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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?

Part 3: Bitcoin is Bitshoit!

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Last week I told you why Bitcoin could be awesome. This week I tell you why it could be BS.

Ok, so we’ve had a look at the Basics of Bitcoin, and I’ve given you the arguments for.

Now let’s look at the arguments against. I’m going to divide this into two sections. First I’ll look at the block-chain in general, and then I’ll have a look at crypto currencies and Bitcoin in particular.

The Block-Chain
Disruptive technologies are all the rage these days. Like the way Uber disrupted the taxi market, or the way AirBnB disrupted hotels. It’s very buzzy.

And people point to block-chain as the next big disruptive technology. The most recent example of anything like it was the birth of the internet, they tell us.

And I am loving what block-chain has to offer, but when I look into it, it looks less like a disruptive technology and more like a “foundational technology”.

So email disrupted regular mail. The internet was the foundation for email.

But even that’s not entirely right. The block chain is more like TCP/IP (transmission control protocol/internet protocol), which created the shared language that made the internet possible.

Before that, computers had to connect to each other directly (or network to network). TCP/IP enabled all participants to join together in the world wide web, without the need for a central exchange.

It was ‘distributed’, and that’s why it’s a better metaphor for block-chain I think.

But TCP/IP launched in 1972. It would then be over 20 years before the first commercially viable internet-based companies launched.

So how long do we have to wait before the commercial promise of the block-chain is realised?

What’s more, you couldn’t monetise TCP/IP itself. You couldn’t make money of it. It was a common good. It was owned by everyone, it benefited everyone. That was precisely the point.

Same story with the block-chain. It’s set to make a whole bunch of amazing things commercially viable. But it doesn’t mean that the block-chain itself, or the first generation of block-chain thingys, are going to make money.

The other thing I’d say about the block-chain is that while it contains seeds for a social revolution, that revolution will take many, many years to materialise.

So say, you have smart-contracts based in the block-chain. That contract says that I owe you $5. There indisputable proof that it’s true. We know the block hasn’t been tampered with. It clearly says that I owe you the money.

But I refuse to pay.

So what do you do?

Contracts are useless unless they can be enforced. For that, you need some wholesaler of violence – historically the government.

But then you might say, but it’s a trust system. If you diddle someone, it’s recorded. You get something like an e-bay profile score. That disincentives cheating.

But hang on. I thought anonymity was one of the great selling points for the block-chain? And what’s to stop me from setting up a string of fraudulent identities?

A huge amount of social infrastructure goes into simply proving to others that we are who we say we are, so we can enter into contracts with each other.

If you take governments out of the equation, you take all this social infrastructure with them.

Ultimately, we may find better way to do all this, and block-chain may be a start, but it’s far from the final word.

Bitcoin
The first point with crypto-currencies is that money is power. If you think that governments are just going to sit back and hand all that power over to the people, I think you’re a dreamer.

But, you might say, “It’s too late. The block belongs to everyone. They can’t control it now.”

I think it is probably true that they can’t kill it, but I don’t imagine they’d want to. They’d either side-line it or co-opt it. Currently, neither option strikes me as particularly hard.

(China recently shut down all its crypto-exchanges and went and seized all their records. So much for anonymity.)

Of course there are ways round this. But if your solution involves every person in the global economy running their own virtual private network and putting time and energy into staying a step or two ahead of the crypto-police, again I think you’re dreaming.

The other big draw-back for cryptos is that transactions are not free. People talk like they are because, there’s no central fee processor (like PayPal), but there’s still a cost that needs to be borne.

Currently the processing that drives the Bitcoin network is driven by miners. They receive rewards in the way of coins, and fees from individuals who want to see their transactions moved to the front of the cue.

And currently, that whole system is being driven by five to ten companies, according to Business Insider.

That’s not sounding that awesome.

It’s not immediately evident to me that a global financial network organised by a couple of hundred nations is inferior to a financial network powered by five to ten companies.

Especially if those five to ten companies have an ability to control fees…

But the point is, unless transactions are free, there is a cost that must be borne. There is a price that must be paid, and a fee that must be collected.

Money is concentrating somewhere, and with it, power.

This might sort itself out in time, but the current generations of cryptos all seem burdened with this flaw to me.

The final point is about Bitcoin in particular.

Have a read of this statement from Amazon’s 1997 letter to shareholders:

“We established long-term relationships with many important strategic partners, including America Online, Yahoo!, Excite, Netscape, GeoCities, AltaVista, @Home, and Prodigy.”

