We Are Selling with Lee Woodward
We Are Selling is a weekly podcast about real estate, business and tackling life's challenges. Hosted by renowned real estate industry coach, Lee Woodward, learn from experts in their field and maximise your life.
We Are Selling with Lee Woodward
157 - Running Out Of Saturdays - Peter Brewer
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Welcome to our latest episode featuring Peter Brewer, a true inspiration in the real estate industry. In this conversation, Peter shares themes from his upcoming book, "Running Out of Saturdays," taking us on a journey from his beginnings on the Bay Islands to his current expertise.
He emphasizes the importance of genuine connections and a supportive community, advocating for a "One Big Tent" approach where shared values lead to success. Peter also highlights the power of curiosity in adapting to new technologies and the crucial role of leaders and organizations like the REIQ during challenging times.
His stories offer valuable lessons in resilience, balance, and self-belief, along with insights on mental health and prioritising relationships. Whether you're in real estate or another field, Peter's reflections provide profound takeaways for navigating both personal and professional landscapes.
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Hello and welcome back to the podcast we Are Selling. My name's Lee Woodward, the author of the Complete Salesperson Course. Today's podcast is brought to you by our sponsor, nexar. Nexar is a dedicated real estate platform specializing in lead generation and database management of the entire real estate company For BDMs and agents. Working as one platform to generate opportunity. Nexar seamlessly integrates into your business systems, allowing you to have an extended solution. Let's get started with this week's episode. Get started with this week's episode, and joining me today on the podcast we are selling is the very famous and well-known and very tall Mr Peter Brewer from Queensland. Peter, welcome aboard, lee Woodward, can I?
Speaker 2:just say, of all the introductions I've had, that is absolutely the most recent.
Speaker 1:Thank you, it's a pleasure and listen to that voice. Now this voice is about to enter the world of books, as we've got a book coming out for you, Peter. Explain the book. What's the title?
Speaker 2:The title is called Running Out of Saturdays, lee, but why is it Running Out of Saturdays? Well, I guess we all are, on reflection, running Out of Saturdays, so I've had the joy of having about 3,537 of them thus far and, as you know, I'm not a biblical man, but the Bible tells us that we get, on average, three school years and 10, so 70 years. So at 65 years of age, you do the math. So I've got five years left, in theory, at 52 Saturdays a year. So I'm kind of running out of Saturdays, and I think we all are.
Speaker 2:I wanted to reflect on my life and I wanted to make sure that my children and grandchildren had some stories of this silly old Papa Bee, that they could reflect on that and say why did he do that, how did that happen, what was he all about? Because I think, lee, if I reflect on and you and I were talking about this recently I can tell you lots about my parents, I could tell you a little bit about my grandparents and I can tell you nothing about my great-grandparents and others before, and I think that's such a shame, because we've all got such great stories in us but all that IP disappears when we go off to heaven's waiting room, and so I wanted to make sure I captured some of that stuff that my family would enjoy and thus far, on the pieces I've created, a lot of people said be enjoying the stories as well, so we're going to turn it into a book. It's called Running Out of Saturdays and it's coming out not too soon.
Speaker 1:I love the title because it can be as you just explained there. But then for many other people who are trying to do something at this stage of their life, time flies and you're running out of Saturdays to do or to be at and it just gives you, because everyone knows Saturday so well, especially in the real estate industry. It's the biggest play day of the whole thing and we might start there because we've got our listeners in the UK, the States and here in Australia. But, peter, you've had a phenomenal real estate presence and career. Take us into that background.
Speaker 2:Oh, I've had the best experience, lee. I started my real estate career at 21 years of age selling land on the Bay Islands just off Brisbane at $2,000 a block. I lived over there in a shack. We drove rusty old island cars around to sell people their real estate dream, and what a great baptism of fire or apprenticeship. That was Then moved on to selling land to builders in the Redlands area just south east of Brisbane, and that was prospecting using the white pages from Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne and the old value of general sheets.
Speaker 2:And I'd sit back and I'd cross match who owned lot 27 Wahine Drive and I'd ring those people and I'd prospect to try and sell their block of land or acquire their block of land for a builder for $21,000 I was authorised to buy for, and so the career just grew from there. And funnily enough, and I was authorized to buy for, and so the career just grew from there. And funnily enough and I see this a lot I was actually working for the Ray White group at the time, even though my parents had a professional's real estate office across at Manly. So it was this craziness and after two or three years I went. It's crazy, I'm working for Ray White. But my parents own a professional's office. So I moseyed down to dad and I said what's the chances of giving the young bloke a career in real estate? And he put an application form in front of him and he said fill that out and give me a call tomorrow and I'll let you know how you went.
