Quiet Wealth Strategies for Financial Freedom: Clare Baukham on How High Earners Should Really Build Wealth

Most people assume financial freedom comes from making more money. Clare Baukham has seen the opposite play out again and again.

Most people believe financial freedom comes from earning more, but Clare Baukham’s work with high net worth individuals shows why making more money doesn’t create freedom. Many successful professionals master income but overlook money mindset and structure. This gap explains what high earners get wrong about money. Without intentional wealth building strategies, even wealthy households feel pressure instead of peace. Clare Baukham emphasizes that true freedom comes from clarity, not constant growth, and that financial freedom requires designing wealth to support life, not dominate it.

A key distinction Clare Baukham highlights is quiet wealth vs loud wealth explained in practical terms. Loud wealth is reactive, visible, and volatile, while quiet wealth strategies focus on stability, patience, and reducing financial volatility. Understanding how wealthy people manage money reveals a disciplined approach centered on asset diversification strategies rather than chasing returns. For entrepreneurs especially, wealth planning for entrepreneurs must account for irregular income and risk exposure. How entrepreneurs should structure their wealth depends on building systems that work quietly in the background while decisions remain calm and intentional.

Clare Baukham also explains the role of alternative assets in long-term planning and why alternative investments for high net worth individuals are about balance, not speculation. When combined with traditional planning, alternative assets help smooth volatility and strengthen resilience. This approach reframes wealth as a tool rather than a source of stress. Ultimately, Clare Baukham teaches that lasting financial freedom comes from aligning money mindset with structure, allowing wealth to grow steadily without noise, anxiety, or constant attention.

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Most people assume financial freedom comes from making more money. Clare Baukham has seen the opposite play out again and again

Hey, Don Williams here with today’s episode of The Proven Entrepreneur Show. I got a great guest. She’s hiding out in Mexico. Clare Baukham, I’m sorry, with Clear Wealth Group and Clear Art Reserve. Clare, welcome to the show.

Thank you, thanks for having me.

Yeah, thrilled to have you. Before we get started, you have these two, they fit together, but they wouldn’t fit together for most people, okay? Pretty creative that you fit them together. Tell us about Clear Wealth Group and Clear Art Reserve and what you do in those two companies and who you serve and why you do it.

Just tell us your story.

Absolutely. So I started actually as a floral designer, believe it or not. I’m Canadian, so I was downtown Toronto, working the floral circuit. I got a really good name there. And I ended up opening my own flower store, but of course I developed an allergy to the flowers. Why not? So you may as well be allergic to your passion and your dream. So I actually became a full-time actress as well.

I sold my store and I was doing both for a while and I sold my store. Yeah, and I became an actress and I opened a theater company and was going very well. You know, to be honest, every business I was in, it was about how can I become incredibly wealthy? So I was working, I was kind of slowing down on acting a little bit because the gigs are just not there. Every actor is pretty much always unemployed.

So I decided I didn’t want to be unemployed all of the time. I wanted to make a lot of money. So I took rich over fame. my parents owned a machine shop, Lawn Mowers, Chainsaws, outdoor power equipment basically. And I was working with them and they wanted to retire and I didn’t want to take it over.

So we decided the trajectory of the business was not going to be as lucrative as because the Home Depot’s and all of those were coming and they had the same kind of equipment as us, right? So the little guy was getting squeezed out, which was fine. It was time for them to go and time for me to move on. So I did and I became an options trader, full-time options trader. I just went off and I learned technical analysis and I started trading the markets and I got a really good name for myself. People

started to hear, this Clare Baukham is a really good trader. I’m going to give her my money because she’s making a lot of money on her own. Well, it turns out you need a license for that. So anywhere in the world, well, maybe not anywhere, but. So I decided to become a financial advisor. Remember when my husband said to me, well, you should just become an advisor, get your hours in the business, and then you can be, you you can start your hedge fund.

I don’t want to be a financial advisor. That’s gross. I didn’t have a good image of them in my mind. So I did become one. My first gig as an advisor, I was making 4,000 cold calls a week. So it was very boring for me. I am very creative. I’m very much an entrepreneur. I needed to get out of that. So I went down the street from where I was living and I…

Hehehe.

basically walked into the firm and I said, hey, I want to join your firm. I want to get licensed and let’s do it. So we did. And I was basically going to go in there, get my hours and then get out of there as fast as possible. However, got basically the largest advisor in the country took me under his wing. And he started to teach me all of these really interesting strategies that none of the other advisors knew because they didn’t have, I guess, he used to call me a diamond in the rough.

So I guess they didn’t show that to him. So he thought I’m gonna take you with me basically. So he did and I was really fortunate. I made a lot of money. I won a lot of awards. I made my clients a lot of money because of the strategies he taught me. And then from then to be honest, from day one, I was a superstar in this business and I was unhappy. It just, it bored.

Mmm.

