Rob & Rob’s daily habits that make big things happen

0:01Hey everyone, Rob B here with Rob D and you are listening to The Property Podcast. This week we take you behind the scenes, behind the scenes of our lives. We reveal the things that we do to become the ultimate optimisation versions of ourselves, at least our journey to that point anyway. This week we talk about the hacks, the tricks that allow us to perform at our best.

0:32Welcome to the Property Podcast. Thank you for joining us. In case you don't know, we run a business that arranges more than£100 million worth of property deals for our clients every year. You can find out about that at propertyhub.net slash invest. And building that business, running that business has not been easy. And as well as that, we've got other things that we're trying to achieve in our lives as well. So how do we do it? What have we tried? What worked? What failed? And what can you learn from our experience to help you do better at whatever it is you want to do? That's what we're going to be sharing in this episode.

0:58okay news story time we've been saying for a long time that it's a buyer's market investors have the upper hand and they're using it and now we have the data to back this up courtesy of hamptons hamptons found that 56 percent of offers from investors made in july were at least 10 below the asking price and among investors buying with cash that rose to 63 that is the highest proportion since april 2020 and if you remember april 2020 yeah also very much a buyer's market if you could get around the fact that it was illegal to view a property and everyone was freaking out. So yeah, that's just how severe we're talking.

1:33And interestingly, this is an investor phenomenon. They know that they have the advantage because they're chain free and they are a good secure buyer in a quiet market because among first time buyers and homeowners who are moving, only 25 to 27 % of offers were 10 % or more below the asking price. Now, as we always say, just because you're getting offers accepted below the asking price doesn't mean you're actually getting a good deal because it could have been overpriced to start with. But we know from our own experience that there are great deals to be done. Like this year, we've done 14%, 16%, even 20 % below assessed market value, not just asking price.

2:10And a couple of years ago, that just would not have happened. It wasn't happening. So it's not easy, but it's possible. And this Hampton data shows that investors know the strong position they're in. So if you are in the market right now, join them. Make some cheeky offers. You never know what might happen. This is one of those episodes where we stray away from property. The content will absolutely help you as a property investor, but hopefully it's more powerful than that. Hopefully it helps you just every day with your life. And we're not saying copy us, you've got to be you, but I'm sure there's things we're going to talk about today that will absolutely help you bring improvement to your life and help you optimize your day.

2:53You may be doing a version of it already and you can step it up a level, or it might just not be on your radar at all. I find something really interesting, Rob, is when I meet property investors, when I meet podcast listeners, yes, the discussion will gravitate towards property, but people are always curious about how we operate and what we do and when we record the podcast and how we fit so much in and all those type of questions, the type of stuff that we're going to cover today, the stuff that allows us to be as effective as possible. We've done some cool things over the years and I suppose if you don't get your day-to-day right, the big things don't happen, the achievements don't land.

3:36And yes, we've had lots of luck as well, I'm not going to pretend we haven't, but if you do the small things well and you do them regularly, then they set you up for success. The individual acts that we're going to talk about or the things that we do might not directly go, okay, well you've done that so clearly that's going to help you're going to be a success now but doing lots of these things all together add up for you to be the best version of you so far because we can always improve yeah very much so so i think by sharing what we do the idea isn't to say oh you must live your life in exactly the same way that we do and we actually don't do exactly the same as each other as i'm sure will become clear as we go along but being conscious about what you do and experimenting and making changes to how you set up your days is really important because I think the defaults and copying what most people are doing, copying what you're encouraged to do, copying what feels easiest or most natural at the time can lead you down a route that isn't necessarily optimal.

