July 1, 2025 • 44 mins
In this episode of About That Wallet, I welcome the insightful Phil McGilray, a seasoned financial coach with a wealth of experience in personal finance and entrepreneurship. They delve into the transformative power of budgeting, highlighting Phil's unique approach inspired by his grandmother's method of using glass jars to manage money. Phil shares how this tactile strategy can help individuals regain control over their finances, making budgeting a more engaging and effective process.
The conversation explores the importance of financial literacy for aspiring entrepreneurs, emphasizing the need to understand cash flow and basic business finance. Phil breaks down the Thrive Financial Protocol, a framework designed to help entrepreneurs build sustainable businesses while ensuring they maintain a healthy work-life balance. Listeners will learn about the key metrics to track, the significance of transparency, and how to reclaim joy in their entrepreneurial journey.
Additionally, Phil discusses the challenges of navigating the complexities of starting or buying a business, urging listeners to approach entrepreneurship with clarity and purpose. He emphasizes the importance of making a difference through one's work and how financial success can enable individuals to give back to their communities.
💬 Question of the Day: What budgeting methods have you found most effective in managing your finances? Share your thoughts in the comments!
🔗 Connect with Phil McGilray:
Personal Finance: https://grandmasjars.com
Business Finance: https://philmcgilray.com
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=|| 📚 Chapters ||=
(00:00) Welcome and Introduction
(02:30) Phil's Financial Journey
(10:15) The Glass Jars Budgeting Method
(20:00) Understanding Cash Flow for Entrepreneurs
(30:15) The Thrive Financial Protocol Explained
(40:00) Navigating Business Ownership
(50:30) Final Thoughts and Resources
(55:00) How to Connect with Phil
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Episode 301
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
>> Phil McGilray (00:01):
Uh, five years, I paid off over $18 million in
credit card debt simply by following that process.
>> Anthony Weaver (00:07):
That's amazing. That's definitely amazing.
>> Phil McGilray (00:09):
It's. It's as I said it, because I've been doing this for so
long, you basically develop these processes,
these that help you explain things to
people so they understand. Oh, okay.
This is the step I'm up to. I need to do this first, and
then what do I need to do to move the next step? And it
just makes it so much simpler. So, yeah, go for.
>> Anthony Weaver (00:33):
Welcome, everybody, back to another exciting show, the about
that Water podcast, where we help the sandwich generation
build strong financial habits so that they can talk about money,
spend money, and enjoy their money with
confidence. Today I have an awesome person who
has been doing such an amazing job when
it comes to understanding your finances and
(00:53):
allowing you to have the freedom to
even start looking into starting a business. The reason
why I have this, uh, amazing person on is
because I really think this will be a great way
to kind of segue some of your free time
and actually help bring your child into
the world of entrepreneurship. Even though you can
(01:14):
be the first one to break that generational, uh,
curse, or I guess you could say
challenge of not having or even owning a
business. I think this episode is going to be for you. And
the person I want to have on today is Phil. How you
doing today, Phil?
>> Phil McGilray (01:30):
Yeah, great. Thanks, Anthony. Very excited to be here, mate.
Very excited. Thanks for having me, um, on.
>> Anthony Weaver (01:35):
Oh, uh, no problem. And to make sure I got, um,
your last name right is McGro
McGilvery.
>> Phil McGilray (01:42):
McGilray McGill. Right. You're pretty close. Well done,
mate. It's not easy.
>> Anthony Weaver (01:45):
Okay, Right. Thank you for allowing
me to, uh, correct me on that because,
you know, it's so cool to actually meet somebody from
internationally to come on the show because you get
a different view of finances. But I
like your story and where you're coming from because
it shows that finances is
(02:06):
global in the way how we approach
finances is such a,
uh, a way of life. Does that make sense?
So, yeah, can you tell us a little bit about, like,
you know, why Grant? Why Grandma's
jars?
>> Phil McGilray (02:21):
M. Sure. Okay, well,
um, I was one of the lucky
ones, so 18. So when I was 18
years old, um, I went and spent a year in
the uk so I'm currently in Australia. I went and spent
a year in the uk. Um, my English grandma
lived over there. Um, I was an adventure
(02:42):
trading instructor for a year at this beautiful place
called Fairthorne Manor in the south of England. And we got
paid the princely sum of £15 a
week, uh, which isn't a lot of money. Although
they did look after all my food and accommodation. So I
can't complain. It was one of the best years of my life. But
getting by on £15 was not
easy. Um, and so my English grandma, I
(03:05):
went to visit her. It was about a three hour train ride, overseeing my
English grandma. And, um, she
taught me how to budget using physical glass
jars and physical money, which I don't know whether your audience better see
it, but on the shelf there behind me, I had the glass jars.
And she literally had these glass jars sitting in the
cupboard above her stove top. Uh, she would
(03:25):
go every month, she would walk around to the post
office, pick up her pension in cash because
these are the days for Internet banking. She would walk home,
um, and she took down the jars and she knew exactly how
much she needed to put in each jar. So like, one jar was
electricity and another jar was housekeeping and another
jar was, um, for the gas
(03:46):
or the milkman or, um, I can't remember
what the other ones were now, but she had these glass jars and she
knew exactly how much she needed to put into those jars so
that when those expenses turned up, the money was just there,
ready to go. Um, and as a result of that, my grandma,
despite the fact my granddad died at a fairly young age,
um, my grandma was able to pay off the home and actually
(04:06):
retire, actually die a fairly wealthy woman because
she'd invested what she didn't need to put in the jars.
What was left over after, ah, she filled up the job she was able
to take and put into mutual, uh, funds and those sorts of
things. Um, so it was a very, very simple,
very simple strategy that she taught me.
I came home from the UK after a year,
started teaching all my friends, um, the
(04:29):
grandma's job. The glass jars went from,
from glass jars to envelopes to
paper budgets to, um, Excel
spreadsheets. And then eventually we've got our own,
um, apps and software and
those sort of things these days. So, yeah, that's the
story.
>> Anthony Weaver (04:47):
Nice. Because that's one of the things that,
I guess in this digital realm we lose
that, um, that tactile
feature of finances.
>> Phil McGilray (04:59):
Yeah.
>> Anthony Weaver (05:00):
And because we don't feel like, you know, we're spending it,
it's just kind of like, okay, well just go to this plastic thing. I'll just
swipe and keep going.
>> Phil McGilray (05:07):
Yeah.
>> Anthony Weaver (05:08):
Like, how do we bring back almost
that, uh, as you could say, that extra layer of
tension before we Spin.
>> Phil McGilray (05:17):
It's a really good question. And I mean, really,
I do think just having a budget that allows you to
stay aware of where you're up to. So, uh, you
know, with grandma, it was pretty simple. If there was money left in the jar,
she could spend. If there wasn't, she couldn't. And so having an
app that actually, um, having
an app that gives you that feedback, so I can see
(05:37):
how much I got in my jar, I record my expense, you know,
entered into my jar, and then I can see, you
know, on my phone app that it's now gone down.
I've only got a little bit left. And so I think having that constant
feedback, like the biggest problem that I see is people
just have a lack of awareness of, uh, how much all those
little bits of spending actually add up to by.
(05:57):
So having some sort of way of just giving you that feedback
is really important. Interestingly though,
I, um, spent, um, three,
three, four months traveling around the world learning
about all the different financial literacy,
you know, leading, leading practices, what works, what
doesn't, and those sort of things. Um, and
(06:20):
I still believe that with kids, even though it's not a
big part of our society today, but whilst we've still got
it, having cash to teach kids about money is actually
really helpful because little ones are very visual, very
tactile. So actually having coins, being able to give them
coins, you know, using the, uh, three glass
jars to just help them, you know, here's a little bit of spending money, it's a bit of
giving money, and here's a bit of, you know, investing money. Like
(06:43):
having those is actually still very, very helpful for people,
uh, for little ones when we're teaching our kids about money.
Um, so I still like that. Whilst we still have cash, I
encourage parents still to use it, but if we're adults, of
course we don't do that. But having some kind of
budgeting system that actually gives you that awareness of
I've just spent money and now I've got less, less to
(07:03):
spend tomorrow is really important.
>> Anthony Weaver (07:06):
And how do we translate that
style into doing
our own business? So.
>> Phil McGilray (07:16):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay. So, um, the, the thing with
businesses, and I'll just give you a quick story about this is,
um, I, I was just. So
we can translate to why I'm looking at business now is
I was a partner in Australia's leading stockbroking financial
planning firm. I'd been. So I'd been financial coach for 35
years, became a financial advisor about 10 years
(07:39):
into, into that journey. Um,
and Then realized that that wasn't where God wanted me to be
or not at that point in time. So, ah, he really
called me to leave that. Just as I got to the point where I was, you know,
doing very, very well financially from it said, no, I
want you to leave this and focus on financial literacy and
financial education. I stepped out of that
(07:59):
into my own world of building my own business
and you know, it's that entrepreneurial world. And realized that most
entrepreneurs have no idea how to manage their finances,
uh, you know, like, and they don't because they've never
been taught the basics either. And you think, well, if I've not been taught the
basics personal finance, then I certainly haven't been
taught the basics of business finance. And so it
(08:20):
just, you know, it just becomes a really.
You're pushing it uphill, uh, as an entrepreneur to make
things work financially. Um, so,
so that's why I got in the entrepreneur world. And then you start to learn
more and more about all. And I've been sort of in that
entrepreneurial world for about 10 years now and working
with entrepreneurs of all shapes and sizes. And you get
(08:40):
to learn what works and what doesn't because you get to see under
the hood of look, this business might look brilliant
on social media, but is it in reality actually any
good? Um, and so what that has allowed me
to do is develop, see, like, adapt
grandma's principles to business. Um,
and not coming from an accounting background, coming from more a cash
(09:00):
flow background and helping people build successful
businesses. And certainly, um,
there, there are, it's not
like, you know, you and I both know because we've been doing it for a long
time. Finances aren't difficult when you, you
take all the. Again, we have this financial
overwhelm in our heads. We have this belief in our
(09:21):
heads about how hard finance is because we've never been taught
it. But in reality, the basics are super,
super simple. You know, spend less than you earn,
make sure you've got right money set aside for your known expenses,
make sure you got money, set aside the unexpected expenses,
and then invest, you know, and that it's, it's really
not much harder than that. Um,
(09:42):
and I think it's the same thing with business
finances. Um, so that's.
