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'Why are Aussies unsuccessful and poor? They're scabs!'
After a number of radio interviews this week that included Q&A sessions with listeners, I had a reinforcement of the view that too many Australians are scabs!
And this tendency for false economy results in them being relatively unsuccessful, relatively less wealthy than they would like and, as a consequence, probably less happy with their life!
I concede my heading is more aggressive than my first paragraph, but I have to get as many people as possible to read this important blog — their happiness depends on it.
Sure many of you might say money doesn’t buy happiness, but neither does poverty.
I think happiness does inextricably link to success.
Don’t tell me anyone enjoys failure and losing.
I know Groucho Marx said, “no one is entirely unhappy at the failure of a best friend” but few us look forward to our own demise and the crushing of goals, hopes and dreams.
Also read: Third of elderly Aussies living in poverty
High achievers
There are many key ingredients to success and after interviewing some of the best in business, sport, the arts and politics I think there are common characteristics of high achievers.
Let me give you the most important, and it will help to defend my proposition that being a scab explains a lot of people who end up disappointed at their results.
1. You must define your goal. You have to know what your goal is and visit everyday. It could be: I want to be a millionaire in retirement, a CEO of a public company and successful entrepreneur, or the best dad of the happiest family in the world. But you have to specify the goal.
2. As the US motivational speaker Jim Rohn advised in words that I have changed over the years: “Work out what you want. Find out its price. Pay the price!”
3. It’s related to my second point – do an objective SWOT analysis on yourself. SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
SWOT analysis
Let’s assume you want more than a million in your super fund when you retire.
After doing a SWOT on yourself, you might think that your strength is that once you commit to a plan you will stick with it until it happens.
On the other hand your weakness might be you don’t trust advisers and you are afraid to invest in outside help.
So, you are a tight-arse, but you have a nagging doubt about the honesty of advisers, so it’s partly justified.
The opportunity might be that you have good cash flow and you pay a lot of tax, so an accountant and a trustworthy financial planner could be the perfect combination of experts to help you create the plan to make the millions roll in by the day you finish work.
The threat might be that you are a scab! You can’t get past it and so you end up with no outside help, and if another weakness is that you are too conservative, then your millions might not show up.
Also read: Aussies overpaid, hard to fire: economist
Make your weakness irrelevant
Beating the weakness becomes critical and John Maxwell, the author of The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, says the great leaders make their weaknesses irrelevant and it’s usually by getting someone else to help — an employee, a contracted adviser, mentor, business coach, life coach, dietician or even a medical adviser.
Yep, a medical expert might save you from illness that hurts your income-earning potential, so a SWOT that says you have an unhealthy lifestyle could be the biggest threat to your goal of a great business or the happiest family!
Also read: 'Aussies not working hard enough to grow economy'
False economy
Recently I caught up with a former Qantas flight attendant who in retirement came to my financial planning business because he said he had no idea about investing.
He also referred to a common friend who I think told my client about my business in the first place.
He said, I asked Wayne why he wasn’t at Switzer now that he is retired and his answer was that Switz was too expensive!
The real answer is that Wayne is a scab — a great guy but a scab and he is a victim of the false economy that tightwads always suffer from.
Expert opinion
In all honesty our business was set up to rebate commissions and not to charge percentage fees, rather doing the then unusual practice of charging flat dollar fees.
As a mate 15 years ago, I convinced Wayne that buying a house in Paddo would be a great idea, even though it was a bit pricy, and it has proved the best investment of his life.
However, he is prepared to invest with no knowledge and I know him well — he knows precious little — but he’s happy to gamble with that because he won’t pay $4,000 or maybe $5,000 for an expert to:
look at his goals
tell him if he can make them happen
make sure he us using all of the tax and super rules that can make a huge difference to the overall return from your super and how quickly it grows or shrinks, and
whether his fund is overcharging or not!
Also read: 10 best Aussie jobs for the future
Invest in success
There are other things a good adviser can do but I think I have made my point.
I recently signed up for the Adam Macdougall Man Challenge which aims to help blokes lose weight and get fitter using a 10-minute workout delivered by video on the Internet.
It has worked perfectly and answered my problem that I did not have time to go to the gym.
I have invested in success with an expert and it has worked.
Road less travelled
I have always loved the words of the poet Robert Frost and if you don't want to be guided by the sentiment in this poem, share it with the people you lead or love: “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I — I took the one less travelled by, and that has made all the difference”.
I really hope Wayne reads this piece of mine but his actions are so disconnected from his goals I don't think he will.
I suspect he will end up under-achieving with his retirement goals and probably unhappy, which would be a pity because he is one of the chirpiest guys I have ever known.
Also read: 10 worst Aussie jobs for the future
Get out of your comfort zone
The bottom line is that highly successful people recognise what will stop them from succeeding and they then do something about it.
Robert Allen who wrote the One Minute Millionaire advised “Everything you want is just outside your comfort zone,” and he was absolutely right!
Peter Switzer is the founder of the Switzer Super Report, a newsletter and website for self-managed super funds.
