Probably just a few hours or so a week around your other work — no overtime needed.

  How much could it end up making you?

  An extra $5000 over the next year (and it only took you an hour’s work). And, just like investing, the longer you do it, the better off you’ll be. In time, you’ll take giant leaps up the corporate ladder. That’s how compounding works. So stop for a minute and think about what a difference this could make to your life.

  Then shut down Facebook.

  And do it.

  Please, give me your excuses

  When I challenge people to do Career Compounding, there’s always someone who tells me it won’t work for them. They’ll say, ‘You don’t understand, my boss models himself on Donald Trump’ or ‘I’m a government employee’ or ‘I’m a stripper’.

  Okay, so let’s get practical.

  Who are the highest paid people you work with?

  Chances are they’re no smarter than you, and they may not work much harder than you. What’s different is that they’ll be doing one of two things: leading people, or ‘bringing home the bacon’ (providing the goods, marketing the goods or selling the goods).

  These two roles will always be in demand, and will always be very well paid. Every organisation — from tin-pot start-ups to mega-multinationals — needs them. That’s because they directly affect the business’s bottom line.

  So if your current position isn’t focused on leading people or bringing home the bacon, you have two choices:

  First, you can spend some down time on your next Barefoot Date Night thinking about which of these roles would suit you.

  (Okay, so if you’re currently a receptionist, you can’t just bust open the marketing meeting and start presenting your ideas. But you could offer to help the marketing manager by doing some admin for one of their projects outside your normal hours, for free. And while you’re helping, you could (a) learn everything you can about the marketing challenges your business faces, and (b) develop a network of people higher up the chain than you. The added bonus is that you make yourself more valuable, and that almost always leads to more money.)

  Second, if climbing the corporate ladder is not floating your boat, you should take my lead and turn your passion into profit …

  Get a bit on the side — fast

  The easiest way to make extra money quickly — as in next week — is to freelance.

  Freelancing cuts through the bulldust and allows you to road-test your ideas, your pricing strategy and your skills … all without leaving the security of your day job.

  If you’ve thought about doing your own thing, you’re in good company.

  A 2016 survey by the NAB found that one in three Aussies wants to be their own boss — and for young people it’s one in two.

  What can you do?

  Well, you can do something related to your work. If you’re a teacher, you could become a tutor or a trainer. Or you could try something you’re passionate about but have zero experience in, like I did when I started writing for newspapers.

  What stops most people from turning their day job into their dream job is they don’t feel they have any contacts. It makes sense. That chestnut ‘it’s not what you know, it’s who you know’ is true.

  Well, when I started out I had zero contacts. As in none. No-one knew who I was. I was a kid from the country who looked more like a boyband member than a stockbroker.

  Yet I didn’t dwell on it.

  Instead, I told myself a different story. I said, ‘I’m going to hustle and make my own freaking contacts’.

  And that’s what I did.

  And that’s what every successful person who started from scratch has done.

  And if you’re going to win, that’s what you’re going to have to do too.

  Making connections is easier than you think. I found that people respected me more because I’d come from nowhere and they could see I was fighting my way up.

  When I started out I wrote down the names of three people I wanted to meet and work with over the following 12 months. Then I worked along until I got to meet them. How? I just thought of ways to reach out and help them in some way, for free.

  I learned this from Eddie McGuire. People say he’s a super networker, but that’s selling him short. The Eddie I know is one of the most giving people I’ve met. The bloke is forever doing charity nights and helping people out. He pays it forward.

  Using that same technique, I scored an interview with Sir Richard Branson on my community radio show. I rang his secretary and gave her my pitch: I had a youth-focused audience that Branson could connect with (and I told her we’d have lots of fun). He came on the show, had a great time, and even offered to endorse my first book. Years later I helped him launch Virgin Money in Australia.

  Swing on the trapeze

  Now, some people will compound their career by either climbing the ladder or ‘bringing home the bacon’.

  Others are happy to get a bit on the side and earn some extra coin. If you start your business off part time, you may work out that what you’ve really got is a great part-time gig that can domino your debts or build a huge investment portfolio. What’s so bad about that?

  Then there’s people like me, who enjoy their side business so much that they make it their life’s work.

  If this is you, awesome. But I advise you follow a strategy I call ‘swinging on the trapeze’.

  And it’s this: don’t let go of the swinging bar (your secure pay cheque) until you’re safely holding the next pay cheque (from your successful business).

  Let me show you how not to swing from the trapeze.

  Colin works in Accounts at his local shire office. He wants something more in life, so he abruptly quits his job to start his own event planning business.

  Here’s what that looks like:

  With a copy of How to Start a Lifestyle Business in 4 Steps, Colin jumps off the ledge without a safety net.

  ‘I can’t even see the trapeze bar, but I’m jumping anyway: I’ve never felt more alive!’

