Ankur Warikoo on People Living a Fake Life, Societal Pressure & Staying Poor | FO495 Raj Shamani

India has a big dream to become a startup founder, to become a millionaire, to become a billionaire.

Why do people want what they want? It's a beautiful quote. I am not what I think I am. I am not what you think I am. I am what I think you think I am. That's my identity.

And I work to fulfill that identity. Our today's guest is Ankur Wariku. An entrepreneur, best-selling author and one of India's most influential content creators. A lot of people today, because they don't want to bear any inconvenience, they switch very quickly. It's a very, very, very big problem and the root cause of this problem is parents.

Parents protected their children. An entire generation doesn't know what their sweat tastes like. So you do what is the basic human temperament.

Run away.

Through his books, content and honest takes on failure, money and relationships, he's helped millions rethink how they approach life and work. This conversation is for anyone serious about growing in their career. A philosopher once said, What does a slave want? Everyone thinks it's freedom. But in reality, a slave wants another slave. anyone serious about growing in their career? and they want that job. Because then they will fight each other and whoever wins will get another job

and the company will keep growing. 5 years ago, people didn't go to work. But it was done because the industrial revolution came and people needed it. And people didn't want to work. So a concept was born to teach them.

And at the end of the year, there was a test. The smartest people in that test will get the best jobs. And that will be their drug. So we will give them money. They will spend that money. Then we will give them the money that they will get later.

Which we will call a loan. So they will get stuck in that. This was a 200-300 year journey. Now we are slowly going back to that era But you have to do something Then how will we move forward?

That's a great question

We move forward when All your work depends on the audio. And if you give up tech in a virtual meeting, it gets really stressful. What if there is some background noise or the video is not clear? Then focus goes to distractions. That's why ASUS ExpertBook P-Series matters.

Their two-way AI noise cancellation and AI camera ensure that the video quality and audio are always consistent without any background noise. And the best part is, it's on-device meeting assistant which helps in transcription and creating summaries.

But, only features are not enough. Support system is more important than that. Their comprehensive support is available from Monday to Saturday 9am to 9pm. Their on-site service presence is up to 15,500 plus pin codes and 80 countries have global warranty. Which means, whether you are working while travelling or working from home,

you are always backed up. To know more about the ASUS ExpertBook P Series available on Flipkart, check out the link in the description.

My money is in part US market, part India market, part startups.

That's... So if you have put your money in the US market, if it's overvalued then... Because I'm sure you haven't taken a small cap in the US market. No, no. I invest in technology startups only. And the big ones. So my regular investments just keep happening. I invest in mutual funds only.

I don't buy direct stocks in India. I invest in ETFs in the US. I don't buy direct stocks there. Except for one. I am bullish on that. Which one?

Tesla. So that's the only one that I think. Even today you're bullish? Oh yeah, absolutely. 100%. Tesla is going to be a $10 trillion company.

Absolutely.

Why?

Because between, now it will happen with SpaceX too, but between EVs, robots and space, they will just create unprecedented wealth driven by the fact that they'll make virtually everything commoditized and go to zero. So the same thing that Elon says, nobody will have to plan for retirement because there'll

be enough and more money. I'm in the same school. I think that there is going to be a time not too far away in the future, let's say, I don't know, two or three decades, perhaps even sooner, where people will not have to work. There will be enough and more money distributed to everybody to do whatever they want to do, pursue whatever interest they want. They will be watching, figuring out and infinitum, they will be creating their

own content, they'll be gardening, they'll be pursuing this. Nobody has to go to work, nobody has to travel. We need to sit down on this thought. You are saying that everyone will have money, everyone will earn. What was that thought? Universal basic income you feel? So, universal basic income is an attribute to that because it becomes the easiest way to understand this. I don't know what the mechanism will be because to implement UBI,

political will is very strong. Which may not be so easy in a democracy. But I don't know what the manifestation of UBI will be. But what will essentially happen is that, I feel that there are some companies that will provide services at an extraordinary level,

at costs that are unheard of, near zero. And they will be sitting on the biggest corpuses that can be generated. Which is why I say, and this is my sense, that a company like Tresla could easily be a 10 trillion dollar company, perhaps even more. Because it is genuinely creating value. Now through taxes, through subsidies, through grants, through CSR, through whatever it is, they will generate an income into the system. But they will not need as many people as we need today. So, imagine the way that it happens right

now and this is a very crude example and I could be very far away from how it happens. A company says, we want to open a manufacturing city here. We know that it will cause some destruction, ecological destruction, social destruction, etc. But we are ready to pay for it. So we will develop this whole manufacturing city very well. We will open schools, hospitals, we will open old age homes,

we will open creches, jobs will be incredible, we will give good pay packages, we will make such infrastructure that people will feel that, okay, there is development, yes, something has happened here and there,

but long term I think it's a net positive. And now extrapolate that to how the world will be. Some companies will say that we know that something will break, something will break, something will rise. But we will take good care of people. We will give them good services. We will do what they want to do We will provide them with good services. We will do whatever they want to do.

Just allow us to do this. Everyone will have jobs, but I personally feel that they will be optional. How will people make money? Money, we won't make it ourselves. Okay, so the concept of making money is a very new concept. If you really think about it, like we...

In civilization history. Yes, in civilization history, if you have read the book Sapiens or you have tracked it, then a lot of the things that we take for granted are very new. Like I was reading yesterday that the concept of breakfast is so new.

Because breakfast is not a mandatory meal. Like today we are told the most important meal of the day, don't ever skip breakfast, etc. It's all marketing gimmicks to promote a certain brand, whether it's cornflakes or pancakes. But a person, let's say 400, 500 years ago, used to eat when he was hungry. Now, a big person can eat three times.

A small person will eat once. Some people will eat once in two days. But they will eat only when they are hungry. And they used to get food. Either they broke it from the tree or make it ourselves. Now the same way, many years ago, people didn't go to work. There was no work.

There was no office. There was no concept of showing up at some place. But it was done because, of course, the Industrial Revolution came, people needed it. Now people needed it. And people, let's say, don't want to work. So then a concept was made with a concept to teach them.

Because by teaching them, they will get respect in the society. But teaching them should work for us. So we will put a lot of kids in a class. We will tell them that you will start on the same day, you will end on the same day. All the kids will study the same thing.

Whether you are smart or you are an idiot. And at the end of the year, there will be a test. The smartest people in that test will get the best jobs. We will tell them in the factories that you will make the tires, you will make the steering wheel, you will take care of the steam, and they will become tire experts. VP of tires, VP of steering wheel, VP of steam, VP of color paint, whatever. And that will be their drug. So we will give them

money. They will spend that money more. Then the money that they will get later, we will give them today. We will call it a loan. We will put an interest on that loan. They will get stuck with that interest because if they leave the job, then the money that they have to pay for years, where will they pay it from? They will get stuck with that.

So if you really think about it, and I am not being nihilistic about it or pessimistic, if you really go into the history of how civilization has functioned and changed, you will see that there has been a very strong reason that why and how things happened.

Game bank. So, I don't know if you've ever asked, because I hope you don't at the age of 28 ask this, why do people go to work? Like, why are there 75 people here? They are getting a salary.

You are doing this out of your passion. But there are many people who are servants. They are stuck. Like they don't want to do this. They would much rather spend time with their kids, with their family, with their ailing mom or parents back in their villages, what not. But they're doing it because of money.

Money, money, money. Now if they get this money, where their needs are fulfilled, where they get education, then the only thing that I personally feel every human will always want is purpose.

One reason for which I get up every morning, that reason is very important. But that reason cannot work for everyone. But it does work today. Today, the biggest reason why people get up, whenever they get up, is their work. It is not that I have to go to the gym.

It is not that I have to spend time with my kids. It is not that I will meet my friends today. It is not that I will make something new. It is not that I will launch an app by wipe-coding today. It is that I have to go to work. Because if I don't go to work, I will be fired. If I am fired, I won't be able to pay EMI.

If I won't be able to pay E humans should live or should have ever lived. So, I feel that a 200-300 year old churn has come. Now, slowly we are going back to that era where, hopefully, the amount of filth we have created in the world for 200-300 years will reduce. And people will go back to the old days, when they wake up in the morning and Raj is gardening,

Ankur is playing tennis, you will do a podcast, you will upload it. But, you don't need to earn money from it. Because everything is is near zero. Or if you are really doing something which is so good that the world wants,

you will automatically earn money from it. But you don't have to do anything by force. So how will we move forward? That's a great question. We move forward when some people with passion work. People who will always be there.

They don't care. They don't care. If the richest person in the world can work in an office like a dog, then the only explanation for this is that some people will always move this world forward. And we don't need to find those people. They become themselves.

For whatever reason, be it childhood trauma or a sense of purpose. But to drive them, we don't need money. We don't need a reason to drive them. They are those people who wake up without a reason, spend their time and live their life in a way that can never be explained by common logic or common sense. I feel so. I really feel so.

And that will generally drive. I personally feel that the nature of a human being is to solve problems. And if we get time, if we have that capability, and if we don't have any pressure, then every human being will pick up a meaningful problem of his own and solve it. That's it. The world is progressing. It's going to progress.

We will go to Mars. We will travel space. We will solve all diseases, we will fix everything that needs to be fixed. But it doesn't need to come in the form of forced labor.

Interesting. This is…

How many people will listen to this and abuse? They will be like, what nonsense are you talking? But I don't know. What is this nonsense? What is happening? What is happening? I don't know. I don't know if I agree with this or not. But there is some truth and logic to this. For real.

Like there is some logic to it and there is some truth to it. I don't know. Maybe I am not that person who is able to understand this at this point. But I get the logic. I get what you're trying to say and it makes sense. So, let's say, I mean, you've opened a door for me. I'm not convinced yet.

No, no, that's fine. My job is not, certainly not to convince you. I'm just relaying what I think of and I actively think of this. This is my, like there were three types of comments. So, one type of audience would be that he's right. Ankur is saying he's visionary, he's able to see it, think it.

One type of audience would be that it's all nonsense.

Nonsense.

What is this nonsense, it's a privileged thing.

Yeah.

You shouldn't have blown it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, that will be the second audience. And the third will be like, my type people are like, I don't know, it can happen. I don't understand. Maybe, maybe not. So we are, I'm on that zone.

