Property Hub - Investment Insights & Inspiration - Get Invested: Part 1: Steve Moriarty on knowing thy self

Episode Date: November 5, 2021

What type of person are you? What is your personality type? And how does it influence your investing?  As an investor, Steve Moriarty says your personality is critically important and you really need to know yourself. For over 20 years, Steve has been a highly successful full time private investor. He’s the founder and Wealth Coach at Next Level Wealth, a podcast host, author and former political adviser.  As you’ll hear in our great conversation, he also has an incredible wealth of knowledge of economic theory and policy and how this impacts on your investment strategy. But it all revolves around knowing yourself and your personality type so that you can then construct an investment style and systematic plan that plays to your strengths and protects yourself from your weaknesses and emotional limitations. To identify your personality type, jump on www.truity.com or www.crystalknows.com to take their quick and easy free questionnaire to find out who you really are. In the context of my belief that sustainable success lies at the intersection of self, health and wealth, then knowing thy self is foundational and critical to your success because it enables you to see things as they are not as you choose to see them, and you’re able to play to your strengths and compensate and overcome your weaknesses to ensure you go the distance in your investment journey. Now as a special bonus for Get Invested listeners, once you’ve confirmed which of the personality types you fall into, you can email Steve directly [e-mail] to get your free personality type assessment and a related investment roadmap that’s tailored to your specific personality type. Steve also talks about this in much more detail in his excellent book, Low Rates, High Returns. And if you like what you’ve heard and read, Next Level Wealth’s uniquely tailored investment coaching program may be just what you’ve been looking for. Now Steve’s coaching program isn’t for everyone. But If you’re seeking financial freedom, have an abundance mindset and want total control over your financial outcomes, then this program could be the right fit.  In the same vein, if you’re ready to take the bull by the horns and get started on your property investment journey, grab yourself a free copy of my award winning intro book Get Invested by jumping on https://bushymartin.com.au/books - you can get the ebook version at no cost. And if you like what you read then you can upgrade to the full Freedom Formula book that gives you the detailed keys on why, what and how you need to invest to achieve your ultimate lifestyle goals and get your precious time back. Get ‘Self, Health and Wealth’ wisdom in your inbox: Join me and many other like minded investors in our Get Invested community right now.  I send a free and exclusive monthly email full of practical ‘Self, Health and Wealth’ wisdom that our current Freedom Fighter subscribers can’t wait to get each month. It’s full of investment and lifestyle tips, my personal book recommendations, apps I use to enhance life and so much more. Just visit bushymartin.com.au and sign up at the bottom of the page … because this is just the beginning! Get Invested is the leading weekly podcast for Australians who want to learn how to unlock their full ‘self, health and wealth’ potential. Hosted by Bushy Martin, an award winning property investor, founder, author and media commentator who is recognised as one of Australia’s most trusted experts in property, investment and lifestyle, Get Invested reveals the secrets of the high performers who invest for success in every aspect of their lives and the world around them. Remember to subscribe on your favourite podcast player, and if you're enjoying the show please leave us a review. Find out more about Get Invested here https://bushymartin.com.au/get-invested-podcast/  Want to connect with Bushy? Get in touch here https://bushymartin.com.au/contact/  This show is produced by Apiro Media - http://apiropodcasts.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I think what you often find in investing, whether it be in art or cars or stocks or property, there's a lot of talk about the numbers. And while I don't neglect the numbers, the important part, Bushy, as you would probably know, is it's about what money means to you as a person, because it means different things to each of us. Money is not the point. the point of money is for me to express my personality in its in in its entirety there are nine types of personalities but it's called the enneagram and it goes by the name of the nine types um and you'll find them in our book so what it says is this there are nine archetypes of personalities and what you find is within each of those types the there are we have traits and behaviors and beliefs about a whole raft of things it's important that you know your type

and really importantly bushy to know the people who you are close to and what their type is so for example as we talked about with money some people say well money is for freedom and others say no no it's for achieving and others say oh no money's for giving away to other people and what that is doing is money is the vehicle for expressing the personality it's really important that you understand your own motivations and we teach this in the course and put emphasis on it because you will interpret what i say differently and the reason why is because you're interpreting according to your own framework at least when you when you say to yourself, I'm about to do something dumb, the key is to say, oh, oh, yes, I am. Now, I'm going to

work away around that. And I think understanding yourself is critical to that. You can be the best investor in the world. But if you are overly emotional with your money, then you're not going to go very well. And so what we've done in the program is we have an investment map for all of those personality types. Welcome to the Get Invested podcast, where we share great conversations with experts from all walks of life to uncover their secret know-how and where they invest their time, their skills, and their money, and the benefits that this has created. You see, the truth is that everyone invests. Every minute of every day, we're investing our time, our skills, our energy, and our money in something. Some of us are investing consciously, some unconsciously,

sometimes for good, sometimes for bad, and sometimes for no impact. Get Invested will help you to start living by design, not by default. I'm going to help you to make it happen, not let it happen. You'll hear the top tips on how you can live with conscious intent so that you can live more, work less,

and leave a living legacy by investing now. Listen to the show to discover the top tips on how to get started, make the most of your investment journey, and ultimately to be living your dream, not someone else's. More episodes can be found on iTunes or at bushymartin.com.au forward slash getinvested. Thanks for listening and now, let's get invested. Hi, Freedom Fighters. What sort of an investor are you?

And what has the most impact on your investment success? Is it what you invest in? How long you invest? How much you invest? Well, it's actually none of these things. You may be interested to know that the thing that will have the biggest impact on your investment success is pregnant pause as we go to an outbreak, and then it cuts back to let me open the winner's envelope to draw out the suspense and the excitement even further, like all of those annoying celebrity reality TV shows. The winner is you. Yes, the thing that's going

to have the biggest impact on your investment success is you and your personality. It's not external, it's internal. The person looking back at you in the mirror, how you think and perceive the world and your inherent tendencies will have the biggest impact on your level of investment success. Most people try to blame external events or causes, but the reality is that if you don't master yourself and design an investment system that emphasizes your strengths while protecting yourself from your own weaknesses, your investing will never prosper sustainably over the long haul. This is why your personality type ranks as number two in the list of eight Timeless Investment Principles, outlined by today's special guest, Steve Moriarty of Next

Level Wealth, in his great book, Low Rates, High Returns, that he co-authored with Pete Wardgen, who's a regular here on Get Invested. And I can honestly say that it's one of the best books I've had the pleasure of reading on the art and science of sustainably successful investment. so I know that you're going to love our deep dive with Steve and he packs so much investment gold that I've decided to split and spread it over two episodes. So what type of person are you?

What's your personality type? And how does it influence your investing? To whet your appetite on the critical importance of your personality and really knowing yourself, I thought I'd share some relevant extracts from Steve's great book because your personality really matters. In life, we all tend to think we're unique. And in one sense, that's true.

But on the other hand, we're probably more like others than we dare to admit. So why bother to study your personality type? Why is it important to consider your personality at all? Because once you understand your motivations, your strengths and weaknesses, you can recognise and understand your behaviour patterns and become a much more rational investor.

In this respect, your personality goes a long way. When it comes to investing, the dominant line of thinking is that people are all sensible and coolly rational and so no one ever loses control of their emotions. Unfortunately, this could be singularly the most damaging belief when it comes to investing. the reality is when it comes to money none of us are rational all the time it simply doesn't add up that we can have a range of emotions like love anger sadness etc regarding a whole range of

issues but when it comes to money and investment we all singularly take a rational approach this simply is not true and many people including some of those in the finance industry believe that once they understand the facts of the stock market, they'll be able to buy stocks when they fall and sell when they rise. It all sounds so very simple. But putting this into action when there's money on the line is somewhat more difficult. What stops us from doing this is our emotions.

