Shaun Bonett Calmness Is The Cradle Of Power

Hi, I'm Gus Walland and this is Not An Overnight Success brought to you by Shaw and Partners

Financial Services.

This is a podcast where we sit down with some very successful people from the world of business,

entertainment and sport and we chat about their life's journey and what got them to

the position that they're in today.

In today's episode, we are chatting with Sean Bonnet.

Sean is an Australian entrepreneur and property developer who founded and is CEO of The Precision

Group, co-founder and executive chairman of Prezi, the leading global e-gift card provider

and a non-executive director of iSelect.

Sean is an extremely successful businessman worth over a billion dollars, but his approach

to business and the mentality he has behind it is anything but expected.

Sean's journey to the top of the business world faced some hiccups, like recessions,

the GFC and most recently, the pandemic, and in this chat, you'll hear how he navigated

each of them to continue on a path to success.

Sean is a people person.

Everything is created as people in mind.

It's keeping people in mind that has created the foundation of all of Sean's business success.

He's a big, friendly giant.

He's six foot five with a smile that beams from ear to ear.

In this chat, we'll talk about his family, his very close relationship with his brother,

we speak on how he navigates raising his children and they're home with 15 cats.

Yep, 15 cats.

I've always found it interesting to know how people with this type of business success

live their lives, like do you pay your own bills?

Do you take the bins out?

That kind of stuff.

As for all these podcasts, Sean, partners have generously donated $10,000 to the charity

of choice of each of our guests.

We discuss who gets that money in this chat.

The executive producer of this podcast is Keisha Pettit with production assistance from

Kelly Stubbs and Brittany Hughes.

Let's get into our chat with Sean Bonnet.

Sean, what were you like as a kid?

I'm not sure I was actually that much different, Gus.

Just always the tallest in the class, a friendly guy.

I remember I never really fell into one group, really just moved around with all the different

groups in my year level.

And where did you grow up?

What was your family make up?

So we started here in London.

My dad was studying his postgraduate in oncology.

When I was eight years old, he got transferred with the WHO, the World Health Organization,

to this part of the world.

And my parents loved Australia and after a couple of years, two became four, became forever.

And were you happy with that?

All I remember was from the hustle and bustle of the UK, raining and overcast skies to

suddenly coming to a land where the sun was shining most of the time and we used to go

to wildlife reserves and there were these kangaroos and, you know, life was pretty laid

back here.

So I think I actually really warmed to Australia.

Did you have brothers, sisters?

So I've got a brother, Steve, who's almost three years younger than I.

We've been best mates since we've been young kids.

Steve's always been the more responsible and caring brother watching out for me.

I've done the same in my own way.

So what does Steve do?

Steve works also for Precision.

He's a qualified lawyer and economics graduate.

He's also chair of Exact Mining and a few other charities.

But with Precision, we work on a day to day basis quite closely together.

That's great.

We'll get back to that in a moment because you looked after each other when you were

growing up.

Were you good at school?

Where did you go to school?

Did you go to a posh privileged school or did you go to the local high school?

So in the UK, I went to St. Joseph, which was probably close to where my dad was working

in the Stratford Hospital, which was the main hospital in the UK.

And that was probably based upon more proximity than anything.

In Australia, I went to St Ignatius, St Aloysius.

We were certainly brought up as very much a values based, no nonsense type of approach.

Was that mum and dad?

Was that both of them as a team or was that more mum focused because dad was busy at work?

What was the dynamic like in the family?

Sorry, Gus, I was actually talking about the school.

Oh, right.

The dynamic in the family was, I mean, my dad was on call a lot with his work.

He used to work at times sort of 14 plus hours a day.

So we often saw my dad late, you know, having his dinner reheated in the oven.

Mum was very much the homemaker and making us feel always safe and cared for,

but also very much influencing, you know, our principles and values

and always guiding us onto the right path.

And your brother and you went to Aloysius together.

Were you both good at school?

Were you scholars? Were you ducks of the year?

