Guy Named Brett

Do you understand what a derivative of yourself is? Derivatives are a powerfull way of having multiple income streams while you sit at home in the couch or on your favourite beach or bushland setting. In short, derivatives are an extension of yourself. We are not talking of the financial instrument Derivitive commonly known as Options or Futures, but something more real.

I have a couple of employees. They are derivatives of myself. I instill some values into them that I need in order for them to be representative of my company. Mainly, I employ right, sourcing the good people that have an excellent reputation and knowledge. They must also have certain traits that I list to them prior to them starting in my company. Every employee I have I make money from every hour of the day. I also value them ans so they make money from me as well. It is how it works. I am talking purely labor hire here.

I also have a DVD vending business where customers hire movies from my machines. If they wish they can also purchase the movie.

I have a 30KW solar plant installed on land that I lease generating $18K a year before expenses. This is a perfect derivative because my physical input is zero every week.

Even the smaller 4.8KW solar system on my roof is a derivative of me in that I will never have an electricity bill again and that it is working whenever the sun is shining.

On the non-financial side of things, your children and your spouse are also derivatives of you. If your kids are ratbags at school, then their teachers will undoubtably form the same opinion of you or an opinion that would not be the best. If your spouse was out on the town while you are at home or work, then an opinion is formed of your relationship because your spouse is a derivative of your relationship and of you. If your kids are angels, try hard at school, sports and the like, then the image that they cast on themselves is reflected onto you. If your spouse volunteers at local charity events, her goodwill is reflected onto you as well, even though you may not necessarily subscribe to the idea of volunteering.

I don’t know about you, but having these other derivatives of myself gives me more assurance that financially I should be better of than just relying on a wage (we will discuss wages later and why I believe they are the biggest rip off that the government wants you to believe is normal – to pay lots of taxes). 

How many derivatives do you have? Tel me about them – brett@blackrockaustralia.com

So what is a stress bucket?

Think of a common household bucket. Now put a tap at the bottom and make sure it is closed. Instead of water being the medium in the bucket, pretend your stress level represents the water line within the bucket. The difference between the stress level and the top of the bucket is your stress buffer. The stress level within the bucket is raised by filling the bucket with the following examples (more are available – you add your own):

1. Newborn, unsettled baby
2. Complaining spouse
3. Money (or lack of predominatly)
4. Work load
5. Work commitments
6. Alcohol
7. Drugs
8. Lack of sleep

Any of these sound familiar? The problem with stress is that you need some of it to survive. You need a little to enable you to be motivated enough to get out of bed, to go to work, to mow the lawn even. You do not even realise until you lash out that you are suffering from stress and it is often confused with other negative emotions that flow out when your stress levels have overflowed due to lack of stress relief (more on relief shortly). These emotions are common – anger, depression, anxiety and self pity are good examples. Ever felt these and wondered where they came from? You may be stressed.

I recently found that I have been stressed to a point where I have not been before. The effects of my stress created short term memory loss. I only found out that it was stress through seeing a pshycologist. This is my story and is not a blame game, but more a realisation of why my bucket was filling and my buffer zone was constricting. Three years ago I was living an almost perfect life. I was jogging three times a week. I was going to the gym two times a week and socialising with friends on the town every two weeks. I was a coordinator of electrical activities at a mining project and was a stressfull job, but low and behold I held it in my stride easily (in hindsight).  

My Stress Bucket in the better days

Bring my life forward a bit and this is what it was like prior to my “ah-hah”. We have a new born baby (now 18 months old) that was very needy. I had the following businesses that I owned fully – Blackrock Australia Pty Ltd, Mine Lease Pty Ltd and Movie Podium. One of them was not doing so good. I was also privy to being a director of Diahminco Pty Ltd, PIMS Group Pty Ltd, Pacific International Mining Solutions Pty Ltd and Pacific Power Engineering Solutions Pty Ltd. In total I was director of six companies at one stage. Of the companies that I was involved in with other Director’s I was the Financial Director for one of them and Electrical Engineer in charge of three of them. I was working 13 hour days, driving 40 minutes to do the 13 hours (and 40 minutes back to home) maintained a 51 acre property, driving 2 hours each way to pick up my two kids from a previous marriage (and of course dropping them back on Monday for school). 

My Stress Bucket recently

See anything going wrong here? Where was my excercise? Where was the ‘me’ time? Where was my socialising? Where was my ‘down time’ where I vegged out, even at work for 30 minutes? I had none. I was doing none of what I enjoyed previously. I can now see that these turned open the stress relief tap at the bottom of my bucket. I had a massive stress buffer before hand that was built by regular excercise and socialising. Goone!

I have made headway into regaining my stress buffer, but in particular my short term memory. To all the guys and girls out there, I recommend seeing a head doctor, even for information only. You don’t need to tell anyone about it, but if you do, you will be helping someone cross a boundary that could make a massive difference to their life. Try me.

noun 

1. 1. the act or process of resolving something or breaking it up into its constituent parts or elements
   2. the result of this

I do not like New Years Resolutions. It’s like saying that just once a year I am going to set a goal. What about the other 364 days of the year? The other 51 weeks? As a father, I see it as bad practice letting your kids believe that it is okay to do this. How many goals did you set last year? How many did you achieve and did you enjoy the process? No, I don’t like the idea that society thinks it is normal to make an announcement that you have set a goal for the coming year. It should be kept up-to-date like you would keep your kitchen bench tidy – regularly. 

A man without direction will eventually get there – no where that is. I have two different length of time goals. 

1. Day to day (no more than 14 days). All my shopping, kids activities, social outings with mates fall into this timeframe.
2. Medium (up to 12 months). Things that fall into here are categories like saving for a car, my next holiday planning, income from what sources and how much.
3. Long term (over 12 months).Death. That is the only thing I plan for long term. Planning anything else is an absolute waste of my time. When I used to plan longer term, I always found that the goal changes half way through because of where the path to achieve this goal has led me. This does not mean I completely blank out anything longer than 12 months away, I just squeeze it into the medium planning term and it always fits into this time frame.

My philosophy behind the need to not go further than 12 months is purely a generational, male tendancy to focus on what is relevant in the immediate future. We have been bred this way for around a million years and I am not going to buck this trend. The male brain works at concentrating on what is at hand now, not in the too distant future where we do not give a shit about. Can you control what is going to happen (externally) to you in 13 months time? I know I can’t. One of my income sources could dry up. I could loose a valuable employee to a competitor. My house could burn down. My investments could go south. 

However, in the next 12 months, I can control all that I need to in order for these things not to occur. In evaluating cash flow, I can exert more energy in the venture where the income is drying up, I love all my employees and I reward them appropriately. They all have the ability to direct where our businesses will go, but occasionaly I do loose a great person. I just hope that because I treat them very well that they will come back in the future. I insure my house and contents against damage and ensure the policy is always up to date. I also ensure my smoke alarms are operational to avoid loss of life. I have three kids, so this is cheap insurance. And I spend a considerable amount of my working time getting knowledge and information of the investment that I am in to ensure that if it does go south, that my risk is minimal, quantified or insured. 

My Goals carried over from last year (and two newbies on the bottom): 

1. Reduce time and increase leverage in my business
2. Stop checking emails for the sake of checking emails
3. Blog weekly in www.guynamedbrett.com 
4. Increase my cash flow in order for me to stop physically working (more on this in a future blog).
5. Give time and cash to worthwhile situations, charities or events and take part in these events if possible
6. Walk the Kokoda Trail
7. Visit India for 3 weeks

 This is what I live for: 

Alyssa, me and Josh on one of our walks

Paige in her own world

Four Generations