#031 Entrepreneurship: Taking the leap of faith with Rameez Ansar

5 questions to discuss with your spouse/partner

5 highlights of your life (excluding marriage + kids)

4 challenging times

3 areas you want to see improvement on in the next 10 years

2 things you regret

1 dream/aspiration or idea

Episode Transcript

The transcript is auto generated. There may be errors in transcription.

Hi everyone. Welcome to How to Live, a podcast that explores ways to live a good life. I'm your host, Sharad Lal. This is episode 31.

Today we'll talk about Entrepreneurship, how do we take that leap of faith and how do we thrive as an entrepreneur? To discuss this, we have with us Telco co-founder, Rameez Ansar is the co-founder of Circles Life, one of the most successful companies in Southeast Asia, and a leading one in the telco. Despite a stellar career with the Boston Consulting Group and Temasek with an MBA from Harvard Business School, Rameez took the leap of faith into entrepreneurship back in 2010 when there was limited startup activity in Singapore.

After a few ups and downs, he co-founded Circle's Life in 2014 in an industry that was monopolised by the traditional giants. Today's Circle's life has grown to 16 countries with 800 people spread across Asia, Europe, and the US. It's routinely voted one of the best companies to work in and investors in Circles life include the most prestigious in the world, Sequoia Capital and Warburg Pincus. Recently, there was also news of Peter Thiel's investment vehicle being in discussion with them for a potential multi-billion dollar listing.

 In our conversation, we talk about the initial motivation to take the leap of faith. How does this differ from enduring motivation to thrive? Role of risk and analysis, the inner voice, how to get it to work for you, pure comparisons and other demons, and a lot more.

 This was a special conversation for me. Rameez and I are very close friends, and I've had a bird's eye view of all his success. Those who know Rameez, know he's private and hasn't ever talked about anything personal in the public space.

 But today we go deep and wonder. Rameez, thank you for being open and doing it at the How to Live Podcast.

Before getting to the interview. Thank you for your support. With your support, we are listened to in over 80 countries, over 700 cities, and are ranked in the top 5% in the world.

 If you're new to the podcast, you might enjoy listening to a summary on stoicism in episode six. Stoicism is a philosophy very popular in the Silicon Valley and the entrepreneurial world. Episode six, where we talk about this, is the most listened to episode for the year. Do check it out if you haven't already. Please consider subscribing if you enjoy the podcast, please do give us a rating on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening to this.

 Thank you in advance. Now, here's the interview.

Sharad: Hi, Rameez. Welcome to How to Live. How are you doing this afternoon?

Rameez: Oh, great. It's great to finally be able to make it. Thank you for inviting me.

Sharad: Thank you for making time. Very, Very excited about doing this Rames. You've done so well in life.

You're an inspiration to all of us, right from the corporate world where you did extremely well with BCG and teek, the academic world, Howard Business School, and then of course, as an entrepreneur, you've created this company that so many people look up to. Congratulations on all your success, and very well done. Look forward to digging into all this. Before we do that, Rameez, I'd love to understand before all this success, who was Rameez?

Rameez: Honestly, nobody would believe this, but I was actually an introvert and I think I still am to, to a certain extent. When I was maybe about seven, my parents actually had to go to school to make sure that they could talk to the guy who served us food, that they would serve me food, because I can't speak up.

And, people that know me now probably can recognize that. And I think that's part of who I am because I think deep down, not only as an introvert, but I think it's been a journey of really feeling like I can change myself and do a lot of things. And in everything that I do today, there's a lot of, obviously the ability and need to speak up that's involved.

It took, I don't think it took a few years, it took decades to get me to where I am in terms of the confidence that I've built. Anytime somebody comes to me and says they're not confident, they're shy about speaking up, I tell them the story because, if you can come from that, I think you can do anything.

Sharad: Well done. That's so interesting and I've known you very well, and I can say to people who don't know you. You've more than made up for seven years of not talking too much. And like you said, That's an inspiration to many people. You could start shy, but then you can go out to be this confident person who charms people and gets things done.

Excellent story there. Now, Rameez, many people like you are very interested in taking that leap of faith in becoming an entrepreneur. I'd love to hear from you. When did that thought of becoming an entrepreneur enter you? Was there a moment? Was there a day and what was it like?

Rameez: It's been a long journey, but I do remember the date, when I started this journey and I quit, no matter how many, of course you have thoughts about entrepreneurship for a long time before that, but I remember it was 11th May. It was 2010 when I walked out, literally resigning from the job that I had.

By the way, I was not exactly sure what I will do. And I got out there and I said, look, this is it. This is what I'm gonna do. And I remember walking out of the building, going down and just looking up into the sky and saying, wow, what an amazing moment. And it's almost like, the innocent moment that happens before you go on this rollercoaster.

But it was a great moment and I still remember it today.

Sharad: So you stepped out 11, May, 2010, you stepped out knowing that, hey, I wanna be an entrepreneur. I don't know what I wanna do yet, but step one is quitting the job. What was your mindset then, and what were your plans at that point of time?

Rameez: So I had some idea of what I could potentially do, but I would say that the what was clear, but the how wasn't clear at all but I had also committed to myself that, with leaps of faith like this, you can be half in that's what I told a lot of people who had come before me.

That's what I told myself when I would take on exceptionally challenging projects if you have to go all in. So that was one of the reasons when I look back at myself, it says, if I've been saying this to everyone else, I gotta do the same thing. I gotta jump in head first and figure out the details.

I guess some people wake up with a great idea. I was not one of them. But I had an entrepreneurial itch, as some would call it.

