Voice Over (00:00:02): Thanks for joining us for this small talk, big ideas podcast … A podcast to enrich your soul, where we have conversations with inspiring people about all things, property, business, and life. And now the host of small talk, big ideas. Ian Ugarte

Ian Ugarte (00:23)

Hi there. Welcome to Small Talk, Big Ideas. And today we’re talking to Jane Slack Smith. Who’s very well known in the property game as a full time property investor and teaches a lot of people how to do exactly the same thing she does coming from an explosive mining’s engineer, all the way through to actually being able to leave work and more importantly, for a husband to follow his passion of art. Please listen today to the amazing podcast of talking with Jane Slack Smith. I hope you enjoyed it and remember, subscribe and follow us on all the social media platforms and enjoy we’re here with Jane Slack-Smith from Investor Choice Mortgage and your property success. She’s been around the traps for many, many years. Hello, Jane, how are you, man? We’ve got this beautiful red head of yours that you’ve, um, you’ve gone through and that looks amazing. Tell me, um, people don’t know who you are, tell them, tell them what you do basically.

Jane Slack-Smith (01:19):

Oh, wow. Start with a big question. Um, you know, I allow people to, I guess, get to their full potential by using residential property to achieve their financial stability so they can move on and do what they want to do when they want to do it with whom they want to do and create intergenerational change.

Ian Ugarte (01:41):

Intergenerational changes. That’s a big one there because obviously people grow up and essentially become their parents. And if you can change one level of, um, generation, then that obviously impacts further on and talk about that with Corina, you’ve met Corina, I think, um, who came from a very, very low socio and I can see generations ahead of her now that she’s made an impact on that. Um, where did you grow up? Yeah,

Jane Slack-Smith (02:10):

I am similarly, I didn’t grow up with a silver spoon in my mouth. I grew up in Dubbo on a farm. My dad was a farm laborer. My mum was a nurse until, uh, you know, uh, an event meant that she couldn’t keep nursing. And so, you know, one of her passions was color and decorating. She became an interior decorator and helped people create some color and some lifestyle into their homes, especially, you know, large kind of, um, homesteads out in West central, Western new South Wales. And, uh, you know, they did it tough. We did it tough. We ate whatever dad grew. You know, we had one old roast lamb, three nights a week and chops four nights a week, whatever veggies were in the patch. But, um, you know, for me, I think the difference, you know, just talking about change and how you can employ your children and, and you know, what I try to do to serve others is that my mother always said to me, you know, just be the best that you can be and try your hardest.

Jane Slack-Smith (03:11):

And you know, if you, if you can do anything you put your mind to and except fly and with God’s help, you could even fly. And so, you know, my sister and I were really bought up with this belief that we could do and achieve anything and, you know, just get into university. We just didn’t have the money to get to university. I had to get a scholarship. So I remember, you know, sitting up with my parents writing like 150 letters to get a scholarship. And I got a scholarship as a mining engineer and I went and studied mining engineering, you know? And so you ended up working obviously all over Australia overseas as well. Um, I did a lot of visits overseas, so I started mining engineering for four years. Um, it was, it was a really interesting experience from a growth point of view.

Jane Slack-Smith (03:53):

I was the first female to work underground in coal mines. Everyone went on strike, you know, it was considered unlocked because of me. Yeah. So having a female underground was considered an unlucky and we’re talking 30 years ago here. Um, and you know, so like 1990, that’s not that long ago to have that full of thought processes going through people’s heads like seriously, but look, how far we look, how far we’ve come. It’s funny. I was talking to my son this morning on the way to school. And I was saying to him, you know, it’s something about, you know, what is it you would like to, to do on your school holidays? And he’s like, Oh, I can’t really do anything. I’m like, you can do whatever you put your mind to choose that, you know, I chose to be able to do something and I wasn’t aware of the barriers or obstacles that were come up.

Jane Slack-Smith (04:43):

It just never crossed my mind that it was illegal for women to be underground a month before I started working there, they changed the legislation. There was a bit of a union movement about it and, you know, they settled down. I went underground. You know, if I, my parents sacrificed a lot to send my self to, and my sister to a boarding school to have a better education. If we ever came home to the farm and felt we were a little bit better than anyone else, dad whacked me onto the plow for a few days, which are down to, you know, I was never, never expecting to, to be anything other than what I put my effort into. So, and I think that kind of mindset for me, I see so many people as you do struggle with, um, finances and money and you know, how they can just survive, not thrive.

