Nicola Cairncross | Notes From The Edge

As we head into the holiday part of the trip to Cyprus, here’s how I’m getting on. The first week was fine, the second week was hell and this week is better. How do I cope with being bald as a coot? What am I working on and thinking about?

I spill the beans on working and travelling during chemo and share some pics.

Cheers,
Nicola

p.s. If you would like to read the first 3 chapters of my new book ‘A Better Entrepreneur’ just come over to NicolaCairnX.com and download them free. Then you’ll find out how to get access to my Entrepreneur’s Mentoring App, again totally free, 100% trained by me and containing the good stuff from ALL of my books.

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The uncomfortable space between where you are and where you want to be

Most entrepreneurs eventually find themselves in a strange place. They know they want something different, but they cannot yet see the route that will get them there.

That uncertainty can be deeply frustrating. We are taught that successful people have plans, strategies and crystal-clear goals. We imagine that everyone else knows exactly what they are doing while we alone are making it up as we go along.

The reality is rather different.

At various points in my own career, I have stood on the edge of enormous change. I found myself there again recently. After years of building businesses, writing books and embracing new technology, I realised I was entering another transition period.

For a while, I became fascinated by artificial intelligence. Like many people, I could immediately see how useful it might be. It could help with research, planning and brainstorming. It could save time and help organise my thinking.

What I discovered, though, was that while I wanted AI to support my work, I did not want it doing the work for me.

I did not want a machine writing my articles or creating my videos. I wanted to remain connected to my own ideas and my own voice.

And so I found myself asking a familiar question:

What do you do when you know where you want to end up, but you have no idea how to get there? The truth: you don’t know what you don’t know

When people start businesses, they often spend months looking for the perfect marketing strategy. They buy courses, follow gurus and search for someone who can tell them exactly what will work.

The trouble is that nobody can.

You simply do not know what you do not know.

There is no universal marketing formula. The strategy that transforms one business may completely fail in another. Even two companies selling almost identical products can thrive using completely different approaches.

Why? Because businesses are built by people.

The personality of the owner matters. Their strengths matter. Their interests matter. Their willingness to stick with something matters.

One café owner may love Instagram. Another may hate social media but thrive at local networking events. One coach may enjoy public speaking. Another may prefer writing.

The methods that work are usually the methods you enjoy enough to continue doing.

That is particularly important in the early days because success almost always requires consistency. If you hate your marketing, you will stop doing it the moment life becomes busy or difficult.

Finding the right marketing strategy is not simply about finding customers. It is about finding the overlap between your customers, your business and your personality.

My own transition

Part of the reason this subject has been on my mind is that I am going through a period of reinvention myself.

For years, I built my business around mentoring, group programmes, masterminds and courses. Much of that worked brilliantly, but life changes.

Illness has a way of forcing clarity.

Towards the end of last year, I became extremely unwell. Eventually, after months of uncertainty, I discovered the cause and began treatment. Thankfully, the treatment has been working, but the experience made me question everything.

What sort of life do I actually want?

What sort of work gives me energy?

What am I no longer prepared to tolerate?

One answer became obvious very quickly: freedom matters enormously to me.

I realised that I no longer wanted a diary packed with appointments months in advance. I no longer wanted rigid schedules. I wanted flexibility, spontaneity and room to breathe.

That forced me to rethink my business model.

I had to ask whether I still wanted group coaching. I had to ask whether I wanted clients at all. I had to ask how I could continue doing meaningful work without recreating the sort of life I no longer wanted.

The answers are still emerging, but asking the questions has been incredibly valuable. Start from the beginning or begin with the end in mind

There are really only two ways to build a business.

The first is to begin at the beginning.

That is how I started back in the late 1990s. At the time, I was training as a life coach, although I already knew I was more interested in business and money. I did not have a grand plan. I certainly did not know where the internet would eventually take me.

So I started writing.

Every week, I sent out a newsletter. At first, it simply carried my name. Later, when I bought a hotel, it evolved into Diary of a Seaside Landlady.

I documented what I was learning about money, property, investing, business and the internet. I did not know what opportunities would emerge. I simply kept showing up and sharing the journey.

The second approach is to begin with the end in mind.

Ask yourself:

Who do you actually want to work with?

What kind of lifestyle are you trying to create?

What would your ideal customers be reading, watching and listening to?

Where do they spend their time?

Who influences them?

The answers to those questions shape your marketing far more effectively than copying somebody else’s strategy ever will.

Document the journey

One of the most powerful things any entrepreneur can do is document the journey. People connect with honesty. They are interested in process, not just polished success stories.

For weeks, I had been trying to persuade myself to sit down and record videos. I could not make myself do it. Yet the moment I decided to go live instead, everything changed.

I realised that I enjoy the slight danger of live broadcasting. I enjoy the fact that things can go wrong. I enjoy speaking spontaneously.

That insight mattered because the best content strategy is rarely the one that looks most impressive on paper. It is the one you will actually sustain.

If you enjoy writing, write.

If you enjoy speaking, speak.

If you enjoy conversations, start a podcast.

If you enjoy photography, document what happens behind the scenes in your business. The format matters far less than the consistency.

Why content is non-negotiable

Many business owners still believe content marketing is optional.

