My Father taught me to drive

Posted by Owun Taylor

I was 16 years old and literally bounced in the front door, ricocheting like a pinball all the way down the hallway bursting into the living room, landing in front of my television watching parents, my left hand waving a now slightly crumpled slip of paper.

I announced to them, [drum roll] “I Owun Taylor have this afternoon, passed my ‘Learners Driver Knowledge Test’ and can now drive a car on the roads…..with L plates and an adult next to me”.

Mother put down her cuppa and joined my celebratory dance. “Oh well done son. Your father can give you lessons”.

From behind the Daily Telegraph Dad pretended to not be so overly excited. But he knew that along with ‘how to kick a football’ this was one of his designated traditional Dad jobs.

A couple of hours after me bouncing into the house he sat nervously in the very unfamiliar location of the passenger seat while I kangarooed the family wagon around the South Maroubra beach car park.

My father has never held any formal driver training qualifications, truth is he’s never even had a driving lesson. He did his best, and taught me what he knew, even though some of it contradicted what I’d just read in the Knowledge Test handbook.

There were plenty of tense moments in the weeks that followed that eventually lead to Mum arranging a professional driving instructor. The instructor was brilliant. She had a well thought out teaching plan, skills in communication, listening, adaptability, empathy and patience. I was therefore more relaxed, so I was open to absorb and retain information. I learned a lot from those driving lessons.

Many of you would have seen me presenting our Blue Wealth education events. I have now spent more than 25 years training and teaching us ‘grownups’ how to do things. I believe that having and sharing our knowledge is an essential step in helping establish trust for those building a long-term plan.

Between all the Blue Wealth team members and I, we have a multitude of key qualifications, business and life skills that put us in the expert category.

I have unfortunately seen incorrect or outdated advice about locations, loans and structures handed down by well-meaning family elders or the mad uncles, we’ve all got one. They command an audience at family barbeques, telling you everything you should be doing, shouldn’t be doing and a dubious story about ‘his mate that made his money…blah blah’. Meanwhile, he’s never actually done anything himself.

“Knowledge is Power”, penned by the English philosopher Sir Francis Bacon, is one of my favourite sayings. And we as a team at Blue Wealth, live and breathe it every day – which is why 88% of us are property investors.

Having more knowledge, especially through education, can give us all more control over decisions for our future, ways to understand problems that lay ahead of us and help to resolve them. Education is and always will be a very important part of the Blue Wealth way of doing things.

Every year we put an immense amount of effort into developing our education events. We have now helped to educate over 50,000 Australians on just how easy property investment is, and we’re very proud that we’ve also helped 10% of those Australians invest in their future through property – of which over 1,000 of them have purchased again and again.

We utilise our in-house research team to make sure all data is up to date and factually correct, as well as making sure each presentation is in an easy-to-understand format.

It sets us apart from all others and is just part of why there is an ever-increasing number of clients that refer their family and friends to us every year.

My Dad is not all bad, far from it. One of the great life lessons he’s taught me is “any experts you are going to work with, should be able to explain what they do as if you’re 12 years old’. If someone can take the complex and show it in its simplest terms while still giving a complete and true answer, they are someone you need on your team.

It is said that “You shouldn’t teach your relatives how to drive”, so think about booking into one of our upcoming education events.

Posted by Owun Taylor, on 9th Nov 2021