Property Hub - Investment Insights & Inspiration - Get Invested: Jane Slack-Smith on renovating yourself and your wealth

Episode Date: July 15, 2022

When people have financial security, they can live out their true purpose and impact the world. Jane Slack-Smith joins Get Invested to explain what it takes to make this happen. Jane is a mother, wife, property market commentator, educator, author, podcaster, and has been awarded Australia’s Mortgage Broker of the Year by Your Investment Property magazine twice. She started her career as a mining engineer and explosives expert with multiple awards for her pioneering contribution to the industry, including been profiled in the ABC’s Australian Story TV program. Her contribution to the industry has been recognised with her inclusion in the Who’s Who of Australian Women, since its inception and the awarding to the prestigious Churchill Fellowship. She applied her discipline of risk assessment from her explosive’s expertise to the property market and together with her husband, build her own multi-million-dollar property portfolio and develop low-risk property investment methodologies. She started Investors Choice Mortgages in 2005 to share her knowledge and assist everyday Australian’s create their own financial security, is founder of Your Property Success online education and author of Your Property Success with Renovation. Jane is a student of success and has been studying what makes successful humans. From attending Mindvalley University in Estonia to ongoing education in anything from neuromarketing, quantum physics, to participating in a nasal breathing for flow state she is curious and tries and applies before she teaches and educates. She believes that when people achieve financial security they can get on with their true purpose, spend more time with the people they love and create inter-generational change for good.  And she is helping her community of 30,000+ people live this out with the latest in mindset and success modalities. Tune in as Jane shares her incredible insights and story. More from Jane: www.janeslacksmith.com.au  www.yoursuccessclub.com.au    www.yourpropertysuccess.com.au Hour of power with Bushy: If you’d like an hour of power to talk with me personally on any questions, queries or issues you’d like to discuss about your investment strategy, finance or property portfolio delivery, whether you’re an aspiring investor or an experienced investor with a substantial property portfolio, just go here https://knowhowproperty.com.au/contact-us then click on the ‘Lets Zoom, DeepDive Meeting with Bushy’ 1 hour  option to book in your preferred time. For a small investment of just $295 you can ask me anything you want about property for a full 60 minutes.  Realty Talk And if you want to hear more from Jane along with all of Australia’s leading property investors and independent professionals, join me and the other 120,000 plus regular listeners every week as I anchor host the country’s most popular and longest running property show, Kevin Turner’s Realty Talk, so I look forward to seeing you on channels.realty.com.au/realtytalk where we share short and sharp take home tips and tricks on all things property. And while you’re there, make sure you don’t miss another episode of Realty Talk by signing up and also subscribing on your favourite podcast player, so you get every show and all of the leading property insights in your inbox, every week. For more free investment insights, join the Get Invested community: If you want to continue investing in your knowledge, join me and many other like minded investors in our Get Invested community right now. I send a free and exclusive monthly email full of practical ‘Self, Health and Wealth’ wisdom that our current Freedom Fighter subscribers can’t wait to get each month. It’s full of investment and lifestyle tips, my personal book recommendations, apps I use to enhance life and so much more. Just visit bushymartin.com.au and sign up at the bottom of the page … because this is just the beginning! Get Invested is the leading weekly podcast for Australians who want to learn how to unlock their full ‘self, health and wealth’ potential. Hosted by Bushy Martin, an award winning property investor, founder, author and media commentator who is recognised as one of Australia’s most trusted experts in property, investment and lifestyle, Get Invested reveals the secrets of the high performers who invest for success in every aspect of their lives and the world around them. 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.

It's just come from, I guess, a lifetime of learning and working with people who are investors and just seeing that sometimes there's this need for wealth and however you define wealth, but there's this need for having abundance or just being comfortable. And then there is a limiting belief or there's something and there's a pattern or it just keeps on happening that just when it all seems to happen, it's robbed from you. and you know this kind of pattern is this old operating system that I think a lot of people work on is actually undermining their success my guiding light north star kind of premise is that the universe conspires for our success and we are the ones who get in the way of it

and I have these conversations with people about money and I ran this for my mentoring students because I was like, you know, some of you, we're working together in getting down to the suburbs, the streets, the alerts are coming up, like I need to understand what's going on. And so I kind of put together this Renovate Yourself, Renovate Your Wealth workshop and I ran it with them. And so we could actually see very clearly some of these money stories. And so this just really fascinated me.

And then by diving into them and going, what do you really want? what what is is it a 250 000 lifestyle if everything got taken from you tomorrow you woke up you're the only person alive there's electricity and food to keep you going forever do you want the mansion by the water or do you want the you know you know nice safe environment where you can you know spend your days digging up the the ground and putting in a few lettuces do you want the ferrari do you want the gucci you know do you want to have that um those things that you can show others? Are you trying to validate your own worth through others? You know, for me, I've always been about getting to understand people have a life story, right?

Their life is one thing, but their story is another. And so I want that to be separated. Let's understand the story that's replaying because how you do anything is how you do everything. Welcome to the Get Invested podcast, where we share great conversations with experts from all walks of life to uncover their secret know-how and 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 friend and fighters, we're tuned now with property and investment. As we emerge from the artificially created COVID cloud and revert to more normal

property conditions with inflation and interest rates on the rise and property value growth slowing, plateauing and in some areas declining, what lies in store for investors? As the mainstream media keeps us scared and fearful, what's changed? What remains the same? What do you think and what do you need to do differently? Where are the threats and the opportunities? Or is it just a matter of following the same timeless property principles that are just dressed in new clothes and the latest fashion lingo? Because as I've been saying for some time now, the honeymoon's over for property investors who'd slipstreamed on the back of emotionally driven FOMO home buyers that's resulted in our second biggest property boom in our 230 year history which has effectively

brought forward five to six years of value growth and with each rate rise your property purchase period reduces where a 0.5% rate increase drops your borrowing capacity by about $50,000 on an average loan which means you've got a shrinking window of opportunity to take advantage of. So if your investment horizon is less than 10 years and you need to increase your nest egg and you're serious about continuing to grow equity in the medium term, you're going to have to adopt a much more active, creative and inventive approach to your property wealth creation that, of course, needs to still be in alignment with your goals, your strategy, your capacity and your risk profile,

rather than just relying on time and market forces to do all the heavy lifting. So today we're going to deep dive into all of this with a fellow highly respected property educator I'm actually convinced it's my Siamese twin and we must have been separated at birth because we've both followed very similar parallel property pathways. Like yours truly, today's guest is a born and bred country girl who's made a big dent in the big smoke. She started her career as a mining engineer and explosive expert and applied the resulting discipline of risk management to the property market where she and her husband have built their own multi-million dollar property portfolio based on her unique low-risk property

investment methodology that she calls the Trident Strategy, which I'm sure we're going to unpack today. And again, like me, she then started her own finance-breaking business to share her knowledge and assist everyday Australians create their own financial security. She's also a recognised author, has been co-host of a popular podcast, and she's collected multiple awards along the way as she continues to educate you and everyday Australians as the founder of Your property success online education. And again, like yours truly, she's a true student of success who believes that when you achieve financial security, you can then get on with your true life purpose and live your legacy. If you haven't guessed already, I'm talking about the highly

acclaimed and highly respected industry leader, Jane Slack-Smith. And to further set the scene, I want to start by sharing a brief extract from Jane's Your Success Club, which really resonated with me, and it goes like this. Ultimately, I see life as a quest for living your true purpose, leaving an impact on the world, and living a life of joy. Sadly, many give up along the way, forget their quest, or just don't make it. Some believe success is about being wealthy, but it seems elusive, just out of their grasp, an illusion. I believe being wealthy is about having the resources to be a curious adventurer, that's an awesome term, to be able to make a lasting contribution, being spiritual, connecting to a world of infinite possibilities, creating a

legacy, being the best you can be and being proud of you just as you are. I've been on this adventure for years and I've studied why some people are successful and others aren't. Often it comes down to their relationship to money, wealth and success. The beliefs we have about ourselves, others and the world and the conditions we set up that have to be met before we can live the life we want. Over years of working with thousands of people and assisting them to achieve financial security, I've found that some achieve it, others don't. I work with students and clients to reveal their beliefs and conditions and then create a path to the life they desire. So come on the adventure with me it'll be real and unpolished just as i am wow that really struck home for me and in similar

challenging inspiring tones is straight out of my playbook so welcome twin sister and let's get invested joan thank you so much i'm so glad i finally found my twin brother well i tell you what those words uh you know really really heartfelt and uh just just really did resonate with me. So I know we're going to have a fantastic conversation today, Jane. But for those that have been living under a rock and don't know Jane Slack-Smith, which there won't be too many in the country that don't, I'd love for you to talk to us initially about what you do differently and most importantly, Jane, why you do what you do. Oh, wow. Good opening question there, Bushy. You know, I think it was funny. I was walking with my son the other day, he's a 14-year-old,

and and i was saying oh you know i was speaking to this client and we were really kind of unpacking why she wasn't pulling the trigger on buying an investment property and she knew you know where to buy it and the type of property to buy and the finance was set up and there was just this this limitation and we kind of we stepped into her relationship with success and she was saying gosh you know i think it's from me thinking that i'm gonna die alone rich in an old mansion and And I'm like, no wonder you don't have success. Let's redefine that. What's that look like in its higher purpose?

