then I probably wouldn't have done what I ended up doing. That's interesting because I feel like most people in your situation might just kind of throw their hands up and wallow in, you know, the situation that they find themselves in. But you found, okay, this isn't, this wasn't the plan. This isn't what I signed up for. And that kind of ended up being the motivation to like, like, and what did it motivate you to do, I guess, just because obviously, the kind of strategy you're doing, which is kind of the most of us do, go to school, apply for jobs, get jobs, stay there for a while, work your way up that corporate ladder, didn't really work for you. So what you're like, okay, I need to do something different. What was kind of that first thing you're like, this is the one thing, this is something I'm going to try to do different next. Yeah. So, I mean, I realized,

you know, I was obviously stressed about money. I also just looked at my parents and my parents from their late fifties at the time, they were stressed about money. I also just looked at my parents. My parents from their late 50s at the time, they were stressed about money. All my friends were stressed about money. And I was just like, I can't go back to those jobs. They were all in cubicles. They were all really stifling. I was like, what is money? I never really thought about it, to be honest. And I was a philosophy major in college. And so I started putting that type of a lens onto money. And I was like, you know, what is it? And obviously, you realized it was a human invention. But why do we embed it with so much power, so much meaning, so much emotion? And then

most importantly, what have I been taught about money? And I made a list. And I think I had eight or 10 things that I put down that I'd always been taught. And the first one was that time is money. And I really kind of got stuck on that where I was like, you know, time is actually so much more valuable than money. You can always go out and make more money, but you can't get back your time. Like, I think that's, that's gotta be a myth.

And then the other thing is, you know, the, you know, save five to 10% of your income and you're going to be fine. I ran just some simple numbers where I was like, gosh, if I'm making, you know, when I, when I'd gotten laid off, I was making around $45,000 US. And I was like, if I start again and save five or 10% of my income, I'm literally never going to be able to retire. So it's like, is this some sort of joke? And then, you know, how can I maybe do things a little bit differently than my parents did, than other people around me were doing?

And can I try to make a lot of money quickly with the goal of just buying more time and freedom for myself? And so I came up with this very arbitrary goal to save a million dollars as quickly as possible. I mean, that was as sophisticated as it was. I was like, I'm going to save a million dollars. And I was like, okay, if I can make $50,000 and save, you know, $50,000 after taxes and save all my money, it'll take me 20 years. Gosh, that's a really, really, really long time. So I have to find ways to make more money. And then I was like, all right, well, given the skills I have, I can't make really a lot of money with the skills that I have.

And I didn't really know what skills that I had. So then I went searching for something that was in demand. It was a growing industry that I could learn. And I thought about a lot of things. I thought about coding. I thought about maybe trying to go back to school. But once I did the math, I'm going back to school. I was like, whoa, in three years, I could have my MBA, but I would be $100,000 or more in debt. And then I'm just going to be starting over again at the age of 24. And I feel grateful that I was doing a Google search at the time.

And I saw a Google ad on my phone and I'd never seen one before. It's like 2010. Yeah. And I was like, whoa, what's this? And so I Googled Google mobile ad and figured out that demand for, you know, Google campaign managers was projected to increase 300% in the next decade. And then probably most exciting, I didn't need to take a ton of classes or go back to school. I could get a free certification from Google. So I was like, whoa, this is a fast path to what is, you know, projected to be an in-demand industry. And so maybe I can make some money here. And then the final piece, I looked up how much you could charge running Google campaigns and that most companies who

are hiring agencies were paying between 10 and 20% of the media spend for a fee. And I was like, whoa, I was like, okay, so if I could get a client to spend a million dollars on their advertising, I could maybe make between $100,000 and $200,000 of that. So then I only need $5 million clients and I would have made a million. So I was just running these loose scenarios in my head. Yeah. So it sounds kind of like what you did is ideally the situation is like, if we were all smarter, this is what we would do after graduating high school and figuring out what kind of post-secondary education we want to do. But instead, I feel like a lot of us are still stuck in this idea. It's like, just go to university and then you'll figure it out. But why not figure it out before even going to a university? Because I think, and I've been seeing a lot of stories lately about how the degree, even though it seems

like it's like you need to have one in order to get a job, not necessarily so about how the degree, even though it seems like it's like you need to have one in order to get a job, not necessarily so much in the future because now everyone has a degree, so it's not so special. So it seems like kind of the, you're kind of breaking down of like, what is money? What's it mean to me? How can it get me the life that I want? And then how can I get money? It's kind of the flow. And it's like, if only we all did that so much sooner, hopefully someone's listening that's way younger and we'll be able to kind of do this way, way sooner in life. Yeah. And that's the thing is, you know, it's never been easier in history to make money. That doesn't mean it's easy.

