Property Hub - Investment Insights & Inspiration - Get Invested: Part 1: Auctioneer Damien Cooley on knowing your number

Starting point is 00:00:00 I've always been a buy and hold person. That's always been my investment strategy. And whilst I've had itchy feet sometimes to sell stuff, I haven't done it because I've always wanted to create wealth and build that asset pool because I've always been a very big believer in make money while you sleep. So I say that there's a part of me that's excited about it because I'm actually, you know, I had a goal many years ago to have $20 million in unencumbered debt that I could use as a, from a, I don't like to use the word retirement, but everyone needs a number. If anyone gets anything out of this podcast, it's like every single person needs a number. What is your number? welcome to get invested the leading weekly podcast to help you unlock your full potential and enjoy your version of sustainable success that lies at the intersection of your three elves yourself your health and your wealth i'm your host and guide bushy martin and each week we go deep sharing great conversations with proven experts in all walks of life including the best investors

Starting point is 00:01:08 property experts, analysts, leaders, founders, sports stars and health gurus to uncover their secret know-how on where they invest their time, their skills and their money and the benefits that this creates. To help you find out what it takes to break free from the grind and discover your flavour of freedom to create your freedom formula. You see the truth is that everyone invests. Every second of 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 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

Starting point is 00:01:57 tips on how you can live with conscious intent so that you can live more, work less, and live your legacy by investing now. You'll enjoy the stories and secrets of high performers who invest for success in every aspect of their lives and discover the top tips on how to get started, how to make the most of your investment journey, and ultimately, to be living your dream, not someone else's. As you engage in each episode, you'll glean the information, inspiration, and implementation that you need to get empowered and get invested in imagining and actioning the life that you've always dreamed about. And Get Invested is proudly part of Property Hub,

Starting point is 00:02:37 your home for property investment insights and inspiration. Make sure you subscribe now on your favourite podcast player to get every episode of Get Invested and Realty Talk, which is Australia's leading and longest running online property show that's full of red-hot property investing news and insights direct from all of the industry leaders and influencers. You can also connect with me personally and join the Get Invested community of fellow Freedom Fighters at ushimartin.com.au or on knowhowproperty.com.au. Now, let's get invested.

Starting point is 00:03:15 Hi, Freedom Fighters. I've enjoyed such a great, open and engaging conversation with All-Star Auctioneer Damien Cooley that I've decided to break our chat into two parts spread across two episodes. This first part today dives into Damien's journey so far, where you'll hear of his highs and lows on his way to becoming Australia's leading auctioneer of choice. You'll get to dive deep into his mindset and motivations that have contributed to his incredible sustainable success, along with how he's managed to work through the considerable challenges that he's had and continues to have along the way, as he shares his personal, professional and passive investment peaks and troughs and yes, yet again, it's the obstacles that show us the way. So enjoy

Starting point is 00:04:00 this very open, honest and moving conversation that will well and truly whet your appetite for next week's part two, where we dive headlong into the wonderful world of all things auctions and how you can manoeuvre them to your advantage. You're really going to love these episodes, so enjoy the ever-ready Damien Cooley. Hi, friend and fighters. When was the last time you attended an auction? Were you a potential buyer, a seller, a family friend, or maybe just a curious bystander or neighbor? And how did you feel when someone mentions the word auction? Are you daunted? Do feelings of anxiety, uncertainty, fear, or foreboding immediately make your heart race?

Starting point is 00:04:44 Or on the flip side, do you get excited and are eager with anticipation? Because auctions are often perceived as high-pressure environments aimed at disarming you as a buyer and stirring up the emotions of greed and fear in a very highly competitive, fast-moving and very public crowd environment where you're under the spotlight and it's easy to end up bidding well above your limit or worse still, getting paralysed with fear and not bidding at all. But one thing's for sure, your emotions are likely to be heightened in an atmosphere where nervous energy is on overdrive. now i've often heard auction bidding described as being like a bunch of potential buyers sprinting headlong towards a cliff and the only way to win is for you to outlast a competition by skidding

Starting point is 00:05:29 to a sudden stop just before you fall over the edge with figures flying through the air like machine gun bullets and an auctioneer talking at the speed of light and paddles fingers and eyebrows going up left right and center the high pressure street theater of auctions can be frightening and overwhelming regardless of how prepared you feel prior to the day. But they don't have to be. You may not know that my good father, the original Bushy, became an auctioneer late in his life selling large rural properties and farms along with sheep and cattle, clearing sales and charity auctions. And for many of those years in my late teens and twenties, I did the booking for him. So I got to see the good, bad and ugly of