Sharad: I'd love to double click into the entrepreneurial itch you talked about. So why entrepreneurship? Why is it? Why did it appeal to you so much?

Rameez: The answer I would've given 12 years ago would be something like, yeah, of course I have an itch, I always wanna do something, brew myself, et cetera.

 I remember when I was 16 or 17, computers were a new thing. And we had these things where you could assemble all the computers in their boxes. And I was a little bit of a nerd, you know, I put those things together and I even tried to sell it to people for a margin.

So I would like to say that, that would be my answer. Like, I wanted to feel and thrill, the exhilaration of being an entrepreneur, not even knowing what that is, but it was all about that thrill and ride.

 If you're asking this question five years ago, six years ago, maybe I would've gone a little deeper. And I would've said something, maybe it was a little bit more about proving something I don't know who I was proving it to. Maybe it was, the same thing with which I went to these fancy schools that I had to make it to, and just to prove a point that I'm better or doing something. And it's only recently that I've come to really understand the nuances of what drives people.

 I think, it goes back sometimes all the way to, you know, as a third kid, overachieving family middle child syndrome in its full glory. And perhaps there's a little bit of wanting to prove myself within that family. I didn't even, maybe I didn't even care about anyone else.

And I remember early on when I was a kid, my brother was a captain of all sports. Like full stop, like every single volleyball, cricket, hockey. And I would pretty much make it to the teams because I was a brother ofe. And maybe it was my rebellion because I wasn't good at sports.

That, maybe that was my way of saying, look, I'm gonna just succeed and prove everyone wrong in the way that I know it. And perhaps this was the way I know it. And I think to a large extent, this became my initial motivation to do a lot of the adventurous stuff that I've done. A lot of the crazy stuff that I've done from mountain climbing, frankly, to even starting.

And I think this is how deep the motivation runs when you think about doing something crazy. And I think perhaps this was my starting motivation.

Sharad: So you were a family of four siblings and you were number three, and your brother was this guy who was a Star House captain in sports, looked up to, wanted to prove a point to your parents, to society.

 And you realised that going into a company, anyone can do that. But entrepreneurship, taking on something and creating something new and making it big, that is something that is exceptional and that's what I'm gonna focus on.

 So this itch has been the one that's been pushing you towards glory, pushing you towards moving up in life.

 I'd love to understand the various dimensions of this itch. It, of course, propagates you. Is there a dimension where it puts a lot of pressure on you,does that work in that way as well?

Rameez: Taking a leap of faith is the old analogy of the explorers of the day.

I would call entrepreneurs today, those people, imagine in 1500 where people are imagining the world is flat and there's this kid in a small village growing up, and what is the motivation for this kid to go to the city, stand in the middle of this bar and say, you know what?

I'm gonna go on this voyage. It's gonna go on forever. I don't know if it's gonna last three months or six months, or a year or a few years, but you know what? I'm just gonna do it. It's absolutely irrational, and I think it does create pressure, but it comes from so deep inside you because all you can think of is just wanting through that different thing to prove yourself.

 You've decided in your mind that you want to jump, you've done the math, you've done the science, but when you come to the ship where you're about to sail, there is no amount of analysis.

There's nothing you have to do with your deepest motivation from within you that powers you to say, okay, that's it. I'm jumping, I'm residing, I'm walking out. It's the 11th, it's 2020 and I'm walking out. I'm gonna do it right. And I think by nature, the decision is so naive. And I use the word naive with all its connotations because it is a leap of faith.

You don't know where you're gonna fall. But you've got to conjure up this motivation and it's good. I think we should generate it, manufacture it, and put it out there. And it doesn't have to make sense, frankly.

Cause what you're doing is something nonsensical.

Sharad: Absolutely, and I'm glad you talked a little bit about the analysis, that there's a lot of analysis that you might do, which will rarely make sense making a decision like this. And I know you are very analytical, especially with the decisions you've taken in life. So how did you juggle with analysis and how did Nat win over?

Rameez: Yeah, that's a great point. By the way, you know me, right? I am definitely somebody who has thought about planning, thinking long term, et cetera, and fairly strategic when it comes to scenarios. But, that was what I was good at, and I realised that was my big demon, my first demon, that actually not only prevented me from jumping earlier, but also probably was a reason for one of my failures early on, where, for me, when you are taking such a, when you're thinking about entrepreneurship, the first thing in an radical mind is risk and reward.

And what you realise is that, or what I didn't realise before was of course, risk and reward is so inverted in this case. The net present value of decision will always be negative. It does not make any sense. The chances that you will succeed are so small that you're not looking for the probabilistic outcome, you're looking for the asymmetry.

So in all my life, in all my consulting life, private equity, life and backing life, I was trained to think about what could go wrong. And I was good at that. And in that scenario of about to take a leap of faith or into entrepreneurship, I could of course think of 20 things. My strength, my superpower is the one that held me back for as long as it did when the reality that I've come to realise is the question is not what could go wrong.

The question is what if it goes right and how big can it be? Then what can you do? And it's so asymmetric that you have to think about risk and reward in a totally different way, which is actually not natural to people. And by the way, definitely not the natural to high performance typically that you come across in life.

And that was perhaps my first demon that you talked about, that, frankly, even the system that I grew up in and we majority of us grew up in, and the society, they train us to think about probabilities and outcomes in such a different way that whether it be entrepreneurship or any of the leap of faith, we just keep thinking about this leap of faith and are lost in the loop rather than jumping head, foot, heart, whatever into it.

