Small Talk Big Ideas - Keith Grisman - Property Only

Thanks for joining us for the Small Talk Big Ideas podcast. A podcast to enrich your soul, where we have conversations with inspiring people about all things property, business and life. And now, the host of Small Talk Big Ideas, Ian Yegarte.

Hey, thanks for joining us on the Small Talk Big Ideas podcast. And today I bring in Keith Grisman. An amazing story from a very young age, just like myself, investing in property all the way through to being a huge property developer, only to find himself in an insolvency position and declaw himself back into where he is today. A real example of how when you get to that position of taking all the financials away from you, you can't take away what's in your head. Enjoy this episode and please subscribe and join us and follow us on any.

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8Th Grisman.

How are you, mate?

Good.

Where's that from?

Russia.

Russia.

So dad's dad was a Russian Jew, fled during the revolution with his three brothers. They landed in Australia and two of them went. Sorry, two brothers, three in total. Two of them went to the States and one stayed here.

Right, so then that was your second generation Australia.

Yeah, something like that. I mean, I guess it depends which side you look at.

What was it? That's one side. What's the other side?

Largely English, I think there's a, there's a first free set in. In there somewhere. A Shepherd from Kent was the book that, that we found with a bit of family history.

Right.

But yeah, kind of working class Australian family, with the exception of the. The Russian immigrant.

White Australia. I think I actually knew the first was I knew the firstborn seventh generation Australian. And so we must only be nine generations in of white Australia. Anyway. You're a property developer.

Yeah, I don't really use the word developer.

I don't like it. Investor.

Well, as you probably know, I say property surfer because it sums the two outside of my family. It sums up the two parts of my life. But yeah, property entrepreneur is probably a better word. I mean, I'll look to value add. So I don't really care what it is, but if there's a value add in it, then I'm prepared to pull the puzzle apart.

Started with the police.

Yeah. So finished high school and said, you.

Lived in Sydney originally, didn't you?

Sydney, yeah, par. I did. Then they decided, well, I thought to get out of the rat race. But it turns out many years later we had a chat and they went, no, no, no, no, that wasn't it. We wanted to get you and your sister out Of Sydney because we thought there was more opportunity in Queensland.

So it's opportunity.

Yeah.

I sort of got out of Sydney because just I could just see your kids could have more opportunity to go off the rails.

There was a bit of that too. Yeah. Yeah. The school that I was at, I think held a famous title of second worst high school in New South Wales. Na Wee Boys high school.

No way. You're on. Okay. Randwick Boys high was pretty bad in its day too.

Yeah. So she was a tough school. But look, some. Some good friends and great people come out of there. So yeah, he comes from everywhere.

So they sold for 300.

Well so good property story that they dad came first. A mate of his was up here so he snagged a job. He ended up staying with his mate at Burpengary and then they couldn't sell the house. They were on the market in Peacurst in Sydney for 180, couldn't sell it. Eventually.

The dad went advanced, mum and my sister and I stayed in Sydney. When they couldn't sell it, six months later they rented it out. Then 12 months later they sold it for 310.

So that was the 85 to 88 peak. So Sydney almost doubled in three years.

Yeah, I think they settled at the end of 88 in round figures. So yeah, so they went from selling out at 300 odd to building a brand new four bed, two bath on a brand new block of land on Bribie, walking distance like 300 meters to the beach for about 67, $67,000.

Should add another two just to make it a round number. So the. I can just fathom $67,000 including land at the moment. You can buy there for 4:20. I think I saw a house and land out that way.

Yeah, yeah. I think that even the house that we built, so to speak was about that number. Mid fours I think.

Right. So you saw that your parents had bought and sold.

Yeah. So in Sydney, mum and dad moved west from sensosie where both my grandparents were. They went to Busby or Green Valley. Lovely suburb. It was an interesting place to live. But they bought an old block of land. Sorry, an old block of land. They bought a block of land, built a new house and literally did the bare minimum. So dad was a tradie electrician. So he said to the builder, don't worry about painting, no carpet. We lived in a house and literally, you know, no landscaping, no driveways.

Same as me. Grew up in an unfinished house.

Every weekend we proceeded to finish it and I say we because I was on the end of a shovel on occasion. But yeah, I guess I learned the best way by just being immersed in it and watching and they didn't really ever talk to me about it or preach. I just saw them do it.

So you got a sister you said as well?

Sister. Younger. Yeah, she's six years younger.

Yeah. And so you come up here, you do school, finish school?

Yep. Come up in 88. Did grade 10 and then 11 and 12 at Bribie High. And yeah, off to the police.

Worked for the police for three years.

I did.

What didn't you? Only there for three. That's still for some people, they don't last a year. You lasted three. What didn't you like about that?

It was more. They didn't like me.

Never being great at being told what to do. Really enjoyed it and again met some fantastic people, like lots and lots that I'm still very close friends with to this day. But I don't know, I guess maybe the entrepreneur was bubbling away inside of me. But yeah, things happen for a reason.

What'd you do coming out of that?

Lost the plot a little bit. Yeah, I was a bit disillusioned. I kind of traveled around Australia for a little while. I ran a farm in Tasmania, a B and B and some cattle just south of Lawn Cistern. So it was an old convict built homestead built in 1887 or something. Beautiful property.

If it wasn't Christine, I'd live down there.

Yeah, it's just too cold. Totally the same. So Mel, my wife is German, as you know. So she's supposed to like the cold. Hates it. But yeah, I really enjoyed my time in Tassie. I lived there kind of for nine months and just traveled around in bits and pieces in between and then ended up back here in property.

You love surfing?

I do.

Everything you do is based around surfing.

Yeah, well, it saved my life a few times but learned to surf in Sydney. And then one of the reasons that dad got me here because I thought as a teenager that I had some control and I was going to stay behind as I came north. And he showed me a map of Brobie island and said, look, there's the beach and there's waves. He didn't tell me Morton island was outside of it.

Yeah, there's some waves when the ferry goes fast.

So I got there and turned up and I'm like, it's flatbed. Yeah, my dad was good like that.

Good paddling out there, the other side but.

But we managed to get enough down there. Kept me interested.

Yeah. Because that's the thing. I mean, we came up when My eldest was 14, 15 maybe, and it was. It was just probably a year to two late for her. I mean, everyone settled, but it was just that I don't want to go sort of thing.

Yeah.

And especially, I don't know if you had a girlfriend at the time, but that would have been. You did.

Yeah.

You left her behind.

Yeah, it is, yeah. But we're best of mates today. She's. She married another friend of mine and they have two amazing kids and I see them several times a year. We're great friends. Yeah.

Great.

So you come up here, you wander.

Around, bit lost, and then you get into property. What's the first thing you do because you bought a place at 17?

While I was in the academy. Yeah. I attended a government auction and convinced dad to lend me the deposit and bought a block of land in Coolum for 32 and a half thousand dollars at auction. And I was 17 and no one told me that you had to be 18 to buy it.