Starting point is 00:06:09 auctions. I got the privilege of observing the full spectrum of auctions from multi-million dollar homesteads down to buckets of old wire, rusty nails and old toilet seats at farm clearing sales. So here's what I know. The reality is that at some point in your life, you're likely to sell a property at auction or try and buy a property or something else at auction. So today, we're going to demystify the exciting world of auctions so that you can embrace them as an opportunity instead of a threat. If you're well prepared financially, mentally, emotionally and strategically, auctions can actually be exciting events and great opportunities, no matter whether you're a buyer or a seller. But who do you turn to in order to really understand the psychology,

Starting point is 00:06:53 the strategies, and the tips to succeed at auction, whether you're a buyer or a hopeful seller? You need to seek the advice and guidance from the best of the best, someone who eats, sleeps, and breathes auctions and consistently achieves outstanding results. And today, we're going to do just that. Our very special guest is the auctioneer of choice for many of Australia's premier sellers and most respected real estate agencies. An auctioneer whose business conducted 6,000 auctions last financial year alone, and who's personally conducted over 2,000 auctions a year for nearly 20 years now. We're talking about an auctioneer who's received countless accolades, which are testament to his focus and unwavering commitment to his crafts,

Starting point is 00:07:38 that's resulted in him achieving consistently exceptional results. His experience and reputation has extended to reality television where he's performed the winning auction on the block numerous times and is the most booked auctioneer on the show. He's also performed auctions on other reality TV series including The Renovators, Under the Hammer, Hot Auctions, Selling Houses Australia and Lux Listing Sydney. As a result, he's been recognised as contributing significantly

Starting point is 00:08:06 to the revitalisation of Sydney's auction market and in a recent year pre-COVID, he sold $2.3 billion worth of real estate. If you haven't guessed already, I'm talking about one of Australia's leading and most highly awarded auctioneers, Damien Cooley. So welcome and let's get invested, Damien. Thanks, Pushy. Some introduction, mate. I appreciate it. No, you've done some amazing things in the auction space, mate, and as I say, auctions are a part of our life at some point, and they can be daunting for some and exciting for others. Today I'm really looking forward to getting into the meat

Starting point is 00:08:47 and potatoes of that subject. But before we do so, mate, for any of those listening who've been living under a rock and don't know who you are, can you give us a bit quick rundown on who you are, what you do differently and most importantly why you do what you do mate yep uh i started in real estate in april 1999 and that was in sydney i left school in 98 so that makes me 42 years old today um in fact in my first week in real estate we had a huge hailstorm in sydney and we had a lot of tenants moving out into crisis accommodation and

Starting point is 00:09:26 um that was kind of my my first week introduction into real estate i got into property management initially um i was a leasing consultant uh for a business at elders real estate in randwick for a couple of years um the catalyst for me deciding to become an auctioneer was that one day my boss robert anderson um who i i hold dearly in my uh in my career and i guess encouraging me to do what i do right now is he came down and asked me if i wanted to go in the the real estate institute of new south wales novice auctioneers competition and having having never conducted an auction i thought that'd be a great idea because i used to love watching the auctions for our office for our real estate office um in fact one auction that i went and watched was my my grandmother's

Starting point is 00:10:18 house she had passed she'd passed away and uh i went and watched the auctioneer and i remember my dad setting a reserve of 750 000 it sold for 815 um and you know you couldn't wipe the smile off my dad's face and i remember him distinctly saying you know your grandmother would be would be turning in her grave thinking about what uh what crazy money people are paying for this home um and you know the the the fun thing about that is that that that same house now which is you know 600 square meter block of land in cotton avenue kensington premier street premier location you know that's probably worth four million bucks now um having having potentially done nothing to it so that was the exciting part of of auctions that was the exciting part of real estate

Starting point is 00:11:09 and for me i think that that was the really exciting part of getting into what what i do now is because being an auctioneer you're standing out the front of a out the front in front of a crowd um you are you are entertaining uh whilst being professional um you are you are giving buyers um a platform that is literally changing their lives whether they buy or whether they don't buy um you're helping vendors achieve prices um and and in some cases helping them move on to the next stage of their lives. And you're really at the coalface of the market. I think that is a really exciting thing for me. Yeah. And having been involved in auctions a lot, I can see where that would really get the blood pumping. Yeah. For me, I think it was really important

Starting point is 00:11:59 learning the basics about real estate before I kind of got into real estate. I've actually never listed or sold a house so i've never been in sales as such i i literally went from being a property manager leasing to leasing um to back to being a property manager for a while and then literally just moving into the auctioneering space and and i i haven't turned back and and like you said in your introduction um you know i've been the most booked auctioneer in the country for for many years um for me that's changing slightly in the sense that i'm i'm looking as i as i i don't like to say get older but i guess i am right i'm 42 and i'm older than i was when i was 21 when i actually started my business um you know that that was a really

Starting point is 00:12:46 exciting thing for me i had the backup against the wall nothing to lose started the business and bang, here we are today. But as I do get older, I think more about where is my life? What am I doing in life? How do I enjoy myself? I've got three beautiful children now. How do I spend time with them? How do I spend more time with them?

