Sarah and Matt Packwood-Hollings are encouraging investors to focus on the now and use wealth generation to fuel greater life experiences.
For the founders of Alchymia Distillery, property investing and generating wealth is only half the exercise. Using this money to strive for one’s passions and ideal lifestyle is the ultimate goal.
The duo joined KnowHow’s Bushy Martin on Property Hub’s Get Invested podcast to take listeners through their journey of using property wealth to enable their passions.
Stage 1: Investing in property
Matt and Sarah embarked on their property investment journeys long before meeting, first establishing themselves individually before joining forces.
This, combined with their later investments as a couple, ultimately set themselves up for future business endeavours.
“So Matt and I did get on the property journey very early, but separately. I bought my first property at 20, and Matt purchased his first property at 22. We then met 15 years later and we both owned properties, and within three months of meeting each other, we sold both of those properties and bought a property together,” Sarah said.
“Then our property journey in Australia started. We very quickly purchased two blocks of land in Willunga and McLaren Vale. So that was how we managed to indirectly end up where we are now and doing exactly what we want to do in something that we’re passionate about. We jumped off that corporate bus and are now working in our own distillery.”
Stage 2: Reassessing your life
While extremely successful in their wealth generation, Sarah and Matt revealed they reached a breakdown point which forced them to re-evaluate their life.
“Matt and I, 47 years for me and 44 years for him, spent most of our time invested in working in corporate roles. That allowed us to purchase property and build wealth, but we realised that we were very unfulfilled. And we looked at each other thinking, what are we going to do? We’re working ourselves into the ground,” Sarah said.
“So that’s when we got to really reassess what we were doing for a living. It wasn’t serving us very well, and we suffered to the point of breakdown. And that really makes you stop and think, okay, what are we doing this for?
“We just realised that actually it was not sustainable and it didn’t matter how much we had in the bank. If we died the next day, it didn’t matter. So that’s when we made the decision that we were going to do something different. We didn’t know what at that stage, but we knew that from what we’ve been doing in the ten years previously, building properties, selling them all, building and keeping and renting out, that would allow us actually to start a whole new venture and start with a blank canvas again.”
Stage 3: Preparing for a new adventure
The biggest learning from Sarah and Matt’s journey at this point is that investors need to adopt a mindset of ‘seizing the day’ and striving for their goals, even if there are regrets along the way. Having the courage and resilience to embark on a new venture can open great opportunities.
“So the one thing that Matt and I have always said our mantra is we would rather do something and regret doing it, rather than sit on our deathbed saying we wish we’d done it. Our favourite quote is carpe diem, or seize the day. There may not be a tomorrow, so make the most of it,” Sarah said.
“Don’t overthink it. If you know that you’ve got to get off the corporate bus or you know that you’ve got to look at your investments, stop putting it off because you just need to do it. And if it doesn’t quite work, at least you gave it a go. It might not be anything dramatic. It might just be the smallest thing or smallest habit that you think, I need to stop doing that or I need to start doing that. So just stop thinking about it and give it a go.”
Bushy added: “Changes like this can scare the hell out of people. But you just need to get out there and have a crack. What’s the worst thing that can happen? Yes, things might not go as well, but you can dust yourself off, learn from it, and then go again.”
Stage 4: Investing in your new goals
Matt and Sarah finished by giving insight into their Alchymia Distillery.
“We knew that we wanted to start our own business together, so that we could actually invest more time in each other. And we knew from the property development that we could work together. We knew that we were passionate about two or three things. One being good food, the other being good alcohol. So that’s what we decided. Well, let’s just have a look at things around that sort of area,” Matt said.
“We believe our distillery is different to most in that we always said that we wanted to build an experience, not a legacy. For many years we were, as I said, building these properties to put the money in the bank for a later date and do this. But yet we decided that investing in now is most important because tomorrow might never happen. So we always said we would build an experience. And that’s exactly what we’ve done.”
Listen to the full interview here.
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