0:00:00.0 Wayne Brown: Hello, I’m your host, Wayne Brown, and welcome to the ET Project. We’re delighted to be delivering this podcast for executive talent all over the world, whom we’re affectionately referring to as Team ET. Today we’re heading to the Asian powerhouse of Singapore, and we’re meeting up with our guest, Miss Pauline Kirk, CEO and founder of Femvestorsglobal. It’s quite the match between individual and location, as you’ll hear from our conversation. Pauline is also a powerhouse in the way she approaches her life and businesses. She uses her 25 years of experience and the skills she’s gained from working in the corporate male-dominated world, where she continues to break down glass ceilings, to challenge norms and push the boundaries of major institutions.

0:00:48.8 WB: In addition to Femvestorsglobal, Pauline is a consulting partner at Apex SCM, or Supply Chain Management. She’s a certified results coach and a senior leader in the Tony Robbins community. And as if that isn’t sufficient, she’s an advocate for women’s rights, volunteering both time and money to women and children’s education programs in Africa and Asia. In fact, 80% of the profits from Femvestorsglobal goes to charity. And together with her husband, they have a plan to use 3D printing to build a school in India. I guess by now you’re starting to understand my earlier powerhouse comment.

0:01:28.3 WB: She’s an avid learner and invests in herself and her team daily, so Femvestorsglobal can be the coach that teaches you and the mentor that shows you. They support women with how to become financially fabulous and create financial abundance through independent financial education. Lots of insights and learning ahead, Team ET, so I’m excited to get started and bring this conversation to you as we welcome our guest, Ms. Pauline Kirk, to explore the topic of money and how we can all leverage from Pauline’s own story to avoid the financial traps confronting so many of us on a daily basis.

0:02:09.6 Intro: Welcome to the ET Project, a podcast for those executive talents determined to release their true potential and create an impact. Join our veteran coach and mentor, Wayne Brown, as we unpack an exciting future together.

0:02:23.3 WB: All right, hello and welcome Team ET. Welcome to another week, which can only mean one thing, of course, we’re here with another great guest. Pauline, welcome to the ET Project.

0:02:36.8 Pauline Kirk: Well. Thank you, Wayne. Thank you for having me here today.

0:02:39.0 WB: Maybe as a starting intro in our conversation, could you just share with the listeners a little bit about the roles that you’ve had and the places you’ve lived and worked?

0:02:48.8 PK: Yeah, sure. So I started, I really started my journey in the British military. So I was actually an officer in the British Navy and that job took me to Iraq. So I spent some time in the Middle East. I actually served in Iraq in 2002, 2003 gulf war. So that was really the catalyst of me to travel. And on the back of that, I also used to travel a lot as a child. My dad was at international jet center in his own career. So I’ve always had that ability to, the open mindedness of being someone who travels a lot, because as a child, we moved around schools a lot. I loved it. And my brother hated it. He struggled to make friends.

0:03:28.1 PK: And for me, I just love meeting new people, new experiences. For me, that really was the foundations of, where I am today. And to your point, Wayne, I’ve had a very privileged life where I’ve got to live and work in 10 countries. And some of those countries are in Europe. So I’ve worked and lived in Holland. I’ve lived in the Czech Republic. I spent some time in the US. I also spent some time in the Middle East, as I mentioned, but I also went back to the Middle East several years later.

0:03:55.5 PK: And it changed a lot because when went, I first went to the Middle East, women actually weren’t allowed to sit in the same cafe as men. So I actually had a glass door with women and children on one side. And then on the other side were all the men. All my male colleagues happened to be on the other side of the window and there’s me on one side. So that was very interesting to then go back several years later and realize that the world shifted. And in the Middle East now, it’s not an issue anymore. It’s not taboo for women and men to actually be in the same room together, especially if you’re not married. I was actually made redundant from a company in the UK called Marks and Spencers. Most people will be familiar with that organization.

0:04:30.2 PK: And we just launched international home delivery to 121 countries around the world. Like you can collect choose your store, choose your day in 2008, 2009. And then what happened was the GFC hit, the Global Financial Crisis hit. And my name was up for review. And I made a decision that I wasn’t going to allow my name to be just called out with no contingency plan. So I believe in fate in the universe. And I actually got on the train in the evening, got the free newspaper, the Metro newspaper in the London Underground. And in it, I had an advertisement to go to Australia for 10 pounds.

