PODCAST

Prosperity Point Podcast: Episode 01 – Welcome To Our First Episode!

- Well, ladies and gentlemen, welcome on board. It’s actually officially episode one and I couldn’t be happier than having our own guest Jack Kumar who’s our Managing Director at JR Prosperity Partner is with us. Jack, let’s kick it off.

– My pleasure.

– I’m so excited. I wanted to talk about a variety of things today that we can share with our whole audience and greater audience as well. But first of all 2020, right? What an interesting year it’s been so far first of all, and I wanted to touch base on the fact that it’s also our 10 year anniversary in terms of your business from way back in 2010. So tell me a bit about that. How’s the journey been for you so far?

– Wow, wow. You know Sean, this morning when I was driving here, all I could think of is grace. I was thanking God, thanking universe, thanking everything that, you know, 10 years ago what I was thinking, my thinking has expanded a much larger scale. But at that time, what where we are now it was, you know, miles away, miles away. And it was out of your imagination. And all you had at that time was faith that, you know I trust in the God trust in the universe, I’m on a journey and never quit because the grace will be always there with you during the challenging time. And there have been some very exciting times. Some have been very tough times but to be very honest, you know, that is the time you test during your challenging time. Is it real? Is it a wish or is it a goal? You know, if it’s a wish, then during challenging time, you hit the turbulence and you say, oh, you know what? I choose the easy part then you go all the way around. But when you have a strong faith, you say it does not matter, it doesn’t matter what happens. I just have to keep going and so I’m so thankful and grateful that 10 years have been very blessed for the company and I’m surrounded with such wonderful people, Sean, including you and everyone else in the office, I feel, you know, I feel so happy to walk into the office and seeing everyone’s smiling faces.

– Nah, that’s good, that’s good. But you mentioned something really important about, you know, when the tough times come in and I’m a big believer in one of our core values because you train us not only on, let’s say a few business principles and a few, you know, sales principles in the investment world that are quite important but you talked about persistence. That’s probably my favorite value out of the five core values that we have. So persistence is something that I’ve seen. I feel it’s and shed some light on this as well from your side. But I feel persistency is a vetting tool to see if people are really worth the next set of levels of rewards or next set of levels of challenges. Because I feel life’s a little bit like a game. Do you feel what I mean?

– Life is actually fun. Again, how you name your life, that’s how you’re gonna live your life. Persistence is, you know, the going that extra mile. That’s not the case, it’s about consistency. Are you gonna do it every day? Or are you going to do it only when you feel fun when you feel like doing it, are you gonna do it then? Or are you gonna do it even when you feel like no, today I’m having a worse day but I still have to keep going. It’s raining outside, if I have to go for a walk, you go for a walk. You don’t care if it’s raining or sunshine.

– Yeah, sunshine and rain that’s interesting because we’re coming out of the back of what has been one of the most shocking events in the world I would say. you know, looking at 2020 being the year of, it’ll be always known as the year of COVID and the year of lock downs, the year of Australia’s first recession in a while, so forth, so on. So leading a business in a turbulent time like this, you know, what was that motivating factor that kept you positive, that kept you still going and not only still going actually, flourishing at a time when around us the headlines tell us otherwise.

– Yeah, to be very honest, you know, as a normal human being, then the COVID hit, that this challenge came. I haven’t seen in my career and I think a lot of people haven’t seen this turbulent time in their lifetime. At that time, because one of my value is about family, you know, protecting my family. And I see my office as an extended family. And I remember the conversation happening when we went into the lockdown with my wife Ruchi and she’s been wonderful support. I said, Ruchi, this time is not about the growth but I want to make sure my family’s protected, my extended family’s protected, my JR family’s protected whatever it takes, I don’t care, you know. So I was thinking two years ahead that even if it stays for two years, I have to sustain my family. I have to look after my family, that kind of gave me an energy to say, you know, pull up my socks and say, you know, and interesting kind of things happens you know, when you shift your energy and actually the curve it was a turning point for the business and for my personal life at that time, because you realize that how important things are when things are going all right, you just sit back and relax and your energy is not vibrating on a higher level. You know, you are cruising but when things happens, your energy starts vibrating. And that time you can take that energy either into a negative direction or a positive direction. And that attracts where your energy focus is, where you put your energy there. So that’s why if a challenging times comes use that energy because we are gonna vibrate see, we don’t know that’s a positive or negative. We have given the names for it that it’s an energy only.

– That’s right.

– So when you know that it’s a vibration happening and you feel like oh, you know, and you shift that towards, wow, let’s see you know, let’s accelerate towards this, not this. So it’s all about how you see, what’s your perception of seeing things. You know, when I was growing up, I always had, my best ever mentor was my uncle, my dad’s younger son. Anytime I watched him, anytime whenever a challenge happened he used to say, oh, okay, no worries. Let’s roll up ourselves and let’s jump into it and let’s act. Let’s not sit back and worry about it, just to act. So I think that’s exactly I did. And other interesting thing happened for my personal life was you know, I got the opportunity to pause. I always heard about this time, miraculous time in the mornings, I don’t know if you are called in India, it’s called Baramulla It happens from 3:30, to before sunrise. So that is the time I always want to get up in the morning. So during that time, I took the opportunity to get up very early, just to get up at 3:30 in the morning and just meditate till sunrise. That put me back into tranquility, peace and stable. And then that’s the time you realize that, okay, I can switch this energy because until you don’t realize, you don’t know. So once you do that then consciously you’re putting that energy here like, you know, consciously you’re changing gears.

– You’re right. So this happens during the meditative process, is that what you’re talking about? Like, I know you love your locations. So if I’ll, because I’ve been blessed enough to know you for a long time personally, as well as in the business now. And I know as your life has progressed, you’ve progressed in terms of location as well. So you’ve had on your goal set, on your mindset to be closer to the water. You like the water, right? So do you do those meditations close to the water where you get to enjoy a bit of sea breeze in the morning as well?

– I love my water actually. And it’s interesting actually. It’s a very humble feeling. Every time I go up for a walk and look at the water because it wasn’t dream once. I remember, you know it was a very painful for my family ’cause I loved water and I remember I wanted to see sunrise. So at one stage of my life before moving there, I had no idea that I can achieve moving there because it was too far. But I used to make my family get up early in the morning, wake them up, put them back in the car, they are in the sleepy state, take them to Bondi, to look at the sunrise and saying wow, you know, God, one day I wish I can walk everyday here. And look, going every time when I go this morning walks, I see wow, you know, is this real? Is this real? Living that life and it’s real, it’s real. You can always and I lived with this mantra, whatever your mind can conceive and believe you can achieve from thinking grow rich.

– Of course, I think that’s how we connected from day one, isn’t it? Way before when you saw me growing into the young man that I am it was all about saying this person aligns with that level of spirituality and we’ve always noticed that once you focus on bringing your yourself back to base or back to heart, we noticed that results are just a part of the process, right? I’m a big believer in, you know, hold that vision, but trust the process.

– Trust the process. Sean, I’m glad you mentioned that, you know, you connected, in fact I connected with you. The day I remember I was sitting with your parents and you walked in and we started talking about this subject. And you were like talking forever and I was literally happy and impressed that wow, look at this kid, look at Sean. Look, he knows a lot more than a lot of people don’t know. But that time, you know, I was very happy but also, you know, knowing is one thing and now working with you for last three, more than three years now, is it?

– More than four.

– More than four years, yeah. I see that you not only talk, but you live those principles. That is amazing.

– Yeah and I feel like getting into things like personal development, spiritual growth. I’m a big believer in also the fact that if you’re seeking the truth or you’re seeking certain principles whether it be for success or for something else, it is also looking for you and it meets you halfway. Most people think about the end goal and they think okay, we’re trying to build a sustainable business or I want to build up my book of clients to another level. They think about the end goal and they go, wow, that’s so much work, I can’t be bothered now, do you know what I mean? So but if you go and you take that step or it’s like, how we watched you know, yesterday you were doing, we all, you know, hung out in the office and we were all doing another viewing of the secrets, right? Something that we’ve seen numerous times but we did it again except with the whole team. And you can see that some people resonate with it a lot and the others sort of don’t resonate with it as much. And it’s normal because not everyone’s operating on the same frequency I feel. And sometimes not everyone vibrates along with the same intentions as well.

– I think my opinion it is to do with your growth. Are you growing through your heart or through your mind? If your mind is growing, then this becomes voovoo because this is analytical brain who only works on facts and figures. Show me the truth, show me the facts, show me the research the scientific mind, which telling you and then if things happens, you believe.

– Right, yeah.

– But we’re here, it works differently, we work on faith. And you say, I believe I know it’s gonna happen, you just do it. And you know that yeah, someone somewhere is watching you and they will hold your hand when you require it.

– But that’s the essence of faith, right? It’s like when we’re planning out, you know investment deals with a few people that love the analytical side of things, they love the numbers. And we love the numbers too, because the way I see work in what I do day-to-day for living is one foundation, which is return on investment. What’s your return on investment for your time? What’s your return on investment for your tax, your portfolio, so forth so on. So there are people that love, let’s say the numbers and the sad part about the numbers is it still can’t tell you what the future holds. There is a gap, there’s history trends, right? There’s trends of economic recessions and what typically happens when we bounce back. That’s why I was reflecting to, you know, earlier on in the year, when we’re having coffee early this morning coffee’s still going well so feel free to have some. What I was reflecting on was when we knew that in March, when we had done the filming, the whole world was at a pause, but yourself, Munzurul and James who’s our JRFS broker here with us at JR group, we had had this expert panel discussion and Munzurul was talking about, he was planning on maybe not investing for 2020, but the fact that this thing happened is the perfect time to pull up your socks and take an action. And I’ve always believed that action is that trigger that brings all of those manifestations faster, or it brings or pulls them into your roadmap where you can see things clearly. I think 2020 is unfolded to be such a good year for yourself and myself personally and professionally. What do you reckon?

– It’s been a great year, actually both professionally and personally. But don’t take me wrong. Numbers are equally important as having faith but don’t get lost just in the numbers because the numbers will give you confidence, right? But the numbers will give you the confidence to act and you have to act at that time. So if you don’t act, so biggest analogies you know, when you don’t feel like not doing anything, go for a run. When you go into that level of head that, you know, your head talks over your heart and you, go for a run. And I have realized that as soon as I go for a run and now my heart is pumping, so my focus have all gone from here to here. And in that point, you realize that oh, this was not as important as I was thinking. And then you shift. That’s why you need to know, when you need all those external helps to help you to act. That’s the time you listen to the books which you have read before, but the essence of the book comes to you at the right time to give you a message. So this is what you have learned. So the biggest thing I believe is building anything. One thing that stops everyone is action.

– Action, yeah. And I think action comes down to decision making, right? So there’s this one guy that I’ve been following closely on his journey of growth as well over the last few years, I’ve told you about it numerous times, Patrick Bet-David from the USA who I love, who’s got his own you know, successful Valuetainment channel. And he was talking about the one principal he wanted his kids to be instilled with from a very young age. And the principal he was talking about was the ability to make decisions or the ability to make good decisions at a very young age and think rationally and act on it. So I feel what happens is in the world that we’re in today, because there are 10,000 different options of building wealth. There are a million ways of saving, you know, let’s say saving taxes or starting a business, earning passive income. Because at the end of the day it’s all centered around giving us more choices, right? Giving us that’s what, the core principle of financial freedom is, it’s about saying if I had all of the finances that I would like so that I can do whatever I want with my time. So when we’re thinking about what’s available in the marketplace today in the open world, there’s so many things. So why are people still stuck in analysis paralysis? Is it because there are 10,000 options and no one has the time or the resources to go through every single one? What I tell the people that I work with is you have one lifetime. There are a few things that are proven out there such as, work hard, save and you described it this way which is budget, save, invest and make. It’s a simple philosophy, but it’s true. Guess what percentage of the population actually budgets and sticks to it? It’s probably less than 3%. Less than 3% keep a budget and stick to it. People have everything mentally. It goes back to the goal-setting principle as well. But what do you think can help people have a bit more comfort saying, if they’ve never done something before, how can they still take the courage or develop the courage to getting into something new of investment or building wealth is something they’ve never done before?

– I think they’ll develop few philosophies. One of the philosophy which I developed in at my early stage and I listened to his tapes, numerous times, Jim Rohn most people know about his name. He is the father of, you know, personal development. And one quote that stuck to me and I kept on repeating during my, you know, good times, bad times was it’s not the blowing of the wind that determines your destination. It’s the set of the sail, right. They’re always gonna be wind, you know, political wind, social wind, sometimes relationship challenges. Sometimes, you know, everywhere, things are not going the way you want to go. But what you do is you have to be composed, stay calm and keep moving. Set the sail and don’t worry about this. If we keep moving with the wind we are gonna be just like that, hanging there, hanging there from here to here, but there is no progress. So philosophies, I love developing philosophies for. So I remember a couple of months back, you know, me and my son was going for a cycling. And his, at that time, he was eight year old, now he’s turned nine. I’ve wanted to make him develop those philosophies. I said and we were cycling and the hill came, you know, you have to climb the hill and he was like, nah papa I don’t wanna go. I said, let’s keep going, let’s go. And we went up and then after that the hill came downward and we went down with the full speed.

– Like a free flow.

– Free flow and he really enjoyed. And at the end of the hill, we stopped and I said, wow, this is an opportunity to you know, give some learning smart to my son. I said, and again, going back to building the philosophies first, building the foundation don’t worry about the numbers that will come but have that foundation clear. So I said to my son, you know, when you were going up, it was so painful, you didn’t enjoy it, right? But how about when you coming down the hill? He said it was so papa, it was so fantastic. I was thrilled. And at that time, something came in my head to say, Yash, it’s no hill, no thrill.

– Oh well, that’s a nice one. I really like it.

– So in life when you’re going through hill, start enjoying, start seeing that. Oh, okay, I’m going through hill because the life is gonna be always hill and thrill, right? So when you go through a challenge, start thinking that, oh wow, something good gonna happen. So I’m going to hill but core purpose the thrill is coming as well. And the next time when I went for a cycling again, we went through the same challenge and my son came up because this time we were going through a bigger hill saying, I was so happy to see that he adopted that. And he shared back with a different way. He said papa, you know, the bigger the thrill

– The bigger the hill.

– The bigger the hill, the bigger the thrill.

– Yeah, that’s right, that’s right. And it leads back to the same thing about persistence, right? You keep pushing and then you have a, it’s what we call a breakthrough.

– Breakthrough, so that’s why I’m saying that in the investment world, clear your foundation. Clear your philosophy first and clear your psychology first and then once that’s cleared, it’s like you know, set of the sail, when the challenge hits you know that it’s okay. Because that’s a part of the life because life’s not gonna be sunshine every single day. There’s gonna be some clouds as it is today. Sometimes it’s gonna rain, sometimes it’s gonna be storm, sometimes strong winds, but we know that that’s only temporary.

– That’s right, that’s right.

– So you have to enjoy both good and bad.

– And even when working with clients that are building a portfolio because that’s one of our, you know, business aims is to whoever we work with, you know, we know that one investment doesn’t make you financially free, especially with how expensive things are today. So we’re looking at helping people get on track to building a sustainable portfolio. So I sort of openly tell people now that it’s not, every day is not sunshine and rainbows, right? They will be a challenging time, but in those times you need to, you need to have your contingency plans also mentally prepared for from day one. For example, you know, you’ve heard of this saying, proper preparation prevents poor performance, right? These are like five Ps. And it’s something that I got from Patrick Bet-David as well. What I realized was, if you put in the right contingencies, events like even COVID, let’s say everyone lost their business or they lost their jobs. If one of your philosophies was, set aside 10% of what you earn no matter what and don’t put it into credit card debt, don’t put it into car loans. Don’t, you know, squander the wealth pretty much. What I realized is people would have already had that buffer in place, that even if there’s a stormy time or a tough season, it wouldn’t allow you to be wiped out. So that’s something I think you practice on a day-to-day basis or a year to year basis, like you said, two years in the business you’re always gonna make sure that your people are okay.

– Yes, I always had a buffer say a two years is something have a challenge, you know, I can sustain my family. I can sustain my extended family. So having that buffer is so, so important. And my philosophy is if you are investing every investment put at least a six months to 12 months of reaping. You know, have the buffer, start with a small buffer, you know, 5,000, 10,000 and have that cushion in place. So you know that if there is no tenant, there is gonna be a vacancy. As I said, they’re gonna be challenges. You know, what if the market don’t grow for a short period of time during this challenging time when things are not about growth it’s about sustainability. So I think more than growth, sustainability is more important than growth. cause the growth is come, the growth is natural. If you can sustain during the time, what happens after recession, expansion. But if you can hang in the game during recession, the expansion gonna happen automatically.

– Right, that’s so true. And I’m a big believer in this concept. Building wealth or being wealthy and being broke, two things, opposite sides of the spectrum. They happen slowly, but they happen slowly and then suddenly.

– Wow, you know what you said there, it’s interesting. It’s in the beginning, you cannot notice where you’re heading.

– That’s right.

– Either a good path or bad path.

– That’s right. If you’re heading towards, I always like to draw but in this podcast I won’t.

– Next time we’ll get it with a whiteboard and the backdrop.

– If you are here. So if you’re moving that way and if you’re moving this way, if you look at this angle. In the beginning, there is no difference, but from here to here, there’s a massive difference. And when people look back, this is a curve of 20 years, 30 years, your lifetime curve, it all started here. It never started here, where you end up was started here. So if you move this way, eventually you will see some people will come back and say, you got lucky, but lucky was, he was already moving to that part, which you cannot see in the beginning, in the first 10 years is just the beginning, it’s just the beginning. 10 years is just for you to start noticing. And in business world, I got a very good advice. They say to build a sustainable business it requires quarter a century. So we are only 10 years in the business. So we got, this is the exciting time now ahead.

