SPEAKER_00: 0:10

Welcome to the recap of 2025. This is our Christmas special edition, and I'm joined by a very special guest, producer Matt. Hello, Matt.

SPEAKER_02: 0:19

Hello, everyone.

SPEAKER_00: 0:20

This is the guy and his voice behind all the producing that you guys are listening to. So Matt has been on this journey with me over the last 12 months, and he believes that was his vision that brought all of this to life. I mean, we all know it was me, but hey. Nah. It was him. He he told me one day that podcasts are going to take over the world because everyone now listens to podcasts, right, Ned? Where do they listen?

SPEAKER_02: 0:47

Everywhere there's like, I think we're on 18 different streaming platforms across the globe. So yeah, audio is always going to be in the forefront of most people's minds. And you can see that via a lot of different streaming platforms and streaming systems, they always tend to favor audio before they favor video. But yeah, so audio has been super powerful for you this year.

SPEAKER_00: 1:06

Thank you. And we looked at some stats. We've been listened to for we've hit our key milestones of two and a half thousand downloads.

SPEAKER_02: 1:14

Yep.

SPEAKER_00: 1:15

Which is not bad. I know I complain about it every week.

SPEAKER_02: 1:18

Well, I mean, like if you think about it from a reach perspective, I think it's quite hard to get anyone to to pay attention to anything, whether that is in video or audio. And the fact that you've got consistent amount of streams and consistent amount of hits from across what, 60 or 70 different cities and or across every single probably part continent of the world. So you think about that, and I think that would be hard to fathom or hard to create or recreate if you didn't have something that was of value to someone. So I think often people think about vanity metrics, such as I want, you know, I want a thousand downloads or a thousand streams and I want it now, where you've put the hard work in and the consistency of actually going, hey, this is what we offer and this is how we can help you. Um, you've bought in a multitude of of of guests that add value in different niches and different places. And I think often people don't quantify that as how big it actually is to turn up and do two and a half thousand or to do episodes to get two and a half thousand streams is a pretty wild achievement when you think about the even the size of New Zealand. And but not only that, I think the reach that you have now and the the opportunity to people that can consume your content on every single platform allows people to kind of take their own approach to how they learn about you and your brand.

SPEAKER_00: 2:39

Wow, thank you, Matt. That was a big mouthful there. But we decided to gather here today to talk about what what we actually talked about this year, right? And I think as a person who listened to every single episode and edited.

SPEAKER_02: 2:55

And edited, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 2:56

And published it.

SPEAKER_02: 2:58

Yeah, published it, scheduled it, cut out all the M's and R's or the dog barking or the bell ringing.

SPEAKER_00: 3:04

I think that was fun. I do need to move those things. We did have fun, right? So what did we learn? Let's talk about it briefly. We talked a lot in the beginning about and throughout the year, about home buying fundamentals and the process that goes behind it. Because a lot of people still don't know what they need to do. And we often talk about hey, you need a pre-approval. After you have a pre-approval, then you can go home shopping, and then you can go conditional and then unconditional and then settlement. So what did you learn through that? Listening to that.

SPEAKER_02: 3:39

To be fair, I've learned all of my property things probably from you well and truly before the podcast, but then from the podcast, the fact that I get to edit it, I'm almost self-learning every single time because obviously there's so many different things and so many different ways that someone can go from wanting to get a house to then buying that house to then going, Hey, I have equity. Like we've had so many conversations about my frustration around the fact that so many people are probably sitting on so much equity and they don't fully understand the power of that equity, and then like building their portfolio no matter what age or stage they're at. And I think, you know, I I I've definitely educated my household, I've educated my family from from understanding the ins and outs of how you should approach and what you should have to do. And and most of the, you know, if not all of the episodes, there's value in the way that you explain it to the person that can actually understand it. That's often the hardest thing, right? Like in most people's industries, the lingo is so difficult to understand. The fact that you can have these episodes and people can consume it, whether they're on the in the car or on the train or walking or whatever, it's easily digestible and practical that they can go out and actually use it.

SPEAKER_00: 4:54

Yeah, and it's the feedback has been phenomenal. We had so many people actually come back to us and go, wow, I didn't know I could buy this 5% deposit. Or wow, I didn't know I only need 20% deposit for the new build as an investment property. So I think recording those episodes at the time when we were recording them, we didn't realize how far it will actually reach people. Because for us, it's like, oh, well, we already know all of this, but you're right, like we don't realize how many people out there that don't know.

SPEAKER_02: 5:21

So yeah, and the fact that I've always said that it's it's kind of like a compounding effect when you start looking at the amount of episodes you have on these topics. I found a stat the other day, it was like 25% of people are now using social media platforms to find information rather than Google. So the shift is already happening a lot quicker than I thought it was going to happen. So the fact that we've got all of those episodes, they're all SEO'd, they're all kind of optimized for people to be able to find them and search for them. And you can see that from the fact that we're in like 70 different cities. If people weren't interested in mortgages or the home buying process or at least getting ahead of them, uh ahead of uh the the norm of investing and saving, then people wouldn't listen to the episodes. So the fact that people are looking for it uh is is really cool to see.

