Jim’s Group CEO and Founder, Jim Penman on the topic of happiness and how you can be improve yours?
Joel Kleber 00:07
Are you happy? And what do you about obtaining happiness?
Jim Penman 00:11
Well, first answer is yes. I, I will say I one of the happiest, most happy, most fortunate men, human beings on Earth right now. But people’s idea of what makes people happy is very badly skewed. I read a lot of books on happiness, it’s one of my favorite subjects is to know what makes people happy, a lot of literature on social psychology and all kinds of things. But on happiness, what is the most pernicious myths is the idea that making money is what makes you happy. Now, I have a very close friend whose brother committed suicide just last year. And this was an immensely wealthy man far wealthier than I am, killed himself out of out of despair. And there’s so many stories like that people who are enormously wealthy, who live so barren and meaningless and empty. So, first of all money. Now, money does bring happiness, but only up to about $80,000 a year, you can even quantify it, okay? Because like if you’re struggling, if you’re, if you’re barely able to pay your rent, or buy your food and stuff, there’s no doubt that makes people very unhappy. But when once you reach about the average Australian income, an extra amount of money makes surprising little difference to how much debt to your life satisfaction at all. And I can see for myself that, over the years made my financial fortunes have ebbed and flowed mostly they’ve gotten better, of course, but I’ve had some very bad times, but the doesn’t have a lot to do my own level of happiness has not a lot to do with my gross level of income. But secondly, to what you do with your money makes a great deal of difference. Now, there’s actually different ways to spend the money, some of them are really bad, some of them have some benefit, and some of them are incredibly good. The the worst way to spend your money is on competitive display. This is based on the psychological literature, if you are getting yourself a new car, or a bigger house, or impressing people on or branded clothes, I mean, I’m wearing vendor clothes, but it seems uniform, same cost a lot. But But you know, expensive clothes, that is a sort of thing that makes you want to compete with somebody else, I’m richer than you, I’m better than you. The trouble with that is a zero sum game, because then they go and buy a better car a better house and you and you do it again, and you feel and you feel left out, you got to do it again. So this is striving for status actually brings very little satisfaction. One of the things I found is that when people win lotteries, their neighbors tend to go bankrupt the neighbors, right, because what they do is that this person buys expensive new car or, you know, gets gets puts additions to their house could support all the kind of things the neighbors want to keep up with
Joel Kleber 02:57
keeping up the Joneses, the Joneses so
Jim Penman 02:59
that they tend to go bankrupt in fact, so spending for competitive is is very, very limited in its value. In fact, it has really no real benefit in terms of happiness, as far as the spending on experience, like going out to restaurants and going out to with your family, for your new friends that impacts your social life or, you know, trips and so forth, it does have a certain benefit. Not as much as you think though, but but it does, it does have a benefit. But the actual, you know, the natural number one way that you can spend money that really makes you happy, give it away. They found that people who give to worthwhile causes, particularly when they are personally involved in the cause in some way, like you find worldvision that you go to a trip to places where they’re being helped, or you actually become part of the whole enterprise, that actually does have a very dramatic effect on happiness. So Money, Money doesn’t buy happiness. But if you give it away, it can actually do a fairly good job.
Joel Kleber 04:11
So let’s talk about you with your happiness and how you do that. So what do you do in terms of giving away obviously, you do a lot of donations for research and stuff like that. A lot of money in that. So
Jim Penman 04:19
well. I basically go by the the Gates Foundation principle. And I deeply admire Bill Gates what he’s done. In fact, my whole view of Microsoft completely changed when he said that foundation up. Because what he’s what he’s what he does, what the Gates Foundation does is it looks at where the money can do the most good and that’s not what tugs at the heart. It’s where rational rationality says I can save the most lives and make the most difference. So they do a lot of work with, say, vaccinations and kids in third world countries. I mean, the Gates Foundation has probably saved millions of lives already. I mean, that guy’s one of the greatest benefactors in all of history, what they’ve done. So I i deeply admire that kind of principle. So, what do I do with my money? Well, again, I don’t actually say no to most requests. People are always asking me to sponsor worthy causes against cancer and all kinds of really great clauses. My absolute answer is no. Because I have two charities only you might say, the first is that I type as a Christian, it’s a biblical principle. So like Ty, there’s no question about support my local church 10% of my personal income, like I really
Joel Kleber 05:30
do, the Church must be doing right now. And what we call heavy federal duty, but yeah, you have a front row seat, they give you a nice reserved seat.
