G'day, it's Gus Walland here and welcome to Not An Overnight Success, brought to you
by Shoren Partners Financial Services. In this podcast we sit down with some very
successful people from the world of business, entertainment and sport to chat about their
life's journey and how they became the success that they are today. In today's episode we
are chatting to a great mate, Mark Burris. Mark Burris is one of Australia's most
recognisable businessmen, extremely handsome. He's an entrepreneur, an author,
media personality and adjunct professor. Mark was a founder and chairman of Wizard
Home Loans which he sold for around about half a billion dollars back in 2004. He is now the
chair of Yellow Big Road. You might recognise Mark as the host of Celebrity Apprentice Australia
or from his podcast and TV show The Mentor. One thing Mark and I love together is the Sydney
Roosters rugby league team where he is on the board and making all the big calls. Mark is
gritty, he's tenacious, he has a direct and just get in there and do it attitude that has led to
him achieving incredible success and of course that success didn't come overnight. In this chat
you'll learn that Mark wasn't fed with a golden spoon, he grew up around the corner from a housing
commission in Punchbowl, he really did pave his own way. Something I did find interesting about
this chat with Mark was that he's seemingly consistent attitude of staying in his own lane
and not worrying about the people around him and what they're doing. As for all of these podcasts,
Sean partners have generously donated $10,000 to the charity of choice of each of our guests. We
discussed where that money will go in this chat. The executive producer of this podcast is Keisha
Pettit. Let's get into our chat with Mark Boris. G'day Mark, how are you mate? G'day mate, you
alright? Yes I'm well, gee you're looking fit. I actually probably lost a little bit too much
weight recently, I don't know why, I mean most people weight on during COVID, for some reason I
tended to lose it but actually my doctor said to me, he said, I just bumped him down the road,
he said mate are you okay? I said why? He said you're one of my ads, advertisements you know for my
practice, he said you look like you're a bit skinny at the moment. Yeah I lost a bit of weight but I'm
cool, I'm in good shape, I just got to eat a bit more, a bit more rubbish but don't worry it's
gonna soon happen. Absolutely. What were you like as a kid mate? I was pretty quiet, I'm the oldest
in my family so I'm much older than my brother and sister and then I had my dad's two brothers
live with us, younger brothers and my mum's two younger sisters live with us and they're
substantially loyal to me so I had no one to hang out with so I used to just hang out with myself,
might just be quiet, pretty quiet kid, talk to myself, play games under the house, I used to,
my mum always had the radio on like 24 hours a day and she used to sing all the time and I used
to follow my, I'd get under the house and follow my mum around the house, wherever she was singing
I could knew who she was and I would sit under the house, I remember it, I used to play with trucks
and shit like that, old school. Oh that's beautiful. Yeah so just follow around the house,
I remember it, when mum's in the kitchen I would get under the house in the kitchen and play with
my trucks, you know those days you had a house on, we had an old timber house on a stilts you know
like so you could fit under there. Yeah cool under there too. And no one worried about you
hurting yourself or spiders or anything like that, you just get out of the house you're okay. Yeah
up a tree, under the house, whatever. Yeah up a tree, totally yeah. Come home when the streetlights
come on. That's 100% Mark dinner's ready and it was night and I'd run home. What was your
childhood like? I had a good childhood, I was lucky, I got two loving parents you know like
stayed together which is unusual these days I guess but they stayed together the whole time,
I had a younger brother and sister, mum and dad weren't strict but they were good role models for
me, dad worked really hard, mum worked really hard. I was pretty much allowed to do whatever I want so
to speak you know, I wasn't a bad kid, did well at school, I didn't like school, I didn't hate it,
I just went to school, I loved sport, that was my big thing like playing footy.
Life was simpler then Gus, I have to be honest it was much simpler like you know we didn't even
have a television till I was 12, we didn't have a phone till I was 14 in the house. Today kids would
be fried if they didn't have a TV or a phone or a screen. Yeah. But you know I entertained myself,
had a bike and a footy, that was it, that's all you needed and a park down the road, pretty simple.
Love it though. It's the best. Yeah I remember my life being like that too, the cicadas started to
scream so up the tree we went, yeah, popped in a shoe box and taken to school, we'd play
four things back, pool cricket, front yard cricket and the Davenports, Andy Davenport,
his mum would come out with like a honk, honk, that means he had to come home. Yeah. There was a bell
and there was a ring so we all had our own, who's that, okay you got to go home between five and
six. Yes sir. Get in the bath, have something to eat, get a telly. Or share the bath, I'd get out
of the bath, something else in the family, get in the bath and we all have a bath because we
didn't have a shower or nothing, we got a shower later on but the showers weren't a thing, baths
were the go. It was a good simple life, I mean I lived out in the west suburbs, I mean yeah there's
a bit of drama at the school I went to but we had a house I wear around the corner, next street around
the corner for me. I'm really lucky I had such a good stable upbringing and it helps as you get
older. You've got a big smile on your face as you're telling those stories and remembering stuff.
Great stuff, I mean like we had things going on you know like not in my family but like externally
with other kids and you know the few gangs and I got a bit of mischief when I got a bit older,
15, 16 I was in a gang and it wasn't such a, to be honest with you, for me I mean maybe I shouldn't
have been in it but my parents don't know about it but for me it wasn't such a big deal because
it's just what everyone was doing you know fighting and stuff but it wasn't like guys getting shot or
stabbed or anything, we were just fighting you know like and there were a few rules you know you
didn't kick someone on the ground it sounds silly flipping but there were rules and the gangs were
sort of like fight each other back at Belmore Oval. Yeah and there'd be cops who'd come and they'd
grab hold of you and they'd you know say they're going to tell your parents and they tell your dad
and your dad'd say you can't come to go to the next few games and you stay home and that was it.
It wasn't a drama it was just normal. You become such a successful bloke where did the penny drop
for you to go okay I need to get back to school or I need to go to uni or whatever it might be
because you can't keep going along fighting and blah blah blah. Where did the switch flick for you?