And she said, gosh, having time to be with the people I love. I'm like, well, let's define it like that. And my son said, you're just not a normal mortgage broker, are you? No, probably not. And I think that kind of it really crystallizes, you know, what I do. I've always been fascinated by the human journey and I've always, you know, probably like the good Catholic girl who felt she, you know, be a good girl and the rewards will come at the end.

And, you know, if you know something, share it. You know, don't keep it, you know, sequestered away. And so as soon as I kind of hacked this property journey that I'd been on, I just couldn't wait to share it. And it almost felt like it was remiss of me not to. So, you know, I guess when I look at me stepping from a mining engineer in the mining industry to, you know, my life of service in assisting people in, you know, their reclaiming themselves, but also doing that through, you know,

wealth and abundance and through using property as a vehicle to do that. You know, I set up my mortgage-breaking business around where they were buying, what they were buying, rather than finance. Finance was the vehicle that allowed them to get there. So I guess my thought process has always been around working out what the person wants to achieve that i work with and then working out back calculating what's the steps to get there so i think that might be you know the fundamental difference that i bring to to you know the people i work with i tell you what i i am talking to my twin sister because my thinking is exactly the same the property and the finance is the enabler and the vehicle, but it's the headset, the thinking, the strategy,

getting clear on actually how you do want to live and then looking at what your ability is to bridge the gap between here and then. It's so refreshing to talk to someone who adopts that approach, Jane. Very refreshing. We're going to have a lot of fun today. Jane, I've loved it, and there's a lot already that you've said that we'll unpack a little bit later,

but what I'd love to do, if you don't mind, Well, I've sort of touched very briefly on your journey. I'd love for you to sort of dive into and go back as far as you'd like and talk us through what you've invested your time, your energy, and your money in over the years and the why, the big whys. And if you wouldn't mind, just sort of focus on some of the highs as well as the lows so that we can see what you've learned from them and how this has led to where you are and what you're doing today.

Sure. Well, I guess, you know, like you, I grew up in the country and, you know, my parents didn't have a lot and I'm not going to do the whole, you know, violin story because it really wasn't a violin story. We didn't know we didn't have a lot. You know, they just made things meet. And it was funny, I was sitting down with my sister

and her husband and my parents and my husband recently and we were talking about our engagement stories and my father said, oh, you know, I knew I was going to marry your mum as soon as she walked into the Narrabri RSL Club and I said to the guys, I'm going to marry that woman and he said it took a while to convince her and he said, when I finally proposed, I said to her, be kind to poor people because you're going to be a poor person.

I was like, wow, what a way to sell yourself, dude. But it's interesting because, you know, they didn't have a lot And, you know, they really gave us every opportunity and really gave us the opportunities to be curious and to be adventurers and to try new things. And I think, you know, when I think of all the things that I've pursued and tried, you know, I knew I couldn't get into university unless I had a scholarship. So we pretty much, mum and dad and I sat down, we wrote 130 scholarship applications. I got one turned out to be mining engineering and you know I knew that I just needed to learn and I needed the framework and the structure of learning how to learn and university would provide that and give me some time to grow in I guess my my age and maturity and then you know

whilst I had that scholarship I could help them put my sister through school and then I could help support her when she got to university so i was always around the you know you go forward and and pave the way and uh we will and and then i can support you know those behind me that's kind of always been my methodology and you know when you you're growing up and you're you know i don't know family based wages incomes are you know what 25 000 each whatever and all of a sudden you're at university and you're earning 10 000 tax free through the scholarship like i was money bags i was subsidizing my friends and and their rent and you know our outings and my i took my parents on our first big trip to cams you know we we had these amazing kind of i had this opportunity

because i had money and unfortunately the money just flowed through my fingers and so you know And my first investment was they gave me a credit card and I could not believe you could just tap this card. Well, you didn't tap it then. They put it through a machine. And I got this Oritin handbag that was like $150. And I was just like, oh, my God, that's the most expensive thing I've ever bought.

And it's funny, you know, that was, oh, gosh, 30-odd years ago. And about three years ago, my husband got the zip fix for me. I've been using it ever since. It's a great investment, right? But it took me, I didn't realise I had to pay it off. I think in the end it probably cost me about $160,000 in interest. So, you know, I was kind of, I hadn't had a role model or how to spend money or make money or grow money or invest.

It wasn't a, you know, let's sit around the table at night and talk about the share market. And, you know, my parents made sacrifices to give my sister and I an amazing education and an opportunity. But I've always been someone who was, you know, my dad used to say, you know, if you want to be a garbage man, be a garbage man, but just be the best garbage man you can be. And my mum used to say, you know, you can do anything but fly and with God's help, you can fly. And so we really grew up with this self-confidence that we could

achieve anything. And so I was genuinely shocked when things went wrong. And so, you know, when I thought about the fact that I'd got to about the age of 28 and, you know, I'd spent, I was living a very good life and had a very comfortable existence and having overseas trips and, you know, I was single and enjoying things. And I went to visit a friend in New Zealand and I picked up the Rich Dad, Poor Dad book and he said, does your money work for you or do you work for your money?

I'm like, you know, this is stupid. I earn a good income and as a young engineer like 30 years ago, I graduated on 80 grand a year. Like I was earning a great income but I had no savings, right? I was spending it and almost giving it away as a penance for the fact that my friends and families, like, and I work with a lot of people on this kind of loyalty tax. It's like, if I'm different or separate, you know, they won't love me or like me as much. And so let's go on holidays and I'll take the, I'll pay for dinner and I'll pay for the taxi. And I found that this really

jarred me. And it was at that stage, I thought I need to get serious about this. So for my 30th birthday uh i bought myself you know 2000 a um three appointments with financial planners and i thought if i pay 50 500 each i'll get independent advice okay and uh which as you know wasn't quite the way that i understand why you would think that way and that's pretty inventive let's not talk to one let's talk to three so we can prepare some notes yeah how did that go well i was a mining engineer that specialized in risk assessment and explosive so I was like always de-risking everything so I'm like okay I'm not going to go follow one person I'm doing the throat and at that time my now husband Todd had said to me you know I had this lawn mowing business in

New Zealand and I had started mowing the lawn for this you know young 25 year old when he was like 16 and impressionable and the guy said you did such a good job how about come and mow my other four properties he's like how did you get four properties like the first one is the hardest and uh and you know we grew up thinking you had to pay something off before you can set get into your second property and so there was this starting of you know there could be something else my husband's going there's something in this property stuff and my boss kept saying get a mortgage because then i know you're tied to me forever and i and i was just like no i'm not taking a mortgage i'm footloose fancy free 30 year old and um and we went to a couple of

seminars you know those free two-hour seminars on property and being the good engineer and studious you know academic and scientist i started you know i think i bought 120 books on properties to to work out hack how what went right for people what went wrong and um those three financial planners one wanted to day trade on the stock exchange for me which was this outside of my risk zone completely and the other two when i asked enough questions essentially said hey we worked for a big financial planning company that tells us what to sell based on your risk profile we're essentially sales agents that work out if you're low risk medium risk or high risk and whatever that is we tell you what to buy and i only had 45 grand so i was like oh that doesn't

seem clever they actually they actually told you that they're basically some good grief that okay And they had the paraplaners. They said, the paraplaners do all the work and make it look fancy. We're essentially, you know, we're selling the company's Kool-Aid. And I was like, okay. And I thought, well, I've got to be able to do better than this. And with all this research and these courses, we essentially started investing in property.

So I would say that when I invested my time and energy was always in the, It's not just the self-development, but the development of knowledge in the area that I was concentrating on, you know, hacking or mastering at the time. And I've always been like that ever since. And that came from almost the permission from my parents to say, you can do anything and, you know, have a go, have a crack. Yeah, love it. Something I wouldn't mind just circling back on briefly because you mentioned you got a scholarship to do mining engineering. Was that a passion or was that just almost a coincidence because it's a very blokey, particularly then, back in the times you were doing it, very blokey sort of an industry and you would have stuck out like a sore thumb, I would have thought. Well, actually, I stuck out a lot because I was the first female to work underground in coal mines in New South Wales and they went on strike.

