Optimize Opportunities for Financial Success | Imane ’Pokimane’ Anys EP 329

0:00Hi, my name is Lewis Howes and welcome to the Daily Motivation Show.

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1:13I'm curious about your perspective on money. You started making really good money in your late teens, early twenties, more than 99.9 % of people in their late teens and twenties in the world probably. How did that affect you and what is the dark side of making money for someone who's really young? Well I don't want to act like it's such a detrimental thing you know. Yeah because I mean I started streaming when I was in high school didn't make much. In college was still in debt for like two years and then it started taking off and then maybe two three years after that I I started making significantly more, like more than what a doctor makes.

1:55And then for like two, three years, it was much, much more that I could have ever imagined. So initially, it was really just like step by step. Like, I'm just looking to have like a part-time job, basically. I can make a little bit of money here while studying engineering. Cool. Then I was like, wait, if I focus on this for a couple months, I can pay off my student loans. Cool. And then frankly, for me, my dream in life was always to make six figures. And I really felt like at that point, I was like, OK, I'm good. But it felt like the expectation in life is to optimize that. So when you see the opportunity, right, it's like, go for it, go for it.

2:45But at some point, it's like you don't really realize what you're sacrificing or if you should keep going for it. And I think there were a lot of times where I just put like my health and my mental on the back burner because I was so fixated on like, I need financial stability. And just like with anything else, it just becomes a habit. Almost like addicting. It's like, okay, I need to focus on this. And I just, I lost sight of again, like, what do I want? What actually makes me happy? There was such a scarcity sentiment. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, even with content creators, it's like you don't know where your career is going to be in a year or two.

3:21Right. What if the algorithm changes? What if they cancel my account? What if? Who knows? Right. Yeah. I'm not going to say that there were like crazy downsides aside from like things that I had to figure out myself. Right. Like how to really manage my life and my business structure. But I do feel like sometimes to my peers, maybe they like viewed me differently. Really? How so? I think depending on the person, it might be something that they judge you off of. How much money you're making? Yeah. Really? Yeah. I think for some people it can be inspirational, but for some people it's like, oh, you're over there and I'm here kind of thing.

4:01Which I understand, right? Everybody makes assumptions based off of what they might know about someone. But I also think the lifestyle that I was leading when I wanted to save up as much as I could, take care of my parents, do this, do that, that lifestyle was also isolating. Really? Oh, yeah, for sure. How so? It's just work, work, work all the time. And when you're optimizing for work or for financials, everything else is on the back burner. Yeah. And it takes so much effort to like, oh, wait, I need to keep up with friends. I need to create a friend circle. I need to do this. I need to do that.

4:41Even taking care of like your health. It's so easy to set everything else aside when you're focused on career goals. You want to know how I learned like really the value of a dollar? Sure. Which in hindsight, I'm so glad that I did. I've had like numerous jobs before streaming. my very first one was I was like I was a newspaper delivery girl I've always had like a very mathematical optimization kind of mindset and I would make maybe like a hundred dollars every two weeks or something and I would do it like two three times a week and I had this kind of a route and I did meet everything up to be like okay every time I drop off a newspaper that's five cents Yeah, so I'm like, five cents, five cents, five cents, five cents, yeah.

5:25But it was so exciting to be able to do something on my own, to exchange my time and labor for any amount of money, right? And then you start thinking, okay, how can I optimize this? Let me ride a bike. It's a little bit faster. And then, you know, a couple years later, you're able to work elsewhere. You also divvy that up. So I was very lucky that everything came like one step at a time. You know, from that one newspaper job to getting a part time job, to getting a full time job, to streaming. I mean, I'm very lucky. My dad raised me well. He like got me a bank account at like 13. Even if there's not much in it, it's like this is your bank account.

6:07This is how much you have. You should have a savings account. You should have a checking. So I was always very considerate of these things. no matter how much I made. It's like, I need to be saving at least, let's say like half of my income and your spending money should only be like this portion. And having that mindset already going into it allowed me to not spiral too much one way in terms of scarcity or spiral too much one way in terms of let me just spend, spend, spend, spend, spend, right? And I also, I try to be very experimental, but experimental in the sense that I would experiment on spending on different things.

6:46If I spend a lot more on a video, what does that return look like? If I invest in myself in terms of my health, if I get a trainer, if I invest more in like nutrition, therapy, what are the things where I get the most return and that are actually very helpful? Most investments in myself, I feel, paid off a lot. So I started prioritizing that, investments in that in my business. and I feel like looking at it very holistically is what helped me the most. That's beautiful. I love that. Investing in yourself was never a bad investment. 1 ,000%. And honestly, just try stuff. Experiment almost like very considerably and safely.

7:25Like I'm going to try this intentionally and I will jot down how it goes. Should I keep doing it? Yes? No.

7:42Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of The Daily Motivation. And I hope you have an amazing rest of your day. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to click the link in the description. That will take you to the full episode of our main podcast on The School of Greatness. And if you are loving The Daily Motivation, please follow us over on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and leave us a review over on Apple Podcasts right now. And if you want more exclusive content and ad-free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcast right now. And if you want to get even more inspiration from our world-class guests and learn how to improve your life and take it to the next level, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com slash newsletter.

8:31Again, have an amazing day, and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.