It just, I felt like if somebody even came back to me, we used to sit in the bullpen where all of the new advisors would sit together and make those calls and everything, right? And this is about 15 years ago now. And someone, one of the other advisors came up to me and he said, you’re too big for this place. And I didn’t let that go to my head like, yeah, I am too big for this. It wasn’t about ego. It was about, you’re right. There’s something else down the line for me that I’m feeling somewhere else because…

Everything in my life was always about making the most amount of money for myself and my clients the easiest way possible Not meaning Bad things illegal things but meaning what else is out there? How did people get super rich in or wealthy in life, right? So Off I went to another firm and my boss was a billionaire So there I was in his massive boardroom overlooking the helicopter pad

I took he as a very, very tall man, big hands. I took his big hand in mine and I said, so how’d you do it? And he told me the entire story of how he became a billionaire. So with that in my mind, fast forward a couple of years, I’m studying, I’m going to show you how I married the two companies. I’m studying mindset basically for high performers in a hundred million dollar, 92 million dollar mansion in Bel Air, California.

So we got to be in the house for the day, take your shoes off, walk around in your bare feet, really feel the feeling of being in the house, right? So I’m in this beautiful house, really nicely done. You we get to go upstairs, change the group of men and women, change for dinner, come back down, and there’s the owner of the house. And if you’re like me, you want to meet the owner of a hundred million dollar house. So I went right up to him and I said, Hey, I’m Clare Bauckham. It’s nice to meet you. I just wanted to, you know, I just wanted to introduce myself and

let you know I love your place here and right beside him was his art dealer. So and the art dealer said to me, hi, he introduced him so he kind of interjected. He said have you ever thought about art as an asset class? Because doing what you do you guys don’t usually get into and I said no we don’t normally get into art as an asset class, you’re right. So from there I started to let it percolate and swirl and every night I would do the research.

As much as I attacked those strategies that my mentor gave me, I started to really research art. Honestly, I love art as a passionate, creative person, but that’s not what this was for for me. This was more, can this be an asset class that really works for people and can create that alpha in their portfolio that we’re all seeking this piece? Everyone’s got that constant rate of return, that beautiful beta.

If you have an advisor, I’m pretty sure, especially in the last year, I’ve seen some of my personal portfolio and some of my clients, I’ve seen them go up 60, 70 % with some of the things. Great. Everyone should have been making money in the last year. However, 60, 70 % is incredible. How are you making one in 200 % in something alpha related? Right? Warren Buffett always gets into, we hear it.

silver, Warren’s buying whatever amount of the hundred million, a hundred billion dollars of silver or gold or oil. I didn’t want anything that was so volatile. Everyone’s dealing with the roller coaster at all times. You’re dealing with it with your government, with your taxes, with your job, with the uncertainty. If you’ve got kids, it’s a whole other thing that you’re dealing with. So I wanted something stable. I wanted to know what the ultra wealthy were doing.

And that was what I wanted to start directing my people towards. So you asked me, who am I normally dealing with? I deal with a lot of C-suite execs. deal with a lot, a lot of business owners because the mindset of a business owner and an entrepreneur, it’s very different than an employee. So they’re, they’re looking at things. Yeah. They’re looking for those things, those alternative. You’ve heard of the strategies of be your own banker by using these,

No doubt.

long-term life insurance, permanent life insurance. We do those as well for all these people. So my thought was, can I get out of the traditional line of financial advisory and start to really help people who are in that, you know, earning as a household three to 500 plus plus plus plus. So we get into people that are making 10, 20 million, even plus plus, right?

But however, we do not exclude people who are really willing to and want to go the distance and become those people who are making that 10, 20, 30, $100 million a year. It’s not fair, right? We were all little guys at one point. So I’m coming from, you know, not being able to afford fruit in the winter at my parents’ machine shop when I was a kid. So I believe that everyone gets equal opportunity, right? So.

Yeah. I think, I think most self-made people are always at a certain point are looking for how can they reach behind them and help somebody else up. and that’s, and that’s pretty, pretty common with people who started with nothing, a little different with people who inherited, but, people who started with nothing, they’re almost always looking to help somebody. Okay. So let me, the great story, great background.

So that’s my story.

pull people up. Yeah.

Yes.

You obviously were hitting 500 foot home runs right off the bat. And people recognize that. Let me ask you a couple of questions. So in that group, what’s like the biggest money mistake you see really successful, really intelligent people making and why are they making that mistake?

even at that level, you will find that the money is still too loud for all of them. Meaning they’re chasing, they’re grinding. Yeah, they’re grinding, they’re hustling, they’re exhausted, they’re stressed, they’re sick, they’re unhappy. And all of those things for me will pinpoint back to how you are with your money.

tell me more about money too loud.

