Reframing Dyslexia and ADHD As a Super Power with Adrian Ramsey

It's about having the connection with the things that make the difference to your emotional state .

I messaged him straight back because of what his message said and basically we spent the next year and a half on the phone chewing each other's ear off and fast forward a few weeks and he's straight on the podcast . So I won't give too much away .

But he's always a single malt scotch which is bought a bottle along and we're going to be sipping on through this episode . Skiing , surfing , hiking so definitely a cool guy . What a heap of design building awards . Featured on Australia's Best Houses with Megan Gale .

He's actually designed houses in New Zealand , england and France , and something I really want to deep dive into is he actually has a process which he calls his design magic process , a land whispering process and an emotional floor plan process to get on the same page as a client .

The emotional floor plan process he's going to explain to us is a very cool and it really unravels the process and gives a client well , gets everyone on the same page . So massive warm welcome to Adrian Ramsey . How are you , mate ? Yeah , very good , buddy . Thanks so much for having me here . Sorry , mate , it was a big intro .

There was a fair bit of dis through there .

You know all the stories , so we got a lot to talk about . Yeah music drinking , partying good times traveling , studying , exploring . Yeah , let's get stuck into it . So tell me a little bit more about your process .

That's what adds my flair , my creativity , I manage it and it's got me to where I am .

Drugs are one solution , but you know we were talking earlier about ice baths and you know saunas and doing self-management , mindset , body management , those kinds of things If you haven't given all those things ago as a way of managing it .

And like , ADHD is often managed really not easily managed with exercise , because it , you know , fidget spinners and things this thing here keeps this busy . It's like you can't stop shaking your foot because you've got the energy going , but if you stop shaking your foot then you lose that focus .

So this rhythm of something happening gives you the ability to keep pouring forward .

And I think for such a long time and I don't know if it's society or the way we're brought up , or schools or whatever this one size fits all things Like I was going down the path of , it's me like there's something wrong with me , whereas I should have been being a bit more open minded about it and using it to my advantage .

But and I'm quite open about it now Like I put it out there all over my socials , like I'm a I don't read , I listen to Audible and I can't spell , to say my life , but it doesn't mean I've managed to get to where I am and be very successful , just doing what you do , doing what I do and managing it .

works or not , it's going to . How successfully it works is going to be the learning of when you do it again and again and again . So once we've learned to drive the car , we do it on automatic , you know , but the first time we were , just like everybody else , absolutely uptight about it .

So being dyslexic or being ADHD and harnessing it as a gift is a management skill and it's something that you can use as a platform of knowing that you can find your way .

You know , like being dyslexic , I think it's like less than one in 10 people are dyslexic and there's various different strains of how they see the world , but that means that one in every 10 is going to be thinking very differently from the other people in the room .

And I've always worked in the creative industry and always designed something and I'd be sitting in big meetings and stuff and people would say this incorporate world would say , oh , adrian , he's , he's that little bit creative guy . What's he got to say ? I don't know , I'm creative .

I'm having trouble keeping up with the conversation , but I'm I'm not hearing it the way they're hearing it , I'm not seeing it the way they're seeing it , and so they think I'm creative because I can't see what they can see . They think I can see that and I can add this . It's bullshit , I can just add this because I can't see what they can see .

Yeah , you know , and that's the part that unlocks all their thinking at the same time , and then we get to really move .

I'm actually glad we've gone this way because I think it's a powerful thing and it'll help a lot of people at least .

And like , just because you're born into a certain family does not mean and you bought up a certain way and you're taught certain things and you're told you're a certain thing or you've got a certain something does not mean that's who you are Like . I think the most powerful thing that could ever teach in school is find yourself .

One or the other just depended on where my mood was at . And I spent a lot of years angry at the rest of the world because it didn't allow for me , because it was saying that I was the broken cog and that took me a lot to get to being comfortable with being a cog that spun differently from the others . I don't think you've just .

I get to record a podcast , I get to do the washing , I get to pick up the kids , 100% . How about getting the responsibility I get to because it's me , and finding the gratitude and the fact that I can do all those things . There's plenty of people who can't and there's plenty of people who could but can't because of their mindset . And I go , man .

Every time I'm like below the line behavior you know for looking for the excuse and all the rest I go whoa , whoa , whoa , whoa , whoa . What am I getting to do to elevate that ? But I have a daily struggle .

But we could end this podcast now . It's already been bloody , it will cut . We'll start a new one . But that is such powerful stuff and words . I'm a huge fan of words . I think the words are very powerful and the way you just explain that , changing the word to get in front of things is massively powerful .

But , like you just said before that , because I could give you 100 examples of this where , like I'm the same as , like I don't know , I feel like I'm sitting in front of my this is why we had such a good phone conversation .

I actually had a conversation the other day with a business partner and , like I don't know , we both thought we were saying the same things but we weren't really getting each other .

And I think what you just said , like I can , and like I've had emails from business partners where they've got frustrated because and then they've sent emails I sent you this month ago like we've already talked about this . Yeah , I didn't get it , like it didn't the way you wrote it back then didn't click with me .

There's no , there's a lot of communication through Slack and emails and that Sure Other times , but we actually sit on , zoom face to face , we talk , each talk through everything , make stuff happen and we make stuff happen . But she's got . Amelia is a very different person to me .

I'm like we know who we are , we know our strengths and weaknesses and it just works Like it's so powerful .

Not that you might be feeling stressed or I must be . You know , watch out , I'm hiding from something . You know , like I go oh , I'll be putting something off and I'll go . So why am I procrastinating ? Why am I putting it off ? What am I scared of what ? What am I fearful of ? Where is it ? Is it my ego ? Is it my you know ? Is it financial , what ?

What's the thing that I'm scared is going to happen to me ? Is it going to be conflict ? What is it going to be ? And that's because I don't know how to manage that next thing well enough . So then you've we all know you , if you're a little later you've got to face the . You know , face it .

You've got to step over , and you usually build it into some massive thing in your head before you step over it .

Who are they around ? Who's lifting them up ? Who's making them a better them ? Who's calling them on themselves ? Who's , you know , telling them don't be a wanker . Who's doing ? Who's doing all these things that's keeping them in check and growing them , and is that person up here ? So they're mentoring them as such ?

And if you look at the amount of money somebody spends on that , you can directly see the amount of growth they have as a human , and I think that 100% it .

It's just like you know being around people to elevate your conversation and call you on your ship , cause I can make up really good shit that most people would believe , but it doesn't mean it's not shit , you know . So it's this thing . How do you get around people who go yeah , no , no , no .

I see why you said that way , but I don't think you're right , and the more people like that in your life , the more respect you grow for yourself and others .

Everything just falls into place , Like everyone talks about , like I think it's the Australian thing , maybe like the tall poppy syndrome , like they're always lucky or shit's always going right for them . It ain't luck or it ain't going right .

Like you have to have paid some money or done a course or done some personal development or done some growth somewhere , and I don't really know how to explain it now . But everything just starts to , the puzzle comes together and everything works .

I think the thing is there's there's fair , and growth always of course , until you know like it happens to you and you can't stop it , and then you just got to work your way out of it .

Taking it on like as a as a part of life's journey is the joy of it , and learning to constantly step up to it and step up to it and step up to it and find higher spots to grow to . Yeah , I think that's that's living . To me , that's hundreds .

