Property Angel Investor Helen Chorley: Part Two

Skye Khilji 0:02
Welcome to the Free The Wage Slave podcast. The podcast dedicated to helping frustrated nine to fivers get out of the rat race and succeed working for themselves. I'm Skye Khilji, a former corporate insurance wage slave who now travels the world year round working from my laptop.

Part One of my interview with Helen was incredible. Helen took us back in time to childhood, her first steps into the world through dance, attending Oxford, and her high flying career at JPMorgan.

If you haven't listened to Part one yet, I highly recommend you start there. In this episode, we pick up where we left off. Helen paints a vivid picture of life after JP Morgan and shares some of her most personal moments with us. In the aftermath, we discovered how Helen reinvented herself after investment banking, transformed herself through personal development and her path into being the respected property investor she is today. Hope you enjoy it.

Skye Khilji 0:59
So you obviously went down that path of personal development and trying to find your answers. Was that something that happened immediately after that breakdown? Where did that timeline kind of shift to the Helen now that I know who is all about optimizing our life?

Helen Chorley 1:15
Oh, yeah, absolutely. Gosh, this is me being really vulnerable here. There was also something else going on in my life, at the time as well. And when you look back, you only see it, but I just got engaged as well, to like. a fabulous, fabulous guy. But that's where my incongruency came. I don't think it was with the work and that lifestyle or be it lifestyle wasn't conducive physically. But what I had agreed to do, by getting engaged to this wonderful person, we've been together over four years by the time we got engaged, but I've never wanted kids.

And we chatted about that I was always, you know, you know me, upfront and honest. And I've always been very honest about that. And we hoped, I think, that the body clock would kick in and one day, you know, you'd wake up and gosh, you suddenly want children. That never happened to me. And he was very definitive that he did want kids. And so I had decided that for the sake of the relationship, that I would agree, and I would, I would do that, I would forego what I wanted and, you know, and basically, yep, get married, have kids have their 2.4 children have the lovely home and the nice family holidays and go there.

And it's only with hindsight that you look back and you're like, Okay, I see what was going on here and that, I think is the real kind of fundamental for me, or one of the you know, the main kind of aspects of incongruency for me. So, yes that was a big part of the story. But when you are then you know, have basically more or less the next two years in bed, because you don't have any energy to get dressed, let alone leave the house, then you have a lot of time on your hands and you have to fill that somehow.

So, you know, people like "Gosh, you've read a lot of books, you've done a lot of courses, you've learned a lot of things", I had a lot of time, believe me. And they kind of the annoying thing about chronic fatigue or Adrenal Fatigue is that your body stops, your body slows down. Let me tell you, your brain doesn't, or mine didn't. That curiosity, that need for stimulation, that need to learn did not stop and I had to meet that somehow.

And yes, I worked on kind of calming that down. Certainly, that's how I got into meditation but I also realized that you know, there were bigger life lessons to this and maybe that's where the interest in philosophy also came back. Like, what does this mean? What is this about? There was a big kind of identity crisis as well. Well, who am I now, now that I'm not this investment banker? Like who am I? So, yeah, that was a lot of time to do a lot of reading and learning as well.

Skye Khilji 4:33
Yeah, I've been through exactly the same path, just a parallel path so I know exactly what that's like. What I'm interested in is you take that period of time where you're still reading, you're still learning, so the Curiosity part of you is still very much alive. At some point, we have to reinvent ourself and say, "Okay, this is who I'm going to become now, and I'm ready to mould me myself in a new fashion". For me, I got it wrong the first time it took a few iterations before I got to where, you know it felt congruent. So who did you decide to reinvent yourself as or what did you decide to reinvent yourself as when you were ready?

Helen Chorley 5:15
It's a really good point, I think you do have to kind of try, you're testing these things, you're still trying to, you know, find yourself.  I had always had an interest in property so I did go on a property course, I think it was 2010 by that point, where I was, you know, I'd got my health back to, to the point where I would, you know, could function a few days a week anyway, at least, it's been a very slow journey.

But I had always had this interest in property, I had a real kind of a good eye for spotting value and I used to keep, you know, been a spreadsheet geek, I used to keep spreadsheets even on kind of the prices. The prices of any properties that I bought around, and I bought my own property, kind of as soon as I could literally when I was 20, 24 or something.