They tell themselves that social media is only for influencers or that their industry is too boring to create interesting material.

I do not believe that for a second.

Without content, you are effectively invisible.

Whether you run a café, a consultancy, a beauty salon or a local taverna, people need reasons to remember you.

I have watched this happen in Greece. Ten years ago, many of the tavernas I love had no idea how to promote themselves online. They had special evenings, musicians and wonderful food, yet nobody outside the village knew what was happening.

Slowly, that has changed.

The businesses embracing social media are thriving because they are creating small moments of connection with their customers.

The same is true in Shoreham. Some restaurants are brilliant at social media. They post photographs of new dishes, announce events and celebrate the dogs who visit during the day.

Those posts are not random. They are building relationships.

Meanwhile, businesses that remain silent are leaving space for their competitors to take the attention.

There is always content to create

One objection comes up repeatedly.

‘My business is different.’

It never is.

I once knew a pest-control expert in Alabama who became locally famous because his friend filmed him doing his work. He crawled under houses, investigated infestations and explained how he solved problems.

On paper, pest control does not sound particularly glamorous.

Yet those videos transformed his business. Eventually, he became known not only as the best pest-control specialist in the area, but also as someone who understood how to market expertise.

Every business contains stories.

Every business solves problems.

Every business has lessons, customers, mistakes, surprises and insights.

The challenge is not finding content. The challenge is paying attention to what already exists. The channels that have worked for me

When I look back over nearly three decades online, certain patterns emerge. Newsletters have worked.

Books have worked.

Speaking engagements have worked.

Podcasts have worked.

Partnerships and joint ventures have worked.

Networking has worked.

None of that means those same approaches will work for everyone, but it does prove an important point: you should start with your natural strengths.

I love writing.

I love speaking.

I love conversations.

I enjoy live video.

I enjoy discussing entrepreneurship, wealth creation, investing, hospitality, marketing and all the unusual twists my career has taken.

The more closely your marketing aligns with your personality, the more sustainable it becomes. The Venn diagram that changed everything

For years, I kept a simple Venn diagram on my desktop.

It contained three circles:

What do I love doing?

What do people want?

What will people pay for?

The sweet spot sits in the middle.

Many entrepreneurs build businesses around only one or two of those elements. Some pursue passion but ignore the market. Others chase money while slowly growing to hate their work.

A real business needs all three.

You must enjoy it.

People must want it.

And they must be willing to pay for it.

Whenever I feel confused, I come back to that diagram and ask myself where the overlap lies.

Test your assumptions

Entrepreneurs are often emotionally attached to their own ideas.

The market, unfortunately, does not care about our feelings.

Recently, while promoting my book A Better Entrepreneur, I experimented with different advertisements and book covers. Artificial intelligence suggested that one design would perform better than another.

Rather than trusting the advice blindly, I tested it.

I ran different advertisements and compared the results.

That is one of the great advantages of advertising. It is not simply about making sales. It is about gathering information.

Advertising tells you whether people care.

It tells you whether your message is landing.

It tells you whether there is enough interest to build a business around an idea. The best entrepreneurs learn to treat feedback as data rather than judgement.

The only question that really matters

Whenever I feel overwhelmed, I ask myself a very simple question:

What is the one thing I could do today to move my business forward?

Sometimes there are three answers.

Sometimes there is only one.

That is enough.

We often assume progress requires giant leaps, elaborate plans and perfect clarity. In reality, progress usually comes from small actions repeated consistently over time.

Write the article.

Send the newsletter.

Make the phone call.

Record the video.

Start the conversation.

Most people delay because they want certainty. They want proof that their next move will work. But entrepreneurship has never offered certainty.

It offers possibility.

The people who succeed are not necessarily the ones with the best plans. More often, they are the people willing to keep moving before they can see the entire road ahead.

If you do not know what to do next, perhaps the answer is simply this:

Do the next useful thing.

Then do another.

And trust that the path will reveal itself as you walk it.

An Instagram Reel seen this morning, a woman filming while walking around her house: “So desperately sad that, yet again, we are having to sell our house. This happened to us in 2020 and back in the Global Financial Crisis 2008. It’s heartbreaking. We need to free some of the equity to help us live going forwards and pay off the debts that have slowly accumulated since 2020. Is this the right move? I don’t know but I know one thing, it’s the only move I can see AND I know that we have to fix our relationship with money or this will just keep happening!”

I’m assuming this is a WASPI woman due to the general age of people I get shown, but it may not be. She’s also aware there is a deeper level issue beyond just the practicalities of budgeting, spending and saving.

They may simply be not earning enough to both live comfortably and service the debts. They may be overspending. They certainly are not freeing up cash to invest in assets (the way out of their problem).

The good news is, there ARE other options that don’t involve moving (with all the costs that incurs) and stopping the downward spiral right here.

I reached out to her and offered her - free of charge - my best two books for this situation, ‘The Money Gym’ for practically sorting out the money situation and her relationship with that, and ‘A Better Entrepreneur’ to help this couple start to work out how they can start to create more value and earn more, going forward.