And I go okay , come on , what's the part ? What's in this recipe ? Which part of the recipe have I left out ? So if I was making bread , if I left out the flour because am I not doing that bit , I need to add that bit back in now and do that bit and then expect a result .

Or if I left off the water , you know , whatever it is , it's a recipe , but recipes only go together in a set order to get this , to get the outcome you're looking for . And so our outcomes are often I wouldn't say the same all the time . They morph as we grow and learn .

But we look at what we want for our outcomes and we've got to look at our recipe and go why aren't we already there ? Or why haven't we got what we're looking for here ? What did we need to add in the recipe to put us there ? And we have to go back to that step and start adding it and then add it in to get our growth again .

And then you know we get to make something .

Like actually , we did a boys' camp trip , our annual trip , last week . There's a perfect example , mate we the wind come up and completely fucked our gazebo , twisted it , wrecked it , completely fucked . Yeah , we should have got a better builder . Yeah , it didn't bother me one bit because I knew , like I checked the weather .

I knew that Thursday afternoon the wind was going to come up . On new Friday I was going to be have these wind spools and there was a risk at some point it was going to possibly tear the gazebo . That has a big sign on the side of the packet Do not put up in windy conditions . So I can't get the shits about that . No , it's all your responsibility .

Yeah , I made the decision to put it up knowing it was going to be windy . It's my fault . Yep , yep and so , yeah , I think of every single thing in my life like that now . But the other part of that is I also own it and take responsibility .

I can't blame anyone for the gazebo getting fucked up , when I put it up knowing that it was going to be a windy day .

The minute a client employs us to do something , or even if we're not employed , even if we're going to do it for free for somebody , we have a responsibility to do our best possible work , with everything that's within our knowledge and with it at our fingertips to create it , and more if we have to go look for it , yeah , so that's our responsibility , because

we're prepared to take the job . Now , whether you're paid for the job or not , it's nothing to do with it .

It's about the outcome of the job that the person's expecting , and so meeting that expectation , or adjusting or educating that expectation so that we can meet it with that client person , whatever is the is the journey of it , but our responsibility is is we're going to help another human is to do that , or the planet , but help another human is to do that to

the absolute best of our knowledge . And you know , near enough is never going to be good enough , and it might be , or near enough might be , all you're capable of at this time with the knowledge you have . So then you've got to go hunting or at least get to point where you recognize that so you can go further .

And usually it takes someone to call you on that . I've been called online plenty of times .

And I'd go and this was me and my really naive days I'd go , okay , so well , what happened ? And they'd say , oh , we did this , we did this , we did this , but this we can't afford to build these . You know , we told the person we had our $200,000 budget , but this is 300 , whatever the numbers are , it doesn't matter .

And I was like , wow , I don't know that I can help them , but if I can , I can't start with this . So then I went what fundamentally nice to do this at workshops . I'd say to people what fundamentally is the problem is that the expectation and the dream and the budget don't align .

Yeah , and you know what , if your dreams and your budget align , get better dreams , because you're not dreaming hard enough . Yeah , you know , ask for more than you , and I don't mean more stuff , just ask for better , just ask for more of what you really want , because the money should be in . Lag behind what that is Now .

It might mean that you don't get what you really want . But be a realist as well about what the value of something is . So I looked at these things and I'd say them , go back and talk to . Look at the name on the bottom of it . And I go , oh yeah , that guy's a designer . Go back and talk to them .

And they'd usually tell me they'd burnt their relationship . This was a big red flag to me . And I'd go how ? And they'd go oh well , we asked for this and we've asked for that , and we changed this to this and we changed that to that . And I'd go so why did you keep changing things ? And I go well , because you know it started out like this .

And then we thought of this , and then this came up and we thought of this so design is a process . The destination is the home at the end of it . Let's just talk homes .

Destination is the home at the end of it , but the design is a process and you're going to take somebody who doesn't know what they don't know and you're going to put them into a process and expect them to know what they don't know . Well , you're failing from the start .

The other thing , as I said before , at workshops I used to do this I'd say on average everybody in the audience put your hand up . If you think that if somebody designs a product , a house for you , that it's going to cost you 20% more than the budget , the whole bloody room , put their hand up .

And so I started , I moved it to 30% and I'm in the room . I've got like 50 , 60 people at a workshop sitting there and I'm going put your hand up . If you think that it would cost , I might start at 5% , I might go 5% more . All these hands go up 10% more . Keep your hand up , or put it up when I get to the number . Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah .

And I came out of that going . I reckon , on average , most people expect a minimum of 20% . So somebody comes to you I'm going to do it using a million dollars , because that's just a figure that my dyslexic brain will work with $200,000 , right , that's 20% .

That means that if you think that , if your budget's one million , psychologically you're thinking it's 1.2 . And let's just say they go . Yeah , I am , and we could probably go there . You know . Well , that doesn't solve the problem . Now we need to know is that a bill budget or a project budget ?

And so these things I'm asking these people and I'm going this industry's stuffed Like how .

They've got $600,000 on the budget . They expect to get built for that . No one is educating themselves on what they want actually is going to cost . They just come up with the idea of what they want and generally the project we call it project spend . Generally the project spend is completely based on maximum borrowing capacity , equity in home inheritance .

So they've just got this Don't they watch grand designs ? They've got this idea of what they want . They've just plucked this figure out and they just expect the two to work .

The construction industry is worth billions of dollars in Australia and the government is reliant on billions of dollars worth of tax that the construction industry generates and the jobs and everything else that this thing generates . And I'm not saying it's government's responsibility .

I'm saying that it starts at the top as well as at the bottom , that this thing has to be compressed in some point so that there's a common story and a common language . And it has to be well advertised , it has to be well publicized , it has to be a common conversation so that people don't feel like idiots .

It is our responsibility to get the client the best possible product we can for what they want to spend .

And I probably wasn't that generous with it , but did they need better education ? What did they need ? How could I get them there ? Now , luckily , some poor bugger had gone through the process that hadn't worked , that it actually preconditioned them . It's a bit like a real estate agent Give them a few low balls and then we'll see where their price really is .

So that , luckily , was part of what happened , and I'd say , well , I've got to start again , and I would start again at that point .

How much effort did you bring ? Yeah , true , it's not just the teacher , you're both . You know , when we talk about clients and finding a good match , that's when we can learn from each other in the process , cause we have to learn them , we have to learn their behaviors , the way they want to be communicated with .

Is it in line with our process If it's not get out ? Yeah , you know , like . And look , just recently I had somebody recommended to me by somebody who I really like , and I'm going down this process of discovery with them and I'm going . This is going to be a nightmare and I'm going . I'm torn because I've been recommended and on the other side of it .

I go this guy's definitely not going to follow the process . I've keep giving him opportunities to step into the process and he keeps asking me not to do it . And I go . You know what we don't want to go , you know , 50 , 60 , 70 grand down the road with the guy , because we will end up in a we'll end up somewhere , but we'll end up in a flawed place .

personalities to match up ? And you've got to do it . I think , from the design point of view , you've got to do it with the builder . And the builder is I was about to say is more important than the client . They're not more important but they . If you don't have a team with your builder , then you don't . You won't get success .

