Drew McLellan
There’s a fallacy out there that only the rich get richer and anyone who builds great wealth did it through some brilliant master plan. Our podcast guest and Uncommon Wealth Partner client, Drew McLellan’s story should serve as a reminder that you can start anywhere and if you’re willing to be open to opportunities, take the right risks and being very clear about how you want your life to be – anyone can build an amazing life and financial freedom.
In this episode of The Uncommon Life Project podcast Drew talks about the shift from employee to entrepreneur and how he has used each step of his journey as the launch pad for his next step.
Listen to his story and learn how opportunities began presenting themselves once he stepped into being a business owner and how he leveraged each opportunity to create and grow four companies and use each one to strengthen and grow the others.
Drew believes the most valuable currency generated by his businesses is freedom. Hear how he used that freedom to live the life of his dreams –an active, engaged, parent and son, checking off traveling to all of the continents with his daughter and spending at least one month a year on Disney property.
Drew reminds us all that the opportunities are all around us. We just have to be smart enough to see them and brave enough to chase them.
Drew McLellan has worked in advertising for 30+ years and started his own agency, McLellan Marketing Group in 1995 after a five-year stint at one of the world’s largest agencies, Young & Rubicam.
He is considered a national marketing expert. He launched MMG’s blog in 2006 and it has been on the AdAge Top 150 from the list’s inception in 2008.
Drew’s writing has appeared in Forbes, The Washington Post, Entrepreneur Magazine, New York Times, CNN, BusinessWeek, and many others. The Wall Street Journal calls him “one of 10 bloggers every entrepreneur should read.”
He also owns and runs Agency Management Institute, McLellan Properties and Drew McLellan Unlimited.
What you’ll learn about in this episode:
- How Drew shifted from employee to entrepreneur
- How anyone can embark on owning their first piece of rental property
- The relationship between worry/risk and the rewards of being self-employed
- Business ownership, even after 25 years, is not a bed of roses
- The price tag on freedom
- How to design the life you want and then build income streams to support that life
- The importance of recognizing and exploiting surprise opportunities
- Creating your own bank and accumulating wealth through whole life insurance
- The reality that making money is about choices and consequences. You have to be willing to give up something.
- When you work to serve others with a genuine heart, you will make money.
The Golden Nuggets:
“I think my advice would be, you get one shot at this and every day you wait and waste means less opportunity.” ~ Drew McLellan Click To Tweet “Making money and accumulating wealth is all about choices and consequences.” ~ Drew McLellan Click To Tweet “When you work to serve others with a genuine heart, you will make money.’ ~ Drew McLellan Click To Tweet “For me the biggest currency, the biggest value of being self-employed was the freedom that it gave me.” ~ Drew McLellan Marketing Click To Tweet “What I love about being a business owner is the freedom. The freedom to be able to work from wherever I happened to be on the globe without having to check in or count it against a certain number of vacation days.” ~ Drew McLellan Click To Tweet “The ultimate benefit of being self employed for me is that it allowed me to be the kind of parent that I wanted to be.” ~ Drew McLellan Click To Tweet “For me, the sacrifices were, and are, worth the upside of it, which is huge. Both financially and in every other way that an entrepreneur talks about the perks of being self-employed.” ~ Drew McLellan Click To Tweet “In fairness, if there's a theme to the way I've built my businesses the theme would be, being smart enough to recognize dumb luck when it kicked me in the rear end.” ~ Drew McLellan Click To Tweet “But, I was always open to the opportunities that were presented and I have exploited them to the nth degree to try and create this life that I want to have.” ~ Drew McLellan Click To Tweet “I think of it as the McLellan private bank. When I need $50 or $100 thousand, I don't have to have a discussion. I just trigger the loan feature of those policies, borrow it and then pay it back in whole or just the interest.” ~ Drew McLellan Click To Tweet “When my mom passed away, I wanted to memorialize her in a way that would go on forever. I was able to start a scholarship in her name, which is perhaps the ultimate perk of my hard work. I have the money to do what matters.” ~ Drew McLellan Click To Tweet