And, yeah, I'd always kept spreadsheets and you know, watch things going up and down and look at the relative value. And and if you don't understand that, and then how to add value as well. And I just decided, I'll actually have some did that mean, my ex fiancé we were going to go we're going to do together. Eventually, we went our separate ways, because we realized that especially the kid question was irreconcilable for us both to stay true to who we were so so we parted ways, quite amicably.

And at that point, I mean, I tried different things. I do think what, whilst I did have a degree of freedom that I spoke about, I think what being in corporate does is stifle your creativity. So once I had energy again, I went on things like I went on a floristry course, I went on my hat making course. I went on all these things to try and I don't know, get some kind of like self expression back and I actually somebody offered me a job to run her business actually at the florist, which I did think about, but I also knew I needed more mental stimulation than just doing that as well.

So I thought about kind of what I could do that use the skills and certainly kind of the analytical the number skills and this, you know, kind of gift if you will, for being able to spot value. And I'd like "Right, okay, let's do this. Yeah, let's do this property thing professionally" and I did go into it initially, I have to say, thinking it was gonna be quite passive, I could do it part time, I could have a nice kind of easy life, invest the money that I've built up over the years from banking and also from, from my own kind of personal property investments.

And I thought I could do that find some good people to invest with and it would be really easy. I know that a lot of you've listened to any of my property talks, I just genuinely believe you know, that there's, if you want to do this properly, that there's no such thing as passive, or there hasn't been for me and maybe I'm just that personality type that that I can't do it passively, but yeah, it's it's not been passive, but it's been fun and rewarding in so many different ways.

And even, you know, I've been doing it kind of since 2015. And I think even like lockdown has given me a renewed kind of purpose, and energy and enthusiasm for doing it. So yeah, that's, that's, that's been a journey to.

Skye Khilji 8:44
I did listen to the podcast with Rod, I think its the Rodcast and a couple of other ones and what really stood out to me, and you just touched on it then, is the fact that you ran that as a business from day one. And you know, I've seen a lot of people go into property, and they don't always have that experience of running a business, perhaps they've always been an employee. They definitely seem to struggle more than somebody that does have that experience and does approach it as a business.

Helen Chorley 9:13
Totally and for me, it is a business but I approached it as professionally investing. So for quite frankly, it didn't matter if it was bricks and mortar, it didn't matter if it was stocks, shares commodities, crypto, whatever it is, like, like you are managing money, you're managing risk. And you know, you have specific objectives and you have to treat that you know, with reverence you know, that that money took such you know, that money cost me my health effectively, like, you know, if you think I'm gonna just play with that money, it's you know, it's not not the way I feel like that would be disrespectful to it.

So I call myself you know, I'm not officially obviously an asset manager. I'm not FCA registered anymore. But I treat my money like it's my own asset manager, I look at things, I look at risk, I look at the different ways you can invest the different security, the different returns that you can get. And I have a kind of a basket of exposure. And that's how I bring that kind of investment approach to property.

And that's how I look at it, it's a different way of approaching it. And I certainly resonate with people who do look at it that way. I think there are lots of things that can be that can be learned that way. I'm not a developer, I'm not on the ground, kind of, you know, and I don't necessarily understand all the ins and outs of being a developer, I definitely don't claim to, but that's why you have to be very careful who you choose to invest with. And you have to, you know, filter them, assess them and choose the very good ones. And the ones that share your values and will do right by you. And I'm doing okay, on that front so far.

Skye Khilji 10:57
Yeah, what I really like about what you said, two things I want to touch on. So one is many people, particularly in property, new entrants to that, they focus more on how much do I stand to make, as opposed to what is the impact If I lose? What is the time horizon it would take to recoup that money? And also what you just said, which is, you know, how much effort time and energy did it take to generate that money in the first place? I think that's a really fundamental and important perspective that you have. And that age old tenet of you know, don't lose money. I think Warren Buffett's number one, isn't it?

Helen Chorley 11:35
Yep. First rule of investing, don't lose the capital. Second Rule of investing. Don't forget rule number one. Yeah. I literally, I did a Facebook Live on my business page this morning. And somebody asked about kind of my principles of investing. And I'm like, you know, if it works for him, it works for me, that's mine. So yeah, I love that quote.