Jane Slack-Smith (05:35):

And because they’re focusing on those things, not focusing on, you know, the vision of where they want to get to, you know, they’re passing that on to their children. And I think if I can just alleviate people of the money stuff, then imagine sitting down at the table and having conversations about things and about abundance rather than lack and worry. And how does that affect the children going forward? So, yeah, I definitely see myself in that as a little cog in that wheel of allowing that kind of abundance in the conversations and in the education that parents can pass on. Yeah. So you’re going to mining, how do you start getting into property? Um, well, I was an explosives engineer as an expert in explosives. So every single thing that I did was, you know, looking at risk, understanding your likelihood and consequence of things going wrong.

Jane Slack-Smith (06:22):

And I was 28. I was reading rich dad, poor dad thinking, you know, I do spend my time making money and I don’t have money working for me. I’m working to make money. It’s not working for me. So I was looking at, you know, how can I do things differently? And I then met my now husband Todd. And he was saying, Oh, you know, I used to mow the lawn. He had all these businesses as a kid in New Zealand. He said, I used to mow this lawn for this guy. And it was like 25. And he said, you’ve mowed my lawn really well. Do you want to come and do my other properties? And Todd’s like, how do you have all these properties? Is that the first one is the hardest, but once you’ve done that, you understand the process. You just, you know, just keep doing what you know, and get it right.

Jane Slack-Smith (07:07):

And he really inspired Todd, you know, bought a property and he had thought that you had to pay it off before you could actually move on to the next one. And so we were having this conversation about, you know, it just working, working, how do we get out of this and started doing that to our free seminars that people were throwing at us read 120 books on property. It wasn’t a minimized risk. And I started thinking if I could bring my explosive skills to property, then I’d be comfortable. And my boss used to say, can you just buy a property once you have a mortgage? I know that you’re stuck with me for life. And I was like, I don’t want to be stuck. So, yeah. So I just, I started thinking, how can I minimize the risk? And so I developed, what’s now the Trident strategy.

Jane Slack-Smith (07:51):

So I thought if I can have a plan, a, B and C in case I get something wrong, then you know, I can, um, really understand how I can create the vision that I want for myself and my family. So, you know, the child and strategy was essentially buy below the market by researching and knowing the market and negotiating well, adding, taking the property to a higher and better value. And for me, that was through renovation and the third was being in a capital growth area. So then I knew that that property was going to go up in value. So for me, just having those three things, I stuffed one up, you know, always had the growth potential to fall back on. So, you know, I really did a lot of study and research around just the mechanism and procedure of getting it right. And that’s how I got into property.

Jane Slack-Smith (08:37):

It sounds so simple now the Trident method, but obviously, you know, you were first to think about it in a different way and brought it forward. So what was the actual first investment property that you bought? Well, the very first investment property was, so we created like a, um, a ring of 10 kilometers around Melbourne. We got rid of all the suburbs we couldn’t afford. We then started doing research into the suburbs we could afford and looking at what would drive growth here. So I tried to get an understanding of demographics and I thought, well, if I go back to history and see what’s happened in the last 20 years to all the suburbs in Australia and what drove growth with those and applied it to the suburbs, and if they had the same kind of filtering, then I’m kind of like reducing our risk.

Jane Slack-Smith (09:22):

So we chose three suburbs in Melbourne, Carlton, Fitzroy, and Collingwood. And did you know, every weekend went to every auction of the typical property that the typical person wanted a went to one open house for rentals for every 10 that I looked at to buy, to make sure that I knew what the renter wanted as well, and to vet, you know, the rental agencies. And so it was just, you know, walking the talk and we drove down this beautiful street and we’re like, one day we are going to live in that house. And you know, we’re going to live in this street. This is like, this is the end goal. And, um, that one day came soon. And the way I expected the opportunity came up, there was two properties going up side by side. I was very singular in the mindset that I wanted to be able to create my own wealth and understand how to do that.

Jane Slack-Smith (10:09):

So I wanted to invest separately from Todd. So we’re both looking for properties in the same area, two properties, one bill of sale. Uh, did all the research, did the Residex is on them, understood what the issues were, you know, did the pest and building. And we got down to this auction and the most I could do was like four 27. And, you know, Todd had a little bit higher price point. So the auctioneer was selling the both at once. It was like nine 89 90. And we went, it was knocked down to us and we went into negotiate and Smith. This is how much it’s gonna cost us to do the work. And this is this. And, and at the same time, there was a couple of QCs out the front saying to real estate agent, whatever those kids want, they won’t be able to afford this, whatever they put in as the price we’re putting 10 grand more and to the real estate agents credit, they didn’t take that.

