In addition, he unveils his research-backed opinions on what he thinks are the best and the worst kinds of investments, and reveals an effective strategy he implemented to get himself out of a huge rut in his career!

Timestamps:
00:01:14 | The 'Why' Behind
00:05:36 | Rich Habits Applied
00:09:38 | Practical Baby Steps
00:15:18 | The Keystone Habits
00:17:55 | Skin in the Game
00:21:37 | The Best and the Worst
00:25:53 | The Lowest Point
00:30:09 | Forging Habits Ahead
00:35:04 | To the Future and Beyond
00:36:54 | Vision: A Powerful Ally

Resources and Links:

Mentorship is the fast track to success. All my kids have been mentored by me and my wife, but specifically me with respect to the 'Rich Habits' and to business [or] business-related stuff. When my son called to start the real estate investment business, I knew exactly what to do.

This is Property Investory where we talk to successful property investors to find out more about their stories, mindset and strategies.

I’m Tyrone Shum and in this episode we’re back with Thomas Corley, the best-selling author of 'Rich Habits' and self-confessed 'brain expert'. He unpacks his distinctive property experience, explains the physiological aspect of forging habits, and unwraps how applying the habits of the wealthy inevitably boosted him towards success in business and investments.

Tyrone Shum:   

Continuing on the compelling topic of developing habits, Corley expounds on how the big 'why' of people impacts the trajectory of a person's life.

Almost 100% of the time, the 'why' was some dream or goal that they had. Now, it might have been a dream or a goal that a parent instilled in them as a child. You know, [like]: 'You could be the President of the United States' or 'Tom, you could be a professor at school' [or] 'You could be a CPA' or 'You could be an attorney'.

 Somebody planted a seed in their head. And that seed maybe lay dormant. But at some point, it sprung open, and they started pursuing dreams and goals that they had. 

And those dreams and goals were the thing that created the blueprint for the life that they desired. They had this dream of the type of life that they wanted. 

And the 'why' might might be because they grew up... most people come from poverty or the middle class. So it might have been the upbringing, but that doesn't answer it. Because really, most people come from poverty and middle class. 

I think what happens along the way is you stumble into somebody who plants a seed in your head that becomes a dream or a major goal. I think that's what happens. I think that's the 'why'. 

 Then you might devote the rest of your life to pursuing that dream. 

Tyrone Shum:   

To further clarify what he means, Corley readily takes an example from the pages of his own life.

When I was approached after I had done my research and we had some of these training sessions, I had always taught at night. 

Even while I was running the CPA firm, I taught at graduate school taxes. So I was a teacher. I just like being a teacher. And so I taught these learning sessions; I taught my 'Rich Habits' learning sessions. I did that for about 18 months. 

 Some of the students in the sessions had such success that they they nagged me into writing a book. 

 Tyrone, that became a dream. And so then, that required about six months of studying how to write a book. I must have read about a dozen books on how to write a book before I even started writing a book. 

And once I said to myself that this is easier—it seems easier than studying for and passing the CPA exam, [and] I made that that realisation at some point—and I said, 'Yeah, I could do this'.

And I did, in my book 'Rich Habits'. It was a huge success. 

 You know, Amazon has all of these different in different countries. They have these locations— huge, huge online presence. Australia has an Amazon and [the] U.S. has an Amazon, and Canada has one. 

And in the U.S., [in] one month, my book was, had risen to No. 7. In all [the] books in the United States. I was ahead of Tony Robbins. I was ahead of Suze Orman. I was ahead of the woman who wrote 'Harry Potter' for, like, a month. And I said, 'Wow, my dream kind of came true then'. I realised, 'Yeah, I am an author now, and I'm a writer, and I'm a successful one at that'. 

 You follow your dreams because you never know where they're going to take you. 

I'm talking to you. I'm in the United States, you're in Australia, and we're talking because I wrote a book. I wrote seven books. But my point is start at one one thing: Take one step. 