Really? Because of you? and i mean i grew up on a farm right where my dad was the farm manager and you know he worked six and a half days a week and you know if you if you weren't at home escaping the 45 degree heats in dubbo you were kind of out there helping you know he had a market garden to try and make a bit of extra money and so we were always out there you know helping the family do what was needed moving sheep or centipede irrigations or whatever that was yeah and so i turn up at this mine and they're like you're a girl you can't work i'm like oh jeez tell my dad i've been asleep for ages when did

this happen that the girls didn't have to do what guys did and they put me in these white overalls um so it was like 2000 i was 1989 and they had just changed the legislation to allow women to work underground and um i was working at mummore estate mine underneath the lake so it was a bit wet and they put me in white overalls the guys could see me coming in case they wanted to swear mind you grew up on a farm just you know and um and as soon as we had got the transport down to the base the i'd been sitting in this like you know wet seat and uh through because everything's dripping wet there and the white paper overalls had started dissolving so i was there in my like simpsons boxer shorts and t-shirt going like i think i actually need a real pair of king g's

guys like can we work on this and they're like oh fair enough and you know the funny thing was there's um you know it took them a little while to kind of warm to me and i think it was probably because i was a bit of a chatter and i remember this guy saying geez don't wear emuffs i was like why not he said only girls wear earmuffs mind you I'm the first female right I was like what do you mean only girls wear earmuffs it's like well that's what I was told when I started he's this like 57 year old man who started when he was 17 and at 17 it was like you know don't wear earmuffs because you look like a girl I was like does it make me look more feminine like what's what's the problem here and he's like no oh no it doesn't mean that it means um it's a bad thing it means

like you're a wuss you're a wimp and i was like okay so girls are wusses and wimps i said why what else is going on and it's like well the bosses tell us to do it and we don't do what the bosses tell us to do i was like okay so if i wear earmuffs i don't lose my hearing but if i do wear if i do wear them i look like a bit of a wimp and that i'm you know learning from people who've you've probably you know got my best interest at heart it's like well you put it like that i feel like a bit of a dick i'm like okay i think i might wear earmuffs and he's like and i said are you gonna wear them he's like not too late for me i'm deaf oh jeez there's a hint there's a hint it was all of these kind of things that i've learned over the years where i'm like people

do something because they were told it and didn't question it and when you question it you're like so why do you do that it's like well we we it's the way we've always done it and there's a lot times there's an easy way to doing things and we do that ourselves and I you know I work with a lot of people and we have those conversations about why do you do this it's like jeez I think my mum did it I'm like okay makes sense so you know I just um working in mining it was not a passion it was the pay up so they they gave me the scholarship I was good at English and maths I was good at public relations and and uh you know training and engagement but they weren't giving me any of those scholarships there's a lot cleverer people than me and at that time they're really

trying to encourage women to get into mining and I didn't understand affirmative action back then and you know kind of worked against it somewhat when I found out what was going on but you know I just I turned up and just did my best and you know did well. Yeah love it the I'm sure the whether it's part of your nature or the nurture that came out of the mining exercise but I would have thought the the discipline the risk management that you've already touched on the The structure and the frameworks that you'd start to approach problem solving with would have been very useful once you started getting into the property arena, I would have thought. Absolutely. And, I mean, you know, you're on a site in the middle of, like, you know, Mount Isa and you're sitting around the toolbox waiting to let a blast off and you're talking to four or five people and you're like, you know, what do you do?

And I'm like, oh, I'm a spare time, you know, buying property. I'm like, well, what do you do? And they're like, oh, I'm a spare time. I'm drinking everything I'm earning. like why do that like yeah why am I doing that like I could be out of this job sooner so I started having those conversations that it gave me the opportunity to get a little bit of insight into the motivations of people who didn't know and I was like oh let me train you about how to buy property and so I'm running toolbox talks you know on my sites all over Australia whilst I'm

you know waiting to you know push the button on a blast to to with these guys and I was like this i like doing this yeah yeah i loved it so talk with with todd you you started to get interested in the property and you you've read the robert kiyosaki's book and 120 odd others uh where did that lead you to then talk us through your journey in the in the property front in particular what what did you start doing what it looked like and what what was the evolving strategy as you worked through all of that well one of the people who you know you know jan summers obviously like guru and you know start reading her story and you're like you don't have to pay your home off first before you can access some of the equity and invest i mean there's some really revolutionary

things was like jeez you know i never thought about that and you don't have to have a home you can buy an investment property first i'm like happy days you know i didn't want to have the tied down white picket fence kind of storyline and you know so i you know and you know that term is called Rent Vesting and we did that for like, you know, 15 years. But what really – there was an educator in Melbourne called Henry Kay subsequently had a few issues. Yes, I remember him, yeah. You know, well, he started selling moccasins at, you know, the Vic market.

At the market. So he started well and he made a name for himself and like Peter Spann, And he was very much like, look at my red Ferrari and my, you know, my beautiful friends and things. And, you know, when you're selling the dream, it's interesting to see it. But he had some really interesting methodology behind what he did. And funnily enough, he also used to say, don't buy properties of people who are teaching you how to buy properties.

Interesting. And they'd say, run to the back of the room and sign up for, you know, the apartment in Maribyrnong. And people would run. And I'm like, no, but he told you not to do this. You've been warned. But he actually had some really interesting things that I kind of thought, oh, I could add something to this. And what I really loved was his analytical kind of assessments of areas.

So essentially we drew a 10K circle around Melbourne. We looked at what we could afford, what the median prices were. You know, this is back in 2001 and looked at – and then I was like, well, how do I de-risk investing? and so I was looking at things going well if there's 70% of people own a home 30% of people must rent so I want to be in a suburb where there's renters I want you know people and how how can I tell if there's too many rental properties well what if I have the vacancy rate less than three percent it means that there's more people looking to rent the rent so I just started to put in some I guess low risk filters and out of that came about five suburbs

My husband was looking to buy around the $4.50 mark. I had $4.25, earned a bit less. And so we wanted, and I, you know, strongly believed that a man wasn't a financial plan and he didn't want to be my white knight, so we were going to buy separately. And so, you know, we were in the same suburbs looking at the same areas. And I remember driving down this street in Carlton and I said, you know, one day we'll be able to live here. And, you know, we had chosen Carlton and Fitzroy and Collingwood.

And by the end of three months, you know, we were picking like the auction prices within, you know, 2% or 3% and we're seeing the opportunities, we're seeing how agents and the auctioneers were performing. For every 10 properties we inspected, we'd go to one open home for rental to see, you know, what the competition for the rentals were, how those agents acted. You know, was it the cheeky, you know, office lady who was just looking at social media or was it, which we didn't have back then, she was just looking at her phone, sending texts, or was it, you know, someone who was really trying to show benefits and, you know, features of a property. And so we were building up this real arsenal of knowledge and an opportunity came up, two properties beside each other that were on two single titles. we got the Resodex report back then and we looked at you know what they had tried to sell for what the value was and we really we went in hard to buy the two so he could own one I could own the other and mine was like 425 and his was 475 and we were the highest bidders and um there was a group of uh Queen's Council you know judges etc you know lawyers who who went up to the agent after we

were the highest bidders and invest you know asked to go in and and they said these people are too young to buy a property this quality like tell us what they're after and we'll put a thousand bucks in more and to the agents you know you know kudos he said bugger off and so we went in and negotiated and we had the pest and building inspections we had you showed all the problems that we had and and you know we could see that this was an opportunity and secured those properties so I bought my first property at 425. I used everything I had of that 45,000, 25 grand deposit, mortgage insurance, you know, everything went into that. And I then went and borrowed 50,000 as a personal loan to renovate. And six months later, it was worth 700,000. And so I just pulled

the equity out and went and did it again in Sydney and did it again and did it again. And then, And, you know, five years later, I went, I think we've got enough. Yeah, love it, love it. Let's dive into the Renault area in particular because you've sort of been widely known as the Renault queen and well-earned in that regard. And we're certainly moving into an arena where that sort of active creation of equity is something that a lot of investors are going to have to look at. What sort of prompted you to get into the renovation side of the equation and are you able to share some sort of basic principles that are going to be applicable to those investors who might need to get their hands dirty doing the same in the times ahead? Yeah, look, the reason I got into renovation was two things. First of all, I really didn't want to stuff up and lose my money.

