Jill McIntyre is a property and life coach that has had a number of years working within the property industry. She takes from her own life experiences and uses them to help coach her clients through their own circumstances. There is no one else that is more qualified to share her tips and advice when it comes to bettering yourself in order to achieve the goals you have set for yourself.
Join us on another installment of Mindset Monday as we delve into the topic of, ‘Why Financial Freedom?’, we discuss what that means and McIntyre explains the advantages of being able to set realistic goals that can be achieved in the now, the obstacles that we face every day that we might not even know about, we hear an amazing story about a young boy that started his own business and much much more!
To start off, we are delving into the topic of ‘Why Financial Freedom’ and find out why we should be making more of a concerted effort to achieve it.
I often relate back to what's happening with my clients and it really comes to mind very much that with so many of us, we’re so eager to jump ahead and do things. We’ve got to stop at times. And this is what we forget to do. We might have the urge and the surge to make money. We might have the urge and the surge to do it by whatever vehicle, whether it's property, whether it’s shared, whether it's business or whatever it is. But we need to also set time aside to work on our structure. We need to work on our timeline. We need to work on our action plan that is going to allow our feet to touch the ground because inevitably if we don’t, we skim over the surface of stuff that can cost a lot of money mentally, physically, and emotionally.
And the reason I chose this topic today is also from the point of view that you must build a firm foundation. Say if you’re moving forward in property, what do you want to achieve over the next 12 months? And you have it firmly that you might want to do a buy/reno/sell deal or a buy/reno/subdivide/sell deal and [inaudible] takes approximately nine months and by the end of the tenth month, you're into your second deal and working there. That could be your strategy. You've got to be careful not to over-commit. And I think you'd be fully aware of this one because we do take on [inaudible] because the pressure is on we have to do it. And I’m the first to put my hand up, but the pressure at that point is doable because we can work on our time management to get there. But what we need to stop and do, if that pressure is full-on 24/7 or we are the instigator of what's pressing the buttons for that pressure to help. We've got to stop and think, is this the way I want to live? It's going to hinder us eventually health-wise. Your body isn't meant to be continually beat up and hit up because you can't get sleep or you wake up feeling exhausted in the morning because so much is on your mind during the night or every day you're continually living by the phone because there's another demand on all these commitments and emails and then you've got to fit the family in or you've got to fit home in on some level. So this is why I've chosen this topic today because I think we've got to stop and smell the roses on a regular basis to work on that planning to look after a house because we want to be here long term and achieve some great stuff.
It is quite common to be overcommitting yourself and McIntyre delves into her interesting reasoning behind why many people fall into that trap.
I think I would have no hesitation in saying, a lot of our learning comes from our parents. You know, we rely on our parents so much to put food in our mouth, to teach us what we should be doing on a daily basis, right and wrong, all of these sorts of things. And yes, our parents do good jobs, I as a parent, you as a parent, me as a grandparent, this still follows through on whatever level it is you’re at in life, but the problem is that so many of the things we take on as a child, we still live with them as an adult. And as a child, we were taught how to think by our parents. When we get to adulthood, when we’ve got to really work things out for ourselves we don't know how to do it.
Where we are at the crossroads maybe is to change focus and start to work on what to think, what to think that works for you and start to be thinking about, as I mentioned earlier, about working on your game plan, working on your strategies, working on your timelines, being specific about what you want to achieve rather than overloading and coming in. Many of the things that we do as our learned behaviour [inaudible], yes you may be very different to your siblings, we might come from the same parents, mother, and father, but one in the family might be a spender but the other one might be the best saver in the world. We could be very diverse within the family although we come from our parents. So do you take after one of your parents say where stress is concerned? Do you overstress? Do you react the same way when the pressure is really on as your parents? Does it serve you where you are today? And these are the questions we need to ask ourselves because we play our life out over and over again on the same platform, not realising that we're working along those lines. So we need to look at what habits we've taken from our parents. One example, do you vote for the same political parties your parents did?
Yes I do.
And it might sound funny, but it's all these sorts of things. You know, do you drive the car the way that someone else does or do you go out and do something specifically exactly the way you were taught as a child and bless their heart, their parents did a good job as best they could. You know, we're not going into that, but is it serving you now the way you're doing that? Is it serving me the way I think about things? So refocus about what you’re doing and how your time was [inaudible] a property deal. Are you working strategically in the property deal to make an outcome? Are you working on mixing with other people? Because I always say there's such a good synergy in connecting with like-minded people or have you shied away all of your life, but when you look at your mother or your father was exactly the same.
