Property Hub - Investment Insights & Inspiration - Get Invested: How to get financially free with Josh Blakeley

Episode Date: August 17, 2019

Many people are still living on credit or from paycheck to paycheck, regardless of how much they earn – so why is this and what can you do about it? That’s where today’s guest Josh Blakeley comes in. Josh Blakeley is an international money coach, property developer and teacher who is passionate about empowering you to reach your ideal lifestyle by making the most of your money while making a massive impact on others. He specialises in personal finance and he absolutely loves helping you to get control of your money. This gives you hope and clarity to move from your current situation by implementing secure money management to help you create a vision of your future where you’re living with fulfilment, purpose and impact. He eliminates financial stress and helps you achieve your financial and lifestyle goals. And Josh walks his talk. After some early life changing and life threatening events that left him in a vulnerable financial position, he’s transformed his life by creating a unique money management approach that has allowed him to invest in property and other assets, and he now helps others like you to do the same. In our wide ranging discussion today Josh answers all of your money questions: Where and how do you start to turn around your money habits? What is your money mindset and how do you change entrenched money habits? How do you avoid the self-sabotage of your subconscious inner voice? Why and how should you start to talk more freely about money? What are the best money management apps available? We also have a great chat about how Josh has built wealth through property development with small lot subdivisions using joint venture partnerships, so listen out for that. This is a great listen for anyone who wants to better manage their money. And if you enjoy today’s conversation and are ready to get real about improving your money situation, register here for Josh’s Master Your Money event on 2 September 2019, where you’ll get to hear more from yours truly alongside a cast of money and investment gurus including property investment legend Pete Wargent and Accountant extraordinaire Harvee Pene. In the meantime, get ready to sharpen your money manners in this great conversation with Josh Blakeley. Josh's book recommendation: Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki and Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss  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.

I started going to networking groups, meeting people who were doing property as well. From there, that kind of set me up to a position where I was in a community of people who were like-minded, who all come to the similar conclusion that I come to, that we can actually build wealth through property. And a lot of people there were calling themselves financially free. Welcome to the Get Invested Podcast, where we share great conversations with experts from all walks of life to uncover their secret know-how on where they invest their time, their skills, and their money, and the benefits that this has created. You see, the truth is that everyone invests. Every minute of every day, we're investing our time, our skills, our energy, and our money in something. some of us are investing consciously some unconsciously sometimes for good sometimes

for bad sometimes for no impact get invested will help you to start living by design not by default i'm going to help you to make it happen not let it happen you'll hear the top tips on how you can live with conscious intent so that you can live more work less and leave a living legacy by investing now. Listen to the show to discover the top tips on how to get started, make the most of your investment journey, and ultimately to be living your dream, not someone else's. More episodes can be found on iTunes or at bushymartin.com.au forward slash getinvested. Thanks for listening, and now let's get invested. Hi, Fred and Potters. How close are you to calling yourself financially free. Now I don't mean earning a big income that you've got to spend

most of your life earning. I mean having time on your hands to do what you like when you like because your lifestyle income needs are being met without needing you to generate them. Now for a lot of hard-working Aussies this is still a pipe dream. That far-off pot of gold at the end of the rainbow that just seems to get further and further away. We keep hearing about it and seeing others who have achieved it, but we just don't seem to be getting any closer. Why is this? Well, you'll be interested to know that it's not some special gift, it's not being born in the right family, it's not about being lucky or just happening to be in the right place at the right time. It's not some quantum leap or a life-changing event. The reality is that it's much simpler

and much more mundane than this. So what separates the wealthy and the financially free from the rest. Now you're going to be very surprised to hear that it all starts and finishes with your relationship with money and how you manage it or don't on a dollar by dollar, day by day basis. And your daily money habits are accumulative on an exponential basis, one way or the other. Now you won't notice any difference on a day by day, week by week or even month by month basis. But over the passage of years, it will make an enormous difference to how good or how bad your life becomes. To quote from my books, Get Invested and the Freedom Formula, like it or lump it, but in our current westernised capitalist world,

money makes the world go round. Unfortunately, money and investment seem to have become dirty words in our culture. To invest and make money is somehow equated to the pursuit of evil. However, every single one of us is investing every second of every day, whether we're doing it consciously or unconsciously, we all make daily choices on where we decide to invest our time, our money and our interest. Money is the lifeblood and enabler of our choices and the fuel for our freedom. Now for me, it buys me time, influence and a voice to do good. Now, you may not want to acknowledge it, but see how long you can survive without it. Because in the words of Zig Ziglar, money isn't everything, but it ranks right up there with

oxygen. And just like the fighter tenant who always tells you to strap on your own oxygen mask before helping others in an emergency, once you've taken care of your own money needs, you're then in a position to help others. Now, see how long you last, however, if you try to do it the other way around so the answer is to build wealth to sustain a steady flow of life giving income oxygen the cold hard reality is that if you don't master money it will master you and the interesting thing is that it doesn't matter how much you earn over the years i've seen high income earning doctors and miners who still live hand to hand hand to mouth paycheck to paycheck because it's not how much you earn, but how much you spend that counts.

So why do a lot of us have a fear of money or simply ignore it, hoping that things will sort themselves out if we just keep working hard? Well, as Hollywood star Will Smith so well puts it, people spend money they do not have on things they do not need to impress people who do not care. Now the current stats about our money management are a bit of an eye opener. Currently around a quarter of Australian households have less than a thousand dollars in cash savings and just under half of us have less than 10 grand in the bank. Now this creates a lot of financial pressure that puts stress on every other aspect of our lives because anyone in that position just can't afford to have a money mishap. Now I know in our know-how business we've always

helped investors to create a rainy day war chest reserve that will allow them to sustain their lifestyle for a minimum of three months and preferably six months regardless of any financial shock like losing your job or your employment income. So on an average $80,000 gross income this amounts to about $20,000 to $40,000 minimum which is double to quadruple the rainy day reserve of over half of our population. Now, according to a recent ME Bank report, over the past year, 17% of households couldn't always pay their utility bills on time, while 19% sought financial help from family or friends, and 15% pawned or sold something to buy necessities. I don't know about you, that's not a pretty picture. And the household savings ratio, which is the ratio of

household income saved to our net disposable income fell to just 2.4% late last year which has been on the downhill slide from 11% just 10 years ago. Now that's a whopping 80% drop in average savings. The ME Bank report also found that 38% of Aussies are worried about their debt with 4 in 10 people reporting that they're unable to meet their minimum repayments. It's probably why outstanding credit card debt in Australia is currently around $51.5 billion, with the average Australian owing over $3,250-odd on their credit cards. So it appears that many of us are still living on credit or from paycheck to paycheck, regardless of how much we earn.