Jim Penman 05:36
Well, the only side of it my own personal I’m talking about my first income, not my gross business income is not as much as you might think. So so I do all right. And actually, what I do is I have a direct debit. So every every month, a certain amount of money goes out from my real account straight into the churches. Okay, so I don’t forget it, when they send the collection box. Everybody thinks I’m a total Scrooge. Because that’s how it goes automatically. Because there’s no temptation, it’s just there just goes out. So I do do that. As I said, it’s it’s a principle from the Bible. But the other thing I found is my research. And the simple reason for that is because I’ve developed a theory about human society, which suggests that enormous amount of human suffering and misery, including not only mental illness, which I’d love to talk about another time, but also even issues such as poverty, and drug addiction, those kinds of issues could be sold if we understood the basis of character, and we can change them. And my theory gives me some very interesting ideas about the way that we are, we’ve actually proved this with rats, and to some extent, and we’ve got some some treatments that are really close to come into. So in a sense, there’s nothing remotely as useful I could do with my money as to fund my research. So I’m having to say no to everything else. And so people again, think I’m a total Scrooge. And I’m, I’ve got no heart, I really don’t mind. I’m going to do. God gave me considerable resources. I’m going to use them in the best possible way. Yeah.
Joel Kleber 07:01
And that’s where you just focus them solely on that, because that’s your you believe that your purpose? Yeah. And that’s what something you have. And that’s, that’s the isn that you did a research there as well, your institute, people might say, I’m wrong. But that’s their opinion, I’m going to judge by what I think is the best thing I can do with that. And personally, what I try and do too, is to live a reasonably simple kind of life. I drive a fairly old car, you like Tesla’s but you won’t buy one because they’re too expensive for me, you tell me that?
Jim Penman 07:31
Yeah, I like the idea of electric car, because I think it’s got good conservation about us. And I believe in renewable resources and stuff, I think we’ve got to stop. You’ve got to, we’ve got to start destroying the environment. And so far, so I believe in that kind of stuff. So personally, I love doing electric car, once it becomes affordable, let’s generate my own powder. So I never have to pay for electricity. That would be certainly great. But I live I live, I live pretty simply. And that’s actually partly because because I don’t believe we’re given money to spend on personal consumption. We live a fairly normal middle class lifestyle, lifestyle, actually. But it’s also because I don’t want my children to be destroyed by wealth. And what you often see is that kids from privileged backgrounds become very spoiled. And it’s too easy for them. Well, I’ve made it clear to my kids will give you better hope with buying a house. But apart from that you’re on your own, your money that I create in the end is good for the research. And that’s and that’s because the research is good. But also because I don’t want it to be destroyed. There’s so many, there’s so many stories about families that are wealthy to the kids just become useless, after least after the first generation or so. I don’t want that to my children. It’s no it’s no gift to them.
Joel Kleber 08:44
So in regards to what what what’s the one thing that makes you the most happiest, and I love your family and you’ve also got a great loving wife. So what’s the number one thing that makes you the most happiest? Jim, is it your research? Or is it your family? Or what’s the number one thing is my wife your wife?