My mum's Irish, my mum is Greek. And how did they meet by the way? In my dad's father's cafe. So my
dad's father came to Australia first with his elder son Nick, dad's one of six boys and then
after the war, World War II, my dad's father brought his family to Australia because Greece
was having a civil war but by that stage my grandfather already had established cafes and
restaurants and all these kids worked in them and my mum needed a second job to support her two
younger sisters who were quite a lot younger than her. She was working in dad's father's cafe and
met mommy in there and she taught my dad to speak English and they subsequently got married and
everything. Where it happened or how it happened for me to sort of go to uni at least and not
become a, I want to become a brickie, play footy for Canterbury. I mean I was in all the
rep sides. All I'm going to do is go and play with Blakeside Graham music. We're on the same team.
I just want to play first grade one day. In those days, you know, my idols were Les Johns
and Kevin Ryan, both Canterbury players and I just want to be like them. I didn't know
anything about professionalism. I didn't know about lawyers or accountants or architects. I
didn't know none of that sort of stuff. I did well on the HSC and my mother dragged me up to
the university and enrolled me. She enrolled me. Really? Yep. So she couldn't say you go
and do it. She get come with me. No, I'm coming with you. Yeah. And we're going to this university
in Kensington. I knew it. I heard of Kennedy. I didn't know where it was and went to Kensington
and she took me in there and she enrolled me and she enrolled me in a commerce law degree.
And I was lucky enough to do well in the high school certificate, like I did quite well and
I've got scholarships and all that sort of stuff. So I didn't even apply for this degree, but I got
in and somehow she got me in and then the cops were there. The cops were like on the campus on
enrolment date and they were enrolling young people to go and do a degree and then join the
police force. And so she made me go down to this booth where the cops were and do an interview,
but the players weren't for me. She said, well, they'll pay you. You can work for the police and
go and do a law degree and become a police prosecutor or something like that. I'm thinking,
yeah, right. And so I went to the interview and then I had to go down to Goulburn Street where
the college was for the police. Hadn't been interviewed by a cop down there. And I went
down there for this interview and I said, oh, you know, and he said, well, you have to go on the
beat and wear a uniform. I said, mum, there's no way I'm going to be wearing a police uniform.
I said, I will never have another friend in my life. I said, so my mum did that. And so she said,
well, okay, you got to work. You got to get a job. She said, because you need more than the
scholarship money. And they had a bursary pay for the books, but she said, you got to live.
How are you going to afford to pay petrol or whatever? So I went and got a job in a factory.
That's how I paid my way through. I did that and I did the chef's course and worked in a restaurant
as an assistant cook. I wasn't a chef. I was just a cook. I did a course. Yeah, I did whatever I
could, but mum, that was mum. I wouldn't have done that. So I would have definitely just become a
brickie or gone work for Rothmans or something like that and played footy. That sort of was my
thing. Yeah. Your mum sounds amazing. Oh, she passed away a couple of years ago from M&D,
but she, my dad saw that, but they're both amazing. I didn't realise the importance of
what she was doing, but she said, I don't, you know, look, your father works three jobs.
She worked at the place called Three Swallows Hotel up in Yaguna in those days. She said,
I don't want you doing that. You know, you've got to do something different. And mind you,
brickies probably do pretty well these days and builders and stuff like that. But in those days,
that wasn't the case. And she put me on this directory, which I don't think she knew where
it was going to lead to, but yeah, she was smart, well-read, ambitious. You know, she
came from a music family, all musicians. I love music, which is why I play piano right through
to the HSC. And I was so glad the day, I moved out when I was 18, when I went to study, you know,
moved out because I couldn't get there from punch balls too hard. I stopped playing the piano. I
thought that was terrific because mum made me play the piano my whole life.
You were successful enough whilst they were young enough to see that you made a success
of yourself. All of us want to be loved and respected and admired by our parents. Was that
a big thing for you? Did you have a moment with your mum and dad where they went, wow,
you've done well, son? Yeah, that's funny. I never thought much about it. When I sold the
wizard business and I was 48 and I'm 65 now, so I sold the wizard business when I was 48. Mum
wrote me a letter about three weeks later. My mother's a prolific letter writer still,
or was up until the time she died. It was a beautiful letter. I still have it. And it was a
long letter saying that, look, I've never wanted to tell you, I don't want you to get a big head.
I never wanted to tell you how proud of you dad and I, and dad didn't write anything really very
much. But I've waited a couple of weeks until after the sale and all the stuff's all died down.
What was the number for people who were listening who don't remember that sale? What was the number
of- The amount of money? The amount of money, yeah.
It was a lot. It was close to half a billion. Okay. In 2004. Yep. So that's probably the biggest
private sale in Australia's history. Even by today's standards, it's multi-billion dollar value.
And I did sell it to the world's largest company and it did make page two of the Wall Street
Journal like a big article. What was on page one? Well, it was all the usual stuff about what's
going to be on page two and three. That's the Wall Street Journal. And I, but I never look,
I never really got how important it was. It was the biggest acquisition the General
Electric had ever made in the mortgage industry. They bought $19 billion worth of assets from me,
me and Kerry. They also bought liabilities with it too, but that's why it was only half a billion.
But like still, I don't want to underplay it, but I was never really conscious of all that stuff.
I was never doing it to make money. I was never doing to think I could make that sort of stuff.
It was never my thing. I was just about, I want to lend money to people. How good is it? I'm
sticking it up there and I'm sticking up the banks and taking on Aussie home loans. It was always,
it was the game for me and the excitement of the game and the fun of it. And I was just then,
I still am, the same boy who was under the house following my mom around,
listening to where she was singing. I mean, I was a little bit absent, but not absent,
if you know what I mean. My mom wrote me this long letter, tell me how proud she was. And she
always knew that I was going to do something like that, blah, blah, blah. And I read it and I thought
it was great and I put it away. And then about six months after she'd, I was clearing some stuff out
of my house as you do. And I found the letter where I kept it. And I read it again and have
much more impact on me after passing, because you know, you start to reflect. I was not someone who
reflected on things. I'm not a ref always looking forward, always looking to do what I'm doing now
or tomorrow. Okay. Never thinking about what I've done or, and or just re-examining what I'm doing.
Just move forward. And maybe that's one of the reasons I don't get too anxious or stressed out.
A lot of people overanalyze what's going on. And that can be a bit scary. I mean, that's confronting
sometimes. Why am I doing this? What else could I be doing? You start, there's a thousand possibilities.
Brings up lots of doubts when you think about it. You always think negatively, don't you?
