Rebecca Spicer discovers how wise advice, good investment choices, a natural affinity with numbers, and dogged determination catapulted Dymphna Boholt to success as a property investor and professional speaker and mentor.
For as long as Dymphna Boholt can remember, she’s been investing in her future. It started when, as a four-year-old, she bought her first cow. And when the budding entrepreneur bought her first herd at the age of six, a wealthy neighbour saw her potential and offered this advice: Wealth comes from accumulation, not trading. That basic philosophy stuck and carried Boholt, now 42, to wealth and the lifestyle she wanted to create.
Finance and business weren’t always her calling. “Initially I wanted to be a vet—as all farm girls do if they get good grades—but when I found out I was going to have to do six years of chemistry and have the type of life a vet really has, I decided it really wasn’t what I wanted to do.”
So she accepted a scholarship to go to Thailand as an exchange student for 12 months, which she says reinforced her entrepreneurial spirit. “I stayed with a family who were business entrepreneurs and I learnt from the inside what really happens on a business front. From there I decided to come back and do a double major in economics and accounting.”
This meant tackling an industry dominated by the opposite sex. “It was, and still is, a very male dominated industry. However, being a woman in business has its advantages as well as disadvantages. You have to learn to work the advantages and get over the disadvantages.”
After graduation, Boholt accepted a job in a large Sydney accounting firm and went on to work as a financial controller in a variety of industries. She decided to branch out on her own in 1986, taking on her own clients. When a messy divorce left her needing to start over, she moved to Queensland’s Sunshine Coast with $40,000 in her back pocket, a babe in arms and one on the way. She walked the streets introducing herself to business owners and gradually built up a client base and set up her own accountancy practice, Active Financial Answers. Today it is a thriving business and has recently expanded with offices in Sydney and Melbourne.
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Sharing Knowledge
Boholt had become recognised as an expert on various financial matters. While speaking at a seminar in 2000, her presentation was followed by Dolf de Roos, US property guru and adviser to Robert Kiyosaki. Hearing him speak was a major turning point in her life.
“He basically spoke about trading time for money, and I realised that this was exactly what I was doing. Even though I had a successful accountancy practice and I was back in the comfort zone as far as income and taking care of my children was concerned, I was still trading my time for money. What I decided I needed was a passive income that didn’t require any mental or physical exertion to earn that income. The easiest way for me to do that was through property investing.”
After 12 months of property investing, she equalled her accountancy income and now boasts a multi-million dollar property portfolio which generates a passive income worth more than the average Australian wage. But that wasn’t enough, Boholt wanted to share her knowledge. “I sort of feel it’s a responsibility. Certain things do come easily to me and I have seen the differences I can make.”
So, when she found herself offering similar advice to clients, rather than have more people join her three-month waiting list she decided to start holding seminars. She was soon approached by a friend, Sandy Forster, who was running her own life coaching seminars and suggested they start a mentoring program so people weren’t left up in the air after attending a seminar.
Last year WildyWealthyWomen.com was launched, offering a nine-month mentoring and education program teaching women of all ages and backgrounds how to make independent decisions regarding tax, finance, asset protection, and real estate investment. Having already opened up the program to New Zealand participants, they’re now hoping to have Wildy Wealthy Women America up and running by the end of the year.
Boholt now takes a more general management role across her businesses, and while growing Wildy Wealthy Women she is constantly building her property portfolio and speaking at local and international events. She has also launched her own website (www.dymphnaboholt.com ) through which she sells her own home-study courses, and now has a couple of books on the way.
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Financial Freedom
Boholt’s hard work and wise investments now afford her a very comfortable lifestyle, and she is in control of it. Focusing on cashflow-positive property investments brings regular income and the financial resources to employ people to help her. “Income gives you lifestyle, it gives you the ability to choose what you do and don’t do,” she says. “So if I want to go to the beach, I can. It’s really up to me and what I’ve been able to do is be there for the kids when they need me, which was my goal many years ago.” Now the businesses run very successfully with only minimal day-to-day input from her, “which is the way you want it”.
However, her lifestyle choices are never far from her entrenched investment philosophy. “Every decision you make, you bring the business aspect into that lifestyle decision and make it profitable—then it’s sustainable.”
