Property Hub - Investment Insights & Inspiration - Get Invested: Allan and Barbara Pease give you The Answer

Starting point is 00:00:00 If you start with how, it's never going to happen. You've got to start with what. That is, here's what I will do. I will become a real estate developer. I will start adding houses, properties, whatever. And people say, but how will you do that, Bushy? And your answer is, I don't know, but that's what I'm going to do. Yeah, but how? You haven't got the money, you haven't got the talent, you haven't got the job, you haven't got the... I don't know, but that's what I'm going to do. And if they keep asking how, stop telling them. Stop telling your dreams to dreams dealers and emotional vampires. Welcome to the Get Invested Podcast, where we share great conversations with experts from all walks of life to uncover their secret know-how and where they invest their time, their skills, and their money, and the benefits that this has created.

Starting point is 00:00:42 You see, the truth is that everyone invests. Every minute of every day, we're investing our time, our skills, our energy, and our money in something. Some of us are investing consciously, some unconsciously, sometimes for good, sometimes for bad, sometimes for no impact. Get Invested will help you to start living by design, not by default. I'm going to help you to make it happen, not let it happen. You'll hear the top tips on how you can live with conscious intent so that you can live more, work less, and leave a living legacy by investing now.

Starting point is 00:01:17 listen to the show to discover the top tips on how to get started make the most of your investment journey and ultimately to be living your dream not someone else's more episodes can be found on itunes or at bushymartin.com.au forward slash get invested thanks for listening and now let's get invested hi freedom fighters what are your dreams and aspirations and what are you doing about achieving them? Do you have the answers to your life? And how important are others to your success?

Starting point is 00:01:57 And if so, how do you build great relationships and partnerships with them? How do you read them and connect with others? Today I want to return to one of my favourite and recurring themes, How to Start Living by Design, Not by Default. At the time of this episode, it's late December 2020, and the perfect time of the year, although any time is if you make time for it, to reflect on our lives and where we're heading. Am I on track?

Starting point is 00:02:32 Am I happy with where I am? What am I uncomfortable or unhappy with? What are my future goals and aspirations and unrealised dreams? What am I doing about them and what do I need to do differently? Today's special episode will give you all of the timely information, inspiration and the answers you need to get clear on your life direction and what to do about it. The answer is going to surprise you because I guarantee that it's not what you think. and to give you the answer

Starting point is 00:03:06 I'm really thrilled to be talking with another couple of my lifetime heroes and heroines and partners in all things Alan and Barbara Peace if you haven't heard of them and you don't admire them then you've probably been living under a rock for the last 30 or 40 years

Starting point is 00:03:23 and during this time they've been my virtual mentors and life guides equipping me with everything I need to prosper in life I can honestly say that I wouldn't be where I am today if not for their timely and timeless guidance in all aspects of my life both personally and professionally Yes, I know this is a big statement but I also know that it's true

Starting point is 00:03:48 Why? When I was in my late teens and early twenties I was a bit of an introvert and quite reserved I was a bit awkward and shy by nature. Yeah, I know, you probably find that hard to believe, as you can hardly shut me up on subjects that I'm passionate about now. Although, I still really enjoy retreating into my cave, where I can spend some time with my thoughts.

Starting point is 00:04:17 Now, I was lucky enough to realise early that success in anything is a team sport. Whether it's your life partnership, your marriage, work interactions, customers, clients, you name it. How you relate, read and connect with others in all aspects of your life will ultimately determine your level of success, however you choose to define that. So to overcome my reserved awkwardness and lack of confidence with people generally, and particularly the fairer sex, I read, studied, watched, role-played and practiced everything I could get my hands, ears and eyes on to improve my relationship interactions at all levels and apart from the timeless classic how to win friends and influence people by dale

Starting point is 00:04:59 carnegie my greatest life teachers have been today's guests and the books that they've authored so understandably i'm a bit nervous and a lot excited about finally connecting with them personally on today's show now alan and barbara peace are world renowned as mr and mrs body language. So let me give you a quick rundown on them both as the amazing couple that they've combined their chemistry and their multiplying synergy that has allowed them to become living legends. As they say, behind every great man is an even greater woman and vice versa of course. Just ask my awesome wife Sonia, she'll tell you. Now in a nutshell, Alan and Barbara are the most successful relationship authors in business they've written a total of 18 bestsellers

Starting point is 00:05:48 including 10 number ones and they give seminars in up to 30 countries every year their books are available in over 100 countries they're translated into 55 languages and have sold over 27 million copies great they appear regularly in the media worldwide and their work has been the subject of nine television series, four stage plays, and a number one box office movie, which attracted a combined audience of over 100 million people. Their company, Peace International Limited, produces videos, training courses, and seminars for business and governments worldwide, and their monthly relationship column was read by over 20 million people in 25 countries. Now, underpinning all of this, Alan researches and studies the

Starting point is 00:06:39 psychology of selling relationships and human communication he teaches simple field-tested skills and techniques that get results and he delivers his message in a really humorous way as you're about to find out which motivates people to want to use these ideas immediately alan takes you through powerful communication techniques and teaches you how to decode a wide range of subtle clues that appear in meetings phone calls negotiations and face-to-face encounters he's addressed audiences in 70 countries and his programs are used by business and governments to teach powerful relationship skills his messages are relevant to any area of life that involves winning people over and getting them to like you to cooperate to follow you or to say yes

Starting point is 00:07:25 now in parallel barbara peace is australia's biggest selling female non-fiction author Barbara is CEO of the Peace's immensely successful company Peace International which produces their books, their videos, training courses and seminars worldwide Barbara has also established an enviable media and brand presence for the business in every major economy in the world ensuring the Peace name is synonymous with body language and communications Now interestingly, Barbara also runs a successful property development business and oversees their $2 million television and music recording studios

Starting point is 00:08:03 called Heliport Studios. That's recorded over 100 albums, TV shows and movies, including a DreamWorks production. Barbara has appeared on major TV programs in the UK and Europe, including six TV series for BBC Science. She's co-author of the number one European box office hit movie Why Men Don't Listen and Women Can't Park Cars. and Barbara is also a fitness and wellness dog IT and a company swimmer

Starting point is 00:08:31 and she practices jujitsu, so I'm not going to argue with them. Now together, Alan and Barbara have six children and eight grandchildren. As you can see, they are a truly dynamic duo. And as you're about to hear, they're also lots of fun and very down-to-earth to boot. Now the best-selling books are absolute must-reads if you intend to achieve success in any area of your life and should actually be mandatory school textbooks and, I think, compulsory reading.

Starting point is 00:09:05 And my favourites include The Definitive Book of Body Language, Why Men Don't Listen and Women Can't Read Maps, Why Men Want Sex and Women Need Love. There's a book called Questions Are the Answers. And then How Compatible Are You, which is a relationship quiz book, and The Body Language of Love.

Starting point is 00:09:26 Now most of them also come in audiobook and DVD programs so jump on www.peaceinternational.com that's P-E-A-S-E, peaceinternational.com and grab your copies. They're all both fun and informative and will make great reading over the break and a good time to start putting them into action. Now I can personally guarantee that they'll be life-changing

Starting point is 00:09:51 in your outlook, your understanding of human nature, and how you interact, relate, and connect with others. And today, their latest book, The Answer, How to Discover What You Want from Life and Then Make It Happen, is what we're going to focus on, because it's a book that will show you how to find the answer to life's questions, and it's based on their own experience. Because when disaster struck their lives some years ago, Alan and Barbara turned to science to learn how to turn failure into ultimate success. They discovered new studies of the brain

Starting point is 00:10:23 that show you how you can reprogram your mindset, enabling you to see opportunities, not difficulties. In the answer, the Pisa shared their experiences with honesty and humour to show you how to make your life what you want it to be. Here's a brief amended excerpt to whet your appetite. It opens with a quote by Hunter S. Thompson. You've probably heard it before. life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well

Starting point is 00:10:52 preserved body but rather to skid in broadside in the cloud of smoke thoroughly used up totally worn out and loudly proclaiming wow what a ride picking up the answer is your first step in taking yourself down roads that you may never have considered before and may not even have known about in any case. By the time you're halfway through reading it, you'll realise why you're where you are and why you have what you have at this point in your life. You'll have the answers that will help you to take you to wherever you're capable of going. In the answer, Alan and Barbara show you how to decide what you really want out of life and how to get it. You'll learn how to prioritise your ideas, reclaim your life, deal with obstacles and avoid being manipulated by

Starting point is 00:11:43 others, especially friends and family members. They'll help you to choose your own path, not one that someone's trying to push you down. They'll show you how to take charge of your life and become the person you want to be. You'll discover how to deal with any circumstances that arise, no matter how difficult, no matter how overwhelming or hopeless that they may seem when they first appear. You'll learn how to go from where you are now to where you'd like to be. they'll show you the proven principles of success that men and women have used throughout history to achieve greatness and to recover from or to overcome failure they've learned many of these principles directly from some of the masters over the last 50 years and these lessons are the main

Starting point is 00:12:26 motivation for their personal successes they're also going to explain new studies of the brain that reveal why some people are hugely successful while others are failures they explore a brain operating system that you can program to take you anywhere you want to go. Starting with Giuseppe Moresi and H.W. Magoon. These scientists have discovered a part of the brain that directs and determines the level of success or failure that each of us has in our lives. Now they discuss this brain system and the benefits that come from using it, which will form the basis of everything else

Starting point is 00:13:03 they cover throughout the book. The book also answers your questions about anything you've ever heard or read about goal setting, visualisation, affirmations, prayer, alpha thinking and the laws of attraction. They discuss the simple but powerful skills they've learnt that help them deal with almost everything that happens in life, both good or bad. They answer the big questions about how to get anything you want from life

Starting point is 00:13:28 despite what can sometimes seem like impossible circumstances. The concepts that they explore in the answer have changed the lives of the participants in their seminars and they can change your life too. The book is called The Answer because that's what you're going to find in it. So if life is a game, the answer gives you the rules.

