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Welcome to episode 19 of the Mindful & Driven podcast! It’s all about how to not lose sight of what really matters whilst chasing your dreams.
Episode 19’s guest is Imran Dean. He is the founder of The Money Cog. It’s a website that aims to break down complex financial information into easy-to-digest data. The aim is to make it easy for anybody to start investing without a huge amount of prior experience. The Money Cog aims to make everybody take on a long-term, sustainable mindset.
In his day job, Imran helps manage an investment management company with clients who have over 100 million in assets across the different portfolios.
I hope you enjoy listening to our conversation! I’d love it if you could subscribe, leave me a review and follow me on social channels.
- You can find all my work and socials here: http://amardeep.co
- Download my free Anti-Burnout Toolkit here: http://antiburnout.mindfuldriven.com
- United for Global Mental Health: https://unitedgmh.org/mental-health-support
- Find more about Imran: https://themoneycog.com/
- Follow him on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/imrandean/
Topics discussed in this episode:
- How to take calculated risks.
- Why it’s important to take calculated risks in business.
- How to approach risks.
- Why risk-taking doesn’t have to be dangerous.
- Money grows on trees, but you need to plant and water those trees.
- How to minimize failure in your side hustle and business.
- How to increase your chances of success in business.
- What to do to minimize your risks.
- How to measure your business risks.
Keynotes:
- Introduction (0:00)
- Money grows on trees (1:46)
- New opportunities and ‘failures’ (4:36)
- Structured goals, enjoyment, and balance (7:15 )
- All about focus (9:58)
- Pain + Reflection = Progress – Ray Dalio (12:43)
- The importance of spontaneity (15:59)
- Recreating routine and re-balancing (18:24)
- Designing your life (22:46)
- Being human first (24:40)
- Making sacrifices, achieving more, and being grateful (31:09)
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Intro Music:
“Himalayas” by Mona Wonderlick — bit.ly/youtube-monawonderlick
Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0
Free download: bit.ly/himalayas-download
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Transcript
[00:00:00] Imran:
Okay. In that period, I realized that, you know, I can’t put in the same thing
because the result would be the same. My health would deteriorate and I would
just get ill. It’s not like a pie chart. Right? So like, if, if one month you
said that I’m going to spend three hours with my family, three hours for my
health. It doesn’t work like that. Right. Life gets in the way, right?
Sometimes, that’s where everything I’m doing now, is there like a mission or
focus on my core? Like, does it make sense for what I’m trying to achieve in a
greater way?
[00:00:26] Amardeep:
Welcome to the Mindful and Driven Podcast, where we help you to not lose sight
of what’s really important whilst chasing your dreams. Today’s guest is Imran
Dean. He is the founder of The Money Cog. It’s a website that aims to break down complex financial
information into easy-to-digest data. The aim is to make it easy for anybody to
start investing without a huge amount of prior experience. The Money Cog aims
to make everybody take on a long-term, sustainable mindset.In his day job,
Imran helps manage an investment management company with clients who have over
100 million in assets across the different portfolios.This was an in-person
interview and Imran had an interesting story about his journey the day before.
I hope you enjoy
listening to our conversation
Welcome Imran.
It’s great to have you here.
[00:01:07] Imran:
Nice to be here.
[00:01:08] Amardeep:
So how many of my notes are there is, if you’ve listened to one of my earlier
episodes of Raj? It was actually just a pure coincidence that he happened to be
in the office at the same time, then Raj made the introduction and well,
Imran’s journey is very similar to mine, being in some ways.
[00:01:21] Imran:
Yeah. I know. Definitely. Yeah, it was good. I think we just clicked straight
away and I didn’t realize that actually I was already reading some stuff on
video and then I’d spoke [unintelligible]. and I saw it. That’s, you know,
that’s quite funny. Small world.
[00:01:31] Amardeep:
Yeah. Yeah. It was funny because your shame is it. Oh, here’s like my homepage.
That’s me.
[00:01:35] Imran:
Yeah. That was such a small world. I didn’t realize that. And actually one of
my articles that I always go back to you cause all the business books that you
want to read and make sure you’re on top of
[00:01:43] Amardeep:
One of the things I always ask people at the beginning is, what’s some advice
you disagree with? So you mentioned that you liked one of my articles, but is
there’s anything else you’ve read or you hear a lot that you disagree with?
[00:01:51] Imran:
So I think there’s that, there’s that cliche that, oh, money doesn’t grow on
trees. So I’m of the opposite view. So I think money does grow on trees. And I
think this is where, what you’re doing essentially is you’re planting those
trees, right. You’re nourishing them and you’re watering them. So every time
you come up with the, of your passive income, you continue to water those
different businesses. Right? So if you’re a business owner or like yourself,
you’re a writer, right. You might be making passive income from old medium
articles, but unless you continue to write. Yeah. As long as those tend to go
down, right? Cause you’re not watering that plant. You’re not looking after
that, that business. Same with, if you’re a business owner, you start a
business and you might take your hands off it. If you leave your employees to
run and you’re not involved with it, you just go south very, very quickly.
