Ordinary People Doing ExtraOrdinary Things With Money – Janet Swift

The Money Gym introduces a new video series of ordinary people doing extraordinary things with money. Janet Swift describes how, deep in debt and just diagnosed with a fatal illness, she won a ticket to a Wealth Conference, then she won a one-year Wealth Coaching place with The Money Gym and how she used that to turn her life around!

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Become A Millionaire – An Introduction To Wealth Creation (Part 5)

In Part 5 of this online video series, Wealth Coach and founder of www.TheMoneyGym.com, Nicola Cairncross shares the secrets of the rich, and how you too can become a millionaire in 10 years, or even much, much less!

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Unhappy In Your Job? Unhappy First Time Buyer?

Seven thousand people took part in GMTV’s online Dream Jobs survey, results out today, 28th January, which revealed a nation of unhappy workers.  Nearly half of us dread going to work with only a third actually enjoying their job.

Over half felt stuck in a rut and only 6% of respondents always felt appreciated and valued in the workplace.  Many said that they had not had a pay rise for years and this, combined with rising levels of debt and the fact that many young people feel that they can’t afford the deposit for their first home, is making for a lot of unhappiness in the UK, around work and money.

Ever practical, TheMoneyGym.com founder, wealth coach Nicola Cairncross says that we need to start looking at things differently, and start taking responsibility for our own work happiness and finances.  She outlines three immediate steps to take, to improve your finances and work life.

“First of all, start taking responsibility for your happiness in your current job.  When you took that job, you entered into an agreement:  a certain amount of money for a certain number of duties, carried out well.  Nobody owes you a living and it’s up to you to find something you enjoy but in the meantime, don’t’ blame your employer for your unhappiness. 

Most people need to work to earn, so change your mindset, while you work out what you want to do, long-term. Feeling negative and being depressed about your job leads to a spiral of bad attitude and poor performance and you are not going to get a raise like that.

Try to start thinking like your employer, find out what they need from you and start giving it to them – even overperforming if you can.  And do that cheerfully and willingly.  Not only will you enjoy your day more, but you are much more likely to get a promotion and raised pay, if you support your employer and think like an entrepreneur.  Try reading “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” and “The E-Myth Manager” to get a handle on how your boss thinks and then apply what you learn to your daily life.  You will feel much better for it.

Similarly, you must start taking responsibility for your money and your financial situation because nobody cares about your money like you do.  You have to understand that nobody got you into debt but you, and that, unless you have family that can help your out, nobody is going to give you a deposit for a first home. 

If you don’t earn enough from your job yet to pay off your debts or save for a deposit, there is a glaringly obvious answer.  You’ll have to earn more.

Improve your prospects in your current position or think about a second job, or even starting a business in your spare time.  I always say that the only difference between a rich person and a poor person is what they do in their spare time and it’s true.  People who take responsibility for their own financial situation turn the TV off sometimes, and either learn new skills or work in their spare time.

The internet offers the opportunity to sell other peoples products or services for a commission, and it’s so easy to learn how to do that.  For example, if you sold my ebook from a simple website for example, you could earn £12.50.  Sell one a day and you are making an extra £4562 a year.  Sell two ebooks a day and you are making an extra £9125 a year.  Two years to a deposit?

If you combine that with learning about how to find a property “under market value” and then about how to finance that more creatively than the usual high street mortgage offers, then you could be in your own home very shortly

At the end of the day, it’s up to you.  Get off your assets, and take some action”.

Nicola’s Week: Diary Of A Wealth Coach

It seemed initially a bit difficult to write my Note From Nicola this week, as a week hasn’t gone by since I wrote the last one and the only thing (the only thing, I say!!) to happen this week was the property workshop and a hastily arranged webinar to explain to a wider audience about the two stonking opportunities that we heard about on Saturday.

First of all the property workshop….nearly 30 amazing people gathered in a room in SE1, at 9am on a Saturday morning, which was amazing in itself as it WAS Saturday, after all.