Jane Slack-Smith (10:58):

They negotiated with us. And so I ended up with a $425,000 property. I borrowed $50,000 and did a renovation. And nine months later it was worth $700,000. And it’s worth like 2 million today. Well-played well-played. Um, and so for your husband, um, he was in he’s, uh, was in it. Yeah. Yeah. So he was in it didn’t love it. He had, had done like seven years at uni is an economist and political history and, you know, really wanted to do something in that vein. But, you know, graduated when there was no jobs in New Zealand joined a management company and management consulting company. They put him in it and that was his box. And all he wanted to do was paint. He paints, um, portraits. He, you know, and with property, um, you know, by the time it was, was 40, he was be able to, was able to give up his it job.

Jane Slack-Smith (11:56):

And he just paints and just loves her paints or paints for fun. Now, doesn’t he? Yes. He paints, however, he does sell stuff. He does. He does. He really, um, if you want to check it out, Todd Simpson, art.com.edu, but he just loves, um, he loves the process of taking something at the moment he’s doing a lot of urban scapes is taking something and looking at the beauty of it and putting it down. And then it’s just such a validation when someone else says, Oh, I want to buy this too. And it’s kind of like, when you renovate a house or you do a development or something, and you see something as like a blank canvas and you can create beauty and then other people appreciate it. So, yeah, it’s, um, you know, I just, I look at people who have chosen the vision and the path and what they want to achieve, and just think, you know, so many people guess get caught up into the mindset of blockages and lack and worry, and they don’t choose what they want to do and enhance their always, there’s always this tension and always this gap that they just can’t get over.

Jane Slack-Smith (13:03):

And I think, you know, looking at those who are successful and choose the success or choose the vision. And I know with my mentoring students, you know, our very first exercise we do is this vision exercise. And they, they cry after it. And I get really emotional cause for a lot of people, it’s, it’s something that they’d never been able to see before. And for others, it’s closer than they thought, you know, they, they waking up in the middle of the night worrying about their properties or money or their career, or, you know, how am I going to get the kids through school and all of these kinds of worries where they, they haven’t had a chance to actually sit back and go, what is it that I want? And if you, if you start then, you know, coming back to the current reality and saying, well, here’s the gap, here’s your vision. And here’s where we are now. Let’s just close the gap and you, and I know the property, part of that is a small part. We can, we can get people properties that will satisfied that need, but it’s the mental mindset of choosing that success often is where we do most of our work.

Ian Ugarte (14:05):

Yeah. I mean, it’s one of those things, isn’t it? I mean, looking, looking at your husband Todd’s website, now people could, could, um, be confused and think that this is photography, but this is actually airbrushing. Um, these aren’t photos, they felt I realistic art, um, and, uh, all for sale like that, that one right up the top there, Darren, the one with the trim right at the top, um, Kip gang all the way up. Yeah. Uh, that one there, that one, there, it looks amazing, you know, with the blurring lights in the background and the trim and the front lock, that’s sitting here with me right now. I’m making the one where the tray, the one with the trays too. I liked that one. They are just there. That one there, that looks, that looks amazing too. Um,

Jane Slack-Smith (14:52):

how, how long did it take you? Oh, two to two to three weeks to do one of those and time. But the thing is that, um, when he does like the portraits, he starts with the eyes and I’ll walk up into his studio and there’ll be a blank canvas with just these incredible eyes. And if he doesn’t get it right, he scraps the canvas. It’s like the eyes of them and it’s soul to the, you know, the center to the soul. And if you don’t get that right. So he’s, he’s a perfection in what he does. And I think that that’s the one sitting behind you now, the, uh, Oh, that’s Nathan line. Yeah. He’s sitting here watching me between us. He turned up, uh, after the, I think it was 2020 or something. And he had been out all night celebrating and he was so hung over and this vein was just like POS.

Jane Slack-Smith (15:45):

There was like, and there’s another picture of him with his hands on his hat. And, and Todd was saying to him, you know, what’s the kind of image that you’d like to be portrayed with, or what’s something that you’re really proud of. And he was saying, you know, there was a moment then he was walking out onto the field in Dubai and it was hot and he’d been away from his family and he’d been traveling and he put his hands on his hat to connect to his inner vision, which was playing for Australia. It was the greatest highlight of his career. He was given his cap and slept with it under his pillow for three weeks. Like as a young kid playing for Australia was his thing. And he was so connected to this vision of what he wanted to achieve. And, you know, I just think that, um, I, you know, am recently, um, Brendan Nelson who is, you know, was in politics and with the, the war Memorial came to the studio and was painted for a pitcher that’s now in the Canberra portrait gallery.

