Bimbi Fernando shares his inspiring journey from financial insecurity to financial independence within five years. He reflects on the pivotal moments during the COVID-19 pandemic that prompted him to take control of his financial future. Bimbi discusses the importance of education, community support, and the seven pillars of wealth in building a secure financial foundation. He also highlights his ventures into property investment and options trading, as well as his recent achievement of publishing a book on kindness. The conversation emphasises the significance of purposeful retirement and legacy building, encouraging listeners to take action towards their financial goals.
In this inspiring Member Spotlight, Christian Rodwell talks to Bimbi Fernando, a transplant surgeon who joined WealthBuilders Academy in February 2021. Bimbi shares his journey from financial insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic to achieving financial independence in 2024. He discusses the catalysts for change, the asset classes he focused on, the importance of education and community, and how he’s now using his experience to build a purposeful legacy.
Key Topics Covered
Practical Takeaways
Final Thoughts
Bimbi’s story is a testament to the power of education, community, and taking action. For anyone considering starting their own journey, he encourages weighing the risks of inaction against the benefits of joining a supportive network like WealthBuilders. If it’s important enough, you’ll find a way to make it happen.
Resources mentioned in this episode
Connect with WealthBuilders
Next Steps On Your WealthBuilding Journey:
If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and review WealthTalk on your favourite podcast platform
Speaker 2 (00:00.078)
I feel like I've got a halo over my head and it's allowing me to think very differently about my future. We had to look after one of my own surgical colleagues who had COVID-19 and was unconscious and kept alive on the ventilator. You know, it dawned on me he's got so many dependents and I thought, actually, I'm exposed in terms of not having the protection of the people you love and care for and stunned me into thinking I need to do something about this.
Speaker 3 (00:31.118)
Welcome to this week's episode of Wealth Talk. My name is Christian Rodwell, the membership director for Wealth Builders, joined today by our founder, Mr. Kevin Whelan. Hi, Kevin.
Chris, good to be with you again and a pleasure to put a smile on my face actually when I heard you, who you were talking to this week.
Yes, we're really pleased to bring another member success story to you today. Our member is Mr. Bimbi Fernando, who joined us back in 2021. It's just been such a joy, hasn't he, to work with Kevin and has followed all the steps. He will refer to many of the wealth builders IP during the conversation today. He joined us. He is an NHS surgeon.
He's married, he's got two daughters and legacy and looking after his family was a big driver, a big part of his why at the beginning. And boy, has he, you know, just grabbed it with both hands and we're going to hear about his journey today.
It's interesting when you often hear busy professionals say, I'd like to be wealthy, but can't find the time. Yet, know, busy surgeon saving lives, doing amazing work within the NHS has found the time to listen to every episode of the podcast. And if you listen to the dialogue today's peppered with, as you say, the wealth builders IP, so many different things that we talk about. He knows inside and out. think.
Speaker 1 (01:53.378)
I think I could retire now, couldn't I, have a purposeful retirement and need...
Yeah, he's on a mission and we're going to hear all about that. But I remember, know, Bimbi will refer to it, but maybe you can just set the scene of sort of how you and Bimbi first connected.
Well, I know he was kind of maneuvering around looking at wealth builders, as often people do, know, professional people will take a look and, and quite rightly, you take your time, your due diligence, make sure you resonate, all of those good things. But I remember watching, it caught my eye, right? It was a TV program and it was the story of two surgeons who'd done kidney transplants on the same person, right? And, and I thought, okay, that's interesting.
And it was his dad and then him. So this patient who'd obviously survived with the, with the skill and care that had been brought, not just by Bimbi himself, but also Bimbi's dad. And I thought that's just an amazing story. And that that same person, you know, had gone through two operations with two versions of the same Fernando family. And I thought I got to call him. Right. So I got to call him. It's similar as that, right? It wasn't intention.
to call him with a view to saying, would you like to join wealth builders Bimbi? I just said, look, this was just an amazing story and I didn't know this about you. And I think he reflects that in the conversation that I suppose he would argue is a random act of kindness, I guess. And which is very much a theme for him as we'll see. And as you said, right at the beginning, and I don't want to be too effusive about Bimbi, but he's probably one of the nicest people you could ever meet. And you can tell that when you listen to him.
Speaker 3 (03:33.784)
So I think we better head on over and listen to Bimbi's own story of how he's moved from financial insecurity to financial independence within five years. So here's our conversation with Mr. Bimbi Fernando. Bimbi, welcome to Wealth Talk today. How are you?
And very well, thank you, Christian. Lovely to be here. Thank you for inviting me.
so fantastic to have you here, Bimbi. We've talked over the years about the day that we'd finally be able to talk about your success. You're one of our WealthBuilder Academy members who joined back in February 2021. Think back to those days, full on COVID times, right? We'll probably hear about some of the catalysts for why you joined in a moment. Success has come and you achieved financial independence.
towards the back end of last year around September, 2024. So we talk about, you know, financial independence within five years. If you focus, if you clear on your plan, if you show up for your coaching calls, all of the things that you have done diligently, Bimbi, and how does it feel to be at that point of financial independence now?
