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No BS Friday: You are at war

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You are at war. 

Make no mistake about that. You are at war, and if you want to achieve your full potential – to live the rich and beautiful life you know is possible, then you have to fight. 

Nothing will be handed to you on a platter. Your enemy is strong and clever. Your enemy is cunning and ruthless. 

But this is the thing. The war is not out there. It’s in here. 

And the enemy is not out there. The enemy is you. 

Success has nothing to do with conquering the world. That’s just nothing but logistics. 

Success is about conquering yourself – conquering lazy, conquering timid, conquering pitiful. 

And it sounds easy until you actually meet that enemy in the field. And you see how tricky they are. You see how relentless they are. 

And you see how, just as you stand on the cusp of your achieving everything you’ve been fighting for, your own mind will come from behind you, and drive rusty blades into your hamstrings. 

And as you watch everything you’ve built go up in flames around you, you must face this bitter truth as well – that it was your own mind who betrayed you. That you have no one to blame but yourself. 

This is hard. Bitterly hard. And it’s why so much human potential goes unfulfilled. 

And so the first battle you must win is with your own mind. Minds are truly marvelous machines, but you have to take control. Submit to the disciplines and the practices that will give you this control, whatever they are. 

Because if you win this battle here, the war is yours. From that point on, success is nothing more than arranging pieces on a board. 

Go within. And slay the enemy you find sleeping there. 

No B.S. FRIDAY: The One Key to UNLEASH YOUR POWER

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Now THIS is the key to real power in the world.

You are a powerful being.

But all that power is useless if you don’t know how to use it.

Most people seem to think the success journey is about becoming more powerful. It’s about learning new skills, become more efficient, more effective. Learning how to bend the world to your will.

And it is. But that’s not all it is.

Think about it this way. Imagine you have an old Datsun car. Now you strap a booster jet from a military cargo plane to it.

That car just got a tonne more powerful.

But will that power do it any good? Power is just dangerous if you don’t know how to handle it.

Or imagine you want to go to an awesome Vietnamese restaurant across town. You’re trying to figure out how to get there and you’re friend says, lets put some extractors and a supercharger on this thing. Make it fully sik.

Again, that will give you more power, but power wasn’t your problem.

If you don’t know where you’re going, more power just means you get lost more quickly.

This is true in all things.

It’s not enough to focus on your skills, your techniques, your strength. It’s not enough to focus on the things that give you power.

We also have to be constantly cultivating wisdom. We have to be cultivating the awareness and maturity that will help us navigate through life. We have to know where we are going.

And the only way to do this is to live. To live broadly and courageously. Seek out new experiences, meet new people, take on new challenges.

Be playful, brave and be constantly curious.

This is the discipline of power. Wisdom is nothing but experience made conscious.

And it is wisdom – wisdom is the key to realising the promise of the power you already possess.

No B.S. FRIDAY: Don’t leave a beautiful corpse…

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Are you tip-toeing at the moment ?

If so, I have some advice for you.

You are not here to leave beautiful corpses.

I broke my arm once when I was a boy.

My uncle said that the only people who’ve never broken a bone, are cowards (He was tough old Greek).

If you’re too scared to climb trees, jump off sheds, pull tricks with your bike or get into a bit of biffo, you might be lucky. You might get through childhood without breaking anything.

But do you want to spend the best years of your life wrapped up in cotton wool?

I don’t know if I’d recommend everyone taking life advice from that particular uncle, but on this occasion, his words stuck with me.

Life is risky. That’s kind of what makes it exciting.

And you can maybe get away without taking any knocks – maybe you can leave a lovely corpse in your coffin that doesn’t have any scars – but the only way to do that is to live a small life.

It’s to live your life wrapped up in cotton wool, not taking any gambles, any chances. Not risking anything.

But that is smaller than your life would naturally be, and it’s smaller than the life you should be living.

We’re not here to create beautiful corpses.

We’re here to live bold and beautiful lives – to create epic stories and take ourselves on wonderful adventures. Start businesses, fall in love, grow empires, eat risky foods from street-side vendors in Asia.

And we’re here to break bones, break hearts, go bankrupt three times and then leave an ugly corpse with the life completely squeezed out of it.

Agreed ?

This is what you are here to do.

So go out and break something.

You’ll thank me for it.

Go for it.

NO BS Friday: Fear your way to freedom

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The great American President, Franklin D Roosevelt said “The only thing to fear is fear itself.”

