We all know money is simple, but behaviour is hard.
So what can we do to create lasting financial habits and behaviours instead of falling back into old money habits?
Folks, in today’s episode, we’re sharing a scientifically backed solution that’ll reveal how to achieve your goals financially and in life.
From introducing feedback loops to creating accountability (and that’s just the tip of the iceberg), we’re uncovering how these can be used to boost goal achievement, motivation, self-efficacy, and more!
It's a revolutionary episode where we dive beyond the waters of investing psychology and into the deeper, murkier waters of why humans act the way we do. Give it a listen now!
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LISTEN TO THE FIRST 20 EPISODES HERE >>
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👉 Apple: https://apple.co/3ioICGW
👉 Google Play: https://bit.ly/3OT86bW
👉 Web platform: https://www.moorr.com.au/
FREE MASTERCLASS:
- How to Build a Property Portfolio and Retire on $2,000 a week >>
FREE BEST-SELLING BOOKS:
- The Armchair Guide to Property Investing
- Make Money Simple Again
FIND US HERE:
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We all know money is simple, but behaviour is hard.
So what can we do to create lasting financial habits and behaviours instead of falling back into old money habits?
Folks, in today’s episode, we’re sharing a scientifically backed solution that’ll reveal how to achieve your goals financially and in life.
From introducing feedback loops to creating accountability (and that’s just the tip of the iceberg), we’re uncovering how these can be used to boost goal achievement, motivation, self-efficacy, and more!
It's a revolutionary episode where we dive beyond the waters of investing psychology and into the deeper, murkier waters of why humans act the way we do. Give it a listen now!
Free Stuff Mentioned
Upcoming Events Mentioned
LISTEN TO THE FIRST 20 EPISODES HERE >>
MOORR MONEY MANAGEMENT APP:
👉 Apple: https://apple.co/3ioICGW
👉 Google Play: https://bit.ly/3OT86bW
👉 Web platform: https://www.moorr.com.au/
FREE MASTERCLASS:
- How to Build a Property Portfolio and Retire on $2,000 a week >>
FREE BEST-SELLING BOOKS:
- The Armchair Guide to Property Investing
- Make Money Simple Again
FIND US HERE:
- Website
- Instagram
- Facebook
- Youtube
All right, folks, welcome back to the Property Couch podcast. And we've often said money is simple, but behavior is hard. And the question is what can we do to make sure the behavior doesn't derail our goals? Ben, how do we cover it?
Speaker 2:Well, mate, we're going to tell a secret that's proven in the science of research about a simple thing that you can do that radically changes your outcome, and then at the end of that, we'll talk about a little concept called sustained consistency Ross.
Speaker 1:Oh, secrets. Are we any good at keeping secrets? No, we're not, folks. We reveal all. Let's rip into the show.
Speaker 3:Welcome to the Property Couch where, each week, you get to listen to two of Australia's leading property and money experts Bryce Holdaway, co-host of Location Location, location Australia on FoxTel's Lifestyle Channel and co-host of Escape from the City on the ABC. And Ben Kingsley, chair of Property Investors Council of Australia and a back to back winner of the Property Investment Advisor of the Year Award, and both are partners of the multi award winning Impal Weld, co-creators of Moor, the Freelife Style Design Act, as well as bestselling authors of the Armchair Guide to Property Investing and Make Money Simple Again. Stay tuned as they bring you the Insiders Guide to Property Finance and Money Management.
Speaker 1:All right, folks, welcome back to the Property Couch podcast and, as I say every week, ben, welcome back to YouTube.
Speaker 2:Mate thrilled to be here. I'm really. Actually, this episode today is something that I've been wanting to do for a long time, so I'm looking forward to it. I think we can bring a lot of evidence based and anecdotal information and real life stories into what's going on here. So, yeah, I'm really excited about today show.
Speaker 1:I think you bang on, but pop quiz question without notice. Ben, tomorrow is Friday. What's significant about tomorrow?
Speaker 2:What's significant about tomorrow, Friday? It's the last day of the week.
Speaker 1:It is TGIF 100%. I'll give you a clue, ben. Something happened on this day back in 2015 and it's tomorrow. Oh well, happy birthday.
Speaker 2:Happy birthday for us for the podcast Pretty quick. Nine years, ben, nine years Wow.
Speaker 1:Like that. Just, that's just flown, it is just flown. So, folks, it's our ninth birthday tomorrow. Episode one we fix bad property investment advice was on February the 23rd 2015. Ben, who would have fun? It's so here we are. Tomorrow is the 23rd of February 2024. If my maths serves me correctly, ben, we are one year shy of hitting 10 years in this game, so it's been nice. Now, as you know, through out February, ben it's our birthday month we have been giving away free reports, so, so I recommend you go and do that. So if you go to the property cashcomau, forward slash property report pretty hard to remember, I would have thought Ben forward slash property report.
Speaker 2:Can I? Can I tell you a little funny story, broth? Yeah yeah, it's been that popular that we actually ran out of credit, so we had to buy some more credits. I did, I did Good, I did see the people who put, who went on there and tried to get their report, is like nothing's being delivered. Well, we fixed that problem there. I guess we used our quota.
Speaker 1:Let's apologize to those folks, ben, and just say, hey look, we've got a few extra credits and we're doubled up.
Speaker 2:We're doubled up. We've even doubled up, so we're not going to run out of credits. Well, we hope not. Let's see, you know, tens of thousands of people get on there.
Speaker 1:If they go back and check that out, folks, you can get that. So the property cashcomau forward slash property report you can actually get that for free and I challenge you to go and have a look, ben. It's for the folks listening to this, because don't assume basic data. There is a lot of meaningful stats in that report which we're really proud of. So go and get access to that for free. And Ben just want to remind everyone I'm probably going to do it routinely throughout the year, but we are we're trying to get a hundred thousand subscribers, so we've started the year at 76000. So, if you listen but you don't subscribe, if you could just hit the subscribe button, that would be super helpful. And, of course, if you could screenshot you know an episode that really resonates with you and share it with a friend, we would be very, very grateful for that sharing. We've got an oil, I say we. You've got an upcoming webinar, ben, that you want to talk about.
Speaker 2:Twenty seven, I can put my pick a hat on. So on the 27th of February, seven to eight pm, australian Eastern Daylight Savings Time, we've got Reba's chair, so Reba is the buyers agency association of Australia, melinda Jenison. So she's going to come on and talk about the 2024 market outlook as they see it, the key elements of what to look out for, and you're also going to learn a little bit more about what a buyers agent brings to the table. So remember, those are for members of Picker. Thank you again to all those people who are joining. We've had a spike in joining, we've had a spike in donations, so I really appreciate that. But this is the value you get, obviously, of being a member. So you'll see, there'll be a link in the show notes that will take you to register for this webinar. So please do so.
Speaker 2:And then, bryce, also, whilst I've got the floor, if I can, I'm doing a little keynote chat. You are to a group of doctors in Sydney, so there's a there's a doctors conference coming up and it's called Financial Independence Career Optionality Conference. So I think they call it the five financially dependent career optionality conference on March 9 and 10. So if you're a doctor, you're in Sydney or anywhere around Australia and you want to basically two day conference. I've, I've actually got the first, first keynote First off, first game off the rink.
Speaker 1:I mean when you think about it, because everyone's the freshest. They came, they've had to do some networking and all those sorts of things, so you're the first person that gets no pressure, hey, no, I don't want to build this up for you, mate, so I wouldn't stuff it up like that. You have every single set of eyes on you.
