Bicycles to Bentleys eBook

more money to get to more senior courses to get a warm, fuzzy feeling. But when they go back to their real life, they’ve got the same colleagues, the same friends, who are usually very negative, and they don’t have the support structure to put a plan into action. They’re still not going anywhere in life, because there’s no vehicle. I went on one of these courses in the early days of my career, when I was looking around for new ideas to get to the $1 million a year pay packet. I listened to the one-size-fits-all seminar, but I was keen to get some very practical, personalised advice so I booked a one-on-one session with the speaker. Very quickly, I felt the guy was not at all interested in what I was experiencing − all he was interested in was in getting me to the next course, to pay the next lot of money. I lost interest in it altogether, and realised he could not provide any value to me. Many of these speakers don’t care about the individual because they are marketing a mass approach to success. The fundamental problem is that everybody’s life situation, skill set and financial goals are different, and people need to have that personal connection, the practical skills and the tips to get there. A few years later, I went to a property seminar, and some people were allowed on stage to ask specific questions. One lady told the audience she was a life coach, and was looking to build some wealth. The presenter asked her: ‘How’s your life?’ She said: ‘It’s crap.’ If your life is not put together right, and you’re not passionate about where you’re going, how can you be effective? Most people need coaching, and everybody – from Warren Buffett to Bill Gates to the Packers and Murdochs – sometimes stalls and needs a spur to rise from a plateau in their personal and professional growth. At Ironfish, we think it is important that we practise everything we have learned in our business, so when we move into the business of teaching young people, it will be based on our experience. Many of our strategists are multi-millionaires. We all own properties in the developments we promote. We all apply the same strategies to our own lives that we recommend to our investors. I want one day to set up a venture capital unit in Ironfish to help the young entrepreneurs in our investor base get off the ground. I also like Kerr Neilson’s approach at Platinum Asset Management where they 154 FROM BICYCLES TO BENTLEYS

reward their clients instead of institutions with their shares. On the day of their initial public offering (IPO), the shares went up to almost $9 from a $5 issuing price and many of their clients made huge returns. I hope to reward our investors when Ironfish goes to an IPO in the next few years. The final element of the Ironfish dream is to engage with the community via philanthropy. By creating wealth for individuals, I ‘The final element believe that we are also contributing to of the Ironfish society at large. As they develop new dream is to business ideas, they bring more outside engage with the investment and contribute to the country’s GDP. As they earn more community via money, they pay more taxes. As people philanthropy.’ retire wealthy, they will not be a burden on the social security system. However, I think it is important that an organisation such as ours contributes to society in a more tangible way. There are many people who have far more money than I have, or will ever have, but it doesn’t mean they are willing to share their wealth or their experience. Being in a situation where I am able to give back to society is a humbling experience. My mother taught me from a very early age that looking after one’s community is important. She is a very compassionate lady, and a very well respected lady. The joy that she has created in others’ lives showed recently when she was admitted to hospital and she received so many visitors, including senior government officials, and so many flowers, that the hospital staff thought she must have been some kind of celebrity. She isn’t – she is simply a community-minded woman with a lot of love for everyone she comes into contact with. When we used to walk together in the military compound, she would talk to people, genuinely listen, and see if there was a need she could fill. She was very understated about it, but she would give clothes to neighbours, she would do nice things for friends, she would lend money to colleagues without ever expecting it would be repaid. Her generosity inspired my ideas of philanthropy, and I have carried it through my life. I was reading a newspaper a few years ago, and saw a story about a fundraiser for a young boy who had lost his sister and parents in a The future 155

car accident on the north coast. He was 10 years old, and suddenly an orphan. I immediately went to my office, got my chequebook and sent a donation. The saying goes that the biggest joy in life is giving, and it’s certainly true for me. I always buy things from people selling door-to-door, because I remember my three days in that industry, and it was demoralising. At least I can buy a product and give them some hope that people do say yes, and will encourage them so they have the confidence to go on and knock on the next door. I also get great pleasure from rewarding my colleagues. Among my top love affairs in life, behind my wife, my children, my parents and the fastest sports cars ever built, are nice watches. So far, I have given out many nice watches including all the top brands − Patek Philippe, Cartier, Rolex, Breitling, Piaget, Omega, Raymond Weil and Longines − and every single member of my family in China has a nice watch. On a broader scale, I support a lot of charitable organisations. I have a particular affinity to children’s charities, because I love children. I love my own children very dearly, and am constantly grateful for the fact they are healthy and happy, and we are blessed with a loving, stable family. Many other children grow up in circumstances very different from this. We sponsor a number of World Vision children, and some are sponsored in my own children’s names, so they can have an understanding of the challenges faced by children in other parts of the world. Ironfish has done some work with the Children’s Hospital, the burns units of hospitals, and we have donated to breast cancer awareness and the guide dogs, but I want to do more than that. My ultimate aim is to set up a foundation as part of the Ironfish group, with $100 million to support charitable endeavours. When the company goes public, I want to personally sponsor 1000 World Vision children. I would also like one day to donate $2 million to Madam Song Qing Ling’s Children’s Fund in China. These goals give me the motivation to build Ironfish into a more successful company. I want the vision of our organisation to benefit so many more people than my colleagues, our investors and myself. It is a cornerstone of our plan for the next 10 years. 156 FROM BICYCLES TO BENTLEYS

The ability to grow the Ironfish business relies on the strategic plan we have put forward, but also on the hard work of the many individuals in our business. Linda Lu, the investor who went from a $50,000 annual salary to a high six-figure income has joined Ironfish and is now working as an investment manager in our Adelaide office. Lanny Xu, the millionaire investor I mentioned previously, quit his managerial job at NCR to join Ironfish, and is currently running our Sydney office. Grant Ryan, a director and shareholder of Ironfish, is also an inspiration. When I first met him, he did not have a lot, but he did have a dream. He went from driving an old Holden Barina to a BMW. Not only has he jumped three companies with me, he plays an integral part in the direction of the Ironfish business, and can guide investors on how to build wealth from nothing – because this is exactly what he has done in his life. Susanne Anderson, another director and shareholder of Ironfish, has also created a successful story for herself since joining me in business in 2002. She has not only contributed to shaping Ironfish’s new vision, but is instrumental in putting in place the systems and processes needed for Ironfish to grow. As some independent investors put a $30 million value on Ironfish over a year ago, besides their property holdings, Susanne’s and Grant’s shareholdings in Ironfish have made them paper millionaires. I know that one day, when Ironfish goes public, they will be multi-millionaires along with other Ironfish colleagues. And this is my ultimate dream. After we started Ironfish in Sydney in July 2006, I could see that the Sydney property market was still slow. The champion team I had at Aldy had lost their faith in property investment due to the market downturn. While doing what we could to fix Sydney, we made a bold move to go to Melbourne, Adelaide and Auckland to take positions, build some scale and trial our business model with a few different individuals. In July 2006, Ellen Bian, the number one consultant in Aldy, left the company and planned to start her own business. Ellen had never been in this type of business before − before she joined Aldy she had worked as an account manager for the local Chinese radio station, earning about $60,000. During her association with Aldy, her income multiplied many times. Ellen and I decided to join forces. We each The future 157

invested $100,000 to start Ironfish Melbourne in a 93-square-metre office in August 2006. With Ellen and her team’s dedication and Ironfish’s system, they have long since moved into a 420-square- metre office and the $100,000 we each put in has turned into many millions. In September 2006, I was introduced to a young Adelaide millionaire, Damon Nagel, by a local developer. I wanted to open in Adelaide, having spotted that it was an untapped market, but I was reluctant to do it unless I had the right person to run the business. Damon and I clicked almost at first sight. He had gone to England at the age of 21 to pursue his English girlfriend Rachel. He went with £500 and his dream was to marry Rachel and semi-retire on a vineyard at 35. He overshot his goal and returned to Adelaide to live on a vineyard with Rachel at the age of 32 − he had come back with £5 million after selling his successful property business. Using Ironfish’s model, Damon and his team have built Ironfish into the most successful property investment company in Adelaide, turning our $140,000 initial investment into a multi-million-dollar business. Ironfish has recently been one of the three major sponsors, along with Santos, of the Adelaide Chinese Moon Festival celebration. In 2006, Andy Liang, an ex-Aldy consultant, contacted me wanting to open Ironfish in Auckland. He was only 24, and had never been in business before, but while in Aldy Auckland he had been a top consultant and sales manager. He could have taken a job with Citibank after graduating from Auckland University, but he was inspired after attending my property seminar for Aldy and decided to take some risks. Using what he learned and through practice, Andy turned the NZ$70,000 loan given to him by his parents and his girlfriend’s parents and his commission from Aldy into a multi-million- dollar portfolio. In August 2007, Ironfish opened our Auckland office. At the age of 25, Andy became our youngest managing director. Following in Ellen’s and Damon’s footsteps, Andy has turned our $140,000 investment into a multi-million-dollar business at a time when the property market in New Zealand was in bad shape with interest rates at 12 per cent. As a result of this expansion, Ironfish sales grew from $81 million in the first year to $232 million in the second year. 158 FROM BICYCLES TO BENTLEYS

