Naty Matos: Welcome to Thrive by the Rising Muse, the podcast where we talk real life transformation, mental health, purpose, and everything in between. Today's guest is someone who embodies what Thrive is all about. Robert, Robert Rolster was told his learning disabilities and mental health struggles would hold him back. But instead, he built a thriving property business. What if I told you that the man we're talking to today went from being told he never would amount to anything to retiring his parents, his family to the dream home and creating a life of freedom all by getting serious about financial education. And the best part, he's not a financial guru or some startup millionaire. He's the average guy. That's it for this episode of Thrive by the Rising News. Don't forget to follow us, our show, and this episode with someone who needs that ⁓ extra Remember to follow us on all social media, all our platforms. are at the Rising News. Remember, we're trying to get to 1,000 followers on YouTube. Help us do that. Also remember if you are experiencing a mental health crisis, please dial 988. So you start a business and you were in, even though you were doing the ⁓ little side did you already a family?
Rolston Real Estate: not at that point. So ⁓ I had my, I ⁓ just but ⁓ hadn't kids yet. ⁓ Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, yeah, that's it. That's it. So I, the property we got as of our portfolio was about three years into when we'd been doing all the various different other jobs, just to kind of collect the fees.
Naty Matos: Okay. Okay, so you did. Okay, yeah, but you were responsible for the wife. who decided to stop living from paycheck to paycheck and started building legacy wealth. I'm Veda I'm Naty. And we're here to thrive. retired his parents. ⁓ you are wonderful. And gave his family a life most people only dream about. Welcome to the show, Ron. But if it's a loved one who is experiencing the mental health crisis, dial 911 or take them to the nearest emergency room. And if you think you're in a domestic violence relationship and need to talk to someone, please dial 800-799-7233 or text 887-888. Please make sure you're in a safe place when you reach out. And until next time.
Rolston Real Estate: Thank you very much guys, pleasure to be here. So the first that I got was Valentine's Day, I remember that. It Valentine's Day, which was a month before my first son was born. So it had just ticked in before family started arrive. And both the portfolio and family have proceeded to continue to grow.
Naty Matos: Okay Rob, let's rewind. What messages did you grow up hearing about concerning your potential and concerning your success? home Don't forget to drive. Have a blessed day. Bye bye.
Rolston Real Estate: Well, I guess and Going back all the way to the beginning I suppose and I was very lucky I come from a house with two very supportive parents and I'm going back a little further than that. I suppose shaped the journey that I suppose the trajectory that I was on so if I took my Grandparents on my dad's side my grandparent my grandfather, excuse me and worked
Naty Matos: now that you know you have your family, have retired your parents, how do you manage risk in the middle of all these responsibilities?
Rolston Real Estate: Yeah, it's a great question. think my risk is probably than wife's She would be a little bit more conservative in terms of risk than I would be. But ultimately, that as a needs to be a conversation because everybody needs to be happy in terms of ⁓ that so-called risk. In business, all his days for ⁓ the same company. And then just as he was primed for retirement, the company got into difficulty and they raided the pension fund and ended up that the company was liquidated and he was left with very little at all. So he had to kind of come in with my dad to kind of rescue that situation. And my dad then seeing that said, you know what? That's never going to happen to me.
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. Mmm.
Rolston Real Estate: there is always going to be risks. know, it's a risk to buy a flat because although you can have all the surveys in the world, might find something, you know, there might be wet rot in the floorboards that wasn't picked up or something like that. There's always going to be risks. But the principle is what do you do to mitigate those things? ⁓ So put in place as much as you can to try and minimize or mitigate the risks or the potential risks. And in so,
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: I'm going to be the master of my own destiny. And he went down the business owner route and the kind of entrepreneur route where he wanted to kind of have a hold on the reins. And so I was very lucky, you know, we never really wanted for anything growing up. But that was all down to his hard work and he was constantly busy and constantly working, constantly providing. And because of that, he had turned around to me growing up and said, what you need to do is get a professional job, study hard.
Naty Matos: and Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: you can, you know, minimize your exposure. But ultimately, you know, the X-ray the fan, when ⁓ ⁓ it does, as it, it, you can be sure that it will at some point. And it, again, it back how do you manage those situations? I don't think there's any risk to my business that I could not.
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. I got you.
Rolston Real Estate: get to university, get a degree, and then you'll always kind of have that in the background. So that was what I was kind of brought up doing. know, I am a bang average guy, to be honest. learning disability wise, I've got dyslexia, but that wasn't diagnosed until after high school. So I kind of always was sort of an average kind of C student working my way through. And I remember work my way through. the age old saying of, if you stand outside long enough, you're going to get wet because it's eventually going to So you just buy an umbrella. you to have, So there various things you can do. So we keep aside a contingency fund. So if something goes there's extra budget there to fix it. I was quite sporty. what I wanted to do is to be a physiotherapist or a physical therapist. And I was told by the careers guidance people that I wouldn't get the grades to get in. And at the time I kind of had a bit of a chip on my shoulder about that, suppose. So I locked myself away for about a year, just studying, studying. And my version of studying was basically just memorizing textbooks. So, which is not exactly how you...
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. I like that. Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: we make sure that when we're running the numbers on refurbishments that we're always very conservative we'll have contingency funds again in any refurbishments that we're doing to make sure that if we go over budget it's not a problem. We various exit strategies thought out so if I have a property that I buy and my goal is to hold it ⁓ and rent out the long term if for any reason doesn't pan out should be studying necessarily, but it was what I did. So I got into exams and I just regurgitated textbooks. I found the things that were going to come up and just learned them by heart. And then I would say within two months of the exams being finished, I'd forgotten it all. So it wasn't very effective, but what it did do was it got me into university doing what I wanted to do. you know,
Naty Matos: ⁓ yeah.
Rolston Real Estate: or an investor needs to get their cash back quicker. We can then use a different exit strategy. We'll just sell that. You we can flip it. We can ⁓ change and make it into a service accommodation Airbnb style thing. ⁓ There's of different things that you can do, but you need to be aware of different exit strategies so that you have the ability to pivot if you need to. If something crops up and something changes. the other ⁓ is that economies of scale. At that time I was following the map. was doing everything that I was supposed to be doing, everything that you're told that you're supposed to be doing. Got into university, then I got the degree and that was all great. And then got my first job, which was super. So, you know, I was living the life. I was, you know, doing everything, making the family proud, all the things that you're supposed to do. And then I remember landing my first paycheck and I opened it up and I was all excited and it hit me like a ton of bricks. And I was like, that can't be right. So we bigger, the rental cash flow accumulates. And this goes back to one of the earlier points that I made about compounding over time. know, so the cash flow from one flat is small. if roof needs repaired I'm much more exposed. But if I have 10 flats, it's very unlikely that 10 roofs are going to need to be repaired all at once. But there's the rental income coming in from 10 flats. I was like, there's no way, there's no way you do it. You do all the stuff you're supposed to do. You know, you're a good boy at school. You work hard, you get to university and then that's all I'm earning in a month. That can't be right. And for this first six months of my job, I remember surviving on baked beans and scrambled eggs for the last week of every month, waiting for my paycheck to drop. And I just got really disenchanted and it was like, there has to be more to life than this. And so that sort of,
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. ⁓ Mm-hmm. Right.
Rolston Real Estate: so I'm much more secure in that I can handle any... discontent, I suppose, was what sort of led me to break away from the kind of rat race, I suppose, if you want to call it that, to kind of explore how I would be able to, you know, provide for my future family or what is now my current family and see how I could kind of change my stars, which is how it's kind of led me to here. So I suppose ultimately my upbringing is privileged from the point of view of a very supportive family. cashflow issues or if somebody moves out, then I can cover those void periods because I've got the cashflow coming in from elsewhere. I get a down valuation for whatever reason, because a surveyor gets out of the bed on the wrong side one day, I handle that because I can absorb that. And ultimately is a long-term So ⁓ do I think a house that I buy today is going to be worth less in 30 years? ⁓ No, I don't. So, know.
Naty Matos: Right. ⁓ Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: So both my parents still kicking around support me and both my sisters never wanted for anything as an individual, you know, I'm not the smartest guy by any manner of means but I've kind of cracked the code and in doing so have managed to create security and affluence for myself support my family and we can touch on all those things as well because my belief is now, you know that the average person
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: even if I get a down valuation today, I just sit on it. I'll put a 10 in into it and then I'll get another valuation in two years time. Yeah.
Naty Matos: So what does success mean to you today in the life that you built?
Rolston Real Estate: Well, think again, yeah. So again, this is a great question because success is different for everybody. I am a flashy dude. I have interest in cars really. I couldn't really tell you the difference between Ford Focus and Volvo, except the that they got different badges. so I'm not a material My goals have always been lifestyle orientated. I wanted security from family. can achieve affluence. You don't need to be anybody special, you don't need to do anything special, you just need to know the rules of the game and implement them. And that's what I'm here to do now. I'm here to spread that message and to help other people to get to where I am, to break free of the nine to five, to climb the ladder and escape poverty and make sure that they have a life of financial security and can provide for themselves and their kids. I wanted security for my kids. wanted my kids to have the opportunity to live in the countryside with a bit of space away the city. I wanted them to have fresh air. they wanted animals, I wanted to have the opportunity to give them that. So my wealth if you want to call it that, has always been having time.
Naty Matos: are some of the first lessons you taught yourself to manage money differently.
Rolston Real Estate: Well, it's a funny story actually. like I said, I was working away doing the nine to five that everyone does, you know. And after about two years, like I said, I was pretty browned off. So I had been at that time saving for a mortgage as well. you know, I was scrounging because it wasn't on massive money. was pretty average wage. And I just got so annoyed that I just said, you know what, there has to be more to life than this. And I took all that savings and I decided
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: spend with my family because that's what matters so I don't want to have somebody dictate to me that I need to show up at a certain time to do a certain thing to only be able to be ⁓ to have a certain amount of holidays I to be able to say actually you know what I'm gonna take today because I want to spend it with the family because the sun's out and the beach is calling I want be able to give them the opportunity that you know I can get them if they want
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: I'm leaving and going to Thailand. So I went, I just went traveling on the beaches for ages. And I remember sitting on a beach in Thailand and being very aware that like, this was brilliant, but you know, the money was going to run out at some point. So what was I going to do? And I was going through Bangkok airport actually. And I just wandered into a bookstore to see what am I going to read on the next beach that I stumbled onto. And I discovered. I don't know, piano lessons or drum lessons, then I can facilitate that. want to be in a position that my wife who still works because she's very vocational, loves her job, but if she wants to step back her hours, then that's fine because we're supported. If I to retire early and you know, I have income that means it'll make money when I'm asleep. That's, that's the goal. I just I want security. a book called Rich Dad Poor Dad, which I think is probably what starts about 95 % of entrepreneurs and financial evangelists and people like me on their journey. And I guess that was what opened my eyes to financial literacy and to personal finance. And the main lessons that I took from that, I read it cover to cover in a day and then I read it again in the second day.
