Play To Win In Property

What if you stopped guarding your comfort and started playing to win? 

Mark opens with community news and then dives into a candid, practical guide to building a real property business without wasting the most precious resource you have: time. 

Instead of chasing the next promotion or the next course, we map out how to design a weekly plan, set deadlines you’ll actually hit, and convert consistent effort into deals that compound.

We break down the noisy property landscape into clear choices. From rent to rent and HMOs to serviced accommodation, supported living, flips, and BRRR, each path has different cash demands and time horizons. 

You’ll hear why sampling structured training to find your fit, then going deep, beats course hopping and coffee meetings with no outcomes. 

Mark shares how he left the corporate track, reframed tough days with gratitude, and built systems that protect focus: prospecting, viewing, offering, and following up in a rhythm that keeps momentum alive.

Time is the red thread. Imagine 1,440 minutes dropping into your account every morning. Would you spend them on busywork or the actions that create freedom? We talk lead indicators you can track weekly, how to cut low-value meetings, and why health habits matter for durable performance. 

The aim isn’t hype; it’s a rich life defined by options, assets that pay you, homes that help people, and a legacy your family can feel for generations.

If you’re ready to swap vague goals for a plan you can execute, this conversation gives you the playbook: choose a strategy that fits, make your targets visible, gamify your quarter, and get publicly accountable. Want tools to start faster? 

Grab the free resources at thepropertyunleashed.com. 

If this resonates, subscribe, share it with a friend who needs a push, and leave a review with one action you’ll take this week.

VALUABLE RESOURCES:

