On financial freedom

Bye bye Gritty and Curious

May 12, 2021

Hey there!

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How to make money with sweaty startups
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For those who have been subscribed to my newsletter - Gritty and Curious - for a while, welcome back! I have some news for you all. I’m starting a fresh, new, newsletter. It’s called - wait for it - Austin’s Newsletter. (I know, super creative). In an effort to create some alignment with my other accounts, I thought it would be a good idea to do a quick and dirty rebrand. If you’ve been following my podcast, you’ll also see it’s been updated to the Austin Schlessinger Show.

It’s been a while since sending my last newsletter; about 4 months!

Here’s what you can expect to learn from today’s newsletter:

What I’ve been up to
The future of Austin’s Newsletter

What I’ve been up to

Since sending the last edition of my newsletter, lots of things have happened.

Completed January’s Ship 30 for 30 Challenge
Moved from DC to NJ
Launched Fit Creator Club
Launched Personal Podcast Challenge
Completed April’s Ship 30 for 30 Challenge
Developed Newsletters 101; an email course to help you start a newsletter
Launched a Gumroad product that generated 150+ downloads
Competed in the 2021 CrossFit Open
Recorded 30 podcasts in 30 days
Almost started a laundry delivery business
Went skiing in Breckenridge, CO
Was super close to purchasing a house in Cleveland, Ohio (not kidding)

I know. A very unproductive four months. But in all seriousness, the past four months have been awesome; I’ve had the opportunity to work on so many cool projects with so many cool people. However, I’m ready to narrow my focus. I’ve been in this constant cycle of working on 40,000 different things for a while, and now I’m ready to go all-in on something.

Focus has always been super hard for me; shiny object syndrome is real! I’m a huge ideas guy, and when I get excited about something I almost always pivot away from what I am doing and chase it. I don’t think this is a bad thing, but I think a lot of progress is stifled when you are pivoting all of the time. For that reason, I became obsessed with figuring out what idea or concept would be interesting enough for me to stick with for a while.

After months and months of introspection, I think I’ve found it. All of the projects I have worked on are in pursuit of something; financial independence.

Financial independence is the status of having enough income to pay one's living expenses for the rest of one's life without having to be employed or dependent on others. If you’re interested, here’s an awesome resource on how to become financially independent.

Eventually, I want to have the freedom to work on my own projects, and on my own time. Every project I have worked on is in pursuit of that goal. This is not to say that I don’t want to work, in fact, I love working. But, it’s that I want to have the freedom of being able to work on my own time and produce my own outcomes.

I want to have the freedom of being able to work on any project I want
I want to have the freedom of traveling wherever I want, whenever I want

It might sound selfish, but I think it is something that is actually pretty selfless. The more of your time that you own, the more time you can share with others. The more time you can share with others, the more time you can spend making an impact.

I don’t mean for this newsletter to get super deep and philosophical, but these are the things I was thinking about when I was reflecting on what I actually want and how I was going to decide what I firmly want to work on!

That being said, I believe that my goal is financial independence. As I reflect on some of my behaviors and decisions in the past, it totally makes sense.

Let me explain…

High School

In high school, I read Intelligent Investor, Coffeehouse Investor, 4-Hour Work Week, and Rich Dad, Poor Dad. These books taught me about the importance of investing, and the concept of being financially free. Not to mention I used to watch countless YouTube videos on it; it’s a crazy rabbit hole…

Towards the end of high school, I realized I had to go to a good college, so I could get a good job, so I could begin investing as these books had taught me. As a result, I became obsessed with the college application process.

My goal was to go to the best business school I could possibly go to. I wrote down the top 10 undergraduate business programs in the United States and posted it everywhere I could see it; I hung it in my room, I set it as the background on my laptop, and even set it as the background on my phone. Yes, I set it as the background on my phone. Yes, I know I am a little crazy.

I was determined to get into a top 10 business school because, in my head, I was thinking that if I could get into one of those, then I could get a good job, and then I could start working towards financial independence. So I developed a plan to get into the best college I could possibly get into.

I took all the AP classes I could possibly take, enrolled in an SAT tutoring program, and got super involved in extracurriculars; you know, everything they say you need to do in high school in order to get into a good college.

Long story short, I finished high school with a 4.4 GPA, scored 1920 on my SAT (I suck at standardized tests), and graduated from high school as the president of my class, the captain of the varsity soccer team, the captain of the varsity volleyball team, and captain of the consumer bowl team. With those credentials, I figured I’d be in a great position to get into a top 10 undergraduate business program; I was wrong.