Jane Slack-Smith (16:42):

And, uh, just talking to him, you know, he had this deep sense working with people in housing commission communities in Hobart that, and with indigenous people in Northern territory, that they weren’t getting a fair go and that the system was against them. And so he’d gone into the system to make things better versus the president AMA and then to politics. And, you know, he just had a deep sense of service. And so, you know, for me, property has been fantastic for us and, you know, we’ve been able to follow our dreams and what we want to do, but giving back and being of service to me, you know, that very first property allowed me to then pull money out and go and buy and do it again in Sydney. And we did it again and again and again. And, you know, once again between us, you know, we got to, um, enough properties to get in 2006 to go, this is enough for us.

Jane Slack-Smith (17:36):

You know, we don’t need lots more. This is, this is good. And you know what, what’s next? And for me, it was serving others and helping others. So I showed my friends how to do it. And then I thought, I need more friends. You know, they’ve now got their million dollar portfolios that are set them up. And, you know, investors twice mortgages for me was the first thing that I could do that allowed me to have the conversation with people about property, because I knew that the money was a facilitator for what they wanted to do, but getting the property right for me has always been the thing. And, and that allowed me to then get into, you know, um, learn more about myself and how I could help and serve others with education. And has that gone into, you know, your property success and the ultimate go to renovation and, and the courses and things, but it’s been, I think interesting, just seeing, you know, you get to a point where you’ve got the financial solidification of that foundation, and then it’s the choice of now, what do you want to do? And, you know, for tight, it was painting for me, you know, it’s about serving others and assisting others in that journey and trying to get people just have the mindset of it is possible. You know, there is so much more out there that you can do and achieve,

Ian Ugarte (18:52):

and yeah, it’s, you know, it’s a gift cause that’s the biggest mismatch we were talking about earlier. The biggest mismatch for people is that they just turn up there. They actually don’t have their envisioning place. And for some people, because they don’t have the end vision in place, it goes one of two ways. It’s either they struggle every day and they’re not thriving or they actually do thrive, but they continue to do, we need to do more and more and more, but they don’t have any reason why, why do I want to own 150 200, 300 properties? You know, it makes no sense to continue buying. And I think that’s both you and I had that same awareness to go well, enough is enough. Um, when can we start doing others? Um, and we still like you to continue to invest, but we don’t go hard at it. Talk about, you’ve done a lot of learning about vision and you know, where the place is going. How do you help others with that? It’s

Jane Slack-Smith (19:50):

in a few ways, you know, I developed the ultimate go to renovation course, which is no longer for sale, but, you know, um, you know, in 2012, because I wanted people to see the process. And I thought if people can see the process and see, you know, not just how to do the renovation, but how to buy the property strategically and see the entire thing that, you know, I could empower them to be able to get on the right path just with the first property. Cause I know if you got the first one, right, and you follow the bouncing ball, you’re good, you’re set, but it was still finding people making mistakes or, you know, or I was rescuing people, they’d come with, you know, three mining town properties or in one bedroom off the plan units. And I just kept having to rescue people.

Jane Slack-Smith (20:35):

And I was in that process of what could I do now? I’ve got a community of 30,000 people or, you know, what can I do to keep helping these people? And I’d be doing these monthly calls, which I’ve done now monthly since thousand and 12 and, you know, just helping the community with their biggest issues. And last year I was, um, served up in a, you know, a health event that I didn’t expect. And, you know, I had, you know, I know myself well and I knew that things weren’t right with me. And, and I kept saying, I’m putting on this weight and you know, I’m not feeling comfortable with myself. And the doctors say, Oh, you know, you’re approaching 50. That happens to web time is changing and it happens or whatever. And I’m like, I don’t think, Oh, I’m okay. But it just kept happening.

Jane Slack-Smith (21:22):

And I knew that wasn’t right. So I was persistent and I found out I had a brain tumor, um, Easter 2019 had Cushing’s disease, which means it’s a brain tumor in the pituitary gland. So a lot of people, it’s a very rare to be diagnosed and a lot of people might have thyroid issues or they might have diabetes and the doctors fixed one thing, but then they get another thing. I was so fortunate cause I just knew my body so well that I was like onto it before I had any of those issues. Anyhow. So I had it whipped out as awkward. And I remember laying in hospital and uh, well actually I went through the surgery and I thought, you know, I want to come out of this better and a better person. So I started doing some meditation beforehand and I’ve been a meditator and practicing meditation for years.