Wow.

This, you know, on this thought, I don't know why this conversation, I think in last 20 days. Wow. About universal basic income, where will the world go, how will it be. And I don't know why.

I don't even think about all this and it just comes up. And somebody after this whole conversation, the force labor that you have finished, someone said something very true. He is like, and I will ask you the same question. Actually, it is a question for audience as well. What does a slave want?

I'd argue freedom. So let's say, sir, a philosopher said, and this was not told to me by a guest on the podcast, that a philosopher says that the world is designed based on slaves. Because first it was that I don't want to do my work, so you bring the slave, you force him to buy, whatever, x, y, z. And when they realize that what is the desire of the slave, what does the slave want, then everyone thinks it is freedom.

But reality is the slave wants another slave. And I was like, meaning? He's like, no, he wants you to tell him what you told him. That's it, he's happy. Because when he's free, he doesn't know what to do. He doesn't know, she doesn't know what to do.

They just want to throw frustration on someone else. He doesn't know, she doesn't know what to do.

They just want to get frustrated and throw it on someone else.

Lord, if someone understood this thing,

and then he was saying that it is a corporate structure.

Now you are a manager, your team. Your team. Now you do it.

Now the manager is happy. He is like, yes, it's fine. Now there is no pressure.

Now there is motivation. I feel that now I have a responsibility and I can prove it. It is fascinating how the human mind works when it comes to this. I remember I did my MBA from Indian School of Business. And there, they said at some time that some alums will stay on the board of ISB for 2 years. So, I remember one of these board meetings.

I have been there. I walk into a room. And of course, I wouldn't name names. So, I had a lunch break. And one person was narrating the story. He said, what do you do nowadays? I said, I am a startup founder. He said, these startups are doing well.

It's a big thing. It's been 7-8 years. So, I met a startup founder recently. He was very nice. He asked me, sir, what is the secret of your success? And I said, there is only one secret to my success.

That for every job in my company, my job is to ensure that at least two people want that job.

And that's it.

Every role in the company, I have to ensure that two people want that role at any point. Because then they will fight among themselves. One of them will win and the other will come and fight for the role that he wants. And the company keeps moving forward.

I don't want to work. I just want to ensure that there are at least two people in every role in this company who want it. And that is also a way of... This guy has just unlocked basic human psychology. That as long as there is a goal, many people want to have the number one podcast in the world. As long as this is there, the podcasting industry will continue growing. The day only Joe Rogan wants to be number one and no one else wants to be, this industry is dead. The day Raj Chamani becomes number one and no one else wants to be, this industry is dead. But as long as there are at least two people who want to reach there, this industry will keep growing.

It's quite fascinating to think about this. But that is so true. It is. It is. And such different ways of thinking about it. Because I feel that leadership is all about just human psychology. In fact, I feel that the whole life is all about understanding humans.

It's not about understanding machines. It is about understanding humans and our motivations, our inspirations. And that is the most difficult thing. So we keep talking about UBI, UBI, UBI, but ultimately, the person who will have it. It was a very fascinating study. It was commissioned by OpenAI.

They gave families, I don't know the exact number of how many families, whose annual income in US was around $40,000. They gave them additional $10,000 for free. Just to see what happens. They don't have to do anything for it. So, kind of a replica for UBI.

Yeah, Universal Basic Income. And what that found was fascinating. Number one, now this is not necessarily true for everyone. This was a very small study that people worked less with that $10,000 and saved their time, which is great, right? So people were not like, we got $10,000 I can do 20,000, let's do more.

They are like step back. Number two, they didn't use that time for skilling and learning, they used it for leisure. So they consumed a lot more social media, they consumed a lot more numbing content or what not, they didn't devote it quote-unquote productive work.

And number three, they did not report a elevated sense of better life. They're like, our life was the same. I don't think that study was continued because it was not giving the kind of results that maybe were desirable or wanted. Like, shit, if UBI comes, people will say that we are very sad, we are doing useless things, we have time, but we don't know how to use that time.

So it is very difficult to predict how the world will be, where it will go, but it is not going to be around. I really hope it's not about forced labor or any. Tell me one thing based on these things that you have said. You read so many studies, research and books and you have your own sense of understanding of the world. You have been a corporate hustle boy and then you have been

this Zen person. You have seen a lot of appreciation and hate on the internet. You have seen a lot. I think it's a good question to ask you because you deal with young people and you deal with corporate leaders as well. People, like you said, that as long as they want one thing, they need at least two people, people will keep doing something. Why do people want what they want?

Like why do people want to be number one? Or Michael Phelps wants to be a swimming champion.

Or someone,

like in India, there is a big dream that you want to be a startup founder, a millionaire, a billionaire, now a millionaire, nobody talks, I don't know why. Everyone wants to be a billionaire. Everyone wants to be a billionaire, at least they won't talk to me.

Millionaire is almost look like nobody. I was like, bro. What will happen with a million? So, why do you feel that people need it? Why? So why do you feel that people need it? Why is there a job where someone needs a position? Why do we admire certain things?

The way I understood it, Raj, there are three reasons for it. And these three are not isolated reasons. Usually it is a mixture. Number one reason is, in no particular order, to be seen a certain way in society. There is a beautiful quote. It's by a philosopher named Cooley.

I don't remember his first name.

He says this.

I'll say it in English and then repeat it in Hindi. I am not who I think I am. He says this, I am not who I think I am. I am not who you think I am. I am what I think you think I am.

Yeah. I'll say it again. I am not what I think I am. I am not what I think I am. I am not what you think I am. I am what you think I am. So, the Raj that I think I am, that is my identity.

And I am working to fulfill that identity. And I am working to fulfill that identity. So, what I feel my manager thinks about me, that drives me. What I feel my parents think about me, that drives me. What I feel my partner, my friends think about me, that drives me.

That is an imagination.

Maybe you have talked about it, maybe not. Like we have never spoken about it. But there is a picture in my mind that what Raj must be thinking about me. And if I care truly about Raj and I care about what he thinks of me, then I will subconsciously begin to do what I would like you to think about me. That is reason number one. Reason number two is

humans inherently are designed to solve and to optimize. We like to reach there by deciding a goal. goal, deciding and reaching there, feels good. Because we get a feeling of achievement, a feeling that we are purposeful, a feeling that we are useful. And time and again, the world has shown that when you achieve more than your capacity,

then your own respect forrespect increases for yourself. Which is an innate, in my opinion, desire of people that I wish I could respect myself a lot more than I do. And then there is a third thing which somewhat goes back to what we were talking about. The biggest regret of a person in life is that he worked hard in life, but there was no result of that hard work. This is the biggest regret. Whether it is a parent, child, sister, brother, anyone.

They will always feel that this hard work is wasted. We could have done so much but here we spent so much time on this and nothing came out. So a third dimension of our drive is simply to ensure that our hard work will bring some color somewhere. That's the reason why like if and may God never na ho, but let's say at some point you just realize you can never be the world's number one podcaster and nothing that you do and nothing that you've done will ever make you the number one podcaster for some weird reason.

Ki koi sarkar rule nikal leti hai ki number one podcaster sirf ek American hoga. Like whatever bullshit, kuch bakwaas. So you're like, nahi ho sakta main. That will crush you more than anything else because you know ki tumne mehnat kari. You know puri shiddat ke saath kari. And I feel yeh maine sabse zyada dekha hai maa baap aur bach relationship between parents and children. You have also spoken about it, I remember beautifully in one of the stage interviews you did. The day parents find out that the child has stood on his feet, their work is over. Because they find out at that point that their hard work has paid off.

That's it. That's it.

It is not about that, oh, I became the number one podcaster. Oh, this is done. No. All they need to know is that whatever we have sacrificed, whatever difficulties we have faced, that has had some result.

That's their drive. That's the reason why those parents keep following you. Where are you going? What are you doing? Study. Get up.

Eat. Sleep.

Everything is an innate, urge. That our hard work should not go in vain. These three reasons and a mixture, of course, as I said, it's always a mix of these. But these three will always be the reason why we will continue striving for something higher and higher and higher. But I'll tell you what my biggest realization about life has been. Which you will also realize when you become the world's number one podcaster. And that is, a person doesn't feel as much happiness after reaching a certain level,

as he feels when he is working towards that level. Agreed. And that's it. The day you become and you will inevitably become the world's number one podcaster. I'm saying this today predicting it. You already know it in your gut. It will be 24 hours maximum 48 hours. If you stretch it a week.

You will break balloons, clap, party, it will be offside etc. And next week you will be back three a week. In fact, it will be four a week at that time. Because now you suddenly have that to hold, that number to stay, that identity to in many ways protect. But this journey where you see the screen every day, where you measure yourself every day, where you bring people every day, try to make their experience super normal, try to make your viewers' learning super normal.

This is the real fun. And this fun, a lot of people don't get to experience because they fixate on that goal. And that goal comes, goes away, and you're like, what the hell happened?

This was it.

This was it. This was the car, this was the house. This was it. And that's why when people say that experiences are greater than things, what they're essentially saying is that the thing that gets is in your memory

will always be more valuable. Things don't stay in your memory. Your phone will never come in your dream. Your car will never come in your dream. Your vacation will come in your dream. Your people will come in your dream.

Your exam will also come in your dream. And that is why somehow, maybe it is something subconscious spiritual that we are drawn more towards experiences but the world keeps telling us, no brother, buy this mug, buy this mic, buy this chair, buy this car, it will make you famous, it will give you respect in the society. But what we truly want and ultimately remember

is just what we experience. Because this whole generation just believes in camera before the eyes and that's criminal. Do you feel so? I disagree with this part. You don't think there's a generation that's clicking more than seeing? So I'll tell you what I believe in, okay. See, there's one part of the generation, our generation and the younger ones, who are very obsessed with status

and it's more important to look cool than to live.

Right?

Here where I disagree, our whole generation and much younger people than me, who are like probably 22, 21, if everyone has 2 hours, then they have to show off 20 minutes and capture it properly. But rest, their time, they don't care about enjoying it.

It's an and economy, it's not only economy. We treat everyone like, you only care about taking photos and videos, you only do this in concerts. people treat them like, just by clicking a photo, or a video, you go to a concert and do this. Yes, that is our part. But maybe that is our part

for 20 minutes in a concert. There will be some people who have that part for 2 hours.