Were you all rounders with your sport?

What were you like as a school kid?

So I was a reasonable performer.

I was gifted with mathematics and enjoyed my classical studies and English.

And Steve was even brighter than I.

He was a real scholar.

He was like Mr. Perfect.

I see your eyes light up when you talk about your brother.

It's a really authentic, beautiful thing to see.

You really love him.

Absolutely. Now we're a very close family and we've shared many special experiences.

Mum and dad still with us?

My dad's passed some years ago, but he's still very much with me in my heart.

Yeah. Did he see your success?

He did. It's actually hard to believe. I'm 50, Gus.

You don't look at me.

You're pretty handsome yourself.

But I was blessed to rise reasonably quickly.

And when I was 29, I reached, I guess, an accolade of at that time

being one of the leading people under 40.

And my dad certainly saw that and was very proud.

But my dad also was very much more about what are you giving back, Sean?

Sort of like the higher you rise, more you have to serve.

That's beautiful.

At what stage in your life did you realise that you could be quite good at business?

Was it at school? Was it at university?

Did someone say, oh, you've got this?

Or what was that moment?

I always looked at my skill, probably more at connecting with people

and working things out, which I guess most people either couldn't

or just didn't have the patience to.

Sometimes the more difficult a problem or a project or an issue was,

the more it actually attracted me.

I enjoyed solving puzzles.

So in a sense, that became one of my missions,

which was to sort of fix broken things.

And that served me well.

Probably realised that reasonably early on, I was pushed along at school,

I guess, for being bright.

So I matriculated at the age of 14.

Thankfully, because I was a tall lad, I got away with being, I guess,

quite a young person, but still being able to mix with people many years my senior.

So you go to university. Whereabouts is that?

I actually went to Adelaide University.

So why move away from Sydney to Adelaide?

So the Flinders Medical Centre Hospital at that time

was probably the leading centre for cancer treatment

and was pioneering a number of progressive treatments.

And my dad was always wanting to be at the centre of advancement.

So Adelaide was where we needed to be.

So Adelaide, you're there, you resettle there, you're at university.

Do you enjoy uni?

Is it something that you look forward to and look back on now with fond memories?

So at this stage, I probably didn't know exactly what I wanted to do.

So I put my name down for a few different courses, arts, economics,

politics, psychology.

Fortunately, they accepted me into all the courses I applied for.

So I ended up progressing them.

Right. So how many courses did you do?

I ended up getting three degrees.

Right. Did you do these degrees, these three degrees all at the same time?

I got permission to do them at the same time.

Arts, economics, psychology and law.

Right. OK, so that's not a normal situation at all.

Probably a lot of the way I do things is not orthodox, I believe in, you know,

really following your own path.

And, you know, I've probably been doing that since pretty early on.

So you do the three degrees, you come out of university, what then?

So at that time, you know, we're dealing with late 80s, early 90s.

And I started just before I actually graduated working as a law clerk.

And then the firm that I was working with at the time offered me a job as a lawyer.

And I remember seeing this polarizing effect of, you know,

late 80s was the world of Gordon Gekko and, you know, greed is good.

And seeing every business being out for themselves and aiming for the stars.

And then after the first year that I started working,

I suddenly saw the early 90s recession where Australia's greatest,

many of Australia's greatest companies started to fall.

You know, I remember now Woolworths and David Jones going into receivership,

which was like the sky was falling.

Yeah.

And seeing great business people who I had sort of admired and looked at as mentors really going bankrupt.

You know, I remember seeing John Spalvans, who at that time in fact controlled these companies,

really being brought to his financial knees and from a young lawyer's point of view,

really taking no pleasure in this and really getting the feeling of I don't really want to be involved in this.

And that's probably what led me from pretty early on to say I need to do things myself,

because while I was enjoying working in a large legal business with highly talented people,

I was certainly not enjoying being in that sort of downturn environment

where businesses and companies and people were being put into administration.