I had got up at 5.45, grumbling internally all the while, got to the teeny tiny station at Shoreham at 7am in the pitch dark, to find no London train on the board. Very odd. Seeing a train to Brighton at 7.04, I thought "well that’s 14 miles closer, I’ll get on that and see wassup at Brighton". Steve called at that moment to tell me something (I know! what was he doing up?) and told me there had been a train at 7.15am….not on the board there wasn’t.

I got to Brighton, to find no 7.34 as assured by Steve. No notices, nothing. I stopped a stressed looking person who told me that there were no trains to London today, a bus had been laid on to Haywards Heath, instead. Trains from there as usual. One rickety old double decker, 40 minutes wheezing up the M23, and hey presto, nearly there.

Judith held the fort brilliantly and by the time I got there, they had all found out who they were and what stage of their property investment stage they were at.

The first speaker, David Lee put on a great presentation, and he’s learned a lot from two of his mentors, Armand Morin and Stephen Pierce. David’s presentation not only included the audience, but online video, testimonials, and real stories from David’s life and his clients / students.

He presented an opportunity that is not only great for over leveraged investors suffering under the credit squeeze, those with properties they are subsidising, but investors who want to create an income. Even more interestingly, his strategy works for those with not much deposit, and a bit of an iffy credit record (something that is going to become increasingly common as the next couple of years roll on!).

It’s not an easy strategy or one for those who work long hours but, a bit like Judith’s Cleaning Biz opportunity, it could create a VERY decent income for a part time workload.

Then we all had lunch and then Ayshe Kadir presented a truly mind bending presentation about investing in the USA, using tax liens, tax deeds and a combination of the two. Many of us had vaguely heard about this, from Rich Dad’s books, Russ Whitney’s book and property courses.
I had heard about it from Mike Stewart’s 19 year old son, at an internet marketing conference, who was building a property portfolio "buying off the courthouse steps" but I had never met anyone yet who was consistently using that strategy and making it work from the UK.

Then we all had lunch and then Ayshe Kadir presented a truly mind bending presentation about investing in the USA, using tax liens, tax deeds and a combination of the two. Many of us had vaguely heard about this, from Rich Dad’s books, Russ Whitney’s book and property courses.

Staggering stuff. I was so stoked when I got home that I couldn’t sleep even after a three and a half hour journey home (mostly accompanied by a large number of rather inebriated louts on the way to a night out in Brighton) and a fantastic dinner by Steve (seared scallops and Jamies’ 4 hours slow cooked shoulder of lamb – woweeeeeeeee, that was good!)

I summonsed my sisters round the next morning so I could explain the opps to Steve and the girls, and I got all excited again….Judith felt the same so we hastily arranged a webinar to explain it to a wider audience, and you can buy and download the recording here >>

Then I got a surprise email from a very old friend Alex Reuben, who was best mates with an ex of mine, Paul, who I mentioned in my Gordon Astley "Desert Island Discs" show recently. This is funny and shows the power of the internet…

"Hi Nicola, This is Alex Reuben from way back – Paul’s mate! How are you? My Mum heard you on the radio & really loved your interview & was very impressed. I tried to download it but it wasn’t online so I looked you up & I was very impressed too! It’s really great that you are doing so well & what I really loved is how courageous you’ve been. Really fantastic, well deserved. I haven’t seen Paul, or Kim, or Graham or anyone for a long, long time. Things change I guess! If you are in touch with them please send my love, & to you too. My Mum also sends her love & compliments! I hope that you & your family are really well. Take care, Alex"

So I’ve been able to hook Alex up with Paul and Kim, which is very cool! And he’s really into jazz so I’ve sent him my sister’s YouTube video (you never know what synergy might happen).

See Alex’s amazingly creative MySpace profile here – he’s been travelling round the Deep South filming some incredible old dance styles, before the people who are experts at that, die out.

Listen to my musical interview here if you missed it.

You know I said last week it had been a TV kind of week……..making it not watching it?

Well I had NO IDEA!

The most exciting news of all is that I’m meeting a very big TV bigwig next week, to talk about the possibilities for lil’ ole me on t’tele. I’m trying not to get too excited but this could be the call……….I’ve submitted two ideas already via his sister who is one of our clients and who also fixed up the meeting, bless her.