SPEAKER_00: 6:09

I think people do want to do better for themselves. And now, as you say, we live in a day and age where all the information is out there, you just have to start searching for it and learn how to filter from real and people that don't know what they're talking about, and I think this helps us to get that message across that. Actually, we do know what we're talking about, and that brings me to the second point that you just mentioned is about the mortgage strategies and the market conditions, because this year we've covered a lot around OCR, and I think that was one of our top-searched words for New Zealand, the OCR, because every time there was an OCR review, there was a big deal. That is it gonna continue to go down, is it gonna continue to go down? And to be honest, all of our predictions were on par to what the economy was doing, and with the OCR was obviously the interest rates that people were interested in, like if the home loan rates are gonna go down, apart from just the last week's glitch where the economy has just did an absolute yui and the banks started to increase the rates, unjustifiably so. Even the government told them to, hey, get pull yourself back and get the rates down, but the banks are not listening. So, even just yesterday, at the time of this recording, one of the major banks has increased the rates again. So that just shows that sometimes even we don't have a crystal ball, I think. And everything was pointing that the rates will continue to stay down, and even through the next year, there might just plateau, but here we are. So we don't know, next year's gonna be quite interesting. So, do you think having those conversations are helpful for people?

SPEAKER_02: 7:46

I think it's just we live in an age now that we've got everything at our fingertips, right? Like my parents, my grandparents, all of those generations had nothing near the availability of information of from people that are actually doing it. This isn't like lecturers that didn't have businesses teaching business, right? This isn't books or textbooks that were written 30, 40 years ago. And that was unfortunately, I guess, the from my opinion, that was the education that like my parents were taught, which that's fine. Like they can go and buy their house and and they can do whatever they want to do. But like the episodes that you're releasing, the information that's on all of your social media channels are from real stories, real case studies, real proof, real things that you guys and your team are going through. And I feel like when people really pay attention to the fact that you can learn everything on social media and you can consume as much content as you possibly want, there's endless amounts of opportunities there. There's hours on podcasts just alone. You can go from having no hope of getting a home to having like a full reality of having your own home and a real quick turnaround. Like it's not an easy thing to do by any stretch of the imagination, but with the amount of information available from the OCR to understand what the OCR is, to why the banks increase their rates or increase their, you know, all of those things, it's really important that people understand that this is only going to get more powerful. There's only going to be more information. And as AI becomes more popular and more consumer focused, the possibilities are endless from someone to understand the whole entire process in a in a really short amount of time. So, you know, you've said so many times on the podcast around how you've gone and talked to people and and they've thought they've had no hope, and then they've gone away and consumed content from yourself, and and they've gone from being in a really dire situation to owning their own house. And it's a simple understanding of that, you know, you they've gone away and done the the the time and the the content, but you have been the person that I guess has guided that ship. So I guess you can only so see so many people in a day, but with the podcast and with the content, you're able to help so many different people that not only probably won't come to you and say that you they've you know they've used your content to do it, but those people that have is a super powerful tool in a realization that these people want this information because mainstream media is kind of really uh focused on whatever benefits those mainstream media sites. But with the reality of a podcast, you can go and say, hey, is this actually true? Are we actually facing a hard time? If they come and find an episode that explains the OCR and then explains all of these things, then they'll go, oh, actually it's not as bad as it seems to be. The way that social media and algorithms are set up is that the more content you consume of the one thing, the the harder it actually is to get out of that algorithm. So for example, if you consume a whole lot of things about how dire the financial state of our economy is, then all you'll get fed is more stuff about dire situations. But if you actually broaden your horizons and consume content in a way that works, such as listening to a podcast about OCR and understanding uh fluctuations in in interest rates, the fact that, I mean, ultimately everyone says to themselves, you know, I'll wait till the market is right or I'll make I'll wait to the to the the right time to buy a house or invest in property, but ultimately there's never a right time because if you just try and time the market, you end up trying to pick something that's virtually impossible to pick. So often, like when you look at the episodes and when I listen to them and edit them, I really figure out that there's actually no good time to buy. You just need to start consuming enough information to make yourself ready to make that jump. Like this is the most important decision of anyone's life. It's never going to be fully comfortable, but often those decisions that are less comfortable are the ones that make you either the most money or put you into a situation that might put you ahead in your journey or where you want to see yourself.

SPEAKER_00: 11:52

Yeah, and that's the thing, right? The social media plays such a huge role those days. And like every time, actually, the last few podcasts we were doing, we went live on TikTok at the same time. And that just showed to us the power of people looking behind the scenes of how we record the podcast, what are we actually talking about? And they're getting this raw information firsthand. And because often when we stop recording, we actually talk about other stuff as well in between. So I think it's a reminder to people that follow the people on social media that have authority in the industry. Like, if I want to know something about architecture, I will go and follow someone that knows about architecture. If I want to follow someone that knows about social media, like I'm following you to see what you're up to, you know? So I think it's just a timely reminder for people to use the social media to their advantage. I know a lot of people out there going, oh, you know, it's a black hole, you start scrolling, and before you know, you're just sitting there for hours. But if you actually use that with the purpose, with the why in mind, why am I doing this? Oh, because I actually want to buy a house, or oh, I actually want to build some wealth for my family, then listening to our podcasts and other podcasts alike will help you to get from point A to point B much faster.