Jane Slack-Smith (22:09):

And uh, and I visualize, I found this, uh, post-surgery visualization. They essentially said, just visualize that the blood moves away from where the surgeon has to go. They go in, cut it out and it’s all good. And so I got into recovery and as I was waking up the surgeons, they’re going, like, I expected this to take three to four hours. It was amazing. The blood moved away, I cut the little thing out and it’s two hours you’re out. And so I was laying there in recovery. And after about half an hour, the nurses start asking you the questions and this nurse was saying, you know, so what are you doing? I said, well, I help everyday Australians, you know, just get to have financial security so they can live to their full potential and get on with life and create intergenerational change. And she’s like, can you say that again?

Jane Slack-Smith (22:51):

Slower? I was like, Oh, okay. And she said, how do you do that? And I was like, well, you know, there’s fundamental ways of how and where to buy property. It’s a known thing. Like it’s not a secret. I just help people do it. She said, Oh, I’m going to buy a house. But this house and land package I’m about to buy me. No, no, no. And so I was like, okay, so you need a fundamental of, you know, infrastructure and growth potential. She said, wait a second. This is other nurses. So these three other nurses come in. So in recovery, after brain surgery, I was doing this like master class for these nurses. And so in the subsequent 10 days laying in hospital, I did maybe four or five more mass classes, the nurses and I was sitting there going, there’s all these first home buyers who aren’t thinking strategically like investors, I can serve them.

Jane Slack-Smith (23:34):

So I got out and did 10 episodes of the first home buyer show with first home buyers go to watch their wealth grow. Cause I thought I can really serve these guys by using all this government stuff to get their first investment property under control. And then whilst I was laying in hospital, I thought, what if my brain doesn’t work again, I’ve taught people how to do the ripple effect and their dot map that takes, you know, three to four hours. And then, you know, my filtering around vacancies and percentage of renters and stuff and all the demographic stuff to reduce their risk that takes like 12 to 13 hours. You know, what if I can’t, what if something happens and I can’t teach people how to do this as kind of 18 hours of staff. And so I engaged this programmer whilst I was laying in bed in the hospital, recovering and said Vinnies and in the Ukraine, I’m like, okay, I need to do a brain dump of how I do this.

Jane Slack-Smith (24:21):

Can you make this into a program algorithm seven seconds now to do that. So, you know, I’ve been able to, I guess, shortcut things and just get to simple solutions. Cause I know if I can get people through the property bit, then we can move on to the great stuff and they can be unleashed on the world to do things, not coordinating the jobs that they’re thinking about. And you know, you know, is this all there is, you know, and I think a lot of people during that covert pandemic have had that kind of is this it. And, you know, being able to, you know, with investor’s choice, mortgages, mortgage brokers, do the borrowing capacities and then they get that strategy call with me, you know, seven seconds let’s find out we, you combined that has some growth potential, then it has maybe some higher greater usages, you know, like what you’re doing or renovation like I’m doing as well.

Jane Slack-Smith (25:10):

So, you know, I think it’s just, there’s so many opportunities to come out of the challenges that allow you to say, put your hand up and go, well, who can I serve? You know, in the pandemic for me, I know there was a lot of mortgage brokers going, gosh, you know, no one’s buying properties. Our business is going to collapse. Let’s go refinance everyone. And I stood back and thought, you know what? I don’t think people need that. So I created the thrive, um, not just survive series with mindset coaches with, you know, homeschooling coaches with experts on releasing blockages on health and wellness and improving your immunity. Um, I’ve got a 12 year old kid teaching kids how to do YouTube channels. Had these two girls who stopped in as teenagers when worked in refugee camps to help people, you know, learn English. And I think for me, it was just supporting the community through getting them through and understanding where they were.

Jane Slack-Smith (26:03):

So, you know, for me, my higher goal is to serve others and help them reach their potential. And as you know, it’s not just property, that’s one part of it. You know, we have the opportunity and the luxury. And so I’m so grateful for the, um, I guess spotlight in some sense to help people actually think there’s something different that they can achieve themselves. Yeah. And, you know, gree with everything that you’ve said there, that it can be become simplistic, but it still needs someone to lead it and put it together. We met at a event, uh, and immediately realized that that, that

Ian Ugarte (26:44):

working forward was going to be an easy thing for both of us simply because the, this industry of the wealth creation industry, seminar industry is something that’s, um, that’s frowned upon by most people, you know, and you only have to look at some of the comments we cop on Facebook just because we’re advertising on Facebook and you know, we’re a scam. But the one thing that we spoke about was creating a, um, a whole bunch of people that would sit together in a, in a position of integrity and compliance. And we did talk about, can we, how can we create a standard? So that there’s a minimum standard for someone that gets on the stage that firstly has done it for a long time, secondly continues to do it. And thirdly actually has to put in every year or two years, some sort of, um, evidence that you actually are in the position that you’re sprouting. Um, but you know, I, I just, what, what I’ve seen lately is experts popping out of the, what they call themselves experts, um, popping out of the woodwork because they’re good at social media. How do you use C uh, so you’ve clearly your pivot during pandemic, um, was, uh, very much similar to ours. How do you see moving forward, these experts in the industry going, um, do you think it would be a good thing? Do you think it’s a bad thing?

