Money Gym Gold Written Entry – Kate Bushell

Hello Nicola and the Money Gym team. My name is Kate Bushell and this is my entry for the Money Gym Gold Membership Competition.

My background so far is that whilst I left school with a respectable clutch of qualifications, I knew that higher education was not for me. I attended a one year Private Secretary’s course, passed with flying colours and walked straight into a PA job at the young age of 19. It was an eye opener for me, having spent 5 years safely tucked away at a boarding school in the middle of nowhere. Needless to say I was not very streetwise and had a huge amount to learn.

Many years later following promotions into office management and then an offer of a job in a specialised area of law within a company for whom I was already working as an office manager, I became self-employed as a typist and alongside this for a short while I had a go at network marketing as I could see the benefit of passive income. During this time I also attended a Tony Robbins fire walk and following on from this signed up to his full Life Mastery seminars.

I sold my home in Leicestershire in 2003 and as my mother had kindly offered me a home with her in Cambridgeshire whilst I looked for my dream home in Suffolk, I took her up on it and took the opportunity to realise some of my travel dreams. I stumbled across an advert from a sailing school and booked myself onto their yachtmaster training course which entailed spending 3 months sailing around Britain (with 5 men I’d never met before) on a yacht 40 feet in length. It was a great lesson on how to get on with people living in a very small space!

In between my travels I also found The Money Gym and have attended both a Money Gym open day and Passive Investments open day knowing that whilst I very much enjoyed my typing work, I was still exchanging time for money and I didn’t want to be doing this for the rest of my life.

My low point came in December 2006 when a very minor car accident set off a flare up of a pre-existing inflammatory condition and left me completely bed bound for 3 months. I began to recover and a friend very kindly offered to take me on a holiday for a week to Suffolk. I had a quick look on the internet and found some properties to look at whilst we were there. One of them suited all my requirements and after a bit of negotiating, the two bedroomed bungalow became mine in August. To coincide with the purchase of my home, I also remortgaged a buy-to-let property which I had bought in 2004 with the intention of purchasing another investment property. However a severe reaction to the prescription drugs which were keeping my inflammation at bay meant that I had to stop taking them and the inflammation was again left raging out of control. Fortunately, when I went for an emergency appointment at Ipswich Hospital the rheumatology assistant noticed that I possibly needed both hip joints replaced and this was confirmed by x-ray. So this was why I’d had so many problems with walking!

This year, 2008, the year of my 40th birthday I became the proud owner of a new pair of hips. I have been able to bring the inflammation under control by way of diet and whilst I am still not able to drive at least I am now able to use public transport to get about. With me not having had an income whilst I was unwell, and still unable to work, the equity I had released from the investment property was used to pay for my care and general living expenses.

What have I learned from this experience? That having a good team around you is essential, and a good sense of humour is helpful when things get a little undignified!! I know that I had become a bit too comfortable living at mum’s and being unwell pushed me into taking action.

My current goals are to find a way of producing an income so that I can cashflow further property and stockmarket investment without having to get a job. My main interest is property, however the wealth highway lane which scares me most is the internet although this is the one I need to learn about first as it will enable my other goals to be reached.

High points in my life have been my move to Suffolk which had been a goal of mine for several years; I can’t believe how happy I have been here from the first day I moved in, and my friends who are a continuous high point and whom I value highly.

Winning Membership of Money Gym Gold and the coaching will be tremendous for me as I am at a point in my life where effectively I am in a position to start from afresh, with a clean canvas in front of me on which to paint an amazing life.

Happy New Year to you all.

Kate

Money Gym Gold Competition Written Entry – Tunde Oshadi

Hi Nicola & everyone at The Money Gym. I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and thank you so much for
running this fantastic competition. I thought I’d missed my chance to enter…then I saw that you’d extended the deadline (yippee).