Starting point is 00:13:08 And how do I create wealth? Yeah, it sort of all gets caught up in that exercise. If we look back on your journey so far then, Damien, I'd like to sort of focus on, you know, the biggest challenging events that you've experienced in your life so far and what have been the greatest learnings and best changes that have come out of them or coming out of them, depending on where that sits. Yep. Biggest events in my life. Well, there's been a lot of big events in my life. um i feel like that there's been more big events in the last five years to be honest than maybe that there were in the early stages of my life um yeah i think i think making the

Starting point is 00:13:57 decision to not go to university was a was a big decision um you know my dad was a lawyer my brother was a lawyer um i had a lot of uh uh you know legal side of in in my family i'm one of five children um yeah you know my my mom passed away at 66 years old um dad uh dad has dementia he's in a he's in a clinic at the moment um you know i'm going through a lot of stuff personally i'm actually separating from my wife at the moment which is a which is a big um big change in my life um i think the big thing for me initially was i didn't go to university i went for university for a week i hated it felt like i was back at school again um and i remember coming home and telling my dad that i wasn't going to go to uni and he was he was disgusted in me because he he

Starting point is 00:14:47 had was keen for me to become a lawyer and he actually did a lot of conveyancing solicit work so he worked a lot with real estate agents um but you know obviously he's incredibly proud of me now and what i've done so i think that was a big change um in my life getting straight into real estate um that would have been a just jumping in there mate that would have been a pretty hard conversation if that the sort of whole family has that sort of legal bent and they'd go to uni get the academia behind you and then then you know sort of build a career from there and when you're surrounded in that environment to sit down and say well hey dad this isn't for me i'm going to do something else what sort of gave you the the strength and the courage uh to be able to have

Starting point is 00:15:34 that conversation because a lot of people would buckle under the pressure funny funny enough i remember sitting in a lecture and i remember the lecturer saying something to the effect of you know as of next week you're you tick over being uh having to to pay like the first round of university fees or to click over at the time i think it was called hex or something you know to click over into paying your university fees. And I remember, distinctly remember thinking to myself, I'm getting out of this joint before that day. You know, I've got to leave.

Starting point is 00:16:09 So I literally went home and told Dad that afternoon. It wasn't, you know, it probably felt like a big deal maybe at the time, but looking back on it now, you know, I guess it wasn't that big of a deal. I think one of the biggest person, people that has influenced my career and I guess the way I think about wealth and about family and actually about living and living a better and a more fulfilled life, I think, and this is, I guess, a big event for me is that I went to what's called

Starting point is 00:16:43 the Australian Real Estate Conference one year, ARIC, and I listened to a guy called Dr. Fred Gross. Dr. Fred Gross has become, you know, I think one of my greatest mentors, business coaches um that i've that i have ever had um and i and i still speak to dr fred regularly um i have coaches for everything that just that's probably a side topic but you know every single thing i do i've got a coach for because i think that's incredibly important but dr fred changed the way um that i live my life he really did he he helped me understand what is important in life um to to you and and what's important to me is different to what's important to you and different

Starting point is 00:17:28 to what's important to the next person yeah um he helped me understand that i need personal business and life goals he helped me understand that i need to to do things every single day that work towards achieving those and make them fun and interesting um i learned about what he defines as what rewards and non-rewards um i i learned a lot about living and creating wealth so you know I literally sit down every week and look at look at my wealth spreadsheet I look review my goals I work I look at what's working and what's not working and for me that's important another one of the big events I think in my life and this is probably more recent was was COVID I two things part of that I actually started an online auction business which I was quite

Starting point is 00:18:20 naive in thinking that was you know only going to cost me 100 grand or 150 000 to build this online auction platform um you know 1.4 million dollars cash later i was um pretty stressed and uh i kind of saw everything go leaving um but covid hit and that was even more stressful i thought the world was going to end um and all of these events you know it's it's funny when you look back on things and hindsight's a wonderful thing i i often say that the revision mirror is very small but the but the windscreen in front of you is um is very large and so i do prefer to try and look forward rather than look back but you can learn a lot um from mistakes and and i've certainly made lots of those um but you you also have a big a thing called life in front of you

Starting point is 00:19:12 and I try not to dwell on things that have happened in the past. It's hard because sometimes, you know, your memory casts back to those things. But I really try and look forward and say, okay, well, how can I be a better version of myself? Ultimately, the decision, Bushy, that I've come to is that if I can be a better version of myself and if I feel good about myself, everything else will fall into place.