But you will just have to wait for next week’s issue to find out all about it – LOL

Have fun, I SO WILL BE!!

Nicola

Getting Started With Stock Market Investing

Every so often, The Money Gym team meet someone who is as passionate and knowledgeable in their core topic as we are about ours – wealth creation.

We don’t try and go deep in all of the "Lanes", we concentrate with you on the two you love and then we try and get you going with a pushbike in the other two, then point you in the right direction to find out more so you can turn your pushbike into a Ferrari.

We totally endorse and recommend Marcus De Maria – he is a very sound person. He blogged on Ecademy recently…..

"As someone who trades daily on the stock market, with an increasing interest in FX (Foreign Exchange) and who teaches beginners how to make money in stocks, I get a LOT of questions about this subject.

The number one question I get is: ‘Which strategy is the best one to make money?. My reply is always, This is not the right question to ask yourself. You should be asking yourself what strategy suits your lifestyle?’

Think about this for a moment:

There is a phenomenal strategy one of my trader friends in the City uses, where he expects his traders to make close to £1,000 a day from capital of £20,000. Now this is very impressive if you consider that this equates to 5% a day).

However, it is unlikely that you are going to be able to use it without changing your life dramatically, which most people just don’t want to do. For example, it might take a lot of time to master and it requires you to become a day trader. Most people don’t have the time or the patience for this.

So you need to be asking yourself ‘which strategy fits into my lifestyle?’ If you try to cram going to the gym for 2 hours a day into a hectic lifestyle, you are unlikely to succeed.

Without going into a long tirade into the difference between goal setting and goal achievement, let’s just assume that most people wouldn’t be able to take on that kind of sudden change.

Why should the stock market be any different? If there are strategies that are suitable for beginners, which are simple and which take a minimum amount of time then surely we should be starting with these. Doing this allows us to build an identity of someone who makes money in the stock market.

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Wealth Creation: Shoreham Beach Ladies

January is a month of many birthdays (see Note From Nicola) and I went to one of the birthday parties last night and what an amazing group of women there were!  From the 70-something matriarch of the beach, Liz, through our generation down to my lil’ sis Sarah in her mid-thirties, a good time was had by all.

About halfway through the evening, one of the girls, Eleanor, shall we call her? was asking me how the wealth coaching was going, and lamenting the fact that she felt really poor, and that her husband was approaching 60 but didn’t see how he would be able to stop working.

I tried to resist, but in the end caved in and asked her how much equity she had in her house (knowing she had lived on Shoreham Beach for years!) and what her mortgage was. She wasn’t sure of the value but estimated it around $450,000 with a mortgage of around £10,000.

When I told her that she was not only already fin.ancially free, but could be living a happy and wealthy life with her husband not having to work, she just didn’t believe me. She knew she had a lot of money locked up in her house, but thought that you couldn’t get a mortgage at their age (she’s quite a bit younger than her husband but just over 50 I would guess).

Other women started to gather round me while I tried to change the subject, as I don’t like to bang on about this stuff in a social environment, but they insisted so I asked permission of the hostess, my friend, who has heard all this a million times before, and she laughed and said ok.

I went through the whole story, of how property doubles in value every 7-10 years, but how Shoreham will be quicker because they are about to build a big marina just by the town, and how we are benefiting from the doughnut effect of London, Brighton and Worthing, and the fact that Shoreham is an easy commute to Victoria.

I told them how you can mortgage, interest only, self certification, up to 70% of value, without proof of income, and how you can put some of that money aside to pay for that mortgage for the next X number of years, earning interest on it all the while, and by this time, they were fascinated, but still not really believing me (because I rent and don’t own on the Beach, they think I have no credibility, you see). Although the Beach is very unpretentious, it’s a very close knit community and they know who has what and who is seriously wealthy.

And let me tell you, when someone told me later some of the people who live here, my eyes were popping out on stalks; not famous people but seriously wealthy ones. Well, I suppose someone has to own all those yachts at our TWO yacht clubs.