Starting point is 00:13:52 Now, Napoleon Hill was famous for saying that whatever the mind can conceive and believe, the body can achieve. And when Hill made this landmark statement way back in 1937 in his classic book, Think and Grow Rich, He didn't have the medical science, the brain scanners or the technology that we now take for granted to prove his beliefs. He claimed that if you could think clearly of something and you really wanted it, you could achieve it.

Starting point is 00:14:21 Now science has removed much of the mystery and hocus pocus surrounding iconic statements such as this one by Hill. And we now have scientific insights into the processes of achievement, goal setting, self-fulfilling prophecies, the function of prayer and the law of attraction. Science can now show us where and how success works in the brain. And you're about to learn about a remarkable system that we all have in our brains, the reticular activating system, or RAS. The RAS, located in the brainstem of the mammalian brain, is a bunch of neural fibres commonly known as the reticular formation. The RAS plays a part in many important functions in human biology,

Starting point is 00:15:02 including sleeping and waking, breathing, the beating of your heart and behavioural motivation. The RAS also contributes to sexual arousal, appetite and eating, the elimination of body waste, control of consciousness and the ability to bring certain things to your attention. Trauma to the RAS can cause a coma. It has been linked to several medical conditions including narcoscopy, I can't even say it, narcolopathy, how's that? We'll run with that one.

Starting point is 00:15:37 The RAS functions as a network of neurons and neural fibres running through the brainstem, and these neurons connect to various other parts of the brain. This system has two parts, the ascending RAS, which connects to parts of the brain including the cortex, the thalamus and the hypothalamus, which are all parts of the memory, and the descending RAS, which connects to the cerebellum and to nerves responsible for various senses.

Starting point is 00:16:04 Now, by the mid-20th century, physiologists had proposed that some structure deep within the brain controlled mental wakefulness, alertness and motivation. Scientists first became aware of the existence of the RAS in 1949 when, at the University of Pisa, H. W. Magoon and Giuseppe Maruzzi investigated the neural components regulating the brain's sleep-wake mechanisms and reported their findings in the inaugural volume of a scientific journal.

Starting point is 00:16:33 This early research eventually led to the discovery that the RAS is the portal through which nearly all information enters the brain. Now smells are the exception. They go directly into the brain's emotional area. The RAS filters the incoming information and affects what you notice. your level of arousal and decides which information is not going to get access to your brain. The RAS is connected to the spinal cord at its base

Starting point is 00:17:02 from where it accepts information that comes directly from the ascending sensory tracts. Any new information or learning must enter the brain through one or more of the senses and is decoded by the sense-specific receptors of the body. From there, the information travels through the nerves in the skin or body to the spinal cord and up through the reticular activating system, or RAS, to the part of the brain that receives input from that particular sense. So the RAS is the brain's command and control centre. The RAS is a place where your thoughts, internal feelings

Starting point is 00:17:37 and outside influences all meet. It produces dynamic effects on the motor activity centres in your brain and in the cortex activity, such as the frontal lobes. It's a network of nerve pathways that filter all the sensory input your brain receives from your external world. Whatever you see, hear, feel or taste passes through the RAS. Put simply, the RAS is the answer to switching on your brain and is the brain's main centre of motivation. So how does the RAS work? Well, the brain processes over 400 million bits of information every second,

Starting point is 00:18:19 but only 2,000 bits can be processed consciously. The remainder is processed without your awareness. In other words, 99.99% of the information presented to you every day goes completely unnoticed. This is the only way we can deal with everyday life and the millions of bits of information flooding into our awareness and demanding our attention. If you had to deal with all the messages simultaneously, you just wouldn't cope and you'd pass out.

Starting point is 00:18:48 So evolution has given us the RAS, the equipment to filter all information and to extract only what's important to us at any given moment. Your RAS functions like a sorting office, evaluating the incoming information and prioritising that information in the form of messages that need your attention. It's a filter between your conscious and subconscious mind and it takes instructions from your conscious mind and passes them on to your subconscious. Your brain then instructs your body

Starting point is 00:19:18 to make the physical actions necessary to comply with the image of the RAS that instructs. It sorts through your environment for information patterns that best match your beliefs or the things that are familiar to you. Then it links your thoughts and feelings with similar things in your environment. When it finds a match,

Starting point is 00:19:36 your conscious mind is alerted. The RAS also exists in other primates. Chimpanzees, for example, share 99% of our DNA and, like humans, a chimp's RAS receives all incoming sensory data. It scans and prioritises the data in accordance with its hardwired programs just as it does in us humans. It controls the chimp's basic functions of pulse, sleep, awareness, digestion and cardiovascular function as it does in humans. Where its functions differs

Starting point is 00:20:11 from that of humans is that we have a more highly developed sense of self. We're driven by an insatiable need to know who, what, why, where and when. A chimp's RAS operates like a primitive computer that runs basic programs. A human RAS functions like the latest most dynamic computer system. In the brains of some people, the RAS can't always efficiently excite the cortex as it should. Such people have difficulty learning, poor memory, and little self-control. When the RAS is overstimulated, our behavior is marked by hypervigilance, sensory hypersensitivity, constant talking, restlessness, and hyperactivity. For people diagnosed with attention deficit disorders like ADD and ADHD. The ascending

Starting point is 00:21:01 RAS doesn't have enough of the chemical, and I'm going to try and pronounce this so bear with me, and if there's any doctors out there I'm probably going to get it wrong, it's norepinephrine to excite the cortex. Norepinephrine is the same chemical that's released whenever our heart rate increases or our breathing hastens and so on. People with ADD and ADHD can take drugs that temporarily make the RAS more efficient at using the norepinephrine than it already has.

Starting point is 00:21:34 This helps their concentration, their perception, their ability to memorise and improves their learning. The RAS also deals with social contacts. Introverts have more activity going on in their RAS than extroverts. Scientists believe that the RAS of an introvert is aroused more easily than that of an extrovert because introverts often have difficulty talking to others and when they do, their brains show a strong reaction, similar to a type of panic.

Starting point is 00:22:02 The RAS also has a GPS and a search engine. Your RAS responds to your name, to anything that threatens your survival and to information that you need to know immediately. For example, if you're looking for a computer file that you're sure you placed somewhere on your desk, your RAS alerts your brain to search for the name of the file, say an overseas travel itinerary or it'll focus on one word in the file name to help you find it

Starting point is 00:22:28 the function of the razz is also what is often commonly recalled the law of attraction now the comedian steve martin once quipped that the roman emperor marcus aurelius said men or man becomes what he thinks about all day long if that was true steve said i'd be a woman now your razz has a built-in GPS system. With a GPS, you don't need to know where all the roads are located in a given city. You only need to decide where you want to go. You input the data and the GPS directs you. If you take a wrong turn, it puts you back on track. The satellite software in a GPS works out how to get you there. And that is exactly how your RAS works. With a GPS, you need to decide where you want to go not how you're going to get there. In exactly the same way once you've decided

Starting point is 00:23:26 on your goal your RAS begins to see everything connected with it. If you veer off course it re-reaches you. The RAS is also similar to a heat seeking missile. You put in the coordinates of where you want it to go, press the launch button and it goes there. On the way it filters out all the useless information around you and only keeps what's relevant. For example, the instruction might be, listen for my name. So if you're walking through a busy shopping mall or an airport and your name is called out of the PA system, you hear it. Now, how does your belief system work then? Well, scientists have found that the RAS also controls our belief system and it will only recognise or select information that supports

Starting point is 00:24:13 our beliefs. This means that no matter what we believe or think, our rows will pay more attention to it or will filter all other information around us to help us to get to what we've chosen to believe. This is why some people see opportunities where others see difficulties. It's also why some can believe things that the rest of us know are not true. Now, as aside, in the Chinese language, the word crisis is composed of two characters, one representing danger and the other, opportunity. Now it's obvious that how you feel about any event is influenced by what you think it means. In other words, your belief system will determine whether your RAS will work for or against you. If you believe that you can only make

Starting point is 00:25:04 money by working harder you'll only see information that confirms this belief and you'll proceed in life as if this were true and i certainly suffer from that for many years your razz will filter out any opportunities that offer you ways to make more money without having to work harder so your razz can either work for you or against you it depends entirely on what you think about if you want your razz to work for you then you must program it to watch out for what you want not for what you don't want. When you program a specific idea or a goal into your RAS it doesn't matter whether you're asleep or awake

Starting point is 00:25:43 or whether you're thinking about it or not. The RAS will find precisely what you've told it to find just like the search function on a computer. It will pick out the relevant data from the millions of bits of information around you for your attention and it will edit out irrelevant information. When you create a clear, focused picture of what you want The RAS kicks into high gear and doesn't stop until it finds it for you.

Starting point is 00:26:10 So how does a RAS choose which information it'll see? Well, imagine that you're walking through a busy, noisy airport terminal. Think of all the sounds that surround you, the hundreds of people talking, music and announcements. You can hear the general background noise, but your RAS doesn't listen to each individual sound. So let's go back to this example, an announcement that comes over the PA saying your name or your flight number. Suddenly, your attention is at its peak because your RAS brings this relevant information to your immediate conscious attention.

Starting point is 00:26:42 Your RAS acts as a filter, dampening the effect of all of the other repeated stimuli, such as the loud noises, and prevents your senses from being overloaded. Then it brings forward your name. So, why do you see your car everywhere? Have you ever noticed that once you've decided on the type of car that you want to buy,

Starting point is 00:27:04 it seems that every other car on the road is the one that you've been considering. You'll see it in car parks, on TV, at shopping malls and centres. That car's everywhere. This is because your RAS is working, filtering out the other cars, the unimportant information, and bringing the car of your thoughts to the forefront of your mind. The numbers of that particular car have not increased since you've decided to buy it. It's simply that your RAS is in action.

