The importance of multiple income streams

Ange Dove (00:01)

Welcome to You're the Boss podcast show. And today I have with me Mark Walton, very special guest with me. And he's going to be talking about lots of things around running your business from anywhere and having multiple streams of income. So Mark sold his business coming up at the age of 40. He emigrated with his wife and his four kids to live on an island off the coast of Africa.

one suitcase each, and this was his midlife crisis. So he went on then to earn a good six figures singing and playing guitar in hotels and music bars, but he needed to earn more money. There he discovered Forex trading back in 2002. He lost over 20,000 in the first few years and went on to trade for clients, seven figure accounts, then dived into crypto in 2020.

So Mark, welcome to the show. It's nice to have you here.

Marc Walton (01:00)

Thank very much. just clarify one point. I was not making six figures singing and playing guitar in hotels. That's why I needed to find another income stream.

Ange Dove (01:08)

You wish you were!

I love it, you'll be a rock star.

Marc Walton (01:17)

Irish.

Ange Dove (01:20)

Okay, so Mike, just tell us a little bit about your background. So we covered very briefly there, but just tell me about that midlife crisis and what led you to make the move, first of all.

Marc Walton (01:31)

Yeah. I started my first business when I was 21. And so I was working, just, I was working for a firm for a year and thought I could do better and didn't have any money or no family experience with running a business. And I quit what was quite a well-paid job, but I just didn't want to work for idiots. was passionate about it, which if anybody listening wants to start a business or you have to be passionate.

And I managed to persuade an importer to supply me lots of business equipment free on the sale or return basis. So again, even if you're not going to money, it's not an obstacle if you determine. And that was selling cash registers, which was a hard slog. And then I've been doing that for four or five years and every week that we kept going with an achievement. And I started supplying pizzerias with cash registers.

And this was in the early days when you have the things you have nowadays with a button for each different product and realized that they were making a heck of a lot of money with these guys. And so I'd never cooked in my life. I wasn't interested in cooking. So I opened a pizzeria and that did really well for five years. That was a good cash business. And then I had a very expensive divorce to get custody of my kids, sold the business and was driving a truck for a year at minimum wage. Anyway.

Long story short, built another business up, bricks and mortar, and as you say, coming up to 40. I had 20 odd staff. I was making a lot of money, but I just, I was miserable. I hated it. I was kind of going to work in the UK, as you know, in the winter, the weather's horrible. And going to work in the dark and the cold and wet and getting home in the dark and cold and wet and being miserable all the time. I just thought, I don't want to do this anymore. And my first love was music. So as you say, we sold up, we bought.

Ange Dove (03:18)

Yeah. Yeah.

Marc Walton (03:28)

This time, I wasn't as reckless this time because coming up to 40 with four kids, a bit more responsibility. So we bought rental units, we bought houses to rent out to give us some income. And the theory was that I could retire and just go sing and play guitar. And then you find when you retire, especially when you've got kids in private school, it's actually going through money like water and started to look for other ways to make money. I learned how to build websites, terrible at it.

Ange Dove (03:34)

huh.

Ange Dove (03:49)

Mm-hmm.

Marc Walton (03:56)

never made any money, went in the wrong niche and stumbled on trading. And as you say, I lost 20 grand in the first few years wasted. The worst thing is I wasted a lot of time. And I think nowadays more than ever, people spend so much time on YouTube getting stuff for free, but they just, you end up drowning in information. And in actual, mean, there's nothing that's available. There's nothing on YouTube that's not useful in that it can provide you with

Ange Dove (04:06)

Okay.

Ange Dove (04:15)

Yes.

Marc Walton (04:25)

data or whatever, but it just becomes so muddled. And I kind of found over the years as well, going back to this thing about passion, mentor, the last 20 years I've been mentoring people. So I teach them how to make money from trading and investing, invest it smarter. And whenever anybody comes to me and they're thinking of quitting the job, A, go for it, B, have a plan, but C, you need to have as many income streams as possible. Because if one's struggling at the minute,

And you will know this now as a coach, you go through a feast and famine. Sometimes you've got too many people and you're having to turn people away or put them off for months. And then you'll get other periods when it's, where's everybody gone? In the early days. So I say to people, know, what's the skill that you've got at the minute that you can monetize? Is there something you can do part time if it just brings you in a few hundred dollars a week? think, you know, start to think laterally, but to anybody that's 20, 30,

years old now, you've probably got another 50, 60 years worth of life. So why the hell would you want to carry on in a business or doing something that you don't enjoy? To me would be pointless. So by doing what I have done, I, you can follow what I've done and we'll go through everything we can today. It's not complicated, but the starting point is passion and then a plan and being creative. to say why, you know, I grew to hate my business. just detested it.

and it was like the weight of the world on my shoulders and when it had gone, life was great. Best thing I ever did.

