Married Couple REVEALS: How They Became Financially Free By 34!

Join us this week with Ken & Mary Okoroafor from The Humble Penny to discuss their new book The Wealth Habit. It's how putting in the right habits and investing your money helps you become the rich version of yourself. 

Ken & Mary have been teaching personal finance for many years and have two Sunday Times Bestsellers teaching you how to get rich. 

Get the book 👉🏼 https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-wealth-habit/ken-okoroafor/mary-okoroafor/9781529449204

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Chapters
00:00 Introduction
01:00 Why Listen To The Humble Penny
04:52 The Habit Framework That Actually Builds Wealth
07:08 How To Stop Impulse Buying
12:32 Identity-Based Wealth
19:44 How They Became Mortgage Free In 7 Years
21:52 Should You Invest Or Overpay Your Mortgage?
32:38 Compound Interest
43:35 The Employee Mindset
47:05 Your Income Is Rented
53:02 Building Multiple Income Streams
56:24 UK Crabs-In-A-Bucket
59:59 Learning To Be Uncomfortable

DISCLAIMER:
This episode is meant for educational purposes and should not be considered financial advice or UK tax advice. When you invest your capital is at risk. Past performance is not a guarantee of future success. Always do your own research.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

So, Ken, welcome back. Thank you. Glad to be back. I looked this up. You were episode 11 of the Money Gains podcast. Wow. And I just find that fascinating. That we've come had think how far we guys have come since then. That's incredible.

SPEAKER_03 0:15

And for you too. You've been doing amazing.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

It's changed since then. Lots gained. Lots gained.

SPEAKER_02 0:23

We weren't there early. But since we've spent two books you've had. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Both Thunder Times bestsellers. Yes, yes. Congratulations.

SPEAKER_02 0:35

Thank you. The wealth habit. Yes. It's a central idea to that wealth doesn't just start with money. It starts with a habit. Yeah. Which I love because I'm obsessed with this stuff. But most of us kind of know that we should say we should invest, we should compound our money, we should do something with it, but we don't. So why aren't we doing that, do you think?

SPEAKER_00 1:03

There's many reasons, but I'd say, well, firstly, life happens to a lot of us. That's where we had to start. So we're constantly being bombarded by a lot. So whether that be you know, things happening in our lives, circumstances happening, uh cost of living rising, um, situations happening, might be have had children or you know, all kinds of circumstances happening. Uh, but the bigger, deeper reasons because we are we are spending and enriching everybody else before we think about ourselves, right? And that's where the the root problem begins. So we've not created a way for us to keep more of our own money, you know, and a lot of us also don't understand how habit formation works. So habit formation is built on uh in the book we teach four steps basically or four um different stages. So usually it begins with a form of a trigger, so something that happens that might then you might then stack a habit onto. So it might be that in the morning I wake up and I might have my breakfast, make my toast. That's the trigger. Uh, and then I need to do something on top of that. And that something could be something that's connected to my finances. So it might be that I check my bank balance or I check um how my investments are doing, or whatever, right? So that's the action. But it also then needs to be some form of reinforcement, something that makes you feel like actually, this is worth my while doing all the time. Could be that you tick a habit tracker, could be that you fist bump, could be that you high-five your partner, you know, or whatever, right? That's a reinforcement that almost says, Do you know what? I'm happy that I'm moving in the right direction. And the final piece is then an identity piece, which is to say, actually, my finances are going well. I feel like I'm a wealth builder. So you're almost reinforcing that. So for a lot of us, we don't have an understanding of how habits are created, how the right habits are formed, and how to keep the right habits and how to prevent the wrong habits coming into or almost dominating our lives. Um, some of the most trickiest habits are like impulse buying and so on. So we don't have ways of getting rid of those and a way of attracting or keeping the right habits. So I think that's where a lot of us actually go wrong.

unknown 3:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:23

And it's one of the um frameworks that is actually in our book, the um the habits loop of wealth, exactly. So it's trigger, action, reinforcement, and identity. And you know, back to your question, I think that everything else is screaming for your attention. And if one is not intentional about it, life happens and life will spend your money for you. Um it's just what it's just one of those things, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 3:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:50

It's there's just so many things happening. When you think about it, is it the call the Eisenhower Matrix? Um it's one of those things invest in is very important, but it's not necessarily urgent. And so people just always, not not most people tend to just not do it if they don't have a system in place that makes it automatic. And that's the whole kind of premise of our book that building wealth, it should be in a way what that is effortless, inevitable, and sustainable for life. Um, it's not something that you rely on willpower or motivation or when you're feeling good, or when, you know, the stock market is looking okay at the moment. It's basically creating a system so that no matter what your um well, not no matter what's going on in the world, crashes, you know, you stay invested because you built a system and you stay invested. It means that you're consistent. And that way you're actually building wealth sustainably, consistently over time.

SPEAKER_02 4:47

So if we switch out a button if we think about this, right? So, like let's take security as the first sort of financial stepping stone that someone might look to do. So an emergency funding example. And then like a bad habit is potentially within that willpower metric, is perhaps saving after spending at the end of the month what's left. Whereas an automation piece and a good habit is building that into a payday routine where it's uh formulated. Is that what we're getting? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:16

So kind of like a good piece on there would be actually when I get paid, rather than paying everybody first, I pay myself first. Right. So that's a really in fact we call that that's the almost the big domino habit that lets everything else happen. Because if you've managed to keep a proportion of your income, maybe 10%, 20%, however much you want to keep, you then need to tell that money where to go. Right. So that that piece is actually quite important. Um, whereas a tricky or uh I don't want to say bad, but uh a habit that people don't like having is habits that end up almost self-s sabotaging you or um you know making you feel like actually I'm always gonna be where I am. So things that you know you are maybe speaking to something much deeper into your previous identity. So I mentioned impulse buying before. You know, I can relate to this as someone who I noticed that whenever I got super tired at night, usually around 11 p.m., I might find myself just browsing on Amazon. And you know, Amazon, for example, just putting that or all these other retailers, they make it super easy for you to just click post. Oh, yeah, you know. Next thing you know, it's in the basket before you even sound canceled they're like, it's already been delivered, yeah, it's on the way. And in some cases, it even arrives the same day. I know, man. I do know it's okay.

SPEAKER_03 6:36

Before 1 p.m.

SPEAKER_00 6:38

So the friction is removed to make it super easy for us to let go of our money. We need to use the same idea and work against that when it comes to keeping it, basically. So make it a lot harder for us to make um almost decisions we end up regretting and make it super easy for us to make, you know, form the habits that will build a future we want, make it easy for us to invest, make it easy for us to, you know, save money or you know, or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 7:08

And I think it's more um important than ever because of the way the the digital age now it's like Apple Pay Tap, buy now Amazon button, super fast next day delivery. It almost you don't necessarily feel it like you would when you were holding back in the day, like we would have a you know, 20-pound note, yeah, and we would pass it to someone and they would hand us something back. We don't have that handing back anymore. It's like pay the amount, digital transaction, it's gone. And you don't feel that like I don't know, I don't feel as emotionally attached to money in that same way now.