But, but we lose it. I think the biggest problem with
entrepreneurial finances is we teach the money within our
business. Teach, sorry, treat the money
within our business like it's monopoly money.
And so we, we spend it, uh,
(10:03):
as if it's someone else's money almost. Um,
whereas every dollar we spend in our business is a dollar
we don't get to take home. So it's important that we have some
kind of budgeting system or money management system
that we have within our business. And that's what I spend a lot of
time doing these days.
>> Anthony Weaver (10:19):
So what is the underlying thing that you
found the most helpful for
beginner businesses when they get started?
>> Phil McGilray (10:29):
The simple thing is just to know your numbers. Not to
hide from them, but to know them. So again,
not, not all that different to our personal finance. But with
businesses, there's really five numbers that they need to know.
The first number is, well, what was my revenue for the month?
So that's the easy one. What did I bring in as a business?
Um, you know, that's one we all like to brag about. But what did I bring
(10:50):
in for my business? The second thing is then, well, what do
I need to pay myself as a salary so that this
business is sustainable? Um, so that comes
back to, you know, personal finances in terms of, well, what
do, what are all my expenses and what do I need to pay
myself from this business? That's the second
thing. And you know, so when we're looking at on a month
to month basis, what did I actually pay myself this month? But
(11:12):
then the third thing is knowing what all of your
expenses are. Um, and, and this isn't just
having some sort of P L. So a profit and loss,
which, um, know the accountants always talk about
because believe it or not, the P and L actually misses out
certain expenses that we have. It doesn't include them because
they're included elsewhere in the whole on
accounting world. So we have what
(11:35):
was. So really it comes down to looking at your bank account
going, what was my income? What did I pay myself as a
salary? What were all my expenses? And then saying,
okay, if I take my expenses away from my income,
how much do I actually made? Um, and then how
much tax do I need to put aside? So it's just a percentage. Let's say
it's 22% of that. We put that aside
(11:56):
and then we get to see what do I really get to
keep. So that's it. Like if entrepreneurs, if
I, you know, if I was God of the entrepreneurial world,
I would make it mandatory that every entrepreneur just track
those, those five things. Um, if they could just
do that, then what would happen is they then have this,
um, they can clearly see then
(12:17):
a clarity on, okay, I
actually lost money this month, but what are the things
that I can do to try and make more money
Next month. Um, and, and
it's interesting when you can visually see, you can start to ask
yourself all the questions because often it's not just about
I've got to sell more stuff. Um,
(12:37):
it's, it's often about, well actually am I selling that stuff at
a profit in the first place? And if not, what do I need to do about it?
Um, so when you've got clarity on those five or six
numbers, and I say six because if you're a product
based business like you're selling uh,
widgets, um, then you've got to factor in the cost
of buying those widgets in the first place and then, you know, shipping
(12:58):
them to you and then shipping them back out again. And that's called
cost of goods sold. Um, so sometimes you break
your expenses up into, sorry, I'm getting
into the deep weeds. Break it up into
the cost of getting that thing in the first place and then your
overheads. So really keep it simple.
What was my revenue? What did I pay myself, Sally? What were all my
expenses? What should I put aside the tax? What have I actually got left?
(13:22):
That, that if you could just do that,
um, and learn from what that's selling you. You're
already ahead of sort of 90 of the entrepreneurial world.
>> Anthony Weaver (13:30):
What are your thoughts on terrorists and businesses?
Has that ah, changed, um, a little bit in the
conversation that you're having with other entrepreneurs?
>> Phil McGilray (13:40):
Not yet, because we haven't actually seen the full effect of
that yet and because um,
and obviously I'm from Australia so I'm completely apolitical
when it comes to uh, you know, U.S. politics and those sort
of things. Yeah, um, obviously it's
going to affect some businesses more than others. So for
instance, uh, Donald Trump just recently said that
(14:01):
Australian, um, steel and
aluminum, um, exports, our
exports to you, there'll be an extra 50 tariff
on top of that. Um, and of course that affects
businesses, it affects their, their, their profitability.
Um, but it sort of affects their
profitability and in a big, big way. And so it is,
(14:21):
it needs to be factored in because it's just really just
and especially on cost of goods sold. So again,
I don't like using accounting terminology. I'm not from an
accounting background. But you know, when we're buying, like if we were
buying, let's say we're selling
railway lines or something like that, you know, well, it's going
to cost us more to, to actually buy
(14:42):
those, the steel for those railways in the first place.
So I have to factor that into my expenses and work
out or how am I going to be profitable with cost
going up that much? Am I going to have to just charge more?
Um, so you do need to factor tariffs in
because it will affect the
profitability of your business. And somewhere if you're paying more
for that product, then you're going to have to either reduce your
(15:05):
expenses or increase what you charge to sort of factor that
into the equation.
>> Anthony Weaver (15:09):
That makes sense. And.
But what got you into finance in the first place?
Besides, I mean, we know we talked about the, the grandma's jars,
but what, what was that next? You like? Okay, I
see what grandma was doing, but what is
it? What else can I do? Can I take this to the next level?
What was it for you?
>> Phil McGilray (15:27):
Well, it was interesting. Like, I, um, I
came back from the UK. I was only 18, 19,
19 years old when I came up from the UK and one
of my friends who, the only friend I had
that actually knew my grandma in England, he
got himself into financial trouble just out of coming out of
university. Not severe financial trouble. He finished the first
(15:47):
year of his job and he had, um, you know, he
earned like $45,000,
um, as a civil engineer. He came out
of that job after his first year
and he'd spend all that $45,000 he'd
earned and he had $5,000 in credit card debt. And he
said, oh my gosh, he said, phil, um, you
were telling me about your grab on budget system. Can, can you teach
(16:10):
me how to do this? And so I taught him how to do it,
helped him get out of debt, help save money.
Um, and then I had friends from church are
asking me how to do it. And so, and I just loved it
because it was also obvious to me.
And so I started teaching more and more and more people. And
so, um, I was actually an occupational therapist
(16:30):
when I first came out of university. That's where I studied to
be. Um, and,
and um, but on the side I was teaching people how to
budget and save money and get
out of debt and all those sorts of things. And
I'd worked with literally hundreds of different families and
couples. And then I got invited to speak at churches and, and
(16:50):
so on. And then, um, and then one person
I came up to in a church, he was actually a financial
advisor. And he, he said to me, oh,
would, would you be interested, I'm looking for a cadet financial
advisor. Would you be interested in. I thought,
yeah. And I just, I was at this point, crossroads in my
occupational therapy degree, sorry,
career, where it was like, not really enjoying what I'm doing. But I
(17:13):
love the budgeting and the money management, all that sort of stuff. So it was perfect.
You know, it was God's timing. Uh, and so I had
the opportunity to become a financial advisor and then
over the years just worked my way up, um, and
eventually became as a partner in Australia's leading
stockbroker financial planning firm.
>> Anthony Weaver (17:29):
So that's amazing because, you know,
because a lot of people who are just looking at it, they was like man, well I
should get all these certifications. Should I follow people
who are giving practical advice? Um, how
do you become, I guess you could say
a person of trust and person of, you know,
credibility. And it's like,
(17:50):
well if you already proven it to so many people,
you know, it almost validates itself at that point.
Um, yeah, yeah.
Can you talk about like this Thrive Financial Protocol
though?
>> Phil McGilray (18:02):
Oh, ah, sure, yeah yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Well, the Thrive Financial Protocol, like over the
years like, because I started off with the absolute basics
as an 18 year old. Um,
I, my, my whole vision is
to help make money simple for people. Um,
and to, to make. So that we
(18:23):
were talking before the show about, you know, how you, you got
started because you just wanted to teach people the absolute
basics because you didn't know them yourselves. And
and so it's trying to simplify it
or take all the clutter and the noise out of
well how do finances really work and teach
the absolute basics. And so I try, I wanted to do that in the
entrepreneurial world as well with people that are starting out
(18:46):
in business. And I'm a big believer that people should
try and you know, if you're wired that way. Some
people aren't. Um, my wife isn't but that's great because
she balances me out. Um, but, but
some, many people are and there are so many
different ways to make money these days. Um,
that, that doesn't involve, you know, be you being in a nine to
(19:06):
five. Um, but the Thrive
protocol is, is like Thrive is actually an
acronym for T is for transparency.
The first thing that we need to do, and this is personal finance, well
as business finance really. But um, is get
this transparency. Where do I stand financially right
now? And this is really scary for some
(19:27):
people. Um, this is really, really scary for some
people because we're afraid about what we're going to
find. We're afraid about what it's really going to
look like. Um, but getting that clarity
is so important because it gives you a baseline
and not only that is often,
um, often with um,
our finances in the absence of facts
(19:50):
Our brain will feed us fear. And
so what happens is we start to worry about where
we're at financially. We don't know, but we always
imagine that it's a lot worse than it really is. Um, I
mean, we started to catastrophize about our situation quite easily.
So thrive, you know, interestingly, once
we. Once we actually figure out where we're at
(20:10):
really at, I. I hear people
as say to me, phil, that was scary
to start with. And I heard this hundreds of times before,
but it is so empowering, it is so liberating,
it is so freeing. It is so therapeutic. It is the
cathartic. Because now what I've done
is I've taken. I've found out what the facts
(20:30):
are, and I replaced the fear with the facts. And the facts
aren't nearly as bad as what I was worried about. And now I
can do something about it. So t is about transparency where I'm
at right now and where do I want to be? That's really important,
getting clarity in what you really want. Um,
because when you get that sort of clarity, then it helps. You
basically defined your journey. This is where I'm at. This is where
(20:51):
I want to be. Okay, now we just need to create the journey
and then, um, the. The h in thrive is harness.
Let's harness your cash flow. Let's put simple systems in within
your business so that you can understand where you're
at financially and clearly see what you need to do to move
from, you know, where I'm at right now to where I want to be.
