Property Hub - Investment Insights & Inspiration - Get Invested: How to find meaning and a brighter future with Marty Vids

Episode Date: October 19, 2019

Marty Vids is a master change agent, business mentor, life coach, podcaster, speaker and business owner – but most of all he is a very funny and likeable bloke that you just love spending time with, as he always sees and brings out the light, funny side of everyone and every situation. He is humbled by the fact that a Chimp’s DNA is only 1.3% different to that of a human being. So he doesn't take himself or life to seriously. However, it is wise to not underestimate him as he has a history of getting results in life and business. When he tries to be a little bit serious, he is an excellent leadership, mindset and business strategist supporting professionals and business owners to better lead themselves, their teams and build thriving, profitable businesses. His passion is connecting people back into their natural talents and capabilities so they live a life of meaning, happiness as well as excelling at doing their life's best work.  With his proven comedic pedigree, appearing along side such laughing legends as Jimeoin and Eric Bana in his early days, Marty is a soughtafter speaker with a popular keynote Laughing in Libraries. Marty has also founded and successfully exited two award winning companies, Mortgage First and Mortgage 500. He also has a top 100 Australian podcast, The Marty Vids Show, which is now listened to in 120 countries across the globe and you can tap into on the Vidsneyland page of his website. What I love about Marty is that he loves to share stories that inspire, shift perspective and cultivate good humour that you can learn from and enjoy. Marty's book recommendation: Simplified: Leadership is Simple, You Lead People by Dave Clare. 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.

Yeah, everyone has to start on a new venture and a new adventure. And it's, you know, there's work to do here and that's okay. You know, the Black Eyed Peas didn't start off, you know, doing hits right away. You know, they worked their craft for five years, same as the Beatles in Germany. You go, so it's a good reminder to take that next step and recalibrate what worked well, what didn't work well,

what do I need to do? What's the step forward? What's the 1%, the incremental step forward? 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 bussymartin.com.au forward slash getinvested. Thanks for listening, and now let's get invested.

Hi Freedom Fighters everything you want you can have instantaneously right everything you want boom instant gratification right here right now that's what we all keep hearing

but I call bullshit now inspired by Simon Sinek this just doesn't apply to sustainable success in any area of your life, be it relationships, career, business, health, and wealth. There just ain't no app for that. They're slow, meandering, uncomfortable, and messy journeys. Now, over the years, I keep meeting fantastic, dedicated, hard-working, time-poor professionals

who are carving out careers, and when I catch up with them and I ask them how they're going, and they say, ah, Bushy, I'm really struggling and I just don't know how much longer I can do this. I ask them why and they say, I'm not making an impact and I haven't achieved success yet. I'm feeling trapped on the treadmill and I just can't see a way out or a way forward. It's almost as if they can see the summit,

which is sort of an abstract concept called success or freedom or fulfillment or impact. that they want to have in the world. But what they can't see is the mountain everyone needs to climb to get there. Now, I don't care how you go up the mountain, but there's still a mountain. In my study of sustainable success over the last 35 years, time and time again,

I've seen that in nature, music, sport, business, you name it, Real success takes at least 10 and more than average 15 to 20 years. What we all need to learn is patience. That the things that really, really matter, like love or fulfillment, real joy, love of life, self-confidence, a skill set, financial freedom, any of these things take time. Now sometimes you can fast track pieces of it but the overall journey is arduous and long and difficult and if you don't stick to it and ask for help and learn you're going to fall off the mountain

Let's take exercise as an example If you go to the gym and work out and come back and look in the mirror you'll see nothing And if you go to the gym the next day and you come back and look in the mirror you'll see nothing. So we start thinking, well, clearly there's no results, it can't be measured,

so it can't be effective. So we quit. Or, if you fundamentally believe that this is the right course of action and you stick with it, like in a relationship, you don't say, oh, I bought her flowers once and I wished her a happy birthday and she doesn't love me. Clearly then I'll just give up.

But that's not what happens. if you believe there is something there, you commit yourself to the cause. You commit yourself to the regime, the exercise. Sure, you can screw up occasionally. You can eat a bit of chocolate one day or you can skip it for a day or two. But if you stick with it consistently,

I'm not exactly sure what day, but I know you'll start getting into shape. I know it because that's exactly what happened to me when I got back on the road to fitness over 15 years ago. And the same goes with a relationship or success in any endeavour of your life. It's not about the events. It's not about the intensity.

It's about consistency over time. If you do nothing with your teeth except go to the dentist once a year, your teeth are going to fall out. We all know that you have to brush your teeth twice every day for two minutes. What does brushing your teeth twice a day for two minutes do? Nothing. unless you do it every day, twice a day, for two minutes. It's the consistency over time.

Going to the gym for nine hours once in a blue moon doesn't get you into a shape. Working out every day for at least 20 to 30 minutes gets you into shape. So the problem is we treat success with intensity. We get a hot tip and buy a book or go to a seminar on the latest and greatest get-rich scheme. And boom, we expect to be rich tomorrow. Those things are like going to the dentist. They're very important and good for reminding us and getting us back on track and for learning new lessons.

But it's the daily practice of all of the monotonous little boring things like brushing your teeth that matter the most. Sustainable success in anything is exactly the same. There is no event. There is no one thing that I can tell you that's going to make it happen. It just doesn't work that way. It's an accumulation of lots and lots of little things, and any of them by themselves is innocuous and useless,

literally pointless by themselves. People will look at the individual things and say, well, that's not going to work, and yeah, they're absolutely right. But if you do it consistently, and you do it in combination with lots of other little things, like saying good morning to someone or smiling at strangers, that's what's going to make the difference. It's those little innocuous things that you do over and over and over that people will say, I love my job, I love my life, I love my career, I love my business,

I love my dot, dot, dot. You fill in the dots. You need to develop what Cal Newport talks about in his book, So Good They Can't Ignore You, where he calls for people to develop the craftsman mindset, which thinks along these lines. How can I improve and have something uniquely valuable to offer the world? Am I willing to stick with this despite how boring and tedious the process may be? The craftsman mindset asks you to leave behind self-centered concerns about whether what you're doing is just right, and instead, put your head down and plug away at getting really damn good.

Cal stresses that no one owes you anything, you need to earn it, and the process won't be easy. And he goes on to say that regardless of how you feel about your job or anything that you're doing right now, adopting the craftsman mindset will be the foundation on which you'll build sustainable success. This is why he rejects the old follow your passion argument, and instead suggests that passion grows with time and the competence that flows from a craftsman mindset. it. So when you've found something that you believe in and you want to achieve sustainable

success in, you need to use the principles of deliberate practice that were developed by Anders Ericsson in order to achieve it. Now this entails employing three key principles. One, carving out periods of undistracted focus. Two, pushing yourself to the edge of your ability and cycling backwards and forwards between comfort and discomfort, and three, seeking immediate feedback and getting really good quality mentorship. And you always need to be asking yourself, am I becoming increasingly rare and incredibly valuable? In other words, to become what Seth Godin calls a remarkable linchpin.

Now on the face of it, this is all very simple and very straightforward and very boring. But in reality, it is unbelievably hard work to last the distance. And I challenge you to do the hard yards because I know that it's worth it. And this is just one of the reasons I really respect today's guest, Marty Vids. He's remarkable, rare and valuable because he repeatedly has done the hard work necessary to be successful throughout his life. Marty Vids is a master change agent, a business mentor, a life coach, a podcaster, a speaker and a business owner.

But most of all, he's a really funny and likeable bloke that you just love spending time with as he always seems to bring out the light, funny side of everyone in every situation. And he's humbled by the fact that Chimp's DNA is only 1.3% different to that of a human being, so he doesn't take himself or life too seriously. However, it's wise not to underestimate Marty, as he has a history of getting results in life and business. On the odd occasion that he tries to be a little bit serious, he's an absolutely awesome leadership, mindset and business strategist, supporting professionals and business owners to better lead themselves, their teams and build thriving and profitable businesses. His passion is connecting people back into their natural talents and capabilities so they can live a life of meaning, happiness, as well as excelling at doing their life's best work.

With his proven comedic pedigree, appearing alongside such laughing legends as Jim Owen and Eric Banner in his early days, Marty is a sought-after speaker with his keynote, Laughing in Libraries, How to Back Yourself as a Leader, Achieve Outlandish Goals and Not Lose Your Library Card, in the process. Only Marty would come up with that. Now, Marty has also founded and successfully exited two award-winning companies, Mortgage First and Mortgage 500, which are broke-in companies. He also has a top 100 Australian podcast, The Marty Vid Show, which is now listened to in over 120 countries across the globe, and you can tap into the awesome episodes on his Vidsneyland page on his website. Now, what I love about Marty is that he loves to share stories that inspire,

shift perspective and cultivate good humour that you can learn from and enjoy. And Marty and I both share a common aim of encouraging you to explore a brighter future, do your life's best work and have fun along the way. So I know you're really going to get a lot out of today's chat along with a lot of laughs. So please relax and enjoy Marty Fitts. Welcome Freedom Fighters. You know how you occasionally meet someone who's immediately likeable? Someone who just makes you smile and you immediately feel totally comfortable and at ease?

