Adopt this mindset to grow your wealth exponentially

Ep 12


Apologies for the typos, this is an AI transcription

And then that's 


And, uh, you know, there might be a joke that they, we say before going live, like, Let's do that again and like, and we're gonna do it again. And you have to like laugh in a certain way and you have to like, you know, re-sort of live that, that excitement or that like, giggle that you had and for the show. 


And I, I, I dunno, I just, I, I, I don't like being that kind of contrived, um, So I, I just prefer the long form format of like podcasts and stuff like that, you know? 


Mm-hmm. It's my. It's my favorite sport. And why is, is that I feel it's essentially like, I feel like we're all like gladiators in life. Like we go work, um, in our jobs, in our careers. And you know, we work really, really hard. We deal with pressure situations. Um, and I feel like the most intense job is being a boxer, like you are going in that ring and. what I

find most fascinating about boxing is the training camp. So before you fight someone in the boxing ring, right there you go on these gruelling, um, camps, which are usually eight to like 12 weeks. And in there you have to like eat really well. You have to do sparring, so you know, fight with other people. You do lots of mindset work. 


You do strategy work, like there's so much to it. Yeah. However, The best box of doing exactly the same things, but just doing it more intensively. That is it. It just made me think like when I think of my work, I feel that, Cause I've had a few people that join my companies or start working, they say, Wow, you are really, really intense sometimes and I know I am in my work, so when I'm like running meetings or when I'm fundraising and I can share some examples of that. 


But before I do, I just, Can you relate to what I'm saying? 


You might meet me and just think, Oh, Ru's pretty laid back, or Ru's pretty chill and stuff. But in the back of my head I'm like, I'm very intense when it comes to anything to do with my business or work and stuff. And the intensity sort of shows itself when you look at the, you know, amount of output I'm putting out in terms of pods, content, social media. 


Books, the app, all that kind of stuff. Right. Um, so yeah, the intensity I, I definitely get, and I definitely get that from you because again, looking at the accolades, looking at what you've done thus far. And also, I'll never forget this, um, thing you said maybe you're about to talk about. I don't wanna like No, no, no. 


You parade or anything, but, um, I think it was, I met George. Is he one of your co-founders? No. Be Nuno. Yeah, that's it. Yeah. Yeah. You just completed round. And, uh, you told me before, like you went into street fighter mode , which I love. I love, I've never seen street fighter mode, but I spoke to Joo about it and he was like, Yeah. 


So apparently he like, uh, he, he went pretty, pretty intense and j just looked at me and was like, Yeah. . It was, it was amazing. . 


Yeah. What people don't realize is that, A lot of the fundraisings actually, like those conversations actually start way before you need the money. Mm-hmm. , like you need to build the relationships. There's this whole aspect of building these relationships, going out for coffees. Lunches. Yeah. You know, when you got loads of other things going on, you have to go meet these people, right? 


Yeah. Because no one wants to essentially put money in your business. In like, you know, in like a two, three week period or a month, right? It's like a one-night stand. No one wants to do that, right? , everyone wants to basically get to know you a bit better. Mm-hmm. . So that's very important. And I advise a lot of founders now, right? 


And I realize what I do different to them, like when the, when the pressure starts hitting in on fundraising. So let's say you wanna go raise a million dollars or 10, 20, whatever it is, right? Mm-hmm. , you've got. Specific period of time where you're gonna meet everyone, right? And, you know, you might wanna meet 10 people. 


I'll choose to go meet like 25, 30. I'll do as many as I can, right? At the same time, you know, my, my, the information I put together, I put together investment memos. So, you know, let's say you wanna invest in a business, they create this like six, seven page deck, right? Yeah. Or 10-page deck. I create a full memo memo. 


So it is a 25 page document of why they should invest in me. I do the research and work for the investors and what's really different with me as well. I see a lot of entrepreneurs, they wanna go off on holiday. Well, halfway through the fundraising process, they're going, Man, I'm so tired. Like, I wanna take a break. 


I'm like, No, no, no, no, no. You gotta stay in that. You gotta stay in the lane. You have to, You kinda go take that holiday until the money's done, or you signed a Lisa term sheet, which is the first phase. Yeah, and that's just like, if you wanna be great in a startup, I just know in certain moments you have to put that intensity dial up. 