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Transcript

Facing Roadblocks And Year Planning

From Corporate Job To Time Freedom

Play To Win Not To Lose

Reframing Work And Gratitude

Health Goals And Strategy Flexibility

Building A Full Property Toolkit

Hard Truths About Action And Hype

Avoid Time Traps And Busywork

Value Your 1,440 Daily Minutes

Defining A Rich Life And Legacy

Voluntary Redundancy And Clarity

Priorities, Focus, And Strategy Fit

Gamifying Goals And Deadlines

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Hello and welcome to the Property Unleashed with your host, Mark Fitzgerald. It's great to have you joining me here today. So if you are an avid listener to the podcast, you will know that we ran a prize drawer in January of£10,000 worth of property investing training and support. And I am pleased to announce, and of course, we have already announced our winner for that, but I will reiterate that it is a man called David McGuinty. David has already got started in property and is absolutely over the moon to have won his prize. And I'm really looking forward to helping and supporting him over the next 12 months in his property endeavors. So congratulations to David. Amazing, amazing result for him. And also the fact that he entered the prize drawer meant that he was in the opportunity to win it. We also decided to have 30 runner-up places where they got a real great offer to come and join our community of training and support as well. So there are people that have taken that up as well. Not everyone out of the 30 has, but if you were one of the 30 people and you were lucky enough to receive the email with the golden ticket, then uh I hope to see you in my community as well. So in today's episode, I really want to sort of talk to you about roadblocks, about what could be stopping you, about how the year is going for you so far. I can't believe we're already in February. I mean, January just seems to be a blur, but this is the year that I have really, really down to what I'm nearly near enough doing each and every week, scheduled out a plan. Now, if you don't have a plan, you know, as the old saying goes, you plan to fail. But you need to make sure that you are doing the things that are in line with where you want to be. I've really stuck to this over the last few years, and it's made such a difference ever since I left my corporate job. And I have to say, before I got involved in property, started building my own property businesses and everything, I certainly didn't have a real plan. In fact, my life was probably planned for me because a lot of it evolved around the job that I had to do, where I had to be at a certain time, you know, when I could leave at a certain time. And even then, my job took over my life because I was putting in more and longer hours than I probably was actually. Well, I know for a fact that I was actually getting paid for. So you might be in a very, very similar position. You want to build a property business, you want to get out there, get out of that day job, have a bit more time freedom. And of course, property investing done the right way can be a great platform to do it. There's lots of different changes always. We have to be able to roll with the punches, so to speak. We have to be able to pivot. But there's still amazing deals out there right here, right now, that can really, really help you. But you see, one of the things that I was doing for a long, long time before I actually got involved in property was I was playing not to lose in life. So I was always looking for the next pay rise. I was always looking for that next promotion because I thought that's what was best for myself and my family. When realistically, all it did was every time I got that pay rise, that little carrot was dangled in front of me to work a bit harder, to put a bit more effort in, it actually took me away from my life and doing the things that I really want to be doing. And a lot of that is spending time with loved ones, spending time with family, because time, as we know, is the most precious resource that we have. And now that I'm able to spend the time that I want with my loved ones, with my family, have more time freedom, but also control of my own finances, it is a complete game changer for you as you're going forward. So, how do you get out of the rap race and how do you make things happen for yourself? Maybe you're, you know, getting started, maybe you've already got started, but you're just not getting the traction that you need to get. Trust me, it's not all roses and sunshine for anybody, okay? For myself included in that. I have you know days where I have to do things that maybe I'm particularly not looking forward to doing, and that's just a fact of life. Now I can try and limit those days or those tasks, should I say, as well. But a lot of the time now, if I'm actually gonna have to go and do something, and uh it's gonna be fun, you know, it's gonna be what you know, it's gonna be fun, but it's still gonna be work, it's still gonna take the effort and things. And some days you just get out of bed, and even I do, even the energizer bunny that's inside me doesn't feel like it. I say to myself this I say, I don't have to do this, but I get to do this. And then it sort of gives me that sense check, that sanity check, if you like, to say to myself, do you know what, Mark? There's a lot of people that would love to be in your shoes, would love to be doing what you're doing. Don't take it for granted, boy. Get out there and do the work that needs to be doing respectfully, looking after people, supporting people, but also running your businesses in the right manner. Why? Because you get to do this. And I think the other thing that we all have to remember is we only have so much time on this planet, okay? I'm not getting any younger. In fact, I can't believe it that I'm gonna be 50 years old this year. I can't believe it. Can't believe it. Keep telling my kids I'm 40 this year. I'm sure they don't believe me. But I'm gonna be 50 years old this year. And for me, it's just a number. I plan on living till I'm 100. Why? Because I believe you have to have a target, you have to have a plan, you have to have a destination. Otherwise, you're never gonna get there. So I'm trying to look after myself. When my birthday comes around, I want to actually be in the fittest condition I've ever been. So I'm working very, very hard on my diet, on training and things as well, easing into it. I'm not a spring chicken anymore, but I want to be as fit and healthy as I can without obviously killing myself in the process. Equally to that, I want to be looking at my businesses, I want to be structuring my property businesses in the right manner, making sure that