Speaker 2:At that point in time, there is no margin for oh no, they're all going to be souped up with coffee and everything. So I'm going to have to be on my best game and I've got to. You know, five am start to get on a six am flight to get up there to do. Oh, I'm looking forward to it. So again in the show description there will be a link there if you're a doctor and you're interested in heading along to a conference in regards to. This is all about a career optionality and basically you know, looking after doctors. So it's run by doctors to help doctors out. So check it out also if you want to get along to that.
Speaker 1:There'll be an opportunity to come say good day to you, I'm sure at some stage to get and we've got we've got a lot of doctors in our community, both on the podcast community and within our business community.
Speaker 2:Correct, we do.
Speaker 1:Yes, clearly they. They have a lot of front loaded low income band because of the amount of study and commitment that they have to their craft early days. But clearly the medical community in a lot of forms then has that sort of exponential income growth that they can trap surplus, put it to work, all those sorts of things.
Speaker 2:So well, they got a lot of hex debt or help debt to pay off to, so why not? I mean, at the end of the day, they're performing an incredible public service in looking after our you know, unwell, our sick and unhealthy, and so they do incredible work and so obviously gives them an opportunity to get back on a level playing field financially as well.
Speaker 1:Not to be confused, Ben, that only doctors and medical professionals are in a position to invest, because that is not true. You are a medical professional. You do have a wonderful opportunity to carve out a bit of the tax revenue you would have given to the government and put it towards asset building, which is which is pretty good. I mean, my mindset minute theme today is super simple but, I think, incredibly profound, so I just want to land it for the folks at home listening to this, wherever they are running Jim train, commuting, whatever it is. Savings means you put your money to rest. Investing means you put your money to work Well love it. Where'd that come?
Speaker 1:from. Well, I I unashamedly well, maybe a bit of shame at Lee. I try. I scroll through a few Instagram feeds, ben, and this one popped up.
Speaker 2:Didn't have a, didn't have a credit to someone, but whoever's. Yeah, I mean I like that Because you know we always say you can't save your way to retirement, right.
Speaker 1:So saving means putting your money to rest. Well, market a little minuscule return on that, Ben, a little minuscule return. But investing means you put your money to work folks, that is, that is a nice little. What do you call it? Bumper sticker for what this particular podcast is all about. We say you can't save your way to retirement.
Speaker 2:It's a core pillar Make your money work harder for you that's. That's ultimately what we're here to do. It's one of our core pillars in terms of getting people on track to where they want to get to.
Speaker 1:All right, there you go, folks. So are you someone who puts your money to work or is someone who puts your money to rest? And there is a profound difference on which one of those categories you're fitting. All right, ben, today.
Speaker 1:Our central theme of what we want to talk about today is this universal principle that we've talked about many, many times that money is simple, but behavior is hard. So if behavior is hard, we want to actually tackle that. We want to talk about what can we actually do about that, ben? Because there is a secret that we want to uncover through this podcast is how you can actually overcome these behavior derailers, and we want to base that in some scientific research, ben. So it's important for people to lean in on today, because money, in fact the program that we've talked about for nine years, ben, there is no rocket science. It is largely just the nuances of money beliefs and money behaviors and impulse control and delay, gratification and all that stuff. When that gets munged into the basic plan, that's when it goes to custard, and we want to give people some resources to help with that.
Speaker 2:Well, if you think about there's a I want to do a couple of little sort of scene-setters here. You think about money smarts. It's a rules-based money management system that requires 10 minutes a month to operate. And so once you set your annual targets up which this time of year is why that's part of the scene-setting piece I want to say we could have done this in some series but by design we've intentionally delayed it into the late February because all of those people at the start of January are like is it? Is it? I'm going to make a change, is it going to happen? I'm going to set targets cash flow, cost of living and now we're at the end of coming up to the end of February, where are you at with that?
Speaker 2:And so we're trying to come into the behavioral side and give you another opportunity to reset and have a go at this. But we're going to to Bryce's point. We're going to base the information that we're sharing in this episode and we're going to break it down into framework, like we love to do. We're going to unpack it and that's going to also say actually, that makes a lot of sense. Actually, that makes a lot of sense. Actually, I can relate to that in terms of what it is, because it you know the secret isn't rocket science, but it really does help in terms of how you can change your behaviors to get the outcome that you're looking for.
Speaker 1:So we're going to have a little look at what some some tracking, some progress looks like and break down why that's really important that we do that, ben. So, first of all, motivation and goal achievement. Right so it. I don't think anyone needs any schooling from us about the importance of goal-setting. Right it and the importance of goal-setting. Getting it out of your mind and getting onto paper has a has a 10x set of results as well. But in order for you to you know, set a goal, achieve that goal, make sure that you're feeling like you're making progress towards that goal. Being able to track how you're going is really, really important. So, if we bring it down to an analogy, ben, if I rewind to last summer, I went to Perth. I drove there and I had a goal to get my family from Torquay to Perth, one in one piece, two, in a timely manner. And three, to maximize the amount of joy and happiness that we received on cutting a lap left and then cutting a lap right. But there was a bunch of things that we wanted to see along the way, so we set the goal to achieve those things.
Speaker 1:At certain times I need to be in Port Piri at this time. I need to make it to Eucla by this time. I want to actually go to Cal Ghoulie on the way through to Perth, which I never ended up doing because I wanted to actually get to Perth in three days. So I pivoted and changed, but I was able to track the progress along the way. So we're not going to school people on the importance of goals, because if you haven't got that fundamental at this stage, I don't think the community that we speak to is not our goal set has been. But really being able to go if that's where I want to go, how I'm actually going along the way is really, really important. Because if I didn't have any of that progress being tracked along the way might have taken me two weeks to get there. Ben and I didn't have two weeks to get there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you've let loose on the big secret. The big secret is the tracking, the progress, but it's documented tracking of that. There's two ways to do it right. There's documentation of that in terms of you writing those goals. There's the visualization of that combination, which is really powerful. But the other one is also verbalizing that to those close to you or who you admire or respect. When you make a public declaration of the goal that you're also trying to achieve, all of a sudden, that is highly motivational for a lot of people to be truthful to their word right and to be truthful to their commitment. So that is why tracking progress, documenting that and tracking progress for motivation and goal achievement is one example that's clear in the research that's all being done academically, that that is a very, very powerful way to help with motivation and to help you reach those goals when you start to document them.
Speaker 1:Absolutely and, I guess, being clear on what the goal is too. But it's not just I want to have money, it's how much do you want? What will you need in retirement? When do you actually want to get there? These things are really really important in that goal achievement because a lot of people just go I'd like to be whatever word they want to substitute rich, wealthy, whatever. But part of that is being super clear on actually how much you need to be actually able to get the things that you want at the time. So there's a bit in that, but the baseline is goal achievement happens once we know how we're going towards the goal.
Speaker 2:Hey, bryce, can I just pick up on what you just said? Because we're going to circle back for that right. The reason why there's a combination of things that you said at the start of the show is because when people think in long term, like they think okay, retired by 60, passive income of X and so forth, that in a lot of respects is loose and it's not necessary. But I don't know the patterns and the behaviors of how to get there. So that's why what we're going to be talking about in these other parts of the framework are really powerful. So I just wanted to let that live, because we're going to circle back to this whole concept of delayed gratification versus instant gratification as part of that story.
Speaker 1:Yeah, stick around to the end, folks, because we're actually definitely going to tie it together, because if money is simple, behavior is hard. We're actually going to unpack some of the science behind why behavior is hard and then why you can, how you can overcome that, and then we're going to close the loop at the end to say, okay, what is that that you can actually do about it, so that you don't actually be one of those people that says, yeah, but behavior is hard. You're actually one of the few that actually get across the line on that. So that's important too, Ben. The second thing is the progress gives you a feedback loop that allows you to make sure that you're on track to the goal.