0:05:06.1 PK: So I actually, long story short, I ended up in Australia because it cost me 10 pounds. So when I tell people that story, like, why did you go to Australia? I’m like, it was 10 pounds. And that’s the only reason I’m in Australia. And then I met my husband. I got visas and I’ve now got a passport for Australia. And telling by my accent, I’m originally from the UK. And then I got the privilege of working in New Zealand and then took me to different parts of Asia, being in this part of the world. So currently I’m residing in Singapore. I’ve been in Singapore now one year. And who knows where we’re gonna be in the future. So my husband and I are very free spirits when it comes to travel. We love to travel. It’s very much in our DNA. And with that, then, I’ve also had the privilege here in Asia of working in China, Malaysia, Thailand, and now here in Singapore. So it’s actually my second time here in Singapore.

0:05:54.7 WB: I envisaged back in the 1770s when the convicts were on the ship heading from the UK to Sydney Cove in Australia. You’re being sentenced almost to go to Australia, but I’m sure you enjoyed it. Whereabouts in Australia did you end up.

0:06:13.6 PK: On my 10 pound ticket, we had a choice. Actually Wayne, it’s interesting you say that comment because it was actually 40 year of Ten Pound Poms who actually sail from the UK by boat. And it was also 25 years of STA travel, which is why they’re offering these 10 pound tickets.

0:06:27.4 WB: Okay.

0:06:27.7 PK: There’s only 150 for the whole of the UK. I had no idea at the time, I just thought it was 150 tickets per STA travel store. And actually I turned out I was number 147. I was very fortunate enough to get a ticket. I did have to sleep in the street for two days in London, Victoria to get my, to get my number, actually get through the door. But where I ended up was, I started my in Melbourne. I flew from directly from London to Melbourne with Qantas. And then from there I had the privilege of actually working in several states across Australia with different companies. I started with VHP, for example, in Western Australia. I also did some work for office work and some big projects there in Australia. Did some work for Len-fox and Tulsa and big logistics companies. I also did some, spent some time in Queensland. I also spent some time in Sydney.

0:07:17.9 WB: I mentioned your business, Femvestorsglobal, but in addition to that, you’re doing so many other things like consulting partner at Apex, SCM, supply Chain Management. You’re a certified results coach, you’re a senior leader with Tony Robbins and his community. How do you cope with it all? How do you fit it into your busy schedule?

0:07:39.5 PK: Being super organized and having a great team around me?

0:07:42.5 WB: Okay.

0:07:43.0 PK: I’m very clear on my productivity. I’m a productivity master in some areas because for me, I don’t spend my life scrolling. I have my routine and yes, it’s a little bit fluid, but I have, I’m very regimental in my morning routine. That’s maybe ’cause of my military days. I’m very structured in my morning routine and I’m very structured in terms of my quality time with my family. I put boundaries in place, I have non-negotiables. And then for me, it’s around, right, okay, these are things I need to focus on right now. These are things on my not to-do list because I do have a not to-do list and I focus on the things that are important, what’s gonna add value to what I’m doing versus what’s just filling my day. ‘Cause there is a big difference.

0:08:24.0 WB: I think that’s a great takeaway for our listeners, that to achieve the things you wanna achieve, there’s different types of people and different ways of approaching it, but in your case, you achieve it through your organization, through your structure in your lifestyle. I think that’s a nice takeaway.

0:08:43.5 PK: Yeah. Thank you Wayne. A lot of people spend their time scrolling on Netflix and chill, and it’s not in my DNA, it’s, for me, I put my, I’ll give your viewers a tip. I actually put my phone on the other side of my bed, so I actually physically have to get out of bed to turn my alarm clock off in the morning and therefore I’m already outta bed and therefore I’m not spending time scrolling because the phone is next to me. That’s something I’ve put in place because most people are losing like maybe an hour, 45 minutes, half an hour in the morning, just endlessly scrolling around what’s going on in the world. For me, that’s not important for me. It’s important around what’s my goals, what am I trying to achieve, what’s my mission?

0:09:20.5 WB: You know what also stands out to me, Pauline is you have all of this, but even with all of that, you’re still doing so much more that you’re an advocate for women’s rights. You volunteer both time and money, right. For women and children’s education, I think in Africa and Asia.

0:09:39.6 PK: That’s right. Part of, we’re a circular economy, if you wanna put it that way, or an ecosystem. So Femvestorsglobal, We support women with financial education, predominantly professional women who need a support, who need support in this area. Who are not educated in this area and many of us are owning great money, but then we dunno what to do with it or earning any sort of money. And then we dunno what to do with it. We dunno who to go to, dunno who to trust. How do I get started? They just, a lot of people just don’t know. And so then what happens is the money just sits in a bank account and then it gets spent. My mission is to educate and I say woman predominantly because we are so further behind when you look at statistics and I talk on stages around the world about the statistics of women and where we’re headed in retirement and they’re pretty dire, yes, we have a 48% divorce rate.

