How I Made an Entire Year's Salary ($70k Profit) on My Very First Investment Deal at 19 | Todd Polke

Welcome guys to another episode of Beyond the Numbers where we go into the depths of revenue mechanics, marketing, sales, but we go beyond the numbers as well and look into different areas of what actually makes up a successful founder, a successful business from health, wellness, and in this case, wealth. We've got wealth strategist Todd Polke here, author, 20 years in the game. Todd, welcome to the podcast.

Mike, great to be here.

Good to meet you, man. We learned, oh, I just learned early on that we actually share a bit of a similar background back in the personal training days. So how did you go from— yeah, many years back. How'd you go from personal training to wealth strategist? Bit of a jump.

Yeah. So here's what I found personal training, like, you know yourself, like what time in the morning do we tend to get up?

It's usually 4 o'clock, 4 o'clock gym.

That's about right. And I used to run a lot of boot camps as well. Like, and so I used to get up at 4 in the morning, just like you. I'd go through about 10 or 11 in the morning with clients. I'd have a bit of a break in the middle of the day, start again about 2 or 3 o'clock in the afternoon and go through to about 8 o'clock at night with clients. But as many of your listeners will know, running a small business, your hours of the day don't stop just because you run out of clients, right? You've got marketing to take care of. You've got clients to take care of.

Admin.

Admin, bane of my existence, all the stuff. And so my day would wind up finishing by about midnight. And I'd do that 6 days a week and I'd do that 50 weeks of the year because my whole rule of creating success in life at the time was simply, well, the harder I work, the more successful I'll become. And that was my philosophy of how I played the game of business, played the game of life.

And now— Hustle, hustle.

Incorrect. The hustle culture. Don't get me wrong, hard work's great, but if it's your only strategy, it leads to a world of burnout. And so for me, I wound up burning out my body, wound up in hospital having leg surgery on both my legs because of overuse injuries. I was getting sick all the time. So I was being a personal trainer. Well done, Todd. Good role model for everybody else. My personal relationship was broken. I had no personal life to think about. And then, do you know what? After all that's said and done, at the end of the year, the one area where I thought was supposed to be working really well, given how many hours I was working, being my bank balance, well, I was broke there too as well. And I got to a point of going, this shit's broken, man. There must be a better way of doing life.

Yep.

And it really set me on a pathway to find some and started studying successful people, studying successful investors, successful business owners. And I learned this really powerful thing is that, well, if I didn't get my money working hard for me, then I was going to spend my entire life just working hard for money. And when I just sat there and I fast-forwarded What if I was in the exact same position, I mean, 5 years from now? In 5 years, if I'm in the exact same position I am in now, how am I going to feel like that about that? And it was like a nightmare, just even thinking about it. And I knew at that point in time, everything had to change.

Yeah. And I think that's a position a lot of founders find themselves in, myself included, because I, similar personal training background, came from that hustle, work early morning, work in the middle of the day, try and get a nap in where you can.

Yep, put it under the net.

Yeah, so I saw all night.

Yeah, the cycle room curled up having a nap.

Yeah, just close the doors, switch your pad on.

Absolutely, 100%.

Yeah, and when I transitioned from that, um, so I went from personal training into sales.

Yep.

Um, had a very successful sales career in the sense of making a good amount of money, but that was a similar sort of mentality. It was hustle, hustle, hustle. Yeah, and you get rewarded for it because the more sales calls you make, more sales you make. Obviously the more you make as well. And when I first transitioned into business and still in business now, like I've got this niggling thing in the back of my mind that's always like, if I'm not working, I'm not progressing. How did you break that mindset and start to look at, well, how can I use my business as a vehicle versus just a glorified job? Yeah.

You know, it's such a great question. And do you know what? Like, I'm, Anyone who's like all entrepreneurs, we probably have a little bit of a sickness, right?

There's nearly always a mental illness. To get into the game.

Yeah. To get into the game, you have to, to begin with. And we take all these risks, work all these hours, and often we're our own worst enemy in that way, right? And so there's a mindset thing that's sitting there, and I've gotta be quite frank, I still have a bit of it now. Every day, like even though I have so much flexibility and options and choices now, I still at times, if I'm not doing something, I still feel that guilt come up from time to time.

