John Lamerton, an experienced entrepreneur, shares his unconventional journey of breaking free from societal norms, homeschooling his children, and exiting a business in 2016. He emphasises the importance of imparting valuable lessons to his children and shares insights on money role modeling and family traditions. The episode explores the dynamics of family life, financial strategies, and entrepreneurship, offering a wealth of wisdom and personal anecdotes from John's experiences.
John Lamerton, a seasoned entrepreneur graciously opens up about his distinctive path—breaking free from conventional norms, embracing homeschooling, and making the pivotal decision to exit a business in 2016.
During our insightful conversation, John generously shares his perspectives on the significance of imparting invaluable lessons to his children. Delving into the nuances of money role modeling and family traditions, he takes us on a journey of personal insights and intimate reflections.
Join us as we explore the intricate dynamics of family life, the intricacies of financial strategies, and the ever-evolving landscape of entrepreneurship. This episode promises a wealth of wisdom and personal anecdotes from John's unique experiences.
Resources In This Episode:
>> Petition: Make Financial Education Compulsory In All Schools From Primary Age
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Speaker 1 0:01
The purpose of wealth talk is to educate, inform, and hopefully entertain you on the subject of building your wealth. Wealth builders recommends you should always take independent financial tax or legal advice before making any decisions around your finances.
Christian Rodwell 0:19
Well, welcome to episode 224 of wealth talk. My name is Christian Rodwell, the membership director for wealth builders joined today by our founder, Mr. Kevin Whelan. Hello, Ben. Merry Christmas.
Speaker 2 0:33
Good to be with you again. Chris. You put your teeth in. So you got for Christmas.
Christian Rodwell 0:36
I've been on the sherry been on the mince pies a bit strong.
Speaker 2 0:42
That somebody got you some Fortnum and Mason spice
Christian Rodwell 0:45
they did. And hopefully that gentleman is listening. So laced
Speaker 2 0:48
with brandy to leave, which is no wonder you're sounding a little bit skewed off today. But I assume it isn't that you just got your words wrong. Exactly.
Christian Rodwell 0:58
Well, with you know, it's been a long year. And we've this our final podcast episode of 2023. So, you know, it's going to be our fifth anniversary next year, Kevin. And we're absolutely delighted to kick off another year with more great guests coming. And today, we've got a fantastic guest, which is John Lamington. And continuing with our family's theme, of course, we've been focusing a lot on wealth for the entire family since the launch of wealth builders for families back in October. And we've got some really good things which we've discussed with John today. Yeah, fascinating
Speaker 2 1:32
to hear from John, very poignant, given the very special kind of needs he's talking about, for his family, from an educational point of view, and very transparent and very humbling to hear that he's putting a lot of His own and His wife's time energy. And I guess money into what they're doing. And I think some inspiring lessons that he's sharing.
Christian Rodwell 1:57
Yeah, absolutely. And John will talk about this himself, but his two children, Jack, and Harry, both have special education needs. And therefore we'll touch on this topic of homeschooling, which is something that's actually you know, really, on the increase in the UK, Kevin, I had a look and research online shows this around about 86,000 children that are currently being homeschooled in the UK at the moment.
Speaker 2 2:19
Yeah, so whatever language use homeschooling home education, I think it's certainly true to say that the schooling system isn't necessarily serving every child to the best of their outcomes. So John will talk about that, we'll probably have a chance to talk about that, as well, in particular, to try and to encourage financial literacy on to the curriculum. But I was talking to one of our clients about that, who had something to say very negatively about that. So you know, hopefully, we'll get a chance to have a little bit of a debrief, but always interesting to get the perspectives of others. I do enjoy you getting into the detail of the thoughts and the activities around their family, but it's much different, isn't it to talking about business?
Christian Rodwell 3:07
Yeah, it definitely is, opens up a whole new avenue in sight, the conversation, so let's not wait around. Let's head on over to our conversation. Stay with John Lamington. John, welcome back to off talk today. How
Speaker 3 3:19
are you? Very good. Chris. Thank you very much for having me. having me back, I should say.
Christian Rodwell 3:23
I know. Yeah. Back in episode 175. You featured and that time we were talking about can you have a lifestyle business and create wealth? That's right. Yes. What's your answer to that one, John?
Speaker 3 3:34
Absolutely. I did. I see report in the BBC today that Britons are more likely to choose work life balance than anyone else in Europe. Wow,
Christian Rodwell 3:43
there you go. We're in the right business. There
Unknown Speaker 3:44
you go. trendsetter.