Because things are not going to improve without those changes. Actually I can see three clear areas where change would make a massive difference and, compounded, those changes would bring that difference forward more quickly. Yes, there are outside influences like raging inflation and that on again/off again war, but often the real causes are closer to home.

The immediate issues are either one or a combo of these things:

1. This couple don’t earn enough to support their lifestyle
2. They earn enough but are are chronically overspending - including paying down debt
3. They are relying on earned income and are not creating extra cash to buy assets

This situation may be being compounded by being a WASPI woman - I just found out that I don’t get ANY pension until I’m 67. I thought it was 66 but no! they seem to have changed it again. That’s £67,200 income that is NOT appearing in my bank account on a monthly basis over this seven years.

If you recognise some of the elements of this situation, and would like to find out how to fix things, I’m putting together a short video course, delivered by email daily, over 7 days. The first 30 people get a free place in return for a genuine testimonial. Just follow these simple, quick instructions to claim your place:

1. Visit NicolaCairnX.com using the button below
2. Scroll down and sign up for my free Substack mailing list
3. When you get the welcome email, hit reply and tell me a bit about you.

I’ll come right back to you with suggestions and info about the course.

Looking forward to helping more WASPI women and entrepreneurs everywhere!

Warm regards

Nicola

#waspi #waspiwomen #waspiwoman

Afternoon! Look, I know I said I was semi-retiring and turning into a painter, but that’s not working out for me. Not enough intellectual stimulation.

So…

I’m thinking of creating a short, practical course to help you think more like an entrepreneur — whether you want a better job, a safer job, a successful lifestyle business or a bigger, more succesful business that runs without you and actually pays you well personally.

Becoming a more entrepreneurial thinker benefits ALL aspects of your life; it makes you feel more empowered, more in control of your life, more calm and peaceful. You are not second guessing yourself all the time or wondering what you are doing wrong. You increase your value, no matter what you do for a living.

I know it can be taught, because while born entrepreneurially minded, I didn’t have a clue how to become a successful entrepreneur. I learned from great mentors and by learning painful lessons along the way.

First, which best describes you?

A) Job seeker or Employee watching AI reshape your role and wanting to stay valuable

B) Recently redundant and exploring a business idea

C) Solopreneur worn out and stuck at a revenue ceiling

D) Business owner not making what you hoped (and working too hard)

E) Founder or aspiring founder wanting a clearer path to traction

It will focus on:

* Create visible impact fast & getting noticed

* Idea → test → proof, without burning out (stop guessing, get sure)

* Using AI leverage without losing your creativity

* Money models and cash clarity (effort into income & assets)

* Field-tested moves from my book “A Better Entrepreneur” that you can apply the same day.

Two quick questions:

Which letter are you?

What ONE outcome would make this a no‑brainer for you?

Comment below with the word “EDGE”, your Letter and any questions.

The first 30 people to commit to the course in return for feedback (and hopefully a testimonial), will enjoy it completely free of charge.

Why listen to me?

* 35+ years building and advising traditional and digital businesses; founder of The Money Gym, Clicks & Leads and the ‘secret weopon’ behind many high profile authors and experts, helping them to build personal brand, scale leads and revenue.

* Creator of The Money Gym hosting sold‑out workshops and mentoring entrepreneurs from first sale to consistent profit.

* Speaker and trainer for professional networks and communities

* Longtime podcaster (Own It! Business Success Factory & A Better Entrepreneur), interviewing and coaching founders across many varied sectors.

* Practitioner first: bought (no money down), launched, marketed, and filled a boutique hotel from scratch; built repeatable “Be Everywhere Online” systems; helped quiet experts turn expertise into demand.

* Author of ‘The Money Gym’, ‘Attract 3.0’ and ‘A Better Entrepreneur’, distilling hard‑won lessons into practical playbooks for mindset, marketing, and money.

If this resonates, drop your letter below and your one desired outcome. Or hit reply and email me your answers (for privacy).

Thank you for reading this.

Your input directly shapes what I build next.

#entrepreneurship #entrepreneurthinking #entrepreneurialthinking

See less

Thank you all so much for your good wishes for my health, it’s much appreciated!

Now to the topics that I could write about, which resonated the most with you…there is a clear winner as you can see.

(BTW I’ve replied to all comments on the post “I Got What I Wanted” which you can read here)

Joseph said “I would love for you to write about investing! 😜”

Wendy said “Thank you Nicola for sharing your news, wishing you a speedy recovery, i am also curious as to why you wouldn’t start a business.”

Denise said “I genuinely like reading your take on most subjects so please write away! Any investing info for those of us not there yet would be wonderful. Reinvention in later life also would be fascinating.

Paula said “Stepping off the treadmill would be an interesting one, but I’m always up for anything you write!”

Sophia said “I would love to hear about why you wouldn't start a business first nowadays. I'm curious to know what you have to say on that. I really enjoyed reading this.”

It’s Just An Analogy said “Write about whatever moves you in the moment. I always enjoy your content.”

So here goes!

When I was first getting started in business, I didn’t know the difference between being a freelancer and starting a proper business. I really didn’t know what that even meant.

I came quite close with ‘Waistcoat Wonderland” in the eighties, where I was making and selling New Romantic waistcoats to a designer shop in Brighton. I farmed most of the sewing out to my two sisters, but I didn’t really ‘get it’ about building a ‘real’ business in my bones yet.