R is for reclaim the joy for what you do.
(21:12):
Um, and that is most entrepreneurs,
um, you know, they get into entrepreneurship or their own
business because they want to manage their own time. You know, they want to
have. Be able to spend time with their families and those sort of
things. Um, they want to be able to do something they
actually love and believe in, and they want to earn more money
than they could work for someone else. But when we get into the
(21:32):
entrepreneurial world, suddenly it's not as easy as we thought
it was. We find ourselves working incredibly long
hours and, um, and we're earning
a pittance what we do. We think I'd be better off stacking
shelves at the supermarket. And. And not
only that, but I'm actually starting to resent what
I'm doing because I'm putting so much time, so much effort, so much money
(21:52):
into this, and it's not giving me anything back.
You can obviously relate to that, mate.
>> Anthony Weaver (21:58):
Uh, yeah. Every day I think about it, we are here on the
weekend.
>> Phil McGilray (22:02):
Yeah, that's right. And that's the thing.
And that's what happens in the entrepreneur world. So
what I'm trying to do is once we get clarity on where we're at, where
we want to be, once we started to harness our cash flow so we can
really actually understand it, then what we want to do is go, okay,
let's build a cash reserve within this business so I don't have to
worry about, you know, um, oh my gosh, if something unexpected
(22:23):
happens, I'm, I'm going to be stuffed. You know, um,
we want to be able to pay off debt that we've got within the business so we can free
up cash flow. We want to be able to take time
off within the business and know that we've got the money there
to do it. Um, and so this is about
reclaiming our joy and paying ourselves properly.
So that's the four key things of reclaim.
(22:44):
Then we move into I, which is investing back in the
business and investing in ourselves and investing in
others. Um, I'm a huge believer in giving
and using the, the, the, the profits and the money
that we use to, to help others.
Um, so that's about invest V is about
vision, having some kind of roadmap that actually shows
us exactly how we're going to work our way
(23:06):
through not just building the business, but then
creating a kind of lifely one. So I've got a roadmap that
I, I take people through and then E is about
Empire is about, okay, how do I
now take my business success over here and
turn it into personal wealth? How do I actually make that
transition? Um, and so that's the thrive. That's the
thrive protocol. That's the process I take all my clients through.
>> Anthony Weaver (23:29):
Man, that is amazing. So, I mean,
I have so many more questions, but I know we coming up
time, time wise.
>> Phil McGilray (23:37):
I'll keep that, mate. We're right.
>> Anthony Weaver (23:38):
Okay.
>> Phil McGilray (23:39):
All right.
>> Anthony Weaver (23:39):
Um, well, the next question that I have is about
instead of taking a business like starting it from
scratch, what are your thoughts about buying a business
for the people who are just tired of
working in their current business and just want to sell it. What, uh,
are your thoughts on buying versus starting new?
>> Phil McGilray (23:57):
Look, uh, a couple of things.
Perfectly good idea. As long as it's a business that
you or firstly, as long as it's
a business that you know is actually cash flow
positive, like that is actually making money like it's,
it's been around for a long time, it's continues to make
lots of money. And you just need to buy it, step in
(24:18):
and run it. And as long as it doesn't, it's not
dependent on the owner that you're buying it from. Like, if,
you know, if it's a, a brand that is this, this
person is absolutely central to the band and this brand and the success of the
business, then it's not going to work if you try and step into their
shoes. Um, so as long as it, you know, if it's a business like
running, let's say it's a local grocery
(24:38):
store at the corner, and, you know, it's a very, very
profitable business, the people that own it are retiring
and they don't have anyone to hand it to, and you're buying it off them.
Yeah, absolutely. Um, and so there's lots of business
like that you can buy, but just, you just got to
make sure that you're not buying someone else's problems.
Um, the other thing too, is the difference between
(24:58):
starting your own thing and buying a business is that when you
start your own thing, you've obviously started it because you have a real
passion, interest, etcetera, for that
business or whatever that business is doing for the community.
Um, so you don't want to go necessarily and buy
a business that just does nothing for you internally.
It's just a. It's just a job and it just provides money
(25:20):
because it's going to be hard to get your heart into it.
Um, but as long as it aligns with your values and your
goals in life and those sort of things, and yeah, absolutely, it's a good
idea. And as long as it's profitable and you know that it's
profitable and you've had the, the books looked at by
someone independent. That's true. Then. Absolutely.
It's a good way to do it.
>> Anthony Weaver (25:38):
Perfect. I mean, I just wanted to get your take on it,
that's all. Because it, it's so, uh. Everybody always talk
about the easy part, which is just starting something, sell
something immediately. But if you just want to take
on somebody else's project, like
to make it your own. That's all. I just wanted to get here your take.
Yeah, yeah, I'm saying it. Yeah.
>> Phil McGilray (25:58):
And nothing wrong with that. As long as, again, that's profitable. And
they're not just selling their problems.
>> Anthony Weaver (26:03):
Most of them are.
Uh, so we're coming up to the third segment, which is the
features. Um, so what
habits, uh, that you think are essential, uh, for
entrepreneurs just to kind of build their
legacy?
>> Phil McGilray (26:20):
Um, I mean,
obviously they have to genuinely care about what they do and make a
difference in the lives of others. You know, you, you, you
need, this is so, so important and it's
so lost in the entrepreneurial world today where we,
um, it can so easy just become all about
the bottom line in terms of making money.
(26:40):
Um, you want to make a difference in the
lives of others because that's where the greatest joy and
fulfillment in making money actually comes from.
So that's the first thing that I would say in
terms of the legacy
of it. You want to build a business that is,
one could potentially operate without you,
ideally so that it is either sellable or
(27:03):
passable on someone else. Um,
so that means that as you're going deliberately build
your systems and processes so that like, it's
hard for entrepreneurs because so often we're visionaries and
we like, you know, we like creating new things, but we actually
need to slow down and build systems, build
processes, build, you know, our, uh, standard operating
procedures and those sort of things so that anyone can do
(27:25):
them and repeat them and get the same results.
So that's really important in terms of like legacy in terms of what you're
talking about. Um, so I would say
slow down, build the systems, build it. Same with
the finances that whenever I'm working with someone with their
finances, our goal is, first one
is, is my income greater, my expenses? That's obvious.
(27:45):
But are we doing that consistently? Then what we
want to do is build up our, um,
operating account so that it's approximately one and a half to
two times our monthly operating expenses.
Once we've got that, as long as more money is coming in and going out
that pool, that account will gradually fill up and hit that
every single month. Then we want to take the overflow and
(28:06):
build up our rainy day fund. The
unexpected expenses. Once we got the unexpected
expenses covered, that, uh, account that should stay full unless
we need it for an unexpected expense. And then we can pay
off debt. Once we pay off debt, then we can build reserves,
uh, which is for life events, not unexpected
expenses. And then we can start to invest back in the
business. And that's where we're building the base of the business wider
(28:29):
so the business can go higher. So actually building a
foundation to the business, a financially strong foundation.
Um, and the important thing to note here is that the amount of money
we have in our reserves account, the amount of money we have in our operating account
is a, is a multiple of,
um, our business expenses. So what that means
is if I take on a new, new team member
(28:50):
and they cost me $3,000 a month.
Then if I need one and a half to two times
my operating expenses in my operating account,
then that means I now need 3,000 to
five. And also five, sorry, three and a half, four and
a half thousand, maybe even $6,000 extra sitting
in my operating account each month. Same thing with my reserves. If
(29:10):
it's three times my expenses, then I'm going to need three times that salary
also added to my reserves. So that just means that
you're building financial stability so that as the business
grows, grows, you can go, you can build the
base wider so they can go higher. Um,
so that's, you know, again, being able
to hand a business like that over to someone else
(29:31):
in good financial shape. That's the way that we do it.
Um, and then of course, making sure that
it's not. Your life's not all about the business
because again, what can happen is we can very
easily. It's funny, we go into business,
as I said before, because I want more time,
I want to pay myself more than I could think, you know, someone
(29:51):
else. And I want to enjoy what I do because I believe in it.
And we get, we forget that so quickly and it
becomes all about the business and making more money and,
and, and yet somehow we spend all
that money within the business because we're trying to grow it and none of
it actually makes its way out into our personal life so that
we can actually start to build wealth outside the
(30:11):
business. Um, and, but we should be, there should
be money coming out and we should be investing that into
index funds and to property and all
those sorts of things. Um, but we don't do it. And so
most entrepreneurs, despite a relatively successful
period to be successful business, are
dirt poor outside of the business.
Um, that makes sense.
>> Anthony Weaver (30:33):
No, it makes perfect sense. I see it all the time.
>> Phil McGilray (30:36):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm sure, I'm sure you do. Yeah, I'm sure you do.
>> Anthony Weaver (30:40):
Uh, you know, and I want to say, um,
thank you for sharing that piece because it is really good
way to kind of lay out. And I never thought about the
overflow into the different buckets.
Um, that was something I'll probably do a deeper dive in.
Um, yeah, on a, on a personal thing.
So.
>> Phil McGilray (30:57):
Yeah. Well, just so that you know, this
is exactly how I see, um, whenever I
work with a, uh, business client or a personal client, I always
visualize their finances like a cascade.
Um, and so I actually, this is part of my model.
Um, I've got a. Not, not trying to push it on
even here But I got a book called the Cash Flow Fix where I actually talk
(31:18):
through this exact model. But I have one for personal
finances, one for business finances. And if you think about
your income like water in a cascade, and you go,
okay, well, my first pool is my operating account.
And so if I'm pouring more money into that than I'm
taking out in expenses, then that pool should just
naturally fill up. And so that's what the way we always
(31:38):
want to think about. If it's business finances, we think about that as an
operating account. And personal finances, we think about that
as well. How much do I need to cover my budget? Um,
and so the goal is, of course, is to get that pool
full. That's our first step in the process. And
then the overflow comes out, and any
overflow comes out and goes down to a rainy day,
and then the debt and then the cash reserve, and then
(32:01):
we get to the fun stuff down the bottom where we just. If business, that's
growing the business, but if it's personal, that's
life goals or investing for the future
or giving to. To causes we care about.
