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Wednesday March 25th
I have a meeting scheduled at my home with an old friend.
I’ve asked him to come over to discuss a potential capital raising for some of my companies.
Even though my companies don’t require additional capital my intention is to consider all options considering the worsening economic environment and the world recession threatening to turn into a depression and the fact most companies have been raising capital to be better positioned.
I’m interested in being prepared for the opportunity to buy out distressed companies in the different industries my companies operate in. So if I did a capital raising it would be predominantly for this purpose.
After deciding to not list on the ASX last year I’d only consider a capital raising if it was little effort and not overly costly.
Meeting is productive and it gives me food for thought.
When I’m at home I work from the front of my house overlooking the canal and it’s such an empowering environment to work from.
I decide to cancel a boy’s trip to Fraser Island bike riding due to leave on the weekend as my book distributor sends through orders for two new books they have promoted to bookstores.
And the challenge is – I’m yet to finish either of them so I set aside the next 10 days to focus on finishing them as it will take a further 3 to 5 weeks thereafter before they can be printed and send to bookstores.
The books are 70% done but even with a ghost writer it takes a lot of time to complete.
After a relaxing Sunday at home with a small pool party and a hit of tennis with one of my Melbourne mates who I beat 8 – 6 in tiebreak.
By the way I have very competitive mates, so who wins is important. Then I jump in my Ferrari to drive to the Marriot Hotel for Management Meeting.
I have my Managers flying in for two days from Melbourne Sydney and also Noosa offices. There are 10 of us at the meeting and only myself and Konrad as the only male managers. Basically we are surrounded by women managers who clearly out number us so it’s lucky I get along well with women, otherwise management meetings wouldn’t be much fun.
It’s our first management meeting over two days as generally they are only one day long but the last few have been running to late so we decide to trial 2 days and do them at a nice resort. Meeting starts around 9.30am and I kick it off for 2 hours to update the team on new things launching, including a new company we are launching, and new promotions we intend doing.
I also give an overview of every company and division in the group, since the last management meeting 5 weeks ago and challenges the group are facing during the Global Credit Crisis and proposed solutions.
Then we have a presentation by a CRM company to update the team on a brand new CRM that’s we’ve invested a lot of money into that’s only 5 weeks away from launch. All the team is excited about this and hoping it will deliver the efficiencies expected as it will transform the group and the manager’s ability to achieve so much more in less time. I’m a skeptic when it comes to software as I’ve paid a small fortune in my career for so many software systems which have all failed to deliver a fraction of what they are meant to. However this one is a customised one which we’ve never had done before and after the presentation of the progress I’m feeling more confident the investment will be worth it.
After lunch every manager has to deliver a presentation of their division or department covering what they achieved since the last meeting, challenges and targets for the month ahead.
We have a brand new manager of 21st Century Group so it’s her first meeting. She is a good addition to the team with lots of energy. I highlight to her, though finance is the worst performing company in the group right now, and even though it’s not her fault as she only has just taken over from previous manager. I expect a big turnaround rapidly as in the current economic environment I have little patience for any company that requires me to inject cash when it shouldn’t. She’s confident she will deliver and I’m convinced and look forward to the division’s improvement before the next management meeting in 6 weeks.
Half the managers get to share today and the rest scheduled for tomorrow. Meeting finishes by 6pm and we have a team dinner schedule for 8pm at Broad beach. I find management meetings a very effective leveraged way to keep the team focused and action orientated and results driven.
It also enables the team to be updated what’s happening in other divisions and be updated of changes and new staff in each department. It also puts pressure on divisions to perform as healthy competition is good and it also eliminates excuses, as any manager that makes an excuse for non performance, has to explain that to 10 managers who all can ask any question.
So it also identifies if they need help or assistance to achieve their divisions goals and the most common question I ask is “do you need anything else to achieve your targets”, so I can ensure if they do, they get it if worthwhile or if they don’t then they know they have no excuses.
Team Dinner is a lot of fun and team generally enjoy each other’s company and it’s good for team bonding. We find a small bar after dinner and continue socialising however being a Monday night there isn’t much happening on the Gold Coast and also I don’t want to encourage the managers to have to late of a night considering we have a big day ahead tomorrow. So by 1.30am everyone heads back to their hotel.
Wednesday March 18th
It’s my partner’s birthday today.
She visited her mum and stayed with her the night before so she’s coming to catch up for lunch. I’ve bought her a great present thanks to help of one of her friends so I hope she likes it as it wasn’t easy to organise.
I was hoping to take her hot air ballooning at 6am but it wasn’t possible plus with my ankle it wasn’t going to be ideal. Lucky for me my ankle has improved and I can now begin to slowly walk on it again.
By lunchtime I’m almost walking normally. I have dinner booked with friends for my partner’s birthday plus a big party on the weekend at the Gold Coast.
We go to one of my and my partners favorite Melbourne restaurants being Nobu at Crown casino.
If you haven’t been there, you must check it out when in Melbourne. It’s partly owned by Robert De Niro, although expensive it’s well worth it.
About 12 friends attend diner and it’s a great night. I even organise a birthday cake that she likes and its great night out. We hit the roulette tables after wards briefly but it’s just not Las Vegas.
We are home by 2.30am. I’m scheduled to fly to the Gold Coast to my home the next day.
I’m looking forward to two straight weeks at home.
March 3rd Tuesday
We are scheduled for a 2-hour private tour of Hollywood, which ends up being a lot of fun checking out the movie stars homes, visiting the famous Hollywood sign overlooking Hollywood, visiting the Hollywood Walk of Fame and the stars on the sidewalk. These ‘stars’ honour not only movie actors, but radio, TV and stage performers, directors, singers, songwriters, and other well-known show-biz personalities.