8. Final thoughts: full speed on the highway George Bernard Shaw is quoted as saying: ‘It’s a sin to be poor.’ Whether he said it or not, I believe the statement itself has an element of truth. If money is paid based on services rendered, and someone is not making much money, chances are they’re not rendering a lot of service. I was talking to a friend of mine who was doing very well in business. He said that children were often taught money couldn’t buy you happiness. My friend said: ‘If money can’t buy you happiness, maybe you’re not a happy person in the first place.’ People need to understand that money is nothing but recognition of what you’re doing in life. It’s also an opportunity to get treated in life the way you want to be. I saw one of the TV current affairs shows recently and there was this macho guy, with a wife and four children, looking straight into the camera and blaming the government for not helping them. This is the overall feeling in society − we live in a privileged society, we deserve certain things. The audience buys into that and feels sorry for them. I sympathise with the situation, but if I were the guy and had the courage to have four kids and a wife, I would make sure I took responsibility for their financial wellbeing. If I had to do five jobs, I’d do it, so they didn’t have to worry about money. No whingeing: ‘Oh, I only bring home $200 after rent.’ Go and get another job! Final thoughts 159

Taking responsibility is one of the key things for anyone who wants to achieve success; you have to take responsibility for your actions. There are two types of people in life. Most people are what I call ‘CPI’ people. The progress in their lives is linked to the consumer price index (CPI), from 2 per cent to 5 per cent a year. They’re locked in a circle, which expands only by that percentage each year. Then there are the spiral people, who grow through their own wishes and dedication, and have an ever-expanding circle in all facets of their lives. I often think of American oil billionaire HL Hunt, who said to become successful in life, you need three things: you decide what you want, you decide what price to pay, and then you pay the price. Because most people fundamentally believe that you don’t decide what you want, they let the government, their employer, their family and their friends decide where they are positioned in society. People need a way to see that it is in everybody’s grasp to be successful. We want to take the emotion out of money as a concept. Very few people have achieved a lot of financial success without wanting to have more money. Even Andrew Forrest, Australia’s richest man and the founder of Fortescue Metals, said money is not a big thing for him, even though he’s worth billions now. He’s still driving the same car and living a similar lifestyle. You need to define what is important to you in life, especially when you take on responsibility for other people as well. I didn’t have children for 10 years after I got married because I wanted my family to live in a good suburb where they didn’t have social problems, and I wanted my children to have the best possible education and a nice lifestyle. But if you don’t think about these things and leave it to chance, the result is going to be different. People say to me: ‘Joseph, you were lucky because when you came to Australia you could speak English.’ What about Australians? They grow up speaking English! It doesn’t mean they all become successful. The key is setting a goal, and the journey is irrelevant. The founder of Ali Baba, the biggest business-to-business website in the world, said in one of his books that he wanted one day to make a million yuan per day. Then he wanted to pay a million in tax a day. Last year he did it. Even Bill Gates when he was young set a target. His family was 160 FROM BICYCLES TO BENTLEYS

‘T he experts say moderately wealthy, but he decided he three things make wanted to make his first million by the you happy: age of 30, and he later revised that down to 25. To become truly someone to love, successful, and remain on target, something to do, people need to have certain goals in life and something to so every day when they wake up they’re look forward to. part of a journey. The experts say three Most of us have things make you happy: someone to love, something to do, and something someone to love, to look forward to. Most of us have most of us can someone to love, most of us can find find something to something to do, but very few people do, but very few have a whole lot to look forward to. I’m people have a not talking about having a barbecue on the weekend, but real life goal targets. whole lot to look Often people say that if they have a forward to.’ target, they’ll feel depressed if they don’t reach it. What people don’t realise is that it doesn’t matter if you don’t get there in the time frame you’ve set yourself. You can always get there if you’re serious about it – it might just take a little longer. You’ve also got to enjoy the journey. When you climb up a mountain, nobody’s going to laugh at you for taking longer than you anticipated to get to the top, especially if it was a journey you enjoyed. There are so many things people can enjoy in life. The greatest joy I have in my business life is to be able to go anywhere and make an impact on other people, show them something they may not have known before, help them improve their situation. And from that comes respect from others, and respect for yourself. When I first came to Australia, I started with no permanent residency; I was in a desperate situation to a lot of outsiders, but to me, it was about having the belief in the future. I was watching Sumner Redstone from Viacom; he was saying he was an optimist, always being positive, and that is the very thing I’m lucky I happen to believe in. I always think tomorrow is going to be better than today. I was genuinely so gullible I believed I was going to earn $1 million a year. Final thoughts 161

People are willing to believe the worst. When I deal with other people, I never think of them as having an agenda because I think the best of people. That’s probably why in business, when I was doing sales, people used to respond to me. They would say: ‘I know you’re here trying to sell a property, but I feel you’re not a salesperson’. It’s about how you view the world, how you perceive the person in front of you. If you think you’re better than someone, even if you’re saying something different, people can feel it a mile away. You’re projecting a different kind of energy and people react to your energy. You’re never going to get far from a career point of view; you can be the best accountant or programmer, but if you can’t work with people, you won’t get very far. Whenever people have asked me over the years whether I have encountered any racial discrimination in this country, I say I haven’t. Forget about the fact I’m Chinese by birth, I’m a good human being. I smile at everyone I come into contact with and if someone is in trouble, I always try to help. No matter if you’re Chinese, Korean, Azerbaijani or Australian, it’s how you feel about yourself that will determine how you’re treated. If you’re here, and you refuse to learn the language, or you are communicating poorly, you will find it hard to get into the mainstream. I can talk to anyone about the weather, sport, politics, the stock market, and that’s how you make friends and make better connections. If I’m here, I have to learn the language. If I don’t like living here, I go back where I was. There is no point in living here and reflecting on how good a life I had before, making no effort to learn the language or appreciate the culture and expecting people to be best friends with me. I love China for giving me birth, all my education and an opportunity to serve the country. I also love Australia for allowing me an equal opportunity to grow. I have such an amazing amount of gratitude to Australia for giving me a home, and for affording me the opportunities ‘W e are so lucky to it has. The environment here is live in this country. conducive to leading a happy, stable It is a nation that and successful life. We are so lucky to live in this country. It is a nation that gives everyone gives everyone a go. Coming from a a go.’ society where social rank is important, 162 FROM BICYCLES TO BENTLEYS

the egalitarian nature of Australia is a blessing that we should all preserve. If you respect that, and follow the rules and provide value to people by contributing to this society, you can make a great success story. I remember showing a friend of mine around in Australia, a very famous movie star named Wang Xueqi, the star of Yellow Earth. He commented that if it were a movie, Australia would be in full technicolour, while China was in black and white. It was a nice analogy to describe this country of opportunity and optimism. It is truly the country of dreamers. When I first arrived here as a migrant, I would go to all these car showrooms for Bentley, Mercedes and BMW knowing that one day I would buy a car from all of them. Every year I would go to the Sydney International Motor Show, but my friends wouldn’t accompany me, as they said they would feel depressed because they couldn’t afford to buy. Every year I would go and take a photo of the car I wanted, come home and stick it on the fridge, and work towards my dream. Now, every year I am invited by Bentley and BMW to go to a cocktail party on the Friday afternoon before the public opening and then view the cars before everyone comes in. It has been a big leap, from not being able to afford to buy a toaster when I first arrived to now being able to buy any car I want. ‘If I were to leave If I were to leave you with one parting you with one thought, it would be to dare to dream parting thought, it big. Recently, Ironfish hosted a big seminar in Melbourne. We invited would be to dare John Edwards of Residex to give a to dream big.’ presentation, and we aimed to get 400 people to the function. We advertised in a certain way, hired a certain sized venue, and managed to get a full house. I said to Ellen (Bian): ‘Gee, I wish I’d suggested we get 800 people.’ We would have! The lesson is − if someone up there is listening to you and you put up your hand and say I want this, don’t be too modest – but you’ve got to do your bit and work hard to get there too. The other lesson is to make sure you have a good partner, who shares your hopes and aspirations and supports you in your journey. A happy relationship Final thoughts 163

