Property Hub - Investment Insights & Inspiration - Get Invested: How investing helped Ben Fitzsimons save a basketball team and pioneer a new industry

Episode Date: January 4, 2019

Our guest Ben Fitzsimons’ god son suffered from a form of epilepsy which resulted in recurrent, damaging seizures and fits that could occur at any time. His family kissed him every night worrying whether he would still be alive in the morning. The family only had only two options to deal with this debilitating and life threatening condition: Brain surgery Or Use prescribed doses of cannabis oil, a product that has been scientifically proven to significantly reduce the severity and frequency of seizures, allowing children to return to a more normal existence. Unfortunately, the second option was illegal in Australia so the family had no option but for their son to undergo major brain surgery – the result – the boy is permanently paralysed down one side of his body and will never be able to enjoy a normal, active life. This is a crazy situation where a proven medication taken from the non-hallucinatory component of cannabis has been denied due to old and outdated views on cannabis as a gateway drug. This has spurred today’s guest to establish WeCann, a company devoted to the development of a safe, sustainable and world-leading medicinal cannabis industry based in Adelaide, South Australia so that future epileptics, cancer patients, the elderly and others can access natural, quality relief without resorting to aggressive surgeries or other treatments that create as many side effects as they cure. He is a man on a mission to heal thousands and change lives and his ‘why’ is big enough to demolish mountains of prejudice, change attitudes and re-educate a generation. He is also the same man whose childhood love of basketball led him to become the CEO of NBL team the Adelaide 36ers, a club that was almost dead and buried when Ben took over in the late 2000s, and is now back on the map and finding success on and off the court today. In Ben’s own words, he’s a professional dot joiner – he is able to see big picture opportunities where others cannot - and then bring them to fruition. So how is Ben able to invest so much time, energy and money into his ‘Big Why’s’ and driving passions? Because he has time on his hands. How? Because his income needs are looked after without relying on him to generate it. He doesn’t work for money, he gets money to work for him. Ben’s a successful investor. This gives him the time and freedom to pursue and support his passions as his income needs have been met and his future is secure. Ben is like others who have achieved this financial freedom: They don’t care what others think They speak their mind and say what they really think They don’t need to impress anyone They have time to contemplate what they really believe and the time and resources to do something about it They have a quiet confidence, a can-do attitude, a long-term vision plus a genuine belief and optimism for the future Ben is the living epitome of all of these qualities – you can hear it in the relaxed pace and clarity of thought expressed in his voice during this podcast. So what does he invest in, how does he do it and how can you learn from him to live life on your own terms? Sit back and enjoy a very enlightening conversation with Ben Fitzsimons. Find out more about WeCann http://wecann.com.au/  Ben's book recommendations: Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki 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.

One, anything's possible, two, no is just an opinion, and if you don't ask, you're not going to get. 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 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. 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. Today I'm going to open with a question for you. What's your big why?

Your why is the purpose, the cause or the belief that drives you. Why do you exist? Why do you get out of bed every morning? Why should anyone care? Your why should make you cry. It should be emotionally engaging and compelling enough to keep you striving to achieve it without being sidetracked so that it acts as both a strong magnet to keep you attracted to it

but also a compass to enable you to make decisions based on whether something's taking you closer to or further away from achieving your why. Your why is what sets you apart from everyone else. It's what inspires you to take action. And your why also inspires others to take action and to spread your ideas. So let me quickly ask again. Do you know what your big why is?

and what are you doing about it? If you don't, you need to start asking yourself why you do what you do until you get to the real answers and just keep asking why until there's no more whys to give. Let me give you a quick example. Our why, the big why of Sonia and I and the Know How Property Finance team is to create happy homes.

Pretty simple. Happy homes for all, particularly the voiceless and the innocent. you see happy homes lead to happy lives that result in happy communities and we do this by creating golden smiles what does all that mean well we start by giving you a golden smile by helping you to enjoy home ownership we then help you enjoy a bigger golden smile by creating life ownership and we do this through property investment so that you can live more work less and live your legacy by replacing your work income with passive recurring income

i talk about all of this in my book the freedom formula now by achieving this together we fuel and fund our greatest golden smile which is the charity that will be establishing to do all this because we want to be able to give generously to create a happy community by bringing together voiceless and innocent abandoned dogs with the forgotten old and lonely in our community in happy forever homes during the golden years. We strongly believe that this will help eliminate abandoned pet euthanasia and give much needed companionship and hope

to the forgotten elderly in our community. That's our big why. And we achieve all of this through our what and our how. You see, we're your property partners for home loans, investment strategy and enabling property portfolios. Sounds pretty boring when you say it like that, but when you realise what it's achieving through our why, it suddenly takes on a much more motivating passion. So I'll ask you quickly again, what's your big why? And as importantly, what are you doing about it? today's guest is another shining example of someone who's driven to massive action by his big why let me explain his godson suffered a form of epilepsy which resulted in recurrent

severe damaging seizures and fits that could occur at any tick of the clock his family used to kiss him every night when he went to bed and worry whether he'd still be alive in the morning at the time the family only had two options to deal with this debilitating and very life-threatening condition it was either brain surgery or try and use prescribed doses of cannabis oil that has been scientifically proven to significantly reduce the severity and frequency of seizures and allow children to return to a more normal existence now unfortunately the second option was illegal in Australia at the time so the family had no option but for their son to undergo major brain surgery and the result the poor boy is now permanently paralyzed down one side of his body

and he'll never be able to enjoy a normal active life like his father who was a professional athlete. Now I don't know about you but for me this is just a crazy situation where a proven medication taken from the non-hallucinatory component of cannabis has been denied due to old and outdated views on cannabis as a gateway drug. Now this has spurred today's guest to establish WeCan, that's W-E-C-A-N-N, a company devoted to the development of a safe, sustainable and world-leading medicinal cannabis industry based right here in good old Adelaide, South Australia. he wants to do this so that future epileptics cancer patients and the elderly and others can

access natural quality relief without resorting to aggressive surgeries or other treatments that seem to create as many side effects as they cure now he's a man on a mission to heal thousands and change lives and his big why is big enough to demolish mountains of prejudice change attitudes and re-educate a generation. But he's also the same man whose childhood love of basketball led him to become the CEO of the dead and almost buried Adelaide 36 basketball team in the NFL back in the late 2000s that managed to put the team back on the map

and is still running successfully today. In his words, he's what he calls a professional dot-joiner. He's able to see big-picture opportunities where others can't and then to bring them to fruition. I'm talking about the local humble hero and motivated maverick, Ben Fitzsimmons. So how's he able to invest so much time, energy and money in his big wires and his driving passions? Very simply, because he's got time on his hands. How? Because his income needs are looked after without relying on him to generate it.

