Property Hub - Investment Insights & Inspiration - Get Invested: Jason Back on the high performance power of mentoring

Episode Date: June 22, 2019

All of the world’s game changers, innovators and achievers have catapulted their learning and results through their mentors – the greats that have gone before them. So what is a mentor? Why do all successful people use them? What makes a good mentor? How can a good mentor help you? What has mentoring got to do with investing? These are all the questions that today’s guest – a recognised mentoring specialist – will answer for you and motivate you to get invested in good mentors as a springing board to your ongoing achievements. Jason Back is the Founder and Director of Broker Essentials, he’s a well know figure in the finance industry and sought-after media commentator. Jason is a thought leader and subject matter expert in the mortgage broking industry. Jason has developed a unique, coaching, training, consulting and facilitation mentoring business that helps services professionals achieve best practice and develop the habits of high performance businesses. Jason helps you grow your performance and your business by focusing on sales through service excellence. He takes you through the behaviours of the nation’s best businesses by focusing on process, business management and the client journey. He was the Managing Director of The Australian Lending and Investment Centre (ALIC) and was instrumental in taking ALIC to the forefront of the mortgage brokering industry. Jason has over 27 years’ experience in the finance sector having worked in senior sales, distribution and management roles for ANZ and having provided financial advice and services on behalf of financial planning, equity trading platforms, private banking, lending and retail distribution brands. Here's a small taste of his many career accolades: In 2014,15,16 and 2017 ALIC was voted the top independent brokerage of the year by Mortgage Professional Australia, Australia’s best brokerage in 2014 & 15 at the Australian Mortgage Awards and MFAA in 2016 and 2018. Jason was also a finalist for Though Leader of the Year three years running ABA 2017/18/19. This discussion is filled with many practical insights. Enjoy. Jason's book recommendation: Triggers by Marshall Goldsmith, Getting Things Done by David Allen, Dare to Lead by Brene Brown. Get Invested is the podcast dedicated to time poor professionals who want to work less and live more. Join Bushy Martin, one of Australia’s top 10 property specialists, as he and his influential guests share know-how on the ways investing in property can unlock the life you always dreamed about and secure your financial future. Remember to subscribe on your favourite podcast player, and if you're enjoying the show please leave us a review. Find out more about Get Invested here https://bushymartin.com.au/get-invested-podcast/  Want to connect with Bushy? Get in touch here https://bushymartin.com.au/contact/  This show is produced by Apiro Media - http://apiropodcasts.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We've actually lost a generation of financial fitness that we're not teaching this next generation around, you know, the importance of diversification or, you know, what different asset classes or tax strategies can be and how to really prosper over a lifetime. We're very much around instant gratification or quick wins or, you know, the easy bet. Welcome to the Get Invested podcast, where we share great conversations with experts from all walks of life to uncover their secret know-how on where they invest their time, their skills, and their money and the benefits that this has created.

You see, the truth is that everyone invests. Every minute of every day, we're investing our time, our skills, our energy, and our money in something. Some of us are investing consciously, some unconsciously, sometimes for good, sometimes for bad, and sometimes for no impact. Get Invested will help you to start living by design not by default i'm going to help you to make it happen not let it happen you'll hear the top tips

on how you can live with conscious intent so that you can live more work less and leave a living legacy by investing now listen to the show to discover the top tips on how to get started make the most of your investment journey and ultimately to be living your dream not someone else's. More episodes can be found on iTunes or at bushymartin.com.au forward slash get invested. Thanks for listening. And now let's get invested. Hi, Freedom Fighters. What do Aristotle, Einstein and Arnie all have in common? They all learn the same way so how do you learn what do you think is the best way to learn do you just work hard reinvent the wheel and try to figure things out yourself or do you turn to good books or google

searches or do you seek advice from others well in my book the freedom formula i talk about the importance of leverage of other people's expertise to fast track your results but i cite an interesting quote by Douglas Adams, human beings who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so. Now, in my ongoing study of sustainable success over the last 35 years, one of the common threads I've found is that people who make the biggest impact in any area of endeavor all do so with the help of mentors or coaches. The greatest investors, inventors, innovators, entrepreneurs, pioneers, artists, sports people, musicians, you name them, every single one of them stood

on the shoulders of their mentors. Almost everyone I look up to and respect all have mentors. Let me give you a couple of quick examples. Bill Gates had Ed Roberts. Warren Buffett had Benjamin Graham. Oprah had Mary Duncan. Steve Jobs had Robert Freedland. Mark Zuckerberg had Steve Jobs. Now, there's a great example of paying the learning cycle forward. Michael Jordan had Phil Jackson. Aristotle, Einstein, Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk.

The list just goes on and on. All of the world's game changers, innovators and achievers have catapulted their learning and their results through their mentors, the greats that have gone before them. So what is a mentor? Why do all successful people use them? What makes a good mentor? How can a good mentor help you?

And what has mentoring got to do with investing? These are all the questions that today's guest, a recognised mentoring specialist, will answer for you and motivate you to get invested in good mentors as a springboard to your ongoing achievement. jason back is the founder and director of broker essentials and he's a well-known figure in the finance industry and a very sought-after media commentator jason's a thought leader and a subject matter expert in the mortgage breaking industry jason's developed a really unique coaching training consulting and facilitation mentoring business that helps service professionals achieve

best practice and develop the habits of high performance businesses it helps you grow your performance and your business by focusing on sales through service excellence. He takes you through the behaviours of the nation's best businesses by focusing on process, business management and the client journey. Prior to this, he was the Managing Director of the Australian Lending and Investment Centre or ALEC and was instrumental in taking ALEC to the forefront of the mortgage-breaking industry. He's got over 27 years' experience in the finance sector and he's worked across senior sales, distribution, many management roles for ANZ and he's provided financial advice and services on behalf of financial planning,

equity trading platforms, private banking, lending and retail distribution brands. Let me just share a very brief taste of his career accolades. In 2014, 15, 16 and 17, ALEC was voted the top independent brokerage of the year by Mortgage Professional Australia. They were Australia's Best Brokerage in 2014-15 at the Australian Mortgage Awards and the MFAA awarded them similar in 2016 and 18. Jason's also been a finalist as a thought leader for the last three years running. So for another really engaging and inspiring session

where you'll hear lots of absolutely immediately usable gold, Please enjoy this really energising chat with Jason Bach. Welcome Freedom Fighters. Well, the world's most successful investor Warren Buffett is famous for saying that the only thing we learn from history is that we don't learn from history. So what's the best way that we can learn from history? Well, for me it's through good mentors. every successful person I've read about or talked to,

from Gandhi to Oprah to Steve Jobs, all attribute their success to good mentors. So today, we've got the pleasure of speaking to a highly awarded mentoring specialist, someone I've admired for years and someone I recently had the pleasure of sharing the stage with at the Advisor Academy Learn From The Leader session. So welcome, and let's get Investor Jason back.