4:33So that's the lesson I'd take away rather than you must do these exact things. For example, I do this and I know you do as well, Rob, which is eat the same breakfast pretty much every day. You don't have to have the same breakfast. You have to copy our breakfast to be successful but i think maybe the reason that we do it is interesting and there might be something to take away from that well there's a few one my breakfast is is healthy so it's got nuts it's got yogurt alpro if you're interested i have a vegan protein in there and fruit another frozen fruit frozen fruit there you go there's a hack as well having frozen fruit so you've always got it there that's a small tiny tiny thing but i found it makes a difference but for my breakfast what i've just described is pretty much my breakfast at least five days a week i might go out for breakfast it's not a bind i'm not religious about it but while i'm at home i have the same healthy breakfast which i enjoy i do enjoy it but i find it's good for my energy it's good for my health but also rob and i think this is why we both do it it's just one less thing to think about yeah exactly for me this is a big one i don't like remaking the same decision i like to find something that works and then just keep doing it which can cause issues of its own because then you get a few years down the line and go oh hang on why am I doing this oh it's just because I always have and I hadn't thought about it but I think just at a general level having something that works and doing it over and over again works so I take it further I've got pretty much a template day I've got how I set my day out which is pretty much the same every day weekends and weekdays of course are different but it makes sure that my meals are healthy it makes sure that I exercise every day it makes sure that work gets done so I don't wake up and go damn what am I going to do today because it's all set out but you referred to this rob and this is the same for me it doesn't have to be literally every day so i don't track it but informally i just kind of think of 90 compliance so if nine days out of 10 i do things in a way that i have decided is optimal in terms of exercise diet and the rest then that's fine it doesn't have to be 100 it's fine to go out for a meal it's fine to have a lion it's fine to do whatever because if nine times out of 10 you're there then that is enough you don't have to hold yourself to some ridiculous standard i don't go as far as that but i do a lighter version of that which is i block times in my calendar so i make sure certain things are protected like gym time and more recently paddle time and obviously work time i make sure those blocks sit there and the reason for that is i will have people trying to nip up my time understandably to get my inputs on things to help with the situation wherever it might be there's always going to be things going on and sometimes it's people requesting it and sometimes it's me finding it because you get the stimulus of going in and helping out and solving things but by putting these blocks of times in and not religiously holding them just intentionally putting them there and intending to do it like you said rob you talk about 90 percent my compliance rate around it might not be quite that high but it does offer those protection points in my calendar the things that are important i have time each week for just working with and on ai to help better myself there and then something else i do rob i'm pretty confident you do i work with my energy as well so those time slots aren't random in the calendar they are at points that i know okay that's going to be the best time to do things so for example if i need to be in a meeting i try to put those towards the afternoon of course unless it's a creative meeting where they would then fall into the morning my energy my best energy is in the mornings that's when the ideas flow that's when i get in flow state the afternoon much better than it used to be i used to be half asleep in the afternoons my health fitness all dialed in now so i can operate when i do that's the time I try to put in meetings.

8:24It doesn't always happen. Again, it's like you've talked about 90 % compliance, Rob. It's more intentional. So if I can have the choice or dictate, that's how I'll move my time. But the bigger point here, Rob, is working with your energy, knowing when you're in the best zones to do the best type of work. If you can manage to craft that, and I appreciate not everybody can, but if you can manage it to structure your day that way, you are so much more effective yeah exactly and i think we do all just have wiring around this and you probably can change it if you really want to but it's easier to work around how you are rather than try to change how you are so we've both talked about doing creative stuff in the morning i know we both get up pretty early but i wouldn't want someone to think that that's the right thing to do like some people just have better energy at night so for every person who's built their business or their portfolio whatever other important thing that they've done by getting up early and bashing it all out before the day gets started, there is someone else who stayed up till two in the morning doing it and they've done it after all their other obligations for the day.

9:26Same for going to the gym. I personally cannot understand how people go to the gym in the evening after work. I could not do it, but people do and that's what works for them. So I think it's having that awareness and experimenting a little bit and trying stuff out and seeing what works for you. It is really worth doing because my goodness, if we did our podcast and all our creative meetings in the afternoon, we would not have got anywhere yeah not even my mum would listen to that podcast like it would be awful i promise you rob something that i've seen that you've put on your list and again i do a version of this but you do first is you've got no news and no social media so that is just not part of your world no this is something that i remember tim ferris talking about many many years ago and lots of people do which is about choosing your inputs so i talked earlier about questioning the defaults and thinking about, huh, well, what is going to be best for me?