Once we realise that we're [inaudible], it's time to change and it’s hard. But strangely enough, we spend more time working against change than actually putting into the change. We fight the change. This is going to be too hard, we won’t do it, who are you to be wanting to get into a property deal? Our ego will kick in and continually stop it. So it's important to stop and think, what repetitive patterns have I inherited and got now that no longer serve me, that I need to flick.
I totally resonate with you because a lot of the things that we've done in the past to follow in our parents' footsteps and it becomes habitual. You don't think about it and then it's only when you actually ask those questions and go, gosh, you know, why am I doing these habits? Then you break out of that mode. I know a story which I heard a long time ago from a very interesting habit book, there was a family at a party and one of the mothers was there just cooking away. And every time they've made turkey, they've always cut off the edges of the turkey, like, you know, the leg and stuff and put it straight in the oven. And what happened was the daughter said to the mother and said, mom, why do you cut that off?
And she says, my mom said that's what she always used to do. So she followed exactly what I did. So once you go and have a chat to grandma, cause they're all at the same party. So the daughter goes over and has a chat to grandma and grandma says, actually my grandma did it before too. And it just kept going. And then eventually they got down to the bottom of it and they eventually found out that the grandma who was still alive like great great grandma said, I cut it off because it just wouldn’t fit in the oven.
So it was crazy that you think, and sometimes you have to take a step back and go to yourself, those things that my parents had done and taught me, are they actually still applicable in my life currently or even in today's environment? And there's a lot of things I've seen, you know, the same thing like my father used to always say to me, make sure that you close a certain thing up every time that you're done with it. And I go, why dad? You know, why do you need to? Because with the internet nowadays, everything's all automated. He said, no, you've got to do it manually. I’m saying why? Anyway, I tested him. He was like, that's the way I've always done it. I found that it's ingrained.
I think you'll agree with me, the biggest repetitive pattern will be that we will follow our parents and how we cope with money, how we move forward with my money and spending. A lot of people when they're under pressure, all they want to do is to go to the local shops and spend money and it's like, this is my fix for now, but the fix only stays for five minutes or on the other hand, we're always told you must save your money to the point that all the way to adulthood, you can never really spend money. They've got an absolute scare to them, fear or you might have money coming out of your ears if you've got a scarcity or fear that there's gonna be a shortage.
And so you can never get the joy from money. It can work both ways. And you know usually with our parents, we take on their money traits or it could be that they have continually struggled with money and you've been a witness to that all of your growing years and you don't want it to happen to you or your future or your family. But the trouble is we don't know how to step over that line to create good structure that's going to give you the clarity. And so we keep on push, push, push, push and it just doesn't work.
We learn about the categories that everyone fits into financially and we hear about an amazing story that will blow you away.
With the three ways, it’s interesting because I'm sure each of you listening will fit into one of those three categories or thereabout. And the first one is a person who is doing well financially. They're able to pay their bills and got the freedom in lifestyle but there's a major part of them that feels I'm satisfied. They're not extending themselves. There's certainly no petrol in their tank. They're living well, well, well within their comfort zone. And my thinking is that life really starts with each of us when we move to the edge of our comfort zone because we need to be challenged to grow. So if you're in a comfortable situation, for some people that's what they want, but for the majority of the people listening in, they want more than that. The next category is the ‘okay’ financially, but they’re still struggling from week to week.
They've got the money to pay the bills, but they just can't get ahead. They're on a roller coaster ride all the time. Just on a month to month paying what they need to be paying. It’s stressful living like that and a very large part of the population would be in that middle category. Then there's the third category and they're struggling to earn money and they can't keep up with their obligations. They live in stress city. Everything is just imploding and they’re feeling exhausted as they're drowning in their thinking. And it's funny because struggling to earn money, we're all in that situation. One of my clients has got a 10-year-old son and he’s in some sort of Scouts that they had to get some badge on an animal, their dog at home. And of course, they didn't have an animal or a dog. So [inaudible] came up with the idea of, well, why don't we do some dog sitting and then you will feel what it's like to have an animal and do that. Well, in the first two months with the dog sitting, that 10-year-old child made $1,000.