Right? So you always this concept of passive income and making money when you
sleep, it doesn’t last forever. You know, you always gotta be somewhere
involved in the business or even if it’s one or two hours a day, you know,
you’re voted. Yes. You step aside and then you exit that business to somebody
else and you sell it somebody else. But yeah, it’s about continuing to watering
those businesses. Yeah. Continue to put your effort and energy into them and
then you see them grow. So exactly like, like a tree, you know, you’d plant
multiple trees and you’d let them grow. But then the cliche is, you know, you
gotta focus on one thing until successful. So it’s very different. To do many
things. Yeah. It depends on different stages of your life, where at certain
stages, when you have more money could probably do more than one thing because
you have the risk that you could put money into it. So you can, you can
outsource, you can do different things, but it’s getting the right balance
between focusing on one thing and also making sure you have maybe a diversified
stream of income over, over a bit of time.
[00:03:15] Amardeep:
I think It’s interesting because people often say that money grows on trees
analogy based on this idea that it’s easy, but then you flip it around because
if you’re going to grow a tree, you got, you’re gonna have to nurture it. Like
you said, the other thing about passive income, I completely agree. Passive
income is so often the lie, unless it’s just automated investment. You’ve got
to do something. Seeing with the online course I’ve created, the platforms have
updated since I made these courses. So they’re slightly outdated now. So I’m
going to rerecord them.
[00:03:42] Imran:
Just the world we live in today. Right. Things are moving so fast. And
sometimes, you know, when we’re talking about investments, something could be.
Good for for now, but then after a year or two, actually it might, you know,
the stock market might say that this is worth a lot more and you might want to
sell and go into something else because just the way the world is, things are
moving so fast at a very, very rapid pace that new things come, new
opportunities come. And that’s what it’s interesting, you know, thinking about
new opportunities, you know, growing up. Your career. My, you might want to do
one thing in your career, right. But now I think things are moving so fast. And
you interested in me created that you probably have multiple careers in one, in
one lifetime. Yeah. There’s many people that I speak to as well, who academics
and they’re put into entrepreneurship because they’ve discovered something in
their field that they want to now commercialize. So yeah, everyone’s got a
different path and journey to sort of. And I think that’s where you can’t be so
fixated on one thing in today’s world, you know, you, I think you lose the
bigger picture.
[00:04:34] Amardeep:
Yeah. And it’s with me, right. That if things are happening and like I said,
well, through multiple trees, that’s happening because they’d been given the
space to experiment and it’s not as scary as you might think. Before I quit my
job. I used to think people who did that, so brilliant. It’s just the mental
block that we give ourselves sometimes that we can’t do it. That’s what other
people do.
[00:04:53] Imran:
I want to dig into an initial point, which is a book I read a long time ago by
a guy called managed Palm bay called the Dan the investor. And when he talks
about his kind of zip people take zero risk, but higher rewards. Meaning if you
look at what, if you look at Richard Branson, when he started the sort of
Virgin Airlines. And actually the lease payments were at the end of the month,
but he could ask them at the beginning. So from a cashflow perspective, there
was there another example is I listened to Bill Gates, I think a year or two back.
And he said, well, actually there wasn’t any risk of starting Microsoft because
Harvard would accept me again. They said that, right. If he failed, he would
just go back to Harvard and complete his, his degree. So that’s where people
would forget that actually it’s about calculated risks and doing things the
right way. And same with you. Right? You did writing whilst you probably still
in your career. Decided to branch off. Right?
[00:05:39] Amardeep:
I think it’s also how you perceive failure. People were like, this has to work
out because everybody would judge me. Everything. I’m a failure. I say most
people won’t care. Most people will be fine. They won’t judge you for it. They
won’t say a oh they’ve failed. Whereas now it’s a bit more difficult because
now I have to assess it because I’ve got the editor mindset, not a
[00:05:56] Imran:
big fan of follow your passion. Cause you don’t really know what you’re truly
passionate about until you do it for a period of time. You don’t know that
you’re gonna be passionate about writing until you do it. I’ve done writing in
the past and I enjoy it, but doing it every single day and all that’s involved
in it, like coming up with the idea, then editing it the whole, you know, the
process you might find actually quite, quite painful. So, you know, you don’t
know until you start doing it. And I think passion comes when you’re doing it
and you enjoy the results. And then that is the results. Isn’t it like gives
you the field, continue doing it. Yeah. And on that point is where the politics
is that I think if you turn your hobby into a career, You should replace the
hobby as well. It should still have a hobby. It changes the perception of it in
your life. And it’s okay to then be like, okay, I’m going to have a new hobby,
something I just do for fun completely. And that helps keep that balance to me.