But majority of people, they enjoy. I have seen people

that if they are going to a restaurant, they order 5 new things that they want to eat. He will click a photo of it. He will eat it 5 minutes late.

But after clicking that photo, he will remember that he did this with his friends. And at that point, it doesn't matter if the photo was perfect or not. What matters is how much fun he had with that friend. Yeah. that day I had so much fun with this friend. Yeah, I think the point, I agree with what you're saying that the need to show or display is not as much as the world says. Yes, it's a part of it. It's an essential part of it.

It's not our whole personality.

Absolutely. Where I have a different observation is,

if I have gone on a vacation and I feel on the flight that I forgot my phone at home, then it will not affect my vacation experience.

But I feel that this generation will have to. Yes. Yes.

So this is the zero and one for me. Are you, and maybe you describe it then the right way, that it's an and economy, not a only economy. Certainly not a...

It's not all, it's and.

Yes, absolutely. So, that explains this. They want this because they want to document. Because a lot of... I'm surprised of the fact that... Like my team, they're constantly clicking. But they're not sharing.

So, I'm like, for whom are you clicking? For yourself. It's on the phone. That at some point, we'll scroll and see the phone. If we are scrolling at any point, we can see the timeline. So this is the equivalent of what we used to have as photo albums. We would take a photo, develop it and then put it in a photo album. We would keep it with love.

Because that was a way to make a timeline. Now there is a more convenient way. And that perhaps explains it. Maybe that's the difference. I don't know if you even know of this, but in the olden days,

the cameras used to have reels. And the reels used to have 24 or 36 photos. So you have that. You have 24 or 36 opportunities to capture. So clearly, you won't waste them in taking pictures of food.

Because if you take a picture of yourself against the Taj Mahal, you will not get anything in the picture of the plate. But if it is infinite, at least figuratively, that you can take pictures of endless reels, then maybe we can also take pictures of food.

And that's exactly what's happening right now. So I have this saying whenever someone talks to me about this. And I believe this. If we take a lot of photos, and like you said, if we forget our phone on vacation, then our mood will be ruined. Yes. Because we haven't seen a vacation without a phone.

We haven't seen it. We don't even know that it's just like the way you guys would be. Yes. No, I agree. If we had a phone, you would be like this. So, why are you judging our personality on something that you didn't have?

It's the same. If someone says that, I can vouch for this. If we felt that we forgot our camera at home on our vacation, we would have been very sad. We would have felt that we won't be able to click photos.

Yeah.

Which is the same thing. So it's just, it's a part of a personality. So we don't know. And a lot of people just judge us based on, see, you're not enjoying without a phone. Because we don't know.

The day will come, maybe.

Yeah, exactly. We were born in this. And plus people say, try it once, you'll enjoy it better. Why? It's an external organ. Why should I enjoy it without the organ?

No, no.

You should try it and see how much fun you'll have in life. Yeah. It's... I often... A usual comment against Gen Z is that they are impatient. Very impatient. are impatient. They are very impatient. And it happens that I would meet a 22-23 year old. We had a long conversation about this in the previous podcast.

But it was amazing. Like they've joined their first job and I was like, How is it going today? It's fine. Why? What happened? Are you not enjoying it? No, I am enjoying it Why? What happened? You're not enjoying it?

No, I'm enjoying it. Then what happened? It's your first job, you were so excited when you got it. What happened? I'm not able to create an impact. I was like, how long has it been since you've been working?

I was like, it's been six months, uncle. It's been six months and I'm not able to create an impact. And I was like, who told you that you have to create an impact in six months? Because people have been working here for 60 years. They may not have been able to create an impact. But that's, and I reflected on this, is because your generation, for no fault of

yours, is the on-demand generation. You want books, click. You want clothes, click. You want to listen to songs, watch movies, order food, click. You want to go on a date, swipe right. Instantly on demand, you have got whatever you want. So you have grown up thinking that whatever you want in life, you get it on demand. And you extend the same thing to impact, to love, to growth. That you want love? How come you don't get it now? You want growth? How come you don't get it now?

And I am saying this in 45 years, wait, there is a lot of time. You are saying this at 27, you have become old. Why don't I die by 30? Number one podcaster. You've gone mad. And I don't blame you because you were born into this while we were born in the world where we don't get anything even if we want to, except to wait. We had to wait for everything. we would get nothing but waiting. We had to wait for everything.

For everything. If you want to buy milk, wait. If you want a phone, wait. If you want to buy a car or a cycle, wait. If you want to listen to songs, you will only hear them on Wednesday at 7 pm.

And if there is no electricity at that time, you will hear them next week. You don't have any option of on-demand. So, it was in our mind that everything comes from time and slowly. We don't know what happens in a flash. And that's why if you notice, everybody in the 1980s, 70s, 90s

who was growing rapidly was looked down upon. The rise of all of these mega industries, like if you see, why was it that the Ambani's were looked at differently than the Tata's? Because Tata's have a 120 year old legacy, they have worked patiently, nation building, etc.

Aren't the Ambani's doing nation building? How did they do it in 20 years? What is the hurry? I come from ISB where I remember that we entered the top 20 institutions of the world in the first 10 years. And people were like, what is the hurry? Why in such a hurry?

Because the temperament was good things take time. So you should be, patience was a virtue. Patience was applauded, it was considered as the noble value to have. If someone is impatient, it's the same as someone running after money.

Because for us, earning money is wrong. Distributing money is a good thing.

Earning money for yourself is wrong, sharing money is good, earning money for yourself is wrong, sharing money for others is right.

So this is the whole nature, but this generation is on demand. So I don't blame the generation at all to be in a hurry. But tell me about the impatient conversation, because I love that conversation. There are. It's good that we drew this line. Because in your generation, everything had to wait. Every person had to wait for everything.

So patient became, it became a thing, like it became a trait. Yes, it was not a choice. It was not a choice. It was a trait. So whatever looked different from your general a trait that it is there. So whatever your general traits looked like,

this is off.

Yes.

So that's why you look down on us every day. What is this impatient person? Where will he go?

Right.

Similarly, in our generation, we got everything in 10 minutes. So waiting is,

what is this?

What are you talking about? That is a conversation with you. Like when I look at my father or my mom, they are very successful in their life. But I am like, why so late? What have you done? And it's just an obvious question.

So, there are lines. That we both are delusional according to our generation. There are few things however I have realized after reading, talking, learning and spending time with people. There are few things that you cannot get by being impatient. By being impatient.

Like? And that's what I wanted to like, can we draw some line for people? That yes, getting, everything is great to get it fast. But there are some things where haste may not bring you good results. Are there things? 100%. There are.

At least in my experience, absolutely. Number one would be love. Yeah. So I was just coming to like relationship building. You can't build it overnight with a swipe. You can't, you can't, absolutely not. And we all, all of us, we can be delusional about it

that instantly when we see someone, we feel a vibe, a spark. Yes, but that's not love. That is not love. That's, it's just a chemical reaction. That is just a chemical reaction that is just a chemical reaction so so one is love we should not be impatient about it but do you think that all of us are impatient our generation is very impatient for love i i i think so i certainly think so There is one who says that I want love instantly.

And the dating apps haven't helped because everything becomes at the surface. Everything is superficial. You never get to know a person's nature. You get influenced by his face, his body, his smile. You make a decision. And the truth about human psychology is that if I see Raj in his photographs, I will build a certain persona of him.

Raj also knows what that persona is, so he will also play that role. So the masquerading and the drama that will happen in the beginning, that will actually look like the truth. So even if the truth comes out, you will easily ignore it. Because there is a blind spot. You are wearing red colored glasses, so everything is red.

And that is how humans are. We are very biased, extremely biased and very rapidly. All the time. And people have come in the other direction, who say that I don't want people. I am independent and I am sufficient and I am complete by myself.

So I will neither lower my standards, nor will I lower my requirements, nor will I select or do any quote-unquote mediocre person in a hurry. And these two splits are very interesting because it has never happened simultaneously at this level. In the same generation, in the same time. I know of so many single friends of mine who don't want to be in a relationship.

And I also know of so many friends of mine who went't want to be in a relationship. And I also know of so many friends of mine who went on two dates and got married.

How is this happening? Like how are both these things happening simultaneously? So relationships, especially when it comes to love, is, sorry I am giving it a mathematical construct, it is a 2x2 matrix. On the x-axis of the 2x2 matrix is how much time you have spent with this person. Less or more, let's keep it simple. So not a lot, quite a lot. I should draw it. I will keep it here for people.

Yes, I will. I will absolutely do that.

You want base? No, no. Just fine. Thank you so much so so you're the way to make it sir is KIA access at time in relationship so let's say low and high Zada Niwa coffee Zada Hoga while a lot of a key this is enough the water now you're humble salt a dose the humble salt a relationship man

that's not enough because clearly the sub things can go wrong even after 10 or 20 years. So there, a very important thing is what's called shared experiences.

Okay.

And I'll explain what that is. But it is different and similar. So, let's say we meet after a year, you and I. And he is like, do you remember we did a podcast in February 23, 2026? Yes, we did. And let's say there's an independent person out here who asks, Raj, rate that experience. And you give it a rating.

Then you ask me, rate that experience. I give it a rating. If that rating is similar, then only it is concretized, then only it is established. If it is not similar, means you found it 2 on 10, I found it 8 on 10, it was actually destructive. And it doesn't matter how much time we spent together.

Interesting.

So the most successful relationships in my experience are the ones that have had time and have had similar relationships. This is a 10 on 10. So if you ask the husband, what do you think about this relationship so far? Maybe like 8 on 10. You ask the wife, she'd be like 8 on 10.

That relationship is a rockstar relationship. If you go on a vacation together and you ask the husband, how was the vacation? 8 on 10, you ask the wife, 8 on 10, that vacation will stay forever, that relationship will

stay.

But it so often happens that you are experiencing the same thing and one is like incredible. That relationship is breaking. It doesn't matter ki aap kitna waqt saath mein pita rahe hain. It is breaking. So, most divorces happen here where you spend enough time but the experiences have been very different it will occur that I am in the best marriage, it will occur that I am in the worst marriage it will occur that I am giving so much time, it will occur that I am not giving time it will occur that I am such a great father, it will occur that you are just an absent father it's almost as if you're living two different lives

but how does this happen? this happens because two people I'll put this, I will show this later. But if two people are together for a long time. Yeah.