I’m Tunde and I’m typing out my entry on my laptop, while sitting in my boyfriend’s Volkswagen Transporter camper van in the Andalucian countryside. It’s a far cry from where I began: I was born in London to Nigerian parents in 1969 and aside from a short spell living in Nigeria when I was a child, I’ve lived in the capital for most of my life. I’ve got 17 siblings (yes, 17…more or less) who are scattered around the world, a gazillion nephews and nieces and I’m a great-aunt twice over!

My parents split up when I was very young; my dad moved back to Nigeria and my mum chose to stay in London and raise me. My memories of my childhood are happy ones; I loved going school, learning new things and getting my gold stars. My teenage years were spent playing sports (tennis, basketball, netball and athletics), making music with my band Eclipse at Central London Youth Club in Covent Garden and partying hard! I’ve never been married and haven’t been blessed with children yet…got a new man now so working on both!

My work life to date has been varied: I’ve had admin jobs, worked as a youth worker (for far too long) and
been a Communications Consultant for a FTSE 100 company. However, none of those positions gave me joy. In 2004 I started working for myself giving massages in the workplace and once I’d made the jump, I kept asking myself why I hadn’t done it sooner. As much as I love giving massages, the physical demands of the work itself coupled with my desire to live abroad and have a family of my own, inspired me to search for an alternative way of making a living. Along came Internet Marketing and at the beginning of this year I said goodbye to my massage clients to devote myself to building an income online. I’ve had some modest success selling my own e-book, yet I’m eager to do better and that’s why I’ve entered this competition.

The lowest point in my life…

Like many people I’ve had my share of joys and pains. However, I’d have to say the lowest point of my life
was 27 December 1989…it was the day my mother died. I was 2 weeks away from my 21st birthday and all of a sudden my world crumbled. Even though I’d known her condition was terminal, I still wasn’t ready for the finality of death. I grieved for her for a very long time yet once I’d stopped feeling like the bereaved child and let go of the pain, I learned 3 things:

a) heartache is a physical sensation

b) what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger – now, when I’m feeling low I think back to what life was like back in 1989 and the early 90s and remind myself that I came through that experience so can cope with
anything…and

c) there’s a blessing in everything, even the death of a loved one. I’ve had so many precious moments since my mum died; many of which would never have happened if she’d been alive and so although I still miss her, I’m grateful for the chance to create the kind of life I want to live, which brings me on to …

The highest point of my life…

I qualified as a massage therapist in 2001 and once I left the corporate world in 2002 I packed my bags and
my massage couch and spent 6 months in Andalucia, giving massages on the beach. It was an amazing time for me because the experiences I had on that journey and the angels I met along the way, made me realise for the first time, that I’d been living someone else’s life. Finally, I’d found the life I was truly meant to live, surrounded as I am now by Mother Nature, in a place where I feel more peaceful, content and more joyous than I ever imaged I could be.

The whole experience taught me that when I focus my energy and attention on achieving a dream and l pursue it with courage and faith, the impossible becomes possible. Since then I’ve spent as much time as possibly can here in Andalucia, living and loving my life and slowly becoming part of a community. Building an Internet business is the key to making my dream of living here permanently a reality and it’s the main Wealth Highway that interests me.

As I mentioned before, I’ve had some small success online and I’m keen to achieve more (sales, money, and websites). For the most part, I’ve enjoyed learning about Internet Marketing and putting what I’ve learned into practice; some things have worked well and others have been a disaster. There have been many challenges along the way and I’m far short of the level of success I’d like to attain. It’s also been a bit of a lonely road…when I talk to my friends about what I’m doing online they either get a blank look as though I’m speaking gobbledygook or feign interest to humour me. They mean well and love & support me in many other ways yet when it comes to work, I tend to keep most of what I’m thinking and feeling to myself. So I’d really welcome the opportunity to be part of a supportive group that understands what I’m working to achieve and that I in turn, can contribute to and help others.

So that’s me.