Starting point is 00:27:31 If you lose interest in that car, you'll no longer see it on the roads. You'll razzle while you see your car everywhere you go. Now, when a woman becomes pregnant, it starts to seem to her as if every second woman around her is also pregnant. If you have a new baby in the house, you may be so tired that you can sleep through the noise of the traffic and noisy neighbours that as soon as the baby begins to cry, you're wide awake. In a very different example, if you choose to believe that the world and people are all bad,

Starting point is 00:28:04 every time you turn on the TV or read a newspaper, you will see tragedy, death and war. That's the reason I don't do it. The RAS doesn't care whether you love something or not. It only looks out for the patterns in your environment that match your dominant thoughts or beliefs. If you're continuously thinking about what you don't like, then your RAS has been programmed to alert you to what you don't like. You'll see so much of what you don't want that it could seem as though you're at war with your environment.

Starting point is 00:28:37 This is why we ask you to focus only on what you do want not what you don't. So in summary, it turns out that Napoleon Hill was right and now we have the science to prove it. You program your RAS with your self-talk and your expectations. If your expectations are positive, you'll automatically program your RAS to seek information about positive behaviours and to screen out information about negative ones. Because of this biological filter function, whatever you're thinking about or focusing on will seep into your subconscious mind and reappear at a future time. The exciting breakthrough is that you can deliberately program your RAS by choosing the exact messages you send it.

Starting point is 00:29:22 sent to it from your conscious mind and this means that you can now create your own reality. It's important to note that nothing you learn in the answer is connected to willpower. It all happens in this small bunch of neural fibres running through your brain system, your reticular activating system or your RAS. And the rest of the book, The Answer,

Starting point is 00:29:49 shows you how to learn to program it. Now as you can hear, it really is an informative and inspirational read. So if you want to improve your life but you don't know where to begin, the answer is going to show you how to take the first step towards change, ask the right questions of yourself, decide what you want and establish a true course in your life and gain the confidence to make the changes in any area of your life including your work, relationship or lifestyle.

Starting point is 00:30:19 If you want to get a copy, just go to www.peasinternational.com and the answer will then open your eyes to the proven science that has the power to separate those that do from those that don't. It's another of their must-read guidebooks that's both entertaining, engaging and instructive. I know you're going to love it. Just like our great conversation with them today. You'll find our chat high energy, infectious, and at times hilarious.

Starting point is 00:30:51 And you can tell I was really excited and having a great time with my superheroes. I pinch myself when I get the opportunity to talk with living legends. And while I think of it, our chat was actually recorded as a live Zoom video call, so you'll have to visualise some of the body language discussion. Now during our great chat today, we cover how their book The Answer helps you achieve your ideal lifestyle and your version of sustainable success. We look at the key questions you need to ask yourself to get your answer.

Starting point is 00:31:20 We look at why understanding and reading body language is now more important than ever. And we discuss how COVID has changed the way we communicate and the impacts that this is having on body language and your ability to read people, connect, communicate, influence and negotiate with each other. We also look at what we need to do differently to thrive in our new environments

Starting point is 00:31:40 that we're now working in moving forward. and we have a really interesting quick chat about the work they continue to do with Russia's leader, Vladimir Putin. And finally, we talk about the power of two, the importance of life partnerships to success in anything. So, after enjoying this fun and energising conversation today, do yourself a favour and jump on www.peaseinternational.com,

Starting point is 00:32:09 scroll to the bottom of the homepage and fill in your details to get instant access to an exclusive life-changing excerpt from this book, The Answer. And while you're there, you can also buy the audio book and the softcover cover or hardcover versions of this and all their other international bestsellers on all things body language. At the same time, you can also register your interest in the PISA's online training courses that are being launched very soon.

Starting point is 00:32:36 and before we get to it i want to ask you a personal favor in order to help improving these podcasts i'm looking for your feedback on which episode you've enjoyed the most and why along with what i need to be doing more or less of any suggestions on topics of interest that you'd like me to explore and even guess you'd like me to interview hit me up at bushy at knowhowproperty.com.au. I'd really appreciate your feedback. So thanks in advance. In the meantime, enjoy this great chat with Alan and Barbara Pease. Hi, Freedom Fighters. Now, as a Get Invested host, I get the really great privilege of having the excuse to reach out to all of my heroes that I've had

Starting point is 00:33:32 immense respect for over the years and today is a massive tick on my A-class bucket list and I've been a big fan of both of you, Ellen and Barbara, since way back in the early 80s when I first read your first book and was listening to you and seeing you on Kerri-Ann Kennelly and the Ray Martin show. Your body language book has been responsible, I know for sure for a lot of my professional success. I'm going to call it the marriage bible.

Starting point is 00:34:02 Your book on men don't listen and women can't read maps has certainly kept me married the second time. Thank you. And I can honestly say that I wouldn't be in the position that I am today and enjoying the lifestyle that I do if it wasn't for the quiet guidance that both of you have given me and many other Australians. So welcome.

Starting point is 00:34:23 Send us a cheque. Send us a cheque. Come on. So, guys, I hope we don't need compliments anymore. We should win the money. Too awful compliments, mate. That's what I say. Anyway, that's my excuse.

Starting point is 00:34:41 Guys, you'd have to be living under a rock not to know who you both are, but there are some young ones amongst us that haven't had the opportunity to really immerse themselves in Mr and Mrs body language. But for those that don't, can you give us a bit of a rundown on who you are, what you're doing now, and why you do what you do? Yeah, well, essentially we're authors. We write books about things that we're interested in under the umbrella of human behaviour.

Starting point is 00:35:12 So the books include things like, as you've mentioned, body language. The original one was written back in the late 70s. Why Men Don't List Women Can't Read Maps was the first book to talk about the differences between how men and women think and how to deal with men and women, which caused a lot of upset because we wrote that at a time

Starting point is 00:35:29 when you're supposed to go around pretending to everybody that men and women think the same way, which if you had any experience with the opposite sex, you know that's just not true. They don't, they're different. And the answer, which is our latest book, which we love, is it's a book about how to get anything you want

Starting point is 00:35:44 based on our own experiences because Barb and I, we get everything we want. we do and i don't know so that in a glib way i say that because we are organized discipline and have systems to get whatever we want and the hardest part for most people when it comes to something like that bush is they don't really even know how to work out what it is they really want that's the hard part for at least half the population and once you've worked out what it is you think you want then the second hard part how the hell do you get it so and we figured out how to do all that and we live a pretty much a pretty much a movie style life is how you'd describe it because for

Starting point is 00:36:16 us we both come from housing commission i come from rural victoria barb comes from uh central queensland housing commission so we we know what it's like to have nothing we know what it's like to have heaps we know what it's like to lose heaps and have nothing again and we know what it's like to be rich again and what we have discovered uh someone said recently would you rather be rich or Well, rich is better. Rich is definitely better. No doubt about that. Guys, sort of expanding into that a bit, if you don't mind,

Starting point is 00:36:52 I'd love to take us through your individual journeys a little bit in terms of where you've invested your time, energy and money from as way back as you'd like to think of and take us through the highs and lows in terms of what you've done and the lessons you've learned that's brought you to where you are today. okay well i'll kick off with that i think the thing that we both have in common we both came from pretty basic backgrounds where our parents were working class and uh we both worked early as kids and by the time we were 10 and 12 we both barb and i both had jobs uh i had a

Starting point is 00:37:27 run uh i had a delivery van run barbara worked can you talk about yourself don't well i'm not I remember I said, okay, I'm going to be obedient husband here. So I had jobs right up to the time I was, well, I've always had jobs. I never stopped. Right through high school I had a job knocking on doors, selling pots and pans. I joined the insurance business financial services for 12 years and that was when body language came out, was halfway through that.

Starting point is 00:37:54 Then that became the new career, if you like. It was always kind of a part-time career. I was talking about human behaviour and going to seminars and that's back in the days, Bushy, the late 60s, early 70s, when there really weren't such things as professional speakers. So I was one of the first. I think I was the first to have a training program that you could actually own yourself personally on.

Starting point is 00:38:17 It was a full pack of audio cassettes, this new thing called audio cassettes, and people couldn't believe you get all this stuff on this little tiny thing, but they had to buy a $70 Sony audio player as well because nobody had an audio player back in those days. So that was my introduction to training in audio. And 16mm film, as it was back in those days, where I had long ears and sideburns because I played in a rock and roll band.

Starting point is 00:38:39 I still play in a rock and roll band. And then after writing Body Language, it became the history right itself. The books just kept going and going and going and going. And Bob and I together, we've done 11 number ones in a row now. And we did that not through any luck. We did that because we decided to write number one books. And that's the important thing here. We made the decision to do that, which you're probably going to ask,

Starting point is 00:39:01 How the hell do you do that? Maybe we'll talk about that later. But that's what we do. We only write books that are number one because it's just as hard, just as easy to write a number one as it is to write a book that does nothing. Yes, and we will dive into that shortly to uncover the goal that's allowed you to do that.

