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Everything we do is controlled by our brain. Our actions, thoughts, beliefs, emotions, our entire physiological function are all governed by a single organ. But when was the last time you actually put your brain first? Our brains are our bodies CEO and when we don’t get the braincare and nutrients we need our physical and mental health suffers - something Dan Murrary-Serter knows all too well about.
After a journey of depression, anxiety & insomnia, Dan found his remedy in nutrition and co-founded smart supplement brand Heights. Dan is also the host of the UK's Top Business Podcast, Secret Leaders, Co-Founder of Foundrs, writer at Forbes covering UK Entrepreneurship and Communities and an Angel investor. In the episode Dan chats to Ali about his mental health, spiritual and entrepreneurship journey. They discuss everything from identifying your wants and haves in life, to finding your purpose how not to neglect your brain and much more.
Dr Ali Abdaal is the world’s most followed productivity expert and author of Feel-Good Productivity, the brand new book that reveals why the secret to productivity isn’t discipline, it’s joy. In his podcast, Deep Dive, Ali sits down with inspiring creators, thinkers, entrepreneurs and high performers to help listeners build lives that they love.
Ali’s cheerful style, positive approach, and well-researched content have made him a trusted voice when it comes to productivity. The internet means that we have access to more knowledge and information than ever before - but it can also be overwhelming. So, Ali and his expert guests focus on simple, scientifically proven, and actionable steps you can take to make real changes in your life.
Ali’s a firm believer that happiness isn’t the result of success - in fact, happiness is the key to success in the first place. Ali made this discovery while working as a doctor in a chaotic hospital ward. In the past, hard work had been the answer to every obstacle in his life. But no amount of hard work was going to combat panic and burnout.
So, Ali dedicated himself to figuring out a new approach to productivity - one that focuses on enjoying the journey and working towards truly meaningful goals. Deep Dive, with its authentic and engaging conversations, will give you all the insights you need to do just that.
Ali Abdaal 0:00
Hello and welcome to deep dive the podcast that delves into the minds of entrepreneurs, creators and other inspiring people to uncover their journeys towards finding joy and fulfilment at work and in life. My name is Ali and in each episode, I chat to my guests about the philosophies, strategies and tools that have helped them along the path to living a life of happiness and meaning. In this episode, I sit down with Dan marisota. Dan is co founder of smart supplement brand heights, host of the UK, top business podcasts, secret leaders, the co founder of founders, a writer at Forbes covering UK entrepreneurship and communities and an angel investor as well. In our conversation, Dan talks openly about how his mental health journey led him to founding heights. And we discussed the relationship between anxiety and entrepreneurship. We also chat about everything from spiritual enlightenment to identifying your wants and haves in life
Dan Murray-Serter 0:46
integrity, contribution. And I mean, like, ultimately, impact is for me the key of where I want to see my life's work go.
Ali Abdaal 0:57
So please feel free to grab a cup of tea and enjoy the conversation. Dan, welcome to the podcast. How you doing?
Dan Murray-Serter 1:02
I'm great. Thanks for having me.
Ali Abdaal 1:04
Thanks for thanks for coming on. So you're the founder of the Heights company. What is what is heights?
Dan Murray-Serter 1:11
Straight into it, great question
Ali Abdaal 1:12
And how did you talk me into subscribing?
Dan Murray-Serter 1:16
Okay. So I mean, look, you're a productivity expert, for starters, right? That's your jam, and you're living, allegedly, if the stories are to be believed, and one of the most overlooked ways for optimising brain performance, full stop is nutrition. And I guess like to go back to the start a little bit. The role that nutrition can play in our brains is something that is a) not particularly necessarily an interesting stories are most not the kind of thing that most people come across in general, I think when people are looking for your content, and the type of stuff that you share on social, particularly it is all about how to get the best out of life coming from a good base, right? So coming from a healthy base, I discovered nutrition with regards to brain optimization, mental health, and what we call braincare from a low base. So I never had any interest in this space whatsoever. I'm not a neuroscientist, not a nutritionist. But I had insomnia. And I got insomnia out of nowhere. I was perfectly healthy. I was happy. Everything was going well in my life. And then one day, I just couldn't sleep. And the next day, I couldn't sleep. And this just went on and on. And on my anxiety. I've always had some anxiety because my joke to people but I think it's true as I'm an entrepreneur, right? It's like a career choice of anxiety, okay? Because if you think about it, anxiety is really fixation on thinking about the future, that uncertainty of what might come. That's a very, you know, practical reality. And when people describe anxiety, that's what entrepreneurship is, you're constantly creating a future that doesn't yet exist. So you are living in the future. And if you're not, you're not doing it right, so they're kind of good bedfellows. So you know, I'd had normal anxiety and what I call normal anxiety, you know, it can be frustrating, a bit debilitating, etc. Of course, it makes you feel not great and different people have different symptoms from the anxiety, I have shortness of breath, for example, that's my symptom. But this was chronic anxiety. So we've never had something like that before. You know, the symptoms of that were, you know, I would get hot and cold sweats. You know, I would break out into a panic attack. You know, these were things that were happening to me on a near daily basis after two to three months of no sleep, and I ended up with insomnia for six months. So I tried everything. I tried calm, I tried sleepio I tried CBT. I tried, you know, cutting out alcohol having more alcohol, you name it. And I went to a doctor, he gave me sleeping pills. At no point ever did nutrition come up in the conversation, and I went for dinner with a friend and she said, Have you heard of brain nutrition? And I was like, nope, literally no idea what you're talking about. It sounds super weird. She's like, have you been to a dietitian? It's like no, what is a dietitian? Which is ridiculous because actually, you know, I'm really into health and wellness. And I was I used to work in tech, but I wasn't to help homeowners. I still had no idea what a dietitian was because I just had nutritionists she was like well it's like a nutritionist but they deal with sick people you have a mental health problem and I was like well I wouldn't go that far calm down just quite quite offensive almost right? I took a bit of took a bit of offence to her saying and she was like, but you do just told me haven't slept for six months and sound healthy. And I was like oh this is really actually very helpful framing I hadn't really thought about it. She's like, do you have insomnia and label that right? I was just like, I'm not sleeping. She was anyway just go to a dietitian to see what she says. And I did. And she diagnosed me in seconds. told me to start taking supplements immediately. She was like she prescribed me supplements which I thought was a super weird thing to do. Because you prescribe medication not supplements huge supplements sceptic over here never taken them before thing they don't work hurt bad things just not particularly you know taking protein for examples are not like anti all supplements but you know for whatever reason in my head just didn't buy into any of that. Anyway she prescribed me tha Amiga three B vitamin complex and blueberry extract very specifics that you can't go to boots Congo to Holmbury have to go is like a whole foods or planet organic where they basically get the most expensive highest quality, blah blah blah I thought she was like a shareholder or something. So it's a bit weird like telling me where to buy my things, but okay, it's been over 100 pounds on those three spent a week literally well within two days I started to like have my first few hours of sleep within a week I was sleeping till 7am a quarter up Salah what genius she was and frankly she was just like, this is science does my job. This is like you told me your symptoms. I knew basically what was wrong also because I've eliminated other things right? I had tried the psychological interventions of my symptoms of insomnia and anxiety, right? I've been to a therapist, I've been to a sleep therapist. I've tried lots of different things. So it was easier for her to say, look, it's none of those things. It's going to be nutrition, you've got poor brain nutrition, you need to bring it back to a level. And this is where my journey started, which was there's like sheer fascination that there is something so obvious for a scientific medically trained professional, that most people do not go to Bihar, it was like a one minute fix. And I'd spent six months basically having my life ruined as worst thing that I've ever experienced. I've had depression and a bunch of other mental health problems, but this was the worst, because it was a daily lethargy, daily I just couldn't function which is not a good place to be for an entrepreneur, and grumpy and snappy with people because of that. Anyway, like I I just found this whole thing so crazy that there is this thing in science that was so obvious that she knew would kill me and did that is a space that people are highly sceptical about and don't trust and as an entrepreneur you're like juices start flowing right or like there is an amazing opportunity here to combine like science and evidence alongside really great communication and brands. So this is kind of where the the backstory of that started.
Ali Abdaal 7:13
Interesting. Yeah, so I think the first time we spoke I think I said to you what, when when I learned about heights and saw that it was it was a supplement. I kind of said to you that well supplement equals scam in my book. I guess the it sounds it sounds like that was your opinion of supplements as well before, before this word for you. Yeah, what? Why are supplements so associated with the word scam in like the minds of normal people,
Unknown Speaker 7:38
because they totally deserve to be. So there is a really my co founder, Joel, and we've been co founders for a couple of businesses now. So we worked in tech together, etc. but very different mindsets with these things as well. But he was also a supplement sceptic, and he had really bad gut problems, right? So he actually ended up curing his gut problems by taking symprove which was the first time that he was like, well, the supplement can work how interesting and actually if you go into the basics, of course supplements work like ultimately, you know, there are so many narratives that are counterintuitive, right? But there are narratives where we understand they work if you're pregnant, you're told to take supplements, you've got a young baby that I've just had a baby as you know, like they were immediately injecting vitamin K vitamin D that is the that when I say immediately I mean in the first 10 minutes of her life, right? So you know, there are multiple examples where science and like and medicine know that that's evidence based and worth doing. We're told in the UK to take vitamin D all winter now with COVID vitamin D is one of the most popular supplements etc etc right? There are multiple narratives where we know that supplements work yet the reason these narratives and that they take big headlines like supplements don't work don't waste Don't waste your money Don't waste your time kind of thing. The reason they take hold is actually totally deserved and it's the marketing industry that's behind supplements that's the reason so the main challenge here is price most supplements you buy for 10 pounds for example in a high street shop like a boots or Holleyman Barrett has absolutely nothing in it and they are legally obliged to tell you this and this was sort of the journey that I went on like starting to understand the industry that I'd be going into yeah right so give you a bit of backstory on this as well as how to go to Planet organic or Whole Foods right I was a bit you know, I always asked more questions about all this stuff. Why I don't get that a long story short, all the supplements in there cost 3040 pounds apart. But if you buy exactly the same thing on the high street boots, Holland and Barrett they cost 10 pounds for the one penny deal and you're like that makes no sense. Like I walked five minutes away and like there was so much more anyway. The main reason is, there is a discrepancy in the industry that is global, where you can basically put a minimum amount Have nutrients in and make a marketing claim and you make that same marketing claim. Whether you put in the minimum amount or the right amount, according to science. So give you an example that I use regularly because they're such a big company. It's highly offensive. 21 omega threes, right? Everyone grows up in that bear. I was taking omega three when I was like 11 to 18. Yeah, right. Yeah. And your parents want you to take omega threes. There's loads of evidence around Amiga threes and whether you take fish oil or your plant base and you say algae oil, and by the way, fun, fun. You know, meandering fat Yeah, fish that are where most people get their omega threes from fish don't naturally make their own omega three they get it from algae. So really interesting, but like you know, this idea that we only can get omega threes from fish no fish can only get it from algae that's their main food source they get it from algae, then we eat fish. So if you get it from our game, you're getting a more sustainable natural sources where actually comes from which is a fun fact. Anyway, so the the reality is Amiga three is a seven C's being the biggest brand in the world was the one that I use, when I first I was looking into this, what a scam this all is, if you buy that number one bestseller, which is the number one best selling omega three oil in the world, which is 15 pounds a month, you get 45 milligrammes of omega three in each daily dose, fine. That is the minimum amount you are allowed to put in globally to make a marketing claim, like promotes a healthy heart function promotes a healthy brain function, etc. the right amount, according to science is a minimum of 250. So that is all the science research, any paper will say, as a minimum of 250. So if you work that out, you need to take a daily dose of sevenseas for six days straight, to get one day's worth of what science is telling you. But they're a marketing company, they do what they want. So they put in the minimum amount. And so what happens, this sort of perpetuates, what happens is the global prices of supplements are cheap, because everyone is putting in the minimum amount to make a marketing claim. And the maximum amount, or at least the minimum you need, according to science is so far off the actual dose, that when a regular consumer like you will meet, or go into a shop and say this one's 30 pounds, this one's five pounds, I'm just going to pick the five pound one, you're getting the same thing, five times six is 30. It's just that you would have to take seven seas six days in a row. So then what happens, sadly, is people feel nothing from the impact because they're having way less from the scientific dose that you actually need for health and well being. And so people like basically starts taking us up for months feel nothing from it and not getting any benefits. Yeah, I think they're rubbish. And that is across the whole industry. So like 99% of supplements that you buy, basically use the marketing amount, not the scientific amount. And they're legally required to put all of this on the pack. So this isn't just some guy with an agenda trying to sell his product. I'm telling you that you can do all this research yourself. But the problem is, is it an asterisk is on the back. You have to be a savvy consumer. And we've had this conversation so many times of people where they then got into their own supplement cupboards. And it's the box they usually throw away as well, right? So you throw away that box, and suddenly you don't even have the thing on there. So you're like, Well, I'm not really sure but next time you go and look, you will see the difference between the RTA and the site, also the marketing amount, the scientific amount, and it's usually miles apart. So the industry is set up to scam people, one way or another. Everyone is in collusion. There are so many bad things that go into these products. So up until recently. Well, I think they still dirt I'd like to say up until recently, beta biotics were using a product called titanium dioxide, which is basically like a poison in their products. So you know, that is like, it's literally on a banned list now having to like recall products. But the reason people do this is because they use fillers. So if you Okay, so if you think about the size of a pill, right? So think about a multivitamin. In general, you put a bunch of different things in a lot of these compounds are tiny, right? Like a speck, like a speck of dust would be like the amount you need per day. And if you put all of that together, you get to a capsule, and then to pack it together and not look like you're underselling a customer you pack the rest with chalk or with your bulking agents or whatever it is so that you get to like a full size product. So what we do at heights for example, is to clever things. One, we use these bespoke capsules where it's Amiga three on the outside, and then the capsules injected on the inside. So each one is two pills a day. So you as a customer taking two pills a day you're really getting four. That makes sense, okay, because as you can see, it's like a two in one every single capsule.