And even at that time, the State Bank of South Australia went into receivership.

I remember waking up that morning, front page of the paper were all the major projects

at that time in South Australia were all put on hold.

And it was very much as a result of that of saying, you know, I really did not want to be an undertaker.

That's where Precision Group was born.

So tell everyone that's listening about the Precision Group and has it always been awesome?

Did you have moments where it wasn't so fantastic?

Because there's a lot of people listening to these podcasts, not an overnight success.

It's all about the fact that you might have gone down a rabbit hole or two along the way.

It may not be the case with you, but what happened with Precision?

My approach is life is awesome, you know, even when things may not go your way.

When you get bruised or beat up, you need to embrace that and take them as lessons,

you know, get stronger from those experiences.

From a Precision Group perspective, in 93, 94, 80 plus percent of property in Australia was in some form of administration.

So there was a great opportunity of being able to do what's known as structured finance type of deals.

You know, banks wanted to get assets out of their bad books into their good books.

And there was a reasonably well-developed sort of mezzanine type of finance.

So my early deals were, you know, very much on financial engineering,

working out what I thought were great assets or assets that could be great.

I think most people thought early on they were white elephants that I thought could be turned around.

And, you know, finding small shopping centres which needed to be upgraded, needed some love and attention,

finding then better tenants to go into them, creating a more community feel,

then getting them revalued and paying out the high interest.

So I did that for about four or so years and had reasonable success with that.

And then used that to go into larger assets.

And in fact, in 1998, bought Precision's first major asset, which was the Port Canal Shopping Centre,

today Port Adelaide Plaza, which we've just spent the last three years redeveloping.

How much joy do you get out of creating the wealth and the feeling of community and so forth?

You see your eyes light up when you're thinking back nearly 25, 30 years.

Yeah, it's not about, for me, it's not about creating necessarily the wealth.

That's not a primary driver.

So let's say Port Adelaide was an asset in a very neglected suburb of South Australia.

Port Adelaide, which historically was actually Adelaide's first settlement, Australia's literally first free settlement.

So that to me was pretty meaningful and something which I thought needed to have a proper shopping centre in that region.

So today I'm proud of the redeveloped shopping centre that we've built there,

which I can say, you know, hand on heart, is leading in terms of its amenities and quality

and giving that back to the community down there is something which I take a great deal of pleasure in.

You seem like a very pragmatic man. Would that be correct?

I think you need to be open-minded, particularly when the world is going through a revolution.

Some things never change, but a whole lot of others do.

When you did your first big deal, was it scary for you? Was it exciting for you?

Was it a combination of those things?

Because I look at, you know, we're sitting in a pretty nice building looking over Sydney, got a harbour view and so forth.

It's pretty awesome. And you've come a long way.

I'm sitting in front of a magazine called the CEO Magazine.

You're front and centre on the cover. You've been in the CEO Magazine in Europe and in the States.

I mean, you are one of the top CEOs in the world.

You've come a long way from that boy from Adelaide that whacked out three degrees all at the same time.

You know, Gus, you don't feel any different, I can tell you.

Well, I don't. You know, if I did have moments when I start getting too big a head,

I've got a mother who brings me back right back down to earth.

You know, from my perspective, it's been an exciting journey, but I've still got a, I feel at least,

I still have more to do and still a long journey ahead.

You know, I'm a person who wakes up with a million volts running through my body.

And, you know, I think if you've been given that sort of gift, it's important to use it.

Thankfully, just like when I was 23, 24, starting up, I believe in very much building businesses

which have the right values with people as their focus.

And I think it's really all about actions, not words.

Yeah.

And so many companies might have fantastic mission statements, but, you know, it's important to live them.

Yeah.

So it's important, it's all about authenticity, it's all about having the courage to be a bit vulnerable.

All the stuff that why I think we get along so well, because you love that vision from Gottscher,

we launched something called Boys Do Cry rather than Boys Don't Cry, which was the Cure song back in 1980.

