Property Hub - Investment Insights & Inspiration - Get Invested: Jonathan Krueger on living a richer life by design

Episode Date: September 5, 2020

To develop a positive relationship with money and put yourself in a position where you can start living a richer life by design, you need to reprogram your underlying subconscious belief system. Which is where today's guest Jonathan Krueger comes in. Jonathan is CEO of Lionsgate Advisors in St Louis in the USA, and has been investing in the personal finance industry for over 20 years, and now owns the only fee-based firm that quarterbacks key investment strategies. He also hosts his own podcast called Living a Richer Life By Design, where he talks about how to use relationships, community engagement, and of course, personal finances to live a more prosperous life. Now it's rare to come across a like-minded professional who shares my holistic passion for a whole of life living by design approach, so in our energising and motivating discussion today we answer all of your questions in relation to: - The right way to look at money - The potential for a global depression and what investment opportunities this presents - And the future opportunity of crowdfunding and cryptocurrency I was really motivated and inspired by Jonathan’s honesty, integrity and commitment to using money to do good things. Jonathan's book recommendation: Money: Master the Game by Tony Robbins Get Invested is the podcast dedicated to time poor professionals who want to work less and live more. Join Bushy Martin, one of Australia’s top 10 property specialists, as he and his influential guests share know-how on the ways investing in property can unlock the life you always dreamed about and secure your financial future. Remember to subscribe on your favourite podcast player, and if you're enjoying the show please leave us a review. Find out more about Get Invested here https://bushymartin.com.au/get-invested-podcast/  Want to connect with Bushy? Get in touch here https://bushymartin.com.au/contact/  This show is produced by Apiro Media - http://apiropodcasts.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I, you know, had this desire to go out and be a crusader, to be able to right a wrong, to be able to help people get out of debt or become financial independent and what that meant about how to see money the right way and how to be better stewards of it. But I realized you can't change someone's behavior. You know, people have to have what I call the want to. They've got to have that desire within them. And, you know, when I think about having the habits in life, it's about having a burning desire, a clear, concise, middle picture of what you want to achieve is what Napoleon Hill talked about in his book and, you know, Think and Grow Rich. And so when you think about what are those things that you have established as a habit, it comes from being deep within and a desire to do that each day. If you're a good person and you have money, you're still a good person. If you're a bad person and you have money, you're still a bad person.

You know, the money itself is just a tool. And some people say, well, money is not important. It's, you know, second to oxygen. It's pretty important. So if you're about giving good things to good people or about providing service to others that can't do it for themselves, you being able to have money just to be able to influence that or give more of it allows you to leverage your time. And if we have to look at how can we be able to give more, we may want to think about, well, if I had more to give, I could do that. And sometimes

that comes from being able to how we give our finances or our time away. You see, I believe that you can't ever earn your way out of poverty. You can only give your way out of poverty. I believe that every right implies a responsibility, every opportunity and obligation, every possession of duty. That's what living a richer life by design means to me, is that it means that I'm accountable for the blessings that I've been given and for how I pour that back out to others and make a difference in the world. 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, 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 Fred and Fodders. I want to return today to the questions we started to consider in our recent episode with Serena Byrd. What's your relationship with money? What do you believe about money? Do you really know what your underlying beliefs about money are? What underlying thoughts and feelings do you have about money? Are they positive or negative? Good or bad? Scarce or abundant? More or less? How does the world of money work in your mind? Whether we're aware of it or not, we all have a lot of ingrained beliefs around money that can

be very limiting, and we often don't even realise it. When you have beliefs that are unsupportive of any area of your life, it can be really tough to make any headway, and this is just as true for money as it is for relationships and development of any kind. These beliefs tend to run deep, and come from the way we're raised, the culture we grow weapon, social conventions and our personal experiences. What did you learn about money and what messages did you pick up about money when you were a child? If you've plateaued in your income or your financial position and you're struggling to grow, it's usually because you're fighting a deeply held limiting inner belief. Limiting beliefs that you hold

around money, your relationship to it, your ability to generate it, and your worthiness to receive it. To combat this, it's really important to be aware of your limiting beliefs. So here are some of the common ones so you can see if any of these resonate with you. Money is the root of all evil. I have to work hard for money. Money doesn't buy happiness. I can either do what I love or make money I have no control over whether I become wealthy It takes money to make money Money doesn't grow on trees

Rich people are greedy Making money means you're taking money from others More money just means more problems I'll never be able to make big money I'm not smart enough to make lots of money Wanting to make more money is selfish I don't deserve to make money I'm too fat or too thin or too tall, too short, too old, too young to make good money

I'm not educated enough to make the kind of money I want to make Only materialistic people want to be wealthy Making more money is not a worthwhile goal Money is power and power corrupts In order to make big money, I'd have to work so much that I wouldn't have time for anything else. Wealthy people are jerks. If I become wealthy, my friends and loved ones will resent me. I'm destined to be poor.

I don't deserve to be prosperous. I'm not worthy of making a good living. I've never been good with money and I never will be. It's not spiritual to make a lot of money. Being poor keeps me humble. being poor is my destiny I don't have what it takes to earn a really good living I'll never be able to earn the kind of money I dream of

so why bother even trying if I earn more than my mum or my dad or my husband or my wife it'll put a strain on our relationship having money would stress me out or at least now I have nothing to lose rich people think they're better than everyone else Now this is a big list because a lot of us harbour limiting beliefs about money that are holding us back. So identifying them is the first step to overcoming them.

You may have noticed as I was reading out this list that even though you don't agree with a particular belief, it may resonate with you emotionally. If that happened, that's an indication that belief is your emotional truth. And as such, it can and will have a detrimental effect on your financial future. If you think that you're suffering from some secret, hidden, limiting subconscious money beliefs, the next step is to ask yourself, what would I have to believe is true about money to have the experiences I want in my life? To get your creative juices flowing, let's look at the flip side with some potential replacement beliefs

that could change your relationship with money and improve your life. Money can buy the resources and choices to create a good life for myself and others. I can create the life and the wealth I want. Money is a resource that can be used for great good. I manage my money effectively so I can create even more. The reality is that your beliefs create your reality. you have a huge impact on the beliefs that in terms of the impact they have on how you feel and what you do and they provide the lens through which you experience everything to put it simply

your beliefs lead to your thoughts your thoughts create your feelings your feelings translate into action or inaction and your actions are responsible for your results in life belief thoughts feelings action results. No rocket science here. So if you want different results, then you need to make sure your beliefs are in alignment with your desires and goals. Here's another way to help identify your limiting beliefs that I've borrowed from Harvecker. Step one, pick a result in your life that you're not happy with right now. And then step two, work backwards from result to action to feeling to thought to uncover the belief that's creating the outcome that you don't want. Now, I can hear some of you thinking, even if I can identify what limiting beliefs are holding

me back, how can I change them if they've been with me all of my life? Surely this is going to be difficult, if not impossible, Bushy. Well, this is where the work of Dr. Bruce Lipton can help you to eliminate limiting beliefs and replace them with positive ones. So let me share his insightful thoughts on this. Dr. Bruce Limpton says that anything you work hard at, anything you put a lot of effort into, anything you sweat over to make happen, means that your belief programs in your subconscious don't support what you're trying to do. It all comes down to the battle between the conscious mind and the unconscious subconscious mind your life is a printout of your subconscious beliefs so you don't have to dig deep to try and remember

who said what and when that created your subliminal programs you just need to look at your current life and you'll see that the things that you like that come into your life do so because you have a subconscious belief program that supports them but anything you struggle with or have to work hard at or put a lot of effort into to make happen that makes you question why you're working so hard means that inevitably you have an embedded subconscious program that doesn't support your preferred conclusion or desire

and you're trying to use your conscious mind to override the dominant subconscious program. So you don't need to go and see a shrink. You just need to look at your life to see where you're struggling and inevitably it's a belief program in your subconscious that doesn't support that desired destination. And where do your subconscious beliefs come from? Put simply, 95% of our life is coming from the belief programs