I’d really love to win this competition and as I turn 40 in January I wouldn’t say no to some ‘Gold’ as a birthday present! Either way, I’m excited to be taking part and just writing this entry has filled me with enthusiasm for the possibility of achieving greatness in 2009.

Thanks for taking the time to read my entry and I wish you all a Happy New Year. May 2009 bring you love, laughter, prosperity and all the happiness your hearts can hold.                      Tunde x

Money Gym Gold Written Entry – Karen McBride

Karen McBride is concerned that she’s too late to enter the Money Gym Gold Competition but I say, well done for trying anyway, because if you don’t enter, one thing’s for sure……………

Karen says:  “I fully intend to subscribe to Gold membership no matter what happens……I have come to this competition a bit late only discovering it yesterday but have been interested in the money gym and received regular e.mails which of course I have not bothered to open – until now!!!

My life so far as consisted of serving 9 years in the Womens Royal Naval Service where I had an absolute ball and really enjoyed myself. I was posted to numerous places in Britain and also abroad and I think this training has always stood me in good stead. I left to start a family and subsequently had 3 children. When I left the forces I tried a couple of “civvy” jobs but never seemed to fit in. I always had a dream of running my own business and being rich (not a millionaire just plenty of money).

I did eventually start a carpet cleaning business with my husband but he was unhappy in England and wanted to move back to Scotland where we are both from. We did this, unfortunately at the start of the last recession and found things much worse up there than in Hampshire. We stuck it out for 8 years but I needed to move back down south and subsequently read an article about two guys who had set up a wheelie bin business. I contacted them and they gave us some help, sold us their van and we moved back down to where we had originally lived.

That was 13 years ago and we have been successfully operating our business in that time, albeit I have still been continually searching for that all elusive fantastic opportunity that will change your life.

I think the lowest point was when I was in Scotland running a mobile food van, making no money and being threatened by other competitors to stay off their patch – and the weather was dreadful!! What did I learn – if you are not happy do something about it.

The highest point in my life – I don’t think I have reached it apart from now and discovering the money gym might just be what I have been searching for all these years!!

I think I am interested in all four routes that the money gym offer – the only one I havn’t dabled in is property but it has always interested me.

As I said at the beginning, I am probably too late to enter this and therefore won’t get any votes, but I am going to make sure that 2009 is going to be my most successful year yet and takes me down a path I know I have always wanted to go. Good luck to everyone else and Happy New Year – Karen McBride

Money Gym Gold Written Entry – Val Evans

Went out for lunch with the singing sister and came back to mayhem!!  Val Evans entered the Money Gym Gold Competition in writing and reminded me of our times at our old hotel, The Acacia.  Fun early Money Gym days!

Hi Nicola and everyone, Val Evans here. I am 46 years of age and rapidly approaching 47 (24 Jan!!). I am absolutely determined to make 2009 a very special year for me and my family. I am very much of the old school and have work extremely hard for the past 30 years and have very little to show for the effort I have put in. I must admit I first saw Nicola a couple of years ago and unfortunately I was in a bad place financially and made the wrong decision to quit the Money Gym – I realise that now and I am again in a similar position and this time I know that the Money Gym will help me through and will re-focus me on my mission and on how to get to where I want to be.

I currently own an international removals and storage company and last January we embarked on building our new self storage facility – all was going well and then “bang the credit crunch” hit – so we are not doing to well at the moment. However I am remaining positive and will find the opportunities in the New Year.

One of my lowest points of my life is right now and about 4 years ago when I put my parcel francishe company into the hands of the receiver. I had to sell my home to pay off my debts and was just beginning to build my life back again and now – today I am in a similar position, on a much smaller scale, but today I am wondering how I am going to keep my company afloat after new week – but I will.

One of my highest points in my life was the birth of my son Sam who is now 16 years of age and who I have brought up on my own – he is my inspiration and my reason to succeed. One of my other high points was my ability to raise £1.15m investment with the bank, with no financial input from myself.

