My Money Gym Week by Judith Morgan

Nicola’s still gone and its very peaceful here at the virtual Money Gym Towers.   I’ve noticed that Steve has been beavering away at a lot of chores which I know have been on his To Do List awhile and I have been enjoying the news from Nicola and Sarah who did a property deal on their first day in Stoupa!  Did you see that?   Have you seen their new property website? I’m in for a Stoupa property on a rent2own basis, how about you? Sounds like we could create our own MG holiday village in Greece!   Catch up with their remaining holiday exploits by following them on Twitter and seeing the photos and little Greek videos?   I said Greek, not geek.

This week has been rather unexpected for me.   The things I thought were going to happen didn’t and vice versa.   On Monday evening I played poker with my lawyer and won again even though I have no idea what I am up to.   Its make or break time soon, I will have to decide whether or not this is something that I’m just never going to be any good at, however much fun I have.   Still, I like spending time with my lawyer who is a gent, funny and clever and a genius at seeing the deal.   He had spent the day with my Property Boardroom which I had to miss this time around, although they are hammering out a few big deals it seems.   I should miss it more often; do they play bigger when I’m not there?

I scooted over to Red in Canary Wharf on Tuesday and learned about a couple of fascinating new opportunities they have coming up, about which more soon.   New build UK properties for owner-occupation or BTL, only £800 to get in + a guaranteed non-status 95% mortgage in three years’ time.   I told them I would take their entire stock for us Money Gymers!   Also a scheme whereby you can rent your equity to a bank and they will pay you for that with no risks/mortages/drawdowns, which will be wonderful for those on a fixed budget who want increased income and/or the risk averse and perhaps older people in lieu of equity release.   So many brilliant ideas at Red, so little time.

Regretfully, I had to put the debt collectors onto a third party who owed the Money Gym nearly £5,000 this week and I used Thomas Higgins, at the reminder of the wondrous Google Group about which we have writen this week in our Did Your Know column.   For only £2 they sent a letter before action and our debtor miraculously coughed up making me wonder why I hadn’t taken a firmer line sooner.   A lesson there.   Don’t let people owe you money, send the dogs in!

I spent a day on my own money which is always rewarding.   I did that thing where you tidy up which bank account you are using for which purpose, closed an unwanted duplicate bank account, put essentials on direct debit, and made sure only the right direct debits and standing orders were coming out of each remaining bank account.   So now my personal ones are in my personal account, my business ones in my business account, my property ones in my property account and so on.   Very cleansing.   And that gave me enough energy to go on and do something which Julia McDaid had recommended to me YEARS ago – to use Egg Money to link to all my personal current accounts, deposit accounts, loans and credit cards which means I only have to log into Egg’s website now in order to be able to control my 19 financial products spread across 8 separate banks.   Wowser!   The control.   Fabulous.

On Wednesday, normally known as webinar Wednesday, we were call free.   We had already agreed not to run Silver Elite during Nicola’s absence and then Xiosoft, who host the weekly Gold call, decided to do their maintenance between 11 and 12 at precisely the time we normally speak, so that meant I could divert my energies into the Money Gym accounts instead.   Then I went to recce a Central London venue for some 2009-2010 events and found a nice new boardroom with an adjacent hotel for Nicola, a carpark for me, and a series of lovely restaurants in which to enjoy our clients.

Peter Stanley and I continue to make strides with our Rent2Own mentoring calls on Friday mornings, although we only have two left before the end of term.   Peter helped a mate of mine do two deals last week alone in Manchester; my mate found the leads and Peter helped him to close the deals, one each as I understand it. How abundant is that?

Apart from one million emails a day, the rest of my week has evolved around Extreme Self-Care after I wrote a blog post about my Summer To Do list.   After a swift re-frame about which jobs on the list counted as ESC if I could get them out of the way before my holiday starts on 1^st August, I was able to cross three work-related items off the list this week whilst also adding a few more, but I reckon its OK to do the personal ones during the August holiday.   MG Coach Marion and I have done a couple of EFT tapping calls this week too and she’s been working on a couple of new websites for me.