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: I want not to have to worry about money and I want to be able to then spend time doing the things that matter.
Naty Matos: You talk about retiring parents and that they were very focused on the hustle, especially your dad. How was that process of getting him ⁓ out the mentality? Let me Did the retirement process was putting them in a position like yours where they had passive income and ⁓ that's how could retire?
Rolston Real Estate: Hmm. And from there, I just started to deep dive everything on personal finance that I could find. So I picked up a lot of lessons just from, from reading and from books and then other lessons I've picked up all on the way, just by attaching myself to people in the industry. the, the main lessons, I suppose that I've picked up that were eyeopening was understanding the difference between assets and liabilities, understanding The biggest thing in terms of that is, know, I think my and my mom are both busy by nature. You know, I don't think they would ever sit down because they like to be busy. They like to be doing things. So the of retiring them is really just to a bit like I'm talking about. It's, know, I'll probably never retire. I do what I to do, but
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: inflation and its impact on the economy and its impact on your money in your pocket and even more importantly your money in your bank account and how you know everyone's taught to save but if you're making one to two percent interest rate in your savings account and inflation is at 10 your money's worth eight percent less year on year but nobody really understands that it's not something that's taught in schools
Naty Matos: doing what they wanna do.
Rolston Real Estate: It's to take away the pressure of, you there's, you have to do this or the bills don't get paid. That's that, that's what retirement is to me. So it's the ability to put things in place where living costs are taken care of. if wants to go ⁓ and, know, drive an Uber or something, because he wants to have the chats with the people they take, cause he's a very social animal. then.
Naty Matos: Right. Mm-hmm. Nothing. Right.
Rolston Real Estate: And yeah, the other thing then, a big, big eye opener is understanding the importance of compounding and compound interest over time. Those three principles are massive, you know, they're foundational. And that is definitely what you can build your family's wealth upon.
Naty Matos: Right. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. ⁓
Rolston Real Estate: free to do it and if he doesn't want to do it today then he's okay to sit down and you know watch the game that's fine too. It's of pressure. think that this is the thing about passive income is that it doesn't if you're tired or if you're sick or if you're the money trickles in so it's security it's constant.
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: they're not crazy, sorry, yeah, I know I was gonna say that they're not crazy sexy, but if you follow them, then that's what creates the long term.
Naty Matos: Can you define libel? Go ahead. Right. Now for some of us who, even though we went to school, math was not our best subject, especially economy. If I tell you my experience with my economy class, will mess my reputation. I slept through the class. It was boring. was, it was boring. was right. It was in the classroom that had no air conditioning and it was the middle of summer.
Rolston Real Estate: And it's asset based. So you're not exchanging your time for money, which is what everybody does when they have to pitch up to work for their nine to five. You get paid for working from nine to five. And as soon as you go home, you stop earning because you're, you're not on, you're not on the treadmill spinning, spinning errors, you know, rattling the keyboard, whereas your passive income, it doesn't matter if you're in Spain. It doesn't matter if you're in Miami. It doesn't matter if you're on the North pole. It's still trickles in. ⁓ the. Me neither.
Naty Matos: Okay. Mm-hmm. ⁓
Rolston Real Estate: Yeah. That's, hey, hey, I dropped business when I was 14 years old. Yeah.
Naty Matos: Right.
Rolston Real Estate: Mm-hmm.
Naty Matos: I fell asleep. There you go. so can you define assets and liabilities?
Rolston Real Estate: time that it gives you for me that's time at the moment but for them that's time in their retirement. Yeah, yeah, very much so. I guess the simplest way to put it is if you understand that an asset is something that you buy that puts money into your pocket and a liability is something that you buy that takes money out of your pocket. So for example, you can buy a property and if you rent it out and it generates cash flow, so every month there's
Naty Matos: How do you your wife work together with decisions or work, parenting, money?
Rolston Real Estate: You know, it is like any partnership. Everything on an even keel. Everything is discussed openly. And I that's the only way function, to be honest with you. ⁓ I don't think can get by if there's not an open, honest So ⁓ in any facet of whether that's, you know, goals or aspirations are individual ⁓ or whether it's the kids. excess money that's dropping into your bank account and then your bank balance builds up, that's an asset. But if you buy a property that's a holiday home that sits vacant and you use it occasionally, but you still have to pay the mortgage on it and it's costing you money every month, that's a liability. it's the same thing that you've bought, but it's how it's used is what creates it. It creates a difference between the asset and the liability. So
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. acid. Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: whether it's work or whatever it happens to be, there's a kind of a sit down and we'll talk things out. You know, what is it that she's looking to achieve? What is it that I'm looking to achieve? And ⁓ am very lucky. You know, I love my she's my best friend and I'm hers. ⁓ And we do a very close understanding of, you know, we will always back each other up. And that is, you
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: That principle is across anything because you can buy a car and that car depreciates over time as soon as you drive it off the lot. And if you're driving it just to kind of, you know, service your lifestyle, then it's a liability. But if you're an Uber driver and it's your livelihood, it's an asset because of putting money in your pocket. So it's understanding the difference between the two. And a lot of people think that their home is an asset.
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: the most important thing in life, think. It doesn't matter if I could come away with some complete outlandish goal, but if it's important to me, she'll say, you know what, let's work through this. Let's hear this out. What does this mean and how can we make this work? And likewise with her, she wanted to go on an ice hockey camp a couple of weeks ago. So I was like, yeah, okay, that's fine. I'll take the kids. You shoot away down to England and go do your ice hockey camp.
Naty Matos: Mmm. Brian.
Rolston Real Estate: And this is a controversial topic because for a lot of people it's the biggest investment that they make. Unless they listen to me. Although property will go up over time, you wouldn't consider it an asset because it's costing you money. It's not generating additional cash. Unless you do something like you have a
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: wanted to, a bit of a midlife crisis thing, wanted to take up bodybuilding and men's physique. And she was like, yeah, I'll the diet side of stuff and you go to gym. And I was like, cool. So it's, it's give take. It's understanding, it's openness and honesty well. So it's all those things. I think you can pinpoint one thing that makes it a success. I think it needs to be a mixture of all these things.
Naty Matos: You Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: proportion of your home or you have an annex or something that you can then rent out and the rent from that say covers your mortgage and so again You can play around with these things to create an asset from whatever it is that you've bought but yeah, so that the fundamental difference between an asset and liability is is Where does the cash flow go? Does the cash flow leave your account or does it come into your account?
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I'm sure that ⁓ the of our voices would like to have some passive income. I think a dream for anybody. But we have think about the fact that ⁓ we are not exactly you were when we were about to start. For example, you you were a little younger, you didn't have a responsibility of a family. If somebody is trying to start a business and it's not necessarily in real estate like yours is, what would be the first time you think they should do?
Rolston Real Estate: Well, when I started it, like I said, I had literally blown all of my cash in Thailand. I came back and I had nothing to start with. All I knew is that I was going to build an asset base and I was going to pursue passive income and financial independence. So I came back and I got a nine to five job and immediately I started to network with people who were in the industry that I wanted to start off in, which was property at the time.
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. you were broke, but if you had to spend 16 hours on a side job to do something, you had the ability to. What would you say to who's already probably in debt with a family responsibilities, but who also wants to start a business that could get them to the point of being in a better position? Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: So the number one thing that people should be doing when they're starting out is attach yourself to people who are a couple of steps ahead of where you are and stick to them like Lou and pummel them with questions and ask and absorb as much information from them as you can. How I started was doing exactly that. I went to network meetings. I started to find out what made these people tick, how they were running their businesses. And then in order to generate income for myself, I started just doing say start and start now you're right in terms of the younger you start the longer that you have to put money aside and to build and that principle of compounding takes flight you know it's warren buffett the richest in the world but he has made something like three times his net worth in the last three years just
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: ⁓ little side hustles for them and doing what we call over here, property sourcing. ⁓ I think over in, in the States with you guys, gets called wholesaling, I think it's called, but basically you're, you're finding the deal. You're finding the opportunities and then you approach investors and you sell that opportunity for a finder's fee. So you collect these little fees and you put them away, collect the little fees, put them away. And I'm a big advocate of saying that I never save money. I store money.
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. Okay.
Rolston Real Estate: based off the fact that he's been in the game for a long time. you know, my belief is that anybody can become a millionaire so long as they're able to work. It's just a case of having the right framework and working the systems. And yes, it is a little bit harder you have debt, if you have the additional of supporting a family.
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: And that's a ⁓ mental difference where I'm like, I'm not saving money for a rainy day in case, you know, the furnace goes or the boiler breaks or the roof needs repaired. I'm storing money so that I can then put it into an asset class that's going to generate income. And the income from that asset class will trickle in passively every month. And so that income then takes care of if the boiler breaks or if the roof needs something or the windows get broken or whatever.
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: if you are supporting, you know, members of your family who aren't able to work or for, you know, there's ⁓ number of things that can be ⁓ as an obstacle. guess the message there is that again, it's not your fault that life has dealt you a difficult hand, but it your responsibility to...
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: So the number one thing is if you're starting from scratch is attach yourself to a mentor. It doesn't have to be someone who's an officially a mentor, somebody who just, you are aware they're sitting where you want to be and absorb as much information as you can from them. And we kind of built our way along that ladder then. So we went from the finder's fee situation to then starting project management where we would manage the trades and oversee the refurbs and
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. Right.
Rolston Real Estate: play the hand that you're dealt and to maximise what you can do for yourself and for your family because there are unfortunately no handouts so if not you then who? If you don't take that forward then nobody's going to better your life for you. So my message there would be that it's never too late to start but what you need to do is you do need to work hard but not just work hard on getting extra fees for there to the point where we are now where we have enough experience that we deal with investors on a fixed term loan basis where they'll give capital across to us and we'll basically work accrued the assets and we pay them back fixed returns. So they're then getting passive income that drips in. We get to accumulate an asset and everybody wins because we get the passive income from the rent. They get the passive income from fixed returns.