Um, and so if you always think about that, like, whenever I
sit down with a new client, whether they're a personal client or business
client, I'm thinking through, is there income
(32:22):
great in their expenses? If not, we need to fix that. Second thing
is, do they have enough money set aside to cover their known expenses?
If not, that's our first step to deal with
with the money that we're coming in. If they've got
that, then do they have a rainy day fund for the
unexpected? That's one that people often miss if they
don't. And then, and then, and this is super important
(32:43):
because often people with credit card debt, personal loans,
those things, the first thing that they want to do when they get paid is I
cover my immediate expenses. And then,
uh, and then anything else goes off my credit card and, you know, pat
myself on the m back. Well done, Phil. You know, you paid your credit card down,
but then something unexpected comes up, or a big bill or something
like that. Oh, now I need to put
(33:04):
it back on the credit card, and I'm stuck in this cycle.
Um, and so by actually going
in, deal with the income, grant expenses. Is my income
granted expenses? Have I got enough set aside for my known
expenses? Have I got enough set aside for my unknown expenses in
my rainy day fund? At that point, I've broken the paycheck
cycle. I've also broken the need to actually have to use
a credit card. So what that means is that every dollar I then
(33:26):
pay off my personal debt, stays off my personal debt,
um, because I've got everything else covered
up above. Um, and I've. My clients
in the last five years have paid off over $18 million
in credit card debt simply by following that
process.
>> Anthony Weaver (33:42):
That's amazing. That's definitely amazing. I mean,
congrats to you and your process. I love it. Um, that
is something that. I never looked at it that way, but
I guess we all do. We both pretty much do the same thing for
our clients. And that it's. I like your
visual aspect of it. I'm definitely going to have to try
that one, if you don't mind me stealing it.
>> Phil McGilray (34:02):
No, mate, go for it. It helps people. And,
um, it's. It's as said, because I've been doing
this for so long, you basically develop these
processes, this, uh, that. That help you
explain things to people so they understand.
Oh, okay. This is the step I'm up to. I need to
do this first, and then. And then what do I need to do to move the
next step? And it just makes it so much
(34:24):
simpler. So, yeah, go for it.
>> Anthony Weaver (34:26):
Thanks.
Are, uh, you ready for the final four questions?
>> Phil McGilray (34:29):
All right, let's go for it.
>> Anthony Weaver (34:38):
Cool. So question number one. What does
wealth mean to you?
>> Phil McGilray (34:45):
Wealth means to me,
um, the
opportunity to make a difference.
I'm not a big believer in wealth for wealth's
sake. Um, and I know a lot of people are,
but, you know, having worked with, like, when I was a, you know,
my stockbroking firm, I had clients that were worth
(35:06):
millions and millions and millions of dollars, and.
And they were just as unhappy as the next person. In
some cases, they were, you know, more so unhappy. And
the thing is, too. And the sad thing was a lot of my clients, I
saw a lot of my clients get very wealthy, and then, you know, they pass on,
and then they give it to their kids and the kids just blow it.
And so wealth to me is the opportunity to make.
(35:26):
Make a difference and to be able to obviously support my family
and to live, uh, you know, a happy,
comfortable, fulfilled life. But
the greatest joy for us. And I, I truly believe this, the
greatest joy in having money is using it to change the lives of
others. Um, over the years, we've been able to give.
I haven't added it all up, but, um,
(35:47):
probably at least hundreds of thousands of dollars, but it'd be probably
millions to. To causes we care about. And
we've been, you know, Cambodia and visited the water and
sanitation Projects and those sorts of things. And you know, one of
my biggest dreams is actually to be able to, of the
entrepreneurs that I work with or the families that I work with is to get them
to the point where they go, well, let's go with Phil
(36:08):
to one of these projects and actually let's help build houses
and do things and so that they get an experience of a
third world country, but also the difference we can make with
relatively small amounts of money. Um,
so that's, that's. Sorry, that's what it means for me. I'm not a big
believer in accumulating for the sake of accumulating.
>> Anthony Weaver (36:25):
Yeah, we might have to catch up offline to,
to do that because I would actually like to be part of that project
as well.
>> Phil McGilray (36:32):
Um, yeah, absolutely, yeah, absolutely, yeah. Please contact.
Let's have a chat about it at some point. Yeah, yeah.
>> Anthony Weaver (36:38):
Um, number two, what was your worst money
mistake?
>> Phil McGilray (36:42):
Oh, mate, there
is so many. There are so many. Um,
and can I say to anyone listening to
this, one of the reasons money is such a
big taboo topic in our society is because
we walk around thinking that everyone else has
got them themselves sorted out when it comes to money.
(37:02):
Um, and we think we're the only one that's got these
money problems or that we don't know how to do it. And we made all these stupid
mistakes and we're embarrassed, we're ashamed,
where, you know, we're fearful and anxious
and yet. And then because of that, we don't want to talk to
anyone about it. Please let me tell you.
And again, this is 10 years or sorry, 30,
(37:22):
35 years plus of experience. But,
um, the,
um, there was something I was gonna say with the 10
there, um, 35 years experience. And
I can tell you everyone has
made stupid mistakes with their money and they're not
stupid because I say that I probably shouldn't use the word stupid,
their mistakes. Because we don't know any better. No one
(37:45):
has else has taught us any better. So I have
made mistakes with six figures behind
it on at least three occasions. So.
Okay, so, so big, big, big, big,
big mistakes, uh, investment mistakes.
Um, like I've made a couple of really big investment
mistakes, um, that are,
(38:05):
ah. And some of it was just,
believe it or not, some of it was just immaturity and
greedy trying to get in on a really good opportunity
that wasn't, um, you know,
often the financial institutions that engineer these products,
like we had this, um, big
investment firm here in Australia, um,
right before the global recession back in
(38:28):
2009. That it engineered this, this product
so that even if the market was a bit like selling a Titanic, I
think they said that even if the marks were really, really dump,
you would still do okay. And we built all these,
these things into the product so that it was financially
engineered so that it couldn't fail. Then the, the financial
crisis hit and it failed in a big,
(38:48):
spectacular way. You know, it wasn't supposed to sink,
but it did. Um, so, you know, I
think, um, and every time, my
belief is every time we either chase the get rich
quick the dream, or we chase
something that has been financially engineered and structured
to be the perfect product, you're going to lose money.
(39:08):
I think every time you move away from the basics of
simple, you know, index funds,
uh, you're going to get yourself, you
know, I really believe the index funds are the way.
Um, but every time you try something that looks
like it's too good to be true, it probably is.
>> Anthony Weaver (39:27):
Been there. So.
>> Phil McGilray (39:29):
Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Yeah, that's right.
>> Anthony Weaver (39:32):
We might have to put a whole another episode.
Like, I might have to start taking that question
out and make that, like, the middle question, because
this one gets the most, I guess you could say energy.
>> Phil McGilray (39:43):
Um, yeah.
>> Anthony Weaver (39:43):
And I really think, because we have so many of them to
go through, but.
>> Phil McGilray (39:47):
Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Yeah, exactly right. I
could give you a list as long as it hugs my, um, arm of mistakes
that I've made. And so, yeah, for everyone out
there, uh, even the financial experts actually make
mistakes, but they just make them bigger. So. So,
uh, please don't worry about yours.
>> Anthony Weaver (40:05):
Okay.
Number three. Uh, is there a book that
inspired your journey or changed your
perspective?
>> Phil McGilray (40:13):
Is there a book that inspire. I mean, obviously I love Dave
Ramsey's books. Um, I was, I was fortunate when
I was over there in my Winston Churchill fellowship to spend
some time with Dave Ramsey and some of his team,
um, a few years back there. Um, I love
what they do. I absolutely love what they do.
Um, I did start, though, before
Dave Ramsey, I think, from memory. So, uh,
(40:35):
mind you, he's obviously done a brilliant job of marketing himself and making
a difference to the world. Um, the,
um, the. The book that I've
read more recently, and I'd encourage everyone to have a read
of it. It's called the Psychology of Money.
>> Anthony Weaver (40:51):
Um, great book.
>> Phil McGilray (40:52):
Yeah, A brilliant book. Like, in terms of just
breaking the basics down. Like, I, I really
love this book because unlike that, there's a lot of books out,
um, that are very hypey and very
much the influencer uh,
age type books and I'm not a big fan of them.
Um, but this book talks
(41:13):
so clearly about,
um, just the mistakes and the thinking and
the, and, and, and
yeah, just the mistakes we fall into on a day to day
basis and, and how to actually recognize them for what
they are so that you can avoid them. Um, and
in the, at the heart of it is such a simple message. You
(41:34):
know, spend less than you earn and invest wisely. Like
it's, it's not rocket science. So, uh,
yeah, fantastic. But I'd encourage anyone to have a read
of it.
>> Anthony Weaver (41:43):
And if a book doesn't talk about those two things,
it's not a financial book, so.
>> Phil McGilray (41:48):
No, that's right. No, that's exactly right.
>> Anthony Weaver (41:51):
Um, the only thing I don't like about his book is that he didn't do
a woman's perspective. He only talked
about from the male side of the house. So if there's a lady
listening right now, if you think you can
write from a woman's perspective, I think that would actually be
a really great opportunity to
say, um, number four,
(42:12):
what is your favorite dish to make?
>> Phil McGilray (42:16):
Ah, I'm a real sweet tooth. So I, I know you're
probably talking about mate. I mean I love pizza.
Okay. But I'm a real sweet. So actually
chocolate pudding is my favorite. Uh, my, my
favorite dish to make. Yes. I'm, I love my chocolate
and I do a lot of running. So it,
I think I run so that I can eat these days. I think
that's how it works. But uh,
(42:39):
yeah, chocolate pudding. But, um, but like any
kind of pizza, pretty much. Um, and I
know here in Australia we had influences
from all over the world. So
um, we don't really have anything that's
typical Australian other than just the barbecue.
Um, but yeah, pizza
would be it for me.
>> Anthony Weaver (42:59):
Nice.
Uh, so this is going to be the last question of the show, which is
where could people find out more about you?
>> Phil McGilray (43:07):
Um, well, depends if they're, if they're looking at
personal finances, then I, I have
grandma's jars dot com. Um,
which is like grandma's jars as in glass jars.