Jim Penman 08:56
I have? I have Yeah, I had the best wife I could possibly you could possibly imagine. I mean I mean you know you know it’s like when you have a honeymoon you haven’t been it never been
Joel Kleber 09:05
married I can never
Jim Penman 09:07
imagine being married to hate your your perfect love you found your your your your perfect love your life. And even a honeymoon. And it’s just glorious years the most beautiful, the most best woman on earth. You just love to look at her touch her is is amazing. You just your heart sings with joy when you see her. And she just makes the whole life bright. Imagine if he felt that way after 18 years. That’s that’s what I’ve got. I don’t even understand how it can happen because I’ve got three failed marriages. I must be incredibly obnoxious that three women couldn’t stand to live with me. And yet, I’ve got this amazing, amazing marriage that is number one. And after that, I’ve got great kids. I love my kids dearly. I just get so much joy from them. I don’t find much negatives about kids at all. I never did. The only big negative as being my youngest is 10 I wish we had more but I love my kids, I have a I have a great business. I love gyms. It’s fascinating. It’s interesting. And it’s got a sense of purpose, because I’m out there helping 1000s of families. And that’s what drives me as much as anything. I never think, don’t ever think much about the bottom line, it’s going to be there. But my focus is how can I make my franchisees happier and more successful, that’s there. And of course, my overwhelming purpose is my is my research. So I’ve got a sense, my whole life is very meaningful. So it’s, it’s
Joel Kleber 10:32
got these five things working in the almost in conjunction right off.
Jim Penman 10:35
So it’s an interesting life, but it’s also a purposeful life, even with kids. I love my kids, but I also want them to be the best people they can be. And that’s it. There’s a purpose to that. And that’s what a lot of the research shows actually. It’s, it’s whether you enjoy what you do, which I do, but also whether there is meaning behind it. And this is a compromise between the two, the people who aren’t very fond of would rather do something else and spend time with their kids, they actually disciplined themselves has been time with their kids. And they because that gives them a sense of purpose and meaning in their life, they’re actually happier for doing it, even though they’d rather be out there. So drink a local pub. Now my my advantage is that the things that I shouldn’t do, which is working on my research, and a business and my kids, I love doing anyway. Right? One of the times my children watching something on television, and there was this note laughing their heads off. And there was this scene where the way these parents were arguing about who’s whose time it was to babysit the kid while the other one went out. And they thought that was absolutely hysterical. Because in a house what happens if somebody was to go out there try and persuade the kids to go with them. So it’s kind of like the opposite. They thought it was so funny because it was the opposite of what they’ve seen. But I have a I have a wonderful life on top of that to another thing health fitness. I’m, I’m not a fanatic, but I like to do at least half hour of vigorous exercise every day. And I also walk as much as possible, or I will never ever take the stairs, take the the escalator and take the stairs and I run a lot even just just for fun or just around the place. So I keep as fit as I can keep my dynamic control.
Joel Kleber 12:18
You do it every day, every day, you’d every day I
Jim Penman 12:20
do I do other running, or I play squash, or I work on my farm, I do something like that I do something that actually keeps me fit and active. And I try and keep my weight under control though. I have struggled with things like chocolate, Australia, which are laid out in the office that tell us
Joel Kleber 12:34
tell us that Oh, that’s a terrible thing that I go to a table it’s like it’s like, like the food equivalent of pornography. Which was? Yeah, for sure. I know. What you mean.
Jim Penman 12:48
Yeah. So So and then fitness has an enormous effect on mood. Yeah, it affects health. If you could, if you could bottle the effects of fitness on health and mood. You could be it’d be worth billions and billions and billions of dollars. You just got to get there and do it.
Joel Kleber 13:03
Now do you think like I was gonna say so let’s talk about their gratefulness. I know we’ve talked about this in the past before about gratefulness now do you think a lot of people this might be this might be a bit off topic but in Australia are generally grateful around grateful so for me working in working in a business I’m I come from a different background and most but for me, I think if you use it at grants limit, right so 80 grand for some reason, happiness, you know, below whatever we have. I’ve seen a lot of people I know a lot of people who make an exorbitant amount of money yet they’re so negative. Everything’s bad. You think Australia is the worst place in the world to live in. You turn on talkback radio Australia’s the worst place in the world. Do you think people are generally in society in general to ungrateful now these days?
