Building The Next Generation Of Lifestyle Leaders

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In this episode of How to Scale Commercial Real Estate Craig Schulze talks about how he s achieved financial freedom and success by building his businesses for his lifestyle We talk about how he achieved financial independence at such a young age his biggest lessons learned and mistakes from running his business and what motivates him to live life like he has one shot Craig Schulze is one of the worlds leading lifestyle entrepreneurs who have created a lifestyle by design Throughout Craig s 20 years in business he always positioned himself in front of the latest trends Moving from the corporate world to traditional business-owning five fitness clubs – Craig now has a global business where he has products shipping to over 100 different countries His vision mission and values are all around creating a lifestyle by design which is about creating complete time and financial freedom Craig is now inspiring others to do the same by building the next generation of lifestyle leaders 00 01 – 06 57 Building Businesses for Your Lifestyle How Craig fired his boss at 21 and started a successful business Being basically retired now Craig started working at the age of 15 and has been financially independent since Maintaining his sanity in Covid-19 s lockdown How Craig stays high-level when building businesses Craig shares how he was impacted greatly during the 2008 global financial crisis and had to sell franchises and could no longer get loans How he powered through economic and financial trials 06 42 – 13 17 You ve Got One Shot Segments of business that Craig does and does not invest in Looking for high growth niches and knowing how to vet bad investments What success means to Craig Understanding the seven areas to master in life to live in joy fulfillment and happiness Visit Craig s website to get his Free Ebook The One Shot Movement Craig shares his inspiring story of how he and his wife lost their first son 13 18 – 17 41 Mistakes Made and Lessons Learned Craig s biggest business mistake Not managing risk and downside How to manage risk and downside in today s environment Mistakes to avoid when hiring 17 40 – 20 44 Closing Segment Reach out to Craig Links Below Final Words Tweetable Quotes I ve probably in my last 20 years invested half a million dollars in personal growth and work with some of the brightest minds in the world – Craig Schulze If you can reach the point of joy fulfillment and happiness I think ultimately that is success Because some of the wealthiest people in the world are spiritually bankrupt – Craig Schulze I think the biggest mistake I ve made in business was not managing risk and downside – Craig Schulze —————————————————————————– Connect with Craig Schulze Website https craigschulze com index Facebook ttps www facebook com craigdschulze Instagram https www instagram com craigschulze LinkedIn https www linkedin com in craigschulze Connect with me I love helping others place money outside of traditional investments that both diversify a strategy and provide solid predictable returns Facebook LinkedIn Like subscribe and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts Spotify Google Podcasts or whatever platform you listen on Thank you for tuning in Email me sam brickeninvestmentgroup com Want to read the full show notes of the episode Check it out below Craig Schulze 00 00 Success to me is really financial success is really you know nothing So I ve got an ebook on my website and one of my initial coaching components is the seven areas to master in life to live in joy fulfillment and happiness And if you can reach the point of joy fulfillment and happiness I think ultimately that s success Because some of the wealthiest people in the world are spiritually bankrupt Or they ve got broken family life You know they hate what they do but they re making a lot of money or they have exited their business and they re still unfulfilled Craig Schulze 00 00 Success to me is really financial success is really you know nothing So I ve got an ebook on my website and one of my initial coaching components is the seven areas to master in life to live in joy fulfillment and happiness And if you can reach the point of joy fulfillment and happiness I think ultimately that s success Because some of the wealthiest people in the world are spiritually bankrupt Or they ve got broken family life You know they hate what they do but they re making a lot of money or they have exited their business and they re still unfulfilled Intro 00 40 Welcome to the How to Scale Commercial Real Estate Show Whether you are an active or passive investor we ll teach you how to scale your real estate investing business into something big Sam Wilson 00 50 Craig Schulze is an entrepreneur speaker business coach investor and amazing podcast host Craig welcome to the show Craig Schulze 00 55 Thanks for having me Looking forward to spending time with you today Sam Wilson 01 02 The pleasure is all mine The same three questions I ask every guest who comes on the show In 90 seconds or less can you tell me where did you start Where are you now And how did you get there Craig Schulze 01 10 Look I started in Australia as an engineer that didn t like trading time for money fired my boss when I was 21 started a business that ended up being five fitness clubs 22 franchises and yeah then I move with the trends online business So I ll build a multimillion dollar online business there And where am I going now I guess coming through the pandemic and everything I m looking forward to moving forward into my next phase in quantum leaps and bounds Sam Wilson 01 39 That s absolutely fascinating I know you and I talked off air about this And I think you left this part of your story You left home at what age Craig Schulze 01 47 I was 15 left home at 15 Not cause I wasn t loved that was just because our school I live in a very remote area And our school finished at year 10 So either work in the mine or I went to further my education But my parents didn t have a lot of money So they you know from probably 17 I ve really financially funded my way through from there Sam Wilson 02 08 Wow that s