He doesn't work for money, he gets money to work for him. You see, Ben's a successful investor. And you may be interested to find that he started off just working in the Commonwealth Bank, but now he's in a position where he's got the time and the freedom to pursue and support his passions because his income needs have been met and his future is secure. Now, I've noticed something about Ben and others that have achieved the same sort of financial freedom. firstly they don't care what others think they speak their mind and say exactly what they think they don't need to impress anyone they've got the time to contemplate what they really believe

and also got the time and resources to do something about them and they have a quiet confidence a can-do attitude a long-term vision plus a genuine belief and optimism in the future ben's the living epitome of all of these qualities and you'll hear it in the relaxed pace and the clarity of thought that's expressed in his voice so what does ben invest in how does he do it and how can you learn from him to live life on your own terms get ready to sit back and enjoy a very enlightening conversation with ben fitzsimmons Freedom Fighters, it's Bushy Martin back on Get Invested and today we've got the real pleasure to talk to someone who describes himself as a professional dot joiner.

Now the mind bowls when we think about that, Ben, welcome aboard, I'm looking forward to having a great chat, mate. Cheers, Bushy, appreciate it. Mate, you're well known in Adelaide circles and elsewhere, but for those who don't know you, can you give us a bit of a rundown on what you do and why you do it? yeah i guess um what i what i do now what i focus on now is is um property investments i guess you you know color me as a property developer um which gives me my time to go off and do other interesting things and one of those we're trying to play with at the moment is medical

cannabis and trying to get that in a in a format inside south australia and australia that will help lots of people, play around in professional sports and some other different things. Property is my, I guess, my main passion and where I get my enjoyment from. Awesome, mate. Well, look, we'll delve into a couple of those subjects later and what I picked up on straight away there was the fact that property has probably given you the time and therefore the freedom to be able to pursue some of these other interests like your interest in sport, cars and the cannabis industry, but before we jump into that, mate, what I'd love to

do is get you to talk us through your history, and if we go way back, very keen to just get you to walk us through the formative years, you know, from a little bit of research I've done, a bit of time in Adelaide, and then the thrills and spills of Hamilton Island when you were growing up. So I'm keen for you to talk us through all that and what impact did that have on you in terms of your values, your beliefs and your behaviours and where did that lead you to? Can you walk us through that?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I guess, you know, things happen in life where when it happens to you, you think it's the worst thing in the world, but when you look backwards, it actually is a good thing in hindsight. So one of the things that happened to me early on in my life was my parents got divorced and through circumstance or fortune, my father ended up going to Hammond Island because of his interest in motorsport.

The guy that owned Hammond Island at the time was a motorsport guy, a guy by the name of Keith Williams, who probably most famously for Australians built SeaWorld on the Gold Coast. He started that with his bare hands. and one of the things he got to do was Hamilton Island very early on. So we're talking early 80s through to the late 80s in my life.

And so Dad went up there to work for Keith and basically was the go-to man on the ground that made all the decisions work, liaised between engineers, architects and Keith himself about what his vision was and getting his vision out of his head and off the paper into reality. so as a kid I'd go up there as many times a year as possible in school holidays and bounce around in my dad's ute

and go to all these meetings with engineers and architects and banks and accountants and basically sit in the corner and not say anything but just instead of playing with pencils or whatever, iPads these days, just listen to what was going on and then I guess sort of fast forward that into my 20s it sort of dawned on me that I had this amazing education about property development and hospitality and lots of different aspects of property development and a lot of that was I was exposed to from a very young age so I started working at the Commonwealth Bank basically out of

high school because I decided high school was where my education finished and all the successful people i'd met through hamilton island and and uh associated with most of those people either didn't finish high school or certainly didn't go on to um university um not that i'm saying that's the right choice for everyone but i started analyzing the people and trying to work out what success was and how come these people were able to have time off their families months in the year while my dad ran around working i tried to work out and tried to get that my brain to understand that and it just sort of came back to these people where people that controlled their own life,

they controlled their own business, their own investments, they weren't employees, which was the big takeaway. And so I decided that going to university was only going to educate me on how to be a good employee, which is what I didn't want to do. Yeah, I love that. I love that, mate. You're being controlled, right?

Yeah. Yeah, it's a really interesting thing to think about. But because it's not what we're taught to believe in, I think that's probably a reason why I get to do what I do. Yeah. Yeah, let's dig into that a little bit, mate, because I wouldn't mind you just painting a picture for us because when you mentioned Hamilton Island, most people now think of the five-star luxury basically resort that it is. But back in the day, and I'm guessing if it was back in the 80s, it was basically a rock in the water. Talk us through that transformation because I guess it sounds like

you're an old man with certainly someone who's able to take a vision and turn it into reality. And obviously, it was built in almost, if I was looking for a description, he's probably a born project manager. Is that what we're saying? yeah yeah he was he was the construction manager the the project manager whatever you want to you know call that um yeah um and so what i got to see i guess the easiest way to explain is i've got a photo of myself standing on cat's eye beach which is the main beach on hamilton island and

there's not one building on the island yeah um saturday night i was out having some people and the lady there was telling me about how her family's just bought a property on hamilton island and so i was able to get out of my phone and show here's where you bought your property and this is what it looked like before it was built and uh so i've got you know this amazing connection to that place which you've learned about building harbors and airports and banks and bakeries and multi-story accommodation single-use accommodation water treatment plants uh all sorts of things that are all, you know, things that are built all around the world in every city.

