Chris Rodwell: Hello. Welcome to episode 14 of WealthTalk. My name's Christian Rodwell, the membership director for WealthBuilders, and I am joined by Mr. Kevin Whelan, the founder of WealthBuilders.

 

Kevin Whelan: Hi there, Chris. How's it going today?

 

Chris Rodwell: Well, it's been pretty manic this week because we've just launched

the Foundation Programme and it's been exciting, right? We've got so many people contacting us wanting to know more, jumping on board. We've just done a Facebook Live today, so it's all actually a go at the moment, and yeah, welcome to all of the new Foundation members. All our founder members.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah, it's cool. I'm looking forward to working with them and I put my reputation on the line, Chris, so we better deliver.

 

Chris Rodwell: That's it. Got a double money back guarantee there, which all the details are up on the website anyway, so ... In fact, probably when you're listening to this the launch period, the initial discount period will be over, but if there's still some places left then you can head on over to wealthbuilders.co.uk/launch, find out details about Foundation Programme there, and if there's still time jump on board and be part of that with us.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah, but there are still people out there who kind of know they want to create more wealth. They know that they can jump onto our resources and get a step-by-step process, but they come back with those drifty questions, Chris, which is, what about Brexit? Is it the right time to do things? What about Mr. Carney is going to be replaced at some point? What about if interest rates go up? Isn't the stock market at an all-time high? We've had a 10-year bull run. That's bound to come crashing down around our knees, so shouldn't I just whoa and stop everything and sit on my hands and wait for a better time?

 

Chris Rodwell: Yes.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah. What a bunch of questions that is.

 

Chris Rodwell: Well, we did say in last episode of WealthTalk that we were going to move on and start diving into each of the seven pillars. However, we've had these questions coming up quite regularly now, and we thought we better address these before someone really focuses on those assets and the pillars.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah, particularly is the initial assets that we'll be talking about, the home capacity asset, the pension asset, and the investment assets, they're pretty much determined largely, Chris, by what happens in markets. The property market and the value of property and how's that going, and the interest rate market, and the mortgage cost market, and the stock market, and so forth. The thing about markets is that's what they do. Markets rise, markets fall, and one of the challenges, and it's a really important principle, which is why I wanted to do this podcast before we dive deep, is because there's still a principle that we really need to nail and I don't think we've nailed it in the previous episode, which is this.

 

Kevin Whelan: If you can learn to be the person who's part of the value, in other words, part of the value add, you do something that creates value, then you're not delegating your way to anything. You're not relying on if this does that. You're relying on yourself being able to bring value, and the way you bring value is to think about how your wealth dynamic, the way that you naturally bring value, or the way that you can explore bringing value can drive your own personal economy. You do something that forces value. You know? So that when you do that you're in control of that value. Even if markets go down there's still ways ... You're looking puzzled, Chris, as like I need to give some examples.

 

Chris Rodwell: I'm just thinking that when you get to that point it must give you an unbelievable feeling of certainty.

Kevin Whelan: That's a great point. If you think about something getting on in their life and they're thinking about downsizing them and the property market crashes, and then they're just about to draw their pension. You've had the tax-free cash to stick a few quid in the bank and then they want to draw their pension and the stock market crashes. Then interest rates are low so they can't even get any decent return on their savings, kind of like now.

 

Kevin Whelan: How certain is life? It's entirely uncertain, so certainty doesn't come from thinking about markets. It comes from thinking about flowing value and wealth flows to value. We talked about this in many of our previous podcasts that wealth flows to value. Should we talk about some examples where individuals can create value?

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah. Well, let's look at perhaps in the different pillars you could give some examples.

 

Kevin Whelan: Well, you can create value in every pillar, really, except it's very difficult to create value, let's say, in the stock market, but I can certainly show anybody ways to mitigate the risk of the crash in the stock market. While you can't wake up tomorrow and fancy buying a pair of Nike trainers and all the of the sudden Nike shares are going to go up, that's not going to happen. You can't really do anything about that, which is why the stock market is not a great place to build wealth. It's a place where you might want to start your journey if you're just building some trackers, you're building some traction, if you like. But the real way to build wealth comes from the entrepreneurial pillars. We refer to assets as pillars, right? We've talked about that before?

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah.

 

Kevin Whelan: The pillars that you can do extraordinary things are the pillars of property, the pillars of business, the pillars of intellectual property, and the pillars of joint ventures. Because in each one of those you can do something yourself that even if the market goes down you've driven value into your life either in cash or in some form of appreciation. Shall I give you some examples?

Chris Rodwell: Please do.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah. Let's give you another example, another paradox just before I do that. If, let's say, you've got money, your savings, and the savings is in the stock market and the stock market crashes and you're drawing money at a fixed level, you need a certain level, or you're drawing money based on the return you get, so the market gives you 4% so you spend 4%. The market gives you 6% so you spend 6%. If the market crashes and it goes down by 10, 15, 20% or whatever then the very definition of that, if you're trying to keep your money in the right ... keep the same value, is your income will go down. Your income is coupled, it's interconnected, inextricably linked to the value of the asset you hold, which is the stock market.

 

Kevin Whelan: Well, let's flip that. Let's say you've got money in a property that you rent out, right? We won't go into the details of different property strategies, but let's say you do that. The property market falls and your property goes down by 10, 15, or 20%. The rental income doesn't, so you're still accumulating rent and there's no relationship, certainly not immediately, that says, "Property market's fallen. Everybody pays less rent." It doesn't, or it doesn't work that way, so automatically you decoupled, you've disconnected the value of your income from the value of the asset.

Kevin Whelan: Now, the ways that you can force appreciation, you can create value. Well, first of all, you have to be educated enough to do it.

 

Chris Rodwell: Always begins with education.

 

Kevin Whelan: Well, it always does and always will, but the education, let's say, in property ... Well, let's give you an easy example. I was talking with some property developers I really like recently out in Tunbridge Wells and they were saying they've got eight strategies to add value. Now let me give you a couple of those so I don't steal their thunder if we ever get them on a podcast soon, but one of those might be there's been a massive change in the world as far as property's concerned, let's say in pubs. Right?

 

Kevin Whelan: Pubs used to be a place where people would go an accumulate, and they'd socialize, and they'd smoke, and they'd drink, and all those things. But increasingly pubs are just no longer valuable, so let's say you ... You don't have to be the owner of the pub or the owner of the asset because you can joint venture it. Let's say somebody knows how to do that and they buy a pub and they get permission to turn that into apartments. The apartments are being sold to first-time buyers with help to buy, so there's a demand. Demand is not really going to be affected at that level by Brexit or by interest rates necessarily because young people always need to get on the housing ladder.

 

Kevin Whelan: What you've done is then you bought something at a price that's commercial pounds per foot. Commercial property costs less to buy than residential property. You change the use. You lever the property. You get leverage, in other words. Not just debt leverage, but that will be often the way to do it, but you completely change the value. By adding value you created an incredible extra amount of money, and even if the market crashed a bit and your typical margin was a 30% or a 25% return on your investment and the market fell, you're only going to lose a small proportion of that but you're always going to be positive.

 

Kevin Whelan: The forced appreciation from an example like that, and now if we look around, Chris, on the High Street we'll see banks are closing. They've been converted. I've seen dentist surgeries converted and doctor's surgeries converted. Even churches are being converted in a kind of a bizarre sort of a way. What that means is there is plenty of opportunity out there, A, to learn how to do it, but, B, if you don't want to learn how to do it, you just want to understand it, you can work with somebody who does that, who creates that value, and instead of having your money parked in the stock market in a kind of a static way you use your money in a more empowering way. Your money comes to life. You get a bigger return on your investment. You get a return on your intellect if you remember the ROIs, and if you choose well and you resonate with the people with whom you're working then you can build that great return on interaction.

 

Kevin Whelan: So many different powerful ROIs that create incredible extra value, so even if you never want to be a developer ... I'm not saying everybody wants to be a developer. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying you can understand that as an exercise in forced appreciation, in creating more certainty where everybody else is fearful of the uncertainty of markets. Does that make the point?

 

Chris Rodwell: It does, and we have a number of examples of members in the WealthBuilders community in the Facebook group sharing similar stories.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah.

 

Chris Rodwell: That's a great example, Kevin.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah.

 

Chris Rodwell: Okay. What about any of the other pillars? Is there another way that you can think someone could add some value or learn how to be a value creator?

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah. I mean, one of my favorites is understanding the principle of the lifetime value of a client. I don't think I've covered that one before, Chris, so that might be a new one.

 

Chris Rodwell: Would this be in the business pillar?

 

Kevin Whelan: Yes, it would be in business because ... Well, you could actually apply the lifetime value of a client to a property because if you built a property portfolio you would work out, "Well, how long does this property get tenanted?" If you've got a good property, well, it could be indefinite, right?

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah.

 

Kevin Whelan: That's probably one of the main reasons why people like that, but in business ... I see a lot of business owners and I'm a business owner myself, and one of the things I noticed about business owners is there are three types of business owner. No, it's not the drifters, and the DIYs, and the dynamics. It's three different ones.

 

Kevin Whelan: There are those who are almost craftspeople. People who are doing the job they love and they do it as if they had a job but they're doing it on their own terms, and that's okay but it doesn't create wealth because you're constantly trading your time for money. You're doing it, and then you're invoicing it, and then you're checking, and that whole process. Lifestyle businesses, that's not really great place from a wealth building perspective but it's great to give time freedom, and so that's a good thing.

 

Kevin Whelan: The second are those who are what I call profit chasers. What I mean by profit chasers is they have a business, and they do the work, and then they make profit, and then they do the work and they make profit, but it's still trading time for money. It's not uncommon for accountants to do that or lawyers to do that. It's still an hourly rate, but they've got sort of partners in one hourly rate and ...

 

Chris Rodwell: Transactional, yeah.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah, it's all transactional. What I prefer to do is look for businesses both to work with investing or build that have a different characteristic altogether. That's to sit down and look at, what is the lifetime value of a relationship with a well-served client where you deliver exactly what you promise and you focus on the consistency of delivering to them the value they are seeking? Now, that was a mouthful, so let me break it down.

 

Kevin Whelan: It's self-serving to have a business that focuses on the lifetime value of the client because if you've got a business, let's say ... I have a business, okay. I'll mention it because I'm very proud of it. It's a business that provides the support both in terms of compliance and reporting to SSAS trustees, pension trustees, those people who have taken their pension, they've completely changed their relationship with their pension, turned it into a special kind of a pension we call SSAS. That wonderful, small self administered scheme, which is the worst marketing title in the world, but none the less ... We look after a large number of people. Now, let me just give you an example.

 

Kevin Whelan: Let's say, just to make numbers up and make them very round, if the average SSAS client holds their money in their pension for their lifetime and then they pass it on to their spouse, and then they pass it on to their children because it's a trust fund for the family, now even ... It doesn't matter what timeframe you put on it, but if you put on a timeframe of 30 years, let's say, then if they're paying 1,000 pounds per year to be in the scheme that's a 30,000 pound client for every client who says yes. Now, this isn't selfish to say that because in order to keep 1,000 clients happy you've got to focus continually on adding value.

 

Kevin Whelan: A lifetime value-driven business focuses on adding lifetime value. When you focus your business that way so you don't think about the profit, you think about the value, and then if you think about that and do the maths on that, if there's 1,000 people at 1,000 a year that's a million pounds of recurring income year after year after year after year. Now, how much value is that and how much more value would that be compared to a business that just made a few thousand pounds in profit and focused just on the profit? You see what I mean?

 

Chris Rodwell: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

 

Kevin Whelan: When you focus on value and you look at the lifetime value, and you look at how you deliver value, and that's where you start, which is why I love working with new WealthBuilder clients. I'm so looking forward to working with the Foundation members because we'll encourage as many of them as possible to see the entrepreneurial value in creating ideas like that so that they begin to see creating lifetime value is a worthwhile cause. Not just for a great client and a happy relationship, but it drives incredible value to their business and I'm so looking forward to helping people do that. It's a different way of thinking though, isn't it?

 

Chris Rodwell: It is, and we covered this in an earlier episode is the employee versus the entrepreneur mindset. If you haven't listened to that then I'm trying to think of what episode that is, but we'll link to it in the show notes, that's for sure. But definitely the wealth mindset, and also wealth dynamics gives you a wonderful clue as to where you can add value.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah, it does. Particularly for those on the start of their wealth building journey because more often than not, I see people kind of get a little bit of education and then they think the way to build wealth is to chase that asset because they've heard of it down the pub that's still open or on some website. They'll chase some kind of strategy without really thinking through, is that right for them? Are they used to adding that value? Do they somehow now become a novice in the creation of a new asset and forget and discard all of the value they've created up to that point without taking that into account and showing how they could bring that to the table even in a joint venture?

 

Kevin Whelan: If somebody's got a brilliant brain with numbers and they want to get into property, say, and somebody's brilliant ... they meet a property expert who's brilliant in property but not great at doing the finance then you can form an allegiance and create value from each other because one needs the other. That's, again, where value in wealth comes from. It's that connectivity between one wealth dynamic and another, as well as being in control of where you think your own best value is.

 

Kevin Whelan: Wealth dynamics, clear picture of where you're going, a clear understanding of how you add value and how you add value on a recurring basis or renewable basis or a lifetime value basis, these are all the skills that WealthBuilders, once they do ... Here's the thing. If you're in a job or you're in a craftsperson type of a business you're used to that trading time for money and you'll continually do it. You'll never ever get off that treadmill in the same way as ... That's why I think you just referred to it as a rat race continuum, and it is, whatever you're doing.

 

Kevin Whelan: But as soon as you can give yourself some focus for, say, three to five years of focus on this sort of stuff you can be financially independent for the rest of your life, whereas you'll always be uncertain if you're chasing the money because the only way you can ... If you don't have something recurring the only way you can build wealth is save some money, pay the tax on it, and then park it. Yeah, it's the slow way to do it, and I'm continually bamboozled at the lack of education that's going on in this country and it flummoxes me. Still now even though they get exposure to us they go, "Oh, what about Brexit? What about this?" It's the drifty mentality that, obviously, causes me a little bit of frustration, but in the end, we do end up working with those people who can see past that and they want to really focus on how they can do a better job for themselves to build wealth in whichever pillar. I'm happy to dive into any pillar you want, but every single one of them is all about the same thing.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah. When you understand the process of turning the wheel of wealth, which we've discussed on previous episode, and you turn that once and it works, and you get recurring income, and you've got one pillar in place, and then you've got two, three, and four.

 

Kevin Whelan: Exactly. Now, not everybody needs to build seven, okay? It's not about, "Oh, I've got seven pillars." It's about how many different ways do you need to make it easy for you to build your wealth in a way that suits you with the pillars you want to build for yourself? What's interesting for me is somebody could build and choose the same strategy, property, say, as an example, or business, and they could just do the same thing and repeat it.

 

Kevin Whelan: You don't need to learn something new, except you just need to be aware that, have you created enough value so that if some market does change you've insulated yourself from that as far as possible? That's why I always recommend thinking about building multiple pillars so then, whether the stock market goes up or down you're really unaffected, whether interest rates go up or down you're really unaffected, whether Brexit happens or doesn't happen you're really unaffected. You might be mildly irritated, and I get mildly irritated from time to time, but never ever worried because creating wealth in multiple ways makes you financially bulletproof, and that's the best place to aim for.

 

Kevin Whelan: There's a process for it, Chris. Anybody can do it as long as they focus on the right things and not get caught up in the trap of, "Oh, it's all too complicated," because it isn't. You just go one step at a time.

 

Chris Rodwell: That's why I love pillars six and seven, the intellectual property and the joint ventures, because when you learn how to build a business and you focus on your skills and your strengths and where you deliver value then it's very easy then to turn that into some kind of intellectual property.

 

Kevin Whelan: Well, exactly.

 

Chris Rodwell: [crosstalk 00:22:40]

 

Kevin Whelan: Exactly.

 

Chris Rodwell: And partner with others, and there's additional income streams right there.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah, and what's interesting about that is it's a natural progression because if you think about the words .. You know I'm a great student of the English language, Chris, and if you think about the word author, it stems or it's the stem of the word authority. If you become an authority on something ... We've heard people talk about if you master something and spend your 10,000 hours doing something then you have the right to have authority in that area. As you build your wealth you're creating an authority in how you did that, whether it's with like you, we've escaped the rat race, whether it's with me with the seven pillars of wealth, whether it's some expert property trading or some expert business buyer or some value they bring to the world where they're so good at it, they're so recognized for it, they're sought out. Being sought out then creates enormous value for themselves and also for different ways they can layer even more value on top of that.

 

Kevin Whelan: You can license things. You can create a franchise from it, as has been done in ActionCOACH, for example. There's just so many different way, and I look for those ways and wherever possible see business owners maybe who can't see that recurring income in their business. I talk to them and say, "Well, if you're chasing profit, how could you get 5% of your revenue recurring?" Then start there. Don't just completely change your business model, but could you do a little bit on subscription?

 

Kevin Whelan: Subscription as a strategy, I call that, which is my other SAAS. The SSAS pension were SAAS. Subscription as strategy is what I kind of challenge business owners to think about and say, "How much income are getting automatically in your business?" They go, "Well, none, really." "Okay. How could you get 5%? If you're doing a million, how could you get 50,000 automatic?" Then just start helping them build little by little by little. That business is worth infinitely more when you don't need the owner to be there because the money just recurs, recurs, recurs, but you have to focus that way. You have to see yourself about what that value is you're adding and continue to want to add it and be proud to do it.

 

Chris Rodwell: I've been privy to a few of those conversations that you've had, and-

 

Kevin Whelan: Yes, you've heard them, haven't you?

 

Chris Rodwell: ... within a couple of hours, it's phenomenal some of the ideas and the light bulbs that go off.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's fun to do and I love to do that at that kind of high level, but we're looking to compact all of that wisdom into the foundation program as well so that you can begin to get those insights really at the very beginning. Almost like I'll be going to play some golf over the bank holiday and I know my swing's not perfect. I wish if I could change it, I'd have gone back right at the beginning and got the good fundamentals really at the beginning. Now I'm just sort of a clumsy, old geezer pushing the ball with a sort of mid-handicap, but I wish I'd done it right. I didn't because I thought I could DIY my way around a golf course and you can't do that [inaudible 00:25:54] doing well.

 

Chris Rodwell: That's sounds like a good place to end things for today.

 

Kevin Whelan: Okay. Next time we must get some case studies, right? Because we now know we are in control of our own personal economy. We don't care what happens to interest rates. We care to understand it but we don't really worry about that. We don't really worry about the stock market because we can control our own personal life, and we want to do that, and we will build the wealth in all of those different pillars. Why don't we bring some of our students to the table being interviewed saying what they've done to give the real-life examples to the theory we've been waffling on about for 14 episodes now, Chris?

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah.

 

Kevin Whelan: I think we need to get somebody else in on the story. What do you think?

 

Chris Rodwell: I think so. It reminds me of the Jim Rohn quote that says, "The same wind blows on all of us. It's the set of the sail which determines, obviously, the outcome." The same things happen out there. The economy will do its thing.

 

Kevin Whelan: That's a good point. That's a good point.

 

Chris Rodwell: It's down to taking control and being the value creator.

 

Kevin Whelan: Being the value creator, and that's what we'll be teaching all through the program. It just runs through the DNA of the whole thing however we meet people. We'll continue to give free value too, so I'm very comfortable that we continue to give as much information as we can to those people who just want to consume it at their own pace. But don't let the market determine when you start to build your own wealth. Just do it when you're ready.

 

Kevin Whelan: All right, lesson from me. Next time, lessons from others. How about that?

 

Chris Rodwell: I like it. Thanks for tuning in today. We'll catch you on the next episode of WealthTalk.

 

Kevin Whelan: See you.

Chris Rodwell: Welcome to episode 13 of WealthTalk. My name is Christian Rodwell, the membership director for WealthBuilders, and joined by Mr. Kevin Whelan, founder of WealthBuilders. Hello, Kevin.

 

Kevin Whelan: Hi, Chris.

 

Chris Rodwell: How are you doing?

 

Kevin Whelan: I'm doing well today. Looking forward to revealing a little more.

 

Chris Rodwell: Indeed. It's part two. Last week, we covered the first six modules of the brand-new WealthBuilders Foundation program, which is launching today.

 

Kevin Whelan: Wow.

 

Chris Rodwell: It's out. It's available.

 

Kevin Whelan: I'm scared now. What are people going to think? I don't know. Well, I hope ...

 

Chris Rodwell: Well ...

 

Kevin Whelan: It should work for them. It's worked for [inaudible 00:00:46].

 

Chris Rodwell: It's exciting because, obviously, we've had so many wonderful interactions over the last few weeks since we've been recording these WealthTalk episodes, and it seems a natural step to really put it all together into a program that people know that they have a blueprint where they can actually follow that and it's a scientific profess. If you follow the steps and you turn the wheel successfully, you will start to build your wealth.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah. It works because it works. It's a foolproof system. Only fools try and cheat it, and rarely they do. That's the DIYers. But, anyway, let's get into the detail, Chris.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah. Well, I'll quick-

 

Kevin Whelan: Do you want to do a quick recap, maybe?

 

Chris Rodwell: I'll quickly recap for anyone who is listening now who perhaps didn't catch last week's episode, and I definitely would say go back after this and have a look, have a listen to that.

 

Chris Rodwell: Section one ... We've broken the program into four sections, and this first section is really about your self-wealth. It's the mindset. So that covers off the wealth dynamics and where you are on the five levels because the Foundation program is squarely aimed at people who are not yet at a place of financial security, so not yet generating enough asset income to cover the base level of monthly expenditure.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah, and I think a note for the future, which is many of our listeners and many of the people we work with have already passed that level. I don't want to have them feel that they're going to be cheated of information. There are certainly lots of exciting things to come at much higher levels. But given this is the vast majority of people, Chris ... And we know if 95% of people don't make it, that's a big number. So we want to really do our best to help those people first. I'll make no apology for that.

 

Chris Rodwell: And in section two of the program, there's really a lot of information crammed here. This is understanding where the hidden money is in your life right now. We have a process for that. We've talked about it before, and then the protection of your wealth, which is the roof element. And then module six is creating leverage. That will really help you then identify which is the right pillar.

 

Kevin Whelan: Well, the first six sections are really getting ready. It's packing your bags. It's getting everything ready for the trip. When you get to that next point, you've got to start taking action now. So everything's ready. You're loaded. Now it's time to move.

 

Chris Rodwell: That's it. We've got a strong foundation, and the roof is in place. It's time to look closely now, which is section three, which is the seven pillars of wealth. Module seven is an overview of the seven ways to build wealth, so the seven pillars.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah. We've done the seven pillars before. We've covered that, and in a previous podcast, we not just talked about a reasonable introduction to each of the seven ways ... And there are still only seven ways, Chris. So I still [inaudible 00:03:38] pipe message from anybody saying, "I found pillar number eight, Kevin." So we're still on number seven. We still only have seven.

 

Kevin Whelan: The interesting thing as we think about building those is we've highlighted the risks ... or not the risks, necessarily. We'll talk about that, probably, in a minute. But we highlighted the mistakes that people make. And in the module, we'll start to introduce people to some of the case studies of people, as well, who are starting to do something. So once you've got that real clear understanding about which pillar, what they are, then you begin to find yourself ready to choose which one's right for you, at least to start.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah, and we know without doubt from previous experience that there can be some massive "aha" moments when people really understand the assets and what's currently in their life already.

 

Kevin Whelan: Well, sure. I mean, that financial leverage piece, there's always or almost always some financial asset that can work harder. We know that. But also, Chris, let's not forget that sometimes the journey of discovering the pillars and the assets is also one that helps you if you don't like something, because you identify something doesn't fit your dynamic. It's not the right thing for you, but you haven't invested heavily in lots of education and lots of time delay. So, by understanding them and talking them through, you get to a much faster decision about what's right for you.

 

Chris Rodwell: Module eight is actually choosing your pillar, and that's really taking everything that you've learned in the first seven modules and then very clearly and calculated decision as to which asset class will you focus on?

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah. Interesting about that, though, Chris, is we need to go a little deeper there because we can't just say business. We can't just say property. We can't just say IP, and we can't just say joint ventures. We've got to really try and unravel the layers so that individuals can choose which facet, which type of ... Let's call it the pillars represent a strategy, and then each different way you can deal inside that pillar is like a tactic.

 

Kevin Whelan: The most popular one, Chris, by far, we know is property. But there are at least a dozen different strategies on property, and we need to try and at least give our listeners an overview of those so they begin to choose which ones are most likely for them. We can narrow that down. It's always best done with some guidance because to try and learn a dozen strategies would take a year, and then that just delays things and you discover it's wrong for you. You've just wasted another year. We don't really want people to waste more than a month.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah. This may be a good point at which to mention that throughout the Foundation program, there is a choice of three different levels in terms of do you want the education only, which is kind of the do it yourself? We don't really encourage that.

 

Kevin Whelan: No. Look. In truth, Chris, the reason to create it is because it needed to be created anyway. It's like a foundation program that you could have on a university course, sort of open university course. People can buy the education. But you can't buy insights, can't buy accountability.

 

Kevin Whelan: So, in truth, the education is there, but wealth is built far more quickly and more safely and more enjoyably by working with someone. The whole process of wealth building is best done by being connected, not by doing it on your own. But we respect the fact that some people want to do that, and there's nothing wrong with them having a go at that to then discover if they need help along the way.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah. So three options for the Foundation program: education at level one, support at level two ... And this comes with bimonthly support calls from a wealth coach, so you're checking in. You've got that accountability. And then level three is connection, which is monthly calls with a wealth coach and also live masterminds throughout the year as well, which ... Of course, we will be in attendance, right?

 

Kevin Whelan: Well, that's right. I love the mastermind because it brings the power of different minds. The mastermind principle is being well established as a way to accelerate people for years and years and years ever since Napoleon Hill's great book, Think and Grow Rich, seminal book which I would recommend to everyone. The idea of getting people together, whether it's online and offline or probably both, is just fascinating and interesting as you see the insights, and you actually see the light bulbs, which is great.

 

Kevin Whelan: However, we recognize that not everybody has the time for that. Not everybody has the budget for that, recognizing, of course, that we've said all along or I've said all along anybody who's investing in the program at any of the connection or support levels, so level two or level three, has got the double-money-back guarantee. Education on its own, well, we can't be held accountable for that. So that's just a money-back guarantee. If you don't like the education after you've had it for 30 days, send it back. It's all free, or you get your money back, anyway.

 

Kevin Whelan: So we would definitely encourage people to spend a little bit more time to think about working and support, getting some guidance and possibly connections. But you'll cover that more, and we'll send details out [inaudible 00:09:09].

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah. The important thing is that you're in control of the range of support that you need.

 

Kevin Whelan: Exactly.

 

Chris Rodwell: As you progress, you can upgrade. If you feel you need more support, more connection, that's not a problem.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah. Especially if people are time poor, they might be happy with a call every couple of months, whereas if you've got yourself to a position where you've got a day a week, for example, or a half a day a week to spend on your wealth, then you multiply that by four. That's a whole day a month. Therefore, you probably want to think about getting into a regular monthly rhythm of adding to your wealth because, in the end, if you do it once a month or once every two months, the difference in cost is almost negligible but the difference in outcome is dramatic because you're speeding yourself not just two times, but the power of the fact that you transform yourself is really quite important.

 

Kevin Whelan: But, anyway, everyone can choose their own level. It's fine.

 

Chris Rodwell: Module nine, then, is the wheel of wealth. We covered this in a previous WealthTalk episode, and understanding the five-step process required to complete one turn of the wheel.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah. Now, I think my experience of people when they see the wheel of wealth, they recognize the principle of good education as the starting point of everything. And, of course, one of the benefits of being connected ... being supported, rather ... is we can help people identify within their own assets where they can get that connection for education at a lower cost or sometimes free, which in the pure education program, we can't do that because we can't know what your assets are, really.

 

Kevin Whelan: But, as far as the wheel is concerned, people can understand the education. They understand the need for some support or accountability, even if it's with a spouse or somebody that's close to them, or a business partner. They get the idea of it's better to be connected than not connected, usually. What they often miss out ... And it's really important, the other parts of the wheel, Chris. They're no less important although they're less spoken about.

 

Kevin Whelan: The fourth part of the component of the wheel, the fourth spoke, if you like, is the spoke of due diligence. The due diligence piece basically is there to protect people from risk. What we normally find is those people who want to push on often have wealth dynamics which are more creative, more driven, and the due diligence is almost ... They miss that stage out. So it's really important to not do that and to be part of a genuine process that says, "Look, let's check you've done this," to make sure that before you take the action, before you commit your time and money to whatever action you're engaging in, you've done so with the lowest possible risk to you.

 

Kevin Whelan: And then the guided action sounds a bit weird because ... Action? What's the difference between guided action and action? Well, the point about guided action is not just to do the right thing but to recognize that when you turn a wheel and you complete it, so you've gone 360 through education, support, connection, due diligence, and guided action, like a cog, it's connected to the next cog that you'll engage to build your wealth further. Now, that could mean there's an issue to deal with on tax. That could mean there's an issue to deal with on what you've just learned, or it might be in terms of understanding a new tactic within the same pillar or even a brand-new pillar.

 

Kevin Whelan: So understanding how all these things click, click, click and connect, connect, connect is really important to guided action, whereas if all you do is invest in the education, you won't know those things. It's too difficult to put that in a book.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah. And part of the Foundation program will include a private group as well. So all Foundation members will be able to share and learn from one another 24/7. Great. So we've said you can't cheat the wheel, right?

 

Kevin Whelan: Can't cheat the wheel.

 

Chris Rodwell: But so many people fail at building wealth because they simply don't follow those five steps, right?

 

Kevin Whelan: Well, unless somebody tells you what the five steps are, do you know what steps to follow? I see what most people do is ... We've got a visual for the wheel of wealth in many places, right? So-

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah, and that's free for everybody in the free membership area access. So yeah.

 

Kevin Whelan: Right. Right. But what I see a lot of people do is go from a little bit of education, and instead of going 360 to go back to action, they go back four spaces like on a ... whatever it is, those-

 

Chris Rodwell: Sort of Snakes and Ladders type thing.

 

Kevin Whelan: Whatever it is, right? There's a game. I think it's Sorry or something. It says, "Go back four spaces," and you go back four spaces. You're kind of accelerating; you're doing a shortcut. But you can't shortcut the process because if you make a mistake, you made a mistake that can cost you forever. That can be very, very damaging in this ... Look, the wealth world is littered with stories of people who thought they were buying into something, thought they were doing something well, and actually, all that happened, they were either cheated of their money or they didn't know enough and made a huge, expensive mistake all on their own.

 

Kevin Whelan: I can tell you some stories on that, Chris, and maybe we'll cover some of those stories to help people really get the point. But yeah. You gotta follow the wheel in the process it was designed. If you follow that, don't cheat the wheel, it will work.

