0:12 welcome to invest inyour yourself the digital entrepreneur podcast join the podcast mile Phil better as he interviews successful entrepreneurs that 0:19 make their living in the digital world now let's join you your host Phil better and he special guest today on investing 0:26 yourself the digital entrepreneur podcast enlightening episode of investing yourself the digital 0:32 entrepreneur podcast hosted by myself Phil better the podcast MoGo today we have a guest whose expertise in finance 0:38 and property investment is changing lives our guest began his journey in the finance and lending industry at the very 0:45 young age of 19 with a passion for helping people break free from the de the debt trap that's a tongue twister he 0:53 has dedicated his career to showing others how to leverage property for passive income as a mortgage broker 0:58 property investor and host of the debt to Financial Freedom podcast he offers a wealth of knowledge and practical advice 1:05 to optimize finances and Achieve Financial Freedom so listeners without 1:10 further Ado let us introduce our guest of the hour Victor lios Victor thank you so much for being here well thanks for 1:17 having me Phil really happy to when I first reach you when you first reached 1:22 out or your team reached out for you to be on the podcast I was very excited because you're doing something that 1:27 others aren't doing you're you're flipp opening the script if you if you will on how to create passive income because 1:34 most people think they need to have you know multiple of uh websites for that 1:39 passive income but you're doing it completely differently yeah well I mean property in 1:45 itself is uh I think around the world most of the wealth is held within 1:51 property but what I found is that most of the uh knowhow is also kept with 1:57 those that own most of the property so I've been on a on a mission to learn more and more and teach what I learn and 2:04 learn from others other professionals other investors and I I help my clients the best way possible what made you 2:11 decide to get into this realm of entrepreneur because you know mastering property Investments and all that it's 2:18 it's it's a little different than what other people are doing when they're starting their own business or starting 2:23 their freedom uh trip so it's because of my own personal 2:29 Journey so um you mentioned earlier that I have a podcast called debt to Financial Freedom and my personal 2:35 Journey uh professionally is that I got into Financial Services when I was 19 2:40 and just for context I'm Now 37 so that's what's that 18 years now you're 2:46 nearly 20 well we'll call it two decades you've been in the game two decades about two decades yeah but my personal 2:52 experience was actually I was in debt at a young age as well so uh in I'm sure 2:58 it's like this in a lot of other countries but in Australia specifically I was 18 years old and I um I was 3:04 working full-time at a supermarket uh quite a large chain and that was easy 3:10 enough for me to get a $112,000 personal loan and a credit card from a bank I 3:15 walked in and they proved me on the spot and um and that was sort of the journey 3:20 by the time I was aged 20 I believe I was probably in more than $20,000 worth of unsecured debt so I've had an 3:29 interesting Rel ship when it comes to debt personally and then professionally I've learned more and more how it works 3:35 on the inside working for financial institutions and my parents were property investors but they were very 3:42 novice and they didn't have good help uh along the way I sort of I was able to 3:47 see that while I was working and and still living with them and uh unfortunately through their experiences 3:55 and and lack of knowledge and lack of um genuine guidance uh they were taken 4:00 advantage of because of the The Great Australian dream of having a home and 4:07 and uh setting their family up and uh basically long story short because of 4:14 that uh their relationship to money because of um not managing their debts 4:19 well and because of um not having good help they are now in their late 70s uh 4:25 they are on um welfare and they are renting 4:30 and literally they don't have much money to their name and it's quite sad because I know how hard they worked all of you 4:37 know I've got two older brothers and they worked really hard uh along the way they both my my dad had his own business 4:43 as a tailor my mom was a legal secretary an executive assistant uh so they were 4:50 earning reasonable money and at one point they even had you know near three properties so for all that to come 4:58 undone uh that's that's sort of put me on this path of how do I actually help 5:03 others so that never happens to them and there's absolute most chance of um 5:10 return and very very little chance of risk and yeah here I am today I love it 5:15 I love how you took a a negative if you will from your Youth and turned it into 5:20 a huge positive both with the uh the fact that you had the debt situation 5:27 which I think is is a crime that uh banks give that much money to 5:32 18-year-olds who have no idea the the the the dangers if you will um of 5:39 handing so much money to a to an 18-year- old let's let's be