Here’s our latest interview with a millionaire as we seek to learn from those who have grown their wealth to high heights.
If you’d like to be considered for an interview, drop me a note and we can chat about specifics.
This interview took place in May.
My questions are in bold italics and their responses follow in black.
Let’s get started…
OVERVIEW
How old are you (and spouse if applicable, plus how long you’ve been married)?
I am 37 and my wife is 33 years old.
We’ve been married for 5 years and together 14…….time flies!
Do you have kids/family (if so, how old are they)?
Child-free by choice, but never say never!
What area of the country do you live in (and urban or rural)?
We grew up in, and spent most of our adult lives in the northeastern USA, but have been nomadic over the past four and a half years.
We’ve spent significant time living on the east coast of the USA, Europe and most recently Asia.
What is your current net worth?
$1.7 million US Dollars as of this writing.
What are the main assets that make up your net worth (stocks, real estate, business, home, retirement accounts, etc.) and any debt that offsets part of these?
We are invested in a “Boglehead” style portfolio consisting primarily of stock/bond ETFs, I-Series Bonds from the US Treasury and a CD/T-Bill ladder for shorter term spending needs with a little commodities sprinkled in.
This is across various tax deferred accounts such as Rollover IRA’s and Roth IRA’s, HSA’s as well as taxable brokerage accounts.
Current allocation as of this writing is:
- 64% Total Stock Market ETF
- 33% Bond ETF, T-Bills, CD Ladder
- 3% Physical Ag/Au stored in a safe box
We don’t have any real estate, either primary residence or investment. Ideally we will diversify into some form of real estate in the short/medium term, but we haven’t figured out where that will be geographically.
We are proudly 100% debt free.
EARN
What is your job?
We are celebrating one year of “early retirement” as of this writing. However I spent the previous 8 years in Enterprise Software Sales working as an Account Manager focused on retention and growth of some of the company’s largest customers.
My wife spent the previous several years working in Business Development for technology companies and prior to that worked for a specialty retail grocer.
What is your annual income?
Our combined income over the past 3 years averaged almost exactly $200k/yr gross.
Most recently we hit a high watermark of ~$350k before pulling the plug on paid employment.
Tell us about your income performance over time. What was the starting salary of your first job, how did it grow from there (and what you did to make it grow), and where are you now?
I knew tracking these metrics over the past decade-plus would come in handy one day!
The first year my wife and I moved in together in 2011 our combined income was ~$50k, my salary was a measly $21,800/yr working in retail management but I worked for a company that paid commission, which more or less doubled that base salary. My wife was working in retail part time while working on a degree which got us just over that $50k mark.
Over the following three years, we both made incremental improvements to our income. Myself by taking increased responsibility at work, managing larger locations, doing overtime, finding little side hustles.
She picked up extra shifts as she finished school and looked for a full time job. By 2014 we cracked $70k in combined gross earnings…..and that’s when everything changed.
By 2014 I was already very aware of the FIRE movement, and had internalized Mr. Money Mustache’s chart on savings rate vs. years to financial independence. It wasn’t lost on me that it would be very hard to have a high savings rate with our income.
We lived in a fairly high cost of living area, so that $70k/yr was below median for our county. By the end of 2014, between luck and leveraging some social capital I was interviewing for entry level sales jobs in the technology space.
One company in particular decided to take a chance on me, despite my lack of formal education or background experience. I was thrilled, as this meant my income ceiling was lifted going into 2015.
That spring my wife also landed her first full time job, between the two of us we were able to double our household income to ~$140k. This felt like winning the lottery, and over the following several years we saw incremental increases in income thanks to promotions and incentive compensation tied to performance.
There were some ebbs and flows, as sales can be feast or famine from year to year, but we continued a slow upward trend ending ~175k/yr in 2019.
We took a year off work in 2020 during covid to travel, making that decision BEFORE we had any idea what was in store for the world. I was working for a toxic employer and my wife was going to make a career change anyway.
It sounded like the perfect plan…..we sold our cars, terminated our apartment lease and purchased a one way ticket halfway around the globe. Needless to say, things didn’t pan out as we had planned.
We returned to the USA towards the end of the year and looked for new jobs. Luckily, one of the few industries thriving during this new world we were living in was tech, so landing jobs didn’t take long, and we were both once again gainfully employed going into 2021.