 

Chris Rodwell: In addition to the support calls from the wealth coach at the support level and the connection level, we're also going to be doing some live monthly Q&A webinars. So, any questions, you'll be able to jump on and ask you directly.

 

Kevin Whelan: Ask Kev. I love that because it connects us truly to what people really need and what problems and challenges they're seeing out there. While we're not trying to sit in an ivory tower perched above everything and looking down, that's absolutely not the point. We're trying to work with people, trying to see what their challenges and problems really are. And sometimes, Chris, these calls dispense a little bit of tough love, which is you're just not taking the action that you said you would take. So that can be important.

 

Kevin Whelan: People need to be open-minded to that. It's not a place for know-it-alls. It's not a place for arrogant people. They wouldn't fulfill our values. It's very much a place of open-mindedness. The result is what counts. It's not feeling that you're a master of the craft of wealth building, because you will not be on the first turn of the wheel. Wealth building in itself is transformational. You change as a person, and your wealth changes. So you get better and better and better and better and better at this.

 

Kevin Whelan: It just so happens we've turned hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of wheels. So we kind of know how it works.

 

Chris Rodwell: Well, supporting the growth of the community, which is one of the values in the declaration.

 

Kevin Whelan: It's one of the values. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So I want the success stories, Chris. I want people to say, "I did this and it worked. This is what it's meant to me." Share that good news. Remember, 50,000 people is what we're trying to achieve here in terms of impact on people. 50,000 people means a lot of people need to show us evidence that they've achieved it, not just, "Oh, we really liked the education." We want evidence that their wealth is being built. That's the only way this is going to work: we've got proof.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah. We'd love to see you sign your declaration and upload that into the WealthBuilder's Facebook group. We've already had many upload it in there, but we always love to see new ones.

 

Kevin Whelan: Well, maybe in the Foundation program, we should make sure that's the-

 

Chris Rodwell: I think so.

 

Kevin Whelan: ... first action they take, because if you don't subscribe to the values, then what's the point?

 

Chris Rodwell: That's right. Wow, so section three. There's a lot packed in there, and that's really, really important. Once the pillar's been chosen, once the understanding of the wheel of wealth is there, then we move into section four, which is generating asset income and capital. All the education in the world won't make any difference unless you actually take some action.

 

Chris Rodwell: Module 10 is setting the wheel in motion. This is where you really understand the individual aspects that you've just explained, and of course then you've got that support should you choose that from your wealth coach to actually say, "Okay, I'm doing it but don't quite understand," or, "This has happened." That's when it's great to jump on a call, isn't it, and get that experienced advice?

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah, exactly, because each time you turn the wheel, you could have an interruption into something. Something unexpected could happen either to you or to what you're learning. So that being live and present in the actual wheel, not just the theory of "Don't cheat the wheel," but physically doing it is really quite important.

 

Chris Rodwell: Okay. And then module 11, asset income and capital, which is really, I guess, the point at which you review. So you've now gone through the process, and if done successfully, income has now been generated from your first pillar. But there will have been so many lessons learned along the way, so it's time to really take stock of that and say, "Okay, how can we improve this now for the next turn?"

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah, which is part of the point I made about guided action. You don't quite know what you're going to do next until you take a period of reflection and say, "Well, how did that work for me?" And remember that some people will be looking for turns of the wheel for cash flow, and we definitely want that because cash flow is essentially the recurring income or the asset income that will help people move up towards their level of financial security.

 

Kevin Whelan: But, also, there will be people who want capital, where the purpose of the turning the wheel is to give them an injection of capital, which then means they've got maybe a year's worth of salary so they can give up the job and commit themselves fully to wealth. So everybody will be different. It's not always just about the cash flow. It could be either/or.

 

Chris Rodwell: Module 12 is you're wealth level [master 00:19:05]. We talked about getting from a place of insecurity to security. Now, it might take more than one turn in order to achieve that.

 

Kevin Whelan: It might take more than one wheel.

 

Chris Rodwell: Correct.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah. Remember the wheel is a tactic. Now, you could, as some people may do, is turn the same wheel, essentially, or the same tactic multiple times.

 

Chris Rodwell: An example being ...

 

Kevin Whelan: Well, a simple example might be I've got absolutely no time at all, so I need to delegate everything. I'm going to buy three [buy-to-let 00:19:43] properties in the next 12 months. The hardest turn of the wheel is going to be the first one. The second one will be a repeat almost, not exactly, the same because you still have to do the due diligence on this particular product. But it's similar. But it's easier. You put some grease into the wheel now. You've got some energy.

 

Kevin Whelan: And then the third one will be easier. Once anybody's done three of anything, pretty much, they should be in a position to master that. But that's what I mean by that. Invariably, to get the highest and best return, you also need to be looking at the same time as to, well, what would give you a bigger return? So instead of doing that particular strategy or that particular tactic, what would be another tactic that might give you a better outcome?

 

Kevin Whelan: In some cases, Chris, people will be turning one wheel that they're actually engaged in but turning another to learn about what they do next. There's no limit to how many wheels people can turn other than their own capacity. What we don't want to do is people get overwhelmed, of course. But one or two wheels at the same time at the beginning, probably okay, depending on time leverage. We'll know that. If in doubt, one at a time. If you've got more capacity, you can generate maybe two at a time.

 

Kevin Whelan: Some people can handle more than that, but that's a bit like my son can juggle four balls. I can't. So he's got that capacity. I don't know how to do that. So there you go.

 

Chris Rodwell: So there's 12 modules, and as we've said earlier on, it doesn't necessarily mean one module per month.

 

Kevin Whelan: It doesn't, but what it does mean, though, is we want people to commit to the idea and almost to really believe that there's a principle which they should not deviate from, which is never let one month go by without doing something significant, and I mean significant, not just read a book, that will change your wealth. Therefore, the worst-case scenario is take each module and do it in a month.

 

Kevin Whelan: Most people can do this far quicker than that, Chris. People will underestimate what they can do because, at the beginning, they always feel like they're poor for time. So, one a month, perfectly fine. Sometimes you can do more, and I'm sure, Chris, there'll be some people who go from the initial start through to generating cash flow or capital within 90 days. They'll go three, four times faster. I'm certain of that because people are doing that now without the formal program that we have, just doing it with me.

 

Chris Rodwell: If you're enjoying what we've been discussing and you think that the timing is right, that really, this fits your needs right now and you're committed to achieving complete financial independence ... because, really, that's the ultimate goal, right? That's the market point.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah. This is not a drifty game. I'm not interested in working with drifters. I will help the DIYers a little just to overcome their initial feeling, but we want ... Actually, ideally, Chris, what we want is maybe a burst of really committed people to launch the Foundation program formally as we expand our reach, and maybe give an incentive and maybe select people who ... and ask them to confirm they're committed to being wealthy. They're not just interested. They're not just lukewarm on the subject. It's a commitment, and they're willing to demonstrate that.

 

Kevin Whelan: If they're willing to do that, I think what I'd rather do, Chris, is rather than just have people test the education, I think what I'd rather do is give them more of the support that we know they're going to need at the same price as they buy the education, but only for a limited period of time, only for the committed people, because it would do my head in if we get drifters who ... getting a little bit of curiosity, but that's it. I think if we could get maybe 100 committed people, I'd be really happy to do that. But time limited, please, Chris.

 

Chris Rodwell: Well, yeah. So it's out on the first of May, which is today if you're listening on the release. And I think for the next seven days, should we say that as a special launch offer? We said there's three levels, three options here for the Foundation program. Level one is education.

 

Kevin Whelan: Education only.

 

Chris Rodwell: That's priced at 500 pounds.

 

Kevin Whelan: 500 pounds. Yeah, plus the VAT, don't forget, WealthBuilders is a registered business.

 

Chris Rodwell: Level two is where you get the extra support. That's the bi-monthly call from the wealth coach, and also access to the Q&A webinars. And then level three is connection.

 

Kevin Whelan: You didn't say what the level-two cost was.

 

Chris Rodwell: Level-two cost is 1,000 pounds. So for a launch special for the next seven days?

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah. I'm saying we'll give 1,000 pounds' worth ... Remember, I said we'll do double value, right?

 

Chris Rodwell: I remember that. Yeah.

 

Kevin Whelan: And I'll commit to that no matter what anybody pays. But let's give them 1,000 pounds' worth of value for 500 pounds' worth of cost if they respond within seven days. After that seven days, the game's over. But whatever they pay, whatever level when they choose, then we'll still give that double-money-back guarantee, Chris. That lasts continually. We just want to make sure that you engage, you spend some money with us. It has to work, which is why we must test the commitment, make sure they sign the declaration, make sure they do a little bit of homework before we invite them in.

 

Chris Rodwell: Where do I sign? It sounds good. That's an irresistible offer.

 

Kevin Whelan: I'm trying to make it irresistible because wealth can be challenging, and there are lots of ... Look, we're not trying to provide a course with an upsell and a, "If you do this and the price is valued at 5,000 pounds, but today, special offer ..." No, no, no. This is as genuine as I can make it, given that if I go back, Chris, those who've listened to my story realize that I made a commitment to create wealth for myself at age 28. It took me a lot longer than it should have done because I had to do the DIY method. I really did, not because I was fearful, it's just that there wasn't any path that was already trodden for me.

 

Kevin Whelan: So I had to learn all the lessons. Now all the lessons are learned, Chris. We boxed them. We've nailed them. We're absolutely certain this works. I'd just rather we get an injection of success stories that, in business, are quite self-serving, too. So if we get 100 people who start creating their wealth, they get excited, they start sharing, what's going to happen? More and more people are going to join. That's what I really want. I want to see a result for them so they do it faster than I did.

 

Chris Rodwell: Okay. All right. If you're listening now and it's within the seven days ... So this is the first of May.

 

Kevin Whelan: First of May.

 

Chris Rodwell: Until midnight on the seventh.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah. That would be the eighth, wouldn't it? Anyway, Wednesday to Wednesday.

 

Chris Rodwell: Tuesday the seventh. So we'll do to, yeah, midnight. Well, 11:59 on the seventh, okay?

 

Kevin Whelan: All right. There you go.

 

Chris Rodwell: Just to be clear. So you've got next seven days. If you'd like to take that wonderful offer there to get the level-two connection for the price of level one-

 

Kevin Whelan: You've got all this on the website, right?

 

Chris Rodwell: Well, the URL to head to is wealthbuilders.co.uk/launch, L-A-U-N-C-H. That's where we'll make sure that this is available for the next seven days. And after that-

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah. And can you put that in the show notes and-

 

Chris Rodwell: I will indeed.

 

Kevin Whelan: ... make it clear that they're not going to struggle to find their way? Because we know how time poor people are. So seven days is plenty of time to have a look. If they've been listening this far, they must be kind of curious about wealth and, we hope, now committed to wealth.

 

Kevin Whelan: We'll work with them to get to that first wheel turned, that first flow of cash or flow of capital, and to start the serious process of building wealth and, hopefully, building a relationship that lasts many, many years in the future as they turn more and more wheels and become more sophisticated, more wealthy, more intelligent wealth builders and willing to not just be helped by us now, but in the future, willing to help other people who are on the same journey as them. But they'll be behind them.

 

Kevin Whelan: So we expect our current students to turn into the teachers of the future. Boy, am I looking forward to that.

Chris Rodwell: Me too. I'm so looking forward to our new wealth founders joining the WealthBuilders Foundation program. It's been really good talking to you again today, Kevin, and going through those six modules in the latter half of the program.

 

Chris Rodwell: That link, once again, wealthbuilders.co.uk/launch. We'll be back next week with another episode of WealthTalk, Kevin.

 

Kevin Whelan: I look forward to that.

 

Chris Rodwell: I think we're probably going to start talking about the pillars.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah. I think we should get into the pillars and then start bringing some of our students in with case studies so we've got examples. We can start right at the beginning and look at, say, [inaudible 00:28:58] capacity, and bring some real case studies of people who are really bringing in the bacon when it comes to using the capacity within the bricks and mortar that they live in to turn into real, sustainable wealth in the future. That will be an interesting way to start.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah. And we have many, many of those stories.

 

Kevin Whelan: We got lots of those. Maybe we can ... We'll try and capture them to give some words, and if we don't do that, then let's just get their permission to tell their story, at least, because that's going to be enormously valuable. And, certainly, we can encourage them to post in the Facebook group as well.

 

Chris Rodwell: I'm looking forward to it. See you next time, Kevin.

 

Kevin Whelan: See you

Chris Rodwell: Hello. Welcome to episode 12 of WealthTalk. My name's Christian Rodwell, the membership director for WealthBuilders, and I am joined today by guess who? It's Mr. Kevin Whelan, founder of WealthBuilders. Hello, Kevin.

 

Kevin Whelan: Hello, Chris.

 

Chris Rodwell: Good to be back with you once again.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah, yeah.

 

Chris Rodwell: We are enjoying these podcasts, aren't we?

 

Kevin Whelan: I think we are, yeah.

 

Chris Rodwell: I hope other people are too, as well.

 

Kevin Whelan: Well, somebody said to me they're enjoying the little faux pas and the little jokes that we have between us which is really important because, you know, this is supposed to be an enjoyable journey. Talking about the journey, we've been on an incredible one so far.

 

Chris Rodwell: We have.

 

Kevin Whelan: I think it's probably time to maybe, you know, check in with people to see where they are, remind them of a few things. I think, more than anything else, we want to avoid the drift. We want to avoid people being drifters. Now, you remember-

 

Chris Rodwell: Episode two.

 

Kevin Whelan: Episode two when I described the drifters and the DIYers and the dynamics, and we want everybody to be dynamic, and dynamic means taking action, Chris, so we don't want to be a sponge and just soak up this information and be entertained. We want to have fun with it. We want people to take action because in the end, Chris, my reputation hangs on the name of the company. It's WealthBuilders, and the wealth that's being built is the wealth of our members, so we need to focus on that.

 

Kevin Whelan: We need to maybe take a serious look at wrapping up some of the lessons we've learned so far and getting people to a place now where it's time to start taking action if they've just been thinking about taking action. Unlike the sponge which just soaks it up, it's time to really drill down and do some things, so why don't we focus on one or two of those things?

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah, absolutely, and it ties in nicely with being episode 12, because we've got an announcement, haven't we, in that we have created 12 modules really to help someone who is struggling, shall we say, between insecurity and security.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah.

 

Chris Rodwell: So really needing that catalyst, if they haven't already identified it, to propel them towards action, to actually do the exercises we've talked about over the last few weeks. Things such as debits and last week we talked about first. And actually providing the support along the way.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah, because I think, you know, the reason why 95% of the population really don't make it when it comes to wealth isn't there's a lack of information. I mean, we're providing all the right information here in terms of principles and values and things that people do, or could do, rather. What we see is people just get caught up and let's be honest, the vast majority of people who don't make it to security, or less even so than independence, tend to be caught in the trap of trading time for money.

 

Kevin Whelan: That trap of trading time for money invariably means one major area that gets missed, which is the dedication of time to take action. We talked last week about the first model of leverage and trying to create or box time so you creating specific time in your week or in your month, and always, always, always doing something in the month that allows you to take action.

 

Kevin Whelan: That's why we thought to create it in 12 modules so that worst case, worst case, worst case, if people follow my guidance and say never let a month go by without doing something for your wealth, do this.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah.

 

Kevin Whelan: And if we create 12 modules then people are no more than a year away from that transformation. Now, some people, the dynamics, will do this in 12 weeks, Chris. There's no doubt about that, and we can also see, can't we, from the WealthBuilder membership forum how fast some people are on it. They're getting into their debits, they're saving money, they're reapplying the money, they're doing it, doing it, and it's absolutely brilliant, but the vast majority of people still are maybe thinking about it, liking it, but not just getting round to the doing.

 

Chris Rodwell: Well, that's right.

 

Kevin Whelan: It's really important that we give them a framework to do, but I don't think we've got time in this episode to cover all 12 modules, but we could give a sneak preview, right?

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah, I'd love to go through at least the first six, and what we're going through here is the WealthBuilders Foundation Program. So 12 modules, a 12-month membership, and really the point, as we've said, is having the ideas and the education is great, but what are you going to do about it?

 

Chris Rodwell: So, by bringing everything together, with the community aspect as well, so the support and accountability, which is really important along the way, and to see others who are doing it and getting great results can just be really motivating and switched on by that as well.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah, and I like the idea that up until now, of course, Chris, it's been you and I sharing ideas and theory, but future episodes will definitely be looking at diving deeper into some of the wealth pillars in more detail and get some of our members to give their own case studies so that it brings the education that we're giving to life.

 

Kevin Whelan: Now on the subject of education, we know wealth always begins there, but it doesn't end there. It ends there with action, so I think we do want to provide those people who perhaps want to take their time, perhaps want to, maybe even some people who haven't tuned in before, Chris, just getting to hear us for the first time. I don't mind if we create the education material to maybe hope that, for some people, it's the education, the principles we give themselves are a catalyst.

 

Kevin Whelan: When you're getting to know your reason why, sometimes there isn't a strong enough call to action. Now, you know mine is incredibly powerful and it always powered me through. Never, ever deviated from the plan but, of course, that's not true for everyone, and we don't want family tragedies to be the reason that calls people into action.

 

Kevin Whelan: But we hope that maybe the education we provide can be that call to action, so we will publish the information in a way that people can consume in their own time without necessarily connecting, without necessarily looking for support and, like everything we do in education, we'll give a guaranteed money back, so if people don't like what they're reading, they can have their money back. It's that simple.

 

Kevin Whelan: But I don't think it's how wealth is truly built, Chris. I think we have to be honest and say that people get much better results, faster results, more enjoyable results, if they get some guidance, if they get some support, if they get some accountability. In a busy life sometimes we need that. It'd be like people who go training for a marathon. It's always good to have a running buddy, I guess, a running man.

 

Chris Rodwell: I've done that.

 

Kevin Whelan: You've done that? It's always good to have somebody who can help you get up in the morning when the rain's pouring and you don't feel like it, so having some kind of wealth buddy, which is really our coaches or mentors, really, to help people stay accountable.

 

Kevin Whelan: Let's focus on some of that. Yes, we'll write the education down, but I think the core thing we want to share with people is the importance of getting some guidance. It gets it done quicker, really.

 

Chris Rodwell: So let's share a little bit about what the Foundation Program is all about. As we've said, it's really aimed at anyone who is not yet at a level of financial security. Would you mind just reviewing as to what does it mean to be at a level of financial security? How do you know if you are or aren't, at that point?

 

Kevin Whelan: Okay. Well, it's really quite easy because if you're trading time for money and you stop working, the money stops. So the clue in knowing whether you're at financial security is whether you'd have a flow of money coming in from things you've accumulated, things you set up, assets in other words, that are in place and working to generate you flows of cash.

 

Kevin Whelan: If you have enough assets that would automatically generate cash that would be the equivalent of your bills, your normal life, nothing too exorbitant, nothing too fancy at all, just a decent life. If you can live your life and you're okay, everything's paid for, pretty much. That's financial security.

 

Kevin Whelan: It's not accounting for fantastic holidays and retreats and all sorts of other things that you'd get with independence. That's life with no compromises. In security, you'd compromise a little, but that's okay because the purpose of getting to security is to give you a platform on which to grow towards independence, and for those who are trading time for money, security basically means you could sack your boss. You could change your direction. You could change your relationship with your time, and not be in a full time job, say, committed to a lot of commuting, you could still have a job but work in a different environment, maybe closer to home.

 

Kevin Whelan: Whatever it would be, like you'd just move somewhere within walking distance if it were, if you're currently doing your work and you need work, right, so I mean what better opportunities than that? How much time do you spend on commuting, Chris, you know, none.

 

Chris Rodwell: That's right. So the Foundation Program is really teaching you how to create recurring income from assets.

 

Kevin Whelan: That's right. What we're trying to do is, say, let's aim to try and help you get to that place of financial security and, remember, you have to come up with your own number, Chris. Everybody's number is different because we've all got different bills. Some of us have got mortgages, some have not. I obviously don't. Some have got different levels of expenditures that they have and want to keep.

 

Kevin Whelan: It's not penny pinching and I've said and I'll say again, you cannot save your way to wealth. You cannot restrict your way to wealth. You have to expand your means continually but sometimes it means you've got to at least understand what you basic means are in order to reach that level first and then, from there, that's a foundation or a springboard to go to the next level. The Foundation Program will get people there.

 

Chris Rodwell: We've said it's 12 modules and we've broken that down into four different sections, so section one, and they have to really be followed step-by-step.

 

Kevin Whelan: You have to go in the order because if you don't go in order, you're turning a wheel out of balance. So each step has been written and chosen and crafted deliberately to make it a logical and easy-to-follow series of steps. Almost like your Sat Nav., so it's a GPS to get to financial security. If there's a tried and tested way to do it, it's a good reason to follow it unless you're a maverick and you want to do things entirely on your own, but then they probably wouldn't fit with our values anyway.

 

Chris Rodwell: So section one, we've called it Self Wealth.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah.

 

Chris Rodwell: So this is really the foundation of the wealth mindset, and we've talked in previous episodes, wealth dynamics, episode six, but module one begins with your reason why.

 

Kevin Whelan: Right. Yeah.

 

Chris Rodwell: It's having that strong catalyst, so really making sure that you know the reason why you're going to get up early to do this extra work to really push yourself, so that's module one. And then we've said module two is the five levels of wealth so knowing where you are now and where you want to get to.

 

Kevin Whelan: It's important, that calibration, just to spend, even if it's, we're not asking people to draw up a budget and say how much they're spending on this and that, but a feeling. If you've got a feeling your expenses are $3,000 a month, or whatever they are, $4,000, $10,000, it doesn't really matter what the figure is, but you've got a feeling for what that is, and then that's the feeling that you commit to as your security figure. And it's always good to have the independence figure because the independence is something that you should be aspiring to, not shying away from. You know it's coming, it's just more turns of the wheel.

 

Kevin Whelan: Once you get past foundation, then we'll take it onto a much higher level and get much deeper into how to accelerate each different wheel that they turn, each different asset that they choose to invest in, and remember each asset is multi-faceted. There are many, many, many different ways of achieving it, so we have to, I think, talk with people to help them understand which is the best way for them. So knowing where you are, knowing where you're going, is definitely a core component of the self wealth.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah, and that's module two. And then module three in section one is understanding your value, so we use wealth dynamics, and we'll provide a token for everyone in the program to do that. So just to recap on why it's so important to understand your value and how we excel in certain areas and other areas where we're not so strong, we really shouldn't be focusing our time there.

 

Kevin Whelan: In truth, wealth flows to value, so if that's true, wealth always flows to value, then you ought to know where is the best way that you deliver value. Whether that's in a team if you're currently in a job, or currently in a business, where's your best way to deliver value and the wealth dynamic gives you, I think as you framed it, Chis, the compass point.

 

Kevin Whelan: It helps you choose, not just where you're going, not just where you should focus and never be mediocre or weaknesses, be outstanding and strengths, and to team up with other people to complement you where you've got challenges and weaknesses, let's say. That's how we work, you know, so it's easier, then, to grow if you've got all parts of the compass covered, and that's really the essence of that part of the program.

 

Chris Rodwell: Fantastic. Okay. So that's section one covered off. Then section two is your wealth foundation, so we said before, you can't save your way to wealth, but we can at least start to plug some of those leaks.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah. You have to plug leaks, you know, because if you don't plug leaks, whichever analogy you care to use, if it's a boat, it's going to sink, if it's a building, it's going to fall down because ultimately you're undermining the foundations. It's just good practice.

 

Kevin Whelan: The wealth foundation actually creates, albeit it's an integral part of this program, in truth it's something that should be revisited by our members at any time, at least once a year, to get into the real process of taking a fresh look at the things that are going out in their life and what they can save money on.

 

Kevin Whelan: We give them a whole raft of different ideas in the debits but of course, with the program, we'll be introducing very specific ideas, case studies from our clients who are saving money to give people just an extra direction because sometimes you don't always see everything if you're doing it on your own.

 

Chris Rodwell: And you won't just be able to progress all the way through the course without actually ticking off that you've done each module, and then we'll say, okay, great. It's the next one.

 

Kevin Whelan: Move on to the next one, yeah, so we're all doing our homework like good students. But in truth, we are students of wealth. It isn't this thing you can master in twelve modules. I think it will help people get to security, but security is not being wealthy yet, so that principle of doing things in the right order like we talked about the wheel.

 

Kevin Whelan: The wheel was designed purposefully to be turned in the one direction, and it's turned in an order of sequence that works. As soon as you try and get out of whack with that, you know, problems occur. We see that all the time, particularly with the due diligence stage and things like that. We know this to be true, so I think I'm going to ask our members to trust us that we're not trying to be smart about this.

 

Kevin Whelan: We're just trying to work on principles, and rather than opinions, which we won't dispense, we're trying to give just good principles for them to follow. So definitely getting into that financial foundation of self and finances is key to input.

 

Chris Rodwell: We've said wealth building is a scientific process and this is the process.

 

Kevin Whelan: This is the process.

 

Chris Rodwell: Step-by-step, so module four, then, is debits. It's really diving into those different areas to find out where you can create an extra few hundred pounds a month, perhaps, and then reinvest that into your wealth building activities.

 

Kevin Whelan: Or shore up your roof. We've seen a number of our clients say the key thing, if there was more month left at the end of their money, that they didn't actually have an emergency fund, they felt like perhaps they weren't insured if something had gone wrong and they couldn't pay their mortgage. All sorts of different things that we need to have in place, so the debits isn't just taking money and applying it to build wealth. It's also being very safe and making sure the roof is well protected, as well.

 

Chris Rodwell: Which segways nicely into module five, which is-

 

Kevin Whelan: Well, it all works then, doesn't it?

 

Chris Rodwell: Which is the roof and we've covered the roof. Just remind and overview, just so people are clear about the aspects of the roof.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah, it's important not to be confused because when you look at the logo, which is the foundation at the bottom, the seven pillars in the middle, and the roof, it kind of, some people could be confused by thinking you build your foundation, then you build your wealth, then you put your roof on top. You don't do it that way.

 

Kevin Whelan: If you imagine the foundation and the roof were a frame, like a building going up in a modular construction, the essence of it is you lay a good foundation, and you make it water tight so you can build on the inside without fear of major losses in terms of, to a builder it's water egress, isn't it, really? So from a wealth perspective, it's getting the emergency fund sorted, making sure, if you've got some things that need to be insured, you do that.

 

Kevin Whelan: Also looking to do some very basic things. Things that people don't get round to. They never, ever get round to making their Will. Oh, I'll get round to that, but they don't get round to it, so that's the point of the guide, isn't it, saying, right, we're now going to help you get this done. Whoever you get it done with, that's not the key. It's done. Is it done? Yes, it's done. Right, move on.

 

Kevin Whelan: It's very simple because you can create your Will for a few hundred pounds or even, actually, we have got a template that we can give to people that gives them some things to think about so they don't overthink it, because sometimes the people with the steel dynamic go, I can't think of that, and I can't think of that, and what happens if this, and what happens if that. Just get a basic Will because you can always change it. Those are the elements that take shape in the roof.

 

Chris Rodwell: In module five. Fantastic. And then module six is creating leverage, which was last week's episode. We focused on the first model.

 

Kevin Whelan: The essence of, if you create a podcast, you're really just talking about what's possible. The idea of leverage is you choose what's right for you, so you combine the essence of who you are in your wealth dynamic. What you do for a living now, where you are on your wealth level, what is the most appropriate method by which you can start to build, which pillar should you choose and which tactic within each pillar?

 

Kevin Whelan: As I said, pillars are multi-faceted so something to do with property, if you were doing, you're not going to be doing, if you've got, if you're time poor is your first thing, you're never going to be doing a commercial-to-residential conversion and building 50 apartments. That doesn't happen at level one. That might be just understanding the principles of buy-to-let or just to understand the principles of multiple occupancy property or just to understand the principles of student accommodation.

 

Kevin Whelan: It'd be very basic things, and as we help people understand that, of course, we've got a huge network of tried and trusted educators, and we know who to connect people with in order to help them explore that because not every time will we get it right. Sometimes people look at the asset they want to build and realize, oops, that's not for me. And that's part of turning the wheel.

 

Chris Rodwell: Sp why don't we get into the next couple of sections and the next six modules in our next podcast episode?

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah.

 

Chris Rodwell: We're launching the Foundation Program on Wednesday the 1st of May, so in keeping with Wealth Builder Wednesday, it makes sense.

 

Kevin Whelan: Another Wealth Builder Wednesday. Yeah.

 

Chris Rodwell: So what we'll do next episode, we'll cover off the next six modules.

 

Kevin Whelan: Okay.

 

Chris Rodwell: And then give you all of the details if this is something that you feel you need right now. If you don't really know what to do as a next first step, then I think this will really help.

 

Kevin Whelan: It's designed to help people take action, and the thing that's really important, Chris, to re-allay the fears of the steely people who'll be thinking, oh, cost, cost, cost, is this. That reputationally, WealthBuilders is built on the premise of people building wealth, and that's it. Everything we do, if individuals are going to work with us, then I'll make a promise, and we'll put the promise in writing, anyway, which is whatever they spend with us, if they don't double their return, that's twice the return, that's a hell of a return, then we'll work with them until that return is achieved.

 

Kevin Whelan: There is absolutely no danger. We want people to take action and get wealthy. We're not looking to sell a course, we're looking to create an education that sits on the shelf, so we will do that. We'll give that double-profit guarantee to make sure that in truth, then, if they spend money with us they're going to make money, so not spending money with us is bad news because it means they won't be making any wealth.

 

Kevin Whelan: So I want to make it so irresistible, Chris, that this Foundation Program has got to impact the lives of many people, and I think we'll probably offer some kind of offer for people at launch because that's logical, and we want people, those who are willing to take action. So I guess we'll announce that next week.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah, and I think we'll be putting in a bit of extra time for those initial people as well, won't we?

 

Kevin Whelan: We've got to make it work, otherwise we'll be, reputation, we can't have that. We've got to get people up to that security level as soon as is possible, really, depending on their time commitment.

 

Chris Rodwell: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

 

Kevin Whelan: But we'll give it ours, that's for sure.

 

Chris Rodwell: I can't wait.

 

Kevin Whelan: Me either. I'm looking forward to it.

 

Chris Rodwell: Good stuff. That was great. Well, I look forward to our next episode where we'll cover off the next six modules, and that concludes with a full turn of the wheel. What happens when we have a full turn of the wheel?

 

Kevin Whelan: We get wealthy, mate. That's what happens.

 

Chris Rodwell: Well, that's what WealthTalk's all about. Thanks for the insights, Kevin.

 

Kevin Whelan: You're welcome.

 

Chris Rodwell: Speak soon.

 

Kevin Whelan: See ya.

Chris Rodwell: Welcome to episode 11 of Wealth Talk. My name is Christian Rodwell, joined by Mr Kevin Whelan, founder of Wealth Builders. How are you Kevin?

