As a doctor, former financial advisor, and property investor, I'm sharing the lessons I learned from being a busy, time-poor professional to building a life of time and financial freedom. 

My journey to financial freedom began with the standard advice of getting a great job, working hard, and hoping the system would take care of me.  After 20 years of service in the Royal Navy and as a doctor, I realised this was a myth.  This standard narrative will only take you so far, and I have started to seek better ways to build time and financial freedom for myself and my family. This realisation inspired me to share my journey and the lessons I've learned with you. 

My journey led me to earn my MBA, work as a financial adviser in London, and eventually transition into entrepreneurship. Investing in property and sharing financial lessons through our financial education start-up Building Out.  

I hope that sharing these lessons will help you on your path to Building Out a life of time and financial freedom.  The journey can be challenging, but it's certainly worth it!

Sign up for our free weekly newsletter at: 

www.building-out.com

Good luck on your journey!

Nothing on our website, blog, socials or newsletter is designed to provide financial advice and is for educational purposes only. For individual financial advice on your circumstance, please seek the advice of an FCA-approved advisor.

Diarmaid Mcmenamin

I know doctors earning £300k who feel poorer than teachers on £45k.

Not in money.
In time.

They sold their calendar for a salary.
And the handcuffs fit perfectly.

I call this the 1% Life Trap:

You want a 1% lifestyle.
But you’re not willing to do 1% thinking.

So you take the shortcut:
A high-paying job that quietly owns your evenings, weekends, and headspace.

It looks like success.
It behaves like captivity.

Here’s what actually works (and it’s boring):

→ Years of reinvesting profits
→ Delaying lifestyle upgrades that lock you in
→ Building assets that don’t need your presence to earn

No hacks.
No flexing.
Just patience and leverage.

The uncomfortable truth:

Financial freedom isn’t about earning more.
It’s about building things that earn without you.

And it usually starts small.

One question changed everything for me:

“What could I build between 7 pm and midnight?”

A post.
A product.
A system.
A tiny asset.

Do that consistently and something strange happens:

Your income stops being the main thing.
Your options start to multiply.

If this made you uncomfortable,
it’ll probably help someone else too. ♻️

As a doctor, former financial advisor, and property investor, I’m sharing the lessons on the path from being a busy, time-poor professional to building a life of time and financial freedom.

Earn £100,001 in the UK…
and your next £1 can be taxed at 60%.

Not a typo.

Not a loophole.

Not a fringe case.

It’s how the system actually works.

Here’s the part most high earners never get told:

Between £100,000 and £125,140, you lose £1 of Personal Allowance for every £2 you earn.

By £125,140?

Your entire £12,570 tax-free allowance is gone.

That creates a stealth marginal tax rate of 60%.

This catches:

→ Doctors

→ Consultants

→ Partners

→ Anyone drifting “just over” £100k

And it feels like being punished for progressing.

The fix is boring — and extremely effective.

Reduce your adjusted net income below £100k.

Most commonly:

→ Pension contributions

Do that and you:

• Get tax relief

• Restore your Personal Allowance

• Avoid the 60% trap

Example:

A £10,000 pension contribution

can save ~£6,000 in tax.

That’s a 60% instant return.

No investment risk.

No market timing.

Just understanding the rules of the game.

Most people don’t have a tax problem.

They have an information problem.

If this helped, someone in your circle is probably walking straight into it. ♻️

Many of the most successful entrepreneurs didn't quit their jobs to start their businesses. Here's why:

They kept their day jobs.

They built on the side.

For years.

Here's what that means for you:

Your salary isn't a prison.

It's oxygen for your business.

When you bootstrap while employed, you remove survival-mode decision-making.

You can say no to bad deals.

You can wait for the right opportunity.

You can take calculated risks.

The best entrepreneurs don't leap without a safety net.

They build the net first.

Your employer is giving you free money every month.

Are you taking it?