Yeah. That makes sense.

And I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. You wanna sleep in and you're like, It's 6 o'clock. I should be going. Hustle, hustle, hustle, right? But he was a big switch for me. No, after, back then I used to, was reading books and there was no podcasts, there was no webinars, there was none of that, right? So I was attending live events and I was reading a lot of books. And one thing that I found to be really, really true with every successful person I saw that was up on stage presenting success and things like that, None of it was about luck. None of it was about, well, I was born under a lucky star, or I had the right parents, or I didn't have the right parents, or I didn't have this, or I had this. What it was that every single one of them had a system. And when it came to money, you know, in business, I realized I didn't have that system. And so I went to learn the system. And so that's when I got mentors in my life, right? And I met one very, who became a very important mentor in my life. He's still one of my best friends is now today, 20 years later. And when I met this mentor, I made this decision. The decision I made was that, well, I'm gonna buy my first property in 6 months' time, but I had a bit of a problem.

Yep.

I had no money to buy a property. It'll be difficult to buy it, right?

Yeah.

But I made one of those decisions at that time where I chose to leave my excuses behind me. And every business owner, at some point in your life, you've gotten to that point where you might've been doing the hustle, liking the sales or liking personal training or wherever everyone started. That you've made the decision that I'm going out on my own and you've chosen to leave your excuses behind you. And that was the mode I was in. And so over the next, I was going to buy my first property in 6 months' time. Had no money, had no idea what I was doing. Just had an overwhelming dream and desire and that was it. And sometimes that can be dangerous.

Yep.

And I wound up saving more money, finding ways to earn some more money, scrimping on things to make my initial deposit. 6 months later, I had $9,000 in my bank account. Now that may not seem like a lot of money, but to me at the time it was an absolute fortune.

Absolute fortune.

Fortune. I'm a 19-year-old, right? Got the first home owner's grant, got the stamp duty savings, bought my first property at the age of 19 years old. 6 months later, I saved up another $10,000, did a renovation on that property. We wound up making $70,000 profit in that one property deal. And made more than my entire year's income personal training in that one deal.

Not bad.

And the light just went right up.

What am I doing?

There's another way to do things, right? It doesn't have to be just work hard. Doesn't have to be hustle. Doesn't have to be 17 hours a day. And I learned that there was another way. And from that moment in time, having that experience and learning that profits are better than wages, I got out of everything I was doing in a short period of time. Got out of personal training, got out of the army. I was still pretending to study at university at that point in time, thinking that was the way ahead. And since then, just fell in love with the world of investing. And that's what I've been doing for the last 20 years now. I've had the privilege and the pleasure to work with thousands of investors over the years to help them grow their portfolios and create financial freedom.

Interesting. And when it comes to making that transition, because I can speak from personal experience and just observation, whether it's with clients or other founders, Even though they get into business, which is a, as you say, you gotta be a little crazy to get into business.

Yeah.

For any reason. But then they go down this path of being extraordinary in one area, such as business, but following a more traditional path. And I made this, I don't know if it's a mistake, maybe you can tell me if it was a mistake, but made the money in sales, got out of that. I had a mentor at the time. Who we had a falling out. He kind of like took a business from me, but that's a— sorry for that. That happens.

That story over a beer, that one. Yeah.

And out of that emotional fallout, I ended up just buying a house, like a personal residence. I had some investments, like I've got gold, silver, some stocks, but a huge chunk of the cash that I made from sales went into a personal residence.

Sure.

Robert Kiyosaki, that's a liability, not an asset. Firstly, in your opinion, was that a mistake? But then for a business owner that is generating some good income, how do they then start to play the game as an investor and not just follow that middle ground, middle path, buy a house, get the white picket fence, normal pathway?