 

Kevin Whelan: I'm great today Chris. What's on our agenda today?

 

Chris Rodwell: Well, we ended episode 10 last week with talking about leverage and the model FYRST, F-Y-R-S-T.

 

Kevin Whelan: Right.

 

Chris Rodwell: So what is leverage, Kevin?

 

Kevin Whelan: Well, in it's simple terms, Chris, leverage is getting more for less. It simply means that you're applying a force. Remember when you did maths at school? I assume you did your GSCE maths right?

 

Chris Rodwell: I did. I didn't enjoy it too much, but I did. I got through okay.

 

Kevin Whelan: Okay, well fair enough, but the principle you remember, there's a picture in your mind and you've got a big lever and then you apply a small force on one end and you life a big object.

 

Chris Rodwell: That's right. Yes.

 

Kevin Whelan: That's essentially what you're doing in leverage. And when you think about it and joking apart, I know we're having a bit of a laugh about it, but leverage is the key to the creation of wealth.

 

Chris Rodwell: Well, that's pretty important then.

 

Kevin Whelan: It's pretty important subject, and you know, my experience, we've got what is it now? F-I-R-S-T? So we've got our five core areas where leverage is possible. I think we said six, didn't we?

 

Chris Rodwell: I think we haven't been thinking of that one.

 

Kevin Whelan: No wonder your GCSE account didn't work out.

 

Chris Rodwell: We'll put a full stop at the end, and we'll think of something.

 

Kevin Whelan: Anyway, and we spoke last time, I think when we talked about one of the examples of you taking some of the money someone had found in their debits and making that work. That was a form of leverage, because they took money that wasn't working and made it work tons harder. Or that was the idea. And that is the 'F' in our formula.

 

Chris Rodwell: Okay.

 

Kevin Whelan: Which is 'financial' leverage.

 

Chris Rodwell: Right.

 

Kevin Whelan: So, it's taking money or something that is working like money and you make that particular fund or funds or asset work more effectively than it did before.

 

Chris Rodwell: Okay. What would be an example there?

 

Kevin Whelan: Well an example might be money that is wasted in paying expenses. You find that money and you put it into trackers. Remember when we talked about that last time.

 

Chris Rodwell: You mentioned that.

 

Kevin Whelan: So that's a very, very simple form of leverage. Another form of leverage might be, well, if we look at the main assets that people own when they're building their wealth or thinking about it anyway, is their pension. So one of the ways you can leverage your pension is to turn it into a pension you can own and control, and then you can direct that to assets that you wanna invest in, instead of assets that you're told you need to invest in by the financial industry. So, you end up being exclusively in stock market. And we've talked about that before.

 

Chris Rodwell: Pillar two. Pensions.

 

Kevin Whelan: Pillar two. Pensions. And we just love the concept of people being in control of their assets, not delegating that control away, because delegation turns into abdications and abdication means you've given up.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah.

 

Kevin Whelan: The rights to everything. So the topper pension, we use there, we call the director's pension or [sass 00:03:31] and it's perfect for those who are business owners.

 

Kevin Whelan: Another way to get leverage which is very, very popular with property people, is they get debt leverage.

 

Chris Rodwell: Right.

 

Kevin Whelan: So, they're bi-property. So for example. Let me give you an example of that. If you've got 100000 pounds and you decide you want to invest 100000 pounds in stock market, this is not a trick question for your maths now, if want to buy 100000 pounds worth of money and I will go to my stock broker or I go to the fund, and I want to buy funds, how much value will I get for that?

 

Chris Rodwell: 100 grand.

 

Kevin Whelan: 100 grand. You don't get more.

 

Chris Rodwell: Plus the fees.

 

Kevin Whelan: Well, obviously the importance there is to keep fees down as low as possible. We talked about that last time as well.

 

Kevin Whelan: But the issue there, of course is you're buying the value based on price. If you buy property, 100000 pounds worth of money, your money, if you leverage that three to one, so if you get 300000 pounds worth of a mortgage, and 100000 pounds of your starting capital, you now control 400000 pounds of the value. So, if you rented that property out for 10% rental on 400000, that's a 40000 pounds rental return in exchange for 100000. So while you've got costs and you gotta think about the pros and cons of debt, and the difference between good debt and bad debt and so forth, putting those things to one side, that's leverage.

 

Chris Rodwell: Okay.

 

Kevin Whelan: So, that's financial leverage and there are many ways you can explore turning your assets into higher performing assets than before. Sometimes it's reducing costs, sometimes it's improving your turn or a combination of both. So that's financial leverage and almost everybody I've ever met has got some form of financial leverage they can employ, even if they just apply the simplistic model of the debits, find some money and then use that money to invest in something wherever they invest, they're getting leverage.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah. It's a step-by-step process isn't it?

 

Kevin Whelan: It's really quite simple. So financial leverage is the easy and obvious one for pretty much everybody.

 

Chris Rodwell: Wonderful. What does the 'I' stand for?

 

Kevin Whelan: Well the 'I' stands for intellectual leverage. Now, that's the other good thing, everybody's got an intellect. So we all have intellect that we often will trade or sell and give or provide value to somebody else for that leverage or for that value. Let me correct myself there. There's a difference in trading value than creating leverage. So, if I've gotta job, and I'm pretty skilled at what I do and I sell my skills to you as my employer, then who owns that intellect?

 

Chris Rodwell: The employer.

 

Kevin Whelan: The employer owns it, right. So all the value is retained by the employer. So, the skill and intellectual leverage is saying, "Okay, even if you're employed, what is it about what I do that's exceptional? What do I do that's outstanding? And how could I turn that value that somebody else is paying for into something that I could package, I could repurpose or I could create value from in different way?"

 

Kevin Whelan: And for many people that revolves around books and training, and a distinction that somebody else would pay for. And the internet is completely full with people who are outstanding at something. It doesn't have to be something that is high-brow or intellectual. It could be, "I know how to get the best return from a piece of ground. I know how to make dogs feel fantastic when they're being washed." The list goes on. I'm being facetious.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yup.

 

Kevin Whelan: But, you get the point.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yup.

 

Kevin Whelan: Everybody's exceptional at something. And using your wealth dynamic, you get a basic idea of what you're exceptional at. And turn that value into something that you do the work once and then you get paid indefinitely.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah.

 

Kevin Whelan: And that's very, very different from going to work, going to work, going to work, going to work, 30 days at work, or 20 days at work getting paid to do the work for 30 days or 20 days and get paid indefinitely.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah.

 

Kevin Whelan: And I know you're working hard on that with your own books and training materials as we are together. So, I think I would endorse the thought that everybody has a little think about what they're outstanding at and if necessary, have a look at what people told you you're good at.

 

Chris Rodwell: I was just gonna say, I've done-

 

Kevin Whelan: What have you been patted on the back for? What do you get awarded for?

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah.

 

Kevin Whelan: And maybe, if they can't pull it out of themselves, have a conversation with you Chris and say, "See if you can pull it out of them." Because that's another way you can get leverage.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah, you often can't see these things yourself, can you?

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah, and that's the leverage, Chris, the relationship. So, often a relationship and all sorts of different guises and colors can bring an incredible value in a way that you can't possible perceive. So, give you some examples of that.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah.

 

Kevin Whelan: Okay. So for example. I've gotta brilliant brain. I can diagnose the health, financially of anyone with a cat scanned brain.

 

Chris Rodwell: I've seen it.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah, you've seen it work, right? So, I know I can sit down with someone and zip, zip, zip, zip, zip, I can work out three or four different ways they can immediately put to use and they couldn't see them. That's the value of the leverage of relationship.

 

Kevin Whelan: So, you have to try, and discover relationships that could bring that value from you. Another one could be, well you look at your wealth dynamic and you might be perhaps more on the steel side, more the analytical side, more of that kind of a person, but you're really great at doing property say. But you need funds and you're not so brilliant at raising funds, so you connect with somebody who has got lots of blaze energy. So, they can help find the investors, which you're outstanding ability can find the right property opportunities. So you create a business of that connection, that fate between two people with a completely different set of skills. And that would be a relationship.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah.

 

Kevin Whelan: So, wherever you can harness the true value of relationships and what I mean by the true value Chris, is you have to truly resonate with someone. Feel the integrity of who they are. Feel like you want to be connected to them and they want to be connected to you and it's a genuine thing. It's not something to rush, it's not something to try, and grab. It's something that you take time to build.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah. Or we say, the win-win. There's gotta be wins on both sides.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah, but it takes time.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah.

 

Kevin Whelan: And empathy and relationships take time to build but nonetheless you should have some of your time in a month trying to seek out those opportunities. Do you remember, I explained to you in a previous episode, we talked about the ROI?

 

Chris Rodwell: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

 

Kevin Whelan: This idea which is why even though I've been doing this for years, I still get enthusiastic and feel like a kid, because I'm looking for that one relationship, opportunity or idea that completely transforms my thinking.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah.

 

Kevin Whelan: I just love it. So, that's the ROI. Relationship, Opportunity or Idea. And Chris, I've just had one.

 

Chris Rodwell: Please.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah.

 

Chris Rodwell: Tell us. Share.

 

Kevin Whelan: So, up until now, the biggest opportunity I've had, probably to speak to people about my ideas and about how you can build wealth and so forth, has been to probably around 2-300 people? Okay, so next year, in April 2020, I've been invited to speak to 2000 people.

 

Chris Rodwell: Wow.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah.

 

Chris Rodwell: You've 10X'd it, have you?

 

Kevin Whelan: I've 10X'd. And that's great for me. Of course, I'm gonna step up right?

 

Chris Rodwell: Where is this?

 

Kevin Whelan: Well this is gonna be something called the Business Excellence Ball Room.

 

Chris Rodwell: Right.

 

Kevin Whelan: In Celtic Manor. So, I will be taking a few days off to play some golf as well. And it's to 2000 business owners.

 

Chris Rodwell: Right.

 

Kevin Whelan: And my role is to explain to them how to create multiple streams of recurring income.

 

Chris Rodwell: Your favorite topic.

 

Kevin Whelan: My favorite subject, both inside and outside of their business. Now, I've leveraged a relationship, and the relationship that I have is with a group of coaches in the UK, who are just brilliant at coaching business owners on the inside of their business. And that groups called Action Coach.

 

Chris Rodwell: Oh, yeah.

 

Kevin Whelan: And, I built a relationship with them, and worked with them and over the course of the time of working with them, they've said, "This guy's alright. Knows what he's talking about. Comes from a place of integrity. Build, build, build. Would you like to speak at our event? 2000 people?" And guess who's on the stage with me? Only Sir Bob Geldof.

 

Chris Rodwell: Wow.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah. Only Dame Kelly Holmes.

 

Chris Rodwell: That's some big names.

 

Kevin Whelan: Do you think I'm due for an award?

 

Chris Rodwell: Wow.

 

Kevin Whelan: Probably not. But-

 

Chris Rodwell: Fantastic opportunity.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yes, but that's the point. One relationship, opportunity or idea away from a complete transformation.

 

Chris Rodwell: Right.

 

Kevin Whelan: And that's a transformation for me and I'm thrilled and of course we wanna share that with our community for those who are business owners.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yes.

 

Kevin Whelan: Who want to participate, and not just see me speak, but see some great speakers talking about the best practices to make their businesses as successful as possible because if you make your business as successful as possible Chris, you've applied leverage. You've made your business worth infinitely more, than it would've been had you not taken that step. So, that's relationship leverage.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah, and this links back to wealth dynamics. I know we mentioned this a lot, but it's such a tie in, is when you've created value, the only way to leverage them is through either systems or people.

 

Kevin Whelan: Got it.

 

Chris Rodwell: And systems-

 

Kevin Whelan: Is the next one. You've read my mind, Chris.

 

Kevin Whelan: So, systems, so if you're more steely, if you're more 'how to improve' things, how to maximize things, how to document things, then that's the way that you can create wealth, by using your brain to systematically apply to something that currently isn't working as well as it could do. And pretty much all business owners or most business owners who tend to come from business from the creative end of the spectrum, they're more dynamo energy, in my experience, then they lack often the systematic energy. And so by if you have a systematic brain, now, I don't, although, actually you could argue I do, because I've created systems for creating wealth, but not the system as in the technology.

 

Chris Rodwell: The detail.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah. Not the detail but the process to think. So, my energy is more in the thinking, and then the application in terms of technology comes from working with people like you who've got much more of a solid energy around that. Yeah.

 

Chris Rodwell: Okay, great. So that's systems, so that leaves 'T'.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah, so 'T' is available for everybody. And that's time leverage. And so, time leverage at it's simplest, listen to a podcast. Get maximum value when you're doing something else. Leverage your time.

 

Kevin Whelan: I think I mentioned, I was recently talking to one of our clients who was commuting two hours each way.

 

Chris Rodwell: Each way!

 

Kevin Whelan: It's like, "Oh, my goodness me! What a shocker!" But you can get leverage wherever you are. So, one of the things that people always tell me about their wealth building, they just say, "Well, I don't have time." And well, that's an excuse, because everybody's got time, because you can create time in so many ways and I try to encourage people to box time. So, earmark time, just like you would in your calendar. But people don't put their wealth in their calendar. So, we encourage people to box that time to take two hours a month as a minimum and box that time off, so that you never spend more than 30 days without doing something to create more in your wealth, whether it's building a relationship, whether it's building more leverage, whether it's looking at debits, whatever it is, you're doing something that is moving you forward in your wealth plan, really.

 

Kevin Whelan: So, the other ways to create time leverage is to work with people who have time. So, again, going back to this idea of property as an example, yeah. So, you could have lots of money, but you just don't have time, because you're flat out. Well, there are people who have that leverage of time and they can find things for you that your money could be deployed in. And this is very common, this idea of sourcing property for example.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah.

 

Kevin Whelan: And there's no shortage of business opportunities that take care of the time of busy people. [VIA's 00:16:54] and concierge type services and things that you can either take advantage of if you're lacking in time or you can provide if you have a surplus of time. But either way, time leverage is a really important thing.

 

Kevin Whelan: So, when you combine financial leverage, intellectual leverage, relationship leverage, systems and time, maybe we'll find number six somewhere Chris, we'll probably invent it, right? So, but for now, then that's gonna be an opportunity for anybody to move forward.

 

Chris Rodwell: Wow. So I think we talked about a foundation, but really now, we've cover leverage as well. That pretty much puts everything there for someone to get started to find some extra money in their life and start making that money work for them and leveraging that as well.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah, I don't really think there are any more ideas now that we can give at the foundation level. I think we just have to work out how do we dive a bit deeper into things which are a little bit more focused around each asset. So, maybe we'll think about ... well actually why don't we talk about business next one?

 

Chris Rodwell: Okay.

 

Kevin Whelan: Given that we're talking about creating recurring revenue streams.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yup.

 

Kevin Whelan: And we know about each of the assets of the ability to create recurring income. But what's really interesting about each asset is each asset itself is multifaceted. In other words its like a diamond. It has many faces. And because it has many faces you can employ many, many, many different tactics or in our case, we turn the wheel and you can turn as many wheels as you want provided you've got the time, and maybe I'll talk about how to create real value, recurring revenue rather than chasing profit. You're building revenue streams that repeat, repeat, repeat and that will set me up for my presentation in 2020 and I'll do a little practice run. How about that?

 

Chris Rodwell: That sounds good. And we talked about the roof in a previous episode as well, so I think we need to start filling in, don't we, with the pillars? That makes good sense.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah. So, why don't we do that? Fill in with some of the pillars and then catch up on the roof as we get there? But we know we want to make that water tight though.

 

Chris Rodwell: We do.

 

Kevin Whelan: If you need me to jump on the roof next time and then fill in the pillars, I'm happy to do it in whichever order we think would make sense. Let's see how we get on next one and leave with baited breath and on a cliff hanger.

 

Chris Rodwell: That sounds good. And don't forget if you're listening and you do have questions that pop up as you listen, then head over to wealthbuilders.co.ukforward/wealthtalk. Hit the button, the record button and you can leave a message for Kevin and myself and we'll pick those up and respond to those in future episode.

 

Chris Rodwell: Thanks Kevin.

 

Kevin Whelan: Okay, thanks again.

 

Chris Rodwell: Speak soon.

 

Kevin Whelan: See ya.

Chris Rodwell: Hello, welcome to another episode of Wealth Talk. My name is Christian Rodwell and I am joined by Mr. Kevin Whelan, founder of Wealth Builders.

 

Kevin Whelan: Hello Chris, episode 10 I believe, right?

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah, here we are.

 

Kevin Whelan: Tenth episode, tenth country.

 

Chris Rodwell: That's correct. Yes.

 

Kevin Whelan: In 10 countries now.

 

Chris Rodwell: We are indeed. Spreading across the world.

 

Kevin Whelan: I hope so.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yes. So Kevin, this episode we're going to start looking at some of the ways that you can begin building wealth if you're at an early stage, so just at the beginning.

 

Kevin Whelan: Right.

 

Chris Rodwell: But I think probably relevant as well for people maybe even a bit further down the line. They can look at some of these ideas and perhaps bring them into their wealth building plan.

 

Kevin Whelan: Sure I mean, when you're in the foundation, which is really trying to apply some of the principles we explained in a previous episode on debits and you find money, then you can immediately put that money to work no matter where you are in your wealth level and you can accelerate your journey literally no matter where you are.

 

Kevin Whelan: But I know we seem to get a lot of questions from people at the beginning Chris, when they're just trying to get that gravity, that momentum going. Didn't we have question recently from one of our Facebook members?

 

Chris Rodwell: We have had a wonderful post actually in the Wealth Builders Facebook group this week from Adrian [Coger 00:01:25]. And shout out to you, Adrian, if you're listening, which I know you will be, and Adrian posted that he had listened to the podcast episode on debits that we did, which was episode four. If you haven't checked that out have a listen to that after this episode.

 

Chris Rodwell: And also we've been sending out a lot of blog posts over the last few weeks which have also gone into more detail around the debits model.

 

Kevin Whelan: Right.

 

Chris Rodwell: Debits is all about finding money and what I've-

 

Kevin Whelan: Finding money, it's the creation stage. And also at Wealth Builders we create, we build, we protect. And this is about the creation stage for people who sometimes would hold back, they'll say “You know, I'm never going to get to this place of financial independence because I don't have enough.”

 

Kevin Whelan: You don't need to have enough, you just need to get started. It all starts like a kid with baby steps. And I think we can show them seven baby steps today can't we?

 

Chris Rodwell: We will do. We will do.

 

Chris Rodwell: So Adrian posted and following the debits model not only managed to reduce the car renewal by about three hundred pounds annually, but is now saving an extra hundred pounds a month just by going through and finding little things here and there that he was paying for which he no longer needs.

 

Chris Rodwell: So things like pipe and drainage cover.

 

Kevin Whelan: People buy insurance in all sorts of different places and they often get added on. Like the washing machine insurance, the iPhone insurance, the extra insurance on this or that and when you find out you're over covered, well you just really don't value it. It's something you can quite confidently eliminate as long as you find something else that you'd rather spend the money on.

 

Kevin Whelan: Adrian's not just done a good job of looking into it but made it an assessment of what's important to him and that's just as important of all process.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah. That's it. And I think it's always interesting just to hear some of the savings other people are making 'cause it might just ring true in your own mind of like a magazine subscription or something that you used to use which you no longer use and that money can certainly be reapplied in wealth building ways.

 

Chris Rodwell: And if anyone wants to perhaps leave a question, so Adrian's posted in the Facebook group, but we also now have the ability to record any questions that people might have that they want to ask us from the WealthBuilders website. So wealthbuilders.co.uk/wealthtalk. Not only can you review all of the episodes and all of the transcriptions, if you prefer to read, but you can click a button there, a bit of software that we've put on the page called SpeakPipe.

 

Chris Rodwell: When you go to wealthbuilders.co.uk/wealthtalk you will see an orange button, and you'll be able to click that and leave us a question. And I know a couple people are mobile recently have said it's a bit tricky, so just to be clear, if you're on mobile, and the button doesn't allow you to record you just need to go into your settings for your web browser, whether it's Safari or-

 

Kevin Whelan: Safari on an iPhone-

 

Chris Rodwell: Safari often on an iPhone and then just enable the microphone and then it will let you leave the question.

 

Kevin Whelan: Got it. There you go, well let's hope for more questions, but of course the benefit of sharing the question on the WealthBuilder Facebook group is so that people get to see the question and interact with you which is a great place of sharing anyway. But just in case you get that burning question, fire it off and give us permission if it's a great question, to share it with others too.

 

Kevin Whelan: SpeakPipe, right?

 

Chris Rodwell: SpeakPipe, that's the one.

 

Chris Rodwell: So I guess the question is, once you've gone through debits and you've got this extra money in your life like Adrian, few hundred pounds now-

 

Kevin Whelan: A hundred pounds.

 

Chris Rodwell: What do you do?

 

Kevin Whelan: Well whether it's a hundred pounds or whether it's 50 pounds or whether it's 25 pounds, a hundred quid is a good job so hat's off Adrian, you've done a good job.

 

Kevin Whelan: There are many things that should be done, or could be done to enable the feeling of progress as far as your wealth building journey is concerned.

 

Kevin Whelan: Now remember we're trying to accelerate people to move forward from one level to the next. So once they've identified their level, say it's financial security for example, and they want to move forward towards financial security, then one of the ways to do that is to stop going in reverse.

 

Kevin Whelan: If we give seven examples, number one would be reduce or eliminate your debt. And while you go through the debits, the point of the D is to identify your debt, but to isn't always possible to eliminate the money, or eliminate the debt or reduce the debt, unless you found money to so do.

 

Kevin Whelan: One of the ways to do that is if you've got credit card debt for example, is there's a process we use called marshaling the forces. One of the secrets in my earlier book Save a Fortune goes into that in some detail, and I guess you could post link to that.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah, we've actually done a book post as well so we mentioned that.

 

Kevin Whelan: Right, okay, cool.

 

Chris Rodwell: I'll put that in the show notes.

 

Kevin Whelan: So that just helps you to almost accelerate the way any kind of credit cards can be moved from the highest cost debt, get rid of that one, then get rid of the next one, and get rid of the next one. And what that does is two things.

 

Kevin Whelan: One, it gives you a feeling of momentum, and two it's starting to reduce the monthly cost of that total debt, so you feel like you're making some progress.

 

Kevin Whelan: And also some people are a bit worried about the size of their mortgage, Brexit, or many other things, so you can even send, if you take a hundred pounds, that's reasonable sum of money. You could parcel that up into different things and say, I'll pay 50 pounds a month off my debt, off my mortgage, off my credit cards, and I'll build the 50 pounds by using that money to grow something.

 

Kevin Whelan: And one of the easiest things to recognize, especially for those at the very beginning of that journey is to build some form of emergency fund.

 

Chris Rodwell: Right. And this is number two.

 

Kevin Whelan: It's number two. So getting an emergency fund is really important if you're at the beginning of your journey so that if something goes backwards again, whether it's a big bill that comes through your door which you can't eliminate, you might shop around to get it cheaper, but your boiler breaks down, okay, shop around and get the best price, but if it breaks down you've got to pay for it.

 

Kevin Whelan: So building an emergency fund is a really good thing to do if you haven't done that. And usually we'd suggest somewhere around three to six months worth of your normal expenses would be a good place to have. And don't worry too much about what the interest rate is, don't worry too much about making that as a way of building wealth, just use that as a sum of money as a cushion, as a safety blanket, something to fall back on so you feel like that's locked in, and then anything over and above that, if you save a hundred quid a month and you need a thousand pounds, build a thousand pounds and then once you've done that, go off and build to the next level.

 

Chris Rodwell: What would be the third in our list, Kevin?

 

Kevin Whelan: Well the third one is a point made by Adrian actually, it's that sometimes when people get to a place where they've taken on a new mortgage or they've done some things they don't always realize that while they may have eliminated the insurance on their pipes and drains, right? Well what about the life cover for themselves.

 

Kevin Whelan: If they've got debt or they've got a young family with kids and a wife or the other way round, it might be important to get that life cover in place and it can be only a few pounds a month. So someone who's got a hundred pounds a month, a few pounds a month to protect themselves so that if anything happens to them, either through illness or death, then their income is maintained, then that could be a really valuable thing to do.

 

Kevin Whelan: And bear in mind also, Chris, that most of our WealthBuilder students are on their way to creating some form of business. And once you're a business owner of course, you can buy that life cover as I mentioned on a previous episode, with tax relief.

 

Kevin Whelan: So you're just getting a double bubble there. You're getting a reduction in price for tax relief and also you're protecting your family. And as you build your wealth of course you would use the cover so that it's never a permanent thing. Insurance is always something to review.

 

Chris Rodwell: And that's called relevant life insurance.

 

Kevin Whelan: That's called relevant life, yeah. And that's definitely one of the things that I would recommend anybody looking to either with our team or anywhere else where they're getting advice in order to get that cover, get it in place, protect themselves and where possible get that tax relief if it's appropriate. Sometimes it isn't and that's fine, but when you become a business owner, which we want everybody to be at some point, I think we'll talk next episode maybe about business and about the leverage of business, then business ownership is a key objective at some level when you're building your wealth.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yep. We always talk about the wheel of wealth, it always begins with education, doesn't it? So it's always about understanding what's possible.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah. I mean, I suppose number four we could say then if you have recognized the desire to build wealth now and you're just beginning to get a feeling for what asset is the appropriate one, then you could just simply start investing some of that money in yourself. And use that to build and education, just picking up on your point there.

 

Chris Rodwell: Right.

 

Kevin Whelan: And that education would then equip you to create more wealth in the future. So we know that the wheel of wealth begins with education, it always starts there. So you have to get your education from somewhere. Now sometimes you can use other assets to pay for it, but if you don't have any other assets, well you've got a few hundred pounds a month, or a hundred pounds a month you could probably get access to some good education for a fraction of that if you're looking for it in the right places. We're well connected any of the different assets people could use to build their wealth ad that would be good place to start to let us know what you're interested in, and we'll try and help you find that education at the lowest possible cost.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah. And the WealthBuilders Facebook group is a great place just to post and say hey, I'm interested in this, does anyone have any experience or knowledge? And I'm sure many, many people will be able to reach out.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yup.

 

Chris Rodwell: So point number five.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yep, point number five I would say, one of the obvious places to begin thinking about building some wealth is to make some kind of an investment.

 

Kevin Whelan: And while on a previous podcast we talked about some of the risks that people take in investments, being sure to understand the risk they're taking. An easy place to start, Chris, is with some form of index tracker fund. And the reason why I suggest index trackers is because, number one you're investing in the market generally.

 

Kevin Whelan: Number two, trackers are very, very low cost. Particularly if you use something called ETFs.

 

Chris Rodwell: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

 

Kevin Whelan: Now ETF sounds funny, it sounds an odd bit of a wealth language thing, exchange traded funds. Exchange traded funds. It's just a way to be able to buy access to the world of investing, usually at a fraction of the price it costs when you're buying it through conventional funds.

 

Chris Rodwell: And you don't need a broker. You can just go online-

 

Kevin Whelan: You can go online and do that, and there's a whole host of web sites where you can use online. Actually some interesting news coming, not for now, is we're on the verge of creating our own platform to allow our own investors to invest so, so cheaply, in way that just gives them access to incredible value. But watch this space-

 

Chris Rodwell: Wow, breaking news.

 

Kevin Whelan: Breaking news, yeah. I'm close to doing that but not quite yet, but certainly wouldn't matter. Look to invest money in low cost, in trackers or ETFs.

 

Kevin Whelan: The other value of course in investing in regularly, monthly, for example, whether it's a hundred pounds a month or a fraction of that, doesn't have to be the whole sum as I said, is you participating in something called pound cost averaging. America they call it dollar cost averaging. The principle there is the risk in the market is always. as I said on a previous episode, markets tend to rise very slowly and then fall very quickly.

 

Kevin Whelan: When you're buying monthly, then you're buying the units in the fund or the units in the ETF at different prices each month. So if the market falls, you end up buying lots more units so if the price of a share, let's say, was a pound, and you invested a pound in that share, you buy one share.

 

Chris Rodwell: Mm-hmm (affirmative)-

 

Kevin Whelan: If it falls to 50p, you might go oh no, woe is me, 50p, I've halved the money but no, if you're buying every month then you're buying twice as many units the following month and then you carry those units forward when the markets change again.

 

Kevin Whelan: So while it's not a fool-proof method of building wealth because remember you're parking your money in a market, you're not really in control of that but the long-term value is that the markets will generally produce a positive return and more so than inflation. So, if you're in doubt just buy a low cost set of trackers.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah, and very liquid, you can get your money out.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah that's the other point of course you should always think about investments for the long term, but there is some liquidity there because you can buy and sell instantly, there's a whole market for that.

 

Kevin Whelan: But just bear in mind that if you're trying to think about that as a savings' vehicle it's probably not ideal. Probably more suited to something, probably not the lottery tickets, but maybe the equivalent of the lottery. How about Chris, if I could tell you, you can invest your money in the lottery but if you don't win I'll give you your money back. Does that sound good?

 

Chris Rodwell: Sounds like good deal.

 

Kevin Whelan: Well that sir, is called a premium bond.

 

Chris Rodwell: Right.

 

Kevin Whelan: Right, and now the premium bond access has come down from one hundred pounds to buy into premium bond, to 25 pounds. Then it means for 25 pounds a month you can buy a premium bond which while it's not really a growth maker, it's not a wealth builder, but it's a place to park emergency money, it's underwritten by the government so as far as we know we would call that gilt-edged, or your money's safe and of course you're participating in a prize draw where you can win a million pounds so that would definitely be wealth building if you got a million quid in one go. However, you don't ever lost your stake. So if you want to get your money back you give a months notice.

 

Chris Rodwell: Right.

 

Kevin Whelan: So relatively easy access. No risk at all, assuming governments don't go bust, but then we're all in trouble, but you're getting participation in a draw. And for some people they love the little pleasure of the 25 quid win here and a 50 quid there and a hundred quid. When then I have to say I've got premium bonds myself, I quite like them. My wife loves them. So it's all good fun.

 

Chris Rodwell: I was going to say, could you then put the emergency fund money in there but I guess if you've got to wait month then perhaps it's not quite as accessible as you may need it?

 

Kevin Whelan: Well, it's a great point Chris, but remember most emergencies you have in your life don't need to be responded to instantaneously. And you can get your money, if it takes a month, well if the boiler broke down, you could still probably pay for it on the credit card but then use the premium bonds to pay for the credit cards.

 

Chris Rodwell: Good idea.

 

Kevin Whelan: So it's an interesting perspective to be able to do that.

 

Kevin Whelan: So we've got get the wheels going forward so we're not going in reverse, get rid of the debt. Build an emergency fund, protect yourself and because you're the machine that cranks the engine that turn out the money, if you're a job owner and therefore being sure that that money keeps coming if something happen to you is quite an important thing, invest in trackers maybe, certainly get an education, if in doubt use the lottery ticket, no use the premium bond.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah.