SPEAKER_02: 13:15

Yeah. And I always say, like, uh, we are commuting more than ever before. Like most people have to drive 40, 30 minutes to their work, or they have to catch a train or a bus or they have to walk. Like that time, if you compounded that over a year, is a massive amount of time. Like it could be like upwards of like a thousand hours of commuting. Now, if you just invested even 30 or 40% into that thousand hours of commuting to educate yourself in an area that you want to further yourself in, you know, this is the time to do it. So like I said, 25% of people are searching on social media platforms to know uh to educate and and gain knowledge about topics rather than going to Google, which tells us that these social media platforms are actually giving them more relevant information than the major platform in in our ecosystem, and that's Google. So the fact that we're able to go on TikTok, the fact that you're able to go on Spotify, Apple Music, you know, 16 different streaming platforms across the globe allows a person to go, hey, I actually have these places that I can go and learn. The, you know, the conversation in 2026 should be, okay, I have all the resources now. Maybe it's actually myself that's holding me back because it's I'm nervous, I don't like thinking about debt, or you know, there's so many scenarios, and we can cover cover that going into kind of credit and debit management, which I guess is another focus of a lot of episodes. But ultimately, like you're always gonna have to have some sort of risk in order to get ahead, and you can continue to work your nine to five, that's completely fine. But imagine if you just said to yourself, hey, this nine to five is gonna pay for all of my investments that are gonna then fund my retirement. You know, like I strongly believe I don't think my generation is gonna have you know retirement plan as it is now. We either have to make a decision for ourselves or we have to look at the thing a lot bigger than we're currently looking at. You know, the average population is only growing by like think 1.2, 1.3 per family. And I think currently, I could be wrong, that the status like every two people pay tax for one retiree. So, like, you know, where is that? That's not gonna that's only gonna get worse because as we're required to work more because we don't have the infrastructure we used to have, then how are we supposed to, I guess, grow in that that ecosystem of of I guess populating the world?

SPEAKER_00: 15:28

Like that's what they're worried about, right? Like a lot of people that getting pension paid right now by the government, is it still gonna be there by the time you and I retire? Yeah. And I think this is what you're trying to say in simple terms, is that the future is in our hands. Yeah. And if we want to retire with wealth and still be able to afford the wine and the oysters and the salmon steaks, then we have to start doing something now in order to look into the future. I guess what you just mentioned around the credit and debt management was another highlight of the year that we talked a lot about is that one, sometimes people are terrified to come to see us if they have a large student loan. And, you know, you've seen it time and time again through our conversations and stuff that student loan is actually not a big deal. Like if you have a giant student loan of 50k, 60k, whatever it is, uh obviously you studied for a really long time, and maybe now you have actually a good paying job. So it all comes down to affordability. The other thing that we've talked about a lot this year was around your credit check. And sometimes people did get caught out by not knowing what was on their credit check. And again, we talked about that hey, come and see us ahead of time, not whenever you fell in love with the house and you put an offer on the house, and then we run a credit check on you because each bank runs slightly different credit checks. And it might come up that you actually owe money to someone that you thought you paid off, but that company made a mistake and didn't take it off your case file. I don't know if you want to share about your case in point because that happened to you.

SPEAKER_02: 17:05

I'm I'm pretty fully open with all of the stuff that you've helped us with over the years. And honestly, like I think for me, most of the time it's coming to you with a plan in my head around what we want to do and how we want to do it and how we want to roadmap. Like the amount of times I think people make knee-jerk reactions because, like you said, they fall in love with a house, but they could have probably started that journey three or four months before they found that that house. And I'm always like, you know, let's try and see if we can get a pre-approval. The worst thing that's gonna happen is a bank's gonna say no. But for example, this example that a company from I think two years ago or something like crazy, like ages ago, never closed a credit file on my credit report, and it's kind of creating an issue going forward. But let's say, for example, if I didn't know the process and I didn't know the ins and outs of the whole entire process, that probably would have been annoying. But for me, I know the journey, I know the plan, I know that it takes a certain amount of time. I'm not in a rush because we've got our foundations correct. We're working with experts and we're working with you guys in in terms of allowing us to find and what we need to do in order to do that. But I guess if, for example, people didn't go and say, okay, am I actually where I need to be? Credit score, debt management, because everyone's going to have some sort of debt. Like no one's completely perfect. In fact, sometimes having no debt is worse than having a little bit of debt.

SPEAKER_00: 18:26

No, you should have listened to that podcast. Don't have any debt, do not listen to Matt. And do recap that episode that we did, Matt.

SPEAKER_02: 18:33

Actually, I was meaning more about if you already had mortgages.

