thinkBIG magazine - issue 1 by Mindset Media Pty Ltd

Launch Issue

thinkbig

www.thinkbigmagazine.com

Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s about empowerment

Stories include:

Bill Gates - Big Thinker, Big Giver Dr John Demartini - Exclusive! Lee Kernaghan - The Drought Breaker Justin Herald - Success DNA Chris Howard - Billionaire mindset

+ FREE TICKETS To Wealth Symposium

Valued at $1997 Page 18

$6.95 inc GST May/June 2008 Volume 1.1

thinkbig It’s about empowerment

contents All things Great Bill Gates - Big Thinker..................................................... 10 How the champion mindset shaped a global corporate empire. I’m A Survivor..................................................................... 16 One woman’s secrets to surviving cancer.

All things Business What goes up can come down.................................... 20 A Californian hotelier turns around his company using Maslow’s Hierarchy Of Needs. Are you a giver or a money maker?............................ 24 Don’t let your customers treat you like a bank. Knowledge = profits........................................................ 25 Mindset is as important as capital.

All things Love Building schools: the new global trend. ..................... 27 How Australian’s are building schools in third world countries. Look before you leap...................................................... 30 The keys to establishing trust in relationships.

All things Wealth Ride the property cycles................................................ 33 Now is a good time to start your property portfolio. Follow the leader. ............................................................ 36 Directors buying shares can signal stock confidence.

All things Global Eat your words. ................................................................. 39 Global shift to organic food gathers pace. Changing the world one loan at a time. ................... 44 Worldwide movement to support third world businesses.

All things Wise Exclusive............................................................................. 47 Justin Herald on finding your success DNA. Exclusive............................................................................. 48 Extract from Dr John Demartini’s new book, The Riches Within, Your Seven Secret Treasures.

Exclusive............................................................................. 52 Chris Howard on the billionaire mindset. 3

‘ our team!’ Publisher and Managing Editor Michael Walls michael.walls@thinkbigmagazine.com Contributing Editor Chris Howard Senior Writer Jill Fraser Contributors Reuben Buchanan, Justin Herald, Fran Malloy Nicki Bourlioufas, John Demartini, Colin Lee, Keith Nielsen, Dr Keith Dawes, Greg Walter. Creative Design The Big Grin Design enquiries@thebiggrin.com.au Illustrator Elton Buchanan elton.buchanan@gmail.com National Sales Manager Graham Maughan graham@thinkbigmagazine.com Website/subscriptions www.thinkbigmagazine.com Enquires info@thinkbigmagazine.com Mindset Media Pty Ltd ACN 129 256 300 ABN 94 129 256 300 GPO Box 519 Sydney Australia 2001 Phone: 61 2 9925 8016 Fax: 61 2 9925 8099 thinkbig Magazine ISSN: 1835 7733

Important Message – Copyright and Disclaimer Think Big magazine is owned and published by Mindset Media Pty Ltd (ACN129 256 300). The publisher, authors and contributors reserve their rights in regards to copyright of their work. No part of this work covered by the copyright may be reproduced or copied in any form or by any means without the written consent of the publisher. No person, organization or party should rely or on any way act upon any part of the contents of this publication whether that information is sourced from a website, magazine or related product without first obtaining the advice of a fully qualified person. This magazine and its related website and products are sold and distributed on the terms and condition that: • The publisher, contributors, editors and related parties are not responsible in any way for the actions or results taken any person, organization or any party on basis of reading information, stories or contributions in this publication, website or related product. • The publisher, contributors and related parties are not engaged in providing legal, financial or professional advice or services. The publisher, contributors, editors and consultants disclaim any and all liability and responsibility to any person or party, be they a purchaser, reader, advertiser or consumer of this publication in regards to the consequences and outcomes of anything done or omitted being in reliance whether partly or solely on the contents of this publication ands related website and products. • The publisher, editors, contributors and related parties shall have no responsibility for any action or omission by any other contributor, consultant, editor or related party.

thinkbig It’s about empowerment

Editor’snote Define yourself

We live in interesting times. Progressively, the business of personal development has emerged from the shadowy world of self promotion and manipulation to a multi billion dollar world wide industry. The transformation is no accident. More and more people are looking for ways to break the shackles of expectation and walk a path self determination and self discovery. Companies and workers at all levels have been influenced by the wave. The rapid rise in business coaching, professional development courses, performance techniques, mentor groups and mastermind groups have answered a growing call from the corporate sector for innovative ways to create organizational change and facilitate staff transformation. As evidence of the growth in the business of personal and business transformation, two Australian personal development companies were ranked in last year’s BRW Fastest Growing Companies in Australia list; Universal Events (a major partner in this magazine) and Success and You. thinkbig Magazine has been developed to appeal to anyone of any age who has a mindset for empowerment and self improvement. As a reader you will be drawn to stories of real inspiration, success, fascinating people, case studies of outstanding results, role models and wisdom. Our aim is to enlighten, entertain, educate and empower our readers and supporters. thinkbig is your manual for living a rich life and for discovering and fulfilling your personal destiny, what ever that may be. We are not interested in wars, scandal or conflict. The values and success strategies you see in Think Big are those which you will recognize in people everywhere, and hopefully yourself. thinkbig is divided into chapters. They include love, business, wealth, global, wisdom and superstar. Our chapters represent the areas of most interest in people’s lives and we will be adding more in future editions. Bringing a magazine to life is challenging and rewarding task that relies on the efforts of a talented and dedicated team of people. As a reader or supporter I welcome you to thinkbig and I know you will enjoy reading every issue. Naturally, I welcome your feedback.

Michael Walls

Publisher and Managing Editor

Notes to self

Chemical reactions

In 2005 the Environmental Working Group found an average of 200 chemicals in the cord blood of newborns including known carcinogens and neurotoxins. Melbourne GP, Dr Iggy Soosay says the problem is we don’t know the health effects on humans of many of these chemicals. What can you do to reduce exposure to endocrine disruptors? 1. Buy organic food whenever possible. 2. Avoid using pesticides 3. Avoid heating food in plastic containers 4. Use your own non-plastic containers for take-away food. 5. Do not have soft plastic toys for your child.

oal Setting: G r o f s ip T 5 tic goals is pecific, real 1) S t. work bes ound a monethan 2) It takes anar to becom for a ch ge habit. established goal makes it 3) Repeatingriate it down and say stick. W d each morning to it out lou rself. remind you n’t er people dgoes th o g y in an as le P 4) to makin work. The keyfind the desire change is to elf. within yours n s don’t mea 5) RoadblocSklip-ups are part failure. g process. of the learnin

TRANSFORMING BUSINESS S ILE CARDS INTO VISUAL PROF t mee FACT: Business travellers s ow esh trad at ple peo thousands of er emb rem can but es enc fer con and time less than 5% of them by the back way ir the on i tax a in are y the to the airport. ed SOLUTION: A New York bas nch business travel network has lau a “Tradeshow & Events” section can where attendees and exhibitorssite The t. nec con reconnect and is located at skylounge.com and s ines bus on concentrates travelers who want to network s. trip ir the before, during and 6

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Oh my gosh there is alcohol at this disco!

Baby Disco??

The mirror ball is now spinning for children aged from 6 months to seven years. Some of Australia’s coolest nightclubs get set to open their doors to toddlers and pre-schoolers. The brainchild of Dr. Cameron L Jones, a proud dad and a professional member of Playgroup Victoria and his mum Elisabeth Jones, a Child Care Cente operator, BabyDisco is bringing together parents and children for an afternoon on the dance floor as DJs spin the retro discs!

A “G rea hh t m h… dis c ave ! i rag uss nds eve e m ide dis nts ind as, s Hy cus , sm dis ma s p c a n R eo ll m uss ick ple. inds ” – ov er

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down Harvard MBA gra Business Sch oo du clear, w ates on whethl surveyed its 1979 r er th itten found 8 4% had n goals for the ey had set had un ir futu o spec goals anwritten goals a ific goals at a re and nd ll, d p Ten yearlans that were only 3% had cle13% ar s later, written were tr in do were ea acked. The 13% 1989, the same wn. w rn gr withouting twice as mith unwritten g aduates u oals a c ny goals h as th written e , w 8 p 4 h l % il a n e s an the ten time s more d goals earned 3% with clear than th a eir gradu n average of ating pe ers. “You won’t get anything unless you have the vision to imagine it.” John Lennon 7

Features: allthingsgreat

‘ our heroes!’

“Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.” - Bill Gates 10

He’s the super-nerd that became the world’s richest man – and, more recently, a leading philanthropist already improving the lives of millions of the world’s poor. What makes Bill Gates tick?

Bill Gates:

Big Thinker W

hen Bill Gates became the richest guy in the world, complete with gorgeous wife, an army of devoted code-cutting minions and huge global influence, he changed the landscape for spotty teen geeks with a prodigious talent for maths and a stymied social calendar worldwide. Suddenly, smart was cool; doing your homework and getting extra credit for your science project was a potential stepping-stone to dot-com dominance. But although there’s no doubt that Bill Gates is a gifted thinker with extraordinary talent – it’s not his ability with maths, his strong negotiating skills or even his understanding of computers that has driven his success.

The key to what has made Bill Gates great is his self-belief, his ability to come up with a vision of what he wants to achieve and his determination to overcome any obstacles to achieve that goal. These days, Bill Gates is only the third richest guy in the world, worth about US $58 billion; something of a come-down from the heady years of 1995 to 2007, when he topped Forbes Magazine’s List of Billionaires. And Gates is planning a strategic dive down the list, as he donates everincreasing amounts to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, founded with wife Melinda in 2000, which is now the world’s largest transparently operated charitable foundation.

‘our heroes’

I’m proud to be a nerd

The Foundation received a heady boost when investment guru Warren Buffet, (who toppled Gates from his World’s Richest Man perch) signed a deal promising to kick in another US $1.5 billion a year. Strategically focused on areas where it can do the most good, in typical Gates fashion, the Foundation (worth an estimated US $40 billion) divides its grants into three areas: Global Health, Global Development and local US programs. The Global Health Program donates an estimated US$800 million each year – almost as much as the entire annual budget of the United Nations World Health Organization, which is funded by 192 countries. Like many successful baby-boomers, the founder of software giant, Microsoft, decided in 2006 to down-shift to a part-time role within Microsoft, though he has remained as the company’s chairman. He’s shifting to a full-time career in philanthropy; where he will devote his genius and much-admired business acumen to some of the world’s most intractable problems. “We picked the big diseases as our priority,” he told the Seattle Times in a 2007 interview about the Foundation’s world goals. “Whatever it takes we’re just going to stay at it. This is what we’re about. The big five are AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, respiratory and diarrhoea.” When Gates first discovered the impact that malaria had on world health, he was shocked to find that a $50 million grant that he made in 2001 doubled the international private donation to malaria work – while at the same time, research into baldness and erectile dysfunction were being funded to the tune of around $500 million a year.

