How can you be happier? Jim's Group CEO, Jim Penman and Joel Kleber on the Jim's Podcast

People might on the outside, oh, Jim's a rich. I see it all the time. Because obviously we do a lot of social comments and they say, Jim's all this rich man, and he doesn't, you know, whatever. But are you happy and what to you is happiness?

Well, first answer is, yes, I would say I'm one of the happiest, most happy, most fortunate men, human beings on earth right now. But people's idea of what makes people happy is very badly skewed. And I read a lot of books on happiness. It's one of my favorite subjects, is to know what makes people happy. A lot of literature on social psychology and all kinds of things about unhappiness. One of the most pernicious myths is the idea that making money is what makes you happy. Now, I have a very close friend whose brother committed suicide just last year, and this was an immensely wealthy man, far wealthier than I am. Killed himself out of despair. And there's so many stories like that of people who are enormously wealthy, whose lives are barren and meaningless and empty. So, first of all, money. Now, money does bring happiness, but only up to about $80,000 a year. You can quantify it because, like, if you're struggling, if you're barely able to pay your rent or buy your food and stuff, there's no doubt that makes people very unhappy. But once you reach about the average Australian income, an extra amount of money makes surprisingly little difference to how much to your life satisfaction at all. And I can see for myself that over the years my financial fortunes have ebbed and flowed. Mostly they've gotten better, of course, but I've had some very bad times. But it doesn't have a lot to do. My own level of happiness has not a lot to do with my gross level of income. But secondly, too, what you do with your money makes a great deal of difference. Now, there's actually different ways to spend the money. Some of them are really bad, Some of them have some benefit, and some of them are incredibly good. The worst way to spend your money is on competitive display. This is based on the psychological literature. If you are getting yourself a new car or a bigger house, or impressing people or branded clothes. I mean, I'm wearing branded clothes, but they're Jim's uniforms.

Same here.

They don't cost a lot, but, you know, expensive clothes, that is the sort of thing that makes you want to compete with somebody else. I'm richer than you. I'm better than you. The trouble with that is a zero sum game, because Then they go and buy a better car, a better house, and you go do it again. And you feel left out. You got to do it again. So this striving for status actually brings very little satisfaction. One of the things they found is that when people win lotteries, their neighbors tend to go bankrupt.

The neighbors.

The neighbors.

I never knew that. Yes, right.

Because what they do is that this person buys an expensive new car or, you know, puts some dishes to their house, puts the pool in, all the kind of things the neighbours want to keep up with the.

Keeping up the Joneses.

Keeping up with the Joneses, they tend to go bankrupt.

I never knew that.

So spending for competitive is very, very limited in its value. In fact, it has really no real benefit in terms of happiness as far as the spending on experience, like going out to restaurants and going out with your family or your friends that punch your social life or trips and so forth like that does have a certain benefit. Not as much as you think, though, but it does have a benefit. But the actual, you know what, the absolute number one way that you can spend money that really makes you happy, give it away. They found that people who give to worthwhile causes, particularly when they are personally involved in the cause in some way, like you fund World Vision and you go to a trip to places where they're being helped, or you actually become part of the whole enterprise, that actually does have a very dramatic effect on happiness. So money, money doesn't buy happiness, but if you give it away, it can actually do a fairly good job.

So let's talk about you with your happiness and how you do that. So what do you do in terms of giving away? Obviously, you do a lot of donations for research and stuff like that. You spend a lot of money on that.

Well, I basically go by the Gates foundation principle and I deeply admire Bill Gates, what he's done. In fact, my whole view of Microsoft completely changed when he set that foundation up. Because what he does, what the Gates foundation does, is it looks at where the money can do the most good. That's not what tugs at the heart. It's where rationality says, I can save the most lives and make the most difference. So they do a lot of work with, say, vaccinations of kids in third world countries. I mean, the Gates foundation has probably saved millions of lives already. I mean, that guy is one of the greatest benefactors in all of history, what they've done. So I deeply admire that kind of principle. So what do I do with my money? Well, again, I don't actually say no to most of the quests. People are always asking me to sponsor worthy clauses against cancer and all kinds of really great clauses. My absolute answer is no, because I have two charities only you might say. The first is that I tithe as a Christian. It's a biblical principle. So I tithe. There's no question about support my local church. 10% of my personal income. No, I just do that.