Well, today's guest is one of those people for me. and I had the real pleasure of meeting Marty at the We Are podcast conference in Brisbane a couple of years ago. So I've really been looking forward to today's chat. So welcome and let's get invested in Marty Bids. Thank you so much, Bushy. It's an honour to be on the podcast and I'm really looking forward to adding value and making the audience smile as well in the process of learning something. Well, you do that extremely well, mate. So we're going to have a lot of fun today. But, mate, for those listeners who don't know you, can you sort of start off by giving us a rundown who you are,

what you do, and where you're currently heading, mate? Yeah, well, at the moment, Bushy, I'm working as a business strategist, a leadership strategist, and I mainly work with small business owners that are looking to build teams and just have more effective leadership and structure within their organisations and, of course, to be more profitable at the end of the day because numbers tell a story so I've been doing that now for the last what would I say now three years and that's off the back of building a couple of businesses and successfully exiting out of those businesses so but that's my that's my focus

now I also run a podcast the Marty Bid Show similar to yourself love talking to really inspired individuals where I learn so much from but that's my main focus is professionals and business owners where I can add value from the place of actually being a business owner and going through the challenges and understanding the challenges that they go through and building a bridge across those challenges so they can maneuver where they want to go more effectively so that's been my focus the last three years. Massive need there, mate. And we'll sort of dig into some of that more detail later in the conversation.

But where I'd love to start, mate, if you don't mind, is to get you to talk us through where it all began for you. And you can go back as far as you like, but what I'd love you to sort of focus on is from the earliest days, what did you invest your time, your energy and your money in? Where did that lead you to? what did you learn from it, what were the motivations and where did it then take you to so that you can sort of take us through

from then to where you're at now? Sure. Well, I think the first stage was my parents owned a milk bar back in the 1980s and for any international guest, it's like a little grocery store and that's what ethnic people seem to do in the 80s, Bushy. It was either a pizza shop or a milk bar and coming from Croatian and German heritage, that was the natural way.

But what they were really good at, my parents, was allowing me to run a business within a business. So at the age of seven or eight, they let me run the bread stand. And it was tremendous because I got to know what the wholesale cost of bread was, what the retail cost of bread was. And I'd keep the difference, which, you know, going back in the 80s, five bucks was a lot of mixed lollies. So that's where I got my initial entrepreneurial skills. But I think even more importantly, I got my people skills through that. So I'd know George across the road would come over and I know 80% of the time he would buy the same bread and milk. So I would have that on the till ready for him to come in and he'd always leave me a tip.

and and so things like that really getting to know your client it was happening very organically for me at a very young age and even to the point when the tip-top truck came I would always help the uh the bread man to carry in the bread because I knew he'd throw an extra couple of loaves in and that meant you know more mixed lollies for me right so so I had this really nice this was always bigger than school for me was the education in the milk bar and um yeah i look back very fondly uh in to that time because i i picked up so much emotional intelligence through it and i also got to strategize on that so instead of throwing out the day old bread i just say you know it's 50 off the day two bread and i could my parents were had enough flexibility to let me do those types of

things as long as I wasn't obviously poisoning anyone but they would let me do those things and I think that then led into just this love of playing Monopoly as I was growing up and chess was a big game for me and sports so mixing mixing that competitive edge with strategy and also the understanding of money, that money is a skill and it's a handy skill to acquire, really helped me in those early days. And then I did a course when I was 17 because for some reason school was never a great thing for me. Like I was exceptionally good at a couple of subjects that I was good in

but I failed at the rest because I could only ever put my mind towards It's where the interest was. I couldn't be generically good across the board. It would always be where the excitement was and the enthusiasm, where I do exceptionally well. So the teachers couldn't quite understand how I could get 99 out of 100 in two actual courses or lessons and then be miserable in the rest. But, again, I was very fortunate.

I did this government program called What Works when I was 17. and the key fundamental to that course was I had to create a business project and I had to do that within 12 weeks and that changed the game because they told me to visualise what the outcome needed to be. They then put in a structure of how I was going to achieve that outcome and work through that with me. So I always liked stand-up comedy growing up.

I love Robin Williams, Billy Connolly, Richard Pryor. And I thought, you know what, I was a little bit, I was extroverted within the family, but I was a little bit introverted to everyone else. Why is that, mate? Yeah, why is that? So very comfortable around the family but introverted with others? Do you know why that is now?

Well, maybe I think in hindsight, I think I just felt very comfortable with the people I felt comfortable with and I think it took a while for people to build trust with me and vice versa and um and once that trust was there it was it was okay but that took a that took a bit of time so I always felt like I was always under I would say I was always keeping one eye open to anything external to the family and maybe it was a fear of criticism uh maybe it was a feeling of not being good enough outside of the family but there was always this self-doubt and I would feel a bit more introverted but once I felt safe and I felt like I knew the lay of the land I could you know I could do really good things really quickly so but I don't know where

that where that initial fear came from maybe the structure was just built up that we had a lot of confidence within the family and we had to sort of build that bridge externally wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that you were seen in a ballet costume at around 12 years old by any chance for them, mate? Wow, Bushy, that ballet, you know, it's taken me 35 years to live down. Tell us the story, mate. Come on. Well, look, thinking back to when I was 13 years of age, I was, you know,

obviously a boy goes through changes at that time, Bushy, and I was going through those changes. And up until that stage, we lived in a very ethnic area where a lot of the 13-year-olds looked like they were 25-year-olds with a lot of facial hair. Men and women probably. I didn't come from that background. I had one or two hairs.

But all of a sudden at 13, I went through this change and I realised that there were a lot of girls doing ballet and I knew a lot of the other guys weren't that way inclined to like the girls and I thought, this is a great in and it proved to be a fantastic strategy but in the end when I was playing sport as well, I realised that when you're a cricketer and a footballer, having ballet as your third sport wasn't going to cut it.

You would have been pretty good on your toes when you're going for the mark though, mate. Absolutely. It did actually help me a lot with flexibility and being able to help my sport greatly as a bowler and also as a footballer and tennis player. Like, I love tennis. It was very, very beneficial in many ways.

But your mates become very important. You do listen to what your mates say at that age. So eventually it was the ballet that had to go after they recognised that I was doing it after 18 months' time. Well, I tell you what it tells me, mate, is that there's someone with a fair bit of courage because the old peer pressure, I'm guessing, if it was a country town like I was brought up in, there would have been some of the blokes going, what the hell are you up to, mate? And that single-minded focus on here's a great way to get in amongst the girls where there's no other blokes, they probably wouldn't have been smart enough to work that out. But having that courage to do that, I would have thought at that time, would have been quite challenging, mate.

Am I right in saying that? Yeah, it was challenging. But also, once the guys understood my strategy, there were a few more blokes that actually joined in. So it was interesting. I got a few people on my side that ultimately my future was always going to be in cricket, tennis and footy. So it was, you know, I had manoeuvred through it.

But I was glad that I did it because it helped me get in touch with, I think, another side of myself at a very early age and understanding women better at an early age. So it really helped. When I fast-tracked that into businesses, I always had a 50-50 ratio based on capability, but I never had an issue communicating with women. So I think that was really helpful that time in my life because it really gave me some skills around that as well, which most of the guys probably didn't have at the age 15 or 16. I totally agree. Yeah, no, full admiration there, mate.

Something else you mentioned as well, you said that you love Monopoly and you love chess. Now, they are quite – and I guess I'm picking up that because I was very similar, mate. I loved those games right from a very early age and I loved the chess in relation to having to think three or four moves ahead. Yeah, great strategy that came out of that.