10:16Let me experiment with doing things this way rather than that way. I think that's really important. But part of curating that environment for yourself is curating your inputs. And it just stands to reason that if your inputs are negative, and it's just about all the bad things that are in the world, or you're on social media and you're scrolling through people who are richer and better looking than you and seem to be having a great time all the time, you're going to feel bad about yourself and you're going to feel bad about the world. So just cutting that out seems like a really easy win. And I have phases where I'm more or less extreme about this, but I suppose mindful of it.

10:48But I feel like in the last couple of years, I've reached a point where I just don't have any interest. I don't want to do those things. And sometimes I have to engage with social media for work, but I don't like it. And sometimes I have to look at what's going on in the news because of work. But left to my own devices, I would just stay away and say what you like about algorithms. But they make it very easy to keep on giving you stuff that you've chosen that you like. so I could just go on YouTube and see an endless curated selection of things that I'm interested in that I have chosen for myself and not have any interaction with what's going on anywhere else.

11:16And yes, there are downsides to that. But I think in general, you don't have to go like no news, no social media, but less. Less is probably going to be a good choice for most people, I'd say. I'd agree. And I can share my less version. So news, I follow the Tim Ferriss principle as well. Very occasionally, and I mean very occasionally, I'll find me on a dopamine hunt and typing in BBC News to see what's happening in the world, but it is very rare. I've talked recently on the podcast in the Hub Extra how I have my own personal curated news feed now, which is delivered to me by AI every morning, so it's very deliberate on what I get.

11:54There is one type of news that I do check pretty much daily, that is sports news. Sky Sports News, BBC Spore get regular hits from me that's an interest play and it's generally a lot more positive than normal news social media is an interesting one for me so do not participate in the majority of platforms in fact there's only one so for work Rob occasionally I'll have to download LinkedIn put some stuff in and then I'll delete it off again because after a day on LinkedIn it's quite nauseating some of the content that's shared there anyway I don't want to be on it it's not because the algorithm's got me it's because it's making me want to throw up but the platform that I intentionally work with is Instagram and I have to be very careful with it because the reason I use Instagram I've got my public profile and then I've got another profile which I use just for venues that I like so an obvious one may be paddle clubs so I want to follow what's happening in those areas so i'll go on to instagram and download it on my phone and i may then have it once a week for 48 hours and i'll catch up with everything that's happening see if there's any events or things happening and it could be restaurants you know it's not just paddle there is more to my life than that and i will follow things of interest a bit like a mini youtube in a way but where instagram is incredibly powerful and scary is the algorithm can then start to feed you other stuff and suddenly you may be tempted to have a look at a reel and off you go and you've lost 15 minutes if i find that i've got up to date with everything i want to see and i notice and it's that observation and that awareness that i've started to look at reels off it comes and it might be for five days it might be for two weeks but it comes off because it's now not serving me it's hurting me and i don't get fomo with social media i'm not a big poster as it is i don't post a lot on social media probably to my detriment i know you're exactly the same rob our profiles would have been much much bigger if we took social media seriously but i'm not in it to be famous neither are you we do what we do because we love it we're not trying to deliberately create big profiles we could have with social media we've been doing this for so long imagine what the numbers could have been but for me the trade-off's not worth it it's not worth it and you've got to ask yourself is it worth it for you if you find yourself addicted to the algorithm how is it serving you i see people just endlessly scrolling i've got friends who just send reel after reel from tiktok or instagram from other things and you may be doing that as well because a lot of people do that it's not the minority it's the majority and remember don't beat yourself up if you do do this these platforms are the world's greatest at attention grabbing and retention of that attention as well.