Any investment strategy that fails to account for an individual's beliefs and motivations is most likely going to fall short. As Margaret H. Smith once said, what might seem irrational from the outside doesn't seem irrational from the inside. It's simply impossible to separate out our personality from our investing. Our personality combined with media headlines, investment advice and general fear and greed at specific points of the cycle all conspire to make investing difficult. when it comes to money we tend to save spend and invest for different reasons and all of us

have our own beliefs about money some folks spend all their money on things they like but may not necessarily need others don't think much of saving and spend their money on family and friends before themselves others still impulse spend when they feel stressed or as a reward for achieving goals. At the opposite end of the spectrum, some folks save as much as possible, even if they don't know what they're exactly saving for. And some are dismal enough to save in order to achieve a financial goal. As such, we all possess strengths and weaknesses in our personalities that play a role when we invest. But as we're all somewhat different, next level Wealth, notice that when they explain their timeless investing concepts and principles,

there's a range of reactions. Some people immediately understand the market cycles both at the head level and at the intuitive level. Others hold strengths in different areas, such as diversification or risk management. Investment success relies heavily on knowing ourselves and how we prepare and react to changes in investment markets. And while we all believe that we're unique, the reality is that we all have common approaches that allow us to be grouped and classified into the nine personality types or Enneagram assessment, alluded to in the opening excerpt at the beginning of this episode. So what personality type are you?

Let's outline each of them, and while you're listening, try and identify the one that best captures your personality style. Now, while we might not fit snugly into one personality type, each of us has a dominant personality type, sometimes with a second personality type which is referred to as a wing. So choose the one type that is most applicable to you from the nine types that I'm now going to describe. Type one is the reformer. If you are a reformer, you believe money is important and you can be quite serious about money. You hold strong views about money, what is right and wrong, what is acceptable and what's not. You usually put a limited amount of effort into money matters.

You try to live within your means and not be too greedy or excessive. You generally don't like debt, but you're comfortable borrowing for a home or a car. You enjoy spending on nice expensive goods because they're worth it. You tend to compare yourself with others in seeing what material things they have. Now type two is the helper. If you're a helper, money doesn't interest you very much. And you like to spend it to help other people before spending it on yourself. Spending on yourself seems a bit selfish and you don't like asking any other people for money.

You're generally optimistic and believe things will probably work out in the end. Money is not a great motivator for you, so you spend a limited amount of time and effort thinking about it. Type three is called the achiever, where money brings significance. If you're an achiever, you enjoy achieving your goals, and money is one of the ways that validates your approach to life. being money conscious you work hard to develop your skills and you're not afraid to work hard to achieve your monetary goals you can budget reasonably easily you're happy to borrow and paying off any debt is usually not a problem and you're happy to study money type four is the individualist now for individualists money is not a motivating force for you

and so you don't think it can deliver a meaningful life. You can be creative about earning, spending and investing money but things you spend money on have to have some personal meaning to you. Although you're not that interested in money, you do tend to have expensive taste and can overspend. Money is not something that's exciting to you so you don't really make any effort in managing money. now type five is the thinker analyzer and investigator money means security to thinkers

so if you're a thinker you're generally self-sufficient and so you generally minimize the need for money you don't really need that much money to survive so you don't place a great deal of effort in earning a lot of money you think money is useful for allowing you to be more self-sufficient. You don't really worry at all about what others have or keeping up with the Joneses. You just don't think too much about money. Type six is the loyalist. Now loyalists generally believe money helps in gaining security and while you can occasionally splurge, most of the time you're reasonably frugal and try not to spend too much. Even though you may have some debt, it makes you a bit nervous. You like bargains and think getting value for money is more important

than buying expensive products. You put in a certain amount of effort regarding money but probably not as much as other people. Now type seven is the adventurer where money allows freedom. If you're an adventurer money is important to you because it presents opportunities and can fulfil your needs. You think money is a way to increase your options and freedom. You generally don't limit your spending or devote too much time to thinking about a budget. And when you buy something, you can have a budget in mind,

but you're happy to spend more if you like a product. Having some savings is good as it can provide you with some options. And if you really think about it, you're happy to study how to increase your wealth. type 8 is the challenger if you're a challenger you want what you want and think that if you work hard you should be able to get it you like to be the master of your own destiny and control your money you prefer to focus on making more money rather than reducing your spending you think budgets are restrictive and if you make a lot of money you should be able to spend a lot of it too

You're happy to put in effort for the sake of money. And finally, type nine is the peacemaker. For peacemakers, money provides you with comfort and peace of mind. You're self-reliant and financially responsible, and you don't spend too much on yourself. Money is not overly interesting to you, and so you don't work too hard or study investing too much. it's not really a motivating force for you and so you don't really spend a great deal of time and effort on money you have a relaxed attitude towards money and you don't think about improving your finances much you're happy to let your partner or a professional manage the finances

and there you have it so how did you go which type are you and which type is your partner if you have one if you're still not sure jump on a free questionnaire on truity.com which is t-r-u-i-t-y that's truity.com forward slash test forward slash enneagram that's e-n-n-e-a-g-r-a-m i'll say that again enneagram e-double-n-e-a-g-r-a-m dash personality test or there's a similar one on www.crystalnose as in crystal c-r-y-s-t-a-l-k-n-o-w-s.com that's crystalnose.com and they ask a bunch of really simple questions that will show you which of the nine personality types captures you the best. I did both of them and it only took about five minutes. Now, in the context of the above, can you guess which personality type I am? Well, after

doing the exercise, I found that I'm a little bit schizo with a split between a very dominant type 3 achiever along with the dob of the type 7 adventurer. So, as an example, what are the strengths and weaknesses of a Type 3? Well, according to truity.com, Achiever 3s are defined by their desire to be significant and to distinguish themselves through their achievements. Achievers are success-oriented, pragmatic types, and they're adaptable, excelling, driven, and image-conscious. 3s tend to communicate directly, resist ambiguity, and display strong persistent towards goals. To others, threes appear confident, ambitious and goal-oriented. But underneath, they're often unsure of their innate self-worth because threes fear being a

failure. They strive to be successful and significant to avoid feeling worthless. Key personality traits of the three achievers include an impressive range of accomplishments. they're generally extremely busy and on the go they often create jam-packed schedules and meetings and they're generally charismatic and make good first impressions. Type 3 Achievers have the capacity for huge chunks of productivity to reach their goals and have high standards for themselves and others. Their goal is to be remembered and appreciated for their discoveries and their creations

in other words, to be the best. they're smart ambitious and typically well-dressed and achievers hit and exceed targets both left and right their performance and dedication is admired by others may often inspire them to take action at their best achievers tend to be confident energetic and humble role models who inspire others. Type 3s can be incredibly productive and even workaholics. As children, type 3s most likely learn from an early age that achievement resulted in love and praise. So they establish their identity on gaining attention in the form of success. But type 3 achievers may also struggle to understand their own emotions as they focus instead on what they want to do and achieve.

Core values of Enneagram Threes include being goal-driven, equipped with the Type A mentality and a relentless drive for self-improvement. Getting things done is more important than too much planning and the wasted time spent daydreaming. Productivity and achievement take the cake as the Achiever's core values. Threes are driven, kind and willing to lend a helping hand. They can push organisations to new uncharted territories with talent and ease. With a natural charisma and a knack for recognising the potential for their brilliant ideas, achievers succeed in the workplace and beyond.

They're highly adaptable and can push themselves to inspire others and successfully reap the fruits of their labour and creativity. With a witty sense of humour and a bit of a goofy side, they learn to take life with ease and prioritise their work-life balance. that are organised on top of their game and willing to take constructive feedback. Weaknesses that are typically associated with the Enneagram 3 include things like a difficulty accepting failure from themselves or others, losing touch with or avoiding their own feelings and being perceived as insensitive or overly competitive.

