Gabriel Nussbaum | Extraordinary Life Stories

0:12Gabriel, thank you for joining me. Absolute pleasure. Thank you for having me. Tell me, who is Gabriel in this form? Gabriel is a guy trying to change the way the topic of finance, in particular personal finance, is served in this country and to be honest in the entire world. And my mission has basically meant taking to social media, the place where most of the attention is going these days, and simply just trying to teach to make every individual viewer of any piece of content I put into the world better with money. What a mission. and so needed, right? Because without making an overarching comment, it's a bit of a mess, the whole finances of the world, if you like.

0:51Some people say it's a mess. Some people just say it's non-existent. There literally is no formal standard of financial education. I mean, there might be some people that are disagreeing, but for the vast majority, especially in the UK, which is, you know, the place I know, the place I grew up, personal finance is just off the curriculum full stop. I believe it's actually on the curriculum. I've been saying on this program constantly until a recent interview with Louise Hill, who founded GoHenry, apparently is on the curriculum, but kids are coming out of school not being taught it. Where's the disconnect there?

1:24Because we all need to manage our finances. We all need to understand money, which is what you're actually doing in context of educating us on social media. Yeah. So when you say it's on the curriculum, I think you're referring to, I don't know if this is going to kind of give anyone that kind of deja vu feeling, but PSHE, do you remember those lessons in school? I do. So I'm fairly certain that somewhere in that world, it's like the extracurriculum lessons we have here in the UK, finance falls into that. But like if you actually take a look at the big picture, you're asking a teacher who's probably never learned anything about money, doesn't really understand personal finance themselves, to then go and teach a class full of students who are in that classroom environment where they probably aren't really interested in it.

2:02It's probably not that relevant to them at that point. They don't have any income coming in. They just want to mess about in that PSHE lesson. You can understand why maybe it's on the curriculum. but does that actually come to fruition? Yeah, I'm confident in saying absolutely not. But what you do is make it relevant. So tell me how you've done that. And I want to know that journey from what was ultimately a corporate career to then actually having the light bulb moment and taking a risk backing yourself to now be doing what you're doing. I mean, the way that I'm doing it is just going where the attention is.

2:31So social media, you name any of half a dozen platforms at the moment. That's where not just young people are going, That's where everyone's going. That's where the people are spending their free time. I mean, TV is dying. Traditional media is dying in a way. And social media is the reason for that. It's plugging the gap. So the reason why I've gone and tried to teach personal finance through those platforms is for no other reason. But that is where people are listening. And traditionally, like when I started back in the day, you asked me to go back to the start. I went on social media and it was pure entertainment.

3:04That is what lived on social media, especially when short form started to come into their eyes through, you know, TikTok and Instagram reels and all those kind of things. On long form, there was some level of education, digital education. And that was what I loved. I absolutely loved any form of education through YouTube, things that like learn outside of the classroom. I was consuming that. And it got to the point where I was like, well, I've consumed enough of it. Why don't you actually produce it about a topic that I'm really passionate about? and you you briefly alluded to the fact that i worked at barclays it was a graduate scheme it was in the corporate world i'd left engineering as a degree gone to do that um and i was just like i want to do something more with my time um something that has a bit of passion behind it and so i started it purely as a hobby literally as a hobby bit of a weird one but i just started making these little skits and educational videos about the topic of money anything that i was learning i decided to teach whilst still doing the corporate so was there an overlap or did you Side by side.

4:01Almost at the same time. So it's a side hustle ultimately to start with. Yeah, it was a side hustle. It was a side hustle that I didn't actually need to become a side hustle per se, because anyone that starts social media will tell you this. You start with zero followers. And zero followers means zero level of income alongside of that. So I was doing it pretty much from day one of working at Barclays. I did them side by side. and about 12 months in I was fairly certain that social media and financial education was going to be my future. Was anyone inspiring you so consuming all this this content yourself was there anyone that was kind of doing anything close to what you were doing or did you actually have the opposite like oh my god there's a there's a door wide open for me to go straight in here.