0:10:25.6 PK: Women actually statistically, are actually better than men at investors. But we don’t invest because we don’t understand for many of us how to get started, what to do. We don’t have the confidence or the courage to step outside and actually do it because we weren’t educated in school. And the finance industry actually keeps us uneducated because that’s how they make money. They make money from us being uneducated, which is why there is no education in this area. Most of us are in the dark and I have my own story around having money to then having no money being taken off vantage of by my own financial advisor. I call it paying the dumb tax. And then what happened was I had to make sure then, well, how do I know the next person’s not gonna take advantage of me? I’ve literally mastered my craft over the 15 years to then go, right, what do I need to know about financial education?

0:11:10.3 PK: Because when I was in my current corporate job, what I used to do in the evenings, I used to actually be a stock market trader because being in Asia and Australia, New Zealand time zone allowed me with the geography was to then allow me to then trade the US stock markets. Then that’s where I basically started teaching myself. And I’m like, well, who would best to look after my money than me? Going back to your point around Femvestorsglobal, what we do is we teach women financial education. I say we do have couples and I do actually do financial wellness classes for corporates now as well. And any money that comes into our community, we actually donate 80% of those profits to charity. That’s right. 80. And what with and with that money then we support kids education and women’s and empowerment programs around the world.

0:11:55.4 PK: So we have partners, for example, who support us, to your point, Wayne, who helped support us build wells in Africa so kids can go to school. Instead of having to walk all day to get dirty water from a river, we actually give ’em an education because we’re building a well in the local community. In, for example, in Malaysia, if you’re a refugee status, you legally can’t go to school, you have to be sponsored by someone. And the government’s got no money. What happens is that our community donates money to refugees. Then kids can go to school who are deemed as refugee status and they’re predominantly from Afghanistan, Myanmar. And then we’ve partnered with another charity called the Malala Yousafzai Foundation.

0:12:30.7 PK: She was a lady who got shot by the Taliban, if you’re familiar with her. And she’s all about women’s empowerment. So these are the three charities that we support. And I said I wanted to do something for my own charity. And so my husband and I got some land in India and my plan is to 3D print a school. And my plan is to take kids from rural communities, give them an education and a boarding school environment. And then we bought the land next door that grows wheat. And the plan is that kids don’t just get an education in school. They actually learn some real farming skills and then take them back to their own communities and be self-sustaining. That is our mission.

0:13:05.9 WB: Normally would ask you at the end of our conversation, I’ll ask now see we’re talking about it, the money that you are using for this comes from the business, but is there any way people can, contribute financially to what you are doing or do it through purely through your business?

0:13:24.1 PK: So on our website we actually have all the charities links directly. So if anyone wants to go to, and that’s fantastic. Thank you so much Wayne. So if anyone actually goes, so you go to Femvestorsglobal.com. You can actually go on our website. We have a charity section in there. You can see the charities and you can donate to those charities directly.

0:13:38.8 WB: Fantastic. You, you touched on a point that I wanted to ask you about and, you mentioned your backstory. It’s a very interesting backstory when it comes to money. I’m talking specifically now, you talk about it on your website and, and in your profile where you didn’t have the best of times during your life at certain stages with money, which led you, I guess to where you are now. But I wonder if you’d mind sharing a little about the financial challenges that you sort of faced at different times and how you managed to find your way out of the hole, so to speak.

0:14:13.3 PK: Yeah, sure. I’m happy to talk about it now Wayne, ’cause it’s, something I’ve kept very quiet and close to my chest. And we actually just produced a book, and it became an Amazon International one bestseller. And actually a chapter of the book is actually going through this in a lot more detail. But if I summarize, you know, the extract of the book is that it was around, I mentioned that I was in the military and I served in Iraq in 2002, 2003. And when I left there, PTSD was never diagnosed. We were talking at the early naughts, you know, PTSD was not a thing, post-traumatic stress disorder. And for me, I didn’t, I just knew that the person who went to Iraq wasn’t the same person who returned from Iraq. That just something that didn’t sit with right with me and I didn’t really know what it was.

0:14:56.9 PK: And the only way of me coping around feeling good about myself was to go and spend a lot of money on shoes, bags, clothes, hairdressers, nails, makeup, whatever it was to make myself feel good about myself. Because there was something missing in my life. And some of your audience may experience this, but many of us put money on our credit cards because we may wanna make ourselves feel good and therefore we use money and, you know, our finances as a void because we’re missing something in our lives. And then that became a vicious cycle. I got into 10 credit cards. I was in the UK at the time talking 86,000 pounds depending on where we live. That’s about $120,000 in debt, over 10 credit cards. And I just kept stacking. Oh, and the thing is, with the financial institutions, when you’re in debt, they keep giving you more money.