honest both 18y olds shouldn't be handed more than 5:47 $100 um not the wise um but when did you start shifting 5:55 because you said you were in heavy debt when you were 20 years old um in early 6:00 20s when did you realize like oh this is this is not good for me I need 6:05 to to change uh my my situation yeah it's um I wouldn't say it 6:12 was like a one click of a moment where I was like okay from now on I'm going to 6:17 change I think it's been a bit of a LoveHate relationship and a bit of a um 6:24 you know it's been multiple experiences that have kind of kept me on track uh 6:29 and put me ahead and put me behind again but what I would say is one thing that clicked for me early on was when I read 6:37 the book Rich Dad Poor Dad uh that was in my early 20s and I just I understood 6:44 the concept you know of um building incom producing assets and reducing 6:51 liabilities and understanding what is what is good debt and versus bad debt 6:56 and good debt is basically uh debt that allows you to grow your wealth and it's tax deductible and bad debt is is um you 7:04 know debt that is not tax deductible and it's typically you know when you're 7:10 you're wanting instant gratification you're wanting a feeling you want something now it's not for for the future right and um what happened was I 7:19 I knew about credit uh so in in a lot of countries credit score is very important 7:26 um Australia it hasn't been as important compared to the last few years but your 7:32 credit file or your credit history is still very important and no matter how much debt I've I was in I've always 7:40 protected that school I've always protected my my credit history and that's helped me to get more and more 7:46 debt and it's actually quite weird because um at one point I saw credit cards as a when I was really young I saw 7:54 credit cards as a bit of a trophy because it felt it felt like if I could get money from Bank 8:00 it it kind of adds to my my self-worth right they say oh you're worthy of of a 8:05 a limit credit limit increase or you're worthy of a American Express card it's 8:11 like oh wow like it feels you know yeah at one point I actually had five credit 8:17 cards yeah yeah but look I I wasn't as silly like yes I would I would um use 8:23 the funds but I wasn't I never cash advanced that's the thing a lot of people you know get stuck I never went 8:30 to an ATM and took money out from um from a credit card uh I actually played 8:36 the game where I would use one One credit card provider to pay out another for a lower interest rate to keep my 8:43 repayments low and pay less interest um so uh I think what really shifted for me 8:49 um was when I met my wife that was um about eight years ago so 8:56 2016 I started my first business as a finance broker i' I'd been a finance broker for working for someone else 9:03 before that and um I actually was able to start that business with with debt I 9:08 got a startup business loan from A bank and I I actually had a put together a business plan but I didn't really know 9:14 what I was doing right I I was I didn't have any experience running a business 9:20 uh and I wasn't the best with money so I was using the debt to to fund that 9:25 business which is what which is fair that's what you do with a startup business LAN um but it didn't take me 9:31 long where I accumulated more outgoings than incoming so so essentially I was at 9:37 a point where uh my debt ran out and I didn't have enough clients to come through the door you know I had a fancy 9:45 website I had videos but I also had all these commitments so I started paying for 9:50 courses and people to to educate me on how do I operate a business how do I grow a business what do I need to do and 9:58 everyone who who I was paying they were operating their own businesses so they were obviously happy to collect my money 10:04 right um so you know that was big learning for me but when that I actually had to shut that business down it 10:11 because I wasn't able to continue I needed to pay for rent and things with my wife and that's really what shifted 10:18 for me is because I had a bit of a rock bottom we had a rock bottom to an extent where we didn't actually have enough 10:23 money for rent uh and that was the first time it sort of really hit me and I was like no something really has to change 10:30 here and um yeah what happened was we we sat down together we printed out our 10:37 transaction history we had a joint bank account for about three months we went to a park so we got out of our regular 10:44 environment and all the normal habits that you you would do and distractions and we brought a piece of paper and a 10:50 highlighter and we started um highlighting every single expense that we had and categorizing it to understand 10:57 like where is our money going how much do we actually spent and we started to stick to a a budget but a budget that 11:04 wasn't um restricting us um we I heard of the concept of bucketing your your 11:09 money into different um into different buckets essentially and I because of my 11:16 knowledge in finance and understanding how to set up automatic transfers we really started to change the way we 11:23 looked at things and started putting money aside for the future and we 11:28 