Hammond Island became, as you said, it was just a rock in the ocean and it's its own functioning city now. It's got its own power plant. It's got its own water facilities. It's got its own sewage treatment. It's got its own rubbish ship. It's got, you know, so it's got all this amazing infrastructure that were created in this little microcosm.

So very lucky to see that place get developed and the brainpower that goes behind the vision of making that happen, you know. Absolutely. Watching someone, you know, when you see a harbour get built, there's two reasons why they build a harbour. One is they dig the hole to create the water and they sell the water because that's where you put your boat, so that gets sold. And then the dirt that they've pulled out of the harbour goes around the harbour

and that's where you sell the land to the people who want to buy their block of land to build their house to look at their boat in the water. So you effectively dig a hole and sell it twice. So from a property development and a business point of view, it's pretty amazing. Yeah, absolutely amazing. Pretty formative age as well because I guess almost by osmosis, you're sort of picking all this up without even being aware that you're developing some skills and knowledge in that pretty interesting area, mate.

Absolutely. I guess I'd sort of refer to that as my real education because that was reality. It wasn't, you know, books. It wasn't studying dead people. It was alive and happening and real and tangible, you know, and you could see decisions that were made and what outcomes they had and why things, why roads went where and why water pipes went

where they did and all those sorts of things that you sort of understand why the world is we live in a little bit when you see what the decisions are that lead you to where you are, if that makes sense. Absolutely makes sense. Yeah, it does, mate. I guess the other parallel benefit of spending so much time on Hamilton Island is it was pretty much party town. When it got rocking and rolling, anyone who was anyone internationally

would go through Hamilton Island, mate. I guess you probably rubbed shoulders with some pretty interesting people there. Can you share a bit of that with us? Yeah, yeah. It's very lucky that, you know, some people became, you know, good friends and continue to be this day. It's funny. I went to the Grand Prix in Singapore a couple of years ago

and I was walking out of the hotel with my wife and I saw Sir Jackie Stewart getting out of a taxi at the hotel and I just said to my wife, watch this. and uh i went up to jackie and said hi jackie you might not remember me but you and my father on hamilton island you used to hang out a bit you went hamilton island and he said your dad's john yes all right and then we had this amazing conversation for half an hour which you know rattled off some world famous household names amongst the in the conversation or how so-and-so and how's this and how's that and we we left him and my wife said all those stories you tell me are

true yeah they are you know so you know whether it's a beetle whether it's my dad had a had a birthday party at his house once he's born on australia day so it ended up being quite the party for the island and all the all the stuff and i remember leaning to my left and asking this lady who i didn't recognize from anywhere around you know who she was and she came back well i'm the queen of denmark oh right and this is literally on the back deck of my dad's house having a barbecue Right, okay. So, yeah, just bizarre stories like that where, yeah. You mentioned the Beetle, mate.

Given George Harrison was a bit of a cars man, I'm guessing that's probably who we're talking about, are we? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So George ended up buying a house on Hamilton Island and whenever he'd come to Adelaide, I'd get the phone call from the man and we'd go to the races together and hang out which is looking back kind of bizarre because I'm a teenager getting phone calls from someone like that

saying I need you to come hang out with me because I don't want to be there by myself and yeah, just one of those amazing people in life who was an icon but I wish I knew what I knew now so I could have far better conversations with him than what I did have at the time. Well, mind you, the fact that you didn't know that and just treated him like another human

and was probably part of the attraction for him too, Matt, I'm guessing. Oh, yeah, we just talked cars and talked, you know, Grand Prix drivers and movies and, you know, one of my favourite movies is Life of Brian and little did I know he actually paid for Life of Brian to be made and he thought it was quite good that I enjoyed that movie. So I only found out, you know, years later that he actually paid for the whole movie to be made and happened to be in it as well. Yeah, yeah.

I knew who he was, obviously, but it was oblivious to me the weight of who he was and what he'd achieved in life. I guess I'm just talking out loud here, Ben, but I'm imagining, though, that sort of taking in the stride and just rubbing shoulders with people because they're people without the hero tag, moving forward, has that been useful to you in terms of just having no fear of asking anyone any question at any time?

Yeah, 100%. Yeah. 100%. They're just a human being at the end of the day. Yeah. You know, whether they've got a name, whether they've got, you know, millions of followers on social media, whether they're someone that's in the news every day,

it doesn't matter, you know. Like at the end of the day, we're all the same. We enjoy the same things. We enjoy being with our friends. Most of us enjoy being with our family. And we enjoy life, you know. Like, you know, look for good times and having fun, and that's commonality amongst us all. Yeah.

Just because someone's got different numbers in their bank account compared to someone else doesn't make them better or worse, you know? Yeah, absolutely. There's that great saying, mate, that I've actually quoted in a chapter of the book I've written on this subject, that your network equals your net worth. And given the sort of people that you had an opportunity to spend time with early on, has that influenced you at all in relation to where you went and what you're doing now? I think so. I think so because it's sort of bred in me, I guess, that anything is – one, anything is possible. Yeah.

Two, no is just an opinion. and if you don't ask you're not going to get so um you know like it's it's amazing you know i think i sort of have this feeling that people genuinely want to help people out and if if you're a person who's got influence then there's no greater way to show off you've got influence than using your influence. Yeah, yeah. You know, so people who've got influence will want to help people because they want to demonstrate their influence.

It's just a simplistic human trait, you know. Yeah, it's like a volume switch, isn't it? It gives you the ability to do things that you otherwise wouldn't. And that can be used for good and bad, but if you've got a good band, then you can do some awesome stuff with it. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, awesome, mate. Okay, well, look, let's continue down the journey then

because I want to sort of dig into the property piece now because you jumped into Commonwealth Bank and soon realised that being an ant on the conveyor belt probably wasn't your thing, particularly given the freedom that you'd seen your father and everyone else that you'd been dealing with over those years. What was your first step then? And what did you invest in initially and where did that take you to, mate?