Starting point is 00:39:19 Barbara, what about yourself? Same as Alan, came from a housing commission background. By the age of 12, I had three jobs. and in those jobs I would start at the bottom and then work my way up even at that young age to the top position so I would work for free to learn what was the next step so that I got the job and from there by the age of 17 I had my own car, I bought my own clothes, I went to uni and decided that uni wasn't for me. There was a big world out there and I was going to learn what I could um so I just kept finding mentors so I got into the hotel industry the airline industry

Starting point is 00:40:06 um and newspaper industry and I did I used the same formula I would get a job and then I would look at the other people's jobs and then I'd say can I learn your job for free you know like I'll come in my time off and I'll learn it so that when they went on holiday for anyone else getting a job because I was trained so I could just slot in there and I think the best education for me was newspapers because I learned about advertising and advertorials and you I worked for a small paper in Townsville so we were hands-on we learned everything so that gave me the grounding for how to sell and how to be creative and then from there I started my own business I had a modeling agency where I taught girls and guys

Starting point is 00:40:58 how to walk and talk and be on tv then um I also went into training I decided to work for Torgas and Skillshare and the TAFE colleges teaching various things even if I didn't know the subject I would actually learn it I go oh yeah I can teach that oh I can't I don't know anything about it i better study all my body language videos and that's how i met alan i was training um underprivileged kids how to communicate and how to go in for a job interview and i would use alan's material which was a taped one it wasn't a bought one i heard about so i went out to put that could have stopped for that so um so that was my journey and then i i met alan and it was he thought I was unusual and I thought he was fantastic yeah you stole my stuff because he

Starting point is 00:41:48 was like you're not normal you you know you don't think like normal people and I go no I don't I said you didn't buy that she's not a friend of mine copied on so you're not allowed to do that she said yeah that's right and from the moment that we met it was it just felt right and we've been this most amazing team. We've worked together for 30 years. We've never had an argument in business because we work so well together. It's like separately, Alan was always going to be successful and separately, I was always going to be successful. But joining us together just gives you that third dimension where you're going in the right direction and faster and you can bounce ideas off each other. And it's been an amazing journey and I wouldn't

Starting point is 00:42:37 change anything has it has it been a yin and yang thing is that sort of uh or is it is it different i mean the word's unusual uh i wouldn't mind you expanding on guys because it's sort of the chemistry is is really interesting in the in the way that you know one plus one doesn't equal two it often equals 11 if you've got the right synergy happening and can you talk a bit to that well yeah that's absolutely right i mean i was successful on my own but i was successful on her own and we were both heading down similar type of tracks until we met and one plus one in cases like ours and it doesn't equal two, as you said, it equals somewhere

Starting point is 00:43:16 between five and 11, we think. You get a lot more together because I think there's a man and a woman because you've got a dual perspective. So sometimes Barbara will come up with stuff. I'll say, how the hell does she think of that, man? Because I'm a man, I couldn't possibly think that sort of stuff and sometimes she asks me questions. I say, here's how it works from a male perspective.

Starting point is 00:43:34 And she said, no, you couldn't think that way. Well, yeah, well, we guys, we do. That's how we think. And so by getting a different perspective, that went into our books so that when we're writing our books, for example, I will normally do the first write of something. So we'll discuss an idea or concept, a piece of research or something that we've seen or an event we've witnessed

Starting point is 00:43:51 or something that maybe happened to us or our relatives and we'll discuss what we think it is and what it means and then I'll write what I think we're talking about. Then we give it to Barb and then she goes through and she adds the female perspective of it. And then we just put it back and forth, back and forth, writing, rewriting, until we come up with what will be eventually a chapter of something.

Starting point is 00:44:08 And that way it's a dual perspective. So if you look at Why Men Don't Listen, Women Can't Read, we sold 13 million of that. And the series that followed, there were three in that series. There's Why Men Don't Have a Clue, Women Need More Shoes, Why Men Want Sex, Women Need Love. And they both have a dual perspective, male and female. So 40% of our readers are males, which is really rare

Starting point is 00:44:29 because we're in the self-development book. The self-development, 90% of books are written by women and read by women. We've got 40% male readership because when a guy reads it, as you know because you've read some of their books, it's written for blokes. But when a woman reads it, she thinks it's written from women. Whereas if it's only a male perspective or a female perspective,

Starting point is 00:44:46 you're limiting to some extent how your readership will perceive it. Yeah, I think it's brilliant, the compliment there. And I'd love you to comment on this because I know my good wife, Sonia, she actually knows me better than I know me. And she'll often say, I'll start talking about some new idea I've got and she'll say, oh, you know that's not going to work because, and I go, yeah, you're absolutely right. Yeah, why didn't I think of that?

Starting point is 00:45:14 Does that sort of chemistry happen with both of you as well? Is it sort of this intimate knowledge of each other to the point where it just sort of blends? Well, yeah, it happened about an hour ago. I said, look, there's a great commercial shed over in this commercial area. Now, there's no tenant in it, which is good because that means the banks won't lend investors on it and super funds don't want to buy it because that's a super fund type market because there's no guaranteed income.

Starting point is 00:45:39 And the guy lives in Sydney and he definitely wants to sell it and I reckon we can get a tenant for it. Now, you said the real estate agent said, I can get a tenant tomorrow. Yeah, well, a famous old call, yeah, we'll rent that for you tomorrow. Gee, how many times have we heard that? So I said, look, I reckon we can get, the market is so strong where we live on the Sunshine Coast, for warehousing because warehousing has become the big thing in real estate.

Starting point is 00:45:59 First floor offices, stay away from that because you probably didn't know this, Bushy, but real estate is our biggest business. No, I didn't know that. Yeah, commercial real estate and residential. And it was always our biggest income earner, but now it's our main business because the seminar event business, as you know, is closed this year. We only do larger seminars, 300 people and above,

Starting point is 00:46:19 and that's been closed worldwide since February. and even though online is kind of trying to find its feet, it's still very slow and it's not an organised business yet. And we have a big music business here, the Halleyport Studios, which is our rock and roll business, which is also a significant music business and because it's an enclosed space, you can't have anybody in there. So that has been closed most of the year, started off again recently.

Starting point is 00:46:44 But real estate, especially residential real estate in a place we live in, which is the Sunshine Coast in Australia, is fantastic. Commercials are a bit hard and a bit tricky, but the residential is fantastic. And most people don't know that that's largely where Barb and I today get most of our income, even though in the past it's been books and licences and what else? Speaking.

Starting point is 00:47:07 And speaking has been big things. That's died off. So by default we're now in the real estate business, which is really good. We've done it forever and we know it pretty well. We love it. Yeah, well, I mean, you touched on my favourite subject, so let's dive straight in there now, if you don't mind,

Starting point is 00:47:22 because I'd love you to share your real estate journey and what did you invest in first and why and where has that led to? And, you know, clearly now it's giving you a pretty good income stream during times that are forcing us to do things differently. Can you take us through that journey? Well, yeah. Well, for me, it started back, firstly, when I was 19 years old. I bought my first home for $19,000.

Starting point is 00:47:48 I put a $2,000 deposit on it in Melbourne, in Waverley, and borrowed the balance. Now, what most people do when they buy a residential property, either to live in or as an investment, it can be either, is they think about how much they've ordered it for. Let's say it costs $20,000 to make it, round figures. So if they sold it for $30,000, they say, I made $10,000. But that's not the way you get rich in real estate.

Starting point is 00:48:12 The way you get rich, I mean, the bottom line is, most wealth in the world is in real estate that's the bottom line we always knew that because everybody we knew was wealthy whatever business they're in their wealth was in real estate so we figured you've got to be doing that we love the seminar business because we travel around the world with that and we lived in europe for 12 years and it's just like a like a movie it's terrific however wealth is accumulated in real estate and so by putting two thousand dollars into this property for example let's say it cost it cost me nineteen thousand two thousand dollars into it and spent a bit of money just to tart it up because the gardens

Starting point is 00:48:44 were no good and the inside looked pretty crappy and coat of paint, got it right. And then two years later when it was sold, we netted $4,000 out of that. Now, when you look at that, so it cost $2,000 to do it. So 19, it cost $25,000 the whole project. So someone could say, well, you bought it for 19, you sold it for 26. That's okay. But no, it's not.

Starting point is 00:49:06 It's better than okay because we put 2,000 net in. we pull 4 000 net out and this is the secret secret to multiplying real estate which most people don't get once you get this it changes how you look at it so this is called the 10th multiple system which means you take a thousand and turn it into two how long does it take you to turn it into two most people say well i could probably do it in a month or something i could do it in a week that's the hardest part so if you take one turn it to two then you take the two and do exactly the same thing you buy a bigger house for two hours i turn the two to four then You do the same thing again with the four times bigger

Starting point is 00:49:38 all four houses, 4 to 8, 16, 32, and you multiply it through. The tenth multiple is $1,024,000, and that's how you take $1,000 and turn it into $1,000,000, where most people are looking at how much they cost to buy it and how much they sold it for, which is important, but it's not the most important factor. The important factor with making money in real estate is how long does it take you to double your capital. So if you only put $2,000 in, and after all expenses,

Starting point is 00:50:02 you pull four out, it's 100% improvement, And that's the key to building a big portfolio in real estate. So with our portfolio, we've got, we talked about it this morning, there's about 65% of it now is residential because in southeast Queensland where we are, you Victorians and Sydney-siders, they're all coming up here. Everybody wants to come and live in the sun because you've realised finally, hey, you can work from home.

Starting point is 00:50:29 And, yeah, I do want to go and live in the sunshine. So they're all coming up here, driving the market. So the golden rule of real estate that we've known for a long time is you find out where everybody's going, get there ahead and buy land, which is pretty much what we've done. We've had three major land developments, which have been incredibly successful, and building blocks of units and building houses, residential houses.

Starting point is 00:50:52 The commercial property is still a bit tough at the moment with COVID because people are still reticent about small business about making a move. They don't know what's going to happen. And it's all looking more promising right now, but I don't know. So we're going to stick with residential for a while because population is driving it up here. And we see that as the future, the immediate future for us in real estate.

Starting point is 00:51:14 Yeah, well, it's really interesting. I've often said make your income in the area that you love, you follow your passion as far as that goes, which is exactly what you've done, but build your wealth through property. And then when both intersect and come together, you've just got a fantastic lifestyle and you can basically live for as long as your heart keeps beating. So it really does put you in a strong position.

Starting point is 00:51:39 And I had no idea that that was such an important part of coming underneath what you guys do publicly. We've never enjoyed shares. Shares are a piece of paper and you can't touch them or feel them, whereas we can drive past our properties and we get a lot of enjoyment in doing that. So that's why real estate has always been. We've had essentially five businesses.

Starting point is 00:52:02 We've got the seminar speaking business, which has been fabulous because that generates a great income and a great lifestyle, and that takes us around the world maybe a hundred times. Who knows? It's just an exciting way to live, and we decided to do that. That was never an accident, and that generates great income. However, you don't really get wealthy or rich out of doing that. We have the music business because music's been my passion,

Starting point is 00:52:23 so we have a huge studio. We have three studios here on the property. We make movie soundtracks here and we make albums for rock bands and people who are on The Voice and got talent. And that's a great business, which is an unrelated business, which we know about so we can control it. We've had the video audio business, which has been a really big thing up until the internet appeared five years ago.