Christian Rodwell 3:45
Yeah, for those that perhaps didn't catch that episode, John was a bit of the backstory on yourself, and how did you get into this? So
Speaker 3 3:52
yeah, I was a former civil servant, and I started my own business 23 years ago, no, internet marketing business. The info was I knew nothing about the internet, nothing about marketing, and I've never run a business before. Other than that, what could be easier? So I self taught myself everything I needed to know to run that business purely to escape the day job from hell. Having done that, I then discovered I was very good at this and ended up making lots of money and then just chased more money and more money and more money and before you know it, I've got my sights set on usurping Lord sugar as host of The Apprentice. I want to skyscraper with my name on the side and the yacht. I can fit a helicopter on the back and all that kind of stuff that I didn't really want until I had kids. And then the minute I had kids, I had Jack, my oldest No 14 He was a three month old baby. And I was sat in an MOT centre reading Alan sugar's autobiography. What you see is what you get. Right? This is what I need to do. I'm gonna reverse engineer Lord sugar's pathway. I'm creating next Amstrad here I saw this one line. I never really saw my kids much when they were growing up. And just in that moment, ah, that's not what I want. That was like a sledgehammer to the heart. It's like, No, I want to just be there for these kids, when they grow up, I don't need the helicopter. I don't need a yacht. I just need to be there for these kids and actually enjoy my wife
Christian Rodwell 5:18
are relevant to our conversation today. And that was a, obviously a massive turning point for you, John. And now obviously, you're an advocate of really designing a business around the lifestyle that you want. Right. And you've helped hundreds, if not 1000s of people, through your masterminds? And And now on to your fourth book. Hi. I noticed there, John. So tell us about that one. Absolutely. So
Speaker 3 5:40
the false exit is, my latest book came out in July. Yeah, but number four, and it is this idea of exiting the day to day running of your business, but still owning the asset. It's something I discovered by accident, I tried selling my business. One point I thought was gonna get 2 million and exit. Only like Chris trying to whip away that check. The broker said, Nope, we don't want to give you that. I tried putting a management team in place who decimated the business and just killed the profits, I tried doing nothing only to find that I just buried my head in the sand and ended up never nearly having a nervous breakdown. And then eventually, Jason, my business partner, and I decided we just will just systemize it, we'll put the right people in place, we'll put some procedures, we'll structure the business so that it could run without us, it won't be as good as if we're in it. But hey, if we sold our business time we pay the tax man, his chunk of change in time we actually find a new revenue stream, we'd rather own the assets. So it's this idea of not killing a golden goose. But turning your golden goose into a golden egg laying machine that works without you. Meaning you can nip off for a weekend you can go to the kids sports days, you can do school runs, or as I've just done this summer, you can go off on a three week road trip around Spain with the family, not checking emails once that was my dream.
Christian Rodwell 7:01
That's it, isn't it? At the end of the day, I'm sure most of our listeners, certainly I know that our members, they don't want to be super rich. They don't want the Lamborghinis and the flashy houses here, though, maybe some do. And that's absolutely fine. But it's choice. It's freedom. It's time. It's that quality time with family, which you know, you're saying as well is what really is what it's all about for you. That escapes a lot of business owners. So we could definitely talk a lot about that. But I want to focus in on you know, how you've been passing on some of these lessons that you've been learning throughout your life and your career, John, to your children. And you mentioned Jack, they're 14 years old. Tell us about the other members of your family. If you don't mind, please. Yeah, so Jack
Speaker 3 7:41
14, Harry is younger, she's 11. And she's just gone into secondary school now. So we've actually been homeschooling both kids, sorry, my wife will be listening to this home educating ourselves mates, not homeschooling. So we've been home educating our kids, the school system was letting them down. It was failing them, they both got special education needs. And they're both very, very bright children. But the system was failing them. And we make the decision. Originally, just for one of them that we would homeschool for a year. We decided eventually this my wife's a teacher. So it was very, very difficult for her to reach this decision that the best place for our children was not the education system, because that was a system that she spent 2025 years in. And we decided, yeah, we're gonna homeschool these two we're going to we're going to customise the curriculum because when I think about my journey, and I did okay at school, and I wasn't terrible, I wasn't tremendous, but I did okay at school. But I found school very, very difficult. The minute I left school, I almost felt well, that's me done was learning, I don't need to learn anything else. Again, finally, I can stop learning. And then eventually, as I went into business, I customised my curriculum. And I chose what I learned and you can, the viewers now see a shelf of books behind me, I've always got a book on the go, I've always got a podcast in my year seminar on the go something in the diary with it with a training course. But this idea that if you customise the curriculum, we can make it fit our children, we can teach them what they need to learn. Because I think if you've got a class of 30 kids, you pretty much go at the pace of the slowest kid. And if your child needs some attention, you've got one teacher and maybe a couple of TAs who can't give them the attention they need. And we've discovered we've proven it now. We can teach them more in probably a quarter of the time. We could teach them more than they would learn full time in school. You