So we got the permission from the band to change the words and we announced Boys Do Cry.

And I said, this is just another awareness piece, but we need, this is a bit of action that goes with it.

We need to combine action now with awareness, because if we keep just telling people about a problem or an issue,

but don't give them some serious steps and processes to action it,

we're going to continue to keep going down the same path when it comes to mental fitness.

100%.

It's probably one of the most concerning things at the moment that, you know,

young people have such few people to actually look up to, which they actually resonate with.

You know, with social media, everything is about the now and instant gratification,

but you don't really derive meaning from that.

That's not something you necessarily keep in your heart,

which actually then reduces vulnerability, reduces the development of character and diminishes values.

So, you know, that's something which I'm actually really wanting to change as well.

With our business Prezi, Prezi is all about, you know, acknowledging, recognising, just saying thank you to people.

You know, even though it's very much, we say, the gift card of choice, 600 plus cards on the platform,

the real customer journey is actually at the start with the greeting card of actually picking out which greeting card you want.

Is it celebrating your mate's birthday or just saying thank you or a corporate acknowledging their staff?

I was going to get on to Prezi in a moment because this is the new-ish part of your business,

and that's how we met actually, wasn't it, through that process.

Before you spoke about Prezi, you spoke about people, and I know how important people are to you,

to have the right people around with the right type of attitude and spirit and heart and so forth.

How hard is that for you to work out the people that are trying to get close to you because of who you are and your wealth,

and also the genuine people that are the ones that you want to have in your life?

Have you got a good radar for working out people that are there for the right and the wrong reasons?

I just talked to them for a while, Gus.

Right.

I believe in taking time to get to know people.

I think that's, again, just one of the simple things which people seem to have forgotten,

that investment at the start, even just to spend an hour, an hour and a half, or even two or more talking to someone,

getting to know them, asking what's important to them.

Once an hour passes, you really start to peel off the layers and see what someone really is about.

Yeah.

So a bit of patience for people listening now trying to work out from the business point of view,

taking a little bit of time at the start and investing in the people before you then rush off and make big calls or invest too much in them.

Yeah, absolutely.

It's like, I think people have actually forgotten about how important it is to,

in business it's called due diligence, but due diligence operates on a personal level too.

It's like what we're doing at the moment.

You're asking me about my life, my family.

It's interesting nowadays where you meet people and they sort of say, this is my best mate,

and you sort of say, well, do you know how many brothers and sisters they have?

Do you know what's the story with their parents?

And it's almost like these sorts of topics aren't important anymore.

Yeah.

But it's actually what identifies someone.

It's really what someone's about.

Just quickly interrupting the episode to say a very big thank you to the sponsor of this podcast,

and that is Shure and Partners Financial Services.

Shure and Partners are an Australian investment and wealth management firm who manage over $28 billion of assets under advice.

With seven offices across Australia, Shure and Partners act for and on behalf of individuals, institutions, corporates and charities.

For more info, you can check out their website at shureandpartners.com.au.

That's S-H-A-W for sure.

Shure and Partners Financial Services, your partners in building and preserving wealth.

And let's get back into the episode.

So from your point of view, you're flying along, things are going well.

Any moments where you went, oh my God, this is just too much.

Did you go down a wrong path or has it always been tick, tick, tick?

Well, I've sort of in sort of 27 odd years been through, you know, three, I guess, major economic downturns.

The first few five years in the 90s of precision, I think I felt like I was going down the wrong path, you know, every week, literally,

because the environment was so challenged and so hard and almost everyone was negative.

It was more like, you know, I was young and enthusiastic and, you know, unlimited and irrepressible energy to do to do stuff.

And it was more like people saying, well, you know, why are you doing this?

Haven't you heard? It's a recession.

But, I mean, I just sort of tried to channel that negativity into more of a reason to rise.

And, you know, sort of saying, you know, my dad used to look at me and tell me to remember that everything goes in circles.

Things go down. You sort of wait for them to come up.