SPEAKER_00 7:43

There is a phrase for this, or uh psychologists call this a financial abstraction where you feel like you are detached from the reality of money, so you can easily buy something for £500 online because you have access to credit or the money is in your bank account. Usually it's the former, so people are usually borrowing a lot of the time. Um however, if I gave you £500 and said, Go and spend this, I give it to you in like £20 notes or £10 notes, you know, you'd feel this what's called the pain of paying. The pain of paying is the pain you feel when you're letting go of money because it starts to remind you, and that comes from cash, you know, you're like, oh, I'm actually letting go of this money, and you feel that inner pain that's connected to the effort that went into making that money. But you don't have that pain of paying when it comes to digital expenses. You're so detached from it that you can just buy something, click, click, click, your phone, your watch, your you know, your your fingerprint, you know, anything. They've made they're giving us multiple ways to easily pay and not experience that pain. So much so that actually people are detached from not knowing when they've spent what they have in the banks when they're now able to spend very easily into credit. And the mechanisms, as you know, are there to make us borrow and stay in debt.

SPEAKER_02 9:07

I have no problems with the cliner and clear pay law. I think I've gone for them on many videos. Oh, yeah. I just have this like thing if you can't pay for it, then we shouldn't be purchasing it. But unfortunately, we live in that societal world, it's it's a totally different world, and you can put deliverer and your groceries on it now, which I understand in a really emergency circumstances in certain cases, but for the large majority, please don't do that. Please, but um what I wanted to ask you is because when I read about the the habits and you know the four ways of the system, something I want to ask you about was could the trigger be a negative into a positive? So, for example, this is Ken sitting there uh out or Mary sitting there and you're on Amazon. That's technically isn't your negative. Could you then have that trigger? But then the actual then stack on that is you do something positive, such as like if it's above 50 pounds, you're then waiting 24 hours to limit the impulse dopamine or something on those lines.

SPEAKER_00 10:58

It could be that because think about it, like some people have a coffee addiction and they usually walk by their favorite coffee place on the way to work. That could only that could be their negative, that could that could be their like, oh, this is my my negative trigger because I am trying to detach myself from consuming too much coffee, and so the action could be actually I'll take a detour and follow a different route to to work so that I, you know, normally that would trigger me seeing that, but my next action on top of that to build the right habit instead would be I'll follow this route instead, or I might make myself a herbal tea when I get to the office or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 11:43

Yeah, I could be like layering cash back in on the spending, check if there's a discount available or something along those lines, which can turn that negative to a positive.

SPEAKER_03 11:52

Yeah. And you know, another thing that you could do is, you know, enforce the 24-hour pause button, which we you know mention in the book as well, before purchasing, like just park it aside for 24 hours because it could be that you actually added it to the cart because you had a bad day at work, um, you felt really low, or you know, you're trying to sort out a deeper problem, a deeper issue, and trying to solve it with um purchasing, but actually that doesn't solve the root cause. Sometimes it just takes sleeping on it and waking up and you realise, oh, actually, I don't even need that. Or it could be that you do genuinely need it and it's fine.

SPEAKER_02 12:27

I just genuinely think it's like the most powerful thing you can do, first of all.

SPEAKER_03 12:31

It's simple, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 12:32

And I talk about my gold trainer uh escapade, and it was that day that I put that rule in place. Um, so I bought myself some gold Nike Air Max 97 central. Yeah, they were bold, uh they were gold, wow, gold. Like uh they look sick on the ad, and they're and I was like, do you know what they are beautiful, but come on, like who am I? Like that's that's out there even for me. Um, and I kept them for because of the guilt of buying them. Um, because I bought them in the moment of feeling low about myself to make myself feel better by having the gold shiny shoes look at me kind of thing, and I knew I was doing it. Um, and I kept them for 29 days and a 30-day return, I sent them back. Oh wow, and because I was just so guilty about it, uh couldn't bring myself to wear it. Yeah, exactly. But that's that self-sabotage piece almost like self-chastising yourself because of the trainers, yeah. But it taught me a big lesson, and since then the 24-hour rule, I'm not joking, it's it's in the tens of thousands of pounds that saved me, I remember just because I'm so sucked into the new camera gear for the studio, the new X, Y, and Z, and sometimes these purchases are uh you know big money, yeah, and you're and you're just like yeah, go, but then you're like, no, wait, yeah, discount, do the things, make the checks, do the steps, and then if you need it, if you then want it and your dopamine is settled and you're making a logical decision, it's interesting in that.

SPEAKER_00 14:01

I think as creators we're drawn into that actually quite a lot, like the all the kits, camera gets you see your friend there like, oh I've got this this new camera, and it's the latest model. Oh man, I did it happen to be with the DJI.

SPEAKER_02 14:14

Um the DJI ones. So I was like, Yeah, I'll just like vlog, I'll start vlogging. Yeah, just sat there for weeks. I think we've got something simple everywhere.

SPEAKER_03 14:23

We're definitely guilty of that one.

SPEAKER_02 14:25

But we all are, and I think like this is what I'm saying, and I think it's is important. Like, we're we're we do this for a living. We talk about this all the time, but we are still making mistakes, yes, yes, and I think that's really, really important. Like, you can have all the habits in the world, you can be amazing at personal finance, but you can also still make mistakes just like everybody else. Um, but it's about what I like to say is like you if you're taking two steps forward and one step back where you're still moving forward, so just allow yourself that no one ever sticks to a budget, let's be honest. Like, but as long as you did it, you had the awareness around yourself, which is then bringing you and making some good decisions along the way, more than bad, and you should be moving in the right direction. Absolutely. But the first book you had was Financial Joy, yes, um, which was also a Sunday Times bestseller. Come on, come on, come on. Um, what happened after that? Like, did people actually follow the plan, or did you realize something was missing to write this book?

SPEAKER_00 15:18

So people follow so financial joy was a 10-week plan. Uh, the promise is um to help you banish debt, grow your money, unlock financial freedom. So we think of that relative to the new book as Financial Joy is the reset. So it helps you to um reset your relationship with money and gives you the foundations you need to begin that journey. And it's almost like having two people who care about you go on the journey with you, basically. That book's very, very intimate, very personal, lots of very uh intimate stories. And what did we notice with couples? What did couples start to do with the book?

SPEAKER_03 15:55

Um, so couples were reading it together. They were doing the because it's quite a practical book, and you know, at the end of each chapter, you've got some action steps. And yeah, they notice some major breakthroughs. Like we get, sorry, a lot of um the feedback that we get is that it's helped them so much in their finances, coming together, doing things more jointly, um, as opposed to separate. And so that for us has been amazing feedback. And generally, yeah, it's been very positive.

SPEAKER_01 16:25

Incredibly positive.

SPEAKER_03 16:26

It's been incredible. And we do talk about um mindset um in financial joy, um, but we go into habits in much more detail in the wealth habit because we're focusing on the psychology, the neuroscience, the reasons why we form habits and you know how to change those habits and how your identity um shapes your habits and your mindset. And it's just we wanted to go deeper into it. I mean, what were some of the feedbacks that you got from the first book?

SPEAKER_00 16:56

I want to just mention as well that um, of course, the book was very, very helpful to single people, a lot of single people who follow our work. Um, I want to just mention that because we talked about couples earlier. Um, but the framing of the first book is it's the reset. But the feedback we also got was that people would love to go into more detail on yes, I have some knowledge of something, but how do I turn it into a system so I don't have to think about it all the time, worry about it, so I can develop the right mindset and habits? How do I, but I want to be able to make small little changes, not big, okay, financial freedom. And you know, that's like a big thing. But what are some small things I can do that I can even do like right now? And that's what the new book's about. So the new book, The Wealth Habit, is we call it the system to make wealth building effortless, inevitable, and sustainable for life. Anyone can apply it, it's got the frameworks in there, it's very um actionable, actionable. Yes. Every chapter has a framework, has a story from around the world, has small action steps, has pauses for reflection, um, has a chapter summary, has also a mantra. Each chapter has a mantra just to help with that mindset, that rewiring of your brain and how you think and how you operate. Uh, and so this book has, like as Mary mentioned, all that global research. So um we wanted to make it more global as well, because we noticed that um our first book was written from a UK lens, but for a global audience. But this book, The Wealth Habits, now is written for a global audience, even though we're from the UK. So it's already been translated into Italian, into complex Chinese, uh, and we're expecting you know more translations. And this happened even before the book came out. They already signed those deals. Um, so it's a much more global book. So whether you are in the UK, whether you're in Birmingham, Manchester, London, Los Angeles, Lagos, Kenya, wherever you are, the wealth habit is uh one that you can absolutely apply to your life as well as financial joy, but you know, given this is the latest book.