Now, well-known type 3 achievers include the likes of Oprah Winfrey, Tony Robbins, Lady Gaga, Beyonce Knowles, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Muhammad Ali, Will Smith, Deepak Chopra, Richard Gere, and my favorite, Sting, who's a bit of a guru for me. Now, I'm not sure about you, but this seems like a scarily accurate description of yours truly. So what does this mean to my approach to my relationship with money and investing? Well, according to the literature, threes either live to work or work to live lavishly. Regardless, achievers likely apply smart goals to their finances, knowing exactly how and when they're going to reach their financial milestones.

And if they're to get derailed by anything, it's that they've set too many goals at once. 3s have big dreams, big goals and sometimes big spending habits Driven by success, they feel best when they can track their progress and see outcomes e.g. like meeting a goal They see money as a reflection of success as well as a status symbol which can sometimes lead to splurging on luxury purchases Wealth to 3s is more about the freedom of doing what they want rather than the amount that sits in their bank account

which is what the truity data found. Whether that's zooming from Bali or buying themselves the latest high-tech gadgets money is a reward for their hard work and hustle. Type 3 achievers are also the most likely to report that they are very motivated by money and being intensely focused on obtaining success it's no shock that their savings and investments

are one way that 3s choose to define accomplishment. So from an investment perspective I need to check myself so that when I feel compelled to spend or invest I need to ensure I'm satisfying my true intentions. Am I trying to impress others? Am I doing it to keep up with the trend? The clearer I am in my priorities the more I'll be able to invest in things that speak to my innermost fulfillment values. So clearly knowing yourself is foundational to your success. interestingly when running their next level wealth coaching programs today's guest steve and his partner in crime pete wargen have found that the most common interested investors are

types three five and seven that's because these are the personality types that place some level of importance on money so hopefully you'll have identified one personality type that describes you best. If not, again, I encourage you to jump on truity.com or crystalnose.com to take their quick and easy free questionnaire to find out who you really are. As often, we're good at being able to read others, but not so good at knowing who we really are. And in the context of my belief that sustainable success lies at the intersection of self-health and wealth, then knowing thyself is foundational and critical to your success because it enables you to see things as they are

not as you choose to see them and you're able to play to your strengths and compensate and overcome your weaknesses to ensure that you go the distance in your investment journey. Now as a special bonus for Get Invested listeners once you've confirmed which of the nine types you fall into you can email Steve to get your free personality type assessment

and a related investment roadmap that's tailored to your specific personality type. Just email stevedirect at steve at gonextlevelwealth.com.au That's gonextlevelwealth.com.au This helps your development as an investor because you'll immediately be able to recognise your strengths and weaknesses as well as some of your potential foibles and pitfalls. We all have our own biases, and an investment map that revolves around your personality type can help you to recognise and avoid them. Remember the old quote by Leo Tzu, he who knows others is learned, he who knows himself is wise.

using the nine types as a guide steve and the next level wealth team are able to identify specific patterns of your personality and your investing habits the nine types can help to show your automatic patterns and unconscious biases most readily associated with your personality type when combined with knowledge regarding the ebbs and flows of investment markets and cycles Understanding ourselves gives us a great advantage when it comes to successful investing. Once you understand your top, next level wealth will be able to determine your strengths and weaknesses when it comes to investing. They can set about utilising those strengths and weaknesses to develop your specific investment map. As Ed Thorpe, legendary billionaire investor and author was famous for saying,

the plan of betting only at the level that I was emotionally comfortable with and not advancing until I was ready enabled me to play my system with a calm and disciplined accuracy, which is exactly what you need to do if you're going to be a successful investor, because your personality drives your approach to decision making, which is critical in investing. So now that we have a better feel for who we really are, let's now turn to the flow-on elements of decision making. There are two major elements in your decision making. One's your personality and the second is the influence that your family, friends and the wider society play in your decision making. In the stock market for example, it's important to recognise that

your personality and the way you make decisions is an important ingredient in your success. As I've already said, we all tend to think we're unique and in many ways we are. However, there are also many ways in which each of us is largely the same, and we often have more in common than we think. As Steve is often fond of saying, we're the same, but different. The same part often includes that we generally all want a better life for ourselves, our children, and our friends. And mostly, we believe money has a key role to play in achieving that better life.

The different part is that because of our inherent beliefs about money, as well as other things, what constitutes a better life is different for many of us. Because we each have a distinct personality, we each see money and the role it plays in our lives quite differently. Some, like Steve, see money as the key to a life of freedom and, therefore, it's a way to deliver a life free from obligations and constraints, leaving us with a maximum free time to spend how we want. Others, like me, may see money as a route to building wealth and significance

and to continue to work and achieve goals, even though we may have enough money to retire and do nothing. Still others will see money as something that you should share. And when they have money, they tend to be generous, especially to friends and others less fortunate than them. My awesome and selfless wife, Sonia, is a perfect example of this. So your specific personality combined with knowledge about the stock market or property market can play a role in your success or failure.

For example, while we necessarily don't enjoy market crashes, we do understand that these are excellent times to invest for the future and make solid investment returns. However, not everyone feels the same. There are people who just won't invest because they think the stock market is inherently risky. Part of this is because they don't have the knowledge about how markets work. But it's also largely because of their individual personality and their approach to risk. As you can see in the stock market, understanding your own personality and what you believe about money and markets can be critical to your success.

Stock markets are all about the risk-reward trade-off. Some of us are brave and carefree and happy to take risks if we believe the rewards are there. These folks tend to be classified as risk tolerant Others who are more cautious and focus on the risk side of the equation will be deemed more risk averse or conservative The truth is though, it's a continuum rather than specific points For example, when you go to a financial advisor they'll often ask you about your risk level

and it's an important aspect of developing your investment strategy However, most of us know little about our own innate risk level and usually only understand more when we have some context. We answer this question on risk along the lines of, yeah, I'm about the same as most people. But the problem here is twofold. First, your risk level may be high or low because of your personality. But, as we're about to show you,

that should not play a large role in developing an investment strategy. The simple reason for this is that when the stock market is cheap, you should, if the cycles are understood properly, increase your investments rather than reduce them. You should like live prices because there's a high likelihood that the future returns are going to be good. But investing when the stock market is declining is really hard, not because of the numbers. Cheaper stock prices usually lead to greater investment returns, but because our personality and our emotions

unduly influence our investment approach. Another challenge relates to timing. Our risk levels and feelings toward risk change with the prevailing circumstances. If you walked into a financial advisor's office and the stock market was all over the day's news due to crash, you'd most likely say you were more risk-averse rather than intolerant. Many financial advisors don't hear too often from their clients when the

market's rising, but they sure get to hear from them when the market's falling. And it's worth restating here that we all possess strengths and weaknesses in our personalities when we think about money investments. It's simply impossible to separate out our money and our investment beliefs. Investors who understand the market better would realise that in many cases it's their emotions that are dictating their approach towards investing. Therefore, we seek to understand our own personality and beliefs about risk and money. Once you understand your emotions, your personality, motivations, strengths and weaknesses, you can then recognise and understand your own behavioural patterns and those of others. We can tell you that you won't achieve

your optimum results when you don't think rationally about investments. The idea of making decisions by gut feel or intuition may pay off once or twice, but seldom does it work over an investment lifetime. Firstly, it's not systematic, and so there's a lack of consistency in your decision making. Secondly, gut feelings tend to ignore knowledge. Instead, you forgo rational numbers and figures and accept stories about why certain investments might perform well the future. In that case, you ignore stock market history and allow emotions, the media and others' influence to determine your decisions. If you make decisions this way, you are unlikely to succeed over time. As the old saying goes, the stock market is a very expensive place

to find out about yourself. So let's now turn to the related subject of your individual decision making. As I've clearly outlined, personality heavily influences our approach to risk and stock markets and property markets. If you can understand what triggers mistakes in your investing career, then you'll be a long way down the track to success. It's important to understand not only ourselves and how we make decisions, as the old sages say, know thyself, but also how we came to make those decisions regarding how and what to invest in. As social animals, we're each open to a considerable number of external influences in making decisions. Some are so subtle that we fail to realise just how influential the media and others are in our decision making.