Ange Dove (05:58)

Right. That's so interesting to hear. So a lot to unpack there, seeing what you've just said. So let's start with the passion part, because you get people in different camps saying different things. Some people say it's not your passion, you've got to be realistic or whatever. And others say, you've got to have passion. And I come from the camp of, think you have to have passion, because this is something you're going to be doing day in, day out. You're going to spend a lot of hours.

building your business, it's not going to happen overnight. And if you don't have passion, it's like, what reason have you got to get out of bed in the day? So just talk us through a little bit more about the passion side of things.

Marc Walton (06:42)

necessarily in my case I didn't go into Forex trading because I was passionate about Forex trading I was passionate that I needed to make some more money but I think when you when you work for anybody and you know I only once worked for a big company no actually two big companies for four or five months one was a bank in the UK and you realize in big companies that

There's a lot of idiots that are higher up the food chain and you're having to play the game. And I just didn't want to do that. So I was passionate that I did not want to have to do that. So my starting passion was I don't want to do this anymore. I need to find something. Now, if you can combine that with business and work that you love, then you've got the best of both worlds. And I do now. I have a business that I enjoy. I only do it part time.

Ange Dove (07:16)

Yeah.

Ange Dove (07:20)

Get me out of here. Yeah.

Ange Dove (07:27)

Yeah.

Marc Walton (07:35)

and it gives me the ability to live wherever I want. And if I say, right, well, I'm not going to do anything for two months because my wife and I like to travel, then I can stop. So, but the first passion for me was just getting out and working for idiots.

Ange Dove (07:42)

Yeah.

Ange Dove (07:48)

Yeah. Okay. So it was the getting away from the pain more than anything else at that point. Yeah.

Marc Walton (07:53)

Yes. Yeah. And especially with the third business, say 20 staff, the aggro that goes with it and all the tax and the compliance with the laws and everything else. I just got to the point. I woke up, you know, would wake up in the morning and just think, that's not a good place to be.

Ange Dove (07:59)

Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Ange Dove (08:06)

Yes, it becomes hard work.

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And I think it's when you're feeling that because I went through that as well. Sort of two cycles of that one with the job I was doing before I set up my business. I was exactly the same. I got to the point where, you know, it was like Monday morning. I don't want to do this anymore. Right. And then recently as well with my copywriting business. And I find I enjoy the coaching so much more.

Marc Walton (08:28)

Yeah.

Ange Dove (08:40)

And now it's kind of like, I don't want to do this. So then it gives you that impetus to make the change. It's usually like a single, like, right, this is it, I'm done.

Marc Walton (08:40)

Yes.

Marc Walton (08:47)

Yes.

Marc Walton (08:53)

For many people, that period can drag on forever, doesn't it? I when I was selling the business, it took 18 months. It fell through a couple of times. It was the longest 18 months of my life. But yeah, to make the decision is the big thing. I said, but if you're 20, then hey, just go for it. The world's a beautiful place. Go travel. I said it with my daughter. My daughter finished at university. She got an honors degree.

Ange Dove (08:56)

Yeah, yeah.

Ange Dove (09:01)

All

Ange Dove (09:05)

Yeah.

Ange Dove (09:09)

Yes.

Ange Dove (09:13)

Mm.

Marc Walton (09:20)

And she said, I really don't know what I want to do. And I said, well, here's some money, go get on the plane and go somewhere. And she's been traveling for the last 10 years and her friends were, you know, they're in corporate and they're at whatever level. mean, she's a very good photographer, so she's able to make an income anywhere in the world again. But she was being pushed from the university and from school originally, you know, just get proper job and go work here or go do this. And my attitude was not a sod that, you know, I've been there and done that.

