In this episode of our 'Investor vs. Developer' series, Flux opens the gate to his 'success formula' for cultivating the mindset every property developer needs. With decades of remarkable property accomplishments, he delves into the nitty-gritty of the importance of developing skills, the power of putting in the effort, and the impact of micro actions. Plus, he unveils the big WHY for training our brain's reticular activating system!

Timestamps:
00:01:24 | A Success Formula
00:04:09 | Like a GPS
00:06:21 | Consistency is Key
00:09:01 | 'Micro Actions' in Action
00:10:36 | On Limiting Beliefs
00:13:57 | Get Out and Get Stretched
00:16:47 | 'Float Like a Butterfly, Sting Like a Bee'
00:19:05 | Face Your Fears and Wrong Beliefs
00:21:19 | Coach v. Mentor
00:25:36 | The Power of Mindset
00:30:49 | Understand Your RAS
00:33:07 | Train Your RAS
00:35:10 | Choose Your Strategy

Resources and Links:

And so, that tends to be what happens is we try to stretch ourselves too far, too fast, in one go. And then wonder why we don't get the results, and wonder why things go horribly wrong all the same time. Whereas if we set, I guess, believable goals and believable outcomes, and instead of thinking that's the end, you know, that's the destination, just think of it as a milestone towards where you want to go.

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 of 'Property Investor vs. Developer', we’re going into the nitty-gritty with Rob Flux from Property Developer Network. Not one to gatekeep top-notch advice, he unpacks his 'success formula' for cultivating the mindset every property developer needs. Plus, he unveils the big WHY for training our reticular activating system!

Tyrone Shum:
Flux has always had a balanced grip on the importance of developing skills, the power of putting in the effort, and the necessity of cultivating a strong mindset. With decades of property developer experience, he covers the nooks and crannies of micro actions and how someone with the right mindset can effectively navigate the ins and outs of the property developer space.

Well, property developers make their money by solving problems, right? So Joe Public out there doesn't have the time, the energy, the knowledge, or the willpower to actually go and do property develop[ment] themselves or build their homes or all sorts of things like that. 

So they're willing to pay a premium for the finished product to actually be there. Which means for us, our job is to both recognise the problem and identify the opportunity to make profit from that process. But it means that we are constantly faced with problems as part of our daily routine. 

And so, because of that, if we don't have resilience in what it is that we do, our mindset starts to play tricks on us, and then starts to cause us to self-sabotage and, you know, all sorts of things don't work. 

Now, when I —this is not an exact formula, but from a 'success formula' perspective, a lot of people put a lot of effort and energy into learning the skills of something. So they'll spend tens of thousands of dollars, sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars. 

And I spent $120,000 in my own education, only to find out that skills was only 20% of the process. 

Wow, that's crazy. 

It's absolutely crazy. 

So then there's— 30% is effort. There's not much point knowing something if you don't do something about it. And then that combined creates 50%. 

And the 50% that's left over is the mindset—that is the sheer willpower and brute force to, I guess, to blast your way through whatever obstacle is going to come in front of you. So you've got to choose when you see an obstacle in front of you, you've got to start to make some smart decisions—Am I going to go under, around it, over it, or through it? 

And so it's really the ability to see the obstacle. Firstly, recognise that it's actually there. And where humanly possible—I like to call it 'the helicopter view', or the '10,000-foot view'— get out of the weeds and look and kind of go up and kind of look at the big picture and go, 'Well, that obstacle that's in front of me, how's the what's the best way to get around that knowing where my destination is and where I'm actually trying to get to?' 

That's where I determine 'Am I going to under it, around it, over it, or through it?' and that's when we then dive back down into the weeds, and we get down and actually do the doing part.

I hope you don't always dig in the weeds for too long, thoughr.

Yeah, so a lot of us get stuck in the weeds, and we don't see the big picture. And we're so busy in there with a machete kind of knocking down the weeds that we don't actually see that there's a path. 

So the the skill set is the ability to recognise, 'Look, there's times when I need to be down in the weeds and doing it. And there's times when I need to be thinking strategically and planning where it is that I actually want to go'. And I'm very much like a GPS. 

We should always want to know exactly where we want to go. And be able to measure where we are on that journey at any one point in time. 