In markets, people seldom come to investment decisions without being influenced by others. Our personality and emotions such as fear and greed combined with external influences such as the media and what we see, hear and read about what others are doing all contribute to our investment decisions Market bubbles and fads don't happen without an unhealthy dose of social contagion Many decisions we make in daily life are unconscious

and we tend not to put too much effort into them You generally don't spend large amounts of brain power thinking about your breakfast choices, for example. Most of us have some sort of morning routine that we repeat from Monday to Friday, and we may have a different routine for the weekend. If you think about it, advertising exists to influence. You could find that your chosen breakfast was due to advertising

subtly driving you to choose certain products or alter your decisions and behaviour. We only really put in effort when we need to make a decision that involves either stepping outside our normal routine or when there are no generally agreed social norms about the issue at hand. For example, the media play an enormous and influential role in the making of our decisions. Every day there's stock market or property market reporting

that's constantly influencing your thoughts and decisions about your investments. Most day-to-day reporting is noise, and it's not designed to inform you, but simply to get your attention. The problems can come when we start to feel the need to act on that information. Without investment principles and an overarching philosophy, you could potentially fall prey to any piece of information that's being reported. now this can play havoc with decision making because you're unwittingly letting your emotions be affected by what you read hear and see in the past decade or two you'll have seen many folks follow a trend whether it be tattoos specific types of food like smashed avocados or clothes like leggings and athleisure wear humans tend to want to be part of the group and so if the group

starts to do something then we tend to follow and adopt similar behaviour. Thus we didn't reach a decision to buy shares or a property all on our own. We most likely see a news article or a friend starting to talk about a trend. It comes onto our radar, we see others doing it and begin to think about whether we should too. So when it comes to investing we're heavily influenced by others. there's little worse than seeing a neighbor relative or a friend getting rich for what appears to be little effort therefore we get fads and bubbles in property and stock markets we see others driving a new car after they told us how much money they're making in the stock market and so we decide to take ourselves off to the financial advisor because we think if that guy

next door can do it, so can I. So in this context, here's a rough guide to how we make decisions. Firstly, we generally make decisions that require the least amount of effort. In our earlier example, this means not spending too much time deciding what to eat at breakfast every morning. You normally have cereal and coffee, and so there's no need to expend too much brain power. Secondly, we also tend to adopt behaviour that's widely agreed to by most of society. In cases where there's a social norm, we tend to follow rather than again spending too much time searching for alternatives. And thirdly, with regards to investing, we often check with family and friends first to see if they've got any experience or whether they're invested in

stocks or property. If they do, we follow along and in many cases we start investing the same way. If our friends and family don't have the relevant experience, then we search wider until we have what we believe is the right amount of information about the subject. This might be a visit to a financial advisor or a decision to buy an investment book. Many times, however, we've already decided because we've said to ourselves, I'm buying a stock because my work colleague bought some and they're making money. So we're simply going through the process of confirming that we've made the right decision. But checking with family and friends first is where we often make mistakes

because we don't look at the objective evidence. We tend to make the decision first and then confirm it, which is a process known as confirmation bias. The problem for many is that they arrive too late to the game and so by the time they actually decide to buy, prices may be well above intrinsic value. they may end up buying close to the market top not realizing that it was those who bought cheaply that have actually made the profits they take the plunge not based on thorough research but the

feeling that they know enough e.g thinking yeah this is safe and so they believe they too will do as well as their friends or family but because markets cycle a point too often forgotten There's going to be many people who have bought at the wrong point in the cycle and so stand a much greater probability of actually losing money. This is because they haven't undertaken thorough research, they don't understand the market cycles, and they haven't developed a philosophy or a set of rules and principles for investing. Predominantly, they invested in something because it was in the media

and their friends were doing it, and so they think that makes it safe. The current crypto craze is a classic example of this. Now, the danger of social proof or contagion is that rational thinking and logic go out the window, and so social influence tends to push us, push each of us to the same general direction. We think that this leads to safety, but in markets, it often leads to a less than critical appraisal of risk.

We think, prices are rising, so what could go wrong? Rather than each as individuals making decisions based on our personal circumstances and what we're truly comfortable with, e.g. based on our personality type, we tend to follow the crowd or the herd. Now this is not to say that following the crowd always leads to losses, but because we understand there are good and bad times to invest due to market cycles, which is one of Steve's other eight timeless principles, you need to first be aware of where you are in the current market cycle.

and then you need to determine whether it's a good time to investigate further rather than just mimicking the crowd. Using market cycles along with Steve's other seven timeless investing principles leads to a more effective decision making with less influence from crowd group think or our own emotions. But it all revolves around getting to know yourself and your personality type so that you can then construct an investment style and a systematic plan that plays to your strengths and protects yourself from your weaknesses and your emotional

limitations. Now this is just a taste of what you'll enjoy in Steve's great book Low Rates High Returns. It's the best investing book I've read for a long time particularly for hard-working time poor professionals and it's the only other book apart from my own Freedom Formula that truly recognises and appreciates the importance of developing a systematic investment plan that accommodates how much time you can actually dedicate to the investments that you make. And if you like what you've heard and read, Next Level Wealth's uniquely tailored investment coaching program may be just what you've been looking for. As I personally continue the transition from capital growth to the cash flow stage of our

investment journey, I've already started talking to Steve about working with him to adopt his unique, safe, easy and affordable approach. Because today's special guest, Steve Moriarty, is a highly successful full-time private investor who's been doing it now for over 20 years. He's also a well-respected podcast host, an author, a wealth coach and a former political advisor. As you'll hear in our great conversation, he also has an incredible wealth of knowledge of economic theory and policy and how this impacts on your investment strategy. Now, I'll say here from the outset that Steve's coaching program isn't for everyone. But if you're

seeking financial freedom, have an abundance mindset, and want total control over your financial outcomes, then this program could be for you. If you want to build substantial and lasting wealth through real estate and stock market investing and do it safely, if you want to tailor your investment portfolio to create a passive income stream, if you want to gain financial and time freedom to live life on your own terms and design a great lifestyle that doesn't rely on your job then if you're nodding your head and saying yes to these and you're a motivated existing or potential equities investor who wants to manage your own money and take your wealth to the next level then reach out to steve at nextlevelwealth.com.au to develop your very own

personalized and specialized coaching program in the same vein if you're ready to take the bull by the horns and get started on your property investment journey grab yourself a free copy of my award-winning book which is the intro to the exercise called get invested by jumping on bushingmartin.com.au forward slash books where you can get the ebook version at no cost or if you're after a hard copy then you just need to pay for the postage and if you like what you've read that you can then upgrade to the full freedom formula that gives you the nitty gritties on the why, the what, and the how you need to invest to achieve your ultimate lifestyle goals and get your precious time back.

So, if you enjoyed this, in the meantime, enjoy part one of this really engaging and ear-opening chat with Steve Moriarty. Hi, Freedom Fighters. Are you sick of the constant feverish noise in equities markets with a never-ending torrent of conflicting fear versus greed opinions and forecasts, leaving you battered, bruised and bewildered, with no clue about what you should or shouldn't be doing when it comes to your investments? But what if you could employ a timeless investment strategy that works in all markets, an investment

strategy that's low risk but provides an opportunity for high returns, that allows you to ignore the bluff and the bluster and get on with enjoying life? Well, today's special guest, Steve Moriarty, has recently co-authored a great book called Low Rates, High Returns with Get Invested regular Pete Borgia that dispels all of the myths and the market noise and gives you this timeless investment strategy framework that we're going to dive into today. So welcome and let's get invested, Steve. Thank you, Bushy.