Nothing stays static.

Thankfully, he was right in sort of 97, 98.

The wave started to rise and then rose, you know, very high for the next decade,

which really enabled me to build Precision's business, which was, you know, a fantastic feeling.

It's like as the wave gets higher and higher, you're really feeling like this is bigger than I was expecting.

The GFC was an enormous challenge.

2009, 2010, it probably was in some respects equally as dramatic as the pandemic.

I remember getting phone calls from some of my friends in very senior positions

and telling me their businesses had filed for bankruptcy, Chapter 11 in the US, telling me that they're out of a job.

It was a real couple of months where it just felt so unreal,

an armageddon of sorts of the financial markets.

And I think no one really knew where things were going to go.

The few years after that took a while for the markets to stabilise and for trust to be built back into the markets.

And then more recently, with the pandemic, again, I mean, less than 18 months ago,

seeing so many businesses cut their staff, cut salaries and, you know,

that bewilderment that arises with people often who have sort of trust in their businesses.

My approach throughout all of these downturns has always been do as little damage as possible,

probably more adopting what I saw my father do when he was seeing very ill patients.

You cause no damage and you wait for things to stabilise.

So that approach has served me well.

You only act if you absolutely need to when dealing with crises and do so in a very careful and considered way.

I think that was probably the, in the last 18 months, probably the most frustrating and sort of disappointing thing.

The way, you know, once a company starts to cut, we will cut 20%, 30% of our staff,

you suddenly see so many other companies following just like sheep.

So almost like it's the responsible thing to do.

And even having been for the last month travelling in the US and the UK,

that was probably, again, the single biggest learning I had of how damaged business actually is,

particularly small business and how people have lost so much hope.

Every time you talk about your dad, your eyes well up and you're like,

he obviously gave you so much good advice and there's just so much there that you rely on, you know,

and powerful, obviously a powerful person for you.

With your brother so close in the business as well, is family the most important thing to you?

If you just cut away at everything else, family is it?

You know, people are the most important and family are at the front of that.

You know, whether it's my mum, my brother, my two kids, Eve and Gabriel and, you know, all the family.

The connection of blood is one which binds, but, you know, friendship can also be incredibly strong as well.

Family just give a head start on that.

Yeah, I love watching your social media because you do a lot of stuff with your mates, you know,

very similar to the Gotcha for Life way of looking at it, you know,

having people in your life that know truly what's going on so you don't have to put the mask on with everyone.

And, of course, we have to be resilient and hardworking and put that mask on every now and again.

But you've got that good set of mates that you can rely on.

Absolutely, fundamentally important.

You know, I don't know where I'd be without that inner circle of people who you can just be a self-wit

and just tell them the truth, you know, the ugly truth, whatever it actually is.

No holds barred.

I think everybody needs to have that inner circle.

What's in all conversations?

What I like with my mates, just tell them the way it is and they give you advice.

Sometimes they can't give you advice.

Sometimes they try to fix it.

Other times they're like, thanks for sharing that.

Like, I don't know what I can do about that, but it's just good to get it off your chest, isn't it?

Yeah, it's sometimes and often is not about fixing the problem.

But as they say, you know, a problem shared is a problem halved.

And I think if you do that with a few people, it might be even more.

Yeah.

So it's important to have the people who aren't going to judge you, who provide you that objective lens.

For me, I actually feel the load lessening.

You feel that you're not carrying the issue, at least to the same degree anymore.

You know, it's often confirmatory when you sort of tell your mates, you know, this has happened

and this is what I what I think I need to do.

And they say, of course, it's what you need to do.

How could you think any differently?

Or, you know.

Well, what are you talking about, mate?

Are you serious? No way.

Exactly. How did you work that out?

Yeah. You're drinking at the time you came up with that decision.

Exactly.

Let's talk about a day in your life.

Are you a getting up early type guy?

Could you say you wake up you wake up with like bolts of energy?

But are you up at like five a.m. training on the markets?