Geez, the church must be doing all right then. They might be quite happy.

They don't do too bad.

Do you have a front row seat? They give you a nice reserve seat.

Well, the only side of it, my own personal. I'm talking about my personal income, not my gross business income, is not as much as you might think. So I do all right. And actually what I do is I have a direct debit. So every. Every month a certain amount of money goes out from my account straight into the church's care.

Okay?

So I don't forget it when they send the collection. Everybody thinks I'm a total scrooge, because that's how it goes automatically because there's no temptation. It's just there. It just goes out. So I do do that. As I said, it's a principle from the Bible. But the other thing I fund is my research. And the simple reason for that is because I've developed a theory about human society which suggests that an enormous amount of human suffering and misery, including not only mental illness, which I'd love to talk about another time, but also even issues such as poverty, drug addiction. Those kinds of issues could be solved if we understood the basis of character, and we can change them. And my theory gives me some very interesting ideas about the way that we've done it. We've actually proved this with rats to a certain extent. And we've got some treatments that are really close to coming to. So in a sense, there's nothing remotely as useful I could do with my money as to fund my research. So I'm quite happy to say no to anything else. And as people again think, I'm a total scrooge and I'm. I've got no heart. I really don't mind. I'm gonna do. God gave me considerable resources. I'm gonna use them in the best possible way.

Yeah. And that's where you just focus them solely on that because that's if you believe that's your purpose.

Yeah.

And that's what something you have. And that's. That's at the isn that you do the research there as well. Your Institute.

And people might say I'm wrong, but that's their opinion. I've got to judge by what I think is the best thing I can do, what with that. And personally, what I try and do too is to live a reasonably simple kind of life. I drive a fairly old car.

You like Teslas but you won't buy one because they're too expensive. Remember you telling me that?

Yeah. I like the idea of an electric car because I think it's got good conservation values and I believe in renewable resources and stuff. I think we've got to stop. We've got to stop destroying the environment and so forth. So I believe in that kind of stuff. So people. Personally, I'd love to own an electric car once it becomes affordable. I'd love to generate my own powder so I'd never have to pay for electricity. That would be certainly great. But I live pretty simply and that's actually partly because I don't believe we're given money to spend on personal consumption. We live a pretty normal middle class lifestyle actually. But it's also because I don't want my children to be destroyed by wealth. And what you often see is that kids from privileged backgrounds become very spoiled and it's too easy for them. Well, I've made it clear to my kids we'll give you better hope with buying a house. But apart from that, you're on your own. Your money that I create in the end is. Goes for the research. And that's because the research is good, but also because I don't want it to be destroyed. And there's so many stories about families that are wealthy that the kids just become useless, at least after the first generation or so. I don't want to have to my children. It's no gift to them.

So in regards to what's the number one thing that makes you the most happiest? I know you love your family and you've always got a great loving wife. So what's the number one thing that makes you the most happiest, Jim? Is it your research or is it your family or what's the number one thing?

It's my wife.

Your wife?

I have, I have, yeah. I had the best wife I could possibly. You could possibly imagine. I mean, I mean, you know, you know what it's like when you have a honeymoon. You haven't been on a honeymoon, never been on. Imagine being married to your perfect love. You found your perfect love of your life and you're in a honeymoon and it's just glorious. She is the most beautiful, the most best woman on earth. You just love to look at her, touch her is amazing. Your heart sings with joy when you see her. And she just makes the whole life bright. Imagine if you felt that way after 18 years. That's what I've got. I don't even understand how it can happen because I've got three failed marriages. I must be incredibly obnoxious that three women couldn't stand to live with me and yet got this amazing, amazing marriage that is number one. And after that, I've got great kids. I love my kids dearly. I just get so much joy from them. I don't find much negatives about kids at all. I never did. The only big negative is My youngest is 10. And I wish we had more. But I love my kids. I have a great business. I love gyms. It's fascinating, it's interesting, and it's got a sense of purpose because I'm out there helping thousands of families. And that's what drives me as much as anything. I never think. I don't ever think much about the bottom line. It's got to be there. But my focus is how can I make my franchisees happier and more successful? That's there. And of course, my overwhelming purpose is my research. So I've got a sense my whole life is very meaningful. So it's.