Of course they did. These were THE players in the internet space in 1997. Netscape was the first personal web browser. These companies dominated the internet just as it began to launch.

And how many still exist?

Maybe Yahoo, kind of, but apart from that, they’re all dead.

Now if block-chain is the next internet, as people like to claim, is Bitcoin the next Netscape?

Even ten years is a long time in business these days. If you’re betting on Bitcoin, you’re betting that no other player comes along and cuts bitcoins turf in the next.. what? 30 years?

That’s quite a gamble.

The way I see it, Bitcoin is very vulnerable to disruption. Its cost structures seem high, so there’s always the potential for undercutting.

Or, let’s say Amazon – the largest retailer in the world – launches its own coin – the Amazonian. At the time it says that you can only buy things with Amazonians but it will accept any Amazonians from anywhere.

(Remember when governments launched money in the past, they decreed that all taxes had to be paid in that money, to enforce widespread use. This would be Amazon’s equivalent play.)

People would find that they’d be happy to accept Amazonians, because there is a guaranteed use for them. If, at the same time, governments tried to block Bitcoin, but gave the green-light to Amazonians because Amazon committed to submit to the tax structures of the day (dodging tax seems to be one of Bitcoins supposed selling points) then the bulk of coin users will gravitate to Amazonians. It would just be easier.

In this game, user-numbers are king.

Bitcoin has the numbers for now, but there’s a long road of uptake ahead of it before it can claim to be the dominant player for sure.

And even then, how long do dominant players in any industry last these days? 10-20 years?

So to me, betting on Bitcoin is really a bet that no better system will evolve in the next 10-20 years. And I’m not talking about better from the perspective of an anarchist utopia, but better simply from the point of convincing more mum and dad users to get on board.

That is a HUGE bet in my mind.

So if you’re investing in Bitcoin – and really we should stop saying “invest”. If Bitcoin is actually currency, you don’t ‘invest’ in currencies. You speculate in them. You buy them on the speculation that they will increase in relative price. There’s no underlying value.

So if you’re speculating in Bitcoin, I would say that you need to be aware that the massive returns that are possible are equally balanced with the massive risks involved in any single crypto-currency.

Block-chain is a revolution. It’s amazing. But so was and is the internet. And a lot of money got poured down the toilet during the dot-com boom.

To me it feels like a case of history repeating.

???

What do you think? That’s my case against Bitcoin. Stronger than my case for?

I’ll leave it to you to be the judge. I’m just trying to shed a light on a world that has become very confusing very quickly.

And of course. I’m no expert. I’m just a smart guy with a few hours up his sleave. There could be huge parts of the story I’m missing.

Very happy to hear about it.

NEXT TUESDAY: I’ll look at wether Bitcoin is a bubble (what you need to be in a bubble) and look at ways you could still make money, even if it is. Look out for that.

What did I miss?

Part II: Bet the House On Bitcoin!?!

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Last week it was Bitcoin Basics, this week I tell you why it’s awesome… or could be…

This week I’m going to tell you why you should mortgage your house and sink it all into Bitcoin.

I’m not really telling you that. That’s not my actual advice. I’m just doing it to see what the arguments are. I started this journey as a bit of a Bitcoin sceptic, but I’ll try put that all aside here and see what the cryptocurrency actually has going for it.

So it’s not really me. If it helps, imagine me in lederhosen and speaking with a German accent.

(stop touching yourself.)

So why is Bitcoin awesome?

The first thing to remember is that Bitcoin is a currency. It’s a form of money. It’s something you use to buy goods and services.

There are some teething problems that make that function a little buggy right now. Bitcoin doubled in value in August, and that’s not something currencies normally do.

But we’re in the adoption phase. In time, Bitcoin will become fully adopted and its price will stabilise.

And when we’re talking about currencies, remember it’s price really points to relative value. What is the Aussie dollar worth against the Yen? What is the Bitcoin worth against the USD?

And remember that all the currencies on earth at the moment are increasing in quantity. Governments are printing more of them each year. The number of Bitcoin is growing too but at a much slower rate. And ultimately, the number of Bitcoins that can ever exist is fixed. You technically can’t make any more of them.

This dynamic alone means that Bitcoin must continue to appreciate against all other ‘inflationary’ currencies.

But if Bitcoin becomes a truly global currency – it’s already traded around the world, and is legal tender in Japan – then there is some seriously huge upside to people who get in early.

