Property Podcast
Financial Freedom at 34? Jackson Millan Guides Us on How.
March 31, 2024
It’s a tale as old as time: rags to riches! Boasting 15 years of experience in the wealth and business strategy space, Millan is an expert on achieving financial freedom. Indeed, he did it by the age of just 34! An inspiration to listeners of any financial background, Millan uncovers the secret to creating a 20-year roadmap, documenting goals between 5-10 years and reverse-engineering it into a single income target.
And, he reveals the rocky journey to success. From failing grades and a briefly unsuccessful ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ moment that resulted in his firing, Millan shows the reward for perseverance and competence. 

Timestamps:

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Transcript:

Jackson Millan:
And I remember sitting with my dad on his deathbed, as he was dying from pancreatic cancer, and he regretted so many things. And it was all the things that he left undone, or that he didn't have the courage to do in his lifetime. And I never want to be in that position. Where I feel like I wasn't courageous enough to try even if I fail.

**INTRO MUSIC** 

Tyrone Shum:
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 Investory we’re speaking with Jackson Millan, a successful entrepreneur of almost 15 years, founder of Aurelius Financial and author of three inspiring novels. In an inspiring rags-to-riches journey, Millan reveals how he overcame poverty and reached financial freedom. And, he did it all after failing school! 

**END INTRO MUSIC**

**START BACKGROUND MUSIC**

Guiding the Lost

Tyrone Shum:
To start, Millan shares the noble goals of his business in helping others—like a Shepherd herding his flock. And, he reveals a little about his very own animal sanctuary.

Jackson Millan:  
My business is Aureus Financial. I started over six years ago with my business partner, Sam, I've been involved in the wealth and business strategy space for over 15 years. And we're really passionate about helping service based business owners maximise their profit in their business, build a saleable asset that provides them with freedom, and then allows them to create financial freedom faster. 

And I really got into this space, because my parents were business owners. I remember as a kid watching them slave away in their business [and] are very, very good at what they did. But they never made any money, it was always hand to mouth. And I realised that something was wrong. 

They didn't understand the language of money, they didn't know how to make money work for them. And I set out to become a financial advisor to help people like my parents. And I realised that advice is just one part of the equation. 

People need to be educated and coached, they can make better decisions for themselves. So I started calling myself a wealth coach, and working with my clients to help them implement what we call the Wealth Mastery machine, their financial operating system that basically sets their money on autopilot. 

And over the last 15 years, we've helped our clients build over $2 billion in combined wealth. And I've been fortunate enough to create financial freedom at 34. So we definitely practise what we preach. 

The Average Tuesday

Tyrone Shum:  
Sharing a little bit about his average day, Millan does not make business management look effortless—although he certainly makes it look easy!

Jackson Millan:  
We have an animal sanctuary up in far North Queensland. It has been my lifelong dream to create an animal sanctuary. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a vet. But I didn't want to do all the geeky stuff that vets have to do. 

So I figure out what accredited animal sanctuary gives us all of the best of what we do. We've got over 100 animals. So I'm usually up at about 6am. I'll let all of the animals out because they [are] all free range, feed them, spend some time with them. And then when I get back to my office, I usually play Spanish guitar for about 30 or 45 minutes, set myself up for the day and get stuck into it. 

We've got a team of over 30 now. So I focus on setting them up for the day working with our leadership team, and doing all of the stuff that I enjoy. So it's a great journey.

Tyrone Shum:  
It's a great journey. So we have your love for animals come from because I can omit 100 animals, I'd be freaked out. That's a lot of animals to manage. Like you're always having your own zoo.

Jackson Millan:  
It is almost like a zoo mate. It's actually not as complicated as you might think. I think we'd probably take care of all the animals in less than an hour a day, we've got a pretty good system. 

And particularly because we free range all of our animals, in terms of cleanup and whatnot, we practise what we call permaculture, we've created an ecosystem where the animals and our food forest and everything that we've got kind of works in harmony. So there's a lot of setup. 

But the ongoing work and maintenance is pretty straightforward. So it's pretty enjoyable, but we love it. It's always been a passion of mine. And look, I think this is really important. When we're talking about wealth, whether it be property or business or shares or whatever it might be these things are just vehicles. 