Where did your passion for that come from, mate? I'm just interested in, because it's not a game that a lot of kids actually are sort of drawn towards. Can you remember why you were drawn to it? Yeah, my grandfather, like my grandfather, I don't think he was like a chess master or anything but he was well known for playing chess in Poland and he would always beat me in three moves which I didn't appreciate so he would then play without a queen and he was he was really teaching me you know wonderful

fundamentals around chess and we had a great relationship around chess and yeah I really got to learn like you said to be able to think three or four moves ahead but also how to play good defense and offense and when was the right time and also trying to think about what the other player was thinking that was like that type of strategic and critical thinking uh has helped me so much in my life and in businesses in many ways because that uh there's just a there's a reality of understanding the rules and there's a way to utilize those rules to best effect but um it was a really important game in hindsight when i look back and how i even these days i'll look forward and i'll think what is the you know what is the direct route to get the outcome i want

uh in business or in something i want to achieve but i'll always have two alternate routes that i can bounce off if i need and this kind of happens now automatically for me without me needing to think about it but that that i am absolutely certain that comes out of chess yeah there you go you still play yeah still play like i'm teaching my six-year-old son how to play now and he loves it as well so we have some great fun around it awesome awesome mate fantastic so and you also sort of mentioned as you say that if you had an interest in something you went 100 but it sounds like if you're not that interested it's probably zero percent uh and again not sure on the the sort of values of the school that you went to but i know in my own case there was this

expectation if you're good at one thing you had to be good at everything and if you weren't then then the feeling you take away is well uh at that very formative age i'm i'm not good enough was it Was that part of the feeling that you took away with at that time and the reason why you think you felt that way, as you mentioned earlier? Yeah, I think I had a chip on my shoulder for many years around because I always say I enjoyed year 12 so much I did it twice. So it was, but I really felt like a failure,

yet I realised that I was exceptionally good in, I remember, drama, in business studies, and strangely enough, English literature, but I was terrible in English. So my ability to conceptualise and interpret was really high. But when it was just, you know, a repeating of a boring pattern for me, it wasn't chewy enough. And I think that, but I did carry a chip on my shoulder for a number of years and I'd probably I probably ate that chip on my shoulder because I know I put on a bit of weight around that time just to those feelings of inadequacy around that but I think that what works business course of running the stand-up comedy nights and realizing I could focus in on my capabilities and put it to good use was actually a freedom and a relief

for me and I had two teachers over the journey uh Laurie Burt who was my grade five teacher he taught me all the fundamentals of the education system that I needed to learn through football through AFL football so he taught me about maths through football he told me about teamwork and social studies so he really built he he tapped into my interest of football and dinosaurs and he educated me through that process and I remember from grade four being you know a d student in in many subjects to being all a's across the board because of his ability to teach me I just and that's why I still think in this day and age to get the right mentor for you and it's very specific for you is so important because there are some people that just connect with you and are able

to move you into opportunities that no one else can. And I had that twice over the journey in my school years and I cherish those teachers very much so because I always go back to them and go, how did I get the best out of myself and how did they get the best out of me in those circumstances? So it wasn't that I couldn't learn. It was just I had a way of learning that once you tapped into, it really opened up many opportunities for me

and really excited me and created great enthusiasm. So, yeah, it was fantastic. Yeah, and you make a good point. I think if anyone is looking to engage someone and help them and guide them in a certain direction, if you can tap into their interests and their way of learning and then deliver on that, like your teacher did with you in relation to footy and dinosaurs, then the energy that goes with that you're much more likely to be sure because of that

interest but not many people take that approach in any any relationship unfortunately I think Marty it's all standardized and that's the sad thing it's if something's standardized it's standardized as average you know and and we are not average as individuals you know we are remarkable and once we can tap into who we are and we get the right driver from who we are, then things can change pretty dramatically. And, you know, I got that understanding later in life. But, yeah, I carried that failure with me for a while and I had to, you know, I just had to reflect and go, well,

actually, what am I good at and not focus on, you know, the things i i didn't see myself as good at so i really started to build blocks upon my capability my enjoyment my passion and then realizing that i still had systems of operation but it wasn't necessarily always going to be the societal systems of operation so that's where sometimes there was a conflict but when they came together they came together really effectively and that was that's the beauty um yeah that's the beauty I think what I've been able to do I've been able to laugh in libraries but I've still kept my library card because it's um I've acknowledged and respected where I was at but I still had the ability to explore without that

and then see what was that synergy that actually worked and um and I think those bringing those conceptual things together in new ways was really my point of difference over my journey I love that expression, mate, laughing libraries. The visual image in my head of this really quiet, serious zone where you're sitting there belly laughing, it says a lot about you and it also says a lot to me about your, again, that courage that you have to rise above the average and the common denominator or lowest thereof and feel comfortable about that, mate.

And that's a really good segue back into the comedy piece because, mate, I've got to tell you, if you said to me, Bushy, you're going to jump up on stage and you're going to try and make people laugh, I don't think there'd be too many scarier things, mate, to be honest. I'm very comfortable on stage, but if you told me I had to be a comedian,

then I would find that extremely challenging. Given what you talked about with that introversion and whatnot, what was the interest in comedy and why did you head in that direction at that stage? I think from a personal perspective, my parents divorced at about 16 and it was a tough time and my interest in Robin Williams and Billy Connolly and Richard Pryor, I always enjoyed comedy and then I went and saw a film called Good Morning Vietnam

back in the late 80s with Robin Williams and it just made me laugh. It was like my thought process was, you know, even in war, you know humor makes things better and I thought you know understanding that little bit of introversion I thought wouldn't it be great to share my ideas on a stage and and you know connect with the audience on that level and it was it was really courageous I like I still remember my first gig at the Staringata in South Melbourne in Victoria um Jumon was the emcee going back he's an Australian comedian, Trevor Marmalay, Glenn Robbins, Mick Molloy. You're joking.

And all, you know, amazing people even to this day and age. You're on stage with those guys. What's that? You're on stage with those guys. Yeah, yeah. I was in a tryout spot, which you get five minutes at the start of the night. Good grief.

And I remember doing my first gig and not only did no one laugh, Bushy, no one moved. And it was like, you know, people always talk about, you know, you either killed it or you die that's what it feels like and to to die up front in that first gig was um it was the most uh horrific experience a 17 year old could ever have but i had the comedians come up to me and they said you know what you performed it well there's something about you and you did perform it well they're saying don't give up you're 17 we've been doing this for like five ten years um you know give it give it another go because there's something that you've

got there and so i went back to the i went back to writing down uh the jokes and just analogies and things like that and by the the second gig was a little bit better third gig eric banner who's who's an australian actor now he was emceeing that gig i remember at the Botanical in South Yarra and I got a standing ovation and it was like ah the the it was just the most thrilling thrilling experience to really have that connection with the audience and it is the most unique feeling of uh you can feel the laugh going through the room and it it is quite euphoric it is quite a euphoric experience and then from there you kind of know what works you get better and better and better um your stage fright reduces because you get to know you know

you get to know the dynamics of what's going on and um it just becomes an art and a craft like anything else the more you do it the more comfortable you get with it and then you're still always looking to take risk because soon as you get vanilla in comedy um you know you're probably going backwards so you're always looking to extend yourself what's that line of good taste you're looking at the audience and you're saying how are the audience responding in real time which has helped me in business because i'm always listening to the audience what are they telling me they'll usually have a really good nugget of gold that you can implement into your business if you're really listening and that's the same in comedy the thing is the difference is you're

getting it in real time if something's not going well you need to be able to adjust and reconnect and test and you're doing that all in the moment so the courage the structure um the creativity and it was just brilliant like i loved it and i ended up then running stand-up nights which um because of that entrepreneurial flair i always had that entrepreneurial flair that i would then get the comedians in i'd run the door i get a percentage of the bar there was always that element that I wanted to run the show not necessarily be the show and it's um that was interesting I always struggled with the delegation part at the start but it was like that was a really interesting thing because I would always be gravitating to actually running the

whole thing instead of just being the act um so again not sure where that comes from but maybe it's yeah maybe it's the milk bar maybe it's monopoly but it was a wonderful experience bushy and then you know it was a real job well yeah well let's before we jump into that quite dramatic change uh because i i'm trying to put myself in in your position that you know in your late teens standing up there on stage yeah probably pimple faced alongside all these uh absolute legends of the game that you've the names you've mentioned i'm going good grief that they are absolute legends of the game, the resilience that would come out of that exercise as well, mate,

would be life-changing, I would have thought. Because if you can stand there in a room and live through an absolute, you hear a pin drop, you said you didn't hear a thing, and then have the guts to go back and do it again, most people would go, that's it, I'm done, I'm out of here, I'm not going to go put myself through that again. but the resilience to keep doing that in the in the face of the prospect that that might happen again with the only the small chance that there's going to be that standing ovation that you got

very quickly from what from what we're hearing there might uh that would have been quite formative i would have thought yeah it was and i remember being on stage because that's vivid in my mind and going all right do what you came here to do yes you want to make them laugh but get to the end you know get to the end don't give up because the propensity is you just want to get off as quick as possible um and you just want to be swallowed up but i go just just do what you came here to do finish and then reboot reassess what worked well uh what didn't work well and i have to admit though those comedians were very intuitive and very supportive it um you know a kind word at the right time certainly helped to me to get up again because i had all those thoughts that you

were explaining bushy that uh why would i ever do this to myself that was what i was thinking and and it was those kind it was those kind words from the comedians that i go you know what this is everyone has to start yeah everyone has to start on a new venture and a new adventure and um And it's, you know, there's work to do here, and that's okay. You know, the Black Eyed Peas didn't start off, you know, doing hits right away. You know, they worked their craft for five years, same as the Beatles in Germany.