that get embedded in the first seven years of our lives. And that's why poor people tend to stay poor and rich people tend to stay rich. every human in the first seven years is downloading by self-hypnosis where the brain of a child under seven is in a lower vibrational frequency than consciousness called theta and theta is imagination which is how kids play a tea party with mud pies but to them it's the real thing and a little boy enjoys riding a broomstick horse this is theta imagination which is also at the frequency of hypnosis. So what kind of programs are required to live on this planet

and how do you get them and imprint them? Through the theta vibrational frequency state which is self-hypnosis where you just watch your parents and your siblings, your friends and playmates and your community. How many hundreds of thousands of mini rules do you need to learn to become a functional member of a family and a functional member of a community. There are a multitude of rules which you don't have to teach children because for the first seven years they're like sponges and they just observe, absorb and just download everything that's going on around them. And this is relevant because 95% of our life beliefs and our subsequent life experience comes from those programs that become embedded in our subconscious

in those first formative seven years. As a result, every day, only 5% of the time we're using our conscious mind, which is creative, just 5%. And you don't see the other 95% because it's operating out of our automatic subconscious or below conscious to allow us to cope and navigate with the world. It's why for 400 years the Jesuits and other religious groups would boast and say Just give me a boy until he is seven and I will show you the man It's the same reason why Hitler and Chairman Mao created youth programs

that totally indoctrinated the minds of their youth and created a compliant, dedicated and loyal army of followers They all knew that the first seven years was the critical belief programming period and 95% of your life after that period will be whatever that program is. A child isn't functioning in consciousness until after seven and before seven, everything is direct record. Whatever is told to a child, they just record it and believe it without the ability for rational interpretation.

So if your mum got mad at you as a child and she said, you don't deserve that, or we can't afford this, or you're no good at that. As a child, we're not consciously understanding what it's meant. We just record. I don't deserve it. I can't afford it. I'm no good. And if you hear this repeatedly during this time, especially when you're feeling emotional, your mind downloads it faster and imprints it more deeply.

So, 30, 40 or 50 years later, guess what your behaviour is 95% of the time? It just comes from your embedded subconscious belief program. I don't deserve, I can't afford, I'm no good. So unconsciously, you'll continue to sabotage yourself to make sure that your programs are correct and you're making the program true just by adjusting your behaviour to meet the program.

This concept was captured in one of my first and favourite books on investing rich dad poor dad by Robert Kiyosaki where he says that if you come from a poor family you can struggle your whole life and try to get rich but you're unlikely to make it but if you come from a rich family you can be stupid for most of your life and still make it not from conscious thoughts and actions but because of the underlying unconscious behavior that was downloaded from rich families into their kids which is unconscious so they're making the right moves unconsciously without even being aware of what they're doing. And it's the same with people in a poor situation.

Poor people have beliefs from the family like, you can't make it, life's a struggle, things are hard, money doesn't grow on trees. Who do you think you are? And if this is the programming that you're continuously getting in those early formative years, then 95% of the day you'll sabotage yourself. which is the reason that poor people tend to stay poor and rich people tend to stay rich because of their early theta unconscious programming.

This is also the reason that you may gain new head knowledge from reading books or listening to videos and had a number of aha moments but then nothing seems to really change in your life. Why? You've got a lot of new knowledge but it just isn't changing your behaviour. so here's the difference

the conscious mind is creative and can learn in any number of ways reading, going to conferences or events looking at videos, listening to podcasts like this and your conscious mind is going to get an increased awareness but your underlying beliefs in your subconscious mind don't learn this way your subconscious mind

learns naturally in two very different ways firstly in the self-hypnotic state which again is your brain's vibrational theta imaginative state that you experienced in your first seven years and then after age seven you can put new belief programs in by constant repetition and practice if you want to learn to drive a car you don't just read a book about it and then jump behind the wheel

stick the key in the ignition and then drive effortlessly into the sunset you had to practice for months before you can drive solo in your car without thinking about it and when you learnt the alphabet or your times tables when you're young how many times did you go through them before you could remember them and they made sense countless times but once you've completed them you don't have to go back and remember them again so the two ways to train and retrain the subconscious mind and replace limiting beliefs with positive beliefs are self-hypnosis and repetitive practices. Repetition is a bit like the expression, fake it till you make it, meaning that if you're not a happy person but

you want to be a happy person, then you just need to constantly repeat, I'm happy, I'm happy, I'm happy, all the time, because through repetition you're talking to your subconscious. if subconscious keeps hearing i'm happy and 95 of your life is operating out of your subconscious there'll be a point that once the subconscious has got i'm happy you won't have to say it again as it'll become automatic through repetition in this way trying to make a change by just putting a sticky note on your bathroom mirror or your laptop is more like a suggestion but it's not a repetition so it doesn't work that well repetition is about creating a new ritual or habit so you need to repeat something religiously by repeating repeating and

repeating to make it work every day for at least 64 days at the moment i've got a screensaver that says positive profitable partnerships and i look at it and repeat it all through the day because I'm trying to build really strong, richly rewarding relationships at the moment. The other important thing to remember is that every night when you're going to sleep and every morning when you're waking up, you pass through a relaxed zone of theta brain frequency

back in your childhood state where imagination, self-hypnosis and reality start to mix together. Now, we know that theta is imagination, so guess what? to combine the subconscious belief-changing practices possible on theta self-hypnosis and through repetition. If you listen to a guided meditation or affirmations program, just as you're going to bed and just as you're waking up, just as your conscious mind lets go

and it's not paying attention to the program because you're at the point where you're starting to drift off to sleep, your theta is engaged. And what's your theta doing? taking the program that you're listening to and downloading it into the subconscious mind because that's what theta does your self-hypnotic state is bypassing the conscious mind

which has just gone to sleep so last thing at night as you get into bed and first thing in the morning before you get out of bed putting on your headphones or listening to a program that repeats a belief or a behavior that you want to create in your life repetition of that every night and day will then rewrite your beliefs which will then in turn attract and manifest

your desired behaviour and experience just jump on YouTube search for guided meditations or affirmations and you'll find a massive range of 5, 10, 20, 30 minute meditations from the likes of Dr Joe Dispenza and many others that you can play on your mobile phone as you drift off to sleep and as you wake in the morning. Or you can just create your own affirmations

that focus on the subliminal beliefs that you want to change. Now, here's my affirmation that I wrote and read and recorded on my mobile phone and played continuously after I found myself burnt out, broken and broke over 20 years ago. Now, I didn't believe a word of these affirmations when I started repeating them and playing them. But over time, my thinking and my actions just seemed to change without me even being aware of it and the affirmations were the opposite of how I actually

felt at the time and I made the statements as if they were present tense so that my subconscious believed that they were already true. Now to be honest I'm feeling quite a bit vulnerable about revealing these affirmations but in the spirit of helping you here is how they go. I love unconditionally every day I act now not later the fruits of my complete honesty are strength courage respect and trust what others think of me is none of my business honor outranks acceptance every time I back myself I say it straight it's okay to say no It's okay for us not to agree. We're individuals.

Feedback is my friend. This moment, every moment, is a new start. Optimism leads my way. Fortune is at my feet. I am grateful for my blessed life. I am content, confident, calm and collected. Time allows me all things. My recall is second to none.

I think and speak only complimentary words. I am aware, balanced and connected. I love myself, I like myself and it's okay to fail. I am strong, good and giving. I am honest and true. I stand up for what I believe regardless of what others say or do. I choose to be selfless and giving and listen to other feelings first. I choose to be happy, healthy, wealthy and wise.

I choose to be positive and proactive and make a difference in people's lives. I am fast, fit and flexible. I am youthful, energetic, fun-loving and free. I am loved, lovable and loving. I am disciplined and determined. I am creative and in control. I am peaceful and content. I take calculated risks.