When up piped Liz, the matriarch, and said "O Yes, she’s quite right you know! We have always had an interest only mortgage, and we have all our cash in the bank, not the house! That’s how we get to have so many holidays, how we keep getting the house done up (which puts the value up again) and I have just lent my other daughter a BIG pile of money to help her out. My problem is more about how not to pay too much tax on our interest we earn on the cash".

Everyone was stunned, not least of all me!

"But Liz, why does Eric work then when he must be approaching his late 70’s?" they all asked.

"To get him out from under my feet, of course, and because he would go stark staring mad if he was bored!"

And there you had it, someone who most people would say is a fairly ordinary woman, in their 70’s who knew instinctively how to do extra-ordinary things with money.

So I snaffled her to come to London as my very special guest, for our first Women Talk Money workshop. I thought she could tell her inspirational story, and have a great day out.

If you would like to work through the Money Gym programme with a group of just such extraordinary women, we only have six places left for this year and the first workshop is in February. Why not start your 2008 as you mean to go on?

Creating wealth by finding out what people like Liz somehow knew instinctively and then getting the support to actually go out and do it.

http://www.TheMoneyGym.com/WomenTalkMoney

Property Just Got Sexy Again!

WOWEEWOWEEEWOWEE!   The Money Gym presented its first Money Gym Presents day on Saturday in London and we had laid on a couple of speakers who we thought would be of interest to our clients and delegates who were able to attend.   But we had no idea, no really – NO IDEA – they were going to be so great!

David taught us how to get into property with no money down but in a completely unique way.   This really is do-able and you dont need to be competing with all those Whitney-trained professionals searching for those much sought after BMV deals.

And Ayshe taught us how to take advantage of the strong sterling against the dollar and their awful meltdown in the residential property market over there following on from greedy lending in the sub-prime sector.   You will be pleased to hear that Ayshe has a passive way of doing this too, as well as an active way for what she called her "three percenters".

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Nicola’s Week: Diary Of A Wealth Coach

Happy Birthday to my mate Kim – we have been friends for 31 years and have seen each other through thick and thin, and I’m not just talking about our boyfriends there! We got rather spectacularly squiffy on champagne last night and talked till 2am, after her other guests had departed, reminding each other of our past adventures, talked about our current loves – including how much we loved each other LOL – and then we cried all over each other!

Steve kindly got the kids off to school – such a gent – as I wasn’t feeling quite the ticket this morning. I managed to "stand by my bed" by 11am though as I had a call booked with Judith! In fact, I’m ashamed to say I’m still in my bright pink satin dressing gown at 4.30 – and the kids are shocked! They have come home from school and said "Mummy!" but hey, what is the point of working for yourself if you can’t slack off a bit sometimes? Happy Birthday too, to my singing sister Heather Cairncross, who was a bit cross with me, after she got a phone call yesterday from America, after I posted up the first song "Embraceable You" from her forthcoming album, on the blog. The call was asking when this chap could buy it! Within about 2 hours!! See the video here – should be working by the time you get this ezine if not, just click the "Money Gym TV" link on the blog When’s the second one coming then Heather? Get yer finger out lovie! I also just found the film of the making of her one woman show "Hello Life" from the Brighton Festival, you ladies will find it very interesting, moving, funny, I’m sure! Again, it’s on the blog – with clips from the show – on TheMoneyGym.tv Property Tales I’m off to London tomorrow for the "Money Gym Presents…." day with our three property experts, which I’m really looking forward to, especially as one of them is now me, us having been let down by the presenter that our Student HMO expert, Teresa was bringing with her, poor thing! Still, we are off to an Ecademy Blackstar day next Friday which should give us some pointers on how to avoid that happening again! Hotel For Sale I have a contact with some big money behind him who says "we are looking for hotels that are for sale especially in London, Paris, Madrid, Barcelona, New York and Seville direct from the owners. We have a series of investment funds that are looking to invest in big projects of this kind….." so if you know anyone with a hotel for sale, put them in touch with me initially at nicola@themoneygym.com. Shame I didn’t know him a few years ago, but Worthing is not quite the location they have in mind, eh? Girls On Film Off to London next week for our Girls On Film day, a day of filming testimonials and stories from our most successful clients, and catching up and coaching….all from Judith’s luxury pad in Canary Wharf. What fun…..then off to Philip Calvert’s "Successful Seminars" seminar in Bracknell, Berkshire on Friday. No idea where that is but I can get a train with only one change so that will be fine. Travelling…….eeeuuuuuwwww! Have a great week!