Well, then you think about, well, then how am I relative to Gus Wallin? I mean, how am I relative
to blah, blah? Then you start building relativities out. And I was only having this discussion yesterday
with one of my colleagues here about our brain is built to build mathematical models. But we
don't realize the mathematical models, but they are mathematical models. And we are modeling all
the time in a comparative sense. We're building comparative models all the time. We're comparing
ourselves to sets of data. Much worse today, because there's much more data available. And
we do get that off Instagram. Instagram's data to our brain. Our brain just sees Instagram,
someone who's doing really well, my age, 25, they've got a house, they're killing it. They've got
50,000 followers or 800,000 followers, whatever. I've got 2000, I haven't got a house, I'm paying
rent. My brain builds a mathematical model says, relatively speaking, you're doing shit house.
I think that one of the problems we have is one of my strengths has been, in terms of my success,
is that I don't do that. And instinctively, I just don't do it. I don't purposely not do it. I
instinctively don't do it. Since more recently, I've actually sat down and started to examine
why I don't do it and how important it is not to do it. So now, I purposefully don't do it.
And I think the people who have some difficulty with anxiety, relative to where they stand in
society, maybe they need to sit back and say, am I doing this? Am I model making? I'm a mad believer.
I love mathematics and science. That's my passion and my hobby. I did a master's degree
in mathematical modeling. So I have built a financial markets and stuff. That's what
Wizard was all about. I mean, everyone thinks I was the front of Wizard and the advertising guy.
I wasn't. I mean, I was, but I wasn't the brains behind that. I had Kerry and Gingell and all
those sort of people doing that. That's their thinking for me. I was the guy who worked out
the funding model. So I was the guy who made sure we had enough money that we could go to
the American markets and borrow a billion dollars every six weeks in US dollars or
billion dollars in euros or pounds and bring it back to Australia and convert it. And
that was my thing. I did a mathematical modeling because that's my area of expertise at the time.
And I took the view that like, to be frank with you, that in terms of mathematical modeling,
I know there is no such thing as an accurate model. And like we've just gone through with COVID,
everyone's going, the modeling says, modeling says what you input. Modeling is sort of ubiquitous.
The way you do a model is the same for every mathematical problem. It's the inputs and
assumptions you make that input the variables you put into the model. You can never put all
the variables in the model. It's impossible. There's millions of variables. The variables
that you might want to put in, for example, to say what COVID outbreak will look like
is so broad and so expansive, it's out of control. So what our government did is they cut out a lot
of variables, said people can't come to Australia. They just get rid of the variables. You can't
travel from here to here. You can't travel from your house to there. And they eliminate variables,
all the possibilities. Then they got a certain defined number of variables and they input a few
other variables to make sure the outcome is the outcome they want from the model.
Right. So if I'm a person who's 25 years of age, whatever, and I'm trying to build a model as to
where I stand in society, how good I'm going or bad I'm going relative to everybody else,
then if I want to build an accurate model, I got to put in every single variable. Instead of
looking at the person who's the one in one million person who's killing it, I should be putting in
that model in my brain, but I don't because it's a subconscious thing. I should be putting in all
those people who are my age, with my skill base, in my passionate area, with my background,
with my amount of money that I've got in my pocket, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera,
and build a model around that and then compare myself to those people. That's a proper model.
You may not be going so bad after that. You're probably going okay.
But we don't do that because we don't understand how our brain works.
And we never slow down enough in this world to actually have that proper discussion or that
proper solution making because we just rush from one thing to another. We
misconnect and disconnect everywhere. And that's where a lot of younger people are today.
As I said, I was lucky. I didn't have all those inputs when I was 25.
I just had myself to deal with. If they take a step back and just think for a moment,
stop trying to pitch myself against everyone else, just play my own game and just keep driving
towards one goal or maybe two goals. Just play my own game. I think that's a big part of the
solution. I think that's great advice. Great advice. Mark, we jumped from sort of...
Sorry about that, mate. No, that's good. No,
I'm happy you did. So your mum's there. I love the fact your mum took you to enroll you at uni.
You're like a little kid. In you go, and then down to the cops,
and you work out, okay, you then jump to selling a part of your company for a lot of money.
What happened in between? How many good days, bad days, how much learning did you make from
coming out of uni and actually being in a position with Wizard to make all that dough?
Well, I came out of uni when I was... My first degree, I was finished when I was 20.
I got my first degree at 20. And then I was doing the second part of my degree at night.
Did you enjoy uni? Did you enjoy the learning? I was just doing it because
mum sent me there and I was doing it. You don't mess with your mum.
No, no. Well, yeah, but she wasn't like that, but she was just strong. And I just did it.
Did I enjoy it? I didn't really make many friends there, to be honest, because it was all
like Kensington University. There was kids from Waverley and Cranbrook and all those rich schools.
I just didn't fit in. I didn't have many friends. I made a couple of mates, but not really.
I wasn't in a hurry to get out. I wasn't in a hurry to stay. I must say I made some mistakes.
My very first... So I'm doing commerce law, right? So things I have no idea about. I didn't
do economics at school. I did Latin. I did history, English, math, science, music. Things
totally unrelated to what I was doing at uni. And I always was pretty lucky at school. I always
managed our study before the exam and I'd get through and do well. So I didn't go to any lectures
first half of the first semester, right? No lectures. And we're doing subjects like economics
and business law or shit like that, which I knew nothing about. You have to do four subjects a
semester. And I failed two subjects. I never failed in my life. I got shocked in my life.
I got a letter from the university that says, you've got to do those two subjects along with
the next four subjects. So you do six subjects in the next semester. If you fail the two subjects
again, you lose all your bursary and your scholarship and all this shit. And like, whoa,
I shit myself. So I then started going to lectures. That probably would help, would it?
Like I killed it. The next day I got HDs and distinctions and stuff like that. That was it.
And I thought, okay, now I know what to do. But I actually, when I look back at it, I was a bit
depressed. So I went from a structured environment at school. So I went to a Catholic school in
Bankstown, a very structured, you know, played footy. Everything was structured. Like I went to
footy training in the afternoon and played that sort of stuff to a totally unstructured environment
where they don't know who I am. No one knows who I am. They don't know where I'm at. I thought,
how good is this? And people used to smoke joints those days in library lawn. Like I had a bit of
a go at that. It was pretty cool. It was love in the air in Australia. Love was in the library
lawn and it was big. Were you not ugly, Mark? Did you go okay with the ladies? I had a bit of luck.