I am passionate. I am responsible. I am trustworthy. I am organised. I am respected. I am worthy. I am lovable, loved and loving. I give myself all the recognition and approval that I need.

I'm proud of myself as I make positive changes, and so it is. Whew, that was a big thing for me. The key is to pick up what belief program that you want that you don't have, and remember that 95% of your life is coming from the subconscious mind. You then just repeat it and repeat it and repeat it, even if you don't believe it, or it's not at the time, because it will become real as it becomes downloaded as a program and your subconscious will take that program,

adopt it as an underlying belief in reality, and then use it to attract and manifest what you intend and desire into your life like a magnet. These are the best ways that I've found to reprogram your underlying subconscious belief system. so that you develop a positive relationship with money and then you can put yourself in a position where you can start living a richer life by design,

which is where today's guest, Jonathan Kruger, comes in. Jonathan is CEO of Lionsgate Advisors in St. Louis in the US of A and has been investing in the personal finance industry for over 20 years and now owns the only fee-based firm that quarterbacks key investment strategies. He also hosts his own podcast called Living a Richer Life by Design, where he talks about how to use relationships, community engagement and of course personal finances to live a more prosperous life. Now it's rare for me to come across a like-minded professional who shares my holistic passion for a whole of life, living by design approach.

so in our engaging and motivating discussion today we answer all of your questions in relation to the right way to look at money the potential for a global depression and what fantastic investment opportunities this presents and the future opportunity of crowdfunding and cryptocurrency and other exciting opportunities I was really motivated and inspired by Jonathan's honesty

integrity and his commitment to using money to do good things. So please enjoy this engaging, high-energy discussion with Jonathan Kruger. Welcome back, Freedom Fighters. Now, as most of you know, for many years, our ethos has always revolved around helping you to live by design, not by default, to make it happen, not let it happen. And the good news is that we're not the only investment enablers to share this philosophy as I recently stumbled across another investment advisor and a podcast host on the other side of the world with a very similar mission. Jonathan Kruger helps you to live a richer life by design. He's a fellow investor and an outfester who gives freely to

others. So to explore my favorite subject with a like-minded professional, welcome and let's get invested, Jonathan. Well, thank you, Bushy. Thanks for having me on the show. Yeah, really looking forward to a chat, mate. I mean, you're on the other side of the globe in a different time zone at about late in the afternoon where I'm getting up pre-breakfast to have a chat to you this morning. So really excited to talk about our joint and common mission around living by design. But before we get to that interesting subject, I'd love for you to share who you are and what you do, please, mate. Yeah, thanks, Bushy. So I'm the CEO of Lionsgate Advisors, which is an investment advisory firm here in the U.S. We are actually partners with a larger investment advisory firm

called Lion Street out of Austin, Texas. And that's a little bit about our business. Being fiduciaries has been most important to us. But I'm also the host of Living Rich Your Life by Design, as you mentioned before. And we developed that podcast really for the purpose of educating all of our clients and their families and since then it's really taken off where we've got quite a listenership that's tuned in because it is about being intentional as you just said about not um not about being in default but really being intentional about what you do and how you do it and because of that you know i think it was really birthed out of this desire that my wife and i had when we first started dating is always goal setting and be intentional with our marriage

be intentional with raising a family. I now have three children. Our daughter's four. Our son is two and a half, and we just have a newborn, and he is now seven weeks old. So we're actively involved in our church here locally in St. Louis, and it has just been a great time being in business and being a business owner and establishing a family. Yeah, awesome, mate. And I love the fact that at the personal level, that goal setting is a strong driver. I'm going to come back and talk a little bit about that further, because when my wife and I got together, that's the first thing we did is design what our ideal life looks like. And we've just spent the last 20 years making that happen. So we'd love to dive into that a bit deeper. But mate, why do you do what you do,

Jonathan? You know, I was in Russia for three years. It was actually from 93 through 96. It was my senior year of high school. And I witnessed a man that he was taking a group of people in St. Petersburg and Moscow on a tour. I'm not from Russia. I'm originally from Texas and grew up in Texas and Oklahoma here in the U.S. But my parents were working with the Navigators, which is a nonprofit organization. And we're in Russia for three years. And during that time frame, I had a chance to be able to take this group on a tour of St. Petersburg and Moscow, as I mentioned a moment ago and and i watched this gentleman like walk over to someone that was in need and usually it was someone that was hosting some type of ministry outreach or doing something giving

back to the community and literally i knew that these people were the folks that would give their shoelace off their shoe they would give their shirt off their back to whoever had the need for it but they just hadn't taken the time to go back home and raise more support they were spending their time being boots on the ground and he would walk over to him he'd say thanks you have something in his hand and walk away and give that to him and they would just start bawling they just start crying i was like after this happened once i was like oh it's kind of strange after it happened two or three times i walked up to him i said richard what is it that you're doing what are you giving these to these people he said jonathan you know ever since i came to know god i just have

always felt impacted by being able to give. God's blessed me so generously that I want to give to other people. And so I just carry a lot of cash around with me in a role. And whenever I see those people are doing the right thing, living out their faith and living out their lives, I want to empower them to continue doing that. And that's what he was given. He would give them a roll of hundreds. And that meant a lot. That meant a lot to me and inspired me in such a way that that's how I wanted to live my life was to be able to be in business, to be able to give generously to others and inspire others to do the same. Yeah, I love that, mate. That's awesome. While we're talking about the lessons you've learned through your life so far, can you

sort of take us right back as far as you'd like to go and thread the story of where you've invested your time, your money, and your energy and what you've learned from it and how that's helped others and how that's led you to where you currently are now? Well, I think that the habits are formed from belief, right? And so the beliefs that developed and really have been foundational in my life was a personal relationship with God through my faith in Christ. And it came from a really a worldview of seeing what I believe in the scripture says, John 10.10, it says, I came that they may have and enjoy life and have it in abundance to the full

till it overflows. And that's not what everyone preaches. And so, when I realized and took that to heart that the word says that he's our good shepherd and he desires to lead us and to guide us and to bless us, and he's done that for us, that has helped establish the belief system to be able to really go out with unrestrained ambition, to go out there with no-hold bars and to plant my flag wherever I believe that God is leading me in my life. And that started a trajectory of what is known, I think Josh Olson wrote the book called The Slight Edge, of understanding what are those small decisions that you make on a routine basis over long periods of time that give you the trajectory towards success and towards

accomplishing those goals that you mapped out, like you had mentioned you and Sonia had done over 20 years ago. And when you think through that, that's what had helped us. When I started off my career, it was right out of college. It was actually my senior year of college going into this field in 2000, September 15th of 2000 was my senior year. And I was studying international business and marketing with the intent to go into finance. And so I worked with Citi and with Primerica. And I had this desire to go out and be a crusader, to be able to right a wrong, to be able to help people get out of debt or become financial independent. And I was teaching families about the McLaren loan that was established in Australia and what that meant about

how to see money the right way and how to be better stewards of it. But I realized you can't change someone's behavior. People have to have what I call the want to. They've got to have that desire within them and you know when i think about having the habits in life it's about having a burning desire a clear concise middle picture of what you want to achieve is what napoleon hill talked about um in in his book and uh you know think and grow rich and so when you think about what are those things that you have established as a habit it comes from being deep within and a desire to do that each day and where it was turning point for me was when my wife and I although I'd been successful in business and had tremendous failures I mean I failed gloriously

but uh it had the opportunity of being given a second chance and continued a third chance and and when my wife and I um were getting our feet under ourselves and kind of getting up off the ground when we first got married, we decided, you know what, let's listen to those people that have done better than us financially and that we can really partner with in life that can give us guidance on how to make it to the next step and continue to grow ourselves as a couple because that was important to us, but also financially. And we did. We aligned with some great families in Colorado Springs where we lived at the time to do that. And they challenged us to be able to set aside 10% of our money for giving, just saying, hey, this is a tithe. This is what we're going

to give. And Malachi 3.10, it talks about, hey, test me in these things. Engage me, God says, and this, that see that I'll not overflow and pour out an abundance in your life that has so much flow that you don't have room to receive it. And so, we just decided to engage God in His covenant to do that and to do that well. And I know this may be foreign concepts to people, but because it's not always taught from the ancient scriptures that that's what it says. Hey, I want to bless you and pour out a blessing upon you. Like in Deuteronomy, which is one of the first five books of the Bible, it talks about in chapter 28 and verses 1 through 14.