Hi, Bushy, how are you? Really good, mate. Really looking forward to having a deep dive this morning. Mate, for those listeners who haven't come across you on their travels, can you give us a bit of a rundown to start with on who you are and what you're doing and where you're heading currently? Sure. Look, it's been a bit of a journey for me.

I'm a West Australian boy by birth, moved to Melbourne back in 1997. I'd applied for a job when I was at the ANZ back in Perth and got down to the final two candidates. I found out on a Tuesday that I wasn't successful for this financial planner associate position and left for Melbourne on a Saturday. So I packed up my bags and took a five-year contract with the ANZ to come over here and start a new division with about 100 other people from around the country.

And I thought I'll stick it out for a year, and that was sort of five years later. I was still here, and by then I'd met my first wife, and basically that was 20-plus years ago. So I've been in Melbourne ever since. I spent 20 years at ANZ in total through a variety of different roles, and it was a very exciting journey for me from my private banking days. I was a director there.

I did some time in the e-trade and margin lending sort of area with the equity platforms. I was a financial planner for quite a number of years and I've done quite well out of that and then started moving into things like business development manager roles, taking on leadership roles and then finished up as the head of distribution for one of the retail divisions before I left in 2012.

I was lucky enough to get a package after 20 years. I spent some time getting my golf handicap down to eight, which was lovely when you get to play a little bit more, take my daughter to school every day, spending more time surfing. And after sort of several months and doing a little bit of consulting, some good friends of mine, Matt Davis and Kevin Agent, had asked me to come in and have a look at their business, the Australian Learning Investment Centre.

I was looking at a capabilities assessment, a cultural review process re-engineering piece for them. I did that for sort of six months. And at the end of that term, they'd ask me to stay on and take on a managing director role. So I did that for several years and we were obviously quite successful and had a lot of fun along the way, lots of tears, but lots of celebrations as well. And then about three years ago, while I was still the MD there, I created a new company

called Broker Essentials, which was a training and a development mentor platform for brokers that are looking to scale their business in the mortgage space. So I'm now doing that full-time. I left Alec in December last year. The boys were a little bit disappointed, but left the company and now a full-time consultant into the Australian mortgage broker space. Fantastic, man. Look, you covered a lot of turf there.

What I'm keen to do is revisit a little bit of that in the context of the key change points that happened along that journey and get you to sort of expand on why you decided to make the decision to make those changes. So why financial planning? Why ANZ? Why move to Melbourne? Just so that we've got a sense of your motivations

and the thinking on what made you decide to invest your time, energy and skills in those things on that journey. Yeah, I think that, I mean, when I left ANZ, sorry, when I left Perth in 97, the decision was relatively simple in that sense of, you know, Perth was a smaller base for the financial services firms. You know, I was ambitious. You know, I really wanted to, you know, focus on my career

and develop where I was going. And, you know, I didn't feel that, you know, in that space there, that was one role going in WA at that time. And obviously the person, I mean, the role in Goring was successful in the role and rightfully so. You know, at the time he was more qualified and more suited to the role. So, you know, I looked to inspiration. and I go, well, if I move to a larger state with more of those roles,

surely there's more of a chance that I'll be successful. I took on a role in the interim that I was, I'll say I was desperately unhappy in. It wasn't a role in my career that I look back on fondly in the sense of the type of work I was doing. It was very process orientated. It was a back office division doing a certain lending profile client. Nothing exciting.

And I do remember walking to work a couple of times because I was living in the city, basically in tears, thinking, what have I done? You know, I've moved to the other side of the country. I'm 23, 24 years of age. This isn't working out how I wanted. And at the time, I had a mentor, and in fact, it was my flatmate as well, Jackie Andrews, who was an ANZ executive, a leadership coach. And I remember her, and I've still got it today, she wrote on a stress ball for me. And I can't remember the words verbatim, but I remember something like, this is just a stepping stone on your journey to the next role. And she wrote this on this stress ball for me.

And it was quite a poignant change in my career around really focusing on not just what's in front of you, but starting to look a little bit down the track as well. And that I'd gone and met with the right connections at the bank around what they were doing in this space for the job that I wanted. I was creating the personal brand with these people. I was making it well known that that's where I wanted to go and that was the journey that I was on. So that was a really good starting point for me and I was successful when those roles did come up straight away into that financial planning associate role

and that led me on the path down that educational piece that I've been on effectively for the last 20 years. The financial planning itself, let's go back right to the beginning there. So why financial planning? What attracted you into that space? Financial planning, it's a very tough industry in this country because for how the industry is actually structured, especially when it comes to whether you're an IFA,

an independent financial advisor, or you work under a licensee arrangement, product sales has been a really confusing part of what it forms in the financial planning industry. A client comes in and they see you and they feel like they need to buy something and we feel like we have to sell something to make a commission or a sale or create revenue.

But financial planning in its purest form and not a lot different really from mortgage broking is all about education. And I feel that for really the last, I mean, I'm 45, so I feel like when I sort of came through my education and my background and my upbringing that we've actually lost a generation of financial fitness, that we're not teaching this next generation around the importance of diversification or what different asset classes or tax strategies can be

and how to really prosper over a lifetime. We're very much around instant gratification or quick wins or the easy bet. So financial planning to me was very much around taking customers on a journey of education through birth, retirement, death and death of your assets, these multi-generational wealth creation strategies where the prosperity you can create today can last for generations after you're gone.

So that ideology really excited me and that was a journey that I was really happy to be on and taking clients on that journey. The challenge obviously being in a banking environment was the challenge between revenue and customer satisfaction. Banks have really struggled across the board and obviously the recent Royal Commission will show that the fee-for-no service is a really good example of banks not truly understanding financial planning, that the revenue streams can take a year and two years and three years before they drop because the exchange in value up front is a trust exchange. Yes. And it's an education exchange and it's a content exchange.