Jane Slack-Smith (28:05):

You know what? I think that, I think there’s a place for everyone. You know, if, if I looked at, cause I looked at the thousands of people who’ve been through my education or mortgage business over the last 15 years. And I could see if I think of a graph in, I think of, you know, along the X axis, I had action and along the Y action access, I had knowledge, you know, there’s people who take fast action. Like they’re like, Oh, we’re buying in New Zealand because there’s no capital gains tax we’re buying in the USA because we can buy something for 50 grand I’m, you know, doing, you know, options or flipping or, you know, they’d like the next thing. And they get a group of people beside each other going, did you try this? Did you read this? Did you see this and that, you know, they are doing this.

Jane Slack-Smith (28:50):

And then, you know, a lot of the wealth creators are in that space. And then we have the others who are doing the education. They’re not taking any action, but gosh, they knowledgeable because they’ve done all of these courses and they they’ve, they’re talking to each other. And then these are the real nurturers they’re out there and they’ve got their own group. And someone was saying, Oh, did you, did you read this article? And everyone has this big chat about this article. And then you have the cynics, no knowledge, no action. They’re kind of our, if you think of a hero’s journey, they’re kind of like the guardians. And a lot of them are coming from a position of fear for themselves, but they put that on you. As you know, I’m fearful that something had happened to you. They’re actually coming from a good place mostly.

Jane Slack-Smith (29:30):

And then we have the people who get knowledge and take action. And sometimes you have to go through the process of taking some action and maybe following the wrong person and getting it wrong, to realize that an investment in time B and money with an expert will actually get you to where you want to go. So sometimes I think people, you know, I know right in the beginning I was going to these free sessions and people were saying, you’re going to have to pay $500 for a course that could teach you how to do this. And I was like, I’m not paying 500 bucks for that. Whereas now, if someone said to me, I will create for you a $3 million property portfolio that will be done and dusted in the next three years. You don’t have to think about anything other than getting on with life.

Jane Slack-Smith (30:18):

And in 15 years time, you’re going to have the money to retire, to do every single thing that you want, but I’m going to charge you a hundred grand for it. And I’ll be like only a hundred grand, like 50, where do I get the two 50 different question? But Jeremy, like, so I think that sometimes you have to go through it. So when I see these experts pop up, I do hate, and I wish I had the health events. So challenge. It was an opportunity to learn more. It was an event that occurred to me and it didn’t happen to me. It happened and I responded to it and I’ve come out the other side going, you know, there’s only two things that I’m going to put my, my mental effort into the first thing that goes over. Everything up the top is family and my own personal health, health Jane project, Jane get better, you know, but then I have mortgages and mentoring and I’m sick of saving people.

Jane Slack-Smith (31:11):

Sometimes they have to go through the process to know that they could invest somewhere else. And hopefully at that time, you know, my voice or my platform or whatever, I say, something that resonates with them, but I get that. It doesn’t, it doesn’t gel with everyone and that’s just mine. And that’s why there’s other experts out there. And, you know, I know with mortgages, we have this conversation every week with the mortgage company and we will, we’ll be like, is this something that we are in our integrity we’re prepared to do? And we do not have to write a line to eat, but some people do. And I look at my mentoring students, if I can’t get them, their initial investment back in the first year or 10 times that in 10 years time, I don’t even start the relationship, you know, because I have, and some of them are doing it tough on a single income, bringing up a single kid.