That dog sitting has grown that now it's just expanding. And they live in a domestic block and they've got the support of the school because the school is encouraging of what he's doing, but mainly because of dad and his thinking, that we're working on putting a product together and various things down road the road to sell it as a stream of income to help to build this little boy's bank, but also to develop people’s ideas. One of the biggest money earners has been that they've found out, yes, to have a guinea pig I get $16 a night, to have a dog iw whatever, but the biggest way of making hay is dog walking and it's just amazing how this is grown. Projections and forecasts of people who are listening in, they've got children who are 14, 15, 16, 17, they could do the same sort of thing and make money and it's so important to me.
As you’re going start to think about what structure this little boy needs to set up to build virtually a business under, his dad going as the adult in the situation, but to build that business because at two years of age he's going to start thinking about a company structure. They’ve even got a very basic website set up. He's been interviewed by channel 10 on one of the children's shows and this has all happened in the strand of three months. So struggling to earn money, start to get your thinking cap on as to how you can earn. We always hear about EBAY and selling things we don't want, but it's all cotter. What do we really want and what can we get rid of that can make us money. But what do you do with that money then? Do you put it to good use or go on a spending spree and buy more? So it's about creating a firm structure and thinking outside the scree of making money. So those are the three areas of where you fit in. And if you fit into any of those, it's all about do you want more, do you want more money? Do you want to succeed time and time again. I just had a new client join me on Saturday for their first session and their whole situation is around one of them giving up work. A woman, a new client this morning that I spoke to, the same thing, her dream is just to finish work. And so if we're going to have that sort of dream and vision. We've got to have a structure to really know what we're doing.
In order to get yourself back on track, you need to be able to overcome the obstacles that are hindering you and she provides some strategies on how you can achieve it.
The first thing we've got to identify, what is stopping us? So say if you are going into a property deal and a lot of people work as lonely soldiers, they think, right, property is going to be the be-all and end-all, I'm going to do this. Yes, I've got some money that I can invest in. But the bottom line is they don't bring anyone in to help them or support them. And I've talked before about the importance of personality profiling and where it was so important to know your own strengths and your weaknesses. Bring people in that can help you with the leveraging. With those strengths and weaknesses and if you’re working as a lone soldier, you are trying to cover every aspect of the deal yourself. Now a lot of the things, if you've got the mindset that you’re very, very analytical, analysis paralysis, for example, you will go over and over and over a deal and spend so much time trying to work and you'll be in competition with yourself to get a better outcome all the time.
It is wasted time. I'm not saying what you're doing isn't good stuff but it's over analysing stuff that is not relevant to what's happening now and you need someone in your life if that's where you fit in to come back and say, okay, these are the facts we need, provide those, but then we move on with implementation, how are we going to do it? A very big important part of moving forward and I suggest to all of my clients if they’re a couple is to have a partners meeting once a week. If they're working on a property or business or growth and even that once a week partners meeting, it goes for an hour and they have to have the structure on what they want to achieve over the next week. Each of them. It could be a common goal. We want to have a property all signed, sealed and delivered say three months from now.
What they need to do is what are the steps that they need to take over those three months to make it happen. Then come back and work on a weekly basis at the partners meeting, who's going to be accountable for doing what tasks? Who’s going to follow through? Keep notes of those partner's meetings because the two in the meeting have to be accountable for what they've done or otherwise to move it on to next week and we all have reasons come up with like someone’s been sick and I haven’t been able to do it. That's normal. We work around that. But what we've got to do is if we're really going to grow, we've got to have a structure to move forward with and follow through and it's got to fit your strengths. If you're not a numbers person, it's no good you being in charge of the numbers of doing feasibilities.
So pick the areas that you're good at. If you aren’t good at numbers, you might be good at sourcing sites. You may not be good at building relationships, you might be good at asking and finding money partners. You probably don't realise you are if you’re good at communication, but integrity and a well thought out plan, you could approach people and gently, gently just keep on asking more delving questions that are just like every day how’s the weather type stuff that the person who is the other end of that conversation doesn't realise that you're really trying to ask, so would you like to get into property more? What are you actually looking to achieve? And all of these questions are leading to a deeper, deeper conversation. And it's about spreading your wings and letting people in and you identifying where you're at.
With technology, it has made it easier to connect with people that you surround yourself with to keep you accountable even during your busy schedule.
