From Prisoner to Millionaire: Fulfilling Your Human Potential With Judy Vee

 

Nearly everyone struggles to reach their full human potential. A variety of factors can hinder you from reaching success, and in this episode, we discuss how to reach past adversity. Corin Grillo is joined in an inspiring interview by entrepreneur and co-founder of Tribe of Traders, Judy Vee. Judy walks us through her early experiences with adversity, enduring years of horrible abuse. She talks about losing her way and finding the inspiration to be the best she can be. Tune in and be inspired by Judy’s story.

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Listen to the podcast here:

From Prisoner to Millionaire: Fulfilling Your Human Potential With Judy Vee

We have the vivacious and exciting Judy Vee to come talk to us about her awesome perspectives on wealth and wealth building. Judy is an international bestselling author, award-winning entrepreneur, speaker, co-founder of the Tribe of Traders, and a wealth builder. Over the past years, she’s built and sold numerous multimillion-dollar businesses in many categories from the property, logistics, agriculture, industrial, hygiene, trading, and coaching in several different countries.

She studied and researched the human potential for over twenty years and it’s been her understanding of human behavior and potential that has allowed her to create pioneering businesses and to be the first to market ideas and products that have made her fortunes. Judy, I love the sound of fortunes. It’s plural. It’s not one fortune but several fortunes. Thank you for coming to share your magic with us.

Thank you so much, Corin. It’s such a pleasure to be here and thank you so much for the invite. I’m excited. I’m looking forward to this.

Me too, especially when I heard a little bit about your background there. My community and my peeps love people who can walk in both worlds, manifest wealth and success but also have one foot deeply rooted in their spiritual connection and spirituality. Judy, can you share the story that opened your eyes to the reality of spirit and how that led you towards this journey of creating fortunes for yourself?

Especially in light of the background that I will go into now, without that experience, statistically, I wouldn’t be where I am right now and most people don’t end up where I am now. I lived in an abusive environment. I was practically locked up from when I was about three years old until I escaped in my early twenties. It was by my father. I was tortured, raped and abused violently. I was shot, stabbed and many numerous things. I was pregnant several times and had brutal home abortions. It was bad.

Was that all your life?

Yes, and it was quite horrific. It was quite all-consuming. I had no schooling and no interaction with society.

This is so much more than I thought I was in for. I’m glad I’m having you on because it’s intense. Can you give us an idea of an age bracket? You were imprisoned and living the opposite lifestyle of what you have now. Give us an idea of a timeline of how long was this going on and when did you start breaking free.

It started when I was about three. I was completely locked in from when I was nine. When I was 21, I eventually managed to escape in the middle of the night.

 

Good for you.

I escaped and left the country. This was all in Ireland. I would not have had the resources and the faith to do what I did when I did escape without having had these spiritual or transcended experiences that I had. There’s no doubt about it.

Were you having those experiences your whole life? Did you have one big one? Can you give us an example of one time that something like this happened for you?

The first time it happened was it was pretty dark and hellish. There were times I went to sleep with a gun to my head and it had been held at my head for hours. Eventually, out of exhaustion, this will be after hours of beatings and torture, I would fall asleep. I would give in because I was exhausted. I did not know that I was going to wake up again. You resign yourself to that and waking up the next morning because we don’t know what death is. We don’t know what it feels like. You don’t know what it is. Waking up, I’m curious, “Am I alive? Am I dead?” It was a surreal experience.

The sun was beaming in and it was super bright. The light coming into the room was incredible and I’m feeling myself going, “I’m alive.” Later on that day, I was in the bathroom and I was looking at myself in the mirror. It all seemed to be an extension of that experience. I was in a light blue nightgown, threadbare and torn. I’ve got a black eye and a bruise on my mouth. I’m exhausted. I’m looking at myself in the mirror and all of a sudden, I’m no longer looking at me and I’m looking into my eyes.

I’m drawn into my eyes. It’s almost like an arm into my body and down into my solar-plexus and held on to something. From there on out, for many years, I called it my something. I wasn’t schooled or socialized. I didn’t have a language. I wasn’t articulate. I held on to something and at that moment, all of a sudden, there’s so much clarity where I could hear the birds, smell the grass, hear the raindrops on the window. All of a sudden, I felt one with the universe and there was no boundary between myself and the universe. I was part of something so much bigger than my mortal body.

