PK Gupta's Path From 9-5 to Top Property Creator

This edition of The Creatorist (the very first, and likely last–info at the bottom of this post) is on PK Gupta, owner of Consulting by PK and creator of the Property Investment Accelerator, an online self-paced Australian property investment course.

I gotta say, PK's journey is truly inspiring. We'll be taking a walk through his story, with his relentless determination to escape the shackles of the 9-5 grind, all while intensely focusing on achieving financial freedom and passive income.

He's gone from 90-hour weeks as an investment banker to a multi-million dollar creator-educator, mentoring thousands of real estate investors, far surpassing his initial goals and dreams.

When you have a goal in mind, and a burning desire for it, almost nothing is going to stop you.

Let's get into it!

The Journey

Crazy About Property

You might've heard that Australia is completely and utterly obsessed with property.

If you haven't, it's always been the Australian dream to own your own home.

Many Australians take this further by owning investment properties in hopes of increasing their wealth and prosperity.

There's just always been one big problem. When it comes to investing in Australian Real Estate, many don't know where to start, who to trust, or how to tell the difference between legitimate help and questionable practices.

That's the issue that PK faced when he and his partner began looking to invest in real estate back in 2011:󠀢󠀢

"When I went to learn about property investing all I could find back then were conference room seminars where some “expert” would skim through some basic strategies and try to sell you an off-the-plan property in the end at the back of the room. This didn’t feel right to my partner and I." - PK, Property Chat.

So what did PK do about this?

Oh, you know. Nothing too wild.

Just went out and purchased over 30 years of historical property data, analysed it using some serious statistical techniques and ended up creating a unique, data-driven investment strategy, now being what thousands of Australian investors swear by.

In real estate, everyone was towing the same old line, “infrastructure, proximity to CBD, amenities, train stations, vacancy rates, yields”. As if following 5-10 high-level indicators would get you the passive income you needed to leave the 9-5. So I decided to collate all the property data available (50+ factors) and run the “multi-variate regression analysis”, normalising for “auto-correlation”, to understand the “coefficients and thresholds”, what truly drives capital growth and positive cashflow. - PK, Property Chat.

Only what any normal, young, fresh-out-of-university graduate would do, of course!

Fast forward to today, and PK has leveraged content creation to share his message, built a collective audience of over 100,000 people across his Facebook Community, YouTube Channel and Podcast, and changed the trajectory of many lives through his education and mentorship.

His long-term dream was always to attain financial freedom and leave his 9-5 - but, how did this guy do it? What's he about? What did his journey look like? Was it easy? And what can we learn from him?

That's what we'll be unpacking in this edition.

Backstory

PK was born in India, but he and his family migrated first to New Zealand when he was four to seek greener pastures, and then later to Australia where he lives today.

In an interview, he mentions not growing up with much and starting life completely fresh in an entirely new country, which is challenging for obvious reasons.

These humble beginnings seemed to have an impact on him, as he was driven from a young age to find a high-paying job.

His Google searches at thirteen years of age for "highest salary jobs" led him to discover the field of Investment Banking.

This would be the first time we would see his relentless focus in pursuit of an achievement, but it wouldn't be the last.

PK did everything in his power to become an Investment Banker. And become an Investment Banker he did, landing a graduate role at JP Morgan trading stocks institutionally. Coming from a degree background in finance, statistics and economics, this only made sense.

But that's also when he noticed things didn't quite feel right. He was straight out of university, earning six figures with the job of his dreams.

Why didn't this feel as good as he thought it would?

To summarise PK's words on the LaunchDay Podcast:

"Six months into making six figures working 90 hours a week, I see my boss was miserable. My boss's boss, who just had a baby, chose to be at work instead of the hospital. He was on a million bucks, so I knew what my career projection looked like, but it's not decoupled from the effort, so I'd have to work a hundred hours a week every week to get that million bucks."

That's when PK realised the value of his time far exceeded any money he could ever earn, so he recalibrated and set his sights on the next goal - financial freedom and passive income through property investing.

PK and his then-partner, now-wife wasted no time, jumping into their first real estate investment the same year they entered their graduate roles in 2011.

The rest? Well, that's history.

Just Getting Started

It's 2017 and PK is up to his eighth investment property. He's built millions of dollars in equity and passive income and is well on the way to attaining his goal of financial freedom.