And it's particular, you know, I'm really driven at the moment about helping people protect themselves against, you know, it's sad, but in property, because there are large numbers involved, there are sharks, I call them, but people kind of set who set out to take other people's money. And it's why I feel kind of so strongly about that, and about respecting people's money that that has taken a lot for somebody to get that.

And I used to say, you know, please, for developers, please respect it as if it was your own grandmother's money. You know, if you, if you wouldn't risk your grandmother's money, don't think it's okay to risk an investors money. But my friend, Claire Norwood, she spoke to somebody else who said, treat it like it's the Russian Mafia as money. I'm like, now we're talking. So we, so we use that quote, regularly now. But considering the loss, or the kind of the downside, as I would call it, is absolutely one of my starting, you know, fundamental, my principles, I have a specific kind of rates and rent approach to how I look at deals, and the W of the rents is worst case scenario, what the worst case scenario is. And then you've empowered me to know if I'm willing to take that risk.

And I also know, that's also you know, it's kind of multi level question. I also know, I'll know, to be honest, what the chances of me losing my money are, I want to know if they will be honest and upfront enough to tell me how you can lose all your money on this deal. You know, normally, that wouldn't be the type of deal I would invest in, because I'd have something asset backed. But I want them to know, I want to know a that they thought about that. They've thought about what the worst case scenario is, and be that they will go there, they will risk me walking away by telling me what the worst case scenario is. And if you have those conversations up front, and everybody knows what they're getting into, then that makes any conversations down the line a hell of a lot easier, though.

Skye Khilji 14:10
Yeah, I love that, that it's not about being seduced by the deal, its more about the due diligence of the developer.

Helen Chorley 14:17
Yeah. Yeah. And actually, you know, gosh, due diligence is something I can hardly do a chat or a talk or anything without mentioning due diligence and risk, I get, I get the mickey taken out of me lot. But but that due diligence, as you say, has to work both ways. So I do due diligence on the deal. Obviously, the numbers have to stack, I do it on the person. That's the kind of holistic element that I bring in.

Sometimes I use crowdfunding. So I do due diligence on the platform to make sure that that's a good way of doing that deal. But I expect the developer to do due diligence on me. They have to make sure I am right for them as well. It's one of the most common bits of advice I give to developers, be very careful whose money you take and not just who, but what that amount of money means to them as well.

Because I've seen examples, gosh, some shocking examples of where somebody is taking £1,000 of somebody's money. And I'm not saying that's not a large amount of money. But in the relative deal size, this was a thing of £600,000 deal that we did, and somebody had £1,000 invested. That thousand pounds was their life savings. That gives you a highly emotionally volatile and overly invested person that you're dealing with.

So when there are delays when there are problems and its property, so there will be. But also, when that happens, the person doesn't have the perspective or the balance, to be able to ride that they are terrified that their life savings are going to disappear in a cloud of smoke. Well, if you'd only taken £100 of that person's money, they wouldn't be I'm not saying they wouldn't be bothered, of course, they would be bothered, we should be bothered. But they wouldn't, you know, I don't freak out as much. So certainly how I approach things, and it's certainly what I advise developers to do too.

Skye Khilji 16:27
Yes, it's really wise, and in business that rule applies too. There are some clients where you can take their project and if they don't have the budget, they micromanage everything, they flip out at the smallest delays, because they don't have that flexibility or that risk tolerance. Yeah, definitely carries over into probably all aspects of doing business I'd suggest.

Helen Chorley 16:50
Yeah, it's a very good point. Yeah. I love that. And, you know, it's, people think, oh, but you have to accept all clients. And certainly, if you're building a business that you feel like you have to accept all clients, but again, I've watched friend build businesses, and they've, if you get the wrong client, for you doesn't resonate with how you work in your values. It's painful, it's honestly more trouble than the money you earn is worth.

Skye Khilji 17:20
Yeah, definitely. I've learned the hard way that my life is governed by what I say no to. And I say no, probably 96 out of 100 times because I realized when I'm saying yes, I'm usually saying yes to somebody else's priorities of my own. Yes, usually a cost that's quite significant to me doing that.

Helen Chorley 17:39
That's an excellent point, really is an excellent point. And something to think about exactly. For developers accepting people's money, what's their priority, and make sure you understand what their priority is, and make sure you're prepared to meet that, as you're gonna have an unhappy investor or an unhappy client.