Sharad: That's awesome and interesting, your biggest strength, like you said, the analytical skills. Was the one that was actually holding you back and at some stage you realise that under no circumstance, through that construct will you be able to convince yourself to move forward.

 If it has to be done, there's an itch, go for it and do it. I'm curious and of course one of the things like for you as well as me, we were single when we took that leap of faith and the rock bottom for us wasn't too deep because it was just us. We could of course get ourselves back and go on, but there are many people at different stages of life when they think of entrepreneurship.

So is there any risk or rock bottom they should consider as well? When they think of entrepreneurship?

Rameez: I think, naivety aside, there is an aspect of practicality, which is if there's an extreme situation of personal health, the health of the loved one, I think that those are limiting situations.

But if I think hard about this thing, we're using the analogy of the explorers of the day, getting on the ship and going off far farther into the seas without knowing when you'll reach. But this is not life and death. I think this is gonna take a lot out of you, but this is not life and death.

And I would say that very few things should come in the way. And at least, I can say that for myself and I can say that for a lot of people that talk to me about entrepreneurship.

Sharad: What do people and I know many people talk to you about entrepreneurship, what are the bigger concerns and what do they come up to you with and what do you tell them?

Rameez: It's funny, but a lot of the questions that people ask and the exact same questions I used to ask myself when I hadn't jumped in, and perhaps I still ask myself once in a while. The most common questions are, should I get more experience, or should I start early? Is this economy the right time to start the business? When do I know whether I need to give up or not? When do I know it's the right answer? When do I know it's the right idea? What I always tell people is they're all interesting and they're exactly the kind of analysis paralysis that we end up being in.

Yeah. Do you need to think about these questions? Yes. But there is no answer to these questions. It's about what you want to do. And to me, coming back to the demons I had to deal with is I remember this perhaps six months into my graduation when I was getting a very nice job in bcg.

I had a long debate with a friend of mine who was my peer and was graduating and he wanted to start a company right? Right away. I remember debating like that afternoon with him about the virtues of working in some great consulting company and how we learn the chop of problem solving and consulting and experience and, he'd be better off and blah, blah, blah.

And he was like, no, dude. I don't get you. I should just do what I wanna do. And I remember being so sure about my answers and remember being so confident in my answers. And if you turn back time, he would realise his mistake. That was such bad advice I was giving because the only way to do entrepreneurship is to do entrepreneurship.

The only way to get better is to do, get better. It's like somebody coming to you and saying, Hey, I wanna work out. I wanna get fit. And so should I start doing something in the morning? Should I start waking in the morning because by six months or by the year, I'll start going to gym? No, you start going to the gym tomorrow.

You start tomorrow because what you wanna do is entrepreneurship. You start getting practice at it tomorrow. So those questions are actually part of this leap of faith that people are thinking about. And that's probably the kind of question that holds people back. And the only way to get out of this is, are you gonna be the explorer of the day?

Are you gonna stand up in the middle of that pub? If. In that small town, stand on that, and say, “Hey, I'm going. I don't care what's gonna happen. You know what? I might have to come back, take another shift. This might be my first trip, second trip, third trip.” But you've got to do that.

That's the only way to jump in.

Sharad: We've talked so much about this mindset, that is the most critical component of being an entrepreneur, getting your mindset right. And you've explored it in so many different dimensions, which is gonna be very useful to people. I was wondering, apart from mindset, is there anything else which can also help you towards getting ready to be an entrepreneur?

Rameez: Digging a little deeper into this mindset, you've gotta be a believer. The first thing, the initial motivation may come from you may have a chip off your shoulder, you need to prove something, blah, blah, blah. You're a bit rough on the edges and cause you can't explain it.

But you're just doing what you need to do, proving yourself. But the second part, it has to be about that believer that actually believes in this journey. Because believing in this journey is as important as the first part. And what I mean by believing is, if you go back to our explorers' analogy, here's someone who's now on this boat.

This boat now probably has three months in Russia. Now you're in the world. Guess what? How long is it gonna take you to reach the end of land or the new land that you're gonna find? Nobody has any clue. And you can walk up to the captain, say, “Hey, how long is it gonna take? Is it gonna be three months?

Is it gonna be two months?” Oh, by the way, and you can walk up to the captain, say, “Hey, you know what, oh, I think we finished one month of food. So we have two months of food left.” No, you gotta talk about how we're gonna make it. You're gonna talk about problem solving. So we get there. And if you inherently aren't in the mindset of believing in that journey, right then you can't really survive in the journey.

And that's why I call the don't be the person in the middle. And what that means for me is there's a lot of, going back to the analogy again, there's a lot of people in that village. Some people love the village, they're gonna stay there. Now there, some of them are gonna be the crazy guys who have this initial motivation to jump out of this boat and get on this boat.

But don't be the guy in the middle who's not sure why he is on this journey, right? Who's questioning things along the way? Who's worried about, oh, did he make the right decision? Did he make the wrong decision? Am I gonna reach the end of the world? Am I gonna jump off a cliff? Am I gonna run out of food? I was gonna, something's gonna happen.

You've got to be a believer. And the only way you can be a believer is to be really clear about your why. Now, taking a leap of faith leads to actually figuring out why you are on this journey. Because this journey is perhaps 10 x harder than I thought, right? If you had come to me on 11th of May, 2020, and I asked me how hard this journey would've been, I'd probably give you an answer of 10. It's probably a hundred, but guess what? It's also a hundred times also more meaningful than I thought,

Sharad: So Rameez, there's a lot to unpack in what you said, but I'd like to dig into this part where you talked about that if you talk to Rameez in 2010 you would tell him that the journey is not very crazy. It's a hundred times crazier than you ever think it would be.

