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CHAPTER 3 Learning from the best: Uncle John

In May 2010, I landed in the offices of my uncle, John Fitzgerald. John had invited me to do a couple of weeks of work experience, without knowing I was at a crossroads academically and professionally.

I was still in the thick of law and accountancy studies at Bond University, but having growing doubts about what I wanted to do long term. Both professions promised a steady, safe and reliable future, but was that really what I wanted? For the rest of my life? There's nothing wrong with safe, steady and reliable, but I really wasn't sure it was the right path for me. I had many more questions than answers. However, within a week of walking through the front door of John's head office in Nerang, I had developed a whole new sense of purpose.

John is nothing if not an enigmatic character. Up until that point, he was somebody I knew well socially in a family context, but not professionally. Growing up, my exposure to John was restricted to exploring his Disneyland-esque house and all its impressive accoutrements on the river at Carrara. He was clearly very successful, but when you're 10, you don't wonder why or how. John had a big house (three in fact — there was also a beach house and a farm) but beyond that, I hadn't stopped to contemplate the process behind these trappings of success. My only genuine exposure to him through my teenage years was undertaking joint physical challenges: running around the hills of Burleigh together at breakneck speed, doing 100 × 100-metre sprints at the Ashmore athletics track (that wasn't much fun!) and getting up at 3 am to climb Mount Warning. A little later, he had also come over to watch the footy with Dad and me, having separated from his wife around the time my parents split up. But what his office or his business looked like, I had no idea.

John has an interesting back story. He was born in 1963, the middle of five children, my dad David being the eldest. Then there's another brother, James, and twin sisters, Louise and Julie, who are 10 years younger than my father. The family was raised in Moorabbin in suburban Melbourne from the late fifties through the sixties. Their father, Jim Fitzgerald, ran a small chain of menswear stores in Victoria, two in the suburbs of Melbourne and the other at Stawell, in the central west of the state. Tragically, at the age of 37, the family patriarch was killed in a car accident, leaving his wife Marie to raise five children under the age of 12, as well as run three menswear stores.

The children quickly learned about hard work and resilience — their mother was an absolute dynamo. With little choice, Marie shipped the three boys off to boarding school in Ballarat. John was just 10 at the time. Self-sufficiency came easily to him; schoolwork didn't. John wasn't interested in the classroom learning environment; he was more of an ‘experience’ sort of kid. After doing just enough to earn his Higher School Certificate, he left at the end of Grade 11 and, a month or so later with $200 to his name, 17-year-old John packed his bags and hitchhiked to Queensland to start a new life on the Gold Coast.

Through fate or good fortune, he stumbled into the office of George Margolis, a successful property investor, who mentored him in the principles of real estate. By midway through the following year, John had accumulated sufficient knowledge (or, more to the point, confidence) to branch out on his own.

In 1981, he launched JLF Corporation Pty Ltd, quickly hooking up with a group of property moguls who had made, or were about to make, vast fortunes from the Queensland real estate boom. They took him under their wing, mentoring him and giving him the financial backing to hone his craft in property investment and development. Their philosophies for business were relatively simple:

 Land is the foundation of wealth.

 There's only truth in numbers.

 Success is repetition.

Clearly, John followed instructions well. By age 20, he had syndicated over $5 million in developments, started a national property magazine, Property Weekly Update, and begun trading property through JLF Corporation.

The rest, as they say, is history. Today, my uncle's business turns over more than $100 million in transactions a year. But if you ask what gives him the greatest satisfaction, he will very quickly reference Toogoolawa, the unique school he jointly founded and funded for underprivileged youngsters aged between 8 and 15. He still loves dealing in property, but his genuine inspiration is seeing others, particularly disadvantaged and underprivileged children, learn and grow. Toogoolawa, a not-for-profit project he established in 1991 in conjunction with husband-and-wife psychologists Ron and Suwanti Farmer, remains at the very ‘pointy end’ of that satisfaction.

A timely career change

As well versed as I am in his business now, as a 20 year old I was largely ignorant when John asked me if I was interested in doing a couple of weeks' work experience. All I knew was that John had something to do with the property market and quite regularly appeared on TV. People were clearly interested in his opinion, which confirmed to me that he must have known what he was talking about.

In any event, I took him up on the offer, sensing that I had nothing to lose. I certainly wasn't 100 per cent sold on my career as a lawyer. I'd spent some 18 months working as a clerk for a firm that specialised in litigation (i.e. suing people). I'd conducted research and drafted documents for people suing other people or defending themselves against someone suing them, but often we'd do all this work, only for the matter to be settled before it went to court. It was unfulfilling at best, frustrating at worst. Most days, the highlight was my 2 pm coffee break, so I was curious enough to try something else. Perhaps in the back of my mind I was thinking how property and law might fit together. Litigation was of no interest, but property law? Could that be a fit? At the very least, I'd get exposure to the client's perspective of property law and go from there.

John's friendly team kept things simple in my introduction to the business. I was told JLF had six arms, or pillars:

1 Property investment (the management of the company and John's personal investments)

2 Property developments (primarily residential subdivisions)

3 Financial services (mortgage broking, financial planning and capital raising businesses)

4 7 Steps to Wealth (the ‘self-help’ book John wrote about investing in property)

5 Custodian (the investment coaching business)

6 Toogoolawa (the not-for-profit school for disadvantaged youths).

I was told I would be working with the legal team that supported and assisted all the different divisions in relation to the company's legal, administrative and compliance requirements.

Those initial two weeks flew by. I was welcomed by everyone and shared a common bond and interest with more than half the office — AFL football! But what I enjoyed most was the casual setting of the office, the relaxed mood and the social ‘water cooler’ chats in the staff room at lunch time. It was (and still is) a happy and fun place to work.

After a fortnight, I wasn't ready to leave, so I asked John if I could stay on three days a week. John was fine with that arrangement, so I phoned the senior partner of the law firm I was working for and broke the news to him. Perhaps it was a sign that he readily accepted my resignation and told me I wouldn't have to give notice. It seemed the feeling was mutual!