A MUM-OF-TWO has revealed that she grew up on a council estate and left school at the age of just 16 due to being bullied for being poor, but now she has managed to completely turn her life around.
Lisa Johnson, 45, from Lincolnshire, is a woman who found herself in £30,000 of debt, but has now made £10 million in five years, all of which started from a side hustle.
Lisa now lives in Bedfordshire and has just released her book – Make Money Online.
Now a Global Business Strategist, Lisa has worked with various celebrities and well-established entrepreneurs and makes £4 million a year.
Lisa uses the internet's potential to create passive and semi-passive income streams, as she aims to help others achieve the same – to work smarter, not harder.
But although Lisa has made millions of pounds in recent years, life hasn’t always been straightforward for her.
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Lisa told Fabulous: “I grew up on a council estate and I’ve always been in debt.
“It was a real struggle, poverty wise, but we were happy.
“When I was 11, I got a scholarship to a private school and I thought it was going to be amazing because it was the most expensive school in our county and everyone wanted to go and we didn’t have to pay, but when I got there, it was the first day that I knew I was poor.
“I didn’t know I was poor as a kid and suddenly, I was made fun of every single day – for having second-hand uniform and getting free school meals and all of that kind of stuff.
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“The kids would talk about all the holidays they had been on and would be picked up in Porsches but I would be picked up on the back of my dad’s motorbike.
“That was the first time that I felt less than and that continued for years – I was bullied really badly. That’s why I left school at 16.
“I think that played a massive part in me wanting something different and something better.
I didn’t know I was poor as a kid and suddenly, I was made fun of every single day – for having second-hand uniform and getting free school meals and all of that kind of stuff.
“I had money mindset issues and I always thought that rich people were bad people so I did some money mindset work and looked into why I wanted money and that helped me to feel better about making money.
“I had lived pay check to pay check and was in debt pretty much my whole life, until I was 40, and it was then that things all changed.”
Lisa explained that she started a consulting business, to help others to start their own businesses.
She continued: “So I started Lisa Johnson Strategy, to teach people how to start their own side hustles and their own businesses.
“It went really well, I earnt £220,000 in that first year which was more money than I had ever seen in my life.
“I was able to pay off debt and that was great.
“When I started my business, it meant that I was in control of how much I could work and how much I could earn.
“I had struggled to go on holiday before – we wouldn’t really go on holiday and if we did it was on a shoestring. But now we travel to 15-20 countries a year.
“For the kids, it’s a really different lifestyle.”
Four years later, Lisa has now made £10 million in total and is able to live a completely different lifestyle than what she knew growing up.
She added: “We get opportunities now that I wouldn't have had before.
“I’m able to take my friends and my colleagues on a private jet every year.
“I was able to take my best friends on a superyacht around Greece last year and we’re doing the same this year, so things about that are the things that I love about this change in lifestyle.
“I’m also able to help more people than I did before – I get to do random acts of kindness, if I see someone online that needs a few thousand pounds for something and they are struggling, I can give it to them, which I wouldn’t have been able to do before.
“I’ve been on holiday everywhere. We took the kids to Las Vegas, the Maldives, we’ve been to Dubai a fair few times, Malta too and we’ve stayed in the most beautiful hotels.
“I travel a lot with work as well – I hold retreats for people and we do that in Los Angeles, Miami and Croatia.”
Not only has Lisa been on some brilliant holidays, but she’s also been able to travel on private jets and relax on luxury superyachts too.
She explained: “It’s amazing on a private jet – there’s no queuing up, showing your passport, anything like that and it’s just you and your friends on the plane. It’s a lovely, relaxed atmosphere.
I’m able to take my friends and my colleagues on a private jet every year.
“The superyacht is the best thing I’ve ever done. You wake up in a different place every day.
“Everything is done for you, it’s so relaxing. Because I do work hard, when I‘m away I want to just completely switch off and spend time with friends and family and kids and that really allows you to do that. You don’t lift a finger.
“I used to spend a lot of money on myself and I love bags, but I realised about two years ago, when you first get money you spend a lot because you never had it before.
“Now I have bought properties so that my money is invested and the money is making me money.
“We just got a multi-million pound house because that’s more of an investment.”
Lisa explained that although she spends a lot of money on travel, she has remained very grounded with the other things that she buys.
She noted: “We like what we like – we don’t just buy things because it’s showy or because it costs money.
“For instance, we go to Butlins for New Year and the kids love it just as much as when we take them to the Maldives.
I still shop in New Look and I buy my clothes from Asos, Primark, River Island, Matalan. I don’t go silly on things like that.
“My husband still goes to the sale rail when he walks into a trainer shop. I think it’s embedded in you a bit when you’ve had to be careful with money.
“Other than travel, which I will say, we spend money frivolously on because we all love it and we love the experience, we don’t really spend money on ourselves that much.
“I still shop in New Look and I buy my clothes from Asos, Primark, River Island, Matalan. I don’t go silly on things like that.
“My food taste is still the same as when I was a kid. I still like beige food. When I go to posh restaurants, I always think ‘why am I here?’.
“I’m going on first-class tomorrow and I know I’ll be annoyed because the food is too posh and I like fish fingers.
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“It’s about what you like, rather than how much it is. I would never be that person that would buy something just because of the label.
“I want people to realise that just because you’ve got money, doesn’t mean your problems will go away. You just have more opportunities with money. "
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