Starting point is 00:19:38 Yeah, yeah, yeah. No word. Very well said. You sort of touched on the fact that you're, you know, sort of currently going through a separation with your good wife. Having been there myself many years ago, I personally found that extremely challenging and I actually spent more time after my marriage went west

Starting point is 00:20:01 with counselling, getting my own headset sort of outside. I didn't fall in this trap again. What do you believe has sort of led to that situation? And I'm guessing here, mate, just sort of Google stalking you a bit before the chat today, that you are very goal-focused, you're very disciplined, you would put 100% into just about everything you do and, you know, that flows through to your work, you know, in marathon running and Ironman triathlete competitions. That requires a lot of discipline, a lot of persistence, but a lot of time commitment. and you know in my own case Damien I was so career focused that I didn't put enough energy into family and paid the very bitter price for that. I think for me personally and obviously I can't speak for my wife but for me personally I think you know you're in love with someone

Starting point is 00:21:04 it's possible that you can fall out of love with someone it's not that you don't actually love them it's that you in a relationship um it's time to move on um and i think that's really more for me like i i care deeply about for my family um i care deeply for my ex-wife i care deeply for my children i think that that is different to being in love or out of love if that makes sense so for me it was it was time to move on um and and for and for my um for my wife it was time for her to move on also. And I think both of us feel, and again, I can't speak to her, but I think both of us feel that it's the right thing for both of us. And I think that both of us will be happier doing what we're doing. I think that the biggest challenges around that is that we've been married

Starting point is 00:21:52 probably, I'm going to say 16 odd years, and you build a lot during that time. And to unwind that asset pool and and wealth that's been created and relationships and children um and emotions it that takes time um that is not an easy that is not an easy unwind um and i think you know the the challenges that probably both of us face in that is is not just a not just a it's happening um and you've got to walk work through the the finance side of things it's the all the emotion that goes with it bushy to be frank mate like it's it's it is a very emotional time um it's easy to to have a short switch um i think covid uh not that i want to use this as certainly not an excuse for my marriage but i think covid changed the way a lot of people

Starting point is 00:22:48 think about life um i bought a farm during covid yes i i always wanted to have a farm i actually went droving and jackarooing for 12 months before i before i uh got into real estate itself well sorry it's actually i was in real estate for about a year and then i got i went droving it was an unbelievable experience loved it and i i've had a deep connection with the land i went to boarding school um a lot of country mates and i think for me covid um was the catalyst for us for us buying the farm yeah i absolutely love going down there as soon as i finish this podcast with you i'm heading down i'm heading down to the farm i'm staying there tonight and i'll be coming back um tomorrow lunchtime when i have auctions tomorrow night um i love getting away

Starting point is 00:23:38 i love spending time that's a bit of a release for me i can saddle a horse up and go for a ride i can jump on a motorbike i can i can go and chop wood i can start a fire like a for me that is you know that's just about connecting with who i am and who i want to be so i think covid was a big part of that um but you can't underestimate what emotions you go through for me right for me i don't underestimate the emotions of separating um and spending time with children um and that's the biggest part of it frankly um you know that the things that you used to be able to do that you can't do anymore um that you know in many cases you i took for granted um and i think it would be unreasonable of anyone to say that they didn't take things for granted

Starting point is 00:24:27 um and it's yeah i think now it's about learning from those uh learning from that stuff and trying to be a better person um and a better version of yourself i don't make any um any what's the word uh like i yes i worked hard um but i i feel like i was i was always there i tried i tried really hard to be there yeah um and i also understand that you know people play different roles in relationships and and my role was obviously to be a dad and a great dad but also um to be uh to be a provider um as my wife did also and you know i think that both of us now can can plan towards the next stage of our lives and you know i certainly support her in that decision also yeah it's uh a rare sort of uh view of the exercise because often as you've mentioned

Starting point is 00:25:22 the emotions get in the way of good sense in in that highly uh charged environment when you're going through a a major uh relationship separation uh something else you sort of touched on because i i'm imagining and and wouldn't mind if you'll you know share as much as you're open to but in a 16-year marriage uh given how focused you are and and you know you're what you're looking to achieve uh both lifestyle-wise and the supporting wealth-wise i'm sure you've built up a a pretty uh impressive portfolio of assets in terms of maneuvering and managing the the uh property settlement side of that relationship exercise, I've seen a lot of people totally shipwreck themselves and make lawyers rich, but end up in a very average position themselves.

