“Cast a vision for a different financial future”: Steve McKnight on building meaningful wealth
For any business owner or solo entrepreneur, the secret to building long-lasting wealth seems too good to be true. However, Steve McKnight believes that attracting money is a skill anyone can learn.
Steve joins Cec Busby, editor of Flying Solo, to discuss how exactly you can increase and multiply your money, ultimately growing meaningful wealth. His latest book, Money Magnet, reveals the truth and tools you need to know to reshape your mindset.
Inheriting our financial DNA
According to Steve, when it comes to understanding and managing our finances, everyone starts with a set of inherited skills and attitudes.
“You inherit your parents’ financial DNA, often without knowing it,” he says. “And that does shape the way you think and act about money.”
From his own experiences, Steve recognises the impact of his parents’ contrasting financial beliefs on his outlook. He refers to himself as a ‘Frankenstein’, formed from his father’s presiding mindset to save and his mother’s presiding mindset to be generous.
However, while we are born and raised with inherited attitudes and skills, Steve says the secret to successful wealth creation is learned and can be applied to anyone’s situation.
“If you are interested in becoming better at making, managing and multiplying your money, then the first step is to seek help,” says Steve.
He recommends reading books like Money Magnet to gain new ideas and perspectives about how other people have been able to understand their finances and multiply their wealth successfully.
“To become a money magnet is not an inherited skill; it’s a learned skill,” he says.
Listen to Steve McKnight on the Flying Solo podcast:
Giving your money purpose
While getting rich quickly seems like a dream to many, Steve’s book focuses on the importance of injecting your wealth with long-lasting meaning.
“Ultimately, we spend our time and money trying to get survival sorted,” he says. “When really what we should be doing is in conjunction with spending our time and money, investing in our significance as well.”
Though most of Steve’s success journey stems from his tactful property investments, he insists it is not the only avenue for generating wealth. Ultimately, he says the journey to wealth creation looks different for everyone.
“Some people are better off at share investing,” he says. “And some may be able to understand things like crypto and your newer type investments.”
Steve shares three investing tips that he believes anyone can apply to their situation to improve their financial habits. Firstly, he says that not measuring the money coming into your account or going out of your account is the equivalent of flying blind.
“If you want to be a better manager, you need to be a better measurer,” Steve says. “It’s time to just keep track of what’s coming in and going out.”
Secondly, he says to invest in the skills to learn how to make your money multiply, by getting a higher return without necessarily taking on a higher risk. Over time, this increase in return will make your money work harder for you. Lastly, Steve stresses the importance of accountability.
“Accountability is never fun. It’s like putting a saddle on a horse,” he says. “But I’ve found people who aren’t accountable tend to really underperform financially.”
Capital, return and time: the secret formula for wealth creation
For many people in today’s economic climate, shifting from a pay-check-to-pay-check survival mode seems far too daunting. Steve, however, says boosting your income and financial standing doesn’t need to happen overnight but rather incrementally, as a result of changing small habits.
“What we have to do before we can invest in getting a different outcome is first invest in ourselves,” he says. “That comes from increasing our awareness and building better money habits.”
The poor habits Steve refers to in his book typically relate to living day-to-day without a plan and a purpose.
“The first step is to cast a vision for a different financial future,” says Steve. “You have to change something in the equation of life or acquire a new money habit that you don’t have now to arrive at a different outcome.”
Steve’s formula for wealth creation essentially depends on three interconnected and variable elements: capital, return and time.
“The less time you have available, the more you need in the capital, and the higher the return needs to be,” Steve says. “So if you’ve got less than one, you need more of the others.”
Time, Steve insists, is the most crucial element to manage and can be the most helpful factor in increasing your financial knowledge.
“The earlier you can master these skills in life, you’ll be able to let time and trends be your friend,” says Steve.
Finally, Steve reassures listeners apprehensive about managing their finances and investments that a PhD in Mathematics is not a prerequisite for understanding and growing your wealth.
“If this failed maths student who could only do year 11 veggie maths can make a success of their financial future,” Steve says, “I think it’s possible for everyone who has an interest in doing so.”
Steve McKnight’s book, Money Magnet, is available now from most major online retailers.
For more tips and wisdom from Steve McKnight, listen to the full Flying Solo episode now.
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