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: a nine to five job, you need to work hard at assets or you're not doing it yourself, if you're focusing on earning an income, link with somebody like myself or somebody else able to facilitate that for you, who can either build it for you or who can in a joint partnership where we facilitate it or facilitate it for you. there are avenues. that's paying for their family holiday, that's, you know, paying for them in retirement or addition to their pension or what it is, various different reasons that people want to invest. But what it is is allows them to sit on a beach somewhere or in an armchair or focus on what their main business is. Deal with a lot of busy professionals who are a bit like my dad was so focused on, the hustle of generating a wage that they're too busy. for anyone to accumulate wealth. As long as you're able to work and earn some sort of an income, it doesn't matter if you are a waitress in a cafe or if you're a pilot or if you're a doctor, it doesn't matter. It's the principles of you earn a certain amount, you live below your means, you put a certain amount aside, but you don't save it. You immediately put it into something that's gonna generate money in.
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: to either learn how to invest or just too busy to take themselves away from their business. So we're able to create secondary income streams for them without them having to do anything.
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. and That sounds like a dream. Rob, what were some of the earliest wins and the earliest flops you experienced and how did it shape your business mind?
Rolston Real Estate: And it might be that you're only starting off with a small amount, but you put that small amount into something that's going to pay you back more money. And whilst that's working, you continue to do that same principle. what happens is it starts off really small, but if you stay consistent with it, that small amount becomes a little bigger and becomes a little bigger, becomes a little bigger. ⁓ the same principle of eating an elephant. You only do it one bite at a time.
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: Well, you know what, there's ups and downs in any business. I think the earliest win for me was probably about six months after I had been going to network meetings and I'd been trying to kind of find my feet and get started. And I was looking at opportunities and I was looking at deals and I was trying to find one that I could pass on to an investor for a fee. And I was doing that for about six months without any success at all.
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. I like especially the one, you ⁓ to start fighting. The whole living your needs because sometimes people to have, they have big dreams but not willing to do the sacrifice. have big dreams.
Rolston Real Estate: But you have to start eating. If you don't start eating, you're never gonna get there. because I was brand new. probably didn't know very much about what I was doing and I was slowly learning my way. I remember about six months in, I finally got one over the line and I saw the fees drop into my bank account and it was, it was a thousand pounds at the time. And I remember I just hit the roof. You know, I was like, I was beyond thrilled with myself. I was like, do you know what? This can actually work. And it was that moment that I kind of, it was
Naty Matos: but it's and a good one. It's not a baloney budget. It's a baloney means that you know, you're using money that you could be investing in in future a business when you're using it go out to dinner, buy clothes, buy fancy shoes. You know, you could probably cook something at home.
Rolston Real Estate: what we would call proof of concept, know, it showed me that it's there to be done. It's there to be won. I've done it. I can replicate it. And now that's the first step on the ladder and I can build my way up from there. Property is a funny game when you're dealing with rentals because you're dealing with tenants and people's lives. So it's very important, obviously, that you're responsible about how you're doing and what you're doing.
Naty Matos: and save those $20 or and put them to the side to either get rid of debt or to put it towards the principle of starting a business. But you can't ⁓ it up before you have it. ⁓
Rolston Real Estate: It's again, it goes back to the fundamental principles of wealth. know, it's, it's understanding the difference between assets and liabilities. It's understanding delayed gratification. understanding that if buy a Lamborghini, you don't just buy a Lamborghini, you buy Lamborghini problems. You buy, you know, ⁓ it you two and a half grand to change the tire on a Lamborghini. Costs you 200 quid to change it on a Volvo. in terms of providing somewhere a safe haven for families to live in. The flip side of that is that you also have to deal with sometimes when you have tenants who aren't as respectful of your properties as maybe you would like them to be. I guess if we're talking about low points, there was an incident where I had a lovely couple in one of my flats.
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: who you're doing it for, you know, you to, you have to think about what, where you are and everyone's at a different point, you know, ⁓ but even small changes consistently add up very quickly and people underestimate what they can do in 10 years and overestimate what they can do in a year. ⁓ So need to be patient and you're not going to have saved or stored enough money to change your life.
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. Right. Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: And then I got a call one day from the leading agent to say that there had been a big breakdown and there'd been a big fight and there'd been an incident of domestic abuse. And the guy had leg that he'd run away and he'd left Scotland and was down in England and the police were looking for him. And they were obviously then going to move out.
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Rolston Real Estate: in a year, but if you continue to do it for five years, seven years, 10 years, it adds up very quickly. And over that time, as long as you're investing sensibly or putting your money into assets, you're going to then have building, trickling of coming back in that you can then reinvest. One of things that They had the door had been broken in by the police and there was holes in the wall from things being thrown. And so it was a bit of a mess. Um, but you know, I guess the main message within that is there's, you have to be resilient. You have to have a stick to it of us where, you know, this too shall pass. There's, there's never going to be a series of good days without a bad day at the end of it. You have to just ride those waves and you have to.
Naty Matos: Okay.
Rolston Real Estate: Again, talking about sort of living below your means, you don't have to live a squalid life. You can be comfortable. just have to, you just have to be sensible and ultimately, yeah, be creative and just, but just be sensible. You know, it's you then save 10 % and you put that away. Uh, and then that 10 % becomes 15 % because it generates an extra five. take it on the chin and rather than focusing on the problem, you focus on, okay, how do I fix it? How do I get out the far side of it? Because if you just dwell on us, then nothing, nothing changes. Nothing happens. There's a saying that I really like where, you know, not everything that happens is your fault, but everything that happens is your responsibility. So,
Naty Matos: I don't know. Mm-hmm. Or be creative. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: And that 15 % then becomes 22 % because it constantly spirals upwards. It's that kind of hockey stick effect where it starts off slow and then you hit a little up curve and then that up curve very quickly starts to kind of fly up. But you have to start. And if you don't start, then you never get to that curve, to that uplift. One of the things as well is when it comes to...
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yep. ⁓ huh. ⁓
Rolston Real Estate: That's basically how I kind of approach those things. So it's not my fault that somebody has wrecked the flat, but it's my responsibility to put it back together so that it will continue to generate income and it will continue to support my business.
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. I hope. Right. Exactly. Yeah. How did you met... Go ahead. Sure. Sure.
Rolston Real Estate: buying fancy things or when it comes to going for fancy dinners, those things are okay, but you have to know where the cash is coming from. If you decide that you want to go for a fancy dinner or you want to buy a nice car, buy an asset first that pays for your fancy dinner or pays for your car. of slapping loads of money down on a car finance plan, slap money down on a flat. Yeah, I'm just going to put my laptop on charge there if you've got me two seconds. Sorry, I'm just about, my laptop's about to die. Two seconds.
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. Mmm.
Rolston Real Estate: buy a flat, wait a year, let the cash flow come in and then let that flat take over your car payments. And then the flat has bought you your car, you get the fancy car, but once the car's paid off, you now have the car which is depreciated in value, but you still have the flat which has now gone up in value and cash flows every month. You know, it's just been.
Naty Matos: that's still giving you money. They will probably pay for those service and the tire coming after ⁓
Rolston Real Estate: That's exactly it. You don't have Lamborghini problems, you have a house. But it's the principles of that. these aren't things that are taught in school. So it's one of the things that in the next year, already reached out to a couple of different schools locally about going around and talking to pupils about this, because you're right in what you said earlier. The earlier that you start, the the chance that you have. And I if you speak to a lot of wealthy people about money and about
Naty Matos: Yes. Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: financial literacy and about the kind of knowledge of money and how it works is everybody wishes that they knew about it before they did. They wish they knew, they wish they found out about it earlier. one of the things that I want to do is that ⁓ know that property and has changed my life. And if can work for me, who's a bang average guy, then it can work for absolutely everybody else. They just need to know the tools and how to use them. So that's my of project.
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: alongside my businesses to try and kind of spread that word and to give people the tools they can start changing their lives as well. And ⁓ try get to try get that to them as early as we can.
Naty Matos: Nothing. Now, I know people who buy properties are behind in their taxes. Okay? go pay the taxes. I think you pay for five years or whatever, then the property can be put in your name. And through them doing this, they have accumulated nice bit of properties. Yeah. The other one is get properties in foreclosure. Yeah, properties in foreclosure and in fact that's how they got their home. It was foreclosure I think and they got for a lower price, you know, which is great. But yeah.
Rolston Real Estate: Mm-hmm.
Naty Matos: behind in taxes on property and foreclosure properties. They have really, really been successful in that area. yeah, yeah. I wish I could do it. Me too.
Rolston Real Estate: There's different strategies for, yeah, you know, there's 101 different reasons why you can find a quote unquote deal in property. ultimately what everybody needs to understand is, mean, if we're talking about property and real estate is that you're actually not really so much looking at the property itself. You're looking at the people behind the property because every house has a story and there'll be a reason that that
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Rolston Real Estate: person can't get whatever the maximum value would be on the open market, say, know, if they could, then they would just go and do that. You know, ⁓ in a conversation with you to sell it at a lower price because there's a problem. And an looking to accumulate an asset your main job is to solve that problem. ⁓ So that problem be that something's happened and they can no longer make the mortgage payments and the bank is going to foreclose the bank is basically just going to strip that house away and they'll be left with nothing. But if they have the chance to sell it to you quickly before the bank can do that, they sell it to you for more than what the bank is going to take it for so they can pay off the bank loan. They get a little bit of something that they can then go and start again. So you've solved that problem, but you've managed to take away the the issue that they had, you might find that somebody has become really unwell or they might be particularly elderly and they've not been able to, yeah, they've not been able to look after the house. So the house has, you know, become really depreciated. It's become really run down. You know, there's issues the plumbing. It's not been maintained. So you put that ⁓ on, you the open market because the agent comes around and the photos have, you know, the brown
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. That was my house. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: soiled wallpaper and you know the cat litter scattered across the happens to be know there's graffiti on the outside of house whatever happens to be but you have to look past those things because although that would put the majority of people off that's just because they don't want to deal with those problems your job is to deal with those problems see the opportunity and then turn what is now a property that
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right.
Rolston Real Estate: can't really be used into a nice safe house for people who need it. So it's about, lot of it is to do with your mindset. It's to do with how you view a problem and you find the solution and how you can help people. Because, you know, might be to somebody who ⁓ is, they've got problem ⁓ with a house and not necessarily that they'll want to
Naty Matos: Right.
