Venture Studio as a Post-Exit Path

0:01Welcome to Exit Paradox, where we explore what actually happens after a successful business exit. I am your host, Anastasia Koroleva.

0:14What am I doing here? Like, why am I working? What's my purpose? And all these essential questions started coming through. And it was definitely difficult because I thought I was happy. And obviously, someone outside would describe me as happy, but inside there was something missing. My friend Jay Radia doesn't just build businesses. He builds momentum. He's a three-time tech founder and a prolific angel investor. Since his last exit two years ago, he's been building Bliss Growth, a venture studio that partners exclusively with exited founders. Why did he choose this path? What has he learned so far?

0:58Was it the right move? For a while, Jay also co-hosted the Joyful Entrepreneur podcast, a top 10 show about success and happiness. Today we explore how Jay is designing his venture studio not just for financial success, but for joy, purpose, and meaning, and what he's learned from both his own journey and the many post-exit founders he works with. Hi Jay, so it finally is happening. You're here in the studio. It took me a while to persuade you. Yes. I'm very excited you're here. Awesome. Because you and I have had the most fascinating conversations and I know how much wisdom you have, which is very relevant to my audience.

1:51So if you don't mind, I'd love you to tell us a little bit about Yieldify because we will focus on that exit first and then of course we'll talk about your whole life and we will not leave any stone unturned. Thank you, well we set the expectation high so look I'll tell you a bit about Yieldify and then yeah we can chat about the other areas. So Yieldify was my first real company I'd say. Before that I played around and tried a lot of different things. If I rewind a bit back before that, so I was actually in the corporate world. So after I studied economics at UCL, I then decided to work in banking.

2:34I went for a stable job, something which I thought was exciting, working on the trading floor. But I soon realized it probably wasn't for me. My heart was guiding me to, you know, really telling me that I need to do something that is more heartfelt or something that will make me happy and eventually I was working on a few projects on the side whilst in a corporate job which was fun lots of hours because you'd be working from seven to seven then you're hustling on the side and then you know I did that for quite a while and then it got to a point where I said look I want to do this full time and I did go back and forth but eventually Yieldify which was my first company came through and the premise behind that was around shopping so if you go right now to a shop there's a sales assistant and they guide you what to buy and if you could rewind 10 12 years ago in 2013 that would exist but if you went online every single visitor on a website would see the same experience so whether you were a male or female or if you're buying a present for someone else or if you were a loyal customer or a first-time customer you'd all be shown the same experience So essentially Yieldify built a technology which was like a front end.

3:47It would sit on the top of the website and it would recognize what type of visitors arrive on the website. And based off that would dynamically change the website. So that was the concept and it sounded good. Unfortunately, people were interested in the product and it was one of those ideas which just worked. And we onboarded customers very quickly. It was a venture-backed journey and we raised money from various VC funds. And, yeah, it led to a lot of opportunities for me. You know, we had different offices around the world. We had like a thousand customers. So I lived that journey. But, yeah, that's where it started my whole tech journey.

4:27So you sold it two years ago. And normally I don't actually invite people to this podcast so early in their journey. But I'm happily making an exception for you because I think one of the amazing, fascinating things about you personally is just how much you've grown in those two years how much you've learned how how much you've tried and I'd love you to walk me through that journey emotionally for you so let's go back to that moment you when you sold you'll defy how did you feel and how what did you think at the time so I think um I say my journey on like the post exit probably started about seven years ago so it wasn't actually with the you'll defy exit oddly my second company reach desk um had an exit um for me before you'll defy so which was two years before that so i guess i've been i've had more time to process and for me i think what really grew me most on that post exit paradoxes your podcast is related to was was when I was actually in New York so I was in New York in 2017 2018 I was living there and I remember I still remember the moment I was in this apartment really nice apartment I treat myself and I felt I had everything in my life at that moment like I had this company Yieldify which was doing really well we're winning all the awards and all that externality external aspects of success was there I had some great great family friends so I had I thought I had everything I was in good shape um like all the boxes in this external life was ticked and I just I still remember I was in this apartment in the center of Manhattan and I just felt empty I still remember the exact moment and I didn't know what it was it was like literally I had like a tennis ball in my throat or something I felt this um moment of just what is life about and suddenly all these questions started coming through to me of like what am I doing here like why am I working what's my purpose what and all these essential questions started coming through and it was definitely difficult because I thought I was happy and obviously someone outside would describe me as happy but inside there was something missing and it was all happening whilst I was building my company so it was a bit strange because normally happens once you've sold the company but yeah for me those that conversation started happening and that then led me on my journey of trying to discover um i always say in you know what this whole journey of post exit the founder there's like three phases there's like the pause phase where you pause and you go okay what's just happened in my life over the last three five ten years and like you pause and reflect and then your second phase is then like you reset and you're trying to figure out okay what am i doing right and what needs to be changed and adjusting and then your third one is like the new chapter the new you so like i was going through that those phases whilst building my company which is quite odd probably well you did exit personally from another company at the time yeah halfway through yeah so you had an exit that triggered it it's just that you also had another company at the same time yeah so in you would if i went to i became a board member as well so i wasn't full-time in the job so i had fortunately i had some space as well so I think my my case is probably quite unique in that I wasn't full-time in a job and I had an exit which was all planned by the way which I can explain but yeah so but that whole process that one goes through whilst selling the company I guess I was doing it whilst running a company and then eventually outsuits I did have that space which was quite fortunate so you mentioned you actually planned it to be like that yeah so one of my one of my difficult things I can't do is I don't know I can work for another corporate again I just can't it's like my worst personal nightmare and I knew the moment Yieldify was about to sell and there's two phases um there's one moment we're actually going to sell and um we didn't come to alignment it didn't work didn't work out and then we sold it the second time and during that whole process I reflected I was I was so worried about working for a corporate for one two three years it was just my it was just something that I couldn't personally put myself through I really um feel that the the way someone works best is if they're free they're given that level of creativity and I'm worried and I know that in a corporate that may not be possible so um through some ways um that I aligned with the board basically I transitioned to be a board member and then um which meant that if a sale took place I wouldn't be part of that and um yeah I don't you know I don't see myself running a company again um so therefore there's no risk of me being acquired um so yeah i remember we talked about this how um you don't think you are the right uh ceo material yeah you're much better at the earliest more creative stage yeah i think um when did you discover that and like how did you get that clarity yeah i feel that i feel i'm a good ceo but i don't think i'm a great ceo and what i mean by that is i i think i'm i'm good when there's like less than 100 200 people like i can deal with that but once it gets past that what i find is that it's just you know it's a lot of people management um it's a lot of just operational management holding accountability to you know tens or hundreds of people I don't I I really miss the creative aspect and the bit of truly connecting with a small team I always say like bliss growth which is I'm forwarding a little bit but you know in the venture studio it's only a small team it's only like 10 12 of us and it's like a band we all play together we work together and I really like that once it gets too big you lose that touch so for me I don't feel that's where I do my best work now I was very fortunate in Yieldify, my first company, our chairman was an extremely strong operator when I learned a lot from him.