– Yeah and too many people lose before they get those bigger awards or hit the bigger, I would say challenges in life, where they get the opportunity to prove themselves not only to their own families but to their colleagues or their fellow business people that they work with. I feel too many people don’t give it 10 years, too many people don’t give it 20 years in one industry. That’s why people talk about, you know, what’s the superpower you wish you had. And a lot of successful people choose the superpower I wish I had was focus. So how do you stay focused in a world where we get a ping or we get a ding on our socials, or if we’re working from home, there’s something there that’s distracting us from not only our work or our investing or our business how do you stay focused at a time where the society we’re in is built around distractions? Is it just called personal discipline or is it something we’re seeing beyond the distraction?

– I think it’s your personal discipline but how do you build a discipline? Is bringing a habit of pausing, we never pause. You know what I mean in the investment world is I know a lot of times when a client sit down with you sit down with us, then you do a next take analysis and they’re like, wow, I never thought that. And they’ve been 20 years in working already and they never paused. And when you pause and you put an importance to that factor, you say that, this is important to me now. So when distraction happens, you go back through that event. This is important to me. This is what I decided I want to go there. So when a distraction happens and a interesting thing drives you back there, you pause and reflect that, am I heading on the right direction? If not come back to focus that’s when you bring your focus back to here.

– You know, after we do all sorts of things for our clients here at JRPP, right? So after a strategy session and they see that next stage be put into action from an investment path, what I get from a lot of people is this the sigh of relief going, I’m glad I saw what the future holds because if I didn’t see the path I was heading towards, right? People are just running this, you talk about it all the time in the live events that we do. We’re running this rat rail or this sorry, this rat race or this hamster wheel. And we keep going without pausing. When people see the strategy session saying if we, technical failure time, our cameraman just notified us that the whole thing just cut off, so wherever were, we’re gonna go back to what we were chatting about. It happens but we have to keep moving forward.

– Keep going.

– So thanks for the suggestion there Jimmy, you’re a top bloke, I appreciate it. There’s no, yeah. If you wanna pan around and show him , you can, maybe later we’ll bring him in. But yeah, going back to what I was saying, they get that huge sigh of relief. And you’re talking about where we’re giving people hope at the end of the day, which is really important because a lot of people have fears, subconsciously deep down given up, or it’s not that they’ve given up, but they feel like I’ll do it next year, I’ll do it next year. We have this procrastination mentality now that is it’s not going to kill me if I do it next year. But next year becomes five years, becomes 10, then you have to give up almost, right?

– I am a big fan of how things get compounded. And actually there’s a book called "The Compound Effect" from Darren Hardy. He had put it perfectly. It’s just such a small book. If anybody wants to read, I would highly recommend for you to go and buy that book and read it because it’s a lifetime principles, lifetime principle it’s a small book, but it will make the big difference. It all talks about compounding, life is compounding. And one of the examples he talks about is, if let’s try here. If there was a dollar and it’s gonna double every day for the next 30 days, would you pick that? Or if there was a million dollar or $5 million which one would you pick?

– I would definitely pick the dollar.

– You’ll pick the dollar, but most people will be tempted to go for 5 million so instant gratification kicks in. And this is the principle that will keep you separated in long-term. What wealth are you gonna accumulate? How healthy you’re gonna be? How fantastic your relationship’s going to be, all is in this book, in this one principle. So if we do a math on a dollar, it’s gonna double every single day and if you take it for two days, it’s gonna be $2, third day four, then eight and 16. After 10 days, it’s gonna be only $512. And then you start looking the person who is enjoying the life, the person who took the 5 million.

– Or the 10 million.

– Or instant gratification

– Or the 20 million as well.

– Or instant gratification who went bought that car on a bad debt, who went and, you know some people borrow money on for traveling. I hate that. But you know, you look and then see look, wow that guy is enjoying his life. And guess what? I should have taken that. I should have taken that. So that always the instant gratification kicks in and most people give up and they go back to what other other peoples are doing. They try, they say, yeah, the book was fantastic, I’ll understand your principles, make sense, I will do it, they’ll give it a try and then give up, why? Because life is not as exciting as it looks in the beginning. In the beginning, you have to. So 10 days, 512. Do you know what that becomes after 30 days?

– Yeah, I sort of remember, but it’s in the hundreds of millions.

– Yes, $536 million. So now compared to 5 million, 536, this person obviously gonna call you lucky. But if you were giving up in that 10 year this is a 30 days, but if you take as a 30 years life, right? 10 years and that’s when most people give up. 25, if you ask every single person who is in the age of 20 to 25 who would like to be financially free? Where they, you know, leave that fantastic, nice, amazing life, everyone would say yes. And they are going for it. And from 25 to 35 in that rat, most people have realized that, you know, what I was dreaming was fantasy. It was not fantasy, you are there. You just have to continue going. And most people at 35, they changed direction.

– That’s right.

– And they say, okay, it’s okay now, I’ve done and then we start putting back to our kids or, you know, this event happened because of this, that’s why I changed my everything. But that same event, you can take it and say you know, I want to move into a different direction now. So compounding

– Compounding and building wealth. I mean, it’s almost as boring as watching the grass grow but have you ever seen after a rain comes in or a period of good grace like we were saying? Have you seen how high that lawn gets the grass just goes from here to here. That’s the effect of, I would say the compound effects and too many people here they don’t bother actually, you know taking the time to build something sustainable because of what you said, instant gratification. The holidays is just here, the car is just here. You know, we know mortgages go for 30 years now, or they’re sanctioned for 30 years, but takes us on average now 39 years to pay because, hey, we wanted that car, let’s finance it on the mortgage. Hey, we wanted the holiday, let’s borrow against equity for the mortgage. Now costs go down in value, but you get something out of it. Travel, you’re not getting anything back except your photographs these days. So yeah, there is an element of personal discipline. See Jack, you know, I really admire the fact that as a leader, you’re not only, you know, walking the talk you’re not only an investor yourself but you definitely instill in everyone that you meet no matter what level they are on that journey, I admire the fact that you share these sorts of principles with even when I was up and coming as a consultant. You had shared these principles with my clients whether they were experienced investors or not. You talk about the 80-20 rule, the Pareto Principle you know, 80% is psychology and the 20% is the mechanics. So, you know, what do you see as the future holding for us at the JR group over the next 10 years now that we’re finished out our 10 year milestone?

– As I said it takes a quarter century to build a successful business. So we are just 10 years in the business. So the exciting time starts and there are 15 more years to go to make it big, make it huge. Yeah, we call it JR tower.

– JR tower, that sounds good. And I’m excited to see all of our extended family which is extends now to our clients as well as being part of that family and taking part. So that’s good. We can talk for hours on end like we do late nights and like we do early morning sometimes but I think our tech guys giving us a bit of a wrap up. So what we’re gonna do is ladies and gents, thank you so much for joining us on episode one. It was an absolute pleasure bringing this to you all and stay tuned for more obviously, but this was fun Jack. I wanna do it with you again and I know you’re gonna be a recurring guest with us now.

– It’s just a fun time. I was literally thinking, you know, I don’t know, you know, free flow, I don’t know what we’re gonna talk about when you know our tech guy said that it’s already half an hour gone, I said, wow, time flies.

– Funny thing is sorry to cut you off, but we had a whole list of questions here that we didn’t even reflect on because I wanted it to feel like this. And I know it’s your first time you’ve done a free flow conversation for a long form way of doing it. And I really appreciate it. I’m looking forward to have you on for some more specific or more technical topics next time around. But we wanted episode one to be a combination of the spirituality, combination of the business wins and what to do in the tough times because it’s our 10 year anniversary that just passed by two months ago. So congratulations.

– Thank you, thank you Sean.

– Thank you so much.

– There are great times ahead for us and for our clients and for our members. And I just want to say that if you have ever dare to dream, if you have dreamt, don’t give up on your dreams, keep going.

– Let’s do it.

– Cool.

Prosperity Point Podcast: Episode 02 – Top Finance Tips With James Brunacci

- Good morning ladies and gentlemen. It’s my absolute pleasure to have the head of JR Financial Solutions which is ahead of mortgage broking and lending James Brunacci with us this morning. James welcome on board-

– Thanks Sean. Prosperity Point Episode two. I couldn’t have hoped for a better guest actually than our very own financial wizard. So let’s get straight into it. What do you see happening in the banking industry over the next five years?

– It’s too early in the morning for that. I’ve only had half of a white mocha.

– So tell me about this. Let’s get started with the soft stuff first. So you said it’s up to me to decide what I surprise you with in the morning. So you were too polite to go for a scotch first thing in the morning.

– I could say to be clear your asked me for a scotch in the morning and I turned that one down.

– So now everyone knows that I’m okay to have a scotch at 7:30 am which you’re too polite to say yes to, which is good. But with regards to our white chocolate mocha now. What are your thoughts? How do you find it? If you could describe it in a connoisseur sort of way.

– Well you talked this right up. You said you had this every day. I have mocha from time to time. But, I’m really impressed. I love white chocolate so it sort of worked. I used to have a little white hot chocolates from Clay James when I was like 12.

– Yeah.

– They were my favorite thing. I don’t know if they still got them. I haven’t had one in probably 10 years.

– I think where I learned about the white chocolate mocha was when I combined my love for hot chocolates and coffee at the same time.

– Yeah.

– But I needed something with a bit more caramel sort of essence. A bit more vanilla drip to it. So I can’t complain. And yeah, you’re right. This is my daily coffee and I have a little time-saving mechanism because I’m so close to the shop. I’ve been going there for the last five years.

– Yeah.

– Every morning I actually give them a call. I just say, "Hey, good morning. How’s it going? There you go. Yep, sure. Cool." "Your coffee will be ready in 10 minutes." So I save a lot of wait time of coffees in the morning and then I just get all these angry white-collar professionals just staring down at me because I go there I pay, take my coffee and then I’d jet straight to work. So I did the same except today I had to order two.

– Yes.

– So they were asking me-

– confused everybody.

– It confused everyone, exactly. So they were asking, is that for you or T? And I said, it’s not for me or T. It’s actually for my colleague for the episode. So here we are. And we were talking about… First of all you’re an absolute legend. Thank you so much for making it despite your hiccup last night. Do you want to tell everyone what happened and your passion for your indoor football?

– So Sean’s been setting up this podcast for a good what? Four weeks or three.

– Yep.

– Had to move it from the original date. We’re going to do everything locked in for today. Last night nine o’clock I’m playing 6-a-side outdoor and I suffered a bit of a mishap. The shoe is gone. The foot’s about three times its normal size. So I had to get the wife to drive me into the office today.

– If you’ve been literally-

– Jumped up the stairs She wheeled me into office.

– And you’ve been wheeled around everywhere this morning so far.

– It’s not my most dignified morning.

– But you’re here-

– I’m here.

– I did it for you. You know.

– And you were first-

– Such a good thing to do.

– We’ll give you that your first in best rates.

– Awkwardly standing outside the lift unable to hop through the door.

– Yeah. But thank you for your commitment. And what I wanted to get from I suppose that the chewing your brains aspect is just a bit about… First of all 2020 has been a crazy year.

– Yes.

– For everyone. And there’s been a lot of learnings I find. And I feel that you’re such a value add to a lot of the clients that we pass on to JR Financial solutions because you take an approach of education along with the finance service. Is that because you’re passionate about what you do personally like you actually love the world of lending and finance or is that because you prefer the service side where you actually help clients understand exactly what they’re getting into. Or is it a mix of both?

– Yeah it’s a bit of both. What got me into mortgage broking was that need, that desire to sort of educate people. I think money is something that we all deal with every day. But so many people just really don’t understand how it works. What strategies or structures make a difference. What ones don’t. People would be happy to take their car to the mechanic but it’s very hard for someone to go on pay money to get advice on money. Something about it doesn’t feel all right. So mortgage broking was a real opportunity for me to be able to do that without having to charge people for it. It made it much more accessible. I could help out family and friends in a way that is harder if I had to send them a bill at the end of the session. So that education side is probably the number one thing that drove me into mortgage broking. And that I really love about the industry. The problem solving side it’s just a fun part because with it-

– Yeah.

– Every person has got a different situation or a different scenario that comes up. And you literally just matching their list of issues I guess. We’ve all got issues don’t we? Their list of issues against the list of lenders who might be able to take it. And try to convince someone that you really do want to lend to this person. It’s a fun game at times.

– You’ve instilled in me I think just personally even when I was personally working with you for one of the deals you’ve instilled in me that in the lending world it’s more about painting the right story as opposed to just ticking all the boxes.

– Yeah. Absolutely.

– Do you see that being a good thing for lending in general? Or do you see that as it should be more black and white where if you tick those boxes then you do get access to a certain bit of lending or do you believe more in building that right story? It’s like in law as well.

– Yeah.

– We’ve studied law, right?

– We have.

– We’ve got equity and then we’ve got common law.

– Yeah.

– There’s a big difference there?

– Absolutely.

– That’s a really interesting one. So on one hand, if you’ve just got black and white rules you end up with a lot of borrowers that miss out. They should be approved then they don’t get approved because missed this box by a fraction. You needed 50,000 in savings you had 48,000. I’m sorry that’s a decline. Silly stuff. I’ve had clients before that have for example missed a few payments on their credit card. But overall they’ve got the money in the bank. They’ve got the history. They’ve got the job. It makes sense. So you do want lenders that are going to be able to sort of work outside the box there but at the same time when you submit a deal that meets policy and the assessor comes back and says I don’t like it. I don’t know how many worse things there are in lending than that. So it does go both ways. What you really want is a good mix of lenders.

– Yeah.

– So you want those lenders that really just the box tickers. Tick tick tick. And you made your banks often fit in that category. Does it make policy? Yes it does. Approve the deal. But then a lot of your mid-tier lenders have that more creative approach where you can go and you can tell the story. But at the end of the day you’re talking about someone wanting to borrow half a million $1 million dollars. It’s a lot of money to lend based on a few pieces of paper. You might see a payslip and a bank statement. But if that lender doesn’t feel like they know you then would you lend half a million dollars to someone that you’ve never met and never going to meet?

– Well if we’re banks this is a different story. I’d love to be a bank first of all which I’m not. But if I was a banker I do completely understand where you’re coming from.

– Yeah.

– When we’re talking about lending and ticking the boxes I’ve realized that of the last four years working with JR the more experienced the investor I work with the less they care about bank loyalty. But bank loyalty used to be something back in the day. Like when do you think the last time bank loyalty really was a thing in Australia

– Putting a year on it is probably tough. But I would say that the internet killed bank loyalty. And as the internet has taken those strong hole it’s killed it more and more. In the past your bank manager was the one that would approve your deal. So if I know you and you know me and you come and ask me for money you don’t necessarily have to prove that you can afford it. I’ll show him look you don’t have a job right now but you’re good for it. You’re going to get your home. And I wasn’t quite that bad. But it wasn’t far off to be fair particularly in some countries like America.

– Yeah.

– But as the Internet’s come in you’ve seen a lot more people playing the system. Learning the rules and trying to manipulate it. And that’s where you saw regulators like ASIC come in bring in their responsible lending acts and things like that. That suddenly put the emphasis on the bank to make sure that you could pay a loan back. So if your bank manager approved you and then you let him down and didn’t pay it back well he wasn’t coming to you and apologizing. Right?

– Yeah.

– But now the banks lend money and you stop paying. The first place they look is should they have not lent you that money? And they can end up in court and paying fines for that. So that’s really… That’s narrow the lending market. But then at the same time as the lending market’s narrowed. You’ve got internet ads and online banking and everything that has made it so easy to switch. But at the same time banks are paying to attract those customers.

– I think so.

– Rather than paying to keep their current customers. Because people are comfy. If we don’t pay for you probably you won’t move. And if you do we’ll just pay to get you back later. But in the meantime we’ll just milk you for the money so we can get our other customers cheaper. I mean it’s an approach that works. They’re not doing it blind. They’re making money from doing it. But I think because it’s changed over the last say 20 years or so it means that people are just dying to catch on to the fact that being with a bank for 15 years is hurting them or helping them. Really. Yeah.

– The same customers I see that are with the same bank for more than three to four years. I think 99% of the time could get better deals elsewhere.

– Not 100%.

– So it’s not that easy anymore as well when you just call up your current bank and say, "Hey this competitor is offering me this. Could you match it?" I think that bank answer is always no most of the time. Right?

– Depending on where rates are going it’s usually not no. Banks will help out but I describe this to clients as a game of poker. Right? You’re calling your bank and you’re saying, "Hey. Your rate sucks. How about you give me a better rate? And I won’t leave." And they’re saying, "Well you’re not going to leave are you?" "I might leave." And somewhere in the middle they’ll give you a rate. So something that we’ve actually done in the past is where a client will come to me and they want a refinance. The first thing we do is we go back to that bank. Can we get a better rate there. The bank will say, "Look, send it to the team. We’ll find out for you. You have a 20 basis point discount." And then no worries. That’s not good enough. We’re gonna go to the other bank. The other bank approves it. Logs to discharge authority. And suddenly first bank comes back like, "Oh, you had a 20 point discount. How about an 80 point discount? And we’ll give you two grand."

– Right. There you go.

– So stuff like that is rampant. And really what that comes down to is whether you wanted to stay with the bank that was willing to screw the first time. For rule of thumb I remember learning from my mentor back in the day was that you should change banks roughly as often as Australia changes prime ministers which unfortunately at that point was about once every six months. But in theory that actually means once every three years or so.

– Yeah.

– If it’s more than two years, like more regular than every two years, you’re gonna start building a bit of a bad rep for yourself with the banks. They’ll see it. Had a mortgage, paid out a mortgage. Had a mortgage, paid out a mortgage. You can find that they may not want to lend you as much or as easily or give you as good a pricing. But at the same time if you’re there five years or more you’re almost certainly paying too much.

– And is that the same? Does the same go for like private banking clients as well? Or is there like an extra sort of service that the other banks sort of can’t offer?

– Private banking is really different. On one hand you’re bringing a lot more money to the table which is more money to the bank. On the other hand you’re also really time pull. So probably you don’t want to leave.

– Yeah.

– But then they’ve got to consider whether somebody else will come and just do all the work for you. It’s the same game of poker. It’s just got slightly different hands that have been dealt.

– Okay.