Yeah, very excited. And again, thank you. I feel like I've got a halo over my head. So, thank you very much for that, Christian. No, it feels great. It's lovely to be part of the community of wealth builders. And I've got a lot to be grateful to the community, yourself and Kevin, and absolutely flourishing and loving everything about you guys and what it's done for me in terms of allowing me to
Speaker 2 (05:07.778)
think very differently about my future. So thank you. Very excited, yes.
So going to walk through the process and go through our revenue, recurring revenue roadmap, our blueprint really, that anyone can follow to achieve the same success that you have. Is this your first podcast, Bimbi?
Quite the first. could share that other podcasts I've done recently and then maybe I can allude to that later on. Something which I perhaps wouldn't have expected when I started and joined Wealthbuilders, but delighted to be part of that in terms of presenting the podcast for that. But I can share that with you later, perhaps. Yeah.
We're building up your IP now, which is obviously one of the seven pillars of wealth. And we talk about diversification and the more assets that you can create recurring income streams from, the more secure that you'll feel. And we're going to look at obviously which asset classes you've been focusing on over the last three or four years, Bimbi. But let's take it back to the beginning, shall we? So we said you joined back in 2021. Can you remember, was there a particular catalyst?
know, a point where you said, okay, right, I need to do something about this now.
Speaker 2 (06:15.394)
Well, I think we can all remember the days of COVID-19 and what that meant. And for me as a transplant surgeon, know, the world had suddenly changed and it was a great reset for so many people. My main line of work had changed suddenly. And, you know, for example, in my setting, in my hospital, the roles of the surgeons changed so that we ended up supporting the real heroes of the pandemic who were the nurses, you know, the ICU nurses and the other support staff who were keeping patients alive.
And there's certain defining moments in your life and a particular defining moment was when we had to look after, and I say we as a collective we, had an ancillary role but had to look after one of my own surgical colleagues who had COVID-19. And it dawned on me when I was looking after this person who was unconscious and kept alive on the ventilator.
that he's got so many dependents, including family members and, you know, widened family as well as people back at home in Africa. And it suddenly dawned on me that actually, you know, I'm exposed as are lots of other people in terms of not having the protection of the people, you you love, love and care for around you really. So that was a great reset for me, making me think and stunned me into thinking.
I need to do something about this at that point.
And then why did you decide to work with wealth builders in particular, Bimbi?
Speaker 2 (07:45.72)
So initially from that, I looked into property and worked with a group in property and education group that was teaching me about this. But whilst I was trying to work out the funds, an opportunity came up or a discussion came up stating that you can use SAS's and I thought, that sounds very exciting and very interesting. The challenge was that I had an NHS defined benefits pension, which isn't usually compatible with SAS's. anyway, I was put on to
someone called Kevin Whelan. I tried to do a bit of research and looked at some education and found that there were some great podcasts called Wealth Talk and suddenly started listening to a few things. an interesting Friday evening, I had this call from an unexpected number, unknown number, and it was Kevin on the phone. I thought, hang on, I've been listening to you all day.
And not only that, he'd done some background research on me as well and sort of knew some stuff about me, which I wasn't expecting him to know. And I was very grateful for that. But it set me on the path that thinking, yes, you know, this is the right sort of group. But it took me about another six months to really immerse myself in all the podcasts that I could devour and try and get as much information before I eventually joined Wealth Builders. I believe in February 21.
And so, you know, that was a defining moment. Yes, I remember actually, it was just around about Kevin Whelan's birthday at that point. So I remember having a joke with someone there at that
We talk about the five levels of wealth and most people in the UK, Bimbi, find themselves at a place of financial insecurity, which means if their main source of income from their job or their business were to suddenly stop, they wouldn't have enough income flowing in each month to cover their outgoings. That's financial insecurity. Then the first stage for most people is to get to the financial security level and then of course, onto independence. Can you remember where you were when you joined?
Speaker 2 (09:42.988)
Yes, well, you know, was in a fortunate position, you know, salaried income, but as I mentioned, you know, there was that vulnerability. And if anything happened to me health-wise, you know, I wouldn't have had enough. So definitely, even though I was in a well-paid job with a fair amount of security around the job, I was financially insecure. So I didn't have enough money to sustain what outgoings were.
at that particular point to survive. And so, you know, I was definitely at a point of financial insecurity. I was fortunate enough to have a few bitolettes, perhaps more as an accidental landlord. And that was, you know, really welcome. But even with that start, I was still financially insecure. And it was quite helpful at that point, just having the roadmap and then working out about how cash flow becomes important.
and you could start building the assets to allow that income to happen. you know, I'm delighted to say through different processes, I'm now at an independence level, you know, that I feel comfortable about just on the cusp of independence. Sometimes month to month I dip out, but mostly I'm financially independent, you know, but definitely secure and in a different mindset as well.