Say I've got a good friend and I would have conversations with her in the mornings, I make time around my business and what I do and I do for her. But roundabout 8:30 am every morning we connect. It might only be a 2-minute call, but it could be for 10. She’s very good, she is virtually the voice back of my devil's advocate. If I'm coming up with a structure, say, for a clothing business and I've got specific things or a presentation that I'm doing, she will be my ears. She will be my critique, and she will come back and vice versa. This is where we support and help each other. A lot of it's on a personal basis, but nevertheless overall, it keeps me grounded.
It keeps me on track. It also helps me to work on what do I need to achieve today. And that's very important, look at who do you choose to be your accountability partner. It definitely doesn’t always work to be working with family and that can be a hard call because they're not people who want to achieve the end vision of making money in property. But they've got absolutely when it comes down to the grassroots, they've got no intention really of putting much time in and you've still got to sit up for birthdays and Christmas dinners with these people that are your family. So if you've got situations like there and you know the traits of your other siblings or your parents or whatever, love them for what they are but don't go into business with them. When you’re going to say a meetup group and your specifically going, that it’s your mission of, what's in it for me tonight? What am I looking for? And it could be that I’m looking specifically to connect with the right person that's got a similar mindset to mine as in mission and my growth, my outcome, commitment because you want to be working with someone that will be willing to put in the same time as what you will.
You want also to be looking at that person. Do they come from integrity? Integrity is very, very high on my list. I don't want to be working with anyone that does underhanded things or things that just don't fit on a comfortable level with me. I also don't want people that have got Donald Trump's personality, that's a nightmare from hell that I'd be inviting into my life. So start to put the checklist down of what you want, what sort of person you would feel comfortable with, but at the same time, you've got to look at warts and all of yourself and work on what you could contribute to a deal or to an accountability person that you can start to sell yourself as, this is where I'm good at, this is what I can commit. You don't have to physically meet them at a coffee shop every morning. We've got Skype, people have got children. You could meet once a week on Skype at 8:30pm on a Wednesday night, for example. And yet I could be living 30Km/h away from there. So it's about setting it up with the right person, but first of all, you've got to know what your worth and who you want living under the structure of all of those things I've just gone through that you want to be part of.
McIntyre shares a recent example from one of her clients about how setting an unrealistic goal can actually hurt you.
Financial freedom and my new client that came on Saturday is a good example, is he and his wife have written their goals down, but the goals are airy-fairy and they really can't relate to them. And you might put financial freedom to me is to make a property deal, have a property deal under my belt, $150,000 in profit all the time too and delivered in the next 12 months, a major part of you is in your ego and the little voice in your head, saying, you're kidding yourself. It's on paper but who are you to think that you're going to get that. What are the chances if underneath it all, such a strong force within you is telling you you can't achieve it, what's going to happen?
I guess it's self-pity and you're negative. You deal with that internal negativity inside.
You might be taking steps forward, but in reality, you've got Buckley's chance of getting there. Because your mind is, you're not believing that that's the way it’s going to be of you having that money. You're going to wake up one morning, 12 months from now and looking at your bank and you've got another $150,000 in there. They’re not really believing in it because it's never happened to you before and only lucky people it would happen. But these are the things that you've got to think about is that do you set a goal but underneath you really don't believe that it's achievable. You're wanting this to be achievable, but you're really doubting that it will ever happen and you've got to connect with that.
If you have that little voice inside your head and want to change it to something positive, then McIntyre gives you tips on how to.
I’m very, very structured in how I think. I do it on a daily basis with the clients because I’m brainstorming and anytime I can see an opportunity well it just opens up to me and my thinking but that hasn't always been for me. Go back years and years ago, I had no self-esteem, no self-worth, no money, and I started below the eight balls with a hearing problem and absolutely fearful of me ever presenting or doing a podcast. Now, It's the best place I could ever be, I love it. So all of this just starts to turn round off if we take, for example, when you write a goal, now your goals could be short and maybe more long term. I don't work so much on them, I might do them once a year at the beginning of the new year where my projections are and then I'll review them each year but I am very big on a monthly basis to do my monthly intentions, my monthly intentions, whether their intentions or they’re goals, I’ve got a very strict guideline of how to write my goals.
Everything must be in the now. So you're writing it but it’s the date say 12 months from now. It's the 25th of October, 2020. You must take your mindset that it's already happened. If you do that, fear won’t come in from your past events or your future events. What if I lost my job? What's going to happen there? I've lost money before and all the time if we work in with the thinking about past or future events, they will stop us. If we live in the now and we are consciously living in the now, that event is happening as we speak. We don't have fear. So we write our goal or intention for the date that end goal is happening. We write that to absolutely be on track to that's the day that we're speaking in the now. So the day is the 25th of October, 2020.