But with the combined wealth, business connections and drive of Gates and Warren Buffett on its case, it is possible that malaria – humanity’s single biggest killer – may be eradicated as effectively as smallpox and polio. While his drive and his determination are inspiring, most people who read about Bill Gates’ astounding success wonder, what has made this computer nerd such a prodigious force on the world stage? The Bill Gates story has been told so often it has become legend. Born in Seattle to a wealthy family, he was a high-achiever at school and by 13, had discovered computers. A joint venture with a few other students (including Paul Allen) to write computer programs at the age of 14 earned the group US $20,000. Gates dropped out of Harvard Law School to found Microsoft with Paul Allen in 1975. The pair was fascinated by the January 1975 report in ‘Popular Electronics’ magazine about the Altair 8800, one of the earliest microcomputers. He contacted the Altair’s designers and told them he and Allen were writing a BASIC program for the Altair – although they did not own an Altair and had certainly not written a program. After the head of MITS (who produced the Altair) agreed to meet them, the pair developed a suitable program and negotiated a deal to distribute it with the microcomputer. The rest is history – the pair’s computer company, Microsoft, brokered a deal with IBM to distribute an operating system with the new IBM microcomputer but kept the licensing rights. John Rymer heads the California branch of market research firm Forrester Research in California and has had a lot to do with Gates. “Gates is unique, a once-in-a-generation guy,” he told The Boston Globe in 2006. Professor Allan Snyder heads the Centre for the Mind at the University

of Sydney, where his partners include Nelson Mandela, Richard Branson and Oliver Sacks – some of the world’s greatest minds. The Centre is focused on scientific ways to enhance creativity and to instil what Professor Snyder calls “the champion mindset.” He points out that many highfliers – Gates included – are university drop-outs. This doesn’t mean that they are not great geniuses; but rather that academic success is often no indication of genius. Professor Snyder says that child prodigies, those who excel very quickly in life, seldom become adult geniuses, who do extraordinary things, challenging how we think. But extraordinarily successful people like Gates do share certain personal qualities, he adds – they hate being ‘just average’ or normal or one of the pack, but want to stamp something uniquely them on everything they do. “They want to creatively differentiate themselves from other people, they don’t want to be cogs in the wheel,” he explains. These champions are also willing to challenge convention and take risks and they are creative enough to “weave known knowledge into new knowledge,” he says. “Great achievers have a vision that they will succeed and sometimes they even see the steps leading to their success,” says Professor Snyder. Andrew Meikle agrees; his research into elite human performance at The Meikle Files in East Sydney, where he has analysed the factors contributing to the success of more than 4000 people, reveals some common attributes that most high achievers share. Potency of desire is one: high achievers know what they want and have a deep desire to achieve it; they are determined and passionate about their goals. Meikle also concurs with Professor Snyder’s research on risk-taking, adding that high achievers have the courage to take on tasks beyond their skill set and the capacity to believe in their ideas without proof. Bill Gates was able to envision a world where there was a personal computer on every desk – and also able to imagine himself as an integral part of that vision.

From his deals with IBM in 1980 to license the copyright of the MS-DOS operating system and its successors, to his ongoing aggressive strategy to increase the Microsoft dominance Gates has been single-minded in his business operations. Sydney-based researcher Brent D Taylor recently released a book titled “The Outsider’s Edge: The Making of Self-made Billionaires,” which looked at the characteristics of people like Bill Gates, Richard Branson and Oprah Winfrey. All of them triumphed over early

adversity in a big way, he says – and all were outsiders, who didn’t fit in at school or other social situations. “Gates was definitely not a hit with the girls when he was growing up,” Taylor says, adding that the young Gates was compulsive about being the best. But his real success comes from his skills as a businessman and his toughness as a negotiator, Taylor argues. “Microsoft’s products are not revolutionary, and they are often not even the best available, but through

his obsessiveness and drive Gates has pushed Microsoft to massive success,” he says. “His negotiating skills have been the key to his extreme wealth.” And while he spent some time as the world’s least popular computer nerd, with his obsession, drive and sheer genius now applied to solving some of mankind’s most deadly health issues, it is possible that Bill Gates may have finally found the key to popularity.

by Fran Molloy

‘our heroes’

I love what I do!

Advertising feature

“You become very clear about what works for you and what doesn’t ... “ - Elizabeth Gould

That which doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger...

n recover from How does a woma raped in front of d n a ed sh a b g n bei h en diagnosed wit th d n a n re d il ch her Gould cancer? Elizabeth t some unique rn a le s a h d n a did s. survival strategie

I’m a

r o v i v sur L

ess than 18 months after an intruder broke into her home in Melbourne’s south-east and as her two small children looked on, bashed, raped and threatened to kill her, Elizabeth Gould was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer. Radical surgery and chemotherapy followed and six months later full remission. The two confronting life and death struggles occurring so close together stirred in Gould a fascination with the notion of survival, in particular the twists and turns of her recovery from cancer. She embarked on a series of interviews with other cancer survivors and the results astounded her. Her research clearly defined common behavior patterns and attitudes, giving credence to her theory that beating the odds is not just random coincidence. She identified five stand-alone traits inherent in all the survivors and while she stresses that adopting them will not guarantee survival she remarks that coincidentally or not the same blueprint was present in all those she interviewed who had defeated the disease. “Undergoing two major traumas so close together made me quite analytical about the survival process but I didn’t

Elizabeth Gould: recovery needs a strategy.

Secret 1: Controlling Information Following diagnosis “the first thing you want to do is jump on the internet, which is the world’s scariest place for a cancer patient”, says Gould, who is a big believer in “what you tell your brain to expect will become a reality”. Maintaining that monitoring what information is taken in and passed onto others is the most significant secret of cancer survivors, she says. While being realistic about the situation is strongly advised, the survivors agree that allowing negative beliefs or assumptions to creep in can be the difference between surviving or not. Secret 2: Choosing Supporters Referring to people as “heaters or drainers”, Gould laughs. “They are either nice and warm and you want to get close to them or they suck your energy,” she says. All the survivors that Gould surveyed spoke of friends and family members who would not allow them to express their fears and confessed that they had very little to do these people because often it felt like they were carrying them. “You become quite clinical about who you spend time with and adopt the view, I don’t know how long my life is going to be so I am going to live it the way I really want to. If someone that you associate with doesn’t add to your life, you stop seeing them,” she says. Choosing a medical team “that you trust and whose advice you are willing to follow” is paramount, she says. Secret 3: Doing It Your Way Gould discovered that the resolve to “do it my way” along with a refusal to accept blindly any dogma or practice – conventional or alternative – came through strongly in every survival story. “Everyone does things completely differently, but there is a single mindedness that comes through in all survival,” she says. The survivors each came up with their own plan and most were not particularly consultative.

Offers of self-help books, meditation courses, macrobiotic diets and the suggestion to stop work (all Gould’s interviewees continued working throughout their treatment) were politely acknowledged but ignored. “Many people, even supporters, may not understand the decisions you make but they also don’t understand what it’s like to have cancer,” says Gould. You need to ‘do it your way’ to give you the confidence that you can survive.” Secret 4: Creating a Thinking Pattern Gould used a coping mechanism that came out of the attack as a foundation to work through coping with cancer. “When grappling with the after effects of the attack I became aware of how quickly thoughts can spiral out of control and I noticed that if I had three of four thoughts in a row of a certain pattern, then I very quickly became incredibly distraught and depressed. So I developed a saying, don’t go there,” she says. Other survivors embraced similar coping strategies and learned to focus only on what would enhance the healing of their minds and bodies. Every newly diagnosed cancer patient has dark thoughts and their thinking pattern reflects this. Based on her research, Gould believes that the speed at which the patient snaps out of the ‘Why me?’, ‘I don’t know if I can do this’, What if I die’, thinking is a key factor in their survival. Secret 5: Finding the Meaning of Life Surviving cancer does not mean that those who have come through it have unlocked the door to what life is about, says Gould. Nor does it mean that they found God – while some did, others went in the opposite direction. “What the cancer journey gives you is the ability to decide to follow through and choose to live the life you want to live, not the life you think you should live,” Gould declares. The survivors all found that values changed and social conventions lost their importance, as just being alive became their top priority. One issue that they were very clear about was that the opinion of others mattered very little and that they had liberated themselves from worrying about what others thought.

by Jill Fraser Secrets of Cancer Survivors, by Elizabeth Gould, Michelle Anderson Publishing.

‘our heroes’

have a fixed view. What I now refer to as the five secrets (five common factors) only emerged once I started talking to people,” she says. Over and above these five secrets, Gould notes that although coping mechanisms varied enormously (one person chose to keep her condition to herself until she was given the all clear, another kept detailed information from loved ones who were not dealing well with the situation, another tried to educate friends and family that talking positively all the time was unrealistic, while Gould became incredibly busy, working full-time, throwing regular dinner parties, painting the front fence and digging massive garden beds) all survivors were single-minded, independent thinkers and disciplined. “Cancer is really such a mental battle as it is a physical one,” she says. “You become very clear about what works for you and what doesn’t, to the extent that, as one survivor said, you are quite selfish in your pursuit of what you need .” Gould acknowledges that describing the five common factors as secrets sounds clichéd. She opted to do so because prior to the interviews the survivors had not spoken in depth about their experiences and thoughts as all had been caught up in the cancer patient culture of “remaining positive”.

Chapter 1. allthingsbusiness

â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;suit and tieâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;

What goes up can come down A Californian hotelier turned around his organization by using Abraham Maslow’s Hierachy of Needs.