The great American President, Franklin D Roosevelt said “The only thing to fear is fear itself.”

Obviously he’d never been to Australia otherwise he wouldn't have said that…

“The only thing to fear is fear itself and bloody great red-back spiders hiding under the toilet seat”… but the point still holds.

Fear guides us way more than it should.

It holds us in patterns, in dull and comfortable careers, in uninspiring relationships, in bland and boring pursuits, way more than it should.

At least the fear of a redback spider will get you off your arse and running for the nearest tree.

This other, nameless fear – a fear that has no specific name or target – just locks us up. It stops us from moving.

And so we stay stuck in boring lives, long after we’ve outgrown them.

The antivenom is confidence.

You need to learn how to back yourself.

I’m lucky. I’ve always been too stupid to doubt myself.

And so whenever I was challenged to try something new – to turn my back on the comfortable life I’d made for myself – take a gamble on a totally new career direction, I did it.

In my mind, even if things went wrong, even if it was a disaster, I would manage. I’d fall back on my wit or charm and somehow, I’d get by. I’d be alright.

And it was this confidence that allowed me to conquer that nameless fear, and keep myself moving.

But I don’t know anything you don’t.

I’m sure you have the same resources that I do.

I’m sure you have the same charisma, wit, cunning good-looks – whatever it is you need to get you through.

Maybe you’ve just never been tested..

But back yourself. You are capable of more than you can dream of.

And the only thing holding you back

Is fear.

Use it to move you forward…rather than hold you back.

Fear is good, if you know how to manipulate it.

Fear you way to success and wealth is what I want for you.

– JG

No B.S. Friday: Three things you need to be grateful for right now

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Some little birds let me know that I was being ungrateful. This is what they taught me.

Would you like to be a bird?

It’d be alright, wouldn’t it? Being a bird, doing bird things. Hanging out with your birdy mates.

That’s what I was thinking the other day. I was sitting in my courtyard watching some little birds flit about in the garden.

“Look at them. They don’t have a care in the world,” I thought. “So jealous.”

And that point I had to acknowledge I was in a particular frame of mind. I’d been mulling over a couple of headaches and chores I needed to get sorted. Nothing too hectic, but nothing too fun either.

And in that space, the idea of being a little brown bird pissing about in my hedge was pretty appealing.

But the more I sat and the more I thought about it, the more I realised that I would totally not want to be a little brown bird, and that even for all the hardships associated with being human, being human is pretty awesome.

I really should be more grateful.

And if there’s one thing you’ve learnt from these blogs… (Actually if there’s only one thing you’ve learned, what are you doing? Stop reading. Go outside and hit the hedge bro.) But if there’s one thing you’ve learnt I hope that it’s that gratitude is not something that comes. It’s something we create.

Gratitude is like good health. It organically occurs when we put everything in place (like exercise and right diet etc.), but if we don’t put these things in place then it won’t happen.

That’s how gratitude works. If we’re not training ourselves to be awake to the awesome, and if we’re not training ourselves to celebrate the awesome when it comes, then we won’t be grateful.

Gratitude is a conscious practice.

So in that spirit, for my own practice, I decided to sit down and write out three reasons why being human is awesome and being a bird sucks.

Reason One: Leisure is sweet

Now it might look like being a bird is a pretty cruisy affair. It’s hard to see that they’re under much pressure to achieve much with their days.

Me, there’s an unusual noise coming from my rear tires, so I need to go and get that checked out. And then my wife’s birthday is coming up so I’ve got to think of a gift that is perfectly thoughtful without being overly contrived. And I’ve got this sense that our procurement systems at work could be better optimised, so I need to look into that at some point…

Uggh. So many headaches. Who wouldn’t be a bird?

But I think if you actually look at it, birds are pretty busy. There’s not a lot of idle time in a bird’s life.

And the same was true of humanity until pretty recently. The amount of free time and leisure we currently enjoy actually took a lot of engineering. It’s the result of a lot of factors working together to provide us with surround sound cinema’s and alfresco dining and entertainment quarters.

We lounge about and drink coffee on the shoulders of giants.

So humans are different. For the great majority of organisms on earth, they are slaves to their biological needs. If they have energy to spend then they spend it on eating, mating or nurturing the conditions that are conducive to eating and mating.

Like the birds and their singing. That might sound like a leisure activity, because we’ve made it into one, but for birds it actually serves particular purposes.

