Property Hub - Investment Insights & Inspiration - Get Invested: How Paul Dunn became a gladiator for global giving

Episode Date: November 9, 2019

Paul Dunn is a gladiator for global giving. His good vibes and infectious energy is immediately invigorating – just listening to his words of wisdom inspires you to be better and to do better. Listening to him you will find it hard to believe he is in his late 70s – he’s a walking talking advert for the life giving benefits of generosity. And his commitment to creating a kinder generous world is built on a lifetime of personal and business success. How’s this for a track record: Paul’s a four-time TEDx speaker. He is a Senior Fellow in one of the world’s leading Think Tanks and consults to and mentors leading-edge businesses around the world. He was honoured as a Social Innovation Fellow in his new home of Singapore, something he shares with film-star and philanthropist Jet Li and Walmart Chairman, Rob Walton. He was one of the first 10 people hired for Hewlett Packard in Australia. He then created one of Australia’s first computer companies and then The Results Corporation, where he helped develop and grow 23,000 small and medium scale business enterprises. Some 17,700 Accountants came through his breakthrough program for Accountants — the Accountants’ Boot Camp. His training programs are used by an estimated 226,000 companies around the world and he continues to push the boundaries. He featured in Forbes Magazine alongside Sir Richard Branson in a global piece on ‘disrupters’ in business. He’s often called the Wizard of WOW because every conversation he has changes lives. He travels close to 800,000 miles each year speaking around the world and spreading his global giving message … and apparently his baggage travels twice as far. And all of this has led to his current Chairmanship of B1G1: where he’s already enabled businesses to create nearly 200 Million giving impacts globally. And in the spirit of giving, I’m also going to challenge you to take an action today that will also contribute to making the world a better place through B1G1. At one point during today’s episode I ask you to email me at [e-mail] with a specific subject header, so listen out for it – everyone who emails me with the correct heading will receive a copy of my book Get Invested and our business Know How will donate 100 days of lifegiving clean water to those less fortunate in Ethiopia, so hit me with it and I’d love to see my email go into melt down! Today’s chat with Paul is one of the most enjoyable and immediately invigorating conversations I’ve ever enjoyed, and I know you will too. Paul's book recommendation: The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg 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.

So imagine what would happen if every time business was done, something great happened in our world. Just imagine that. So just take that same thing, right? Imagine if every time we got on a bus, we smiled at the bus driver. Imagine if every time, you know, we were in an elevator, we sort of looked and said, thank you. No, you wouldn't want to say thank you for coming to my meeting. They'd think you're weird. but but but you get the idea right and and and it is all about this thinking outwards that

instead of you know the more conventional uh thinking inwards 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, 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. How often do you give freely to help someone you've never met and likely never will,

without expecting any recognition or expecting anything in return ever? Now, without realising it, your answer to this question is likely to give you a measure of how fulfilled you feel in your life. And I hear a lot of people say that when I'm financially secure, then I'll start giving to others. That old adage of using the oxygen mask on yourself before you try and save others. But just imagine if you could turn your everyday activities into an opportunity to create a transformational, life-saving impact on others less fortunate on the other side of the world. What if every email you send results in a tree being planted to save orangutans? What if every coffee you drink gives a meal to an orphaned child?

And what if every dollar we save our clients on their home loans gives a day's life-saving water to people in Ethiopia? Today's very special guest has turned these imaginary what-ifs into real-life transformational now-wins that are linking our everyday local actions to life-saving global impacts. This is the business butterfly ripple effect in motion. The butterfly effect is the concept that a small change

can make a much bigger change happen somewhere else. So if a butterfly flaps its wings in Adelaide, a cooling breeze results in Africa. We're talking about Paul Dunn and the inspirational, life-changing work he and his dedicated team at B1G1 Business for Good are doing in partnership with givers and businesses big and small to improve the world for everyone's current and future benefit.

More than anyone in any supporting organisation I know, he's motivating us all and giving every single one of us the hands-on ability to make a difference and make the world a better place, to contribute in a meaningful way to achieving the United Nations Global Goals for Sustainable Development. And if you haven't heard of the Global Goals, in 2015, world leaders agreed to 17 goals for a better world by 2030. These goals have the power to end poverty, fight inequality and address the urgency of climate change.

guided by the goals it's now up to all of us to work together to build a better future for everyone you can check out the inspiring global goals video we the people on our know-how property finance website at www.khgroup.com.au forward slash y dash us it's really worth having a look at and if you haven't had a chance to get on board with buy one give one or b1g1 business for goods global giving initiative click the link on our b1g1 impact scoreboard on our website home page at www.khgroup.com.au what i love about b1g1 is that every dollar you give goes directly to those in need. And B1G1 is not about giving for guilt. It's about sharing the joy of giving every second, every day, in every way. For example, our know-how business has currently given nearly 40,000 days

of life-saving water to those less fortunate in Tigray, in Ethiopia, through B1G1. And we need your help to reach our massive goal of giving one million days. You see, for every dollar our finance breaking team saves you on restructuring your home and your property loans, we're giving a day's clean water. So join us in saving a dollar to save a life. And the good news is that it's really easy to save anywhere between $400 and $1,200 a month on your home loan just by refinancing. So this is going to make a massive impact to saving the lives of those less fortunate. You may be surprised to know that there are over 663 million people in the world that still have no access to clean water, and the world still loses over

1,800 children a day because they're forced to drink contaminated water. So by helping yourself will also be helping others who have no choice and have no voice. For me, giving is the tangible expression of gratitude. Giving is gratitude in action. And giving is not only good for the receiver, it's doubly good for the giver. Now research has repeatedly shown that people who give to others feel good about themselves, adding to their level self-esteem and self-confidence giving to others supports your feelings of self-worth and people who give to others are more satisfied with their own situation in life and by giving we encourage others and inspire them to do better giving makes others feel braver

stronger and smarter and more than that giving generosity is contagious giving us giving makes us feel good, and when we feel good, we're better at making those around us feel good too. As someone who's spent many of my early years focused on my own selfish ambitions, I can say firsthand just how much better I feel as a person when I give freely to others. My heart sings and I just can't wipe the smile from my face. There's a sort of a sense of joy and fulfillment that you just won't enjoy any other way. And once you start giving, the universe returns it to you in spades.

the world is just a magnifying mirror of our energy what we give out we get back now if you don't believe me i challenge you to try it now smile the next stranger you see or just say hello to someone as you walk past and of course there's no better way or easier way to give and make a global impact than through b1g1 get creative and see how you can partner with your clients to turn everyday actions into giving impacts, then every time you do this action, you'll get an immediate dose of feel-good, turning unconscious monotony into curious magnanimity. Today's Get Invested guest, Paul Dunn, is an absolute gladiator for global giving.

His good vibes and infectious energy is immediately invigorating. just listening to his words of wisdom inspires you to be better and to do better listening to him you'll find it hard to believe that he's in his late 70s he's a walking talking advert for life-giving benefits of generosity and his commitment to creating a kinder more generous world is built on a lifetime of personal and business success just listen to this for a track record that's been dedicated to adding value, having fun and making a massive difference. Paul's a four-time TEDx speaker. He's a senior fellow in one of the world's leading think tanks and consults to and mentors leading edge businesses right around the world. He was

honoured as a social innovation fellow in his new home of Singapore, something he shares with film star and philanthropist Jet Li and Walmart chairman Bob Walton. He's one of the first 10 people in Hewlett Packard in Australia. He then created one of Australia's first computer companies and then the Results Corporation where he helped develop and grow 23,000 small and medium scale business enterprises. Some 17,700 accountants came through his breakthrough program from accountants called the accountants boot camp his training programs are used by an estimated 226 000 companies around the world and he continues to push the boundaries he featured in forbes magazine alongside sir richard branson and a global piece on disruptors in business

and he's often called the wizard of wow or whoa because every conversation he has changes lives as you're about to find out he travels close to 800 000 miles each year speaking around the world and spreading his global giving message and apparently his baggage travels twice as far and all of this has led to his current chairmanship of b1g1 where he's already enabled businesses to create nearly 200 million giving impacts globally paul magnetically surrounds himself with truly extraordinary individuals who are equally curious and ever-learning. His selfless humility belies the fact that he regularly rubs shoulders with other greats, including one of my other great heroes, Simon Sinek.

Paul is one of those rare individuals that I call a true appreciator. A title encapsulates the double meaning of appreciate. He starts and ends each day appreciating the gift of life, but he also enjoys the results of appreciation by investing in things that increase in value, is what I call an outfester in my book, The Freedom Formula. Investors generally invest in their own growth, while outfesters invest in growing others. In this respect, he's also a genuine care catalyst, a person whose talk, enthusiasm and energy, causes others to be more friendly, enthusiastic and energetic, creating positive

change. And in the spirit of giving, I'm also going to challenge you to take an action today that will also contribute to making the world a better place through B1G1. At one point during today's episode, I ask you to email me at bushy at khgroup.com.au That's bushy, B-U-S-H-Y, at khgroup.com.au with a specific subject header. So listen out for it. And everyone who emails me with the correct heading

will not only receive a copy of my book, Get Invested, but our business know-how will donate 100 days of life-giving clean water to those less fortunate in Ethiopia. So hit me with it, and I'd love to see my email going to meltdown. Now, today's chat with Paul, it's got to be one of the most enjoyable and immediately invigorating conversations I've ever enjoyed.