Right now, on current pricing, the total value of all the Bitcoins in existence is about US$70bn.

That’s a lot, but it’s also nothing. In Japan, M2 – the supply of money – is worth about US$10 trillion. In the US, M2 is worth $13 trillion.

So say Bitcoin expands to be a currency on par with the Yen – accounting for the same amount of global transactions. That would imply a coefficient of expansion of 135x. Or if it grew to be the same as the US dollar, that would imply a coefficient of expansion of 194x.

Let me spell that out so you know exactly what I mean. If you mortgage the house now and put $1m into Bitcoin, then when it grows to rival the US dollar – which could be only a decade, who knows? Then when that happens, your Bitcoin holdings will be worth $194 million US dollars.

I know, right?

And if Bitcoin grows to become THE dominant currency in the world, becoming the main form of money across the globe..? Forget it. Too many zeros to even make sense of.

This is the upside potential of Bitcoin. That’s why even though we’ve seen some crazy growth numbers in recent months, we’ve barely started.

This is still the ground floor. The doors to the elevator/rocketship haven’t closed yet.

Now critics would say, “But Bitcoin isn’t real. It’s not a real thing.”

But show me a currency that is real.

Take the Aussie dollar. That used to have gold standing behind it. You could take your money and trade it in for gold.

Not any more. The only thing supporting the Aussie dollar is the Aussie government, and the only thing supporting its price is a shared understanding of its value.

It’s nothing but an agreement. It’s nothing but a social contract.

But don’t stop there. Go back to gold. What’s gold actually worth? Take away all the social contracts and shared understandings around gold and what have you got? Not much. Some shiny rocks.

Go back in time and offer a cave man a 5kg bar of solid gold. What will he give you for it? A bite of his mammoth, at best?

There isn’t a money alive today that is ‘real’ in the sense that Bitcoins critics like to use it.

The US dollar isn’t ‘real’ and it’s worth $13 trillion.

But then don’t all currencies need a government to give them legitimacy?

That used to be true. Track the history of money and money emerged under the protection of city states. Once a structure emerged that had a monopoly on violence and could enforce its own rules, then money emerged to facilitate trade.

Money needed someone to enforce the rules around money. It simply died without it.

But this is the genius of the block-chain.

Trust doesn’t come from some authority structure. Trust is built into technology itself.

The value of Bitcoin is set in an open market, and the distributed ledger of the block-chain ensures that no one can mess with the results. What the market says, is.

So the integrity of the Bitcoin currency is the integrity of the block-chain, which is a communal and collective effort hard-wired into the technology.

And if anything, compared to conventional currencies where the supply is controlled by governments on the basis of policy, whim or self-interest, Bitcoin is far and away a more transparent and predictable entity.

In turn, that transparency and predictability gives it value – and we’ve barely scratched the surface of that value.

Finally, it is true that there are other cryptos out there, and the crypto ecosystem is becoming crowded. Bitcoin is still the biggest fish in the pond, but there are others who want to take its place.

But like most things in life, there is a first-mover advantage. Bitcoin was out of the gates before most cryptos were even concepts. It is established. It has set the standard.

And if you want to buy one of the other cryptos, these days you have to pretty much go through Bitcoin to get to all of them.

But how many cryptos does the world really need? Consumers want one – they don’t want the hassle of managing hundreds of currencies. That’s the mess we’ve got now.

So I see Bitcoin consolidating its domination of the space, and setting sail for $200 trillion.

So toot-toot. Time to get on board.

(No, not really.)

What do you think? Have I covered it? I know I’ve got a few Bitcoin traders in the readership here… What other arguments are there for Bitcoin?

Also, for the people who do have Bitcoin (Karan Goda – keen to hear your thoughts) are you holding for the long run, or are you cashing out at a certain price? What price?

NEXT TIME – I flip it all on its head and tell you why to avoid Bitcoin like the plague. You can then tell me which argument is more persuasive.

What pros am I missing?

NO B.S. FRIDAY: Why I’m awesome like the Dalai Lama

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Australian culture is toxic.

What if I told you I’m one of the most dangerous players in the senior soccer league?

(Totally true.)

What would you say that says about my ego? What about my self-esteem?

Somehow we’ve developed a culture where we go out of our way to help people keep their egos deflated. If someone is celebrating their success a little too much, we feel we have total license to go and let the air out of their balloon.

We actually think we’re doing them a service.