No. But it's definitely getting easier. There's more, you know, flexibility and more just opportunities that are available to everyone. Like people like you and me that like didn't come from wealth, but you can do research on the internet and find out all this information. Whereas before I feel like it was only kind of an elite people, you know, had these connections or this information. Yeah.

And low cost investing opportunities are very accessible. And, you know, it's, we just live in a remarkable time. And I think the hardest thing in life to do, one of the hardest things is to figure out what kind of life you want to live, like really figure it out. And then after that, figure out how much money you need to live it. And that's one of the things that's exciting is because I think out of both necessity and because there's more people doing it, it's never been easier to kind of define success for yourself. And that's been the cool thing because my parents defined success a certain way. Everyone, or a lot of people I grew up with defined it a certain way. And so I was defining it that way. And it was incredibly empowering once I realized like, oh, I don't have to live

that life, even though everyone else around me is trying to live that life. Do you find that they were defining it as having, you know, you know, two cars, a house, all the stuff kind of thing? Yeah, I mean, that was one piece of it. It also, not to get too philosophical, but I think it's always easier in life to chase that next thing. And so it was a lot of that where it was like chasing the next job promotion or the next raise or the next, you know, maybe new car or bigger house, whatever, just chasing something in life. It's a lot harder to stop and be like, you know, what do I really want? What do I already have? You know, I meet a lot of people that make even great money and they're pretty unhappy.

And I'm asked, you know, then they want to make more. And I just ask them, you know, why do you actually want to make more money? And then like, you already have like pretty much everything that you're saying that you want. And that's one of those things too, where once you kind of realize what you already do have and then use money to kind of fill in the gaps. And then also the final thing is just like a lot of the things once I actually took stock of them that I enjoy doing in life, like playing guitar, playing my records, you know, walking my dog in the park with my wife,

like those things are either free or pretty, pretty inexpensive. Yeah. No, I think you definitely hit the nail on the head in terms of like, and I talked to a lot of, you know, you know of entrepreneurs on the show, and a lot of them will focus a lot on just how to make money. But I did this recording recently, and maybe I just wasn't super eloquent in saying it, but I was trying to ask them, but why do you want to make money? Let's get philosophical. Let's talk about why. And, you know, we kind of got there. But I think it's just like a very, like simple yet important question that most people never think about, unless they are really into this kind of, you know, they listen to my podcast, or they're in personal finance. And so they, you know, they're very people are talking about that in this community. But if you're not, if you, you're never really kind of into any of this stuff, most average people don't talk about money

in terms of what does it mean and your value system and time and your why and stuff like that. So I think it's really important that you really focus on that because, you know, like I mentioned, your splashy story is how you became a millionaire so quick. So it's, you know, refreshing to know it's not actually about the money, really. It's about what, what you can kind of get with that and what kind of life you can live. And it's sometimes the best things in life are free. Yeah. And that's, that's the thing that I didn't learn these lessons until I'd already become a millionaire. Ah, okay. So you were chasing the money first. And then once you got there, you're like, well, this didn't fix it. This isn't making me happy necessarily. point, you know, you need vast, like different people need vastly different amounts of money to feel free. Like I have a friend who makes literally $7,000 a year and he travels all over

the world and he's like free as a bird. And then I have friends who live in New York city that make like $300,000 a year and they think they need $5 million and they're always stressed and they're unhappy and it's like never enough. And so for me, it was more, it wasn't that I was chasing that next thing. It was, I wasn't stopping to do the actual work, which is harder. It is harder work. It is like sometimes hard to be like, this is what I want in life. And also realize this is the tough thing. We're always changing. We're always growing. And that was one of the things I realized realize this is the tough thing. We're always changing. We're always growing. And that was one of the things I realized too, is the finance industry sells a level of precision that's really unrealistic. Because who you are today,