Speaker 1:Of course.
Speaker 2:I'm pretty cocky and arrogant. I've got this, this is no problem. So I thought I'll make him suffer a bit. I waited till the next afternoon to ring him. And I rang him and said how'd I go? No problems. And he said if you'd taken the time to look at that application form correctly, you would have noticed, had you turned it over, there's a requirement on the back of the form for three references. You failed to fill in those three notes. So if you're interested in a job in Don Brewer Real Estate, you'll come back, you'll fill in those three names and we'll check those references.
Speaker 2:And you know what? Such a great lesson to me that in real estate the paperwork's important. You've got to dot the I's and cross the T's. And he wanted to send a message to the rest of the team that there was no nepotism. This young bloke was going to you know, was going to you know earn his place on the team. And so then that thing created a real estate career with my dad and mum.
Speaker 2:That went on for some 20, 25 years where we did incredibly well, and it was such a great mix of me, the young buck ready to go and get them all, and the old fellow just saying just slow down a bit, fella, we'll just walk down to the paddock and take them one by one, if you get my drift. And so mum and dad were very keen, they were really good on teaching me stuff and they said Pete, if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. And at that time the organisation Franchise was involved in wasn't necessarily doing as well as I thought it should. So I could either sit back and whinge and be part of the problem or I could step up and be part of the solution. And so I lobbied and canvassed and managed to take the executive chairman role of that organisation and went about making a difference, taking some of the I guess, changing the guard from some of the more conservative people in the brand to saying the world's changing, things are happening differently. And so that's been something I've been really proud to do in all of my corporate work since.
Speaker 2:Is say we are traditionally a real, have been a really conservative industry. We traditionally have been a really conservative industry. And I'm all about Rattlin' Cages. When I left Wynnum High School in 1976, the reference I received from Merv Miles, my headmaster, said he's an independent type of lad who has potential, and that was probably one of the best things that anyone could write for me, because it identified in me yes, I am an independent type of player. I knew I had potential. I've retained that fierce independence to rattle cages, make noises, push for change when change needs to be made, and so that, I think, is one of my trademarks, as my real estate career has gone from property manager to salesperson, to business owner, to executive chairman, to running various brands and the REIQ now. So, yeah, it's been an absolute blaze of fun and I couldn't have been better.
Speaker 1:And Peter, a lot of people wouldn't know, but you're also the ambassador for Inman for Australia.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have. That was a 10-year appointment with Brad Inman for the Inman organisation out of the United States. Inman News is a publishing brand that relates purely to the real estate profession and I struck up a really good friendship with Brad and he was really keen to make sure we got more Aussies across. And, of course, you've been across regularly and you've done some great interviews with some wonderful people over there, and so, again, I wanted to just keep challenging myself and one of the greatest things you know and I picked up lots, lots of great relationships from Inman and I was able to get lots of people to go over there. But it's just, you know I've used this in a lot of presentations.
Speaker 2:In about 2015, I'll say, brad shared a statistic on stage that said it was 58-31, and he asked who could guess what this 58-31 stat was. It was research done by the National Association of Realtors and it said, of their 1.7 million members, the average age of a member of a real estate agent in the United States was 58, but the average age of the person consuming the product was 31. Wow, it was such a connect for me. I thought, wow, our behaviours of the 58s to the 31s are different and I think you know, and we still have some of those struggles across the profession where we've got some of the veterans my vintage and older who are saying no, no, they've got to do it my way.
Speaker 2:And the 31-year-olds the new consumer coming through saying no, no sunshine, the rules have changed, we're doing things differently. And through saying no, no sunshine, the rules have changed, we're doing things differently. And so that made me even more confident to go out and start talking about change. We can't keep doing stuff the way that it's been comfortable for us forever. So, yeah, inman's been wonderful to me. It's been a great association. I regard Brad as one of my closest friends and I'm delighted he's put his name down to buy a copy of the book. So when one of the United States' biggest publishers wants to buy your book, I'm pretty happy.