Our income took a while to scale back to where it once was, but over those three years we saw large increases thanks to promotions and incentive compensation tied to performance. We really didn’t think it would be possible to rebuild as quickly as we had been able to, with our final year of paid employment being our highest earning one yet.
What tips do you have for others who want to grow their career-related income?
Follow the money!
Unless you’re a professional in a highly specialized and high-paying field right out of school by design (think lawyer, MD, investment banker etc), it may feel like your income is hard or impossible to grow. Many people will follow an interest or passion which leads them to an industry or job which isn’t exactly optimized for earning potential.
The good news is that these can often be parlayed into higher paying jobs through a bit of creativity. I know former teachers who work in sales for education technology companies, communications majors working in technical writing, and many technology enthusiasts (who have no interest in becoming coders) working as sales engineers.
This advice may apply more to those of you who are on the extroverted side, but every company/industry needs a salesforce. Not just sales people who relentlessly face rejection for the occasional win, but an entire team of individuals who supports their efforts.
There’s marketing, strategy, operations, education, finance and support roles that make up nearly every large sales organization.
Figuring out how to work for the revenue generating side of any business will lead to personal income gains and growth. This may mean taking a step back to take a step forward, changing companies, industries, etc.
Bear in mind that this is advice from someone who took this path, and as such I may be biased. There are many other ways people succeed through starting/growing their own business, working their way up the food chain in their existing company or industry etc.
But for those feeling stuck in a job they feel has an income ceiling, I would suggest figuring out how to take your existing skills/interests and apply them at an organization in a way that helps generate revenue.
What’s your work-life balance look like?
I was very fortunate in being able to work a relatively normal American 40-50 hours a week during the majority of my career. Always taking into account commute times and other time costs of the jobs I was considering helped avoid the pitfalls of chasing money at any cost.
Setting boundaries with employers was also important, setting the precedent that I work very hard but won’t be answering emails at odd times of the night and on weekends.
As my career progressed and the work became more stressful in the sales executive roles, the hardest thing to do was compartmentalize the stress of the job during times I wasn’t working.
There’s a joke in sales that we are highly paid because the job ages you in dog years, and it’s sort of true. I would use physical activity such as the gym and cycling to manage some of this stress, but it wasn’t always effective.
At times I struggled with this and ultimately it took some time away from work to refresh and come back energized enough to take the next step in my career. The burnout in 2019 was one such example, and now taking an indefinite time off work is another.
Do you have any sources of income besides your career? If so, can you list them, give us a feel for how much you earn with each, and offer some insight into how you developed them?
It’s more of a fun hobby than a true income source, but my wife and I enjoy playing the credit card miles and bank bonus game. We discovered “travel hacking” in 2015 and jumped in headfirst.
We are always on the lookout for good sign-up bonuses from airline/hotel co-branded credit cards as well as financial institutions willing to pay us to park our money with them for a specific period of time.
We value these points at roughly $5,000/yr since we started. It’s offered us some excellent travel opportunities which we may not have taken otherwise.
SAVE
What is your annual spending?
We spend roughly $48k/yr, which is hard to believe given our income but I’ve been tracking nearly every dollar we spent since 2017 and it’s been extremely consistent.
And oddly enough it’s not been impacted by inflation the past couple of years.
What are the main categories (expenses) this spending breaks into?
- ~40% on housing (previously rent, now mostly AirBnB and short term furnished rentals)
- ~20% on groceries, restaurants, bars and cafes
- ~15% on health insurance, medical, health and hygiene (including things like gym, haircuts, etc)
- ~10% on transportation (flights, gas, trains, taxis, buses)
- ~10% miscellaneous/entertainment (cell phones, entrance/activity fees etc)
- ~5% donations/gifts
Do you have a budget? If so, how do you implement it?
When we were working, we didn’t really budget. We tracked spending monthly and reviewed it together each month to make sure that our spending was aligning with our values and goals.
We’re both naturally frugal and shared a goal of reaching a point where we didn’t have to work.
Now that we’re giving this whole early retirement thing a test drive, we’re still not budgeting by category on a month to month basis, but we are trying to stay within a certain annual spend to ensure our portfolio survives a 50+ year period.
We used a target of $48k/yr and are adjusting for inflation. This was based on years of researching withdrawal rates and modern portfolio theory.
We believe this to be a very conservative target based on our starting net worth when we pulled the plug on work last year.