you should grow, you should change, you are evolving. And so how can you have a relationship with money that grows as you grow? But for me, these are all things like I needed to get to a point where I had some time and space in my life to figure this out. And so I, and this is the thing too, you like don't need millions of dollars to have more time and space and freedom in your life. I thought that you did. Yeah. That's interesting. I think a lot of people think that too. I think a lot of people, cause I've talked to a lot of people that have, you know, retired early or reached financial independence. And it seems like the reason they were, you know, striving to achieve that was so they could get that time or that, or, you know, finally I can, you know, do what I want, you know, write that,

you know, book or paint or whatever. it's like you i mean life is short and it may take you several several decades or years to reach that and and when you get to that point where you have a million dollars in the bank you may realize you like that's that's not the solution like you said it's like take like you can figure that out you can figure out what you want out of life what makes you happy your, your why, your grand why before that point. I mean, it's nice to have a billion bucks in the bank, but you don't need to. Yeah, exactly. Or maybe you do, but you've really thought hard about why you do. And then the thing is, it's all really, it's like all really empowering in the sense that once you realize that there's so little that we

control in our lives, but money is one of those things that we have a lot more control over than we think. And so when you figure out money and you just start to get more comfortable with it, and then you use that as a pathway to freedom or a pathway to the life that you want, you know, you're in control. It's not like money's in control or even your boss. Absolutely. And it's, yeah, it's, it's a very empowering thing. Like you said, it really is. Yeah. Yeah. But it is harder to do the work of like, who am I? And that's the funny thing, you know, who am I or who do I want to be? And where am I at in that process? That's, that's the stuff that people run away from.

I mean, a lot of people spend their whole lives asleep, you know, and they're just always chasing that thing. And I feel very grateful that figuring out money and money became a catalyst with which to go deeper and discover who I was. But it even took me a while after becoming financially independent to kind of figure that out. And the biggest revelation was, it wasn't really about the money at all. Like what I was actually seeking was peace. Like I wanted to wake up and just feel like comfortable and at ease with my life. And it wasn't even about it, which is crazy. You know,

it's like I did all this work to arrive at that. And I think it's really, really hard in our lives when we're all so busy. And this is the paradox of the gig economy is that like, yeah, you can go out and make money on your own and do your own thing, but it takes a lot of time and you got to hunt down invoices and you got to hunt down, like, you know, it's just, there's so many things to managing any type of business, any type of life that very, very hard to, I think, do kind of that soul searching, for lack of a better phrase, in like, you know, 10 vacation

days a year or on a long weekend. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And it also kind of just made me think too, because I, when I did work, you know, a nine to five and I kind of always had a side hustle or a second job on top of it because out of necessity, I just couldn't earn enough to live in an expensive city and save money. And it was really difficult to find those pockets of time to really reflect. I mean, it's hard. And especially when I moved to Toronto, a lot of my vacation time was taken up by going back home to visit family. So it was like there was no time to have kind of me time and reflection. But I think it's really important to just remember and what I've realized over the years, it's not about the amount of time, it's just about having like that quality of time, like just a personal example this weekend, you know, for the past couple of months, I'm like, oh, I really need to set my goals for the year.

And I don't know why I'm not motivated to do it. Or I just don't, it makes me anxious just thinking about it, but I feel kind of floating or just don't have much of a sense of direction without just outlining some goals. I know it's not hard. I just have to write some things in a notebook and look at what I did last year. And that's what I did this weekend. And it took all of 20 minutes. And you're like, oh, why was it so hard for me to get to that point? And I think part of it is just like, it's difficult to just kind of, you know, audit yourself a little bit and see like, how am I doing? And did I fail? Or am I doing okay? Yeah. And to also, yeah, not put so much pressure on yourself. Yeah. Because that's one of the things is like, I actually don't set

goals hardly ever anymore. I found that goal setting stressed me out and actually took me away from sort of life and existing. And that's one of the things, one of the hardest things for me to do has been to give myself permission to do nothing. Yeah, that is difficult because in this society where it's a good thing to be busy or you look important or special if you're busy. Yeah. Or we're just all like, you know, I think we're like similar, like, yeah, we're the same age.