Okay.

Any relationship, because I am assuming that this relationship, are you talking only about love? No, I am talking about friendship as well. Okay. Absolutely, friendship as well. Let's put it love first and then we'll go to friendship.

So it's a love relationship. It can be marriage, it can be just girlfriend or boyfriend, whatever we're putting love relationship. Two people are together for a long time. 5 years, 10 years, 15 years, whatever. And for a long time together and if both of them feel bad, when they realize that for a long time, one was right and the other was wrong. At that point, both of them will start feeling bad.

But how does it happen that if it's going on for so long, someone feels that this is my best relationship and someone feels that this is my good relationship. Because one side. How is best and worst happening together for so long? Because one side stopped listening and one side stopped speaking. So here's how it will happen. I'm teaching to a 28 who is not married. So this may sound like alien.

Let's say you go for a dinner to friends. And let's say I am your wife and you're my husband.

We're going for your friends dinner. Okay.

You're having a lot of fun. Time of your life. My friends, my school, etc. All of them have got married. Their spouses are such that I am not able to vibe with them. Your friends mostly talk about your school, I am not able to relate to them.

The talks are also of different things. You seem like a very different person to me. You usually don't abuse in public settings, but with friends, you are having a BCMC, having fun, drinking at a different level, something is happening. It's almost feeling like, this person is different. And then you're driving back. And you're like, incredible evening.

It was fun. It was fun. We should do it a lot more. And I, let's say, the first time it happens, says, it was fine. I'm not sure if I want to do it a lot more or not. And then you instantly go, but I also come to your friends' party. I don't spoil anything. I don't say that I won't come.

I'm like, this is not done. Don't spoil the mood, please. So, you realize or I realize that I can't share my honest point of view with you. So, I won't do it next time. So, you'll say one more time that I'll go with my friends. You'll say it a third time, I can't share it with you. So, I won't do it next time. So, you will say one more time, I will go with my friends,

you will say it for the third time, I will go for the fourth time, I will say no, I have a headache, I won't go. You will go alone. But in your mind and in your brain, that experience was a 9 on 10.

In my mind, that experience was a 2 on 10. If it came to a conversation, the conversation didn't happen because one side stopped listening. So, one side stopped talking. And now that extends to like any life circumstance. Anything can happen. But why am I not able to see, as a human being, if I am with my partner and I am very happy with something and my partner is not there, why can't I see that she is not happy?

Because you have said in your mind that many times there was a time when I was not happy and I sacrificed. So I am trying to even the score. It's not from a point of vengeance. It's a point of, if I am understanding,

then I expect the other side to also be understanding.

And two people cannot have side to also be understanding.

And two people cannot have the same level of understanding.

It can never happen. So somewhere there will be some tension, somewhere there will be some difference. That difference over a long period of time becomes big. So, when you don't want to speak, but you are forced to say yes, then you get resentment. And resentment doesn't come overnight. hisso ko jod jod ke jod jod ke ek din jwala mukhi banta. The resentment is the biggest reason why relationships fail because I feel resentful towards how you have treated me, stopped listening to me and you would feel the same way let's say

for me and it was because I was forced to say yes when I wanted to say no. So two people, this can go for long right and one person is having a good relationship and the other is having a bad relationship because one is compromising and the other is enjoying and both are not understanding and say they divorce or break up, somebody will initiate. Either the person who is very happy will initiate that you are not a part of my happiness. I cannot live with such a sad person. Or the person who is sad will initiate or will say stop it. So the data says that majority divorces are initiated by women. I believe this is true. Why?

Because they usually compromise the most. Women have the ability and also conditioning. In our society, it is definitely there. That your voice doesn't matter that much. And if you're thinking about yourself and putting yourself ahead of others,

then you're wrong. Because being selfish is a curse for a woman in this country. You can't be selfish. You're a mother. You're a mother's slave. You were born from a mother's womb.

A mother always makes sacrifices. So this is a little hai, ek conditioning hai.

I am so wrong.

You are saying the statement is wrong or what's happening is wrong? Yeah, what's happening is wrong. See. There is truth in what you are saying. I agree with that fact. But it is 100%.

It is absolutely wrong. 100%. But what we need to understand is that this conditioning is very much connected to the subconscious layer. Where you see your mother, that she used to eat later,

feed you first, sleep later, put you to sleep first, wake you up first, then wake you up, etc. So it gets stuck in your mind, that is the right way to live. And that's the right value system for a woman.

So, in a relationship, if you tell me that, I had a party with my friends, you can't come with me once a month, if you like it, because I want you to come with me. And you are not wrong. Like you actually feel and you want to include me in this. But I don't like that company.

I will be told by my subconscious conditioning that accept this. Because by accepting this, you will have a home. They will be happy. You are happy in their happiness. And you are right that once a month will not make a difference. So, in the first month, the marriage will not break.

The marriage will not break even in the first year. But every month, every incident, when you add up to 10 years, it will become a resentment. And that resentment will trigger for that conversation that it is not happening now.

So, whose fault is it now? What do you think is at fault? Look, it would be very easy to say that the fault is of the person who chose not to set the boundary in the first place. Because the word boundary has become very important in the last 10 years. Earlier there was no concept of boundary.

Boundary means Sachin Tendulkar has hit, so there will be a boundary. But we had never heard of any concept of boundaries in relationships. Today, everything is about boundaries. So, setting boundaries is the most difficult thing in our culture and in our country. Not saying it is very difficult. It is important for me and I will not do it because of it or I will not do it.

It is very difficult to say that to someone. But it is very easy for us to say that you did not set the boundary. If you had said once that I do not want to go, that I do not like this environment, that I do not get along with your friends and their wives, then I would not have done it. Because I am happy in your happiness. I would have met them separately.

But you said, okay, I will not do it, so we did it only once a month. Now that could be an explanation, but if you look at the history of why that happened in the first place, in my opinion, that will be unfair as well. That is why I am saying that it is very difficult to say whose fault it is. Both. It is both. Because as I said, someone stopped listening and someone stopped speaking.

Tell me in this, now there comes a point where people, which is the word is selfish, that they are in a relationship, they are very happy, they are very loving, they make a lot of dreams, there are a lot of promises, they live together, they do a lot of things together and at one point, someone realizes that this is a bad relationship. The other person is still thinking that this is the best relationship. Right?

They both are in this.

Then the one who thinks that this is a bad relationship says that I want to get out of this. I want to divorce, I want to break up, etc. etc. That person is being selfish. Do you think selfishness is wrong? No, I don't think so. Because then the whole society and everybody would look down on this person. Sure.

Everyone will look at him as wrong. Let's say you and your partner. Yeah. And you after a point, after 10 years, after 15 years, you told your partner that XYZ, I can't live with you because I am not happy. I am alone. Your partner thinks that this is the best. How did this happen?

He was shocked. It's like all of a sudden how?

Now,

I was very involved in India. If you were in the US or UK, it's a different thing. In India, now you don't have just a partner, girlfriend, wife. You have family, friends, but for everyone you are selfish. Right. So you did wrong. Don't you think it's wrong?

And that's exactly why bad marriages continue to remain and they don't break. This concept is very new.

But is it wrong to do it? Because then what will your partner do after 15 years? She made you her life. Because she made your life.

See, and she's not wrong either.

Yeah.

Because she sacrificed her dreams for you.

Yeah.

She made you her identity. Because you are an entrepreneur or whatever, etc. She started seeing her happiness in your happiness. She started seeing her growth in your growth. She did everything for you. And you became the epicenter of everything.

And she was always there like a fierce strong woman out there. For you. And then now you are... Now you are saying that you don't like it. Exactly. Isn't that you are completely wrong in a selfish? Being selfish in my head is not wrong for the simple reason that till you don't fill your own cup

and I will qualify what I mean by that, khud ke cup ko nahi bharege, tab tak aap kisi aur ke cup mein pironahi sakta hai. What I extend that to in relationships is, selfishness is not about ki main wo karunga jo main karna chahata hu without caring about what the other person thinks or cares about. I don't care about the world. Even if the world is a mess, I want to do what I want to do.

That's not selfish. That is in fact lack of empathy, lack of any emotional quotient in you, lack of understanding of human relationships in the first place. I feel, this is my definition, selfish is that I will not feel guilty placing myself and my needs in front of others while ensuring that those needs don't hamper somebody else's needs,

somebody else's desire, somebody else's world. In marriage, selfishness comes at the end. In the beginning, there is love. In that love, there is lies, deception, truth, and many other things. But slowly, as I said, one person stops listening and the other person stops speaking. It is both of their fault. to give. Nothing more to give. Whatever was there, everything was sucked away. Whatever was there, everything was finished. Now you cannot expect anything more from that person.

So if that person raises his hand and says, I want to give you this cup, I want to give you this cup, I want to give you this cup, I want to give you this cup, I want to give you this cup, I want to give you this cup, I want to give you this cup, I want to give Now you can't expect anything else from that person.

So if that person raises his hand and says, I don't want to live in this marriage. According to me, that person is not doing anything selfish. That person is speaking the truth. That I have nothing more to give. And all that you have asked for is just for me to give.

If you had given, I would have had something to fill my cup so that I could give back. But this is according to you. He feels that that person has given you everything. Absolutely, which is why if you have tried to explain that and that person didn't listen and at some point of time you stopped giving that feedback, both of you are at fault. And, many times this is what happens, that this thought forces you to never pick up that conversation. You will persist. Which is why bad marriages continue. There is no reason why,

if you really think about it, how is it possible that you spend your whole life in a wrong relationship?

How is that possible?

We get one life and we don't know what will happen to us when we are born again. We have one life and we are ready to spend it in a wrong relationship. How is that possible? Only two reasons in my head. Number one, you don't trust yourself. You are so dependent on that person, financially, emotionally, socially, whatever it is,

that you don't trust yourself to be independent and be on your feet. And number two, which I think is an equally big reason, is you feel that if you get out of this relationship, then you will be selfish and you will be doing something wrong. For your children, because they will be without their parents. For your family, who will have to listen to the taunts of the society, that look, son and daughter broke off the marriage.