11:01And he, you know, scaled out lots of companies, his IPO company. So I learned a lot. So I saw what, you know, the optimal execution operator looks like in me. And I learned a lot from him. And I'm very grateful for it. But I don't think that's probably what I should be doing in this lifetime. Like, I really enjoy the start, I enjoy the incubation of a company, I enjoy the ideation and finding the founders to work with me so um you know the venture studio i run um i really love that that's what where i feel i'm supposed to be let's talk about that because so many of our common friends uh who exited companies are dreaming about or trying to build venture studios yeah i'd love you to talk about pros and cons of that like if i asked you shall i do it yeah um yeah it's an interesting conversation I definitely have had a lot of people come to me and um quiz me and put a torch in my face and say you know what's really going on and um I feel what people don't realize is that um I've always wanted a venture studio even before Yieldify I was running multiple companies so in the back of our minds my brother and me who I do the venture studio with and there's a team of us um we both looked at each other and we knew at some moment we were going to build a venture studio we don't know when but we knew it so if you think about it all through those now this was in 2013 and we'd been building companies probably from like 2011 so you could probably see for the last 12 years it's been in us and during those times you know I officially probably started the venture studio when I started reach desk that was the first company technically but what happened was the company started growing so quick that it actually required me to jump in and help more um but i had always been doing the research it was something i've always wanted to do so i think i was meant to do it this is what i feel now um on the outside looks exciting there's you know you're running multiple companies each venture studio is also very unique um we can talk about my one probably in a bit more later but each venture studio is different because you might build like three companies here all the way to 10 or 20 a year and there's also there's this line of like is adventure studio is an accelerator right like venture studio in my mind is actually helping on day zero with the ideation and helping with the founders now um when people come to me with that with the with the conversation should i do it i ask them questions about what they're into and because you've really got to be okay building multiple companies and be hands-on it's super time intensive um to a point where you know i think i've mentioned to you before where like if i had a family with lots of kids i don't know if i'd do a venture studio because it is so much work and time so i think that's a big question like are you prepared to put in the time um do you like being hands-on in companies um that's obviously exciting because i think a lot of people have done some angel investing or have done like venture tickets let's say but you realize you don't get as hands-on whereas in in a venture studio you do however once the company hits a certain scale and you get series a investors you're not really that hands-on anymore you're just against someone on the cap table at times yes the founder will call me up when he's got a problem but that touch and that involvement does go down um so then that's another interesting aspect to work through um it's very capital intensive um people don't know this but you know my brother and me and the team like we're investing like you know over a million each like just to keep the thing running at the same time sometimes investing because the first capital comes from us so and you're taking no salary right so the question is you know it does take millions to run yeah and you're going to be making no salary so you're waiting for the payout so are you prepared to do that and um some people probably can um but it is a financial constraint unless you raise a big fund on the back of a venture studio which you can but then but then you're going to lose that freedom and you won't you're then going to have to have a lot of like structure and milestones and it gets very intense and which will then lose all that freedom that you desired so it's um once you work through these and then you also need to have a focus like so for us we focus only on b2b enterprise software some people might say hey that's a bit boring i want to do lots of things and that's okay but then you're never going to be strong in one area so that's another factor is like do you are you okay with just staying down one like single lane um so that's another data point um and then i think another big part is the team at the start as i mentioned the bliss growth is like a band and like each person's got a different area of strength like my brother is obsessed about product we've got another guy on our team who's obsessed about engineering someone's obsessed about go to market so and that obsession needs to be there with that one person because they need to own it and at time you all need to be able to work as a group or a band right and so therefore you need to have strong people in all these parts so i do think you need a a good number of good co-founders at the start for it to work because there is so much to get done um that if if someone's listened to that and said that sounds super exciting and none of them i'm afraid of yeah then i think there might be something there to to check yeah but it's interesting that lots of people are considering that option because they actually don't want to work as hard as they did in the first company so they think that it will be easier yeah but it's not your experience oh no it's um look the beautiful prize i have multiple companies that i can work with right and i pick the founders and i you know it align so that's that is one of my like joys of life to to work with these founders um but in the end it's um yeah you are sacrificing other parts I think people don't see those layers um you know when I spoke to other people that run venture studios they they look at me go are you sure are you crazy like so they would always say that to me I can see why now because it is so many um aspects you're juggling now I'm still early in my journey I'd say I feel um I feel now I'm starting to get my groove into it but it's definitely been a lot of work which you have to put lots of processes in place you know you want to make sure these you are genuinely giving value to these to these portfolio companies who are my customers technically um but yeah now I'm now I'm in a great place but it's definitely been a lot of work are you physically in the same space um with at least someone yeah so a couple of days a week yes okay a couple days a week yes otherwise they they have their own yes fortunately I've worked with a lot of them before so we know how we all work so that's helped um but yeah we find we get a lot of work done just remote so how would you compare your venture studio model your one um to an accelerator and also to very hands-on angel investing yeah how is it different so within um with us we work with the founders on the ideation process so generally they don't have an idea and um they're usually just one co-founder potentially and therefore we're playing as the second co-founder and um they're really looking for someone that they can lean on and at the same time enjoy working with so then that's where we come in um so in summary like we we help with ideation we believe we're the the right partner we on our website's exceptional partner but what i mean by that is we're builders as well and we don't take any preferences or anything like that all of our terms are very fair they're all like aligned with the founder which is also quite unique and we've got all the playbooks and systems to help them so if that's what they want that's that's the venture studio model that's our one but I think a lot of the ventures have got some form of similarities around those those aspects now an accelerator is a bit different they're they don't they've sometimes got an idea and the level of support that they're going to get is much less it's for you know if you may have an idea you may be a first-time founder you have an idea and accelerator is a great place right to go join one the you know leading accelerators is a it's probably the right path we're focused only on exit digital second-time founders the accelerators will probably accommodate for both and accelerators is more about you know being part of a community having 100 200 startups in a batch and then you go from there and I've got various friends running those and I think it's a great model as well for that type of founder and then obviously angel investing is you know really at this point they've got an idea and they probably got some form of market fit hopefully and you're investing but you know you're writing a small ticket you know owning probably less than one percent of the company and hoping that it becomes successful now I've done 40 of those for me I didn't feel that I was enough like you're not getting enough it's not enough hands-on for me like I want to be a bit more involved and at the same time it's just betting on you know a big portfolio you don't know which one's gonna do good whereas in the venture studio I've got a bit more say enough and I know the idea a lot better so they're all different so you have to how many do you have how many companies do you have in your venture studio excluding Yieldify we have seven at the moment so you have 40 you angel invested in yeah and there you're quite passive yeah passive i've paused that now because it's so capital intensive with bliss growth um yeah i thought 47 would be yeah yeah exactly so um but when those it's i'm very passive um obviously some of the founders reach out and they want help and i'll try to help as i can but you know i pretty much tell them when I invest said look you're not going to get much of my time because it's elsewhere but obviously I want them to do the best but you know I think what I've realized is that I really enjoy helping the founders probably like you and other people and then therefore I started writing bigger tickets on Angel to try to see if that would make me more connected but still it didn't because at the end day once you get a big VC on or a big investor they normally hold the relationship and you don't I really felt, sometimes I give my advice, but it doesn't, it's sometimes not listened.