Ange Dove (09:20)

Yeah.

Ange Dove (09:29)

Wow.

Ange Dove (09:36)

all nice, nice.

Ange Dove (09:45)

Mm.

Marc Walton (09:50)

If you do something that's passionate and she lives, has a whale of a time work wise and gets to travel to loads of different countries. So, you know, I mean, going back to you with the copyright and the course, if, if suddenly AI comes along and kills the business you're in, you've got to do something, haven't you?

Ange Dove (09:53)

Fuck.

Ange Dove (10:06)

Exactly, exactly. But it was at that point where I was like, yeah, I don't want to do this anyway. So it's okay. Right. So yeah, and I just love I love the idea. Like what you've said, they've mentioned a couple of times with yourself and then your daughter is being able to run a business around your own lifestyle, how you want to live. Yeah, I just love that. That's that's what I try and teach people to do as well is just

Marc Walton (10:13)

Yeah. Yeah.

Marc Walton (10:26)

Yes.

Ange Dove (10:33)

run your business from anywhere and fit it in around what you want to do and how you want to live. Because that, you know, that old, that the old days of having a full time job and working for that company for the rest of your life, that's gone, right? Yeah.

Marc Walton (10:38)

Yes.

Marc Walton (10:50)

No, no, no, no. The thing is there's no loyalty anymore. There's probably not going to be a pension. If you're 20 or 30 now, there won't be a state pension. I grew up in a mining village where people went to work down the pit because the dad did and the granddad did. They went from 16 to 65 if they lived long enough. At 65, they were worn out.

Ange Dove (10:58)

Mm.

Yeah.

Marc Walton (11:15)

And I'm 66 now and I don't feel worn out and I've had a great time for the last 25 years. If I'd have stayed in the UK, I'd have to me, I'd be on my third heart attack or dead by now. So, you you have to be willing to do it. But the other thing is, I mean, I get bored. So I'm constantly looking for new things. So within the industry that I'm in, I got into crypto in 2020 and did really well with crypto. then I'm...

Ange Dove (11:16)

Yes.

Ange Dove (11:23)

What?

Ange Dove (11:44)

Yeah.

Marc Walton (11:44)

heavily into gold and things now. So I'm of branching out into different things using the same skill set. And the other thing is... Sorry.

Ange Dove (11:46)

Okay.

Yeah, right. Okay. Yeah, that's, that's that's the key as well is that you're able to do that. It's it's being able to work with what you know, and then help other people with what you know. And that's, that's the great

Marc Walton (12:00)

Yes. Yeah. And the thing is, for me, I started off working for a firm in America remotely, trading for their clients. Then I was doing it for myself. And then I started posting on Twitter in the early days and people kind of said, this guy seems not his own about and came to me saying, will you teach me? So now I'm working for clients. I'm doing my own thing. I'm now teaching people as well as

Ange Dove (12:09)

Mm. Mm. Mm.

Ange Dove (12:24)

Mm.

Marc Walton (12:28)

And then I also get paid by a bank for reports and things. So it's the same skill set, but it's again, this multiple income streams for doing it for basically the same amount of work. So it's a lot of it is trying to think laterally and to try to work smarter, not harder.

Ange Dove (12:33)

Mm-hmm.

to the link. Nice.

Ange Dove (12:44)

Yeah.

Mm, I love that. That's really good. just for those that are not aware, I think a lot of people think that, OK, it's one income. I just have to get a job. I have one income, and that's going to do me. Why is it that we need to have multiple income streams today?

Marc Walton (13:07)

Well, AI is a classic because AI could come along and take your knees from under you in a very short space of time. And, well, that's one of the main things. And also I said earlier, you get any business goes through a cycle of feast or famine. And when I had a physical business, we had frozen food shops and wholesale. August and January, you didn't make any money because in August people were on holiday and in January, everybody was skinned.

Ange Dove (13:12)

Mm.

Ange Dove (13:22)

Yeah.

Marc Walton (13:35)

So, but you'd still, we still have an overhead of a hundred thousand a week. So you've got, you had to prepare for that. doing what I'm doing now, as I said earlier, I mean, sometimes at the moment with trading and investing, it's a nightmare with Trump because one day he says one thing, next he says another. So that makes it really difficult for the rookies. And, but then suddenly you say, okay, well, if I was only dependent on that, well, I'll just teach more people.

