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Episodes
Wednesday Mar 13, 2019
Wednesday Mar 13, 2019
Episode 24: How Tim & Cheryl are creating a Freedom Farm
Today we share an interview of Tim and Cheryl Freak that we did for our mastermind clients. Tim & Cheryl are an amazing couple who are very passionate about farming.
In this interview, we explore how they are setting up their business to create a Freedom Farm. This is a profitable company that continues to work without their presence. Tim & Cheryl’s children are not ready to work on the land at the present time so they’ve had to hire people to help them create this freedom farm.
We explore how they did this during the interview…
Here is a bit of back ground about Tim and Cheryl Freak:
Location:
Background:
1982 – Tim’s parents purchased 485 ha & share-farmed sheep
1990 – Tim joined the business. Purchased 242 ha- very low equity
1992 – Cheryl joined the business
1998 – Purchased 380 ha
2002 – Share-farming extended to include cropping
2004 – Purchased airseeder and bar in a syndicate
2005 – Purchased 320 ha
2007 – Began share-farming 1347 ha
2008 – Purchased 410 ha
2011 – Began share-farming 185 ha
2013 – Purchased this 185 ha é
2014 – Purchased 805 ha
2015 – Joined Sheep Owners Academy (now Farm Owners Academy)
2018 – Continued on into Farm Owners Academy Alumni Program
Farm Details:
360mm rainfall ave
Manage 5180 ha (own 2833 ha)
3 full time, 2 part time employees, plus casuals
Crop 3200 ha – wheat, barley, hay, canola, lupins
Sheep – approx 3000 ewes – 50% mated to Merino, 50% WS
Net Profit Results:
Return on Capital:
Their Goal:
To create a freedom farm and enjoy helping other farmers (they currently sit on some farm boards and also coach with Farm Owners Academy).
A HUGE thank you to Tim and Cheryl for allowing us to share their interview on this podcast.
P.S. Whenever you’re ready...here are 4 ways we can help you grow your farming business:
1. Attend to our free online training - "Nail It Then Scale It. Take Control of your farm today, and become the profitable business owner you deserve to be!"We will show you how we help farmers become 200% more productive every month by becoming laser focused and highly-organised business owners - click here to grab your seat.
2. Join the Farm Owner Academy’s closed Facebook group ‘Profitable Farmer’ Our new Facebook community is where smart farm owners learn how to get more profit, control and freedom, and you can connect with like-minded farm owners - click here to join.
3. Subscribe to our ‘Profitable Farmer’ podcastThis free audio podcast delivers ideas to help you run a great business - leading to more profit, control and freedom – click here.
Tuesday Feb 26, 2019
Tuesday Feb 26, 2019
The quality of your business and life is in direct response to the quality of the questions you ask.
Today’s podcast takes you through 10 key areas and gets you to question how you are performing in life and business.
There are 30 questions in total.
We recommend you do this twice a year. It won’t take long, but it will help you look at ways to make your business and life better.
We also give you the questionnaire inside, so click here to access and enjoy this podcast.
Have a great day,
Andrew
PS - Early bird tickets are now available for our TOP Producers 2-Day Workshop in Canberra on 30-31 May. It’s a smaller space and this event will fill out quickly so click here to book your ticket now.
Tuesday Feb 12, 2019
Tuesday Feb 12, 2019
"HOW TO CREATE WEALTH OFF YOUR FARM AND GENERATE MONEY WHILST YOU SLEEP”
“Don’t work for money, make it work for you” – Robert Kiyosaki
Transcription:
Andrew: Welcome to this podcast and we have a special guest on here today, Terry Tran. I want to firstly make sure you can hear me okay Terry?
Terry: I can Andrew.
Andrew: Welcome mate. Thank you very much for coming on board the ‘Profitable Farmer Podcast’, sharing your story and educating our farmers about investing and creating freedom and wealth off their farm. Terry, let's just take a step back. I'd love to share with everyone how you and I met. I was trying to contemplate our first meeting. When was it? I think it was on a webinar that I ran? Would that be a fair assumption?
Terry: The very first time we met probably was on a webinar, because at that time, I know you were teaching people how to run webinars. You are my mentor on how to utilise the webinar platform, and over time I also attended a couple of the business live seminars. This is going back, probably almost…
Andrew: Several years.
Terry: Yes, many years. At least over five, six, seven years ago now. It was actually awesome. You were mentoring me on how to create a profitable business, from the business point of view.
Andrew: Yes, isn't it funny? Because I know you were at one of our events and you spoke about what you do. Something about it Terry, really piqued my interest. I remember many years ago I thought “We've just got to get Terry in front of business owners”. Because as a business we work so hard, right? We work so hard for our money and I think we forget that we need to turn around and get our money working hard for us. I remember Terry, I was teaching you a system on how to run a business and you said, "Look, this is what I do. I just have a system to help people create wealth."
Let's just personally talk a little bit about your background. How did you get into trading shares? Why shares? And obviously, your business ‘Freedom Trader’.
Terry: Sure. My background is I came from corporate years ago. I was doing the 70-80-hour weeks and over time, my health deteriorated. I was with one of the big four banks. I was going up the ranks, promotion after promotion, so that was fine. But 5½ years in, one day going out to lunch, I literally blacked out at the top of a staircase. This is in Sydney. I rolled down two flights of stairs and ended up in the hospital. I realised that doing the 80-hour weeks wasn't sustainable long term. I was working hard for my money, getting my promotions, but I needed something else that could give me the freedom. Because I didn’t have any, I was not really having the family life I wanted. I thought "Okay, let's have a change. Let's see if I can give this a go”.