But content, the best content, and this is what I'm learning from people like the Matt Churches of the world and the Pete Cooks, is give away your best content for free. That's where you can really gain and value your customer relationships. The customer will buy what you're selling when you've earned the right to sell them what you're selling so the financial planning stuff i really enjoyed i love the education piece around it um you know the different asset classes obviously the challenge

obviously being from a banking perspective again is that you know you're limited in relation to things like direct property direct securities like shares etc so um forming relationships with buyers agents and property agents stockbrokers accountants and stuff was something that i really enjoyed doing as well so we had that hub and spoke model where we had a trusted group of people you know all there for the same reason you know to delight and service that client and take them on that journey so it was a really great time of my life yeah the uh that vision jason which i find is quite rare in this day and age uh that that can see that uh the need to look to the future and what i need to be doing now what i need to be investing in now that's going to help me

uh secure and sustain that uh where does that come from for you because that obviously was there at a very early age is that something that's that's come out of your family upbringing is it just something that you just found you had a natural inclination to can you sort of talk i think i think you i think you're right there i think there's a there's definitely something coming from my family my i come from an english irish background so australian father's side sort of fifth sixth generation australian but mother's side uh english irish descent um you know immigrated to australia you know way back in the day my my grandfather was lieutenant colonel for the British Army, so very, not prim and proper,

but very clear, very decisive, very clear visions around how things are done. I mean, this is 30, 40 years ago, so in a different world back then, but I think that gave me a very, I'm very appreciative of the values that were instilled in me by my family around how, whether that be from being chivalrous to, you know, please and thank yous to, you know, hard work and the ethics that sit behind that.

I started working when I was, what, about 14 at Red Rooster, you know, as a kitchen hand, you know, getting burnt every second night in the fryers and the chicken rotisseries. But I loved it. I loved the hard work. I loved the reward for effort that the decisions I got to make through the exchange of my time for output meant that I could go

and buy a new surfboard. I purchased my first car with cash. I worked weekends and holidays at Rottnest Island, funny enough. I had a store over there. So on long weekends and on holidays and I could, at 14, 15 years of age, I was heading over there on my own to work with the crew and the staff over there and I got to surf in the mornings, I got to work in the afternoons and the night times and it was, I was building something that I was really proud of and I enjoyed the balance between what I, my passions

were, so surfing at the time, and the hard work that came along with it, so. Yeah, so along that journey, let's expand a bit more on your personal investment journey then because you're learning all of the fantastic techniques in terms of building your own wealth over time and you're associating yourselves with that hub and spoke model that you spoke about in relation to exposure to key people in each and every asset class. Talk to us about what was your first investment and where has your personal investment gone since then? Yeah, it's been a really interesting journey. I've been, I don't want to say blessed with being in the right profession, but it's like the plumber who has a leaky tap. I mean, just because you work in finance doesn't necessarily guarantee

that you're going to have a portfolio that's absolutely killing it. So I think if I look back on my first investments, I want to say that the first ones I was buying were shares. So shares at the time was much easier. I was in my early 20s, so I didn't have the capital behind me at that stage to go straight into the property markets. And when I moved to Melbourne, we were still double-digit interest rates. So I think I moved to Melbourne, I was on about $65,000 a year as a package.

Property in Melbourne was certainly higher than moving from WA at the time. But in hindsight, obviously, I wish I probably had bought a dozen properties when I moved to Melbourne. So I bought – started by – King Island Cheese, I think, was the first stock that I actually bought. I got in and was dabbling around and read some reports and did a bit of research. And I think at the time, there was something happening with that particular company. And that was my first sort of foray into it and then getting into, you know, BHPs of the world and obviously the banking stocks and insurance stocks. But I also did things like Medico, you know, stocks as well.

And they, you know, a couple of those really bombed. I mean, you're chasing the quick gains rather than maybe just looking at the fundamentals of what makes a good sound investment. So I did a lot of the stock side of things in my early 20s before, you know, in my later 20s, especially when it came to Melbourne, I was on a generous rental package. So I had that sort of thing sort of covered, but then it was like, well, I don't want to be doing this forever. So then I bought my first property in East Bentley here down in Melbourne.

It was a two-bedroom unit on a split block, $290,000, I think, the entry price is. I think it's worth about $750,000 now. So that's done really well. but it was like anything at 25 or 26 27 years of age you know you want the the two-story house and the fridge that makes ice and the two cars in the driveway but I'd come from a an upbringing where you know I wanted to get in I didn't want to I didn't want to over commit myself from a from a leverage perspective I wanted to be able to have I'm I'm relatively conservative in that perspective of, I don't want to have this massive debt obligation and not still have

a lifestyle and overcommit from a risky strategy point of view. So, getting into a smaller property first, I remember paying LMI at the time, so then there's mortgage insurance and people saying, why would you do that? I'm going, well, you know, a $4,000 or $5,000 outlay to get into a $300,000 asset that's going to, in a growth corridor, it's a no-brainer. and if you buy it it's only costing you 20% deposit

yeah yeah exactly you're chasing your tail because and since then yeah more properties obviously

the house that I'm in here we are back on looking out over a golf course at the moment in Heatherton which is beautiful we've got another one here in Cheltenham

and as I was saying earlier to you off before we started I bought one a couple of years ago in Glenelg South in South Australia yeah I use a buyer's agent firm

here in Melbourne to source the properties yeah and at that time Melbourne property prices were obviously going through the roof and we were looking at entry points obviously and the yield curves and South Australia was offering really great entry points

with really consistent growth although it be lower than some of the other states at that time it was the consistency I was looking for so I'd gone through a separation my first marriage, I'd offloaded obviously one of my properties and needed to replace it so

I'd spent some time with my BA, they'd done an analysis on what I was looking for, rang me on a Thursday afternoon and said, we've found one. Do you want to go ahead? I said, look, the only question I've got, because I know these guys well, I said, would you buy it if I don't? And they said, yes. I said, fine, buy it. And they bought it. So that was on a Saturday and I haven't seen it since. But it's going very well. We've got a great tenant. The property manager that we use is integrated with the buyer's agent firm. They do everything for me. I've got a relatively

relaxed approach to my tenants in the sense of if they look after the property, I'll look after them. So I've set a cap for things like maintenance and things with my property agent just to get things done. Don't wait. Get it done. Keep my client happy. Yeah, perfect. You sort of mentioned during that discussion that you sort of started to learn what makes a good investment. Are you happy to share what your criteria are for those that might be interested in that yeah i think the thing that we we've always really struggled with when it comes to investing is that you know we leave with the heart and that emotional attachment and as i used to say to people when i was an advisor you know we especially when

it comes to australians we we rock up to primary school or preschool and we stand in front of the australian flag and we pledge allegiance to be obsessive compulsive about owning our own house in this country and we do everything we can in our lifetime to achieve this goal yet there are countries and continents around the world where you know home ownership or property ownership is is the furthest from their mind uh they have multi-generational well-creation strategies that sit outside of property because you know european models where property is owned by the few or it's owned by the banks that's why you see those little plaques and stuff and you know a lot of european countries on the front of the door and it might say you know credit swiss or deutsche or

you know we haven't really we don't necessarily have a very healthy um uh uh outlook on property when it comes to this country around. Because it's tangible, we can see it, we can kick it, we can touch it. It makes it more real. Well, that's not necessarily the case. Just because you don't go down to BHP's head office here in Melbourne and kick the building and want to poke the CEO,

it doesn't make it less of an investment. So that's where I take that attitude of if it's an investment, it's an investment. Check the emotions at the door. I'm interested in two things or three things, yield, growth and tax. I don't buy my assets on tax strategies. I buy them for yield and growth.

