111: Unlocking Career & Financial Freedom with Coach David Gibbs

Feeling stuck in your job and unsure how to move forward? This episode is for YOU! I’m joined by my best pal and our first-ever repeat guest, David Gibbs, a financial and career coach who knows firsthand how career growth and financial success go hand in hand.

🔑 Inside This Episode:
✅ How your career choices impact your financial future
✅ Strategies to optimize your income (without waiting for a promotion)
✅ Why job satisfaction matters for your overall well-being
✅ The power of vision, habits, and financial stability in creating work freedom

David and I break down the real struggles people face—feeling stuck, underpaid, or pressured into careers that don’t align with their purpose. We also share how taking small, intentional steps can open up entirely new career paths and financial opportunities.

💡 Key Takeaway: There’s always another way. If you feel trapped between a rock and a hard place, let’s find that big, wide opening behind you!

🔗 Connect with David Gibbs:
Find him on Facebook, Instagram, or email him at coachdavidgibbs@gmail.com

🎯 Need career and money clarity? Get started at AccelerateYourLegacy.com.

Learn more about working with Laura Sexton

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Send an email to Laura@AccelerateYourLegacy.com or send a DM on Instagram @accelerateyourlegacy

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Transcript

Laura: 0:02

hello and welcome to money and career mastery from overwhelmed to ownership. I'm Laura Sexton, your abundance and legacy coach here to help you navigate the world of money, debt payoff, and career growth with confidence and clarity. In this podcast, we'll tackle the financial and career challenges, holding you back, optimize your income and build the freedom that comes with true ownership. If you're ready to break free from overwhelm, create a budget that aligns with your values and design a legacy that empowers future generations. You're in the right place. Welcome back to the show Accelerators. I'm here with my best pal, David Gibbs. He is a financial and career coach. He is just run over into this new area of expertise with me and he is back on the show, our first ever repeat guest. He is here for you guys to help you learn and grow, but he's also here for me and my own personal enjoyment. So. Gibbs, thank you for coming back onto the show.

David Gibbs: 1:05

I am so happy to be here. I can't wait to find out what we're talking about.

Laura: 1:10

I know, me even, no, okay. We have talked in the past about wanting to talk about this new side of our coaching, because David and I have been financial coaches for a very similar amount of time.

David Gibbs: 1:24

I believe.

Laura: 1:24

When did you start?

David Gibbs: 1:26

2018, August 2018. Never

Laura: 1:28

mind. David is a much better financial coach than I am. He's been around much longer. Because I started officially in 2021, although accidentally in 2020.

Audio Only - All Participants-4: 1:39

Okay.

Laura: 1:40

So, you've been a financial coach since 2018. What was it that inspired you to also do career coaching?

David Gibbs: 1:52

Well you know, before I became a financial coach, I used to be a manager at a library. I used to be a librarian. Why does that make you laugh?

Laura: 2:01

librarians in California are on a totally different level.

David Gibbs: 2:05

But my, my friends have always given me a hard time. As soon as I became a librarian, they were like, what you read? Yes, I still read to this day, but it was during that time where I was in management and I was actually, I'm a part of the hiring team, so, you know, I was taking care of people I was doing. that side of things, giving my staff write ups and, if they were bad, but I was doing, those yearly things and hiring and all that. So I loved doing that. And then when I became a financial coach, Where does money come from careers so pretty much at the beginning we ended up talking about their careers so as time went on it's like this just makes complete sense because this is just a part of the puzzle and a part of The getting them to the lives that they want to live. Even career wise, you need to have finances at a certain point so that you don't have to go to that terrible job. You don't have to do this because you have an emergency fund, you have money. You don't have to be have an abusive boss, you can say, Oh, I've got six months of my money saved up. I'm going to just pause this and go somewhere else. So it creates that freedom. Just being a part of the hiring and firing process. I was also an office manager after the library. So yeah, I've just always loved all that stuff. Being on both sides of it, it just feels natural.