So why is this, and what can we do about it? Well, that's where today's guest, Josh Blakely, comes in. Josh is an international money coach, a property developer and a teacher who's passionate about empowering you to reach your ideal lifestyle while making the most of your money while still making a massive impact on others while you do so. He specialises in personal finance and he absolutely loves empowering you to get in control of your money. He helps you get in control of your finances, giving you hope and clarity to move you from your current situation by implementing secure money management to help you create a vision of your future where you're living with fulfillment, purpose, and impact. He eliminates financial stress and helps you achieve your financial and your lifestyle

goals. And Josh really walks his talk. After some early life-changing and life-threatening events that left him in a really vulnerable financial position, he's transformed his life by creating unique money management approaches that allowed him to invest in property and other assets, and he now helps others like you to do the same. So in our wide-ranging discussion today, Josh answers all of your money questions, like where and how do you start to turn around your money habits, what's your money mindset

and how do you change entrenched money habits, how do you avoid the self-sabotage of your subconscious in a voice why and how should you start to talk more freely about money and what are the best money management apps that are available we also have a great chat about how josh has built wealth through property development of small lots of divisions using joint venture partnerships so have a listen out for that now this is a great listen for anyone who wants to better manage their money and if you enjoy today's conversation and are ready to get real about improving your money situation, then register online now at www.masteryourmoneyshow.com. That's masteryourmoneyshow.com for Josh's Master Your Money event that's coming up on

the 2nd of September, where you'll get to hear from yours truly, alongside a cast of money and investment gurus, including such greats as property investment legend Pete Wargent, and accountant extraordinaire, Harvey Penne. In the meantime, get ready to sharpen your money manners in this great conversation with Josh Blakely. Welcome, Friend Fighters. And for those of you who have listened to me for a period of time, you'll know that having very clear life goals supported by good money management are absolutely fundamental to achieving financial freedom. And good money mindset, along with management, are absolutely foundational. And in that respect, it comes down to what you do with

your money day to day. So today, we spent some great time deep diving on key aspects of this, which is an absolute critical element to your success with renowned money coach, Josh Blakely. So let's get invested. Josh, welcome aboard. Hi, Bushy. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. Fantastic, mate. Now, I know you're up late at night in San Diego on the other side of the planet.

So the wonders of technology give us this opportunity to share some opportunities from that distance, mate. So for those who don't know you, Josh, can you start by just giving some rundown on who you are, what you do, and where you're heading currently, please, mate? sure thanks Bushy yeah look so I'm a money coach I focus on empowering people to get in control of their financial situation so that they can set themselves up with a the right foundation to really achieve the goals that they want out of life and really reach that ideal lifestyle that they're thinking about terrific mate and the in the the big big why what's the driver for you wanted to do that yeah look the big why behind it was just down to my experience of financial education and my journey of learning about how to use money wisely how to how to actually make

your money work for you how to how to build wealth and my own discovery process on what it means when you can actually get that place set up so that you can actually then live a really rich life, plan a rich life, a life where you're helping others, you've got freedom of time, you've got flexibility, and you've got the opportunity to really leave a legacy. Love it. Now, you sort of mentioned that's been driven by your personal experience, so I'd love to sort of drill into that straight off the bat if we can, and get you to walk us through your journey so far in relation to some of the critical decisions that you've made from as way

back as you'd like to go and talk us through what the motivations were what the outcomes are and where that's led you to to get you back to where you are today if you can yeah yeah uh well look um as a as a kid um i grew up uh money wasn't really spoken about too much in the household probably my biggest money memory as a kid similar to a lot of people I think is playing the game Monopoly I always enjoyed that, playing with family and being a part of it that way but I wouldn't say there was any specific discussion around money

and when I was about 8 or 9 years old my parents were together my father was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and that set him up in a position where he couldn't work anymore and completely changed how things looked day-to-day in the family situation, and he continued on with that disease, but when I was 15, when I was in that middle kind of period of my teenage years, he passed away unexpectedly, and that just completely shifted uh my whole life really as I knew it my mother my brother as well and

that kind of put me in a place where I'm the eldest where I felt like you know it was kind of me having to take on the world and you know I didn't realize it at the time but that my mindset at the time was that I had to do it all myself and I didn't need anyone else and it was me who needed to do things but the problem was I didn't really have a strong financial education around money how to use it how to invest how to make the most of it so 18 years old the bank I'd been with since I was a kid sent me a letter in the mail with the credit card offer telling me I could get a credit card and so I did and you know just being ignorant just started on that path of using using credit and getting to that point where you know it starts building up with discretionary

expenses because i hadn't learned how to use a credit card wisely and i kind of got into my mid-20s when i actually started to realize okay like i need to do something with my money um i haven't been taught i haven't learned how to use it and okay how do i how do i use money wisely How can I grow wealth? How can I make more money outside of a job? How can I start setting myself up? And that whole process, looking back on my life, I know a lot of people end up in that same situation where they're just not educated and they haven't had that background as well. So my money coaching business exists, JBL Spending Planners exists to give that to people and set them with that launching pad up to move forward in their life.

It would have been pretty challenging, mate. I'd sort of like to dig in there a bit because 15-year-old and suddenly you've got the weight of the family on your shoulders, I guess, in your head at that stage and probably in reality to some degree. How did you cope at that stage, mate? It must have been pretty damn tough. Yeah, look, yeah, it was a really tough time. I was really fortunate.

I'd had some fantastic people around me. So teachers at school and pastoral care at the school, at the Christian school I was at at the time, the church community as well, just rallied around me in that point. But that also just completely changed my view on how I thought about life because I'd seen life can change in an instant. That was my first real experience of life changing in an instant and realising that we've only got one life, things can change in a moment and that I wanted to make the most of the life of the gift I've had here as well.

So that's been a really key formative part of how I view life and how I live life today. Yeah, that's a very good point. It would certainly be a massive shake-up in relation to how temporary our life can be and how massively it can shift from one day to the next. Tell us, you worked your way through school and at the end of school, where did it lead you?

What did you do? What were the motivations and where did your work life started to take you? Yeah, I've always loved learning. So I really enjoyed school. I had a great time, and that kind of naturally led to a decision, first of a decision, thinking I wanted to go and get into doing IT. So I spent my first year out of high school, about six weeks,

studying a Bachelor of IT at university for a very short period of time, which is strange. I always thought that in school I was doing a subject on IT, and I enjoyed it. But as soon as I got into the real world, studying at university and getting an idea of what it might look like to work and do that, I really didn't enjoy it. So my second preference was in education. So I went into a Bachelor of Education in secondary education, studying math and science, and going through university, completing that degree that took me into a career teaching math and science, and eventually got me teaching music in a high school setting as well. Yeah. Tell me something I find interesting, and I'm a bit the same as well, and probably the reason why I have this interest.

The math side of teaching is very structured, very black and white, very left brain in essence, yet the creative, free-flowing side of the music aspect tends to be very right brain in its creativity. It's quite a rarity to see someone who covers both ends of the spectrum. Is that just something that comes naturally to you? Can you talk to us a bit about that? Yeah, yeah, it is. I mean, it's an unusual conversation, and people often have said that to me in the past. I've always been good at math and science.

I enjoyed them ever since I was little. So I really liked the black and white area, and very analytical, like studying numbers, like making sense of numbers there too. But also I'd always loved music and I hadn't started playing an instrument until I was 18. But I always would enjoy listening to it and it was just a huge, huge hobby of mine as well.

So then I just started making a decision one day that I wanted to learn how to play guitar. So I started doing that and had opportunities to be a part of my church's music team, learning and developing that too. And actually, within that period of time, at 18 years old was actually the first time I had someone teaching me a real practical skill like that.