Speaker 1:So the analogy that I'm thinking about here is I think I've been sharing I've been definitely sharing with you, I've been sharing with community a little bit that I'm now a regular park runner on the weekends, and what was interesting about that is the first week I went there. It was quite daunting for me the thought of having never run. Five Ks have been recovering from a back injury. And then what you do, Ben I don't know if you've ever done park run, but you turn up and there's a whole spectrum of people in there, where there's yeah, I've done a couple of them a few years ago.
Speaker 1:So you know the ones where they got the hundred and the 250 a T-shirt and all that.
Speaker 1:Here I am. I turned up in my boardies because I was going to go for a swim straight after. My shoes were nowhere near as impressive as some of the people that do the impressive times, and so all I could focus on was the pain of the unknown, the pain of I don't know what the loop actually is, and it's not until you get that first one over the line where you actually go. Oh okay, I can do it. I did it in about 32 minutes, the five Ks. So for those people who are runners, you know that's not amazing, right. But then what happened is my mate, who I'm running with. He goes.
Speaker 1:I got this app, and so what I do is I track the app and then I put music in my ears and now, all of a sudden, every time I hit the kilometer mark, it stops the music that I'm listening and it tells me what I'm tracking my pace at, and I know what pace I need to be now to get near my best time.
Speaker 1:And so then I go, do that. Second kilometer, third kilometer, fifth kilometer away, we go, and then what we do at the end is we get the app and we track the splits. So I know, in the first kilometer I did that. Fourth kilometer I did this and then next week I know that I want to beat my time at 20, I just know, okay, when I'm in the fourth kilometer, when I'm getting past, I just got to drop the thing. So you can see I'm getting all this feedback immediately, which is actually then helping me get the goal that I want. So it's no different with any endeavor that anyone does. Some people would do that with cycling. We want to apply this to MoneyBend. If you're getting that regular feedback loop, then that's definitely going to help you overcome behavior derailers.
Speaker 2:It's. That's why they created the wearables, the Fitbits and, you know, in terms of the Apple Watch, that's also tracking all of the sort of exercise and activity and then giving you, you know, those circles when you achieve certain things that prompts to remind you to stand because you've been sitting for too long. I get a few of those from time to time, and that is because behavioral psychology suggests that when individuals receive immediate feedback on their progress, they are more likely to adjust their behavior and strategies to improve performance. There is the clue, the important feedback loop in terms of how you're doing that Now. You won't get a feedback loop on a spreadsheet. I promise you you will not get a feedback loop on a spreadsheet. So we're going to talk to you later on about how you get those types of feedbacks when it comes to financial money management. But it's very clear in behavioral psychology, this is a thing, and so feedback loops are going to be important in terms of changing your behaviors and habits.
Speaker 1:That's changing the behaviors and strategies on the run to improve performance, is the bit. If I again at the risk of over cooking it, if in the second kilometer I know that my average space is off track, I know that I've got two choices. I've either got to put in a few more hard yards in the next three or I'm not going to get into any of the time I'm going for so, but I'm very clear on what the goal is at the end of the five and I'm now getting that feedback along the way. Third one, ben, is self-efficacy. I'll throw it to you and then I'll continue the analogy for this for me. But what does that mean for people around, making sure that they don't have behavior derailers?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I mean, you know I'm going to use Jamie and Fraser's sort of framework around story state strategy here, because what self-efficacy is all about is about belief systems and certain belief systems in terms of giving yourself permission, all the stories that you're telling yourself and throughout the journey of you know, advising clients over the years, I definitely have experience coming across people who have really low self-confidence around financial literacy. They have low self-confidence around organizing and managing the money, and so they've got this anchoring or belief system that says to them that it's not possible for them. And so when you start to think about, okay, well, what if I do start writing down some goals and let's say there may be some savings goals or financial goals, and let's say that I give myself a feedback loop say, be once a week or once a fortnight or once a month, like MoneySmartz All of a sudden, the research indicates that when people have that evidence and they're making progress, then that belief system does change those behaviors and it strengthens the alignment with the goal.
Speaker 2:Okay, so it strengthens that connection and alignment with the goal. And so there's no much greater joy than helping someone who has, you know, struggles with procrastination or struggles with a belief system that it's gonna be possible for them. So that is one of the most powerful benefits of running these types of habits and behaviors is you just start to believe in yourself and believe that you can actually do this, and so that's why I really love this. Self-efficacy and the research pointing to it's just gonna change your mindset around your ability to be able to do this.
Speaker 1:It's in the lane of B, do have who do I gotta be? So then I know what I need to do, and if I know who I gotta be and I do what they do, then I'll have what they have. And it's a contrarian thought process, ben, but it's super, super important. Look, if people cannot see them getting to the finish line, that is a super challenge, right? Because if we take it back to our lane, ben, we can build a plan for a client that has some very manageable steps. We are very, very aware that the majority of property investors stop at one right. So, therefore, when we build a plan unless the client is the personality type that wants us to do this for them, we're not building plans with 10 properties. We're actually building plans with two or three right. So that allows us to give them a very meaningful pathway based on what you've got, based on what you wanna do and based on where you wanna be. Here is the roadmap you need to take Now.
Speaker 1:We're doing scores of these properties, these plans, every month, ben, so why is some people succeeding whilst others aren't, when we're not taking on extreme levels of debt, we're not taking on extreme numbers of properties in the portfolio. We are playing a get rich slow game. We're asking them to keep their eyes on next decade, not next year, all that sort of stuff. It's because if they have something in their mind that derails their belief in themselves to achieve it, they will act on that evidence. So therefore, being able to track your progress will help game that and a lot of people have family tree issues around beliefs. They have approximation issues around the people that they're hanging out with around beliefs. Some people have career identity challenges that mean they have challenges around their beliefs. But all that external noise can be not overcome but can be significantly helped through this self efficacy, ben, through the progress. If you're seeing these incremental wins along the way, you then get to outwork yourself doubt through evidence, through that process of seeing that progress.
Speaker 2:And just as a sidebar here, when you do get, say, a personal trainer or a tennis coach or a property investment advisor or a financial planner or a mortgage, whatever that looks like for you, that could start you on that journey right. And it's okay to have that concern, that level of self doubt early. But having that sort of trusted partner, that accountability partner as part of that can just get you on that pathway okay, when you just say, well, maybe it is possible. And that's where obviously, detailed money management and cashflow analysis and sequential setting up of a detailed plan makes the invisible visible and so that gives a little window of opportunity for those people to carry a lot of high level of doubt or they're really a risk adverse, that opportunity to explore. And then that's when, obviously, the feedback loops, the stress testing, all of those things are going. The combination of everything that we're talking about here in this framework is gonna be a very powerful combination for taking action and basically making progress Nice.
Speaker 1:Now my life hack, ben. Stick around for that, because I'm gonna tie into this All of what we're talking about today with my life hack as well. But the next scientific evidence approach to why progress tracking is really important is because it helps with habit formation, and we were very fortunate to have James Clear on our podcast. Ben, he is probably the poster child. I know James. Is it James Doohigg? No, it's not James, it's someone.
