In Episode 57 of the Wealth On Any Income Podcast, Rennie is joined by Bernadette Donnelly. Bernadette is a life goals coach for professionals who want more from their careers and their life.
In Episode 57 of the Wealth On Any Income Podcast, Rennie is joined by Bernadette Donnelly. Bernadette is a life goals coach for professionals who want more from their careers and their life.
Over the years, Bernadette has purchased real estate, thinking that when she retired, she could sell one each year and live very comfortably. Bernadette then realized that she would have to pay about 60% of the proceeds in taxes and went about looking for solutions. She learned about ways to turn her properties into investments that pay her an income without the hit of capital gains taxes.
In this episode Rennie and Bernadette cover:
To download Bernadette’s free ebook - Passion and Purpose: How to fuel the fire, follow your energy, and pursue your dreams visit >> fearlessprojectmanagement.com/passion
About Bernadette
Bernadette Donnelly is a certified Project Management Professional; a speaker; a published non-fiction author, and a Business Coach. Her goal is to support Project Professionals as they lead their projects to success. She uses proven techniques that shift mental attitudes and result in success in every area of life. Here are her credentials:
If you'd like to know how books, movies, and society programs you to be poor, and what the cure is visit wealthonanyincome.com/tedx. You'll hear Rennie's TEDx talk and can request a free 27-page Roadmap to Complete Financial Choice™ and receive a weekly email with tips, techniques, or inspiration around your business or money.
Rennie’s Books and Programs
https://wealthonanyincome.com/books/
Rennie’s 9 Days to Financial Freedom program:
https://wealthonanyincome.com/programs
Connect with Rennie
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Rennie Gabriel 00:10
Hi, folks, and welcome to Episode 57 of the Wealth On Any Income Podcast. This is where we talk about money tips, techniques, attitudes, information and provide inspiration. I'm your host, Rennie Gabriel. In past episodes, we spoke about how to build an income and expense report, how to measure the level of pleasure based on where you spend your money, how to track your money in 5 - 10 seconds, what to look for on a net worth statement to see how close you are to Complete Financial Choice™. And last week, we had Barry Shore, who despite having a paralyzing health incident, lives his life with joy. Today we have as our guest, Bernadette Donnelly. Bernadette is a Life Goals Coach for professionals, who want to get more from their career and their life. Over the years, she has purchased real estate thinking that when she retired, she could sell one each year and live very comfortably. But then she realized that she would have to pay about 60% of the proceeds in taxes and went about looking for solutions. She learned about ways to turn her properties into investments that pay her an income without the hit of capital gains taxes. And her first closing was on July 23, 2021. Bernadette, welcome to the Wealth On Any Income Podcast.
Bernadette Donnelly 01:33
Thank you, Rennie. It's nice to be here.
Rennie Gabriel 01:37
Great. Let's get right to it with some questions. Tell us why you do what you do as a Life Goals Coach.
Bernadette Donnelly 01:45
I love to work with people. And I have studied hypnosis, Neuro-Linguistic Programming - NLP for short - I have studied psychology, organizational cultural psychology, and when I work with individuals and teams, I work with them on their internal state. So the soft skills that allow them to build stronger, more powerful working relationships. And when I see that the light goes on in somebody's eyes, for me, it's a great aha. So somebody has a mind shift, or basically we blow up the boundaries of their map, of their internal map. And suddenly their eyes go wide, and they get silent. And I just let them, I just let it go in. And then they come back and say something that's totally different than what they were thinking before. And for me, every time I see that happen, I think that I'm making a better world. Because I think when we heal internally, that extends outside of ourselves. I mean, we have to, certainly we have to have the social skills as well. We have to build the connection to other people. But it starts, it starts within. It starts with the self. And I am, I've been doing this work for many, many years, even though I worked at corporate. I worked in corporate positions. I did project management. I did program management. I ran project management offices. I'm also very good at process and step-by-step. And that also helps me to bring my clients to the next step. So every time we meet, we talk about what they need to shift. They shift it. They shift it. I facilitate. That's all I do is facilitate. They have the answers and I pull them out.
Rennie Gabriel 04:03
Yeah, one of the things you touched on reminded me of the quote from Gandhi, about if you want to change the world, start with yourself.
Bernadette Donnelly 04:12
Absolutely, it's true.
Rennie Gabriel 04:13
Now, you know that I give away 100% of the profits from the work I do to charity. Is there a particular charity that you support? And if so, what do they do?