Eventually, after some success and equal numbers of failures (I am not short of ideas and see opportunities everywhere), I started realising there must be a difference between how I was doing things and how most successful business people I was meeting were doing things.

I took 100% responsiblity for my results and after that mindshift, things started changing. I found most of the answers I needed in two books recommended by my first ever business coach Rachel Turner from Achieve Unlimited. She had a bit of a job persuading me to read them but when I did, “Rich Dad Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki and “The E-Myth Revisited” by Michael E. Gerber filled in most of the gaps and then Rachel and some great mentors supplied the rest of the information I was missing.

In his first Rich Dad book, Robert laid out the bare bones of the Cashflow Quadrant, which separates people out into four quadrants, two on the left, two on the right. On the left are Employees and Self Employed / Freelancers, while on the right are Business Owners and Investors.

I certainly didn’t understand what being a ‘business owner’ or ‘investor’ really meant and how huge the differences were. How dangerous it could be, being stuck on the left hand side.

As I read this back, I notice that it never really occurred to me to be an employee or freelancer AND a business owner AND an investor. Because my resources of time and/or money were so scarce, I somehow always felt that I should do one thing well ideally, then the next thing, then the next thing. I’ll show you why that was important shortly.

I learned why being on the left hand side of Robert’s Quadrant makes you so vulnerable, especially when inflation is booming, while being on the right makes you so much stronger and resilient in any wealth cycle.

I only found out about Wealth Cycles a few years ago, when watching Mike Maloney’s “Hidden Secrets Of Money” video series. If you can make it through Episodes 1-7 at least and then the “Wealth Cycles” video, you’ll be so much better informed about how real money works than most economists!

But let’s assume you already have a business or that you definitely want to start a business, how best to go about it?

In the photo above is my mate Philippa. She came back from Spain in a hurry when her Mum became very ill, and stayed with me for a few months. Like many others since 2020, she had no choice but to start a new business.

Philippa is an award winning film director/producer and while she was with me, she was considering possibly re-inventing herself. She is a highly skilled creative who can put an overseas documentary together from scratch, but knew nothing about marketing herself online and that’s where I was delighted to help.

Ironically, the business she initially started didn’t really take off (in spite of lots of interest) but as part of marketing that business she started a YouTube Channel for Wildhorse Films where she uploaded her previous work and that’s doing really well now.

She’s not far from getting monetised with YouTube, an income stream she hadn’t considered. Three of her horse documentaries are getting at least one, but as many as three views an hour (and that’s after six months), such is the power of a highly niche film aimed at a huge global audience.

At the same time, she was listening to me talk with my sister Sarah each Sunday about what I was learning about the commodities markets, what I had learned about wealth cycles. Although she thought it would take her ages to get started investing, focusing on building the business first, we found a couple of little pension pots she’d forgotten about and she invested in some of the bigger gold and silver miners. Her investment pot is also growing nicely now.

Back to business, the really life changing difference is when you step up and make the rather terrifying jump to becoming a ‘real’ business owner and hire your first employees, because you benefit from the following:

1. Not having to work IN the business delivering the goods or service all the time. If you do it right, and create some time-zoning discipline - you can carve out time to be the leader of the business, the visionary, the one pointing the way. Gerber’s book “The E-Myth Revisited” shows how this works very well.

2. A better tax and financial set up (limited companies are separate legal entities, you’ll enjoy better tax breaks and if it all goes wrong, you are more easily able to walk away financially and start again).

3. Better personal protection (limited companies are separate legal entities and you will enjoy more personal protection than you will being a freelancer).

But being a business owner is becoming increasinly complicated and our western govenments are making it ever more so. One reason is because younger MP’s have become career politicians, going stright into politics from university and never been out in the world of work and certainly have never been business people.

Peter McCormack (host of an excellent podcast) used to be a Bitcoin guy and for years had the world’s biggest Bitcoin podcast, but he’s also a successful local business owner in Bradford, owning the football team, a cafe and, until recently, a bar.

This new podcast is made even more interesting, as his right hand man is his twenty-something son, who chips in regularly with his thoughts (and those of his mates). Peter is on a steep learning curve as to how government and business really works and it’s fascinating to watch. Better guests recommend even better guests and Peter is open minded enough to listen hard and to do his own research too.

Even. more relevant to this post, while he’s trying everything he can as he wants to expand locally, but even he can’t make the numbers work for a new business - it just won’t pay right now. You HAVE to make a profit in business so you can smooth out the variations of cashflow and create a rainy day cushion. Your business won’t survive without those two things.

Just some of the contributing factors to making a new business not worth starting for Peter and many entrepreneurs right now are higher business rates (double or even triple for hospitality businesses), soaring energy costs and the homeless and addicts terrorising the town centre near his cafe. Worst of all though have been the additional bureaucracy, minimum wage and pregnancy / sick pay rights and accompanying draconian employee legislation (and the cost of implementing and then maintaining that) for small business owners to comply with. Not to mention Digital ID’s required to file a tax return.