I'm doing good deals. You know, if I need to change things slightly or look at different clientele or look at different strategies, then I'm able to do so. Why? Because, as we say, we've got the full kit of strategies to be able to help you. And in 2026, you really want to have that full toolkit. You know, David, our prize role winner, he knows a couple of strategies, and that's what he's already started doing. But he's absolutely delighted and really excited to jump into our community, which is brought to you by the Property Unleashed. It's the ETA community, because it has trainings in there for lots of different other strategies that he can now dive into and he can start to learn those so that he can deploy those as he's going through. So, today for me, it was really a point of asking you, the listener, yes, you, a few questions. And maybe if you get a chance to write the answers to these questions, that's great. But if you're driving or you're walking or you're listening to me and you're doing your day job or whatever, just have a little think of each of these questions as they come through to you. Because as I said before, most people in life play not to lose. So they're so busy trying to hold on to that small little bit of money that they've got, hold on to that job that they've got, hold on to, you know, silly little things. And I'm not saying a job and I'm not saying all of those things are silly, but I'm saying you're holding on to things that maybe in a year's time you won't care less about. And I was doing that with my corporate job. It was like I have to be there, I have to do this, I have to put all of this time in, I have to miss my family growing up. Why? Because they might get rid of me, they might sack me. So I was playing not to lose rather than getting out there and playing to win. And that's what you want to be able to do. Now, one of the major things that you want to make sure is that when you're getting out there, you have a plan. Okay. I achieved my plan because I have a plan. If you don't have a plan and you're just winging it, you're gonna struggle. Trust me, you are really gonna struggle in getting anything going. You have to have a plan, it has to have deadlines and it has to have structure. And you are going to get uncomfortable. Uncomfortable is where you want to be placing yourself day in and day out, okay? Because that's where you're growing, that's where you're moving forward. If you want to stay comfortable, if you want to not get out there, tell people what you're doing. Potentially it puts you in a position where it could all go wrong. You could fall flat on your face, you could feel silly, you could feel stupid, but you need to do this, you need to stretch yourself out there. And remember, you only fail if you stop. So even if it takes longer than you'd initially thought it was going to take, you're still taking the actions consistently and persistently to get you there. But you need to have a plan, okay? You need to do things in a structured manner that can help you achieve those targets. And of course, that's not always doing the things that you feel comfortable doing. It's not always doing the things that you love to do. You're gonna have to really push yourself out there to do this, and of course, if you're willing to do that, then you can help yourself by getting the results that you want. But we are much closer to taking action than we think. And what you have to look at and do is focus on doing the hard work and the right things. If you're listening to people or you're looking at people, and there's so many people out there now that'll say to you, just follow what I'm telling you to do, and you'll be sat on a beach sipping pina coladas, buying your next Bugatti, buying your next Ferrari, your next mansion, and all of this stuff, and it'll you can do it in 90 days. Run a mile, please run a mile, because they're preying on people that are vulnerable, they're preying on people that just want to wish this into existence. Now, I'm all about manifesting and manifesting things into your life, but you have to do the actions and you have to do the work for that to actually be able to happen. So if you're not out there and you're not manifesting things in the right manner at the right time, then you're gonna be struggling with this all day long. You have to work hard, as I say, on the right things and you have to be able to do a ton of stuff. Trust me, it's not gonna fall on your lap. You have to be able to put that work in. I outwork people, I would say, in my own mind, as much as possible. Okay, I will go above and beyond what anybody else will do. Why? Because that's the way that I want to be wired and I want to do things. Why? Because then it means that I'm moving forward and I'm getting those results. I know who I am and I know what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. Okay. So you need to have a think about all of these things. You need to make sure that you're doing the right things consistently and persistently, that you're taking action, that you're putting yourself out there, and it's not just the lovely little meetings. I see so many people now getting involved in property that spend so much time at networking events, at training seminars, and of course, then going out and having coffee lunches with people that have never done a deal and potentially haven't even done a viewing. I find that absolutely crazy. Now it can be quite easy to get caught up in the coffees, and it's great to have a coffee with people, but make sure it's the right person. Okay. If you are going to meet somebody live and in person, it's potentially an investor or it's somebody that's maybe already investing that you can bounce ideas off of. That's a great little meeting. I'm not putting any of those down, but just meeting up for the sake of meeting up, have a Zoom call, have a 20-minute Zoom chat. Save yourself that time and energy. Put that time and energy into what it is you should be doing to get in those results that you want to be doing. Course junkies, people jump from course to course to course to course. I see this all the time. Now, sometimes that's their fault, sometimes it's not their fault. What I say is put yourself into an environment now, which we put together to stop this from happening, where you can learn the different property strategies and see which one is best suited to you. Because it might be rent to rent, it might not be, it might be HMOs, it might be service to accommodation, it might be supportive living, it might be flipping properties, it might be BRRR, but maybe it's not suited to you. Maybe it's not something that you really want to do, but you don't know yet because you haven't been able to go through all the training to find