– And that poker game is like it’s logical when you get to see it. If you’re sitting on a property that you owe 95% on the bank’s not gonna give you a better rate. They know you can’t leave. Right. If you’re sitting on a property at 20% over here you’re probably going to have pretty good bargaining power. It’s hard for them to guess that you’re not going to leave. So the strength of you as an applicant really does make a difference in that. And that’s the number one thing they’re looking at in their retention terms.

– Yeah. You mentioned something interesting about when lending happens let’s say you’ve got ASIC that looks at who approved and then they can breathe down someone’s neck if they’ve done the wrong thing.

– Yeah.

– Do you feel those changing attitudes if passed on to our clients which is the general misconception I hear more often than not is well banks don’t really like lending anymore. And I couldn’t disagree more because I realized that if you’re a strong applicant on your own I feel a bank would still lend you based on your numbers and your story. But I feel the attitude shift is still that banks don’t like lending anymore. What do you think being in the businesses of lending… How do you think that attitude shift can be a bit more clear for everyone out there?

– Yeah. I think the attitude shift hasn’t been so much they don’t like lending as there’s just so many more rules. So you had your responsible lending that came in the end of 2009. And then over about six or seven years that continued to get more and more intense. ASIC started looking more closely at these lenders and what are you doing? And then suddenly we have a Royal commission. And now the lenders are freaking out because they know they’ve got dirty laundry in there.

– Yeah.

– So they’ve tried to clear all that up and tried to show the Royal commission that actually look at us being super tight on everybody.

– Dirty laundry there.

– Also true actually. They look a little bit too deeply. Westpac and CBA-

– I’m so much shocked-

– But yeah. So in the lead up to the Royal commission or the lead up to the final report you saw lenders sort of go to a whole new level of strictness. It was a bit crazy to be fair. And that’s slowly starting to come back.

– Yeah.

– But again it wasn’t that they don’t want to lend. It was just that they all wanted to lend differently. So I’d work with a panel of roughly 50 lenders.

– Wow.

– I didn’t find that the loans that could get approved changed particularly. It just the number of vendors that would do it. So where in the past year out of the box scenario might’ve had 10 or 50 lenders that were keen now you had two. All right. Or three. You had to know who they were. You had to know how to package it. And they all had special rules. Which meant that it was very very hard for an individual to go straight to a bank. The rules are the same. I don’t play by special rules. But which bank are you going to go. If you happen to get it right, beautiful. But if you get it wrong five times now your credit files hurt. Now you hold jaded about it. Probably just give up and don’t go ahead. So similarly to the same way an accountant or a lawyer does something that you could have done yourself you just didn’t have the time or the knowledge to do it. Same idea.

– Yeah. That makes sense. It makes sense. And talking about things like interest rates now tail end of 2020 we’re at a historical low interest rates right? And banks are passing on a lot of these cuts. Where do you see the interest rate environment sort of heading towards over the next three five years given what its historic trend has been over the last 10 years? What do you think is going to unfold in the interest rate space for specifically home loans?

– Well I think we got a really good signal on that from the RBA just recently. They’ve refused to cut the interest rate to zero which is good. I think negative interest rates have not helped any nation that they’ve been implored in. But at the same time and at the risk of a little bit too much economics the way that they’re buying government bonds on the secondary market is specifically designed to drive down fixed medium-term interest rates. That sort of three to five years. So they’re trying to make sure that there’s cheap money available for a long time to come as long as anyone can see. So there will be a time. And I warn people about this all the time. If you’re taking a 30 year mortgage interest rates are not going to be at 2.5% for all of those 30 years.

– Yeah.

– But are they’re going to be there for the next five years? Yeah. I would expect so.

– Yeah.

– And beyond that which of us can see beyond that really?

– Yeah true.

– I’m just guessing at that point.

– True. But when we’re looking at what it used to be let’s say 20 or 30 to 40 years ago when we were looking at it being 16% 17% 18% and that was the norm.

– Yeah.

– Right now the norm is around that three is believable. Two is really low. So they can see being believable going back up to that three four mile. But do you think we’d have the tendency to go all the way back up to 17% 18% anytime in the next 40 years?

– I can’t see that happening personally. But I’ve lived 40 years. Same goes for you.

– That’s true.

– But the thing is that there’s these wide economic forces. Okay is it impossible that interest rates go back there? It’s not impossible. But look at what else was happening at the time. You had high wage growth.

– Yeah.

– You had high asset price growth. The whole economy moves together. You didn’t… If we suddenly like jumped today to 15% interest rates half the country goes bankrupt. Right. Nobody can afford their mortgages But that wasn’t happening 40 years ago. People were still paying their mortgages. You could still afford to do what you were doing and live your life. The whole economy moves together. So I don’t think like crazy interest rate changes like that is something to be worried about. It’s not going to happen overnight. And if the economy is in an environment where that could happen a lot of other things are going to be benefiting you as well.

– Yeah. I see that if we’re looking at wage growth as well I think that’s important that you mentioned that point. We’ve got what I think some of the slowest wage growth in recent years now.

– True.

– A few reports that have come out. One thing that I’m happy to see though is that a lot of the deferrals that were taken up during coronavirus are actually back to full set of repayments. Is that right?

– That’s true. This data is all buried in the annual reports from the banks.

– So it’s not out there in the media full steam ahead just yet.

– You could find that information if you really felt like some light nighttime reading. But the one that interested me the most was ANZ who publicized a lot of this stuff. So they granted about 90,000 Homeland deferrals.

– Okay.

– For between three and six months during the first few months of COVID and of those only 11,000 have continued now. So we’re seeing a 10% roughly and continuation on those referrals which is cool. But then of those 11,000 only 500 have actually asked for hardship assistance.

– Wow.

– The rest of them expect to be fine. They’re just not quite fine yet. Which I think really indicates a strength in the market then. And something else that I wrote to a few of my clients about now at the time was that the profit reports from these banks came out and all of them are showing big drops in profit. Which makes for great headlines.

– My next question to you.

– Yeah, okay.

– Because I loved-

– ask a question I’ll answer.

– All right. Well how do you think… Well given that the banks are showing less profit tell us the real story behind the scenes because you actually had a look at where the money’s going.

– Great question sure.

– Yes, thanks.

– I wasn’t expecting that one.

– That’s really interesting to me when I came out. You saw the big headlines saying that profit drops 50% like CBA puts aside $3 billion for COVID losses might even be more than that for CBA. And it makes for great media. These huge losses that the banks are making. But when you actually look at what these are they’re projected losses for the future. And so they’re not money that the bank has lost in the last financial year. They’re money they’re worried they might lose in the future. And when you add that projected loss back into their profits because they’re just claiming that at the tax deduction. Suddenly their profits look pretty much identical to last year. Which admittedly wasn’t an amazing year in banking on the back of the Royal commission. But still to have gone through COVID and to have not changed your profitability at all.

– It’s phenomenal.

– It’s pretty pretty amazing. And I mean I just wish that I could be a bank and not pay tax on $3 billion of income just because I might lose it in the future.

– I like how this conversation has already referred to us both liking the idea of being a bank. It always comes down to that, doesn’t it?

– I don’t think it’s a foster money-making strategy than being a bank.

– Yeah. Yes, of course. In terms of balancing the ever evolving changing world of lending which is what you probably have to stay on top of I think you have to do a lot of CPD in your world where you’re keeping up to date with certain changes in rules or you’re keeping up to date with certain regulatory bodies. Is there a lot of that going on the way that GPs would or accountants would have to keep up to date with a few things?

– It’s interesting right. For our space. So yes, absolutely there’s safe bidding. And similar amounts to an accountant or something like that. I think GPs do a bit more but that’s good because they keep us alive.

– So they say.

– We are all dying so maybe not.

– There you go.

– But most of the work that we do to keep up to date is more to do with understanding how lenders are changing their rules. Any of 50 lenders that all feel like changing their rules every week or two. There’s not an official CPD measure for that. But my goodness. Like that’s what takes up all the time. Staying on top of that stuff because it’s a game with constantly changing rules.

– Yeah.

– Keeps you on your toes.

– Yeah, definitely. And in terms of working from home or working from the office a lot of people have got this split going on now. What have you enjoyed over the last few months? Do you prefer having a bit of a mix? Do you prefer enjoying staying at home and zooming it up with clients? Because I know we personally like face to face interaction and feeling that energy with people especially if it’s the first time we’re meeting them. And once that relationship is set you can then carry on with email trails and phone calls and so forth. So what’s your preference.

– Yeah. Look, I’ve certainly enjoyed spending time at home. And my wife’s been at home for like eight months now. Not quite. About eight months. But there’s nothing that really beats the sort of being in the same room as someone being able to understand them. I’ll start at the beginning. My role is to understand you understand what you need understand who you are and how to position that to a bank. So as soon as we’re able to get back in the office and back in front of people I was absolutely chasing that. I don’t think Zoom can really match that.

– I think so too. We’re going to go for a chocolate break. And there’s the chocolate. It’s just like magic. Chocolate with a white chocolate mocha.

– Hope you got some good sponsorship money from Gloria Jean’s and-

– Cadbury.

– Cadbury this morning.

– This episode is proudly brought to you by Gloria Jean’s Stan hope. No, I’m just kidding.

– But also you just gave them the advertising they would have paid for.

– Well what do you think I get my free coffee from? I just keep endorsing. I send the referrals they throw with free coffees.

– You know, it’s really funny. I keep telling my clients about these Rewards Points and Reward Vouchers right. So loyalty points for flights or loyalty points for coffee. So I’ve spent probably the last year and a half or the last two years with getting coffees regularly from Gloria Jean’s. And I’ve got this loaded card now. And I’ve got approximately about 35,000 or 40,000 Gloria Jean’s points on there. So I did the math. I think I’ve loaded that card to the point where I’ve got free coffee a day for 40 days straight.

– Not bad.

– That’s like two months worth of morning coffees almost, right? And maybe even a bit more. If I just get the small ones instead of the large ones. So I’m very proud of my ability there. But here’s what always happens right?. I feel every time I rack up enough loyalty points the world and the economy decides to throw a spanner in the works and Gloria Jean’s changed its loyalty card. So I have to now transfer those points onto a new card which I just haven’t had the time to do. So I haven’t been racking up points for the last two weeks. And every time I went into Velocity I used to fill up with BP. And then BP stopped velocity.

– Don’t talk to me about velocity.

– Yes.

– It makes me cry at night.

– But I heard… Or I didn’t hear this. Maybe a little buddy told me that nothing’s actually going to happen to our Velocity points. I think they will still be able to be used. Is that right? Or you cross that scene at all?

– Yeah I don’t know. I spent a good like three years collecting Velocity points like got my credit cards with the 75,000 bonus and everything.

– Oh my goodness.

– I know. I have like 300,000 points.

– Yeah.

– And then they go on and shut down. I can’t transfer them to KrisFlyer. I can’t do all the things. I’m not good friends with Velocity right now.

– I don’t think a lot of people are.

– I just want to know how many actual dollars you spend at Gloria Jean’s to get 40,000 reward points.

– Well if I spill those beans out I’ll be sad. It’d be a lot. I could have maybe half a property deposit because I think the points racking up has only been for a year and a half but the actual commitment spend has been for about six years. Daily. Every single day. And I think the inflation on the coffee hasn’t been too bad but it’s still been about $5 96 years ago.

– So your endorsement was actually stan hope Gloria Jean’s

– Yeah.

– Brought to you by Sean Floyd. Funded their own business.

– They’ve got a great team that they’re all very annoyed at me because I annoyed them in the morning for that coffee to be made before I reached. It is what it is. I can’t complain. What’s new in terms of just your personal planning your personal business vision over the next coming years. Do you see yourself taking up any interesting projects? Do you see yourself trying a few things over Christmas this year that you wouldn’t have tried before? What’s going to new in 2021 for James Brunacci?

– Yeah look probably one of the biggest things on the horizon there is we’re looking at bringing a trainee on into the business. So working with other experienced people in the industry is one thing. But to train someone from scratch most likely a school leaver or something like that should be a really interesting next step for the business next step and for me professionally. Being able to pass on some of that knowledge and that passion for the industry. So yeah really excited for that. I think with the gradual loosening of some of the restrictions as well it’s becoming a real market where people are keen to take that next step to save their interest to buy that next property. But navigating those releasing restrictions is complicated. So again. Sort of really focusing on how we can make that experience work for people. Yeah. That’s where it’s got the business where it is now. And I think that’s really going to be the main focus for next year. But speaking of personal I heard that you picked up a new toy a couple of weeks back. I haven’t met this new toy yet, but.

– Yes, yes. The new toy is in the secure Batcave across the road. I don’t intend to bring it down to this car park just in case some of the angry lawyers are dented up. But it’s been a very very fulfilling few drives to work and a few drives on the weekend I’ll be honest. The new toy is great sir.

– Do you want to tell us where your new toy is.

– It’s a product of delayed gratification instead of instant gratification. So I’ve made sure I ticked a few boxes first but I’m very proud to announce I did pick up an AMG C 63 Coupe and it’s been keeping me happy and it’s been keeping my neighbors unhappy I would say. So luckily all my neighbors are my friends so they were quite happy in the beginning but the noise does get to people sometimes. But I love cars. And I think that the biggest spend in my life dollar wise would be cars more than property even I feel. Because that’s just how passionate I am about sports cars. And I know you love cars as well. When talking about daily drives and enjoying Canyon rides actually I’ve been driving up close to where I used to grow up near Wilberforce Road and Park road.

– Yeah.

– So I’ve been enjoying those roads and I think that’s where everyone goes for a good drive, right? So I’ll be enjoying this Christmas for sure. And because we’re not leaving Australia I’m more than happy staying on the roads. But we’ll definitely drive safe. There’s no speeding going on whatsoever.

– I was going to ask you about the removal of the warnings on mobile speed cameras. How does that tie in with your C 63. Of course very safe.

– There’s going to be actual removals-

– Yeah they’re taking them away. The no warnings on mobile speed cameras and they want to triple the alarms on them.

– Wow. Okay. I’ll probably have to go far away then. Get out of town for real.

– That’s where the reckon are going to be though.

– Oh.

– There was one of the regional MPs was really upset that it was going to target regional drivers too much. So pick out what’s a safe place for you. That’s where your bi turbo is really gonna work its best.

– Well, the best thing about the C 63 S ride is that you can have a lot of fun in it without actually speeding. You can have a lot of fun going from a dead stop to just 60 and that’s enough-

– That’s true. but you get the whole grumble effect. And these are essentially big German muscle cars that handle quite well. But the car that I’ve got a bit too tail happy. So if we give it too much it’s not really going to be in control. And they’re not meant to be known for control. Like if I wanted control I would get a Mazda MX-5. You know what I mean? Or a Porsche-

– No offense to you MX-5 drivers out there.

– No of course I was actually praising them. The handling is better than my official. They corner better than mine as well.

– It’s true, it’s true.

– But we’ll have to just see what’s next, I suppose. So maybe what we’ll do is for our next podcast catch up. We’ll do it while we’re in the car with a few GoPro’s. And we’ll drive up to-

– Car chats with James and Sean.

– Car chats with James and Sean. And then we might have a scotch. Probably not on the AMG C 63.

– Good decision.

– But we will definitely have a large white chocolate mocha I think.

– Car karaoke.

– Car karaoke why not? I think these will fit quite well.

– Snooker table would.

– What I love is the fact that there are backseats but they’re not really that usable. So I don’t have to invite too many people to come in at once. Just one nice passenger that I like which is more often than not my partner. And then we cruise around town which is good. Speaking of personal acquisitions what was really interesting for me to see was everyone in my close circle and even in the office you and myself we all acquired during 2020.

– True.

– Which was…

– And we acquired at times where the confidence level wasn’t where it is today.

– True.

– And I think we’re seeing the rewards or the benefits from something like this. Do you see property being a vehicle that you personally will continue to keep acquiring over time and keep cultivating and restructuring? Or do you feel… Or are you one of those guys where it’s just five and I’m done or 10 and I’m done and that’s enough for me and then I’ll focus on other instruments. Or do you generally don’t mind property as a personal investment tool for your success?

– I think I’m getting there. I’d be in trouble if I sat here and told you Sean look I think property’s a scam. I’m not into it. But no of course. I see property. I’m quite pragmatic with property and I think if you’ve seen some of the webinars that I’ve done before I see it as an investment vehicle the same way I see shares or bonds or gold or anything like that. The key difference with property is its gearing.

– Yeah.

– So the same amount of money I can invest in six seven eight times as much property as I can anything else. So to me that just simply makes it a very sensible asset to be picking up. I also look around and I’ll say that the government is specifically legislated to protect property.

– In Australia for sure.

– Absolutely.

– We learnt that this year didn’t we.

– We have so much of our National wealth caught up in it that it’s something that government protects. So if the government is going to go out of their way to support an asset class I want to be on board with that. And so absolutely I see that being something that continues. And I’ll also say there’s a really good way to create a legacy. And you look at some of the people whose parents or grandparents owned land in Bondi or land in Chatswood. And the impact that that’s had on them now or even more recently families that had acreage in Schofields or in-

– Oh, the Box Hill averages right now have just gone on another level.

– That’s right. So like all that stuff is pretty incredible. So yeah.

– It reminds me of that story that Munzurul was telling us-

– It was what I was thinking of. from March this year before the pandemic really took its full effect on the workforce. We realized that there were these people that were complaining about properties in Bondi that were just annoying to keep. And imagine if they held it now they’d be sitting on millions.

– Yeah, absolutely.

– So of course I see property being a good tool purely because of the leverage which is what you said. I put down my 10% or 20% and then the bank gives us the rest which is great.

– Making money with other people’s money.

– Exactly.

– Number one rule of have a income creation.

– Yes, yes exactly.

– And another thing that would be really interesting is there’s a lot of younger professionals out there that are earning more that are now of the realization that renting while investing. So virtually rentvesting is actually good thing for their lifestyle.

– Yeah.

– And it’s actually good thing for their wealth building. What’s your comment to high-income young professionals out there that are paying too much in tax that do want to invest that do want to get properties but still want to live in rent in maybe Manly or rent in Cremorne for example rent close to the city or closer to Para. What’s your advice to people like that when they are on board with rentvesting. Or they might be considering rentvesting.