I include independent landlords in this group as they are also being forced out of business by the rental market changes made recently. Every serious landlord I know is selling up as many rental properties as they can and getting their money into assets in the right part of the Wealth Cycle, that will not be so affected by the batshit bonkers policies created by short term thinking governments who are only elected for 4-5 years at a time. They want to please voters, not build a sustainable economy.

I digress.

But how do you know what to move your money into, once liberated from your property or business assets? That’s why you need to know about Wealth Cycles. Because money moves in waves, through different assets, and while some cycles are shorter, many are much longer and you can be positioned well when you know how it all works.

My mate Andy has written several detailed articles about this, and he lays out an excellent example here of a couple who are equity rich but cash poor and what they could do about that. If you are pension rich but cash poor, or business rich but cash poor yourself, you need to be thinking about these things. Another article lays out what choices young people under 30 have, if they are longing to own a property and start a family, but who can’t get on the housing ladder.

There were many times when I have made clumps of cash from commissions from my job, or when I could have legally taken money out of my business and put that into another asset class (even as a cash holding action) , making money from that second asset class as well, IF I HAD ONLY KNOWN ABOUT WEALTH CYCLES.

For example, just before everything collapsed in early 2010, I was the most cash rich I’d ever been.

When we had sold our newly renovated property in Worthing, I’d made some money which I put into my hotel, The Acacia. Then in 2006, I’d sold The Acacia, my hotel bought and renovated ‘no money down’, then in 2008/2009, my Money Gym business was still booming, we had a digital marketing company helping business owners build a personal brand online, I was earning commissions from recommendations, I was being offered paid speaking gigs… life was good.

If I had known then that the property wealth cycle was coming to an end, and that the commodities wealth cycle was on the rise, I could have taken chunks of cash and invested it in gold for example.

I could have taken the £60k from the property we sold in 2004 and held it in 294 x gold coins which I could have bought for £203.87 per oz.

Then when things went tits up in 2010, I would have been sitting on gold worth £714.12 per oz or a total of £209,916. Even if I had used a quarter of it to try and save the hotel, I’d still have had £157,437 to start a new life with, in January 2010. Compared to the ZERO I actually ended up with.

When things were great, in 2008, I took the kids on five holidays in two years (trying to make up for the many, many years of no holidays at all). Some were more expensive, some were cheaper but let’s allow for an average of £3000 per holiday, including spending money, so let’s say £15k in total.

If I had invested that in gold at £448 per oz, around January 2008, I’d have had 33 oz. When things went tits up in January 2010, that would have been worth £714 per oz, or £23,906 Not so exciting as the previous example, but better than the nothing I ended up with (bar some nice memories).

If I could have hung onto those 33 oz until 2020 when my next financial crisis hit (along with millions of others), they’d have appreciated in value to £1436 per oz for a total of £47,388. If I had hung onto them over the next few years, today they would be worth £3339 per oz for a total of £110,187.

Knowing that hindsight makes us all wiser, I do have to ask myself some stern questions here.

1. Being earlier in my wealth creation education, would I have made such good decisions at that time? Or would I have ploughed the gold back into trying to save a failing business, rather than pulling the plug and getting out with what I could salvage?
   

2. Would I have found it easier to hang onto physical gold coins, than fiat in the bank? I think I would have done as the act of going to sell each one for cash in Brighton then paying the cash into the bank manually, would have been more painful and less convenient, rather than just transferring digits around.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing and I’m just using these examples to show you how much smarter I could have been with learning about Wealth Cycles, asset management and not throwing ALL my eggs in a single basket.

Talking of hindsight, here’s my best story!

Why, in 2011, didn’t I go to that presentation in London when Max Keiser was explaining Bitcoin? I found out later my ex-business pertner Judith went but somehow, I didn’t hear about it. I would have definately bought some as a punt, maybe £100 worth, poor as I was at that time. At £0.73 per BTC at the time, I could have bought 136 BTC which would be worth over £7 million now.

But again, would I have used the BTC profits to prop up ailing businesses rarther then making the hard but necessary decisions?

Probably.

So let’s get to the point shall we?

Why would I not start a business now?

Because it’s not the right time in the Wealth Cycle for starting a business.

Because why would you take any of your money, and any of your time (which is worth money and memories) to invest in a business that is - due to external factors - increasingly likely to fail?

When you could invest in another asset class - commodities - which is much easier on you and is on the way UP rather than property or business ownership, both of which are on the way DOWN.

Who knows what’s happening in the USA on the business front right now but even there, where many states did not lock down, times were brutal for many businesses. In New York and California right now…even big tech and banks are leaving in droves, looking for a more business-friendly environment.

Even better, commodities don’t involve the investment of your time to manage, long lease premises, staff grief, client attraction / marketing efforts and investments and all the other nightmares that owning a business brings?

What about equities, you may ask?

Once you have watched the “Hidden Secrets of Money” videos, you will know why not equities.

They are about to peak, in the opinion of many more expert than me, with only the AI & Big Tech sectors propping up the markets. The latest earnings reports show that AI are a circle-jerk at best, passing revenue between themselves. And at worst they could be creating the biggest bubble of all.

Along with the ever-growing debt of most Western countries, not to mention the endless money printing, It’s only a matter of time before the inevitable plays out. No fiat money system has lasted more than 25 years and this one has gone way past its sell by date.