“A company is simply a collection of individuals.” - Chip Conley

nspired by Abraham Maslow’s iconic Hierarchy of Needs, Chip Conley, celebrity CEO and founder of Joie de Vivre Hospitality, America’s second largest boutique hotel company, insulated his business from the threat of the 9/11 fallout, the dot com crash and the SARS epidemic by focusing on “what could be” as opposed to “what is”. The year was 2001 when, after a successful climb to the pinnacle of the hospitality industry, Conley was rocked to his foundation by a dramatic economic downturn. On reflection he says: “I went from being a genius to an idiot in one short year”. His company was suddenly under-capitalized and overexposed in the post-dotcom, post-9/11 economy, a dire situation that caused him to turn to the vision of Maslow, the 20th Century father of motivational psychology he had studied in his Stanford MBA class. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, a pyramid that ranks human needs from base to self-actualizing - which translates as identifying motivation drivers - is de rigueur in business schools. Conley claims to be the first CEO to apply the theories in tangible business practices. No stranger to the concept of thinking outside the square, Conley says he has been doing so for as long as he can remember. “A combination of influences has led me to be willing to be contrarian and unconventional in the way I look at things,” he muses. “I am artistic so I tend to view life in a more creative way, I am a Californian and Californians by nature are a bit unique and I am a gay man, so from a young age I thought “okay, I am a little different so how does that manifest itself in my world view?” Conley’s rebellious spirit has been apparent to the hospitality industry since 1987 when, with virtually no industry experience, he opened his first hotel, The Phoenix, a quirky rock ‘n’ roll influenced digs for musos, at age 26 in San Francisco’s edgy Tenderloin district. His company now consists of over 40 hip, urban, awardwinning hotels, restaurants and spas. Each distinctive property caters for a niche client base and is designed to produce what Conley calls “identity refreshment” for his guests. The company gleans inspiration from popular magazines such as Rolling Stone (The Phoenix), The New Yorker (Hotel Rex), Real Simple “meets” Dwell (Vitale), Wired (Avante) etc. But it is what occurs on a management level that makes Joie de Vivre Hospitality stand apart. Conley sees no difference between the aspirational goals of individuals and those of the organization. “We often forget that a company is simply a collection of individuals,” he says. “Employees are looking for meaning. Customers are looking for a transforming experience. Investors are looking to make a difference with their investments. If individuals aspire to self-actualization, why can’t companies aspire to this peak, too?” Conley maintains that the short-term focus of most CEOs will fail to attain the results that they are seeking. “Employees can be motivated by three things,” he says. “Money, how they are recognised and appreciated and the inspiration or calling they have for what they do. “Employers that focus mostly on the money possess a short-term mentality, which doesn’t work because the moment another employer comes along and offers their employees 5% more they will leave.

Peak prescriptions

Through Maslow, Conley found the tools he needed to produce peak performance in business relationships. Breaking down the Hierarchy of Needs’ five human motivations to three: Survive, Succeed and Transform, Conley has developed a unique hierarchy for each ‘Relationship Truth’ and offers “peak prescriptions” for what is possible at each level:

Employee truth pyramid

Money (Survive) can create Base Motivation; Recognition (Succeed) can create Loyalty; Meaning (Transform) can create Inspiration.

Customer truth pyramid

Meeting Expectations (Survive) can create Satisfaction; Meeting Desires (Succeed) can create Commitment; Meeting Unrecognized Needs (Transform) can create Evangelism.

Investor truth pyramid

Transaction Alignment (Survive) can create Trust; Relationship Alignment (Succeed) can create Confidence; Legacy (Transform) can create Pride of Ownership.

Chip Conley

‘suit and tie’

Creativity got me into this mess… and then it got me out!

Tips for Employee Relations Money Creates base motivation

Search for perishable assets that would make a difference for your employees. Your CFO may have a ski chalet in the mountains or your marketing manager may have season tickets to your local football team’s games - often unused.

Recognition Creates Loyalty Create a signature method for your managers to truly understand the importance of really “seeing” your employees, their personal lives and their strengths.

Meaning

Suggest employees start a “gratitude journal” to help them build a sense of connection with the organization and what they do. Studies have shown that restaurant bills on which the server writes “thank you” produce tips that are 10% higher than those without an expression of gratitude.

“They haven’t created loyalty or differentiated themselves except in terms of pure dollars and cents. Companies that do best and are the real peak performers are those that recognise that they need to create long-term loyalty and differentiation.” Joie de Vivre puts great effort into creating positive relationships between team members, conducive work environments, loyalty and recognition programs and a “sense of trust between staff and senior management”. Yet while working conditions are well above the industry standard financial compensation to staff is close to average. But Conley must be doing something right because while the turnover rate for the hospitality industry is 70-100%, at Joie de Vivre it is under 25%. Conley turned to Maslow when the travel industry, closely followed by the hotel industry, went into a tailspin in 2001 to try to get back in touch with why he went out on a limb and started the company in the first place. He began reading Maslow’s work for his own purposes, not because he thought it was going to sprout into a business philosophy. But as he read he started thinking that if individuals can be self-actualised and if companies are full of individuals, why can’t a company be self actualised? Conley explains it like this: “There are 3 key groups of people in just about any company; employees, customers and investors. What I premised was that each of these groups has some kind of survival needs (at the base of the pyramid) and self-actualisation needs (at the peak of their pyramid). “As you move your employees or your customers or your investors up that pyramid you are creating a deeper, stronger, long-term relationship with that particular constituency and if you are creating a long-term relationship with them, you are move inclined to be successful. “If you walk into a hotel and see and experience a fulfilled, self-actualised workplace where say, the employees have a spirit of hospitality and love to serve and love to give and seem to be having a good time and seem to be recognised by their managers, you, as a customer feel that you have received an experience that is beyond the generic hotel experience. So in essence, by creating a self-actualised workplace for the employees, you can start to create a self-actualised customer experience. “So my premise is that focusing on these higher needs of people, helps to create a more successful company. In other words, creating peak experiences for your people will create a peak performance for your company.” Conley maintains that every employee can have one of three relationships with their work. It can either be a job, a career, or a calling. Employees who think of their work as a job are focusing just on survival and money and are stuck at the bottom of the hierarchy of needs pyramid. Employees who think of work as their career are focused on what Conley calls “the success level” of the pyramid where they feel recognised and appreciated and are having their needs met by their boss and the company. Employees who have a sense of inspiration and meaning in what they do everyday and what the organisation does, have a sense of calling. “As you move an employee up from job to career to calling, you are creating a much more empowered, engaged and fulfilled employee and partner in the business,” he says.

by Jill Fraser 22

Chip Conley’s book, Peak – How Great Companies Get Their Mojo from Maslow, is available through www.chipconley.com or www.amazon.com

“Dont let customers treat you like a bank.” - Scott Williams 24

Are you a giver or a money maker? This may sound provocative but until your customer has paid you, your delivered product or service is a gift. From you to them!

his may sound provocative but until your customer has paid you, your delivered product or service is a gift. From you to them! We often hear business people saying that they can’t push for payment on mounting and ageing accounts, because “the customer is a long standing, good customer”. Let’s get one thing straight. Good customers pay their bills. Someone with long outstanding invoices is not a good customer. They are using you as their gift shop! Of course, extenuating circumstances happen, and we’re not talking about those cases here. We’re talking about whether you’re suffering cash flow stress because of loose, ad hoc collection policies. Right from the very start, lay firm ground rules down as to what your payment terms are. Introduce your payment terms in your conditions of engagement. Your sales people should have a script that goes: “We are excited about providing you with the highest standards in service and products. To enable us to do that, we do expect to be paid for what we do, on time. The alternative is to cut corners, and we simply won’t do that to our clients. We trust you’ll understand.” Another great way to do this is in an: “Our commitment to you, and your commitment to us” agreement, which you and the client sign. Once you’ve lain the terms down, courteously but firmly follow through. Follow up by phone within a day of the payment being overdue. Hard tactics? Not at all. A genuine customer will appreciate that they agreed to the terms, that you have a system, and that you’re following it. Don’t educate your debtors not to pay on time through your invoices! It never ceases to amaze me that

organisations still send out invoices and statements with 30/60/90 days PRINTED on them. This gives the customer permission to hold off until 90 days before even thinking about paying. The best way is to state an actual date when payment is to be made on the invoice. This conveys to the customer exactly what your expectations are and it gives you a specific date to follow up on after 24 hours. A bank direct debiting system or payment by corporate credit card is an excellent way to get paid on time, without confrontation. Ask for part payment up front. Typically many businesses ask for 50% payment up front to begin a project, and the balance on delivery of final approved copy. If you’re good at what you do, and you deliver a whole host of services that your client truly values, you have every right to set terms like this. While some of these measures seem fairly tough or anticustomer orientated, it’s just business. You have delivered a service or product to your customer in good faith, based on your pre-agreed payment terms, and they have not paid for it. They have treated you as a bank, and your product or service as a gift. Good customers are those who pay you for what you do.

by Scott Edmonds Scott Edmonds is CEO of SW Edmonds and Co, an accountancy firm in Sydney. Visit www.swedmonds.com.au by

apital and cash flow is important, but what is far more important is having the right mindset for business and profits. That means accepting that you don’t know everything and bringing people in who have “been there, done that” experience at all levels. Lets face it, if you knew how to do it, you’d already be doing it! Or have done it in the past. If you can bring someone on to your board of directors, or even as an advisor or mentor, who has achieved what you are seeking to achieve, it just makes sense that they are going to be able to provide you with invaluable advice and insights into how to achieve your business goals. Let’s say you have an online internet business of some sort (there are lots of these around now). And you want to build it into a substantial company and eventually sell it for say $10m. Well the very best way you are going to achieve this is not with lots of IT boffins and programmers. It’s with someone who has done exactly that – started an internet company, built it up and either sold it for $10m or listed it onto a stock exchange. Not someone who has sold a chain of pizza bars, or sat on a few boards, or has “business coach” written on their business card. You must find someone who has specifically achieved what you want to achieved, in the specific industry you are in. Get them involved as a director, mentor or advisor. Give them half

the company if you have to. Half of something successful is better than all of nothing. Your chances of reaching your goals have gone from 5% to maybe 70%. As a corporate advisor, we see many businesses who come to us seeking investment capital. They want someone, whom they don’t even know, to invest money into their company so they can use it to grow the business. Nine times out of ten, there is no one involved in that business with a proven track record. Having the right person involved will give the investor confidence that it can be done again and vastly improves your chances of attracting investment capital. So what does this have to do with your mindset? Everything because you have to start thinking about your business as a university course. Especially if it’s your first one. Your goal should not to be to retire off the sale of your first business. It should be to learn. Because if you do it once, then you can do it again at twice the speed. Gerry Harvey’s first business was not Harvey Norman. It was a small auction business in Sydney. Richard Branson’s first business was not Virgin. It was growing and selling Christmas Trees. Too many business owners hold on too tight to their first business, thinking that it’s the be all and end all of their business existence. If you just change your mindset so that this business is just a stepping stone, and your real success will come from the experience you gain from the process and from your mentor, then it could unlock some serious hurdles that may be holding you back.

by Reuben Buchanan Reuben Buchanan is a director of Integral Capital Group. www.integralcapital.com.au

So much knowledge, so little head space!

