This snippet is from one of our previous episodes: What’s The Forgotten Pillar of Wealth Creation?

When property feels tough — another repair bill, another rate rise, another maintenance call — it’s easy to lose focus.

In this TPC Gold bonus episode, Bryce & Ben revisit one of their core philosophies: the importance of your North Star. It’s your ultimate lifestyle vision: the reason you’re investing in the first place… and it’s what stops you from making emotional, short-term decisions.

They also explore why planning is equally important. Your roadmap isn’t just about reaching financial freedom; it’s about designing a life that balances “hard now for easy later” while still enjoying the journey.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

  • Why property investing is as much emotional as it is financial
  • The simple Google trick Ben recommends when you start feeling “wobbly”
  • How a clear plan connects your values, lifestyle and money goals

Need Help Defining Your North Star?

Our Property Wealth Planning team at Empower Wealth helps everyday Australians clarify their goals, align money decisions to lifestyle values, and create a plan that balances now and the future.

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If You Enjoyed TPC Gold | What to Do When the Property Market Feels Uncertain, You Might Also Like:

Transcript

Bryce Holdaway
First of all, we need to talk about the ultimate lifestyle beacon. And that’s your North Star. So you’ve got to have a clear vision so that you don’t get wobbly when times are uncertain Ben. I’ve been speaking to a lot of property management businesses of late, and therefore talking to a lot of property landlords. And one of the overwhelming majority of conversations that we’re having now is people are saying: I just want to sell this investment property. For no reason other than I’ve got another repair bill. I’ve got another maintenance bill. The interest rates. I can’t see the wood for the trees.

So if you don’t have a clear vision, it makes sense that you get wobbly. And when you get wobbly, you need something to anchor that decision to. And if you don’t have a North Star, you’ll probably anchor it to the easy option of whatever will fix the feeling in the moment.

So we’ve talked about this a fair bit, but for those who haven’t heard the back catalogue, we always talk about “choose hard now for easy later”. And that North Star is going to help you be able to stay focused when you have a reference point for any decision that you need to make Ben. And I wonder if people who are listening to this can reflect on that over the last 13 interest rate rises, Ben… where they go: If it wasn’t for my North Star, I could have got pretty wobbly. Or someone might be listening to this who did get wobbly and forgot their North Star and might be thinking: ooh, I wonder if I should have actually held on. So the first principle here, Ben, is being very, very clear on the North Star.

Ben Kingsley
Yeah. And I’m just going to give a little tip for those people who might get wobbly. Just go on to Google or whatever your search engine portal is and type in “median property price” and enter the suburb. (Look at the) last 20 years and just basically see the compounding return that’s on. That should bring you back. Now anyone who’s done a plan or financial projections, you don’t get that wobbly because the invisible is seen in terms of the models and the projections that are coming off the back of that. So that should straighten you out pretty quickly.

But for those people who are feeling wobbly about, (it’s) just costing me too much and tenants are being more difficult than ever, or whatever it is… let’s not lose sight of the big picture here. So just go and look at a projection of the long-term performance and then ask Copilot or the AI Agent to extrapolate that out over the next 10 or 15 years, and they’ll do it. And then you’ll be like, oh, okay, now I know why I’m doing this again. Because that ultimately is going to be the asset base of which I’m going to derive my passive income from, or sell down and basically take all that money and go and live on some experiences when I get later in life. So I think that’s just a little tip for people to bring context and rationality back to that emotional feeling that sometimes people get.

Bryce Holdaway
Yeah, well said mate. Motivational stuff. So the second one… you just touched on it there, was the planning. But you need that roadmap. If you’re not clear on where you’re going and how you want to get there, chances are this could derail your lifestyle as well. So, let’s just say we’re in Perth and we want to get to Adelaide. You can go down via the bottom of Perth and see all those world class beaches and then rejoin on the Nullarbor. Or you might be in a hurry. You might want to go straight from Perth, through the wheat belt, across to the Nullarbor, straight through to South Australia.

Or if it’s Melbourne to Sydney, you can go to the coast road or the fast way and the important thing here is, if you have the plan, this will help you make sure that not only are you investing with a clear future purpose in mind, but you’re also actually accounting for the here and now. What’s going to make my life enjoyable in the here and now that I can plan for, whilst keeping an eye on where we want to go.

Ben Kingsley
Yeah. And as you’re building out what you’re bringing to the table is what you want to achieve as part of that journey (and) smelling the roses along the way… What’s the intent that’s driving you towards these outcomes? How do that align to your values and the experiences that you want to have so it’s purposeful and it’s meaningful? So it’s not just about money for the sake of the money… all those things and bring it in.

And then the “how” that connects to those experiences of family and loved ones or that connection that you need to have which brings broader happiness and those sorts of things. I think you bring all of that together, and you start goals planning… (then it) really starts to be a powerful connection point that allow you to be able to continue to keep thriving in this whole idea of lifestyle by design.