I don’t know where that comes from. Maybe we’re all just products of a ruthless Western Civilisation.

Don’t get too attached to your possessions. It’s only a matter of time before some landed lord confiscates them and uses you and your sons as cannon fodder. If you keep a lid on things now, it will lessen the disappointment later.

And whether it’s raising our children or keeping our mates in check, we feel everyone needs someone to “keep their feet on the ground.” It’s what mates do. We stop our mates’ successes going to their head.

“Nah Giaan. You’re not that good. Maybe you’re in the top ten, but definitely not the MOST dangerous…. You’re welcome.”

I can’t tell you how frustrating I find this.

Often it's because the people offering you that public service of keeping your feet on the ground actually have no idea what’s going on with your ego. They have a need to preserve their own fragile image of themselves and the only way they can do that is by putting down the people around them…

… and then dressing it up as an act of charity after the fact.

Total garbage.

So there’s often dishonesty there. But even the intention is rubbish. Why on earth would you need to keep someone’s feet on the ground? I want people around me who want me to fly, like the glorious seagull of awesomeness that I am.

Why wouldn’t you want to give energy to your own and other’s successes? Unpack them, build confidence in them, make them part of who you are…

The trap here is that we have all these half-baked pop psychologists going around bastardising the idea of ego.

The ego is your sense of self. It’s the mental construct of who you are. It’s the story you tell about yourself.

So everyone has one.

But the idea that an ego can be ‘big’ is total nonsense. What does that even mean?

If anything, a “small” ego, if there even is such a thing, would reflect a lack of self-awareness.

And people with limited self-awareness give me the shits far more than people with a nuanced and conscious awareness of themselves.

But no, big, small, it’s ridiculous.

But where ego comes into play for me is around fragility.

That is, the story that they’re telling about themselves is so fragile that they constantly need to defend it and build it up.

These are the people that are difficult to be around.

They’re the ones cutting people down so they can keep telling a story about how awesome they are.

They’re the ones constantly inventing excuses for why they’ve never succeeded, and enviously resenting others successes.

They’re the ones bragging about their soccer skills in nationally distributed blogs, and then dressing it up as profound life lessons to make it seem less pretentious.

So it’s not whether it’s big or small, it’s what you do with it.

(Right, babe?)

And that’s about fragility.

But if that’s true and it’s about fragility, why aren’t we out there celebrating each other’s successes? Taking the time to go, look at what you did. How awesome is that? You are a successful person. You are someone who works hard and gets results. Good on you.

Why aren’t we out there helping each other build robust and durable egos, built on successes that are regularly recognised and celebrated?

But no, we go out of the way to make sure that each other’s egos are constantly under attack as if we wanted to ensure that our egos were as fragile as possible and that we were all as painful to be around as possible.

And we make this a national pastime.

Toxic flipping culture.

Let me ask you another question. What would you say about the Dalai Lama’s ego? What would you say about his self-esteem?

I’m not really sure what relationship the Dalai Lama has with his ego. He’s probably transcended it or transmuted it into a radiant lotus flower or something.

But I’m willing to bet that whatever he’s done with it, his ego is fairly robust. It’s not fragile.

And I’m also willing to bet that he has solid, or high, self-esteem.

He probably has a good sense of who he is, his strengths and limitations, and his role in the world.

(By all accounts he’s a lovely man to be around – not at all painful.)

And as aware of his awesomeness as he probably is, I doubt that he ever gets into dick measuring contests about who is better than who.

It probably never occurs to him to even think about it in that way. That’s the terrain of a fragile ego – needing to prove yourself relative to others.

So I would feel pretty confident saying that the Dalai Lama has a robust ego and a high self-esteem.

We’re both awesome like that.

So if that’s true, can all you people trying to ‘help me keep my feet on the ground’ so I can be more like the Dalai flippin' Lama just go and get stuffed?

If you want to help people, help them build a strong sense of self-worth – an inherent self-worth that comes from within, not from measuring your wing-wang against others.

Recognise, celebrate, support.

That’s the culture I want to live in.

It’s not that hard.

Anyone trying to keep your feet on the ground? What comes up for you when you notice you're celebrating your success too hard?

NO B.B. FRIDAY: The Decision Incision

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Cut loose the life you decided not to live. Just cut it.

Ever wonder what coded messages the ancients left for us in language?

All of our histories are written into our language, one way or another. Like, take the word “knight” as in a “knight in shining armour”.