And I know you will too. Just listening to his words of wisdom will immediately put a warm smile on your face. So enjoy this awesome chat. The enigmatic Paul Dunn. Welcome back, Freedom Fighters. Now, it seems that everyone's chasing a life full of joy and fulfillment. And I've learned that it's found in ways that we often don't expect.

You see, I've only worked out relatively late in life that true joy and fulfillment only comes when you give freely to someone else in need without them knowing it or ever expecting anything in return. Now, this is easy to do at the immediate one-to-one personal level, But it's always been a challenge at the business level to easily allow you to help others directly while helping those less fortunate, the voiceless and the innocent in need globally. Until now, that is. And to find out how, I'm really thrilled and humbled to have the pleasure of talking with one of my virtual mentors and timeless role models.

He's what I call the David Attenborough of global giving. And he's the man who embodies and brings on the real butterfly effect, the infectious Paul Dunn. So a very warm welcome and let's get invested, Paul. Oh, my goodness. David Attenborough. That was awesome. And it brought such a lump to my throat that I'm actually a bit croaky right now.

So thank you for that. I just need a swig of tea after that. Hang on a second. But the funny thing about that, thank you for that, Bushy, and thank you for joining us as well, wherever it is you're listening. Funny thing, you mentioned David Attenborough. I mean, he's amazing, isn't he? Isn't he amazing?

Yeah, I think I've watched everything that he ever did, and one of the greatest things he did was when he was celebrating his 90th birthday, which I think was three years ago. Incredible. And there he was with President Obama. Obama had invited him to come and spend his birthday with him. So it was – I can't imagine the current incumbent doing that. But anyway.

That would be pretty – mind you, let's talk about Trumpitis because I think you suffered a bit of Trumpitis for a little while. Am I right in saying that, Paul? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's easy to get obsessed with things when you're curious. is an issue but sometimes curiosity can take you too far and um you know you mentioned and it was very nice of you to say role models and stuff like that and and so there were so many people aren't there that you know i remember well i don't remember but i know that in uh 1676 which

by the way i don't remember it might be and you'll see why i was mentioning that because That was when Isaac Newton, actually, was talking about some of his insights to the Royal Society in the UK. And that was where we got that expression. In fact, he began his chat that day by saying, you know, I'm doing this by standing on the shoulders of giants, you know, those who go before. And just as you were mentioning what you were just mentioning, I thought, you know what, that's so true. Because a friend, I mean, here's a giant, you know, a guy called Dan Priestley, who I mentor.

And, you know, Dan, I think, from Dent and KPM. And, you know, it's interesting. I mean, Dan said a while back, he said, you know, your environment dictates your performance. And that's so true. That is really so true. You know, Dan's basic proposition there was, you know, if we're working at Google for a week, you know,

we're going to be probably a little more creative during that week. But I read something else which relates to your comment about the current incumbent last week, I think it was, where I think it could have been Seth Godin, actually, who said your narrative determines your performance as well, which means that it's not just the people we surround ourselves with, It's actually the stuff that we surround ourselves with, you know, the things we listen to, the things we read.

They all influence so much what we're doing. And hopefully one of the better things that people listen to, Bushy, is your podcast. That was a long way for a backhanded compliment. Well, there you go. You'll get everywhere by saying that, mate. And what I love about what you've just said as well is that in this current day and age where we are so digitally interconnected, if we start filling ourselves with positives, then the digital world sends us more positives because it finds out what we like and then sends us more of that. On the contrary, if we start going down rabbit holes that are full of negativity and criticism, then exponentially we're going to see more of that.

so it's an interesting world we live in and I think the mental food that we that we feed ourselves with and the narrative as as you well quoted from Seth around surrounding ourselves in the messages that are meaningful to us in life is an absolute key to enjoying life these days mate and as a sort of a rounding back to and a great start thank you but for those who who don't know paul dunn can you sort of give us a quick summary of who you are what you're doing and and where you're heading currently paul ah well yeah quick summary uh a quick summary uh when you uh when you're born in 1943 is uh is a little bit difficult well i tell you what we'll do let's focus on the today and then then i'm going to go back i'll go back to 1943 in a minute

because I'll be very interested to dig into the journey and your learnings on that path as well. By the way, for the potential listener who might say, oh, my God, are we going to go through all of that? No, no, no, no, no. Just the salient point, just the headlines, that's the one. It's an exciting way, exactly right. So what I have the absolute privilege of doing,

and, you know, it's an interesting story as to how this happened, is being the emin of a company that you kind of referred to in the introduction there, which is called B1G1. It used to stand for buy one, give one. And it's this extraordinary idea that wouldn't, just imagine what the world would be like if every time business was done, in whatever way it was done, if every time business was done,

something great happened in our world. So let's just take some interesting, you know, things on that. So, for example, imagine if every time an email was sent, and by the way, 2.7 million of them are sent per second, right? So imagine if every time that was done, a kid got access to education or water or something, right? Just imagine, and it's possible because it costs you one cent to do in B1G1. Or imagine, you know, if someone has their morning coffee, in fact, they might even be drinking it right now, and they've bought it from, you know, a place somewhere. Well, imagine if that place they bought it from said, you know, every time you have a cup of coffee, something great happens, and they could determine what that something great is.

Or, you know, I got back here home in Singapore last night at half past one in the morning, and I was actually speaking all day in Bali. So when I got off the plane, one of the things I do, and a lot of other people now do, by the way, is they, because we in B1G1 know the carbon dump, if that's the word, of every plane that was ever invented. and so what we do and so we know that uh you know carbon dump is bad but tree planting is good so what i do and a number of other people do now a lot of people now in beyond june as you get off the plane you say okay how long was that flight uh in that particular case it was two and a quarter hours and i offset i triple offset so it actually would be if i was just offsetting it would be 1.3 trees which a bit difficult so one tree let's say um but i triple offset and the triple is because probably the guy who sat next to me didn't do anything and the other one and the other one is

for the crazy politicians who say it doesn't matter so uh so um so it's very it's very simple so that giving and again your introduction was was so on uh giving is this uh is this is this great thing um that that happens in fact yesterday when i was speaking in bali i began by saying you know when when uh when people talk about you know getting your stuff together they said well you know what you got to do is look inward look inward look inward and i and i understand that i really do understand that thought and i don't want to say it's an incorrect thought but i think when we look outward it it becomes different because when we look outward we're fundamentally not focused on ourselves we're fundamentally focused on you know what's going on

out there and as you as you look at what's going on out there you might just you might just go you know what i i can impact that i can impact that you know right now and um you know and so as a result of that extraordinary things happen and there's never been a time like this that we are in i mean how lucky are we when it is it is so easy to make things happen uh that you know you can as as you know you can have a you know uh all you need is a is a is a computer in a bedroom and you're in business right and you can get you know the free software the free this the free that whereas years ago you just simply didn't have that flexibility and of course you can be anywhere in the world you can be a digital nomad and and you know you can be connected and part of the great

things that are happening so there you go that's a long answer to what on earth am i doing but there you go let's let's dig into the why of that a little bit more then why are you doing this paul it's someone of your wealth of wisdom who could be kicking back doing nothing uh who's had a very successful uh business career uh why are you doing what you're doing now well that's a that's a that's a great question and and the reason that it's a great question is not because i happen to know the answer to that but because um so you know my my friend simon sinek said he said it this way he said uh differentiation comes from clarity of why And the reality is when we have that clarity of why we're here, like what are we here to do, then, you know, life changes.

And by the way, it's not always clear what that is. And so I think that for me, for example, I could not have imagined that I would be doing what I'm now doing. And as a result, my why changed. So if you go back years ago when I was running all these wonderful businesses and doing great things, I used to think back then that business was all about two things. I used to think that business was about adding enormous value to the people that you were privileged to serve. And I also used to think it was about fun.

By the way, I still think it's about those two things. But then something happened. You know, and maybe this podcast is something like that. You know, I think we need to understand that where we're at right now is a sum of, or at least is the result of, all of the moments that have gone before, right? And I specifically trigger this idea of moments because there are times when we see stuff, when we are impacted and you go, oh, my God. And as a result of that, you know, you change direction or you just add direction. And so I had one of those moments in 2006, which related actually to what happened in 2004.

And just to remind you, I'm thinking of Christmas Day or Boxing Day 2004, which was, you may remember, the tsunami. and, you know, in 2006, something happened to me which actually related to that tsunami and as a result, it absolutely changed my life. Can we drill in there a little bit? What actually happened in 2006 that had that profound impact, mate? Can we go into a bit of detail there? Do you mind sharing that?

Not at all, not at all. Uh, so, um, so in, uh, in the year 2000, I, I, uh, I decided that I would sell all my businesses and, and, uh, I actually went to live, uh, you know, I got really lucky and, and, and, um, I, I, I went to live in, in, uh, France. I had this, you know, this French, lovely French house and 18th century farmhouse, actually. And, you know, I'd spent three months there and I'd spent three months back in Oz and then three months there and then three months traveling and stuff. So, you know, it was pretty good. And then because I'd sold everything, I was under all sorts of legal things that I couldn't do this and I couldn't do that, you know, those sort of restrictions that you have. And so then, you know, you probably get that it was – that was supposed to be my retirement plan, you know, that I was going to be there. Sure.