Skye Khilji 17:57
Yeah, and it's a relationship business that business, isn't it?

Helen Chorley 18:00
Oh, totally. It's a people business, as my friend Toby Wilder Papris says.

Skye Khilji 18:07
So with Free The Wage Slave, as you know, one of the things that I'm doing is, I want to give people that path out of the traditional life, the 2.4 kids that are living in one location, the going to school, going to college, getting a job, and you know, living supposedly happily ever after, and just asking, you know, what does that other life look like?

So if you do want that, you know, what is the path, and one of those passes property. And I shared with you and my listeners, before, I was one of those people that went to the courses, I spent over £20,000 pounds, and I made zero back because I was naïve, and I didn't realize, actually, you can be money for the deals, you're gonna need money for the deposits, the refurbs regret it in hindsight, because I learned an important lesson. But it did set me back probably four or five years where I had to pay off that money and that's why I wanted to get you on to showcase that there is a way to do it in property.

So my question, Helen guess, is for that person who wants that different life? Who's hearing these buzzwords like financial freedom? What is the path into property that is the safer path? Do they need to work and build a nest egg and then invest some of it? Can they go from zero in property? What would you advise somebody who's really starting from nothing? What's the safe path into that?

Helen Chorley 19:30
What I would say, and which you discovered yourself, be very careful about those courses where they charge you an extortionate amount of money to... what I find with those and what you end up being, you're in a sales funnel, but you don't realize you are.

And they'll always be another course or another strategy or there'll be another upsell, then you need to do mentorship or then you need to do this and there's just it's a never ending like money draining. Yes, you know you are getting certain skills, but you know, you have to be able to implement them, I think there's a lot better ways of doing it.

That's not to say there are great mentors out there that there really are great mentors and I particularly would, I would strongly prefer the ones but you kind of pay as you go along. And they recognize that, that you shouldn't be kind of sucked dry of all your, of all your capital, because you're going to need it. Anybody that's telling you no money down deals again, like, like, really, you know, something's too good to be true. Honestly, it really is, there is a reason that that is such a common saying.

So it does depend where you are, it does depend on what you want to achieve. We certainly we talked about this actually on a recent property event that I did with Ranjan Bhattacharya, who I'm going to be seeing this week when I go back to London, because we're going to be doing a Property Elevated TV show together. But if you go to his YouTube, you can certainly see kind of ideas from from various property experts about kind of what we think about these things. But there is various strategies. But what I would say, you know, there's rent to rent, there's deal sourcing, there is you know, just buying a buy to let there's building an HMO.

What I would say is some of the ones where you don't need much capital, people make them sound easy. And if you're going into property for an easy life, honestly choose something else. Because it's not and, and if it is easy, well actually come and mentor me because I'm clearly doing something wrong. If you find it that easy, but what I think you have to look at and my best advice, I'm not going to recommend a specific strategy, because it does depend on what your capital is, it depends on where you want to invest, it depends on the amount of time, but the fundamental thing with property is you need to be adding value.

So the days of you buy a single let, yes, you might get it a bit cheaper or below market value, as we call them. And you rent this out, then happy days, you sit back, you rent it out, the mortgage is paid the price, you know rises or doubles on average, every 13 years. Those days, I'm not saying they're gone but those deals are much harder to find that you just buy something, rent it out the yields nice, it washes its face. The tax, the tax on that has changed, the tax system has changed enormously on that. So that doesn't work from that perspective these days.

That's why kind of HMO, House of multiple occupation is a more you tend to get better yields on those, but it's a lot more effort because you're now managing five or six tenants. Whereas with this, obviously with a single buy to like you're just managing one tenant. So this is where you need to think about what your priorities are, like how much hassle can you tolerate, because the more hassle you can tolerate?

It's almost like risk if you can tolerate more hassle, you know, you get better rewards and a serviced accommodation, you know, kind of the the professionalized version of Airbnb? Well, until COVID, you know, that was very lucrative, but you've got a new tenant every, maybe every no couple of days. So, again, how much hassle Can you tolerate my appetite for hassle is extraordinarily low. It's why I'm not a developer, it's why I don't do that type of stuff. So if you have a low tolerance for has to be very careful, what kind of you know what business model you choose, and who you who you want to kind of operate with.