And it's just like, even though we're like not online because we grew up online, we always feel like we're online. Yeah. And so it's like the internet never sleeps. And so neither do we. Yeah. And I think we're all like just very,

very tired in a lot of ways. Yes. And, um, money's addicting and, you know, it's, uh, so is, you know, your social media presence. And so are all those things that we feel like so much of the information that's pumped out

these days is about, yeah, becoming better, self-improvement, getting more money. But it's rare when people have conversations kind of like this, where it's like, yeah, well, you know, we'll talk about, you know, other things in your book, like how to get there. But I think it's more important to understand why do you want to get there? And that's something that I've had to kind of think about or come to terms with in my own life. I mean, again, as you say, people evolve and your mind may change and whatever. But I always see all these people starting startups and making crazy money. And I'm like, well, I'm self-employed.

I run my own business. I'm a company of one. But I'm happy that way. But I almost feel like I should want more. I should want to grow a company and have employees and stuff like that. And it's one thing that, yeah, I've kind of come to terms with is like, I don't need to do what other people are doing if what's working for me is working for me. Yeah. I mean, I, to the same point, like I walked away from two very successful businesses that I'd started simply because I was no longer growing. And to me, like the purpose of life is to be fully alive and to be fully alive means things have to be interesting. They have to change. They have to grow. You want to set challenges, but I think challenges are different than goals in a lot of ways. Because a challenge is like, I'm going to climb that mountain and I'm going to figure out how to climb that mountain. And that was the big thing with the book for me. This is the

craziest lesson, I think, of that whole process of writing that book. And it took me 2,800 hours around there to write. So much time, so much. And the thing is so many things in life, like, you know, we control so, so few of the variables, like, you know, how many copies is it going to sell and how many people is it going to reach? Like you obviously want it to do really well, but the only thing that we can truly control is the effort and the quality of the effort that we put into it. And I want, I try to look at my life and, you know, like, okay, if I'm like 80, you know, like a lot of people do this, but like, and I'm looking back and I don't want to have regrets. Like for me, it's built around the idea

that I can only do my best. And that idea of like, only do my best is like, I always just try to leave it all out on the floor. But I think trying to do your best is very different than trying to do better. And that's like, we live in the, you know, we live in the Tim Ferriss world. We live in the quantified self world where it's like habit stacking and like I wake up and I meditate and I do the, you know, the water with the lime and the lemon and the, all these things. And I think that we've like kind of like over optimized ourself and kind of taken the life out of life in a lot of ways. Agreed.

It's all about how much you can fit in in one day, which that's why I can't stand any of like the, you know, when you read those articles of like, oh, successful entrepreneur, this is a day in the life. And it just stresses me out because it is like I wake up at five and then meditate and then go work out and then do 20 million things. I'm like, oh my God, I can't, I don't want to, I don't want to do that. Yeah. And then it's just a contest. I mean, it's something like a contest and then you feel bad because you're not the same way. And I think that that's one of the things too, where a lot of like, for me, like happiness or just being at ease or being at peace has come through letting go of a lot of those things. And once you can like, it's kind of like, just figure out like what everyone is doing

and then just like, don't do that. Yeah. You know, I really feel that's true. It's like, it's like you have to let go of like, oh, they're all doing that, but I'm going to let go and I'm going to do my own thing. Which is so hard because like we're built as like humans to want to, yeah, do what everyone else is doing. Otherwise we feel like, oh my gosh, am I doing something wrong?

I think it's like a muscle though. I think that like, you know, once you realize that like the peace and freedom that you seek in your life is already within you like once you realize that it's like already inside you that you and your relationship to yourself is so much not more important but you have much more control over it than you do your relationship with the world yep and this is the thing is everyone like always tries to externalize everything but once you start to actually like do the work inside it actually becomes it's very hard i'm not saying this is easy but it's it's it's something where you surprise yourself yeah and you realize like things start that used

to really bother you they start like rolling off your you know know, your back. Like I, it's crazy. I was like moving some books out of my like little WeWork space in downtown Manhattan. And I like got a rental car to move them. And I parked the rental car and then my dog was in the car and then the car got towed while I was moving the books and all these things happened. And I realized like, I didn't lose my cool once. Like I just went and I tracked, you know, took me like three hours to track down the car, to go get it, to get my dog, all these things. And I was just very calm the entire time. And I was like, oh, gosh, if this had been like five years ago, I'd just be freaking out. I'd be a complete mess.