Starting point is 00:52:45 It's wiped it out pretty much. And when you look at what's happened with Amazon and with the internet and what's happened with changes and COVID, COVID knocked out the seminar event business. COVID knocked out the music business, even though it's coming back slowly now. Speaking business is starting to try to come back. Australia's a bit different because we're living like it's normal here, whereas overseas it's in devastating condition.

Starting point is 00:53:10 But real estate, in many places, has absolutely boomed for a couple of reasons. People sitting at home, they can't get out, so they're going down the hardware store, buying everything in sight and building their house. So hardware businesses are booming. Building business is booming. Real estate business in places like Sunshine Coast and Byron Bay in Australia, they're booming because people want to go to these places.

Starting point is 00:53:32 And so that's become our major business, which... So the shock of COVID didn't really affect us financially. It affected us from the standpoint we love getting on planes and going to great places. We always take our kids with us when we go, but that's the only thing that's stopped that. We'll come back to some extent eventually, who knows when. But meanwhile, real estate is where wealth is made.

Starting point is 00:53:52 And if you look at the richest people in the world, And two out of three of them, their wealth is real estate-based, whatever business they're in. Yeah, absolutely right. That's a great story. So I didn't understand the breadth of what you do. And what's really good for the listeners to appreciate is that you're diversifying your income streams and it's funding your passions.

Starting point is 00:54:15 You've come through COVID not too concerned because I often say to people don't underestimate the peace of mind that comes from knowing that your income has been protected regardless of what's happening in the world and that's that's been the case for sonia and i because there's a lot of people being very stressed by the uncertainty and because they're so reliant on their work income and if their work stops their income stops their life stops uh what what i love about uh without realizing that you've done you've got irons in a number of fires uh that that sort of feed your passions and now enable you, you've got time on your hands during COVID to stop and prop

Starting point is 00:54:52 and think about, well, what are we going to do now? Well, even within the real estate, we're diversified because when COVID hit really badly, most of our tenants couldn't pay rent in commercial. So the residential was paying for the commercial expenses because they just could not afford to pay. so and then we were in property development as well and that property development was booming because as as alan said the victorians and the sydney siders were coming up and they wanted to

Starting point is 00:55:26 buy our development and it just sold out so even diversifying within real estate is really important for us as well well i think the thing about really getting a successful life anything we figured this a long time ago, is to be in a career or in some sort of a, I wouldn't say job, but in a career that you can't like get up tomorrow morning and go and do that thing. It gives you joys, it gives you excitement, that you really love it. At the end of the day, you go, oh, damn, it's over, and you're looking forward to the next morning.

Starting point is 00:55:57 Now, if you can make a career of that, and everybody can do that. Most people don't believe they can do that. That's the subject we tackle in the book, the answer is, you know, is how do you find your passion and turn it into an income? That way you're looking forward to getting up every day, and when you start generating money, the second thing you must have is multiple streams of income. You must have income coming from other places,

Starting point is 00:56:16 and real estate is always a solid place to start from because populations in the world, especially places like Australia and in great places where we live, like Sunshine Coast, Byron Bay, and there's lots of them in Australia, Mornington Peninsula where you live, people always want to go to great places and live there, and they're always going to have babies. they're always going to grow up so that's a great way for generating but people say well yeah but

Starting point is 00:56:40 how would i do how would i get the money how would i get the deposit that's where people are on the wrong track they start with how how would i do it now if you start with how it's never going to happen you've got to start with what that is here's what i will do i will become a real estate developer i will start adding houses properties whatever and people say but how will you do that bushy your answer is i don't know but that's what i'm going to do yeah but how you haven't got the money haven't got the talent haven't got the job haven't got the i don't know but that's what i'm going to do is they keep asking how stop telling them stop telling your dreams to dream stealers and emotional vampires sadly the most of your family unfortunately well yeah that's right what's

Starting point is 00:57:21 the old story i think uh even jesus's family didn't believe he was a prophet that's uh i often have on that subject and uh but let's dive in there now because that's really the heart and soul of your book the answer which uh which is an absolutely fantastic read and you know you've said in in much better words that the sort of living by design concept that uh that sonja and i uh help people with i'd love to dive into that in a little bit more detail now if we can because it really is a a great way to start flipping people's lids in terms of opening their eyes of the opportunity that we all have, but we've all got it. As you say, Alan, I was talking to someone recently who said

Starting point is 00:58:05 that from year 11 in high school, most kids have given up on their dreams, which is a staggering thing to hear in this day and age. So I'd love you to talk the listeners through that whole process that you outlined so beautifully in the book, The Answer, in terms of how they can start. to, one, find their passions because a lot of people have given up on them so long ago they can't even remember what they are and then the process that you outline to take them

Starting point is 00:58:37 through to how they can actually start to realise that. Can you spend a few minutes doing that with us? She's poking me under the table here so I suppose that means I've got to start talking. Yeah, he can start. He likes talking. Well, the starting point is you ask yourself and in the answer We say you write a list of what in your past life is the thing

Starting point is 00:59:00 or things that you can remember that you love doing so much that you do it for free. You do it regularly, do it for free. What is the one thing that you've really got your jollies out of, that you wake up in the morning going, hot dog, I'm going to go and do that today. At the end of the day, you're disappointed because it's stable. And everybody can identify at least one, maybe two of these things.

Starting point is 00:59:21 I mean, there could be more. Now, if you can identify what that is, that's where your greatness, That's where your wealth lies right there. Now, the majority of people work in a job. Now, if you're in some sort of a job, which stands for just overbroke, that's what it means because that's about where you finish up if you've got a job, even though they're necessary at the start because you've got to pay rent and pay your food.

Starting point is 00:59:41 If you can articulate and identify that one thing or things that you would love so much you'd do it, that's where your greatness lies. Now, people who can do this, and most people can identify at least one thing, but what they say is, yeah, but how, Bushy, would I do this? How would I get the money? How would I get the opportunity? How could I have my own business?

Starting point is 01:00:01 You know, there's COVID, there's inflation, we've heard them all, haven't we? We're too old, too young, too fat, too, you know. I get it all the time. I'm pushing 70. They go, when are you going to retire? But what? And do what?

Starting point is 01:00:14 I'm just getting started here. So they start from the point of view of how would I do it? How would I get the resources, money, background? And what we say with the answer, and the whole guts of the answer is very simple. you do not think about how forget the how think about the what what is it i want to do have or become yeah and that's where people get scared because now you're committing yourself to something without really knowing the how you don't need to know the how it's a bit like for everybody

Starting point is 01:00:38 watching this or listen to this podcast but and whatever car you drive the moment you decide to get that car you saw that car everywhere all over every road so if you decide to get a four a four-door white toyota everywhere you went there's one behind you one in front of you there's One in the garage over there, Davis is renting white Toyotas. You never saw any before. Now, every second joker's got a white Toyota because there's a part of the brain called the RAS, which we talk about in the answer, that searches the environment like a Google search engine

Starting point is 01:01:05 to find out data. So once you put the picture into the RAS, it's like the size of a golf ball sits at the top of your brain stem, and once you've identified that and you put it in there, your brain will search for the data that gives you the how. So starting from the how is a fruitless exercise. It's a waste of time. and people ask you, but how would you get the money?

Starting point is 01:01:26 How would you get the finance? How would you get started? How could you blah, blah, blah, blah? You're too old, too young, too fat, too COVID, too – how many times have we heard? Great depression. We're in a depression. We're too old.

Starting point is 01:01:36 We're vegetarian. God, there's so many reasons for why you're not pulling your finger out and deciding what you're going to do and find your passion and decide that's what you're going to do. And when people say, but how will you do it? Your answer is, I don't know, because you probably don't know. it does you don't have to know how is none of your business what you've got to decide is what you will do and people who try to talk you out of it and sadly families the biggest offenders here

Starting point is 01:02:00 because you know they're scared you might lose your money lose your job lose your super lose your car blah blah lose your prestige doesn't matter you decide what you're going to do and if people keep trying to talk you out of it don't tell them anymore only talk to people who are currently doing what you want to do or have successfully done it because they'll give you ideas and i'll encourage you and once you decide what you will see the how just like everywhere you look there's four door white toyotas everywhere i haven't seen one at all this week but i'm sure there must be thousands of them around me i'll give you a really good example of this so about 20 years ago we decided that we wanted to go to russia and russia was a market

Starting point is 01:02:38 that no one 30 years ago 30 years ago 30 years no one no one went to russia no one spoke there Yeah, they didn't want any English speaking. But we decided that that was a market that we were going to conquer. So we set our RASs and we had no idea. We didn't know any Russians. We didn't speak Russian. We were oblivious to any of that. But we just set our RAS and said, this is what we're going to do.

Starting point is 01:03:06 We're going to go to Russia. So we didn't think about it. We just said it. We go to a function and Alan and I are speaking to a group of people and I hear a Russian accent and I just looked at Alan and I said, excuse me for a minute, and I went around and I said to this guy, hi, are you Russian? And he's like, yes, how can you tell?

Starting point is 01:03:29 There are 200 people talking, she hears a Russian accent. How does that happen? When you put it in your RAS, it finds the Russian accent. If you didn't put it in the RAS, she wouldn't have heard it. So I went over to him and told him what I'd like to do. I'd like to get Alan to go over and speak in Russia and get our books translated into Russian and blah, blah, blah, blah. So I negotiated a deal and this guy took us over to Russia

Starting point is 01:03:52 and we spoke at the biggest auditoriums. He had a whole tour set up. His first print run of body language was a million copies and we knew going over there that we would make no money because we knew that we would get ripped off. We'd get ripped. But for us, it was the chance to establish ourselves in this huge market where no other speaker had been

Starting point is 01:04:18 and we were leading it. That's right. And now today, except for COVID, if that COVID hadn't happened, it's our biggest market. We go over there and speak. Two to three months of the year. He's a professor at three universities and, you know, our books are translated and, you know, they sell like hotcakes.