 The 'why' I think is [this]: Somebody, somewhere along the line, plants a seed in your head. And that seeds starts to grow. And that was kind of how it happened for me.

Tyrone Shum:   

With all the discoveries he's unearthed in his journey to becoming a 'brain expert', Corley outlines the rich habits he has acquired and implemented, and shares the positive impact they've made in his own daily life.

Ironically, one of the habits that most of the wealthy people had—particularly the self-made millionaires, which were 177 of them (individuals)—they got up early. They got up usually about three hours earlier than they needed to get up. And during those three hours, they did things that had nothing to do with their core business, but they were pursuing goals and dreams that was sort of outside their core business or ancillary to their core business. 

So that was one I started, that I started getting up early. 

The other thing they did is they read to learn. And as a CPA and a tax expert, I always had to do reading. But you know what I did, Tyrone, is I bundled it. And so I would let it accumulate. Then I would get to the point of disgust, and then I would spend half a day just reading through everything. 

And that's not what the wealthy in my study did. 

They read 30 minutes or more every single day to learn. So I said, 'Well, you know, I'm going to do 60 minutes a day'. And that's what I've been doing ever since. I still do that to this day. 

 The other thing was they were on [the] board of directors of nonprofit groups, a lot of them. And I said, 'You know, I don't I don't do any of that'. So I ended up joining a couple I helped organise a business group in my town. And that became very successful. And so I was, of course on the board there. 

And then I helped with a nonprofit; we helped grow that nonprofit from 100,000 to a half a million a year. And I'm still on. I'm the president of that nonprofit. So I said, yeah, '[If] they're doing it, I'm going to do it'. 

Interestingly, probably about 25% of the clients that I have right now—the CPA and the financial planning clients—, they come from just those two organisations that I was on the board of. It was well worth it. It was good advice from the wealthy people. 

And then the other thing I did was I tried to understand how to the wealthy built strong powerful relationships with other success-minded people. How they did it, what [with] 'Hello' call, a 'Happy Birthday' call, a life event call. They networked, but they networked in their own way. 

They didn't go to these networking events, like a lot of people are taught that you have to do. They didn't do that. None of them did that. They did their own sort of networking—unique to them that they felt comfortable doing. So I think I started adopting those habits. I already had an exercise habit. So that was the one habit that I had. 

 I was constantly studying anyway, but it was in bursts. You know, I had to study for my masters in tax that took me three years. And I had to study for my CPA exam. It took me a year and a half. I had to study for my CFP that took a year. [With] my other security licences, that took two years. So I did this in bursts. 

But what my research did is it transformed my study from bursts to consistency. I consistently read to learn every single day. And now I'm much more knowledgeable than I've ever been in my life technically. And I attribute that to that rich habit: reading to learn.

Tyrone Shum:   

Encouragingly and without skipping a beat, Corley dishes out the achievable and logical steps one can take to get started in developing rich habits.

I'll give you two things. One is the Law of Association. We're going to talk about that. And the second one, which I'll talk about, is you have to baby-step your way into habits. And by 'baby step', I mean if you're, let's say, listening to this [and] say, 'Yeah, I want to read to learn. And Tom's doing 60 minutes a day, wow. I'm going to do that', you'll fail. I started out at 20 minutes a day. I worked up to 30, and now I'm at 60 [minutes]. 

My recommendation is to start out at 10 minutes. If [it's] exercise you want to do, [do] 10 minutes of exercise. If it's reading to learn, [do] 10 minutes of reading to learn. So any habit that you want to forge that requires... Most habits that will require some type of activity, [i.e.] physical activity, you would take a baby step on that. Now why? 

The physiology, the way the brain works is, if you were to jump in and say, 'I'm going to forge this 60-minute-a-day habit', in about two weeks, you'll lose that war with the brain. Because what happens is, in order to forge a habit, the brain has to marshal resources. 