Starting point is 00:26:16 Are you happy to share how you're sort of maneuvering through that to maintain? From an investment point of view, I think we bought our first property back in, i'm going to say 2006 when i when i actually got married um we bought a first property in 2006 we sold that in order to buy the family home yeah um i bought a property in erskineville um which we have a portfolio about seven or eight properties um obviously some are worth a lot more than others um our family home in our time and is a you know absolutely beautiful beautiful it was my dream home on my life goal list i wanted a five bedroom home with a big backyard pool um wine cellar because i'm a bit of a collector of wine um and i wanted all those

Starting point is 00:27:07 things that's that's the home so it breaks me to not be in that home right now um that that is hard but we have you know i bought an investment property in uskinville paid 580 000 for it you know back in 2007 and uh you know that's probably worth the best part of you know close to two million bucks or more um now so it's exciting actually to to think about realizing that that wealth so i'm trying not to think about it like yes it's it's financially it's incredibly challenging and i won't go into too much detail about that because it's private for both peppy but i think one part which might sound a bit odd but i'm actually i'm excited about the uh the property sale stuff because you know i've actually never sold some i've never sold something um for

Starting point is 00:27:59 the sake of selling it if that makes sense i've only ever sold one property um sorry two properties one one was a property in narrenburn that we sold in order to buy our new family home Yep. And the other was an apartment I sold in Camperdown because I needed the money for renovating our new offices. So I've always been a buy and hold person. That's always been my investment strategy. And whilst I've had itchy feet sometimes to sell stuff, I haven't done it because I've always wanted to create wealth and build that asset pool because I've always been a very big believer in make money while you sleep. So I say that there's a part of me that's excited about it because I'm actually, you know, I had a goal many years ago to have $20 million in

Starting point is 00:28:48 unencumbered debt that I could use as a, from a, I don't like to use the word retirement, but everyone needs a number. If anyone gets anything out of this podcast, it's like every single person needs a number. What is your number? My number was 20 because I believed that if i had you know a house that was worth um 10 and then i had um 10 million in unencumbered investments um then i if i were if i earned a five percent return on that 10 million um that was half a million dollars a year um and to me that was a significant amount of money that i could um use for holidays um doing all sorts of fun things going on uh you know extravagant holidays frankly but not not interrupting my um the asset itself and not reducing my net wealth

Starting point is 00:29:40 and that net wealth would continue to grow as property values increased as share portfolios increased other investments increased um you know so that's been my number but there is a part of me that's excited about finding out what that number now is going to be yes probably sounds a bit silly the sum but for somebody who's thought about it for uh for 20 years i'm uh i'm interested to know what that number is now going to be because you don't really know if you've achieved the goal until you actually sell everything totally so exactly right and what i love about what you've just said then i i call them the freedom numbers mate the conversations that we have with people that we're assisting starts with your freedom numbers because if you don't know what your

Starting point is 00:30:24 numbers are then you don't you don't know what you should be doing how to and that sort of folds into you know the the concept of living by design now you've touched on this a little bit already but i'd love for you to share with us your picture of your life vision and your ideal lifestyle now you're probably having to reshape that a little bit in the camera and exercise and then then and make that as vivid as you can and then talk to us about what's your ongoing investment strategy going to be to both attain and maintain that long term yeah look for me um i think it's all about you know understanding what my position is and and unfortunately financially i don't know what that position is at the moment um yeah which is a which is a bit of a scary thought however putting

Starting point is 00:31:13 that aside living your life by design is is i would say one of the most important things that changed my life um without any shadow of a doubt i always used to think i had goals i always used to think i wanted to achieve things but until i actually started writing these things down and and goal dumping um and writing down what's important to me i actually actually was just living day by day i actually wasn't living my life by design at all and i know that i need to review my life goals um all the time and i mean i've got them in front of me right now because i have them on me all the time i write out my personal goals through till the end of every every calendar year i write out my business goals through to the end of the calendar year every year

Starting point is 00:32:01 and i write out my life goals the life goals are the ones that excite me um i write my life goals out i try and put dates on them with my life goals but i think that the life goals are just for me they're things that i want to achieve at some point in my life and actually doesn't matter whether i achieve them this year next year the following year or whenever it might be um you know i'll just read a couple to you i want to watch a wildebeest migration i want to watch an nba game in in los angeles um i want to watch a semi or a final of wimbledon the u.s open um have 20 million dollars in unencumbered assets um i've added to that i want to have five million dollars in shares I want to fly first class overseas.

