Start Here
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Why the hell is Alan ripping up a business plan? Why does Alan get angry when you talk to him about going into debt to start a business? What has Alan got against traditional business advisors in suits?
Today I am financially independent, I run a cool little company (PopUp Business School) with a team of 12, changing the way entrepreneurship is taught globally and I spend my time travelling around the world working with some of the coolest people. Life wasn't always this way! At school I was the shyest kid you could meet, I struggled talking to strangers, I was paralysed by fear approaching girls, making phone calls or anything else. My family went from wealthy to £millions in debt and we had to do car boot sales (yard sales) at the weekend to raise the money to buy food. So what changed? This is what I want to share with you and it is going to be in 3 main parts:
Or you can just read the blog from the beginging |
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Entrepreneurship
My Dad is an Entrepreneur. He taught me so much. When I was at school all I wanted was to get out and work for my hero which was my Dad. One vivid memory I have from my childhood is my Dad coming home with a black leather suit case full of money and asking my little brother and I to help him count it and put all the queens head round the right way! I was probably 12 years old and I remember being sat in the front room counting notes for what seemed like hours. Even back then I was excited by seeing all this money and my eyes were wide open as we counted all the way to over one hundred grand (back in the days when that was a lot of money!)
I learned so much of what to do and what not to do in business from my Dad. I just about scraped through college and left formal education at 18 years old to go and work with my Dad. From a series of amazing experiences with him, horrific experiences working for corporate companies and failed business attempts of my own I learned so much that I eventually ploughed into launching my own business when I was about 28 years old after I got fired from my last job.
Since then through trial and error I have made money and built different businesses without ever going into debt (after watching my Dad go bankrupt for £3.6 million there was no way I was going into debt!). I read every business book, went to business courses, got help from the British Government and worked for years to build my own business.
Now I run PopUp Business School and with a team of 12 incredible people and we travel around the world teaching people to start small businesses without debt and make their own sustainable income.
The purpose of starting this site is to share with you what I have learned and continue to learn building businesses and having fun making money.
For more about Entrepreneurship go here. I will share with you what I have created, the methodolgy I have built and all the resources I think you need to get going!
I learned so much of what to do and what not to do in business from my Dad. I just about scraped through college and left formal education at 18 years old to go and work with my Dad. From a series of amazing experiences with him, horrific experiences working for corporate companies and failed business attempts of my own I learned so much that I eventually ploughed into launching my own business when I was about 28 years old after I got fired from my last job.
Since then through trial and error I have made money and built different businesses without ever going into debt (after watching my Dad go bankrupt for £3.6 million there was no way I was going into debt!). I read every business book, went to business courses, got help from the British Government and worked for years to build my own business.
Now I run PopUp Business School and with a team of 12 incredible people and we travel around the world teaching people to start small businesses without debt and make their own sustainable income.
The purpose of starting this site is to share with you what I have learned and continue to learn building businesses and having fun making money.
For more about Entrepreneurship go here. I will share with you what I have created, the methodolgy I have built and all the resources I think you need to get going!
Financial Independence
What is Financial Independence (FI)
For me the best description I have been given of financial independence and the simplest is that the income from your assets is greater than the amount of money you spend each year.
That's it! Simple. Buy enough assets to produce an income greater than your expenditure. There are lots of ways to do this, investing in property, stocks and shares, starting businesses and earning more money, reducing your income and so on. It is something very few people even understand let alone achieve so I wanted to create this section of the website to help with some ideas, tips and tools that will help you get there.
For me the best description I have been given of financial independence and the simplest is that the income from your assets is greater than the amount of money you spend each year.
That's it! Simple. Buy enough assets to produce an income greater than your expenditure. There are lots of ways to do this, investing in property, stocks and shares, starting businesses and earning more money, reducing your income and so on. It is something very few people even understand let alone achieve so I wanted to create this section of the website to help with some ideas, tips and tools that will help you get there.
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My Journey to Financial Independence
It started a long time ago with self-development books and courses I started to go on becoming aware of the importance of saving money for later in life and looking after yourself financially. I still didn't really understand it and after some bad experiences with my Dad (he helped me invest all my life's savings in high tech stock just before the 2001 stock market crash!) I was very sceptical. Reading Rich Dad Poor dad in my late 20s got me started thinking about assets versus liabilities and led to a burning desire to buy an asset. It took another 6 or 7 years to get there though until we bought our first and second investment properties and a few more years and a lot more reading to get comfortable investing in the stock market again after being so badly burned. Tony Robbins wrote a very long and tough to read book that inspired me to learn more and then my friend Matt got us into the FI world by sending us Mr Money Mustache's Blog and The Escape Artist. After spending months translating American advice into British language my wife and I were off investing and saving and growing our net worth. We focused on building that net worth and growing our investments for the next five years until we reached financial independence in 2017 and started to think about what cool things we could do around the world. |
Face punched by Mr Money Mustache for having too much in cash!
JL Collins NH at the UK Chautauqua in 2017
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Why you should care?
Along the way we have read all the books, blogs and been to all the events and translated it to British English. For those of you from the UK I am going to write for you and help you to understand FI in this country (because nearly all the information out there is written for Americans) and if you are from another country outside the UK I am going to share some of the ideas that moved the needle for us. Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE) from a entrepreneurial view point.
Along the way we have read all the books, blogs and been to all the events and translated it to British English. For those of you from the UK I am going to write for you and help you to understand FI in this country (because nearly all the information out there is written for Americans) and if you are from another country outside the UK I am going to share some of the ideas that moved the needle for us. Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE) from a entrepreneurial view point.
Making Dreams Come True
The final thing I really want to talk about is how to make your dreams come true. How to go from nothing not even an idea to having ideas, to starting to build them to making them into reality.
I think this has been one of the most under discussed subjects around and it is one of the most important. Having run workshops for 10,000s of people over the last 10 years around the world I have started to realise there are several sticking points that need discussing:
I want to capture my thoughts, ideas and 10 years experience helping people to make their dreams come true in an effort to help you get towards your dream life.
I think this has been one of the most under discussed subjects around and it is one of the most important. Having run workshops for 10,000s of people over the last 10 years around the world I have started to realise there are several sticking points that need discussing:
- I don't know what I want: so many people tell me that they don't even know what they want in life. If you don't know where you are going how can you ever get there!
- I know what I want but I can't motivate myself. I am AMAZED at how many people have had dreams of being FI, writing a book, running a business but have never started for a range of reasons!
- I quit: they just don't keep going long enough or hard enough to get where they want to go. Making your dreams come true isn't easy, it takes energy, effort, consistent action! If it was easy everyone would be living their dream life!
I want to capture my thoughts, ideas and 10 years experience helping people to make their dreams come true in an effort to help you get towards your dream life.
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In this section we are going to do 2 things:
Firstly look at one of the major tools of making your dreams come true, Self-Development and then talk about some of the tools, tactics and strategies for bring your dreams to life. Read more here |
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Secondly you can learn and grow and share my pain as I work on making some of my dreams come true. The first one I am going to write about is my dream to become a script writer and to get involved in making movies!
Starting in March 2019 I am off to LA to write a script and work on making my dreams come true! Read more here |
Finally you have the journal/blog where I am going to share ideas, insights and thoughts about life. To get notified by email every time I write a new post put your details in below. I promise never to share them with anyone else!