At that moment, I understood that nothing could break my spirit and no one can break my spirit. This is all-powerful and this is connected to something far greater. There’s no challenge. There’s nothing you can do to my mortal body that will destroy my spirit. That’s when I realized what matters. One of the things that I learned many years later was there’s a guy called Giordano Bruno, who was an Italian philosopher. He spoke about the stars and the moon. He challenged the rhetoric or the theories at the time and he was burned.

There’s a statue of him in a square in Rome and his last words were, “You can burn my mortal body but you’ll never destroy my spirit.” He had been asked to take back his words. I relate to that. There’s nothing in this mortal world that can destroy my spirit. We are far greater than any challenge that we will experience in our mortal body. When you’ve experienced that and get that insight and clarity, you realize that everything is at your fingertips.

Anything that your heart and soul desire is for you to take because that’s the abundance and the perfection of the universe. That’s who we are, energy. When you boil it all down and you peel away the skin, the bones, the muscle, we’re energy. We are one with the universe. When you get that clarity, it’s incredible. That was the first and the most powerful I got. I’ve had numerous others since then and I can reconnect with that at will.

When you boil it all down and you peel away the skin, the bones, the muscle, we are energy.

It sounds like an incredible moment of grace and a moment of wisdom that seemed to last for a lifetime. I can’t help it to say, that moment was divine intervention. It seemed like it changed everything. For you, as you become aware of this other aspect of you, is that what led you more towards fighting for your freedom and leaving when you were 21?

Yes. Up until that point, in my mind, if I look back at the image of myself, I was worn down, exhausted, overpowered, drained, and nothing. I was a shell. It wasn’t overnight. It’s like a line of inquiry opened between my head and my heart and I started to play with this. I wouldn’t have used that word at that time but looking back on it, this is what I did. I started to play with this and I started to explore and build myself up again. This is what I was intuitively doing. It wasn’t a planned decision. It’s what was happening. I started to build it up again. I built up my inner strength.

I found joy in the craziest places that no matter what situation I was in, I would have an incredible and most amazing inner joy, love, gratitude and appreciation no matter what was going on in my mortal body or around me. This is where it becomes powerful. My father was the guy responsible for locking me out but what he did do for me is I started asking him for things like books. I wanted to paint and he got them from me. I’d get canvas and paints. I’ve never been taught how to paint or what to do with oils and canvas. I would ask him for wool and knitting needles.

I’d asked him for a violin. I started tapping into all this. I taught myself how to play the violin, knit, paint, read, write and learn. The books that I asked him for were all about how the world goes round in terms of business, finance, and economics. I wasn’t interested in geography and history or any of that stuff. It was just the business. Those were the books that I got and that’s what I got. What I was able to teach myself was incredible that when I escaped, I joined an orchestra in London to play the violin.

As my proficiency with the violin grew, so did my curiosity about the intricate symphony of finance and business. I delved into the world of investments, real estate, and economic intricacies, absorbing knowledge from the books I had requested. My relentless pursuit of understanding the dynamics of wealth creation led me to explore the nuances of real estate, where I discovered the transformative power of companies like eXp Realty. This innovative real estate business seamlessly integrated technology and collaboration, much like the harmonious collaboration within an orchestra. Captivated by the parallels between my newfound financial insights and the melodic precision of my violin playing, I found myself not only mastering the strings but also navigating the intricate chords of real estate through the lens of companies like eXp Realty.

I have knitted Aran jumpers. Anybody who knows anything about knitting will know that Aran jumpers are the hardest knitting to do. I created Aran jumpers and I would do it in record time. Even in that environment, being locked up, I was creating, demonstrating and proving that there is nothing we cannot achieve. We connect with the intelligence and the wisdom of the universe, the universal intelligence. All that information is there for us to tap into.

I agree and I’ve also had experiences along the way and that is consistently proven to me as well that we can tap into our genius no matter what stage of life we’re in, no matter what environment. I love that message. I also get a sense that at a certain point, you stopped believing the lies that were being fed to you by probably your father, culture, or whatever information that you’re getting. That is essential to those of us who are curious about freedom, financial freedom, wealth or freedom in general.

There’s the voice inside of us that has been programmed to be pretty tyrannical and sometimes mean to us. There’s this other voice and it sounds like the other voice started becoming louder for you than the other one. I’d love to take this time to now shift gears. Your genius was leading you towards wealth, business, and things like that but I want to talk about financial empowerment. You say that if people are not financially empowered, they are overpowered. Can you share a little bit more about that?