Christian Rodwell 9:44
need time to do that, right? So you're slave to a job and you're working all the hours even commuting. That's just not going to be possible. Right. So that was obviously a benefit of having designed your business to give you that time and of course your why have Sarah as well, I guess, how could you share a responsibility and tell us what an average kind of day or week look like as well? I mean,
Speaker 3 10:06
readers of my second book routine machine will not be surprised to learn that habits and routines were very, very much a part of this. So I had my set days, Mondays and Wednesdays, I did my little daddy home education, shall we say? Sara did carry the bulk of it because she was obviously trained. She knows what she's doing when it comes to the education system. Now, when we first decided to homeschool, Sarah was in school, she was actually an employed teacher. I went through a little exercise with her when we worked out her actual hourly rates. Based on the nice headline salary she's got and how many hours she actually worked. She was on a pain 52 an hour, I believe, which when I opened up, read and showed her that she could get a junior management job at McDonald's earning 13 pounds an hour. She was not too happy. So we crafted her business as well. So she created a tutoring business so that she could work part time and in the same amount of money that she did in employment, again crafting that business around the homeschool. So most of the tutoring work she does is between four and seven in the evenings, meaning she had the days free to homeschool our kids she was able to combine other people into the same sessions as well. But it was this idea that Sara would teach the more academic subjects despite I maybe I've written four best selling books, but I was not teaching English. Sarah would teach English, maths, geography, all the proper subjects. And then I would get a copy of Rich Dad Poor Dad. Or I would open up a Tony Robbins video aimed at children or I would get a Jocko Willink podcast on where he's talking to children. And I would just talk that I treat it as personal development. Is that okay? What do these guys need to learn? We used to have a book, which was recommended by Tim Ferriss many, many years ago, I remember the exact title, but it was a book of family values. And it was a massive, massive tome. And every week, as a routine, the three of us would sit down, and we choose our value of the week. And even now, I mean, that's probably five years ago, we started doing that even though I could say to her Oh, my youngest. Have you done your cleanliness routines. And she knows exactly what that means, because we studied the virtue of cleanliness, one week, and it's stuck. And you know, the virtue of honesty or the value of transparency, and it's just yeah, being able to dive deep into how do we make these kids? happy, confident, good humans.
Christian Rodwell 12:37
So did you make that decision on behalf of the children or with the children?
Speaker 3 12:42
It was with the children yet we gave them both the opportunity. And we said, look, this is an option. If you want to do this, you can do it. And Jack was all for it. It's like, yeah, get me out of school. Absolutely. This would be great for me, Harry, loved school. School was failing her in a different way. She's visually impaired. So she was really, really struggling with eyesight, headaches, sickness, she fell and broke her arm on the last day of term in her first year at school because someone left the net out on the football field. So just let the kids run around. So yeah, she fell and broke her on thanks to school. So she wanted to stay in school. She had a lot of friends in school, but she knew how school was physically affecting her. And so yeah, she decided we've Jags doing it, perhaps I'll do it. And the door was always open, though, to return. If it didn't work out. Both of them could have gone back into the school system.
Christian Rodwell 13:37
And I guess one of the comments could be aimed at, you're taking them away from that social environment. And those, you know, learnings of dealing with, you know, different characteristics and personalities. How did you manage that?
Speaker 3 13:51
So we discovered as a very strong homeschooling community, with implements, and we made it a point of creating these social structures that every week they would go to there's a climbing wall that did a session. So Sarah did some sessions here. So we'd have maybe four or five children would come to the house, she would do a session, Perry would then take part in that session. They did clubs that he brownies, we made sure that social integration was a big part of homeschooling until the second year of homeschooling, which was 2020. So we struggled a little bit
Christian Rodwell 14:28
with socialisation, then don't think ever ahead of the curve there.
Speaker 3 14:31
We were using zoom, we were homeschooling. We weren't washing our hands as much as we did in 2020. But other than that we were on board.
Christian Rodwell 14:38
Yeah. And I guess, you know, the other question is how did the schools react? And you know, is it a difficult process to say that said we're pulling them out?