I had a bit of luck. But you know, like I'd never really smoked a joint and like then all of a
sudden, you know, people were offering to, you know, it was just like going across the joint.
And that's what was happening. I lost my discipline. I lost my structure, probably
better way of putting it, but I got it back. And then for a period of time, I just cruised in,
went and got jobs, worked in accounting firms, became a partner of a big accounting firm,
worked at a law firm. Straight after that, worked in a law firm for six or seven years. Got out of
that, got into property, started doing a lot of property developments with a mate of mine.
I went from 21 to 40 in and out of professions where I was the professional looking after the
client. And I had lots of interesting clients. Like I had some very interesting clients, well
known people in all sorts of doing all sorts of aspects of all sorts of work for them.
And it was the mad 80s, mate. And you know, I saw what happened in the 80s.
Alan Bond was a client. John Spalvans was a client from Adelaide Steamship Group.
These high flyers, Abe Goldberg was a client from Speedo and all those various other companies that
he owned, all of whom crashed. Some went to jail, some escaped and went back to left Australia,
never to be seen again. There were inquiries. I mean, the 80s was the maddest time corporate
life ever. Like it was unbelievable what could happen. I was only young in my late 20s and 30s,
but still to have experience that was unbelievable. I mean, it was Rafferty's Rules. It was all about
show me way around the law. Don't tell me how to comply with it. These days it's about how do I
comply with the law? But those days it was about no, how do I not comply with the law? That was the
thought process. And I became quite good at it. And it was just fun. It wasn't because I thought
I was breaking the law, because I wasn't. I was just saying the law doesn't cover this part.
This is something you can do. And the fun for me was the challenge of doing it. I got excited by
it. Finding a way for me was exciting. A bit of legislation would be presented to me, then I'd
find a way around it. Then the legislation would get amended because we found a way around it. Our
firm was famous for this. And then, and we're a big firm and a big well-known firm. And then
the legislation would change to get around the amendment that we'd find a way around the
amendment. It was a game. It wasn't because I was, that wasn't my way of thinking, but
it was a game. It was fun. The 80s was like that. It was crazy. And I'm glad I got to experience it.
I mean, it would never exist today. You couldn't do what you did in the 80s today. But again,
there's no phones. There's no mobiles. People just got lunch on Friday and never come back till
midnight. Tuesday. It was an unbelievable time. But it took me all that period though, Gus,
I was trying to work out what I'm doing. Who am I? Where can I make a difference? As opposed to,
I was just being transactional in those days. I mean, I never thought to myself,
can I change the way things are done in this country for people to borrow money for the
future? I never used to think about making a change or making a difference. I was just
a transactional guy. So Mark, can you fix this up? Do this. Fly here for this client. Go and
do this. I mean, I probably went between 28 and 32. I probably went overseas, got flown overseas
to all parts of weird and wonderful parts of the world. Monte Carlo, Jersey Islands, Bermuda,
Hong Kong, everywhere. London, Paris, New York, 30 times. Stayed at the best hotels in the world.
I didn't pay for anything. Clients paid for everything. I took it for granted. I never
realised. I mean, I don't even do that today. I mean, but what I got exposed to was incredible.
Like it was unbelievable. Like when I think back about it, I didn't know at the time.
I didn't realise. Sounds awesome. It was. It was. And I mean, but I had no, again, I had no real
appreciation. I was still Mark under the house. I was just, it was in my own little world.
Like I would go to New York. I wouldn't even go for a walk outside of the place. I'd just go to
the hotel, go to the office, hotel, office, hotel, fly back to Australia. I wouldn't think. Then
me and James had a business in India. In 2005, we had a lending business in India. So General
Electric, James and I had a 60-40 deal in India where we had 40%, they had 60%. And we had 500
staff in India. We were a big lender in India. All my staff used to come from Australia to get
seconded into India to work. And everyone went to all these places. You know, they'd come over for
three weeks and they'd take a weekend off and they'd go to other cities. You know, our head
office was in Delhi, where a little place outside Delhi called Gowon. I would just stay in the hotel,
go to that. I would never, I never travelled around India. You never saw that incredible country.
I never saw anything else. They went to Taj Mahal. They went everywhere. And I went to all these
places. Gates of India. Yeah, they went everywhere. I never did it because I just didn't think it
through. I mean, I was just more interested in what I was doing at the time. And to be honest,
all I wanted to do was get back to Australia because my kids want to get back on time for
the weekend footy on Saturday. So I'd go Monday to Friday and fly over the night and be back here
Saturday morning. And again, I never appreciated the opportunity I had until many, many years later,
many years later. But nonetheless, I did experience some pretty cool places in my life.
I love the fact that you were focused on getting back for footy on the weekend.
Yeah. Well, that was my thing. All my boys played rugby union for school on Saturdays,
and then rugby league for the Cleveli Crocodiles or the Wombats. They different ones play different
teams on Sundays. For me, the biggest thing was standing on the opposite side to all the parents
that I knew and watching them play. And it was fairing them around on Saturday to all the various
places they had to play. And Sunday, they usually played at the one place. It was, I have to be
honest, it was one of the best, to me, that was the best thing of my weekend and the best thing
of my life at the time. Therapy. Just stand there watching the kids play footy. Why on the other
side of the? I can't stand listening to all the parents, all the shit they talk about and, you
know, saying all weird things about their kids and, you know, everyone got a prize and all sort
of stuff. So, you know, like I always want to watch when kids play footy and the team play footy. I
didn't want to listen to all that. And also, especially when we used to play some of the rugby
league sides at Redfern. Occasionally, it could get a little heated on one side. Mark, get on the
other side. Mind your own fucking business and don't get caught up in all that sideline stuff
between the parents. I got caught up in a grand final at Redfern Oval for my daughter's boyfriend
the last season that we could play before COVID. And it was all very friendly until, you know,
the game got close. And then all of a sudden I was Gus from the grill team or Gus who's a Rooster fan.
Yeah, no, totally. It was really weird how quickly it changes. And my mates go, we just let's go.
Couldn't watch the last 10 minutes because it just got really tri-born aggro. And I hate that.