Thanks for inviting me on the program. Mate, been looking forward to having you on for ages, been an avid fan of the work that you and Pete Wardgen are doing with Next Level Wealth. But, mate, for those who don't know who you are, can you sort of kick it off for us by giving us a rundown on who you are, what you do, and most importantly, mate, why you do what you do? Yeah, of course. Look, I suppose it's, I hope I've sort of got an interesting backstory. It's, at the moment, I'm 58. I'm getting up to 59, actually, which is sort of, I think, some good and bad points, which we can discuss. Generally, I've been a full-time investor for roughly about 15, 16 years. I've been investing

seriously for probably over 20. I started investing seriously when I was about, probably about 25, actually. So it's probably even longer than 25 years now. So I first got interested in it basically a long time ago. And it was a part of a sort of journey, I suppose, in creating my own narrative about money, which drew me to some interesting conclusions. But basically what I do now is assist people with Pete Wargent to teach them how to invest money in a way that you build wealth over the long term. And I think a lot of it has been a lot of the stuff at the moment and generally is, Steve, you know, how do I get rich as quick as possible? what we've sort of found is and this is even my own experience the question is always well if you had enough money what would you do and I think a lot of people are not really sure how to answer

that so the reason why I suppose I do what I do is first of all because it's absolutely an enjoyable lifestyle for me, which is very low stress. It is also a natural extension, and I assume we'll talk about this later on, of my natural personality. And I think what you often find in investing, whether it be in art or cars or stocks or property, there's a lot of talk about the numbers and while i don't neglect the numbers the important part bushy as you would probably know is it's about what money means to you as a person because it means different things to each of us yeah and um if i could just give you a quick example for example and we'll talk about this further on but for some people you know like when and i can contrast it with my my my own family

i i invest money because it gives me time and freedom and that's an absolute attraction to me that i can do whatever i want yeah now when my brother recently retired about or two maybe three years ago i with you know with enough money to do what he wanted to do he immediately got another job and so i sort of said to him what you know what are you doing that for because he it was about for him his personality is different to mine and so money takes on a different um a different meaning but i think that overall what we try to sort of show people is it's a vehicle to get what you want and what we do is try and help you flesh out what you actually want if that's the the sort of best way to put it love it love it that's a great way to put it and and

And you're absolutely right, mate, in that we're in a similar sphere to yourself in helping others to realise their ideal lifestyle. And the first question we normally ask them is, how do you actually want to live? What do you want to be doing? And what's that lifestyle cost? Because once you've worked that out, everything else that you then do around the investment piece needs to be shaped to actually help achieve that. And that first question is, how much is enough?

And I don't know about you, but most people look at me like I've got two heads when I ask that question they go oh shit bushy i've never actually thought about that before yes so uh so yeah well i'm gonna love diving into that but mate um you've you've sort of mentioned earlier about uh how you know you know sort of your own narrative has sort of evolved over the time i'd love for you to start by sort of taking us way back to as early as you would like and talk to us about where you've invested your time your energy your money over your journey so far and and share the highs and lows, what you learned about it and how has that sort of brought you to what you're doing now?

Yeah, yeah, sure. Look, it's interesting. At 58, I like to think that I've got some experience and some wisdom that I could sort of hand on to particularly younger people, you know, who, like me, were working hard and were earning money and, you know, sort of climbing the career but also have a sort of internal sense of an internal sense that you've got no direction. You know, you might have you're earning a good wage

and you're having fun but you really, you know, you don't know what you're sort of doing it for. And so because I'm older now, it's absolutely delightful really because I actually know what I want and what I don't want. And I think to tie it to your question, I started betting on horse races when I was about 15. I left school at the age of 15. Now, I didn't complete junior, grade 10, basically because I hated school. So I continued to wag it, as we said in those days, until the police basically gave up and said, mate, you need to think about what you want to do.

my father uh who's passed now he he was a lawyer so he sort of said to me oh look you know you can come and work for me um which meant doing nothing because there was nothing really to do so i i used to um look at horses because they were they were beautiful animals and then the jockeys had you know vibrant colors and stuff and so i looked at the um i then started betting on them and um you You know, like all of us, I made absolutely nothing. Is this when you're 15? Yes, yeah, absolutely. How were you doing it?

Sort of slipping it to a mate who was doing the bookies. Absolutely. And so the earliest, the general weekend as a sort of, you know, aberrant teenager, when I was 18 and I could go to the pub, a mate of mine and I used to go to the Caxton Street Hotel in Brisbane, which people had known from Suncorp Stadium or Lang Park, as we still call it. Yeah.

And we used to sit in the public bar and we'd watch the races. We'd run across the road to the TAB and we'd basically sit there all afternoon and get pie-eyed and didn't really care whether we won or lost, we just had a good time. So that was my sort of first experience within, you know, shall i loosely you know quote unquote investing um so then it really got a little bit more serious when i started working a better job and earning good money when i was about 21 i started selling and um i was making good money so of course like every young guy i wasted most of it

and so but at that stage a fellow who I worked with said I've got a hot tip for you in the stock market now this is this is 19 about the late 80s and it was in the Sydney seconds board now the reason why was because they didn't have an Australian stock exchange then and so and the the name of the the name of the company was pivot group the shares were seven cents and of course according to my mate you know we're all going to retire in the bahamas within about the next 12 months so needless to say that you know i put my hard-earned money down on pivot um i can't even remember what pivot actually did um one thing they did do is pivot with my money though or pissed off at it mate I think

yeah that's the sort of the colloquial way of putting it which at the time you know I mean you just as you probably know Bushy and this is the wonders of wisdom when you get older is you don't you know and what we tell people

in our courses don't do dumb shit you know if you don't do the dumb stuff the stuff takes care of itself and so i have a sort of personal saying which is making money is easy losing money is easier and most people don't get that part of the journey the when you talk about investing you want to talk about risk and return and the finance industry are happy to talk to you about returns they're

generally a bit loath to talk to you about the risks and what we do is say to people I want to teach you how to do how not to do dumb things because the rest of it's pretty simple and so in our programs what I do is basically say to people you believe this is the best way to invest I'm going to show you why it's not the best way to invest and in fact what you're doing is sort of speculating and so I've developed this throughout my investing career and I've invested in property and in stocks um so you know i have good good experience with both of them my my natural inclination is towards stock market investing because i think it suits my personality better um i believe it's a better way to make money but what what i sort of say to people is

that's because of my personality that doesn't mean that you can't make money in the art market or the you know the vintage car market or the property market so it's really a matter of sort of coaching people to say and i think we discussed this before bushy about saying how much time do you want to spend investing now for me i could you know talk 24 7 about it not because i don't i have to do it but I do it because I absolutely love doing it. And so that's, to me, someone says, you know, a few years ago, Steve, do you work? And it's always a vexing question because I think, well,

not really, you know, like, yes, I teach people and, you know, they pay me money and that sort of stuff, but it's not really work. It's, you know, something I enjoy doing. So it's a, you know, that's the sort of the long route. it's just always fascinated me with the intermix of politics and economics and finance and science and philosophy. It's such a broad subject that there is always something you can think about and focus on throughout your investment journey.

Yeah. Yeah, and there's certainly plenty to keep your brain active in the stock market exercises. Absolutely. I think the danger is getting too close to it and then starting to emotionally attach to whatever you're investing in. But we'll broach that subject later in the discussion, mate, because you're right. The key takeaway from what you said there is, for me, is that stocks suit you because of your personality type. And that's a really key distinction that very few people come to grips with because they don't spend any time looking in the mirror.