I'd be just like totally stressed out and you realize that when you kind of do that work and you start, I'm trying to put the words to this, when you start realizing that like your relationship with yourself is, and you work on that, then those things that used to stress you out don't as much. And then it becomes, I'm not saying it's easy, but it comes a little bit easier to be like, oh, even though all my friends are doing this or living this life or are part of the hustle, hustle, go, go, go, go kind of person. And so I think it's going to take me years to fully let go of that sort of wound up intensity. But it definitely does get easier over time. The real challenge is when, you know, I think a lot of people when it comes to money, they're just really stuck. Yeah. And it's very hard to get perspective on your life when you're stuck.

And so I've actually spent a lot of my time, I think I'm going to write my second book on just getting unstuck. Because I think it's very, very hard to see clearly who you are and what your life is like when you're kind of in that pressure cooker. Definitely. And yeah, like you said, we're so, you know, especially like everyone that's like working that nine to five, maybe also has a side hustle and has responsibilities, family. It's your life is full and it's very common for people just to wake up one morning and be like, what the hell am I doing? What is my life?

And it's something that it's not just something that you're supposed to just, okay, you know, one day of the year really take an assessment. It's kind of like for me, I'm always taking an assessment of like, what is my grandparents have passed away. So I know it's like, okay, I'm not going to be here forever. So let's not waste time. I want to make sure every decision I make, it's something that makes me happy or it's something I want to do. But yeah, it's a bigger... I'm excited for that second book because I feel like a lot of people are in that situation. I was definitely stuck. Luckily, I felt like when I was kind of in that situation, I was working the job for three years. I was still in my mid-20s. And I was just like, what am I doing? Is this my life for the rest of it? And that's when me and my husband decided to get unstuck and sell everything and move to Toronto. And we didn't know anybody, but we just thought, you know, maybe a change of scenery would be a good help. And for us,

it did actually really help us get unstuck. So. Yeah, you woke up. Yeah, that's what it felt like. Like we literally woke up from like a fog and I'm like, what the hell did we do the past three, four years? Like, what was that? You know? Yeah. You bring up a good point too, because I think one of the most important things to figure out in life are your own limitations and then to accept them. Because I also, that doesn't mean you have to like, you're always going to be limited, but I think they're like you recognizing like,

Hey, I could probably go out and get employees and grow my business and grow my company, but I don't want to do that. And that's like, okay. Yeah. Is, um, really, really, that's like that level of acceptance, um, is very important. Cause I do the same thing too. It's like, at some point you realize you're like not going to run a four minute mile, you know, or at some point you realize like, and this is the thing too, I talked to a lot of people and they want to be entrepreneurs, but they haven't been

an entrepreneur. They want to grow. Like, you know, I had a couple of digital marketing agencies and they're like, Oh, we want to grow digital agencies. And I'm like, you know, there's a lot of trade-offs that you have to make, uh, in order to do that. And then, you know, so much of life is trade-offs, but you know, you can't like jump to being, you can't go from like where you are today to probably, you know, to being, you know, uh, a multimillionaire like overnight there's there and everyone has limitations. Like I, this is the thing too. A lot of people are like, how did you become FI in five years? And it's important to note that I am a really extreme example. I didn't do anything else but this for five straight years.

And I made a lot of trade-offs that in hindsight, I wouldn't have made again. You know, it's a great title. It's a great click-baiting title, like Millionaire by 30. But the trade-offs I had to make, and that's what I tried to put into the book, were immense. And you don't have to make them, nor should five years be your goal. The more important thing is, am I taking a couple of these pieces of information and not necessarily even getting better, just loving my life a little bit more. And finding out what financial freedom or just freedom means to you, which I think is, you know, again, a simple question that most of us probably don't take much time to answer. And it's something that we should kind of constantly be asking ourselves.