Laura: 3:24

One thing I've found is when I'm working with people on their finances, and they are struggling because they're like, well, I'm never going to make enough money. A lot of times it's because they're just not in the right career or they've made a choice to be in a career that they Or choosing to not make any money like when they they're like, well, I have to work at a nonprofit because it's mission driven and I'm sitting here going the NFL is a non for profit. They are a 501 C3. They do a lot of charity, but they also have very high salaries for all of their employees. But career growth and financial success. They go hand in hand. It's something we talk about with all of our clients. In your experience, what are some key habits or strategies that you give to people to help them optimize their income or income potential?

David Gibbs: 4:17

It really boils down to what is their vision for the future, because every single thing comes of that. You have to have, have to have the cornerstone of your life, something you're fighting for. You can be doing a job that you don't like, but you show up with a smile on your face. You show up ready to work because you have what you're fighting for. You have it in mind. It's not necessarily that your purpose in anything is tied to that job. It's tied to what you're fighting. That's the key because already I actually had a client that I was talking to this week where she's actually saying because of her money, because of all these things, she's so stressed out that she's not working very hard. So we need to start working on these other things, having a good morning routine, being healthy in other ways, building a non anxious life so that we can work harder and then get the job we want. So I really look at it holistically, you know? You have that core vision and then you have those core habits and then guess what? They want to all of a sudden give you a raise because you're actually showing up on time, being there, not trying to leave early, and doing your job. It's kind of magical, you know, how things build together to create momentum in our lives, and then all of a sudden we find ourselves getting opportunities that we may not have had just because we practice putting a smile on our face every day. And that's actually something my always remember my wife telling me of her mom teaching her. So my awesome mother in law, you rock Tammy, just a little shout out to my mother. But my wife, she went through that teenager thing where she was cranky all the time, right? And my mom always said, Hey, just practice, you know, look at yourself in the mirror and have that smile. And it works.

Laura: 6:06

Mel Robbins has a thing called the high five habit, where you go and you wake up in the morning and give yourself a high five. Because have you ever high fived somebody for doing a really bad job? Most of the time you see people high fiving, it's because job well done. Like, it's a celebration. So if you high five yourself, it's kind of like a, way to go me. And it actually will boost your spirits. It's crazy. One thing that you said that hit me was Employees that have their money together at home work harder at work. They're more focused, they pay more attention. Ken Coleman, back on the Ken Coleman show before it was the front row seat, had a day where he was talking about most. Which is 72 percent of employees are confident about investing in their retirement plans But 89 percent of them say they experience anxiety about day to day finances That's a lot! If 89 percent of your employees Are stressed about their money at home That means part of their day when they're supposed to be working for you They're focused on something else entirely.

David Gibbs: 7:19

That's going to show up in the company's ROI. Especially when you have the trickle up method where we're having all these problems. Oh, my car's messed up again. And then, oh, guess what? More pressure is on the assistant managers and the managers who are beat up, working too hard, having to pick up everybody's slack because they're not showing up. It's all this crazy circle of doom.

Laura: 7:41

Well, I go back to a restaurant I used to work in. You have the dishwasher not show up. because they missed the bus because their car got repossessed last week and they missed the bus. Your restaurant without a dishwasher is chaos.

David Gibbs: 8:00

Do you remember that I used to be a dishwasher?

Laura: 8:03

Yes. You started at red lobster! But I mean, it starts from the bottom. If the bottom of your pyramid is faulty. There's no way the top of your pyramid can stand. It's just not going to stay. So. Any employer needs to be paying attention to their employees and we want to benefit. The people that are working for us, I'm looking at these stats. I have this little note card of these stats because I thought that it was really interesting. You and I were talking earlier. You're doing an employee wellness plan where you can help employers, help their employees do better with their money. So they focus more at work. 55 percent of employees say they would leave their job for a higher match on their 401k.