My ESC activities included getting the garden gate painted and the front door fixed, getting the oven professionally cleaned, asking for a caterer on Twitter and finding two, advertising on Gumtree for someone to help with my garden and with my cat, and going with Marie Taylor on her birthday to karaoke at Lucky Voice.   Jane P Lewis, MG client, is going to arrange a singing trip to LV in Islington if you are up for it?   Let us know.

Lucky Voice? Perhaps not, but Lucky Judith most definitely.

Until next time…

Did You Know… that we are just drawing to the close of our pilot scheme for our new Silver Elite level of membership of the Money Gym?

It started at the beginning of May and it has been not without its challenges.   Judith couldn’t speak at all the first week at all (!), it took a while for all the participants to work out how various bits and bots of the programme worked and that  was just great and it told us what they struggle with.

There have been moments when the homework didn’t come out until just before we were due to be it debating online and we have to miss one week before the end of term in July due to an unscheduled holiday we didn’t know Nicola was taking when we started out!    But sooner or later all of us got on the same page at the same time.

And all in all, it’s been absolutely fabulous and totally surprising in only a good way.   New homework videos, new tele-seminars, new relationships with old clients reporting excellent results, some having had to revise their goals upwards already which is just as it should be.

Participants have reported that it got them focusing on stuff they thought they knew but hadn’t taken action on yet, such as getting spreadsheets of income and outgoings in place.   Many report loving the feeling of control that brings.   Lots of aha moments have been shared in the Google Group which has inspired the bystanders too.   F A B.

We have loved re-visiting the material step by step and updating our thinking on Property, Business, Internet and Stocks & Shares and, of course, each week is different as our clients bring their unique viewpoint to each class. And now we have a fully fledged new programme ready to go, with much thanks to the feedback from our R & D team in the pilot.

We shall still be perfecting this across the summer but if you are a Silver member,  you can secure a WHOPPING discount of £500 off the price of £997, making it only £497 to be one of only 20 clients with our next term which starts on 9/9/09.

Silver Elite is a great way to kickstart your Silver membership of the Money Gym or reinvigorate if you have stalled.   Most in our pilot had been with us a long time but accountability finally enabled them to get stuck into the trickier bits and engage with the programme.

Sign up here >>

“Take A Look At Yourself And Make a ….. Change” by Judith Morgan

Every day on our Money Gym forums clients report successes.   They can be tiny. They can be huge. They can be both tiny and huge at the same time.   When we see a client who has worked from November 2008 until July 2009, “following the bloody instructions” as Nicola would say, finally report her first ebook sale worth precisely $17.97, a huge virtual cheer goes up in our Money Gym community.   Why’s that?  

Because Jodie has inspired us all and proved it can be done and, more than that, we are cheering her fortitude, her ability to stick with something for nine months before seeing a result.   Jodie said “I had a squeeze page sign up, and then 10 minutes later my new prospect bought my book!” but we all knew it wasn’t really just 10 minutes, we knew it was ten minutes at the end of nine months’ application.

And Jodie’s not the only one.   We’ve got clients bravely going into Estate Agents and learning to love them, introducing them to the principles of Rent2Own.   We’ve got clients getting their books up on Amazon, a journey of some 2-3 years, we have clients reporting successes with Google Adwords resulting in more income for their businesses, doing property deals even in this climate, raising money from each other to do bigger deals and joint ventures, advising and supporting one other, launching websites, thinking laterally, sharing resources, and getting into forex and foreign investments.   Nowadays, there’s so much of this going on, we almost take it for granted.

Until that is we rub up against someone who puts a pin in our balloon.   Someone who says it can’t be done, the naysayers, complainers, non-believers, slaggers, those who ask for refunds and say our programme is rubbish when I know it ain’t because I’ve been through it myself and it has made the world of difference to my own finances.   I now have properties and businesses and investments which will lead to my eventual financial freedom.  

