Who was involved in creating The Next Property Millionaire ™ – Australia's ultimate property investing course
Dave Dorian's story
A few background details will show that I am from a typical working class background. I was born in England and was educated in local schools. Like most boys my age, I loved sport but did not exhibit any great academic flair or love of homework.
When I was approximately 15½ years of age, my parents paid for me to attend a catering college in London where I spent the next two years learning a trade. At the time I didn’t feel particularly lucky or privileged but the training did enable me to get a good job.
I went to work for the next three years at the Hyde Park Hotel in London. I was forced to leave and help out in the family greengrocery business when my father became ill. He then passed away at only 56 years of age. I married Paula and immigrated to Australia to begin a new life. Like many newlyweds, we were young and poor and needed to borrow money for the honeymoon, the trip out to Australia and a car to go looking for work. Good health, a sound work ethic and lots of determination meant I was able to find plenty of work over the next few years in various grocery-related businesses such as Loves Bakery, Belmore Smallgoods, Streets Ice Cream and Dairy Farmers Ice Cream.
We then branched out into small business, first buying a small supermarket in Milperra, which was followed by the purchase of a Tennis and Squash Centre in Annangrove. By this stage of our lives we were in our late thirties with growing children and feeling quite proud of what we had achieved. The high interest rates of the 80’s however, soon shattered any sense of complacency that we and many others like us may have had, and we were beginning to feel the pinch.
Ideas of financial stability and a comfortable retirement were swept away as many of our clients, customers and friends went broke and even bankrupt. The debt burden at the time was almost crippling and we decided to sell the sports centre. The following twenty years were spent developing a health food distribution business, which was run as a family concern. We were once more caught up in a cycle of hard work, long hours and little reward. Any prosperity we thought we had was later proved to be only a facade.
Our business grew to be one of the largest of its kind in Sydney at the time, with a workforce of sixteen people. Fourteen-hour days left little spare time. We were too busy to see past the immediate problems and realise the severity of the financial plight we were in. Our accountant was the one who made us recognise that financial ruin was pending. We, in fact, had very little to show for a lifetime of effort. Our business had sucked us financially and emotionally dry and left us facing an impoverished retirement. This news came as a terrible shock.
I vividly remember that day on July 16th 1998 when we set off for the beachside haven of Woolgoolga, just north of Coffs Harbour. Free from phones, salesmen, orders and bills we hoped we could somehow find a solution to our financial problems. Within two days of arriving, we stumbled upon an unlikely rescue package. It came in the form of a book called Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki, which was being widely discussed in the media at the time. Paula had happened to see it on the shelves of a bookstore and bought it for me to read.
It was a book about real estate investing and while I had never been a great reader up until that time, I was quickly fascinated by what it had to say. The style was easy to read and the basic message so logical and straightforward, that it struck a chord in my thinking. I read and re-read it over and over during the next few days while lazing on the beach. As I did, my perspectives and attitudes began to shift. The feasible alternative it offered seemed achievable even for someone who was 56 years of age as I was at the time. Reinvigorated, I left far more hopeful and buoyant in spirit than when I had arrived. Once home, I called the family together and stressed how brilliant I thought the book was.
I then began to study in a way I had never done before, even at school. At first, I read for approximately thirty minutes per day and then increasingly to one, two, three, four and finally up to five hours a day. I encouraged everyone in the family to also read the books about property investing that I had been reading, especially those by Kiyosaki. I am actually a slow reader and so it might not take others as long as it took me but I read carefully and soaked up the advice that was being given. I had to get my reading time in before the day’s work began, which meant getting up at 3.30 am.
Reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad proved to be a major turning point in our lives, marking a stage that represented a time before investing and a time after. Kiyosaki had presented a new perspective of the world, which snapped me out of the doldrums and sparked my thinking. I now look back on that period in my life and wonder whether it was because our time had come or whether it was just that we were mentally and emotionally ready to take the advice that we discovered in the pages of that book. The important thing was that it gave me the courage to take active control of my life.
Reading almost became an obsession over the next four months, but through it I learned about a range of methods promoted by writers such as Robert G. Allen and Robert Kiyosaki. Given my age and situation, I needed low risk strategies, which prompted me to check the figures and projections advocated in the books before proceeding. Some books were particularly useful such as:
- Bruce Davis – How to Build Riches
- Sean O’Reilly - Anyone can be a Millionaire
- John L Fitzgerald – Seven Steps to Wealth
- Jan Somers - More Wealth through Residential Real Estate
- Robert G. Allen - Nothing Down for the 90s
These real estate investment books offered reliable information and insight that helped minimise the risks and fears associated with investing. One in particular, Creating Wealth by Robert G. Allen became a virtual ‘dictionary’ in our household. In the early stages, I would rummage through this book until I found a precise answer to whatever query I had. While it isn’t a particularly ‘easy’ book to read, it contains invaluable advice. Although written from an American perspective, Allen’s recommendations are practical and grounded on personal experience, which meant they could be easily adapted to an Australian context.
On one of those very early mornings when I was reading before going to work, I found what I was looking for. It was a simple, reliable plan that made everything seem to fall into place. Within the family, we discussed the ideas that were being proposed. I can still remember the date that a firm decision was reached. It was August 23rd 1998, when I declared that everything was going to change in the Dorian household. This is what I told them:
“For the past 30 years you have been living with poor dad. He is gone forever. I want you to know that from this day forward you can forget about POOR DAD. I want you all to read this book so that you know what I am all about. From now on you are living with RICH DAD. The new me.”