So when an obstacle comes to us, you know, if you take a wrong turn, your GPS will automatically recalculate and bring you back on target. But it only knows that because it knows exactly where you're going. So we need to be very clear, where do we want to go? And then constantly be checking in with ourselves? Where are we on that path to get there? 

You know, there's no point living in Sydney and wanting to travel to Melbourne and start by flying to Brisbane. Right? It doesn't make sense. If you kind of know where you're going to go, 'Okay, maybe instead of going directly to Melbourne, I might go via Canberra, because it's kind of on the way, but, you know, lets me get around something'. 

Knowing where you're going has a lot to do with where you want to go.

Yeah...

And that's 50% mindset, mate. Fifty per cent.

Yeah, I agree. And it's funny because you say that because, you know, people who train in a gym or exercise and stuff like that... I know people who actually like to go and pump iron and all that kind of stuff.

But the thing is that it's not about actually doing lots and lots of the exercises and putting all the effort in. It's actually having that motivation and the mindset behind it. 

Because a lot of people start off really good at beginning of the year—it's a typical example—[it's a] brand new year [and they go], 'Yes, I'm going to bulk up or I'm going to lose weight. And I'm going to do all these things'. 

Usually, for the first couple of months, everyone's all gung-ho gung-ho. And everyone knows the skills and the effort that needs to be put in. But then, you get to, like, you know, after three or four months—Bang! Nothing happens. 

Well, it's consistently showing up. That's what it is. So, if we use your analogy of going to the gym, lifting up a set of weights one time will not give you the results. 

That's right. 

You do that another one time—that won't give you the results. But if you consistently turn up and if you consistently lift the weight, the results come over time. 

Now, when do they happen? 

Well, that's going to be different for everyone based on our body shape, our muscle mass, what our eating habits are, you know, how big the weight is that we're lifting up, how often we lift it up. 

The success comes down the track, but we have to believe that it's going to come and consistently show up in order to do the action in order to get there. 

It's no good knowing that lifting heavy weights will get me fit, alright, and then not doing the lifting the heavy weights part.

And it's the same thing with development. There's no point knowing all about this development, knowing how to put it together, without actually taking the action to be able to implement what you need to do to create a development, which is, as you said, knowing what the end is in mind before you even start, knowing where the goal is [or] where you're heading.

Absolutely. Now, what plays into that is, you know... and I'll give someone a really quick hack for just that gym scenario that you said there, because quite often what we tend to do is we set ourselves these big lofty goals: 'I'm going to get myself a six pack of ABS', [and] you know, 'I'm going to have that in 8 weeks' time'. 

It's unrealistic given where we are right here, right now. 

And because it's unrealistic, our mind plays tricks on us and says, 'Well, you're not going to actually get there', alright. And so it's self-sabotages. And eventually, it just stops you doing the action. Instead, what I'm going to encourage you to do is what is called a 'micro action', okay? 

So don't worry about going and lifting up 50 kilos with the weights; worry about getting out of bed and putting your gym shoes on. 

Because if you just get out of bed and put your gym shoes on, you kind of feel silly just walking around the house with the gym shoes on, and not going anywhere. 

So eventually, what's going to happen is you kind of feel a little bit silly, and you might walk and put the bin out today, and then, tomorrow, you might walk to the end of the block. And then, later on, you might walk to the gym. 

But you just do those little micro actions, right—those little micro habits, I like to think of them as—, if you do them, you're setting yourself up for success, alright. And it's amazing that the difference they can actually make. 

So small [micro actions]... 

Yeah. 

I want to eat well, right? So the micro decision is to choose that I'm going to go to a healthy restaurant, not to McDonald's, right? 

Easier said than done. 

Because once you've made that micro decision, once you're in the restaurant, the menu's the menu, okay. 

And so if you made the first decision right, then you're going to go to a healthy restaurant, and you're going to have nothing but healthy choices on the menu. So that's what you're going to do. 

So you've got to get the first decision right, and that sets you up for the next decision.

Yep. And the thing... You really, really hit the nail on the head on this one, Rob. And the thing that I also wanted to mention is that you don't have to do it perfectly at the beginning. 

Just take those little micro steps, even if—as you said—just going to the gym: Just putting a shoelace on—even if you tie your shoelaces incorrectly, it's okay. But just taking those steps is most important because it doesn't have to be perfect. And that's the same thing of development as well.