You've got these five things working almost in conjunction, right?

It's an interesting life, but it's also a purposeful life, even with kids. I love my kids, but I also want them to be the best people they can be. And there's a purpose to that. And that's what a lot of the research shows, actually. It's whether you enjoy what you do, which I do, but also whether there is meaning behind it. And sometimes there's a compromise between the two. The people who aren't very fond of would rather do something else than spend time with their kids. They actually discipline themselves to spend time with their kids. And because that gives them a sense of purpose and meaning in their life, they're actually happier for doing it, even though they'd rather be out there drinking at the local pub. Now, my advantage is that the things that I should do, which is working on my research and business and with my kids, I love doing anyway. In fact, one of the times my children were watching something on television and there was this. And they were laughing their heads off. And there was this scene where the. Where these parents were arguing about whose time it was to babysit the kid while the other one went out and they thought that was absolutely hysterical because in our house what happens is somebody wants to go out, they try and persuade the kids to go with them. So it's kind of like the opposite. They thought it was so funny because it was the opposite of what they'd seen. But I have a wonderful life on top of that, too. Another thing, health, fitness. I'm not a fanatic, but I like to do at least half hour of vigorous exercise every day and I also walk as much as possible. I will never, ever take the stairs. Take the. Let's go. If I take the stairs. And I run a lot, even just for fun or just around the place, so I keep as fit as I can, keep my diet under control.

You do that every day, don't you? Every day you do.

Every day I do either running or I play squash or I work on my farm or I do something like that. I do something that actually keeps me fit and active and I try and keep my weight under control. Though I have a struggle with things like chocolate.

That's true.

When I laid out in the office, Nutella's the one. Oh, that's a terrible thing that. I go to the table, it's looking at my eyes, it's like, like the, the food equivalent of pornography. Which, which I don't.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. I know. We know what you mean. Yeah.

So, so, and then fitness has an enormous effect on mood.

Yeah.

It affects health. If you could, if you could bottle the effects of fitness on health and mood, it'd be worth billions and billions and billions of dollars. You just got to get there and do it.

Now, do you think, like I was going to say, so let's talk about gratefulness. I know we've talked about this in the past before about gratefulness now, do you think a lot of people, this might be a bit off topic, but in Australia are generally grateful or ungrateful. So for me, working in a business, I come with a different background than most, but for me, I think if you, you said 80 grand is the limit. Right. So 80 grand, for some reason, happiness below or whatever, I've seen a lot of people, I know a lot of people who make an exorbitant amount of money, yet they're so negative, everything's bad. You think Australia's the worst place in the world to live in? You turn on Talkback Radio, Australia is the worst place in the world. Do you think people are generally, in society in general, too ungrateful now these days?

Well, the point of it is, actually, yeah. If you don't appreciate what you've got, it really is not much benefit to you.

Well, do you think that's important to the topic of happiness, then? To step back occasionally to look about what you've got and because the way you talk about it, then you can see, even your eyes and your face when I talk to you, you can see you're looking like this, and you can see the feeling of happiness coming over you as you're talking about the things that you're grateful for in your life.

Yeah, absolutely. But actually, in this case, it comes to something which is an overarching principle, is my Christian principle, my Christian belief. One of the things that we do a lot of is we pray. And when you pray, you give thanks. So every day, multiple times, you're thanking God for your blessings. And I thank God for my wife, for my family, for everything that we enjoy, for health, everything. And I'm always thinking about, always praying about that. So actually, overall, I mean, behind all these principles, your faith is incredibly important. It's in so many ways, if you looked at the happiest times of my life, actually, it's in church on Sunday morning with my beautiful wife beside me, just singing praise to God. That's amazing. Happiness. It's like, I don't know what, I've never tried crack cocaine. Must be something similar. But it doesn't get any. It stays great. It stays great. And also the sense of community. I have a group of wonderful guys that we meet every fortnight. We have dinner together and we just share our feelings and our thoughts and we pray together and pray for each other. That sense of community is really wonderful. And when I go to church, they're there. So I always go. And my wife's always complaining. I spend too long talking to them. Come on, we need to go and get some lunch. But I love that sense of community, that sense of faith that's behind everything.