But at the same time, you tell him that it is a lot more meaningful. So I'd love to dig into what made that journey a hundred times more meaningful than you ever imagined it to be.

Rameez: Great. In fact, I would double down on this point and say if I knew how hard it was, and I only half joke about this because I'm half serious, if I knew how hard it was, I probably wouldn't have done it. And I think it goes for a lot of people who do a lot of crazy missions and journeys and then, whether it's your crazy project that you've taken on, probably find out in the middle of the night at 2:00 AM how crazy it is.

Or when you're making up in the middle of the night with sweat and tears, then you find out how hard it is. The meaning point is this physically, whether your why is clear or you're not as clear physically, it's probably equally painful, much like going on a ship.

Into the ocean. Not knowing where you're gonna land is probably physically the same for the person in the middle and for the same, for the person who really believes in this journey and believes that it'll find land. The difference is the meaning that when you are going through those tough times, you at least appreciate and understand that you're doing this for a reason, which is so much more than you.

And for me, meaning comes from eventually things that you see that you have impacted beyond you. As an example, somebody that worked with one of the parents passed away in a very tough situation. Suddenly she grew up to take care of the family, and everyone turned to her but in her twenties. Woman was able to take care of her entire family, even when the father passed away.

And when she walked up to me and said, look, you know what? I feel like I could take control of this thing. I feel like I was a better leader. I feel like I could actually do this because of the training or the learning and the experience I had while being in this company. That's amazing, meaning, right?

And that's just an example of the meaning that can come to you from these journeys and when it's about impact, hearing from a customer, the impact that you've created, people come to me and sometimes say, “Hey, you know what guys, before you came into the Singapore market, it was so bad.”

People used to complain about things. Now nobody complains about things. You guys have really changed. And nobody thought that was possible. And that's meaning that's like impacting millions of people, right? And it's the industry impact and the people impact and the customer impact, that eventually forms a big part of that meaning because, that is the only reason a hundred x harder journey or a journey through the oceans or, the leap of faith through entrepreneurship would make sense.

And that's why it's so linked with, what is your motivation? What is the driving force? And I have to, this idea of enduring motivation is something we should dig into more because, to give credit this word enduring motivation is actually, a word that a partner by combinator uses.

And it just stuck to me because I was trying to describe what I was feeling, but I thought that was so well described.

Sharad: Sure. And we'll dig deeper into this. What I'm getting out of this is so powerful where you're saying you've created this company, and within that culture, there are people who have grown substantially, like the girl you mentioned who in her twenties is able to take leadership of her family and see them ahead. And she didn't have that skill set and that confidence before, but that's something you and your company have done and created that is meaningful to you, which is bigger than yourself.

Sharad: Before we wrap up the first section, of course, we're focusing on taking the leap. The second is we talk about thriving. But before we wrap it up, is there any challenge or advice you'd love to give to people listening on how to take that leap of faith?

Rameez: I would just say think about who you're gonna do it with. And the who is not just your co-founder, but also the early people you're gonna sign up, all because they make all the difference. And if you could spend more time thinking about those people, I would encourage that there is no, because it always just exponentially grows from there.

The standards, the quality, the values you set at the start, they're very hard to change. They need to be believers too. And they're different kinds of believers and they don't have to be entrepreneurs. They don't have to be the one taking, all of the decisions and everything. But your early people need to be believers. And if you don't have those believers around you, every day is gonna be hard.

Every day you are gonna be the captain of the ship and somebody's gonna come to you and tell you how much food is left, rather than telling you how to find fish in the ocean. Let's get creative, let's get innovative. You need people who can think. And what I mean by thinking is not just smart people, it's not about being smart.

It's about can you understand a problem? Can you break it down to its first principles? Can you at least not assume anything is true? And start questioning the basic principles of why certain things are done. And that first principle, thinking when you're building up something from scratch is very important.

Much again, a high analogy when you're going out doing something for the first time, if you just assume that everything that is about sailing is true, you're probably not gonna make it right. You'll probably have to improvise a lot. And you have to think a lot. And this is the final one. They need to have that chip off the shoulder tool, they need to have the hunger, the desire to mimic exactly why they're here. Because this journey is gonna be fun, it's gonna be adventurous, but it's also gonna be hard.

 One thing, if I have to go back and say to myself more probably is that again, if I could go back to that day, and despite all of that has happened, I would've just told myself to jump higher and faster and earlier.

And I'd say because that's the only way to get into it. Cause there's no other way. Don't be halfhearted about it. Just go deep.

Sharad: Love that. Higher, faster, earlier. So you'd even double down, maybe triple down on what you were doing earlier if you had to do it again. The theme of it all is very strong, cool. So we'll move on to the next part,

 As we focus on how to thrive as an entrepreneur, I'd love to know what skills within you made you succeed.

Rameez: Once again, if you had asked me this question five years ago, I'd have a different answer. And every time I say this, I think about what I'm saying now is probably gonna be a limited five. So I'm very humbled by reality,

Sharad: We'll do an interview five years from now as well and compare,

Rameez: That's a great idea. Actually. We should all do interviews to ourselves every five years and see what we've learned. But I would say, my early answer would've been things around perseverance. Also, as we talked about getting the right team, having skill sets being clear of the idea. The reality is that, what I've come to realise is the single biggest thing about thriving in entrepreneurship is about you, and it's about conquering your demons. The demons are about you and who you are. They're about, how aware are you of yourself? For example, my demon that I didn't even realise that existed deep down within me was a spear peering. How severely driven by competition.