What percentage of your gross income do you save and how has that changed over time?
We always tracked our savings rate as a percentage of our after-tax income. Finding this calculation to be a bit easier to manage as our tax situation changed through different life events like marriage and moving.
Our savings rate has hovered between 60-80% of after-tax income since 2015, prior to that it was 10-20%. We realize that this is not normal, and attribute it to learning about FIRE and having that goal prior to seeing our income increase rapidly from 2015 onwards.
What’s your best tip for saving (accumulating) money?
If you’re early on in your career/accumulation phase, try to avoid excessive lifestyle inflation. It’s important to reward yourself and enjoy the fruits of your labor, but if your goal is wealth accumulation than a dollar saved/invested while you’re young is worth a lot more than when you’re closer to the finish line.
We specifically avoided lifestyle inflation that involved a recurring cost. That way, spending extra on some nice experience or item feels like a treat rather than something you quickly become accustomed to and becomes the “new normal”.
What’s your best tip for spending less money?
We also realized that a lot of the “good for you” activities we enjoyed didn’t cost much.
We enjoyed hiking, cycling, swimming and running. Some of the initial equipment to compete in triathlon did seem expensive at the time, but the many years of enjoyment and health benefits far outweighed that.
We also made it a point to learn how to cook well, which not only saved us money on going out to eat, but was a hit with friends and family who would then reciprocate. We led by example and hosted many BBQ’s and potlucks at our home, which made it more normal to meet friends outside of a bar or restaurant as the standard.
I mentioned this above, but discovering and learning how to make travel rewards programs work for us was huge. Many credit card companies offer lucrative bonuses for signing up for their card.
So long as you’re not spending money you otherwise wouldn’t spend to hit these bonuses, they can be very valuable in funding vacations and trips which are memorable and feel luxurious.
As an example, last year we both opened Chase IHG cards which had a bonus of 175k points for $3k spend in the first 90 days. We were able to redeem these points for a total of 28 nights at properties around Southeast Asia this past winter/spring!
Other cards might offer free airport lounge access or discounted/free flights.
What is your favorite thing to spend money on/your secret splurge?
Oh boy, the fact that I had to stop, think for a long time and still can’t name something specific means that this is an area that needs improvement. We could say “travel” but we’ve hacked those costs enough that it doesn’t feel like a splurge.
The other, which also feels like a cop-out answer would be “freedom”, since we bought our early freedom from paid employment in order to be able to explore the planet without the strings of traditional employment pulling us back.
INVEST
What is your investment philosophy/plan?
KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid).
I write that slightly tongue in cheek, because it took a lot of mistakes to get here. When I was younger and more naive, the prospect of beating the market or outsmarting the index caused me to make a lot of bets that didn’t pan out.
From investing heavily in commodities in 2011-2013, to holding cash when “the top was surely in.” I made all of the classic behavioral finance mistakes from holding on to losers, to listening to the talking heads on CNBC too often.
FOMO and plain old fear are dangerous enemies of almost any investor, especially those that haven’t learned their lesson the hard way yet.
Now I follow a very simple plan which involves a diversified portfolio focused on appropriate stock and fixed income allocations while minimizing costs and maximizing lifetime tax efficiency.
A well defined a written out “IPS” or personal investment policy statement provides the guardrails and serves as a reminder not to make rash decisions due to the movements in the markets or personal emotions to how investments are performing.
To provide a bit more detail, for those curious on specifics of the overall plan now that we’re no longer in the accumulation phase. We settled on a 60/40 stock/fixed income allocation to start our early retirement and are using a rising equity glidepath to get that to 90/10 over the first decade.
That should get us out of the riskiest part of the sequence of returns risk window and provide the equity exposure needed to give us the best chance to beat inflation.
Our plan is flexible in that we are able/willing to earn money in the future if things don’t look great a decade or two in. We feel that it’s still a win because we get to enjoy an incredible amount of lifestyle freedom during some of our healthiest and most active decades.
What has been your best investment?
The VTI shares that were purchased and remained untouched back in 2011-2013.
What has been your worst investment?
The physical gold and silver bullion that was purchased back in 2011-2013. While precious metals are finally having their day in the sun recently, this investment has been underwater for a decade.
Not only that, but the hassle of storage fees and eventually unloading physical bullion is a double negative.
What’s been your overall return?