The equities market sector also affect everyone’s savings, pensions, mortgages, just think for a minute, if it all goes tits up soon, is your property value locked in? Is your pension safe?

If you started a business today, would it be directly affected by most of the population suddenly becoming much less affluent through the loss of their jobs, pension and plummeting property values?

Would it be affected by governments imposing another lockdown? You may have noticed the Ebola story being hyped hugely in the press just recently.

I’ve learned all this in the last six years. I was clueless about macro-economics in 2020 but I learned about wealth cycles and the potential for commodities, particularly gold and silver, in 2020 and I was ready to take action on what I learned.

Previously, In 2017 Andy wrote a small book about Bitcoin for his mailing list subscribers and I ‘got it’ instantly. I started buying tiny bits of Bitcoin, then learned to trade BTC (which means you can trade anything) mainly from free YouTube videos.

Then my brother suddenly died in Sydney in 2021.

He left a small but generous inheritance to be split between us three sisters, for which I will forever be grateful.

When the money came eventually, after a long time in probate, I felt like an athlete who. had been n training for years. I knew what to do, I knew why I had to do it and without hesitation, I did it.

I don’t need a business now. I’ve made the jump from the left hand side of the Cashflow Quadrant, to the bottom right hand side.

The ironic thing is that I could have done that years ago if I had not been so fixated on building a business. I thought that was my ‘Wealth Highway Lane’, as one of my first mentors called it. I even wrote in my first book ‘The Money Gym’ about having more than one vehicle in one lane at one time.

Even more ironically, to keep busy and my brain active and learning, I probably will start a business up again, when I’m ready and it will be probably based around my book ‘A Better Entrepreneur’ which chronicles my own entrepreneurial and business journey so far, along with sharing the 25 most important lessons I’ve learned along the way. So if I’ve intrigued you with the snippets of the story shared here today, you might enjoy that book.

Did I answer the question?

If not, I’m happy to answer your questions in the comments here!

Warm regards
Nicola

As I sit on my sofa or balcony, day after day, staring at the river Adur which goes up, and down, up and down, no matter what goes on in the world of men, one of the things I reflect on is that I got exactly what I wanted.

An empty diary.

If you’ve been around my newsletter or podcast for any length of time, you’ll know that, for years, my idea of freedom is an empty diary (and the income to enjoy it).

Well, with hindsight I now know that I needed to be much more specific. This is not the first time I’ve been gifted this lesson!

Because the LOA has a very odd way of delivering you exactly what you desire, but often throws in a few random and unexpected curveballs along the way.

If you are not a believer in the LOA yet, may I recommend a book “Synchronicity: The Inner Path Of Leadership” by Joseph Jaworski. If you are not convinced after reading that…well, it’s a great book, not woo-woo at all. It shows, not tells, how it all works on both a personal and quantum physics level, wrapped up in a rattling good personal story too.

So why, you may ask, do I now have an empty diary?

Because on the 29th of January 2026, after a week of tests and less than 24 hours before I was supposed to be getting on a business class flight to Thailand, ready to help host a 7-day Bullion Voyage luxury retreat with my mates Andy and Paul, I was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma (NHL for short).

Now, thank you in advance, but I don’t want any advice, tips or warnings; I’ve done my own research and due diligence and chosen my own path through this. Which I may or may not go into later in more detail, when I’m further along in my journey, not to mention being closer to knowing the outcome.

I digress.

Obviously, I suddenly had three long weeks on my hands, that I wasn’t going to be spending in Thailand, in 5-star luxury. That initial time flew past, as I got to grips with much research, implemented changes in lifestyle and habits, not to mention the relentless sleeplessness caused by long nights of bathroom visits of one kind or another (why always at night I wonder?).

My only diary appointments now were ad-hoc calls with my remaining two clients, various hospital visits and my regular 3pm Thursday afternoon appearances on Andy’s ‘Rational Thinking’ webinars.

I’d been feeling so ill for a couple of months, without knowing the cause, that at first, I was content to just take it easy and start to enjoy feeling relatively better as the more immediate effects of the NHL were addressed.

But I’m three and a half months in now and I realised the other day, I’m bored stiff.

After 35+ years of creating social media content, writing a weekly newsletter and working with thousands of clients via workshops, 1-2-1 coaching, and group programmes, I realise now that all of that - learning and delivering - fulfilled my Creator profile (in Roger Hamilton’s Wealth Dynamics terms).

Now that’s all come to an end, so where to get my creative kicks from? I’m learning watercolour painting but it’s only half hitting the spot somehow.

Worse, I feel invisible. Disappeared. That’s the Star profile part of me.

The podcasting, YouTube videos and speaking gigs had fulfilled that part nicely but most of that came to a halt in 2020 and the rest became increasingly impossible (and felt irrelevant) as the next six years unfolded.

I was talking to my friend Andy about this recently. He’s a prolific and inspirational writer himself, not to mention being a globally renowned mindset expert, so he’s a good bloke to talk to, about just about anything actually.

He encouraged me to start writing again. He used to read my first newsletter “Diary Of A Seaside Landlady” and loved it.