I was always interested in investing but didn't know where to start, so I attended seminars to learn as much as I could. The first 2 years actually I didn't do well at all. I basically lost quite a fair bit of money, because I attended the wrong seminars, people who were teaching for a living rather than doing for a living. It wasn't until I went out and sought the best fund managers around the country and learnt from them, the Warren Buffets of the world, a lot of the Australian fund managers that do very well and have great track records. Really learning from them and realising the mistakes I made and from there I slowly retrained myself and started again.
Once I became quite successful on my own, I thought, "Okay, why not now help other people by managing their money?". I went out there and I raised capital quite quickly. I was running the fund very similar to Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett's company, where I wanted to be fair, where I don't charge any management fees. I'll just charge based on profits, and I'll be the largest fund holder of the fund as well. Therefore, we have our interests aligned and it just grew from there. Literally, it's been about 15 years now and a good track record.
Then about three years ago, I decided to teach what I do to help people, especially in Australia. I thought people might be interested to learn how to invest safely, just like a fund manager. Where the first and foremost priority is protecting the capital you have, and once you’ve protected it, how do you then grow it? At all times, you basically minimise the risk to almost zero. Then grow the wealth from that foundation. Too many people come to markets and they lose what they have. I didn't want that to happen.
Andrew: I'm a client of Terry's. He was working as a client of mine and it switched and I'm now learning Terry's Freedom Trader system. It's interesting Terry, because if somebody says you should be buying, for example, Apple, I’d assume "Right, I'm going to have to get a big chunk of money that I've worked hard for and put it into Apple”, It's almost a bit of impatience or risky. I know that’s a component that I've really learnt from working with you, that that's quite risky.
Terry: Yes, it is.
Andrew: Putting too much money into one stock is risky so you've completely changed the rules. You've changed how I go about trading and investing. Not just in shares, you've also opened me up to investing in property as well.
Let's just talk a little bit about this Terry. How easy is it for farmers to get really caught up in working hard for their money and not really thinking about "Well you can learn these skills to get your money working for you"?
Terry: Yes, that's correct. I learnt that from the corporate life and now also seeing many businesses, especially hardworking farmers that slave away so many hours a day, at least 10-12 hours a day on their farms. Yes, you are working hard for the money but why not take the profits that you make from the farm, put that to work and allow the cashflow to accumulate and grow a portfolio that will sustain you long term as well?
For me, I actually see investing as very similar to farming, it’s literally like a seed. The job is to find a great seed, plant it and then allow time for it to do its thing, water it, prune out anything that's bad and then allow that plant to slowly grow and then at the end you harvest it. It's all about patience, yes.
Andrew: Yes, it's a great metaphor. I just want to talk about working really hard for your money. Something that was taught to me many years ago is that ‘people who just buy stuff, end up with stuff all’. It's interesting because a farmer might do well in a year so go and buy a new ute or a nice holiday, for example, which is fine. However, one of the great paradigm shifts that I had many years ago, which you've just amplified since learning from you, is this concept of using your profits to create wealth and then buy your stuff from the returns of that wealth. It's such a powerful thing and that's one component. Building wealth outside the farm.
I know that you've previously worked with farmers and you've got this big mission to help a farmer mitigate risk, correct? Because a farmer is so weather dependent that really if they learn to create money outside of their business, then this is a massive risk mitigation strategy. Can we talk a little bit more about that, aligned with your mission and the importance of creating wealth outside of your business?
Terry: Definitely. Like you said I've got a number of farmers that I teach now. Just from talking to them I realised there are 3 core risk components:
The 1st risk is definitely the weather. Currently of course, you hear about the drought. Potentially from time to time there's flooding as well. From one year to the next you have no idea what the weather will be. That can wipe out a farmer's financial stability in one go.
The 2nd risk is fluctuating commodity prices. I know a lot of farmers lock in their potential prices for the future in case it drops. This also happens with supply and demand for the crops.
Then the 3rd risk is the big grocery chains squeezing the farmers, especially on the food stuff.
For a farm to carve out a profit with all those three risks, it's actually quite dangerous. Why not mitigate that risk and slowly build up a portfolio on the side?
Eventually, that grows to a certain size that the farmer, plus their family is always safe no matter what happens on the farm. That’s now what I see as my mission; I really want to help these hard-working farmers, make sure that they build this portfolio so going forward whatever the weather, whatever the commodity prices, whatever Woolies or Coles throws at them it doesn't matter, that portfolio can now sustain them. In good times, both do well, great! But in bad times on the farm, this portfolio will always look after them. That's my mission now.
Andrew: It's such a great mission. Just for a moment, I want our listeners to imagine waking up in 10 years, imagine returning more money than what you can return off your farm. What you do, Terry, is help all of us, myself included, substitute our income. Not only that, substitute our income whilst working significantly less because I'm putting my money into companies where everyone else is doing the hard work. Additionally, I'm putting my money into successful companies and leveraging that. It's just such a brilliant thing you do.
Now, I want to talk about your results. Because you have achieved a return that's been greater than 20% per year on average over the last 15 years. Is that a fair call?
Terry: Yes, correct. We've been doing about 22.5% per year.
Andrew: 22.5% on average. Now, I just want to put this into context a little bit, Terry, you took, I think, $30,000?
Terry: Yes, from $30,000 after about six months, I thought "Okay, this system works now" so I added an extra $20,000 so it ended up being a $50,000 account.
Andrew: Okay. Let's hypothetically say a farmer has $50,000. They might not have that available in cash but they might be able to borrow it as equity against their farm. A lot of farmers actually have what I call 'lazy equity'; they're not using leverage well enough. Let's, for example, take $50,000 and compound that at your average 22.5% return Terry. I think you showed us 15 years later… what was the money in the account?