What choices does that now provide you with Bimbi? Now that you're in that position.
Yeah, so that's an interesting question. Choices, I think the choices, you know, being in a salaried post anyway, you you can still do the things that you were planning to do in terms of going to holidays, you know, so it's not a big difference. But I think it's just being comfortable and knowing with the whole of the wealth building process, that you've got the confidence that if anything happens to you, everyone around you is protected. And also having the confidence.
Speaker 2 (11:35.282)
and the ability to look ahead and look ahead with real excitement to the future. So that's probably the behavioral changes. I haven't seen any real differences in what I'm doing, you know, being at a different position, but it's given me the opportunities to think very differently about the future and be excited about it, which I certainly am.
Yeah, and you mentioned the word protection there. So that takes us on quite nicely to another stage in the wealth building process, which is what we call the roof. So it's one of the things that we say to all of our members really early on in joining, make sure that you've got things like wills, powers of attorney, all of these things in place, especially if you've got families, right? Because we just never know what's around the corner. So were there any elements of the roof Bimbi that you had to take care of?
Well, we already had a will in place, but there's absolutely no harm in revisiting it and introduced and had a great consultation with Theresa Jones from Compass Legal and basically refined our will and set up trust for us and the family and also set up lasting power of attorney for health and finance as well, which just again gives you that confidence when you're starting to do.
different things and thinking ahead. You just really wanted to have that confidence and assurance that in particular the people around you are protected really.
So the only way to achieve financial independence, as we know, is to create multiple streams of recurring income. We know there's only seven asset classes. We refer to them as the seven pillars of wealth. And you said you have some buy-to-lets already. So that falls under pillar four, property portfolio. But let's talk about some of the other assets and property as well, because I know you've expanded on that. So out of those seven, we've got home capacity, pensions, investments, property portfolio, business, IP.
Speaker 3 (13:25.526)
and join Ventures. So tell us about some, where did you begin then Bimbi? Where are some of the first places that you started to focus on?
So I mentioned I had already started on property with Touchstone Education and was immersed in the years masterminds at the time I joined wealth builders. And with that, in terms of property, went to really go for buying properties and run in serviced accommodation with those. So I have a few of those properties run in, one of whom was with another person I met during this time at Touchstone property.
my colleague Scott and we had another service accommodation property there. You could say that I joint ventured quite early on there with Scott on that. That was exciting. obviously, running out of money before you run out of ambition, I decided to release some equity from home. Although that strictly speaking isn't the
using your home in the right sort of asset class, but I was able to release some equity to further progress the property journey. really, actually, through my wealth coach, Manish Kattari, as a big shout to Manish, I enrolled in his Invest Like A Pro program and had some great learning, having come into it as a complete novice and found that investments, know, one of the pillars was really one of the main asset classes that I was focusing on.
and now get a fair amount of income through options trading. If I'd heard about that before, I would have been very wary about it. having the confidence and the wheel of wealth with all the different components of that, finding someone who can educate you and then support you and then set you up for the whole process, I feel completely confident with how to do this in a low-risk way.
Speaker 2 (15:30.26)
still make some good sort of financial gains, I certainly have done using options trades.
Yeah, you mentioned a fair amount. Can you give us an indication of a particularly good month, what that could generate?
Yes. Well, as it's very best, it could be 10K. Even more than that I have on a few occasions, but average month is around about 6 to 7K really in the month. You feel somewhat guilty for clicking on the computer to make that sort of income when normally in my day job, you'd have to do a certain number of gallbladder operations or other procedures in the private sector to pay for that sort of income. There is some sort of guilt that comes with doing this, but...
I suppose it's all with education and getting the benefit of the education really and knowing that you're doing it in a safe manner really.
Yeah, and you've mentioned a few different educators. So how important has education been to you, Bimbi?
Speaker 2 (16:25.772)
Well, it's absolutely massive. It is the first part of the Wheel of Wealth. I know that you teach at Wealth Builders and it's quite right to have that. You you use the education, we just don't know what we don't know when we're entering into something. And, you know, it's important to understand the risks. You know, we can tend to focus on the benefits as entrepreneurs, but, you know, there are risks and you have to balance that risk, you know, in a weighted manner. And that really only comes with education.
And then the community that you have around you supports you in that ability to have that really.
Okay, so good income from the investment pillar. What are we looking at average monthly from the property portfolio in terms of recurring income?
