What do Maplin, JJB Sports, Toys R Us, Staples, Lehman Brothers Bank, Phones 4 U, Blockbuster, Kodak, Comet, Jamie Oliver Restaurants, Sears, General Motors, Hugo Boss, Yellow Pages, Debenhams, and Thomas Cook all have in common? (These all went bust BEFORE 2020!)
They’ve all gone bust with each leaving a trail of devastation and thousands of lost jobs behind them. Creditors lose and hard-working employees lose. Almost every year some big company or bank goes into liquidation and people gasp in shock horror every single time.
Why is this? Why are people still surprised that huge companies end up toast when this is the norm and it will continue to happen…?
Unfortunately, this all stems back to your childhood and your parents and great great grandparents childhood. Pretty much everyone you know (most likely including you) has been raised in a culture where it’s absolutely pivotal to follow a certain procedure in life:
1
2
3
4
Sounds like a solid plan right? Well, in the 1950s it did! In the 21st Century, statistically, this is a simply ludicrous life plan to follow. Modern culture and peoples’ life habits have changed so much over the last 20 years that the old plan just doesn’t work anymore!
In general:
- You don’t work the same job forever and retire with a big fat pension.
- The state or company pension is a joke these days.
- People don’t live in the same house for over 20 years.
- People don’t live within their means.
- People get bored a lot easier these days.
So what happens in reality is that you end up doing averagely ok at school, you get grades you couldn’t really care for to end up at uni doing a degree you really don’t want to do, you end up in a job completely irrelevant to your degree, you’re now £50k in student debt and are still clueless of what you actually want to do in life in this big fast paced world where social media makes you feel grossly inadequate 24/7. Am I close?
Even worse is that hordes of people who are unhappy in their current job think the grass may be greener in another profession. So they spend thousands of hard earned savings trying to get another qualification to get a better/different job. If they’re lucky, they get the job, but within 5 years they end back in the same quagmire. Why is this?! I know people that have done that routine every 5-10 years for the entirety of their lives and at the age of 60 they still don’t know what to do!
Here’s the punchline…
Qualifications and jobs DO NOT EQUAL FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE or fulfilment (in most cases).
This is the biggest myth that the current education system is propagating, and the universities are laughing all the way to the bank whilst you’re left with 5 figures of debt and a below average salary.
The ever-decreasing value of a degree is due to ‘degree inflation’ because so many people have one. I’m an employer who’s constantly interviewing & hiring people and I really don’t give a hoot about what degree someone has. The internal questions I need satisfying in an interview are:
- Do I like them?
- Can they do the job?
- Are they a job hopper?
- Are they likely to stay with me for at least 3 years?
- Will they integrate with the team?
- Do they have an awesome ‘can-do’ attitude and won’t huff and puff every time they get a task?
- Do they also believe in the company vision and mission?
- Will they be allergic to the office cat and dog?
- Do they also love Elon Musk!?
- Medicine and dentistry £47,300
- Economics £37,900
- Veterinary science £34,900
- Mathematical sciences £33,100
- Engineering and technology £32,600
- Nursing £28,500
- Computer science £27,800
- Languages (including English studies) £27,400
- Physical sciences £27,100
- Business and administration studies £26,800
- Historical & philosophical studies £25,400
- Law £25,200
- Biological studies £24,500
- Social sciences (excluding economics) £24,500
- English studies £24,000
- Education £23,700
- Mass communication and documentation £22,800
- Psychology £22,600
- Agriculture and related £20,500
- Creative arts and design £20,200
Another unrealistic, yet popular thing making its way round the internet these days by finance gurus is that “…you need to use compounding interest to your favour, invest for the long term and in 40 years, your savings will have turned into the millions“. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan and utiliser of compounding interest, but not when it’s dressed up this way. One should use compounding interest as one of many different arrows in your quiver.
It’s just a stupidly inefficient method, because in 40 years’ time you will be too old to fully enjoy your fortune and you will have suffered a life of compromise and mediocrity to get there. You’ll have also nicely lined your Fund Manager’s pockets during that time as well! And this is totally ignoring real inflation and any dramatic market movements like the global crashes of 1987, 1992, 2001 and 2008. Trust me, there’s more of that imminently inbound!
Again, we’re back to square 1 here. What is one supposed to do then?!