can give a couple’s pursuit in life a 300 per cent boost, while an unhappy one could ruin that pursuit 300 times faster. Suzanne is a very talented, capable and intelligent woman. She has been successful in business in her own right and now, anything she turned her hand to would be a winner. But after we were blessed with our first child, Tiger, she made a conscious decision to become a full-time mother so that she would be the person influencing our children’s thinking and be there for them all the time. She could have become a TV star or even a movie star, but she chose to stay home and be the best mother for our children, for which I feel eternally grateful. I attribute 90 per cent of what I have done to Suzanne’s support and unwavering belief in me. The whole world can say no to me, discourage or challenge me, but as long as the people closest to me believe in me, I can do anything. When we came to Australia in 1991, I promised Suzanne I would buy her a Mercedes and a million-dollar home. It was not an empty promise or wishful thinking. It was my unconditional commitment. Now she can have any car she wants. She loves our beautiful house on the North Shore and she enjoys checking into our waterfront apartment near the city when we want to take the kids to Darling Harbour for the weekend. When Suzanne made the decision to quit her job as a presenter for a cable TV network and top interpreter (she had interpreted for Chinese presidents Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao), she asked me if I was confident to provide for the family all by myself. I promised her that I would work so hard that she would never have to worry about money for the rest of her life. To me this is an important project. I am still working on it. When I came to Australia, I had three dreams: becoming a worthy citizen; finding a way for migrants to become successful; and once I found a way to be successful, spreading the word and helping many other migrants to succeed. I do not think I am necessarily a very clever person though I am as capable as anyone. When I was at Peking University, I found myself a private English tutor, Mr Xu Siqing. He had been persecuted during the Cultural Revolution and sent to the countryside. He told me he had been reduced to sleeping in a cow shed with former Beijing 164 FROM BICYCLES TO BENTLEYS

Mayor, Chen Xitong. Mr Xu taught me to master the English language by reading aloud and repetition. He was also impressed with my work ethic. But somehow he believed that I was not that bright and he constantly told me so. Though I had been a straight-A student all through my school years and I had been a confident person, I almost believed Mr Xu’s opinion of me. After a while, I began to tell myself that maybe Mr Xu was right and that maybe I was not that smart. Fortunately, I was driven enough not to give up on myself and because of Mr Xu’s opinion, I decided to work even harder. So be careful who you listen to! William O’Dwyer told me that in his earlier years, some of the worst advice he received had come from the people he most loved. ‘One of the best One day, I was having coffee with my things my parents friend Peter and his two teenage boys. When the conversation turned to did for me when I buying a home, Peter said to his two was growing up was boys: ‘When you guys grow up, you always encourage won’t be able to afford to buy a house me to pursue my in Sydney anymore.’ That is the most dreams, though horrible thing to say to your children or many of them anyone. The boys were only in their seemed far-fetched teens and they had their whole lives in or even ridiculous front of them. Children need to be during the turmoil encouraged to dream and dream big. Dreams do come true for anyone who of the Cultural dares to dream and backs it up with Revolution. Now I action. One of the best things my encourage my parents did for me when I was growing children to dream up was always encourage me to and dream big.’ pursue my dreams, though many of them seemed far-fetched or even ridiculous during the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution. Now I encourage my children to dream and dream big. I constantly tell them that they can have anything or be anyone in life as long as they are prepared to work for it. The credit crunch in 2008 wiped many billions of dollars from people’s retirement savings, net worth and investment returns; it also dented Final thoughts 165

many people’s confidence in the world financial system. There is no denying that we are going through unprecedented tough times. Many companies have collapsed and others will collapse. Millions of people have lost or stand to lose their jobs. I feel sorry that many people close to retirement may have to work a few more years due to the loss their superannuation has suffered. From May 2007 to September 2008, I also lost a lot of money in the stock market, but fortunately most of my assets are in Australian property. I also believe that the stock market will bounce back as it has many times in the past. We are only going through a period of consolidation and the free enterprise system has always been able to correct its own excesses and mistakes. If you are in business and the fundamentals of your company are right, you will be fine, though you need to be more diligent and vigilant than ever before with cash flow and costs. Given the global credit crunch, it may be harder for some property investors to borrow money, but I still think residential property is the best vehicle for people to build the foundation of their wealth. As long as you take a long-term approach and invest in quality real estate, you will do well in the long run. I am grateful that I am still in business and that Ironfish is still growing, though we have slowed down this year to consolidate and improve our infrastructure. Every day when I enter our office in St Leonards, I count my blessings. I feel lucky that I have all these talented and dedicated people working with me at Ironfish. The free enterprise system in Australia and the Ironfish team give me the confidence to continue to pursue my dreams of turning Ironfish into a billion-dollar company. Through my journey in Australia, it may appear that I have been pursuing financial goals. But the truth is, money has never been my motivation. It’s what money can do for my colleagues at Ironfish, our investors, everyone I come into contact with and for my family that keeps me going. It is the journey of conquering one goal after another that keeps me forging ahead. Driven and pursuing their dreams in a similar fashion, both my brothers and my sister are all doing well. My eldest brother, Gang 166 FROM BICYCLES TO BENTLEYS

‘… money has never Zhou, is a professor of World History been my motivation. at Capital Normal University, with It’s what money can many highly acclaimed publications. do for my colleagues My second brother, Yong Zhou, is a senior official in the Xinhua News at Ironfish, our Agency and my sister, Jian Zhou, investors, everyone I works at Capital Finance and Economic University. come into contact with and for my My parents are both in their mid-80s family that keeps and my mother hasn’t been well in me going.’ the past 18 months. Thanks to Ironfish and the hard work we have put in since arriving in Australia, I am able to visit my parents once a month and call my parents every day. I funded the renovation of my parents’ apartment in the military compound in Nankou and I helped rent an apartment for my mother in downtown Beijing, close to the hospital. To me, these actions alone have made everything I have done so far worthwhile. There are many people who have achieved far more than I have. I do not even think that I am that successful yet, but I am heading towards my goal one step at a time. The reason I wrote this book is that I would like to encourage those pursuing their dreams; their journey is not only possible but achievable and their effort is so worthwhile. A few years ago, my friends played a joke on me. Using Photoshop, they put me on a dummied-up copy of the cover of Time magazine, with the headline: ‘China’s Richest Billionaire’. I put it in my office for fun. My daughter Florence, who was seven at the time, had been in my office and was looking at it and she must have thought it was real – she thought her Dad was the richest man in China. One day, she said to me: ‘Why are you working so hard when you’re already the richest billionaire?’ I said: ‘Darling, maybe one day, but Daddy’s still working on it.’ I thought that was the end of the matter. She likes sweet things and I would often pick up some chocolates for her at the petrol station as a bit of a treat when I’m driving her to school. One day I was on the phone with her and I said: ‘Darling I just bought some treats for you,’ thinking she would be excited. She shocked me by saying she didn’t want me to buy sweets for her any more. ‘Wow,’ I Final thoughts 167

thought, ‘that’s a big change for a girl who loves her chocolate.’ The next day, I said: ‘Florence, are you sure you want me to stop buying these things?’ She was adamant. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I want you to stop buying me treats so you can save your money and become the richest billionaire in the world.’ Saving on chocolate is certainly not my vehicle to become the richest man in the world, and being the richest man is not even my goal, but Ironfish will become a billion-dollar company. It may take longer to get there, but it shall be done. Why not? 168 FROM BICYCLES TO BENTLEYS