I have not calculated this as a CAGR but based on WHAT we’ve been invested in, probably tracking a 50/50 stock/bond portfolio over the past decade. Since we were saving/investing so aggressively, most of our growth at this point is still from contributions vs. investment returns.
I hope that moving forward we’re able to harvest the average market gains and will no longer be trying to chase alpha.
How often do you monitor/review your portfolio?
Way too often, like on a weekly basis. Don’t judge, most of us are in the same boat whether we admit it or not.
Our IPS calls for an annual rebalance if our target asset allocation is off by more than 5% from our actual one. So far, a year in and we’re tracking the glide path we set forth almost exactly.
NET WORTH
How did you accumulate your net worth?
We worked our way up the corporate ladder in somewhat lucrative fields and saved/invested the majority of our earnings for just over a decade. We did this through a combination of frugality and learning how to get the most utility out of each dollar spent.
Our income from 2011-2024 was only 10-20% above the median for our county, but if I had to guess, our spending was probably ~50% of the median household spend.
What would you say is your greatest strength in the ESI wealth-building model (Earn, Save or Invest) and why would you say it’s tops?
For us it was hands down “Save”.
We had an unbelievably high savings rate by normal standards, and even a very high one within the whole FIRE community. We avoided lifestyle inflation via spending through large growths of income and never felt like we were missing out on anything because of the choices we made.
What road bumps did you face along the way to becoming a millionaire and how did you handle them?
They say that the first million is the hardest, and this is quite true. We set out on a goal of reaching financial independence at a fairly early age, so at times it felt like it was taking forever.
All of those investment mistakes during the first 5 years of our careers felt like the market was working against us. It wasn’t until we reached critical mass from a net worth standpoint AND gave in and accepted that we weren’t going to outsmart the market that things felt like they were finally taking off.
The other big road bump was the biggest market crash in our investing career, Feb-March of 20202. The V shaped recovery meant it was short lived, but having just both left our jobs to travel for a while and have that happen was definitely a kick in the pants!
What are you currently doing to maintain/grow your net worth?
We’re currently not actively making income, but we’re using a safe withdrawal rate for our spending which should in theory not deplete our principal. If we suffer a particularly bad sequence of returns in the first 5-10 years of early retirement we plan on going back to work.
Jumping back into a sales role wouldn’t be too hard for me, and my wife has a plethora of skills and experience that could be used to earn money too.
Do you have a target net worth you are trying to attain?
That second million is right around the corner, so it will be interesting to see if we get there purely on investment returns or if we get bored of perpetual travel after a few years and find something meaningful that also earns us an income to spend our time and energy on.
How old were you when you made your first million and have you had any significant behavior shifts since then?
We first crossed this milestone at the very end of 2021.
To be honest, it was sort of anticlimactic. We were obviously excited to get to this point, but due to the crazy inflation we were experiencing during that time, it felt like it might not be what it once was.
From a behavior standpoint, I think we were less tolerant of bullshit or mistreatment at work. For me personally, I felt less negative pressure knowing that we had a cool million working for us in the markets and that if something bad happened and I suddenly lost my job, things would work out.
This also didn’t happen exactly when we hit a million, but around that time…..I became a less desperate salesperson. I truly think that by not *needing* the commissions from a sale, I was more effective and prospective clients received that energy in a way that made my sales strategies and presentations more authentic.
What personal habits and/or traits have you developed that have made you successful at growing your net worth?
There are many, but in my opinion two that have been an order of magnitude above the rest are; focus on value vs. price and stop trying to impress other people.
The first is about understanding what you value vs. what you want/lust for in the moment. It’s about spending your money and time on things that really matter to you regardless of the price.
The second seems obvious, but so many people fall into the trap of keeping up with the Joneses and a lot of that has to do with how much time we spend on social media comparing ourselves to our peer group. It’s not so much that you want to buy a nicer car or newer IPhone so that your neighbor or co-worker is impressed, it’s that YOU believe you SHOULD buy that item because your peers have it.
I think we’re passed the point where people buy a Rolex just to impress other people, but we’ve moved on to a point in time where everyone is advertised hundreds of times a day and it’s hard to tell what YOU want vs. what you think you should want based on what others have.
What money mistakes have you made along the way that others can learn from? (or something you’d do differently)
The first year or two I worked, I didn’t contribute to the company 401k and missed out on a 100% return on investment from the match. More companies have a policy of opting out vs. into these plans these days, but it’s still important to understand what kind of benefits your employer (or the government) may have for you to take advantage of.