Speaker 1:Absolutely amazing. And, peter, when I was preparing to do the interview for the book today and we're going to listen to some of those stories everyone knows who you are. Everyone has the same response. You've connected a lot of people together. You mentioned my interviews over in New York. No one knew me. You pulled 16 interviews with some of the most famous people in New York together and just because you said this guy's from Australia, he's going to interview you, they went yep, okay, pete, I had the head of the New York Times speak, dusty Baker. Wow, yeah, dusty, just incredible people. So it's a credit that you've been able to use your biggest strength and that is relationships and the introduction of people to people. That has really built you a network around the world that you can call upon at any time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you, lee, and I pride myself on that, and it's a game I played early in life. Is you know, is who? Do you know who? And I'm a big believer. Look, we're here to support each other, and if we're not, you know? In fact, I recently bought the domain name One Big Tent, because I reckon we all are under One Big Tent.
Speaker 2:I don't care about the colour of your tie, which brand you're from, any of that crap. I want to know that you're a good human being and that we share the same values and we want the best for our profession. And so when good people like you, lee, and we've had a longstanding relationship, when I know you're legit, then absolutely I'll open the doors. You walk through them, but I'll open the doors for anyone who's legit. And so this game I've played for all my life has been when someone says, who do you know, I go oh, I know someone. Like I've got this little black ball, and if you don't open it up and make life easy for someone else, well, you're letting yourself down and you're letting other people down. And it's amazing. I do next to no marketing of me, lee, and you're very similar. It's just do the right thing by people, help them out and they'll remember. So, yeah, think about when someone says who do you know you go? I can do that, I can help that. I know someone there it's amazing says who do you know?
Speaker 1:You go. I can do that. I can help that. I know someone there. It's amazing. And, pete, you've also stayed close to technology. Like a lot of people reach certain ages, and that's it for me. I'm out of this. I'm out of that. Yet even an executive summary that you and I are looking at to talk about today, you've thrown it into AI. You're the original artist, you're not the covers band. Your passion for technology has served you well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, absolutely Well, I think, lee. And whether it's technology or whatever it is, you've got to have a culture of curiosity, you've got to want to know what's around the corner, what's next, you know. For those that are 100 years old or more, like me, they'll remember Robert Bevan best practice. You know I went to a lot of Robert Bevan best practice. I went to a lot of Robert Bevan's early training and I remember sitting there watching Robert and there was Patrick Dixon was on stage, christy Leak was on stage, paul Lahore and all these legends and great operators from around Australia. And you do it with your audience.
Speaker 2:Now I saw recently the people you had on stage in Brisbane for the Complete Salesperson's Course and these guys are on stage sharing their secrets of their business with anyone that's in the audience. And I sat back and it was such a great moment for me because I went back and went. Well, they're giving everything they can and we're sitting back thinking we've got all the success. We're kidding ourselves that we know the 11 herbs and spices, that we know the recipe for Coke and no one has it. That's crap.
Speaker 2:There's so much to learn from other people and I remember leaving that session going. This is amazing. Christy Leet is sharing his 92 page business plan in a sample bag with all the CDs on it. Patrick Dixon is sharing all the commissions that he what he pays his people, how it all happens. And I remember ringing my board of the time on the way back from the session on the Gold Coast saying we are kidding ourselves, We've got to get out of short pants, we've got to go and learn what other people are doing and that kind of sat in me to go. You got to keep doing stuff. And so part of my own business plan even today is to make sure I spend three or four days in other people's offices just to get an understanding of what's happening and you know whether that's technology or consumer behavior.
Speaker 1:You've got to have that culture of curiosity you know, I travel the entire country, as you would know, and the REIQ yourself and Antonia and the team there are the most modern open. I love Antonia's quote during COVID stay calm and leave it to the Italian lady. That's true, I just love that. And, antonia, I know you're listening to this. You are inspirational. But everyone I speak to, as you know, I just did the Brisbane Complete Salesperson course. What a buzz in the room. And then I mentioned the REIQ and there's another buzz there's no friction at all here. Everyone's under the one tent. You've actually pulled it off.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you. I really appreciate that and I'm really delighted that we're seen that way and I think we are seen that way and that was a very-. Yeah well, it was a very deliberate move by both Antonia and I. You know, reis are traditionally conservative organisations. The REIQ is 107 years of age this year. Have they seen your?