Speaker 3 14:45
It's actually not as difficult as you would imagine. It's pretty much sending a letter in saying this is what we're doing. There was an element and we could see again, the I'm always keen to study incentives. What are the incentives for people's behaviour? And when we said we were taking the kids out of school, Harry was the one who we were really concerned about physically. And so it was physically affecting her. Jack was more mentally affected. And we said, we're going to take them both out. And the headmaster said to us, have you considered leaving jackin? And just taking Harry out? And we said, well, actually, it's Jack that we were really, really worried about because of the mental strain. And so it's just that Jack's got his SATs coming up next year. And he's like, top of the class for his SATs, whereas Harry's not doing so well on our SATs because of the visual impairment you can read as fast she can physically write. So okay, so your SAT scores are your priority, our children's well being doesn't come into this at all. The main thing you're worried about is what your test scores look like. And I think that's that's a lot of schools.
Christian Rodwell 15:53
Why do you think that schools still don't include lessons about finance, business, money? In the curriculum? What do you think, is the cause of that, John?
Speaker 3 16:06
I think we're, I go back to some words painted on my wall here. From my first book, big ideas for business, I talked about the five magic ingredients of success, goals, desire, knowledge, environment, and action. I think, what's the goal of financial education in school is to tick a box is to say, Hey, we've done it, what's the desire to truly generate financial independence and financial education within the school system? Very, very low. What's the desire within kids to learn about finance and numbers? They really think maths is difficult when it shouldn't be. So the desire is low. What's the knowledge? Well, the people who are teaching this have probably got consumer debt themselves, they probably make bad financial decisions themselves. They don't understand how their mortgage works. They can't balance their chequebook, they didn't know what a chequebook is these days. And these are the guys who are supposed to be role models for the children. So if you don't understand it yourself, how can you be a role model? How can we teach it for someone else? Environment? Yeah, what this around were, what do they see at home? What did mom and dad do? Mom and Dad are terrible with money, too. So everyone is terrible with money. So it's more of a mother culture thing, I think and the action? Well, yeah, without getting the first four, sorted, any action you take is going to be flawed, because the structure just isn't there to support. You know, they don't bring millionaires, multimillionaires into schools, and get kids fired up and say, Hey, kids, you could be rich. You could drive a brilliant car, you can have amazing holidays, or you can have a fantastic life. And you gotta listen, you got to get your head around numbers. Okay? No, no, no, they're not scary. They're not. No, it's really, really cool. It's really easy. If you listen to as I mentioned earlier, Jocko Willink, he wrote kids books about discipline. And one of them was about financial freedom. And this sort of content really hit home with Marty, they loved listening to these, and they were little seven minute stories. And at the end of the story, it was a little lesson about delayed gratification, or compounding, or, you know, just knowing how numbers and how money works. And it's just really, really engaging with kids. And that, for me, is what's missing is the, the desire to really demonstrate how it can be done.
Christian Rodwell 18:34
Yeah. And, you know, schools are doing a good job of kind of what they're, they're, you know, they're there to do certain thing. And they're doing that. And we've don't want to not that but as you say, when it comes to those financial lessons, they don't really exist. So how have you made those lessons fun and engaging? Because would you agree that it's important that it's got to be fun, and we can start looking at the age groups as well and start understanding? How did you first begin to introduce these conversations and lessons around money to your children? When can you remember, was there a first conversation that was had or I think
Speaker 3 19:08
the jack in particular, has always been very sort of money focused, he is very much oh, I want to be rich, I want to have a load of money I want to have, you know, we've mentioned so as he's 14 now, and we've had conversations about getting a job, he's not too keen on this idea of getting a job. So now I don't really fancy working for money. What I fancy doing is like buying and selling stuff or trading, or just having a business or having a business for someone else does the work. I think you might have read too many of my books. That's the problem without realising where I started, which was doing some work. Yeah, in terms of making it fun. I think. For us, it's showing real life applications. So when Jack would come home and say to me, why is my friend got no money? Why did they live in a smaller house than us? Why do they drive this type of cars? Okay, it's possibly because of this decision they've made or That decision they've made or this principle, and getting into understand, I mean, the main thing I absolutely loved I mentioned earlier, Rich Dad, Poor Dad. I've read that book eight times now. First time I read it was 23 years ago, when I first started my business, the last time was with my children. And so every week, we would sit down, we'd I read a few pages, I close the book. And then I just sit back, and we chat for about 20 minutes about what we just read. So what questions we got? And the first question I really remember was, what do we not have to pay tax? All this money isn't mine. I do all the work and someone else gets a slice of the money.