And so when we saw that, hey, well, that's a simple thing we can do, but we've got debt. How do we pay off this debt while we still do that? And our friend said, well, take another 10% and start paying it towards debt. But, equally as important as paying off the debt with that 10%, is take another 10% and be able to just go spend it and have fun. And you have to spend that fun money each month. Well, that was kind of hard, Bushy, because the first thing I wanted to do was make sure I'm saving up for something big or, you know, go on a big vacation. But it taught us an important lesson to celebrate the small things in life and celebrate frequently and often. And that was really a legacy that my parents had started off with, and my mom, she's recently passed, and God rest her soul, she and my dad had always taught us to find reasons to celebrate in life, but I hadn't ever had it demonstrated financially.

And so when I saw that happen, when we were able to implement that, it meant the world to us, and it's really changed the trajectory of how we live our lives today. Yeah, I love that, mate. I'm going to dig a little bit deeper into some of the things that you've shared with us already, if you don't mind. And I want to go straight back to you. You talked about the second and third chance that was sort of part of the turning point. Can you share with us what was happening then and how you felt and how you sort of emerged from that, just so that we understand some of the challenges that you went through? Yeah.

Well, you know, right out of college, I got married, and it was a horrible marriage, unfortunately. I know some people have gone through that. Thankfully, we didn't have any kids, but I went through, I built a business during that time frame. Even the midst of going through like three and a half years, almost four years of counseling, trying to make, resolve and restore that relationship before it ended up in divorce and ultimately a failed business. And that led into having to go through a bankruptcy because of the divorce. And that, as you know, can really devastate a lot of people. And it devastated me. really having to be able to come up with man how am i gonna pull through i just don't have that

desire anymore to really fight i just felt like i'd given up all the fight i had and uh i i ended up going to work with my brother and one of his best friends and we started a company another company and at that time little did i know that um you know they're they thought they had partnered with a firm um that was going to give them like franchise uh all the rights on how to run the business how to be able to build up this branch and a franchise in colorado and they're from another state and the the guy that was giving them all this had had tremendous success or so we thought it turns out as we were raising capital for him he was embezzling money and he was embezzling the money that we raised that to be able to get this firm launched off the ground

And then come to find out one of our investors that was starting to get invested into this firm called up my brother and said, hey, because I wasn't 100% there yet. I was still working with another firm at the time, but I was working with them as much as I could nights and weekends, helping them get it off the ground and introduce them to people. One of their investors called up and said, hey, the Feds, the Feds of the FBI has called and they're interviewing us. um about this company you guys are trying to get launched you're like what what what did you do what did we do well the fact is we hadn't done anything they're researching this other guy who was embezzling money and so very quickly uh my brother and one of his best friends jumped on and made the phone call to the fbi and said hey we we don't know what's going on but we'd be more and happy to help you get to the bottom of this. And so, you know, it felt like kind of going from

jump out of the frying pan and into the fire. And I spent the next three months of my life going to the library and looking up how do you make sure to write contracts correctly? How do you make sure to represent yourself? And then help these guys really get all papered up correctly with all their investors. And that way they're well represented. And it was amazing. I never would have dreamt that that would have happened in life but that type of example uh you know that type of hardship threw us into getting creative for how do we represent uh investors well so they're not taken advantage of so they don't get ripped off and how do we make sure that that doesn't happen to us again brilliant right uh i mean it's listening to you again i've realized

how similar we are because I had a similar car crash myself in my early 30s that involved marriage, family, business, the whole exercise. And that was a real time of reflection for me that I needed to learn some pretty hard lessons on making sure that I live life differently from that point on. It sounds like you've had a similar awakening there. Talk us through then, And as it's progressed now through to what you're doing with Lionsgate, I'd love for you to expand on your ethos as far as how you're helping investors to, one, be looked after in terms of their need, and also to coordinate the input of others to make sure that investors are getting a much more holistic and integrated view that not only looks at building wealth but maintaining and sustaining wealth. because you've got some quite innovative ways of making that happen. Can you share that with us? I'd be happy to.

So, you know, one of the key things that we found is important for regardless of the level of wealth that families had was that they're all, none of them wanted to pay more taxes. Regardless of whether you're wealthy or poor, like all of them have one thing in common, regardless of the political stance, they all feel like they're paying too much to the IRS. and it's okay for other people to pay more, they'd just rather not be them, right? Exactly. And so we also found that most of the time the CPAs were not coordinating with the tax attorney or with the estate planner or the financial advisor.

And we found that when we're able to help a family get real clear on what they wanted, the purpose of their money to accomplish, Then we could help them achieve that by putting together an actionable plan that we could collaborate with their other professionals, whether it's the estate planner or the CPA, to help convert tax liabilities into income-producing assets. Meaning, if you have tax liabilities, what do you owe the government for taxes? How do you look for tax strategies to mitigate that? And then how do you then go ahead and parlay that with other strategies to be able to place the assets? It's not just important as how it's invested, but where it's invested as far as the type of account it's in, whether it's going to be taxable or tax deferred or tax exempt. Make sure that's how the game plan around that to achieve their goals and then measure that plan over time for accountability. And what we found, you know, when doing that is that we became one of the few wealth management firms here in St. Louis that successfully quarterbacks key investment strategies and to convert those tax liabilities into income-producing assets.

But for most of our business owners, it really came into understanding a value acceleration methodology that we could help quarterback the relationship between their business and their personal finances so that it wasn't just a lifestyle income that they're generating, but they could convert it into a value creation to have an exit strategy in the future because 80% to 90% of our business owners' wealth is tied up in the businesses that they own and that they develop. And so how to be able to kind of have it change the paradigm or develop a new narrative to help identify how to focus on value creation and, of course, that would also increase income. yeah i love that and it's a a much broader approach uh and it's again quite rare and it's same in our country here in australia at jonathan we find that the world's become so specialized that professionals only focus on one very small piece of the pie without understanding how the whole pie needs to come together and each pie is different because each client's goals needs and lifestyle requirements are all different and there are different stages of that life cycle so

what's very refreshing for me is to hear that someone else who adopts that very holistic but integrated approach but also you know the quarterback is probably an expression a lot of Aussies aren't quite clear on because we play Aussie rules here not too much of your brand of football but the the analogy that we use here locally is to become an orchestra leader where you actually help your clients write their symphony and then you assemble all of the very best musicians with expertise in each area to actually deliver and sing that song for the clients.