I don't know whose quote this one is, but [here it is]: 'You don't have to be great to start. But you have to start to be great' [quote credit: Zig Ziglar].

That's right. All right. Well, thank you so much for that interesting quote. And whoever it is, yes, we'll give him credit to him when we find out who it is as well [quote credit: Zig Ziglar]. 

So how does this mindset also relate to our beliefs as well, Rob? Because I've heard about a lot of the times, yes, 50% of what we do as property developers is going to be mindset. But you know, not everyone has that kind of same thought and go, 'Yep, I'm going to be a property developer' or you know 'I want to be property developer'. 

But there's always going to be some background, some beliefs, something that comes up to prevent people [from] jumping in and becoming a property developer.

Yeah, well, we have a whole bunch of limiting beliefs that we've been indoctrinated in over time—so things that our parents told us, things that our peers tell us, things that we've learnt at school, you know. 

When we were born as a kid, everything was possible. And then slowly, slowly, slowly, were indoctrinated to go, 'No, it's not'. 

And now it wasn't necessarily that it's not possible, but it was that that person didn't believe it. So they've given their belief system to you. Alright. So firstly, we need to understand, I guess, how our belief system works, right? Before we even look at what some of these limiting beliefs are. 

So how do our belief system works? Okay. So it's a little bit of a of a cycle, okay. So firstly, we know the potential that is actually humanly possible, right? So I could run a 9 1/2-second 100-metre thing, because that is humanly possible, right? 

So we know the potential is there. But the potential can only happen if you take the action to get there. So if you do the training, and you turn up every day, and you do the things— Now, when you start to take the action, then you start to see results. 

So firstly, I'm doing a 22-second 100 meter, and then I'm doing a 15-second, then I'm doing a 12[-second], and then a 10[-second]. So you start to see results, then you start to believe that the potential is actually possible for you, right? And so it starts to become reinforcing. 

And when you believe that the potential is possible, then you're more likely to take the actions and keep going to then get the results that reinforced that, that reinforce the belief. And so it becomes this, I guess, self-fulfilling cycle.

Positive cycle, in some sense, if you're doing the right thing.

If you're doing the right thing. 

The problem is that many of us choose the potential—and this is what I was talking about before—, many of us choose the potential of something that's currently out of reach. 

And so when we take the action, because the action takes a while—I lift up the weights for a couple of days, and I don't see that I'm getting buff today—, I don't see the results so I believe it's not possible. [And] so I stop. 

Because I set my original goal, that original potential way too far in the future, and I was stretching way too hard, which is why I said the micro action, where you can reach that potential very, very easy. 

Your results are relatively easy, you're going to believe that it's possible, then it's really easy to build on that base foundation.

It's so true, because, like, now I look back at it. And this is probably just a reflection on our podcast. 

When I first started doing the podcasting, I just took one podcast [episode] at a time. And I didn't think about you know, trying to do 100 [or] 200 podcasts in one go because it would have been overwhelming. 

But I said to myself, 'If I can just do at least one podcast [episode] a week, even if I can do two podcasts, we'd be great'. But I started with one podcast a week, and then interviewed and did all that. And over a period of time, we've got like over 500 different podcast [episodes] of different interviews with different guests. 

And I, never in my dreams, I thought I'd have that many. But I knew I wanted to aim for at least 100 podcast [episodes] by, you know, a year or something like that. And it worked. 

I think that's the thing. You just got to start those little baby steps and consistently do it. And you'll get to that point. It's just that you don't want to set your expectations too high, because then you'll end up giving up, which is what I have seen happen too often, too.

It's important that that the goal that you're setting yourself is actually stretching you out of your comfort zone. Okay. But if you stretch too far— it's like an elastic band. An elastic band will stretch a certain amount, and then it will try to pull you back to where where it started. 

But you don't realise it— but the elastic band doesn't actually go back to the exact size and shape; it actually stretched a little bit. Okay. And if you try to stretch it again, then it'll stretch a little bit more, right. But if you try to stretch it too much in one go, then the elastic band snaps and it stings like heck. 

Yes. 

And so, that tends to be what happens is we try to stretch ourselves too far, too fast, in one go. And then wonder why we don't get the results, and wonder why things go horribly wrong all the same time. Whereas if we set, I guess, believable goals and believable outcomes, and instead of thinking that's the end, you know, that's the destination, just think of it as a milestone towards where you want to go. Right? 