There are you know what I'm saying things can't be passive. If there's any kind of older listeners here, if you have got the part, you know, I lend a lot of money just on a kind of a loan basis, a secured loan and asset backed loan. And that can be that's as passive as you can get a don't think when I say it's not passive, like you have to do your due diligence, you have to understand what you're getting into. It's why I don't call it passive, but there's no kind of there's no on an ongoing basis. There's no kind of day to day management needed. So there's various different ways you can do it.

But anybody thats saying, kind of no money down or proof like I've got a very good friend the lovely Ruth Hobbs of Urban Sister, she's like what what is this no money unde,r she's award winner and she won Property Investor of The Year, a couple of years ago. She's like, What is all this no money down like every deal I've done is all money in so we all know that there's a lot of capital required to do these things.

So do lots of research speak to lots of People if there's a you know, I try not to call myself sceptical anymore because it's not the loveliest word I call myself hyper realist. Now. I like the Ray Dalio, but it comes down to the same thing. But if there's glossy brochures, there's run to the back of the room and sign today. You know, guys, you're gonna be a property millionaire by in a year's time. Oh, my God, run, run, run a mile. Run a mile.

Skye Khilji 25:25
Yeah, I love what you said, that you don't realize you're in a sales funnel and just the irony of maybe it's the universe in my life, is that I've been a marketer since I left the corporate world and the nine to five. So I build sales funnels yet I couldn't see I was in one.

And I went through the free session then the $1,000,  then the mentorship. Yeah. And why Free The Wage Slave for me, I'll never monetize, I might have people sponsor a podcast, but I will never directly sell a product because I want that to be a place where we can talk about the other side of the conversation, and not worry about is that going to hurt my conversion rate in the amount of money I make? Because I think we do need to have a real conversation about these things, because it is people's livelihoods that are at stake.

Helen Chorley 26:10
Yep, exactly. And they prey on people's hope value, and they prey on kind of desperation. You know, I was fortunate maybe I was never in a desperate enough situation to think handing over £20,000 for a course was a good idea. But a lot of people are, and a lot of people want to believe in the promises that they are sold. And when you have somebody like that, you know, they're vulnerable. And and I see it as them being taken advantage of. I do know, I must say I do know, people that have gone through these processes and with some of the larger kind of educated and I've done really well from it. They are the exception. Yes, they really are.

Skye Khilji 26:50
Yeah, I would tell people, having been through that and been on that side of things, they tend to make you focus on how much money you can make, which minimises in your mind, the risk of the investment. Yeah, and as a marketer, I know that people do that, because it increases conversions. And also, yes, they are going to bring people to the front of the room who have done well. But look at the numbers of how many didn't do well look at the average people. And when I looked around that room, and I was in the, this was before WhatsApp, I'm ashamed to say, but there were like, you know, Facebook groups and stuff. Most of the people in that didn't become that exception, you're absolutely right.

Helen Chorley 27:28
No, no. Is that a and is that it's not how it's marketed. You know, and it is, it's a marketing game. You know, it really is. And you're told that this is possible, and it is possible. But, you know, it's like, No, you know, there's a normal distribution, go back to my geeky mathematic brain, there's a normal distribution here. You know, the majority of people, I'm sorry, it's not the people that are at the front of the room telling you, they became millionaires. They're your tail end of that normal distribution curve. And believe me, so for every, you know, for every exceptional one that's made it don't forget the tail ends the other side, that's lost a lot of money. So you know, that that? Yeah, there's the balance for you.

Skye Khilji 28:15
Yeah, I mean, I don't know what the numbers are, maybe it's your 3% succeed, I will tell people, when during that room, look around and ask yourself, are you better than 97% of the people in the room? And unfortunately, my naïve young self thought, sure I can do whatever anybody else can do, I can be in that top 3%. And sadly, I was wrong. I couldn't. I think it really comes down to knowing, is this a good fit for me, that type of work? Am I actually going to be able to implement follow through even if I have the money? I think that's so important. There's a question to ask yourself.

Helen Chorley 28:46
Yeah. And, you know, as I said, there are lots of good mentors, and there are good training, but they're the ones that will sit down with you understand what you want. I know some companies that you have to interview with them, they interview you to make sure you are right for them. Because they don't want anybody that they take on failing that doesn't look good for them.