One or both of you might get success singly , but to put your two together then there'll be somebody who feels dissatisfied at the end , somebody won't feel like it worked and then your client is the winner of that partnership or that team work . And so you're trying to create this team where you can all rely on each other .

You know you've all got each other's back , especially in the thing of take , for instance , in mind the engineer , the certifier , the builder . We all need to be on a team together so that we're all backing each other for the success of the client and that doesn't have any room for throwing any each other under the bus or anything else .

We're a team , we all go forward together and so you've got to hold on that way and each team has to have the respect for the other team members job . So when I start this design magic process , go back to that . I had this 20% thing at least , and that things were gonna overrun by . So then I went well , that's easy solved .

If I take their budget , we'll use the million , we'll take the 20% off . So now we'll say your budget's $800,000 and we'll design it based on a square meter rate at $800,000 . And they'll push you for more and all the rest . But that's beside the point .

We'll keep pulling back to about the square meter you know like , and you know whether that's $2,000 a square meter , 4,000 or 10,000 , it just means you can stop when you've got to that much work on the page you know Is there's a point , mate .

Well , what they want is similar to those ones there . That one has $3,000 a square meter . Take $200,000 off , make it $800,000 , divide the $800,000 by $3,000 , that gives you a certain size , so you're taking the fees off as well .

Oh well , this one would be maybe four meters by four meters . Do they have walk-in closets ? What do they have ? And I just go you want four of those ? We'll say they have four by four each . So we've got 16 square meters per bedroom . So we've got 64 square meters of house already .

That's gonna be some of the cheapest house to build , as well , it's not start putting bathrooms and stuff around , it gets more expensive . So we write down our 64 square meters and then we go okay , so you want an ensuite ? Yep , well , let's just say that that's gonna be three by three . We'll call it nine , but let's call it 10 .

So now we're at 75 square meters and we just keep doing this until we've listed all the rooms that they've asked for . When we've got all those rooms listed , we go and put a totals , and we might not have put hallways and stuff in yet .

So we get this total number and now we multiply that total number by a dollar figure and whether that be you know , as say , 3000 , 4000 , whatever it is , based on the expectation of what we might have gone through with what they want the home to look like and feel like that's a whole another package . At that point then we can go .

You know what your , whatever it was million dollars , whether it's 600 now , whatever it is , isn't gonna get you there . So what we need to do is is now have the conversation about rationalization of what we're trying to do . We start our process with a wish list that has three categories . So again , this is something different from most people do .

If I'm giving you and your wife a wish list . I give them to you separately and I tell you to write them separately and not to talk about them together and just be as goddamn selfish as you can be . Ask for what you want and our wish list that categorizes it from . This project will not happen without it .

So if we don't , if I don't get this , if I don't get this , this isn't gonna happen . The next one is is I'd really love these items , and the last one is is it'd be brilliant if I could have these , but I don't expect within the budget . Now get those two lists , if your marriage can handle it , and put them together .

And then I look at those three lists and I look to see if there's a bully . Is there somebody who's overriding everything ? Everything on your list , wiped out your wife's list ? I'll be going to . I wanna work with that guy . What was the thing there ? Is he just in control of it all ? And then just this kind of behavior ?

So I'm looking at it that way to see what the dynamic is . But by doing those things I'm actually getting them to think like an individual rather than for their family , for their whatever . They've always got that in their mind .

But I want to see what they want and see how close to themselves they are to understand what they want , cause a lot of people aren't .

There's another piece with that , which is should you be spending this much on this piece of land , or should you be spending a million dollars on renovating this house when the most you ever more you'll get for it's $200,000 . Should you be putting that money in ? Should people say am I gonna overcapitalize ?

Well , there's two kinds of overcapitalization One's over and one's under . You could buy the most brilliant block right by the sea you know whatever it is with $100 million and you turn around and you put a I know $100,000 shack on undercapitalized . You go the other way you buy a block in the back box and you put a $5 million house on overcapitalized .

All those types of things play a part in that , and establishing what they're going to spend that's we do that , we're just very unlistening as well . The deep breathing isn't Adrienne or myself .

And if the designer's touching them first or the architect's touching them first , then they should be doing it to the best of their ability . And when somebody creates a process like your PAC process , it means that there is a standard , there's a benchmark that people can work to .

I don't know of any in the design industry where there's that thing , and I don't think you'd ever see a design contract that doesn't say that the designer is not responsible for the cost of the bill .

So like when you get that stuff back from your accountant and it says , yeah , that given this is all true and correct , given the figures we were given , yeah , yeah , we're not taking any responsibility .

They've just done well and they want to improve their living situation . Like they could have an elderly parent , so it's going to come . But there are so many reasons why people want to build or renovate and that all plays a part in what we're talking about as well .

So there is so much to digest and get to the bottom of , and problems to resolve and budgets to talk about .

But for me there's some really simple things that could , that can happen , that really simplify the process and like number one is looking so it does get like , it gets tricky , but , like when you're getting pricing off builders , the pricing is a reflection of the type of business they're running .

So if they're running a terrible business that they don't understand their running costs and like I can tell you from the research we've done I'd love to put a percentage on it and I personally think it's somewhere around 80 or 90% of builders are actually trading in solvent .

So you have builders that are that are understanding their costs , running profitable businesses that are pricing against builders that are running every job , chasing their tail , no cash flow and just trying to keep the head above water . There can be a massive difference in cost between those two .

Then you've got builders that are running all different types of businesses . You got a one man band that's on the tools . It doesn't have a lot of overheads . You got guys that may have some person in the office .

You may have some person in the office and supervision , like , you've got all different levels of overheads , which reflects the final cost and so my with that part of it .

Like you've got to find a builder that you connect with , that you trust , that you see as a professional , and make it more about the relationship than about the cost , because there is so many things that can control the cost Once you've found that you've got to .

Well , ideally you want to be looking for a builder that is big on their data and tracking costs and can sit with you and your designer and say , hey , here's a variety of the jobs we've done . This job was this much per square meter ? This job , this job , this job , this job is similar to one you want to build . We need to allow 4,000 square meter .

This is your budget . And then just , at least you've got to start . You got a starting point . Yep , it's never going to be exact , because the finishes you want are going to be different to the finishes someone else wants , but at least you're aiming , like I call it a target , you've got to have something to aim for .

If you don't , you will waste so much time , energy and money not just of yourself , but whoever you're employing to work with you , everybody , everybody suffers . And it's the quickest way for the clients to get disheartened in the whole process , because they just keep getting told they can't afford what they want .

So you take somebody who's got hundreds of millions of dollars and to them it's not about the money , it's about the return on what they're going to get from that money that's spent and they go . You know what , if that's all I'm going to get for it in the sense of value back to them in their life , they go . It's not valuable enough for me .

I'm not spending that much for that much value back . And then , on the other side of this , people who will just flat run out of money . You know , and every , you could get everybody to that stage , but there are certainly people who could go a lot further . The fact is is we're trying to get to the point of what's their value ?

How do they value something so that we give them the best piece of the outcome ? The example would be we could build you a great bit . Well , we could draw you . You could build it a great big lounge room .