Like you know, I was always, you know, I love tennis. I played tennis for a
long time, but the minute you take that and you become very serious with it,
you can lose the fun in it. Yeah. You’re trying to then reach very structured
goals. And that’s where the P you know, then that becomes very uncomfortable
because you’re not hitting the hitting those goals. And then you’re like, oh,
why am I not? And then you use the fun in it because you’re not just enjoying
being there and not having to think too much about a set goal. So yeah, you’ve
got to balance the things from a hobby to, and trying to make a career of
effort or doing something definitely with that.
[00:07:14] Amardeep:
Is there any point in the past that you’ve kind of struggled with finding that
balance?
[00:07:16] Imran:
Yeah, so I think we talked a lot. You know, we were talking about grain growing
these trees and multiple trees. So I think one point in my life where I was a
volunteer with one of the organizers for a big sort of conference, and I know
were very a hundred people came and parliamentarians academics, mayors, and I
was one of the organizers and, you know, we all working early hours of the
morning and I was looking out my health at that point. So I wasn’t eating for,
I think, a number of days or I hadn’t eaten one. I had. And then the day of the
event, I just collapsed in front of everyone. And, you know, must’ve thought
doing in on the conference floor and then, you know, people saw me and I sort
of fell on the back of my head now, thank God. I didn’t have any massive
injuries or brain injuries, but it was quite a scary and surreal sort of moment
for me realizing actually I’m just doing too many things and no matter how much
that I always thought that’s fine. And that’s what success is because you’re
young. You can do it, you can afford. Actually, no, because it would have takes
is one instance of advocates change your life. You know, if I fallen on the
back of my head and had brain damage, then came over, I think it was much more
about doing a few things and doing them well and then branching out. And then
there’s this famous saying, I think is it, it was a story about a donkey. So
there’s a donkey that’s on a path on the left-hand side. There’s hay on the
right hand side, there’s water and it’s thirsty and hungry at the same time.
And it doesn’t make a decision. And then it dies. Now the moral of the story
is, well, it could have had the water first and then the hay. And the whole
point is that you didn’t have to do everything. I want to go in life. You can
do something. And then do something else, right? It’s this whole idea of, oh, I
want to do this and I want to do that. I want to do this because the world we
live in, everything is about, you know, you want to achieve so much in such a
short period of time. Now just do that one thing. And if you’re successful in
that, then you can do something else because whatever you’re doing, there’s
gonna be problems and issues that will need your energy and time. And if you’re
not focusing on that, you’ll, you won’t fill those problems and then you’ll
give up and then you’ll move into something else and you’ll be for something
else. Whereas if you focus on a few, you can give those things, the energy that
it deserves. And then you can move on from there. Right? Cause like I said,
nothing, nothing’s sort of lost forever. Right? And you might not normally want
to be associated with that. You might have a different interest and that
happens all the time. You look at CEOs or the most successful people like Elon
Musk left PayPal. He didn’t go and become a chairman of a business or stay in.
Now he said, I want to solve, I want to solve the electric car problem. I want
to now look at space, got these big ideas. So he’s focusing on that. So, you
know, you’re not always tied to a certain professional. You, you can reinvent
yourself constantly, but yeah, you’ve got to do one thing at a time first, like
if you’d had left PayPal and just said, oh, it’s not really working, is
something else. He would have never got any. Right.
[00:09:43] Amardeep:
One thing you brought up there and you kind of mentioned it, maybe without
meaning to, is this idea of if then plan. So I use that quite a lot in my life
where it’s saying, if I get to this goal, then I’m going to start this. So for
example, with the podcast, it was like, if I get to X amount of followers on
Medium, that’s what I’m going start the podcast. And with the podcast, like
once they get to have many episodes, then I’m going to start a YouTube channel
with more other stuff, because they don’t want to do them all at the same time.
So I’m letting each kind of new goal, have a little time where it’s my focus.
Once it’s embedded, once they’ve got the time down here and what’s more
efficient, that’s when I add more things again.
[00:10:19] Imran:
No. Yeah, that makes sense. And I think obviously to Cooper as well as where I
think if someone’s for me is when you’re reading too much or you’re getting
exposed to so much information, it can you sometimes think, oh, I need to be doing
that. Well, actually, I just need to focus on the next step because you can’t
get there until you have a certain level of let’s say followers or engagement
or a certain port. For example, we’re looking at a business now where one of
the businesses that we’re working on is their premium sort of cause they stock
recommendation service. Now the thing is until the product is there that
they’re putting any marketing. So we were just focused. The last six, seven
months was writing good content and premium content for the product too. We
felt that we’ve got enough content out there to then start to market it to
them, to the masses. And now we’re at that position. And now with. How do we
market, and then that’s another problem, but you don’t want to be thinking
about that right at the beginning, because there’s no product and without a
good product, then you’re just, there’s nothing there. So it’s like one step at
a time. It’s like, you know, you’re saying to yourself, like now you’ve built a
reputation and a brand around your car. People combined to the podcast. Once
they bind to that, then it gives you some options on YouTube. So video is a
medium, which you might not be able to do as much with the writing, right.