And the amount of investment that they put in personally to kind of handhold people through deals or help them, you know, kind of assess deals and get better at assessing that this is a good deal. And that's a bad deal. That's what you want. You want someone who cares. And for the ones that are churning through thousands and thousands of people at a time, how much does anybody care about you? Let me tell you the answer. Not very much.

Skye Khilji 29:37
Yeah, I can definitely confirm that one. Do you think property is a vehicle for wealth creation? Or is it a vehicle for wealth preservation and then growing that wealth?

Helen Chorley 29:49
I think it can be both and I think it depends again, like what you want to achieve. I at my time of life and with kind of what I've done so far, certainly have a part of me that wants to preserve it. It's why I come from a what's my worst case scenario and I don't do kind of risky things. So am I ever going to be one of these? That's, you know, gosh, becomes a billionaire overnight, because we did this amazing deal and what have you know, because I'm probably not prepared to take the risk that that would involve to do that deal or be it.

The longer you in this game, the more you people you speak to, the more you learn from other people, the more you work out who the good ones new, the bad ones are, I think you you, you can take on what is perceived as more risk, but you're more aware of what you're doing. And you're more aware and clever at being able to mitigate it. So I'm just doing a planning uplift deal at the moment and they are, you know, the returns on those are, you know, very, very good.

But that's taken me what, five years to do one of those. Actually, no, I have done a couple previously, but I did those in teeny, teeny amounts. This is a, you know, a deal. It's all my money on the line. But again, it's a small deal, like it's a dip my toe in the water with an amount that I'm comfortable. And I mean, I'm not comfortable to lose it. But I know what the worst case scenario is. And the worst case scenario is, yeah, we have some burn money. But other than that, you know, we still, the thing will still be worth what we're going to what we've paid for it. So you just need to be aware that, the risk reward ratio exists, because, you know, it's, you don't get generally, you know, astronomical returns without really a kind of high degree of risk.

And there are absolutely ways of mitigating that. And to be honest, education is one of them. But it's education, it's ethical education from people that are going to talk sense to you and not sell you pipe dreams. I've got lots of friends, you know, that do do kind of education and do run courses, and do do mentorships. And now I would certainly be you know, suggesting people speak to them first, to see how you know, what's appropriate for them, because they won't take you unless they believe it's the right thing for you, as well.

Skye Khilji 32:12
So if we want to start learning more about property, even if we're not ready to invest, but we say, you know, "I'd like to educate myself, because in five or 10 years, I believe I'll be at that point", from the completely free, the podcasts and the books, all the way up to the mentorships. Who are those people that are really at the core education providers in the property space?

Helen Chorley 32:34
Oh, there are lots of them, I have to say. And there's so much as you say, there's so much free information and free content out there. If I can give a tiny plug to I'm a co-founder of the Property Sisters group. And we have a kind of big sisters and little sisters group. It's free, it's non-profit, and we have our own YouTube channel, go there and have a look at the stuff that we're doing. That's a great place to start. It's not just for women, that the content is property wide. It's relevant to anybody. So do go and it's by a lot of our members and there are weathers, you know, men speak it on there, too. We're not excluding you from that perspective. So when that's a great place, there's great kind of publications. Richard Bauser runs a really good and publishes a really good magazine called Property Investor News Magazine. I did an article for that back in January. So if anybody wants to understand due diligence, how I look at deals and where to start, that's a great article.

And actually, there's a number of people that I really respect that right for that Manish Kataria, Invest Like a Pro he writes articles for them. Richard Little who is a vastly, vastly he's, I think, at least third generation developer. He has got a free house building business community Facebook page, online, and what he's been doing over lockdown him and his son, Brindley Little, they have been giving, they used to kind of run three day courses, they don't do that anymore. But what he's done is split that content down into kind of 20 minute segments. So So and he's been doing 100 days of content.

So literally they publish one of these on that in that Facebook community every day that goes through finding a deal, assess the deal, due diligence funding, how to get investors literally takes you through that whole I mean that's development focus, but a lot of the lessons in that are relevant to kind of whatever kind of tech bits of property, property sector you want to go into. So that's worth checking out Rodcast, like you say Rod's a great guy. Some of his conversation is like I love listening to that. So some of that conversation is a kind of little higher level. It's maybe not where you'd start off but but there's so much and I'm I was due to launch my website on Friday, but unsurprisingly, I'm having technical issues. So when I thought those out, I actually have a dedicated page on that for people new to property, because I get asked this a lot. So there will be a whole list of resources, including some of those that I've talked about.