Yeah. So it's, I've got quite a decent perspective on this. I lived in that first house I ever bought because I had to do the first home loans grant. However, I then what's called rent vested for the next probably 18 years of my life. And I've only just bought my own principal place of residence 2 years ago. And it's exactly what I want. It's 39 acres. It's a rainforest. It's got waterfalls, it's got flowing streams. It's exactly what I wanted. Now, but that worked for me also because of my lifestyle that I wanted to be able to live. So I have a couple of nuances in this, which is really important to understand. Part of my journey in going through the journey of business and high performance and realizing how your energy matters and how your productivity matters and how I can operate at my highest level that I possibly can as me so I can create more and do more in business and in life. I had this understanding is that how important your ecosystem is that you set up around you, right?

Yeah.

And that ecosystem includes where you live. It includes your experience when you come home. It includes the places you frequent. And so if I just went and bought a home, what I could afford at the time, and I hear this from a lot of people, is that they go back to their home, but it doesn't inspire them. It doesn't help them operate at their highest level of energy. And so I very intentionally chose to go and rent places which inspired me at a great level, places that I couldn't afford to buy personally as I was going through this kind of journey at the Yeah. And so, and because I was moving around a lot, it kind of worked well for me. So I think there's something to be said for making sure that you maximize your ecosystem as an entrepreneur, as a founder, so that you can operate at your highest level.

Yeah.

Now, when Robert Kiyosaki says, oh, don't buy your own home, it's a liability, I don't necessarily subscribe to that wholeheartedly. What I think about is what was the mindset that you had when you went into buying that home? And that's a big distinction.

Yeah.

Now a lot of people, and you can tell me this is the truth for you, a lot of people when they buy their first home or buy a home, all they're thinking about is, oh yeah, I'd like to live here. Yeah. Was that the way that you were thinking back then or would you say?

Essentially like, yeah, I'd come off the fallout of that Royam business and I was emotionally vulnerable at the time and then I just wanted some stability.

You were rebounding.

Yeah.

Perfect. That's right.

Yeah.

You were rebounding. And so I'm not against buying your own home. My home right now has made over $1 million in growth in the last kind of 1.5 years alone. And so how can anyone look at that and go, that's a bad investment?

Yeah.

Now, Robert Kiyosaki talks about that because it's not putting money in your back pocket as a cash flow strategy, but he's referring to the US marketplace, which is radically different than the Australian marketplace as an example.

Yep.

So when I think about buying your own home, I think about a few different things. I think about, is it a place that inspires you and lifts you up?

Yeah.

Does it, you know, are you doing it just for the sense of safety and security? And is that more important than your financial freedom? Right? Where if you go and buy your own home, is it gonna stop you from growing your portfolio and keep you stuck and you tie this noose around your neck because you've got this mortgage and you can't be able to move forward?

Yeah.

And are you making a decision purely based on emotions as opposed to due diligence that this is a good property that's gonna grow in value as well? So if you're going to buy your own home, make it a good investment as well. Otherwise, I see so many people get their own home and they wind up stuck, unable to do anything for years, if not decades, because they have this old belief system was I have to pay off my own home and just having my own home means I'm safe and secure, which is a load of shit.

Yeah. And I resonate with a lot of what you say because a lot of that's gone through my head as well. Like, so I know I developed a lot of money scars because my family wasn't We weren't like high or lower, typical middle class. Yeah.

Mine too. Yep.

And, but then my mum and dad split when I was sort of teenage years and my mum went through basically supporting me and my 2 brothers by herself and doing that through credit cards.

Right.

So not the most financially savvy way to do it. Bless her, she did what she could with the knowledge she had. Yeah. But then I picked up a lot of those habits and got myself in a fair bit of debt by the age of By the time I was 21, I was in like $30,000 worth of credit card debt.

Yep.

Pursuing a dream. I went over and played soccer in America and stuff and did all that, but had no financial savviness. So after I dug myself out of that hole, I had like this allergy towards debt where I never wanted to be beholden to any debt again. So when we, after that successful period in sales and the business fallout and everything, had a lump of cash and we bought the house in cash. Now this, Far from the dream house that was on the vision board and all that sort of stuff. But I didn't want to have the debt there because I've still got these scars from the previous debt. So I've just got this lump of cash locked in an app or like in a property that's not inspiring me. That's not—

You're killing me, mate. You're killing me.

Yeah. You're probably thinking like, dang, Dan, what the hell are you doing?