Where the video can give you more variety. But again, it’s all consistent with
that. You know who you are and your brand and saying. I think that’s sometimes
people that be, sometimes you think people go wrong is figuring out what’s core
to you and your beliefs, and then doing things around that, that sometimes
link. And I think Charlie Munger so there’s a bit of a lettuce. I think there’s
a lattice framework of things where it’s like you build on top of things. You
build knowledge on top of things, and that’s how you get sort of knowledge
because things linked to each other and having an understanding of the world.
Yeah. Having understanding of let’s say legal things as well, works. Like I’m
sure you know, right. Some things you can’t write about cause you could get
sued. Yeah.
[00:11:57] Amardeep:
Well, one of the things you mentioned there as well, I think a lot of people
focused on the marketing first because maybe that’s most exciting. It’s like, I
want to get people to move me. I want to do this, but it’s actually good to do
things in quiet at the beginning. So I didn’t think I told people in my life
about my writing until maybe six months or so in when they’d already had about
half a million views. And what they did, it allowed me to grow without the
pressure of knowing everybody watching me. And it’s a much better way to do it
because if you do it in that way, as what you’re doing with your website, It’s
that you, you go full of the problems. You learn. You test them over a smaller
number of people. Then, once you’ve pleased this small number of people,
they’re happy with it. You know, they’ve got a good product, then you can push
it out. Going back to when you collapsed, what was the initial change? Did you
change your mindset pretty quickly after that? Or did it take a little bit of
time to, and kind of fighting yourself into, I know for example, you might want
to carry on, but then people around you, like, no, you’ve got to rest.
[00:12:49] Imran:
I think human beings don’t like change. If you look at the prince of the book
principles by Ray Dalio, because pain plus reflection equals progress. So I
went through pain to progress right. And are affected as well. So in that, in
that period, I realized that, you know, I can’t be doing the same thing because
the result would be the same. My health would deteriorate and I would just get
ill. Withdrew from that voluntary role, to an extent where I am started to
delegate some of my work and then teach people what I was doing slowly, slowly,
I’m sort of moved away from it just because I didn’t have that time commitment.
And yeah, you have that influence from your loved ones where they say, well,
you know, you can’t do that yoga. You’re getting L so you get that reality. But
I think until. Go into a painful process yourself. You don’t change. That’s
just the reality. Isn’t it. It’s very hard to change something. Unless you go
through some sort of form of pain, even if somebody tells you something, you
find it, maybe a difficult to change, but until you’ve gone through a painful
experience, then you realize, okay, I need to change. So yeah, it’s very
difficult. I’m not, I think it’s very few people I’ve met. I don’t know if
you’ve met many people in your life where they can just change very easily.
It’s it’s not easy, I think. And as you get older, To do that. You guys set in
your way, and then it’s difficult, but I think it’s just being reflective. I
think that’s where you can be self, not self critical, but you can always
reassess yourself and be self-critical or ask people their opinions of you,
which will help you make, make sense changes in your life, which you don’t
quite realize, which might be beneficial. But yeah, it’s not, it’s never easy,
I think, to, to make a change.
[00:14:15] Amardeep:
Yeah. I think I want to just, having that memory or reflection and being like,
you can look at the different goals in different areas of life. Let’s say
health, relationships, family. And you judge yourself, and you say like, where
am I in this? Is my health at the level that wants to be, or not. And sometimes
having to write that down, or having to say out loud to somebody, have a
discussion about it, having to verbalize that kind of hits home a bit because,
you’ve got to deal with that in some way.
[00:14:40] Imran:
Yeah. And you mentioned so many different things, eye health, you know, your
family, your relationships it’s I think it’s not like a pie chart, right? So
like, if, if one month you said that I’m going to spend three hours with my
family three hours in my house, it doesn’t work like that. Right. Life gets in
the way, right. Sometimes a loved one is sick. Then you gotta spend more time.
Right. You have to read just a pie chart, but it’s more about always having
that balance of sometimes some things need more time than others. Like
sometimes one. It might be so busy with work and it requires you to get that
energy and time. So you have more time to work, but as always that pie chart,
as long as you’re giving some amounts to everything, when then that’s okay. And
that’s why I realized that when I had that incident, I was trying to give
everything equal amounts, or I’m going to spend four hours there and you become
too robotic. And then you lose the human element of being. Well, you need to
have that. You need to be empathetic, right? If somebody is ill, somebody is
sick too. You know, especially if they’re close to you, you have that
relationship. You should be there, right? If you’re spiritual, you know, you
want to focus more on your spirituality fitness. Again, there might be times
where you just don’t give it as much time because of work, but then you
readjust and then realign yourself. But yeah, it’s just that balance, which is,
it’s never like a perfect pie chart. And I think that’s what people, some of
them know they’re wrong, but they tried. So you use these goals and to do lists
or structures and just becomes too structured.