And so this is on my path. And this comes back to where I was talking about before the GPS: Where do I want to get to? I want to get to Melbourne in this particular instance, well, then I need to have a milestone. What are all the small towns I'm going to stop on on the way? 

But every time I get there, I want to actually recognise, 'Hey, I've actually progressed'. I want to see those results and and know that I'm on the right path.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's a really good analogy— if you want to do like a little slow trip down the coast of the East Coast for a Melbourne trip, but yeah, that's [a place] a lot of people want to go.

I think we've just improved Victorian tourism. 

Love it. Love it. 

Oh, come North. The sun's up here.

Coming up after the break, he delves into a useful concept that will expand one's perspective on boldly facing problems head-on.

All of that comes down to and where we were leading to is limiting beliefs. 

He gives a compelling argument on how your outlook can steer your journey…

Henry Ford famously said, 'If you believe that you can, or you believe that you can't, either way, you're right'.

He lays down the impact of training our reticular activating system —opening the conversation with an honest and vulnerable inside-look into his life.

And being completely blunt, I'm in pain 100% of the time; there's no getting around that. But it's what do I choose to do with that. 

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

Tyrone Shum:   

Venturing deeper into the conversation, Flux highlights common limiting beliefs that may just be lingering beneath the surface and how your mindset can either make or break you on the path towards success. He begins by sharing a profound statement from a world-renowned boxer.

Muhammad Ali has a lot of really good quotes. I almost call him a philosopher. A very underrated man. But one of his famous ones is: 'It isn't the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out. But, rather, it's the pebble in your shoe'. 

So we can do these extraordinary things when we set our mind to it. 

But it's the tiny little things that then get us in the way. And so it's about having the mindset to be able to go, 'I don't want that little thing to actually be impacting me today'. 

Now I've got a concept that is a pretty simple one to actually understand. 

And that is, I want you to imagine a square, a perfect square. And everything inside the square is everything in the world that you actually care about. 

Now, inside the square, I want you to put as large as humanly possible a circle, so that it is large enough that it actually touches all of the sides, in all, I guess, inside the square. Inside the circle is everything that you can change. So there are things in the corners where you care but you can't change. 

And so when you have the pebble in your shoe, and it's actually starting to bother you, then you've got to start to ask yourself, 'Is it in the circle?' In which case, I'm going to do something about it? Or [ask yourself], 'Is it in the square?' In which case I go, 'You know what, it doesn't matter how much I bitch and how much I complain or what it is that I actually do. I can't change the outcome. So how much energy do I want to burn on that thing?' 

And it's a really simple analogy, that if we just take 10 seconds, whenever we've got a problem in front of us, you go, 'Well, if I can do something, why aren't I?'

That's a really good one. Lots of reflection on that one. I'm already picturing this big square in a circle.

All of that comes down to and where we were leading to is limiting beliefs. We have been indoctrinated over time by society, by our teachers, by our parents, by our friends, our family, all the people who care about us and want to protect us. 

They have instilled in us their belief system that we typically have actually taken on. And that manifests itself in a massive amount of ways, okay, that are called 'limiting beliefs'. 

Now, there's a tonne of them, and we don't need to go into every single one of them. But, you know, there's the fear of failure. There's the fear of success. You know, maybe you don't think that you're worthy of success. We're told 'Money doesn't grow on trees', okay? Or 'I can't find a suitable deal, because other people around me can't find suitable deals. So therefore, I can't'. 

You know, we're afraid of our development failing. You know, lots of things like that. 'I don't have enough time in the day', [or other] lots of things where we put these obstacles in front of us. And almost in every single instance, most of them are fallacies, or most of them are not real. They're just, I guess, what we've taken on from a mindset perspective that stops us from actually progressing.

It's really, really interesting that we're talking about limiting beliefs, because, ultimately... I mean, we've probably... a lot of us have grown up with them. And we don't think about them until it actually hits us really hard, especially in life. 

I'm not just talking about property development, but just in life. 

Like, for example, if you want to go traveling as an example. Because of COVID for— in the last few years, everyone's been fearful of wanting to travel because there's all these limiting belief that we might catch something, we're going to get sick and all that stuff. Yes, it can be true, but there's so many ways that we can protect ourselves. 