Jim Penman 13:39
Well, the point of it is actually, yeah, suddenly, if you don’t appreciate what you’ve got, it really is not much benefit to
Joel Kleber 13:46
what do you think is important to the topic of happiness, then, step back occasionally it does look about what you’ve gotten. Because why you talk about it, then you can see even your eyes and your face when I talk to you can see you you’re looking at this and you can see the feeling of happiness coming over you as you’re talking about the things that you’re grateful for in your life.
Jim Penman 14:02
Yeah, well. Yeah, absolutely. But actually, in this case, it comes to something which is an overarching principle is my is my Christian, Christian principle, but Christian belief. Now one of the things that we do a lot of is we pray. And when you pray, you, you give thanks. So every day, multiple times, you’re thanking God for you for your blessings, and I thank God for my wife, for my family, for everything that we enjoy the health, everything, and I’m always thinking about always praying about that. So, actually, overall, I mean, overall, behind all these principles, the faces is incredibly important. It’s in so many ways, if you looked at the happiest times of my life, actually, it’s in church on Sunday morning with my beautiful wife beside me just singing praise to God that’s it. That’s that’s amazing happiness. I just, it’s like an I don’t know what I’ve never tried crack cocaine. Must be something similar, right? But it doesn’t get any. It’s great. It stays great. And also the sense of community, I have a, I have a group of wonderful guys that we meet every fortnight we have dinner together, and we just share our feelings and our thoughts and we pray together and pray for each other. That that sense of community is really wonderful. And when I go to church, they’re there. So I was going to my wife’s always complaining, It’s been too long talking to him. Yeah, come on, we need to go get some lunch here. Yeah, but I love that that sense of community that sense of faith that that’s, that’s behind everything. Boy, he
Joel Kleber 15:28
says interesting at the start about praying where you remind us of you, so you’re thankful to be in all disclosure, I’m not a Christian, or I’m an atheist. And, for me, what I actually do is, let’s say we’ll call the equivalent actually in my office, I have a notebook, I come in the morning, I write down three things I’m grateful for. And when I get negative, or when I start, you know, moaning about something, I actually will open the book and look at it. And whatever that problem is, it always goes away. You know, I think people need to start stepping outside themselves a bit more when they have a negative problem, get down. Think back to what they’re grateful for, write down what they’re grateful for, and just realize how lucky they are. And I think travel as well, I think I know you don’t like to travel. But I think the occasional trip to I mean, I’m not saying I’m a world traveler by any means. But I’ve been a few countries, and I always love coming home. And
Jim Penman 16:12
okay, so you you’ve realized the positions out the best things, travel experiences is better. But number one, give it away. Number one, start working on that. And then then you really start to achieve, like when you want to travel rather than going on a holiday. Why don’t you start tributing to World Vision, and going on a trip to them in the field and see what your money is doing. I’ve done that actually in China went to Union once. But before that I started my research. And that was an amazing life changing experience. Try try that, try giving it away and try being involved with what you’re doing. And I guarantee that we’ll do more than any other ship.
Joel Kleber 16:50
Yeah, I’ll agree with you. No, I’m crazy. Well, for me, I went to Delhi, I went to India to make get married in India. And that was the most confining thing, as you can imagine under the scene. And when I come back here, like, these are times in the office where I might say I this and that or whatever. But I always try and look back and think and go now I’ve got it, we’ve got a pretty good here, which is what baffles me, sometimes they do get frustrated by people who you’re meeting, they’re very successful, they’ve got all the things in the world, which you probably want to go to house, family, whatever, and they’re still, you know, so I think it’s interesting, you said, the religious stuff, how you pray, that’s your way of probably doing my three, three things where I write down every day, and you remind yourself every day what you’re grateful you even say when you’re talking about the smile on your face, you’re talking about all the things you’re grateful for. But I
Jim Penman 17:28
Well, the same principle applies to atheists, though, when I’m talking about religion, as my as my pastor likes to say, Christianity is mainly a matter of eternity. It’s Christian behavior, and Christian attitudes that make people happy and successful. So, you know, the same kinds of principles is using your money well, giving it away in necessary whether you are an atheist or a Christian, the benefit is the same.
