Property and Life Update: Vibing on Life with Ben Everingham

It’s been a year since I’ve been able to come up to the Sunshine Coast and hang out with Ben and chat about life and business and property. In this video we discuss some of the key things we’ve been vibing on at the moment.

0:00 – Introduction
1:21 – Being hard on yourself
3:48 – Being present on the journey to financial freedom
7:59 – Speeding up success with a plan
11:45 – Gaining your best life now
13:50 – What do you want?
14:30 – One of the most important things Ben ever heard

Recommended Videos:

We’re Vibing On Life Right Now (May 2018)

Property and Life Update 2020: Ryan McLean and Ben Everingham (Mar 2020)

Transcription

Ryan 0:00
It’s been a solid year since I’ve been able to come up to the Sunshine Coast with all the border restrictions and everything to be able to come up here hang out as mates as business partners and help each other now business as I

refresh it. So

good talk about property, talk about live all of this stuff, I just realized how valuable this relationship is. And we had a huge walk on the beach last night, like everything we do. So romantic.

Ben 0:25
It was a real good luck, it was awesome.

Ryan 0:27
But we are vibing on life. And we’ve done a few of these in the past, which I’ll try and find and link up down below. But it’s just a more chat to kind of get to know us get to know where we’re at mentally, because this is one of the most powerful relationships in my life. I know you’ve said the same to me. And just so much good stuff comes out of our conversations that we don’t really have with other people. And I know a lot of people out there listening don’t necessarily have people that are on the same wavelength to them. So we just kind of wanted to share some of the stuff that’s been going on with us some of the cool things we’ve been learning about being present, being mindful, enjoying life now, as things are, you know, in a good spot for both of us, like, let’s be real, we had a couple of years there where things were real rough on both of us financially in our lives, like,

Ben 1:17
yeah, and like what I’m so grateful for man is like, no matter where I was at, I’ve been able to like, figure it back out. Like, if I could figure it out from where I was with my anxiety like three, four years ago. Like I feel like humanity’s got like an epic outlook. You know what I mean?

Ryan 1:34
That’s an invite I can figure it out from where I was in all the debt. I was in everything that I was going through, like one thing you said to me last night when we were walking on the beach is

Ben 1:46
my sister’s little, the tortoise. Hello, buddy,

Ryan 1:49
showing us his car, his toy car. But yeah, one of the things that you said to me is like, you know, if someone went through just one of the things you went through, or this or that, or that, or that, you know, they’d be struggling and like you’re being hard on yourself out to go through all of these different things. And you’re judging yourself saying, You’re not where you want to be. I need to give

Ben 2:09
myself some grace. They’re fully man. Like, I feel like one of the things that I’ve learned in the last few years is just my dad’s been saying to, to me for 10 years, he’s like, just be kind to yourself, man. Like, you know what I mean? And I’m like, I couldn’t hear it. I’m like, No, I’m like, I’m going on this direction. I want to be here. I’m like, prepared to hustle through it and go through the pain. And I’m like, I would never speak to someone, most of the time who I speak to myself, like, why don’t I just decide to be like, my best mate. And like, kind of myself and accept that, like, I’ve got a bit more of an active mind than most people in that sped up journey. But it’s also like, you know, it’s just, it’s just the, you know, what I don’t even know how to say what

Ryan 2:50
I was thinking, you and I have been so hard on ourselves, which is part of what makes us high achievers and being able to achieve what we wanted to achieve, like, through like some of the stuff, I look back now, on the last few years, and I went through a lot of stuff, I ended up in heaps of debt, way more than I should have, I should have known better, but I didn’t, you know,