Starting point is 00:32:41 I want to see my children through private schooling. I want to own a Maserati. I want to own a 79 Series Cruiser Ute, which I'm actually getting in two weeks. I want to own a Bentley. I want to walk my daughter Eva down the aisle at her wedding. You know, these are the sorts of things that make my heart sing. And I think, you know, I've got literally a list of two pages of life goals. But these are the things that are important to me.

Starting point is 00:33:06 and these are the things that excite me and i and i think everybody should go grab a piece of paper and start writing out and it doesn't matter how grand or how how small or how silly you think it might be um you know these are the things that um that you should want to do i want to own and operate an angostad i want to own a beach house in whale beach you know i can't afford a beach house in whale beach god knows when i'm going to be able to afford a beach house in whale beach but i'd like to hope one day maybe i can so it's on the gold sheet i love it mate i just the the energy that that comes out of creating that very vivid magnet uh yep it it motivates you uh you know you're sort of singing my tune here mate because i'm very similar to you in that regard

Starting point is 00:33:57 and it but it also acts as a compass because it means that every decision you're making day to day is based on well is that taking me closer to those goals or further away and all of a sudden you've got a guidance system that's that's keeping you on track rather than just allowing life to happen and and uh using the excuse of being too busy and then then getting to the retirement agent going where did it all go and holy hell i i haven't done much and i don't have the ability to do much yep from a business point of view bushy like i used to have an appointment in my diary every week saying media hour and media hour was because i've never had a pr person do pr for me i've always done everything myself um i used to have that appointment in my diary i stopped doing

Starting point is 00:34:43 that i stopped contacting the media i stopped and look i had from time to time people call me but i stopped it now i realized that i was off track on that i realized that i was off track what have i done to get back on track i've started doing that again i've actually set myself a goal that between now, August and 31st of December, I want to be quoted in the paper 12 times. Okay. Now that's six, basically that's six months. It's actually five months. I want to be quoted in the paper 12 times. So I need to be in the paper at least twice a month, if not three times a month. Right. So right now I'm sitting on the 20th or something like that, you know, late august and i've been quoted in the paper three times this month straight off the back of

Starting point is 00:35:31 me making the decision that i need to pull my finger out and get back on get back working hard speaking to clients chasing business you know one one thing that i feel like right now is i feel like i'm day one in real estate again i really do i feel like i feel like i'm day one creating wealth again i feel like i'm day one in real estate again i'm day one in in relationships again i'm day one with my kids and it's like okay mate life's changing you're at square one you can sit in the back corner and you can sulk or and you can say poor me and this didn't go right or this didn't go right or you can just say you know what you you can change everything at the click of your fingers so what is your attitude going to be and and i'm obviously taking the positive attitude

Starting point is 00:36:16 and i'm going to say i'm going to change stuff and i'm going to make things really good for everyone that i touch and i'm going to do more for charity i'm going to do more for myself i'm going to do more for my kids and i'm just going to work harder and be a better dad and a better person so you know that's the attitude that i'm taking right now i love it mate i love the positive the positivity of that and and taking control of it but it's sort of that's nice leverage into uh you know what what's your definition of sustainable success um i don't a lot of people talk about balance i say this if you want to be the best at what you do there is no thing called balance there's no balance um if you want to be the best right

Starting point is 00:37:04 if you want to be if you want to be the absolute best dad if you want to be you want to turn up every time to every sport match take kids to school pick kids up from school if you want to be there at every parent teacher meeting if you want to be all that you can't be the best in your business at what you do because it takes you away from that right if you want to be the best in your business there are certain things that you will sacrifice you have to make sacrifices you just have to you know i i remember that when i was training for ironman i've done two ironmans um you know i got to the point where i was training probably around 20 hours a week exercise training i'm talking about training 20 hours a week to to be the fittest version of me

Starting point is 00:37:47 i said one thing to myself you need to get to that start line and you want to say to yourself there is nothing more you could have done and if you can say that to yourself when you're standing on that start line then you will as a result of the training run the run and compete the best race that you of your life and i did and i did the same thing when i ran 100 kilometer race um in ultra trails australia i did the same thing when i when i ran two hours and 53 minutes in the sydney marathon i did the same thing when i came you know 160 odd in the city to surf around 51 minutes 30 um you know all of that stuff i i i achieved all those goals um for me now what is what is what is being you know business sustainability or sustainability in life in