Rolston Real Estate: that sell it to me, they won't want to maximise the value and that might not be for me. But I'd be like, you know what? Your husband sat on the market for six months, it's not shifting. You know, I'll point you in the direction of someone who can help you. So even if it's not to me, I can then, you know, send it to someone who can help. It's all of it. Relationships, it's about dealing with the people behind the property. And I think if you're open and honest with people, they'll buy into that. And that's where opportunity comes because it's actually you're dealing with the people rather than the property. The property is
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. and Yeah.
Rolston Real Estate: the assets that sits behind it all. what you're talking about with foreclosures or property taxes, yeah, that's a whole myriad of things. think there's any number of reasons that people can want to get rid of a property quickly. Divorce is a massive issue. have properties and joint names. There's a whole host of reasons. And that's why it's not just about
Naty Matos: Yeah. Mm-hmm. ⁓ Yeah.
Rolston Real Estate: accumulating assets for yourself. It's about having the compassion to listen to the people on the problem solve that. And doing so, you are improving their life because you're fixing the problem. You're improving own life because you're then creating an asset base that helps to support your family. And from an perspective, the that we deal with, ⁓ we're then able to
Naty Matos: you
Rolston Real Estate: create a asset base, we've got built-in equity because we've bought it at a level where we know there's going to be an uplift, securing their investment and we can pay them back a fixed return, which means they have then added a passive income stream to their net worth where they are busy working away and we have this happening over here, which is going to ultimately pay them every year. So it's this kind of, ⁓ was gonna say, so you're fixing this problem, you're fixing this problem, you're fixing that problem. So it's very much a kind of a domino effect.
Naty Matos: You talked about starting right You talked about that you've been in conversations with schools to start doing financial literacy. Given the fact that, know, no secret, you're in the UK, but that these principles are not necessary. They're not just for the UK, the universal principle. Have you thought of doing the, you know, sharing those things online, like doing a course or a webinar or something to that effect?
Rolston Real Estate: Well, one of the things that we're looking at doing or I'm looking at doing at the moment is I've got the sort of pipeline put together or the, what is the word, the concept together a book, which we're probably going to be publishing towards the latter end of this year. And ⁓ will be based off the same kind of principles that I'm talking about here, but the same things that I would be talking to students about. that is, you know,
Naty Matos: How dare you?
Rolston Real Estate: Like you say, the principles of wealth building, the principles of financial literacy, financial freedom of passive income, all of these creation principles are the same no matter if you're in America, if you're in Australia, if you're ⁓ the UK. The book that I read was a book written by Robert Kiyosaki who's from Hawaii, based in the States. ⁓
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mmm. Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: second book that I read was my four year old, the property investor, which was written by an Australian investor. So, know, I've I've ⁓ read, me, by investors or people who are in the financial and sort of personal finance framework from all across the globe. The principles are the same. So it doesn't matter where you are, as long as you have
Naty Matos: Mmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: you know, eyes in your head and you're willing to read and to learn, the opportunities are there. just you have to reach out and grab them.
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. tell me how this has affected mental health. You being your own boss, your investments, how does it affect your mental health? Knowing that whatever money you make, you have to share it with anybody. You bring it in and reinvest it.
Rolston Real Estate: Yeah You know, the main thing is that security relieves stress. Money, generally speaking, is a stress to people. There are hundreds of thousands of people, millions of people across the globe hanging by a thread because of
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: money because they have financial problems because their bills outweigh what they can take in. that is something that I want to change. And it's not something that I can directly influence because ⁓ too many, there's too many people across the globe who understand how to themselves into a different situation. Where ⁓ I would to come in is to try and give them the tools to help themselves. The book that
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: I'm going to be writing is called financial fish. And that's based on the principle that if you teach someone to fish, you feed them for a lifetime. But if you just give them fish, then they eat for the day. Same principle as you know, yeah, the who wins the lottery, but is bankrupt, you know, two years later, because they don't understand the principles of what to do with the cash when they get it. ⁓ It's tools order
Naty Matos: Mmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: build and create the security because that's what money is. Money is just security. It's security that you can time for the things that matter. So in terms of my own mental health, I feel great. I'm doing what I love. I'm spending time with the people that I love. And that was always what my why was, if you like. think when you ⁓ are started on a journey like this, you want to start with the end in mind. You want to picture
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: not only where you want to be in a year's time, you want a picture of where you want to be when you you know, 80 old. What do you want life to look like? You know, do you want to have loads of grandkids? Do you want to just be you and the Mrs. Maybe you just want to be by yourself on a yacht in the Pacific somewhere. Doesn't really It's whatever it's you want that vision to be.
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. ⁓
Rolston Real Estate: and then you start to point your compass towards that. For me, I was never interested in the yacht. I was never interested in the fancy sports car. What I was interested in was a nice house in the country, a bit of space, animals around about me, because I've always liked horses, so it's great having horses now, and the kids can have horses if they want horses. the have, if they that they want to, I don't know, go to France to learn French, then fine.
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. The family.
Rolston Real Estate: You know, it's the freedom to be able to facilitate those things. I think having freedom and having the security means that I don't have to stress about those things. And that then has the added benefit to, you know, ⁓ your health and because it reduces the stress. Now, the thing life is full ups and downs like we spoke earlier. ⁓ So there is such thing as a life without
Naty Matos: ⁓ huh. and Thank you. and Right. ⁓
Rolston Real Estate: What you need to do is you just need to strive for a life with better problems. know, know, money is a problem. You know, if I am, you know, broken struggling to pay rent, that's a problem. But if I'm, you know, a millionaire and I've got a million dollars sitting in my bank account and inflation is a 10 % and that money is just eroding away, I've got a different problem. Still a problem.
Naty Matos: ⁓ Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: It's just a better problem to have. So it's all about how you frame these things, but yeah, will achieve your goals and then you'll realize that actually now I've got another series of problems that need to be solved. I'll see all set goals to try and overcome those and you'll reach the far end of them and you'll realize, I still have more problems to solve over here. They're just different problems. ⁓ all there was a book.
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Rolston Real Estate: called Mark Manson. I don't know if I'm allowed to swear on this podcast or not. Maybe you can bleep me out, but it's called The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck. ⁓ don't know if you've read it or not, but ⁓ in book, he has a character called Disappointment Panda. And Disappointment Panda basically says that all life is just an endless stream of problems.
Naty Matos: Okay. ⁓ No, but okay. ⁓ Okay.
Rolston Real Estate: And you just have to get comfortable with the fact that if you solve this problem, there's going be another problem waiting for you tomorrow. It's just a case of being comfortable with solving the problems. yeah, that's, that's kind of, as long as you are a head space where you're enjoying the problems that you're solving, or at least you're striving towards better problems, then that's, think happiness is, is a journey rather than a destination.
Naty Matos: are people that are following your journey or want to learn more about you?
Rolston Real Estate: we're kind of all over the place ⁓ so ⁓ I'm on LinkedIn as Robert Rolston. My website is Rolston real estate org is Rolston est short for estate and so at real est and I'm on Twitter Rolston real estate and Facebook as Rolston real as So you can kind of find me on all these platforms and yeah, I would absolutely encourage anybody who is interested in financial literacy, interested in getting started with investing. doesn't matter where on the globe you are to out, get in touch. Even if just the case of following the content so that you learn something, or if you follow me, follow somebody else in that space. But it's a case finding information.
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: absorbing it ⁓ not only just listening to it but also acting on it because even if you're only making small changes those small changes accumulate over time and like I said my vision is for the average average person nothing special about me the average person can achieve affluence if I can do it anybody can
Naty Matos: Absolutely. Mm-hmm. Thank you so much for coming to our podcast. ⁓ I know I've learned lot. ⁓
Rolston Real Estate: No problem, it's privilege. A privilege, really, really happy. Thank you for having me.
Naty Matos: We appreciate you, Rob. And your story isn't, it's not about flashy success. It's about being consistent, in what you do, being to learn, you know, whatever learning challenges that have. What really impressed me, you started doing things on your own to make it better for yourself. So I really liked that. And you took ⁓ action. that's what we're about on Thrive, making things happen. ⁓ I a phrase for you I just came up with. He had the drive to thrive. Yes you did. you can steal that. ⁓ That's right there.
Rolston Real Estate: There you go. There you go. I like that. Yeah. Yeah. That's it.
Naty Matos: Yes. You have the drive to thrive. Yeah. Because when we talk sometimes to the teenagers, it's like, you don't have the energy. You're not trying to do something if they don't have the drive. They don't have the drive. But he had the drive to thrive. And look at what he is. And look what you've accomplished for the security of your family.
Rolston Real Estate: Yeah, you know what though? Yeah, the thing is, do people not have the drive? Right? You have to look at why this is. And it's they don't think it's for them. They don't think it's possible. don't ⁓ see can I reach that from where I'm starting.
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. Not in the reach. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: And this is the thing, you know, and this is why I tried to share my story because there's nothing special about me. You know, I wasn't a brilliant scholar in school. know, I went through the whole school before I even found out that I had dyslexia and why I struggled to study. I had the willingness to go and try. the thing is, right, don't look at, know,
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: Donald Trump or Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk or somebody who's a multi-millionaire miles away up there that's not relevant. You know, these people have hundreds of millions that they're throwing cash around and the is, one of the things that I strongly believe is that, ⁓ no, you know what? There's a in the wealth that everybody talks about and it's the gap between the rich and the poor, right? There's a gap in the wealth that...
Naty Matos: Hmm? And that's not my goal. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: people don't talk about and that's the gap between the wealthy and the well-off. And call the well-off is just people who are able to work, right? ⁓ people who are wealthy are surrounded by fund managers and asset managers and financial, what's it called, financial advisors and whose job it is to make these people more money because they have money to throw at it, right?
Naty Matos: Noooo Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right.
Rolston Real Estate: There's somebody who is just working away, has an okay job and they've got a family and they're earning and they've got a little bit but they don't know what to do with it. These fund managers and wealth creators, don't want anything to do with these average people because it's not worth their time because they make the money off the fees of the kind of bigger accounts from these bigger wealthier people. that's why wealthy people...
Naty Matos: and Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: continue to retain and build wealth, whereas the average person struggles because they don't have the financial know-how to do it. And that's what I want to change. That's where like mine come in, where we on that information and if too busy to take it on, well, we'll do it for you. You know, and that is the people who sit in the middle start to become affluent and be able to build themselves into a better situation.
Naty Matos: I don't
Rolston Real Estate: the gap between the worker and the wealthy as opposed to the gap between the rich and the poor. It's the gap that nobody's talking about, but it's the gap that there's people who have the ability change their stars and just don't realize it.