Yeah, and being present. I mean, that's the key thing. Because today what works for you might not work tomorrow. And that doesn't mean that you're like flawed or a failure. Yeah, it doesn't mean you did it wrong in the past. It just means it's not working now, so we need to pivot or we need to just do something different. And that's okay. Yeah, or just, yeah, like give ourselves some, cut ourselves some slack.

That's the important thing because you're right. It's like how can you, you know, I always like to say like money only matters if it helps you live a life that you love. And that is easier said than done, but it's available to, to everyone. Yeah. So, yeah. And first step is finding out what does it mean to have a life that you love? And then I guess grabbing your book to finding out some actionable steps to get there right the book is so hardcore it's like it's like been really fun because like now i've gotten you know it's been out uh about a month now i've gotten emails from like people in over 70 countries so it's like in a bunch of different languages and stuff and it's just so crazy like what certain people in certain

countries latch on to or how they interpret things. It's a weird, it's such a weird experience, but it's really, it's been really beautiful. What are some of the most kind of, you know, memorable or interesting emails you've been getting from readers? Yeah. So I've been getting, I got an email from a 13 year old in San Jose, California who read it. And he was like, he emailed me super stressed out because he's like, I can't get a work permit in California until I'm 14 and a half. Like, what can I do now? And I'm like, dude, you're already like so far ahead. I was like, here are three other books to read over the next year and you're gonna be fine um you know which is which is really cool um and then there's some

people like i've had like you know nfl players and professional soccer players and like the entire argentinian national basketball team is like reading it and just like these crazy things that you're like, this is so surreal. And it's cool. Like some people who've read it, like who aren't millennials, I think those are like the people, not that I get most excited about, but like the outliers, it's like the 13 year old and then like the 55 year old who you know, they're like some guys who, you know, they're like, some guys like, you know, the COO of like a massive fortune 500 company here in the US. And he's like, I was reading it because I wanted to give my kids

a book about money. But he said the whole time, time being more valuable than money, just he's like, by the time I got to the second chapter, I started like, you know, like started planning my exit from the company. I realized like, I already had enough money and I didn't need to be making this trade off anymore. And this is someone who's literally, he's like super famous. He's like this COO of like this huge company that we all know. And you somehow convinced him to leave his job, sort of. Oh yeah. Yeah. He's just like, I'm done. Like I realized I've had enough or, so that's the cool thing, you know, when people are using it to reflect, reflect on their life. And then the other thing is I've gotten a lot of emails from like single parents, um, which is something, you know, I've, I've talked to single parents before, but

the sort of, it's a really hopeful message. And I think that that, you know, has been really cool. Just people being like, you know, I feel really empowered. I can do this. You're the only person who's ever told me that I could do this with less than a million dollars. You're the only person who like, hasn't scared me away. You know, and I tried to really infuse the book with a lot. I mean, I'm like naturally a loving person, but I tried to infuse the book with a lot of love just because, gosh, life's hard.

Life is hard. Yeah. And I just, you know, you don't know where someone's going, you know, someone is in their life when they read that. And so I tried to do that. But yeah, no, I think it's important, especially with I just found like all the books that I was picking up, you know, 10 years ago, when I was first getting into personal finance, they were very much like, either talking down to me telling me what I wasn't doing. And what an idiot I was for not doing it early enough, and etc, etc. I'm finding more books that are coming out are really focused on,

like you said, empowering people, building people's confidence and inspiring people through positivity, because that is how you motivate people to actually do something, not telling them they're doing it wrong, but telling them, Hey, have you tried this?

Or have you thought of this? Do you want to kind of change your mindset a little bit? So I'm glad that you really have put that focus on uh kind of a positive kind of mindset instead of like yeah just here's what's possible i mean i was able to do this like i i did it and i was crazy and you know don't recommend a lot of what i did but it's it's it's possible like it it and that's the cool message because it's not some, like, you know, there's so many books on the tactics. Like we all know the tactic. It's not rocket science. It's like, you know, make more money, save more than, you know,

and it's the, those things aren't complicated. The more challenging thing is to choose to live your life differently than the people around you. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, Grant, I could probably talk to you for another, for a long time. Because I even had like, honestly, I had a list of questions to talk about specifically about like chapters in your book. And we didn't even talk about any of them because I just really enjoyed this conversation with you about just like money and financial freedom in general. So I appreciate you going along with the ride with me. It makes sense that you're a philosophy major and you're up for this.