Ange Dove (13:40)

Right.

Ange Dove (13:43)

Yes.

Ange Dove (13:57)

Okay.

Ange Dove (14:05)

Mm.

Marc Walton (14:05)

And I do other things as well. still got a few properties left, but property investing for a lot of people, younger people these days is not as easy as it used to be. And certainly in the UK, tax wise and government interference is not worth the hassling. but then again, you know, I did a podcast in London last year and these guys were saying, we'll never be able to buy a house. And I said, no, you will be able to buy a house. You buy a house tomorrow. You just can't buy the house where you live now.

Ange Dove (14:18)

Okay.

Marc Walton (14:32)

They live in London, well an hour up the motorway you can buy a house, reasonably good house for less than £150,000. So again, be flexible. If you can't do what you want to do in a certain area then go somewhere else.

Ange Dove (14:33)

Yeah.

Ange Dove (14:49)

Right. OK. That's good advice. Yeah. So if people are making multiple streams of incomes, what kind of advice can you give them in terms of how they start doing that? Where would they find the different ideas? You said things like that.

Marc Walton (15:03)

Well, again, think on it. Yeah. Well, you want to have something if at all possible, it's internet based because that's the thing that gives you the freedom. And again, thinking about what your current skill set is or what you're doing. Now, when people come to me and say, I want to my job in three months. I'm sick to death of this. And it's like, Ooh, no, no, no, no. You're not going to quit your job in three months, but let's look at a 12 month plan. cracker. This is boring, but a 12 month plan.

Ange Dove (15:13)

Right.

Marc Walton (15:32)

And you say, okay, I'm going to scale down what I'm doing now whilst trying to raise up the boat the other way. Before COVID, it was tricky. And my daughter did this during, this was pre COVID. She was working for some lawyers in Australia and her visa was running out. And so she persuaded them to work remotely for them. So she was doing their marketing and

Ange Dove (15:48)

Right.

Marc Walton (15:59)

They were all in the 60s, the partners in this legal firm, it's like, the heck? All right, we'll give it a go. But that was quite revolutionary. There was a very good book by Tim Ferriss called Four Hour Working Week. And it's all about persuading your employer to work remotely one day a week, and then two days a week, and then three days, and then suddenly the whole week. Well, of course, when COVID came along, everybody's doing it. So it's now a lot more normal.

And again, I have a friend who works for a big company in Germany, but spends half the year in Lanzarote and half the time they don't know where he is because whenever he has to do a zoom call, he just has a plain white wall behind him. could be anywhere. And again, I mean, have a friend here. She works for a big accountancy firm in the UK. We live in Portugal now.

Ange Dove (16:42)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Marc Walton (16:52)

And she's flying to London three times a week. it's like for crying out loud, why don't they just do more zoom? well, they like to be client facing. Yeah.

Ange Dove (17:00)

Yeah, I think it's like with COVID, it went that way where, you know, you had to do everything remotely, right? Then after COVID, it's some like in Singapore, anyway, there's some companies that just saying, no, get back to the office, we don't want you to work remote. So they've kind of flipped the other way again. But my, my sister, for example, she works in London. She took her ages to persuade her employer.

Marc Walton (17:07)

Yeah.

Marc Walton (17:17)

Yes. Yes.

Yeah.

Ange Dove (17:30)

to let her work from home. This was before COVID. And she said, there's no point me being in the office because most of the time I'm on the phone to the US. They're on different time zones. So there's no point me being in the office, right? Because they're not awake. So eventually they let her do, I think about two days at home and then three days in the office. Then COVID hit. She was full time at home. And then got a message from the company saying

Marc Walton (17:33)

Yes.

Marc Walton (17:41)

Yeah.

Marc Walton (17:56)

Yeah.

Ange Dove (18:00)

Well, you've all proved that you can work so well remotely. We're not opening the office again. We're selling it. So yeah, so that's what happens. And then she ended up being completely remote.