0:15:46.8 PK: Here’s another credit card, here’s another credit card. Instead of controlling it, I’m fueling, I’m fueling the beast inside me, which is like, oh, more, more free money. I’ve got more. ’cause I never thought about it as my money. I thought about it as the bank’s money because it was the bank’s money until I got the bill. So psychologically I just kept spending more money because the banks keep giving me more money to spend not realizing theoretically that’s actually my own money. It’s in my psychology it was the bank’s money. So I, it got out of control. I didn’t have a lot of self-worth and I dated the wrong man. Not once, but twice. I dated one guy and we ended up buying a property together. And another gentleman and I dated, I ended up being guarantor for his business. And unfortunately the relationship didn’t work out and the business didn’t work out in both instances.

0:16:34.7 PK: Hmm. So what happened was I then had to carry that debt as well as my own 10 credit card situation. I’m now having to sort out financial situations where business and a property. So I’m in a lot of, a lot of stress. And I grew up in an environment, Wayne, where we never spoke about money in our household. We never. So a lot of what I talk about now through Femvestorsglobal is that our views on money are now proven. It’s between the ages of no than 10 is our views on money. And because it’s based on our environment growing up and our society growing up and anything after the age of 10 is based on our own real experience. So our views on money a lot of the time are actually based on generational views around our grandparents, which become our parent’s views, which then become our views now.

0:17:22.6 PK: So in my household specifically, money was never discussed. My parents never argued about money, but we also never spoke about money. So for me, I had so much guilt inside me and I’ve grown up in an environment where we haven’t been able to talk about money and therefore we never spoke about it. And therefore I felt like I couldn’t go to my family and talk about money because society and environment around me is that we don’t talk about money. It’s a taboo issue, even still in 2023. So I felt like I was on my own and I had to get my staff out of it. So I ended up working additional work. I ended up working many jobs just to try and get my head above water. I actually you know, slept on friend’s floors. I was couch surfing, I don’t know if you’re familiar with that terminology where I just basically trying to get all the money in and was basically trying to pay as little expenses as possible just to pay off the debt.

0:18:12.3 PK: And that’s literally what I did to try and get myself out of the situation. And then this is where my career really became, where it was and where it’s today is literally going, I can’t settle, I can’t keep working these three jobs and I can’t keep earning little money. I need to somehow get more skills and put my hand up more and take whatever it’s gonna take to then put myself out there to get more money. So I actually went from someone who worked in the military to then working several jobs to pay off debt, to then actually becoming the global director of a mining company. And it’s one of the biggest in the world. So that’s how much I hustled, if you wanna put it that way, because I, every time I kept raising my hand, get more skills, you know, I went to the library and I’ve had free time, read a lot of books, put my hand up every single time there’s an opportunity, put my hand up every time a position came up in a business or in an article, you know, around, you know, we’re looking for people. Yeah, I’ll go for it. May not have all the skills, but I’ll go for it anyway. And I literally sold myself to my corporate life. I was slave to corporate because I had to keep pushing myself to pay off the debt.

0:19:11.0 PK: And that’s why in a very short space of time, I’ve gone from, where I was and where I started to where I ended up because I was literally, raise my hand, move jobs every 12 to 15 months. Took project, worked on. I’ve done a lot of project work in my background. I was like, right, next project, how much you pay me? Okay, I’ll do it. You want me to go where? Yeah, I’ll get on a plane and go there. I literally hustled just to pay off the debt.

0:19:34.0 WB: You could’ve taken an alternative path and put yourself on the couch and taken the drugs, taking the alcohol and just given up I guess. But obviously that’s not you.

0:19:46.2 PK: Wayne. I was there, I had the decision. And everyone has that position in their life where they’re such, at their lowest point in their life, they have to do something. And either way, I always say choose your heart. Doing nothing is hard. Getting letters through the door is hard. People harassing you for money’s hard because I didn’t, it wasn’t the days of mobile phones and you could screen your caller. People were7 ringing the landline and harassing me. People were knocking on my front door and harassing me and trying to find out where I was and all that sort of stuff. Either way was hard. Getting reminders through the mail all the time is hard. People constantly chasing you for money was hard. But then so is hard of going, right? Well, I’ve got a decision to make. I’m at this point, this crossroads in my life.

0:20:28.9 PK: Either I file for bankruptcy and so someone who’s, had a very senior position in the military and be called an ops for so long and been put on this pedestal. And I wasn’t prepared to put my finger on the enter button and be with this black mark against my name of someone who’s actually filed for bankruptcy. What I did was then go, right, I’ve gotta get educated, which is one I, like you said Wayne, drugs, alcohol, all those things. And then I was like, well, that’s going to either be this and this wave and nothing’s gonna change or I’ve gotta change and then I need to find, ways of how it’s gonna happen. And believe it or not, and I talk about it in my book, is that Oprah Winfrey used to come on the TV at stupid times.