You go, so it's a good reminder to take that next step and recalibrate what worked well, what didn't work well, what do I need to do, what's the step forward, what's the 1%, the incremental step forward, rather than having this expectation that I needed to be Billy Connolly next time I get up. So it was, yeah, it was really, I think it redefined my character. I bet it did.

Was that, and what you've just described there, because I often talk about that, that if you're going to do anything from walking as a toddler through to building a business to whatever it is that you want to achieve, playing piano or playing a sport uh it it's a an investment in time over a long time to build build that skill base in your head at that time when you were copying that flack from the very first time you got on stage you're thinking yeah okay well this this is just a step along the journey i'm going to learn from this i'm not going to worry too much about what's happening

now i'm just going to keep doing it until it until i get good at this was that was that in your head or was it uh you know it's easy to say yeah i suppose is that was that the thought process at the time two two things happened was um i go if i could survive this i can survive anything so anything else in life is going to be easy because it's like when you're getting that that it enabled me to look at criticism different so what i could what i could do now is still work my craft even though i wasn't getting the response that i was getting so that gave me the ability to work through challenging scenarios and, you know, reflect upon them rather than just avoiding and then, you know,

saying that was a terrible idea and why would I do that? So even though those emotions come up, I think my understanding that you can only ever, in comedy, if you win 51% of the room, it's a good night. So it's like you don't need everyone to like you in life. You just need to love what you do, really enjoy what you do, build skill around that, build a good mindset around that and develop your craft.

And so I think that really helped in later life in how I interpreted because I remember I had these people sitting in the front row one night and they were Gothic. They were all dressed as Gothic people. and the you know and this is how you how you don't do it right so i i said there was about eight of them and i said to them do you know if you tell my jokes backwards there's a there's a message in it right and i really like the joke because i i go that was clever i thought it was kind of lost lost the room because they were at the front and it was a really good lesson up front

and I couldn't get them back on site in 20 minutes. And I thought that was a fundamental error in building rapport with the audience. And I thought, wow, I'm learning so much here. So the next night, there's a Bucks party that come in. These boys are absolutely going nuts and screaming, swearing at every comedian. Now, for me to get them offside,

you know, there could be a punch on here. So I'm thinking, what do I need to do to build rapport with these guys? and taking my learnings from the previous night. So I got the buck on stage and I bought him a beer and we sculled two beers together. I had won them over. So I had rapport.

I could have said the worst joke in the world that wasn't funny. They were going to laugh. And so I think my understanding of human behaviour was really developed and my acknowledgement that not everyone was going to like me in life and that's okay. there'll be people that will really enjoy what I do and that's okay too but the main thing that I learned was was I enjoying what I was doing and that was the self-direction that I could now go well yes I'm really enjoying this and I think these are tools that I didn't see them as tools

at the time but these were things that were going to be very advantageous in my life you know moving forward in connecting with people and so that's what I took out of it I took out of it first of all there can't be anything harder than this this is like you know this is like feels like the top of the mountain at that at that time of my life so I was really respectful of the courage and I thought as much as people might want to criticize they're not up here they're not holding the mic So I use that as motivation to then have that courage to then be able to develop my craft and get better and better and better and better. And where that's pivotal is I've even mentored people that have been on radio, you know, breakfast radio, and they were earning, you know, half a million dollars, but they had 50% of the market hated them, 50% of the market loved them. And I said, that's okay.

I said, that's, that's life. You know, this is what happens in life. Not everyone's going to agree with you. You know, you want to make everyone happy, go sell ice cream. Yeah. And they'll still complain somewhere. Right. So it's like, the main thing is you're getting half a million dollars doing what you love to do. Let's expand upon that rather than worry about, you know, the, the people that were never going to like you anyway. So, so that, that really developed out of creating a great sense of self, a great sense of courage and strategy under fire that would prove to be very useful in business and in the corporate world, Bushy.

Absolutely. Absolutely, mate. But also, I mean, underpinning all of that, just a bloody good sense of humour, Marty, that I just think that there's not enough humour in our life at all these days. People are too quick to get too serious. And humour finds a way.

you're so right um whenever people are stressed and i'm not talking you know out of context humor but if you can come at it with a light heart in comedy you're always looking for you're always looking for the shortest route to get to the laugh right now this might mean you write four pages of material and the joke ends up being on two lines so so it's it's complex but it's what you're able to take out of the situation to simplify the complexity that what is what works so you're always looking for that that way to get to that punch to that laugh as quick as possible now that's really helpful in simplifying complexity in many different scenarios but like you said even as a human element, people want to be around

because if you can turn a stressful situation, I'm not getting my sales, you know, I'm getting stressed, I'm not making enough money, they go, okay, if you can shift the way they're feeling and go, you know, at the end of the day, you know, this is not a great thing but you can lighten it up, you can move them into an opportunity towards something more effective quicker and that's what that's what comedy gave me it allowed me to to work with people to shift that

that when they get stuck in that fixed mindset and they're being unresourceful into ways that they can now take that next step in a in a more positive direction and i think that's why i was always able to maintain um all my teammates um in in business because they wanted to be there they enjoyed being there and it was a culture of good humor but it was a culture of good results too there was an expectation that we wanted to be the best we could be and do our life's best work but we wanted to enjoy that adventure as well so that helped me a lot brilliant mate brilliant yeah are you a naturally funny person marty or is it something that you believe that just by doing the doing that that's something you've crafted over time uh i think i'm i think i'm

intuitively light-hearted i think that um i've always been like that since a very young young boy i think comedy gave me a structure around that so i learned structures around the the talent but i always look for the lighter side in things like and you know and and you know who you can be inappropriately funny with but like even situations like funerals you know my granddad yeah my granddad passed away but the coffin was really heavy and you know amongst our friends would say oh he must have his lawn bowls in with him and so that that is not a joke but it's real life scenarios that you can you know you can draw upon that actually make a challenging situation better and that's that's what i've always carried with me is um you know i don't

want to go through life getting you know too serious yet i can be very serious in context uh if there's a high performance negotiation or you know a business takeover um i also i've also trained myself in negotiation skills to be really appropriate in its use as well so it's um it's it's knowing that intuitively when it's okay to be funny and lighten the mood and when it's time to be serious and get a job done as well and that's where respect is a big uh is a big player yeah no absolutely mate uh so some really grounding times that that feels like a machine gun dance to me uh doing the whole comedy routine and then then to take that on board and and to run the show as you say uh not to be the show but to run the show again gutsy

at a very early stage of your of your life mate but you made a pretty major change at some point can you talk us through why the change and what the change was yeah a couple of components in the change is that um comedians as much as they're funny that's fun environment stay up very late and probably do things that i wouldn't say would be illegal bushy so well yeah they're probably not legal i should say so so i could see that unless i was going to be a dave hughes or you know a billy connelly i the monopoly was still kicking at my back heel and you know at that stage you'd get you know thirty dollars or yeah a hundred dollars for a main spot the money wasn't great and i've been doing this for a number

of years and i was making more money out of the running the nights but ultimately ultimately i love business what i realized was my true passion was putting together businesses and running the comedy nights and i always had this transition idea of getting a real job and i think that was an actual limitation um i just felt like you know what i can't be coming home at three in the morning and sleeping until 12 um it didn't fit with my sport it didn't fit with um what i wanted to really accomplish as a person yeah so i probably did the least funniest thing ever and joined the bank at that time why why the bank is it because it was it was in your mind i'm going from this quite unhealthy party lifestyle pretty much to, right,

I need to go to the other end of the spectrum and look for the most structured environment I can get into. Was that the thought process? Yeah, it was. You're right. It was an intuitive thing to go, you know what, I don't want to end up like some of the people I'm seeing here and I want some more structure.

And I still had that real business bug from the milk bar and also doing the What Works, the comedy nights as a business. And I thought, I want to get into banking to learn more about the business side of funding just from the sake of seeing what other business owners did. So that was the transition path. And, boy, that was an eye-opener in itself. But it was good from the point of view that I then got

to see what great business owners did at being a business banker and what bad business owners did as well. So I could learn from the failings and I was building up a stock of resources around. Now, I didn't know how that was going to play out ultimately, but there was always this feeling, and it probably came out of being hard done by as an ethnic family in the 80s of I recognised the better of the business did the more the interest rates went up and dad used to talk about going why is

the bank charging me this when i'm a good customer and we're making money and now i'm getting charged more so there was always this thing that that didn't make sense and i wanted to get an understanding of it from a business owner but also from a fundamental practice of of why that happened so It was a very direct shift and I think a part of it was where will this comedy lead to and not a lot of them were very sporty at that time. There were different values that I held that probably weren't in alignment and I remember the comedians

would always be supportive but at one o'clock they'd lock me out of the room because they didn't want this 18-year-old to be, you know, seeing or doing what they were doing. And I respect that. But I also felt like over time I go, didn't feel like I was in the inner sanctum. And I go, it's probably not my ultimate value set as well. So that's why the transition.