Well, I guess the first sort of aha moment where, you know, I'd kind of forgotten I'd had this education growing up and, you know, got in the trap of go and get a job because, you know, you get promoted and then you earn more money and then you get promoted and you earn more money and I sort of fell into that for a portion of time. I just remember being at a branch here in Adelaide. there's a low socioeconomic area called Elizabeth and just talking to the loans officer at the branch there and seeing these people

that were coming in buying houses in Elizabeth, three-bedroom houses on 800, 900 square metres of land. And back then they were buying these things for $45,000, $50,000. Good grief. I started, I think that, I earned $40,000 a year. I could, you know, I could live out here on a year's salary. That's pretty amazing. And then I started looking at what the rents of these things were getting.

And, you know, I'm on $40,000 a year, so that's about $100 a week. Yeah. And these things are bringing in $130, $150 a week in rent. Awesome. And I start doing the maths in my head, go, okay, so $50,000 at 5%, righto. It's $150 a week rent, take off this. Okay, I only need to get like eight of these things and I've replaced my wage. Yeah.

I don't have to work anymore. Yeah. So, my first foray into property was Elizabeth. So, you know, bought as many as I could with the financing that was available to me. Pretty good in those days. Again, just to put the picture around this, it was almost 100% borrowings at that stage. I remember myself getting properties where I could borrow 97% plus more insurance. So is that the sort of year we're talking about, mate?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, 100%. So basically I had to come up with a stamp duty, which was, you know, so your closing costs were about 6%, so on a $50,000 property, about three grand. Yep. And then you had to come up with exactly right, the one and a half percent between, well, sorry, the 3% between what the bank wouldn't give you and your mortgage.

So, you know, for five grand, thereabouts, you're buying a $50,000 property that's got about $100 a week net cash flow attached to it. So five grand return in year one on your five grand outlay, not bad. It's a no-brainer. So you collected a bunch of these. Take us on the journey then, mate. Yeah, yeah.

So we started collecting these things and was buying them as fast as I could find them, buying them as fast as I could finance them. Yeah. And then what started happening is the pricing moved out there. The rent sort of stabilised around the 150, but what was a $50,000 house was, you know, slowly jumped up to $80,000, $85,000 house. And I'm 23 years of age, right?

So I've got, I think it was about six of them at the time. And I go, right, I've got 30 grand equity in each one of these. Six lots of 30 grand, that's a lot of money. I could really go and have some fun with that so I sold them all sold them all bought bought the Lotus sports car um and thought I was an absolute rock star um because look at me how good am I I'm 23 24 years of age driving around a $50,000 car um and years later you realize what a mistake that was but you know I wouldn't be here if I didn't make that mistake so So I basically took the bit that I didn't spend

and started getting into renovating properties because I thought, you know, you watch The Block and all these shows where they show you how easy it is to make all this money by renovating a house, and I thought, oh, yeah, I reckon I could do that. So you go and do that, and then you realise these TV shows don't factor in one important cost in all their renovation costs, and that's the actual cost of the labour or the time cost

or the interest cost. or the capital gains tax if you sell it within 12 months yeah that's right all the capital gains tax all the agency all the marketing costs all that so on paper you do your maths as a young kid and go wow i'm gonna make 50 grand if i do this right and then you walk out of there with that 900 bucks profit you know hang on now what happened here so you know learn learn that and And then sort of started looking at, this is probably, you know, early 2000s we're talking, started looking at buy one, knock it over, put two on it.

And the strategy then was to take all the profit from the one you sell and keep the second one and rent it out. Yep. And that was the strategy and that worked quite well until I went, wow, look at all the money I've got sitting in these things. I could sell them and be a really cool guy. What did you buy this time, mate? You bought the lighters the first time.

What was the second time around? Well, I bought a fairly decent house in a fairly high-priced suburb in Adelaide and had all the parties and all the people living in the house. And I was the cool guy that owned the house that hosted the parties and everyone was my mate. and uh it was fun times right you know it's what you know young single guy with a bit of money in his pocket thought i was you know thought i could do anything indestructible yep and then so you just keep doing that for a bit and then um took on more and more debt

and started to probably get a bit distressed at that because what i was what i found myself doing was selling off my cash flow producing properties and got sort of trapped or you know bedazzled by the highlights of uh you can make 200 300 grand here yeah but hadn't i you know ended up slitting my own throat to some degree because i just got rid of all my cash flow yeah to service the debt so then i ended up having to burn two or three properties that i've accumulated that i wish i still owned yeah because that's what you end up doing um yeah and just sort of refocused on my, you know, the early lessons are that cash flow is key, you know.

It's not cash, it's cash flow for me. Yep. And got back into cash flow producing properties, which is, for me, is commercial. Okay. So making that jump then, so you'd sort of, and I agree with you, I've made a heap of mistakes early on with the belief that, you know, So buy, build and sell was the way to go and it just got burnt.

It wasn't going anywhere and soon learned that buy, build and hold and then just use equity and fold it over and build the portfolio that way has been very generous to myself and my wife. We haven't gone down the commercial road because there isn't the capital growth that I've seen in that, but tell me more about your entry into that space because you might have some other views on that. Yeah, yeah. So basically I didn't know how to do it.

So an agent I'd met through real estate land had gone and joined a local prominent commercial agency. Yeah. And we sort of made a pact that we were going to work out how to do this because he was meeting all these very successful developers and they were doing this deal and that deal and making this and making that and had all the income coming in and, you know, you go and do a deal with a tenant and they're paying 600 grand

a year in rent on one deal, you know, all of a sudden that gets pretty intoxicating. You're like, okay, how do I get amongst this? So we sat down every Tuesday, the commercial section of the paper comes out, so we decided we were going to catch up every Tuesday, go through the paper and see if we could work out how these guys that were doing it were putting these deals together because we figured there was some secret source on what they were doing

and arguably is, you know, it's probably not knowing what you don't know until you know it and you know how to work it out. Basically, it got to a point where we got enough knowledge together and watched enough deals be put together by third parties that we basically engineered deals backwards for ourselves until we found one that we did and that worked out really well. that worked out really well. What sort of commercial property, mate, can I ask?