I applied to 22 schools (not kidding) and didn’t get into any of the schools on the top 10 list. It was lots of fun (not). Long story short, the top two schools I got into were Wake Forest and Holy Cross. And then there was Rutgers; the college 45 minutes down the road that I vowed I would never go to. The thing was, my parents made a deal with me. They said, no matter what school I went to, they’d cover the cost of whatever it was to go to Rutgers.

For example, if Wake Forest was $250k, and Rutgers was $100k, they’d pay $100k of that $250k and I would be stuck with $150k in student loans (I did not want that). Long story short, I went to Rutgers, saved $150k, and graduated with $0 in debt; this was one of the best decisions of my life. From a financial independence standpoint, $150k in debt would have been a huge burden; it definitely influenced my decision in deciding what school to go to.

College

In college, I read books like Zero to One, The E Myth, $100 Startup, and The Lean Startup. I became obsessed with the idea of starting my own company. I had been interested in it beforehand, but reading those books pushed me over the edge. In my time at college, I started 6 businesses and have had 1000 other ideas on top of those; all of them have failed.

MyNapkn
Clear Candidate
Nomad Functional Fitness
Carbs, Fats, Proteins
FitPup
Buying and selling weights on Facebook Marketplace

I became obsessed with startups because I knew it was a part of the path to financial independence. If I wanted to own my own time, I needed to start something on my own.

I tried everything. Nothing worked. I’m still trying. But, I’m sharing this because it aligns with my thesis; my goal is financial independence.

While all this startup craze was running through my head, I became obsessed with getting the best possible job I could get coming out of Rutgers Business School; for me, this was a job at Deloitte Consulting. I was first exposed to Deloitte as a freshman. I signed up for a case competition and fell in love with the people, the culture, and the work.

The path to Deloitte was 3 fold; get an internship as a sophomore, get a kick-ass internship as a junior (possibly with Deloitte), and then apply full-time as a senior. I interned at ABM Industries as a sophomore, KPMG as a junior, and finally landed a full-time job at Deloitte as a senior. It was my dream to work at Deloitte, and I made it happen. I documented my journey to Deloitte on my blog. I wanted to share my experience, so students could get their dream jobs just like I did.

After College

Now that I am out of college, I am re-reading the books I read in high school and college and have picked up some others. Some of my most recent favorites include Tribes by Seth Godin, the Dip by Seth Godin, and Influence by Robert Cialdini; lots of stuff on marketing and branding. All these books make me tick. Why? Because I want that financial independence so badly.

I’m at a stage now where I understand what I have to do, but am limited by the amount of money I am making. For context, here’s my checklist to becoming financial independent:

Here’s what I have done:

$10,000 Emergency Fund
Max out 401k
Max out Roth IRA

Here’s what I would like to do:

Build a business to supplement my income
Purchase a self-storage facility
Gain more exposure to crypto (BTC and ETH)
Create an online course/digital product

In order to do these things, I need to start making some money on the side; this is one of the reasons I have always been interested in starting my own company. For the goals I want to achieve, I need more cash. To make more cash, I need to start a side business. In an effort to get started, I purchased Matt Paik’s Agency Course.

My goal is to build a marketing agency that makes me enough income to put a downpayment on a self-storage facility and frees up some time for me to begin creating high-value digital products. Hence, Austin Inc. was born. If you know anyone who would be interested in my services, please reply to this email. :)

What you can expect from this newsletter

You’re going to learn a ton; especially about investing and business. Ask my girlfriend, ask my family, ask my friends; my head is always going with ideas. In the past month, I have studied businesses from coin laundromats to blockchain applications. I have quite a breadth of interests and if you hang around, I guarantee you’ll learn a thing or two.

You’re going to be motivated. I’m always doing 4000 different things. I guarantee if you follow me, you’re going to get some motivation to do something; I say this in the most modest way possible. You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with. If you hang around, I’ll introduce you to some of the smartest, savviest, and kindest business people I know; whether this be through a podcast, blog post, or Youtube video. Back in January 2020 when I started using Twitter more seriously, I found my people. I always felt like I was working in a silo thinking “there’s no one like me out there.” WRONG. There are people who are interested in the same things as you, you just have to find them. Don’t worry, I’ll help you find your people.

You’re going to see the truth. Lots of entrepreneurs out there only share the good parts. They only give you the highlight real; the nice car, the beautiful house, and screenshots of their Stripe account. Well, I’m going to share with you the good, the bad, and the ugly. So, buckle up and prepare for a rollercoaster.

Wrapping it Up

This was a long-winded post to tell you what you can expect from this newsletter. Austin’s Newsletter is going to be about sharing my journey to financial independence. The thing is, I don’t want to do it alone. I want to help you all as well. If you’re interested in achieving financial independence, I want to hear from you!

Reply to this email and tell me your biggest struggle when it comes to achieving financial independence.

Thanks for reading,

Austin

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