Late in 2010, John called me into his office. As well as I knew him and as closely as we worked at intervals during the working week, these ‘could you come and see me, please?’ type instructions always put the wind up me. I gelled well with Uncle John outside the office but, at some level, I still found ‘Boss John’ intimidating. He was incredibly successful and a genuine entrepreneur. He was also a very direct communicator, with high expectations. I sat down and, after the requisite polite small talk, John cut straight to the chase.

‘What do you want, James?’

He spoke like he had fired a bullet and expected me to catch it. My inside voice said, ‘What do you mean, what do I want? I'm 20 years old. I want to earn some money, play footy, finish my university studies and meet girls.' My actual words, when I finally found them, were a little more circumspect and respectful; something about my priority being the completion of my studies at Bond University.

‘It's great you want to finish university, but what do you really want?’ John asked, underwhelmed but undeterred. ‘A man without a goal has no purpose or direction. A lot of people go through life living week to week, month to month, or year to year. Successful and happy people live with a genuine purpose and it starts with their answer to the question, “What do you want?” Think about that and come back to me.’

I racked my brain over the ensuing days but, as time ticked on, I just couldn't come up with a good answer. I had never stopped to contemplate what was truly important to me. I found it to be an extremely confronting challenge. It was one thing to take a deep dive into your own mind but quite another to share those innermost thoughts. Over several weeks, I thought long and hard. What did I want? Well, I definitely wanted to finish university. It would also be pretty good to be rich! Yep — that sounded like the kind of answer I should be giving my entrepreneur boss. I would go with that. A few weeks later, I walked back into John's office armed with my answer.

‘Do you know what you want now?’ he asked.

‘Yep, I want to finish university and become a lawyer and be rich and wealthy,’ I said.

He just sat there, motionless and mute. It was probably only a minute, but it seemed like 10 — that vulnerable void between sharing something personal and hearing the reaction. Finally, he spoke.

‘That isn't a real answer — it doesn't mean anything,’ he said. ‘You need a goal in order to have a purpose and your goal has to be something emotive, something you can see and feel, something that creates a positive feeling for you, even inspires you. To finish university — that's real. I can feel the positive emotions of having your graduation certificate and finishing the last exam. But to “be rich and wealthy”? What's that mean? In fact, to be a lawyer doesn't really hit the target either. It lacks emotion and if I can't feel the emotion, it's very unlikely you can. If you want to achieve something in life, you have to engage your heart. You have to feel it.’

John went on to tell me two stories. The first involved his mate Leon, a good friend from school. Leon, an extremely talented all-rounder, was Dux and Vice-Captain, and was involved in all the sports and extra-curricular activities. When Leon left school, he went to university, completed his law degree and went straight into one of Melbourne's top law firms. By his late twenties, he was poised to become a partner at a prestigious Australian law firm. Then one day, he simply quit. Everyone thought he was crazy tossing in a job like that.

Although he was on the path to partnership at such a young age, earning good money and all the professional accolades that came with overachieving, Leon had come to realise that he wasn't enjoying what he did. It dawned on him it was far more important to get fulfilment from helping people. So, at 28, he pivoted, devoting the remainder of his professional career to being a legal aid lawyer and helping people who otherwise couldn't afford proper legal representation.

‘Leon is one of the happiest and most successful people I know,’ John explained. ‘He loves what he does and he doesn't want for anything in life; he's got everything he needs.’

Tapping into the right side of the brain

John's second tale was to do with finding his own ‘why’.

‘When I was 18 and had just moved to Queensland, I wanted to own a property with its own private jetty, on the main river of the Gold Coast, so I could spend my weekends jump-start waterskiing from my back yard with my friends and family. I used to picture it every night when I went to bed — I'd visualise myself jump-starting off the back of the jetty, skiing on the open water and then coming back and having fun with my friends and family. I'd contemplate the feeling associated with hosting people, and the smell of a barbecue as the sun was going down,’ he recalled.

‘You see, my mentors taught me that we have two sides to our brain: the left and the right. The left side is the rational and analytical side, whereas the right side is the creative and imaginative side. You've been taught through school and university to engage the left side of your brain and you're very good at it. I barely finished school and didn't go to university, so relying on the right side came a little more naturally for me. But you need to try and engage the right side of your brain so you don't get bogged down with rational, logical goals.

‘Remember, I was only 18 when I first visualised home jump-starting off that waterfront property. There was no logical way I could afford it at the time, but I thought about it every day. I pictured my friends and family enjoying the experience with me and, most importantly, I could feel how happy it would make me feel. I promise you — it will change your life. You'll feel different, you'll wake up and be motivated to jump out of bed.