“Get the right people involved from day one.” - Reuben Buchanan

If you are a SME, you may believe that access to capital is enough to successfully grow your business. However this is not necessarily the case – in fact it’s hardly ever the case.

‘suit and tie’

Knowledge = profits

Chapter 2: allthingslove

â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;love makes the world go round!â&#x20AC;&#x2122;

Building schools, the new global trend

Carly Cructhfield, (centre with white hat), with school children.

Australians are following a global trend, directing their experience and passions to help build schools overseas; young property developer Carly Crutchfield tells us her experiences.

ast year, talk show host and megacelebrity, Oprah Winfrey, opened the school for disadvantaged girls in Johannesburg, South Africa that she has funded to the tune of around US $40 million. The school will eventually educate around 450 students each year after Oprah decided to get involved, rather than just write cheques for charities. Oprah is a high-profile example of

a growing trend for wealthy Westerners to direct their charitable donations into schools. It’s a trend filled with hope and one that many believe will have an ongoing impact on entire villages and communities, where schools play a central role. With half of the world’s six billion people living on less than US $2 a day, the fortunate few with money to spare are becoming more aware of

‘love makes the world go round’

Our new school’s gonna go just over there!

“Schools are a central part of the community.” - Carly Cructhfield 28

the yawning gap between rich and poor and gaining a great sense of satisfaction from sharing their wealth. Oprah Winfrey says that her desire to feel a greater connection with the people she was trying to help was the motivation behind her building a school for poor South African girls. Bill Gates’ wife, Melinda, is credited with Microsoft’s involvement in the African e-Schools project, which supports technology requirements for 25 schools in eight African countries: Cameroon, Kenya, Lesotho, Mauritius, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda and Senegal. And since 2005, Richard Branson has funded an entire faculty at one South African university, CIDA City Campus, which has been set up by South African businessman, Taddy Blecher, to enable poor black families to access higher education. Closer to home, former Young Australian of the Year, Tricia Broadbridge, has set up a school on Phi Phi Island in Thailand in memory of her late husband, AFL player Troy Broadbridge, who was killed in the 2004 tsunami on the couple’s honeymoon. All these school founders have reaped great benefits from giving to others – particularly providing an education for children who may go on to make a huge difference in their own communities. For 27-year-old Australian property developer, Carly Crutchfield, a desire to help people who had been rocked by disaster led her to realise that building schools in poor countries could be as rewarding for the donors as the receivers. She has joined up with entrepreneurs, Dale Beaumont and Brent Williams to set up “Tomorrow’s Youth,” a charitable foundation that will help build schools in third world countries. The Foundation currently runs mentoring programs for young Australians and plans are in place to encourage their students to raise funds and even travel overseas to physically help to build schools. “Carly has been a breath of fresh air, she brings an enormous amount of experience to extend the global reach of the program,” Dale Beaumont says. “We really want to extend out and help teenagers to have an opportunity to

give something back and really benefit from that experience.” Carly is already a hot talent on the property investment speaking circuit, where she gives stirring speeches to would-be property magnates, encouraging them to develop their inner entrepreneur. Carly says she’s always been involved in charity work. Deeply affected by her uncle’s death from a drug overdose more than a decade ago, she has since been an active volunteer with the Scientology-sponsored charity, Drug Free Ambassadors Australia. But a turning point for Carly was the tsunami that devastated South-East Asia in 2004. She flew to Indonesia and made her way to Banda Aceh, wearing a Scientology T-shirt, which put her in touch with other Scientology volunteers. Hiring a truck from a local merchant, she helped distribute food flown in by aid organisations like AusAID that lay perishing on the airport tarmacs; and at night, the volunteers offered trauma counselling to the still shocked locals. “I was watching the news and immediately decided to help. I had no idea what I was going to do but I just got on the plane. I feel that what is happening in the world is happening to all of us and I have to do something about it,” she recalls. It was a baptism of fire for Carly, then only 23-years-old. But like many Australians jack-knifed into action by the horrific impact of this natural disaster on poor communities, she realised that there were things she could do to make a huge difference in people’s lives. Two years later, on May 27 2006, a major earthquake struck the Indonesian island of Java, near Yogjakarta, just outside the town of Bantul, killing at least 5,700 people and leaving hundreds of thousands homeless. Again, Carly dropped everything and flew into Yogjakarta to try to put some disaster relief in place. She found a place to stay, teamed up with four other Scientology volunteers and went out to help the devastated villagers. Schools play a crucial role as a focus for community in villages like Bantul and Carly realised that rebuilding the school was a way to have a positive impact on a lot of people. Local villagers helped draw up crude

designs for the school and gathered useful material that could be recycled from the rubble; meanwhile Carly contacted friends in Australia who wired money through Western Union and helped arrange delivery of needed materials. Carly’s experience with property development came in handy and she embarked on the challenge of pushing through the red tape to get the school up and running. “I ran around to find the people who needed to sign the paperwork starting with Government Ministers. I would be sent from one person to the next and to the next.” Frustrated by the impassive bureaucracy, she gate-crashed a press conference where the king of the local province had flown in to visit refugees and persuaded him to sign an approval form; ensuring a smooth passage for all future plans for the school. “We hired an open backed ute and drove into an area and asked for volunteers. These people literally jumped into the truck then and there and showed up to help build the school at 6am every day,” she says. “Schools aren’t just schools to these people. They are a place of community – like a community a hall. It gives the community a real sense of pride to rebuild something that educates their youth.” Just a few months later, in December 2006, a typhoon named Durian hit the town of Legaspi in the Philippines, near Cebu, and giant mudslides swept away entire villages, killing hundreds. Carly again flew in to help and helped organise a group of local villagers and military workers to rebuild a school buried by rivers of mud and ash from the Mayon volcano. “The biggest thing, like anything in life, is showing up!” she says.

by Fran Molloy School building websites Room to Read www.roomtoread.org Tomorrow’s Youth www.tomorrowsyouth.org.au Broadbridge Education Centre www.reach.com.au

â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;love makes the world go roundâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;

I hate maths... when is recess?

Seriously... what was I thinking?

Trust has its challenges.

Look before you leap “Trust is something we all need.” - Vanessa Hall

Some people go blindly into relationships without thinking about it, sometimes being seem left confused and hurt later.

ther people seem to have a built in radar, or a fear about whether or not they should trust someone, sometimes missing out on what might have been a great relationship. Most, if not all of us, have been there - the relationship that went horribly wrong. The trust that was there at the start was broken, shattered, and left us bitter, angry, disappointed, and just a little wiser, we hope. Trust is something we all need. Every relationship needs to have trust. So what is trust? Trust is our ability to RELY on: • A person, or people, companies and organisations, products and services And for the person, company or product to deliver an outcome to us. The trick here is that the outcome we each want is different for each of us, as different is each situation we are in. The outcome we all want is based on three core things: • I want you to meet or manage my Expectations. • I want you to meet my Needs. • I want you to keep your Promises to me.

I call these ENPs. Our expectations come from previous experiences we’ve had (good or bad), from things we’ve heard or seen, and from like experiences; for example I’ve been out with a mechanic before. It was awful, so now I have an expectation that all future relationships with mechanics will be awful. Our needs drive us into our relationships and interactions in the first place. We might have a need for a companion, someone to go out and have fun with, someone who makes us look good, who looks after us and cooks for us, or someone who is creative and exciting. Our needs are different, and they change over time as well. The promises that others make to us actually draw us into a relationship with that particular person over another. The promises could be explicit like marriage vows, a promise to take you out somewhere lovely for dinner, or a promise to take out the garbage, for instance. So the outcome we want in our relationships is that all our expectations will be met, all our needs we have of

that relationship are met, and all the promises they make to us are kept. That’s a pretty big ask. But we rely on that. We go into the relationship relying, trusting, that the experience we are going to have is just like that. Here’s where it gets messy! Every time any one of those expectations or needs are not met, or the promises are not kept, the trust starts to waver. The more that are not met or kept, the more the whole things start to crumble. Eventually the whole thing collapses and the trust falls and breaks. Of course, we all know what happened to Humpty when he fell – and the same goes for our trust. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men can’t put it together again. Remember – your trust is fragile. Handle it with care! Visit www.entente.com.au

by Vanessa Hall

Vanessa Hall has studied trust for years and recently wrote a book titled, The Truth About Trust.

Chapter3: allthingswealth

‘ investment prosperity!’

Property goes in cycles so anytime is a good time to start.

Ride the property cycles

We kept saying “imagine if we bought a property back then?” yikes!

Property values double every 10 years; so anytime is a good time to start building your portfolio.

‘ investment prosperity’

ll people, as soon as they able, should invest in property. Aim to purchase an investment property before you attempt to buy your own home to live in. With an investment property you can offset the costs against your taxable income. Why purchase an investment property? The main reason is its value that it will double value every 7-10 years. This assumption is based on 50+ years of recorded property prices. In fact if you consider that property will double every 10 years then it means it must grow on average at 7.5% per year. This growth is not consistent as the property cycle affects the rate of growth in any particular year. However, if we factor in the effect of the property cycle over the past 50 years we will find that it has doubled in value every 7.3 years and that there have been three full property cycles each 21 years. Being armed with basic knowledge such as this investors can safely and confidently build a residential property portfolio knowing it will double at some time in the nottoo-distant future. Not all residential property is a great investment, investors need to maximise their opportunities by buying in good growth locations. Where can these be found in today’s market? Investors have, for a long time, found tried and true properties in and around the capital cities of Australia. Capital growth in these locations statistically meets the criteria of doubling in a seven-to-10 year period. Investors wanting their properties to grow at this fast a rate need to take account of locations where demand way outstrips supply and where capital growth plays a prominent role. So what are some current ‘hot spot’ locations investors could look at the moment other than the major capital cities?