out all the nuts and bolts of that strategy. That is why we put education to action together and we put all of the trainings in there so that you can go through the trainings and see which one suits you and then go deeper into that specific area. But make sure that you know who you want to be, the strategy that you want to be doing, and why you want to be doing it, okay? And make sure that you spend time to learn these things, you take time each and every week to just sit down and have a little think and write down your thoughts. Now, let's just play a quick little game here and take a moment. If you had 1,440 pounds given to you every day as soon as you woke up. So when you wake up, there's a stack of cash on your bedside cabinet. Now, don't take it for granted here, it's not going to happen tomorrow. But if you had 1,440,000 pounds on your side cabinet each and every day that you can spend and it then it will replenish and it'll be there again. What would you do with that money? Okay, it's not a trick question. Initially, you'd go and blow it, wouldn't you? You'd go and spend it. Why? Because you know it's going to turn up each and every day, it's going to be back with you tomorrow. Okay. So you start to take it for granted. So initially, you might buy some necessities. Maybe you know something's not working in your house, you need to upgrade something, but then after a while, you're going to just start buying any old thing. You're going to buy rubbish because you're just going to think, well, I need to get rid of this because I get it again tomorrow. And that's what we want to be avoiding in our lives. Because if you think about it now, we all have 1,440 minutes to spend every day. And that's minutes of our lives. Okay. Now, a chunk of that, of those minutes, will be us sleeping, and we do need to get some sleep. Some of us have day jobs or businesses that will take some of those minutes up as well. So we can't always choose how we spend those minutes. Sometimes we have to get out there and work for it, and we obviously do have to sleep. Make sure you're not skipping the sleep. Sleep's very important. Some of that time will be taken up with family chores, errands, or just spending time with family and friends. Some of it will be travel time, some of it you might work out, some of it will be cooking, some of it will be cleaning. Okay. And of course, some of it you want to use to just chill out and relax. There's nothing wrong with chilling out and relaxing in your life. Okay. You don't want to be going at it all the time because you'll burn yourself out. And do you ever find yourself saying things like there's just not enough hours in the day? Or I don't know where the time goes. I wish there was more time to be spent. I would say that you do. I've said it certainly myself in the past. And the reason for that is we take time for granted. Okay, 1,440 minutes each and every day. And sometimes when I'm talking to people and they say, I want to start, I want to get involved, I want to build a business, a property business or any other business, but I haven't got enough hours in the day. I say to them, you need to track your 1,440 minutes each and every day to see if you are using these up effectively or whether you're wasting them. Are you throwing them away? Because unfortunately, whilst we do, in most cases, get these minutes each and every day, it's not going to be infinite, it's going to run out at some point. And that is when we leave this great earth. So you really want to start valuing the 1440 minutes as much as possible. That is like gold dust. That is almost, it's more important than money. It's more important than anything else. Why? Because this is your life. If you get to the end of the day and you think to yourself, I pretty much wasted today. That is not a great place to be. I don't drink as much alcohol as I as I used to. And I'm not saying I used to drink all the time anyway, but I I do like a tipple. I like to go out and party on. But I have to say now, I would rather go out, not drink as much, but be okay the next day. Why? Because I'm very conscious about how I waste time. And if I'm wasting a day or even two or three, which let's face it, if you've had a bit of a binge drink, you could do. That's time then that I can never get back. That's time that's wasted. I didn't know all of this while I was in my day job. I took time for granted. Okay. I spent minutes like they didn't mean a thing. Now I'm very conscious of the time that I spend and why I'm spending it. And if you do want to change your surroundings, you do want to change your life in whatever it is that you you want to do, and I say whatever it is you want to do because everybody's different. But for me, it was about getting out of that day job. It was about sacking the boss, if you like. It was about having time freedom. A wealthy and rich life for me isn't necessarily millions and millions of pounds in the bank, it's actually having the assets and the resources to give me the options to do things that I want to do and also be able to pay people to do the things that I don't want to do. That for me is a rich life, and that is very achievable very quickly if you do the right things. Okay, so I wanted to sort of emphasize that because you need to ask yourself what's stopping you from having the life that you want? Okay, if you have not taken the time to write down the life that you want, then chances are you're never gonna achieve that life. And that'll be a sad place if you're eventually on your deathbed and you look back and you say, Do you know what? Never really achieved what I could have achieved. You know, there could have been so much more. In 2019, I got the opportunity, I was in a good job. I wasn't gonna, I don't think I was gonna lose my job, but they wanted to make a manager redundant. Okay, there were five managers, and I don't think I would have been first on their choice, that's for sure. I think they knew who they wanted to get rid of, but obviously we all have to go through the process. So they asked all of us managers, you know, there's gonna be a manager redundant and everything. Anybody want to take voluntary to stop the whole process? That for me was a moment. That for me was the moment where I decided, do you know what? I'm gonna take this because I want to see if I can build something, I want to see if I can get out there and build a successful property business that can replace my wage, that can give us time freedom, take us on nice holidays, move us into nice properties to live, and help people as well. Help people in good living conditions, help people that are holiday makers, help people that are a part of supported living or social charities, and that's what we're striving to do. And it