Ben 3:09
and I’ve got to have had to go through that I’ve

Ryan 3:11
got to have grace for that. But what I’ve been able to pull off in paying off, you know, 10s of 1000s worth of debt in a two year period, increasing my income becoming financially free through my business again, and just I gotta stop and pat myself on the back a bit fully. What we were able to do, and I think you and I have both gone through that things have been hard. So what did we do? Like we doubled down, we worked hard, we did what we knew we needed to do. And I guess a lot of knowing that came from internally, no one told us because of business owners, you got to work it out by yourself. But now we’re at a point where we’re not gunho anymore. And we’re more like, okay, yes, we did what we did to get where we are, but maybe we could have taken a better path that was more present that enjoyed that time more. And that’s what we’re trying to get to now. And I guess what we want to share with people out there is like that being present in your life and enjoying the journey rather than you and I spent the last 10 years trying to get somewhere and we lived in the future. But you’ve been saying that we just lived our lives the last 10 years in the future. And now it’s like okay, no, yes, we have future goals and things we’re working towards what we’re trying to live in the present, be more present and enjoy the process and just enjoy the arts enjoy the downs,

Ben 4:32
they all come and like it is it’s so cliche, but it is the journey that you know, makes life meaningful and it is the connections and it is the conversations and it is figuring out a way like you said to this to me last year like at the end of last year I just come through like the Coronavirus year which is really intense when all I’m trying to do is buy property for people but they like want a psychologist at the same time like man, I haven’t studied this for Seven years. I don’t know what’s going to happen. But I’m personally excited and doing this. But always going through that. And also with the three young kids and renovating my home and building another investment and renovating and building a granny flat on another place. And I’m like, you know, this quote came up. And it’s like, if you’re tired, just learn to rest, not give up. And last year was one of those years where I’m just like, the way that I have lived, which is like constantly setting goals for the future and moving forward at like a rapid pace is so cool. And I’m so grateful that my previous self could do that. But now moving forward, I’m like, I’m measuring different things like I’m measuring, not sales in my business anymore, or income as much I’m more measuring, like, contribution and how many cool people we can connect with. And

Ryan 5:47
this is giving me goosebumps now, because this is what we’ve been talking about, which is like, what are you measuring in your life? And for me, you’re talking about, like, we’re talking about my business and content, and YouTube views and stuff. And he’s like, dude, you needed that years ago that got you to here. But he’s like, that’s not that probably shouldn’t be your focus anymore. Like, what are you measuring? And what should you be measuring? And so like, we talked about this, at the end of last year, like finding the joy in what we do, you know, for us, we’re in a good place with our businesses that it’s like, okay, we can keep slogging away, if we want, we can step back almost completely if we want. But neither of us want to do either of those things. It’s about finding the joy in what you do. And a big part of it is measure, like what you measure improves. And so instead of measuring, okay, how many views have I got? All? For me? It came down to like, what, how proud of my of the content that I’m creating? How proud of my of the message that I’m putting out? versus do I care how many views it gets like, No, not really. For me, it’s that internal. You know,

Ben 6:52
I love that man. Because like the conversation that we were having last night, and I found it a lot harder to answer than I thought I would. But the question was, like, why are you doing this stuff, and it’s like, I just want to be a good person that leaves like a value space life that helps other people figure out that they can achieve this. And if like a punter like me, that could fuck it up as many times as I did him, like, figure my way through with the property stuff, and, and get to the position that I am now where I’m nowhere near where I want to be. But I’m on my way. And that’s cool. Like, if I continue on this trajectory, like, at some point, in the future, I’ll have over six figures of passive income from my properties. And like, that’s a goal that my 24 year old self set the some point in my 30s, or 40s, I’ll be able to reach and that’s so inspiring, because it’s like, if I have the choice of how I spend my time, and I don’t have to stress about money every day, what could my life look like? Like, how much meaningful time could I spend with my kids? Or how many life enriching relationships Could I have? And you know, how many servers Could I get in before my body’s too old to enjoy them anymore?