If you’re unhappy with your job, for example, let’s just take that’s a super common one. If you’re unhappy with your job, you’re not going to be performing as highly as you could be. you’re going to be scraping. If you’re feeling like it’s a hustle and a grind, I have, I have guys right now that I’m dealing with and I’m grinding. I said, let’s remove that language because even as a wealth architect, I may not be helping people with their plan and their budget. don’t do budgets. I don’t think you, it’s not for me, but

Even with all of that, everyone is dealing with this noise. It’s loud out there. So not enough of them are dealing with beautiful, quiet wealth and quiet wealth strategies. Everything is so in your face. You’ve got all the ladies with the, offense, I love Louis Vuitton, their beautiful brand. It’s loud, loud fashion, loud, brands everywhere. Look at me, I’m going to jump off a building. No more jump off a building. Quiet, zen.

Peaceful you can make money you can I know some of my clients make I’ve got I’ve got one guy I’m just thinking of in particular The guy walks into the gym. He’s probably worth. don’t know half a billion dollars something like that Including everything everywhere globally and he walks in and just a regular t-shirt and nothing shorts now He’s got his Rolls Royce parked in the gym parking lot. It’s a beautiful machine

You just wouldn’t know his hair is kind of fluffy, you know, so this is that beautiful, quiet wealth. So that’s that’s what I see is missing. If the portfolio is moving, if it’s too loud, there’s too much volatility. It doesn’t mean to it shouldn’t all be like that. There should be a piece or or all of it that should be architected so that it just goes beautifully and you go and you do your job and let us do ours for you quietly.

I love that.

Love that. Okay, so when you say the word financial freedom, what does that look like in quiet wealth?

It looks to me, you know, I did a post the other day on my Instagram and I, as you know, I’m hiding in Mexico. It’s what I do all winter. I have to get away from the Canadian winters. And I posted the ocean and one of my clients said to me, that’s what quiet wealth sounds like. So.

Nice.

Think about it. The freedom to be here, work from anywhere, I homeschool my kid, he’s six years old. That may not be for everyone. Quiet wealth, what does it look like? It looks like what is the biggest vision that you have for yourself? Is it hopping on a private jet and going to the island and sipping whatever you want to sip on? Is it working from your computer for, I wake up at four o’clock in the morning with my husband and we work for three or four hours.

What is it? It’s whatever you want it to look like. It’s getting away from the grind. You notice that more and more of us are sick. I have Crohn’s disease, severe Crohn’s disease for 22 years. Stress. Stress is my number one trigger. Why? Why are we all stressed? Money is just a tool. We shouldn’t feel this stress and tense about it. Even the clients, like I said, who are making tens and 20, a hundred million dollars a year in their companies.

They feel that too, and they really shouldn’t have to. It should be more of an autopilot. So the freedom could be going to work every day if you’re loving it. I think the freedom is when you get to the end of your life, are you going to feel good about everything behind you? So always taking every single step and your plan and think about when I’m there on my deathbed, how is that dash?

I love that definition.

You’re born, you’re dead. The dash in between. How does that look? Right? So for me, wealth really relates to everything in life, right? So you can see, I can relate it to anything because it’s everyone’s running around out there right now trying to make as much as possible as fast as possible. So why? So they can have that freedom, but you can have the freedom now today, right? As long as you’re structuring it properly.

Love that. So what’s one financial decision that people before that, when they first come to you that they’ve delayed that costs them?

So many people are afraid to use other people’s money to get themselves ahead because they don’t know what they don’t know. But so many people haven’t done any saving or very little saving. So they say to me, well, right now we’re making a half a million as a household or a million as a household. We like the same in our retirement. That’s nice. You only have, you know, three million saved.

you’re not going to be able to take if you’re taking between 3 and 6 % from the portfolio, this is not going to work for you, right? So a lot of them, most people are ignoring what just needs to be done. It’s kind of like the weight loss thing, the eating well thing. We know we should be doing it, but it’s like, yeah, but I’m going to have a pizza tonight. You know, it’s like, we avoid it. It’s painful, right? But if we just lean into it a little bit,

I think that people, even at the extremely wealthy side, they really don’t understand the tool of money. They know how to make it, but then they don’t know what to do with it. So those are the things I see the most.

Yeah, I love that. And I certainly think that there are separate skills. It’s one thing to make money and a lot of people never figure that part out. That’s another thing to grow money, you know, from an investment standpoint and even fewer people kind of figure that out, I think. So, Clare, if somebody listening wanted to reach out to you or your company,

Yeah. Yeah.

What’s the best way they should do that?

Yeah, so they can reach me on one of our websites, clearwealthgroup.com or clearartreserve.com or if they want to find me personally, my Instagram handle is at Clare Baukham.

Awesome. Clare, it’s been a pleasure to have you on the show today. You are a breath of fresh air in your industry. And so thank you so much. I’m grateful.

Thank you. That is lovely to hear. I appreciate that.

That’s today’s episode of The Proven Entrepreneur Show. We’ll see you next time. Thanks.