The brain cannot store glucose, which is the primary fuel. And if the glucose isn't available, then it relies on ketones, which come from fat. But either way that fuel has to come from somewhere. The body has to create it somehow. So the brain will say, 'Hey, Tyrone, I know you wanted to do 60 minutes a day, but we're tired of having to reach out into the body to get this glucose to forge this habit. So we're going to do everything in our power'—the brain is saying this to you— 'to stop you from engaging in this habit'. 

So those baby steps—what it does is it allows you to forge a habit. It is set as a group of neurons that talk to each other; it creates a synapse. So in a 10-minute activity, the brain is not going to put up the white flag. It's not going to even notice it. It's going to be below the radar. 

So now you've got this 10-minute-a-day synapse getting stronger with each day. And so, after about two months, that synapse will be formed, then you can increase it to 15 minutes. There'll be no fight from the brain. Then you could do 20 [minutes]; the next month, 25 [minutes]. 

 The brain doesn't have to reach out to get glucose to form that synapse, because it's already formed through the 'baby step' process. So you're not going to get a fight from your brain. If you try to do too much, the brain will stop you and it will win. A 100% of the time it will win. That's why almost everybody who makes these New Year's resolutions, they almost, everyone fails—almost everyone. It's probably like 2% or 3% that succeed. 

 You just can't bite off more than you can chew. And that applies to habits. You have to baby-step. The second way is to... if you want certain habits that you don't have, [and] you want to forge certain habits, surround yourself with the type of people that already have those habits. 

So if you want to forge the exercise habit, even though you're only going to the gym for 10 or 15 minutes a day, go to the gym, and meet the people in the gym. And then you'll have friends. 

I have a guy that's 84 years old. He is in better shape than Arnold Schwarzenegger. And he is sharp as a tack. He looks like he's 58 years old. 

Tyrone Shum: 

Yeah. 

And he's constantly giving me advice—constantly. And so he's become kind of a mentor to me. So now, I have this friend. 

I've had other friends that you know... 

So what you do is you start meeting these people that you like, and they start infecting you with their habits. Because, habits spread like a virus throughout your social networks. 

There's plenty of studies on this. And it was found in one particular study, an obesity study—they were doing a study on obesity—and what they found out that was something like 55% to 60% of the people in the inner circle of an obese per person were obese. So their habits spread like a virus through [their] social networks. 

So associate with the people that have the habits that you want. And baby-step those habits.

Yep. And it makes absolute sense. It's very similar to the same theory that [says] who you associate [with], the five people that you talk with and associate with you on daily basis, [is] basically what you become, and that's so true. 

Thomas Corley: 

And it doesn't have to be five people, Tyrone. It could be groups, so you could have... Like, I had a tennis group. I have my CPA group. I have my financial planning group. And so I want to associate myself with people who have habits in those groups. So I'm not just meeting anyone willy-nilly. I say, 'Oh, I like John. And I like Chris and Joe. I'm going to try and create situations where I'm around them more often'. So I make an effort to do that.

Tyrone Shum:   

Getting even more into the meat of the subject, Corley defines what 'keystone habits' are and how they naturally help you break bad habits along the way to a better life.

Thomas Corley: 

This is the beauty of habits. And I wrote 'Rich Habits' to highlight the 10, what I call, 'keystone habits'. Keystone habits are different from, like, brushing-your-teeth habits, right?

 They affect all at so many different parts of your life. Like, exercising daily is a keystone habit. So if you can forge one keystone habit, what happens is that keystone habit will create complimentary habits, and will destroy contradictory habits. Keystone Habits are that powerful. 

So you don't need to worry about getting rid of bad habits. Just worry about forging a keystone habit, like exercising or reading, learning, [or] reading to learn every day. Forge one keystone habit, and what will happen is other complementary habits will sprout up and then the contradictory habit will die on the vine. 