9. Fast-forward to 2016 How time flies! Many changes have taken place in the world and in my life since the 2008 financial crisis. Before I bring the Ironfish story up to date and examine recent global events and the state of the Australian property market, I will share with you my family story. My dearest mother passed away on November 3, 2008. She was 86. That year, she was hospitalised nine times. I went back to Beijing to visit her every month. I would leave Sydney on Friday morning and depart Beijing the following Monday night. Each time I told my mother, ‘I will come back to see you next month. Please wait for me!’ I wanted to give her something to look forward to so that she could be with us longer. When I got back to Beijing at the end of October 2008, my mother had almost lost all consciousness. My brother Yong and sister told me that in the few days prior to my arrival, every time she woke up she would ask when I was coming back. As she could barely hear anything, they would write a countdown on a piece of paper. On the evening of October 31, I arrived in Beijing at about 8.30pm. My brother Yong picked me up and we went to visit my mother in the hospital. She had become very weak. As she could hardly breathe, they had to put her on oxygen. When I got to her bedside I put my face next to hers and asked her how she was feeling. Sensing my Fast-forward 169

arrival, she gave me a fragile but big smile. I could see the relief on her face. I asked if she wanted an ice cream – since her illness, she had developed a craving for cold things to eat, perhaps due to internal inflammation. ‘Isn’t it too late to buy one?’ she said. I knew she wanted an ice cream, but she didn’t want to trouble me with going to get it. I immediately ran out and bought her one. After a bite, she asked me in a weak voice, ‘Have you bought a watch for Ms Zhang?’ Ms Zhang was a carer we hired to look after my mother. During Mum’s illness, Ms Zhang stayed in the hospital ward to take care of her. She was caring and thorough, and we were all grateful to her. On my previous visit in September, I said I would buy Ms Zhang a nice watch as a thank you gift. ‘T hat’s how we Such a seemingly minor thing was the one learned to thing my mother remembered in her last days. treat everyone That was my mother. She always put other with respect people above herself. That’s how we learned and dignity.’ to treat everyone with respect and dignity. On the morning of November 2, my sister Jian and I went to Nankou to visit Dad. We took him to a good restaurant nearby to have lunch. As soon as we sat down my brother Yong started texting me, saying that Mum had called out my name several times. She was looking for me. She needed me by her side. I got worried and rushed back at about 4pm. Both my sister and I put our faces close to Mum. Suffering from breathing difficulty and with an oxygen mask on, she was sweating and her face was wet with perspiration. When she realised I had come back to the ward and to her side, she opened her eyes for the last time and gave my sister and me a huge smile, which we will never forget. That was her last smile... At 6am the next day, my mother Shun-e Mu left us forever. When she was first diagnosed with cancer, doctors only gave her three to six months to live, but my mother stayed with us for 15 months! Her passing left my father, the entire family and me in deep sorrow. I am grateful and proud that I had a truly loving, kind and giving mother. She was the greatest mother in the world. She never preached at me. Instead, she taught me principles and values by example. I miss her terribly, and I live by the values she taught me. In that sense, she really is with me every single day. 170 FROM BICYCLES TO BENTLEYS

Sadly, my dad Hongchang Zhou passed away in his sleep at 1.55am on February 23, 2015. He was 92. Dad left peacefully and quietly without any words, but his sudden passing left me and my brothers and sister with endless sadness. Mum’s passing in 2008 had saddened my dad tremendously. So much so that he turned from a happy and talkative man into a very quiet one. He barely talked to anyone. He missed my mother, his lifetime love and companion. I would visit my dad in Beijing a few times a year. Each time he would say hi, ask a few questions about my family, and then go back to his silence. Sometimes he would sit in front of my mother’s photos for a long time. Or he would read the Chinese edition of this book for an hour or two. In 2015, I went back to Beijing to celebrate Chinese New Year with my dad, brothers and sister. I usually stay in hotels when I go back to China, but on this occasion I stayed at my dad’s home with my siblings. We kept Dad company and relived the good old days. Seeing Dad eat and sleep well made us all happy. I walked with Dad every day and we played Mahjong (though I don’t really know how to play). I even set off firecrackers and fireworks with my brother Yong, which used to be my favourite thing about the Chinese New Year season. We believed Dad would live to 100. When Mum was alive he would say, ‘I will go and visit downtown Beijing when I am 99 years old!’ At dawn on February 23, 2015, the day after I arrived back in Sydney, I had two missed calls on my phone. I wondered who would call me that early. Then my sister left a WeChat message saying something had gone terribly wrong with Dad. I immediately called her and she told me, crying, that our dear dad had passed away in his sleep. He had been so healthy and well when I left Beijing. His sudden death made us all very sad, but knowing he passed away without suffering and has gone to be with Mum gave us a bit of relief. We miss you Dad. You were a shining example to us, just like Mum, of a decent human being who was kind to others and treated everyone with decency and respect. My wife Suzanne and I have been married for 29 years. She has devoted herself to bringing up our two wonderful children and has Fast-forward 171

done a great job. Suzanne has become more involved in charity work, and is planning the content and causes of our foundation – to be set up in the near future. Our son Tiger received a full academic scholarship from Sydney Grammar. This is his final school year, and he will sit the Higher School Certificate (HSC). Six years ago, I took Tiger to Sydney Grammar’s College Street campus for the scholarship exam. Hundreds of elite students, many Asian, packed onto the sports ground. The atmosphere was tense. Competition was fierce. Out of the hundreds who sat for the exam, 30 would be given an interview and up to 20 scholarships were on offer. Just like in China, many Chinese parents send their kids to coaching classes designed to win scholarships, to give their children an advantage or improved chance. Some parents get their boys to sit for scholarship exams at several schools, hoping they can win a full scholarship. Whichever school offers their boy a full scholarship, that’s the school they will send him to. As far as we are concerned, Sydney Grammar is the best school for boys in Sydney. Tiger has been there since kindergarten. Suzanne and I had long decided we would support Tiger to continue his education at Sydney Grammar, whether he won a scholarship or not. Unlike many selective schools, which put way too much emphasis on academic studies and exam scores, Sydney Grammar focuses on developing students’ overall skills, capabilities and independent thinking. Apart from excelling academically, students are encouraged to develop multiple talents. Never having attended any coaching classes, and facing so many elite competitors, Tiger was nervous. I tried to comfort him, saying, ‘Tiger, have faith in your overall capabilities and do the best you can. If you don’t get the scholarship from the school, Mum and Dad will give you a full scholarship. If you like studying at Grammar, this is where you will stay.’ After the exam, I asked him how he went. ‘Maybe I won’t get an interview,’ said Tiger, bewildered. ‘I had a bleeding nose during the math exam, so I didn’t quite finish the last question. I didn’t finish my English writing either.’ Knowing he was one of the best students in his 172 FROM BICYCLES TO BENTLEYS

*The Millionaire Mind, Thomas J. Stanley, 2000 class, I said: ‘That’s alright Tiger. If they require you to complete every question 100 per cent to qualify for an interview, you may have lost the chance. But if they also consider the quality of your answers, and your past performance, you still stand a chance. Regardless, scholarship or not, you are going to College Street anyway!’ Luckily, Tiger was one of the 30 students to get an interview and, after the interview, was granted a full academic scholarship – the St Ives Scholarship by Sydney Grammar. We are very proud of him. Our daughter Florence is now 15 and has grown into a beautiful young lady. She has been attending Pymble Ladies’ College (PLC), one of the best private schools in Sydney, since kindergarten. Florence has won music scholarships on a few occasions. She is smart, talented, kind, caring and a little shy by nature. I often say to her, ‘Florence, being smart and talented is not enough to achieve great things in life. You must also work hard. Talent coupled with hard work and perspiration will bring you a highly fulfilled life.’ According to an American research institute, which interviewed 2000 millionaires*, high academic scores and elite schools or universities ranked very low as contributing to success. The top five contributors were in fact: 1) Honesty and integrity; 2) Self discipline; 3) Working harder than others; 4) Having a supportive partner; 5) Ability to work with others. I never require my children to pursue high exam marks. Of course, academic marks are a reflection of a student’s understanding and ability to execute what they’ve learned in an exam context. But they do not represent the student’s overall capabilities, and certainly do not guarantee their success in the future. I always encourage my children to aim for excellence and to be Number 1. It’s important to encourage children to be competitive. When Florence was much younger, she told me that her teacher said winning was not nearly as important as participation. I replied, Fast-forward 173