For their family, that look, this was like this, this was like this. For friends, you were the perfect couple, you look so great, blah, blah, blah. So it is both. I don't believe in myself and I am not ready to face what the world will think of make me look like. So it's easier.

I'll just gulp the bitter medicine and live. I respect a lot all of a sudden, our parents' generation and ours too. And I'll tell you why. Okay. Based on the same conversation. Because our parents' generation didn't know that the thing that I am going through, we call it boundaries, avoidance, anxiousness,

dismissive, nothing. For them, it is just that if there is a wedding, then they have to adjust. They have run everything in the name of adjustment and convenience. So it was good, bad, useless, whatever it was. They did whatever they wanted. So, they were so brave to just live by it forever.

Yeah.

And still figure out a way that how we can improve ourselves by nurturing ourselves. So, that's brave.

Yeah.

But today, when we know that this happens, we should not live in that. We should not live like that. We should not live like that.

Yeah.

Because we should not see that as wrong or right. We should just be like, they didn't have the vocabulary, they didn't know. We know it, so we shouldn't live like that. Now that if you are brave and talking about it, then it should not be looked down upon.

Yeah.

That time was different today. That time was different. I would respect both the people. You have to. It's not about looking down on anyone. No, no, not at all. Absolutely.

I don't think. In fact, I will add one more thing about my parents' generation that we don't realize this irrespective of how difficult our life has been or where we have come from, what has been happening, etc. that our parents genuinely didn't have time to think difficult humari zindagi rahi hai, ya kahan se hum aaye hai, kya raha hai, wagara, wagara, ki humare maabap ke saas genuinely waqt bhi nahi tha sochne ka in sab cheezon ke baare mein.

It was constant survival, constant survival. Ki bachyon ke school ki fees kaunse aayegi, khaane ka kharcha kaunse aga, dukaan kaise chalegi, naukri kaise rahegi. Everything was constantly about survival. And I do feel, this is me saying something which is perhaps politically incorrect or shayad bahut trolling hogi iski wajah se. Mujhe genuinely aisa lagta ki khaali dimaag shaitaan ka ghar hai. And aaj ke zamane mein hamara lot of free time. Our minds are empty.

So when we are growing with ease, there is air conditioning, there is everything, there is Blinket Zepto-Somato, everything is on demand, we don't have to put in so much effort, we don't have to think so much,

everything is on click-click-click.

We are spending our time, click, click.

We are spending our time, one, building the vocabulary that we didn't choose to, but it came to our mind. Two, also consuming things about us that we were not aware of. So, so much collective knowledge about relationships, our Instagram is real. It's not like we have acquired some expertise, that we have a long-standing relationship.

Even 22-year-old people have a point of view on relationships. How? It came from Instagram, YouTube, wherever it came from. And that empty mind made us ruminate. That, okay, yes, we saw this here too. We saw this there too.

And that is not something which our parents had the luxury of. They neither had the content, nor the time, nor the means. And I like to believe this, which is where the unpopular opinion is that if we had kept our mind genuinely busy, we would not have the level of mental health crisis that we have in the world today. A large part of our chaos in the head is because we have allowed our minds to ruminate more than we should have, to wander more than we should have, to go into territories that are unexplored, are dangerous,

are not within our control and we have just fed our mind with a diet that we did not know how it would affect us. I agree. I agree and people who are going to be uncomfortable with this thought, they also know that there's truth in it. So they're just going to not be able to digest it. But tell me one more thing, which is, first I'll talk about parents' generation and then I'll talk ours.

Because both have a different version. The second thing you said, we didn't know about the first case. So adjusting, compromise was done. Okay, that was one part. So we don't want to do that.

Is this generation? We will come to that. Second very important is how the world looks at us. This is a very important thing for every generation. More in our parents' generation.

Why do you think our parents' generation. Why do you think that our parents' generation care so much about what people think of them? What the world will say, what people will say. They constantly want to be liked. I really don't have an answer,

but I will have to speculate about it. I think that our faith, religion tells us that it is good to be with good people. It teaches us to do good and not to worry about the consequences. This is another tenet of ours. So when we are in that environment, somewhere in our mind, our mind is telling us to help people, be there for people, do something for people by curbing our will.

There is sacrifice, sacrifice, worship, whatever it is. Like, you will get a salary, give some to the temple, keep some in the feet of the mother, put some in the temple of the house, etc. Because that will in some way feed back. There is something called karma. It will ultimately happen.

I don't know if you've heard this from your parents. I've heard this a lot from my parents. That in this life, maybe that may not have done good to me, but God is watching. Every day. God is watching. It's a constant reminder in the house.

Yeah.

So, if God is watching, it's a very, very powerful driver of action. You have to be morally righteous. You have to be morally righteous. You have to be morally righteous. And the biggest definition of that is, if no one in this room is watching, will I do the right thing or not?

It's an incredibly powerful way of looking at this. It doesn't matter if I get caught or not. It doesn't matter if I cheat in the exam or not. What matters is that if no one is watching, am I doing the right thing or not? So that really held, I feel, an entire generation

or an entire country together for the longest time and still holds. I don't think that is going away somewhere. But we have got some adjustment that we will donate a little on Tuesday. If we don't eat non-veg, so it will be fine. The second thing is, I do feel that people inherently were nicer because the communities were tighter. You were not an isolated island. You never knew

when you might need help. You never knew who would support you at what time. So, every person, especially in small cities, has to help every person. Because that person will help you at some point. If you see our parents in Mumbai and Delhi, it won't be as much as it is in Indore, it won't be as much as it is in Kanpur,

it won't be as much as it is in a small. It won't be as much as it is in Kanpur. It won't be as much as it is in a small street or a small town.

Indore is a lot.

Because everybody somehow knows everybody.

Yes.

And you are helping everyone. You are helping everyone. It's like if a scooter falls on the road, four people will come and take you to the hospital. Six people will take you to the hospital. Six people will call you at home. Food will also reach you. Everything will be done. It's almost like a miracle. But it happens because communities were a lot tighter.

They were not as isolated as we are right now. And we all knew that if we work, we will get back from somewhere. And the third thing that I said, man's nature is that I am not what I think of myself. I am not what you think, I am what I think, you think about me. So you would want other people to think nice of you. There is this really beautiful notion, almost like a Shahrukh Khan movie in our head, that two people are talking about me, they don't know that I am around

and they are saying good things about me. It's a a beautiful dream. It's a beautiful dream. I never thought that I would think of such a thing. I am sitting here and there are two people. I feel that there is something special about Raj.

And they have no idea that you are around. Don't feel this in my head. But you overhear it and you are like, bro, achieved. Like, arrived in life. And it was a lot in those times. Not so much anymore.

And you will also see, I don't know if you have, but culturally, we will see in pop culture, movies also used to show this. Movies were always about this. If you compare today's movies with the movies of 70s and 80s, the biggest difference is the communalistic, if that's the right word, I don't even know,

but the community angle to it as against the individual angle to it. Movies back then were all about family, were all about community, were all about togetherness and here it is all about me, my identity, my view, my worldview. And if that feeding is happening at the mass level, then clearly somewhere or the other, there will be a huge impact here.

So, the question is, being selfish in our parents' generation was a crime. It was a crime. And it still is. It is. It is incredibly. It is the surest way to hell. It is the surest way to hell.

The most straightforward way to hell is to work for yourself, think for yourself and let the world go to hell. Be selfish. Be selfish. And do you think it's changing in our generation? It is certainly changing.

Being selfish is okay. What do you think in newer generation, what do you see in our generation? Where people are okay with being selfish and where they are not. Because we also think about people. It's all bullshit and we don't know it. I feel relationship wise, especially in the bigger cities, things are changing quite rapidly. You are seeing that you would go into relationships, particularly love relationships, without necessarily the agreement of your family. You would hold up to your side a lot more fearfully as against otherwise.

If you go in an arranged marriage, your opinion matters a lot. It's not like you will say yes to whatever your parents have chosen. arrange marriage may be jatte hai toh aapka opinion bahut zyada matter karta hai aisa nahi hai ki maa papa ne jo choose kar liya ussi pe aap haan kar denge. So that is also changing and I think the one area which in my experience has seen perhaps the biggest shift is the attitude towards money.

Okay, explain.

In our parents' time, money was a means of survival. It was a means to give basic necessities to our family. I don't know about your parents, but most parents shudder at the thought of spending money on themselves. Same. They don't understand. Same. Like my mind goes crazy. They don't do it even today. How do Indian parents spend money on themselves? They don't understand. They don't do it. They don spend at all. And if we do something for them by mistake,

then we still get slapped. Not a single day will pass, and maybe this happens to you too, Raj, that I take something for my parents, and I don't say that thing by sharing a 70% discount. I will say a 1000 ru of thing for 300 rupees. I will say 100,000 rupees worth of thing for 30,000 rupees.

Because if you say the right price, then the first thing that will come is that your money is on your head. You have become a habit of wasting money. So the most non-gracious gift receivers in the world, our Indian parents, they can write a book on how to dismiss the gift from your most loved ones. In my home, they ridicule me. My father would scold me.

He would abuse me. I'm like, why? It's just a normal shirt. Forget. It's not like I gave my car to someone. Absolutely. It's a shirt. It's a small phone. Or it's a shirt like something which I've... Who wears such an expensive shirt? So, this has been a huge...

Because here, you would not think twice before flying business for yourself. For buying it for your parents. Stay staying in a five-star hotel, going for an experience which will be ridiculous. Like for an hour's experience, you're paying like lakhs. Because you want to. You want it. That was not the case in our parents' time.

There was no money. Even if there was money, it was not fitrah. So it never happened. the They want to be seen in a certain way in front of their circle and because of this they are not able to say no. Do you feel? Yeah, yeah. This is for sure. So, we take decisions because of the collective. Ultimately, we are social animals. Like, there are very few independent thinkers. So, someone or the other will always influence us. The question is that they are family, friends, friend, a husband, a wife, children, a society, social media?

But influence is never zero. Never is. So we establish that being selfish in a relationship is okay. It's not bad. I'd personally say yes. Let's talk about other things that people think are bad in a relationship. Or good. Whatever a relationship or good. It's good. Do you feel that there should be self-respect and self-esteem in a relationship? Absolutely. It's very important.