Now does anybody say to somebody you know what , you won't be able to talk to each other and they're the one sofa will be over there or the other sofa will be over there . So we look at it and we go . That lounge room at that size will either take two seating settings . What's this family dynamic ? What's their ? How do they behave ?

What are they looking for ? You know , how do they entertain all these things . Do we want something of that size ? Because otherwise just built a big room that now has got

no intimacy and no connection . So the value comes from how they want to live in that room .

So the designer educates them on what they're asking for looks like my job's to educate them on what that's going to cost and then it's up to them to tell us what they see the value in . And when that happens it's magic .

But the other side of that is like , using that scenario you just talked about , people might come to you thinking that's what they want , like they're hard of the homes , the land room , they need it huge , they want big screen TV , they want three couches , all this stuff .

And when you get like , a couple of the people we work with are really really good at getting to the bottom of this and through conversation and encouraging them to tell more stories about how they live and all that type of thing , sometimes you end up finding out that , well , they only want that massive room because three times , like Easter and Christmas they get

all the family over . But when they learn that the cost of having that big room to be able to house a family for two times a year , they're like , oh yeah , look , we'll just set up out on the patio and we'll get some 100% of the tables and things .

They know it's going to cost too much , but they just keep sort of drip feeding because they want the next job and they miss an opportunity to actually put their hand up and say , like one thing we've definitely found with the processes we have now , and everything we do is having the confidence because we've got the data to back it up , to say to clients that

is what that's going to cost . Yeah , and so I'm .

I'm upfront enough now that I just tell it how it is Like if they the example I use all the time is if we're working our way through a design and that one of the design meetings the clients like oh , look , it's , it's all looking fantastic , we'd love to go from aluminium windows to timber windows I can say that right there in the meeting .

Well , look , on average , timber windows are 30 to 40% dearer than aluminium windows . On this particular project , that's probably going to add $60,000 . Your current project spend is half a million dollars . Are you happy to increase that to five ?

So this kind of house , this kind of finishes , these kinds of things , to give you an idea of what we're looking at , and that might be only in pat photographs , maybe it's in a house that we can show you and we would say to you so , as a builder , so what's this one on the paper here going to cost , given that , roughly , give me a square meter rate ,

and you'd look and you go this place here , whether you build it or somebody else built it . You'd look and you go there's all day long there's $4,000 a square meter . It's two storey , it's probably five up in this and it's probably , you know it might be just under four down or whatever the figure is , doesn't really matter .

Or you might walk around and go , whoo , it's a lot of zero tolerance stuff in here . You know this is right up at the architectural end of building . There's not many rooms for room for margins and stuff . So it's going to be slower , it's going to take more of this .

Yeah , all your window sizes are up over five square meters of glass , so that's going to be more expensive . You know you're a better educated builder because you've experienced it and you turn around and go mate , you're at $6,000 a square meter , I reckon , looking at what your square meter is , number of bathrooms and stuff .

At that point , there we have as a team because they won't always believe me , but as a team , or even not as a team with me going and saying look , builders , run as I over it he's telling you that this is $6,000 a square meter . You're at , say , 400 square meters . Are you comfortable with this at 2.4 million , are you ? Is this where you want to be ?

I know you told me back when we started that you had 1.6 , say , or something like that . But this is where we've got to and we're in preliminaries . We're in pencils , but they're accurate pencils . Well , that's the conversation we need . And then when I go well , so many people are afraid to have that .

I got other shit I can be doing , so I value my time and I'm not going to tell porky pies just so I can be involved in a job and waste more of my time .

Yeah , they're not responsible for the outcome .

And like we get that as early as our inquiry form when we go back to clients say , oh look , we're really sorry at this point in time , but for the scope of works you've said , the estimated project spend you've told us and the size of the product you think you may have , we can't help you this time . At the point in time .

From our data , we estimate that what you've told us , with the limited data that we have at the moment , it's probably going to be this to this . And again , mate the amount of people that come back and go oh , look , no other builder has actually told us what we're wanting is going to cost . And for me that just saves a client .

Time yourself , time , me time .

person . It's a lot of money and they've worked hard to get it . So I take it very personally that it doesn't matter what value the job is . I need to make sure I can get the person the best thing I can for what they want to spend 100% , and I don't think enough builders are thinking about it like that , or designers .

It doesn't just start in your camp as a builder , it starts in the design camp as well , because this broken relationship between builders and architects and designers where architects and designers are always accused by builders of asking for too much or impossible things or not understanding , of course that'll cost this much or whatever , and on the other side of it ,

architects and designers are saying you know , bloody builders , they're only just lining their own pockets and they don't care about our design . They don't care about all the effort and the thought we've put into it and why we do it a certain way . It's a very broken .

It's a broken relationship , it's like , if you heal that relationship then you can actually really get powerful stuff that makes it worth being in the industry when it works .

Well , from a builder's point of view anyway , because I know I was going down this path I think so many builders just get so overwhelmed and frustrated with the business side of the things .

They're great builders and we've touched on this off air but great builders , but just no structure , no processes , no business sense , no lot we talked on earlier no spending on personal growth and all those types of things . But we could definitely bang on about this all day .

So land whispering was actually a conversation between myself and an amazing architect in Mirren County in California , brad Hubble , and Brad Hubble from Hubble Daily absolutely beautiful architect , lovely , lovely human being and him and I having this conversation and where I was telling him about on my podcast , jeffrey Dungan , who's an architect from Alabama , and Jeffrey

was saying to me you know well , you know what it's like . You look out across a site and you know the building kind of just stands up in front of you and really all we do is fill boxes with light near . And I went . I do know what it's like .

I know what it's like to stand there and envisage a house and see that house sitting in amongst the trees or wherever it is , sitting on the beachfront , whatever . And I was saying this to Brad and Brad and I was having a laugh about this and I'll tell you one other little story with it about .

You know , each place , especially acreage land , each piece of land , has a feeling that's got an energy in the ground , it's got something that you can tap into . But you probably have to get to a quiet space or center and you know , be , just be calm down in that space . If I say DHT , guys , that's not so easy , but I hear what you're saying .

I get to the space where you actually start to tune into what's around and you're listening to the birdsong and you're looking at how the light comes through the trees , say , and you're looking at how the winds shifted , things where the waters run and all these things on the land .

And there's places that you just walk over and you know that isn't a spot that you would ever consider for a house . And there's other spots that you imagine other things happening and not just , not just thing for a house site . You're looking for an environment , your place making . You know you've got these boundaries that you can work within .

You're looking to make a place of community . You know connection and security for a family or for whatever it is to go with the family , and one of the other things with that is what's sacred about those spaces . And if we look to what , say , for instance , a space that might give you the most amazing spot to picnic or to be away from your house .

But be , you see , from your house maybe , but it's like a space that just gives a whole nother energy . And this comes back to the story I was telling him at the time .

So another good friend of mine , amazing architect out of Austin , texas , and I won't use his name because the story's pretty funny I'm talking to him one day about Frank Lloyd Wright and he goes and I can use my language , I go . I said something about Frank Lloyd Wright and he goes that Frank Lloyd Wright was an asshole .

And I'm like , mate , he was a bloody top architect of , you know , the last century . And he goes yeah , but he was an asshole . And I'm like , what do you mean ? He was an asshole . And he goes oh well , what an arrogant bastard , you know , da , da , da . And I said tell me more . You know , bring it on , tell me more .