SPEAKER_00: 18:36

Okay, few.

SPEAKER_02: 18:37

Not afterpay or lay by the few. All right. I'm meaning like it's an it's normal, it's virtually impossible unless you have millions of dollars stored away somewhere in a bank that you're not going to have some sort of debt going into a scenario. But if you want to further yourself, the way you do it is try and figure out what is what are the bumps in the road that I might have going down this journey, such as is my credit score or is my credit report as clean as I think it is? If I didn't, if we didn't do this plan and we didn't find out that this company was becoming problematic for something that's going to further myself, my family, and my my kind of portfolio, then we would have been in a really annoying situation, let's say if we moved forward and I made the decision to invest already, right? Like went to a new build or bought a house and just said to you, hey, can you get this approved? Because in our current standing, it wouldn't be too hard to get that situation going, but these things do come up. So people need to be, and I think this, I don't know, it might be a New Zealand thing. I think people are too either scared to talk about money or they're not open enough to go, hey, these things do pop up. Like I fully, when I got the email originally, I was at dinner with friends and I was going around the table saying, you know, this is why I tell people that you need to run these reports. And I was fully like, I don't, I'm transparent as like I'm not embarrassed about anything that I've ever done because I've done it and it's led me to this position. But if only more people were as open as maybe I was, and it doesn't take a it doesn't take a long time to get to that place, then you will probably be further ahead than. When maybe people are listening and thinking they should have been. Especially in a reflection stage now, people are off work, people are hanging out with family, they're getting educated by someone at a barbecue saying they they sh you shouldn't invest in property because it's risky or whatever. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 20:25

Uncle Bob. You often hear me talking about Uncle Bob. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 20:28

And and like we've had heaps of communication about this current situation. I'm like, okay, I'm just going to contact this business nice and calmly. I said, hey, like we know, and they've admitted it, it's in emails, but if I wasn't calm and collected and I didn't know the process and I didn't know this is just part of the journey, this would create a lot of tension all the time. And it wasn't my fault. Like it, it's this is the other thing. Majority of the time, these things are on reports that aren't necessarily as um problematic as what it would what it would work out to be. So I think if more people were just like, hey, these things have happened, I'm gonna try and figure out a solution to this problem, and then that's gonna lead to the outcome that you wanted to get to. I think sometimes people are just really scatterbrained in terms of the way that they want to do things. They might try and go and fall in love with the house before they've actually got a pre-approval, not knowing the timelines of banks. Like that's one of probably the biggest things I've learned about from you is understanding that these banks have massive amounts of times. We've talked about live deals considered not live deals, like they're two completely different things. So now that I'm building this portfolio with my family, I'm thinking about things in a like a larger frame of frame of mind than I ever was before, thinking about okay, if we do this, this is probably the right scenario. Can we do it this way? And we've talked about like hundreds of different ways to do things. So, you know, if you're listening and you're like, okay, 2026 is going to be my year, I want to invest in a house, then you've got a massive amount of time to consume a lot of episodes, a lot of content, a lot of things that will put you in a better position than most textbooks probably would.

SPEAKER_00: 22:02

It's interesting you mentioned the times because that's another one that we've covered quite extensively, is that the banks are, even though a big beast, they have lost a lot of stuff. You know, a lot of them became advisors, mortgage brokers left, and every time they have to retrain people. So, what happened in the last 12 months is that we've noticed the time frames with the banks, we need at least three to five days, sometimes for a live deal. So, this is when you've put an offer, you've got a house under contract. And if you don't have that, if you just want a pre-approval, then in that case, it takes even longer. So pre-approvals, and some banks may even be closed for pre-approval. So we have to find other clever ways to get you into the queue. And one of the clever ways I found this year to get people into the queue. We were just talking about it today in the morning meeting with the team. It's been a fantastic way to get people into the queue, get them assessed, run those credit checks, address those problems that people have, you know, through their spending, through their credit checks, whatever. And then clean up the act and then find a house and then go back to the bank because those pre-approvals usually last three months, and then we can roll them over again. So in saying that, it gives you what, six months to do something about your buying potential. And doing that well ahead of time will place you on top of the queue. Unfortunately, what happened end of November was the banks came up with this great offer of 1.5% cashback. So the the timelines were already delayed with the banks, and then suddenly we have this massive offer to deal with, and that created an influx of applications because everyone wanted to jump ship. They wanted sheep, sheep, sheep, ship. That's one word I cannot get. I wonder if you're gonna edit this part out.

SPEAKER_02: 23:49

No, I'm gonna keep it in.