My chosen wealth highway is the internet. My dream project is still the one I had four years ago Nicola when we were down at The Acacia and I said I wanted to develop my own webside to help people to loose weight by the use of visualisation techniques and the ability for them to create a slimmer them so that they could use their own picture as a tool to help them stay focussed. I have now achieved this for my self and have just lost 4 stone in weight using my picture and I have another 1 and a half stone to go. However this website has now grown to encompass all areas of my life and I know that I can through my own life story and achievements be able to help people to achieve what ever they want in life, be it a slimmer figure, wealth, health, love and absolutely anything they want. I know that by using my website, my blog and my experiences and total commitment and dedication to making a difference that I can and will achieve my dream to make my website and all it encompases a success for everyone involved.

My ultimate goal is to provide safe housing for abused children and to teach them life skills to enable them to leave their past behind and move forward in a positive way.

Here’s to 2009

Money Gym Gold Video Entry – Eileen Bowley

Eileen sends in her video entry to Money Gym Gold Competition and we have to applaud Eileen’s bravery for using her new Flip Video for the first time, but we wonder, with Eileen, what happened to her tree!  She says it started to droop 2 days after bringing it home.  Watering is the key Eileen – get a base that lets you top it up, and saw the bottom of your tree off, so it can soak it up!  I learned the hard way after YEARS of droopy trees!  Anyway, we are here to listen / watch Eileen so don’t let the tree distract you!  Good luck Eileen!

Money Gym Gold – Video Entry – Shaun Lawton

Wow!  watch this video entry for the Money Gym Gold Competition for a great example of how to create an “evergreen” video that Shaun will be able to use on his own site too, which will immediately connect his visitors and subscribers with who he is and what he’s about.

Shaun has also been cunning enough to put his own site URL in the description box as well as mine (required) and that of his girlfriend.  He’s used multimedia, with a video recording of himself introducting things, and then moved onto a powerpoint presentation using pictures to illustrate his life, low point and high point, and at the end included a “call to action” telling people what to do – go now and vote at http://www.themoneygym.com/blog.

Shaun has shown that he’s either a naturally gifted internet marketer, or he has been seriously paying attention in the Membership Site Bootcamp videos and calls!!

Money Gym Gold Written Entry – Jo Rheam

Jo Rheam has submitted a written entry for the Money Gym Gold Competion and here it is:

What am I doing?!  It’s a beautiful crisp sunny day and I’m sat here at my laptop, staring at the screen, whilst my partner and two little girls are out on their bikes in the park, having some wholesome winter fun! It’s the day after my birthday and just a couple of days before the New Year, and I guess what I’m really wanting to do is get to grips with the rest of my life …

I feel like my life so far has been a bit ‘ordinary’ – eldest of three children, did well at school, went on to art school and university, stumbled into a career in training, did okay, went freelance, did okay, had a few turbulent relationships, finally settled down in a more peaceful relationship and had two children. But that doesn’t tell the whole story by any stretch.

Along the way, I seem to have managed to make my life one great big emotional rollercoaster ride! If there’s even a hint of boredom, I’ll shake things up and create a drama of some sort, and not always a good one. So I suppose I feel as if I’ve sabotaged some of my own potential. Deep down, I really believe I can … and will … do something spectacular one day. And one of the reasons for entering this competition, instead of going out and getting rosy-cheeked in the park, is because I’m starting to feel ready …

The lowest point in my life has been the past couple of years, as I’ve been struggling to deal with postnatal illness. I even ended up in a private psychiatric clinic for a month last summer, something I never in a million years thought I would do. It’s been really tough, but equally it’s given me insights and learning that I wouldn’t change for the world. I think I’ve got a lot more humble. I’ve seen how little separates the ‘haves’ from the ‘have nots’, and how thin the line is between ’sanity’ and ‘insanity’. It’s scary … but it’s brought a huge amount of warmth and compassion into my heart. I can’t look down my nose at anyone any more, or feel smug or self-important. Life is fragile, and very very precious. At times I may have wondered if I really wanted it … but now I know how much I do.