The quick answer, is to just jump onto the FREE 30 Day Trial of the WAP. It’s basically a ‘Netflix’ for Business, Money, Investing, Life & Being Awesome!
But going back to the point…
This may sound a little crazy and a tad risky, but humour me for a few more minutes; but have you ever thought of becoming a Business Owner?
Now before we go any further, let’s take a quick breather here. You’ve no doubt had a tsunami of pre-conceptions about the notion of going into business for yourself. Some of them may be unconsciously misinformed perhaps? Either way, (getting my big tar brush out here), most people now fit into one of 3 groups.
- It’s too expensive.
- It’s too scary.
- It’s too risky. My mate down the pub got ruined trying to set up his own business.
- I have no money to even set up a business.
- I have no skills and definitely have no idea of what type of business to set up.
- Even if I have a good biz idea, I have no idea how to set up a business.
- I’m definitely going to fail. Over 90% of start ups fail in Year 1.
- I don’t care. Money isn’t everything. I prefer to be happy than rich.
- I simply can’t be arsed.
- I just have no time. When you have a family and a full time job, there is literally no time in the day to do anything else!
- I have a comfortable job right now…it’s too risky to sack it all in for a punt like this.
I don’t actually blame you if you have a few of those thoughts. I had most of them myself a decade ago before I got into biz. But at the end of the day, these are just plain old excuses. Simple as that. You’re just not hungry enough and/or you don’t have any threatening external stimuli (illness/redundancy etc) to prod you into making that leap of faith. As mentioned, your naysaying inner chimp is genuinely trying to protect you and steer you away from danger. And you’ve grown to trust and listen to that chimp.
However by doing so, unless you consciously observe, check and rectify this mental program, it’s also going to perpetually push you away from greatness and a life you can’t even dream of living. For years I couldn’t even imagine earning a 5 figure monthly take home income. But now my basic living costs are 5 figures per month! I could write an essay for each of those points, but now’s not the time. Oh, one second, there’s one comment there that really gets my goat, the happiness one!
YOU 100% CAN BE WEALTHY AND HAPPY! Money and happiness are NOT mutually exclusive! I’ve been on the bread line and miserable and I’ve been wealthy and miserable. Trust me, the level of miserable-ness is orders of magnitude worse when you have Money problems heavily compounding your dilemma/issues! Zig Ziglar said it best, “Money ain’t everything, but its right up there with oxygen!” But moving on…
Group 2 – The Wantrapreneurs
Again, I mean no offence, (I’ve still got my tar brush out here), but these people are like groupies stalking their favourite celebrity. Hell, I can’t talk; if Elon came within 1000 square miles of my location I’d drop what I was doing and make a beeline to him!
We’ve all seen or know of the typical Wantrapreneur. They already know that going into business is the only way to properly make any real money in this world. But they’re not exactly approaching it in an effective manner. They go to all the seminars, they buy all the workshops, they learn every known tactic in every niche, they have read all the ‘Top Selling’ biz books out there, they hang onto every word of the normal Wantrapreneur celebs out there like Gary Vee, Grant Cardone and Tony Robbins etc. Some may even go uber-spiritual and pray to the universe for a million pounds every morning.
This is all great! It really is, learning new things is exactly what we all need. I used to be a Wantrapreneur myself in the first few years of trying to get into business. I did every free hard-selling-run-to-the-back-of-the-room-seminar there was and spent thousands of borrowed-money on biz workshops and Masterminds etc. I properly fell for all of this rubbish.
First of all, the universe doesn’t give a $h1t hoot about what you wish for! It really doesn’t. We are all just cosmic apes floating around on a watery spec of dust in a totally average star system in an average galaxy. We humans aren’t anything that special and the Universe is most certainly not listening out for your morning wishes! Action gets stuff done! In the same vein, knowledge is not power. Applied knowledge is power!