Under auto-enrolment, your employer must contribute to your workplace pension.

The minimum is 3% of your qualifying earnings.

But here's what most people miss:

→ Many employers match higher contributions (up to a point)

→ If you contribute 6%, they might contribute 6%

→ That's a 100% return before any investment growth

The numbers:

If you earn £35,000 and increase your contribution from 5% to 8%, you might unlock an extra £1,050/year from your employer.

Over 30 years with modest growth? That's potentially an extra £70,000+ in your pension pot.

From a 3% contribution increase.

The action:

1. Check your payslip for current pension contributions
2. Ask HR what your employer's matching policy is
3. Increase to the matching ceiling if you can afford it

It's not investing advice.

It's maths.

Free money is free money.

"Quit your job to follow your passion" is dangerous advice. Here's what to do instead:

Some of the world's most successful founders kept their day jobs for years while building their businesses.

Why?

Their salary paid for:

→ Rent

→ Food

→ Transport

So every pound their business earned could be reinvested.

No desperate decisions.

No "I'll take any deal to survive."

No burning the ships.

The "burn the ships" mentality sounds heroic.

But it kills more businesses than it saves.

Build the bridge while you're standing on solid ground.

The best entrepreneurs share a mantra: "Fail fast."
Here's what they mean:

It's not because failure is good.

Because slow failure is catastrophic.

Slow failure:

→ Drains your money

→ Drains your time

→ Drains your spirit

Fast failure:

→ Teaches you quickly

→ Preserves your runway

→ Let's you try again

The difference between successful entrepreneurs and everyone else?

They extract wisdom from failure before the resources run out.

Speed isn't about rushing.

It's about learning faster than you burn.

The best business ideas don't come from brainstorming in a coffee shop. They come from:

Domain fluency.

When you deeply understand an industry, you start to see:

→ Where existing players are complacent

→ Which customer segments are being ignored

→ What outdated processes does everyone accept?

Your professional expertise isn't a cage.

It's a lens.

A surgeon sees device inefficiencies.

An accountant spots cash-flow gaps.

A lawyer notices outdated processes.

Stop brainstorming.

Start observing.

The next great business might be hiding in the frustrations you experience every day at work.

Many people try selling things they don't believe in.
Here's the problem with that:

They hate it.

They feel "dead inside."

Then they find something they genuinely care about.

Different result.

Why?

When you deeply understand a product or service—when you've experienced the problem yourself—you're not selling.

You're sharing.

Belief is irresistible.

Customers sense inauthenticity instantly.

They feel when you're chasing a trend vs. solving a real problem.

Build around belief, not convenience.

Would you buy your own product?

If the answer isn't immediate, you're building a job, not a calling.

Imagine building extraordinary success.

Employing thousands of people.

Giving away millions to charity.

Creating something that genuinely matters.

And then realising:

"I missed it all. I wasn't there for my family. I was always in meetings, always on planes."

This is the confession of countless successful entrepreneurs.

Children grow up.

Parents pass away.

Moments disappear.

Here's what they wish they'd done:

Define the finish line before you start running.

What does "enough" look like for you?

What's the actual number?

At what point do you stop chasing and start living?

Success without boundaries is just another prison.

You own index funds, but do you really know what you own?

Every company on earth is sorted into exactly 11 boxes. Not 10. Not 15. Eleven. Energy. Materials. Industrials. Consumer Discretionary. Consumer Stapl

Open article: Here's How To Understand The Bigger Picture Of Investing in Stocks by Diarmaid Mcmenamin • 7 min read

Here's How To Understand The Bigger Picture Of Investing in Stocks

I’ve been posting online for 3 years.

The biggest mistake I made in year one?

Waiting until I was an “expert.”

Five words fixed it:

Document. Don’t create.

Here’s the difference:

Creating = pretending you’ve arrived
Documenting = showing the journey

One demands polish.
The other demands consistency.

Think about it.

