Mrs Mummypenny Talks Podcast Ep 9 – Why is the 9-5 Over? Sammie Ellard-King – Up The Gains

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Lynn Beattie (00:01.387)
Hi everybody and welcome back to Mrs. Mummy Penny Talks. And we are now on to episode nine. And the guest I have with me today is, I have a guest every week, we’ve got Sammie from Up The Gains. So thank you ever so much for joining me on my podcast, season six, which is The Big Questions.

Sammie (00:22.67)
Thanks, Lynn. I’m really excited to be here. How you doing?

Lynn Beattie (00:26.443)
I am very good. Thank you. I’m very excited to have you on because I’ve listened to lots of your podcasts and I think you’ve got a really great interview style. So if you’re good at interviewing people, you’ll be good at answering questions as well. So what we’re going to talk about is a perfect, perfect big question for you because of what you do with your business is why is the nine to five over? And you actually suggested this and

I think it’s such a brilliant topic to talk about. But before we go into the nuts and bolts of that, give me a bit of an introduction to you and where you’ve come from and why you do what you do. What is your why?

Sammie (01:08.718)
love that question to start off, Lin. So my why is time, freedom and creativity and positivity. They’re my three non -negotiables. So I create my business to be able to drive those three things. That was something that I put in place around about two years ago. And now absolutely everything I do stems from that. But money is definitely the byproduct of that to be able to allow me to have those things.

Lynn Beattie (01:32.431)
I’m sorry.

Sammie (01:35.918)
so I put up a post about this yesterday about what does wealth mean to you? You know, some people go, a million pounds. And, you know, other people go, yeah, I want time freedom. So they don’t even mention the word money. So it’s very interesting, but.

Lynn Beattie (01:43.563)
Yeah.

Sammie (01:49.646)
My journey was not your typical, I’m not an accountant. I’m not trained in finance in any way. I’m self -taught completely. I came from 24 ,000 pounds in debt in my mid twenties. I had an aha moment on a beach in Vietnam, which was paid for by a credit card and like very 35.

Lynn Beattie (02:08.299)
How old are you now?

Sammie (02:12.462)
Yeah. So mid twenties had that moment. So a decade now of kind of like learning everything there was to know about money understood very quickly that the whole market was like Americans or needed an Oxford dictionary and started to help people. And that was like friends and family. And then it was like friends of friends, of friends, of friends, of friends, of friends. And it just kind of kept growing. And then I was like, actually there really is a business here. We, we need to do something about this. Cause there’s Martin Lewis at the time.

Everyone knows Martin, he’s amazing for what he does, but isn’t necessarily relevant to absolutely everyone. So I felt like there wasn’t really anyone driving the younger people, younger generations at the time. Now I’ve come to find obviously there’s a fantastic financial community out there, but yeah, at the time there wasn’t. And so I jumped head first into, and my slogan for my business is helping Britain get financially fit. So it’s kind of taking that fitness, that fitness angle.

Lynn Beattie (02:50.827)
Mm.

Lynn Beattie (03:07.851)
that’s cool. That’s so my my straplight is healthy wealth, body and mind.

Sammie (03:14.19)
cool like that too yeah

Lynn Beattie (03:17.579)
Because you’re right, like there’s so many similarities between money and physical health, but mental health because it’s like

Money’s not gonna make you happy, okay? But money gives you choices. And if you don’t have any money, then you probably are gonna be, you might be unhappy. And you may well have mental health issues. If you’re in 24 grand worth of debt or 16 grand worth of debt that I was, I definitely had mental health issues when you have that much uncontrollable.

I don’t know how I’m going to pay the mortgage next month kind of thoughts. So yeah, I think we have to talk about the whole suite of money, body and mind.

Sammie (03:57.358)
Yeah.

Sammie (04:03.982)
I completely agree with you. And look, there was a study came out by a doctor at the NHS that said 91 % of stress related illnesses usually have something to do with money thrown in there. And that is for me an enormous thing that we’re obviously a large portion of this country is battling with. We have an increase in stress related illnesses. We have an increase in costs and there’s very much a marriage there in terms of how people are feeling on a day to day. So if you can actually get someone’s mindset right and their money right.

Lynn Beattie (04:15.979)
There we go.

Lynn Beattie (04:28.235)
Hmm.

Sammie (04:33.888)
at the same time, the kind of cocktail when it comes together is extremely powerful.

Lynn Beattie (04:39.435)
Yeah, can I just ask, so I just want to ask you a little bit about debt, because it would be really relevant to people listening, because so many people are in debt, and maybe the level you were, maybe the level I was in debt, but you said you had a light bulb moment. What was that moment? What made you think, my gosh, let me add this up, I need to pay it back?

Sammie (04:45.838)
Mmm.

Sammie (04:54.35)
Yeah.

Sammie (05:02.798)
Yeah, so great question.

Great, great question. I tell this story to everyone because it does actually set off light bulb moments in a lot of people. So basically my friend of mine, we were sitting on a beach. His name’s Callum, he’s an absolute legend and he was doing really, really well for himself. All of our mates look up to him. We call him the chairman just because he’s just got his **** together basically. But he’s also a top bloke, a really top bloke. And he said to me, when do you want to retire? And you know, being 20 youngs in my

And he’s like, yeah, you know, 50 would be nice. And he said, well, when do you want to pass away? And I said, well, you know, I’d love to get to 80. That’d be nice, wouldn’t it? You know, good innings and that, you know, I think anything less and I’d be disappointed, you know, kind of thing. And he went, all right, cool. Well, you know, that’s 30 years. How much are you spending a year at the moment? I said, you know, about 30 grand, I think. And he said, right, well, take that 30 grand and times up by 30 years, that’s £900 ,000. Do you have that? And I went, I went,

Lynn Beattie (05:43.723)
Yeah.

Lynn Beattie (05:48.715)
Mmm.

Lynn Beattie (06:01.931)
my god.

Sammie (06:04.526)
And I hadn’t told anybody about my debt. It had been rising. I hadn’t told my partner at the time. I hadn’t told my mum, my friends, family. It was completely like a hidden thing because I was kind of basically keeping up with the Joneses mentality of like, my friends are out, my friends bought new trainers, my friends went on.

Lynn Beattie (06:10.923)
Awesome, eh?