What you said is interesting at the start about praying, where you remind yourself and you say what you're thankful for. In all disclosure, I'm not a Christian at all. I'm an atheist. And for me, what I actually do is. Let's say we'll call it the equivalent. Actually, in my office, I have a notebook. I come in the morning, I write down three things I'm grateful for. When I get negative or when I start moaning about something, I actually will open the book and look at it. And whatever that problem is, it always goes away. I think people need to start stepping outside themselves. A bit more when they have a negative problem, get down, think back to what they're grateful for, write it down, what they're grateful for and just realize how lucky they are. And I think travel as well. I know you don't like travel, but I think the occasional trip to. I'm not saying I'm a world traveler by any means, but I've been to a few countries and I always love coming home.

Okay, so you've realized the positions aren't the best things. Travel experiences is better, but number one, give it away. Number one, start working on that and then you'll really start to achieve. Like when you want to travel rather than going on a holiday, why don't you start contributing to world vision and go on a trip to them in the field and see what your money is doing. I've done that actually in China. Went to Yunnan once before I started my research and that was an amazing life changing experience. Try that, try giving it away and try and be involved with what you're doing and I guarantee that'll do more than any other trip.

Yeah, I agree with you, I agree with you. Well, for me I went to Delhi, I went to India to make, get married in India. And that was the most confronting thing as you can imagine, I've ever seen. And when I come back here, like there's our times in the office where I might say this and that or whatever, but I always try and look back, think and go, now I've got it, we've got it pretty good here. Which is why it baffles me sometimes I do get frustrated by people who you'll meet and they're very successful. They've got all the things in the world which you probably want. They've got a house, family, whatever, and they're still, you know, So I think it's interesting how you said the religion stuff, how you pray. That's your way of probably doing my three, three things where I write down every day and you remind yourself every day what you're grateful. You can even see when you're talking, you have the smile on your face when you're talking about all the things you're gratefulness. But I.

Well, the same principle applies to atheists though when I'm talking about religion, as my pastor likes to say, Christianity is mainly a matter of eternity. It's Christian behavior and Christian attitudes that makes people happy and successful. So, you know, the same kinds of principles is using your money, well, giving it away if necessary, whether you're an atheist or a Christian the benefit is the same.

You don't need religion to do good things.

Being part of a community, being part of a. Having strong bonds with other people, caring about other people and trying to help them and them helping you. That. That sense of support, happy family life, having good relationship with your. Your wife and your kids one day, which I obviously probably a while away.

A while away.

Well, I recommend is the best. Being married is the best, I can assure you from experience. I know I've had some bad experiences too.

But you've been married for eight. Is it 18 years now?

18 years. Just over 18 years.

Just over 18 years, yeah. You're still in your honeymoon phase, as you say.

Still honeymoon.

That.

That's totally unexpected. That's beyond my. Beyond wildest expectation. If you do ask me when I first got married what the best possible thing it could turn out to be, I would not have remotely guessed how good it would be. So I'm unusually fortunate in that way. But most of these principles, as you say, thankfulness, being aware of your blessings, just thanking you. Can't thank God, I guess, but just being aware that you are blessed, that you've got some. You've got an incredible. You've got an incredible boss. Okay.

Yeah, that's true. I'll write that down, Jim. I'll have to thank Jim now and put it down.

And an interesting job. And you can see yourself achieving things. You've got some sense of purpose in your life. You've got relationship with people around you. There's so many and, you know, like to see you getting healthier and getting fitter and so forth. All these things will help and they're just universal principles. We're not talking about religion as being something separate from life. The principles that we live by are actually great ones for happiness. To me, the Bible is God's manual. It's a spiritual message, but it's also a guide how to live successfully. And if you take the principles and apply them, even if you don't believe it'll work for you.

Yeah, it's an interesting one. And it's something that I think the RDK cap I think will be interesting a lot of people. And that's something you. Did you listen to that one on an audiobook or was that something you read?

Yes, I can. I'll give you some. I'll give you some references, actually.