Speaker 1:Doohigg has a habits book that is very, very popular as well. But James Clear is very, very popular with his book Atomic Habits, and right down to the analogy in that book where he talks about whatever habit you wanna form is getting your environment and upstream sorted. So he uses the analogy of someone who wants to get to the gym every day. The win is called in the book he talks about. The win is hailing down the taxi Because, he said, as soon as I've hailed down the taxi, everything else flows from there. So that's the crucial point. And then to reverse from the crucial point of the taxi is what are the little behaviors on it? Well, before I go to bed, I've got to make sure that there's no resistance in me getting up going. Oh gosh, where are my shoes? Where am I running? Where's my water?
Speaker 1:Your niggas are inside the bed, all that sort of stuff. So this is really important that if you're tracking progress, this is the little habit, this is the little stacked upon compounding impacts of these little habits that mean if you can see your progress, that will continue to reinforce that the habit should stay an important part of your life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, according to the research, documenting behaviors and outcomes can make individuals more conscientious and conscious about their actions, therefore reinforcing those positive behaviors and discouraging those negative ones. So similar to the way in which you journal brass in terms of reflection, time to think about those type of things, time to. So that is no different. I mean, even in businesses, right, how we have a formation is we've got to record the sales, we've got to record the expenses, and that gives us an idea of how we're progressing. So it's right throughout life in terms of how you're going to be able to do that. But if you don't have a framework or a system or a process to store that information, to store that data and then being able to reflect on it or get insights from it, it's going to be very, very hard for you to form those habits when it comes to the financial money management and financial literacy, because I know my progress, ben, if I tie it back to park runs.
Speaker 1:Because I know my progress, because I know what my splits are and because I have someone who I do it with each week. I turn up with habit at eight o'clock every Saturday morning to help me reinforce the progress that I want to make, largely because of the progress that I'm seeing during the week. So we've covered sort of the motivation to the goal, but we covered you're getting a feedback loop. We've covered the self-efficacy, the belief in yourself. We've also covered habit formation and the behavioral change that comes from that. What else is next, ben?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So the next one is this emotional wellbeing, and I've shared a couple of times in the podcast that I had high levels of anxiety. I used to stress about finance when I was younger. I grew up in a house where there was lots of arguments around money and I never wanted to basically build that into my system. And so I can tell you from a factual, evidence-based my story as I was able to create over a couple of decades my financial wealth and my wealth building that was going on all of a sudden. It had an enormous benefit for me.
Speaker 2:Around anxiety, I was always panicking, worried about, you know, where my next dollar was gonna come from. So over time I was able to quell a lot of that financial anxiety down and rebuild my belief systems around what was possible. And so I'm a testament to this wellbeing story that comes off the back of showing that progress. And so whenever I would potentially worry about spending something, it's very easy for me now I'm in its second nature. I look at wealth speed and my wealth clock and I can understand very clearly. You know, because I've got now a high proficiency in financial literacy, it's really easy for them to know exactly the decisions that I'm gonna make and how they impact my family and my life. But going through that process is part of that improvement, and so what the research suggests in terms of the psychology is that, as you're having those small wins, it's building confidence up and it's then adding to your level of satisfaction, which ultimately, that feeling of satisfaction then builds into a feeling of calmness, wellbeing and some might even say happiness in terms of as part of that. So that's my truth, that's my story in terms of how I've been able to get there.
Speaker 2:So, but it really does, and I think you know.
Speaker 2:The other part of that is when you're in a relationship and you're not on the same financial page, by also tracking progress and showing that progress that can.
Speaker 2:All you know, to the point of if I look back in terms of how could my parents handle their money discussions better rather than them being arguments was well, bring up the information, show the data, show the progress that's being made.
Speaker 2:So if my dad could explain to my mom a little better about well, this is the consequences of spending now versus having that money, which means we can retire earlier and move to our dream location at Erawonga, whatever it is then all of that would have been different, I think, and so my view on this is about transparency, putting the numbers on the table, showing the modeling in terms of what that looks like and all of those. Then the tension and emotion in those conversations then gets adjusted for what is near-term decisions versus medium to longer-term decisions, and I reckon that would have greatly improved the way in which they operated around their money situation, and I think I've really tried to take that into my own household in terms of how we talk about that and why, obviously, we use money smarts and why we use the more platform as part of that story.
Speaker 1:I got on you for sharing that anxiety, because I think it's really important for people to hear that. Oh, ben, as well, sure, okay, because there is a little bit of a pedestal that can happen for you and I that have a platform like this. But you've just shared it, I've shared it and I'm happy to share it to anyone who wants to listen. There is a lot of anxiety and doubts and fears that we've traversed over the journey, right? So that's why we lean so hard into growing ourselves personally, so that we can get more comfortable with some of the decisions that used to make us really, really uncomfortable. So I think it's important that you share that, Ben, so that everyone can hear that. So well done.
Speaker 1:Comparison is the thief of joy, right. So the theme here is, if you're comparing to people who have got more than you, that can be the thief of your joy, whereas if you compare to where you are from where you were, that actually helps straighten you up to go. It doesn't matter what they're doing. So I think I'm gonna keep the theme of the park run going here, ben, just because it's so relatable. But my best time is 25 minutes and 50 seconds, right? So that's just over five minutes, 10 per kilometer, and it can be pretty disheartening, ben. So, if you can imagine, we start and finish at the same spot and we go out and we go a little hairpin and then we come back on ourselves. So about I don't know 80% of the course you're just running back on yourself. So what happens is when I get to about the two and a half no, about the two kilometer mark, the fastest runners have already been around the hairpin and they're already coming past you back up the hill before you've even got to the halfway mark. That can be really, really disconcerting, right. But if they're comparing to someone else who's not running, who's done it in 16 minutes and they do it in 17 minutes that can be the thief of their joy, right. But if they're actually just comparing to the progress they're making which is why I'm focusing on the splits and I genuinely think that there was a time where I would probably have thought, ah, compared myself to the 50 runners that come in before me. But now I literally find it super simple and super straightforward to just compare to myself and compare to my own time, and it definitely. I go with a mate who beats me all the time I go with my 11 year old son, who beats me. All the time I go with my mates eight year old son who beats us all right. So if even in that little comparison circle, I come last, but I'm still making progress on where I started and where I'm usually going at each and every week.
Speaker 1:So the emotional wellbeing that comes from comparing to me rather than comparing to someone else is important. I think that's really important here. That tracking of progress allows you to go hey, this is, I'm on the path. I am not gonna be susceptible to the behavioral derailers, and there is a proverb that says where there is no vision, the people will perish. Well, if you've got your vision and the progress along steps along the way to get to that vision, that wellbeing that you, that emotional space that you talk of, is just a wonderful, wonderful space to be in. And then we get to avoid the comparison game, which is really where most of our joy gets rocked Beautiful.
Speaker 2:Next one is number six, which is basically cognitive load and decision-making. Now, this took me a while to as an advisor. Let me just sort of I can paint this picture doing hundreds and hundreds of consultations. I used to love getting into the data but I was like need a bin. Oh, what a kid's looks like. This is what the next investment probably looks like. Oh, yeah, you can afford that. That's no worries. Private school just be whacking all the data in, looking at all the modeling and just get so excited about the modeling.
Speaker 2:Well, it turns out not too many people are like me, bryce. Not too many people like to be overwhelmed by spreadsheet after spreadsheet after spreadsheet of numbers, and so what I learned from that is the cognitive load absolutely is a derailer for people to actually take action. That is very true. So I learned that probably in sort of 2012, 2013, a couple of years into us being able to do the work that we do. So these days, obviously, as much as there's 230,000 calculations going on in our simulator, 43 variable movements, all the indexation rolling through it, tax scales and all that rolling through it, we just need to make sure that we keep it simple for those people who want a simplified version of that, because that's gonna help them with their decision-making. So once they know that, that's fine. You guys are the professionals. You can answer all of those questions that we may have around the sequencing and whether that's plausible, whether that's gonna work, whether we're gonna break the cash flow bank or whatever it's gonna look like. But from my point of view, that cognitive load does play with the decision making. So it's really important that you try and keep it simple and then it then makes some of the decision making a little easier, because one of the more challenging things that people face is how they think about their big rocks in their jar, how they think about what's going to happen.