Naty Matos: Okay. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That's good, Well, again, thank you so much. You're welcome here when you finish that book. Yes. We would love to hear all about it. And I hope you have a great day. Thank you, Rob.
Rolston Real Estate: Yeah, thank you very much. I'll let you know. Yeah. Cheers, thank you very much. Yeah, thanks for having me guys. I really appreciate the chat.
Naty Matos: Take care.
Rolston Real Estate: Cheers, bye, bye.
Rolston Real Estate: not at that point. So ⁓ I had my, I ⁓ just but ⁓ hadn't kids yet. ⁓ Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, yeah, that's it. That's it. So I, the property we got as of our portfolio was about three years into when we'd been doing all the various different other jobs, just to kind of collect the fees.
Naty Matos: Okay. Okay, so you did. Okay, yeah, but you were responsible for the wife. who decided to stop living from paycheck to paycheck and started building legacy wealth. I'm Veda I'm Naty. And we're here to thrive. retired his parents. ⁓ you are wonderful. And gave his family a life most people only dream about. Welcome to the show, Ron. But if it's a loved one who is experiencing the mental health crisis, dial 911 or take them to the nearest emergency room. And if you think you're in a domestic violence relationship and need to talk to someone, please dial 800-799-7233 or text 887-888. Please make sure you're in a safe place when you reach out. And until next time.
Rolston Real Estate: Thank you very much guys, pleasure to be here. So the first that I got was Valentine's Day, I remember that. It Valentine's Day, which was a month before my first son was born. So it had just ticked in before family started arrive. And both the portfolio and family have proceeded to continue to grow.
Naty Matos: Okay Rob, let's rewind. What messages did you grow up hearing about concerning your potential and concerning your success? home Don't forget to drive. Have a blessed day. Bye bye.
Rolston Real Estate: Well, I guess and Going back all the way to the beginning I suppose and I was very lucky I come from a house with two very supportive parents and I'm going back a little further than that. I suppose shaped the journey that I suppose the trajectory that I was on so if I took my Grandparents on my dad's side my grandparent my grandfather, excuse me and worked
Naty Matos: now that you know you have your family, have retired your parents, how do you manage risk in the middle of all these responsibilities?
Rolston Real Estate: Yeah, it's a great question. think my risk is probably than wife's She would be a little bit more conservative in terms of risk than I would be. But ultimately, that as a needs to be a conversation because everybody needs to be happy in terms of ⁓ that so-called risk. In business, all his days for ⁓ the same company. And then just as he was primed for retirement, the company got into difficulty and they raided the pension fund and ended up that the company was liquidated and he was left with very little at all. So he had to kind of come in with my dad to kind of rescue that situation. And my dad then seeing that said, you know what? That's never going to happen to me.
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. Mmm.
Rolston Real Estate: there is always going to be risks. know, it's a risk to buy a flat because although you can have all the surveys in the world, might find something, you know, there might be wet rot in the floorboards that wasn't picked up or something like that. There's always going to be risks. But the principle is what do you do to mitigate those things? ⁓ So put in place as much as you can to try and minimize or mitigate the risks or the potential risks. And in so,
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: I'm going to be the master of my own destiny. And he went down the business owner route and the kind of entrepreneur route where he wanted to kind of have a hold on the reins. And so I was very lucky, you know, we never really wanted for anything growing up. But that was all down to his hard work and he was constantly busy and constantly working, constantly providing. And because of that, he had turned around to me growing up and said, what you need to do is get a professional job, study hard.
Naty Matos: and Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: you can, you know, minimize your exposure. But ultimately, you know, the X-ray the fan, when ⁓ ⁓ it does, as it, it, you can be sure that it will at some point. And it, again, it back how do you manage those situations? I don't think there's any risk to my business that I could not.
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. I got you.
Rolston Real Estate: get to university, get a degree, and then you'll always kind of have that in the background. So that was what I was kind of brought up doing. know, I am a bang average guy, to be honest. learning disability wise, I've got dyslexia, but that wasn't diagnosed until after high school. So I kind of always was sort of an average kind of C student working my way through. And I remember work my way through. the age old saying of, if you stand outside long enough, you're going to get wet because it's eventually going to So you just buy an umbrella. you to have, So there various things you can do. So we keep aside a contingency fund. So if something goes there's extra budget there to fix it. I was quite sporty. what I wanted to do is to be a physiotherapist or a physical therapist. And I was told by the careers guidance people that I wouldn't get the grades to get in. And at the time I kind of had a bit of a chip on my shoulder about that, suppose. So I locked myself away for about a year, just studying, studying. And my version of studying was basically just memorizing textbooks. So, which is not exactly how you...
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. I like that. Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: we make sure that when we're running the numbers on refurbishments that we're always very conservative we'll have contingency funds again in any refurbishments that we're doing to make sure that if we go over budget it's not a problem. We various exit strategies thought out so if I have a property that I buy and my goal is to hold it ⁓ and rent out the long term if for any reason doesn't pan out should be studying necessarily, but it was what I did. So I got into exams and I just regurgitated textbooks. I found the things that were going to come up and just learned them by heart. And then I would say within two months of the exams being finished, I'd forgotten it all. So it wasn't very effective, but what it did do was it got me into university doing what I wanted to do. you know,
Naty Matos: ⁓ yeah.
Rolston Real Estate: or an investor needs to get their cash back quicker. We can then use a different exit strategy. We'll just sell that. You we can flip it. We can ⁓ change and make it into a service accommodation Airbnb style thing. ⁓ There's of different things that you can do, but you need to be aware of different exit strategies so that you have the ability to pivot if you need to. If something crops up and something changes. the other ⁓ is that economies of scale. At that time I was following the map. was doing everything that I was supposed to be doing, everything that you're told that you're supposed to be doing. Got into university, then I got the degree and that was all great. And then got my first job, which was super. So, you know, I was living the life. I was, you know, doing everything, making the family proud, all the things that you're supposed to do. And then I remember landing my first paycheck and I opened it up and I was all excited and it hit me like a ton of bricks. And I was like, that can't be right. So we bigger, the rental cash flow accumulates. And this goes back to one of the earlier points that I made about compounding over time. know, so the cash flow from one flat is small. if roof needs repaired I'm much more exposed. But if I have 10 flats, it's very unlikely that 10 roofs are going to need to be repaired all at once. But there's the rental income coming in from 10 flats. I was like, there's no way, there's no way you do it. You do all the stuff you're supposed to do. You know, you're a good boy at school. You work hard, you get to university and then that's all I'm earning in a month. That can't be right. And for this first six months of my job, I remember surviving on baked beans and scrambled eggs for the last week of every month, waiting for my paycheck to drop. And I just got really disenchanted and it was like, there has to be more to life than this. And so that sort of,
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. ⁓ Mm-hmm. Right.
Rolston Real Estate: so I'm much more secure in that I can handle any... discontent, I suppose, was what sort of led me to break away from the kind of rat race, I suppose, if you want to call it that, to kind of explore how I would be able to, you know, provide for my future family or what is now my current family and see how I could kind of change my stars, which is how it's kind of led me to here. So I suppose ultimately my upbringing is privileged from the point of view of a very supportive family. cashflow issues or if somebody moves out, then I can cover those void periods because I've got the cashflow coming in from elsewhere. I get a down valuation for whatever reason, because a surveyor gets out of the bed on the wrong side one day, I handle that because I can absorb that. And ultimately is a long-term So ⁓ do I think a house that I buy today is going to be worth less in 30 years? ⁓ No, I don't. So, know.
Naty Matos: Right. ⁓ Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: So both my parents still kicking around support me and both my sisters never wanted for anything as an individual, you know, I'm not the smartest guy by any manner of means but I've kind of cracked the code and in doing so have managed to create security and affluence for myself support my family and we can touch on all those things as well because my belief is now, you know that the average person
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: even if I get a down valuation today, I just sit on it. I'll put a 10 in into it and then I'll get another valuation in two years time. Yeah.
Naty Matos: So what does success mean to you today in the life that you built?
Rolston Real Estate: Well, think again, yeah. So again, this is a great question because success is different for everybody. I am a flashy dude. I have interest in cars really. I couldn't really tell you the difference between Ford Focus and Volvo, except the that they got different badges. so I'm not a material My goals have always been lifestyle orientated. I wanted security from family. can achieve affluence. You don't need to be anybody special, you don't need to do anything special, you just need to know the rules of the game and implement them. And that's what I'm here to do now. I'm here to spread that message and to help other people to get to where I am, to break free of the nine to five, to climb the ladder and escape poverty and make sure that they have a life of financial security and can provide for themselves and their kids. I wanted security for my kids. wanted my kids to have the opportunity to live in the countryside with a bit of space away the city. I wanted them to have fresh air. they wanted animals, I wanted to have the opportunity to give them that. So my wealth if you want to call it that, has always been having time.
Naty Matos: are some of the first lessons you taught yourself to manage money differently.
Rolston Real Estate: Well, it's a funny story actually. like I said, I was working away doing the nine to five that everyone does, you know. And after about two years, like I said, I was pretty browned off. So I had been at that time saving for a mortgage as well. you know, I was scrounging because it wasn't on massive money. was pretty average wage. And I just got so annoyed that I just said, you know what, there has to be more to life than this. And I took all that savings and I decided
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: spend with my family because that's what matters so I don't want to have somebody dictate to me that I need to show up at a certain time to do a certain thing to only be able to be ⁓ to have a certain amount of holidays I to be able to say actually you know what I'm gonna take today because I want to spend it with the family because the sun's out and the beach is calling I want be able to give them the opportunity that you know I can get them if they want
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: I'm leaving and going to Thailand. So I went, I just went traveling on the beaches for ages. And I remember sitting on a beach in Thailand and being very aware that like, this was brilliant, but you know, the money was going to run out at some point. So what was I going to do? And I was going through Bangkok airport actually. And I just wandered into a bookstore to see what am I going to read on the next beach that I stumbled onto. And I discovered. I don't know, piano lessons or drum lessons, then I can facilitate that. want to be in a position that my wife who still works because she's very vocational, loves her job, but if she wants to step back her hours, then that's fine because we're supported. If I to retire early and you know, I have income that means it'll make money when I'm asleep. That's, that's the goal. I just I want security. a book called Rich Dad Poor Dad, which I think is probably what starts about 95 % of entrepreneurs and financial evangelists and people like me on their journey. And I guess that was what opened my eyes to financial literacy and to personal finance. And the main lessons that I took from that, I read it cover to cover in a day and then I read it again in the second day.