21:40So it's okay. So if we go back to that moment when you were standing in that beautiful Manhattan apartment thinking, what's my purpose? And I know for a fact that you're in a very good place today and you have a sense of purpose and you do find your life fulfilling. if we just look at that journey what do you think really moved the needle for you coming from no purpose and feeling empty to now being purpose-driven and fulfilled yeah i think um i think it's definitely got different phases that journey and um what you always find is that you know when you look back a year or two years wherever you are you thought you figured stuff out but then you look back and go you didn't so every time you know even what I say today exactly so so I feel um like the biggest the biggest lesson is still the biggest lesson for me today is just trying to um connect more within myself so I say my heart or my intuition and that I think in life as we all know we're always leading with our mind and you have to lead more with the heart and listen to that heart listen to that voice and you know in that moment I was in the Manhattan and flat I feel I was just going 100 miles per hour and I was trying to control things and I was trying to go from A to B and that was not healthy because I wasn't checking in on my heart and seeing what that wanted so I then had to try to because I say like the heart is all like I say like our body is like a vessel and we're moving in life and like the heart is like the electricity or this intuition is electricity that's actually what you're supposed to be you're already connected to it but you're not because your mind is now taken over so the goal was to try to connect that much more stronger to remove the clouds and connect to that heart and to do that I had to try out lots of different things because it was so foggy like because my mind was so much in control and therefore I did a lot of reading so I had to go do a lot of discovery and read various bits of spirituality, philosophy, religion even helped in certain parts.

23:54I'm not religious, but there was, they were giving some signposts to try to heal and, you know, connect me more towards that. So that was a big part. And I started doing a lot of yoga, meditation. If you'd asked me, would I get into yoga at that time? I would have probably like, you know, if you'd asked me like 15 years ago I would have said no but that actually worked for me in fact what I found is probably doing the uncomfortable things is probably where the answer is so if you walk into that fear so for me I always thought yoga is not for me but actually when I tried it it was really hard at the start like it was brutal I went on some extensive courses where honestly I was in so much pain where I'd go and I tell people I say look I've just done one day of this course I can't do it anymore like this is this is one of the hardest things but actually I stayed with it and I'd say that played quite a big part.

24:48And so I've been practicing yoga pretty much like nearly every day for the last seven years. And that made the biggest difference. I'd say that played, for me, I think each individual will find what their right way is to connect and really just quietening that mind. So, you know, things like walking always help, but actually just walking in like a nature and with no music and, because you have to try to, what people sometimes think is that me being by myself even there's noise is enough but actually you have to try to be fully with oneself um so I tried out lots of things obviously I do a lot of meditation breath work I went on loads of courses retreats to learn that so I tried out so many different um different ways to connect um and it was actually probably a mix of all of them that helped me and but then slowly slowly what then happened was um I started connecting more within and then that started giving me the answers to how I should be approaching life and making certain decisions and things like just slowing down became easier still hard though if you've got a venture-backed company and you've got you know a board and your whole team's pushing and they've got goals and like you still got yeah that voice coming but I try to just quiet and just go from yeah because now you have the skill now you have the muscle yes to do that yeah it's my it's nearly my default to protect your mind from yeah noise yes exactly so I feel and every morning I'll spend like an hour two hours just connecting to it so that when um I'm you know I'm approaching the day hopefully I'm coming more from that place and yeah it's just a constant it's like another workout so for you it's it's about experiencing this emptiness in in the best sense of the word and being connected to yourself yes through that experience of removing the noise yes exactly so it's less is more basically yeah less is more and just um just trusting within so which means you have to sometimes slow down which is sometimes the opposite to a stala but you know as you're running a company as people know you still need to go fast you still need to execute fast but there's you've got moments of stillness or moments of times when you are connected back in to then then to reflect on okay wow I lost the like I went for it just then but it's okay I consciously did that and it's um it's something I'm trying to become better at more and more like I'm starting to get slowly be better but obviously you know it's still it's still stuff that I'm working on it's a process yeah it's a process so in terms of any intellectual work like changing your mindset seeing things from a different angle did you do any of that yeah um obviously a lot of reading um started changing like did a lot of rewiring for myself because there's definitely a lot of beliefs that I had that you know I really believe in that neuroplasticity where you're like I think I know we all play with chat GPT now but I actually think we as humans are also a robot and there's some chat GPT in us and you're sending prompts to ourselves so I don't see much difference and so there's certain wirings or beliefs that we have that need to be readjusted so I definitely had to do a lot of that and I continue to do that and give me some examples of things that changed for you and actually made a difference in your life again from that place where you were empty and no purpose to today like what mindset shifts made a difference um I'd say there's a few that come to mind but I feel like when I'm in situations and my that voice intuition is speaking um and it's guiding me i will and if it does prompt or feel something in that situation i do pause longer or i will may pause a decision or i might just follow what it said so before let's say i'm meeting someone or let's say there's a decision to be made or something doesn't feel right i don't feel i was trusting that voice enough so I've by me slowing down now that voice does have first say rather than the mind so I feel like that's been quite a big adjustment so you make a conscious decision yes to listen to that voice and slow down yes give yourself that experience of reconnecting with yourself yeah with myself and just with that moment and just to listen in what it's saying because sometimes it's trying to tell you something the other thing I'd say is probably around like fear like before whenever I felt vulnerable I felt I was in a place where I felt uncomfortable I would try to avoid it or I would try to ignore it and then pretend to come back to it later but I never do whereas now I actually enjoy coming back to those moments and to either feel if I can feel it in the moment I will but sometimes it's quite hard but I enjoy now those moments because usually that's where the lesson is so for example um let's say that um I am supposed to it could be as simple as like meeting someone where I'm like a bit scared to for some reason because they might they might tell me something that might challenge me like this is what happened before or something that or you know just someone that I was meant to go see a few years ago but I haven't but then it's coming back and I think we all had that moment we're like hey go see this person but you're like no I don't not now but when that moment comes now I will and if it's coming from the heart I will just go do it so I'll take action so I think that's been again and that comes back from listening you know for me it's so exciting because there was a point when I also trained myself to react to fears very differently because I realized it's when we overcome our fear that we get this powerful release of energy which actually must be there with the purpose to help us go where we are scared to go.