Speaker 1:wardrobe.
Speaker 2:They haven't seen my wardrobe. In fact, I can share this with you, lee. When I was first elected to the board in 2014, I was pulled aside by one of the directors and told if I wasn't going to wear a suit and tie, if I was going to wear one of my flamboyant jackets, there was a very strong chance there would be a vote of no confidence in me in the boardroom, and that for me, was like I love rallying cages, you know, and that just rattled my cage because I went you know why do I have to wear a suit? And so I became hell bent on changing that and not making it, and REIs all over need to understand this.
Speaker 2:This is a membership group for the state or the country, and so I went in there and Antonio and I both went in there saying, whether you're a property manager in Cairns, commercial salesperson in Biller Wheeler, the guy putting up signs for Koloshe on the Gold Coast, or whoever you are, you are part of the real estate community and you need to feel like it's your institute, and so we went very deliberately about making sure that we are friendly, that we are easy to do business with, and I think that's shown. You know, it's been nine years. I have to finish this year. Our constitution says that I have to go after nine years, so in October it'll be my swan song, but I'm really proud of what we've achieved to make us a friendly organisation that's there for its members. That's what we're there for.
Speaker 1:Well, I've only ever met one, peter Brewer for fashion, until I got to NZ and met the New Zealand version of Andrew Marks and his many colourful rainbow socks. But let's get back to this book. Share one of the stories that's going to be highlighted in the book.
Speaker 2:Oh, lee, there's so many stories, there's some fun stuff. You know, I've said to people bring your tissues, because you're either going to laugh a lot or cry a lot, and you're probably going to do both. And let me think about let's go with my first sale or no? My desperation sale in my early days, at 21 years of age, over on Russell Island, Sounds good. Yeah, so this is the one egg diet. Okay, so it was Thursday. I had some people coming on Saturday.
Speaker 2:I had not made a sale for several weeks and if you can imagine the commission on $2,000, that 5% of the first 18,000 and 2.5% of the balance was not a big commission, but I needed a deal. I was pretty desperate and I was living on the island. I was down to one egg and I wasn't going home until Saturday afternoon. I had to sit back and think how do I make one egg? Last three days I worked out I'll have the white on the Thursday, I'll have the yellow on the Friday and I'll have the shell for roughage on the Saturday, waiting for this old Greek couple to come across from West End. They said they'd be on the 11 o'clock barge and I'm desperate for this deal. Well, thankfully, I'll call them Mr and Mrs Baclavar got off the boat at 11 o'clock and they walked towards me in my rusty old Valiant that had a Ray White real estate on the side. It had a blackboard on the top of the roof of the car that said land sale special $4,000. Now in the 12 months I was there, that land sale special never came off the blackboard. That was just what we did and we had four islands that we sold on Russell, maclay, carraghera and Lamb Islands and they all had different things about them. And so the old Greek couple turned up and there was always this stare off between the clients that came over and me on who would pay for the taxi boat fare to go from island to island.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm destitute, lee, I'm down to nothing. You know, I've got, as I said, I've used the shell of the egg. It's nothing. I'm desperate to get home to the Cleveland Sands Hotel, hopefully for a T-bone steak. So we hit the car and I take this lovely old it's a great couple around Russell Island and we'd been met by the hippies and the three-legged dogs and the combis and they didn't quite feel this was the island for them. They had five daughters and we'd done the tour and they said yeah, nothing, this is not for us. What else have you got? And I went well, the only other thing I let's go to Karagara Island. So we get the next taxi boat across to Karagara Island, jump in the rusty old island car over there. We drive around to Karagara Island and they said we're really worried about global warming and all that kind of stuff. We think this is a really low island. We're worried it'll flood. So not for us. We're, you know, going.
Speaker 1:Hmm, I'm running out of islands. I'm running out of islands.
Speaker 2:I'm running out of Saturdays and so we're down to, you know. So we're two islands down, two to go. We got the taxi boat across to Maclay Island. We probably met at the front of the jetty at Maclay Island by some pot-smoking flower hippies and a drum circle, and the Greek couple have looked at me, mr and Mrs Backliver, I call them. They looked at me and I looked at them and they said well, we'll go for the drive anyway. So I've driven them around the island. Nothing Cannot entice them with anything Beautiful waterfront blocked down for $7,500, not interested. Things are getting desperately.