And I want that combination of things. So check the emotions at the door is what I always tell people. You just can't get emotional about this. And if I was to give advice to people about how they approach their investments, it's all in the data. I don't think, from my perspective, unless I wanted to commit a lot more time to it, there's no such thing as an easy investment. If it was easy, everyone would do it.

Why do you think of the 2.1 million-odd investment property owners in Australia? The 70-plus percent of them, 80% of them only own one. They get into something, it's a little bit hard or it's not necessarily what they expected, so they don't go and do it again. No different from when I bought stocks. Not all of them have gone up. I've taken a bath on a few. It doesn't stop me from doing it again.

One is do your investigation. A lot of the really good, rich information that you'll find sits in the data, whether that be for property or shares or your super platforms. And the other one said just keep that emotions in check and be really clear about what your goals are. I think the old set and forget strategies these days, I think you've got to be really careful about just letting something sit forever in a day. You know, in the property markets, from a broker perspective, when I teach brokers about how to have great conversations with clients, the worst conversation a broker can have with a client or a bank uh home loan specialist can have with a client is asking the question of how much do you want to borrow the customer's always going to say as much as possible um the first question they should be asking is you know why

that property what's your strategy for that property what are the properties that you considered you know i see that your daughter's you know i've got a 13 year old you know the next property we want to buy is next to the school well if she's 13 and she's only a few more years of school is this a five-year investment or is this a 10-year plan you know what are you going to do once she's moved out of home did you want to downsize i mean have real discussions about the why why you're getting into this so i think people need to take more of a strategic approach to their investments rather than the ad hoc just because the joneses are doing it um you know and we've just seen that obviously over the last couple of years with the property market especially with

things off the plan uh you know they can be fraught with dangers if you don't do your research and don't clearly understand the why you're getting into that particular asset or asset class, you know, you can really find yourself in some trouble. Yeah, absolutely. Great advice there, Jason. Jason, you've obviously got a fairly clear vision yourself on where your investment's going to take you. Are you sort of happy to share with us what your dream lifestyle looks like?

Yeah, sure. Does it vary from what your current lifestyle is? And in addition to the property side, what are you investing in that's going to get you from where you are to where you want to be? And you may even be there already. If you're mentoring, you can afford to give back, then you're probably there already. But we'd love you to share that with us if you don't mind. I think it's such a fascinating question. And I think the challenge that most people have is it's managing the time in which it takes to make real decisions.

so we leave things until you know a statement turns up for your super or you know we'll check in once a year when your your tenants renegotiating their rent or they're selling a new contract we i'm a visual management person so i like to have that we have a visual a visual goals board in our house where we say right this is what we want and there's there are buckets there's a lifestyle bucket and there's a finance bucket and there's a family bucket and you know i think having really clearly defined perspective about where you want to go and what you want to do so So from our perspective, my wife, Annalie Blundell, she's an executive coach, author, keynote speaker. She's one of the best in the industry.

So we're very much in the same buckets as far as our careers go. But we're on the same page also when it comes to our finances. So we want 10 properties in our portfolio, and that's what we're on track to get a couple every 24 months. We want to buy one every year, year and a half. We want to increase that passive income requirement in our portfolio so that we can choose the time and places at which we work. And that's one of the reasons why with the role that I have now, it gives me the opportunity to work with people that I love,

doing something that I love in the places that I love. So I don't have to be here in Melbourne all the time to do my work. I can be in Perth visiting my family. I can be in Bali surfing and I can still be producing output. So I've found a niche in the market that allows me to provide a good, consistent revenue stream that comes from my working life to help me build my financial future through my investment portfolio. So at the moment, the focus is definitely around the property side of things.

I do love a bit of volatility. So when markets are benign and flat, that worries me. But when they're going up or down, that's the exciting bit. So the property markets are pretty exciting. The equities one is just a bit like a forced savings plan, so just that constantly buying quality stocks in the background. My super, yeah, since becoming self-employed, I've made a decision around a debt reduction strategy

over additional contributions into my super at this stage, especially with that recent introduction of, I think it's legislation, is it 293? I can't remember the top of my head, the number. That once you hit over X percent, you're now paying 30%. Yes. um so even as an ex-financial advisor i've always been a little concerned about super i love the ideology of a forced savings plan but the the piece around i'm thinking about where governments

are going and how governments interact and how we work with budgets knowing that there's a pool of money there that they can access for things like additional taxation has always worried me and now it's coming to fruition where that that tax pool effectively um is something that the governments are going to continue to sort of stick their hand back in and and reach into and as much as a little bit cynical um i'm i'm just a little bit cautious of having to wait another 22 more years until i'm 67 before accessing my money um i like a little bit more control than that so at the moment uh super's plotting away it's it's uh nice and aggressive uh in my my risk portfolio there um direct equities and obviously expanding my property portfolio

while I develop out my business. Yeah, brilliant. Now, it sounds some great learnings from all of that in terms of the diversification and the change in the strategy over time, which is, as you've well pointed out, nothing you set and forget. You need to be...

But I do seek advice on all those things. I mean, I don't do this on my own. So the one bit, especially with like a buyer's agent as an example, I use a company called Performance Property out of Melbourne with Phil Almeida and Dave McMillan. I mean, these guys are absolute experts in their field and I don't profess to be the expert

when it comes to buying property in South Australia, as an example, or, you know, what's happening, they've been buying a lot of stuff in Ballarat over the last year. Now, it costs money to do these things, but the value that I get by allowing me to focus on my value-based activities and my business versus having to go and spend weeks or months

and trying to research property on my own. You know, I can't tell you how much I value the advice piece. Go to professionals that live and breathe this stuff and pay a premium for it. I mean, that's the value. And then I don't have buyer's remorse. Yes. Because, you know, I've invested into a process.

It's not just this ad hoc, you know, thumb in the air your finger in the air, picking an asset out of the mid-air and going, well, I'll buy that one, and then wondering why it doesn't work out. Yeah, awesome thoughts there, mate. Now, you sort of mentioned earlier in our chat, way back when you were 23 or 24, your first mentor really assisted you at a fairly critical time, and what a great tangible way to assist you with a stress ball that you're squeezing every day.