‘Darling, winning may not be everything, but the will to win is.’ Whenever Tiger and Florence top certain subjects in their class or grade I congratulate them. But I always remind them that the things that will really impact their lives are not exam marks. There are more important factors, such as honesty and integrity, leadership and people skills, emotional intelligence, discipline, time management, and bringing value to others through their chosen field of endeavour. Both of my children are musically talented. Both play the piano, Tiger also plays bassoon and Florence plays oboe. They have also performed in the Sydney Youth Orchestra. Florence toured Japan with her school band in June 2015. Tiger was a proud member of the Australian Youth Orchestra and performed at the Sydney Opera House in July 2015. With the fast growth of Ironfish, I am often away on business trips. I make a point of calling home every day. Wherever I go, I make sure my family knows that I miss them and think of them all the time. I have always told my children that I travel so much because many people need my help. They are both understanding and supportive of my travels. I also want them to develop their overall independence. This is what they wrote on my card for Father’s Day, 2016: Dear Dad, Happy Father’s Day! Thank you for your hard work, your positive attitude, and your breakfast smoothies, and for generally being a father of selfless support and sound judgement throughout my childhood and teenage years. Love you!, Tiger Dear Dad, Happy Father’s Day!! You’ re always taking care of us and looking out for our best interests. Thank you for loving us unconditionally no matter what:) I’m glad to have your support for the years to come. Lots of love. Florence 174 FROM BICYCLES TO BENTLEYS

10. The story continues: aiming for the next dream 2016 marks the 10th anniversary of Ironfish. We have achieved our $1 billion dream for a few years. Our next dream: $10 billion. The world is constantly facing challenges, such as the Brexit vote that will see Britain leave the European Union and the shocking win by Donald Trump in the recent US presidential election. There seems a movement in the Western world against establishment. These events, especially the upcoming Trump Presidency, are causing waves of global concern. In Australia, after our own fair share of uncertainty and an extremely close election result that narrowly delivered the Liberal Party back to government, we can finally expect certainty in the business community and the market. In the eight years since the 2008 financial crisis, the US economy has recovered and grown stronger as the US stock market has doubled in value. After more than 30 years of double-digit growth, China’s economy has slowed down considerably to about 7 per cent. Australia’s mining boom, which has underpinned the economy for the past 15 years, is over. Or, ‘entering what would be the longest phase of the boom, albeit not the most lucrative,’ according to Mark Cully, chief economist at the Department of Industry and Science. Mobile Internet technology and smart phones have brought so much convenience and so many new perspectives to our lives, disrupting many traditional industries. Apple has become the most valuable The story continues 175

company in the world, while unicorns (start-ups valued over $1 billion) such as Facebook, Twitter, Uber, Airbnb and Xiaomi have changed our lives forever. WeChat has become the platform that 700 million Chinese (and now more and more other nationalities) use to communicate, exchange and self-express every day. Alibaba staged the world’s largest IPO (initial public offering) ever by raising US$25 billion in New York on November 19, 2014. Minhong (Michael) Yu, my roommate at Peking University, has led New Oriental Education and Technology Group, China’s largest private education provider, to new heights while embracing mobile Internet technology and fending off new competitors. He also founded an angel fund (angelplus.cn) with seasoned Chinese investment banker Xitai Sheng, hoping to spot and invest in the next Facebook or Alibaba. The Property Market Much has also happened in Australia’s property market during the same period. By June 2015, Sydney’s median house price was almost double what it was at the peak of the last cycle in 2003. As we predicted and expected at Ironfish, Sydney’s median price had exceeded the $1 million mark. Many Sydney property owners are now property millionaires. The median price in Melbourne has also increased substantially, hitting mid-$700,000. It is tipped to follow Sydney and become the second Australian capital city with a $1 million median price in years to come. Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide will follow suit after that as well. The behaviour of property sellers and buyers has charted the same pattern that we saw during the peak in 2003. Developers and home sellers became bullish with asking prices, while buyers, especially investors, became so irrational that they were queuing up at auctions and in showrooms every weekend. Big developers from China and other Asian countries, public and private, all came to the property gold rush in Sydney, Melbourne and even Brisbane. They snapped up overpriced sites, hoping to profit from the market feeding frenzy, especially in Sydney. Many an amateur developer sprang up – doctors, accountants, lawyers – anyone who could put some money 176 FROM BICYCLES TO BENTLEYS

together. Banks will tell you that whenever doctors and lawyers start doing property development, it’s a sign the market has peaked. With undersupply, long pent-up demand and many years of no growth, Sydney housing prices went through the roof – bringing with them a lot of greed and fear. Some developers started cutting corners in quality. Others cancelled buyers’ contracts against their wishes in order to resell properties at a bigger profit. After all, buyers driven mainly by fear of missing out were willing to queue up and pay whatever price developers asked for. These buyers have little or no plan or objective in their property purchase. They don’t realise property investment is a long-term strategy. Changes by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) in 2015 have resulted in tougher lending restrictions from Australian banks for investors, which brought some property investors to a halt in the short term. However, already the absence of the major bank lenders is providing an opportunity for private finance and lending operators to enter the market and fill the gap, providing confidence and lending support for current and future investors. In the past few years, small project marketing companies have appeared in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. They hire university students, new migrants and everyone else who thinks the property market is where you make money by selling real estate. The joke on the street is that half of the people you see in suits are either property sales people or mortgage brokers. In contrast, Ironfish has helped thousands of investors to invest in hundreds of quality projects across Australia, worth billions of dollars. When we founded Ironfish on July 1, 2006, we planned to build it into the most successful property investment platform across Asia-Pacific. We weren’t just starting another property sales company. For that reason, we formulated a national and international growth strategy, opening offices first in the five major Australian capital cities, then across China. We will also open offices in other parts of Asia, and in North America and Europe. To become a genuine property millionaire and be able to retire on property wealth is a privilege that has to be earned. It takes vision, planning, having the right people around for support, and many years The story continues 177

of patience, endurance, tenacity and persistence to get there. According to research, of the 1.8 million property investors, 91 per cent have just one or two properties. That’s certainly not enough to become financially free, and on top of that, many of these investors don’t hold the property for long. The property cycles in Australia’s capital cities do differ from one another. Sydney and Melbourne almost grow in parallel, Brisbane’s cycle usually starts when Sydney slows down, while the cycles of Adelaide and Perth are opposite that of Sydney. Most property investors really need 4 to 10 properties outside their home to become financially free. Based on Ironfish’s many years of experience servicing property investors, and observing market behaviour through two property cycles, we understand that if an investor only invests in one city, they tend to lose faith in property in the downturn and give up altogether. Or, without sufficient equity in their property portfolio, they miss out on the opportunity to invest in another city, where the property market may be booming. Most investors are only used to investing in the city they live in, so they are not confident to invest interstate – unless they have a company or an individual they trust to guide them and make it happen. From 2006 to 2009, when the Sydney market was still in downturn, we used a two-pronged approach. We helped our investors invest in Sydney’s strategic suburbs and locations before the market started moving again; and we took them to other cities, especially Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide, where our investors benefited from the mini-boom prior to and right after the 2008 financial crisis. Thanks to our vast national investor base and purchasing power, Ironfish has developed a strong say in the property circle. And we are very selective. Many smaller property companies list any projects they can get their hands on, or are only able to market for a handful of developers – even though projects may be poorly located, such as on a busy road or railway line, and are poor quality. However, Ironfish is very careful when it comes to which developer to work with and which project to take on. We reject developers who build poor-quality projects or don’t care about buyers’ experience. We reject projects 178 FROM BICYCLES TO BENTLEYS