Joel Kleber 17:51
You don’t need religion to do good things. No, you’re right,
Jim Penman 17:53
being part of the community, being part of a, having strong bonds with other people, caring about the people and trying to help them and then helping you that that sense of support Happy Family Life having good relationship with you, your wife and your kids one day, which obviously, probably Oh, I’m
Joel Kleber 18:08
all the way all the way. Yeah, well, I
Jim Penman 18:10
recommend it is the best being married as the best I can assure you from experience. I know. I’ve had some bad experiences. Yeah. But is it nice now? Just a writing use because
Joel Kleber 18:21
you’re still in the honeymoon phase, as you say,
Jim Penman 18:23
still honeymoon, that that’s totally unexpected. That’s beyond my beyond my wildest expectation. If you do ask me when I first got married, what the best possible thing it could turn out to be I would not remotely guessed how good it would be. So I have become unusually fortunate in that way. But mostly his principles, as you say thankfulness, being aware of your blessings just thanking you can’t thank God I get but just being aware that you are blessed that you’ve got some you got an incredible, you’ve got incredible boss. Okay,
Joel Kleber 18:52
yeah, that’s true. Yeah, I got that down. Jim, I have to thank Jim now put it down
Jim Penman 18:56
an interesting job and you can see yourself achieving things you’ve got some sense of purpose in your life, you’ve got relation to the people around you. There’s so many and you know what to see you getting healthier and getting fitter and so forth. All these things will help and they’re just the universal principles. We’re not talking about religion as being something separate from life. The principles that we live by are actually great ones for happiness. And it to me the Bible is God’s manual it’s it’s not it’s it’s it’s a spiritual message, but it’s also a guide how to leave successful if you take the principles and apply them even if you don’t believe it will work for you.
Joel Kleber 19:37
Yeah, it’s an it’s an interesting one. It’s something that I think the $80k cap I think a lot of will be interesting. A lot of people that’s something new, did you listen that one on audiobook Was that something you read? Yes, I can. I’ll give you some I’ll give you some references actually cool. I have to look at it. But if you want to see what the inside the gyms life and especially relationship with the lady we’ve actually had Li on the stream which is nice for around an hour and a bit and we obviously did a day in the life of Gemma we went and saw to be honest with you Excuse me, my boss, you are the kids that I’ve met all good kids. You know, you got James, you’ve got Andrew, you got Esther, Aaron, Sylvia, Jasmine I’ve met, I’ve met six of your kids. And they’re all they’re all really funny until they’re raised really well. And you’ve obviously, you know, brought them up, which is a testament to yourself and Lee, which is great, and to what you’ve stopped, obviously, you practice what you preach in that regard. But I was gonna say, what is let’s say, for people? What is their if they wanted to say, right? Well, I’m not happy at the moment, what could what would you advise them to do? They they’re not not happy in their position? What some basic Jim advice you could give to those people? And I said, but a very open ended question. It’s very
Jim Penman 20:36
well, there’s so many things, as I said, relationships, if you look at why we were happy relationships matter, an incredible amount. So strong bond with those around you, it’s putting yourself out. And that means family, it can be friends, it can be it can be anything that’s that’s was very high sense of community sense of belonging.