That's probably one of my earlier memories of learning that too. So in a sense, I kind of got that experience around, okay if i don't know how to do it uh it's going to take effort and work on my part but if i've got someone to show me and mentor me through it i can actually fast track this process so that clearly uh mentors and relationships with others have been pretty important and pivotal to your success so far yeah yeah definitely and across uh lots of areas of my of my life there too and i can look back on that now i can see oh well okay yeah this person helped me fast track here and uh most of the time though people i had to sort it i had to seek out and speak to myself

and pay money money to as well and other times there were people who uh were just you know amazing people great people who who kind of took me under their wing and would help me out in different ways there let's talk about that a little bit because i i uh there's there's very mixed views uh amongst uh people in relation to paying for advice and uh i've been listening a lot recently to uh seth godin uh who you'd probably uh aware of and uh he's he's been interesting in saying well i don't really believe in mentors heroes yes because heroes you can model and you can do that yourself, but I'm not convinced that paying someone to be a mentor is the way to go.

And that sort of didn't sit comfortably with me given I wouldn't be where I am if it wasn't for paying for good advice that has enabled me to do that. What's your views around that, mate? Yeah, I can say the same too. Like, I wouldn't be there where I am today without having paid for advice. I think the key area for the mentoring side is you get out what you put in. So if you're paying for something and you're actually taking on board, you know, what that is or you're not making the most of the opportunities or you're not using it, you know,

it might not be a one-on-one type of thing. It might be a course or something like that. You're not going to get results if you're not putting in the effort from there too. So my experience is people who can show you methods, if you implement what they're doing, then that's paid dividends for me. Yeah, and you hit it on the head. I think there are people who expect that they're going to pay a mentor, the mentor's going to do it all for them,

they're just going to sit back and let it happen, whereas that's only the tip of the iceberg. the hard work still needs to be done by us individually to turn that guidance into real action to get the sort of results that you can get if you do the work. Now, that's very well said there, mate. So, okay, so you got into the dual maths and music teaching side of things.

Talk to us a bit more about that journey and where that led to from there on. yeah so yeah i was finishing up my my education degree i'd really got into learning guitar and learning music theory along the way so just after i finished my degree i went back and studied a short course a graduate certificate in music so i could teach that as well and yeah ended up getting a position where i was teaching both those areas uh there as well uh at the same time the the money side of things is all happening too as you know as as people with uh hobbies are well aware some hobbies uh cost a lot of money um i wouldn't say i don't say guitars that

are probably the worst of expensive hobbies because they tend to hold their tend to hold their value pretty well but uh i was at a point yeah most of what i was earning i was spending on music gear or guitars or something like that and that that was part of my process just uh i didn't know what else to do with my money so i was put into those things that you know i was using regularly there too so that around that time is when i started realizing okay like i need to do something i started researching um and it actually led me to learn about salary sacrificing and superannuation, as boring as those terms might sound like. In my early 20s, I first discovered that I could start using that

as a tax advantage way to grow my wealth. Yeah, okay, okay. So what triggered that journey to start looking? I'm really interested in why you started to delve into that because it's a subject that a lot of people don't delve into until years later. So what was the trigger, mate? Can you remember that?

Yeah. Yeah, look, I'd say a trigger, and I've heard so many people mention this trigger on podcasts. A little book called Rich Dad, Poor Dad, I read around that time as well, and it opened my eyes up around concepts of passive income and securing assets so that you could do that as well in one of those areas with business.

At the time, I had no idea, like thinking about, you know, what would I do for a business? But it just got the cogs turning in my mind that I needed to find out some ways that I could start making the most of my money. So I'll definitely say that book was one of those kind of points that triggered something to change. Yeah. Well, I talk about my Kiyosaki moment as well. It was an absolute light bulb exercise for me a long time back. But getting the book is one thing, being ready to read it and absorb it is another. Can you remember how that book came into position and why you decided to read it? yeah look i i'd seen a friend read it i think and they'd started talking about real estate

and they'd started getting into buying property around that time as well and i thought well okay you know that's not always a normal thing to do and i didn't have really any other people my age doing doing that as well so um i'd have to say yeah that was probably the biggest moment there and it also just kind of linked in with my my value on education

and learning so I thought well okay this has worked in the past for schooling worked for guitar how to learn so surely I can do this with money and start to learn and that's when I would yeah started researching about superannuation

and tax and all those different areas started me off on that journey from from nothing i i mean i didn't have any um any real education around that at all so it was starting from scratch almost yeah and i think you've picked up on a very key point there that the value on education and learning uh and being therefore being open to it and i and i guess it uh correct me if i'm wrong here josh but i it feels to me then that your belief uh and probably similar to my belief is that anyone can do anything if they're given the knowledge and and the opportunity so uh if you have that sort of open abundant sort of mindset and then you say okay well the only

difference between where i am now and where i want to be is is getting the knowledge and then taking the action uh yeah would i be is that a fair summary of your thinking around that yeah yeah look i definitely agree and we all have our own strengths and weaknesses too but you know those are the kind of minor details but just by by getting educated and taking action like you mentioned you know that's the first step to figuring those other areas out too and if you if you're not if you're not taking action you're not going anywhere you're actually going backwards because you're losing minutes, seconds, days of your life if you're not doing anything.

So I think that's another area people fall into as a trap that we only have a certain amount of time here and by doing nothing, it's not staying still. You're actually going backwards. Absolutely spot on. And I think that's the panacea in this current day and age. I see a lot of people too, Josh, who say, well, it's okay, I've got plenty of time.

Well, no, you don't. and treading water, saying, I'll get to it, I'll get to it, is actually a decision to go backwards, as you say. So the biggest risk is doing nothing, as I've seen time and time again. So it's a pretty important recognition there, mate. Now, just sort of winding back a little bit around that, you talked about a friend started getting into real estate, and you read the key, Kiyosaki, from talking to you previously,

I know you've had an interest in property. Talk us through your property journey from that point and what you did and what you're now doing around that subject, if you could please, mate. Yeah, yeah, there's a couple other kind of key areas there. Look, I wouldn't say that that triggered a complete change in my mindset once once i saw my friend who was involved in property as well i had two pretty uh pretty key things happened to me uh later on later in my later 20s uh one was uh had a

massive relationship breakdown and the second thing was i actually had a go-kart accident and broke my back and so these these two areas again a little bit like when my father passed away really shook me to my core and thinking about the future and thinking about what life looked like in the moment and particularly the go-kart accident a lot of the focus there was okay If I was injured and I couldn't work, what would my future actually look like? I had life insurance and permanent disability insurance and areas there too, but what was I doing to actually set myself up and give me freedom? So that was a bit of a key moment there that shifted.

okay i i really need to get serious now like i'd known a little bit and i just dove into learning about how to how to create wealth and i looked into shares as being a big one stock market and then real estate and property and i delved into the property area too I started going to networking groups, meeting people who were doing property as well. From there, that kind of set me up to a position where I was in a community of people who were like-minded, who had all come to the similar conclusion that I'd come to, that we can actually build wealth through property. And a lot of people there were calling themselves financially free.