I actually transliterated some of the bird song in my garden and punched into Google Translate. This is what they were singing:

Oi you other birds.
Fek off,fek off, this is my shrub. These are my berries.
Fek offfek off, if you come around here I’ll go ya in the face.
Fek off.

Oi you lady-birds,
Come here, come here.
I’ve made a sweet-arse nest,
and my genes are conducive to successful reproduction.
Come here, come here. You know you want some.
You know you wantsooooome .

Bird poetics is actually quite under-developed.

But me, my poetic sensibilities are quite well developed actually, even though it’s not something I given much time to. And I’ve got so much surplus energy that I’ve actually got to come up with contrived ways to burn energy – like beating up a bag full of sand – otherwise I’d get fat and die.

The human capacity for leisure – and to be fair we are probably still talking about the west here. I guess I am talking about luxuries that many people in the developing world still aren’t able to enjoy – but that said, the human capacity for leisure is unprecedented in that natural kingdom.

There are activities you can engage in – activities that have absolutely no point other than the pleasure they provide. In the context of the million-year history of life on earth, this is unique.

And it’s something to be very grateful for.

Reason Two: Wonder is fun

I didn’t set out with the intention to just trash-talk little birds here, but how much is really going on in those little heads of theirs?

Are they pondering the mysteries of the cosmos? Are they getting tangled in the nuances of moral philosophy? Have any of them renounced a life of seeds and berries in pursuit of truth and meaning and liberating all of birdkind from the wheel of karma?

No, I don’t think so.

And that’s no moral failing on their part. I just don’t think they have the cognitive hardware to start approaching these kinds of questions.

But before we get all high and mighty and opposable- thumbsy , I think it’s important to remember that there’s some pretty hard limits on our cognitive hardware as well.

Just as maths is beyond the ken of birds, there have got to be things beyond the ken of human understanding. Most things probably.

And so we’ve been wanking on about philosophy and the good life for centuries, but where has it got us? Nowhere really. We don’t even have a coherent picture of the things we can see, let alone the great mysteries that are beyond the limits of our perception.

But… it’s been fun.

There’s a unique delight in being deliciously baffled. In feeling your mind get in the ring and dance around with things that it will never understand.

(What’s ‘outside’ the universe?)

It’s fun. It’s a leisure activity. And the name of that leisure activity is ‘wonder’.

Wonder is what happens when you get a sense of a mystery that you will never perceive.

It’s a beautiful thing.

And I think it might be a uniquely human experience.

Reason Three: Authorship is sexy

Imagine you were born as a bird. What life paths are available to you?

Within the limits of your biology, it doesn’t look like you have a lot of room to move.

You might choose to be an aggressive bird. Or you might choose to be a cooperative bird. You might decide that you’re going to stop chasing insects and focus on seeds.

But really, you’re probably not ‘choosing’ anything at all. You’re probably just following the behavioural coding in your DNA.

Now imagine a child born today. What life paths are available to them?

Well, at this point in history, there is a dizzying array of life paths on offer. They could do anything.

They could be a lawyer. Or they could be a marine biologist. Or they could be a ballerina. Or they could be a civil rights activist.

And they could live in Australia, or Austria or Antarctica. They could live in the city or the bush or on renovated bus touring through Siberia.

Heck, these days, we’re not even bound by our physiology. If I decided I wanted to spend a decade as a woman to see what it was like, that’s is medically available to me now.

There is an immense amount of choice on offer to people these days.

And that sets up a new game – a game where you get to follow your own truth, and become the author of your own life.

A game where you get to experiment. Where you get to taste life’s fruits and decide for yourself which ones you really like.

And it’s a game where you get to learn about yourself. You get to learn what you like and what you don’t like, and what life-calling really excites your spirit.

And it’s a game where you get to set the course. You get to choose your path and follow your own journey. You get to decide what it is you want and how you are going to achieve it.

What a fabulous game that is.

Of course some people are more free than others. But if you’re in Australia, with enough resources to read this on your phone, them I’m talking to you.

Being human is the opportunity to be the author of something completely wonderful.

How good is that?

Oh! I forgot one!

There’s three reasons that I’m very grateful to be human. Today, I am extremely grateful to be Jon Giaan, a human, alive at the most amazing and expansive time in history.

I give thanks.