All right.

But the government vendor financed it, so no one ever asked the question, that's.

How they used to do it. Yeah, they used to vendor finance everything.

I know, it was great. And you had to make your first payment a year later.

It's not bad.

Yeah. So in theory, I saved for the next year.

Yeah.

But then, of course, a bit like a uni assignment, you get to the end and you're like, I'm a bit short here. And my budget was $20 difference from cost to making the payments up. But I knew I graduated, so I got a little lump sum as I graduated to make the payment. And then just before I kind of realised I was going to be a bit short, I went to an agent and I said, how much do you think we can sell this for? And when I walked into the agency, the lady on the counter said, oh, Reynolds, are that way. I said, no, no, I'm that way. That was an interesting lesson, that. I've never forgotten that judgment. And anyway, he got a contract for 47 and a half. And from the government.

Well, the government buying it back.

Housing commission buying it back. And so I'm like, this is pretty good. But it turned out that they wouldn't buy it because they already had one in the street. And at that stage they'd only have had a rule one in the street. So I then walked that contract off, just completely dumb luck, fumbling my way, walked it into the Queensland Police Credit Union and said, can I Get some money to pay the government out. And I don't know, somehow I came up with a scheme to borrow some more money to build a house and build a house on it.

So, yeah. So basically took like, what we do nowadays, if we can get the right lender valuation in, this is what it's worth. Will you give me X amount?

Yeah. And as you know, the rules then were a little bit different. Easier. Absolutely. So ended up with a product that owed about 80 and I think on completion it was 1:36 from memory.

And how old were you then?

I was 18 then. 18 at that point, yeah. And I did a little bit of what I'd watched Dad do. So I said, don't worry about the driveway, don't worry about the landscaping. We painted it ourselves. So I got some mates up. I think the cost of the house paint was three cartons of beer. We slept on the floor for a couple of nights and I'd take them down the RSL at cool' Em and we had good fun. The driveway's still there. It's the worst driveway you've ever seen in your life. It's like this, but it's still there.

It's done. It's still there, though.

It's still there.

It hasn't fallen away. I was actually just listening to a story just then about a guy who put up a post. I had a. He was holding a sign saying, I just want beer money. Put it in my bank account, right? So anyway, all. It got shared all over America and this guy ended up with a million bucks in his bank account, right? So then he donated it to. To a charity that was to go, I want. I want beer money to go and watch football or something. And so he ended up donating it to the children's hospital across the road from the stadium. Anyway, some reporter decided, just investigating, and he'd been on. He'd been on Tosh's show and he'd done some tweets that were racist, right? So this reporter called him out on it and he got a. He got a hammering and he apologized publicly. Anyway, so then someone investigated the reporter and the reporter had done some racist tweets and lost his job. So fuck you, you bastard, evil asshole. So anyway, I don't know how I got there, but.

Okay, so now you've got your first house.

Yeah. A living in it.

No, rented it out from day one. So other than the first few nights where we slept on the floor drinking beer. No, rented it out and never lived in it at all. Then about Three years later.

Oh, that's him. The beer money.

Yep. And he got called out for it.

I like his cheeky grin.

Yeah. So four years later, after police was working with a. A land developer, I guess would be the best way to describe them. You know, they used the advertising system selling land on the fringe. I didn't particularly like it. They're a bit like a Myer Realty or a Washington Developments, used to be back in the day. And I approached them to buy a block. So I bought a block off them, did the same thing.

And you're working for them.

I was working for doing what? Selling. So, yeah.

Okay.

Yeah. So they kind of set up a front of house. It was a real estate agency. Looked like a suburban agent. But your job was to sell that. I learned a lot there. I learned a lot about process and sales, but also learn a lot about what I didn't want to do and. And the advertising system that's implemented in selling, as you know, to me is just not straight up. So. But out of that came a bunch of experience and a block of land that I bought with, you know, a pretty substantial discount. So I built a house on that. So that was number two. And then number three, by the time I was about 24, was up here on the Sunshine Coast. Yeah, it was a duplex.

And living in any of those?

No, it was number four. Four property, I guess you'd say. I mean, the third one had had two on it. So it was the one after that, which funnily enough, was completely un. Value add in the sense that it was a waterfront unit. At Alex looking over the surf.

Right.

And. And still paid 160.

I look at those there because there's those on your way down the hill from Ululaba to Alex on the left. There's those brown. That's that brown building. It wasn't one of those, was it?

Yeah, it was pretty much. It wasn't the ones on the angles. Yeah, it's about three down from that. The building was called to. To worry. It's always to call it, not to like.

I look at those little units, bottom floor, grassed area, straight across the road from the beach. And I go 350, 400. And like, I'd be happy to have an office there. Yeah, it'd be worth spending 400k just to sit across the road from the beach.

Yeah, it's just the body. Corpse.

Yeah, that's right. The fourth.

Fourth level of government of Australia.

Yeah. And control. Because, you know, Airbnb would be awesome. There But I'm sure they control that as well. So you're now reasonably young, a decent portfolio. Any of your friends got properties at this stage?

Not really, no. I tried.

Similar to me, you know, start to build this portfolio around you at a very young age, and you look at all your friends and they're all still at uni or still traveling or still pissing it up every weekend. And you go, guys, what are you doing?

I think it's the same no matter what the age is. I mean, I'm sure you've had lots of people say, hey, give me some property advice. How do I get started? And I must have had, I don't know, 500 of those conversations and let less than. Wouldn't even be 10%, it'd be 2% actually do anything. And, you know, it'd be one of those things that I'd like to try and work out before I die. Why it is. Is it fear? Because there's definitely elements of fear. Is it laziness? Is it procrastination? Anyway, that's. Everyone's different, right?

So you start building.

Start building a portfolio. You're young, you drive off. So you. What are you doing? When do you become full time? What point do you become full time?

So in my 20s, so after I got to the Sunshine coast, or how I got to the Sunshine coast in terms of living here, there was a little. Remember, there's classifieds. Does everyone know what classifieds are specified?

I'm sure Darren can bring up an image of what a classified looks like.

And so a job.

So you put an ad in?

No, no, I read a job ad and I don't remember anything that it.

Said except was that next to the massage? Erotic massage. Classified.

Yeah, it said Sunshine coast and property. So I'm like, all right, I'll. I'll go and interview for it. And I won't boy with the details.

But long story short, that's what classifieds used to look like in the good old days.

It was one of those.

Yeah, right.

It wasn't the general manager. One of. I probably did apply for that.

There's something with a mortgage, student loans.

I was probably reading that.

It's gone.

So I remember. So I won't believe it that he does, but I got the job. And I remember driving up the first day. It was at the building is still there over next to the Horton Park Golf or the old Horton Park Golf Club still there anymore. And I parked in the car park. I remember getting out of the car, grabbing my briefcase, putting a Jacket on. I remember thinking to myself, I've got no friggin idea what this job is. But they're all. I knew it was in properties and I knew it was in every job.