that do not meet our stringent criteria on quality, location and value for money. At Ironfish, we use our unique Portfolio Approach investment strategy to help investors build a portfolio of four or more investment properties, which include apartments, houses and townhouses. For apartments, they could be quality high rises in major CBDs, or low-to-medium-density boutique projects in key inner-city suburbs. Though we are able to list all the units in a given building or all the houses in an estate, we typically only choose to take on 40 to 60 per cent, so that the developer or their in-house team can sell some to local owner-occupiers. We know through past experience and observation, if a building or a housing estate is only sold to investors, it affects long-term value and growth. It’s important the building or estate has owner-occupier appeal. On top of that, we only work with the best and most passionate developers, who genuinely care about quality and buyers’ experience. We don’t partner with developers who only care about maximising their profit. The key to successful property investment is buying and holding a quality asset. If you get into the property market at the wrong time – at the peak of a cycle – or buy into the wrong building – poor quality, poor design and wrong location – you may not be able to achieve financial freedom through property. If you invest only to follow the crowd or for petty short-term gains – commission rebate, free stamp duty, free legal or rental guarantee – your chances are equally as slim. About four years ago, Ironfish moved into property development in Adelaide, Perth and Melbourne. We know that some developers only market their own projects to buyers through their internal sales teams, depriving clients of other quality projects in the market. However, our focus remains firmly on our investors’ interests. While we are developing award-winning projects for investors and local owner- occupiers, we also select best-quality projects from other exclusive developers for our investors to invest in. It takes foresight, not hindsight, to invest in property successfully. With double-digit growth in Sydney from 2013 to 2015, the market became overheated and unaffordable. Many buyers rushed to showrooms and auctions. ‘There is a lot of fear, there is a lot of The story continues 179

greed out there right now,’ is how property analyst Christopher Louis of SQM research described the Sydney market in 2015. Buyers feared that if they didn’t get into the market, they would miss out. Sellers, driven by greed, kept raising prices. Still, with a 10-to-15-year strategy, Ironfish continues to help investors build their portfolio nationally. I don’t just encourage people to secure their future with residential property investment – I also practise what I preach. I have been investing in property since Ironfish was founded in 2006. Recent additions to my own property portfolio include 10 high-end apartments and one house and land package in Brisbane and Southern Queensland, seven in Melbourne, three in Perth and three in Adelaide. Sydney After six to seven years of stagnation, from 2004 to 2009, the Sydney property market finally began to move up in April 2009. The big growth happened from 2012. In the last few years, especially before the market’s big upswing, Ironfish’s investors invested in strategic locations, such as Lane Cove, Crows Nest and North Sydney on the lower north shore, Dee Why in the northern beaches, Marrickville, Ashfield and Dulwich Hill in the inner west, as well as Parramatta, Meadowbank, Kingsford, Waterloo, Rhodes, Wolli Creek, Zetland, Surry Hills, Homebush, Homebush Bay, Wentworth Point and Olympic Park. As we went to those markets early, many investors have done very well in the current cycle. For example, our investors were able to buy a one-bedroom apartment for mid-to-high $400,000 and two bedrooms from mid-to-high $600,000 in Walker Street, North Sydney. Two or three years later, investors rushed to pay double the price to buy into projects on the busy Pacific Highway in North Sydney, an inferior location. While many investors were queuing up to buy in Top Ryde and North Ryde, where prices had already spiked, we took our investors to 180 FROM BICYCLES TO BENTLEYS

West Ryde before the price took off. When Parramatta, Carlingford and Eastwood became expensive and popular with investors, we took our investors to underestimated nearby suburbs, such as Dundas and Merrylands, where they achieved healthy capital growth thanks to the right timing. As property cycles vary from one capital city to another, Ironfish empowered our investors to invest nationally from the day we were founded, 10 years ago. While almost every local company keeps telling their clients to only invest locally, we have been taking our investors to top locations in the CBDs, strategic inner-city suburbs and urban renewal areas of all five major capital cities – Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide. Melbourne Melbourne is Australia’s second-largest city and has been voted the most liveable city in the world five years in a row. It has a population of 4.4 million, which is set to pass Sydney to reach 7.7 million by 2051. Though the average income of people living in Melbourne is similar to that of Sydney, property prices in prime locations – the CBD and 5km radius from the city centre – are far cheaper than similar locations in Sydney. And even cheaper than many of Sydney’s distant suburbs. Melbourne’s streets are wide and there are many gardens in the city. Coupled with many laneway restaurants and cafés, Melbourne’s CBD is more liveable than Sydney’s. With the urban renewal in Docklands into its 16th year, and more and more sites in the CBD being developed, sooner or later supply will become scarce. When that happens, and with continued population increase from both overseas and interstate, Melbourne’s property prices could go through the roof. In the last few years, we have put Ironfish investors in some of the best projects in some of the best locations of Melbourne, such as the CBD, Docklands, Southbank, St Kilda Road, South Yarra, Prahran, Brunswick, Abbotsford, Richmond, Carlton, Footscray and West Melbourne. We have also taken them to strategic suburbs, such as The story continues 181

Box Hill and Doncaster, which are popular with Chinese and other Asian buyers and have shown strong capital growth, just like Chatswood and Epping in Sydney. IFD, the development arm of Ironfish Melbourne, is jointly developing Whitehorse Towers, a twin-tower mixed-use project right in the heart of Box Hill. Applying the principle of ‘leaving something on the table for the next guy’, as practised by Hong Kong billionaire Ka-shing Li, we priced the project below market. As a result, investors and owner-occupiers bought out all 510 units and the 100-room hotel in a matter of weeks. I always remind our investors of three must-ask questions before they make any purchase: 1) If I were rich, would I live here? 2) If I am rich in 10 to 15 years’ time, would l live here? 3) Can I afford to buy the property and hold it long term? Brisbane Brisbane, the third-largest and picturesque river city, is fast becoming a world city, with its population growing at double the national rate. As seen in previous property cycles, Brisbane is almost always a step behind Sydney and Melbourne when it comes to capital growth. Currently, Sydney and Melbourne have grown so substantially that property is unaffordable for many Australian families, whether to live in or as an investment. In Brisbane, household income is about 10 per cent lower than in Sydney, but Brisbane’s median price is only half that of Sydney – $505,000 as of December 2015. At the moment, Brisbane presents as one of the best opportunities for property investors. The Queensland government continues to invest tens of billions of dollars in infrastructure. Sites being developed include the $3 billion Queens Wharf. According to statistics, the gap between Sydney’s median price and that of Brisbane’s is the biggest in history. The previous biggest gap was in 182 FROM BICYCLES TO BENTLEYS

2003, while the gap was at its smallest in 2010. Thanks to the property cycle and the upcoming Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast in 2018, it’s now the best time to get into the Brisbane market, as well as other markets in Southern Queensland. However, investors need to be mindful of getting away from projects designed purely for investors. If a building is full of tenants and the building is of average quality, it will take much longer for investors to realise serious capital growth. At Ironfish, we prefer to put our investors in buildings developed by prestigious and exclusive developers, who care about the design and quality of their buildings. From our observation of the last cycles, we find that buildings with strong owner-occupier appeal appreciate more in value, and faster, than investor-driven products. For that reason, we have rejected many buildings and focus more on working with exclusive private developers, such as ARIA, Frasers, Gurner, Pellicano and BPM, as well as top-end public developers, such as Mirvac, Stockland and some high-end overseas developers. Through experience, we find there are really two markets when it comes to capital growth. One is the main market. When the main market moves, all property experiences some capital growth, big or small. The other market is associated with brand names. Buildings developed by brand-name developers, such as ARIA, Frasers and Mirvac, can experience considerable capital growth due to their superior quality and the strong following of their brands, even if the main market is not moving and many other projects experience little or nil capital gain. Over the past few years, we have put our investors in some of the best buildings in some of the best locations and suburbs in Brisbane, such as Hamilton and Newstead, where the most expensive apartment sold for $14.25 million, as well as South Brisbane, Kangaroo Point, Fortitude Valley, Bowen Hills, Coorparoo and Woolloongabba. Not only did we get into these locations earlier, we also put investors in exclusive projects by prestigious developers. We also secured quality town houses and house and land packages for our investors in Southern Queensland. The story continues 183