David Gibbs: 8:54

But what's kind of funny to me about that is especially, you know, during the pandemic and I was still new to coaching, boom, right out of the gate. As soon as bad thing happens, guess what? Everybody's emptying their 401k and getting taxed out the wazoo because they don't have the steps necessary to get there. And that's why I mean, going back, look at this, like we are already in our conversation, having trouble sticking to one thing because it's all interconnected.

Laura: 9:22

Well, I think that's why you and I have ventured into not only money, but also career.

David Gibbs: 9:27

Yeah, absolutely.

Laura: 9:28

It has been multiple times over where I start working with somebody and they're like, my finances are blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, well, why don't we get you into a new career that fulfills you so you can make more money? I have one client right now that I'm working with, and we're working on the financial side. And it's the husband of this couple that we're working together. And I said, you know, let's just. Let's do a break off session, and let's work on your career, and let's find something that works for you. And it was great, because I had no ideas, because this was a spur of the moment thing and I hadn't thought ahead on any of this to come up with ideas or suggestions or thoughts or things for him to think. It was just like, hey, let's just go, let's go coach on this. And thankfully, the world has created ChatGPT, who helps me. Come up with ideas when I have not taken the time to come up with ideas on my own. And we found a career that when I mentioned it to this person, he lit up like a Christmas tree. He was so excited. He was like, that's it. But he spent his entire life doing what his family told him to do. And doing the thing, he's like, well, I'm good at it, so I'll just do it. But it doesn't light him up. So how are you ever going to make money just doing the thing to do the thing? Like, if you're doing it just to make money, it's not going to work out either.

David Gibbs: 10:55

And that is what I find unbelievably exciting about this day and age right now is I don't know how your family was, but my family, it was very much We have a plan for your life. My grandpa, he actually would meet with my cousins and anybody if he heard even a hint of someone not going to college. Be like, I am setting a dinner appointment with you and we're going to talk about it. And so, you know, I ended up getting my degree in criminal justice. And I tried out for a policeman once and I was like, wow, I don't like this at all because it didn't light me up at all. So what I love right now is it seems like the, our society as a whole is finally getting. I love you boomers, but, but the boomers came from a point of view of, Oh my, just get your college degree and you'll be great. That's it. You know, it was just get the college degree, but now we, everybody has a college degree working at Starbucks. Right. And it cannot go on like that. It has to balance out and I think you're in my generation and, and the Zs and the alphas, did you know there's beta now? But, you know, people do want purpose and you work harder with purpose. You have a more fulfilling life with purpose. It's just so nice. I think that as a career coach now in this day and age, we can lean into that. And people are hopefully going to end up 20, 30 years from now, have much more fulfilling lives than what I've seen with my parents, what I've seen with my aunts and uncles, some of them have. It's been almost like a luck of the draw, for example, you know, me growing up, I just chose criminal justice because I just chose it. I wanted to be a filmmaker, right? I think I told you that. I took film classes and I was like, well, I'm, I worry that it's gonna, you know, that I'll be asked to do something that is against my beliefs one day. I want, bread every week that I can count on. So I chickened out, but maybe I should have done that. I don't know. You know, I could have been on Chosen or some crap right now.

Laura: 12:52

There is still time for you to make a masterpiece for the record. There is. I always say that I will get back into acting one day because the world will always need a grandma. And so like, there's no timeline in film.

David Gibbs: 13:06

Get back into film one day. Well, like a bucket list for me is I want to win at least one film festival, whether it be local or not, before I die. I want to win one of the little film festivals.

Laura: 13:17

I have laurels from two different film festivals, and they're one of my favorite things to tout about myself.

David Gibbs: 13:26

And that even is exciting, you know, for your listeners that You know, let's find out what you're good at. Let's find out what lights you up, you know, like we've talked about. Let's get clear about what we need to do to get there. Let's make sure that the finances are actually helping you get there instead of hindering you from getting there. And it's just little steps, little steps, right?