– Yeah. I think people over complicate a lot of these things. People think about it too much. In practice what you’re looking at is rental returns. So if you buy a property in Cremona in the inner city what’s your rental return going to be? The answer is going to be-

– Really low.

– It’s probably going to have a two in front of it.

– Two point something percent, right?

– Yeah.

– If you buy a property in Queensland anywhere Victoria almost anywhere your rental return even at its worst is going to have a three in front of it.

– That’s right.

– Right. So straight away, you’re going to be better off financially buying investments and renting in the lower rental market than buying in that market and having a non tax deductible debt that burns you then. The math is very straightforward. The problem is the lifestyle. Do you want to be in that renting lifestyle? Right. And that goes both ways. But I see it the same as anything else. Do you buy your 90 inch TV thinking this is a good investment? I’m really excited for the future capital growth of this. The same thing goes for your car. Did you buy that thinking I can’t wait to get ahead in my life because of this car. Of course not.

– I was only thinking I’ll get to where I have to go faster. That’s it?

– But all these purchases people still make.

– Yeah. You still buy the TV, you still buy the car. So you still buy the house. But people need to see it as what it is. It’s a lifestyle item. It’s a cost to your future wealth. In exchange for something that makes your life easier now. And once you start seeing it like that those decisions are easy. You don’t go and buy your car if you don’t have the cash for it. You don’t think oh I can’t live my life unless I have this nice car. You work in your life. And then when you have the ability you buy the car. Same thing for a house. Renting is financially better. But at some point you will reach a position where you want that stability of a house or you want that lifestyle improvement of a house.

– Yeah.

– So you buy it. But as long as you see it as what it is not a waste of money but a cost to you. That makes the whole decision-making a lot easier. So if your pure goal is I want to get ahead financially. Absolutely. That rentvesting and particularly for people living in Sydney makes so much sense.

– I think so too.

– Yeah. Absolutely.

– I really think so too. And the other fun part is before we wrap up I could talk to you for hours and hours and hours.

– And we have.

– Yeah, we have. We always have But what’s good piece of advice you’d give to someone who’s out there right now young let’s say from between the age of 30 and 40 or between the age of 25 and 40 and they’re thinking about how can I get ahead right now even if I’m not in the property market. What are some tips you’d like to share for people to prepare to be in a position to get into that first property or that first investment?

– I think the most important piece of advice that I ever heard was that the investment that you make is just a pathway to get where you want to get to. Yeah there are better paths than there are worsts paths but it’s just a path. The number one thing that will define your financial situation is your relationship to money. How do you personally relate to money manage money deal with money? If you’re sitting there and you’re not saving anything you don’t have a good relationship with money. It’s controlling you. Right? If you are sitting there and saving comfortably and controlling your money well you will create wealth. You will be wealthy. If you invest it well you’ll be more wealthy. If you do nothing you’ll still be wealthy. I see clients that have that good relationship with money come to me with no properties but $100,000 $200,000 in the bank.

– All the time.

– Right?

– Yeah.

– Is that person going to be wealthy even if they do nothing and just keep saving that money.

– Yeah, they will. Right? They’ve saved for 10 15 years and they’re in that position. If they keep saving they’re going to retire with $600,000 $700,000 in the bank. Is that going to be enough for retirement? Probably. But could they have left a legacy instead? Could they have created flexibility for themselves in their life and for their children? Absolutely. So that relationship with money would define your financial success. The pathway will just amplify that.

– Makes sense.

– The number one tip that I would have for a young professional is to spend the time seek out the advice seek out the knowledge to sort out your relationship with money and how you control it. Once you’ve got that everything will fall into place for you.

– That’s awesome. That’s actually a good piece of advice I reckon. Seek out the right people build that team and then execute take an action on it.

– Absolutely.

– Don’t just dwell on it for the next 10 years and keep saving.

– Absolutely.

– What we’ll do is probably the next time we catch up we’ll wait till your foot gets better so that we can-

– I’ll walk into the next one.

– We’ll drive around town and then enjoy some crackles and pops for our next podcast. I think that’ll be fun.

– Apparently I’m not a good passenger. According to my wife who I passengered with for the first time in a long time this morning.

– This morning?

– What was the feedback?

– A little bit controlling apparently. I liked the drive.

– Yeah.

– Well James you’ve been an absolute pleasure this morning-

– Thank you Sean.

– I really appreciate your time. And I look forward to having many more of these with you but I couldn’t have hoped for a better opening to our subsequent set of talks.

– Yeah.

– And I look forward to learning a lot more from you into the future as well.

– Thank you very much for having me. Appreciate it. Let’s do it.

Prosperity Point Podcast: Episode 03 – The Power of Manifestation with Jack Kumar and Sean Floyd

Jack Kumar:
Do you have a set format?

Sean Floyd:
Yeah. Very strict format.

Jack Kumar:
What questions are you going to ask?

Sean Floyd:
No questions at all. The jazz pots.

Jack Kumar:
Five, four, three, two, one, go.

Sean Floyd:
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome on board to another episode of Prosperity Point. Jack, it’s an absolute pleasure to have you, mate.

Jack Kumar:
Same here. Thank you, Sean.

Sean Floyd:
And I’ll be honest. I had a lot of fun with you doing our first ever podcast, which was for our 10 year anniversary, right? That’s what we had launched Prosperity Point on.

Jack Kumar:
That’s right.

Sean Floyd:
That was a little bit about reminiscing about the past, looking forward into the future.

Jack Kumar:
That’s correct. It was all about past and vision.

Sean Floyd:
Yeah, exactly. And I’m sure that we’ll have more vision talks because I think one of the things we’re going to be talking about is manifesting in the future and how that helps a lot in your success, right?

Jack Kumar:
Yes.

Sean Floyd:
Today, however, is a little bit more reality based, which is what can we control today to make our lives tomorrow better?

Jack Kumar:
That’s right.

Sean Floyd:
So it’s all about proper management of money, financial discipline, what are the steps that people can take to actually go ahead. I’ll just probably give everyone some context as well. When we’re doing a lot of investment planning for our clients, which you’re well aware of, you’ve been doing it for more than 10 years now, we always ask people these sorts of questions that seem very basic, but are very hard to answer, right?

Jack Kumar:
Yes.

Sean Floyd:
It goes back to the same thing before we talked about, which is the things that are easy to do and the things that are easy not to do as well. So the simple question is how much can you save per month? And people struggle answering this question probably I would say 95% of the time. At least nine out of 10 clients that I meet always struggle to answer this. What do you think the reason is for that?

Jack Kumar:
I think I haven’t seen anyone taking their time, sitting down and saying, "Yeah, I have done my budgeting." Maybe one in a hundred. Yes, you have come across those smart client who have already budgeted it. I think the biggest reason I always think is they know money is important, but no one gives as important to the money. What I mean by that is, let me explain. Once Zig Zagler, he said-

Sean Floyd:
Zig Ziglar, you’re talking about the author and coach.

Jack Kumar:
Author and coach, Zig Ziglar. Once he said that money is not everything, but it’s reasonably important. Money’s not everything but it’s reasonably important, similar as oxygen. What I mean by that is when day to day life… I have a recent example.

Sean Floyd:
Yeah, please do share.

Jack Kumar:
Yeah. I love sharing stories. And this is a story from my personal life, one of my families home in India. And during this COVID hit, one of the families, the husband got sick, they got hit with the COVID. And I was literally surprised to hear that they were not worried about the COVID illness or sickness, they were more worried about how are we going to pay the hospital bill?

Sean Floyd:
So they had to pay for the hospital bills back home in India from their pocket?

Jack Kumar:
From their pocket.

Sean Floyd:
It’s not like how we have it here.

Jack Kumar:
No. So in the private hospitals, so you have to pay everything. And this is a middle-class family. They live a nice life, they go on holidays, they celebrate and all that. And when you look from outside, you said, "Wow, I’ve always thought they are a nice family. They laugh, middle-class." But I realized that this is a big disease we have that we never sit down and do budgeting. And if I were to do a budgeting for them, I’m sure I would find out that they would earn a dollar and they spend $1.20.

Sean Floyd:
Makes sense. Right.

Jack Kumar:
And that when a situation hits, they panic because the biggest thing is [inaudible 00:04:20] is close to oxygen. It’s reasonably close to oxygen. They were not worried about the sickness, but they were more worried about how are we going to pay the hospital bill. So I see that when you sit down with clients and they don’t do budgeting. No point of talking for future if we cannot control our today, if we cannot manage today well.

Sean Floyd:
Yeah. And I suppose when you’re talking about budgets as well, is it because it’s just boring? Do you think that’s why a lot of people don’t bother getting into the nitty gritty? Because I think budgeting, simple as the other goals we have… We talk a lot about having smart goals, right?

Jack Kumar:
Yes.

Sean Floyd:
Smart goals are your specific, measurable, attainable, so forth, so on. And when you’ve got a goal to, let’s say, maybe lose weight, some people just say, "I want to be fit." But unless you define what that fitness is or what fit looks like to you, then how would you actually get yourself on track to achieving it? Same way with budgeting. People have an idea in their mind, but I don’t think it’s written down or tracked. So what do you think the motivating pull is to get someone… Because we know that 95% of people don’t budget anyway. They just have the budget in their minds and then worst case, some people have no clue as well what they’re doing with their money. So what do you think motivates people to actually set something up disciplined and give themselves that clarity to know what they can set aside?

Jack Kumar:
Again, there’s a different motivation for different people. But I think knowing the reality is important. Sitting down, pausing yourself and saying, "If I keep doing what I’m doing right now, where would I end up in 10 years time?" Or other way to look at is, "I’ve been working hard for last 10 years and I still struggle to have enough money. So where the hell I’m doing wrong?" Because most people I know, they’re hard workers. They work hard. There is no doubt that they’re lazy. They maintain their lifestyle, they do everything. But even after working for 15, 20 years, they still cannot see, they still have the fear of not having enough money when they retire. So we can learn from the past and see where the hell I’m doing wrong. So either you can be motivated, so learning from the past. Or you could be motivated by creating a wonderful future.

Sean Floyd:
I think that’s what we’re wired like.

Jack Kumar:
Yeah.

Sean Floyd:
We’re more futuristic that way.

Jack Kumar:
Yeah. We both have that strength of thinking futuristic, living in the future. But we can learn from both. So if someone is say we are driven by fear or we are driven by a gain. If you’re driven by gain, then you think about future, sit down and say, "How do I want to see my future look like?" And if you are driven by fear, then you look back and say, "Mate, if I keep doing what I’m doing right now, where the hell I’m going to end up?" And it’s very predictable. If you are young, energetic, you worked hard and you are in those 50s or 40s and you still cannot see your future… I think the future is very predictable then because after 40, we start deteriorating. Our energy level goes on, our priority changes. We see that now we have to spend more time with family. So if we can’t do then, that means now is a time to sit down and take a time for yourself to budget.

Sean Floyd:
Yeah. And budgeting is just simply clarity. So it’s about tracking certain things. For example, if we know what we’re able to set aside, we’ll be able to track with a high level of accuracy how fast we can pay off certain assets as well, pay off certain debts, how fast you can be mortgage free. A lot of people have this wishful thinking. I’ll share my own example. So my father’s example of wishful thinking. Even though he’s extremely a hard worker, probably works 10 times harder than I do, but that’s where I get my work ethic from. He used to say things like we’ll be mortgage free in five years in the air. And then I used to always go back and say, yes, even though I’m a bigger dreamer than he was, I would say, "Okay, how would you do that? What’s the plan."

Sean Floyd:
And there was no plan. And I’d say, "So let’s break it down into per month. Here’s what we need to do to be mortgage-free in five years, for example." But people don’t bother making the plan in terms of what’s the step-by-step approach. They just declare something and then halfway through, you have two choices. You either give up or you try again. So I think budgeting plays that important role where it gives you clarity to actually map out your own personal freedoms. At the end of the day, it’s about… Some people, I feel have the mindset where "I don’t earn enough so there’s no point worrying about it. I’ve just got my future sorted." But I’ve seen-

Jack Kumar:
Same thing, Sean, it goes with the people who earn more as well. They say, "I earn enough. I don’t have to worry about the future." So they spend everything off. And there are people who earn less and they think "I don’t earn enough so I don’t need to budget." So both people fall into the same trap.

Sean Floyd:
And the truth is, it’s not about how much you make. It’s only about how much you keep-

Jack Kumar:
How much you keep.

Sean Floyd:
… and what you do with it. And I feel like that goes back to what we were talking a little bit about last time, which is it’s about what we can control. If we can’t control external circumstances about, "I don’t know what my job is going to be 10 years from now." Lately, I’ve been working with a lot of people that are planning out their investment journeys. And they’re saying we might be in a completely different industry five years from now. So half of these plans, they might disappear. And then my response to that is… Well, what would you say, for example? Let’s say we’ve worked out a great investment strategy. This looks good for the next 10 years and I’m happy. But Jack, my whole industry is going to change in the next five years, I might not even have a job. So what’s the point of doing this plan?

Jack Kumar:
That’s a very interesting thing. I would say you set up a destination, but you need to reach it all the time. What I mean by that, if you want to go to west and you don’t check that if you’re heading on the right direction, do a planning. What I would say is check on it every year. Like a GPS. If you miss a turn… Like last week, I was driving from Sydney to Bella Vista and I missed a turn from Chatswood. And if I didn’t have the GPS on, it would have taken me ever to reach there because I would have gone outside and then coming back to the highway would have been… Yeah, I would have reached, but it would have been delayed.

Jack Kumar:
So the GPS only helps you that, okay, you missed the exit, but there is another way, you can turn a U-turn, come back and you can catch the highway again and you can be on track again. So similarly, if you have a goal, setting up is important. But in the middle, if you missed that exit and something happens, you still know the GPS, the mental GPS will keep you back into track. But if you don’t have a mental GPS set, if you miss a track, you’ll keep running toward south where it’s supposed to go on the west.

Sean Floyd:
That’s right. And I feel that’s why accountability with your circle and accountability with who you set up these goals with is super important, right?

Jack Kumar:
Yes.

Sean Floyd:
A lot of people don’t even have relationships with their accountant. When we ask people, "Do you have an accountant?" They say, "Yeah, I’ve got an accountant." And I say, "Okay, well, what do you do with the accountant? How often do you catch up with the accountant?" They say, "Once a year. I don’t even catch up with them. I just send them my summaries and I get my tax return. And that’s the maximum relationship I share." But the truth is if you had a healthy relationship, they’d be saying, "Let’s sit down properly. Let’s look at where all your gaps are. How can we improve a few things? And then let’s plan actively for the next tax year." So I feel that’s what we try and do differently, which is helping people take a bit more control of their future finances. And I say this all the time. If world war three happens 10 years from now and everything’s not worth anything, then nothing matters anyway.

Jack Kumar:
It reminds me of a interesting joke.

Sean Floyd:
Yeah. Tell me.

Jack Kumar:
See in the budgeting, people always get surprised to see that, "Wow, this is where I spend and I can still save that money." Always see that money saving in the end. And then you look at if you keep saving that money over the last 10 years, this much money you would have. But if I’m not spending enough, if there is a buffer on a spreadsheet, where the hell my money is going? So there’s a joke there, there’s a guy who says, "How much do you drink? Do you drink every day?" He’s drinking. And he asks you, "Do you drink?" He said, "Yes." "How much money do you spend on thinking?" And he said, maybe, "50 bucks a day." just for example.

Sean Floyd:
Wow. Nice.

Jack Kumar:
So say 50 bucks times a year, 30 days, what is that? 50 times 30 is…

Sean Floyd:
If you’re looking at 50 by, let’s say a week. Five days a week, 250.

Jack Kumar:
Yeah.

Sean Floyd:
So 250 and you’re talking about all the weeks in the year.

Jack Kumar:
A thousand.

Sean Floyd:
50, yeah.

Jack Kumar:
And then it’s what, 12,000?

Sean Floyd:
Yeah. Upwards of it, I think.

Jack Kumar:
Yeah. And you’ve been drinking for almost 10 years, 120.

Sean Floyd:
120 grand, ouch.

Jack Kumar:
And then you’ve been drinking for 20 years. So 240,000. But even if you’re spending $20, 20 years is $120,000. He said, "Mate, if you would have stopped drinking, you could have a nice merc. You would be driving a nice merc today." And that guy listens and listens and he says, "Mate, by the way, do you drink?" He said, "No, I don’t drink." He said "Where the hell then your Mercedes?"

Sean Floyd:
That’s right.

Jack Kumar:
So it’s easy to see when we are tracking that I can save. It’s easy to say that I can save. But when you do it actually, you are never able to save. The reason is there’s a big disease called instant gratification. That is the killer, in 21st century, that is a killer for the future generation. I’ll give you an example. I was sitting with one of the client. It was my very early days. And I was sitting in his apartment and they had a newborn baby and they bought one toy for the baby. And then he said, "I like that nice car, toy car, and I bought it two years ago." And he didn’t even open that car. I said, "What the hell?" That’s instant gratification. He felt like, "Oh, that’s a nice toy. I’m getting one. I’ll just buy for myself." But you never use it. That’s a wastage of money. And then you see people have been consciously trapped in that mindset. How? By giving them the free credit card. Plastic money.

Sean Floyd:
That’s right. Interest-free credit card that they think is free money.

Jack Kumar:
Yeah.

Sean Floyd:
It’s not.

Jack Kumar:
It’s not and that’s a beginning. What they say digging your grave through your own wallet.

Sean Floyd:
Yeah. And it’s like the saying that they have when it’s about going broke. You don’t go broke out of nowhere. It happens slowly over time. And then suddenly you realize you’re broke.

Jack Kumar:
It’s compound, right?

Sean Floyd:
Yeah.

Jack Kumar:
Everything is compounded. Either you do well in life… Wherever we are today is because of our small decisions and choices we made in the past.

Sean Floyd:
That’s right.

Jack Kumar:
Those get compounded and then people say, "You are lucky." or mate, "You are very unlucky. Sorry. Unfortunately it happened to you." But life never happened. It was created step by step and step and step and compounded. When you talk about compounding, my mind goes into the books and you have read the book, The Compound Effect.