Christian Rodwell 20:41
Yeah, and vote is a very good point. And, you know, some of the the other conversations I've had on the podcast over recent weeks. John has been interesting when we talked about pocket money. And did you manage to help them understand that you know, what you're giving them actually isn't all of theirs? And did you do anything such as money jars, or any activities like that with them? Yeah, I
Speaker 3 21:03
like the idea. I think it was it was Bill Murray was wasn't it said if you want to teach your kids about tax, just eat 30% of their ice cream? I could have tried that. But I think yeah, some of the things we tried, they've had like a go Henry account, right? So you get your base level income. Beyond that, if you want to do some chores, there's some opportunities to earn yourself some more money. One of the things I did do, I'm not completely convinced it worked. But I wanted to study delayed gratification, the marshmallow test. So I gave my kids both of them a five pound note. And I said, right, I want I want a photo of you with this five pound note. So I checked the serial number. I don't trust my kids. And I said to them, if in three months time, you hand me back that five pound notes. I'll swap it for a 20 pound note. And sure enough, they both handed it back, but I'm not convinced it worked. Because they both just like filed it away like Well, that's gonna be 20 pounds in three months time.
Christian Rodwell 22:02
Yeah, yeah. Yes. No, it's it was interesting. Find out about that. And obviously, they're seeing you, John, with your social media presence with you, podcasting you masterminds, your books, that surely is rubbing off on them. Right. And, you know, in what ways other than what we've already discussed, you know, are they showing an interest to follow now in in sort of your entrepreneurial footsteps,
Speaker 3 22:25
or they are definitely, Harry's got a wonderful business plan. So let's say she's 11 years old, she's already written two books, by the way, we've not published or anything, but you know, they they have been written. And she's got a business model that she is going to own a nail salon when she's older. So you better go and get your nails done, she will also cut your hair at the same time, there will also be a bakery attached, so you can eat a cupcake whilst getting the heck and I'm not I'm not convinced that's a good idea and hair in the in the muffins, but we'll let it go on. And it's also gonna be a dog grooming salon. So it's a bit of a jack of all trades. She hasn't learned about my laser focus yet. But one thing she has learned, she said, I'm not gonna work Saturdays, she said, there'll be open Saturdays that I will be working and now the staff will be waiting. This is a little 11 year old girls like, right, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna own the business, someone else is going to do the work I'm going to be I'm going to spend it on my family on a Saturday.
Christian Rodwell 23:23
It's brilliant. And that's one of the beauties isn't it is, you know, not being held back by life experiences at that young age. And being able to dream big. And I
Speaker 3 23:32
remember my niece and nephew going to school and having the careers talk and then just saying, I'm going to work in a shop or something. Or ambition, come on, get some drive, get some ambition, think bigger than that. And that was all they could see for themselves. Because that was what they were told the careers teacher. I mean, by the way, don't ever take advice from a careers teacher, because a careers teacher thought that becoming a careers teacher was a good career path.
Christian Rodwell 23:59
So let's take it back to your own childhood. John, you know, you're obviously a very successful man. Now, where did that come from? Was there an influence looking back now was there a financial, you know, role model that you had in your younger life?
Speaker 3 24:12
I think within reason, my dad was an electrician, my mum worked in a sewing factory. So there was not a lot of money. When I was growing up. I probably heard that if I had a pound for every time I heard the word Money doesn't grow on trees. I would have enough for a very big monetary. But thinking about what my dad did. He worked very hard. And he would work away from home weeks on end, and he would earn very good money. He challenged himself he took themselves to talk to his career. He also and I can kind of see myself in this now was very investment focused in that he would set up in Diamond policy. He made sure he had a pension. He was the first of his generation to really save and invest for the future and sacrifice a little bit now and I think that that has stuck with me, because when I think about most of the financial success I've had, I was interviewed for a newspaper article a couple of months back about ice millionaires. And so how have you amassed this massive pot in the ricin? Well, it's quite simple, really. I started 30 years ago. And when I got my first job, my dad said to me, invest or save or invest 20% of your income. By that I will do that. So I started off, I was on 29, paying 50 A week YTS. So, yeah, what's that 25 grand a month, I was squirrelling aside, when I went up to 10 grand a year, I'm scrolling way too grand a year, when I went up to 25 grand a year, I'm putting five grand a year away. And I just kept that going over 30 years. And so that one lesson, and it wasn't something he necessarily did, because he started too late. And I think a lot of parents are often keen to help their children avoid the mistakes they made. And I think when my dad started investing, probably in his 40s, with staring down retirement thinking there's not gonna be enough money. But he was very keen to say to me start when you're 16 minute you get the job, just save 20% And just keep it going. And now, I'm passing that on to my two. So you know, the first thing I said Jack is the minute you do get if you get a job, I know you don't want to, but the minute you do get a job. 20% just screw it away. You won't even miss it, because you've never had it.
