all of it

From a teenage skatepark petition to a global scooter brand — the whole arc in nine sentences.

At 18, I started a petition to upgrade my local skatepark — and ended up in the Lord Mayor's office, hired to run a youth program and a scooter competition.

In 2010, picking up a scooter was street-cred suicide. I did it anyway.

How I stalked a scooter brand owner onto his morning train, begged for a job, and eventually convinced him to open a shop with me.

I quit a comfortable office career to work in a skate shop startup. My parents thought I was crazy. They were probably right.

We left the brand we built and joined a much bigger competitor for the first real wages of our lives. The honeymoon didn't last.

I started Lifeboat Scooters on the side. My employer noticed. They had no choice but to let me go.

How I scraped together $50,000 from a friend's dad — over McDonald's — to open Syndicate Store.

Three years running Australia's rider-owned scooter shop. Incredible growth, brutal industry downturn, and the slow realisation that retail was its own kind of prison.

Closed the physical store. Pivoted to online-only. Family and friends thought we were giving up — we were actually getting started.

From selling one scooter at a time in a physical store to shipping 40-foot containers to distributors around the world. Turns out the way to get rich was to just do the thing I love.

The ability to choose when to work and what to work on is one of life's greatest freedoms — and the reason I went from a headache in bed to launching a new business in two days.

Reframing the 7-day work week as a snapshot of your whole life — and the absurdity of working 50 years to enjoy 20.

What Formulate Freedom is, in two principles: pursue your passion, and apply leverage.

Every time you start a sentence with 'I hate how…' that's a business. The simplest framework I know for finding something worth starting.

I made a profit by going antiquing and shooting photos. The realisation that money could feel like that stuck with me for years.

A worked example of turning an obsession (golf) into a business through digital leverage. Now swap golf for whatever you love.

How I started Lifeboat with $3,000 and the McDonald's meeting that turned $10k into $50k — increasing your luck surface area by just starting.

I went from posting one handlebar to shipping 40-foot containers — but I'd never have started if I'd known what was coming. You don't need to get ready; you need to get going.

An ER visit, a Naval quote about teaching, and the five reasons I keep writing online even though I don't have to.

Your business is exactly that, your business! While it isn't 100% necessary, it especially helps when it's about something you love. This module is all about direction.

Any old product is better than no product, but an original product is better than any old product. This module is all about creating a product or service.

A brand doesn't get its worth from the logo, the logo gets its worth from the brand. This module is all about branding.

How you do it is equally important as what you do. This module is all about infrastructure.

You need to know how much money you need to survive and divide that number by the amount of profit you can make per sale. This module is all about math.

The smaller the niche, the further the reach. This module is all about content.

You grow through what you go through. All there is to it is to do it. This module is all about reps.

Calculating my lifetime earnings made me sick. I didn't want money — I wanted time, control, and the ability to spend my life doing what I love.

I despised wealth because I wanted it but couldn't attain it. So I attacked the people who had it — and lost the best job I'd ever had.

I worked 5 years in the same industry and walked away with nothing. The 6th year, I owned the company. The difference was equity.

From 20 handlebars sold in my hometown to a global distribution network shipping to tens of thousands of riders. Society's problems, fixed at scale.

I picked an industry where I could play long-term games with long-term people — then burned a bridge with the biggest player in it. The damage took years to undo.

Closing the physical store and going online-only is when I started making serious money. Four years later it stands as the most pivotal moment of my journey.

Eckhart Tolle

Using awareness and presence to overcome anxiety and stay above the madness of the human mind.

Naval Ravikant

The most to-the-point explanation of wealth creation.

Paul Millerd

Understanding that it's ok not to optimise for money and learning to prioritise work that matters.

Tim Ferriss

The original frame breaker that proves you can have money and time.

James Clear

Start stacking small wins and watch your life change dramatically.

Robert T. Kiyosaki

The first business book I read; soon after, I quit my job to work with an entrepreneur and really learn about business first-hand.

Jack Butcher

The reason Formulate Freedom exists. Jack encouraged me to start writing and sharing my journey.

Seneca

It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more who is poor.

Marcus Aurelius

The confronting realisation that the same troubles weighing on a Roman Emperor 2000 years ago are the same today for you and I.

Sam Parr & Shaan Puri

The perfect mix of business and entertainment from brainstorming $1m business ideas to interviews with successful founders.

David Senra

Studying the greatest entrepreneurs to ever live and sharing the highlights.

Kevin Austin

As my unofficial life coach conversations with Kevin have provided paradigm shifting clarity and momentum for me. His podcast continues to introduce me to people and ideas i knew i needed but hadn't yet found.

Paul Kalanithi

If you are a parent, you simply must read this book.

Matt Ridley

From the Stone Age to the Internet. A welcome and refreshingly optimistic take on our incredible species.

Tim Baker

Imagine a desire to pursue your passion puts you at the helm of a multi million dollar empire.

Yvon Chouinard

Proof that ethical wealth creation is possible.

Phil Knight

The inspiring story of a passionate runner that turned $50 into $30 billion.

Brent Schlender & Rick Tetzeli

It's hard to overstate how much better the world is because of Steve Jobs.

Phil Jarratt

An incredibly comprehensive account of the Surf industry documenting the rise of many passion fuelled multi million dollar empires.

HBO

The funniest send-up of startup life ever made. Painfully accurate the more you've built things yourself.

ABC

How a couple of mates turned a backyard surf obsession into a global empire. Billabong, Quiksilver, all of it.

Crackle

A darker take on what people will do to make a tech company work. The hustle with no safety rails.

AMC

The PC revolution as character drama. What it feels like to bet your life on something nobody believes in yet.