There’s interesting leading to it and relaying another story. When I was locked up, after that experience, no matter what happened in the mortal world, I always felt that I was in heaven. I had joy. There was light and there was excitement. There were moments when I was in the throes of pain and torture. It wasn’t pleasant but, on the whole, it was joyful. I had this inner peace of mind, which I would call heaven.

When I escaped, the ego took over. I was like, “Party time.” My ego completely took over. I was coming from a place of knowing that there’s nothing I cannot do. I managed to escape. I managed to find the resources. That’s a long story. Not only escape but leave Ireland because I knew he would hunt me down and go to the UK. I decided exactly what job I wanted. Here it is.

 

I wanted to work in stockbroking, oil, and gas, or merchant banking. I was clear and I wanted to have a position as either a trader or an accountant. This is coming from somebody who’s never been educated in school and that’s what I decided. I decided what salary I would get, which seems completely crazy. One of the reasons why I chose those professions is that they’re highly paid. I got my first ever job as a trading account in an oil and gas company.

Without a degree?

Yes. I’m earning a vast sum of money. When somebody who has got no social skills, never been socialized. I did a lot of partying and I had lots of fun. Eventually, I knew my heart has always had a calling to South Africa. ASs soon as Apartheid was abandoned legally, I flew over to South Africa on my own and started a whole new life there. I lost touch with my spirit and I became all of my head, all ego, chasing outside of me. I started taking overdoses because my head was spinning. I lost myself completely. I was doing extreme sports.

I represent South Africa in several different sports. I was extremely successful in anything I did but I had lost something and I couldn’t remember what it was. I started taking overdoses not to die but if I die, I died. It was to stop and slow my mind down a bit. I will never forget that last overdose I took. I’m looking at myself in the mirror and that same experience comes back. I had taken about 8 to 9 overdoses in eighteen months.

You were doing drugs.

I wasn’t doing drugs. I was taking them. I was going to doctors lying to them and telling them I need Rohypnol, alprazolam and Xanax.

It was a prescription but you were trying to escape the planet. You separated from your work, you were focused on success, but somehow in that focus on success, you lost contact with the inner heaven.

I was seeking outside for what I had inside.

That is a compelling point because when I’m talking to my communities or when I’m mentoring people, I feel like it’s important to get into contact with why you want more wealth. Certain kinds of wealth, if you come at it without contact with that inner self, can be yet another prison. Success could be yet another prison. We want wealth that creates beauty, freedom and not more tyranny. What do you feel holds people back from financial freedom?

When you’re in alignment with what your heart and soul desire and you build wealth to support that, that’s when you’re unstoppable.

It’s looking outside. When I was taking that last overdose, at that time, I realized exactly what was going on. I’d lost touch with my inner soul where heaven was. I got caught up in the lie that heaven was out there. Heaven was in success, money, having nice luxury things and that was the suffering. That was hell. On the outside, people looking into my life would have thought I had everything but I was in hell.

Whereas in my life, in the years of torture, I was in heaven. I took that journey back into myself. You need to marry your inner technology with your outer technology. When you’re in alignment with what it is your heart and soul truly desire, you build wealth to support that. That’s when you’re unstoppable, most inspired, and at your most creative.

For you, staying in contact with that inner self with the heart and with that inspired part of you, some people have never had contact with that aspect but I love that you are including that, in a sense, in your formula for success. Anybody can make money and have wealth but not everybody can be joyful doing it.

If you’re chasing money and wealth for the sake of money and it’s not number 1 or 2 on your hierarchy of values and it’s not your purpose-driven life, that’s not the way you’re living it and gaining. It’s only going to give you a deeper sense of void internally. It’s not going to fulfill you. It’s not going to make you feel rich. It’s not going to make you feel abundant. It’s not going to make you feel fulfilled. That’s why it’s important to align how you live your life and the pursuits you want to take. You want to align them with what your heart and soul truly desires.

Let’s say you’ve got a vision for what it is you would love your life to be and that is what your heart and soul desires. We all have a calling and a purpose. A lot of people say they don’t know it. Your life leaves clues. Your life will tell you what they are. The challenges that you have throughout your life create the void, which we spend our life filling. I lived my life overpowered until I escaped.

My number one value now is to be empowered. I understand and I know that in any area of life you’re not empowered, you will be overpowered. If you’re not empowered financially, you cannot be empowered in life because all your space and time is occupied and getting by, so we have no time for the other areas of life.