 I've written about this because it's a real life story. One of the successful people in my study was overweight—obese—and they started walking every day. It was a woman. And she only started with like 10 minutes a day; she built it up to 20 [minutes a day]. And then, in a year, she was running 5 miles. In two years, she was running marathons. 

She also stopped smoking. She stopped eating in excess. She moderated her drinking—she'd like to drink a lot of wine. So she moderated her drinking. And she was always thinking, 'I don't want to drink too much because I want to run tomorrow'. 

Tyrone Shum: 

Yes.

Thomas Corley: 

[And she also thinks,] 'I don't want to smoke because it reduces, it impairs, my time. And I'm going for a time on this race'. So these keystone habits create these complimentary habits that attack the bad habits. They just go after them naturally. They get rid of them naturally. You don't have to worry about getting rid of your bad habits. 

Only worry about forging one or two keystone habits a year, and you'll see all these other good habits sprout up and all the bad habits just fall to the wayside.

Tyrone Shum:   

Now looking back to the days before he first began investing, Corley lays down the foundation and tells the story of how and why he eventually got his skin in the property game.

Thomas Corley: 

My wife and I were... we just started out in life. We bought a condo. Then we bought another condo, and then we upgraded to a house. 

 The interesting thing is, when I took over the helm of my CPA firm, I had clients that had about $100 million worth of real estate—you know, real estate rentals, apartments. So we came very close to being property managers, but I stopped to the point of the accounting, right. So we were doing all of their bookkeeping, cutting their checks, [and] doing their payroll. I didn't want to be calling repairmen or taking phone calls at night because a tenant's gas heat went off. 

 We thought long and hard about that. I had a friend that was in the business, and he had no Saturdays and Sundays free of worry. He had always phone calls to deal with with the property management business. So I didn't want that. I wanted to be in control of my time. 

 I became an expert in real estate, particularly the tax and accounting behind real estate investing. And it's not just rental properties; it's tenants in common property, it's 10-storey buildings, [and] 20-storey buildings. We had real estate investor clients that had part-ownership of a building in Chicago, or these, they call them, 'Triple Net Leases', where they did nothing but they own the land, the title of the land. And, you know, I learnt a lot from my clients about real estate. 

 I learnt enough of it, that, you know... my son, I taught him. And now he started [a] real estate investment firm. He's got six partners, and they bought their first property this year, uh let's see, this year... they bought it last year, I think [yes] last year. 

So they're gonna buy another property this year and another one then in a year after, and they're just going to... They're young enough where they can, you know— 

That's where there's somewhat of a disadvantage. And with my life, and that, you know, if you have people mentoring you, it's the fast track to success. 

Mentorship is the fast track to success. All my kids have been mentored by me and my wife, but specifically me with respect to the 'Rich Habits' and to business [or] business-related stuff. 

When my son called to start the real estate investment business, I knew exactly what to do, because I had started a stock investment business. We had 125 people at one point. We had quite a bit of money in there. So I knew a lot a lot about that. And I told him how to do it, and now he's becoming successful in it. 

 Real estate is probably the number one followed immediately by equities of the assets that the wealthy people had in my study.

Tyrone Shum:   

When he weighed the details between the different types of property investments, Corley eventually ended up with research-backed opinions on what he deems as the best and the worst kinds of investments.

What I learnt is fixed tenant in common properties and real estate investment trusts are probably the worst real estate investments that you can make, because you have no control over the property. 

 The best real estate investment that you can make is, in real estate that you have total control over that you don't have a management company that can borrow millions and millions of dollars off of a 50-storey skyscraper that you're a part-owner in like a tick or an or REIT, a 'Real Estate Investment Trust'. I've had clients in real estate investment trusts who were supposed to be exited by contract in five years, and they have to wait 20 years. 