started living off of um you know much less because we didn't realize we realized we didn't need to 11:34 actually live off too much and that changed everything um we were able to save up 11:40 $100,000 um I started working for another mortgage broker I was on commission and then I also got a a pay 11:47 increase and then we bought our first property and then we bought our second property and then I started this 11:53 business in my current business in 2022 so two years and now I'm also uh 12:00 starting two other businesses so yeah just feel like you you didn't have enough on your plate already you decided 12:07 to do more um coming from multiple podcast to fil 12:13 yeah coming from someone who has multiple podcasts which must say is a it's probably about the same headache as 12:19 running multiple businesses um I want to know 12:25 with you you uh you you you established something with how you got out of the debt trap with with your wife was going 12:32 printing out your bank statements highlighting what are good what are bad 12:38 um uh uh expenses if you will um is 12:43 there other strategies that you would recommend for individuals apart from like you know the basic printing out 12:49 your uh your your bank statements and seeing where your money is going that they can start kind of like break free 12:56 from the the cycle of debt if you will yeah and start building uh finances 13:01 through uh property because property obviously is one of the major needs right we all need housing or Comfort if 13:10 you will and housing brings that how what other strategies do you have for people to start that uh Journey so 13:17 there's there's lots of strategies but I think what it starts with is having a a 13:23 mental framework of why are you doing it and I think that's what shifted for me 13:29 we we talked about you know putting money aside and categorizing but that that sounds quite boring and and for 13:34 most people they're probably not going to do it unless there's a I guess a framework uh for them to to comprehend 13:41 that like why would I do that you know and and what helped me is to realize 13:47 that every time I spend on credit cards or borrowed money and a big thing that's 13:54 going on at the moment is called buy now pay later right there's a couple of big players you know pay um afterpay zip pay 14:01 and and huge others Clara all around the world uh it's massive and I've never got 14:06 into buy out pay later because that came after I learned my lessons um but what I can what I can say is every time you use 14:13 money from uh from debt to cover your expenses now you're actually stealing 14:19 from your future self and that's what changed for me because if you if you imagine you you want to get say a brand 14:28 new mobile phone and it's going to cost you $1,000 but you don't have $1,000 so you put it on 14:34 buy now pay later and you say I'm going to pay it off in six installments or or I'll put on credit card and I'll I'll 14:39 pay it over time you get to enjoy that phone right now so it's instant gratification it's like great feels 14:46 awesome but we all know that that feeling Fades away very quickly right after maybe a few days a week it just 14:53 becomes another thing and you no longer get to enjoy the feeling of having something new and all of that so so then 15:01 your future self has to pay for it and your future self is like oh thanks past 15:07 self you got to enjoy all the feelings now I got to deal with this and I have to pay it back and then you have this 15:13 negative feeling that you're paying back something and at the end of the day when 15:19 you're paying for something there's an exchange so it shouldn't be a negative feeling you're benefiting all right but 15:25 it creates a negative feeling this Loop in your in your emotions and in your 15:30 thoughts about money and about about what you use that money for because 15:35 you've stolen from yourself so but on the flip side if you were to put money 15:42 aside and so not look for instant gratification but look for delayed gratification it actually feels good 15:48 because you're putting money um feels better I should say 15:54 um you put money aside say every week say $50 a week and then over time that 16:00 you know that increases event you're actually giving to your future self So eventually you have $1,000 and you buy that mobile 16:07 phone you may not even buy that phone in the end you might end up deciding you know what I'm going to get something secondhand and get something for 600 and 16:14 keep my other $400 to give to my future self for something else and then your 16:20 future self says thanks past self you've looked after me now right now I own this 16:27 phone outright right I don't don't have any debt I get to enjoy the feeling for 16:32 as long as possible now because I don't have to worry about it anymore it's mine and I can use and now you created a 16:39 habit as well so you've put away $50 a week and now you continue paying $50 a 16:45 week but now you're giving for something else now you're saving for uh a property for example a deposit because you 16:51 obviously want to buy something bigger and better that's going to give you a a return in the future so it shifts the 16:59 focus of of how do I