Terry: That one account ended up being about $1.5million.
Andrew: One and a half million dollars.
Terry: Yes. That was at 22%. We withdrew about half a million to pay taxes and also, obviously living as well. Basically, the seed that I planted 15 years ago slowly and consistently grew and over time we harvested $1.5million.
Andrew: It's extraordinary Terry. That is the power of this compounding effect.
Terry: Correct.
Andrew: Now, I'm probably putting you on the spot here, but I'll test your mathematical brain. The difference between compounding at 10% versus 20%, just approximately, what's that worth in 15 years?
Terry: Massive. For example, a lot of people think if you go for 7% but you actually do 20% or 21% that it's triple the return at the end. But over a long period of 20 years, in actual fact, it's not triple the return, your end result is about 20, just over 20 times the return, so that’s a massive difference.
Say hypothetically, a $50,000 account compounded at that 20% mark, by year 17, that $50,000 is now worth over a million dollars. It's about 1.1 million. It's logarithmic. Next year, it's no longer $10,000 that you began with per year. It's now $200,000 a year. In actual fact, by the year 17, say you get to a million. All it takes now is three and a half more years from that one million to now double itself to $2million.
It took 17 years to grow to a million dollars from 50 grand but now, only an extra three years to take it to $2million. Another three years to double that again to $4million. This compounding effect is very powerful… That's why Einstein quoted it as the 8th Wonder of the World. Because it just grows logarithmically. Time allows us to grow things. Also, this is why I always say, don't procrastinate and don't wait. Start, no matter how small, just start and let that seed slowly grow. You'll be surprised at the end result.
Andrew: I'm going to ask the direct question Terry; how do you get 20% returns? If you could offer three lessons from what you've learnt from this share trading. I know that I'm putting you on the spot, but what would be some great tips that you could offer to start getting returns up there?
Terry: The first thing is definitely having a systematic approach. Systematic means that it has to have what they call a positive edge. Every time you put a dollar in, you know systematically what type of average return you'll be able to take out. For example, we've got 10 criteria's and just utilising those 10 fundamental criteria's of being able to methodically select the companies based on the criteria's, you'll literally wipe out 99% of the listed stocks or investments around the planet.
Just imagine, using the 10 criteria's, only 1% actually passed all 10 criteria's, only 1%. Then that makes our job quite easy. There are so many thousands of companies around the world but because only 1% pass, our universe now shrinks to only the best of the best companies that grow year in, year out. The Microsoft's, the Google's, the Facebook's, they get selected and then only invest in those long term.
Once you've invested in them, of course, you need time.
I think the second lesson will probably be patience to allow it to do its thing and not rush it.
Then the third lesson would probably be temperament. Being unemotional about it. You're almost robotic where you know when to buy, you know what to buy, take the action, buy it, allow time and when you make a profit, there's no need to be ecstatic about it. When you make a small loss, it's also no need to be depressed about it. The day goes on and you just go about your activities. Go about basically looking after the land on the farm and going about your day, simple as that.
Andrew: Follow the system. We teach this in business. In Farm Owners Academy we call it the 'TOP Producers Program' and when a farmer follows it and doesn't muck with it, then they get the returns and they get the success.
Terry: Correct.
Andrew: What you've done is you've created a system that when implemented and followed, you get high returns.
Terry: Another thing I want to say Andrew, this is why farmers are so good at investing, because they straightaway already have the patience. The farmers know it's a patience game when they plant the crops, and they allow time to do its thing. That's already a great trait, automatically, all farmers have it. Another is the following a system part.
We've got a number of farmers on our program and I look at their results and I'm wondering why is it that the farmers do so well? It's because they follow the system and they've got the patience which a lot of city folks don't.
Andrew: In addition to that, Terry, and this is a generalisation but I would say that farmers are so good at working in isolation. They are so good at being focused, they've got the logical mindset to implement and follow a system: step one, step two step three. I just think with that mindset, they have a much higher chance of succeeding with this.
Terry: I can’t agree more.
Andrew: Yes, it's very cool. You mentioned a couple of stocks before Microsoft, Apple etc.
Terry: Yes.
Andrew: I couldn't help but notice they're US stocks and this has been a big eyeopener for me, Terry. Coming into your program and having no idea how to buy a share on the US stock market. I can’t believe how simple it is to do this. Let's just talk a little bit more about the US stocks versus Australian and why you primarily trade in the US markets?
Terry: I migrated to the US in the stock point of view well over a decade ago. The reason being is if you look around Australia, first of all, we are very tiny in terms of the economy, less than 2% of the global economy. In terms of the actual number of companies, you can easily count on one hand the Australian companies that have been able to operate in Australia well but also go overseas and grow. Most companies that need to grow do need to go global. A lot of our companies like Telstra, ANZ, they've gone overseas, lost a bunch of money, they’ve come back.
There are very few Australian companies that actually make it globally, for example, Cochlear or CSL. Most of them actually fail and come back. The US, however, it just opens you to a massive amount of opportunities with all the global companies. I mean, just think about it. Day to day what services and what products do we use right now that you think is only Australian. There’s not many. Every day we turn on a computer and we do our searches on Google, we use Microsoft or Apple as an operating system. Then you go on to the supermarket and you buy say baby powder or whatever - Johnson & Johnson. These are the global companies that are all listed in America.
That's the main reason as most of the great companies are there. The other reason is in terms of available data. The US market is very transparent. You can easily see all the data that's available for free, whilst in Australia, you actually have to pay for it. It's cheaper just operating in the US markets and even brokerage, for example, is literally a small account, it's a dollar to start buying your shares versus if you were to use some of the major brokers in Australia. To go overseas it costs you $30 to $70 per trade whereas in the US you can pay $1. You're literally paying a fraction of it.