And I don’t want to rub it in the bird’s faces or anything, but how good is it to also be at the top of the food chain? Can you imagine navigating the commute to work, always worried that something might be about to eat you?

How stressful would that be?

So yeah, nah , I don’t want to be a bird.

I’ll stick to being human thanks.

… until I master it.


– Jon Giaan

Hayne: what it means for property… and capitalism!

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Hayne says the problem is capitalism. The solution? Let’s all move to fairy-land.

Ok, so I’ve been digesting the Hayne Royal Commission report over-night, trying to make sense of it all.

But there’s something weird at the heart of it all.

I’ll get to that, but first, what are the implications for the property market and property investors? Here they are in a nut shell:

1. No big changes to the industry

This is being billed as a reset of the financial industry, but I don’t see any major changes here. The banks aren’t having to break up their vertically and horizontally integrated business models (e.g, where a bank owns a funds manager that recommends the banks products to its customers), and apart from doing more to comply with the law, the banks aren’t being asked to change their business models in any real way.

2. No changes to the law

Hayne went to lengths to point out that he didn’t see any need to change the existing laws, only to make sure that the laws were being properly and prosecuted.

3. Regulators need to pull up their socks

On that front, the regulators need to do more, and he wants to see them being less shy about prosecuting banks under the law. Remember how ASIC dealt with the Comminsure scandal by asking for a $300,000 community contribution rather than issuing an $8 million fine? Hayne probably has a point.

4. No changes to the credit environment

As Hayne uncovered more and more dirt on the industry, the banks started tightening up their credit standards. The fear I had was that Hayne would push this further and harder, and credit would slow even more. This hasn’t happened. There’s no recommendations here that are going to crimp credit.

That said, there’s nothing here that relaxes credit either. The banks have already started moving away from income and expenditure benchmarks in favour of looking at customers actual income and expenses, and Hayne wants this to continue.

For property prices, I reckon Hayne is neutral, and given the banks’ history of successfully watering down reforms, possibly price-positive in the long run.

5. Mortgage Brokers hung out to dry

Hayne recommends banning trailing commission on mortgage broking, and moving the mortgage broking industry to a fixed fee system. Many mortgage brokers reckon this will kill the industry, and they’re probably right. I think your owner-occupiers and mum and dad investors will probably just go back to walking into whichever bank has the cuddliest mascot, rather than paying a couple of grand upfront. Banks will go harder on these customers and they’ll pay more in the long run (while the customers will pat themselves on the back in the short run – look how much I saved, Honey!)

I can see there is a mis-alignment of incentives with trialling commissions paid by the banks, but killing the industry without putting in place something to help your average punter navigate the complex world of mortgage finance is a recipe for ripping people off.

6. Capitalism is a flawed system

This is where we get to the bit where it’s just a bit weird for me.

Hayne reckons there’s a problem with the banks’ “culture”. Not “culture” in the sense of their rock art and quixotic dance rituals, but culture in the sense that many people in the industry seem to be motivated by money.

“Why did it happen..? Too often, the answer seems to be greed – the pursuit of short term profit at the expense of basic standards of honesty. How else is charging continuing advice fees to the dead to be explained?

“…Banks searched for their ‘share of the customer’s wallet’. From the executive suite to the front line, staff were measured and rewarded by reference to profit and sales.”

Staff were rewarded by reference to profit and sales… what a highly unusual business model that is. What are freakishly strange culture to have.

I mean, you wouldn’t see that in my business. My staff are motivated by my witty company-wide emails and by premium biscuits in the break-room. Money never comes in to it.

But seriously, what are we even talking about here? Yes, capitalism has its flaws. When people are motivated by money, sometimes people with low ethical standards do things that people with higher standards wouldn’t do. There’s nothing new there.

But are we really suggesting we should remove the profit-motive from banking? And if so, why stop at banking. Let’s just make profit illegal altogether. Let’s move to an economy-wide biscuit-based incentive structure.

Let’s all move to fairy land.

But no, I actually think this talk of culture is a squib. It allows us to feel morally righteous, while doing nothing to address the fundamental issue – the disproportionate power that has been allowed to accumulate in the finance sector, and the captured, wet-lettuce approach to regulation.

But no, we’re not tackling that. We’re talking about some fantasy culture, where no one cares about money.

Off the planet.

No BS Friday: Xmas – why we’re all in the same sad boat

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If there’s not a touch of sadness to the closing of the year, you’re missing something.