And unless you are really clear on what it is that you're trying to achieve the destinations that you're working towards, the vehicles don't matter. And the big thing for me is I've never been money motivated, which might come as a bit of a surprise for someone who is called the wealth mentor. 

But I've always been passionate about creating a life on purpose of doing the things that I want to do. And being able to have freedom of choice. And this is the freedom of choice that I want. And I'm very fortunate that I've been able to credit in my 30s and hopefully can inspire others to decide what they want, even if it's unconventional and go and chase after it. 

Tyrone Shum:  
Yeah, I love that. It's so inspiring to hear that because ultimately, at the end of the day, exactly what you said is just a vehicle for whatever you use, such as property, business, etc. But what is your real purpose in life, because then, you know, once you've achieved that, which I have as well to have similar to you, I'll go, what I do next, and I was on that path. 

I don't know what to do. So that's why I started doing all this meaningful and purpose and fulfilment type of stuff that I see what I'm looking for as well too. But it's really inspiring to be able to hear that. I'm also interested in for the listeners out there who don't know, there'll be permaculture, could you sort of give that bit of background behind what that is? 

Farming 101

Jackson Millan:  
Yes. So the idea is there's really two types of agriculture. There's what we refer to as monoculture, which is what most of us are used to in terms of commercial farming, right? You see a field and there's just one thing planted, it's corn or sugarcane, or whatever it might be. 

And the issue with that kind of system is that nowhere in the natural world does that exist. If you look at a rainforest, it's full of diversity. And you realise that a rainforest requires no maintenance. It requires no fertilisers, it requires no human intervention, yet humans have somewhere along the line realise[d] that they can maximise production, by going down the monoculture route, but at what cost. 

And that cost requires a lot of maintenance, a lot of intervention, a lot of machinery, right. And it's actually depleting the environment. So the idea of permaculture is that we want to replicate what happens in nature, naturally, we want to try and create an environment that [is] symbiotic whereby when you set up the system, it feeds itself. 

And ultimately, if you plan it, and you execute it, and you follow the principles, it will operate like a rain forest, and it will produce substantial yields above and beyond other systems with very little work. So I like it, because it's strategic, it's very much like the work that I do in my business and with our clients. It is you've got to observe, you got to understand what's happening. 

You've got to create the plan, create a hypothesis, you've got to go and test it. And then you've got to go and reflect and sometimes realise and acknowledge your mistakes, and then go and optimise and then improve it over time. 

And the interesting thing, mate is when we deal with nature and grow in the calm, a very impatient person, kind of things take time. We've, interestingly enough, planted fruit trees recently that are going to take 15 or 20 years to reach maturity. And I'm like, wow, where am I going to be in 20 years time. So I think it's a great metaphor for wealth, right? This is a marathon, not a sprint. 

When you try and rush things as we tend to do in this modern world, there are consequences. And I think it definitely taught me the idea of enjoying the journey of enjoying the process and not beating myself up and getting frustrated because it's taking too long. Good things take time.  

Tyrone Shum:  
Absolutely. And it's a journey. That's the thing. I think everyone always strives to try and get to the end result and go yes, you know, I've made it but the thing is, they forget the journey. And when you get there you guys at all, you know, you might enjoy it for a couple minutes, maybe 10 minutes, an hour [at] most and you go, Oh, wow, went all that way. For what? 

Jackson Millan:  
Exactly mate and look, I've been guilty of this myself that when you reach that milestone, then you just have to go what's next, and then you're always going to chase the next milestone. So when you can really enjoy the process of learning to navigate the challenges of overcoming adversity, it changes the energy that is in this situation, because I think for many of us, particularly in this high stress, high pressure world, we're so filled with anxiety around everything. 

And like what kind of life is that, right? Like when you're constantly anxious, you're constantly frustrated, you're constantly feeling that you don't have enough. And it's very much this kind of scarcity based mindset. And that is deeply rooted in fear. And fear is not a great way for you to live life. 

And I think this is the best part of a lot of what we teach here, right? If we can enjoy that journey, we can think abundantly. And we can treat this like a game. Because let's face it, most of these problems are first world problems, right? And we, we just went through it, and it changes the whole dynamic of wealth building, in my opinion, and living life for that matter. 