Joel Kleber 20:54
So let’s say someone’s not involved in that sort of stuff, let’s say might go and join a community group or join a sporting team or do something there or join a club of people,
Jim Penman 21:01
especially especially, I have to say a club that’s doing something good for others, like a sporting team is probably good. But if you can join the CFA, for example, you protect your neighbors. I mean, I know that’s, that’s a great organization, or, you know, join me a volunteer for the for the Red Cross, or just help out of the thrift store or something like that do something for other people. community that involved service is actually number one that’s going to work the best. I know, that sounds awfully. But
Joel Kleber 21:30
basically the stuff that you’ve been raised like, yeah, yeah, that’s that’s giving back in that sense,
Jim Penman 21:34
there needs to be a sense of purpose to life, I think if you if you feel your life is there, the one thing that most one issue that is most characteristic of drug addicts is that the purpose of life is to be happy. Because actual fact what they do is they do the things that have short term trade off, but long term hurt, right. And you’ve got to think that you’re going to not do the things that right now you might feel like doing, but doing the things that you should be doing. So relationships, starting with a sense of purpose, I would say frankly, to in your job, and I’m a bit biased in this, but it’s it’s interesting. I would I would like to say that people who buy a franchise in gyms tend to make more money than those they did in their previous job. Now, the interesting thing about it from what we can find out is it’s actually very similar to people who weren’t very good income in the past tend to earn a good income with us. People who might have more average income tend to make an average income. There’s not a lot of difference overall. But the big difference I found is that especially talking to men, that they say is great about it is that they get to spend time with their kids, in a way they never quit in the past. They had a good job in the past, but they’re in the city and now working their nine hours a day in commuting an hour and a half in traffic each way. And they hardly see their kids except at weekends. And that’s not an uncommon story these days. As a franchisee they’re making about the same money but they’re working from home and they go to their kids, I was talking to the guy who’d been 10 years I ring up people on their on the important anniversaries No need been in 10 years. And he said it’s so wonderful, I go to my kids, I dropped them off at school, I go to this sporting events, I’ve got a relationship with them far better than I ever had in the past. And I’d say is it’s it’s a mistake to chase money as the number one thing, it’s far better to have a job that you enjoy. And that gives you flexibility in life and gives you a chance to do the more important things to spend time with your family. There’s a wonderful saying that no other success can compensate for failure in the home. And I absolutely believe that. And that’s that’s one of the things that gives me the greatest satisfaction when I talk to somebody who says, This is so great. Or I wish I’d done this a decade earlier. It’s been such a great experience. And it’s not usually because they’re making more money. Sometimes they do not do very well, of course, but it’s usually because their lifestyle is so much better.
Joel Kleber 23:54
Yeah, it’s quite interesting. You know, such as sales, we obviously do a lot of video content with the guys, Jake and Ben, and we do a lot of the interviews with people and stuff. And they always say the same thing. I guess it’s great, I get to pick up my kids or drop off from school. That’s always that’s a common thing. You know, sometimes people might say money or theater or whatever. But the predominantly the majority of them say, I get to see my kids, I can drop off if the wife’s at work or whatever it is doing and I can pick them up. They couldn’t do that before. That seems to be actually the number one sort of comment we always get from donors. And we’ve done more than 4050 of these.
Jim Penman 24:23
I get the same thing all the time, too. It’s very much that it’s it’s, it’s wonderful. And that gives me great satisfaction and myself because you see people whose lives are better. One of the most pernicious idea in this society is that you’ve got to have some sort of prestigious job with a with a salary and a title and sitting at a desk all day playing with the computer and going to meetings where you’re very important to wearing a suit and times kind of stuff to
Joel Kleber 24:48
It’s all external validation, right?
Jim Penman 24:50
Yes, 100% always and always going to university and learning more and more degrees and stuff and always chasing and chasing and chasing and chasing for more status and more power and more money and the kind of thing. It’s it’s a pathetic way to live the life. In fact, the interesting thing is that the trainees actually tend to be in a lot of ways Did you know that the the the occupations with the highest levels of satisfaction of all the ones they studied, there’s two florists and gardeners, not investment bankers, not not lawyers. In fact, lawyers tend to write very, very low on the one of their one of the unhappiest professions, there are boys.
Joel Kleber 25:29
and dentist was always one that was down.