Some of them, for them, that just meant being able to leave their job and they could do property full-time. Some of those people had built up passive income where they didn't have to work if they didn't want to. They could choose their time and use it how they wanted. Property's a very broad subject and there's a thousand different ways to tackle that. Can you talk us through your thinking

and the direction you headed and what that's meant in relation to your strategy and your approach to property? yeah yeah look yeah for me at the beginning it was like i don't know what i don't know what to do with property i had no idea but again that that experience of uh that i could learn i could um i could find out the people who were doing it and get experience from them through those property groups i started to meet more people and actually went to uh one of the people involved in in setting up those property meetings is a group called results mentoring who are based around property

education and i went to a day they put on there to go through the techniques they were teaching people they're showing case studies of students in their programs who'd achieved wealth through property with a few different strategies and i made a decision that day to uh to invest in in their mentoring program uh and start my my process there in terms of strategy there was yeah it was a fair bit of learning going going through the education process uh i think it was probably you know three or three or four at least three or four months into the course when i actually decided okay i want to i'm obviously interested in property i want to build well through real estate I decided on the strategy of property development that was what I was going to

focus my area into and through having a mentor on that program we would be spending a lot of time talking about strategies and what resources did I have what were my strengths experiences so far what my weaknesses what did I like doing what didn't I like doing and my mentor actually helped guide me into the strategy of development and then how to set up a model where I could partner with other people who are running projects and I would actually be the capital raising partner and I would actually be the one able to get the bank loans for these projects as well. Yeah, okay, okay.

So let's, I want to get a little bit granular here because property development itself is a pretty broad sphere. So we're talking buying a site, potentially bowling something over, potentially subdividing that into one, two, three, how many, building new ones and then selling them. Is that what you're calling property development? Yeah, that's right. So small subdivisions, probably the term I would say in Brisbane, doing that. So splitting one into two or splitting one into three, yeah, through some of those methods you mentioned there.

Yeah, and did you go through and do some of those, mate? Yeah, yeah, I've got two of those projects active at the moment. My first project was, yeah, I did it with another person who was in the program as well, and that was my first taste there I actually had family who invested in that deal as well. And that was the starting point for me. And it took about 12 months. It was about 12 months of education, speaking with my mentor

and learning how to look at the profitability of these projects as well. So there's lots of learning. A lot of time I spent outside of it networking as well and research myself, but it got to that point where, yeah, 12 months in, I was able to take action, and, yep, that was a really profitable deal, and it's actually set me up to do more deals. So just for the listener's benefit, when you're doing a buy-build-sell

type arrangement, the key there is to try and create instant equity on the sale so that it's then providing you an ongoing war chest or reserve of funds to do something else with. And it's certainly not for the faint-hearted. It's certainly, I don't believe, generally for a beginner investor. But where you've surrounded yourself like you have with the expertise that the results program brings, and I'm certainly a fan of the results mentoring program and the work that sort of Steve McNaught

way back when sort of helped to build that program. Was that pretty much your focus at the stage was, okay, we're going into this knowing that in 12 to 18 months we'll have a lump of money that we walk away with that we can then either leverage back into more or to do something else? Was that the thinking? Yeah, that was the definite thinking. So I'd spent a lot of time with my mentor really working out what strategies worked for my situation at the time.

And the big one was, okay, we needed to do a project knowing a pretty clear time frame. The predicted time frame for this project was 12 months, about 12 months. and it needed to be done in a way so we we'd added value and in this case it was splitting a block from one big lot of land with a house on it this was removing the house with a house removal company it was an old queenslander yeah yeah yeah so house removal company took that away we had the site cleared and we split it into three blocks of vacant land so we'd added value because those three blocks were worth a lot more than just the one block even with the house on it.

And that strategy worked because I needed to have the profit share out from my side, particularly because I had family invested in too. They needed to have their money plus their profit. And also my joint venture partner needed to do the same as well. So we all had the same common view. we all had the same need and we all had complementary skills. So that's how it worked. Yeah, and I think you've picked up on some very key points there.

I often say it's not how you get into an arrangement like this, it's how you get out of it. And if you're going with a very clear time horizon, very clear outcomes for each, then that's workable and it sounds like you've worked that through right from the outset. but talk us through some of the challenges that you had during that process and what worked really well and what didn't work so well and what you'd do differently doing it again.

Yeah, look, I mean, there are a couple of challenges leading up to getting that first project. I'd looked at other projects and there were a couple that I thought were going to go ahead. So there's time and effort going into that too. I mean, it could have been easy to get discouraged, but I just knew to keep pressing on. I think at the beginning, the tough idea was not knowing what I didn't know. I was just ignorant on the process and able to talk that through my mentor to see what was going to best suit my situation.

We had some challenges. One of the big challenges in this case was settling on the property in time, having the finance side of things together on the due date. It was a pretty crazy week because there was a public holiday in Brisbane and we needed to have the funds ready. The bank wasn't ready in time, and if we'd gone past the deadline, the vendor or the seller of the property had actually threatened to crash the contract, which means we would have lost our deposit. But we had a really great broker who helped, and a great bank working with our broker who helped put that loan through in time, which actually meant, because Brisbane was closed for a public holiday, Sydney wasn't. was actually a man going through Sydney to do it all. So that was probably the most nerve-wracking part of that project. Yeah.

Yeah, as I'm sure you're well aware in finance. Yes, well, I mean, the great news there is having a good broker on board who's got the same commitment to getting the result that you need. I often see a lot of investors who are dealing directly with a bank get themselves into all sorts of strife because they're talking to a massive animal with a number of battery hens on a conveyor belt that don't have the same care or commitment to what you're trying to achieve. So, yeah, pretty smart move surrounding yourself with some good people in that regard.

Awesome, mate. That's really good. So are you continuing to do those projects? Where are you currently at on the property development journey then? yeah look that that's that's my uh personally that's my key focus is that uh i'm i'm building capital um yeah i'm accumulating capital at this stage in my life uh to to roll the profits into more of those projects and and growing uh growing my wealth through that area too uh still having other investors come in too so my my models evolved from when i first did it then where

I had family invested, where I now have a network of other people who are looking to get into a project. They've got some education behind them, so they're not completely unaware of the process. But they've got money that they want to work for them. They're interested in learning. And I'm essentially the middleman in bringing them into projects with other partners who maybe have found a really good project.

they want to project manage it and I'm linking those two parties together and then I'm involved in some way too. So either I'm getting a bank loan for the project or I'm investing some money into to do the development as well. Yeah, that model's building, evolving. So the process, I mean, given the number of parties and often with disparate views of their expected outcomes, The challenge then becomes in making sure everyone's on the same page.

Are you able to share with us what you've done and what techniques and approaches you've taken to ensure that everyone both starts engaged on the same song sheet and remains there because quite often when people's circumstances change, their views change over time. How have you managed to manage that through to ensure that everyone stays the course? yeah communication is absolutely key and knowing well in advance what everyone's

expectations are and goals are too so and yeah something like like a smaller subdivision like that uh i would have spoken to people previously and asked them you know what do you want what what kind of projects are you looking to do how much do you have to invest what type of return are you looking for and really having a lot of those conversations right at the beginning before there's even a project and then when the project might come along maybe maybe someone else has found something that looks good and they might have it under contract or they might be negotiating on the project then i'll i'll reach out to my network of people and go back to really what did they want in the first place and finding out you know

it's is this suitable for your needs and really getting those those details really clear at the beginning and the understanding of the project really clear before anything else is done and then if it's something they're agreeing to it's just continuing to talk through the details too and before going ahead with the project then everything that's agreed upon is put into a proper legal document so that everything is well documented

and should the worst case happen there's a legal document there to state what the process is, what needs to happen. Yeah, great. And then enshrining that in something written down is, you know, I often say to myself, Josh, if it isn't written down, it didn't happen because talk's cheap and memories fade and are very selective and can tend to change.