I turned up to as well.

So three directors of a commercial property business and they taught me commercial agency.

That's not. That's a good skill set to have under your belt.

Completely, completely. Like it's three lovely guys. Unfortunately they ended up kind of two, eight one the other one ate the other one. But they taught me commercial property. And as silly as it sounds, I mean I'd been a policeman. I'd, you know, I'd run a different like, you know, as I mentioned, run a B and B for a while. Then it has bits and pieces. But I didn't really even think that. I didn't even know that commercial property was a class. I didn't know anything about it. Didn't even think about the fact that it was a shop I was going to. So they taught me that. And what they also used to do was small scale development. So they would sunshine coast growing, they would get inquiry where someone will want a red shed with a green door and it didn't exist. So then they would go and find a block of land and then they would design it and get it built in commercial. In commercial, yeah.

Right.

Yeah. So one of those directors was a builder and two of them were I guess two of the best commercial agents at the time. This is, this is early to mid-90s. And so they taught me, I watched. And about four years later I best described bought the last partner out.

You bought them out?

Yeah, well, it was a bit complicated.

Sure. You slept with his wife?

No, it was probably. No. Anyway, let's just say slept with him.

And got it cheaper.

Well, I didn't think of that. No.

He had a little bit of drama. So there was me and another guy who I'm friends with to this day. He's still a commercial agent on the coast. We basically said to him, okay, we think it's time that you pulled up stumps and we'll take it from here. We did that almost instantly. We merged it with another guy who was out of the city who did big transactions typically. And we became the, I guess the busiest, the best, whatever you want to call it, commercial agency in town.

So you're selling and also leasing agents as well?

Yeah, yeah. So David and I, we did the day to day what we call brokerage and then Jerry would do kind of the big ticket stuff. And that business is now The Savills business on the Sunshine. All right. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So you sold that?

Eventually, yeah, yeah. What happened was it was private and then Savills Australia, Savills International took it over after I'd left. But. But then while I was there I was, you know, doing value add in the same way that the three guys had taught me. So I'd get a tenant requirement. So lots of super cheap autos on the coast, lots of subways, you know, a few McDonald's, all those sorts of things. So. So when the building didn't exist, I mean even industrial stuff, we did a couple of brambles type banks and bits and pieces in industrial estate. So I did tech drawing at school, so I just knew that you could draw stuff that didn't exist. I watched dad build a couple of houses, you know, so I just kind of inherently understood it.

So council a bit easier to work with.

Yeah. So design and construct. Yeah, they were. I mean really, there was no planning then. It was literally just BA type process. And was until Integrated Planning act came in and about 2000 that things started to really get complicated. So I was just lucky enough that I was in, you know, a few of the right places. I guess I was lucky enough that I was just born with an observant mind and, you know, was in the right place at the right time watching a few people.

So I had the super cheap auto founder in one of my events actually.

Was that regular? Yeah, Regan, he's a lovely guy.

Yeah. Started selling battery charges out of a.

Garage in an old service station.

Interesting story. And I saw him speak once and like, really humble. Won't. Good old Reg won't. He won't fly other than economy class. Refuses fly business, shitty old car. And when before they did the ipo, good old Reg, before they did the ipo, he. They just refused to, he refused to open up another super cheap order unless he owned the land and, and built the building. And so they said, look, Reg, you want to grow you an ipo, you're gonna have to, you're gonna have to start renting because I don't want to do it. So. But the board convinced him that that's the way they went. And look at them now, I mean, and then they go and sponsor Bathurst.

Yeah, look, that's a perfect secret.

You know, he actually said, people think I own the Bathurst, you know, track. Like, I guess. No, but he's done all of those commercials along the lake near the hospital.

Yeah.

So all those commercial buildings and the, and he owns the car park as well. I think he had $140 million worth of profit last year in property.

Yeah.

And I actually asked him the question, you know what, there's some really nice buildings there, like a car park. Doesn't look like a car park. I said, your design. He goes, no, don't be stupid. I just get the right people in the right places that know more than I do to do what I have to do.

So yeah, okay, so now you get.

To the point where.

What year are you at when you sell?

So I'm a commercial agent through the back end of my 20s. And then I guess at 30, I had 30 properties. So I kind of went from four, let's call it 25. And you know, the effect of compounding, we hear it all the time as the eighth wonder of the world. And you know, compounding can happen in many ways, in learning, in effort, all sorts of things. So for me and property, and also what had happened is the GST and the GFC, you know, that periodical between the GS in the early 2000s, you know, that was a pretty interesting time. So I had properties double and double again. So but at 30, I started a property management business, which was really simple. Our property manager was shirking on periodics. You know, properties were deteriorating. And at that stage, I think management fees per property are about a thousand bucks a property manager's wages, about a thousand bucks. So 30 properties, you know, do the math. And I went, oh, I'll just start one myself.

Yeah.

And you know, that, that business is.

So that business, that business looked after your properties and then you just added.

Added other properties, friends and friends of friends and, you know, kind of grew organically from there.

Right. So you then go in and you hit the jfc. How do you go through there?

Shit ass. Yeah, There's a little period that's worth mentioning before that, and that is that at 2000, roughly, I jumped from commercial agency into kind of full time development. So because we used to do a bit of design and construct in the agency, we became pretty popular. Whereas, you know, lots of builders and say, well, can you bring us the next tenant? Can you bring us the next deal? So I called it doing agency on a platter. And what we found out is that you get paid to sell the land for whoever owned it. You get paid for the tenant introduction, normally a bigger upfront fee, and then you get paid to sell the building at the end because normally the builder or developer wants to get the capital out to go to the next one and then if we're lucky, we'd manage it. So we get paid three to four times on one transaction and of course builders and developers would want to be our friends. So I worked with a couple and there was one client in particular who you know, we had a really good relationship with. So long story short, I'd had enough of agency one day and, and went and joined them and, and you know, together we had a pretty lucky ride like after the, the GST was introduced and from 2000 to 2006 I think we went from, I don't know, remembering 40 or $50 million worth of work to, you know, over a billion dollars worth of work. And probably the key measure of staff. You know, from eight staff, I think I was eighth on board 130, you know, five, six odd years later.

So pretty big business.

Yeah, it was, yeah. And based here in the Sunshine coast so you know, perfect place to live. I got to 33 and that was a pretty all consuming role as development director and there was a lot to do, big hours and it was hard to get some life balance. So I opted out and retired. And at that stage I probably had, I don't know, 50 odd properties. So I just continued to leap from the equity and always kind of kept an eye on, you know, LVRs and cash flow.

So LVRs were sitting on those 50 properties?