The highest points in my life …. well, the obvious ones are my children. I don’t need to tell you how much I love them, that goes without saying. I remember talking to a friend once and telling her “I didn’t know what joy meant until I had my girls”. I still think it’s a bit of a naff word but, for me, it’s a word that came alive when I became a mum. Because, even in the thick of the relentless demands that children bring, you get those many magical moments when love and happiness bubble up and you just think “thank you”!

Other highlights include things I’ve done on my travels – watching the sunset with a baguette sandwich on the top of a mountain in France; clambering through the Costa Rican jungle to a perfect white sand beach; seeing the New Year fireworks in Darling Harbour in Sydney; arriving at Macchu Picchu after surviving Dead Woman’s Pass on the Inca Trail, and so many other amazing experiences around the world. Plus the buzz of being brave enough to go in the first place! I left a job I’d outgrown and went travelling by myself, not knowing what I’d do when I got back … and that leap into the unknown taught me so much. Above all, it taught me that leaping into the unknown is a very exciting thing to do!

Since then, I’ve taken a big bold step into a new arena by setting up an online business – a brand new social networking site for mums. It’s called Mummo (www.mummo.co.uk). The name comes from a combination of ‘mummy’ and ‘more’, because it’s all about mums as people in our own right rather than “just” parents! It’s about us looking after ourselves as well as our children, on the grounds that happy mums make for happy families. It’s also a social enterprise – I want Mummo to make money not just for me, but also so that we can do all sorts of positive things ‘in life’ to support and value mums. I’ve got so many ideas I’m bursting with them, but my challenge now is to get the site up-and-running and get the word out as widely as possible. Then … watch this space!

I’m interested in all four lanes of the wealth highway, but obviously most interested in the business and internet ones. I am looking for support from the Money Gym to help me make Mummo a huge success! I want Mummo to become something that enables me to have financial freedom and also helps other mums to do the same. At the risk of sounding a bit Miss World-ish (no risk of looking it!), I want Mummo to be something that genuinely does “make a difference” and that I can look back on with huge amounts of pride. Having been a miserable mum and seen the impact that it had on my children, I want Mummo to encourage mums everywhere to do what they need to do to be happy and fulfilled. I want it to be the thing that helps make my life as spectacular as I believe it can be.

Winning this competition would be the best possible start to the New Year. Please help me make 2009 the beginning of a very bright future.

Money Gym Gold Video Entry – Debbie Winterbourne

Here’s  Debbie Winterbourne’s video entry to the Money Gym Gold Competition – now Debbie, what happened to looking at the camera?  Good news, your entry will be considered on the content not video technical skills (as I admire ANYONE who is brave enough to have a go and I often end up looking at the preview screen rather than the camera eye itself!)  Rick Stein (famous chef & restaurateur) says you must make the camera lens your friend to succeed on video and TV, and you can see how I get on with that on my 12-hour Wealth-A-Thon on Saturday 3rd January at Money Gym TV – kicking off at 8am GMT till 8pm GMT.

Money Gym Gold Video Competition Entry – Emma Kernoghan

I had a feeling the entries for Money Gym Gold competition to win a year’s wealth coaching with me, would pour in between Xmas and New Year and I was right!  I go out for the day and come back to x6 entries and comments on entries.  Here is Emma Kernoghan’s video entry – well done Emma! Now get your friends and family to comment and vote for you while I twitter & broadcast all the new entries to get comments and votes.

Money Gym Gold Written Entry – Dawn Dingwell

Hi Nicola

I only came across your website the other day and it has really inspired me and got me buzzing again. I have just recently turned 52 and was feeling a little flat as I am still struggling to meet my goals.I really didn’t think age would affect me but boy has it. I have been self employed since my thirties, and brought up two children who I have home educated from the start. Life has been very busy and years have passed very quickly. My children are both teenagers now and here I am still struggling to make ends meet, but still determined, and telling everyone that I one day I will still become a millionaire.