SPEAKER_00: 23:51

So the people decided to jump across, right, from one bank to another bank because who doesn't want an extra two thousand dollars, three thousand, five thousand dollars in their pockets right before Christmas? So that created so much work for us at the busiest time of the year, anyway, where everyone wants to be in their new home before Christmas. Guys, if you want to be in your new home before Christmas next year, can you come and see us please in like March? That would be most appreciated. Because that helps us to work through those timelines, that helps us to deal with everything with less stress because a lot of lawyers were going away on holiday, a lot a lot of law firms were also inundated and unable to take new clients. So that created absolute mayhem for all of us. And again, at the time when the rates were climbing and we just weren't able to lock in the new rates for people as they were jumping from one bank to another. So that was a massive highlight episode that we did on that. We also talked a lot around insurances and risk planning. So I brought in various insurance advisors. So listen to those. And again, this is all about protecting yourself as the largest asset that you will have. Because if something happens to you, Matt and me, that's it. That's just the collapse of our business, right? And people often forget that. They often think that, oh, I need to protect my house, I need to protect my car because the chances of a car crash. I mean, how many clothes have you made this year for your car? And how many clothes have I made on my car? Not that I've crashed into anything, but the the thing, the reality is people think that those things are more precious to ensure versus themselves. So again, I would encourage people to go back and listen to those episodes.

SPEAKER_02: 25:33

Yeah, I mean, and also like me being self-employed and me I'm 10 years now plus self-employed. I always think now I'm at like the time where I'm going to grow the quickest and fastest. The least, you know, the the last thing I want to think about is if I get injured, if I get sick, if something happens, if something happens to a property or whatever, I want to know that all of that's taken care of. And that's why, you know, you guys sought me out in terms of insurances and and contents and all of that stuff. And I think the the thing that people forget about is that when all of that is taken care of through a broker, you don't have to think about it. It's just the payment that goes out every month. And and granted, like in different people's stages, that amount of money will be a lot or it'll be a small amount in consideration to what they're currently going through. But ultimately you'll grow quicker and you'll do more things a lot more efficiently if someone else is taking care of that stuff. For example, I you know, I'm talking about insurances and how things have changed in our lives. Yeah. Both, you know, income-wise, security-wise, all of those things. And I'm like, okay, first thing I did was fire an email off saying, Hey, is anything going to be changed? Do I need to get any more cover? I don't mind about the payments. I just want to make sure that all of our things are covered. And, you know, we've we've always thought about it from the perspective of if something happened to me, I want to make sure everyone in my life is taken care of. There's no debt, there's no risk, there's no worries because obviously hopefully they'll be worried about me. Um all be worried.

SPEAKER_00: 27:08

I don't know what's gonna happen to the podcast, Matt.

SPEAKER_02: 27:11

Yeah, but you know, I and I'm always a thing of like, I understand people's cash flows, I understand how hard it is because I'm talking to those businesses and those business owners. I'm not oblivious to that fact. But I can't remember the last time I thought about an insurance payment going out. I just said and forget, put it in an account, a separate account. Like I've got like 12 different accounts, and every account is just itemized based on those subscriptions or those services. And all of the money just goes into those accounts and they just go out. And I feel like it's I've probably done things this year and achieved things this year that I probably wouldn't have if all of those things weren't taken care of. And again, you know, like from those episodes, you don't have to pay for this knowledge. This knowledge is available on social media platforms or on streaming sites that are all available on your phones, on your cars, on your TVs. They're all there for you. You just have to actually go and find this information. And some of the time it's just putting in those keywords insurance, life insurance, car insurance, whatever. And then the social media platform will populate the information that they believe is going to be the best suited for you. So it's all there for you. Sometimes, like a lot of times, people go, Oh, something happened and now I'm left with nothing. And I'm like, okay, that's an extremely bad situation to be in. But what are we going to take away from this? Because you know as well, like you've known me for a while now, and I've had situations that were average, but I'm always a person that goes, okay, well, this is teaching me something. How do I then go away and actually improve this? And we've talked about things around time frames and whatever, and sometimes you just have to wait.

SPEAKER_00: 28:46

You just have to keep working, which you and I are really bad at. Yeah, we do not waiting for things.

SPEAKER_02: 28:51

But sometimes, you know, the payoff in in six or seven months or a year's time, or you know, developments are the most frustrating thing. Like, you know, they take 12 months to build, and now, you know, you're covering the costs or you're covering the whatever or or whatever these decisions are. There's turnkeys, there's there's progressive payments, there's insurances that you need to focus on. But ultimately, you know, the least amount of risk is making sure that you have all of those things up to date. And most importantly, you actually focus on the renewal dates. Like you've talked about those in episodes. Like, how many times have people just kind of let their insurances roll over, but yet their circumstances have changed? Now, you guys aren't you you don't have a crystal ball. You can't just go through and go, oh, this person, X, Y, and Z, you know, like you're there for them over a period of time and you're always there for everyone. But ultimately, it becomes a person's responsibility to go, hey, my lifestyle has changed. Hopefully, majority of the people listening have increased their income, they've increased their portfolios, they've got their first house, maybe. Now, you're gonna have that first house for a period of time, and then these things are gonna change, and something's gonna happen. You might do some renovations, some things might change, so your insurances might have to change, whatever. You know, this information is there for you to listen to. So I think, yeah, like 2026 is is gonna be a really cool year for a majority of the people listening because you're only gonna get more episodes with more professionals in their industries, and there's some really cool ideas that we've been talking about, and and episodes are gonna come out, you know. Like I was the big pusher, I guess, in in your space to go to seven episodes a week. It's not exactly easy for either of us to make sure that seven episodes happens every week, especially from your side, considering how busy busy business is. But ultimately, you've seen the massive transformation in of consumption as soon as we went from one or two episodes a week to seven episodes a week.