Wealth Highway: Business Marketing

It’s been a TV orientated kind of week – no, not watching it, making it! We have decided that Judith is our radio person and I’m the TV person and I’ve been really going for it, with the encouragement of my online video mentor Mike Stewart. Mike is THE internet audio and video "go to" guy.

And not just Mike, but every internet guru is going mad for online video – the benefits were really brought home to me of using it to promote ones’ business a while ago, but it’s a bit of a learning curve. I made it easy for myself for ages by using Armand Morin’s Instant Video Generator product (see the little video on the Money Gym Club "Recommended Resources" Internet page) which enables you to send out cute little video postcards too but I wanted more!

Then the Stompernet video arrived and when I saw the numbers involved… I just had to do something. Check it out here at – a billion online now, outrageous! Did you know that YouTube is getting more traffic than Google – double in fact and the trend is still up, up, up.

According to the Stompernet guys…

"The numbers don’t lie: Social media giant Facebook is currently ADDING a million 25+ (non-student) adults per week to their rosters – that’s 52 million new users a year…

YouTube.com gets over 50 million unique visitors per month… over half a billion a year…

MySpace.com sees over 49 million unique visitors each month – over 1.6 million a day…

Those numbers are CRAZY!

And new social sites of all kinds are popping up each day… social networks… social bookmarking pages… user generated content sites… video sharing… photo sharing… blogging… virtual worlds… and more are all growing at an explosive rate… we have more than 1,920 sites in our SMARTS database.

But Aren’t These Social Media Sites Just For Kids?"

Maybe two years ago, but now these sites are crammed with professionals with all kinds of disposable income (who are comfortable buying things online) – look at who is signing onto these social sites, for example…

62% of MySpace visitors are older than 25, 40% are 35+, and 83% are making over $30,000 a year… and 19% are making $100,000 and up…

Facebook.com, is a little younger since it started with college students – but that’s changing in a hurry – 46% are over 25 and 34% are 35+… but they’ve got deep pockets – 88% make more than $30,000… and 23% make $100,000 or more…

To put that into perspective… that means 880,000 twenty-something’s who make over $30,000 a year are joining Facebook.com this year …

That’s over $42,500,000,000… 42.5 BILLION DOLLARS of new spending power flowing into Facebook.com alone — EVERY WEEK!"

Cowabunga.

We first met Mike Stewart when we won a mentoring session with him, at the first ever World Internet Summit, and he’s inspired and delighted many since then, with his blog – check it out and make sure you watch the video for his neighbour’s bug catching business – it’s really truly delightful!

He leads the field with this stuff – he owns a recording studio too! I buy every bit of kit he recommends, and I use all his neat little bits of software too. He creates that as he needs it, if there is nothing out there already.

It took a whole week of digging in cupboards since our last move, and wiring up microphones and cameras, playing with downloading new drivers for every thing for Vista, and then the central heating packed up, making getting glammed up a bit more challenging.

Then I had to tidy the office, get the lighting right (not too harsh!) then somehow overcome my fear of putting video of myself out there for all to see and criticise – o yes! you might not believe it but even I feel insecure sometimes.

So I’m finally all ready to go – Steve says I need an "on air" light outside the office – on Tuesday morning, and I am just about to press "record" when…

My sister Sarah calls from further down the beach, where, in a howling gale while walking the dog, she had dropped her car keys on the shingle never to be found again.

Sigh. I drive down to pick her up, she drops me back home while she takes the car to Worthing to get her other keys, and I settle down again… only to realise that the 70mph winds are making the windows whistle horribly – and we have double glazing!

I carried on regardless though – Steve says it’s more relentless than regardless, but when I want to do something I bloomin’ well do it.