Like you have to find that extra gear. Otherwise, you know, it's all about momentum. You know, I think we're all, that momentum is so, so important in startups and, I dunno, intensity. All I can say is I just feel intensity matters in all the great stuff.

Or you know, the go-ahead to like, okay, yes, I'm raising now, but I'm just sort of like putting feelers out. And I feel like initially I was kind of like just wasting time. Like, you know, I should really just be like focusing on the business 100%. But actually what you just said now is actually quite validating for all the work that I've been putting in over the last few months, because I can now turn back to those people. 


Like, you know what the, the deck that I showed you, you know, the, the, the business, uh, trajectory and the product roadmap and all that kind of stuff. Well, it's go time now and like, you know, we're at this stage and this is what we're gonna be doing. So I've kind of like been softly building up those relationships. 


So, Yeah, no, it's 


Quarterly newsletter. 


And, um, we're on the way back. Uh, he was in Munich, I think, uh, on the way back, and he's on the computer and he's got this long Excel spreadsheet with literally, like, I know he was on column, like 300 something. He was filling in all these details, looking at his phone studio. So I was like, Mate, what, what are you doing? 


He's like, uh, I'm, I'm filling in, uh, all the information that I have on the people that I met at this conference, and he'd been doing this for literal. Two or three years prior. And so when it came around to him fundraising, like literally years later, he hit up all these contents. And I remember thinking to myself, man, he is, he's intense and that's good that like, you need that sort of dedication. 


I mean, don't get me wrong, he's still got married, he's still got like a very happy lifestyle. He's still, you know, has time out. When it's time to work you, He's found the extra gear and I know he can. Yeah, no, I love it. Do you remember Poppy? Uh, I, I've mentioned her to you. Poppy, Jamie. She started Oh yeah, you did. 


She started this app called Happy Not Perfect a few years ago. Back, like similar time to calm. But um, we had coffee this morning and uh, dude, she's super inspiring. I think she's gonna be, you're gonna want her to be a cohost cuz she's into spirituality. Amazing. She's into. Uh, everything to do with, um, uh, horoscopes and, and astrology in general. 


She's awesome. 


But this weekend, This weekend's experience really sort of framed exactly what I'm trying to optimize for. And so, uh, I I, I'll set the scene for you. We, we went down to Sury. It was, um, one of Rochelle's best friends weddings. Um, they've got a place in, in cos. Lovely area. You know, if people don't know it, you've got lovely, sort of like suburbia and like nice, um, uh, grass lawns, you know, the kind of place where people say hello to each other. 


Right. Which is un unusual in the UK or at least in London. Um, and uh, we went there and was a, it was a small wedding. It was probably about 25, 30 people, close family, very close friends, only one long table. Uh, it was a beautiful summer's day. Um, and we. All these generations around this table, right. We had, I was sat next to the grandma, uh, that her great grandchildren were like running around. 


I remember just taking a moment and just thinking, I really want every weekend or every other weekend to be just like this, surrounded by my closest friends, my closest family, without having to have the excuse of a wedding for us to all sort of like congregate. But where we get to spend good quality time. 


It must have only been about three or four hours, right? Uh, it was catered for. We had all these people around, you know, everyone was just in a chill level and that for. Is pure wealth, and that for me is happiness. And it's sort of, I, I don't think I'm gonna veer off that because really what I'm trying to optimize for is that scenario every single weekend. 


And, um, it's framed the, the way I think about how much money one needs to achieve that. And I think the one thing I, I want listeners to take away from is, I think we're more wealthy than we actually lead ourselves to believe because we are constantly looking at what we see on our social media feeds or what society is, is telling us that is true happiness or or true wealth. 


And I think, you know, if you have that environment where you can call up a few people or you have close family or you have like generations where you can actually, you know, bounce ideas across, that for me is true wealth. 


It just centers you. And I think that's the moment when, you know, you start going in a state of, you know, happiness or joy like, so I think happiness and like it feels like it was a happy moment, but the same. There was so much happiness in there, it just like really centered you and you hit that joyful state. 


Cause I think joyful is really what we will strive for. And you know, you were in that state because you know, you had the people, you had the experience. It was just, You know, you had no stress. It was just very relaxed. Yeah. No, I'm happy. I'm really, um, happy for you that you had that. 