Sammie (06:23.054)
day I had to and I was well paid in my job. I was doing very, very well. So, you know, like I wasn’t really worried about it at all. It was just like hanging in the background. What I thought I didn’t worry about it. That’s the main thing. You kind of put these mental blockers in place that it doesn’t exist. And then all of a sudden I just pulled out to my friend Callum and he told me to read this book and it was

how to achieve financial independence and retire early. It’s an audible course by J .D. Roth, really, really easy to read. He also was massively deep in debt and now goes around the world teaching people how to go from debt to like high net worth in a matter of like a decade or two. And I just listened to this book and I was like, whoa, that’s it.

Lynn Beattie (07:02.507)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Sammie (07:09.966)
Life is different for me now. I am a new person. so I did have a very like big epiphany kind of moment, which it happens to some people later in life. And it’s totally fine if that does happen to you in later in life. And it’s not necessarily about timing. It just happened to happen to me at that time. And I was very lucky to have the friend that I did. but yeah, I’ve known people that this has happened to in their fifties and their thirties and their forties.

Lynn Beattie (07:17.131)
Mmm.

Lynn Beattie (07:27.307)
Hmm.

Sammie (07:37.678)
but it will happen to you at some point and then you’ll suddenly go, I need to get my chat in order. And so I did and that was where the journey began for me.

Lynn Beattie (07:49.067)
That’s amazing. I mean, what a friend. Like, what an amazing friend. And that’s a really important thing to say, actually, is because I, we’ve got a very similar journey, except that I had the epiphany at the age of 40, and it was turning 40, which did it for me. I think you…

Sammie (07:53.486)
Yeah.

Lynn Beattie (08:09.771)
You just sort of get caught up in your own world of your nine to five job, which, you know, before lockdown, a lot of us were doing. And you sort of think, well, this is how my life’s gonna be. Like, I’m gonna earn, I mean, I had a, I was an accountant, so I was earning like really good money in my 20s and 30s. You know, I’m bringing in whatever, four or five grand a month. Okay, it’s just a matter of life that I have to pay 500 of that.

to debt. But then my life significantly changed and I became self -employed when I was 37 and sort of buried my head in the sand for a few years and then eventually took my head out and was like yeah now you’ve got 16 grand worth of debt and you spent all the redundancy money you got from EE. You’re in a bit of a mess Lin. But it’s just I just think we get so used to the life ladder.

Sammie (08:41.134)
Mmm.

Lynn Beattie (09:08.267)
you know, the traditional outlook of life, which is you go to school, you get some qualifications, then you go get a job, then you get married, then you have babies and you get a mortgage. Like, and I have totally broken free from that life ladder stuff because, and the biggest thing that, the thing for me was paying off my debt. Two months later, I

split from my ex -husband because he partly caused the death, but anyway that’s a whole other story. And I’ve broken the life ladder because I just needed to, I needed to change it. I would never go back to nine to five. I worked the hours I won and I love my job. I’m very privileged to be able to do that and I had to go through the pain, but yeah, it sounds like very similar to you and you had that epiphany at like 25, which is amazing.

Sammie (09:42.542)
You

Sammie (09:48.878)
Reset.

Sammie (09:54.094)
Yeah.

Sammie (10:05.742)
I was lucky. I was lucky because I think if I hadn’t had that chat on that beach in that moment in time, I’d probably, I would probably say I may even still be doing that now and I’d never have come on this entire path. So it’s amazing what happens to people with different moments and then

Lynn Beattie (10:09.323)
Yeah.

Sammie (10:26.446)
like one tiny fate moment in history just like turns you into a different person. Because if you’d had said to me 10 years ago, you’d be teaching personal finance and you’d reached over 150 million people in 2024. I’d be like, what the hell are you talking about? Like, there’s just no way it’s going to happen. but here we are. And so, yeah, but I wouldn’t change it for the world, you know, like now both of us are on a mission to like seriously help as many people as we possibly can. And

Lynn Beattie (10:41.291)
Yeah.

Lynn Beattie (10:48.715)
Yeah.

Sammie (10:55.982)
what that’s done is created lifestyle businesses for ourselves at the same time, which is kind of cool.

Lynn Beattie (10:56.139)
Yeah.

Lynn Beattie (11:01.611)
Yeah, so like I’m really intrigued to understand your sort of growth as you know up the gains because I You’ve only really come on to like so I’ve been going for 11 years. I’ve been around forever. I am I am I am Martin Lewis, but I’m a woman and And I’ve been in loads of debt and I’m not a millionaire. So I’m a lot more Renatable, let’s just say

Sammie (11:08.558)
Hmm.

Sammie (11:24.078)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Lynn Beattie (11:27.435)
And by the way, I also think it’s really important to have experienced financial difficulties when you are a personal finance expert, which we are, because you know the struggle, you know the mental health issues, and you are authentic because you’ve been through it, right?

Sammie (11:46.222)
Mm -hmm.

Lynn Beattie (11:47.115)
No offense to all these financial advisors and staff who pretend they’ve got loads of money, because I know the average salary for a financial advisor is around £50 ,000 a year, which isn’t…

you know, it’s all right, but it’s not amazing, amazing money. Yeah, I just think it’s really, if you’re getting some kind of guidance from a person in the online world, it’s make sure they’ve got, you know, the things to back them up, that they’ve got the experience, they’ve got qualifications, because, and I know that you’ve talked about this online, I think a lot of us are talking about it online, is there’s a lot of people out there who are just spouting off ****, and they don’t know what they’re talking about.

You need to be really careful who you listen to online. Just a bit of a warning there. But yeah, just tell me about what’s happened in the last couple of years, because you’ve got like so many followers on Instagram.

Sammie (12:32.334)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sammie (12:41.39)
It’s been explosive growth. Yeah, it has really been explosive growth in the last sort of six months. But we’ve kind of built the foundations. So I’ve been in marketing for 15 years now. And so we’ve taken multiple startups from zero to multi million, sold them on, etc. And like, I’ve kind of got that startup mentality.

Lynn Beattie (13:07.243)
Yeah.

Sammie (13:07.598)
of just like being in the trenches and then all of a sudden seeing hockey stick growth. and that is what happens in business. Like when they say overnight success takes 10 years, it really does. It is true. but usually in year three of a business, that’s when you start to see exponential growth. If you’ve been building everything right. is that, is that what you’ve seen as well?