But, yeah, yeah, exactly. That was challenging, right? So anyway, so to cut to the chase on that story. So by 2006, I'm kind of starting to get back and do the things, you know, I've been writing some books and speaking and all that kind of stuff. And here I was in Bangalore, and I was actually attending, really supporting a friend of mine who was doing this program in Bangalore. And on the Saturday that we were there, one of the delegates, a guy called Alex, who was from India, said, hey, Paul, what are you doing? You got any plans tonight? And I said, well, actually, no.

He said, well, would you mind having dinner with me? And he said, I've got someone I'd like you to meet. I said, sure. So off we go to this dinner, which actually, funnily enough, was in a place called the Taj. Now, many of us know the Taj, the real Taj, but let me assure you, this Taj that we went to was not the real Taj. It was this Indian restaurant on a back street. And anyway, so, you know, I get to the restaurant and Alex is there, obviously, and he takes me there. And then his friend turns up and he's a very, very well cut guy.

but you got that there was something going on there you so anyway so I put out my hand and I said hi I'm Paul Dunn and this is one of those things that I wish I'd never said so I'll tell you what actually happened I said so hi I'm Paul Dunn and he said hi I'm Pastor Selva and I can't believe i said this bushy but i actually did i said is is that pastor i said p-a-s-t-a or p-a-s-t-o-r i cannot believe i said that i like it said to him though yeah but i but i did you know i did yeah i did i can't believe i said it anyway so uh he said it's uh you know it's p-a-s-t-o-r and um indian guy and so we went inside and and then as you do you you start sharing stories and And so I said, well, you know, tell me your story.

And he said, and it wasn't easy for him to tell the story. So he said, well, four years ago, this was in April 2006, and he said, four years ago, my church asked me to go to create a community in a little island just off the mainland in India. And he said it was great. we built this beautiful little church and everything else. And then he said, but 15 months ago or 16 months ago, that all changed. And I said, oh, really, what happened?

Now, I should have calculated, right? I should have gone, oh, okay. But I said, what happened? He said, well, it was a Sunday. And he said, we were in Sunday school. He said, I had 12 kids in this Sunday school. and all of a sudden he said we we heard this noise the like of which you you know you couldn't imagine you would even hear and and and the kids were sort of terrified and i said you know

everything's going to be okay and uh just stay there and he i he said i opened the door and i looked out and and there was this about three kilometers away there was this massive uh wall of water that was clearly going to engulf us and so that moment i got what he was talking about and notably the uh the 2004 tsunami and so as you do i said well what happened then and he said well i i i said to the kids uh let's play a game and he said let's all hold hands and run to the high ground and so the kids did that and they ran on the high ground and then he said and so we stood there and and we watched as the as the church was crumbled and washed away and then we watched as as their parents were washed away as well yeah and um you know that that point i i really can't

remember uh exactly what I said um but you know you after a little while you let me give you a sense of it so so I said eventually I said oh you know obviously oh my god and what's happened since then and he said well we we've uh it took us four weeks to get off this island and um and so I've had these 12 kids uh with me uh for the last uh well ever since that time and we've been traveling india uh as um serfs really um looking for somewhere to live and stuff and he said finally he said just four weeks ago uh someone thanks to alex was was uh was kind enough to find us a place just here and uh and and he said but that that doesn't solve the problem it solves one problem so i said well well what are the other problems and he said well now you know the kids need to

go to school they need uniforms which you do by the way in india to the government tells you that school is free but it's not because you've got to have a uniform um which which is why there's a believe it or not a 90 dropout between primary and secondary in india anyway so yes and we know some more about that in b1 german but anyway so uh so he said well they need uniforms they need orcs and of course they need food and and stuff and i said uh as you would have said anyone listening to us would have said well so you know how much is that going to be and he said Well, he said, thanks to your friend Alex, he's helped me figure out what that is.

And I said, okay, so what is it? And he said, well, it's 3,500 US dollars. And I said, oh, that's like per kid, right? And he said, no, no, no, no, that's for all 12. Good grief. For a year. For a year. Yeah, and had you been there,

in fact had anyone listening to us been there you would have done exactly or you'd have said exactly what i said which is okay it's fixed yeah and you don't know how you're going to fix it but you just know right so yeah and um that wasn't easy to figure out by the way but anyway uh it took uh it took about uh four weeks to figure that out how to actually you know get the money there and stuff like that and then about uh five weeks maybe three three or four weeks after that i i get this email and um the email is from pastor silver and what happens is he's uh he's gone down to a uh internet cafe and he's sitting there you know writing the email and he's also borrowed a camera and he's taken four shots which he's attached to the email and i remember going

through these shots and the first one uh is a long shot of the of the house quote unquote house that someone has gifted him and the second shot is uh is inside this quote unquote house and and And it's basically a tiny room. There's a little tiny kitchen off the back of it. And anyway, so, and these 12 kids are sitting around in a circle, right? And it's got bowls of stuff in front of them. And he says, a little commentary, he said, see, and you look at that photo, you'll see we now have food, you know,

so thank you. And then the next shot says, and the kids are now going to school. and you see the kids, same kids, obviously a different day, but there they are with their, again, in a circle and they've got their books and their writing and all that kind of stuff. Amazing. So that was the first three and then the fourth one, the fourth shot was the one that really did it

and what he'd done, he took a close-up shot at the outside of the house, quote-unquote house. And across the top of it, they painted in letters probably about nine inches high. They'd said, it said, and so reading across the top, it said, Paul Dunn Home. And, well. Oh, man. And that, you know, that kind of got me. And it was at that point when, you know, I realized, gosh, you know, there's so much we can do.

It's almost like we have an obligation, you know, to do this. You know, if you get that we all are one, that we're all connected, stuff like that, right? So, and getting back to my earlier comment about your environment dictates your performance, what's interesting, and your narrative dictates your performance, What's interesting is the moment that happens, all of a sudden, I start seeing things that were actually there, but I'd never seen them. And I think many of us would have experienced that similar sort of circumstance where you perhaps you go down to buy a new car, for example, and you're driving the new car home. And all of a sudden, every third car coming towards you is the same car that you just bought, right? Yes.

And you know that experience? I do. What's it called? The Born-Meinhof Syndrome or something where as soon as you start to focus on something, you see it everywhere. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And that sort of awakening you've had and quite visceral actually in that recognition

that such a, for us, a relatively small amount of money can have such a life-changing impact on 12 kids and their instant carer. Yeah. That's a, I can see the real eye-opening, heart-opening moment right there, Paul. Oh, yeah, it was pretty cool, right? And so, and funnily enough, you know, it's like, and so to get back to your question about why,

to get back to that question, one of the things, and obviously I talk to people now not so much about that experience, but about how they can, one of the things we talk about is how they can find their why. And one of the things I point out is that whys can change. In fact, they probably should. And, you know, a great example of that happens to be Sir Richard, as in Richard Branson, right?

Because if you go back and Branson is, you know, a real icon and he's a great guy. And if you go back and you read anything that Branson wrote, say, or was written about Branson, say, 10 years ago, and you'll read things that people say to Branson, so what gets you to do this stuff, right? And his answer 10 years ago was, well, I want to disrupt industries that need disrupting, and I want to have fun doing it. That's it. Those are the two things that got him up every morning, right? Yeah. But then there was a moment.

And if you would ask Sir Richard now, in fact, from nine years ago, and you say, okay, so why do you get up every morning? He says, he still says, to disrupt industries that need to be disrupted. Secondly, to have fun doing all of that. And third, to make a huge difference in our world as I do that. so it's it's that third element now where frankly branson spends most all of his time looking at virgin united or virgin unite which is his sort of philanthropic efforts all go under that banner called virgin unite um yeah so you know and so so and you know i'm not sure whether

And it always takes a moment that, you know, one of those moments where you go, boom, you know, and it happens or whether it's for many of us, it's a progression. But I also think to go back to my earlier comment that it is about looking outwards. And by the way, there's a very good business reason for looking outwards. And that is that someone once said, you know, there's a particular way that you never have to advertise. And the answer to the question, well, how would you never have to advertise? And the guy said, well, what you do is you choose to solve a problem that a lot of people care about in a big way, and then when you do that, people will beat a path to your door.

So in other words, what happens, it goes back to the comment you made in your introduction, that when we're focused off ourselves and onto others, interesting things start to happen, and people become attracted to your cause. And we're seeing that more and more now. I mean, there's never been a time like this. You know, I was looking at some stats, which someone told me, by the way,

I'm undercooking it. The stat that I saw was that every hour of every day in Australia, right now uh there are 64 new businesses being created that's that's a stunning stunning number right now another friend of mine who's involved in that says it's actually more than that and he's got some other stats from whatever government department puts those things out um and um and you go well why is that why well one of the reasons is something we touched on before that it's now easier than ever to start a business easier yeah but i think the reason is that there's this awakening really that's probably a sort of a woo-woo word to use but i think that

i think that what happens and you know you you'll see you see this uh every day as well yeah where there are people in in corporate in quote-unquote corporate who you know are doing great things and and they're getting well paid for doing those great things. And then they get home probably late and they put their head on the pillow. And what I think happens, in fact, I know happens is as they put their, and maybe someone listening to us right now is this, right? So they put their head on the pillow and just before they,

and maybe getting to sleep is sometimes difficult for them, is they put their head on the pillow and they say, or they ask themselves this question. And the question is, is that all there is? is that all there is and by the way if you listen to us now and you've asked that question the answer is no it's not all there is just to save you going through it right there is more yeah beautifully put mate and i i think the what i guess we're all seeing is that the the system has changed and the means of production

are now in our individual hands it's not not controlled by the the corporates anymore and and singing and unfortunately the corporate world is very much in a race to the bottom because it's all about doing more with less and ever global competition so to jump out of that and get some time back but have the ability to have a real and meaningful impact on people's lives whether that be immediate and first hand or through just the fantastic initiative that you've created with B1G1 to be having massive impacts like Pastor Silva and the 12 kids with the things that you can do through that mechanism. It's just I've been searching for you for years, Paul, and B1G1.