Sean Floyd:
One of my favorite of all time.

Jack Kumar:
And that’s it. What an interesting analogy. If you have a dollar which doubles every day for the next 30 days compared to $3 million, which one would you pick? And when you ask this, most people will say $3 million. What is that? Instant gratification. I want it today. But life never happens today. It is a result of what you’ve done. So the dollar becomes two and four. And you probably know, how much does it becomes after 30 days?

Sean Floyd:
Yeah, we did it, it was upwards of 500 million.

Jack Kumar:
Yeah. $536 million. Whereas, if you take that one, similarly, if you start investing early, if you start budgeting early… See two principals I think I would love to teach my kids is budget and save and invest and make. Budgeting itself won’t help. You need to budget and save and what is left, you need to invest and then make. So your money is also working for you.

Sean Floyd:
Definitely. Definitely. And when you’re looking at, for example, the world that has this instant gratification, society that we live in right now, you’ve got things like not only free credit cards, there’s also buy now pay later services, which has taken-

Jack Kumar:
Oh, that’s a next level.

Sean Floyd:
Yeah. It’s the next level, because you see that you’re not paying anything extra out of your pocket. But when you look into your pocket… I’ve got people that are in my circle that are doing very well, that don’t tend to use these things. And then I’ve got people in my circle that aren’t doing very well financially that love using these services. What do you think attracts people down that train of thought where it’s, "Hey, I know I’m going to get paid a thousand dollars next week and I need to buy this supercomputer." let’s say, or this gaming device or whatever, it might be entertainment. "And I’ll buy it now because I just have to make four installments or 10 installments. And then I pay no fees out of my pocket." I feel that’s just the next level of keeping you in that race, keeping you in that trap. What do you reckon?

Jack Kumar:
I think deep down, it’s a human thing of keeping up with the Joneses. Especially with the social media, people only post those fancy things. I bought this or I did this, I went on holidays. So they feel like they want to do it as well. And the worst part of that is go on holidays and pay later.

Sean Floyd:
You’re sharing last time a story about even someone who had gone on holidays with borrowed money, right?

Jack Kumar:
That’s it.

Sean Floyd:
That is a bit scary. We’ve heard stories of people withdrawing their super during COVID and buying Gucci bags and Louis Vuitton.

Jack Kumar:
Oh my God, it was a shock to me. Mate, why are you killing your future? You’re killing your future self and using money just to show off. And that bag, what’s the value going to be after 10 years. And no one going to look at you. And you’re not going to carry that everyday, maybe on a couple of nice parties, that’s it. And I think be wealthy inside out, not outside in.

Sean Floyd:
That’s a good saying. I like that one. Be wealthy inside out, not outside in.

Jack Kumar:
What I mean is you don’t have to show off those things. If you’re wealthy, just stay calm. Be inside and enjoy. Have the mental peace. And when you are wealthy outside in, outside you may look glamorous and polished, but inside you’re stressed all the time. You know what? I bought that bag but now I have to… I went on holidays. That enjoyment only stays for a small period of time. And after that, you come back from holidays. Now you have to pay for that holiday debt. And I can’t imagine living that way.

Sean Floyd:
That’s ridiculous. Jack, I think it’s perfect time for a bit of a chocolate break. I love doing these chocolate breaks in the morning and I know you love chocolates same way I do.

Jack Kumar:
I love my sweets.

Sean Floyd:
So hang on right there. Here we go. So this episode is not brought to you by Toblerone, but we can enjoy some.

Jack Kumar:
Thank you. When you put things out, some people think maybe you’re advertisements.

Sean Floyd:
No. I don’t think we’re getting endorsed by Toblerone any time soon. I did make a joke last time when I had our previous guest on who was James Bernacchi. And I said that the whole episode was brought to us by Gloria Jean’s when it clearly wasn’t. In talking about financial discipline, instant gratification versus long-term wealth creation, I think there is a time and a place when you can make yourself happy with the wealth that you’ve created or you can make yourself happy with the resources, but I feel it’s always this constant battle of, "Should I do something good with my money or should I enjoy that holiday?"

Sean Floyd:
And I feel a lot of these decisions end up being based around your social circle and what your social circle is doing. So for example, if you find yourself in a social circle where it’s all about picking up, let’s say, designer clothing, designer brands, and when a good paycheck comes in or when a bonus comes in, it’s all about spending as opposed to investing. I’ve noticed that there are trends that different social circles enjoy different hobbies. So for example, there are people with expensive hobbies and there are people with inexpensive hobbies. For example, taking a walk along the beach, do you enjoy that?

Jack Kumar:
I love that.

Sean Floyd:
And how much does it cost you?

Jack Kumar:
Not a penny. And that’s the most enjoyable thing I ever have.

Sean Floyd:
Really?

Jack Kumar:
Getting up in the morning, going for a walk on the beach, close by water. I was telling you the other day that it doesn’t matter how hard you have worked during the day or on the weekend. You just go for that water, look at the water, you’re energized. I think we were talking about something that what’s the reason behind it? And we were saying we have 70% body is water. So that’s why maybe it’s a relaxing.

Sean Floyd:
And all of our civilizations are built around water as well.

Jack Kumar:
Yeah.

Sean Floyd:
Maybe for the tranquility element.

Jack Kumar:
Yes. So it’s a very good point, enjoyment, the happiness. Fake happiness can be there because the materialistic happiness can give you happiness only a short period of time, because there’s always something to look for more. But these type of happiness doesn’t cost you anything. And I was giving an example to one of my family. They want to live a nice life, but they give excuse of not having money to spend quality time with kids. And I said, "No, that’s not right." Because going to park and spending time in the park with kids doesn’t cost you anything. Going on a beach with the kids doesn’t cost you anything. Playing a game with kids… I play Uno with my kids, and it doesn’t cost anything.

Sean Floyd:
Yeah. Apart from the acquisition cost of, for example, getting to the beach, driving there. And buying the Uno cards, which is what, two bucks?

Jack Kumar:
Yeah. But we come with those high-

Sean Floyd:
Excuses.

Jack Kumar:
… excuses. What I’m trying to say here is you can still live a great life and you can still build a future.

Sean Floyd:
Yeah. Do you feel people are conditioned that if there’s people out there that are doing well, having success in either business or investments, do you feel that society or the media, maybe, has conditioned people to think that they’re doing something wrong, that’s the reason that they’re successful and the majority of people are just stuck working? Do you feel there’s a bit of a part of that going on? A lot of people have this tall poppy syndrome in Australia. Someone’s doing really well, let’s tear them right down.

Jack Kumar:
Yes. I think this is social pressure. And I can give you an example which is not related to money but it’s still socially awkward, people will say. I went for a meditation retreat. And some people thought I’m going to turn into a monk. Or when you say, "I spend 10 minutes with kids doing the meditation." people think that’s not normal. And I was having a chat with one of the other meditator saying, "Why don’t you think this should be a skill taught in schools? Why they don’t teach it?" People think meditation is voodoo thing.

Sean Floyd:
Voodoo stuff.

Jack Kumar:
Voodoo stuff, but actually it is a… Now I’m going deeper, I’ll connect that with the money part soon. A thing about going deeper level and this is a mental exercise. That means you are living in present. When each off instant gratification hits, you don’t have a mental tool to stop it. So if you can connect, if you are living in that present and if that itch… I’m connecting here to instant gratification, but could be anything, your anger. But if you are getting upset, you can realize that my mind is taking me into a thought which is going to take me upset so how can I bring it back? It’s just a tool to exercise. Same thing, that tool can be used when you are going on shopping or when you feel like "I want to have that." And if you have that mental strength, that exercise, if you’re doing that, then you can say, "No, that’s a temporary thing. Let’s step back."

Jack Kumar:
And a lot of the times, once you come out of the shopping center and you forget about it, you don’t even crave about it. It’s just in that moment. And if you control that, then that tool can help you to budget and stick to the budget which you have created. The problem is not the budgeting. Some people have done the budgeting and then when you catch up with them after a year-

Sean Floyd:
They still felt like they had to have that car at that time and just go crazy and purchase it. Maybe because they didn’t control that 10 minutes.

Jack Kumar:
10 minutes, yes. So that exercise actually helped.

Sean Floyd:
Makes sense. And when people are talking about social pressure as well, it’s interesting that you mentioned that. I think slowly, what I have noticed over the last 10 years specifically, is there’s more of a social pressure to have things, have material items, but slightly less of a social pressure to become successful. It’s almost like a paradox. We want to have the nice things like the fancy clothes, fancy car, but slowly I felt that there is a bit of a pressure saying that if you’re going out there and if you’re being successful, if you’re doing really well, that’s not life or that’s not what you need to be doing. So people are happy being in this important zone, which is actually a very deadly zone called the comfort zone.

Sean Floyd:
And I feel sometimes subconsciously people try and pull you back once you start exceeding and going outside your comfort zone. Have you seen people in your own circle telling you to slow down, you’ve already done something, you’ve already achieved it, now just enjoy the rest of your life? I’m sure you would have had people that you used to associate with 10 years ago that maybe are in the same position that they were. And then you’ve got people that you’re meeting with and collaborating with that are new, but you’re still going to the next level. Because I know your growth minded, but how do you feel society’s pressure is for the other group?

Jack Kumar:
I think one of the advice I got in early stage that has really helped me is the books you read and the people you read will change your life. So if you read the right books and if you surround yourself with the right people, they’ll pull you up. But even if you read different books, watch different things and then you surround yourself with the people, your life will be attracted towards that. It works either way. So I always thought that I have to read those books, wisdom, and then I have to be surrounded with those people who are like-minded. And sometimes in the beginning of my career, it was very hard to find someone like-minded because when you are living in [inaudible 00:30:52], you are surrounded with those types of people. There is no choice. So at that time, I made a conscious decision that where can I find those people?

Jack Kumar:
And I started going to a lot of seminars and connecting with those people. If I’m not connecting, at least I’m mentally listening to the speaker and learning the stuff and at least, my inner world, I have made my own friends. Because I see that as a challenge because in the beginning, people say it’s easy for you because you have that network now or you talk to those like-minded people but in the beginning, it’s challenging, I get that. So in the beginning, you need to create your own friends or habits. Reading books and surrounded with those people which you cannot afford to become friends with them, but at least you can go and listen to them.

Sean Floyd:
Definitely. And because we’ve got the internet today, we can choose pretty much to listen to podcasts while we drive, we can just listen to audio books about, money, money management, what to do and funnily enough, how to invest as well. Which is good but still people get attracted to listening to music instead while they drive. That’s the easier pick.

Jack Kumar:
Music or if you talk about yes, everything’s available online. YouTube got lots of wisdom and YouTube got lots of crap. So it’s not again that the tools are not there, tools are there. But you will only listen to or you will only be attracted to listening to what you to listen to is how you are trained subconsciously. We human beings love gossips. And when there is radio talk going on or YouTube, all the crap news about an argument that might have no relationship in your life-

Sean Floyd:
Like Trump and Biden, for example.

Jack Kumar:
… but you are excited to know what they are doing. And then after that, the hype is over, you come to the next topic and that’s it.

Sean Floyd:
I’ll share something really interesting with you. And this for everyone maybe watching at home or watching in the car or wherever you find us. I would encourage you to take your phone and this is for everyone, by the way. Take your phone and type it on the search bar on YouTube and look at your last 10 searches. Where you are today, heavily a product is of what is the result of those last 10 searches. People at home will be shocked that, "Oh my goodness, I am where I am because of what my content has been." And it might surprise you, but it works every single time. I’ve tried it with some friends. They take a step back because they look at saying, "Yeah, I know, I wanted to know about that because of this reason." or "I wanted to know about that because of another reason. But I didn’t think that’s where my life was heading."

Sean Floyd:
So you’ll be able to see that if you’re interested in entertainment, you’ll just be entertained, but you’ll stay in the same spot. If you’re interested in progress, you’ll realize that what are those things that you’ve done towards progress or learning or achievement? And it’s not all about the money, but I feel it’s more about the growth side of things. It’s about making progress and informed decisions, which is half as more fulfilling as just the money component.

Jack Kumar:
It’s interesting what you said, last 10 searches. But more interesting to that is like attracts likes. What it means on YouTube or in Google, basically what you search, they’ll show you the same content.

Sean Floyd:
Exactly.

Jack Kumar:
So you go from that content to that content to that content into the deeper shit. Whereas if you read, listening to same thing, like attracts like, on good books or a good motivational speech or good stories which inspires you, then YouTube and Google, they start showing you what you are interested in. It’s like that’s a perfect example of we attract who we are.

Sean Floyd:
Yeah. And like attracts like even in the digital sense now. Because they want to target you and they want to sell you. Got to keep selling. But that’s interesting. Is there anything you’d like to share with people out there to help them find a new source of motivation? We’ve got 2020s behind everyone now. But that being said, 2021 is a very exciting year. Economy’s in a full, rapid kickstart, a lot of great things going on. There are going to be people that wait on the sidelines, as always. And there are going to be people that actually do it, not thinkers, actual doers. So they sit down, put the budget down, say, "This year, I’m going to achieve X, Y, and Z." For the people that are on the fence, what would you say to them to just tip over to the greener side?

Jack Kumar:
In my seminars, I talk about the five Ds. And I want to leave everyone with this one D. And that D can be implemented in anything. In budgeting or budgeting your psychology. If you’re in the middle of the fence, I would say that’s a third D of the five Ds. It’s delete. Delete your bad habits. If you’re a procrastination, delete it. If you’re analysis paralysis person, delete it. Know enough to make a decision, but don’t get lost in that analysis paralysis. If you do the budgeting and you see there are other things which you’re not supposed to do, or spend less outside, or whatever your financial situation may be, delete it. Delete the content which you’ve been searching which is keeping you where you are today. That YouTube search you talked about, delete it. So my advice to everyone is delete those bad habits, delete the bad debts. Or put a strategy to what I can do now so I start deleting my bad debts.

Sean Floyd:
Yeah. That’s fantastic. That’s awesome. And I want to hear more about the other four Ds during the other podcast that we have in the future. But I think we’ve taken enough time this morning.

Jack Kumar:
Thank you.

Sean Floyd:
It’s been absolutely fun. I hope you had some fun as well.

Jack Kumar:
Absolutely. I love having these chats. It’s a very conversational and I just share what’s in my heart.

Sean Floyd:
And that’s what we want. I feel people need a source from people that have been there, done that and have experienced the good and the bad so that they can always make the choice for themselves. You can always lead a horse to water, but you can’t make everyone do what you would want them to do. But this has been fun. I’m excited for 2021. And I’m excited to have you on all over again, Jack.

Jack Kumar:
Yes. I’m excited not only ’21, 202050.

Sean Floyd:
202050?

Jack Kumar:
2050.

Sean Floyd:
Okay. I’d be very excited for 202050 as well. I won’t be here physically. Maybe I might be. You never know.

Jack Kumar:
You never know, but every day is excitement actually. I don’t want to think that it’s 2021 because that’s another excuse which we always say this year I haven’t done anything, but next year I’ll do it. Again, it’s a nicer way of procrastination.

Sean Floyd:
That’s right. And you realize this. When people head towards the end of the year, their brain switches off, their activity switch off. They just want to enjoy. And it’s always the new year resolution. But I think that’s a topic for a different day because we’ve got motivation lined up. We’ve got manifestation lined up as well. But apart from that, I think today was fun.

Jack Kumar:
Also we’ll talk about other Ds.

Sean Floyd:
Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much, Jack.

Jack Kumar:
Thank you, Sean.

Sean Floyd:
Let’s get back into it.

Jack Kumar:
Yes. Awesome.

Sean Floyd:
Rock and roll.

Jack Kumar:
Cheers.

Sean Floyd:
Cheers, guys.

Prosperity Point Podcast Episode #04 – From Legless To Legless with Khoa Nam Tran

Khoa Nam Tran:
This is where it gets serious.

Khoa Nam Tran:
(Music)

Sean Floyd:
Khoa, it’s an absolute pleasure to have you on Prosperity Point mate.

Khoa Nam Tran:
What’s up?

Sean Floyd:
What’s up? Thank you so much for making the time to come out and see us, taking time out of your busy schedule as obviously a business owner as well is quite tricky and it was great catching up with you over the weekend as well for a quick brunch.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Good food, wasn’t it?

Sean Floyd:
It was actually nice. I think it’s one of your popular spots?

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yeah, it is. It was a halfway point to meet up, so why not?

Sean Floyd:
That’s just because you’re so nice with time and allowing us to meet up.

Khoa Nam Tran:
And I love to drive, so.

Sean Floyd:
That’s what I want to talk about first actually. So talking about driving, what’s your favorite car of all time?

Khoa Nam Tran:
I really like the Prancing Horse, so any Ferrari. I’m a car lover so I like any car that’s nice.

Sean Floyd:
Any car that’s nice, cool.

Khoa Nam Tran:
It depends. Even from the old school 86 Terrenos to Porsches, Ferraris, Lambos.

Sean Floyd:
You know a Porsche that’s caught my eye recently, that’s doing the rounds is the 911 Turbo S. That’s been ripping almost everything from a zero to hundred standpoint. It’s become the talk of the town now with all of the guys that I know that love cars because it’s something that usually always flies under the radar but Porsche is a popular for that. But what I’ve noticed is this specific model, the 911 Turbo S the new one, it beats everything out of the sun, it beats the Lambos, it beats the Ferraris, it beats the Teslas.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Is that a 911 Turbo S?

Sean Floyd:
Yes.

Khoa Nam Tran:
That’s the funny thing you might say because as I was coming here, I drove past the Porsche dealer.

Sean Floyd:
And you smashed him.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yeah, I smashed him. I was like, "They got nothing on me." I’m more mesmerized by what Porsche has done. It’s one of the… Who knows? I might buy one.

Sean Floyd:
Yeah?

Khoa Nam Tran:
It’s a dream, it can come true.