Um, that's where I have all my personal finance stuff. If
it's business finance and it's phil
mcgilray.com and I assume they'll be
in the show notes, but I know the spelling of that's a bit, bit wiggly.
(43:29):
Um, but Phil mcgilray.com from a business
perspective.
>> Anthony Weaver (43:32):
Uh, perfect. And Phil, thank you so much for
your insight giving us the thrive, uh, protocol, understanding
and really having us understand the
pure basics of, uh, from
personal and business side of the house. So if you're
listening to this and you think that you want to take action
today, please go ahead on and save this
(43:52):
episode. Share with somebody. Share with somebody that you want to start a
business with. I think this will be a great
opportunity for you all to take
yourself to that next level. And all
means y' all be safe. Yeah.
>> Phil McGilray (44:06):
Peace.
Uh, five years, I paid off over $18 million in
credit card debt simply by following that process.
>> Anthony Weaver (00:07):
That's amazing. That's definitely amazing.
>> Phil McGilray (00:09):
It's. It's as I said it, because I've been doing this for so
long, you basically develop these processes,
these that help you explain things to
people so they understand. Oh, okay.
This is the step I'm up to. I need to do this first, and
then what do I need to do to move the next step? And it
just makes it so much simpler. So, yeah, go for.
>> Anthony Weaver (00:33):
Welcome, everybody, back to another exciting show, the about
that Water podcast, where we help the sandwich generation
build strong financial habits so that they can talk about money,
spend money, and enjoy their money with
confidence. Today I have an awesome person who
has been doing such an amazing job when
it comes to understanding your finances and
(00:53):
allowing you to have the freedom to
even start looking into starting a business. The reason
why I have this, uh, amazing person on is
because I really think this will be a great way
to kind of segue some of your free time
and actually help bring your child into
the world of entrepreneurship. Even though you can
(01:14):
be the first one to break that generational, uh,
curse, or I guess you could say
challenge of not having or even owning a
business. I think this episode is going to be for you. And
the person I want to have on today is Phil. How you
doing today, Phil?
>> Phil McGilray (01:30):
Yeah, great. Thanks, Anthony. Very excited to be here, mate.
Very excited. Thanks for having me, um, on.
>> Anthony Weaver (01:35):
Oh, uh, no problem. And to make sure I got, um,
your last name right is McGro
McGilvery.
>> Phil McGilray (01:42):
McGilray McGill. Right. You're pretty close. Well done,
mate. It's not easy.
>> Anthony Weaver (01:45):
Okay, Right. Thank you for allowing
me to, uh, correct me on that because,
you know, it's so cool to actually meet somebody from
internationally to come on the show because you get
a different view of finances. But I
like your story and where you're coming from because
it shows that finances is
(02:06):
global in the way how we approach
finances is such a,
uh, a way of life. Does that make sense?
So, yeah, can you tell us a little bit about, like,
you know, why Grant? Why Grandma's
jars?
>> Phil McGilray (02:21):
M. Sure. Okay, well,
um, I was one of the lucky
ones, so 18. So when I was 18
years old, um, I went and spent a year in
the uk so I'm currently in Australia. I went and spent
a year in the uk. Um, my English grandma
lived over there. Um, I was an adventure
(02:42):
trading instructor for a year at this beautiful place
called Fairthorne Manor in the south of England. And we got
paid the princely sum of £15 a
week, uh, which isn't a lot of money. Although
they did look after all my food and accommodation. So I
can't complain. It was one of the best years of my life. But
getting by on £15 was not
easy. Um, and so my English grandma, I
(03:05):
went to visit her. It was about a three hour train ride, overseeing my
English grandma. And, um, she
taught me how to budget using physical glass
jars and physical money, which I don't know whether your audience better see
it, but on the shelf there behind me, I had the glass jars.
And she literally had these glass jars sitting in the
cupboard above her stove top. Uh, she would
(03:25):
go every month, she would walk around to the post
office, pick up her pension in cash because
these are the days for Internet banking. She would walk home,
um, and she took down the jars and she knew exactly how
much she needed to put in each jar. So like, one jar was
electricity and another jar was housekeeping and another
jar was, um, for the gas
(03:46):
or the milkman or, um, I can't remember
what the other ones were now, but she had these glass jars and she
knew exactly how much she needed to put into those jars so
that when those expenses turned up, the money was just there,
ready to go. Um, and as a result of that, my grandma,
despite the fact my granddad died at a fairly young age,
um, my grandma was able to pay off the home and actually
(04:06):
retire, actually die a fairly wealthy woman because
she'd invested what she didn't need to put in the jars.
What was left over after, ah, she filled up the job she was able
to take and put into mutual, uh, funds and those sorts of
things. Um, so it was a very, very simple,
very simple strategy that she taught me.
I came home from the UK after a year,
started teaching all my friends, um, the
(04:29):
grandma's job. The glass jars went from,
from glass jars to envelopes to
paper budgets to, um, Excel
spreadsheets. And then eventually we've got our own,
um, apps and software and
those sort of things these days. So, yeah, that's the
story.
>> Anthony Weaver (04:47):
Nice. Because that's one of the things that,
I guess in this digital realm we lose
that, um, that tactile
feature of finances.
>> Phil McGilray (04:59):
Yeah.
>> Anthony Weaver (05:00):
And because we don't feel like, you know, we're spending it,
it's just kind of like, okay, well just go to this plastic thing. I'll just
swipe and keep going.
>> Phil McGilray (05:07):
Yeah.
>> Anthony Weaver (05:08):
Like, how do we bring back almost
that, uh, as you could say, that extra layer of
tension before we Spin.
>> Phil McGilray (05:17):
It's a really good question. And I mean, really,
I do think just having a budget that allows you to
stay aware of where you're up to. So, uh, you
know, with grandma, it was pretty simple. If there was money left in the jar,
she could spend. If there wasn't, she couldn't. And so having an
app that actually, um, having
an app that gives you that feedback, so I can see
(05:37):
how much I got in my jar, I record my expense, you know,
entered into my jar, and then I can see, you
know, on my phone app that it's now gone down.
I've only got a little bit left. And so I think having that constant
feedback, like the biggest problem that I see is people
just have a lack of awareness of, uh, how much all those
little bits of spending actually add up to by.
(05:57):
So having some sort of way of just giving you that feedback
is really important. Interestingly though,
I, um, spent, um, three,
three, four months traveling around the world learning
about all the different financial literacy,
you know, leading, leading practices, what works, what
doesn't, and those sort of things. Um, and
(06:20):
I still believe that with kids, even though it's not a
big part of our society today, but whilst we've still got
it, having cash to teach kids about money is actually
really helpful because little ones are very visual, very
tactile. So actually having coins, being able to give them
coins, you know, using the, uh, three glass
jars to just help them, you know, here's a little bit of spending money, it's a bit of
giving money, and here's a bit of, you know, investing money. Like
(06:43):
having those is actually still very, very helpful for people,
uh, for little ones when we're teaching our kids about money.
Um, so I still like that. Whilst we still have cash, I
encourage parents still to use it, but if we're adults, of
course we don't do that. But having some kind of
budgeting system that actually gives you that awareness of
I've just spent money and now I've got less, less to
(07:03):
spend tomorrow is really important.
>> Anthony Weaver (07:06):
And how do we translate that
style into doing
our own business? So.
>> Phil McGilray (07:16):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay. So, um, the, the thing with
businesses, and I'll just give you a quick story about this is,
um, I, I was just. So
we can translate to why I'm looking at business now is
I was a partner in Australia's leading stockbroking financial
planning firm. I'd been. So I'd been financial coach for 35
years, became a financial advisor about 10 years
(07:39):
into, into that journey. Um,
and Then realized that that wasn't where God wanted me to be
or not at that point in time. So, ah, he really
called me to leave that. Just as I got to the point where I was, you know,
doing very, very well financially from it said, no, I
want you to leave this and focus on financial literacy and
financial education. I stepped out of that
(07:59):
into my own world of building my own business
and you know, it's that entrepreneurial world. And realized that most
entrepreneurs have no idea how to manage their finances,
uh, you know, like, and they don't because they've never
been taught the basics either. And you think, well, if I've not been taught the
basics personal finance, then I certainly haven't been
taught the basics of business finance. And so it
(08:20):
just, you know, it just becomes a really.
You're pushing it uphill, uh, as an entrepreneur to make
things work financially. Um, so,
so that's why I got in the entrepreneur world. And then you start to learn
more and more about all. And I've been sort of in that
entrepreneurial world for about 10 years now and working
with entrepreneurs of all shapes and sizes. And you get
(08:40):
to learn what works and what doesn't because you get to see under
the hood of look, this business might look brilliant
on social media, but is it in reality actually any
good? Um, and so what that has allowed me
to do is develop, see, like, adapt
grandma's principles to business. Um,
and not coming from an accounting background, coming from more a cash
(09:00):
flow background and helping people build successful
businesses. And certainly, um,
there, there are, it's not
like, you know, you and I both know because we've been doing it for a long
time. Finances aren't difficult when you, you
take all the. Again, we have this financial
overwhelm in our heads. We have this belief in our
(09:21):
heads about how hard finance is because we've never been taught
it. But in reality, the basics are super,
super simple. You know, spend less than you earn,
make sure you've got right money set aside for your known expenses,
make sure you got money, set aside the unexpected expenses,
and then invest, you know, and that it's, it's really
not much harder than that. Um,
(09:42):
and I think it's the same thing with business
finances. Um, so that's.
But, but we lose it. I think the biggest problem with
entrepreneurial finances is we teach the money within our
business. Teach, sorry, treat the money
within our business like it's monopoly money.
And so we, we spend it, uh,
(10:03):
as if it's someone else's money almost. Um,
whereas every dollar we spend in our business is a dollar
we don't get to take home. So it's important that we have some
kind of budgeting system or money management system
that we have within our business. And that's what I spend a lot of
time doing these days.
>> Anthony Weaver (10:19):
So what is the underlying thing that you
found the most helpful for
beginner businesses when they get started?