Speaker 2:Do we renovate, you know? Do we put a second story on? Or do we? You know, the family is getting bigger, or do we just sell this property and buy another one? Just that thought process, enough in itself, is like oh, I don't know what we're going to get for our property. I don't know what we're, you know, are we going to be able to buy?
Speaker 2:People then just go into the spiral of procrastination in terms of and and very rarely get along to doing anything. I've, you know, we've got great neighbors up in one of our Sydney properties and they've been sitting on wanting to renovate their property for 15 years and we still have a fun joke about it. I've seen the plans. I know you, I know you've got the plans ready. They've been, they've been ready for years. You know when are you going to take action on actually doing that?
Speaker 2:And I think it's because it's challenging, right, there's, there's lots of big decisions that need to be made as part of that. So it really is clear and this is, you know, what Bryce was saying at the start of the show there are some derailers. These are some of the bigger ones, right? So if that cognitive load is too heavy, if that decision making is too difficult, just bounce it off a trusted advisor, bounce it off someone who you respect in terms of their knowledge and discipline in that area, because, again, the research shows that when you do that and then you can clearly then sequentially organize your thoughts and break it down into subactions and smaller decisions that add up to the bigger decisions, then all of a sudden the stress levels go out of that and then, ultimately, you know you're able to do that, and so that is coming back to the power of tracking that progress.
Speaker 2:As you break down your bigger goals into those smaller goals and you track them. You know you still got to put time frames on them. You still got to put if they're financial targets, you still must put those targets on them. You've got to help, you've got to hold yourself accountable, but to the point of breaking it down into sizeable pieces that you can then comprehend and if you then start hitting those smaller milestones that's your feedback loop, remember that we just talked about and then you're getting that constant feedback and all of a sudden your confidence grows and then your levels of happiness grow. So you can now start to see how all of these components start coming together.
Speaker 1:Then the former president of the United States, barack Obama, used to have two suits to choose from. It was the gray one or the black one, and then you'd have a white shirt and then, depending on whether he needed to deliver a speech with authority, put a red tie on or whether he needed to create some form of loyalty, put the blue tie on. So the decision that was required for him in the morning was pretty simple Am I wearing black or gray today? Why is that important? Well, tim Ferriss calls it. I think it's in the tools of Titans decision, and we've only got a certain number of decisions that we get to make in the day. So we want to automate a bunch of decisions and leave our brain as a processor, not a storage tool, and I think that's what a lot of people particularly when you were talking that story. Should I renovate? What's next? What's that whole sequencing? If you're doing the sequencing in your head and trying to store a whole bunch of stuff that's coming up? Oh, by the way, what I'm having for breakfast? Oh, by the way, what am I going to do for dinner tonight? Oh, and what should I actually wear today and what's going on?
Speaker 1:The idea is to minimize the amount of decisions that you need to do in a day in an automated fashion so that you can then actually leave the brain capacity, because once you've used the credits in the day, there's no more coming back. You've got to top them up next day. So you don't want to waste those credits on what do I need to wear? What do I want to have for breakfast? What do I want to have for lunch? What route am I actually going to get to work today?
Speaker 1:Those are the things that should be automated and done so that then, when stuff comes your way, you actually still have the brain capacity and there's still enough credits in the decision fatigue bank that you can actually invest and inject into those so that you can make better decisions. So that's what I think of when we're talking about behavior derailers, to what you were talking about before. This stuff should be done and automated and if you can actually see that you are on progress to the work that you've done up the ground already, and then you can see the little milestones along the way in progress decision you're like the president of the United States then that is in the same category as do I wear the black suit or the gray suit. It's in the same category. Am I on track or am I not on track? And then you just get on with it and use your credit somewhere else?
Speaker 2:Love it, absolutely love it. So I mean there's some messaging and some meshing of the discussions that we're having so far, so let's just quickly recap on what we're talking about. So motivational and goal achievement shows up in the research Feedback loop. Shows up in terms of building those habits and behaviors. Self efficacy in terms of beliefs. I can actually do this. This is, for me, building those habit formations and behavior change.
Speaker 2:Look for rules based systems that allow you to follow the rules and follow proven success of what other people have put together. You're running a marathon. Break it down into components, but take the advice of people who've run lots of marathons before in terms of their training regime. Don't try and create your own. Just basically leverage off those experts who have been able to do that. The emotional wellbeing that comes with that, that feeling of progress, that feeling of lost all by design, that aspirational element associated with that.
Speaker 2:Again, when the cognitive load I love that saying, bryce, you're saying in terms of you know storage versus solutions and what decisions that you're making. Put all of that stuff into a platform, put all of that stuff away and have it as a reference for trying to do all those calculations. You simply can't do them. I said to you before, 230,000 calculations happen in our simulator software as part of the work we do for putting property plans and strategies. You're not going to be able to do those in your head, so you know, separate those out, get that trusted advisor partner as part of that and that leads nicely into, you know, this next point around social and comparative aspects.
Speaker 2:So this is an interesting one, right? Because in psychology you were talking before Bryce about, you know, your eight-year-old friend's son beating you and running. Some people can use that as a motivation to go better. Some people can, you know, can internalize that and tell their own story about look, I'm only competing against myself. You know that can happen and I've now started playing a lot more golf and I play with a lot better golfers than I do and I can tell you I'm far worse than they are.
Speaker 1:Do you know what I call a?
Speaker 2:golf fan. Why is that mate?
Speaker 1:All the other four little words were taken.
Speaker 2:Yes, I like that, I like that joke, throw it in there. So I think I think from that.
Speaker 1:I want to drop some of these good dad jokes, mate.
Speaker 2:I'll just keep lying and muck for you, mate. You can just get land them. So I think I think, yeah, this is. This is an important one around social context in terms of so tracking progress can sometimes lead to social comparisons which can again be both motivating and demotivating. So, coming back to story state strategy, how are you using that story Right? We have talked about social envy and you know social media platforms. I think they're horrible in terms of how they make people think and how they make people look and how they make people act. It just is crazy in terms of the way in which I'm seeing that change society.
Speaker 1:Could you imagine being like a fly on the wall of the Taylor Swift concert band. Like you're the fly on the wall just watching Taylor Swift, and then you're looking down at the 80,000 people watching Taylor Swift through their phone.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I never quite understood that they're doing that, but obviously that's about them having their moment and potentially reliving that moment. So I don't mind. I don't mind it, but yeah, for me it's just not. I just can't see any value in that. I much prefer to be in the moment and try and reflect on that. You're such a dinosaur man. You're such a dinosaur. Yeah, I know, I know I'm such a dinosaur.
Speaker 2:So this is really important, right? Because we you know some of the questions you often get asked when people are coming in for initial consultations or whatever is around this idea of so how do we compare to people like us? So people are looking. Some people are usually looking for that validation or, and I reckon that's probably 10, 15, 20% of people. There's the other sort of I reckon 80% of people, and they're making those numbers up. They're not based in science, but anecdotally. They're like I really just don't want to know what their wealth speeds are or whatever they are, because and I don't really want to know what mine is either, you know. So we're really clear about I know that there's an audience out there that just don't want to listen to what we have to say, because they're not necessarily aspiring, they're not necessarily trying to be, and in some cases there's a potential level of embarrassment as part of that.