Dan Murray-Serter 14:48
And then secondly, there's no synthetic caking agents or bulking powders whatsoever because whilst we're creating the product, my business partner and I will like if that's how everyone this is one of the cool thing About coming total outsiders the industry's you ask stupid questions, right? It's total first principle thinking but not because we're genius is because we don't know how to make the product. So if you don't know how to make the product, you come at it like, Well, why wouldn't you fill an entire product up with ingredients? But the reason is because no one else does that. But having no training in this space, having never worked in it, you don't ask those questions, you go, Well, that's what we want to do. We want to fill it with ingredients. Okay.
Ali Abdaal 15:23
So that's why supplement equals scam, because the whole, the whole industry is set up to basically scam consumers, because the marketing claim is so radically different to the scientific claim. And I guess what you guys are trying to do is approach supplements with a more evidence based, kind of less scammy
Dan Murray-Serter 15:42
perspective that says, Oh, it's like, this is what the science says. This is what the science says about the nutrient requirement to get this level of impact on a daily basis. That's why we chose it. That's why it's in the product. This is why it's good for you. It's as simple as that. I mean, it is honestly like what you would hope to expect from any modern day company. It's like clear communication. This is what you the consumer are hoping to get. Yes, this is what we're selling. It was really that simple the contract. But it's so murky, and I have no idea why. But supplement companies have this enormous loophole and, and it is the weird thing. It's like a global loophole. They're just like they all do it.
Ali Abdaal 16:21
That's very strange. I'm gonna ask you more, more about height in a minute, but I wanted to ask you about your recent baby. So yes, firstly, congrats on that front. Thank you. How old is she now?
Two weeks. And one day,
Two weeks in one day. Her name is Margot is that correct? I saw some very cute pictures on your Instagram. We're going to take a very quick break to introduce our sponsor for this episode. And that is brilliant. I've been using brilliant for the last two plus years. They're a fantastic platform for learning maths, science and computer science with engaging and interactive online courses. And the great thing about brilliant is that they really teach stuff from a very first principles based approach. It's almost like the way that we were taught in places like Oxford and Cambridge where you learn a concept and then you apply the concept to an interesting problem. Rather than just being spoon fed stuff. Like we initially learned in school, my favourite courses and brilliant other computer science ones. As some of you guys might know, I was torn between applying to medicine and computer science. I went for medicine in the end, but I always had an affinity to computer science and taking the courses on brilliant, like the Introduction to Algorithms and the introduction to Python really helped me get more of a grasp of computer science than I've ever had before. It's also great for learning how to code which is an incredibly useful skill to have, especially if you want to start a business. And I attribute like 98% of my business success, to the fact that I learned how to code when I was in secondary school. So if you want to check out the courses on math, science and computer science, then head over to brilliant org forward slash deep dive, and the first 200 people to sign up with that link will get 20% off of the annual premium subscription. So thank you brilliant for sponsoring this episode. What's it like becoming a father? And change gears completely?
Dan Murray-Serter 17:49
Yeah. Okay. So initially, I would say, I mean, there's two things to say here. One is that, you know, there is a great sense of uselessness. So all of my friends who are dads are all like, Oh, god, it's amazing. And, you know, get ready for all of this stuff, right? But actually, the reality if I'm being totally honest, and I like to be as honest as I possibly can be with people, the dependency on the mom is 1000, fold the dependency on the dad, okay? So it's a really interesting time, because you're, you want to help, I want to help my wife as much as I possibly can. But practically speaking, the baby's totally reliant on her for breastfeeding, right. And I can't help with that. And we were lucky because, you know, some of us struggle with breastfeeding and others started off really well. So we haven't moved on to a bottle yet. And that's a choice of my wife. So basically, you know, mom is in the driving seat, dad is there to support so my job has changed nappies, you know, soothe her when I can, but actually, you know, from a very practical point of view, it is eye opening, to think of yourself suddenly right as a kid, and just how much your mum had to do for you compared to your Dad, I'm sure it will changes. And I'm sure I will become more helpful and more more useful as she matures. But it's so fascinating right now just see the redundant role of a father in the early days, right? I mean, obviously, you could not be there. And I don't think I don't think evolution would have any difference. It would make no difference.
Ali Abdaal 19:15
Okay, so that's like one side of it, which is sort of self how we describe it. Like, I'm not being useful enough kind of vibe. You said there was a there was a second Yes.
Dan Murray-Serter 19:25
I guess the second is like two sided as well. One is that, you know, when she was born, everyone told me about that, you know how I'd have this philosophical moment of sheer fascination and bewilderment, etc. And the thing is, I am a very spiritual person. So I've been on a big spiritual journey for the last 10 years, constantly working on trying to be more in tune with my spirituality one way or another in whatever way you might define it. I'm happy to talk about it. But the point being because of that set up in my head, I was like, really ready for this moment, right, this existential moment and maybe It's because I have already experienced existential moments in my life and thought deeply about them. And I spend time reading around them and self inquiry and all that stuff, but I didn't have that moment. They handed me my baby. And like, honestly, it could have been anyone's baby. Yeah. And I wasn't like, Oh my god, I'm cooling off to this thing. I can't believe it. I was like, Oh, shit, this is my responsibility. What am I going to do with that? And, you know, the fact that we're in the room with them means you know, it's your baby. But otherwise, you know who's to say it is is just a really weird, you know, it doesn't come out of you the map. So on that basis, like they hand you this thing, and you're like, Okay, cool, I'll deal with it. Okay, so I was like, weird, right? Because I think I felt like disappointed in myself. I know I'm having this spiritual enlightening like moment of clarity. It's 100% and then I you know, I had these like really doubting questions you know, do I love her? Do I care for her? I thought these things would be natural to me, but actually, I'm learning that they develop over time. Time spent like any relationship so that's one side the other side is a two nights ago. She just stopped breathing. Yeah, so Sunday night, right. 10pm first lesson of fatherhood was don't try and get an early night made the mistake of trying to get an early night. paternity was like first part percent anyway was over so back to work and on Monday. And she just stopped reading she was like, starts to like really struggle to breathe. Let's make these weird sound starts to go pink, then blue. I'm on the phone to 999 my wife is like inconsolably crying we're doing like I'm watching some john ambulance like how to resuscitate a baby. Not really the kind of video you're hoping to search for in the first two weeks. super helpful NHS nine or nine person like calling me down telling me what to do, et cetera was really, really great ambulance came. She ended up just getting back into breathing like sort of naturally then massive cries and all this stuff. And yeah, like, NHS just tell us that this is extremely common. One of the most common ambulance call outs is for babies that won't breathe, but they need to resuscitate and I was like, What am I talking about this but yes, it's a really common thing and sometimes that's how babies die. They just forget to breathe because they're so new at breathing. They just forget. Like, what on earth? So the other side of this is like, you know, I've had my first fatherly panic which is like oh my god I can't even look after a child and like oh god I'm so sorry that didn't say I loved you so much like immediately so you have that sort of moment where you realise you do inherently deeply care about this thing. Because suddenly these emotions like all come out of you that you like the fear and responsibility that you didn't really know we're in you if that makes sense. So wasn't the kind of thing I was hoping to experience by now already. But crazy no so
Ali Abdaal 22:39
like randomly stop breathing Yeah, and you guys noticed that she'd run a list of free
Dan Murray-Serter 22:43
cuz I mean my wife is super astute because yeah, it's not easy. She She was basically making these weird sounds looked like she was struggling I was just after feeding we were sitting her up right? Like she was struggling a little bit and we're like patting her back and stuff and but her eyes were streaming and she wasn't crying we were trying to make her cry by like moving her legs moving her arms trying to annoy her because you can't cry if you're choking. Yeah, and you can't breathe so you know baby crying is like great sign but it was like five minutes of this like really struggling to breathe. Going bluer and bluer us freaking out and then like you know it's weird because in some senses I think it's almost worse that they're like yes you're totally normal perfectly healthy Don't worry about it you're like worry about it like much rather you told me you had a breathing problem was I mean what this might happen again the night well you know it could it's not as likely once it's happened once but good Yeah, we get this all the time. Wow. isn't that bad? So now your listeners know that that is a thing to look out for
Ali Abdaal 23:44
what was going through your mind as she was slowly getting pink and blue? Well, the thing is, I
Dan Murray-Serter 23:49
am a very my I growing up my dad was ill a lot. So I'm highly desensitised to health concerns from people. I've been in the hospital a lot. I have, I guess the point I'm trying to make is I'm very cool, calm and collected in the moment. Okay, all of these things are great. They have their downsides. I can be highly apathetic in situations I should be more emotional. You know, where people are really looking to me to have a distressed emotion. I can seem like I'm emotionless and I'm not I'm a very emotional person. But my reaction in a moment of high stress and great challenge, especially health wise, is to be super calm and practical, which quite useful in this moment. So straight on the phone to 909 having a calm conversation describing things a bit like a robot, right? So it's only after the fact that I sort of am able to relate, access my emotions, if that makes sense.
Ali Abdaal 24:50
Okay. This point you say about about about apathy. This is something that I have an issue with in that often, like, I will feel stuff But it would not be it would not be like, broadcast on my face. And so often you know, my husband would ask me like How are you feeling? I'm like, Oh, I'm you know feeling pretty good. And she'd be like, why don't you tell your face? Yeah, apparently like I just have a resting kind of apathy.
Dan Murray-Serter 25:14
Yeah, wrestling, calm face wrestling board faces.
Ali Abdaal 25:17
Calm face is probably a better way he was especially when doing these sorts of interviews where I have to really try and because I'm fully engaged, but the way I look is like, you know, either droopy is like, really bored and people are like, yeah, yeah. How did you realise that this was something that you had to kind of this this mismatch between, like, the emotions on the inside, and like the outward expression of those emotions. Well, my
Dan Murray-Serter 25:39
mom told me it was always a good way to get to get started. But you know, my mom is the opposite. So it might look my my dad was very stoic. My dad had, like I said, a lot of things like it's a long list of things he had wrong with me. He was blind. He had hostiles had gout had diabetes had like, you know, slipped discs and like just everything on the list that a human body can go through, or multiple times, pneumonia so many times bypasses like you name it, and was always really stoic and really calm in the moment. My mom would like freak out in the moment, understandably, right? Like really panic really freaking out. And if you're a young kid, and this is happening regularly, you sort of learn to desensitise yourself a little bit, because the freaking out doesn't help a solution doesn't get you any closer to anything. I guess in my experience, until my father passed away, like up until that moment, he always survived and come back. So you also have the experience that you know, the fear and in the moment, the you know, the panic in the moment, not only doesn't help you solve it, but it also isn't representative of the outcome, if that makes sense. Like if it's the first time you've seen someone struggle for their life, the fear that you feel is the same fear of essentially assuming that they're dead, right as they're like total panic that things are over. And I think the reality is like, because I'd so many times went through the cycle of why he's really sick, we need to go into hospital need to get him support, but he'll be get better, yeah, really helps temper your emotions. So I think I have this sort of natural disposition, I'm very glass half full guy anyway, but I always have a natural disposition that everything will be okay. And I think it really does help in the moment to, like, get in touch with how to solve a thing. Does this apathy have any downsides? Um, yeah, which is, essentially people think that I don't care. And it's really funny because, you know, feedback from my team, for example, we do really open 360 feedback all the time, like care without compromise as a heights value. So for values and one of them is care without compromise, which means that like, we'll go to the nth degree for customers, if you're not happy, we'll I mean, we'll do silly things or spend tonnes of money on making sure that without compromise, and also the other thing going back to the without compromising is because we think, you know, in, especially in supplements, space, there's so much compromise. So we choose the highest quality ingredients, most bioavailable source most sustainable everything is like, you know, what would like how would Ferrari sauce This is like all without compromise every different level? anyway. So the flip side of this is, people tell me that I'm very caring, very emotional. But in the moment, ever challenge, I think it can be really surprising to people. Because I am an emotive person, I'm expressive, you know, I am an ambivert. But you know, everyone that meets me thinks I'm an extrovert anyway. So all of these things are not what you expect as a reaction from someone in the moment when suddenly I sort of go into myself, and I'm like, how do we how do we calm down and solve this? Everyone be calm? And then that takes, so it's less about, like how I feel about that. But it's more that I am aware that it really surprises other people, not necessarily in a good way? Yeah,
Ali Abdaal 28:48
I guess it's one of those things where Malcolm Gladwell talks about this in his book talking to strangers. Yeah. where, you know, there are there are some people who have an emotional response, which is broadcast on their face, and some people who have an emotional response, which is not broadcast on their face, and how this can cause a lot of problems. And the examples that he uses, which are always the most like interesting ones, where, you know, a murder trial where the way the housemate responded was not how people thought the house maid should have responded and she should have been more distraught and crying openly but instead she kind of retreated into herself and that made people think she was cold and emotionless therefore she must be the murderer and ended up getting like wrongly imprisoned for some some number of years because of this phenomenon, whereby, you know, we think that people should be displaying the things that they're feeling on the inside more so on the outside. And so like, when I when I read that a year or two ago it it really resonated with me because I felt that I probably have that issue where I'll often bring my mom and she'd be like, what do you look so sad? Hmm. It's just like, generally been a great day, like, what the hell? Yeah, that kind of thing. But how does that make you feel? It makes me feel like Oh, that's a good question. It makes me feel like that. Sometimes like, oh, maybe I am sad. I'm just like convincing myself I'm not sad. And that like people talk about how 70% of communication is body language and how body language is all like subconscious. And maybe I am like subconsciously feeling sad, but I'm just actually telling myself I'm happy because I've drank the stoicism kool aid for too long. And it when it comes to kind of speaking to other people who also have this, that the like, actually, it's, it's kind of okay that your face does not reflect how you feeling inside, like you can accept that part of yourself and not feel like it's something you have to change. But I feel like it's probably quite quite useful when it comes to being an entrepreneur. And you mentioned entrepreneurship is a kind of a journey of anxiety. I want to talk a little bit more about that, because you've been a serial entrepreneur for a long time. What do you mean about this, like, anxiety component?