Yes. I want to dive into that a little bit later on because that's the first and foundational point of understanding yourself first and then choosing an investment vehicle and an investment strategy that's going to actually reflect the underlying characteristics of who you are. So, love that. Mate, let's continue on your own journey then. So, you started selling and you sort of had a crack at pivot and burnt your fingers. Yes. Where did that lead to then, mate, both career-wise and investment-wise as we roll it through? I think I started selling, as I said, when I was about 21, about 27.

I was about 27 and I'd made good money in selling, although I wasn't really investing. I was still too busy, you know, doing what young men do, mainly revolved around chasing women on the weekend. And so, you know, and as you probably know, that costs you a lot of money. So I eventually, I stopped there because it was the, if I remember correctly, it was just around the time of the Hawke and Keating government. And so I, you know, and you would remember this, Bushy,

that, you know, interest rates were sky high. We were going through privatisation and deregulation and all that sort of stuff. So I took myself off to university and I did a Bachelor of Science because I really didn't know what I wanted to do. And this is a theme, I think, Bushy, that we can talk about, this constant idea of saying, oh, I want to be, you know, I want to be a bricklayer.

And then you do bricklaying, you go, actually, well, no, actually I don't want to be a bricklayer anymore. I want to be a doctor. and so you you have these this uh theme that runs through your life which is oh well what i thought i wanted to do is actually not what i want to do now and that changes a lot in the future so i took myself off to university um i then uh did uh that full time i got a job in the state government. And I did that for a few years. I then went to Ipswich City Council and ran the waste management division up there. That was, I mean, a great experience in terms of the difference

between theory and reality. And I'll just convey one story that sort of probably tells you the idea um they they they said to me we want you to go and run the garbos um and i said oh right okay you know so i got up there and this was basically running about 30 or 40 blokes fairly you know working class guys who used to drive the garbage trucks yeah they pick up the rubbish and they go home and um they they the old days was the garbos would run around and knock off at about 12 o'clock now the reason why they used to run was not because they were busy but was because they had second jobs so they'd all you know they'd knock off the garbage um and then go and do another job most of them had trades and so they would do you know brick laying or carpentering or

you know painting on the side and they changed then as they did when they the the unions declined and um they then changed the system so long story short i had to manage these blokes and at that stage i'd read all i was really interested in business management you know and we had um oh you know all those blokes about the seven you know the seven effective Stephen Covey and all those guys. Yeah, yeah, all those blokes, you know. Yep, yep. I'd sort of read them and think, wow, you know, this is fantastic.

You know, like I'm going to go and deploy my Stephen Covey. And going to talk to about 30 working-class blokes. With their arms crossed and tats going, what the hell are you going on about, mate? Yeah. Well, yeah. You know, it was like, you know, righto, gosh, you know, look, righto, we've got to, you know, empty this garbage and we've got to be customer-focused and, you know, we're all going to climb the chain.

Well, you know, a bloke put me aside. This was after about a month and a half. And within that month and a half, they all used to turn up at about, they'd finished the garbage runs about two. Yeah. But they weren't allowed to leave until three. So they'd all stand around for an hour. And I used to think, you know, this is bloody ridiculous.

So on the Fridays occasionally, I would spend my own money and I'd buy beer. So, you know, I'd put on three or four cartons of beer and they'd all sit around and they were all quite suspect of me because they used to think, well, you know, what are you spending your own money on? And for me it was about just being sort of collegiate. But also this idea of like, you know, we're all a team

and we're all family. Anyway, a bloke pulled me aside after about a couple of months and he said, listen, mate, he said, I just want to have a word to you about this, you know, your aims and what you're thinking. And I said, sure, sure, you know, as keen as ever. And he said, look, mate, none of us are interested in that bullshit. And I said, oh, right, okay. And he said, mate, we just want to collect garbage.

We like driving trucks and then we want to go home because we've got other things in our life like, you know, football and kids and stuff like that. And at that stage I didn't have any. So it was a bit like, well, bloody Stephen Covey didn't have that in his bloody book, did he? So, you know, it was a great way of saying that particularly as a manager that it's not simply saying I've got this blueprint and everyone's going to conform to the blueprint. So they were really, really valuable life lessons that I learned.

And after that, I moved into politics. I became a senior policy advisor for a state government minister. What attracted you there, mate? That's an interesting divergence from helping the Garbos at the council. Yes, yeah. Yeah, what was the attraction in that direction? My family has always been unashamedly labour, and I've never shied away from that.

Yeah. So my… As a burgeoning capitalist, mate, that must rub your father up pretty well at times. Yes, yes. so well it's you know it's just one of those things where you sort of say your politics and sometimes people are like oh well you know you're one-eyed this way or that way um and so what um what happened was i i went what did i do i went from the council that's right the beattie government

was elected in 98 yeah um and my my best mate who's still my best mate after 30 odd years is the former minister one of the former ministers and he said you know can you come and work for me as my senior advisor and i said sure you know i'd love to so of course i at this stage i was about 36 um and i'd had a long-term interest in politics anyway okay um so um i did that and that was probably the most interesting sort of uh career change but just an again an absolute eye-opener in terms of theory and reality, in terms of what we expect from politicians and what we think. And, you know, Bushy, you can often hear people,

particularly these days with COVID and economics and stuff, you know, everybody's got a solution where, you know, if they were minister, they'd just do X. And it's like, oh, okay, let me give you a tip, sunshine. It's not that easy. You know, because for everyone who says I love you, there's one who says I hate you. Oh, mate, I don't know about you, but I've often said this, Steve,

that the worst two jobs in Australia are either a politician or an elite sport coach. Yes. Because you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't. They work countless hours, those guys. Absolutely. Just never-ending deals. and I'm on the other side of the political fence

and a bit like you, I got very heavily involved earlier. I was up in the Territory and I got the young CLP going and I became a chairman of one of the branches and the more and more I got into it, the more I decided I want to get out of this. There was no win. The ideals got left at the door because it was all ego and ambition. Yes.

They tend to drive everything. I thought, no, this is not for me. I've got to be able to look at myself in the mirror and like who I see. Yes. I think there was, you know, the life lesson out of that was quite extraordinary because I remember beforehand, you know, I used to hang around political advisors before I was actually a political advisor.

Yeah. And, you know, they used to drink a lot, a lot, you know, and they used to drink during the week and on the weekends and, you know, they lived these really sort of hard existences, you know, high blood pressure, high stress, lots of booze. And I thought, you know, oh, that's terrible. So, you know, of course, as soon as I became an advisor, I thought, oh, well, you know, that's not going to happen to me.

I reckon within the first three months I was bordering on being an alcoholic. You know, because it's just the pressure in politics is unbelievable. and it's very easy to sit aside when you haven't got skin in the game and go, oh, you know, that's a stupid decision. Yeah. But when you're in the heat of the battle, and this translates into stocks, you know, when you buy a stock thinking, oh,

this one's going to kill it and, you know, it drops 50% and turns out to be 11 and you sort of think, what the hell was I thinking at the time? You know, and the thing being, at the time it seemed like a really good idea yeah um but as we sort of as you know things change very quickly and so suddenly a great idea turns into the stupidest idea that you've ever had but at that time you bought it you could you know you couldn't see it um and so it's it's just this constant idea of thinking about your decisions um and as we teach people in the pro in the the programs

you have to get a sort of philosophy or a system because if you don't do that what you end up doing uh bushy is you end up investing emotionally which is the most damaging way that you can you can i've never had anybody say to me you know steve i just invest by gut and i've made a lot of money you know said no one ever yeah well yeah that's right i mean and as you know you've got to be systematic about it so but doing that means it encompasses everything we teach which is first of all you've got to know yourself and so it's a little you know the the sort of trite story is look if you're trying to lose weight don't put chocolates in the fridge and think that you're going to have the willpower to do that yeah um you know develop a philosophy that says when i

really feel like eating chocolate i'm going to go for a walk yeah you know so you develop these strategies to not ignore your emotions, but to accept them and say, yes, I know I've got this feeling that I've urgently want to buy this stock. I'm going to have to go for a walk and wait for that feeling to calm down or to say, Steve, that's not part of your system. Okay, we'll leave it alone then. And even after being a, you know, I suppose what you could call me as a veteran investor, I still say to myself constantly, Stephen, stop that. Go and play your guitar because you're bored, and that's why you want some excitement in the stock market.

