11:40 – What was some of the early decisions you made on your investment journey that had an impact?

13:38 – Legacy and Stewardship

15:05 – The greatest struggles with building wealth

17:05 – What would you do if you had to start over?

18:20 – Advice for the younger generation for building wealth

21:32 – What does financial success mean to you?

23:01 – Thank you

Q: Are there any money habits or beliefs you felt you’ve had to overcome?

• Grew up in a family where money was a scarcity and still sometimes carry that to an extent
• The biggest turning point came when his father got a job overseas. This was a financial gateway to better times
• As a result, Jesse went to boarding school. He met people from all walks of life from the seriously rich to the seriously down to earth and everything in between
• From the age of 11, because he was at a boarding school, his parents were no longer the primary influence on his life
• From a wealth point of view, it made him realise that there are multiple points of view

Q: People who have come from a wealth scarcity background can sometimes be stingy, however this isn’t the case with you. Why is that?

• His father was a very generous person and would give the last cent he had
• Jesse saw him as a great model and someone he looked up to
• Learnt where he wants to and doesn’t want to spend money
• Frugal in certain elements while extravagant in others – trying to be conscious about that

Q: One of the qualities you possess is great determination and grit when achieving goals. You run a very successful dental coaching business. On a scale of 1 to 10, how easy do you feel money is to make?

• If 10 is hard and 1 is easy – 6 to 7
• Fortunate to work in a profession that earns well and more about controlling expenses
• It’s not about how much you earn but how much you keep

Q: You’re in a situation now where you’re well passed earning a living. You’re in the realms of luxuriously play with the money you earn. How has that changed your experience of creating money and the way you think about money?

• Not a great deal
• Personally, as someone who is now 49, materially there isn’t much that he wants
• He doesn’t really aspire to material wealth that he used to aspire to
• He enjoys simple things and experiences rather than material goods

Q: As an avid investor, if you think back to when you joined the force. What were some of the decisions you made in your investing journey that had a significant impact on you?

• He had a scholarship in university to join the navy as a dentist. From 3rd year of university, he had a salary already
• Graduated with $15,000 – $20,000 in his bank account and a car
• Most of his colleagues graduated with student debt and no money
• Early on, it was all about saving
• Number 1 thing to do was to always pay yourself first and use that money to do something productive with it, which he’s been doing it for most of his life
• Been very good at quarantining money for investing

Q: Has there been a shift in how you care and look after your money?

• It has changed now that he’s got two daughters
• Thinking a lot about legacy for the next generation in both the financial and habit sense
• Thinks about how he can instill good financial habits for his children and an annuity income stream into the future

Q: Often from the outside, people can look at you and say “he’s got it easy” or “he’s very lucky”. What’s been the struggle and tension around wealth creation for you?

• Probably not knowing what to do with it
• He’s lost money in various investments that have hurt him financially such as shares, negative gearing of property
• The accumulation of the “nest egg” was not the issue, it was making it productive
• Struggled with having a simple plan to execute on the deliverables consistently

Q: If money wasn’t there tomorrow and you had to start over, what would you do first?

• -Sell a solution to solve a problem

Q: Where do you see the greatest opportunities with creating wealth in the next decade?

• Investing in themselves, their own education and deliver more than expected of them
• One of the thing he’s always tried to teach his kids – make themselves invaluable to the organisation
• This sometimes mean delivering more than they pay for. To become the go-to person
• One of the things he notices is that the current generation are in a hurry to get to the top
• If you want to be paid well, you’ve got to be paid in direct proportion they bring to the organisation
• A little bit of patience is important, just like a bottle of wine
• If you think of your life as a bottle of grange, you’ve got to have grapes grow, mature on the vine and then go through the wine making process, rather than a cheap bottle of cask wine at the local bottle shop
• A lot of the young kids are thinking about the short term rather than the longer term

Q: What does financial success mean to you?

• It’s all about choice – freedom of choice of what, where, when and how you want to do things
• It depends on how much choice you want in your life
• To make sure my kids and their kids are better off because of the things we’ve put in place for them