Being self employed was a very conscious choice, I wanted to be able to create my own money, and my absolute goal was to become a millionaire and then show my children how to do the same, I didn’t want to win the money, so I didn’t buy lottery ticket or scratch cards or bet, I just wanted to get rich though my own business efforts. I have been involved in many businesses, some good, some bad, some profitable but none that have taken me to financial freedoom. I have read all the books, so many books, courses, listened to audio tapes daily in the car, and sometimes I feel so near that I can almost touch it, but also so far away.

When things went wrong as they often did, I was willing to take the consequences and move on, I made a deal with myself that didn’t matter how bad it got, I would never sign on to benefits or become dependant on the state, as I felt for me, if I did this that I would see myself as a failure and I might never have the courage to get back up and have another go. Things went wrong plenty of times, and after the tears and anger we just sold everything in sight (which was very painful), got back up and carried on with the next project . My husband, has always supported me, trusted me and gone along with most of my business ideas working together and helping me which everyway he could. He too was self employed and his trade was going nowhere, so we worked together. I don’t think I was always the easiest person to live with, my mind was always bursting with new ideas and he was always the first to hear and how this project was definately going to be the one, he too trusted and believed we would one day become millionaires.

My lowest point was when I turned 50 and I released that I was far far away from being a millionaire, we had so much debt and I was struggled every day to keep us out of the courts and to hold on to our house, baliffs were knocking at the door, we couldn’t answer the phone, we had to tell the kids not to answer the door, our credit record was going quickly going out the window as day by day defaults were pouring in, and it was sucking up all my energy, I was sinking fast and then my husband become very depressed, the stress and strain of all the bills and the failures had taken its toll and I felt so responsible, so helpless and so alone, but knew I was the only one who could move us forward and had to keep going.

However I learnt to count my blessings and made a list of everything I had achieved during my lifetime, small acheivements large achievements, family achievements, kids achievements I looked back on all my past goals and read back over my journals and I started to realise I have come a hell of a long way and that I should be proud of myself and not beating myself up like this.

One of the high points in my life was when I found premises for my alternative education centre, I had been scouring the internet for another project I had been doing and this site kept coming up which looked to be the perfect venue for a project I was running, I tryed to contact them but no one got back to me and I forgot about it, six months- eight months later I was on the internet and it came up again, this time I phoned and left message on the answer machine, a man came back to me shortly after apologising for not getting back and asked my interest in this venue. He told me it was a centre for autisic children and was only used during the summer months. I apologised, I thought it was an outwood bound centre, and I was looking to rent a place to use for our project I was doing with home educated children, amazingly he had wrote a book on home education and asked me to meet him.

To cut a long story short, we met got along famously and now rent the premises all year around for this project, a wonderful place set in the woodlands with so many facilities for our young people, 20 mins in the car from me and at a wonderful affordable price.

What have I learnt from this, never give up, I always knew I would find some where special for this project, I was always looking and searching, but nothing prepared me for how special this venue would be.

The highway that appeals to me most is property, I have been involved in it when I done up our both our parents houses and sold them on and then brought another property, I was very green and got our fingers burnt a little, we brought at the wrong time, sold at the wrong time, worked hard for months and made hardly any profit. It put me off property for quite a while but didn’t stop me learning as much as I could, reading books audios and even attending a few property meeting and I am now ready to try again learning from the mistakes I made in the past.

Close second would be the internet, I have made a little money on it, but nothing to get excited about. I have wrote three ebooks, but marketing them is the hardest. I have set up my own websites and it is a ongoing job getting them out there for all to see.

After reading your book yesterday I realise I may be much closer than I thought to becoming financially
free we just need someone to point us in the right direction, so thankyou so much Nicola for given me the chance to enter this competition.

Dawn

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