So I love what you're doing there. Yeah, I love it. Yeah, I just love what you're doing there. Well, I'd also, again, in stalking you, Jonathan, I heard you talk about some great analogies around pretty much positioning yourself as a Sherpa where you're not only helping people climb their mountain to whatever their version of success is,

but you're also helping them get back down again safely. Can you expand on that in terms of what that means to the people that you help? Yeah, and if I may, Bushy, one of the things that you'd mentioned just a moment ago is that the world has become so siloed, if you will, for experts and expertise in certain areas that you do need to have a quarterback and make sure you have the right people on the team, right? And each of us, whether the quarterback at a time or we're just a, or another valuable

team member, we all play a part. And so the idea that you just mentioned about being a Sherpa is, you know, I'm also growing up as a mountain climber. I love climbing 14ers and, you know, the state side in colorado there's over 53 14ers arguably 54 depending on who you're talking to and i've climbed over half of them and so a lot of you that are um on in australia and and on this your side of the world you have larger mountains that you can attempt as well and so if you're in the himalayans or go over to everest you know that's a 14ers just like a little foothill And so in my search and study about climbing 18,000-foot peaks and over 20,000, preparing for an Everest, most Sherpas or most of the accidents happen coming down the mountain, not necessarily going up. And so the idea was, how do you make sure that when you ask questions, what questions are you asking to make sure you've got the right team?

and you know if you've hired a sherpa you don't the first question you probably want to ask them isn't how many times have you ascended to the top but how many times have you come off successfully and brought people down successfully without injury and the same thing is true with wealth you know you've got to be able to there's different approaches and you have to be able to have the right equipment but then also how to navigate a changing environment with someone that's skilled to do so and that's really what i meant by that so being able to be have the right team approach on the ascent and also the descent because you know when you're accumulating wealth the terminology is roi is return on investment but when you're retiring and trying to convert that wealth to

generate the income for you if it has already then you want that to be a reliability of income so roi turns into a different form. It's not just the accumulation of, but you want the sustainability because it's hard to have consistent income from volatile assets, right? I love what you're doing with property and property. If you've got an apartment complex with a thousand tenants and there's a hundred percent occupancy, it doesn't matter if the real estate prices go up or down, you're not forced to sell out of that property, right? But if you were, if you had everyone lose their job suddenly and you couldn't afford the mortgage payment on it and you have to go into default well you needed to be able to have a game plan on how to pivot before that happened um and

so kind of thinking through that what are the economic or political events uh or life stage events that you might experience or that are cyclical and sometimes at different times in life but also are unknown, they're unsystematic. They're not something we can prepare for that you may feel like is more particular to you or your own strategy. Yeah, I love that. And I mean, what you've just described there

is what we describe as the capital growth, the cashflow curve. So we're climbing the mountain, we're accumulating and we're focusing on growth. But once we get the nest egg to a size that's actually going to give our clients the lifestyle income that they need to sustain whatever their ideal lifestyle looks like. It all becomes then about tax-effective cash flow.

And there are very different strategies that require very different solutions. And what I love about what you're saying there is that the ability to pivot and change to not only reflect on the lifestyle stage of your clients but also to really address what's happening in the marketplace at that point in time so that they're not heavily leveraged into very dynamic assets that can go up and down and have a big impact potentially on the income that flows from that at that point in time. Quite rare. We just don't see much of that. But in Australia, a lot of financial advisors who particularly focus on the equities markets,

when things go wrong, they just say, well, it's got nothing to do with us. It's the market. What I'm hearing you saying is, well, we're going to be proactive in that and focus on diversifying your portfolio so that you're not heavily reliant on volatile assets that may have a lot of variation in the income that's going to flow from them. Would I be right in saying that? Yeah, I think so because it's a similar, you know, in running a business, it's a similar thought process and concept, right? Because in business, you want to be able to identify, is there a market?

You want to be able to then protect your idea or de-risk what could impact you for growing that business. And then you want to take the risk in order to build it, right? And then hopefully to harvest that wealth and be able to manage that both outside and inside the business. The investments is no different. You need to have – you still have to have capital, which I call the four Cs, which would be the human capital. You need the people involvement where you're relying on either the experts or a team that you develop for helping you run your business or your investments. or the structural you need to make sure the organization and operations are there that can be able to help scale um from a customer base you you want to be able to if you're an investor

you're wanting to be able to know okay are other investors selling and there's more money going out the door versus more money coming in the door at the same time i'm trying to make that investment if it's like in an etf or mutual fund but the same thing would be true in a business do i have do i have a deep value base of customers or am i diversified what's the tenure here you know and am i too do i have too much concentration in any one area and when you're invested it's that same type of aspect am i too concentrated on any one specific investment that if that one thing went down it blows up my entire portfolio so you know those are i think the intangible assets that most of us from financial advisors have all kind of gone to the twilight zone that we don't think

through because we're always taught hey it's only the equity markets and really it's so much more than that it's about all those intangible things that you someone that's trained with some common sense of understanding how to run a good business can apply to their investment strategies and really do well for themselves yeah no i love that i love that approach but i'd like to swing back into something that you touched on earlier in our chat, and it revolves around the concept of people's relationship with money because what I'm hearing you say, and correct me if I'm off the mark here,

is that traditionally Christians have a – there's almost money is evil underlying tone A tone that sort of can float through people's thinking around that. What I'm hearing you say is that that's not the case at all, that there's a real abundance view and that money is actually an enabler to do good, not the opposite. Can you expand on that a bit for us? Because it's no different here in Australia that people,

whether they're Christian or not, actually, here in this country, often see money as evil and see rich people as the bad people. The tall poppy syndrome is very dominant here in this country. Can you share a little bit more around your views around that? Because I think it's really important for people to understand that money is actually a vehicle to do good and to embrace that and not to feel guilty or that they're doing the wrong thing by doing so yeah thanks bushy so the you know you're asking me that question i had a lot of different thoughts going through my head all at once and one of them was that you know if you're a good person you have money you're still a good person if you're a bad person you have money you're still

a bad person you know it the the money itself is just a tool and some people say well money is not important it's it's a you know second to oxygen it's it's pretty important you know you've got it helps uh it helps grease the will of it or ability to provide for food if we're an aggregate agrarian society then of course you would just be looking on trade for one um one piece of goods to another but in our society today in the world you know money is that form of of a tangible currency that allows for us to be able to have an exchange of goods or services. And so in and of itself, it's just a form of service or goods. So if you're about giving good things to good people or about providing service to others that can't do it for themselves, you'd be able to have money

just to be able to influence that or to give more of it, allows you to leverage your time. And time is really our most valuable asset. We don't get it back. And if we have to look at how can we be able to give more, we may want to think about, well, if I had more to give, I could do that. And sometimes that comes from how we give our finances or our time away. You see, I believe that you can't ever earn your way out of poverty. you can only give your way out of poverty and that's strange to most people but there's this law of sowing and reaping um you know when my father-in-law is a farmer and he farms over 900

acres he was a full-time engineer by day and then a farmer by night and weekend but 900 acres will keep you busy and he was farming he's now retired from his full-time job so he can continue to farm because that's his passion but when he plants a seed he puts it into the ground expecting a result expecting to reap a harvest and what i found was being taught uh through the churches and and a lot of religious um activities was hey you shouldn't be greedy you shouldn't expect to get anything back but that's kind of insane i would never tell the farmers hey go plant the seed and don't expect a crop go you know uh i wouldn't i wouldn't say go do this effort and don't expect to see anything and when i go fishing i expect to catch fish i don't go out there to throw throw

in my line you know have a good time being on the water and say oh i caught a fish shame on me you know i want to be able to go out there purposefully and so the same thing is true And when I read the scriptures, where Jesus talks about is, hey, the love of money is what is the difference between what is taught, and that's where the churches kind of went through a lot of religions go through teaching, hey, you're evil if you have it, when that's not really a teaching at all. The teaching is, hey, give what you have, don't let it become the treasure of your heart. Because where your treasure is, that's where your heart will be also. So what do you treasure in your heart? The attitude of your heart is what's going to determine the outflow of your life. Yeah, beautifully said.