 

Kevin Whelan: But there is one more, Chris, which is, I would say that one of the ways you can build wealth is to get the leverage of the relationship with somebody else whose values you share, whose products you recognize and appreciate, where you could make some money by being a referrer.

 

Chris Rodwell: Mm-hmm (affirmative)-

 

Kevin Whelan: And we call that an affiliate program. And there are many affiliate programs out there, you might have to pay a few hundred pounds to be trained or to be signed up to those sorts of things but if you truly resonate with something and it provides great value, then why not look into affiliate programs. Lots of people do this with online.

 

Chris Rodwell: It's such a common model now, even Uber you can share with someone else and you get a free ride, that's an affiliate program so people are using it without even realizing sometimes.

 

Kevin Whelan: Oh, okay. So signing up for some sort of affiliate program if that works for you and fits in with your lifestyle and it fits in with your wealth dynamic, if you're really well connected, then an affiliate program could certainly serve people who are highly connected. [inaudible 00:18:57] and Blaze Energy for example.

 

Kevin Whelan: And I know we offer an affiliate program ourselves for those who are really keen and want to be connected to us and maybe more about that in another episode. But lots of things out there that can start then creating a bit of income every month.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah.

 

Kevin Whelan: And that's further helping you, And one of the ways I like to think about this is you're moving through as we're imagining that our podcast today is really aimed at he beginners in their wealth journey, is they have got a set of expenses they've calculated to be this is what I need to cover my basic expenses. So if you reduce that by looking at your debits, in this case a hundred pounds a month, that's great, but if you're then building some wealth using any of these examples and then say you build a hundred pounds a month in income, then you're taking care of some of your bills.

 

Kevin Whelan: And you do the next one and you're taking care of more of your bills so you're stair casing your way from insecurity to security to then free you to get involved much more into the bigger sources of leverage where you can massively accelerate and that's when you're getting into different programs, different investments, property and some of the other investment pillars that we've talked about on previous episodes.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah. Yeah you can almost turn it into a bit of a game, can't you? And say well how can I create an extra couple of hundred pounds a month and then that's going to pay off this area-

 

Kevin Whelan: Exactly. It should be a game because that way you're participating in the game, you're not thinking oh, this is all too hard. So I would encourage anybody to get started. It'd be great to hear that some people have posted something to say that they've done something with their debt, they've invested some money somewhere and they're getting a good return or they're becoming affiliate and they're getting a good return. Be great to hear some news from people as well as questions.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah. So please, if you do have some good news, you saved a few pounds here or there, from following the debit method then please, leave us a message and a question on the Wealthbuilders website and we'll read hat out in a future episode.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah, absolutely, yeah.

 

Chris Rodwell: Great. That was really good. Thanks, Kevin.

 

Kevin Whelan: Was an interesting one, wasn't it?

 

Chris Rodwell: That is so. Next episode, what are we going to look at?

 

Kevin Whelan: Well I think we talked about leverage, and I think in Wealthbuilder process we talk about F-I-R-S-T, or FIRST, the six ways you can really get some powerful leverage going in your life. Why don't we do that?

 

Chris Rodwell: Let's do that one. Alright. See you next time.

 

Kevin Whelan: See ya.

Chris Rodwell: Hello. Welcome back to another episode of Wealth Talk. I'm Christian Rodwell, membership director for wealth builders and joined by the founder Mr. Kevin Whelan. Hello Kevin.

 

Kevin Whelan: Hi Chris. Good to talk to you again in episode nine I believe.

 

Chris Rodwell: We are racing through these and thank you, everyone for your feedback, your comments, reviews on iTunes. Really appreciate it. We are starting to spread across the Internet now. Wealth Talk is popping up all over the place, Kevin. We're now on Spotify.

 

Kevin Whelan: Oh yes.

 

Chris Rodwell: And many of the other popular podcasting apps. So today, before we get stuck into it, should we recap where we've been so far?

 

Kevin Whelan: I think so. Why don't you do that?

 

Chris Rodwell: So we have covered a number of things in the first eight episodes, but if we think about the Wealth Builder's logo, there's a structure there. The foundation, which is debits, which we covered in episode four. Then we did an overview of the seven pillars or the seven different assets that can be used to build wealth.

 

Kevin Whelan: And the interesting about that, Chris, is the seven ways to build wealth is only seven. So you know, if there are only seven, it's quite an easy science to learn. So the good thing to get really clear is these steps or principles, they're not opinions. Maybe thing we're talking about now is something that would apply with you in the UK, the US, Canada, Germany, anywhere in the world, which is great to see that some of the podcasts have been picked up in those different places for it. But anyway, I was stealing your flow.

 

Chris Rodwell: No, it's okay. Well I only have the roof to pop on the top and we covered that in the last episode.

 

Kevin Whelan: Right. The roof's really important. It's the often, it's the bit that busy people, you know, and I suppose the most popular thing that comes out of this, and I've had a few people saying how grateful they are that they're listening to the podcast, when they're doing their crossfit. Somebody else said they've got a two hour commute. Can you believe that? Two hours each way, unpaid time, like half a day unpaid. But at least he gets listened to, you know, many different podcasts. So there's a bit of leverage of their time there. So it's great to see all that time is being used. However, the thing that business owners and very busy people fail to do is take care of the things that are a little bit unpleasant to think about, which is their death, you know, things going wrong and taking care of paperwork, which is usually the last on the list. So having a watertight roof, really, really important.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah. And we went into this a bit more detail about that in episode eight. So if you didn't check out episode eight, have a listen to that one after you finished with this episode. And back in an earlier episode, we also looked at the five levels of wealth because ultimately, are we not all searching for a life where we have more freedom? A lifestyle that we desire and when we understand what the financial number is that's required for us to live that kind of life. Then we can start implementing all of the things that we've been talking about.

 

Kevin Whelan: Well, this is where it all joins up together and we talk about, you know, Wealth Builders as a place where you go to learn a step by step process, and it is step by step. So you know, the whole thing does join together. When you look back at where we've gone ... Why don't I kind of briefly summarize how it all works?

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah, let's do that.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah. Okay. So like any good building, it starts with a good foundation. We've talked about that. And that foundation essentially needs to be done wherever you are on your wealth building journey now. So whether you're already feeling super successful, whether you've got a property portfolio or a business portfolio or whatever you've got in your life, it's really important to check

in to make sure that foundation is good. So two elements of the foundation.

 

Kevin Whelan: One, know yourself. Which is where we talked about wealth dynamics, really getting your investor compass or your wealth, builder DNA very clear so that you know you're doing the right things and you're always going to be a state of flow. And being positive about what you're doing. And two, as well as the financial, as well as the intellectual and foundation psychologically, is also tuned into tune into your financial foundation. So it's making sure you've taken care of debits. From time to time you checked in, you've saved yourself some money, and you constantly, where you are saving that money, redeploying that somewhere to build your wealth. Now whether that's putting some money into assets, something as easy as putting into the stock market or increasingly easy things like for example, you know, premium bonds are now 25 quid. So if you just saved 25 quid, buy a premium bond, you could win a million quid and then you're very happy that you've made a major injection into your wealth plan.

 

Kevin Whelan: In addition to that then, once you started to do that saving, you're redeploying that money in some way, you're building wealth. You're not just letting it sit in your bank account. Using your investor DNA, you're trying to work out which is the right method of building wealth for you. So do you focus on your home? Do you eliminate your mortgage? Do you think about ways you could turn your home into an asset? Do you look at your pension, the most overlooked asset of all? Do you look at how you're investing money? How do you mitigate risk? We probably should talk about that on another podcast, Chris, how you can take deliberate conscientious steps to minimize the risk in the market because for the most part, you can't control that at all. Do you invest in a portfolio of property? Property's so multifaceted. So many different things you can do in property, which is why it's so popular?

 

Kevin Whelan: Do you invest in your own business? Do you look at other businesses? How do you see business and being a true value creation entrepreneur in your life, how do you do that and you have to begin to choose that. Are you the sort of person who is great at taking what you've applied in your intellect? Remember we talked about being an employee and turning that intellect into just cash as opposed to a value. You keep it now as you look at yourself. Could you create value from what you know and how you package that and repurpose that and create books, courses, something that would create more value? And it doesn't have to be life changing value because any little amount you can create and find, you can use to build a step. So we're not talking about leaping from being financially weak to financially, you know, completely sorted for the rest of your life. It's little incremental steps out.

 

Chris Rodwell: An extra 500 pounds here and extra thousand pounds there that can very quickly, when compounded and you know, layered on top of each other can get you to that financial security level and then that relieves a whole lot of pressure.

 

Kevin Whelan: That's right and the final pillar of course, which again for time poor people could be the debt collaboration, that true sense of wealth building collaboration, which we know is very popular in the community where people genuinely work together, where some people have skill, some people have time, some people have money, some people have an idea. And you can combine those wealth dynamics in a way that truly makes something more valuable by doing those things together. So that's the kind of starting process. But as you then then say, well how does that work step by step?

 

Chris Rodwell: Which I know that you have a very, very elegant model. I think it'd be really good for us to actually dive into that now, Kevin. Is, okay, so you know what your financial level is that you're trying to reach. And you've chosen the pillar that you feel is the right pillar for you based on wealth dynamics and your interests. How do we actually make the whole process work? How do we actually start generating income from those assets?

 

Kevin Whelan: Okay, so you're absolutely right, Chris. You have to begin with some kind of end in mind. And the end in mind for most people at the beginning is how do I move from insecurity to security? Which is from level one on the wealth scale to level two. Now you put some numbers on that so it doesn't really matter what the numbers are. We said that before, but you pick a number, you take stock and see where you are right now. Let's say the target level through for securities 5,000 a month, and you look at what you're generating from assets right now and let's say it's zero. You're not going to go from zero to 5,000 you know, in a heartbeat.

 

Kevin Whelan: There's a process for doing that. So how you do that is you, once you've identified the number, you then take stock of which pillar is the best one for you to start with. And once you do that, remember we talked about entrepreneurs make decisions looking forward, not looking backwards. They have to do before they know, not know before they do. Now what that means is we work on a process, Chris, which we call the wheel of wealth. Now that's, that was created by me as a thought process, which I believe works every single time. So I'm going to say don't cheat the wheel. Okay? Now I'm going to tell you why people do cheat the wheel in a minute. But first of all, let me describe the wheel, or a cog. So imagine it's a gear. Imagine a circle and we can create, we've got the visual for this and we've got a video for this as well, haven't we?

 

Chris Rodwell: Absolutely put us in the show notes. So you can click and have a look as we're talking about this is.

 

Kevin Whelan: We don't want people to do that when they're driving or if they're doing their crossfit, right? So carry on doing what you're doing. But imagine we've got an idea. And that idea might be, let's say property. It doesn't really matter what the idea is because it can come from any pillar at all. Once you've chosen one, you then say, okay, everything starts with education. So you have a wheel which is broken into five spokes, five component parts, five bits of cheese in the wheel. If you remember the game, Trivial Pursuit, that kind of thing. And you have to turn this wheel 360 degrees, full circle. And when it goes full circle and it works for you, you hear a click and that click means you can now lock that action in and it will start creating flows of cash or capital in your life.

 

Kevin Whelan: So what are the five component parts? Well, the first part as I said is education and you have to really understand how the asset works in every case. So you need to invest some time in education. So if you found money and other aspects of your life, you can use that money to pay for your education. By the way, whoever you get that education from, it's not important that it's from Wealth Builders or from anyone, just you choose the asset, choose where you get the education from. Once you've got the education, you know, how does that asset turn into cash? How does that asset turn into capital? And you work that out and if you liked the way it sounds to you, if you think this fits me, I think. You then look at support, which is aspect number two or part two of the wheel of wealth.

 

Kevin Whelan: Now the second part in support, really important, because in a world out there, there are, let's say there's true education and there's salesmanship in disguise, so we need to look out for that. So support means how do you get an independent source of intelligence to ask questions, answer questions, make sure that you feel it's unbiased. The interest of the person giving you support is your interest. It's aligned completely with you. Yes, there might be a commercial value, but we, again, we talked about, commercial value is fine if you're getting more value than you're paying, so let's assume you could find out and we believe Wealth Builders are an enormously helpful place for people to be in support because we do not grind an ax in favor of one asset or another. Now, let's say you get that support and you're asking questions and you're, and you said, well, yeah, I think that would work for you. Why don't you do that?

 

Kevin Whelan: The fastest way then to move forward next is to look at something called connection. Now connection is ... wealth is a path less well-trodden. As we know, 95% of the population don't make it, but 5% do and they leave trails. And we know lots of them. So if you work with someone, let's say to property strategy and you choose to talk to someone to connect to someone who's tried and tested in a community where they are not out for themselves, they're willing to share with you, then that's going to bring that education to life. That's not just going to have you academically understand how the asset works, Chris, it's going to be you physically see what that person has to do. Now that point, point number three of connection is often the most crucial in the wealth building stage because when you get to see and experience what somebody else is doing, you can really check whether it's something you want to do. And many, many, many of the Wealth Builder clients have thought they wanted to do property for example, but then they saw the effort that came in and finding property.

 

Kevin Whelan: They saw the effort that came in in managing property and tenants and so on and they decided it's not for me, it doesn't fit my DNA. It maybe is not the right path for them to build wealth. For many others, it's the perfect path for them. So not everybody's the same and only that connection stage brings that to life.

 

Chris Rodwell: You maybe don't know that by just reading a book or watching a video call.

 

Kevin Whelan: You can't know that. And the danger if you don't go through the connection stage is you get the, you get the information. You get a bit of education, but it's from a single source that might be wanting to sell you more education so you don't really get all of the story. You get a little bit of the story, you don't get a connection to see it brought to life. So you just keep going round in a small education support loop, you go education, support, more education, more support, not realizing that you're just spending money, not moving you forward in your wealth. In many respects going backwards.

 

Chris Rodwell: And unfortunately we do say that.

 

Kevin Whelan: We do see that. There are really great educators and trainers out there, but we do see that out there, Chris. So it's really important to to look at that from the unbiased viewpoint. So we know education's important. Support is critical.` Making the right connections or very important. Now, if you get to that point of connection and it works for you, now you're getting excited. You think I could do this. This is definitely something. If he can do it, I can definitely do it. So you decide to do it. There's a step before you decide to doing, and that step is again, like the roof. It's the overlooked step in the wheel and that step, Chris?

 

Chris Rodwell: Go on.

 

Kevin Whelan: Due diligence. Now, due diligence is the step that says, before I let excitement win what am I doing to protect the return of my investment? We don't want to get too excited by the return on it because there's lots of excitement out there. We want to check the return off, so we want to know what's the risk of something going wrong? What will be the consequence if this went wrong? What proportion of my total wealth building resources am I willing to dedicate to this one thing? How do I make sure that the process will work for me? And we would a whole training program around due diligence, which we can give to people. Some of it's for free as well, so they can see the due diligent steps they need to take. And the more complex the strategy, the more important it is to do the due diligence. Now in some cases the DD can be really easy. You know, if you're just looking at stocks and you just buy trackers, the due diligence you might need to do just cost.

 

Kevin Whelan: But if it's something more complicated where you're having to put time, energy, money, relationships, that's a lot of time if you get that wrong. So putting the due diligence stage in there is really critical.

 

Chris Rodwell: So often people will get excited, they'll be thinking, how much can I make? But actually that due diligence step is actually understanding how much could you lose if they didn't go the right way.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah. And the big challenge about this is, you know we've talked about this wheel of wealth and we still to get to the last point yet, but we're imagining that this wheel is turning clockwise and there's always going in one direction which is forward. But if you don't do the proper dd due diligence, you run the risk of the wheel going backwards and if the wheel goes backwards, there's two terrible consequences. One is you lose money. Two is your confidence of being an investor of being a wealth builder goes backwards.

 

Kevin Whelan: So instead of then looking forwards like the entrepreneur does, you start looking backwards and start retrenching and retreating and going backwards into wealth and you can't do that. You cannot build wealth by going backwards. You have to keep moving forward. So as long as you learn little lessons, that's okay. But big lessons you don't want to learn. You want to help those lessons that come out in the connection and due diligence stage because you're going to miss them at the education stage often cause you don't know enough yet. The final stage in the process, Chris, which completes the circle is guided action. Now, what do I mean by guided action? Not just action. Why did I call it guided action, not action? Well, the thing about wealth and the reason why imagining cogs is a cog connects to another cog that connects to another cog that connects to another cog.

 

Kevin Whelan: So if you do things in the wrong order or you do something that your creating same property but you don't realize because you didn't, you missed something about the taxation and you don't know that that's connected to whether you were in a limited company, whether you're doing it personally, whether you're doing it in your name, your name and your wife's name. All of these things have to be connected so you need, back to your support, a place where you can get the action. But what is the implication of this action for the remainder of my wealth building plan? How does it affect my tax and how does it affect other things? My time and so forth? Now when you turn the wheel full circle and you hear the click and that click locks like a gear in your plan, throwing off cash, throwing off capital, and now it needs a bit of maintenance, sure. Every now and again you're gonna need to grease that wheel, but it's only management.

 

Kevin Whelan: Now you don't have to relearn all this and now you've got your first cog wheel in play. The first gear in play turning. Now what? What I want you to imagine now, Chris, is that wheel gets locked into your plan. So if your plan is to go from insecurity to security, you've now put one of those wheels in the plan. Now did that get you to security? If it did, you're secure. If it didn't and your target was five and this property is throwing off one, you've still got to turn wheels. But you could be just turning the same wheel in, laying the same thing four times, you know? So it's not uncommon for clients to do the same thing and repeat, repeat, repeat. But they've got a model they can repeat and then it works.

 

Kevin Whelan: Or if they need to go back and say, well that wasn't for me. I need now to turn another wheel and then they can discard that one knowing they've learned about themselves, they didn't make a big mistake. So the mistake people make more than anything else, Chris, if you imagine this circle where you know the top of the cog starts with education and immediately if you were going backwards, one step goes to action. People go from a little bit of education straight to action. And that's always the time when I see people make the biggest mistakes. So the cog doesn't need to turn slowly, you know, you can turn it pretty quickly depending on the complexity. And depending on what people are looking at, it could be as short as a day, it could be as long as 90 days, but it never as longer than that.

 

Kevin Whelan: When you bring the education, support and connection all in play together as opposed to randomly trying to find those connections out there in the world where if you only go to a couple of networking meetings, say it might take you six months to find the right connection, nobody's really for you and it's taking too long. So wealth building is about trying to make a decision a month, one decision every month, just like going at work or being in your business where you tend to measure things monthly. And you know my phrase, Chris, never let 30 days go by without doing something that's contributing towards your wealth. And it doesn't mean money. It can mean a little bit of time, a little bit of education, a little bit of time with connection, little bit of time and due diligence, a little bit of time with a coach or a guide or a mentor, however you choose to get your support. Everybody's different. We don't mind that either way, then that's the way to do it. Is that a helpful kind of reminder of the process?

 

Chris Rodwell: I think it links everything together and it's absolutely at the heart of the whole wealth building process. So this is an important episode. A very, very important aspect of really grasp and I think the visual will help. So definitely do click on the show notes, have a look at the wheel of wealth. We have a video as well. We can link to that within our membership area as well, which free access for everybody to go in and see that as well. When I think the penny drops that people understand all of these five steps need to be implemented. That generates the cash in your chosen asset, locks down into your plan, and then it's a-

 

Kevin Whelan: And it just moves you up the level, step by step by step. And the the point is what do you know the wealth building process is both financially transformational and personally transformational. Yes, it's impossible to go from nought to 5,000 in one go usually. So you have to take it in small steps. But my experience is, Chris, you can get to zero to complete financial independence in only a short number of years, three to seven years. You can do it, depending on your own. The resources you bring in the beginning from time and money and so forth and how fast you learn, but it doesn't have to take a lifetime, as most people take 40 years when they're in jobs with a pension, having a house they live in and having a mortgage on that property and so on. It takes them 40 years to get often, a half of what they've got. That's a long time.

 

Kevin Whelan: You can do it in three to seven years, so a little bit of hard work doing it the right way, not trying to cheat the process, you know? It doesn't make any difference to me with you cheat the process or not, but it does make a difference to you and I would encourage everybody to listen again maybe. Watch the video, try and really lock it into their own brain and decide whether you connect with Wealth Builders or not, it's a principle that should work in every single case.

 

Chris Rodwell: That's fantastic. I really appreciate you sharing that, Kevin. I'm hope that everyone enjoyed that as well. And in the next episode, what will we be covering? Perhaps we can look at some of those first steps. We've had some questions recently about just how do I apply some of this extra cash I'm now saving? I've applied it with debits, I've got a few extra hundred pounds per month. Should I do this? Should I do that? So maybe we can give some guidance for that for some of those.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah, we could do that. I call those the tactical questions and more often than not, when people start their wealth building journey, they often start with that question, should I do this or that? But I'd come back to work out what you're trying to achieve first. Work out where you are on your level and then when you're the question, should I do this or this? It's then easy to say, well, which one of those is going to help you move up a level faster than the other one?

 

Chris Rodwell: And on that note, Kevin, I'd like to just remind everyone that if you go to wealthbuilders.co.uk/wealthtalk, not only can you recap on all of the episodes and the show notes and the full transcriptions if you prefer to read through, but we also now have the capability where you can record a question to send to myself and Kevin and also leave us a comment. So head over there, wealthbuilders.co.uk/wealthtalk. And if you have a specific question that you'd like to ask us and we'll be happy to cover that in a future episode.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah, and I think probably given the number of questions we're getting, Chris, why don't we take one session just dedicated to the questions that were being asked and have a kind of an FAQ update as opposed to, you know, just giving something that we come up with as part of the wealth building sharing. So then we'll kind of answer the questions that people are asking at whatever level they're at, whether they're right at the beginning of their journey, or whether they're much further on in their journey. The questions will be different, but we can talkle them.

 

Chris Rodwell: I think that'd be great. So we look forward to receiving your questions and we'll catch you next week on another episode of Wealth Talk. Thanks, Kevin.

 

Kevin Whelan: See you.

 

Chris Rodwell: Hello again and welcome to another episode of WealthTalk. I'm Christian Rodwell, Membership Director for WealthBuilders, joined by the founder of WealthBuilders, Mr. Kevin Whelan.

 

Kevin Whelan: Hello, Chris. Good to talk to you again.

 

Chris Rodwell: Great to see you today, Kevin. Now Kevin, in the last episode, we talked about the seven pillars, went into a bit of detail there, gave a good overview of what those seven pillars are. And, of course, they are part of the WealthBuilders structure, the logo. We've covered the foundation. We've covered the seven pillars. Today, we're going to talk about the roof that sits on top.

 

Kevin Whelan: The roof, right. So, let's say, Chris, there's no ceiling. There's no ceiling to the amount of wealth that can be created here. What we're saying is not a ceiling, but a roof. A roof is a structure and you can imagine if you're looking at a building, one of the very first things that a good architect or a good builder will want anyone to do is make that water tight because that keeps it safe. So, the protection of your assets and the legal organisation of those assets and how to protect them is really the essence of the roof. There are a number of different aspects of that. Shall I touch on some of those?

 

Chris Rodwell: I think it would be important to do so.

 

Kevin Whelan: Okay. Well, you might remember from my very first story that when my dad died, which was my catalyst to grow wealth, unfortunately, he died without a will. Now, this is not necessarily the biggest thing that could have happened. But, of course, whenever we've got assets, we want to make it very clear how that ownership of those assets will pass, when we pass. Most business owners and a lot of employees just don't get round to doing that. It's one of those drifty things again, Chris, that is a really simple thing to do, but still people tend to overanalyse it and want to know exactly where everything would go. The simple thing to do, if you haven't made a will, the government will already make one for you and that's called the law of intestacy. Now, it doesn't sound very nice-

 

Chris Rodwell: Not one you really want to have to-

 

Kevin Whelan: I don't want to go into that but it's not good, when for a few pounds, you can take care of a will. A will is just a way of saying, "If something happens to me, I would like this to be the flow of the assets that I own when I'm no longer around." Now, it's equally important to think about how you do that when you're alive, not just when you're dead. The way to do that is a combination of things. One is called power of attorney. Now, power of attorney is something that we've come across, I suppose. But, in law now, there are two types. Power of attorney over financial assets, so if I were to become sick, disabled, unable to help myself, what if I've got all my assets in my name for tax reasons? Or what if I've got something jointly for whatever reason with a spouse or a partner and I can't sign a document? Or they can't sign a document?

There are horror stories of business owners where they were the person driving the business and their spouse was maybe playing a bit part in the business, helping with admin and support. And somebody gets seriously ill and the banks don't cooperate because there's nobody to sign documents. So, power of attorney is a document that's a living document, says if something happens to me, and I can no longer take care of myself in terms of making decisions, somebody else can do so and it's prearranged. Not difficult to do, few hundred pounds, nothing more than that. And you can get that from any good lawyer or any good legal provider of services.

So, no ax to grind there. The second power of attorney is power of attorney over your directive you'd want to make if you were ill. You see in all sorts of TV programs a do not resuscitate order and things like that. So, while I'm not talking about the most pleasant things in life, they're nonetheless important because being water tight doesn't deal with pleasant things, it deals with things that are fundamental. So, getting your will done, appointing who you want. If you've got children as executors and guardians, making sure you've got a power of attorney for your financial assets and a power of attorney for how you'd want your medical requirements to be taken care of.

That poses another one that I would often see when I deal with business owners. Often, they've created an agreement sometimes by a shake of the hand, sometimes by some form of shareholder agreement, but it's no document that deals with well, what if? You know, it's not clear what the exit strategy is, so being ... If you have a business and a business is, you remember from last time, Chris, is fundamental pillar I love, particularly as an asset, but if you've got a business with somebody else, you do need to make sure you've got a very clear path as to what happens if. So, that's the legal side of things. Does that help?

 

Chris Rodwell: It does, indeed. What else constitutes in the roof?

 

Kevin Whelan: Well, the other issue with that is the word, trust. Now, I don't mean trust as I trust you, you trust me, but the concept of the use of a legal instrument called a trust. We already know about trust in our lives because, for the vast majority of people, the most popular pillar, the most popular asset where people build their wealth in the UK, can you remember what that one was, Chris?

 

Chris Rodwell: I think it might be property.

 

Kevin Whelan: That's the one they want, but the one that more people rely on in the 95%, is the pension.

 

Chris Rodwell: Oh, yeah.

 

Kevin Whelan: Now, the pension is a form of trust.

 

Chris Rodwell: Okay.

 

Kevin Whelan: All right. Now, it's a trust but what happens in a trust, then, is somebody else is the trustee. So, if you've got an insurance company as the trustee, then technically in law, the assets of a trust belong to the trustees. Therefore, technically, you're the beneficiary. I'm not sure I'm a big fan of that. I like to control my own assets, so it goes back to this point about the use of the concept of the director's pension or SSAS.

 

Chris Rodwell: [Crosstalk 00:06:29], yeah.

 

Kevin Whelan: Wherever that's possible to do, you take control and become your own trustee. So, you can see how these things work together. The other point about trust is most people who think about taking care of their family, their loved ones when they die, they tend to take out something to protect themselves in the event of their death as a life insurance policy. Now, I'm not saying anybody needs one or should have one or shouldn't have one, but there's a place for insurance if you've got a big mortgage or if you want to make sure somebody's taken care of if you're the breadwinner.

But, what I almost never see happen, Chris, is the policy itself being put into trust. And why that's really important is if you die and you leave a life insurance policy, that insurance policy pays out, it's now paying out and is potentially assessable for inheritance tax. If you want to leave a good legacy, unless you love the Inland Revenue more than you love your kids, you don't want to do that. You know how much it costs to write a life insurance policy in trust? It's zero because all you need to do is tick a box. Do you know how many people tick the boxes? Virtually none because the insurance salesman, more often than not, just want to sell the policy. They don't want to go that extra mile of creating the document after the event, where you tick a box to nominate in trust.

If it's in trust, what that means is you're saying in the event of my death, I put this policy into trust. Now my family have control of that and because it's in the trust, it's not subject to inheritance tax. And the same way as a pension trust is not subject to inheritance tax. So, it's important and we're not going to become legal experts in a podcast, Chris, and we're not suggesting anybody should. But, getting to understand the use of trusts and how you deal with trusts is one of the biggest things you can do to protect your assets.

 

Chris Rodwell: We should definitely talk about that in some more detail in another podcast, perhaps.

 

Kevin Whelan: Absolutely. We can get into that, particularly around business ownership and so on. The other issue, I suppose, just going back to the life cover bit, which is an interesting thought, we talked in debits when we're trying to help people create money, that one of the things they can do is think about the tax they're paying. So, generally speaking, if I've got a life insurance policy, I'm paying for that policy out of taxed income. I've earned the money, I've paid the tax, I've paid the premium. What if I could pay that premium because I decide it's important to protect my family and I could pay that premium and have the government pay towards the premium and reduce my net costs? Do you think that might be interesting?

 

Chris Rodwell: That would be pretty smart.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah, smart people do that. This is called relevant life, not that other life cover is irrelevant, it's just all technical terminology, I'm afraid we get when we're in the wealth space, is it's a type of insurance where you take out as a business owner ... Another important reason to be a business owner, not just because you're creating value.

 

Chris Rodwell: So many benefits.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah, not just because you can have a SSAS director's pension, not just because you're ... Got complete freedom to create as much value as you want. Not just that; you get tax breaks, too. The tax breaks are really important to take on board. Robert Kiyosaki phrases is like this and I think it's great. "Employees earn money, pay tax, spend what's left. Business owners earn money, then spend the money and pay tax on what's left." In other words, there are so many things legitimately a business owner can do that's tax-deductible. Pension contributions, tax-deductible; relevant life premiums, insurance cover for your family, where the part of the premium is paid by tax relief. It's just a great thing to know.

These things are never, never, never complicated, but in the drift life, when people get confused, they get complacent, they don't get round to doing these things, which is why I don't hold anything against the old man, but when he died not putting these things in place, I realised that part of my work for myself and the work that I do for others, to make sure that I'm tough enough to say, "Let's get this done." When they get it done, it's water tight. Then, you can have the peace of mind, spend the rest of your life concentrating on building your assets, knowing they're well-protected.

 

Chris Rodwell: And that allows you, referring back to those five levels, that financial legacy, without these, that will become ...

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah, can you stand anymore? Here's another one for you: Most people, their primary asset by which we start with on the wealth building journey is to try and help them make more money from the use of their home. More often than not, people own their home in a special legal way. The way they own their home is something called joint tenants. So, joint tenants, Chris. Now, why am I telling you that? Well, when you own something as joint tenants, that's the legal speak, that's what says the land registry. It means if I own my property as joint tenants with my wife, if I die, she owns 100% of the house. Well, is that a good idea or a bad idea?