Yep.

Yep. So In my, in that position, and maybe this will be beneficial for everyone else, but also for myself, what would you say would be the next best move? Or maybe there's not enough context to say next best move, but how would you get back on track from that position?

Yeah, let's talk about some options right now. A lot of people look at investing and they go, oh, investing is risky, right? And they look at debt, oh, that's risky, right? But it's only risky if you don't know what you're doing. And like what you said before is important. Like we don't, most people don't know how. We're just never taught any financial education, any investment education. All we're taught is let's get a job and exchange time for money and pay your taxes, be a good boy and girl, do what you're told and get stuck in the middle. And this is exactly the reason I wrote this book to—

Live for your weekends and— Right.

And then one day hopefully be able to retire at 65, 67, you know, if you're lucky.

Yeah.

Yeah. They keep raising retirement age. You can be 105 before you can retire soon. And 77% of the population rely upon some form of the pension in retirement. And I sit there and go like, what a bullshit set of rules that we're taught. So investing is risky if you don't know what you're doing, but let me tell you what's even riskier. It's doing nothing.

Yeah.

Staying in the exact same position because you've given into fear as opposed to taking some baby steps towards actually having some experience in the marketplace. Because what takes away fear is knowledge and experience. That's what takes away fear. But if you always stay, oh, I'm just not going to do it, investing is risky, all that type of stuff. Then you're never going to actually take that initial step. And investing doesn't have to be big, crazy, outrageous leaps. I tell so many of my investors, like, get started with $5 a week. If it's that scary, if you take $5 a week, invest in the marketplace and become an investor and start getting your head in the market and start directing your mindset and your psychology and your energy towards that, you're going to become an investor. You're going to overcome this hurdle.

Yeah.

Now let's talk about our situation because I see this a lot, right? Money trapped in a home is lazy money. It's lazy money.

Yeah.

Because when money is trapped in a home, all you are saving is the cost of interest. So if you are, if the interest rate is, you know, in Australia's about 5.5 to 6-odd percent at this point in time. So you are saving the cost of the interest. Now there is, if you can take that equity out and go and do something else with it that can earn more for you than your 6%, Then there's a massive opportunity cost for not having that equity activated and working.

Which even just at the standard market returns of 10% per year, you're still losing 4% by not having it. Right.

But, but interesting, inflation is a silent killer and we're just coming out of an environment of a very high level of inflation and the average dollar is going backwards at a rate of knots. So if your money in recent times has not been earning over 6 to 7%, then your money is literally going backwards and you're winding up in a worse position.

Yeah. And for me, and by extension, I'm sure a lot of other people think a lot of that fear comes from, for me, it came from that experience of being in debt. But also there's like a security in the known of, cool, I know that, hey, at least you're getting that interest and you're not paying the interest, you're saving a little bit there. Versus say the risk, but the as you're saying, like the the risk of inaction is staying in like almost guaranteed failure. Yeah, and it's the same in business. Like I sat on the fence for business for a while of like should I should not should not should not yeah till you eventually get it. There's like a risk, right? Yeah, yeah, and you realize that it's not as bad on the other side of the fence once you get there. So for those people that are like on the fence of I know I should be doing something. But I don't know how to break past that. What are some of the strategies or tools from a mindset perspective you use to help reframe that thinking and get away from that safety mindset to, I'm going to play the game now?

Yeah. You know, one thing that I take a lot of my investors through is something called a money lens, right? And so every single one of us has a money lens and that's basically how we perceive money because let's be clear, money is just a tool. Debt is just a thing. It's not, it's just a thing.

Yeah.

It's just how you use it.

Good or bad.