Certain people of certain elk that come from our part of the world, they've been trained in groomers like your uncle Scooter is doing so well all the way, wanting to be the best university, the best things. I was hell bent and saw how well I was doing, comparing myself to someone else, and that was a horrible thing.

In the darkest days, it's not how hard it is. It's how your mind is playing tricks with you and telling you, oh, you know what? You have failed. So the day when you need your strongest motivation is the day when you need your system to be the best is the day you're thinking you failed. And where does failure come from? Of course it comes from the relative comparison of who you knew as your peers said.

And then you start to think about, oh yeah, look at that guy who didn't take on this journey. They're doing so well because they're getting a regular salary. At least they didn't miss weekends. Taking a vacation every year, what have I done with myself?

Life clearly is unfair because I tried so hard, worked so hard, gave it my best.

It's all this peering thing that is built into our system, through our peers, through whatever that in your darkest days, you're driven by this peering. There's a moment in time, of course you think you've evolved, and I thought I was done with this.

I thought I could, I stopped caring, went to the best schools, and went to this thing. And I was like, look, I'm going into entrepreneurship, doing my thing. I'm a man of my own. I don't care. Guess what? I cared. I gave a shit. I gave a lot of shit. I was measuring inside my head. And you know what?

When I jumped again on that fateful day in 2010, I had given myself two years. And so two years from that, when that one year passed, not even two years, my countdown timer had started. I was like, now I'm halfway down the road. And of course, in two years I'll be the greatest, most successful person that I know because in my peer group, I made this great, brave decision.

I'm gonna beat the shit out of everyone. Guess what? That timer messed me up because then I'm just panicking, frantically worried about how successful I will be rather than doing what I need to do, rather than understanding how long it takes. And rather than appreciating, the entrepreneurial journey does not go in a straight line.

You go through peaks and lows, and every time I would go through a low, I'm thinking, oh my God, this is one year to go, oh my God, now it's nine months to go. And I think it took me a long while to recognize that one of the single biggest reasons my first venture failed or was not as successful as I wanted to be was I couldn't get outta peering.

And frankly, it was only when it did not succeed. And then I had another failure right after that, and I absolutely, not only the failure of the account of, I didn't become successful, lost a lot of money. In fact I had to sell my car and get into a negative world. And I, that's when I started to realise, actually the only way out of this was to break the pairing.

And the only way I broke my pairing was not that I convinced myself peering is bad, it was because I was so broken. I was so lost in that race that it didn't matter. And that's how I broke my peering. And that's what started my journey to finally at least telling myself, you know what?

It doesn't matter because you've lost so far. Now, can you please focus the business? Now can you focus on business building? I have this great chart I show to people and I, this is a chart about excitement and time. So the y axis is excitement and you know what the x axis is time. And when you first start off, the first day you announce entrepreneurship, of course you are the most exciting person in the world, but it is a straight curve down. Very few people go up. And the funny thing is just when the curve is going down and you are one year, two years into a journey, you have not hit the product market fit, you've lost half the team you hired.

It took you one year to hire the team. One day I woke up in the morning, half the team resigned, and for whatever reason, but you're not sitting by yourself. You've lost money. You know you're running outta money so your curve is at the steepest towards the bottom. You finally hit the baseline and you're going into negative and you think. That you would get support from the world.

Guess what? From the closest orders of your world, you get questions from your family, “Hey, are you still doing that thing?” The same guys that were super excited about you leaving your job, said, “Hey, what a brave decision Rameez. Oh my God, you quit this high paying job. Awesome man, I wish I was you. I wish I could do this.”

Same person will come from the woodworks, “ Hey, how are you doing? It looks a little tough, doesn't it?” Of course it's tough. It's brutal. It's, you won't even imagine how tough it is. And of course it goes on for a little longer than they see you failing and they see you not hitting product market fit.

 And then eventually one day they come to you with a job. “Hey, this guy's hiring. Are you still doing that thing?” This is where I need my peak of motivation and you're telling me what I wanna look for another job. These are the days when you are a demon.

Like peering is at its worst. They're like, oh my God, maybe I do need a job. And of course the funny thing is, you persevere and you make it to the other side. You become successful. And you can mention the newspaper.

Same person comes out and says, I always knew you were gonna be successful. I always knew. I was like, you did not know that. In fact, the toughest day you came to me and offered me a job. And it's these, this is the journey, and this is the journey where your innermost demons for me was this peering thing.

Come out to you and haunt you and make it so hard for you to succeed.

Sharad: Firstly, Rameez, thank you very much for such a vulnerable, deep answer. That came from the heart, I'm sure everyone listening will be able to identify with what you spoke about, like how peer pressure can get you down and get your energy down.

Now, if this is a demon that brings you down, what lifts you up, what takes you forward? Would love to hear you talk about it.

Rameez: That's a great way to put it because I think the first part is about conquering your demons. I think eventually I realised that in order to go through this journey, you've got to build meaning. And that meaning is not something that comes, or at least came to me when I woke up in the middle of the night and it said, “Hey, Eureka moment.”

Now I know what I wanna do. And I think there are a few lucky people who get to that moment, but for the rest of us I think it's something that's manufactured,

and to me, while I don't know the perfect answer, how to manufacture and mitigate it, I think it's a lot of reflection and it's something that you will find unknown.

What I have come to realise is it is not an enduring motivation unless it's long term, unless it's outside of you. It's not about you. It's, you think about this is your why, right? So this is the fifth level. The first reason is that I want to eat food because I'm hungry.