Dan Murray-Serter 30:43
Yeah, so I think there's a great quote, I mean, it's by Lao Tzu, but I'm gonna completely cocked up on that basis, which is, you know, something along the lines of, or the paraphrasing of it is. Depression is a sadness on reflection of your past. And anxiety is a sadness for the outcomes of your future, which is why presence is the own nikia, right, you stay in the moment, and then you're not really accessing the sadness of the past and what you would change or the future scenarios of the anxiety that you can't control. And I think a much better quote, I can remember because I can quote pretty much anything from him, which is Eckhart Tolle, I told you about last week, when we were chatting over the audiobook, you're in for a treat. But so he says, his brilliant thing, which is stress and anxiety is a symptom of being here. But wanting to be there being here, but wanting to be there. Oh, interesting. It's so simple. It says everything he says is why it's so good, you know, and he said, like, you can't ever be that. So pure facts is why I think his spiritual work is so poignant, because he's speaks and just like, talk to you like an adult. And it's very, very binary. So you either read her stuff, and you're like, this is garbage, or you read it, and it all makes sense. And that totally depends where you personally are on a spiritual journey. At that point, no judgement, you can come back to it, and it means something to you different a different time. Yeah. But, you know, literally, it's like, you can't ever be there. The only place you can be is here now. So creating a mental image of where you'd like to be in the future. Fine, do that, if you want bodies here, now, you're not there. And that disassociation with like this battle with like, No, no, but I want to be there. You know, it's like, doesn't matter. It's not reality. So it's really nice, like distinction of like fact and fiction, and your mind is always paying in fiction, but your body is always in reality, right? You're not literally time travelling, you're not literally in the future, you're not five minutes in the future, you're not three months in the future. Yeah, you're literally here. And so the constant like battle, there is some of this understanding that can manifest into some anxiety. Now, when you think about it from you know, I'm going to literally rip off one of my own tweets, because it just like, you know, I had this realisation, and it was quite popular, and it sort of made its own version of sense, which is, you know, whether you call it manifestation, or you call it a business plan, right, one way or another, you are trying to predict the future and like, different people will call it different things. a neuroscientist will call it, you know, neuro plasticity, right, you call it the brain's ability to change the brain's ability to think about, you know, how to mould itself into the future that it wants to be tomorrow. But business exact, you know, at a business school is gonna say, create a business plan, or think about where you want to be in three months, three years, etc, and create that, you know, a spiritual person, we'll call it unit manifestation. And I'm going to sit here and I'm going to imagine the world that I want to live in, and I'm going to write the steps back from it, and I'm going to create a bit of a plan on a path, they're all the same thing, one way or another. They're all the same thing. And they all sort of exist in this world of disassociating, to an extent where you are today with where you want to be, and there's always going to be that kind of tension. So if you're an entrepreneur, your job is literally always to be spending time like who do I need to hire? Yeah, what do we need to do? Why do we need to do it? How am I going to get there? What money do I need? These are all questions you can't necessarily answer. So you're constantly like searching in the dark or looking at YouTube videos or asking friends like how to unlock these things for yourself. But ultimately, they're all questions that need to be answered for the future you there is, you know, aspect where I think Time management is so important here like if you overload yourself with spending all your time in that future reality and don't spend enough of your time as an entrepreneur sort of working in the here and now what you can affect today. That's when things can get about upon in my experience, you know, and it's just again, the disassociation with presence and future concepts. Two thoughts.
Ali Abdaal 34:49
Number one is around goal setting. Everyone talks about how goal setting is like so important, etc, etc. and the importance of a business plan and a vision and manifestation and more and all that kind stuff. I've always been historically like anti goal setting, because it's always it's never quite sat right with me that why am I kind of deferring my happiness for a future date when I achieve a certain type of goal compared to, you know, just focusing on enjoying the journey and like enjoying each day on its own merit. But there is like a balance there between like, you know, it's it's not a case of live every day as if it were as if it was your last because that would end up you know, I'd end up being like a heroin addict. Exactly. But it's like, how do you manage that balance between Yes, you want to grow, and you want it to go big, and you want to impact, which is all future type stuff? And also you want to kind of be present? And that that sort of thing?
Dan Murray-Serter 35:41
Yeah, I think it's a great question. I think this is where, and, you know, cringy, but I think this is sometimes where purpose and working and defining on purpose, your company's purpose, your purpose, which can change, by the way, but I think this is where the stuff plays in really nicely, because I don't necessarily think about stuff in terms of goals, goals, I don't know goals always feels a little bit. It's not necessarily true, but it feels a bit mercenary or financially led or, you know, there's always a reason why you need that goal. Whereas purpose to me is a bit more like a direction of the person that I'm, I'd like to become that I'm on the way to be in there, every day that I am working towards living, my purpose is a step in the right direction, and I'll make mistakes, and I'll forget to live it entirely one day or whatever. But it helps me knowing that I'm going in the right direction. And because I'm bit of a hippie, I believe that by going in that direction, for long enough or consistently enough, and the most important thing here, by the way, is like enjoying doing that. Yeah. So if you have a sense of where you're going, if you have an idea of what your purpose is, and again, doesn't need to be some big grand statement, if you have a sense of your own personal values, and you ask yourself, you know, what are those values that I'm living every single day, and am I living up to them, those things will just basically ensure that you are spending more time happy, because you're spending more time doing the things that you know, are serving you well, serving you and serving others. And the the compound effect of that as you're more likely to be getting to whatever their sort of magical goal is, like being one is I don't have a set goal. I don't have a like I want to be you know, I know, we both know, and I'm friends with Steven Bartlett, right? And he's very specific, you know, I have, I want to be running this nine figure business in this many years, and blah, blah, blah, and I'm like, that's fine. Like for you. For me, I have very different sort of outlook on that stuff, which is, I've identified my, like, five key guiding values, right, and you know, then clewd fluffy words like contribution and impact outright, but like, you know, how can you spirituality is at the base of these things? Because I think like spirituality is a great base to layer things. Well, base is a great base, mental well being goes above that integrity contribution. And I mean, like, ultimately, impact is the me, Vicki of where I want to see my life's work, go, you can't have impact broadly, if you're just impacting one person, you can. But if you are an entrepreneur like me, and you do think big, and you think about scale, and that's just inheriting how we think I know, by putting at the top of my pyramid of values, if you will, I want to have impact inherently, I have to think big, apparently, I have to think about how am I going to have an impact on more people, because I happen to care about emotional care about I've had a personal experience with mental well being. It is bonkers to me that nutrition can play such an enormous impact. And that we can create products, high quality products, a great brand, like which plays into my creativity and the things that I'm good at, you know, the fact that we can build a great brand that can have that kind of impact, that stuff all serves me well. But there's other stuff that I can do with impact as well. And I might not be doing that today. But if as long as I'm sort of leading up towards the where that might go in 1020 years, I like that I don't have a clear idea of who I am in 20 years, only that it will be leading to impact because I'll be contributing. That sort of makes sense. Yes, I think I'm very succinct way of saying this, because people talk a lot about passion as well, is. I think, and I have thought a lot about this. But I think that your passion is something that you do for you, right? You got a guitar over there. And maybe that's a passion of yours. So your passion is for you. Your purpose is for others. So as long as you're thinking about where your purpose is going, I mean, you've got a great example right? You're an educator online to millions of people that's purpose. There's other people but guitar for all I know your shit that you have fun. That's great. Yeah, there you go. Passionate.
Ali Abdaal 39:41
Okay, I have so many questions. I'm, I'm going to kind of just give you the questions that I've got floating in my head and then we can start with one of them. But you'll have an idea of like where I'm going with so maybe that'll that'll go down. Yeah, so you mentioned spirituality a lot. I want to know like, what is spirituality? like? What does it mean to you and like, how did you discover spirituality because I feel like this is an area in which I want to discover through gelatin, I also feel I have to deal with all the spirituality type of stuff. So there's that side of things. You talked about your five guiding values. And so I was wanted to ask, like, how did you figure out what your values are? And you also have this like, presumably some sort of guiding mission guiding purpose. And I want to find out like how you figured out that side of things. So should we start with the spirit of spirituality thing? Like what the hell is spirituality? Yeah. How does someone like me get into spirituality? Yeah,
Dan Murray-Serter 40:33
so I don't actually have a good defining that's great. I love questions like this, because, you know, makes you sort of realise as well, you know, it'd be nice to sort of solidify the thinking down into something succinct, not my strong suit. But you know, I guess in the summary. For me, spirituality is a connection to all things knowing, you know, my second favourite YouTube channel, after you obviously know, because this guy probably said it badly, but oh, my God, right? That channel does such an amazing job of, in my opinion, anyway, especially the spaces, you know, very sciency ones. So sort of such a great job of sort of explaining just how much of a speck of dust in the universe we are, back can be either the most depressing realisation of your life, or the most enlightening one. Because once you realise that you are so insignificant, that you're like, in the grand scheme of things, that, you know, everything in a sense has to be connected, it really helps you connect to nature, for example. So one of the things that is definitely the most hippy things about me as I could literally sit and stare at a tree and like, total wonder, like, It's the first time I've ever seen a tree, right? Because I, when I look at that tree, I just sit there and like marvel at the concept of the fact that this thing is basically how I'm breathing. Right? I'm so connected to that tree, maybe not that specific one. But in the grand scheme of things you've ever watched any planet Earth, or any David Attenborough documentary, or just any great documentaries, on how the planet exists and works, you realise what an absolute wonder that all of these forces that are conspiring against each other actually conspired together to create the first you know, life on earth that then evolved into man and all of this stuff, you know, that that sort of total, very high level bird's eye view like bewilderment, okay? How we're here having this conversation is, in a sense, you know, how I think about spirituality, what I don't do, and I think this is where I had a very so until I was 24, like, I hated the word spirituality, I think it's cringe, and I hate it so much. That's why I am comfortable using it now. Because it's like the antithesis of who I was, which is another thing identities, very interesting conversations have like separately as well. But
you know, the identity of who I was, as someone who grew up Jewish, my parents Jewish, not religious, but my you know, would have to go to synagogue on, you know, religious holidays and all this stuff. And it's in Hebrew, and I speak Hebrew, I'm in England. So, you know, and Judaism is a weird one as well, because it's a race and religion which has the benefit that you get both the racists and people that don't like your religion all at the same time. So it's like, it is a weird one to grow up in. But culturally, it's very connected, right? So the benefits of it is there's really nice culture. So I always used to say like, I really like the culture, but like this religion stuff is bollocks to me. I don't believe in God. I don't believe in being forced bad anything. You know, in my opinion, I'm sure it's extremely offensive to most people listening and of any religion, but you know, growing up religious, like, in a way is indoctrinating your children with with a belief, right? You don't do that necessarily. Don't do that consciously on purpose as a good parent, try and like let your kid work out what they need to work out in the world. But when your religion is your like a huge part of your identity, and it's a big part of your family. And when it's a big part of your like traditions, and your culture and all of this stuff. And when it is most important when it's your only sense of connection to spirituality. That's when it all gets very complicated. So for me, where I challenged this concept was I don't believe in God, right? Big capital G word, like big white beard, or whatever it is, I'm being told is this person in the sky. So I'm not religious, because I don't like Judaism any more than I like Christianity or Islam or anything I've just played. It's not my religion or their religion. It's like I don't like any of the religions, but I love the teachings. Okay, so I love I love the point of religion, right? The point of religion is when you break it down is to teach people good values. That's that's ultimately what it's all about every single story in the Bible, whichever Bible you read, is all about really trying to teach you how to be good, not bad. And then people obviously hijack the stories or whatever, but like, fundamentally that's the point of religion. Through the years, culture wise, when it wasn't TV and there weren't stories and everything else, there were books and stories and he passes down. So people learn how to treat each other well, wicked I buy into that. That's amazing. Now it's all like politicise, which is like the church owns. So like so much real estate, and blah, blah, blah, it's all about money. And you know, that really starts to make me feel very disconnected from spiritual lessons. So growing up, I felt really disconnected to this idea of religion. And my dad was basically the only person in my family who was like, you know, quite into religion, because he had faith and hope, because he was very ill, and sick. So I think this is another thing people have that sort of come to Jesus come to God moment when they're sick, and he was a lot. So when he passed away, I sort of threw out all my religious beliefs and everything. And I went quite nihilist. So I was very much like, there's nothing afterwards you just live you die went into a bit of a depression, but that's quite normal. I think if you have a close parent who passes away, and I was just totally anti the whole thing, probably rudely, so which is like now if someone tells me that they're religious, I'd love to have a conversation with them. Because actually, usually, the way that I think about spirituality is exactly how they speak about religion. So we have a good conversation because we're actually on the same page. It's just I don't label mine with like, an odd thing, I just believe in the same things you do, which is that there's more than this. And that's actually enough. And if you take away a lot of the labels are all speaking about the same thing I very randomly was at a dinner. And some guy was there talking about this thing called Iowa Oscar, I had never heard of it, couldn't pronounce it didn't know what he was talking about. But I was in this like, really bad place. And I'd been like, really depressed for six months, maybe maybe the best part of the year, to be honest. And my friend was like, let's go and do it. And I was like, sure, nothing better to do was interesting. Cuz I didn't know I think, you know, this is like, 10 years ago now, right? People has much more awareness around something like iOS or and psychedelics in general now 10 years ago, less so. So I didn't know at all what I was getting myself into. And I sort of turn