And he goes well , take that falling waterhouse . And I'm like , yeah , and I said most famous house in the world , you know . And he goes yeah , exactly , he goes . There's this family , the Craftmans used to come up from Pittsburgh and sit on Bear Run Creek and they used to summer on this rock and swim in the pools and all the rest .

That prick put a house on it and I'm like as much as I was , like you're pissed off , I go . This is a very valid point . He goes , he's got a kiss of country there . He could have put a house on and they could have still picked on that rock , swam on it , done that every summer , but that arrogant son of a bitch put

a house on it and I'm like , interesting , eh , let's get some people talking . Yeah , and that's when you go back to isn't a sacred spot ? And is the spot sacred enough that you would preserve it and not put a house on it but put a house in its proximity so that it became available ?

And so when you're considering your land and you're feeling full that energy in the land , look for the sacred spots and what are they sacred for and how would you use them ? And it might not be for a house . So I look at that and I go this is part of our land whispering process .

Brad and I got into this conversation about this and we started talking about different land .

We'd walked on and the way different land ignites us and the way we see things happen in it , and so we expanded that conversation to quite a few other architects , and there's currently four of us around the globe , and we all practice it in a semi-structured process how to whisper a piece of land , how to get one with it . Look for what it is .

You often don't want the client there . You might have had the client there , but you want us to be there on your own . Often it's lovely to be there before the sun comes up .

That changes the speed wherever it goes forever . Yeah , and like this thing of walking over it and letting yourself feel it and becoming in touch with it and listening , sitting and listening , and listening in the morning and listening in the afternoon . It's not a one visit wonder .

It's like it's actually going and digging in and looking what the wind does and seeing when the birds come and where they fly in and out of . Where do the you know roos go or whatever there is , what are the stuffs on the land , how you're honoring all that . Yeah , and that's the responsibility to the planet , because whatever we do is going to change it .

Whatever we do and we're going to do something is going to change it . So how do we have the least impact with what we do to change it and the most impact for the humans that come into it and then create this incredible environment ?

So that's our land whispering process and we'll do that , for even if we're looking at , say , an original house that's already on , something is where did the other people make magic outside of that house ? What happens , where does the dynamic and where does the land allow for that dynamic to happen ? So it's a . I love it .

I kind of go to a bit of a woo woo process , but it's not . No , I love it and it's fantastic . Yeah , it's a responsibility , as the way I see it .

Yeah , Poor concrete , put up block , put up brick this stuff just adds so much more value to everybody , Like when everybody's on the same page and working towards this and like all this all the like . Mate , the last 10 minutes of what you've been talking about just resonates so much with me because I've I actually like I know everything is driven by costs .

Of course , I know that everyone , like my , my thing at the moment , or something that I really think about a lot , is like the way that Australia is developing and like they , we , we .

There's all these master plan communities popping up everywhere and the , the houses are like boundary to boundary and they've got enough room out the back just to have maybe a pool and a little bit of yard .

And the developers feel that because , like so many , every so many homes , they've got these big parks , no one's connected , Like parents aren't going to send their kids out to play at the park .

That's two streets away and not today , Like no one can go and sit in their backyard now and look at a beautiful garden or a bit of a view , because you're looking at your neighbor's fence .

In fact , if they mowed half your lawn , or you mowed half their lawn , you wouldn't really know them that was mowed because there was no boundary line .

What happened to when we lived like that , where we put up a house and then we got I don't know whether we got more and more fearful , or whether society got sicker and sicker , or whether both things happened and suddenly , like we're living with fences , walls Well , we've got to a society where a lot of neighbors don't even know each other .

So I would make and like I wear it at a point now in our journey like if anything ever happened or we had to buy a smaller house or whatever . Like I know , some of the housing estate is now doing 280

square meter blocks or 320 square meter blocks and that stuff and they're filling the whole thing with house . I would rather stick a tiny house like on that block and create these amazing outdoor spaces 100% 5-pits pool area . So even though you've got a small block , a bathroom in a bedroom , you can still do what you're talking about .

You've still got somewhere that you can create special times and sit outside and watch the sunrise and the sunset .

But we would have had a much wider circle of people that we would have been in connection with , and I think that's because of the fact that we and a deeper connection with , because we would have run them at night from at home .

We would have valued their time and they would have valued our time and we would have been have the conversation we needed , Whatever it is . We would have been at work the next day , we would have caught up on things there . We probably just all took things at a slightly slower pace .

We didn't all have social media , so we were trying to show our shiny faces the best way possible and you know , everything wasn't marketing . Every human now is their own personal brand and you got to market yourself and all this and I get all that . But with that comes the disconnection as well , because people believe that that that person .

It's like when we started this about being dyslexic and ADHD . I mean I'm like two superpowers , man same as you . Two superpowers , Bring it on . I wonder who the bugger is . Who got more than us ?

She was telling me that this house is built on a street where people walk and the front corner of it's got a generous sized patio that faces the street and is close enough to the street to engage other people walking .

Now in the street nobody has a fence and in fact if you want a fence you can , but the homeowners association probably tell you to take it down . They want the fence sideways so that dogs and stuff like that and they'll fence from the back of the house so that they can have contained areas , but at the front they don't have fences .

This is in Austin , texas , and they the street . You go and live there because people wander along with a glass of wine or a block of cheese and bread or whatever and they come for a chat in the evenings and they walk their own street and create community , and they know who all the neighbors are and what they do .

They've created community , they're place making by need of connection . And you look at the pandemic and how , say , like in Italy , when all these people were locked in their apartments and they sang , they look for connection , they place make , they go . How do we do this ? How do we get back to it ? How do we get more nature ?

And so all these points you know , like our things , of people searching for something that we're leaving them without , otherwise they wouldn't be searching for it , they'd already have it .

So what are we doing in this design and build industry that we're not actually getting their feet on the ground , that we're not building a smaller house with a better outdoor area ?

No , it's all in the name of don't release that land yet until we've got this land released and we can get this amount of dollars for it , because the return on investment's got to be this , because these I would love to be able to supply people , transport all homes and tiny homes .

So probably the first one is unless they can pay cash for things , banks won't lend on it because they want they can pay the asset they can sell off . They want to compare it to a double garage , three bedroom like , because that's value to them , not not lifestyle and healthy living and stuff . The banks don't give a shit about that . That's long gone .

The second part of it is developers generally aren't allowing it because they don't want to . They think a demandable building or a tiny home in the middle of a housing .

Yeah , it's great for the natural water flow . I'm sure it's great for you know all of them in the nature that gets shifted off it . I mean , you live near enough to the Sunshine Coast . Go and have a look at Palm Woods .

You know acres and acres and acres of forest that's been flattened and subdivision after subdivision after subdivision , and some of the most beautiful land on the Sunshine Coast .

Feel like they have to have a certain size house or have to have something Like I know personally like some of the most wealthy people are ones living in the simplest house in the most beautiful position , that are walking on the beach every day , that are hiking in the bush and living life .

Yep , like that is wealth , absolutely Like wealth isn't having millions of dollars in the bank or the biggest flashes house .