Keeping Up with the Kardashians ran for 20 seasons.
It was just daily life.

No scripts.
No genius.
No grand theory.

Meanwhile, most people stay silent because they think they need Star Wars.

Perfect.
Cinematic.
Finished.

That’s the trap.

Your audience doesn’t want a hero who’s already won.
They want a peer a few steps ahead.

Someone learning.
Adjusting.
Figuring it out in public.

Document the reps.
The mistakes.
The small wins.

Post from the middle.

That’s where trust is built.
And where expertise quietly shows up.

In 2006, the best marketers won with Google AdWords.

In 2012, it was Facebook organic reach.

In 2018, Instagram.

Today?

TikTok and LinkedIn.

This isn’t marketing.
It’s day-trading attention.

The playbook never changes:

→ Go where people already look
→ Arrive before attention is priced in
→ Give value before you ask for anything

Most businesses do the opposite.

They show up after ads get expensive.
They sell before trust exists.
They talk about themselves, not the person scrolling.

That’s why it feels like shouting into the void.

Here’s the unfair advantage for time-poor professionals:

You already have expertise.
You already solved real problems.
People already want what you know.

You don’t need better content.
You need better timing.

Attention is still cheap in a few places.

It won’t be for long.

The window always closes.

“Soft skills” is a terrible name.

They’re the hardest skills in business.

Every truly successful person I know built their career on four of them:

1. Self-awareness
Know your strengths.
Exploit them relentlessly.
Stop obsessing over weaknesses that don’t move the needle.

2. Kind candour
Tell the truth without making people defensive.
Clarity without cruelty.
Honesty that strengthens relationships instead of burning them.

3. Humility
Stay willing to do the work, regardless of title.
The moment you feel above certain tasks, you’ve started to decay.

4. Gratitude
Pay attention to what’s already working.
This is the quiet fuel that prevents burnout and entitlement.

Most professionals over-invest in technical skills.

They under-invest in the skills that decide:
→ Who gets trusted
→ Who gets promoted
→ Who people actually want to work with

Over a 30-year career, these compound brutally.

The question isn’t whether you’re technically good.

It’s whether people want to keep building things with you.

♻️ If this resonates, it’ll help someone else too.

Waiting for a “lump sum” before using your ISA is backwards.

It feels sensible.

It’s financially expensive.

Here’s why:

Your ISA allowance resets every April 6th.

Use it.

Or lose it.

- £20,000 per year

- Tax-free growth

- Forever

Miss a year and that allowance is gone for good.

Now zoom out.

A couple maxing both ISAs for 25 years?

That’s £2m+ sheltered from tax.

Not through brilliance.

Through consistency.

The fix isn’t clever.

It’s boring.

Set up a £1,667/month (ot whatever you can afford) direct debit on April 6th.

By year-end:

→ Allowance maxed

→ No decisions required

→ No willpower needed

Waiting for motivation costs money.

Automation compounds it.

Every time.

Every April, thousands of UK workers are owed money by HMRC.

Most never claim it.

Here's why it happens and how to check:

When you start a new job without a P45, your employer puts you on an "emergency tax code."

These codes (W1, M1, or X) calculate your tax based on each pay period in isolation—not your cumulative earnings for the year.

The result? You often overpay.

The problem? It doesn't automatically correct.

How to check if you're owed money:

1. Look at your Year-to-Date (YTD) figures on your payslip
2. Compare total tax paid against what you should owe based on your annual income
3. If the numbers don't match, contact HMRC

Or wait for your P60 at the end of the tax year and do the same calculation.

The money is yours.

But you have to claim it.

HMRC's number: 0300 200 3300

Online: Check your Personal Tax Account on [GOV.UK](http://GOV.UK)

30 seconds of checking.

Potentially hundreds back in your pocket.

Open article: Welcome to GOV.UK by gov.uk

There's a section on your payslip you've probably never read.

It's literally labelled with your National Insurance number.