Well, I don't react, respond very well to it. And I mean, I guess also just the basic fundamentals
come out of me when it's like that. And, you know, and I'm not going to, I won't walk away
from anything. You know, I'll stand my ground. I'm not going to do anything, but I'll stand my
ground. And I remember one time I was at Redfern, some bloke, I was on the other side and near where
the school, the old school was. And this bloke come and he started yelling, he's yelling at the
referee, like abusing the shit out of the referee, got off the other side. And I said, mate chill,
like these kids, like abusing, really bad, you know, like pretty heavy. And he started staunching
me a little bit. And then, and I just ignored him. And then he come over and he said, you know what,
if I wasn't out on bail, he said, I was smacking you right in the mouth. And I said, mate, if you
smacked me right in the mouth, you'd be going straight back in, you won't be out on bail.
I taunted him a little bit. That's sort of why I stand away from all that, because it's,
yeah, that's sort of untidy when it comes to footy.
It's good to know, you know, your strengths and weaknesses.
Yeah, totally. Well, I didn't want to get into that sort of special front of the kids.
You don't talk about your personal life that much. Is there a reason for that? Like,
talk about the marriages and you talk about your kids because you're very proud of them. But
what is that scenario? And marriages? I had many. And
is that the one thing you're not very good at? Yeah, unsuccessful. Well, yeah, maybe look,
I'm still a mate to them all. I'm not going to say I picked the wrong people. I'll never say that.
They're mothers of my kids. Kids come from different mothers, but it's probably me,
to be honest with you. It's probably the common, obviously the common denominator is me.
Well, they say if you have one divorce, you know, that can be either party. If it becomes two,
you start, even your mates start questioning you. Three, then it's probably, it's on you.
Yeah, it probably is. And I mean, like, I accept that these days, probably is me. I say I'm pretty
difficult to be around, to live with. I'm pretty particular with what I do and I don't like.
I maybe haven't been as empathetic towards other people's needs, not because I'm ignorant or
don't care. I do care, but I don't pick up on things that well. Yeah, I just don't pick up on
things that well in terms of how someone is. It's not that I'm not interested, although sometimes
I'm not, but it's not that I'm not interested in terms of someone who has a relationship with me,
but I'm probably preoccupied with something else. I've had to learn to become much more interested
and look for the cues over the last couple of years. Otherwise you'll end up being by yourself
forever because you'll keep making the same error. If it is an error, the same outcomes will occur.
You just keep doing the same thing over and over again. I mean, I've even had to become that way
in relation to my businesses, to people who work for me. I was maybe five, 10 years ago, say,
started to realise that I can't be the way I used to be in my office environment.
I'm very straightforward. I say what I think. You can't be that way because it hurts people,
offends people. People get offended for reasons I don't understand because I don't mean anything
personal to them. Yeah, the world's changed. It's changed. Well, I've got to change probably
really importantly, and I've had to change. So I've had to become developed, trained,
practiced, being more empathetic towards how someone may react to what I've said.
Occasionally I still could get tired or I'm not on my game. I can still fall into that thing,
but that category of what I used to be like, but I didn't realise that stuff.
I didn't know I was doing that until someone told me. I mean, there was a thing at Wizard,
they used to call it aborusing. You're going to get aborusing. I got aborusing. I didn't even know
about it, but everyone used to call it aborusing. It was where I called you into my office and told
you what I thought of you. I wasn't aggressive or anything, but tell you in a plain English sort of
way, which is sort of one of the reasons why they offered me the job as the apprentice guy,
because that's Trump. And if I look at Trump today, that's what he did. But if I look at
Trump myself, look at him, I would say, mate, there's something wrong with you.
Then all of a sudden I was like, shit, hang on. They thought I was the same because I wasn't
looking at myself because Trump is a bit weird. He says inappropriate things and maybe I was
saying inappropriate things. Well, I obviously did. And so I've had to think about that. And that
goes right to the core of how I was even in my relationships. I would say something that would
be hurtful to somebody and they might feel undermined. Especially when they love you and
adore you. I imagine that's exactly how they were feeling. And when you get someone who loves you
and adores you say something cutting, that's hard to come back from. Yeah. I wouldn't do it to hurt
them though, because I don't like to hurt people. I mean, I don't like it. You didn't realise it.
I didn't realise it. I didn't realise it was like that. And a lot of times they wouldn't say anything
back to me because they were concerned about war. I might respond back. And I would say it as I'm
walking out the door or as soon as I get in the house. When I was selling wizard, it took me
to do the deal. I was so obsessed. I get obsessed with things, but I was so obsessed with it that
I would leave home at some mornings at four o'clock in the morning to work on it and get home at 11
o'clock at night. And I wouldn't eat, but I'd just fall into bed. Some nights I'd stay there and sleep
on the floor. I'd sleep on the floor of the office. And pretty much what I did is I completely ignored
my wife. I was married at the time. I basically, like she didn't exist. And I didn't realise,
because I just thought she was fine. The kids are at home. Three little kids, all 18 months
apart, driving each other like hard work. Three boys, wild as hell. My oldest boy had come back
to Australia. His mum came back to Australia. And so he was living with me. She would have my son
from another marriage. But I never for one second thought, wow, how hard must this be for her?
Yeah, well, maybe I should give her a hand. Yeah, I never thought for one second. No, you know why?
Part of the problem is I came from two parents who were so competent, so competent at everything
they did in raising us and raising my mum's sisters and my mum's brothers and dad's brothers and all
of us as well. Plus we had a foster kid. Mum had a foster kid. So everything just happened. I just
assumed maybe everyone was like that. Like in the back of my mind. Mum had jobs at night. My dad
would come home from his second job that he worked on after the factory at six. We'd all sit down and
have dinner. Then at 7.30, my mum would go and work at the Three Swallows Hotel. Mum would come
home at 11 o'clock at night from the Three Swallows Hotel. And at midnight, I would hear dad get up
and go and do the milk run before he started his factory job. And this went off for years.
And we all got raised and nothing, we didn't miss out on it. Like I had parental input
into everything I did. Maybe I just thought everything was the same. You know what I mean?
Like I just thought the world was the same because I didn't get exposed to anything else,
just my own family. And no one talked about their families in those days.
I often would try to work out why I was like that. And maybe that was it.
As you talk, so many more questions pop into my head. Were you able to give your mum and dad,
in inverted commas, a lovely house or something as you were becoming more successful? Did you
have a day where you just wrote a check and said, there you go mum, or there you go dad?
I remember you getting up at midnight. I remember you doing three jobs. Did you have that moment?