A Series of Unfortunate Events

Tyrone Shum:  
Rough circumstances were never going to stop him. In an inspirational tale, he shares some details about what it was like growing up as Jackson Millan. Navigating poverty and loss, it’s a lesson to all listeners: anyone can make gold from straw.

Jackson Millan:  
So I was born in Poland gone, grew up in the gun. And I moved around a little bit. My parents separated when I was very young. So I was always travelling between Wollongong and Sydney. So I moved schools a lot. 

My parents had different businesses and different pursuits. So we travelled around a lot. And interestingly, at school, I was never a good student. I was perpetually that kid that the teachers had Jackson's quite bright, but if only he applied himself. And interestingly enough, throughout all of my school life, I wanted to be a bit. 

And I think it was about year 10, that I had a teacher kind of give me the harsh reality to say, Jackson, you need like a 98 UAI, or for the young whippersnappers and ATAR in today's day and age, and I only learned about 70 people in the course. 

And she's like, you're not going to get there. You don't apply yourself. And I'm like, okay, there goes that. So I remember asking my dad, I said, Dad, this lifelong dream is out the window, what do I do? And he goes, Well, if you want to make money, you got to be around money. And that was really the turning point for me. 

I took that literally and I'm like, Well, okay, my parents, I've never had money. I'm not strong at maths. I don't kind of get all these concepts. Let's give this a crack. And through my entire career of being ignorant, right, and going through the whole process and simplifying the frameworks. 

That's really been the power of how we've been able to help so many of our clients make transformations, because the common thread he made I'm sure you hear this a lot. There are people that refer to themselves as finance people, to analytical people. They are deep thinkers, they're strategic, they get it.  

And then there's the majority of people who don't get it, that they believe that they're not finance people, that they abdicate financial responsibility, and it's not for them. And I was one of those people. 

So through becoming from that position, being forced to have to simplify this and spend as little time as necessary managing my money, then that's allowed me to then create all of this extra abundance of time to then go and live an amazing lifestyle.

And that's always been the thing. It's about how I create a means to an end. And I don't want to have to wait until I'm 60, old and grey to be financially free and retired. My old man died at 66. My mum had a number of workplace accidents, and at later stages of life, and he's in a tremendous amount of pain in terms of mobility in a later year. So I didn't want to roll those dice. I wanted financial freedom now. 

So I wanted to create a business and create a philosophy that allowed me to do that. And I'm fortunate enough to be able to do things that most people don't take off their bucket list until they do retire. I spent a year travelling around Australia, we bought our dream home, we've got complete freedom and flexibility from our business. I can do this stuff that I love, and [it's] wonderful. It's how life should be. 

We shouldn't have to defer gratification indefinitely into the future, for tomorrow that, quite frankly, isn't promised. 

Tyrone Shum:  
That's right. That's right. I love what you've just said, there, I totally resonate. And the reason why I can say I resonate with as well as because in the last year or so I've had a lot of family members pass away, and they'll [be] much elderly, but when they had an accident, it really limited mobility. 

And I still have my grandparents who's like 90 years old, and they didn't do everything that they wanted to because you know, you're looking at them and going, ‘Wow, they're old now’. But they're stuck inside an apartment because they just can't go anywhere. 

And then I'm just talking to my parents and my parents said, they want to do a lot more travelling, which I'm taking them away to New Zealand next month, is exciting. But the thing is, the things that we can do together as a family are very limited, because you know, they're getting older, whereas I'm still relatively, you know, I'm not that young. 

But I'm still relatively young, where I can do bungee jumping, and all those kinds of exciting, exciting thrill things. And I can still travel around the world. And I didn't want to wait till I'm like their age, which is about 65, certainly to be able to do all that. So it's kind of you see it in your family and your parents, and you just go no, I don't want to be like that, when I'm getting that age, I still want to be strong, but you're going to be limited because of age. 

And some people have to wait 20 plus years to be able to get there because they've saved me up or doing whatever they need to do financially, to be able to afford it. So why not live it now?

Seizing the Moment!

Jackson Millan:  
Exactly. And this is the dichotomy that we see in terms of traditional wealth creation principles, Tyrone, is that most of them are built on the idea that you must shrink yourself wealthy, the underlying principle of most wealth building is either you enjoy your life now, which means that you have to sacrifice more later. 