>> Phil McGilray (10:29):
The simple thing is just to know your numbers. Not to
hide from them, but to know them. So again,
not, not all that different to our personal finance. But with
businesses, there's really five numbers that they need to know.
The first number is, well, what was my revenue for the month?
So that's the easy one. What did I bring in as a business?
Um, you know, that's one we all like to brag about. But what did I bring
(10:50):
in for my business? The second thing is then, well, what do
I need to pay myself as a salary so that this
business is sustainable? Um, so that comes
back to, you know, personal finances in terms of, well, what
do, what are all my expenses and what do I need to pay
myself from this business? That's the second
thing. And you know, so when we're looking at on a month
to month basis, what did I actually pay myself this month? But
(11:12):
then the third thing is knowing what all of your
expenses are. Um, and, and this isn't just
having some sort of P L. So a profit and loss,
which, um, know the accountants always talk about
because believe it or not, the P and L actually misses out
certain expenses that we have. It doesn't include them because
they're included elsewhere in the whole on
accounting world. So we have what
(11:35):
was. So really it comes down to looking at your bank account
going, what was my income? What did I pay myself as a
salary? What were all my expenses? And then saying,
okay, if I take my expenses away from my income,
how much do I actually made? Um, and then how
much tax do I need to put aside? So it's just a percentage. Let's say
it's 22% of that. We put that aside
(11:56):
and then we get to see what do I really get to
keep. So that's it. Like if entrepreneurs, if
I, you know, if I was God of the entrepreneurial world,
I would make it mandatory that every entrepreneur just track
those, those five things. Um, if they could just
do that, then what would happen is they then have this,
um, they can clearly see then
(12:17):
a clarity on, okay, I
actually lost money this month, but what are the things
that I can do to try and make more money
Next month. Um, and, and
it's interesting when you can visually see, you can start to ask
yourself all the questions because often it's not just about
I've got to sell more stuff. Um,
(12:37):
it's, it's often about, well actually am I selling that stuff at
a profit in the first place? And if not, what do I need to do about it?
Um, so when you've got clarity on those five or six
numbers, and I say six because if you're a product
based business like you're selling uh,
widgets, um, then you've got to factor in the cost
of buying those widgets in the first place and then, you know, shipping
(12:58):
them to you and then shipping them back out again. And that's called
cost of goods sold. Um, so sometimes you break
your expenses up into, sorry, I'm getting
into the deep weeds. Break it up into
the cost of getting that thing in the first place and then your
overheads. So really keep it simple.
What was my revenue? What did I pay myself, Sally? What were all my
expenses? What should I put aside the tax? What have I actually got left?
(13:22):
That, that if you could just do that,
um, and learn from what that's selling you. You're
already ahead of sort of 90 of the entrepreneurial world.
>> Anthony Weaver (13:30):
What are your thoughts on terrorists and businesses?
Has that ah, changed, um, a little bit in the
conversation that you're having with other entrepreneurs?
>> Phil McGilray (13:40):
Not yet, because we haven't actually seen the full effect of
that yet and because um,
and obviously I'm from Australia so I'm completely apolitical
when it comes to uh, you know, U.S. politics and those sort
of things. Yeah, um, obviously it's
going to affect some businesses more than others. So for
instance, uh, Donald Trump just recently said that
(14:01):
Australian, um, steel and
aluminum, um, exports, our
exports to you, there'll be an extra 50 tariff
on top of that. Um, and of course that affects
businesses, it affects their, their, their profitability.
Um, but it sort of affects their
profitability and in a big, big way. And so it is,
(14:21):
it needs to be factored in because it's just really just
and especially on cost of goods sold. So again,
I don't like using accounting terminology. I'm not from an
accounting background. But you know, when we're buying, like if we were
buying, let's say we're selling
railway lines or something like that, you know, well, it's going
to cost us more to, to actually buy
(14:42):
those, the steel for those railways in the first place.
So I have to factor that into my expenses and work
out or how am I going to be profitable with cost
going up that much? Am I going to have to just charge more?
Um, so you do need to factor tariffs in
because it will affect the
profitability of your business. And somewhere if you're paying more
for that product, then you're going to have to either reduce your
(15:05):
expenses or increase what you charge to sort of factor that
into the equation.
>> Anthony Weaver (15:09):
That makes sense. And.
But what got you into finance in the first place?
Besides, I mean, we know we talked about the, the grandma's jars,
but what, what was that next? You like? Okay, I
see what grandma was doing, but what is
it? What else can I do? Can I take this to the next level?
What was it for you?
>> Phil McGilray (15:27):
Well, it was interesting. Like, I, um, I
came back from the UK. I was only 18, 19,
19 years old when I came up from the UK and one
of my friends who, the only friend I had
that actually knew my grandma in England, he
got himself into financial trouble just out of coming out of
university. Not severe financial trouble. He finished the first
(15:47):
year of his job and he had, um, you know, he
earned like $45,000,
um, as a civil engineer. He came out
of that job after his first year
and he'd spend all that $45,000 he'd
earned and he had $5,000 in credit card debt. And he
said, oh my gosh, he said, phil, um, you
were telling me about your grab on budget system. Can, can you teach
(16:10):
me how to do this? And so I taught him how to do it,
helped him get out of debt, help save money.
Um, and then I had friends from church are
asking me how to do it. And so, and I just loved it
because it was also obvious to me.
And so I started teaching more and more and more people. And
so, um, I was actually an occupational therapist
(16:30):
when I first came out of university. That's where I studied to
be. Um, and,
and um, but on the side I was teaching people how to
budget and save money and get
out of debt and all those sorts of things. And
I'd worked with literally hundreds of different families and
couples. And then I got invited to speak at churches and, and
(16:50):
so on. And then, um, and then one person
I came up to in a church, he was actually a financial
advisor. And he, he said to me, oh,
would, would you be interested, I'm looking for a cadet financial
advisor. Would you be interested in. I thought,
yeah. And I just, I was at this point, crossroads in my
occupational therapy degree, sorry,
career, where it was like, not really enjoying what I'm doing. But I
(17:13):
love the budgeting and the money management, all that sort of stuff. So it was perfect.
You know, it was God's timing. Uh, and so I had
the opportunity to become a financial advisor and then
over the years just worked my way up, um, and
eventually became as a partner in Australia's leading
stockbroker financial planning firm.
>> Anthony Weaver (17:29):
So that's amazing because, you know,
because a lot of people who are just looking at it, they was like man, well I
should get all these certifications. Should I follow people
who are giving practical advice? Um, how
do you become, I guess you could say
a person of trust and person of, you know,
credibility. And it's like,
(17:50):
well if you already proven it to so many people,
you know, it almost validates itself at that point.
Um, yeah, yeah.
Can you talk about like this Thrive Financial Protocol
though?
>> Phil McGilray (18:02):
Oh, ah, sure, yeah yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Well, the Thrive Financial Protocol, like over the
years like, because I started off with the absolute basics
as an 18 year old. Um,
I, my, my whole vision is
to help make money simple for people. Um,
and to, to make. So that we
(18:23):
were talking before the show about, you know, how you, you got
started because you just wanted to teach people the absolute
basics because you didn't know them yourselves. And
and so it's trying to simplify it
or take all the clutter and the noise out of
well how do finances really work and teach
the absolute basics. And so I try, I wanted to do that in the
entrepreneurial world as well with people that are starting out
(18:46):
in business. And I'm a big believer that people should
try and you know, if you're wired that way. Some
people aren't. Um, my wife isn't but that's great because
she balances me out. Um, but, but
some, many people are and there are so many
different ways to make money these days. Um,
that, that doesn't involve, you know, be you being in a nine to
(19:06):
five. Um, but the Thrive
protocol is, is like Thrive is actually an
acronym for T is for transparency.
The first thing that we need to do, and this is personal finance, well
as business finance really. But um, is get
this transparency. Where do I stand financially right
now? And this is really scary for some
(19:27):
people. Um, this is really, really scary for some
people because we're afraid about what we're going to
find. We're afraid about what it's really going to
look like. Um, but getting that clarity
is so important because it gives you a baseline
and not only that is often,
um, often with um,
our finances in the absence of facts
(19:50):
Our brain will feed us fear. And
so what happens is we start to worry about where
we're at financially. We don't know, but we always
imagine that it's a lot worse than it really is. Um, I
mean, we started to catastrophize about our situation quite easily.
So thrive, you know, interestingly, once
we. Once we actually figure out where we're at
(20:10):
really at, I. I hear people
as say to me, phil, that was scary
to start with. And I heard this hundreds of times before,
but it is so empowering, it is so liberating,
it is so freeing. It is so therapeutic. It is the
cathartic. Because now what I've done
is I've taken. I've found out what the facts
(20:30):
are, and I replaced the fear with the facts. And the facts
aren't nearly as bad as what I was worried about. And now I
can do something about it. So t is about transparency where I'm
at right now and where do I want to be? That's really important,
getting clarity in what you really want. Um,
because when you get that sort of clarity, then it helps. You
basically defined your journey. This is where I'm at. This is where
(20:51):
I want to be. Okay, now we just need to create the journey
and then, um, the. The h in thrive is harness.
Let's harness your cash flow. Let's put simple systems in within
your business so that you can understand where you're
at financially and clearly see what you need to do to move
from, you know, where I'm at right now to where I want to be.
R is for reclaim the joy for what you do.
(21:12):
Um, and that is most entrepreneurs,
um, you know, they get into entrepreneurship or their own
business because they want to manage their own time. You know, they want to
have. Be able to spend time with their families and those sort of
things. Um, they want to be able to do something they
actually love and believe in, and they want to earn more money
than they could work for someone else. But when we get into the
(21:32):
entrepreneurial world, suddenly it's not as easy as we thought
it was. We find ourselves working incredibly long
hours and, um, and we're earning
a pittance what we do. We think I'd be better off stacking
shelves at the supermarket. And. And not
only that, but I'm actually starting to resent what
I'm doing because I'm putting so much time, so much effort, so much money
(21:52):
into this, and it's not giving me anything back.
You can obviously relate to that, mate.
>> Anthony Weaver (21:58):
Uh, yeah. Every day I think about it, we are here on the
weekend.