So go and check those I'm there's no affiliations. I'm not paid by anybody to recommend anybody. It's not the way I do things. These are people I genuinely believe in who will do right by you and who speaks sense. They're the people, they're the people who will try and put you off going into property. They're the people that say, "Are you really sure you want to do this? You know, you're not going to become a millionaire at night? Have you got to staying power?" And I think that's a better way to approach it to be honest.

Skye Khilji 35:46
Definitely and I'm so glad I asked that question because the audience can now hear why you're one of my go to resources. So anytime I have a financial, investing, property question, I go to Helen. And I also go to you for personal development, you and Steph Hartwell from Project Glow who is a good friend of ours. Yeah. And I want to switch to the personal development stuff for a moment. You've done so much, I get complete envy when I see your Instagram stories. And I see with Dr Joe Dispenza. And and all these courses around the world. What are those books or those resources for personal development and the work on the self that you just find yourself recommending again and again?

Helen Chorley 36:27
Oh, yeah, I've done a lot of work, I spent a lot of time with Dr Joe Dispenza. And his is one of the books, I really recommend "Breaking The Habit of Being Yourself". It's not an easy read in terms of you know, there's a lot of internal self reflection you have to do, then you have to be prepared to look at yourself. And you have to be prepared to go, oh my god, I do that you have to be prepared to look at yourself and go, I don't like that bit of me have or recognize that that thing that I do isn't working for me anymore. So it's not easy in terms of, you know, expects you to do some work.

But the whole reason you're probably reading that book, anyway is because you want to make some changes in your life. So that is certainly one of them. One of my I think my all time favourite certainly at the moment is The Untethered Soul by Michael Signer. Oh my God, I've reread that book. Gosh, I think I'm on my fourth read of it. And I read it and it's like, it's like meditating. For me, it just gives me the serenity, when I'm reading it that is just just makes it so enjoyable to read.

And, again, it just, it helps you look at yourself and the way you're behaving and actually how you react to things and actually almost kind of look at it objectively, such that you see in notice yourself getting angry and notice your your buttons being triggered, and gives you or certainly helps you gain a little bit of perspective of is this of choosing that reaction. You know, it's it's response rather than reaction, I get to choose how I respond to this. So that's one of my favourites.

But I generally like and this is how I'm more or less I got into personal development was through the people that have science backgrounds, but I've gone more kind of into the spiritual side of things, because I feel like if they've come from that left brain world, and they're now open to these things, then there must be something to it.

So you know, your Bruce Lipton, who was a cell biologist, your Gregg Braden, who was a geologist, Dr Joe himself was certainly into neuroscience, he was a chiropractor, you know, Dr John Demartini, that we both studied a lot with and kind of was as a chiropractor and this medical kind of background. So yeah, there's some there's some of the guys that I like.

Skye Khilji 39:01
And you've seen some incredible transformations, I think particularly with Dr Joe just share some of those experiences with us.

Helen Chorley 39:08
I really have, you know, that Breaking The Habit book is extremely powerful. And what he does give you is this belief that kind of that anything is possible. And I've seen kind of healings, which, if you've not got the context of Dr Joe, it's kind of difficult to understand these kind of these things that look like spontaneous kind of remissions, or healings.

So I would recommend you read the book to give it perspective. But yeah, all sorts of transformations. I certainly the first event that I went to a friend of mine that I actually met when I was doing my NLP training, who'd had a very bad back accident and walked with two canes by the end of that week. He was thrown, he was a new one came by that point, but he'd thrown kind of is the key in a way.

And I came back at that from a very left brain perspective. And if I hadn't known the guy personally, and known him for like, for a number of years, I wouldn't have believed that transformation was possible. Or I'd have thought it was, you know, he was staged. You know, there's my hyper realist brain and like, Oh, hey, this is all this is all. This can't be true. He must be, you know, could be in paid or not. I sat and watched the transformation. And there's many examples of that. And, you know, certainly look on Joe's website for the stories. He is a great guy, and he is a very, he comes at this stuff from a fairy sight.