Sean Floyd:
Of course. Speaking of mesmerized, the whole reason we wanted to have you on here and thanks once again for being here is because your story’s inspirational on so many different fronts. I know we’re going to dive deep into a few different levels of conversation but talking a bit about your journey from the night that it happened eight years ago and how the bounce back story was so strong to where you are today and what the future holds for you is something that’s inspiring not only to me but so many people that I’ve heard, that have been speaking about you as well.

Sean Floyd:
I know you had a run into our CEO and group founder as well a while back at a speaking engagement, that’s how actually we ended up being connected because he was inspired with your story over there and I think eventually it was Mark that reached out, had a conversation, we had a mutual client that we were helping out with and then I got to know a bit more about your story and I thought I have to have you on as a guest. So thank you so much for actually being here, I really mean it.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Thank you very much for having me. We live in a world where we’re all connected now and if we want to grow, we’ve got to connect more. We meet not as an accident it’s all on purpose. So we’re sitting here, my books right in the middle being supported by something that no one can see.

Sean Floyd:
Of course and speaking about it as well, let’s look at even the title of the book, Legless to Legless. How did that title come up? Because when a lot of people see it at first glance they go, "Legless to Legless?" What’s the real story behind something like this? Do you want to shed a bit of light for our viewers in terms of what’s the backdrop story behind the title of the book?

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yes, so Legless to Legless, people question it, "What does this mean?" And you see a visual picture of me lying there. It kind of gives a hint as to what it means but the term legless, the first legless might not be understood as much only until you dive into the book. Let me take you back to 2012. I was like any other young kid. I don’t know if you call 29 year olds young, I do.

Sean Floyd:
We have to call 40 year olds young because they happen to be our clients. So we have to call everyone young, so it’s okay. 29 is very young then.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yes, I was just having fun. My typical week would be gym, drink and when I mean drink I mean drink to the point where I’ll vomit, to the point where I’ll lose memory. That was my typical weekly session.

Sean Floyd:
So like what we were talking about earlier blackout or get out.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yeah, blackout or get out.

Sean Floyd:
What’s the point of drinking if you are not going to get high.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Exactly. That was my mentality. But I also loved training, I saw it as a way to balance things out. So I’m not drinking all the time but I’m also trying to look after my health, going mountain biking, going to the gym or whatnot. But I did that to drink, blackout or get out as you said. So it was just like every other normal day on December 9th getting ready to go to a new club. I’ve never been to this club. So I wake up in the morning all hyped up. If I remember correctly a couple of days before I would have had a drinking session, so it’s a normal day, normal weekend. So I wake up, get ready, looking forward to the night and as night approached, we went to the club. Friends, everything was as it should. I’m living to the moment, living at the moment. Drinks started to come on the table, I’ll drink whatever was on the table.

Sean Floyd:
Sure, so you’d be like what I used to be like as just drink anything.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yeah, whatever. Whatever’s in front of my face, it’ll go into my stomach and I’ll dance, not that I can dance but when there’s a little bit of alcohol involved, you’re thinking you are the Next American Top Dancer or whatever the show was called and one after the other, I wake up, three weeks later. I woke up not knowing where I was, but all I remember was I saw my mother and brother there and they were smiling. I guess that they were just happy to see my eyes open but I didn’t know what was going on. All I knew I was in a bed in a white room, white ceiling and I think blanket and it slowly fell off right at the end. But the funny thing was, I told my mom to take my socks off. But she looked at me. Why? Because have legs. But you see I still felt like I had my legs, I still felt I had my socks, my shoes on but when I looked at the end of the bed, there was a sudden drop-off of the shape, but I was still calm about it.

Khoa Nam Tran:
I guess you could say it was all the drugs that I induced during that induced coma. I woke up on boxing day too so I guess that’s the present for my family.

Sean Floyd:
Present for the world at this stage.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yeah, but I was fine with it. I was fine at that moment.

Sean Floyd:
But that’s insane. Just backtracking a little bit here, we’re at the club having a good time and then the next thing we have consciousness of memory of is waking up on that bed and seeing mom and brother.

Khoa Nam Tran:
I had a missing section of my life, that time when I got blank drunk to the time I wake up on boxing day. So in between that time, it’s a blank canvas. I’ve kind of filled that up, it’s not that I want to remember everything. I believe it’s a good thing that I don’t remember what had happened. Everything happens for a reason as I say it. It was a shock only a couple of days later. I was coming off the pain medication and when I gathered the story of what had happened, I was involved in a car accident, 155 kilometers into a telegraph pole.

Sean Floyd:
Wow! That’s insane.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yeah, I was a very fortunate one in an unfortunate scenario. The front passenger she died and the driver suffered severe head injuries. He got flown to Royal North Shore and I got flown to Westmead and that’s where they did the life saving surgery and where I woke up but I was still in that phase where everything was all normal. I clearly remember that I could walk and I told the doctor who was looking after me I said, "Hey, can I go home? Take a taxi go home and I’ll come back?" But he looked at me and said, "You can’t walk." I was like, "No, I clearly remember jumping off a bed, caught a taxi, went home and I came back and I’ll be back." Again, "You can’t walk." But I was still in my reality.

Sean Floyd:
So was that because you think maybe there was a level of shock that was involved were coming to terms with the reality that you were used to and let’s say now at the snap of a finger, you’ve got a completely new world at your feet or let’s say at where your feet used to be. That was pretty smart, I just came up [crosstalk 00:11:58]. So coming to this reality is that where you had this idea where you wanted to try and merge what had happened from the past versus what you still want to accomplish? Because if you could say, "I’ll get up, just grab a cab and I’ll be back." And then you’re met with saying, "Here’s the reality, you can’t do this since you can’t walk." How did you come to terms with actually realizing that in the new physical reality we’re in, we can’t walk the way we used to before?

Khoa Nam Tran:
I was in my reality and I was still optimistic about it, "I can walk. I’m not going to listen to this doctor." But it was only until I was in the ICU, a couple of days later, I was still in ICU but I moved, that I wanted to use the bathroom, but bear in mind I’m all hooked up with all catheter tubes, intravenous lines, but I still needed to go to the toilet. That’s what I told myself. The nurses weren’t in the room and the bed was raised and the bar on my side was dropped down. So I’m going to use the toilet, so I shuffled to the side of the raised bed and…

Sean Floyd:
Oh my goodness!

Khoa Nam Tran:
I was literally on the ground and that’s when the nurses ran in and they said, "What are you doing?" And I said, "I wanted to use the bathroom." They’re like, "You can’t." And that’s when I was like, I think I know right now. That’s where they helped me put me back onto the bed. At that moment, that was when reality did hit.

Sean Floyd:
The physical reality.

Khoa Nam Tran:
The physical reality. So what I thought when I woke up, I realized that that was all my imagination and when I attempted to walk, I failed miserably. I fell off a raised bed and that was a big shock that made me come crashing down to reality. I didn’t know what to expect. I did think back, "Why me?" I did go into that depressive state, started to think I’m useless, no one’s going to love me. What can I do now? I drank myself down to that state but it was only I that could pick myself back up and get out of it, grow out of that dark hole. But the question was, when would I do that? Typically you can stay in your dark hole until you feel it’s ready and people on the outside, they wouldn’t question it, in my case because they can visually say, I’ve lost my legs. People want to question, "Why is this guy so sad?" But they can see why I’m sad, if I choose that route, but I didn’t choose that narrative for my life.

Khoa Nam Tran:
I chose to pick myself back up only a couple of days while I was still in the ICU, recollecting my thoughts. Why do I have to hold myself into that negative state where I could look forward to do what I could possibly do. So I wacked out my iPad and started searching for legs. I didn’t know what I was searching for, but I just wrote robot legs and you see Terminator [inaudible 00:16:19] You go, "This is it!"

Sean Floyd:
Oh my goodness! Absolutely.

Khoa Nam Tran:
But the whole world of prosthetics as an amputee was totally new to me so I didn’t know what to search for.

Sean Floyd:
And how was the tech back in 2012?

Khoa Nam Tran:
It was good. I’m thankful that technology advances really fast at a fast pace. So I didn’t know what I was looking at but all I knew I was I’m going to have mad robot legs and a mad carbon fiber socket that will fit around my leg. That was my vision. That was something that drove me to get out of bed and start walking, just to show off my metal.

Sean Floyd:
The real metal.

Khoa Nam Tran:
The real metal.

Sean Floyd:
Yeah, fantastic.

Khoa Nam Tran:
But as we know, when we think at that moment, it’s not what it is ahead. In saying that I did feel conscious of my body. I felt conscious of people looking at me, I felt conscious of people talking about me. When I got home after I got discharged, I wanted to stay at home. I didn’t want to get out. So I bought home gym equipment just to train. I try to get back to my routine of being fit of course without legs so I just did what I could.

Sean Floyd:
Initially without getting the tech legs come in as well, let’s say you had to, was it mainly just wheelchair bound?

Khoa Nam Tran:
That’s correct. I was wheelchair bound and i was very conscious. It was more of a physical appearance what people would look at me and being not independent, having someone to look after me, pushing me. I didn’t want the world to see me like that. But you know kids, they are very unfiltered, aren’t they?

Sean Floyd:
Absolutely, 100%.

Khoa Nam Tran:
So what happened was, I was at the shops getting wheeled around and this little kid came up, "What happened?" Pointing.

Sean Floyd:
Point blank.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Point blank.

Sean Floyd:
Like straight away, "What happened?" Was it at the park or?

Khoa Nam Tran:
No, this was at the shops.

Sean Floyd:
At the shops, okay.

Khoa Nam Tran:
This was at the shops.

Sean Floyd:
And how soon after the actual event?

Khoa Nam Tran:
This was probably around at least six months after.

Sean Floyd:
Six months after, so you had already come to terms with it?

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yeah. Six months after being discharged, trying to get my life back on track. This little kid comes into my life and opened my mind because after he said that his mum came, "Sorry." Thinking its rude. I was like, "No, it’s fine. He’s curious."

Sean Floyd:
Yeah, it’s like the innocence of a child, right? It’s quite pure. It might be blunt but at least it’s pure coming from a pure place.

Khoa Nam Tran:
It was totally pure. It’s not being corrupted by the surrounding. They say what they want to say.

Sean Floyd:
But do you feel an element of you at the time viewing it as pure is also to the fact that you yourself view things in a pure light? What if you were a bitter person would you have viewed it the same way? I feel it’s a testament to how you are as a person as well. That you viewed it in a pure state despite what negative connotations there might be around surrounding things like this.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yeah, I viewed it in a really positive state because it opened my mind into thinking, wait a minute, if this kid could come up and say straight up, "What happened."[inaudible 00:20:45] Why should I have to worry about what older people have to say? I had all these eyes going past me, not of disgust but probably more of curiosity, "What happen this guy got no legs." It kind of froze you off if you get a lot of eyes looking at you. But this little kid made me change that perception. I don’t need to care about what anyone thinks, I just got to be me and that’s the beauty about being me. I didn’t lose myself prior to that, I was always this joyful, happy, positive guy. This time, I’ve cut the alcohol.

Sean Floyd:
My man.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yeah. I cut the alcohol and I’ve got no legs but I’m still happy.

Sean Floyd:
That’s right. This is what we were talking about earlier as well, right? You’re always the same happy-go-lucky person. You have your big grin on your face all the time and if someone was to think of, "What’s Khoa like?" The first thing that would come to my mind is happy, energetic and he’s uplifting to be around with. That’s what would come to my mind and I think it would be the same for the other guys in the office as well.

Sean Floyd:
But if that’s what you were like before and that’s what you’re like even after the event, I think it goes to show that there is a hidden ingredient when you hit that level of adversity to be able to bounce back not eventually but the unique trait I feel you had was bouncing back as fast as you did, instead of waiting for it to take a toll on you for maybe two years or four years or five years because imagine living 29 years of your life thinking that this is how life’s always going to be, having fun, drinking, doing whatever it is, what usual 29 year olds do, well most 29 year olds. Then you’ve got a situation where the reality is different but I’m not going to be upset for more than a year or more than six years. How did that happen where you bounced back so quick? Because I feel that’s an amazing quality to have.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yeah. So it’s perfect example like the Dogecoin.

Sean Floyd:
Dogecoin?

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yeah. It’s surely are.

Sean Floyd:
Okay. [crosstalk 00:23:08]

Khoa Nam Tran:
So it’s not on a gradual increase, it is actually skyrocketing, that’s how I feel with myself. I learned to accept quickly. I learned to not focus on the past, I learned to look forward. I learned to accept that now is reality and I learned that if I was to hold my thoughts about should’ve, could’ve, would’ve, shouldn’t have went to the club, shouldn’t have drunk, all is past tense, I’ll still be in the past. I wouldn’t be here having a chit chat with you, I wouldn’t be driving. There are a lot of stuff that I wouldn’t be doing if I kept myself back in that state of mind, the past. I chose to, all right it’s happened now, I got to accept it and look forward to endless possibilities. That’s what I said when I laid on the hospital bed, popped out the iPad and started searching for legs because I had that mindset. I’m going to start walking again and I’m going to make myself look the part of the new AI.

Sean Floyd:
And looking the part I must give it to you Khoa. You 110% do look the part. The legs look freaking amazing. Legs look amazing, your attitude’s always been amazing I’m assuming, but I feel you’ve catapulted where coming out with things like the book, speaking and inspiring people that are in tough spots. Before I get into another thing, which is I wanted to show the audience as well something really fun which was the actual legs. A little magic trick for you, would you mind putting your hand out like this?

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yeah.

Sean Floyd:
All right. That I’m going to do is I’m going to snap my finger and in a second we’re going to have a little thing pop up for us as a trick, cool?

Khoa Nam Tran:
All right, lets do it.

Sean Floyd:
What in the world? How did you get three and I only got one? This is not fair whoever did this, but anyway this is our treat. You are special of course. Can I tell you something? You want to give the crowd an ASMR experience?

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yeah.

Sean Floyd:
Fantastic.

Khoa Nam Tran:
This is a nice chocolate, yum. It’s very nice, I’ll eat it later.

Sean Floyd:
You got some reserves now so you can definitely eat it later but yeah, this is for us to devour in a bit. But what I wanted to talk about was yet, I actually completely forgot what I was saying, but that being said, we have to talk about the chocolates, yes and the legs as well. They look freaking awesome. We were having a bit of a talk about this as well. If you were to give someone a fist bump, what’s your preferred method of giving them a fist bump?

Sean Floyd:
That’s what I’m talking about. So this is our predominant leg?

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yes, this is my predominant leg.

Sean Floyd:
If you were to tell us a bit about it, what’s the best way to describe this leg because I know it comes with an added sneaker, but that’s your choice there, right?

Khoa Nam Tran:
The good thing is I don’t need to change my socks.

Sean Floyd:
Oh, fantastic.

Khoa Nam Tran:
And my feet don’t stink.

Sean Floyd:
Your feet will never stink.

Khoa Nam Tran:
One extra thing, I’m taller than before.

Sean Floyd:
What! How many inches did you add?

Khoa Nam Tran:
I was once 10 centimeters taller than I was, my original height now I’m six centimeters-

Sean Floyd:
Taller?

Khoa Nam Tran:
Taller.

Sean Floyd:
Fantastic. A lot of people would pay a lot for six centimeters.

Khoa Nam Tran:
I know the saying when you get old you get shorter?

Sean Floyd:
Yeah.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Not in my case.

Sean Floyd:
Not in your case. In fact we can have an upgrade where we can build a little shift and pump it up so we can get you six foot five as well.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yeah, we can but then I’ve got to change some stuff too. I don’t know if we want to be that hard, but maybe one day.

Sean Floyd:
No. Why I’m saying it is because then you can walk around really big like full-fledged Terminator Arnold Schwarzenegger and then if someone decides to be annoyed with you, you just go, "Whack! Whack! Bang! Bang! Bang! Say hello to my little big friend. Bang! Bang! Bang!"

Khoa Nam Tran:
The good thing about the next Terminator movie if there is anything, they don’t need CGI, they can just hire me.

Sean Floyd:
Absolutely, they can of course. That’s freaking amazing and I know you’ve got a situation where you can plug the legs in, you can walk now, which you have been walking all around. How many years have you been walking for? How many years have you the legs for now?

Khoa Nam Tran:
I’ve had the legs for over six years.

Sean Floyd:
Over six years?

Khoa Nam Tran:
Six years, yes. I’ll take you back, I was in the world of amputees, I didn’t realize that it was hard to walk. My first time during the rehab, I was wearing a socket yet this is the modern day socket, as I mentioned carbon fiber sockets, it’s kind of cool to show it off. But once I started during the rehab phase, learning how to walk, it was slightly difficult. I had blisters, I had pressure sores because as they fold objects around your stump and I thought, "This is how it will be, I’ll adapt to it." But my skin kept breaking down. When it breaks down, it means I couldn’t wear my legs. I had to be in my wheelchair for a couple of weeks and that wasn’t ideal.

Khoa Nam Tran:
So I had to look at another alternative and I remembered that my [inaudible 00:28:45] mentioned about the surgery called osseointegration where they implant a titanium rod into your bone so that takes away the need of a socket. Basically I can connect the leg that you see there straight onto the one that’s sticking out of my skin. So I had to inquire about that. Long story short, I got approved, went for surgery in 2014, never looked back.

Sean Floyd:
Fantastic. Has the legs had any model upgrades or anything software upgrades?

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yes. I have upgraded legs.

Sean Floyd:
Fantastic.

Khoa Nam Tran:
I had damaged the legs.

Sean Floyd:
How did you damage them? Obviously not drinking.

Khoa Nam Tran:
No. Again went to Hawaii. Do you know Waikiki?

Sean Floyd:
No.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Okay. Waikiki is the main center of Honolulu.

Sean Floyd:
I’ve heard of the Waikiki resort.

Khoa Nam Tran:
That’s where the main attraction is, the tourist area and there’s this Diamond Head Crater. So that’s always where people can walk up the mountain and all that to see the sight of Hawaii, Honolulu, you have to see Hawaii beautiful view and you can see the nice blue ocean. Well, I did that. I climbed up Diamond Head mountain, Diamond Head Crater sorry. It’s all in the book.

Sean Floyd:
That’s awesome that you climbed them with… How was it, with legs or did you have to do with arms?