Speaker 2:It's now the last taxi boats going home at, I think, four o'clock and we go to Lamb Island, the jewel in the crown. This is where I'm hoping we're going to get the business done. We get in the island car on Lamb Island. It's a really nice treed. Well, it's a lovely island. I get in the car, they get in the car, I reach for the keys, which are under the mat, and and I put the keys in and I turn the car over. The motor's going. This is good. They're in the car, mr Baklavar's beside me, mrs Baklavar's in the backseat, vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom. Okay, it's the old three on the tree. So I go righto and I'm trying to get the tree in.
Speaker 2:It's stuck, locked, locked. The motor's gone, but the gearbox is locked on. So I've given it one almighty reef and the best I can do is get it into reverse. Well, you know, being a person that says, you know, like you know, you've got to give things a good crack, like, don't die with the music in you, you've got to have a go. And I went. What do I do? What do I do? And in this moment of brilliance that will sit with me forever, reverse engineered, magical.
Speaker 2:I said, mr Backevar, do me a favour, turn around. He said what, what are you talking about? And I said do me a favour, turn around. And he laughed. And it was Mrs Baklava. Can you turn around, please, and look out through the back window? And she said oh, you're joking, bidley, you're joking. And I said I'm not joking, this is the only way we're going to do this.
Speaker 2:And so I reversed Mr and Mrs Baklava around Lamb Island, right, and the locals are coming out on the street going what is going on with this crazy railway guy, with this crazy row? I go with this guy and reversed them around the entire island. I'm saying, mr and Mrs Baclavar, the block that's on your left, which is my right. This is 5,000, this is 2,000. Anyway, I don't know whether it was out of pure sympathy or whether they actually liked it, lee, but on the second last block they said we'll take it. I'm not sure whether they were desperate to get back to the mainland, but they said we'll take it. And there I sat, or there I stood, on the bonnet of the old rusty Valiant and we filled out a land sales contract for a waterfront block for $7,000.
Speaker 1:What would that be worth today?
Speaker 2:Oh look it's probably seven and a half. No, it's in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. And it's funny because we built such a good relationship. It was such a fun day. They really came to marry me off to one of the daughters. It was just good fun. But it was a lesson to me you just do whatever it takes, as long as it's legal, to get the job done. And I managed to get back to the mainland that night and I went and borrowed some money off a mate and I had the most succulent T-bone steak at the Cleveland Sands Hotel T-bone mushrooms and salad and chips. The Australian dream. The Australian dream.
Speaker 1:So, pete, there's a lot of people listening to this now that will read the book internationally, because you can't buy wisdom. It's either there or it's not. And I know for a lot of our young agents young doesn't mean age, but people that are considering progressing their real estate career, be it a team, a business, an office. There is so many opportunities today. What's the dark side of the book where you know things aren't going? What you thought and what did you do to get through it? Yeah, fantastic question.
Speaker 2:Lee. Justice Michael Lee from the federal court was summing up a case last year and he said the only good thing most autobiographies show is that the author has a bad memory. And it's such a great quote and I read that at the time. I heard him give it and I went yeah, I need to be really honest about this. You know, we can all sit back and say it's all been beer and Skittles and wine and roses and wonderful. There's absolutely been some really dark times. I'll give you two and I'll try and make them as quick as I possibly can.
Speaker 2:First one I have managed to take my interest outside the business in too many other things. You know, I was running a real estate organisation, involved in a sporting club, doing all kinds of stuff. My auntie, who was used to do my books, came to me and she said hey, you might want to top up that general account, mate. And I went oh yeah, what are you talking about? She said you just might want to top up that general account. Now I'd taken my eye off the business, I was busy doing other things and I thought I wonder how she's got this wrong, and so it was going playing in my mind and so about 2.30 the next morning, I went down to the office and I started to go through it. I went oh my God, I've got $9,000 in the general account and $36,000 worth of bills to pay in the next two weeks no-transcript. I took her off the ball. And so what do I? So I went for a head clearing walk this is such, gave me such faith in people and I walked past the home of a lady that was working for me at the time and she gave me a way.