Jim Penman 25:31
Yeah, yeah, even doctors are particularly happy. I mean, we certainly need doctors, we need dentists and I, I’ve always very grateful to my data. So I got to a lovely lady, Sierra that I go to funding. She’s, she’s, I really feel appreciative for. But it’s not one of your happiest professions, but godness, you know, and yet people think my under my father, actually, he was horrified. He just, he’s, he’s a university trained engineer. And, you know, he had an expensive educational restaurant. And then when I became a gardener, he was he was not impressed at all. I’ll do I’ll do the PhD, which at least, you know, you can go to Oxford and become a respected academic. And then like, that all fell apart, there became a garden. And he was he was absolutely horrified. But towards the end of his life, I had about 1000 franchisees, I actually said to him, once I said, Dad, it wasn’t such a bad career decision, was it? He said, No, it’s not
Joel Kleber 26:23
1000 franchisees before you that comment,
Jim Penman 26:25
but I think in the sense that I can understand his attitude because he they had sacrificed for the children to be successful. But
Joel Kleber 26:32
that’s the old model wasn’t it, we’re gonna work hard so that you can have a better life. And we want you to guys, it’s
Jim Penman 26:35
a modern model to people to live by more than more than they ever did. And I personally feel so I think somebody who’s a who’s a gardener, or a cleaner, or a handyman, or a plumber, or an electrician, or doing some basic physical job and doing it well and getting properly paid for it, we, we suggest our franchisees look at least 60 bucks an hour as payment and ultimate far more, of course, it’s a good job, it’s a useful job. And it’s a flexible job, and people turn their nose down at a discount kinds of manual type jobs. For me, that’s
Joel Kleber 27:09
the problem now. Yeah, and that’s the problem I see is that we had a great friend today, which is Dan dnk. On mind, guy thinks 25 is turning over white, so the exact amount but it’s a lot more than if someone went to uni for a certain amount of years, and let’s say was seven years into a law degree, there still won’t be as a lawyer that wouldn’t make the same money.
Jim Penman 27:26
Whatever it is, if you have the if you have the initiative and the energy to succeed, you can do extraordinarily well. There’s a there’s a wonderful book called The Millionaire Next Door, which I really recommend you should read. And it’s talking about what the typical American millionaire is like. And they think of that as being somebody who is you know, you’re a high tech, yuppie you’re an executive in a big corporation actually is not is people like like me, and like like many of my franchisees who were actually gone into fields, like, you know, gardening, janitorial services, construction, those kinds of areas, worked manually built a major business on it. And one of the reasons they’re wealthy too, is not just because they make good money. Because that environment, there’s no pressure to spend. So if you’re, if you’re a corporate lawyer, yeah, you make a big salary, but you’ve got to wear a really expensive suit and dry the latest Lexus, and you got to really posh restaurants, where you can be seen, and you got to buy all the high status stuff, and you’re always working really, really hard to pay the debt and all this stuff, too. So and, and again, it’s competitive spending, it doesn’t really make you very happy. Whereas somebody who’s running a cleaning business or whatever, they got people working for them, they can live in an ordinary house and they and they actually create wealth for their family and security of their pay off their house and buy a few investment properties in this kind of thing. So it’s actually a I wish people weren’t so so sucked in. I always tell my kids actually they always tend to want to go to university but I said if you don’t want if you want to do something different more practical like Becky 100%
Joel Kleber 28:50
Yeah, and I think that’s but I sort of think in a way like obviously you listen to that Gary Gary Vee book, for example. And Gary’s will another entrepreneur think entrepreneurship, though, is a general those coming back to be really, it’s a very sexy thing. Now to say you’re an entrepreneur,
Jim Penman 29:01
it’s much more so than when I was younger, that’s for sure. Yeah. Like when I was a nobody ever talked about going into business for yourself. He just wasn’t no way. You know, yeah, yeah, sure. You and you want to do science, you want to do law, you want to do medicine. You know, you got to go into corporate world, whatever been your business for yourself? No way. It’s actually a lot more sexier than it used to be I feel I feel justified even mind you, I didn’t do it deliberately. I wanted to be an academic. It’s just only when I lost out that I had to I knew there was no future for me in academia. So I decided to make my normal businessmen something better.