Ryan 7:57
That’s kind of what we’re grappling with at the moment is like, well, how could I spend my time if I had choices, which would kind of do it’s like, Okay, how could I spend, and we’re trying to work out what to do that. And we were having breakfast with Ben’s brother Simon, this morning is, like, a good way to start the day because you went for a surf and then what was happening, Brian? Yeah, like 10am. And Simon’s like, Oh, you got to do a slug away for like 15 years, and you got here ban, or is like, all you got to do is have an older brother who’s like, done it before you just learn from all his mistakes and do it in five, do it in five, because that’s exactly what Simon’s done is just looked at the mistakes. And I like you and I both had that vision of where we want to be in terms of financial freedom, or where we want to be set up and, and things like that. But we just had to like, wave their way through it and just try and work it out along the way. And that’s taken us so much, looking at the future, so much anxiety, and so much more time where assignments just come into this business and this life, and just being taught by you and by crystal and the team about how to do it. And he’s just had this plan. And all he’s had to do is work that plan. And now he owns like three properties is probably looking at buying his fourth one. And it’s like, but the value, I think the biggest value that he got is he doesn’t have to spend his life thinking about that. Like, I feel like you and I spent 15 years thinking about how we’re going to get there and constantly trying to work it out along the way. And we try things in a wooden work and like it would fail or it would succeed and then we try something and we just we hustled and we worked hard and

Ben 9:38
I got to a point where I literally I nine properties and realize that seven of them were shit in practically eight of them that I didn’t want to say. And I sold seven of them over about a three year period and that was just so intense to go through realizing you’ve done it wrong. But what that opened up the door was instead of having to own nine properties, I can just have a tiny number good ones that will end up setting me up in a much better place from a lower risk position. And it’s like, you know, I love that about my brother, right? Like he’s so coachable. And he’s like, if he sees something working, he’ll understand it logically, and then just be happy enough to apply it. And it’s like, even if I hadn’t seen it that easily mapped in front of me, I don’t know if I would have allowed myself to make that easy, because I was just like a bulldozer personality. But now I’m like, this, so many examples of people like leading happy, healthy lives, with great relationships with friends and family, or their partners that do meaningful work that they enjoy that still suffer anxiety or depression, or go through good and bad things that maintain a feeling of joy, you know, most of the time and like, Don’t put too much pressure on themselves when they’re not feeling that way. And I think that’s what the next steps for me are, like, I call it lives, like live change. Like when I when I’m when someone comes into business, it’s like I know, in 15 years that by working with me with what I’ve learned, their whole shits gonna change. And it’s like, I don’t look at like an individual view, as like, a view I’m looking at is like a meaningful relationship that I’m getting to have and like, back to that vibe that like when I used to be younger and listening to this stuff, I thought, like, legitimately like Tony Robbins, or Richard Branson, or Robert Kiyosaki, or like Denis waitley. And Jim Rohn, were like, they were like, the five people that I was listening to most and reading about, and that was my circle of five, like, and I want that feeling for people, whether you’re in the car, at the gym, or at home with your partner, listen to this shit going. Fuck like, if if these pants can do it, I can have a crack at it as well. Yeah, and also

Ryan 11:45
just that different way of looking at life and looking at finance that I think we present that other people don’t, which is this idea of being present, and enjoying your life on the journey, enjoying who you are, and what you value on the journey, not getting rich, because being rich will make you happy, because we’ve both learned that that’s not the case. And that’s the thing that I think Simon’s gained. Yes, he’s cut it down from 10 or 15 years to five. But what he’s also gained is he had a strategy that he knew would work. And so he was able to implement that strategy, but also able to be completely present in his life at that time. So when you and I weren’t really present in our life, like we were, but not as present it was recruited being because we had out on see my head. So yeah, we had a hit up our ass focusing on our business trying to work out how to make this thing work. So we can achieve this dream down the line. So I’m in knows the dream down the line, it’s gonna come, he knows how to do it, it’s all mapped out for him. All he has to do is do the work. And he enjoys the work along the process. Like he’s traveling, he’s surfing, like, he’s so much fun to hang out with. Like, he brings the vibes to the office every single day. And it’s like, he’s not in this hustle mode, and letting his life passing by for five years, until he gets there. He’s president all the way through it. And that’s what I want for people is to both achieve that. But also along that process to be present in their life in those moments, enjoying everything. And I feel like that’s what, you know, you as a buyer’s agency can give clients with the confidence you give them things like the two properties to financial freedom gives people that assurance of the future that they can start being present in their life and not wasting their life. I just, I still remember working in a pharmacy, and the pharmacist was 50 hated her job hated her life. And she’s like, I’ve only got 15 years left. So I may as well just like work it out. It’s like 15 years, I was 18 at the time, I’m like, that’s basically my entire life. And like, why would you do that? Why would you waste it but people do. It’s like, have that plan. So you can start? Like my big thing is being true to myself. And like we talked about that last night, but I help people be true to themselves and find out okay, what is it you really want? And so I guess I would ask the viewers out there today like think about who are you as a person? What do you value? What do you want? And then yes, create a plan for financial freedom. But even more importantly, look at your life in the presidency. Am I living in alignment with myself? Am I getting what I want out of my life? And if not, okay, how can I start to move towards that? Whether it be better job or better relationships or different lifestyle?