Are you doing Christmas right?

My mind is already there and I did want my last blog of the year to be something upbeat – like a whiskey-bottle-shaped present, in shiny paper and a bow, sitting under the tree.

Hmmmm. Can’t wait to open this little gift from Uncle Jon.

But I’m not actually feeling that. I’m not feeling full of Christmas cheer and the blessings of the season.

That will come when the laptop is shut and my wife and I are watching the Royal Tattoo on the ABC, and getting into the opening rounds of our annual Jelly-Twister tournament.

Such a special time of year.

But right now, I’m not a jolly old fellow.

The year is ending. We’re pretty much done.

And when I look back on what I’ve done, there’s a lot to be proud of. I grew the business. I got a few successful deals up off the ground. I grew my wealth and reduced my waistline. I found new depths in my relationships.

It was a success. Sure.

But if I’m honest, there were misses there too. There were goals I just didn’t quite hit. There were deals that could have been done better. There were things I said to my loved ones that weren’t coming from my highest, most compassionate self.

And now the year is done. 2018 is closed. From this point on, 2018 will just live in memory and our history books. Before we know it, we’ll be looking back on 2018 the way we look back at 1998 – a fading memory, full of obsolete technology and loved ones who are no longer with us.

The past is a different country, and we are already pulling away the shore.

We’ll never set foot in 2018 again.

And I had big plans for 2018. I remember this time last year. I was pumped. I was excited. I was going to own 2018. It was going to be my pivotal year – the year I really switched it on and burnt my name into the sky.

(I’m realising now I tend to say that about most years.)

And sure, it was a good year. If I’m honest – and when I say honest, I kind of mean grateful. The fact that I can wake up in this beautiful country and live this blessed life is nothing short of a miracle. Anything less than awe-struck gratitude is kind of just dishonest and ungrateful.

(I probably didn’t spend as much time in awe-struck gratitude this year as I should of either.)

So yeah, if I’m honest, it was a good year. It was full of blessings and miracles. The pigeons of fate continue to poop their lucky poops upon my greying head. I see that. And I’m thankful.

But the close of the year is also bitter-sweet. I could of done more. I could of achieved more. I could of lived larger and more courageously. I could of drunk more deeply from the well of joy and beauty. I could of worried less and had more fun.

Measured against the yardstick of my dreams and my potential, I came up short.

Again.

And yeah, I know. To 7 billion people on the planet I just sound like a spoilt idiot right now – like a moron who just doesn’t know how good he has it.

But I think this is the price you pay for being driven and passionate – when your day-dreaming imagination gives you regular tastes of what might just be possible – when it lays out a glorious future before you, and tells you that this is what you were born for.

So much promise. So much potential.

And it’s what happens when you just don’t accept the hands life deals you – when you refuse to go with the flow. When you take responsibility for your life, when you live in agency, then the results are yours to own – your failures as much as your victories.

So I am owning my failures. As the year closes, I have to admit that 2018 just wasn’t all it could have been.

Ho, Ho, bloody Ho.

And maybe what I’m really railing against here is my own mortality.

2018 is done. That’s another year scratched off the ledger of my life. That’s another year I won’t get to do over.

And there’s a lot I want to achieve with this life. There’s stuff I want to get done, celebrities I want to take out to dinner.

I’m at an age now where if I died tomorrow, it wouldn’t be a shock or a tragedy. It’d be a loss, sure. “He was taken a bit early, they’d say. “But he’d had a pretty good run…. and you saw how much he used to drink.”

I am not a spring chicken any more. And I get less springy and less chickeny every year.

And in many ways, my star is already waning. In Japanese sword, they say that the peak of your power is 42. Beyond that, your inner power starts to fade. You can still become more powerful and more effective, but from 42 onwards, you need to lean more heavily on your skills and the power of the elements.

And I feel that. I don’t bounce back from Christmas drinks the way I used to. Every now and then I fancy a nap, and that’s unusual for me. Some days, I just can’t be arsed at all.

Getting old sucks.

And each year the field of your potential narrows. When you are young, worlds of possibility are open to you. You could be a scientist or a fire-fighter or a professional footballer.

With each passing year, more and more options stop being available to you. At this point, there is absolutely no way I could become a professional footballer, no matter how much money I threw at the problem. That door is forever closed.

And each year, more and more doors close, until finally, towards very end of your life, there is only one door left – the door into death and the other side.