That one was a gym. Okay. That one was a gym that bought the privately owned gym, leased it up to an international tenant, and off we went. Okay. And where did that roll on to, mate? So it started with a gym. Just talk me through it a little bit.

So what happens in the commercial space is it's probably, you know, like anything, agents go and fish where the fish are. So if you're out there doing deals, that means commission to an agent. If you're sitting on the sidelines not doing any deals, the agent is not probably going to call you and say, hey, I've got this or I need a tenant here or a building there or whatnot. So you need to be doing deals because you're going to be standing in front of the money truck more often than not.

Yeah. You know, so if you don't do deals, you don't get the phone calls. You do deals, you get the phone calls. Yeah. And so what that did was a bit of sort of, I guess, how do I phrase this? It sort of arrived on the scene, I guess. Yep. And then the phone starts ringing.

So then you go on to the next one and it's all about the information for me in the commercial space. Were you building the income streams so that you could then get them revalued to credit? a bit of extra equity to then fold that equity into the next one, mate? Was that pretty much the plan or not? Pretty much so, fully funded. So there was nothing to extract out of them. It was just purely building cash flow. Yep.

So, you know, the more cash positive it is, the better. And then what happens, you've got strength. So, you know, people see the paper, you've got tenants that fall over, whether they're, you know, listed companies or not. You know, sometimes receivers come in or bankruptcy happens and tenants fall over. So the more income you've got, more income streams you've got from across different tenants, the better you are. So if you do have a problem with one, it doesn't cripple you. You know, it hurts, but it doesn't cripple you.

You've got multiple streams. What about funding them, mate? Because, you know, most commercial funders will only look at sort of 60%, maybe 70% funding. Yeah, that's right. How are you covering the shortfall? so it's about demonstrating the value add okay for me yeah so so with it like if you use in residential terms which is probably the easiest way to to articulate it if i've got a one site and i'm going to knock it over and put two on it and let's say i'm going to pay 500 for this

house to get the land but i've got two houses that are worth 600 each when and when they're finished and they're going to cost me 300 grand each to build i've bought paid 500 for land 600 build 1.1 but they're worth 1.2 when they're finished yeah all right so i've demonstrated i can demonstrate up front to the bank with a valuation yeah that the deal is actually a 1.2 million dollar deal not a 500 000 yeah gotcha gotcha so it's it's about demonstrating the value app yeah yeah okay awesome mate so you and you're still doing that where which fingers and which pies have you got now is that predominantly where you've got your energy yeah very very much so well it's what you know what puts food on the table and what puts the the money in the bank account

you know so um have you shifted the tops of because i guess the uh looking top down uh a lot of commercial particularly retail type spaces like your gyms and whatnot they're going to be under a threat. They're a dime a dozen. Getting anchor tenants that are going to survive the distance to make sure they continue to pay the rent must be an ongoing challenge. How have you tackled that and how has that changed your strategy in terms of what you're doing now and what you'll be doing in the future? I guess my tendencies are mostly not focused on selling widget, selling either service or food right so whether it's health services or financial services or um community-based services

um not selling shoes not selling dresses but things that people will buy you know not not to be bold enough to say recession proof but i think there's more um more protection um more downside protection in in industries or or genres that aren't going to be you know discretionary spending stuff so it's what we're talking petrol stations are we talking put some color in the forest got petrol stations got um health got food got professional services yeah um got government-based um tenancies great um yeah so very very few well hardly any retail um yeah in that mix but yeah um it's not to say that i don't believe in it it's just that that's just what i do yeah well i mean you're playing the safe money and

And if it's government-supported and they're major tenants that are not likely to be here today and gone tomorrow, then you've diversified by having multiple streams coming in, and that's a pretty good way to build a pretty safe and ongoing income stream, mate. That's bloody awesome. So, mate, something that I've always said to people, you know, a lot of Aussies are rich but they're not wealthy. And what I mean by that is that there's a lot of Aussies that focus on income, but they don't focus on the assets. And, you know, you're only wealthy if you've got time on your hands, if you ask me. And the only way you're going to get time on your hands is if your income needs are being met elsewhere.

And clearly, you've done that very well through property. and having time on your hands and the income to support it obviously gives you both the latitude and probably also the courage to some degree to start having a crack at some things that a lot of people who've got their head down and bum up in the trenches just don't even get a sniff at. Let's delve now into some of the really interesting things

that you've continued to do. We'll start with the Adelaide 36s. Talk us through that mate Because Pretty gutsy move at the time Given what was happening For those who Aren't aware of that story

Can you just talk that through with us please mate Yeah So I'm a basketball guy So my two sport passions Are motorsport and basketball And I've been a big 36's

fan, supporter, well-wisher for a long time. And the situation came up where the person that owned the team had lost their support, their financial support, their financial backer, and basically they were just going to close the doors and walk away. And that would have crippled not only the league but, you know, maybe, well, certainly the team in Adelaide. but also the league as well.

So myself and a bunch of other people decided we liked it too much and we thought we'd get a go at it. And so we put some money on the table and, you know, 10 years later the team's still here. The NBL was going from strength to strength and, you know, sort of had a little bit to do with that. But, yeah, got involved in that. And my top tip is don't get involved in professional sports.

It's funny. There's a guy in the U.S., Mark Cuban, who's Shark Tank. He's one of the first tech billionaire guys, and he owns a basketball team in the NBA. A friend of mine messaged him and said, my mate's about to buy a basketball team in Australia. What advice have you got for him? And he just wrote back, don't do it.