Joel Kleber 29:36
Yeah. And it’s interesting you said that about the entrepreneur, these 60 but for some reason seems to be associate with the tech stuff now. So it is obviously it’s associated with the taste of entrepreneurship partnerships not necessarily been associated with let’s say lawn and gardening or gardening business of cleaning business or whatever. So you think that’s something for young people to sort of take note of because you know, how much opportunity is there isn’t it with all the answers leads and stuff like that?
Jim Penman 29:56
Oh, I wish they would I wish to read like like like Dan, and there’s so many like that and obviously, Dan’s not an average guy, he
Joel Kleber 30:02
is very driven.
Jim Penman 30:03
He’s a very driven, he’s very smart. He’s very engaging. I mean, he’s got a lot of abilities and talents, all summer, like yourself to own your own business, but you actually, you know, you can say you came into the business doing, how long goes it eight
Joel Kleber 30:17
years, two months, came in to do a casual job, just part of the vlog on a uni, you know, and I didn’t, where are we going, I went to uni, I always wanted to Uni to keep my mum happy. So I’ll tell you a bit more about that later. But there is I went to uni was to keep my mum happy. And I think that’s a lot of kids do now.
Jim Penman 30:33
But the point about your situation is you came in to do a basic job. And then we shifted to an insurance. And when I was there, he obviously had certain kinds of talents and abilities, particularly with websites and this kind of thing and certain interests. And now you’ve become eight years later, one of my top managers. So to me, that’s, that’s a wonderful career progression in itself, in a, perhaps not quite the standard corporate environment. But the ability to actually start from the bottom of anything. And there’s work as I’ve done, of course, with mowing lawns, that ability to work your way up through things is
Joel Kleber 31:04
I think you’d pay dues. And I think that’s something people want everything quickly. And, you know, now now now, I think, when I started working, I knew it already work. And it was great, because you could get spotted, because obviously Jim’s the direct, you know, report and Jim knows what’s going on. So I think I understand you got to pay your dues. I think the big thing, that’s what I find is interesting, though, because we’re saved and someone like Dan, Dan’s extremely driven as a businessman at 25. He’s probably making the same money as someone who’s let’s say, depending on how successful I’d say he’s making more than the average average lawyer, I would say basically what he was telling us, so for me, it’s like, well, if you are wanting all that external validation by the service business, because it’s a lot quicker to get to that money level that you want. And if you really want to do it, you can, you know, you can buy these things if that’s what you need, but you probably find out that you want to be a hell of a lot happier.
Jim Penman 31:47
Well, yeah, well, to both his way of achieving what your goals are. We have a wonderful, wonderful financial advisor guy called Marcus Kok recommended to me by a friend of mine who runs a giant mission organization, in actual fact, called embark, which just was in India jossi, check, check out, you know, just a year. And I was asking him for advice on possibly going public. And he said, talk to Marcus. So I bought magazine, and every month he comes in and spends a half day with us, just just advising me and he is he is the most amazing guy, he knows so much stuff, and he has this high paying job, but half his time, he works free for impact. And
Joel Kleber 32:23
there’s a lot of other stuff here.
Jim Penman 32:24
I remember him telling me and he gets sermons in his local church. He’s, he’s a very strong Christian. He’s just an amazing, amazing blessing to the business and to myself, that guy,
Joel Kleber 32:33
that’s what comes back to what you said at the start though those five things he’s very similar to you in that regard, isn’t he? He denies and gives away a lot of his time, a lot of his expertise, a lot of money to help all those other people whose purpose is very successful as well and what he does, and he has the community and he has all that sort of stuff as well. So it seems to be a like minded person with yourself with markets, it seems to be a good match. So we’ll leave it there. Thanks for this one. So he was really good as a lot of good information there for people and a lot of great insights there. So hopefully you subscribe and obviously you listen to us and give us a rating if you can, and we’ll see you next time.