have what can I do now to give me more later and and also 17:06 um the understanding of Leverage right so so Leverage is the other piece that 17:11 if you know that you can use your deposit or your cash to leverage and 17:17 leverage the money um from the bank essentially using the terminology uh OPM 17:24 which is other people's money you you can turn your 100,000 17:29 potentially into a $600,000 um asset right so you so you 17:36 put a $ 100,000 down and well let's let's make it let's make it a million 17:41 you know depending on your borrowing capabilities or Your Capacity but let's just say it's a million so framework is if I have 17:49 $100,000 everyone's heard about compounding interest and things that's you know compounding if you put 100,000 17:56 in the bank and say you get a um a 5% let's say 10% you 10% return at the end 18:03 of that 12 months if you don't if you don't take out your earnings you'll have 110,000 if you leave that 110,000 in 18:10 there you now get a return on 110 and then over over time you get 10% on 110 18:16 and 10% 120 but on top of that there's that compounding amount on top right so 18:22 you understand that over time it gets larger and larger but the return on your capital is always based on 100 18:29 ,000 so by by leveraging the bank's money by leveraging the tax 18:35 deductibility by leveraging rental income that you generate from the investment property uh which will cover 18:42 most of the interest it used to cover all of it now it's a little bit negative 18:47 uh because of interest rates but you could essentially um turn your 100,000 into a million dollar asset and if you 18:54 do that well your return is not on 100,000 it's on a 18:59 million right and the bank doesn't they're essentially a business partner with you but they're not wanting a 19:05 percentage of the profit that's the difference if you do that well all they care about is getting interest in fees 19:12 right pay the interest in fees and most of that is paid from either your your tax deductibility so this is your um 19:19 some of your pre-tax money that you can actually use towards that as well as uh the rental income which is paid by the 19:26 tenant so you're providing housing for somebody or or a family so it's a win-win-win scenario right as long as 19:32 you structure it well the tenants are now paying majority of the interest the bank's getting their interest and their 19:39 fees the tenants getting a house uh you're getting less tax and you you're 19:45 controlling and you own a million dollar property and if that compounds at 10% 19:53 now what's what's 10% of a million 100,000 right is that right 000 sorry 19:59 10,000 yeah listen it's it's it's money I'm not a MTH guy it's much more 20:05 than 1 million times 10% sorry it's it's it is 100,000 it's 100,000 right so 20:10 you've essentially if you get that return right which is possible it's not guaranteed there's no guarantees in this 20:17 game in property but if you do it well there's a very good chance you could get 100,000 which is 10% return so that 20:24 means in one year technically you could actually get your return on Capital right because of the power of 20:33 Leverage that those are the couple of Frameworks that I sort of want to put out there because by understanding this 20:39 it gives people or give gave me a reason to actually work towards something bigger and give to my future self and 20:47 now I'm reaping the rewards of it slowly but surely it's growing and growing and 20:52 and then yeah it's a it's a change in mindset so that's what I would recommend and of course there the whole person 20:58 personal growth so if you're wanting to understand different strategies it's all around you know 21:04 self-improvement right if you believe there's so many different strategies you can learn but you need to believe that 21:10 um you can achieve those um these goals that you set for yourself and um and 21:18 I've you know I've been on this journey you know someone i' I followed early on was uh a fellow Canadian was Bob 21:25 Proctor um you know I I yeah I think he was uh you know really good man he's 21:31 passed away now but a lot of his learnings I've applied you know just and he learned stuff from uh reading 21:37 Napoleon Hills uh Rich Dad Poor Dad he learned from Earl Nightingale so I learned some stuff uh from there as well 21:45 but yeah yeah that's that's what I would say I I love it when did you dis as a 21:51 podcaster I have to ask this because it's it's it's my bread and butter when did you decide that a podcast would be 21:58 beneficial to lago's uh Financial so when I started my business 22:05 in June 20122 I I invested straight away into 22:12 staff which is sometimes counterintuitive right you typically want to have enough clients and and 22:18 enough Capital aside but I I you know at that point I had nearly 5 years 22:23 experience working for another broker and I realized that one I knew I was 22:29 good I had a lot more experience I knew I was good at what I did and I knew that I would get a lot of clients so I wanted 22:35 to prepare for that but I also knew that there was a you know there's a couple of fundamentals that you need to have in 22:41 check for a business um one of them is um you need to have basically