Marc Walton (18:05)

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, there's two sides to it. I mean, I know a lot of companies. I teach a lawyer at the moment, how to trade now to invest smarter because he's in an industry now where he said all the mid-level staff are gone or going. And I have another guy who's just spent five years to qualify as an accountant and said, well, that's maybe not the best job. And the same thing again, he works for a big firm and

The admin levels are going or gone and some of the marketing and the management positions are going or gone. Some companies want people to go back to work. And some employees say to me, well, to be honest, I kind of miss the, the camaraderie and this kind of thing. And one of the things to know if you're self-employed, it's quite a lonely business and you have to be able to kick yourself up the backside on a daily basis to make yourself do it.

And I have a young guy now that I taught during COVID how to trade and teach and everything. And smart lad got an honors degree in port management or something. Company that he worked for were abusing him during COVID. They gave him more and more work and didn't give him any more money. And he's quit, he had the guts to quit his job and he's working with me remotely. So everybody that works with me is their own boss. But from time to time, I need to kick him up the bum.

Ange Dove (19:04)

no one's on for this.

Ange Dove (19:21)

Yeah.

Ange Dove (19:30)

Right.

Marc Walton (19:32)

because he's in his mid twenties and he's not got into the thing yet as a self-employed person that you've got to be able to motivate yourself. you know, there's one of the Americanisms I really like. I always used to say to my kids and they could quite have abated them. The going gets tough, the tough get going. And I think how you deal with adversity defines you as a person. You've got to have, and again, this goes back to the passion.

Ange Dove (19:42)

Yeah.

Ange Dove (19:51)

Mm.

Marc Walton (20:01)

If you just kind of fancy doing something and then it all starts to go wrong then it's just too easy to walk away. You have to be determined.

Ange Dove (20:09)

Yeah, you do. Definitely do. I remember like in the early days of running my business, like 20 over years ago when I set mine up, it was, I was just so stubborn and hardheaded and I was like, this is not, I'm not going to fail with this. I am not going to fail. Right. And you do everything possible to keep going. Right. You have to do what, you have to do what it takes. As they say, that's another phrase. I do whatever it takes because it's not easy.

Marc Walton (20:23)

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Ange Dove (20:35)

And I think that's the misconception. People think that running a business is easy. It's not always easy, but.

Marc Walton (20:39)

Oh, no, no, You will work harder than you've ever worked. It's very difficult to switch off in the early days. It's not a Monday to Friday, it's seven days. I mean, I never know what day it is, be perfectly honest, because I kind of take time off as and when I want, but I often have to tell my wife what day is it, because I'm not sure, because I've been so used to working.

Ange Dove (20:45)

Yeah.

Ange Dove (20:48)

Yes, yeah.

No.

Ange Dove (20:59)

or when there's public holidays and things like that.

Marc Walton (21:07)

any day. If somebody says to me, can we meet Sunday mornings? Okay. If it's not interfering what I'm doing, I'll do it. It's just another day. mean, and again, motivation wise, when we moved to Lanzarote, the kids didn't want to go originally. Kids that don't want to leave their friends. My youngest son had a suitcase packed for the first year. And so the responsibility and then the shame of going back to the UK with my tail between my legs.

Ange Dove (21:08)

Mm.

Mm. Mm.

Ange Dove (21:25)

Yeah.

Marc Walton (21:36)

and dragging them, crikey that would have been horrendous. So it certainly gave me an extra impetus to succeed. Yeah, big time, so that did help.

Ange Dove (21:39)

Yeah.

Ange Dove (21:43)

Right. That was your reason why. Right. Yeah. Okay. That's, love that. So, um, you, mentioned working remotely and you had, you've got your guy working remotely, um, because a lot of business nowadays are set up online and that's the way for you to get your freedom of movement. If you can run a business that's online, if you're building a team then and you're

working remotely with them, what advice would you have for people how to manage that? Because that's a different animal as well

Marc Walton (22:22)

The I mean, I did use a lot of freelance sites over the years. The problem with freelancers I find in general is that most of them start off as though they're gonna set the world on fire and then they get bored and suddenly they're not turning up and things. But I mean, I have a guy in South Africa that I taught in 2008 and he quit his job in 2010. He's been working with me 16 years. then I have another guy.

Ange Dove (22:47)

Right.

Marc Walton (22:50)

in the UK that's been with us five or six years. the main thing for me that, but they, I don't have the day to day hassle of staff and I don't have to chase them for things because at the end of the day they get paid if they do it. And if they do a good job, then I look after them. But, that's the thing with freelancers when you start, you know, don't get too attached.