Well, that transition, mate, going from that to almost clock watching nine to five, very structured environments, I'm guessing, because I've never worked in a bank, but this is my wild assumption here. That would have been, you know, a diamond in the rough, so to speak, like yourself coming into that environment would have been pretty interesting for you, I'd imagine. How did that go? Yeah, it was interesting because, you know, sometimes, you know,

you're getting managed to get a result and I guess coming off the skills I'd developed in doing the comedy nights and the stand-up, I was very good at the relationship side of business and getting to listen to what the business owner really wanted. And then there was the handbrake of what the bank was prepared to do. So I needed to create a third space where I could communicate on their level and then also be able to deliver from the bank's perspective as well.

now a lot of the managers didn't always like the way i went about that they didn't want me to build friendships and and stuff at that level because at some point you've got to have a hard discussion with a business owner if you if that eventuates but i saw that as a superpower so what they what the instruction to me was always how do we get the biggest return on investment from that business owner from the banks you know to be profitable to the bank but my strategy was if we save the client money and we gave him what he wanted in a better way then he's going to refer um the next person and the next person so you build your tree out right um so there was a fundamental difference in philosophy between me and the system however what the bank couldn't

deny was my results so what was happening was i would always be in the top three of wherever wherever i was put into whatever role i was in yeah and um and eventually it gets to the point where the manager goes you know what he's getting the result he's not hurting anyone let him go it looks good on the bottom line um so they'd always talk to me about you could get a further return on investment on this customer. But I go, let's have a look at my portfolio and let's look at the return on investment on the whole portfolio. So I would always come back to that.

And that, yeah, so there was always, and it was the same as school bushy. It was always like it got to the point people just go, just let him be, just let him get the result. Because every time I went into an interview and they'd be looking at those aptitude tests, it would be one out of 50 because I would never be able to give them the answer they wanted and yet I was very fortunate enough

to have a few managers to go, something about him, something about him, don't know what it is, this could either be very bad or it could work and that was always the, I guess that was the anxiety that I was always carrying in that I can get you the result but I might not be able to get it in the way you always want me to get it because I'm accessing my own algorithm of how I operate with people, how I learn the structures

of what you're looking for because you might be trying to teach me in a way but I'm seeing it differently. However, we're getting to the same point and that's okay. So the most effective managers, again, were the ones that were able to embrace um embrace myself and build a relationship with me and then i wanted to perform for them as well so it was like we built a camaraderie we built a rapport and they were always the managers that could get the best out of me um because they go okay just don't tell this to marty because he's not going to respond yeah why don't we approach it in this way and and so

the people that were very human as managers usually got the best out of me and it was and I and I and I also could compromise as well so I could go I was willing to meet halfway and go how can we make this work together but I wasn't willing to be dictated to and and even I had a I remember having a manager that was gaslighting me and saying you know just having to go at me on everything even though i was getting results but i wasn't getting it his way and i said well you know you're telling me to do this um that's in you're telling me to come from this intention um yet you're drinking for six hours a day and i would voice that and i would say the thing i would say the thing that was true

Now, when I was pricked to that level, when I felt like I was being victimized and people talk about bullying in the workplace, you know, I can cop a fair whack and I can use comedy to pretty much relieve anything that needed to be relieved in most situations. But when I felt like I had someone that was really victimizing me, I'd come back to truth and I'd do it in a way that was lighthearted still, but I would do it in a way that he would not come back at me with that vigour again and then we just had to, because I was never afraid of losing my job

because I always knew that I would be okay, yet I never lost my job. I was fortunate. Sorry, jumping in there. I want to drill straight into that because there's very few people who have that level of comfort because I've said it all the time, particularly in this day and age where there's so much outsourcing and overseasing and all the rest of it, there's a fear factor now

that I've got to hold on to this job, otherwise I'm going to be in strife. Where did that level of self-belief and self-confidence come from that say, okay, well, I don't care whether I have this job or not, I'm going to be okay? yeah i think it was a inner confidence i think there was i've been through enough hardship through the divorce and living with dad in a caravan for a while and knowing that i kind of lived my worst case scenario at the age of 16 right so really in my life there was there wasn't anything more to lose there was like now that that's a pretty general statement but that was

probably what I was feeling at the time you know careers teachers telling me I should be a butcher I'm getting all this advice coming to me I'm going really that's how people are seeing me wow okay so so I felt I felt that it was more important to lead into challenge and and not understand my intuitions telling me something for a reason but also understanding that no matter what happens i'll be okay um as long as i as long as i speak up on what's right for me and that's only when it's really a critical situation like i'm happy to play vanilla and you know have fun and and meet people halfway but when i'm really like if i feel threatened um i'll stand up for myself in that moment because I know there's only one way to go if I get if I get victimized and

people see that then guess what the next person's going to do right so it's um there's there's some innate understanding and that came out of potentially we come back to the bully story the ballet story slightly I remember this big uh big big bloke he's very overweight bloke teasing me about it and i had this moment where i felt real shame and guilt um and and feeling uncomfortable yet there was something inside of me that said if you let this guy do this with everyone watching guess what's going to happen everyone's going to be doing this so i i went on the attack and put him in a headlock and i basically said if you ever talk to me like that again you are in massive trouble you are in massive trouble so i really held my own and that

was a no i had great friends off that i had respect and no one ever pushed my buttons on that again so it was like that was one of those moments where i'm going who's this guy you know he might be my manager but ultimately you know he's got some flaws as well so you want to play then i'm gonna play right i'm gonna fight fire with fire but i'm not one to i don't enjoy conflict but i know when it matters when you're really in a position where someone's going at you for no good reason you know fair enough give me some statistics if you want to have a discussion on how to improve on something i have no problem with that but when someone's undermining you and someone's just throw away lines that is not funny that you know there's a difference between

funny and intentionally trying to tear someone down bit by bit and i'm very good at understanding the difference to that um i can cop it as anyone on a you know someone says something funny to me or has a go at me in that way but yeah when someone has uh when someone's trying to tear you down to make them feel better about themselves um that's a dangerous game and that's a game i don't want to play and i want to expose it because otherwise um you know you could get into that victimized situation so i think yeah that's the best way of explaining it and i got a lot of respect out of that because it wasn't something i did often i wasn't crying wolf it's not something i did all the time but there's probably a few pivotal moments in my life when i've done it

and people have taken note. And that's a really handy thing to have in your tool. Well, you're respecting yourself and therefore other people are going to respect you when you're prepared to stand your ground on something that's important to you. But you made a comment that you're happy to be vanilla. Now, I can't see you as vanilla in any way, shape or form, Marty Fitz. And so what I'm hearing here is that it was a compromise.

compromise while you were doing well and they were politely turning a blind eye uh because you were getting the results and the results you can't argue with it would have been a still a compromise to you and a compromise to them which would have to to take its toll on you eventually uh where did that lead you to and what was the next step mate yeah for me it was like um um for me it was a philosophical point of difference again so i was being told to sell certain products um for the benefit of the bank at that time that's going in the the late 80s early 90s um mid 90s and and what i loved about the bank is it was the best business course i ever did i got the best training i make great friends so don't get me wrong there were a lot of positives

and still to this day I have really good friends that have come out of the banking system. Of course. It was a philosophical problem of going, if I give the clients a better option and I'm saving them money, I'm actually getting chastised over that. Wow. And I go, so fundamentally that didn't sit

and that's where mortgage broking came along in, well, it was earlier than 2000, but that's when I caught onto it. And I thought, wow, we can actually empower the client. We can give them choice. We can choose over 40 banks. We can utilize competitive tension to get them a better deal. We can educate them to show them how to save 80,000 and 14 years off their mortgage. We can empower them with wealth strategies. So everything in my value system started to align where i could utilize the products from the from the bank yet i could i could do it in my own philosophical way that really empowers the client that supports them in their

life so i found an alignment in that business where i go oh wow i can set myself apart here as a point of difference we're on the front of a wave of what i think is going to be something brilliant because there's a need in the market everyone was on standard variable rates at the time because the banks were selling honeymoon rates which is great for one year and then 29 years they're on this higher standard variable rate I call them a sharegulator loans but yep that's yeah that's right so it was all a marketing strategy but how effective was it going to be over the lifetime of that that for that client so so it was like I could see everything just it was like a puzzle that the pieces just fell into place and then I knew I knew when the the pull forward

uh for the business it was more of a risk for me to stay in my job than it was to move forward that's what it got to it took six months to get to that point but it um it you know I did some work around how would this look what would it look like as a business and you know just just building a bridge and not like i've said before not jumping off a cliff without a parachute i wanted to have a parachute i wanted to have six months of income as i made the transition across but i knew this was the new frontier i had this real feeling that this was going to support the client at a whole different way and i could work with the client for the next 5 10 15 years and And, you know, be the source of ongoing education and make a difference in their lives.