Or you'd have to sacrifice now in order to enjoy your life later. And as somebody who [is] neurodivergent, I've got ADHD, I look at the world in a very, very different way. That never excited me. That's not for me, how do I have my cake and eat it too? How do I live an amazing lifestyle now and prepare for an amazing future where I don't need a sacrifice and compromise. 

And the traditional principles have a constant and that constant is that you cannot grow your income. And therefore if you can't grow your income, you must cut expenses. So you've got no other choice. And this is the reason why I work with business owners. 

And I'm very passionate about entrepreneurship because it is truly the only way that you have control over your income. Because the idea is, and our kind of Cornerstone philosophy of how we work with our clients is built around what we call the 20 year roadmap. We help them document all of their lifestyle and financial goals over one 510 1520 years. We define them. And then we reverse engineer them into a single income target. 

Or I can say Tyrone, if you want to achieve all of these things you want to do, this is how much you need to earn. And then we can work out a profit target. And then we can work out a revenue target. And then we can work out a client target number of leads, we can basically connect all of the activity you need to do to achieve the outcomes that intrinsically motivate you. 

And that's a lightbulb moment for so many people or certainly was for me. And since doing this myself, I've achieved 90% or more of all the goals that I've set and our clients are the same because they're now like a dog with a boat. Right? They've got light at the end of the tunnel. And it fundamentally shifts the way that you work towards financial freedom. 

Tyrone Shum:  
Totally, totally. And it's really interesting. And it's very much, I guess, [an] established concept or the idea is basically just working backwards from your end goal. But the problem is that people just don't understand the process that's involved to be able to do it and then that's where they get stuck and then they just have to hard throw it down, you know, and just chuck the towel, and that's where people get stuck. 

So I think what you're doing is amazing, because you're helping people to be able to achieve that, because I think everyone needs some kind of hand holding or coaching to be able to get that done.

Jackson Millan:  
I agree because we're not taught this stuff. Right, right. It's not in the education system. And the unfortunate part of this, and like, over the recent years, I've been able to build quite a big following on social media. But I constantly get the wrong questions. And I don't blame these people at all. But they're asking superficial questions that are the wrong questions. 

It's like, what stock should I pick? When should I buy [it]? What's the next thing that's going to 10x? And like, that is not the type of questions that you should be asking, right? These are tactical superficial questions. And that infers that you don't have a philosophy, you don't have an operating system around your financial decision making, which means that you are subjective in your decision making. 

And when you're making emotional, subjective decisions, it is not predictable and rational. And money should be predictable, rational and rule based. And that's the issue. And that's something I'm really passionate about is thought leadership around wealth education. Because no one's going to love your money like you do. You have to learn how to manage it effectively for yourself. 

Tyrone Shum:  
Totally, totally, totally. It's so true. I think at the end of the day, you just have to be in control of that side of things, and not just delegate it to someone else, because you're probably going to be the best person to know what's going to happen. And you've got to be responsible for those decisions as well, too. 

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Tyrone Shum:
Coming up after the break, Millan shares his hardships with money growing up.

Jackson Millan:  
And looking back on that situation. Anyone else would feel sorry for me. But I never felt poor. And the reason for that is because my house was always filled with love. 

Tyrone Shum:
He emphasises the importance of identity in the face of success…

Jackson Millan:  
But I think it's so important that we practise gratitude and find this, this this centred way of what is my true purpose, if everything is removed, if my title is removed my business achievements by wealth, who am I as a person? What do I represent? What am I here to do? 

Tyrone Shum:
He shares the value of having faith and trust in better things.

Jackson Millan:  
Exactly. And I think I've been very fortunate that I don't know if there's somebody looking out for me, or whether it's fate or whatever it might be. But whenever those doors have shut behind me and forced my hand, there's always been a new door that's opened, it's led me to bigger and better and more fulfilling things. 

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

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Poverty and Poor Grades

Tyrone Shum:
Growing up with little to nothing, Millan reveals the struggles of poverty and his rough schooling experience. Of course, perspective is everything, and Millan shares his. 

Jackson Millan:
It's really interesting, looking back on my childhood, because we never had a lot of money. I still remember, as a young kid, my dad built us a bed. And it was a wooden bed held propped up by cinder blocks, and it was a double bed, but with a single mattress that he found on the side of the road, right. And I would sleep on the mattress and he would sleep on the floor. 