Lynn Beattie (13:29.611)
You are so right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s like, it’s like a pattern, isn’t it?

Sammie (13:34.51)
Yeah, it is exactly every single business follows the same thing, right? So year one, you lucky if you break even user money, you know, you make a **** ton of mistakes and you figure it out, right? You just get through. It’s usually very difficult. That’s where all your gray hairs come from. And then you to you make a bit of money, suddenly you’re starting to get a bit of traction. You figure stuff out, you might get a couple of your first couple of deals in or you launch your first product and it does quite well and

Lynn Beattie (13:52.107)
Yeah.

Lynn Beattie (14:01.099)
Yeah.

Sammie (14:03.022)
because you’ve learned from your first product launch, which failed in the first year, for example. And then, you know, suddenly you’ve got a bigger mailing list, a larger community, people understand you. And most importantly, they don’t start to trust you. No matter what industry you’re in, this is the exact same pattern. Trust becomes a factor here. You’re not just a new kid on the block anymore. They see they’ve seen you more than seven times, which is what it takes for someone to purchase or believe in you.

Lynn Beattie (14:16.811)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Sammie (14:28.302)
And then, yeah, year three, you see this exponential growth and that’s kind of exactly what’s happened. And it’s just been really interesting to see when it’s on my own business rather than somebody else’s money. And I’m now like, hugely pushing the mantra that I do believe anybody can do this as well, because we kind of

Lynn Beattie (14:39.819)
Yeah

Sammie (14:55.95)
going back to the original conversation of like, you go to school, you get in a mortgage, you do, what we’ve done is trained people since 1939. Henry Ford and, and JD Rockefeller put in place the school system. It’s very much similar to that today, which was designed to create yes men factory workers, essentially, which go into a corporate lifestyle. Women now as well, like

Lynn Beattie (15:01.963)
You

Lynn Beattie (15:19.485)
Yes, women.

Sammie (15:24.11)
Wow, that’s, that’s been a massive development, right? As well, women are now included in education in a lot of ways, but that, and the still though, the same thing happens to women is the outcome is that they just go into work. There’s no entrepreneurial mindset. It’s designed to create workers for the entrepreneurs, for the businessman, which is usually the rich and the upper class in a lot of cases. Right. So I am hugely against that.

because what that does is puts people on autopilot within fed debt.

in terms of mortgage credit cards and the way that society’s laid out to then essentially create a system where you’re stuck in a loop and you require your nine to five salary to pay back the banks and the credit cards. And so you feel trapped in terms of your life, which then puts you on autopilot, which then creates mental problems. And that’s why you see 50 year olds driving around in red sports cars because they have like midlife crisis. So that’s how it works.

And I just came across this stat and it’s like 90 % of people hate their jobs. And I was like, right, we’ve got a cost of living crisis and nine out of 10 people hating where they work. We need to do something about this and show people. And the interesting thing is when the press is that they say, so they, there’s, it’s a lie by the way, that 66 % of businesses fell in their first three years. That’s not true. It’s 18 .4%. And even when they spin them,

Lynn Beattie (16:29.451)
You nailed it.

Sammie (16:57.134)
the numbers in the press, they say a whopping 18 .4%. That is less than four and five. So you tell me four out of five ideas that you could have and you could start a business will work or we’ll do okay. And you won’t take that risk. That’s an extremely good bet in my opinion. So we need more business owners. We need more people to start taking risks. We need more people to step out of their autopilot and realize that they have been programmed.

Lynn Beattie (17:17.547)
Yeah, totally.

Lynn Beattie (17:22.635)
Hmm.

Sammie (17:27.15)
And I really want to try and change as many people there because if we can get more business owners, more ideas, it fuels the economy and also creates a happier and more rich lifestyle for our society.

Lynn Beattie (17:41.358)
I, amen. I love, I just love, love, love that message and we are so aligned. I absolutely love it. I am so happy with my job and what I do and I know you are as well and because it comes across in the Instagram stories you put out, you know, you’re just having a little chat when you’re out for a walk.

Sammie (17:43.502)
Hahaha

Sammie (17:57.71)
Hmm.

Lynn Beattie (18:08.395)
And why do, why do I love my job? I mean, you, you probably have different reasons, but I’ve literally got the best job in the world because I’m saving millions of people loads of money and particularly women, cause I am more women focused. Women are still not

focused on enough in the financial world with banks and insurance companies and investment companies and all the rest of it. They are still run mostly by white male middle class men. This is the reality, you know, there’s still a massive gender pay gap, there’s a massive pension gap, there’s a massive ****** credit rating gap, there’s a massive debt gap.

Sammie (18:34.062)
100%.

Lynn Beattie (18:55.019)
And this is not gonna change in our generation, not my kids’ generation, probably not even my grandkids’ generation, and it makes me absolutely sick. But there are some really good people out there, like you and I, who are working our ****** arses off and talking to the government and lobbying and influencing…

Sammie (19:02.734)
Yeah.

Lynn Beattie (19:18.347)
that unfortunately that’s often the way you have to go is lobbying the people who actually make decisions but we’re so damn powerful with our social media numbers that

Sammie (19:18.926)
policy.

Yeah.

Lynn Beattie (19:30.123)
the government are having to turn around now and say, okay, we need to listen to Mr. Money Jar. We need to listen to, you know, Abbie from LMP Finance and people like us, because between us, we’ve got millions and millions of followers. So I just think, I think it’s absolutely brilliant, that message. And we need to get out of this life ladder way of thinking, because it doesn’t make you happy.

Sammie (19:57.614)
No, it doesn’t. It doesn’t, so.

Lynn Beattie (19:59.947)
and what I’ve got a fly which is really annoying me and it’s

Sammie (20:07.246)
Hahaha

Lynn Beattie (20:09.899)
But what it did to me was I just ended up wanting to break the model and I destroyed my life as you would know it to get out of that model. So, I mean, it wasn’t a great relationship I had with my ex -husband, but I ended it because I needed to change my life. I needed to reinvent myself because yeah, being an accountant working for EE or HSBC, brilliant, you earn loads of money, but you’re a yes woman or a yes man.

Sammie (20:14.894)
Yeah.

Lynn Beattie (20:39.853)
and when you run your own business, I mean, we should talk about what you think the advantages of running your own business are and the disadvantages because it’s not easy.