Well, pre GFC, my LVRs are probably about 55, 60%. So you know, there's plenty of criticism to be thrown around for over gearing and going too hard and you know, I'll call that. But the reality is the LVR was, was actually pretty conservative.

But even like at 50, 55, that's a low LVR for, you know, for an investor that's in their early period of life and in their accumulation phase. And you sort of. Basically what you're saying is that you'd accumulated and you were quite happy where you were backed out of the business.

Yeah, I got got to a point where I felt that I had enough to do in my own world as well. As, as I say, you know, life balance was hard. I was 12 hour days, you know, six days a week.

So single.

Yeah, I married, my first marriage is about that same time. So 2001, I think it was something like that. 2002, so yeah, kids out of that. Yes, but later on. Right, yeah.

And so significant business, you back out low lvr, you're doing developments when the GFC hits or.

Yeah, but again probably more value adds. I mean, you know, again most people call them Developments, But a slight nuance to that, like when I was working in the development business, that was hardcore development in the sense that we'd find a site, we'd build it ourselves, etc. Whereas at 33 when I retired, I was kind of looking for things that particularly like renovating, adding value and those sorts of of things.

So you're not talking majors like. So in the business, were you doing land subdivisions at all or.

Yeah, we did land subdivisions in terms of things that people would know. The Maroochy Door, the original cbd. So Ocean Street, Dueporth Avenue, we did most of the high rises there. So Aurora, Platinum, M1, we did those buildings amalgam, made the big top site to have happen. What's there now out of Chancellor park, where the Woolworths is, there's the Tavern, the Shining.

Are these for clients or for your own company?

No, we would bring investors in and then we would share them and sell them.

But outside of that on your own. And I think you're much like me, I'd much rather do 20 duplexes than a 40 ought subdivision.

Yeah, Graham Jr. Said it to me beautifully once. He said, you know, people look at us at that time, we're both doing high rises and various bits and pieces and you go, you know, and you get, I suppose, some attention and some fame from the advertising that goes along. You don't necessarily look for that, but then you sold them down. So, you know, in M1 for example, we sold 70, built 70 units out of 76 in four hours in one night. And then you shit yourself for 18 months and they're all going to settle. There's a huge amount of risk in those projects and the guys that make the money there, they provide lots of infrastructure spending and you know, the people that undertake those developments take lots of risk and they deserve all the profits they get.

Yeah, because it's not only just the contract going through, it's also finishing under budget without any extras because you, you know, you get one little missed detail in a scope somewhere. I remember when I was going through TAFE to become a plumber. One of the guys jobs, he was a mature guy, he worked for one plumbing company and his job was to go around and just find the extras. And there was a project there where it might have been an $800,000 contract and he found a million dollars of extras on top of the 800,000. He just goes ridiculous.

Good friend of mine, Don Moffat that you should meet. Don did a joint venture with Kerry Packer down in Caloundra on Gemini Towers and got to the end of the project. And where's the money for the ovens go? Looking through the scope, the quantity surveyor had missed ovens.

And how many were there?

Oh, there was 300 or something. It was a big project.

Just a little bit of a little.

This is in the 80s. Yeah. So yeah, it can, it can happen. Easy. I mean, look, unfortunately there's going to be lots of people in those shoes right now. You know, the market has turned on what no one really would have expected. And all of a sudden some great decisions, some great properties, some great projects, some good financing all of a sudden will turn to shit.

This has given you experience now for what happened back then. So what did happen when the GFC hit?

Largely speaking, the banks withdrew credit en masse. And I took it personally for a long time because the effects are personal. But you know, it's not just you.

Branson as well.

Yeah. He didn't call me to tell me what happened to him, but I was.

Talking to him the other day, no.

Name dropping, but yeah, I mean I had one of the big four call me and say, oh, you know that facility, million dollar facility. Well, we're not going to extend it. I go, oh, okay. And other banks are leading up.

Did you have all your lending with one bank or you had multiple.

No, no, no. Spread it around.

You were smart to spread.

Yep, I was, I was smart to spread, but there's some downsides of that too. And they said, oh, we're not going to extend that facility. I'm like, okay. Because other banks have done that, like Suncorp for example, were in commercial finance.

Suncorp almost sent a couple of developers under.

Yeah, well, they exited and they rang me a year before this roughly and said, we're exiting. I'm like, okay. And I said, well, what are we going to do? Refinance. How long we got? A year, but probably longer if you need. We've refinanced out someone else in six months. So when this call came through, I was expecting something similar and they said, no, no, we'll be at your office 9 o' clock in the morning for a check. I'm like, oh, just get the million dollar check out of the door. Anyway, that's kind of the best way to describe that time. It was certainly nothing that anyone expected.

So do they call them in? Yeah, that's what you have to sell. Sorry, you have to sell.

Yeah, well, I did a systematic sell down. You know, like the best way to describe it is that I spent three or four years trying to save the house. When I say the house, I don't mean literally the home house, I mean everything. So, you know, the house of cards analogy is a pretty good one. But there was fires just going off everywhere, and at the time, I didn't necessarily know exactly why, and as I say, it felt very personal. But ultimately, banks were ruining our balance sheets to fix theirs. And it's only since doing lots of reading that I know that the European credit swap markets ran out of money. That European markets had all their money in the States and we get our money from there and our banks turned up and there was no money. And that filtered down.

Yeah. And so that. That's another danger that can happen right now.

Absolutely.

And, you know, I just. I worry about paying back 200 trillion. Yeah, billion, whatever. So. So you manage to survive physically. Yeah. So I presume that one of those moments that surfing saved your life was during that time.

Yeah. So the GFC, I guess for me it started in 07. So if I go back to the retirement 33 thing, it was 2006 and I had a blissful six months. I was surfing every day. I was playing with my properties in the afternoon. I was in heaven. And then I watched the US market meltdown. And the funny thing is, when you look back at it, that was several years before the rural GFC happened in Australia. And so for me, I realized then. Well, I thought. I realized that we were in some trouble and we needed to start. So I started taking steps then.

So you saw it before it hit?

Well, I mean, I was watching cnbc, so I don't know that I saw it before. It wasn't like I forecast it. I was just like, I think this is going to cause us a great deal of drama. So, well, before that phone call from the big four saying, we'll have our check back, I was taking massive action beforehand. What was it?

Selling?

Yeah, yeah, largely selling. Trying to, you know, reduce debt, fix it, bits and pieces. And the biggest issue was the commercial debt that I carried. So I say to people now that if I'd have just stuck to residential, which up till, let's say 30 or 35 properties was all resi, even though I was a commercial agent, I didn't want to compete with my clients. So that was one reason I stayed out. But also, you could gear up easier to keep going on resi than you could on commercial. So. But if I'd have stayed in resi up till gfc, I'd have been gfy. I don't know what you're talking about. But the commercial debt was the debt that got caught in. And I get people ring often for advice about buying properties and I say to them, do you know what a commercial loan contract actually is? Effectively I'll get the money back anytime they want. No, it's not. My lawyer says this and I go, well all they have to do is order a revaluation or do an income appraisal and if they're changed they can call you in and yep, they'll run you through the bad boys club in the bank and the. But ultimately if they want their money back on a commercial contract, they're getting it back.