Well, it sounds good. But what is the consequence? If I die and she gets a whole house. Let's take one consequence. So, I'll die before, I'm pretty certain of that, right? So, if I go before my wife, and then she goes a bit doolally and she needs long-term care, what does she own? She owns a house and a nice one. What that's going to mean is potentially that home could be sold to pay for care costs.

 

Chris Rodwell: Right.

 

Kevin Whelan: There's a different way of doing it. There's a way of owning your property, owning your home called tenants in common. When we meet and deal our mentoring clients, one of the things we do is, we go look at land registry and say, "Let's see how you own your own home." Now, when I ask people, "Do you own your home with joint tenants or tenants in common?" Do they know? They never know. So, I know if they don't know, it's joint tenants because you have to put a bit of effort in to create tenants in common.

What you do there is you say ... You basically go to a lawyer, costs maybe a few hundred pounds, not more and say, "I would like to own my home as tenants in common," and let's say it's 50/50. So, I own 50%, my wife owns 50%. So, if I die, I leave my 50% in a trust ... You're getting there, Chris. I own my 50% in a trust, but I'm no longer around. So, my children and my wife can benefit from the trust, but she's not the legal owner. Now, we send her doolally again. So, she goes doolally, but what does she own? Half a house. You cannot assess half a house for purposes of long-term care. So, you're removing the property from the ravages and dangers of care costs and many other risks, too, beyond the next generation.

So, these are not difficult things to get your head around. Maybe if you're hearing it first time in this episode, yes, it might be a lot very fast, but not difficult to slow it down. How much does it cost to do these things? Wills, a few hundred pounds. Powers of attorney, few hundred pounds. Trusts, possibly nothing. Creating something, tenants in common, few hundred pounds. So, for less than a couple of thousand pounds, probably, you've protected yourself and all of the assets you not just own now, but could potentially own in the future and you just keep building layers and layers and layers of this. It's really not hard, but it's the sort of stuff that busy people just never get around to. Is that helpful?

 

Chris Rodwell: You have given us something to chew over there. So, I would recommend listening back to this episode.

 

Kevin Whelan: It's definitely probably worth listening back, right?

 

Chris Rodwell: Taking a couple of notes and doing a couple of checks because those are very simple things to implement.

 

Kevin Whelan: The difficult thing about checking with your property's joint tenants and tenants in common is you need to be able to access land registry. Now, we have got that because we do this a lot and there's special terminology which is too complicated for me to explain. But, if you're not sure, then maybe if there's a way, for someone who feels very strongly about this, to reach out so we can help them understand that by checking it out for them.

 

Chris Rodwell: Absolutely. And if you're listening to any episodes of WealthTalk and you have questions, then the best place is to go and join the WealthBuilders membership community on Facebook, free Facebook group, to search for WealthBuilders and we've got hundreds of members in there who have experience with this and, of course, we're in there regularly answering questions, so that's probably the fastest way to get access to us.

 

Kevin Whelan: Great. So, protecting the roofs. So, we've taken care of our foundation. We've built our foundation on a solid mindset. We've created money in our finance review. We've decided by doing our wealth dynamic. We know exactly where our wealth building compass should point. We're getting clearer on our target level of wealth, where we're aiming. We know the pillars that we want to engage in. We've protected our assets. What could possibly go wrong, Chris? This isn't really that difficult, but it's just so rarely put into practice and I would commend anybody to start reviewing some of these things again and make a decision, choose to be wealthy. Don't choose to stay on the right-hand side of the wealthy dynamic.

Don't stay exclusively in your home and your pension parked. Participate in your own wealth. Take care of some of these things. Create the peace of mind that it will bring, the wisdom that you can teach on to the next generation and wealth that just keeps growing and growing and growing.

 

Chris Rodwell: Wouldn't it be a good idea for us to actually start bringing in some of the members of the community to share, actually, real life examples of how they've applied this?

 

Kevin Whelan: We could definitely do that and maybe interview some?

 

Chris Rodwell: I think so.

 

Kevin Whelan: Maybe that would work and maybe, if there's some specific areas where the points we're making in the podcast, people want to pick up specifically, if we need to get specific expertise like a lawyer or somebody who's a specialist in some of these things, we can bring them in, too, just to bring these little nuggets of opportunity-

 

Chris Rodwell: Bring it to life.

 

Kevin Whelan: ... And take care of it. You know, it's people can do. It's not just about listening. That's the drifty course or the drifting way, if you remember, right? So, we don't want to just get information and then listen to this podcast and say, "Well, actually, in the moment, when I'm listening, wherever I'm listening, this is really important stuff. But then, I don't do anything." The big hole in the get round to it is the thing that holds people back. Let's see if we can help them.

 

Chris Rodwell: I'm glad that happened to you. That's been a really, really good episode today. Thanks so much for sharing that, Kevin.

 

Kevin Whelan: No problem.

 

Chris Rodwell: I look forward to catching up on the next episode of WealthTalk.

 

Kevin Whelan: See you.

Chris Rodwell: Hello. Welcome to episode seven of WealthTalk. My name's Christian Rodwell, the membership director for WealthBuilders, and joined by Kevin Whelan, the founder. How are you today, Kevin?

 

Kevin Whelan: I'm great today. I'm looking forward to today's episode.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yes, and before we get stuck into today, let's just quickly recap on what we talked about in episode six, which was wealth dynamics and finding your personal flow. We shared a link in the show notes to go and take that assessment. So if you haven't listened to the episode, please do check that out. Really, really important and it's leads on nicely because once you've found your personal flow, then it's about really getting into the meat of what WealthBuilders is all about, which is the flow of wealth.

 

Kevin Whelan: The flow of wealth, so the flow of cash and the flow of capital.

 

Chris Rodwell: And how can this be done, Kevin? There's seven ways. Seven pillars as you like to refer.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah. If you just try and take stock of where we got to, I think, we've had a really good job of describing the foundation. And that foundation is that combination of financial foundation ... We talked about the debits.

 

Chris Rodwell: That was episode four.

 

Kevin Whelan: Episode four, yeah. And we also talked about mindset, which was just the recent one we did, and the difference between being an employee mindset and entrepreneur mindset. So they're the foundation elements there. Later on, we're going to talk about the roof. So we're imagining a building here, a foundation and a roof. The roof is going to be the area where we talk about getting your finances watertight, so in the sense that when we're going to talk about protecting wealth.

But the real exciting bit is neither in the creation stage or the protecting stage in the building stage because the building is when everything starts to take shape and it starts to look fantastic, and the money flows and the capital flows. The great news about this, Chris, is there are only seven ways to do it. There are no more ways to do this, believe me. I have tried hundreds of times and I've made offers to anybody out there. If you can find me an eighth asset that you can use to build your wealth ... and that means I really should remind our listeners about the definition of an asset. But if you're out there and you can find me number eight, I'll send you a case of champagne and I'll give you a credit in the next book because they'll force me to rewrite it, won't they?

 

Chris Rodwell: That's right.

 

Kevin Whelan: So shall I do the reminder?

 

Chris Rodwell: [crosstalk 00:02:44] that definition, yeah.

 

Kevin Whelan: This is not an accountant's definition, so those of you who are [steel 00:02:50] in your mindset, the wealth dynamic steel, who like the technical definitions, this is not a technical definition. This is my definition. So an asset, Chris, is something you own that is not you. It's an asset that's a thing that creates cash and puts money into your bank while you're asleep. So it happens automatically. You can pass that money on to good causes, people you care about. In other words, it's there for you to control. You do not have to be there for the money to keep flowing. So the money shows up; you don't have to show up. That's my language generally.

And what's interesting about that is as there are only seven, you can really learn it and you can apply it. And while we've done a video on the seven assets ... which was can direct people to in the show notes?

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah, they're all accessible for free within the WealthBuilders membership area, so we'll link again in the show notes.

 

Kevin Whelan: Okay. So we need to give something different here, right? So maybe if we're going to be talking about the assets, we could see what people generally ... where they do it wrong maybe?

 

Chris Rodwell: Some of the biggest mistakes maybe, the most common mistakes.

 

Kevin Whelan: Oh, okay. Okay. So let's imagine then for the sake of our listeners because we know you could be doing this while you're running, [but you should 00:04:09] do this safely or in your car, but just imagine a square. And we've got three lines going to the right of the page and four lines going to the left. So we're going to talk about seven assets.

The three to the right, I call the parked pillars. The pillars of why most people, why 95% of the population simply do not make it to a place of financial independence is because their life is parked. Their money is parked and it's parked in three assets. Asset number one is their home. Now, let's be clear. I am not saying your home is an asset because your home generally for most people doesn't put money in your bank account while you're asleep, Chris.

 

Chris Rodwell: No, it costs money to maintain a home.

Kevin Whelan: It takes money out.

 

Chris Rodwell: You're right.

 

Kevin Whelan: So, Kevin, what are you saying to me? A property is an asset. Well, I need to make another definition here, Chris. There's the difference between an asset that generates flows of cash or capital and a latent asset, which could do if you apply a different strategy. Something that's got the power within it. Like a seed, it's got the capacity to grow. But you could kill that germination by doing the wrong things. Get the picture?

 

Chris Rodwell: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Kevin Whelan: So in a home, then, most people just live in their home. The biggest mistake I see made is they only crystallise any value when they downsize, and guess when that tends to come in their life?

 

Chris Rodwell: Pretty much towards the latter years.

 

Kevin Whelan: Towards the latter years, right. So they tend to be in their late 50s or 60s when they realise, "Oh, dear. The amount of money that I've got coming in from my assets is not going to be able to support me and my family" - usually husband and wife, kids have long gone by then - "for the rest of our life." So they downsize and they overestimate so significantly the value of the downsize that they tend to get to a place where they think, "Oh, my house is worth a few quid." Hope you're not selling it when Brexit occurs by the way. But they sell their house.

Let's say someone sells their house and they bank £300,000, and they move to somewhere else as they want to live somewhere. And they move to a smaller property let's say but with no mortgage, which is great, so they've got some security there. But they've then banked £300,000. But because they've invested no time in their wealth dynamic, they've invested no time in the building of the skill to create and master the art of building wealth in seven pillars, they've only stuck with the one they had, what do you think their appetite for risk is or their willingness to get involved and start acting like an entrepreneur when they haven't done so at any point in their life up until then?

 

Chris Rodwell: Very unlikely. That's money is probably sitting in the bank earning diddly-squat.

 

Kevin Whelan: Okay, that's a technical term, right? So earning very little. If we put a number of that diddly-squat and call it diddly-one, so they're getting 1% on their money, and now they've moved house. They've incurred a bunch of costs, upheaval. They've made £300,000. They've put that money in the bank because they want to support themselves, and it generates 1% - £3,000 a year, £250 a month taxable. How's that going to change their life? It just really doesn't, but they think it will; and that's the huge, huge mistake.

The second mistake I think I see people make in property is they can see often that if they own a property for a long period of time, the bricks and mortar are building value. But they're only building the value as in the increase in value. It's not generating any cash for them. So what it's often possible to do - and while we must always be cautious about how we do this - is you can tap into that value of bricks and mortar and use that as a source of leverage to then create assets that are worth more in terms of a return than the cost of borrowing the money from the asset.

So if I can borrow the money at, say, 2% or 3% and let's just say scientifically ... We're not saying what people should do. They could invest that money in a portfolio of property or in a business or in some other asset that suits their wealth dynamic and they're getting, say, 6% on that. They're doubling their wealth and learning something and creating some value from that. So I see most people just making that huge mistake in not really understanding the difference between good leverage and bad leverage and also significantly overvaluing and leaving too late the issue to downsize.

Mind you, one of the things I've noticed in recent years - and some of our own mentees have done this, Chris - is they've started to use their home in an Airbnb capacity.

 

Chris Rodwell: Absolutely.

 

Kevin Whelan: And we see many of our students who will go on to create annexes and create additional ways they can generate income from their property while they're living in it. I don't mean surrounding themselves with an army of tenants or students but just creating where it's possible and where it's right for them the ability to use their home and the capacity within their home to create an income stream.

 

Chris Rodwell: I've had some experience with that. When I was finishing off my book at the end of last year, I went down to Dorset for a week and the family there had built what they called a snug out in the back garden looking out over the fields with the sheep walking by. But again, making use of some of that space in the big garden that they had, renting that out, and there's an income stream.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah. And, of course, that ties in also if you remember the exercise we did on the freedoms, your choice to have freedom of location, and we talked about one of our WealthBuilders members as well who took her business and basically lived in Cape Town but rented her property out while she was going through that process. So it's possible to create a lifestyle if you can get your wealth in the right place where you can genuinely use your home as a source of income in many, many ways, not just the ones I've mentioned.

 

Chris Rodwell: That's very interesting.

 

Kevin Whelan: Does that help for number one?

 

Chris Rodwell: Yes, it does.

 

Kevin Whelan: Most people don't do that. So consequently, they don't generate really significant income. Certainly today, if someone's 40 today, their home is generating zero today. So from a wealth building perspective now, they're definitely out of flow.

 

Chris Rodwell: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

 

Kevin Whelan: How about number two?

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah. What's asset number two, Kevin?

 

Kevin Whelan: Asset number two is the most undervalued, overlooked asset of all, Chris, and it's the word that most people start to shrink away from and go, "Oh, no," all gray and dreary. It's that pension word. And the pension is the biggest part in the UK where people rely on putting their money in order to create their future retirement wealth and the big mistakes there ... whoa-ho-ho. The big one there is they simply ignore it.

 

Chris Rodwell: Well, they feel so disconnected.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah.

 

Chris Rodwell: One statement a year.

 

Kevin Whelan: One statement a year and then they get the statement, they read it, they file it and they hope that the next six months, the statement is going to be bigger. But they  absolutely have no control whatsoever. And because they have no control and they feel that level of disconnect, they just drift on the ebb and flow of the market because almost all pensions are invested in the stock market, and that certainly makes the pensions industry very wealthy but doesn't do very much long term for the wealth of clients.

When you think about the fact that whenever you have ... We talked about debits. You remember debits? We talked about costs and trying to-

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah, that was episode four.

 

Kevin Whelan: We're talking a lot about episode four. We're looking to try and help people create money where money simply is underperforming. One of the areas that's overlooked is the fees and charges that are levied in pensions almost always are opaque. They're not really truly disclosed. So if something's not disclosed and it's not in your view, you're less likely to challenge it. If I've got a utility bill, how easy is it for me to go switch that? Whichever company you would care to use, you could just go and do that. Can you do that with your pension? Can you just go switch? It's not really that easy. It's more complex or it feels harder. So we spend a lot of our time particularly with entrepreneurs, Chris, educating them to take control of that. And when they take control of their pension through a special kind of vehicle that we refer to as the director's pension because you have to be an entrepreneur to have one, but more technically the SSAS, the Small Self-Administered Scheme-

 

Chris Rodwell: That's S-S-A-S.

 

Kevin Whelan: S-S-A-S. Not the S-A-S, Chris. But you have enormous control. It's what some people call the best-kept financial secret. It's just that ability to take control and drive the return to whichever asset you want. Because if you're the owner of your own pension, then nobody's telling you where to park it. You can make that money work by using it in the entrepreneurial pillars, which is on the other side of our box. And we're not there yet.

So we have to deal with number three, Chris.

 

Chris Rodwell: Oh, we do. And I know what that one is.

 

Kevin Whelan: Oh, you do, right?

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah, okay, that's investments, isn't it?

 

Kevin Whelan: That's investments. What I mean by investments is money parked in a different place, usually in cash, and that is in two different ways. We see big mistakes in cash. One is people park their money in cash. Now, we know everybody needs an emergency fund and that's fine, but having large amounts of money in the bank is not really a good idea.

 

Chris Rodwell: There's no flow.

 

Kevin Whelan: Well, there is, but the flow is to the bank because the bank-

 

Chris Rodwell: They're using that money.

 

Kevin Whelan: They're using the money. So they get wealthy, the individual clients don't. But if they're nervous, I understand the reason why the money's in the bank.

But the other big area where money's in the bank, which it shouldn't be, at least it could be worked, is business owners themselves often. You know, those ones who get caught up and they're wearing all the hats, and they've got decent accounts in their business; but they just don't want to pay the tax on the profit they've paid, the corporation tax on it. And we're seeing business owners now stockpiling cash in their businesses and not necessarily using it inside the business, and there's many ways that that money, too, can be used to invest in ... Well, I'll cover what you can do with those later in the podcast, but definitely put that money to work at often 4%, 5%, 6%, 7%, 8% - so several hundred times the return that you would be getting just leaving the money in cash.

But it's not the cash that worries me. Yes, it's important to make cash work if you don't need it for emergencies. But the big one for me is the risk that people are taking when they tell me that the money they've got in their investments and their [ICEs 00:16:02] and their stock market investments is their financial safety net.

 

Chris Rodwell: Let's rewind back to 2008, and if you were coming to retirement then, for example ... And as you say, everything's connected to the market. So the property market, 30% or so in some areas the stock market massively dropped and then the pensions in the stock market as well.

 

Kevin Whelan: Well, of course. So you get a double whammy. Your pension goes down and your investments go down.

The safety net people often refer to is really quite naïve in the sense that when you look at the stock market - and again just a visualisation, Chris, here - is that stock markets tend to rise slowly, almost like walking up a hill, and then they fall quickly. So they drop off a cliff. Now, we know this happens. The problem is we don't know when. But if we know it happens, there are things that we can do, things that we can put in place so that if we knew there was a cliff edge and we were a solid, stable pair of mountaineers, Chris, what we would be doing is we'd climb the mountain.

 

Chris Rodwell: Well, we'd be taking some harnesses and points to-

 

Kevin Whelan: Right. We'd be hammering in some anchors so that if we fall, we don't fall and kill ourselves. We fall a little. We might feel a bit uncomfortable and maybe a little bit in pain, but we don't fall all the way. You could do that with stock market investments, but that invariably means you have to take that control and learn how to do that. And it isn't difficult to do. It's not difficult to do at all. But the number of people I meet who take any kind of risk mitigation strategy - and I mean strategic involvement with their money in the stock market - is almost none. What they tend to do is they act on the advice of the industry, which is hang on, hold on, hope it's all going to be okay. And if it isn't, they still get their fees. They still collect their payments, and that opaque structure means it's in their interest to keep saying hang on, hold on and hope; but it's not really a great wealth building strategy.

So if you combine, Chris, the ownership of a home, the ownership of a pension without control and the ownership of investments without risk mitigation, you're almost certain to be doomed to the 95%. And that's a tragedy, yet there are so many really enriching things and simple things that you can learn and apply with the other four entrepreneurial pillars, the pillars that I often will refer to on the left-hand side. It's almost like crossing a divide between the right-hand side and the left-hand side, like a bridge between the two, crossing a Rubicon of moving from being uncertain and cautious in your life to having and creating that certainty by creating the flow that comes from the ownership of using all the assets in the right combination that suits you.

And I'm sure you're curious about the other four assets, Chris.

 

Chris Rodwell: I am indeed. It's making me think back to episode five when we talked about the mindset, the entrepreneur's mindset and the employee mindset. Traditionally, we've been brought up, haven't we, with the thought process of buy a house, get a pension. Certainly, for the generations of the past, that served them very well. But times have moved now, and we've identified there that that's not a safe place to be.

 

Kevin Whelan: And also, I think the other point we made in that episode was the entrepreneur is looking forward and the employee is looking backwards. You cannot build wealth in the rear-view mirror. You simply cannot do it.

So let's talk about the other four. Let's give our listeners a chance to see where their money and their time and their dynamic could like a laser point towards. Let's talk about number four, which is probably the most popular in the UK certainly, and that is building portfolios of cash-flowing or capital-flowing property.

 

Chris Rodwell: [inaudible 00:20:16] love property.

 

Kevin Whelan: Property is a great asset. Now, we're not saying this is for everyone, nor is any individual asset right for anyone. But there are some very interesting dynamics in property that might be useful to share, Chris, rather than just say property's an asset, so go do it. Property's a multifaceted asset. There are many ways and shapes you could get involved in property, but there are some things that I really like. One is there's a disconnect between the capital value and the income flow.

Now what did I mean by that? Well, if we go back to our stock market investment and our pensioner who's got 100,000 in their pension in the stock market and what they're doing actually is drawing the money from their pension pot, which is called a draw down, and if the stock market falls by 30% like it did in 2008, what happens to their income? It falls. And maybe, if they keep spending what they were taking before, they're reaching into their capital even more quickly. So that sustainability virtually disappears and you can never recover from that. If you have a portfolio of property and the property value falls but you're receiving rental income, the income flow is still pretty much the same. So there's a disconnect then and you create more certainty.

 

Chris Rodwell: Sometimes you even find that rentals go up when there's a-

 

Kevin Whelan: Absolutely, but at least you're never going to zero. You never fall in the same way as the stock market falls because you've only got capital there. You're only measuring the value whereas with property you've got two values, the value of the property and the value of the income flow because there's a natural flow there.

The second thing which is really important from any wealth building perspective about property is you can add value to property. You can create and do something that

transforms the value of a property asset today and make it worth more by doing something yourself.

 

Chris Rodwell: What would be a great example of that, Kevin?

 

Kevin Whelan: Well, let's give two examples of that. One might be I'm thinking about investing in property and I know the easy thing to do would be to find a property in the estate agent's window, I'd go buy it, I'd find a tenant and I'd do that.

 

Chris Rodwell: Like a typical buy to let.

 

Kevin Whelan: That's a buy to let, right. Now, was I really intelligent? Did I apply any wisdom? Did I create any real value? I've just bought an asset and I've rented it out. You'll get a reasonable return on that. Nothing wrong with that. Maybe 5%, maybe 6%, maybe if you're lucky a bit more than that, but that sort of ballpark figure.

Look, I've had three kids at university, and I've seen some of the properties both my clients have had as well in university towns where the students are living in a property. You don't have to love students, but if you imagine a property which was a three-bedroom property let to a family for a thousand a month but you convert it into six student rooms and you create the right infrastructure for the students to study, the right Wi-Fi, the right kitchen facilities and so on and get mommies and daddies to act as guarantors - all very nice- it minimises your void so you get maximum occupancy at the highest level of rent - often three or four times the value of a traditional buy to let. Now, I'm not saying it's right for everyone. I'm just giving the example because you asked me to do that.

The second one might be we look around and we can see lots of commercial properties that are tired, run-down maybe even empty. They can be bought. Commercial property costs less to buy than residential property foot for foot, meter by meter. So you can buy a commercial property and you could turn that into something that could solve the housing problem by creating apartments and get help to buy from the government as well to make the whole thing, not depending on Brexit because you're not in the top in the market. You're really playing to the entry level of the market and you can create commercial-to-residential conversions, which are what the WealthBuilders clients do by the bucket load and are making lots and lots of intelligently created money. Yes, mitigating risk; yes, understanding what they're doing. All part to the education, the support, the connections and the due diligence that we talk about in the wheel of wealth before they take that action.

But if you spend the time to do that, which might be a few months in the preparation, you can completely transform the way your money works in property. And you can use your pension to do that. You can use your investments to do that. You can use your home to do that. So if you're curious about that, there's ways that you can learn about that. Now, we're not saying we're the teacher in that, but we certainly know all of the experts or have all the experts to hand for any individual property strategy that someone might be interested in. And that's a really great asset, Chris.

 

Chris Rodwell: So you're leveraging some of the assets that are parked-

 

Kevin Whelan: Correct.

 

Chris Rodwell: ... and really turning them into something with much greater returns and really activating them.

 

Kevin Whelan: Exactly. So it's taking money from the right-hand side to the left-hand side, crossing that entrepreneurial divide and recognising that you have to be part of that. It's not a passive thing. You have to put time, energy, money into that process. It's definitely not passive. You should not just do that and say, "Well, I'm parking my money in a piece of property." You must not do that.

But the bigger and better our clients have become, the more they can automate the management of that - back to wealth dynamics. They would have somebody who takes care of the management of their properties. So while they're responsible for it, they're not day to day involved in dealing with tenants, fixing toilets, managing smoke alarms. They're not doing any of these things because the work is being done as a business because they see themselves as a property entrepreneur, not somebody who's parked their money.

Make sense?

 

Chris Rodwell: It certainly does. So that was pillar four.

 

Kevin Whelan: Pillar four.

 

Chris Rodwell: And we interchange between pillars and assets and ...

 

Kevin Whelan: The reason we call them pillars is because the visualisation of the WealthBuilders logo is a foundation, seven pillars and a roof popped on top. So if we use the terms interchangeably, maybe you could just create a link in the show notes to remind them what the logo looks like so they can see that.

 

Chris Rodwell: I sure will.

 

Kevin Whelan: Pillar five ... This is Kev's favourite.

 

Chris Rodwell: Oh, yeah.

 

Kevin Whelan: Oh, yes. Five is business. And the reason I love business is because you're restricted by nothing. There are no markets and you can create as much value as you like, and the opportunity to use your own wealth dynamic if you're creative like me and find solutions to problems, you can make hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times the return on your money. And the more you can create streams of recurring income in your business, that's a good thing because if you create a recurring-income business, you're forced by integrity to create great value that has to last for your client. Otherwise, they'll stop paying and then you don't have that recurring income. So I love looking for businesses where there's that potential for an outstanding form of recurring value, which means you get recurring income in the business. And that's my favorite type of business.

 

Chris Rodwell: And we touched on it in a previous episode of sometimes the failure to really start with the end in mind when it comes to business, and so many people who move or transition from employment into starting their own business but then just own the job. So we're talking about really a business here with systems and people and as you say recurring income that doesn't rely on you trading your time for money and being there the whole time.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah, and what's interesting, if you go back to the point about wealth dynamics where you need the creativity, you need the people, you need the delivery mechanism and you need the measurement and the performance and the evaluation, you need all four dynamics covered. So you can't really be a true business unless you've got those covered, and rarely would that be one person.

 

Chris Rodwell: It would be exhausting.

 

Kevin Whelan: Well, not least you'd have to be a perfect square in the wealth dynamic, and I don't see that very often. But you'd have to have the energy to do everything. So it doesn't really work. Business is fascinating. Again, it's not for everyone because not everybody's an entrepreneur in the sense of owning a business. But owning a business that works without you is the key to creating real wealth. And there are many ways to do that, and I'd love to share that on another podcast on how to do that and the seven or eight different ways to create that recurring income in a business. Often when I go and talk to a business who perhaps don't come from the same creativity and myself, I can see recurring income in that business that they don't even see for themselves.

Then that does two things. One, it gives them an immediate injection of cash flow. But guess what else it does, Chris? A business has value.

 

Chris Rodwell: So if they were looking to sell ...

 

Kevin Whelan: You can sell that value, or you could sell a portion of that value, or you could pass that on to the next generation, or you could create an MBO or an MBI. I could keep going. But you can do so many different ways where you can tap into some of the value, all of the value in any combination of ways you want and dice and slice the ownership of a company because it's basically shared ownership shares, which you can't do with a property. You can't slice a property up into more rooms than there is rooms, but you can do that with a business and you can create much more value.

So those people who find themselves naturally energized around business, do connect to another episode when we talk about how to create recurring income inside your business and not be stuck trading time for money. You think you're a business owner, but you're not really.

 

Chris Rodwell: That will be a good one. So we've got two more assets.

 

Kevin Whelan: Time for two more?

 

Chris Rodwell: Let's just mention them so we can know what they are.

 

Kevin Whelan: Okay. Well, we've got time for intellectual property, which is number six. Intellectual property ... Remember we talked about intellectual property as an employee. You're giving your intellect and you're trading it for X pounds an hour.

 

Chris Rodwell: A wage, yeah.

 

Kevin Whelan: A wage, yeah. With intellectual property expressed as an entrepreneur, you're creating and capturing your own intellect and you're packaging it and repurposing it in a way that allows you to sell [that on 00:31:05], create books or products or delivery mechanisms where you don't have to be there to do the work. You create it once and get paid forever. Now, we're not saying everybody's going to be a best-selling author selling millions and millions and millions. We're not saying that.

But the creation of royalty income through the intelligent use and packaging of your own skill ... And the faster you build your wealth, the more IP you create because you become so much smarter than you were when you parked your money in your house, your pension and a few quid in the bank. So you're building that IP, not just for you, not just to create value for you but when you get to the legacy piece, the highest level in the wealth building levels of wealth, level five in the five levels of wealth, then you have to create the wisdom. So whether you sell it or whether you pass it on to your kids, you're creating IP that has lasting value. And that's an incredible one.

 

Chris Rodwell: And once again, it complements wealth dynamics again because if you're a creative type, then products and books and maybe music, anything that can pay those royalties. But if you're more a detailed systems person, then maybe you can create a system, a franchise.

 

Kevin Whelan: Exactly.

 

Chris Rodwell: So it's really understanding where your value is best served and then creating your IP from there.

 

Kevin Whelan: Number seven is joint ventures. Now, this again is a wealth dynamic point because you can only joint venture if you understanding your wealth dynamic and the dynamic of the people or the person with whom you're collaborating. So joint venture is about collaboration. It's about saying somebody's got time, somebody's got money, somebody's got skill, somebody's got the right opportunity. You're mixing and matching your wealth dynamics and the opportunities that always present in all of those different facets. So somebody could create an idea, but you didn't have the idea. Somebody could create an opportunity, but you didn't have the opportunity. But you can participate in an opportunity.

The biggest way that's done in the WealthBuilder community, at least at this time, is the lend and learn. Perhaps I'll give you an example, Chris. So let's say we take our student [inaudible 00:33:26]. And I think, "That sounds like a great idea. I don't know how to do that." What if you could take money locked in your pension and you lend it to somebody who is outstanding in that field, tried, tested, due diligenced in our community and then you lend them some money, which gives you a great return on your investment, decent return - 6%, 7%, 8% on your money. But in addition to that return, they share and show with you what they're doing. So you begin to absorb those lessons so that in the next turn of your wealth wheel you can do that yourself. So you're building capability but at the same time getting a higher return than you get in the stock market typically and potentially, if you take the right security and do the right due diligence, at a lower level of risk.

It's not uncommon for WealthBuilder clients to lend money, get a 12% return on their money, backed by a first legal charge on a property worth a lot more than the value of the loan they've made and bank a whole bunch of lending and build connections for the builders, the decorators, the whatever tradespeople that it might have taken this particular wealthy client decades to find and discover.

 

Chris Rodwell: It's almost priceless.

 

Kevin Whelan: Well, that's what happens within this whole process of seeing that there is so much incredible value when you connect. And you remember in a previous episode, almost as a parting thought, I said one of the most pleasurable ROIs to think about when you're on your wealth building journey is to recognise you're only one relationship opportunity or idea away from a complete transformation.

Now, let's contextualise that. One relationship away, where does that sit, Chris?

 

Chris Rodwell: Joint venture.