  The crowd hold their breath. Guess what happens next?

  Splat!

  When I started the Barefoot Investor I made sure I didn’t jump till I was ready.

  For years I worked 80-hour weeks, combining full-time, freelance and unpaid work. If you’re not willing to do that for at least the first 12 months, there’s a good chance that — like Colin — what you’re really doing is running away from a job you don’t like.

  If you can’t handle very, very hard work, you’re probably not cut out for running your own business.

  How you can double your income

  By this time you might be thinking, ‘Well of course this all works in the swashbuckling world of high finance, but what about for someone in an average job … and where does the “double your income” bit come in?’

  I see you, and I raise you. Let’s take a look at the most boring man in the world, with the most boring job in the world — my editor.

  [‘Get stuffed!’ — Ed.]

  When I wrote my first book, they assigned me an editor by the name of Wally.

  That was more than a decade ago.

  He’d been working in the publishing salt mines, earning a princely $27 000 a year.

  ‘That’s not enough. You could be earning $200 000 a year,’ I said.

  He looked at me like I’d just asked him about his prostate.

  ‘Whaaattt? You just can’t earn that money in my industry … have you seen what’s happening to bookstores?’ he replied.

  Wally was about to swing on the trapeze.

  On my instruction, he began to take on more freelance gigs.

  One job brought him another, and then another. After about six months, he had seven or eight going at one time (including mine), all while continuing his day job.

  After a year of hard yakka, he sat down with his wife, and together they decided that he should go full-time freelance.

  By this time he hadn’t just doubled his salary, he’d tripled it.

  Fast forward to today and Wally does a mix of contract work, freelancing and teaching on the side — and my prediction proved right. He now earns more than $200 000 a year. (How’s that for ‘doubling’ your income!)

  If he can do it, why not you?

  Prove them wrong

  A few years ago, I happened to be in the same restaurant as my old manager from the stock exchange.

  He acted like he didn’t see me.

  But I know he did.

  Since the time he’d attempted to deflate my balloon, I’d pumped myself up again.

  I’ve compounded my career, swung on the trapeze — and had a ball doing it.

  And I’ve proved them all wrong.

  All the people who wanted to see me fail.

  All the people who told me that I couldn’t do it.

  All the people who laughed at me and my idea.

  Every single one of them.

  And you will too.

  At any stage of the game — regardless of your educational level, upbringing or age — you can decide to leapfrog the pettiness of people to achieve your goals. When you make a commitment and have the courage to stick with it through thick and thin, you’ll double your income — and more.

  Over to you.

  STEP 4

  Buy Your Home

  You can use your buckets to save up a deposit — fast!

  I still believe in the Great Australian Dream of owning your own home.

  However, I’ve also seen the dream become a nightmare for many first home buyers, who catch Hills Hoist envy and take on too much debt.

  So next we’ll cover the practical realities of making the biggest purchase of your life:

  Should you wait for the housing market to crash before you buy?

  Should you buy an investment property first?

  Is rent money really dead money?

  And I’ll lay out a commonsense plan that could see you in your very own home in as little as 20 months.

  Plus, we’ll meet a young woman who did it all on her own.

  How to buy your home in 20 months

  The first time I ever spoke to my wife — then a single 20-something TV producer at The 7PM Project — she casually explained that she lived in an inner-city one-bedder.

  I assumed she rented.

  I was wrong.

  Then I asked if she’d bought it with her ex-boyfriend.

  Nope.

  Then I hinted she must have wealthy parents.

  Bump-bow.

  Hold up, dear reader, I have to call time out for the next paragraph.

  See, as I write this, our sons are still reading Golden Books. But one day they’ll read these words. So boys, here’s a life lesson from me to you: Daddy was acting like a chauvinist pig, and Mummy was a smart young woman who didn’t need a man for her financial plan.

  Alright, let’s get back into it.

  On one of our first dates, Liz cooked me dinner using a stove she’d found abandoned on the footpath. Her brother had picked it up, spruced it up and installed it. After she told me about her ‘find’, I proceeded to eat my roast chicken very slowly. Frankly, I was a little worried that a homeless dude may have found it first and used it as his ensuite. ‘Obviously, I scrubbed it clean, Scott’, she scolded (for the first, but certainly not the last, time).

  For the rest of the evening we sat romantically on cushions, because there was only one chair (and we weren’t that friendly yet), and I spent the evening admiring her DIY paintwork.

  It wasn’t a place I would have bought — it was far too small and, as an investor, I’ve seen people get screwed investing in shoeboxes like this. Yet the point is that my wife bought her place as a home first and an investment second. It had a car spot, a refurbished oven and a little brick bookcase — and most importantly, it was all hers.