clients 22:49 coming through the door right that's that's number one you need to have a system to Market yourself and to and to 22:56 sell your services and convert CL so basically you need to have that like a machine where clients come to you and 23:03 typically that comes from referrals but because I wasn't able to generate any referrals straight away because I wasn't 23:11 I wasn't able to take any of my past clients that's that's what happens you know you you I honored that I didn't I 23:17 started from scratch um I I invested in support which the next part is having 23:23 people you need you need people to to help you otherwise you're doing everything yourself wearing every single hat and it's impossible to scale uh and 23:31 if you try to do it reactively you have less time to to hire because you're so 23:36 busy trying to fulfill yeah so I hired someone straight away and then another part was systems so I started to build 23:43 out my processes and systems because that's that's another fundamental um a business is good as its systems people 23:50 um and of course your ability to acquire new customers 23:56 so towards the end of the year that was probably around 24:01 October I was invited to a party um a boat party by one of my 24:08 referral partners and I met one of his other referral Partners which is another 24:14 broker um who's actually one of he's my my business partner now on a new business 24:20 V yeah um he he introduced he told me that he had a 24:25 podcast and that he used this company to do the um videography basically so I set 24:33 up a call with them probably about a month a month later in in like November 24:39 2022 and it was an investment right like I basically the structure was you know 24:47 you commit to two um you commit to two episodes a month and that was $2,000 24:55 plus GST uh so $2,200 and you record them back toback and all 25:00 I have to do is basically invite a guest uh fa this was face to face this is when I was living in Sydney um and we would 25:08 I'd just have to interview them and they would record everything professionally and they would do the audio and they 25:14 would edit it and put it into small uh you know Snippets or shorts uh and then 25:21 they had a separate cost to do the distribution to put it out in the socials which was like another $1,000 25:28 and I was like yeah I don't want to do the distribution but I do want the podcast so I had some experience with a 25:35 virtual assistant and they said if you if you bring on a virtual assistant a VA 25:40 that uh they'll help train this VA so to do the distribution across the social so 25:47 I had a trip booked to Europe with my wife in December and we'll going for a whole month and the we recorded two 25:55 episodes in November and obviously I need to get it out to the uh you know to 26:00 the internet but I was away so um and this is what also I started learning 26:06 early on um the power of uh you know using other people's expertise right and 26:13 getting Consultants essentially to help you do things rather than um you know 26:19 teaching you what to do and then you having to do it so that's what coaches do right they they try to guide you on 26:25 what to do but you have to execute where I I for Consultants uh that actually Implement 26:31 and that's what they did I was while I was on the trip they actually trained the virtual assistant that I brought on board virtually on how to do it and and 26:40 while I was traveling he was getting feedback and um in January 2023 the 26:47 first episode was uh was posted and you know that's that's continued on um it's 26:55 obviously evolved it's no longer live it's not sustainable to pay that sort of 27:01 money I'm going uh it's now virtual and and now I do you know different different series 27:07 and interviews and things like that and I'm doing a little more a little bit more solo and I yeah so yeah it's been 27:14 what an hour I'm sorry a year and a half now of doing podcast and that's that changed my business big time like um I 27:21 can tell you a bit more after oh I I I have no doubt how it it changed your 27:26 business being a podcast right it's a it's a lead magnet lead generator it's it's everything you need uh Authority 27:33 Builder and that and that's one of the reasons I have so many podcast because I just I love love podcasting and I get to 27:39 talk to amazing interesting people like yourself Victor um I do have a question because we are 27:45 looking at investing in ourselves and it has been a kind of a theme in your story so far uh hiring the right people 27:53 knowing the right people to talk to Talking to mentors and that and Bob practor a huge huge Mentor in the mental 27:59 mental uh mindset game I'm curious what is what you would suggest what you 28:07 would view as your most crucial investment in yourself and something that can help 28:13 others ensure a long-term uh success if they look at investing in 28:20 themselves yeah it's a good question I think you have to explore your own 28:26 curiosity because there's so many different um methodologies and different 28:33 um teachers and you know I I personally don't like looking at people that um 28:39 consider themselves or put themselves in a in a a guru sort of position um