Perth Even though the Perth property market is almost at the bottom and there is plenty of doom and gloom, now is the best time to get in, in spite of the mining downturn. In fact, we believe Perth will be one of the best performing markets in the next 10 years. Perth’s median price hasn’t grown much since the top of the last cycle, when it almost passed Sydney. However, it’s now only a tiny bit higher than Brisbane, about half that of Sydney. The mining industry will pick up again in the next year or two as it follows a cyclical pattern. While the Brisbane property market is one step behind Sydney, the Perth property cycle is the exact opposite of Sydney. During the very bottom of the last Sydney cycle, from 2003 to 2006 when property prices dipped and remained subdued, Perth property prices doubled. In 2004, when I was still in the Aldy Group, we were trying to decide where to open the next branch. I visited Perth in July 2004. The city seemed quiet and when I checked the local newspaper, there was hardly any advertising by real estate agents. And yet, when we visited Auckland in New Zealand a couple of months later, the city was booming with students and migrants. The property market had grown considerably and when we opened the local real estate papers, they were filled with advertising. So, we decided to open in Auckland instead of Perth. Though our investors caught the tail end of the last Auckland boom, they would have made far more money had we put them in Perth properties. People tend to get in the market when the boom has already happened because it’s easier to see. This is what happened to many Sydney investors in 2014 and 2015. The famous saying, ‘Seeing is believing’ does not work in property investment. To become truly successful in property investment, it takes foresight – getting in the market before everyone else; faith – still believing even when the market is not moving up; and courage – overcoming our fears and getting outside our comfort zones by taking action. On my recent trip to Perth, I was talking to a mining executive about 184 FROM BICYCLES TO BENTLEYS

his purchase of his first investment property. His concern was that with the mining industry in the doldrums, what if he lost his job after he had committed to an investment property? My answer to him was that while it is possible for him, or anyone, to lose their job, it doesn’t mean that he or others won’t be able to find another job – especially after they have committed to securing their financial future through building property assets. On top of that, 90 to 95 per cent of the things we worry about in life usually don’t happen, so we worry for nothing. The other 5 to 10 per cent will happen anyway. We just need to learn to deal with things when they happen, rather than worrying about them in advance. I said to the gentleman: ‘You are an experienced managing director. On the off chance you lost your job, how do you know it’s not a blessing in disguise? With your credentials and experience in managing people, surely you can find another job, maybe an even better one. Moreover, commit to building your property portfolio with Ironfish, so that when the next mining boom is over, you will never have to worry about losing your job ever again. Now you are rich!’ Adelaide When I gave my first seminar in Adelaide in late 2006, I asked the audience: ‘Who bought properties five years ago and is happy because you still have them?’ About a third of the audience put up their hands. Then I asked: ‘Who wishes they had bought more properties five years ago?’ Almost all the hands went up. Why? Because property prices in Adelaide almost doubled during those five years. Since then, property prices here haven’t done much except for the mini-boom around 2007, just before the 2008 financial crisis. The property cycle of Adelaide is similar to that of Brisbane, perhaps one-and-a-half steps behind Sydney and Melbourne. As we have seen in the last and current cycles, with Sydney becoming unaffordable and Melbourne rather expensive to many owner- occupiers and investors, interstate migration starts to happen. More The story continues 185

and more people will move to live in Brisbane and Adelaide. Investors will turn to Brisbane, as well as other parts of Southern Queensland and Adelaide. Starfish is the development arm of Ironfish in Adelaide and Perth. It is fast becoming a significant supplier of top-quality residential projects, including two Adelaide CBD towers, Vue and Bohem, and hundreds of town houses and medium-density apartments in strategic suburbs in Adelaide and Perth. We are getting our investors ready for the next boom. Avenue, one of the recently completed medium-density apartment complexes in St Clair, won three major industry awards, including best development – the Presidential Award. Starfish is not just another developer. We develop for our investors, to optimise capital gains, and to provide high-quality housing for residents. The Ironfish Story and Our People On the business side, Ironfish has experienced some changes and substantial growth. We shut down our Auckland branch around 2010 for two reasons. One was that our business partner and Managing Director Andy Liang of Ironfish Auckland decided to relocate back to Beijing to help grow his family business. The second reason was that almost all the developers we sold for went bankrupt during the 2008 financial crisis and were unable to pay our fees. My business philosophy is that whether we get paid or not, we always pay our people because they have already done their jobs and need to pay their mortgages and provide for their families. We paid all the strategists and creditors before officially shutting down our Auckland branch. It’s a pity we had to shut it down as after we closed, the Auckland property market recovered, along with New Zealand’s economy, and went through another boom. We would have done very well had we not shut down. However, without Andy there, we felt the risk was too high for our brand and our investors. We don’t work with anyone who has not worked with Ironfish and does not have Ironfish DNA. It was the right decision. We shifted our focus 186 FROM BICYCLES TO BENTLEYS

back to Australia and opened a few more offices in Australia and China. As a comfort, investors in Auckland who bought from us and kept their properties will have done really well in the latest boom. As an entrepreneur who knew nothing about business and had never been to business school, I strongly believe success can be ‘O nce I started duplicated. When I came to Australia, achieving better apart from speaking English, I had no results, I started other specific skills or knowledge. That’s why nobody would give me a job. But I duplicating my knew that my strong desire to succeed in success by this new country and my willingness to helping seemingly work hard would compensate for what I average people to lacked in skills and knowledge. I also knew that skills and knowledge can be change their learned and experience can be gained. mindsets, and Once I started achieving better results, I completely started duplicating my success by helping change their lives seemingly average people to change their as a result.’ mindsets, and completely change their lives as a result. When we started Ironfish in 2006, the property markets in Sydney and Melbourne had gone bust. Many people stopped believing in property and left the industry. Property companies were downsizing or shutting down. At the time, a good developer friend of mine invited me into a joint venture with him. He said: ‘Joseph, you are very good at selling, you can draw a big crowd to your seminars. Why don’t you do what you are good at (selling) and raise capital for us? I will look after buying sites at the right price and building quality projects. You and I can strike a 50/50 joint venture and make $50 million each!’ I thought about his offer and realised that my passion was people not buildings. While making $50 million a year sounded good, supporting a few construction teams and making money would not give me nearly the same thrill as opening Ironfish branches all over the world. Inspired by the Marriott philosophy of taking the Marriott 5-star service to a new community each time a new hotel is opened, I thought if I could open 200 offices, I would duplicate myself 200 times. I could take Ironfish’s service and my thinking to 200 The story continues 187

communities – providing success and employment opportunities to 200 groups of people. So I turned down my developer friend’s offer and decided, along with founding members Susanne Anderson, Grant Ryan, Lanny Xu, Linda Lu, Ellen Bian and Damon Nagel, to build Ironfish into a multinational enterprise. My developer friend said: ‘Don’t train other people to do what you do. You will only create competition. They will leave you and start their own company.’ ‘Everyone has However, I have never been afraid of different skill sets, competition. I am lucky to have strengths and developed an abundance mentality, weaknesses. We believing there is plenty in the world for everyone. I also wanted to build a encounter different company where people can earn, learn, challenges and it grow and share opportunities and a may take different sense of achievement. Having had the lengths of time to great fortune of becoming financially achieve success. free by 2006, eight years after I became a property investor, I wanted the people But it can be done. who believed in and followed me to To prove this point, experience what I had experienced. I decided to build a Everyone can achieve incredible partnership model success when they find a mentor at Ironfish.’ (coach or teacher); change their mindset; change their environment (including circle of friends); and their vehicle (employment, profession or business). Everyone has different skill sets, strengths and weaknesses. We encounter different challenges and it may take different lengths of time to achieve success. But it can be done. To prove this point, I decided to build a partnership model at Ironfish. Apart from the founding members of Ironfish, who are all multi- millionaires and partners today, we have also grown many new Ironfish members into partners and senior managers. Susanne and Grant are both directors of the Ironfish Group, responsible for the strategies and operations of vital parts of our entire business. 188 FROM BICYCLES TO BENTLEYS