14:53That is all they're driven to do. There is nobody better in the world of what they do in terms of getting your attention and trying to keep it for as long as possible. But if you have awareness of it, you can make better decisions. Didn't think I'd spend that long on social media, Rob, but I think it's probably worth it because we both have healthy, I believe, healthy approaches to it. And I think it's one of the things that holds so many people back, so much procrastination, so much productivity is lost because of the algorithms yeah i agree i think if anything we are probably too far the other way we're probably missing out on some of the good things that you can get from it because you've given some good examples i don't even do that there's definitely stuff you can gain from this but it's too risky i'd rather be over cautious on this stuff because going the other way is not pretty there's something else i want to talk about which is how i actually get things done and remember and track what i'm supposed to be doing because most people listening to this, I assume, will have a job.

15:49Most people will have family and friends and other obligations and, I assume, will be either operating or trying to build a property portfolio. So how do you get all that done? How do you keep it all in your head? How do you track what you're supposed to be doing? And I've probably been through just about every version of this over the years because I am the kind of weirdo who enjoys experimenting with different kind of productivity systems. But what I've ended up with is two very different approaches at the same time, which is pretty advanced use of AI plus lists on paper. So on the AI side, and I know you do this as well, Rob, I have AI recording all my meetings, got everything feeding into it.

16:25So if I need to remember, crap, what did I talk about with so-and-so last time? Or what did I say I would do about this? I can just prompt it and go and ask and get the answer. So I don't have to be keeping reams and reams of notes. I've got it tracking my projects and my next actions. And so all of that just happens. So for me, having the need for a really sophisticated note-taking system or project tracking or anything isn't necessary anymore because I've got AI set up so it just gets ingested and then whatever I want to know at any given time I can ask and it can surface things for me at the right time but also at the same time is that I've got a notebook in front of me on the desk with a big list of the things that I want to get done today and for me I've tried everything I've tried time blocking I've tried every app out there but just having a list in front of me where I get the satisfaction of crossing things out as I go there's nothing better it gives me focused and it's also very visual.

17:14And also importantly for me, it allows me to get to the end because I get to a certain point where there's another thing. I'll just add it on the next page for the next day. So I will at some point get to the end of the current day and go, I've done enough now. That's okay. And that's something that I've always struggled with. So I don't actually know what you're doing these days, Rob. I know you're experimenting with AI. And for me, AI is big, but paper, I've tried everything. Paper is hard to beat. I love that you've given something accessible here, Rob, because I'm not. so i use ai like you but i've taken it it sounds like maybe a step further robber you know me better than the vast majority of people on this planet and i will really benefit from this system so what i have is ai will look at my team's messages it will look over my emails it will listen to my calls on teams sometimes phone calls as well that's a little bit more difficult to do but what it will do amongst many other things is it captures all the tasks all the tasks that i've committed to and that others have committed to and I would say as a leader this was absolutely my biggest weakness which was the accountability point sometimes forgetting things myself because there's so many inputs and things would just drop off and I'd forget about it and then someone would say oh how'd you get on with this Rob and it'd be a oh dear embarrassment I haven't done it and then the other part related to that is I'd work with someone ask them to deliver something for me and then forget I'd ask them to deliver it now I sound like a hopeless case here I'm not saying that was every time that would happen but it would just be occasionally both sides and even occasionally it's too much so what happens now is I've built a dashboard that is super easy to use super visual and it lists off the tasks it will tell me if they're overdue due today due in the future no due date set it will tell me who the action is for whether it's for me or for somebody else and I can just click complete and every day it updates for me and now it's not perfect because sometimes things will happen where a call isn't recorded for example and it'll drop off that happened last week rob you don't have to say it i'll say for it but the majority of things now they're getting done and ai has allowed me to focus massively on my strengths and not eliminate but massively reduce my weaknesses as an operator and I feel my productivity now what I can put out because of AI this is just one example is absolutely phenomenal and that dashboard is one of the key tools that I've built now that may sound like super techie and hardcore to build but anybody and I mean anybody could build that if you just work with AI for a few hours going back and forward and you don't have to say i know how to build this here it is you describe it what i've just said you can even take the transcript of this podcast and put it in and say i want a version of this help me build it and go back and forth until it's built so we've talked about how to set up your day and get things done we've talked a lot about productivity but something i think about a lot is balance and try not to go too far in any one direction there's always times when you're busier at work and so other things start to suffer and other times when maybe your family's more demanding so you're not pushing the boundary at work these things happen but generally when i'm thinking about my template day and setting up what i want to do each day i try to get a balance in there and do at least a little something for every area that matters to me so work and family are always in there you kind of have to do those things they just happen you can always be more intentional about family and friends of course but for the most part for me they just happen the other things that i try to fit in a little bit of every day is learning and health so just some kind of learning no matter how small and the form of it can change over time but just learning something every day for me is really big and the other is health so when it comes to fitness i try and do something every day doesn't always have to be an epic workout session but there's got to be something as many days as possible recognizing of course that it's not always going to happen life gets in the way but rob learning and health i know two things that you are massive on and always have been so i'm really curious about what you're doing in that regard i think the health one's interesting because i have always had an interest but i think i had the best midlife crisis ever when I turned 40 because I then just had this realization I may be physically past my peak.