So having those hard conversations and then documenting that is a definite key to protect the party. So sort of backtracking a little bit around that because you looked at a – you talked about you looked at a number of different ways to invest why property over shares or other avenues mate uh well it came down to my situation uh leverage was a big thing so you know i was working full-time i could borrow money from the bank uh and property has that really really great benefit that you can borrow uh a lot more using leverage so you're not needing all cash to pay for a property settlement so like in in that first

project i was able to get a loan for 80 of the property's price and couldn't do that in other areas as well and i yeah i couldn't see how um you know i could i could borrow that money the banks not going to be lending me that much on shares or something like that but they will do it on property so i had that that advantage there that while i didn't have all these cash reserves to put into it i could actually use my borrowing capacity to get a loan there too and then the other area was linking up and saying okay i have family who have equity that they want to invest as well and if for them it wouldn't work for them to go and throw that into shares that'd be much higher risk for them too so it was my mentor helped me see this mentor helped me see

that was part of discovering what resources i had around me there too so once we'd figured out those two areas uh the missing piece then in property was okay if i'm doing development i need to find someone who's got experience and is able to run the project while I was working full-time. So what I'm loving here is the recognition that property isn't a late-team sport, so you're surrounding yourself with the right people that bring the right skills and fill the gaps that you don't have.

Am I reading that properly? Exactly, yeah. The team is just absolutely essential, and that's one of those things I learnt. and I was in a situation in networking groups where I could meet people in different areas of property who could help, or if they weren't there, there were so many people there who could actually recommend others

or had that experience with working with different people too, and that's just absolutely key. Relationships is a key, particularly with property development too, but just in life in general, having the right people around you to ask the right questions and seek advice from, it's imperative. Yeah, no, really important learning early on, mate. Congratulate you on that.

Mate, talk to me about the end game for you. So what's your ideal lifestyle look like and how does it differ from what you're currently doing, if at all? And property is obviously part of the mechanism you're using to bridge the gap. But can you talk us through, putting some vivid colour around what the ideal life looks like for you, Josh? Yeah, look, the ideal life is really that I have complete freedom of my time. So getting to that place requires some sort of passive income as well in terms of actually what I would do at that time. I want my time to be based around working with people I enjoy working with, where we're working towards a common goal to serving people and helping other people live a fulfilling life.

So for me, that's what gives me fulfillment and gives me happiness too when I'm actually helping other people achieve what they want out of life too. So property in that way is kind of the pathway at the moment because it's going to be building up to a point where it's going to provide me with that passive income as well. Yeah, awesome. Okay, and I guess complementing that and in parallel with that, what you're doing on the business side will also contribute to that, am I right?

Yeah, definitely. So yeah, like the business side is that area of focus where I'm helping other people build out this system and build their mindset, build their habits, build their outlook on life and how they use money to actually start to see, hey, I can start getting the ball rolling now. I can start making little tweaks, little changes to my life. These are going to change my life for the rest of the time

that I'm here on the planet. But not only that, by setting themselves up in that way, they're setting up their family, their kids, their grandchildren, and they're putting themselves in a place where they're leaving a legacy with their life as well. And money can't buy happiness, but there are so many things we can do with money, and when we're wise with it and we steward our money well and not just fall into the trap of what marketing around us

or what's being sold to us, whether it's consciously or subconsciously. There's so much that people can do to actually set themselves up and help so many other people along the way. So part of me living a fulfilled life is through that business and money coaching of helping others get in control of their financial situation. Awesome. Well, I'm really keen to drill into that subject in some detail now, mate, because you well mentioned early in the chat that you sort of came into the world with very little education around money management. And let's start there before talking about what you do and how you do it in that regard.

But why is it, do you think, that one, not many families talk about money, as you mentioned in your case? and also why it seems to be such a glaring hole in the education process at any level, whether it be primary, high school or beyond. Why do you think that is? Well, I think a key area is it's such an emotional topic for a lot of people. And everyone has had this unique experience,

their background or growing up with money, particularly what it was like in their family. growing up too you know no one's had that same same experience with each other around money and for a lot of people i think today it's uh maybe a real individual real individualistic view of money and what they want to do with their money it can be tricky i think when you've got maybe two people coming together as a family to decide what to do with it and then if there's there's kids involved too working out where the priorities are it it takes effort and uh unconscious combat uncomfortable conversations at times too uh but it's not an easy topic to

talk about that's that's been my experience too and it's easy to uh sometimes think that it's a problem to sort itself out or i guess even worse is that someone else will kind of figure out the problem for us completely. But it's not often until it's too late that we have that situation. That was my realisation that I didn't want it to get to a too late moment in my life too. And is that because you sort of mentioned the credit card exercise? Was the credit card starting to chew its head off and getting to sort of the dangerous level?

Was that the trigger for you? It wasn't at dangerous level. But I still remember the first time I saw interest appearing on my credit card statement, and I just couldn't believe that I'd let myself get into that position of living beyond my means, really, which is what it was. I was able to sort that out, too. But for a lot of us, it's really easy to fall down that rabbit hole where it's too late. I mean, if I hadn't have looked at the statement, because that's what some people's kind of view on money is that they just want to ignore it and it doesn't exist. For someone who's thinking about money in that way or maybe has that fear of money, by ignoring it, it's going to compound. It's going to get bigger and bigger as well.

But that, I remember that was a key moment, realizing, okay, well, I'm not in control. If I'm getting charged interest on a credit card, which I never thought I would get, then something needs to change. And that changed my way of using credit from that moment. So I love the learnings around that exercise. What was the key trigger then for you to start JBL? i had uh have an opportunity to to learn uh about a money management process from someone who's involved in property networking groups i was a part of too and i loved their their vision for the business was actually helping people really really sort out uh how they viewed money how they

use money uh giving them a system a process to follow to get in control of their situation a focus around eliminating debt and a lifestyle where they weren't relying on that to fund what they thought might be their ideal lifestyle or their freedom too but it's giving people a foundation to set themselves up for the future uh if people aren't in control of their money then they're too far off a place where they're going to be able to invest their money and and make it work work for them so i'd seen that experience i'd been through that journey too and here was someone showing me okay here's a here's a process i can use to educate people fast-track them and set them up and i i loved it it was an opportunity okay well

my experience was i wish someone had shown me this when i was 18 19 learning about money too and here i have the opportunity to to start a business where i can be that for other people and even people who are kind of further down the line who who are stuck or not sure what to do I can actually give them a solution that's going to change their life. It's going to set them up for the future. So the ideal person to come and have a chat to you, mate, who are they? Who are the people that are going to benefit most from what you do around the money coaching space?

Yeah, look, anyone who might be asking themselves questions or thinking, okay, I'm earning money. I just don't know where the money's going. There's that one category of person there who just realizes, okay, something is not working. I don't know where it's going. I know I need to do something to change the situation. I know I should be investing.

I know I need to be doing something to change. So there's that one area of people there. The other category, and it might cross over a bit, is people who are just struggling with debt. they seem to be in a cycle of using credit cards or maybe having to do a balance transfer of different debts onto one card or they've got a loan that just keeps hanging around.