His friends and family started to notice the success he's been having, and as he continued to refine his data process and methodology, he found himself in a position to start mentoring others.

Summarising PK's words from this video on his YouTube channel:

"I didn't really have the confidence to help others yet, so I was doing it for free. Then they started getting some results and that's what really gave me confidence to realise that this actually works for more than just me."

He was doing this until late 2019 when he suddenly started posting real estate-related content publicly on Facebook:

He went on to post many personal written-based stories and free, educational videos like this one diligently every couple of days.

Not too bad for only just starting to put yourself out there, right?

PK's initial content on real estate was already quite impressive, but it's worth mentioning he was also gaining valuable experience running The Conscious Collective with his wife, a not-for-profit community and meditation centre, where he was already building up his content creation skills.

On a side note, I love the dichotomy here: the profit-centric world of real estate investment colliding with the spiritually oriented, community-driven environment of the meditation centre.

Did I mention he was doing all this whilst working as Head of Strategy & Transformation at Virgin Australia since 2015? He even managed to squeeze having his first child in amongst all this!

This is when things started to get serious (as if they weren’t already serious enough).

Going All In

According to PK's LinkedIn, he left Virgin around the same time he started to post content publically, and if my estimation of the timing is correct, he was making about $120,000 in passive income at that point as mentioned in this interview.

Nothing earth-shattering, but more than enough to go all in. Timing is everything, as they say.

2020 was a big year for PK. The Facebook Community he started in late 2019 was seeing some good traction and his online course spots were continuing to fill up.

In the beginning, the online course was a live 7-week mentorship program, but this later turned into the recorded and scalable online course that it is today.

The Facebook Community was and still is the bread and butter, but later in 2020, he launched his YouTube Channel which added a new dimension, allowing a synergistic bridge of educational content between the two platforms and creating a powerful growth flywheel.

Fast Forward

Today PK has helped over 1,200 clients purchase 3,000+ investment properties over the years he's been educating and mentoring.

He has one of the highest-rated online property investment courses in the country (self-proclaimed, though I'd have to agree seeing as no other course has as many highly rated reviews as his), and he's built himself up to be a very well-regarded and respected mentor.

When you pour so much energy and time into something, you hope all your hard work will pay off. For PK, it seems it has. To summarise his words:

"I'm trying to live my ideal lifestyle and be in the present. I'm grateful, and this is what I've worked so hard for. I really just like to spend my days mostly in the morning with my son up until about noon, and then the rest of the day with my wife, with a few hours sprinkled in the middle for work. That's my lifestyle."

How Much Money PK Gupta Makes

Everyone's probably wondering how much money PK makes. According to this article, PK has an estimated net worth of $15M. For context, the net worth of the average Aussie is around US $500K. Not too shabby.

But what about income? Net worth is cool and all, but you can't use it to live or have fun if it's all tied up in assets.

Passive Income

From his now twelve investment property portfolio. The annual income from this (excluding expenses and operating costs) totals $362,700.

PK hasn't to my knowledge explicitly stated exactly how much he's making from this now, but if he's at all continued to reduce debt exposure, it'd likely be over the $120,000 per annum mentioned in 2021.

Business Income

From his online course and mentorship program.

PK charges around $6,000 for his course. At 1,200 clients that would be $7.2M in total revenue since 2019.

However, PK has a team and likely many other business expenses, including tax considerations as well, so the total take home would be well under that figure.

In the world of online business, it's important to remember to read past the headlines - it's so easy to look at figures and forget the real and boring stuff like taxes and expenses!

YouTube Income

PK would have a bit of income coming in from YouTube with Google AdSense, but it's honestly hard to say exactly how much.

These estimates are likely conservative, especially since topics related to personal finance, making money, or investing in general tend to pay quite well.

Either way, it's still a nice bit of extra side income as a reward for making content that spreads your message, helps your business and serves your audience.

The Playbook

Time to get a little more practical now.

Everyone loves a good story. But a good story is nothing without practical insights we can turn into implementable action. That's really what matters when it comes to achieving something great.

Maybe you're looking to offer some type of coaching, mentoring, or education online. Or maybe you're already doing that. Either way, these lessons will be useful for you.