Yeah, exactly. I'm going to dive right into some of that gear shortly because it's really fundamental to success of getting yourself out of the road. So you dived into the political arena. I'm assuming that you either burnt out or went, no, this is not for me. What happened there and where did that lead you to, mate?

Yeah, pretty much sort of both. I spoke to a friend of mine at the time who was older and had a lot more experience than I did, and I said, you know, it was about 18 months, maybe two years, a little over two years, and I said, you know, what do you think I should do? And he said, look, do two years and get out. And I said, oh, right, okay. So it's sort of, you know, it's a tricky one because, again,

I did that and I went and worked in the department, but the lesson from there, Bushy, was saying even though you think this stock's going to go to the moon, it's now time to sell it. So it was even though I'm enjoying this job and I'm getting smashed every weekend and my health is deteriorating, boy, I'm having a good time. um so you know you have to learn those lessons to say um look i don't want to do this but i know it's actually better for me and it's often that's the value i i think people like such as yourself

bushy and we provide by bringing an independent view to say to people oh you know bushy i've got this great idea i want to buy x and you say okay well let's have a look at that and work it through a system yeah and what you want to do is you want to sort of bring people around not telling them what to do but saying to them go away and have a think about this and you may come back with a different view yeah so after that i i have always had a long-term interest in japan okay why um um basically bushy because when i was young about oh i think about 18 or 19 i did karate and so I was always fascinated with the Japanese because I myself I'm I'm an extrovert so I'm you know sort of busy and active and you know running around like a chook with a head cut off most of

the time at that stage particularly at 19. The Japanese people were so calm yeah and and I read a lot about their philosophy, you know, Buddhism and Taoism and all these things. So it was very attractive to me because it was exactly the opposite of what I was. And so I've always been interested in philosophy of saying, how do I get around my perceived negatives? So I did karate and I eventually went and studied Japanese

and I also appreciated their economic system. Now, again, this was in the 80s. This was pre-80s when it was going gangbusters before. Absolutely, absolutely. So, you know, it was Japan is number one and, you know, aren't they clever and all of this stuff appealed to me. So I basically got interested via there. When I moved out of politics into the department, I met my then or my future wife at the department.

And what happened was I took her job while she was in Japan. Okay. Now, she's an Australian girl. And we started talking. And I was a bit of an outsider at the time because I was sort of parachuted in as they do in politics. Yeah. So, you know, her sort of clique were like, well, who's this bloke? you know no one thought he'd get the job and of course no one did because i i spoke to a few

people and said oh you know but i'd like to do something with japan they went oh we've got a job you know go and do that one so a long story short you know i met my future wife um we got married and then uh she was offered an opportunity to work in japan and so we took that opportunity and I said, well, you know, we'll go to Japan. I was investing at this stage and I said, well, we'll go to Japan and I'll get a job over there. And we went to regional Japan where there weren't many jobs other than being an English teacher, basically.

Yeah. So I did that for a while but what happened was we had our first child And so that was the start of a real life change for me because what happened was I said, oh, well, look, actually, I'll, you know, I'll look after the baby, my son Max, who's now nearly 15, and, you know, you work and I'll look after Max and I'll invest money. So I did a master's of finance. Okay. um and so the and and so that was a we moved around a bit in Tokyo uh into Sapporo Nagoya and Osaka and and worked and it ended up taking about nine years of our lives um and we came back in mid 2014 with two children um my my son Max um and my daughter Lola so I've I've spent I'm

their primary carer if I can put it you know that's the way they put it these days yeah I was their primary carer so when I came back um unfortunately we got divorced and we can talk about that later but that was a that was a catalyst for another another really great life change um and so you know it's it's as I sort of said to you at the start I think I've lived an interesting backstory in terms of career changes and sort of I think they call them learnings these days I prefer to call it wisdom that you pick up along the way and it's generally because um you know Bushy you don't learn much from success what you learn is you learn from failure because you're you're able to say to yourself well geez I'll tell you what I won't be doing

that again so you know that's the the way you pick up the life lessons I think totally mate totally well just just on that then uh if we look back on uh your sort of personal career today and i'm sort of with a more on investment focus here what what's been your best and worst investments today and what you've what have you learned from both of those yeah so it's you know that's a it's a really interesting question i i don't think there's two parts to it i think when we when we discuss that generally particularly in terms of finance the default position is for me to say oh you know i bought um you know um commonwealth bank at 22 dollars you know and now it's a hundred dollars or something like that um i generally think that

that is part of the equation um because that's the money side of things i think the best investment I ever made was the effort that I put into reading very broadly and very deeply and also thinking very broadly and very deeply. I think if you do those two things, what they will do is they will help you avoid making stupid decisions because you make the decision emotionally. um but in terms of investing i there's no one point that i say to people oh i invested you know i've got a share that's up 1900 is that my best investment well yeah probably in terms of

percentage and money wise but is it my best investment well no not really because my best investment has basically been investing when market crashes and this is what we teach people that when the market's low and everybody's screaming, you know, the world's going to hell in a handbasket, we're in there buying, you know, stocks hand over fist. So I often say to, you know, my clients, my best investments have been 2009 in the ASX, 2011 late buying American banks, 2014 when I bought lots of stocks

in Russia, which I still hold, 2016 with Brexit, and up and after that I've done a little bit of this and a little bit of that, and we can talk about our Three Wells program later on. But generally what I think we find is life is lived non-linear, and what I mean by that is you don't do much and then you do a lot, and then you don't do much, and again a lot happens.

And so it's not that way that we think, that we generally think about, oh, well, you know, life just rolls on. It's actually like my history shows you. One minute I'm at the waste management talking to Garbo's, and the next minute I'm a senior policy advisor, and then the next minute I'm in Japan, and then the next minute I'm, you know, assisting people manage their investments. so at any point in time if you said to me look steve in 10 years time you'll be doing x i'd have gone what are you crazy of course i won't be doing that um because you you can't see those sort of things come around so the the best investment as i say is just reading and thinking and at least knowing that life changes and i think the you know if someone said oh well steve what's what's your favorite saying it would be this too shall pass um and it's simply saying life always

changes constantly and so that's a really really important message because you have to develop an investment philosophy around that general principle because that's actually the reality um you can't you can't make you know five million dollars and go right now i'm just going to wall myself off from existence like Howard Hughes. Those things don't make you a success. So that's the way I sort of look at the idea of what's your best investment. I mean, to be quite honest, it still could be ahead of me. Yeah, exactly. Spot on. Yeah, I love that. Love that, mate. That's an awesome way to look at it. Mate, let's sort of focus back on the money side of things that you've mentioned a few times.