Seriously, because it's – and my good wife, I credit my good wife with this. She's one of those rare individuals who's always giving to others, always has and always will. and freely without looking for any recognition whatsoever. And it took me a long time to cotton on to, and again, this is almost sounds selfish, but the sense of joy you give from helping someone in a way that they don't even know you've done it,

I don't think there is any other feeling that is quite so deep as that. And with the mechanisms you've created, and I'm not going to underestimate or underplay just how difficult that task must have been to accumulate the 600-odd projects you've got around the world where every one of the impacts that I'm making and my clients are making, and we're doing this in partnership effectively to help others and doing it in a way that we can see it, it is quantifiable,

we can see, we can actually measure how we're going, all these really business fundamentals about looking at your performance and setting goals to have that very positive impact is just an absolute rarity and i i can't commend you and your team enough for having not only the vision but also the passion the persistence and the discipline to actually see that through to make it something that is really having a massive impact on improving our world mate i i just can't commend you enough for that well that's um uh thank you it's uh it's uh thank you very much for that and um it's uh You know, it is – the other thing that's interesting about that is,

I mean, again, you're very good at putting lumps into my throat. So – but it's very interesting because just this morning, just this morning, I was talking with someone in Wangaratta, actually, and this particular guy, his first name is Scott, and he said – Because the reason I'm telling you this is because you mentioned about your wife and women. Here's the truth. I think, and this is not meant to upset all the guys, that women get it. You know, women get it.

That's not to say that we guys can't get it. It's to say they get it intuitively. But we have to work at it. Anyway, I'm talking to this guy in Wangaratta, Scott. and uh i said uh you know scott so he was on what we call a discovery call and where he booked a call basically and and uh and i said oh so scott you know how can i serve you best this morning and he said well let me tell you the story he said um he said my two kids who were 12 and 10 were at a thing called the super camp um with somebody who knows you their name is heather yelland

and Heather does this stuff with the kids and it changes the lives of the kids. I can't believe what's happened to my kids as a result. And he said on the graduation night, which my wife and I went to, he said it was amazing and Heather did this big thing, you know, about B1, G1 and she'd actually got all the kids involved, right? She got all the kids involved that when they were going through

this incredible experience that they get at Supercamp that the kids have to get involved in giving in some way, right, in choosing something. And he said, I saw the impact on my kids. So, and being Australian, he said, so, mate, I'm here to join Bill and Joseph. Awesome. Awesome. Yeah, exactly.

Through the kids. That's through the kids. I love that. I love that our kids often wake us up to things that are staring us in the face, but we get ourselves so busy or so focused on things that we think are important but are often only just urgent. And then there's an awakening in the kids that brought us back to what's really important in life, mate.

So, yeah, the pathways are awesome. And I think what I love about this generation, the generation coming through, and I'm sounding like an old man now, but the generation coming through often get criticised, But I think they are more giving, more understanding, more appreciative and empathetic of the world and others than certainly my generation was in the 60s. And that gives me a lot of optimism about the future, Paul. Well, it's really interesting you said that because we don't often think that way, right? And the older you get, the easier it is to get into kind of judgment mode, right?

It really is easy to do that. And that's one of the things that we obviously shouldn't do. But what's interesting just on that is the data now shows that to be true. So, for example, there's a guy whose name is Lawrence Fink, and he's the CEO of BlackRock, which is the world's largest managed fund. He controls the fate of $6.35 trillion every day. And so, yeah, and he's regarded as a bit of a poster boy for, I mean, it was he who said that we, for the first time in Wall Street, on Wall Street, that we have to have this social conscience now that basically said, if you don't have that, we're not going to give you any money, basically. And then last year, he said, we are now witnessing the biggest transfer of wealth that we have ever seen. And he talks about $24 trillion, which is flowing from, as he puts it, baby boomers into, as he puts it, millennials. And he says what's interesting about that flow of wealth is that the millennials, I'm not sure I like that word so much, but, you know, I mean, you can be 42 and still millennial, right?

So he said they have a totally different view as to investing. And he said, we now know that 84% of those people are preferring to invest in what's called impact investing, that they want that to be underpinned by the sustainable development goals and so on. And he said, you know, that's never happened before in history. And just last week, actually, I mean, I'm not into these financial products particularly, but there was a big bond that was issued in Europe, and it was a $2.5 billion bond, and it was called an impact investing bond built around the Sustainable Development Goals, and it was four times oversubscribed. in in australia in australia uh one of the uh accountants accountants from an accounting firm that shall be nameless but uh you would know it if i said it uh uh which looks at impact investing talks about how about this talks about a 715 increase in impact investing in the last two and a half years in australia alone so isn't it and so you know the um years ago we we couldn't

have these conversations um and and now we can it's like i saw this uh i think you may have i i don't tend to spend much time uh reading newspapers but uh the last this april just gone I was in a coffee shop here in Singapore. They happened to have some newspapers there, and I was waiting for the coffee. I'll read the newspaper. At least I'll read the front page. And on the front page was this little thing,

like what you call it, almost like an ad, but it wasn't an ad. It was like a look inside for more detail, right? And it said that we were talking about climate and all that kind of stuff. And it said, we have not inherited the world from our forefathers. We are borrowing it from our children. Love it.

Wow. Love that. Isn't that a chorus? What a fantastic paradigm shift in really waking us up to what we're doing today is going to have a major impact. Exactly. Brilliant. Exactly.

Exactly. So when the politicians talk about the things that the politicians talk about, you know, I think it'd be interesting if they just had their children next to them and if they sat down and came to the same height level as the children and said, hang on a second, if I was looking at this through your eyes, what would I see? what would i see and you know i i think the picture would be a different picture um i really do so yeah yeah what i what i love about this is there is the growing recognition that uh money isn't isn't is inert really it's not either good or bad which it tends to have connotations but as an enabler as a as as a fuel that we can use to uh create freedom and fulfillment for people globally if it's embraced that way you can do an immense amount of good and we've now got the means to do it through the the just the awesome system that you've created in making that easy uh it's just yeah but we've also got i mean i think the other thing that's interesting is

that we we tend to think um you don't need to go back to that that comment that i made about you know we we all are one people i've got to say people people sometimes look at me kind of like weird you know and i can't believe no no it's true i mean i no i will do sometimes i will do weird things like the weirdest thing i do the weirdest thing i do is i get in a i get in a lift or for our american friends an elevator and you know how when you get in a lift and everybody turns and faces the door we must have been brothers from another mother because i face the other way and i say hello and you get the strangest looks you get the strangest what i do what i do i stand there and i look and then i say thank you so much for coming to our

meeting the other thing is that you know I love being here in Singapore I think it's one of the just the best places and you know Here I am right now I'm actually not at the office today because you know my day started very very early So I'm actually at home and I'm looking out over the window and I just saw two of them just went past and they are buses. And right outside my condo is this bus stop. And you know that in Singapore, the public transport system is absolutely mind blowing. It's mind blowing how they do it. I have no idea how they do it, but I'm really glad they do.

anyway what's that got to do with uh with the price of fish this when uh when i get on the bus or if i excuse me if i if i take a taxi but let's let's stay with the bus so i get on the bus and you know you have this little card and you put the card against the card reading a bit you know you get on right yeah and i always at that point i i stop and i just look at the bus driver and i say thanks for stopping you know and people go why the hell do you say you know because he's got a bus stop of course he's gonna stop but but and and what's really interesting is when you do that no no we we may not think of that as giving but it is giving so so so you go hey thanks for doing that and the guy says and you see it they just brighten up and they go oh that's okay and and

then you know you sit down on the bus and and away you go and then not surprisingly when you get off you wave you know because they've got a mirror looking at where where where people are getting off right and you might say thank you and it's like people on earth is going on are you are you and uh the same thing for you know a cab driver you know why wouldn't you why wouldn't you say to the cab driver last night at the airport you know the the this is interesting this is interesting the airport last night i get into this uh cab and if you've ever got into a cab at the airport in singapore that is a brilliant experience yeah um as compared with other parts of the world definitely just think about you know when when you go to airports and this is not

knocking oz it's not but when you get when you look at oz you know the uh you've got all these barriers and all the cars are lined up you know toe to tail kind of thing whereas in singapore they just do this very simple thing and they turn it 45 degrees so they they come in so there's no line there's no queue how simple what it's yeah so simple isn't it brilliant and the bus stops the bus stops by the way they're all angled at 45 degrees why is that so it's easier to see what buses are coming but anyway so so anyways i get in the cab and it's like 12 30 in the morning or you know like just after midnight and i say to the uh the cab driver i say um 800 thompson please which is where i live and uh and i said by the way thanks for thanks for thanks for stopping

and getting me and and the guy turns to me and he's got this big smile and he says sir it's my duty and privilege that's what he said oh dead set how good's that i i think uh a couple of things about what you're saying there and that is uh and this is a an outlook on life but the stuff that's for free can have the biggest impact so a smile just just smiling at someone can the energy that that creates uh mirrors uh and i think it has a when someone smiles at me I feel good about myself it's a very easy thing to do but we for whatever reason not in Australia in particular I think we've got it so good and so comfortable that those little things that we and we get so busy that we just tend to forget them and sort of reminding yourself and creating

a habit like you have of just greeting everyone and treating everyone like you would like to be treated so it's a pretty easy way to have an impact even at even at that personal level mate it's very easy it is very easy and you know to go back to uh to be to p1g1 um you know it's that simple i mean just just let's just relate the whole thing here right so imagine oh yeah the dogs are making sounds like you're being attacked we've got the for the listeners uh our three rescued samoyeds uh are making their presence felt they're giving us some impact as well paul so you go on