Bernadette Donnelly 04:25
This is a really good question because I've always considered myself a dog person. And I did get the two great white boxers that I had, I rescued both of them. But when I got into my current location, I couldn't have a big dog. And if you can't have a big dog, you can't have a dog. So I adopted a cat, and cats. I think have a bad rap and they're mistreated - a lot. I adopted a cat who is about three years old from the organization called FuRRR, F u R R R. And actually, I go to AmazonSmile when I purchase on Amazon. Amazon has, they automatically put a part of your purchase to the charity that you, that you decide you want send it to. And my purchase, my extra money, my charity money goes to FuRRR. They're a wonderful organization and my cat had to be homed with them for a year before she could be adopted out. She was mistreated by a three year old. Well, the word that I heard what she was terrorized by a three year old. So she was pretty skittish when I got her. She's very - they are very different from dogs, cats are. Very . . .
Rennie Gabriel 05:54
Yes they are. And it's great, because you could leave them for days at a time if you just leave enough food and a place for them to use the bathroom.
Bernadette Donnelly 06:02
Yeah, I wouldn't do that. But you could, right?
Rennie Gabriel 06:06
Yeah, I had a cat for 18 years. So I'm speaking from experience.
Bernadette Donnelly 06:11
Yeah. So she's - because I've been home through the COVID thing - she's really bonded to me. And I'm surprised she's not here right now because when she hears conversations, she likes to get in on them. She has been known to send a chat or two while I'm on Zoom.
Rennie Gabriel 06:30
I'm guessing your target market from what you said are professionals and industry and technology. And I know that you present at Project Management Institute Chapters. But what was your biggest failure was whether it was personal or business?
Bernadette Donnelly 06:47
Well, I think one of my biggest failures - financially - was not starting to invest early. I believed - this is going to sound crazy - but I think a lot of people do believe, women in particular . . .
Rennie Gabriel 07:04
Yes.
Bernadette Donnelly 07:05
Believe that there's going to be a knight in shining armor that's going to ride in on a big white steed and rescue them. And life will be happily ever after, and they'll share... they'll live in the castle and share the pot of gold. Well, my knight had rusty armor and the steed was an old mare. And he, he spent money like it was going out of style. I was lucky to get out of that relationship intact. It was very expensive. But it was a very pos. . . a very big learning. I worked for Fidelity Investments and I start investing in mutual funds. Well, I have a bad history with that. If I put money into a mutual fund, you should get out. It happened over and over. And then I had a sort of a reawakening. I took a trip to Ireland and met some of my cousins. And I have some very wealthy cousins in Ireland, like some of them own the whole town. I met with one of my cousins, and we had to, it was hard, they had construction all over the city of Carlow. And I said, 'it's so hard to find a parking space'. And he said, 'Well, yeah, we're building that parking garage because we can't find any more property to buy. So we're building it now.'
Rennie Gabriel 08:32
Hmm.
Bernadette Donnelly 08:34
And I thought, Oh my gosh, you know, why aren't I taking this money that I'm throwing away in mutual funds and investing in properties? So I did. I started small. I started buying single family residences. And so the cashflow was very low. And there were a lot of expenses. But I thought if I can just hold on, I'll sell these when I retire and live very nicely on, you know, a single-family residence, $100,000 plus. Right?
Rennie Gabriel 09:12
Yeah.
Bernadette Donnelly 09:12
And then I discovered the tax obligations with selling a property without doing anything with the proceeds.
Rennie Gabriel 09:20
Yes.
Bernadette Donnelly 09:21
And so my biggest, well, the biggest failure was that belief that somebody is going to save me. If I had believed early on that my financial future is up to me, I would have done things. Like there were companies I worked for, that gave 401k match and I wasn't in the program. I eventually realized that was free money, and I was definitely going to get in the pot. So that helped. But there was so many times when, I mean, I remember I was, I guess it was in my 30s, late 20s, had an opportunity to buy a condominium, and it was close to work, was really convenient. And I looked at the finances and I thought I can't afford this. I never considered the tax depreciation. I never considered all of the deductions I would get from it, and I thought I can't afford this. Eighteen months later, it was something like, something ridiculous, like $40,000. And it was right in a nice residential area really close to two, three major highways in Massachusetts. It was within five minutes of, and within 18 months, that same condo was selling for $180,000.
Rennie Gabriel 10:43
Yeah, like that's why I say, wealth creation is a team sport, not a solo sport. Because unless you're talking to someone else, you can overlook all of the possibilities. And when you're talking about thinking that someone might come along and save you, there's a fabulous book - I don't know if you're aware of it, by Barbara Stanny, who's an H&R Block heir - and she wrote a book called Prince Charming Isn't Coming.
Bernadette Donnelly 11:15
I think I heard of it.
Rennie Gabriel 11:16
It was a wakeup call for her.
Bernadette Donnelly 11:17
I think I've heard of it. But, my Prince Charming did come. He just wasn't a prince, and he wasn't very charming.