Like I like nice stuff , I like working hard to achieve goals and have things , but at the end of the day , the most valuable thing to me is time with my two girls , my wife and , like I've done plenty of videos like my wealth and my happy place is where my tires hit the dirt road or my feet hit the sand Yep , like I'm the wealthiest man in the world ,

mate , when I'm in those places with my family .

The ability to have the opportunity to do those things , yeah , and then we should change the have to get to do those things is that's richness , you know , to have that space and even just have your kids come to work with you and be around you when you're doing stuff , even if it's working , just to be able to have to show them , to have them involved , to

have them growing and learning with you and , even if you don't have kids , to be able to get to enjoy something of nature . Take same size country and landmass as America 350 million people or something like that . We've got 24 million people . Yeah , there is so much of it that is there for us to enjoy and to get an outcome from .

We don't have the constraints that say an American has . You know , we even get holidays , mandatory holidays every year . They don't get that , you know .

And when you talk about getting a better life and then you equate this better life to a house or to a home , because a house is a house , can have tons of houses , but what we're trying to do is create homes for people .

When we break down family values , we break down or family and community values , we break down the core of society and we , as humans , flock together . We all like to get away , but we flock together . We go together partly for security and for convenience of , you know , having people that can help us do things , pull on other people's strengths .

So it's a really interesting thing that we need homes . We need homes , you know that whole thing is the key and you can make anything a home . You know you can make the shed a home . You can do anything to make a home out of it . It's a set of mindset , values that you bring to it and how you respect it , treat it and value .

It is what's going to happen there , and so it's not about the flashers building . It's about having the connection with the things that make the difference to your emotional state . When you get the right connection with your emotional state , then you've really got somewhere to go .

when we're designing a home for them is how do you want it to feel ? How do you want to feel in this space ? Then we start to break that down to . Let's just use a kitchen as an example . How do you want to feel in this kitchen at 5am in the morning ? How do you want to feel in this kitchen at 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 ?

How do you want to feel in this kitchen in the afternoon ? How do you want to feel in this kitchen on a Saturday ? How do you want to feel in this kitchen on a birthday ? How do you want to feel on Christmas , what ever your holidays are ? How do you want to feel ? Don't worry about the kitchen .

The kitchen's kitchen is going to have a cooker , it's going to have a washer , it's going to have whatever want to feel . How do you want to make it emotionally nurture you ? What's the emotions it needs to bring ?

And then architecture and design needs to respond to what those person's emotions are bought that way , for instance , stone might be a great example over say but well , just go with this one . Stone and timber being natural timber and real stone might bring a very , very different feel to somebody over a manmade stone and a piece of laminatex .

I'm not saying anything wrong with either , just saying what's the difference in the tactility and the weight and the way it absorbs sound , the way that it does its thing . What's the difference that emotionally that brings to you ?

Because if we can tweak some of those parts to give you an emotional level that gives you a calmness and a sense of joy , we are going to just take you to a whole nother level . And how this house can be , it's when it's becoming a home . Yeah , and so it's becoming part of you , absolutely .

In my case , we design custom homes , yeah , so we don't design homes for people who don't live in them . We know the people , they live in them and so with that , we're looking at that and going let's go through this house room by room , so we already have our concept , already have a sense of that , and we'll start breaking down in the early concept stages .

Or what are the emotions ? And we give keywords , trigger words , all these things . But what is ? If I say to you joy , then your outcome of what joy is could be completely different from mine . Joy for you might be , you know , a cold bear on my feet sitting up with mission boots off . You know , joy for me might be sitting in there .

And then we're usually doing it for a couple . So we've got to map the couple together , which most couples aren't the same that's why they're couples and so finding the elements of in the journey where they get to respect the other person , and why that means so much to them and why that feels so good to them . And so we start to map this whole thing .

And then what ? How does the you know , the built structure alter to do that ? What creates intimacy ? What creates security ? What creates freedom ? What creates expansiveness ? What creates these emotions ? So that might be . You know , I feel really fantastic when I've got large .

You know , we've got a big , open view , but I've got timber ceilings over me and I've got timber under my feet . Or it might be I feel really solid when I'm standing on , you know , concrete or on stone . It grounds me , it brings me down , and I don't want to feel like there's too much space in the room . I want a little bit of coziness .

You know , we might do that , for a couple might have one that's expansive and one that's not , and then we're working out what time they'll use it and when they need that feeling most to regenerate the human self . So we might bring the lighting down and that might be the piece that really makes it feel intimate .

The whole rest of the room's gone away , or we might be shining light up into it so that it's like all of a sudden our timber ceiling is raked up and it's looking like it's parts of a tree not literally , but that we're getting the sense of nature coming out of it .

Design a smaller home that you can go to this level of detail in and connect with it .

It can be a hard one to explain unless you've sat in lots of meetings or you do what you do , and until you've been asked these questions or been given this experience , and I think it can even come down to the most simple things like storage in a home , like when you live in a house that suits you and your lifestyle and again , I've learnt this by sitting

in on these design meetings , like the guys we work with now are so good at getting deep into this and like one of the examples I like to use is like it shits me when you drive around and you see these new homes and both cars are parked on the driveway because a garage is too full of shit , because no one bothers . That's the storage shit .

No one bothered to ask questions about hobbies and lifestyle and where's this go , where's that go ? And so the garage is chocolate block of camper trailers , boats , canoes , camping gear , motorbikes , arts and craft , like whatever it is .

Whereas if you spent the money up front and you put a carport on the damn thing but if you like , I've completely changed on this . Like , I used to think it was crazy for people to spend money with designs and architects , but whereas now I'm like , spend as much like what like , spend the money , spend what it takes .

The more money you spend up front , the better , not , you're going to have a better project , a better quality of life , a home . You're not just going to have a house , you're going to have a home that suits you .

And I think so many builders are missing the value add that they can bring to their clients by not hooking up with people like yourselves , creating processes where you have a team and you all get involved , because I know how it works now . Like I've lived .

I spent like until a few like three , four years ago where we live in the house we live in now , like the biggest house we'd have . Before this house was 110 square meters About the rocks . But , they were old houses they were asbestos houses . It was a means to an end , like we worked our way through , we split blocks , developed house , like whatever .

But we lived in some houses that just like had no natural light , like terrible layouts .

It made , it gave us anxiety , it made the situation stressful , like and I don't know , I'm just , I'm such a huge fan now that you spend the money , work with designers and architects that , like , pull you apart and figure out your lifestyle and your hobbies and your interest and your everything .

Well , I actually got something come through on the email and it was a house I designed and it was a renovation and it was being done , and I don't know that it was meant to get the email and we don't do any construction administration or contract administration . We stay in touch with the builder through the process , but the builders build , he's building it .

We shouldn't have to be there Renovations . We might get called more often . You know there might be things that we need to detail along the way , whether it's a Renault or a new build or something they're unsure of . So there's always a conversation , but we don't need to be there telling you how to put nails in . You know that it's long gone .

We should never be in partnership with well . I can never be in partnership with somebody that I have to do that with because I don't know how to do your job not in the slightest .

a trusting as well . You're obviously working with builders that you trust to do .