And looking back on that situation. Anyone else would feel sorry for me. But I never felt poor. And the reason for that is because my house was always filled with love. And what we lacked in money, my parents made up for it in terms of experiences, and presence and mentorship. And they always did everything they possibly could to make me feel like I was special. 

So I never felt poor in my entire life. And so I think I'm super fortunate that my parents were present, they sacrificed in their businesses and their careers in order to be there for me. Whereas I see that for many other people, like maybe their parents were going and chasing the money to provide that financial stability, but they weren't there. Right. They weren't necessarily present. 

And I'm super fortunate for that. And I actually think I've lost my dad now. But I think my mom all of the time has said, Mom, you've given me the best gift that you possibly could, is it you forced me to have to learn how to make my own way in life. There's never been a silver spoon. There's never been handouts. 

So I've been forced to learn those skills to create confidence and to back myself, to know that when I put my mind to something, there is absolutely nothing that will get in my wife. And that's the gift that my parents gave me. So I'm super fortunate for my upbringing. And it's ultimately what got me to where I am. 

Tyrone Shum:  
Yeah, wow. And I guess everyone perceives [a] different perspective. And once again, rich poll, it's different terminologies for different people's perception. So some people don't even care if they're rich or poor, or whatever it is, it's ultimately, you know, what is it that you want to achieve in your own life, that's the purpose. 

And people from the poorest families actually, probably the happiest, I've seen that when, because I've been doing a lot of travelling in Southeast Asia, been through some of the slums of St. Vincent, there.

But the thing is, you can see as a family, they [are] sitting around just a small little table, having food, sharing a meal with you, they're the happiest people, you know, alive. And we're in. So for example, back in Australia, we're stressing over just the smallest little things just to live day to day saying that things are high cost. 

You know, this drama ran in front of me and like, all the simple things in life, it's just so important to look back and reflect on that you've kind of rung it true, right? They're sort of....

Jackson Millan:  
Mind blowing, isn't it? I still recall my first trip to Southeast Asia and I went to Vietnam. And I remember being in Hanoi Chi Minh City, and in the morning, all of these families coming out and cooking on the side of the road with cars going past and I'm sure you've seen it, all of the electrical wires hanging down. 

You're gonna get electrocuted at any moment. And I never saw someone upset. I never saw someone you know, that look of stress, right look of dread. They always had a smile on their face. They were always connected. They were always present. I think it's an amazing metaphor for life, right?

Like your material belongings and your achievements, and all of these accolades and whatnot really means nothing unless you are a happy and content human being. And I've done a lot of work on this mate, because I think particularly when we're in entrepreneurship, and in this world space, there's this pressure to keep up with the Joneses, right? And I see so many very successful people. 

I've even had clients who have exited nine figure businesses, and are completely empty, and burdened by their success. And I've done a lot of work studying stoicism actually in the process of writing a book at the moment on kind of modern day stoicism as an entrepreneur. 

But I think it's so important that we practise gratitude and find this, this this centred way of what is my true purpose, if everything is removed, if my title is removed my business achievements by wealth, who am I as a person? What do I represent? What am I here to do? 

And until you answer that question, all of these things are just going to be a magnifier for your happiness or your dread. And I know we started that I prefer to be on. 

A Wolf of Wall Street Arc

Tyrone Shum:  
Despite his terrible grades, Millan’s aims were high. Armed with nothing but prayers and optimism, his dreams of studying veterinary were predictably futile. However, the future had a reward for persistence in store for him…


Jackson Millan:  
Yeah, so interestingly enough, I got horrible grades at school. I think I finished with a UAI of like, 60 or something, it wasn't even high enough to get into university. So as soon as I left school, I decided that I was going to go and try and find a traineeship as a financial advisor. 

And I basically door knocked until I got an opportunity, I didn't take no for an answer. And the interesting thing was like, without my beard, I'm baby faced, I looked about 12. Right. And I basically just went exactly right, and just went in there with confidence. 

So I got this role at this place called the financial advice centre as a training advisor, which started out as a tilt, it was telephone sales, right, and we were doing outbound telesales for a big major bank selling insurance products. 