0:21:12.1 PK: And yes, I didn’t watch a lot of tv, but everyone needs a bit of an outage. It’s, for me, it’s like white noise. And she just kept appearing on the screen at weird times of the night. And then I was like, you know what? I need to learn from this woman because this woman’s been from such adversity and abject poverty in her life, and she’s so successful at what she’s doing. Success leaves clues as Tony Robbins says. For me, I started to look at people who are successful and then go, right, and, we didn’t have the internet. Richie, everything you’re seeing is on TV or in a library. For me, I’m looking at people going, right, well, who’s successful? What are they doing to be successful? And then I go, well, that’s what I need to start thinking about and mimicking the way I talk, the way I act, stopping taking, the things that are, the stimulants that are holding me back.

0:21:57.4 PK: Let’s cut that out, right, okay, now let’s get the head right, let’s get myself right so I can glean from the inside outwards. And that’s literally what I did was I started to talk like Oprah in terms of mindset and go, you know what, we only have one life. We can do anything. It’s up to us. Yes, it’s hard, but we do it anyway. What is faith? Faith is putting one foot in front of the other. What’s courage? Just taking a shot. It may not work out, but just going, just going with your gut. And that’s literally what pushed me to then get outta the situation I was in.

0:22:28.5 WB: Looking at your business, you share a lot of that with the programs you offer. Do you have a, an ebook called Simple Guide to Investing in which I, I’d recommend for anybody that is that something like what you’ve just described. It’s a great entry into the financial journey that people need to take. I notice as part of that education that you mentioned surrounding yourself, you mentioned Oprah Winfrey but you also connect with Tony Robbins and his whole team. And you just mentioned before we went live, you were with Blair Sinclair having surrounding yourself with positive environment, how much does that really benefit?

0:23:13.8 PK: No words can describe Wayne is the reality, because when you surround yourself with people who are another level, you automatically think of that level. And I’ll give you an example, eyes With a, Esteem group of Tony’s clients in a room quite recently. And I said, my mission, I’m gonna build a school, this is my ideas and everything else. And I put it out there and the response back from one of the people in the room with me was like, why are you building one school, Pauline? And I’m like, why am I only building one school where most people are like, oh my God, you’re building a school that’s so exciting. But I’m in a room full of people and they’re like at another level where I wanna be. And they’re like, but Pauline, am I only building one school?

0:23:52.7 WB: Yeah.

0:23:53.0 PK: Why don’t you build more schools? And when you are surrounded with people who’s gonna challenge your thinking and elevate you to next level, that’s the room you wanna be in because you don’t wanna be the smartest person in the room. Because then you are applying in that level. If you really wanna take yourself and your mindset to another level, you need to think and be surrounded with people. Now, I’ve learned along the way that, who you spend time with is who you become and you are the fifth person of your four closest friends and you’re a blend of those. You have to look at your environment and who you’re spending time with, because if you’re spending time with certain types of people, you are gonna become that certain type of person. If you’re in a room full of people that’s elevating on personal growth, on a personal development journey and want another level, you need to spend time and seek out your people. And I call it vibe with your tribe. So if you need to think about who’s in your environment today, who you are spending time with, and are they the right people for you and where you wanna go in your life, because if they’re not your people and you need to find new people and be in a different room.

0:24:51.0 WB: Yeah, it’s so true. I just spent the weekend, on the virtual launchpad with Dean Graziosi and Tony Robbins and the whole host of highly motivating guests that they bring on their three day program. It’s incredible just listening to the people, but you get so involved and so emotionally connected yourself that it’s almost impossible not to do anything with that. And I heard Tony say during this program, he now is invested in something like 111 companies for billions of dollars net worth. When I can recall not too long ago, maybe two, three years ago, it was about half that number. To your point about one school versus multiple schools, the mindset of these people is so different to the average person’s mindset.

0:25:42.7 PK: Yeah. And I love that Wayne, I was actually at an event that weekend, otherwise I would’ve attended. But the reality is that most of us today know more what’s going on with Kim Kardashian than we do with our own money. And this is what my niece is 11 and she’s got a dog and it’s got more followers than I do about financial education. So the thing is, we’re looking at certain things a lot of us are looking for entertainment in our life as opposed to education in our life. And I call it edutainment today. We want edutainment. So let’s make it fun in a… Let’s make numbers fun. A lot of people come to me and go, oh Pauline, I love what you do because you have so much energy and you’re so passionate when you teach and you put it in language I understand. And it’s very simple.

0:26:23.1 PK: And you make our sessions fun. I start with some fantastic music every time I do an introductory and people join in and there’s like a different vibe in the room already and it’s not someone who’s just gonna be talking at me for a period of time. We get up, we stretch around, we know we move our bodies a little bit and we make it entertaining. So I call it edutainment now. It’s not so much either one or the other. Let’s learn at the same time in a fun environment. And that’s really what we are needed. Whether it be in schools, whether it be in colleges, I’ve got my own issues around the university system these days and also starting businesses is around how are we finding the people that we wanna spend time with.