“Your due dilligence as an investor is essential.” - Peter Comben 34

In an article last year in the Australian newspaper Bernard Salt, well known Australian demographer, pointed to “regional locations on the east coast – particularly between Bundaberg and Townsville in Queensland – where the jobs growth and money is at the moment. These areas are being driven by the masses of wealth concentrated in the mining communities”. The article predicted strong growth in towns such as Yeppoon and Bowen, in central Queensland, and Esperance in southern Western Australia as the resources sector continues to surge. Your own due diligence as an investor is essential, if you are to profit from opportunities available in the market today. It is no good saying I should have invested in Western Australia five years ago. Rather you need to look for the next potential massive growth location. Other than finding the right growth location, investors can help to maximise their property portfolios by doing the following: 1. Creating the correct structures to protect their existing assets. 2. Learning how to access the tax benefits they are legally entitled to. 3. Seeking out and learning from mentors who have invested. 4. Accessing the best funding for their investment property. 5. Buying investment property from a reputable source. We have all been made more aware of rip offs that have occurred and still occur in the market place. It is in the buying of a property that we make our potential profit, so make sure you don’t pay inflated prices. Take responsibility for the due diligence off the Real Estate Agent, the developer, the marketers, even the investor clubs who all offer property at over inflated prices. The purchaser often still pays commissions of five per cent and more and it is not unheard of to find back commissions of up to $40,000 being added to the purchase of a $350,000 property. Overpaying for an investment property can put you behind the eight ball from day one and it may take several years to make up the over inflated price, leaving you unable to access equity to re invest. 6. Confirm the value of your proposed investment property. The lender’s valuer is the best person to assess the true value of your property. 7. Rental income is an important element, again make sure your investment property is going to appeal to the

market, and that there is an ongoing demand for it. 8. Take account of the property cycle. The property cycle can help the investor to find properties poised for accelerated growth. A great time to buy is at the end of a property slump and the beginning of an upturn. If you had bought three years ago in the eastern states of Australia in places like Melbourne or Brisbane you would have benefited from a significant upturn. Other eastern states capitals have had growth to a lesser extent. Research will unearth a number of potential growth areas that will significantly outperform the market over the next five years. You need to have a balanced property investment portfolio, with some properties in more traditionally consistent growth locations, and some in the regional growth locations where demand way outstrips supply. Buying investment property is not a short-term investment strategy; properties need to be held for at least five years. After that period you will be in a position to know whether to retain the property or not. Advanced property investors end up with a portfolio of properties they will never sell. In fact, they eventually plan for them to transfer to their children who in turn can benefit from the future income and equity growth.

by Peter Comben Peter Comben has been a property investor and developer for 20 years. Visit www.smartpropertydevelopment.com.au

“There are many directors spending up big.” - Keith Nielson

Now, everyome... do what I do!

Follow the leader Directors buying shares can signal confidence in their stocks.

ntuition suggests that if a director buys shares in their own company, there’s a good chance the value of those shares could increase. After all, the directors know a lot more about their own company than you or I and no-one invests cash with the view to losing it. If you think about it, monitoring director’s trades, with regards to stock picking, makes perfect sense. It’s like having a massive team of researchers who have an in depth knowledge of their company and industry. So, do they really do better than the general market? The short answer is yes! A recent study which analysed 6,837 Directors’ trades over a four year period found that, on average, directors have outperformed the market by a factor of two. Directors trading in their own shares have been increasing steadily over the years, but recent months have seen possibly the largest volume of directors buying their own shares ever. The depressed prices caused by the recent market crash are enticing many directors to snap up what they obviously think are bargains.

Gerry Harvey from Harvey Norman is one of these bargain hunters. He recently bought over $2M worth of shares at a market price of $4.55 per share. Kay Page, another director, picked up almost $700K on the same day. This is after quite a bit of selling late last year which, in retrospect, looked like pretty good timing. Let’s hope they get it right again. There are many other directors spending up big also. The ability to monitor directors trades could give you a head start when it comes time to choosing our investments.

by Keith Nielson Keith Nielsen is a share trader and advisor. Visit www.theinsidetrader.com.au

Chapter 4. allthingsglobal

‘our world’

mmmm it’s tasty... but it still needs chocolate on top!!

Eat your words A

headline late last year in the UK’s national daily newspaper The Times chided, ‘Eat your words, all who scoff at organic food’. The jibe was referring to the initial results to come out of the biggest study ever to be conducted into the benefits of organic food – a £12m European Union-funded project in which conventional and organic crops were raised side by side. Overwhelmingly the conclusion was that organically produced crops and dairy usually contain more “beneficial compounds” - such as vitamins and antioxidants – than nonorganic produce. Further details, which it is hoped will finally put to rest the ongoing debate about organics versus conventional food, will be released over the next 12 months.

‘our world’

“Long before science could tell us why certain farming methods would produce greater crop yields, organic farmers were learning the hard way what worked and what didn’t - and sharing their knowledge with others.”– David Suzuki, Canadian geneticist and environmental activist, August 2005.

“Chemicals are a substitute for human labour.” - Shane Heaton

Would you believe me if I told you I hate lettuce?!

Nancy Penningstorf and Jodi Murray at the Murray property at Coleambally, NSW.

In Australia the organic industry is flourishing. Wholesale companies report a 15-20% growth per year. Scott Kinnear, spokesman for the Biological Farmer’s Association, under whose umbrella sits the country’s largest organic certifiers, Australian Certified Organic and Organic Growers of Australia, says that people come to organic food for a range of reasons including health, taste (higher levels of antioxidants and micro nutrients add flavour to food), environmental concerns and the slow food philosophy, which focuses on traditional methods of growing and cooking food. “When we first opened our shop in Melbourne in 1990 we had just two main groups of customers – those who were environmentally aware and those who were ill and/or had a relative who was ill,” says Kinnear. “Today the fastest growing group is families. Having kids is a strong motivator to eat well.” Pierce Cody, founder of Macro Wholefoods supermarkets, which have taken the organic movement mainstream, has been forced to double the size of aisles that carry baby related products due to the increasing demand. Cody, whose 10 stores – and growing – take a tidy slice of the estimated $450 million local organic food market, refers to his customers as “conscious consumers” and talks of them scrutinizing the labels and interrogating the lists of ingredients.

Shane Heaton, a nutritionist and organic researcher, believes that there are several drivers behind the growing push to organics. Among them he says is the move away from food additives off the back of a study by the University of Southampton in the UK that proved a link between food additives and hyperactivity in children. Another, he says, is the concern about genetically modified food. “There are multiple reasons why organic food is preferable to conventional,” he says. “Yes there are more nutrients on average in organic produce, yes there are fewer food additives, yes there are lower pesticide residues and then there are many other lesser known issues, such as those surrounding the health of farmers and their immediate community. “Studies have come out that have shown negative health implications of the use of pesticides on farmers, workers and their families and there are wide reaching implications when you farm in an unsustainable way that it leaves a toxic legacy for future generations, wildlife and the environment.” Heaton, a graduate of the UK’s respected Institute for Optimum Nutrition, says, “the key thing with pesticides is that they are regulated in a very narrow way”. “They are assessed individually and we are exposed to them in combinations. The testing for pesticide residues in Australia in foods that people buy – the testing is haphazard and not made easily accessible to the public.

Pick me an orange!

He refers to a landmark paper showing the subtle yet highly disturbing effects of pesticides on children published in 1998 by Elizabeth Guillette and colleagues, in which she used anthropological and standard pediatric assessments of children to assess the impact of pesticide residues from food and the environment on their health. Guillette compared children in two nearby isolated villages in Mexico, one in which pesticides were routinely used in their farming, and one on which they were not. Everything else was the same between these two villages – genes, diet, lifestyle, climate, culture, etc. To assess the children’s cognitive development she measured eye-hand co-ordination, shortterm memory, and the ability to draw a person. These are standard anthropological assessment tools. What she found was an impaired cognitive development in the children in the village that routinely used pesticides, as demonstrated by these efforts by four and five-year olds to draw a person. One particularly disturbing fact, says Heaton, is “every now and then another pesticide is banned that up until that day we were all assured was perfectly safe”. “So now consumers are increasingly not waiting for the regulators and science to catch up with their intuition that eating pesticides isn’t a good idea. Increasingly they are choosing organic food, and while it is still a niche market it is growing faster than any other segment of the food market.” Kinnear maintains that the European Union funded

study, which has just been released, fills an important gap because while the environmental benefits have long been acknowledged proof that organic food is better nutritionally could until now not be produced. On the issue of the high cost of organic foodstuffs Cody explains that yield per acre is a lot less in organic agriculture. “An organic orchard doesn’t use pesticides but that doesn’t mean that bugs don’t come,” he says. “They have to put nets over the fruit so they make up for chemical input with man hours.” “Chemicals are a substitute for human labour,” says Kinnear. “For example, weeding carrots using chemicals will cost $1000 a hectare. But doing it organically with human beings being paid $17 an hour will cost $10000 a hectare.” Heaton does not buy the argument that people cannot afford it. Pointing out that Australian Bureau of Statistics data on household spending reveals that the average Australian house spends more on junk food, cakes, sweets, soft drinks and ice cream than on fruit and vegetables he says, “organic consumers come from the full socio-economic spectrum – from the very poor to the wealthy – so it is not about household income – it is more about health consciousness”.

by Jill Fraser

‘our world’

Darrow family, Mt Gayndah Ecofruit Pty Ltd at Gayndah, Queensland.

Advertising feature

advert

“Their stories draw me in and enrich my life.” - US donor

Changing the world one loan at a time

More than a quarter of a million people have signed up to donate money to small businesses in developing countries through a website that has the potential to change the world.