And at the time, we were going through our training to become a financial adviser over a period of time. And in this environment, I absolutely hated it. Like you could imagine, it looked like a scene out of the Wolf of Wall Street tarot, like, there was it was it was in the middle of the city of Sydney, it was an entire floor of reps on the phone, you could feel this almost toxic thick emotion in the air of just people on the dialers. 

And then where people would make a sale, but get up and they'd ring a bell. And if you're on a phone, you'd have to tell us somebody's birthday, we're just celebrating to try and kind of convince them that they weren't going to be the next victim of this phone sales. And I hated it. I just, I'm like I've made a mistake here. 

Because in my head, I'm like a financial adviser, I'm going to be helping people like my parents are helping them navigate these really difficult decisions. And in this environment, all they cared about is basically earning commissions for selling products to people like my parents who didn't need it. And I almost quit, I almost quit. 

But before I quit, I said, if you're not going to take responsibility for trying to change this industry, who will. And it was at that point that I started calling myself a wealth coach. And I built a philosophy of what I was going to do to help people like my parents make their first dollar of wealth, how to get started investing originally, how to understand things like superannuation, and cash flow and debt management, and all of these things. 

And then ultimately, that's kind of got me to where I am. So I'm very fortunate that my perspective on things has led me where I am. I've always been trying to challenge the status quo and find my own way, which is so cool.

A Blessing in Disguise

Tyrone Shum:  
So basically, from that it was like that painful soul destroying moment that really helped push you to actually do something about it. And that change allowed you to become the wealth coach that you are today. But obviously, there's going to be a journey. 

I'm actually curious to hear a bit more about that journey. So once you decided, obviously, you want to take action, what was the action? What did you do to get to that point, or where you are now?

Jackson Millan:
I wish I could say that at that point. I decided to jump straight into my business and do all of these things. But I didn't. And I jumped around some different private advisory businesses and I had some good mentors and some not so good mentors over the years. 

And although I had this drive and urge to start my own business, I was scared. And there was this constant self limiting belief in JAXA. What if you don't get clients and what if you don't hit your revenue targets? And why don't you just stay on this cushy salary and you've got annual leave and sick leave and you're safe? And I did that until my mid 20s. And, in fact, I got to a point whereby I actually got fired from my position. 

And it was because I'd actually started a consultancy on the side. And my boss found out. And he thought that there was a conflict of interest. And he fired me. So he basically pushed me out the door and forced my hands to go all in on my business. And it was the best thing that ever happened to me. 

Tyrone Shum:  
Oh, yeah. It was almost a blessing in disguise.

Jackson Millan:  
Exactly the fear that I had, before I jumped into it full time when I was kind of being tentative, was completely dissolved. As soon as I was forced into that position, and my demeanour, my attitude to everything completely changed. And I just backed myself 100%, I'm like, you cannot fail. 

And that's basically been my philosophy ever since I've been fearless in my approach. And I'm now fortunate enough to have an eight figure business, we've got over 1000 clients, and we're continuing to grow. We'd love to work towards a publicly public listing over the course of the next five years. And so it's constantly tried to level things out without compromising my values in the process.

Tyrone Shum:  
That's wonderful. I love how you yeah, that thing that turnaround? You know, sometimes you just need that extra push to be able to get out of your comfort zone. And the best way is for someone to do it for you, because obviously, we won't do it ourselves. 

And I think every one of us has been through some point in life, you know, to be out there, whether it be family, children, or whatever it is, life circumstances change to push you further. So that way you can actually grow and change otherwise, yeah, we can easily get stuck in the job and just do it because we need it for the mind not because [we] got something that's important to us.

Jackson Millan:
Exactly. And I think I've been very fortunate that I don't know if there's somebody looking out for me, or whether it's fate or whatever it might be. But whenever those doors have shut behind me and forced my hand, there's always been a new door that's opened, it's led me to bigger and better and more fulfilling things. 

Oh, some people don't have that same level of luck, because there's always going to be an element of luck. And I think if I could impart any kind of wisdom [it] is just take responsibility for jumping in those decisions, you miss 100% of the shots that you don't take. And I remember sitting with my dad on his deathbed, as he was dying from pancreatic cancer, and he regretted so many things. 

And it was all to the things that he left undone, or that he didn't have the courage to do in his lifetime. And I never want to be in that position. Where I feel like I wasn't courageous enough to try even if I fail, at least I tried it because it's the not knowing that hurts the most.