And it matters more than you think.

Your NI number is your lifetime identifier.

It tracks:

→ Your right to work in the UK

→ Your contributions toward the State Pension

→ Your entitlement to NHS services and benefits

If it's wrong on your payslip, your contributions might not be recording.

That means:

- Gaps in your National Insurance record
- Potentially lower State Pension
- Problems proving your work history

The check takes 5 seconds:

1. Find your NI number on your payslip
2. Compare it to your National Insurance card or official letter
3. If they don't match, tell HR immediately

It's rarely wrong.

But when it is, the consequences compound over years.

Small check. Big protection.

You don't need to be an accountant to protect your money.

You need 30 seconds and four checks.

Check 1: Gross Pay(5 seconds)

→ Does this match what you expected?

→ Any overtime/bonuses included correctly?

Check 2: Tax Code (5 seconds)

→ Has it changed since last month?

→ If yes, do you know why?

Check 3: Net Pay (10 seconds)

→ Does this match your bank statement?

→ Any unexpected differences?

Check 4: YTD (10 seconds)

→ Is cumulative gross roughly on track for your annual salary?

→ Any obvious discrepancies?

If all four check out: file the payslip somewhere safe.

If any look wrong: investigate before your next pay day.

This isn't paranoia.

It's pattern recognition.

Problems show up in patterns.

Monthly checks catch them early.

30 seconds to protect your income.

Worth it.

Do You Know The Number That Really Drives Your Wealth?

On Monday, we went through what a payslip actually means. Have you ever looked at your salary and thought it seemed good, but still felt like you neve

Open article: Do You Know The Number That Really Drives Your Wealth? by Diarmaid Mcmenamin • 8 min read

Your salary is lying to you.
Here's why:

I know a surgeon earning £400,000 who feels broke.

And a teacher earning £45,000 who's quietly building wealth.

The difference isn't intelligence.

It's the gap.

Income is a flow.

Wealth is a stock.

The delta between what comes in and what stays?

That's the only number that determines if you'll ever be free.

↳ Stop measuring success by your salary

↳ Start tracking your "investable gap"

↳ Automate 10-20% before you see it

The wealthy aren't smarter than you.

They have a non-negotiable gap.

I used to think a bigger paycheck meant I was winning.
Here's why I was wrong:

I got promoted.

Celebrated for a week.

Upgraded my car.

Moved to a nicer house.

Six months later?

I felt exactly as stretched as before.

That's when I discovered the hedonic treadmill.

Your brain adapts to income increases within weeks.

Your lifestyle expands to fill the space.

The "gap" stays the same — or shrinks.

The fix?

Every time your income rises:

→ Pre-commit to banking 50% of the raise

→ Before your brain can adapt to "needing" it

This is the only way to actually get ahead.

Because the question isn't "How much do you earn?"

It's "How much of what you earn do you keep?"

Unstick Your Growth Engine in 4 Weeks to Multiply your Revenue | Rare Disease Advocate | Dad of 4 under 10

Most B2B SaaS companies at $2M-$8M ARR have the same problem:
Your marketing team rebuilds everything from scratch. Email campaigns take weeks. AI experiments go nowhere. Automation breaks. Nobody has time to create reusable systems.

You're working harder, but execution speed stays flat.

Here's what I do:
I'm a strategic advisor who designs marketing systems architecture for B2B SaaS companies. I work with 8 companies maximum at a time.

My job: Design the funnels, AI workflows, and automation blueprints your team needs to execute 2-3x faster.

Your team's job: Build and implement from my designs.

I work at the architecture and strategy level—I design the system and show you exactly how to build it. 
You do the building.
I work with:

B2B SaaS companies doing $2M-$8M ARR
CEOs and marketing leaders who value systems over tactics
Teams with execution capacity (5-10 hours/week minimum)
Companies tired of one-off campaigns and random AI experiments

20+ years in B2B SaaS and agencies: Product leadership, platform engineering, marketing automation, and go-to-market

What makes me different?