Why? This is a new concept. First, let's understand the definition of self-respect. So what is the definition of self-respect? Self-respect is that you keep the promises that you make to yourself. Simple. You keep the promises that you keep and make yourself. Let's start with individual self-respect.

You say that I will go to the gym from tomorrow morning and you go. That adds to your self-respect. I will eat well from tomorrow and you do.

Adds to your self-respect. I will eat well from tomorrow. And you do it. Adds to your self-respect. From tomorrow, I will answer every friend's call within an hour. And you do it. Self-respect.

he doesn't go.

he didn't go on the third day. So, that is where the seed of self-respect goes in. Now, it's the same thing that manifests at a relationship level as well. So, let's go back to the same story that we were having. I am your wife and you are my husband. I am your husband and you are my wife. I am your wife and you are my husband. I am your husband and you are my wife. I am your husband and you are my wife.

I am your husband and you are my wife. the seed of self-respect goes in. Now it's the same thing that manifests at a relationship level as well. So let's go back to the same story that we were having. I am your wife. And I had promised myself that in this relationship, I will tell Raj what is important for me.

Not because I hate Raj. Because I feel that Raj will also be happy if I put my demands, my wishes in front of Raj. And I will at least try to make him understand me. But whenever I get that chance, I stop. And I stop because the same conditioning comes to my mind that no, you are getting selfish.

No, you are putting your wishes first. No, he is happy. Why are you ruining this opportunity for no reason? And I am not fulfilling the promises I have made to myself. And that is when self-respect in the relationship starts to go down. A lot of people say this that the strongest relationships are those where mutual respect is there.

And I would disagree that if the basis of of mutual respect is not self-respect, then that mutual respect is not respect, it is mutual dependency. That I don't respect myself, that's why I respect you. And I find lost respect in your respect. The same way, who are the most broken people in a relationship? Those who don't love themselves.

Those who don't love themselves, always look for love in others. They are the ones who are needy. They are the ones who are always looking for validation. They are the ones who are always saying, you love me, right? You won't leave me, right?

You won't go me, right? You won't go anywhere, right? They are the ones who are also the most jealous. They are the ones who are most envious because they don't love themselves. They don't know how much they are capable of. And that's why they are constantly surprised at the fact that a person like you is with me. And that is the first foundation of a relationship, self-respect. Once you have self-respect then I'm like you know what you are so incredible in the way you think, in the way that you look at things, in the way that you do your things. I have so much to learn from you. I respect you for what you do and I have the self-confidence

and the self-respect that I can learn from you. That is an incredible relationship. But isn't in the relationship and this is me talking from a very idealistic world point of view. It's in a relationship. self-respect, ego, self-respect. That's how healthy relationships are. At some point, I can't do this on everything. I said this, I can't do this. There are bad days. Absolutely.

Where you will be very stubborn, you will beg, you will do what you don't want to do. You will compromise to make the other person happy, you will adjust. In all this, your ego, your self-respect, your self-esteem will be compromised a lot. And isn't that okay sometimes? Absolutely it is. 100% it is.

The difference, Raj, is do you do it willfully or are you expected to do it?

Hmm.

Very good.

Very good point. Yeah. That is it.

That is just it.

So if your day is bad, and I see that your day is bad, I see that your day is bad, and you are important to me in my life, then I will be willing to say my self-respect or say choices or say desires, I keep them aside and attend you.

That self-respect. It is not that I am doing something for you by killing my self-respect and self-worth. Because I am doing it with my own will. And I know why I am doing it because it is important for me. But if you taunt me and make me feel that when your day was bad, marker mujhe yeh aisaas dilate ho ki jab tumhara din kharab tha, toh main office se aakar tumhar le beta tha, aaj jab mera din kharab hoa hai, toh tum apne doston ke saath na jaakar mere

saath nahi bhat sakti, bola itna saath nahi kar sakti ho. Aur tab agar tum wo karti ho, toh fir tum apne self-respect. Hmm. So it is simply... Are you doing willfully or are you expected?

Exactly.

That's a good... Because I would think like, let's say if... It's very natural to fight in a couple. Right? And if I... If I and my partner fight for some reason,

and then my partner is yeah just I don't know about me can even jarry room say bar like a better whatever and then was Mac and see her that she's hurting hmm what any but I am a guilty guilty guilty nobody knows this cookie or stamp a mojo Graham essay you will say like a and let I your your good Samir just she wants to leave and I just hug her and like crush.

She is saying that maybe she doesn't want to see my face. She doesn't want to talk to me. But I am just holding her and saying, no, don't go. It's okay. Like let's just. And I am sort of like for a moment, if you want to call it, I am begging her to not go.

If I hold her for two minutes, even if she begs and begs, after that, her anger will also become normal. And now, maybe after 10 minutes, we will have a very sane conversation.

Correct.

But if I was at this time, my self-respect and my own self-respect, we would have started being different from there.

Yeah.

But in this... If it becomes a pattern for 20 times, probably this is toxic.

True.

But one of the times, if it happens, then it's okay. And I think you made the point. You did it willfully.

Yes.

It wasn't expected. The second, a very subtle nuance in this, Raj, the way you described it is, what is the opposite of self-respect? It's a very interesting question. What is the opposite of self-respect? According to me, the opposite of self-respect is ego. Ego is actually the enemy of self-respect. Ego is not self-respect.

A lot of people think it is. Ego is an illusion that you create of who you are

and the need for you to stick to that identity irrespective. That is ego. Wow! So, the ego of a Rajshamani is that I am the biggest podcaster of this country and soon the world. Let's assume that.

So, that is actually the biggest enemy of your self-respect. Let's assume that. I have to keep learning. It's my responsibility to remind myself that I am the lowest, the most stupid person in this room. I just have to learn. This is my self-respect. This is my promise to myself. But my ego tells me that I have grown up. My ego tells me that the Prime Minister of a foreign country

has also come on my podcast. My ego tells me that I talk to people on WhatsApp who are doing everything, they are taking care of the country. My ego says that I have become successful in life. So your ego will only try to crush your self-respect.

True.

So if in that fight, you willfully take it in your arms and say sorry True. But your ego will say, he is wrong. You are right. If you take him in your arms this time, then the next time when he is wrong and you are right, he will never apologize. You will have to apologize. Raj, don't bow. Raj, don't apologize. Don't stop him. Let him go this time. That is where things break.

Do you think it's not true? A flip side to it? Because, it's said that what you allow becomes a habit. So, it's not like a person thinks that if I

say sorry twice, why should I say it the third time? A relationship...

To me, it's wrong.

I hate it. But I'm just saying, thought experiment. I think you are almost the same way that I would also concur with. I don't care about what pattern it forms because the test of the relationship is there will be no pattern formed. That is the test of the relationship is there will be no pattern formed. That is the test of the relationship. So I often think that if you have made a boundary in your life,

any boundary, let's say, I will give a strange example, that I don't like to talk about religion at all. I feel that I am an atheist. I feel that there is no God. But my partner is deeply religious. So I am not upset with him.

Of course, I don't want him to become an agnostic or an atheist. But I don't want him to put his religion on me. I don't want us to ever talk about religion. So I want to set a boundary that I am not comfortable having conversations around faith and religion. If a person does not respect that boundary, that is the best test for relationship. But people do the opposite.

That relationship will only be stable when there are no boundaries. So the same way, if you break a pattern, that it's not my fault, I apologize. Let's break the pattern. That is the best test of the relationship. Whether the pattern will break or not.

Because if it does, and your partner is now always expecting you to apologize even when you are wrong, there was no relationship. It was always one-sided. But if the partner has the ability to say, he also breaks the pattern sometimes, I can do it too. That's it.

This is the relationship. This is what I wanted. It's exactly both sides without even expressing that that is the case. Now I'm making it sound very idealistic, but what you need to recognize is that this is not just in one context. It is made by joining small contexts. You saw, I gave today, he took it.

Tomorrow, he gave something else, I took it. Day after tomorrow, I gave something completely random, he took it. And on the fourth day, he gave something random, I took it. So, this calculation is going on in a balanced way. And the relationship is very good. Like we write in marriages, that Sharma Ji gave 1000 rupees,

he gave this much, so that in their marriage, they give exactly the same inflation adjusted amount. No such calculation is going on. There is no debit credit. There is no account in this relationship. Everything is understood. I made the boundary, he respected it.

This was the best test of this relationship. Tell me one thing, because we're talking about keeping a score relationship. I hate keeping scores in relationship. I think the relationship completely aligned. Don't keep a count. If you want relationship to succeed, don't keep a count that these are the number of times I've taken you out on date, these are numbers of time where I've forgiven you or I've fought and you've fought

and you've done this, stop counting. The day you stop counting is the day you start building a relationship. But a lot of people today because they don't want to bear any inconvenience. They switch very quickly. Do you think it's an attachment issue or some sort of like, we've almost become agnostic to inconvenience. Like as a generation, if we see even a little inconvenience,

then we are not ready to bear it. Is that a problem there? It is. It's a very, very, very big problem. And the root cause of this problem is parents.

Explain.

Parents protected their children in the name of giving what we didn't get, we will give it to our children. So you will see, especially in big cities, but almost everywhere, economic strata changes. Parents experience growth in a generation, they get a little bit of capability, money etc.

So they make a world for their children. In that world, a gated community will come, help will come, air conditioning will come, good schools will come, no exam will come for the fifth week,

if a child falls in that world, parents will pick him up while running. So there are many falls in that world, then parents will pick him up while running. So there are many things in this world that do not build the child's physical and mental resilience at any level. The child has not experienced how to face difficulties. Because there is no solution. If you really think about it, if a person does not play any sport and lives a life like

ours, how many chances does he have to taste the taste of sweat. The actual taste of sweat. Like I'm not making it a figurative idea about something. An entire generation doesn't know what the taste of their sweat is. Because they neither play nor run.

They have never learned to walk in the sun. They have never bought vegetables from the streets. They have never caught an walk in the sun, they have never bought vegetables from the road, they have never caught an auto or a bus. So, these are physical attributes. But this physical comfort easily becomes intellectual comfort. Where you don't know how to speak to strangers, You don't know how to learn a new thing.

You don't know how to speak on stage. You don't know how to introduce yourself. You don't know how to form meaningful relationships. You don't know how to have difficult conversations. You don't know how to negotiate. You don't know how to handle a confrontation. So you do what is the basic human temperament, run away.