And it's the same thing here is that we find ways to minimise these limiting beliefs and look for ways. Because it's basically our brain telling us, typical homo sapien, you know, caveman brain say 'fearful, fearful' for just in case that there's going to be some kind of large animal come and attack us. 

But in actual fact, living in this day and age and society, we don't have to worry about those things, because we're not going to have an animal come in and attack us. But it's our old brain speaking.

And I'll talk to how the brain works with a thing called the 'reticular activating system' in a couple of seconds. But I guess, before getting there, when we identify the fact that we've got a limiting belief, I guess, it's what do we do about it? 

And so here, I want to talk about the concept of a coach versus a mentor. Okay, so all of us have heard the terminology 'coach', and all of us have heard the terminology 'mentor'. But quite often we get the two confused with each other.

People talk about going into some education programs, and they have a coach. But really that coach has given them some skills. 

A coach is really about mindset, alright. So a coach is the one who actually plugs into your brain, rummages around, tries to find out the thing that's actually stopping you from taking action, unplugs that, reprograms that, puts you back together, and pushes you into the arena. So you're prepared to take action. 

A coach's job is to make you take action. 

A mentor's job is someone with the skills and the experience and the knowledge to make sure that when you're taking the action, it's the right action. 

And I think a lot of people get those two confused. And so if you identify the fact that you've got a limiting belief, then you want to find yourself a coach who can actually get in and find the root cause of where that actually came from. 

Now, sometimes, they'll do all sorts of things like regression journeys, and take you back to your childhood, and you know, 'When did you first come up with that idea and that concept?' and that sort of thing. And other times, they'll do reprogramming and other different ways. 

And my job is— I'm a mentor; I'm not a coach, so I'm not going to tell you the best way to do it. 

But in a very high level, what they do, firstly, is they identify what the belief is. So they isolate the belief; they try to seek the source. So where did that belief actually come from—Was that your childhood? Was it your parents?—whatever that is. 

And then what they try to do is they try to shake you up a little bit, then actually loosen that belief by trying to prove to you that it's a falsehood, by finding evidence of other people having done the exact opposite of what you're actually trying to say. 

So if you say it's impossible to find deals, then let's find evidence of other people finding deals. And so we can prove, 'Well, if they can find deals, why can't I? What are they doing different to us, right?' 

And so when we can start to do that, we start to go, 'Okay, well, we can actually start to see that'. 

And in a perfect place, if we're looking at property development, a perfect place for all of that— come to one of our meetups. Like, with every single event, every weekend of the entire year, we've got people sharing real deals proving to you that you can do deals when you've started with no experience, proving to you that you can do deals when you're starting with no money, proving to you that you can do all sorts of creative outcomes. 

So there's thousands of these bits of evidence out there, if you go looking, alright. But at the same event, the exact same event, somebody will go, 'But I can't find a deal', but that somebody just presented proof right in front of them that it is possible. So it's all about perspective.

I think of it more like a Rubik's Cube. You're looking at the piece of information. And if you have a negative belief, you might see the red. But someone on the other side of the Rubik's Cube has a positive belief they're going to see the blue. 

That's right. 

So which one is right? Well, they're both right. 

Right. 

Henry Ford famously said, 'If you believe that you can, or you believe that you can't, either way, you're right'.

Yes, it's very interesting—[our] brain. It makes us sort of think about what we actually do. And it's what we think we do.

Yeah. So it's really about trying to identify what some of these limiting beliefs are. 

And we're all going to overcome obstacles. That's not... As I said, right at the very start of the show, this is about problem solving. 

We have to identify problems. We have to believe that it's actually humanly possible, then go and take the action, then we see the results, then we start to know that it's actually going to be real. But it's all about perspective. If we believe that this thing is a terrible thing, it's a terrible thing. 

Exactly. 

If we believe that this thing is an empowering thing, it's an empowering thing. 

Now I can talk about a very personal journey for me, okay. So a lot of people don't know it, because they see me walking around, relatively 'normal', but I've had more incidents and accidents that you can have a poke a stick at. 

I've got more titanium in me than you can imagine. I've had six knee surgeries, two knee reconstructions. I've got a titanium disc in my back in L5-S1, where I've had a ruptured disc. I've had nerve damage in my back. I've got electrodes in my spinal cord. I've got a battery pack in my back that I have to charge up once a week. I have a remote control for my back for pain management.