Kiva founders, Matt and Jessica Flannery.

omething special is happening on the internet. There’s a growing connection between the world’s more fortunate – those in the West with jobs and homes who never go hungry – and poorer people who have no social security, who struggle to feed their families and for whom life is a lottery. In 2005, Matt Flannery and his wife Jessica founded Kiva, an internetbased not-for-profit website that links individual donors with people in developing nations needing a lowinterest loan to start or grow a small business or a home. Loan amounts start at just US $25 – and the money is usually repaid within a year, when donors can choose to withdraw the funds or loan them to another Kiva loan applicant. Three years on, Kiva has attracted more than 250,000 donors who together have loaned US $25 million to nearly 40,000 people in developing countries, helping improve their lives. The beneficiaries are people like Grace Ayaa, in Uganda, raising seven children (four of her own and three orphaned by civil war). Her peanut-butter making business supports her family and some years after fleeing her war-torn northern home, she has bought some land, she is building a house and educating all of her children, thanks to a Kiva loan of $475 that allowed her to grow her business. It doesn’t take much to change someone’s life. One entrepreneur featured on the site last month was Ifeanyi Abanim, a 28-year old Nigerian father of one who

has been selling yams at the market in Benin City since 2004. He’s applied for a loan of $700 to buy more yams and has promised to repay the loan in full in eight months. When I checked last, ten donors had raised $300 of the necessary money for Ifeanyi. Ifeanyi’s donors included Doug, a social worker from Missouri in the US; Francois, a French doctor; Catherine, a Canadian engineer; and Jim, a Minister of Religion from Sydney, Australia. Kiva is based on what economists call “microcredit” – very small amounts of money loaned at a token interest rate, allowing poor people to set up a small market stall or buy seeds to grow food or equipment to make goods for sale. Microcredit has become increasingly popular with major charities – but it’s not charity, it’s a loan. The borrower gains a new dignity when they repay their loan – and the charity gains the practical advantage of receiving back more funds to make another person’s dream come true. Few finance options were available to these people in the past; banks don’t loan small amounts to poor people with little collateral and local private moneylenders are often ruthless criminals charging exorbitant interest. The international microcredit movement began in 1976 when Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus went to some of the poorest homes in the village of Jobra and loaned around US $27 to 42 women (around 64c each), so they could buy bamboo they used to weave furniture. The group were soon able to repay

the loan and all went on to become independent business owners. Soon after, Yunus set up Grameen Bank, specialising in small loans to groups who act as coguarantor for each other. By mid-2007, the bank had loaned US $6.3 billion and had a very high (98 percent) payback rate. Yunus was the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner and micro-credit adopted by most major charities as an effective and dignified program to help the poor. When Matt and Jessica Flannery visited villages in rural Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda in 2004, they were struck by the positive impact on communities made by hundreds of micro-credit financed small businesses. The couple returned to the US with a great idea – to create a website that allows individual donors to connect with and loan money to small businesses in the developing world. Kiva links donors to existing microfinance organisations in any of 42 countries. Over the course of the loan, donors receive email updates about the sponsored business – including photos and loan repayment progress. But the individual connection sparks something deeper through the emailed progress reports. Another of Ifeanyi Abanim’s donors is Kay, an American who lives in Maryland. She explains, “I can think of few other things as meaningful as making these loans. The pictures and stories draw me in, enrich my life, and open my eyes.”

by Fran Molloy Visit www.kiva.org

‘our world’

Sometimes people just need you to lend them a hand

Chapter 5. allthingswise

‘words of the wise’

ow right at the start of this article I need to admit that the only thing I passed in school was recess so you will have to excuse me if my technical explanation is a bit basic when it comes to explaining DNA. Each of us has DNA that makes us who we are. DNA is a structure that carries information that makes up an individual. That is why each of us is different in a way to the next person. So in reality we are all different, which then brings me to writing this article. When it comes to success, I believe that we all have our own success DNA as well. By that I mean, instead of trying to be like someone else, copy what others have done, or learn how they did it, maybe we should just concentrate on trying to understand our own success DNA. I am constantly talking to people about how they can get to reach their particular goals. It shocks me how many people seem to think that their success is going to come by doing it someone else’s way instead of making it work themselves. Now this is a natural way to think if you don’t understand that you have your own success DNA within you. Your success DNA is what makes you reach those goals regardless of how other people reach them. Remember the Frank Sinatra song “I did it my way?” That is exactly how you need to approach success. Sure, there will be a whole lot that you won’t know or understand along the way. That will be the case in anything that you are trying for the first time. But don’t let that stop you from starting. When I started my first business, Attitude Inc, I had no idea what I was doing. To be honest I didn’t really think that it would go very far, but seeing as I was going to give it a crack, I figured that I would just do it my way and see where that led me. The result was a pretty good one, I must admit. The right way to reach success is the way that works and the wrong way is the way that doesn’t. That may sound very simplistic, but it is the truth. That is why you need to trust and believe that you have your own success DNA. Once you start experiencing some success, I guarantee

Justin Herald that it will spur you on to try harder and harder. Copying other people will only lead you to frustration. Just because someone else makes a success with their lives doing it a certain way does not mean that you will experience the same success by copying them. You have to put your own stamp of ownership on your own success. I bet that you will be amazed at the results you could reach by doing things your way. The problem is that many people don’t understand that they have their own success DNA within them in the first place. So instead of trying to find out what the new methods or theories are when it comes to you starting towards your own success, why not back yourself and try it your own way. You may actually have all that you need right now. All that is needed is a bit of self belief and a lot of ticker. Success is not for the select few; it is for the ones who go out and get it their way.

by Justin Herald Justin Herald is an entrepreneur, motivational speaker and best selling author. Visit www.justinherald.com

“Stamp your ownership on your sucess.” - Justin Herald

Copying others’ methods for success will only lead to frustration.

‘words of the wise’

Find your success DNA

A little inspiration goes a long, long way. Until you value what you already have, money will be a fleeting presence in your life, says Dr John Demartini, in this exclusive extract from his new book, The Riches Within – Your Seven Secret Treasures.

“I just wanted to spread the love.” - Dr John Demartini

Love what you have

“Riches serve a wise man but command a fool.” — English proverb

Dr John Demartini: many people are already rich without knowing it.

y debut in the world of professional speaking took place in my own apartment. I’d invited a group of people over to hear me talk, and I poured my heart into it. At the end, I thought my speech had been inspired and I’d done a great job – and sure enough, everyone congratulated me. “You’re a natural!” they told me. “Keep it up!” they encouraged. “You’ll go far!” they predicted. After everyone left, I went to collect my financial rewards from the bowl I’d labeled “Love Donations.” But when I looked inside, all I found was a lone $5 bill. In that moment, I realized that even though I’d been thinking that all I wanted to do was give and spread the love by delivering my message, I’d also been hoping – unconsciously and perhaps unrealistically – that people would be so moved by my words that they’d drop some serious cash into the bowl.

Your Financial Treasure #1: Inspiration Wealth originally meant “wellbeing”– and there’s no doubt that all of us would love to be whole and well with our being. Indeed, almost everyone I’ve met would love to be wealthy, and even those who are already well-to-do usually desire more affluence. Know that an abundance of wealth resides in you ready to materialize. And know that you have a great service to offer the world – every single person does. When you bring that service to your fellow beings, the reward soon follows. This was another important lesson I learned from my early days as a speaker: Your inspiration – that which aligns with your highest values and aspirations – will lead you to your greatest sources of wealth.

Don’t minimize yourself by thinking that you don’t have inspiration, you can’t bring it out, or you don’t deserve rich rewards. You do, you can, and you deserve a vast fortune for your unique contribution to the world. Think for a moment about Bill Gates, someone who clearly illustrates the most powerful way I know to create a fortune: Identify a huge need and fill it. How many people have used or at least have heard of Microsoft Windows? Billions. What Gates created affects how billions of people work and play. Granted, he’s deployed a complex business strategy for amassing his money, but initially, it grew from a germ of an idea – from his inspiration. Another effective approach is to focus on serving fewer people with a product or service of a high-dollar value. Essentially, these are the two practical approaches to generating large sums of money: Either serve lots of people with something that carries a moderate price tag, or serve a smaller market with a higher-ticket item. Notice that in either case, it’s about service – something that inspires you to serve. You have to put the centripetal and the centrifugal forces together. The latter is the force that generates from the inside; it’s your personal “axis,” the center of you moving outward to serve others. What would you love to bring to the world? Centripetal means the force that moves from the outer periphery in toward you – the center. What would those whom you’d love to serve desire to receive? What do they want?

The key questions for you to ask yourself are: What is my cause? What is my contribution? What would I love to offer to humanity? and What does the world need, want, or desire? I believe that finding something original deep down inside of you is worth any amount of money you’d love to have, but you have to draw it out by asking both, What would I love to give? and What do people need? I wonder what would happen if you were to ask yourself those questions and not stop until you came up with an answer that was worth a billion dollars . . . want to find out? Dig deep! Explore until you’ve found something you know you can contribute that people truly need or want. Meanwhile, start to affirm yourself with: I am a multimillionaire money magnet! Everything I touch turns to gold. I deserve the abundance and wealth that surround me. Use the Words of Power at the end of this chapter to transform your automatic thinking about how you relate to money. At the same time, live every day in a humbled state, asking your inner voice and vision to guide you to ever-greater causes and services. Watch your inspiration as it creates a higher appreciation of money, an improved evaluation of yourself, and an abundance of money flowing in your life.

‘words of the wise’

All right, I admitted to myself, I guess I would love to make some real money at this. So the next time I had people over to hear me speak, I put a label on the bowl that said, “Minimum Love Donation: $5.” I also placed the bowl in a much more prominent spot in my living room. Once again, I received wonderful encouragement from the people who came to listen, and this time, there were three $5 bills in the bowl. That qualified as a definite improvement, but it still wasn’t even enough to keep the lights on in my apartment for the next month. On the following attempt my label said, “Minimum Love Donation: $10,” and the donation bowl remained front and center. At the end of my speech, I even mentioned that I’d appreciate contributions, and that day I collected a few $10 bills. Only a small number of people had “shared the love” in cash. So I changed my label again, and this time it said, “Minimum Fee: $20.” And that day, almost everyone paid me. My lesson? Until you value yourself, you can’t expect anyone else to do so. Declare what you’re worth. It’s now time for you to recognize your worthiness and acknowledge your magnificence. This is the first step to fully revealing your financial treasures.

Your Financial Treasure #2: The Wealth You Already Have If you’ve completed the exercise in the previous chapter, then you know what your values are and what ranks the highest. You need to look no further in order to find your greatest cache of wealth – it’s manifested in your highest value. This means that you pour your resources into what’s most important to you; and not only do you honor this value with your time, attention, and intention, but you also honor it with your money. In this way, the value flourishes in your life – you experience richness in whatever value is highest for you. In what area of your life do you experience abundance, luxury, and richness? Is it in your health, your spiritual life, your intellect, or in your relationships with family members or friends? If you earnestly consider it, where in your life do you already experience great riches? The amazing wealth you already have – whatever form it may take, including cash – is the direct result of your values. Remember, you don’t have to choose between financial treasures and what’s most important to you. The idea, for example, that you can’t be spiritually rich and financially prosperous rests on an illusion that spirit and matter are separate – a misperception that I’ve attempted to put to rest both in the previous chapter and in my book How to Make One Hell of a Profit and Still Get to Heaven.