In a nutshell, most Wantrapreneurs will never succeed in business. They get off on the idea of being ‘an Entrepreneur’ but in most cases, they will still be a Wantrapreneur 5-10 years from now. I personally know dozens and dozens of people I used to know in these circles who are still chasing fad after fad. One day they’re doing an MLM, next month they’re doing Drop-shipping, then they’re doing a Podcast! The key attribute for those that actually do break out of this endless cycle are those that actually knuckle down and focus on one thing! One simple biz idea or one niche. And they find one simple client attraction method that works and they then scale it. They scale it via implementing systems and employing staff to execute those systems. Again, now is not the time to go into depth about Group 2. We must move on…
Group 3: The Open-Minders
Being open-minded is always a good thing to be. Having the ability to objectively take in new data, (even if it’s opposing an existing belief system), analyse it and deduce some form of outcome, answer or action is crucial for success in all walks of life!
Being a space geek, an ex RAF Pilot and science fan, I’m 100% certain that the Earth is an oblate spheroid. I’ve literally seen the curvature of the Earth with my own eyes. Even still, I forced myself to sit through 3 hours’ worth of the ‘best’ Flat Earth documentaries just so I could see things from their perspective and their arguments. Suffice to say, I still know that the Earth is spherical.
I know this is a bit of an extreme example, but for a lot of people, the very thought of going into business for themselves is as outlandish as Flat Earth theory is for me.
After knowing a lot of business owners and have interviewed hundreds of good and bad ones, I’ve seen a common trait. The cool thing about the Group 3 Open-Minders is that they have the splendid ability to observe a new thing/fact/perspective. They’ll then critically question and prod this new thing for stats and answers. Then they’ll come to an informed conclusion.
And guess what? When you come to an informed conclusion on the subject of getting into business for yourself, the answer should be YES.
Yes, I do actually need to take control of my life and finances.
Yes, having 1 single income stream is a precarious position to be in.
Yes, most millionaires and billionaires out there got rich from business.
Yes, most business owners that employ over 20 staff are millionaires.
Yes, most businesses fail within the first 5 years, but those that survive 10 years are wildly profitable.
Yes, relying on anyone other than yourself for your income is unwise.
Yes, tech is disrupting every industry and having a job in any company is not safe anymore.
Yes, the potential reward of business far outweighs all the risks of not setting up a business.
Yes, even if you set up 9 failing start ups, but your 10th> venture was successful, you’d most likely end up earning far more than a job could pay.
But here’s the cool kicker to all of this. It’s actually healthy to embrace all 3 of these groups within yourself in parallel!
- Throwing up a mental wall of objections is always a prudent thing to do. It’s a form of questioning. So do it! But not in isolation!
- Then you need to embrace the Group 3 in you and systematically work through every objection or question you originally came up with.
- Then once you’ve done that, let the enthusiasm in a bit and embrace the Group 2 in you. After all, you absolutely will need new knowledge and new revenue-generating skills in order to succeed in biz. But just don’t go too all in on this culture and fall for the BS kool-aid.
OK, you’ve somewhat got me interested in business. Now what?!
This is as spiritual as I get, but I strongly believe that if you get into business with just the sole intention of making more money, you’ll fail. I’ve just seen this far too many times to count. Chasing money for the sake of money alone will breed poor habits and poor decisions down the line which may result in a life of continually chasing that carrot.
You have to understand that real wealth is actually Time, Health and Happiness. Money is simply a stepping stone to get you most of that. Money just gives you more options and time to spend with your loved ones and live a healthier and more fulfilled life.
So as cheesy as this is all sounding, you need to develop your principles and your WHY first. It will make business way easier.
1.) To live the life you’ve always wanted without limits or worries.
2.) To have limitless time, options and freedom to do whatever you want, whenever you want, wherever you want with whoever you want.
3.) To inspire and help your loved ones and the people around you for the better.
4.) To help or create a meaningful positive difference to the environment and mankind as a whole.
5.) To have no regrets, EVER!
To the outsider, this may appear all fine and fancy; but we’re also realists and we know that you can’t just dream and wish success into existence. Money is attracted to value. You have to actually go out there, up-level your knowledge and become more valuable yourself or create something of value to others.
Essentially, in plain simple English, this Framework of Life boils down to:
* Earn enough passive income so that you can hit your financial independence target. Then do whatever the hell you want to do. Then help others, help the planet and live without regret. Boom! *
I see so many people getting hurt with start-ups and get random messages for help all the time. So I wanted to do something. This is why I created the Wealth Action Plan.
The WAP is simply a map to get you from where you are now to where you want to be.