This is why I don't even care about my brokerage I pay anymore because it’s just a dollar or two versus what I used to pay, in the hundreds and thousands every single year.
Andrew: Yes, it's opened my eyes and the advice you gave me Terry, to "start owning the companies you're consuming”. It blew me away! I think that particular day I was on Google, I was using Facebook with Microsoft open on the side. Thinking also about buying a book off Amazon.
All of a sudden, I'm like "These companies are mega companies compared to what we're doing in Australia”. I wish that we had more ability to grow companies like they can in the States. Of course, I want to be part of these companies and not only that, Terry, they've got cash enabling them to acquire the next big companies. They’ve got big growth plans.
Terry: Yes, correct. Just look at Apple, for example. Apple itself, as it currently stands, has got about $250billion in cash sitting in the bank. With that cash, they could literally come into our country and easily acquire two of our major banks and have spare change. You can imagine the size of their cash position, not including the business itself, which is basically a trillion-dollar company now.
Even from the risk mitigation point of view, with these major companies, you can’t see them really having a major problem. In other words, going bust, because of their size and their dominance in the industry. Just from the safety aspect, investing in these global giants is actually safer compared to investing in the smaller Australian companies.
Andrew: Yes. There's one more thing I want to talk about which really annoyed me when I first learned it from you, if I’m being really honest. The reason it annoyed me is I am a bit of a risk-taker; I think all business owners are to some degree. There's a bit of risk in buying a farm or there's a bit of risk starting a company because it could go wrong and you’ve put so much effort into one thing.
When I first started your program, I thought “Right! here I am with some money and I want to put the whole lot into, for example, Apple and Facebook” but you taught me about ‘Position Size’ – investing small percentages, for example, 2-5% of your entire portfolio. You also teach, “follow a company, wait for some negative news to hit and then buy some stock”. It was really annoying at first but I'm so grateful for it now. Can you talk a little bit more about position size, what that means, and why that's so important in investing?
Terry: ‘Position Size’ is just one of my five risk mitigation strategies; no matter how good or how excited you are about the company, we only invest 1-1.5%. People ask “how can you make money from only putting 1-1.5% of your account into that one stock?”
Andrew: Sorry to interrupt. Just put that into context. If you have $100,000 you'll literally only buy $1,000 worth of shares. So, you’ll own 90-odd stocks.
Terry: People say "Oh, that means you're going to have potentially a lot of stocks" but that's not true because when you buy the 1% in that stock sometimes you might get lucky and it spikes straight away, you make your money and away we go.
Sometimes it has further drops and this is why we position size; you never know, even great companies still have bad times. If it drops further, we actually want to buy more so we don't mind stocks dropping. It's like going shopping and you see groceries on sale. It's great, things we know we need and we know we want, now it's gone down a little bit more, we’ll buy more of it.
You're slowly building up that portfolio with that one stock. We take multiple positions in that one stock and when we get to about 3-5% we stop on that one and now we’re happy. Then we move on to another company that we want to acquire.
Andrew: You mention selecting position size but also learning to value a company. Let’s just put this into context with farming for a moment. I want you to imagine that you know the value of some land to be $2000/acre. All of a sudden your neighbour rings you to say “We really want to sell. We're desperate. We're going to sell it to you at $1,000/acre”. You see this opportunity and you're like, “Wow, I need to buy this”. Terry, this is essentially what you do.
You taught me to value a company and then have the patience to wait for the news or media to create a push down on that product/business, that’s when I can say “Hang on this business is valuable. This is a no-brainer. This business is doing very well based on your criteria. This is a top 1% business, it's just undervalued right now”.
That's the game-changer, when you understand that you’re just having patience to buy undervalued companies that have potential big upside.
Terry: Yes. Correct. The example you use is perfect. You know the value of the land is $2,000/acre. If someone offers you it for $3000/acre you wouldn't buy it because now its over-value. Yes, you might have cash in the bank, but why would you even think about buying it? Normally, rationally, we wouldn't, but a lot of people do that in the stock market. They get excited about a company's prospects and they overpay for it. Whereas our job is to wait for that neighbour to finally want to sell the land for $1000 then we go "Okay, if it's worth $2000 and they are selling for a $1000, we'll take it." No different to buying stocks that's listed or a company.
We know what something is worth and then we patiently wait for the value to drop, which it will, it's eventual and when there is some negative news or bad press we know it's only temporary and it's still a great business, that's when we go in and we buy it undervalue. By doing that, not only will you make more money but in actual fact you are taking much less risk.
Andrew: Just to summarise what we've spoken about so far Terry, investing is a risk mitigation strategy. Respect the power of compounding over a 15-20 year period and respect the difference between a 10% return and a 20% return, it's significant. Respect the US market and understand there are big companies over there to invest in. Respect position size. Learn how to value a company and buy it when it's undervalued.
Now, is there one last tip or advice you could share with our farmers, Terry?
Terry: One last tip is definitely starting that investment strategy, no matter how small. The reason being, without starting it you'll always be subject to the risks we spoke about; weather dependent, commodity price dependent, grocery store dependent and we want to get rid of those risks. Therefore, it might take time, but at least start the process, no matter how small because that seed will grow to become the oak tree that one day you are going to relax under.
Andrew: Yes, that's great mate. How can our listeners learn more about Freedom Trader and what you do, Terry?
Terry: Usually, like you Andrew, we hold live online webinars or classes.
Andrew: Yes, come along to our webinar. I'll put the details below this. Is that the best way for people to come and learn more?