In fact, unless you highly value solvency or cash itself, you’ll automatically convert all of your money into whatever is more valuable to you. For example, if your children ranked highest on your values list, that’s where your money would go: shelter, food, clothing, education, and experiences for your kids. Likewise, if your business topped the list, you’d no doubt buy equipment, take professional courses, subscribe to trade magazines, and so on – all in order to grow your business. Here’s an important caveat: If you don’t put a relatively high value on ready money or some other form of positive cash flow, then you can quickly and easily purchase your way into debt – a subject I’ll address shortly. Let’s face it: You’re wise to value affluence in the society in which we live. I’m not encouraging you to become infatuated with money and financial wealth and become so greedy that you won’t do anything other than hoard it. Yet this one principle – your values determine your financial well-being – tells you the difference between those who are wealthy in a conventional sense (meaning they have plenty of money for the lifestyle they’ve chosen, plus have accumulated enough in savings or investments to feel a sense of security) and those who aren’t. It isn’t how much money they make, but instead, it’s how they manage it. And management is all about one thing: values, which determine your priorities for spending, saving, and investing. There are people who make less than

$30,000 a year who save, invest, and wind up as millionaires; and there are people who make $30,000 an hour who go bankrupt. The bottom line is that you can learn all the principles of money management, but until you value what you’ve already got and place importance on the accumulation of financial wealth, money will be a fleeting presence in your life. Dr John Demartini is a best selling author and international speaker. Visit www.drdemartini.com

Billionaire mindset Our mindset shapes our beliefs and our beliefs determine our destiny.

“Success is the result of inner resourcefulness.” - Chris Howard

ome people seem to have a knack for sabotaging their own success. Why? Because they’re so busy looking for excuses for why they’re struggling. These are the individuals walking around saying, “I would start my own company, but I didn’t because… the bank wouldn’t give me a loan…because it didn’t work out last time so it probably won’t work out this time…because I don’t have a degree… because I never get a break….” It’s these individuals who are floundering in business, stuck in jobs they don’t like or frustrated about their lack of progress. Be careful when you use the word “because…” You may be positioning yourself as a victim of circumstance, rather than a winner by choice. If you’re currently not getting the results you want in any area of life, start by taking responsibility for your results. Then, expand what you believe is possible. You want to be on the cause side of the success equation, not the because. Donald Trump was once $900 million in debt when reporters came to him and asked, “what happened?” Unlike other business owners at that time, he didn’t blame the economy, or say it was because the real estate bubble had just burst, even though in fact it had. Trump simply said, “I took my eye off the ball. I stopped doing business the way I used to. So I got my eye back on the ball.” Then he immediately propelled himself right back into a prosperous position. He did it by assuming complete responsibility for his results, then focusing on all possible options. That’s the level of personal responsibility it takes to enjoy massive success.

What most people don’t realize is that their experience is a direct reflection of their consciousness. The point is, you can train your focus on ultimate success or failure, opportunities or difficulties, what you do want or what you don’t want. Either way, you will always get what you focus on. Most people are walking around in a trance of disempowerment, taking what they get, rather than going for what they desire. They haven’t tapped into their own innate ability to transform their beliefs, values, perceptions and mindsets to achieve outrageous results. One of the biggest keys to thinking big then is wrapping your head around the fact that you are the cause of your life, not at the effect of it. In his annual reports to shareholders, billionaire investor, Warren Buffett, talks openly about the biggest mistakes he made that year. Where a lot of people look to hide their mistakes or shirk responsibility, he is the epitome of a leader who takes responsibility for his failures, as well as successes. This trademark accountability is one of the biggest reasons people entrust him with their money. A billion dollar mindset is based in the personal conviction that you determine your own destiny. Once you’ve taken that giant leap in consciousness, expand your habitual thinking beyond its current frame. When Donald Trump walks down a street in New York City and he looks at a building, he sees a potential investment. The vendor serving coffee on the street corner looks at the same building and sees only the corner where he can set up his kiosk. They’re both businessmen. The only difference is—one is thinking in terms of a multimillion dollar investment from which thousands of tenants will pay him residual income over the next decade or more. The other one is thinking in terms of how many passers-by may pay will get the bigger results every time?

Christopher Howard

The one who has expanded his thinking to include greater possibilities. Success doesn’t come from what resources you have access to; success is a result of inner resourcefulness. When Richard Branson was in high school, he was told he was dyslexic. While learning disabilities are considered by many to be perfectly valid reasons for being held back, Branson chose to see it differently. He said, “It’s one of the major reasons for my success. I had to get very intuitive in business, because I couldn’t read the financial statements.” Extraordinary people are those who spin every obstacle they have into an opportunity. We all have the same ability to break through the outer and inner barriers that sabotage our success. As long as you go out there approaching everything with the billionaire mindset, you are unstoppable.

by Christopher Howard International speaker and coach, Chris Howard is promoted in Australia and New Zealand by Universal Events, ranked No. 13 in BRW Fast 100 Companies for 2007. www.universalevents.com.au

.30am, managers meeting. The marketing manager wants agreement on a strategy to increase market share. She wants this strategic growth no matter how we get there. The accountant, who has been with you since day one, keeps reenforcing process; the way things were traditionally done. Things are very black and white for him. The HR manager shares concern on how growth will impact our people; we have to quickly up-skill them or find new people. She’s sensitive to the contributions the staff has made. She wants to know what everyone thinks about that problem. The production manager has been fairly quite and then he appears to blow his top: “All this talking and when are we actually going to do something?! I don’t know why I even come to these meetings!” You sit back and look at the glory of your staff. Each has been valuable in getting your business to where it is, but how in the world do you get them to work together effectively? I bet you know people like these.

And I’ll be surprised if you don’t see a little bit of yourself too. Imagine if you had rainbow coloured spectacles that allowed you to easily see how your colleagues, clients, friends and family thought – what their values were. Surely understanding that would give you an immense ability to effectively communicate with, motivate and truly understand others. In this article I’ll explain some of the differences of values, how to perceive what value set a person is operating within and how best to communicate with them so that not only are you truly understood, you understand. And from there, what won’t you be able to do? The values framework I’m referring to is Spiral Dynamics Integral (SDi). It is a significant breakthrough in understanding and managing complexity. That complexity can be a society, a company, a relationship and in its most elegant form: a human being. This complexity is composed of our diverse worldviews, our beliefs, and our very identities. At a societal level the framework was used in South Africa to help that country move through apartheid

Emergence of values codes in Individuals and Societies Stage Colour code Thinking

Cultural Manifestations & Personal displays

Turquoise

Holistic

Collective individuality; cosmic spirituality; earth changes

Yellow

Ecological Natural Systems; self-principle; multiple realities; knowledge

Green

Consensus Egalitarian; feelings; authenticity; sharing; caring; community

Orange

Strategic

Materialistic; consumerism; success; image; status; growth

Blue

Authority

Meaning; discipline; traditions; morality; rules; lives for later

Red

Egocentric Gratification; glitz; conquest; action; impulsive; lives for now

Purple

Animistic

Beige

Instinctive Food; water; procreation; warmth; protection; staying alive

Rites; rituals; taboos; superstitions; tribes; folk ways & lore

” 2002 Don Edward Beck, PhD. President, Institute for Values & Culture. Box 797, Denton, Texas 76202

without civil war. It is being used in the Netherlands to re-envision a healthy community including the influx of Muslim immigrants, a template of which could then be used across the EU. It is being used with the Israelis and Palestinians. It has been used in countless organisations both big and small including KPMG, Wholefoods, Foster’s, Boeing, Greenpeace, SAS (Scandinavian Airlines), The Victorian Police Board (Australia), World Vision, Australian banks and many more. In different realms of your life (work, family, sports/social groups, and spiritual communities) you are likely to have more dominant values. You will probably have a mix of all of these values, and for the most part they operate unconsciously. Increasing your awareness of these values groups, and tailoring your communication and interaction accordingly will result in greater connection, greater understanding and greater success in your chosen endeavours.

by Kimberley dC Odom Kimberly dela Cruz Odom facilitates evolution: personal, organisational and societal. She can be reached on Kimberly@Aurai-Integral.com. Find out more about Spiral Dynamics Integral at www.humanemergence.org

“Being aware of values, results in greater connections.” K. dela Cruz Odom

Recognising and understanding people values has helped countries avoid civil war and corporations grow their profits.

‘words of the wise’

Changing colour

allthingstravel Abruzzo boasts outstanding natural beauty.

Discover Abruzzo A

bruzzo lies in the centre of Italy and is bounded by the Adriatic coast on the one side and the region of Lazio (home of Rome) on the other. The region has an untouched rugged interior and is the only European region to assign one-third of its territory to parks and nature reserves. Majestic mountains, scenic rivers and lush green trees add to its mystery and beauty. The region takes in many medieval towns and the rugged Apennine Mountains running through the centre of Italy. The pretty town of Pescara on the Adriatic is a good base from which to explore the region. Featuring a shoreline that extends for more than 20 kilometres, Pescara is the major city of Abruzzo. It’s a popular vacation point for Italians and offers pretty beaches, wonderful food and a lively nightlife. Abruzzo’s lands are covered with olive trees, grape vines, fruit orchards and vegetable plots. The region’s appeal is enhanced by sumptuous local wines, principally Montepulciano d’Abruzzo. The wine is made almost exclusively with grapes from vines of the same name and is not dissimilar to gutsy Australian reds, which we love so much. Montepulciano d’Abruzzo can be compared to Cabernet Sauvignon, because it is lush with robust flavours. Soft tannins help to give Montepulciano d’Abruzzo body and like great Australian wines, it is a pleasure to drink because it offers so much fruit flavour. It’s more approachable than other Italian reds like Chianti or the famous Barolo and it’s just as good. Over the past few years, the Montepulciano variety has been successfully introduced into Australia along with other Italian wines, including Sangiovese, Barbera, Nebbiolo and Pinot Grigio. While traditional French varietals Chardonnay, Shiraz, Riesling, Cabernet Sauvignon, Sauvignon Blanc and Merlot have dominated wine consumption, Australians are now enjoying Italian varieties which go so well with food. Trebbiano is another fresh white wine grown in Abruzzo which has been adopted by Australians.

Abruzzo is a striking region of Italy with an abundance of good food, wine and unspoilt beauty.

allthingstravel

Gees this is a popular place to build...