4:43I think I take inspiration from like a lot of sources so no one directly per se I think if you look at the world of let's say social media in particular one name that rings out is Ali Abdel quite a niche name if you don't watch youtube but he's like some ex-cambridge doctor turned productivity entrepreneur and i used to watch a lot of his content and it was super inspiring the fact that he'd taken this from zero to essentially leaving medicine to become an educator through the internet and that was kind of what sparked my brain to go do you know what there is a bit of a possibility of growing a future out of this a career a business and also being able to make a tangible difference because he's made that tangible difference to me when it comes to like the world of personal finance I think that it was a gap like you said like it wasn't taught no one had formerly ever taught me personal finance it was all self-taught so I guess I was inspired by you know your your Richard Kiyosaki rich dad poor dads or your Morgan Housels the psychology of money those books a little bit of that maybe sprinkle a bit of Martin Lewis on top because you see the incredible impact that he's making in the world especially in the UK and I think if you mix all of those recipes together, that kind of made me go, do you know what, I'll just give this a go.

5:54It's really entrepreneurial. And did you have, did you sort of pick up on a vibe from colleagues at Barclays and maybe your parents and so on? Well, actually, you know, to be doing the role you've done, you've gone the academic route and you're actually Gen Z, I believe it's something like 92 % now of Gen Z want to be an influencer. You want to be working within content creation one way or another. And you're doing that. But it's like that marriage of kind of leaving what you were doing, what sort of respected financial advice, if you like, to then going on to social platforms. But you've smashed it.

6:25Was anyone doubting you? Were you getting anyone sort of saying, what are you doing? Do you need to chat? Yeah, a lot of people thought I'd actually gone crazy. Not that I was doing it, but maybe like when I started to discuss that I was going to do that full time. I mean, bear in mind, like I come from a very traditional background in terms of I studied engineering, mechanical engineering, at Imperial, four years, Masters. Firstly, from the back of that, tell me one person that's gone into social media and, you know, it's probably just me pretty much alone. Then you go work at Barclay, you had a really stable career.

6:55And I loved it there to be honest. I was having the best time on the graduate scheme. And I never predicted that my future would be in the entrepreneurial world. I'm not like one of those kids that, you know, they say, you know, from the age of seven, I was selling sweets like in the back of the classroom. That wasn't me, to be honest. I was very set on the kind of corporate classic career it was more just like the passion kind of found me and we kind of as it grew i grew my love for it realized that it's something it was a career that was even available because i think that's another thing a lot of people don't even aren't even aware that something outside of the classic route is available if you just made you an innovator you created you created an opportunity yourself by being curious exactly you can feel the passion coming off for you when you're talking about it like you know you were happy doing what you're doing most people are running away from something you would still be at Barclays now happening through a different you know trajectory yeah like I said I loved it what were the sort of what was the moment for you or was there one was it was a series of moments where you know you had that 12 months where you sort of almost overlapped uh with the sort of side hustle to then go I'm going to do this full-time what were you getting what were the feedback you're getting was there a real moment where you were like this is exactly what I'm going to do it's all the little things I think for me where you get that comment someone sends you a dm someone recognizes you in the street but not just recognizes you tells you the impact that you've made on them like saying that you know what you were the first kind of voice of financial education i've ever had in my life and i was like whoa that's that's serious but i guess what was even more meaningful was when people i knew were telling me they were watching it and learning and making a difference you know i had a friend or come up to me and be like do you know what i've decided to open an isa i didn't even know what an nicer was before that.

8:38For anyone that doesn't know, it's like a tax-free product that you can save or invest through. And I was like, people are actually not just watching, but taking action off the back of it. And I think that's when I kind of both felt the pressure of what I was doing, because people were actually listening and taking action, but then also felt like the privilege that I was making a change in a field that I thought was unchangeable. I love that. And fast forward to now, you have millions of followers across all the platforms. is there one thing you've sort of almost found that you you've probably helped people with is you know that sort of piece that was missing where just by you putting the content out that you've been doing people come back and say thank you for me it's all about knocking over the first domino in the world of personal finance being the first touch point to inspire someone because you bear in mind like i do short form social mainly which means that i have somewhere between 30 seconds and maybe three minutes to cover a topic which isn't easy especially when you're trying to teach something to do with money, which has some jargon involved, some complications, stuff like that.