You have a formula for people to calculate what they need for financial security. Can you tell us more about that?

I have a wealth thermometer and there are several different ways in which I can apply it when working with people. I have a quiz form, which your readers can use. It marries how your life demonstrates where you are at. We will create to the extent to which we are clear and that includes abundance, wealth, money, and lifestyle to the extent of which we are an expanded version of who we are.

If you’re living in lower vibration or lower levels of consciousness where you’re living in fear, guilt, apathy, regret, shame, or blame, you’re contracted. Therefore, you’re lowering your self-worth, self-esteem, and the opportunity you have to build wealth and financial empowerment. The more you are climbing on the levels of consciousness, the more expanded you will be and the more at one you will be. The more you marry your inner technology with the outer technology, the more you will create and the more financial freedom you will create. This quiz takes you on that journey and it will let you know where you are on the levels of consciousness and what is keeping you stuck from moving to the next level.

 

It even shows some of the blocks. Speaking of blocks, people have blocks for all kinds of stuff like blocks to love and freedom. In particular, when it comes to blocks to expanding people’s wealth, from your perspective, can people break free from those money blocks?

Yes, 100% and it is way easier than people think it is. There are many ways in which you can do that and it is easy. It’s way easier than people think it is. There are three things that we can control in life. We can control our perceptions, our thoughts and our actions. Our perceptions are formed from our beliefs. If we are perceiving that money is hard to get, money is evil, rich people are bad, or whatever our perceptions are around money. All we have to do is understand what the language is of the thoughts we’re having around a particular topic and that will give you insight as to what your beliefs are.

Once you identify what your beliefs are, you need to ask yourself, “Is that true?” Where does it come from? When you start understanding where it came from and you start shifting your perception, you find the balance. Your readers will understand that we live in a world of balance. The moment we’re out of balance, we’re out of kilter. When it comes to how we perceive, it’s important that we are balanced.

In other words, we’re not constantly chasing prey, avoiding predators, chasing support and avoiding challenges. When we see that we are challenged, where is the balance? This is your hidden wealth. Where’s the gift and the blessing? The more you start to see that in everything you’ve ever experienced, the more wealthy you will be.

It’s looking at where’s the gift and the blessing no matter what is happening.

In my experience, if I may take five minutes to demonstrate how I saw that balance in my life, having escaped and taken that joyful experience of living outside or disconnected from my spirits and looking outside of myself and the overdoses and taking that journey back into myself. One of the things I learned is to find the gifts, the blessings and the experiences that I had. I did it powerfully that I went back to my father and hugged him and told him I loved him.

He was in prison at the time because I had reported him to the police. I want to make sure to let your readers know that this is something that a lot of people get confused with. Finding the balance on your perceptions and finding the blessings, gifts and everything that you’ve ever experienced is not about condoning in the mortal world. This is a spiritual journey. It’s about finding that spiritual blessing and gift.

Condoning or even spiritually bypassing horrors that need to be prosecuted.

It was appropriate that my father was prosecuted but it doesn’t mean that I have to now live out of balance. I can find the balance. I was able to go back and tell him that I loved him. When you get to that point in life, it is the single most powerful thing you can do to increase your level of consciousness. That will increase your level of net worth because it increases your level of self-worth, inner peace, inner joy, and spirit. That’s when you start marrying your inner technology with your outer technology.

We all have a calling. We all have a purpose.

I love finding the blessings of any situation. For those people reading, you’re talking about the importance of connecting with your spirit and getting access to that inspiration. What’s your favorite way to do that? If there’s someone who’s like, “I’d love to do that but I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know how to make that happen but I have a sense that it’s true for me.” How would you recommend someone begin that communication?

Somebody in that space will have something that they have a charge associated with. They’ll have something. Maybe one of the things is there’s someone in their life they can’t forgive or an experience they can’t forget. If they’re asking the right question, there will always be something that’s creating an anxiety charge for them. What we do is we go find what is that, dive into it, and what is the charge? What specifically are you feeling? What is the emotion? How does it make you feel? We then start finding the balance, the gifts and the blessings in that, it will always be to the point where the moment you find it, that stress dissipates and you start finding the balance. When you found the balance, the blessing, and the gift, you’ve got a choice.