incredible And I think you d also mentioned previously that by age 40 you re basically retired Craig Schulze 02 15 Yeah look I m in in lots of definitions I would have been retired I haven t really had to work for the last few years Because you know I don t play with the rules of the current you know government enforcement So I ve said I ve taken time out for the last two years But that s been because I ve built business for cash flow invested that and built wealth property And now a number of private companies as well Sam Wilson 02 37 That is really what I want to spend kind of the time here you know talking about is what does it look like Well first of all I want to know what gets you up what gets you motivated what gets you excited in the morning Craig Schulze 02 49 One of my biggest challenges over the last couple of years has really been rules locking me down Rules to say you can t leave your house for one hour a day rules that you have to be in your house at 9pm every night rules that you can t leave five kilometers or three miles in America But really what gets me up in the day is really I love traveling the world as my oyster you know traveling the world spending time with who I want when I want And I have a real zest for life and living life with passion and purpose So that s why I built business to lifestyle and able to have business in 120 different cities in the world And I ve traveled to 100 different countries And that was taken away at the start of this current thing So I ve been on three planes in two years So what gets me out is really you know just being able to live life to the fullest Sam Wilson 03 38 What did you do to maintain your sanity Craig Schulze 03 44 It s actually challenging like I ve probably in my 20 years invested half a million dollars in personal growth and work with some of the brightest minds in the world And really you know what you d call intimate containers where they re 40 50 000 a pop And I actually turned to do that last 2020 when we re in 120 days straight lockdown And for me I needed to really connect with some really like-minded people light-hearted people and I couldn t do it physically So it was reaching out to a person that had been on my podcasts that I really looked up to He sold his first business for 50 million And he was really down a self-care spiritual path and I did one of his probably six-month programs and that was what really helped with the sanity and one of the things that I took out of that was going back to your inner child So while I was in lockdown I had so much taken away but what I did during that time is did things that I liked doing when I was a kid I bought a mountain bike and start a bike riding with my little kids I used to do when I was little chop firewood and make fires of my dad so I got some firewood and made fires with my kids And the other thing was my son started to climb trees So you know we d go on to the golf course it was now not open and climb trees So that was probably one of the things that really helped me get through the first phase but it just dragged on forever 300 days of locked down Sam Wilson 05 11 Well that s awesome that you found ways to work around that But also I don t know how you did it to be honest Yeah I mean all of a lot of you to go I just don t know how you did it But it sounds like you know that was one of the keys there Talk to us about building businesses I mean it s one thing to say Okay I m gonna build a business but it s another to stay really high level and not get into the weeds of it but yet somehow still maintain that ability to have multiple focuses How do you do that Craig Schulze 05 38 Well it s good question When I was 21 years of age fired my boss I was an engineer and I started a fitness club And I was passionate about the fitness industry And I always say when I m doing public speaking at age 21-22 you know I had zero business skills zero business education probably at that age zero life skills And what I lacked there I made up for the will to do whatever it takes for success And that was reading books learning how to sell really immersing myself the skills and evolvement of the s kills so sales and communication and all of that But then I got myself a mentor who had already walked the path And he sort of took me aside and helped me and he has for the last 20 years taught me how to build a business properly taught me how to navigate financial challenges taught me how to do joint ventures and build relationships with potential collaboration partners and the mentor side of it probably fast tracked me but also protected me from you know you don t know what you don t know It was really hetaught me what I didn t know Sam Wilson 06 47 Yeah I see that all the time They can tell you the right way to go But even more importantly oftentimes they ll tell you the wrong way not to go to say Hey don t make that mistake Craig Schulze 06 56 I was nearly down and out in the global financial crisis My first six years in business was like this is easy Like you know everything I touched I was making good money I m in my early 20s I m investing in property building wealth through property And I was a massive risk taker And I d never faced a global economic downturn in my life And in the space of 18 months banks stop lending money I was selling franchises Banks stop lending money I was I had to pay for my own fitouts And all of a sudden I was like down to one more bad decision from the government And I was out of business And he really helped me work out a way to finance my way through it And I didn t have that sort of sound advice And from there the lesson was learned to manage risk manage downside and we move into this last two years I was basically not spending you know I was making hay where the sun shines and making good business but I wasn t like blowing the money or anything I was making smart wise decisions to manage risk for the next downside and you just learn that through having really good sound advisory around you And that s what I do for a lot of people now Sam Wilson 06 57 Are there any segments of business that you say hey you know I don t invest in that or I don t I feel like that particular asset class or business class