SPEAKER_02 19:03

So would you say do financial joy and then wealth habit or depends on question?

SPEAKER_00 19:08

It depends. I'd say that if you are somebody who still feels like you're struggling with your foundational relationship with money, you're dealing with debt, you're trying to begin to learn to invest, da da da, all those elements begin with financial joy. If you're someone who says, I have those foundations sorted, but do you know what? I'm still relying on my willpower. I'm still like, you know, the bad news and the, you know, the bad news is making me sell my investments. I'm not automated, I don't have a system. My mind still's my mindset still needs work. I want to make it more effortless. I want to make wealth building inevitable. If you want all those elements, you want the system for wealth building, you need the wealth habit. So together, they're like a a layer on each other, basically. Um, they give the full journey, is how we kind of look at it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:06

So I'd love to ask you because, you know, I think you both sort of documented that you you you you didn't come from a silver spoon environment. You know, you've worked for everything you have, and I think you worked extremely hard. I think you're both extremely inspirational people. Thank you. So at what point did you go from survival mode and actually thinking that we can do this, we can build wealth, and what triggered that shift for you or start with your marriage, do you think?

SPEAKER_03 21:31

Um, okay, so there wasn't um a particular point per se. Um, just growing up and seeing, I give you example, my um parents, right? My dad, he was so a bit of background about us. I'm second generation immigrant. My parents migrated over in their late 70s. Um, I was born four years after in a council estate in Hackney, East London. And my parents were, say they were working class. I just remember my dad had a job in an office and he had to go back to Nigeria to bury his um dad. Um when he came back, he didn't have a job. He'd lost it, was made redundant. There was no such thing as, you know, HR wasn't really a big thing back then. Um and he struggled to get another office job. And but we'd only just recently purchased the house.

SPEAKER_02 22:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 22:19

And so I was like, okay, how's he gonna pay the mortgage? Um, and so that was that caused a lot of you know tension and you know, stress and him having to work overtime. And my mum wanted to retire. It was just difficult. She had to also go back into work.

SPEAKER_02 22:32

Was that visual for you at the time? Like, did you know that? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:35

I was in secondary school um at the time, and I could just remember like, oh, this is not a good thing. Um, and then I had my um older sibling, I've got three older brothers that I lived with, um, and he was doing really well financially. He did the whole work hard, go to uni, get a good job. He had a nice apartment, nice car. Um, and then Juvened.com bust in 2000. I don't know if you remember. Yeah. All the tech companies were affected. He lost his job. He had to move back home and sleep on the living room floor. And I was thinking, this isn't right. Like you're quite, you're doing, you were doing quite well. You had an apartment. Like, what was it? Okay, he was renting at the time. And this isn't anything towards renters, like, if that's what you want to do, that's fine. But at the time, I knew that I wanted financial independence. And I didn't know that's what the term was at the time when I was young. I just knew that I wanted that security. Um, and I wanted something that I owned out outright. Um, so I was quite good with money in terms of being frugal, being able to make money, but that was where my financial literacy ended. I didn't know how to invest, you know, in a stock market or, you know, property, basically put my money in an environment where it can grow. Um so yeah, what was your question again?

SPEAKER_02 23:45

I kind of um, so we kind of because you uh, you know, obviously we're not taught this stuff. Yeah. So, but you two have. Gone on to what would be perceived as done well for yourselves.

SPEAKER_03 23:55

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:56

Um, obviously, a lot of people from your environments and your situations and don't have that outcome. So what's the difference? Like where's that mindset changed for you?

SPEAKER_03 24:07

Yeah. And so I guess it was that there was a gap between where I was and where I wanted to get to. And I filled it through like reading, research, you know, courses. That's how I met Ken at a property investment seminar in 2009. It was at a property investment seminar. Um, and I guess we just had to learn. And when we both decided that we wanted to go on this journey together of financial independence, I guess you can say having two people that were on board um helped to make that become a reality. Um, we went away when Ken proposed to me, we got engaged and then we were on holiday planning our wedding, but we also created a 10-year plan. Um of course you guys did. I love this case. Normal people just like plan their wedding, who do we want to invite, plan with surprise maids? But yeah, we came up with a 10-year plan, which uh honestly that has been so instrumental to like it, yeah, it's just been so such a positive thing. You know, as part of the 10-year plan, we wanted to pay off our mortgage in seven years, and we were able to achieve that. You did that, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:12

So it's 380k, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's a phenomenal achievement, guys.

SPEAKER_00 25:17

It's it's huge for us. Yeah, it's a big, very, very big deal.

SPEAKER_02 25:20

Yeah. Very, I mean, sorry to say can I ask around that because there's a there's there's the investors don't pay off your mortgage. There's the um British, like, I need to overpay my mortgage, bring that down. There's people who sit in the middle. You've obviously gone down that. Yeah. Do you still think that was the right decision, knowing what you know? Um would you suggest people to do that again?

SPEAKER_03 25:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:48

For us, it was the right decision. So we didn't just do one thing, we didn't just what pay off the mortgage. We've always invested in the stock market. Began investing in 2010. Um, but we've invested at different uh amounts and levels. So some at some stages we were just going, going, going, going on a property and then dialed down on our stock market investments. At other stages, we've upped our stock market investments and dialed down on our overpayment. So our approach has always been to do both because we saw that as firstly, we don't want to miss out in some capacity. Of course, you will always miss out, it's always a trade-off. But for us, I think this is a very individual thing. For everybody, there will be a different pathway. There isn't a right or wrong answer. Although, like, people will always try to get you to believe that you're wrong, you shouldn't have done this, or like that person's right. They shouldn't, you know. And I always say, look, you have to ask yourself what's most important to you. And for us, for our long-term goals and our personal circumstances, it mattered that we wanted to pay off our mortgage. It meant a lot to us. There's so a lot of backstory behind that types from a family perspective, from you know, our parents go on the property ladder so late, they were still paying their mortgage in their retirement. There's so many things that are unique to our story and journey that's not unique to anybody else, right? So, yeah, in the same way, there's so many things as unique to other people that are not unique to us. So, in that sense, like which is half more. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 27:19

You can't even use an investment portfolio which might be 50 grand higher. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:23

And you can't even really compare. Like, there's so many things you can't measure. So you can measure an investment portfolio, but you can't measure the joy, you can't measure like the peace, you can't measure that sense of safety in the household. You can't, there's so many things you can't measure, the utility of a home, and there's just so many other things.

SPEAKER_02 27:40

But the key word with that is uh might with your investment portfolio versus a hundred percent character of still paying off the mortgage and you've not even factored in the optionalities created.