Laura: 13:51

I think that sometimes We lean too much into tell me and tell me what you think about this. I'm I'm pushing back as a boomer at heart. There are times where we lean too far into oh just do what lights you up and Do what makes you happy and you'll never work a day in your life There are times where we just need to work Even if it's a crappy job that we don't enjoy. There are times we just have to buckle up and deal. And then there are other times where we can focus on what lights us up. Those are two different stages of life, I think.

David Gibbs: 14:30

Well, that's why it's exciting to be a financial and career coach. Because, when your finances aren't great, and you're telling me how you want to drive to LA, and just Somehow make it and you have no idea what's going on. I'm not gonna be on board with that You know, but there are many different ways Because sometimes people get kind of caught up, you know, and I think this is our job as a coach. People get caught up as with this direction or that direction. No, there's third, there's fourth, there's fifth, you know, it could be that you're working that crappy job and then we start 10 hours of weight working what we love. And then it slowly takes over and then you're doing what you want, you know, so it's like that. Absolutely. If you're in a bad situation, I don't care what your issues are, go to work.

Laura: 15:18

Yes. And I've been struggling with that with, a couple of clients that I'm working with where they're like, but I just want to be a singer and I'm like, that's wonderful. And I want that for you too, but you have to pay your light bill. So you can sing on the side, but first we have to make sure that all of our four walls are covered. We have to be smart about things.

David Gibbs: 15:40

But then the key there is, that doesn't mean you're giving up. Right. And having the ability to, you know, if it doesn't happen right now, having, you know, be able to handle that. You know, that doesn't mean you're giving up. Everybody, listen to me. Just because you're not doing your dream right now, that doesn't mean you're giving up. It's now you go to whatever job you don't want to go to, but like we were talking about at the beginning of the call, you're fighting for something now. You have a smart goal for something now. You have, what do I, where do I want to be with this goal at the end of this year? Like you just told me earlier, I know exactly where my podcast numbers, where I want them to be. That's what we all need to do. You know, and I think you and I, we were at coaching enrichment at Ramsey last year. And Dave Ramsey shared, I wanted this year, I made about half that way. And then I made goals for the next

Audio Only - All Participants-4: 16:29

year,

David Gibbs: 16:29

I made about half of that. And being able to handle it, not being immediate.

Laura: 16:38

Well, and I think it's funny that you bring that up because we hear all the time there's this kitschy slogan, or there was back in the 90s when we were growing up shoot for the moon and even if you miss you land among, among the stars, right? The idea being, you know, aim at something and as long as you are on that trajectory, you're doing the right thing. And sometimes we're like Nope, I didn't hit it. I didn't get it. So I must be a failure and I should give up on my dream.

David Gibbs: 17:06

I don't think that's right either. Just to be a stinker, the moon is so much closer to us than the stars are. So shouldn't that be opposite?

Laura: 17:18

No. No. Because the goal is we're going towards the moon, and if we miss

David Gibbs: 17:25

Then we go way further?

Laura: 17:27

We're in the vicinity

David Gibbs: 17:31

of the stars.

Laura: 17:32

Of the space.

David Gibbs: 17:34

So here's a story. So my family and I have been watching Full House. And they had the episode where Joey went on star search. And he lost. Like, he didn't win, right? And it was all like, Oh, should I stop doing my comedy career? Should I stop doing this? And it was beautiful. And he was talking to himself. And it was just like, you know, I love doing this. So, because he gave himself a deadline. I need to have this career by this point. I need to be famous now, right? And he's like, no, I'm going to make the deadline like 60 years from now. So it'll be like 90, you know, and he's just going to keep going. That's beautiful. Because it might, I mean, I think I just saw a statistic the other day about the ages, you know, of people who are famous or did amazing things, but they actually finally got there when they were older.

Laura: 18:26

For the record, not a TV show, but real life, Justin Timberlake lost Star Search, and I think he's doing okay.

David Gibbs: 18:35

Oh, I didn't know that.