Sammie (20:53.23)
No, absolutely. Just to be clear, it’s very much not. But going back to what you said about you almost having that kind of burning in the bridges moment, old me’s shedding out almost just like a snake like shedding that old skin and coming out, right? Like, it’s very common for that to happen. But

Lynn Beattie (21:05.707)
Yeah.

Sammie (21:12.686)
It’s extremely painful. I’m sure that year or two for you, it was, it was probably the hardest of your life, but it made you into the human that you are today. Yeah, I can only imagine. And so yeah, people can kind of, kind of stop that happening to themselves by doing a really simple exercise. And it’s called Ikigai. It’s a Japanese technique to essentially find your purpose in life, but equally as well what you can be paid for.

Lynn Beattie (21:16.331)
It still is. It never ends.

Sammie (21:39.374)
It doesn’t necessarily mean you need to come up with a business idea. It could be a changing career, which is totally fine too, if that’s your purpose and what will make you happy. And essentially it’s a really simple exercise. It’s four rings that interconnect. One, the first being what you love. The second being what you’re good at. Then you look at those two and where they connect. And then you take the winner from that part of the exercise and you put it into what the world needs. So this could be

during in that space, what the world needs, where are the things that people need help with in the world along with that area that you violated. And the last thing is how you can be paid for that. And that will lead you to a career path or a business idea, which you one, absolutely love to you’re relatively good at or can up skill in because you love it. So you’re happy to up skill in that area. And then three, you can be paid for it. And also you’re going to help people or serve people in some particular way.

Lynn Beattie (22:36.203)
That’s so simple.

Sammie (22:38.254)
It’s really simple and it’s honestly the most powerful thing. Anyone listening to this can do it. You just kind of a lot of blokes that do this struggle. So if there are people listening to this blokes, what I’ll say to you is just let your ego go. And even, even women as well, just let your ego go. Whatever comes out, comes out. There’s not, it’s not designed to trip you up in any way. This is designed to really just unpack who you are as an individual, but equally as well.

give you something that you can do and latch onto. So if we then get up every single morning, we’re working towards something that we absolutely enjoy, even if that’s 30 minutes a day at the beginning, because you know, you have a mortgage and two kids and a car on finance, so you can’t necessarily just burn the bridge. But you can start working towards it and make yourself a plan once you’ve got that purpose in life. So yeah, what was the original question? I forgot, I just went off on a tangent. So I think it was the…

Lynn Beattie (23:29.451)
Mmm.

Thank you.

The question was, share what you think the advantages of being self -employed are and the disadvantages.

Sammie (23:37.454)
Go ahead.

Sammie (23:45.39)
Right. Yes. So, I’m not, I’m not against the nine to five. I’m against the people inside the nine to five that are doing it for the sake of doing it rather than necessarily being happy in it. We need people to make glasses, the chairs that we sit in, deliver our things. We, this fuels the economy. So I’m not against that at all in any way, but I am, I am pro self -employment simply because I feel like there is a lot more power and

that area and you can exponentially grow your wealth. Rather than being told what you’re worth by your employer or your payer, essentially is what it used to be called. And so for me, self -employment has the advantages of, for example, this morning, my morning has consisted of me popping to the PT, dropping in, getting a match from my favorite coffee thing, coming back, having a shower, taking a dog round the block.

And then jumping on a podcast with Lynn and then I’m going to do a bit of emails. It’s a bit hot this afternoon and at five o ‘clock I’m off to play golf. So like that’s not a typical Wednesday for me just to be clear, but that’s what’s the reality. You know, it doesn’t, but then this sun Saturday and Sunday, I was doing a product launch with three workshops this weekend. So I was extremely busy. And so I’ve then let myself have Wednesday as my day of just like a little bit, right. Just calm down a little bit.

Lynn Beattie (24:50.155)
It’s a good day.

Sammie (25:10.35)
But if I want to go to the gym and 11 o ‘clock or three o ‘clock or two o ‘clock, I can because I control my time. there are, when you start a business, you’re doing 16, 18 hour days to get it off the ground. And if you really, if you really want it to get off the ground, a lot of the times that’s what you need to do. But if you’ve done your itch guy and you love what you do, it’s really not a chore for me. This business is like playing Xbox two, four, seven, three, six, five. I’m like in my dream.

So I’m and also I’m having impact on people. And when you hear the impact you’re creating, it fuels you even more and you want to do more. And so yes, my partner will tell me I work too much, but then I turn around and say to her, like, you know, this is like a hobby for me. I find business really fun. And so that’s the benefits. The negatives are, especially as a solo business owner, it can be quite lonely. So

Lynn Beattie (25:43.243)
Yeah.

Lynn Beattie (25:57.483)
Yeah.

Sammie (26:05.454)
integrating yourself back into society. I did shut myself in a room for six months. That’s not healthy for you. you can burn out because no one’s telling you not to work. So you do have to just kind of be conscious about your health alongside that too. Yes, there is certain elements of sacrifice with social life and et cetera at the beginning, but let’s come back now tenfold because my business is, is going, I have systems in place. I’m ahead of time. I’m planning. I’ve planned everything. And now.

Lynn Beattie (26:14.987)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Lynn Beattie (26:33.483)
Yeah.

Sammie (26:33.902)
If I want to just take a day off, I really just could, but I don’t want to because I love it. Right. So there’s, there’s a balance I’m playing with, but that’s kind of the both sides of the coin. and yeah, sorry.

Lynn Beattie (26:40.811)
Yeah.

Lynn Beattie (26:49.867)
I’ll add in when you’ve got children. So I’ve got three boys who are 16, 14 and 11. And I think one of the catalysts for me giving up the corporate world was

what’s the point of having children if you’re not going to spend time with them and my elder. But I think you have to also bear in mind that I saw I was an accountant, you know, working for EE at the time in Paddington. So I had an hour and a quarter commute to get into London. I absolutely hated it. I had

Sammie (27:08.59)
Yeah, yeah, totally, totally agree.

Lynn Beattie (27:25.803)
I had a female boss who didn’t have kids who hated me because I was trying to do the career and the family thing and I was actually doing it really well but she in a meeting I was really upset because I’d missed like a sports day or something because of work and she was like you need to choose between your family and your career.

Sammie (27:47.502)
god, why man?