>> Phil McGilray (22:02):
Yeah, that's right. And that's the thing.
And that's what happens in the entrepreneur world. So
what I'm trying to do is once we get clarity on where we're at, where
we want to be, once we started to harness our cash flow so we can
really actually understand it, then what we want to do is go, okay,
let's build a cash reserve within this business so I don't have to
worry about, you know, um, oh my gosh, if something unexpected
(22:23):
happens, I'm, I'm going to be stuffed. You know, um,
we want to be able to pay off debt that we've got within the business so we can free
up cash flow. We want to be able to take time
off within the business and know that we've got the money there
to do it. Um, and so this is about
reclaiming our joy and paying ourselves properly.
So that's the four key things of reclaim.
(22:44):
Then we move into I, which is investing back in the
business and investing in ourselves and investing in
others. Um, I'm a huge believer in giving
and using the, the, the, the profits and the money
that we use to, to help others.
Um, so that's about invest V is about
vision, having some kind of roadmap that actually shows
us exactly how we're going to work our way
(23:06):
through not just building the business, but then
creating a kind of lifely one. So I've got a roadmap that
I, I take people through and then E is about
Empire is about, okay, how do I
now take my business success over here and
turn it into personal wealth? How do I actually make that
transition? Um, and so that's the thrive. That's the
thrive protocol. That's the process I take all my clients through.
>> Anthony Weaver (23:29):
Man, that is amazing. So, I mean,
I have so many more questions, but I know we coming up
time, time wise.
>> Phil McGilray (23:37):
I'll keep that, mate. We're right.
>> Anthony Weaver (23:38):
Okay.
>> Phil McGilray (23:39):
All right.
>> Anthony Weaver (23:39):
Um, well, the next question that I have is about
instead of taking a business like starting it from
scratch, what are your thoughts about buying a business
for the people who are just tired of
working in their current business and just want to sell it. What, uh,
are your thoughts on buying versus starting new?
>> Phil McGilray (23:57):
Look, uh, a couple of things.
Perfectly good idea. As long as it's a business that
you or firstly, as long as it's
a business that you know is actually cash flow
positive, like that is actually making money like it's,
it's been around for a long time, it's continues to make
lots of money. And you just need to buy it, step in
(24:18):
and run it. And as long as it doesn't, it's not
dependent on the owner that you're buying it from. Like, if,
you know, if it's a, a brand that is this, this
person is absolutely central to the band and this brand and the success of the
business, then it's not going to work if you try and step into their
shoes. Um, so as long as it, you know, if it's a business like
running, let's say it's a local grocery
(24:38):
store at the corner, and, you know, it's a very, very
profitable business, the people that own it are retiring
and they don't have anyone to hand it to, and you're buying it off them.
Yeah, absolutely. Um, and so there's lots of business
like that you can buy, but just, you just got to
make sure that you're not buying someone else's problems.
Um, the other thing too, is the difference between
(24:58):
starting your own thing and buying a business is that when you
start your own thing, you've obviously started it because you have a real
passion, interest, etcetera, for that
business or whatever that business is doing for the community.
Um, so you don't want to go necessarily and buy
a business that just does nothing for you internally.
It's just a. It's just a job and it just provides money
(25:20):
because it's going to be hard to get your heart into it.
Um, but as long as it aligns with your values and your
goals in life and those sort of things, and yeah, absolutely, it's a good
idea. And as long as it's profitable and you know that it's
profitable and you've had the, the books looked at by
someone independent. That's true. Then. Absolutely.
It's a good way to do it.
>> Anthony Weaver (25:38):
Perfect. I mean, I just wanted to get your take on it,
that's all. Because it, it's so, uh. Everybody always talk
about the easy part, which is just starting something, sell
something immediately. But if you just want to take
on somebody else's project, like
to make it your own. That's all. I just wanted to get here your take.
Yeah, yeah, I'm saying it. Yeah.
>> Phil McGilray (25:58):
And nothing wrong with that. As long as, again, that's profitable. And
they're not just selling their problems.
>> Anthony Weaver (26:03):
Most of them are.
Uh, so we're coming up to the third segment, which is the
features. Um, so what
habits, uh, that you think are essential, uh, for
entrepreneurs just to kind of build their
legacy?
>> Phil McGilray (26:20):
Um, I mean,
obviously they have to genuinely care about what they do and make a
difference in the lives of others. You know, you, you, you
need, this is so, so important and it's
so lost in the entrepreneurial world today where we,
um, it can so easy just become all about
the bottom line in terms of making money.
(26:40):
Um, you want to make a difference in the
lives of others because that's where the greatest joy and
fulfillment in making money actually comes from.
So that's the first thing that I would say in
terms of the legacy
of it. You want to build a business that is,
one could potentially operate without you,
ideally so that it is either sellable or
(27:03):
passable on someone else. Um,
so that means that as you're going deliberately build
your systems and processes so that like, it's
hard for entrepreneurs because so often we're visionaries and
we like, you know, we like creating new things, but we actually
need to slow down and build systems, build
processes, build, you know, our, uh, standard operating
procedures and those sort of things so that anyone can do
(27:25):
them and repeat them and get the same results.
So that's really important in terms of like legacy in terms of what you're
talking about. Um, so I would say
slow down, build the systems, build it. Same with
the finances that whenever I'm working with someone with their
finances, our goal is, first one
is, is my income greater, my expenses? That's obvious.
(27:45):
But are we doing that consistently? Then what we
want to do is build up our, um,
operating account so that it's approximately one and a half to
two times our monthly operating expenses.
Once we've got that, as long as more money is coming in and going out
that pool, that account will gradually fill up and hit that
every single month. Then we want to take the overflow and
(28:06):
build up our rainy day fund. The
unexpected expenses. Once we got the unexpected
expenses covered, that, uh, account that should stay full unless
we need it for an unexpected expense. And then we can pay
off debt. Once we pay off debt, then we can build reserves,
uh, which is for life events, not unexpected
expenses. And then we can start to invest back in the
business. And that's where we're building the base of the business wider
(28:29):
so the business can go higher. So actually building a
foundation to the business, a financially strong foundation.
Um, and the important thing to note here is that the amount of money
we have in our reserves account, the amount of money we have in our operating account
is a, is a multiple of,
um, our business expenses. So what that means
is if I take on a new, new team member
(28:50):
and they cost me $3,000 a month.
Then if I need one and a half to two times
my operating expenses in my operating account,
then that means I now need 3,000 to
five. And also five, sorry, three and a half, four and
a half thousand, maybe even $6,000 extra sitting
in my operating account each month. Same thing with my reserves. If
(29:10):
it's three times my expenses, then I'm going to need three times that salary
also added to my reserves. So that just means that
you're building financial stability so that as the business
grows, grows, you can go, you can build the
base wider so they can go higher. Um,
so that's, you know, again, being able
to hand a business like that over to someone else
(29:31):
in good financial shape. That's the way that we do it.
Um, and then of course, making sure that
it's not. Your life's not all about the business
because again, what can happen is we can very
easily. It's funny, we go into business,
as I said before, because I want more time,
I want to pay myself more than I could think, you know, someone
(29:51):
else. And I want to enjoy what I do because I believe in it.
And we get, we forget that so quickly and it
becomes all about the business and making more money and,
and, and yet somehow we spend all
that money within the business because we're trying to grow it and none of
it actually makes its way out into our personal life so that
we can actually start to build wealth outside the
(30:11):
business. Um, and, but we should be, there should
be money coming out and we should be investing that into
index funds and to property and all
those sorts of things. Um, but we don't do it. And so
most entrepreneurs, despite a relatively successful
period to be successful business, are
dirt poor outside of the business.
Um, that makes sense.
>> Anthony Weaver (30:33):
No, it makes perfect sense. I see it all the time.
>> Phil McGilray (30:36):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm sure, I'm sure you do. Yeah, I'm sure you do.
>> Anthony Weaver (30:40):
Uh, you know, and I want to say, um,
thank you for sharing that piece because it is really good
way to kind of lay out. And I never thought about the
overflow into the different buckets.
Um, that was something I'll probably do a deeper dive in.
Um, yeah, on a, on a personal thing.
So.
>> Phil McGilray (30:57):
Yeah. Well, just so that you know, this
is exactly how I see, um, whenever I
work with a, uh, business client or a personal client, I always
visualize their finances like a cascade.
Um, and so I actually, this is part of my model.
Um, I've got a. Not, not trying to push it on
even here But I got a book called the Cash Flow Fix where I actually talk
(31:18):
through this exact model. But I have one for personal
finances, one for business finances. And if you think about
your income like water in a cascade, and you go,
okay, well, my first pool is my operating account.
And so if I'm pouring more money into that than I'm
taking out in expenses, then that pool should just
naturally fill up. And so that's what the way we always
(31:38):
want to think about. If it's business finances, we think about that as an
operating account. And personal finances, we think about that
as well. How much do I need to cover my budget? Um,
and so the goal is, of course, is to get that pool
full. That's our first step in the process. And
then the overflow comes out, and any
overflow comes out and goes down to a rainy day,
and then the debt and then the cash reserve, and then
(32:01):
we get to the fun stuff down the bottom where we just. If business, that's
growing the business, but if it's personal, that's
life goals or investing for the future
or giving to. To causes we care about.
Um, and so if you always think about that, like, whenever I
sit down with a new client, whether they're a personal client or business
client, I'm thinking through, is there income
(32:22):
great in their expenses? If not, we need to fix that. Second thing
is, do they have enough money set aside to cover their known expenses?
If not, that's our first step to deal with
with the money that we're coming in. If they've got
that, then do they have a rainy day fund for the
unexpected? That's one that people often miss if they
don't. And then, and then, and this is super important
(32:43):
because often people with credit card debt, personal loans,
those things, the first thing that they want to do when they get paid is I
cover my immediate expenses. And then,
uh, and then anything else goes off my credit card and, you know, pat
myself on the m back. Well done, Phil. You know, you paid your credit card down,
but then something unexpected comes up, or a big bill or something
like that. Oh, now I need to put
(33:04):
it back on the credit card, and I'm stuck in this cycle.