How would you describe your relationship with money and investment then? I suppose the easiest way to say is I love it. There's two things you don't talk about, money and religion. Well, I'm happy to talk about both. Look, I think, Bushy, there's that old joke, you know, where the police arrest the bank robber and they say, you know, why do you rob banks? And he says, because that's where the money is.

um it's you know it's it's really about that um the important part i think for me is what i understood later in life was money is not the point the point of money is for me to express my personality in its in in its entirety and so what i mean by that is saying i don't i have enough money to live the way i want to live and i'm i'm not i refuse to knock myself out just simply to make more money or to you know get richer um if i do that's all well and good but i have a i have a three wells program that um we talk to people about um and we can talk to about it later about how i see investing but it's really it's really sort of simply saying Bushy that I believe I know myself fairly well and so at 58 I've got to the point where I think

as we said before I know what I like and what I don't like and I'm not willing to say oh I'm going to have to live in a big house because if I'm teaching people about wealth then they're going to want to see a fellow who lives in a big house and drives a Rolls Royce. What I want to teach people is saying no no no just just know your personality really well which again we we use a methodology to teach people then what you will do is work out something really simple and i can give you an example two personality types that we deal with is a type seven and that's that's myself and and i think you're the same the other type that is really interested in money is a type three so for example i often say to people look if you had 50 million dollars what would you

do and sevens like myself um say oh i don't care what i do because the options are what you love doing yeah and and so you don't like constraints on your time uh on your thinking or anything so the money is not about oh i'd go and buy you know 10 really big expensive properties and you know carry on like that yeah the idea for me is to say oh i can sit around and read books all day that's you know is what would what would you do every day i'd read a book every day which is what i do yeah i'm with you mate it's an enabler that's all it is absolutely but you see bushy the important part is for type threes if i say to them oh god you know i could do anything i want they'd go what are you crazy because in their meaning structure money is a means of demonstrating

their achievements because they're achievement driven people so the the property and the nice car and the nice clothes is not showing off for them it's saying this is a reward for my working i.e my achieving my goals so goals in itself people's you know type threes will say yeah you know like i've got a goal whereas i look at it and go oh god goals who wants to talk about goals you know like oh god they change every week you know i couldn't care about goals because as soon as you say that to me what you're saying is steve i'm locking you into doing this thing yeah and that says to me oh now i'm constrained oh no that's terrible i don't like constraint yeah and And so from that point, I think it's really important that the reason why we teach principles

of investing is so you can go away and go, this is what I'm going to use the principles for, not simply because that guy Steve said that, you know, I don't have to care about driving nice cars or having nice clothes because that's what I want. And if they look at me as an authority, it's a bit perplexing for them because they say, well gee you know steve's a smart guy and but he says i shouldn't live in a big house and i really want a big house so it's about understanding yourself through that investment journey to say i'm happy doing what i'm doing even though i've got enough money yeah love that love it just while we're on there because i i think you make a tremendous point there

around the personality and and and again i love frameworks mate because it enables you to actually see where you are in the context and relativity of other things uh are you able to give us a really quick snapshot summary of of those personality types because it is a is a fundamental starting point really absolutely absolutely as we talk in the book uh bushy we talk about the nine types yeah um the reason why i say the nine types is because it's a hell of a lot easier than spelling enneagram um but it's called the enneagram and it goes by the name of the nine types um and you'll find them in our book which is a absolutely blatant plug for our book um but importantly what there are nine types of personalities now you hear about introverts and

extroverts um you hear about uh the myers-briggs which i can tell you is garbage yeah and the best one i've ever came across in my 30 odd years of thinking about psychology uh is the enneagram which is the nine types so what it says is this there are nine archetypes of personalities and what you find is within each of those types the there are we have traits and behaviors and beliefs about a whole raft of things so for example as we talked about with money some people say well money is for freedom and others say no no it's for achieving and others say oh no money's for giving away to other people and what that is doing is money is the vehicle for expressing the personality yeah so those nine types are basically let me run through them quickly type one is a

perfectionist uh type two is a giver they're the type ones are sort of status oriented or perfectionist uh type twos are givers they're those people who incessantly want to help everybody and generally give their money away. Type 3, as I mentioned before, is the achievers, which is my 10-year-old daughter. Type 4 are basically romantics or individualists, and that's my son. Type 5s are thinkers.

They're people who are sort of more introverted than most. They want their own time and space, but they also want to do good deeds. And type sixes, what I call sort of sentinels, they're the ones who always play devil's advocate, very conservative. And they always it's not necessarily saying they look on the downside all the time. It's just saying they highlight that. And that's a that's a valuable thing to have. I'm a type seven. Type sevens are what they call basically epicureans.

We love life. We love lots of stuff, you know, so I'm constantly going, oh, look, there's a new book. Oh, I can buy that book and read it. Oh, look, there's another type of book. Type 8s are generally called leaders. They're people such they're quite intuitive. They're gut people.

Donald Trump is a type 8, very family-oriented, very insiders and outsiders. and type nine type nines are sort of balanced people they're people who generally go with the flow and will defer to other people to make the decision and so what we've done in the program is we have an investment map for all of those personality types because as i said bushy if i said to you oh bushy you know money is about you know buying lots of stuff and you know showing people how clever you are you know you might go well no it's actually not about that and so as i said it's important that you know your type and really importantly bushy to know

the people who you are close to and what their type is because as you probably know if you're talking to your partner or your your son or your daughter about money and they're saying well gee dad i think we should you know i i you know son i've given you 100 bucks a week and you're spending it all on your friends what the hell is going on your son's mode of operating is saying money is for you know being loved and you know giving it to people and being generous so the framework is different and therefore you've got to sort of say to those people don't manage your own money right give it to me and i'll manage it for you because you'll end up giving it all away and end up being poor right so it's again looking at those negative sent sent parts of your personality

but first of all discovering what your personality is because they're all different yeah i love it i love it that's really the starting point because as you've said a number of times now if you know yourself both strengths weaknesses and otherwise and then you frame a investment style and and strategy and a system that then exemplifies your strengths and controls your weaknesses and removes the risk of you in the equation, then suddenly you're off to a great start and not self-sabotaging yourself because you're following someone else's ideas. Is that essentially the approach? Yes, absolutely, Bushy.

I think we may deal with this later, but the point being, Bushy, and this is a really, really really important point what i try to say to people is you are subjectively you being all of us are subjectively looking at a property or a stock or a piece of art or a bitcoin and you are projecting your emotionality and subjectivity onto that investment now whether you think that property is good value or bad value or the stock is good value or bad value is in your eyes subjective. However, once you understand investing appropriately, you will see that the money you make in investing is not a result of your personality. It is a result largely of the numbers and as i think we talked at the start bushy it's about really really simple stuff

yeah and what i say to people is money is important absolutely the the you know the the core of our existence but that doesn't mean that it's complex and in actual fact what we do in our programs is sort of say to people you know all that complexity you hear about every day return on equity and depreciation and capital growth and compounding listen don't worry about that here's a here's a quite a you know three simple things you can do that lead you to investment success over time and they're really really obvious once you look at it in that framework that's when you sort of go oh because you have to spend time going well this steve guy's telling me this is really simple and, jeez, you know,

everyone else is telling me it's really hard. So when people like Pete and myself come along with our experience and our wisdom, what we've done is we've cut through the bullshit, if I pardon my French, to say to people, listen, you don't need to worry all about that noise, right? It's pretty simple and if you do this yourself, you'll be fine. And that's the really important part of investing because the eight timeless principles we use are not subjective it is simply saying and the first

one being systematic investing which is saying look it's not about you it's about the way the stock market works and if you know the cycles i don't care if you think the market's going to go higher at this point there's going to be a decline over the next 10 years because this is the way history has shown us is it different this time well it could be but you're exposing yourself to a lot of risk and so that's where the eight principles and that's why we call them timeless because they work over the full cycle because generally our emotions trick us and i sort of say this bushy you know the the the u.s stock market is crazy expensive so everybody's drunk at the punch bowl and when i come to you and say bushy i might be turned just to you know knock

off the booze and sober up a bit because you're drunken in the moment you don't want to hear advice like that but as i said to you before that's where an independent eye comes along and says uh uh bushy you do know that if you the more you drink the worse you're going to feel you know but at the time you're thinking no no everything's going to be fantastic i'm going to feel great and of course you know the experience is completely different that concludes part one of bushy martin's conversation with steve moriarty stay tuned as the discussion continues next episode you get a summary of all this investment gold in the show notes just email me on hello at khgroup.com.au

That's H-E-L-L-O at khgroup.com.au Or check us out at www.bushymartin.com.au forward slash 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.

Thank you.