Earners,

Many of us in this community are in our 20’s, trying to figure out what we want to do for the next few years to set us up for a wonderful life.

Though I’m still figuring my stuff out, I’ve come across a few insights I want to share that can help you with your career, social life, and your 20’s in general. Or if you’re older, maybe you can forward this email to someone you know who could benefit.

Build Your Base

The model that I always say makes a lot of sense is… wait first, do this:

• Read So Good They Can’t Ignore You By Cal Newport

  • It has a lot of answers to the questions you probably have.

Okay cool, on to the framework:

• Go to a college/university that isn’t ridiculously expensive

• Pick a major that you can make good/great money with and that you can at a minimum tolerate

  • Could be academic, trades - whatever. Something that you can specialize in that has a path to a high earning outcome. For example, specializing in business to work in high finance or going into a trade like plumbing where you could build out a profitable business someday.

• Recruit like crazy throughout your school years

  • Every summer you should have an internship/be building skills towards an ideal career. It’s okay if you switch down the line, it’s still worth the investment of your time. Do NOT just take the summers off. Be productive. I had a lot of fun summer nights while building skills during the day. You can do both, so I don’t care how many trips you have planned. You only have a few summers to get your sh*t together for the job market.

  • Meet as many people that work in the space as you can (because those folks will be the internal referrals you need to skip the line and actually be considered for the grown-up job when you graduate).

• Keep your burn (expenses) super low and start saving/investing like a crazy person

  • Most ideal is to stay at home and commute in during the summers. If that’s not feasible, pick a living arrangement that’s as inexpensive as possible.

• In your final year, it’s go time

  • Apply everywhere and meet everyone. Get this done in September. You may even need to start earlier if it’s more prestigious jobs like investment banking or management consulting.

• Go hard out the gate

  • Grind harder than anyone your first year of your first real job, go to every corporate bs mixer thing you can to meet even more people and just keep doing that sh*t day in and day out.

• Set an aggressive savings and debt paydown/investing goal

  • If you're living at home, the goal could be saving/investing half of everything. If you’re living alone/in the city, try your hardest to get over 30% (I know it’s hard, but think creatively!!). This money can be used to clear you of student debt / start building your net worth.

    • However, if there is no interest accruing or limited interest on your student debt (as there can be in Canada) there may not need to be a rush to pay it off. In that case, it may be a good idea to invest for the future. Compare the interest rate of the debt to the expected return of your investments. Typically with a broad market US index fund, you can expect 8-10%. If your debt is significantly lower than that, then investing more may make sense. The same is true for the reverse if the debt is near or higher interest than your expected return. Remember, investment returns are not guaranteed rates of return, but paying down debt is money in the future that you for SURE won't have to pay interest on.

• Job hop every 2-3 years to maximize your income

  • Important to be mobile but not flaky. Unless you hate the job and need to get out (which I completely understand), try to stay for a bit and build some skills. Then, take that sh*t to the market after a few years and repeat that process to get those dollars up.

• Look up

  • You’re 28 with a six-figure net worth. You’ve got some options, baby.

You won’t be financially independent immediately with this framework. However, after a few years, you’ll have a lively nest egg invested and flexibility, allowing you to buzz off and “do your own thing” whether that’s worldwide traveling, taking your side hustle full time, leaving your job or simply being more selective with whatever the hell you choose to do.

The path above is exactly what I did. I went to school, switched from science to business (because I wasn’t cut out to be a doctor lol). Worked every internship I could, got a job with a Fortune 500 company largely because the senior manager I worked under during one of my internships connected me with someone within the company I was applying for that then referred me internally. Worked my ass off for them for two years and eventually I had $50,000 saved up at 24 years old.

That gave me enough of a cushion in my mind for at least a year to go full time with content creation. At the time, it was already paying me a lot more than my corporate job was. I thought “if I literally didn’t make a single dollar for an entire year, would I be okay?” Once I had a positive answer to that, I set a plan to quit 3 months out from when I actually would. Luckily, that catastrophic scenario didn’t materialize as I did make more than $0 that year and I haven’t looked back since.

Now, entrepreneurship may not be for you. In fact, statistics say it likely isn’t. But, working for someone else can get you rich too. Don’t let anyone ever tell you anything otherwise. Many a millionaire have worked within the corporate walls, under an experienced trades person or someone in your industry that could guide you to success. Entrepreneurship is dope - but only if you think so.

I want you guys to feel the wonderful feeling of financial security. There’s few feelings on God’s green earth as sweet as it. If you give the framework a shot above and maybe add your own nuances and twists to it, I have very little doubt you will be a rainmaking rockstar in just a few years.

So go hard, baby. We are here to EARN.

As always, please respond to this email if you have any questions at all or are unsure about what to do next. I always want to help you folks!!

Earn more,

Nate