It's not good or bad. It's not good or evil. It's just a thing. What matters is how you use it and how you interact with it is what matters. And how you interact with money and how you interact with debt has everything to do with some of the experiences of learnings you've had along the way. Yeah. So we picture this, right? We, as we are born, we come into a certain environment. And that environment teaches about who we are, what we're capable of, what we're not capable of, what you should expect, what you should not expect. And we learn it from our parents. We learn it from teachers in the education system. We learn it from society, right? And so we learn all about what money is and what we're capable of and what we should expect and what we shouldn't expect. Those things that we learn become our belief systems, right? And so our belief systems is what we filter everything that happens through the world through. So it's not what happens in the world, it's the meaning that we give it. And so something occurs in the world, money, debt, business, whatever it is, we then pass it through this belief system filter. And that filter we pass it through then dictates the actions that we take. So we then go past this tree here. We decide this based on this filter, which isn't ours. It's a set of inherited belief systems we're taking from somebody else. or society, we then choose a certain set of action steps. Those action steps are things that we do repeatedly, becomes our habits.

Yep.

What we do over a period of time becomes our reality and it becomes that glass ceiling. And as we repeat it over and over again, it's just what our experience of life is and what our truth is at that point in time.

Yeah.

And so we've gone through this entire experience starting all the way back from here, and what we do repeatedly becomes this experience, becomes that glass ceiling, and that's the meaning that we give it. So the first thing that I always talk about when people, when we go through this is number one, you've got to make a brand new decision. Most people I meet, especially when they kind of start coming and working with me and my team, they've gotten to a point in their life where going, do you know what? Enough is enough, right? There's got to be a better way. There has to be more to life than just grinding away and working hard and living paycheck to paycheck. Or even if you're in business and you're successful right now, You want more out of life. You believe that your money should be working harder for you than you work for your money, right? You might have gone to that belief system. So you make a brand new decision, like a proper decision, not a bullshit decision, a proper one where you leave your excuses behind you.

Yeah. Line in the sand.

Right. Line in the sand moment. And then you set a new standard for what you want in your life. The next question I always come back to is, okay, well, let's start understanding the habits that you've been employing in your life to date around money. around your time, around your action, around investing that's been, you've been doing consistently. It's gotten you to the result that you are right now. Because when we can understand those habits, we can actually start bringing the unconscious into the conscious and we can make brand new set of decisions around our thinking and around our doing. Then we redesign those habits to be, to play at a higher game. Because if you want to create a different level of outcome in your life, you've got to raise the standards in how you're playing the game of life, right? Whether it be money, whether it be business, whether it be whatever it is. And so we then redesign our habits to be playing at that high level. What we do consistently becomes our reality. We now have a new set of habits, which are playing at a high level. That now becomes our new reality. That becomes our new experience of life. That becomes our new set of belief systems. We then learn some new things and those things that we filter, what happens in life filters through our new belief system. We take a different set of actions. What we do consistently becomes our reality and we have a brand new level of ceiling, which has gone up.

Yep.

So I am, it's all about understanding habits. It's the biggest thing that, that, because up to 40% of our lives is made up of unconscious habits where we can start to understand those and we can choose to actively level those up. Your whole world can change underneath your feet.

100%. And you see that in business as well. Like, um, and I think that's, you touched on it earlier, the power of mentors and having people in your world that are operating at that level. Um, for example, um, I don't know if you know Dan Martell, but I do. I work in his mastermind. So, and one of the big things that I've taken from him is not necessarily the strategies or the how-tos or the this, that, the other. It's just the way that he thinks and the way that he goes, the way he articulates things and the way he solves problems. You can see that he's just operating on a different standard to Like for me, for example, to where I'm at. So by observing and being a part or like in and around his world and getting on calls with him, et cetera, it's shifting my perspective and my viewpoint on business to hopefully allow me to play at a higher level as well. So from an investment standpoint, how do people start to identify mentors and the people to get around so they can start to not only change the beliefs and the way they view things, but— actually have the roadmap and the perspective of what's possible for them.

So true. You know, there's a couple of things I'm thinking about when you bring this up, right? First is that, can the mentor do the job? Can they actually give you the education, the training, the tools in order to be able to do this right? Now, when I look at a lot of, in normal society, like financial planners or accountants or things like that, we're supposed to go to them to get advice, but I've got to tell you, most of them have no idea what they're bloody well doing.

They're on $80 grand a year.