[00:15:49] Amardeep:
It’s having the blank space in your day, because if you’re overly structure
yourself, then it goes wrong. You’ve got no leeway. Yeah, exactly. Whereas if
you always got a few extra hours in between and you got half an hour before
meetings, all that kind of stuff, it gives you that time to be a bit more
flexible.
[00:16:04] Imran:
Exactly. Like, you know, when I’m not even just doing before this podcast, I
just, you know, give my wife a call cause she’s not, well, I know how things,
you know, is anything else you need, you just that just being there right in
there that five minutes, it wasn’t like I’m going to spend a half an hour,
according to my wife and seeing how she is. It’s about finding the right
moments and being there. Right. And just thinking now’s a good time. I’ll just
do it. Yeah. And just that I’ll just do it now, right. Or same with maybe. Okay
for a walk, you know, you’ve said, okay, you know, it’s nice weather today.
I’ll just go for a walk. It’s not necessarily thinking about being fit or
fitness. It’s just, let’s go for a walk. Maybe I can think about things and
ponder, right. It’s that spontaneity, which is sometimes in your, in your
day-to-day life. And probably like, I mean, I’m sure with you and how you came
up with writing, he probably wasn’t a structured thing. I’m going to stop
medium. I’m going to talk about your media now. Right? It probably was quite
spontaneous. He thought, you know, I’ve been reading a lot of interesting
things and I think this is an interesting thing. And actually I quite enjoy
writing.
[00:16:58] Amardeep:
Yeah. It was just a new year’s resolution. I was like, I’m going to try out and
see what happens. I didn’t think it probably lasts very long and then it just
went from there. But I think I didn’t start to have a huge structured plan of
I’m going to do this many articles a week. I’m going to do this long. They’re
going to be this many words. Where do you think some people do and it kind of
sucks the fun out of it right at the beginning.
[00:17:17] Imran:
Exactly. Exactly. And then you don’t have longevity in that. I mean, sometimes
you might have to create that structure now, which is maybe once it becomes
your bread and butter and you need to make sort of money out of it, then you
probably have to have some structure, right. Where you say, okay, I need to
have X amount of articles because I know roughly an article gives me this much
in terms of revenue, et cetera.
But yeah, that
comes later ordinary, straight away.
[00:17:40] Amardeep:
Hi
everyone. I hope you’re enjoying the episode so far. I want to take a quick
break to ask you to check in with yourself. There’s many people struggling with
balance and it’s nothing to be ashamed about. It’s tips that my guests might
share can hopefully help you along the way, but if you already feel overwhelmed
or burnt out, it’s probably best that you ask somebody for help too. For some,
this might be a friend or family member, while others might feel like they have
nobody they can talk to. If you’re one of these people, check out the link in
the show notes, it’s for United for Global Mental Health. They’ve got health
plans all across the world, with people willing to listen on the other side.
It’s important to let somebody know how you’re feeling. Now, back to the show.
So what’s one
area you’re currently struggling with? With your balance in life?
[00:18:18] Imran:
So I got married recently, so that’s, that’s, it’s been great, but it’s just
managing and balancing. Sort of that life with, you know, all the other things
you’re trying to work for. Cause then, you know, quite ambitious with certain
the sort of business stuff I talked about with the stock recommendation. And
then, you know, my fitness has maybe suffered a bit because I’ve been, you
know, going to a lot of sort of meals and stuff as a married and probably from
an Asian background. Right. A lot of family members invite you and then, you
know, you just eat terribly and you put on a lot of a, I think I’ve put on sort
of 680 and I’ve been told, you know, you can did. They, you know, you just got
to balance it all, but then again, it’s like routine. So you’ve got to recreate
your routine now. Right. And that’s what I’m not struggling with. I’m enjoying
it. And I’m just thinking, okay, how does this work? And okay. Actually wake up
early and then do it because the evenings get taken up, you know, you wanna
spend time together. So in the mornings, early mornings, that’s when I can get
some of the other stuff done and reading. So just readjusting yourself, isn’t
realigning, but it’s just that a reflection. We talked about earlier, which is
reflect and then realign what’s important and what’s not. And certain periods
that will require more time. Right. So earlier on, you know, maybe now it’s
just like, it might require much less, you know, more time I’m spending time
together. And then it’s less time maybe on my fitness than five minutes can be
from five days a week to three days a week. You know, I’m not trying to do an
enormous amount, but it’s just reducing that
[00:19:39] Amardeep:
if you can create this kind of balance where you know, this is what’s important
to me and you don’t let other people step over your boundaries. Cause it could
be, you want to have a snack every now and again, you want to have a treat and
you go out. And so you’re better during the week, and then you have the treats
when you’re out with people, and that’s the balance that you have. Whereas if
you know that you spent a bad week for you and you had a bit too much and you
don’t feel too great, then being able to say no is a really important social
skill and also doing it a way that’s, it’s keeping people comfortable with you.
Right?