31:15Exactly. So I actually train myself to get very excited when I'm scared and now it's working. Yeah, yeah. So I love hearing that you also changed your relationship with fear yeah it's been um it's very freeing right because i think before we and i think we all feel vulnerable and we don't want to sometimes share that side of ourselves and um so i actually have changed the rewiring so that i get excited when that happens obviously in the moment i i'm a bit scared but you know there is um you know carl jung the psychologist the Austrian psychologist, he actually has this idea that when we intentionally overcome an insecurity, then we release energy.

32:05It's just how things work in our psychology. And I remember reading it for the first time when I was a teenager. And that's when I first discovered it because teenagers are so full of insecurities. And I actually did it for a while, like using his ideas but then of course life got in the way and and I forgot all about it and it was only after I sold the business and had space like you and I came back to that idea and now I think it's one of the most life-changing things you you can experience yeah yeah change in your relationship with fear yeah no it's been um I think what Carl Jung said and it's actually I'd say one of the things that makes me most happiest in life is that evolving of myself and obviously watching others evolve but like that's a big part of my happiness and I didn't realize that fear can actually make me happy so it is actually all connected well for me anyway um and I think the more times you go through that process of challenging the fears it does actually become easier it's a bit like a muscle yeah because so many founders think oh it's about perseverance and perseverance is very important, but it's very powerful if instead of perseverance you think about the reward that you will get on the other side and you get excited about it.

33:27Yeah. Then suddenly you don't need to persevere, you get pulled to that idea that there is something amazingly pleasant on the other side. Yeah, 100%. Okay, so that's great. Anything else that you feel helped you move from? Like the whole idea of finding purpose, it's quite hard, right? You said we all pause, we all research, reflect, and then we find it. But my observation is that so many of us don't find it for a decade or more, or ever would you do you share that observation because you you know so many exorcist founders obviously you work with them in your in your fund you run a whole organization for europe for exorcist founders so you see lots of other people like what's your observation in terms of how successful other people are in finding their purpose post exit yeah i feel once you um i guess look i guess i'm in fortune i've probably now met hundreds of exited founders and um each one has got their own journey and i feel that the ones that probably i believe have done the work is they pause for longer right and they spend more time on that pausing and that recalibration of what is their purpose and they just sit with the fire i like to call it because it's not easy because you're reflecting back and you acknowledge that stuff that you've probably done wasn't done consciously because you're moving so fast and you're just not self-aware and to then also decode what is my life purpose is a very complex puzzle it's probably one of the hardest puzzles one has to solve especially when they're doing it the first time after they've had an exited company so and that puzzle is very complex it's simple but complex and and it's very unique to them and I think what I find is that people will go read books and go on the internet and try to figure out what their purpose is and however it's been written for that person I feel like each person's purpose is specific to them and they have to spend time trying to decode it and plus there's layers so I think for me um when I meet these founders I can see who's probably done more work by just how they answer their question are they um conscious are they in the moment so you can normally sense it yeah and um for me I guess I'm one of those people that likes to sit in the fire I've always done it I think since the age of like 22 23 um I was one of those crazy people that got into Tony Robbins quite early on.

36:27And then so I'd sit on a Sunday and just sit there thinking about my purpose and what my values are. So I've been that person. So I like that work. Do you think your Indian heritage has something to do with it? I feel maybe. Because that's my observation that Indians are dealing much better with existential issues. Interesting. um so I was I guess born as a Hindu and my parents are both Indian they weren't religious my grandma was um and she would she would read like scriptures but I you know I was aware of it but I I didn't really um I wasn't really following the religion I knew aspects I celebrate certain days um I knew parts but I wasn't I didn't actually study the scriptures I actually studied um the Indian scriptures as well as other scriptures like in Christianity studied Kabbalah I've studied quite a few and um it was only at that point when I was trying to figure out what is my purpose and what's life about that's when I genuinely was all in and I wanted to figure out and I started reading it I feel that with Hinduism it's around spirituality that's at its core so it's one it's um it does allow you to be a free thinker which has helped but again I'm not that into that religion side but I feel I don't know if maybe I don't know I'm trying to work out did Hinduism or did my upbringing my upbringing I don't know you know I've been I have lots of Indian friends and Indian friends who sold companies and I've been fascinated by by this observation that the Indians are doing but even people who are not religious themselves.

38:17And my theory is that it's because so many of us in the West have this fear of spirituality and this idea that spirituality is this weird mysticism. Like there's skepticism towards spirituality. While many Indian people, in my observation, just don't have that skepticism. So even if you're not religious, you may be open enough to go and take religions seriously. And not just necessarily your family's religion. But as you said, you know, Kabbalah and whatever else you read. Yeah. I think skepticism is a huge problem. And so was I. So, you know, I was the... So you've overcome it. You've actually had it.

39:09Yeah, yeah, definitely. I didn't really believe in spirituality or just you know trusting that there's a higher power or like I that wasn't that wasn't really me I think for me I had to go through my own journey but for me it's come through feelings as in I'm you know me practicing yoga me doing meditation me doing breath work I think when you what I found is when I'm in those moments of stillness I feel something within me I can feel something beyond me and that's when things started coming true for me and I think each person just needs to go on their own journey and it's to be honest like you know I've got loads of friends who are atheists I've got lots of friends who are totally against spirituality but as long as they feel there's something that really makes them happy in the end or like takes them back to like a loving place because that's really what it is as long as they've got love in them that's okay spirituality to me helped me to connect me to that kind loving state because i think that's what we all hopefully thrive to get to eventually yeah and spirituality is a connection point to that um yeah because all religions actually have the same message and the message is grow out of your selfishness yes become bigger become less selfish yes and for me for example i only truly understood what purpose is when i understood this message because purpose is not about doing what we love purpose is actually about committing to contribute at our very best and from the right place, which is love or duty.