‘I finished up buying that waterfront property when I was 25 years old. I paid cash and it was a 40-year-old house on a 4400m² north-facing block of land on the main river. It motivated me daily and my life took a certain direction because of it … But this discussion is about you. First things first: you need to set a proper goal and figure out what you really want.’

Now John happily admits he didn't have all the answers in his twenties. Nor did he fully understand the power of goal setting and visualisation. He had stumbled on his own formula for success and it had worked well. But it puzzled him, as it had me, when his mentor — a Sydney businessman by the name of Michael Hershon — asked one day: ‘What do you want?’

‘I didn't know how to answer him,’ John conceded. ‘I had what I wanted. I had my waterfront property!’

‘No, what do you really want?’ Michael said. ‘Or maybe it's easier for you to answer this question: “What don't you want?”’

According to John, he didn't want to live in that 40-year-old house. So he promptly began visualising his dream home using a mind map to engage the right side of his brain. It had everything you could imagine: five bedrooms with walk-in robes and en suites, pool, home theatre, gym, billiard room, outdoor entertaining area, indoor entertaining area, fireplace, bar, basement for cars and boats … the list went on. Sure enough, less than five years later, that vision became a reality. He built and moved into that new house just before his thirtieth birthday.

Sitting there listening to the story, the penny dropped that John was talking about the ‘Disneyland’ house I had visited so many times when I was younger. How remarkable to think it had been designed and built by somebody under 30. But the lesson John's own mentor really wanted him to learn was ‘want’ versus ‘need’.

‘John, you're standing still and, as the saying goes, if you're standing still, you're going backwards. You need a new goal, a sense of purpose, but it can't be all about you either. Outside of building a new house, you should look for a cause that means something to you but also benefits other people,’ Michael told him.

Sure, his desire and drive for his dream house was motivational, but what he really needed to do was find his ‘why’. At first, John's answer was to donate money, but Michael knew this would not help John answer the question that had eluded him. He had to learn to be selfless and practise humility.

‘It's one thing to give money, it's another altogether to give your time,’ Michael told John. ‘Get outside your comfort zone. Practise humility; it will help you grow as a person.’

John's ‘why’ — his purpose — came through an introduction to Ron and Suwanti Farmer. A husband-and-wife psychologist team, the Farmers shared a vision of creating an educational facility specifically catering for disenfranchised kids who had been kicked out of the mainstream system.

And so began the journey to establish the Toogoolawa School, which has turned out to be what John really wants! Since 1991, more than 1700 boys have benefited from this transformational education program. Of these, about one-third have integrated back into mainstream schooling and many more have taken on some form of work or additional study.

Finding my ‘why’

It probably won't come as a surprise that, on the back of such an insightful discussion, I did a great deal of soul searching. Even armed with lots of books and CDs borrowed from John, I still found the process very challenging. I had spent all my time in high school and at university training my brain to think analytically: to dissect a problem and solve it. I had mastered left-side-of-the-brain thinking — knowing your limitations and working within them.

Right-side-of-the-brain thinking — that is, setting big, hairy, audacious goals — didn't come naturally to me. The left side insisted I balance the ledger. I tried listening to music, meditating, doodling on a notepad, sitting down with a cup of coffee and a blank piece of paper — a whole bunch of things that might help unshackle my dominant left brain.

Finally, I found something that helped: a long, slow run! I arrived home and before showering, I started scribbling furiously, focusing initially on what I didn't want: I didn't want to worry about money, which I had consciously or subconsciously observed my parents do all through my childhood.

First on my list of what I wanted was a house with a pool and a barbecue, where I could entertain my friends and family.

Next I wanted to set myself up to look after Mum and Dad, so they too never had to worry about money. My goal was to find a way to give them both an unencumbered house and a retirement income stream. Was that their responsibility or mine? I was determined to make it mine.

My final realisation was finding a career that gave me purpose; wanting to work not because I had to earn money but because I enjoyed what I did, just like Leon. The logic being that if I didn't have to work for money, my career path wouldn't lead me to law. I didn't know exactly what I would do career-wise, but I knew that — at least for now — there was a lot for me to learn from both Uncle John and Boss John.