SPEAKER_00: 30:44

And we try to keep them short and concise, not like today. Today is like a big, big recap that I think people will have to come back and listen to in several parts. But um, but you're right, like we try to give the information to people in bite-sized sizes so they can consume what they can consume and they can really listen to it several times. Because what I often find is when I do have those meetings with clients, they only take in 50% of information on the first time because they they thinking as I'm talking, they thinking. And this is where the problem is, because if you're not actively listening, or if you have worries in your mind, then it's really hard to put new information in. So often what happens is I have a meeting with clients, I give them old information, they go, cool, got it. They'll go away, and literally as they leave, they will send me an email asking me the same questions that we've just discussed. So having this episode have been really awesome tool to go, hey, this is what I've recorded. So during the meetings, I would say to them, this is our podcast. So I would suggest you go and listen to this episode and that episode, and it's really easy to find them. And they go, Oh my god, I've listened to that, you know. So they actually go home and do their homework because as you say, it's the responsibility goes both ways. It's my job to provide the advice, it's my job to provide the information. But if you're not willing to listen actively and take that all in, then I can only do my job halfway.

SPEAKER_02: 32:09

Yeah, and and most people learn and and consume information differently. Like there's own there can't be a one-dimensional way of someone consuming information, right? Like we can't just expect that a person that is making one of their biggest decisions of their life, and they might only make one decision like this in their life, is going to pay attention a hundred percent of the time when they're nervous around another person of authority going through this whole entire process with them that they're not really that familiar with. So the fact that they can go away and listen to an episode or they can be reassured, which is me being in social media, I know that a cons you know, a person needs to be informed around nine times to make a decision, right? So if you're only talking to them once, and that one time could have been a 10 out of 10 experience, but they're the ones going home and sitting there, nerve wrack, you know, nerve-wracking, going through their budget, assuming that they can't do X, Y, and Z of what they said they you just might have told that they could do, it allows them to have a little bit of peace of mind going, hey, there's like a hundred plus episodes of this person talking around the things that she was talking about in this session just before. Now, it's really hard to not be accurate when you're not only saying that in a talk, but you're then going and allowing this person to consume the content at their own time in their own way, whether it's through video, audio, or even text, that is repeating the same things that were were talked about. Because often these conversations or those questions are actually just sent off because they actually don't really know sometimes what to say. They're just saying, okay, this is what I think I need to ask, because that's kind of what I believe would be the right way of saying it. And yeah, like I said, it's it's it's a stressful time. Like honour home ownership or investment is never going to be, I don't think, unless maybe you own like 30 properties, a comfortable time for anyone. Because with that comes a whole lot of different things. You know, people going from paying rent to then paying a mortgage, that mortgage cannot be missed, right? Like it's not a payment that you can just go, I'll pay when I want to pay. You know, you have to make sure that even if you are sick or even if you are made redundant, or even if you are unfortunately in a scenario that takes you away from your loved ones, that this stuff continues to go ahead as planned. Yeah. And often the planning part and what I've focused on and what you've done many episodes on, and and people have even said that from being guests, is that when you actually have a plan and you've made this roadmap with your experts in your fields, you actually are able to achieve it probably because you've actually planned it out properly rather than just having a knee-jerk reaction.

SPEAKER_00: 34:51

Exactly. And that brings me to the other topic that we've we've covered intensively and excessively is around the Kiwi Savers. Because that's a topic for a lot of first-time buyers, but also a topic for a lot of people that already bought a house and then they can't use their Kiwi Saver. And what do they do now? So I know James and I have covered a lot around Kiwi Saver, and next year we actually have more plans to bring other guest speakers from the investment firms to talk about Kiwi Savers because again, as we've just mentioned, who knows if the pension is going to be there by the time it retire. So building the wealth through property, but also as investment products, you need to have a fine balance. And again, this is not a financial advice, so to speak, but a reminder to make sure that you always keep on top of your finances. And it doesn't have to be scary and it doesn't have to be nerve-wracking. But if you start small and start learning, then you go, okay, maybe like you know, when we do house clean and you go, okay, this weekend I'm gonna attack this room or the bathroom. Like for me, for instance, every weekend it's a bathroom clean. I have to go through all the tools, all the showers, and I have to make sure it's thoroughly clean. So same with your finances. Why don't we sit down and look at our finances? You know, whether every week you tackle, okay, do I need to review my bills and who am I paying? Is it power companies this week that I need to ring around and see if I can get a better deal? Next week, could it be internet providers? The week after, could it be Kiwi Saber providers, et cetera, et cetera? So I think if people start in the habit of looking after their finances, the way they look after their health, the way they look after their house, I think we will see a much better society going forward. And there'll be less shame and less trauma around the money and money talks.