9:39But for me, all I really intend to do with anything I put out into the world is spark a bit of interest for someone to watch that and go, oh, do you know what? It's not that difficult to maybe look at investing for the first time. Or maybe I should consider saving, even though I can't or didn't think I could afford to do it right now. But putting something small away might be the difference. Or perhaps it is time to actually look at how much I spent last month. All I want to do is knock over the first domino and let kind of inspiration and motivation take it from there. And if they come back to me and watch more videos and learn more things, great.

10:10And if they go on another route that allows them to kind of evolve their financial journey, absolutely fine with me. I love that. Is there any one bit of feedback you're getting from people where they're getting it really wrong? Because people must pour out to you. So by influencing people, they'll give you feedback like the person on the street or your friends. But there are also potentially people that are going to come into you going, I wish I'd known that sooner or the mistake statement. Is there one key thing that people are getting wrong with money? 99.99 adds as many nines as you want percent of people say the same thing, which is I wish I started saving sooner.

10:42And it's such a vague one and just so generalized that I never really like refer to that one. So to give you an even more specific example, even though it's not like the majority of people, income tax is a topic that I cover here and there just to kind of get people understanding what happened to your paycheck? Why, you know, let's say you think you're earning£3 ,000 a month, why£3 ,000 doesn't land in your bank account after they take, you know, everyone takes a little bit out of their HMRC and the rest of them. So I made a video simply explaining a breakdown basically of a paycheck. And half the comments were like, this is stupid.

11:16Everyone knows this already. And half the comments were, I turned down a raise because I didn't want to go into a higher tax bracket because I thought it meant I would take home less money. And that got me realising just how low the level of financial literacy in the country is because people think it's obvious right and when everyone thinks it's obvious it obviously isn't obvious so i wrote that down and i think thousands of people have probably watched a piece of content of me explaining income tax and thanks to that will now take home more money because they're aware of the system and it's crazy because that will affect every single person in this country a huge ripple effect and it's not a compulsory subject.

11:52Imagine not knowing how you're taxed, full stop, mental. That's nuts, isn't it? The entrepreneurial side of things fascinates me from someone that didn't aspire to be one, so was happy in what you were doing, to now have this huge following, millions of people. I want to know that that's sort of almost that confidence element where you're putting content out, which takes bravery to put yourself on camera, and it's all you. I've seen some awesome content where it's you and you having a conversation about income tax and so exactly did you teach yourself did you take did you sort of take a course in that everything is self-taught love that i say self-taught but self-taught through mediums of learning let's say through other social media creators when i'm interested about something a quick google search will give you dozens of free resources on how to learn it so i've taught myself obviously all the things you see on camera how to present how to digest download complex things and then teach it in a really simple to understand way but also how to script how to edit how to film how to use a camera properly audio all the technical things that come from behind the scenes like i was a one-man band for three years doing absolutely every element um for the first six months how to negotiate how to speak to a brand before i got my brand manager who may or may not be sat behind the camera now smiling away being like don't worry i got you covered gabriel um but the last six months.

13:14You do it yourself, right? Best way to learn though, right? Exactly. Probably made a lot of mistakes, but like... I was coming to that. I love the mistakes. But you can see in your face, you're thriving, you're flourishing. What's been the most challenging part? Because interesting off camera, we were talking, you mentioned the engineering degree, but you haven't got the financial sort of qualifications if you like, but you're talking about money all the time. That's not held you back from building a massive audience of relatable content. But through that sort of last three-year journey what were the hardest parts what were the bits you struggled with i suppose it's probably more from like an entrepreneurial side where like i said i come from a traditional background and without ever doing anything in the entrepreneurial world you don't realize that there are cycles involved with it and what i mean by that is literally from an income perspective so if when you're in business cash flow is king right a lot of people say that and i left my job i took a risk it was in the same month i actually moved house and got married i I quit my job and everyone thought I was absolutely nuts.