So in this particular house , a renovation the whole upstairs floor is being renewed , whole new roof on the house and downstairs is being reconfigured and there's a central stairwell that you come into the house through the front door and the front door swings over on one side and you you look in through the glass of the front door and you can actually see a

staircase going up and it's brick surround on three sides , but we're taking down one side , so we're going to take down the right hand side . If you're looking at it from coming in the home and when you come in , I've got you coming in , I've got the door swinging across , so opens to the left .

There's a reason for that the way you come in from the street and stuff the door swinging away from you and it means that if you're opening the door to me , you're also standing in the way of me . So it's your choice with you whether you let me in or not . I've got to come through you or you've got a step aside .

When I do come in , I start my stairs on my right hand side and I'm going up a platform and then up and I land on the left hand side at the top . On the right hand side of the top of the stairs if you were looking in the same plan would be the kitchen and on the left hand side would actually be the main bedroom and the whole living room .

So I'm going to land you beside the main bedroom door . There's only one bedroom upstairs . You land you there and I'm going to have you walking into where the living room really starts . In front of you will be the dining and it's seaside property .

You know , beautiful at the beach , big views , and then you'll transition either around to the kitchen or into the living area and as you , as you're going in , I've also put a skylight , but it's a , it's on an angle , so only let's . I don't want any direct Skylights , like coming in , don't want direct sunlight .

So it's actually angling to the south and I know that that means I'm weather protected from the east , where I'm gonna get a Howling Gale in from the beach . I still will get southerly winds , so I've got to be a little bit careful . So I've got some louvers up there and these . This is gonna be the chimney that breathes a whole house .

Yeah , so I've designed the whole house to breathe out this hole if I need it . So we don't have a high reliance on any air conditioning . In fact , we don't have any air conditioning , yeah , so we've designed it not to be a condition . And I see this plan come through and I'm like why is there been an update to my plan ?

That's the first thought that I'm going through . I have a quick look over it . There's a note about the staircase I go . They've turned the staircase around and when we're in the downstairs and I said , the staircase that's on the right , that downstairs side , on the right hand side of it , is a room and then there's a Semi subterranean garage room beside that .

So very little low light coming from my right hand side . I have most of my light coming in from the left hand side . So in my design I've swung the door this way so that it gives you gentle ease and you go up the stairs around at the top . As you go up you go past a screen . I've taken down the brick wall and you go past a screen .

I've got a skylight pouring light in from the top which is helping light the room on the right hand side , downstairs , where I need the light . I've got tons of light upstairs , downstairs , I need the light . Builders turn the stairs around and I'm like why ? And I lost my shit on it . I had to ring and apologize afterwards because I Really lost my shit .

Professional things , but may , that's very unprofessional . The builder I 100% .

Yeah , so you know , I'm not saying that's a lot of money , I'm just saying it deserves at least a level of communication . Exactly when I said to him so why did you do it ? He said well , it made it easier for me for the opening on the other side that took you into two bedrooms . And I'm like right , what ? What did it make easier ?

And it got down to he could leave one row of bricks and not have to put another Lintel in . And I'm like you know what ? Do you know what you lost ? And doing this ? Because he'd gone to the client , he'd passed it through with the client , got some client sign off as well .

Yeah , yeah , I said , why would I go to the point of changing it ? Because I'm a get us all , because I'm a dickhead . Tell me why , for what reason Would I do it ? I've got no idea . I said so when you asked me oh well , yeah , probably should have . I'm like because , mate , it gives me light from up there to put in there .

Yeah , now we've lost all that light because that's gonna be under the stair treads .

like just have a conversation , have a conversation , communicate , but don't . We're not designers , we're not architects . We're there to build . But you know builders , you guys do your job . You put drawing like lines on paper for a reason , yep , and that's something I've really learned by having a process where I'm involved , like you guys , like I .

He'll say like oh , so we've put the entry here , so you come up here and this will let natural light in there , like he goes through it .

Oh , I don't know .

You know , I go right back to what I said about the start with if your dream isn't bigger than your budget , then start dreaming . You know , get a better , get a better dream .

We want to take you down a journey where you discover your dream and then give you enough information to make Considered choices about which is the most valuable part of that dream to execute . Yeah , what's the thing that you don't want or do want ? We'll get people say it does massive laundry , and you know we want this and that and it and all these things .

And I go , whoa , we've just spent , you know , probably $10,000 a square meter on this great big space . Yeah , how many loads of laundry do you do today ? Oh , so you do your laundry four times a week ? Yeah , okay , and we're gonna compromise your on-sweep . How many showers do you have a day ?

And I'm going , you know , rather than taking it from there , where can we take it from ? Where can we be more practical ?

I'm also careful about how much I tell them yeah , because I don't want them to get caught on the wrong thing . But I'll go . That those oak boards at XY , do you know that's , that's an expensive floor . That stone bench yeah , that's exotic , that's exotic price stone .

That waterfall end yeah , that's another few thousand dollars of stone , plus the finishing , plus the fitting . You know , oh , that kitchen cabinetry yeah , right now , that's all natural wood . Yeah , no , I can tell that's natural wood , that's not a lamina . You know , that's not a $50,000 kitchen , that's a hundred thousand dollar kitchen .

Yeah , and break the photo down for them so they see what . And then try and get a sense of their value , of what each piece of it means . Yeah , and I'll draw on it .

I'll take a picture and I'll draw on it or pull a line across it and go so , you know , that window that went all the way to the ceiling line , that's gonna cost you considerably more than the one that has a head across it , because of the way the builders can have to build it .

Or you want me to drop it below the floor so it looks like the floor just floats into nothing . That's gonna cost a few more bucks than if it's got a frame around it down on the floor . What , when ? At what point does it matter to you ? Where does it matter ? Where does it change the emotion ?

I don't think you'd be an absolute to one together . I think we're gonna have a really cracking time right .

So it is , it's very inspirational to go and see and be in other places , especially if you're prepared to challenge your creative mind . And I'll give you the example of this east work as a fashion designer . And as a fashion designer I get some young , you know , intern who would come in and I'd go on . I'm Walter the dog . I'd say , take Walter .

And I want Walter to become a Evening gown , shoes , a handbag and a headpiece . Walt is the inspiration I want to know . When I see it , that I see Walter . I want to see all all the things that Walter inspires . You might be his movement , might be the fact he's gone quiet now . It might be the color of his tongue . It might be the way his fur shines .

It might be the movement , the sleekness of him . You know any of these things I want to see that now , draw me those items and people go . What are you going yeah , look , what is it Address ? I don't know , I don't know . Ask Walter , let Walter be your guide in this . And so this is how I'd set them up to think freely .

Yeah , yeah , so when you approach a piece of land and another in the same sense , you look at the land , you look at the Topography and you look at the way the trees are and the shapes and forms , the way the clouds might sit and stuff , and you go what's this telling me about architecture ? What's this , what's delivering to me ?

And so , traveling , you get to see monumental pieces of architecture , you get to see , you know , statements of architecture , these things . But you also get to go to places and often wineries would be a good example of this where they fit within a landscape . They're designed to be of the landscape , not on the landscape .

Oh you know , and there's different times for different things .

So traveling and doing that is really fun and being able to do it and Dissect it and learn from it and see , for instance , in when I say it's of the landscape , which ways that building collecting the light , where's it collecting the breezes from , where's it protecting from Well , how's it nestling in , how's it telling another story that we can't automatically see ,

what's our subconscious seeing that makes it feel right that we haven't dissected yet . So I've always had a high value on travel as an education piece and In doing that I started Going . Let's go to some really cool places and let's look at architecture , because it will make me a better design . That's that was it .