Apparently, when that word first entered the English language, centuries ago, it was pronounced as it was written. Like, ‘k-nig-h-t’ or something like that.

(I think it was a German word originally).

Then, at some point, in the space of like ten years, people in London just started pronouncing it ‘nite’. Suddenly, the poems of the age stopped rhyming knight with megahertz, and started rhyming it with ‘bite’.

And no one knows why.

The entire English language pivoted on a 2 cent piece and no one thought it was worth writing down why they did it.

I guess there was only like 200 of them at the time so they probably didn’t think it was important.

So every word tells a story.

But the one that’s always interested me is our ‘cision’ words. ‘Cision’ comes from the latin word ‘to cut’ but then it goes and shows up in a bunch of random words.

Some are pretty clear. ‘Incision’ makes sense obviously – to cut into. Then there’s ‘Circumcision’ – to cut the circus.

But then precision is a little looser – I guess it’s like to cut off all the fat and excess, and cut right down to the fine detail. And do that first before you do anything else… Um, I guess it’s not exactly clear what they were thinking there.

But then there’s ‘decision’.

From Dictionary.com:

“1425-75; late Middle English decisioun < Middle French < Latin dēcīsiōn- (stem of dēcīsiō) literally, a cutting off, equivalent to dēcīs(us) (past participle of dēcīdere; see decide ) + -iōn- -ion”

“A cutting off.” How is a decision like a cutting off?

For a long time, this one never sat right with me. The whole cutting thing seemed like an oddly violent thing to pair with making a choice.

I guess I would have gone with something more measured and considered. Maybe pull in the word for “weigh” or something.

But no, in 1425, they went with cut.

What were they thinking?

I have two theories. You can tell me which one sits better with you. Which one is a better match for what it feels like when you make a decision?

Unresearched Theory No. 1
I think ‘analysis paralysis’ is probably unique to our generation. I don’t think previous generations had the same amount of information on hand, or had to make decisions of similar complexity.

In 1425, most choices were probably pretty simple. Do I plant the field today, or do it tomorrow?

They probably didn’t have to weigh up the pros and cons of an issue the way we do. What career best reflects my innate talents and soul’s true purpose? Do I buy a high cashflow property in a low growth area, or a low cashflow property in a high growth area? Can I still go out for a beer with Bradley, even though he and my wife’s sister are getting a divorce?

First world problems, I know. But I’m not saying the choices we have to make these days are more important – just more complex. There’s a broader field of factors to consider.

But back when it was “plant today? plant tomorrow?” it was probably more straight forward. And in the context of a straight forward decision, ‘cutting’ might be about right.

Line up Option A and Option B next to each other, lop the head off one, and get on with the other.

“I’m doing the fields tomorrow, woman. Bring me some ale.”

But I also think this is a good way to think about decisions. It involves a certain element of death. Of killing.

I mean, when the road forks, we’ve got to chose one path to live out. The other path, and all the possibilities and promises that went with it, has to die.

We have to cleave it from our life story, and say, yep, there would have been many wonderful things about that particular direction. But it’s not where I’m going.

I don’t think we’re all great at being that ruthless. We like to nurture the different life paths under our care. I don’t want to commit fully to this path, because I’m still interested in exploring this direction. I don’t want to commit fully to my career in real estate because I’m still holding out hope that a country music label is going to discover my talents.

We need to be more ruthless. See the decision as a blade. Make the cut, and move on.

It’s what the ancients would have wanted.

Unresearched Theory No. 2
Want uninformed opinions? I’ve got hundreds of them. So I wonder if the ‘de’ in decision, is actually about removal – as in de-humidify.

De-cision in that sense is the removal of the cut.

It’s about moving from a place where you’re in two minds about something, back to a place where you have a single mind.

It’s about moving from a place where your mind is entertaining all sorts of possibilities, back to a place where you are single-mindedly focused on the path ahead of you.

Again it’s about letting go of the alternative realities you could be living in, and bringing yourself back to the life you have in the here and now.

Any cuts and partitions in your mind are gone. Your mind is healed and whole.

Your determination is resolute.

It’s what the ancients would have wanted.

What do you think?
There’s no way of knowing what the ancients had in mind, but I think both theories point to an important but often over-looked part of decision making. That is the ability to let go of the road not chosen.

To cut it from your life, or to remove the cut that allowed part of your brain to live in that potential reality. To let that alternative reality die, and to give yourself fully to the choice you made.

Just as the ancients would have wanted.

 

How does decision making feel to you?