14:17And probably that was at a time when I was flying, but there was always going to become a period where things aren't going as well as the best they've ever been, right? Where perhaps no new business comes in for a couple of months and you have to realise that, how do I evolve? How do I shift? And that's a muscle that you have to grow, I think, as an entrepreneur. It's just part and parcel because now I'm now four years down the line or three years down the line, I expect that. I know it's just part. I know that January is just a quiet month in business, right? Full stop. And I think that's probably the hardest part of the first couple of years learning how to deal with that, how to manage cashflow from a business side.

14:54Like I said, there's so much more than you see is just like making videos and putting it on internet. It's a whole business that I'm growing here. So that was really difficult. And then if I went right back to the beginning, and this will happen to anyone that puts a video on the internet, it was the association of my worth and my happiness with the view counts and the view rates. If a video did well, I felt amazing. I felt on top of the moon. If a video didn't do well, I was like, well, it was fun whilst it lasted, guys. I mean, like, let's call this a wrap and let's go home. Learning to disassociate numbers from any sense of value was the hardest but most important thing that I did as a content creator.

15:30Is there one video that kind of almost, which I totally get and you've got to avoid that dopamine hit of kind of likes and so on. But is there one video that you had a whole moment where like, oh, I'm onto something here. This is, this has got people really talking and. And this one video in particular, I can refer to that tax one, which went absolutely crazy. Back in the day, I like to reveal different like hacks, money hacks, let's say things in the system that people weren't aware of. And I remember about three years ago, I was on a flight and it got delayed and I I was speaking to people behind the desk and they're like, oh, take this, by the way, you're owed compensation because of the time that you've been delayed, the distance you're traveling.

16:09I was like, oh, like, you know, the 100 quid they offer you. They're like, no, no, no, go online. There's a legal amount that we have to pay you because of what happened. And I was like, that's really interesting. It turned out to be 600 euros for being delayed like four hours. So I thought, let me look into this and let me make a piece of content about it. And I posted it really raw, badly edited, probably didn't get to the point very well, but 10 million views. and you're thinking 10 million people are clearly interested and had no idea that this little rule actually exists where you have to get paid if certain things happen while traveling so we're talking about like a piece of content that like flew and i realized like there are things in the system that people just have no idea about that i only learned that because it happened to me lived experience lived experience great lived experience i'm not gonna lie i didn't even mind the delay they told me 600 euros was coming away i went thank you very much um but those are like the little things that you put on the internet you realize that just how much out there is important how much there is for me to cover and what would you say to someone and I have this conversation with my daughters 14 and 15 now where they're surrounded by uh kids that don't want to put themselves out there so I when you first started talking about that experience I thought you might have said you were going to be getting past the uh the sort of the brave part of putting yourself out there open for judgment didn't seem like that was ever a thing I think you were you were prepared to back yourself and you were sort of full of purpose with the content but there are clearly people that struggle with it did you have any issues with that yeah i think it's impossible not to because like i said at the start if you're ever putting stuff on the internet no one's watching my mindset now is if no one's watching that's fine because no one's watching if you get what i'm saying so there's no reason to even be worried because no one will end up seeing it so therefore it's a great leap and if everyone's seeing it you've done very well so well done there's nothing to be worried about but back at the start theoretically and probably if i actually try and like speak to that version of myself yeah there was concern like i'm putting myself out there right i'm thinking that i'm doing something maybe cool and innovative and game-changing and trying to make a difference and i'm so confident there were people probably who know me or friends of a friend or someone that just like what's he doing like why is he making these silly little videos on the internet who does he think he is but the important thing for me was my immediate circle were very supportive really my mates my wife who was my fiancee or my girlfriend at the time my family my siblings my parents they were like that's really cool like great video again like you're doing really well and that's all that mattered to me um surrounding yourself with the right people that support you yeah don't get me wrong if you put five of my mates in a circle at the start absolutely took the me absolutely like took the mick but then i knew one-on-one they all texted you being like great video i love that and you backed yourself as well yeah it's so clear you're enjoying ultimately the journey right i wonder what is there like a destination because a lot of what you've been working on has been sort of testing and even even kind of spontaneous like this whole uh travel compensation to then give you probably more of an insight to be more curious about other things you can share that other people don't know about but it's got quite serious now you know you've been to number 10 you're sort of you know sort of more of a think tank element right and this is clearly unearthed a real need for it have you had a thought about where you're going with this probably the scariest question you're gonna ask me because often people say like what's the goal like what are you doing here what's the next five years look like and i go i have absolutely no idea i think it's working for you i'm kind of happy with it i'm happy to know my six month plan maybe my one year plan but like this landscape moves so quickly this industry that I'm in of creating content is still in its infancy that what it will look like in two years is going to be completely different for what it looks like today so because of that if you try and transcribe too much of what you want to do what you want to become I think it boxes you in and I don't want to be in the position where I have to say no to opportunities because I've really funneled myself in a specific direction.

