09:48 – How to live what you preach

12:30 – Taking an uncoventional approach to building wealth

17:55 – How to make money from nothing: the Sydney Harbour water stunt

28:08 – What would you do if you had to start again from zero?

31:08 – The real challenge for young people to build wealth

36:06 – Thank you

Q: You’ve had entrepreneurial spirit at a young age. If you think about making money, on a scale of 1 (super easy) to 10 (super hard), where does making money sit on this spectrum?

• Closer to the 10 than the 1, potentially around the 7 to 8
• Leveraged his time greatly despite not achieving the financial goals he set as an 18 year old
• His metrics for success have changed over time
• Doesn’t think that money is the best reflection of someone’s personal ability to execute an idea. It’s just the niche chosen can be more financially rewarding than others

Q: What does your lifestyle look like?

• Doesn’t answer to anybody
• Work when he wants to
• When he wants time off, he has time off
• Naps every day when he can
• Clocks off by 12 – 1pm
• Monday off every two weeks and plays golf with friends
• It’s the sense of freedom and flexibility
• Choice is the most exciting thing for him

Q: There’s a high degree of congruence between what you say and what you do. Is that an inherent quality you have? How does that show up in money and wealth for you?

• Mindful of living what he preaches because he’s so few people do that
• In his industry (youth), there’s a blackspot in it with many people not practicing what they preach
• When he got into the industry, it was a real personal wake-up when he noticed people he admired weren’t doing that
• He needed to breathing and living proof of everything he taught in his program
• Everything he taught needed to be validated through his own personal life
• Wealth is his biggest challenge – his financial results haven’t married up with his contributions
• Your network reflects your net worth, but the challenge is that you’re measuring yourself up with some people that may make it unrealistic

Q: You’ve taken an unconventional direction to wealth creation. You’ve spoken about silver, gold and trading cards. Why have you taken a non-conventional approach to making money?

• Did a webinar called “from passion to profit”, born out of his passion for trading cards
• Had a love for basketball trading cards and now uses $1,000 a week selling basketball cards on eBay
• He’s never wanted to make money for making money’s sake
• Wanted to do it with vehicles that he understands
• Property was attractive to him because of land mass and population growth opportunities
• Understanding the power of leverage, it’s very hard to beat property
• For other asset classes, he looks at what he enjoys and looking at any potential to make money from it too
• For example, with trading cards, he was buying cards at wholesale prices in the US and then flipping them for profit in Australia
• Most important caveat is that he enjoys it
• When he was young, a lot of opportunities were coming his way, as a result he was spinning a lot of plates. He was saying yes to a lot of these opportunities
• Gold and silver were one of these as a hedge against inflation
• He likes to spread his risk – he has $50,000 stored in value with cards/posters, a bunch of cash, gold and silver – all giving him a sense of security
• Variety and spread gives Brent a level of comfort, which is his #1 goal when it comes to wealth

Q: You talk about how it’s possible to make money from nothing. Can you share this?

• Brent ran a publicity company for 5 – 6 years media called Kapow Media
• Learnt very quickly that the media can either be a great ally or enemy
• Understood very quickly how to get media coverage
• With inspiration from a story about the Brooklyn Bridge, Brent did a publicity stunt with Sydney Harbour
• Understanding that people were always looking for a souvenir to take home, he launched a PR stunt called “Man Sells Sydney Harbour on eBay”
• The story is more important than the money made – money is an idea. If you can think outside the box, with a bit of ingenuity, then the sky’s the limit

Q: If you were to wake up tomorrow and everything financially was gone and you had to start again. What would you do?

• Throw himself into a sales job with the highest commission because he believes he can sell anything which is either property or jets

Q: How have you developed your sales skills?

• Primarily speaking on stage and an audience that doesn’t want to be there (teenagers)
• Had to very quickly, at a young age, teach them and sell them on the value of the idea
• At his peak, he was doing one presentation a week
• Lots of sales courses and self-learning

Q: Where do you see the greatest opportunities for wealth creation in the next decade?

• Never been a better time
• When he first started his first business in the early 2000s, he was first exposed to Robert Kiyosaki
• You had to seek out and pay for education you want during this time
• These days, there’s far less excuses for ignorance with the power of the internet
• You don’t need to carry the overheads of an office
• It’s cheaper, faster and easier to start a business
• The challenge is that there needs to be struggle so that you’ve got the emotional muscle to withstand the emotional rollercoaster of running a business
• Brent refers to an allegory he tells (33m 15s) about how a caterpillar becomes a butterfly through a struggle
• The challenge for young people is that it’s so easy, but if you’re smart and hungry enough, there’s never been a better time to build wealth
• It’s more about whether young people have the eyes to see it