Lynn Beattie (27:50.379)
But the thing is, Sammie, is the worst comments often come from women who are trying to play in a man’s world. Or work in a man’s world. Which, yes, I wouldn’t recommend that. But I am…

Sammie (27:57.774)
resentment, right? Isn’t it? Surely.

Lynn Beattie (28:08.427)
I’ve lost my train of thought now because my son’s just walked in. It was, yeah, talking about, so that literally was the epiphany of why I needed to quit the rat race was that conversation with that woman. And I just made a mental note in my head then, right, I’m leaving this company and I am going to leave with money. So six months later, I’d got a compromise agreement sorted, which was like 40 grand. You know, I was, I am worth it. Like I had a…

Sammie (28:11.278)
Haha.

Sammie (28:18.318)
Yeah.

Sammie (28:27.022)
Yeah.

Sammie (28:33.902)
Nice.

Lynn Beattie (28:38.155)
high salary and I had like four or five years service. And most of that’s tax free, because the first 30 grand is tax free of redundancy. And yeah, I was like, right, I’ve got 40 grand now. I’m not going to pay off my mortgage with it, which is what risk adverse people would maybe do. I went straight to Prada and I bought myself a beautiful Prada bag, which was 1 ,200 pounds.

Sammie (28:47.246)
nice.

Sammie (28:57.518)
Yes.

Sammie (29:05.806)
That’s up to you, that’s ******* great. I love that. You’ve always wanted it right? As a reward to yourself, if you didn’t do that with some of that money, that would have been a really silly not to if that’s what you really wanted. Yeah.

Lynn Beattie (29:06.955)
And then…

Lynn Beattie (29:11.755)
I love Prada, I’m sorry but I do and I’m not gonna apologize.

Lynn Beattie (29:23.855)
Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I maybe went a little bit over the top. Like we went to Las Vegas and blah, blah, blah. So, but I had this pot of money that I knew would keep me going for a certain amount of time whilst I was building my business, because I was the breadwinner at the time. So, you know, 40 grand.

Sammie (29:28.174)
The fuelities and stuff.

it’s standard, right cool. Yeah yeah.

Lynn Beattie (29:48.011)
even when it’s tax free, it doesn’t actually last that long when you live in the South East and your mortgage is a thousand pounds a month and three boys. So, yeah, the money, I’d done my sums, I worked out the money would last me two years, but it didn’t. It actually only lasted me 18 months. My business, as you say, year one of Mrs. Mummy Penny was five grand turnover, obviously made a loss. Year two,

Sammie (29:50.894)
No. And you’ve got three boys. Yeah.

Lynn Beattie (30:17.965)
was like 20 grand turnover still made a loss and it wasn’t until year three so it literally does follow that exact model you and I are both proven examples and but yeah I just wasn’t earning enough money and that’s where the the bill the debt really racked up but yeah it’s it’s just I I’m a believer in

Sammie (30:31.918)
Hmm.

Sammie (30:36.974)
but you’re here.

Lynn Beattie (30:42.859)
sort of epiphany moments and reinvention of yourself because we’re only on this planet once and…

Sammie (30:49.582)
Yeah, exactly.

Lynn Beattie (30:51.371)
People who listen to me regularly know that I talk about death quite a lot because like my parents died when they were 58 and 63. Like I was like a teenager and okay they didn’t look after themselves. No actually that’s a lie. So my dad was, my dad fought for this country you know he was in the marines, he was in the army and then he joined the MoD so he served the country his entire life.

and he retired at 60 and then he died. So there’s no way in the world I’m gonna be in that situation. Like my 16 year old son now, that’s literally like me dropping dead tomorrow. I mean, we don’t know what’s gonna happen. I have very good life insurance in place just to point out if that so does happen, my children will become billionaires. Yeah, but do you know what I mean? Like we’re only here once.

Sammie (31:20.878)
It’s mad how that happens, isn’t it?

Sammie (31:34.926)
Same here. Yeah, legit same. Yeah.

Sammie (31:45.038)
What I will say to that though, I just think that don’t wait for that epiphany moment. Like a lot of people wait for it to happen to them. And you could be waiting until you’re 50. Like, that’s not go out and seek it. Like you know, in your gut right now listening to this. And often, we had someone on the podcast the other day, Becca Donovan. She’s amazing, by the way, you should definitely check her out for your podcast. She is

Lynn Beattie (31:52.011)
Yeah.

Sammie (32:13.742)
awesome. She’s a mindset coach. I, she said one thing to me, and I’ve been doing it now to myself since she said it, and with absolutely everything that’s holding me back. And she said, so you, when you say, you know, when you tell yourself, yeah, maybe I’ll do it soon. Ask yourself why you did that. And then don’t say it once, say it five times to yourself, because right at the bottom of it all, usually you just say, I’m actually quite scared of doing that.

And so you go like I’m doing at the moment. Like I really wanted to book this solo trip for so long. I really wanted to go on it. And I just, I don’t know why. And I’ve just been going, I’m actually, I’ve been telling myself I’m actually too busy. But when I actually got to the bottom of it, I was actually, I’m actually a little bit scared to just go and do it. I don’t know what it is. and so I, and she talks about ways as well about how you can transfer that over into like.

Lynn Beattie (32:44.427)
Yeah…

Lynn Beattie (33:03.115)
Wow.

Sammie (33:12.494)
your life, right? Like, why have you not gone and you’ve got an idea sitting around in your brain right now? Tell me why you haven’t done it. Why? because the markets too saturated. Why? because you know, I don’t know how to do the marketing. I am, you know, why because you know, these reasons why, why, why, why I’m scared. I’m scared of it. I am scared. And so when you say that to yourself, it’s totally okay, because we’re designed our brains are designed to keep

us comfortable, they don’t like routine breaks, they we have a chimp brain at the front that just likes it how it is. And as soon as you step out of that, it’s designed to go you’re going to die. What are you doing? And so if you put that in place into your life and into your finances, and you just understand, yeah, I am scared about this, but I’m going to do it anyway. And then just put the work in and you will become like you will grow exponentially.

Lynn Beattie (33:45.867)
Mmm.

Sammie (34:10.83)
when you do that. And so, yeah, I think that’s something that I would take away from that episode just because she said it to me and I’ve just been doing it. She’s great. Yeah, honestly great. And so I just was like, doing this now and everything that I’m doing and is getting to the root cause of it a lot faster. And then guess what? I booked the trip. So, you know, yeah, so it can happen. I just want to walk around the mountains in Switzerland.