Terry: Yes, or they can contact me via email but I think to learn more I’d recommend the webinar because it's 90-minutes of pure gold education. It literally allows you to put everything we spoke about today into action. That 90-minutes is definitely worth the time. You can register at www.thefreedomtrader.com/farmwealth and I really look forward to being able to help the farmers on a big level as well.
Andrew: I really appreciate your time today. You're gifted at what you do, you're passionate about what you do. Putting it into context as closing thoughts, Terry is able to get a higher return than the likes of Warren Buffet. I remember when I asked you how, you just said because you're moving such smaller money but you implement what these top people do Terry. You study them. You study more than anyone I know in this space. I feel like I'm sitting next to Warren Buffet.
Terry: Thank you.
Andrew: That's what it feels like for me having access to your teachings. I think what you are doing is amazing and I appreciate your time today. Thank you so much Terry.
Terry: No, thanks Andrew for having me.
Andrew: Thank you, take care.
Terry: You too.
Tuesday Jan 29, 2019
Tuesday Jan 29, 2019
What would happen if you grew your business by 10x?
What would need to change?
Do you think it’s even possible?
What if you knew it was easier to 10x your business rather than 2x it?
In this week’s podcast Andrew will walk you through how to 10x your business.
He shares how he did it with his first business, and the steps you need to go through to achieve it.
In this podcast we explore:
How 10x thinking is easier than 2x thinking.
Why 10x thinking will break all previous beliefs holding you back.
Why you need to let go and be very trusting to 10x.
How to use leverage to scale your business up.
The glue that ties everything together and why without it, it’s almost impossible to scale.
Enjoy this week’s free podcast.
FOA
Friday Jan 11, 2019
Friday Jan 11, 2019
Who sets the vision for your business? Who is in charge of that?
Is it clear who is in charge, and does this person have clarity on where your business is going?
Is this person clear on their role, and are they good at enrolling the rest of the team towards this vision?
In the episode, Andrew will help you:
Learn about the personality traits you need to run a business.
Why you need a visionary and what this role is.
Learn what separates small companies from larger companies.
Why you need a clear vision to attract great people.
Why it’s difficult to grow without a strong clear vision.
Why you need high standards to run a great business.
Why strong leaders play to win and go for what they want.
Andrew will walk you through the below traits, which are all relevant to run a great business. This was taught to Andrew from a mentor, Creel Price. Creel built and sold a business for $110m and Andrew was fortunate to be in business with Creel for a year following this.
Enjoy the podcast and please share this with other farmers
Thanks
Farm Owners Academy
Monday Dec 17, 2018
Monday Dec 17, 2018
How much do you need to achieve financial independence?
Do you have this written down?
Have you completed a capital allocation plan to map out what you need to make in order to reach your goals?
Do you pay yourself the recommended salary of $115k per annum? Is this being paid before you calculate your net profit?
Do you know your return on asset ratio? Do you know why this is important?
Is your farm operating consistently at a 30% net profit figure, after paying yourself the $115k wage? Are you aware it’s very hard to run a business if your farm is not generating these returns.
Do you have an investment plan to reach financial freedom? Do you know what return you need from these off-farm investments to reach your goals?
These are just some of the things we discuss in today’s podcast.
If you have a goal to reach financial freedom, then this podcast is for you.
Please share this with other farmers.
Andrew
PS - If you are ready to Take Control of your financial situation and make change, email us at support@farmownersacademy.com and we will send you some more information about our signature program – Take Control.
Monday Nov 26, 2018
Monday Nov 26, 2018
The more energy you have, the easier it is to get things done.We often procrastinate when we don’t feel great.In this podcast Andrew explores:• A list of things that will steal your energy• A list of things that will give you energyWe think you will find this pod cast very useful. It will give you a few shortcuts to maximise your energy to help you become a better business owner.Enjoy this podcast and please share this with other farmers.Click here to listen to the podcast Enjoy this week’s podcast.Farm Owners Academy
P.S. Whenever you’re ready...here are 4 ways we can help you grow your farming business:1. Subscribe to our ‘Profitable Farmer’ podcastThis free audio podcast delivers ideas to help you run a great business - leading to more profit, control and freedom – click here.2. Join the Farm Owner Academy’s closed Facebook group ‘Profitable Farmer’ Our new Facebook community is where smart farm owners learn how to get more profit, control and freedom, and you can connect with like-minded farm owners - click here to join.3. Grab an early bird ticket to our TOP Producers 2-Day WorkshopWe will teach you how to earn more money and run a better farming business. The early bird offer expires 15th December - buy now and save $300! - click here to learn more.4. Work with us privatelyIf you’d like our team to help you scale up your farming business or create a ‘freedom farm’ just reply to this message and put “Private” in the subject line... tell me a little about your business and what you’d like to improve and I’ll send you the information you need to get started!
Thursday Nov 15, 2018
Thursday Nov 15, 2018
Are you disciplined at focusing on one thing until completion?
Do you remove things around you that cause distraction?
Does saying 'no' come easy to you?
Today’s podcast is all about removing distractions.
Andrew will help you learn how to do this and the power of playing snakes and ladders (hint: this will help you shift the way you set up your environment to remove distractions and allow you to be more effective).
Enjoy this week’s podcast.
Tuesday Oct 30, 2018
Tuesday Oct 30, 2018
How I Dealt with Depression
Please note, this is what worked for me, this may not work for you. You need to find the best path for you and please seek help from a medical professional.
LEARNING 1:
My coach challenged me on the use of the word ‘depression’.