And so I was like, how can I de-risk this? if I can make money in three ways then this is this is going to if I stuck up one I'm going to be okay and so from for the first reason that I kind of got into renovations the strategy was well what if I buy in the wrong area and it doesn't have the capital growth and what if I can't negotiate below what the property is really worth and make money when I buy so that was my first kind of like okay if I can add instant equity and you know improve the rentability the property and create money out of thin air let's do that and the second reason you know really was i was just impatient i'm like you know let's once i'm in i'm all in i've done the

research i am all in so i'm not going to wait around for five years for you know the property to go up by 100 grand if i can throw in 50 grand and have it go up by a couple hundred grand happy days let's get on to the next one because i i mean like you i i honestly believe it's time in the market not timing the market yeah yeah it's but what i also love though because there is a fine art in renovation because a lot of people i say who do it for the first time get carried away spending money in the wrong places or spending too much money without really focusing back on well where's this going to get get me to and what additional equity can i create are there any tips or or sort of basic approaches that uh are relevant that are

worth sharing in that regard that'll give give people a little bit of a framework to to start their renovation approach? Well, I mean, if we look at what I believe are the two biggest mistakes that investors make, there's a saying, I think it's by the Sufis, which is something like the half-wise are dashed against the rocks. And it's kind of like when people go in with half the knowledge. And I see that when people buy in the wrong locations or they find this great location and they're like,

oh, can't afford a house, I'm going to buy a unit. and it's the same with renovations like you know they're going going i know you can make money on renovations i just have to find a dog and make it beautiful and they get these dogs and they make them beautiful like why didn't i make any money and it's still dogs exactly i've got to be honest there's very few properties i look at where i can't improve them but there's also very few properties that you can't um that you can actually make a profit on renovating So for me it was always about strategic renovations and I was always, you know, looking at where are the big ticket items and, you know, the big ticket items we can have a look at but the absolute thing that will make you money in any renovation is making sure that you're in a suburb that has pricing disparity that allows you to make money. Which means that if you're buying at $700,000 an unrenovated property and it's going to cost you $50,000 to do the renovation and you've got all the other costs, holding costs, et cetera, you should be looking at properties worth at least $850,000 that are in that same market that are renovated that are selling.

because if you buy at $700, you renovate for $750 and the renovated property is selling at $750, you've just wasted your time and energy and, you know, quite frankly, opportunity costs of being on something that could get you further ahead. Yeah, spot on, absolutely spot on. And what I love about what you've shared with us already is that yourself and Todd had boots on the ground for quite a period so you knew within an inch of its life what value was in what areas

and how it differed from one precinct to the other. A lot of people just don't get their boots dirty enough these days and roll up the sleeves and really spend, and I'm guessing you probably spent months doing that before you actually pulled the trigger. Yeah. Would I be right in saying that? Yeah, well, it was really, it was interesting.

I did learn, something I did learn in that first renovation and those first two properties was the value of your own time. So, you know, I had a lot less money than Todd had for the renovation and so and you know love him uh he helped me with my painting on my side of the property and so we were getting up you know seven o'clock every morning painting for an hour at night doing two hours you know after work on the weekends you know 12-15 hours to paint my three-story you know property and it took us about three months and then I got this opportunity to move with work to new south wales and he can work from anywhere at that stage in an it profession so we were all

in okay let's move we've got like a month and he got a professional painter in that did it in four days and i've got to say although i have had to do a bit of painting and touch-ups ever since i'm like what that was worth so much more that could have got me into my next deal quicker or it could have allowed us to, you know, do so much more. And, you know, we were, every cent was on the line. Like, you know, I thought we did really clever in buying two properties beside each other and the builder would pull out one kitchen

and then we'd have the other kitchen to cook in and pull out one bathroom and we could have the other bathroom. And this dude on the first wet day in the first week pulled out both kitchens and took the door off the bathrooms. so we had to be up by you know 6 30 before the builders arrived and we had nowhere to cook but we were living very close to ligon street but we couldn't afford the food so we're eating these microwave meals going and you know and you know you know fast forward to a renovation we were doing in eastern suburbs in sydney and the the painter's done his job and he's fantastic he's

packing up for the day and he's like well you know you can't stay here the fumes will kill you like what do you mean it's like well you can't stay here i'm like we're not going to spend money on a motel so we pull out the camp stretcher beds and put them in the kitchen and you know sleep the night away i was like why would you put over 50 bucks that you could put into you know the property or some a nice tap or something where you can actually sleep it there so you know we've always been quite frugal but i do now have or i did at that time go oh okay me me learning how of paint's probably not the best use of my time. Yeah, I often say the same thing, Jane, that don't create a second job when you invest.

It's get good people around you and do your homework and manage your managers to make sure that they're cost effective. But as you say, a professional will get in and out of an exercise in a fraction of the time. And if your energy is put into what you're good at, but also to keeping them honest and making sure they're on track, then that's probably a smarter way to go rather than the stories that you and I hear no doubt about people who buy properties and they get their mates over the carton currency to try and get things done at night and weekends

and then wonder why it doesn't work out. There's some really good learnings in all of that. Yeah, that's awesome. Tell us about, you know, as you go through the journey then, What have been the most challenging events that you've experienced, both on the property front and in your life generally, that have created the greatest learnings and the best changes as you see it? Challenging events. Oh, gosh. You know, probably meeting Todd was the most challenging event.

It was like Pepe Le Pew is like, oh, you're in Melbourne, I'll move to Melbourne. Like, hang on, no. and i mean you know i've essentially grown up in my formative years with you know men underground in coal mines i'm not really buying this story of a happy ending here what's going on and he was fully in like oh yeah let's let's go for it i was like yeah interesting um so he was that was a pretty challenging personal experience and you know i have to say subsequently and even reading you know i like you i'm a student of success i'm i'm just i'm here to absolute hack how people can get what they truly want and live their life's purpose and you know you look at the the numbers

and essentially people with a person who's aligned to their vision as a life partner are a lot more successful and so you know there was a challenge on my front of my initial you know late 20s going hello you know what's going on here to you know looking back 20 years and going you know having someone who's on that journey with you and can share that with you and share the vision and the ups and the downs and the you know sleeping on the floor in the kitchen to you know having the joys of you know negotiating an amazing property purchase you know there that's probably you know something i'd share from a personal point of view but yeah from a from a um property point of view okay so here's something most people don't know i have just sold my very first property after

investing for 21 years bushy love it i can understand why you're never going to get a better time to sell a property if you're at that end of your investment journey tell us about it jane i'd love to unpack that it was it's been a challenge it's probably been my greatest property challenge and i um so i've had this property for 19 years yeah and um it i bought it as a unit and And I've got to be honest, at the time, you know, we went and had a look at these units because we'd been doing renovations, looking for properties. You know, they say, well, RP, not RP, Rich Dad Poor Dad had said something

along the lines that if you look for 100 properties, put in offers, and about 10, you'll end up with one. And so we left Melbourne, went to Sydney. Todd had a different price point to me. Every weekend, we're out. We're, you know, we pull out the Melways. We've got it all planned. We're driving across the bridge five times a day.

We're doing Balmain. We're doing Maroubra, we're doing Manly, Mossman, you know, we're looking at all these places. And we looked at around about 180 properties. We put in six offers. We had two accepted. So we ended up with these properties. And then, you know, this way every weekend.

So then we realised, you know, we'd probably ignored our friends. Like, oh, what do you do? And so this one weekend Todd said, hey, you know, there's these units, you know, and we were always, I was always looking at pricing pressure and people couldn't afford one area, they'd move to the others. And, you know, there was like Kensington and Coogee and Randwick and, you know, all these areas that were like $900,000 price points. And that was Kingsford.

It was like, you know, a lot less, $600,000. And, you know, we thought, oh, we don't really want to invest it. And I'm like, well, we'll go and have a look at some apartments. And they were all selling for about $425,000. And, you know, I walked around and had a look at a few and we saw this one that was really cramped but had really great views. and you could see like Botany Bay and, you know, a small block of 18. So that was all cool.

And about two weeks later, I said, you know, interest rates have just gone up. Everyone's panicking, like hello, 2022, right? Everyone's panicking. This guy's dropped his price to $380. I was like, what? That was the best one. Like what did we miss? We've got the Strata minutes and we looked at it and like there's nothing wrong with this.

And then it became obvious that it was an overseas buyer. It's next to the university in a hospital, which is mostly where my properties are, and on tap tenants in theory. Yeah, exactly. And, yeah, and he obviously kind of put a few kids through uni and the interest rates went up and it was a bit of a worry. And so I said, oh, let's be cheeky. We'll throw in 310.

And the agent, oh, ripped me one. I thought, shoot, he was really upset. He said, this is insulting. I can't give this offer to them. I said, well, you know, technically you do. You have to, yep. Like, yeah, let's talk about your job. And he did and he came back and said they accepted.

I'm like, oh, no, we need finance. What have we done? And we jumped in there and part of our offer conditions was that we could have access beforehand settlement. We got all the quotes done. And on the day that we took over possession of that property, we had the kitchen um being put in put in we painted it we todd and i actually were like we're not going to pay for fancy blinds we actually got these curtains and spotlight

and the hemming that you kind of iron the hem on and we're in our rental property and we realized that the carpet that we're ironing on was actually like a synthetic carpet which was but anyhow and so we put up these curtains and you know we put the kitchen and did the flooring and stuff and in 10 days we spent 14 grand and we got the agents back who said it was now worth 450 wow and we're like jeez happy days so it sounded like a good deal right subsequently we were absentee landlords come 19 what 2017 you know there was a bit of some cracks on the carport they needed to fix it up some be 50 grand didn't really pay much attention and then we got invited to a strata meeting for the $1.1 million spent.