Absolutely beautifully said. And just a really refreshing perspective on the opportunity that flows out of that. So awesome. Now, what I'd sort of like to dig into there that, again, flows out of what you've just spoken about is what do you believe, from your perspective, is the secret to long-term sustainable success and however you want to define that? Bush, if you could ask that question one more time, that would be helpful. Yeah. So what do you believe is the secret to long-term sustainable success? oh that's a simple one it's hard to achieve but it's very simple

it's consistently making the right decisions daily yeah then that's right it's very simple to say very difficult to do what's the what's the uh in in your experience and you've mentioned jeff olson's slight edge and I'm a big advocate of that book for the same reasons. In achieving those little happy habits and daily disciplines, how do you help people to move towards that? Well, so a lot of times, you know, making those decisions, when it comes to a lot of the families that we sit down with

are at different stages of their wealth accumulation or transitioning into retirement or even into legacy. And so if you've got a lot of money, there's usually financial problems. And the financial problems are in the form of taxes, in the form of diversifying using uncorrelated investment strategies. And if you don't have a lot of money, you've got money problems. And you're always worried about the ups and downs in the market and something bushy that I've been thinking about doing a podcast on recently that I haven't done, but we're just getting ready to kind of script it all out for an educational series is you watch your investment accounts like you're a hedge fund manager, but you don't have any knowledge of what you're actually looking for other than the market going up or down. And so your emotions are tied to it versus having an algorithm or a rule set or a rules-based approach that helps you be able to make logical decisions versus emotional ones. And that when it comes to finances is you've got to have, just like a builder would architect the drawings and the plan for building out of the building and laying a firm foundation, you've got to do the same thing when it comes to your wealth.

and be able to sit down and review it or even if it's your own business you're always re-evaluating those decisions but you're doing it over periods of time you're just not knee-jerk reactions making those um because the price change on a commodity one day or another but you're working a plan and and planning your work i love that and i often say the same thing To use an American analogy, if you're going to invest successfully, it's a bit like trying to play the Super Bowl over there yourself. You're rocking up against the very best side on your own against a bunch of professionals. What we often suggest to people is that they're not a player at all. They own the team and they've got good coaches, good mentors, and then they assemble the very best players on the game that are playing to your strategy.

Your only role is to manage your managers, not to do the do. And it's, you know, very similar to what you've said there. You've got someone trying to fly a plane that doesn't have a pilot's license, generally when it comes to wealth. and they wonder why they crash land because they don't have the knowledge, the skill or the expertise to be able to navigate what's going on and the only thing that's driving them is their emotional reactions to what's happening. And quite often they'll have a long-term strategy they put in place

but they hit turbulence midstream. They react to the turbulence rather than going, well, this is just turbulence. We'll keep focused on the end destination and we'll just ride through this. Is that a fair description of what you're talking about there? Oh, absolutely. I'm not a pilot, but I've looked into different licenses to become a pilot. VFR is where you can visually be able to take flight and you know what you're looking at. You can have the benchmarks of what you can see,

but as soon as you're hit with any turbulence or anything that clouds your vision, all of a sudden you're kind of in no man's land because you don't know where you're going or where you are in relation to the ground um so an ifr would be an instrument trained or licensed pilot and um you know you'd have to trust your instruments and it's that same approach you've just got to be able to trust your instruments and know am i on track and rely on those versus trying to be able to be um swayed emotionally by the public opinion or about by all the noise in the background uh that you hear from anyone that from everyone else that's trying to fly visually without that that instrument panel yeah i love it that's a that's a really good way to describe it

and it's particularly relevant at these current times when we're so buried in noise from the mainstream media who uh they've really become fear factories that that own our eyeballs and our ears by scaring the hell out of us and right there's a tendency there when you're drowning in that noise to ignore the long-term strategy and react to it because your heart and your emotion gets involved uh we're certainly strong advocates here of turning off the television and throwing away the newspaper or using it to light your fire but apart from that don't pay any attention to it focus on the information from people who really understand what is going on and stick to the strategy but would that be uh relevant uh in the states as well yeah

Absolutely. Mate, you talked about vision, and you've mentioned that a couple of times. And what I loved about what you talked about when your good wife and yourself first got together was sitting down and getting some real clarity around what your goals were. Can you tell us about what your ideal lifestyle does look like? How does it differ from what your current lifestyle is? And it may not. And what are you actually personally doing to invest in bridging the gap and to help make your ideal lifestyle come together?

Great question. So whenever I think about my ideal lifestyle, it really equates to more freedom. But when I say freedom, I'm talking about more freedom of time. Right now, and I don't know that it would really change. I think that my time is very purposeful with everything that we do. and it just changes you know there's seasons of when you're investing your time for going to class or you're making extra studies uh to get a certification or a degree um or there's times where you're investing into your business to build your business to invest into your people to train

other people to do it well or spending time with your family and you know when i think of more freedom i really think of the freedom to where we have the business running without me having to be here and having it self-sufficient where everyone has the expertise and the human capital has been developed the culture has been sustained which we have an incredible culture one that absolutely admire and we've got some of the most talented staff which i'm so thankful for and we continue to attract an incredible new team members to our team and so just as we continue to build that you know i think the the goal is being freed up for more the daily routines of working in the business to be able to work on the business which really gives me joy doing both but i really have

a passion for working on the business and empowering other people to join our team or to do the same and with that it brings great satisfaction to be able to have the freedom of spending more time with the family or with my kids i've got the little ones as you know bushy and and it's just amazing spending time with them when you want to or be in their forum for special events i want to make sure that's a priority in my life and so i'm doing those things today to be able to free me up for those times in the future so i can be there as they continue to grow and develop and that's important to me yeah i love it love it and you've mentioned a couple of times but the time is the absolute key if you don't have the time you don't have the ability to put into things that you want

to do and you've talked about how you're creating your business by enabling your team and creating that really fantastic uh empowered culture to enable that so that you know people within your business are running their own business within yours so that gives you the time to to give back to others. But apart from the business, what are you investing in personally that's going to help to give you that freedom of time long-term? Well, outside of the business, what we're focused on is we're investing in the US. I don't know how it is in Australia, but the tax code is written in such a way that there's really only three different areas that you can grow your funds tax-free and tax exempt. And so that's a Roth IRA or municipal bonds, which would be like local governments or

local school districts and stuff like that that were needing to raise capital but are willing to pay back interest. That's what a municipal would be on those bonds. Or take a look at life insurance. And so we've really, because of our income, not being able to take advantage of the roth at this point because the limitations here um we've really taken advantage of investing into life insurance but i've got to tell you and i make that statement i almost cringe because the insurance industry has got such a bad rap that it's really it's it there's only a handful of insurance companies out there that if you understand what is how the tax code is written and how to engineer and architect the policies correctly you're getting screwed you know so i

I don't know how that translates to, you know, Australian, but I think it's similar. So the – It is very similar. So the – you know, when you take a look at how to be able to grow your money tax-free and tax-exempt, because we've spent a lot of time around that on how to be experts in that field, we really found a way to be able to identify some arbitrage to create positive value and alpha for all of our clients so they can invest and their funds can grow tax-free and tax-exempt. And it'd be essentially the same cost of hiring a portfolio manager

over any 20-year time frame to manage their funds. So that's one aspect that my wife and I have really focused on. Another, outside of establishing our own business, is investing. If you go to our website, lionsgateadvisors.com, We had found an academic researcher, his name is Michael Markowski, he runs a website called bullsandbears.com, and you can subscribe to his safety signals. But he had developed an algorithm that when we had – I've done research on this for a number of years and managed portfolios myself and still do. But I hadn't found an algorithm that was very predictive in nature to actually knowing when to be able to pivot to – if you're sailing a boat, you want to be able to place your sail to capture the wind so you can gain momentum. Well, he's really been able to do that well with the algorithm that they've developed.