And I can’t get the smile off my face. I've got to rush the excitement or the emotion that is attached to that goal. So that stirs you up for a start. You've also got to be very, very visual. If I said I wanted to set up a new website, that's fine and dandy but how wide is the website. If I say, I'm looking at my disclaimer on the new website. The colors are this [inaudible]. It's absolutely powerful and dynamic, love the logo that's been set up for me. And the more that you can describe that, the more that your conscious mind then takes it into your subconscious thinking that it's always happening and you are watching it as it's happening.
You don't have any negative words in your intentions or goal. You don't have maybe, perhaps, if, but, all of those in my thinking, is moveable goalposts. Be definite about what you’re writing, if you're looking at your bank, I can't believe I can't get the grin off my face. I've got $150,000+ sitting in my bank account today and I didn't have it yesterday. How exciting is that, always put a plus or more after the amount of money that you're looking for because then that doesn't limit the outcome. So there's a few golden rules to bring in here. The more that I can read that goal, the more that I can visualise that it's actually happening as I'm looking at it and reading it now, the more I am taking it on board with ownership and the more that I know it's not just may be happening, it's factual.
We delve into the breakdown of our fears and how events in our past and future are a predominant part of them.
If you bring in why I mentioned the past and the future, 40% of our fears are things in the future. 30% of our fears come from past events. So 70% percent of what stops us in our tracks is the past and future things happening, the fear of doing this or that happened before, then we go down to 12% of our fears are our health and wellbeing and I can get on and have a sore toe today, get onto Mr Google and by tonight I've got gangrene in my toe and it needs amputating.
We over analyse what's happening. 10% is miscellaneous and the last 8% are real legitimate fears, but we can only change 4% of those fears. So there's a very small percentage of what we really fear that are factual. if we stay and live in the now, you and I are consciously talking in the now, I'm on the ball with the thinking your on the ball with the listening. We are both in and out. But if I go out and get in the car after this, I don't stop and think, how do I drive and what do I do? It's all stored in my subconscious and my future and my past and I’m daydreaming and all of this sort of stuff in another space. And that's when, if we can keep and stay and raise our level of living in the now more with what we're doing, the outcome will certainly give us the rewards we're looking for.
McIntyre adds a little extra tip about achieving financial freedom.
I think just stop and identify where you as an individual are. What are you wanting to achieve in the next 12 months of property? Be honest with yourself about what your blocks and stoppers are and that will associate with your fears, your real fears. It could be break into a conversation at a meetup group with other people. I always say it's hard to do because I was there years ago and can understand what it feels like, but by putting yourself into a group of people and just say may I join you and it's as simple as that. If they all stop in a little group from talking and say, “Yeah by all means, this is Bill and whatever along the line,” you’re in, if they say yes but then go back to a conversation and ignore you just slip out and go to the next one, the next little group and go in there and say may I join you, but don't beat yourself up with rejection because you haven't been able to get into that first group. You can just move on from that. There's a number of points about being in the now, about writing your goals, about having a two-year plan, about examining where you are, if you've got any traits from your parents. So enjoy working through all of those.
The biggest obstacle we face every day is ourselves and if we realise this and work towards becoming more positive and change our thinking, our goals will be easier to achieve.
If we can keep in mind that the one that's stopping us is us. It takes us to have the courage to go and look at who we are and what we are, warts and all. And say, yes, I can stay as I am but what am I going to do if I want change? And there's lots of help out there. Just put your hand out and take the first step and the more you do that, the more confidence will come your way. And with confidence will come self-esteem and everything else. Plus the rewards will be 10 times fold.
If you want to keep in contact with McIntyre after this podcast she provides her details and how she will look to help you.
Just give us an email at [email protected] and by all means, if someone wants to talk to me about coaching or whatever that yeah, just ring me up and we’ll see first of all, whether I can help you and there has to be a synergy between us and we take it from there and work on that. And yes, I am putting a product together at the moment and that's a work in progress, which I'm pretty excited about. So we'll share more about that one along the way when it comes to being finalised but not too far off.
This episode was produced by Andrew Faleafaga with narrations and interviews conducted by Tyrone Shum.