I was challenged to not refer to myself as having depression. He showed me that the word in itself is sad and heavy. So when you refer to yourself as having depression, you feel heavy and down. He shared a great story with me about a war veteran that was diagnosed with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) versus another war veteran diagnosed with PTG (Post Traumatic Growth). The second person was taught by his doctor to look at what he was feeling (the depressed thoughts) as something to grow/learn from. I wish my father was diagnosed with PTG!!!!
My coach helped me do the same. He allowed me to consider that maybe this sadness/loneliness was an opportunity to heal myself from the wounds from my youth.
To let go of the scared child that never feels safe.
So maybe consider the fact that right now, your depression is actually an opportunity for you to grow/learn something about yourself.
Maybe it’s a blessing in disguise?
Maybe there is something amazing about to come your way?
What might happen if you stop seeing yourself as someone who is depressed and start seeing someone who is going through a growth/learning phase?
LEARNING 2:
I learnt to embrace my life for what it was, not what I thought it should be.
WOW – this changed everything for me. I realised that the current life I was living was not the life that I expected.
I thought at 25 I would be madly in love, have a pumping business, be super happy and just kicking butt in life…
How wrong I was!!!
In fact, I was $300k in debt, my girlfriend had just cheated on me and I was single. I felt isolated and alone.
My coach really helped me understand that I was not accepting this current reality. I was rejecting it. This just made everything feel worse for me.
I worked very hard at letting go of the expectation that I had created, and started to embrace my new current reality.
This was hard work but it made a big impact for me. It’s not easy falling in love with the life that I was living at 25, but I did it.
I started laughing at my situation and realised that I was a very lucky person.
It’s like the quote by Helen Keller “I cried because I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet”.
I got over my misery and came back to a place of ease.
I had to spend a full day on the beach writing out everything in my life that I love.
I became grateful again.
I also lowered my expectations and let go of the goal that I was going to be retired by 30.
If you haven’t watched it, I highly endorse a documentary called Status Anxiety.
Here is the link to watch it free on YouTube: Status Anxiety
LESSON 3:
I learnt to start giving again.
It’s amazing how caught up in myself I had become over the previous three years (22 to 25).
Everything was about me, me and me!!!
I stopped caring about my friends and family, then I couldn’t understand why they stopped calling me (it felt like they had stopped caring for me).
I began to make an extra big effort to go and focus on others. To see if there was someone else I can add value to and help.
It’s amazing how quickly you can feel great when you actually add value to someone else.
I started concentrating more on others than myself, and this was just bloody brilliant.
LESSON 4:
I slowed down…WAY DOWN.
Please consider this one.
I had been going full throttle for 3 years.
Yes, I had a few holidays, but all I could think about was work.
This just created more stress on myself. My system was run down. I was cooked!!!!
I didn’t want to do it, but my coach advised I take a 10-day retreat and heal my body. Just like a car goes in for a major service, this was a major service for my mind and body and boy, did I need it!
I signed up for a retreat in Bali at an Ayurveda Centre. Here is a link to it if it resonates: The Ayurveda & Yoga Health Centre
And rest I did.
I averaged 16 hours a day of sleep…I was exhausted. Mentally and physically.
When I came back to Australia, I felt like I had a new lease of life!
I was so excited, youthful and even playful.
I couldn’t believe how much I needed this break (again I did not want to do this).
Please note, I took 10 days out away from the world – no telephone, no coffee, no alcohol, no friends, no family. Just me and loads of rest (and multiple massages every day).
Sometimes we confuse depression with just being exhausted!!!!
I’ve been back to the same place 5 times (I like to go every two years if I can – it keeps me in check). I know the feeling now when my body and mind tire and I need the space to reset.
LESSON 5:
Finally, I did a lot of work on my mindset.
(This is what I teach in Flip Your Life).
By changing my thinking from scarcity to abundance, changing my energy from focusing on what I didn’t want to what I did want, and becoming super clear on all of the fears that were trapping me (fear of failure, fear of being a fraud, fear of losing control) allowed me to realise that it was the fears that were making me feel so small and trapped.
I did a lot of work rebuilding my self-esteem (I felt like a loser so I needed to work on my mindset again to feel better).
I listened to a self-esteem booster almost every day for 12 months – you can download it here: Self Esteem Booster
It worked for me…but I needed this as I didn’t really like myself.
I also started scheduling things that give me joy (hanging out with my old mates who make me laugh was a BIG one).
I’m sure there were more, but the five lessons above really helped me. Please note, it took me approximately 3 months to feel like the table had turned. I also exercised and looked after myself - and stopped drinking (not completely but I pulled back from the bottle of rum a night).
I still get the blues, but I am quick now to see it for what it is, and make the necessary changes (implementing some of the above always works for me).
As I mentioned in the introduction, I feel this article is amazing and will really help you if you are going through any form of mental health issues right now.
Aubrey Marcus Depression Article
It’s more common than you think, and I would argue 70% of business owners experience it at some stage.
Kind Regards,
Andrew
Tuesday Oct 16, 2018
Tuesday Oct 16, 2018
Episode 15: The More You Learn, The More You Earn
Hi there, it's Andrew here. This is going to be a short podcast, but I'm going to give you some great tools that you can put around your learning and really align with this topic ‘The More You Learn, The More You Earn’.
Before I dive into it, please continue listening to these podcasts and share them around if you're open and interested to ways to generate more profit on your farm and live a better life. If you'd like to fast-track that, please reach out to us at support@farmownersacademy.com, tell us a bit about your farm and we'll get back to you. We have a couple of mentoring programs where we can help fast-track your success, so just keep that in mind. It's support@farmownersacademy.com.
This podcast is really about learning. The more we invest into learning, the more you earn, and the better you'll do in your business. I mean, think about it. An entrepreneur may have spent 50 years studying what they do and achieving a lot of success and then they write a book that you can buy for $30, and you can really tap into their wisdom for $30. I just find that amazing. The more you understand and the more time you spend getting clarity around what it is that you need to know to become a really highly profitable and successful farmer.