Now I know how and when I am going to achieve that and am already planning my early retirement to my much-fabled sunshiny tax-free haven.   Just working out now the best way and place to blog the last bit of the journey.   And that’s all down to what I learned from Nicola and what we now teach together in the Money Gym with the help of our wonderful coaches, Steve Watson and our community of past and present clients.

It’s taken me six years and counting.   And I’ve been working at it one way or the other for most of that time and it ain’t over yet.   So what would I say to the faint-hearted, the down-hearted, those who slag Nicola and I off in public forums and in private?

I would say look at our clients, too many to list by name here, but if you are in our forums you already know who they are.  Look at the video of Debbie Bissett on YouTube, look at how much better, more joyous and free Debbie’s life is.   Look how well and happy she looks on it, and she’s one of our most steadfast supporters for the same reason I am – she’s been through the programme, she knows it works and more importantly she’s put the work in.

I always say to those clients joining us at Gold level that this year will be the foundation stone of the rest of your financial life.   I tell them truthfully that I am still building on that foundation six years later.   One very kind client, Kate, told me recently that she thought I had really rocketed in my own journey in the last year and that’s true, but it’s the compounding effect of the work which has gone on in the last six years.   Gold clients are entitled to rock up to most of what we do for free or cost forever.  

Do they?   Some do… well done, you lot!   A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, often at Silver level of The Money Gym Club.   It takes guts to return to the fold and say I messed up first time, or the time wasn’t right for me, or this is going to make me longer than I thought.   But we love and welcome you to do that.   It’s included in what you bought because we know how long this journey can be for some, for most.

We have discovered recently through our new Silver Elite programme that clients appreciate weekly accountability, a deadline and a kick up the bum along with a degree of hand-holding.   But in the end, it’s all down to you.   There really is only so much we can do for you.  

The Money Gym programme works, but only if you make it important, only if you stick at it like Karen, Claire, Stephanie, Debbie, me, Dawn, Matthew, Yvonne and others too many to count but you know who you are and so do we.   Because you continue to show up and do the work and contribute back to our community and we love and appreciate you for that.

To paraphrase Michael Jackson, and that seems timely, “if you wanna make your financial world a better place, take a look at yourself and make that …….change”.  

And let me know how we, at The Money Gym, can help.

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Mums, Moms, Money Gym Allstars & Marvellous Myles Phago,

A lively week after a quiet weekend online, catching up with all those emails that came in over the weekend!!  I’m thinking of investing in RescueTime.com as seen over at Chris Barrow’s blog where it charts which windows you are using then produces a sexy little graph that tells you where you spend your time – scary stuff.  I suspect it would be too scary though.

He’s also got two, count them, two PA / VA’s, one for admin & diary type stuff and one for financial stuff.  Well done, Chris – at last eh?  And well done Philippa, one of his VA’s who has just won National VA of the Year Award (under 18 months in business).  See our testimonial/inspirational story box this week for what Phillippa had to say about that in Chris’s ezine this week….

I really need a VA just to take my email and only send me the stuff I really need to see / deal with – it’s such a distraction.  I have mine set up to only send me stuff every half an hour from my spamfilter, but I till click send and receive every few minutes.  Pathetic.

Wednesdays are now renamed Webinar Wednesdays as I like to cram them all into one day.  This is both a time management and a week zoning ploy and it works for me.  10am on Wednesdays is now for our 25 odd Silver Elite pioneers, 11am is either Silver/Gold members (1st Wed of month) or Gold (2nd, 3rd & 4th Wed) where they come and “get coached live” by Judith and I, in addition to working with their own coach.

Karen “Timebomb T-Shirts” Gilbert, one of our Gold clients, has done incredibly well in her first year in Gold (we let them stay for life remember!) and she has turned up to just about every one of her 52 webinars and she credits that with SOME of her amazing progress.  Her coach must also take the credit LOL.  Sometimes she has been the only one on the webinar pretty much, so got our full attention, welcome or not!