Speaker 2:So, even though we're talking about tracking progress and so forth, that's really about sort of saying to yourself well, if that motivates you to try and be better, then use it. It's a superpower. If it demotivates you, then, to the point, don't use it. Right, move past this social comparative aspects, because that's what the research shows. If you use it for the power of good, that it's going to help you strive like if you're a competitive with your mate about, you know, finishing that last mile or whatever it is, or you know whatever, improving your handicap and playing, you know, in comps or whatever it is in life.
Speaker 2:Just basically, make sure that it's not demotivating and it's also not damaging to you in terms of your own sort of mental health. There are some elements of that as well. So that's why we always say you know, those comparisons around well-being are really important in terms of those personality traits. So again, some people love the challenge, they love the competition. Other people's pull away from that. They don't like that social anxiety attached to that. So, you know, treat that one with care, but hopefully you can use it if it does motivate you.
Speaker 1:Now you talked about that being motivating and demotivating. I think that's 100% true and I think the reassuring thing for most people who are hopefully listening to this is there's not much that you have to do different to be able to be in the positive trade of comparison here, because most people won't do the basics for long enough for sustained repetition, long enough for it to actually be a challenge. So what most people do with the comparison thing, and where it works negative for them, is they go, I can't. I'm going to compare myself, usually with the people in your street and then I, and then, in response to whatever emotional feeling you have around that you then default to the classic well, I'll do whatever it takes to appear better than I am.
Speaker 1:And what we also know in the research is the people who actually focus on doing things that help them appear wealthier than they are usually destroys their wealth, right. So coming back to our point, this helps you because, I've said before, comparison is the thief of joy. So if you're comparing yourself to your neighbors and that gets you into a game that you don't want to play, if you're actually using it, seeing that progress to compare yourself on consistent, sustained turning up prepared to do the things over a long period of time and have that compounding in your favor and not playing the other game. Well then, that's when you'll, that's when you'll be able to be on the positive side of that comparison. Then and then, and then, hopefully, that progress will keep you motivated.
Speaker 2:Beautiful, well said, well said.
Speaker 1:The next one is around accountability, and I don't think you'd need to look too far for evidence of accountability, whether it's turning up at a PT, whether it's having your coach turn up at five o'clock in the morning you're gonna swim your laps whether it's having the peloton that you ride with every satellite.
Speaker 1:For me it's turning up every eight o'clock to do park run.
Speaker 1:If it's a personal trainer, clearly the accountability has proven across a ton of fields where an accountability partner for our clients, ben, when they build a plan, just there's no surprises or rocket science here, other than it is a very powerful motivator.
Speaker 1:So if you are actually seeing the progress makes you accountable to not missing out, and you know, ben, that I had a sore back last week and I'm just in the tail end of fixing that. What it meant, ben, is I couldn't turn up to park run on satellite and I was. That accountability was actually starting to work positively for me because I didn't wanna miss out, I wanted to be there, I wanted to check against my time, I wanted to check against my running mates, and so, therefore, I'm not looking for the easy excuse not to turn up because I actually have seen all the progress that I'm actually making. So it is a very, very powerful motivator. It is, you know, it's demonstrated across so many disciplines. It's ridiculous, but the progress giving you that level of accountability is really, really important and stops the behavioral derailers that we're talking about this whole episode.
Speaker 2:Well, and we've obviously referenced the external access to helping access someone who can give you that accountability. But honestly, the buck does stop with the individual If you can develop internal accountability systems. So you talk about doing your hard, bros. You're gonna do your hard early. You're gonna do, yeah, like which decision you're gonna make? And I use that for my boys around their study. I mean, obviously they're like any other teenage kids and they wanna basically game and play sport and all that, but there's homework to be done, like. And ultimately it's a question about which hard are you gonna do? You're gonna do the study now and all lose that opportunity of schooling and then only to have to play catch up later on? Or are you gonna organize yourself and hold yourself self-accountable to be able to do that? And I think that's again about documenting that progress and writing that down, about who you're holding yourself Self-accountable is very powerful in terms of what we're talking about here.
Speaker 2:So again, it doesn't need to be said a lot. It's been well-documented. It's right throughout the literature that accountability and self-accountability is the most powerful superpower. You have to be able to live your best life and live lifestyle by design If it is to be. It's up to me is a great saying that comes from that self-accountability.
Speaker 1:All right, let's bring this home. Ben, with the final one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so perception of time and effort right. So this one is a really, really powerful one, because this is the problem. So we wanted to talk about the secret around, you know, financial wellbeing and achieving financial success. This is where most people fail in terms of trying to achieve financial peace, right, because the perception of time and effort, my retirement's 20, 30, 40 years away it is just so far in the distance, and so the immediate effort that I put into that isn't going to give me that benefit now. And so we today, everything on demand, everything instant access, and I want that gratification and that feeling now, so I'm not using that delayed gratification.
Speaker 2:And so it definitely shows up in that sort of research that that's what's happening, right, this ability to just not close by. So I'm just not gonna start, you know? And where do you start? I mean, it's the same sort of thing about, I don't know, walking across from one side of Australia to the other side. It's just so hard to fathom that people just don't even wanna start, as opposed to breaking it up over time. So I think you know I wanna talk more to this as we close out the episode, but that's this one is one of the biggest deal breakers when it comes to setting up a money management system and sustaining that money management system, because they are just not in their minds making that progress. But that's why tracking and reporting is such a critical element of changing that perception and changing those behaviors and then getting the results that you wanna see.
Speaker 1:It's. Delayed gratification is the second most important thing that you need to be able to conquer then, if you wanna be successful and let's just talk about money and investing it's the second most important number. The most important is having the ability to actually take action. But outside of taking action, the second most important thing is delayed gratification or impulse control. Right, but it is largely very, very difficult to do so. People, if we could all do it easily, it wouldn't be something that we continually talk about. So the fact that you can use progress as a way to actually give you the patience around delayed gratification that is required, that is one of the very, very important elements of success.
Speaker 1:It cannot be understated. And how can we land the plan? Because delayed gratification is now a platitude, ben, impulse control is now a platitude, but it is definitely something that you need to tame. You need to be able to work out how you are going to gain whatever behavioral traits that derail you. Well, if you can see some progress along the way, that's gonna go a long way to help you do that.
Speaker 2:And I mean we are blessed because Bryce and I obviously work in a business and we get to see the feedback from our team of people and from our own experiences in, you know, when Bryce was obviously buying properties for our clients, when I'm doing property plans and mortgage loans for our clients over those decades of working with customers and so forth. This podcast is all about finding the pain points and then building solutions to those pain points. The armchair guide to property investing showed that storyboard built out. You know the five steps of process clarify, evaluate, plan, implement and manage. We showed you that framework In terms of you know the MoneySmart system rules-based money management system that helps you track more surplus and make your money work harder for you Well clock and well speed in terms of making you opportunity aware or problem aware, a money fit where you can do that comparison analysis, very powerful around spending. You know, on expenses that are a classic one where you can do make some change around essential and discretionary spending. Money stretch in terms of being able to build a tool that allows you to do the cash flow analysis as part of that. And so what we've tried to do through this pod and through the products and tools that we build is all about helping you overcome any of the barriers that you have, because you've got tools available to you to be able to do that.