Ali Abdaal 47:00
it over now. Like you say, iOS got it. Yeah. Like you're not you're only really the tech Bros. Yeah. So like, What? What, what does it look like to just go and take? Oh,
Dan Murray-Serter 47:09
yes. So Iosco is, essentially it's a plant. So it's tree sap, ultimately. And as a special vine that grows in South America, so grows in Peru grows in Hawaii, there's Indian versions of as well as what sort of different names in different countries, but it's this very ancient use by shamans deep in the jungle. And it's very, it's the most potent psychedelic in the world. So it is not something that you do recreationally. There's no dipping your toe, so to speak, you're either in or you're out. And, you know, it's a six to eight hour experience minimum. So for all of those reasons, you know, it's a, it's not something that you choose to do lightly, you've got to do it the right company, all of these things, you can't basically I mean, I've heard loads of stories about people, we knew there was a craze in New York with people just doing it in their apartments and stuff. But like, really, you want to be doing it with people that you trust in a safe environment with people who know what they're doing. And my experience of it and it basically says green liquids, you drink it, so can you drink a shot, okay, that's, that's the actual thing, you drink a shot of this right? liquid, it has a and this is where it all gets mystical and amazing has this compound in it called DMT. And DMT is nicknamed the God Particle. And actually the thing that like DMT is the only particle that is an absolutely every living thing full stop. So it does the that's why it's called the God Particle, because it just happens to appear in everything, whether it's a leaf, or a human brain. And actually, very weirdly, the way that the human brain is set up is we have it's very weird, but we're basically we're we've got tonnes of DMT. inside us already, we've got DMT. And we've got DMT inhibitors. And very weirdly, what's going on inside our brains when we're awake and conscious is our DMT inhibitors are stopping the DMT from flooding our system. And when the DMT floods our system, that's when we get dreams. So when we fall asleep, we get into a really relaxed state and a deep sleep and the DMT inhibitors start to relax or whatever our brains get flushed with this DMT so you ever woken up with a dream and being like, I never met those people in my life. I've never seen that monster or this experience all those colours, I don't know where any of that came from. And it feels it's the first it's the most tangible way that you could explain to anyone who doesn't believe in the afterlife or anything else it's like, but then explain that you never met those, we'd have no idea what these things are. Even if you've never seen, like a TV show before you'd have those kinds of dreams, right? And that's like a bit weird monkey happens to you first when you're young. If you've dreamt, you know, or had any of these wacky dreams, you're just like, quite experienced, right? So that's kind of the crazy thing about DMT which is that we already have it And us. And when you drink Ayahuasca, what you're actually drinking, what they prepare for you is DMT and the inhibitor together, okay? So then you've lost your system with more DMT and the naturally occurring DMT that's already in your brain, and suddenly, you're under the spell. And obviously, everyone's experience is very different. But my first experience, they say with you, as they say, with iOS go, the point is that you go in with an intention, that doesn't mean anything to me, right for the layman. Like, that just sounds like more wacky words. And when you're a cynic, like I was, you know, that's an incredibly triggering way to speak to me as well. And like, with an intention, my intention is, yes, yeah. But I went in with his intention of like, I want to stop being depressed, okay, like, I want to stop what I feel now was basically, you know, I'm gonna go into like, you know, the whole thing because there's a great author called Michael Pollan, who wrote this fantastic book called How to change your mind, which is the journey of psychedelics, he's an amazing author. And it's really fun. And he says, you know, describing your psychedelic experiences is ineffable, so it's an absolute waste of time. However,
he said on the Tim Ferriss podcast, I thought was quite fun. But, you know, my experience was to understand I sort of came out of my body, and I saw nature and as horribly crass and cringy as it sounds, I for the first time sort of had this experience of seeing birds, bees, trees, oceans, rivers, all of these things interconnecting on like a big global scale together on sort of understanding and saying that these structures predate human existence and have inherent wisdom in them to have this like natural occurring coexist and experience to such a deep level that I started to see reincarnation on I guess some quite scientific I started to see it on a way that I could understand so this concept of reincarnation aka you know previous thinking was you for me you live you die, that's it, my dad had just died. That's why as depressed there's no more there's nothing else. This was like, actually, you know, when your pet dies and you bury it turns into ashes it feeds the trees, the trees grow right when you know when it rains, it goes into a river that river ends up you know, con going condensing and becoming a cloud, the cloud rains goes to the top of a mountain becomes a New River, you know, you sort of, you know, these terms from geography, but you actually never give them any thought, when you look at the way that the cycles of nature work, you realise that everything is a cycle when everything is reincarnate in one way or another, and from one energy form into another and feeding the next. So we know this stuff to be scientifically true, which is that we don't really connect those concepts to any sort of sense of spirituality. And also just given this platform to sort of see this observation to see that, whether I can see it on a daily basis or not, this stuff is happening every year, every 10 years, every 1000 years, every millennia, right? It's just constantly happening all around us. And we're just sort of passing by with our busy minds, not really paying any attention. But if you stop and think about it, it's actually very practically happening around us and that's the way that the world works in this like unbelievably unbelievable cycle. And then, you know, you go even further to think like where even Earth is in the universe, right? And how much of a speck that is. So this was kind of the starting point to a sense of, like I say, spirituality, which was really a sense of connection to other people and other things. And, you know, plants and animals and just being a total equal, I suppose, in the sense of all things on Earth.
Ali Abdaal 53:40
Yeah. And how did how did this have like lasting impact beyond the eight hours of the experience?
Dan Murray-Serter 53:45
So you know, what I, I, you know, I had this immense gratitude that came to me and I think one of the really interesting things is you know, I've learned a lot about habit formation over the last few years, and I think this is like the first thing that I learned so you know, just for contacts, you do two nights in a row. And I go back pretty much every year and do another another session. So I've done it like multiple times. Now coming up to 20 times, every single time is a new source of experience new new sort of insight, depending on where you are in your journey and what you're wanting to learn.
The first lesson I learned that was really interesting, as you know, had this wonderful sense of like, appreciation and deep gratitude. But like anything, having an insight and having an experience is not the same as having a daily practice. And so whilst I sort of left and I felt glowing and you know, I was working at very different startup back then I was running a tech company, you know, everyone came in you're like, Oh my god, you're like, glowing, you look amazing. Where the hell have you been? And I was like, yoga retreat. But I was like, you know, very consciously aware like the first couple of days I felt incredible. And then suddenly, slowly I started to go back to being myself, right. You know, someone would say something to me that snide snapback you know, you have these moments, you're a human being. And I think what was really upset me at first was like, God, I thought I was, you know, Gonna be this amazing spiritual person that really understands all of these beautiful moments in life and like, be the best person I can be. But actually, I'm still me, that's really annoying. I can't believe I just, I can't be so rude to that person just now. Like, they were just like, they might be having a bad day, I'm having a bad day, why am I even having a bad day? You know, and actually, I learned that all of these lessons you get there, like moments in time, like reading a great book, right? You know, we also talked about this way briefly, which is, you know, you could read 100 books, or you could read the same book 100 times, the book, the read 100 times is the one that's gonna have the biggest impact on your life, because you'll be putting it into practice. And it's the same thing with his, like iOS, or retreats or any sort of spiritual experience, which is, none of it matters unless you commit to how to put it into your daily life. So this is like the real hack from my point of view, which is, I don't think you need to go to a spiritual retreat, I didn't mean to do is go to the Institute, any psychedelics, you could just a some people just naturally feel in tune this way. Anyway, I've met loads of people that are as in tune with their sense of connection to others as I am. And that's awesome. I just needed a spiritual awakening because I was so far the other way, that's the difference. It was like a complete 180. To me, however, you might read a great book, and that might speak to you in that moment. If it creates an epiphany in your head that like this is actually the person that I'd like to be, right, this is the person I want to become. So these are steps I need to get there. Then it all comes down to habits and it's like a boring thing to say, because habits is such a tried and tested topic done, like you know, a billion times over. But for me, this came down to the first thing I did, for example, was like, Listen, I want to be a grateful human being I am so grateful for the experience I had, I'm so grateful that I now get to experience the sense of wonder of connection to things because that is kind of amazing to find the entertainment industry now. Yeah, right? That's great. I don't, I don't need an iPad, or book or TV, I could just go out and be amazed by tree boss wicked, lucky me. So I want that gratitude to happen on a on a regular basis. So bearing that in mind, the first thing I tried to do was keep a totem by my bed. And by that Yeah, by that, I mean like I got a stone, like literally like a little crystal stone, I put it by my bed. I said that's my gratitude crystal now. I was just nothing, I literally I literally went into a shop and I bought a crystal okay. And it had no significant meaning necessarily, other than I was like, when I look at this crystal, it'll be a reminder that I need to like, be thankful. So it could have been like a mug or some could have been anything, okay, great to be in anything. And actually, I then, you know, as as it transpired, to know, like, at some point someone was cleaning, and I lost the crystal or whatever. And I was like, God dammit, like I'm gonna forget. And actually, you know, now I practice gratitude every day, I've actually just made a brain care journal for hype cycle next product, and I actually spent like a year or work on the science of like gratitude journaling and, and habit formation, which we can talk about another time for sure. But I noticed after, say, three or four years, so long time had passed. And I was really good at gratitude practice, but I wasn't waking up every day, thanking my lucky stars that I woke up. And I was like, why not? Well, maybe it's hung over. Right? Maybe it went out last night, and I got wasted and I woken up and I feel crappy today or like I'm sore, or I've got COVID or whatever the thing is, I'm not grateful today. I don't have a natural reminder for it. So I've sort of got out of bed and bad mood, Morgan around stroppy. And as I affected my mood for the day, and I'm a human being. So I wrote down a note, which literally just said on plain white paper there and then like, I'm grateful I woke up today. And my intention today is and that's all it says on this piece of paper and I folded over and put on the side of my bed, and it's literally been there five years now. And I wake up to and look at my phone, obviously because I'm human and that's the first thing that I do, even though I want to be this woke spiritual person, but I'm not a human being and I've got all the same flaws as everyone else. But this thing is in the way and the first thing I see is there's no and I'm like, Oh yeah, I'm grateful for waking up today. You know, it's funny because it's like, even though I've been doing it for years, it still helps to have the visual prompt and you know set and setting and all of these things like when we're trying to learn good habits you know, for studying, put your phone away in another room, all of this stuff compounds right? But having that note there, make sure that the first thing I do every single morning is remember that I'm a lucky human being I woke up most people don't like a lot of people don't right, millions of people died today. It's just a fact. So I did wake up one way or another however I feel that is a fact I should be grateful for. And my intention is gives me a good moment to just think before I start looking at my phone or whatever, like what do I want to do with today. And it can be really simple, right? It can be like my intention today is to be nice to my mom. Right? Or my intention today could be to check in on a friend or my intention today is to be super productive at work but I just spent like 1015 seconds I'm not again pretending that I'm superhuman I just gives me 10 to 15 seconds to pause before I go about my busy day. Before I'm like oh my god back to back zoom calls and all this stuff. I've taken that time for myself just to start and be like I've centred myself spiritually. And this is like this is a spiritual practice. Because those prompts are about being connected to something greater than myself.
Ali Abdaal 1:00:11
Do you have like a sense of, I imagine, given that you're human, there are some days where you forget to do this even even though the things that vary by your bedside? Do you have a sense of like days in which you don't set an intention versus days in which you do set an intention in your kind of n equals one AP test scenario? What's the difference between those two days?
