I am a successful property investor, fitness coach and business owner. Growing up without money to buy the things I wanted wasn’t easy, and seeing how hard my Mum had to work to support the family made me determined to look for ways to build financial security.
I have created three independent streams of income and my goal is to make all three passive streams of income. The same money coming in each month whether I work or not.
I became interested in fitness and exercise mainly because when I was at school I was quite small and at about 8 years old, I watched a film called ‘Come Away My Wee Geordie’ about a Scottish hammer thrower who, through exercise, grew from being a tiny squirt at school to become over 6 foot tall and go on to throw the hammer for Scotland.
Now although I didn’t grow to be 6 foot tall, through consistent exercise and routines, I changed the look of my body and became very fit and strong. As a result I became very good at most sports because I saw the value that hard work and consistent effort could do for you. If there was something I wasn’t very good a, I just went away and worked hard at it.
One of my proudest achievements at school was winning the Superstars competition, beating boys who were bigger but pound for pound, not stronger.
Fast forward to now, I run a football club, a karate club and teach fitness classes and 1:1’s.
I discovered property by accident. My Mum who needed to raise some money had the house valued and, being the eldest boy, she pulled me to one side and said ‘I think they have made a mistake, as they say that the house is worth £25K and we only paid £1200 for it’.In 15 years it had grown by 2000%. I thought – what else can give you that return on your money. So I set about saving and raising 5% deposits.
It wasn’t all plain sailing. I didn’t understand about interest rates rising, repairs to the property, tenants not paying and as a result the CAB centre advised me to sell them. I ignored their advice and set about devising a plan to keep them.
I have grown my portfolio to a healthy size and offer quality housing to all of my tenants. I have learnt how to buy right and how to recycle my money. I have educated myself on many different strategies and although I only focus on three of them, all of my properties have a positive net cash flow.
I have already told you that we didn’t have much money when I was growing up, although I still had a very happy childhood. As a child I was always looking for ways to make money. One way that I came up with was when I was in the Scouts. It was Bob-A-Job week and the idea was to ask people if they had any job that wanted doing and then they paid me for doing it. After Bob-A-Job week was finished I kept going for the next year. I wasn’t afraid of hard work as I also had 2 paper rounds.
Once I left school I went to work for a large retail food shop where I worked my way up to being one of their top Managers. Although the pay was good, I didn’t like being told what to do and how to think. I decided to branch out and work for myself. I discovered network marketing and straight away just thought what a brilliant concept. But not everyone shared my vision and although I did quite well with selling, building a network was hard work. So some friends and I decided to go to Holland to launch the business into Europe. I had a fantastic three months where I learnt a lot about myself and when the lease on the flat ran out, it was time to come home.
It was at this time that I decided to expand my property and fitness businesses. A few years later I was introduced to another network marketing company. Now normally with network businesses the products the products are very good but very expensive and require you to put money in every month to make it work.
I have found one that suits me down to the ground. No monthly outlay, no stock to buy and hold, the company bills and collects the money from the customer monthly and pays me my commission. And, once the business has grown to a certain size my income becomes passive.
I said earlier that ii became good at a lot of sports and my main two were football and karate. I played football for the team that I run and it was while playing that that I got quite a bad injury to my leg. As all sportsmen do, I came back before I was fully healed and suffered minor twinges which I ignored. I then gave up football playing to concentrate on karate and I finally made it to the England Elite Squad. I won many competitions, including becoming English National Champion. I was training hard for the European selections when my thigh muscle went. After an x-ray they discovered that I had osteo-arthritis due to not resting my injury fully.
In my attempt to avoid having a hip replacement I discovered Pilates and was hooked. It didn’t stop me from having the hip replacement, but after my operation I was appalled at the lack of after care. So I now use my fitness knowledge to help people recover after injuries, improve their quality of life and improve their fitness.
I love helping people and I have helped found different ways to help people. Although at first glance it might look as if they are not linked, but wealth without health doesn’t make sense.
So, I am dedicated to connecting wealth and health for true life success.