[00:20:06] Imran:
And it’s, I think it’s saying no is something I struggled with. But I’ve become
better at, because part of it was that incident where we talked about for when
I, when I sorta fell and hit my head where it was like, if you don’t say no to
things, you will eventually you’ll suffer the pains. And people don’t,
everybody is, you know, not saying everybody is selfish, but everybody is
obviously doing things from their own perspective. Right. And people are not
reading your article because, you know, you’re, you’re, you’re, you’ve written
it because they’re gonna get something out of. Yeah, then I’m gonna spend 10
minutes of their time reading something because they want to be nice is because
there’s something out there for themselves. So the same way you got to think
that when you’re involving yourself in certain said, You have to sometimes not
be selfish, but you have to think, is there going to, is there a, you gotta
think about the bigger picture and we don’t have the time capacity, but you
wanna help somebody, then you just got to sort of say, look, I can’t do it
right now, but I can give you some, I can maybe point I can give you some
recommendations of certain, so people that can do it, or this is how you would
do it, but don’t commit to something knowing that it’s going to make you suffer
in the longterm. So it’s that fine balance. Isn’t it?
[00:21:10] Amardeep:
Yeah. I think a bit sometimes being too nice where being too nice to too many
people could mean that you’re then sacrificing your sleep or your sacrificing
on the inside, which then in the long run, it’s like a negative consequences
because then you’ll burn out and then you can’t do anything to help them. So if
it’s helped them a little bit or something that’s in control then to
overdeliver is unsustainable and then not be able to be there in the consistent
longterm.
[00:21:36] Imran:
Exactly, exactly. And I think that’s what I think that’s what happens as you
sort of not get older, but you have life experiences, right? Well, we’ll show
you how you react to certain situations. Like you might not realize that you’re
someone who says yes to everything, but you will realize it sooner or later
when you start to get busy. And, you know, as you get older, you get less time
rates from, from maybe, you know, from university or even from college where
you had a lot of free time to when you were. Then you don’t have the same time.
So your time is more precious. And then probably when you get kids married,
time becomes more and more precious. So everything you get involved in has to
have some return, whether it’s even a return of, oh, this is what I’m giving
back to the world, that’s fine. Or this is what I’m doing to help others.
That’s fine. And this is what I’m doing for myself and my family to help them
to help better our lives. You know, there’s so many different things you gotta
to think about is it’s just, you know, balancing everything, which is, I think
we talked about with. Yeah, I think that’s for me anyway. That’s what I’m
starting to see as the key to success. It’s not success in one area at the cost
of something else. It’s trying to balance everything to live a fulfilled life.
[00:22:35] Amardeep:
What would a fulfilled life look like to you? So say in like five years time,
how would you want to kind of design your life if you could with the balance
between work life, social life, et cetera?
[00:22:44] Imran:
I think for me, it’s always trying to be the best what your field you’ve chosen
is. So, you know, being at the top of my game at my field would be, it would
be. That would be sort of one area of success, but then you’d also have a great
relationship with my wife and have your kids at that point. That would be
great. And then spiritual goals as well, making sure that spiritually I’ve
achieved what I wanted to. So, and then fitness as well, being able to. I set
an objective in terms of fitness, but being fit and healthy that, you know, I
can go and go for runs or have long sort of period of walk, but don’t feel
tired or exhausted. Right. And being at a good sort of weight. So all of that
together, you know, balancing the old for me to be a successful life. And if I
was, if I did something, if being the most successful or the best at my field was
at the cost of everything else. For me in five years, I’d look, well, I haven’t
really achieved success because I’ve done something at a very extreme level,
but I’ve sacrificed so much. And that’s the thing where they say, well, if you
want to be really accessible, you’ve got to sacrifice things. Well, if that’s
your definition of access and you want, if you want to be outliers or extreme
stories, then that’s fine. And that’s, you know, that’s what you’ve chosen, but
you’ve got to realize that that will come at a cost, right? If you want to be
extremely successful in a specific field, then obviously you. Making sacrifices
and cost of everything else. And if that’s what your ultimate goal is, then
that’s fine for yourself. You know, I’m not here to judge, but for me, that’s
not what success is. I think for me, discusses being an all rounder of a
person, but that probably comes from my personality of being a sort of
Plymouth. I have interest in many subjects. Don’t know, I don’t like one thing.
And that’s what I want to do. I like to do many different things. And then I
think that’s kind of me being more of a rounded person.
[00:24:25] Amardeep:
Yes. With The Money Cog, let’s say five years time, would you just want that to
be almost your main thing or is it with something you want to be on the side so
you do other things too?
[00:24:33] Imran:
So that was where, you know, I’ve been thinking about it a lot actually, which
was, you know, do I want to continue doing this as a, as a side thing? Was it
good? And I think ultimately what it is is why am I doing it? What’s the
mission or the mission there is to really help retail investors or people who
don’t know much about investing, be more confident in the stocks they’re
looking at. I’ve been more confident on how to analyze companies from the basis
of how they make money. Right? So that’s the mission. Means that we have to,
you know, I would spend more time doing it and growing it and then maybe
raising money. So that part of my thing has been well, do I want to raise more
money? Put a lot more into it in terms of resources, then that’s fine. Then
we’ll get there. It’s be like the next step. I’m not trying to think too far
ahead of what it needs to be. I’m trying to think more mission focused. That’s
the mission. And then if that’s the mission, then actually this makes sense not
to do. And that makes sense. I think that’s a better way of thinking of it.