Starting point is 00:38:35 general for me i am trying to find more of a balance um i am trying to find uh being fulfilled more rather than setting a goal and achieving it i'm trying to ask myself what fulfills me and i think these are the questions that you start trying to ask yourself as you as you get a little bit older they're very different to the questions i was asking myself when i was 20 and 21 and 25 and even 30 you know i remember at 30 thinking far out 40s old but now i'm in my 40s i look back and i go far out i wish i was 30 you know and i'm sure i'm sure mate it only progresses as you get 50 and 60 and 70 right but i'm right here mate i'm a long way down that journey and you're exactly right mate you're spot on i saw something on instagram the other day i'm

Starting point is 00:39:25 quite social i do like social media i particularly like instagram um i saw something about saying you know we've um we've all we all something about you know you've all got two lives and um the second life begins when you realize that you only have one you know and i thought far out that is so true you know my mom died at 66 her brother died at 66 um you know family i have had family pass away early i certainly hope that um that that's not me um and i try and make sure that i I do things that don't fast-track that. But I also am very conscious of living, and I am a bit of a daredevil. I do things that make me happy.

Starting point is 00:40:11 I don't have regrets in life. I've got great memories. I do know that I can do things better. I don't think that that's a regret. I know that I can be better in some aspects of my life, and I try and make changes to be better. but i don't beat myself up if i make errors you know um yeah you've got to enjoy yourself so yes i think the answer to your question really changes as you get older um when i was young mate i just wanted to work my backside off and be the best i could in business

Starting point is 00:40:46 um and i and i didn't have any care or any worry you know i really i worked hard i i think um The things that I have done well in business that I think to pass on to people to not underestimate is smile, look good, feel good. You never get a second chance to make a first impression. I've always been a believer if I feel good, everything falls into place. You know, I get my hair cut every two weeks. I wash my car once, twice, sometimes three times a week. I polish my shoes every week. I wear nice suits.

Starting point is 00:41:21 it doesn't have to be the most expensive shirt suit um i can afford to to wear nicer clothes now but back in the day you know i used to wear a kelly country suit and which was like 80 bucks 100 bucks and i used to have hot chip sandwiches on white bread because i couldn't afford to now go and have a cheese and prosciutto and rocket sandwich toasted you know like life changes as um as you as you get uh more income and money but yeah don't be don't don't try and keep up with everybody i see a lot of kids these days trying to keep up particularly in the real estate industry you know there's a a lot of kids driving nice cars wearing flash suits going out the flash dinners you know and they're earning 60 80 grand a year but you're not on a million dollar a year

Starting point is 00:42:11 income yeah but but but they try because i think that's one thing that the industry has let has let out has let kids down in in is that um you know people try and be something that they can't afford to be you know people get credit card debt and then they can't afford this they can't afford that um you know i i just think that that's really wrong don't don't be afraid to to be a sponge and learn everything you can at a young age um because you know you you think you're old but you're not um you got a lot of living to do and you got a lot of time to create wealth um but yeah make money while you sleep totally agree you mentioned something that i think i'd like to dig into and you know but the question that you're asking yourself now is well

Starting point is 00:42:59 what really fulfills me yeah can you sort of and you're probably still contemplating that as we speak are you able to share a little bit more about what's in your thinking about that at the moment i i think one of the biggest things that covert did for me that where i where i was got off track is my health and fitness um you know i i collect wine i actually i'm a i'm a shareholder in a restaurant a wine bar restaurant in randwick called cellar cellar vinoteca i absolutely love it um it's an amazing restaurant we've got an amazing chef marco mazzotti he's he's phenomenal fabio d'oro who's a great friend of mine um is a amazing sommelier i love wine so i covered i drank heaps i started getting stuck into my wine collection but i enjoyed it right i really

Starting point is 00:43:49 enjoyed it um but i actually stopped exercising which was the biggest downfall i think for me And I've actually found it incredibly difficult to get back into it. I was one of the fittest blokes running around, you know, I was running marathons, a hundred kilometers. I was doing Ironmans. You know, I was swimming, biking, running, you know, 20 hours a week. And, and I've got to say, it's the biggest thing that I've fallen back on that I have not been doing. And it's, I'm still to this minute,

Starting point is 00:44:22 I'm finding it hard to make the decision to, to get back into it. I'm trying to get back into it without a big goal to just try and find balance and run two, three, four times a week. But I kind of feel like I'm the sort of person that needs that big goal to achieve or to get fit and healthy again. Like I'm a bit of an all or nothing person and that has served me very well in business um and has served me well in in health and fitness but but the nothing part of that is is not serving me well right now so um i think what you know what fulfills me i want to