Dan Murray-Serter 1:00:28
So honestly, I don't and the reason for that is, is that I haven't measured it right. So like, you know, it's, it's hard for me to sort of say, like, well, I'm less productive, I'm less, I'm less. But I would say like, in general, like as a rule of thumb, for me anyway, I really tried to do something every day for someone else. That's probably the biggest sense of whether I feel like I had a fulfilling or productive day, one way or another. And again, you know, conversation for another time because a whole other thing, but like ego, nothing wrong with ego. There's absolutely nothing wrong with doing things yourself. It's incredibly important self care, right brain care or self care. Like you know, genuinely as silly as it sounds, you know, I start the day with heights. First thing like with a glass of water, and the reason I do those things, and there's so many different like compounding things, but in the first five minutes of my day, I've taken care of my brain, giving it all the nutrients it needs, so that I can thrive today had a big glass of water hydration is just like nine tenths of the law anyway, if you want to feel good. And I've done a quick gratitude practice, I've already started the day exceptionally well, right? That is like a huge win, but those are all things for me. So thinking a little bit about you know, how to help impact someone else or how to do something for someone else. That usually makes me feel emotionally the best. And you can like relate this stuff quite logically right? When you spend too much time in your mind thinking about what you need to achieve what you need to be does this person like me? Does that person like me? Did I say that thing right? That's all Me Me, me, me, me. And the more time you spend thinking about that stuff, the more agitated you get with yourself anyway. So it stands to reason that doing the opposite taking a moment to the opposite think about someone else actually sort of calms you down and you know takes you out of yourself for a moment and that can be really for me like I still make mistakes. I still spend plenty of days I'm sure just thinking of myself but I think that's usually when I'm most notice it is like she I forgot to do anything for anyone else today and I do feel quite pent
Ali Abdaal 1:02:25
up up so on on your Twitter, you've got you've pinned a thread of mental health tips. And then number four is no, it's not about you obsessing over me is a root cause to most of our suffering brackets. In my experience. I wonder if you can kind of elaborate on that a little bit.
Dan Murray-Serter 1:02:39
Yeah, you're right, that is more of the same, right? So I mean, one of the really helpful aspects of learning about spirituality is understanding that let's say the opposite, right? So let's say you have no spiritual practice. And we're defining
Ali Abdaal 1:02:59
spiritual practices in connection to others. Yeah, I
Dan Murray-Serter 1:03:01
said, let's just say well, let's just say that you're you're not interested in religion you're not interested in Yeah, in connection to others necessarily. Um, maybe, you know, speaking in very practical terms, you're like a career obsessive, okay, right,
Ali Abdaal 1:03:15
let's just it was just like a lot of people, right, as my productivity is climbing that ladder, etc, etc. And, you know, whatever,
Dan Murray-Serter 1:03:21
like, you want a successful life, we live in a material world, like, at the end of the day, it's not our fault. We're literally like, everywhere, plastered around us as advertising with junk values, drink sugar, do this, buy more consume that that's literally the world that we live in by this JPEG. So you know, the reality is, VAT is the world that we step out into every day and see when you're sort of confronted with those emotions all the time, the narrative that goes inside your head is Yeah, I want that I want that I want that I want that because we have an obsession with one thing. And that is a huge problem as well. So you know, there's like a very simple reality which is, you know, if you make a million pounds, say you want a million pounds, if you want a million pounds then when you get a million pounds, you'll want 10 million pounds when you will get 10 you'll want 100 and the reason has nothing to do with the quantity of money is because you want so the obsession with the one thing is the root cause of the problem. Actually the joy of like you know having the joy of like experiencing what you already have and appreciating it and this is where gratitude practice is genuinely scientifically proven, but also you know, spiritually really fulfilling is you can enjoy the now and if you can enjoy what you have today you will enjoy the million you will enjoy the 10 million you will enjoy the 100 million they will all mean the same to you because you will be enjoying the moment. So let's say that you have all of these wanting, right? The consumerism is around who you want you want you want and therefore what's going on inside your head is how do I get how do I get how do I get? Well logically The only way that you get is by providing some kind of value to the world. So that might be climbing the ladder in your job, that might be getting, you know, notoriety in your field one way or another. But all of these things sort of lead to an obsession with your own worth, right, and especially your net worth, compared to other people's perception of you, right. So other people's sort of validating your amount of net worth, and then hopefully financially rewarding you as such, so that you can get all the things that you have been trained to want. Okay. So that sort of cyclical reality is actually, you know, sadly, what most people live every day. And the reason they live that is simply because we live in this like, so we live in a sort of society where breaking free of the question of what do I want, right? What do I want? Therefore, how do I get is this sort of like tyrannical cycle that just like constantly feeds itself. So the reality is, the more you spend time there, it's quite possible that you will achieve more, and then make more money and then get more and then have more, but the cycle just continues, the numbers zeros go up. But the the experience sort of continues, let's flip that, let's say that you are, whether it's culturally or naturally inclined, or whatever, to just spend time thinking about other people, right? So you know, it's our go to weird and wacky ruin us like Dalai Lama, as an example, or anything like that. But you know, some of the happiest people that you meet, or people who work with not much money, but serve other people one way or another. And I think that's like an unbelievable insight. You know, these people very often don't tend to suffer as much from anxiety, they're spending much more time thinking about how to help other people and being practically useful. The gratitude cycle, right? So they're being grateful that they have the opportunity to serve people, the people that they're serving, have the opportunity to show them gratitude for what they're doing. The cycle is all about gratitude, and being in the moment serving the person or serving the community, or whatever it is. And I think the trick is like, how do you find the right balance, because, you know, I've spent a lot of time thinking about this, it's like, I don't want at the moment, I'm not spiritually woken up to want to be a monk on, you know, the top of the mountain in Tibet, I want to provide a society, I want to have impact. You know, there are many different ways to do that. However I am, I want things I you know, and I don't I don't shy away from the fact that I suffer from all of the, you know, imperfections that I say are, I think, sorry, I think a really good way to describe this as another great way to describe spirituality is just awareness. Okay. So you know, without sort of tying myself around, and knots on the statement, I have the awareness that I can be self obsessive, I have the awareness that I can think about myself too often, I have the awareness that I want to be successful, and I want more money, I want to provide for my family, I want my investors to be happy, I want my customers to be happy, I want I want, I want I want. So I have the awareness, I want all of these things. But in the moment, that you're stopping yourself, and not just running with the narrative of the things you want, but stopping yourself and just saying, Well hold on a second, where's that noise coming from? Let's unpack that for a moment, let's spend some time thinking about why those things are important. Suddenly, I'm able to say alright, well, I want them so that I can have an impact at a later date. I don't necessarily know what that means. But this is some of the rationale and reasoning behind it. It doesn't mitigate the sort of mental health cycle that goes around here, which is like all the anxiety of the things I could achieve and what I want, but it connects it to like a higher purpose. And for me, like that helps me find some kind of balance in the middle of the two things, if that makes
Ali Abdaal 1:08:43
sense. Yes, yeah, I definitely find that. And I don't know if you get this, I find that when I am in my most sort of outcome, goal focused mindset. That is when I'm the least the least happy.
Dan Murray-Serter 1:08:55
Probably the least productive tune. Yeah, that yeah, definitely the least productive as well. Sleeping so much pressure on yourself, yeah, you just be this thing. And what's stopping you? Probably the internal monologue is going on in the internal cycle narrative and nater of your brain of your mind. Yeah, is usually going into overdrive in those times, because you put so much pressure on yourself.
Ali Abdaal 1:09:17
Yeah, I've been having this issue a lot recently. Which, which I've talked about a few times in videos like, you know, I'm trying I'm trying to write a book. And obviously I want the book to be successful, I want other people to buy it, I wanted to hit the New York Times bestseller list because because then my personal career as a professional thought leader goes increased because of etc, etc. All of these I want. And whenever I think about those, that level of I wants, it kind of paralyses me and stops me from actually writing anything on the page, of course. Whereas in the few occasions when I can probably like, I guess, be a bit more spiritual about it like to use that word. And I think instead, I want to write a book that I'm proud of basically I will have fun doing it just to live once. And it is actually, you know, I want this book to help at least one person. And as soon as I start thinking of those ways, suddenly it's like takes the pressure off. It makes it more fun. It makes me it's like a feeling of a breath of fresh air. Like, I don't have to worry about like all the external measures of status and prestige around writing this book. I can actually have fun while doing it and hope that it helps other people. And there's a line from one of Derek services book called anything you want, which great book, it was great. Yeah, and I think that's probably my favourite quote of all time, where he says, never forget why, why you're really doing what you're doing. Are you helping people? Are you profitable? Are you having fun? Huh? Isn't that enough? And I think, you know, every time I think of that, I think yeah, that's actually pretty great. Like, get to help people get to have fun. And you get to make a profit, like, some sort of profit. And on top of that, like,
Dan Murray-Serter 1:10:48
100%, have you ever had a job? Have you ever had a job? Actually, first question? Yes, I've worked as a doctor for two years. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, sorry. I actually knew that. I guess I didn't really mean that kind of job. Because I suppose obviously, it's very fulfilling job doing. Yeah, although I've heard obviously, you're talking about you, but you didn't have that fulfilling experience quite the level you wanted. That's how you knew that you weren't? Yeah, I
Ali Abdaal 1:11:07
guess. Yeah. No, I
Dan Murray-Serter 1:11:08
appreciate that. Actually, um, I guess the reason I'm asking is because, you know, I've had bad jobs, and I've had bad bosses. And so it's as simple as that. Like, sometimes I just remember that, which is the I used to hate work. I used to hate work, I used to hate who I work with. I hate my boss. What kind of life is that? It's horrible. I mean, that is some people's literal existence, and they managed to find a way to be happy. I don't have any of that. And like you just said, Isn't that enough? Sometimes you like yeah, that really is it's, it is, you know, fundamentally poetic and fulfilling to know that life can be that simple as well. And it's really like this internal narrative. You know, I do think the massive dichotomy that is confusing and challenging and this whole scenario is I do want and there is no amount of spiritual experience I've had book I've read psychedelic out of body anything insight I've ever had to stop me actually wanting. But what that's all given me is balance to one with a sense of purpose and a sense of goodness at the heart of it and a sense of knowing that I want to contribute back to society in some meaningful way. That I think is the balance you know, like everything, you know, there are the extremes, there are always people who do things extreme, there's always the total Malcolm Gladwell, outliers who will do that 1% of the 1% you know, Olympic gold medalists, right? phenomenal, that's great, but like we all compare ourselves to that person too often. And actually, you know, that's not going to create a life of happiness necessarily for almost everyone on Earth. That won't create a life of happiness what will is some level of balance between the things that you want are going to make you happy? And the way to sort of find peace and harmony within whilst trying to achieve them? That's the reality.
Ali Abdaal 1:13:01
Oh there's a great quote from Muhammad Ali which goes along the lines of like once he won his Heavyweight Championship or or whatever is like, I suffered every day in training for 10 years to become a champion. And I look at that quote, and I feel like it's supposed to be inspiring, it's supposed to be a sort of like, you know, hustle and suffer and then that's what it takes to make it big. I think of that I think okay, well if that's what it's what it takes, I really don't want to make a big - like 10 years of suffering to hold up a trophy does not seem like anyone's idea of -
Dan Murray-Serter 1:13:32
Yeah and you told me about your week earlier and like what a lovely week and like you've worked hard to achieve the a bit like the freedom to have that week and you will continue to work hard to have the freedom to achieve that week. But then let's compare you for example to someone like Tony Robbins I don't know the guy but you know, I don't imagine that his week. His week will be like, I'm going on tour this day that day that day, you know he's doing the Muhammad Ali type thing Yeah, he will go down again I'm not particularly like a fanboy of Tony Robbins but I respect talented people putting in the hard hours like we will do he'll go down probably the greatest coach ever right public speaking coach whatever you want to call him like inspirational speaker, he will probably get on his best ever. But I yeah, he does the Muhammad Ali stuff and he has more money than God he could stop tomorrow but like he gets out of bed with that sense of drive and purpose to do that. And I you know, I've had plenty of like little glimpses into that life like raising money for my camp, like my last company that was a bit of a rocket ship at the time. I've been getting on a plane every two days. And you know, there was stuff that people think is really glamorous, and you'd have like a couple of weeks and you're like, this isn't the life I thought this was the life this is not the life. There's not at all. I had no time to myself, you're in queues and people emailing you all the time you'd like really busy and already able to connect with people and all of the staff and only really looks great on the outside. And in reality, I don't think that's fun at all. So, you know, the life that you describe is not the kind of life that You know, a lot of people, even Steve, who's you know, Steve is living more of that life at the moment, right? But you know, a lot of people will assume that the only way to do this stuff is with the real hustle porn. Yeah, Gary Vaynerchuk kind of angle. And I think that's nonsense. I think what you're saying is not just healthy, is actually the lifestyle people should try and aspire to.
Ali Abdaal 1:15:23
I think there's also like a level of like, for example, if I describe my ideal week where it's like, you know, I spend one whole day kind of having kind of research brainstorms with the team one whole day filming YouTube videos, talking to a camera two afternoons talking to podcast guests. That to me is like bloody hell. That's like, really, really fun. But a lot of people that'd be like, Whoa, that's that's awful. I can't imagine wanting to spend a day a week talking to a camera. That seems like the worst thing ever.