You know, we don't, we have commercial property but majority of it we do have some standalone commercials but they're all being converted to residential and any other stuff we do have is resumercial as well. So there's a residential component but still a commercial loan. So there's exposure there whichever way you look at it. And you know, I go out there and there's a whole bunch of property educators going commercial go commercial. It's just where you go. And, and I other than SDA and ndis, the highest risk property that I would always see is commercial. I now think that's been trumped by SDA and ndis in the short term. But I look at commercial go just like high deposits so lower LVRs, tenants that are there for three by three by three but their buys like at the end of two and a half years they renew two years, 11 months or whatever it is, they say nah, we're out, you've got to, you know and they talk about the, because the outgoings are paid and all of this sort of stuff. It's positive cash flow. But what happens when there's no tenant like you don't have a lineup of tenants ready to move into a purpose built building, you know.

Yeah, well, having been a commercial agent for quite some time, I know what vacancy looks like. I know how to go about filling it and I know how you want to try and fill it and you can't. But yeah, I mean look, most commercial property is not national tenants. Most of it is, let's call it mum and dad tenants or variations, you know, through that specter and yeah, I mean look, something can happen in their lives or someone in their family's life and all of a sudden that affects.

Them can happen globally.

So yeah, look, it's not. So we're not currently invested in any property, commercial property, sorry. And going forward it would take either complete cash purchase or as close as that, it doesn't matter for me to go back to commercial property.

We were talking about this the other day. You know, it's getting to the point where you sort of self fund yourself for everything and the more you can self fund, the better off you are.

Absolutely.

And if anything, very, very low. Lvr.

Yeah. And then that comes with tricks, you know, because, you know, we get taught other people's money leveraging those sorts of things. So finding that balance. And, and for me, now that that's, you know, residential provides less of a risk return scenario than some of the other options. Is it the perfect one? Is the right one? Look, for me, it's what makes the.

Most sense because, you know, your cost of living, your cost of living has to be X amount. And so why go hard if you know that you can sustain that for the rest of your life at a decent level of living? So you managed to scrape through at what point in time? So your portfolio goes down to saving the house?

No. Well, so first of all, correct, you I didn't survive. No, no, I was destroyed.

Right.

So I guess the, the best way to describe it is that I fought and I fought and I fought and, and you know, in the end I lost the battle.

In hindsight, would you afford it? Just let it go under?

No, I don't think so. Look, I, I try to live by an adage of not die wondering and, you know, some things you've got to say no to, of course. But would I do things differently? Yes, but I mean, that's easy to say in hindsight and reflection. Right. But no, the, the, the one thing I often think about is at some point, should I have just thrown a backpack on and headed off and came back after meltdown? And that's pretty compelling. Right, like the idea of that. But, you know, the practical reality is that, I mean, for a start, I was married and I had business partners in some of these properties. So it wasn't always just about me. You know, I had some stuff in some of our businesses and you know, then Fast forward to 2010, I had a child. So the backpack was pretty appealing and the idea of it was good. And so I do have some people who are in strife and I, I try and help them analyze where they're at. And for some of them, they're young enough. I say, you know, what backpack, see you soon. Exactly.

You're done. Quite a few recently, quite a few evaluating again.

Yeah.

What, what year was the low point where when I say low point. What was that? What was the point of needing to crawl back out again?

Well, I call it the lost decade, but in reality it was probably five years. So. Look, I know you've written a book. I haven't, but if I have a title of a book, it's called Epic failure. Because in 2010, I. My son came along. That's not the failure part. But what happened after that was. So between 2010 and 2015, insolvency, bankruptcy, divorce, family court, and my ex wife and I get on great and we co parent our child.

Divorce.

So the insolvency added to the divorce or was it going to happen anyway?

I don't think insolvency and bankruptcy ever helped divorce. But look, I think we both can see now we were just mismatched. And ultimately the reason that we split was that it was best for our son to live in two happy households rather than one unhappy one. So, yeah, also during that phase, both my parents died. Multiple cancer in the family. So it was a pretty horrendous time. And frankly, there was a. A time that I'm not proud of. But nonetheless, it's reality. And you know, I attempted suicide. So it was. It was a horrible, horrible five years. So the epic failure part isn't about celebrating epic failure. It's about, for me, like as I say, if there's a book in me down the track, it's about how things can be completely shit and you can find a way and ultimately it can come back together.

Yeah, I mean, there's always that ability to find gratitude in some point. A year ago, we did that recording about thinking positive. You know, you and I know a woman at Kieferman. Just think positive. What the are you talking about? You know, it's easy to say think positive, but it's a very different thing went down in that hole. And I think people lack empathy for that point in time. For some, for other people.

Anyway, there's a. There's a great video that I watched I don't know, 500 times there. You might be able to find it. It's called Inch by Inch, and it's a clip out of an Al Pacino film caught any given Sunday. Yeah, and there'd be some days where I literally just couldn't drag himself out of bed. And I watched that clip. Yeah, don't put it on. I'll start crying. But that's where he's talking.

In the locker room.

Yep, he's in the locker room. And he talks about how he's a Middle aged man and he's basically buggered everything up and. And so, you know, sometimes help comes from strange places. Right?

Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, that's the one there. Where. And I've seen that quite a number of times myself as well, you know, and just give that little extra inch.

They're very powerful acting but more so powerful message. So when people do ring and they're in a bit of strife, I must, if I could sell that clip.

There's another three properties in it.

All right, so you get to 2015. So attempted suicide.

Yep.

Yeah.

And so unsuccessful. And so this might be a really harsh question and I've been through that process myself. Unsuccessful because you want it to be unsuccessful.

Yeah, it's funny to describe. Well, funny is not the word but.

And I, I can't describe it.

Yeah, look, I'm more than happy to talk about it because I think that it, you know. Well, I talk about it because hopefully it'll help others, but I didn't set about to do it. So this will sound really odd, but it was effectively an accident. But it was a genuine attempt. Now why did that happen? The best way I can think to describe it is I just needed out of the pain. The pain was just so intense and some of those things that I described hadn't happened yet. But you know the part that really shits me about the fact that I did that is that I had a son, he was less than 2.

And that was what. That's what the, that's the selfishness part of it. And, and to add, to add to my situation, I was going to do it in a way where it left so many unanswered questions. And I look back now and I go, oh man, that would have been horrendous for the people around me, the people, you know, as much pain as I was in, I look back now and I think how much pain that would have inflicted to other people. And interesting as there's a security guard that on the Golden Gate Brick Bridge and he had talked down hundreds of people and he said that he'd lost, I think he'd lost 11 over a span of 15 years or something that had jumped. Three of them survived and the three he went and visited the. In the hospital and he asked all three of them once they were better, would you have done it again? And all three of them said exactly the same thing. The second I stepped off. I knew it was the wrong thing to do. Like how? Like what a fucked way to find out. Thankfully they survived but. And People just don't understand how you can go from here to there very quickly and without thinking, because there's no thinking that's happening.