Wow, I did not know that. You look like you're walking fine. Every time I see you to meet, I'm like, 'Rob, how you doing? You're looking good'. That is amazing. You're the next Terminator by the sounds of it though.

So hence the thing. So a lot of people would go through those experiences. 

And being completely blunt, I'm in pain 100% of the time; there's no getting around that. But it's what do I choose to do with that. 

That electrodes in my spinal cord is for pain management. So it's to try and minimise the amount of pain that I'm actually in. 

It hurts if I sit because of my back problems, and it hurts if I stand because of my knee problems, right? So I'm constantly having to re-adjust myself and reposition myself. 

Now it would be one of those things where if some people would have those things happen to them, and they would curl up in the fetal position and say, 'Woe is me, my life is over. I can't do anything'. 

Whereas I've taken the perspective that 'You know what? I'm going to succeed despite those things, okay. I'm going to prove that anything is possible'. 

So instead of those things holding me back, they're motivation for me to actually move forward. I don't know how old some of your audience are out there, mate. But I'm old enough to remember a show back in the early '80s, the 'The Six Million Dollar Man' where he was bionic. You know, he had, I guess, all the electrical implants and all those sorts of things inside of him. 

And Steve Austin is kind of how I like to think [of] myself. So, you know, every time the pain starts to slow me down... in the show, every time they did this special effect for him doing this superhuman thing is slowed down; they put it into slow motion. So I kind of take that on and go, 'Okay, well, slowing down is not stopping. This is just preparing to launch into the next thing'. And so yeah, I have to pace myself. But you know, it's not going to stop me. 

So, next time somebody's comes up and says 'Hello', [I'll] ask them to feel my electrical implants, then I'll show them the giant lumps that are hanging out of my back.

Well, I think everyone would be coming up to you in our next meet-up then.

Just the lovely ladies, please. Just the lovely ladies. So, mate, it's because of all of that— You know, we've been quoting a couple of famous people. I want to quote another famous person: Me. Okay, this is my own quote: 'It is your decision and not your condition that will determine who you are and the success that you will achieve'.

Thank you, Mr. Famous Rob Flux. That's an excellent quote. I love it. 

You're looking from the victory mindset compared to the victim mindset. And this is so strong and powerful. Because—and I'll let you explain that because it's so important to understand—because if you take that victory mindset, you've got faith, you've got hope, you've got belief that things are going to work out. 

And you could be sitting there complaining to me, and I never knew you actually had that much pain now that you've shared with me, I'm so grateful that you've mentioned that, because I can understand a lot better. 

But at the same time, I can see that you're also looking [on] forward to [the] positive because you try to do ways to be able to help manage that. But also, you just don't stop, you just don't stop. You just said, 'Look, you know, I can manage it'. So it's a mindset thing.

It is absolutely. 

There's a concept called 'above-and-below-the-line thinking', alright. So you've mentioned victim and victor. Okay. For every word that we use, there is an opposite word. 

If I want to react to something, that would be a negative, or I could respond to something, which is a proactive, right? I can have a problem or I can have a solution. 

I could judge something for what's happened and blame someone or I can accept the fact that that's actually happened. I can blame someone or I could have taken 100% responsibility for my role. So above and below that victim versus victor. 

Why that's important is because of how our brain actually works. 

There's a concept— or not a concept; this is a medical fact. And I might get some of the, I guess, the the actual specifics of the number of neurons wrong here. But we have something in the vicinity of 40,000 synaptic pulses that happen per second. 

Now, our brain cannot— our conscious brain cannot physically deal with all of that happening at the same time. So our brain has this thing called the 'reticular activating system' or the RAS, which filters a lot of those decisions on behalf of us. So for example, we don't think on how do we digest, we don't think on how we move our hand, we don't think on how we walk; it just happens. 

So the subconscious mind is dealing with all of that. When the wind blows and we can feel the hairs on the back of our head move or we feel that it's cold, our subconscious mind has actually made those decisions for us, not our conscious mind. Okay, so the RAS does all that. 

The problem is that when we start doing, I guess, negative thinking or positive thinking, what we're actually doing is we're actually training the RAS. We're training the RAS what to filter for. 

So if we're always using negative self-talk, then the RAS is always only ever going to look for negative things, right? If we are always doing positive self-talk, then you know, we're going to find the positive [side] of things. 