The second level, why is, oh, I wanna do something nice for myself, buy myself a nice car. Third one is, look, I'll buy someone else a nice car, right? Then you go into deeper motivation. Say, no, I wanna make this person successful. No, I wanna change in industry. No, even if my name doesn't come out, it doesn't matter because as long as I have made an impact on a larger picture that is much bigger than who I am, that is what it is.

 That is the enduring motivation that can get you through a tough journey and the tougher journey, guess what? The deeper, the more you know, the more enduring the motivation needs to be. For example, at Circles, we don't talk about a five year plan. Of course we talk about it, but we don't start with a five year plan. We talk about a 30 year journey, and it's 30 years for a particular reason, because it's gonna be beyond the founders. Yeah. Maybe I'll be worthy enough to be part of that, but actually it's beyond us.

 This makes you work through those dark days. In fact, on the darkest days, you still can raise your head high and say, that is why I'm doing this. That is why it's hard. And you can look at your colleagues and they'll understand it. And then you can be talk to people and they'll want to join your journey because it's meaningful,

Sharad: Love that. Love that. The enduring motivation, as you've talked about the darkest phases, is what's gonna propel you. And I found it very interesting. Lot of us have loved Simon Sinek where he says, start with why. And what I found interesting was how you spoke about it. Why is it not something that falls from the sky. But it is something you can manufacture and create. And you said that you don't have all the answers in it, but you've some thoughts that it has to be beyond yourself.

 It has to be the fifth why. Let's explore for people who are trying to manufacture this why, what are other ways in which we can get to a deeper why for ourselves?

Rameez: Think about the idea of structured learning, you can go to the golf course for those people who play golf and maybe go to the driving range and just disclaimer, I don't play golf very well, as we talked about, I don't do sports rather

Sharad: And your brother plays it.

Rameez: Yes, indeed. Clearly you don't have to ask that question. Yeah. But if you go to the driving range and you hit a hundred balls and you don't think much about them you'll get pretty good at it after a hundred balls even if you've never played golf. But imagine if you took a hundred balls and split them by 10 each and after 10 balls each, you sat down and thought about it. Maybe the coach might be the friend and talk about, “Hey, what did I do right here?

What did I do wrong here?” And then, how about I hit it this way? How about I hit it this way? I bet. And definitely for even someone like me, my hundred ball after structured reflection and structured learning is much better than if I was just hitting a hundred balls.

Sharad: I look at it as two ways that you're reflecting. One is of course, learning skills, learning strategy, seeing what's happening and making changes. And the second is a deeper reflection about learning about yourself. What's lighting you up, what's exciting you, what's driving you.

Through that knowledge of self-awareness, that's how you build a sense of what really motivates you through dark times.

Now, for people who don't know you You are the most remarkable energy among anyone that I know. And If I ask you what are the top shows you watched, all the top shows, you know which ones to watch.

If I ask you about a business problem, you read all the articles and know what to do. If I ask you about a podcast, you watch that. You have a tremendous capacity to do many things and you have a huge amount of energy so how do you get this energy and how do you keep getting yourself in the best energy to be able to manage so many things?

Rameez: Thanks for saying that, because I really do believe it's important. And I have this. I'm sure you've heard of this guy called Naval Ravikant. He's an AngelList co-founder. Something he said really also resonated with me.

People talk about finding happiness and being successful and all that and if you find meaning you're successful. What he said was really interesting, one is happiness is not a condition. Happy is what you want to be. And if you are happy, you will achieve success.

Happiness is not an end outcome. It's something you manufacture and create and you choose to be in. So I think it starts with that actually, I want to be high energy because I think that's an important element.

That's the choice I want to make. It's super hard, by the way, and it may look like, and I'm full of energy all the time, but I've got my low moments. But it starts with the realisation that energy is an input and it's an input in your control, and that's who I want to be.

 It's understanding, for example, that, when I used to run a lot at, I don't run a lot more. My favourite moment in running is not at the peak, but just right after that when you've done such a fantastic job running.

And your body is going to release that. That is the moment of highest energy for me. That's where my greatest ideas come. That's such a specific thing for me, but I chose first to make it an important thing.

And that understanding what are the things that cause me to be high energy? Sometimes just taking a walk if you come here and see my desk, I have five cups of half drunk tea, half empty, half full. And people just don't get it. And I apologise cuz that's a lot of waste, but, I just walk to the closest shop and I have to walk and I have to get tea, and I have to sip it,

And that's my energy drive that gives me clarity of mind.

 And that's the beauty again of saying this is the kind of unintended consequences.

Sharad: Absolutely. So would love to hear you just talk about some of these unintended consequences that have become you now, which are available to your personal life friends everywhere

Rameez: The first thing you get used to is you can wake up in the morning and imagine a world where you have huge problems, some human resource problems, some business problems, some running out of problems. Imagine if you wake up every day for years doing that. I'd like to think that you get a little bit used to being able to be resilient in the face of top problems.

So the ability to look into a problem and just say, you know what?

It's okay. We'll figure out a way to solve it. The world is not going to end. Going back to I don't think I have that skill, like I was an introverted, shy kid that would probably freak out, not understand the problem very quickly and then freak out much harder.

Sharad: That is so beautifully put, taking the leap of faith, making things happen, whatever problem life throws at you, the resilience at such a level that you can handle it very easily. One of the other things that I've seen as an outsider with you, with the confidence that you built in making it is.

Thinking big and operating at a completely different level versus what many of us are where if there's anything to do with not only work with life with, let's say you like an artist somewhere you think big that, Hey, I can get in touch with the artist and make him that much bigger. Or I can bring this one here and do these things.