Yeah, the first day I was a policeman, I pulled a jumper out of the river and, and I thought about that, I wondered about, you know, and you know, as a young pup then I was 18 years old, you know, first day of being a copper. And probably that should have had a hell of a lot more effect on me than it did. But you know, when you're outside of it, even if you've been there, I think once you've been there, you can understand it very, very differently. And I'll say that about financial stress, I'll say that about divorce, I'll say that about almost any significantly negative experience that you might have got close, but you can't relate to someone who's actually been through it. And so I sadly always prick an ear whenever I hear about, you know, a suicide or attempted suicide because I'm always seeking to try and think about what they were thinking about, if that makes sense. And, and you know, I don't think I've ever heard, and I'm sure it's happened countless times, but I don't think I've ever heard of anyone kind of accidentally trying to commit suicide. But that's the best way that I can think to describe how it happened. I didn't set about to do it, but I definitely did it. I have the scars to prove it, both mental and physical. So for people to kind of judge others about being selfish or various bits and pieces, there's so much going on and for me there was just an immense amount of pain that I worked my friggin butt off to try and solve and I just couldn't solve it. And I kind of got to. I think what is almost a bit of the key, which is in life we attribute, I don't think we all attribute enough to control. So our ability to control our day, our ability to control the little things like the shirt we wear or whatever the hell it is. So, you know, one of the things now in my goals and my practice of gratitude is that I appreciate that I now have control over my life.

What if you don't have that control?

Yeah, you find it. Yeah, I mean, one of the things that I practiced during that, and you know, the practice starts unconsciously, it starts because you do something, it feels a bit better than it then, you know, trying to find. I've always been quite analytical, so I worked hard at finding ways to, to make Things better to get out of the drama, all that sort of stuff. And so practicing gratitude is an obvious one. We had a couple specific, specific get it out eventually. Things that we used to do. Yeah, it's you know, finding a way. Right.

So when was that? What year?

That was 2011.

So when's the revival as far as, you know, insolvency happens through to 2015.

Insolvency was 11 to 14.

Right. And then what do you do? What's your first move?

During that time I had a couple of. Had a couple of business partners steal from me and it's complicated to explain, but basically they were in charge of things that they owned and I owned and they saw it as all theirs. So I had a bit of tidying up to do. So what was next? I guess during that three years, lots of self analysis. What are you going to do? As you probably know, I have a collection of surfboards. People go, when did this start? And I go, well, I started collecting surfboards and I couldn't collect property, property, so kept me distracted. And you know, when you find a surfboard for 50 bucks in Gumtree, it's not an expensive habit. So.

So you're working as well?

Yeah, yeah, I was working. So I was largely speaking back in commercial agency. So and that started when I had some commercial property that was empty as the GFC was kind of gearing up. Kind of felt then a bit like it does now, hard to find a tenant, empty space. And we had a property management business that managed primarily residential, but also some commercial. And the thought process was to turn back on the commercial agency part to get some income to find myself some tenants.

So even though there was less tenants around, but you had obviously a bulk load of supply, but you just needed demand. So you specialized in finding the demand.

Yeah, well, a lot of the time commercial tenants, I mean even if they're moving from where they are to, to a new premises, it's a problem solving scenario. So what is it that they need? Can you provide it? Can I. Can you find a middle ground? So, so yeah, did that, did that for a while, I guess kind of started to rebuild, so to speak.

Yep. So first property back in as far.

As ownership block of land, build a duplex.

And so that was a straight out purchase. It wasn't it was any deal done in there?

No, not really. I mean I think when, when we kind of first remit, you know, a year or so ago you said, oh, you're the duplex guy. And the reason for the duplexes is largely, it's residential. So it's a much easier form of debt, better leverage, you know, than some of the alternatives. And also, you know, if I go back to that period in my 20s, most of those first 30 houses are mine. I built them. And not as a builder build them, but as a project manager built them. And my philosophy was always the value add being 1 +1 equals 2.2. So I just kind of went back to that. And so a duplex was a good way of, you'd say having your land cost, but as you know, in reality you kind of get two blocks for the price of one. Now it's not exactly that on a metric, but it's.

But it still gets pretty close. Exactly, yeah. And I mean it's, it's the perfect strategy. We've been doing that since day.almost, you know, because people don't. Now people are cottoning onto it. The problem is that people cotton onto it via a marketer and they, they go and sell 400 of them in Toowoomba and all of a sudden they're worth less at the back end of it.

Also with no analysis on, on cost, price and no analysis on tenant market, rental incomes, rental income, no analysis on.

The fact that Clyde Berghoffer owns half a ton Toowoomba. And you know, that sort of stuff. Like I look at here and you've heard me talk about it before, you know, you fly in on an airplane and you can see hundreds and hundreds of acres of land ready to be chopped up. Like, are you really going to get any value out of that? You know?

Yeah, I, I think what is the worst part about that to me is kind of what the state government sought to clamp out in the early 2000s, which is the white shoot brigade. So, you know, you've got accountants and financial advisors or people pretending to be financial advisors taken 30 to $50,000 commissions. I mean anyone who buys that stock isn't going to see any growth for five to 10 years because it's been sucked out by the people who pretended to be giving them advice.

Yeah, it's a disgrace, that hospital precinct, what they're selling out there. It's just bizarre, bizarre stuff. Like it, I know that the Sunshine coast took them 10 years to get back to the price they paid 10 years earlier.

Perth.

Now you can buy for the same price that you bought in 2004. Yeah, like, let's pull that up on a satellite. Let's have a satellite view of this because it's absolutely ridiculous. Like you look at the Hospital precinct. So they're selling all that stuff around of it. But then you go west and, you know, pull it west. Aaron, like, have a look at all the land that's like, that's just ready to be built on.

Like, how is it when I, you.

Know, I know when you buy a property, the land value goes up, not the actual building, the building goes down in value, the land value goes up. So if you've got an abundance of land like that ready to be built on, the chances of that going up in value in the next 10 years is nothing. That's why you want to be in densely populated areas.

Yeah, look, we probably slightly differ on some of that, but I think the key point is, is that you, like, if it was easy, everyone would do it. And for people who are buying house and land packages.

I say in a bigger estate, you want to be first in or last in, because first in they're trying to get pre sales to fund the project, to get sales, to get popularity kind of deal.

Exactly right.