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: I want not to have to worry about money and I want to be able to then spend time doing the things that matter.
Naty Matos: You talk about retiring parents and that they were very focused on the hustle, especially your dad. How was that process of getting him ⁓ out the mentality? Let me Did the retirement process was putting them in a position like yours where they had passive income and ⁓ that's how could retire?
Rolston Real Estate: Hmm. And from there, I just started to deep dive everything on personal finance that I could find. So I picked up a lot of lessons just from, from reading and from books and then other lessons I've picked up all on the way, just by attaching myself to people in the industry. the, the main lessons, I suppose that I've picked up that were eyeopening was understanding the difference between assets and liabilities, understanding The biggest thing in terms of that is, know, I think my and my mom are both busy by nature. You know, I don't think they would ever sit down because they like to be busy. They like to be doing things. So the of retiring them is really just to a bit like I'm talking about. It's, know, I'll probably never retire. I do what I to do, but
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: inflation and its impact on the economy and its impact on your money in your pocket and even more importantly your money in your bank account and how you know everyone's taught to save but if you're making one to two percent interest rate in your savings account and inflation is at 10 your money's worth eight percent less year on year but nobody really understands that it's not something that's taught in schools
Naty Matos: doing what they wanna do.
Rolston Real Estate: It's to take away the pressure of, you there's, you have to do this or the bills don't get paid. That's that, that's what retirement is to me. So it's the ability to put things in place where living costs are taken care of. if wants to go ⁓ and, know, drive an Uber or something, because he wants to have the chats with the people they take, cause he's a very social animal. then.
Naty Matos: Right. Mm-hmm. Nothing. Right.
Rolston Real Estate: And yeah, the other thing then, a big, big eye opener is understanding the importance of compounding and compound interest over time. Those three principles are massive, you know, they're foundational. And that is definitely what you can build your family's wealth upon.
Naty Matos: Right. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. ⁓
Rolston Real Estate: free to do it and if he doesn't want to do it today then he's okay to sit down and you know watch the game that's fine too. It's of pressure. think that this is the thing about passive income is that it doesn't if you're tired or if you're sick or if you're the money trickles in so it's security it's constant.
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: they're not crazy, sorry, yeah, I know I was gonna say that they're not crazy sexy, but if you follow them, then that's what creates the long term.
Naty Matos: Can you define libel? Go ahead. Right. Now for some of us who, even though we went to school, math was not our best subject, especially economy. If I tell you my experience with my economy class, will mess my reputation. I slept through the class. It was boring. was, it was boring. was right. It was in the classroom that had no air conditioning and it was the middle of summer.
Rolston Real Estate: And it's asset based. So you're not exchanging your time for money, which is what everybody does when they have to pitch up to work for their nine to five. You get paid for working from nine to five. And as soon as you go home, you stop earning because you're, you're not on, you're not on the treadmill spinning, spinning errors, you know, rattling the keyboard, whereas your passive income, it doesn't matter if you're in Spain. It doesn't matter if you're in Miami. It doesn't matter if you're on the North pole. It's still trickles in. ⁓ the. Me neither.
Naty Matos: Okay. Mm-hmm. ⁓
Rolston Real Estate: Yeah. That's, hey, hey, I dropped business when I was 14 years old. Yeah.
Naty Matos: Right.
Rolston Real Estate: Mm-hmm.
Naty Matos: I fell asleep. There you go. so can you define assets and liabilities?
Rolston Real Estate: time that it gives you for me that's time at the moment but for them that's time in their retirement. Yeah, yeah, very much so. I guess the simplest way to put it is if you understand that an asset is something that you buy that puts money into your pocket and a liability is something that you buy that takes money out of your pocket. So for example, you can buy a property and if you rent it out and it generates cash flow, so every month there's
Naty Matos: How do you your wife work together with decisions or work, parenting, money?
Rolston Real Estate: You know, it is like any partnership. Everything on an even keel. Everything is discussed openly. And I that's the only way function, to be honest with you. ⁓ I don't think can get by if there's not an open, honest So ⁓ in any facet of whether that's, you know, goals or aspirations are individual ⁓ or whether it's the kids. excess money that's dropping into your bank account and then your bank balance builds up, that's an asset. But if you buy a property that's a holiday home that sits vacant and you use it occasionally, but you still have to pay the mortgage on it and it's costing you money every month, that's a liability. it's the same thing that you've bought, but it's how it's used is what creates it. It creates a difference between the asset and the liability. So
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. acid. Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: whether it's work or whatever it happens to be, there's a kind of a sit down and we'll talk things out. You know, what is it that she's looking to achieve? What is it that I'm looking to achieve? And ⁓ am very lucky. You know, I love my she's my best friend and I'm hers. ⁓ And we do a very close understanding of, you know, we will always back each other up. And that is, you
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: That principle is across anything because you can buy a car and that car depreciates over time as soon as you drive it off the lot. And if you're driving it just to kind of, you know, service your lifestyle, then it's a liability. But if you're an Uber driver and it's your livelihood, it's an asset because of putting money in your pocket. So it's understanding the difference between the two. And a lot of people think that their home is an asset.
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: the most important thing in life, think. It doesn't matter if I could come away with some complete outlandish goal, but if it's important to me, she'll say, you know what, let's work through this. Let's hear this out. What does this mean and how can we make this work? And likewise with her, she wanted to go on an ice hockey camp a couple of weeks ago. So I was like, yeah, okay, that's fine. I'll take the kids. You shoot away down to England and go do your ice hockey camp.
Naty Matos: Mmm. Brian.
Rolston Real Estate: And this is a controversial topic because for a lot of people it's the biggest investment that they make. Unless they listen to me. Although property will go up over time, you wouldn't consider it an asset because it's costing you money. It's not generating additional cash. Unless you do something like you have a
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: wanted to, a bit of a midlife crisis thing, wanted to take up bodybuilding and men's physique. And she was like, yeah, I'll the diet side of stuff and you go to gym. And I was like, cool. So it's, it's give take. It's understanding, it's openness and honesty well. So it's all those things. I think you can pinpoint one thing that makes it a success. I think it needs to be a mixture of all these things.
Naty Matos: You Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: proportion of your home or you have an annex or something that you can then rent out and the rent from that say covers your mortgage and so again You can play around with these things to create an asset from whatever it is that you've bought but yeah, so that the fundamental difference between an asset and liability is is Where does the cash flow go? Does the cash flow leave your account or does it come into your account?
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I'm sure that ⁓ the of our voices would like to have some passive income. I think a dream for anybody. But we have think about the fact that ⁓ we are not exactly you were when we were about to start. For example, you you were a little younger, you didn't have a responsibility of a family. If somebody is trying to start a business and it's not necessarily in real estate like yours is, what would be the first time you think they should do?
Rolston Real Estate: Well, when I started it, like I said, I had literally blown all of my cash in Thailand. I came back and I had nothing to start with. All I knew is that I was going to build an asset base and I was going to pursue passive income and financial independence. So I came back and I got a nine to five job and immediately I started to network with people who were in the industry that I wanted to start off in, which was property at the time.
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. you were broke, but if you had to spend 16 hours on a side job to do something, you had the ability to. What would you say to who's already probably in debt with a family responsibilities, but who also wants to start a business that could get them to the point of being in a better position? Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: So the number one thing that people should be doing when they're starting out is attach yourself to people who are a couple of steps ahead of where you are and stick to them like Lou and pummel them with questions and ask and absorb as much information from them as you can. How I started was doing exactly that. I went to network meetings. I started to find out what made these people tick, how they were running their businesses. And then in order to generate income for myself, I started just doing say start and start now you're right in terms of the younger you start the longer that you have to put money aside and to build and that principle of compounding takes flight you know it's warren buffett the richest in the world but he has made something like three times his net worth in the last three years just
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: ⁓ little side hustles for them and doing what we call over here, property sourcing. ⁓ I think over in, in the States with you guys, gets called wholesaling, I think it's called, but basically you're, you're finding the deal. You're finding the opportunities and then you approach investors and you sell that opportunity for a finder's fee. So you collect these little fees and you put them away, collect the little fees, put them away. And I'm a big advocate of saying that I never save money. I store money.
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. Okay.
Rolston Real Estate: based off the fact that he's been in the game for a long time. you know, my belief is that anybody can become a millionaire so long as they're able to work. It's just a case of having the right framework and working the systems. And yes, it is a little bit harder you have debt, if you have the additional of supporting a family.
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: And that's a ⁓ mental difference where I'm like, I'm not saving money for a rainy day in case, you know, the furnace goes or the boiler breaks or the roof needs repaired. I'm storing money so that I can then put it into an asset class that's going to generate income. And the income from that asset class will trickle in passively every month. And so that income then takes care of if the boiler breaks or if the roof needs something or the windows get broken or whatever.
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: if you are supporting, you know, members of your family who aren't able to work or for, you know, there's ⁓ number of things that can be ⁓ as an obstacle. guess the message there is that again, it's not your fault that life has dealt you a difficult hand, but it your responsibility to...
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: So the number one thing is if you're starting from scratch is attach yourself to a mentor. It doesn't have to be someone who's an officially a mentor, somebody who just, you are aware they're sitting where you want to be and absorb as much information as you can from them. And we kind of built our way along that ladder then. So we went from the finder's fee situation to then starting project management where we would manage the trades and oversee the refurbs and
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. Right.
Rolston Real Estate: play the hand that you're dealt and to maximise what you can do for yourself and for your family because there are unfortunately no handouts so if not you then who? If you don't take that forward then nobody's going to better your life for you. So my message there would be that it's never too late to start but what you need to do is you do need to work hard but not just work hard on getting extra fees for there to the point where we are now where we have enough experience that we deal with investors on a fixed term loan basis where they'll give capital across to us and we'll basically work accrued the assets and we pay them back fixed returns. So they're then getting passive income that drips in. We get to accumulate an asset and everybody wins because we get the passive income from the rent. They get the passive income from fixed returns.
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: a nine to five job, you need to work hard at assets or you're not doing it yourself, if you're focusing on earning an income, link with somebody like myself or somebody else able to facilitate that for you, who can either build it for you or who can in a joint partnership where we facilitate it or facilitate it for you. there are avenues. that's paying for their family holiday, that's, you know, paying for them in retirement or addition to their pension or what it is, various different reasons that people want to invest. But what it is is allows them to sit on a beach somewhere or in an armchair or focus on what their main business is. Deal with a lot of busy professionals who are a bit like my dad was so focused on, the hustle of generating a wage that they're too busy. for anyone to accumulate wealth. As long as you're able to work and earn some sort of an income, it doesn't matter if you are a waitress in a cafe or if you're a pilot or if you're a doctor, it doesn't matter. It's the principles of you earn a certain amount, you live below your means, you put a certain amount aside, but you don't save it. You immediately put it into something that's gonna generate money in.