Speaker 2:It was about 6.30 in the morning. She called me in for a cup of tea. Well, I think it was going to be a glass of wine, but anyway. She called me in and she said look, we're troubled, what's going on? And I thought well, if I'm going to have to give bad news,000 worth of bills to pay and I'm in strife and I'm not sure how I'm going to get out of this. And this was so good. She said to me Peter, I've got $50,000 sitting here in my superannuation account that I don't have any immediate plans for. I'd be really happy to write you a check for that now, so that'll pay the short-term problem out for you and you can deal with the rest later on, pay me back when you got it.
Speaker 2:Now, lee, I didn't take the $50,000, but I walked out of that meeting with her, that breakfast catch-up, with a renewed enthusiasm and vigor and belief in myself that, hey, other people believed in me. We all play this self-doubt game in our own brains oh, am I good enough? And it was a reality check. And I went wow, she believes in me, she's confident to give me $50,000. And so I went back to home. I got showered and cleaned up. I went to the office. I got on the bloody phone. I started prospecting again. I went out and started letter box dropping again. I called all the people that I had been too lazy to follow up. I called my existing sellers and got some price reductions. I followed up the buyers that I should have bloody followed up, except I was too frigging lazy or preoccupied with other stuff. And all of a sudden I backed $170,000 in six weeks. And so that was such a great lesson for me. Don't take the off the ball and understand. There is a legion of people that believe in you. You just got to believe in yourself. And so that was lesson number one. The second one Lee, you've just got to believe in yourself, and so that was lesson number one. The second one, lee, and this is about lifestyle and health and looking after ourselves.
Speaker 2:I've been on a wonderful tour and I'm going let's say it's the midnight, I might be doing it roughly 2000. I've been on a six-week holiday around the world France, champs-élysées, london. I've done it in Japan, did this magnificent tour, and I came back and I was sharing photos with some mates of mine on a Saturday night over a few beers. Now, one of my mates, greg we've been mates since grade two, you know, we've grown up together and he's very frank in giving me feedback. He doesn't hold back. We've all got that friend.
Speaker 2:We're looking through these photos and Greg said to me you know as he does and we might need to censor this he said hey, dickhead, as your mates do, how come you're in all these beautiful places around the world but you're not smiling in any of the photos? And I said give me those photos, black needle moment. And I looked at it, absolutely. I looked at it and went wow, I'm on the Champs-Élysées drinking champagne. No smile. I'm on the top of the London Eye looking over one of the most famous rivers and buildings in the UK, I'm not smiling. I'm at Mount Fuji and there's no smile on the dial.
Speaker 2:And I realised my body had gone on holidays. My brain was still back in Australia, in a business in Mantley in Brisbane, and I went holy shit, batman, and it's such a good lesson. And so I came back and changed my behavior and, funnily enough, I went off to see my own GP, dr Lajanas, and he said Peter, if you don't slow down in fact he used some other expletives the only way we'll fix you will be with tablets. Well, I listened to some of it, but five years later I went back and I said I'm here again, dr Lohanis, I'm waking up at two o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 2:There's stuff going through my brain. I'm checking out all the time. I'm worried about this, I'm worried about that. And he said here, dickhead, here's the tablets. And he gave me a bottle of clonazepam and I went well, I've stuffed that up, I've let my family down, I've let myself down. Yeah, we're making some money, but it ain't always about the money, you know. And I'd let relationships suffer. And so I went okay, I need to look after me. And so I went to some really dark places, you know, going through that process, but it's made me a better human. Today, you know, for me it's less about the coin, more about the relationships, more about the lifestyle, because, look, we're all running out of Saturdays, you know, and so I want to make sure that you know I get the most out of the ones that I've got left.
Speaker 1:Peter, absolutely brilliant interview, the best book title I've listened to in many, many years. And that's my final question that defining moment to do a book. Yes, you've got the legacy piece, the family. You've seen so much. You could have wrote the book. What I've Learned. But the process of going through the book is that index, that moment of what makes an in and what doesn't. How's that been for you in this final run of the book? Because right now the book's still being written. The wonderful federal PIM's coming through on the editing process, everything's coming through on the editing process, everything's coming together. How's that?
Speaker 2:been. So firstly, thank you for the introduction to Fedra, because she's been amazing. She's helped to crystallise the process for me I talk about in the book. I can't tell you what an adjective, a noun, a pronoun, an adverb or any of that. I have no idea nothing. The only thing I know about that is, if you mention them, I knew there's going to be a blackboard. Just to go past my ears from one of my teachers saying you're a decade brewer, it's not that hard. Well, it is hard.
