- 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.