Yeah, so from the buy-to-let's, it's probably about 2k from the buy-to-let's and the service accommodation together. It's round about 2k itself. But one of my joint venture agreements was to use, really with the knowledge that I really gained from listening to the podcast, I quickly discovered that as I mentioned before with an NHS defined benefits pension scheme, I couldn't set up a SaaS at that particular point.
Something which I'm intending to do in the future, but at that point I couldn't. So I'd set up something called the Director's Loan ISA and discovered that if you've got savings, which I had over many years had, you can actually put that into this. at that point in time, you could lend to your own business. Now they've got an arrangement that you can do a reciprocal arrangement, but there's a company that allows you to do this and you could lend effectively to your own business.
Speaker 2 (18:04.504)
from your ISA. And so, you know, I get probably about 1800 through a month through ISA interest, which stays within the tax wrapper as part of this particular agreement. So that takes me to round about the 10k figure and it's the options which may or may not nudge me over depending on how successful that month is.
So those three pillars, investment pillar, leveraging your home you mentioned, and then of course the property portfolio giving you a really good solid foundation, know, passing security, as you say, through to independence, which now I guess gives you a bit more freedom to explore some of the other asset classes. And let's talk about the intellectual property pillar then Bimbi. So when you joined back in 2021, and you obviously learned about the seven pillars, did you have any thoughts around how you could create some IP at that point in time?
I didn't. Being a transplant surgeon, I may have published in peer-reviewed medical literature a few times and got an MD thesis, so I do have a book, but I don't think anyone's ever read it since I've published it or presented it and defended it. I heard comments that come through and those comments stick, such as there's a book in Everyone that I've heard several times on your podcast as you talk about this.
And perhaps, you know, with the nature of becoming an entrepreneur, you know, I'm naturally not an entrepreneur, I wouldn't have considered myself an entrepreneur in the past, you know, I've gravitated to perhaps different groups, and suddenly you sort of discover that there are benefits of producing the book. And you then sort of think, what can you write about? What do you know about? then again, just listening about intellectual property. I've heard again in some of our
webinars and podcasts that we've had with wealth builders that you could just put your own stamp on something. Ideas aren't owned by other people. Ideas are there to be shared and you could put your own personal stamp and your own perspective on it. And that is exactly what I've done with something that shouldn't be outlawed. And I've therefore written my first book, which I'm absolutely delighted with because I think it's a mark of
Speaker 2 (20:21.154)
The line of work I've come from, is, you know, organ donation and transplantation, where there is a gift of life given by people who've died and donated their organs to benefit other people. And I've seen and worked with some fantastic people in the hospitals who all have this same sort of thing that I really wanted to put my stamp on and embrace it. And that is, of course, kindness. And, you know, that has just made me realize that
This is something that we as wealth builders and we as entrepreneurs can embrace and should embrace because we can actually find those win-wins and benefit other people. And it's that much more rewarding. So, you know, the book is out and I'm delighted for that. Something which I never thought I would do in, you know, a general setting, but you know, I'm quite proud of that. And it's opened up my mind and my ideas to other things which
very much excite me for the future.
Yeah, it's tremendous. Only recently published and already award-winning, Bimbi, so I must congratulate you on that. The title of the book is The Forgotten Compass, Discover the Life's Secret to Allow You to Flourish Beyond Your 50s. Who's the book for other than those 50-plus?
Yes, so it's really for anyone who wants to find out about kindness, which I would like to think is everyone. Although we have avatars in mind and we think it should be for people to flourish after their 50s, I think it's of appeal to everyone. It talks about the history of kindness, the definition of kindness, the scientific background and the evidence base for kindness in terms of physical, mental health benefits.
Speaker 2 (22:10.594)
and then the community effects of kindness that you wouldn't expect, you know, in terms of the ripple effects of kindness. And then I give a sort of call to action in terms of challenging the reader to implement kindness in their life, but in bite-sized chunks that is quite easily accessible, in my opinion, and hopefully they can therefore flourish in their own way.
And where can people get a copy of the book?
So it is on Amazon. I'll just, there you go. It's on Amazon. It's the Forgotten Compass. And just delighted that it's out there. I've discovered already the power of its leverage in terms of just allowing people to look at you in a different way and to view you in a different way. And it's now set me up on a different path where I really want to become a kindness ambassador in the future.
These are the sorts of ideas that I never would have dreamed of, but it's the fact that the support of yourself and Kevin, you've opened up my mind to the future ideas and the future opportunities and different wealth building themes that come through in terms of leverage is really shining through in this. Kevin may not remember this, but in our very first conversation when he called me on that Friday night,
I'd listened to a podcast on the different types of leverage. I challenged him because I think it was FIST first. I challenged him and said, I think I found another type of leverage which you may not have thought about. I said, emotional leverage. I obviously did my spiel on emotional leverage. I'm not sure if Kevin bought into it, but he gave a very nice, polite response back. Maybe I'm coming back to make another case for it.