Like if I woke up next to you big fella, what would a day in the life of you be?

So I wake up about six o'clock every day.

Usually meditate for 10 or 20 minutes.

Spend the next half an hour or hour catching up messages and emails.

So that's stuff that's coming overnight from other countries?

Yeah. And then depending upon what my day looks like, I might do some exercise or I might get ready straight for work.

Or was a certain time?

No, you'll often catch me wearing a T-shirt and a jacket.

Haven't progressed into a hoodie yet.

I have to send you one.

Watch out to come.

If I can take my kids to school, I will.

And then, you know, from an office point of view, it's really whether it's a board meeting or a series of meetings throughout the day.

Traveling used to be a major part in my schedule, not as much in the last 18 months.

So any of the above.

Do you like traveling?

And I'm assuming you walk in and turn left or go upstairs.

You're not going down to like 27 K down by the, you know, the toilets.

You know, I actually I don't mind having said that I'm six foot six, Gus.

So it gets a little bit uncomfortable for the person at the front if my knees are jammed into them.

But look, in the last 18 months, traveling in any part of a plane has been a real privilege.

And, you know, having had exempt business and able to travel a bit was really important.

You know, what I like most about traveling beyond doing things a bit differently is just seeing the different teams of people in our business.

I mean, video conferencing has proven to be a real savior, but nothing beats getting in front of someone,

looking in their eyes, sharing a tea, coffee, breaking bread with them.

And that's probably what I actually love most about traveling.

Yes, that energy, isn't it, that you get from other people that we've missed out on by all the presentations I've done.

You do it and you feel exhausted at the end of it and you go, well, I haven't had to get up and travel and get there and jump in an Uber and stuff.

But I'm more tired just walking into my office and doing a presentation.

But I soon realized exactly what that's all about and why that is, because I wasn't getting any energy off anyone.

Exactly.

Can we talk about the kids at all? Do you talk about your family?

My family like to be private, but I encourage the importance of recognizing that the world has become more open and that you need to be prepared for that.

My daughter, Eve, is not on any social media.

Congratulations. How have you been able to manage that?

She needs to go through a whole approval process if I post anything, including her.

OK, so she's the boss?

100%, Gus.

My son, on the other hand, he's basically a professional gamer at the age of 13, loves technology.

We share that passion and interest.

And from a parent, father's perspective, it's a challenge to moderate that.

And it's been an even greater challenge to do that during the pandemic, where technology has been their platform to mix with their friends.

Yeah, to connect.

You know, it's funny. Gabriel told me last week, I sort of said, how's physical school going?

And he said, you know, Dad, I actually preferred online.

A lot of friends of ours said that kids were getting up, knocking all the schoolwork over by 10, 30, 11 o'clock, and then they could do whatever they wanted after that.

And they, some kids, it really suited.

And he was certainly one of them.

And I think it's it's going to be a real issue over the next couple of years, particularly, you know, with how this hybrid develops.

So for someone like yourself, do you put the bins out yourself?

You know, if I can.

Have you got someone to do that if you if you don't get the opportunity?

So I've got a full time housekeeper who enables me to work later when I need to or travel.

But having said that, you know, I'm an enormous believer of doing everything.

And if I can help out in any way, including putting bins out, I do.

When I get the gas bill come in, I go, OK, I'm going to pay it a little bit earlier because you get that discount and so forth.

Do you think that way? Do you pay your own bills?

Is there a day in the month where you go, right, I'm going to pay the rates and pay the this and the pay the that or is that all dealt with?

So I used to do all of that, Gus.

And then one benefit of the pandemic's been now putting everything on automatic payment.

But now I do believe in keeping a watch on things.

You know, it's just like turning out lights.

Tell my kids, you know, we whenever we go out, turn out the lights, check the doors are locked, have the animals being fed.

You know, we've got quite a few animals, so dogs or cats, cats.

You know, we've got 15. What?

Fifteen cats. What? Yeah.

How did you get 15? And they had babies.