I'm like, wait a second, what's going on here? And it blew out to $1.7 and then it went over to $2 and it's like, this just hurts. This is like, no, this is not adding any value to the property. This is against everything. So what was my great kind of one of my great negotiation deals and it paid for itself straight up, right? You know, there was a $290,000 loan, paid, paid, paid for itself.

but it became a real pain and uh we listed it the day of the first interest rate rise in 2022 which is a bit painful in itself and um you know what had happened was there was like a some of the owners started selling you know november december january a million 980 we're thinking happy days like you know yeah the market might be coming off a little bit we'll take 950 and then we're just and then two more of the 18 units came in the market and they're taking like 940 939 and they were like second interest rate rise oh my god and i was like you know what we're out of here and so we ended up settling on like an 850 and you know people are probably listening to the stories going oh my god it went from a million to 850 you lost money the reality is

this is my worst property in my property portfolio it went from 310 to 850 which if you do the numbers over 19 years it made me 500 a month 30 000 a year for the last 19 years like you know yes there's the costs of doing business but that's how much that went up and that's the worst one in my portfolio it's spot on that that's where property can be very forgiving over time and it allows you to make those sort of uh learning exercises really is is what what we're saying there which is which is awesome now so thanks for sharing that i'd something i'd like to dip into as well you've talked about the importance of your relationship with todd and i agree you know the power of two uh can have a massive impact on on things generally but i'd love to switch

slightly into your relationship with money uh because it's as you and i both know it's what's between your ears that often has a as big an impact as the as the actual bricks and water exercise itself. What's your money story? Can you sort of talk to us about what your relationship with money has been over time? Has it changed and how has that helped you on your journey? Yeah, I guess the thing is was that, I mean, I grew up without money and we're really without a model for money. And it's interesting, most of the mentoring students I work with in the property mentoring today call themselves investors in isolation because, you know,

their partners have said, yes, dear, you go and look after that and I'll just get on with, you know, the rest of raising the family or, you know, earning the keep at work or whatever. And there's a huge responsibility with that. So I recognise that, you know, although you may have someone who's aligned with you in a vision for the life you want to have, then they may kind of give you the burden of that kind of investing. And I guess my attitude to money was that I always knew

I was resourceful Bushy I always knew that if I needed to go and grab an extra job I could do it or if I needed to you know hustle into a sideline or you know sell stuff you know it was an opportunity for me to always do that I really haven't had the the negative money stories that that a lot of people have but the money story that was very early in my life and was reoccurring until I realized it and saw the signposts and now still look to the signposts is you know I remember like mum would give us like 50 cents to go and get milk and my job I always felt was to use the whole 50 cents so the milk was 40 cents I'd be coming back with two half dead tomato plants with five cents you know like i was i was always trying to use everything up and you know when i

had a very great income i was you know living to that income and a little bit over and it wasn't until i saw that signpost and you know a pattern that had been repeating for 20 years that i went hey you know i don't have to use it all and so i then became a bit of a saver yeah yeah there's a bit of a money drop in that exercise let's switch into something that we're both students of as we've mentioned a couple of times already and that's that's around uh what i'd like to call sustainable success what's your definition or your current definition because our definitions tend to change over time what is your definition how are you achieving and as importantly how can others as you say it yeah i think i mean if you think about you know i've got a business your

property success club you know your property success so for me that idea around achieving you know everything that you wanted to achieve to have the freedom of time to do what you want with whom you want when you want you know for the last I would say you know from like 2010 to around 2019 that really was you know my kind of definition to success and so to your point you kind of change a bit i realized that even though i taught thousands of people and you know i you know i guess i get the most beautiful emails and messages from people even someone today you know they buy a three thousand dollar ultimate guided renovation course and they come back and go you are not going to believe the you know the what i've just sold my property for you're not

going to believe this and you know they're making hundreds of thousands of dollars and And I see that, but there's all these people who don't, right? And so I'm like, what was that? And I thought if I can hack what that is, I'm going to be able to teach that. So I'm a learner so I can teach and apply. And so I was like maybe it's something to do with like your mind. So I went to Mindvalley University in Estonia and dragged my son along in 2018. Awesome.

And these people were just extraordinary, right? These people are digital nomads and they're doing Kakao quantum ceremonies and they're doing, you know, strategic digital marketing stuff and, you know, there's all these things going on and I was like, wow, this is pretty impressive. And then I started being asked to mentor and I started mentoring people and some people were just following the bouncing ball and I could really curate the experience and, of course, correct them. But other people were just holding back and, you know,

and I thought there's something else and so I started doing like there's a book called Breathe for instance I'm like oh maybe you know hacking the human condition is part of it and so I participated in the Southern Cross University's breathing kind of experiments last year because I was like oh maybe it's something around you know breath and maybe it's something around mindset and you know what I've done you know in I guess the last few years is I've really concentrated on the your success club and i've taken the property out because i think that that definition kind of is when i sit and do these vision sessions with people i'm like so what is you know the life that you want to lead what is the ideal lifestyle and how much do you think you need for that and

often it's like we need 100 grand or we need 250 grand and then we go back and cost it out i'm like dude you only need like 60 grand like you know and there's a relief and often there's tears and yeah right and then sometimes i do these sessions it's like in actual fact my vision is to create schools in indonesia for kids my vision is to create like i'm working with a divorce coach at the moment helping women not to have to go through you know what i went through or you know i want to create something for kids on the street so they can get out and you know be one with nature and indigenous kind of experiences and so i work with that vision i don't work with i need three properties and so for me sometimes in these vision sessions I'm like you know what although

I can help you with the property stuff I think you've set that up as a condition that once you've reached the obligation of that financial position you can then get on with life and live your true value and for some people it's true that they want to achieve that property position but for most I find that you know there's other opportunities and I love you know helping them develop whatever that business service you know mindset change or shift is or just that understanding of how their beliefs are coming up and are stopping them and you know I think you know this week I spoke with a lady and and she was just beside herself I need to have a strategy session because I've got these two properties I have to sell one you know I'm feeling sick and

anxious so I set up a strategy session with her and I said it's you know what's going on she's like oh this real estate agent was so good and then he let me down and now I'm feeling you know like really like it's almost like a mini death like this is how it's affecting my health and there's other property the you know the the legal team kind of did this and they let me down with this and so I start pulling out the patterns and I'm like has this happened in other times just like yeah and so we started just exploring the patterns of you know when she gives too much responsibility without looking over and setting the framework and people are taking advantage and then she feels that you know these terrible things that happen and the reality is she didn't

need to sell either of the properties but she didn't have a vision to see the the lens through what she wanted to achieve so you know I sat down with her and her husband we did a vision session of what the life they was they wanted and neither of these properties actually fulfilled what they wanted to do and so they've moved within the last day of you know moving towards exactly what they wanted and it was until they kind of had that vision they didn't have it so you know i know that a lot of a lot of people i speak to they're you know they're seeing their boss's job and they're going oh it's kind of working really hard do i really want that and how many golf games can i have until i'm like satisfied or how many health retreats and there's this missing something and i

think you know for me success is sustainable success is around having the resources to just have that freedom of choice to follow your passion and your true nature and often the conditions we have is that we need wealth first and we have this huge number in mind and in actual fact we don't i 100 agree that again that's very refreshing to talk to someone who helps people as i call it living by design it's getting really crystal clear on exactly how you want to live and then being able to monetise properly what that lifestyle is rather than just pluck a number out of the air and generally it's a massive number

that scares them into submission to some degree. But actually getting people to put the properties aside because as you and I know, properties are just the vehicle. I've often said that if kebabs gave me a higher growth and a better return, I'd invest in kebabs. It just so happens that property is the best incentivised model in Australia to help you achieve your ultimate lifestyle. But I love that you're having that conversation

because it's one that, again, very few people in the property or the finance industries actually do. And what I find about it, Jane, is once you've helped someone get really clear on exactly how they want to live, that becomes both a magnet and a compass because they get excited about how they're going to live down the track that motivates them and it allows them to jump over the inevitable speed bumps

that you're going to incur along the journey. But it's also a compass because it then means that every decision you're making day-to-day is about, is that taking me closer to that destination or further away? So it starts to give you a bit of a GPS. So when you're off track, you can start to tack and recorrect and get back on track. So I absolutely love that.

Tell me, you've sort of already painted out for us what your current vision is in terms of helping others and helping those in need with the fantastic work that you're doing there. I want to switch back into the investment arena for a minute because you've talked to us to some degree about your most challenging and let's call it your worst investment. What's been your best investment to date

and what have you learned from that? Okay, I'm going to be cheeky and say the best real estate I've invested in is probably between my ears. It's that knowledge, the gaining of knowledge and working with people who have done it before. And so I think, you know, I've paid up to $60,000 a year for the right mentor and coach to work with for a business coach and I've worked with, you know, digital marketing

and education coaches and mentors in the States flying backwards and forwards and video coaches over there as well. And so I've always, I would say, you know, rather than spending, you either invest time or money, right? And so you can spend the time doing it yourself, which I always thought I had to do, and then I realised that I didn't. So it's probably my best investment has been really, you know, getting the right professionals on board to help me.