And look, I hate that. I’m having a good time here. I enjoy exploring the world and tasting the fruits it has to offer. If there was an alternative to growing old and dying, I’d take it.

But there isn’t.

Christmas just reminds me of that. The year is done and I am a step closer to a state with no potential.

And I wonder if I’m not alone in this. Christmas is a notorious time for depression and suicide.

Typically, people put that down to how stressful the season can be, or how Christmas itself can be a stark reminder of how alienated and isolated you are.

I’m sure that’s true.

But I also wonder if it’s because Christmas brings in the closing of the year, and the closing of another door.

It’s natural to reflect on how far you’ve come, how much you’ve achieved, or if you’ve achieved anything at all.

Time just slips away from us. If we’re not spending it consciously, then it’s very easy to get to the end of the year and think, “Whoops. I really didn’t get anything done this year at all. I’m not a step closer to any dream I have.”

Faced with that thought, of course it’s easy to get depressed.

Hmmmm.

Well hasn’t this Christmas message become a bundle of joy? Sorry. I didn’t mean to bring the Grinch.

But I also don’t want to shy away from this either. I know this time is tough for a lot of people, and if you’re reading blogs on the Friday before the Xmas break, then I guess you have an appetite for meaningful reflection too.

So what is there to say?

  • 1. Time is precious and our time here is short.
  • 2. Spend your time wisely because you won’t get it back again.
  • 3. Be conscious of your mortality and the doors that are closing around you, but know that any time not spent is awe-struck gratitude is wasted.
  • 4. Have compassion for your companions on the road. We are all in the slow process of dying and shuffling off the earth. We all have to watch our power and potential fade. That sits heavy in every human heart, but it’s something we can all relate to.
  • 5. Celebrate what you do have, and who you do have, with everything you’ve got.

So I guess this is what I want to leave you with as I sign off for the year. The poignant, beautiful absurdity of life.

Thanks for travelling with me. I hope you’ve found something interesting to reflect on in these blogs. And I hope the Christmas period comes gently to you, and it is rich in all the things that matter to you.

I’ll be back early in the New Year, ready to give life my very best shot.

I hope you’ll join me.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year everyone!

How to make and how to lose $100K in 13 months

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Flipping always looks like a great strategy in the good times. But are some investors about to come unstuck?  

 Sometimes you strike it lucky in property.  

Like this story of a guy on the Gold Coast who flipped a parcel of land for a $130K uplift.  

(The story appears in the UK’s Daily Mail, because there’s a picture of him with his girlfriend in a G-string. Pure class).  

A 23-year-old man has made more than $101,000 profit after buying a plot of land and mowing it twice. 

Anthony Dart, 23, bought the property on the Gold Coast for $310,000 and 13 months later he sold it for a staggering $439,000. Mr Dart told Daily Mail Australia he made a solid profit of $101,000 after expenses. 

The young entrepreneur was shocked by how much the property appreciated in value in just over a year. 

Hats off to him. From what I know of the Gold Coast market, at that price I expect he bought under market value, and that’s what made those kinds of gains possible.  

And with property prices on a tear-away in recent years, a lot of people would have similar stories.  

Trouble is though, people seem to think that these kinds of stories are the norm.  

Amazing deals like this happen when you do your research and buy under-market, or when you do your research and buy in an area primed for growth.  

That is, when you do your research.  

If you’re not doing your research, then you’re only going to get these kinds of results if you get lucky. And if you’re relying on luck, then you’re just gambling.  

And all gamblers lose at some point.  

Western Menbourne might now be about to become a case in point.  

There’s been a bit of a frenzy going on out there in recent times around house and land packages.  

It’s pulled in a lot of speculative activity, with buyers looking to flip their purchases before settlement.  

As prices stall though, there’s an air of panic brewing:  

Speculators who hoped to get rich on a boom in Melbourne land prices are “panicking” as settlements loom and they can’t find developers to on-sell their sites to, according to Resi Ventures’s Khurram Saaed, who has been developing for 15 years. 

Mr Saaed said he was getting one call a week from panicked speculators, including one buyer who had put down $21 million in deposits on a number of sites and risked losing all their money. 

“These are people who have been successful in other business, and who have just bought land with no due diligence in the hope of making a lot of money in three to four years’ time by flipping the site prior to settlement,” he told The Australian Financial Review. 