Starting point is 01:04:39 but that was only from us deciding what our passion was setting our razzes not worrying about how we were going to do it we were just going to do it and something would our razz would find something and what's all the james bond movies from russia with love and the kgb and we thought wouldn't this be great to be in a place like that this communism started head towards the end in the late 80s you know we're saying this could be an opportunity somewhere that we'll go and do this And as soon as Gorbachev signed off communism of the USSR on Christmas Eve in 1991, we said, we're going. And we heard this accent, saw the guy, and we went

Starting point is 01:05:19 and the rest is history. It became our greatest, biggest market, even though it's quiet right now because COVID's devastated the place. But that'll come back just about every week. I love it. That's an awesome story. I'd love you to expand a little bit as well because I know you spent time with the infamous Putin during your time and

Starting point is 01:05:37 a lot of people have a very interesting perception of that particular individual and I know you know him a lot better and you understand the body language behind the way the Russians really treat the world very differently to the way we do. Can you share a little bit of that story because I reckon it's a really good story. Well yeah, the first thing is we decided We're going to go to what's called the USSR at the time. We are going to go to this place.

Starting point is 01:06:05 There are 300 million people. It's all going to open up in that whole region, you know, Hungary and Serbia and Moldova, all part of the USSR. It's going to become separate countries and we'll get out there and we'll be the hero. We decided to do that. And I can remember people, people who I gave a lot of credibility to, I just said, but how would you do that?

Starting point is 01:06:24 See, I am curtain. You can't go in there. Don't speak Russian. They're going to steal you. your ice bath with everything missing and and the kgb and they're going to poison you with sushi and all this sort of stuff we said look we don't know but we're going to do we will do it the minute we decided to do it was she suddenly we turned tv almost the first program we see wildlife in siberia i said look wildlife in siberia middle of russia this is really interesting brand new

Starting point is 01:06:48 program now it had been running for six weeks we've been flicking part we never saw it the minute it goes into the razz suddenly we see it this is the secret the minute you decide the what you will see the how. And so, as Barb said, we did the deal with this guy at this meeting in Sydney and we arrived in Moscow and part of our brief to ourselves, well, we're going to find somebody high profile and become their consultant.

Starting point is 01:07:12 We figured that's a good way to get profile and get on TV and we targeted Boris Yeltsin. We thought, he's the new president, the dancing drunk as he was, and we figured he'd be the guy. So we had three appointments. We tried to get to see him, but he didn't turn up, wouldn't see us. So it failed. So we decided, who else will we see?

Starting point is 01:07:31 Or someone says, well, in our crew, we had 11 people. We had a film. We were making a TV show as well, which went all over Russia. It was brilliant. One guy said, well, I know somebody who knows the first politician appointed in Leningrad, St Petersburg, and he's the mayor, and he's a bit of a maverick, and he could be interested in what you guys do.

Starting point is 01:07:48 So we decided that we'd contact him and put a proposal in, which he accepted. We'll teach all the new Russian politicians, 300 top ones, of how to go on telly and look credible and believable with body language. And he took us to the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, and we did the first seminar there. And in the front row was the Deputy Mayor, and the Deputy Mayor was Vladimir Putin.

Starting point is 01:08:09 Vladimir Putin's first job was the Deputy Mayor of St. Petersburg under Anatoly Sobchak. And so that was where it all started. We were in this massive big room with gold, and I said, Bob, that's the KGB guy. KGB guy's in the front row. and that all came from from deciding that we are going to go and this is the point we need to make we decided that we did if we had a thought about how it could not have happened and all the major

Starting point is 01:08:32 things that we've done including a few miracles have been based on that that we decide that the what and then the how appears and you've got to have faith that that's how your brain works if you start with the how that you'll never get started you'll continue doing what you're doing because it's the known quantity so that's how we got started in russia we toured all over russia at that point by train because you wouldn't fly uh the airlines are dropping out of the sky and holes in the runways and and that was almost 30 years ago wouldn't have done yep and and today it become our biggest market that first year we sold we we think about 10 million copies of we don't know because we never got paid they stole everything which and people get upset when they

Starting point is 01:09:13 know that that happened but for us it was like well this we knew it was coming this is what Russia was like? So the front part of every book that we published before we went to Russia, and every book now, and you'll certainly answer, is our sale pages. The first page is, buy this, go here, go to the seminar, go to this website, do this. And so suddenly we've got a million

Starting point is 01:09:32 copies a month of PR going all over Russia. And still today we go to seminars where we get incredibly highly paid to go and do these things, and they'll pull out this old book that's 30 years old that the chief executive had when he was a student at Moscow University, which, as far as I know, a professor at that place, and go,

Starting point is 01:09:47 well, I've got this book, will you sign it? And it's all yellow and falling apart and sold for $2. But in the front is the sell page that they ring up and book all the seminars and buy a lot of other products, which is an on-sell. So even if people are in places like Russia and other countries, they just steal stuff. That's a bit racist.

Starting point is 01:10:04 No, they steal stuff. If you go there, they will physically steal it while you're not looking. You've got to work out now what's a strategy where I can get an advantage out of this. And a sell page works really well in places where they steal stuff. So it's like our business class. We encourage them to steal stuff. Go and print this.

Starting point is 01:10:19 Go and print this. Love it. Because otherwise you get bent and twisted. Artists and book writers and musees don't go to places like this because they're going to get ripped off, and you do, but that's the local rule. It's how they play it. If you work out how can I get an advantage here, you'll see it.

Starting point is 01:10:34 So we decided to use it as our advertising medium, and we'd say to clients, go and print this because they're going to do it anyway, right? And suddenly they printed 100,000 copies and everyone's reading our stuff and going to our website. It's terrific. It's awesome. And what a great way to sow seeds and grow a forest.

Starting point is 01:10:50 I love that. It's something I'd love to dive into a bit now, if you don't mind, because for those who haven't followed your journey, they'll think you've lived a blessed lifestyle. And without realising that you've created that lifestyle, what I'd love you to do is share some of the challenges that you've had either individually or jointly that you've overcome, because this will be good for those who go,

Starting point is 01:11:16 well, it's all right for you guys to say just focus on the what because we've got all these life challenges that we need to overcome and we're never going to be like you. So I'd love you just to expand on some of the personal challenges you've had and how you've worked through that. So when we first got together, within a year of being together, we lost everything and we were $3 million in debt. So we know what it's like to have no money.

Starting point is 01:11:47 Real estate, boats, waterfronts, movie star, everything. And we had to pay $3 million back and that's when we decided that we had to look overseas, to go overseas to earn that amount of money to start at zero, to start building well. Because the population wasn't big enough in Australia, about 18 million at the time. We needed to go to places where there was half a billion people to be able to recover.

Starting point is 01:12:10 So that was the first challenge and we, you know, when couples get into that situation, they look at each other when they owe so much money and it's like, are we going to stay together? And for us, we looked at each other and we said, we are who we are and we can do this. That's all we've got. That was good enough.

Starting point is 01:12:28 And we love each other so we're just going to move forward and we're going to pay our debts back and we're going to rebuild, whereas most people wouldn't go that route, whereas, you know, for us when people go broke that's what happens when they've got nothing left except each other look at each other and say is this what i want to do or not and that's why there is a big spike in separations and divorces when people go broke well we got to the point where they just barb and i and we're in the hole and we walk along the beach and now we thought well this is a good nut this is what we really want first above everything else and everything else is second so

Starting point is 01:13:01 even we even though we had nothing we thought we don't have to worry about each other are we getting six percent or ten percent she'll be paying that with none of that really everything was gone with nothing nothing to think about nobody rang us because we were broke and alan went through depression as well so it was me that was holding the fort because he felt like it was his fault because it was the accountant that had ripped us off so you know um we worked as a team in there as well so he put a deadline on his depression and he said friday at five o'clock I'm going to stop being depressed. And I said, that's fantastic. That's when we're going to move even faster because just me on my own would never have been as quick as us together. So that was our

Starting point is 01:13:45 first challenge. And we overcame that and we rebuilt. We rebuilt over in England. And again, that was a challenge. We didn't know anyone. We didn't have anywhere to live. We found a guy that took us in and let us live in his house. And we built an empire in England. For me, I was literally ringing up people saying, you've got to hire Alan Peans, he's fantastic, he's this. We shipped books over from Australia and I was wrapping them up and sending them in mail. I mean, we just worked like a well-oiled machine together

Starting point is 01:14:17 to rebuild our empire. Well, I think the important thing about that too, I understand, Bush, is that I was 45 and Barb was a bit younger, well, significantly younger. and when you're becoming more mature age, that's a hard place to start from when you get zero. In fact, you're in the hole, which we were. We decided that we would have to go to a population

Starting point is 01:14:43 where there was maybe a billion people. We got a map of the world and looked at it and we figured it would have to be Europe because communism was starting to fall everywhere. So with the ex-communist countries involved, plus all of Europe, there's about a billion people. America only had 250 million. So I figured that's where our market's got to be.

Starting point is 01:15:01 And we decided, and this is an important point, we'd only write number one bestselling books. Now, up until that point, we'd had a few number ones, but we'd also had a lot of top tens. It's just as easy to write a number one as it is to write a top ten. So we decided we'd only write number ones because top ten books sell hundreds of thousands, which is good. Number ones can sell millions, and we needed millions

Starting point is 01:15:20 to be able to recover. So we decided only to write number ones. The first question someone said, how do you do that? Well, we don't know, but this is what we're going to do. Full stop, end of story, no other further discussion. We were right number ones. And the minute you decide to do that, you'll start seeing the seller list appear. You'll see what the titles are people are paying money for.

Starting point is 01:15:40 You'll see what the subjects are that people want to buy. So suddenly we started identifying what people would knock us over for in a rush to give us $30 for, where we'd written some books that you really should have, and everybody would agree that they should have them, like how to write letters, emails, and Faxes at Work and Treat, one of the best books we ever had. And people said, we'd love that, we need that, we'd have to do it. We wrote a book on how to remember stuff.