The Hollywood sign was actually a ‘Hollywood Land’ sign erected to sell Hollywood land many years ago and was only meant to be a temporary sign. The ‘Land’ part of the sign fell apart and the residents wanted to keep a permanent Hollywood sign, so a young celebrity at the time, the now famous Hugh Hefner, held parties at his Playboy Mansion to raise money via charity by selling off each letter of Hollywood for $30,000 each
and as a result the famous sign still stands to this day.
Today we check out of our hotel and depart Hollywood for Las Vegas. We fly American Airlines which provides very poor service, especially after flying Virgin airlines so much, where you become accustomed to friendly service. A good trick though is to book only an economy seat online and then upgrade at the airport to Business class. It costs US$550 extra each to purchase beforehand, yet only US$45 at the airport when checking in, so it’s a good tip for traveller’s wanting to save money, especially on a short flight which takes less than an hour.
We check into the Encore, one of Vegas’ newest hotels which is part of Wynn’s Casino. Exceptional hotel and we score a penthouse suite for 40% of the normal price thanks to meeting the Encore Client Manager at the Playboy Mansion party a few days before. The view from the suite is exceptional. We head out for a show and see ‘Zumanity’ at New York, New York Hotel. It has mixed reviews and I can see why. Some people would love it and some wouldn’t.
Afterwards we head off to ‘Blush’ a new nightclub in Encore for a few drinks. Vegas is very quiet to what it’s usually like and the recession is taking its toll but there are still plenty of people in town. We are in bed by 2.30am, but six consecutive late nights means I’m taking tomorrow morning off.
March Monday 2nd
After a gr
eat sleep in we headed off to Disneyland, a 45-minute drive from West Hollywood. My partner was so excited as it will be her first trip to Disneyland. We arrive around 12.45pm and only have three hours to explore as much as we can as I have comm itted to catching up with an old friend who lives in LA later in the day.
Even though I’ve been to Disneyland over a decade ago and I can’t remember much of it, which is good as everything seems new again.
Three hours is certainly not nearly enough time, but it’s a quick overview of the Wonderful World of Disney. Several days is probably needed to fully take advantage of the whole park and I certainly look forward to a return trip.
With the Qantas monopoly to LA now broken, thanks to Virgin, people can fly for as little as AUD$900 economy return or $5,000 business class from Sydney to LA. The days of paying $14,000 for business class on Qantas and having to pay extra if you’d like a smile with your service is now gone.
With lower fares, not only is it good for tourists but it also makes it far more viable to do business in the US and I’ve been considering options to expand over here for some time. I could easily live in LA for several months of the year. The winter weather is amazing.
See the photos in the Photo Gallery.
After Disneyland I get to catch up with a friend I haven’t seen for two years. She is a very successful TV presenter in LA and presents an Entertainment show every night broadcast across America on the 911 of entertainment news. She is 7 months pregnant with her second child and looking as healthy as ever and still working.
We head off to Dinner at Argos in Melrose Place at 6.45pm, one of Hollywood’s top restaurants to catch up with four friends, two from NZ who have moved to live in LA and two American friends we caught up with the night before. We discuss spending July and August in the South of France with my American friends as I’ve been planning for some time to take July, August and September off this year to live in Europe and Southern France, near St Tropez and Cannes, as this is one of my favourite parts of the world.
We all agree it’s better to rent a nice house than stay in hotels which can spoil a holiday by constantly moving from one hotel to the next. We also plan to charter a yacht for a week while in Southern France and invite 20 select friends and interesting people to join us for a week. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long-time and never actually made it happen. This year, one of my New Year resolutions is to work less, socialise more and exercise more. So I’ve already halved my work schedule and scheduled in a lot more holidays and taken up playing tennis and shed 4kg in no time.
Ironically, my companies tend to perform better when I go on regular holidays than when I am working in them. And of course my managers prefer if I’m out of the country so they can get on with running the companies and divisions without me coming up with a new idea every second day.
This is a concept I’ve been teaching for a decade now. For people to outperform they should take regular holidays; however, I forget my own lessons and over the last 18 months I was so busy working that I had actually became less productive and had taken fewer holidays. When the going gets tough, the tough go on holidays! I’ve jokingly been telling friends that this is my motto for 2009.
Actually, with the recession and worldwide downturn, I think this will encourage many to simplify their lives and develop a better work-life balance. This will ensure they don’t keep deferring their life to “one day they’ll get around to it” and decide to start doing the things they’ve always wanted.
How many people say “I’ll take the kids to Disneyland one day?” Instead of setting a goal, committing to it and making it happen, most people just talk about it. The biggest challenge many have – apart from the lack of money, which is usually from lack of definite purpose – is the lack of time. We can always find the money for the things we are most committed to.
This is why I wrote this book, which is about how to develop a millionaire’s lifestyle inside 12-months without even needing to become a millionaire. As I highlight, a quality of life has more to do with planning and how to free yourself from being chained to an office desk than money. For instance my office is wherever I am in the world. With technology such as BlackBerry phones, I can run a dozen companies from anywhere in the world.
This can be duplicated by many people now to run their jobs remotely if they knew some simple but effective strategies covered in this book. I have also created a HomeStudy program on these concepts, which was filmed late last year in Melbourne and I now teach it at 21st Century Seminars.
We finish dinner and my American friend takes us to a mansion his friend owns in Beverly Hills that sits on the hill
overlooking the whole of LA. A great spot to live with many US$15 to $20 million homes in the street. My partner is very much into art and was thrilled to discover he had a real Picasso drawing which she had a photo taken with. I talk my mate into coming to Las Vegas to join us there and he decides to rearrange his schedule.
Off to bed after another huge day and ready to head to Las Vegas in the next few days.