I'm probably gonna butcher the, the sort of explanation of this, but basically it, it details why humans desire things, though. We think that we want things autonomously. Like I want to, uh, have a Ferrari because of the, the engine and the color and, and because I'm really into cars and, and all that kind of stuff. 


You can rationalize the reasons as to why you want a luxury car, but reality, and maybe you don't wanna admit it to yourself or it's a subconscious force. The reality is you assign a certain value to that car because you've seen it somewhere. You've tried to model yourself on a lifestyle that you're trying to achieve based on someone that you know, or someone that you aspire to be having said car, right? 


Like a rapper. What, like a rapper? Like a rapper? Yeah, exactly. And actually rappers a pretty good example because rappers always trying to outdo each other with more and more jewels and more and more like, you know, uh, I know accolades, whether it be Grammys, whether it be, uh, like a better videos, whether it be bigger houses, you know, that is my magic theory in action because they're modeling their behavior on what they've. 


In other scenarios. And so this sort of idea of meetic theory, I now see everywhere. So if you think about like, um, fragrance adverts, right? There is no reason why I should want to buy, uh, sage by, I can't remember who it's by. Let's say, oh, steel deal. Are they go, I just got it. Got it. You got it. Yeah. It's it good. 


It's actually right. So there's nothing in that advert with, um, what's his name? There's. Huh Johnny Depp. Exactly. There's nothing in that advert that features Johnny De that ascribes any value to the the aftershave at all? I don't know what sort of like perfume notes there are. I don't know, sort of how it's sourced. 


I don't know what the quality of the ingredients are. All I know is that Johnny Depp, Where is it? And that makes me want to worry. It doesn't make me, but it makes a lot of people want to have said 


Yes. And so Jay-Z, you know, um, signs up KA West and then eventually like Canyon West has got this huge personality and. Tries to overtake Jay-Z. Like everyone publicly knows that, right? Yeah. So now you've got Can West wants to be Jay-Z, but actually wants to be bigger than Jay-Z, and then they have this massive feud door because it's basically two huge alpha males going at it. 


Yeah. And then eventually they separate and they have, you know, arguments, et cetera. Right. But I guess that's also one of the big dangers, right?

So let's say you desire, um, I know a particular flat or like an apartment and you're like, It's got the sick apartment. It's three bedrooms, it's got spar staircase. It's got pool in there. I subconsciously. Now want to have the same apartment because you, my friend, someone who I associate with someone are, you know, in certain, uh, elements, aspire to want said apartment and that's why I want that as well. 


The same thing can be said the other way, like now I'm getting married, maybe. Jay Rod wants to get married as well. I'm not saying you do, but maybe those kind of thoughts begin to percolate in your head and actually you desire the same thing as me because I desire as well. So basically what my mimetic theory is, is like, It's easier to desire something when it's been desired or realized first. 


Mm-hmm. and something I wrote down when I was making notes on, on the book, it's easier to desire something when it has first been desired first. So exactly in the same vein as the Kanye, uh, JayZ thing, you know. JayZ has got this, uh, amazing career car once said, amazing career. Same thing happens in history. 


Alexander the great conquered, you know, most of Asia, suddenly Julius Caesar, who also sees Alexander the Great as an equal person, but in a different time, wants to have the same achievement, if not more than his adversary or someone he aspires to be Alexander the Great.

Um, so it's actually a good thing. Um, hopefully it's done in a, in a friendly, nice way. Cuz you know, at the same time I think. You know, I also see that in relationships with like mentors and mentees, right? Um, I've had certain friends who've had mentees who, you know, they teach 'em everything. They're really nice and sunny. 


Next they know they're trying to overtake 'em. And you know, there is this element of, um, I think you find very ambitious. People are very competitive, right? So I can see the, the great things in that. It's inspiring, but yeah, it creates rivalry. But I guess, um, I guess that's just human nature as well. Some degree. 


That's my medic behaviour in action. And it's before they've even began to vocalize as well, before they can even use words to express how they're feeling. So my mimesis is like this driving cultural force that's kind of taboo to talk about because of the reasons that we've just talked about. You know, you don't wanna demonstrate that you are jealous or you don't wanna demonstrate that you, you have arrival, but that's, Much human nature. 