Khoa Nam Tran:
I climbed that with my legs. I drove there, I parked there. I spoke to the gate lady and she said, "This is not disabled friendly environment." I’m like, "Okay, let me go anyway." I didn’t have to pay 45 bucks, it’s cool because she thought I wasn’t going to use it. Literally did she know-

Sean Floyd:
That you’ve got a heart of gold.

Khoa Nam Tran:
I said, "You know what? This is my last day here in Hawaii, I might as well." It was the very last day on a Sunday. I was going to fly back on a Monday morning, that I tackled Diamond Head Crater and it took me a good couple of hours and I heard people give me positive messages.

Sean Floyd:
While they were walking up the hill?

Khoa Nam Tran:
While they were walking back down and then I met someone who was a publisher of a magazine, of an Hawaii in America and he followed me through my journey and I did an interview with him too for his savvy magazine over in Hawaii. He followed my journey and we’re good friends now.

Sean Floyd:
That’s amazing.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yeah, I reached at a top, took mad pictures.

Sean Floyd:
I know you had a camera [crosstalk 00:31:44].

Khoa Nam Tran:
… because you want to try and minimize what you’re carrying throughout that walk so I had my small cameras and a small bag and a little water bottle which I smashed because, oh my goodness! It was torture yet rewarding. When I flew home, as soon as I got home on a… I left on a Monday, I got home on a Wednesday I think time difference. As soon as I got home, my legs stop working. My legs literally died when I got home.

Sean Floyd:
Like stopped working in what sense?

Khoa Nam Tran:
The electronics malfunctioned. Now imagine if it malfunctioned when I was on the top of the mountain.

Sean Floyd:
Oh my goodness!

Khoa Nam Tran:
I don’t think I’d be doing a zoom call right now. I’ll have a long beard. I’ll be like that Tom Hanks movie.

Sean Floyd:
Cast away.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Cast away, I’m Wilson.

Sean Floyd:
Wilson! Wilson!

Khoa Nam Tran:
It was an amazing experience. I did push technology to its limits.

Sean Floyd:
I can imagine. That’s just comes from your personality as well. The fact that you’re going to still do whatever it takes, having the whatever it takes mentality is important and applying it to different facets in life. So do you feel like the event… We know that whatever would have happened that years ago, we know that it’s tragic and everything, yes. But everything that’s come from it now and to date, we look at what you’ve done, you’ve got Amazon’s bestseller book, you’ve inspired kids, not only kids but professionals, people that are older than you, younger than you, you are a gym owner as well which I want to talk a little bit about, which is an awesome gig to how I personally feel. So I’ll ask you a few questions specifically on that but what do you feel is the best thing that’s come out of the adversity that happened in the beginning?

Khoa Nam Tran:
Making people smile. I’ve been given a gift. I had to experience my adverse conditions to find that and to share it to the world. That’s why I wrote the book, that’s why I’m speaking, that’s why I’m being on television, being on the radio, getting my face out there to share my story, to inspire others, to inspire millions.

Sean Floyd:
I know you are not one of those dodgy guys that goes up there to share your story to the millions so that you can sell the millions. You’re actually so upfront in what you’re saying, "Look, here’s my story. I want to help purely for the sake of helping, because if I can help you get out of a tough spot…" This is what my take away was having the brunch with you the other day is that you want to help people, not just for the sake of doing something where it’s yes, there’s an inspirational story and then we milk it for something like profit but you genuinely care about putting that smile on people’s face and I feel people sense it around you.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yes, that’s correct. My whole intention was not to sell products.

Sean Floyd:
Apart from the best seller book.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yeah. Apart from the best seller book, buy now.

Sean Floyd:
Buy it right now. This is not sponsored by the way, whatsoever.

Khoa Nam Tran:
I genuinely want to get my story out, to help people who feel like they’ve been stuck in that dark hole for a while and to pick themselves back up. To learn what I’ve learned through my journey, accepting quickly, forgiving easily and being physically fit. Those are the three main points that I’ve taken away throughout my journey.

Sean Floyd:
Correct, so I need to learn to be physically fit ASAP from you now.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yeah.

Sean Floyd:
Good, fantastic.

Khoa Nam Tran:
If you train with me, we don’t do legs.

Sean Floyd:
Yes. That’s my favorite part. Actually I want to say legs are the best part of my body. I actually got great [inaudible 00:35:49], I’ll show you later, I’m kidding.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Speed date show, right?

Sean Floyd:
Well, actually we realized that when we were initially putting things up on YouTube, that our channel happened to be a kids only channel, like a kid supported channel. So apparently it wasn’t getting enough views where it was being shared around until a client came up and said, "Take your channel off kids friendly and make it open to everyone." So I’m sure we can have a few giggles on here that are not only PG, but I think we’ll leave it at MA 15+.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Not R-rated for sure.

Sean Floyd:
Probably not R-rated. We already did the R-rated, we took the leg out and shot at the camera, that’s very R-rated. Scarface is R-rated. But going back to, I wanted to share one thing that, I feel your story and just how awesome you are as a person, it made me [inaudible 00:36:41] one of my own excuses when I come to think of it now that you mentioned those things, I’ll share what I’m talking about. When we caught up for brunch on Sunday, I hit the bed at 4:30 AM that day from the night before. I was thinking, "Okay, cool. Khoa will be nice enough to reschedule and push our brunch to maybe at lunch or something." And something small struck my brain going, we’re all business owners. I’m a business owner, you’re a business owner. We’ve all got busy schedules and making excuses is something that people almost take for granted, they make them all the time.

Sean Floyd:
One thought that I had was in a way that you can inspire people is in a general way saying that if I Khoa can do it, what’s stopping me. If some excuse is going to stop me from whether it’s a sleeping issue, whether it’s putting the effort, I feel you can inspire people on a bigger scale than just meets the eye with the physical fitness. That’s because you put in the hard work, you go to the gym. I think we’ve even seen training videos of you pumping out some back orders at moms but I feel even-

Khoa Nam Tran:
Just not legs.

Sean Floyd:
I’m pretty sure it’s not legs. If you technically put a good software update on that thing, you could push big Ronnie Coleman [inaudible 00:37:54], right?

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yeah, [inaudible 00:37:56].

Sean Floyd:
Fantastic, that’s good. But I feel there’s so many hidden ways that you can inspire people. If people see you out and about, it’s a gentle reminder to people themselves say, "What have I taken for granted in my life?" Because let’s say the event didn’t happen whatsoever, would being an upcoming property investor, a gym owner and author, would that have been in the dialogue whatsoever? Do you think eventually would have been, but not in the pace that it was already for you now?

Khoa Nam Tran:
Most likely that wouldn’t been in the dialogue, in my current dialogue. If I was to go back in time and not do what I did, I would not do what I did. I wouldn’t change the narrative because everything happens for a reason. But if it didn’t happen, I wouldn’t be leading this line of life. I wouldn’t be having a book. I’ll still be partying, which is fine.

Sean Floyd:
It’s not that it’s wrong but you’d still be the happy Khoa that everyone loves personality wise.

Khoa Nam Tran:
That’s correct.

Sean Floyd:
But from the way you can inspire people now to be a better version of themself, whether it’s people going through something physically, I’m sure you have spoken with people that have had physical elements. I’m sure you’ve spoken with people that have had mental elements, because it’s different what I feel, personally it’s different if you’ve been all your life without legs, for example, and we were talking about this because you had 29 years where you had legs. Then if it changes, that’s where I feel your ability to bounce back is what’s important. I feel you’re inspiring people that face challenges on ongoing life because my philosophy is everyone almost has a similar level of problems but you just don’t get to see it. Everyone’s fighting their own internal battles. Is that how you view the people around you as well or do you view it as different challenges need different mentalities?

Khoa Nam Tran:
I believe it’s all up to us. It’s all starts with us, yourself to tackle your own demons. That’s the beauty about humans. We’re all uniquely widely different, how we tackle our problems will be different from how I tackle my problems, how you tackle your problems, how any one tackles their problem, but by sharing how I tackled my problems that plants a seed into you, into the next Karen or whoever.

Sean Floyd:
Karen the soccer mom who’s 40?

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yeah, exactly.

Sean Floyd:
Okay. Sorry, Karen.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Sorry, Karen. I mean sorry not sorry. That plants a seed and that seed can grow and help them in a way where they will step back and remember, "I’ve read this book. I’ve seen this guy sharing his story on this podcast, on this TV station, on this radio station. What’s my excuse? Why am I holding myself back?" In that same way to alternate decision-making for the better.That’s how I see it.

Sean Floyd:
Definitely. It doesn’t mean that everyone has to go legless from the old sense in order to get somewhere. Definitely they can do it without the drinking part.

Khoa Nam Tran:
I went the hard yards so leave that to me guys.

Sean Floyd:
Yes and learn from it.

Khoa Nam Tran:
And learn from it, exactly. Learn from my journey. It’s not a mistake, it’s a journey. It’s my journey, it’s taught me lots of valuable things throughout life. I’ve met incredible people, people who’ve inspired me. In return, I’ve inspired others inadvertently just my being me. For example, when you were talking about if people will see me and they go, "What is [inaudible 00:42:23]?" That’s what I do in the gym. I present myself that way where just yesterday, I was cleaning.

Sean Floyd:
At the gym?

Khoa Nam Tran:
I was cleaning at the gym. I’m not the boss who goes, "Hey, you do this, you do that." While I’m sitting back relaxing, watching my fish tank. I’ve got a fish tank in the gym.

Sean Floyd:
And you love your fish and you love your koi fish too.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yeah, I love my koi fish.

Sean Floyd:
It is funny one of our marketing professionals on the team is wearing koi fish socks today. So I’ll show you them and then maybe you can just swap them, like literally put them on your shoe because your pair is fresh. So you can swap the koi fish socks.

Khoa Nam Tran:
I’m always fresh 24/7.

Sean Floyd:
We’ll have to convince them, maybe we’ll give them back or they will dump them on us and see how it goes. But back to the story stories at the gym, you’re speaking to people and you’re not one of those bosses that does the inactive orders, you do the active orders all the way.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yes, lead by example. It’s like a general in an army, you’re fighting the battle with your crew, you’re not sitting in the sidelines giving orders. That’s how I implement my nature into the gym and visually out of people’s peripheral vision, they can see that on putting the hard work to make my gym what it is today, a gym where people love to come. Again, that shows that what’s my excuse. Perfect example, what’s my excuse not to put away the weights?

Sean Floyd:
Like the nitty-gritties inside the gym.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yeah, the nitty gritties. I don’t go, "Hey, you put it back where you got it from." I’ll more say, "Hey…" I’m more of a kind boss, I’m a kind person. "Hey, you know if you use that weight, could you put it back now?"

Sean Floyd:
But I feel even if you say it too nicely, they’ll think you’re being so sarcastic that you’re about to beat them over the head with maybe one of the legs, just pull out the gun and just go bang!

Khoa Nam Tran:
Well I get my veins popping out and I’ll go like, "Could you put it back?" So maybe that’s a hint, you might just see little veins popping, pulsating but I don’t tell them off.

Sean Floyd:
Not too much but going back to just being a business owner, the idea of Prosperity Points about the point of prosperity, right? Prosperity point. So it’s about, yes if there’s a challenge, here’s how you can overcome. It’s more of a philosophy as opposed to saying, this is what should be done. That’s what should be done. So what I like the fact is that because I help people doing property portfolios, building a successful portfolio of property so that you can retire on, for example, passive income, so that you have more time to do what you want to do with your passion as opposed to having to work for a paycheck. So being a business owner is similar to being a property investor because if done correctly, it’s all about your balance sheets, profits and losses. But what’s the number one thing you love the most about being a business owner in 2021?

Khoa Nam Tran:
The number one thing I love being a business owner, I feel like it’s not a business in my sense, in my realm of the gym. Yes, it is a for profit and loss but I don’t drag myself there because I need to be there. I drag myself there because I want to be there. It’s about the engagement, it’s about the social pressure that I instilled in the gym and then it flows onto my staff and it flows onto the members where they’d like to come and love to train and they know that there’s that environment there at the gym that makes them want to go there. It’s not any sort of physical, but it’s also as for the social connection, the mental side of things, where they want to get out of there, they just finished their nine to five work and they just need to socialize.

Sean Floyd:
What I’ve noticed is that the environment at a gym as opposed to the environment at a home gym or the COVID work from home gym is so much more different. People are at the gym number one, for the mental reasons. Mentally to get out and about, do something, train in an environment where the energy is different as well. Do you feel that’s why people come to the gym as opposed to the bodybuilders that have to but even people that just want to be fit and healthy, right? They still like the environment of the gym, which is why I feel it’s not going to go anywhere as a business in the next 20 years.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yes, I’m really excited because there’s a difference when you’re training at home, training by yourself, you don’t have that element of the people around you, that social side of things where you could go up to a person and talk, have a laugh.

Sean Floyd:
Yeah like, "How can I get that bicep?"

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yeah, exactly. "You got to work hard."

Sean Floyd:
You still a little bit of [inaudible 00:47:32]. I’m kidding, see that’s a Khoa thing as well. People see people doing well and they go, "He must’ve done something. He must have taken some supplements that I didn’t take." Or, "His diet’s probably done by an engineer." For example.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yeah, and it helps people trade IDs in a sense and give them ideas in order for them to improve. As I said not everyone wants to be the next bodybuilder but all it is just to be fit and healthy.

Sean Floyd:
Like what Coleman used to say, "Everybody want to be a bodybuilder but nobody want to lift no any heavy ass weight."

Khoa Nam Tran:
You’ve got the voice onto it, "Lift weight, baby!"

Sean Floyd:
"Lift weight, baby! Lets do it. Yeah, buddy!" Sounds like him, right? Sounds like he was here. I trained a lot for that. Let’s say if I train at the gym as much as I trained on that, I’d be fit but I’m not.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Hey, you got that and now you just got match it with the body.

Sean Floyd:
That’s it, exactly. Only giving you about 25 years.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Okay. Tom is on the issue. I saw this lady on Facebook, she’s 91 years old. She’s a personal trainer, Japanese.

Sean Floyd:
91?

Khoa Nam Tran:
91. She’s fit as a fiddle.

Sean Floyd:
That’s crazy.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yeah and she’s a personal trainer and she’s still running rings around people who sit on the couches, eating potato chips.

Sean Floyd:
So what is everyone’s excuse then?

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yeah, exactly.

Sean Floyd:
Speaking about the gym as well, just going back to this point, what’s the worst part about being a gym owner?

Khoa Nam Tran:
The worst part about being a gym owner, lets says it’s the smell.

Sean Floyd:
I had a feeling you were going to say that. It’s what you were talking about on the phone.

Khoa Nam Tran:
My nose is desensitized, so I can’t smell anything. It smells beautiful to me. But when new people come in, they’ll know this gym stinks.

Sean Floyd:
How big is your aquarium in the gym?

Khoa Nam Tran:
It’s a four foot tank with [inaudible 00:49:32], warm water. I had a power outage yesterday so I was very concerned for my fish because-

Sean Floyd:
Not for the members of the gym.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Not for the members, they can wait. Their needs can come later.

Sean Floyd:
Your gym needs can come later?

Khoa Nam Tran:
But fish they need that warm water. So I wasn’t too sure when the electricity was going to come back. Luckily it came back in a couple of hours but that’s something that I don’t want to do. I’ve taken care of it. It holds me accountable because I’ll bring that aquarium in and it’s up to me to give the fish their best life in a confined space.

Sean Floyd:
To the best of their life-

Khoa Nam Tran:
To the best of their life, yeah. That helps me align myself, to give myself responsibility, to look after someone’s life, fishes.

Sean Floyd:
I know you’ve got a pond at home.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yeah, I’ve got a pond.

Sean Floyd:
It’s filled with koi.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yep, koi.

Sean Floyd:
Fantastic. And koi I know we were sharing some stories about koi so some of them can grow massive depending on the size of the environment.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yes.

Sean Floyd:
So then is that just a microcosm for thinking that if you expanded your mental environment, you can be the biggest version of yourself?

Khoa Nam Tran:
100%

Sean Floyd:
There you go.

Khoa Nam Tran:
If you stay in that bubble, if you stay in your group of friends you are in that bubble. But if you expand that, your bubble won’t be there. At the end you want to burst that bubble to be bigger than you are and to be bigger than you are, you could be the voice. You might be the voice to inspire other people. That’s the beauty about technology, we are so interconnected at the snap of our fingers, on our mobile phones login Facebook, you can connect to anyone and you don’t need to send a snail mail like 20 years ago. Remember pen pals back then?

Sean Floyd:
Pen pals were crazy.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yeah, Pen pals were crazy. I was waiting a couple of weeks just to get a-

Sean Floyd:
[inaudible 00:51:43]

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yeah, a message, "Hi, this is Matt." And then I’ll get a pen and paper, write it again and send it off again. That’s a lost art. I’m sure that they are still around but these days people send an email, bang!

Sean Floyd:
Yeah, of course. Emails, texts, it’s overtaken everything but I think people would still enjoy that old school touch when it’s a handwritten note.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Now look forward to the mailbox.

Sean Floyd:
The real mailbox because before that used to be full of junk and then your emails all the important stuff, it’s the other way now.

Khoa Nam Tran:
It’s the other way around now. You’ve got like 50,000 inbox messages on that, how much I have a lot, I need to delete it.

Sean Floyd:
50,000 not unread though. 50,000 unread?

Khoa Nam Tran:
Mostly unread because there are a lot of junk. Oh my goodness! But yeah, the art of physical writing and giving out obviously.

Sean Floyd:
Cool. What I am thinking is we might need a quick cup of water. Are you a bit thirsty?

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yeah.

Sean Floyd:
All right. Let’s do a magic trick. What you’ll do is hold your hand out here, place it on the table. Probably on… Yeah, that way and what we’ll do is we’ll actually get a cup of water at the snap of a finger. You’re ready?

Khoa Nam Tran:
Oh, that’s it. All right.

Sean Floyd:
3, 2, 1 and there you have it, just like that.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Do you have a magic office or something?

Sean Floyd:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). It’s definitely magical.