Isn’t it? What’s your ultimate mission. And then that’s probably similar with
you about the YouTube. Like you’re not doing YouTube because if you want to use
it, because everyone’s saying it’s great and they want a position you’re like,
is that better service? Servicing the mission. I’m trying to do all my purpose
and if it’s not, then don’t do it just being consistent with your mission and
then branching out. And that’s what that’s, where everything I’m doing now is
like mission or focus on my core. Like, does it make sense for what I’m trying
to achieve? You know, you know, even when it’s working with other people on
other projects is they’re servicing my, what I’m trying to think. Yeah, in a
greater way, then, then I’ll get involved. Otherwise I won’t because it’s too
conflicting with what I’m trying to do. And then, because it’s conflicting, I’m
not going to have success in it because it’s taking me there and I’m trying to
go here and something else it’s just never gonna work is it.
[00:26:04] Amardeep:
I think what I’m doing at the moment is a bit of experimentation where, because
what I found in the writing, I didn’t plan for that to be my mission, but then,
because it’s worked out that way, I want to get other things experiments as
well and see if that’s the thing that really kind of lights me up, for example,
the YouTube. I might do a few videos. I’m fine, but I hate it and I don’t want
to do it. And it’s not really helping me. It’s not cheap, helping me further
the message I want to get out there, but it’s, for me, it’s like something
which I want to experiment with, and it’s the whole thing where fail fast and fail
often. I don’t want to build up something, cause this is going to be my savior
in life. And if it isn’t then I’ve, I don’t know what to do with myself.
Whereas if we can just keep trying different things and seeing like, does this
help? No. Yes. Okay. And then, like I said, reflecting on that and going from
there.
[00:26:48] Imran:
That’s an interesting point you mentioned is this. I think I’m more focused on
a and then you put too much energy into that. And then you realize that
actually it’s not going anywhere. And that’s where you got to fail past, you
know, the concert, even with the money coughers we started it off, actually we
just premium. And then I said, well, actually we should be giving blogs and
building relationships with our audience. They can see content. And then those
who, who want to know a bit more, they can have the premium. And that was the
way it started and was like, now that we’re thinking, okay, how do we sort of
branch out and do things? And we’re looking at YouTube as well, but it’s it’s
for me. Okay, we’re doing YouTube, but what’s how do we do YouTube videos?
There’s so much to, is it just talking about stocks or is it, is it going to be
talking about companies in a, in a way where you’re giving them the history,
but there’s so many other where you can take it, that you’ve got to think about
it a bit more and then go full out immensely. Like you say, see how it goes and
it might not work out and you might feel actually it doesn’t really work, but
you shooting itself as providing us. And then as long as it’s servicing that
mission, then, you know, you can figure out where you want to go.
[00:27:47] Amardeep:
It’s also, it’s about the identity side of things as well, where it’s, I know
what my kind of overall ideas are and how I give those ideas to the world,
isn’t as important necessarily as the ideas themselves. I think that’s the
mistake people make is that they focus on the platform rather than one of my
ideas and the platform was just a way to get out there.
[00:28:10] Imran:
Exactly. This it’s like you suddenly vice or I’m busy talking about FinTech or
PayPal, then I’d be like, okay, that’s interesting because that doesn’t seem
consistent. He was, you know, you’ve got to be consistent, right. Is said
right. With your identity and what you’re trying to do. And then people quickly
work on, okay, this person is just trying to do things for clickbait or
something that week he’s not showing any consistency or. So I’ve read a lot of
productivity books and mindset books. But what I found was that what people
forget is you’ve got to be human first. There’s nothing wrong with doing lots
and lots of different things and having different interests because eventually
the two things connect. Great. It’s not about, you know, you might have one
interest in, I dunno, let’s say something completely different to what you’re
doing. But eventually those two will connect, right? Like, you know, Musk, for
example, was he loved, he loved fantasy books. I think it was when he was a
kid. And then suddenly he did PayPal. There wasn’t a connection, but now using
space X and you know, you can see the connection and you can see, he thinks
with big audacious ideas and that’s, that comes from his, probably as youth and
thinking big. So there’s nothing wrong with having too many different interests
and as long as it’s and I just got addicted to what I said earlier, but it’s
more about as long as you’re balancing everything, right. As long as you’re
giving everything time, right. You can have multiple different interests. You
just don’t let it override each other or, or say, let it conflict with your
time. You’re giving each thing a bit of your time.