And so the, the, the trick I, I guess the takeaway for me and perhaps the listener might be, is to observe my medic behaviour and action and actually try to figure out, if possible, what your true desires are. Because it's very easy to model your desires and other people's instead of your own. And going b full circle back to that sort of environment where I was, I was at this table and this wedding and this beautiful environment that wasn't me model. 


My desires on having a wedding just like this. It was me actually wanting to capture this feeling, this energy that I want to sort of experience this sort of, um, you know, the closeness of people, the sort of like the richness of the emotions that people had amongst say, that's the kind of founding environment that I want to aspire to. 


And it's actually closer than a lot of people realize. I 


Yeah. We see something, We're like, we want that. Right. And I just, I really just ask like, is this really good for my life? I, I ask myself like three, four times before I go chasing. Cause I can, um, you know, I'm like, I'm ambitious, probably like most people listening and I wanna try to make the most out. I wanna maximize my life right? 


Some degree. Like make the most out of it. And yeah, just being, um, careful. 


Oh, so and so's got a unicorn company. I want a unicorn company or like so and so, you know, made the 30 under 30 list. I wanna be 30, under 30 or 40 under 40, whatever it is. You know, it's very easy to, to become that, that way. And triggered by that because, you know, our smartphones give us billions of impressions every single time that we, we utilize them. 


It's very easy to be exposed to, to desires that are my in nature and I. What the, the sort of typical Silicon Valley, uh, trajectory of an entrepreneur is. You get, you become an entrepreneur, you have a good exit, maybe you do another company. You become financially independent. You can either continue along the escalation of ever more and more accolades, you know, unicorn decor, whatever. 


Yeah. Um, or you can go the spiritual path. And that's sort of like where I see you sort of ending up. And it, you know, people might think of it as cliche. I think it's pretty mature. And so my, my question to. Now that you know a bit more about my theory that we've just been talking at, do you see sort of the, the trend towards you going, you know, and, and learning a bit more about yoga and, and SUD as a mentor and all these kind of things. 


Do you see that as like a bucking the trend from like wanting ever more, you know, uh, aspirations or ever more sort of revenues from companies or like, you know, I think 


It was just, it was never gonna work. If I keep on trying to grab all these gold coins like Mario Cart or something like Mario, and it's just, it was never gonna make me happy. Right? So I had to find a game which was gonna make me happy. And that's the The inner. The inner game, right? And hence, I think everyone will find their game. 


You know? I think. What we've discussed today is like one of the challenges in this world is yeah, the, the element of just trying. Collect all these coins and um, you know, it just never ends. So, but I think, look, collecting coins are good as long as you're 


You can aspire to create companies with incredible wealth and, and, you know, achieve all those things that you, you might generally want to feel as long as you're aware. That you're not doing it just out of the chase or just to better your rivals or whatever, and so you. Just because you've gone down the root of trying to play the game of optimizing your inner game and, you know, becoming happy and focusing on happiness in yourself doesn't mean that you can't also play the other game of building companies and raising money and like doing all that kind of stuff. 


And that, that's the, the sort of balance of, I think what 


I, you know, that's where I can hopefully give people some insights and wisdom around that topic. So as long as you know, you know how you wanna serve and you want to like help, um, once you know that it just means. , whatever. Whenever you are on this treadmill, like as long as you've got that thought in your mind, it should hopefully stop you from going too far. 


Yeah, you do it from the right way. Anything on the app? What's the latest on the app? Any, 


It's really cool, really cool fitness app. They started a few years ago, ex Google guys co-founded it, raised a bunch of money. 


And I was like, Yeah, 


Well, like a current rival on an old rival. Oh, that's a good one. Um. 


Yeah. Cause you never 


How do you know what is the right amount to pay them based on all the different inputs that they have, you know, cost of living, all that kind stuff. Anyway, he uh, said to me, Look, what you need is someone to look after the technical side. You need a CT po. I haven't even even heard of this. I didn't even realize they existed a, a Chief Technical Product officer. 


In some companies they exist. I don't, I don't think they're the norm, but I looked at a few and, um, they do exist. There's someone with technical skills, but also strategy skills who can lead small product, uh, teams, um, but also have the, the technical expertise to, you know, execute 


But they're from product backgrounds. Okay. But they can understand product engineering. So yeah, there's, you can, you know, let's say you are a commercial. Like focused CEO or commercial co-founder. Right? Um, yeah. The ultimate person you're a TAG team with is someone who knows product and tech. One hundred percent, but yeah, they are, they're rare because it's rare for a product person to understand the engineering side as well. 