Because there is no need to face it. You have already got a cushion from somewhere. So as soon as the work-life balance moved a little, you left the job because your parents will handle it. As soon as the relationship became a little difficult, you broke up because it will start again on a swipe right.

As soon as there is no money or a stock market crash, they sell it. Because they will put more money in crypto or something else where it is growing. There is no idea of intellectual discomfort. And that is something that I speak about actively, especially when I speak to students. One thing that you can do right in life, till you are in college, make yourself intellectually so uncomfortable in these 3-4 years, that you don't remember it. in in I accept it and I won't do it. What would like, because you know, two ways can go.

Sure. At one place people will say that discomfort is necessary in a relationship, only then it will be better and they will remain in a toxic relationship. And the other extreme is, there is a little discomfort, we will swipe right, we will not find anyone or we will find someone.

Absolutely.

The, The difference is hard work willfully or hard work forced upon, which is the same thing we were discussing. Everything requires hard work. Everything requires hard work.

So, in the 11th grade of this country, a child is preparing for engineering. 1% of the students are doing it willfully, 99% of them are being forced. So, those who are being forced are constantly in a toxic relationship with their career. But those 1% who are working hard, those who are scared, those who don't know how much rank they will get in JEE, who are working day and night, not eating, not drinking, not sleeping properly, but still working,

they are not in a toxic relationship. They are in an uncomfortable relationship, which they know is necessary to become comfortable at some point. The same journey that you are on. It can't be comfortable. You make it comfortable because you are doing it by your will. But if I forced you to do it,

If figuring out was an investor-funded company, where you used to get calls every day, that how many podcasts have you done this week? Who all have you called? Why hasn why the president of France hasn't come yet, why he hasn't reached the target that you had set last quarter, then you would be in a toxic career relationship.

It would not be anywhere. Like, you would not even ask for becoming the number one podcaster in the world. You're like, how do I get rid of this thing? That's the difference. Both are difficult. Both require hard work. Both require being uncomfortable. The question is whether you do it with your own will or not.

So a very beautiful comedian, Jerry Seinfeld, he had said this. He's like, everything in life will cause some stress, will cause unhappiness, will cause pain. The question is, what suffering are you willing to bear? Willing to bear. Because everything is suffering.

Everything is suffering. You want to get a good body? Suffering. You want to get a good relationship? Suffering. You want to have a great career? Suffering. You want to get a good relationship? Suffering. You want to have a great career? Suffering. You want to get rich? Suffering. Everything is suffering. Choose your suffering. Just choose your suffering. Choose it willfully.

But how do we get to a point where people are okay with the discomfort? Because people are not. And I see people quitting. And I myself am okay with taking sufferings and discomfort in some things.

And I am not in some things.

Absolutely. And I lack in that area of my life. No, I wouldn't call that lacking. I would actually call that really smart filtering of what is important for you and what is not. Because it is not necessary to win in everything and it is not necessary to win and it is not possible to win. So you have to pick your battles.

You have to pick your battles. We were talking about the same thing in Blue Break. There are some things that you gave up that were just not aligned to what you want to do. To be what you are doing right now. And that was also hard. This is also hard. But you chose your heart. You just chose your heart.

So, how do I not make it, not me, just anyone in the world, in relationships, how do they, so here's the thing, right? And I can tell you this, I have experience and I have talked to so many people about this.

This is purely anecdotal. Okay. Same relationship, same problem. One day you look very small and the next day you look very big. So one day, any discomfort or fight or anything small,

this is a part and I will convince him and he is okay.

Yeah.

And for me too. And one day, the day I was working a lot, I was very stressed, I was very tired, I was already fighting my battles.

That day,

that small thing, why doesn't he understand me? Like, does he keep thinking about this all day? So, I don't know which day is a true day and is a good day. And I don't know if the discomfort is big or small. I am ready to accept this discomfort willfully.

It's such a complicated situation. It is, it is. It is not easy to navigate this. Because the biggest reality is that today's human beings are unpredictable, emotional, biased.

We don't know what we are feeling. So, it's a very different thing to make someone else understand. How do you deal with this? I don't think there is any mechanism. But just to realize a pattern over time, it is not in that moment. The truth will not come out in that moment.

But if a person genuinely wants to work on himself, wants to build a good relationship, wants to lead a good life, that of intention, that of deliberation, then they will reflect on it. And they will not let it pass by.

They will not be like, last night I shouted at a person, fought with him. But it's okay, let's move ahead. Everything is fine today. Because I feel that 99% of people are living like this.

And if you live like this, then you are not working on yourself. Which I personally feel is the most important thing for every person. But that 1% who say, I wasn't that person last night. It was someone else. I have never shouted at anyone like that. I have never been so angry.

What was going on? Because clearly, I wasn't angry at that thing. It wasn't such a big thing. So, it's for some other reason. I will have to find out once. If I don't, then I am running blind.

And I feel these are the signs where you get to know that this is important for you. Because what is not important for you, you will never choose to reflect on it. Ever. But what is important for you, you will make time to reflect on it.

Absolutely you will. But do you choose, at what point do you say that, I have chosen this person and I want to make it work. Versus, that maybe this relationship is not right for me and either I am single or there will be another person in my life who will be better than this and which is not right for me. Either I am alone, single, or someone else will come into my life who will be better than me and will understand me. That is a very dangerous territory because there is no end to it.

There are 700-800 crore people in the world. There is someone who is very different from your current person. Very good. And he will be there all the time. Yes, he will be there all the time. So I would not risk that gamble. I think it's at some point what you need to settle down on. I'll, I'll tell you how I thought about it.

And I'm just lucky that it worked out for me in that sense. For me, the most important thing is that there should be value alignment. Because if there is value alignment, then things will be resolved. Now what is that value alignment? There are three things. One is respect, which is self-respect, respect for others, respect for context, respect for nature. But respect is a common value. Incredibly important for me. Because I am like that and I want the one I spend time with to be like that.

Number two is money. And money is not that we need money or not need money. It is the perspective towards money. Some people use money to buy things. Some people use money for experience. Some people can be happy without money,

some people are happy with money. So what is that view? Because I grew up without money, I never gave so much importance to money. So I know my life, I can live without money. So money is a very beautiful thing,

but beyond a point, it is only additional, it is not a point, it is just additional. It is not a necessity. It is certainly not a drive for me. And third is how you think about your own self. For me, it is incredibly important that the one I am with

thinks very highly of themselves. I don't want to be around people who don't have a lot of self-worth or self-respect. Because I have seen people in relationships trying to just fill the void of their partner that they could not fill themselves. I am not good, I am not useful, no one will love me, I am not beautiful, I am not strong.

Whatever the case may be. And the other person is saying, no, no, you are so nice, no, no, you are so gorgeous, no, no, you are so pretty, no, no, you you are so pretty, you are so smart. So you are constantly filling the void. Constantly filling the void.

And it will never fill.

Because it cannot fill with others. It can fill with itself. No other person can fill the void of your life.

It can only move with you.

I often say this, the worst relationship is when you put the pressure of being happy on your partner. That is the worst relationship. The best relationship is when you are happy and you share that happiness with your partner. But you will see so many relationships where it is the other person's responsibility to keep me happy. It's not my responsibility, it's your responsibility to keep me happy.

And that is the recipe for disaster. Would you think it would be fair if someone is watching this and because of that they see that I don't share all these things and break up? It's very dangerous, right? Because we are just sitting here and talking. It will have an impact on anyone. But I really feel if it happens, then the trigger should not be that you break your relationship.

Because that would be stupidity. The trigger should be that you are talking for the first time in your life about that relationship. With your partner. Because, I feel on the same thing. Thanks for saying this. I genuinely believe that people don't have relationship problem.

People have maintenance problem. Their relationship is just like every other relationship. They don't treat it like it's a constant work. They don't maintain it. They don't actually put in the work to make sure that, okay, it needs little oil, it needs little greasing,

it needs that, it needs that, and it needs constant reminder and constant work on an everyday basis. It's like more of a, because every relationship, every year will be different and will be bad and good in its own way.

Definitely.

Because the way I am today, I was not like this yesterday and I'm not going to be like this two years from now. So I need to either declare, communicate, show, understand, listen, reciprocate, do 20 things together and keep maintaining this if I want to maintain this relationship. So true. So listening to someone, I don't know what people do. Most of the people, they are like, relationship has a problem. Let me do something grand and a big gesture. It will be solved.

Let's go on a vacation. Let's go on a nice dinner. And it will be solved. And I feel in my experience that somebody who remembers your new habit that you like sipping chai on Wednesday, somebody remembering that is way more powerful than somebody planning a vacation on Valentine's Day. It is so true. It is so true. I'll tell you what is more important.

A lot of people think that in a relationship, just the same way you described it, our summer vacation is important, our dinner is important, our Valentine's Day is important, our anniversary is important.

But the most important thing in a relationship is that when a person comes home, how does his partner welcome him? Yeah.

When they lie down to sleep every night, what do they say to each other before going to sleep? When they open their eyes in the morning, what do they feel when they see each other? What do they say? These boring, repetitive, ordinary things of daily life, this is the relationship. Relationship is not that vacation that you can go on Instagram. That world has brought it. Relationship is what you will feel every day.

And it's the same thing with say career as well. Everyone thinks salary is important. Everyone thinks growth is important, designation is important.

No.

What these people feel at the end of every day, that's what makes their career. That's what makes it up. So the ordinary boring things in a relationship, that's what makes a relationship.

True.

That's what makes a relationship. I agree with this thing. I think with business, startup, career or relationship, what you said is right. Like it's being seen and heard will always be valued more than somebody who's making you excited.

Correct.

Like it's good to be excited. And occasionally it works. It works. But then overall wherever you feel more seen and heard, whether it's a company or in a relationship, you always choose that over temporary excitement. Absolutely.

Very, very...

Because at the end of it, people want this only. That's what humans want. True. Tell me one last thing. Because in the beginning we talked about this and I left the thread. You said, there is a game in the world. And people are making games out of it.

Right. And I read one of your tweets. I think somewhere. I think AI model repurposed it. Tell me if you have said, like settling down is a game. It's a business. You said that, right? Yeah, I did.