[00:29:24] Amardeep:
And when you said there about being contradictory, it’s part of being human,
right? It’s that you can have ideas that don’t necessarily fit together
perfectly because the overall idea and how you balance that competing
interests, that can still make sense. So you can think, okay. Yeah. Things are
gonna be related to my mission, but it doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to break
that rule sometimes in order to have exceptions.
[00:29:47] Imran:
Human being a more emotional and logical RV. We’re so logical, then everything
is a predictive of what we’re going to do. It’s because we’re emotionally driven
that that’s what probably creates opportunities for us and creates, you know,
where you, Chris disasters as well as the same way, but because we’re
emotionally driven. That’s what being human is. And you will have to let me,
it’s like now it’s like, we want to have the human experience. You don’t want
to have a robotic experience of your life. You want to be human and enjoy all
of that. Like people say, I always want to be happy. I’m like, yeah. But what
happens if a loved one dies to be happy at that moment? No. You want to have
sadness. You have grief go through the experience of, you know, That person
meant a lot to me. And you wouldn’t feel sad about that for that moment and
that’s being human, isn’t it? Yeah. So it’s not about being happy all the time.
It’s about being fulfilled and having the whole human experience. And that’s
why balance is so important, right? Because you want to have the experience of,
okay. I want to have that experience of, I want to climb Kilimanjaro. I want to
have that experience I wanted then also go out and, you know, have a good time
with my friends or I also want to, you know, go out and work very, very hard
and spend long hours maybe working on something that’s meaningful. Probably
Newman.
[00:30:50] Amardeep:
Yeah. Yeah. And it’s exactly a said where you can’t make life perfect. It’s
about how do you find the different bits of your day and try and find joy in
each of those? So it’s not about, I have to, . I think sometimes people have
this idea, isn’t it? That you have to make sacrifices. There’s no pain, no
gain, but why, why do you have to make sacrifices? Why can’t you choose to have
a bit more balance where you maybe don’t achieve as much in certain areas of
your life, but then you’ve got, like you said, where you’re trying to be the
best in your field, but would it be not be better to not be the best in your
field, but then have a, like a happy marriage and happy…
[00:31:26] Imran:
but I think the reason is you, like, you can sacrifice something. I can’t.
Because it doesn’t mean anything to you. Right? That’s the reason people don’t
understand where people who have extreme success. It’s probably cause the other
areas that aren’t meeting. You know, the, the idea of having, you know, going
to the gym and being healthy and fit. It’s probably not that meaningful for
them for them is actually, I want to have extreme success. That’s just, that’s
just the nature of their personality so they can make those sacrifices, whereas
others can’t because they want to have more of a fulfilled, you know, more of a
balanced approach. But you mentioned the point about being grateful
essentially. Right? Having joy is I remember an incident, I think last week
when I first came back from the office or to the, you know, being in the
pandemic, I thought I’d come to London because the office of the. Someone
dropped beer all over my cars, his and coat. And it was a long train journey.
And I just thought, well, I just laughed. I thought, what a day? Right. Coming
back. And this is what happens because I was so grateful for, you know, the
fact that I was able to come. Right. But the pandemic, we weren’t able to go
out, but yeah, because of the vaccinations, because of the programs or the
lockdowns, we’re able to get back now to some sort of normality. So I just
grateful for that. That incident was just funny. You know, otherwise I’d be
stuck at home. Right. So he’s just got to have great gratitude and every day
that you, you know, you’re alive and things are, you know, you’re at least healthy,
right? To an extent because there’s always someone worse off than you in some
way.
[00:32:40] Amardeep:
It’s been great to talk to you, Imran. Where can the listeners hear more from
you?
[00:32:44] Imran:
So on The Money Cog as well, we mentioned where I’m writing as well, and I’m
starting to write a bit more Medium as well. So I’ll be writing a bit more and
committing to Medium on that and YouTube as well with The Money Cog at some
point in the future.
[00:32:54] Amardeep:
My final question is normally what was one thing that brought you joy recently?
But I think you’ve just kind of mentioned that with your parents at, and I
think it’s one of the most important skills you can have in life is being able
to laugh when things go wrong.
[00:33:06] Imran:
Yeah.
[00:33:06] Amardeep:
Especially when they’re not that catastrophic. Right? Like having something on
your trousers, who cares, you can wash them the next day you’ll be fine.
[00:33:12] Imran:
Exactly. Yeah. And then these things just small things in the world of life.
Right. You know, you’ve got to have the bigger picture in mind and you know,
there’s greater stresses in your life. Right. You’ve just got to be grateful
each day. That’s what I am.
[00:33:24] Amardeep:
If
you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, I’d love it If you could leave me a five
star review, it really helps get the message out further. Wherever you’re
listening, it would be awesome If you could subscribe and share in your social
media channels. If you want to see more of my work and advice, you can find all
of the links in the show notes.
Thank you again for listening and I hope you have a lovely
day.
Amar is a coach, podcast host and writer. He helps ambitious people to grow without burning out. His articles have been read millions of times and he’s interviewed founders of companies such as Netflix and Twitter.
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