21:27I actually don't know if that's the case now. I've not lost my mind. Let me explain. But I realized that I'd never really taken my health that seriously. I'd done bits and pieces and it was like minor optimization. But that realization that I am getting older and if I want to achieve some of the big things in my life on the more physical side of things you know like adventures or sporting or things like that the window of opportunity to do that is now shorter than it has been and it's only going to get shorter so what did that mean well it turned that passing interest into more of a healthy obsession and i would describe this as gamification of my health i've talked before about getting blood work there's so many places you can get blood work from and once you've got that blood work then looking at the numbers and going right which of these are not optimal which of these can be improved it might not be that your numbers are shocking it's just are they elite level because you can get there if you want and i have been doing my blood work for a number of years now i was doing it pre-40 and then i've continued since but every set of bloods I get which is roughly six to 12 months apart I look at the numbers and go right what can be improved and that has made an incredible difference to my health some of my blood work was suboptimal and now it's in like the top one percent for my age and that is because I've gone oh here's a number let's improve it it's like a KPI it's just my personal KPIs.

23:11But here's the thing, they are the best KPIs to work on because I've already mentioned on the show, I'm not asleep in the afternoons. I'm not maybe as effective as I was, but I used to, 10 years ago, have to have naps regularly. If you go way back through the podcast, we used to give Hub Extras that were apps to help you have a nap in the afternoon or a nap at any point because that's how tired I would get. And I just thought it was because the stresses of life, having a family, running a growing business. And yes, that can have an impact, but actually it was because my health wasn't right. And a very long time listener actually got me on this journey.

23:53Stephen, if you're listening, he told me very earlier when he took me for lunch to, you know, make sure I get this stuff right. And I'm so glad he had that chat with me because that then set me off on a journey which I feel now has put me in an incredible place I honestly feel fitter now than I've done pretty much at any point in my adult life and that's not just because I'm eating better and trying to move the numbers but to move the numbers you have to move your body and do exercise and like you Rob I might not be seven days a week but I'm five or six five or six days a week I'm doing something active like very active whether it's gym paddle or something else and that plus eating the right things doing the right things has meant my personal kpis have gone very much in the right direction and i suppose you could use the word obsession rob and that's how i approach learning as well once i get obsessed with something that's positive which i think health is i then go all in so youtube then becomes my best friend so if it's health that's one way of it ai now helped and but whether it was chess and my journey to try and to be in the one top one percent in the world which i was very happy to achieve that obsession for learning and better myself there i think if you're going to be obsessive about something learning is a great way to channel that obsession and youtube ai but learning now such an amazing combination and podcasts of course as well but such an amazing combination of tools are available to us all.

25:26Pick your, I think poison's the wrong word because it's so positive, pick your purification, pick your whatever positive thing you want to focus on and go all in because the tools to go all in on your health, on a hobby, on whatever it may be, pick a positive thing of course, are all out there. It's no longer hard to access this stuff, it's there but you've got to be intentional and I think this is a lot of what we talked about today, Rob. It's intentional, isn't it? It's like making intentional decisions. I think it's exactly right. Intentionality and not just accepting the defaults for me is such a big one.