Ellen Bian now runs seven Ironfish companies in Melbourne. Not only has she turned from a $50,000-a-year Chinese radio ad sales manager into a multi-millionaire property investor and business owner, she has also duplicated herself by growing her team members Gary Ma, Jason Jin, Jimmy Yan, Michael Du, Christina Tao and Li Pan into partners. Gary Ma, who worked 17 years for Toyota and has now been working at Ironfish for almost nine years, is the general manager of Ironfish Melbourne. Jason Jin is the managing director of Ironfish St Kilda – opened in 2010. Jimmy Yan has become one of the youngest partners and now Managing Director of Ironfish Melbourne CBD branch – opened in 2016. Michael Du is Managing Director of our newest branch, Glen Waverley – opened in 2016. Christina Tao is Managing Director of our fast-growing property management division in Melbourne, Ironfish Real Estate. Unlike traditional real estate agencies, which treat rent rolls as their cash cow, our property management division is an extension of our investor service. We have invested substantially to hire the best possible property managers to manage our investors’ assets. We know, in between property purchases, our property managers have the most frequent contact with our investors. Their dedication to the job will help optimise our investors’ experience and confidence to continue their investment journey with us. When a project settles, it’s vital our investors’ properties are rented quickly. Therefore, our property managers work longer hours and extend open-for-inspection hours to show potential tenants through. After becoming an investor of mine in late 2002, Linda Lu quit her $50,000 white-collar job and joined me in the Aldy Group as a property strategist at the age of almost 50 – a courageous move. Through sheer hard work and passion for property and helping people, Linda has gone on to become a multi-millionaire property investor, a founding member of Ironfish and now, partner and Managing Director of Sydney. When I first met her in 2000 in her small town house in Strathfield, I asked her if she had ever thought about living in a million-dollar house and driving a Mercedes. I told her that if she invested with me, I would teach her how to make more money and become wealthy. She didn’t believe me at the time. It took her two The story continues 189

years to come around. Today, she lives in a multi-million-dollar mansion on Sydney’s north shore and drives around in a beautiful Bentley Flying Spur. Without local qualifications or having to go out to get an MBA, she has duplicated my ‘bicycles to Bentleys’ story. Now, she travels all over Australia and China sharing her story and inspiring other people to dream bigger. I met another founding member of Ironfish, Lanny Xu, when he became another investor of mine in 2004. Lanny then quit his executive job at a Fortune 500 company and became a property strategist with us. He became a top-selling strategist, sales manager and general manager. In October 2012, he and Joanne Chen, another star strategist from Ironfish Sydney, founded our first Chinese subsidiary, Ironfish Shanghai. As partners, they help high net worth investors to invest in Australian property. In the short space of three years, Lanny and Joanne have grown our China business into five cities: Shanghai (2012), Beijing (2014), Nanning (2014), Shenzhen (2015) and Chengdu (2015). Lanny is now CEO of Ironfish China, while Joanne is MD of Ironfish Beijing. Along the way, we have also grown other star strategists into partners: Tony Lee as deputy Managing Director of Ironfish Beijing; Richard Li, Managing Director of Ironfish Nanning; Mirry Zhu, Managing Director of Ironfish Shenzhen; Phil Fan, Managing Director of Ironfish Chengdu. In late 2009, a Malaysian couple contacted me expressing interest in helping Ironfish open a branch in Perth as a joint venture. I flew over to Perth to learn more about the market. I found a local Chinese newspaper and read a property column written by Helen Qin. When I met her and her husband at their Subiaco home an hour later, I learned that her husband Winston was working as a software engineer. Helen was currently at home raising their young son Michael, but she had a passion for property. During the conversation, I was so impressed with what Helen had achieved in her career in China that I invited her to help me start Ironfish Perth as a general manager, and potentially become a partner. Helen agreed to join Ironfish and the rest, as they say, is history. We held our first Perth seminar in Crown Resorts in August 2010 with 190 FROM BICYCLES TO BENTLEYS

about 350 attendees. In the past six years, Helen has built Ironfish Perth into the most customer-focused property investment company locally and she has built a personal property portfolio worth more than $10 million – from scratch. Today, even while Perth suffers from the mining and property downturn, Ironfish is helping our investors to continue their investment journey – by tapping them into our national platform and setting up their local property investment strategy by getting into some of the best Perth projects before the market starts moving again. In 2012, Damon Nagel, our partner and Managing Director of Ironfish Adelaide, and I decided to start our own development arm – Starfish Developments – to fill the shortage of quality medium-to-high-density developers in the Adelaide market. We have never looked back. In the short period of four years, Starfish has developed over 100 town houses, 59 award-winning medium density apartments, the tallest residential building, Vue, in Adelaide’s CBD, and has just started construction of another CBD tower, the environmentally friendly garden apartment building, Bohem. Starfish has also just completed its first project in Perth, the boutique Marina Drive Apartments in Ascot Waters. With hundreds of town houses and apartments in the pipeline, bringing his passion for design, quality and details – just like the way he makes award-winning wines at his Bracken Wood vineyard – Damon has turned Starfish Developments into a true star. At the 2015 Urban Development Institute of Australia (UDIA) awards, Starfish won three major awards, including the Best Development Award SA 2015. Training the Next Generation Over the past five years, I have also fulfilled another dream. Ever since coming to Australia, I held this dream of becoming successful, and then sharing my success journey with young people in China. I also wanted to get into business with my university roommate Minhong (Michael) Yu, the billionaire founder and CEO of New Oriental, the largest private education institution in China. In November 2010, I The story continues 191

co-founded 80Success, a soft-skills training company, with Michael and three other Peking University classmates – Shawn (Xiao) Yu, Charlie (Jin) Wang and Charles (Xueyi) Chen – in Beijing. Our mission was to help Chinese university students develop their soft skills, such as winning mindsets, emotional intelligence, leadership and sales skills, before they graduated, so they would be more employment-ready and have a better chance of success once in the workforce. Today, 80Success has become a technology company under the brand of ShixiPlus, an app helping university students to get internships and jobs. New Vision Since the book was first published in 2008, I have received overwhelming feedback from readers, which is humbling and encouraging. The Chinese version was published in China in 2010, to a very warm reception. It has since been reprinted three times. My positive and can-do attitude, as well as my non-stop pursuit of bigger and better dreams, have resonated with entrepreneurs, professionals, students and people from various other fields. As I said at the start of this chapter, 2016 marks the 10th anniversary of Ironfish and we have achieved our $1 billion dream for a few years. Our next dream: $10 billion. I am grateful to my wife Suzanne and my children Tiger and Florence for their unconditional love and unwavering support for me to work hard at Ironfish. I am also grateful to everyone at Ironfish for their belief in the Ironfish dream and the core values of our business. If our first goal was to become the biggest property investment company in Australia when we started in 2006, we are now aiming higher. Our goal for the next five to ten years is to become the Number 1 property investment company in the world that is trusted by investors, loved by all staff and admired by peers. Our new journey has just begun. We will dedicate everything we do to helping our investors secure their financial future through 192 FROM BICYCLES TO BENTLEYS

successful property investment. We will embrace opportunities presented by new technologies. We will build the ecosystem for our investors and service them better. As a big fan of Apple, a few years ago I made a commitment with my good friend Tim Forrester, Managing Director of ARIA Property Group. Tim is driven to build ARIA into the best development company in Australia, and I am passionate about turning Ironfish into the best property investment services company in the Asia-Pacific region. Our commitment to each other is that Tim would build ARIA into the Apple of the development industry, while I would build Ironfish into the Apple of property investment service industry. Whenever we meet, we remind each other of that goal and update each other on our ideas and progress. Stay tuned ... The story continues 193

This is your chance to be mentored by Joseph Chou Following his lifelong dream of helping others to achieve their own millionaire status, Joseph is offering an entrepreneur/mentoring program under the banner of his company, Ironfish. The program will allow you to: • understand how to double your income in a relatively short period of time • grow your existing business • become an entrepreneur rather than a salaried employee unhappy with your income • show students how to make $100,000 in your first year of graduation • understand how to use Joseph’s ‘left-hand, right-hand theory’ – use your left hand to earn money and your right hand to create wealth • translate your own ideas into practical plans and real actions Grab life by its collar and earn your way to a multi-million-dollar income from scratch by signing up for Joseph’s mentoring program, just like the many people mentioned in this book (refer to pages 110, 136, 138, 140).

The program guarantees 100% satisfaction! Training objectives There are three common scenarios when it comes to entrepreneurship: • lack of courage • lack of knowledge • lack of objectives As a result, there are few entrepreneurs and the failure rate is high. Upon completion of this course, participants will master the foundation of entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial spirit, awareness and skills to start a business on their own using practical tools. Topics covered • Motivation, the ultimate driver for your success • The power of goal setting and how to be a goal getter • Fundamental people skills that will empower you ahead of others • Essential sales and marketing skills to make you great in business • Key leadership skills and how to become a true leader • The Art of Money • Practical skills: everything you need to earn money • For students: how to make $100k in your first year after graduation or migration • For business and salaried people: how to double your income in twelve months • Training method: face to face classes with follow-up coaching For more information or to register your interest, simply visit www.josephchou.com or www.ironfish.com.au