Cool. I have to look at it, but if you want to see what the. Inside the Gym's life and especially relationship with Lee. We've actually had Lee on the ass Gym, which is nice for around an hour and a bit. And we obviously did a day in the Life of Jim where we went and saw. To be honest with you, I'm not saying it's because you're my boss.

You are.

The kids that I've met are all good kids. You know, you've got James, you've got Andrew, you've got Esther, Aaron, Sylvia, Sylvia, Jasmine. Jasmine. I've met, I've met six of your kids and they're all really, you can tell they're raised really well and you've obviously, you know, brought them up, which is a testament to yourself and Lee, which is great. And to what you've, you've stuck. Obviously you practice what you preach in that regard. But I was going to say, what is, let's say for people, what is there if they wanted to say, right, well, I'm not happy at the moment, what would you advise them to do? They're not happy in their position. What's some basic gym advice you could give to those people? And that's a very open ended question. It's very tough.

Well, there's so many things, as I said, relationships, if you look at what happy relationships matter an incredible amount. So strong bonds with those around you, which means putting yourself out and that means family, it can be friends, it can be anything. That's always very high sense of community, sense of belonging matters.

So let's say someone's not involved in that sort of stuff. Let's say they might go and join a community group or join a sporting team or do something or join a club of people.

Especially, especially, I have to say a club that's doing something good for others like a sporting team is probably good. But if you can join the cfa, for example, and you protect your neighbors, I mean, I know that's, that's a great organization or you know, join and be a volunteer for the, for the Red Cross or just help out at a thrift store or something like that. Do something for other people. A community that's involved, service is actually number one that's going to work the best. I know that sounds awfully, but this.

Is basically the stuff that you've been research like you listened to. That's, that's giving back on that sense of purpose.

There needs to be a sense of purpose to life. I think if you feel your life is there, the one thing that most, one attitude that is most characteristic of drug addicts is that the purpose of life is to be happy. Because actual fact, what they do is they do the things that have short term trade off, but long term hurt, right? And you've got to think that you're going to not do the things that right now you might feel like doing by doing the things that you should be doing. So relationships, something with a sense of purpose. I would say, frankly, too, in your job, and I'm a bit biased in this, but it's interesting. I would like to say that people who buy a franchise in gyms tend to make more money than those they did in their previous job. Now, the interesting thing about it, from what we can find out, is it's actually very similar. People who weren't a very good income in the past tend to earn a good income with us. People who made a more average income tend to make an average income. There's not a lot of difference overall. But the big difference I found is that especially talking to men that they say is great about it is that they get to spend time with their kids in a way they never could in the past. Yet they had a good job in the past, but they were in the city and they were working there nine hours a day and commuting an hour and a half in traffic each way. And they hardly see their kids except the weekends. And that's not an uncommon story these days as a franchisee. They're making about the same money, but they're working from home and they go to their kids. I was talking to the guy who'd been 10 years. I ring up people on their important anniversaries, and he'd been here 10 years, and he said, it's so wonderful. I go to my kids, I drop them off at school, I go to their sporting events. I've got a relationship with them far better than I ever had in the past. And I'd say it's a mistake to chase money as the number one thing. It's far better to have a job that you enjoy and that gives you flexibility in life and gives you a chance to do the more important things, to spend time with your family. There's a wonderful saying that no other success can compensate for failure in the home. And I absolutely believe that. And that's one of the things that gives me the greatest satisfaction when I talk to somebody who says, this is so great, or I wish I'd done this a decade earlier. It's been such a great experience. And it's not usually because they're making more money. Sometimes they do very well, of course, but it's usually because their lifestyle is so much better.

Yeah, it's quite interesting. You know, it's not just sales. We. I obviously do a lot of video content with the guys, Jake and Ben, and we do a lot of the interviews with people and stuff and they always say the same thing. It's great. I get to pick up my kids or drop them off from school. That's always, that's a common thing. You know, sometimes people might say money or fitter or whatever, but the predominantly, the majority of them say I get to see my kids, I can drop them off if the wife's at work or whatever they're doing and I can pick them up. They couldn't do that before. That seems to be actually the number one sort of comment we always get from doing this. And we've done more than probably 50 of these.