And that's ultimately what I wanted to do. I want to enrich lives. And I finally found a platform where I felt I could do that. Yeah, brilliant. Now, you mentioned a really good point here because what I see with a lot of people who take the leap of faith and jump off that cliff into self-employment effectively, particularly in essentially a performance-based, commission-based environment. A lot of people don't have that lifeline. They don't have the oxygen tank that's going to give them enough air to survive the submersion when they don't have an income for, I often say, you've got to be able to survive for

two years to really start making your mark in a business like that, whether it be real estate, whether it be finance broking, whether it be financial planning, any of those spheres that are similarly set up. you mentioned you had six months war chest uh sticking your back pocket how did you put that together mate where did that come from yeah well that was just savings on what i'd had in the savings account so i was i was just putting money away with the thought of what we were going to do so i was very fortunate i had another guy craig parkins um who was the co-founder of mortgage first uh we were we were doing this and we were talking about um riding the front of the wave and

then we said well how are we how are we going to do it we like the idea um we need some runway here we need six months of not we never wanted to look at the client as a transaction we wanted to look at them as people first and bringing value to those people so that was the bridge that we decided was we're going to give ourselves six months of income and the other thing we worked out was we modelled out well what would we have to do in our performance to replace our current salaries what would that look like because we're doing pretty well we're 29 years old I think we're on about 70 75 grand people thought we were nuts leaving the bank at that stage but we knew that when you when you break it down that 75 000 seems a lot all we had to focus on was 6 6 250 a month

and then we realized that that was at the time two mortgages each and and so we'd broken down the fundamentals to go as a first point of view are we going to survive how long is it going to take for us to survive and and for us to be able to be okay and we hit it and you're right bushy i think you probably need somewhere 12 18 to two years we said six months because we thought we could do it in that time. Now, we were very fortunate that we did it in four months. That was the first time we had replaced our income. And the first month, I remember looking over to Craig and I'm going, we're so used to the phones ringing all the time. And we're going, what's going on? Why aren't the phones ringing? This is a great idea. And we realized, yeah, we had to go

and make it happen we had to go and educate the market as to the benefit and build relationships so that was really great that we we got that early on in the piece we only had a business car that had wingdings pictures on it it was very basic we didn't over capitalize with cars and we just had the fundamental software and we knew if we could sit accountants and people in front of the software and show them the impact of what their money can do to their mortgage and how to really accelerate their position, we knew that the software would speak for themselves and we also knew that everyone was on standard variable really

and we knew we could have a massive impact. And we also knew our niche market. We knew that anyone that had a million dollars over borrowings was, you know seen as a professional client and was getting good service from the bank and it was highly competitive and also the stuff at 250 you know had its niche in the bank people could go to the bank 200 grand loan yep it's tick and flick but we knew this market between 250 to 1 million of people that had a good size mortgage and they wanted to buy an investment property one or two investment properties was our niche market and that's what we focused our whole energy on when

we talked to accountants financial planners clients um so we really had a clear understanding of our strategy and who we were talking to when we went out there and um you know really showed what we could do with our software and and that was it was fantastic now we're probably a bit naive that we didn't give ourselves a longer runway but I think in hindsight it worked out really well because we had no choice we had no chance to sort of sit on our laurels at all we had to make it happen because we we weren't going back at the end of the day now you've mentioned another interesting point there during that discussion which I want to sort of drill into in a minute and that's the property investment piece.

But reflecting now, I mean, you built an awesome award-winning business, you sold that business, you then went on to build another finance business with sort of broader tentacles later on, which we'll touch on in a minute. But reflecting back on that experience in the finance-breaking industry and looking at where that industry is at now, given the Royal Commission and all of the palaver that's been around the distrust of the banks and the flow and impact that's having and the sort of concerns that we're seeing people suffer

as a result of that bad press. Why would you suggest someone who's looking to either get a home loan or to borrow money to invest in property, why would they go to a finance broker rather than go straight to a bank? first of all you've got someone in your corner advising you on your outcomes as opposed to the bank's outcomes so i think that's really important you've got choice why would you ever just have a selection of one product from one bank when you can have um you can understand what are the better products from a majority of banks based on your own individual situation uh competitive tension

you can utilize competitive tension to get you know really good pricing in comparison to if you go direct to the bank um so that's that's a big and you've got someone there for the long term to be able to really work with you in the future towards your outcome your financial outcomes that you want and i i think that fun and also from a point of view of knowing where you stand like even you know i would educate people and i know you do too bushy which is you know your whole business model is educating people to let them know what they can do then it's up to them whether they want to do it or not right so it's taking away the fear i've had so many clients that have been scared of investing in property and once you build build understanding around it to say well look

given you're in a circumstance where actually you might be only chipping in 40 50 dollars a month here after your depreciation after so many things that you can you can map out for them it takes away the fear and i know when i've done approval in principles just to let clients know where they stand within six to 12 months they've purchased a property because with awareness brings opportunity and that puts them in a position of power rather than being reactive and go i should do something but not being aware of what they can do so for me it was the education component of of it all that was and and also like working for them yes we're utilizing the bank products and we're meeting policy requirements but really empowering them and understanding their position from the from the

you know so they know where the lenders stand so you're not going in blind and then getting declined on something and not understanding why and getting emotional let us take that on board because that is the that is a huge empowered point of difference from cost from strategy and that's why i love it you can hear it in my voice because you really are putting people in a strong position and all we're doing is utilizing the system now the best effect which probably works with my algorithm in some way shape or form yeah absolutely beautifully said that's absolutely beautifully said and it is it's it's i know from uh being in the industry now myself for some years very rewarding to see the light bulb go on when you've it's the old story people just don't know

what they don't know and when you share give them the whole rather than a piece of the jigsaw you lay the whole jigsaw out so they're then making fully informed decisions then that fear disappears and then the confidence and clarity that comes from that is very satisfying actually but mate there's a lot of people coming in the industry from panel beaters to you name it over the years with interesting backgrounds, and I often say I see a lot of what I call the seagull brokers that are all about low rate. They fly in, they – I'm not going to swear, but they leave a message and they fly out and never to be seen again.

Yeah. If someone's considering using a broker, what do you believe separates a good finance broker from the not-so-good? well a big one for me has always been word of mouth because that's sometimes the best form of advertising when you're out there and you've got a friend that's had an amazing experience it's it's a great way to to tap into someone that's warm instead of just going cold the other thing you just want to see look it comes back to the intention of the broker there's a lot of things you can do you can check with the mf double a um that they're you know they've got

their certifications which is very important they wouldn't be in the industry if they didn't but the majority of brokers have that so i would be thinking uh if i'm if i'm the consumer i'd be going is this person just looking after the transaction or are they really listening to what i'm looking for here in regards to my outcomes and and i'd look for experience because experience does matter in these circumstances and come back to the integrity of the person um i always love warm leads because i even even when i when i buy something i'm always looking for a referral from someone that i trust because i know in our in our sphere of our friendship we wouldn't want to let anyone down so that's a yeah that that's a big thing so you can go through

the tick the boxes but really you only know when you're sitting across from the person what's their intention do they go beyond the transaction are they showing me how to best utilize my money to greater effect is there an education process are they advising me or are they purely looking to shortcut that and say i just go to this product and i've seen that happen just do this and that's like and then people get a nasty taste in their mouths and and um you know i'm always looking off track record a little bit and coming on okay there's a person build rapport with me have they got capability are they able to help me with where i want to go and that's um that's what i'd recommend it's more the soft skills as well as the hard skills that i'm i'm looking for a nice

combination in that so probably a little bit different to what most people think but but that's what i'm certainly looking for i want to build a relationship long term because finance and financials are very personal i'm very very so it's um i want i want real trust before i even go into discussing that next step so yeah yeah love that mate but uh sort of pivoting slightly and it sort of leverages off something that you mentioned about uh you're sort of helping people educating people to invest in property and the benefits thereof can you tell us about your own journey in that regard because what i've seen with with most successful people is they don't only invest in their career or or in their business uh most of them are developing multiple

streams of income and a lot of them are parking their their wealth in property and enjoying the growth that comes from that is that something that you've personally done and if so can you sort of talk us through that journey for yourself yeah ultimately and i think we're a little bit aligned on this for me it's not the amount of investment properties you have it's about what's the life you want to live and how that strategy fits into that life beautiful and that's a really fundamental difference um you know and i can see externally with clients that just want more and more investment property and i say why you know why yeah you know tell me why you want that because there might be a better way to get to where you want to go so for me personally um you know i've