No, they wouldn't let me. So they're fiercely independent. But you know, we started off living
in Punchbowl. Then mum and dad were very ambitious people and worked hard. And they went from Punchbowl
to Sylvania, from Sylvania to Neutral Bay, Neutral Bay to Mossman. And they got a great
house in Mossman today. They live in a beautiful house in Mossman. So he got there anyway.
He got there on his own. And I would always buy trips from him, always pay for him to go to my
farm. And I'd send him out to my farm, buy the airfares. And I would do whatever I could,
which wasn't giving them money. But giving them an opportunity to have an experience.
Totally, totally. But their thinking is this house is for our kids. This big house in Mossman,
we're building it so we want to give it to our kids. Yeah. Don't you give me anything.
Okay, I like that. When you hire someone, is it based off their resume? Or is it sort of based off
that the vibe that you get from them? Well, to get the interview with me, as opposed to the
prior to me. So there's a process before you see them. So that's CV. But then when I see them,
I mean, it's more a vibe I get. I'm trying to suss out about who the person is. And I don't have
any particular process of doing it. But I ask them things about footy or interests. And I just try
to see their responses. I look for tone and speed and language. I like to see their background. I
like to know where they come from. There are questions I know you're not allowed to ask,
but I ask them anyway. Just to see they don't have to answer them. I say you don't have to
answer this question, but like, I'm going to ask it. And I want to see how much adventure they have
in themselves. Yeah. I mean, pretty much anyone can be sort of learn on the job or become really
skilled, I think. But it's more about their personality, their attitude, and their eagerness
to learn and eagerness to become better. I'm interested in having people want to get really
good at their job and don't mind me inputting as to how that will be. And I'm lucky now people
want to work for me because they think I'm some sort of sage and I'm going to give them some sort
of advice, which I'm not. But at the same time, that's a good thing for me because a really
important thing in business or just in life generally is learning how to learn. Because
people say, why should I go to university? I don't know. But maybe if going to university
gives you a degree, which is useless, that's one thing. But if going to university gives
you a useless degree, but it actually teaches you how to learn. You learn how to learn. That's
important. Yeah. And it's about what do I read? What do I absorb? How do I absorb it? What
conclusions do I draw from that material? How do I research the right material? Like, you know,
right now, the big conspiracy theories around floating around the world about where COVID came
from? Was it Bill Gates that started it? Or was it Joe Biden or Joe Fauci or whatever? Whatever.
All these conspiracy theories. And the internet is a place where unless you don't know how to learn,
you can be in trouble because you'll learn the wrong fucking shit. And you will become
obsessed, you can become obsessed with people who are urges, who are trying to get you on board with
them about something for which there's no rational basis for or no reason for you to believe in it.
Because there's two things in the world. I either know something from knowledge because it's been
proven as mathematical, or it says it's been working in a certain way for a long time, so it's
proven. Or I believe in it. God. I don't know if God exists or not. Therefore, I have to make a
choice. Do I believe in God? Do I choose to believe in God? A lot of people today are believing in
these conspiracy theories where they have an opportunity to actually know whether it's true
or not. But they don't know how to learn to learn to know it. And that's a really important thing
that tertiary institutions and being in a work environment where someone can teach you how to
learn. And that's so important as a life skill, learning how to learn and not get led by the nose
by people who are trying to basically fucking raun us, mate. And the world is full of them today.
And it gets young people, particularly gets them into trouble. And I have a mantra and one of my
boys has got a totter on his chest and another one's got it on his leg. And whenever I used to
go on an airplane and I was going overseas, my boys would be left here. I would always send them
a text and I'd say, and at the end of my text would tell me how much I love them and all that
sort of stuff. And at the end of the text I would say, work, because working is good for the soul.
Play, because you need to balance your play out. Fight for what's worth fighting for.
And love for what's worth loving. And always believe in something. And that is a very simple
mantra, which I live my life by. That's how I live my life by. So how do you learn, mate?
Well, when I was younger, I was more a visual learner. So I remember what I saw. So it was much
more powerfully embedded into my brain. And that's, some scientists will be able to come
and tell you there's a reason for that. I did study NLP, neuro-lynguistic programming,
and got to understand the importance of NLP. And I have worked on my auditory ability a lot more.
So I'm actually becoming quite good at hearing stuff and absorbing it and understanding it.
And that's worked well for me to give them podcasts. I'm going back quite a while now
to podcasts because I've been a podcast listener for a long time. And I get a lot out of
listening to podcasts and not seeing the person. I haven't been great on the kinesthetic stuff,
which is the third part of neuro-lynguistic programming or learning through that process.
That's something I'm working on, but that's maybe an instinct, not a natural thing in me.
I'm trying to work with my gut. A lot of people are really good at understanding. One of my sons
is brilliant. His gut feeling is so good, so sharp. On point. It's ridiculous. But it's funny
when going through school, he had an issue with learning in a class. The blackboard and the
left to right reading. He wasn't dyslexic, but he had a dyslexic issue when it came to absorbing
what was being told to him. But he came very good in the gut. It still is. Whereas I'm not that good
there, but I've been working on my auditory ability. So how I learn is I read a lot. I'm a
really big reader, but now I listen a lot too. And that's one of the great things about podcasts.
This stuff, podcasts, et cetera, mate. I know you're a radio guy or you don't do radio that
much anymore, but you are a radio guy. But radio is really heavily competed now, mate. Because
the style of radio is in two or three minute packages. I mean, I was on your show all the
time. And I remember just remember everything was a two or three minute package and then be an ad
and I'll be out and you get the next dude or the next topic. But now it's more 40 minute packages,
you know, and it's, I reckon they're much more powerful. Yeah, I agree. I enjoy it. I love a
podcast as well. This was meant to be 40 minutes, but I think it's going to be a little bonus one
because I haven't even got yet to your love of the roosters. And as a rooster fan, we share it.
Yeah, we share it very much. And we've been at games together. We've been good and bad wins
and losses. I'd like you to take us into the boardroom if you can. Nick Pilatus, obviously
such a strong character, much love character. I think every third car sold in Australia now,
he's got a piece of it. So very intelligent man, very funny man, very successful. What's he like
dealing with at the board level? Can you be yourself and be as powerful as you are in real
life in that boardroom or is he take on that? No, no, no, I'm there because of Nick Pilatus.
So Nick asked me to join the board and I'm there because Nick asked me to join the board.