I mean, all the profit for developers in the last bit, you go and make an offer on their last unit. That's a block of land or whatever it is. That's the deal. And I think that you're right. There's plenty of land. Unfortunately, our bureaucratic planning system sees that. That even if we waved a magic wand, it would be forever. See a lot of that developed and there's bits that can't, blah, blah, blah. But certainly the cookie cutter approach to property investing, or unfortunately, negative gearing has become a negative term. But there's still ways that that can work. Okay, but it's not buying off a marketeer who's sucking 50 grand out of a deal, that's for sure.

Yeah. So now you've got quite a few. I've been watching quite a few Facebook posts go up there now, adding value, doing bits and pieces, taking those 1960s, those beautiful ornate wallpaper ceilings and floors and changing them around y. Yep. I mean, you know, we're pretty similar in the type of properties that we do. You said at an event we were at together, we did the magic wand, and you said if you could wave a magic wand, you want everyone in the room to know that they're not broken.

Yeah.

There's more background than just that sentence.

Well, I think, look, I don't know if it's, let's call it the spread of social media or just the spread of message, but you know, and some might say it's the Instagram of there's a photo of someone on holidays and they look like they're having a wonderful time, but, you know, that's an image and there's nothing about what they're thinking at the time. So I just think that we all can well and truly overthink stuff. And, and I go back to that, that period, you know, again, the lost decade, I call it, particularly that five year period where I was having to practice really hard on gratitude. So in our family we have one little game that we do every day and it's the three high points. And it started in that dark period in my life where before I went to bed at night so that I could get to sleep, I had to think about something that was good out of the day. And if you've had the, the shittiest day, don't tell me you can't come.

Up with three things.

And, and in our house, actually if you grumble and we do, then you have to do four. Like that's the punishment, right? So you'd be careful not to grumble for a star. And, and that three thing could be having a chat with a friend. It could be for me, if I go for a surf, dead set. I need an extra high point every day because surfing is always one for me. And even in dark days it can be. You know, there's 8 billion humans that have lived and we're still here. We were born in Australia. You know, we were born with a social, medical, healthcare system in Australia. Like you could just go on and on, but the worst day you've had, there is always a bunch of other stuff that is better than other things.

Gary V says, you know, if you've got nothing to celebrate or be grateful for, then that means you're the 8th billionth worst off person in this planet. Because unless you're the eighth billionth you, you're the only one that can complain.

And Even then that 8th billion is still alive. What about the dead ones and breathing?

Yeah, absolutely. You've got a. I remember doing some research on the boarding house guy, right? So doing search for boarding houses on Sunshine Coast. Fucking boarding rooms, Is that what you call it?

Boarding office.

Boarding office. What the fuck is this about? Who's this guy? It's Keith.

Tell us about that business.

So the commercial agency background. We managed old school serviced offices at various times through that business and having owned commercial property there we are surfboards.

All over the place.

There's a few boards there. Yeah.

So what's going on there?

Are you.

Yeah, that's me, yeah.

Oh, you're Running marathons then or something.

Was I looking a bit skinnier there? I better do some work.

You're a vegetarian? Vegan or something?

No, it's probably that. More that now than then. It's probably just a good angle.

I finished last night.

Did you?

Yeah. I can't do it anymore.

Fair enough.

I could just. Too tired. Not getting enough nutrients.

We call it flexitarian.

Yeah.

So what that means is if we go out, we'll have some meat because they don't make good vegetarian. Whereas my wife kills it at home. Like, honestly, the vegetarian meals I have, you won't know the difference. Yeah, yeah, but I was very flexitary.

I was vegan, so I just wasn't getting nutrients. Tried different ways to find. Done all the research and everything. I just. Just couldn't get it right.

And the amount of energy you're expelling, particularly when you're running.

Yeah.

Delicate balance.

I ran three marathons as a vegan, you know, and it's doable.

You might have beaten Joel if you had some chicken.

Not a fucking chance. Not a chance. He runs way too quick. So. Yeah.

So you set these offices up and they go good.

Yeah. So Mel, my wife, before we met, she had a business called flash photography. She was the biggest regional photographer in the country. Won a Telstra National Business of the Year award. I give her a little plug and an amazing human. I'm madly in love with her. And she needed new office premises. So commercial agency hat. I said, I'll find you something. We found something that was way too big. And the owner, lovely man, his Yugoslav, he said, I not spend any money. And I said, what about that foyer? He goes, I not spend any money. Long story short, we cut a deal with him. Take the whole space. And Mel said, well, why don't you just put the board collection, which was pretty modest at the time, why don't you just put the board collection out of the back and we'll just use it as storage? And then having owned commercial property and, you know, managed them before, I had a few mates that were looking for offices. So long story short, I said, I'll fit you out a section down there. That turned into 20 suites at Mooloolaba. It was a bit like, you know, do half the fit out. Do the whole fit out. You know, the math you've done before. And as a good friend of mine who's in the surfboard side of things, he said, oh, it's a good storage solution. So, yeah, the boards are the decoration and are in the common Spaces and then in behind there are 20 small suites about the size of, you know, standard, standard kind of office. Three by three, three by.

So they, you rent them on hourly, weekly, daily.

No, semi, long term is the best way to describe it. So every, everyone that's there has their own suite, they share the common facilities and most the average stay is you know, one to three years. But, but we're kind of designed to be a platform for small and medium business so they can come in. We don't tie them up on long term leases. We pay all the electricity, all of the Internet, all that sort of stuff. So they literally have one bill from us each month outside of photocopying and, and you know, they get access to a pretty large.

Do you operate out of there?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've got an office in each one. So I kind of drift between the two.

Because you've still got a residential agency as well?

Yeah, we do, yeah, yeah.

Where'd you meet Melanie?

We met at university doing our Masters. Yeah. In the, in that.

That's the only qualification you've got in.

That five year period?

Well, other than the police.

Yeah, yeah, I suppose you call that a qualification? Yeah, I did. Oh, I did arts. Arts, law and.

No, I said a qualification, man.

Oh, well, you mean you put the.

Word arts in there. There's no qualifications.

Fair enough.

So arts, law.

Yeah, yeah, Arts, law and business degree to start with and then. Yeah, yeah, the Masters was good. I mean other than the fact that I, I got a kick ass wife out of.

It was worth every cent.

Yeah, it was, yeah. Hex didn't charge me extra though.

It's the same cost.

I'm sure it's not costing you, so.

Quite the opposite, yes.

So I suppose what would you, what would, what would you say to someone that's 20 and someone that's 45 that has nothing in property?

Well, the 20 might be easy because my daughter's 20. So when I married Mel, I got a two for one deal, best deal ever. And so I get to play dad with the daughter that I, that I obviously didn't have beforehand and she was 12 when we met, so she's at that phase, she's at uni doing.