Ben 14:23
Like I think that is the most important thing that like I’ve ever heard in my life. I was sitting down with my psychologist A few years ago, more than a few years ago, actually. And he sort of said, You know, I said I don’t know who I am anymore. I achieved everything a finished school. I’ve got the friends I’ve got like the beautiful wife. I’ve got kids like, I’ve got this business. I’ve got the property thing sorted out for the future and I’m I’m fucking miserable. Like, I don’t know who I am anymore. I don’t know what I want. food isn’t even tasting good in my mouth anymore. Like I just always that last He said, Ben, life is so simple man, if you get out of your own way, just figure out why he said you are your values. He said, figure them out first, which we did. And there’s a great book to help you do that called the happiness trap. And then he said, live those values in a consistent way on a day to day basis, and you are your day to day decisions. That’s your identity. That’s your future.

Ryan 15:23
And so I went through all your day to day decisions, and you’re the culmination of your database, visions and your values. So it’s

Ben 15:29
like, figure out what you really want. make decisions towards that as often as you can, whether it’s like if I have a high value of like, health. So it’s like, I do things like meditation, sport, surfing yoga, like I eat well, consistently, I don’t drink as much anymore as I used to, or like binge eat sugar like I used to, it’s like, that’s a value. And it’s like, how can I make decisions towards that to feel great, like, I really want to lead a long, happy, healthy life, because I want to have time with my family and my friends and stuff. And I want to like do meaningful work like this. And it’s like, I also have this deep value of contribution to making the world a better place. And I leave that through like, shopping organic and local, when I can I put solar on my investment properties in my home, like I try and like show up on these videos in like, a positive way and all the way through the virus. Last year, I decided with my brother that we were going to like, run the Highline life despite the whole world running another way of negativity. It’s like the fact that like, we have a choice. It’s like, I appreciate being present. And so it’s like, well, what were the most present people in the world? The monks like the stoics, like, the people that do the Taoist philosophy, and it’s like, I just started to study those guys recently. And I’m like, like, it’s quite simple. Like, he just is the same as like, if I want to be physically healthy, I might train a couple of days a week. It’s like, if you want to be mentally healthy, what are you putting in your mind? Like, what types of conversations what types of media like? What types of books what types of messages and I’m like, there was a reason why not 24 hours, so stoked all the time. And it’s because I was consistently fueling myself with like, good stuff. And I, I knew where I wanted to be, and I expected life to get better. And I’ve sort of finally come around that to that point that like, I expect things to be incredible in the future. But it’s a human mind. And it will be up and down. And it’s a turbulent world. And good and bad shit will happen. But it’s like, yeah, how to be present through all of that and enjoy it. Yeah, that’s where my head’s at now.

Ryan 17:33
Yeah, well, I think we’ve covered a lot in this and just kind of gives you a glimpse into kind of where we’re at, at the moment, we’ve spent hours and hours talking over the last couple of days, which has been just so good to get grounded in this relationship, get grounded in, you know, where we want to move forward, and what we’re valuing at the moment. And so we can bring that value through to you guys and serve you as best as possible and help you as best as possible. So, I hope you enjoyed this little chat this little, you know, topical discussion. And I’m going to be coming up here every couple of months to film and to help you guys so we’ll continue along this line of talking every couple of months we’ll release one that’s a bit more of our sort of what are we vibing on at the moment. I hope you’ve really enjoyed it. I wish you the best out there in your life in your financial freedom journey but in my view being present and you having the best life possible. So Wish us luck out there. Until next time, stay positive