Speaker 2:I couldn't learn that stuff, but what I knew was I had stories, and I think we've lost the art of storytelling in this country. We loved having stories read to us as kids. As grandparents, we love reading stories to our kids. I love the romance of sitting around a campfire and sharing stories, and in this crazy busy world we don't do enough of that. So I wanted to tell stories.
Speaker 2:I think I'm okay at telling stories, so I wanted to make sure I did that, and so I just sat down and I started writing. I thought I'll just write a couple of stories and see how it goes, with no great intention of writing a book. I thought I'd just capture a few. And the more I wrote, lee, the more stories came to mind, and I'll be sitting there at four o'clock in the morning at home chuckling away to myself God shit, I forgot about that. Well, that's amazing, oh, that's fun. And so it just grew and grew and grew, you know, from a couple hundred words to 109,000 words, which is a lot of words, particularly when you're a two-finger typist like me and I know other people I know for you it's you'd like to audio things and have it transcribed and I probably could have done that.
Speaker 2:But for me it was really cathartic for me personally to write some of those stories and if I'm honest about it, I probably wrote 215,000 words. But if I want to keep myself out of jail, I had to backspace over about 115,000 of those words. So it was a great cathartic experience. When I realised it was book was probably a third of the way through and I went there's actually something in this, people will enjoy it. And I read. You know I was lucky enough to go up to the Elite Retreat on Hayman Island late last year and read a chapter of the book to 200 real estate agents at 7 o'clock at night when they'd had a couple of hours on the booze and I thought I'm going to die. There's no way in the world they'll listen to me, especially reading a chapter for 15 minutes, and you could hear a pin drop, and I went. There's something in this.
Speaker 1:And I think we've all got it. Lee, you've crowd surfed it, you've crowd surfed it Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And I went, yeah, okay, I had some really important figures in this industry. So, yeah, we want that book. Yeah, that's fantastic, mate, that's amazing and all of us have got that. But we've just got to have the confidence to give it a crack, to put the time aside and do it, because, you know, I want my kids and grandkids and family to know about this silly old bugger and why he did what he did and why he pushed a few buttons and why he was not a resolute nonconformist, but why he said why do we do things that way? Well, let's challenge stuff. And so that's been my greatest lesson, mama Cass.
Speaker 2:So two things here, lee, I've created a Spotify playlist of all of the music that has inspired stories of the meant something to me in my life, and Mama Cass, elliott sings You've Got to Make your Own Kind of Music, and that, to me, is one of the crowning things for me. It's a mantra I live my life on Make your own kind of music, and that, to me, is one of the crowning things for me. It's a mantra I live my life on Make your own kind of music, sing your own special song, make your own kind of music even if no one else sings along. Well, here's the thing, lee, other people do sing along. There's other people standing in the shadows going, oh wow, that might be my tribe, wow, and you start to grow your tribe. So you know, I'm not saying be a resolute non-conformist, but be prepared to walk a different line, stick to your own values, and you'll find there's a legion of people ready to follow along, and so that's one of the inspirations to me.
Speaker 1:Peter Brewer, absolute delight to have you on the program and share this story. And for everyone out there in the show notes is the link to the book and give yourself that opportunity of the magic of wisdom of someone who's walked before you but in the same industry. And one of those things with people like yourself, pete, is you're very good at keeping others out of the potholes, and some of those are deep. But I want to thank you for being part of our industry creating One Big Tent. The book's going to be released and thank you for joining us. Thanks, lee, really appreciate your efforts.
Speaker 1:Today's episode of we Are Selling was brought to you by Nexar. Nexar is the platform that is now partnering and delivering best in class real estate growth solutions that continue to perform over time. Real estate growth solutions that continue to perform over time. The Nexar platform has now partnered with some of our leading principals in teams in Australia. They are assisting with the lead generation engine of the company, agent loyalty and the growth of the rent roll through connective communication. Nexar is doing the heavy lifting on nurturing your database to generate a pipeline for your agents and BDMs to convert to listings, sales and new managements. Check the show notes and the link to episode 116, where there was a feature interview with Mr Mark Kentwell. Thank you for listening. I look forward to speaking to you next week. My name's Lee Woodward Goodbye.