I’ve been thinking about it a lot and I’m seriously drawn to the idea of writing for it’s own sake. I’ve been journalling daily since January 18th 2010, but this is different, I’m writing both for my creative needs and for you, the reader, someone who loves to read like I do.

Not to build an audience again.

Not to attract clients again.

Just to fulfil my need to be creating something in the world, that wasn’t there before.

Just to keep a lifeline to the business world at large. Maybe get invited on a podcast or two?

Just to be able to share things I like and find useful myself.

Like this YouTube video and blog post by Dan Koe, which I shared with Andy, as part of our ongoing discussion about the future of AI for creatives.

Dan explained really well why, even if you don’t enjoy writing much, you need to do it for not only the sake of your own brain, but the sake of your potential readers who can tell when something is written by AI and who are already utterly fed up with it. We are swimming in endless social media marketing posts obviously written by poorly trained AI.

Dan suggested that the first step is to write out 20 topics that you could write about and I was easily able to come up with those.

From the deeply personal (growing up with a schizophrenic mother, losing a life partner suddenly, living in Greece, parenting two lively children into becoming whole young adults, a sudden life-threatening diagnosis) to the purely business (bootstrapped startups, content / attraction marketing, creativity, the resilience that comes from failing and succeeding in business over and over again, AI workflows, cashflow management, investing), I think I’ve got a deep well of experience and many topics to write about, as I feel so moved.

What I didn’t want was to be forced to write on a certain day, on certain topics only, to feel that the writing needs to lead to something.

I want to feel free to write about it all without worrying if what I write, or how I write it, will affect my business. Don’t laugh, someone once told me that she hesitated to sign up as a client because of my weekly blog posts / newsletter!

So for now, I think I’m simply going to follow my curiosity and write about whatever feels real, useful or interesting in the moment.

But I’d love your help shaping where this goes next.

Which topics would you most like me to explore further?

The business lessons?
The mindset side?
Creativity and writing?
AI and the future of human work?
Reinvention later in life?
Where to find amazing headscarfs, to cover a balding pate?
Investing?
Why I would’t start a business first nowadays?

Or the strange emotional side of suddenly stepping off the treadmill after decades of motion?

I’d love to hear from you in the comments below!

Warm regards
Nicola

Afternoon!

The other day, I co-hosted a Q&A Webinar with my mates Andy and Paul, all about pensions and how to protect them in the ‘financial end game’ as it’s now being spoken about, by many of the experts.

Here’s a bit of an intro into why Andy hosted this webinar.

“I think fiat currency is fundamentally broken. Since 1971, it has lost over 99% of its value and that decline is accelerating. Governments are too far off‐course to reverse this trend. So they will likely resort to hyperinflation as the easy way out. While people see prices rising, they don’t always see how rapidly their purchasing power is eroding.

The implication: pensions, savings, and assets accounted for with government money are at grave risk of having their value eroded away as this is the most likely route for politicians to choose. To guard against this scenario, individuals should move at least 5% of their assets into physical gold and silver that they hold directly.”

You can enjoy it here, completely free of charge.

And if you would like to find out more about the whole topic, you can download Andy’s free report at

https://BullionVoyage.vip

We are going to Thailand in February with 25 odd people who want to take their future into their own hands. 100% of participants recoup their costs in under 100 days, so do take a look.

You might also enjoy this article “Equity Rich and Cash Poor”

Cheers

Nicola

Well, hello!

A while ago I announced I was retiring from digital marketing and using my time to learn watercolour painting and travel the world.

I was expecting a few people to ask me how I was managing to do that so suddenly, but while there was one notable exception, most of you were just not interested or just assumed I had a stonking great pension pot behind me.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

I’m a WASPI woman, one of those who were never informed by our ‘beloved leaders’ that I would not be getting my state pension until I was 66, instead of the 60 year old threshold I was expecting.

Bus pass? Yes.

Handy monthly payments? No.

Not only that, but as a self-employed person, who was a single mum with no benefits of any kind, my National Insurance payments have been, shall we say, patchy to say the least.

Private pensions have been started on occasion, but swiftly abandoned, as the demands of my business dictated and I’ve never worked in corporate long enough to accrue a pot of employers cash.

I always assumed I would either keep working till I dropped, having set up my business to facilitate that, or that I would sell said business (or its assets) for a big pot of cash and invest that to support me in my old age.

So how DID I do it?

I finally learned, after over 35 years of reading every book on the market and seeking every last wealth creation secret, how to make money out of money itself.

Alchemy it was called in the olden days, it’s called ‘compound interest’ or ‘living on your assets without selling them’ more recently.

Now, this was one of the recurring messages that came through in many of the wealth creation books I read, but it always sounded awfully dull.

I wanted to be CREATING something, DOING something, MEETING someone, filling my days, being business busy

Not to mention that I had only a dim idea how to go about it.

It also felt impossible, as it assumed that you had some assets to start with. I’ve had them occasionally, mainly in the form of property but, especially in the first fifteen years of my real business career, there was nothing. I was also supporting two (rapidly becoming more expensive) children remember?

But back in 2020, when my private digital marketing banking client and several larger business clients melted away like silent snow in the night, I realised that I had to get my head around this, fast, as the certain business future I was hoping for could be, in an instant, upended at the whim of a psychopathic ‘ruling class’.