Things which we would never think of now having had success. The mindset with which you look at the world, the mindset with which you look at possibility and what you can do, I think has gone to a completely different level. So I'd love to hear whether you're conscious of that and what do you think about that?

Rameez: I have to give credit to people who are part of the journey together because we have this rule where, if one of us has a greater idea, we have to listen to it. You have tuned out. The natural reaction is, oh, this is too practical, too unrealistic. And it's such a phenomenal idea and much like anything else in life, if you practise how to live that, you get better at seeing the angles. continuously taking every angle and saying, okay, what is the biggest idea here? How can you make this a little bit bigger?

Can sound annoying. It can sound hard. But for that moment, when you are having that chat, for that moment, start with the greatest idea.

Getting to a point where holistically when someone does come up with an idea, why not think of the biggest thing?

Why not pick up the phone and call this person? Oh, the person said it's busy. Why not call three times again? Okay, three times a no, why don't we call one four times? It's never ending. Sounds crazy. But it's that kind of thing that starts you to see, oh, fourth time is the time it actually works.

And that gives you confidence and it gives you amazing ideas. And the next time you're thinking about something else, You bring the same mindset to it?

Sharad: Wow, that's very motivating for people to hear.

 If you were to go back to the will you came from, you were to talk to people, what is the one advice or challenge you would give them with regard to entrepreneurship in life?

Rameez: I don't know. Maybe I'll say something as simple as, you know what? If you don't like the waters, don't go to that chip.

As that, because that's not gonna give you meaning. So find what you like, but honestly, at least don't do the things you clearly know that aren't for you.

 One of the other things I realised through this journey as I was dealing with the demons and figuring out my enduring motivation.

 This gave rise to really, truly knowing yourself, and when I say truly knowing yourself is finally hearing your inner voice, finally understanding what you really want. Finally, understand that you have the confidence to imagine it, rather than be worried about the friend who gives you this LinkedIn job, oh, you must be struggling with entrepreneurship.

Why don't you do this? What do you, how do you react? How do you isolate the noise? How do you isolate what your parents say sometimes out of concern for you? Since it's so tough as a journey, especially if they're not on entrepreneurship themselves. It's like how do you isolate that and really, truly fight the demons?

Understand that enduring motivation, the enduring why? What is it that you are saying that inner a. It's such an important element of going through this journey. So that's the other thing I would say to people is, knowing your inner voice will probably lead you from the village to the city bar and onto the chip faster than anyone else.

Sharad: If I understand right, that inner voice has that enduring motivation, which is propelling you. The inner voice can also go crazy. We all know that the chatter can come from the inner voice, “Hey, am I good enough? Am I doing the right thing?” The inner voice can also go in the direction of comparisons, like you said, but it's the discipline to have that enduring motivation to get the inner voice on track.

Rameez: I think that's true. And maybe the authentic inner voice. Maybe if you coined a very complicated word today. Because I think the peering wise is your demon. I don't think that's your true inner voice. I think your inner voice, it's almost this is, I'm gonna steal very badly from a movie and I'll let you guys guess where this movie is.

 You know, in a way, what tells you when you flip a coin and what you want it to fall on. You roughly know the direction and you don't know the details. You don't know, but you roughly know what you're worried about. You roughly know what you're getting at. But I think the system has created so much noise.

Your demons are ruffling around, things are happening. It's a stressful environment. Your low energy, how do you build your inner voice to help you guide these journeys is I think it's just an important realisation. It's something that we can all work on.

Sharad: Is there anything that's been useful to you in building this inner voice?

Rameez: Many people think about it differently, but for me actually articulating it, given that, probably a lot is jumbled up in my head, I think being able to write it and talk about it makes sense of, it really helps you in that journey, doesn't make sense or not, and then getting some good reflection from people, whether it's coaches, whether it's your process, friends, to understanding that thing, because sometimes you have a lot of thoughts in your mind, and when you say it, when you actually say it, the idea, the act of vocalisation makes you finally realise what it sounds like.

 And It's almost like you're talking to a friend and you're saying it, and you don't even have to wait for your friend's response.

Sharad: And without the friend saying anything, you'll say Thank you for coaching.

Rameez: Yes. That's sometimes the best coaches because they get tuned into the zone of really finding yourself.

Sharad: It's of course very vulnerable, right? It's half formed and vulnerable. Who are the kind of people you'd open up with your inner voice to?

Rameez: I'm figuring that out by the way. It's not been an easy journey for an introvert. And also, so imagine the worst combination of an introvert and a combination of somebody who feels peering is there. It means I'm being judged all the time. It's the worst thing you can do because I'm already lacking, I have lack of confidence in what I'm projecting, and then I'm worried about peering when I look good.

 So for the longest time up until my thirties, I don't think I could even be vulnerable about anything. I just couldn't. And until I broke down completely, I think it's when I got comfortable with it. So I would say that I'm very early, probably like a three hour pretend journey of actually doing what you said.

 And I think what I've found is, I don't have the perfect answers for this, but I've, combination of things, whether it's really speaking to old friends sometimes I found that to be a very valuable thing because this judgement is such an important thing in my mind that it's still stuck speaking of my demon again.

But I need to feel really comfortable that they will not judge me. And that's why I think coaches play a great role in that. I have gotten comfortable enough and we should explore all things. I think I'm a big fan of therapy. I'm a big fan of personal coaching.

 I think all these things, at least for the novice in me, allow me to be in an environment where I can truly say things without the word, the worry of judging. And guess what? I'm still feeling judged. Because even when I'm telling myself the story as an editor, I would say I'm probably learning and I probably could do with some advice and how do I actually accelerate this journey?