Most advisors understand marketing OR engineering OR AI. Rarely all three.
I design marketing systems that:

Actually convert (decades of marketing expertise)
Can actually be built (platform engineering background)
Use data effectively (data company leadership)
Leverage AI properly (real ML experience, not trend-hopping)

Your systems ship faster because I understand marketing strategy, technical feasibility, data architecture, and AI implementation.

Current clients see:

Marketing execution 2-3x faster within 90 days
70%+ team adoption of new systems (vs. 20-30% industry average)
Leadership spending 40-60% more time on strategy
Frameworks still being used 12+ months later

If you're an Agency or B2B SaaS company at $2M-$8M ARR looking to build marketing systems that scale, let's talk.
📧 Email me: matt@matthewkantor.com or visit the website.

Matthew Kantor

Replacing your team with AI?

You just hired a thousand interns with no manager.

Too many execs automate for cost. 

Not strategy. They cut humans.

They forgot one thing:  humans ARE the strategy.

Here's what they're missing:

Everyone will have the same AI soon. Your only edge? Your people.

The spreadsheet was revolutionary 30 years ago. Today it's a calculator. AI will follow the same path.

Smart leaders aren't cutting. They're training teams on the tools. Moving 2x faster without losing anyone.

Even Ben Affleck can see it.  Why can't you?

AI isn't a replacement. It's a multiplier.

Train your people. Equip them to win.

Because when the dust settles, only leaders who invested in their teams will still be leading.

The rest of them will spend a year explaining why they lost. 

What's your decision?

Trusted Advisor + coach for B2B SaaS founders who’ve plateaued and are ready to grow past $3M ARR.

Most founders don’t fail because they aim too high.

They fail because they aim at “reasonable.”

Your brain is built to avoid risk, rejection, and embarrassment.

So you tell yourself:
“I don’t have the network to grow.”
“I didn’t go to Stanford.”
“They had backers I don't.”

That story keeps you safe.

And it keeps you small.

Thinking big isn’t a personality trait.

It’s a choice. 

It's a muscle - you have to work it or you forget.

But that aside - remember this...

Massive growth doesn’t always require massively more effort.

Carrying 1 bag of groceries up the stairs versus 10 bags...

It’s the same number of steps.

Same distance.

Just different muscles.

So pick a bigger number of steps to climb.

Not to feed your ego.

To serve more people.

What’s the “too big” goal you're thinking about ? Everybody has one.

The best marketers I know don’t have jobs.

They have clients.

When I filled in as a recruiter, I saw behind the curtain:
• 400+ resumes per role
• Bots and bad fits everywhere
• Great people buried at the bottom
  
But the ones getting hired? They weren’t applying. 

hey were being referred.

That’s when I realized:

If you’re skilled enough to get hired, you’re skilled enough to consult.

Same motion. Just pointed in a different direction.

And one of those paths has no income cap.

Most of the best clients have been through referrals. 

Stop chasing job boards. 

Start building demand.

Decide out what you are worth and how you want to spend your time.

The upside is massive.

Agree?

She spent hours with ChatGPT to rewrite the same email on repeat.

No conversions.

The email wasn't the problem. The positioning was broken from line one.

No amount of AI polish fixes a misaligned offer.

What little you time you have left is being wasted by the prompt. 

Here's what every founder tells me:

"We tried AI for marketing. It didn't help."

Of course it failed.

You automated a strategy that didn't work at manual speed. Now it fails faster.

Automating bad ideas is like serving chicken sushi.

Technically possible. Totally insane.

The real question isn't "How do we use AI better?"

It's: "What's actually broken in our positioning that more content won't fix?"

I've seen this many times now. Companies spend $40K on AI tools before spending 4 hours on strategic alignment.

6 months later: More content. Same revenue.