 

Kevin Whelan: It's in joint ventures [and blaze energy 00:35:31]. Opportunity, where does that sit? It sits in the tempo energy of being grounded and seeking timing opportunities. So you get the idea. The whole point about relationships, opportunities and ideas are all reflections of the wealth [dynamic 00:35:48].

 

Chris Rodwell: And the creators are probably the ones that have all the ideas as well.

 

Kevin Whelan: Well, that's true. But anyway, I hope it's been a useful share of the seven pillars of wealth and how you can build wealth on your terms, choosing the right combination of pillars that work for you, trying to make sure you don't make the mistakes on the right-hand side, get as much of your money and your own intellect and skill across to the left-hand side. And even if you're highly steel energy, recognising that building and collaborating with others is an important part of creating real wealth.

 

Chris Rodwell: It has been wonderful today. Thanks for sharing that, Kevin. And a reminder that it's really worth checking out the videos which are in the WealthBuilders membership area, completely free. So hit the link in the show notes and check those out.

 

Kevin Whelan: What are we going to cover next, Chris?

 

Chris Rodwell: That's a good question. Let's have a think about that and we'll surprise everyone on the next episode.

 

Kevin Whelan: Okay. I look forward to that one then.

 

Chris Rodwell: All right. Thanks, Kevin.

 

Kevin Whelan: See you.

Chris Rodwell: Welcome to episode six of WealthTalk. I'm Christian Rodwell, the membership director for WealthBuilders, and joined by the founder, Mr. Kevin Whelan. How are you today?

 

Kevin Whelan: Hi, Chris. I'm great. Looking forward to this episode.

 

Chris Rodwell: I am, too. We're going to talk about Wealth Dynamics today.

 

Kevin Whelan: Wealth Dynamics.

 

Chris Rodwell: What is Wealth Dynamics, Kevin?

 

Kevin Whelan: Well, whenever you're trying to build wealth, it's really important to recognize that wealth is a flow. It represents a flow of value. You're always having to create value and money flows to value. But before really focusing on the flow of value, you need to understand your own personal flow, Chris, and that's where the tool, Wealth Dynamics, comes in. You've got a few things to say about that because you're a bit of an expert in that, too.

 

Chris Rodwell: Well, we're both flow consultants, actually. We understand the topic of this self-assessment tool, really. It's an online tool and it was created by Roger Hamilton, the founder of the Entrepreneurs Institute. I first came across this myself probably about three, four years ago and took the online assessment, and it tells you really what your natural entrepreneurial flow is.

 

Kevin Whelan: Or value flow really because you could take ... I know sometimes people refer to to it as a test, but it's not a pass or fail. It's more just gives you an output, doesn't it?

 

Chris Rodwell: That's right.

 

Kevin Whelan: Which you could use whether you're in a job or in business trying to be the best entrepreneur you can be. Is that right?

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah. I like to refer to it as your entrepreneurial compass because I really feel that when you understand which of the four genius types that you are, and we'll cover that in a moment, it points you in the right direction. And that direction is really where you should focus your time because that's what you're best at. We all have a natural genius within us. And Roger has based this upon ancient Chinese and Greek philosophies which go back over 5000 years, so it's not just something that's made it. There's some real substance here. All of those civilizations agreed that there are these four geniuses and when you take the Wealth Dynamics' assessment, it will give you an output. Maybe we can run through those four different areas of entrepreneur flow.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it sounds to me like if a tool that can take only a few minutes to really give you a laser sharp, pinpoint focus on where your value is best delivered, who wouldn't do it? I've done it myself and it's interesting that our dynamics are very different, Chris.

 

Chris Rodwell: Very complimentary as well.

 

Kevin Whelan: Well, which is why we work so well together, right? That's great. Shall I start off with what the compass points are?

 

Chris Rodwell: Why not?

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah, because I'm at the top of the compass, right? We talk about energies when we're looking at that. So if you imagine there's a square and like the circle of life, I suppose, I'm mixing up my analogies there, but you've got spring, summer, autumn, and winter. You've got the beginning of something in a business, and then you've got your orchestration of teams, and then you've got the delivering of the service, and then you've got the financial measuring. That's a kind of feeling that I have as a business owner about all of this. But every business starts with a creation of an idea, so the first energy is that energy of Dynamo. The dynamic piece of work that says what is the problem? What is the solution? How am I bringing great value to a customer, a client, anything in life, and how do I then create a flow of revenue that directly links back to the value so it's ethical? It always comes from a place of integrity because the flow follows the value. And the Blaze genius, the genius who creates those ideas, is largely head in the clouds, thinks big picture, is always good that kind of work and that's the very work that gives me so much juice and creativity. I just love it. That's the Dynamo genius. Did I say Blaze, then?

 

Chris Rodwell: You said Blaze, which is the second one. So let me takeover and explain there. We'll put a graphic in the show notes, so if you want to actually have a look and this will hopefully will come to life a little bit more than just click on the show notes right now. If we're moving around this square in a clockwise fashion, then on the right hand side you've got the Blaze genius type. So after the initial concept, the proof with the Dynamo genius there, then you really need to start building your team. This is where the Blaze genius people come in because they're connected. They love networking. They just love being out there speaking to people, and they're often really good brand ambassadors. So maybe not the ones that actually come up with that initial idea, but they're the ones that you need to go and tell the world about it.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah. I see your point. Whereas some people I know will have 50 ideas before breakfast, the Blaze energy people will be more likely to put some of those things in place. Whether that's speaking about them one to many, delivering the solution in terms of a team or really focusing on one to one, there's a real energy around being focused around people and that level of connectedness, and that's really important. Particularly, WealthBuilders is a lot about that combination of creativity and connectivity, isn't it?

 

Chris Rodwell: Absolutely. It sure it. Then the third genius type, we're now at the bottom, so the complete opposite, one could say, of the Dynamo genius at the top. Your head in the cloud, who are just gunning for it coming up with a million ideas, as you said before breakfast. You've got the Tempo genius at the bottom. That's where I am, which is why we compliment each other well because whilst you're coming up with all the new ideas, I'm perhaps grabbing onto your feet trying to pull you back down and saying, “Let's just slow things down a bit.” It's about timing.

 

Kevin Whelan: I get that a lot. Yeah.

 

Chris Rodwell: Let's do one thing at a time.

 

Kevin Whelan: I think people can recognise that we're having fun, but also maybe recognize something in themselves too. Think about it from a business perspective and an employee perspective. If I was an employee, well, I'd make a terrible employee because I don't like following rules, but the employee or the business owner is coming up with the creativity but doesn't have that right balance of the Blaze-people energy and the Tempo-grounded energy getting things done. They simply would run out of steam, wouldn't they? Because they wouldn't have the-

 

Chris Rodwell: Nothing would get finished.

 

Kevin Whelan: It wouldn't get finished, so they'd constantly tipping over themselves, promising to deliver and not delivering. And I guess if we look around, we know businesses like that. Where they've got great intention, great ideas, but just simply poor execution because they don't put enough time into the process of delivering the service because they ... Shipping it, doing it, again [E Myth 00:07:17]. Doing it, doing it, doing it. Busy, busy, busy. And that's definitely something that you've helped me, and having a team around me helps me feel that somebody else is grounded in delivering the services, as opposed to me doing it 'cause it's not my natural genius.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah. And that comes naturally to a Tempo genius, is the balance. It's looking at the internal team, making sure everyone's working in harmony. But also, then, providing service for the customers. Making sure that they're delivering on the front end, as well.

So then the final, and fourth, genius type in fact is not the final because there is a fifth. The fourth one, on the left hand side of the square, is the Steel genius. So Steel, Kevin?

 

Kevin Whelan: It's the winter energy. That's the spreadsheets, Chris.

 

Chris Rodwell: Where as Blaze is all about colour, vibrancy, being out there amongst the people. Again, the opposite side is Steel. Very black and white. Very calculated.

 

Kevin Whelan: Gotta be done.

 

Chris Rodwell: All about the numbers. Detail. Systems. Bit more introverted, normally. So if you go to a networking event, you can sometimes post the Steel because they're in the corner. They don't really wanna talk to too many people.

 

Kevin Whelan: Well, really one would argue they probably shouldn't be there, and they should have somebody in the team who's taking care of all that connection.

 

Chris Rodwell: True.

What we're talking about here is not just applicable for people wanting to start business. This is really important, as well, even if you're in a job. So you can probably look around, if you're in an office right now, and already from what we've described perhaps spot a few people who are out of flow. So they may be tasked with loads of spreadsheets and loads of detailed jobs, and all they want to do is just talk to people all day long because they're not in the right flow. The beauty of when you have a team working in flow is that the level of trust increases. Productivity increases. The results increase because if I know that I'm gonna give you the tasks that you're best at, you're gonna get on with them and do the outstanding job.

 

Kevin Whelan: So you're not getting me to do the spreadsheets, Chris?

 

Chris Rodwell: Not at all. But I would know who in the team is the best person at delivering that. And when you have that, that's when the magic really happens.

 

Kevin Whelan: What I like about spreadsheets is somebody else does them for me and I can just have a look at them, because I need to take care of that but I don't really enjoy the creation of them. But it's fun, isn't it? To think about the idea that you focus on what you're best at. One of the things that really puzzles me, if you go back to education in school, you're always taught to get better at something. "Focus on your weaknesses." What a load of rubbish. Why not focus on your strength? And then find out who the right person is to help where they're outstanding, where you have a challenge? It solves the problem. A, you don't procrastinate. B, you get the thing done. C, you trust them. D, the whole gets bigger than the individual parts.

So Wealth Dynamics is such a crucial part of what we do, and I would definitely commend anybody who hasn't done so, to click the link. And if you haven't done the test, or the assessment, go do it, because it's a brilliant tool. We actually, in case you don't know, Chris, often when we're talking to business owners, we encourage them to do the Wealth Dynamic, or the team equivalent, which is known as Talent Dynamics, actually. To do the Talent Dynamics of all the team to make sure that they do have the right team, in the right place, playing to their strengths not playing to their weaknesses, so everybody's pushing for maximum impact and more enjoyment, which is really partly what it's all about, as well. Why be rowing against the tide? Why be running uphill when everything could be flowing just like a river flows? You would naturally want to be in flow and get in flow by doing what you're best at. I hope people will go and take a look at that, and make the assessment and see if they feel actually they are in the right place for them right now.

 

Chris Rodwell: Well, I find everyone that I've recommended the test to finds it transformational. I really do. So I would highly recommend. We'll put the link to go and take that assessment in the show notes, so please have a look at that. And we'd love to hear your feedback, so leave some comments. Let us know and join, of course, the Facebook community, Wealth Builders. Many of our members in there, who you can connect with and maybe you can say, "Hey, I'm really low on one of these areas. Anyone else who maybe we can buddy up and create a partnership?"

 

Kevin Whelan: That's really important, as well, that you connect with people. You can actually see it in their language. You can see the people who are highly connected and those who are not. Working out who best to team up with, because in the end wealth should be fun, and that's best done by collaboration wherever that's possible. Even the Steel people, who perhaps don't enjoy that connectivity as much, still need to know where to go to make those connections.

For example, if you're a property owner and you've got some great property ideas. You're really outstanding at the spreadsheet. You're brilliant at getting value from the projects, but you've just run out of money and you need connections to bring more money to the table. Well, maybe you team up with somebody with that Blaze energy, who would then help make those connections and then, again, the whole thing will work much more effectively. So whether it's property, whether it's in business, whether it's in a job, Wealth Dynamics is a key indicator. And I love your point about being the focus and the compass, so you know whether you're pointing yourself in the right direction to make your wealth as easy as possible.

Great podcast, Chris. I really enjoyed it.

 

Chris Rodwell: Thank you. And you mentioned some of the assets there, and I think that will lead us on quite nicely perhaps to the next episode where we can start to look at these seven pillars that we've touched on.

 

Kevin Whelan: And which ones would be the right combination for you, depending on what your Wealth Dynamic is. Well why don't we zip over and do that in the next episode?

 

Chris Rodwell: Sounds good.

 

Kevin Whelan: Thanks. See ya' later.

Chris Rodwell: Welcome to episode five of WealthTalk. My name is Christian Rodwell, the Membership Director for WealthBuilders. I'm joined, as always by my side, Mr. Kevin Whelan.

 

Kevin Whelan: Hello.

 

Chris Rodwell: Hey Kevin. How are you doing?

 

Kevin Whelan: Good to talk to you again.

 

Chris Rodwell: Can you believe we're already at episode five?

 

Kevin Whelan: Five? Wow. What have we covered so far?

 

Chris Rodwell: It's flown by. Well, let's recap, shall we?

We looked at the intro first week, obviously. Really giving our listeners a bit of understanding, backstory, as to who WealthBuilders are.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah.

 

Chris Rodwell: Then we went into the three Ds.

 

Kevin Whelan: Oh, I love the three Ds.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah.

 

Kevin Whelan: Do you think people worked out who they were?

 

Chris Rodwell: Well, if you haven't listened to episode two, go back and check out the three Ds, and see if you can self select there, and we hope that you enjoy that one. Then we moved into talking about the five levels of wealth.

On the last episode, we covered debits, which is the foundation.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah, it's the financial foundation, Chris. It's really important whenever you're starting to think about your wealth, that your ... Our mantra at WealthBuilders is, together we create, build and protect your wealth. The foundation really is the creation stage.

If you remember, we talked about the debits, the debt, the education, the bills, insurance, and so forth, ways to save money, and then put that money to work. When you save money and then make it work to create wealth, you're in the creation stage. But that's only half the foundation, Chris.

There's a second half of the foundation, which is absolutely critical if you're going to then come above ground and really accelerate building wealth, not just make a few savings, and make a small difference to your monthly outgoings.

 

Chris Rodwell: What is that area, Kevin?

 

Kevin Whelan: Well, that's mindset. It's an often said thing, isn't it? Get your mindset right. But I think it's really important to focus on some of those areas of mindset. Maybe we'll start with some of those that you picked up in your book, which I thought were great.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yes, I did include this actually in my book, Sack Your Boss, and it's coming really from the difference between the employee mindset, versus the entrepreneur mindset.

I know you've said many times, that in order to build wealth and become wealthy, you really need to think, and become a business owner and an entrepreneur. There's a very distinct way of mindset between those two, aren't there?

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah. I don't think that's absolutely right, because the issue with wealth is all about the flow of money, from the creation of a solution to a problem. In other words, you have to see, understand and create value. When you're an entrepreneur, you're used to that. You're in the place of seeking that. That comes from the very creativity.

But it doesn't mean you can't come from a place of being an employee, for example, and not begin to be more curious about where your value is being added. Because at the moment, if you're an employee, you're generating intellectual property, you're just leasing it or renting it for the hourly rate.

There's an interesting one that I always use, [crosstalk 00:03:12].

 

Chris Rodwell: Yes, please do share that.

 

Kevin Whelan: Do that one?

 

Chris Rodwell: Yes.

 

Kevin Whelan: As you'll know in probably later episodes, we'll talk about intellectual property as a real wealth building asset.

 

Chris Rodwell: One of the seven pillars.

 

Kevin Whelan: One of the seven, number six. Obviously, both you and I are authors, so we've got some value in that. But everybody's got IP, the fact that they're delivering their own intellect, but when they deliver it in a job, they're sort of selling that for an hourly rate.

The easiest way to get a sense of that, almost bring it to life, is to say, well, the hourly rate most people work, I guess, a lot longer than we think, but let's say conversationally, 2000 hours a year, 50 weeks-

 

Chris Rodwell: A couple of weeks holiday.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah. 40 hours, you know that's ... I'm sure some people are laughing already, thinking, I do 60 hours a week and more fool you, but there you go. So 40 hours a week, 50 hours, 50 weeks, 2000 hours. So simply then, if someone's got a salary, you can work out the hourly rate by simply taking the salary and halving it.

If someone's on 50,000, it's 25 pounds an hour.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yep.

 

Kevin Whelan: If they're on 100,000, it's 50 pounds an hour.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah.

 

Kevin Whelan: So you know the value of your IP, but you're getting paid for it in kind of an hourly capacity.

 

Chris Rodwell: Another point to mention there, that's the before tax, and employees are taxed at the highest rate.

 

Kevin Whelan: Oh yeah, that's another point actually.

 

Chris Rodwell: But we're maybe diving into a whole new subject.

 

Kevin Whelan: We're getting ahead of ourselves on tax. Let's keep to mindset.

 

Chris Rodwell: Let's pull it back to the mindset here. I know there's another term, which I just would love to explore, and that's, what is the difference between an entrepreneur and intrepreneur?

 

Kevin Whelan: Okay. An entrepreneur is somebody who is creative, generally. They take an idea and they're creating more value. They're getting leverage from turning the performance of an asset from one level to a higher level. And they're doing it normally in the confines of a business, and that's pretty easy to see. Most people think about entrepreneurs as business owners.

But an intrepreneur is somebody who works inside a company, it could be an employee. Instead of seeing themselves as the employee, craving more security, let's say, and maybe we can touch on that, what they're doing is seeking to be, and imagine, they're a team player trying to create the highest value they can for the very team they're playing for.

Like a footballer, we just had the January transfer window, right? You're seeing footballers change from one team to another. Changing jobs is a bit like that. So if you focus on creating great value, then that value can lead you to a number of things, which could help your wealth.

One, is you become so indispensable, you get a higher pay because you're just doing outstanding pieces of work.

Two, you could, if you really thought about it, is if you had enough of a solution-based mindset inside the job, you could go to your employer and imagine a conversation that says something like this. "Chris, I've got this great idea. I've been working here for a little while, and I've had awards and you've told me how good I am, but I've got this idea, and this idea is going to save the company a half a million pounds. Now, if I could apply that thought and bring it to the company, can I have a teeny tiny little bit of that?"

Or the other way around. "I can see a market that I've just discovered by thinking about it, and that might create another million pounds in sales for the business. If I could orchestrate that and be part of that, could I see myself getting a teeny tiny little bit of that?"

 

Chris Rodwell: Absolutely.

 

Kevin Whelan: It's just being bold to focus on your value, instead of craving security, which is what most employees tend to rely upon.

 

Chris Rodwell: Which again, just comes back to this way of expanding the way you think, and thinking outside of the box, really challenging.

There's some distinct differences that we've both been discussing, and I mention these in my book as well. The different ways that an employee mindset operates to an entrepreneur's mindset.

 

Kevin Whelan: Right.

 

Chris Rodwell: Maybe we can run through a few of these.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah. Well, talk about risk, for example.

 

Chris Rodwell: Well, I think an employee, they have more of a craving for security, whereas an entrepreneur really craves the freedom.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah.

 

Chris Rodwell: It's being more risk averse. Worrying about, oh, what happens if I lose my job? Actually, that could be one of the most risky places to be. Because if you're simply relying on one source of income, from an employee, and you were to walk into your job tomorrow and that job was no longer there, that's surely the most risky place to be.

 

Kevin Whelan: Well, I think so too. I think with the uncertainty we have, and the economy right now, just look at what's happening in car plants and places like that, job security is really likely to plague a number of different people in the economy. It's never a great place to be.

One of my friends, a guy called Mark, who uses the term a lot, he says, "What I love to be," as he's an entrepreneur, "Is in control of my personal economy." I think we heard him say that just this week.

I think that's a brilliant turn of phrase, because it says, I want to be in control. It's not taking bigger risk, it's actually reducing your risk by being willing to essentially manage your risk, both inside your business, let's say. Inside the stock market, if you're an investor in the stock market, there's ways to mitigate and take care of risk.

In many respects, and I'm an entrepreneur too, I feel safer than any employee I know. Because I know if the interest rates go up or down, I'm doing okay. If the stock market goes up or down, we're all doing okay if we're entrepreneurs, getting the results that we want in our businesses and in our life.

That's why I would encourage everybody, even if they're not willing to take the risk yet to be an entrepreneur, to definitely think like an entrepreneur, and try and create value for whichever team you're playing on.

 

Chris Rodwell: You've said before, I'm sure so many more times on the podcast to come, that one of anything when it comes to wealth building, is risky. And this is, of course, the whole WealthBuilders motto of the seven pillars.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah.

 

Chris Rodwell: That the more pillars you can put in place, the more recurring income streams that you can have flowing in, then you become financially bulletproof.

 

Kevin Whelan: Exactly right. Couldn't agree with you more.

What are the other mindsets we notice that would be worthy of a little airing?

 

Chris Rodwell: Well, I think a really clear one that I've recognised is the entrepreneur mindset of just doing. The entrepreneur needs to do in order to know.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah.

 

Chris Rodwell: And the employee needs to know in order to do, so very much just following the rules. And maybe you could say the entrepreneur breaks the rules, or certainly bends them and challenges them.

 

Kevin Whelan: Well, I think the entrepreneur kind of comes from a place generally of, in many cases, they're inventing the rules. I think I relayed my story where I didn't have a guide, I didn't have a mentor, and it's great if you can follow those things because you can get to where you want to, faster. But if you don't kind of know ... there isn't a path well trodden, you've got to create that.

But what's brilliant now, is so many people have trodden those paths. The journey from being an employee to an entrepreneur is quicker, because you can just follow the path that's already been laid down by somebody else. The WealthBuilder community is all about that, and connecting people who are ready to look at different ways of exploring the entrepreneurship.

Let's be clear, Chris, we're not saying to people, "Go sack your boss today." We're saying think about ways you can add value in your firm, in your job, but find some time, create some leverage of time. Remember we talked about podcasts being a way to get information, and multitask on those things. Create a little bit of time in your life to dedicate to looking at your entrepreneurial side of things.

That leads to important conclusion, I think, which again I see is a big difference between employed people and business owners. The main is the way they view cost versus investment. What are your thoughts on that, Chris?

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah, absolutely. That when it comes to education being the first thing really, you need to understand, if you have never done something before, then it's an investment. You're investing your time and your money to learn that skill, to make sure that you don't make mistakes, and you can accelerate your progress.

Whereas, those that haven't quite had the light bulb moment, we'll see that as a cost, and think, "Oh no. No, it's too much." It's a completely different way of looking at it.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah, and I'll tell you something interesting about when we get to work with people, and we often see the DIYers. Remember the DIYers?

 

Chris Rodwell: Sure.

 

Kevin Whelan: The DIYers, their first question is always, "So what's this going to cost?" They come at it from that mindset of cost comes before value, and it does not, it's the reverse of that.

If I said to you, "Chris, I'll tell you what. The cost of whatever I'm offering you now is 1000 pounds," will you pay it? Well, you wouldn't unless you knew what the value was.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah.

 

Kevin Whelan: So if I said, "If you invest 1000 pounds, I will guarantee you 2000 pounds," is that now an investment worth making? Assuming everything was legal, above board, and you could understand it.

 

Chris Rodwell: Sure.

 

Kevin Whelan: The way we work at WealthBuilders, in any event, is always to make sure that we look someone squarely in the eye and say, "Before you spend any money and invest any money with WealthBuilders, can we both agree that the purpose of this is to make you wealthier than you were before? Otherwise, you can have your money back, or we simply will agree not to work together." That way whenever people work with us, there is no risk.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah. It's a condition of doing business together.

 

Kevin Whelan: That's absolutely right. Yeah.

 

Chris Rodwell: One final point I think is really important, is the vision. The entrepreneurs have this ability to look into the future and picture, and create a picture of how they want something to be.

 

Kevin Whelan: Right.

 

Chris Rodwell: And that's a distinct difference, I think, between the employee who often will look back at past [crosstalk 00:13:53].

 

Kevin Whelan: At their results, yeah.

 

Chris Rodwell: And base things on those.

Anything to add to [inaudible 00:13:59]? We talked about knowing your why, and that kind of is wrapped up with vision as well, I think, in some way.

 

Kevin Whelan: I think it is. I think about vision, is to imagine your future is always bigger than your past. Because if where you are now, if you're drifting, and I had a conversation with a drifter today unfortunately, and that conversation meant I could see they were going to be stuck in the same path unless they brought themselves out of it, and they recognised that in the conversation and that was great. So they'll come out of that.

But generally speaking, if you're always thinking that the future that you have in mind, whether it's a personal future in terms of your own self, because the wealth building process is a transformational process, not just of money, but of self. If you see your future is bigger than your past, you're driving forward looking through the windscreen not looking at the rear view mirror, then of course it's much more interesting.

You can chart your progress, like a GPS, you can see you're moving through levels, and each time you are engaging in building another asset, then you're moving from one level to the next level incrementally, and you can always see where you're going. You can't really see that in a job, you don't get the incremental or that big acceleration. There tends to be small little steps in pay, and maybe not even that these days.

Whereas wealth, once you've locked it in, you're absolutely moving forward. Once you get through that initial part, we talked about the five levels, once you get through security and you've overcome the gravity of getting you from a place of insecurity to that base level of income to cover all of your bills, then once you get through that, you accelerate. It's a massive acceleration, and that sort of acceleration never ever happens in jobs.

 

Chris Rodwell: Whilst you're talking about acceleration, you're either accelerating or you're braking.

 

Kevin Whelan: That's right. There's no neutral when it comes to building wealth, and that's a good observation too.

How do we think we can help people identify where their best value would be, if they're either in a job or in a business? The thing I noticed about business owners, let's not make the assumption, Chris, that business ownership in itself makes a true entrepreneur, because in many respects it does not.

If we go back to ... One of the things that comes out in the E-Myth is the technician, the person doing the work, being an accountant, being a hairdresser, whatever it would be, they tend to do the job of what they were doing in their job, in their business. Suddenly, instead of having just the one thing to focus on, because their employer took care of the payroll, their employer took care of all the other things, now they're inundated with many tasks, and not always the task they want to do.

It's really important that people stay true to what's their best way of adding value. There's a tool we use to help people get that value, isn't there?

 

Chris Rodwell: There is, and we've talked about it already on the podcast in previous episodes, Wealth Dynamics.

 

Kevin Whelan: Wealth Dynamics.

 

Chris Rodwell: Which, we're both very big fans of. We see the value. Put all my clients through that as well. It's an online test, which takes about 20 minutes to take, and it's amazing for identifying what your genius is. Whether you're a creative person, by really helping you to hone in on the areas that you should spend most of your time focusing on, and identifying your weak spots. Where instead of trying to learn and get better, that's where you can build your entrepreneurial team around you.

 

Kevin Whelan: Well, that sounds like a big one. We're going to talk about team, we're going to talk about getting in flow, we're going to talk about Wealth Dynamics. That feels to me like a good time to-

 

Chris Rodwell: That feels like episode six to me.

 

Kevin Whelan: Well, why don't we go do episode six now?

 

Chris Rodwell: Let's do that one.

 

Kevin Whelan: See ya.

 

Chris Rodwell: Thanks Kevin.

Chris Rodwell: Hey, welcome back to another episode of Wealth Talk. My name's Christian Rodwell, the membership director of Wealth Builders and joined as always by Mr. Kevin Whelan.

 

Kevin Whelan: Hello Chris. Nice to see you again.

 

Chris Rodwell: Good to see you, Kevin. Now, back in episode three, I asked you what your definition of wealth was and he gave a great definition. And if you didn't catch that, definitely rewind, check out episode three now. But today, I'm going to ask you for different definition and that is an important one, which is the definition of an asset.

 

Kevin Whelan: Ooh, now that's an important one, Chris. Very, very important. Before I give you the definition of an asset, Chris, I'd like to give a distinction which will lead onto that, and that's the two different types of income one can earn. One is called work income and that's when you trade your time for money. And that's obviously easy to identify if you've got a job or if you're self-employed and you're running some kind of a business where you're cooking it, shipping it, selling it, doing the whole thing. That's trading time for money and that's called work income. And it kind of sounds different as well. We're on a podcast, why don't we make it audible? Ah, it sounds different. It's like work, work, work, work, work 30 times or 20 times in a month and get paid. 20 times work, get paid. 20 times by ... and that's the cycle, right?

 

Kevin Whelan: The difference that I'd like to point out, which will then come to the asset is asset income. Now asset income is income that flows from something that we now have the definition and then show the difference between the two. So an asset is something you own. Get the ownership. That is not. Now, you don't own a job so it can't be an asset. Can't pass your job onto your kids last time I looked. Something you own that is not you. It puts money in your bank account while you're asleep. You don't have to show up for the money to show up. You can pass that money on to anybody you wish to, good causes, your family and so on. You do not have to be there for the money to be there. That's the definition of an asset to me.

 

Kevin Whelan: So if you own assets, then the ownership of the asset, which throws off income, whether it throws off rent, when it throws off dividends, whether it throws off royalties. Whatever the income that flows from the ownership of your assets, it's permanent. It isn't temporary. So therefore if you have asset income, it continues to flow. So you do the work and often you have to work very hard. So you do work but you get paid, get paid, get paid, get paid. Should I keep going? Get paid, get paid. It doesn't stop.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yes, you have to put a little bit of management in place. And let's be clear, you cannot be wealthy without being in the wealth management business. You have to manage your wealth, but it's easy to delegate that or if you love doing it, manage it yourself. And certainly, if you look back to the previous episode when we talked about passing on the wealth to the next generation, you need to give the stewardship skills, the skills of wisdom to the next generation so they manage an expander wealth as well for the generations to come.

 

Kevin Whelan: So what I would say in episode one, I think we talked about the importance of being an entrepreneur and that you can only be truly wealthy if you're part of the value creation process, which is really what an entrepreneur is. Wealth then is the managing of your asset income as opposed to your work income. So nobody gets rich by having work income because it ends when you stop working. The wealth comes from owning assets. And in another episode, we'll go step by step into the seven different assets you can own. And what's great about it, Chris, is there are  only seven. They're not eight, there are seven.

 

Chris Rodwell: Easy to remember.

 

Kevin Whelan: Easy to remember. Once you've got the seven locked in and you work out which ones are most relevant to you, when you've worked out what your target income is to be financially independent or financially secure, you can work out which assets are most likely to suit you and then how you build them step by step by step. It all takes care of itself.

 

Chris Rodwell: And when we share those seven assets, refer to them as seven pillars-

 

Kevin Whelan: [crosstalk 00:04:47] pillars, yeah.

 

Chris Rodwell: Break it down even into three and a four to make it even easier to remember. But we'll save that for another day.

 

Kevin Whelan: Save that for another day. But actually, it's an important visual. So we've just done an audible, you know, what working income sounds like. But also think about the visual of anybody who hasn't checked us out yet at the Wealth Builder website can see if they were looking at that, that the logo of Wealth Builders is a foundation, of plinth almost, foundation, like a building. Seven pillars, which are the seven assets and the roof. And they're the three kind of principle things that we share and teach.

 

Kevin Whelan: And I think probably it will be a good idea to start with the foundation today, Chris, because you cannot get above ground. So some people will be listening, will be struggling maybe, you know. They even having the work income is not giving them enough freedom to be able to build assets, to be able to sack their boss, in your language, or get out of the rat race or just simply move themselves to a place of complete financial security. Then let's get them above ground. Let's put that foundation in place and show them what to do. Why don't we talk about that?