Speaker 3 (23:57.578)
make your case because if you do manage to twist his arm, you might get a case of champagne in return. But on a serious note though, Bimbi, I can see now that the momentum that you've built up is moving you up the levels of wealth. We talked earlier about financial insecurity to security to independence. But beyond that, there's two more levels, financial legacy, financial abundance.
And it's really at those points where you can start to think about how can you now make a real impact? How can you start to give back? And of course, these are, these are thoughts that you're already having and putting into print. yeah, exciting. And the journey doesn't stop, it? When you reach financial independence, I guess in some ways it's now just beginning.
That's certainly what I'm thinking. I just feel differently about everything around this. Now, as I'm reaching an age approaching retirement, I'm thinking of retiring. Really, one of the things, and if you look back into my paperwork, probably it will say up there, what was the reason for this? It was family legacy and a purposeful retirement kept in.
I that down at that point, but that is now something that I feel really passionate about for us all to have a purposeful retirement. And purpose may mean different things to different people, but full of purpose will certainly, hopefully inspire people to chase what they want to do in their retirement so that they can really live life to the full. And that is certainly something which I intend to do.
And I certainly want to inspire as many other people to do that. you know, that's, that may be me tapping into the business pillar and using kindness as a means of emotional leverage as another pillar. Kevin, Kevin know that.
Speaker 3 (25:55.33)
We'll be doing the debrief and we'll get his thoughts on that one. The final point I want to pick up on is accountability and community. You've talked about obviously all the different relationships that have grown throughout this process, but the relationship with your wealth coach, Manish, the accountability of having a coaching call every month, how important has that been?
Well, you know, I'm absolutely chuffed to have been allocated Manish. You know, he's been brilliant from the start. You know, we talk on a regular basis. I consider him a true friend. And in fact, we became accountability partners with the books, you know, and even had a little challenge between the two of us. And I won, so he took me out for lunch, which I'm very grateful for, Manish, if you're listening. But absolutely amazing. He keeps you to task.
and to give you some great advice and make some great, fantastic suggestions. But also I had the ability of this invest like a pro program, fantastic program, which just has given me the confidence to accelerate. And I know that's one person within this, but very important person. I would also like to thank the support that both you and Kevin have done because it's not just join this and we don't see you again. You turn up and you give us so much value.
as part of this community and you genuinely are interested in the wellbeing of everyone within the community. We all feel that and we all know that and it just makes it a lot easier when we know that you've got our backs and you want to support us in that.
Yeah, that's lovely. Thank you so much for saying that Bimbi. It's true, we do feel that way. For someone listening now, Bimbi, perhaps they, where you were back in 2021, of thinking, oh, I don't know, shall I shantai? Can I afford it? Maybe all of these questions that float around someone's head. Will it work for me? What would be your words of advice for them?
Speaker 2 (27:53.23)
So I think risk versus benefits. What's the risk of not doing it and what's the benefit of doing it? And that's quite clear. So hopefully I've outlined some of the benefits of doing this. The risks of not doing it is obviously staying where you are and carrying on with the same thing or going with another group or doing something else that may be something to achieve the same ultimate goal. I would say that
The benefit of wealth builders is it's a community and it's not a lonely sort of pathway where you're left on your own. You're in a community, you have other people to look out for. I think you regularly talk about reaching out to the person in front of you to help you along and then turning around and reaching back to help that person along. Certainly I felt that every step of the way. Had some wonderful conversations with lots of different people at different times who've
always been looking and willing to help and support. And that's just been absolutely wonderful. absolutely great community. If you're concerned about the money, again, you can do your own sort of finances and work out, know, can you afford it? You might ask yourself, can you afford not to do it? You know, and it's the position you're in. And most people will come out with the potential excuses of have you got the time to do this? And I think that that's vital.
We don't know everyone's circumstances, but if you find time because it's important enough for yourself, then that should draw you through this and you'll find that you start making time and you start finding the appropriate ways of benefiting this. Leveraging the time, for example, listening to the podcasts when you're walking a dog or...
or going for drives. I actually finished when I did join, I was listening to the very last episode that you'd produced at that point in time. And I think you were talking about the fact that you were going to be in the pub in Tuffnell Park. may remember an event there. finished that, I pulled them out and walked across the road to the pub. was literally that much. I'd listened to every single podcast and enjoyed every single one of them. that shows how much I was leveraging that. So I was squeezing the time in.
Speaker 2 (30:05.836)
you know, still doing the day job.
Yeah, if it's important enough, then you'll find a way to make it happen. That's for sure. So what's on the horizon for Bimbi Fernando?