  Look, I’m a finance guy, so I can’t lie … I was totally turned on by the fact that Liz had bought her home, given that property is so expensive. No smokey eye-shadow needed to get old Barefoot’s juices flowing — just show me those mortgage papers, baby. Oh-my-God, that’s so … hot!

  Yes, housing is (still) ridiculously expensive

  Australians are nutty about property: we speak about it, watch lame TV shows about it (one of which I’ve hosted) and borrow heaps of money to attain it.

  Australia has one of the highest levels of home ownership in the world. Interestingly, in many European countries home ownership doesn’t have the same attraction, mainly because they have decades-long leases.

  If I were a philosopher — which clearly I’m not — I’d suggest it all comes back to our convict history of trying to establish our roots and live the Australian dream. But I’m more of a convict than a philosopher, so I’ll stick with the facts:

  Australia has some of the most overvalued property in the world.

  Australia has the highest levels of household debt in the world.

  Australia has the lowest interest rates in history, so repaying that debt is (kind of) manageable today.

  Join the dots.

  Look, I own property, but I certainly haven’t drunk the Kool-Aid. The truth is that housing in most parts of the country is ridiculously expensive. The Economist magazine has labelled the Aussie housing market the biggest financial bubble in history.

  Regardless of what prices do in the short term, I still passionately believe that owning your own home is one of the best financial decisions you’ll make.

  Why?

  Well, owning your own home is like a 30-year forced savings plan — and any gains you make over that period are tax free. Yet buying a home isn’t just a financial decision, it’s an emotional one. After all, it’s where you’ll raise your family. It’s your castle. The day I bought my first place was one of the proudest moments of my life. It’ll be the same for you.

  Here’s you: Thanks for the motivational rah, Barefoot. But house prices are so ridiculously expensive. With the amount of money I earn, and what I’ve got saved, I can’t even afford a dogbox in Dubbo! At this rate I’ll never buy.

  Here’s me: Yes you will.

  The real question (without the drama) is when will you buy your home?

  Is rent money dead money?

  Someone, somewhere, has told you this — but they’re wrong.

  Rent money is not dead money.

  Well, at least not in the short term while you get your life and finances in order.

  What am I getting at?

  You don’t want to be pushed into making the biggest financial decision of your life.

  Too many people are, either out of FOMO, or guilt (if we bring our baby home to a rented house … he’ll grow up and get a neck tattoo of Miley Cyrus), or pressure (What’s wrong with you? Why haven’t you bought a home yet?).

  Take it from me: buying a home isn’t always a sign of financial strength — sometimes it’s a sign of financial stupidity. Almost anyone can buy a home with little to no savings, and more often than not they become the financially insecure people I deal with.

  Financial stress rips families apart.

  Ultimately it’s you who has to put your hand in your pocket for decades, so for God’s sake own your decision. Look, I’m the guy people contact when everything goes pear-shaped. I’ve been doing this for years and I see people make the same mistakes over and over again.

  Let me share them with you.

  Mistake #1: They’re waiting for a crash

  Ever wondered why news websites publish so many stories about an impending housing crash? It’s because it’s clickbait to a generation that’s priced out of the market and has given up — thinking the only hope for buying is a crash.

  That’s a cop-out.

  You can’t plan your life around something you have no control over — the only thing you can control is yourself and your savings. The time to start preparing to seize opportunity is right now.

  Which leads me to …

  Mistake #2: They buy a home they can’t afford

  The word ‘mortgage’ comes from Old French and roughly translates as ‘an agreement till death’ — and that’s exactly what many young families enter into when they mortgage themselves to the hilt.

  Things tend to come in threes — I call it the Triple Ms: Marriage, Mortgage, Midgets.

  One of my wife’s friends came to me for financial advice.

  She and her husband were both earning decent dough when they got hitched (marriage). So it didn’t seem too much of a stretch to buy their dream home in a leafy suburb of Melbourne (mortgage). What comes after a bird makes its nest?

  Midgets. And sleep deprivation. And, later, school fees.

  A few years later, she was a stay-at-home mum. Like most people who borrow too much for their dream home, it quickly became a nightmare — and meeting the minimum repayments became a maximum stress.

  Is it any wonder the median duration from wedding bells to divorce bills is 12 years?

  The truth is that buying a home creates financial stress and insecurity — until you get ahead of your mortgage. As all homeowners know, running a home is expensive, costing up to 5 per cent of the purchase price each year.

  And this is magnified when you take on more debt than you can afford.

  Mistake #3: They buy an investment property first

  Here’s the pitch young couples give me: ‘We’ll buy an investment property to start off with, just to get our foot in the door, and use the equity to buy our family home in five years’.

  I’m yet to see this plan work (the only exception being couples who buy an investment property to eventually move into). Reason being, the upfront and ongoing costs of owning a home take years to recoup.

  We’ll discuss buying an investment property in greater depth in Step 5, but for now my advice is simple: if you want a family home, save up and buy one.