Blogger Interview With Nathan Clarke

I’m 25, married, and live in a small town in Georgia. I am currently working from home as a system administrator in IT and also have a successful eBay business as well as an antique booth where I’m getting close to earning $1,000 in net profits each month.

I love reselling things on eBay because I get to choose when I do it, I recycle things that are on the way to the trash and sell them to people who find value, and I love learning the history of the items I sell.

My goal is to grow my reselling business along with my blog to match my day job salary and potentially go full time working for myself. I love working from home and am very thankful for my job, but there’s just something that’s really appealing to me about working for myself.

Outside of work and spending time with my wife, I constantly listen to podcasts of various subjects and train in martial arts. I’ve trained in Karate since age 15 but recently switched to jiu-jitsu. I’ve become obsessed with learning new things and seeing how much I can grow myself.

Oh, and I’m a pretty big money nerd. I found the financial independence community a little over a year ago and have learned so much about how to handle money. I see myself being financially independent in my 40’s, but if I’m working for myself at that point, I probably won’t want to retire early.

I’d direct them to my post “How We Reached a Net Worth of $100,000 at Age 25“.

This post is a small sample of what I’m trying to with my blog as a whole. I want to show others that they can become wealthy by following the steps I’m taking and I can’t think of a better way to do that than to lead by example.

Calm. I rarely get very emotional about anything and it’s not always a good thing, but 90% of the time I’m just calm and quiet. Remaining calm helps me think through a lot of things without doing something I shouldn’t, but like everyone, I have my faults and make mistakes.

My main source of working out comes from jiu-jitsu class. What I like about jiu-jitsu is that I push my body to the limit be grappling and at the same time, I have to stay completely focused on doing the proper techniques. Time flies by and I barely even think about how exhausted I am.

I also try to walk somewhat regularly and I have a pull-up bar in my office that I bust out a few reps on every now and then. I need to get a little more disciplined with my fitness outside of martial arts.

I don’t follow a strict diet, I just try to avoid sugary drinks and don’t go overboard on junk food. I need to clean my diet up a bit.

I like Jocko Willink’s advice to take ownership of everything in your life, even if things happen that aren’t your fault. Looking at every situation with the question “what could I have done differently” is a great way to keep yourself in check and stay humble.

First, I set goals. If you don’t have goals, it’s a lot harder to stay motivated. Then, I think about what my life will be like once I reach the goals I’ve set and that motivates me even further. I keep track of my progress towards the goals so I can see what I’ve accomplished.

I also listen to podcasts and get loads of motivation from them. For money motivation, I listen to the ChooseFI podcast. For general life and fitness motivation, I listen to the Jocko Podcast. For intellectual motivation, I listen to Jordan Peterson, Joe Rogan, Tim Ferriss, Bible Thinker, and Radio Lab.

My biggest challenge is probably procrastination. I put things off for too long and then stress myself out when I have a ton of things that need to be done.

To overcome this, I try to get caught up on things and then get in a habit of staying on top of things without letting anything fall behind. I can’t say I’ve got a process completely hammered out though.

My smartphone is probably my most important tool because it can do so many things. If I had to only choose one tool for my finances, it would be Personal Capital. You can link all of your financial accounts to the app and see your complete financial picture in one place.

If I could only have one app on my phone, it would have to be a podcast app. I have probably learned more valuable information in the past couple of years from listening to podcasts than I did in my entire time of doing school and college. Podcasts are how I surround myself with people who are smarter than me so I can learn and develop into a wiser person.

There are different people who have motivated me in different areas of my life. When it comes to martial arts, I used to watch Bruce Lee movies and he inspired me to be the best I could.

My dad has inspired me in the spiritual aspect of my life. He’s been a pastor since before I was born and I’ve always been able to look up to him as a good moral person.

The Mr. Money Mustache blog inspired me the most to get my finances in order. The author – Pete retired at age 30 and shares a lot of actionable advice that will help you cut your expenses drastically so you can save money really quickly.

Jordan Peterson has probably been my biggest intellectual inspiration and has motivated me to continue learning as much as I can for the rest of my life. I hope I continue to evolve into a better, wiser person until I die.

I’m hoping to build my eBay business up to have 1,000 listings and grow my blogging income up to $500+ a month. Other than that, I just want to continue getting a little bit better every day at everything I’m doing.

Spending time with my wife after a productive day of working my job, eBay business and blog.

On a regular basis, my wife and I enjoy watching movies and tv shows. We like to travel to a new place at least once a year and individually, I enjoy working my side hustles and figuring out how I can grow them.