Settling down is a business. What does it mean? The world keeps telling us to settle down. What does it mean to settle down? So, in the 11th or 12th grade, you will be told to prepare for an entrance exam. Settle down. So, you will pay for coaching, you will pay for hostel, you will pay for all of that.

Then, when you are in for hostel, you will pay for all of that. Then when you are in that college, you will be like, now that college is good, settle down, you will take an education loan. Then you will leave from there, you will get a job. As soon as you get a job, people will say, now you have arrived, settle down, buy a car.

So you will take a car loan for that. Then people will say, it's great, now you get married, so you will take a personal loan for that. You are feeding random people for three days, with your own money. Then people will say, now you have settled, now you buy a house, then you will take a home loan. Then they will say, now you have children, so you will pay their school fees to raise children, for that you will take a loan somewhere, you will take their insurance policy, you will pay their school fees to raise your children, you will take a loan for that,

you will take their insurance policy, you will take an investment plan for them. So, if you think about it, at every stage, we have basically been sold what needs to be the next phase of this script. But surprisingly, that next phase always comes with us taking on additional burden financially, then we are ready for or we should be taking at that time.

And we have completely normalized and legitimized that. It is completely normal. Like, taking loan for car is completely normal. Taking personal loan for marriage is completely normal. Spending lakhs and crores on marriage, buying jewelry, feeding people, strangers is completely normal. Spending lakhs and crores on a wedding, buying jewellery, feeding non-Indians, it's completely normal.

You will take a house loan, it's completely normal. Then you will take an education loan for your children, it's completely normal. You will pay their coaching fees, it's completely normal. And it goes back to the same thing that we were talking about forced labour, that we never stop and ask, when and why did this become normal? Because it was not normal all its life.

In the history of this world, taking a loan is a very recent phenomenon. Taking a loan in this country is a phenomenon of the last 10-20 years. Earlier, loans were not available. Taking a loan was a very distant thing. They were not available. You went to take a credit card, you had to climb the stairs. Last 10-20 years, we didn't get loans.

You had to go to the credit card and get the balance. You couldn't get a credit card anywhere. Because your status is not your status and your salary is not your salary. And even if you get it, you used to spend it in a big way. And people used to tell you that your credit limit has reached 30%. We are not going to issue any more.

But today, you can sell anything you want. So settling down is actually now a business model.

Where

we love

the fact that people are eager to settle down because that simply means there will be more money that they can afford pulled out into the system and they will be paid more. They are getting ready and becoming a customer for the next cycle.

It is crazy like, a baby is born, you will not know all this but you should know that as soon as the baby is born, you will start getting calls from preschool within the next year. They have the data. All the data is leaked because the data is going to the birth certificate. So, the data comes from the hospital,

and it reaches them. As soon as you register a company, you will start getting calls from the bank. That, open a credit card, sorry, a current account. You will have to register for GST. You need CA, etc.

That data is going. As soon as you reach the 9th, 10th grade, you will start getting calls from the coaching institute. As soon as you will get admission in the college, you will start getting calls from the bank. As soon as you get married, for some weird reason, people will get to know that the marriage is taking place. There was a point where, in the house of marriage, no matter how obscure the place you lived in, you would reach on the day of marriage.

How did you reach? There is no database of the marriage. It is coming from somewhere. That's the same thing that's now extending to virtually everything. The information flow is absolutely robust, super watertight in this country.

But it's just that who's getting the information now.

And then, the banks get the information.

That's it.

It's our money kept in the bank that is lent back to us at a higher rate of interest. I'm not saying that that is wrong. It's the business model. But one should be aware that that is a business model. It is your money that you have parked in the bank, earning 3%, that is given back to you

at 8-9% home loan, education loan, 10-12% car loan, 14-16% personal loan. This is your money. You are getting it back. And its spread is someone's profit. And you are being sold that thing every day.

That if you have not done this, you have not arrived in life. As I told you, the car is a status symbol. It is not a means of transport. But all of these things create a financial, psychological burden. Like psychological financial burden is when, on every more men than women in today's world.

Totally, because that's the game. Every man has this financial burden in their head that he will have to work hard and that's why I can't be seen failing.

Correct.

So all these things, these are the tick marks I need to have in order to be like just to be considered as a man who is manly enough in the society. Just arrived in life. Yeah. I'm just successful. Forget successful. Just like if I just want to be considered as a part of the... Not failure. Not failure.

If I want to be considered in the not failure category, then I should have college money, then a good job, then a house, and a car. This is the minimum financial pressure on me. Otherwise, I am failing.

This is not failure.

This is not failure.

If it's good, it's a success.

Yes, yes.

Then it's a different level. You have stood on your own feet, you have earned so much money by living your life as you wish. You are driving a car. There's an African proverb which says, a man's downfall begins when he gets distracted by love.

Do you believe so?

The wrong kind of love, yes. But the right kind of love will only apply. I know it's incredible that you say this, because I have a very strong point of love, yes. But the right kind of love will only apply. I know it's incredible that you say this because I have a very strong point of view on love. What is the objective of love? If we genuinely ask, this is like total 28 to 45 conversation.

What should be the objective of love in life? And I personally say that the objective of love should be that there should be a person in your life with whom you can talk to, you can talk to them openly, they keep you happy, you keep them happy, you share happiness, you have very good moments. You really enjoy and you look forward to spending time with that person. This should be the objective of love.

Now let's see what really happens. Love starts. In the beginning, it's very good. Then, you didn't call me. You forgot this. You don't respect me. You didn't do that.

Why are you talking to me? You didn't respect me in front of mom and dad. This and that. Loneliness, loneliness, loneliness.gles, struggles, struggles. So the purpose of love is not there. The objective of that relationship is not being fulfilled.

So why are you still in that relationship? Because that relationship has now become a relationship. And I personally feel that until that relationship lifts you from your life, that relationship should not exist in your life. This is my heart take on it. So I really feel that everybody who is in a relationship,

but feels that that relationship does not help them grow, is doing disservice to that relationship. They shouldn't be in that relationship does not help them grow, is doing disservice to that relationship. They shouldn't be in that relationship. So, I don't agree with this proverb because the relationship is wrong if it becomes the reason for your downfall. Because the right relationship will never let you fall.

You will never fall in love if it's true love. You will only rise in love if it is true love. That's certainly the case for me. And I see enough and more cases where relationships are made and broken. People are made and broken because those relationships are right or wrong. Interesting. On that thought, thank you so much.

Thank you.

For being here again.

Absolutely. And every time I talk to you, I have the similar feeling that why don't we do this more. We should do more. I know like I'm busy, you're busy and our calendars don't match. We should plan like 6 months in advance. We should totally.

We should do this more often. We should do this into an annual ritual where we will update our yearly. What are point of views that you changed in the last one year? What are my point of views that changed?

It will be fun.

That will be fun. And it's always like genuinely it's a pleasure talking to you because you are very well read. Like it's reflected every time I talk to you. Like it's reflected every time I talk to you. Like it just... I did a podcast with you for the first time, which has not been uploaded yet.

I don't know if you remember.

Yes, I remember. I did it on the first Zoom call from my room. And in my office, there was a terrible audio and something that it didn't come through. It never came live. Since then, I talk to you every time. I feel I have learned a lot of things. And I am leaving a lot of threads.

Which I should talk about more.

Yeah.

And it has not changed.

Lovely.

It's amazing. It's the same at my end as well. I really feel that... Last time when it happened, my team asked me. Was the conversation any different? Because now Raj has become bigger and now they ask me the same thing.

Now he has grown up. How has he become? I was like, one thing that hasn't changed and I have to tell you this. And I am really proud of you for this. You are in the conversation throughout.

Like throughout.

Even when you are glancing at your notes, even when you're looking at your laptop, you are in the conversation. And that is such an incredible quality because undivided attention will take you so far, my friend, that you have no idea. You have no idea. A person who is distracted, especially in today's world, if he has the ability to not be distracted, he has won.

He has won. He has won in written form. Focus is the new IQ in today's world. And you are, as you repeatedly say, hyper focused.

Thank you.

That is incredible. But tell me, give me a feedback. Because you have done it three times. This is the third time. Do you feel difference? What difference did you feel from, let's say, first one I won't count.

Last time and this time. Because your time conversation flow was same. Your probing, your quality of probing, your curiosity of probing and also your ability to bring so many different aspects that you are experiencing to this conversation that is increasingly getting better and better.

Because you get perspective. I wouldn't blame you that why it wasn't there before and why it is now. You are still 28 and I keep telling you that. 29 now. I just keep saying 28.

Oh my God!

Okay.

I have lost it.

My God! So old.

But you are 29 and you don't realize it but you are incredibly young and you are very, very early in the game. And if you have this much experience, then it will be that much. But for 29, you are gathering a lot more, you are processing a lot more, and you are bringing that to every conversation, which is definitely something that I experienced. For sure.

Thank you.

I liked it.

See, I really wish people should experience Angkor Wat the way you experienced. And I don't say that loosely. No, I appreciate that. There are people I wish people don't experience for us.

Only really Suneb.

I wish the real audience, who have only seen one or two clips, they should experience you the way we have.

It's a very different you. I really enjoy this. who have only seen one or two clips, they should experience you the way we are.

Absolutely. Cheers. My God! How are you?

After so many things changed.

I'm great. I can't complain. Every time I meet you, you look younger. Like what are you doing?

What are you eating?

I'm like, so it's longevity hacks.

I was like, how are you doing?

I want it too.

All these hacks.

There's nothing. There's nothing.

It means like I get like 5 years older and you get like 5 years younger. I was telling Sakshi that it feels like the cocoon is slowly bursting, the caterpillar is coming out, and she is slowly realizing that she is going to become a butterfly. No, no, we still have a lot to learn and grow. Thank you so much for watching this episode till the end. Now you have to do three things. Number one, subscribe to this channel so that we can bring more valuable guests for you

and we can ask them the questions that you want. Number two, tell me in the comments which other guests you want to see on our podcast so that we can bring them and ask them the questions that you want. And number three, share this episode with at least one person whose life will be positively changed. And number three, do share this episode with someone who will have a positive change in their life. Because one conversation is enough to change someone's life.

Because one conversation is enough to change someone's life. I'll see you next time, until then keep figuring out.