40:57And if we don't have this intent, if we are not ready for that, we can't have purpose, we can have a job, we can have an occupation, we can be busy, but we can't have the sense of purpose because having a sense of purpose is actually that reward we get for contributing to the world. Yeah, no, totally. And even though I agree with you that our paths are very individual, I think the blocks on our paths are actually very typical. And one of them is that spiritual skepticism and also the lack of understanding of what purpose is. We feel intuitively we want to find purpose, but we can't even define it.

41:35Yeah. You know, I ask people on this podcast very often, like, what is purpose for you? And it's incredible that people actually don't know. they say I am looking for purpose but I have no idea what it is yeah I think it's um it's interesting you say that I think a lot of the times because there's just so much in their mind and they've got such a logical mind they've been they may be very gifted intellectually or they've been praised as their identity of being very smart and they feel that anything because it's like things like spirituality go beyond the mind and you can't it's not it's not something you can totally logically process um it's something that you feel or you believe right and that's not logical so I feel for you know successful entrepreneurs or just any entrepreneur because they're so convinced that they're the ones in charge and they're the ones that go from A to B when I ask certain founders like okay um like what determines your success they go it's me it's me and whereas I'm like there's a lot of things outside of your control as well but they're just focused on them being controlled this me me me and not being able to see that we are part of something much bigger we have to be able we have to experience that like when you meditate you essentially experience that being part of something bigger yeah definitely I think it's I think at the right time I feel people will find that place and I think as you go more in that journey you start realising how incredible everything really is and you start opening maybe when AI can do more intellectual work for us we can do more spiritual work for ourselves when we get to the ASI zone we can delegate all the intellectual work yeah I'm scared because I think it is gonna I don't think we're far away and I feel once a few hundred or few thousand people start putting like chips in their head it's clear that you have to put it in to just fit in right but you see you can't if you're scared you should be excited about it yeah yeah that's true that's true we flip that let's get excited about it let's let's maybe think that you know what it's fine excited about that but yeah you're right let AI have that mental noise.

43:59Yeah, yeah. Let's them worry about it and we can be in this spiritual bliss state. How wonderful is it? That's a good way. It's a good way. You already passed the other side on the A side. I haven't just yet, but it's okay. I'll get there. Anyway, so let's go back to more practical questions. So I know that you've tried many things since your definition of exit, and one of them was actually doing a podcast and your podcast originally was called the happy millionaire then you renamed it into joyful entrepreneur and for me it was the most exciting thing ever because i thought oh my god something very important very deep uh changed in jay's perception of what he's given to the world and i'd love you to tell me why you renamed your podcast so sure um so what people don't know is actually there's a name before happy millionaire which was actually the name i wanted um it's actually called the conscious entrepreneur which was the premise around the podcast was to try to give insights to other entrepreneurs on how to be more joyful um along that entrepreneurship journey because it's not the first time you do it um and that was what the focus was and i did it with one of my friends called rupee and he's a good friend of mine so it was this dialogue that we would have as a conversational but would bring on guests as well and yeah I was so yeah I we basically had a production team so I wanted to make sure the podcast was done the right way so I built one of I put together this production team and we used them as well and one of the things they said is that your name's not catchy enough like no one's going to get it like because being conscious wasn't that cool three four years ago whereas now it's like everyone's saying be kind be loving but so but it wasn't it was quite we were a bit ahead of our time and they said look you can't call it that we've been doing some googling and we think you should call it happy billionaire because that because it's somewhat the same thing um and it will get more eyeballs so i naively sounds like a very intellectual decision talking about heart exactly totally and then um i think at that moment we just said i just want to get the podcast going yeah so i said okay let's just go with it like we can always change it later and then the podcast became actually was very it was like an overnight success it got very popular very quickly yeah we're like in the top 10 in the charts and i was like okay cool i guess it's called happy millionaire now and um it was a it was a new thing for me I don't know my it was going into the fear I didn't want to do a podcast but then I did I didn't and then my friend actually just pushed me said look we're gonna do it and he's like got one of the top like podcasts in the world so I was like okay might as well just if I'm gonna get do it I'll do it with my friend and yeah through that journey as we were doing it more and more I realized that we weren't probably talking about some of the topics that were where I wanted to lead the podcast and at the same time I realized how much work it needs it's I think people underestimate how much work you're probably putting behind the scenes and for me whilst running my venture studio it was a lot of work so all of these things led me to pause the podcast and during that pause as well I renamed it to Joyful Entrepreneur because I said okay if I'm going to do it again I want to make sure it's done with that as its foundation is the name I did actually start recording a few episodes with some friends but then in the end I just I couldn't go around I don't think I wanted to proceed just now some of my great friends were very kind and they recorded some episodes but I just didn't feel it was the right time what did you get out of that experience even if you never go back to your podcast which you may may not do what do you feel you got out of it?

47:56Yeah, I think the podcast definitely allowed me to express myself much better. I feel communication is still probably one of those beautiful skills that we as a human can have, so it definitely helped me on that. It allowed me to dive deep into certain topics that were interesting because it's all good. like all of us can be one of those keyboard warriors and pretend we know lots about different topics but when you're on a camera and you're having to talk about it it has to be very concise and so it definitely helped on that side it definitely opened up doors probably too many doors at some point as in there was just a lot of people that wanted to then speak and for me um timing wasn't right I don't think I wanted that um attention um but it definitely did open up doors um and i guess i was a better listener through all that as well because you've you learn how to truly listen um so definitely improved on that side so i'd say there was more pros than negatives overall but timing wasn't right for me and um it was a it was a hard it was a tough to say pause but i feel it was the right decision So the reason I'm asking is because I see lots of people in the post-exit community trying to find their voice through some medium.