Vineyards of Abruzzo.

by Nicki Bourlioufas 58

Other common grape varieties grown in the hills of Abruzzo include Sangiovese, which is typically blended with Montepulciano d’Abruzzo to produce a gutsy red. Abruzzo also hosts an indigenous grape variety Pecorino, from which a fine white wine is made. Many of the wineries in Abruzzo provide for the opportunity to taste at their cellar doors. Within easy reach of Pescara is the cooperative winery Cantina Tollo (www.cantinatollo.it) where you can taste from a broad selection of local wines. The quality will astound you and prices for a DOC Montepulciano d’Abruzzo start from just $4. You can also try local Chardonnay, which in recent years has been adopted into Abruzzo’s vineyards and is made in a similar style to Australian Chardonnays. Another winery located in the hills of Pescara and worth a visit is Bosco Nestore, where you can book a tour by telephone or email (visit www.nestorebosco.com). For detailed information about local wines and wineries, the town of Ortona, just south of Pescara and the home of the regional wine centre of Abruzzo, ‘Enoteca Regionale d’Abruzzo’. While the Slow Food movement was born in Tuscany, it has spread to other Italian towns in Abruzzo. Another member is the beautiful town of Francavilla al Mare, 10 minutes south of Pescara on the Adriatic. The town hosts an abundance of seaside restaurants and a walk through its tree-lined streets reminds one of Noosa – but with the elegance of a European city. Again, the restaurants offer the best of Italian cuisine right by the sea. If you feel like traditional dishes, “orecchiette con gamberi e zucchine” (typical regional pasta with prawn and zucchini), fish salad, “risotto alla pescatora” (rice with many types of fish), here is the place. Back in Pescara, activity is focused around piazza Rinascita, which spills onto the seafront and this is where you’ll find most of the town’s fashionable restaurants and bars. Start with an antipasto at any restaurant and you’ll be served unforgettable local cheeses including pecorino, salami and beautiful olives from the region, as well as proscuitto. Indeed, every meal in Abruzzo is a gourmet’s delight. The area is famed for its roast meets, Arrosticini, which is lamb grilled on skewers, roasted suckling-pig and wild pig or Cingale. Seafood is also abundant and the Italian favorites spaghetti vongole and seafood salad are on most restaurant menus. The good news is that Pescara is easier on the wallet than Florence, Venice or Rome. Main courses at sea-side restaurants start from as little as $8 or $9 and a large pizza from about $6 depending on what’s on top. Bars all over Pescara provide fantastic aperitif, or drinks served with a taste of local foods. A glass of wine typically costs around $6 and comes and with a selection of olives, delicate sandwiches, freshly baked pizzas, perhaps a serving of pasta or quiche and sometimes fresh carrots and celery sticks served with a local mayonnaise. If you’re after history, the nearest town of interest to Pescara is Chieti, a 20-minute drive away. This hill town offers remarkable views over land and sea, an imposing Gothic cathedral and the Museo Nationale Archeologico di Antichita, with its Bronze Age and Roman treasures. It’s also a good place to shop with cobbled streets lined with fashion boutiques. If you’re after an Italian holiday, and you haven’t been there already, Abruzzo offers so much – a tranquil Italian experience, a gourmet’s delight and delightfully beautiful countryside - all without a queue or crowd in sight.

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allthingssuperstar

Lee Kernaghan breaking the drought “There is more to life than just having a hit record.” - Lee Kernaghan

For Australian of the Year, Lee Kernaghan, giving is a spiritual experience.

onoured for his years of commitment to drought-ravaged rural communities, Australian of the Year and country music icon, Lee Kernaghan, insists that his generosity is just part of the Australian spirit and says his concept of giving can be summed up in a simple philosophy. “I have always felt that there has to be more to life than merely having a hit record, making a lot of money and going out and enjoying it. “If that’s all life is about I think I’d be feeling a bit short-changed by now,” declares the 42 year old singer/ songwriter, who over the past decade has raised more than a million dollars for country families in need and is described by Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd as “a genuine bloke” who has “rolled up his sleeves to make a real difference”. Kernaghan, whose awards tally 27 Australian Country Music Golden Guitars, making him the second-highest winner behind Australia’s king of country music, the late Slim Dusty, says for him giving “is almost a spiritual thing” that has its roots in sacred texts and practices. He refers to the Bible (Acts chapter 20, verse 35) where Jesus is quoted as saying, “it’s more blessed to give than receive” and inspirational speaker, Esther Hicks, who teaches that according to the ‘laws of the universe’ giving and receiving are integral parts of the one dynamic exchange. “If you give freely without expecting anything in return you’d be surprised at how things just magically appear,” chuckles Kernaghan.

Through drought relief concerts such as ‘Pass the Hat Around’ and the ‘Spirit of the Bush’ the Victorian-born singer who now calls Queensland home, emerged as the voice of awareness for the hardships in rural Australia. Eighteen months ago he became the patron of drought relief organization, Aussie Helpers, which was established in 2002 by Brian and Nerida Egan off the back of their own personal struggles. Kernaghan had been searching for a charity with which to become involved at a grass roots level and trawling the net one day he was stopped in his tracks by the Egan’s story. Brian Egan, a Vietnam veteran who had opted for life on a farm with wife, Nerida in an attempt to reconcile the severe depression and psychological scars that had been a legacy of the Vietnam war, only to lose the farm to drought and end up with nothing, created Aussie Helpers to fill a gaping hole neglected by other charitable organizations. “The big organizations that operate in cities were doing a great job but no one was going out and visiting farms and farmers on the ground,” says Egan. “We don’t use telephone chat lines. We actually visit. We pick an area out where we think people are in trouble and drive into every gate.” Loaded up with groceries and food for stock, but most importantly a compassionate ear and a willingness to sit and chat over a cuppa or a beer, the Egans – and now their band of 40 volunteers – travel to some of the most drought stricken townships around

thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a resilience in the people of this country that motivates me to just keep going.

Lee Kernaghan: compassion for the Aussie spirit of giving

allthingssuperstar

Australia talking with people who are doing it tough and need help. “Brian is probably better qualified than most to give advice because he has been through it himself,” says Kernaghan. “He has been able to find a ray of light through all his own worries and now he shines that light amidst all the darkness and turmoil out there.” After losing his farm Egan suffered co-morbid depression, which he describes as “not wanting to be here” and for three months lost the ability to speak and write. “I was so ashamed at what I had become I would hide in a cupboard whenever someone came to visit,” he says. Psychologists prescribed every antidepressant drug under the sun but they just made him sick. As a last resort one counsellor advised him to find people worse off than himself and help them. He began by working for a local charity but found them too narrow and judgemental so he and Nerida decided to start their own charity and Aussie Helpers was born. They started off with an old car and a box trailer visiting schools; taking Poppers, donated by Golden Circle and muesli bars donated by Kellogs to kids who had not eaten breakfast but soon realised that the real source of the problem was at home. So they commenced making up boxes of groceries and personal hygiene products and taking them to farm houses. “We’d just call in and say “g’day we’ve got a pressie for you – here you are” and start to take off but would end up sitting down in the kitchen having a cuppa and talking over their problems. “People open up because they know we work in a confidential manner,” says Egan. “There are no forms to fill in and no waiting lists, we just do it. If the kids need things for school or the stock needs food or bills need to be paid we work out what we can do and do it free of charge.” Today Aussie Helpers operates in five states, has 15 vehicles on the road and a host of sponsors and supporters that include Toyota, Paul Newman Foundation, Visy Board, Sidney Meyer Fund, Kirks Soft Drinks, Bessemer Cookware, broadcaster, Alan Jones, television personality, Kerri-Anne

Kennerley, Aussie Farmers Direct and Dilmah Tea. “I could never in my life have dreamt that it would expand into something like this,” says Egan, who lives off a veteran’s pension and works seven days a week for the charity, which he maintains has given him a purpose to remain here. “There is a huge suicide rate in the bush and people should know about it,” he says. “I’ll be honest, I have found people hanging in sheds on properties, gassed in cars. That’s what we are fighting for; to stop this happening and to give them a fair go. “I’m just an ordinary bloke who has found something that I can do,” he says, declaring his indebtedness to Kernaghan, whose involvement, he says, has been priceless.

Kernaghan shrugs off the compliment, saying; “when you have a family of your own you realize how important the family unit is and when I heard of ordinary hard working people who have given 200 percent and through no fault of their own are losing their livelihoods and their homes it got my attention in a huge way. “Brian and I share a common – a burning – desire to do all that we can to alleviate the pain that families in the bush are going through.”

by Jill Fraser Aussie Helpers www.aussiehelpers.org.au or 1300 665 232.

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Events calendar 2008 Universal Events:

Fast and lasting success with NLP. Breakthrough to Success Auckland: August 15-17 Perth: August 22-24 Melbourne: September 5 – 7 Sydney: September 12-14 Adelaide: September 26 – 28 Brisbane: October 3-5 NLP Results Certification Sydney: May 8 – 14 Melbourne: May 18 – 24 Perth: May 27 – June 2 Brisbane: June 5 – 11 Auckland: June 15 – 21 Adelaide: December 4 – 10 NLP Master Results and Performance Consultant Certification Sydney: July 1 – 7 Perth: July 12 – 18 Brisbane: July 23 – 29 Melbourne: August 6 – 12 Auckland: October 19 – 25

Presentation and Platform Skills Melbourne: May 26-June 1 London: June 13 – 19 Sydney: November 1 – 7 NLP Foundation Skills Melbourne: May 23 – 24 Sydney: October 28 – 29 Performance Revolution Perth: April 26 – 28 Sydney: May 3 – 5 Auckland: May 9 – 11 Melbourne: September 20 – 22 Adelaide: October 4 – 6 Brisbane: October 10 – 12 Billionaire Bootcamp Hawaii: March 2009 Scotland: July 18 – 24 Cairns: Qld, November 14 – 20 Design Your Destiny Brisbane: April 29 – May 1 Auckland: August 31 – Sep 2 Sydney: November 28 - 30 Wealth Symposium Sydney: June 6 - 8 All enquires to: info@universalevents.com.au

Global 1 Training

Secrets to Financial Mastery Melbourne: April 29 Brisbane: May 1 Perth: May 6 Sydney: May 13 Riches Within Melbourne: April 29 Brisbane: April 30 The Breakthrough Experience Sydney: May 3-4 Brisbane: May 10-11 Melbourne: May 17 -18 Perth: May 20-21 Preview Perth: May 5 Sydney: May 13 Master Planning for Life Sydney: May 14 - 16 All enquires to: 1300 883 842

Shift International Personal development for teenagers with Colin Lee. The Get Real Experience Canberra: April 26 – 27 All enquiries to: 1300 309 782

Lifestyle Trader

Share market trading and training with Aussie Rob. Computer Lab Workshop Gold Coast May 16 (3 days) Perth Investment Expo May 17 Gold Coast: May 30 (3 days) Gold Coast: June 1 ( 3 days) Gold Coast: June 13 (3 days) Gold Coast: June 28 (3 days) All enquiries to: 03 9893 4757.

Smart Property Investment

How property development works with Peter Comben. Learn To Be A Property Developer Sydney: June 21 Melbourne: July 26 All enquiries to: 03 9347 4757