We have put the first four instalments of "Become A Millionaire: An Introduction To Wealth Coaching" up on TheMoneyGym.tv – that link should be working by the time you get this ezine if not, just click the "Money Gym TV" link on the blog at  and it’s also on YouTube and BrainHoney – a new site I found by accident.

I uploaded some of the videos to YouTube yesterday and when I checked earlier they had had 20-30 viewings already!! That’s amazing. I have also started a Google Adwords campaign with the word "free video" in it and when I checked that earlier and we are getting clicks on that too!

I have ad trackers on the YouTube TV channel so I will know if it converts to subscribers and then sales.

I’ll keep you informed!

Check Mike Stewart’s website out and you can get everything I’m using and the tutorials here –

http://www.videoprofitsworkshop.com and he also has great tutorial of how to make a great video landing page – that’s my next job!! http://www.videolandingpagesecrets.com

No affiliate commission for me, I am just so grateful to him for all his help!

A Good Time To Buy Property!

I have just received an email from one of our speakers tomorrow and man! is she fired up!

EMAIL STARTS

"Nicola, I have just returned from the States.  Every time I turned on the TV I heard another report about the “Real Estate Depression” & the “Turmoil in the Mortgage Industry”. Most Americans I spoke with about this with were extremely scared and very nervous. 

But, being a property investor, I took a minute to think about what the news reports are really saying.

The market is bad for sellers not buyers.  What is bad for a seller is very good for a buyer. 

If the price of gas (petrol) was reduced to $2.00 a gallon Americans would line up at the pumps. If the price of a new BMW was cut in half they could not build them fast enough to keep up with demand. But when real estate prices drop by as much as 50% in many markets, potential home buyers and investors stop and scratch their heads and wonder what they should do?

Let me tell everybody right now what to do in a buyers market.

DON’T SELL!   BUY!

http://www.TheMoneyGym.com/mgpresents

This is the type of market that makes millionaires. A market this good for buyers may only come around once in a lifetime. It takes guts to buy when the masses are running scared but the rewards are great! By the time you start hearing how great real estate is again (for sellers) it will be too late! Prices will be up and you will have missed your window of opportunity to buy when prices were at rock bottom.

The mortgage industry turmoil has helped clear the playing field for serious investors and home buyers. If you have a job and decent credit you can get a loan with a low interest rate. (We have special arrangements with American Lending institutions to get Foreign National mortgages even though you do not have any American credit).  The people who don’t qualify are out of luck. That eliminates our competition and makes it even easier for an investor or home buyer to capture the deals because of less competition. Believe me, in the investment game, less competition is good if you are a buyer!

Get ready for the best day in your entire life!

http://www.TheMoneyGym.com/mgpresents

Here’s why… Merrill Lynch announces today on the front page of the Wall Street Journal a loss of 10 Billion dollars in the past 90 days.

Here’s a snippet of what CNN reported:

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. swung to its worst quarterly loss ever Thursday, as it reeled from a giant $14.6 billion hit stemming from the mortgage crisis and credit crunch. The results were the worst in the company’s 94-year history.

Major banks and stock brokerages are posting some of the largest multi Billion dollar post-depression era losses throughout the US, and have said that they must get rid of any foreclosed inventory on their books, and NOW!

http://www.TheMoneyGym.com/mgpresents

This is not taking advantage of Americans having a tough time, this is not you being a vulture…This is a major correction in the real estate market, and it’s your private invitation to buying and owning a home that several major banks are now stuck with for record SAVINGS!).

Many foreclosed homes are in perfect condition, in lovely neighbourhoods, and are simply waiting for you.

If you’re ready to make 2008 your best year yet, click here to book your place

http://www.TheMoneyGym.com/mgpresents

What does this mean for you?

Come to our property day tomorrow, for a prompt 9.00 am start to learn how you can buy a Property for Pennies on the Dollar."

See you tomorrow!

Ayshe

EMAIL ENDS

Now, if that doesn’t sum it all up, I don’t know what does!  Just two places left now….

Three speakers, about 20 ways to make money from property…………why not come along and have your mind blown?

http://www.TheMoneyGym.com/mgpresents

I am SO looking forward to it….

Nicola

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