Just as John had predicted, I could feel it, see it and taste it. The happiness of never having to worry about money. The laughter of friends and family gathered around my pool in the sweltering heat of the Queensland summer, the smell of steak wafting from the barbecue. I could picture the looks on the faces of my mother and father, hear the relief in their voices as I told them they would never again have to worry about a roof over their head. The switch flipped inside me. Suddenly I couldn't wake up early enough, with every day being one step closer to my very specific, emotionally charged ambitions. Soon after, I was back in John's office.

‘I want to be financially independent. What I don't want is to have to worry about money again in my life. I want to go to work because I enjoy it, not because I need the money. I want to own my own home in Brisbane, close to all my friends and family, with a pool. I want to buy Mum and Dad their own separate houses, unencumbered. Finally, I don't want to be a lawyer; I'm not sure what exactly I want to do, but I can't see a way of getting fulfilment from working in the law,’ I told him without drawing breath.

‘That's a lot better — what's the time frame?’ he asked.

I had no idea. Deep down, I probably didn't want to commit myself to a deadline on my ambitious goals.

‘Do I need a time frame?’ I asked.

‘In my experience, you need a timeline, even a deadline to make it real,’ he said without hesitation. ‘It doesn't feel real until there's a deadline. That's what triggers the emotion and the motivation to get moving. But don't get wedded to the deadline — it's going to happen when the universe thinks you're ready for it to happen.’

At that point, the age of 30 jumped into my head. No particular reason or rationale. I figured 10 years was a good amount of time. Plus, I was born in 1990, so I thought 30 years old in the year 2020 was a good round number. In hindsight, it didn't matter what time frame I picked.

In Walter Isaacson's biography on Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, he tells the story of Jobs delivering the first instructions to his team about the iPhone project. In 2006, Jobs tasked the group with delivering the modern-day smart phone in six months. It was the bold (read ridiculous) deadline that made the project real. They achieved the unachievable in 12 months, proving Jobs's assertion that ‘if you act like you can do something, then it will work’.

I don't expect most people will have a goal comparable to mine, nor equivalent to the bold targets John set when he was younger. However, I do encourage anyone who has felt financial anxiety in their life — sporadically or consistently — to set themselves a goal that engages the right side of their brain, complete with a deadline. Make it something emotive that can be genuinely experienced. Felt. This is probably the most powerful thing John has taught me.

It's also crucial to have a purpose that extends well beyond our own self-interest and is built around positive endeavour, not fear of failure. This is vital to gaining and keeping control of your finances. As Joe Dispenza wrote in Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself, ‘it makes sense that we should concentrate not merely on avoiding negative emotions, like fear and anger, but also on consciously cultivating heartfelt, positive emotions, such as gratitude, joy, excitement, enthusiasm, fascination, awe, inspiration, wonder, trust, appreciation, kindness, compassion and empowerment to give us every advantage in maximizing our health’.

It seems to me that people who are anxious about money will always experience negative thoughts such as regret, fear, anger and even frustration. If you can remove the financial insecurity, it's far easier to consciously cultivate those all-important positive thoughts and feelings like joy, excitement, inspiration and appreciation.

I've included a mind mapping activity below to help you set goals and practise visualisation. Take a moment to try to answer the simple yet confronting question, ‘What do you want?’ If, like my 20-year-old self, you're drawing a blank, start at the other end and ask, ‘What don't you want?’

Mind mapping

Mind mapping is a free-thinking exercise you can use to tap into different parts of your brain. We have two sides to our brains: the creative right brain and the logical left brain. We want to tap into our creative right brain to visualise living our goals and then map them out.

The more you use mind mapping, the better it gets. The process frees up your mind. It will get easier and it will go deeper. The more the mind map expresses you and the way you think, the better.

If you get stuck, walk away and do something else. Come back to it in an hour or even days later. If you stall, keep going; there's more in there and you'll know when you've finished.

To get started, consider: What would you like to accomplish and learn? Where will you live? What about kids and others in your life, your work and your income?

Here's how you do it:

• Find a large, blank piece of paper such as a sheet of A3 photocopier paper.
• Draw a rough circle in the middle of the page.
• Put a heading or topic word in the circle.
• Brainstorm: let your mind run free, coming up with anything that links to that topic. Don't try to sort out your ideas, censor them or worry about whether they are good ideas. Just let them flow.
• Jot down points as you think of them, linking ideas that come from or relate to other ideas with lines and branches that fan out from the centre.
• Do whatever you like to capture the way your mind is working on the topic; for example, link different areas, doodle pictures, use different colours for different themes, use arrows to show progress from one point to another, question marks for areas you want to come back to — or whatever you like!

What does your mind map tell you? Somewhere on there is an idea or two or three or more just waiting to happen.