So real excitement about the future. I definitely want to be a kindness ambassador. you know, real stretch goal for me is maybe in the legacy sort of realm. I would love to build an institute of kindness at some point. Not quite sure how I'm going to do this, but I'm trying to find my way there. I've joined the property CEO group, Richie Clapson and Ian Child. And I know that
Richie's featured on your podcast in the past and I'm learning about property development and being supported in the mentorship program for that. And also looking to develop a business around purposeful retirement, which I think will be the title of my next book, which will hopefully attract the right sort of people. And the idea of that is to allow me to have a purposeful retirement by serving other people to allow them to have a purposeful retirement.
with real excitement. And one of the purposes and one of the things I'd like to do, ideally, to make my own dent in the universe is to do something like build an institute of kindness that could be a central place where we can influence how governments think nationally, internationally, corporations provide resources for different people so that we can learn about this and also bring kindness into schools so that people understand the real benefits of this.
Speaker 2 (31:42.092)
That's something which I absolutely love. you know, I wouldn't have even talked about those sorts of things without the benefit and the experience and the tools that wealth builders has given me. So thank you.
Well, if we were having this conversation back in 2021, you probably wouldn't have thought that you'd be in the position that you're in right now. So I'm sure if we fast forward another five years, Bimbi, there'll be some more incredible things that you'll have achieved. once again, just want to say thank you for being an absolutely amazing member of the wealth builders community. And Kevin and I thoroughly enjoy having you as one of our members and thank you for sharing with our listeners today and looking forward to the future and what it brings.
Thank you very much, Christian, and warm wishes to Kevin. Just let him know that if I do form part of St. James's Park, I'll have to be in the away stand and I'll be wearing blue.
worry I'll pass that message on. Okay, thanks, Bimbi. Thank you.
Speaker 3 (32:43.576)
So what's all this about St James's Park?
You know how we talk about in wealth builders that the most powerful thing you can do at the very beginning of your journey is connect with the reason why. You know, my reason why is well documented now, the death of my father, but I'm also passionate, raised in the Northeast and a mad Newcastle United football fan. And as I was thinking about the bigger impact of how could we help more and more people, because so few people become financially independent. It's tiny, tiny, tiny percentage. And I thought,
What would be amazing is if you could imagine like a wealth builder conference and 50,000 people all helping each other, all supporting each other, all infecting other people outside with the message of taking responsibility and becoming financially independent. And the visualization was, well, that would fill St. James' Park, you know, the football stadium for Newcastle United. I thought that would be amazing to do that. And that was kind of a visual that I kept in my head to
to allow me to keep thinking about scale this, Kevin, don't keep it to the 20, 30 people you might mentor personally during the course of a year. That's just too limiting. And of course, us getting together and trying to leverage that. And we've got to talk about leverage in a minute as well. But the leverage of you helping me create the IP into a scalable format was all part of that thinking. So, I still have that visualization, Chris, not that we have to help 50,000 people individually.
But we obsessed only with providing free information for people to consume, take their time, decide whether they resonate, books, tapes, certainly podcasts and other things that allow people to consume that content in the way they want. We'd watch, listen. I don't know how many people have listened to every episode of Well Talk, but you know, amazing that he has and yet he's a busy surgeon. So it shows you that you can leverage your time.
Speaker 1 (34:44.757)
And turn your car into university, turn the dog walk into a university, take your exercise into university. There's no real excuse for time because you can find it. Even, know, if it's an hour a week, get up an hour earlier once a week, you know, and be wealthy. What's the problem? It's not the end of the world, is it? For one, one day, one hour in one week. So he makes the point about the leverage of that. And yeah, it's just impressive that he'd done that. I don't know how many people have told you they've done that. Chris, come on.
been a few actually. Yeah, you would be surprised. lot of people who discover Wealth Talk and then they kind of go back to episode one and they just binge their way through it, which if you're listening now and you're one of those people, then reach out and let us know. us know. You talk there about the community aspect of getting everyone together. mean, we've looked at 50,000 amazing number of people. We've had half a million downloads of the podcast and of course some of those are people listening more than once, but...
Yeah, I'd love to know.
Speaker 3 (35:39.366)
You know, the reach is great and we love hearing from people and, you know, those that choose to work with us. We can help accelerate that process for them. And it's the accountability, it's the connection with other members, it's having a guide, it's having a clear plan, all of these things combine to get results. And Bimbi has, you know, achieved financial independence under five years. Okay. And that's really remarkable. And you can see the momentum, of course, that's built up now.
Let's take it back then to some of the things that Bimbi talked about. Pension, we know, is a really undervalued, uncovered asset class that most people kind of dismiss as that will come later in life. Bimbi worked for the NHS. He's a surgeon. He had a good pension, but some slight complexities with that kind of pension.