Maybe I can share with you a view on boards. If you're the chairman of a board and or you're the
most influential person in a business, you might be the biggest shareholder. In his case, he's not
a shareholder, but he's the most influential person in our business, in our business of the
roosters, both at leagues club and at footy club. You make sure that you have a board that will be
part of your vision. It doesn't mean we're all yes men or women, but we're going to be part of the
vision. Otherwise, you're not going to select people who are going to be in conflict with you.
So I know that's how it rolls and that's my role on that board. It doesn't mean I won't say what I
think, but I won't attack him and I won't joust with him. I'll go to the side and say, look,
I have a different view on that or something like that. This is my opinion. This is my opinion,
but it's rare. My opinion is different. Rare. So in the boardroom, I'm not an acolyte or beholden
to the dude or whatever like that, but his research, his way of thinking, the results he's achieved,
you'd be a brave person to take him on in a board meeting because he would spend far more time on
anything than any of us do, much more time. And he's been in it much, much longer than any of us
have ever been. And he's much better connected than any of us are. He talks to the landers,
he talks to everybody, or more importantly, they talk to him. And he's more powerful than anybody
really understands, not just in the car game, because he is probably the most wealthy and
richest car guy privately in the world today, in the world, not just Australia, in the world.
He's incredibly connected and knowledgeable about what he does in the footy world. And in our
boardroom, he reigns supreme. And we all, and we're a good board, like in terms of individuals,
we all experience board people. And all of us, we don't defer, we listen what he's got to say,
and we go along, generally speaking, go along with it. We all have to vote on every resolution,
every meeting. It's strictly run. We hold a board meeting every month, every month. It doesn't
matter what month it is. We hold a board meeting every month. If you don't turn up, he gets the
shits. And you get marked as being absent and you get put in the annual report as being, you're not
being there. So it's strictly run. None of us receive any money. None of us receive any benefits
whatsoever. Zero. That we don't get a free beer. We don't get anything, nothing. And that's the way
he wants it to be. And I like that. And when we have to sign our directors no conflict stuff,
we can honestly sign these things in that way. If anything, we all give money to the joint.
We support the place financially. And like, we know we've just built a foundation. I think all
of us, if not all of us, most of us, we'll all put a hundred grand in each. Nick would have put in
more. And it's a foundation for running academies for kids to come through the process and, you
know, looking after- Orbo and Jake Friend would be a part of that?
They are totally. Yeah, I spoke to them about putting our programs, the Tomorrow Man,
Tomorrow Woman programs in building mental fitness. They can build the skills and the
physical fitness and we can help them with the mental fitness stuff. So I'm excited about that.
It's an important thing for us to have a foundation. And Nick is all about legacy,
what he's going to leave. And he's 80, you know, like it's the legacy. The legacy he wants to put
our club in is that both leagues and footy is that we have no debt. We have no debt. That's amazing.
We have a lot of money in the bank and we own a lot of very valuable assets unencumbered. That's
in the leagues club and which supports the footy club. The footy club makes a profit,
which is pretty unusual. Yeah. Well, it's beautifully run, isn't it?
Because he runs it well. And he's got really good people like Joe Kelly, et cetera. They do a great
job. And it's taken a long time for him to build a business and a legacy that will survive after
he's gone. And he's got great coaches in place. He's got great infrastructure in place. Great
people. He's done all this. It's all his vision. And we're all helping him, but it's his vision.
Yeah. We tell the line, we do what he wants us to do. And if he wants to be on this committee
or do on that committee or chair that or talk to someone, we'll do it. Like he just has to ask,
ring up, talk to us. We all do it. And we're all pretty connected in our own right. So we can drag
in resources that need to be dragged in or, you know, I'm there, I know about property. So, you
know, if there's a property issue, he always passed by me first. What are we going to do?
He's built a good village around him. 100%. And that's what it's like to work for him,
but he's built it. It's been his vision. Nick, to me, is one of the biggest influences,
influencers in my latter years, probably as much as Kerry has been in a different way,
but very impactful in terms of what I've learned from him about how to conduct myself.
Everything he does is voluntary. He doesn't, he's not doing it to have a big head or to appear
somewhere. He doesn't want to be the chairman of the NRL. He doesn't want to be on the NRL
commission. He doesn't want to be in those things. He doesn't even want to be recognised.
He doesn't want anyone to cheer him or say anything. He doesn't care whether they know
what he looks like. He's actually doing it for the members and the players and
Rooster fans generally. It's quite amazing. It's quite an amazing thing.
Yeah. God bless him.
Totally. We're lucky that we have him, but it's quite an amazing thing just to see,
to watch. I don't know how we're going to follow up once he does leave the championship end or
hopefully doesn't leave the planet, but I don't know how we'll ever replace or fill his boots.
Like the Sir Alex Ferguson at Man United, those sort of people are just hard to replace.
Well, you have to do something, but we'll never.
You don't want to be the next one in, put it that way.
That's a bit of a worry.
Yeah. Some quick fire stuff now.
Is there one player in particular that you're so proud of that you were part of bringing them to
the club, to the Roosters?
Freddie is for me. I didn't bring him to the club, but I was a big sponsor for Freddie. I
personally sponsored him for many, many years and I watched his ups and downs.
So Cabin Origin not turning up to something, then getting sacked back page.
I watched Freddie go to being the wonderful person he is today through all his trials and
tribulations with every bit of talent that anyone could ever wish for and come from an
unusual background. So yeah, Brad Fittler.
That moment he walked back to the Rooster fans 2002, head strap blood.
After Villa's ante.
Yeah. And that moment changed the whole game. He got 40-20 and then we scored 20 odd unanswered
points. We interviewed him earlier and that was his moment too, where he just knew as captain,
he had brought the trophy home.
Villa the Gorilla put Freddie on his face and then Morley squared up about three tackles later.
That was so good.
It was so good. And then we just went bang, bang, bang. Go back to New Zealand.
Do you pay your own bills? Like, do you know what your bills are? Like I get an electricity bill.
I go, okay, I'll put a circle around it. I'll get a little bit of a discount if I
pay it by this date. What's your life like?
I have a person who does that, but she has no authority to pay anything unless it first gets
approved on me. Everything, everything. So I get a whole list of things in a yellow brick road.
All creditors get paid once a month and we spend probably 200 million a year in bills.
Everything gets passed by me in a month and I have to approve it, the creditors list.