This is another level on the wealth pyramid. You can capitalize on that experience. To take it back to my life, I had a lot of charges. I had a lot of anxiety and pain about how I perceived my childhood experiences and around the time I was taking the overdoses. When I found the gift, the balance, the blessings, and the equilibrium, I understood that those experiences gave me my values and purpose in life. My purpose in life is to be empowered in all areas of life and to empower others.

Number one, my days are filled with high-quality actions around being empowered in life and empowering others. It gave me that gift. When I see that and acknowledge that, that goes a long way to freeing me from the perceptions that are holding me back and then I get to capitalize on that because that’s what I do all the time and I’m paid for it. Does that make sense?

Yes, it does. I say this phrase a lot, “Behind your pain is your power. Behind your power is your gift to the world.” You’re living proof of that. It’s not just moving through your personal pain but then how can you use that not just to uplevel yourself but uplevel and support others? That is one of the beautiful and sweet keys to wealth-making.

It’s something that I didn’t realize when I first started this adventure that I realized that the more that I served people, the more that I reached people and the right people, the more that it grew my wealth ceiling. It was not about the money first. It was about how can I bring a big party into people’s lives and help show them what’s possible? That is key, especially with your strategies, which is having a deep connection with your soul. Your soul wants to serve on some level.

We all have that desire to serve and to be of value. That’s innate in who we are. It’s the core of who we are. The problem is that society doesn’t support that way of living. The typical education doesn’t support that way of living. That’s why many people have issues with money in itself and wealth because society perpetuates it. It’s better to give than receive in many ways. Society perpetuates being out to fair exchange. The moment we’re out of fair exchange, we are polarized. We’re out of balance. Building wealth is essential to be in fair exchange.

Building wealth comes from the heart. It comes from a place of inspiration. Anything outside of that is out of balance. When you’re out of balance, you’re seeking praise, running from a predator, seeking pleasure and running from pain. Because the universe is perfection, the more you’re out of balance, the universe will bring new challenges as feedback for you to get back into balance.

What most people do is they run harder towards pleasure and the universe then tries to pull them back again with a bigger challenge until something big happens like a big disease or a big blow-up in life until you have to listen. You can either look at it as the universe doing that or you could look at it as your heart and soul doing it to yourself. Your heart and soul will always know what it is that we truly want to do but we’re not listening because we’re in the monkey brain, the lower brain, the amygdala and that ego space.

 

Life can feel challenging if we are out of alignment. I fully agree with you there. People can understand them but the challenge is always bringing that into form, like, “I want to be soul-aligned, but how does that work?”

The first thing is to come into balance. Anything that you’re infatuated with, balance it. Anything that you’re resentful of, balance it. There is nothing more powerful than that. If you feel any angst, anxiety, stress over a situation, even if somebody dumped you on a red light, even if it’s somebody who’s pinched your bum when you were at school, it doesn’t matter what it is. It doesn’t, no matter how small it is. It doesn’t matter how big it is. If you do not have appreciation, love, compassion, and empathy at that moment, it is what it is. If you’re 100 degrees out, you’re out of balance. Bring it into balance.

Even saying bring it into balance is not specific enough in a way.

Let me be more specific. What were the benefits? How did it serve you? What did you get from it? How did it serve your highest values? How did it serve what is most important for you?

What I’m hearing from you is almost like the first stage of wealth building is noticing where your energy leaks or noticing where you’re charged at, where you’re spilling this precious fuel that is you into the wrong direction, and how to shore up those leaks. You’re doing it through a method of compassion, kindness, love, deep understanding and turning those wounds into wisdom. Am I getting that right?

Yes.

The first step first, it’s true because you cannot start to begin to build wealth if you’re still feeling extraordinarily butthurt about the past or about things that aren’t even currently happening. Finding your way to, in a way, find balance. I know a lot of people who are currently living with very triggering people. Because their energy is being focused in that direction, it’s hard for them to stay strong and stay connected to inspiration.

My mother said that there are three things you can control, perceptions, thoughts and actions. If you are perceiving that there are people in your life that are draining your energy or negative in some way, where’s the benefit? How’s it serving you? If it wasn’t serving you, you wouldn’t be there.

It’s like, “I have permission to move on. I have permission to not be there.”

When you’re living in those low vibration states, you’re contracted, you’re lowering your self-worth.v

You have permission to shift your perception and release yourself from that emotional drain.