I think they're settled down now no no no that's cool that's cool that's cool and by the way dogs do things beautifully don't they

they're so unconditional don't they in the way they do things yeah and well done on rescuing the samoyeds they are gorgeous we have our

just going on that point we start one of our morning rituals is called smile time where we we wake up and we actually sit down on the floor

with the samoyeds if you've ever seen a samoyed They're pure white and they've got permanent smiles on their face. They are just the best natured dogs you're ever going to come across and there's no better way to start the day and get things off to the right footing than to look into the eyes of a smiling Samoyed. But I digress.

I digress, mate. Sorry. No, no, no. Well, it's actually, no, it's on point because, you know, you were kind enough to let me talk about, you know, B1G1 And I made the point that, you know, it came from this stunningly simple idea from Masami, the lady that I was mentoring at the time. And as I said, it was sort of right in front of my face, but I just didn't see it. And so who had this idea?

It was her that had the idea, which was, hey, she didn't say, hey, Masami would not say. But she said, imagine what would happen if every time business was done, something great happened in our world. Just imagine that. So just take that same thing, right? Imagine if every time we got on a bus, we smiled at the bus driver. Imagine if every time, you know, we were in an elevator, we sort of looked and said, thank you. No, you wouldn't want to say, thank you for coming to my meeting. They'd think you're weird.

But you get the idea, right? And it is all about this thinking outwards instead of, you know, the more conventional thinking inwards. And with that, and it's the same, it's exactly the same in business, isn't it? I mean, it's like, again, I mentioned that one of the things, and I know you would feel the same, is one of the things that is so cool is being able to help people, you know, solve some issue that they've got and to be able to be in front of someone and say basically, you know,

I'm here for you. I'm not here for me. I'm here for you. And when you, I mean, you wouldn't come out and say that necessarily, But, you know, once you go there and you're in those meetings, here's the reality. You will see things in a way that you have never seen them before. And it's just, you know, it's a – how can I put it? It's now – you know, it's hard to talk about it because it just seems so obvious to me.

You know, it's like, and I think also the other thing that, you know, people talk about, you know, the energy and everything that they, you know, when I'm speaking, always people say, oh, where did you get the energy, you know, from? And I think, and often, you know, you see people are like, meh, you know, and it's okay occasionally to be like that. I mean, we're all going to lose it occasionally. but but you know being guys uh uh you know what what we do bushy is we you know we go into our cave and we and we disconnect and you know all that kind of stuff and um but but the by the way i had it i had one of those the other day but and i'll tell you about that in a second but but how how cool is it that you know we we just get that when we're out would be focused you know just um wonderful things happen because we will see things we will have this curiosity that we will

make us think about things in a in a very different way and so when people talk about the energy and you know i said well it's basically because i'm curious you know i'm curious about how things work and and stuff and so that's one of the reasons why by the way retirement was a bit difficult for me i can't even imagine it being a concept for you to be honest i reckon it lasts about a day doing that uh paul given your energy i heard a beautiful expression recently which which is probably after what you're talking about and there's a canadian indian group who talk about two-eye seeing and what they mean by that is that one eye looks at today the other eye

looks at tomorrow and because what I've found we've sort of, most of us have grown up in a world where we're taught to focus on one thing and put everything into that one thing and it might be our job, so our job's got to give us our happiness, it's got to give us our satisfaction

it's got to give us our income but if we start looking to eye seeing so today is the eye looking at today is looking after our immediate needs but the other eye is is looking to tomorrow and the future suddenly our whole thinking changes and i thought it was a beautiful expression it's something that they've done inherently i don't how many how many eons but i thought what a great way of of flipping our thinking

and starting to really think about coming back to what you said before sitting down at our children's level and looking in them in the eye and looking at the world through their eyes it it forces us to start taking a completely different approach to decisions that we make day to day. Mate, I want to touch on a couple of things that you've skidded over as we've gone through the journey. And you mentioned that I've been very lucky and I just want to talk about that

because I used to say the same thing and then I thought, well, I'm probably not lucky actually. I've worked hard enough and made choices that have allowed me to live a very privileged lifestyle but I wouldn't call that luck. What are your thoughts around that? Well, yeah, I think we all have different reactions to different words. And so, for example, let me take the opposite of luck for a minute.

And I was once in a program and I was there supporting a guy who was starting his speaking career. I won't mention his name. Sure. Um, but, um, anyway, so I'm there and, and this guy's out the front and, and I'm, you know, I'm in the sort of towards the back of the room and, and at one point he, he makes the point that, you know, Paul Dunn is in the room sort of things, everybody looks around and, and he says, and what I want to do is I want to talk about failure.

And he said, you know what? I reckon Paul has some experience with this failure thing, right? So, Paul, come on, come out the front. And I'm going, you know, I'm just freezing. I'm shaking my head. It's like, no, don't do that, don't do that, don't do that, don't do that. And he says, oh, Paul's playing hard to get. You know, he just wants a bigger round of applause or something like this.

And I said, I'm not, you know. But anyway, he finally gets me to the front, right? And he says, okay, Paul, come on, you know, let's talk about failure. And I looked at a video. This was a few years ago, and I looked at a video of this afterwards, and when he said that word, let's talk about funny, you could see I was walking backwards, way from, I was kind of walking towards the side of the room,

and I didn't even know I was doing it. And anyway, so he said, so what's your experience with that? And I said, well, funny thing, it doesn't even compute. i i don't have the word like in my brain i have nothing associated with with that word um so i you know i really can't give you any you know any insights on it it's just not and then uh later someone said well probably you know how you see it is that it's just an opportunity to learn anyway and i thought well okay that's a way of thinking about it right um but the same thing is true so when you when you talk about luck um i i mean i get what you're saying that you know some people

would say uh we create our own luck and stuff and and obviously that's that's part of it but for me um you know i mean let's just let's just talk about this moment now right i mean how lucky is it right now that you and i can be talking we're zillions of miles apart that's an exaggeration but we're at least eight hours by air right yeah apart and we can be doing this and we can be doing this on a platform in this particular guy's skype that is you know we're just connected and it we're not you know running up phone bills and stuff like that and and you know and it's great communication we could be doing a video, we could be doing all of those sorts of things. How lucky is it that we can do it?

Yeah, yeah, okay. That's what you're saying. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that, and I sometimes have a problem with that. No, I do, I do, because some people, you know, you're supposed to have this classic, you know,

the sort of Joseph Campbell hero story thing where you had this, you know, and, oh, you know, my life was in the toilet. Fight the dragons and, yeah, yep. Yeah, and I saw the light. Exactly, exactly. But I sometimes think that if I had had that, you know, it might be a more interesting story. Well, hey, let's dive into that a bit

because I could listen to you for hours, Paul, and I deliberately haven't gone back through the history. But a couple of things I wouldn't mind just drilling into a little bit because you said you were born in 1943, so you're sort of in your mid-70s. And a lot of us are influenced by our parents in the decisions that we make and our thinking and our behavior from a fairly early age can you take us back to to that for yourself because i know that you know you grew up we grew up in wales or cornwall or somewhere in a mining town is that am i right in saying that yeah i was uh i was actually born in dover and

or close there too and not many people know that years ago that that was a a coal mining uh place and my dad was a miner, as in M-I-N-E-R, right? And so, just to be clear. So, and, you know, in the village that we lived in, everybody was in the pit or the colliery, as it was called, right? Yeah. And, you know, I can still remember. And, of course, you know, the whole war thing was going on

and, you know, there was rationing and all of that. But anyway, I remember one of my first memories actually was I saw this black car. It was more than a car coming through the village. and i i learned that that was uh the ambulance from the colliery and i you know i used to used to see these ambulances you know every day you know bringing bringing men home and uh then uh because i was uh into uh sport and stuff like that i i ended up you know playing cricket for the and soccer and all those sorts of things that you do uh for the colliery team as in the pit team

tillmanston colliery it was called okay and um and you you know you'd be in the showers and everything else and you would see uh the the the blue veins where you know all the coal dust was in these guys veins i mean it's like it was just amazing right right anyway my dad uh oh yeah and my dad and you know they were working they were down in these coal seams where there was at least uh two feet of water that they were having to go through anyway so uh yeah so my dad said uh you're never going to go down the mine and and he said i'm never gonna let you go and my dad was great by the way he used to get out on the road and play cricket and you know all that sort of stuff and uh and it was it was just really awesome childhood i again lucky you

um and uh but you know it was uh there was not much money around and so when i went to london to uh to study uh you know i had to i was 16 and i and i had to get a job uh to help with that and and stuff and um so i did and um but anyway and so my friends in the And when I was studying in London, they always used to say, oh, let's go down to, you know, Dunnys is what they used to call me. Let's go down to Dunnys at the weekend because, you know, we'll be able to go down the pit. And I said, well, you will be able to go down, but I won't. And to this day, I've never gone down there. Well, actually, that's not exactly true.

