I went from living on a council estate and £35k in debt to earning a million in one hour – anyone can achieve what I can

WATCHING the views build up, Lisa Johnson couldn’t believe her eyes as the money continued to trickle into her account.

As her talk hit the one hour mark, Lisa’s husband interrupts with some astounding news.

She’d made £1 million in just 60 minutes of online business consulting to thousands of online clients which would eventually reach £2.5 million in the same week.

But this phenomenal success that Sunday Times-bestselling author and business consultant Lisa, 46, now experiences is a far cry from her humble beginnings.

Speaking as part of Life Stories, Fabulous’ new YouTube series which documents the extraordinary lives of ordinary people, Lisa says: “My childhood was pretty ordinary, I grew up in a Council House in Lincolnshire.

“My parents split up when I was around 11, and then my dad was a single father that brought up me and my siblings and we did struggle.

“I was the person in the second hand uniform, and I was the person that had the free school lunch ticket. 

“I started to be bullied really badly.”

Struggling at school, Lisa left school with just a handful of mediocre GCSEs. 

“I hardly ever went in,” she admits. 

“When you’re being told every single day that you’re stupid, that you’re poor, you’re ugly, you start to believe that it’s true. 

“I didn’t really think that I would make anything of myself, I made peace with that.”

At her lowest, Lisa admits that she became suicidal after years of cruel taunts.

“I had to make a decision on whether I even wanted to be here or not,” she says.

“I thought maybe all of these bullies have been right all along, maybe I would never become anything.

“I decided to give myself one chance to see if I could do something hard and give myself a challenge and if I succeeded maybe that was a sign the bullies were wrong.”

While working full time as personal assistant, at the age of 27 Lisa took on a law degree studying over the next four years and achieving a BA Hons degree.

“I decided not to become a lawyer, that it wasn’t something I wanted to do,” she says.

“I think I just wanted to prove to myself that I could do it  if I wanted to.

“Instead I ended up climbing the corporate ladder in investment banking as a risk analyst in Canary Wharf.”

Despite being on a good wage of £60,000 after welcoming twin boys Finnian and Albert 12 years ago, Lisa realised that her marriage was failing, and needed a 9-5 job near her house.

As a result, she secured a junior admin assistant role, meaning she went from earning £60,000 to a £20,000 job.

She went back to work when her little ones were just five months old and as a now single mother, realised that she was spending more on childcare than her personal assistant job was bringing in.

She desperate to find the balance between earning enough to support her family without being chained to her desk.

In the first year, I made every business mistake you could possibly make

Lisa Johnson

In 2013 she decided to start her own wedding planning business.

However, she admitted that she had no idea what she was doing and her debt increased to £35,000.

She explains: “In the first year, I made every business mistake you could possibly make.

“I was £35,000 in debt, I was earning about £1.50 an hour and I still had my full-time job.

“So I went to the library, and I got every book out about business and self development that I could find.

“I went to free webinars and things like that to learn about business.”

Thanks to her self-taught strategies, Lisa’s wedding business slowly turned around and within five months she was booked for the next year and a half.

It was then that the mum’s lightbulb moment arrived.

“People started asking me how I had done it,” she explains.

“I realised that one of the things I’m good at is taking the information I’ve read and turn it into practical information rather than jargon.

“People who had taken my advice would come back and tell me they’d made triple the amount of money they would normally make.

“That’s when I started what is now known as That Strategy Co, my business strategy company, which evolved and got me to where I am today.”

For Lisa, the goal was never to become a multimillionaire, in fact the mum-of-two’s initial goal was to earn just £2,000 a month.

But her business quickly took off beyond anything she imagined, making £100,000 in her first six months.

“I decided to put half of everything I had earned in that first year into  learning as much as I could about passive income streams,” she says.

“I slowly started incorporating those methods into my business.

“Some things didn’t work, some things worked a bit, and I made them better and some things worked really well. 

“All passive income is, is doing something once and making money from it over and over again.

“By the end of that first year I’d made £220,000, but I was probably working 80 hour weeks.

“By the end of the second year I was working 30 hours a month and I was earning over a million.”

Lisa realised that she could create a set formula for her business coaching that could be used, and sold, again and again.

She explains: “My customers were all asking the same question, so I realised I could just teach 100 of these people at the same time and make money from all of them.

I have helped people who are homeless, to be able to make money, and now they are millionaires

Lisa Johnson

“I created courses, memberships and workshops and put them on the Internet.

“Some of them I taught live but would have a thousand people come on them, and some would be pre recorded. 

“That gave me all this time back, but a lot more money, and in a week I’d made £2.7 million.”

In the past seven years Lisa has made over £20 million as well as having written a Sunday Times bestselling book called Make Money Online. 

And while her wealth is a welcome bonus, Lisa says that the biggest perk of her business is being able to help others achieve their dreams and make money.

“I have helped people who are destitute, who are homeless, to be able to make money, and now they are millionaires,” she says.

“It’s not easy, but I believe that anybody can follow a process and make money with the knowledge they have.”