The best property investment that I've made, you know, they're just continually, I know I shouldn't be surprised, but, you know, you look at properties and you're like, i bought it for 420 and now it's worth 2 million and you're like wow that's amazing but that's quite a few of them right and you kind of like that it's kind of it was to your point a life by design it was like okay i had the vision of what this property should be i understood the pricing pressures of the nearby suburbs i de-risked it by making sure that there was renters i can use census data to get down to the streets the renters want to be in you know i've created

an algorithm that takes the 16 and a half thousand suburbs in australia and comes up with you know within between 300 and 2.2 million about 1100 that i would even start to do in you know kind of assessments on and you know everyone's usually between like you know 700 and 800 or 800 and 900 or 500 and 600 and there's usually only across all of australia about 50 suburbs and so when you get to i want to buy in brisbane there's about 10 like so i can i can i taught people how to do that in my courses and then when i was kind of you know laying in hospital after having brain surgery in 2019 and i was like oh my gosh i should in case i can't work my brain after this i should actually you know make this better and i you know worked with someone and in seven seconds now you know

using sqm data that i purchased i spent thousands every month on data um you know i can now create that list for people and so you know where to buy so i think you know i can hack things quickly and so the investments that i've used in kind of um looking at the processes looking at the way things are and then you know hacking the quickest way to do it with the most reliable information has allowed me to have properties that do what my properties do and it's allowed me to enjoy teaching and being on the journey with people. So I think they're probably the best investments I've made. Yeah, I love it.

I love it. Now, you sort of touched on mentors there and how important they've been. Can you tell us a little bit more about who have been the most influential mentors in your journey so far, Jane? um oh look i i i'm someone who um engages people as they need them so in 2005 when i decided to become a mortgage broker i engaged a mortgage broker at that stage who was you know amazing well respected still is today and and you know he said i'll take a cut of your commissions i'm like do whatever it takes and you know i was ringing him four or five times a day with what

What's LVR mean? And, you know, these silly things when you're having a – and if a bank says it's a favourable purchase, what does that mean? And what's the difference between the principal and interest with an offset compared to an interest? So, you know, stupid little questions as you're learning, as you're learning back in 2005. And by 2006, it was like two calls a day.

And by 2007, it was one call a week. And by 2010, it was like one call a quarter. And, you know, he was always there when I needed him. And that was amazing. And then when I was like, jeez, I'm teaching all these people one by one how to do property and I can hack this, I then looked at Brendan Bouchard and he was over in the States and he essentially said, and I was looking for someone authentic who was trustworthy, wasn't steak knives and, you know, dark hat marketing, you're going to die poor kind of stuff. And we know that that sells better than, you know, let's be aspirational. And, you know, as much as I'd like being unicorns and, you know, fairy floss, the reality of the world is you've got to sell stuff at some stage. So I wanted to be authentic to help fund the development of more and more things and services.

And so I flew back and forth to his mastermind. And, you know, back in 2011, 10 grand a year seemed extraordinary. And then, you know, I made my first 10 grand out of my courses and then more. I was like, oh, okay, that works. And then, you know, so I've kind of invested in those mentors. My business mentor, you know, Mark Falzon, he was amazing. He developed the kind of finance and education and businesses that I wanted to have. You know, I had business in the top 100 BIW and sold them.

And, you know, you go up to his farm and you sit down and he says, you know, what's your true life desire? And you're like, dude, I want to make sure that the cash flow works. He's like, no, let's start on this thing. so he really he really started me thinking and then um his mentor was William Whitecloud and back in 2020 I had two of my mentoring students who were struggling with their career choices and I was like well I'm not really across this let me find someone and a friend of mine reached out and said hey check out this free create your destiny course and so I looked at it and thought okay this how you do anything is how you do everything so they were struggling with their

careers but also relationships and also they're investing so i was like let's just hack to the main problem here and i had started building up a bit of a skill around seeing people's recurring patterns and um so i did his course i'm like hell this has really helped them i'm like but i'm really loving it so i invested in the rest of his curriculum and then i was just like gosh this guy's 70 you know i feel a bit indulgent in doing like a mindset mentor you know twenty thirty thousand 30 000 whatever it is and i was like but he's amazing what could i do and achieve and help and change and he made me realize actually that you know there is this i'm going to call it oh what am i going the cinderella syndrome which is kind of like if i serve others and put others

first i can then justify doing something for myself and i realized i'm i'm like full-on dragging people through my courses who may not necessarily want to do it i know five percent of people finish the course as they start and i'm like no they're getting this is like 75 it's my goal i'm going to drag them through and i realized i was kind of depowering people by taking the power from them they they were happy to buy the course and never do it that made them feel better yeah and and i although i was trying to save everyone not everyone wanted to be saved and i then realized that that was a belief around you know being unworthy or being the tall poppy or being the imposter or whatever that is and so I looked at that and went you know what I want to

work with people who you know know that there's something kind of missing but aren't too sure what it is and they feel a little kind of guilty because they've got the good house and the nice husband and wife or the great kids and job and and people like just be happy get on with it you know and so for me it was you know I really kind of looked at at that bigger picture and just went okay there's there's something else here that i want to spend some time on yeah i love it that you've really given us a a breath there of the mental exercise in terms of its uh impact and and it's it's not how much something costs it's the value that it gives you ultimately and the journey it takes you on now while we're on the subject of mentors i'm going to just do a

quick plug here uh jane so excuse me for this so for those of you listening and you want to ensure that you're optimising your approach either as a first-time investor or as an existing investor who's struggling to make it work. Feel free to reach out to Jane or myself and I often run bushy blockbusters for an hour of power where you can talk to me personally on any questions, queries or issues you'd like to discuss. If you want to do that, just jump on knowhowproperty.com.au,

hit the purple book appointment button in the top right-hand corner, then click on the Property Pathway Finder option and you can book in a time that suits you. And just for $295, you can ask me anything you want on property or finance for a full 60 minutes. So just as a quick aside there, I'd love now to sort of get back into the guts of the whole – Can I just say something to you about that?

Yes. Everyone's listening to this. Like go and click on that link because my experience has been one of the things in selling courses has always been, you know, throw in an hour with the expert and everyone always encouraged me to do that when I had the online courses, as I still do. and what amazes me is most people said it was the number one thing that made them buy a course but they were then hesitant

because they're like, oh, I'm going to speak to the guru. I'm telling you, go and click on Bushy's link because it'll probably be the best hour you spend. Well, and likewise with yourself, Jane, with the work you're doing in the mentoring space. I just find that it's an hour they can ask anything. It's amazing where that conversation leads and opens their eyes to things that they just haven't thought about

and I'm sure you've had the same revelational experience with all the people that you talk to. It's not like you're committing to something big. It's just 60 minutes of your time to really break through some of the blockages that you mightn't even be aware of that are preventing you from achieving what you're looking to achieve. So I'd really appreciate your comments on that. Thanks, Jane.

Now, Jane, let's sort of get into the guts of the... ..particularly the education process, given your current and ongoing focus there. and you've sort of touched on some of the biggest mistakes that you see property investors making. On the flip side of that, what do you believe are the keys to successful investment and why? Oh, the keys...

Look, I really have to say you have to start with that vision because, you know, when the tenants ring you at midnight with the fuse that doesn't work or the painter tells you that, you know, you've got to move out of your house or the tile is two tiles short and you've bought a job lot that's, you know, the last in line and you're like, oh, my God, why am I doing this? Being connected to that vision.

And I'm not talking about vision boards and I'm not talking about the secret if you think it's going to happen. I'm talking about real actionable vision that you have an emotion connection to. So every single morning I start the day with nine choices that I make and those nine choices I just step into the full emotion of them already being achieved. And, geez, you know, isn't it extraordinary during the day how many opportunities I'm then aware of that come up and don't miss me that allow

me to achieve what I want to achieve. Love that. Absolutely love that. I use a similar process myself, actually, and it's just amazing by preimagining how something's going to go that nine times out of ten, that's exactly what happens. So that's a brilliant process. And I think strategy is probably number two.

yeah okay okay strategy right yeah well that one leads to the other if you have the vision first then the strategy is how am i going to make that vision happen but again i'd be interested in your thoughts on this but you know when people come to see me jane uh all they want to talk about is property and i say no let's let's just park property over there for now uh what's your ideal lifestyle look like and and nine times out of ten i either get blank expressions or crickets or Or, oh, I actually never thought about that before. And I often say, well, there's no point even thinking about property until you get clear on that because if you don't know where you're heading, then you could be buying the wrong property in the wrong structure and in the wrong setup that's going to take you in the completely opposite direction. What's your experience been in that sphere?

Oh, look, I could tell you so many stories. What comes to mind quickly is I ran this reno fest. I had a couple hundred people and we were offering this workshop at the time. And this lady, she was about 85, and she came up and said, I'm buying your workshop. I'm like, really? Like tell me a bit about this. I love property.

I've been investing in property for years and, you know, that's all I know of what to do. I said, look, I'm really hesitant in selling, you know, something like this to someone without understanding fully what's going on. And so, you know, I made some time and had a chat with her after that thing because, you know, a lot of people, they whip out their credit cards and I'm the person who said, wait a second, don't buy it. So I'm not a great salesperson.