and so we've been using that within our own portfolio management and then the third is really looking at crowdfunding opportunities you know with the crowdfunding available today as well as with cryptocurrencies i really think we have to develop outside of our traditional models with alternative investments like real estate or or even looking at like hedging if you will, using derivatives for being inverse or long the market. Looking at other assets that if we go into a global depression can sustain the market volatility over a 10-year run. And so those are some of the areas that we've really looked at on being able to use uncorrelated asset classes and to help create that wealth outside of our business. And really excited

about the potential because historically we haven't seen this type of global reset if you will um from a global economic standpoint and and uh certainly it hasn't been since the great depression in the u.s over 91 years ago that we saw this uh really take place um almost 100 years ago now i think about it but that's that that's um that's really i think going to create an incredible wealth-building opportunity for those that are prepared to take it if they use uncorrelated asset classes and strategies to achieve those goals. Well, that's a great segue into talking about the times we're in and what the future holds. You've touched on it already in relation to some thoughts around that. So I'd love to deep dive on

that subject if we can, because everyone around the world is thinking, gee, what are we in for? What's the impact going to be? And what do I need to be doing to protect myself? can I get you to expand on that because you've obviously done quite a bit of homework around it and so talk about you know there's been a lot of a lot of noise made around the global depression and most of it's around panic and fear you know I tend to be a bit of a contrarian and I see times of radical uncertainty and great changes real opportunities to set yourself up can you talk us through your views on where we're at where we're heading and what we need to be doing about yeah bushy you know that's i think on all of our minds as far as what does it really look like and

undoubtedly everyone believes that there's it's going to be rocky going forward but yet the markets continue to surge right and we're kind of wondering what is happening and as long as the central banks and the monetary systems continue to flush more money into the economies you know all bets are off for a period of time, but yet eventually there has to be a reckoning. And when that day comes, we're going to see a lot of people that if you're not in cash already and prepared to take advantage of those great buying opportunities, you're going to wish you were. And so if you don't have an investment team or strategist that's helping you think through economically when those opportunities are, you may miss them. And so when we look back,

The reason why I say that is because when we look back historically during the Great Depression, it had followed the Roaring Twenties, just like what we've seen over the past 10 years in the U.S. was just this incredible decade of wealth and leverage, and everyone was borrowing money, and it was so easy to get. And arguably, I could say it could have been even longer since the early 2000s. But when we think through what happened in 1929 through 1933, we saw a reckoning of all the excess leverage have to blow off steam, if you will, to be able to contract because that bubble had gotten so large. i think we're in for the same thing globally here at the time in the 1929 when the u.s went through the great depression it only represented 10 of the global gdp but in march of this year when we saw the shelter in place and the covid really take place and now we found that the markets were starting to shut down if you will by the correction if i want to say shut down not entirely but by the correction and the pullback on the markets that happened in march of this year

of 2020 and we found that it wasn't just the u.s but there's over 13 other countries that and together collectively they represented over 54 percent of the global gdp well when you do that for any period of time that's going to really grind to a halt uh all the other economies and even though you may want to infuse cash back into a system to get a lot of those companies back up and running or try to subsidize them you're going to have a lot of issues and i don't know uh you could share with me what the what's happened to australia um if the government's come in and try to build support local businesses to keep them afloat massive stimulus massive stimulus that's put safety net under it in the short term but i mean that gravy train will run out at some point

yeah and i was on a bushy i was on a podcast with a gentleman um in london last week and another guy on ireland the week before and it's happening everywhere that's the same thing that's happened in the u.s the same thing that's happened to all these other countries and so it's not an isolated issue so what the reason i share that being a concern is because every bubble it has to come to a place where it pops. And when it gets so big, either you're going to have a new resetting of the global monetary system, or you're going to have an economic downturn. And in either case, I think that it becomes pretty volatile and you've got to be prepared. It will be one of the greatest, the next 30 months will become one of the greatest wealth building opportunities that

we ever see in our lifetime. Because if we're prepared for it, we can take advantage of that. Absolutely. And when you say prepared for it, what I'm hearing you saying is get your assets liquid so that you can actually take advantage of the opportunities that emerge. Where do you think those opportunities are going to be? You mentioned some of those alternative and perhaps emerging investment classes through crypto and crowdfunding and other mechanisms around hedging. If someone can put themselves in a position where they've got good cash reserves, where do you think they should be looking? I know it's very early and this is a crystal ball thing, but your best estimate at this point in time? Well, when it comes to cryptocurrencies, you have to be able to know that there's still speculative in nature.

So that's my disclosure. um even internationally i have to be able to make the disclosure that there's going to be a lot of volatility with any of these assets that we talk about but the when we take a look at um cryptocurrencies and bitcoin uh just like you would see gold being an inflationary hedge i think like with bitcoin you're going to end up seeing um a large shift as the currency loses value or u.s currency loses value on the global spectrum you're going to see bitcoin or other decentralized currency be able to really increase in value and it's just as i think overall everyone wants to get off of the fiat money system and onto something that is more tangible or limited so it's

based off of supply and demand and uh this will be the great uh the great test for as if the system is ready for that and if it can pivot or shift i believe central banks and other uh those controlling interests that control the current monetary system will do everything they can to fight or impose uh that trend from really lifting off but they tried what you'll find is more regulation around it and so it's just understanding that when you if you were to put a portion of your assets uh for into a cryptocurrency just be aware that some are um total scams and others like the bitcoin and a few others really have a strong overall presence globally i think you will find a lot of traction behind yeah okay so if you have the average average family and you're you're in

your 40s and uh you're in reasonable shape uh you know i know this is generic and this is not intended as as financial advice in any way shape or form uh because this is just a general discussion but if if you're in that position and put it in the u.s context because it'll be similar in australia what would you be suggesting people do to protect themselves and take advantage of the opportunities are going to emerge well i at least put 15 to 20 percent of your portfolio into some type of alternative investments yeah so if you're thinking of um the cryptocurrencies being a part of that maybe you don't have to put the full amount towards it but you put uh two to five percent in that area

that may be able to play protect or place a hedge there that's still liquid. I know it takes a little bit of understanding and getting your arms around, but that would be one. Another would be crowdfunding. What I love about crowdfunding is that it is something that you don't have to have a ton of money to be able to get in to invest in some of these great either late-stage capital or early investment opportunities that primarily have only been available to those that had a million dollars or more as accredited investors and so you know crowdfunding creates an opportunity for you to be able to participate on a larger scale for emerging businesses and as i think the market

shifts and changes more to technology uh or open architecture platforms look for those you know if something happens with um with amazon or uh with google and they have to be able to uh they break up you know these companies into being smaller companies you want to be able to invest in those this may create a great opportunity for us to do that yeah love it love it brilliant mate well look we've only just started to scratch the surface so i given that we the more and more i talk to you the more i realize we're on the same page as far as our overall beliefs and and how to help people to both achieve and then protect their lifestyles long term so i'm going to open the gate to get you back on at some point in time and dig a little bit deeper on that subject but i'm

going to switch now into what i affectionately refer to as the ambush bushfire lightning round where i just asked five quick questions uh that the listeners always want to glean your wealth of wisdom on and the first of those is what's your favorite quote and why oh gosh that is a great question do you have it let me pull it up for you real quick because yeah that is a great question so for a lightning round standpoint that was excellent question i've got it i've got it right here hang on a second no no i don't gosh darn it you know i had facebook on my computer for the longest time and it was great because uh i could put all these quotes up there

and uh you know there there you go okay so here here it is here's a quote so if you go to Jonathan Kruger you'll be able to find it and nope it's not there no longer so I'll have to get back with you on that, give me a second and I'll come up with it in my mind, hang on a minute

you're good, while we're letting your grey cells mull over that, let's jump into question two which is what's the top book you'd recommend people read and why well other than the bible, that would be the first one, the book would be the book of John

But when I think about books that I'd recommend for people to think through for investing, if you have not read the book Money, Master the Game by Tony Robbins, I would highly recommend it. That was a great book to read. He interviewed some of the top investment minds in the U.S. And I thought it was an absolute must-read for anyone that's wanting to get their arms around investments in psychological behavior. Yeah, that is a cracker. Has that quote surfaced in your mind now, or shall we continue with the rest of the lightning round? No, continue on. Continue on. Yeah, that's all good.

You're good. This one's a little bit left field, but it sounds like similar to the U.S. And most Australians feel like they pay too much tax. So what's the top legal thing that you've done to minimize the tax that you pay, Jonathan? Well, one is being a business owner, right? So, you know, in the U.S., it's important to understand that there's really two types of tax codes. And it's really the one tax code, but it applies to everyone. It's just two different types of people.