SPEAKER_00 27:51

Think about what we do today. Like, what we did today wouldn't be possible if Mary and I hadn't paid off our mortgage. Like by that, I mean like it gave us an optionality, dropped our living costs massively. Mender, we could take more risks, we could do more things, we could start our own platforms and do more businessy stuff or you know, investing in other areas, you know. And it's still an asset. And it's still an asset on the money. It's not stopped us doing anything, it's not stopped us investing in a stock market, it's not stopped us technically the house or if anything, it's actually created more opportunity. We run, like I was saying to you earlier, the home actually is very productive. We run our we have a studio at home, we have a gym at home, like we do things from the house. Like it's actually not just like, you know, people say, Oh, it's a wasting asset or not a wasting asset, like um, it's not an asset because it's owned by the bank. Well, actually, no, the bank doesn't own it. We own the house fully. On top of that, it actually creates lots of value for us, not just monetarily, but um a much more intangible value as a family raising children and you know so many other things.

SPEAKER_02 28:51

I think you just hit the nail on the head there, like there's now the 100% of the property which you can then pass down to your kids. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it just has an inherent value as well, which you can't put a price on. Like I think, and that's what we all essentially are striving to do if you have young families. Like you want to make sure the kids are secure. A large part of most people's wealth-building asset is their property.

SPEAKER_00 29:13

Yeah, and you know what's interesting when we ask people to completely sentence, completely sentence, I'm wealthy when I dot dot dot. A lot of people who did this reply to us said, I'm wealthy when I have paid off my mortgage. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of people, they might not say it to you know, to you face to face, but like in the in deep within, this is a burden for people. People don't like, think about what's happening now in the world. We have the crisis, you know, global crisis is happening. And of course, with that comes inflation. Inflation rises. What happens? You know, interest rates become higher. What does that do? That takes away money from people's pockets because they have to give more money to the bank. You know, so this is a real pain for people. You know, so I don't know why why people front when they're talking about mortgage paying off. Of course, do you not want the pain? If you don't want the pain anymore, can't pay anything off because the pain will always be there with a mortgage because the bank owns the property. Their names are under deeds until you've paid them their money back. And there's also the compounding element that we don't talk about because often, because that aspect is one that is outside of our control, right? The compounding element of debt. A lot of people don't understand the maths of how their mortgage debt is compounding, it's compounding daily. Yeah, every day you're gonna look at a mortgage statement. Every day the banks are like rubbing their hands like this. They're happy because your property is an asset on their balance sheet, and every day it creates money. It's like money from they just know it's guaranteed to come in. So the question is, is how do you stop that compounding happen? Well, one way of doing it is to consider overpaying a little bit. Break the cycles, exactly. Yeah, it comes back to what we're talking about with the wealth habit. This is what we did, you know. Um, I still never forget the day we made a phone call to the bank, and on that one day, making a call to remortgage down our rate and overpaying by for us £500 a month by adjusting our lifestyles to make it simpler, we wiped nine years off the term. Nine years, right? Just think about it. It might not sound like a lot to a lot of people, but think about nine years. It's been six years since COVID. That's not even up to nine years yet, right? Imagine nine whole years without a mortgage, without a payment, without anything. So when I see all these debates online, I'm just like, yeah, like you guys can argue all you want. Like, but I actually understand. You're you're not in my shoes. I know what it's like to be mortgage free, and it's amazing, right? And that's a good thing. I'm not saying it's for everybody. Yeah, we know some people, it's not for them. Like they can just both. Yeah, that's what that's what we do.

SPEAKER_02 31:47

So, like, and and I really like what you said there. You moved it up and down. Did you move it up and down based on how you felt or how the market was performing?

SPEAKER_03 31:56

It was both. Well, the especially the market. Uh so whenever there were dips, it was like the stock market's on sale. Dips went up, yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:03

Smart. That's exactly it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we were buying things where they're on sale, um, when we felt there was a greater compounding related to our property, more guaranteed return, overpay more, you know. But every time we had both going.

SPEAKER_01 32:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:16

And that worked for us. For some people, they don't like that. They're like, actually, I just want to invest in a stock market, and that's fine. For other people, they go to the other extreme, which we don't recommend, only just focusing on the property because that's just locking everything into one part. That's it. Yeah. Um, whereas we're like, actually, we want to take up our ICER allowances, want to, you know, do as best we can. Um, and you know, there's no perfect formula, Sami.

SPEAKER_02 32:36

I think it's no, there is never this called personal finance.

SPEAKER_03 32:41

Exactly. Exactly. If you're young, you're single, you have no kids, you can benefit from due arbitrage, maybe earning in pounds or dollars and living somewhere else where it's really dirt cheap, and why not? Go and do that thing for you if that's the season in your life that you're in and it works for you. I think for us, something definitely changes as well when you have children. You definitely want that stability, that security, that base and that peace of mind.

SPEAKER_02 33:05

So I completely agree. Can I ask on the overpayments? Yeah, when you overpay, do you does that come off the principle rather than the interest? And how could you explain that for someone? Because we will always get questions around this. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:20

Yeah. So it you can nominate where it comes off. But when we were overpaying, we were getting it come off the main principle. Because the principle is what creates your interest, basically. So if you can get that coming off the principal amount, then you have a lower principal amount that then compounds daily because your debt's compounding daily. And if you can hit that principle as early as you can to come down, even if it's by 20 quid, 50 quid, 100 quid, 500 pounds, whatever ease you can afford, it makes a real big difference because you have a smaller amount that's generating interest over time. You notice the interest amount comes down, or the term can come down, depending on how you look at it. But ultimately they're doing the same thing, which is really that the amount you're owing has come down, it's leading to less interest over time, and it's also mathematically reducing the term of your mortgage uh over time. So that's really it.

SPEAKER_02 34:11

What I'm doing at the moment is um I have roundups on my spending. Okay. So I use my roundups, it goes into the pot, and then I pay it down like through there. And that's just a little way of like me, it's that old like throw the change in the jar mentality. And that that just allows me to be a little bit more like, and then sometimes I turn it off because like recently our dog got sick and we like rinsed our emergency fund and it got like pulled right down, and we also had like a load of things. Life happens, right? Yeah, life happens. When it rains it pours, and it was one of those seasons at the back end of last year. I think everybody was finished.

SPEAKER_00 34:48

Oh, we had that last year, our boiler breakdown to replace it.

SPEAKER_02 34:52

Literally, we moved house, um, moved in. The previous people had cats, they had cats, but they hadn't looked after them, so there was a complete, there was an out of flea infestation. The dog got sick, went to hospital, we lost like family members, and it all happened. And you know, when you're just like, wow, and in the end you start laughing because you're like, it surely can't get worse. Like water came cascading through the ceiling, had to get a board um emergency plumber out on Christmas Day, and like it's like that. Um, but so we rinsed emergency funds. So we like when stuff like that happens, and I think this is what we were sort of talking about earlier, there's seasons of life where things are happening, yeah, and that's it in this season just means that I'm like in the restack mode of like get the emergency volume back up to security levels, yeah, and then I can start overpaying the mortgage or adding more into the investments again. And I think you have to have that flexibility with financial.