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah. Because in the last episode, episode three, we talked about five levels of wealth. If you didn't catch that, absolutely you must go back now check that out. And we talked about the first level being insecurity.

 

Kevin Whelan: Insecurity. Yeah.

 

Chris Rodwell: So many people do find themselves at a point where if they lost that one source of income, that typically is a job, there wouldn't be any other money flowing in.

 

Kevin Whelan: Correct.

 

Chris Rodwell: So where do they begin? We talked about something and the last episode you mentioned where debits.

 

Kevin Whelan: Debits. Yeah.

 

Chris Rodwell: So what does debits stand for?

 

Kevin Whelan: Well, debits is my kind of a mnemonic acronym, whatever term you want to use, which goes through all of the different points that anybody can self check. So in the concept of a bit of self diagnosis at the beginning or they can come and get some help and let's give them some help now. Each of those letters stands for an area where they could have a little closer look at what's going on in their financial life and make some changes that will reveal some cash. It always does. And if you reveal cash that you didn't know existed before, it uncovers money that you don't need to carry on spending.

 

Kevin Whelan: Now, let's be clear, Chris, I don't mean stop having a cappuccino. I don't mean penny pinching. I'm not talking about budgeting. I'm not talking about a diet. I'm not talking about pain. I'm talking about some common sense things people can do that if they go through it and do it once a year, only once a year, then they will find money and they can put that money to good use. Instead of that money sitting idle, doing nothing, festering in a bank account, they put that money to work, to start the process of building assets.

 

Chris Rodwell: That reminds me, we did a Wealth Builders workshop. It was about two, three years now maybe. And it was an exercise. We had two groups, split the room into two groups. And the purpose of exercise was to prove or to show that you really can't save your way to wealth. can you?

 

Kevin Whelan: You cannot save your way to wealth. When you look at how much can you save, you can't shrink your way into wealth. You have to expand your way to wealth. And that expansion comes from finding money that you didn't realise you could use and put that money to work and make leverage from that, make much bigger and stronger things happening. So why don't we dive into it?

 

Chris Rodwell: [crosstalk 00:08:20] so let's get going. What's D stand for, Kevin?

 

Kevin Whelan: Well, D stands for debt. And you know, we know debt is all pervasive in the economy right now, and more so, and I'm sad to say for students. Never before ... I went to university, didn't pay anything for it. I've got three kids all gone through university and one of them didn't end up paying, but the other two did end up paying. Actually, they didn't because I paid. But that's not the issue. The point is, you know, debt is a big cost. It's a drain. It's a break, it's a drag on people's money. Because the thing about debt is no matter what happens with debt, when it's bad debt, debt that's costing you in life as opposed to debt that's expanding your life, we won't have time to talk today I don't think about good debt and bad debt, leverage debt and unleveraged debt. Let's just talk about how to eliminate debt, how to reduce debt. And there I've written a book on this,

Chris, called Save A fortune.

 

Chris Rodwell: A very good book it is too.

 

Kevin Whelan: Thank you very much. How to completely eliminate your mortgage loans and credit cards fast. Okay. So I paid off my mortgage in seven years flat. And then that gave me a sense of enormous financial, a good foundation because it means you don't have a mortgage payment. So if you don't have a mortgage payment, you're not worried about interest rates. And in debits then, and in the book, and in other lessons that we'll put onto the membership website, there are a whole host of different things that you can do to reduce the cost of debt, eliminate high cost consumer debt, tactics you can use to find ways to make that debt payment gradually diminish. So both in the

short term for immediate feeling of having more disposable money to the longterm cost of mortgage debt and anything else in between.

 

Kevin Whelan: There's 12 strategies in the book that we can teach people that they can use at least one of them to reduce the cost of debt and therefore put more money in their life. And if you put that money to work on building assets, and we show them which ones to build, then they can start their wealth-building journey from that.

 

Chris Rodwell: That's the idea, isn't it? It's this extra money you're saving, you're not then going out and spending it and having a holiday. You're putting it to work.

Kevin Whelan: Well, there's nothing wrong with having a holiday if you needed a holiday. But I'm saying if you find that you've made a saving, put some of it towards the holiday and the life that you're enjoying now and some of it towards your wealth. And there's a whole argument, isn't there, about making sure that in everybody's outgoings there's at least a portion of that money earmarked for the Wealth Building side of their life. And I think we refer to that in one of our lessons in the various [inaudible 00:11:14] I think it is, Chris.

 

Chris Rodwell: I believe so. So we've hopefully saved a little bit of money just by looking at the debt and managing that in a more effective way. What does E of debit stand for?

 

Kevin Whelan: Well, E is education. And while I'm not suggesting there's a way to save on university education and so on, but education is an important aspect in Wealth Building. And we talked about that in episode one, that the foundation, the very starting point of all wealth building is getting a good education in wealth building. Not in academic education, not the drifters drifting from one bit of education to the next. And there's a way to get education for free or significantly reduced by connection with Wealth Builders. Let's give a couple of examples about that.

 

Kevin Whelan: So we're a community-based outfit, aren't we? We've got lots of our members. So we've got some very strong and seasoned, experienced people in all aspects of wealth building and assets like property, as an example. And many of them will offer a significant discount for members of Wealth Builders to access education at lower cost. But there's another way to do that too. So in one of the wealth building areas that we help people to do better on, Chris, which is one of the subjects you've raised before where you first heard me speak. And it's this horrible word of pensions, right? So, you know, pensions being the glum, the grey, the dreary side of wealth building. But it's an important one because for many people, it's the only way they're building their retirement wealth. So they're having to wait for many, many years to get it. So they kind of park that money and leave it there.

 

Kevin Whelan: But there's a way to capture that money, to bring that money into your control today. And once you've got control of that, and there's a special type of a pension that allows you to do that. And once you have that, you can use that money in the pension to pay for education that helps you build more wealth. So instead of having to pay to get education, remember I spoke about the ROI?

 

Chris Rodwell: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

 

Kevin Whelan: Return on intellect.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yes.

 

Kevin Whelan: And becomes smarter by being engaged in your own wealth process. So if you can find a way that your pension that gets tax relief, so the government are paying, that you can use to get an education to help you build your wealth even further, how about that as a suggestion? And we can show people how to do that.

 

Chris Rodwell: Wow. So we're only two down. I'm already feeling a little bit wealthier.

 

Kevin Whelan: I hope so.

 

Chris Rodwell: Let's move on to the third one, B.

 

Kevin Whelan: B. Well, B is not quite as sexy because B means you've got to get your bank statements out, get a highlighter pen out or a spreadsheet out and get your cursor out and start looking at the bills. So B stands for bills, Chris, bills that you're spending in life. And again, I encourage everybody at least once a year to take a long, hard look at what they're doing, what they're spending, and see if there's something that's in your life that just doesn't need to be there anymore.

 

Kevin Whelan: I recently spent a day at home, Chris, and my wife made me declutter. I had to get rid of a number of suits and a number of shirts and a different things. And I had to wave them all goodbye and touch them and say, you know, you've served me well in the past but no longer. Apply that very same thoughts to things that you used to use. Is there something in your life that was important that you are spending money, but you can either get ait cheaper. There's a whole raft of I suppose, you know-

 

Chris Rodwell: Money [crosstalk 00:14:48], yeah.

 

Kevin Whelan: ... websites and comparison sites that you can get anything cheaper if you shop around for it. And that's a skill that you can use. And whenever you find a saving, take some of that saving and put it in the jar to enjoy life, but take some of that saving to reduce your debt maybe or take some of that saving to build an asset. And the simplest asset to build right at the very start is just simply to use very low-cost tracker funds, which costs almost nothing. Very, very low cost to start, at least the feeling that you're seeing something accumulating in your life.

 

Kevin Whelan: Now, I'm not advocating the stock market is the best place to build wealth, certainly not, but it's one of the places that it's the easiest to start because it's so liquid. It's so cheap to get access easily and you don't need to be paying high costs fees, for advisory fees or fund manager fees when you're using things like Exchange Traded Funds or ETFs for short. Very simple ways to get access and then much cheaper now when you're shopping around to do that. And the whole range of things that you would look at in your bills. And there's always something you can find that you just didn't need to be spending or something you can reduce the cost and then put that money to good use.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah. Often subscriptions that are no longer needed and things such as that. Okay, so we've looked at debt, we've looked at education, bills just there. What does the I stand for, Kevin?

 

Kevin Whelan: Well, I stands for the word insurance. Now, everybody's insuring something. And we talked about comparison sites, didn't we? So it's easy to insure and check the insurance costs of things like cars and houses and so on. But do you remember I mentioned a little while ago the subject of getting tax relief and using that tax relief to get an education. Well, you can also use tax relief if you're a business owner. So not everybody is, but it's easy to start creating a business, isn't it, really today?

 

Chris Rodwell: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

 

Kevin Whelan: And if you have a business, you can get tax relief on the payment of life insurance. So instead of paying for that outcome after-tax money, you can pay for it with pre-tax money. And because you can buy it then and the government's paid a contribution to the premium, then it's saving you money. Also, the other thing that I see a lot when you're looking at the difference between what's important to you, wealth building or just securing something that's really not massively important in your life, I believe in insurance by the way. But insurance for really important things, critical things you should have. So insurance, if you've got debt, make sure if something happens to you, you paid your insurance, the insurance pays the debt off. If you get seriously ill, make sure you've got something. Because sometimes people who lose their jobs because they're ill not only lose the income but they lose the capacity to go off and create another income.

 

Kevin Whelan: But this is not to advocate insurance in any great way, but just to say you can save money it. And sometimes, things that really shouldn't be insured, Chris, are insured.

 

Chris Rodwell: iPhones.

 

Kevin Whelan: iPhone insurance. You know, insurance on your laptop.

 

Chris Rodwell: Washing machine.

 

Kevin Whelan: Washing machines. You know, the sort of things that salesmen sell that may be you just didn't have the time to check when you were paying it or maybe you just did because it was easy. But if you think about it because, it costs you [inaudible 00:18:12] a month to ensure your iPhone when you know it's not the end of the world, if you lose your iPhone. You can always replace that. But that money could be used to either eliminate debt or build wealth. You can just think about different ways how to do that.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah. Okay. So that move onto T.

 

Kevin Whelan: Well, T's a biggie. Yeah, T is tax. And part of the challenge with the whole concept of taxes, it's all pervasive. You know, there's income tax, there's VAT, there's cooperation tax, capital gains tax, inheritance tax, stamp duty tax.

 

Chris Rodwell: They say there're two things in life you can be certain of.

 

Kevin Whelan: Well, yeah, quiet. And you know, what's interesting about taxes, it's always a fascinating thing for me, which is as an economist there one of the most famous economist, Adam Smith, has an institute. And that Adam Smith Institute has a day which he posts as sort of a calendar date, which I think this year was May 20-something-

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah.

 

Kevin Whelan: So let's say it's May 25th, just to pick a number, but it's about that. That's the day that you stop paying taxes and the rest of the year is your money.

 

Chris Rodwell: Isn't that just absolutely shockingly scary.

 

Kevin Whelan: So do you think it's possible that with a bit of education, with a bit of support, with a bit of connection is possible to reduce some of the tax burden to eliminate some taxes or reduce some taxes? And it absolutely is. And one of the important things that, yeah, I think I've heard definitely come out of Robert Kiyosaki's writings in Rich Dad Poor Dad, was that employed people earn money, pay their tax, and they have at their leisure to spend what's left. If you're in business, you earn money, you can spend that money and you pay tax on one left.

 

Kevin Whelan: So a business owner can enjoy things that is part of their life, legitimate things that they can use and claim tax relief on and still enjoy them like cars and like, you know, if I want to go on a trip to somewhere to go on a conference, you know, I can claim that provided it to legitimate expense and so on. And if I wanted to get training to learn how to be better in fund management, because I'm a trustee of my own pension, mentioned that earlier on, then I can claim that from my pension funds. So there are ways you can claim money back.

 

Kevin Whelan: So there's a whole army of tactics and skills that you can deploy to reduce taxes here and there. And that's all part of the wider connection that we have with experts in property, and in business, and in just simple things people can do to ensure that they've got, you know, the maximum use of tax within husband and wife, for example. So there are many things you can do to reduce taxes and we're all keen to help that because if you reduce your tax, puts more money in your life.

 

Chris Rodwell: And we played the cashflow one-on-one game-

 

Kevin Whelan: All right.

 

Chris Rodwell: Next month in London, as you know.

 

Kevin Whelan: Right.

 

Chris Rodwell: So if anyone is familiar with Robert Kiyosaki, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, but hasn't played the cash flow game, then definitely find out when the next game is by heading on over to wealthbuilders.co.uk/wealthtalk. Make sure all the links to everything that we're talking about in the show are on that page for you. So let's move into the final, which is S of debits. What does S stand for, Kevin?

 

Kevin Whelan: Well, S stands for support. Now, you realise that all through our discussions quiz, there's a common thread and that common thread is a need for education, the need for good support. What I mean by good support is support that's unbiased, support that's focused on an outcome for you, not for them. Support that you can see and is absolutely focused on trying to do the best thing for you.

 

Kevin Whelan: And what I find that support generally in the way people are building their wealth in things like stocks and shares, their pension funds, the support costs, the people who are involved in that, custodian fees, advisor fees, fund manager fees.

 

Chris Rodwell: Talking IFA type, yeah.

 

Kevin Whelan: I'm not saying all IFA's are bad. Of course, they're not. They're just trying to do their best. But there's a conflict of interest which is unstated, which if you think about it this way. If the vast majority of the 95% who are trying to build their wealth, build their wealth on the stock market. And the custodians, the fund managers, and the IFAs, or the advisors or all trying to make money out of your money. And you're trying to make money off your money, there's something that's not going to work.

 

Kevin Whelan: And you know, the average cost that people are paying for the combination of those three fees is about 2% per annum, which doesn't sound a lot.

 

Chris Rodwell: might not sound a lot.

 

Kevin Whelan: It's only going to cost you 2%. yeah, but the average return is about 6%. Now, I don't about you, Chris, but that's an interesting kind of idea.

 

Chris Rodwell: sounds quite hefty.

 

Kevin Whelan: So, hold on. Let's just replay this. So you're going to pay, unless you choose differently, a third of your money to somebody who has no stake in that. So in other words, you put all the money in, they didn't put any. You take all the risk, they take none. And then if things go wrong, which they did massively in 2008 and will again, who knows what's going to happen. As we're talking today, we're on the Brexit brink. So we don't know really what's going to happen there and the uncertainty there. But if something goes wrong, they're not accountable.

 

Kevin Whelan: So with no accountability, no risk, and no involvement, you can see there's a conflict of interest. And I wouldn't sign a third of my money away to somebody who didn't have a stake in it and I don't think everybody else should too. So we're absolutely advocating that people should get involved more in the self management of their money.

 

Kevin Whelan: And remember, I said to you in an earlier episode, Chris, that when you decide to become wealthy, you're in the wealth management business. So getting in the wealth management business early, make a decision about where your costs really are. Look behind the statement because you don't see these charges. They're hidden, they're opaque. And the way I phrase it is someone sticking a siphon in your bank account, except it's your investment bank account. You're not seeing it. You would see it if you've got the highlighter pen out, right? If it was in your personal bank account and somebody was taking a couple of thousand pounds a year out, you'd see it, but you don't see it when it's hidden from you. And I encourage people to understand their fees, to challenge those fees, to check if they're getting good value for those fees.

 

Kevin Whelan: And if you combine the debt, the education, the bills, the insurance, the tax, and the support costs, I will challenge anybody not to find a significant sum. The challenge isn't if the money's there, the challenge are you willing to do it? And this is where the drifters come in. The drifters will say, "Oh, I'll get around to it. I'll think about that. That's a really good idea. I listen to the podcast about debits," but did they do it? No, they didn't. And that's why they will continue in that cycle of remaining insecure financially, possibly for the rest of their life. Their incomes will go up, of course. But tragically, when they lose that job through health, or through redundancy, or through retirement to tragic factors, their income would drop massively, and that didn't did not need to happen. So we're encouraging the DIYers to do a bit and those who are interested being dynamic for us to help them, we can help them to really uncover all of the things rather than just discovering what the discover on their own. That's debits.

 

Chris Rodwell: That's fantastic. And whilst we position that as really being a good jump-start for those looking to move from level one of insecurity to level two of security, really this is applicable to everyone.

 

Kevin Whelan: It's just revisiting your foundation. You know, in the building, if you picture that building again with a good foundation and the seven pillars and a roof. But if you have the damp course, you know, and the damp is rising, that's going to undermine that foundation. So you know, in the same way this is water is leaking. And in this case, if you don't take care of your debits, you're going to be losing money and the money will be leaking out of your life. And if you can plug those leaks, then the levels will rise and you can use that money to build your wealth. And I would encourage everybody, wherever they are, to start right there.

 

Chris Rodwell: So an annual check would be a good idea to review those debits.

 

Kevin Whelan: Well, yeah, just like, you know, you're forced to do that with your car.

 

Chris Rodwell: That personal MOT

 

Kevin Whelan: Right.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah. It's a money check, almost.

 

Kevin Whelan: You could do it yourself or you can engage with somebody to do that. Just recognise that if the benefit is to make more money than you ever spend in the

support costs with somebody else who can help you do that, then it's worth its weight in gold.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah. And we've actually recorded or I should say you've recorded a summary video of debits. So we can make that available as well for those listening right now. I think we've gone into a bit more detail here on the podcast. But for anyone who likes the visual aspect-

 

Kevin Whelan: Okay. That's great.

 

Chris Rodwell: Good stuff. Thanks, Kevin. That was great. So we're gonna move on and see you guys in a future episode of Wealth Talk. Thank you.

 

Kevin Whelan: Thank you very much.

Chris Rodwell: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Wealth Talk. My name is Christian Rodwell, I'm the Membership Director for Wealth Builders. As always, joined by my side Mr. Kevin Whelan.

 

Kevin Whelan: Hello there, nice to talk to you again, Chris

 

Chris Rodwell: Yes, and to you Kevin. Today, tell us what we're talking about, Kevin.

 

Kevin Whelan: I think we said in Episode Two we were going to touch on the reason why and knowing your number. I think you've got a little question that we may well need to answer first though, Chris.

 

Chris Rodwell: Do I?

 

Kevin Whelan: Yes. What is wealth, I think.

 

Chris Rodwell: Okay. So I thought, well, how can we have a podcast about wealth talk without really first defining what wealth means. So, Kevin, what's your definition of wealth?

 

Kevin Whelan: Well, that's a toughie. That's like beauty is in the eye of the beholder, really. I'll give you the best answer I can give, which is wealth is a concept which really involves an overlay of different freedoms. If I describe what the freedoms are, I know this one very important to your heart, Chris, and maybe you can tell a little tale about that one. People have been fighting for freedom for generations. But in wealth context, the thing, the most important freedoms are freedom of time. Because in a time pressed world, every time we talk to people about-

 

Chris Rodwell: It's the number one response, I don't have enough time.

 

Kevin Whelan: I don't have enough time. So, getting control of that time. Of course, using a podcast using audible, using things that you can build your education at the same time as you're multi-laying other things is-

 

Chris Rodwell: Comes down to leverage again.

 

Kevin Whelan: Is a really good idea. Getting freedom of time and that balance of being able to do what you want to do on your own terms and being in control of your time is really quite an important element of wealth. The second one, of course, is money. Because the importance of being financially independent means the freedom from being dependent on a job or a business that you're having to turn up and working. In the sense that if you are dependent, you're trading your time for money. So, you show up and the money shows up. The definition of money freedom then is you have enough money flowing from things you own, assets you own that you have put in place and with a small amount of management, which can be delegated, then the money's flowing into your life to live the life that you want to lead. And that's freedom of money.

 

Kevin Whelan: But of course, a very valuable one certainly for me as a connector as you know, Chris, is the freedom of relationships. I have worked in a job, I'm not sure I liked everybody around me. I'm sure if some of our listeners tune into themselves now in their workplace looking around, do they love their boss? Do they like the person that [crosstalk 00:03:10]

 

Chris Rodwell: -hours a week sat next to these people.

 

Kevin Whelan: Well, also, look at the time people spend commuting, how much relationship and job meetings that are going on the train journeys to and from London or the big cities with nobody talking everybody on their phone? I'm not sure about that. I don't think I'd want to be part of that commuter rat race at all. The other one is freedom of creativity. What that means is the freedom to be who you are. We touched on it didn't we in the previous episode, wealth dynamics. Knowing who you are, though we didn't go into any great detail. I think maybe we'll cover that in future episodes, right? But being creative, allowing you to get out of yourself who you want to be. We're not all great at everything. In many cases, think of a business owner who is brilliant. Let's say is a brilliant architect, but because he's a one man operator, he's doing the books, he's doing the recruitment, he's doing the advertising, he's renting the shop. There's so many different things that you may not be good at. So you're not free to be who you're best to be, where you deliver real value in the world.

 

Kevin Whelan: A much wider definition, Chris is freedom of purpose. Again, that's connecting with your higher self, what's your contribution you want to make in life and while it might be slightly esoteric, and maybe you're not thinking about that if you're still struggling month by month. But nonetheless, there is what we found when people really get to the highest level of wealth, they discover for themselves a much higher purpose which is no longer about them. I'll touch on that maybe when we talk about the levels of wealth. That would make sense.

 

Chris Rodwell: Sure.

 

Kevin Whelan: But there is another one, Chris and I want to thank you for this one. Because you made this one clear to me as we worked together, and that was a different freedom and what was that one?

 

Chris Rodwell: That's the freedom of location. I had a real dream to be able to spend time abroad, warmer climates than the UK apparently, and actually achieved that dream back in 2017 when I moved to Portugal, lived in Lisbon for the summer months. It was really kind of a test to see how remote working lifestyle would be, and to be able to transfer my business from London over to Portugal and it was a fantastic experience, wonderful lifestyle.

 

Chris Rodwell: Ultimately, a learning from that was that for me, connection is so important as well. That even though it's a short flight from the UK, I felt that I really needed to be in the heart of my community serving my members. Actually, I transitioned back to London. But location, really important freedom for me and very privileged to be able to spend that time over in Portugal.

 

Kevin Whelan: I think you'll be interviewing on a future podcast one of our members who spent a lot of her time remotely managing her properties from Cape Town.

 

Chris Rodwell: [inaudible 00:06:05] absolutely and her husband John who navigated the world on a yacht and congratulations to John for doing that. Again, they had escaped the rat race just a few years before that through property. Learning how to invest and generate those recurring income streams to a point where John could go off and participate in around the world race and Bromwyn-

 

Kevin Whelan: She followed him, didn't she really?

 

Chris Rodwell: All around the world running their property business remotely.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah, I remember somebody else said to me I really want to do what Bromwyn has done. I want to be able to manage my property from a different country. In fact, that very client went off and spent a couple of weeks with Bromwyn, in Cape Town touring Stellenbosch and so on. It shows you how the power of connection that somebody inspired somebody else to do that. Mind you, it's a bit difficult to be thinking about that. As I said, if you're struggling to see yourself making ends meet rather than sailing around the world on a yacht. Why don't we talk about that? Why don't we help those people?

 

Chris Rodwell: Absolutely. Well, it comes down first and foremost, knowing your why, and really understanding the purpose of this journey of wealth building and what's driving you.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yes. And as I said, Chris, that the freedom of purpose is a key thing. If you have a purpose that's so powerful, you will absolutely never, ever be a drifter. Remember, we spoke about drifters the last time. It might be worth recounting my why. I think I touched on it in Episode One. But a little bit more detail so people can connect and see the importance that's meant to me, but also so they can think about it for themselves. It always cuts me up a little bit as I tell the story, but way back in the '80s when I was just graduated, I was an economist, and my father tragically died at the age of 46, he was a North Sea oil rig worker and he collapsed and died there. They couldn't really fly him off, so there was no hope for him.

 

Kevin Whelan: The tragic thing for me was I began to think about that. Obviously, you overcome anything when you're in your 20s was we were genetic peas in a pod, Chris. We looked the same, we walked the same, we talked the same. Everyone said, Kevin, John, you look like each other. In fact, that's my name, Kevin John. It was just a realization for me that when I'm in my 20s as a young economist at the time thinking wow, if I don't make old bones, if I don't get into my 50s how am I going to save enough money to give my wife and then the kids that I didn't have them but planned to have, now I've got three kids as you know, all in their 20s. I just didn't think I could save enough money.

 

Kevin Whelan: Luckily for me, I think, Chris, before I got too heavily involved in the rat race, I gave up the job on the 18th of August 1988, I still remember that day. That's the date that basically I quit the rat race.

 

Chris Rodwell: You escaped the rat race date.

 

Kevin Whelan: And made the decision never to trade time for money again. I knew I had to build things that I could own so I could create enough independence and pass on the assets that I was intending to build. It was helpful to have an economics degree. But as I said in the previous episode, Chris, I didn't have a mentor, I didn't have a guide and it took me quite a number of years to get to where I wanted to get to, and now my real passion is help people get there quickly.

 

Kevin Whelan: Bronwyn took I think, maybe four or five years. Another of our members and students have taken five to seven years. But either way it can be done in that period of time pretty much by anybody if they pay attention, they get the right education, the right support, make the right connections, they can definitely do that. It's really important to connect with your reason why because then you will just power through. That's a key thing.

 

Chris Rodwell: We talked about getting clear about really what's motivating you in terms of the freedom. Is it to live a financial level of life and afford the things that you really want to do. Is it to be able to go and live in another country and work remotely? Is it just to have more time to spend with those that you love and do the things that you want? And then defining really real strong catalyst as you often refer to it as your why is really that catalyst to propel you forwards.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah, because look, you look around the world is a place of confusion. There's much information out there. It's a place of a lack of capacity. People are busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, and they don't have any time. We hear that as you say, all the time. Something has to break through that. For me, the catalyst was the key. It was something that was a tragedy.

 

Kevin Whelan: Now, I'm not suggesting that someone needs a tragic aspect to their life, but they need a catalyst and sometimes it can be the inspiration from someone else like the person I mentioned who wanted to copy [inaudible 00:11:22] or I hope, Chris that we could be a catalyst in our writings and our teachings. In fact, didn't you start sowing the seeds of writing your book in Portugal?

 

Chris Rodwell: It was whilst I was in Portugal that I started writing my first book, Yes, Sack Your Boss, which is a free offering for anyone who's connected through Wealth Builders. So, head on over to wealthbuilders.co.uk/wealthtalk if you'd like a link to my book.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah, it's a good book. I think I wrote the foreword.

 

Chris Rodwell: Thank you. I think you might have done. So, Kevin, we've talked about almost the things in the past. things that might now push you forwards to look into the future and decide what it is that you want. This leads nicely onto knowing your number.

 

Kevin Whelan: Correct.

 

Chris Rodwell: So tell us, what are the five levels of wealth, and how does this tie into knowing your number?

 

Kevin Whelan: Okay. One of the things that you can do immediately as you begin to think about your own current position, if you like, taking the stock take. You can't work out where you're going until you know where you are, that's basic. Want to set up your sat nav or you want to Google Map anything, you have to know where you are now and where you want to go. So, where you want to take stock, and see where you are on any of these levels.

 

Kevin Whelan: There are five levels of wealth. What we were trying to do is help people sequentially move through the levels. There are different skills and tactics that you can deploy to move you from each level. For the beginning, most people start at level one, which is a place of insecurity.

 

Chris Rodwell: When you say most people, we're talking about the 95%-

 

Kevin Whelan: That's most. Most people, when we meet them, if I said to them how much income is coming from assets you own? You don't need to do anything to generate it, it's already done. That money's flowing into your life and is that enough for you to be completely secure that you could give up the day job if you had one, give up the business if you're not enjoying it, all your bills all your expenses to live a basic good quality life but just cover everything that you need to live. Is that automatically happening now or not? For the vast majority of people, the answer is no. They're in a place of financial insecurity.

 

Chris Rodwell: That's level one.

 

Kevin Whelan: That's level one. I want you to know that is not a problem, because there are many things you can do will come on to those, I guess, to teach people how they can move from a place of insecurity layer by layer, step by step to take care of the mortgage, to take care of the bills, to take care of the utilities and start to build assets that just take care of a little by little by little. To move them from a place of insecurity to security.

 

Kevin Whelan: Level two, Chris is security. Having enough money flowing in that you could pay your bills and if you wanted to sack your boss, you could sack your boss, and then you could live the life that you wanted to do and build even more wealth. Beyond that, because no longer would be the capacity taken from you, having to show up for 40, 50, 60 hours plus the unpaid commute, none of that would apply. You would have all the time that you needed to build your wealth once you're in a place of security. That's the key thing to get to. For most people, there's a number that they can identify. It doesn't matter what the number is. We're not judging the number, but on average, they'll give you a number that says look, if you taught it up, the things you must pay in life, your mortgage, your bills, and so on, what would that be? Would it be 2,000 a month? 3,000 a month? 5,000 a month? If you got three kids in private school, would it be 8,000 a month? What would it be?

 

Kevin Whelan: Once you know that number and have a reasonable sense of that, and it doesn't take long to get a sense of that, just look at your bank statement, you'll know what that number needs to be. That's the level that our first target is for everyone to move them from a place of insecurity to a place of security. So, from security, that's a launch pad, but you need just like the rocket, leaving Earth's gravity, you need that big push of energy to get you from insecurity to security.

 

Chris Rodwell: That removes any kind of fear and worry that with the economy the way it is, that you never really know if you walk into work tomorrow that that job will still be there. If you were to walk into work on Monday, and your boss said, "Sorry, but we don't need you anymore."

 

Kevin Whelan: We're shipping off because of Brexit, off to another country.

 

Chris Rodwell: Ask yourself now, what position would you be in? What kind of feelings would that produce? But this removes all of that.

 

Kevin Whelan: It would remove all of that. There's a skill and we'll share all of this on how to do that. That's moving from level one insecurity, to level two, security. Now, the level beyond that is independence. Now, independence is a higher level in security because security says well, you've got a basic level of life that you can cover your bills. But it doesn't mean it's a life without compromise. Independence is a life on your terms. Whether you turn left or right in airplane, whether you have two holiday years, two holidays a year or 10 holidays a year, whatever the life is that you want, then the money is flowing in to make that a reality. Irrespective of the state of the market, irrespective of interest rates, irrespective whether you got a job or not got a job, whether your business is working or not working, you are completely financially independent, and that's level three.

 

Kevin Whelan: That's the ideal level to be aiming for, of which you push through security into independence. So, knowing that number and that's usually a higher number, of course. Again, no judgment, doesn't matter what the number is, because if you want to live your life in a yacht and eat whatever you want to eat, never have any holidays, you could achieve that on a much lower figure than if you've got different aspirations. It's not for us to judge, everyone is unique and different and that's absolutely fine, and that's level of independence, level three.

 

Chris Rodwell: We're going to touch on level four, and how many people go from independence, well, go beyond independence.