Speaker 2:So the more platform has ingested all of that information in there to allow that to happen, and this is why we've you know what we released in terms of my financials at the end of January, and also now this historical tracking. This connects into this most powerful point around delayed gratification, but also the most powerful point that we've just been talking about here today, which is tracking progress by having the as at, or what we call the legacy, the historical data. By now being able to load into each financial card all of that legacy data, you are now in a position where you can see those insights and you can see the progress that you're making. And this is super powerful also if you want to bring your partner along on the journey. So, by loading all of that information into the more platform or a spreadsheet or whatever you're using whatever it is that you use that's showing that progress. That's going to be so much more powerful for you because, all of a sudden, that instant gratification that you're looking for you're going to get in the charts and insights that you've been missing.
Speaker 2:So being like, if I just go out and buy an Apple watch today and I want it to track my activity and so forth, it only tracks forward. It doesn't have any of that backtracking. So we said, well, that's what the platform needs Basically. More needs the ability to go and load all of that historical information so you can get rid of your spreadsheets and backdate all of that information. And then all of a sudden, it's like, wow, we are making progress towards lifestyle by design, we are making progress to our next financial or personal goal, and so that, to me, is the exciting bit in terms of what we're trying to pull together here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we quoted James Clear before, ben. I think if you can remember two or three key concepts from a book over time, that's a real win, right, because we're knee-deep in it when we're reading but we don't remember everything. One of the things that I think was profound from that book was you don't rise and fall to the level of your goals. You rise and fall to the level of your systems, right, and what does that actually mean? Well, when our human behavior kicks in and we go the line of least resistance, we want to actually fall at that point and be underpinned by something that has already got the goal in mind. And so the point of that is, if we rise and fall to the level of not not to the level of our financial goals, we rely and fall to the level of our systems. An important part of that system is seeing the progress, yeah, and that system will keep us on track. If I can just go in and go, I'm feeling a bit wobbly to up, I can see I'm making progress back on track. That's where that's, that's the water level, that's the watermark, that's where we go, and I think, once we can really let that land, I think it gives us the best chance here, because we're just trying to find solutions to problems.
Speaker 1:We you talked about the book before. Our solution was we thought that the problem at the time was that the market didn't need another property investment book. Right, because there were so many of the people who went before us and it was all about them being the hero. So our solution was well, let's write a book about the reader being the hero, and I think that's been part of our success. Then we got a podcast. And then we had a podcast. What's the problem? Well, people are not being fully informed about the insider's guide. So we created the solution was to give people the insider's guide. Then we go to Money Smart Same Deal, here's a system. Then we go to Seven Day Float. Well, your year is broken up into seven day increments generally, so why don't we give you a system for that? And then, as a result of that, the next problem was are you trapping surplus? Well, the solution was we show you a way to do that and then, once you've trapped some surplus, we're going to put it Well.
Speaker 1:The next solution was to buy an investment property. And then the problem was well, how many of these do I need? So the solution then becomes well, you can get a plan for that. And then, how do I stay on track? Will you use more? So we've tried along the journey, to give people access to resources. That was a problem that we saw, and then here was the solution that we said to overcome it.
Speaker 1:So we talk a lot about Money Smarts, ben. We talk a lot about downloading our more app, and some people could go OK, here we go. They're just talking about well, it's a free service. It's designed to do all of the things that we've just spoken about in this episode that allow you to fall to the level of your system. So, if you've done all the work, when your when human behavior kicks in for most people you've actually done the work to go all right.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, it took a bit of time to when you first saw the US debt clock, to then filter that in your mind, to go oh, I actually think, I think there's something here. Why don't I, why don't I think about that as a wealth clock? And then it ended up on the wall in our boardroom when we first moved into the building back in 2016, where you got a marker pen and you drew some dials and it took some time for it to become what it is. But now, if you're feeling wobbly, you drop to that level of the system. You go oh, I just go, and I just go and check my dashboard of instruments and you go. Well, my wealth speeds moving forward and my wealth clock is in the right spot.
Speaker 1:So, again, those are the reasons why we're encouraging people now, to your credit. Before you said if you're using your own spreadsheets, fine, that's fine. But we're just saying to those people if you, I said before, you don't have to do much different to beat your, to beat the neighbors or whatever, because they're generally playing a different game of looking wealthy or looking successful. If you can find that level, ben, we'd love you to use more, but we would genuinely, truly love you to use more. But whatever it takes for you to be Barack Obama and say I'm only making a decision on the black suit or the gray suit today, that's essentially the goal that we're trying to achieve here.
Speaker 2:I love it and to sort of summarize some of the sort of key themes out of James Clear's book is what we're also doing in terms of putting them into practical applications. So he talks about habit tracking, he talks about immediate feedback, he talks about visual cues and motivations, he talks about measuring for improvements and awareness, not results. So they are sort of some of the broader themes and we're doing the same thing. We're basically saying what are the problems? People have got that we know that we see through the clients that we work with a day in, day out across our business, and how can we spread that love? How can we pay that forward in terms of giving everyone the best tools and systems to use to be able to go and do that? And that's that's our vision, that's the way in which we want to see the world. So we want you know we've got 47,000 people are now using our platform. We want hundreds of thousands of people on there to get the benefit of how they operate in terms of that, and so there can be no excuses in terms of now.
Speaker 2:You know, tracking progress is the most powerful way and recording and reporting on that through the insights that you get, which are automatically calculated for you. There's no cognitive load. You just need to put some data in there. All of that information, those insights come to life based on that. So all of that work is done for you. Then really, it is up to you in terms of self accountability that we were talking about before, and I think that's why tracking progress is so powerful, that's why it's built into software games, it's built into watches, it's built into Fitbits, it's built into everything, because the science says that if you can break that down and report to me and give me some instant feedback, then I'm going to be more engaged. And so, hopefully, by adding the legacy data that they can now go in and put all that historical data into the more platform, into your financial cards, man, that is going to be super powerful for you.
Speaker 1:Can we do a little footnote here to the big Bahamas who are making games for our kids? Ben, maybe just drop the tracking progress from them so they don't have to check in every day for them to feel like they're making progress. Well, that's the addiction tool.
Speaker 2:If we could get that same addiction into financial people running their finances at home, I tell you what the world would be a far better place to be A lot less credit card debt and a lot more productive debt and then, obviously, a lot more financial peace in the world, because everyone will be better money managers and there's nothing more important in a society where people basically can achieve what they want to achieve through a bit of effort and a bit of work as part of that journey.
Speaker 1:All right, so let's bring this home, Ben. So the reason that we spend a lot of time saying the importance of tracking progress was for a number of things. One was for motivation and goal achievement to create the feedback loop. Three, the self-efficacy and the belief in ourselves. Number four the habit formation and the related behavioral change that comes from that. Number five improving emotional wellbeing. Number six was around that cognitive load and the decision making and reducing that load. Number seven was both the motivating and avoiding the demotivating parts of social and comparative aspects. Then we talked about the accountability that comes from tracking progress and then, finally, we talked about the possession of time and effort around that delayed gratification piece as well. Folks, if you don't believe in our focus here on how important tracking progress is, hopefully that scientific, evidence-based approach is going to give you that little bit of motivation to create a system that you can fall to that allows you to move forward on your goals.
Speaker 2:And Bryce, if you need a word theme in your mind, what's actually two words think of it like this sustain consistency. That's what I summarise it down to. So if you're thinking about, if you're getting a little bit wobbly, just say, all right, sustain consistency. That's the trick, because if you think about that motivational thing in your mind that says, oh, I need to sustain consistency, that's what's going to get me there. If that's the trigger for you then to take the action and do the reporting in terms of the tracking and reporting, I'll tell you what. You're going to be a superpower. We're going to be a superpower when it comes to your money working harder for you. So, if that's just one of the little takeaways in terms of summarising, condensing that down, sustain consistency In anything you do in life, you do it well. You'll thrive in terms of whatever pursuit you look after and what you're attempting.