Um, and so by actually going
in, deal with the income, grant expenses. Is my income
granted expenses? Have I got enough set aside for my known
expenses? Have I got enough set aside for my unknown expenses in
my rainy day fund? At that point, I've broken the paycheck
cycle. I've also broken the need to actually have to use
a credit card. So what that means is that every dollar I then
(33:26):
pay off my personal debt, stays off my personal debt,
um, because I've got everything else covered
up above. Um, and I've. My clients
in the last five years have paid off over $18 million
in credit card debt simply by following that
process.
>> Anthony Weaver (33:42):
That's amazing. That's definitely amazing. I mean,
congrats to you and your process. I love it. Um, that
is something that. I never looked at it that way, but
I guess we all do. We both pretty much do the same thing for
our clients. And that it's. I like your
visual aspect of it. I'm definitely going to have to try
that one, if you don't mind me stealing it.
>> Phil McGilray (34:02):
No, mate, go for it. It helps people. And,
um, it's. It's as said, because I've been doing
this for so long, you basically develop these
processes, this, uh, that. That help you
explain things to people so they understand.
Oh, okay. This is the step I'm up to. I need to
do this first, and then. And then what do I need to do to move the
next step? And it just makes it so much
(34:24):
simpler. So, yeah, go for it.
>> Anthony Weaver (34:26):
Thanks.
Are, uh, you ready for the final four questions?
>> Phil McGilray (34:29):
All right, let's go for it.
>> Anthony Weaver (34:38):
Cool. So question number one. What does
wealth mean to you?
>> Phil McGilray (34:45):
Wealth means to me,
um, the
opportunity to make a difference.
I'm not a big believer in wealth for wealth's
sake. Um, and I know a lot of people are,
but, you know, having worked with, like, when I was a, you know,
my stockbroking firm, I had clients that were worth
(35:06):
millions and millions and millions of dollars, and.
And they were just as unhappy as the next person. In
some cases, they were, you know, more so unhappy. And
the thing is, too. And the sad thing was a lot of my clients, I
saw a lot of my clients get very wealthy, and then, you know, they pass on,
and then they give it to their kids and the kids just blow it.
And so wealth to me is the opportunity to make.
(35:26):
Make a difference and to be able to obviously support my family
and to live, uh, you know, a happy,
comfortable, fulfilled life. But
the greatest joy for us. And I, I truly believe this, the
greatest joy in having money is using it to change the lives of
others. Um, over the years, we've been able to give.
I haven't added it all up, but, um,
(35:47):
probably at least hundreds of thousands of dollars, but it'd be probably
millions to. To causes we care about. And
we've been, you know, Cambodia and visited the water and
sanitation Projects and those sorts of things. And you know, one of
my biggest dreams is actually to be able to, of the
entrepreneurs that I work with or the families that I work with is to get them
to the point where they go, well, let's go with Phil
(36:08):
to one of these projects and actually let's help build houses
and do things and so that they get an experience of a
third world country, but also the difference we can make with
relatively small amounts of money. Um,
so that's, that's. Sorry, that's what it means for me. I'm not a big
believer in accumulating for the sake of accumulating.
>> Anthony Weaver (36:25):
Yeah, we might have to catch up offline to,
to do that because I would actually like to be part of that project
as well.
>> Phil McGilray (36:32):
Um, yeah, absolutely, yeah, absolutely, yeah. Please contact.
Let's have a chat about it at some point. Yeah, yeah.
>> Anthony Weaver (36:38):
Um, number two, what was your worst money
mistake?
>> Phil McGilray (36:42):
Oh, mate, there
is so many. There are so many. Um,
and can I say to anyone listening to
this, one of the reasons money is such a
big taboo topic in our society is because
we walk around thinking that everyone else has
got them themselves sorted out when it comes to money.
(37:02):
Um, and we think we're the only one that's got these
money problems or that we don't know how to do it. And we made all these stupid
mistakes and we're embarrassed, we're ashamed,
where, you know, we're fearful and anxious
and yet. And then because of that, we don't want to talk to
anyone about it. Please let me tell you.
And again, this is 10 years or sorry, 30,
(37:22):
35 years plus of experience. But,
um, the,
um, there was something I was gonna say with the 10
there, um, 35 years experience. And
I can tell you everyone has
made stupid mistakes with their money and they're not
stupid because I say that I probably shouldn't use the word stupid,
their mistakes. Because we don't know any better. No one
(37:45):
has else has taught us any better. So I have
made mistakes with six figures behind
it on at least three occasions. So.
Okay, so, so big, big, big, big,
big mistakes, uh, investment mistakes.
Um, like I've made a couple of really big investment
mistakes, um, that are,
(38:05):
ah. And some of it was just,
believe it or not, some of it was just immaturity and
greedy trying to get in on a really good opportunity
that wasn't, um, you know,
often the financial institutions that engineer these products,
like we had this, um, big
investment firm here in Australia, um,
right before the global recession back in
(38:28):
2009. That it engineered this, this product
so that even if the market was a bit like selling a Titanic, I
think they said that even if the marks were really, really dump,
you would still do okay. And we built all these,
these things into the product so that it was financially
engineered so that it couldn't fail. Then the, the financial
crisis hit and it failed in a big,
(38:48):
spectacular way. You know, it wasn't supposed to sink,
but it did. Um, so, you know, I
think, um, and every time, my
belief is every time we either chase the get rich
quick the dream, or we chase
something that has been financially engineered and structured
to be the perfect product, you're going to lose money.
(39:08):
I think every time you move away from the basics of
simple, you know, index funds,
uh, you're going to get yourself, you
know, I really believe the index funds are the way.
Um, but every time you try something that looks
like it's too good to be true, it probably is.
>> Anthony Weaver (39:27):
Been there. So.
>> Phil McGilray (39:29):
Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Yeah, that's right.
>> Anthony Weaver (39:32):
We might have to put a whole another episode.
Like, I might have to start taking that question
out and make that, like, the middle question, because
this one gets the most, I guess you could say energy.
>> Phil McGilray (39:43):
Um, yeah.
>> Anthony Weaver (39:43):
And I really think, because we have so many of them to
go through, but.
>> Phil McGilray (39:47):
Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Yeah, exactly right. I
could give you a list as long as it hugs my, um, arm of mistakes
that I've made. And so, yeah, for everyone out
there, uh, even the financial experts actually make
mistakes, but they just make them bigger. So. So,
uh, please don't worry about yours.
>> Anthony Weaver (40:05):
Okay.
Number three. Uh, is there a book that
inspired your journey or changed your
perspective?
>> Phil McGilray (40:13):
Is there a book that inspire. I mean, obviously I love Dave
Ramsey's books. Um, I was, I was fortunate when
I was over there in my Winston Churchill fellowship to spend
some time with Dave Ramsey and some of his team,
um, a few years back there. Um, I love
what they do. I absolutely love what they do.
Um, I did start, though, before
Dave Ramsey, I think, from memory. So, uh,
(40:35):
mind you, he's obviously done a brilliant job of marketing himself and making
a difference to the world. Um, the,
um, the. The book that I've
read more recently, and I'd encourage everyone to have a read
of it. It's called the Psychology of Money.
>> Anthony Weaver (40:51):
Um, great book.
>> Phil McGilray (40:52):
Yeah, A brilliant book. Like, in terms of just
breaking the basics down. Like, I, I really
love this book because unlike that, there's a lot of books out,
um, that are very hypey and very
much the influencer uh,
age type books and I'm not a big fan of them.
Um, but this book talks
(41:13):
so clearly about,
um, just the mistakes and the thinking and
the, and, and, and
yeah, just the mistakes we fall into on a day to day
basis and, and how to actually recognize them for what
they are so that you can avoid them. Um, and
in the, at the heart of it is such a simple message. You
(41:34):
know, spend less than you earn and invest wisely. Like
it's, it's not rocket science. So, uh,
yeah, fantastic. But I'd encourage anyone to have a read
of it.
>> Anthony Weaver (41:43):
And if a book doesn't talk about those two things,
it's not a financial book, so.
>> Phil McGilray (41:48):
No, that's right. No, that's exactly right.
>> Anthony Weaver (41:51):
Um, the only thing I don't like about his book is that he didn't do
a woman's perspective. He only talked
about from the male side of the house. So if there's a lady
listening right now, if you think you can
write from a woman's perspective, I think that would actually be
a really great opportunity to
say, um, number four,
(42:12):
what is your favorite dish to make?
>> Phil McGilray (42:16):
Ah, I'm a real sweet tooth. So I, I know you're
probably talking about mate. I mean I love pizza.
Okay. But I'm a real sweet. So actually
chocolate pudding is my favorite. Uh, my, my
favorite dish to make. Yes. I'm, I love my chocolate
and I do a lot of running. So it,
I think I run so that I can eat these days. I think
that's how it works. But uh,
(42:39):
yeah, chocolate pudding. But, um, but like any
kind of pizza, pretty much. Um, and I
know here in Australia we had influences
from all over the world. So
um, we don't really have anything that's
typical Australian other than just the barbecue.
Um, but yeah, pizza
would be it for me.
>> Anthony Weaver (42:59):
Nice.
Uh, so this is going to be the last question of the show, which is
where could people find out more about you?
>> Phil McGilray (43:07):
Um, well, depends if they're, if they're looking at
personal finances, then I, I have
grandma's jars dot com. Um,
which is like grandma's jars as in glass jars.
Um, that's where I have all my personal finance stuff. If
it's business finance and it's phil
mcgilray.com and I assume they'll be
in the show notes, but I know the spelling of that's a bit, bit wiggly.
(43:29):
Um, but Phil mcgilray.com from a business
perspective.
>> Anthony Weaver (43:32):
Uh, perfect. And Phil, thank you so much for
your insight giving us the thrive, uh, protocol, understanding
and really having us understand the
pure basics of, uh, from
personal and business side of the house. So if you're
listening to this and you think that you want to take action
today, please go ahead on and save this
(43:52):
episode. Share with somebody. Share with somebody that you want to start a
business with. I think this will be a great
opportunity for you all to take
yourself to that next level. And all
means y' all be safe. Yeah.
>> Phil McGilray (44:06):
Peace.
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