Pretty smart thinking. And talk to us about who else have been your mentors on your journey so far and then talk about why you've decided to go down that path yourself. I think you get to a point in your life, and I think mine was in my early 30s, where the arrogance and the bravado probably dissipates faster, especially for men as well because, I mean, you know, The adult male brain develops so much slower than the female brain. So in your mid-20s and even through your late 20s, early 30s,

you're still not fully developed. So I think I got to a tipping point where how we measured success through things like lead tables and forums and trophies and stuff and the title on your business card became so much more irrelevant in my life. And there was probably a couple of jolts along the way in my career where I've gone, actually, you know what, I should probably listen more and talk less.

And I came across a line manager of mine who, you know, I won't mention his name. He wasn't a great manager, but he was, and he came from a sort of McKinsey's background. But what he was really good at was recognizing what he was good at. And he wasn't good at managing. So he said, look, this isn't my core strength.

Here's a budget. Go away and find a coach. So I did that. And at the time, I was working with someone who I'm still very close friends with these days, Dougal Christie-Johnson. He runs a company called Seventh Wave. At the time, he was a new coach. He'd been coaching within large organizations under a corporate model, and he'd split off

to do his own business. And he started a coaching model called, it was called a board meeting. So what we would do effectively is we'd go surfing. I had this budget to hire this coach, and off we'd go surfing. And what he was actually doing for me is that we would spend an hour in the car driving to where we were going surfing, and we would download what's happened over the last month, you know, what are some of your frustrations, what are the challenges you're up against. And we'd have this – it was an opportunity for me to get all this stuff off my chest

and talk a little bit more about my frustrations. We'd then spend, you know, an hour or two surfing, and, you know, we're in a state where you've got high serotonin, high endorphin release. So you're at this utopic sort of state where we talk about family and you're talking about balance and all the things that are important to you personally. And then on the way home, we'd spend another hour looking at next steps, goals for the next month. What are you going to achieve? How are you going to do these sort of things? So it was a new model for this guy, for Dougal, and I can't tell you how much I loved and appreciated the time that I'd spent with him for that following sort of 12 months.

and pretty much been doing laser coaching and coaching by stealth for a decade after. So Dougal's probably my first real formal coach. I'd done sort of stuff internally within AMZ. At that time, I was desperate and thirsty for learnings. I mean, I wasn't a prolific reader. I think I'd spent so much time reading textbooks through university and manuals and SME or subject matter sort of expert manuals

for the industry. I wasn't really passionate about reading. But it did start to trigger my thirst for learning more and where I would go and get that information. So, I said, Google was my sort of first foray in. And then as my career developed, it really did take off once I started to get coaching. And I won't say that was the only reason, but I certainly credit it to a major reason for my career development and trajectory going the way it did, was being open to a learning you know be other people's opinions but then also testing and learning going back and and really testing i had a staff of i think 30 31 staff at that time a two

billion dollar book in private bank and you know i was a new manager and i had this live fire environment where i could go away and test all my learnings from my coach and i remember my team used to say oh god he's been coached again and now he's come back he's he's got you know he's got these voodoo doll and you know you know coaching questions and um so i was really blessed uh to have a really supportive structure around me and then from there i've had other wonderful coaches um you know rob bell has been who's a very good one of my best friends um someone i look up to for the last 15 years he's the ceo of 86 400 the new neo bank out of sydney yep um he was a senior you know executive at amz as well we also surf together i've done surf trips overseas with

rob um but again one of these guys you know he's the smartest guy in the room um when he's talking yeah listen um stop talking uh start really breathing in um start asking more questions uh so i've been blessed with people like him in my life um and then obviously marrying um an executive coach certainly didn't uh go astray so uh having annalee in my life has been uh an incredible um not just a journey but a realization of what's possible again when you surround yourself with people that have you know been on a huge journey themselves i mean she has some of the best mentors and coaches not just in australia but globally she said she has access to as i said i mentioned people like matt uh matt church and pete cook the thought leaders community um i'm

surrounded by you know executive coach and mentors all the time and these people are just fascinating you know whether they're coaching on um you know the the health care medical practices to um it and um artificial intelligence so you know i've been lucky enough to go and do tours with people like um amanda stevens um you know uh chris helder um abraham um these people are just you know i get goosebumps every time i see them present every time i get to sit next to them i feel like i'm talking to a rock star um and these people are just genuinely beautiful people looking to share fabulous content you know spread the message that they truly and passionately believe in so so yeah the mentoring thing for me has been it's been such an important part of my life but

the biggest thing was being open to it and being open to learning and realising that, you know, you don't know it all and that if you're open to growing, then the possibilities are endless. Yeah, brilliant. You mentioned Anna Lee as part of that mix. How important do you believe she has been to your success so far, mate? i probably i probably couldn't even put it into terms um the ability to have someone who has the knowledge around the psychology of human behavior a communications expert especially

again from and from a male's perspective uh if we had to rate men and women uh as against each other head to head on who was a better communicator i can tell you that men don't fare that well you know traditionally you know we we stuff a lot of emotions down and we we hold on to a lot of things and being with someone who again understands the psychology and the how of communication and the techniques that you can use to really open up and communicate at a deeper level has opened up not just on my personal side, but someone who maybe has been a little bit more reluctant to share their feelings, to not always talk about the losses or the failures, to really celebrating those parts of my life and being with someone

who then you can really look at things like root cause and the diagnostics and you sit back and understand, analyse, you know, learn, grow and move on and then they become your successors. So Anna is extremely well read, you know, well studied, you know, globally trained. So, yeah, I feel like I've almost cheated a little bit by being, you know, an expert in the field

but I don't take it for granted. She pushes me, I push her to be better but what I love is probably the breadth of exposure that I get that we talk about topics that I probably would have never thought about or delved into and how then that can relate back to the business that I run or the philosophies that I live by, which has been, yeah, truly, truly amazing. Yeah, absolutely awesome, mate. Now, I mean, you had enjoyed a fantastic and successful career so far.

making that what would appear from the outside for some people a courageous jump from going from MD of ALEC to Broker Essentials. Yes, you've surrounded yourself with mentors but taking that leap is a big one. Why have you done it and why particularly focus on the finance broking fraternity? Sure. The challenge, I think, for the industry that I work in with finance is that there's 17,000 brokers, there's 6,000 brokerages, and effectively what we sell is homogenous debt products. That's the end result. There's a real gap in the industry that how we train our people. So the Cert IV and the diploma for when brokers come into the industry, the benchmark's just not high enough. So we've got relatively low barriers to entry for people coming in. Yet we play such an important role as custodians when it comes to the financial fitness of the Australian population that there's not a correlation between necessarily the overall quality of the advice that's coming out of the industry and the need for that quality advice by the customer.