0:26:58.8 WB: Yeah, for sure. On your website, do you have a section where you do a webinar, I believe on the book called The Path, which is Peter Mallouk and Tony Robbins book predominantly Peter Mallouk. What is it that you do in that webinar? I’m just curious.

0:27:14.9 PK: Yeah, thanks Wayne. You’ve definitely done your research. So yeah we run actually weekly book clubs. So we at see, certain times a year we pick a key book that’s an investing book that’s not complex. It’s full of numbers and stats and it’s just challenge you thinking about it in a different way. So what we do is we go through a chapter a week, we keep it simple, and we only charge $97 for this and I say 80% of it goes to charity. So each week we break it down. So we work through one chapter of the book a week, and then you go away and actually think about how can you apply that in your own life, depending on where you’re at on your journey. Doesn’t have to have the answer today, but thinking about it.

0:27:52.0 PK: And then we have an accountability group each week. And then we have a private Facebook group. And then actually people put in where they’re up to in their own journey. And that’s opened, we have women only groups, ’cause some women want a safe space to talk. And we also have mixed groups as well. So anyone can join those groups. So we offer those throughout the year because we break it down ’cause we’re trying to keep things simple and the books are not just about investing, I choose Tony Robbins books because it’s around what do we actually want our money for? So there’s one thing to talk about investing, saving, and budgeting and all those other things, but there’s another thing to talk about, what does actually we want my money for? Because what we need, we need money for the future.

0:28:30.3 PK: But most of it hasn’t stopped and taken a breath I go, what do we actually want our money for? And what do you want our lives to look like in the future? And let’s think about that to then go, right, well, I’m here today, this is where I need to be and how I’m gonna get there. So that’s really why I choose the books that we choose, is because we’re thinking more than just us. And Tony talks about the secret of living is giving, it’s thinking about not just, that’s why I talk about contribution of time as well as money to charities and doing something more than yourself. It’s a very fulfilling life that I leave now to your point earlier, Wayne yes. I talked about my career and the career ladder, and I was earning amazing money traveling around the world, getting paid very good money to be overseas and travel and go at short notice for big construction projects.

0:29:15.8 PK: And the reality is that there was always something missing in my life. It was my parent’s definition of success was go out, get a job, get a better job, get a better job, get a better job, marry someone, be the CEO of the company, be C-suite, and then have a family and retire and die. So that’s our parent’s version of success. Now, for me, I just knew that there was something missing. I knew that yes, I was earning great money on paper. I should be the happiest person on the planet, and yet I’m still freaking miserable because I don’t know what it is, but there’s something missing. I’m wishing my life away. And in the corporate world, I was like on a Monday, excited to live to Saturday because I’ve got a busy week.

0:29:52.9 PK: Friday I’m exhausted. Sunday I’m back on emails again, it’s February and I’m excited at my one holiday booked in September, and I’m counting down my life away until I get to that one holiday. And then I’m in my 40s I just hit my forties. And then it was like, wow will I hit 65? And that’s literally how I was talking about my life for so long, because I was so stuck up in my corporate life. So caught up in the money and the job titles, and then I was like, I’m just hollow. But on paper, everyone’s like, oh my God, you should be so happy with your life. And I actually felt sad in a way and guilty because people would love to be in my position. And yet I’m not happy in my position. I’m so fricking miserable.

0:30:32.5 WB: I’ve read The Path. I think it’s a great book. I’m a avid follower of Peter Mallouk. He’s a knowledgeable guy. And I love, in his book he talks about all rules of investing. How much do you lean on that type of knowledge from him and other people as part of what you bring to your business?

0:30:55.6 PK: So for us it’s the core of what we do. Most people, like I said, true or true, you’ll need to save and invest. But most of us aren’t thinking that way because we don’t know what we actually want to save and invest our money for. So we’re starting to think about what type of goals do we want? And I go through an exercise with people in my community around what is it things for ourselves. And then I get them to go through a process and it’s amazing the things that people write down that they really want in their lives. A lot of the time those things aren’t related to money. They want happiness in their life, time with their family, they wanna enjoy, just being able to have their health and having the ability to get outta bed every day and go for a walk in fresh air those things are free and they don’t cost anything. Having a happy family, spending time with people we love, those things are priceless. And yet we get so caught up on buying things in a very short term.