 

Kevin Whelan: Well, the good thing about level four, which is abundance, financial abundance, is when you've got more money flowing into your life than you could possibly actually spend. People push through that automatically because you see the thing about the dynamic aspect of wealth building, is when you have your assets flowing, the money keeps flowing, and it keeps flowing. Like a river keeps flowing, you don't think I'm going to Niagara falls on holiday next month, will the water still be there? It keeps flowing.

 

Kevin Whelan: When you have this much security, that you know your money is going to keep flowing, it keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Because what do you do if you're bringing in more money than you can spend as you're building more wealth? That wealth turns into abundance. That means instead of turning your attention to yourself and your family, you can turn this wider attention into whatever else is important in your life. Whether you're contributing to a cause or a church or a community or something that sits outside of your current purview. You're not looking at it today, but you feel like you'll be looking at it tomorrow and that's where abundance is at. Everybody who reaches independence powers through to abundance.

 

Chris Rodwell: If anyone's familiar with Tony Robbins, the six human needs, and as you rise up, it's about contribution and growth.

 

Kevin Whelan: Correct. That contribution is an automatic aspect of this. You can expect it to happen if you put the right foundation in place to push through, from insecurity, to security, from security to independence, from independence to abundance.

 

Chris Rodwell: How does it get any better than abundance?

 

Kevin Whelan: Well, this is how, instead of thinking then just about your life, if you imagine that the purpose of your life, which is certainly true for me, is to think beyond my current life. Is to think about my next generation and the generation after that, and the generation after that. You may recall, Chris, that one of the principles that we've established in the Wealth Builder Declaration of Independence, and I think we refer to that in Episode One.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yes.

 

Kevin Whelan: If you haven't downloaded that, please go download that, [inaudible 00:20:01] seven values. One of those is to accumulate wealth and pass that legacy on together with the principles and the wisdom with which you've accumulated it. I have a vision, Chris, I have a vision, right? I've created a concept with my own family trust fund where the symbols are in there but one of those is the family gets together and has a holiday all paid for by the trust. In 100 years’ time, when I'm no longer here, and me and my dad are connected again, the family are toasting the old bugger who created the principles and have taught the principles and the wisdom. The children haven't just spent the money, they have grown the wealth, they've taken that responsibility on, and they've accepted that as part of their life's challenge to expand that wealth and to keep the

contributions going and to look up to the next generation and make sure they're looking after the money for the next, and they look up to the money for next, and that's-

 

Chris Rodwell: I suppose Newcastle have won the Premier League as [crosstalk 00:21:04]

 

Kevin Whelan: In 150 years, maybe.

 

Chris Rodwell: But I like the point there, legacy because ultimately that's really what it's all about.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah. When you come from a place of tragic early death, which is my father to a place of actually imagining that a life beyond my expectation is something that gives me pleasure to think about, that's a whole different experience.

 

Chris Rodwell: Well, thanks for explaining the five levels of welfare. We have all of this in downloadable formats don't we., and which are accessible again through heading over to the website and connecting in various means there. Getting clear about your why, certainly one of the first things that someone should do in the wealth building journey, and understanding really what's driving you. Is it a moving away from things? Something often you're not happy with? Your current circumstances, maybe you don't like your boss and things like that. But when you really connect with your why, I think you then shift your focus from what you don't like more towards what it is that you really want to achieve.

 

Kevin Whelan: Exactly. I think the push away is always at the beginning.

 

Chris Rodwell: The rocket ship, isn't it?

 

Kevin Whelan: That's right. It's the gravity that you're trying to overcome. Once you get there, it's all about your own purpose, and your own version of those six freedoms that we talked about earlier on. Of course, it's important as we get heady here and we're thinking about life in the clouds and an abundance and so on that we come down to the ground as well and maybe spend the next episode talking to people about the steps they can take if they're feeling like they're not quite getting there yet, they're still below basement. They're down, it's a bit darker there, they've got more month left at the end of their money, why don't we take an episode next time and try and help those so that they can get some light coming on in their life.

 

Chris Rodwell: Right. Some quick wins.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah. Some quick wins. I think there are a number of those, six of those, which we call DEBITS. You know me, I'm a teacher so I like to make things easy-

 

Chris Rodwell: And acronym-

 

Kevin Whelan: Always an acronym around me. But DEBITS is D-E-B-I-T-S. I think that will be a very useful discussion point for the next episode. So, why don't we head on and do that?

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah, absolutely. If you're listening and you're not yet a member of the Wealth Builders Together, Facebook group, head over to wealthbuilders.co.uk/wealthtalk and there'll be a link for you to join right there. That's been a great episode today, Kevin. Thank you.

 

Kevin Whelan: Thank you.

 

Chris Rodwell: We're looking forward to next time.

 

Kevin Whelan: See you next time.

Chris Rodwell: Hi, welcome to Wealth Talk Episode Two. It's Chris Rodwell here joined by Kevin Whelan. Hello Kevin.

 

Kevin Whelan: Hi, Chris, good to talk to you again.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yes. Well, we had a lot of fun on episode one, and we covered really what Wealth Builders, how it came about. And one point I want to pick up on is, you mentioned 95% of people who wished to become wealthy, financially independent never make it.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah.

 

Chris Rodwell: Tell us a bit more about a reasoning behind that Kevin and how you can identify whether you're maybe one of the five percent that will make it.

 

Kevin Whelan: Ooh, that will be a bit scary. Of course 95% of people don't make it, only five percent do, and the skill in the Wealth Builders is really trying to help more people reach that, but there's a little bit of self-analysis you can do. In the number of years that I've been talking to people and helping them create financial independence for themselves, I've noticed Chris, there are three groups of people. I call them the three D's and it doesn't take me more than about five minutes to work out who you are, and whether you're like to be part of the 95 or part of the five, would you like to know what they are?

 

Chris Rodwell: Oh, yes please.

 

Kevin Whelan: They're called the three D's, which is the drifters, which is not the music group by the way. These are people ... The drifters are people who read a lot, think a lot, aspire a lot. They think they would like to be wealthy, and have a feeling they'd love to be wealthy-

 

Chris Rodwell: We call them the course junkies sometimes.

 

Kevin Whelan: Right, okay. A lot of shelf-help. We've heard all the jokes about that. But genuinely you can tell that they remain drifting, and have aspirations, but in fact, sadly, while we're joking about it, it is a sad consequence that they simply will remain financially insecure for the rest of their lives and that's a very bad place to be. And I think the main reason for that is they just drift from day to day. This idea of being caught in the rat race, or caught in some tyranny of a daily routine, that they don't allow themselves the time, or are willing to find the time to get the right education, the right support and the right connections to pull this together as a plan. So they'll turn up for their job, they'll go home and instead of taking some time out of their life to be thinking, "Well, how do I create wealth for myself," they'll watch the telly or have a glass of red and forget the world till the next day, and that's pretty much what most people are like.

 

Kevin Whelan: And one of the ways you can find that out about people is, if you ask them ... One of the questions we always ask is ... For most people my experience Chris, is people can be completely financially independent within about three to seven years. So let's say the average is five years. So the question I often ask people is, "How has your wealth changed from five years ago? What have you done that's made you wealthier five years later? So if you go back five years and you look now, how more wealthy are you than where you were before?" For most people the answer is, they're not wealthier at all. In some cases they've either gone backwards, or they've stayed exactly the same.

 

Chris Rodwell: In fact, you have almost I would say a catch phrase of "never let a month go by without building your wealth."

 

Kevin Whelan: Well, exactly right. You don't have to spend too much time, a couple of hours a month is enough time. You'd think two hours a month people could spend, not just to learn something, but the key is the doing. And one of the dangers I think with the drifters is, they want to seek so much information, but they'll act on nothing. So they'll do this course, and then they'll do that course, and they'll do the next course, and they'll do the next course. And instead of stopping after course one to decide whether it's the right thing to do, whether they can see whether they can take action upon, and seek out who else has done that, what did they have to learn, what did they have to do to make this whole process quicker, this concept of connections we talked about in episode one, they won't do that, they'll just do the education piece. And then, "Oh, well I need to know something more now. I need to know the next thing," and they keep going round this sort of intellectual merry-go-round. And of course, merry-go-rounds or roller coasters are great when you're a kid but not as you get older, they make you sick after a while.

 

Chris Rodwell: So what you're saying really-

 

Kevin Whelan: That's not a good place.

 

Chris Rodwell: -- is you need to take responsibility for building your own wealth.

 

Kevin Whelan: And taking action to do that, and I recommend, if I could Tweet this right now I would Tweet it loud and clear, never let 30 days go by without doing something that's very positive that you know is adding some form of asset, some form of wealth building actions in your life." And of course, during the course of the podcast, we'll be talking more about assets and what those assets are. But obvious things like even just putting a bit more money into the market, looking to see whether you could engage in some property. Maybe doing something on the side to generate income that could reduce your debt. So there's always ways you could something to create more wealth, there's no doubt about that.

 

Kevin Whelan: If I meet anybody, if they're willing to do it, they will create more wealth every single month. But the drifters will never do that.

 

Chris Rodwell: Okay.

 

Kevin Whelan: Recognize some of those Chris?

 

Chris Rodwell: Yes, yes, indeed. So that moves us into the second D.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah, the second D. Now, there's nothing wrong with the second D, the second D is what I call the DIYers. Now, the DIY’ers are not drifters, they're willing to get their hands dirty, they're willing to get involved and do something, and that's good. But one of the issues with DIY is, there are some things you can DIY, simple things, like I could probably turn my attention and wire a plug, but I wouldn't do my own teeth. So there are some things you should DIY, and some things you should not.

 

Kevin Whelan: And one of the consequences of the DIYers, is they actually can't get to a place of trust. They don't find anybody that they can truly trust, and they're aren't willing often to make connections, they want to do everything on their own. They live their life almost in a trial and error scenario. And while they can make some progress, and I have to say at the beginning of my wealth building life I was a DIYer. So I didn't have a guide, I didn't have a mentor, I didn't have that opportunity because I was carving my own path. But now having learned the lessons, and it took me seven years ... actually it took me a bit longer than that, but it took me longer to create the wealth that I really wanted because I was trailing ... blazing my own trail, let's say.

 

Kevin Whelan: I'm what I sometimes I'd call the kind of rugged individual who wants to do everything on their own terms. And what I've learned over the years and now, very enthusiastically teaches you know Chris, is it's much better, faster, enjoyable to work with people and collaborate, hence the connection in the process of education, support and connection. And surrounding yourself with other people just gives you so much energy, and makes it so much quicker.

 

Kevin Whelan: I'm not saying DIY isn't the solution, and I think we've created some great materials who prefer to do things on their own and learn on their own terms. Nothing wrong with that. What I just happen to feel, and I'm very passionate about connecting is, I think wealth is much more fun when you connect. I have a blast every single day because I'm never, never not connecting people, and that's what give me a joy. But that's the DIYers for you.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah, we're familiar with the term, self-made millionaire.

 

Kevin Whelan: Right.

 

Chris Rodwell: Would you suggest that actually there's not too many who make it purely by themselves?

 

Kevin Whelan: Well, I think in truth there isn't really a self-made millionaire, because ever self-made millionaire has got a team around them doing something. Unless ... Maybe, even if you're a pop star, you've still got backing singers, you've still got a band, you've still got a crew, you've still got all of those things behind you, so I don't think self-made is a good plan. I understand why people might start there just to get their education and maybe be nervous about making connections. What I'm hoping that people will see if they check out Wealth Builders at wealthbuilders.co.uk, that actually there is a community of trusted people, and that you can get to see that it is possible to build wealth and understand that not everybody's trying to make money from you. And there's a real spirit of that collaboration where we are, and you don't have to do it on your own.

 

Chris Rodwell: And it also ties in very strongly with your personality type, and this is-

 

Kevin Whelan: Sure.

 

Chris Rodwell: -- an area we'll discuss in a future episode I'm sure, as to different types of people have different ways of approaching solutions and problems. And whey you find out what your really natural strengths are, you can then identify those right people that you need for your team, your entrepreneurial team.

 

Kevin Whelan: Oh, absolutely right, and I suppose that leads us quite nicely actually Chris, into the third D, which I call the Dynamics. And the Dynamic people ... When you think of Dynamo, you think of energy, and you think of kind of a multi aspect to it. So the dynamics of those people who are bringing in multiple ROI's. So here's another piece of wealth building language we might need to debunk.

 

Kevin Whelan: So the concept of ROI, which most people will have heard of in the-

 

Chris Rodwell: You would think a Return on Investment.

 

Kevin Whelan: Return on Investment, absolutely right. And Return on Investment is an important ingredient in any aspect of trying to create, what's the return on the activity that you're doing, and that's important.

 

Kevin Whelan: So in addition to Return on Investment Chris, it's really quite important to as well understand risk, because there's no point taking two steps forward and one step back and that can happen. But one of the important ingredients in our process, is the due diligence step, and trying to work out what's the downside risk and how do you mitigate that risk. And often the mitigation of risk can only be really truly dealt with by looking through the eyes of other people, because when you're ... if you're an accountant you see risk in a different way than if you're an entrepreneur where all you can think of is the creative solution. So it's really important that, that's part of the overall process.

 

Kevin Whelan: But the two that I like more than any other, because I'm much more of a connected sort of person as you know, is a return on intellect. Which means, you become smarter, you become a wiser person by engaging. And what I mean by that is, instead of just making an investment in something you don't really understand, by getting a return on your intellect then you're learning more, not just about the investment, or the asset or the way you're building wealth, but also more about yourself. You become a smarter, wiser person as a result of that. You're building capability that allows you to move from one level to the next.

 

Kevin Whelan: So if you think about stock market for example, if you invest money in the stock market, the following ... and you get a statement every six months, when you get your six monthly statement, are you any wiser than you were six months ago, or do you just respond to the valuation, whether it's up or down? In the wealth building community you can absolutely, demonstrably measure an increase in your capability because you're moving level, by level, by level up the five different levels of wealth that we'll share I guess next time?

 

Chris Rodwell: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah, sure. Five levels of wealth, let's make a note to do that next time.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah, yeah.

 

Kevin Whelan: So the ROI of Return on Intellect is really a key one. And the one that gives me a buzz is, Return on Interaction. And what I mean by that is, just enjoying money. Enjoying the connection you have with other people as you see people teaching you things, you teaching other people things, sometimes actually joining forces with others as well. It's just a fun place to be for those who want to do that. And while I recognize that's not for everyone, I think there's definitely an aspect of enjoying what you with money. And enjoying building your wealth, rather than just simply parking it and not really feeling like A, you're in control, so you're not in control of your return of your investment, but also you're not really enjoying it. Again you just get a statement, not too much enjoyment.

 

Kevin Whelan: One of the things I notice about people with statements is, they just tend to file them. Whether they're in filing cabinets, or draws, or wherever they end up, they're really not part of anybody's enjoyment.

 

Chris Rodwell: And that's the key part of Wealth Builders, isn't it? It's about really enjoying the process of wealth building and making it a collaborative process as well, and something that is dynamic, as you've just said, which is the fact A.

 

Kevin Whelan: Exactly. Even if that collaboration is an [inaudible 00:13:37] one just within your own family, it's husband and wife connecting and sharing things. And of course, in order to do that really well Chris, as you know, we encourage the use of a tool called Wealth Dynamics. And again, more of that probably on another podcast.

 

Chris Rodwell: We can do a whole episode on Wealth Dynamics, and we will do it very soon.

 

Kevin Whelan: Well, let's do that, because Wealth Dynamics is a fascinating area which helps you discover what your natural flow of building your wealth is. And as we know, wealth is a process of flow, wealth is money flowing from the creation of value. So you have to know yourself to know what makes you feel like you're really enjoying it. You can tell as we're talking, my flow is in connection, right? Somebody else's flow might be something else. So you have to find your own flow, and that tool helps you identify that, and therefore you find your path that's unique to you. So while we talked in episode one, there's a seven step process, or there's a step by step process, the steps are not the same for everyone.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah. So in summary then for episode two, the three D's. For someone listening right now who's trying to figure out, "Where am I then? Am I drifting at the moment, and if I am drifting how do I move up to the next stage?"

 

Kevin Whelan: Well, if you're drifting and you that you're going to continue to drift, tune out. Don't listen to episode three because it will be pointless. But if you want to take the first step, just have a look at the website wealthbuilders.co.uk and tune into some of the things that we're doing, and trying to see if there's some tools and techniques we can give you to help yourself. So become a DIYer, but do something. The whole thing about DIY is doing, not just learning. So if you're willing to do something, we'll give you some things to do, some tasks that you can carry out for yourself all on the website that will allow you to make some positive progress. And then when you're ready to know more, you can find out little bit more about what dynamics, and how to be a dynamic person where you're in control and in charge of your wealth, and you'll get there faster. So check us out.

 

Chris Rodwell: And we'll be talking about turning the wheel in future episodes, but really all we're asking now is that you turn the key to open the door, because beyond that you'll find the next opportunity, and that's really how the wealth building process goes, isn't it? Just taking that one step at a time, learning a little bit more, and it opens up connections and new ideas which accelerate the journey.

 

Kevin Whelan: Absolutely. And one final point actually. I've just realized that there's an ROI that I think is entirely appropriate on which to end this, and it's not Return on Investment, it's not Return of Investment, it's not the return on Intellect or the Return on Interaction, it's not-

 

Chris Rodwell: It's the [crosstalk 00:16:15].

 

Kevin Whelan: The final one is you're never more than one relationship, opportunity or idea. So that's an interesting ROI, Relationship, Opportunity, or Idea away from a complete transformation in your wealth. So be curious out there, seek out that one relationship, that one opportunity, that one idea because that can escalate you up several steps at once. And I hope for a few people Chris, that we might be that [crosstalk 00:16:43].

 

Chris Rodwell: Oh, you've dropped a bomb, have you there. That's a good one to leave people on, thanks for that one Kevin.

 

Kevin Whelan: Okay.

 

Chris Rodwell: I really enjoyed this episode.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah. Look forward to episode three.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah, and we're going to touch the five levels, and knowing your why, and knowing your number.

 

Kevin Whelan: Knowing your number, that's a good one.

 

Chris Rodwell: Really important. Okay, we'll see you again soon

Chris Rodwell: So a very warm welcome to episode one of wealth talk, my name's Christian Rodwell, I'm the membership director for Wealth Builders and I'm joined by my co-host Mr. Kevin Whelan, the founder.

 

Kevin Whelan: Well, Chris, I've never been more excited, use some modern technology to help people get information that they can use when having a shower, when they're running their races, whatever they're doing to leverage their time we can just give a little wisdom on that. And I'm really excited about what we've got to share.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yes, I am too. So Kevin, let's get into really what Wealth Builders is all about. How did you come about creating and setting up Wealth Builders and give our listeners a bit of a back story, please.

 

Kevin Whelan: Sure, well, my own story is born out of some tragedy when my father died very young. And of course that's what stimulated me to build wealth for myself because I didn't want to be in a position where if I die young too, I didn't leave a good legacy for my family. Over the years, I think, the big catalyst for me was 2008, Chris, which is when the credit crunch came and pretty much everything fell off a cliff. And I had an advisory business, traditional financial planning business and I realized that in that role, I just wasn't doing ... I wasn't able to help people break free of what the tradition of financial planning and goodwill planning was all about which was really the stock market.

 

Kevin Whelan: And since then, I've just seen a [inaudible 00:01:40] of people moving on to new things and teaching them how to create streams of income in their lives so they can be financially independent whatever the state of the market. Whether the market crushes or not, whether interest rates go up or down, whether Brexit happens or not at this time, whatever uncertainties they've got, they've got complete control over their finances. And that's what Wealth Builders has been doing for the last 10 years or so, and we've got lots of wisdom to share with people on how to do that.

 

Chris Rodwell: And you have some wonderful IP, wonderful models which we'll be covering of course in future episodes of Wealth Talk. And I first met you, Kevin, back in 2014, actually coming up to the 5th anniversary, it was April. I remember it very well. It was my first ever property networking event and you were speaking that night, and you talked about a subject which is close to your heart, which is pensions. And at that time, I had absolutely zero interest in pensions.

 

Kevin Whelan: Well, who has? Let's face it. It's not the most exciting subject in the world, is it?

 

Chris Rodwell: But after listening to you that evening, something changed and I connected with you the following day. And that really was the beginning of the relationship and also your wisdom over the last five years of ... Wealth Building process has really rubbed off and influenced me so thank you for that.

 

Kevin Whelan: Congratulations on your successes by the way.

 

Chris Rodwell: Thank you. And the purpose of the Wealth Talk podcast, what can people expect, Kevin?

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah, I think what we're trying to do here is we know how busy people are, and that's the big challenge that anyone's trying to create wealth is there's so much information out there, there's so little time that people have to disseminate what's good, what's bad and a lot of salesmanship out there too. So what I really want to do with you, Chris, in Wealth Talk is to distill down some nuggets that people can get really good solid education that stimulates their brain to create more wealth assets. And we'll talk a definition of assets in due course, but what's interesting to me is there are only seven ways to build wealth, so it's not going to be too long before people get the hang of that.

 

Kevin Whelan: And of course by distilling it down, it means there's something they can do with each episode. We'll talk about something specific, we'll give them a nugget, an action theme, something they can do that will make a difference in their life. And what we want to see is every episode leads to some positive outcome that makes people a little wealthier than they did or than they would just before that. That's the idea behind it.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah, absolutely, and I think one of the cornerstones of our message is always built around three core areas as well which is education, support, and connection. And that nicely forms the escape, analogy, and that's close to my heart of course with the business that I set up, Escape the Rat Race, and explain why education and support and connection are so important.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah, well, I think when you're talking about building wealth, there's only seven ways to build wealth and of course if you don't know what they are, then you have to start with the principle of education. We know education is the key part of life so from education in school to education in work but there's not very much education in wealth and somehow this just isn't taught in school. What we're saying is, when it comes to building wealth, there is a scientific process to do it and it can be taught and if it can be taught, it can be learned. If it can be learned, it can be applied.

 

Kevin Whelan: Therefore, if you know that there's some wisdom out there, there's some knowledge you can pick up and use, then the next thing is support. Now, what that means is the ability to surround yourself with people who will help you, so whether it'd be making sure your partner is supporting you or finding a community, which is really what Wealth Builders is all about. It's a community of support, so you don't feel like you're doing this on your own, so that's really important and that's quite a key part of our message.

 

Kevin Whelan: The third is connection. The fastest way to create wealth is to bring education to life by working and talking to people who've been there and done that. In a sense, what we've done together, Chris, so you know what I've done and created wealth for myself and you've copied some of those things but applied your own twist to it. That's what connection is all about, it's a community that we've created for ourselves now, where people are genuinely sharing the lessons they've learned and are willing to share as they move forward and help somebody else as well. So the whole community is what we'll introduce people to over the course of the coming weeks and months.

 

Chris Rodwell: Now, we both speak at events and when the question is asked of people there, "Who'd like to become financially independent?" Every hand pretty much goes up.

 

Kevin Whelan: Everyone, 100/100 would put up their hand, yeah.

 

Chris Rodwell: But the statistics suggest that not all of those 100 make it.

 

Kevin Whelan: Well, there's really no ... I'm an economist by training, Chris, and as you know, there's no key data but the anecdotal data that's reported is about 95% of the population. It's only in the Western world and UK and the US just simply want to get to a place of financial independence. Now what do I mean by that? I meant that the money that they have flowing, so it is about flow of money, coming into their life from things they own is enough so they can live the life they want. Whatever they want to do, however they want to do it, doesn't matter to me whether it's 500 a month, 5000 a month or 500,000 a month. It doesn't really matter.

 

Kevin Whelan: What matters is the lifestyle you want, can that come from things you own and continually flow? And only 5% do that, what we're trying to do is try and impact to help more people. We believe everyone has the right to be financially independent and our ambition at least is to try and get at least 50,000 people on that track so that they can not just create wealth for themselves, help other people too, but leave a great legacy for the next generation. Which circles me back really to that original point that I made that the original reason I decided to create wealth for my own self and that's why I never really was part of the rat race for very long. I got out of it pretty quickly at age 28, that's why it was really important to me.

 

Kevin Whelan: So it's a full circle really, want to help lost of people so they can get a part of their own financial independence as well.

 

Chris Rodwell: Touched on community being such a big part of Wealth Builders which it is and primarily based here in the UK, talk about some of the people that Wealth Builders really serves well. What are some of the situations and circumstances that people come to wealth builders looking for help with?

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah, I suppose you can break it down into ... First of all let me make a statement and then say how then we can help. So my view and the view of other people certainly is that in order to create wealth you have to be an entrepreneur. You have to see value, create value, and be part of your own value creation. You can't just be at the mercy of the stock market and the value which you simply have no control over. In essence what we're trying to do is help people become better, stronger, more able entrepreneurs, creating streams of recurring income so that the income flows without them. So the money shows up, they don't have to show up, that's the ideal scenario.

 

Kevin Whelan: And a lot of people want that, but we find that there's probably two groups of people who want it more than anything else. Maybe high income employed people who really can see that the transition from their high income now to what their pensions going to give them when they reach retirement is such a huge, huge difference that they want to find their way out of the rat race. You've done a great job yourself, Chris, with your own community of Escape the Rat Race and I think that's a big market of people who want to almost cross a bridge from being employed and dependent to being in business and independent.

 

Kevin Whelan: Now, the business that we tend to see worked really well in the UK especially is property and of course one of the big areas for property people is property is expensive in the UK and they need to get access to more funding. We also through the community can share and show people how to get access to more funds so that their property journey keeps going so it then gets to a place where it can support them. And the third group would be business owners themselves who possibly really just have jobs. They're wearing 10, 12, 13 hats, all doing different skill things that previously their employer was providing them but they now have to provide for themselves.

 

Kevin Whelan: Consequently, they have so little time, their bandwidth is so restricted that they just don't see enough. They don't have enough time to be able to turn that business into something that itself can create recurring income. And I spend a lot of time with business owners, almost slowing them down so that they can create recurring income for themselves both inside their business and of course by making more profit can create more wealth outside of that business. Because in the end, to be wealthy you in the money management business, everybody is, just so few people really grasp it. so by learning it as early as possible, then not only do you master it but then you can pass those skills and that wisdom on to the next generation. I know that's a long answer but ... you can tell it means something to me, right?

 

Chris Rodwell: It does and the word that springs to my mind is leverage, so it's really understanding the different ways of generating those recurring incomes streams but using leverage in the right way to achieve that.

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah, and one of those forms of leverage and we thought long and hard didn't we Chris? When we talked about creating materials for people is ... If bandwidth is a problem, isn't probably one of the best ways to tap into some wisdom through the use of a podcast? Because you can really tap into that, whatever you're doing. If you're commuting on a train, dial in. If you're exercising, dial in. If you're at home after dinner and you're in bed the last 10 minutes instead of reading a book, dial in. So you've got opportunities where you can get some of that knowledge, that first part of the ESC, get that education and build that first and then you can move on to getting your support and connections once some education is really stuck with you and you go, "Yeah, I'd like to explore further."

 

Kevin Whelan: But until you get to that point passed curiosity, you don't really get the chance to build support levels around you and build connections around you because you haven't got enough education to make a start.

 

Chris Rodwell: And it always begins with education.

 

Kevin Whelan: Always begins with education.

 

Chris Rodwell: And for people listening now, Kevin, who maybe feel that they're really, really at the beginning of the journey, that they don't have assets. They maybe haven't purchased a house yet. They don't have investments. They may feel, "How can I build wealth?"

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah.

 

Chris Rodwell: How would Wealth Builders able to support those people who really do need to get the education first?

 

Kevin Whelan: Yeah, well the core thing there is to recognize that wealth is built step by step and wherever you are on the steps, and we've got five different levels, of wealth which we'll share on another podcast. But of course, when you're starting off and maybe not feeling like you're in the best place, maybe you've got more months left to the end of your money. There are definitely things you can do to make progress, to save money, not by penny pinching but by being smart and we've got lots of ways to do that. And all sort of different ways in the foundation and the process we call debits which is a whole range of different things, we teach people how they can save some money, wasted money that's in their life and put that money to good use.

 

Kevin Whelan: So instead of just saving money, which is where ... There Are some really great websites and other places where you can learn to save money. It's the saving and then using that money because any money you save, you can always even just put your money into a tracker fund and start building wealth that way. Or if you got debt you save some money, you can reduce it of your debt bill and that increases your net take-home. So the step by step by step process. Wherever you are on the ladder, whether you're right at the very beginning or you're at a point where you've created so much wealth in your life you're ready to share that with the next generation, there's a step by step process to do it. And we'll share that along the way.

 

Chris Rodwell: And that's it. That again comes to the key feature of Wealth Builders is the community that you've built up, Kevin, are very much ... That's part of the values is sharing the knowledge, sharing with the rest of the community so you can learn from those that are already a few steps ahead of you.

 

Kevin Whelan: Exactly right. In fact, we enshrouded in a document and maybe it might be sensible to encourage first time listeners to go check out that document which is the Wealth Builder Values. The values are seven principles that we live by which you'd expect to include some things like unimpeachable and unwavering integrity and that's really important and the principle of sharing. And all of these things are there in this document called The New Declaration of Independence, obviously a play on words on the American Declaration of Independence and we invite people to have a look at that. And there's a place we have it specifically on the website, Chris, isn't it?

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah, and I think the best place for everyone listening now who just wants to get connected, we've got the Wealth Builders website which is wealthbuilders.co.uk. We have the Wealth Builders Facebook group and we have the Wealth Talk page on the website as well, so wealthbuilders.co.uk/wealthtalk. Everything that we've touched on today will be listed on that page so you can just dive in

 

Kevin Whelan: Have a little look, just check it out, make sure you feel comfortable with what we have to say. All of the education by the way we provide is ... There's so much free content. There's no ... You know my style by now, Chris, there's no up sales, there's no creativity around anything other than helping people to get more information. We recognize that many people are drifting in life and we want to help them get stuck into doing something as opposed to stuck in a rat and that's what we're about. So go and check us out, wealthbuilders.co.uk and with a bit of luck we'll see some more on the next podcast.

 

Chris Rodwell: Yeah, so pretty much we're wrapping up episode one here. I hope that's given you a taster of what to expect, got you excited about wealth building process.

Kevin, in future episodes, what are some of the other reasons why someone might want to plug in and keep checking out wealth talk?

 

Kevin Whelan: Well, they're going to discover the seven different assets so that's a realization in itself and I think why don't we pick on ... next one, why don't we talk about the three different type of people we meet? The drifters, the DIYers, and the dynamics?

 

Chris Rodwell: The three Ds.

 

Kevin Whelan: The three Ds. Why don't we share that and why it's really important to know who you are so that is you begin your own wealth journey you start in your own mind.

 

Chris Rodwell: That is a cracking one. So let's make sure we do that as episode two so go check that one out right now. Get connected to wealthbuilders.co.uk/wealthtalk and we look forward to seeing you in a future episode. Thanks, Kevin.

 

Kevin Whelan: See ya.