So we don't necessarily triage the brokers coming into the industry well enough, but then once they're in, we don't necessarily have the support structures or the knowledge base that's been able to help small business owners grow and scale their business to the levels that they would like because there's not the level of industry experience out there in that space. So one of the reasons that we came up a couple of years ago, well, it was nearly three years ago now, that when I started the company was based off the back of some of the advice that was coming out of the coaching, mentoring fraternity within the industry was just bad advice. They were talking about things like writing a book to give you more credibility. When you go and do seminars, you can be introduced as an author, and that will give you credibility to your clients. And I'm like, that's just bad advice. You know, the average broker only writes 20 to 40 loans a year. They write $15 million a year. They need to delight the customers that they have.

They've got to stop chasing down Facebook leads and get better contact and connection with the clients that they have because we know that 65% to 70% of customers that we deal with come through referrals. So, this is all about really making our customer base feel safe. So the decision to leave a stable, successful job wasn't easy and Analeigh took me on that journey and part of that was coming out of, Analeigh comes again from that thought leaders community where they run thought leader practices and there's a model. I mean, there's a process, there's a structure that goes to those things and when you've got those things in place, taking that leap to go into your own business is much easier knowing that there's actually a process and if you follow the process and you enact the behaviors and you keep focus on your goals, the model can work quite well and it doesn't feel as hard as it probably could be. So the jump wasn't overly difficult in the end. I had the positioning in the market as far as the several years that I've been running the number one brokerage in the country. People were desperate to know what we were doing

and what I put in place. But more importantly, I'm able to give them practical and usable tools that they can put into their business today. So there's a difference between being that practitioner in the business. So I call it the golden hour. Brokers will spend, if you're buying a property and you've got a 60-day settlement,

there's 1,440 hours in a 60-day settlement. The broker might spend one or two or three hours face-to-face with you. And I call those, as I said, the golden hours. But there's 1,437 other hours, which they're a business owner and they need to run a practice. That's marketing, HR, compliance, risk, finance.

But that's the bit from an Australian point of view without 2.1, 2.2 million small business owners. we're not necessarily teaching business owners how to run a business they're really good at that one thing the truly passionate piece that they love that client interaction but the rest of it not so good at and that's a bit that the broker essentials program focuses on so love it love it now before we sort of delve more into the the mentoring side of the equation while we're talking about the breaking fraternity given you've had personal experience and success in that regard but also now mentored and rubbed shoulders

with a lot of the brokers in the marketplace. For someone listening in who either hasn't used a broker or hasn't had a successful experience with a broker, what are the things that distinguish a really good broker from a not-so? Look, it's a brilliant question, and one that no matter what business you're in, especially if you're not, well, you can be B2B, but if you are business to client B2C,

it's how you make the customer feel. That's it in a nutshell. The best brokers, the best relationship people make their customers feel safe. So if you've ever read the book called Red Ocean, Blue Ocean, which is about creating markets where ones don't currently exist, if you talk about all the reasons why the 42% of customers out there or 40-odd percent of customers who currently use the banks

and the 60-odd percent of customers who use brokers, if you distill all the reasons why they use those particular channels, so why they use a bank or why they use a broker or why they don't use a bank and why they don't use a broker, if you distill all the reasons around from convenience and price, location, advice, service, communication, et cetera, but if you distill it into a feeling, the feeling is safety. How did that customer make me feel?

I want to feel safe, that I've made a good decision investing in my time with the broker. They're going to go away and they're going to do the right thing. they're going to get my debt structure and strategy right for me and they're going to take me on this process that is effectively you know it's an intermediary process we're not the end result so if the property is the end result the piece of asset that we're excited about the finance people don't get generally too excited about getting massive amounts of finance it's generally quite detrimental so but what we want to do is we want to make sure we take that

customer on a journey so you know the best ones out there the ones who are truly clear on their why, why they're doing the job, what the business they're in and why they're in it, they make their customers feel safe and they're the ones who I'll be going to. Yeah, I love that, Matt. That's a really good way to sum it up and a really good way for people who are investing in property or leveraging money for any purpose to start thinking about it. Brilliant. Awesome.

Well, let's get back into a deep dive into mentoring because, as I said at the outset, that every successful person I've either known or read about has relied on mentors to really achieve success. What's a good mentor for you? What does it mean? Look, the question around mentoring, this is the challenge with even the word itself. I think it's the challenge with the word is

I don't think a lot of people really know what it means. And it can mean a lot of different things to a lot of people. So when I talk about mentoring, I always say, look, do you need a mentor or do you need a coach? Do you need a trainer or do you need a manager? And there's a real big, do you need a consultant? There's a big difference between all of those sort of things. Because I think a lot of times when people get into mentoring,

they might think it's about regaling their wonderful stories and how wonderful I am, and they call that mentoring. And I go, well, actually, that person needs coaching. They need to be asked questions about, well, what could you do? Or how would you have done this differently? Or if you had these resources, what would you have done? you know where they're doing the heavy lifting versus consulting which could be you know here's my problem i really don't have the time to solve it give us the answer and we'll go

and implement it so i think when it comes to mentoring uh you need to be really clear on the why so what what you're looking to invest into it and what you're looking to get out of it more importantly so when it comes to the importance of a mentor the original communication around the expectation between the mentoree and the mentor is so important so that you're on a clear journey together and that you're not wasting the time because your divergence in your path is going to take you down different areas.

The mentor thinks they're doing a great job telling you these wonderful stories, but the mentee is sitting there going, I really need a practical solution in my thing and what experience have you had around this particular thing and show me how to do it. So, yeah, I think that's a really important part is good communication early, setting expectations about what the experience will look like. Yeah, spot on.

And adopting a very situational approach that respects where the individual's at but also then adopting a mentoring, coaching, training, managing or consulting style that's appropriate to what that particular need is. So it's not a one-size-fits-all. Yes, agreed. Yeah, and I love that, mate. Awesome. So, with your mentor approach, sort of with that in context, and if some of our audience are recognising now the real need to lift their game or improve what they're doing, what should they be looking for in a mentor? And what questions do they need to ask to get them comfortable that they're talking to the right person? And this is the challenge.

I think there's two ways of looking at mentors. One is that you can look at them from a lateral point of view, so you can go a little bit wider and outside of your industry. I love that ideology. I love the ideology of different experiences, different industries to bring in creative thinking. I think sometimes we can pigeonhole ourselves and we can put the blinkers on

and we get very caught up in our own industry and we're not necessarily open enough to maybe respect the thoughts of others outside. oh, you don't understand us, therefore you don't get us, therefore what you say isn't valuable. I think that's a bit closed-minded. I really do like that lateral view. But on the flip side, especially for someone like myself

who's a subject matter expert in my industry, we lack the mentoring because of the credibility of those in the industry who haven't done what we do because it is a very technical industry. So I think it's always worth having different views and having more potentially than one person because then at least it opens you up to having a different thought process.