26:00Because like you said, everything is there. You've got so many choices. All the material you could ever want is there. And you've got all the tools. So those tools can be like neutral. They can be negative. They can actively work against you. Or you can harness them to do pretty much whatever you want. So I think for me, the words would be intentionality and attitude. I mean, it all comes back to mindset, doesn't it? You were talking about it with your health and your quests and your obsessions. It's all a question of mindset. So it's a very 40-something episode. But you can tell yourself positive stories or unhelpful stories.

26:29So you can tell yourself, like, oh, I'm in my 40s now. I'm starting to slow down. Oh, yeah, I can't do what I could do. Well, that's just normal. That's how it is. Oh, it's all going to get worse from here. And that's a really unhelpful story. I also had a midlife crisis and I decided, no, you know what? Every year I'm going to get stronger and I'm going to get faster. So for my 40s, every year I'm going to get better at some point that will become delusional because you're fighting biology but so far it's been true and it's a far more positive story to have so i think rob if i could sum it all up like we've given loads of examples but it probably all comes down to take control figure out what matters to you then working within the constraints you've got no one's got complete control over their day their time their everything else but within the constraints you've got and within the tools that you've got which are pretty much infinite try stuff figure out what works for you and if you do that and you keep experimenting and trying stuff out i don't see how you don't end up happier and better optimized for whatever it is you're trying to optimize for i agree rob and a theme i've noticed this moving through a little here is goals as well we've not just said let's improve this like there's been goals involved you've talked about your goal with your health there's there's i've had goals with my chest my paddle my health like all those type of things of course the business we have lots of goals around that if you don't have something to work towards it does become harder so that's something you should consider as well i mean we could go on for hours here there are lots of things that we do and how we optimize but i hope this is an episode that's inspired you a little to break out the life loops that we can find ourselves in and go you know what i'm just going to be a bit different in this area you don't have to overhaul your life you may already be well on your way you may be doing things in a far more advanced way than we are already wherever you are that's cool but like i said at the very beginning of the podcast you can always improve do we think we are complete elite operators far from it i don't even feel like i'm past 50 of the version i want to be but that's great because that's growth and growth is interesting plateauing for me is just as bad as a fall you're deciding no longer to grow but growing in all areas of life that's the interesting part well rob it's time for hub extra and i think any listeners who've made it this far into this episode it's a self-selection mechanism so if you are still listening then either you're driving and you can't turn it off or you actually like this kind of stuff in which case there's a strong chance that this hub extra will be of interest yeah this is not by chance we put this hub extra here on purpose and this hub extra is called coffee with rob and we would like to have coffee with some of you now we can't have coffee with tens of thousands of people that which is our podcast audience we cannot do that but we can have coffee with some of you so we're going to in our weeks carve out time at least once a month to have coffee with people so so somewhere between 10 to 15 times a year we will have coffee with listeners now we know you all love property hence why you listen to the property podcast but when you put your details down if you want to grab a coffee with us and you know what we will buy if that's not an incentive enough just put down what else interests you or what your passion is or what you work on just a little bit more about yourself beyond property this episode we've given you an insight to ourselves beyond property in the form put your details down and just put a little bit about yourself and then hopefully we will be in touch now as i've touched on there's tens of thousands of people that listen to this podcast if not more and 10 to 15 slots a year so we can't get through everyone so it's not a guaranteed booking in coffee experience but we just thought this is a cool way to start meeting at least some of our listeners so if you would like to grab a coffee with us pop in your basic details a little bit about yourself and we might be in touch yes if that is of interest then the link to the form will be in the show notes and i hope this episode more broadly has been of interest i really enjoy these non-property episodes we always get really great feedback when we do them so i hope you found it interesting beautiful thought provoking something you can take away and do something with but we know you're here primarily for property so we will get back to a more core topic next week until then enjoy your week we'll see you soon bye bye bye