For those people as well, I'm working with people to get that debt sorted out so, again, they can start setting themselves up probably there too. The third person there is just people who have a drive to really want to be the best in different areas of their lives. And just like we have coaches for personal training

and learning musical instruments, for someone who really wants to just really optimise how they're using their money, is that the category there for people to get really in control of their finances and work out how best they can use their money to set themselves up. So in the context of those sort of three different sorts of people that have varying money needs, what approach do you take

and are you able to share with us some of the things that you share with your clients in relation to the things that really turn them around and actionable bits and pieces that people can start to institute sooner rather than later to put themselves back on the right track? Yeah, I always start with the big picture, a long-term view. What do you want life to look like? And how far do you want that to look like?

In one year, looking back, what would you want to see that your financial world looks like? What is being in control of money done for your relationships? has it given you more time for holidays more time to spend with each other as a couple going out and enjoying each other's company or kids what experiences have you been able to give your kids and looking at that kind of future view of things to see okay this is what we want to achieve

and working back from that what is the situation now that's the next step so really what are our expenses is the biggest area there too. What are we currently spending money on? And really, does what I'm spending my money on now reflect what I want my future to look like?

And that's one key area that I just encourage everyone to do is your bank account statement is going to show you what you value. When you start to look at what the categories are and what the amounts are, you start to get a picture on where your money's going and what you're currently putting your focus and effort into and if it's through that process you realize that that doesn't give me value or that's not something that i really want in my life then we can start making steps to to change things it's it's yeah it's like like a gps like um i moved to move to the us here six months ago and

And I didn't really know where I was going all the time, so Google Maps has been my constant companion when I'm driving. But the first thing that happens before I'm working out a destination is, yeah, Google Maps, the GPS zooms in on where I currently am. And it's the same with our finances. You might have a destination you want to reach, somewhere you want to get to, but you're never going to be able to figure out the path to get there

unless you've actually delved into what the current situation is. And once you know that, you can choose the journey. You can choose which path you want to take that fits as you go. The thing I often – the sort of responses I get from a lot of people because we have similar conversations with those that come to see us, Josh is, I don't have enough time. It's always go, go, go. Yeah, I love what I'm hearing, but I can't get around to that at the moment.

and a lot of us are time poor and there's some fantastic systems out there that can automate this money management process. Are there any that you've come across that you think are particularly useful that are part of what you share with people you help out, Matt? Yeah, well, I mean, going back to that process of working out what the goals are, if it's a particular savings goal, maybe it's getting a house deposit or maybe it's saving up a certain amount of money to invest or maybe it's paying something down,

maybe it's paying the debt down. Looking at that way of reaching those goals, automation, automating your finances so that you're not having to constantly think about it and make the bank transfer each time is the way to get around the I don't have enough time area. once you decide to set up a transfer maybe it's two hundred dollars a month or something you're sending to a bank account for a for a savings goal you want to buy uh yeah you want to buy a house

someday you you only have to make that decision once when you automate it and after that you're there's a couple of things happening you're not having to use your willpower and your time and thinking about, oh, have I transferred this? It's already done. It's already automatic. The other side is the emotional side because for some people, looking at that money going into that account, when they have to manually transfer it, they might double take and decide,

okay, well, no, I want to use that money for something else this week. And they may be getting emotional about it or they're thinking about something else. If it's on autopilot, if it's being automatically transferred, You only have to make that decision once for putting that money over there. That beats having to worry about the time area of finances to a huge extent. Absolutely agree. Is that just using the standard bank apps that the various institutions offer or is it things like Pocketbook or Money Brilliance or Raise or a mixture of the above?

Do you sort of have any sort of general approach or is it all goal-driven? If you want to achieve this, then let's use that. What's your thoughts around that? Yeah, look, yeah, like it can just be as simple as using your bank's automatic transfer process as well. There are a lot of different apps you can use as well. I mean, with my clients,

we use a particular piece of software called the Spending Planner software. There are other kind of ones as well. like Pocketsmith and some of those other accounts. But they're often a reflection. A lot of those apps are a reflection of where money's already gone, and they can be good for checking where expenses are going, but the automatic transfer is actually setting up

what's going to happen in the future. And some of the banking software, I think, can predict out that too. but yeah, you're never going to get there unless you actually make that decision to set up an automatic transfer. Yeah, a lot of this obviously evolves around money mindset. So can you talk to us a little bit about what you've seen in relation to mindset and what the difference is between those who do well with money and what you do to potentially change mindsets

to get people heading in the right direction? Yeah, look, I look at three kind of key areas with people's money mindsets. The first one is looking at what's happened in the past around money. So what has their family experience been like growing up with money? uh have have their parents ever talked to them about money have their parents ever stepped through and explained how money works for them too or have they had some sort of experience with money that's been really negative growing up maybe they just had always seen uh there wasn't

enough money to go around in their household uh maybe they've seen people growing up that modeled good money habits or maybe they they've seen people that hadn't had those great money habits too and actually starting to look back in the past to get aware of what what might have set up their current thinking around money so that's looking at the past yeah uh then then it's the second part is looking at what is what's happening in the present what's the current situation what do they know about money what are the areas that they think they might need to know about and then uh being aware that there are other areas of money that they they're ignorant about that they don't know what they don't know and so that key area is delving into okay what where do i need

to get educated around money too and then the third area is looking in the future and what is my outlook on money how do i see um how do i see the world of money do i see it as scarcity where there's not enough to go around or um people are saying things to themselves like uh i've always been bad with money or i don't know what to do that's that's thinking scarcity and that can change that can change over time and that's that's my goal to work with people to help them change that mindset through to something where they're thinking about uh no i can use money um in a great way money is a really powerful tool and if i understand how to use it and if i set myself up in the present with great habits, then I can actually start really

getting to a place where I'm understanding it and getting on top of it. So the – and I think you've hit on a key to them. That's the money habits that we're talking about and perhaps in conjunction with automation, it starts to do it by itself because I'm not sure how you found it but there are a lot of people who almost they're subconscious that the messages they've picked up about money, whether it be from their parents or their own experience in their early formative

years, can often get in the way and almost self-sabotage them when they start to head in the positive direction because there's a lack of self-belief around money or money seen as the evil partner, so to speak. Have you seen that and what sort of approach do you take to try and break through that quite damaging subconscious inner voice? yeah i think a really key area there is uh having someone who can actually help you identify uh what you're saying or even what your your spending habits are looking like there too so that could be it could be a coach or a mentor could be in the form of an accountability

partner as well uh yeah it could be could be your life partner your spouse working through that too but it's coming to that position where you're getting comfortable talking about money with people i would like to say to people have conversations about money or who in your life can you have really great money conversations with because when you're actually starting to verbalize and express what's going on with your world financially there are things that are going going to come out and as you mentioned that self-sabotage if you can actually have someone there who's identifying and seeing what you're saying um they might be able to give you a heads up help you out with those areas it could be blind spots and money you're thinking about too so

definitely seen that and i've had experience that myself and seen it happen with other people and people uh call them up on it or ask them you know why are you thinking that way too So talking about it, communicating about money is the first step there. Yeah, an absolute key one. You've hit it on the head there. There's almost a, particularly in this current instant iPhone, Instagram age, that's all about the perfect lifestyle and creating a perception that we might be living the dream

when the reality might be completely different. Creating a safe environment where people, it's okay to say, well, I'm really struggling with money and how can you help me and opening that up. I just think that would have a massive impact generally if people can get to a point where they're able to share that experience without feeling they're going to be judged or otherwise.