But anyhow, and, you know, she had just put her husband into this care because he had Alzheimer's and she couldn't drive for her own health and she's driving, taxiing, you know, 40 minutes each way to sit with him 12 hours a day. And here she's talking about her next investment. And I'm like, I think you're good. Like what's the vision at the end? Like where do you want to be?

And she said, oh, no, I'm donating the millions to, like, the Geelong Hospital. Okay, well, I think you're good with investment. How about, you know, tell me about your home. She's like, oh, it's big and, you know, the stairs hurt me and I'm 40 minutes from my husband. I'm like, how about you get some help to downsize to somewhere around the corner from him? She's like, oh, you mean, like, look after myself first?

You deserve it, sweetie. And it's funny, I spoke to a mentoring client last week and she was like, I have to talk to you about buying this $500,000 bolt hole unit in Brisbane. And we spoke for 48 minutes and the last 12 minutes were on the unit. The rest was, why do you think you need this unit? And it was around other things she felt that this could satisfy. So, you know, I definitely get, because I've been through that journey, I definitely get how property can be the leveraging tool for you

to fulfil your obligations financially to get on with what you want. Some people can just cut to the chase and some people need to do that and you know what I love is working with both sides of that but how you do anything is how you do everything and I think you know I just see so many parallels and crossovers and the funny thing is when people kind of work out you know their beliefs their limiting conditions you know the thing reclaiming their life often the finances come right the opportunities the jobs and and you know and all all the you know adventure into new new businesses And that's – I just love seeing – I love human beings.

The human doings, I'm not so keen on. The human beings, I'm all in. I love some of your expressions there. They're absolutely crackers. I haven't heard that one, but I'm going to use it. So that is awesome. Now, we've sort of danced around this, and I mentioned this in the intro, but I'd love for you to break down the key elements of your unique Trident strategy

because I know it's a cracker and something that would be very useful, particularly at this time for investors who are looking to go in that direction. Yeah, look, you know, we've essentially been there. And that is there's three ways to make money in property. When you buy, so buying below the market if you can, seeing opportunities if you can. Maybe it's negotiation. Maybe it's terms.

Maybe it's just the way you negotiate or put in your offer. Like, you know, one of the things that I teach in the Ultimate Guide to Renovation is the structure of office. Most people put in, you know, my offer is $430,000, you know, with a 30-day settlement, 10% down. You know, that will get you a yes or no. If you go in with, you know, $430,000 at these conditions or $450,000 and we settle in a year's time with 5% down, you know,

that gets an either or. And I think, you know, in negotiations we've had a very fast-moving market at 20, 21, et cetera, beginning of 22. And people, you know, I still work with people who are doing deals. And, you know, even my own experience, properties are selling in the same building, a million dollars three months ago, six months ago, and now we're at 850. So, you know, I know there's deals to be done and people want to,

you know, it's not just debt and divorce that are making people sell. It's, you know, kind of desperation, despair, they're over it, like I'm out. and then you know so that's buying below the market making money when you buy making money with the property by creating equity out of thin air now i've done that personally with renovation i teach that i teach how you use one dollar to make two dollars how to understand pricing disparity how to assess the suburbs you know it could be adding a granny flat it could be subdividing it's around that adding equity whilst you have the property and you know making

it to a higher and better use and then it's looking at the long term which is capital growth what's the pricing pressure what is the you know the things that are driving this economy and you know i just i i go deep and try to understand reasons why and you know for instance i'm not reading the papers and all the property people on what's happening in the market yes i make a cursory look but i want to get to the details myself so you know i'm talking to immigration lawyers and saying where are you guys going to be putting these 180 to 240 000 people in the next year you know where are you recommending that they go to and they're like well where they get the most permanent residency points so that they can become a pr quicker i'm like where's that

regional areas adelaide's a regional area hello you know and so you're looking at that or i'm talking to you know the the victorian regional development people and they're going geez you The regions are coming off because there's no jobs and the city companies where these people worked are now telling them that they can work away from the job but they're going to take a 20% pay cut. Everyone's moving back. I'm like, okay, that's the kind of information I need to know.

So the triad strategy is around having good data, knowing where to buy, locations essential, adding quick equity and buying below the market, making money when you buy, in the mean term and at the end. Yeah, beautiful. Yeah, again, it's a really good, easy, memorable framework to apply to the approach. And I often find the simpler it is, in essence, the easier it is to follow the bouncing ball. So I'd love your thoughts on that. Just while we're on that, because I know you and I had an awesome discussion on Realty Talk recently around your thoughts around the regional access to lifestyle.

Let's expand a little bit more on that because there are certainly some commentators who are of the belief that there's been a permanent shift that's really shaken things up. From the discussion we've had, you're not quite in that school. Can you just elaborate a little bit on that because I think it would be interesting to share? Yeah, look, I think what's really interesting, the census data is coming out at the moment. the latest you know information indicates that the rise of the regions may not fully be something that's sustainable i i work on premises so you know i'm a scientist an engineer at heart and so a premise is something that's unproven you go with it until it's proven right and then it becomes an immutable law so i work on a premise that um you know and you read like the pain and

gain report that shows us for the last 30 years it's it's established not new houses in capital cities that outperform the market and the longer you own the property the better it's going to do and so i'm like okay that's a working premise 2020 i put aside that premise and went okay and said to my mentoring students like hold back guys i really there's something happening here we need we need to just watch this this is not about you know timing the market this is about But this is a huge shift in things. So I started researching what was happening in, you know, the Chinese property markets, Italy, US, UK,

when they came back from lockdowns and I was like, September, full on let's go for this. But there was still that kind of people are moving to the regions. And, you know, you're talking to a country girl, so I'm not against country towns. And I've lived in like Mudgee and Singleton as a mining engineer. You know, I visited nearly every country town and every mining town in Australia as an expert explosives person.

And so, you know, and this is where my family is from, you know, fifth generation kind of farmers. So I get this, there's an attraction to it. But I also get that, you know, those people who are in their, you know, early 40s to 50s and they've got a careers and it seems nice to move the regions, they've also got teenagers and they're like, oh, I should probably, they've had two years of no socialisation they probably need to have a really good you know schooling experience and then opportunity for you

know on on learning am I going to get that if I move to you know Broken Hill yeah and so you kind of you're looking at nothing against Broken Hill got good friends Broken Hill but you know you kind of look at that and you're like okay so there's that happening and now you've got all these companies saying if you're going to work from home you're going to take a pay cut and then you've got a lot of these cities that you know when I talk to these regional development people they're like there's no jobs here people are moving here that it seems cheap but they can't work here so although there's someone in the family can work remotely the other person can't and a lot of those country towns are actually the people are a little bit I'm going to say resistant because you've taken

the homes of their kids their kids can't stay because they've got to port a home you know so I think that there is a lovely whitewash that is on that narrative but I always just follow the data and at the moment the data indicates that people are moving back yeah I think it's the issue here is that there's a lot of blanket statements made that they that applies to all regions and as you and I know the devil's in the detail Jane and and I certainly believe there are going to be regional hubs that have the critical mass of population who have the diversity of industry and employment and are supported by infrastructure in terms of hard infrastructure as well as the technology infrastructure that and those regional hubs I think are going to

continue to do very well but there are a lot of others who don't tick those boxes that are that are just flashing the pants so I think the the essence there is that you know if someone takes the time to have a chat to you or myself or or others who are right across what the data is telling us and can then look through the generalized statements to those areas that are ticking all of the appropriate investment boxes, that's great. But just to say, okay, well, you know, everyone's jumping on this regional access to lifestyle, therefore all regional properties are going to be great, is a motherhood statement that is going to get people into trouble. So, yeah, definitely devil in the detail on that front.

You and I agree, Bushy. When we're talking regional, we're not talking satellite cities. We're not talking Newcastle, Central Coast, Geelong, Ballarat, Sunshine Coast, Gold Coast. We're talking, you know, 300km from the coast kind of stuff. Yeah, exactly. Ood and a whoop whoop. Just left of the Blackstone. Exactly right.

Yeah, it did right. Now, I'd love to jump into education because it's an absolute passion of yours and you've, you know, You've built an incredible suite of opportunities for people to really educate themselves in a very safe community. You've built up massive communities. The one in particular I'd love you to elaborate on because I think it brings together beautifully the renovating your mind as well as your material. That's the Renovate Yourself, Renovate Your Wealth workshop. Talk to us a bit about that because I think it's going to bridge a number of different gaps in the equation as far as that goes. Yeah, look, it's just come from, I guess, a lifetime of learning and working with people who are investors and just saying that sometimes there's this need for wealth and however you define wealth, but there's this need for having abundance or just being comfortable.