How can I be better to do a better job for the people who are crazy enough to trust me to draw those pictures for their house , that are crazy enough to trust you to spend millions of dollars to build it ? How can I do my job better ?

And anyway , a few years back like no , maybe about eight or 10 years back I was traveling with my best buddy and we'd escaped Australia and we went to Los Angeles and we're in Los Angeles and we're talking to a friend and we'd have a few months before I pulled out this thing on Austin , texas , out of a Qantas Flight Mag or something .

I've been going home to New Zealand , send my family or something Like , said Tim , why don't we go to Austin ? You know it's full of music and it's full of , like , really cool stuff . It's a bit of a tech town . It's not very big , it's about a million or so people , but it's going off . Why don't we go and check it out ? It'd be fun to go there .

I'd been there once , many years before , didn't really remember it that well .

And so we in Los Angeles we're chatting to some people we know from , but they're in Los Angeles and they say , oh , if you go to Austin , go and see this friend of ours , get him on the phone , hooked us up , and we said , yeah , we are going , you know we will go , and we get to Austin and , anyway , this friend of theirs , we go and catch up with him

and he turns into a firm friend . We're going through this whole process of being in Austin and I end up on the must have been about the third day , seeing that there was this Homes Tour and at the AIA , austin Homes Tour and it's the weekend that we've left . I'm like you've got to be kidding me . So I found out three things at that point .

In Austin they were the only space in America to have a Formula One race , quite like Formula One and Fast Cars . Number two , they had Austin City Limits , which is a TV show . It's the longest running music TV

television show in the world . But they also had a two sorry , a three day festival on two weekends with everybody thinks it's about country music . Yes , there is some country music , but it's not all country music , trust me . It's all kinds of bands . I've seen Jay-Z there and all sorts of people at that . And on one weekend they have an architectural tour .

So in three weekends so you can fly in on a Thursday , be at the concert on Friday , saturday , sunday , recover through the week or go somewhere else the next weekend , be back . They also had a surf park right by this Formula One track .

Anyway , that's close now , so you could go surfing as well , but then you could go to the Formula One Friday , saturday , sunday . So from practice to qualifying to race day for about 190 bucks US , so cheapest chips Also came with . That was concerts . I've seen Bruno Mars , I've seen Stevie Wonder . That's part of your ticket to get in .

So I'm going , this thing's good , and then you can do your highbrow work , trip stuff where you go and look at all these homes anywhere between nine and 14 homes that are exceptional get opened and over 5,000 people come through each home each weekend . Yeah , all right , and they just do it on one weekend a year . So I'm like I'm coming back next year .

I'm doing the trifecta , I'm going to Austin City Limits . My wife is like you're going to a concert . I said yeah , it's like festival . She's like would you grow up ? No , just in case you ever listen to this honey .

I've been up to Nash all sorts of places . I've been to Virginia , gone and watched some , you know , like NASCAR racing and stuff like that . So lots of other things you can do , but just to immerse yourself in just even the architecture side . So take Austin , texas climate zone , same as seven other climate zones in Australia .

High net worth individuals live in Austin . It's a very wealthy town , it's a tech town . It's only about a million people bit more . It's got lakes , it's got amazing architecture and you can engage with it really easily . There's tons of other places I go in America as well , but just this is what kicked it off .

And I go back and I go back with my best buddy again .

Of course he's the only one crazy enough to do it with me and we go on this homes tour and I'm walking around the homes tour with him and now he's nothing to do with architecture , but he loves architecture and the two of us are wandering around in these homes and as we're wandering around , we're talking about features . We're going .

How do you think they constructed that ? Not allowed to take photographs . I'm sketching crazily . How do you think they did that ? Oh , far out . Check out how that works . That's a really nice line . That's beautiful , oh yeah . Well , that gives us this , engages us Conversations we're having . We didn't end up with people following us .

They'd follow us from house to house . They'd say to us which house are you going to next ? We want to be there when you're going around , because they're getting an education in what we were doing or talking about . And so that's what clicked it into gear . And then I spoke to the AIA in Austin and said , hey , could we bring people to this ?

And we're like hell , yeah . And from that I mean I don't know whether any of you've watched the your viewers watched the build show with Map Risinger .

You're growing in every moment of it . That's what got me doing it . And then I went I'm like bloody pied piper . I've got rats following me around in these homes .

And I said to the AI guys and they said sure , and so then I started inviting people and say it'll cost you to come and we're not going to put everything on for you , but we'll create the itinerary , get you to the houses , whatever . And we've had Americans that have come .

We've had Australians that were going to come and pull down at the last minute family reasons or a couple of other reasons One was illness . But yeah , we go anyway . I go anyway . My buddy Kaz doesn't always go , but we go and I will get them in with builders and architects .

There's another place out there called Polymuth Park which has a whole lot of Frank Lloyd Wright's apprentices houses and a couple of his on them Can stay in them overnight . Oh , that'd be unreal . There's another one called Kentucky Knob which is in the same zone . You're about 60 , 70 miles out of town .

Yeah , there's a creek you can whitewood a river raft on if you want you do all those things . Go back to Pittsburgh . You might get a Steelers game .

If you're an Andy Warhol fan of his art that's the birthplace of Andy Warhol you go to his museum and you've dropped into the town in America with the most steel bridges over any other town , because that's what it's called the Steelers . It was one of the most wealthy towns in America when Dale Carnegie put all the steelmen . Dale or Andrew Carnegie which one ?

Andrew Carnegie put all the steel mills together and created American Steel . So , it was a super wealthy town . The Craftmans own the house in Palm Springs that everybody sees in the Iron Slims photos and they own Falling Water . They were a department store owners in Pittsburgh , so there's so many cool things to go and do really cool .

There's so much more we can talk about , but we're definitely going to have to get you back for another one . I may really appreciate your time You've driven down from the Cassuntron case this afternoon . Appreciate you bringing the Scotch . That's been a nice touch as we've been going . And yeah , we're going to have to do a lot more together , I think Absolutely .

Because everything I say about what you're doing gives us the power to do a better job .

So , and the way we set it up is the test once , if they do it and fail it , actually times out . So they actually have to . I think they I'm not sure on the time frame . I'll be 72 hours before I can redo it again , so you can't just fail it and then think , oh , I'll go back in and do it again later .

Yeah , so once you've gone through your pass a test , then you actually we ask you to send you all your business details and you actually get set up on a pack trained page on our website .

So the worst part is is we've actually had so many builders go through and do the process and they haven't sent us our information , so we haven't got them all on our website . So it's growing . But yeah , look , I encourage all builders to do it . It's an incredible process .

It adds so much value to your client and to the people you're working with and it's just , it's just , it's just . To me it's a no-brainer .

Like we've actually it's all lined out , it's a graph , Like one of the main reasons we have so much success with it is we've actually documented in a way that you can play it in front of your client and say we actually need to go through all these steps to get you from your inquiry to signing a building contract .

And it's in front of them , they can see it . But , mate , we'll , we'll have to come back in there .

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