You have more agency, more sovereignty, and more choices. If you can see the gift and appreciate it and feel like you don’t have to bail, great. Looking at everything head-on without pretending that you are somehow powerless essentially in that scenario because your spirit cannot be broken and finding that inner resource.

It’s not just pretending, it’s running your story. The reason why we run the story is we justify it. It all boils down to, let me put it another way, cause and effect. What we have in our life is the effect of what the cause is. You’ve got two choices when you understand that. When you’re not aware and take 100% responsibility and identify the fact that what you’ve got in your life, you have masterfully created. I find that incredibly empowering.

If I’ve created that, I can create anything I like because I’ve created this perfectly, whatever it is. I’m the cause of that effect. There are two ways we can look at it. If I don’t like the effect, change the cause. Sometimes and what often happens is people who don’t like the effect try and change the effect. Nothing changes when you try to change the effect. What they end up doing is justifying it and that’s when we have a story. We run the story of excuses.

Energy leaks all over the place. On a practical level, I want to ask you, what are the three things that someone can do now that will have a positive impact on their relationship with wealth?

The first thing is, what do you feel that’s holding you back? What is taking up and occupying space and time in your mind? That’s the first thing. It’s what we spoke about already. Where are you out of balance? Where have you got anger? Where have you got stress? Where are you subordinating to outside authorities? Where are you saying, “I will buy that beautiful dress when I lose 5 kilos?” Where are you subordinating to an external authority that says that you need to look X, Y, and Z in that dress? Where are you not in balance? Who are you angry with or you’re stress with? Who are you resenting? Find the gifts and the blessings in that.

Ask yourself a question. The one thing I’ve learned many years ago is that the more you ask yourself powerful questions, the more powerful the life you will lead. There’s no doubt about that. The more you ask yourself that question, the more you’ll get the conscious level mind into the unconscious. You bring the unconscious conscious or the subconscious conscious.

The first thing is, what is it that you are having anxiety about? What that will do is that will lift you out of those low vibrational states of shame, guilt, fear, apathy, and regret. It will start lifting you out of that. You cannot come out of that contracted space and rise on the levels of consciousness. It’s absolutely impossible for it not to happen. It will happen when you stop.

The moment you start to bring things back into balance, you feel a sense of relief. You’ve got tears in your eyes of gratitude. All of a sudden, everything changes. Your perception of that event changes. The charge is gone, it dissipates. What’s happening when you do that, neurologically, you are rewiring your brain and it doesn’t come back. It’s not like it’s done now and then tomorrow, you’ll feel the same pain. You won’t when you’ve done it properly. Not just academically but in your heart, you feel it.

 

Once you have that capacity, once you have neutralized and you’ve called back your energy and things are right, it gives people space to start taking those intuitively guided actions that your soul is begging you to take that you don’t believe it and you don’t even think it’s possible. That’s the difference between getting a job and then breaking the mold and breaking those ceilings.

For me, it has been the attunement of my inner voice that finally, we started believing in something. In the beginning, I believe in the power of spirit and that spirit was going to support us. Eventually, I started believing in myself but it was that intuitive voice that is trying to guide us towards freedom, which includes financial freedom if that’s your jam.

We have a lot of different kinds of readers. There are some readers that are taking this wealth thing seriously and wanting to crack the code on it. There are others who have reached a certain level of wealth and are ready to take it to the next level. Do you have any practical strategies for people like that? There’s a lot of talk about investing in Bitcoin and all of these things. What strategies do you have for people who are curious about investing? Investing is how wealthy people become more wealthy. They have some kind of thought about investing and they do it. What thoughts do you have to share about that?

I said there are three things and I’ve said one. I’ll give you to 2 and 3 and that leads me perfectly into that. The second thing is to acknowledge where your wealth is right now. That speaks to people who may not have reached a certain level of financial comfort. When you’re living in scarcity, you don’t see the wood for the trees. You don’t see what you’ve got. For example, where is your world right now? When you start seeing where you are in abundance, you grow out of the lower levels of consciousness.

Where are you wealthy? It’s things like your relationships, your mind, your ability to understand complex theories, your body, your health and your social standing. One of the seven areas is where is your wealth? What we perceive as missing is always there. According to the Laws of Balance, whatever you perceive as missing, balance it. If you feel you’re poor, that’s your perception. Where is your wealth? That’s the first thing, to find your wealth.