But 


Very well funded startups are paying crazy fees. So someone who isn't well funded is not gonna attract the right talent for whatever reason. But the key drivers to someone from that background wanting to join a company, one is purpose and, uh, equity is sort of important, but I think that the mission is, is one of the most important things. 


Yeah. I, I feel like we've got, you know, an incredible missions to help people leverage the power of food to improve their health, wellbeing, and lifestyle. Yeah. Um, which is, The biggest issues to solve right now. 


It's, it's bloody hard dude. It's like, it's like dating, right? You're, you're, you're gonna have to meet a lot of people. So I just, I think it's good you speak to these people. I think the most important thing you can do is. You know, when you meet 'em, just ask 'em, Hey, are the top three best people you worked with? 


Yeah. I think you just gotta get used to asking that question. Yeah. And I know you've, this is the thing I find so many people in startups are just afraid to ask for help. Mm. I just think you just need to, like you, If I actually ask, you know what, You've never ever asked me, Hey, do, do I know three, like. I havent you've never asked. 


No, I don't think I asked. You've never see, you told me. No, I, no, I thought you would find it yourself. So then I didn't really, um, go into my library in my head talking loud. 


Really? Gujar Indian girl, right? Yeah. Gujarati Indian girl. She's on this. And she's like talking about like, you know, she's successful and she's driven all the rest of it. And he asked like, how many days you've been in over the last, like three, four years? And she's literally like four. And it's to say, it's just like if you don't get the numbers up, if you don't start having those conversations if you don't start dating, like you've just been telling me, then it's a numbers game. 


You're not, you're not gonna win the game. Mm. So I basic, yeah, this is my wake up call to start dating more often. All right. 


The second topic was, uh, happiness and what you optimizing for. And then like we, when you guys switched into mimetic theory, some things are so easy to measure, like money, what school your kids go to or where you are working, whereas these. Softer things about like the connections you have, the way you spend your moments. 


They're, they're much harder to measure. And, uh, unless you really know what makes you happy, you are always gonna start looking to get that validation 


When you learn about it, you see it everywhere. Yeah. And you sort of know why, like, you know, rock stars who have got all this, uh, incredible success or success, quote-unquote, that, you know, whether it's awards, whether it's show tickets and stuff, and they go down the other path of like drugs cuz they're trying to figure out like what makes them happy, How they're gonna get that dopamine hit instead of actually looking at the moments between the moments. 


And so, yeah, it sounds a bit cliche, but it's, it's. And 


They just like give. Everything is almost romantic theory in reverse. You're still really caring about what other people think, but you are sort of like, Fuck you, I'm not gonna play this game. Yeah. And it's still like the same way you're, you're still trying to get a reaction out of people, and then I think ultimately you get to a stage that you, that you realize, um, yeah. 


What makes you happy. Um, and, and then, um, just the flip side, which you guys talked about was like, Competition does breed excellence though. So you, there's like a, there's a so a paradox, right? Yeah. There's, yeah, there's a paradox you need cuz you do, I, I think you probably want to pick your game freely, but then once you're in that game, you almost need that competition to like spur you to 


I always say it to people that, yeah, I'm ridiculous, competitive, um, but I want everyone to win. It's like so weird, right? Yes. Like, you want, like, I'm so like if I'm head, head with someone, In business, like I wanna win and I will do whatever it takes to win. Right? Yeah. But at the same time, if they beat me, it's cool they beat me, but. 


They beat me for in square, hopefully. Yes. And I appreciate that and I want them to do good and even if like I do win, I still want my competitors to, to do good. Weirdly I do because I just want them to hopefully, you know, get their justice of whatever 


Yeah. I think your perspective is very 


Yeah. They're walking side by side on the road with you. Mm-hmm. , I think it's like you. Get to know them. Right. It's quite, these are your traveling friends. So in terms 


Yeah. And you do need to go on a lot of dates, but then like when, you know, you just know. Mm. If that. 


Like tell there was like a connection. People over the, 


Because can only get better, right? Yeah. Yeah, that's good. And hopefully the listeners will cheer me on cause I need some moral support after that beating.

Happy Millionaire is produced by Fascinate Productions