Jane Slack-Smith (32:03):

Some of them are high execs in, in, um, banking companies. And, you know, it’s just a small group of people. They get me one on one, but if I’m going to put all my effort and time and energy in making that kind of vision for them, then I need them to make a commitment and, you know, financial commitments and exchange of energy that allows that. And I don’t make an apology for that, but you know, I need them to put the time and effort into, it’s not like turn up to a course, here’s my money. And you do it to me. I need people to be involved. And I think a lot of those people that you just mentioned that are turning up and say, throw me the money. People gonna throw money at them, but they’re not going to get the result. And they’ll keep looking for someone who they can. And I think that’s when cream rises

Ian Ugarte (32:48):

eventually. Yeah. I mean the one thing that for me, a couple of points from what you just said, the first thing is that I had one person come to me years and years ago. He’s now a proclaimed expert in the area that he’s, you know, he puts himself out there. Um, but the first thing he said to me after joining was y’all going to make me rich. And I went, Oh, so from now on, I have to actually ask some questions before someone, because that’s not what you’re here for. It’s here for you to take action on that. You mentioned the hero’s journey. It’s something that you teach and something that I continue to teach as well. Um, I get down to pop up the hero’s journey, uh, cause you’ve got the celebrity’s journey and the hero’s journey in itself as well. I love the hero’s journey because it doesn’t matter at what circumstance you are in anywhere your life in any place, whether you look over at 30 years or you look over the last 30 hours, you can always find a hero’s journey. Do you want to talk about that and why you have an affinity to it?

Jane Slack-Smith (33:45):

Yeah. Yeah. And it came from my mentor. I’ve invested heavily in mentors, myself and your mind mentor had had, you know, really solidified this kind of journey for me. And I think, you know, you watch all the great TV shows or movies or whatever star Wars. Everyone has a bit of tension and they start with the tension and I think there’s something else and they’re not too sure what it is. And then there’s these guardians that try to stop you and pull you back and you have an obstacle you have to get over. And then there’s a huge final kind of release of energy, maybe a big fight or revelation or challenge that you face. And then you get to the other side. And I, and the only thing that I think about the hero’s journey that I, I don’t, I don’t think you need to buy into is the conflict.

Jane Slack-Smith (34:33):

I think you can look at it and go, you know, things and obstacles and challenges will come up and there are learning experience. And there’s an opportunity for you to choose how you accept that. Is it, are you accepted as someone who’s a victim or you succeed, you accepted as someone, if it’s taking this as a curious point of, uh, education to the next stage. And I think, you know, that connection of the hero’s journey for me is I just, as I said, I just love these vision. Cause I get to see the vision on this visualization that we do in the future life. We come back and we cost it out and we get, put the path for the person to achieve that. And there’s this awakening and their eyes get brighter and there’s this life in the energy of it. So for me, the hero’s journey is, is one that allows us to, to create the storyline of what could be happening at the time. But it’s about becoming the hero of your own story and understanding what you’re trying to achieve. And you know, that connection, just a lot of people just miss that.

Ian Ugarte (35:34):

Yeah, for sure. And you know, what, what I love about the hero’s journey is they, you know, once you cross that threshold, so for us, it’s all about supporting people to get to the point, you know, so they, you know, they, they, life, they find the mentor, they reject the mentor, the calling after the calling comes and they get to the point where they crossed the threshold. But it’s that threshold point, those people that attend every free seminar and those people that attend and join every program they possibly can have never crossed the threshold. It’s the time where they finally go, I’m ready to commit to doing this. And I actually purchased a property or, you know, something that’s actually going to mean something to them once they’re there. That’s, that’s where the fun for me starts. Because up to that point in time, it becomes very difficult.

Ian Ugarte (36:19):

I’ve been working with this guy now and not having me working with him. He refuses the call consistently. He’s on every free webinar he can possibly get on that. I’m part of, and he’ll be on there the whole time. Oh, you know, what about this? And what about, it’s the same question over and over and over again. I said, man, I can’t help you here. You need to cross the threshold. You need to be over the threshold. Like everyone else that’s covered there. What do you think is what’s been your Supreme or deal in the last, last year? Seemed like there was a Supreme or deal coming, the opportunity that came up with your health. Do you say that as your Supreme Modell over the last few years?

Jane Slack-Smith (36:57):

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think I had to look at the time and the energy that I had to contribute and I had to say, you know, I can only put my effort into a few things. I can’t put it into everything. And I mean, behind the scenes from, you know, what we do, it looks like it’s so seamless and easy, but you know, you’re going to get things with websites are down or the connections aren’t, there are people going to get their log ins and you know, I see all this and it worries me. And so even like with your property success club, you know, it’s a subscription, it was $97 a month, but sometimes the videos weren’t working and, and I would get into it. And then I decided with, um, covert, I’m listening to raise money for kids helpline. There’s 9,000 calls a week coming through at the moment there’s 40% being answered.