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: to either learn how to invest or just too busy to take themselves away from their business. So we're able to create secondary income streams for them without them having to do anything.
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. and That sounds like a dream. Rob, what were some of the earliest wins and the earliest flops you experienced and how did it shape your business mind?
Rolston Real Estate: And it might be that you're only starting off with a small amount, but you put that small amount into something that's going to pay you back more money. And whilst that's working, you continue to do that same principle. what happens is it starts off really small, but if you stay consistent with it, that small amount becomes a little bigger and becomes a little bigger, becomes a little bigger. ⁓ the same principle of eating an elephant. You only do it one bite at a time.
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: Well, you know what, there's ups and downs in any business. I think the earliest win for me was probably about six months after I had been going to network meetings and I'd been trying to kind of find my feet and get started. And I was looking at opportunities and I was looking at deals and I was trying to find one that I could pass on to an investor for a fee. And I was doing that for about six months without any success at all.
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. I like especially the one, you ⁓ to start fighting. The whole living your needs because sometimes people to have, they have big dreams but not willing to do the sacrifice. have big dreams.
Rolston Real Estate: But you have to start eating. If you don't start eating, you're never gonna get there. because I was brand new. probably didn't know very much about what I was doing and I was slowly learning my way. I remember about six months in, I finally got one over the line and I saw the fees drop into my bank account and it was, it was a thousand pounds at the time. And I remember I just hit the roof. You know, I was like, I was beyond thrilled with myself. I was like, do you know what? This can actually work. And it was that moment that I kind of, it was
Naty Matos: but it's and a good one. It's not a baloney budget. It's a baloney means that you know, you're using money that you could be investing in in future a business when you're using it go out to dinner, buy clothes, buy fancy shoes. You know, you could probably cook something at home.
Rolston Real Estate: what we would call proof of concept, know, it showed me that it's there to be done. It's there to be won. I've done it. I can replicate it. And now that's the first step on the ladder and I can build my way up from there. Property is a funny game when you're dealing with rentals because you're dealing with tenants and people's lives. So it's very important, obviously, that you're responsible about how you're doing and what you're doing.
Naty Matos: and save those $20 or and put them to the side to either get rid of debt or to put it towards the principle of starting a business. But you can't ⁓ it up before you have it. ⁓
Rolston Real Estate: It's again, it goes back to the fundamental principles of wealth. know, it's, it's understanding the difference between assets and liabilities. It's understanding delayed gratification. understanding that if buy a Lamborghini, you don't just buy a Lamborghini, you buy Lamborghini problems. You buy, you know, ⁓ it you two and a half grand to change the tire on a Lamborghini. Costs you 200 quid to change it on a Volvo. in terms of providing somewhere a safe haven for families to live in. The flip side of that is that you also have to deal with sometimes when you have tenants who aren't as respectful of your properties as maybe you would like them to be. I guess if we're talking about low points, there was an incident where I had a lovely couple in one of my flats.
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: who you're doing it for, you know, you to, you have to think about what, where you are and everyone's at a different point, you know, ⁓ but even small changes consistently add up very quickly and people underestimate what they can do in 10 years and overestimate what they can do in a year. ⁓ So need to be patient and you're not going to have saved or stored enough money to change your life.
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. Right. Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: And then I got a call one day from the leading agent to say that there had been a big breakdown and there'd been a big fight and there'd been an incident of domestic abuse. And the guy had leg that he'd run away and he'd left Scotland and was down in England and the police were looking for him. And they were obviously then going to move out.
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Rolston Real Estate: in a year, but if you continue to do it for five years, seven years, 10 years, it adds up very quickly. And over that time, as long as you're investing sensibly or putting your money into assets, you're going to then have building, trickling of coming back in that you can then reinvest. One of things that They had the door had been broken in by the police and there was holes in the wall from things being thrown. And so it was a bit of a mess. Um, but you know, I guess the main message within that is there's, you have to be resilient. You have to have a stick to it of us where, you know, this too shall pass. There's, there's never going to be a series of good days without a bad day at the end of it. You have to just ride those waves and you have to.
Naty Matos: Okay.
Rolston Real Estate: Again, talking about sort of living below your means, you don't have to live a squalid life. You can be comfortable. just have to, you just have to be sensible and ultimately, yeah, be creative and just, but just be sensible. You know, it's you then save 10 % and you put that away. Uh, and then that 10 % becomes 15 % because it generates an extra five. take it on the chin and rather than focusing on the problem, you focus on, okay, how do I fix it? How do I get out the far side of it? Because if you just dwell on us, then nothing, nothing changes. Nothing happens. There's a saying that I really like where, you know, not everything that happens is your fault, but everything that happens is your responsibility. So,
Naty Matos: I don't know. Mm-hmm. Or be creative. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: And that 15 % then becomes 22 % because it constantly spirals upwards. It's that kind of hockey stick effect where it starts off slow and then you hit a little up curve and then that up curve very quickly starts to kind of fly up. But you have to start. And if you don't start, then you never get to that curve, to that uplift. One of the things as well is when it comes to...
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yep. ⁓ huh. ⁓
Rolston Real Estate: That's basically how I kind of approach those things. So it's not my fault that somebody has wrecked the flat, but it's my responsibility to put it back together so that it will continue to generate income and it will continue to support my business.
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. I hope. Right. Exactly. Yeah. How did you met... Go ahead. Sure. Sure.
Rolston Real Estate: buying fancy things or when it comes to going for fancy dinners, those things are okay, but you have to know where the cash is coming from. If you decide that you want to go for a fancy dinner or you want to buy a nice car, buy an asset first that pays for your fancy dinner or pays for your car. of slapping loads of money down on a car finance plan, slap money down on a flat. Yeah, I'm just going to put my laptop on charge there if you've got me two seconds. Sorry, I'm just about, my laptop's about to die. Two seconds.
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. Mmm.
Rolston Real Estate: buy a flat, wait a year, let the cash flow come in and then let that flat take over your car payments. And then the flat has bought you your car, you get the fancy car, but once the car's paid off, you now have the car which is depreciated in value, but you still have the flat which has now gone up in value and cash flows every month. You know, it's just been.
Naty Matos: that's still giving you money. They will probably pay for those service and the tire coming after ⁓
Rolston Real Estate: That's exactly it. You don't have Lamborghini problems, you have a house. But it's the principles of that. these aren't things that are taught in school. So it's one of the things that in the next year, already reached out to a couple of different schools locally about going around and talking to pupils about this, because you're right in what you said earlier. The earlier that you start, the the chance that you have. And I if you speak to a lot of wealthy people about money and about
Naty Matos: Yes. Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: financial literacy and about the kind of knowledge of money and how it works is everybody wishes that they knew about it before they did. They wish they knew, they wish they found out about it earlier. one of the things that I want to do is that ⁓ know that property and has changed my life. And if can work for me, who's a bang average guy, then it can work for absolutely everybody else. They just need to know the tools and how to use them. So that's my of project.
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: alongside my businesses to try and kind of spread that word and to give people the tools they can start changing their lives as well. And ⁓ try get to try get that to them as early as we can.
Naty Matos: Nothing. Now, I know people who buy properties are behind in their taxes. Okay? go pay the taxes. I think you pay for five years or whatever, then the property can be put in your name. And through them doing this, they have accumulated nice bit of properties. Yeah. The other one is get properties in foreclosure. Yeah, properties in foreclosure and in fact that's how they got their home. It was foreclosure I think and they got for a lower price, you know, which is great. But yeah.
Rolston Real Estate: Mm-hmm.
Naty Matos: behind in taxes on property and foreclosure properties. They have really, really been successful in that area. yeah, yeah. I wish I could do it. Me too.
Rolston Real Estate: There's different strategies for, yeah, you know, there's 101 different reasons why you can find a quote unquote deal in property. ultimately what everybody needs to understand is, mean, if we're talking about property and real estate is that you're actually not really so much looking at the property itself. You're looking at the people behind the property because every house has a story and there'll be a reason that that
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Rolston Real Estate: person can't get whatever the maximum value would be on the open market, say, know, if they could, then they would just go and do that. You know, ⁓ in a conversation with you to sell it at a lower price because there's a problem. And an looking to accumulate an asset your main job is to solve that problem. ⁓ So that problem be that something's happened and they can no longer make the mortgage payments and the bank is going to foreclose the bank is basically just going to strip that house away and they'll be left with nothing. But if they have the chance to sell it to you quickly before the bank can do that, they sell it to you for more than what the bank is going to take it for so they can pay off the bank loan. They get a little bit of something that they can then go and start again. So you've solved that problem, but you've managed to take away the the issue that they had, you might find that somebody has become really unwell or they might be particularly elderly and they've not been able to, yeah, they've not been able to look after the house. So the house has, you know, become really depreciated. It's become really run down. You know, there's issues the plumbing. It's not been maintained. So you put that ⁓ on, you the open market because the agent comes around and the photos have, you know, the brown
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. That was my house. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: soiled wallpaper and you know the cat litter scattered across the happens to be know there's graffiti on the outside of house whatever happens to be but you have to look past those things because although that would put the majority of people off that's just because they don't want to deal with those problems your job is to deal with those problems see the opportunity and then turn what is now a property that
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right.
Rolston Real Estate: can't really be used into a nice safe house for people who need it. So it's about, lot of it is to do with your mindset. It's to do with how you view a problem and you find the solution and how you can help people. Because, you know, might be to somebody who ⁓ is, they've got problem ⁓ with a house and not necessarily that they'll want to
Naty Matos: Right.
Rolston Real Estate: that sell it to me, they won't want to maximise the value and that might not be for me. But I'd be like, you know what? Your husband sat on the market for six months, it's not shifting. You know, I'll point you in the direction of someone who can help you. So even if it's not to me, I can then, you know, send it to someone who can help. It's all of it. Relationships, it's about dealing with the people behind the property. And I think if you're open and honest with people, they'll buy into that. And that's where opportunity comes because it's actually you're dealing with the people rather than the property. The property is
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. and Yeah.