Dan Murray-Serter 1:15:45
Yeah but it's your profession? Just swap professions right, as in like a doctor is not like, you know, a doctor, maybe they're right all day. But this is the thing maybe for a really passionate doctor, their ideal week is five days helping people. But that's great. The point is, like, identify the thing that works for you. You know, this is the other thing I think about, you know, people ask me a lot about work life balance, I don't think there is such a thing as work life balance at all, there's just life. And you should choose to do work that is fulfilling and meaningful, or is giving you some kind of value, like when you're younger, but have worked bloody hard to make it in quite a tough world, get a bit of a name for yourself, find the positions, you know, I understand all that, right? I think that's really important. 20s and 30s? Absolutely. You've got to find a way to get yourself into a recognisable position. That's just the way of the world. And if you don't do that, more chance that you will be unhappy in your 40s and 50s. Like, statistics, statistically, I mean, that's a guess, right? But I guess you're saying, statistically, I can see how that makes sense. But, you know, the most important thing is that you're sort of working towards understanding what makes you happy, and how to spend your time. So if there is no work life balance, there's just life. Well, there's also just time, and that is something that is being spent every single day as the currency that we all have. So we've got less and less of every single minute. So it's nice to think more meaningfully about how you spend it. And actually, if you're someone like me, like, I love my work, like I love work, I love the things I do. And I love all the different challenges that come with being an entrepreneur, every minute spent, there is great joy, right? I've got friends who don't love work, but they love their family time and going on holidays, and all that stuff. So therefore, they really appreciate that the work that they do, they can do between nine and five, and put in, you know, the minimum but reasonable amount of effort to get the things that they want, and they're just as happy as I am. We just have we just both understand ourselves. You know, I think that's the really important thing, like I wouldn't be happy doing their thing, they wouldn't be happy doing my thing, but we're both as happy as each other. Because we've, we found a way to make our lives work for us.
Ali Abdaal 1:17:51
On this podcast, I imagine the YouTube channel, there's a lot of people in their teens and 20s a few people in their 30s and older, but like mostly teens and 20s, listening to this stuff. And when people talk about purpose, and finding your coding and all that jazz. And I think you touched on just now where it's like it's it's very easy to say that Oh, focus on your purpose. But when you're young, and you're just kind of finishing school or starting university or trying to get your first job. It's like if you had that requirement that you have to find what's purposeful and meaningful and what your values are, and only do work that aligns with that. That would become paralytic to the point that you wouldn't go anywhere and you'd end up broken homeless and stuff. How Yeah, how do you how would you advise like a younger person, let's say someone in the let's say, early to mid 20s, just going into their first job, potentially wanting to have an impact on the world, like more young people seem to do these days. But also, you know, it is the way of the world that you might have to get a job in admin that you just don't like.
Dan Murray-Serter 1:17:53
For sure. Well, everyone will give different advice. The most important thing is listen to varied advice from varied people that you respect. You might not respect me for whatever reason, and I think that's absolutely valid and fair. So find people that you respect the values or the journey that they're on and the messages that they share for me, you know, the way that I like to live my life and have this show with my wife a little bit because she's you know, different In this sense, but I like to think of things as strong opinions loosely held. My wife has strong opinions strongly held but I'm I'm strong opinions loosely held and I guess also the other side that is like I'm not a dogmatic person. I'm very up for changing my mind. And actually, one of the things I think why I really like working in science, even though I'm not scientists, like I love it, because science is loads of pure facts that completely go against the last person's facts, and then can be completely disproven, again, by new person's facts and everyone is just respectful about the fact that this is the current science and the facts until something better comes along and disproves it and displaces and there's new science and new evidence. The reason I'm saying this is because I think a lot of people are extremely dogmatic. They take a point of view comes back to identity, we take a point of view about who they are, what they are and how they want to present themselves about I am a YouTuber, I am a podcaster I am an entrepreneur is a labels and labels can get you really stuck on the person that you think you are and the other people that you'd like other people to perceive you and you sort of go about like repeating it a lot. You know, I did like a lot of time on clubhouse like earlier this year when my wife had morning sickness cuz she couldn't go anywhere near me. So I was like, thank God, I speak to some friends. I was in lockdown. So I'll just go make some random friends on a voice app. And there was this kid who was like 17 years old and was a life life coach. Oh, interesting. And I was just like, I really good chats with him. lovely guy I really liked. But you know, I can't help but just like be sceptical. Like you can't be a life coach at 17. Like I mean, you can you totally can I don't let me like get in the way of your dreams, so to speak, and I wasn't telling him that you can, but like, I don't think I can be a life coach at 35 Yeah, you know, life is there to be lived. You have to understand different people's experiences. There's so many different types of experiences. One of the best things you can do in your life is go travelling into other cultures like we both live in England. It is a first world country I know that you obviously are from a third world country as well you have African roots as well. But you know the reality is like you know, you've lived most of life in England. So you've had a first world upbringing as have I go to third world country go to favela go to a shanty town go see how people in these communities live. That's a great opportunity to think differently about the world for starters. Secondly,
So yeah, I think pragmatism is hugely underrated. So what I mean by that is you know, when you're thinking about your purpose I said earlier when talking about purpose purpose can change so one of the most terrifying things is people would like having to decide like what is this thing that I'm defining myself as because it'll be me forever that's not true. We changed like every few years like I've changed I've had multiple personalities over multiple years different things and trust me at different times I can't believe the kinds of things that interest me now that don't them you know, I I 10 years ago I couldn't even imagine not wanting to go raving every week. Like I couldn't imagine that like I loved going out I love going clubbing went to every festival in Europe go to Burning Man every year like all of these things like absolutely love that and I'm just less interested in that not one that means I'm a different person. doesn't mean anything. Like I don't judge myself on it, it just means that I'm like learning to listen in to the person I'm developing into, like, sort of day by day. And so right now, you know, I'm an entrepreneur, right? And that's a label but maybe in 10 years, maybe I will be an author it's a different label so to speak, right? I think that this big p purpose the young people try and search for might The best advice I have is like don't start looking or life is for exploring. best advice I think I can offer to young people is to get really good experience in various different industries in various different spaces so you can learn what you like. I literally did a LinkedIn post this morning about this guy hos that I used to employ. So I found this guy on Upwork 16 year old kid on Upwork when I started my podcast secret leaders $5 an hour I just needed some help found a guy not whatever right really really good really helpful apps he loved it when I started researching new industries I wanted to do as learning about like brain nutrients etc You know I've got this guy on artwork has helped me a little bit as well. And we'd never really spoken our audience over artwork and email right I was like go research these papers like tell me the summary of the findings I'll do this, etc. The more we started working together, the more I'm not listening I'm starting this company heights to be really helpful to have you like, you know, helping out etc. I'll save you a long story short. He like he was from this tiny town in Morocco. Really smart kid. I was really just like keen to learn everything as much as possible. So his attitude to me was constantly like Tell me what else you want to learn this learn that no problem do loom do a YouTube video, I'll figure out how to work all these things out. In the end, Haas was just like, you know, a linchpin and starting heights, he was like MVP, most helpful guy.
Everyone that we were employing full time, we tried to employ him full time. And he was like, actually, I really want to go to university like my dream has always been to go to university then do an engineering master's and like, this is why I want to do in my life. And so it is amazing email. The reason I bring this up is a mean amazing email last week from Haas, who basically said you know, you guys have changed my life me and Joel, my co founder, because you gave me all of the opportunities you know, also we moved him from $5 to something reasonable, right? We're like look, we're gonna treat you like you're in London. I'm gonna pay you like 10 pounds an hour instead. And like just like, you know, which was for an 18 year old at that point, like super good. We helped him get to university. We did all of his recommendation letters, helped him get into university. He just got the Master's in engineering that he wanted his first choice. You know, and it's like, it's amazing. The kid is like 21 right? 20 or 21 now, he already has like, four years for Rational working experience with an entrepreneur, I literally couldn't possibly imagine a single task that he couldn't outperform me on. But just in doing General, anytime he wants a glowing recommendation from me or my co founder, he gets it. But he's also now got university experience behind him. He's doing a Master's, he has professional experience. He's 21, from his tiny town of Morocco. And all he wants to do is get out of Morocco and go study in France, I was his dream, he found a way to do his dream to like live his dream and be doing it right now. With a lot of different life experience, if you think about all of these different things, because he had an amazing attitude, right? So his mindset was 100%. Based on I know that I want a better education, I know that I want to get out of Morocco, I know when I get to France, I know that these things I want, and I have some idea of how I'm gonna get there. Ultimately, the way that I'll achiever is by turning up every day with a can do attitude, and there's nothing I can't learn. And I really believe that I don't think there's anything that anyone can't learn, we have these narratives about ourselves, like I do, like, you know, I'm not good at math, I could learn how to be better at math, or just choose not to. But like, we will have these like self limiting beliefs or things we can't do or won't do, or whatever. And I look at how something like at 21 this kid has like, a decade of experience that most people just sort of laser out on not doing so my advice to young people is just be more like hos take opportunities. When you get an opportunity from someone, it you know, as the employer, and you're an employer, you know, the difference between someone who 10 acts is your expectation level or not. Some people just turn up and do the job. Some people do the job, no fast and show you how they could have done the job better. And those people are the ones who are gonna win at life. I think there's just such a good example of like how other young people should be thinking about things right? His purpose, you know, isn't that I don't think if I asked him what his purpose is, you'd have any idea whatsoever, but he knows he just wants to, you know, provide value and learn. And that mindset of just like wanting to learn, is the thing that's going to help him find his purpose at the right time.
Ali Abdaal 1:27:02
Nice, be more like Hos.
Dan Murray-Serter 1:27:05
Be more Hos.
Ali Abdaal 1:27:06
How do you think about money, especially in the context of, we all need some way of making money to sustain ourselves in the world. For a lot of us, that is our job. And for a lot of us that job is not also the thing that brings us fulfilment, joy, meaning connection, love, belonging, fun, all of these expectations that we young people now have on our jobs, whereas back in the day, you know, 50 years ago, like it's a job, it makes you money, and then you enjoy your family life in the evenings. How do you think about money as like a serial entrepreneur, like a new father, all of the experiences you've had as a spiritual hippie kind of guy? Yeah.
Dan Murray-Serter 1:27:42
Great point in question for me right now, I think as the Father, because I honestly honestly, honestly never cared about money ever. To my detriment. I'm not money motivated is the point. And that's a good and bad thing. For sure. You know, it's not great for investors to hear that you're not that money motivated, right? But like you have this vision of the company that you want to be, but inherently, not just, there are things that just interest me so much more than money. And actually, interestingly, I recently came into some money. One of my investments did really well got a payout. timing was impeccable, about a month ago. So just before my daughter was born, and I realised for the first time that you know, I had some money in my bank account for the first time ever, and I suddenly realised, hey, I suddenly I'm like, you know, what do I do with this money? Right? I'm like, I'm gonna invest some of it, you know, just some NF T's and some crypto public stock markets and all this stuff. And I'm not, you know, although, you know, I'm selling a flat and buying a house. So I actually have like big overheads coming and all this stuff. But, you know, fundamentally, I sort of sat there, I'm like, What do I do with this money? And I realise that partly not caring about money is not having money. So interestingly, in my personal experience, I'm not saying like philosophically, for anyone, I have not sat and thought about this too much. But for me, I realised I having never had money. You know, my salaries as an entrepreneur have been pitiful. 10 years in the business, as in 10 years as an entrepreneur at this point. My salaries were, and I'm always really open about this, you know, my salaries are literally zero first year 12k, second year 24, for like the next two or three years, you know, I moved back in with my mom and did all of these things, right? So there's no money to spend, right? Like nothing. Anyway, the point being, that whenever I've had money, I've actually also invested it, investment tonnes of startups, which is a very illiquid, liquid illiquid asset classes, you know, but I believe in backing people, and I get much more enjoyment about helping other people build their dreams. It's a personal thing, like, you know, throwing money into some stock so it could go up or down is just so distant. And I love building relationships. I love brand stories. I love creatives. So I love the idea that you can work with them to help like whatever way that is right? And maybe that's your money. Maybe it's just getting an investor update. I think it's cool to be part of that. But yeah, so anytime I've had money, I've basically given it to another entrepreneur and invested in their company. So always on this sort of cycle. And now recently, like, you know, what do I think about money? I guess, suddenly very differently, which is I realised that, you know, new paradigm shift is apparent. The money isn't actually about me. And again, this comes back to the it's not about you thing. constant reminder that it's not about you is really helpful. So suddenly, you have this responsibility in your life, that is someone else. They are apparently not that cheap. Kids. I'm yet to discover directly how expensive but you know, start stop, you know, the little starter kit has been quite expensive, for sure. Yeah. And so, you know, you do start to think about the fact that money isn't all to be spent, some of it needs to be invested, some of it needs to be taken care of, for other people. So yeah, I guess I don't really have like a particularly philosophical point of view on it. Only that I think I've shifted from someone who doesn't care about money to actually I do care about money. But the things that I care about haven't really changed. So I still invest in lots of startups. First thing I did, I mean, literally, first thing I did when I got my power was invested in three startups that I wanted to rise in, I been wanting to doesn't have the money to, and I did the second that I could, because firstly, I believe in them, right, I happen to think that investing is the best way to make money. That's just my personal belief. And from what I've seen,
you know, I very hard to be on a linear career. And you know, even entrepreneurship can be quite a linear career, sometimes very hard to sort of be on that. And suddenly 10x, one day to the next write hard to be a 50k salary one year and 500k the next year, that's hard. But it is not that hard to technically invest 50k and get 500k, back in a year. That's possible. So when you look at things on a very, like, basic level, like that, investing, which is like quite high risk, extremely high risk and fairness, most of the claim that I like to do, you know, the reality is you think about it, and actually realise that my career isn't necessarily the I think my career is the long term way that I hope to make money. And I expect to make money. But in the short term, you know, there's only so much you can do as an entrepreneur as well, you know, you're like running a company. You can't be taking money out of it. I mean, this is that mystical thing that people actually imagine which is so different from reality, which is, oh, you're the founder of like, a, you know, 50 million pound company, like, you must be rich. Yeah. And you're like, Oh, god, no, like, I just literally have some shares. Just, none of that is liquid. So I think the reality is, whenever I get an opportunity to invest in other people, or or, or, you know, a wide variety of investment opportunities, that's where I put my money. I know you've done quite a lot of stuff from investing as well. So I know but most doubled down there. Yeah, but not not too much startup investor.