He has the science, his latest book is full at the science and the data that they gather. Now they've done it, it's all there. So it's not that the latest book isn't isn't an easy read, because of all the kind of the science in there. But if that's what floats your boat, yet read that and not necessarily want to start with but but yeah, but if, but if the first one piques your interest, and then go on to that for sure.

Skye Khilji 41:13
I really wanted to, to get that recorded with you, that, that answer to that question. Because I have the same thing. When I first saw the videos of somebody who, you know, they said they were in a wheelchair and the testimonials them on stage showing that, you know, they're walking now, my bullshit radar, started to ring and ping and make all kinds of noises and I didn't believe it. Yeah. And I had a wonderful experience during the meditation, I had what I would call a kundalini experience where you know, something left me and I became a believer at that point was when I was in Dubai on a Sunday, it was just me and no one witnessed it. But I had a transformation of sorts.

And when I've recommended the Dispenza meditations to people, they kind of come back and be like, Look, this is weird. He's in space. He's making all these funny noises. And does this stuff work?  And I wanted to only share that I had that transformation, but you have been there and you're sceptical as me and you've seen it with your own eyes. So anybody listening this, trying it out, stick with it, that stuff actually does work, it's real, we're not paid to say that we've just really experienced the transformation ourselves.

Helen Chorley 42:21
Yeah, we have honestly, it's what I credit with kind of that work in those particular meditations. It's what I credit with, you know, I was doing kind of, you know, quite well, it had taken Gosh, what I think I did my first one two or three years ago, my first kind of week long event with them, and had got my health back to a decent kind of level.

I'd go through phases, I'd have like a few months of a good phase and then I'd have a bad phase and kind of energy and adrenals wise and that week and seeing Matt's transformation that week gave me the hope that I could fully recover from you know, kind of this chronic fatigue and this adrenal fatigue and I have to say like, I literally just made my mind up and, and it had a it had a massive a massive impact on my own physical health. So I'm not just seeing it happen to other people, it's happened to me too.

Skye Khilji 43:22
Absolutely. I would say to anybody out there who's trying to run a business to become an entrepreneur to go into property that work you do on yourself has the biggest carry over and the results you produce in the other part of your life.

Helen Chorley 43:37
It really, really does mindset is everything you know, you can keep kind of pushing that boulder uphill, but if you haven't so did your your mind, you know, your mind and your permission, your ability to receive like if you haven't sorted all that out then you're making that boulder twice as heavy as it needs to be but you know, just make life easier for yourself and, and yeah, and work on your mind as much as you work on your business.

Skye Khilji 44:04
Yeah, as an old mentor of mine said a couple of weeks ago if it feels too much like hard work, you're probably doing it wrong. So Helen, it's just been wonderful. I'm glad that we got to get you on the platform to share your wisdom with everybody else. For everybody out there who would like to connect with you would like to talk to you ask the question or just you know, follow your journey and start learning from you, where can they find you?

Helen Chorley 44:30
Sure among kind of lots of social media hopefully by the time this goes up, my website will be live so that's HelenChorley.com and helenchorleyinvestor on Insta. I have my Helen Chorley Property and Investor page on Facebook.

Yeah, though Insta is the main was the is the easiest one for for you know, for questions and people reaching out to me, but all those resources that I talked about, you know, particularly for new people starting out there is a page on my website for that. There's also if you like what I'm saying, then there's my articles and the other podcasts like the Rodcast. I've done some of the Crowd With Us. I've done one with. I mean, I've done all sorts. So that's all on there, too. So you might like to read that, because I hope what your listeners have got from this is that I keep it real, being real, and telling things how they are is what I strongly and firmly believe in. And that's certainly what I tried to do on my website to.

Skye Khilji 45:28
Definitely, so we will create a resources page for this episode at freethewageslave.com/podcast, I'll get all of the links from Helen and include everything that so that will be a good first step for everybody to go to, and they can just click away and start going down the rabbit hole. And I just really want to say thank you so much for sharing with us. And it's just been one of my favourite conversations. And I think we'll definitely get a part two at some point.

Helen Chorley 45:51
Oh, it's been my pleasure. Thank you very much for giving me the space to speak my truth. It's it's very liberating for me as well.

Skye Khilji 45:59
All right. Thank you Helen.