What's your thinking around that, mate? Yeah, I mean, one of the areas there is living the dream. Is it their dream that they're living or is it just someone else's dream or even someone else's image of what the dream might look like on Instagram there too? That's the first part, I think, in what you just mentioned that I really think about there too. But yeah, having that decision to be honest about money and being open with people about it and being accountable too. Like, I think it can be easy to shy away and think that no one else is going through the same problem as well. And that can be the issue when people see images of other people too. But, you know, everyone, no one, unless you're living in a monastery as a monk somewhere where money is not an issue to you,

everyone has to deal with it. day in day out so everyone's got their own experience and uh the majority of people have had to go through money challenges too so uh again opening up to situations where you can talk about money with people and and not fearing like you're going to be judged too and i'd say to people like uh you're you're by you stepping out and starting the conversation you're actually going to be putting the other person you're speaking to probably a lot more at ease too if you're open there too and I've found that when I start talking about money with people and I'm not telling them what to do, I'm not judging their situation, I'm just sharing

my experience around money and through that it actually allows people to feel more at to share their situation too. And from there, you can work together and help each other out. Yeah, great thoughts around that, mate. When I have a subject that's sort of related to this that I find also is something that you've cottoned on to and something that I've cottoned on to as well a long time ago was the benefits of delayed gratification. and the challenge I see with a lot of people

is because of the instant iPhone and everything and the fact that we can press a button and have it now, the ability to see the benefit of perhaps putting off now to have a, you know, sort of being slightly uncomfortable now to be much more comfortable later on versus being very comfortable now but very uncomfortable later on as a result of not embracing that

is a challenge for a lot of people. What do you see around that subject and what do you suggest to people to start seeing the benefit of taking a much more long-term approach? Yeah, definitely taking the time to sit down and think and plan out and dream about the long-term approach is the first point. I really believe that if there isn't a big goal

or a big outcome you want out of life, we just fall into default mode and our spending often just follows that default mode of pattern. Whereas if we're actually designed and thought about a future we want, you can work backwards from that. And if that goal, that dream you have is something you think about daily,

something you're regularly going over, in terms of the financial side of things of saving money and managing your money to reach that goal that dream is going to come into your mind when you're given options to spend money on something and I like to think of it in terms of value is this going to take me closer to this goal

or is it going to slow me down and it might not mean that you always stop spending or you're completely spending from one area of something else that gives you happiness in the moment too, but you're setting up these kind of mental lines of defence, I guess, to make you at least second guess and decide, okay, is this purchase worth it

or would I rather have this big goal down the track? And I think that's the starting point there, actually sitting down and planning out what those big-term goals are. Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. I think if that big goal or the end destination is vivid and attractive enough, then it becomes a magnet that keeps you focused on getting there and then that means that every cent that you're spending day to day

is based on, well, is this taking me closer to that or is it going to actually hold me up or take me further away? It then gives them a guidance system, as you say, around that GPS to say, well, I really want to get to there and if they've spent enough time really visualising and tasting, smelling, seeing, feeling what that looks like, then that's enough to take them over the speed bumps and prevent them from being knocked off course

and just throwing money at every next pleasure that they can look at on a day-to-day basis. Yeah. Do you agree with that sort of thinking? Yeah, definitely too. I think another area of that too is it forces us to get creative with how we spend our money too so if it's if we want the big term goal but we really want this other short term um shorter term goal uh if it's an impulse spend it might stop us spending that

too but if it's something that we're trying to trying to get to along the way it might mean okay well how can i maybe get this a different way maybe it's finding a better price or something similar or how do i earn a bit more money you know what could i do to earn more money so i can have this goal and still have that big term goal um happening too as well so there's there's different areas as well but you've got to have that priority what is what is the highest priority uh for where i'm putting my money right now yeah i love it love it mate um sort of related to that Now, I see a lot of people who, you know, recognise the benefits of perhaps jumping out of their job into their own business as a means to, one, get more freedom, potentially increase income and create wealth. But I often see that a lot of people go in ill-prepared for that.

And two things happen. They either don't step off the cliff because it's too scary or they jump over the cliff and then don't have a rainy day reserve that's going to help them survive through that initially very tough two years when a lot of self-employeds don't make it. What sort of thoughts have you got for those that are going through that thinking process in relation to a sort of a transition parachute that's going to enable them to do that

without shipwrecking themselves in the process? Yeah, look, we all should have a buffer for Rainy Day Fund no matter what we're doing there too. If you're going to be stopping one source of income to do a business, and you mentioned that two years there, you want to be absolutely sure of what your expenses are going to be in the current moment but also in that two-year period if it's going to change so if you're not sure what you're spending there's no way you can actually work out what type of buffer to give

yourself there too so definitely anyone who's is considering that type of leaf leap of faith out there and starting a business you want to make sure that you have cash reserves in the form of a buffer to cover your day-to-day expenses and it might mean cutting back on some of those expenses and realizing, okay, well, I can make my buffer stretch longer if we cut out this expense. It might mean that you look at other part-time sources of income instead of just going cold turkey from an income and a job to starting up a business, then maybe you can look at doing a transition process and having that extra income as you go.

But until you've actually worked out what you're spending, there's no way you can actually know what that is as well. There's no way you can predict that. So that's the first place to start. Sort of I guess my feeling doing full circle here, Josh, in relation to I think a big reason why people don't consciously manage their money better to help achieve their goals is that it's just something that doesn't get touched on in our education, either around the family dinner table, as you spoke about,

or during our education process. So have you got any thoughts on how, given that you are a teacher, what are your thoughts around how we can change that to better prepare future generations to embrace money as their friend and as a volume control and as a mechanism to allow themselves to achieve financial freedom and live their legacy? I would say just being really conscious about discussing money with people. And look, unfortunately, there's probably people who are never going to want to talk about money from their upbringing.

I mean, for people in their current situation, think about, okay, have I spoken to my parents about money? For your parents, maybe they're approaching retirement or maybe they're retired, but starting that conversation there, I think, is a real key way to open it up for, maybe your parents have never spoken about money or they've hidden it.

Maybe it could be a tough conversation and that first conversation gives them awareness that they don't want to talk about money, which is their decision in the end too, but you've tried what you could to talk about it. And then people in your own age level or people at your own stage of life, your spouse, your friends,

being conscious again to have those discussions around money. And then people younger than you, so it could be your children, it could be nieces and nephews and that side of things too there's opportunities there to might just be a little piece of wisdom

or it might just be sharing your story of how you did something with money to make more money or some little bit of wisdom there too, so I just think across those areas if we're more open and more honest

about our own situation and our own experiences is going to allow us to make other people more open to that as well. I know my own case, Josh, with my son. There's a rich dad, poor dad children's book that we used to read together. And it sounds pretty boring, but it's a book that sort of break it down into really simple terms. And then as he was growing up, we started playing the cash flow game,

which is like Monopoly but taken to another level. Yeah. Just in a fun sort of way at a fairly early stage, started to imprint some of the fundamentals around that. So he was better prepared to start looking at that as he entered into the real world. Is that sort of – do you have similar thoughts or other approaches that you'd suggest people adopt

to set their kids up for a better future? Yeah, look, I think that's a perfect example. Yeah, there's heaps of resources there. I haven't read that book, but, you know, that's a great place to start. And I love that there seems to be more and more resources coming out for teaching kids about money. and I think definitely that the kind of perspective on it is that we haven't talked about money enough in the past

and there are things now to allow us to do that too and the cash flow game is brilliant. I love that cash flow game. Yeah, me too. Talking about books, you're writing one. Tell us a bit about what that is, what it talks about and when people are likely to be able to get their hands on it. yeah look uh yeah i'm writing a book on on personal finance uh so yeah that delve into

that book there too a lot around um how to have these money conversations how to actually think about um your your money mentality your money mindset and how that's contributed to the situation uh we're all currently in we've all been taken to the place we're in financially because of our experiences, those people around us, what we've known, what we haven't known about money. So that book really dives into our thinking around money as well as practical exercises, conversations to have and then also going into how do you plan ahead

for what you want out of life and what can you do with your money situation, your money management to help you reach those goals. and the first draft is done, so I'm hoping to have that out next year. Oh, good. Have you got a title for it yet? No, I'm still working on the title. It's one of the hardest parts.