I would say simplicity actually, Chris, the simplicity is you're avoiding the complexity of having to work out what's the value. Let me come back to that, but let me talk about the simplicity actually. The simplicity of an NHS or public sector pension and only the public sector can afford to do it, right? That's the challenge because it's future taxpayers who will pay the doctors, the dentists, the firefighters and armed forces and so on.
politicians as well. So, you know, they all get a final salary pension, which means they're getting credit for each year of service essentially. And that credit works like a ratchet. So each year you earn a salary, click, you've got a year's worth of credit and the next year is a credit, next year is a credit. And in simple terms, I don't want to get too complicated on pensions because people start to doze off. It's builds up over time and it's linked to the salary. So as you progress,
And the maximum you can get in the NHS is 40 over 80, which is a half, right? So if somebody leaves the NHS on a hundred thousand pounds, for example, they're going to get a pension of 50,000 pounds a year plus a lump sum in cash. Maxima. 40 years is the maximum. Now, the benefit there is you don't really have to do much in terms of action, in terms of building the pension. You just put in the years of service. And that way, when you get to retirement,
Speaker 1 (37:51.31)
Retirement is a big word for Bimbi, isn't it? In terms of his purposeful retirement. So maybe we can circle back to that. But retirement is relatively simple, but there are challenges and this is probably where you meant complexity. If you've got a 50 % pension, and you've got a lump sum in cash as well, that's great. You can use that to do whatever you want to in your life. But if you've got a half pension and it's index linked for life, that's a decent foundation on which to build a life.
It isn't necessarily financial independence, but it could be. If you can live on, if you run a hundred grand and you get a pension of 50 grand, you can live on 50 grand, you're financially independent. And you get your state pension on top of that as well when you get to a certain age. But there's no possibility of a transfer of that pension to the next generation. There's normally a 50 % pension for a spouse. So if Bimbi dies before his wife, then she'll get half of that pension.
Well, now we're talking significant decreases, right? So I'm from 100 % of an income to 50 % to 25 % because that's half of 50. And that can cause a problem for family members if they don't have a final salary of their own, so they're building their own support mechanism. So often we find with final salary pensions, the spouse doesn't really understand what's going on and doesn't understand that decrease that's going to happen in the event of a
So that's a challenge. And the second challenge is no transfer to the next generation at all. So Bimbidhi children will never see any part of that pension. So one might argue there's value in building your own pension so that you've got more control. You can pass on all of that to your spouse and you can pass on all of that to your children. Now you can pass pensions on what we would call money purchase pensions, money in a pot.
But the complexity there is hard work to know how do you turn a fund value that you don't know what it's going to be. You don't quite know when you want to retire. And let's say, for the sake of an argument, you build up a pot and you built up a pot of 400,000 by the time you've decided to retire. Then what do you do then? You got to convert that into some form of income.
Speaker 1 (40:18.528)
And historically, 10 years ago, you had to buy an annuity. So you have to give the money away and you get an income in exchange. So if you were simple about it, if you had 400,000 and you give it to an insurer and they give you 10 % a year, you'd have a 40 grand pension for life, but you have kissed goodbye to the capital. But two challenges there. One is the rate of which you get is not 10%. He's probably near a seven at the minute.
And that changes year by year as interest rates change. So it's unpredictable. And the fund value, you've got changes. So what happens if you reach retirement at an age when Mr. Trump says something odd and sends the world into a tailspin or the stock market crashes or it crashes during your life. If you decide, I don't want to buy a new team, give away my capital. want to keep my capital. And you've got to manage that capital for an income stream for the whole of your life.
cracking eggs out of your nest, know, spending, spending, spending, and as a result, feeling weaker and weaker and weaker. You know, so, so I think one might argue the simplicity in final salaries, but they're, somebody's got to pay for them. And all that risk has been sort of fictitiously transferred for those of us with money purchase pensions that don't have final salary pension, people like me, people like you, and most of our members and most listeners, I guess, they've got
an enormously complex job to try and turn a pot value into income. that's why at Wealth Builders, we talk about creating income streams before value. Focus on income streams, don't focus on value. It's the opposite of what most financial planners do. And that's why it takes people like Bimbi as smart as Bimbi is, and clearly you can't be a transplant surgeon unless you've got incredible brain power.
which he clearly has, but you have to get your head around all these things. And it's not easy wherever you come from. So that's why you need a trusted source so that you don't feel like you're being pushed from pillar to post from somebody trying to sell you something every time you can. And which is why I'm proud of the community we built so that people helping each other, not for profit. And in some respects, reflecting the kindness that he so skillfully talks about now and something that
Speaker 1 (42:43.768)
You know, maybe I could connect with him after this webinar or another webinar, this podcast to talk more about, I'm still going to resist his social leverage though.
Yeah, the emotional leverage not yet crept into our FIRST model. But no, it's a good explanation there of the pensions, Kevin. And I think it's a good example there of some people that we work with, many people who work in very good jobs, high IQs, but the financial IQ, the financial literacy, we're not taught this at school. unless you really put purposeful effort into learning,
then you don't know this stuff. You don't know the answers to these questions.