20:07So that's why I'm very open. I mean, if you think bigger picture, like my whole goal is just to make everyone better with money. That's the strapline. That's the mission. If it aligns with that, I say yes. If it doesn't align with that, I say no. So that's the overall key thing. Five years time, absolutely no idea. But I'd love to keep, you know, speaking to the people that can influence things. I mean, I've interviewed Keir Starmer now. I've interviewed Rachel Reeves, our chancellor twice. Insane opportunities. Speak to me four years ago making my first video and putting on the internet so you're going to be interviewing the chancellor i'm interviewed i interviewed the governor of the bank of england a month ago or two months ago like these are the opportunities that are getting put in front of me and i think all i'm kind of taking from that instead of going oh like i've made it now is that like i'm making a difference and i want to continue to make a difference so if you could influence or have a change uh of one key thing and i think you know almost bring it back to that education piece because you know that's awesome that you're getting an audience with the PM and the key people of decision making but is there one piece that's broken or needs fixing that you really can highlight is something that needs the most attention?

21:13Compulsory financial education I think that is the the missing piece there are little pockets of it happening but sometimes not with the best intention so I'm not saying that for example the banks that do great work in schools trying to teach money have bad intentions but ultimately like they know there's something in it for them associating you know with a name and they're going in and they get to you know open your junior account with us and at the same time I think there needs to be kind of without any third party influence some level of formal education and I don't care if that's in primary school in secondary school at university or when you start a career in that element in In fact, I do think it should be across all of them.

21:55But at any of those stages, I'll take that right now. Surely the earlier the better, right? There's a whole kind of scientific approach that a lot of habits are formed by the age of seven and people aren't being taught - Money habits included. Value of money by the age of seven. And actually just that value of money interests me, right? So we're a cashless society now. My 14-year-old daughter, literally two days ago in birthday cards, still had some cash that came out. And it's the only time I see cash now other than literally every now and again. And you and I are old enough to remember that we were partying with cash, we were paying with stuff.

22:29Now, we know all the benefits, totally get all the benefits of the cash in society, but do you think that going right back to kids, literally right now, that will not have that experience with cash, is it devaluing money? I don't know if it's... I mean, it was definitely easier to teach it when you could feel it, right? And count it, literally, right? One of my best, or probably one of the biggest lessons that I ever learned with money was from my grandma, who whenever she gave me any money for a birthday or something like that her rule was save half spend half and probably that's why i do what i do today right and why i'm so frugal because shows the influence that literal influence from five years old six years old seven years old telling me what to do with my money stuck right it's stuck and how many people don't have savings in this country i think that's right now was 30 of the uk wouldn't be able to survive one month without a paycheck so that was obviously instilled into me at such a young age but removing cash is kind of inevitable now i mean there are laws coming in where they need to accept cash in some places or not but we're moving into a cashless society right so i think it's just about keeping up with the times you mentioned that you spoke to um the founder the ceo of go henry the other day and they're doing an incredible job with kind of little debit cards built for kids and a lot of companies are falling into this and trying to do this.