I know. Tell me about it. Yeah, my book was 18 months in the making, mate, and I reckon I had about 50 or 60 names that boiled down before I got to the Freedom Formula and getting invested. So, yeah, it's been a fun process. Mate, I'm going to switch into the old ambush session. if I can, which are five questions that our listeners keep asking for answers on.

So jumping straight into that, what's your favourite quote and why? My favourite quote is, I don't know who said it, but the enemy of a great life is a good life. And for me, that just shows, I mean, that's been my experience, that we can get really comfortable, particularly in Australia, and get really comfortable just living a good life. But there is so much more potential in us there too. So we need to choose to live a great life.

It's a bit like a frog slowly boiling to death in a pot that's being heated over the stove. We've got this sort of almost like golden handcuffs in that we have a very comfortable life in Australia. so the motivation to look beyond today isn't there because it's okay and that can sort of lead us to stick our heads in the sand and go, well, she'll be right, I'll just keep working hard

and the rest of it will look after itself. Yeah, it's a really good quote actually because you're right. It's often those times like yourself with the go-kart accident and the unfortunate passing of your father that I wake up, of course, and go, hold on, I really need to start looking to the future

and setting myself up so that I'm able to survive any of the pitfalls that come along. So, no, that's awesome. What about, you've mentioned the Robert Kiyosaki book already, but in addition to that, what other book would you recommend people read and why? Yeah, look, for me, the Bible is foundational to my faith. There's so much wisdom in the Bible alone there too.

So that's definitely, yeah, one of my top recommended books there. Yeah, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, as I mentioned. There's another book that I found really helpful called Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss, which is a book on negotiating, and you might not think you need to read that because you might not think you negotiate, but I've used it in so many different life situations as well, so I really encourage people to check out that one. Yeah, that is a good one because it really tests your convictions and what's really important and how you're prepared to stand your ground

in that regard in a clever way without feeling like you're compromising all the time. It's a cracking book, that one. Mate, this one's a little bit left field, but it's something that a lot of Australians constantly talk about, and that's the subject of tax. What's the top legal thing that you've done to minimise the tax that you pay? uh the first thing is is getting educated around tax and it doesn't mean that you need to know all the tiny details of tax there but you at least need to know who to go and speak to

about it as well for some people uh it might not be exciting at all to think about tax so go find an awesome accountant who's going to help you set up for that yeah some people some people love it too but yeah for me personally getting educated there and finding a great accountant who's helped me set up structures for my business has been the best way to save tax yeah no really good suggestions now but back on the investment subject what's both the worst and the best piece of investment advice that you've received today um the worst advice i've heard uh some people say around property development and this business in general is

even if I don't make money or maybe even lose money at least I'll have experience and I've learned something from it I just I don't think that's not good investment advice at all if you're in that situation where you're

thinking about that then you you haven't you don't know enough about what you're investing in if you still have those huge doubts about it too So, yeah. Yeah, it's spot on. And the best?

What would be the best piece of investment advice? The best one is, you know, it's all about relationships, business, life in general. You want to have a great team that's built with great relationships to achieve success. Yeah, yeah. Great advice. Now, this one you've sort of covered off a little bit already, but just to sort of summarize it. If you were speaking to someone who's just leaving school and you're a high school teacher,

so this is probably a conversation you may have with some of your students, what would you advise them to invest their time, money and skills in to create their version of freedom? I think definitely money and skills, just showing them the power of compound interest. So showing them that it's calculated online to do that, showing you money if you're putting it away what's going to happen to that over time but it also applies to our skills as well if we're just working on a little bit each day on a different

area in our life of how that can compound there too and then for for their time i'd say find find the people you admire and and step out of your comfort zone and actually ask you know how can you help them out and if you're if you're speaking to someone you admire maybe even it feels like you're unqualified to speak to them just stepping out of that comfort zone if someone sees that you're willing to help them out and they see that initiative on your part they're going to want to give back and they're going to want to help you there yeah that's that's yeah very good advice mate uh been really good having a chat it is a fundamental subject that doesn't get anywhere near enough airplay and i would love for money just to become something that we talk about as

a matter of course and something that you know around the dinner table we feel quite open sharing and talking about because uh it would certainly make a massive difference to uh individual lives but then families and then families into prosperous and happy communities because it's in our current westernised world, like it or lump it, money is the oxygen that lubricates our ability to do things. So really appreciate you spending some time on that, mate. In terms of what's new and exciting,

I know you've got a fantastic online event coming up shortly. Can you talk to us a bit about that for those that might be keen to register and get on board to enjoy all of the gold that you're going to be sharing? Yeah, look, I've got an event coming up called Master Your Money. So it's going to be an online video interview show. We've got 21 experts coming on to speak around how do we actually use money in business to set up that future life.

So one of the key areas I'm getting people to talk about there is the entrepreneurial mindset, so growing your business and getting that flourishing as well as the financial mindset that's needed to actually make the money you've got coming from your business work for you and how to build wealth and how to set yourself up, your family up and create that legacy. So I believe you're coming to speak on that show, Bushy, and I'm really excited for that. Yeah, I'm really keen to and quite humbled to be able to join you in that regard. I know you've got some very high-calibre contributors to that. So I'm certainly going to be encouraging everyone that's listening to take the time to jump on board with it. There's going to be a lot of very practical, useful

and potentially life-changing information that you're going to get access to. So how can people register for that at the moment, mate? What do they do to get on board? Yeah, look, I can give you some links in the show notes, but the website is going to be masteryourmoneyshow.com. So people can jump on there and register for the event. Awesome.

Mate, it's been a real pleasure. I appreciate you staying up so late at night to speak to us here in good old home Aussie. uh i know you're going to continue to do great things in this space moving forward mate and uh you know i love the way that you've reached out uh to myself in relation to the master your money exercise so with that sort of a a positive approach to life i know you're going to continue to do well and help lots of others to to start embracing money as a friend so thanks for spending some time of the day, mate, and looking forward to supporting you and working with you moving forward.

Thank you, Bushy. I really appreciate your time and appreciate the opportunity too. And I just love this podcast. It's great what you're doing. So looking forward to listening to more. Thanks, mate. Good on you, Josh. We'll talk again soon.

Bye for now. Thank you. Bye. Well, Freedom Fighters, how good was that? To get a summary of all this investment gold in the show notes, just email me on hello at khgroup.com.au. That's H-E-L-L-O at khgroup.com.au. Or check us out at www.bushymartin.com.au forward slash getinvested.

I look forward to joining you next week for another episode of the Get Invested podcast. So thanks for listening. And as always, dream as if you live forever and live as if you die tomorrow. Thanks for watching!