WITHOUT hesitation Noel Whittaker hands over a copy of his latest book, The Beginner’$ Guide to Wealth.
It’s the first co-authored with son James but number 19 (Noel “thinks”) for the Australian financial world’s longest-standing “gent”.
Kind-hearted Noel also gives away a revised version of book number one – Making Money Made Simple – an output he financed more than three decades ago with publishers not willing to take the gamble.
As he freely offers the gifts, the 71-year-old’s plaid shirt colours grey Brisbane skies and the boardroom of Whittaker Macnaught, a financial powerhouse he began with a few hundred dollars in 1983 and sold for a substantial sum in 2007.
So significant has been his contribution to the community, the Brisbane Catholic was last month awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia “for services to the community in raising awareness of the benefits of superannuation, household budgeting and estate planning”.
“It’s very special,” Noel said of the accolade.
“The awards are often for people who are (in the) sporting or medical (arenas).
“It’s nice to recognise someone in finance.”
Remaining executive director of Whittaker Macnaught and with a thriving media career, Noel will likely add to his book tally, noting he “always uses cartoons” because “people relate better to pictures (and) Jesus spoke in parables”.
His books and general philosophy stem from “a passion to help ordinary people” – with a basic message of “spend less than you earn, improve your skills and invest wisely” – certainly placing himself in that “ordinary” category.
“I was a kid who came from a poor family and never was expected to get far,” Noel said.
“My father was the manager of the Kingston pig farm and he married the daughter of the manager of the butter factory.
“I was born into a family of employees.”
Noel described his parents as “great royalists” who taught him “people from our background shouldn’t get too far” and “if you work hard you can at least have an honest job”.
“I was so clumsy at school that the manual arts teacher would hold up my pathetic efforts at woodwork for all the class to laugh at,” Noel said.
“When I finished high school I decided I was too dumb to go to university and instead joined the Bank of New South Wales (now known as Westpac) aged 18 on the grounds it was a safe job.”
Noel spent many years “suffering a massive inferiority complex” only realising his “potential” after reading Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.
“My life was transformed from that moment,” he said.
“My message has since been you can have far more than you thought possible if you make the best use of what you have today.
“So many people think they are dumb or clumsy … and they mix with people with no goals or ambitions.
“If you mix with people who ‘pull you up’ then success is more likely to happen.”
Himself strengthened after meeting wife Geraldine, the couple were married by Fr Peter Dillon in St Bernard’s Upper Mt Gravatt on November 21, 1980, a parish where his mother-in-law Marie Boylan still lives and is actively involved (Mick Boylan is deceased).
Noel was baptised into the Church of England and converted to Catholicism before his marriage.
Throughout the next four years children Mark, James and Elizabeth were born although Noel said he “didn’t appreciate” their infant years nor the “job” Geraldine was doing.
“When children are young you are typically building a business,” he said.
“You are getting home late, tired and cranky sometimes, sometimes even depressed.”
Regardless of those beginnings, Noel’s love of family shines through, speaking of each of them glowingly including grandson Freddie and another grandchild due in a few weeks.
The Whittakers and extended family members – including Mark and his wife Katherine and Elizabeth and her husband Greg (Quinn) – “have always made a point of” getting together each Sunday night for a meal.
Asked who dons the apron Noel doesn’t hesitate to sprout their “takeaway” options.
Also meeting Mark for lunch often and with James working in the office, Noel rarely is far from family.
With an incredibly optimistic outlook and much yet to achieve Noel remains “concerned” at various issues colouring our conversation.
“When I go past building sites I see the amount of money wasted on cigarette smoking,” he said.
“People use their money on quick-fix options.
“I’m also concerned about the amount of money it costs to receive (financial) advice.
“In the government’s endeavour to protect people they make us give a potential investor a 100-page document … (and) that costs $3000.
“That’s sad.”
Noel soon then quotes some of the “greats” like Shakespeare, with a more philosophical tone, giving rise to the fact we are all “merely players” with our “exits and entrances”.
It’s a tone of making the most of life – and a knowing that “time is money” – fundamentally of using such money, born from talent and likely some failure, wisely.
“I still feel like the 16-year-old that was at Salisbury high school,” Noel said.
“I don’t want anyone to look at me and think I’m any different.
“I’m someone with a good work ethic who has built his life on integrity.
“The more you do (for others) the more will come back to you.”
Asked what he would like to be remembered for – a question posed around the time of his “transformation” in the ’80s – Noel didn’t hesitate all these years later.
“I’d like them to say, ‘He was an ordinary bloke with a great sense of humour who made a difference to the lives of a lot of people’.”
