Michael Gardiner: The Story
Michael Gardiner is a 20-year-old digital nomad and serial entrepreneur born in Stuart, Florida. He has been an entrepreneur since the age of 15 when he started his first business.
His main business, Nomads with Solutions, is a digital marketing agency specializing in Facebook ads. His customers pay for him to manage their marketing and in turn make them more money.
When Michael was 15 he was primarily interested in “normal kid things”, including basketball, track, skateboarding, video games, hanging with friends, etc.
Through a series of events including a sports injury allowing more free time, and a bad interview while applying for a job, Michael realized he wanted to make money on his own terms.
Although his family had no entrepreneurs, nor did he know any, he thought of an idea for his first income stream.
He had always followed theme Instagram accounts (cars, houses, travel) and figured that they were probably making some money when they posted advertisements.
Michael decided to start some of his own accounts, just to see if they would grow, and also because it sounded like fun. Short story, Michael ended up growing those accounts to a network of 1,000,000+ within a year and sold the network. This sale led to Michael having access to funds to start other businesses.
Fast forward to today, and Michael has multiple businesses, his two main businesses, including Nomads with Solutions, and a consulting business where he helps other people interested in business follow his steps to create their own social media marketing agency.
Michael has been able to leverage his businesses to allow him to have the time and financial freedom necessary to travel the world full time. At the age of only 20, Michael has been able to travel to over 20+ countries while running his businesses.
Currently, Michael is focused on scaling his marketing agency, helping others start successful businesses, working on upcoming ventures and simply traveling the world and growing as a person.
I took the time to interview Michael and ask him some questions about his business and lifestyle. Here are the questions and what he had to say:
What are the 3 best practice tips you can share with our readers as it relates to your industry?
Although my main business is a social media marketing agency, I want to provide some tips that can help anyone who wants to run an online business and/or travel the world.
1) Don’t underestimate the power of small improvement. One of my favorite sayings is “1% better every day”. It’s easy day to day, month to month to look at yourself and your business and feel like you have not gotten better or improved, and then put less effort in as a result. I believe this is the death of most entrepreneurs. Taking action (even if it’s a small action on a day you don’t feel motivated) is key. Most people who are “overnight successes” have been preparing for years. Try to go through every day getting slightly better as a person and a business owner.
2) Calculate the cost of your ideal lifestyle. Many people think that being an entrepreneur means making $100,000s of dollars and living a luxury playboy lifestyle. While that certainly can be the case, I think it’s important to understand that someone who makes $50,000 a year with their own business but uses their time freedom to be a better father is just as successful as the person who makes $500,000 a year and drives a Lamborghini. Consider the life you want, figure out how much you actually need to live that life, and use this figure to set your goals. For myself, if I made $1,000,000 a year I genuinely would not know what to do with the money, I am a very low maintenance person, who values freedom over anything else, so I base my cost estimate and goals around this.
3) Be obsessive about learning. Learning is free, you have books, podcasts, YouTube, and many more forms of content that can be used for learning free and at your fingertips. There is no excuse to not learn, you don’t need to go to a fancy private business school to learn the cutting edge strategies, you just need to do a YouTube search.
What makes you different than other entrepreneurs?
I think the biggest thing that makes me different than other entrepreneurs is my strong focus on using business as a tool to achieve the lifestyle I want, and also placing a primary focus on happiness. My dream lifestyle is to have a lot of freedom and travel, and my highest priority is happiness. For me, business is something I am passionate about that both allows me to have the lifestyle I want and that also makes me feel fulfilled and happy. It’s not just about making as much money as possible for me.
Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
Sometimes I forget how old I am. Simply because the majority of the people I interact with on a daily basis are 5–10 years older than me. It’s crazy to think that in 10 years I will only be 30. I hope by 30 I have seen the majority of the world (in terms of number of countries), that I am still pursuing business, but never prioritizing business over happiness and that I am at a point where I have complete financial freedom. I also plan on moving more into the non-profit world as I gain more financial freedom and become less active in my established companies. I specifically have a heart for teaching the principles of entrepreneurship and self improvement to kids lacking access to resources.
How can you be reached if someone is interested in continuing the conversation?
If you are interested in either starting your own online business or growing your existing business through social media marketing you can reach out to me directly by email at michael@nomadswithsolutions.com or visit my personal website at www.michaelrgardiner.com or my agencies website at www.nomadswithsolutions.com.
You can also connect with me on:
And for all other socials check here.
I would love the opportunity to connect with anyone interested in any of my services or to answer any questions readers may have.