 I learnt that from my clients that the best type of investment [in] real estate—real estate investment—is that what you control. Now the best subcategory that is not so much... I would take commercial if it's special-use property—special-use properties where that building is perfect for a doctor or a CPA firm. But you can't have a CPA firm and a hairdresser. You know, it just doesn't work. So the building has to be specific. 

Somebody that buys special-use property will pay a premium, because it fits their needs like a bank, where they'll look at a building [and] say, 'Well that that building is perfect for our bank'. So they'll buy it and they'll pay a premium on it. Whereas a four or five tenants, one being a hairdresser one being a dentist and one being something else, that commercial property doesn't have as much value. So I would say, with respect to commercial property, [it's] special-use property. 

The second best real estate investment that I've seen my clients make is property that is shore or beach property. 

 Let's just call it vacation type of properties. It could be by a lake, by the ocean, [or] it could be a mountain for skiing. Those properties are great, because you never have to chase the tenants. They pay first before they get the cake. 

So that's why my clients and a lot of the rich-habits real estate investors— they seem to have those two types of properties: special-use commercial property and vacation type properties that they rent it out, you know, for a week, a period of a week at a time or a weekend or whatever.

Like an Airbnb, I guess you can say. 

Thomas Corley: 

Yeah. 

Coming up after the break, Corley opens up about a vulnerable moment in his life and shares the phone call that turned everything around…

Thomas Corley: 

I journal. And in my journal, I was like, 'I wouldn't mind dying right now. I really wouldn't mind dying'. 

The effective strategy he boldly implemented to get himself out of a huge rut in his career…

Thomas Corley: 

It worked. I was on 150 radio stations; spoke to, I don't know, 50 million people over the course of a year and a half. 

He explains how the fruitful marriage between achieving your goals and living with a vision works, and why it's all worth looking into.

Thomas Corley: 

Having a clear vision of where you want to be—say, 10 years from now or 20 years from now—is more important than intelligence; more important than work ethic.

And that’s next. I’m Tyrone Shum and you’re listening to Property Investory.

Tyrone Shum:   

Although he has reached peak success and is still making positive waves all over the world, Corley still paints an honest picture of his past. He unpacks one of the lowest points of his life.

Thomas Corley: 

2011 is the worst year in recent memory. 

 The CPA firm was was doing okay, but it wasn't growing like I wanted it to grow. So I was frustrated. I was just starting the financial planning business at that time. And that wasn't going according to plan. Rich Habit had come out in March of 2010. I sold nothing, no books. Maybe 15 [or] 20 books, family and friends. Not even family and friends were buying my book. 

2011 was probably the worst year that I can remember. And I really think I wanted to just... if I could just erase my life and start all over, if I could hit a button, I would have done that. But you can't in life, right? 

But that was the year I just didn't want to be alive. I really didn't. 

To be honest with you, I would say... 

I journal. And in my journal, I was like, 'I wouldn't mind dying right now. I really wouldn't mind dying'. It wasn't like I was suicidal. I just preferred death over living, because of the adversity. 

Every day was a new struggle and a new problem and new disappointment. 

I remember I must have spent 500 hours calling and emailing the media to try and share with them my rich habits research and my book and I got turned down 100% of the time—not even once [did I get a chance]. 

The first time really [when] somebody said 'Yes' was Yahoo Finance. 

 I would say that was April 2013. So my books were doing nothing. My book was doing nothing. [It] wasn't selling but I wrote every day. I was trying to write every day and share my research through my blog. And somebody who was the host of a very popular Yahoo Finance show had me on. And they brought their whole TV crew in and they interviewed me. 

And I was like a loaded spring, Tyrone. They had no idea what they were getting themselves into when they walked into because I had been a man stuck in a cave for three years. 

And they walked in and they allowed me a little bit of a glimmer to the outside world. But what happened was amazing. The interview, which got released in July of 2013, went viral. It had 2 million hits in 24 hours. They had never had more than 400,000 hits on any show that they had done over a 6-year period. They had 2 million hits. 