Ali Abdaal 1:33:07
No, I think Heights is the fourth or fifth that I've invested in, I always feel a bit a bit weird about it. Because why? I feel weird about it. Because I always worry about, like, how can I actually add value?
Dan Murray-Serter 1:33:19
But do you think like, for most investors, like 2 million YouTube subscribers is a lot more value add than what a lot of investors actually offer.
Ali Abdaal 1:33:27
I don't know what other investors offer. And so I think I can make, I can make a YouTube video for two to three million subscribers, talking about the thing and why I like it.
Dan Murray-Serter 1:33:35
That is valuable, right? But different ways that people add value, you have an audience, audiences value that some people have insight, insight is value. There's I mean, value is not like is not on a linear spectrum. It is that's like a lovely smorgasbord of things that people can offer you, you know, if you're a nutrition professional, you might have an opinion that's valid, there's so many different ways. Yeah, but yours is a very, like, clear car obvious way, which is that, you know, at the end of the day, if I think about it as as the entrepreneur, you know, the reason I heights excites me so much is because, like, somehow my co founder and I happen to stumble across a space where the science is there to back it up. So we don't have to create anything completely new, we've compounded different things together in a new way. So a brain first supplement, by choosing nutrients that have the scientific paper behind them, literally providing evidence, with none of the market awareness. So there's not many things on Earth, really, if you think about it, that aren't new compounds, or new inventions, that you can literally say, the evidence is all there just no one's done a really good job of putting it together and marketing. The concept that we have, which is like which is brain care, right? So literally, the idea behind brain care is if you take care of your brain every single day, according to science and reality, it will improve your energy. It will improve your sleep, your focus, your productivity, all of those things, plus You won't hopefully get to the downside of mental health, like the insomnia, the like, you know the the negative effects. But if you are at the negative side of the spectrum, you can get back to baseline and from baseline reach your heights, hence the name. That's the point of the product. But there is no market awareness of that, right? People do not know that nutrition is a part of this space. So if you go to a remote town in Africa, or you know the favela in Brazil, and ask people how to look after their brains, or their mental health, they will all say the same thing I was in even the niche as much as the well, you know, as much as anyone in London, you know, maybe therapy, speaking to friends go outside for a walk, you know, these are things that we understand, nutrition won't come up. It doesn't matter how sophisticated you are, like nutrition, supplementation, vitamins that can impact emotions, and things like sleep and energy, it doesn't come up people don't think about it, but it's scientifically true. So that is an unbelievable platform to raise awareness in. And, you know, again, like I say, it's, it's so exciting as an entrepreneur, because it is unusual to find a niche like that, that people aren't playing in yet. But I think it will be a huge category, but to find a space where people aren't paying, and yet, where everyone is essentially your customer, because they have brains, but sort of the entry point that they become interested in, is it sleep as energy? Is that this? Or is that that, you know, that's, that's the challenging bit. So you find people like yourself, where your audience is more interested in productivity, right, and essentially achieving more, right, that's the most important part of your message is like, you know, unlock your own ability. And that will be your message for your audience. And that is like, exactly the thing that can like help us usually because we get to learn from you as well, we get to learn how do you speak to your audience? And how do they respond to this stuff, because, you know, the job that the entrepreneur has to do is great product development. So, you know, without harped on too much, that's the number one rated supplement on trustpilot. Now, full stop. So proof is in the pudding. That is literally trustpilot biggest review engine in the world. And we're number one, and we're only a year and a half old. So the proof is in the pudding on how the product makes people feel. Just no one knows about it. So that's like an unbelievable opportunity of value add for an audience owner.
Ali Abdaal 1:37:18
Interesting, huh? One thing I was gonna ask about, like regarding this? Yes. So I've been taking it for about a week or two. Now judging by the size of this Yeah. What are you supposed to feel like? Yeah, I don't feel any real difference. any noticeable difference? Am I like, energy? Like, what's the timescale? And yeah, what what should I expect?
Dan Murray-Serter 1:37:42
Yeah, this all depends on really three things. So one is where you are today. So if you are like, at your baseline, healthy, look, after yourself, go to the gym, like all of the things right, and generally like a really good diet, then the increment levels are, according to the science anyways, or use the science on there's between one and three months, so much longer period, right. And this is actually one of the really interesting things like a rare subscription. Because we're not looking for quick fix, we're not trying to tell you that this is a limitless pill, this is not an overnight thing, you're not going to get a bars, you will notice an overall improvement in energy levels, notably, an overall improvement in energy levels. productivity and focus are two things that people say a lot, but focus seems to be like actually quite a big one, which is the ability when working to focus on work. It Like I say, if you come in at like you're already healthy, that's a one to three months kind of timeline, which is the other really interesting thing, which is like everyone wants results today. Yeah, no one's willing to do anything for the long term. But as you know, sadly, that's counterintuitive. So lots of people pick up new habits and then drop them. And then they wonder why they don't work. And the really interesting thing that we have to unlock at heights somehow is we don't let anyone everything's a subscription basis with us. You can't just buy at once you can't buy in the shop, you can't do any of that stuff, right? It's a subscription product, most popular version of it is three month, almost all of the results so the trustpilot reviews, etc, all post three months. So it's people actually giving this a go because they're serious about doing something for the long term. And then they sustain like our retention metrics are crazy. And you only get that if your products good, especially in supplements where drop off is awful. So that's very common. The flip side by the way, is if you're currently struggling so like let's say you are struggling with sleep or anxiety or I mean a lot of different you know, can even be depression By the way, like you know, there's a lot of different mental problems, mental health problems that are below the baseline, as I like to call them. If you're currently suffering with one of those, it is very common. And also by the way, if you have like a actual neurological, like diagnosed system, so ADHD or bipolar, you know any of these kinds of things. Usually the impact is within one month. And then the most interesting one is vehicle People who completely plant based but also a lot of vegetarians, they'll usually feel it within one to two weeks. And that comes down to the nutrients that usually lacking from their diets. And I can say that because I am one. So it's not like insulting anyone, it's just seems to be a fact.
That is just because you're missing out uncertain as you are on any diet, right? If you're in the caveman diet, if you're doing a vegan diet, whatever you choose to do that isn't just broad spectrum spectrum, you'll be missing something. So those are the real anomalies, the reviews that we get, always we have this like internal joke, basically, if we see a review go up in one to two weeks, or someone emailing us to tell us about how amazing it all is, et cetera. We're like, literally they've got a vegan or they are a vegan, or they're currently got some kind of issue let's let's find out. And they always do, and they always are always interesting. So it is all about where your current lifestyle and circumstance stops you out right now. And yeah, I mean, this thing, right, we come back to like my story when I had insomnia and anxiety. What she prescribed for me worked, like super fast, but then a blueberry extract. Yeah, the other bits. Yeah, within a week, what does that work like what the hell blueberry, so so so to give you an idea of these things. So to like break it down into the science, your brain is 60% fat and 90% fat is one compound, which is tha. So da, omega three is basically the main building block of your brain. So if you think about it, like a house, got foundations, you got all of these things. And let's say the DOJ the bricks. If you think about a house with bricks, you can remove as many bricks as you like. And you can put back in polystyrene here and there, right? But after a while, it's going to start to collapse. And that's kind of what happens with your brain. If you starve the FDA. Vegans do not get enough, tha you have to supplement tha if you're a vegan, it is a fact all vegans will tell you, I mean, a lot of them will, that that's not true. You get omega threes from LA from, from plants. La very rarely actually translates into DJ. So I'm against the whole scientific process. I'm not a nutritionist, I don't like to even though I know I wouldn't like to like overstep my boundaries. But the reality is very hard to convert a la entity Ha. So you have to supplement it from algae, for example. So most end up deficient in tha number one compound in your brain. So the fact that it starts to have an impact on your health is not surprising. So what was happening to me as an example is I was starting to get warning signs, right? My building, my house was on fire. And I was ignoring it. And you know, it starts off with not being able to sleep very well. Then it goes into full blown insomnia, and then it's chronic anxiety. And these new fires are coming on every single day until I have like the night I started going through a process of elimination. Am I meditating? Am I seeing a sleep therapist, I'm going to the doctor, we're doing all of these things in the go to dietitian, here's something it calms it down, dozes the fire out, right and suddenly I'm like, Okay, I'm back to normal. Right? So now my brain is literally giving me warning signs by symptoms, mental health symptoms, says you're not okay. Those are the HA side. The B vitamins is actually energy regulation. So I'm sure you're familiar, like even Baraka and stuffing, actually, I've noticed your urine when taking it right, it goes a bit more yellow. And that's because it's riboflavin. Which, yeah, so that's like totally normal. It's exactly the same as Baraka. But basically, it's just a high level of concentration of B vitamins, which by the way, is amazing for so many things, including for long term brain health and for productivity. But B vitamin complex is all about energy regulation. So when you've got insomnia, for example, very irregular energy regulation, so B vitamin high dose, very important. And then the blueberry extracts the one that got you piqued your interest, which is in heights, so over the equivalent of 25 blueberries every single day in a double dose of heights. So double dose being two pills. So every day it's two pills. So one dose two capsules 25 blueberries in the form of anthocyanins, which is the extract and what it actually is, is an antioxidant. And what that does is it cleans the glymphatic system of your brain whilst you sleep. So, you know our Chief Science Officer, Dr. Tara Swart, she has this lovely analogy she uses which is like It's like putting our brain through a car wash every evening. So it's cleaning out the system of your brain whilst you're sleeping, we're drunk and dust and all these sort of things will dunk basically will will pile up in your brain and the antioxidants will clean out that's why blueberry extracts it just happens to be the highest form and highest quality and blueberries but we have like phenomenally interesting neuroscientific advantages. I even I take Hodes I about, you know, 15 to 20 blueberries every single day on top of that as well. Most interesting scientific study is bears 13 So yeah, I think 13 or 14 year olds doing exams and the ones that took blueberries before their exams the same day, blueberries before their exams, much better grades, and the devil who didn't think is insane, but it's a really well known scientific study. It's so funny. So there are like lots of stories about how blueberries are incredible for your brain. But you know, actually using 25 blueberries is quite as well so you know that will cost two pound 53 pounds a day to do that so even though it's good for you and I'm obviously do advocate eating like healthy food as much as possible and most people don't. And this is the thing like our main message at heights is actually will tell you all of the whole point of heights as Abram is come join our newsletter, listen to our brain cap podcast we have a podcast it's 15 minutes every episode with different academical scientific expert, it's all super snappy. I write a newsletter every single week, which is how the company started 140 episodes in now, and every Sunday, two to three minute read max. But our whole job is to help you understand how to take care of your brain according to science. If you didn't get that in your whole food diet, you don't need the supplement then don't take it. Right. Definitely have the best I ever hugely encourager. But according to again studies and the science in the UK 99% of us do not get anywhere near that requirement. So this is using something called the mind diet which will obviously be very familiar with basically a Mediterranean diet and very high in fats and fish and you know, all sorts of you could substitute that out for algae or whatever if you wanted to. The reality is most of us just do not eat this way. We are very dire with my meal delivery, whatever is right we like live normal lives are busy people. So Heights is literally the most simple like guaranteed way of making sure that you're giving your brain the nutrients that it's meant to have every single day according to science to stop any of the downside effects happening but also over the long time compound the positive effects and you can get all of it from food. Yeah, so definitely encouraged that first and foremost, but I tried it. So there's the other thing I was gonna say before we started this I tried I thought I was going to do like a meal delivery service type thing or for flight brain food and stuff. But my god, it was expensive and tiring. And I'm a bad cook. That didn't help.