Mate, what's that old saying, never mix business and pleasure? Because that emotional attachment to the sport can get in the way of what is really a business. Yeah, that's true. That's true, Bushy. But I remember being there with my kids about six months ago and seeing just the look on their face and how much enjoyment and it brought them and, you know, having people that I like

that are friends that are involved in the sport still and playing one-on-one and having them come around the house and shoot hoops in the backyard with the kids and all that sort of stuff, I think, you know, it was worth it. Oh, mate, you saved an icon, mate. It was gone at the time you got on board. Yeah, but lots of good people, lots of good people were involved. I did my bit, but, yeah.

Yeah, no, it's something to be very proud of, I think, mate. Just without going off on too much of a tangent, because I've often thought this, you look at all the sporting codes, they're all fighting for shelf life. They're grunty machines. They need a lot of coin to keep them turning over. Yeah. What do you think the future of professional sport is in that context?

Because there aren't too many success stories. Most of them are subsidised, aren't they? Oh, for sure, for sure. Well, I think, you know, as the world gets smaller, we're more, you know, contactable. Kids are growing up with iPads attached to them far too much. Yeah. And it's something I raised with the federal sports minister.

I'm like, you're backing in sport like AFL, and I'm not an AFL guy, and you're probably going to pick that up in a minute, but I look at international football and basketball and think, okay, we've got 300 million people that play basketball in China alone. There's 300 and something million people that play soccer around the planet. Yeah.

How much longer has AFL got to last here before the kids going, you know, every day, well, not every day, regularly you see articles about how parents are pushing their kids towards soccer or basketball. and I just wonder what sort of long tail the AFL does have. So my, you know, my thought is that basketball and soccer are going to be certain in the future and then you've got your e-sports as well, which are coming through like a powerhouse

where kids are watching other kids play video games. Yeah, no, I agree with you, mate. I absolutely agree with you. And the other thing I think that if we look at the development of the sport, I heard Bummer Thompson talk here 12 months ago where he said that the AFL is not putting anything back into junior football. So the next generation of players aren't going to be there. So you've got the drop in the quality of the gladiators on the pitch

and then you've got these massive threats. You can watch pretty much any sport live on your phone these days from anywhere on the planet. So, you've got these global heroes overshadowing what used to be local heroes. It's going to be pretty challenging, I think. Yeah, and that's the media landscape as well. I mean, you've got these global media players that have already paid for the rights to the Premier League or rights to the NBA. So, they've already owned the content.

They don't need to go and pay for anything else. They don't need to invest in anything else. So, that's an easy, simple decision for them is to push that content through their network. and that's what we'll end up seeing more and more of, I think. Yeah, of course. And the other sports will, screen time will evaporate. Interesting days. Now, you only spent a couple of years there, mate.

Reason for moving on? Talk to us. Are you just a builder and not a maintainer? Yeah, no, no, no. I felt like the patient survived and then it was up to someone else. gotcha to make you know keep it keep it alive you know so i moved on went and um yeah basically just got back into my property stuff so yeah um um that's just one natural calling and yeah we're from a happy place building things putting it together and i guess that plays

to my character is that once you build a building and hand it over you go find the next one you don't have to worry about yeah you don't have to worry about maintaining it per se as in you don't have to be there every day or whatnot you know like it's just locked and loaded and off you go to the next one so yeah i agree mate and it's i thought i was a an architect and a project manager for 17 years and the satisfaction you get out of creating something from nothing uh yeah and then it stands there it'll they'll still be there after you and i've gone and yeah yeah it's a great legacy and great physical satisfaction out of out of making that happen but the one the one good thing about and what i love about property for me is it's it's given us time back so you know i

wouldn't have the the privilege of being able to have a chat to you and have the time to do that if it wasn't for what property's done for us now you had a crack at the uh the 36s you spent a bit of time with the um shahin family talk to us about that one mate i'm just interested in given the fact that you you're probably well on the road independently uh financial that point in time And what was the attraction to jump on board with a family business? I'm sort of interested. So I met Dr. Sam through basketball, Big 36's fam. So we ended up becoming quite friendly and have a passion for motorsport,

which is he sort of unleashed his passion a bit larger than anyone else has in Australia most recently, spending a hundred and something million dollars out at Tail and Bend building the second-best track in the world. yeah um so we got to spend you know a lot of time with each other and he kept saying i need your help here and there and and got me in and and basically he's got a big property portfolio so that was an attraction to learn um from you know a big player yeah in the market and um i guess the lesson there is that you know that a deal is a deal but the paperwork's the same the negotiations are the same the deals with the bank are the same the paperwork's the same

um it's all the same and it just comes down to the horsepower of being able to fund the deal yeah depending on how many zeros are in it versus um what other people can do so it's all the same process you know there's the same set of keys goes to the same same locksmith you know whether it's a two hundred thousand dollar house or two hundred million dollar commercial property it's the same locksmith that does the job so yeah um it's all it's all just process you know um and so yeah learn learn from him and and um i was just really i guess intrigued to to sit with him and learn from him his his mannerisms his techniques his um the way he negotiates what he doesn't say most importantly which is probably where i get myself

in trouble a bit, talking too much. Yeah, yeah. So what were the take-homes from that, mate? Then you spent 12 months there. What were the big takeaways for you? Again, you know, this is a migrant family that had to ask the Australian government three times to be citizens of the country, you know, and here they are spending hundreds of millions of dollars

30-odd years later after being allowed to be citizens. So, again, anything is possible, you know, given the right attitude, given the right application of discipline or knowledge, you know, it's amazing. And probably the biggest thing for me is their sense of family and unity that they have and loyalty to one another. It's inspiring, absolutely inspiring how they handle themselves.

Yeah, Australians have got a lot to learn and they think generationally, don't they? Not just in terms of years, but generationally. We had those discussions about what the 80-year plan is. Yeah. You know? When you're sitting with people talking about what their 80-year plan is when they're 50 years of age.

Hang on, is there something here I'm missing? I'll give you to 100. What happens after that? Walt Disney's going to be around, mate. He's frozen. Perhaps Fred's going to do the same thing. Yeah. But, you know, it's amazing.

