Get To Know C.J. Gunn

I’m married to a beautiful and talented woman and we have two awesome sons that love everything from reading to bike riding to video games. I’m into those things, too. I also really enjoy traveling, golfing, craft beer, and running. We’ve called Atlanta, GA home since 2011, but our roots are in south Louisiana, where my wife and I both grew up. We love the food, the music, the people, the food, and the sports there. And yes, I realize I said “food” twice. About the only things we don’t miss are the mosquitoes, the humidity, and the hurricanes. But they’re a reasonable tradeoff.

Growing up, I always heard, “Go to school, get your degree, and get a good job with benefits.” So I did that, but no one ever mentioned this also came with living somewhere you didn’t want to, fighting traffic daily, office politics, bureaucracy, pot lucks with the co-worker with four cats, the “somebody’s got a case of the Mondays guy”, the over-achiever that makes you look bad, the underachiever that somehow makes you look bad, the boss’s annoying son that “earned” an internship, meetings… so many meetings, and countless other stress inducers and agitators that are a requirement for that bi-weekly direct deposit. By reading and learning from others, I realized that I was working way too hard for money. Money was actually working me. I wanted to change that, but I didn’t know how. I knew so little about money that it’s almost shameful. I was a grown man with a “good” job and had no idea how money worked. I read stories about ordinary people with jobs like mine doing amazing things like becoming millionaires, traveling the world, retiring early, or even less Instagram Story worthy, but just as amazing things like paying off large debts, and I thought to myself, “That’s what I should be doing”. Growing up, my mom used to tell me, if I wanted to do something, then do something. So do something I did.

It all started with financial education. Not just the basics like, what is saving? What is investing? But understanding the how and, more importantly, the why. Why should I save? Why should I invest? I’m an engineer so I wanted to get under the hood of personal finance and figure out how this really worked. Once I began learning about these things, the vision became clear. There was life beyond the paycheck and I could make money work for me to achieve the life that I wanted. This was such an awakening for me, I realized that I didn’t want to keep it to myself. I want to share it with others. Beyond the information, I also want to share my journey to show that this is not something that happens overnight nor does it come without its challenges. I hope you’ll follow and grow with me!