I did go down in – when I first got to Australia, someone said to me – you know the whole story about, you know, gold being in the streets, right? And someone said to me, oh, there's opals in the desert. Oh, here we go. Where are we going? Yeah, Cuba, yeah, Cuba, yeah. Yeah. and uh along the way uh i i've a little bit later i was there at mount isa and there was a reason for me to go down um in you know in that environment which was a totally different

environment than my dad was in but uh but anyway yeah so so you know i'm really uh again you know lucky that uh that all happened and and stuff so yeah the he sowed the seed in you to say well you're never going to suffer what i what i've suffered uh how did it feel when you went down to those mines with with the shadow of dad sitting on shoulder as you went down how did you feel and what were you thinking at that time oh well i mean i i i you know um that's that's That's a really brilliant question, actually, because you suddenly get, thank you for the reminder, that, you know, our parents are really on our shoulders, aren't they, in lots of ways.

And, yeah, well, you know, I mean, the only thing, and I don't want to overuse the word, but, you know, the only thing that i can think of is aside from the aside from the fact of uh being grateful as a friend of mine does this um really interesting exercise where you stand up and you and he does this whole thing about your ancestors and recognizes you know that the chance of you having the parents you had who had the parents they had who had the parents they had you know the chance of everybody surviving right through that whole thing is like so small i mean it's like you know it's amazing and so uh this friend of mine he has us at one point uh occasionally

we be together and and he will get a group of us to just stand up and we one of the things that i'm so impressed by is uh is this whole thing of bowing and acknowledging and so you literally you stand there and you literally bow and you say thank you you know and you to the parents and the grandparents and the great great grandparents and the great great great great great grandparents and it's really uh you know it's really an interesting exercise and then and then what's really interesting is to do a 180 degree turn so you're now looking the other way and now what this friend of mine asks us to do is to imagine our children and their children and their children if you sort of mean uh bowing to us and saying thank you

Love it. It's interesting. Get the picture. Oh, again, it's that generational thinking that a lot of us have forgotten about. And, you know, look at the Japanese and other ancient cultures who think in terms of generations. But we've sort of lost sight of that in the instant iPhone, everything instant now world. Brilliant, mate. Brilliant.

And changing, just pivoting a little bit again, just sort of drilling into something that you mentioned before because we haven't dug into it, but in the introduction to the episode, I'll talk about the tremendous and repeated and sustainable successes that you've had throughout your career. You mentioned that you had a, and I'll call it a sabbatical rather than a retirement on a French farm. uh i can see that being what what triggered what triggered that event what what triggered you

saying right okay i'm selling up i'm i'm out of here because i i'm guessing that you you strike me as someone who's uh 200 or nothing you're either all in on your or you're all out and if you're all in you're all in but that would have its challenges in relation to uh relationships to marriages and I'm talking from because I've been through a similar experience and paid the price for this but in losing my first marriage for that very reason and I'm looking at your history I'm saying this tremendous rise what can you talk us about that at time what triggered the move to France and and then I'll drill in a little bit to that if we can yeah yeah well you you

are very insightful because I know that you don't know so the time is just before the dawn of the Millennium as in 2000 and I'm in a hotel in Chicago it's actually the Ritz Carlton and the reason it's the Ritz Carlton by the way that's not me big noting myself saying I'm saying in the Ritz Carlton is what we were doing at that time i had this thing uh that was there was um you know i still every week someone says they remember it uh was literally that happens uh was this thing called the accountants the accountants boot camp and i was working with accountants and we would take these accountants out of their comfort zone uh because they wanted you know stay in motel six and stuff

and we would put them in this amazing environment and we would talk with them about the fact that Most accountants, if you ask them, so what do you do, they would say, if they're being really honest, they would say, well, we report on history. And what we were doing for four really solid days, we were saying to them, well, that's okay, but what if you took another perspective on that? What if you said that what I do is I help my selected clients create history? Wouldn't that be different? and so we had yeah we had 17 700 accountants came through that and and um you know and i got

sort of honored for some of that stuff but anyway so so and what would happen is at the end of every one of those those boot camps and there might be 400 people in the room i would make sure that i'm at the we would play this particular song and and it was that that was the time to leave kind of thing and i would make sure that i shook everybody's hand on the way out wow um yeah i did and it took a while oh yeah i mean the stuff that people told you when you did that was like amazing and every every i mean i know people are going to say no no no this is exaggeration no it's not every single person who came through that said this changed my life and so we were sitting there on uh we meaning my then partner as in as in romance a romantic partner uh uh i

every february the 14th i would say to her uh uh will you marry me right and on february the 14th and she she never said yes but anyway uh but we we were we were we were awesome friends and we still are by the way yeah anyway so we're sitting in this place uh in the and having coffee and uh so always i would on the morning after everybody would go on that's all we do sit down we had this cappuccino stuff and she's sitting there and i said wow isn't it great that we're changing people's lives you know yeah and and she looked me straight in the eye and she said maybe it's about time you looked at yours and and yeah and it was like you know the the almost like a sort of a she who must be obeyed kind of thing right uh but anyway but she didn't she didn't say it

quite that way and uh and uh she said uh and i'm gonna take charge of that and she said we are going to take a thing called a holiday and uh and and we and she just read peter miles book about a year in provence and she said and we are going to uh provence and i remember through and she said and you're going to leave your computer system uh in in the office in london at that time we had offices all around the world and in london and uh we're just gonna go and uh i i remember through gritted teeth, I said, I am so looking forward to that. Well, how long were you there? Did you say four years you were doing that?

Is that right? Yeah. Three, actually. So writing books, yes, I can see that would keep you busy. But the cut and thrust of your lifestyle up until that point, building businesses, selling businesses, it must have been quite confronting for you at that stage, you would have thought.

Can you talk to us about your thinking and whatnot at that time? Oh, when you mean when we were – which thinking? Yeah, sorry. So you followed your good partner's grittingly advice and spent some time in Provence on that beautiful French farm. I can imagine that being very challenging for you, Paul. Well, it was challenging. It was, yeah, it really was in all sorts of ways.

But it was also interesting learning. And I remember there was one particular really important learning. And this house was 18th century. And I remember we went around the back door there one day, and this was in like March. And there's this grapevine. and and it's this old grapevine and you know grapevines when it's when it's not the season right they're all craggly and scraggly and all that kind of stuff and the gardener guy this place

was so there was a gardener he's come around and do things and so i said to the gardener reme was his name i said uh reme we need to pull that out right because it just looked awful right It's just this craggy thing. And he goes, he's like, ah, sacre bleu, you know, and all this. He said, like in French, he's going, you know, we can't pull that out. We can't pull that out. He said, my grandfather planted that. We can't pull that out.

So I said, okay, okay. I'm sorry I mentioned it, right? Sorry I mentioned it. And anyway, a month later, I'm out there, and I'm looking at this same tree, this same grapevine. And I noticed, you know, when you – you know that I talk about the power of small, right? So I'm looking at this grapevine. By the way, I've not told this story for so long.

I'm looking at this grapevine, and all of a sudden I notice these little green things. Like they look like little hairs on the things. And then I realize that that's the buds, and I realize that's going to be a branch. And then at the end of that branch, there's going to be some grapes. and i remember thinking oh how does that little green hair kind of thing know that that's what it's going to become right how's that how's that all work and that was an incredibly grounded moment for me it was this it was this moment when you go well that's that's pretty interesting like how i mean really how does that work right it's like uh it's amazing and yesterday just as a

little update on that yesterday on the plane back from bali i uh you know they serve you dinner and stuff and whenever that happens i'll just flip on the you know the tv thing in front and i turn on this tv and it's the the story of funguses and and it's like the most amazing story we Bushy, you and I would not be here if it were not for mushrooms. Seriously. Funguses are just the most amazing thing. I can't remember the name of the documentary, but anyway, it's all about funguses.

And you find out how fungi can drill through rock. Ah, it's amazing. Incredible. They're building blocks, aren't they? They are. Picking up on your story there, What I love about your fascination around the little green shoots on the old vine, it's almost an analogy for your life and mine.

I'm seeing this myself because we've both lived really interesting lives. But what's exciting about our lives in the future is those green shoots are the shoots of learning because we both have a passion for every day for learning something new and transforming us through the seasons so that we produce the fruit that can then feed others, mate. I just think that's a really good mental picture of your life today and why you continue to have the passion and the energy to want to give so freely to others, mate.