SPEAKER_00 35:47

I know seasons when it goes the other way. You might have uh a tax refund, or you might have a work bonus, you might have your business might just do better than you expected, or you know, your side hustle has just suddenly brought in an extra thousand pounds, or you know, so you know, I I I just think the trick is having some way of making sure that you are always keeping a portion of what you're making. I think that's the trick because a lot of us we're fighting fires a lot of the time and it's very poverty-driven. By that I mean, like, I just want to pay that bill, I just want to pay that thing, I just want to pay that thing. When actual fact we should be asking ourselves, well, how is my wealth builder identity being reinforced? Where's the evidence in my life that I'm moving towards where I want to get to? Am I investing? Even if it's like, I don't forget one thing my mum said to me, she said, even when you're a business owner, I know you have responsibility to pay your staff, your team, your tech, your always make sure you pay yourself, she says. Because even if you pay yourself £100, you still maintain the identity that actually I'm in control here and I'm not just working for other people, I'm actually paying myself, I'm actually progressing. So you might pay yourself a little bit this month, but next time it might be way more than that, you know. But the key thing is that it's that consistency in making sure that a portion of what you're making is being kept, and then that thing you're keeping has there's a role, there's a place it's going.

SPEAKER_02 37:15

So you talk a lot about identity-based wealth, like like yeah, I am an investor, I'm a wealth builder, which kind of speaks to that like abundance mindset, kind of manifestation in a way, which has like it's really interesting because we've been speaking quite a lot about like the data points and the automation and the systems, but then there's also this kind of like some people might call it a little bit woo-woo, but uh some but I am obsessed with this stuff too. Because I I I think with this type of thinking, it's like everyone has that in their power, whether they are rich or flat broke or deeply in debt. You have the ability to use your mind to tell yourself something and that you can be that person. Um, so why wouldn't you use it?

SPEAKER_03 38:02

Absolutely, absolutely. It's I think there was a um stat that 30% of our day we're running on autopilot, and a lot of that, what we don't realize is that we're playing out these, some of them are poor money scripts um that can be causing self-sabotage. You're repeating the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Um, and so for somebody who may have a scarcity mindset, then they're not going to spot opportunities. They're going to where someone with an abundance mindset might see an opportunity, they'll see a problem. You know, where they see um different opportunities to build wealth, you know, they see problems. And and so it's important to really, really work on that mindset, like you were saying, to create a new identity. Because without that, I mean, you know, they say that you're you can build wealth or you can call yourself a wealth builder even before it shows up in your bank account. But it starts as like, you know, reinforcing that identity through small actions. And this is why it's accessible to anybody because anyone can form a habit. You know, you don't have to be a millionaire to be able to form a small habit to start it. Well, to start a habit. And then they say it takes about 66 days for it to become a habit. 66 days.

SPEAKER_02 39:15

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:17

Some say 30, some say 66.

SPEAKER_02 39:18

Yeah, I've heard 90 as well. So like that's really interesting. 66.

SPEAKER_03 39:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:23

That feels about right. Uh, we say roughly two to three pay cycles in a lot of our content, and I feel like that's it, it's different per person, right? That's what it can take slightly longer. Yes. Oh, interesting. So then that gets you into the mix. But you're right, like this, you could it could be 10p. Yeah, and and and you might value 10p. That 10p could be to you that could what someone else might see 100 pounds as. Again, it's that personal thing where your beginning, your starting point, is completely utterly personal to you, but and you use that power to start the habit, right? Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 39:56

I'd say one thing about words. Words can either build or words can destroy. Words are really powerful. So look at where we are in this podcast studio. Everything in this room began in someone's mind. And then that thing in their mind had to be vocalised, has had to be spoken, had to be visioned. They had to speak it into life. They had to get team members, they had to get contractors, they had to contact suppliers, they had to use their words. Right. So words are very powerful things. Words can build things. The city of London began by people visioning, speaking, speaking things into being, and then constructing and building, right? So when you think about it at that unit level, words build or destroy, right? And there's no bigger asset than really yourself, right? So what you begin to say to yourself matters so much. So if you begin to say things like, people like me don't get rich, you know, or money doesn't grow on trees, you know, or you know, money's the root of all evil, right? Right? See, all this all these things are designed to keep you in the mental frame of a particular type of person. So you will always think that there's only one pie in the world. If you take one of those pies, you're taking it from me. So, you know, and vice versa. That's a very scarcity-driven mindset. Yeah, you know, because you've been conditioned to think in a particular way. You think that somebody else's success is your is your misfortune, right? When in actual fact, somebody else who thinks, actually, do you know what? Like, I can create opportunity. The future is not anybody's um, nobody's least the future. The future is open to everybody. Like, what's gonna happen tomorrow? Nobody knows, but we can make decisions today that place us at a particular place of advantage tomorrow, right? So that's us thinking abundantly. That's us saying more pies can be created. We're not all fighting over one thing. We can we can tap into our inbuilt creativity, we can use the right words, we can speak positively into who we are, we can use the words to build our new identity, right? I could sit here and go, do you know what? I'm a wealth builder, even though I might not have all the pieces yet, I might not see the evidence yet, but I'm working towards it. I'm taking small steps. I've I'm building the right habits to help me get there. I'm shifting my mindset, I'm in the right environments. Like this morning, I was at a networking event. You know, I'm in the spaces where the right people are saying what I want to be saying, where they're making certain moves and not just going, oh, the economy is rubbish. Tony. So I'm like, I'm not gonna do anything. I'm just gonna sit and complain on my laptop in the comment section. When in actual fact, I could be out there building, I could be out there using technology, trying things out, I could be out there experimenting with a mindset that I'm not going to fail, but I'm going to learn, right? I'm going to build and see what happens. Right. So this is where words come in, because words are so powerful. What we say to ourselves in the morning, what we say to ourselves throughout the day, what we say to our partners, what we say to our children if we have any children, what we say to anybody if we have team members, all matters. All helps to um almost determine what will what will be happening next, how people will react to you. You know, it's like walking on the street, say to your neighbor, good morning. Do you know what that does? I love this. Yeah. Like you just say good morning to your neighbor. You fill up. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, whoa.

SPEAKER_01 43:35

Like people have not heard that in a while.

SPEAKER_02 43:36

No one's where you are. They say it where I live. Oh, that's good. Well, I used to live in London.

SPEAKER_00 43:41

If I walked through like near hack near the city, people just be like, people just what you do. Why are you talking to me, man? Who are you? Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So you see already the words are already building that, it's building a relationship, it's building a bridge between two people. Yeah, 100%. Because then you're having conversation, right? Same thing applies to everything, because everything's connected. Sometimes they're like, oh, lovely day, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 44:03

And you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And you stop. Yeah. And that moment's really interesting. But I also do it with the um, I find it uh uh they they get really shocked, and you can see that they don't get treated like that for most of the day. Like when you go in and to the coffee shop, sorry, coffee addiction and that so I'm in the coffee shop and they're like, How can I help? And I go, First up, hey, how are you? And they go, I'm all right. How are you? And you're like, You don't get asked that, do you? And I just think that's a that's a nice moment. I always do that. Um, I think treat other people how you would want to be treated, absolutely like different girls, but that connection piece and how because you walk away from that transaction going, I reckon I've just lit up her next 10 minutes. She'll probably forget about that, but like you or or his or whatever, and that that makes you feel good, and you take that into your next interaction, and it's sort of it's that spreading joy.

SPEAKER_03 45:02

Absolutely, absolutely. I love that point about spreading joy, and you know, to the point you're making as well, these different mindsets. We talk in the book as well about the employee mindset where you're you feel like you can only trade time for money, and that's the only way, and you're relying on your employer for your bonus or pay rise. Whereas if you say you're a wealth builder, even though you're still an employee, you're a wealth builder, actually, you still have some, you have some agency. Yes. You actually have some control to do with your your net income to pull it in in stocks and shares ISO, for example, or put a portion into your future self fund pot or your pension pot, but you have agency because you don't just see yourself as an employee, but as a wealth builder.