I just love the saying of the three stages to life. ‘Learn’ (and if you notice, the L comes before the earn part) so learn, then we move into our ‘Earn’ phase. Then, eventually, I like this, we move into the ‘Return’ phase. We have a mission at Farm Owners Academy to help farmers earn and become really successful and very wealthy, but also helping you get your time back.
Eventually, you will use everything that you've learnt to then contribute back to your families, contribute back to your society, back to your local environment. That's what we get a really big kick out of. It really does start with ‘learn’. We're going to cover off on three key things today. I'm going to give you a fantastic system that will help you set up a simple system enabling you to focus on what it is that you need to learn and implement from today’s podcast.
The first thing that I wanted to talk about is “you need to be the dumbest person in the room”. In fact, if you're the smartest person in the room, you're actually the dumbest. I think there's such a great saying that "We want to walk around and stop pretending we know everything". I see so many business owners doing this, that they protect their-- It's like an ego, they protect how much they know. They're constantly believing that they've got all the answers when, in fact, they really don't.
If they were just to drop what they think they know and embrace an attitude of ‘I know nothing’ then you can become so much more effective in life, that your goal is to be the dumbest person in the room. Most successful leaders do this. If you were to study the top business owners, the top CEOs, the top leaders, they surround themselves with people smarter than them. In fact, if you're the smartest person within your business, then I think you've got a real problem.
You ultimately want to hire people smarter than you. You want to engage mentors and people around you that know more than you. That's how you will actually grow as a person and have others, if you like, doing the work for you. Clearly, one of those methods is by learning from others through books, and CDs, and courses.
A bit of history for you here. Albert Einstein and Thomas Edison, I'm sure you know the name, Albert Einstein. For those that don't know Thomas Edison, he invented the lightbulb. I studied these guys, again, just through reading books and watching documentaries because I find them really fascinating. Albert Einstein would say that whenever he came across a new topic, the first thing he would do…and Thomas Edison did the same thing… they'd go to a library and they'd spend a whole week in the library studying that topic.
They would read every single book on the subject before they would even attempt to add anything new or to learn anything new. They call it ‘standing on the shoulders of giants’. They knew that if they could grasp all the teachings that the people prior to them had, it would catapult their chances of success. It really is true that if we can firstly learn from others that have been doing these things for years, then we can learn from their mistakes.
I know when I first started out as a business coach, I was in a position where I really didn't know anything at all. I made the decision right from those early days that I'm going to study the most successful coaches and learn from them. We should all get this, that there's so much to be learned from people doing things smarter than us. I can promise you, there's someone else out there right now doing things significantly smarter than you. If you don't believe that, then that's an ego. There's always someone doing it better or smarter than you. There are people that have cracked better ways to make money. There are people that have cracked better ways to save time and put in better systems.
There's a great story that I share as well. I laugh at it because it is humorous when I look back on it, but I used to get up many years ago three mornings every week to go exercising with a group of friends. I’d drive halfway across Brisbane to get to my exercise. It would take me about half an hour, this particular trip. After about eight months, one of the guys said, "which route do you take here?" I told him the route I took and he said, "Mate, you need to take this road" he showed me a shortcut. I had no idea, but this little shortcut knocked about seven minutes off my trip both ways.
Fourteen minutes a day, three times a week, it might not sound like much, but when you weigh this up over a year, it's a lot of time every week. 14 minutes, three times a week is 42 minutes, let’s say an hour every week, multiplied over a year, that's 52 hours. Just that little shortcut saved me an entire week a year, which in the scheme of things allocated to a higher use of time. Now, it only took this person 10 seconds to tell me the shortcut… You'd agree with me that I'd be totally foolish continuing to take the longer route. From that day forward, I decided to take the shortcut.
We all do this. We are guilty of getting trapped doing stuff that we've been doing for years and years. We actually don't stop and challenge, is the way we're doing it, the right way? That's where I believe learning comes in. The point that I'm making here is experience is important. There's no doubt about it, experience is important. What is more important than experience is the right theory. If we were to take the right theory and apply the experience to the right theory, this is what leads to profound results.
I'll give you an example outside of farming. I want you to imagine there's a cafe in the town somewhere near you and they've been pouring coffee for 20 years. Now, I'm sure you'd agree with me that they have a lot of experience in pouring coffee, 20 years of experience. What if they were only ever taught how to pour bad coffee. I'm sure you've been to a cafe where you bought a coffee, I know I have, and it's just disgusting. What feedback do we give a cafe that makes bad coffee? We don’t, we just don't go back there again.
They've got 20 years’ experience, but the problem is they’ve got 20 years’ experience of pouring a bad coffee. What we want to do in business is learn the right theory first and then gain experience using the right theory. In fact, we're far smarter starting the right theory before we apply the experience.
Many farmers learn from their parents and their experience came from their parents… Third and fourth generation farmers are often applying experience from maybe 50-60 years ago which can still work, but I can guarantee you that somewhere along that 50-60 years, someone else has found a better way to do it. Just like someone else has found a better way to pour coffee, someone else has learned there's better beans, there's a better machine, there's a better method that produces a better coffee, a better product.
This is absolutely true because innovation's happening everywhere. Every single industry is innovating and improving. If you're not learning the new and improved ways you get left behind. You're applying experience to old pieces of theory. Which means that the results won’t be anywhere near as successful as what they could be.
Goal number one is we want to be the dumbest person in the room and we want to understand what's the right piece of theory that I need to learn to apply my experience to? When I apply my experience to the right theory, this is what will produce a profound result. This is why in our Take Control Program we provide the theory of here's how you plan your time from 10 years all the way back to 90-day planning.