SPEAKER_02: 36:37

Yeah, and I think I I guess the unfortunate reality of with all these, like, you know, you can pay later and all of these platforms that allow you to mitigate the the, you know, you've got the pleasure of buying an item and the pain of paying for it, right? And all of these systems and offerings allow you to continually delay the payments uh time and time again. It it kind of gives you this false reality of actually six months is a short amount of time to revolutionize your life or you know, change the way you are actually living. You know, for me, I was a big believer of separating every single account and and I get laughed at all the time, and you know, it's a running joke in my friends' groups, but ultimately it's saved me from all of the stressful times because obviously, like being self-employed, my income is is as consistent as I can possibly make it, but there's always ebbs and flows, right? There's really good peaks and there's there's low troughs. So my goal is to not really focus too much on the peaks, but focus on the troughs. So I'm like, okay, how can I reduce the risk of anything being negatively impacting my lifestyle? That was separating all of my bills into different accounts so that I knew that those small amounts of payments every week or every month. You know, most of my payments come in, let's say, monthly or some of them come in weekly. So there's always this different incomes coming in at different times, but I know my fixed amounts and I know my fixed amount that's going to hit my account, and I know how much how many bills I'm paying for and how much that equivalates to. The same thing applies when I think about anything in terms of financial responsibilities. Like, how can I mitigate the amount of risk by taking on this asset, or how can I mitigate the risk by focusing on good financial planning? And for example, like I use an accounting software called Henry. Henry prepays all of my tax, all of my ACC, all of my GST, all of my KiwiSaver, all of that stuff goes out of my account before I even see the full amount. Now I know what the amount is versus the amount that actually hits my account. But the majority of times that I've even worked with contractors that had no accounting software, they didn't even know what Henry was. They didn't, you know, all of these things in the educational That's scary. Yeah. Because obviously, like the good thing about it is that you're prepaying it. You're most likely going to be prepaying it at a higher rate, which means Henry will probably give you some money back. But at the same time, it teaches you this fantastic ability to go, hey, actually, the amount of money I get post-TAX, post-ACC, post-GST, post-KiwiSaver is still a reasonable amount, right? And I've contributed to my future self. I've paid all my obligations. The banks love it. There's no negativity around the or I guess the stigma around like the the I need to, I'm gonna have this big tax bill, I'm gonna have this big obligation, or I'm gonna have this big burden come March, or whatever. So reducing the amount of risk, I guess, is what I feel like those episodes really highlighted. And it's not actually that hard. Like most times there's going to be a payment frequency and there's going to be a tier of insurances or premiums that you can adhere to that is actually going to fit your budget. But if you don't know your budget, then you don't really have a starting point. So, like, I've got a whole entire spreadsheet that breaks down both my personal and my business expenses. So I know exactly how much my family and myself spend, I know exactly how much my business spends. And that allows me to go uh and invest and do things that I guess I wouldn't have done five or six years ago. And the whole, you know, I I've always said like six months to 12 months, you can change anything about your life. Like we live in a world now that you can go from making no money to making hundreds of thousands of dollars, not financial advice, but you know, you can really like this is a time in the world that you can create anything you possibly want to create. You just need to get started. And that gets getting started is just doing one rep at a time. Like I had a personal training business years ago, and I always told someone, hey, if you know, they'll come to me and they say, Oh, I want to lose seven kilos. I'm like, no, you want to lose one kilo seven times. That's it. You don't have to lose seven kilos at once. You can lose one kilo and then you just repeat the process. So the same focus is if you're in a situation financially that you're not happy with, make a roadmap. Invest in you know, the time and energy it takes to work with advisors and just focus on the small wins often. And ultimately the six to 12 months down the line, like Christmas to Christmas, your Christmas in 2026 is going to be a hundred percent different than it's gonna currently be now if you actually take up the opportunities that the world is giving you. Like social media consumption of social media has never been easier before. Everyone's TVs, everyone's phones, everyone's cars have all of these accounts built into them for free. And you can go and find that research. I mean, you can even go to AI now and ask for the information, and it would be served the relatively right information. Now, some of it might be false, some of it might be real, but you know, at least it's a starting point and you're actually doing something.

SPEAKER_00: 41:51

Exactly. Exactly. Matt, thank you so much. There are a few other things that we've covered this year with some of our guests were around home design and you know, bringing in people to share their expert advice and giving them pro tips. Do you think that's useful for listeners?