SPEAKER_00 45:45

Or create more income even.

SPEAKER_03 45:47

Yeah, exactly. Without permission without necessary permission. Yes, hundred percent.

SPEAKER_02 45:52

I'm I'm a big fan of this because I'm sort of playing with the idea of that income is rented at the moment. So you you you have a subscription service from your landlord and your landlord is your boss and to be able to buy that. And when people hear that, they're like, What are you talking about? But then I'm like, listen to it and um tell me I'm wrong because it's not because your landlord could cancel the subscription service, and then what do you have? Exactly. So then if you if you're just relying on that one source and you haven't created you know choice and freedom for yourself through even a tiny portion of your your wealth security, which is why like that first three months of living expenses, X, Y, and Z gives you that choice, that freedom, that ability, the weight of the shoulders comes down, and then you can build from that point on. So you always start from that point on. Would you agree with that? Absolutely, 100%. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:43

Yeah, no, I totally agree. I I I I I know for a fact that one thing that one of the biggest problems we all face is just this sense that I only have one option, and that one one option is waiting for my paycheck to come in.

SPEAKER_03 46:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:59

Um one of the most powerful things that I personally realized was, and I realized this actually when I left my corporate job, was how much I was giving up for that one source of income. Totally. Like literally putting everything into this one one basket. So your identity, right? Yeah, like you're giving up every other possibility. I don't I don't think even people watching right now or listening right now might not still even understand it when I say that there's so much possibility out there, right? But it requires a particular mindset to think that way, to go, actually, like I can use my skills, my ability, my network, my connections, my relationships, I can use those to create value for other people to create opportunity, right? Whereas in a in a job, and nothing wrong with jobs, but I just want people to understand, in a job, everything is capped. There's no like you have to wait until you get the pay rise, that's all you're gonna get. You only get what's in the contract, and everything's capped. So it wasn't until I when I had that epiphany, it's almost like scales fell off my eyes. It's like, whoa, like I've been awakened to a different way of thinking, actually, because like why would I put everything into one basket? That makes no sense for me today. Totally. But there's a it's a journey we all go on, right? Of creating buying back your time, right?

SPEAKER_02 48:21

Yeah, buying back some of your own time, buying back some of your own security with the mortgage, and it's all about buying back choice and freedom at the end of the day. Yeah, and like it that reliance piece. And the reason why I'm talking about this quite a lot in the content at the moment is because I feel like it's the cycles of job security where that promise to us from before when we were younger, it was go to uni or like get a good job and work hard, get the family, the the mortgage, the kids, like that that that kind of that pathway was laid out for us as millennials, right? And then all of a sudden now it's like AI that's being ripped about. Absolutely. That's that security and that journey, and because of the cost of living, that promise to us is a bit broken. So, like that reliance piece on the salary is becoming even more of an emergency in my eyes.

SPEAKER_03 49:13

Yeah, definitely. It's it is definitely critical right now, more than ever before. Um, people's jobs are not really promised. And you know, you were asking what made us want to also achieve financial independence. I think that was another thing that I noticed. My first graduate job, I got made redundant after like what one year. And same as you, we got made redundant at the same time in 2008, financial crisis. Um, got another job, and within I was there for about uh five years. In that time, there were three waves of redundancies. I wasn't affected, but I saw my colleagues and how it caused stress, even for me. Um, it wasn't a nice environment to be in. So from an early age, I realized that I'm not going to rely on my employer ever. I'm here to learn, but ultimately I need to create income for myself.

SPEAKER_01 50:00

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 50:01

Diversify, have multiple streams of income. And to the point of AI, now more than ever, people should look at how they can have diversify and create different income streams where you're not just relying on your employer.

SPEAKER_00 50:15

I I think at the moment, a lot of people are in a place where they experience an inaction. So they know that there's the world's changing. The the floor we're standing on is beginning to shift. There's stuff happening, jobs are disappearing in many ways. Opportunities have been created, but jobs are disappearing, people are out of work for longer. People know that they're seeing evidence of that. It's all over our feeds. You can look at the news cycles. If you pay attention, the information stand, the newsers stand. See, Oracle today is 30,000 people. There you go. There you go. You know, and then you think, well, 30,000 is not just people, it's families, it's exactly it's households, right? It's and some of those people could even be couples working in the same company. So they've lost total household income in one go, right? So but so here's the the piece I I find that people are experiencing right now is where they just don't know what to do next. That's that's where it where things are at. So it's like I I I have this, I feel paralyzed. I'm in my job, I'm bound by a contract, and some of them are quite punitive actually, because they say you can't do anything else. And this is where I start to say, well, actually, so will you actually not do anything? Will you actually like not figure out a way? Because otherwise, the way I'm looking at it is people just end up waiting on they get pushed, yeah, and then you get pushed, and then it's like, well, I have no income now. Is it conveyable to the cliffs? Yes, yes, and then exactly that. Uh oh, what's happening? Yeah, you could see it. Yeah, yeah. It's like, okay, so now I've lost my job. What do I do now? So I've seen people lose their job, so because they're still in the mindset of the employee mindset, the wiring, they still are waiting for permission to start to do something else.

SPEAKER_03 52:06

Do you know what it is? I think also it's it's dangerous when your identity is so tied into your career, what you studied at university, or you know, what because a lot of people they've worked their way up, you know, for years and they've formed this, you know, um professional role and they're confident in it. It's quite hard to, you know, take yourself out of that identity and create a new one. It is quite a difficult thing to do.

SPEAKER_02 52:30

It's a reinvention almost. It has to be.

SPEAKER_03 52:33

You had to do that. I noticed you, and even though you had the humble penny on the side, I saw how much of a kind of not conflict, but it wasn't.

SPEAKER_00 52:41

Because I've worked for 14 years, built up, become chief financial officer, big title on LinkedIn, big salary, big bonus, big pension, all those things you have for having worked your way up your career for 14 years and a nice lifestyle that that comes with. You can go on holiday every year, you know, all those elements. And then suddenly letting all of that go. There's an identity that's lost in that. But I think for me, it was a gradual shift because it liberating. Well, it was it tough. It was, it was. I think the best word I have for it is I was anxious.