Lynn Beattie (34:17.355)
I’m gonna lift her, she sounds amazing.

Lynn Beattie (34:32.203)
Where are you going?

Lynn Beattie (34:40.267)
my god.

Sammie (34:40.334)
So I just, it’s been on my Instagram feed. I follow like 10, I love like Swiss accounts or like travel invoices from Switzerland. And you know, when you just like, I always, something in me is telling me you need to go and see it. And my other half has been, so she’s not fussed. So I’m like, been saying, well I’ll just go. Cause I really like walking and like, you know, audible books. I’ll just tune out for six hours. Like no problem.

Lynn Beattie (34:54.987)
Yeah.

Lynn Beattie (35:06.379)
Yeah.

Sammie (35:08.974)
But I think I just want to go to this one point and stand there and look at this one little bit of you. So yeah, that’s that’s that’s what I’m going to do. And so yeah, it’s happening now.

Lynn Beattie (35:19.738)
My son’s trying to pour a smoothie next to me and he needs to stir it, stir it with a wooden spoon and it’ll… Anyway. What I was going to say to you was, one of my really good friends is a lawyer, she lives in Geneva and she also owns a chalet in the mountains, so I’m going to hook you up.

Sammie (35:19.95)
The lads home.

Sammie (35:28.91)
I love this, this is live in the BT household, this is quality.

Sammie (35:44.91)
cool. hell yeah, please do. I’ve been like planning out routes and stuff. I’m going to do one day in Geneva as well. So because I’ve gotten

Lynn Beattie (35:54.603)
well, no, I’ll email you with her email address and then you can, I’ll introduce you. She’s amazing. She’s called Julie. I went to university with her. That’s enough now because you’re making quite a lot of noise. So yeah, I was, what I was going to say to you was,

Sammie (35:59.534)
please do. Yes, love this. Cool. Cool. lovely.

Lynn Beattie (36:16.171)
resources. So what so the first book that jumps to my mind talking about what you’re previously talking about was the first ever self help book I ever read was Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway by Susan Jefferson. And I read it when I was 22 in working for HSBC, my first graduate job earning ****** ridiculous amount of money like when I look back and I

Sammie (36:29.102)
Brilliant.

Lynn Beattie (36:42.187)
yeah spent it all mainly on holidays and

It was such a life -changing book because it describes exactly what you’re saying. You just have to, yeah, feel the fear and do it anyway. And it’s really scary. And I’ve taken massive risks with my life. I’ve walked away from jobs. I’ve walked away from relationships. I’ve walked away from locations. And it’s not because it’s fight or flight. It’s literally, I’ve just worked out this is not working. I am not happy.

Sammie (37:07.054)
Mm -hmm.

Lynn Beattie (37:16.043)
I have to extract myself from this situation.

Sammie (37:19.694)
Yes, yes, yes. And don’t like get stuck because you’re getting a paycheck at the end of the month and that just, we’re getting paid and yeah, we’re off to Marbella in August and da da da da. And everything is rosy, but underneath it, you know, you know that something isn’t right and it will brew and it will brew and it will brew and it will brew and eventually it will go BOP. And that when that happens, that’s a lot more painful than it is if you just identify what that is now and actually do

Lynn Beattie (37:25.355)
Yeah.

Sammie (37:25.49)
Yes.

Lynn Beattie (37:30.347)
Mmm.

Sammie (37:49.262)
things in and, you know, even if it’s like taking a ****** evening course in sewing, because you love it, right? Go and do it, go and do it. No one cares. Like honestly, no one cares. No one’s going to judge you for doing what you think. And also the thing is, well, what I say is that like your friends and family won’t understand you. And that’s totally cool too. Because like, if you ask my mom now, she’ll say, what does he do? he does like some Tik Tok -y sort of stuff. That’s what, that’s what legit what she’ll say, right?

Lynn Beattie (37:55.147)
Yeah? Because you love it? Yeah.

Lynn Beattie (38:14.475)
You

Mm -mm.

Sammie (38:18.766)
But she shows you she’s not supposed to understand it. And because why? Because it’s for you. It’s not for them. And so don’t let yourself be like, these are all little things you’re going to tell yourself like the little stumbling blocks. I’m not worthy. I’m not an expert. I’m not. I’m you know, what are my friends and family going to think? I don’t know how to do that. So I’m not going to do those things. They’re all the little lies that you’re going to tell yourself to stop you doing it. But actually, you just got to go and do the work and do what makes you happy.

Lynn Beattie (38:24.363)
Mmm.

Lynn Beattie (38:34.411)
Bye.

Lynn Beattie (38:45.323)
Yeah.

Lynn Beattie (38:49.547)
absolutely love it. So what other books would you say are really inspiring that people need to read? Or not necessarily a book, maybe somebody to follow on Instagram or TikTok or…

Sammie (39:03.054)
So I really love the Chris Williams and Modern Wisdom podcast and it’s just opened my brain a little bit to how sort of world and society works. He’s a fantastic, he’s a really interesting, he was a club promoter to Love Island. He’s on the first series of Love Island and then now he has the number one mindset podcast in the entire world.

Lynn Beattie (39:09.867)
Okay.

I’m going to write that down.

Lynn Beattie (39:26.155)
Sammie (39:31.086)
So like extremely smart person, but you would have said Chris Williamson. he’s a good looking chap as well. So for the ladies, we’re looking at him at two hours on camera. You’re, you’re, yeah, you’re, you’re not going to be disappointed. I definitely, but look, he has some very interesting guests on some very controversial guests on as well. But some of the longer episodes with, you know, the likes of like Andrew Huberman and, and, and sort of your Tim Ferriss is and people like that are.

Lynn Beattie (39:33.387)
What’s he called?

Lynn Beattie (39:39.659)
Okay. Bye notes.

Sammie (40:00.814)
just eye open as to how the world and actually really does work. And so, and how our minds and our bodies are all interconnected. And so I’ve been sworn at swearing by that for the last year and it has been really, really helpful.

Lynn Beattie (40:15.083)
that’s such a good chat. My favourite podcast is The Rest Is Politics because…

Sammie (40:21.486)
cool. Someone else said this to me the other day actually, but I’ve not had it, I heard it before.