Business and law, double degree. The one thing that I suppose that I've said that might be a little unconventional and different to what I did is I said don't rush to responsibility. Now there's no doubt that having bought my first house at seven. Sorry, seven at 17 and getting started on knowledge as well as started financially there's no doubt that that was a huge benefit to me. And yet if you draw a line at my early 30s when I go and start again, you so. Well, the financial bit didn't matter and that's the knowledge that allowed me to go again easier. So I'm like, you know, enjoy this while you've got it, while there is not necessarily a husband or a long term boyfriend, while there's not kids, you know. Yeah. So. So she did a gap year in the first year and ended up working in the business with us, her choice. Then she did a second gap year and went traveling and she's now third year out of high school where she did very well. It's obviously Mel's genes.

Well, I would have said, you know, she's got your brains, just not your genes.

So no, she definitely got Mel's. But yeah, third year and she's, she's now at uni. So. So yeah, young person, you know, there's a lot of the time you hear, do what's fun. I think that's good advice. But like there's no one liner. Right. Like the caveat is, well, it might be fun to lie on the beach, but you know, what's it doing for you? Yeah. So I think you just got to find the balance between productivity and enjoyment. And, and then even if like, you know, I've had some shit times and shit jobs in my life, as I'm sure you have, you can choose to enjoy it or find the positive bits and, and don't worry, I can be negative. Like I have to work hard at positivity. So I think that'd be the sorts of lessons. And then that's how we've tried to be. Bring Dana up and, and yeah, so far so good.

45 year old, nothing.

45 year old starting.

I might go cliche there. And I'd say that, you know, there's as you know, countless, countless examples of people who haven't got started till then. Certainly you're at the peak part of your life in terms of kind of brain power to action and there's a few people who might argue that that's different or demonstrate different, but you know, certainly not too late. Like, well, what is it that you want?

You're only really halfway through your life.

That's right.

And, and you're not even halfway through your working life technically.

Yeah.

So you just go, there's so much more to gain out of that.

Yeah, I, I've got a few friends who are quite successful in what they.

Do either successful in what they do in financially.

Oh, no, that's a great point. I was gonna say successful as in they hold a great position but hate the job or successful financially. And, and if I use a simple example in property, I've got some friends who have, or, or are, you know, project managers for big development type businesses and they're like, I want to get out and do what you're doing, Keith, because they think that I just surf all day.

Right, sure, you surf a part of the day.

I get sore arms, I do it all day, I get sunburned. But, but I say to them, you know, just be careful what you wish for. Like, you know, you're on 200 grand a year. Like, you know, that's not a lot.

Of worry to what you do. If you're on 200 grand a year working for someone else, you know the problem? You could lose your job. Yes, but you're getting, you're getting your four grand a week.

Yeah, yeah. So, okay, you want to go out and do something else, then make a plan for it. And because I, I said this at the police academy back then, I didn't even know what I was saying. I'll still say it now that it's not what you earn, it's what you do with it. And you know, look, you're a huge advocate of this and all credit to you in terms of the.

Ridiculous overspend of a bunch of housing options that people live in. And you know, we can go to cars. You know, the Millionaire Next Door is a great book that talks about, you know, car spend and where wealth lies and stuff. But, but if indeed someone wants to go and do something different, then it's not like I've had enough of this job. I'm out tomorrow, walk away from my job and start again, find a transition. So for the 45 year old it would be, what is it that you want to do? Is there economics around it? Can you combine the both, what's the path out and work your way to it? Because I know that you can go through five or ten years of hell and reshape yourself. I know that you can change things. I know that you can make an improvement.

I think the biggest benefit from your situation, my situation is that it doesn't matter what. I've said this often and I don't want to draw any energy to it, but if I was to lose everything financially, I'd still be successful. I'd still be able to go in the middle of Australia and clean septic tanks and do use my knowledge from back then and same like your experience knowledge. They couldn't take that. They could take the bank could take the million dollars off you and they could do all they want financially, but they couldn't take what, what was in your brain away.

Yeah, experience. Yep, totally. That. You know, unless. Unless it's a stroke, they're not taking the knowledge away. Right. So I totally agree. And. And if things were indeed that bad that you couldn't tick a few of those boxes, then I still go versus lottery.

Yeah.

Like, you know, my father was in his early 60s and, and, and he died of cancer. So we nursed him to his passing and he passed at home and it was a beautiful thing other than obviously the fact that he's passed. But you know, my, I said to dad, we had lots of time to talk, whereas unfortunately my mom, it was sudden, she had a heart attack and she was in her 50s. And I said to dad, regrets, changes, you know, we had all those chats and he said, oh, I've had a beautiful life. He said, my only regret is that I'm leaving you and your sister behind. And I feel like I can still help.

Yeah. At his age, just do want to help you.

Yeah.

I think that's something for me that's happened in the most recent years that the realization that your parents aren't around forever and you know, I've worked towards having more conversations, you know, came from a family where you didn't really tell, you didn't really say I love you.

Yeah.

And I've, you know, I've implemented that and, and that's been reciprocal now. So, so which is pretty awesome.

That might be the bit of advice for the 45 year old too. It's like, you know, like Mel's parents, they live in Germany still with us. She talks to them every morning and I love it.

That's awesome.

Like, look, I can't. And I say to people to, you know, talk to you. Talk to your parents if you can.

Yeah.

Ask them all the questions that you might want to ask them and then ask them some more.

Yeah. I love the Sunscreen song. I don't know if you ever heard the sun.

I don't know. Punch it up. Voices on Sunscreen song It was. And it's got a whole. It's basically a guy talking through the middle of it, talking to the song. And, and there's one line in there. Is that basically saying that you know, your friends come and go but you know, your family stays around forever. So, you know, bridge the take the bridges that you can to be able to shorten up around the. The. The times of distance and make sure you contact them, stay with people. So, yeah, so that's the sunscreen song there. Everybody's free to wear sunscreen. As a Baz Lman production from years.

And years ago, I haven't seen that.

Worth. Worth the. Worth the. Listen. Just listen to the words.

Yeah. And I might add that for those. I tend to play devil's advocate on my thinking all the time. And. And for those that. That don't have a close relationship with their family or don't have a family at all, then there's still other people. So, you know, there's some. Some guys that I know that are older than me. I mentioned Donnie Moffat before. He's a great friend of mine. You know, I certainly wouldn't call him or others father substitutes, but there's some other people where you can still kind of seek that advice and all that closeness. And so there's always somebody.

I think that's the. That's probably one of the greatest losses in my life that. That, you know, when I look at the amount of people have around me that are really close to me, not that many of them, and it's something that I'm working on. But.

What did Edison say? There's a great Edison quote. If you find that he. Basically, he says something like, success in life is the love and affection of not a lot, but just a few and those that are close to you. It's a fantastic. I actually read that poem. I'm embarrassed that I can't remember it. I read that at my father's wake.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, great.

Awesome. Mr. Grisman, thank you for your time.

Pleasure, mate. Good to catch up.

Peace out, bro.

Can we do the elbow?

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