I think it's awesome. Mate, that's really nice. See, there you go. I'm lucky again, aren't I? So thank you. Well, I think it's – I just love the mental pictures that you paint, mate. Your ability to create emotional feelings with words is exceptional, Paul. But just pivoting slightly, mate, because, again,

I get to enjoy a very privileged life now as a result of the investments that we've made in our business and in property and other things. you've you yourself have clearly uh very successfully built and sold a number of businesses uh which i'm guessing has funded a good good portion of your lifestyle what else have you invested in apart from those businesses that that has allowed allows you to enjoy the lifestyle that you now enjoy well uh there's uh that's it's very interesting you asked that question and i and i figured you might ask me that question uh so so uh so yes i've i've done a a little bit uh in property but um not probably not as much as i as i should have done um and

the reason uh for that is that you notice through all of this um the one word we haven't spoken about is actually money we haven't spoken about that no um it's interesting right and uh and that's not by design i mean that's just you know how it works and uh so um i've uh i've always uh had a an interesting relationship with paper uh i really don't like it you you know you show me if you uh if someone wants to give me a receipt for something i don't want to take the receipt i mean And I'll go into the bank and I'll say, can you please fill out the form for me? Don't show me the form. I don't want to do it.

And so I think that thing is there. And also because I think that when it comes to investing, there's times when I try and do it myself and I'm spectacularly unsuccessful when I do that. other than when I'm investing in companies that I'm aware of, if you know what I mean. Yes. But when it comes to other things, then I rely on others to say, okay, this is a good thing and so on and so forth.

And so, you know, I'm fortunate enough, I guess, that those people tend to get it right because that's what they do, right? So whereas my own, so when it comes to self-managed super funds and stuff like that, I don't self-manage, which is probably a bad ambition.

No, it's not. Actually, what I love about what you're saying and it's something that a lot of people don't realise because they don't trust enough people. But success is a team game. There's no question. Whether it be in your business, whether it be in helping others, whether it be in investing property shares, you name it,

it's an elite team sport. So if you're smart enough to recognise, well, I'm not actually a player here but I'll get the best players that are going to be able to do that for me, then that's a step that most people don't actually get to. That's probably why you've been so successful in your business. Is that right? Yeah, so full marks for that, mate. I love your thinking around that.

Mate, mindful of your time. I feel like we've scratched the surface here, Paul. I can't wait to actually meet you in person. I've been wanting to do that for years, but I'm going to make sure that I make that happen at some point. But, yeah, I want to sort of shift into what I call the ambush session, which are just five quick questions that the listeners always like to hear our guest's answers on. And the first of those…

Oh, and I've got to tell you, I've got to tell you, I've got to tell you this. Sometimes when I get interviewed, people say, would you like me to send you the questions, right? And I always say, don't dare send me the questions, right? I don't want the questions, right? Good, good. And you know the reasons why, right? Because, you know, that's not the way life works, right? You don't know the questions, right?

Stuff just comes at you and, you know, you've got to figure it out. So, no, go for it. Love it. This will be fun. Yeah, great. Well, I'll get you to machine gun dance then, being the case then, Paul. And they're pretty easy. So they're pretty easy questions.

But your favourite quote and why? Oh, my favourite quote. Okay, my favourite quote comes from – By the way, it changes every week because there's one that I really, really love. I mean, in fact, am I allowed to? Yeah, absolutely, please. Okay, a quote that underpins a lot of the things that I talk about these days is a quote from none other than Seth Godin who, as you know,

gets up every morning at 4.30 in New York and writes the most amazing blog on the planet. And present company accepted, of course, with you. But anyway, so, and he said, and by the way, I've filed, which is stupid because I don't need to do this. I mean, it all happens, right? I filed every single one of those. I got filed away for the last 13 years, which is really cool.

So, yeah, because I sometimes feel I will be in a wheelchair one day and I want some good stuff to read. So anyway, so here's the quote. Get to the quick one. So the quote is this. The challenge is not to be successful. The challenge is to matter. I love that.

That is just it. Isn't it great? Because, you know, when you think about your parents and you think about school and you think about all of those things, you know, everybody said, well, you've got to be successful. You've got to be successful. But no one tells you that there's an interesting way is to matter, right? It's a matter.

And the more you matter, then the more successful you can become because you move from being dispensable to indispensable, which is sort of cool. That's brilliant, mate. That's the first one. What's the second one? The other one, well, and this is going to sound like a religious thing but it's absolutely not so so it's not but it's absolutely thousand percent not um uh because

that's like a an open question but but um i once met uh neil donald walsh and neil donald walsh of course is famous for uh its first book and the series of books which were called conversation with god now it's not a please it's not a religious thing um but it's a worthwhile book it's in fact the whole series worthwhile yeah isn't it it's all about one right and it's really a great great book and uh and um he once uh said this he said the uh you do not measure the success of a leader by the number of followers they have you measure the success of a leader by the number of leaders they create and that was yeah it's brilliant i i love it again the the the uh the element of serving and and helping others that underpins that is uh again it's clearly central

to your your mission in life mate which is obviously why you continue to do so well and have so much impact on transforming and helping other people's lives, mate. I just absolutely love that. Mate, on a similar theme, and I'm sure you're an avid reader, clearly you are, what would be the top, I'll give you a bit of latitude here, top one or two books that you'd recommend people read and why? Yeah.

Yeah. I frequently go back to Charles Duhigg's book, and that's D-U-H-I-G-G, Charles Duhigg's book, and it's called The Power of Habit. And what I particularly like about that book is the most interesting thing about Mr. Duhigg is he's a journalist, which means he knows how to write. And the moment you open that book and the moment you read the first two paragraphs, you go, oh, and he puts you in this scene, which is in the military, and he paints these two contrasting pictures, and it's just a brilliant, brilliant book. And, you know, he's absolutely right about what he says in the book without question. So that's a really, really awesome book. Yeah. The other one that seems to have more life than a cat

or more lives than a cat is, and there's an interesting backstory to this. uh so many of us would know uh michael as in michael gerber who by the way has a couple of years me and uh i remember in in 1990 when i was reading michael's first book which is called the e-myth right and and many of us would know the phrase that he uses working on not in um on the business and i remember reading that book and i got to page 31 i remember it so clearly i got to page 31 it was december 1990 i'm reading the book and uh and i got to page 31 and i go oh my god this is amazing this guy has written this book just for me it's amazing

so so seriously so i'll tell you what i did i went to the back of the book this is how long ago it was i went at that moment i went it was a tuesday i went to the back of the book and you know it's got all the stuff about the book and and then it's got you know you can contact michael in those days they used to be able to do that and this is how long ago it was right and it says here is his fax number can you remember when we had fax machines anyway and you talk about courageous you talk about courageous business decisions i think the most courageous business decision ever was the guy who bought the first fax machine like who are you going to communicate with i love it that's another story anyway so so i fax him and by the way the

The book is still on – if you go to Inc. Magazine and you look at the eight best books that entrepreneurs should get, Michael's book is still there, even though it was written back then. And I remember – here's the back story. I wrote to Michael. I sent him a fax, and I said, Michael, I want to bring you to Australia, and there's some telling stuff in this. And Michael got back, and he said, oh, well, that's really wonderful, but I don't have a passport. Seriously, that's what he said. Really? Yeah, but then again, in 1980, sorry, 1990 when that was,

only 9% of Americans actually had passports. Maybe that number's changed a little bit, but not much maybe. No. And, of course, you know, I then hung out with Michael and that was, you know, pretty life-changing being able to do that. So Michael's book has a special place. But then again, there are so many books that, you know, and I don't know about you,

but I take to read a lot of things these days on Kindle. And the reason I like to do it on Kindle, yeah, is because you can search for things. You know, you can highlight the things. Yes, highlight. I can email myself stuff. And search. Yeah, I just love it.

And you're carrying a library in your back pocket. Well, you know, you take that book Sapiens, which everybody's reading right now, you know, or released last year, they were reading it. I mean, it's an amazing book, and you couldn't carry that thing around. No, it's just – I love it. I like the tangibility of a book that you can fold and crease and underline and underscore and doggy it.