0:31:49.8 PK: Commitment level because we’re filling a void because we’re not happy about something. And then it’s around how do we push past what makes us happy? And I’m somebody, I don’t write gratitude journals. It’s just not me. But what I do is I stand in the shower in the morning, go, wow, today’s a great day because I’m breathing my, I’ve got air in my lungs, my feet touch the floor and I’ve got my mind. Today’s a great day. But most of us aren’t thinking about that. We keep thinking about what we don’t have, what our families have and we don’t have be the people around us, my neighbors, we care about more about what other people think of us. And we quite frankly, buy things to impress people. We don’t even like.

[laughter]

0:32:24.9 WB: I agree with you. We deliver a, excuse me, a leadership training. And the first topic is around attitude. And we talk about when you first wake up, what are the thoughts that you’re having, right? They typically are negative related thoughts. And they set the scene for the whole day. And we try and give people to shift from that to a positive thought, which is essentially what you are talking about as well. You talk about eight financial profile types, I guess it is how you frame it. Predominantly women profiles. I love it. I was engrossed reading through it. I wonder if you could just share, I don’t know how well you know them off the top of your head, but, you have these eight profiles. I wonder if you could share how you came up with those and what they’re all about.

0:33:16.0 PK: Those eight profile types are actually generated through speaking with people in my community going, right. Who are we, in terms of what drives us in terms of our money stories, is it down, ’cause I talk around the money stories and the environment I mentioned briefly growing up, and I don’t know, and I know it’s also around, what fuels us. So, some of us are driven by a scarcity mindset and some of us are driven by the fact that we wanna spend money ’cause it makes us feel good. So a lot of time we’re driven by, Tony Robbins talks about the six human needs. And that really links down to my eight personality types is around am I someone who’s constantly worrying about money in my future and therefore I need to feel safe and secure? Am I someone who constantly spends money?

0:34:00.6 PK: ’cause I wanna feel good about myself ’cause I’m driven by significance. Am I someone who is, a different personality type around, just I need to be someone who has to save it on a whole another level. And it becomes literally like the hoarder mentality, you know? So doesn’t throw anything away. There’s people that save, there’s people that spend, but there’s a hoarder mentality of don’t not throwing anything away. So if you, thank you Wayne, for pointing that out so people have no chance to go through it. We’re actually gonna put a quiz together at some point, and my team and I are working through it because it’s a lot more work. ’cause we put eight different personally types down, but they basically give you a good insight around what type of person you are and what makes you tick when it comes to your money.

0:34:39.4 PK: And a lot of things we haven’t even thought about when it comes to money. We just do things because it’s our conscious or a subconscious mind, and we just, we’re like a robot. We’re, we just do things because, we just spend money or we just save money, or we don’t do anything with our money, or we don’t think about money. So all of us have got different approaches going back to our environments and culture and community growing up around how we feel about money. And therefore then we just do things on all sort of panel without really thinking consciously about it.

0:35:07.0 WB: Absolutely. One of the things that came to my mind while I was reading through the different ones was I can imagine you could have multiple profile types. So you may be dominant in one area, but you may also have, some traits that fit into other, other groups. So I can imagine this will be quite an interesting, quiz that you developed. So [laughter] please let me know when it comes out.

0:35:32.9 PK: Yes, I will do, I’ll definitely keep you posted because yeah, you’re right. Wayne, we know there’s always gonna be something that’s more dominant than the other. And, but we may be dominant like 80% in one area, but the others, the other three may be 78%, for example. So there’s always gonna be one that’s more stronger than the other, in all cases, you are always gonna have a dominant one, but things shift over time. The person you saw, if you spoke to me 20 years ago, isn’t the person you see today. So we also aren’t the, we aren’t who we think we are either. We can choose to be different. I always talk about our past does not dictate our future. We can be victim or victor.

0:36:10.6 PK: So we can also look at it and go, right, I have awareness now and I believe that awareness is one of the best skills that you can ever have, is that I believe that feedback is a gift. And if you have awareness, then you can choose to do something about it. And that’s a personal choice. But for me, if I do things I’m not aware and someone points something out to me, I’m like, wow, I can do something about that now because I have awareness to do something about it. And then to my point, that’s a choice to actually go and take action and apply it and make change to them. Whatever that is for you.

0:36:38.0 WB: You can choose to become financially fabulous. So.

0:36:41.4 PK: Definitely.

0:36:42.1 WB: I love that term by the way. You have four different programs, if I’m correct, that you, you make available to your clients. Do you like to talk to any of those?

0:36:55.5 PK: Yeah, so for me, one of the biggest challenges is always about time and money. So, and I said we’re a social enterprise or an ecosystem, however you wanna put it. And the reality is I’m like, well, let’s just call out what time commitment you need and how much it’s gonna cost. So we have nothing to hide. ’cause I say we donate 80% of our profits to charity and we’re transparent on what we do. So I’m happy to share what we charge and their time commitment, because most people, that’s what they think about first is, well how much time, especially for women, how much time is it gonna take? And do I have, can I afford this? Now the reality is I always say like, our basic program’s $75, we run a lot of stuff for free as well. For me it’s around getting people educated, men and women. So, even across our socials we’re posting stuff and content every single day. That’s just getting you to think about certain things. We offer free challenges throughout the year for the next 30 days. Here’s a challenge a day. So we run those through, April and financial literacy month. So we are doing a lot of things at no cost because we wanna make sure that people.