Jane Slack-Smith (37:47):

These guys needed five donation. You guys donate, I, don’t not taking the money, donate, getting the money where it needs to be 10 days. We raised, you know, $11,000 and for them and, you know, it was, for me, it was this kind of like, it was a pressure off and there were the right type of people who were making the donations and wanting to contribute. And they’ll getting the course and they were really thankful where the content that we’re getting and thankful to being in the community. And, and I choose that. I choose not to be, you know, in the efforts. And that’s why, you know, I’m kind of pulling back from some of the courses. I know there’s some of the courses like location, last class where I’m just like, everyone needs this, so I’m just gonna make this happen. But all the other things I’ve pulled off and stripped down, and I’m only going to work where I can put my energy, make them biggest transformation for people. And that’s, you know, after we’ve gone to the borrowing capacity, the strategy session for me, with men, with the mortgages or working with the mentoring students. So, you know, for me, it’s just like where I put my effort is really important at the moment because, you know, I’ve got project Jane and project family I’m working on and, uh, you know, that they’re more important to me than other things.

Ian Ugarte (38:57):

So speaking of which, when, uh, when the blender slow cup we’ll play, um, who in your household do you have obviously got Kiwi one side, you got Aussie and yourself. Um, but you’re not your background. Isn’t Australian, is it, what are your parents pretty like six generations of farming. Right. Um, and so unfortunately, um, and so with that, when the blade is like cups on

Jane Slack-Smith (39:25):

my husband, he’s a Kiwi. I have to say, I really got upset when my son used to, like Australians used to do well in the first half and he’d be going Ozzy, Ozzy. And then the Kiwis are just come in and crush us and he’d swap jerseys even. And I took offense to that. And so now I’m just like, you know what, just put on that all blacks Jersey to start with. And the funny thing is, you know, Todd many years ago became an Australian citizen and it was under the absolute, um, you know, precursor that he would never give up the all blacks. I know more about the all blacks, you know, Dan Carter, I know more about the all blacks players than I know anything about the Australians. Cause I’ve been forced along and now, you know, got into it. But you know, it’s, um, it’s, it’s, it’s funny just having that kind of a delineation, the house, I’m happy to do the oils where everyone else is doing the haka.

Ian Ugarte (40:13):

So w um, there is a call in your house, um, as you’re walking around that you’ve gotta be careful of with your tongue.

Jane Slack-Smith (40:21):

I know it’s like, Oh my gosh, it’s like the Jenner Lomo chat tackle. And it’s been from a very young age. It’s like, since my son could start walking, my husband was teaching him how to do it. And if it’s not me walking around the corner and bring attack my Nerf gun, it’s Ming Ray walking around the corner and one, or either of them yelling out general Loma and I’m like duck into the ground. Cause I know it’s safer to fall from a smaller distance, but yet there’s, there’s always a tackle going on in his house. I never know which way to look. It’s not like it’s a peaceful Zen out property, by any chance,

Ian Ugarte (40:53):

uh, as a foreign or what would you say to someone about their life? It doesn’t matter in which direction, what advice would you give someone to be able to move forward in life with,

Jane Slack-Smith (41:02):

believe in yourself, believe that you’re worthy. Believe that you’re enough. Believe that opportunities come by all the time and you’re just not aware of them. And you’re opening yourself up to what you want to achieve with your life and choose that and, and choose the, you know, opportunity to step into the brilliance that you are, that you’re created with. And believe that you have everything that you have right now to start that process and start that journey. And, uh, you know, just believe in yourself. I think it’s one of the most important things. Any parent can pass on to any child, any educator can pass on to their students and that we can do to help people. And it sounds really we were, and I get that. And I get that, the fact that some people aren’t in the, in the time to hear that now, and it is all about, you know, I’m going to lose my job and I’ve got health issues, or I’ve got kid issues, I’ve got parent issues and yes, those things are happening, but it’s how you react to them.

Jane Slack-Smith (42:05):

So take a step back and understand that the way of the world is actually so much bigger and beautiful than maybe where you are stuck at the moment. And just try for a moment, open yourself to that. And you will be absolutely delighted with what you can create for your life. Great present advice. I mean, anyone who can actually find the opportunity when brain tumor comes up, it’s pretty awesome. So as always, uh, thanks, Jane, and I hope everyone’s enjoyed this last little bit with you. Thanks, Ian. It’s been a great time talking. Thanks for hanging around and small talk, big ideas podcast. We hope you enjoyed that and pulled out plenty of information. That’ll help you move forward. If you want to find out or listen to more podcasts, please subscribe, follow us on social media or go to ianugarte.com.au to find out much more about what we do. And we’ll see you next time.

Voice Over (42:57):

Thanks for tuning in to the small talk, big ideas podcast. We hope we’ve succeeded in our goal to inspire and challenge you. And we look forward to catching you on the next episode of small talk, big ideas with [inaudible].