When doing my research, these are the key gems that stood out to me:

1. Solve a burning problem.
2. Craft a magnetic message.
3. Don't just say you're a master, be one.
4. Start small, keep it simple and iterate.
5. Give freely, without expectation.

Let's get into it.

1) Solve a Burning Problem

While this might seem obvious, it's often overlooked.

The best type of problems to solve are the ones that bother you the most, because who else knows them as intimately as you? While it may not be immediately obvious to you, you're actually best positioned to solve them.

This is exactly what PK did. He was frustrated with encountering subjective opinions in the real estate investing industry. He was frustrated with all the confusion, smoke and mirrors.

So he took matters into his own hands. He first solved his own problem, before he sought to solve the problem of others and turn it into a business.

The interesting part is, if you have a problem that you encounter or think about constantly, there's a good chance others are facing the same problem.

I know I was. Pretty much everywhere you look online about investing in real estate, the top three questions are always:

1. "Where should I buy?"
2. "How do I buy?"
3. "How can I know who to trust?"

PK solved all of these problems for himself, tested and developed a solution over a decade, built a system around it, and then shared it with everyone experiencing the same problem.

It's even better if the problem you're solving relates to one of these broad eternal markets:

• Health (mind, body, wellness and spirit).
• Wealth (work, business, money and investing).
• Social (relationships, love and intimacy).
• Self (personal development, happiness and fulfilment).

These markets are highly profitable because they address fundamental and deep human needs and desires. We're always looking for ways to increase the quality of our lives.

My easy avocado peeler in the kitchen is nice and saves a bit of time, but I don't really need it, and I don't have a burning desire for it. But investing in real estate to generate wealth and income? That has the potential to afford me more options, autonomy and abundance, so straight away, I'm interested.

But, it's not enough to just know the problem you're solving, you need to know why you're solving it, who you're solving it for, and how it's going to work.

That's where a magnetic message comes into the picture.

2) Craft a Magnetic Message

Remember those top three questions I mentioned earlier? This message directly addresses the problems of where to buy, how to buy, and the trust component.

When I read it, I know I'll be using data, so I know I will find out where to buy and I can stop relying on subjective opinions, and I know I can do it all myself without paying for or relying on the services of anyone else, all by myself.

But there's another reason why this message is magnetic. It goes against the grain, challenges the status quo, and differentiates him from everyone else.

In the industry, it's common to think that real estate investing is best left to professionals. After all, it almost seems like rocket science.

But then here's this guy telling you that actually, it's pretty easy to do it all yourself. There are legitimate reasons to use a professional like a Buyer's Agent, I've used one myself, but if you're interested in real estate and you're willing to put a bit of time and effort into your education, why not do it yourself?

Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.

And so this message unlocked an untapped audience in the market. Those who were like PK (solve your own problems, remember) and wanted to do it themselves, but were frustrated with what was on offer.

I noticed this type of polarisation and differentiation elsewhere in his brand too. For example, he says he never discounts his product - he's more focused on attracting the right type of clients who appreciate the value he's providing.

Another thing I noticed is he mentioned he's never run any paid ads. This is the opposite of what everyone does in the industry.

Noticing a pattern?

Polarising messages are magnetic because you don't sit on the fence - you pick a stance and show that you stand up for what you believe in.

This builds trust, and most importantly, it demonstrates you're confident in yourself and your message.

3) Don't Just Say You're a Master, Be One

So you've solved a burning problem and crafted a magnetic message. Now what?

Well, now you need to deliver on that message.

Firstly, it helps if you practice what you preach. Like really helps.

When it comes to education and courses, I don't know about you, but if I'm paying someone for an outcome, I want to know:

1. They've already achieved what you wish to achieve (at least to some degree), so I'm confident they can educate and mentor me through the process.
2. What they're teaching is based on their own lived experience and journey (they practice what they preach).

These two things might sound the same, but they're not. As an example, imagine if PK set out to educate based on his lived experience and journey, but his investment portfolio was a total flop. It'd make it pretty hard to trust him and buy into his message, right?

PK didn't start helping others in business until almost a decade after he had implemented, tested and iterated on the strategies he teaches today.

You don't need to wait for a decade of success or lived experience, there's no hard or fast rule, and it would be highly dependent on the context and industry you're in.

One of PK's core messages is about using data to find investment locations so you can do it yourself. If you're going to have something like that in your message, you need to follow through.