But from my, I mean, especially with my style, I do gravitate between mentor, coach, trainer, facilitator, consultant, et cetera, depending on what it is that my people need. Because look, quite frankly, some of them just need an accountability buddy. And because the industry that I work in has around about 74% are solo operators,

what they're looking for is someone to help manage their decision-making process and hold them accountable for their actions from week to week, month to month. So, again, a lot of the journey that customers or mentees will need to take on board is they need to think about what it is that they actually want. And it cannot be wrapped up into that one-word mentor,

but within that mentor, you know, that compartmentalising different requirements is absolutely critical. But I do like the idea of people outside of your own industry. I think that can be really important. Absolutely. I know in our own journey, Jason, in one of our previous business iterations, there was myself and two business partners,

and we deliberately went outside of the breaking industry because, one, we just didn't think the quality of mentoring that we were seeing was really going to help us much. But we actually identified someone who was well-respected in the property side of the industry. So I understood the business model but not the intricacies. And what was fantastic with that is that they could ask questions that we're so close to that you forget to ask.

Yes. And just the… And there's huge amounts of similarities as well, Wushu. I mean, real estate to, you know, to accounting, to financial planning, to banking, all that sort of stuff. I sit there and go, those financial services, it's all about process, measure and manage and customer. Yes. Process for everything that you do, you know, measure it so you can fix it and understand, you know, it's like when the engine light comes on in the car, you understand why it's come on. It's not a surprise.

You're never ambushed. It's always in the data, and having a really clearly defined client journey that takes the customer from end to end, understanding the consumer behaviors that sit behind it, what problem are you solving, what needs and aspirations do your clients have, what unmet needs are you trying to solve for? I mean, it's all very similar. So you don't necessarily need to be a technical expert within the industry that you're mentoring into. It certainly can help, but you can go away and do your research as well. But those sort of three fundamental things are something that I operate on a daily basis of. Yeah, I love that. It's the quality of the questions that's at the base of all that, which is awesome.

So if someone's – the light's gone on for people listening today and they go, right, yeah, I really now need to take the step. What are the other benefits of engaging a mentor either formally or informally, do you believe? Look, I think one of the challenges that we have in modern society, and we can call it, I mean, you can say it's an excuse, but, I mean, we have this, we are bombarded. Our cognitive ability, our brain tank, can only take so much information before you start going into overwhelm.

So when we think about the stresses and what we're expecting, you know, the saying of do more with less, it's the, you know, a task shared is a task halved And I sit there and go, start thinking about sharing your experience and start sharing your frustrations, your concerns, your wins, your challenges, your opportunities. But when you start bringing other people into the fold, it starts to take the pressure off.

A lot of the time what we're looking to do is we want to talk about our frustrations. We want to talk about why things aren't working. Or we might want to celebrate a win, but we don't have anyone to talk to. So the further we use technology sometimes, the further we get away from the tribe. If you want to read, you know, I love a lot of Seth Godin's works, and Tribes is one of my favorite books. We're desperate for a tribe, and leadership doesn't have to come from a top-down hierarchical point of view. It can be lateral.

It can be subordinate. You don't have to have a leader on your business card. but when we think about the importance of community and tribe especially when it even goes back to things like maslow's hierarchy of needs where food and shelter of course are critical but tribe and community are now replacing that at the bottom rung of surrounding ourselves with people in a network that you know we're better together willpower alone is not sufficient enough to get me through anymore peer power and and actually uh um working with people i said to hold you accountable, to collaborate with.

It's so much more powerful. Love that. Yeah, absolutely brilliant, mate. The benefit of the tribe is absolutely key, absolutely fundamental in that school. Awesome, mate. Well, look, I really think you've opened our eyes to and our ears to a number of things to think about,

the benefits of mentoring, the benefits of taking a strategic approach to investing in your future. Sort of bringing it to a summary, I'd love to jump into what I call the ambush series, Jason, or the bushfire lightning round, where I just ask five quick questions that the listeners keep asking me about. Quite far away. Yeah, and you've covered a couple of these already,

so you've given us a couple of really good book references, but your favourite quote and why to start with? So my favourite quote, one from Mark Twain, the most important two days in your life are the day you're born and the day you find out why. I absolutely love that, especially for me it resonates so well because when I created Broker Essentials I found my why and I don't think I've been, especially for my career-wise,

I don't think I've ever been this happy when I've truly found my purpose. Yeah, I can hear it in your voice. It's the energy and the passion just emanates, mate. So it's just awesome. Coming back to the book side of the equation, your favourite book that you'd recommend people read and why? Well, I said I'm not a prolific reader. I love Audible, so I've got about 25 books on the go at the moment.

And I'll give you a few that I love. The Marshall Goldsmith one, Triggers, is an absolute favourite one of mine. from a business perspective around productivity, you know, the David Allen getting things done is another really good one. Look, some of the, if you're a leader, Brene Brown, Dare to Lead, is fantastic. She's an amazing woman.

I'm actually currently listening to, you know, is it Gary Vaynerchuk? Yes. The Crushing It one. I'm not necessarily mad on his style, but, you know, he's got some really raw messaging in there, so there's some pretty good stuff in there. Agreed.

And another one, again, all of Seth Godin's works, you know, from Small is the New Big to The Purple Cow to Tribes. There's some really great books in there. And another one, a local author, which I also love, it's called The Game Changer by Jason Fox. Yes. Talking about the three sort of things to remember in business around setting goals, rules, and feedback.