where 28:45 they where they want um they want praise that's something I would probably steer 28:51 away from um you know I've never looked up to someone like Grant Cardone I don't 28:57 look up to him you know there's people even Gary ve I know some people really like Gary Vee uh so you got to go with 29:04 people that resonate with your persona and with your values and and principles 29:09 um but that was that was probably one thing I would say is just follow your curiosity and what resonates um and but 29:17 I think probably the thing when it comes to investing in 29:22 yourself for me it's it's kind of been not applying what I learn and and 29:30 looking Within Myself so um when I say looking within it's like what does that 29:36 actually mean well it's it's actually switching off distractions right putting off social media putting off 29:44 TV um you know any anything that's going to P even even like dedicating certain 29:51 time for yourself so for me for example you know at the moment it's it's not even 5: in the morning but but sometimes 29:59 I would be up at this time anyway and I would sit with myself and meditate right 30:05 and I don't meditate where I try to switch off all my thoughts right A lot of people meditate to try to quiet the 30:12 mind and switch it off I actually meditate so that I can find out what's 30:18 going on inside and make peace with it because we it's up to you like external 30:25 there's going to be external um influence all the time throughout the day like you know keeping busy with work 30:32 keeping busy with um you know other people and everything but when you put 30:37 that all that energy and attention on yourself you're able to then um for me 30:45 personally it's I'm able to process emotions and 30:50 basically gather myself or reenter myself and and understand myself at a 30:56 deeper level and and and I think that's you know it comes to self-awareness if 31:02 you're wanting to make change if you don't if you don't know how you operate then how do you how do you expect to 31:09 change for better for the better right so that's yeah I think that's yeah I can 31:14 obviously go into more and more detail but that's probably how much I would say is like find more about you what makes 31:21 you tick um you know what are some of the emotions that you're carrying um and 31:26 and find different methodologies that allow you to to you know um process 31:32 those emotions I've created my own framework uh that I I follow and you 31:37 know I'm happy to share that with you if that that helps well maybe that could be a future episode don't want to don't 31:43 want to give all the beans away in the first episode you know we need to have Victor come on again um Victor we are 31:49 coming close to the end which I hate because I'm having a great time chatting with you I find that you're a brush of 31:57 bre of fresh air in the uh the the the financing of Housing and that because i' 32:03 had a few people on who who live in the real estate world and I I love how you're more of a a brush of fresh air 32:09 coming in and helping people um with that uh my final question um is uh I 32:16 have your 10-year-old self here Victor he's he's very chatty um he hasn't sto 32:22 chatting the whole time he's been here but I'm wondering what's one piece of advice you would love to hand back to 32:27 your t old self yeah good question so if I was 32:33 talking to my 10-year-old self I would say Embrace that you're different don't 32:42 don't feel like you need to fit in it's not about everyone else you fitting to 32:47 them be who you actually are and explore that as to the best of your 32:53 ability I love that advice that's great advice uh Victor I think more people 32:59 should embrace who they are as a 10-year-old so that they can grow to become a better human being um Victor 33:05 I'm going to jump off screen here I'm going to give you the last little bit tell my audience where they can connect with you where they can follow you if 33:12 they're in Australia looking for a great mortgage broker or a financier uh that 33:17 as well is up to you but the floor sir is yours all right so if you're looking to 33:24 connect uh best place to find me is on my website which which is Lagos financial.com so that's l a 33:33 financial.com uh if you want to listen to my podcast uh you'll find that on my website under 33:40 the podcast tab alternatively you can search debt to Financial Freedom on 33:46 Google and you'll find the YouTube channel and you'll also find me on your you know Spotify and iTunes as well 33:54 thanks awesome Victor I want to thank you so much for coming on the show sharing your story with my audience and 33:59 leaving some little tidbits for future episodes when I have you come back on so I want to thank you incredibly for that 34:06 you're very welcome Phil thanks for having me on really appreciate it you are absolutely welcome the pleasure is 34:12 mine to my audience make sure you check out the show notes down below to connect with Victor and if you are in the 34:17 Australian region maybe you can find a great person to help you finance the next house you buy and uh with that I 34:24 thank you so much for listening and remember to always always invest in yourself 34:32 [Music]