Speaker 1:Love it. Very good. That's a wonderful takeaway for people. All right, my life hack today, ben, is set limits on your learning time, so growth comes from this formula Learn then apply, then learn, then apply, and so on. But what happens with procrastination is it looks like this learn then learn, then learn then learn.
Speaker 1:That's been a big shift for me, probably in the last 18 to 24 months around that it's the application you sign off every week on it. For a lot of our listeners who hear you say knowledge is empowering, but only if you act on it they can go on, they can go into a program where it's oh, that's just how Ben signs off. But if you actually go back to the origin of why you said that way back in the beginnings because there was a very deliberate programming that you wanted to break in signing off that way so learn, learn, learn, learn If you do that you're not learning really, you're consuming. So excessive learning becomes procrastination. So has this very hour that you study, spend an hour applying as well, so you get that even balance. But many people think it goes like this Ben, motivation, then action. Okay, sounds good, it's nice little bumper sticker for that one as well, since we're collecting bumper stickers today. But when in reality it's actually more like small action becomes motivation becomes more action. So, for example, part of the procrastination movement is around just start something for two minutes. That's it set the goal to just do it for two minutes. Because what happens is you get there two minutes and you realize it was the starting, was the hard part anyway, and then you got that momentum, and so that small action then becomes the motivation to keep going and get more action.
Speaker 1:So, folks, the small action today, if for you to get the motivation to get more action is essentially, go and load your details into more Because, as Ben says, you actually don't have to do like an Apple watch, where you only get progress from today there is a historical tracking feature that allows you to put in significant points in the past so that you can measure progress and get that feeling and all of those nine things that we talked about today. Ben, you get to do that instantly, based on the fact that you will set the goal, and then you'll be able to get all of those self-efficacy, feedback loop, all that stuff that we talked about. So that's the small action today. So my life hack, folks, is to go. Small action will turn into the motivation that will turn into more action. So knowledge is empowering, but only if you act on it. Well, the acting starts with just some small, little action that gets you going. It's making progress.
Speaker 2:I think there's a couple of obviously emerging stories that are coming out. But now with obviously 13 interest rate rises and a lot of people don't realize that even with the November rate rise, that's now only going to really start appearing in the February data in terms of that, final repayment is now kicking in across most banks as they wait for that period of lag. Now that's also showing up in some of the reports coming out. So we saw Westpac CEO is sharing a little bit of proof around. Some households are struggling with cost of living so it really is important. So their 90 day sort of a rears is definitely increasing. It's coming off a low base but it's definitely on the rise. That's only natural with the amount of increases that we've had in the cash rate. So that is definitely reducing the amount of disposable income that are inside households. So we do think that economy is going to continue to slow and we do think off the back of that, unemployment is going to come lower and then hopefully off the back of that, we're going to see that sort of interest rate easing cycle happening around the middle to the second half of the year. So there are definitely households out there doing it tough when you are thinking about your household, please think about in essential and discretionary mindsets, so you can basically really just focus in on getting through this cash period. Try not to sell an asset if you don't have to, you know, especially an appreciating asset. To that point you can potentially sell other assets that you haven't used for five or 10 years. That might give you a little bit of cash flow kick.
Speaker 2:But, yes, so that is obviously a story around. You know some of those challenges, and so that's really going to flow into the property market, which is surprisingly. It started a little bit stronger than I expected it to. If you think about where we were at the end of last year supply was increasing, growth rates were slowing. We've actually come out of the blocks in the first three auction weekends in pretty good shape, a little bit better than I expected it to. So it's going to be interesting in terms of why that's the case.
Speaker 2:Are all those people are anticipating interest rate cuts of the second half of the year? Are they all bringing forward their actions? I think they are. That's probably a logical part of that. And so another little bit of advice if property is on your radar this year, you need to be doing stuff now in terms of getting yourself lined up to Bryce's point. There's a lot of preparation work that needs to happen to that. So, please, if you need any help on that, you know where to find us. But ultimately, yeah, if you want to beat the rush, the second half of your rush now's not a bad time to be thinking about that and getting your finances in order if property is on your radar in 2024.
Speaker 1:Ben, just also interesting in the media now there's a lot of stories around the rental vacancy is obviously going to get worse, which is no surprise to long-term listeners of our podcast, but the headline keeps on talking to an increase in homelessness. So that is definitely something from a social impact that is not ideal and it can feel a bit frustrating when you see these because it's kind of like and what did you expect otherwise? And I'm clearly not talking to the homelessness, because that's not a great social impact, but if you've, you know, for over a decade now you've been creating disincentives for property investors In particular states. You've been creating large disincentives for property investors. It's just mind boggling how that lack of connecting of the dots is, and with no narrative towards the greedy landlords. You know, bring some incentives back to create supply. Bring some incentives back to to get more property investors into the market so that they can help more people get into roofs over their own head. It still boggles my mind.
Speaker 2:It's incredible. I mean, I actually tweeted an article that came out of Argentina with the new president, who I'm starting to admire more and more with his free market policy approaches. But they had chronic rental problems over there. They had chronic shortages, and it was all designed by well-intended governments and regulators who thought that they were doing the right thing by putting rental freezes and rental capsion. They're just backfired, and so this article really does a great job in articulating the problems that occurred. And then, ultimately, now he's undone all of that problem and now the reinvestment that's happening. And guess what happened? Bryce? Rents are coming down in Argentina. Rents are coming down in Argentina.
Speaker 1:So that just says to me the natural laws of supply and demand are actually sorting that out. Is that wow?
Speaker 2:I'm telling you that. I'm telling you the fundamentals of economics, which is open market economics Bryce does lead to. If there's an opportunity, investment comes into that opportunity. When that investment comes into the opportunity, it puts price pressures on the downside. That's as simple as that. If you start taking or manipulating the market, you artificially affect the market and then ultimately you have those unintended consequences which is what we're obviously seeing happening overseas and what's being promoted by the Greens Party here and it will be a friggin' disaster. I cannot stress that anymore. The rent mark will go down. What we're seeing in Victoria is already a disaster.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so there we go. All right, mate, thanks for sharing what's making public news. There you go, folks. Hopefully a big episode for you to think about, in terms of what it takes. Now, just a reminder you don't have to do much different to anyone else to actually achieve your goals and stay on track and all those sorts of things. So hopefully that's helped. If this episode's resonated with you, please take a screenshot, share it with someone you know and love, who you think would benefit from this. And don't forget the propertycouchcomau forward slash free report, and if you want to check out more, it's spelt M-O-R-Rcomau. So, ben, until next week when we've got a very special guest who we're looking at, excited about Eliza Owen from CoreLogic, dishing out all the data for the benefit of our community. Mate, until we catch up with Eliza next week.
Speaker 2:Knowledge is empowering, Bryce, but only if you act on it by tracking your progress. Tracking your progress and having sustained consistency, there you go Sustained consistency.
Speaker 1:What a great way to sign off. See you next week, folks. Hey folks, bryce, here again. I just wanted to catch you real quick before you go. If you're new to our community, I want to encourage you to listen to our very first 20 episodes, as the concepts we share in EPS One through 20 are foundational principles, pillars and frameworks that you need to know for you to get the best value from our content week to week on our show. My little tip is to listen to it at one and a half speed Now.
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