49:29For some people it's a podcast, others write on LinkedIn, Twitter, whatever. I personally think it's amazing because it gives people some kind of structure and discipline around that difficult process of crystallizing our thoughts and experiences. So I like encouraging people to do that. So I would take a positive spin on your experience. Even though you decided to stop, it was good for you. A good experience. Otherwise, people can just be guests on podcasts like yourself. I think there's a lot of opportunity on that side. So they don't have to host their own podcasts. you know we've chatted about it before as well just talking on the camera and sharing your experiences there's blogging there's so many other ways to share but it's important because many people feel lonely and in a way even if you are you don't you don't yet have deep connections with other exited founders because that takes years i think if you are even talking through your ideas and expressing your deep thoughts and making this existential crisis a bit more open yeah it helps definitely those who are depressed usually also the ones who are not talking about what's happening definitely i think your podcast is definitely encouraging that conversation of that post exit and that's why i think you're doing an incredible job it's and you're just so focused on that side.

50:59So people are getting to see lots of different experiences. But I think one of the other great things is obviously the PF community, which we're both part of. I know Barak and Shlomo, they may be listening to this, but yeah, they've obviously done a great job and it's an honour to help the entrepreneurs in Europe now and try to create events and communities. I think that community really changed so much for the better. Yeah. I've been in the space for 13 years, and I definitely see a huge shift since the community started, because they normalized the conversation. The biggest problem I had before was that people would not talk about any kind of issues after a successful exit, because they would say, oh, the world will just hate me for complaining or even raising an issue because I'm supposed to be so happy and so wealthy.

51:57But I think the PEF normalized it. I'm trying to do it with this podcast as well because so many people tell me, oh, I can't talk about it. And then I can tell them, listen, all these people came to the podcast, they talked, and I never get negative, nasty feedback because I think people who are not interested, they will not even come and listen to a podcast like this. But those who are interested, maybe founders who are about to sell they will be very respectful to these issues. They would be genuinely interested. Or other exited founders would be able to relate. Definitely. Because my ultimate dream is that the society generally accepts the fact that even when we are very successful in a traditional definition, like financially successful.

52:49It doesn't mean that we are happy because once the society understands that, I hope other people will stop chasing money as fanatically. Yeah. There may be all these interesting implications to that. I think then it boils down to the question of, what do you define as success or purpose, right? And I feel the great thing is on this podcast, people are articulating their new belief of what... Let's talk about you, though. Okay. What's my new belief? How your definition of success changed over time. Like, what it used to be, what is it now, and why? Yeah, I think... You know, the honest truth was, I think, before it was probably some of the material aspects, right?

53:38like chasing the success of a company the financials how other people would view me I think that was you know when I was younger it probably comes back to my childhood like my my parents were both refugees that came to this country and nothing and so it's probably parts of that and then through the wiring and re-changing obviously that has now changed and for me I try to i have like five areas um which try to encompass like my whole life right so my one is like connecting with my heart or connecting with the light so that's like my first part of my purpose so that's me being still me being having a calm mind just being relaxed so like that is what is my number one and that needs to happen then second one is obviously my health so it's like want to make sure i have a fit healthy body um so that means going to the gym doing my walks eating healthy so that is something that is that that is my purpose but also makes me happy so before I dive into the others it's just I think when I say purpose it's just like what makes me happy and I've had a lot of retrospective and just try to point on what these are and then the third one is like being loving so this is like my relationships this is relationships with my partner to my friends family um to my founders to my colleagues so this is like it's just me making sure I'm in a kind loving place with those so that's really important the fourth one um is okay now I've gone blank now so you have to edit this okay what was the fourth one now I've gone a bit blank um the fourth one is around play so whatever I do has to be I need to enjoy it so it has to be a play so I guess I'm very fortunate now after the exit where I can decide what I enjoy doing so that fourth one is play so that means like my work I do the work that I enjoy and I focus on that you know I'm spending time going on holidays trips with all my loved ones that's what I consider play so I try to make my calendar to be as much around playing and being in that flow state people like to call it but just trying to play as much so I try to work out what what is play um and I reflect and the fifth one is about evolving and that's me learning and growing and you know what we talked about like going reflecting okay what am I scared of where am I where do I need to do the work and I really enjoy that piece and that's obviously me doing my reading me meeting interesting people but I also track that as well so those are like my five lanes and um that is what currently makes me happy and I usually know if I'm feeling a bit off and I ask myself okay am I connecting to my heart am I is my body am I in a fit healthy spot am I got some loving relationships am I learning or growing and am I playing if I if if normally one is off so that's my quick check and um yeah I try to live my life around those if you had spoken to me about a year ago it may been a bit different but generally like I'm starting it's starting to be a bit more consistent um so that's how I define like my purpose which makes me like when really what makes me happy those five things are in place there'll be times when one is off maybe twos are off but the more they're okay then I will be happy so you've interest to do how does it fit into those life yeah so what people don't know is the name of adventure studio actually came when i was connected to my heart so it's called bliss growth and the reasoning behind it is that i wanted to create fast growing companies that's something i enjoy for me that's play when they're just growing to their full potential but but i want to do it in a very centered place where it'd be joyful and then suddenly i remember i was just sitting there on the sofa or chair like this and this word two words just came out bliss growth it just came just came from within i was like that sounds really good and then i went then i went on to the on go daddy go daddy's not sponsoring this but yeah so they i typed it in and the domain was available and i was like oh wow that's meant to be yes meant to be and then um so that came from that connected place and i've created a life where you know i'm not working 24 7 yes i'm working hard but you know I can spend time on my body making sure it's fit and healthy and in terms of the being loving like I'm I'm deciding which founders we work with and my team as well so I've made sure that the environment is a an environment that I'm excited about so that one's tick and then playing I'm doing the work I love which is starting companies from zero to one like it is truly play for me I I love it um this is a really I remember someone said this but the way to determine if you're doing the right company or the right work is if someone dangled this is crazy but someone dangled like a billion dollars in front of your face and said I'm going to take this your company away from you right now and you can never ever do anything like it ever again um what will your answer be and I'm being honest if someone did that to me with bliss growth and said hey you're never allowed to venture studio ever again and um I'm taking it away from you you're gonna have to figure something else out like i wouldn't sell yeah like it's like no matter what you give to me i actually believe you because you've you've been tested by by this like you've had this experience of getting money in exchange of losing your business yeah so i believe that yeah you actually mean it so that is um yeah and i i just love what i do so it is proper play and then the learning and evolving there's just on on a venture studio there's the lessons are endless but you're meeting so many different personalities you're you're having to build like a platform you're meeting so many investors to um you know family offices which are all unique and different so i've there's just an endless number of lessons to learn so so you've just you've just offered us such a beautiful framework yeah for somebody to consider it's a framework that works for me i don't you know i But it might work.