Laura: 18:36

So you don't always have to win Star Search to end up a star. The kid that beat him? Nobody knows who that kid is. I can't even remember his name.

David Gibbs: 18:45

Yeah, we just gotta get on to the top of the mountain of the failures, right?

Laura: 18:50

Yes. And I think that's another one of those fun Dave isms. Not you, Dave. Dave Ramsey. But he talks about how success is just standing on a pile of failures.

David Gibbs: 19:03

Actually, I wanna ask my kids and my wife now, like, do I have Dave ism? I probably do. You probably do.

Laura: 19:08

Or you just quote a movie.

David Gibbs: 19:12

Yeah. Never give up, Laura.

Laura: 19:14

Never surrender.

David Gibbs: 19:16

Yeah, we're Galaxy Quest fans, and if you folks have not watched it, you need to watch it. And did I mention that this Lego I built, this was out of scratch, out of a pile of Yes. There were no directions.

Laura: 19:28

No, no, no, this was all your imagination. Which is so incredibly important going back to being a financial and career coach.

David Gibbs: 19:37

Did I go off the

Laura: 19:38

hook? No, we have to build things sometimes out of scraps. So we look at other people and we say, okay, what, what is the scrappy situation that you are in right now? And how do we compile that and grow that and make that become something? And that's one of the joys of getting to do what we get to do that said, final question for the podcast, cause I want to keep it short. What is your favorite thing about focusing on career with people?

David Gibbs: 20:13

It's really the idea of being able to open them up beyond, family expectation beyond their own expectation, even beyond their own knowledge of maybe careers and jobs and things that they didn't even know existed and hopefully, helping them achieve a dream that they didn't even know they have. And that, that's what I love is the discovery, the exploration. I mean, I'm 37, I'm still finding out like, whoa, that's a job. Like I still have that happen, you know, and especially for my kids and for any folks that I teach anything about career, yeah, absolutely focusing and opening them up to the possibilities of all the cool stuff out there that you don't even know exists that might be made just for you.

Laura: 21:08

One of the coolest things is the ability to see possibility, and a lot of the people we work with are stuck between a rock and a hard place, and they don't see the big, giant opening right behind them.

David Gibbs: 21:21

This or that?

Laura: 21:23

Right, there's always another option, and a lot of people get very binary. They're, you know, it's either X's or O's. It can't be anything in the middle. And I'm just like, what about a Q? Like, let's just throw something else in there, and let's make that work. Anyway, David, thank you for coming back on the podcast. I love having you here. I love our conversations. Always fun. Always enlightening. I hope that people got something good out of this. That they were able to hear something, a little nugget of something. A singular Lego that they can take to build onto their starship in the future.

David Gibbs: 22:01

We should have like a five minute analogy battle. Who can come up with the best and easiest one?

Laura: 22:06

Probably not me right now.

David Gibbs: 22:09

Lego of your life, my friends.

Laura: 22:12

But how can people, if people are like, I just need to get into a career film quote battle with David Gibbs, how do people get a hold of you?

David Gibbs: 22:22

You can find me on Facebook, Instagram, just type in Coach David. You can Google me, and then you can also email me right now. Coach davidGibbs@gmail.com.

Laura: 22:33

Fabulous. All right friends, reach out to Coach David. And make sure that you make that connection because it's always fun, always interesting, always exciting. Thank you so much for being here and Accelerators, you know what it is. Go out and make a difference.

David Gibbs: 22:49

Woo!

Laura: 22:52

thank you for spending time with us today on Money and Career Mastery from Overwhelm to Ownership. Remember, your legacy isn't just about financial freedom. It's about living with purpose, taking action, and building a foundation that lasts for generations. Don't just listen, implement what you've learned and share it with someone who could use a financial or career breakthrough. If you found value in today's episode, help us grow by rating, reviewing, and sharing the podcast. I'll be back next week with more strategies to help you master your money and career. Until then take ownership of your future and build your legacy with intention.