So he's got a really good book, The Game Changer. So I've got lots of books on the go. Yeah, I'm the same. I book a hike when it comes to that. And podcasts and Audible are just great ways to make that more effective. Use the downtime. Yeah, spot on. Now, this one's a little bit left field,

but it's a question that we constantly get asked because most Australians rightly or wrongly feel that they pay too much tax. What's the top thing that you've legally done to minimise the tax that you pay, mate? It's a funny one. When I think about that question, I'll probably say the tongue-in-cheek answer, well, I'll just earn more money. it's a it's a it's a it's a perspective right so yeah so i like clean roads and houses and

hospitals and all those things so i get that part um look from a from a financial advisor background i think gearing has always been one that i've it's it's just it's a no-brainer for me uh and using leverage to do so so whether that be through margin lending in the equity space whether that be through buying investment properties um i've never wanted to wait uh you know 10 years or 15 years to buy the asset and if i can do it soundly and safely through you know good loan devaluation ratios through gearing and have that ability there from a gearing perspective whether that be negative positive or neutral um that's been a bit of a no-brainer um but the other one also is you know especially as a small business owner

is when i'm spending money now and being able to claim it back you know i look at what i'm spending things on so um i'm always looking to spend money on development opportunities whether that's through for the business itself or through personal development i never balk now at you know a conference ticket price or you know buying my audible books or flying up to sydney to go and you know to go and see a speaker um so that that gearing side of things and spending wisely when it comes to deductible side of things that's no brainer yeah absolutely no awesome suggestions there mate um now coming back to the investment topic uh what's both the worst and the best piece of investment advice that you've ever received uh best piece of advice uh is i think was the old

never be first in never be last out uh i think that's been a bit true and i said i'm a little bit more conservative so i like to set a little bit of track record on companies or asset classes before i jump right in so i've never gone into things like fine timber or crab claws or olive oil um and i can tell you as a financial planner i've seen them all um the worst piece of advice is look it's a sure thing um you know uh i i just i've just i'm such a cynic when it comes to the the sure thing side of things um you know the rich don't get rich uh because they're out there spruiking that you know i'm gonna give it all away um you know by the time a lot of things have got to market you know it's done it's run so i always like for people to ask more questions so if

someone's selling me this short thing why are they selling it you know why are you getting out you know i should be getting in um so uh yeah the short thing no such thing yeah 100 now sort of breaking it down into your daily routines what's a personal habit that you're happy to share that you believe contributes most to your personal success three words follow the process whether that's you know getting up in the morning whether it's you know having a healthy breakfast whether that's exercise whether it's you know making appointments for clients whether it's writing some new content uh whether it's delivering a keynote um there's there's a process so you know for all the things when we break them down um and i know it can sound quite unemotive

but there is generally a process for everything. So that's my advice is follow the process. Yeah, absolute gold. It's not rocket science and we've all heard it before but very few actually do anything about it. That's the difference I find. But what do you believe has been your best and most worthwhile investments that you've made today and why?

Look, I think from a – if you're looking straight balance sheet, look, property has been very good to me. But if I'm looking now for the longevity of my life, it's the investment in myself. The ability for my income and where it can go and my capabilities will far outweigh the returns that my properties can make. So as much as I'm still investing in my properties as we speak, I'm investing and doubling down on myself.

Yeah, I love it, which is a great segue into the wrap-up question. That is, if you spoke to someone who's just leaving school, a bit like yourself back in Perth many years ago, what would you advise them to invest their time, money and skills in to create their definition of freedom? Look, it's such a fascinating and timely, it's almost come into a debate sort of level now, is that I'd be telling a school leaver now is to invest

into being able to connect with other people. The art of connection and human connection is almost a dying art. We're losing the ability to be able to relate and to form relationships quickly. So as much as I value traditional education models, especially for a school leader living today who maybe didn't get the grades in their VCE or whatever you want to call it in your state, don't despair. I look back on my career as a school leaver, as a C, B student who didn't get into university the first time around, didn't get the number that I needed into the economics course I wanted to get into, went and did another diploma in the meantime in business, came back and did my finance and marketing double degree, went on to get a CFP, DFP, did my master's,

like half of it, I haven't finished my master's. But all those sort of things, I go, I put all that aside. and if I can connect and if I can have great conversations with people, that's going to be absolute currency going forward. So that's my advice. Yeah, brilliant advice. It's funny, isn't it? The more that technology connects us, the further we get away

from real conversations. It's interesting and I think that is the challenge of the generation actually is to relearn that art of relationship. Well, if you see the kids at the restaurants or all sitting down, they're all on their phones, and that's the bit where I go where we're missing the opportunity to be in the moment. So great communication is about being present. So if you can focus, and I'll do a keynote literally on that subject alone,

on focus, what's the cost of distraction in your life and your business? When you think about the average adult in the UK now checks their phone over 200 times a day in the u.s it's between 80 and 150 times a day so every two to six minutes we're distracted we're checking our phones for this magical something this this drug almost like with this serotonin this endorphin the hit that we're looking for um that's going to be you know that's going to be the downfall of a lot of people in the next generation so again for someone who is great at communication who is good at the the art of human problem solving um that currency that's going to be absolutely invaluable so i have absolute huge respect for the it and the

um the technology communities and what they're doing and that's fantastic but you know at the art of it you know 120 years ago we were all sort of still on horse and carts um technology is advancing much faster than humans are advancing so when it comes to getting left behind the ability to relate to other individuals and to communities and to the tribe i think that's going to be yeah that's going to be great currency so um interesting interesting times ahead great insight really good insight tell us what's next new and exciting for you moving forward with broker essentials look broker essentials is uh it's uh continuing to get uh wider and bigger so obviously we're we're a national firm i've got clients in all states um the mentoring side of

things is something that i'm passionate and absolutely love so we'll continue to drive that part of the business i do one day master classes around the country so we run about a dozen of those a year so we'll continue to do those but then how we scale that and additional support materials we'll look to provide uh you know online materials in 2019 and 20 so that's probably the focus at the moment is really now to solidify and back up what i've currently got to the market and then provide more of an online portal as well. Brilliant. And for those that you sort of prick their conscience in relation to,

well, I don't necessarily need someone inside my industry as a mentor and have warmed to what you've shared today. And I think your approach is a brilliant one because taking a situational approach, asking the right questions and then adopting an approach that's specific to an individual's needs is a rarity in the mentoring coaching fraternity. So if someone wants to reach out to you, Jason, to take advantage of your mentoring approach,

what do they do and how do they do that? Easiest way these days is we're all online. So through LinkedIn, my profile's up on there, obviously Jason back. Otherwise through jason at brokeressentials.com.au, they can get in touch with me. We are 24-7 these days. And like we all do, I've got my phone glued to me like everyone does. because we're all addicted.

But no, I'm available for that. And generally, we start off nice and easy. You start off with just a chat. What's important? The why. I get my clients to do a bit of pre-work, which gets them thinking a little bit more about what it is that they want to achieve

and how they see my support helping them do that. But it's a relatively painless process. Mate, absolutely love your insights. Love your passion and your energy. Love your way of breaking quite complex topics topics down into really easily digestible chunks uh i know you're going to continue to do great things mate and uh looking forward to supporting you in that journey and rubbing shoulders with you uh to spread the message in that regard so i really appreciate you spending some time today

mate it's been awesome absolute pleasure bushy thanks jason we'll talk soon thank you well freedom fighters how good was that you 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 Get Invested. I look forward to joining you next week for another episode of the Get Invested podcast. So thanks for listening. And as always, dream as if you live forever and live as if you die tomorrow. Thanks for watching!