Starting point is 00:45:07 spend more time with my kids um i'm i'm trying really hard to um to be able to do that um and you know i want to take kids to school something as simple as that you know about about catching up with um with kids during the week about spending time with them on the weekends about turning up to that rugby game you know i'm watching my son play rugby i'm watching my daughter play netball i'm trying to do more things like that and that is fulfilling me um i mentioned earlier that you know i was the most booked auctioneer in the country and how that's changing for me it's changing as a result of me wanting to spend more time with with family and um understanding that um that you know that that that earning the dollar isn't everything

Starting point is 00:45:52 um but my old man used to always say money isn't everything but it's right up there with oxygen he's probably he's probably pretty pretty right but um i think that you know when you're on your deathbed no one's going to ask you how much money you made in march or june or july you know um you you go to the you go to the grave with a significant wealth pool um that you do pass on to uh to to younger generations and your kids etc but um i think that that you you can potentially focus too much on that and lose sight of you know what's actually really important to you you know i often death death actually frightens the hell out of me to be honest um but i often think about um about about that and i think about like who's around like who's standing at my

Starting point is 00:46:44 deathbed who's with me who who am i who are my absolute close friends so you know saying yes to going out to dinner with somebody who's maybe not a really close friend and sacrificing go to going to a kid's school play for example is for me right now is a non-negotiable just not going to happen yeah um so they're they're the things that i think as you get older you start thinking more about them And then your children, one of my goals is I want to walk my daughter down the aisle. Like even just writing that goal down, I started crying to myself, thinking what an amazing – and it's not necessarily just walking

Starting point is 00:47:22 down the aisle, but it's a life experience really. You know, I think that it's about being there for your children. And also, Bushy, I reckon not underestimate being there for yourself. Yeah. i think that's a big thing like i think that you know like i'm the sort of person that does a lot for other people yeah um you know i've i say yes to charity stuff all the time like this month alone i'd have five or six charity auctions that i'm doing that i'm sacrificing time out of for myself and time spent with other people for for charity work but like that's always been important

Starting point is 00:48:01 to me and i find i actually find it really hard to say no um yeah you know so i don't know that's that's that's been important to me i'm an ambassador for youth off the streets i've raised a couple of million dollars for yachts and i'm a great friend of father chris riley like i i um you know i do a lot of work with the children's cancer institute with ronald mcdonald house i don't know i just i'm a bit of a bit of a sucker for helping people because um but you know maybe maybe sometimes i also need to think about trying to help myself too so yeah that's that's always a challenge when you when you're someone who is so giving and and and so focused on always doing doing your best the the often the big loser and that is yourself and you know fulfillment not

Starting point is 00:48:46 you know it took my dying mother for me to learn uh damien that true fulfillment comes from giving freely to others without ever expecting anything in return absolutely something she'd always done and something that i hadn't really thought about it until i spent 12 months looking after when she was dying of cancer yep give to not receive yeah and it's it's until you till you start doing it you don't you just don't uh appreciate just how uh fulfilling and satisfying that that really is So I sort of understand the challenges you have there because, you know, as someone who really wants to make a dent and make a difference and improve lives, it becomes a bit of a, you know, you're like a moth to the flame. And, you know, for you spending time with your mum during that time, what a beautiful time to spend time with her and learn and ask questions. I had a lot of things that I wanted to say to my mum, you know,

Starting point is 00:49:48 when she was passing and when she was in palliative care, you know, I asked her if she was proud of me. That was something that I really wanted to ask, which was important to me. You won't be surprised to hear the answer was yes. She wrote me a letter. She actually wrote all five kids a birthday card to open up on our birthdays after she passed, which was just,

Starting point is 00:50:14 a very very emotional day um i went up on top of the hill at my farm and i opened up the card after sitting there for about two hours just looking at it um and i opened it up and you know it was you know happy birthday darling um she said you know damien i always knew you were going to shine but don't forget what's important you know and to me that was the that was her way of saying do not forget your family is important you know that was absolutely it was my mom saying you know my life's my life's coming to an end um but it it wasn't about what job she had it wasn't about what wealth she created it wasn't about anything else other than her family full stop yeah so i think that that's a there's a there's a lesson in that i mean there's got to

Starting point is 00:51:02 be time for everything but you you just can't forget what's important in life so and those Just fundamental foundation stones, you know, without them, it's like a house of cards anyway, Damien. I think we need to start talking about auctions before I start crying, mate. I know, mate. I know. We're going to break this great chat with Damien Cooley here and pick it up in the next episode, where we'll enjoy a fascinating discussion on all things auction

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Property Hub - Investment Insights & Inspiration - Get Invested: Part 1: Auctioneer Damien Cooley on knowing your number

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