0:37:55.4 PK: Are aware around money, because money today is 2023, it’s still very much taboo. So in terms of our paid work, to your point, Wayne, our basic program like I said, is $75 self-paced. Do it yourself. You get emails and activities in your inbox and you just go through it. Well, that’s simple, right? You $75 and you can go through at your own pace, right? Done. For people who want another level, we offer a three hour masterclass. Again, price and time commitments are on our website along with the dates, people we’re rolling out a program we can go through itself paced a lot more in depth. And that’s another price point again, on our website. And then the only thing it isn’t advertised on our website is if you wanna work with me privately, one-on-one, because everyone is in a different point around their own journey. So therefore, some people may require more sessions for us to break down, because some people have no idea about their money. Some people have some idea about their money, some people know how to save and invest. Some people have no idea. So it comes down to then what’s the requirements around you and your own journey for then me to go, well this is the number of sessions that you’re gonna require for me to support you on your journey, which is why there’s no price for that particular one because everyone’s different.

0:39:00.2 WB: You mentioned the book, I believe it’s Phenomenal Women Who BossUp, where can they go to find that?

0:39:07.0 PK: It’s actually on our website. So it’s actually on the books of merchandise. So it’s a link there on our website. And one thing I’d love to call out Wayne, is that we actually donate a hundred percent of our profits from that book to an organization called Dress for Success. So they actually support women who’ve come from predominantly domestic violence, economic abuse, and they need skills to get back on their feet. And what we do is, we call it dress, it’s reason it’s called Dress for Success, is they actually get an outfit to wear as part of the community to wear for a job interview or within that position, they get as accepted as a role. So they have an outfit so they feel confident because they’ve got something to wear. So this is where 100% of our profits go to, on the book. And I said the e-book is available on Amazon, and I’m just waiting for my physical books to arrive in here in Singapore. It is a US-based organization, but they do have offices throughout the world. And so, yeah. So the e-book is available on Amazon right now.

0:39:58.8 WB: Anything we haven’t spoken at that point that, that you would love to share with the listeners?

0:40:04.4 PK: One thing I’d love to share with the listeners is just take stock of what’s going in and going out every single month. And it sounds pretty simple and I like to keep things simple, but most of us have no idea around what’s coming in our account every month and what’s going out. We live in a society today, and I talk a lot around the mobile phone, is that we’re paying for things on mobile phones and most of us on average are looking at our phone over 300 times a day. And therefore our brain doesn’t realize anymore they’re actually spending money. So therefore we have no idea what’s going in and out every month. And this is a societal issue now. So I would say, please take those apps off your phone because you do not need them. Get your brain to think that you’re actually spending money by taking out a debit card or a credit card, whatever works for you, or even cash depending on where you live.

0:40:47.8 PK: And getting into the mindset of actually knowing what you’ve got coming in and going out every month, because that’s a starting point. Because once you have an an idea of what’s going in and out every month, then you can start thinking about investing in goals and what that looks like for you. But most of us haven’t even thought about that. Most of us are just living in the moment for today. To the point earlier, in my world where I was just putting money on credit cards to feel good about myself, we have to look about for us, and we talk lot around development and, and self-development and personal development and growth mindset is around what is it you actually want from your life.

0:41:19.5 WB: Mm-hmm.

0:41:19.9 PK: And most of us have no idea and we haven’t thought about it, which is why we live in the moment.

0:41:23.9 PK: But the reality is that we’re living to potentially 95 or 100 the way medical science is going today, and therefore we need our money to last so much longer. The last thing I want is that people think they’re gonna retire at 65 ’cause that’s a government number, then it becomes 70, then it becomes 75, and then we don’t have enough because we’re relying on the government, a spouse or someone else to look after us.

0:41:43.4 WB: Mm.

0:41:43.9 PK: And every little bit that you put away today is gonna support you in your future, whatever that looks like for you.

0:41:51.6 WB: Well, and great, great conversation. Loved chatting with you. I hope, to stay connected and we’ll journey down this path. I can see many opportunities where I’d love to be involved. So thanks for being on the ET Project.

0:42:04.3 PK: Thank you so much for having me, Wayne. I sincerely appreciate it.

0:42:09.3 Outro: Thank you for joining us on the ET Project, a show for executive talent development. Until next time, check out our site for free videos, eBooks, webinars and blogs @coaching4companies.com.