How long do you sit there with going, okay, that's that bill 6,300, that's $800.
You go through them all.
You're looking at me like you.
I scan it for unreasonableness, unusualness. I've got pretty good at it. I just scan through.
You know, I just look through and I go, things will stick out because I've been
doing it for so long now. I know what the run rate is. I know what we should be paying.
Generally speaking, I know who we're going to pay at various quarters and various periods,
particularly at yellow brick road. Nothing gets paid unless I approve it. For me,
it's just an okay or an approved. I mean, it's okay in my relation to my personal stuff
and it's approved at yellow brick road.
So there is an audit trial.
Would you swap your life to be a heavyweight champion of the world in boxing
or a champion at boxing of the world, not heavyweight because you're too slim?
Good question. It's a tough one.
That's my answer.
Yeah. Okay. What about to play rugby league back in the day for the berries at Belmore
or running out of the new Sydney football stadium in a couple of years time for the roosters?
I wouldn't swap my life as it has been because I feel like sometimes in my business,
I am running out in front of the...
Yeah. For your chosen thing, you are the captain of a premiership winning team.
But the boxing one, that's a whole new level for me.
I remember we went to a fight in North Sydney and you clean this bloke up. He did quite well
on the first round and I think you were trying to work it out and in the end, end of three rounds,
it was all over and you beat him easy. But that night, I remember giving you a big cuddle. You're
really hot and sweaty and you had your trainer there, one of the great trainers of all time,
Johnny Lewis. I've just never seen you so happy.
Do you know what Johnny Lewis said to me at the end of the first round? He said to me,
son, if you don't fucking get in there and punch the shit out of this bloke,
he's going to win on points. He said, you better go knock him out, which is what I did.
Yeah, you did. You did. All righty. These are the fast five to finish up, big fella.
You've already given us your favourite quote, so that one's locked away.
Your favourite holiday destination?
It has to be Greece. My dad's village in the area from where he comes from in Greece.
It's not an island. It's a mountainous area.
Yeah. I just, in my heart, my heart loves it.
It's your home. You say you're a big reader. Your favourite book?
Oh, well, I don't read fictions, but I'm always reading science books. So I read American
Scientific. I'll read Nature Magazine. Right now, I'm reading a book called Weapons of
Math Destruction at WND. I'm reading a book on the theory of time at the moment.
Wow. Look at you. Handsome and intelligent.
Shawshank Redemption.
What a flick. And your favourite charity? Because
Shaw and Partners and Earl Evans and I have given me $10,000 for every one of our guests
to give to their favourite charity. So who would you like to give it to? And what would
they do with that money?
Well, I have three charities. It's Police Legacy.
You can split it up three ways, if you like.
Yes, I advise Police Legacy. I mean, I've been boxing for Police Legacy. I'm their
ambassador, boxing ambassador for the last 15 years. I mean, PCYC, which I'm the patron
of Wollongolloo PCYC, which is a police citizens youth club. And St Vincent's, the Vincentian
Village, which I've been looking after Christmas time for the last, since 1994. And I dress
up like Santa Claus or sometimes my sons do, depends on how old it is.
You need to put probably a pillow.
I put a couple of pillows in it and I give gifts out to all the people who are homeless
who go and live in that particular centre, usually mothers with their kids.
And I want to finish with one thing to say Gus, you're a good man, mate. I mean, the
way you dedicate your life to, you really have a dedication to this, to looking after
people who are far less fortunate than you have been and than me and a lot of your friends.
I just wish there were more people like you. I wish I had more time to do it. I wish I
had more desire to do it. I try my best and one of the ways I help out is I just give
money basically. But to give your time and the effort and the thought that you give to
it, that's totally commendable. And I feel like I just didn't do justice by saying
totally commendable. I can't think of words that describe properly. You are,
mate, you're a fucking champion, seriously.
Really. I mean, it's so good and we need, well, we need more people like you, but we
need you. So don't stop.
I won't be stopping anytime soon. I'm a bit like you. I thank you for those very kind
words, but I never get tired doing gotcha for life work. You know, where I do get tired at
times doing other things, but we've got to get the suicide rate down to zero. And the
only way we can do that is by, you know, people supporting us, getting more facilitators into
schools, into sporting clubs, into corporations. And if we don't do that, the suicide rate will
stay the same. So we have to get it to zero. And having fun chats like this with you is
wonderful. And Shaun partners have been great supporting gotcha.
They're a good mob, Shaun partners. Those boys are real good blokes that are across
the road from office and they're champions. They are so generous, by the way.
Oh, they've got hearts of gold. I remember bumping into Earl the first time and he said,
I want you to come and see me next week. Here's my card. And he just got off a paddle at
Colorado. And I went, I wonder what that's about. And I rang him. And the first time he saw me,
he said, we need more people like you. What can I help you with? And I said, well,
can you look at my business, my foundation and tell me if I'm doing it right? And secondly,
I need money. That's really, I know it's coarse to say that. And he said, okay. So he looked at
my books. He spread the whole sort of thought process and strategy out on a big board table.
And he just went through and looked at it, put circles around it, crosses through things. And
we changed the way we did things. And then, you know, he's given us hundreds of thousands of
dollars, which he knows will go into, you know, saving people's lives.
Earl and Alan, the champions, as is the whole firm. The whole firm.
Thanks for your time.
Well, that was Mark Burris. And what I loved about that was the fact that his mum dragged
him down to university by the ear or by the scruff of the neck and say, hey, you're going
down a wrong path. You need to go this way. And the fact that he's changed his life around is
quite incredible and why I love him so much. Coming up next is Carl Stefanovic. A chat with
Carl is an experience and one that I hope that you enjoy as much as I do. Obviously, he's well
known for everything around Channel 9, going away from The Today Show, going back to The Today Show.
What you will realise is Carl is a spiritual beast and one that hopefully you'll enjoy listening
to as much as I did. A big thank you to Shaw and Partners Financial Services who have generously
supported this podcast and also donated $10,000 to the charity of choice of each of our guests
to thank them for their time. Shaw and Partners are an Australian investment and wealth management
firm who manage over $28 billion of assets under advice. With seven offices around Australia,
Shaw and Partners act for and on behalf of individuals, institutions, corporates and
charities. For more info, you can check out their website at shawandpartners.com.au.
That's S-H-A-W for Shaw. Shaw and Partners Financial Services, your partners in building
and preserving wealth.