Ange Dove (23:12)

Yeah.

Marc Walton (23:14)

Don't start falling for all the BS. Otherwise you just end up the same as being a boss in a physical building. You know, I'm sorry, I couldn't come yesterday. The dog was ill or I missed the bus or whatever. don't care. I don't care. So, and that to me is, is capitalism is purist both from a trading point of view, what you, what you earn is dependent on you, your skill and following the rules and doing what you're doing and working remotely like this and having co-collaborators. would look at it as not as an employee.

Ange Dove (23:22)

Yeah. Yeah.

Ange Dove (23:42)

That's a nice way. Yeah.

Marc Walton (23:44)

I'm not responsible for their social security. I'm not responsible for the holidays or anything else. And equally they can make money because if one of our clients wants one of them to teach them then hey, you do it and you get the benefit. So, you know, if you get a good one, look after them, but don't start getting soft and carry it, know, otherwise you just get abused. I did. I was never really, in retrospect, great at managing people in the real world.

Ange Dove (24:01)

Yes.

Ange Dove (24:12)

Okay. Either remotely or in person.

Marc Walton (24:14)

I was too soft. Yeah, I was too soft and I don't like hassle and I don't like confrontation so I would put things off for the bloody days or weeks sometimes and it would gnaw away at me so, no, this is fine.

Ange Dove (24:28)

Yeah.

Yeah, I think it's one of the hardest things about running a business is running people, dealing with people, right? It's definitely the most challenging. And as you say, if you don't set the expectations, then they will, you know, take over the roost.

Marc Walton (24:35)

Yes.

Marc Walton (24:46)

Yeah. And the thing is as well as deaf things are, depending on the business that you're in, sometimes you don't want somebody that's too smart because you'll teach them everything and they'll go off and become your competition. So it's a nightmare. really is a But if you're good with people, maybe you're experienced managing people and that's the way you want to go, then you know, you do your thing. It just doesn't suit any person.

Ange Dove (24:58)

you

Ange Dove (25:08)

Yeah. Mm. Mm. OK. Now, I have found working remotely, for me, it's like looking for the red flags, right? When you start to see, OK, this is the same kind of history as before. This is going to be trouble. It's either they can't follow instructions. I think that's the real red flag when they can't follow the instructions.

But then as you said, when you get someone that's really good, then treat them well, keep them as much as you can because it's such a hassle trying to find someone else and then retrain as well. And then as you said, the benefits of it is that, like the word you used, they're collaborators, I like that. And the good people I've had working with me remotely did kind of take that attitude of,

Marc Walton (25:43)

Yes.

Ange Dove (26:05)

you know, we're working together, we're collaborating. And they would then come to me and say, I've got an idea. This would work better if we did it this way. And I'm like, yeah, go for it. Right. And you want people to it's not just give, give, give, take, take, take, it's going to be given take. And if they can prove that they can add value to the company, then you're more likely to want to keep them on. Right.

Marc Walton (26:15)

Yes. Yeah.

Marc Walton (26:23)

Yeah.

Marc Walton (26:30)

It's the same thing as well. If anybody listening is thinking about freelancing as a means of income, then you've got to turn up and do the best that you can. When my daughter went to Australia, Australia is a different culture to the UK, or certainly was 10 years ago. She had friends in the UK who were on their fifth interview. Whereas in Australia, she had three jobs at one point. She said, basically you go and they'll kind of say, we'll take your coat off.

Ange Dove (26:35)

Mm. Mm. Mm.

Ange Dove (26:40)

Mm.

Ange Dove (26:51)

Bye.

Marc Walton (27:00)

She, the thing with her is that I said to her, when you employ somebody, you want somebody that turns up and whether there's freelancers or with some enthusiasm and some, you know, something about them that's, and like you say, if you've got a freelancer and you're co-collaborating, you know, they've got ideas. There's things you have to be careful when you're self-employed. You're not completely blinkered. And I am guilty of it from time to time. So.

Ange Dove (27:12)

Yep.

Ange Dove (27:25)

Mm.