Now a perfect example. Okay, so how the reticular activating system works. You've probably bought a brand new car at some point—maybe it wasn't brand spanking new, but it's new to you, right? Now, about a month before you bought that car, you probably never saw that make or model on the road every[day]. [But on] day you bought that car, you saw hundreds of those things. 

And they were everywhere—the exact same make, the exact same year, the exact same color—because your reticular activating system has now started to filter looking for that thing that was always there. But because you weren't looking for it, it never appeared. 

Yeah. 

And so what we need to do with our RAS is we need to train it. We need to train it to go, 'What are the things that we're actually looking for?' If we tell it, there are no deals? We're not going to find deals, because it will always find a reason to throw the sight away. 

That's right. 

If we tell it that there are deals, but we get more specific with the kind of deal that we want like, 'I don't want any deal. I want very specifically a subdivision'. Well, now it's going to start looking for subdivisions. If I'm looking for just duplex sites, it's going to find just duplex sites. 

And we need to get really good in actually, I guess, training our brain to be looking for exactly what we want to do. So there's part of that is, 'Hey, I need to learn the skills and in what it is that I want to find'. So that's where the skills part comes in, 'Hey, I need to learn that skills part'. Then I need to start to put the effort in. 

And if we start to do that belief system: 'Okay, I know the potential. I know that there are people doing duplexes out there', now we're going to start to put the action into learn[ing] what does the duplex look like. Then I'm going to start to see results, 'Hey, I can actually see all these duplex sites everywhere'. Then I'm going to start to believe that I can actually do that. Then it's going to start to loop around again. 

So we've got to train that into our system, okay. And if we don't get our mindset, right, it just won't happen.

Absolutely. And I think that's that's so important to understand. Because in property development, and even just property investing itself, there's so many different strategies that you can look at. 

We've talked about and covered in many, many different topics, on a few episodes back: The thing is, is as you said, if you don't actually focus on what you're looking at, you can actually just go all over the place. 

And that's what the RAS system is about. It's to help you to actually focus just like buying a car. 

And I recently I purchased a brand new car, BYD, and everywhere I look, it's everywhere now. Everyone's been telling me, you know, we're seeing all these electric cars. And Tesla has been around for a while. I've been looking at it for a while. But now BYD is everywhere I'm going and seeing. And everyone's pointed it out to me as well, because I keep pointing it out to all my family and friends.

Like my niece has got one. I'd never heard of it until she got one and like now I see them everywhere too.

It really come[s] back to just understanding the fundamentals of how all of that kind of works. 

Yeah. 

And as you said before, if you don't choose your strategy, if you just start to look at every kind of deal that actually sits out there, you're not giving your RAS an opportunity to succeed. 

You become a jack of all trades and master of none, and it doesn't know what to look for because everything looks attractive. 

And then because only 10% of deals actually work. So the opposite of that [is] 90% don't, right? Because of that, you start to see the results of 90% not working. So you look at strategy No. 1, it doesn't work. Strategy No. 2 doesn't work, strategy No. 3, it doesn't work. And then of course, you're going to start to believe that there's no deals out there. 

But if you get very good, and if you narrow your focus, if you train your RAS to just look for the one thing, you get very good at the one thing, and you start to recognise what does that 10% start to look like, then they start to appear. 

Now, I can give you an analogy. When my daughter, who's now 22 [years old], when she was a child, and I was going through this process of learning, I guess, the property development process myself and I was still learning at this point, you know, I was trying to teach her through osmosis, the process. 

And now at this point, she's probably 10 [years old] or 11 [years old] or something along those lines. And she has zero interest at all in property development. And then even to this day has zero interest. But as we're driving along the road, she's able to go, 'Hey, Dad, there's a deal. Hey, Dad, there's a deal'. And you know what, she was right. 

Yeah. 

A 10- or 11-year-old was able to spot the opportunity. Now she wasn't able to determine 'Is it profitable?', but she was able to determine 'Is it developable?' And you know, she knew the signs and the symptoms now. 

Does she use those skills today? Alas, no. It was always apparent but... 

It's still too early in her life. Maybe in 10 years' time she might go, 'Yep, I actually... everything dad taught me will probably be very helpful'.

I'm fairly confident that she will not take off a career in property development. But no doubt she will rest on the laurels of her father. And when I die, she'll inherit everything I've got.

Thank you to Rob Flux, our guest on this special episode of Property Investory.