You don't even know the questions to ask frankly, because who knows you've got to manage money for the rest of your life and you don't have the skill to do it. So that's why I suggest people learn now. They build wealth building skills and then they've got those skills ready when the time comes when they decide to invert a commerce, retire. Albeit, know, I think Bimbi and I would probably have a really good conversation over a glass of something.
whatever that something is and talk about this purposeful retirement. think the concept of retirement is outdated. Historically, you would argue that retirement, the term was almost putting people out to fallow. You've worked all your life, you're knackered. Now retire because you've served your meaningful purpose. You didn't live too long in retirement and consequently you needed to stop just a little bit of breathing space after.
Speaker 1 (44:20.072)
lifetimes with the work. Now that doesn't happen now. People can choose hybrid work styles, hybrid lifestyles, hybrid retirement styles. I think probably the word retirement is still going to be in our vocabulary, but I'm not sure it's a word that I would want to use moving forward. think rather than being put out to fallow and it's the end of a period, to me it's the beginning of a new chapter and that chapter can be lived with purpose, with passion.
with intention, not just for you, but to incorporate thoughts and ideas to help the next generation become better stewards of money because they're going to live longer and they're going to need these skills because without them, on earth can a child who might live to a hundred manage money when nobody teaching them anything? So, yeah, I like the idea of the purposeful retirement and I'm sure I'll pick up the phone again, maybe surprise him like I did the first time.
and say, Hey, I think we could collaborate on, this purposeful retirement idea, but I'm still not having emotional intelligence or emotional leverage. But I think there's value in the joke and there's value in the fact that kindness is an incredibly important thing. And, know, even if you just park back to the point you, I think he's made in the book, if I recall it, which is, you know, if you go back to COVID and remember, can you remember the times when people on a, whatever it was, think Thursday evening?
you know, standing outside, clapping, banging, know, acknowledging the service that's been delivered by our NHS workers. I quite humbled by his thought of we moved from being surgeons to serving the nurses. was almost like the service was the key. And you would normally expect, I mean, I suppose there's a, more successful people are sometimes, you know, an arrogance can be built up content. Like I don't do that. That's not for me.
But you can hear and tell from Bimbi that service is in his DNA. It's not about the arrogance of being an elite surgeon. It's not about that. None of that comes across, it? And I think that's why I think he's well-placed to be able to maybe even create a new movement. And I definitely would want to be part of that. So well done to Bimbi for being open-minded and humble, even knows our language, doesn't he? Reach out to the person ahead of you and extend your arm.
Speaker 1 (46:47.106)
graciously to the person behind you and both ask and offer help. And I think he's done that with good grace. I commend him for being an outstanding member of our community.
Absolutely. And talk about the next chapter that's just beginning for Bimbi, of course, you know, just published his book with another one on the way. But yeah, exciting times ahead and financial independence is not the end of the road. And for Bimbi, clearly, he's got his sights set on creating a financial legacy and really giving back now and kindness definitely at the front and center.
Absolutely. We don't talk very much, Chris, on the podcast about the levels above financial independence, worth mentioning them just to square the circle on maybe some of the IP that other people have missed. IP being intellectual property. I'm sure most people got that now. So once you reach financial independence, which is having enough money to live the life you want, and you know you've got that confidence. I mean, heard Bimbi say the word confidence several times.
during the course of your interview with him. And that confidence comes from knowing that nothing can damage you financially. It's almost like a family wealth fortress. It's just impenetrable. It can't be damaged. And when you feel that confidence and you're reinvesting proceeds from the assets you've already created, then your asset base is going to get bigger. So that leads to abundance. And when you get to abundance,
You come from a place of purpose. Your purpose shifts. You no longer need to think about your own lifestyle. You're thinking about something else and you can tell that's in Bimbi's thoughts. His purpose is greater than himself and his own family is already thinking about that. Maybe we can get 50,000 people with random acts of kindness turning up at St. James' Park. I'll look out for him in the blue shirt.
Speaker 3 (48:38.766)
You should stand out like a soul from this.
you
Yeah, yeah, that's probably a good place for us to leave things today. And once again, thanks to Bimbi for sharing his story. And, you know, we look forward to hearing more members successes again, very soon. So thank you for listening today. If you enjoyed today's episode, why not share it with a friend? And if you would like to follow in Bimbi's footsteps, then get in touch with us. Let's have a chat. Let's see how we can help you to move from financial insecurity through to financial independence for yourself. Okay, Kevin.
We'll be back same time, same place next week.
You will indeed my friend and until then, see ya.
Speaker 2 (49:20.814)
We hope you enjoy today's episode. Don't forget that we are constantly updating our resources inside the WealthBuilders membership site to help you create, build and protect your wealth. Head over to wealthbuilders.co.uk slash membership right now for free access. That's wealthbuilders.co.uk slash membership.