59:53That's all we need. What works for you? Because that's relevant. That's not just abstract thinking. It's your experience of going from a bad place to a good place. Yeah, definitely. And it's something that whenever I do that exercise, I always just feel the dopamine. I feel good because it feels right. Okay, so how do you think about this venture studio? it sounds like it's something that you're committed to long term. There is a reason I'm asking. There is this popular belief out there that we should build companies with the idea to sell and plan for the exit from the beginning. And I know you've given it quite a lot of thought and I would love you to share this whole idea of should we build to exit or should we build for other reasons.

1:00:50Let's leave it at that. Yeah, I feel it's an interesting topic. And for me, I really believe in life. And it goes back to my five principles. But even you'll see it across bliss growth is that everyone has reached their full potential. For me, that is what why we're here. Like we have to push it to reach the other side. And I start these companies off with the founder with the premise that they are taking it all the way, whatever that means to them. some founders we'll meet they want to exit soon someone to exit later we generally do not we generally like to go all the way now as part of as an investment thesis though and like me creating these businesses sometimes we will sell at later stages like we'll sell equity now but the founder we want them to be committed to go all the way wherever that looks like and ideally that is um you know getting to a very big scale or just keep on running it endlessly in the UK and in Europe you probably get less there's definitely a lot of founders who want to go more bootstrapped now and want to you know build to sell I don't I don't really enjoy working with those founders as much because I know they're not thinking about their full potential they're thinking about the exit so for Bliss Grove we try to build companies that will go as far as they can now some will sell and some will you know reach but the truth is but with software companies most likely you can build a company to last and go all the way but it's very likely that an acquisition will take place it just is it's just likely and not all companies are going to IPO you'll know the market will tell you obviously you build it so that you can be um you can go all the way and you may go you know do an IPO or don't even IPO but you're going as far as you can and it might be hundreds and hundreds of millions of revenue but you know data shows that most likely you are going to be acquired if it's a good business so you know we go in the purpose of going all the way but I'm I trust the process but what about you are you committed to bliss growth all the way yeah there is nothing there is um nothing else i want to do you know you're not planning for an exit for yourself no what yeah my companies would exit i don't think i'd ever maybe someone's acquired bliss growth but i don't you know i wouldn't as i said even if they offered me whatever money i wouldn't do it it's because it's literally you're taking away my my playstation my play right you can't it's not gonna happen So you only invest in repeat founders and there are obvious explanations for it.

1:03:38You know, they have the business, they have the experience, they've proved their ability to create value and take company all the way to an exit. Are there any other reasons that may not be as obvious why you prefer to work with these people? I think for me um I want to I want to focus on helping them solve the hard things if it's a first-time founder you're gonna have to most likely guide them through the hoops which are you know things like hiring your first salesperson hiring your first finance person you know hey I've got a term sheet there's some preferences what does that mean I don't and for me I don't feel I'm being challenged or I'm going to enjoy that part as much so and because I've now built multiple companies I can really I feel like they relate to me and I relate to them there is just a connection yeah and um and as I've and as I've been meeting more because before I did invest in first-time founders I did work with them and then I also did like repeat or experienced founders and I just enjoyed like through tests that I wanted to just dedicate my life to work with them and hopefully help them reach their full potential so and I used to hold loads of community events like even before I was running PF I used to hold community events for exited founders in London and it was just something I really really enjoyed and exactly like you I love understanding the psychology post exit I love having the conversations so yeah I was just fascinated and now to get to work with them is just you know when when I was very fresh out of my first exit I thought I had this genius idea that I'm gonna angel invest but I'll only angel invest in repeat founders and my thinking wasn't nearly as deep as yours.

1:05:33I simply thought, oh, the likelihood of success is high there. And at that time, I had no idea about how the whole post-exit journey actually plays out. Most of my investments didn't go well. And part of the reason is that I didn't do my due diligence properly or whatever. I was investing for wrong reasons. I was really just trying to become somebody again, you know, to solve my identity crisis. But another reason they failed, which I only started understanding much later, is that when you invest in second-time founders, there are very unique risks that come with them that you actually don't have with first-time founders.

1:06:19And those have to do, for example, with things like they rush into this second business before they've done the work we talked about before, just sitting with themselves figuring out what it is they actually want and then people tend to run out of the motivation and they don't they no longer have that resilience to to push through problems because the motivation is not there things like that and for a while i actually stopped doing it and i went to the opposite extreme and i was like i'm not investing in any repeat founders because you know their problems are even worse than the first time founders did you have that experience that there are psychological issues with repeat founders that need to be taken into account yeah i think it's an interesting one i meet a lot of founders who want to build their second company in a total different sector or space because they're really excited and what i always say to them is that if they did have a successful exit in one sector they obviously know something about that customer that they sold to and if they can actually selling again to them is probably better because you have an edge an advantage whereas you know even with me I built this company with a team um called Screen Loop and this was about solving unconscious bias in hiring because I you know it was for the good like you know this would remove all bias in interviews and it and it does it's brilliant but you know as I was building and building the product and as we built the as the company's being built i realized quite quickly that it's just another capitalist business like like i know it's run it's got the same metrics it needs funding it's the same yes on that shell it's great and it's purposeful and it's impactful it's brilliant but on the inside it's still yes you're caring about society but it's still run like a business and i feel sometimes i'd meet a lot of founders who have sometimes going into sectors where they're trying to be more impactful but then they realize it's harder to make money in this sector or because harder to maybe sell to the customer but at the same time they're realizing hey there's no difference between what I was doing before and they don't have that expertise because it's a new ecosystem yeah and then they and then they're fighters they'll carry on because they're they want to protect their their ego some just go at you know what this ain't working, I'm over.

1:08:52Exactly, that's more my experience with those I invested in and then later I talked to them years later and they were like oh that was so stupid of me to go into a different industry, now I'm back to what I know and now my business is successful and I was like thanks very much, I was the idiot who invested in the experiment early on. And another interesting observation I made through through this not very successful financial investments of mine was that sometimes people actually wait for too long to start a new business and then there's a different problem that as an investor I'm thinking that they're the same people who built the first company but what happened is that they've moved on and they now care much more about having a relaxed lifestyle or focusing on their children.