But when traveling like you do so much, the Kindle is just a – you can read it anywhere, anyhow. Just, yeah. You know what's interesting about that, about the tangibility of books? You know, you acquire a lot of them, right? i got a lot of them and every time every time you move you got this oh god do i keep that book and and last last in fact i've got some of the books in my son's garage in in australia and he wrote me the other day and he says dad we're about to move can we get rid of some of your books i

oh shit and i actually there was one there from 1974 when i was when sorry 1970 when i was studying and it's a just a fabulous book by a guy called fred turman and but it's a big thick book and i and i had to let it go wow it's tough because it's it chronicles a part of your life you only got to look at the spine and it takes me straight back to where i was what i was thinking what i was doing at that time so they're little they're little life's milestones books i think uh well certainly they are for me and i have this challenge with my good wife who must have been a buddhist in a past life because if something hasn't been touched or worn or read for six or twelve months it's we're giving it to someone who can benefit from it better it's so well the gifts it keeps

giving no that's awesome mate um what about just a slight pivot then on back onto investment and And I'm talking here not necessarily about investing in, you know, cold hard property shares or whatever, but it can be investment in time and learning and resources. What's the worst and the best piece of investment advice that you've ever received? Oh, okay. Tony, in terms of investment of time,

don't watch TV is a great piece of investment. Yeah. I totally agree. in terms of that yeah and uh i think this this will be interesting a way of thinking about it and um i once was on the phone to uh or at least on skype to uh simon snake when simon before anybody knew of simon he just published uh his first book start with why and he just done in uh in in october of that year he just on 2009 he'd done his amazing tedx talk uh you know called start with white and uh someone on and and that that talk is amazing i mean you know you've got

to watch it right i mean how does he tell those three stories in 18 minutes and one second and it's amazing yeah so sorry so then i get an invitation to be one of the first ted speakers or tedx speakers in singapore right um so i think oh i'm gonna call simon so because if anyone knows how to do a good ted talk he does right so so he says okay well i can only make this time and it was the only time he could make it was three o'clock in the morning in singapore so so anyway so here we are and we're chatting so hi simon how are you and yeah it was good and he said so what can i do for you today and i said well simon i've got a ted talk uh coming up tedx or coming up and i figured if anyone could tell me how to do a great tedx or you you could tell me

and and and he said um uh he he said have you got uh have you got a pencil oh no hang on he said um there was another word anyway let's get to the point so he said he said have you got a pencil and I said, well, I've got a keyboard and we had some play around the fact that it was 3 o'clock and, you know, anyway, so I said, I've got a keyboard. He said, that's okay, fair enough, and this is exactly, Bushy, I'm not exaggerating, this is exactly the conversation. He said, so first of all, he said, are you serious? You're asking me that question?

and and i i said yeah and he said but you already know and i said simon if i already knew i would not be on the phone to you at three o'clock in the morning asking the question right so then he says you know if you've got a thought everything else like okay i got it got it got a thing and uh and here's the best advice right so here it comes and he said okay get you get your keyboard ready and this is exactly how it happened he said ask me the question again so I asked him the question I said so how do I do a great TEDx

talk and or TED talk and he says this is exactly what he said he says be yourself bye and he hangs up the phone laughter seriously does he would say that was it laughter

so that's a good piece of advice you know get rid of the mask you know yeah just just just be yourself yeah i suppose if we could add to it a bit we would say be your best self yeah that's probably yeah brilliant advice mate brilliant advice mate sort of switching into the happy habits daily disciplines or the the rituals that that you believe have contributed to uh your success in life so far what what would they be what's what's one of those that you think it's been fundamental to all that oh uh without a doubt well i am my team tells me i should never say without a doubt

right so i'll scrap it out anyway because you know it can get you into problems so so i i I think the answer to the question is this. I used to say that there is one thing, if there was one thing, it would be gratitude. And I used to say that there were certain times of the day when you want to do that, right? And there are, by the way. I still say it, right?

And that is in the morning when you think about the day and you just come from that place, well, I'm still here and I'm looking forward to this kind of thing. And then, of course, in the evening when your head hits the pillow, instead of thinking is that all there is, you might want to think about all of the people and all the circumstances that you were in that day which you can be grateful for.

So there are those two pinning things. But then when I think about the stories that you and I have shared, and by the way, thank you so much for letting me share them like that, is you know there's so many other opportunities to be grateful right so i so i was i i would have said if you'd have asked me this question uh like six weeks ago i would have said you know that's the answer um but i've learned uh in the last uh six weeks that there are two other answers and one of them you may remember i said that you know we all have those downers um sometimes you know you just want to get away and i i had one of those um fortunately it didn't last very long

and i remember i i was actually lying on a bed feeling you know oh god you know this sort of thing and and i remember i got up and i went into the bathroom for an obvious reason and i'm there and i'm looking in the mirror and i don't know why this happened i have no idea why this happened but when I'm looking in the mirror I thought of the word and the word I thought of was moment the thing that you and I have been talking about, moment and then I put

the word moment there and then I thought for some reason I've no idea why this happened and I thought of treasure treasure and so then I put the two together and I get treasure each moment

oh Oh, that's pretty interesting. And the moment I got treasure each moment, guess what? You know, my disconnect had gone and all of a sudden I was connected again. So that's, I think. But the other thing is this one. I was talking with Masami the other day and we were talking about this whole gratitude thing. And she said, you know what?

She said, there's another thing that's really interesting. And I said, what's that? And she said, judgment, meaning do not do not judgment about what you should invest in or anything like that, but just do not judge people, you know, like, you know, we just generally just try and suspend it. And, you know, and that's a huge learning for me, by the way, at this point in life.

So gratitude, judgment. And acceptance. I flip it on to acceptance as the thing that – Well, there you go. It's a – Exactly. Yeah, and the reason I say that is that I contend with the same things, Paul, and this is where the beauty of the female intuition is they are far more accepting.

And my good wife keeps clubbing me over the head and instantly reframing. If I find myself starting to judge, then she'll pick me straight up on it and then we'll reframe that thought and put a positive inflection on it and accept the situation for what it is. And we don't know what someone or something's going through. We never know what's behind the exercise. So it's a very good way, I think, to keep ourselves on track. And that's the beauty of our partners, Paul, the power of two. There's no question about that. Mate, I want to close on a question that you pose so beautifully

in your recent book, Better Business, Better Life, Better World. And I think it's just an awesome question. And that is if you're – let's put it – rather than your grandchildren, let's put it in your children. So let's say it's Kai and Myra. What would be the best advice you'd give them to help them get invested and build a better business, a better life, and a better world? Yeah, well, that's a great question.

And, you know, the answer in the book is it talks about whenever I get to speak. And the good news is, Bushy, that I updated that. And so this is going to be new for you as well. Right. So in the book, I talk about whenever I go on stage, there are two words that I used to use for 32 years. I use these two words. And the words that I used were, I would say them in the back of the room as I'm being introduced. and I would find a reflective surface and I would say, for them, for them, for them, for them, for them, for them. And that would help me get it off that it's not about me, if you see what I mean.

Totally. It's about the audience. Anyway, about 18 months, in fact, just after that book was published, I was watching, someone said to me, have a look at this commercial from the norwegian government and i'm looking at this commercial and if you can imagine this completely white screen and in the as you look at the white screen there's this um this guy comes in from the right hand side of the screen and he is the most biggest uh he's like the ultimate Harley rider.

This guy is huge. He's got chains off him. He's got tats everywhere. He's got earrings in every orifice. He hasn't even got leather sleeves on his jacket because his muscles, which are very heavily tattooed. And this guy just, and he's got his arms folded. and he just sort of walks in to the centre of the screen

and you're going, you know, you're instant getting back to judgment. You're instant thinking, what was that? What was this about? And then on the left-hand side of the screen comes this, let's just describe, so you can get the picture, let's just describe her, it's a her, as like an alternate kind of a person, right? And she's very thin, not overly thin, but she's quite the opposite of a Harley guy.

Yeah. And she stands there. And then in the back, you see other kind of quote unquote odd characters kind of, you know, who you wouldn't necessarily choose to hang out with. Right. And,

and then all of a sudden the Harley guy goes over to the alternate woman and they just stand in the center of the screen and they just hug. this is beautiful hug and then you see everyone else around them doing exactly the same thing and then and it's all done beautifully you can just imagine the visual right now and then and then the message comes up bear in mind from the norwegian government okay and it says we all are one and so you know it was a message and it said sort of brought to you by the ministry for diversity or something right so so anyway so i'm listening i'm watching that it was a it was a saturday afternoon and the next day i'm speaking and i suddenly thought about for them for them

for them for them for them for them and you get where i'm coming from when i say for them i focus others right yeah so that day that day i changed it and what i now say is uh well i'm sure you you know listeners can guess what i say what i actually say is for us for us for us for us for us love it and and that just kind of connects us mate It does, and what a beautiful way to bring our conversation to a close, Paul, because your whole life has been about others and helping others, and the burning mission that you have with B1G1 to continue to do the same, particularly for the innocent

and the voiceless who have no choice and have no chance and you're giving them that opportunity from the bottom of your heart. And I just want to close our discussion today with a challenge for the listeners to put the work that you're doing through B1G1 Business for Good into action because, and here's the challenge, listeners, I want you all to email me on bushey at khgroup.com.au with a message, do B1G1 now.

And for every one of you that does that, I'm going to give an extra 100 days of life-saving water to the people of Tigray in Ethiopia. So plus a free copy of my second book, Get Invested, to get you excited and motivated about your own future. So, mate, it's been an absolute pleasure. By the way, that's just awesome. But just think about, you know, I just came back from Kenya

and you have no idea what that does. You have no idea what that does. I mean, I think, you know, we have a kind of an idea, right? But it's just stunning when you feel it. It's like amazing. So, Bushy, thank you. Thank you for all you do. Thank you for that little extra bit there.

And thank you for having me here. It's really been an amazing experience. And so hopefully the people listening, I hope we didn't ramble. I didn't ramble. You didn't, but I didn't ramble too much. You never rambled, Paul. You're extremely generous of your time,

and I feel very privileged to be able to spend that time. As I said, you've been a virtual mentor of mine for years, so this is a treasured time for me, and I'm looking forward to further opportunities to rub shoulders and assist you and support you in everything you do. You bet. Thanks, mate. It's been great.

Okay, thank you. Cheers. Bye. 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 Get Invested podcast. So thanks for listening. And as always, dream as if you live forever and live as if you die tomorrow.