I get the same thing all the time too. It's very much that. It's wonderful. And that gives me great satisfaction myself because you see people whose lives are better. One of the most pernicious idea in this society is that you've got to have some sort of prestigious job with a salary and a title and sitting at a desk all day playing with the computer and going to meetings where you're very important and wearing your suit and tie and kind of stuff too.

It's all external validation though, right.

And always going to university and earning more and more degrees and stuff and always chasing and chasing and chasing and chasing for more status and more power and more money and this kind of thing. It's a pathetic way to live the life. In fact, the interesting thing is that the tradies actually tend to be. In a lot of ways. Do you know that the occupations with the highest levels of satisfaction of all the ones they studied, there's two florists and gardeners. Not investment bankers, not lawyers. In fact, lawyers tend to rate very, very low. They're one of the unhappiest professions there are.

Lawyers, lawyers. Dentist was always one that was down.

Yeah, yeah. Even doctors are particularly happy. I mean, I mean, we certainly need doctors and we need dentists and I'm always very grateful to my dentist. I've got a lovely lady Sarah that I go to if I need. I really feel appreciative of her. But it's not one of your happiest professions but gardeners, you know, and yet people think, my father actually, he was horrified. He just, he's a university trained engineer and you know, he had an expensive education, all the rest of it. And then when I became a gardener, he was, he was not impressed at all. I did a PhD, which at least, you know, you can go to Oxford and become a respected academic. And then that all fell apart and I became a gardener. And he was absolutely horrified. But towards the end of his life, when I had about a thousand franchisees, I actually said to him once, I said, dad, it wasn't such a bad career decision, was it? He said, no, I guess not.

A thousand franchisees before you get that comment.

But I think in a sense, Dad, I can understand his attitude because they had sacrificed for their children to be successful.

But that was the old model, wasn't it? We're gonna work hard so that you can have a better life and we want you to go.

It's still the modern model, too. People feel this way more than. More than they ever did.

I personally feel so.

And I think somebody who's a. Who's a gardener or a cleaner or a handyman or a plumber or electrician or doing some basic physical job and doing it well and getting properly paid for. We suggest our franchisees look at at least 60 bucks an hour as payment. And a lot of them are far more. Of course, it's a good job, it's a useful job, and it's a flexible job. And people turn their nose down at these kinds of manual type of jobs.

For me, that's the problem now, quite wrongly, and that's the problem I see is that we had a great franchisee, which is Dan Kahl and mine guy, I think he's 25, he's turning over. Won't say their exact amount, but it's a lot more than if someone went to uni for certain amount of years and let's say was seven years into a law degree, they still wouldn't be as a lawyer, they wouldn't make the same money as.

Well, the point of it is, if you have the, if you have the initiative and the energy to succeed, you can do extraordinarily well. There's a. There's a wonderful book called the Millionaire Next Door, which I really reckon you should read. And it's talking about what the typical American millionaire is like. And they think of that as being somebody who is, you know, a high tech yuppie or an executive in a big corporation. Actually, it's not. It's people like, like me and like many of my franchisees who are actually gone into fields like gardening, janitorial services, construction, those kinds of areas worked manually, built a major business on it. And one of the reasons that they're wealthy too is not just because they make good money. Because in that environment there's no pressure to spend. See if you're a corporate lawyer, yes, you make a big salary but you've got to wear a really expensive suit and drive the latest Lexus and you've got to really posh restaurants where you can be seen and you've got to buy all the high status stuff and you're always working really, really hard to pay the debt and all this stuff too. And again, it's competitive spending, it doesn't really make you very happy. Whereas somebody who's running a cleaning business or whatever, they've got people working for them, they can live in an ordinary house and they actually create wealth for their family and security and they pay off their house and buy a few investment properties and this kind of thing. So it's actually, I wish people weren't so, so sucked in. I always tell my kids, actually they always tend to want to go to university. But I said if you don't want, if you want to do something different, more practical, I back you 100%. Yeah.

And I think that's. But I sort of think in a way like obviously you listen to that Gary Vee book for example and Gary Vee's well, entrepreneur. I think entrepreneurship though is a general. Though is coming back to be really. It's a very sexy thing now to say you're an entrepreneur.