is just too risky right now And you just you want nothing to do with it Craig Schulze 08 15 There s always different trends happening all the time So I probably look for high growth niches when I m looking at investments So one of the investments unfortunately I invested at like 90 days before the global you know pandemic scenario but that was in a plant-based food industry rapidly growing industry And in 2010 I invested in online businesses social media-related opportunities so you can grow at scale and have sales all around the world to recession-proof yourself And at the time I was looking at different you know wellness is always a big trend And there s always going to be a big trend So I look for trends But typically I look for the people running the businesses The worst investments I ve ever made is investing in a great idea with a shocking owner that runs a business and you know as I say couldn t run a lemonade stand even though they ve got 10 lemon trees in their backyard and the equipment s been donated to him So really that s the most important part One of the companies I m invested in is an education company and the entrepreneur is someone I highly respect and you know his business valuation been 65 million And that was a great investment So he could go into any business and turn that one on its head as well But I look at trends typically and and you know there s no point investing in blockbuster now because you know Netflix is around So steer clear of those older horse and cart business models Sam Wilson 09 44 Yeah that makes a lot of sense You re investing outside of Australia right What s it like I mean just on the financial accounting tax side I mean that seems like that would be a nightmare being invested all around the world Craig Schulze 09 56 Yeah look I mean most of my business is still set up through my Australian business and ecommerce everything still runs through all my different assets and accounting structures through this entity So I haven t really gone down the pathway even though I ve had many conversations with people in America and in the UK that there s been some opportunities that have arose in those markets there and I have explored tax wise you know what would it take for me Do I have to be a resident Do you know what are the tax benefits of doing that So I have explored it But I haven t actually taken action on setting up companies in different markets to potentially leverage other opportunities in different markets Intro 10 41 Wonderful Tell us when I say the word success what does that mean to you now Craig Schulze 10 45 Well it s success to me is really financial success is really you know nothing So I ve got an ebook on my website and one of my initial coaching components is the seven areas to master in life to live in joy fulfillment and happiness And if you can reach the point of joy fulfillment and happiness I think ultimately that s success Because some of the wealthiest people in the world are spiritually bankrupt Or they ve got broken family life You know they hate what they do but they re making a lot of money or they have exited their business and they re still unfulfilled So I think ultimately if you can find a way to live in joy fulfillment and happiness you know I think if you wrap the word success around that I think that s pretty much what it looks like Sam Wilson 11 38 Yeah no I think that s absolutely awesome Tell me about your hat What is The One Shot Movement Craig Schulze 11 44 The One Shot Movement is something I created actually I ve got my book here for a talk early one shot you ve got one shot And that whole idea and concept really probably does fit into a vision and mission that I have in life And the backstory is my wife and I went through the heartbreaking trauma of losing our first son who was a stillborn baby And that sort of turn life and perspective of life on its head in a really big way And I had this burning desire to leave a legacy for my son who wasn t going to be able to do it physically But he could through the message of that story to inspire people and educate people all around the world So the concept I wrote the book you ve got one shot which literally only got one shot at life my son didn t have one breath So what have we all got to lose go out there and give life your best shot And then I started to say Well why don t I build a following a movement around that And that s where my podcast is born One Shot Movement podcast I interviewed people that have made the most of their one shot at life And I m just building infrastructure around that at the moment So I m again moving into children s book at the moment called Ethan the Entrepreneur and that s my son to inspire and educate little children when they re at an age where understanding you know treat the world is your oyster and so on So my hat it really is a symbol of my brand and my message for what I want to do in the world and leave the legacy to inspire people to make the most of their one shot at life Sam Wilson 13 17 That is fantastic So we ve talked a little bit about what success looks like we ve talked about the one shot movement we ve talked about mentors you know we ve talked about business tell me what s a mistake that you ve made that has cost you time money or both Craig Schulze 13 32 Well I think the biggest mistake I ve made in business was not managing risk and downside So and that was really through lack of awareness of always thinking that there s gonna be you know one season of high growth-type of thing And so it was like Hey I m going to the bank in my board shorts and t-shirt bank manager give me another 200 000 I want to start a new gym and a new business And I was right on the edge You know I wanted to go from zero to hero a lot quicker than what the reality actually was So that nearly cost me everything And I went through two years where I was barely my lunch was worth probably less than 2 a day for two years And you know as I said one more thing went wrong for me there I would have probably lost you know four or five houses and four or five gyms and at the start all over again So I would say managing risk and downside If we ve learned anything over the last two years you know there