Christian Rodwell 26:25
Yeah, well, and great that you took that advice. And there are obviously lots of products around now for children. You mentioned the Go Henry, which is kind of like a debit card for for children like prepaid debit card. Yeah. Have you looked at any other investments account or pensions or anything like that, for the children are
Speaker 3 26:43
looking at JR, ISIS, I am very keen to encourage them to trade. You know, I'm very much a stocks and shares guy. So for me, I would love for them to have a junior Eisah. I mean, they've got a junior Eisah. But it's just it's safe as houses, one's probably getting three and a half percent on it at the moment. So you know, after inflation, it's a lovely money eroding tool. But I would love for them to learn to trade, even if that means that they lose money. Because I think you learn more from trading and losing money than you do from winning. I'm keen for them to make their own mistakes. I don't want to give them everything on a plate. I want them to be able to fail, give us make some mistakes. And then again, like we did with Rich Dad, Poor Dad, go play, go and find out what works, what doesn't and then let's discuss it. Let's discuss why that didn't work. Why you lost all your money. Did you get too greedy there? Did you go all in on a stock that you shouldn't have done? Are you not playing the long game? Are you not compounding? Are you overly leveraged, you know, all the things that we've started to talk about. And we start talking about them in kind of a childlike fashion that they will understand until we get to the point whereby we can have an adult conversation with them around finance, money investments. And
Christian Rodwell 27:59
I guess the final piece is looking at the legacy aspects. So everything that you're building now in your life, John, obviously will be passed on at some stage to them. And you know, have you ready to start to think about that? Or is that still a bit too far in the future?
Speaker 3 28:12
I think it is, I would like to think it's too far in the future. I plan on living to 123 I'm 46. This month, I've got just under 80 years left, I hope. It is interesting, because I read a lot of investments. And you often see letters from investors letters from readers in these magazines. And the amount of people that are in their 50s and 60s, and petrified about inheritance tax and everything is how do I avoid inheritance tax? I'm still in accumulation mode, I'm still growing inheritance tax. Oh, that's a future me. Problem. Yes, I've got structures in place to protect the bulk of my assets from inheritance tax, but it's not my main focus.
Christian Rodwell 28:55
But everything you're doing, John, by the sounds of it, you and Sara is preparing your children to be equipped with the understanding and the knowledge. So when that time comes, they will be able to maintain that wealth that you've built and worked hard to build, and hopefully pass that on for many generations to come as well. Oh, exactly.
Speaker 3 29:13
Because otherwise, if they if they don't learn the financial psychology and financial mindset to be able to cope with large sums of money, giving them a large sum of money is going to be the worst thing possible.
Christian Rodwell 29:26
Absolutely. Yes. So it's been a delight speaking with you again today, John, and really appreciate everything that you've shared with us and some of the insights as to how you're making these conversations foreign and also around homeschooling, which is a massive movement, isn't it? And I suppose, you know, having gone through that process, you know, just how big this is in the UK. It
Speaker 3 29:47
is and I think we were very surprised when we first investigated it, we thought oh, it's gonna be a very, very tiny minority. It's about one in 10 children in the UK is currently home educated and growing and particularly It's a problem with kids with needs. Most of the kids that are in the home education sector are home educated because the school is failing because they have some kind of special educational need. That isn't being met by the school either. Because they haven't got the resources in place. They haven't got the time they haven't got the inclination, or is quite often the case with schools, they haven't got the money. My wife is actually writing her first book, at the moment exactly about how the school system is failing kids with needs. So yeah, that will be hopefully coming out in 2024. Wow. Well, we'll
Christian Rodwell 30:33
have to have Sarah on the podcast then when? John, thanks again today. And we look forward to speaking to you again very soon.
Unknown Speaker 30:41
But so thanks for having me back again.