And, yeah, that word legacy as well, like what those brothers do, the sons do to honour their father's decision-making is, yeah, it's beautiful. It's absolutely beautiful. Awesome. Yeah, well, some great takeaways there, which no doubt, I mean, you're married with some kids. Has that started to influence the way you're approaching the future, mate?

Yeah, yeah. Well, I make decisions for my grandchildren. Yeah. And my daughter's eight and my son's four, but I'm making decisions for my grandchildren. Yeah. Yeah. So that's how – because someone once said to me,

they said, do you think you would have talked your grandfather out of buying a property on Sydney Harbour in 1940 for 20 grand? Exactly. Exactly right. Yeah, it's a good analogy, mate. Mate, you've also got some time now to put into some pretty groundbreaking stuff, and you've had a bit of a rollercoaster ride already in the medical marijuana and the cannabis field.

Yeah. Talk to us a bit about that because, you know, there's been some fairly high-profile stuff, and you've had some interesting partners on that journey. Talk us through how that's gone and where that currently sits. Yeah. so this is probably three years in the making and when we started out it wasn't legal in south australia or australia and that's that's now changed yeah um hemp wasn't legal

in south australia that's now changed yeah um what what hasn't changed though is we've still got some work to do around access and people getting access to cannabis so my my belief is and science is dictating this belief is that when we went to school and people of my vintage, which is if you're born in the 80s or earlier, you left school believing that cannabis was a gateway drug, it was the worst thing on the planet and only low-lifes did it and that sort of thing. Change and chug the drive-in on a Saturday night.

Yeah, all that stoner movies and all that sort of culture stuff. is all based on fiction. Yeah. Totally. So you delve into the story of how it became so scorned in society and why it became so scorned in society and who those people are and why it was done. You start to think, hang on, there's something to this.

I'm guessing it's probably to do with the drunk companies He's wanting to eliminate anything that's a natural source that would get in the way of plugging some chemical, no? No, no, it's even more simplistic than that. It's basically you go back to a guy by the name of Harry Hanslinger in the 30s who was an American and he happened to be in charge of the department that looked after the prohibition of alcohol and when that finished up, young Harry really didn't have much to do

so he went to this other stuff that people with different skin colour to him seemed to enjoy using it, he decided that was the evil thing and that's literally how it started. This guy decided that cannabis was bad and had a position of influence and power to carry out that and that's where it all started. And then, you know, 70, 80 years later, we're still believing that story without any facts attached to it. Yeah.

Yeah, well, the scientific proof behind the medical benefits of marijuana to the elderly, cancer patients, a whole bunch of, you know, you can't argue with it, it's there and proven. How do you overcome the mental shift, though? Because, you know, we've got a generation of politicians and, again, I think even in our recent sphere, there's open attacks on on marijuana almost winding back the clock uh yeah well how what's your thoughts on how that's going to be overcome and where do you see uh the real opportunity

because i mean here we are in that good old adelaide the best kept secret in the country uh with an opportunity like this that could create a massive industry where manufacturing's you know, falling over almost by the day would appear to be a massive opportunity to me. Where does it sit and how are you going to sort of overcome some of those political challenges to build an industry? Well, it comes down to dealing with the right people and, you know, had Labor got back in in South Australia,

I think we'd be having a different discussion to what we are now. Yeah. Because they were going to be brave enough. We had the plan all set and locked and ready to go and, you know, when you're dealing direct with the decision makers, you know, where that sits. So basically just had to restart that whole process. And, you know, the reality is you are going to find those people

that are stuck in the past but there's a lot of people like, you know, you just said that you've read enough about it, you've seen enough about it and go, okay, this no longer needs to be demonised. There's something to be uncovered here. And the reality in South Australia and indeed Australia is the industry already exists, but where it exists is in the shadows. So it's actually profiteering the black market and enabling them to cash flow other things that are far more serious

than what we're talking about. So every step of the way there's good that comes out of it. Yes. you know, and it just comes down to politicians being brave enough and they are out there. You know, you look at Senator Di Natale and his stance and he's a drug of addiction specialist, I think. He's certainly a medical doctor.

So he can speak with authority on the medical side of things and, you know, pill testing at festivals is, you know, a big thing at the moment and it just comes down to this attitude. You know, are we going to allow kids to consume stuff illegally in the shadows or do it with some sort of guidance and perhaps save their life, you know, and where do we sit morally on that? So do we take the stance that it's illegal, therefore it's bad,

or do we take the stance that, well, the law may be wrong? Yeah. But there's enough instances around the globe that would suggest otherwise, and that's the old story. Yeah. But I think the challenge that Adelaide's always had, and I'd be interested in your thoughts on this, and I love South Australia, so it's a fantastic place to live.

But we do tend to be conservative, and we do tend to talk about it, talk about it, talk about it, and talk about it, and by the time we finally make a decision, it's too late because someone else has done it. Yeah. What's your thinking around that, mate, and how do you see yourself then overcoming some of those challenges to really optimise the opportunity that we can,

that you're driving is in before. It's just persistence. If you stay true to your beliefs and your why, why am I doing this? I've got a really personal why about why I'm doing this. That's all you need is to keep knocking on doors. And it goes back to the things we talked about earlier. I've got no problem pulling a Premier aside and saying,

oi, we need to talk about this. Here's the reality. When have you got 10 minutes for me to go and chat about it? Yeah, yeah. So, you know, it's sort of my upbringing. I guess I'm lucky to have that. I'm not afraid. Fearless, limitless approach to life, mate,

which there aren't many that do, mate. So I totally applaud that, buddy. Mate, moving forward then. So what's the future look like for you, mate? Is it more property and then sort of dipping the toe into other opportunities like medical marijuana and cannabis? Paint that picture for us. Yeah, so it's seeing the cannabis project through to fruition,

which is, I think, this time next year. So December 2019, that should well and truly be in place. the building blocks are there and we should have something in train there so that'll be a good experience and then just I guess become more of an

asset manager role more than anything and then it just comes down to what interests you you know and where do you find appeal whether it's widget making whether it's donating whether it's mentoring whatever it is