They're on $80 grand. They have no portfolios. They have literally no idea. And I work with a lot of them as my personal clients and hats off to them for actually coming and getting some proper real-world advice and growing their own portfolio. So they're living what they preach, so to speak. But qualifications do not mean qualified to help you grow your wealth. So step number 1, can this person actually be a guide for you in order to be able to create that. And that means how they created their own life and how they helped other people to do the same thing. That's step number 1. Step number 2, I think is really important, is philosophy. You talk about Dan Martell. I'm a big fan of Dan Martell. I've had a bit to do with Dan and I relate to his philosophy in a big way. So I completely understand why you resonate with him. And so when you look at someone to work with, you want to understand what's their philosophy and can you resonate with their philosophy around building wealth? You know, one of my philosophies, one of the reasons a lot of people come and work with me is that I believe in values-based investing. So I don't invest in anything which destroys the world, destroys the planet, right? I refuse to be a part of it. And a lot of my clients value that. One of the other philosophies that I have is that I don't care if it's property or crypto or shares or whatever it is. What I care about is what is the purpose is there to serve in the portfolio. So I care about the intention behind why we're putting every element in. So we're building overarching wealth systems. So I would say that's one of the 2 biggest things. It's all about can they help you do the job and can you resonate with their philosophy in order for there to be a guide for you to step by step be able to grow your wealth and build your portfolio?

Yeah, that makes sense. And for anyone that's watching that say might want to work with yourself or possibly grab your book as well. Yeah. What are sort of the levels of that they need to be at to work with you? Like, what level is more appropriate to grab the book first? And then what level do they need to be at from an income perspective, revenue perspective, et cetera, to have it make sense to approach someone like yourself to get that support?

Yeah, 100%. Look, I wrote the book for anyone who wants to make a drastic change in their life. You know, being in the middle, you know, just doing what we're taught to do, go to school, study hard, you know, exchange time for money, pay your taxes, Buy a home with a fat mortgage on it and pay it off over 40-odd years, all that type of stuff. And most people get stuck in this place called the middle, middle level of income, middle level of freedom, middle level opportunity, middle level of earning, and middle level of meaning ultimately. And that's a pretty sad place to be in, to be honest, right? Life's about so much more than working to pay the bills. Anyone who's looking for an escape plan out of this feeling of being stuck on the treadmill, in the rat race, anything like that, Escape the Middle is the exact starting place for you to be. And that's whether you've— I've had investors who are just starting out who are reading this and they've just gotten so much out of it. I've had investors who have tens of millions in a portfolio and they're still learning separate nuances that are in there that I've littered throughout the book. And it really has been designed for everybody. Anyone that wants to get that, you can go to escapethemiddle.com and they're going to be able to find that. And there's a lot of other trainings and tools and resources. Now, when we work with people, we have clients that are just starting out for sure, and there's a pathway for them to be able to follow. And that's going to be very different than someone who's already got $10 or $20 million in a portfolio that wants to be able to take it to the next level. So when we choose to work with people, we've got investors of all different levels from those just starting out to those who have very advanced portfolios and want to make that transition from having a bunch of assets to actually realizing their financial freedom and leaving a legacy from their life. So there's absolutely an opportunity for everybody. Yeah.

And as we bring this to a close, as we run short on time, we kept going, I'm sure another couple of hours would go by, but for anyone that's in that bucket and they've maybe resonated with some of the things you've mentioned today, what's the best place to find you, reach out to you, and possibly even consider working with you?

So there's a couple of places people can go. Number one, as I said, go to www.escapethemiddle.com and you can get a copy of that book and you connect with us there. Great starting point. Or Todd Polke is my name. I'm the only one that I know that's in existence. Go to any social media platform, do a bit of a search, you'll be able to find me there. We also, and we can give you some free training, give you a whole lot of different really interesting tools that's going to help you take that next step on your journey.

Awesome. Thanks, Todd. So for anyone that is thinking of going down the path of wealth building, which I highly recommend, especially if you're in business to get off that rat race and get off the hamster wheel, the treadmill, as Todd mentioned, Gonna jump on the book, reach out to Todd. Otherwise, I'm sure you guys got some value from this. I definitely did. Took the opportunity to poke around for some personal advice. But yeah, thanks for joining us, Todd, and we'll hopefully do this again sometime.

Sounds good. Thanks, mate.

Appreciate it.