If you're scaling from $2M-$10M and your marketing feels less effective as you spend more

Book a 30-minute diagnostic call where we'll identify what's actually broken.

Link the comments

Everyone thinks they need more strategy.

But strategy without structure is just a guessing game.

You wouldn’t vacation by getting in a car, hit the gas, and figuring out where you’re going later.

Yet that’s how most teams operate:

Strategy is set.
Goals are clear.
But decisions are made on gut, habit, questionable data or politics.

The result? Complexity rises. Coherence drops. And growth stalls.

What they’re missing isn’t vision.

It’s Decision Architecture.

A system that makes good decisions repeatable. 

Especially under pressure.

Before you execute strategy, ask:

“Can we consistently choose the right next move?”

If not, fix that first.

Jeff Bezos was once told he had enough ideas to kill Amazon.

Too many ideas isn’t a strength.

It’s a silent killer.

Teams get overwhelmed.

Execution slows down.

And nothing truly gets done.

I’ve seen it first-hand.

Founders stuck in idea-mode, while the business bleeds.

That’s why I help build roadmaps with ruthless clarity.

Fewer options. Better focus.

Because fewer options = more progress = less risk = more revenue

Give your best ideas a real shot.

Start by saying no to the rest.

How many "great ideas" do you have?

A Founder I know spent 18 months perfecting their app.  Zero customer conversations during that time.

Brilliant product. 

One competitor with a lame product has hundreds of customers.

Same market. Same opportunity window.

I see this pattern every month now.

Founder obsesses over:
• Dashboard pixel alignment
• Email template A/B tests 
• Internal process documentation
• "Strategic" deck refinements

Meanwhile, their calendar shows 3 customer calls in 8 weeks.

This is a major problem. 

They treat busy work like real work because it *feels* productive without the emotional risk.

You can't fail at reorganizing your Notion workspace.

You *can* fail at a sales call.

Dont ask yourself "How do I get more done?"

Instead try this on: "What am I hiding from by staying busy?"

I ran a few time audits on founders last quarter.

Most of their work could be removed without impacting the business. 

That math doesn't scale. It doesn't even survive.

If you're 6+ months in and revenue hasn't moved:

Get yourself a time audit. 

I'll show you exactly what's bleeding hours and the 3 activities you should actually protect.

The your focus shifts to making revenue and away from wasting time. 

Comment "AUDIT" below if you're ready to stop hiding in your task list.

The companies that win don't outwork you. They out-prioritize you.

No alternative text description for this image

A script kiddie cloned my client's SaaS in 6 weeks.
 
Undercut pricing by 40%. Marketing plan: "Better but cheaper."
 
My client was panicking: "We need to Drop prices and open up more features"
 
I said: "Nope.  Ignore them". 
 
Here's why:
 
The clone copied the features. They couldn't copy the business.
 
6 months later:
 
• Clone: Dead (got bored of no customers). 
• My client: 1.3x revenue
 
𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝗵𝗮𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱𝗻'𝘁 𝗯𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗽𝗶𝗲𝗱:
 
1. Integration ecosystem (documented API )
2. Customer feedback loop (actually answering questions)
3. Brand positioning (understood where they mattered)
 
Most founders react to copycats by speeding up the feature treadmill.
 
That's exactly backwards.
 
When someone copies you, it means:
 
• You're worth copying
• They see features, not systems
• You need leverage, not velocity
 
The real question isn't "how do I stop copycats?"
 
It's: "𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝗱𝗼 𝗜 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗰𝗮𝗻'𝘁 𝗯𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗽𝗶𝗲𝗱 𝗯𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗿𝗼𝘄𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝘁?"

𝗦𝗼𝗳𝘁𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝗮𝗹𝘄𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝗯𝗲𝗲𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗲𝗮𝘀𝘆 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁. 

Getting people to buy it is the hard part. 

(Yes I know they are all challenging parts). 
 
If you're defending against clones by racing them - you're already losing.

Agree?

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