So that's cool. Where can people find more information about you and grab a copy of your new book? Yeah. So financialfreedombook.com. You can learn more about the book. I built nine calculators that follow the book. So yeah, as you read along, to do all the cool things, you can use all the calculators that I built. They all work on your phone. Those are at financialfreedombook.com slash tools. You don't even need to buy the book to play around with them and use them.

At Financial Freedom on Instagram, I'm actually starting my 40-city book tour today. Oh, sweet. In New York. And I'm coming through Canada as well. Oh, really? So I'll be in Vancouver and Calgary at the end of April, early May. Awesome. And so keep a lookout for the tour.

You can just go to financialfreedombook.com slash tour. Catch me out on the road or yeah, at financial freedom on Instagram. You can follow the tour, learn more about what's going on with the book and then yeah, the book's available worldwide everywhere books are sold. So check it out. Um, and let me know what you think. Yeah, I know. Yeah. Email you right, right after you book. Cause I, I, you read all the emails, so that's awesome. I do read all the emails so that's awesome I do read all the emails I get a lot of emails but I do read them it's fun yeah tell me your story tell me like how it was useful if you have any questions um there's been some people who like there's one math error in the book

and so I was able to find that out and then there's some people who had a lot of questions that I hadn't addressed and so I've put some of those on the website as well as, you know, talk about them on the podcast. So. Sweet. Cool. Oh, and you also have a podcast that people can tune into, right? Yeah. The Financial Freedom Podcast. So it's loosely related to the book. You know, I interview the people who are in the book, but yeah, I just had Tony Robbins on recently. I'm interviewing Guy Kawasaki. So I've got some, some amazing people on there and yeah if you liked what we chatted about today like that's why i love this conversation because on the podcast we like i i go like super hard with all the guests i'm like what is life what is yeah

what is what is the meaning of life like what is existence you know so like tends to be those things are like the first two questions are about money and then just everyone riffing on just really fun, cool life stuff. Nice. Well, that sounds like it's up my alley. So thanks again for joining me to be on the show. It was a pleasure chatting with you. Yeah, it's great. I love what you do, Jessica.

And hopefully you can continue this conversation again sometime soon. And that was episode 196 this conversation again sometime soon. And that was episode 196 with Grant Sabatier. And you can grab a copy of his book, Financial Freedom, A Proven Path to All the Money You Will Ever Need, right now. Go to financialfreedombook.com for more info or check out the show notes for this episode for important links and info about what we talked about in this episode. Just go to jessicamorehouse.com slash 196. And of course, to check out the show notes and more info about any episode you've listened to, just go to

jessicamorehouse.com slash podcast has everything you could need. But if there's anything specific you're looking for, I'm just saying this out loud because I was talking to my husband who listens to a lot of podcasts and sometimes he gets really into them and like is trying to find specific information. He's like, no, this guy said this, I promise. Or they recommended this book. What was it? I try to also put a lot of information that I think you would be interested in in my show notes.

So again, just go to jessicamorehouse.com slash podcast or just hit me up over email and just ask me. I'll probably know and can probably email you back in like two seconds. Jessica at jessicamorehouse.com is where you can reach me, answer all my emails. I do. I probably answer your emails quicker than lots of the other emails I get because yours are more fun, quite honestly. I've got some important things to share, so don't go away. Here's just a few words about this episode's wonderful sponsor. This episode of the Momany Podcast is supported by TD Direct Investing. You know what I hear often from listeners like you? I want to try out DIY