Leaving essentially free money on the table can add up.
Anecdotally, you can’t beat the market over the long term. Sure, there are a handful of people that succeed, but the odds are not in your favor. Knowing the difference between returns and risk adjusted returns is important.
How much are you risking by chasing alpha? Slow and steady wins the race in the equity markets.
These would be my two biggest ones, thankfully I haven’t made any black swan type mistakes but those do happen. I have had friends who got wiped out in crypto scams and angel investing schemes.
What advice do you have for ESI Money readers on how to become wealthy?
As cliche as it sounds, “wealthy” is a mindset. If you’re cognizant of your financial inflows and outflows and manage these with intention, you’re already way ahead of most people!
Everyone is going to define an absolute net worth definition of wealthy differently. I personally believe it’s all relative.
Someone who has steady reliable income and is socking away even 10-20% and has a 3-6 month emergency fund is a whole lot wealthier than 90% of the population. Many people with very high incomes have very little real wealth outside of whatever equity they have in their primary residence.
Many of my former coworkers and friends were one layoff away from scrambling to make enormous mortgage and car payments.
My biggest piece of actionable advice would be to pay yourself first, no matter what. Figure out what your long term goals are, make sure you’re taking the right steps to get there, and enjoy the rest of the fruits of your labor.
As you make more money and find success, celebrate that but also use it as a tool to reach your goals faster instead of locking yourself into higher and higher consumption patterns. Learn what “enough” is, to you.
FUTURE
What are your plans for the future regarding lifestyle?
We plan to slow travel and live in different places around the globe over the next 2-3 years. Our bucket list of exploration is quite long and our initial trip was thwarted by Covid.
Getting a do-over three years later, with a net worth that has since doubled means we don’t have to worry about cramming everything into one year and going back to work.
While we will certainly earn some sort of income in the coming decades, I don’t think we’re going to return to the corporate world in the same capacity we left it last year, unless we REALLY wanted to get a traditional mortgage on a home in the United States.
Eventually we want to put down roots somewhere, so looking for an area to buy/build a home is something that’s on the back of our minds during our travels. I have EU citizenship in addition to USA, so it opens up a lot of options in lower cost areas with amazing weather, food and culture.
What are your retirement plans?
Financially, we’re going to wing it for now. We created a very conservative plan using some great research and modeling done by Michael McClung and Karsten Jeske, and a year in we’ve underspent by a significant amount.
It turns out that by being naturally frugal and enjoying our lifestyle as-is, we’re not even spending the upper bounds of our withdrawal rate.
We enjoy active time outdoors, so there’s plenty of hiking, biking, sailing and trekking in our near future. We’re also planning a road trip around the western USA, which we have not had the chance to see during our working years.
One of the books that’s become really popular in the financial circles recently has been Bill Perkins “Die With Zero.” We’ve read it and are trying to think about what experiences we would like to have that would best be accomplished in the remainder of our 30’s and 40’s, while we have the health and energy or tolerance we may not have in our later years.
Are there any issues in retirement that concern you? If so, how are you planning to address them?
It’s not lost on us that with lower spending, any large unexpected expense also impacts our withdrawal rate for a given year much more than someone who has an annual spend that’s several multiples of ours.
By leaving high paying jobs in our 30’s, we’re leaving millions of income on the table. There’s always that nagging question in my mind of whether we made the right choice, but then when I realize it’s Tuesday afternoon and I’m typing this from a beautiful lake in Italy because I enjoy discussing and thinking about these topics vs. having to go to work, I’m pretty sure we did.
For now, it would be pretty easy to course correct. I’m more worried about waiting too long and realizing we should have retired sooner. We’ve seen too many people who gave their best years to an employer or job they didn’t love only to end up with poor health or even worse.
MISCELLANEOUS
How did you learn about finances and at what age did it “click”?
It was a January afternoon in 2012. I was babysitting an empty store during one of the quietest periods in retail when I decided to Google “how to retire early.”
It led to spending many many hours reading Bogleheads, JD Roth, Mr. Money Mustache, Early Retirement Extreme, Motley Fool, etc. Luckily I was 24 at the time…….looking back it was almost as good as winning the lottery.
Who inspired you to excel in life? Who are your heroes?