Starting point is 01:15:59 Oh, we definitely need that, but they didn't buy the damn thing. Well, we sold 100, 200,000, which is a lot, but we didn't sell millions like we did with other books. Once we decided to write only what somebody would knock us over for, it changed our whole perspective because we had to do that because of circumstances. And the first book was Why Men Don't Listen, Women Can't Read Maps, sold 13 million because we were writing what,

Starting point is 01:16:19 we're giving people what they wanted at a good price as opposed to writing what they really should have that they'd agree with, like how to remember names and faces. Everyone says, yeah, I should write a book on that, I should have read a book, but they don't do it. So then the second challenge was Alan getting cancer and our journey with that. And, you know, he got so much negative, well,

Starting point is 01:16:43 you're going to die in two years. And so we would just replace each negative doctor with a positive doctor. so we just we would say yes thank you very much and then we do our research and i think you went through i don't know i had 19 we fired 19 specialists and the bottom line that's important out here for any listener is that once you decide what you're going to do and my goal i decided to live even though they said look you're probably going to last more than three years and this is age 47 so by 50 i probably wasn't like to see it and uh if somebody won't support what you want to

Starting point is 01:17:20 do and won't encourage you you've got to stop talking to them you have to fire them you fire them whether it's family members or medical so we actually physically verbally fired some specialists who said oh look if you don't take this course of action you'll be dead in you know very short time so i decided to live and i would only hire and talk to people or pay people who would go along with that objective and if they didn't you just don't talk to them it doesn't matter whether it's medicos or family members or bosses or friends doesn't matter who it is if they won't support you, stop telling dream stealers. And that's where we started.

Starting point is 01:17:52 That was a big challenge. Now I'm coming up 70 on my next birthday. You're only as old as the woman you're with, I think. Isn't that what they say? That's what she keeps telling me. Yeah, I know. I'm going to live to a minimum of 90, even though statistically I should be well there.

Starting point is 01:18:10 Statistically speaking, so they said statistically I had a 3% chance of living anywhere near this age. uh 97 of guys with my condition i had prostate cancer thyroid cancer i had it on the bones i had it in the throat i did it everywhere and the chances of survival of that are pretty small but but but the small chance was three percent that i lived i'd lived to 70 now i'm 70 now so i said to this doc well okay there's only three percent i'll have that group please tell me what i have to do to be a member of that group and they didn't get it they said what do you mean i said well three percent obviously did something that 97 percent didn't do what do they do and they

Starting point is 01:18:45 didn't know so we decided to spend a year of our lives finding the three percent to see what they did and what they thought what they ate and we started living a completely organic vegan really clean life and moved to sunshine coast where there's 100 pure oxygen coming off the ocean we did everything to give a chance of survival did any one of those things work who knows we don't know we're still here it worked because you're still here we're still here doing of podcasts talking about the things and I reckon I'll live to a minimum of 90. 90's not when I'll die but 90's minimum in good health and then I'll regroup and we'll talk about what goes next.

Starting point is 01:19:22 I love that and I'm mindful of our time and I feel like I could talk to you guys for hours and if you're open to it I'm going to get you back because I've been just a massive fan of everything you do. You keep poking me under the table making me I'm like a Jerry G dog, got a hand up my back and making my mouth go. Something I'd love to sort of transition into because it's your passion, and correct me if I'm wrong, but, you know, knowing body language as well as you both do and then deciding

Starting point is 01:19:57 that you're going to, let's take the prostate cancer example, I'm going to be part of the 3%, then your own physiology, the way you held yourself, the way you conditioned yourself to reinforce that position, I have no doubt would have had a big impact on the fact that you are still here. Can you talk to us about some of the things that the listeners can do if they mightn't be quite believing it in their head yet, but in terms of the body language they can use to reinforce

Starting point is 01:20:26 and reconvince themselves of the things that they are capable of doing, am I communicating that? Does that make sense? Yeah. She hasn't poked me in the leg yet, but I think she's about to. You can do it. Well, the first is to understand that there is hard science behind this, that little golf ball-sized piece of tissue that sits at the top

Starting point is 01:20:47 of the brainstem, the reticular formation as it's called, it doesn't make decisions. It only acts on what you put into it. And you have 100% choice what you put in there. You can decide what you don't want or you can decide what you do want. And most people decide what they don't want. And it's part of human behaviour that we decide what we don't want and where we won't go for survival.

Starting point is 01:21:08 We won't go into that cave because it could be a big bear in there and it'll kill us, so we don't go in there. The downside is we miss out on what might have been in there that could have been opportunities. So we never developed a strategy for dealing with that bear if he did turn up. We just never did it. So most people think about what they don't want.

Starting point is 01:21:26 So it's a mind shift to think about what you do want and deciding that's what you do want. That's what you will have, be or become. And you put it in writing because you're two and a half times more likely to succeed if you put it in writing, handwriting, than if you just put it digitally on a computer or a smartphone. And you make a decision, that's what you'll do.

Starting point is 01:21:44 Full stop, end of story, no more discussion about this, over and out. And if anybody says, yeah, but how will you do it? Now, I had a friend, they did it and they lost their house and they went arse up and don't care, that's what we will do. Now, that is how hard you've got to be because family members, especially, are the worst offenders. In their best interest, they're worried that you might come

Starting point is 01:22:05 to some sort of financial or physical harm. And, you know, if you want to go live in a tent in Africa and look after the orphans in Zimbabwe, that's what you really want to do. You decide you'll do that. And people say you can't and you'll get eaten by the lions, you'll get killed by a hatchet, you'll be hit by the Hutu and you'll get aged and et cetera. Well, stop telling them.

Starting point is 01:22:23 Don't tell. Tell somebody who's been there or is living there and they will tell you how it goes. It doesn't mean the family members and people are trying to talk. It doesn't mean you don't love them. You still love them. You shouldn't tell them anything. because you'll be the average of the five people you hang out with

Starting point is 01:22:38 and talk to. If you're not happy with the five people you hang around with and what they're doing, find another five people. It doesn't mean you don't love the first five. You just don't tell them what you're doing. Tell the five who are doing what you want and you'll become the average of that group. If you hang around with five millionaires, you'll be the sixth.

Starting point is 01:22:54 If you hang around with five bankrupts, you'll be the sixth. That works. I love that. You were asking about body language. If you don't get your body language right in terms of if you're always negative and you're not reading signals from other people, then you're going to miss opportunities because you can set your brain, but then you start trying to negotiate things being negative. So you've got to learn how to come across so that people buy you. All negative body language has to disappear when you want to achieve something in your life. In the bottom line, whatever you want to achieve,

Starting point is 01:23:33 it's going to have to do with people. There's no doubt about it. And we know that people buy you. That is, they like you. They feel comfortable with you. They feel like you're friendly. They might invite you for dinner. You're not intimidating.

Starting point is 01:23:44 There's a good chance they're going to buy what goes with you, which is what you ask, say, or suggest. If they don't buy you, they won't buy anything that goes with you, even if it's a good idea. They'll try and find reasons to say no. And so if you can identify how people are feeling, what body language they are, what emotions, emotions and you know how to present yourself especially in that first four minutes where

Starting point is 01:24:02 new people form up don't give us any of their impression you can get people on site get them to like it they will push for you to get what you want this is the secret if you're good with people everything else is going to be good because nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care yes but that's our motto that's actually our business motto that's uh exactly it hey guys uh flying on from that and just bringing it to a close because i i am mindful that you've got other things you need to do uh we live in an interesting world where that that that human connection has been disrupted by covid and and the fact that we we're having to relate through zoom and and other technology means what are some of the lessons that the listeners can take away that

Starting point is 01:24:45 in terms of how to better form that connection how better to make sure that they're still building that that relationship and being able to one appreciate what people are really thinking but also communicate in a way that's actually going to achieve the outcomes for them as we as we move into this new way of interacting so like what we're doing now with zoom people need to realize how they look and what they're doing so if i'm interested and i'm leaning forward i'm making you feel good if i lean back and i'm talking with my arms crossed and bored you're going to be going oh she's not really interested so it's the same as in person you've got to use open body language you've got to use eye contact the real smile you've got to

Starting point is 01:25:36 act as if you're actually face to face um and a lot of people get it wrong they dress the wrong way you know they think they have to be fully made up like a clown and wear the wrong clothes then or they're disrespectful they come in their jammies there's lots of things when you're doing it you've got to think what do i need to look like how do i how do i need to come across on a zoom call because zoom and all that form is here to stay it's not going to go away we know how to do it now and we quite like that we can be at home and we can still be connecting and i can still connect with you as a person and make you feel good um you know people don't understand what their smile is doing they've got this tight-lipped smile is your body language even more critical on

Starting point is 01:26:21 a zoom call or she then it is real life because they're on a zoom call which we're doing now if you're listening on podcast you can't see it but we're on a zoom call we can see each other you can do things on a screen you can't do face to face like we can stare at each other we can look really close we can see every single wrinkle pimple blemish on a person's face which you can't do that face-to-face because it's embarrassing and it's socially not acceptable. So people will stare at you. And most people on a Zoom call, and you've seen it on TV,

Starting point is 01:26:49 we've all seen it where they've interviewed some expert on TV about something and behind them is a toilet door and out comes a kid with his pants pulled down, which we saw the other week. And he's sitting there in a suit and tie trying to pontificate about how incredible he is and some kid with his bum showing behind him walking past. So people don't think about what's behind them on a Zoom call.

Starting point is 01:27:08 Now, behind us, we've got a beautiful gym. We live in a beautiful place. We have our own gym up and we're broadcasting from this gym. Most people don't do that. The best they might do, they might have a library, Inferring Wisdom. That's important. A library's pretty good.

Starting point is 01:27:26 It's better than a toilet. There's our book up there. Yeah, I'm going to see how long it took you to work out that I've actually squared your book up. On a Zoom call like this, you're only seeing a person from the navel up. See, I'm only focused on you, not on the background. That's right.

Starting point is 01:27:41 So we need to do with your hands, learning forward, learning back and control the sentences without cutting people off. Background adds to your credibility or in most people's cases it detracts from their credibility. But you can have a much more specified control over the length of conversation, how well it goes on Zoom than you will face-to-face because face-to-face you're distracted by everything that happens around you.

Starting point is 01:28:04 On Zoom we're focusing and we can stare. and some of the worst advice you can ever give someone is just be yourself. Think of some of the people you know where you said, just be yourself, that'll be the end of it. Got to be their best self, their learned self. Learn how to do things like Zoom, like body language, like understanding relationship, about writing things down

Starting point is 01:28:25 that are your passion. Learn it and there are experts everywhere that do this. The internet's full of them. I mean, look at even TEDx, for example, which is a freebie. It's a fabulous medium and you've got all sorts of trainers And it's like, including us, yeah, we've got our own YouTube site and we've got our own videos. With COVID locked in, for the first time we've made a massive set

Starting point is 01:28:45 of videos on how-to, which hasn't really happened since back in the 70s. It started on 16mm film and cassette, which then became video. And it's the first time we've actually, because we're pinned here, we've created green rooms and we've created these how-to things on how to do all these things. And it's exciting and it's fun and it's wonderful and it gives a chance to put something in print

Starting point is 01:29:08 and I don't have to fly to Moscow to do it even though we do love Moscow. Yeah, love it love it guys, I'm going to switch I'm going to jump into the ambush round because I'm running out of your precious time and I'm going to challenge

Starting point is 01:29:24 you to come back and dive a bit deeper into the body language subject if you don't mind because I know firsthand how much difference it's made to my life in every respect, from personal relationships through to business. I just can't tell you how much the wisdom that you've shared with us over the years has had such a profound effect.

Starting point is 01:29:44 So if you're open to doing that, I would love to get you both back and do a really deep dive on body language as a topic because there's a lot to learn. And it takes a while for that to become habit. It took me years for it to become habitual to the point where I'm really comfortable with it now. And a lot of people will say to me, how did you work out what person was thinking, and I'd say, well,

Starting point is 01:30:05 you've got to go and read out one piece of the book. So it really is as simple as that. But, guys, there's five quick questions that the listeners always love to share your words of wisdom on, and the first of those is what's your favourite quote and why? Now, this is like Millionaire Hot Soup. Yeah, you go. There's no money involved.

Starting point is 01:30:24 Okay, quick. I'm timing it. Not yet. What's the favourite quote? My favourite quote is, it's a real estate one, find out where everybody's going get there ahead of them by land yeah love it yeah i'm right behind that one i'll do the books okay yeah yeah okay let's jump into the book the the book that you'd recommend people read and why barbara two of them the answer how to

Starting point is 01:30:50 get what you want in life and just go for it and why men don't listen and women can't read maps because that is going to get you to understand the differences between a male brain and a female brain and how to have a happy relationship yeah i love that love that now this one's a bit left field but a lot of aussies feel like they pay too much tax what's the the top legal thing you guys have done to limit the tax that you guys pay you know our attitude is quite different to most people we decided right from the start that we were going to pay tax and we can sleep at night and that's our philosophy we have a great uh accountant um but we don't do anything that we're not supposed to do so here's the good news my account says to me if you're paying a lot of tax that means

Starting point is 01:31:35 you're making a lot of money shut up and get on with it that's our attitude well look across the board if you look at tax rates you're probably going to pay 25 of everything you earn after you deduct everything that you can legitimately do and so we figure well we've got 75 and that's still pretty good so that way we're not worried about anybody ringing us up saying we're going to do an audit because there's nothing to audit here and we've been approached by so many people to you know tax tax havens in cayman islands blah blah blah by the time you add up all of the money that you're going to pay all these experts to do all these stuff and you're still trying to sleep at night thinking oh i don't really like this situation we pay tax that tax goes in back into

Starting point is 01:32:18 society and you know gives us roads and people who can't find a job get money so all the surfers down the beach they need some income exactly so we that's how that's our philosophy love it love it now i want to switch back into the investment side for a minute what's both the best and the worst piece of investment advice that you guys have received worst and best well i think the Best is, as we said before, find out where people are going, get ahead and buy property. And we also, on that point, we always invest in our own backyard. Yes.

Starting point is 01:32:54 So we don't, so that we can see it, we can control it, we're on hands to see it. So we could buy places in Sydney, Melbourne, wherever, but we buy on the Sunshine Coast. Yeah, remote investments are difficult to handle. They can be profitable, but they're difficult to handle because you don't really know what's going on there. And the worst advice I've had this year would be,

Starting point is 01:33:18 yeah, we'll rent that for sure. You buy that, we'll get you a tenant. Yep, it wouldn't take you guys long to see straight through that. The final question in the ambush series then is, what's a personal habit, I call them happy habits, what happy habits or rewarding rituals do you guys embark on every day that you think has contributed most to your lifestyle success first is physical um uh we we work out every day so that helps our mind helps our body so that's really important

Starting point is 01:33:54 and i think the power of us is that we just believe in ourselves we just we don't ever doubt ourselves and what we're going to do if we want to do something we put it out there and we just go for it and if we fail that's great because we've just learned a really big lesson so we just take life and live it you either win or you learn you don't lose i love it i absolutely love i just love the the confidence that you deliver that in the in the sense of self-belief that comes from that is quite something that i love you said earlier alan uh you were depressed until five o'clock on friday yeah well i mean my wife often says i also bugger i stuff that up and she says okay you've got 30 seconds what do you mean you got 30 seconds to regret it and move on

Starting point is 01:34:42 it's so good it's such good advice that we a lot of allow ourselves to sort of get stuck in this sort of negative spiral but if you say right okay well as of this date in this time i'm going to i'm going to think and feel differently and start acting that way self-fulfilling i love it absolutely We actually love challenges because we've had challenges all our lives and when people put a brick wall up, our attitude is, well, will we dig under, will we jump high and go over the top or will we go around the sides? We'll kick it out of the way.

Starting point is 01:35:16 And, you know, that's every single challenge in our life. I think about success too that most people don't really see when you see speakers like Barb and I talking and successful guys like yourself, they look at the good sides of what you do but 80% of any new venture amounts to nothing. 80% of the effort, time, money you put into anything new will normally give you no result but you've got to go through the 80 to get to the 20.

Starting point is 01:35:40 And when you get to the 20, people want you to talk about the 20 and so when you see speakers and documentaries on successful people even on podcasts and videos like this, we talk about the 20% because we want to hear about the 20%. Nobody talks about the time you did something that didn't work or you fell ass overhead on something and busted your leg while you were trying to do it. No one wants to know about it, but those things happen.

Starting point is 01:36:03 You've got to expect that they're going to happen, but you've got to go through the 80% to get to the 20, but the 20 is worth it. Most people give up by 30% on an idea. That's so true. I often say that overnight success takes at least 15 years. Yeah, it does. So for exactly those reasons, that's beautiful advice.

Starting point is 01:36:20 To close on then, there's a question I ask everyone, and that is if I gave you a microphone that spoke to every one of the 7.7 billion people that are currently alive in the world and I gave you one minute to talk, what would you say, guys? Stop selling our books. No, that's not it. Okay. Three billion to get that.

Starting point is 01:36:41 Well, I would say that the one thing in society that we forget is that we're all different and most people are very critical of our differences rather than embracing those differences And that's the biggest challenge I think the world has. They're so quick to put someone down and not understand where they've come from, their background, and why they're reacting the way that they react. And that's one of the lessons that we are teaching our kids, that, you know, it's not about them and their behaviour. It's about other people's behaviour and how you can have compassion in dealing with that situation and making them feel better and yourself and understanding that it's, you know, it's a gift to do that.

Starting point is 01:37:28 And for me, it's deciding what it is you want in your life that is absolutely critical. And for Barb and I, our family's number one. We've got six kids, eight grandkids, and they're the most important thing. And all other decisions, they are part of, you know, our kids travel with us around the world. How are you going to do that? Well, we decided to do that.

Starting point is 01:37:49 Yeah, but how? How? We don't know, but that's what we'll do. So suddenly they've learned how to build credit cards, do a currency exchange, speak foreign languages, and they travel and they work in our business. And we decided how. If we thought about the how, we'd never do it.

Starting point is 01:38:03 We decided the what. And the thing is that if you can't think of something, if your brain can't imagine it, then you can't do it. But if you can think of anything, Bushy, it wouldn't matter what it is, if you can think of it in your mind, you have the capability of doing it. Otherwise, your brain wouldn't let you think of it. Spot on.

Starting point is 01:38:20 Great words to close on, guys. But for those that are listening that have been reawakened or heard you for the first time, which, as I say, there wouldn't be many of them, but there will be a few of the young ones, how can they get in touch with you? And what's new and next? I know you've been doing some online training courses and whatnot. Can you sort of tell us a bit about that and how people

Starting point is 01:38:42 can tap into that? Well, they can go to our website and we've got a button on the front which is for them to register interest, what they would like to know more about. So we've been doing a sales program, body language. We're still putting it all together, but it's all going to be training from Alan. And I'm actually doing a little bit, a little bit.

Starting point is 01:39:07 She pushes me and makes me do it. And I've actually, because of the pandemic, I've actually started doing coaching calls so people can get on the telephone and tell me what they're having issues with then I can help them because I'm a very creative mind and I don't see a problem, I see solutions. So we've been doing that. So they can just go to our website, which is www.peaceinternational.com

Starting point is 01:39:35 and they can write to us and we'll come back to them and help them in any way we can. Great, guys. Look, loved having you both on board. I hope this is the first of many and keep doing what you do well. It's been inspirational for many years, for decades for me personally. So I'm very humbled by getting the opportunity to spend time with you today.

Starting point is 01:40:00 So thanks and look forward to our next conversation. My pleasure. See you soon, Bushy. Thanks for having us. Thanks very much. Thanks, guys. Well, Freedom Fighters, how good was that? To get a summary of all this investment gold in the show notes,

Starting point is 01:40:15 just email me on hello at khgroup.com.au. That's H-E-L-L-O at khgroup.com.au. Or check us out at www.bushymartin.com.au forward slash getinvested. I look forward to joining you next week for another episode of the Get Invested podcast. So thanks for listening. And as always, dream as if you live forever and live as if you die tomorrow. Thanks for watching!

Property Hub - Investment Insights & Inspiration - Get Invested: Allan and Barbara Pease give you The Answer

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