investing, but it kind of scares me. Totally. It can be scary and overwhelming, even if you've listened to all my episodes on investing and read all the investing books you've been recommended. When you're a DIY investor, you're in the driver's seat, and you have to make all the decisions for your investment portfolio. That's a lot of pressure, which is why I am totally here for TD Direct Investing's new investment planning tool called Goal Assist. It's available to new and current clients and is an awesome way of helping DIY investors identify, monitor, and review their investment goals. When you use Goal Assist, you'll be guided step-by-step to identify your investment goal, risk tolerance, and time horizon. You can even set up multiple goals with different time horizons and investor profiles to create a clear roadmap of where you want to go and how to get there. Want to learn

more? Just visit the show notes for this episode or go to jessicamorehouse.com slash GoalAssist to watch my video tutorial. TD Direct Investing is a division of TD Waterhouse Canada, Inc., a subsidiary of the Toronto Dominion Bank. Okay, I've got some exciting things to share. First and foremost, last time I'll mention this because it's happening next week, me and Erin Lowry, author of Broke Millennial and new author of her second book, Broke Millennial Takes on Investing. We're doing an event next week, Tuesday, May 7th called Level Up Your Money in Toronto sponsored by TD Direct Investing. Thank you so much, guys. And there may or may not be some tickets left. Probably by the time I hit publish on this episode, it will be sold out. But if not, and you want to come, this is your last time hearing me talking

about it. So you can find out more info in the show notes, jessicamorehouse.com slash 196, or just go to jessicamorehouse.com slash level up, or just check me out on Instagram or Twitter. I always talk about it. But so if that's not like, okay, I can't do that. You can't make it. That's fine. I've got some other great events coming up too. First one is I'm going to be speaking on a panel, May 16th in Toronto, hosted by the Toronto Region Board of Trade and Young Professional Network. It's called Millennial Money, How to Plan for Financial Freedom. I will mention where you can find information about all these events that I'm going to list in a second.

After that, May 19th, we've got a busy, busy May. I'm doing my How to Become a Side side hustler presentation at the Toronto Public Library, the Evelyn Gregory branch. So if you're in town, totally free event. Um, you know, come on by, hear me speak to you about side hustles, how to start one, and then you can answer, ask me any questions after the presentation about what you want. That's why I'm there. I love it. Uh, and last but not least, I've got another event. I'm going to be doing a presentation called How to Run a Successful Business from Anywhere. So it's really about running an online business because now I've been running my own online business full-time for two and a half years, really. So that's going down in Toronto. These are all in Toronto. I'm sorry, everybody.

On May 22nd, and it is hosted by Rogers. So you can find out all the information about any events that I do first by subscribing to my email newsletter, jessicamorehouse.com slash subscribe. But also I try to keep it updated on the section of my website called jessicamorehouse.com slash community. So there's a link on the homepage, but if you just go to my website, jessicamorez.com, go to resources and there's a drop down menu and then there's community and there's information about all the speaking events I'm doing, has info if you're not part of my Facebook group yet and you want to get in there. It's a quick link that you can click on there and join. It has links to my past book clubs. I haven't done

one in a while. Oh my gosh, it's almost been a year. June 6, 2018. Wow. Well, I've been busy. What can I do? So if you've ever want to see some of my previous book clubs where I'm interviewing the author. So I've got Chris Gilbo who wrote Side Hustle. I've got Kate Flanders who wrote The Year of Less. Robert Brown, the author of Wealthing Like Rabbits. Andrew Hallam of Millionaire Teacher. And Erin Lowry, she was my first one, broke millennial. You can watch the videos of those, and those are kind of fun. Man, I'm pretty busy with the events, so that's kind of what's going on in my head. I'm super excited for my event next week, but hopefully I can see you at that event or in another event. I don't know. I think it'll be fun. So that's really it for me. I mean,

I've got a lot of other secret projects going on, but I can't really reveal too much. But so that's all I'm going to say. That's all I'm going to say. I'm going to say also thank you so much for listening and subscribing and sending me emails and tweets are really, really appreciated. If you can take two seconds to just let me know what you think in the form of an iTunes review, I'd love you forever. I think that'd be super cool. And I'll give you a shout out on a future episode. So thanks again for listening. Have a wonderful rest of your week. And I'll see you back here next Wednesday with a fresh new episode of the Mo Money Podcast. This podcast is distributed by

the Women in Media Podcast Network. Find out more at womeninmedia.network.