In 2018, I got a blank piece of paper and mapped out every single thing a person would need to learn in order to eventually quit their job, prosper in business and set themselves up financially for life. Here is a small sample of the things we cover:
- Getting Paid To Build Your Product or Service.
- Tips on Recruiting For Your Business!
- Work/Life Balance Myth.
- Your Life Mission.
- Your Bucket Lists.
- Your Top 5 Priorities.
- Your Life Improvement List.
- When to know to pivot your biz.
- Changing your relationship with Money.
- The Future Of Tech And How To Protect And Profit From It.
- 20 Simple Life Hacks To Implement Into Your Life ASAP.
- Proper Goal Smashing And Getting Stuff Done.
- Tracking Activity vs Productivity.
- Tracking Energy Levels.
- Outsourcing Stuff You Shouldn’t Do.
- Planning Your New Year And Life.
- Types Of Business Models To Choose From.
- The Sweet Spot Graph.
- Setting Up Your Business.
- Registering Your Company Issuing Shares.
- Creating Your Website & Landing Pages.
- Mapping Out Your Client Journey.
- Launching Your Biz With a Bang.
- Understanding Demand & Supply.
- The Kickstarter Hack.
- Networking And Social Skills.
- A Bucket Load Of Ways To Attract And Keep Customers.
- Biz Finance And Tracking.
- Biz and Marketing Funnels.
- Biz Legals.
- Biz Opportunities to Avoid.
- The Key Elements of Joint Ventures.
- 6 Ways to Raise Capital.
- Setting up your Biz For Exit.
In parallel to all this, how to fully understand yourself and adopt a growth mindset to improve every area of your life from relationships to not just setting goals, but actually smashing them out of the park!
Upon mapping out this ‘WAP MAP’ I then got to work and, in a few months, wrote over 400 000 words (that’s 9 books worth of words) to explain everything. Literally everything. To the point that if I died tomorrow, I’ve already put in my Will that my 2 baby boys are to do the full WAP when they’re older. Not just once, but several times. I really don’t want all of my trials, tribulations and experience to go wasted. There’s millions of pounds of learning points here that I want my kids to have. Years of blood, sweat, tears, stress and passion wouldn’t then be wasted.
We then chopped up the words into 5-10 minute animated videos making the content easy to digest whilst still bristling with learning points, including action points for each video!
After all, success is the continual accumulation of consistent focus and effort aligned to a Goal, which is target with a deadline!
Simply watching the videos isn’t enough. Great if you want to do ‘shelf-development’ rather than self-development. The thing that will grow the quality and level of life for you and your loved ones is by actioning the learning points in the WAP.
That’s why we’ve created a private FB Group for all the lovely ‘Wappers’ out there. This way you will have a support community around you of other like-minded inspired people that are striving to OWN their lives in order to live instead of existing from payday to payday.
So all I can say is to join the WAP and prepare to change your life.
Let us be your Business/Investing/Money Sherpa. For just £30 per month, it’s a simply ridiculous bargain for the hundreds of thousands of Pounds worth of experience and knowledge. This is just £0.98 per day! A high street coffee costs £2.50+!
And if you can’t justify £30 per month to up-level your mind, yet you can justify a gym membership and Netflix and all the other subscriptions in your life, then frankly, we can’t help you. Your priorities need addressing before you embark on setting up a business!
But if you are a ‘go-getter’ and you’re ready to open up and discover a whole new part of your life and this may all feel daunting, GREAT! The journey you’re about to start is truly fantastic, and despite all the massive c0ck-ups I’ve made, the amount of times I’ve been screwed over and all the fails I’ve had…I’d do it all over again! The wins far exceed the losses!
Remember, the first mini goal is to simply set up an asset that spits out an extra £300 per month! That’s a nice little bump in income, but that’s the hard bit! But going from £300 to £3000 per month really is the easy bit.
After going through all the valuable information and being supported by me any my team in our private group, if you decide that starting your own small business is not for you, just let us know and we’ll refund your payment in full and we can still be friends!
Fair enough?
Succeeding in business is about managing risks and that’s why I want you to be able to join the WAP community today without worrying about getting it wrong. Just jump onto this FREE 30 Day Trial and you will get access to a LOT of information. See how it goes…
Hopefully see you in the Discord community soon my friend!
Regards
Siam
Founder of TheWap