Rennie Gabriel 11:29
Okay, well . . .
Bernadette Donnelly 11:29
Let's talk about a team sport. And it wasn't until I started looking at my own money beliefs, and how . . . So my parents came through the depression. My father was a lawyer, but his two brothers were Benedictine monks. And his sister was a Sister of Mercy - a Catholic nun.
Rennie Gabriel 11:50
Like a vow of poverty.
Bernadette Donnelly 11:52
Exactly. They took vows of poverty. He didn't, but he still had the poverty mindset.
Rennie Gabriel 11:58
Mm hmm.
Bernadette Donnelly 11:59
And that was sort of passed down to us, like, our ship will be wealthy when our ship comes in. Well, guess what? The ship doesn't come in. You have to put those pennies in the bank every single day. And at the end of it, if you find a great investment, or you talk to the right people, you can take that pot, and you can make that grow. So it just, I have to look at what I was carrying around about money. I don't have, I don't have bad, my parents actually had bias against wealthy people.
Rennie Gabriel 12:36
Mm hmm. Well, I found that that is widespread. Because when you look at Hollywood movies, TV shows, books, fairy tales, you'll see that even the scripture says that poor people are the better, and the wealthy people are not.
Bernadette Donnelly 12:56
And yet . . .
Rennie Gabriel 12:57
It's conditioning.
Bernadette Donnelly 12:58
It is conditioning. And yet the most philanthropic people on the earth are people that have the money to donate to these programs, foundations, charitable works. And what we would do without it, I have no idea.
Rennie Gabriel 13:16
Yeah.
Bernadette Donnelly 13:17
So I don't believe I had the bias against wealthy people. But I didn't have a lot of wealthy friends. And I didn't have friends who I could call and say, 'Hey, I have some real estate, I need to figure out what to do with it.' Until I, until I overcame the beliefs that I was carrying around. I have to do it all on my own. Nobody's there to help me kind of thing. When I put those aside, and I have to say one of the helpful things that I did was to sign up for your program.
Rennie Gabriel 13:52
Thank you.
Bernadette Donnelly 13:54
Wealth On Any Income. And I had even read, you know, started, a lot of financial books, and they just didn't go in, right? Until I actually started looking at myself and what I was carrying around in my own beliefs. And then I reached out to you and we had one conversation. And in that conversation, I had so many great Ahas, because I did a lot of work first on myself. And everything you said was like ping, ping, ping inside my brain. And I was I just want to thank you for that.
Rennie Gabriel 14:36
You're welcome, Bernadette. Well, let me ask you, to support you, is there a valuable free resource that you can direct people to that will further help them based on the work that you do?
Bernadette Donnelly 14:49
Absolutely. My website is fearlessprojectmanagement.com, fearlessprojectmanagement.com.
Rennie Gabriel 14:58
I'll put that in the show notes.
Bernadette Donnelly 15:01
Okay, and there's a great ebook that, there's a little pop up, it comes up. It's called fearlessprojectmanagement.com/passion. It's find your passion and your purpose. What it is, is you identify what you're passionate about and then it drives you and motivates you to create a purpose around it. It's like you don't discover your purpose. You actually create it by looking at what you're passionate about. I so enjoy this ebook. And anyone who wants it can go on and and get this free ebook.
Rennie Gabriel 15:42
Thank you so much, Bernadette. Well, thank you for what you contributed. Thank you for being on the show.
Bernadette Donnelly 15:51
Well, I so enjoyed it, Rennie I always enjoy talking with you. And I want to thank you for contributing to the service dogs and the soldiers and making those matches. I think that is so important that the people who have gone out and supported us.
Rennie Gabriel 16:16
Yes.
Bernadette Donnelly 16:16
With their lives and their energy by fighting for us and working for us to actually have the support they need when they come back. And there's nothing better than the support, the love, the unconditional love of a dog.
Rennie Gabriel 16:33
You're absolutely right, Bernadette. Again, thank you for being on the show. And to my listeners, thank you for tuning in. You can listen to the Wealth On Any Income Podcast on your favorite platform. And please rate, review and subscribe. And if you'd like to know how books, movies and society programs used to be poor, just like we spoke about, and what the cure is, then log on to wealthonanyincome.com/TEDx, you'll hear my TEDx talk and can request a free 27-page roadmap to Complete Financial Choice™ and receive weekly emails with tips, techniques, or inspiration around your business or money. Again, that's wealthonanyincome.com/TEDx. And next week, our guest will be Chris Gomberg. Chris is a retirement coach who will talk about how to solve the concerns about what to do and how to deal with not having to work. Those are issues to be aware of. Until next week, be prosperous. Bye for now.