Marc Walton (27:28)

And some of them might say a lot of the time, but the point is you want some pushback once you've got gained a level of trust. But the main thing I think is that there is a perception that with the young people that, that, you know, they turn up. I, I used to, when I had a physical bricks and mortar business, would literally be given young people for free on a government scheme. And I got to the point in the end, I just, wasn't worth the hassle because

Ange Dove (27:35)

Yes.

Ange Dove (27:53)

Okay. okay.

Marc Walton (27:59)

And I kind of say you have to kiss a lot frogs until you find your princess. And it would be maybe one in 20 that would actually care and turn up on time and not have to chase them around all the time and this kind of thing. And the final one I had, one lad walking around on his phone, sweeping one handed one day. I just thought, you know, I actually was wandering around after him, tidying up. And I thought, what the hell am I doing here? You know, so.

Ange Dove (28:09)

Yeah, yes.

Marc Walton (28:26)

The guy from the government then comes back and says, well, why have you stopped? You know, he keeps saying, it's a waste of time. doesn't care. don't care. And then they even got to the point. They'd give you money to take them. I don't want them. don't want them. I'd rather. And the thing that this is the other thing where people have to be careful that you don't think because you're getting older that, I'm too old. Well, maybe in some companies that becomes a thing. But when you remote or you freelance, it's your skill and your

Ange Dove (28:36)

Yeah, because you don't want the stress, right? That's all.

Marc Walton (28:56)

knowledge. And again, the young lad I was referring to earlier, said to me, said, I can't believe how old you are, because you've got the mentality of somebody like my brother. Whereas, you know, some people are old at 50. But the benefit if you're older, and you suddenly think you're cranky, I'm going to be filling supermarket shelves. Well, no, you've got a lot of life experience, you've got work experience, how can you monetize it? And be a mentor to people, you know, think

Ange Dove (28:57)

Yes.

Ange Dove (29:10)

Yeah.

Ange Dove (29:22)

Exactly. Yes.

Marc Walton (29:26)

about what you can offer. And at the end of the day...

Ange Dove (29:28)

Yeah, because that's basically who I help is like Gen X people at my age, that you've got to this state where you've got so much experience behind you. Right? You've got this wisdom now that comes with age as well. And you have so much value to give to people. Right? It's just finding a niche, finding a way to do that and build your own business around it. live the life as you're doing, live the life you want to live.

Marc Walton (29:39)

Yes.

Marc Walton (29:43)

Yes.

Marc Walton (29:56)

Yes. Yeah. I have a friend here. She's semi-retired. She's in the mid fifties and she was working in London as well and back and forth. And she, think the company structure was changing or something else. And she just got to the point and she said to me, you know what? I've had enough doing this, but she's really good at what she did. So she had six months off. She didn't do anything.

Ange Dove (29:57)

Right? Yeah.

Marc Walton (30:25)

And last time I spoke to her and I said, how are you getting on? said, well, I keep getting offers, but I just, I don't know. And I said, well, be careful because the longer you stay out of the loop, if you're not careful, they won't be the offers anymore. And, you know, pick, but pick only pick the things that you actually think, well, actually this could be quite interesting and do it on your terms. You know, if you want to do three days a week and you find something comes along as a project and it's six months or whatever.

and it interests you, then don't take yourself out of the loop too far because then you're having to come back and start from scratch. But if you're coming back and starting from scratch, then freelancing is something for people to consider.

Ange Dove (31:04)

Yeah, yeah. OK. All right. So I think just to summarize and recap on what we've just discussed there, it's really the need to have multiple streams of income. And I think that today as well, even if you keep your full-time job, it's still a good idea to have something on the side. I know someone here who has a full-time job. It's quite high up in the organization.

Marc Walton (31:26)

yeah.

Ange Dove (31:32)

and also runs two other businesses as a side hustle. And he's got income coming in, and he's not that stressed because he's managing who he puts into the companies to kind of run them for him. And he just oversees just in background. So you can even do that and just find someone that will manage it for you. And you're still getting the income that comes in from it, though.

Marc Walton (31:35)

Yes.

Marc Walton (31:47)

Yes.

Marc Walton (32:00)

Definitely having a side hustle because going back to what we talking about earlier where you know somebody would go work for a company from man and boy from 16 to 65 has gone and Loyalty is gone. My brother-in-law works for a bank and he's on this three-year renewable contract all the time and he's is 50 odd and it's like, you know, there's no there's no protection and if a crash come if a crash comes and I think there is a crash coming and especially what's happening in Iran at the moment

Ange Dove (32:08)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Ange Dove (32:17)

Okay.