SPEAKER_03 53:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:17

Because I'd gotten so used to every month I was I knew what was coming in from that particular job. Even though I had other streams that we'd been building, that little thing that came from the corporate job was actually quite nice to have. Because every month, same amount, the perks, your pension contributions, the free fruit in the office, you know, like all the things you get. So I'd gotten so used to getting all those things. Um, but the the good news was that three years before I took that leap, we'd started doing other things. I'm waved to you years before that what Mary and I'd been, you know, building our own financial journey as a family. But outside of our family stuff, we were doing other things. I started blogging, I started doing others. So all these other activities, although they initially were not really doing anything, making money, even though we were just creating traffic and opportunity potentially, they had basically reduced that need for permission. Do you get my point? 100%. So this is the thing. So I feel like a lot of people right now are waiting for for them to for some to say, oh, you can now go and try and make some money. You're allowed to go and do that, you know, because we're so entrenched in those jobs by those employment contracts, or just the sense that we've never done it really before. We've never really hunted. You know, like back in the day, you had to go and hunt and get your own food. Like you, if you if you couldn't hunt, you couldn't get any food. Like that was it. I was like way, way, way, way back, right? But today, the way we earn is different. It's just you show up, you do your thing on your laptop, you can even like keep, you know, buy something that shows that you're still online or whatever, you know, and you still get paid. Like, this is this is a new way of earning. But I I feel like we need to redefine our new way of earning now. It needs to be like, and this is why I like this idea of a portfolio career. I know it's not for everyone, but my idea has always been I don't ever want to put all my eggs in one basket. Why would I want to do that? I'll do this, I'll do that, I'll do that, and I'll do that. Four different streams or whatever, different ways that I will earn. If that goes down, those three are still earning. In the same ways this investor thinking. So remember, it's this wealth builder identity. I'm thinking as a investor, I'm thinking as a business owner, as a wealth builder. I'm thinking more broadly so that my household will always be provided for. I'm not stressing all the time. You pick up different caps. Yeah, different things. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And a lot of these things I'm mentioning can be done by anybody, if you think about it. Totally. One could be you're doing um a part-time job. Another could be, do you know what? Like I stay doing an NED role, like a non-exact director role. Uh, another could be that you invest or you earn certain um assets that you invest and you manage those things gradually. It could be something stock market investments, could be maybe a property asset over time, could be whatever. Another could be something else. Could be the, you know, you run a membership community online where you never have to meet people, but you are serving them on the internet and you're making some income from that. There's so many different things people can do, but I think it all begins with the first pillar, which we talk about in the wealth habits, to build the mindset. Because if you don't build a mindset, nothing happens. Yeah, you know, everybody wants so we talk about four pillars, right? Build a mindset, build a habit, build a system to build a life. People want to build a life, but they don't want to do the steps before it. You can't have a steady house, metaphorically speaking. Let's say the house is building wealth without a solid foundation. The foundation is the mindset. If that's not if that's not built, if that's not developed, nothing anyone tells you would work. Even if they hand it, they're like, here's the blueprint. You would still not do it because your mindset hasn't shifted. You're still the same person. There needs to be a shift that happens for you to then go, I get it. I get it. And I'm willing to experiment, I'm willing to take the steps to create the change and become somebody else. And I'm not hate on people, because a lot of people, you know, in the UK is a lot of like this negative energy.

SPEAKER_02 57:17

Oh my god, it was one of my questions for you today. Okay, like you've written that for a global audience, but it seems like this conversation, this belief that we need this abundance, this wealth builder mindset, is really bloody hard here. It is. But then you go to like I spent a bit of time in LA and actually all over the US, and everyone that I've met, even the people that are just trying to get up, have this like madly weird delusion that they are gonna do the thing. Yes. And even if they don't, they just still maintain it and it passes on, and it's quite infectious. I'm not saying everyone's like that in the US, that'd be a gross mis, you know, mis uh you know what I mean. Um but I think it's um here is very like you'd be lucky to find one in ten that's got that delusion, yeah. Um which is just such an odd way. And why do you think this is? And uh have you looked into this yourself?

SPEAKER_03 58:16

Such a good question.

SPEAKER_00 58:17

So there's this culture we have in the UK of you know the crabs in a bucket.

SPEAKER_03 58:22

Yeah, I was gonna say that.

SPEAKER_00 58:25

Yeah, the idea that you know you are in a place of comfort when you can see other people at the same level as you, and if they try to, you know, level up or leave that bucket, the culture is to find a way of pulling them back down because you want them back to where you are. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Rather than that, rather than like stretching to come out of the bucket with them, right? And and this is an inbuilt culture. You see it everywhere. You see it in the media, you see it on social media, you see it in the news. You see it, pay attention to the language, pay attention to how people describe other people, read people's comments when they think they're not being watched online and they're like in this in their little dark room commenting. You know, this is inbuilt, right? It's it's wired into the fabric of the nation, and it shouldn't be like that. And it's not that everyone's like this, by the way, but it's just the culture. And you see this also in Australia, Australia is another place, it's quite similar. There's tall pop tall poppy syndrome, I think they call it. Yeah, you know, over there, and and there's other places like that. When we began our journey, we used to read a lot of American blogs. I just love like reading these American income reports and financial centers and like all these, yeah, all these sites. Yeah, like, yeah, man, these guys are different. I get lit up. I'm like, whoa, I'm like, these guys are doing some sick things.

SPEAKER_02 59:41

On occasion, it's kind of annoying. Yeah, yeah. Like when you go and like you speak to them and they're like, hey man, have a Starbucks day.

SPEAKER_00 59:47

You're like, yo, like chill out. But do you know what the attitude, the it's just the audacity, right? Like you're like hundreds of.

SPEAKER_02 59:55

I think because we have me, yeah, us three here, we we have that like growth mindset, right? So like we are attracted to that because we're like we are quite delusional because we do and push things like writing a book. Yes, that's a monumental attribute. Literally, right? To do, let alone two, yes, so like two Sunday Times bestsellers. Yeah, so like that's a big big delusion to go and think that you know, you have you two got the audacity to write a book. Do you know what? Do you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:23

Like Mary's friend, a really good friend of ours, Gloria, asked us this same question when she phoned us to congratulate us for the Sunday Times bestseller. She's like, How do you have the audacity? She said, You need to write a blog post or make a video. How is it you have the audacity to believe that you can be, particularly as black authors, very rare, very rare. Like Mary and I, from the research we've done at the only first couple to become Sunday Times bestsellers back to back as a couple in the UK. Really? From the research we've seen, especially as a black couple, right? So that first couple, first couple, yeah, yeah, yeah. Go on, have a look. We've asked the questions, asked our Asian to look. We haven't seen it. Sick. So that's that's a lot, you know. So then she's like, what is where do you get that audacity from to think that you could be the person?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:12

But that's that's what we need to install into the rest of everybody. Like have the audacity to believe.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:18

You know what? It's there's so much to unpack there. But one thing I've always believed, and this is a core value I have. I have this value system around taking your place. I've always believed in taking my place, taking our place. Because, like I said to you at the start of this conversation, nobody has a monopoly on the future. The future is empty land. You know, like a lot of London's taking up, or a lot of the UK, or wherever people are listening from, or wherever, it's all like taking up. People are like, oh, that's my land, that's my land, I have the freehood, I have the lease sold. Nobody has uh uh a monopoly on the future. The future is just empty land. So I've always believed that if that's the case, why wouldn't I try? Like, I have nothing to lose. I I'm happy to get myself utterly embarrassed, asking people, begging people. I'm I'm like, please buy the book. Like, I beg you, I put a nice smiley face, I'll do what I'll do whatever. Please buy the book because it will help us. Yeah, yeah, and it will help the people reading the book, obviously, and help our communities. But I think it's this difference in people don't want to put themselves in uncomfortable situations, things that might make them feel um like they're losing reputation, or that they're being embarrassed, or that they might be looked at in a negative way, or the oh, my friend myseer, or my mum, my cousin, you know, my colleagues. I'm like, I don't care about that. Like, I'm like, I want to this thing to become like who why is it these sorts of people are always on this Sunday Times thing? Why can it not be us, right? What do we need to do it? How can we reverse engineer it? How can we like just go just come up with an exciting you know strategy, community-built um approach to doing it? Like we've been sewing in for like eight years into our communities, pouring out strangers, millions of people been consuming our content for years since 2017.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:09

Yeah, 99.99% of the source.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:11