s always going to be a rainy day so prepare for it Sam Wilson 14 39 I know you alluded to this earlier where you said that people are what you invest in not necessarily great ideas So how do you tie those two together with managing risk and downside in today s environment Craig Schulze 14 50 Yeah look I mean probably more so like people in the end will make or break your business and you know one of my classic experiences in life I was I was going on my first overseas trip for eight weeks with my now wife but at the time we were you know just in a relationship And a month before leaving my manager the two I see of my whole business resigned after about five years and I was left in a hey what am I going to do I ve got to employ someone to do this really important role that this person s competently been doing for a long period of time and eight weeks overseas was based on the fact that she could run my business and check in And I panicked and I employed a person that half my business in eight weeks And he looked really good on paper from a resume point of view lack the personal skills lack the everything about that person was wrong And I had you know six seven year clients and Craig I love you but I ll never be back in this place again So you know hiring and firing people can be a big homerun or a big loss And the same I look at it from an investment point of view you know somebody s really got the right know how they built businesses before the somebody s looking at it And for the first time you know there s just it s just chalk and cheese from an investment point of view But if you make the wrong hire in your business too it will tear you apart Sam Wilson 16 20 Absolutely What do you do now Or what would you recommend people do now to make sure that doesn t happen Craig Schulze 16 26 I think going off a bit of paper and a job interview is blocked with danger because he can say whatever you want in that 30 minute pitch and you can write whatever you want And you can get recommendations from whoever you want which I had recommendations on here s from one of the most high profile sports stars a barrister and someone else And these type of people wouldn t give this person a good reference And they did Now I always really want to get them I asked really interesting questions to people when I m interviewing them for example but also want to get to know their personality One of my best hires was a guy that just said he laughed and it was a really crazy laugh And he goes you ll probably hear that a lot And I thought Wow what a sense of humor This guy he s got a bit of personality I need personality to rapport with my clients etc So there s a technical skills element obviously they ve got to have that But then there s this personality and this communication skill and this you know are they heart-centered or not And I think that s a really important part to explore When you re looking for hire slow fire fast as they say right Sam Wilson 17 39 Yeah well absolutely Craig I ve enjoyed our conversation today we ve got to learn a lot about what you re doing I guess one last question to ask you is what do your commercial real estate holdings or just your real estate holdings in general look like today and where do you see things going in the real estate markets Craig Schulze 17 51 Look as we had you on my show I had a few interesting questions for you Because the model that you were running there I haven t really seen it happen on Australian shores For me I ve been really primarily commercial in residential property investing And I have a bit of a set of rules around that where it was you know within 10 kilometers or three mile or former from the CBD And we re hot areas where amenities are moving in So looking for you know areas that are future potential and they ve sort of grown there And the other model is a positive cash flow residential model where it s sort of funding itself but then there s development potential to put 3 4 5 houses on the same block type of thing down the track So those models are still working well here playing defense not offense at the moment through the Global Financial Crisis site Last month sold the first house ever in 20 years So I ve invested in 11 houses for my residential portfolio in really good spots and I sold my first one because I don t want to get caught like I did in the global financial crisis If the market has a downturn and everything s unknown at the moment certainly in Australia then I don t want to be caught with no renters and lots of mortgage to pay off myself and then not be able to sell your house and it s been a really hot market here for the last 12 months So I made a decision to sell a house and that s really about playing defense not offense Sam Wilson 19 25 Right I love it Craig thank you for taking the time to come on today I certainly appreciate it It s been an honor to have you on if our listeners want to get in touch with you or learn more about you what is the best way to do that Craig Schulze 19 37 I mean usually Craig Schulze is spelled S-C-H-U-L-Z-E So Craig C-R-A-I-G schulze com And there s a lot of free resources put a lot of time into my blogging and podcasts that is plenty of fun to be had on that site download my Work Life Vision book and have a go at doing that to live in joy fulfillment and happiness and if you want to buy something buy my book You ve Got One Shot which you know that first chapter there is raw and emotional and you know but there s a lot of life lessons in that book that I ve learned over 20 years in business so including how I found my mentor Sam Wilson 19 37 Awesome Craig thank you so much Appreciate your time Craig Schulze 19 55 Thank you Sam Wilson 20 00 Hey thanks for listening to the How to Scale Commercial Real Estate Podcast If you can do me a favor and subscribe and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts Spotify Google Podcasts whatever platform it is you use to listen if you can do that for us that would be a fantastic help to the show It helps us both attract new listeners as well as rank higher on those directories so appreciate you listening Thanks so much and hope to catch you on the next episode Click here to visit this podcast episode