My grandfather is my biggest hero. He was an amazing human being who fought in WWII and was a POW afterwards.
I spent every summer during my childhood and part of my adolescence in Eastern Europe listening to stories about what life was like during these times. It made me realize very early on that most of our problems these days are “first world problems.”
It made me appreciate the simple pleasures in life and all of the opportunities I had as a result of my parents moving to the USA before I was born. He was a selfless man who served others till his final days.
Do you have any favorite money books you like/recommend? If so, can you share with us your top three and why you like them?
Michael McClungs “Living Off Your Money” – a very thorough analysis of withdrawal rates, modern portfolio theory and putting it all together to come up with a plan to live off your money in retirement (especially early retirement).
Jacob Lund Fiskers “Early Retirement Extreme” – an eye opening book about shaking societal norms and being self sufficient and resilient in your day to day life. This book was lost on me the first time I read it, but after a few years down the path of working towards financial independence I reread it and got a lot out of it.
Karsten Jeskes “Safe Withdrawal Rate Series” – this is not a book, but it could be! The most comprehensive analysis of safe withdrawal rates, portfolio design, investment strategy/tactics and so much more. This was written during the years I was nearing the point of financial independence, serving as the final nudge to “go for it.”
Do you give to charity? Why or why not? If you do, what percent of time/money do you give?
We don’t make regular contributions to any charities, but rather give to causes on a case by case basis that are important to us. If we ever get to the point where we have more money than we know what to do with, that may change.
Currently we allocate ~5% of our spending to donations/gifts/charity.
Do you plan to leave an inheritance for your heirs (how do you plan to distribute your wealth at your death)? What are your reasons behind this plan?
Being in our 30’s we haven’t given this too much thought, nor discussed it at length. As of now, the government in our state of official residence would decide what to do with our assets.
This is a great reminder to figure this out, because things happen, even in your 30’s right?
Financial Fives says
The best thing about the interview series is that the variety of people is so appealing. Thanks for sharing your story, and being proud to share that you achieved this goal at a young age without owning real estate. Seems like your living your best life after working very hard, and hope you get to continue. Would love to hear more about your travel hacking and where about you go. Keep up the great work.
Interviewee says
Thank you for the comment. The travel hacking was mostly learning how to optimize the various travel rewards programs with the major hotel and airline chains. By targeting lucrative sign up bonuses and figuring out which types of miles/points were most valuable for our desired travel destinations we were able to offset a lot of the costs of travel. We used the points for everything from traveling to a different state for a wedding all the way to international trips to Europe and Asia.
Mitch says
Love it! Sharing this with my son!
Interviewee says
Thank you, hope he finds it useful.
JB says
Hi there, thanks for sharing your story. I always enjoy reading these interviews.
One question though – did you have any debt from college? I saw mention of getting a degree, but I’m wondering if you achieved what you have while paying for school yourself? If so, Bravo!
Interviewee says
We had a small amount of student loan debt for my wife’s degree. I paid for the college I did attend by working part time, but left without a degree.
HR says
Great job achieving FIRE and such a young age and not falling for the one more year . Question on your investment glidepath – do you plan to move every year a certain % from bonds to stocks or do you just spend down the bonds and achieve the higher allocation to stocks in that way. If you have any books/ articles to read, I’d appreciate a reference.
Interviewee says
Hello, thank you for your comment and question.
We move the target asset allocation by .25% each month, but only plan on doing rebalances if we need to, for now just spending down the CD/Bond ladder has moved the needle in the right direction. Similarly to someone with a static asset allocation, we don’t plan to rebalance every time it’s slightly off target.
Some years, bigger swings in the markets could necessitate the sale of stock or purchase of additional bonds etc.
For resources on learning more about withdrawal rate strategies, my favorite two sources are https://earlyretirementnow.com/safe-withdrawal-rate-series/ and “Living Off Your Money” by Michael McClung.
MI 343 says
Thank you for sharing. Many people likely wish they could’ve been where you are at your age. May the Lord guide and prosper as you move forward in life!
MI-349 says
Thank you for sharing your journey, I really enjoyed reading it. I want to emphasize your reference on finding a career with a sales team. That is where I found my success. Not from selling but from supporting those who do. It was by chance / luck I found that role, and I rarely see this referenced. Thank you for having a charitable mindset as well! Wishing you continued success and happiness.