On YouTube, you'll see PK creating a lot of videos breaking down a diverse range of economic and financial concepts using data and evidence. This not only educates his audience but also reinforces his message and continues to build trust.

So if you make a point about something in your message, think about the ways you can continue to strengthen and reinforce it (while preferably providing value, for free).

Which brings me to my next point.

4) Give Freely, Without Expectation

And do it in a non-needy way too.

This one is both simple and effective, yet far too many don't do it out of fear, and the rest forget to do it all together.

The thing is, you're not going to vibe with every customer. Not everyone is going to buy from you.

So you have a couple of choices:

1. You can tell people what you do and why you do it is amazing, and hope you'll attract customers. Or...
2. You can show people how what you do is amazing by offering it up for free and expecting nothing in return.

You see, the people who already share similar perspectives and philosophies to you already agree with you, and will likely buy from you anyway.

But there's always going to be the people who are on the fence. Those who are uncertain, unsure, or maybe just a little bit undereducated.

Giving freely without expectation allows you to reach those people, strengthen your credibility with them, and invite them into your world.

Those people are either going to become your customers, agree with you (and therefore support you), or just stay exactly how they are.

There's only upside in doing this. The key is doing it in a non-needy way.

PK already gives freely on platforms like YouTube by educating his audience and sharing his expertise.

But he also just seems genuinely happy when people do it themselves, even if they don't become customers.

I also see him in his Facebook Community, just casually chatting to people and helping them out - most of whom aren't his clients.

I've purchased plenty of online courses where the course creator is just nowhere to be seen, and it doesn't leave a great taste in your mouth.

It's about prioritising what's most important. You can't be in a million places at once, but I believe as a course creator and educator, putting your audience (both customers and non-customers) high up your list, is important.

So give freely, but expect nothing in return. You'll be surprised by the results.

5) Start Small, Keep It Simple and Iterate

But just start.

This is what PK's business and content engine looks like today from a high level:

But it wasn't always this way, he started very simplistically. Simple is good.

Most people don't do this. Most people have unrealistic expectations and ambitions and think that they need to do everything and be everywhere, all at once.

If that's you, I wouldn't beat yourself up - we've all been there, it's only human nature.

What this is though, is a misunderstanding of the nature of growth. Growth takes time, and it compounds by little consistent efforts towards the goal every single day - I like to call this "success by a thousand efforts" (opposite of death by a thousand cuts).

"The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything." - Warren Buffet

You might ask "how do I know what to say no to?", and that would be a great question.

First, you need to figure out what's most important to you. This is your north star. I got an email from Pat Walls at Starter Story at the end of 2023 that said take the 30 goals you have for the year, and throw 29 of them away. Have one chief aim for the whole year.

Instead of:

• Go to the gym 5 times per week.
• Run a marathon.
• Stop drinking coffee.
• Go to sleep at 9 pm every night.
• Lose weight.
• Etc...

Make it something like:

• By the end of 2024, I will have 20 customers and $120,000 in revenue.

It doesn't mean you can't do any of the other things you listed, but if you focus on everything, you focus on nothing.

A good book that shows you how to write a good chief aim is everyone's favourite, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.

Once you know what's truly important, it makes it a hell of a lot easier to identify and group the high-impact tasks from the low-impact tasks. Focus on the tasks that bear the most fruit.

In PK's case, that was growing a strong community and educating freely - nothing else.

The second thing you need to do is choose the right platform to start on. PK chose Facebook because that's where most of his target audience was. One of his high-impact actions was likely to build a community, and there are not many other suitable places to do that - especially those that would have his audience base on it.

So do some research, work out where most of your audience is, consider what you want to achieve, and then focus on that solely for a while.

It's okay to switch things up and go elsewhere if something isn't working, but give it a good while before you do that. How long will vary depending on what you're doing and what market you're in.

Because you're focusing on what's important, lastly, start small and iterate from there. Don't overload yourself - don't spread yourself too thin.

PK focused on building the Facebook Community for over a year before he started up his YouTube Channel in late 2020 and he didn't record and take his course fully online until around the same time.

He also didn't launch his podcast or start posting on other social media platforms like TikTok or X until a couple of years later.