I've studied for 15 years on what's the best method to do this (and I'm sure there's a better way, by the way, I would hate to say that the way that we teach is the perfect way. I'm sure there's a better way and I'm very open to learning that.) However, I do know that it's fine-tune, fine-tune, fine-tune and when you apply experience to the way that you plan your time, in this particular system, it will lead to profound results.
That's the first point to understand and for you to constantly question, is this the right theory? Is this the right theory? To constantly look at, is there a smarter way that I could be doing this?
This is what segues into point number two. I think all of us need a simple system to learn. We can really learn through three key ways:
We can learn through reading books;
We can learn through meeting up with people;
We can learn through doing courses.
A very simple formula which I want you to consider is the 3-2-1 Formula.
We want to apply this to a 90-day block. I think it's too broad looking at 12 months, so I like to break everything down into what I'm going to focus on for the next quarter. The system is:
What 3 books can I read?
Which 2 people can I catch up with and learn from?
What is 1 course that I could do?
Just to say that again, three books that I can read, two people that I could learn from, and one course that I could do? Now, I also think it's important to choose your books, people you are going to catch up with, and courses wisely.
For example, if I'm wanting to work on time management, I want to choose my 3 books on time management. I want to meet with 2 people that I think are really effective with their time management, and I want to do 1 course on time management. If I really need to look at maximising profitability (let’s say I've got a weak understanding of financial literacy) then I'll choose 3 books I could read on the subject (I can guarantee there's books on everything out there), who are 2 people I could meet and what's 1 course that I could do?
There are so many places for you to uncover this information but it's just a great formula to focus on. I just know in my early days of being a business coach it was all about learning for me. I've invested over $500,000 in my education. I wouldn't be able to count how many books I've read now, how many courses I've been to, and how many people that I've made the effort to go and meet. It's endless and it's never going to end. It's not something that I will ever sit back and feel that I've done enough because the minute I do that, I shoot myself in the foot because I'm now assuming that I've learnt everything.
There is a time and a focus when you move to ‘Earn’, there is a time and a focus when you move to ‘Return’, but I think we want to be on this Kaizen, which is “constant never-ending improvement”. It's a Japanese word. I'm constantly thinking what else could I be learning this quarter that's going to help me become, in my case, a better mentor, a better coach, a better business owner, a better husband, a better parent? All of these areas.
In the last 12 months I've been putting a huge amount of learning back into health. Therefore, I've been reading a lot more books and courses on health and I've really enjoyed that because it's also rolled through to me being more effective with business and a better family member as well.
This segues into point number three, which is another simple formula called 30:10. That means for every 30 minutes of reading I do, I like to summarise in 10 minutes what I just learnt and how can I apply what I just learnt to my life?
There is this saying that ‘implementation is power’. Knowledge is not power, implementation is power. I could read 40 books and apply nothing. That's really pointless, right? I try to apply 3 things I learn from each book I read.
When I'm reading, I think it's powerful to underline or highlight key parts. Then I'll just sit down and document what I learnt from that.
In my early days, my mentor held me accountable for reading a book a week. It sounds like a lot, but it's what I needed to do because it really speed tracked my knowledge on business. I just read every book you can imagine on business and I really got into the discipline of that 30:10 rule. In fact, 30:10 was a formula that I applied on a daily basis. I just read for 30 minutes a day and then spent 10 minutes implementing. Not every day, but probably four days out of five.
Sometimes I would sit and read for 3-4 hours on a weekend. The key to learning is to schedule it. If you don't schedule it into your day, you most likely won't do it. Scheduling really helps build a habit. I don't read a book every week at the moment, but it would be at least one book a month. I'm in the habit of summarising in my journal what I've learnt from that book and how I can apply it.
I think setting up that little system will really help you. I used to have a piece of paper stuck on my desk in front of my computer that said 30:10 and I stuck another one on the door in my bedroom that said 30:10. It just reminded me to invest some energy on a daily basis in learning something and then applying it.
I will finish by saying this, the most successful people that I've met on my journey of coaching businesses, both in and outside of farming, have an insatiable knowledge to learn more. They are by far the biggest learners. They study the product. In the case of farming, they read every single book on the topic. They'll find out all the mentors in that area and they won't just focus on farming, they'll read every single book on business that they can get their hands on.
There's no question that there's a correlation between the biggest learners and the most profitable, successful people. In the brackets of success, I'm referring to the ones that make the most money and also live the most, I call it wealthy life. It's not just about the money, they also recognise that they have a mission to become the best person that they can be, which means they also want to be a great husband or wife. They want to be great for their kids, they want to be great at time management, they want to create wealth outside their farm, or whatever it is. It's not just about money.
I see the correlation between happiness and learning. That's because they're tapping the wisdom of others that know stuff that they don't. It's that simple. Just remember that none of us know everything. We need to put that ego aside and pretend we know nothing. We want to be the dumbest person in the room. We want to focus on what's the best piece of theory that I can apply my experience to which will bring me my profound results.
I like the simple 3-2-1 Formula. It's not much if you think about it. 3 books, catch up with 2 people, do 1 course. When you do learn, please spend a little bit of time afterwards to document it… what did I learn and how can I apply this into improving my business?
Thanks for listening to this. Please share this around if you feel this would value other farmers. As I mentioned earlier, if you want to fast-track your results, we are mentors and coaches. We exist to bring out the best in business owners in the farming space, so reach out. Let's have a chat and see if we can help you. Just send us an e-mail at support@farmownersacademy.com.
Speak to you soon.
Thank you.
Take care.