It's much more so than when I was younger, that's for sure. Like when I was. Nobody ever talked about going into business for your yourself. It just wasn't no way, you know. Yeah, yeah, sure. Do you want to do science, you want to do law, do you want to do medicine? You know, you're going to go into corporate world, whatever, but your business for yourself, no way. That's actually a lot more sexy than it used to be. I feel, I feel justified even mind you, I didn't do it deliberately. I wanted to be an academic. It's just only when I lost out that I had to. I knew there was no future for me in academia so I decided to make my law man business into something better.

Yeah, and it's interesting you said that about the entrepreneur. It is sexy but for some reason it seems to be associated with the tech stuff now. So everybody's obviously it's associated with the tech stuff. Entrepreneurship's not necessarily being associated with let's say lawn and gardening or gardening business or cleaning business or whatever. So you think that's something for young people to sort of take a note of because you Know how much opportunity there is in it with all the unserviced leads and stuff like that.

Oh, I wish they would. I wish they would like, like, like Dan and there's so many like that and obviously Dan's not an average guy.

He is. Oh, he's very driven.

He's a very driven, he's very smart, he's very engaging. I mean he's got a lot of abilities and talents or someone like yourself too. I mean you're not in business but you actually, you know, you. If I can say you came into the business doing. How long ago is it? Eight years.

Eight years and two months.

Yeah. Came in to do a casual job, just part time.

I did while going to uni, you know, I didn't. I've a good idea. I went to uni. The only reason I went to uni is to keep my mum happy, to be honest. I'll tell you a bit more about that later. Bit. The only reason I went to uni was to keep my mum happy and I think that's what a lot of kids do now.

But the point about your situation is you came in to do a basic job and then we shifted you into insurance and when you were there you obviously had certain kinds of talents and abilities, particularly to do with websites and this kind of thing, certain interests and now you've become, eight years later, one of my top managers. So to me that's a wonderful career progression in itself. Perhaps not quite the standard corporate environment, but the ability to actually start from the bottom of anything. And there's work, as I've done, of course, with mowing lawns. That ability to work your way up through things is, I think you've got.

To pay your dues and I think that's something. People want everything quickly and, you know, now, now, now. I think when I started working I knew how hard you work and it was great because you could get spotted because obviously Jim's the direct, you know, report and Jim knows what's going on. So I think understanding you got to pay your dues, I think it's a big thing. That's what I find. It's interesting though because let's say Dan, someone like Dan. Dan's extremely driven as a businessman at 25, he's probably making the same money as someone who's, let's say, depending on how successful are. I'd say that he's making more than the average, average lawyer, I would say, based on what he was telling us. So for me it's like, well, if you are wanting all that external validation. Buy the service business because it's a lot quicker to get to that money level that you want. And if you really want to do it, you would. You know, you could buy those things if that's what you need but you probably find out that you won't. You probably be a hell of a lot happier.

Well, yeah. Wealth is way of achieving what your goals are. We have a wonderful. I have a wonderful financial advisor guy called Marcus Koch recommended to me by a friend of mine who runs a giant missionary organization, an actual fact called Embark which does a lot of India. Jossy, Checko, you know, Jossie. Yeah. And I was asking him for advice on possibly going public and he said talk to Marcus. So I brought Marcus in and every month he comes in and spends a half day with us just, just advising me. And he is, he is the most amazing guy. He knows so much stuff and he has this high flowing job but half his time he works free for Empire.

He does a lot of other stuff. Yeah, I remember him telling.

And he gives sermons in his local church. He's a very strong Christian. He's just an amazing, amazing blessing to the business and to myself. That guy.

That's what comes back to what you said at the start though, those five things. He's very similar to you in that regard, isn't he? He goes and gives away a lot of his time, a lot of his expertise, a lot of money to help all those other people. He's very successful as well in what he does and he has the community and he has all that sort of stuff as well. So it seems to be a like minded person with yourself, with Marcus. It seems to be a good match. So we'll leave it there. Thanks for this one today, Jim. It was really good. It was a lot of good information there for people and a lot of great insights there. So hopefully you subscribe and obviously you listen to us and give us a rating if you can and we'll see you next time.