SPEAKER_02: 42:09

Yeah, like I feel like sometimes, like I said, with the reality of you can buy something and pay for it later, our way of living and our lifestyle creep has become ever so more focused on how do I get the more flashy things, how do I get the bags, how do I get the latest latest iPhones, how do I buy the most expensive car? Like I guarantee you, the people that you're focusing on and the one the life, the life you want to, you know, you want to live compared to the ones that maybe you might be focusing on, they've probably got their car on finance, they've probably got their phones on finance, they've probably got things they can't afford. Like everyone has that within themselves. The restriction is going, maybe I don't want to starve my future self by making sacrifices now. I'm allowing my future self to actually be enjoying it themselves, like we said before. Like if you want to live in a really fancy, really expensive house now, is that going to jeopardize your retirement plans because of the fact that we don't have certainty with this whole retirement plan, right? Like it's all well and good living in a$1.5 million house. But if your whole entire salary, if your whole entire expenses is going towards one mortgage payment and you have no lifestyle and no investments, then is that the right way of thinking about it? Because if you just invested in something you could afford, if you could just, you've talked about, you know, the tiny homes and all of those things. If you just talk, if you actually just lived in your re your own reality and actually invested or bought something you could afford comfortably now, imagine what you could invest in while also attributed or contributing to that mortgage payment that would allow your retirement to be 10 times more enjoyable than it would be if you just kind of starved your future self now.

SPEAKER_00: 43:58

Exactly. Matt, thank you so much. If you had one parting message for people, I know you've covered extensively around that social media is the way to go, you know, the podcast the way to go. But from your own learning experience this year and from listening to this podcast, what would be like the absolute key message?

SPEAKER_02: 44:16

Anything is possible. Like there is not a single thing that you could probably think of if you're listening to this, whatever age you are, whatever stage you're at, anything is possible. The only difference between the current state you're in and the reality that you want to live in is the amount of reps and the amount of time you're spending on set outcome. You know, if you want to invest in a house, if you want to grow your investment portfolio, but you don't know where that's going to happen or how that's going to happen, start listening to podcasts about investments and furthering yourself and educating yourself. If you want to become a doctor or become a nurse and you feel like you're not smart enough, then start studying and start consuming content or start consuming things around those things. Like there is not a single thing that I've faced in the last 10 years that I I've ever thought was guaranteed. Everything I've done has been of my own back and my own hard work and my own dedication. And the luck that I get is not necessarily luck. It's just the reps that I put in six or seven months ago that is now paying off now. So I'm a really big believer in saying, you know, if you want something to happen in your life, you are the own captain of your own ship. You are the only person that's going to make that a reality. You could get the whole luck thing along the way, but that isn't luck. That's actually just your future self or your past self putting yourself in that position for you. So I feel like if people just focus on the fact that they can do anything they want to do and they can be anything they want to be, the only difference is that you need to put the work in, and the people that put the work in are the ones that are going to get that success. I think it becomes a lot easierly or it's a lot easier to focus on.

SPEAKER_00: 45:55

Hmm. I'm like, wow, that was really powerful. I think you should start um doing motivational speeches, Matt. I'll I'll give you my floor. No, but you're right, like I read somewhere, you know, it's not about luck, it's about the chances, you're increasing your chances. So the more you do something, the higher the chances of you achieving something. So if you only, you know, let's say even with the job applications, if you've sent only one job application, the chances are you will only get lucky, you know, 1% to get that job. But if you actually apply to 100 jobs, then your luck increases with those chances. So I absolutely agree with you, with that message. And we live in a time where the technology is traveling faster than what we can consume. I remember when I was at school and I had to go to the library to do research, and we used to have this 50, you know, big books of encyclopedias, and I had to go through like every single one of them to find what I needed. And looking back at it now, I'm like, how lucky are we to live when we live? And even my son was saying to me this year that he was using Chat GPT to help him with his assignments and stuff at school. And I'm like, wow, you're only 13. I remember being 13 and you know, staying all day in the library. Maybe that's why I'm so smart. But, you know, the kids are so lucky these days, and not at the same time, because that whole social media and keeping up with the Joneses and looking at, hey, you know, he's got a flash house. How come I don't have a flesh house? Like, make sure you don't compare yourself. That would be my message to people is that don't compare yourself and life stages that were you at to your friend, because you never know what life they had, you never know, you know, they never know what journey you're walking through. Because a lot of us are suffering in silence these days. You know, there might be relationship breakups, there might be health issues, there might be career challenges, and some people might want to travel, some people might want to study. So never ever compare yourself to someone else. But what you can do is to set your own goals and be in control of those goals for yourself. That would be my parting message, I think, to wrap up 2025 is be in control of your own life, of your own destiny, and don't let anyone else tell you that you can't do something.

SPEAKER_02: 48:17

Powerful.

SPEAKER_00: 48:18

Thank you. Should we wrap it up?

SPEAKER_02: 48:20

Yeah, I think so.

SPEAKER_00: 48:21

Well, are we gonna sing Merry Christmas? Jingle bells.

SPEAKER_02: 48:23

I definitely can't sing. I can train myself in 2026 to sing.

SPEAKER_00: 48:27

All right. Well, you guys heard it here first. And 2026 recap, Matt is gonna come back and we're gonna sing the jingle. We'll practice a bit more. Thank you guys so much for listening in. This episode has been probably the longest we've ever done, but hopefully you've listened to it and it's been worth it. And if you do have any questions, remember we're always here for you. And if we're not, AI will be. Thank you and goodbye.