Christian Rodwell 30:44
Okay, John, has always got lots to pack into his conversations. I enjoyed that one. Again, with John today, before we unpack that, Kevin, let's head to Trustpilot. And we've had lots of reviews. In the last week, we recently did a end of year wrap up for our members. And they were sharing some fantastic stories when they Kevin and some of the achievements this year, they were
Speaker 2 31:07
and you get an incredible insight into what some people are doing. And in fact, I had an email exchange today with one of our members come out, who if you recall on the interaction with our members was talking about, we're talking about different ways that you can generate an income stream, from the different pillars. And one of the most difficult pillars to generate an income stream from is to what we call home capacity, which is generating value from what's inside your home, and what's outside of your home and around the space. And she tucked in there was fascinating that it got very nice drive. And she'll give us all the details of that. But the point being is you earned more than 1300 pounds, from just letting other people park during whatever is appropriate on the drive. And I thought, What a fascinating way, just to make 100 pounds a month, you know, which is adding to your wealth, if you keep doing that or adding to your income, I think just the right way. And there's just so many different stories that came out and people hitting security. Now when people hitting financial independence as well, so and of course that milestone, Chris. And I want to stress this, if I may, that the milestone of security is so critical on the wealth building journey, because as soon as you get to a place where the recurring income, from the ownership of assets, not the doing of things, but the ownership of things. And you get that to a place where you can live that locked down lifestyle or a lifestyle where your basic essentials are covered. Once you achieve that, then you're free to choose the work you do. And more often than not, we see that our members stop trading time for money. And then all of the time that they were using to traitor is now focused on creating more streams of income, almost using the mantra that we often use in wealth builders, which is focus your way to security, diversify your way to wealth. And that rich diversification comes from having more time to put more leverage of time into the equation.
Christian Rodwell 33:24
Absolutely. And another of our members who joined us on that end of year wrap up was one of our family founder members, Leah, who has left us a review saying in the summer of 2023, I came across the wealth talk podcast. And from the very first listen, Christian and Kevin's insights made my daily commute and invaluable part of my day. This led me to joining wealth builders families in October, and the webinars enriched by informative guest speakers have broadened my financial knowledge, fostering a strong sense of community where I've already made valuable connections and embarking on the journey towards financial freedom is both exciting and empowering. And I eagerly anticipate what 2024 holds. If you're seeking to build wealth and connect with like minded individuals, I wholeheartedly recommend joining the wealth builders community. It's been a transformative experience. And I can't wait to continue this rewarding journey.
Speaker 2 34:20
I elegantly and eloquently said by Leah, which may be actually think about what John was saying, you know, which is when he was at school, kind of saying that you didn't enjoy it so much and thought right I finished school. That's me my learnings done. But you become a lifelong learner, don't you? And that's a that's an interesting point. So wealth building is all about that. And fascinating as well. He shared and he's written four books, but doesn't want to focus on providing the English side of that education, preferring to pass it on to his wife who is a trained teacher. The reason why Maybe laugh was, I remember listening to an interview with Robert Kiyosaki about his books, best selling books, obviously. And he said, I'm not a best writing author. I'm the best selling author. And that's what it counts, isn't it using your IP to create real value, which he's doing. And I think it's great that he's putting time energy into the raising together with his wife of their children, recognising the school system, as he said, Just wasn't serving them at the right level, that I think he said, when there are large classroom sizes do you tend to go to slower speed. And if you've got children who need something specific, whether it's partially sightedness, or indeed, in many cases now, with any other form of condition that just prevent you from learning at the same pace or in the same way and start as other children, then that's going to cause them to slow down. So not enjoy the experience as well, which can be damaging. So, you know, fair play to John for what he's doing.
Christian Rodwell 36:08
Yeah, it's all wrapped up in our seven family wealth principles, aren't they? The first principle is problems and identifying a multitude problems exists when it comes to children and young adults learning and specifically learning about money and finances. But interesting, John talks about his wife, 25 years as a teacher, and they found their roles, didn't they? So she obviously took care of the core curriculum with the children when it came to the home education. And then John would get out his copy of Rich Dad Poor Dad, and you know, really look at some business lessons and discuss those with the children. And that was really a form of personal development. And it clearly is rubbing off because he talks about Harry, his daughter there, she's 11 years old, she's already got a business plan, she wants to do multiple things. So it's clearly rubbing off and that participation of sitting together, and also the book of the family values and picking a value. And again, these things really sticking and becoming part of their DNA now.
Speaker 2 37:05
Yeah, didn't we hear that very similarly, when one of the podcast interviews was talking about laminating a set of personal family values, that was a fascinating insight there as well. So so this whole idea of family values being important, and carrying that forward. So in one of the principles, which is the one of passing on Chris, which is really passing on the baton, it's almost seeing the wealth of a family as an intergenerational, not a race, but almost a marathon, where the baton passes after the end of the the generation, I guess, the to one to the next to the next. And you have to equip them with the right knowledge, the skills, the training, in order to be able to accept that. And I think that's very powerful. When you can start to build family values, family traditions, even recording some of the elder generation, the grandparents, the elder, the elders in the family right now and get the younger people to record their voices and record some of the stories, because history tells us valuable lessons. And it's quite fascinating. As we mentioned earlier, the more you get into what makes a family real, what makes them very deeply personal, the more insight you get, the more compelling the stories are. And one
Christian Rodwell 38:24
lesson I'm sure John is pleased that he took from his father was that early lesson of save or invest 20% of everything that you earn, and John has done that diligently, and has built up a considerable nest egg and he talked about an ICER there, which is obviously a really efficient way of of putting money away and compounding another core principle of the wealth building process.