made mistakes um like i was one of those people right my ego in my early 30s was going if i can accumulate as many investment properties and that's why i can help yeah that's why i played once i got past 35 because um that that's what i that was the thought in my mind and then i had i was kicking goals and then i had one situation during the gfc where i made a purchase on a property purely out of ego and purely not using my fundamentals and capabilities i made it purely as an emotional buy because it would look good and i lost 200 grand on that property right that was just and that was the greatest lesson that i ever learned in investing because it went against all my usual principles and um and it's a kick in the guts it's like that first stand-up though

oh my goodness this is um horrific i spent a lot of years building up that to that type of wealth and to lose it like that was um was was shattering but what it enabled me to do was to really think about what did I really want and everything I wanted in regards to cash flow. Cash flow gave me opportunity and choice and that was the real key in my head. So when I'm building a business, I'm thinking about I've got an asset that's growing in my business and I've got cash flow coming in and better still, passive cash flow wherever I can structure that. The same with investment property i go the portfolio i want is only one other investment property that's subdividable in a good location so what it's doing for me and now i'm into now i'm totally into just

getting debt down so my whole strategy shifted 10 years ago to go what i want to do is to build wealth based upon the lifestyle that I want to live and I've got now the reason why I've only got one because my second one is my business and that's when I can grow exponentially so the business became a huge asset that was putting in cash flow as well but that was my second investment property as you know in the mortgage broking field we get something called trailing commission as well that lives for the life of the loan so I have a passive revenue stream as well so I had so my whole strategy was deleveraging debt and ensuring that i could create twenty thousand dollars a month that i didn't have to do too much work for so i had choice that was my whole

strategy shift rather than going oh having eight properties looks good or you know you're a big player now you got a nice car so i realized and and so i learned a lot through that time through that loss and I realized that how your FOIA looks is nowhere near important to how your bottom line looks on your financials and it's like and it that was the thing that was every choice I was making is sure there are some instances where you'll you know you'll do something nice and you'll have something nice because you want it and it's important to you and that's okay too I would never discount that for anyone. However, I'm making really enriched decisions on that,

not out of a paradigm or how it needs to look because otherwise I don't feel like I'm good enough. And that was the initial driver was coming out of a deficiency. Now it's coming out of this is the life I want to live. This is the strategy I have in place to give me choice so I can live in the Sunshine Coast, I can live in Melbourne, I can live in WA, I can live in France, I don't care. Now I have choice to do the things that I really want to do

and work on projects that I really want to work on as well. And that's my fundamental shift is it's not about more, it's about effectiveness in strategy that links to the outcomes that you want in life and the subdivision is set up to give Charlie, my six-year-old, the best opportunity to have an asset when he's older that we can subdivide and, you know, do some things with it. So I've got an asset growing beyond the original asset price

that's bringing in revenue in the interim that supports that strategy. So, yeah, there you go, Bushy. No, I love that, mate, because it's sort of, you're singing my tune. I've always said it's about living by design and getting clear on how do you want to live and then investing in vehicles that give you the time back

so that it's not relying on you to do that, then you can put that energy into things that are really important to you and you can do that from anywhere. I affectionately refer to it as being passive-aggressive. It's sort of putting a slightly twist on the same term. If you become aggressive about passive income, then you get to a point where you've got the free time back to put into things that give you that freedom

but also the fulfilment of being able to help people without having to work 60, 70 or more hours a week. Yeah. Generating that lifestyle. Now, I love that. That's awesome. Learning from your failures. Learning from, because it's not failure, it's learning.

Learning. It's, I don't see it as failure. I see it as learning and being responsive and adaptive to be able to shift through those situations, which again probably comes back from those comedy days as well. Yeah. So it's, there's evidence that I've carried a lot of those tools with me that might, you know,

could have really hamstrung my progress in many different ways after that significant loss. Mate, I know from doing the homework that you built a very successful business. You sold that business. Yeah. And then got back into the finance business again. Yeah.

I won't drill into it too much today because I'm chewing up a lot of your time, but I would imagine that period when you did sell the business and that suddenly that purpose in your life was gone, that would have been a challenging time. But you probably had a nice lumpy bank account, but without a reason for doing that, that would have been quite a challenging little transition, I would have thought. Well, this is the thing. It's, you know, the numbers couldn't come, but it's like the check was lovely, don't

get me wrong, for a couple of days, right? and probably for a couple of months as you got to do a few cool things. But ultimately, I lost my whole friendship network based on the fact that most of my associates were my friends. So it was and I love doing what I did. So it was really confronting for six months and I got really down on myself and, you know, thinking what the next step was. in hindsight it was still a good decision because you know six months later the GFC

hit and even though I lost it on the property uh I could have lost a lot more in that business if I if uh I wasn't you know I didn't take that opportunity so I'm glad I took it um but really what I hadn't defined was my my life outside of that I hadn't put any personal planning into what I was going to do once that occurred and that took me two years to recognize what I really like I went over to the US I was an accountability mentor for small business owners throughout Europe and through the US for 12 months so again I went back to that research and education type thing to go oh what are people doing well what are they doing differently internationally where are their blocks uh where are they coming unstuck and where are the

opportunities so that was really good and then i was mentoring other brokers at the time and and i realized that they some were really good and what was what was there was a niche and i thought you know what i think there's more to do that can make a real difference out there i think we just tapped on the surface here but there's um people need full financial solutions to to be able to understand their full you know full financial situation so that's when mortgage 500 uh was born and then it developed into business 500 which was commercial lending lease 500 for leasing Wealth 500 for Financial Planning and the idea around that I had a vision of seeing the client with these fantastic people who are experts in their field supporting their financial journey

and that's within five I think within five or six years we'd won brokerage firm of the year we'd won commercial business of the year and we won a diversity award as well because we we had diversity of females and males in the business we had multicultural uh people within the business it was um yeah it was really nice to see that vision come together and then one day it was like done it was like oh everything in the vision was achieved but this time i had a personal plan of what i really wanted to do personally outside of it that was that was a big difference that was really fantastic yeah well and that's having that next step very clear in your head uh would have been a massive difference rather than the temptation of the check so this is what let's

talk briefly about that because i in going the other way going from a business uh that uh was multi-pronged whole of life around building people's wealth and the the uh regular income support that comes from the ongoing commission you get paid to help clients on an ongoing basis. Seeing that, I'm guessing you would have sold the book and sold the business to jump into what you're doing now through the podcast and mentoring like-minded business owners trying to make a mark. That sort of financial safety net, I'm guessing, would have been challenging.

How have you gone about monetizing what you're doing to offset what I'm guessing you've missed out on with selling the business a second time? Yeah, it's a great question, Bushy. Thank you. The difference here is I'm playing the next chess game now. So what I have is an equity stake, private equity stake in certain businesses. So now my mentoring is linked strategically into business growth that I have a benefit of in using my business acumen. So some people I mentor and I have no equity stake because I just like their businesses and I find it invigorating. And others, they are strategic ones that I have that give me the same element of enjoyment and I also have an asset working for me as well as utilizing my capabilities and what I've learned over the journey as well.

So that's much more ecological for me and it's the next step in my entrepreneurial journey as well. And look, this is not saying that there might be another business that I jump into. I go, oh, wow, this is it. This is everything I ever wanted. So it's like that might still happen. I'm not sure. But the great thing is I have choice and I'm putting my capability to where my direct interests are, and that's really fulfilling.

That's fulfilling. And seeing people surprise themselves with your guidance is just a wonderful thing in practicality of business structures and financial analysis as well as marketing but also that that seeing someone get through their own personal growth hurdles to achieve something is um i'm getting a fulfillment on another on another level which is where i'm at now at 47 so it's um love it yeah that's how i've created the next map in transition yeah and you got skin in the game what i'm loving about that is the people you are helping yet you're you're showing your commitment by saying well i'm going to take an

equally share of this so what i'm telling you is i've got confidence in growing this machine because we're all going to benefit from this you're not just again you're not flying in and flying out you're a part of that action which so there's a joint commitment to it which would make it much more exciting in terms of seeing the the improvements the change and the and the goals you're kicking mate so awesome now the big conclusion i'm taking away from all of this is that you are a creator a builder but not a maintainer mate so um uh and a lot of successful people i see who uh have that uh that they love the thrill of the build uh but the the monotony of maintaining isn't really them uh the smart ones recognize that and use that to their your their

advantage which you clearly have given your ability to be a chameleon and keep changing shape based on the environment that you put yourself in so i fully commend you on that mate and uh there's some really good lessons for the listeners there in relation to how to position themselves on that evolutionary journey. I want to jump very quickly into the ambush session, which is the five quick questions that the listeners keep asking me about. And the first of those is, what's your favourite quote and why? The interesting one that comes up is, oh, it's funny what comes up.