Ange Dove (32:22)

Wow. Yeah.

Marc Walton (32:28)

You need a side hustle. And this is where trading is a really good way of doing it because you can do it around a job. But something whereby if suddenly the messy stuff hits the fan, nobody knows what's going to happen tomorrow, but your job could be gone tomorrow. AI could take your job. The company could move. The company could go bus or whatever, Absolutely. Yeah. Yes, exactly. So.

Ange Dove (32:48)

Yeah and Covid showed that as well that basically the people that were at risk were the ones who had the full-time jobs.

Marc Walton (32:57)

The point is start doing something today and say, right, I've been umming and ah-ing. said, I explained to you before, before I left the UK, because I've got my own business, I used to get family and friends come round and I'm thinking I'm going to do this and I'm going to do that. And I call them gunners because out of the 10 that I spent a lot of time and effort with, only one of them ever did anything. And so everybody wants everything for nout.

They want it for free, but they don't value what you're giving. know, so I don't work for, well, it's funny because I offered the son of a friend here a while ago. he came to see me and he said he was interested in learning how to trade and things. And I offered him, I said to him, right, well, I'll give you a year's membership, which is 500 bucks. And I'll give you a few sessions, which is 500 bucks ago. And, never heard from him for a week. And his dad said, did he say anything? I said, no, said, but it's gone now.

Whereas I have people on the waiting list for me because they know, and the main thing for you, if you're working online as you are now, people need to know, like, and trust you. but yeah, looking around on YouTube all the time for things for free, you know, often, and I'm a Yorkshireman north of England, which they say is a Scotsman with the generosity squeezed out of them. So I spent two years trying to do stuff on my own. So the point is

Ange Dove (33:58)

Right.

Marc Walton (34:25)

You know, make a step in the direction and if you've got to pay somebody that knows what they're doing, do your due diligence and go for it. Cause otherwise.

Ange Dove (34:32)

Yes, yes. Most of the time, yeah, it's just so much easier to pay someone to learn. it's like, as you mentioned, you go onto the internet, you try and find information, but it's all over the place and you can't make sense of it. If you pay someone who's already done it, so show me how to do it step by step. It's quicker, just so much faster.

Marc Walton (34:44)

Yeah.

Marc Walton (34:51)

I wasted two and a half years. was living in beautiful part of the world with sunshine, 12, 15 hours a day, and I was in the basement, billing old mates and stressed up to the eyeballs. no, no. I found a mentor in the end and within six months I was trading million dollar accounts for clients.

Ange Dove (35:03)

Yeah, you look great.

Ange Dove (35:10)

Nice. Okay, so if the listeners want to know more about how to get the kind of lifestyle that you have and maybe do some trading that's going to help them as well, where can we send them to for them to learn more?

Marc Walton (35:24)

I just started a sub stack so this just got going the last few weeks. It's Mark with the C Mark Walton and the website the main website for learning to trade is Forexmentorpro.com but you can find us on YouTube and see what we do and then if you want to chat then

Ange Dove (35:37)

4X. Yeah. Okay. Right. Okay, cool. So I will put the link below wherever anyone is listening and watching this so that you can go to Mark's site and learn more about what he does and sign up if you're wanting to start earning some extra passive streams of income, right? Well, not so much passive, not always passive, right? But multiple streams of income, right?

Marc Walton (36:06)

Yeah, well, we think we're going to do an offer this month where it's $39 a month and anything we do has a 30-day money back guarantee as well. So you can try it for 39 bucks and if you don't like it, we give you your money back.

Ange Dove (36:07)

Yeah.

Ange Dove (36:15)

Okay. Lovely. Fantastic. All right. So we will send them your way. So thank you, Mark, so much for being on. It's been a pleasure to speak to you and just find you so entertaining and so fun. I love your sense of humor as well. We come from the same part of the country as well. All right. So, yeah. So thank you, Mark, so much. And I look forward to staying in contact with you as well.

Marc Walton (36:45)

Thank you for inviting me. Good to talk.

Ange Dove (36:47)

You're welcome.