1:09:48And they started this new business thinking, oh, it's going to be easier second time around because now I can just delegate everything. But it's an illusion. You can't. If I learned anything from my experience and the experience of many other people, it's not easier second time around. There are some exceptions. Like, for example, an older, more experienced founder is very lucky with a co-founder who is very young and wants to do all the work that that's an exception but in most cases you have to work just as hard second time around and they don't want to and then they're like ah i can't be bothered yeah no for sure i've seen that story play out and um i think you're a lot wiser on the decision making you can hire better people you've got better processes but it's still an incredible amount of work and you know the tech the tech sector is very interesting because you could be very smart with your capital and build the right products and next thing you know you've got this company in the US who's raised 100 million and exactly and the next thing you know they're undercutting you and that's just and you're out of business and yeah yeah so it's um I think it's interesting I meet a lot of people that want to build bootstrap businesses or build it more capital efficient but the sad truth is I've seen it what plays out there'll be another company that comes in and unfortunately cash is a big lever yeah in a lot of sectors um and yeah the second time founders sometimes that hunger to like fight in that ring just they've hey look I've already won the title I don't I really want to carry on being in the ring they don't want to sometimes.

1:11:28But then what's interesting is that maybe a few years later, they've gone through their journey. They found their purpose, something that feels right, like what you described with Bliss Growth. And then they're ready. I think timing of investing in repeat founders is extremely important. Not to invest when they're just out of the previous company, but not to wait for too long. I know you're very, very sensitive to these things. And I'm curious if you have any rules for yourself in terms of where you want to see your second-time founders in their own personal journeys when you would feel comfortable investing in them.

1:12:14I think now, and it goes back to probably early in the podcast, I'm just a lot more patient and I trust the process. So sometimes I'll be with a founder who's exceptional, right? Where people will just throw money at this person, like, without anything. And I still have that in my mind. I'm like, hey, look, oh, my God, this person's incredible. But I'm just, I really want to know how they're thinking. And I will ask them a lot of deep questions. And I'll see if they've done the work. Because at the end, like, I'm not, I think my job in this life is to guide people to the right decision. whether it is working with bliss growth or not i'm okay like i know you know i'll meet 30 founders every month and probably only one in 50 are supposed to work with me and i'm okay with that but as long as the other 49 i feel i've listened to them and told them and being honest that hey look you need to go work on this area still like it's not you haven't done the work and i and i you know you can speak to some of the founders that may know me but i always say look i'm very very honest i'm okay having the hard conversations with them because in the end i want them to hopefully be on that right path so going back to your question i really will ask them deep questions and not only i'm asking them deep questions on them them and their purpose and if they've done the work but also on the idea as well so it is probably it probably can be quite exhausting with me because I'm basically challenging them on the idea deeply and I'm trying to challenge them deeply on the work and so it's just uh but I'm doing this because I'm trying to assess where they're at and yeah I'll meet them multiple times as well like I'm not I'm in no rush to build companies I've told my investors like you know we'll build three companies yeah but sometimes it might be more it might be less I can't I'm not under any time pressure I don't have any um institution money it's all like family offices high net worth enough and i've been honest that hey look i'm this is about patience um so for me um for me i um yeah i'm just very careful because once i start building company i know this is a new relationship for life that i'm about to not for life but it's going to be a lot it could be for life or it's going to be at least 5 10 of serious time so i'm very careful so we talked about you being more loving and we talked about how much you care about founders you invest in but how do you think about the closest circle around you like whom do you want to surround yourself with and what's your logic behind it yeah um i'd say my circle is definitely over time like everyone gets smaller and smaller and then eventually the right people come and um like my closest people um are my like like my brother and my business partners and um i've got i've got quite a lot of cousins i've got like 40 cousins which is nuts right the indian families are really big so there's like a few of my cousins I'm like super close yeah yeah I know so but yeah exactly um so I'm very lucky I've got a lot of love around me and um so I hold that circle very tightly and um you know I really appreciate people that are just very kind um loving they've done the work in their life they're conscious and um you know I really feel that the right people come at the right time and I just just trust the process before I think we all want to have certain people we think in our life but I just I'm starting to let go and just let it all happen so I don't before I used to think okay I want to build my friendships like this or my circle like this and I want this layer and that layer there but I'm just like I just let it be and um just enjoy that process just let it happen and just watch the movie take place.

1:16:20I know you talk to exited founders all the time. You know hundreds of people who sold their companies. If I came to you today and I said, you know what, I sold my business yesterday, what are the things I need to be aware of to go through the transition well? Yeah. I'd probably say first thing is just spend time connecting with yourself and you may spend even if you're in a later stage just there's always more time I've really like one of the advice and wisdom tips I was given by someone was that you know the bigger the goal the more time you just spend with yourself because that intuition and that voice will be needed even more so I'd say spend as much time in that stillness find that activity or It might be just sitting on a couch, but just without any distraction, just make sure you have that time.

1:17:21And then I'd probably say actually be part of a community. I think having the right people around you, like having those friends. And obviously the PF community is a great place that lots of friendships will get formed and insights. So, yeah, that community is really important. And there's so many, obviously, your podcasts as well. So I just feel being part of a group of people that are in the same place as you is so important. Not doing it alone. Exactly. I completely agree with you. Those stories that sometimes are horrific that I hear, some people share them in their studio, all the time people did not have the right support.

1:18:06With the family, with friends, with other exited founders. for whatever reason they were alone in this journey and then it doesn't go very well. Yeah, it's... So we have common friends who, you know, went through a divorce at the same time, for example. That's when you are very lonely suddenly and then you have an exit experience. That's tough. Yeah, if it's a very... I think after an exit, like when you're doing this work, like you do go... And as I said, you're sitting in the fire. It's a dark and I've tried to make it sound probably nice, but it's a dark. place because you really realize that there is a lot of um you know there's a lot of work that needs to be done yeah and we all know like the reason why i believe we're on this planet is to do that work so i think we have to again going back to the point of evolving like we have to do this work i know it's not fun but like we have to do this work yeah we also need new skills for a new challenge so for example when you talked about you know meditation or yoga or those skills we need to be connected to our deepest self yeah it's also a skill and there are lots of practical skills that we actually need to have like managing well yeah like you know my my journey of meditation yoga all of these was like really difficult at the start like i didn't want to do it of course it was so hard but I think enough people had said there's something on the other side there's something on the other side of the rainbow the skills were there yeah well but also you knew that they were not on this side you know you when you achieve when you achieve what you thought was the dream of everyone you realize that it's not true it doesn't make us happy you have to cross something you have to cross a barrier that most people don't cross yeah no definitely for sure Jay thank you so much awesome thank you so much really enjoyed it oh I loved it too thank you always with you all conversations are fantastic I appreciate it thank you