Sharad: In the conversations I've had with many people, it's like you said, people who are not in your circle, who are not pairing, who you're not competing with, who are outside, that people feel very comfortable because there's no judgement there. They know you for other reasons. So I think that's great to hear.

 And I'm also curious on how much you judge yourself and how much does that come into?

Rameez: Yes, spot on. I think this is probably a lot more than I would like, and I think this good kind of judging that, of course, there's this famous thing everyone likes to say is oh, I'm too hard on myself. Of course you work too hard. I'm not talking about the valiant kind of that thing.

And of course we should judge ourselves to a higher professional standard and outcome inhibition and all that thing. But I think just getting the balance right is important at that point. And again, knowing yourself. Are you someone who accentuates anyway because of being judged and then I'm more judging myself and therefore I'm more thinking and therefore I'm like doing this thing.

You just gotta know yourself and just take the dial down a little bit when you need to. Because I think judging yourself obviously is a good idea in some cases, but in some cases is horrible. To continuously judge yourself because you're never, you're always in the overthinking, analytical mode.

And that is why at least I definitely enjoy switching off. That's what I can tell you.

Sharad: Thank you for being so very honest on some very, Touchy important topics that need to be spoken about in an authentic way.

 Before we move on to something a little bit more fun, let me just check in. Is there anything else that you think we should talk about?

Rameez: No, I'm good. I was very happy that I could. I'm very thankful to you too, for bringing out all these ideas because, for someone who isn't open and sharing and being vulnerable.

Sharad: Man. You've done phenomenally well. Like people who also know you well, by the way, are gonna get so much out of it. I'm not even talking about people who don't know you. They're gonna get tremendously out of it. I think that's wonderful. But I'll just change gears before we end into just something light

Who's your favourite movie or TV

Rameez: Oh, pulse fiction.

Sharad: Pulse Fiction. Who? Who? Who, which? Who in Pulse Fiction.

Rameez: Oh, that's hard. You can do too. No, that's, you can't make me choose. I love them both.

Sharad: Okay. Let's stay with Pulse Fiction. That's fine. Your best one hour spent with your wife, Minsu.

Rameez: I think there was a plane coming from Chris to Turkey. I remember this is interesting because actually your coach helped me think of some of the questions that we were discussing, literally three questions and we took one and a half day to discuss them and like through breaks and through dinner, and we took a break and a pause and everything was happening.

But these are some of the best conversations that I've had. It's funny because you think you'd know home, but like actually those deep conversations reveal so much about ourselves to each other that I was shocked that I was like, somebody I do so well.

And I just, that understanding too is deep and those questions are amazing and I'd love to put those questions to your list. If you’re interested, I'll give credit to the person, the coach, that sent me those.

Sharad: Absolutely. You shared those questions with me and we'll put her in the show notes. Those are simple, but deep would love to comment on that. It's wonderful to hear that the best time you spent with your wife is on a plane. You don't need to be in a fancy place or anything in a plane.

Having this deep heart to heart connection. Wonderful to hear. There's this one question I ask everyone before we go and would love to get your answer. At the end of your life, how would you know you've lived a good life?

Rameez: That's a question I've recently thought about a lot, and I don't know what a good answer is yet, and I'm in the journey, but I, the one, I have my placeholder, and I'm sure it'll evolve as I think just good friends and people that love you and that's it.

Sharad: Interestingly, most people's answers are in that land, whether they call it relationships, whether they call it love, whether they call meaningful depth with people, everyone's answer is in that land. So that's great to hear.

Rameez: Oh, fantastic. I've left you with more questions and answers.

Sharad: Absolutely, man. Thank you very much for being so honest and open. I've known you extremely well for the last maybe 15 years, and there are so many things in there that I didn't know about, which I've got to know, which I'd love to dig deeper when we meet.

 But I'm grateful and happy that you did this.

And thank you very much for this ram.

Rameez: No, thank you very much. It's been a pleasure and thank you very much for helping me learn today as well. I learned a few things about myself, so thank you and it's a pleasure.

 Thank you Rameez, for such an honest, open discussion. Sharing your raw journey as you did today, will certainly inspire many others on this. One of the things that stood out for me, and there's a lot that stood out, was the concept of initial motivation, which allows us to take that leap of faith and enduring motivation that gets us through the darkest hours.

 I feel this is not only relevant to entrepreneurs, but to almost anyone taking a leap of faith.

 As we approach the holiday season, here are two areas we could reflect on. If you are thinking of taking the leap of faith, whether entrepreneurship or anything else, let's reflect on where the itch is coming from.

 In Rameez's case, it was being the middle child and the need to prove himself to the world. What's it for you? At the deepest level, these itches can come from the need to be seen. Maybe that was Rameez or the need to be loved or the need to belong or something in this realm. Drilling it down to this level can help the thinking.

 For folks already in the journey, maybe you could reflect on the enduring motivation that'll help you thrive. A good way to do that is to find your fifth why. There's a lot of literature on the fifth why on the internet, but it's basically asking yourself why five times and seeing what emerges. Take some time for these exercises. This will be very useful as you take on 2023. Wish you all the best. If you enjoyed this episode, you could also listen to episode six where we talk about stoicism, a philosophy entrepreneurs are drawn to. That's it for today's episode. I hope you enjoyed it. Wish you a Merry Christmas and happy holidays. We will be back in the new year on January 3rd for the next. Hope you join us for that. Till next time, have a wonderful day ahead. Bye-bye.