Khoa Nam Tran:
You’re going to bring out cards?

Sean Floyd:
I wish, that’s the only thing. There’s no space for the cards.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Oh, space, it could be there.

Sean Floyd:
Yeah, I will. That’s why we’re having you on here because we’ll get enough views, we’ll get enough users, we’ll get enough business and we’ll get enough money to get a bigger office.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Awesome!

Sean Floyd:
Now, going back to the gym as well, tell us a bit about, for example, where is the gym? Where can people find you if they want it to get in touch with things fitness related?

Khoa Nam Tran:
My gym is located in Warwick Farm, I’m a part of a franchise.

Sean Floyd:
Warwick Farm?

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yeah, Plus Fitness Warwick Farm. If people don’t know where Warwick Farm is, it’s next to Liverpool. Just across from the racecourse but people can find me on heavily online presence.

Sean Floyd:
If someone wanted to get in touch with either, wanted to have a conversation about something either business-related or speaking related, where could they find you personally, best place to find you?

Khoa Nam Tran:
I’ve got a website, khoanamtran.com and in that website, it’s got my social links, Instagram, Facebook, TiKTok.

Sean Floyd:
Who’s TikTok been going?

Khoa Nam Tran:
TikTok’s good. I haven’t been posting as much but I should.

Sean Floyd:
I think you would do quite well on TikTok. I feel you have one of the most catchy personalities out there.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yeah, I love it. It’s really good to kill time and LinkedIn but yeah, if you go to khoanamtran.com, you will see all my links there and reach out to me. I’m always active on mainly Instagram and Facebook.

Sean Floyd:
Instagram and Facebook, perfect. But the website will have links to everything.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yeah, that’s correct.

Sean Floyd:
Perfect, that’s really good. What I want to talk about being a gym owner, you’ve got the idea of having property investment being a part of your discussions as well, you’re a fit person. Do you feel goal-setting has had a big play in your success so far and what are some big goals you see yourself wanting to take off over the next five years from today?

Khoa Nam Tran:
I think in the five years from today, yes, first off goal-setting is important. If you don’t have a end goal to achieve, you don’t know where you’re going in terms of directing yourself to achieve that. Where I want to see myself in five years, I want to see myself out of this COVID bubble and fly around and share my story on a big stage and just put a smile on hundreds of thousands of people and also do my property portfolio as you know have done already invested in one and from there on I’ll connect with JR Prosperity to grow from that. That’s my goal to have many streams of income, to be more financially free, to know that I’ve got revenue of income, passive income and I don’t need to worry about that next week’s bill. I don’t have to look at my bank account and worry about if I have enough to buy a Mac’s meal. It’s simple as that.

Sean Floyd:
A small Big Mac meal used to be $5.95 remember?

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yeah.

Sean Floyd:
For a full small Big Mac meal and now a big Mac it’s [crosstalk 00:56:57]. That’s true.

Khoa Nam Tran:
There are so tiny. It’s like, hello tiny Big Mac."

Sean Floyd:
My favorite order at McDonald’s is three Big Macs with extra Big Mac and two chicken and cheeses on [inaudible 00:57:08].

Khoa Nam Tran:
I’m a health person so I don’t eat like that.

Sean Floyd:
Yeah, exactly. That’s right. You want the members of your gym to be fit and healthy from their diet perspective as well, right?

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yeah. It doesn’t help because it kind of seats right in front of my gym.

Sean Floyd:
It’s like a perfect post-workout meal.

Khoa Nam Tran:
When you open the door, you get smell coming in.

Sean Floyd:
Ronnie used to enjoy a couple of Big Macs sometimes.

Khoa Nam Tran:
I do but one.

Sean Floyd:
One an hour.

Khoa Nam Tran:
One an hour.

Sean Floyd:
Going back to let’s say lifestyle the way it is now so we’ve talked a little bit about the adversity, we’ve talked about obviously goal setting and your future goals, being able to speak to people on a bigger stage, I see that as 100% happening. What about having some fun along the way? So I know that with the legs, you’ve actually still been able to drive and enjoy your passion of driving with cars. What are some of the most fun cars you’ve driven till date?

Khoa Nam Tran:
I’ve driven Audis, Audi R8. I’ve driven a Ferrari 488.

Sean Floyd:
The 488 GTB, look at that!

Khoa Nam Tran:
And GTT.

Sean Floyd:
That’s a nice one.

Khoa Nam Tran:
What else? A Bentley.

Sean Floyd:
The four wheel drive?

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yeah, the Bentayga, nice cars. I think I’ve driven AVA 85. So that was one of the tests because I was in a high-performance car accident.

Sean Floyd:
That was a high-performance car.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yeah, it was a [inaudible 00:58:45] A35 GBR. I had to see if I’ll get any flashbacks with jumping a similar car and I did that and nothing triggered. So I was like, "Yeah, I’m still here. I love my cars."

Sean Floyd:
I love my cars. You are not supposed to hate.

Khoa Nam Tran:
I’m not going to discriminate because I was in one and it crumbled.

Sean Floyd:
I think living life alcohol free and having that freedom knowing you’re always able to be on, it’s something that I’ve done very recently not near as long as you have. I don’t know how long you’ve been alcohol free.

Khoa Nam Tran:
For eight years.

Sean Floyd:
So pretty much the whole time.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yep.

Sean Floyd:
Fantastic. I don’t think we regret a single day. I don’t think you would regret a single day either from all the eight years.

Khoa Nam Tran:
No. I enjoyed being that I’m perspective when I get out with my friends and they drinking because you see how many silly stuff they do. I’ll just laugh. I used to be this person now I’m the designated has to drive people home. Bottom line, I love driving.

Sean Floyd:
But at least they’re in safe hands.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yeah, exactly. That’s the main thing.

Sean Floyd:
Which is good and in a very solid leg as well.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yeah, solid leg. I know people might freak out, "Why is the guy with no legs driving a car?" That’s the funny thing about having no legs. What does my number one say?

Sean Floyd:
That’s it, that’s the trick. I think we might even put a snippet for people to see of what your number plate looks like just so that they can make the understanding known that if they do see the number plate zipping around town, they’ll know that’s Khoa straight away.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yeah, 100%.

Sean Floyd:
That’d be pretty cool and in terms of the next chapter of what you’re seeing yourself achieve now is you’ve got a situation where we’ve got all these things in place, like the speaking engagements, We’re talking a bit about the book. With the book as well, what’s some interesting feedback you’ve gotten on the book so far from people around you saying, "I didn’t know this about you." Or, "I didn’t know your personality had this." Or, "Your backstory was either this tough or this easy." What was something interesting you found from the book’s perspective?

Khoa Nam Tran:
I’ve found people saying it’s the emotional rollercoaster that I bring them through when they were reading it because that was my whole objective to have the highs to lows to the highest to the lowest but always end up with the high. High being positive, low being in that tragic moment. But people could see that when they’re reading it, they know that’s me. So if you were to read my book, we had that conversation through brunch and now that you will go, "Wait, that is Khoa." And you could mentally picture it in your head with my voice probably in your head talking.[crosstalk 01:01:46]

Sean Floyd:
Not the Ronnie Coleman. It will be your voice.

Khoa Nam Tran:
It will be my voice.

Sean Floyd:
Yes.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Oh yeah, it transpires into the book.

Sean Floyd:
Fantastic, that’s awesome. I think with even the period that was blanked out, the three weeks where it got a little tough to have any jogging memory there, I think you’re doing an engagement once, someone from the scene or someone from the night you had ended up encountering with them. I think it might’ve been an officer Sean or something.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yes, that is correct. So he reached out to me on Facebook, he found me and this was going towards eight years since the accident. I finally met up with him, he came to my gym and so I had a rollercoaster of emotions. I hugged him, those were during COVID days.

Sean Floyd:
So that’s even more emotional.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yeah, more emotional. He helped paint my canvas, a bit of my canvas or a blank canvas as to why it happened. Originally I thought throughout those seven years, I thought I was behind the passengers by the driver’s side. I assumed that because the front passenger she died and there was no way I could be on that side, I would have been dead. That was far from the truth because what Sean told me at the night he got there and I was behind the passenger side. The roof was splashed down. There’s no room for the back passenger to survive of that. What made me survive was my head sticking out of the back window.

Sean Floyd:
My goodness!

Khoa Nam Tran:
My head was sticking outside of the window and the roof was collapsed and I was screaming in pain, "Get me out of here! Get me out here!" I don’t remember that but he helped me paint that picture, which I’m forever grateful for him and the fire emergency crew, whoever was there that day. That’s something that I could never forget.

Sean Floyd:
Of course. He must’ve been so proud to see what you were up to all these years and how you would have coped because it would have been the first time that he would have reached out in all these years and he would have been so happy to see you and maybe surprise you at the gym.

Khoa Nam Tran:
He said he found out about me was when I appeared on the TV show Taboo.

Sean Floyd:
Wow! Okay.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yeah. So that’s when I put two and two together, I realized that was the person that saved me and I guess they were very happy to see where I am today.

Sean Floyd:
Of course. Like you said at the beginning, right? Everything happens for a reason.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Everything happens for a reason and for him to reach out at that pivotal moment and to help fill that canvas ever so slightly, not only for a while, I don’t need to remember why it happened but to know that I’m alive because of them, I’m very thankful for it.

Sean Floyd:
Fantastic. I think that goes back to your philosophy, right? Being grateful is a value that you share, being thankful knowing that the future is always brighter than right now, we’re in control of our destiny. Speaking of philosophies, you’ve been doing something interesting with a special 9th Dan master recently. I don’t know if you’re okay to share this aspect of your life as well, because I find that extremely exciting because this is more Prosperity Point than anything which is the mental side of things and general awareness. So how’s the spiritual enlightenment process going for you as well?

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yes, that’s amazing because the 9th Dan master, my mentor-

Sean Floyd:
Also, I didn’t get it right. I didn’t mark it up.

Khoa Nam Tran:
No, that’s correct in karate, 9th Dan master in karate. So it’s one of the highly coveted awards that any karate master can receive. His name is Hanshi [inaudible 01:06:47].

Sean Floyd:
Hanshi itself is pretty.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yes. Hanshi is for… I’m very [inaudible 01:06:54].

Sean Floyd:
Yeah, because I think 9th Dan is the ultimate in karate. Isn’t it?

Khoa Nam Tran:
There’s 10th Dan.

Sean Floyd:
There is, okay.

Khoa Nam Tran:
The 10th Dan in Australia is Tino Ceberano, he’s known as the karate father of Australia. He’s Kate Ceberano’s father, the singer. He awarded Hanshi the 9th Dan. So Hanshi does spirit and mind awareness which I’m involved in. It’s about meditation, lifting your higher consciousness. We have seven levels of consciousness. We start from the conscious to the subconscious and so forth, higher level, super consciousness and it all leads to the divine. We all seek that divine truth and divine is love. So I’m on that journey to help me ground myself, to slow things down. We live in a busy world and sometimes it’s good to step back and listen to yourself and with meditation to lift your conscious, to slow down your surroundings and focus on yourself. I believe that’s helping me propel for future goals, future life settings, just to be grateful for everything. I’m very mindful, I’m very aware of living organisms around.

Sean Floyd:
More so after you started spirit and mind awareness.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yes, exactly. I’m at the backyard, I’m just looking at little ants feeding while I’m cleaning the fish tank and there’s these little worms that come out of the filter. They’re good for the biological filtration but I need to clean the filter and when those little tiny worms that you might squirm at, they’re just stuck there on the concrete but you see the ants just go and grab them, that’s their food and I’m awe to see they’re working as a team together to evolve this world.

Sean Floyd:
Like the circle of life.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Like a circle of life, exactly. This last week I took a picture of four small ants eating a [inaudible 01:09:57].

Sean Floyd:
Really?

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yes. It’s an amazing sight in a sense that it’s like the David and Goliath battle, small versus the big or a group versus one.

Sean Floyd:
Yeah, but like four Davids and a Goliath.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yeah, exactly. Taking down and it resonates with [inaudible 01:10:23] taking down the big corporations, if something happens you’ve got a lot of people who can take a corporate. I was watching that movie that I mentioned, Dark Waters. That was exactly like that.

Sean Floyd:
We talked about the other movie as well, it’s Dark Waters and we’re talking about one of the film crew, the church scandal.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yeah, Spotlight.

Sean Floyd:
Spotlight, yeah. So Spotlight and Dark Waters.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yeah, exactly the same analogy.

Sean Floyd:
Fantastic. There’s so many analogies going on in this podcast. You’ve got that, you’ve got the koi fish expanding its awareness, getting into the bigger and better version of itself, groups taking down the big giant, I think it’s good stuff. What do you feel resonated as a microcosm from seeing those four ants try and tackle the…? Did you get to see the outcome who ended up actually winning? Did they pull him apart?

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yeah, they pulled him apart, they pulled his little pincer. They pulled it apart and they were eating him. But spirit and mind awareness, I’m more grateful for every living creature, every living thing. So if there’s a cockroach, I try not to squash the cockroach. I try to, "Move along now." I see a spider, I won’t use a spray can, I’ll just look at it, "You’re just doing your thing. You’re not hurting…"

Sean Floyd:
Unless it’s in the gym because then you’re going to kill it to keep the members safe or you’ll organize someone to look after it and take it outside.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yeah, exactly. So I’m more aware of that and that’s the great thing about diving into spirit and mind awareness. Every life has a purpose. We’re all energy. If we look deep into ourselves, every single thing around is energy.

Sean Floyd:
I’ve read something really interesting. I don’t know if you know Rhonda Byrne’s book, The Secret and the way you’ve got the power of being grateful, gratitude brings about more success. Then there’s another book called The Greatest Secret and apparently it’s just that you are not your body. You are not your brain. You are not the physical, you are just awareness. That’s what you actually are. When I saw something like that, it just clicked that yeah, that sort of makes sense that all we are is awareness so why not be more aware and then hence be more understanding. It follows on from what you’re saying right now.

Khoa Nam Tran:
It’s amazing. Once you expand your mind, you appreciate everything. We’re all on this fragile earth to help each other. But now we are influxed with before the bad but positivity is a powerful thing and that’s where I believe the influence that to change one person’s life, maybe change out one person’s life, that is the whole world to them.

Sean Floyd:
That’s the whole world to them, exactly.

Khoa Nam Tran:
That’s the whole world to them .

Sean Floyd:
That’s why perspective is important as well and you never know whose life they’re changing in the processes as well.

Khoa Nam Tran:
100%. It’s like the domino effect. You knock one domino or-

Sean Floyd:
Yeah or it’s like… I don’t know. There’s this one story about a farmer taking two buckets on his shoulder and I don’t think he was able to have it go all the way up the mountain. So every time he’d reach up the mountain, half the buckets used to be empty so he had to make too many trips going up and down with the buckets at each side. But then he realized because so much water was leaking out over the years, he realized that he was watering the garden along the mountain the whole time. So yes, all those extra trips gave extra water to the garden and there were beautiful flowers along that journey. So from every hardship you never know who’s being impacted in a positive way as well.

Khoa Nam Tran:
That’s a perfect analogy.

Sean Floyd:
Thank you, I’m so proud of that.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Of giving, inadvertently giving because he thought it was a negative thing but in return that was something like beauty in disguise, life grew.

Sean Floyd:
Which is awesome and thank you once again so much Khoa for your time, jumping on Prosperity Point. I’m looking forward to having you on here again so that I can just get to say that, "Yep, before TEDx, before all this was all done, I got Khoa in the beginning and I got him after the international stage as well." Once the borders are open.

Khoa Nam Tran:
But next time you might have to speak to my managers and all that.

Sean Floyd:
No I’m not going to do that.

Khoa Nam Tran:
I’ll give you my personal number.

Sean Floyd:
I need your personal number that way I can say, "The chocolates are still here."

Khoa Nam Tran:
I’ll be like, "Sorry, Sean. I’m too busy filming my next fifth movie but I’ll make time for you."

Sean Floyd:
You’re probably filming Terminator 25 by then. Terminator 25 with some of these bad boys.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yeah, I’ll be upgraded by then too.

Sean Floyd:
Yeah, you’ll be upgraded but being honest from the bottom of my heart it’s been an absolute pleasure having you on here and I thank you so much for your time. I hope everyone watching out there, you guys can take some hidden gems away in your own version of Prosperity Point, whatever that is but thank you for staying turned as well, we really appreciate it and we look forward to having you back again soon.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yeah, great to be a part of it.

Sean Floyd:
Also, let’s die. Then it’s time for our leg bump. Oh my goodness! This one’s a strong one. Yeah, this is so cool. This one’s the heavy hitter. If someone looks at you funny across the street, you can literally fling this and they will die.

Khoa Nam Tran:
They will die but then before that they’d have to give me back my leg.

Sean Floyd:
That’s right or maybe you have to… Yeah, true. It will be hard to hop around.

Khoa Nam Tran:
I’d be like, "Hey, before you pass away, pass my leg back."

Sean Floyd:
Yes, exactly. But you’ve got one that’s like the proper shotgun and this one’s more like the pistol.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yeah.

Sean Floyd:
It’s like a little pistol here.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Funny thing I use that as a croquet stick.

Sean Floyd:
Croquet stick.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yeah, if you watch Taboo this leg was used as a croquet stick to hit the ball.

Sean Floyd:
Oh my goodness! That is awesome and with shoes obviously I think both they’re the same size as well, which is cool. Do you still enjoy picking up a decent collection of sneaker kicks?

Khoa Nam Tran:
Not really because I don’t really change any shoes. I have a couple shoes but I don’t really go shopping for shoes.

Sean Floyd:
Maybe we got gift you some driving shoes because you love driving. So we gift you some driving ones that fit with the legs as well, that’ll be fun.

Khoa Nam Tran:
I might be running faster too.

Sean Floyd:
Who knows? I don’t know, software upgrade will always help with that part. That would be good. But thanks so much once again and we’ll get to wrap up. Let’s finally eat our chocolates.

Khoa Nam Tran:
Oh, yeah.

Khoa Nam Tran:
(Music)

Khoa Nam Tran:
Yum.

Khoa Nam Tran:
(Music)