And one of the hits was a guy named Dave Ramsey who was the third largest radio host in the United States. So I was supposed to be off for five minutes. He had me on for 30 minutes. He loved my research. And I was exposed to 8 million people and the rest really is history that my book took off and it's continued to sell. 

Right now it's selling really well in China. In particular, I think it had some success in Vietnam, although I have not seen $1 of royalty from Vietnam. I don't know. But China, Chinese—they are good business people, China. So they're legit; you know, they're ethical. So I've had success, you know, [in] different countries. 

 I'm about as happy as you can get.

Tyrone Shum:   

Corley further explains how positive habits can change one's life for the better. In fact, he credits a habit he implemented in 2012 as one of the reasons he was able to push through a difficult period in his life.

Thomas Corley: 

Habits really do two things. One is they remove the need for discipline. And they remove the need for emotion, to engage in the habit. It's a habit. You're going to engage in it whether you want to or not once it's forged. So that's the good thing about habits. So I was getting up every day and doing the same thing every day. 

And I felt like a rat on a treadmill, to be honest with you. And I was thinking to myself, these habits are not serving me. 

 One of the things that did save me in 2012 from quitting—because I did want to quit this whole rich habits stuff—was that someone, one of the people in my study... I went back over the research, and I stumbled on this, you know, how you can miss some, you read some a book, four times, and every time you get something different out of it? 

Well, I was reading this, this person's folder, case folder, and I noticed that they were in the real estate agent business. And they were very successful. And a little thing that skipped that, you know, fell below the radar that I didn't pick up on until 2012: They had created something called a 'rejection goal', [or] a 'daily rejection goal'. And what they did was every day, they had to get rejected 10 times. 

And so if they didn't hit their goal, they... and in the beginning, they mentioned that it was easy. But then as they became more and more successful, they had to work more and more hours because they hit their 10 rejection goal. And I said, 'Holy mackerel!' 

So I used that on the radio interviews when I was trying to get radio interviews. I said, 'I'm going to make 10 phone calls today; I won't stop until they get 10 rejections'. And I did that. 

 It worked. I was on 150 radio stations; spoke to, I don't know, 50 million people over the course of a year and a half. And so, you know, that started the ball rolling. 

 I started to gain some momentum, which really started in 2013. And then the Yahoo hitting it, you know... It's like I got yanked out of my cave and thrown onto a stage. You know, so that was interesting. That was fun. But it was validation for all my hard work, really. 

The habits got me there. If I didn't have those habits, if I didn't have the 'writing everyday' habit, the 'reading everyday' habit, the 'getting up at quarter to five everyday' habit, if I didn't have all these habits, I wouldn't have had the opportunity for opportunity [to] look, to manifest itself. 

I created the opportunity for good luck to occur because of these habits. And that's what the rich habits are all about as you engage in them. And yeah, it's boring. And yeah, they don't produce immediately. But they, they create the opportunity for good luck to occur. 

And for me, you know, it just so happened to be in 2013.

Tyrone Shum:   

Notably, 10 years ago, in 2013, Corley found himself amid a challenging season in his life. If he had met himself at that time, he has a ready message to share to his younger self.

Thomas Corley: 

Oh boy, I would say, 'You're on the right track. Don't stop. Everything is going to be validated, all of your hard work is going to be validated. And you're going to be rewarded financially, but it's not going to be immediate. So don't look at the money; don't focus on the money. Focus on adding value to the lives of others, and you will be rewarded.' 

That's exactly what's happened. As people... I have more and more people follow me. I have more and more people buy my books. I get more and more emails every day. 

 The stories that I hear from these people about how their lives [have] changed because of my research is validation for me that I'm on the right path in life. Because we're all supposed to add value to the lives of others. How we do it is up to us. 

 I use my finance skills and my writing skills, and my books, and my blog and all these interviews I do to help add value to the lives of others. And I would have told myself: 'You're on the right track. Don't stop what you're doing. You're actually doing everything the right way.'