Ali Abdaal 1:46:44
Yeah I mean, I've tried the Mediterranean diet so many times and lasted like one day, that's just too much effort. Like oh, I get delivery want to go for dinner with the boys. That kind of thing. Exactly. Okay, interesting. Okay, I feel like we could talk about this forever. But I want to I want to have lunch with you now. Yeah, I'm hungry. So we could do for another time video for another time. We have a handful of questions from Instagram, okay, which we can just sort of do as rapid fire, but go for it. So Harry Bloggs says how do you deal with negative thoughts? If I say the wrong thing in a social situation? I spent tonnes of time thinking about it afterwards.
Dan Murray-Serter 1:47:17
Oh, great question. So there's a great guy I interviewed on brincat podcast called Dr. Daniel Armin and he has the same good answer, which is automatic negative thoughts. Basically, are we have a negativity bias, right? psychologically, for whatever reason, well, there is a reason we have a negativity bias because we're born to protect ourselves, right? So when we grew up, and we're in the jungle and all this stuff, you know, ultimate got to protect ourselves, we've got to look for threats. So we are naturally hardwired to think negatively to be negative, etc. How do I deal with negative thoughts? awareness. So, the most important I you know, I believe one of the most important realisations I've had had this Romeo Aster, but I had it from reading plenty of books after the fact is that I am not my thoughts. So, you know, really accessible spiritual book, I think is fantastic is a book called The untethered soul. It's by an ex entrepreneur, not woowoo language, totally accessible, really easy to read, good, fun. And in the author, Michael singer talks about, there was a noisy room may inside your head, talking absolute garbage to you all the time, right? And you basically live with a maniac, you live with this irritating voice inside your head, and is driving you wild. And for whatever reason, this guy is a nutcase. And everyone lives with him. Right? Every single person has like absolute nutcase inside your head and is feeding you shit all the time. So as soon as you like literally a part of spirituality, as well as like this awareness of like this duality, two voices inside your head. One is you the awareness of like, oh, who is that? Where's that coming from? And why is that being said? And the other is the constant chatter. That constant chatter is almost always negative. So if you don't stop and listen and think, where's that coming from? And why, then it will just keep on going. So what helps me is is awareness that I am not my thoughts.
Ali Abdaal 1:49:08
Sick, just bought on Audible. link in the video description, Audible, if anyone's wants to check it out. Maria says, Do you have any tips for men about talking about their feelings? Oh, that's interesting.
Dan Murray-Serter 1:49:19
Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? Because Yeah, men do find it hard to speak about their feelings. Whereas, you know, for me, masculine masculinity is such a loaded concept. Like I find myself like, is interesting to you. I with my wife, for example, we have sort of gender role reversals and that, like, a lot of my behaviours are like the feminine stereotype and has the masculine stereotype. But, you know, giving other men I think the first thing is like, men giving other men advice on how to be sensitive properly as the first way of not getting this is the challenge. And I do think that there's a role a really great role for role models for male role models to be more welcoming and open about speaking about our feelings because there's this weird like macho thing like as in, you know, we're human. So male or female, whatever we're human. And humans have emotions, right? This is the stuff that happens psychologically inside our brains one way or another. Sadly, like when you don't express those emotions, you don't share how you feel, and you don't share why you're feeling that way. And you are you're unable to connect with someone else. And that lack of connection could lead to a sense of loneliness and then that loneliness can lead to bitterness and complete personal confusion about where you are on Earth. So I think I don't necessarily have a book, although I suppose if I was to recommend one, there's a great book called Lost connections by Johann Hari. It's it's more a book on like the story of mental health and depression to an extent, but it is a great story as well, just like on how much humans need connection. And one of the ways that we can connect best is by being vulnerable, right? There's only so much you can learn from someone that talks about how great they are all the time. Like that kind of showboating is interesting as we look at like Instagram, right? Like, you know, a few years ago, like most interesting content is just like hot girls bikinis, that kind of stuff now, it's actually like people opening up and talking about how they feel. And that's because, like, vulnerable, like, also get bored of all the surface level stuff. But like, I'm not as amazing as you doesn't really make me like you as much as like, oh, you're a real person with real feelings. Wicked. Me, too. Yeah, one thing that I've,
Ali Abdaal 1:51:23
I've noticed this issue recently, where I struggle to talk about my feelings. And I always thought it was because I just didn't have the feelings. And I was like, Well, you know, I'm generally stoic. I've drank the kool aid for a while. Yeah. And so for me, like, when I describe something as like, making me feel bad, it's like, you know, I've got my breath, my level of tranquillity. And this is like a minor, a minor Blip. And what my housemate was encouraging me to do is be like, okay, you know, stop thinking that you're going to get like a blip to like a negative 10. Because that's never gonna happen for you. But just like, kind of expand the scale out. So when you when you have a minor blip, that's like a pretty significant event for you. And then try and describe how you're feeling. And at that point, I'd be like, well, I don't have a word. But what I find useful is to just be like, you know what, I'm just gonna try and to try and just talk about how I'm feeling without feeling as if I need to be able to describe it with a single, like, in a succinct tweetable. Yeah, 140 characters. Yeah. And then I found that one time, I'm feeling a bit of this, because the bigger the better, the better that like, it became kind of rambley. But that's really helped me to talk about my feelings without feeling that pressure to be able to say, I am feeling anxious right now, because it's like, what does that even mean? I don't know. I'm feeling scared, or I'm feeling stressed. It's like, Well, no, I'm kind of feeling a little bit of this. Because of that, I found that expanding it out to not a tweet, I find it really much more helpful for me to talk about my feelings.
Dan Murray-Serter 1:52:43
Yeah. And also labelling your feelings is a really light as well known practice is very helpful, right? So being able to say, like, I am feeling angry, is in a way, like it's very similar to the last answer is the awareness of like your human being, or going through that emotion, you're able to speak about it, you know, and as soon as it's out, you realise, actually, it becomes quite other. literally saying, I am angry, has made that feeling into an object outside of you. So now you're sort of looking at it, and I guess that's not so scary. Yeah. Nice.
Ali Abdaal 1:53:12
Two more questions. So Hussein says, How do you organise your life? How do you organise your life? What are your daily practices? Yeah. Okay, so
Dan Murray-Serter 1:53:21
my daily practices and I'm like, I do mix this up, timing wise. So always wake up and do the same morning practice, right? So I say grateful for waking up today, think about my intention. That's like first 30 seconds, take my heights, drink some water. Now, you know, because the baby changed the baby, all that stuff that needs to happen at that moment, like whatever, then I'll either do so usually what I'll do is go for a walk. Go for a walk is like my number one life hack forever, right? So I do walking meetings, I do walking, zooms, walking, everything I do walking and if I don't have them, I will do like audible or a podcast or sometimes I just take my headphones out and I just like a walking meditation. And by that all i mean is literally just like, you know, I'm not trying to clear my mind, I'm just trying to observe the things around me. And in so doing, it clears my mind. So that's like I do an hour and a half every day of a walk. And I think that's one of the benefits of like the pandemic is like, I've got to stand up whatever like they I mean, everyone is used to me being on a walk the whole time now anyway. So that's like, probably takes me up till about 10am then I will do an hour of work almost always and then at 11 I will do either peloton or yoga, and I will shower then I'll make lunch, my wife, my baby, etc, etc. and afternoon tends to be where I'm more like more like focused, productive time. So say by finish work coming in, you know, I'd like to pretend that I finished like garlic, but you know what have I got a new routine? As I'm trying to figure out this The interesting thing? Are you asking this question at a time when I kind of, I'm going to have to sort of feel out how this goes. Usually I'll do podcast recording six till seven 730. So I've got two podcasts, which is like three episodes a week. So it's quite a lot. So I need to make sure that I'm like, stay on that schedule quite well. And at 730 ish, I will either have dinner or make dinner, depending on who's heard, it is obviously the new father, it's more My turn. And then almost always, every single night, I just hang out with my wife. So I don't really tend to work, maybe I'll do some emails on my phone, etc. But like in reality, that's what I'm doing. And then before I go to bed every single night, same thing, I do 10 minutes. So I tried to fit in 10 minutes of meditation during the day, but I usually mess it up. Like I'm usually too busy, or some kind of personal excuse that I'm trying to get better at, but it's what happens. I'll always do 10 minutes of meditation before that, because I know that I can guarantee that I will be in my bed or that I can listen to a calm or insight timer or something like that, or waking up I like a lot as well. So I will do 10 minutes of meditation before bed. And I will always do my gratitude journal. So and this is one of the ways that the brain care journal came out and a whole other topic another time as marriage okrs, which literally very interesting. Yeah, another topic for another time in marriage okrs with your wife, which like my evening practice plays into a lot. So I do like a habit tracker, what are the things I did today? So that I have some awareness as well, like, did I actually do my brain care habits like is it like, again, like going for a walk, drinking enough water, like, these are all things I do for my brain? Because if it's good for my brain, it's good for my body, and therefore I'm going to be happy, productive, etc. But also, you know, I made sure that we do three things that went well today. So usual gratitude practice for Martin Seligman, the three things that went well. One thing I manifest, so quite often is something for someone else, you know, hope, my friend, you know, exams go, Well, whatever the thing is, right? Like you just gives you a moment to think about who's in your circle, and who you want to pray for something good for. One. Let's do one thing we learned today. So with my wife, one thing we taught each other. So that gets us into the habit, this is from marriage. okrs, right. So this is a bit more like niche. But anyway, this is like one thing that I learned today that I want to share with my wife, and I want to teach her and it just gets us in the process of learning something new every single day, because we know that we're going to teach each other something before we go to sleep. And the final thing is what we ate today. So that keeps us on track to be like, you know, have this accountability with a partner, right? It's like, you know, we have these sort of separate lives, but they're together. And we want to live a long and fulfilling life together over the long term. So as long as you're accountable on a daily basis on the things you're grateful for, what you're learning what you're eating, and how you're spending your time. I know comparing those sort of with action, accountability, at the end of the day, just by sharing with each other sort of keeps you roughly on the straight and narrow.
Ali Abdaal 1:57:51
Interesting. That's very interesting. I have so many questions about this while we're having lunch. Okay, Abe says, What is one piece of business advice you ignored and now regret not taking?
Dan Murray-Serter 1:58:00
Oh, that's a great question. I don't ignore this now. But the advice I always ignored before was focus on margin. Margin as in business margin, as in so when you're making a physical product, you're making product for anyone, the inclination, as an entrepreneur, sometimes people can be very price sensitive, especially with a product like this, it's a very expensive product to make. And we're working in an industry where everyone pedals cheap stuff. So the understanding of the quality and the price that you should pay is way off the mark. So it's very tempting to take huge hit on your margin to basically sell it, almost nothing. So what not almost nothing, but almost at the point where you're not making any money. But great advice I got, and you get this in business school, or when you fail a business, which I have. If you don't look after your margin, you can't look after your customers, you can't look after problems, you can't look after your team. Like, it's a big mistake that a lot of entrepreneurs make, and especially bleeding heart ones like myself, a lot of people that go into entrepreneurship, who want to do good, and wanna do great things. I don't care about money, and all these narratives and stuff. And the reality is, all of those things will limit you from being successful. And the reality is, if you're choosing to be an entrepreneur, make a business, your responsibility to everyone, your customers and your team is to make sure that you're doing it in a sustainable way that you can grow that you found the right price point that you can get the best quality, you can do all of the things that align with your objectives as a company. Yeah, I'm selling the cheapest products at the cheapest prices. That's like an Amazon thing. Right? That's literally like one of the things that's why they exist. So great. That's that fits their business model. And at the scale, they're out of billions of customers, it works. But for most of us, that doesn't work. And so it's a really hard lesson I learned from failure.
Ali Abdaal 1:59:42
Interesting. Yeah, very interesting. And finally, Grace says, What's one piece of advice that you'd give for aspiring entrepreneurs?
Dan Murray-Serter 1:59:48
Yeah, so one piece of advice. Like 100% is so obvious, like so, so obvious, but it's just be kind. So it is not That day like everything comes around I mean obviously I believe in karma and things like that because like i you've been listening to me of course. But It's uncanny to me how many times being kind to someone without even really thinking about it has come back to tenex that opportunity for me later, right? So it's not even just like trying to say to people be kind in a spiritual sentence, be kind because it's good for business. Be kind to everyone you possibly can all the time because it's great for business and like wherever you can take the high road. So don't get involved in like pettiness. Don't do stuff to like, because this person did x I'm going to do why. Like, all of those things are emotional moments are going to come up when you're running a business for sure. And it's fine to have those thoughts and it's fine to fantasise about those thoughts. But don't act on them or do them always take the high road is never worth it. And and business. We'll be good to be back.
Ali Abdaal 2:00:55
Awesome. Dan, thank you so much. Where can people find out more about you learn about you if they're interested?
Dan Murray-Serter 2:01:00
Yeah. So I'm at Dan Murray, sorta on all social platforms, my podcast where I interview other leaders or secret leaders, and our brain care podcast, if you're into all things neuroscience and mental health is where you'll find that and talk to any podcast player. Thanks for coming on. Thanks, man.
Ali Abdaal 2:01:17
And we'll see you later. Hi, everyone. Thanks for listening. That's it for this week's episode of deep dive thank you so much for listening. If you want to check out Dan's podcast, secret leaders and brain care, we've linked them in the description if you did enjoy this episode, don't forget to subscribe to be notified when we post a new video and let us know in the comments what you'd like to see on the podcast next, have a great day and see you later.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai