Property Hub - Investment Insights & Inspiration - Get Invested: Bush Sermons: Living by design (pt 1) - your big 'why'

Episode Date: December 23, 2018

Welcome to the first of two special Get Invested 'mini-sodes' to round out the year and kick off the new year with purpose and focus. (At the time of recording it is the end of 2018, but these episodes will be relevant to you ANY TIME!). In this episode, Bushy Martin reveals his simple process to help you review your year and track your progress towards achieving freedom, however you define it.  Remember: As Bushy says in this episode, write down your perfect day and email it to him: [e-mail]. We'll then send you a first edition, signed copy of Bushy's next book, 'Get Invested', as soon as it is published in 2019. Get Invested is the podcast dedicated to time poor professionals who want to work less and live more. Join Bushy Martin, one of Australia’s top 10 property specialists, as he and his influential guests share know-how on the ways investing in property can unlock the life you always dreamed about and secure your financial future. Remember to subscribe on your favourite podcast player, and if you're enjoying the show please leave us a review. Find out more about Get Invested here https://bushymartin.com.au/get-invested-podcast/  Want to connect with Bushy? Get in touch here https://bushymartin.com.au/contact/  This show is produced by Apiro Media - http://apiropodcasts.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to the Get Invested Podcast, where we share great conversations with experts from all walks of life to uncover their secret know-how on where they invest their time, their skills, and their money, and the benefits that this has created. 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, and 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. 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 getinvested. Thanks for listening, and now, let's get invested. Hi, Freedom Fighters, and welcome to our special Get Invested mini-sode.

as the end of the year is fast approaching i thought we'd do a couple of special sessions over the next few weeks that looks at how you review your life progress and take you through the process that we always adopt to see how we're tracking now i don't know about you but the end of every year is always a time of reflection and questioning and they just seem to be happening faster and faster with every year that passes and as the year winds down and we get a little bit more time out with family and friends, the little voice in my head makes some noise and it starts questioning. How do I feel about the year that was? What were the challenges and successes of the year? And what did I learn from them? Did I move closer to or further

away from where I want to be with what I call my three Ps? And that's personally, professionally, and most importantly, passive, investment-wise. And it's this last passive investment component that generally gets no or very little attention, but it's the one that will have the biggest impact on your current sense of peace now, as well as your future freedom and fulfilment. My wife Sonia and I have developed a very simple process

that we go through regularly, and it's amazing how effective it is at keeping you on track and helping you achieve your definition of freedom faster than you'd expect. So I thought I'd briefly share our approach with you and some of the things that Sonia and I do to review how the year went prior to planning for the next one, which will be the subject of this and another mini-sode coming up very soon. It's based around a simple approach that I've painted out in my book,

The Freedom Formula. It always starts with returning to our big why, by starting with the end in mind so that we can see if the year has taken us closer to or further away from our ideal lifestyle. If you don't have a crystal clear and compelling vision of how you want to live, I mean what your ideal lifestyle looks like, how it feels, it looks, it tastes, it smells, what you are doing with who, when and where, then you need to start by doing a simple values and vision exercise.

Without this, it's like playing a game of sport and just kicking the ball around and getting the occasional goal, without knowing that you're out there to win the game so that you can end up winning the season premiership. You'll just be directionless. To put it another way, it's like driving a car without putting a location into your GPS. You'll just meander aimlessly

without really knowing where you are heading and where you're going to end up. and you won't have a roadmap measure to track your progress against. Your big why lifestyle vision is your heart-based magnifying magnet that will attract and amplify everything you need in life to achieve your goals. If you know why and how you want to live, you also have a compass to assess every choice and decision that you make, both consciously and subconsciously, day-to-day,

in terms of whether your choices will take you closer to or further away from your desired life. But you need to be clear on what this is and why. Now, I fully appreciate that the time to reflect on what is truly important to us can feel very disconcerting and uncomfortable. It's quite challenging. A lot of us, especially men,

avoid the self-reflection process by just keeping ourselves busy and flat out just doing. Now, this is a subtle form of avoidance that seems well justified, but can leave us feeling hollow and unfulfilled long term. As Henry Ford is famous for saying, thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it. however if you don't take the time to really get in tune with what makes you happy at a deeply emotional level you'll never reach your full potential or get the most out of life this process is about smashing through those high external expectations of what we should do and really getting in touch with what makes us feel good once you uncover this you can then use

this as a magnifying magnet compass to start attract and do more of what makes you feel this way while stopping avoiding and repelling those things that don't you need to get out of your head and into your heart and i realize for blokes like myself this is no easy task now the this process is the start of living your life by conscious thought and decision that's what we call living by design. Here you are assessing every choice and decision you'll make by what will make you feel good, both immediately and over the long term. So how do you uncover your why? Now, I don't pretend to be an expert in this area, but the following discussion offers a mixture of approaches that have helped me and my wife in this journey to living a life by design and

on purpose. You just need to take some time out for an afternoon in a beautiful quiet place, perhaps with a bottle of wine or a couple of beers, switch off your mobile phones and just let your imagination run. I guarantee that it'll be the best half a day that you ever spend. Now, to help you get your thoughts organised, I want you to start by asking yourself these seven simple questions. Firstly, what are my core values? Now, core values are your fundamental beliefs.

They help you know what is right from wrong. They can help you determine if you're on the right path and fulfilling your goals. And are your guiding principles that dictate your behaviour and your action. They create your unwavering and unchanging guide. Now, as an example, my personal core values are summed up in the word humility, as it's the human quality that I admire the most. So for me, humility is unpretentious, respectful, unassuming, and not seeking recognition. Now I start there and I break the word humility down into the following additional core values.

Where H is for harmony, because I love calm, peace, tranquility, serenity, solitude, fun, and freedom. U is for uniqueness. I love originality, being creative, clever, different and stylish. M is for motivated and in the moment. I like to be optimistic, passionate, fit and healthy. I love high performance. I is for integrity. That's honesty, being principled, staying true to values and have the courage to say no.

L is for loyalty. This covers being certain, dependable, trustworthy, persistent and determined. The I stands for inspiration. For me, this is continuous learning. T is for thoroughness. This means punctual, prepared and attention to detail. And the Y? The why means yes, which is another way of saying acceptance without judgment or criticism.

Now, that's just an example, and of course there are no right or wrong answers with this. You may have a handful of non-negotiable values, or a lot of things that are fundamental to you, and you don't necessarily have to sum them up using a handy acronym like I have. It is, however, important to stop and crystallise what is important to you so you can measure choices, decisions and options against them so that they're aligned with your personal integrity which in turn affects your level of self-esteem and belief. From personal experience I can tell you

that if you're not doing things in alignment with your fundamental values and your core beliefs then this continuous compromise will eat at your subconscious and hamstring your progress in all aspects of your life. Conversely, if your actions and associations are aligned, magic can happen exponentially. All right, let's move on to the second question. And you need to ask yourself, what makes me happy? So when are you at your happiest?

What makes you come alive? What are you passionate about? What's your biggest achievement and why? What are you doing when you feel absolutely fantastic? Now, just think back to your childhood and all those memorable times during your life when you felt really good. What were you doing? Who were you with?

How did you feel? Why? In my case, music makes me come alive and just moves me emotionally. My very earliest memory was standing on tippy toes, holding onto the edge of the piano, singing or more likely making a noise and jigging from side to side while mum tinkled the ivories. I'm also at my most relaxed and content when I can soak in the quiet of a long range natural view.

I love the sense of peace that comes from relaxing with a good book and a cup of coffee. Playing hockey with the sun on my back and the wind on my face also makes me feel absolutely fantastic. I love burning energy at the gym and keeping physically fit. Great food is a big passion, as is travel, architecture and personal development. Alright, let's move on to question three, because I then want you to ask yourself, how will I measure my life? As the old saying goes, people who don't stand for something can easily fall for anything. So deciding how you want to measure your life means making a stand for something

and then living your life in alignment with this. In my own case, I'll measure my life by the quality of my relationships and the degree to which I've helped others improve their lives and achieve their goals. My goal is to leave everyone I meet feeling smarter and smiling. now the fourth question is what is the most important to me in my life writing down what you really love doing can help to crystallize what's important to you maybe what you love doing is spending time with friends and family doing a particular hobby your job or traveling your answers will be unique to you this process is about finding out what you want to be doing

not what you feel you should be doing. Now, for me, the most important things are my wife, Sonia, my son, Adrian, and my four smiling Samoids. Let's move to the next question. Ask yourself, if money were no object, what would I do? I'll leave you to contemplate that one. Then go on with this one. What's my bucket list?

Write down the top 10 items on your bucket list. Next, clarify why they're on your list and how you feel about each of them. As an example, a couple of the items on my bucket list includes singing and performing with Sting, attending and watching Australia win the Field Hockey World Cup, being a contestant on Australian Survivor. Yeah, I know. Sad, isn't it? Riding the Orient Express and visiting every country in the world.

year, that's all 196 of them. The last seventh question, I want you to ask yourself, how do I really want to live? And this is the most important one. I want you to imagine your perfect day, your perfect week, your perfect month, and your perfect year. Now, grab a pen and write what you've imagined down like a diary journal, as if you're describing your perfect day in 10 years time. Write it as if it's happened. How do you feel? What are you doing? With whom? Where and why? Describe your feelings and thoughts along with the sounds, tastes and smells. Make it vivid and detailed and compelling. And most importantly focus on how does this all make me feel? If you do nothing else from what we chat about

today, make sure you write down your perfect future day. From the moment you wake up to the minute you shut your eyes at night, I want you to write it in vivid detail with a focus on how you're feeling at each and every point. Read this entry out loud to yourself once a week. Record it under voice memos on your mobile phone and listen to it daily. Now, I listen to mine every morning when I'm having a shower. Yeah, sad I know, but the results have been incredible. Now, this alone will activate your magnifying magnet compass and will keep you focused, energised and committed to realising your dream life. Now, in addition to that, if you're a visual person like myself,

you can convert your perfect day diary into a photo collage of images and words that bring your values, your goals and your bucket list to life. Now, once your vision board is complete, print off multiple colour copies, laminate them, and stick them all over the house in places that you're going to see them. The fridge, in the shower, on your bedhead. These constant subtle reminders will keep you focused, motivated, and committed.

Now, for those of you who are tired of drifting reactively and you really want to start living with proactive intent to create the life you want, then authors Michael Hyatt and Daniel Harkavy have written an outstanding book called Living Forward. That's Living Forward. It's an easy-to-read action guide that provides an awesome framework to help you crystallise what's really important to you

so that you can create a clear and compelling vision of your future and a process to make it happen, giving you an easy-to-follow life plan. However, here is a quick word of warning. to really start hearing your own voice you need to drown out external noise to succeed on the narrow road to your definition of freedom you're going to take a road far less travelled

you'll be swimming solo against the riptide of conformity and mediocrity this will require an inner strength and a fortitude that needs to withstand a constant barrage of ignorance and fear-based criticism that you'll cop from every conceivable direction. You need to keep reminding yourself to only listen to the counsel of those who have already done or are doing what you're embarking on. In many cases, this will mean turning off the naysaying external noise so that you can listen to the conviction of your own inner voice.

So here's a couple of things to do immediately. Firstly, stop reading the newspapers and listening to the evening news. Unfortunately, the mainstream media survives on creating extremes of conflict, greed and fear. They lead to bleed. My wife and I stopped buying the paper or watching TV news way back in 1999, and we're much happier for it. Ignorance of grief or counting the killings is absolute bliss. And if something is really important enough, then someone's going to tell us about it.

Instead, feed your mind with a positive, happy diet and tune into newsletters, blogs, and podcasts in your areas of real interest so that you can listen and learn from the like-minded. Secondly, don't share your vision with non-investor family members and friends who don't believe what you believe. Even Jesus wasn't believed by his family. So if you share your dreams with someone

and you feel bad about the conversation afterwards and have feelings of doubt, avoid them or don't talk to them about it again. They will steal your dreams and weaken your resolve to stay the course. If you want more information and a step-by-step guide on all of this, along with other examples to help you flesh out your own,

grab yourself a copy of my book, The Freedom Formula, which you can get on Amazon or all good booksellers. you see now is the perfect time to spend an afternoon with your partner to get clear on your life vision so that in one of our upcoming episodes we can run you through the easy process to ensure that every day is taking you closer to your ideal life so now you've got an important choice to make you can continue to do what you've always done and wonder why things never change, or you can spend a few hours that will change your life.

For those of you who have the courage and make the time to write down your perfect day, email me a confidential copy at hello at khgroup.com.au, that's H-E-L-L-O at khgroup.com.au, and we'll send you a first edition signed complimentary copy you of my next upcoming book, Get Invested, as soon as it's published in 2019. Thanks, Freedom Fighters. Have a great and rewarding week, and I look forward to talking to you same time next week. Bye for now. Well, Freedom Fighters, how good was that? To get a summary of all this investment

gold in the show notes, 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 Get Invested. 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!