Oh, for sure. Yeah, it's, it's those moments where you go, man, I cannot, you know, I can already picture myself if Dad was at that point in time, I don't want to be in that position. When I get to my deathbed, I want to be able to say I lived an amazing fulfilling life. I did whatever I could to give back, etc, etc. 

Making a Real Start

Tyrone Shum:
Thankfully, Millan has an amazing, fulfilling life. However, it wasn’t always that way. Everyone has to start from somewhere—even Millan!

Jackson Millan:  
My first advice business was actually a franchise. And basically, I got involved in this business, which was a publicly listed business, I owned a couple of franchises. And we worked on scaling them to the number one in the country, number one, and number two in the country, we had a lot of success. 

And it was a great franchise. It was fantastic, because it provided a lot of the infrastructure and basically minimised the number of things I needed to work on. We already had the brand, we already had systems and processes, things like that. And I did a lot to build my own philosophy around that. 

And it could really focus my attention, because I think the thing that most people overlook when they start a business is the sheer volume of things you've got to do. And in a franchise, that gives you a lot of that infrastructure. However, you've got to realise that you're a pawn on someone else's chessboard, and I realised that I've already got to number one, and number two in the country with our two businesses, there was no further target. 

And there was that point that I realised I needed to sell out and then start from scratch. So we started about six years ago, and we wanted to do things a little bit different. Now most financial advice businesses help everyone they don't like. If you need financial advice, we can help you. 

And in most good businesses, if you want to be able to grow and scale systematically, you need to be able to help a certain subset of individuals with a specific number of problems. So we focus exclusively on helping six and seven figure service businesses. 

So our clients our trade is professional services, businesses, medical and allied health businesses and fitness businesses, basically. So the service businesses that are selling high ticket services and solving high ticket problems. And the interesting thing is that these people know how to make money because they've already got to a certain level of scale, multi six figures or seven figures. They just don't know how to keep it. 

And that is the perfect situation for them to come to us and we basically help them with four things. Business firstly is education. We teach these people how to understand their business numbers, how to maximise their profitability, how to improve their cash flow, how to grow and scale, [and] how to build a scalable business. 

And then we maximise profits, then we help them build wealth by creating a strategic plan, we provide them with financial advice, and help them implement that advice and basically build their wealth. Third part is accounting. As we know, most of us don't want to pay any bonuses to the ATO. 

So we help them structure and make sure that they keep as much of every dollar they earn as they possibly can within the law. And we also help them with finances. So we love property, we live and breathe it, we believe second to business, it's the best way to build wealth. 

And the idea is we take business profit, and we should turn that into good quality property wealth. But as a business owner, when you're buying property, you need to get financed from a bank and most business owners really struggle because they don't understand the rules of finance. 

So we work with them to create a finance strategy, and either show them how to get the finance they need, or set income targets and work with our accounting team to improve their profitability so they can service the debt that they're trying to do to achieve their goals. So that's basically the four core parts of the business. 

Tyrone Shum:  
That's wonderful. It's very easy to understand.

**OUTRO**

Tyrone Shum:
In the next episode of Property Investory, Jackson Millan reveals the rash mistakes he made…
 
Jackson Millan:  
And I just couldn't get this deal over the line. And I got the sheets, I just got frustrated, like I'm done. This is it. And I booked a trip to Thailand, and I blew half of my deposit now. 
 
Tyrone Shum:
He shares his greatest life lessons…
 
Jackson Millan:  
But what I didn't realise is that through the depreciation, there is actually a reduction in the cost base, meaning that although I'm getting a cash back on the cash flow as a result of the depreciation, it lowers my cost base, meaning that it's increasing my capital gains tax when I sell and that was the next the next big lesson that I learned. 

Tyrone Shum:
He encourages listeners to take a leap of faith.

Jackson Millan:  
That unless you've got a significant reason for why you are foregoing your peace of mind, you will never move past that invisible ceiling. And what I basically said is, well, if I feel the emotion of loss twice as much as the emotion of gain, I must put twice as much energy and effort into pursuing the game and the purpose behind pursuing the game. 
 
Tyrone Shum:
And that’s next time on Property Investory.

**END OUTRO**