And there’s been a strong rise in people taking to gumtree to offload their properties, as real estate in general takes longer to sell:  

A rising number of land owners in Victoria are selling off-the-plan housing lots on classified advertisement and community website Gumtree ahead of their expected settlements next year. 

In the first three weeks of October, nearly 50 advertisements have been uploaded – more than twice the number in September – offering sales of lots in communities like Dahua Group’s Orchard project in Tarneit, Satterley Property Group’s Botanical in Mickleham, MAB’s Merrifield in Mickleham and Stockland’s Edgebrook Community in Clyde and Cloverton in Kalkallo. 

Other land sites for sale are in places such as Greenvale, Melton, Lyndhurst and new suburb Weir Views, all of which are about 20 to 35 kilometres from the Melbourne CBD. 

I’d be keeping a wary eye on this space.  

I don’t think the growth corridors of Western Melbourne were bad places to invest, if you were genuinely investing. I think they’ll be decent going forward.  

And I wouldn’t say no to buying there now… but I would be driving a very hard bargain with eyes wide open.  

But if the flipping spree was as widespread as they say it was (possibly isn’t, who knows), then some extra diligence really is in order.  

Don’t say I didn’t warn you. 

JG 

NO B.S.FRIDAY: Such is Life…

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Why do we love bushrangers so much? Are we all just bushrangers too busy with our day jobs?

November 11th was Remembrance Day, but I also noticed it’s the 138th anniversary of Ned Kelly’s death. They hanged our most famous bushranger on November 11, 1880.

I feel like we must be due for another round of bushranger romanticism. Seems to come around every 30 years or so. I mean, it’s been 15 years since the last Ned Kelly movie.

(Update: they’re in the process of making one right now. There you go.)

But why do we love bushrangers so much?

Kelly has more brand recognition than any Australian has ever had, including Don Bradman, well over a century after his death.

And Kelly’s life was hard. He was born into a poor family, took a lot of knocks along the way, before finally going to the gallows at the tender age of 25. Not a lot to envy there.

But we collectively get starry-eyed, and imagine ourselves in an iron suit, both guns blazing.

(Or is that just me?)

Bushrangers were a product of that time, and our romanticism has as much to do with that period in Australian history as it does with them.

I mean, if Ned Kelly were alive today, he’d probably end up on Today Tonight, with a camera man chasing him through the streets of Melbourne. Clank, clank, clank. “Mr Kelly. We just want to ask you a few questions.”

No one is getting misty eyed about car thieves in tracky-daks and sneakers these days.

But still there is something in the archetype of the bushranger that calls to our spirit.

To me, I think the key selling point of brand bush-ranger is ‘rebelliousness’. That’s what elevates them from the muck of humanity’s dregs, into the rarefied air of cultural hero.

But what does that say about us?

Why do we love and celebrate the rebellious? The rule breakers? The trouble makers?

Do we secretly long to cast ourselves in that light – break the rules, trash the law, kick down the doors and leave our name in bullets in the wall?

Are we all just bushrangers, too busy with our day jobs to cause anybody any trouble?

Yes. Yes we are.

The world is repressive. It crushes our freedom, our unique spirits, our playful, child-like natures. It’s just how it is. As we get older, we find the adult world with all its rules and regulations has us all bound up in a straight-jacket.

The question becomes how do we respond?

Do we suffer in silence, taking a photo-copy of our bottoms when the boss isn’t looking in an impotent act of defiance?

(Brian, I know it’s you. Just stop it, ok. It’s unhygienic.)

Or do we go totally off the hook, become a renegade, dying in a rain of bullets and glory?

That’s sexier, but still pretty sad in the end.

Or do we find another way? A third way? Do we find a way to push back the prison walls of the world, and find a way to live on our own terms, with our own money, with our own drive and our own autonomy?

Do we find a way to keep expanding the sphere of our own freedom?

This has been one of the central missions in my life in recent years. Finding that freedom.

Sure, that’s partly about money. Money can buy you many freedoms in life – the freedom to travel, the freedom to follow your own interest, freedom from the stresses of a hand-to-mouth existence.

But it’s also about making it part of my life goals – finding a career that let’s me set my own hours and schedule. Living somewhere that gives me easy access to the things I love doing. Putting energy into my relationships so they are supporting me, rather than holding me back.

But ultimately, it starts with recognising that we are all living in Ned Kelly realities – realities where the system is not set up to maximise our freedom and fulfilment.