Yeah, and then it's like and then we're like, yeah, for free. And I'm like, well, now we haven't written this book for us, we've written it to help people even more. Why wouldn't they buy the book, right? And so we had to approach it with a mission. And we're like, if we become Standard Times bestseller, it elevates all of us, it makes it even more possible. People can look and go, wait, those two did it, I can do it too. It's the belief, yes, yeah. And that's important because a lot of the time people can't find anyone that they can point to and go, Oh, I think I can do it because he or she's done it. Usually it's like celebrities, A-listers, Hollywood, or whoever. You're like, Yeah, those people live in like in Mars or Jupiter. I can't relate to them. But if it's somewhere you can go, like, I saw him at the at the local shop, or I can go to his his or her meetup and I can chat to them, and they did this, they achieved this. So for us, it was bigger than us. It was more like, wow, imagine what it does for other people, how it pulls them along. Yeah, because they go, wow, like these guys did it, I can do it too. Totally, man.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:12

You know, and it's I really want to like just say like that, it's that piece of uncomfortability, like you have to feel uncomfortable at all times. Like, obviously, it's important to feel comfortable at home in certain environments. I get that, but like if your life feels comfortable, something is wrong. Like, because you are not pushing yourself. I'm addicted to uncomfort.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:33

Oh wow, I love it. Absolutely addicted to it.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:36

So the content business did it for three and a half years, it got quite samey. I was like, what's next? Let's do an app. Yeah, you know, like let's I have no idea how to code, but I'm gonna learn. Yeah, you know, like and like I think if you have that constant ability to feel uncomfortable, like you it might fail, but it might go mad, and then what happens then? Abundance, but then also I've learned and I've grown as a person, so then there's always there's never a failure in that either. So I seek uncomfort if I think, oh, I I I can afford to invest 250 pounds this month, 300 pounds. Yeah, slightly uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:16

Yes, um, so it's just pushing me a touch every single time. You know what? This afternoon, I was saying that too. We were having a call, we were reading actually uh what book were we reading? Dairo CEO's book, yeah, Stephen Butler's book. Um reading as a community, and and we were talking about um uh pressure is a privilege. There's a chapter in the book called Pressure is a privilege, right? And this speaks to this particular topic because I I was saying to people on the call, I was saying, I know this is gonna be this gonna sound really crazy, but imagine like one pressure to try to create or discomfort to have is how could I fill up my ISA this year, this next year? Yeah, yeah. I know it's a lot, yeah, yeah. And I know like you're you're going, can no one does that, like no one earns enough to do it. But I'm like, but I'm like, hang on, hang on, hang on. And I know you're I know you're you're inbuilt, you know, you want to go back into your duvet and feel comfortable. But I'm like, I'm I'm saying, hang on, hang on, pull off the duvet for a minute. Let's just get uncomfortable for a sec. Let's just think, imagine, just imagine for a minute. How would that feel if you could do it? 1,666. Yeah, per month. How could we how could we what could we do? What else could we do? Because all you're doing right now is giving you this the this result, this much. What if you did this other thing and this other thing? And that other thing? What if you collaborated with somebody else? What if because what this is doing is making you think, what if? You know, it's opening your imagination, and you're like, whoa, it kind of scares me a little bit, but it kind of excites me because it could potentially happen. And even if I even if I don't do it, I might get 80% there. And what if you get half of the way there?

SPEAKER_03 1:06:58

Exactly, because half is better than you know what they would have at least had they not a failure, it's positive, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:07:05

And that's like I think that's so important.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:07

Because that for me, it's the gamification, it's the gamification of that.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:12

I do this with everything, everything like investments, business goals, I've got vision boards, I've got it all like locked around me. Like I play games with absolutely everything because I win them. Yeah, and I win them, and I feel good about it. And then guess what? I create a new game because I need to feel like I'm just that's the way my mind works. Yeah, and I'm a very much like, and that's what we've built into games. And I'm I think this is really important to say is that like every single person, whether they tell you or not, likes a pat on the back.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:45

Yeah, they like reinforcements.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:47

Um, I thought that when I went to the gym, I thought I would respond really well to being shouted at and so. Sworn at and told that I need to work harder when I was losing weight. Um, but actually I didn't. It was like, well done, Sammy. Keep going, Sammy. You're doing great. So that that's what really put it into play for me. And now I think it's exactly the same with your finance. Reward-based solutions can help you formulate the habits and you can then put the triggers in place that can then bring you to the next week for it. Um where can people buy the book?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:23

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:24

Where do you want them to buy it?

SPEAKER_03 1:08:26

Oh, so you can find it on all major online retailers like Amazon, um Waterstones as well. They got Waterstones and all bookstores basically.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:35

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:36

Go into your local books, support your local bookshop.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:39

Go in physically if you can. It's always nice. You can chat to people. Totally. And get you know get a uh discount card.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:45

Yeah, for them book bookshops as well. That's what I can definitely.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:49

I really want to talk about Waterstones actually, because they they've been very supportive of the wealth hubbard. They they've really looked after us. We had our launch at Trafaga Square Waterstones, which was really nice. Really uh you know, iconic staff members there were fantastic. Our previous book was also launched at Waterstones. They've just been great. I mean, all the others are great, of course, but yeah, go into your local shops. It's available globally, I should mention.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:13

So we do get we do get quite a few different parts of the world.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:17

Um we'll be doing an audiobook, do you think?

SPEAKER_02 1:09:19

We have already.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:20

Yes, yeah, it's got audiobooks on Audible.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:23

And Kimdall as well. It's available.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:25

And it's in our voices as well. Yeah, that's wicked, man.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:29

Yeah, but a lot of people are on that these days. Because it's like they're on the move, they're on standabout, car driving, yeah, such a great way to consume.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:37

And if I may, I was gonna say two things. So if you're gonna buy a copy, if your budget allows it, gift one to somebody else. Oh, nice. You know, you know how there's a saying how you're the average of the five people you hang around with, right? We always say, imagine if you could raise that average financially. There's no point being the only rich person in your circles. Exactly. Imagine if you could get your friends along, get your family members or whoever bring them along with you, right? So that's how we this generational wealth, right? So it's created.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:03

That's how the game started. Yeah, man.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:06

We're like, you should do this. Yeah, actually, that's a good idea. Take other people along. Yeah, let's do it. And the second thing is if you love the work and we've poured our heart and soul into this book, yeah, please write us a review. You know, reviews on Goodreads, Audible, Amazon, Amazon, Waterstones. These reviews are worth so much to us. Take a picture of the book, do a selfie, do a shelfie, do whatever you want to do. Shelfie, yeah, shelf, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:32

Yeah, but that's a new one for me. Shelfie, yeah, yeah. Okay, cool. I'll do a shelfie for you. Let's get us out there, man. Because you guys are awesome. Thank you, man. I mean, you guys were like one of the first people I came across when I first came to up the games. And um, I just absolutely loved like your whole journey all the way. I've been watching since the very start of the video. Thank you, as a class. That means a lot.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:54

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:55

Um and I I honestly I hope people read this because I think it's gonna help. Like, I'm massive on habit, so I was very excited to have this conversation. Thank you. Yeah, thank you so much for coming on, guys. Oh, thank you for having us. Thanks for having us. Feel free to round through the next thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:10

Just gonna save it for you. Just chill for a bit.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:15

Um yeah, people can find us, you know, at the humble penny, obviously, on our on socials, Instagram, YouTube, um, where else? Finance Joy Academy, it's our sister brand as well. The YouTube is great, by the way.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:26

So I thank you for that. Um, it's very hard. Oh, YouTube's hard. Yes, yes. This is going on YouTube, so like and subscribe. Subscribe, come on, come on, come on, do it, do it. Do a collab, do a collab post. Oh, yeah, that sounds great. Let's do it.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:41

So we can cross, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:43

Okay, here you had it first.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:45

Appreciate it, guys. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:47

Thank you. Appreciate it.