And then there is a limiting belief or there's something and there's a pattern or it just keeps on happening that just when it all seems to happen, it's robbed from you. And, you know, this kind of pattern is this old operating system that I think a lot of people work on is actually undermining their success. And so, you know, as I said, I work on premises until they're proven. One of the premises that I work on and probably my guiding light North Star kind of premise is that the universe conspires for our success and we are the ones who get in the way of it. And so, yeah, and that's when I just look at it. I have these conversations with people about money and I ran this for my mentoring students because I was like, you know, some of you, we're working together in getting down to the suburbs, the streets, the alerts are coming up.

like i need to understand what's going on and so i kind of put together this renovate yourself renovate your wealth um workshop and i ran it with them and one of the things is what's your like you asked me what's your money story tell me about your childhood memories and we we kind of were sharing some of these experiences and and i was i was blown away and so were they and they had never realized it the stories that their parents were telling them that they had adopted and some of the parents were telling the stories about their parents that they're adopting and so these money stories that were you know you've got to work hard for a living and and once you work hard for 40 years then you're going to get the reward or you know it's it's the it's

you have to go to university to get a good job and when you get a good job then you can afford to buy a house and have a family and then at the end you'll be rewarded and or you know don't be like your uncle because you know he made lots of money and then he lost it and he gambled it away and then he made it and he lost it and you know education is the key and like this guy's got an education business and so we could actually see very clearly some of these money stories and so this is really fascinating to me and then by diving into them and going what do you really want what what is is it a 250 000 lifestyle if everything got taken from you tomorrow you woke up you're the only person alive there's electricity and food to keep you going forever

do you want the mansion by the water or do you want the you know you know nice safe environment where you can you know spend your days digging up the the ground and putting in a few lettuces do you want the ferrari do you want the gucci you know do you want to have that um those things that you can show others are you trying to validate your own worth through others and so you know just understanding that and i think you know for me i've always been about um getting to understand people have a life story right yeah their life is one thing but their story is another and so i want that to be separated let's understand the story that's replaying because how you do anything is how you do everything and this just one day workshop and you know i just

you know it's very reasonably priced but I just want people to be able to have something affordable to just shine the light on where they are and go you know what what is this story that I'm running with and how is the old operating system maybe not helping me and when I think about it you know we have 500 billion pieces of information that we receive into our mind every second but we only have the capacity to actually absorb 2 000 bits of information so although we are receiving this information the easiest way the path of least resistance the comfortable the way we do things is how we've always done things and so we only see what we expect and we only and we've got this filter that is one of the past and we're trying to define ourselves or

achieve something new in the future but we're still living with this filter in the past and i just want to be able to help people uh see you know the opportunities for them that may exist that they have never seen before because they're living with these filters yeah i love it love it i'm certainly going to strongly recommend that anyone listening uh signs up for that because it's it'll it'll make the uh invisible visible in terms of your own mindset your own paradigms how you see the world that you assume are correct but there are things sitting in their subconscious that are potentially undermining things and you need to get out of the way of yourself.

And that approach that you've taken with that is going to be revelational to anyone who may have blockages that they can't see. So, look, I love that. Now, I want to shift now into what I affectionately refer to as the ambush round, Jane, which are the old podcast fast-forward questions that everyone wants to glean your words of wisdom on.

so to kick that off what's your favorite quote and why oh i love the quote there's a quote that says come to the edge he said and they said i'm scared come to the edge he said they said i'm scared but they came he pushed them and they flew love it love it that's self-explanatory that one It's conquering our own fears. Yeah, it's beautiful. What about on the literary fund? You've got at least 120 property books on the shelf plus a whole bunch of others that are now getting into the mindset and how we think arena. What would be the top book that you'd recommend that we read and why?

Sure. Look, it's funny. I was talking to my mentor, William Whitecloud, the other day and I said, I have just realized that all of my property mentoring students, I send them your book, not mine. I should also be sending mine. How funny is that? But I really think, and because he's booked The Magician's Way, you know, I just think it's a really, it's like Rich Dad, Poor Dad. It's a lovely story that allows you to kind of look at, you know,

some of these things that might be limiting you or the way that, you know, you could potentially be living a different type of life than what you have if you're not happy with where you are. Yeah, I love it. Again, it just sort of rocks our foundations and gets us to have a really good look at ourselves. So I haven't got that on the Kindle yet, but that's going on my Kindle this afternoon, Jane. Now, back on the investment front, what's both the worst and the best piece of investment advice that you've ever received today? Well, the best advice is probably I'd have to say buy property, bricks and mortar, you know, and do the research

and just, you know, do it in a low-risk way. It doesn't have to be risky. So, you know, I think of, you know, the Jan Summers, you don't have to pay your property off, you know, get in there and understand the market, what people want, and then, you know, that's probably been my best kind of advice that I've received. The worst advice is probably, you know,

a lot of people have warned me about, you know, you might owe too much you might you should wait interest rates are going up there's you know recessions coming there's you know there's an Iraq war like whatever it is there's always an excuse and I honestly believe you know that if I continue to be focused on the things that I can't control they're just going to stress me out and I'm just going to be fixated on those and I'm going to have inertia and so it's around understanding situation and taking action yeah yeah totally and taking the action is a bit there's way too many people that fear leaves them sitting on the fence and they don't do anything so uh you'd love that um let's talk to you and

you've touched on a few of these already and shared a couple of great ones with us but we talk about personal happy habits or rewarding rituals or daily disciplines that you employ what what's the one that's contributed most to your success today um look definitely the ritual around making choices as aligned to my vision and you know i'm not talking like fast cars and you know hollywood houses or anything you know i have very very simple visions around you know interacting with inspiring and stimulating people taking me on new adventures and you know you're living freely from my heart and creating and guiding empowering people in wealth creation and you know I have very simple kind of visions you know having happy loving supportive relationship and light-hearted

relationship with my son and husband and so you know I step into that experience you know for 30 seconds for each of them every morning doesn't take me more than five minutes and you know it aligns me for the day and you know when i step outside my door every morning i set the intention that um i am going to observe you know the the awe and wonder of the world in ways that others don't see it and see the abnormal in the normal and you know i just i love setting intention that allows me to be aware of those other 500 billion bits of information i love it I think the curiosity of the child is long gone in many of us, Jane. If we can just rediscover the awe and the wonder that is in front of our eyes,

rather than become blind to it, then rather than focus on what we don't have and what we haven't got, to enjoy what we do have just has a massive impact on your outlook and good attracts good. So I love that. It's such a good process and it's such a good way to start the day and enjoy the day uh now sort of bringing it all to a close then jane because you've been very generous with your time today if you were to sort of summarize our great conversation

what are the key takeaways and immediate actions that aspiring and existing investors should take i look i really um i guess the message is you know if the universe was truly conspiring for your success and you're the one getting in the way look at the signposts that indicate that you know you are getting in your way and and recognize that and just have an awareness of what the old operating system is and if you want things done differently and different outcomes what's the new operating system so you know that would be probably my number one um the second one would be invest in yourself you know the real estate between your ears is probably the best investment you ever make and if i was going to come up with a third i'd probably say that

inertia is essentially taking no action is going backwards in this fast moving world this is as normal as the world will ever be in the future and you really have to adapt and you know resilience and tenacity are one thing i don't think you have to work hard to have what you want but i do know that there's action to be taken yeah i love it beautifully said absolutely beautifully said And, Jane, what's new and next for you? Well, I'm really excited about Your Success Club, obviously. I just love this concept of bringing people to their hearts and overcoming limiting beliefs.

And maybe it's about money and maybe it's about other conditions. And that is really where I'm putting my focus. You know, I'm mentoring in that space as well and doing, you know, business clarity kind of packages for people who are trying to define what that service is and I just I love being on boards business boards and advisory boards and I love seeing people you know follow what their dream is and you know having the business kind of background that I have and digital marketing and education and speaking and writing books and podcasts blah blah but you know there's a there's a lot of you know experiences that I've had but

more importantly there's a lot of people I know and I just love connecting people and so you know I'm just I'm just loving exploring that space your property success you know the courses that are there are still there and people are still sending me messages 10 years on going your book I bought last week and it's changed my life and and you know the information is not new it's not sexy it's boring it's meat and potatoes but geez you know it just has changed so many lives and if I can just be one little cog that creates intergenerational change and has more parents sitting at the table having these conversations with their kids setting examples living their full life to their purpose imagine what the next generation can do yeah absolutely love it

great inspiration and motivation there for all of us and i just want to say that you know given the importance of education and mentoring to anyone's success i'm going to challenge everyone listening to jump on yoursuccessclub.com.au and you'll see the the link in the show notes and make sure you sign up for Jane's free masterclass, Roads to Riches. There's a whole bunch of other stuff there that might be just as relevant, but take the time, jump on that exercise, and then you can contact with Jane and her brilliant community that she's built. So I really encourage you to make sure we do that.

Now, before we close, Jane, I just want everyone to remember that we all need to dream like we're going to live forever and live every day like it's going to be our last. I just want to thank you for being so generous with your time on the show today Jane I want you just keep up the awesome work I'm really looking forward to staying in touch with you and we've really only just scratched the surface today Jane so we'll have you back at a later point to continue the conversation absolutely thank you so much for the opportunity and and as you said you know Siamese twins I don't think we're going to be strangers excellent Jane we'll talk again

soon. Thanks for that. Bye for now. 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.