So the first step was to acquire some capital in order to make some ‘money’. Capital being spare cash that you don’t need to live on just yet. See my PS for what else you could use if you don’t have any of that immediately.

Actually no, the first step was to realise the difference between ‘currency’ and ‘money’.

So I went on that journey in 2020 with the help of my mentor and Mike Maloney’s brilliant video series ‘​Hidden Secrets Of Money​‘.

The second step happened when my brother Alex died suddenly and left us three siblings some money each. Not a huge amount but it got me started and I’ll be forever grateful to him. I invested it in ‘real money’ and since 2020, it’s tripled in value, if not more.

The third step was taken when I was invited to Mexico last March by my friend Andy.

He taught me how to create more ‘real money’, actual ‘living on’ money, out of the scrag ends of my old pensions and the pot of ‘real money’ I’d accumulated so far.

Do you know what’s really interesting in all this?

Only one person asked me how I was doing it out of nearly 1000 subscribers to my newsletter.

So I told her.

I’m happy to tell you too.

But you have to ask.

I hope you do.

Warm regards

Nicola

p.s. Many people have pensions, sometimes more than one, locked away, doing nothing, going nowhere. I know how to help you unlock and grow those pensions fast. Email me privately and I’ll tell you - no charge - what you could do with them.

p.p.s. Do me a favour? This community is growing 100% by word of mouth. If you are getting value from these emails, why not forward this one onto a friend? They are most welcome to ​subscribe for free using this button

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I’ll send them the digital version of my book ‘The Money Gym’ completely free of charge AND ‘The Missing Chapter’ which fills in some of the gaps since my first book was published.

p.p.p.s. If you are ever intrigued by anything you have read in these emails, feel free to hit reply and let me know. I love to talk to curious, open-minded people.

Photo by Joe Green on Unsplash

If you’ve been wondering how I managed to just close down my business and create a new income so suddenly, then this brilliant article will give you some clues.

After you have read the article, just near the bottom is a link to a free webinar where my friend Andy explains the mission he’s on to educate some of the people in his village about how to prepare for the financial storm that is coming.

​Link To Article​

He’s not acting out of purely altruistic motives, he. wants to make sure he’s not ‘the only rich bloke in the village’ so that when the hard times come, he doesn’t get so many family, relatives and distant acquaintances banging on his door looking for help.
​
The article and webinar cover the background, the signs that are appearing and what you can do to insulate and insure yourself for the future, against the idiocy of the Government.

Don’t think they are idiotic? Wait for the budget at the end of November!

Anyway, I got involved and not only am I now insured, but Andy showed me how to create an income out of that insurance. That’s in his article coming this week.
​
But you need to have watched the webinar first.
​
​Link To Article​

Make sure and say you were referred by me!

Cheers

Nicola

p.s. Do me a favour? This list is growing 100% by word of mouth. If you are getting value from these emails, why not forward this one onto a friend? They are most welcome to…

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It’s 100% free.

Also, if you are ever intrigued by anything you have read in these emails, feel free to hit reply and let me know. I love to talk to curious people.

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Once you’ve built even a handful of assets – skills, savings, property, business experience – wealth creation stops being about “earning more” and starts being about using what you already have far more effectively.

That’s something I’ve proven over and over again in my own life.

I’ve started businesses, grown them, marketed them, turned them around, and helped other people do the same. I’ve bought property and commercial property with creative financing. I’ve raised money for startups.

I’ve written a book… or twelve. I know how to self-publish on Amazon, build digital funnels, run profitable ads, and generate highly personalised content automatically.

I know how to coach, mentor, speak on stage, connect with people, and help them see possibilities they didn’t know were on the table.

And underneath it all, there’s the quieter, more valuable skillset: learning fast, acting faster, pivoting when it’s time, and knowing myself well enough to spot when something isn’t working so I can find a better way.

That’s what people miss when they talk about wealth creation.
​
They assume it’s all forward motion.
​
In reality, it’s often about recombining things you already have – experience, network, assets, habits – in smarter ways.

This week has been a lovely reminder of that.
​
I’m spending my time exactly the way I want to. Helping friends and family move forwards. Reading. Painting watercolours – my new obsession. And meanwhile my business quietly delivers more in a day than I earned in a month at various points in my life.

That’s options.
That’s freedom.
Not the shouting-about-it-online version – the actual lived version.

And if you’re reading this, I suspect you’ve already built more than you realise. You might just not be squeezing the value from it yet.

If you want to explore what that could look like, email me at nicolacairncross @ gmail.com and tell me three things: what you’ve done, what you currently have, and what you want next.

I’ll read it personally – no VA nowadays – and I’ll listen, think, and make a couple of suggestions. If it makes sense to continue, the next step would be a simple Zoom conversation, followed by my recommendations sent by email.

No pressure – just ideas, clarity and support.

Cheers

Nicola

p.s. Do me a favour? This list is growing 100% by word of mouth. If you are getting value from these emails, why not forward this one onto a friend? They are most welcome to

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100% free! Now, if you are ever intrigued by anything you have read in these emails, feel free to hit reply and let me know. I love to talk to curious people.

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