Lynn Beattie (40:26.891)
So it’s one of the most popular podcasts in the country and that’s because of Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart. They’re so, they’re so intelligent and they’re so engaging and they’re politically, you know, quite balanced. You know, Rory was a Tory, Alastair was a Labour. Although I’m not sure that Rory is a Tory anymore.

Sammie (40:30.958)
Yeah. Yeah.

Lynn Beattie (40:52.363)
because of everything that’s gone on and this is going out after the election so we will finally know what’s happening by then.

I’m so switched off by politics because it makes me so angry about the last 14 years and what a state this country is in. I’ll do a little rant because I think it’s really important. Everything is a mess. So the mental health system, the NHS, education system, the environment. I could just go on and on and on. So many things that closely impact my and your life are through the floor. I can’t even put my feet into my local

Sammie (41:19.374)
child care.

Lynn Beattie (41:31.245)
river because it’s full of **** and it just makes me so so angry that you know hopefully we can move to a world with some change but those the rest is politics podcasts they talk about these kind of issues so you understand in a one -hour slot once or once or twice a week and then they have a q a one as well and i really recommend it just to get that little fix then you don’t have to watch the news because the news is so ****** depressing

Sammie (41:42.318)
Hmm.

Lynn Beattie (42:01.165)
Thank you.

Sammie (42:01.614)
Yeah, no, I can’t. That’s another big thing for me as well. I’m on the I’m on a news sabbatical and I have been since Yeah, when is it? So three months now. And it’s great. I don’t know what’s going on and I don’t care. It’s like, and I’m very happy with that. You know, I’m choosing what I will listen to and not I do not have opinion and I don’t want to be swayed by the opinions of others and I’m just big on like

Yes, I do have some level of sway, but it’s a tiny, tiny, tiny, ordinary amount. And so I don’t want to worry about things that I have absolutely no hope in hell being able to influence or wars in all these different far remote countries from our other places. And do I think they’re wrong or right? Like, yes, of course I do. I’m a human being. I don’t want to see other human beings get hurt.

Lynn Beattie (42:45.675)
Yeah.

Sammie (42:59.47)
But I can’t influence it. So I’m not going to spend my brain power, a small amount of brain power that I have in my day, stressing and worrying over that. I’ve got my **** to deal with and the people in front of me and my family to look after. Not necessarily. So that’s what my focus is. And some people might take offense to that. And I see your point, but that’s just the way that I’ve chosen to live. And actually I’ve been, feel way more free. I feel way less cloudy. I don’t have this like.

Lynn Beattie (43:01.675)
Mm -mm. Mm -mm.

Lynn Beattie (43:12.171)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Sammie (43:27.95)
we’re all going to die and World War Three is going to kick off tomorrow, I feeling, which is what I was getting when I was just watching the news at 10 every night. And it’s like 99 .7 % of news stories are negative. So why would I do that to myself?

Lynn Beattie (43:32.971)
Yeah? Yeah, yeah.

Lynn Beattie (43:42.251)
Yeah, and I think but but also like,

The most important thing in my life is me, is my health, my mental health and my physical health. And I’m going through perimenopause and it’s really ******* hard. I can’t stabilize my hormones and so much stuff is going on that I’ve got a lot of people helping me with. And it’s my kids. That is what I am prioritizing at the moment.

Sammie (43:51.758)
Yeah.

Lynn Beattie (44:16.221)
But the great thing about the work is that it’s, it’s, the work is bigger picture, isn’t it? Because we are impacting other people’s lives in what we do. We are helping people to save money. We’re inspiring change in people. We’re giving people hope. I get so many messages from women. I’m very open and honest at talking about everything and anything.

Sammie (44:24.206)
Yeah.

Lynn Beattie (44:40.651)
I get so many messages from women who are going through divorces, who are struggling with family issues, maybe their parents have gone into care and they’re having to do everything. The mother load. The mother load is such an issue for women in current times because we are told…

Sammie (44:58.254)
And it’s usually the women, isn’t it, that do the care and do the family and do the work there. And it’s, it, you know, I think a lot of the time for me, it doesn’t go unnoticed, but it can do a lot of the time. And I think it’s important to say that, you know, I think that’s why I think you’re doing such an amazing job because you’re championing that for women.

Lynn Beattie (45:20.971)
Yeah, yeah, I’m no, I’m I absolutely I love it. But but I’m sure you get the same. The the the DMs you get from people on Instagram is where I get most of my interaction because it’s Instagram’s a friendly place. I find mostly. Yeah, I mean, I’ve been getting quite a lot of trolls for the last sort of four weeks. But then that’s because you know, I had a viral. Yeah.

Sammie (45:35.95)
Yeah, relatively, yeah.

Sammie (45:44.238)
You will learn a viral content. Yeah. I can’t have one. The buying the house one. I think it’s Yes, crazy. It’s like 4 million views. But if you go in the content, if you go in the comments, it’s just cesspit. And it’s totally fine. It’s just people just reflecting how they feel. And you’re

Lynn Beattie (45:58.987)
Yeah

Sammie (46:04.142)
never going to please everybody and you’re never going to agree with everybody. And in fact, I don’t want to. And that’s something that I’ve come to realize as a content creator, like this is how I think. And this is how it’s not necessarily how everybody else does. So coming to accept that it’s been a lesson for sure. Cause the first time you’re like here, like you’re this and you’re like, no, I’m not.

Lynn Beattie (46:27.083)
I’ve had so many people telling me I’m a **** parent. Like, that’s so offensive.

Sammie (46:30.862)
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Like it gets deep, man. It gets deep. There’s some that was me being very, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Basically, everybody part I’ve got has been called out at some point. And it’s, it’s just like, completely incredible. That people will openly say this stuff like that on the internet. But that is a small portion of a large amount of people. And actually, what we’ve done with those posts is generally

Lynn Beattie (46:43.659)
You

Sammie (47:00.718)
trying to change people’s thinking, right. So it’s, it’s, if that helps, even if it helps 10%, it’s done its job as far as I’m concerned.

Lynn Beattie (47:11.211)
Yeah, no, you’re right. You’re right. And you know, let the haters hate. I don’t care. Yeah, right. there’s right. There’s one other thing that I wanted to ask you about because I’m talking to so many people about this and learning so much about it is AI. So

Sammie (47:14.862)
Yeah.