If for no other reason, it lifts you out of scarcity, it lifts you out of those lower levels of lack and puts you into a more inspired state, that’s the second thing. The third thing is understanding your wealth pyramid, having a wealth pyramid. Depending on where you are in terms of financial empowerment or financial freedom, it will depend on where you are in that wealth pyramid.

I have a business called a Tribe of Traders. I teach and empower people. I coach and mentor people on how to trade forex. I see it all the time. People getting into trading when they don’t have their wealth pyramid in place. They will battle to succeed. They will battle to grow their trading accounts because they don’t have the foundations in place. Anybody that’s built wealth will tell you that you have to have your foundation in place. The number one thing that you must have as the baseline, the foundations of your wealth pyramid, is what I call your bulletproof account and it’s cash money.

Maybe one day it’ll be Bitcoin but right now, it’s cash in a bank or some other safe holding place. How I recommend or suggest people do this is that 10% of whatever they bring in every month gets taken off to their bulletproof account. Every three months, you increase that 10% by 10%. You put 10% away and then three months later, you increase it by 10%. 10% of 10 is 1 and that’s 11%. After three months, you increase 11% by 10% and that would be 12.1% and so on. That’s increasing your bulletproof account to build up a cash reserve.

No matter how much money you’re making, you take the discipline of putting some away and then up leveling it.

We all have that desire to serve, to be a value that’s innate in who we are. It’s the core of who we are.

I get two responses, “When do you stop? When do I use it?” You never use it. It’s your foundation. If you’re earning the right to build wealth, it is your foundation and you never touch it. What that does for you and your self-worth is tremendous. When you grow yourself, you will grow your net worth. When you do not have to waste time and space in your mind and stress and anxiety about, “How am I going to deal with X, Y, and Z or a sudden bill that comes?”

When that doesn’t enter your sphere of awareness, do you realize how free you are to live a fulfilled life? When you are most inspired to be doing that, that’s where you start becoming empowered in all areas of life. Some people would say, “For how long do I do it?” You can do it forever. You might decide that you will have five years of cash reserves. In other words, if you didn’t bring in another cent for five years, you know that your lifestyle is covered. How much freedom that gives you? To me, financial freedom is knowing that I have cash reserves.

Everybody has a different risk profile. It might be 1, 2, 5, or 10 years, everybody will have that. Here’s the thing, that’s only the foundation. When you have a minimum of six months of cash reserves, my suggestion is then you look at the next level. Continue putting 10% into your bulletproof account and then you look at the next level. For example, entrepreneurship. For some entrepreneurs, it might be low risk and low return depending on what it is or government bonds or certain funds like that. It’s different in different countries. Contribute 10% to that every month.

Here’s the irony and some people say, “I can’t afford 20%. I can’t afford 10%.” Let me backtrack a bit. If somebody says to me, they can’t afford 10%, my first thing is I don’t believe it. If it’s important enough to you to build financial empowerment, you’ll find 10%. If you cannot, what can you commit to? Is it 5% or 6%? Every month, you increase it. We will not notice a 1%, 2%, or 3% change in what we’re putting away. We will not notice that difference. We have a 10% buffer. We will not notice anything under 10%.

When you’ve trained yourself to put aside that money and you see what it’s like to have that cash reserves, you’re going to be inspired to build your wealth further. You’re going to find the extra 10% to put into the next level and another 10% put into the next level. As you go up the hierarchy of the pyramid, you then go into higher-risk investments with higher returns. For example, typically speaking, I would point to somebody with a pyramid and level three is trading. You would need the previous two levels below to be in place before you look at trading.

For me, trading is level one because of where I am on my journey in wealth building. It’s an evolving process. For me, trading is low risk and a good return. It’s not high risk. For somebody who’s never done it before, somebody who hasn’t got the expertise with it and if they had not talked correctly, it would be high risk. What I ask people to do is to find their number. When you find your number, then you extrapolate that out into your wealth pyramid.

Which number are you talking about? Are you talking about from the wealth thermometer?

I call it your number. It’s like your fingerprint. It is unique to you as it is unique to everybody like your fingerprint. When you look at what your heart and soul truly desires and when you look at what your ideal day is, people have a fantasy that they need $30 million. I take the traders through this exercise all the time. By the time we finish this exercise, you can hear a pin drop. Their jaws drop in amazement at this.

Most people think that financial freedom is they need $20 million, $30 million, $50 million, or some vast sum of money. The thing is, that’s a fantasy. Is that in alignment with what the heart and soul truly desires? The number one thing that holds most people back is the fantasy of chasing money because they perceive that it’s going to give them joy in their hearts and souls. Most people have it back to front.