But the people say, the word that comes up is just life, life. And I know it's not a quote, but people go, what happened there? life happened you know life happened and you know you can get caught up in stories and you can get caught up in all sorts of different things but at the end of the day there's a bunch of stuff that will happen and it's how you respond to that so life happens is a really um gives me great comfort to know that it's never going to be straight up it's sometimes going to be curvy sometimes going to go down sometimes but you want trend to be your friend and I think you know life happens to me is just uh when I when I bring it back that's a really really

important quote to me because it's a reminder that if three things bad happen in a row I'm not that powerful that I can you know like I was in a bushfire recently so if I go why me well the fact is there's a bushfire bushfires happen what am i going to do i got out early you know i made sure my family was safe i didn't get caught up in a story that didn't help the situation so for me life happens is uh it's very grounding like it like it because it's how you respond to that that that's uh what it's all about ultimately that's right i love that mate what about a uh a top book that you'd recommend people read and why the um i'm going to give a shout out to dave claire he's written a book called simplified uh leadership is simple you lead people i really

like that book because he's broken down all the complexity of leadership in regards to leading yourself and how to effectively lead others and he's put it in layman terms that you can read it and you can apply it right away so i really enjoyed i really enjoyed his um simplification of of leadership so i'll give that book a shout out yeah fantastic mate awesome now this one's a little bit left field but it's something that uh all of our clients are consistently uh talking to about, because a lot of Aussies feel like they pay too much tax. Given the myriad of things that you've been involved in over time, both business and investment-wise, what's the top thing that you've legally done to minimise the tax that you pay, mate? I love that you said legally.

I just let that one in. Just very subtle. Look, I've been very fortunate to have a very, a very good accountant and again what what i would suggest to the audience here is have an accountant that's proactive that's working with you particularly when you're when you are making money and you're making good money on understanding the channels of where that money can work most effectively in your business and your life so similar what we're talking about with mortgage broking don't just come to june 30 and go oh my goodness i've made all this money and now what do i do because it's too late so what i'd advise there is negative gearing of course yeah i've used myself but also in regards to even timing of purchasing a car in a business and getting a

rebate on that utilizing it effectively but in alignment to your business you're not just making decisions purely on getting a tax break you what you're looking to do is what is the course of action you can take you know and understand the strategies on how you can best leverage the position to build the business at another level so think of it as a progressive thing and a progressive strategy and you'll always be okay yeah love that absolutely love that mate mate Back on the investment topic, what's both the worst and the best piece of investment advice that you've ever received today? Buy a golf course block was the worst.

That was a 200-grade sales pitch that went very awry. That was the one we've been talking about. Yeah. The best advice was being shown by another business owner, John Reid, who is a friend of mine. He works in traffic control and runs a business in traffic services. But he showed me how a business could be an asset and also how it can provide cash flow.

So that switched on my monopoly into the business area as opposed to just being property in itself. So that was a, and he taught me a lot about delegation when I was in my early 30s as well. So that was the best piece of advice. He goes, do you realize that a business is an asset that's built out of nothing? And I'm going, oh, that's a pretty cheap buy-in if you can get the business right. I love that. I love that.

And that's what – it still amazes me that you can have an idea on the couch and turn that into a business that someone will buy and you can build a great business that someone will buy. I just go – I still shake my head going, are we really allowed to do that? Well, the smart thing you've done, mate, because most – I've got to say, most businesses aren't saleable. People think they are because they put their blood and sweat and tears into them, but it so revolves around the person that's selling it that often there's nothing to buy. Whereas what you've very cleverly done twice now is to build a scalable, saleable business system really that doesn't need you because it's going to continue when you're not there. So I think you've taken on that advice from John Reid very effectively, mate, because not many people will hear the message but then have the smarts to be able

to create a business that not only gives them that cash flow but then is an asset that is actually saleable and sustainable once you exit stage left. That's the chess game, Bushy. That's the, you know, know your vision, know your outcome, now what's your strategy? and I think sometimes it's better than you think, sometimes it's not, but it's good to know where you're going.

Love that, mate. Mate, what about, because I'd like to break it down, all successful people to me, it's, yes, they have a long-term vision, but it's what they do on a day-to-day basis that builds towards that. What's a personal habit that you have that you believe contributes to your success today? Yeah, that's another great question. One thing I do is make my bed every morning

and i go for a walk so it just starts the day uh brilliantly well for me and i really you know that's that's a personal structure i've set in place and the other thing i do is what are the four must do's that need to be completed in alignment to the vision every day so i know if i complete those four things the momentum i build out now there's always room for more but i try and underwhelm myself and go i must complete these four things because in a busy world you can get caught out left field here and there and you just get overwhelmed and you don't get anything accomplished um i've learned that in just really being well planned to ensure these four things that are most in alignment with the outcome and the vision that i can do in the day um and i'll

i'll look at the i'll do that on a daily basis because i'm looking to build momentum and then I'll look at every month how am I tracking, every week how am I tracking, and every month how am I tracking. So even though I have a long-term vision, I'm actually very immediate in my behaviours towards that vision. So that's a really good question and that's the thing. It's one thing to want to win a chess game and enjoy playing it. It's another thing to what move are you going to make today?

What's the next move? What's the next move? But I have four key fundamental moves that I'll do each day. Yeah, and do those four fundamentals relate to different parts of the vision? Like I often say in my own example, I have a professional thing that I have to do every day, a personal thing that I have to do every day, but a passive thing that I have to do every day

because I want to make sure that that passive growth, whether it be through the business or investments, is front of mind because we're ultimately replacing that position over time. With yourself, those four? Yeah. Are they four specific things related to four different key focuses? Four specifically to the business. And then I've got another four in regards to personal well-being.

So the other four is I want to spend time with my wife and my son in that day and do something that we connect on as well. So those fundamentals are there as well because then I've got that nice balance. And I have another one with sports and interests as well. but that that's over a week so that's a little bit different but the personal the most important things personally uh for well-being and then four things in business and i find that that gives me a lot of momentum over time yeah brilliant mate brent and that's a great little segue you mentioned there in relation to spending time with the family so i i'm not sure how old craig is but

Let's assume Craig's about to leave school. Oh, Charlie. Sorry, Charlie. Oh, Charlie, is it? Yeah, I don't know where I got that from. My apologies. Craig was the business partner. I love him too.

Got it. Got it. Smuck me for that, mate. So he's about to leave school. What are you going to advise him to invest his time, money, and skills in to create his version of freedom? Well, this is really left field. but um it starts now so i'm going to put him in um a steiner school because i figure i can teach

him all the other fundamentals in regards to the numbers uh but what i really want is for him to work on projects that he loves so i want him to love learning and when he's out of school i want him to live his fullest life based on what he believes that to be for him and and that includes collaboration with others that includes business that includes jobs wherever he's directed to I just want him to be happy in his learning and I'm starting to recognize over time in mainstream it's more about getting it's getting a certain result that the mainstream schools want to get and that's not discrediting that I've just really connected to Charlie and I know we're very similar and what I would have loved growing up.

And I've got evidence based on those two years when it did happen that I really shot the lights out. Ten years of trauma, two years of happiness. I'm just trying to reverse that for him. And I'm really, I'm encouraging him to back himself, to learn his craft. If he's interested in something, stay with the project until he completes it so he really gets an understanding

of developing confidence, courage, and also the satisfaction of seeing something that he's created come to fruition. Very important for me. Myself and Colleen, my wife, really important because we've come out of a different philosophy, but we know that the rest of it we're already doing, you know, shopkeeping and stuff like that, so we know the rest of it we've got on tap. Mate, love that vision for your son.

All of the words you used to describe the goals for him I think are exemplified in the role model that you present him with because you're all of those things. Mate, it's been an absolute pleasure to spend some time with you today. I'm looking forward to spending more time with you moving forward. I'll leave notes in the show notes for those who want to reach out to you to get some assistance in mentoring or leadership in building their own businesses.

I would highly recommend everyone jump on board and visit Visneyland. I love Visneyland, mate. Visneyland. On your website and please jump on board with Marty's podcast. It's a great lesson. There's some awesome, interesting people doing some fantastic things. Thank you so much for the opportunity, Bushy. And that's all I would say is I'd say, you know, really listen to yourself,

back yourself, work in collaboration. And let me just say I've been so fortunate to work with terrific people, even though it sounds like my journey's been filled with some really good things, I can guarantee you that without the people that were there with me, I would never have accomplished any of it because they were absolutely outstanding. So I'm coming from a humble position on this because I know that and I really appreciate the time to talk to your audience, Bushy. Thank you, mate. Keep laughing in the library and we'll stay in touch, mate. Take care, buddy. Talk soon, mate.

Well, Freedom Fighters, how good was that? To get a summary of all this investment gold in the show notes, just email me on hello at khgroup.com.au. That's H-E-L-L-O at khgroup.com.au or check us out at www.bushymartin.com.au forward slash GetInvested. I look forward to joining you next week for another episode of the GetInvested podcast.

So thanks for listening. And as always, dream as if you live forever and live as if you die tomorrow.