fulfills me each and every day. But I knew what I wanted to do, and that is how I could take that action. Now, quickly, let me just say, please don't take voluntary redundancy if you're thinking about it now and you're gonna start a business. It's difficult, and there's easier ways of doing it, and the easier way of actually doing it is building it whilst you're in a full-time job, which was my main plan. But this opportunity came, and if I'm ever sat on my deathbed, I'll look back at that and I'll say that opportunity came and I didn't let it pass. Why? Because I had clarity on what it was that I was trying to do and what I was trying to achieve. So, some brutal truths that may be some things that you don't want to hear is your lack of priorities and no time or information could be holding you back. Your priorities might be your job, your family, not maybe not in any particular order of this. It may be you're working out, it may be looking after yourself. Brilliant stuff. But if you want to truly get out of that day job and have something sustainable for yourself for the future that you can hand down for generations and have that legacy piece, you have to prioritize it, you have to make time for it, and you have to have the information to know exactly what you need to be doing when you need to be doing it. You need to have clarity on what you really want out of life. If you've listened to any of my other episodes in the past, you'll have heard me talk a lot about this. It is so, so true. But going into a new year, now we're in February. January's already gone, but January, we already put out there what we wanted to do. Did I hit all my targets in January? No, I didn't actually. So I've got to step it up in February and March to make sure that I win the first quarter because I gamify things, I make sure that it's fun. But I've got deadlines and I'm determined to hit those deadlines. That is clarity on what I want to be doing and how I'm going to achieve doing it. You want to have clarity on why it matters to you. Why does it matter to me to hit my targets? Well, one is I'm continually building a legacy piece that I can hand to my children and I can leave them. It's also a retirement fund for me because who knows what's going to happen in the future. If I was to leave this great earth and then my family and my wife and everybody are left to fend for themselves, will they be in a good place or will I just be leaving them with a shambles? Well, for me, it's all about About making sure it's a good place for them, that it could be handed down for generations. Why? Because when you do leave here, you'll only be remembered by your closest family and some of your friends. But after a couple of generations, you could be forgotten. I'm not trying to be morbid or anything like that, but I'd like to live on in somebody's memory for a good few generations for them to say, you know what, your great, great, great, great granddad started this. He built these foundations here, and that is why we're able to live the way that we're living. And if I can do that, that would be amazing. I'll never know about it, but that's what drives me on. That's what I've got clarity on. You want to have clarity on how to turn that desire into results. So once you've got clarity on the strategies that you want to be using, the resources that you can put into this, whether it's money, time, whatever it is, you then want to make sure that you know how to do that. As I've always said, and I'll continue to say, we have training products, we have coaching, we have inner circles, we can help you do this, and we do help our clients do this. But I'm not on about that now. If you're struggling with any of this or you've been let down in the past, trust me, we are such a great community for helping people at such a modest budget, then we can help you do this. But you need to have that. And if it's not from us, go somewhere where you can trust those people where they can help you do that. But remember, you're gonna have to do the work. Most people act like they have a lack of sufficient funds, they have a lack of sufficient focus, and they have a lack on working on the high-level work that they need to do. You may feel busy, but are you busy on the right things? And sometimes it's all too easy, and we don't really have to do it. We just think, oh, it's a nice thing to do. Chatting to different people, if you cannot go out there and tell your family, your friends what you're doing, because you're a bit embarrassed in case you don't get it done. Trust me, you're gonna struggle to get it done. You've got to push yourself past those barriers and you've got to make sure that you get out of your comfort zone and you make yourself uncomfortable. I make myself uncomfortable all the time. I'm nervous when I do different things, but trust me, once you've done it a few times, it all becomes so much easier when we're moving forward. So that was really what I wanted to cover today. It was really all about are you doing the right things, taking the right actions, moving yourself forward to become the person that you want to become this year. We're a month down already. Before we know it, we'll be six months into this year. Before we know it, it'll be Christmas again. That's a thought, isn't it? It'll be Christmas again. In the blink of an eye, we will be going into 2027 and people will be saying, I don't know where this year went. A bit like the 1,440 minutes that we all have. You've got a lot of those this year to spend, spend them wisely. Make sure you're planning, plotting, scheming, planning. You're getting out there and you're getting the results that you want. And if it's not, tweak it, change it. And if you need any help with that, check out thepropertyunleashed.com. We have free tools and resources there. And we are genuinely here to help and support you as a community. That is what we're all about here at the Property Unleashed, and that is what I will continue to push on as well, and hopefully leave this place, this great earth, in a better position than when I first got here. And if the Property Unleashed can help people with its training, tools, coaching, and resources, and my property investing can give people jobs, safe places, safe homes, then it's a win-win. I'm a happy man. And that is my mission, and that is what I'm striving to do. Why don't you tell me your mission? If you want to tell me your mission, then email me at mark at markfitzgerald.com. Tell me what your mission is. And tell me if you're struggling as well. And maybe I can point you in the right direction. Hope this episode's helped you. I've really enjoyed bringing it today, and I look forward to you joining me in the next episode soon. You take care and bye for now.