Tyrone Shum:   

Now looking towards the future, Corley shares the next goals flying for him on the horizon.

Thomas Corley:  

I have one remaining dream. And that is to become JC Jobs. JC Jobs is a main character in my book 'Rich Habits', 'Rich Kids', and ’Effortless-Wealth'.

He's the main character in that book. He is the ideal future version of Tom Corley. So I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing until I become JC Jobs. And even, I suppose, when I do become JC Jobs... And I know specifically in my mind, I have an idea what that that encompasses—what it would be like JC Jobs. I mean, I wrote the character. I know what exactly what he's all about. 

I think that's what I'm most excited about is continuing this journey until I can become JC Jobs and be one of the top personal development experts in the world [and] be recognised as such. I'm getting there. 

 I would say when it comes to habits, I'm the I'm in the top 10 in the world in terms of being a habit expert. But that's not what I really intended. I wanted to help people improve their lives and go from being poor to rich. So that... I'm going to continue doing that until I become JC Jobs. And I'm going to continue. 

 The last 10 years of my career, I believe, will be my highest earning years. So I'm going to stay healthy, keep doing what I'm doing, and then 10 years from now, my guess is my life is going to be much better, even better. 

 [I'm] just going to keep doing what I'm doing and helping people.

Tyrone Shum:   

As what you can expect from a brain expert, Corley expertly explains how luck, intelligence, hard work, and having a clear vision all come into play in his pursuit of success.

I think luck manifests itself in every successful person. So I'm going to say that you have to be lucky. As a prerequisite to being successful and wealthy, you have to be lucky, except for the 'saver-investor millionaires'. 

There's four types of millionaires: the 'saver investor', 'big company climber', 'virtuosos'—[which are] the experts, Tiger Woods, the Roger Federer, those type of people, surgeons—and then there's the 'dreamer entrepreneurs'. 

So except for the saver-investors, you have to be lucky. Now, I'm not talking about just random good luck. I'm talking about opportunity luck; you have to create the opportunity for luck. 

 You have to keep your mind focused on on some blueprint that you have in your mind. I like to call it 'dream setting'. 

 If you write a script about what you want your future ideal life to be, then you might have a better chance of manifesting the kind of success that you want to have. But it's a combination of things. 

I think, what I learnt from my research is, particularly with the dreamer-entrepreneurs, their IQs, were about 15 points higher than when they started out. And that was because of all of the learning that was necessary. So I think when you pursue dreams, your IQ grows. 

We know that. We know that it's a fact. Your IQ can increase. The brain is malleable. It's plastic; it has plasticity to it. 

 I would like to say, you know, hard work ethic. But I don't want to turn people off, because I believe if you pursue a dream, you automatically gain a hard work ethic. You could be the laziest person on the face of the earth. And yet you decide I'm going to pursue some dream and then next thing you know, you're working 15 hours a day. 

I think hard work ethic is hardwired into all human beings. It just has to be exposed to some dream or some goal that you become passionate about—something you become passionate about. 

 Having a clear vision of where you want to be—say, 10 years from now or 20 years from now—is more important than intelligence; more important than work ethic. It's more important than who you know; more important than luck. 

I would say that's the key: Start out with a vision, and then pursue some dreams and goals. 

 Your destination... in order to get from point A to point B, that distance is... What's embodied in that distance are dreams that you realised and goals that you achieved. 

So the difference between point A and point B are dreams and goals. So you have to have that clarity of vision—the end in mind—in order for those dreams and those goals to manifest themselves. And they will, automatically. They'll pop up out of nowhere. They'll say, 'Hey, you need to do this Tyrone' or 'You need to pursue this angle' or 'You need to meet this person'. It just happens. It manifests automatically, just by virtue of having a clear vision of your destination.

Thank you to Thomas Corley, our guest on this episode of Property Investory.