One is the tax code for the uninformed and one is for the informed. And the tax code is the same. It just applies differently. If you're uninformed, you're going to be paid higher taxes. If you're informed, then you can be able to mitigate those taxes and have tax strategies to help you be able to pay less to your favorite uncle. and more, because we call him Uncle Sam here in the U.S., and direct more to your charity of choice or to your own lifestyle. And that's really something that you've got to be able to do anywhere in the world.

If you're an international businessman, you choose the different locations of your businesses or trusts that are set up to protect your assets, but also for tax purposes. And as we continue to grow as a global economy, more and more countries are adopting the U.S. method of full disclosure. And so each country knows a little bit of everybody's assets, right, and what's happening. And so you have to be very specific on that and be able to apply yourself and hire the right teams to help you mitigate that while walking a fine line of doing it with integrity and above board. Otherwise, you get yourself in trouble. Yeah, and very good advice there, mate, very good advice. It is very similar here in Australia.

Being a business owner, there's a world of opportunity there in terms of holding on to more of your hard-earned than being an employee. Now, that's awesome. Return to the – sorry, mate, go on. I did find that quote. Here it is. Sorry. I saved it.

It's one of the reasons why I write things down so I don't have to memorize it. But it was by John D. Rockefeller, Sr. It says, I believe that every right implies a responsibility, every opportunity an obligation, every possession a duty. Yeah, I love it. And it's pretty self-evident, but why do you love that quote? It's a challenge. It reminds me every day of what we're responsible for. You know, living a richer life by design means that I've got to live that quote out really well.

I believe that every right implies a responsibility, every opportunity, an obligation, every possession, a duty. That's what living a richer life by design means to me is that it means that I'm accountable for the blessings that I've been given and for how I pour that back out to others and make a difference in the world. Yeah, beautifully said, beautifully said. But swinging back into the investment sphere for a minute then, which is a big interest of yours, what's both the worst and the best piece of investment advice that you've ever received to date, Jonathan? Well, I was encouraged to buy Iraqi dinar and Vietnamese dong at one point. And I was told, hey, this is really going to – this is going to re-evaluate, and these could really be significant assets. And so far to date, this has probably been one of the worst investment decisions because they haven't changed in value, and they're not very marketable. So I'd have to say those two.

What about the best? uh the best the best decision was believe it or not best advice i received uh was from my great uncle before he passed away and he said a good woman is worth waiting for and uh man was he right i tell you what i've been blessed beyond measure uh with my marrying my wife and so thankful that um i found the right woman in life yeah hallelujah to that mate i'm uh it took me the second time to get it right but uh i'm right with you on that score and uh as a as a life partner and partner in all things uh we certainly wouldn't be enjoying our lifestyle if it wasn't for the awesome partnership that we we share there mate so uh the power of two is is very important

I think, mate. Absolutely. Swinging back to personal habits, we've touched on this a little bit, but what's a personal habit that you have that you believe contributes most to your investment success so far? And you broke up just a little bit there, Bushy. I think you'd ask what was a single habit that's probably helped us the most with developing that wealth? Yeah, Absolutely. So for us, it's really has been having a weekly or at least every couple of weeks, my wife and I will sit down and we'll review our finances. So, you know, we have our living expenses and then we have the excess. And prior to having any excess, we had to be able to hone down what are those expenses that we can cut out of our lifestyle so we can have more excess.

and so we had to look for that those opportunities to cut costs and then we had to look for now that we have that money that we weren't spending how do we use it to accomplish our goals and so then we had budgeted out all right this percentage goes towards giving this percentage goes towards savings this percentage goes towards paying off debt and just by consistently doing that over time One, it's given my wife a lot more confidence about money management and how we can be able to accomplish our goals together financially. But two, it's really allowed us to be able to become debt-free and be able to have more freedom with who we give to and also how we save. And so if you're not debt-free yet, now debt I understand. I'm not talking about investment debt for buying a home.

I'm not talking about the mortgage or the type of loans, home loans you may take out, but I'm really talking about your personal debt, lifestyle debt. And by making sure that you've got that paid down or paid off or have a plan to do so, that's been freeing, and that really has created a lot of opportunity for us. Yeah, I love it. And just the regular habit of sitting down with your lovely wife to review your finances is something that very few people do and because of this fear around money that a lot of people do it's sort of one of those taboo subjects that people don't like to touch on but having a frank

and open chat about it together and then seeing how that aligns with where your ultimate goals are is a very refreshing approach which would really encourage people to to do on a regular of basis. That's awesome, mate. Look, final question to bring it to a close. If I gave you a microphone that spoke to every single one of the 7.7 billion people that are currently living in the world, and I gave you one minute to talk, what would you say? You know, I'd say it comes from my heart of sharing Bushy that I believe that every person deserves a response to the questions they have about why are they here and who is God. And I believe that God has made you fearfully and wonderfully made in his image. And he desires to be able to give you a fresh

revelation of his grace and his love so you can live life abundantly and live life to the fullest. And until your face has been pressed into that and you've really had a chance to be able to embrace an idea that there's a God that loves you, it's hard to be able to really be content or be peaceful or have a happiness that lasts. And that would be my encouragement to each one that listens. Yeah, I love it. Very well said, mate. Extremely well said. A great way to bring our conversation to a close. In doing so though, mate, what's next new and exciting for yourself and Lionsgate as you move forward, mate? You know, what's been exciting for us is just, you know,

when you can make people a lot of money, you know, that's what our total goal is. And we fail miserably at that every day because the markets fluctuate. But when we, you know, when we save money from taxes, people get pretty ecstatic by that because that's like a guaranteed return. And so whenever we work through and develop new plans at this point, It's learning how to be able to pivot in a changing environment and be able to develop and nurture each of our teammates on who they're going to become and become the best version of themselves. And so that's what's the most exciting for us is in the midst of change, we can continue to empower one another to live life with excellence and be devoted to relentless execution. Yeah, I love it.

Mate, for those that are excited about what you're talking about and would love to jump on board and enjoy the discussions on your podcast and or want to reach out to you because we do have some US listeners that may well want to reach out to you personally to assist them in their journey. How do they do that? Well, three different ways. If you went to Living a Richer Life by Design, Living a Richer Life by Design is our podcast. Feel free to follow us there. Also, if you went to lionsgateadvisors.com, Lionsgate is spelled just like the entertainment company, lionsgateadvisors.com is our website. You can learn more about us. We have a lot of education around each of our topics.

So we do Ed Talks as well as we've hosted, we've gone ahead and put a documentary on our website that any of you that want to listen to that, this is my free gift to you, that go in, input your email, we'll fire off the password for you to listen to that documentary. But it's a 75-minute documentary that talks about why we really believe that the tax train is coming and that taxes should double over the next 10 years and how that could impact you and how you can prepare for it. And so I encourage you all, whether you're in the U.S. or in the U.K. or in Australia, I think this can impact all of us because of where our economy globally is headed, and I hope that can be a blessing to you. That's a very generous offer, and you're absolutely right. I mean, the stimulus that's floating through from our governments is going to have to be paid for at some point, and that's going to be you and I that will be paying for it for a long period of time. So getting smart around how we need to position ourselves to minimise the pain that that might cause is going to be fundamental to our ongoing success. Mate, it's been awesome talking to you, Jonathan. It's been great to link with you around the other side of the world.

And great to see that I guess the world's becoming a smaller place because it's really refreshing to be talking to someone who shares similar outlooks on life and the way that we can help people to really enjoy fulfillment in their lives and their families. So keep up the fantastic work and looking forward to staying in touch, Jonathan. Thanks for your time. Oh, thanks, Bleshy. Talk soon. Thanks, mate. Well, Freedom Fighters, how good was that? To get a summary of all this investment gold in the show notes,

just email me on hello at khgroup.com.au. It'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.