1pm is Membership Club Magic support calls, probably for the last time, as I’m recording the video presentations and discussions afterwards, for watching back by new MCM Members.  I will support them thereafter by email in their own Google group.  One of our potential clients was complaining that he had to watch the whole video to find out what’s included in our offer for that, but it’s selling so well from the stage, I’ve not had time to write a sales letter for it.

3pm is supposed to be the live Money Gym TV show, but I can’t get my Edirol UA microphone to work with my new laptop, in spite of Steve’s best efforts *sob, sob*.  I might have to ring the Roland helpline. Must be something to do with the 32 / 64 bit systems in my laptop.  Causing no end of problems that.

BABY / NEW MOM WEBSITE UP FOR AUCTION

One of my Money Gym clients is thinking of auctioning off his website due to the pressure of his other commitments – he just can’t give it the brain space it needs.

It’s set up to attract traffic and then funnel it through ebay and amazon affliate links at the moment but is producing minimal income due to lack of love and attention.  Averaging around 400-500 unique visits a month over the dot com and dot co uk versions.  Not many subscribers as yet because unknown to my client, the subscribe box wasn’t working right for a year (!!)

If you are in a baby / new mom niche, have your own product and would like to buy and develop this website (it needs a blog, regular communication with subscribers, ongoing promotion perhaps via Twitter and a Facebook Fan Page) and you have your own product to sell via the site, this could be one for you.  A ready made search-engine friendly front end for your product / coaching / membership site back end products.

You will need to move the site to new hosting and integrate the site with TotalBusinessCart to run the subscribe function, but if you have a tame techie they will know how to do that, or we can help you find someone.

The site is well indexed by Google, Yahoo, AOL, Microsoft Live, Ask and the top key phrases bringing traffic right now are “pregnancy books”, “pregnancy videos” and “good pregnancy books”.

Check it out at http://www.PregnancyBooksAndVideos.com (or .co.uk) and in the first instance contact nicola [at] themoneygym.com.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Pampers PR Company are flying me to Dublin on Sunday for a Monday morning launch of the Pampers Village Parenting Panel in Ireland, loads of journalists, mums and babies, what fun – I do love a nice baby!!  Sounds like an interesting new format for a launch too so I’ll try and take some video for the blog.

This week coming, we have our next Cashflow Game which I believe is nearly sold out.  If you have always wanted to play Robert Kiyosaki’s seminal game, book your place here http://www.themoneygym.com/events.

And then on Friday week, we are hosting our first “Money Gym Business Surgery”

But this weekend is the biggie – it’s the “2nd MYLES PHAGO APPRECIATION SOCIETY DEEP STACK INVITATIONAL TOURNAMENT” at the Royal Sovereign Pub in Brighton and I’m so excited

I love these days out, which pull marvellous and miscellaneous players from all over Sussex, with a wide variety of prizes including much-coveted Myles Phago mugs and all sorts of other lovely Myles-orabilia.

This is an interesting exercise in online marketing and branding actually, and it’s all the more interesting because Russ, the guy behind it, is not a marketeer by job, but is obviously a natural.

The Tournament was created by Russ Cochran, clever micky-taker extraordinaire, in honour of our Apple Poker area manager Myles Phago, who is the only person we actually all know, to have played in the World Series of Poker!!  (incidentally one of my “100 Things To Do Before I Die”)

Myles is rapidly becoming an immortal brand, thanks to Russ’ efforts, and now has his own Fan Page on Facebook  and is described there thusly:

“Myles Phago owns the greatest Poker Face of all-time. It helped him win the 1983 World Series of Poker despite him holding just a Joker, a Get out of Jail Free Monopoly card, a 2 of clubs, 7 of spades and a green #4 card from the game Uno!!!”

And finally if you play No Limit Texas Hold’em, join our new Twibe in order to be able to find a friendly game, via Twitter, no matter where you are in the world, right now.

Oooh, that’s just all given me an idea, a “wealth creation allstars” texas hold’em networking tournament….I’ll just create a Facebook page to gauge levels of interest…here it is!  Instant market research.

Have fun, we always do!

Nicola