Sammie (47:23.47)
Yeah, of course.

Sammie (47:30.83)
Okay.

Lynn Beattie (47:32.939)
I use AI in my job. So AI edits my podcast and creates social media snippets for me. And it does it in about 10 seconds. And I was going to pay an editor 50 pounds an hour to do that for me. So it’s literally saving me 150 quid per episode of my podcast. So I am a big fan of AI. How

Sammie (47:43.502)
Yeah.

Sammie (47:53.966)
Yeah.

Lynn Beattie (47:58.667)
What do you think of it and how far away do you think it is? I mean, if I’m using it like that and you are probably using it as well, it is here. It’s not in the future. It’s now.

Sammie (48:10.51)
Yeah, yeah, it’s a good question. Look, it’s going to have, it’s going to be the internet of our society. It’s the next huge thing that’s going to massively change how we work. If you think about pre internet, you know, you’d have ledgers and books and telephones and that was it, right? You need to meet me at this time. And I’m going to write my directions out on a piece of paper and look at an ordinance map while I’m driving the car and try not to crash, right? Like,

Lynn Beattie (48:29.003)
10.

Sammie (48:40.398)
That was our life pre -internet. And so the internet has come in and completely changed that. Now AI is going to be the next phase of that. And where it’s going to impact the most is generally in jobs, which are easily automated. And so if you are in a job like that, then

I would 110 % be looking to upskill yourself. So you are the one handling the AI rather than necessarily just being weighted to them being me to move into a different industry because your job has been done in a matter of seconds by a computer’s brain. So just think about that. Yes, AI is very powerful. You know, my other half is in film, a lot of the writers and editors are very worried.

about the way that things are going in that space. And so look, it’s going to happen. So it’s not something that’s going to happen now. It’s, it’ll be quite a swift change, I would imagine, I think in the next sort of five to 10 years, we’ll see an enormous difference. It’s going fast. It’s now essentially when you’ve got a language model for something, that’s when it becomes very real.

Lynn Beattie (49:37.387)
Mm.

Sammie (49:54.798)
but AI was integrated in our life already for the past, you know, 10, 15 years. We just don’t notice it as much. Exactly. So you’ve got many different things. Hey, yeah. Hello, Lynn. What would you want to listen to radio to please? yeah, the look it’s, it’s coming. So just, just learn about it because it’s, I, I use it in my business as my extra 20%. And also to just.

Lynn Beattie (50:00.203)
Well, Alexa, right? she’s had me.

Lynn Beattie (50:12.331)
Yeah.

Sammie (50:24.398)
like sense check me on stuff. So I’ll write this piece. What do you guys think of it? What am I missing? What have I not thought of? It’s right. I’m writing it for this type of person who’s struggling with X, Y and Z. What have what are some other limiting beliefs or other desires or other things or other issues that they are facing that I am not covering? You’re missing X, Y and Z like that three things. wow. Now something is so much better. And so

Lynn Beattie (50:26.891)
Hmm.

Sammie (50:52.846)
That’s what I use it for. It’s my, it’s allows me to work at a hundred percent and adds my 20 % in there. It means I don’t need copyrighted bills or, or, you know, fancy, fancy, fancy, you know, copywriting for sales pages. I just give it a sales page that works already and say, craft it for this project and talk to it. Like, you know, and it spits me out something that’s great. So yeah, yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s amazing and it’s only going to get better.

Lynn Beattie (51:00.331)
Yeah.

Lynn Beattie (51:15.627)
Yeah, that’s amazing.

Lynn Beattie (51:21.707)
Yeah.

Sammie (51:22.382)
And so yeah, embrace it and learn about it rather than just going, something’s going to happen to me. And just being in that victim mentality, like get out of that mentality and embrace it.

Lynn Beattie (51:27.855)
you

Lynn Beattie (51:38.795)
You sounded like David Bowie there.

Sammie (51:40.558)
That’s my best buddy impression.

Lynn Beattie (51:47.414)
I think we’ll end it on a nod to the Lord David Bowie. Yeah, okay. That’s such a brilliant conversation. I have to end it because we’ve been talking for a long time. I could talk to you easily for another two hours, but we will get a chance to do that because I’m gonna record your podcast, so.

Sammie (51:49.774)
I’m a boi.

Sir David. Yeah.

Sammie (52:10.318)
Yes.

Lynn Beattie (52:10.635)
you got more content to come people. Okay, so can you just tell everybody where to find you on the internet and also if you’ve got anything like really cool coming up.

Sammie (52:13.038)
100 % looking forward to it.

Sammie (52:23.726)
Yeah, of course. So, up the gains money on all of our social media channels, we’re most active on Instagram. We have over 300 free guides on our website, which is up the gains .co .uk. We’ve got 30 ,000 people on an online community where we do like free lessons once a week about different money topics, which the audience decides as well. So that’s cool. Yeah, that’s really good fun. I just love it. And so if you do have questions, like, I’m not one of those creators like that will

Lynn Beattie (52:43.723)
that’s cool.

Sammie (52:52.782)
never respond to DMs. I respond to every single message that someone sends me. Because I feel like it’s important. And often I send voice notes back as well to help them with that problem. So please, if you have something you want to chat about or something that’s come up from this conversation today, you need help with, you know, message me or Lynn, we’ll always help.

Lynn Beattie (52:56.395)
Yeah.

Lynn Beattie (53:13.963)
Wow, you’ve got a lot of free resources on your website. I think what I can learn from you is I’ve got so much content that I’ve been doing for the last 11 years. And I think you are doing a very good job at sharing your existing content with people and really building your follower numbers way, way better than I.

you think I’m 11 years in and I’ve got what like 60 ,000 followers across everything you’ve got like 150 whatever just on Instagram so I think I need to learn some lessons from what you are doing.

Sammie (53:56.302)
I can send you some stuff.

Lynn Beattie (53:58.667)
Yeah, cool. All right then. Thank you so much, Sammie. I really appreciate your time. This has been an amazing discussion. Yeah, people watching, listening, mostly listening. Yeah, don’t forget to subscribe. It’s really important to people like us that you subscribe to our wonderful podcasts. And go check out Sammie’s podcast as well, because it’s really, really good. You’ve interviewed some incredible people. Cool. Thank you ever so much.

Sammie (54:01.326)
Cheers, then.

Sammie (54:26.894)
Cheers.