This is the first step.

The fight then and must come second.

Such is life.

JG

NO B.S. FRIDAY: Bachar Houli is the future of Australia

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I’m still on a high after Richmond’s win, and I don’t want to go on about it, but it really was profound.

Last week I was talking about Dusty Martin and the Tiger's vulnerability practice and what a watershed moment that was for Aussie culture.

But there are a lot of amazing stories in the overarching epic of the Tigers’ victory.

Another one is Bachar Houli.

In case you’re not an AFL fanatic, Bachar Houli is one of the Richmond Tigers key players. He’s also first practicing Muslim in the AFL.

There have been other players from Muslim backgrounds in the AFL, but he is the first practicing Muslim – he had to get permission to break his Ramadan fast to participate in the draft round.

Given the age we’re living in, Houli’s religion is not insignificant.

Now I’ve read a few pieces which go something like, see Muslims can like footy. Therefore we can all get along.

It’s a bit silly.

I don’t think Houli’s participation in the AFL changes much in the scheme of things. I think you’re underestimating people prejudices if you think one player in the AFL can convince them to give them up, and come and join hands around the fire.

The truth is that society’s attitudes generally change as the old attitudes go with their owners to the grave.

So I don’t think Houli playing in the AFL is going to be an agent of change. That’s got the causality backwards. Rather, I think it says we’re doing something right.

I also think it’s wrong to paint ‘integration’ as relationship between an outsider and a static entity, say between a Muslim like Houli, and a static Australian society.

The way I see it, Australia is not a destination, but a journey. Australia society is not a fixed set of preferences (vegemite over jelly and peanut butter), but the values that drive our collective journey.

Of course, when we get into trying to define what Australian values are, we get into pretty hotly contested ground.

But it doesn’t need to be that way.

And the truth is, when I see a young man like Houli, I can empathise. I grew up Greek in 70s and 80s Australia. I had a last name that the white kids couldn’t pronounce.

The young kids find it hard to believe these days, but we used to cop it. And it really wasn’t that long ago.

And people used to wonder back then if the wogs “really shared our Australian values.”

“Look! Their food has all this “flavour” and the men can dance.”

And before us, it was the Irish.

And now these days, you can’t even imagine the fabric of Australian society without the Mediterranean and Irish threads running through it. And you look back in time and think, what were people even worried about? It’s hard to understand.

But the ‘integration’ (and I kinda hate that word) of Greek and Irish peoples into Australia has been a success.

Why?

Because we were allowed to participate. We were given a go. I still love soccer and love Greek food, but there’s no point looking at such superficial measures of connection.

Rather, I have a dream to make something of my life, a willingness to do the hard yards, and to help out where needed.

To me, this is all Australia is. This is the journey that we are on, together.

And so I can get why people worry about Muslim people “integrating” with Australian society. They are strong in their culture and it has some marked differences.

But I am strong in my culture too, and my heritage still defines who I am.

And so I would say, don’t worry about any of this. Don’t worry about whether people are bringing pork sausages to the BBQ or not. It doesn’t matter.

Worry about whether they are part of the shared journey.

And in large part, that is simply about being confident in Australian culture. It really is awesome. Just trust that if someone has the ability to participate in it, see it for themselves, enjoy the freedoms and the quality of life that comes with it, then they will make it their own.

They’ll go on to play footy at the highest level and tear it up.

You let that be the choice. Either you take part in the shared Australian journey to making your life your own, or off you go and join ISIS. Up to you bro.

If you don’t think people will choose the Australian journey over some fundamentalist journey of whatever stripe, then you probably have a pretty negative view of what Australian culture has to offer.

I don’t. I reckon Aussie culture has a lot to offer an individual.

So for me, the real issue here is access.

The offer only works if everyone has the opportunities that I did.

It’s why all those crony-capitalists make me so angry – and the rich folk who go out of the way to make things harder for the poor.

You’re rich. Great. Good for you. No need to be a dick about it.

Australian culture will thrive, and be a beacon to the world, so long as everyone has an opportunity.

Deny people the opportunity, and they will turn their back on society. They will stop being part of the journey and actively seek to undermine it – whether that means joining neo-nazis or ISIS.

But for now, that’s not what’s happening. Houli chose the Australian journey and living out his destiny through the AFL.

For today, at least, we’re doing something right.

What do you reckon Houli represents?