that's sort of what I see yeah Anything arising because you're one of the few that's deliberately managed your lifestyle to put you in a situation where you do have time on your hands because your income needs are being looked after by the assets that you've invested in. What are the interests that are really grabbing your appetite at the moment, mate? it really is the cannabis because there's enough work there for an army of people and sometimes you've got to be patient

and sometimes you've got to know when to go over the hill sometimes you've got to know when to fire back and that's probably where my main focus is at the moment but we've got other it's i don't know if it's the same with you you know maybe one's got a saying the deal of a

lifetime walks past your door every week yeah and that and it's been the discipline they know a lot of that stuff for the last few years because and stay focused because it's very easy to get unfocused yeah and very easy to get distracted by the shiny glittery thing yeah the the sort of deal make you in you where it constantly gets in the way because it's always a fantastic deal it's that's walking through the door yeah yeah yeah and then you go well i can bring that guy and that guy and put that thing together and then set it off in the wild and go back to what you're supposed to be doing.

Don't worry about that. So, you know. Mate, that's awesome. Let me just flick into what I call the ambush session, mate, which is a couple of questions that the audience loves to get your thoughts on. First of those is what's your favourite quote and why, mate? Nothing is either good nor bad, but thinking makes it so.

Yeah. And the reason why I love that is it's just is what it is. It's what our past experiences or our hopes or our perceptions or our attitude put into a situation that can make it really good or make it really crappy. so just being able to sit, think and say okay

how do I respond to this bad news, good news, whatever it is and move forward perfectly applicable given the cannabis industry that we're talking about it's the old story, social norms can colour

judgement and because of that can miss massive opportunity just by reframing hold on this is not bad uh let's let's let's let's question that and look at what the what the true merits are no that's awesome quite often it's the story you tell yourself that attaches it you know yeah that the old perception thing perceptions reality spot on mate but uh most people i've talked to who've enjoyed sustainable success uh tend to read what's the top book that you'd recommend and why

this is going to sound really boring but it's not boring because it's still the most awesome book I think anyone if anyone means something to me I'll buy them this book it's Rich Dad Poor Water yeah I think that's where everything starts and it's such a beautiful

book for so many ways that it just resonates and you know the success and the volume of sales dictates You know, that it's – that's the book. In the topics we're discussing, that's the book. Matt, I had my own Kiyosaki moment a bit over 20 years ago. It was an absolute light bulb moment to me, mate,

to someone who'd come out of a pretty tricky divorce with absolutely zero and starting again. And it was that book that set me on our current course and now gives me the life that we enjoy. And when I was listening to you and you were talking about, you know, soaking your knee up there in Hammerton Island, I was thinking about the Rich Dad exercise right there, mate, where you've pretty much had a Rich Dad, poor mum experience probably

in your own life that's shaped what you now do and why you get to do what you do. Yeah, yeah, exactly. When I read that book, I was like, this is me. Holy crap. which is completely arrogant to say but it kind of if that makes sense you know like i'm not saying it in an arrogant but like i'm like man i've lived this i get it so yeah it's part of my awesome uh what's what's the top thing you've done to pay less tax mate because most australians

feel like we pay too much uh in within the confines of legality uh what does the top thing that you've done to minimize what you're contributing to the right account yeah yeah The right accountant. Nothing I've done personally. Yeah. I haven't come up with any, you know, it's all been education by people who know better. Yeah, yeah.

And so you combine a good accountant with property and there's no better way to make sure that you're keeping most of your hard-earned in your pocket, mate, that's for sure. Yeah, yeah. Awesome. Now, mate, a bit more general, what's both the worst and the best piece of investment advice that you've ever received? There's the old line, if it flies, float, it's all,

but we won't go there. The best. Compound interest. Yeah. And that was something my grandfather taught me. Yeah. And it just, like, he tried to explain, I just remember him sitting on his knee and him trying to explain it to me

over and over again. It just didn't make sense to me about how money just appeared out of nowhere. Yeah. And I think so that's probably whether it's compound interest or, you know, it's growth in your rent because you're getting more than CPI or your, you know, growth in your property portfolio or growth in your shares or growth in whatever it is. Yeah. That's all compound interest to me.

That's all just compounding. Yeah. It's what Albert Einstein referred to it as the eighth wonder of the world, mate, would you believe? And I can see why. Yeah, exactly, exactly. The worst is, well, this is also probably the best, don't get involved in professional sports teams.

For financial reasons, for warm and fuzzy, knock yourself out. Yeah. Yeah. Good experience to have early though, mate. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, well, look, mate, just to close things off, because I know you're a busy man, if you were to perhaps speak to your son as he's just leaving school

or a school leaver, what would you advise them to invest their time, money and skills in to create freedom, mate? Well, for me, you know, I'd stick to what you know. And for me, it's property. So to get into property as soon as possible, my brother who's 18 years younger than me bought his first property at 18. Yeah. Because that's when he was legally able to do it.

Yeah, yeah. So that's probably the answer, property. Yeah. Because it just, it's never going to be cheaper. Yeah, the best time was 20 years ago and the second best time is today. Yeah, exactly right, mate. Yeah. Exactly right.

100% agree. Okay, mate, that pretty much brings us to a close. If anyone wants to pick your brains on any of these subjects, are you open to them getting in touch with you, mate? Yeah, no problem. No problem. How would they do that? Probably Twitter, just add Ben Fitz is the best way.

Yeah. You'll have to wade through all the basketballs and that sort, but that's okay. Mate, been a pleasure spending some time with you, Ben. Love your insights. Keep doing your thing, mate. I really hope that Weekend is a success. It's something that the globe needs but also Adelaide needs.

So right behind you are everything you're doing there, mate, and if there's anything I can do to assist, then please yell out. Cheers, Bushy, appreciate it. Thanks, mate. Talk to you soon. Cheers. Thanks, mate. 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 GetInvested. I look forward to joining you next week for another episode of the GetInvested podcast. So thanks for listening. And as always, dream as if you live forever and live as if you die tomorrow.