I went to see my friend and multi-millionaire mentor, Mr Piper, at his new home 2 days ago. He used to live in London, but has now moved to the outskirts of Surrey. A property of that type would cost well over £700k in London, but Mr Piper paid £300k cash for it. It is only 45 minutes commute to central London via train.Mr Piper is about 45 years old, and his net worth is over GBP £4m. He made his millions from property investing, and owns many shops, houses, and flats. His empire is owned outright, with virtually no mortgage debt, due to his excellent thrift and financial skills. He earns well in excess of £100k each year. He has no qualifications, and never even set foot in a college or university. Unusually, he does all the maintenance, such as plumbing, DIY, and electrical work for his properties himself, as he loves fixing things. He started his career as a mere market trader.
When I went to visit Mr Piper at his new lair, he first took me on a trip to a DIY store, to pick out some new stones for his garden. He asked the assistant how much it would be including delivery and wrote the answer down. All of a sudden, the store assistant began to offer to lower the price, and waive the delivery charge, as he realised that Mr Piper was probably going to go to different shops to compare prices. It was a lesson to me that no matter how rich a person is, it always pays to negotiate and search for the best deal.
Mr Piper bought his new lair mainly for the land. It is composed of an ancient 2 bedroom house, with about 3 extra outbuildings on the land, and a lot of square footage. It used to be an old large tradesman's area. He was happy, and in his element because there were many things for him to fix and problems to solve. He has done many things in his life and said he will use part of the area to maintain his 4 vehicles himself, as he used to be a car mechanic. He talked of keeping chickens and planting vegetables so he could be completely self-sufficient. Here was a man who knew that being thrifty was a great lifestyle.
He had much "junk" moved in with him. He boasted about the stuff he had picked up at charity shops and car boot sales. He told me the story of a radiator lying nearby which would cost about £100 new, but he paid £6 for it at a car boot sale. Part of me wanted to scream at him "you are a multi-millionaire, you don't need to waste your time going to car boot sales and hoarding stuff". Of course his attitude towards purchasing is one of the main reasons why he is so wealthy, and many of the items he had been hoarding worked perfectly, and had no need to be purchased new.
His new lair was very livable but Mr Piper wanted to make changes to it. "I love it," he said, "it's what I've always wanted. It's got so much space so I can park all of my cars here, and I can construct workshops to fix things in, and build one or two small extra properties to rent out". He showed me an old shed in the grounds of the property. "I can't believe they left this behind", he said excitedly, "these cost about £500 new, and look, I'm getting it for nothing". He clearly liked to recycle things, rather than waste them.
He had boundless energy. He was all about action. He loves fixing things and his whole attitude was why employ someone to fix something when you can do it yourself. I saw that he was not a lazy man, and he had lots of plans for buildings he wanted to construct, and things he wanted to do with the area. Procrastination was not even in his vocabulary. When I asked why he wasn't working to a plan, he said "I prefer to just get on with things". He was all action, all the way. No time wasted on hesitating, and preparing to act. I decided that his ability to take consistent immediate action was probably his strongest characteristic. He hated waiting around, or time wasting, he wanted everything done now. He was very positive about his plans, and never once considered that he might fail. I resolved that from now on, I too would act on my own plans with no hesitation whatsoever.
Here I was looking at a real life millionaire, and he was completely normal, like the characters described in the book The Millionaire Next Door, by T.Stanley. I saw with my own eyes that he puts the work in. He works hard, controls his costs, and is totally proactive. It cemented in my mind that if he can do it, then I can too. I saw his thrift, his constant immediate action, his positive attitude, his ability to just do it.
I looked at Mr Piper and asked myself what kind of a man he was. Here was somebody who was an extremely competent plumber, carpenter, electrician, car mechanic, landlord, multi-millionaire. Was he a genius? In terms of personality, he was not much different to anybody you might meet on the street, but he did his own thing. He danced to the beat of his own drum. He thinks he can do most things efficiently if he does them himself, and he generally does.
I observed that he was a self-made man because he took total responsibility for his life. He put in his own effort, his own ideas and plans, and he worked hard. He took immediate action, favouring this over planning, and was not concerned with adhering to the norms of our modern consumer society. This man was unusual, and did not want to live life in the same way as everybody else.
Being around Mr Piper always gives me a great example to follow on my path to wealth. He is one of the most trustworthy and generous people I know. Even though he is thrifty, he knows the true value of living a good life. Existence is not about wasting money, it's about living the way you want to live. In all the time I was there, we never once spoke about money, (although I was thinking about money as always, lol). "Look at all this", he said to me. "Not bad for a boy from Clapham". Mr Piper was living his dream, and the whole property was like his own personal playset where he could do, and create, whatever he wanted.
Mr Piper's new lair was once an ancient tradesman's house. As I looked around I saw a plaque in the living room and I was struck by what it said. "I like that", said Mr Piper, "The last owner left it behind. I think I will leave that there". The plaque was inscribed with the quote: "The most comfortable place to live, is just inside your own income".
No comments:
Post a Comment