 

When you live in alignment with what your heart and soul truly desire, what financial resources do you acquire to support that? That’s the starting point. That’s what I call your number. People say, “What is your number?” Finding that number and I have taken a roomful of traders many times. When I ask them, “What is your goal? What did you get in trading?” “It’s $15 million, $20 million or $30 million.” All of which is perfectly attainable in trading data-wise but they will never get it. If the why is not big enough and if it’s not aligned with their why, they will sabotage it. We all do it the moment you’re out of alignment.

I go through $10 million, $20 million. I’ve even had one person say $1 billion. We go through this and then I take them to the exercise of what is it your heart and soul truly desires? What are the financial resources that you need to be financially free to live that now? I’ve had people come up saying that they got into trading for $20 million. They’ve blown their account 3 or 4 times. They’re battling to be successful and yet they’re an entrepreneur and earn good money but they can’t get an in trading. Why is it? When we got to the end of it, his number was $750,000.

We sat back and he shook his head. He’s been chasing the $20 million that was a fantasy. He was corrupting his trading. That’s the universe’s way of bringing him into balance. When he saw it, he needed $750,000 to fulfill his heart and soul desires. Does that mean you can’t go bigger than that? No, but it’s a starting point. When you acknowledge what your starting point is, where it is you start, what your beginning, what your get-go is, when you are in alignment with that, the universe will conspire with you and support you in your endeavors to create it. That’s when you start looking at building your wealth.

You’re speaking my language. You’re coming at it from a soul level, which I found in my life has been seriously game-changing. We have many recipes that we are given about what creates happiness and what we need to do. When you’re finally good enough, when you’re finally arriving, all these external litmus tests, as opposed to, what do you want from a deeper level? I love that you’ve been blowing people’s minds with that. $750,000 versus $20 million is quite a difference.

When you get in alignment with that and you create some of those $50,000 to live and be and do everything that your heart and soul desires, do you think that he will be deeply inspired that he will effortlessly grow that wealth? Of course, he will.

First things first.

I always say to people that you are born with a vision. You’re born with a purpose in life. You know what it is your heart and soul truly desires. The universe, nature, God gave you that. Why do you think for one minute that you do not have the resources, skills, talents and wherewithal to create it and deserve the financial resources to be it?

Judy, your work and story is inspiring. You are living proof for all of us that anything is possible. Also, the best path forward always includes your heart and inspiration. I love the practical steps that you gave as well as far as where to start, building that foundation. If people wanted to discover more about your work or if they’re like, “I’m curious about this wealth thermometer,” where can they go to find that?

They can come to JudyVee.com. I want to pop you a link for the wealth-building profile. This will allow your readers to identify where they are at on the wealth-building profile on the thermometer. People have taken this quiz. Quiz seems like a flipping word for it because it’s powerful. This has taken us a long time to create. People have taken it and seen the result. It 100% resonated with them. You will know where you are, why you are at where you are and the next step that needs to be done. I have the wealth thermometer as well is on my website, which you can take. That’s more financial.

The more you ask yourself powerful questions, the more powerful life you will live. 

The wealth profile is what we’re looking for.

That’s your starting point.

They can start at JudyVee.com. Judy, thanks for joining me and sharing your magic with us and your incredible story. You’re an inspiration.

Thank you. It’s been wonderful. It’s lovely to be able to talk to people about things that we think. It’s amazing.

It’s validating. I can’t even tell you because sometimes you’re thinking, “Am I making this up?” No. Other people get it, too. I love it. Thanks again, Judy. For anybody that was inspired by Judy’s story, please do walk over to her website and see what she’s got going on.

Thank you, Corin. Lovely to be here.

Important Links:

• Tribe of Traders
• JudyVee.com

About Judy Vee

Judy Vee is an international best-selling author, award-winning entrepreneur, speaker, co-founder of Tribe of Traders, and a wealth builder. Over the past 20+ years, Judy has established, built and sold numerous multi-million dollar businesses in many categories from Property, Logistics, Agriculture, Industrial hygiene, trading, coaching in a number of different countries. She has studied and researched the human potential for over 20 years – it’s been Judy’s understanding of human behaviour and potential that has allowed her to create pioneering businesses – be first to market on ideas, products that have made her fortunes.

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