You kept them. So what's your whiskers bill every month?

We spend quite a bit on cat food.

Where do they all sleep?

We've got two cat houses. We've got like a winter cat house.

With a view?

It's got quite a nice view and a cabana for the summer with hammocks and other little pods inside it for the breeze to go through.

I want to come back as one of your cats. I imagine it'd be an excellent life.

I fully assure you, you'll be well cared for.

That's fascinating about the cats. I think that's hilarious.

And obviously you love them and that's awesome.

What do you like to eat? Do you like going out? Do you like eating at home?

Do you like a dirty burger? Do you like going to Macca's? What's your little treat?

You know, I actually just like to keep it different.

I like all of the above. I like having friends over pizza or burger nights.

I like going out, fine dining or just getting some fish and chips and eating them on the grass or the beach.

You have to mix it up. Keep it interesting.

I want to finish this up with our Fast Five questions.

Your favourite movie?

Dead Poets Society.

Absolute cracker. Favourite holiday destination?

I'd have to say either the simple Palm Beach, which is an hour and a half away,

or I don't think any place in the world has moved me more than Venice.

The water going through the canals and it's quite magical.

Favourite quote or a saying or something you do that you live your life by?

Calmness is the cradle of power.

You are pretty calm, aren't you?

Try to be.

Is there a sport, like normally sport undoes people, you know.

You get so fired up about a bad decision against your football team or something.

Is there anything that really does rile you up that really is quite sort of not that big a deal?

Are you a sports fan?

Yeah, it's, you know, watching my kids play sport, sport riles me up, especially if they're getting knocked around or worse.

That really riles me up.

I bet you. I bet you.

Are you a reader? Have you got a favourite book?

I do read. I have a lot of favourite books.

I remember a great book that passed on to me when I was quite young, which was called The Richest Man in Babylon.

What was that about?

Just theory, basic lessons of how to live your life and treat money.

I remember reading, as a very young person, this concept of always giving a portion of whatever you made.

But really then coming to appreciate how actually important that was to be recognising, you know, the underprivileged, you know, how lucky we are.

You know, whether that's charity or the same group of people, really just to be counting our blessings.

So that book really sticks in my mind.

Could you say the name of it again if people missed it?

The Richest Man in Babylon.

It's an easy read, Gus, like really easy.

It's about, well, when I read it, it was sort of medium sized print and less than 100 pages.

But it's one of those books that I'd commend to any person at any stage of their life.

Got pictures? I like books with pictures.

I think it may have a couple.

There may be a picture version.

If not, it might be something someone should do.

Yes. And your favourite charity or a charity you'd like to give to donate $10,000 to today,

because Shaun Partners, who are our sponsor of this particular podcast series, wants that to happen.

There's only one for that.

And that's Gotcha for Life.

Thank you, mate.

Thank you, Gus. Really appreciate it.

You're a fascinating man.

I really could talk to you forever about so much stuff.

But I think you've changed a lot of lives by people listening to you today.

And I love the fact that, you know, if you don't see the video,

the emotion that comes when you talk about the important stuff in your life, you know.

So thanks for being so vulnerable and to show that you can be successful, but by being human as well.

Thank you and look forward to working more with Gotcha for Life.

Cannot wait, mate. Thank you.

Well, that was Shaun Bonnet.

And what I loved about Shaun was that he is so successful, but he is just so normal.

He literally is a big giant.

He gives you a big hug, looks you with those eyes, that big smile,

and you realise that absolutely anything is possible.

I also love the fact that he has that village mentality and how he spoke about his dad.

That, to me, is true heart.

Coming up next on Not an Overnight Success is Kath Kischel.

Kath is an extremely resilient woman.

Her story is like nothing that you have ever heard before.

From bringing a professional cricketer to learning how to walk again,

not once, not twice, but three times.

A tragedy of a partner that led to her creating The Kindness Factory.

I have no doubt you'll leave this episode feeling grateful and grounded.

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.