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Today is for you if you feel a little bit different, perhaps even a misfit, dropout or a dreamer even. I am going to highlight the four main barriers to getting what you want out of property and discuss a few ways of how to combat these right now.
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Transcription of the show
Hello, and welcome to another episode of The Property Voice podcast. My name is Richard Brown and as always, it’s a pleasure to have you join me on the show again today.
I am currently on a ski break in Utah, USA and so am trying to cram in as much as possible off-piste as I do on-piste, so to speak.
Today is for you if you feel a little bit different, perhaps even a misfit, dropout or a dreamer even. I am going to highlight the four main barriers to getting what you want out of property and discuss a few ways of how to combat these right now.
Property Chatter
There’s a song by The National called I Need My Girl, which I often listen to when separated from my wife for an extended period of time. I know, I’m a soppy so-and-so, aren’t I?
It has the line ‘the party was full of punks and cannonballers’ as the songwriter contemplated the apparently odd people around him. This line stuck in my head as being a little unusual, I mean, what is a cannonballer anyway? According to the Urban Dictionary, one of it’s meanings is someone who just doesn’t fit in or obey convention.
Do you ever feel like you just don’t fit in? Be it with friends and family, work or study colleagues or the other people that you run into in your normal haunts…you may notice that you are different or feel abnormal even.
I was chatting to a couple of late teen / early twenty-year olds recently about their plans and hopes for the future. They were clearly VERY ‘different’ in that they read up on good financial management and are considered to be ‘extreme savers’ in that they set aside well in excess of 30% of their earnings to provide for their future, one even sets aside 70% of their earnings would you believe?
Then, there were a couple of people who had established and considered to be desirable careers, who just wanted out at some point in the near future. They wanted to start doing something that would provide them with a safety net or escape rope from their apparently attractive careers.
Finally, one or two people that had experienced something of a shock, be it a job loss or health issues and this made them sit and take stock of their situation, leading them to want to make a change.
Here's the thing…many of the world’s greatest changemakers were dropouts, misfits or dreamers! Perhaps they had to be different to make a difference? Now, we don’t all need to be the next Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg or Richard Branson to make a difference to our own lives, our financial futures or those of the people we care about.
Consider these stats:
There were 2.5 million people classed as landlords in 2018 according to Ludlow Thomson and in another report by Mortgages for Business, around 43% of these own more than one rental property. To put that into perspective, that’s under 1.7% of the UK population considered to be multiple landlords. Less than 2% of the UK population are multiple landlords. That does imply that being a landlord or property investor is difficult…or at least that there are some barriers that need to be overcome, which we shall come onto.
Then, according to i News, the average pension pot is just £50,000, that’s the pot not the income by the way. This pot would typically produce an annuity income of just £2,000 per year!
Average savings are rumoured to be just over £10,000 and around 25% of people have no savings at all and are literally a pay cheque away from financial distress or ruin.
These statistics don’t take into account the rising retirement age and the cost of healthcare as we start to live longer either. So, it doesn’t take that much to beat the average when you think about it, even if you think it’s difficult, I hope to share some ways to change that thought process over the next few minutes.
Just as the simplest diet plan is to eat less and exercise more, the simplest plan for a healthier financial future is to spend less and save more…that’s it really!
Then, for an upgrade from economy class to premium economy class, we should invest wisely to achieve inflation-beating compound growth.
From premium economy class to business class; if we can earn more, then we can save and invest more to grow that snowball faster too.
Finally, if you want first class, well that usually comes from scaling and leveraging to multiply your own efforts and capitalise on that the effort of other people, networks and systems.
However, as with many things in life; it’s simple but not always easy. So, what is stopping us from following this simple financial diet then? Well, I usually find it is one or more of the following:
- A lack of knowledge or education
- A lack of finances
- A lack of time or conflicting priorities
- A lack of belief
As a listener of The Property Voice Podcast and if you have plugged into the various free or low-cost resources available at The Property Voice, such as the free podcast resources page, the YPN magazine articles subscription-free and the Property Investor Toolkit book…I am going to knock the knowledge one on the head straight away. The knowhow you require to realise a better life in property is already out there at no or next-to-no cost. Granted, you might be overwhelmed or procstinate a bit, but that’s a different proposition and that can be resolved simply by asking for help from someone that has been there before you to give you some guidance. So, let’s move on please…
A lack of money (being the main resource we need in property) can be a challenge, there’s no doubt about that. However, when you consider that I am currently mentoring a couple of people on my Apprenticeship Programme who also have very little or in fact no money whatsoever and they are finding a way to develop a plan for a better financial future through property from this starting point, then we can’t really accept a lack of money either can we? Where there’s a will, there’s a way, even if you don’t have a massive investment fund set aside.