Rolston Real Estate: the assets that sits behind it all. what you're talking about with foreclosures or property taxes, yeah, that's a whole myriad of things. think there's any number of reasons that people can want to get rid of a property quickly. Divorce is a massive issue. have properties and joint names. There's a whole host of reasons. And that's why it's not just about
Naty Matos: Yeah. Mm-hmm. ⁓ Yeah.
Rolston Real Estate: accumulating assets for yourself. It's about having the compassion to listen to the people on the problem solve that. And doing so, you are improving their life because you're fixing the problem. You're improving own life because you're then creating an asset base that helps to support your family. And from an perspective, the that we deal with, ⁓ we're then able to
Naty Matos: you
Rolston Real Estate: create a asset base, we've got built-in equity because we've bought it at a level where we know there's going to be an uplift, securing their investment and we can pay them back a fixed return, which means they have then added a passive income stream to their net worth where they are busy working away and we have this happening over here, which is going to ultimately pay them every year. So it's this kind of, ⁓ was gonna say, so you're fixing this problem, you're fixing this problem, you're fixing that problem. So it's very much a kind of a domino effect.
Naty Matos: You talked about starting right You talked about that you've been in conversations with schools to start doing financial literacy. Given the fact that, know, no secret, you're in the UK, but that these principles are not necessary. They're not just for the UK, the universal principle. Have you thought of doing the, you know, sharing those things online, like doing a course or a webinar or something to that effect?
Rolston Real Estate: Well, one of the things that we're looking at doing or I'm looking at doing at the moment is I've got the sort of pipeline put together or the, what is the word, the concept together a book, which we're probably going to be publishing towards the latter end of this year. And ⁓ will be based off the same kind of principles that I'm talking about here, but the same things that I would be talking to students about. that is, you know,
Naty Matos: How dare you?
Rolston Real Estate: Like you say, the principles of wealth building, the principles of financial literacy, financial freedom of passive income, all of these creation principles are the same no matter if you're in America, if you're in Australia, if you're ⁓ the UK. The book that I read was a book written by Robert Kiyosaki who's from Hawaii, based in the States. ⁓
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mmm. Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: second book that I read was my four year old, the property investor, which was written by an Australian investor. So, know, I've I've ⁓ read, me, by investors or people who are in the financial and sort of personal finance framework from all across the globe. The principles are the same. So it doesn't matter where you are, as long as you have
Naty Matos: Mmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: you know, eyes in your head and you're willing to read and to learn, the opportunities are there. just you have to reach out and grab them.
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. tell me how this has affected mental health. You being your own boss, your investments, how does it affect your mental health? Knowing that whatever money you make, you have to share it with anybody. You bring it in and reinvest it.
Rolston Real Estate: Yeah You know, the main thing is that security relieves stress. Money, generally speaking, is a stress to people. There are hundreds of thousands of people, millions of people across the globe hanging by a thread because of
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: money because they have financial problems because their bills outweigh what they can take in. that is something that I want to change. And it's not something that I can directly influence because ⁓ too many, there's too many people across the globe who understand how to themselves into a different situation. Where ⁓ I would to come in is to try and give them the tools to help themselves. The book that
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: I'm going to be writing is called financial fish. And that's based on the principle that if you teach someone to fish, you feed them for a lifetime. But if you just give them fish, then they eat for the day. Same principle as you know, yeah, the who wins the lottery, but is bankrupt, you know, two years later, because they don't understand the principles of what to do with the cash when they get it. ⁓ It's tools order
Naty Matos: Mmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: build and create the security because that's what money is. Money is just security. It's security that you can time for the things that matter. So in terms of my own mental health, I feel great. I'm doing what I love. I'm spending time with the people that I love. And that was always what my why was, if you like. think when you ⁓ are started on a journey like this, you want to start with the end in mind. You want to picture
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: not only where you want to be in a year's time, you want a picture of where you want to be when you you know, 80 old. What do you want life to look like? You know, do you want to have loads of grandkids? Do you want to just be you and the Mrs. Maybe you just want to be by yourself on a yacht in the Pacific somewhere. Doesn't really It's whatever it's you want that vision to be.
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. ⁓
Rolston Real Estate: and then you start to point your compass towards that. For me, I was never interested in the yacht. I was never interested in the fancy sports car. What I was interested in was a nice house in the country, a bit of space, animals around about me, because I've always liked horses, so it's great having horses now, and the kids can have horses if they want horses. the have, if they that they want to, I don't know, go to France to learn French, then fine.
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. The family.
Rolston Real Estate: You know, it's the freedom to be able to facilitate those things. I think having freedom and having the security means that I don't have to stress about those things. And that then has the added benefit to, you know, ⁓ your health and because it reduces the stress. Now, the thing life is full ups and downs like we spoke earlier. ⁓ So there is such thing as a life without
Naty Matos: ⁓ huh. and Thank you. and Right. ⁓
Rolston Real Estate: What you need to do is you just need to strive for a life with better problems. know, know, money is a problem. You know, if I am, you know, broken struggling to pay rent, that's a problem. But if I'm, you know, a millionaire and I've got a million dollars sitting in my bank account and inflation is a 10 % and that money is just eroding away, I've got a different problem. Still a problem.
Naty Matos: ⁓ Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: It's just a better problem to have. So it's all about how you frame these things, but yeah, will achieve your goals and then you'll realize that actually now I've got another series of problems that need to be solved. I'll see all set goals to try and overcome those and you'll reach the far end of them and you'll realize, I still have more problems to solve over here. They're just different problems. ⁓ all there was a book.
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Rolston Real Estate: called Mark Manson. I don't know if I'm allowed to swear on this podcast or not. Maybe you can bleep me out, but it's called The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck. ⁓ don't know if you've read it or not, but ⁓ in book, he has a character called Disappointment Panda. And Disappointment Panda basically says that all life is just an endless stream of problems.
Naty Matos: Okay. ⁓ No, but okay. ⁓ Okay.
Rolston Real Estate: And you just have to get comfortable with the fact that if you solve this problem, there's going be another problem waiting for you tomorrow. It's just a case of being comfortable with solving the problems. yeah, that's, that's kind of, as long as you are a head space where you're enjoying the problems that you're solving, or at least you're striving towards better problems, then that's, think happiness is, is a journey rather than a destination.
Naty Matos: are people that are following your journey or want to learn more about you?
Rolston Real Estate: we're kind of all over the place ⁓ so ⁓ I'm on LinkedIn as Robert Rolston. My website is Rolston real estate org is Rolston est short for estate and so at real est and I'm on Twitter Rolston real estate and Facebook as Rolston real as So you can kind of find me on all these platforms and yeah, I would absolutely encourage anybody who is interested in financial literacy, interested in getting started with investing. doesn't matter where on the globe you are to out, get in touch. Even if just the case of following the content so that you learn something, or if you follow me, follow somebody else in that space. But it's a case finding information.
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: absorbing it ⁓ not only just listening to it but also acting on it because even if you're only making small changes those small changes accumulate over time and like I said my vision is for the average average person nothing special about me the average person can achieve affluence if I can do it anybody can
Naty Matos: Absolutely. Mm-hmm. Thank you so much for coming to our podcast. ⁓ I know I've learned lot. ⁓
Rolston Real Estate: No problem, it's privilege. A privilege, really, really happy. Thank you for having me.
Naty Matos: We appreciate you, Rob. And your story isn't, it's not about flashy success. It's about being consistent, in what you do, being to learn, you know, whatever learning challenges that have. What really impressed me, you started doing things on your own to make it better for yourself. So I really liked that. And you took ⁓ action. that's what we're about on Thrive, making things happen. ⁓ I a phrase for you I just came up with. He had the drive to thrive. Yes you did. you can steal that. ⁓ That's right there.
Rolston Real Estate: There you go. There you go. I like that. Yeah. Yeah. That's it.
Naty Matos: Yes. You have the drive to thrive. Yeah. Because when we talk sometimes to the teenagers, it's like, you don't have the energy. You're not trying to do something if they don't have the drive. They don't have the drive. But he had the drive to thrive. And look at what he is. And look what you've accomplished for the security of your family.
Rolston Real Estate: Yeah, you know what though? Yeah, the thing is, do people not have the drive? Right? You have to look at why this is. And it's they don't think it's for them. They don't think it's possible. don't ⁓ see can I reach that from where I'm starting.
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. Not in the reach. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: And this is the thing, you know, and this is why I tried to share my story because there's nothing special about me. You know, I wasn't a brilliant scholar in school. know, I went through the whole school before I even found out that I had dyslexia and why I struggled to study. I had the willingness to go and try. the thing is, right, don't look at, know,
Naty Matos: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: Donald Trump or Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk or somebody who's a multi-millionaire miles away up there that's not relevant. You know, these people have hundreds of millions that they're throwing cash around and the is, one of the things that I strongly believe is that, ⁓ no, you know what? There's a in the wealth that everybody talks about and it's the gap between the rich and the poor, right? There's a gap in the wealth that...
Naty Matos: Hmm? And that's not my goal. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: people don't talk about and that's the gap between the wealthy and the well-off. And call the well-off is just people who are able to work, right? ⁓ people who are wealthy are surrounded by fund managers and asset managers and financial, what's it called, financial advisors and whose job it is to make these people more money because they have money to throw at it, right?
Naty Matos: Noooo Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right.
Rolston Real Estate: There's somebody who is just working away, has an okay job and they've got a family and they're earning and they've got a little bit but they don't know what to do with it. These fund managers and wealth creators, don't want anything to do with these average people because it's not worth their time because they make the money off the fees of the kind of bigger accounts from these bigger wealthier people. that's why wealthy people...
Naty Matos: and Mm-hmm.
Rolston Real Estate: continue to retain and build wealth, whereas the average person struggles because they don't have the financial know-how to do it. And that's what I want to change. That's where like mine come in, where we on that information and if too busy to take it on, well, we'll do it for you. You know, and that is the people who sit in the middle start to become affluent and be able to build themselves into a better situation.
Naty Matos: I don't
Rolston Real Estate: the gap between the worker and the wealthy as opposed to the gap between the rich and the poor. It's the gap that nobody's talking about, but it's the gap that there's people who have the ability change their stars and just don't realize it.
Naty Matos: Okay. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That's good, Well, again, thank you so much. You're welcome here when you finish that book. Yes. We would love to hear all about it. And I hope you have a great day. Thank you, Rob.
Rolston Real Estate: Yeah, thank you very much. I'll let you know. Yeah. Cheers, thank you very much. Yeah, thanks for having me guys. I really appreciate the chat.
Naty Matos: Take care.
Rolston Real Estate: Cheers, bye, bye.