Imagine if instead, he tried to start all of this at once. Facebook Community, YouTube, online course, TikTok, X, Instagram. The results just wouldn't be the same.

The reality is, and to quote Alex Hormozi here, "It's not which one will work, it's which one will YOU work on". You can't make one work if you're trying a hundred things all at once.

The best thing you can do is get something ready for the world as soon as possible, put it out there, get feedback, and then iterate so you can continue to improve it, or pivot so you can head in a better direction.

The Wisdom

Although this is a creator story, I always like to look at someone's journey to extract valuable lessons for life, because they're applicable almost anywhere.

So to wrap this up, here are the three key lessons that continually came up during my research that we can all reflect upon:

1) When in Doubt, Use Leverage

PK's entire story reflects a constant theme. Leverage.

He's used it in his:

• Property investment portfolio (passive income).
• Brand (differentiation with a magnetic message).
• Online course (build once, sell a thousand times).
• Content engine (create once, repurpose onto other platforms). And the most valuable one, in my opinion...
• Ability to recognise and harness what he's best at and most interested in (finance, economics and financial freedom).

All of this compounded too. Investing in real estate led him to create the data strategy, which eventually led him into business and content creation.

Where in your life right now could you use (focused) leverage to move the needle in the direction you're hoping?

2) Overnight Success Stories Take a Long Time

It takes 10 years to become an overnight success.

After looking at this story so deeply, I'm reminded of the sheer hard work, determination and perseverance that this would have required, especially in the face of resistance (obligations, expectations, society etc.).

I'm not sure what his day-to-day life looked back while he was building all this, but I could only imagine it would've required thousands of hours of dedication and consistent effort every single day to make this possible.

We look at successful people, and we automatically think they were always like that. Our brains gloss over all of the hard work and time spent in the trenches, or perhaps we don't even give it a single thought.

There aren't any shortcuts. You can't experience the result without the journey.

"I gotta build the bricks. I gotta build the foundation. I gotta just build this up slowly and steadily." - PK

Sure, there's utilising leverage to accelerate growth, but that's only effective when first the foundations or 'seedlings' of growth are already there.

3) Get the flowers while you can still smell them.

Even though his journey started out being all about wealth creation.

And even though he was constantly chasing achievement.

A message I kept hearing over and over from him was to enjoy the journey and be grateful in the present moment.

"Now that I've been on the other side of the fence, I can tell you the grass is not greener. Like I've surmounted the fence, I've climbed over the fence and the neighbor's grass is not any greener. I'm no happier than what I was before." - PK

You see once we reach the destination, once we get the thing we were striving so hard for - life doesn't change all that much. Sure, it's nice to have and it helps, but it doesn't magically change your life or solve all your problems.

Now you can appreciate the journey. You can appreciate the empathy required to love others and to love yourself. My realisation was that if we're not meditative or introspective, or just present in the journey of wealth creation, if we're always living in the future for when we achieve that outcome, when we get to the future, we won't be in the present to enjoy it." - PK

It is crazy to me that we as humans seek achievement to the point of almost breaking ourselves, and then when we get there it isn't as good as we built it up in our minds.

It makes me wonder, is the thing we're seeking truly the achievement itself? The money, the car, the house - the material items?

Instead, perhaps what we're really seeking is fulfilment. And that happens through meaningful work, connection and contribution.

So if you haven't started yet, or if you're on the way there - see if you can find some appreciation for this present moment.

A journey as special as this doesn't come around too often - especially when you're pursuing your life's work.

So why not make the most of it while you still can?

Check out the client interview I did with PK after completing the course and purchasing an investment property:

Thank you for being here and for reading. I hope this story served you well.

I'm Roc, and I wrote this at a time when I was planning to do more deep dives on creators like this one, but since then, things have changed!

Lately I’ve been on a powerful healing journey that has reconnected me to myself, my creativity and has transformed the way I interact with life.

I’m energised to connect with others who are on a similar journey, so I’m sharing everything I learn along the way to help you follow your inner compass, unlock your unique gifts, and feel alive.

If you’re interested in exploring my creative work, you can check out:

1. The Gift of Being You newsletter on Substack.
2. The Guide to Being You, which is a free-flowing and interconnected guidebook of notes I take.

If you'd like to connect, you can reach me on X/Twitter or email–I'm always up for a chat!

Keep well,

Roc.