Speaker 2 38:49
Yes, compounding is an important part of that, and longer you have for that to take effect. And the more powerful it is hence, the early you can get children to learn that, the better it is whether people in today's world can say 20% anymore as an interesting one, at least because of you know, high inflation, high interest rates, cost of living and so on. It's going to be difficult to do that. But always nice to see, though, that children are being encouraged to save so that they see the value. I think we've also heard from someone who actually paid money into the jars and the money that was in the saving jar, They topped up with interest to encourage them to see the earning of compound interest. So interest is definitely valuable and is one that compounds. The stock market does compound over time, as long as you're banking some of the value. I think all too often though, people just have with the rise and fall of the market and don't bank and collect. I think I talked about this on a previous podcast that compounding is only really going to work give maximum impact if you collect the gains you make, and then you use them to make more gains, rather than just roll the dice on the next turn of the volatile stock market.
Christian Rodwell 40:11
Yeah, and of course, always a different, I guess approaches to similar principles, John refer to the marshmallow test, which is essentially delayed gratification, giving his children five pounds and seeing how long they can hold on to that. And if they do return it, they would get some interest and a return on their money. And go, Henry is a product. We've talked about this before. I'm sure listeners will be aware of go Henry, the founder of go Henry is Louise Hill. And Louise has recently put together a petition Kevin, which I know we are firmly behind. And in Leah's review on Trustpilot she hashtagged literacy for Lexi, which is the hashtag that we're supporting around the petition. Yes,
Speaker 2 40:54
so the petition is a very valuable thing, because it highlights the sense of, of a public movement really. So Louise, the founder of go, Henry, has put together the principle of the petition, which is to get financial literacy, put as a curriculum in our curriculum item, an obligation to provide financial education to our younger people starting a primary school. And I think John even mentioned, you know, change the curriculum was a bit of language he used. And this is what Louisa saying to, let's change the curriculum and put it on the map. We're backing now. So their hashtag is make money calm. And we've added our own because we believe in the value of literacy. And the value of that, for us is that equips the next generation with the skills to be able to not just make good decisions with their own money, but to accept the family's wealth, with all the wisdom that's needed to maintain it, expand it, and pass it on to future generations. So it's a continual, intergenerational thing. So we'd like to support that and encourage any listener to go ahead. And if they believe that's important, to sign up to the petition. And if the petition levels, which I think closes in April 2020, for Chris, if the petition levels, it 10,000, then it has to be acknowledged in terms of government rather. And if it hits 100,000, then it really stands every chance of being debated. You can imagine the big, almost have not like legal signatures anymore, because everything's done online, but the equivalent of that, arriving outside number 10, and somebody having to take it in, and then it's debated. So we'd like to get it to 100,000. It's currently, as we're speaking around the sort of 9000 mark. So 10,000 is a done deal. But we'd like to encourage people to help and share, because by helping you add in your name to it, if you believe it's important, but if you share it with somebody else, then this thing can go viral. So if you could do that, that will be a Christmas gift and a half to give it to leave not just a lasting legacy, but a lasting impression on the whole of society, as property and other assets, and entrepreneurialism and other things are being taught in schools now. We can argue, Chris, whether current educational system has taught the teachers how, but it's the same with Ed Tech, isn't it? An AI? They're gonna have to develop those skills. So I think we would like to be part of that process that helps the educators become educated and these principles. But anyway, off the soapbox, I now do jump down. How do people sign up to this petition? Chris? What's the what's the link?
Christian Rodwell 43:54
Yes, I will put the link in the show notes so that you can easily click that if you want to search online financial literacy petition that should come up. And yeah, it'll be in the show notes, along with other links that have been referred to in today's episode. And of course links to join our Facebook community or to just receive free information. Every WEDNESDAY We publish our wealth builder Wednesday newsletter, and that's called latest news and events and interesting things that you can participate in. So that pretty much wraps up this is episodes and just say thank you to John for today. Very much appreciate taking the time to talk with us. And Kevin, I guess we'll be back Same time, same place next year.
Speaker 2 44:42
We will until when a Monday when we're meeting to have a very nice steak dinner somewhere in London.
Speaker 1 44:52
We hope you enjoy today's episode. Don't forget that we are constantly updating our resources inside the wealth builders membership site to help you To create, build and protect your wealth, head over to wealth builders.co.uk/membership right now for free access. That's wealth builders.co.uk/membership