MY STORY
Welcome to Gen Y Finance Guy!
Hey, I’m Dom. You’ll notice that I sign off as Gen Y Finance Guy on all my posts, due to the fact that I write this blog anonymously (at least for now). I like to think of myself as the Chief Freedom Officer here of my little corner of the internet. In the real world, I’m a 30-something former C-Suite executive turned successful entrepreneur. After becoming a die-hard believer and evangelist of the Slight Edge Philosophy, I wrote a 10-year vision for my life, and absolutely crushed it! I’m married to the wonderful Mrs. GYFG and we spent the first 13 years of our relationship enjoying the benefits of the DINK lifestyle (Dual Income No Kids), which had a massive positive impact on our careers and ability to build wealth rapidly – we now enjoy or more chaotic life with two kids.
This blog is about my journey as well as yours. I am trying to humanize finance by sharing my own journey to FINANCIAL FREEDOM. I believe in total HONESTY and TRANSPARENCY. That is why before I ever started blogging, I decided that I would share all of my own financial stats. I do this not to brag, but instead to INSPIRE, MOTIVATE, and also to hold myself accountable. My goal is to be a beacon of hope, motivation, and inspiration for YOU, the reader, by living life by example and sharing it all here on the blog.
My sincere hope is that you will be able to learn from my successes and my failures!
On this blog, you will see real life stories from real people (mine and the guests’ I host). I’ll only ever suggest you do something I would do – or more likely have done already – with my own money. I don’t expect to change the world, but if I can change just one person’s life that would be enough.
If you stick around, you will see that I am super planner.
My Big Hairy Audacious Goal is was to build a net worth of $10M by the time I am was 48 but accelerating timelines has been a common theme in my life – we ended up condensing a 20 year goal to 7 years (I documented every step of the way).
Why $10M? Well, I did the math, and the path is all math. Putting the math aside, I had three career objectives I wanted to achieve along the way:
- Make the C-Suite by 30 – Check!
- Start, Scale, and Sell a Business – Check!
- Become a full-time capital allocator – In Progress!
Now that I’ve hit my number I’m working hard to make my final transition to that of full-time capital allocator. And this blog (born September 25, 2014) is here to memorialize and share my own journey of successes, failures, and ah-ha moments. I hope you, the reader, might find what I write both interesting and useful in your own endeavors (financial, career, lifestyle, or otherwise), and that we can travel this journey together. I also hope to learn a thing or two from you readers along the way, because I know you are a wicked smart group of people.
Why Gen Y Finance Guy?
1
I'm a member of Gen Y
Fun Fact: we are also referred to as the Millennials and there are 80M of us.
2
I'm Obsessed With Finance
3
Finally, I’m a dude!
Bullet point version about me:
- I’m a Millenial, born between 1977 – 1994.
- I grew up on welfare.
- My parents were drug addicts.
- My dad spent 10 years of his life in prison for manufacturing and selling Crystal Methamphetamine.
- I got in a lot of trouble until halfway through 6th grade.
- Statistically, I should be in prison and on drugs (I feel lucky to have dodged those bullets).
- The course of my life was changed when I met the owner of a pizza place that took an altruistic interest in my life – I lived with his family for a year.
A lot of other things happened between when I was born and my next bullet point and you can read more about it here.
- I went to live with my grandparents in the 8th grade (best move ever, lucky again).
- I learned as much as I could from my grandfather, who was a great man (he served his country and was a POW for 5.5 years).
- I sold candy out of a shoe box to make extra money in high school (it’s probably no surprise that I made $60-$80/day).
- I graduated high school – with honors – even though neither of my parents did.
- I have been lucky as hell.
- I have four brothers (I’m the oldest).
- I used to fold pizza boxes for free pizza and soda in middle school (and got a little chubby because of it).
- I lived with the owner of the pizza place and his family for a year (they saved my life and I will never forget it. I feel LUCKY every day).
- I earned my degree in finance from Cal State Fullerton and graduated in 2008 (again with honors).
- I worked in corporate finance for a private third-generation family-owned oil company during my first three years out of school (where I had the best boss ever).
- I traded professionally for the same oil company for two additional years (oil-related products).
- I left the oil company and joined a public company in the action sports industry, going back into corporate finance.
- I left corporate finance again to start a new global analytics team to support a $100M e-commerce business (I learned a lot, but it didn’t ultimately work out).
- I started a consulting business based on what I learned about digital marketing and analytics preparing for the gig above (it was a small success).
- I left the action sports industry to go back into corporate finance (where I eventually joined the C-Suite at age 30).
- I left Corporate America to scratch my entrepreneurial itch.
- I am the most optimistic guy you will ever meet. But I do spend 1% of my energy acknowledging and hedging the downside.
- I consider myself to be very ambitious.
- Things always have a way of working out for me.
- Have I mentioned that I am pretty lucky?
- I subscribe to a philosophy of “fake it ’til you make it,” because everything is learnable (I’ve noticed that this doesn’t work for everyone, however).
- I am a fitness fanatic.
- I have an obsession with finance.
- I married the girl of my dreams (again a very lucky man).
- I was an intrepreneur prior to solidifying myself as a successful entrepreneur.
- I love helping people.
- The next move I make in my career will be to full-time capital allocator.
I’m happy you’re here, and look forward to sharing useful information with you on our path to Financial Freedom. I love to hear from readers, so please feel free to add your comments on all the posts. Like I said, I learn from you, too. Onward and upward from here!
Cheers!