This leaves us with the two biggest limiting factors then: time and belief.
With time, we ALL have just 24 hours a day don’t we? So, how do some people manage to achieve more with their 24 hours than others?
Again, one of my Apprentices raised this in one of our group calls. We took 5-10 minutes to ‘crowdsource’ some suggestions between us. To do lists/apps, what I call my 3-5 list of realistic priority actions per day and a time logging sheet to track wasted time were just some of the suggestions that were quickly offered. So, too was the suggestion to simply drop some things on their to-do list at times, focusing on the ones that would lead to direct income or definite steps towards achieving their goals.
Sure, it might mean dropping that Netflix series or not watching the footy on TV…but that’s called sacrificing today for a better tomorrow or ‘delayed gratification’ as they say in many success training circles.
Remember the famous quote: ‘to live as others cannot tomorrow, you have to do what others will not today.’ I therefore think that half of the battle relates to time management and priorities. Crack that and you are well on your way.
Then, the other big one is about our self-limiting beliefs. Too young, too old, not clever enough (remember what I just said about knowledge), not rich enough (remember what I said about not having enough money), from the wrong side of town, from a marginalised minority, too busy, got a boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife or significant other, got a family, got a stressful job or got a business to run and so on. These are all circumstances that can stop us from acting and realising our plans, goals and dreams…but ONLY if we let them! Many can and do overcome these challenges and many others to find the time to start and succeed in property, trust me on that.
I guess if I am honest, I am one of the so-called privileged ones. White, male, university-educated, in good health and with a home in south-east England. But I was also divorced, broke, in debt and a prescription away from medication to treat depression, as well as having no real clue about how to actually apply these simple financial principles to my personal life, despite having a day-job in financial services! Nuts isn’t it when you think about it?
You see, I had two things going wrong in my life around a decade ago.
First, was a lack of ‘relevant education’ – they don’t teach effective personal financial management and investing at school and on most university courses or even in most of the financial services industry in fact! So, I had a knowledge gap as a result.
Second, whilst I had tried several business ideas and schemes, I did tend to go about things in the wrong way. I took big risks and I placed my trust in the wrong people around me if truth be known. These were largely issues of belief.
I was busy, aren’t we all? I was also broke as I alluded to.
But, here’s what I did…
I spent around four years educating myself in personal finance and property. Back then, the level of information available was less organised and accessible than it is now and in truth, I could have short-circuited this learning process considerably with what I now know…so you won’t need to wait four years to get started in other words.
Then, I worked on my attitude and belief. I don’t believe that I have cracked this 100% yet, but I am much further down the track than I was back then. I have two tips here, which may in fact surprise you when you read them. ‘Mindfulness’, or just sitting quietly, relaxing and calming your thoughts occasionally is one that Richard, one of my Apprentices suggested to us recently. Then, from my point of view, I have found the Stoic philosophy to be one of the most practical ways to channel my thoughts into controllable, practical actions and to reduce stress and anxiety in the process.
Why am I sharing some of these more personal insights you might be wondering? Well, I was all washed-up, in tough spot and without much of a real clue in my early-to-mid forties in reality, yet I managed to find a way out.
I was a misfit…I had a successful corporate career, but it always felt as though I was swimming against the tide.
I was a dropout of sorts…in my last job I volunteered for a redundancy when my name was not even in one of the boxes.
I was also a dreamer…always had been in truth, just a dreamer without a viable plan though back then, that’s all.
You may relate to some of this; chances are that your ‘circumstances’ are a little different to mine. However, when you boil it down, if you have not yet cracked it with your personal finances and dreams to be working on a viable and actionable plan, then I would hazard a guess that time and belief are potentially the two biggest barriers for you to overcome.
You can get the knowledge and a lack of funding can be worked around.
So, whilst there are four main barriers to overcome, just have a think about those two biggies: time and belief and then go do something about sorting them!
If you feel like you are a bit of a misfit, drop-out, dreamer or even a ‘cannonballer’…there is still hope for you yet and you would be in very good company too! 😊
OK, so that’s me done from Stateside again this week. I am off to enjoy the après-ski proper right now, but don’t forget the show notes are available on our website www.thepropertyvoice.net, including how you can reach me by telephone. Or, if you want to talk about anything from today’s show, or just talk property investing more generally, email me at podcast@thepropertyvoice.net, I would be happy to hear from you!
All that is left to say, is thank you very much for listening once again this week and until next time on The Property Voice Podcast…it’s ciao-ciao.