23:45I think it's great because ultimately if you turn 18 and all you know is how to manage cash and then you realise that we're in a cash society, it's like starting from zero all over again. So we might as well teach kids what's currently going on in the world. I totally agree with that. I want to bring it back to you personally. So the sort of system needing fixing and one size fits all is clearly a kind of a whole thing that needs attention. But you as the entrepreneurs you sit here now, there's all sorts of stuff that's talked about to be successful and to make a lot of money. You've got to get up at four in the morning.

24:17You've got to run a marathon. You've got to read the book. You've got to meditate. Where do you fit with that? Because that's who you are now. You are a successful entrepreneur that is also a role model. You know, I've watched some fabulous content that you put out and so on. So people will then be wanting to know that part of you. Where do you sit with that? The behind the scenes. I can tell you I've never once woken up at 5am in my entire I do love the idea of, don't get me wrong, I'm just not really great in the morning. I think the biggest thing about me behind the scenes is discipline and consistency and kind of unwillingness to just not succeed.

24:55Resilience. Exactly. Learning about failure. I know I've thrown a lot of things out there, but it's not the meditate, wake up at 5 a.m., get to the gym six days a week, you know, read 100 pages, do the 75-par challenge, which was like a crazy trend on social media. Those things are teaching you one thing overall, which is consistency and discipline. That's the only skill they're trying to teach you through those things that I think are worth learning. So for me, what that looks like is I just don't stop. I just will keep going it might not be on social media forever but I will continue going for as long as I can um I created videos every day almost for six months with no one watching and that is well below the average of how long it should take before someone does start watching I think the average is around two years for me six months was very quick but that's a long time to slowly going right yeah with no success but for me like it didn't matter because I just enjoyed the journey so if you're talking about what's the thing the entrepreneur that keeps me going and that sets me let's say apart it's that i will just keep going failures are a part of the journey if you don't fail you don't succeed brilliant advice and you can feel that i'm going to call it happiness without any arrogance and contentment if you like you're you are loving what you're doing yeah you know i i feel like if we sort of sat here for another two hours you'd still be pouring out information with passion so using that that word happiness money doesn't make you happy it's thrown around a lot as a term right and it's probably all I've got time to ask is my last question but what do you say to that because you talk you're sitting here happy and you talk about money that is your key topic money doesn't make you happy money buys opportunity and choices those are the things that make people happy so the ability to be able to choose whether or not you're going to go out for a meal to be able to choose what you're going to have for dinner that night to choose what method of transport you you want to use money is just a tool that opens that up for you so people say oh money doesn't buy happiness money doesn't have it but doesn't buy happiness if you're honest it does ask people in poverty a bit of money would make them a lot happier um but the studies show that it's to a certain level what that number is is under huge debate at the moment 85 000 pounds a year 100 000 pounds a year and to that i do agree with because once you do get to a certain level it's just about like i can go on holiday but i want to fly first or you know flying economy to me that's the same level of happiness you still get the opportunity to go on holiday you still get to make that choice so for me i i do think that money does buy happiness but it's up to a level beyond that happiness comes from the people around you the things you do um the experiences you have in life and not from the stuff stuff and things will never make you happy i can promise you and say say that out loud i love that it's inspiring it's like i think purpose sits in other than you know we will both know people that are successful and wealthy um but they're not happy and then it's actually you know the lack of fulfillment the lack of purpose you know you can go and buy another shiny watch what have you but is that going to make you happy no not that person it's not going to change them at all and i think that that purpose you've got that just exudes from you.

28:13So I'm really interested to see where you go and what you... Because as you say, you don't know yourself, but you're going. You're shifting, you're moving. And it's been a pleasure, pleasure talking to you today. It's been really fun. Thanks for having me. Thank you.