My Greatest Fear, Disappointment & Possible Regret

In taking a moment to reflect on what Jane (my wife) and I have been able to achieve financially over our 16 years of investing in residential property and amassing a multi-million dollar property portfolio before the age of 40, it once again highlights to me a couple of valuable lessons that have resulted in our household becoming financially independent and with so much to look forward to in our lives, knowing we have a wealth base that can sustain us.

The first lesson is ‘look over the hill into the distance’.  If I had of made decisions based on the certain short term economic cycles I would be like the other 95% of the population whose financial position for themselves and their families is restricted by income and cashflows, because they hadn’t yet or won’t be able to allocate any cashflows to investments that deliver passive incomes and wealth.

Another valuable lesson is to take responsibility and action.  I didn’t just dream it, we did it with the help and input from specialists and a determination to say and believe we could have more, whilst also enjoying the journey.  The greatest excitement for us is we are still looking to do more, by undertaking major renovations to extend our home and make it our dream home.  Plus adding another investment property in our trust and one in our self managed super fund.  All planned out to occur as per our detailed money and wealth plan over the next 10 years, at which point I’ll be in my 50^th year and have the luxury to call it a day from working.

With such a positive road ahead for me and my family, you might be wondering what this has got to do with FEAR, DISAPPOINTMENT and REGRET.

It’s simple really. Let me break it down for you:

Greatest Fear: Is that I won’t have all my friends in the same position as we are in. They will be going to work, whilst we travel Australia, the world, participate in our children’s education and sport etc.  (I want to have my mates around to play golf with whenever or wherever).  So the fear story is around not helping as many people as I possibly can through Empower Wealth to enjoy what we currently enjoy and what the future holds for us in terms of superior lifestyle and living standards.

Disappointments: Not enough people are listening to my message or taking action to ensure they improve their household’s quality of life and standard of living through passive investments.  I understand we as humans are ‘interesting creatures’ with independent thoughts and ideals, (that’s what makes us so interesting), but the hard facts are clear – as with any education to gain knowledge you need to find teachers you can trust and have proven results to get you ahead.

So the disappointing thing for me is our team at Empower Wealth doesn’t have the time and resources to help everyone, but  we do have the capacity to help a select, say 1000 households if they are willing to entrust us and take action with us.   So I get disappointed when some people seek help and guidance, but are mislead by those who’s interested align to themselves or those who, when they do find a trusted professional partner for this journey they continue to fail to take action.  (For the record in our 3 years of operation we have around 450 Households currently working with us)

Possible Regrets:  This is and always will be the hardest for me to hear because in my mind it triggers a sense of failure on my part.

Its hearing someone tells me that they should have listened to me and my team earlier because our advice and predictions were RIGHT. Meaning, they realise that all those who listened to us and sought our professional services, are financially better off and their past decisions of not taking action back then has cost them financially.  Bottom-line is it means it’s impacted on their quality of life and standard of living.

My regret will be for those that opted not to take on mine and my teams teaching and services is that our message did not get through to them and we couldn’t help them achieve greater wealth.

Remember, knowledge is empowering – if you do something with it!