8.7 Ankush Datar: On Health and Wealth; Two Goals, One Answer

Tried a fad diet and a get-rich scheme, but failed to do both? Let's talk about what actually works.

Ankush Datar, the author of The Health and Wealth Paradox, breaks down the complexities of health and financial planning by getting back to the core principles. His unique approach explains how managing your health and wealth isn’t so different after all. In this episode, Tara Khandelwal and Ankush explore how first principles thinking, mental barriers, and everyday habits shape our ability to stay consistent and make smarter decisions in both areas.

If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed with the amount of information available about managing your health and wealth, this conversation offers fresh insights and practical tips to simplify the process. Ankush’s approach will help you understand that it’s just not that complicated once you’ve gotten your basics set. 

Books, shows, and films mentioned in this episode:

• Ankush’s favourite authors: Morgan Housel & James Clear
• Dopamine Nation by Anna Lembke
• Stop Reading the News by Rolf Dobelli
• The Art of Thinking Clearly by Rolf Dobelli
• Same as Ever by Morgan Housel
• Dollars and Sense by Dr. Dan Ariely
• The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel
• Outlive by Bill Gifford and Peter Attia
• Atomic Habits by James Clear

‘Books and Beyond with Bound’ is the podcast where Tara Khandelwal and Michelle D’costa uncover how their books reflect the realities of our lives and society today. Find out what drives India’s finest authors: from personal experiences to jugaad research methods, insecurities to publishing journeys. Created by Bound, a storytelling company that helps you grow through stories. Follow us @boundindia on all social media platforms.

Transcript

Tara Khandelwal: 0:01

Foreign Welcome to Books and Beyond. With bound I'm Tara Khandelwal and I'm Vishal d'cota, in this podcast, we talk to India's finest authors and uncover the stories behind the best written book and dissect how these books shape our lives and worldviews today. So let's dive in. Have you guys ever stopped and thought, what's not working in my life right now for me, nine times out of 10, it comes out to either health or money. I'm either chasing the next big bound milestone or trying and failing to stick to a health routine. So today's guest has a very interesting take on this. We are joined by Ankush data. He is an Associate VP at the portfolio management services division of Philips capital India, and he is here to talk about his new book, The health and wealth paradox, which he co wrote with Mahir patki. And what is the book's big idea. The idea is that health and wealth are just two sides of the same coin, because this book shows our health and money actually work in very similar ways. They use the exact same principles, for example, the power of compounding, or even knowing what information to look for, the idea that what is on the surface is not what you see. And what I really liked about this book, as a writer, a non fiction editor, it's full of First Person accounts. We have uncle. She's 62 year old dad who starts weight training. We have psychological principles. We have research from some of my favorite authors, like Morgan Housel and James clear. So it's, it's one of those books that puts a framework around so many of the things that we are thinking about every single day. So Hi uncle, so glad to have you here.

Ankush Datar: 1:44

It's feels awesome to be here as the someone who's been a previous listener, and being on the other side feels even more

Tara Khandelwal: 1:54

surreal. I'm so happy, and thanks so much for listening to the podcast. And yeah, I've I've also been following you for a while, so it's really good to do this. So your book, basically, you know, tackles these two massive areas. And you know what I found really cool, and what I hadn't thought about before, is that you show them managing both isn't that different. For example, in chapter one, you talk about allocation. You know whether it's in investing, you know how to allocate between stocks, mutual funds, or whether it's in your diet. You know protein versus carbs. So I really like this sort of like tennis match between these two worlds. So what made you and Mihir decide to write a book like this, which shows the first principles of connecting nutrition and health.

Ankush Datar: 2:42

So this book was actually born out of serendipity and previous experiences that both me and I had. So for the last 12 years around I've been following health and fitness, I've been running, I've been weightlifting. I've been following structured nutrition plans. That's something which I've always taken a very, very keen interest in. And so after the first three years of my profession, I started to see a lot of patterns in terms of the way we think about our investment when we talk about the power of compounding, which you mentioned before, the similar principles apply for fitness. I mean, it's just about showing up every day. The biggest results that you get are in the fourth or fifth year. It's not something where someone can make returns in one two years, right? If, if people could, professionals like us would not exist, right? That's the whole point. That's how we kind of teach people what to do. So how this book came to be is I started to see a lot of panels on a personal level, and it was a very deep interest of me, like I said. And it started as a passion project to a blog, which I started in 2018 there was no intention of this blog. There was no objective to write a book is just about find these interests. How psychology, the psychology of fitness, psychology of health, how they tie together? Once you start writing more, right? Your brain starts to comprehend better. You start to draw patterns, whatever is in your head. You put it onto words and you put it on paper, you're able to see much more than you are actually thinking about. I started writing for this publication called the whole truth, which we all know, this amazing brand, essentially, I just kind of got a DM from Shashank, the founder, where he had just randomly read an article which had written about the history of caffeine, right? So very random. There was no objective of writing that poster, it's going to one day cover a publication. And that led me to a different kind of world, writing for health and fitness, through my own experience combining with science, written growth, 1415, article is now for them. Through this period, I kind. Continue writing, exploring my passion, and just very coincidentally, in 2021 I saw this tweet by Mihir. He had put out this workshop on the parallels between nutrition and investing. You know, I said, hey, no one else is not seen anyone else talk about this. I have been writing about this for some time. Looks very interesting. Let me just sign up for the workshop see what is up and what I can learn from it. It's actually very interesting in terms of a presentation of creating an allocation plan or creating a nutrition plan, and drawing the parallels and understanding one from each other is something which I had also written about. So I said, Hey, let me attend this. And then what I did was, actually, is the reply to his tweet with one of my blog posts right on long term investing and fitness. He happened to read it. And then we became Twitter friends for about one year or so. That's how we met, first on Twitter, and then we kind of became from Twitter friends to real friends, and he just happened to float an idea maybe one and a half months after we had met. What do you think about writing a book about health and wealth? I thought to myself for five minutes. It took me only five minutes to say yes. I said, What happens if I say no, let me say yes, and then let's see where it goes. So we met, and it was like magic. I mean, the first time we met, 12 chapters just appeared. We spoke about this, that reverse compounding, nutrition label, financial all that you see. I mean, the names of the chapters are kind of more catchy now, but the concepts that just come out in the one meeting, you

Tara Khandelwal: 6:46

know, you talk about information and misinformation, and there's so many people talk about these topics. So I wanted to also ask, how does your book fit into that context?

Ankush Datar: 6:56

Yeah, so that was the biggest challenge that we had, and I happened to draft a chapter, pitch the chapter, and the chapter fit perfectly well with a second challenge was the first time authors, how do we get through, you know, writing a book, and how do we kind of get the idea, but the idea is something that is very as you said, Is it something that people around the world struggle with? It's not just you. It's not just an India problem. It's a world problem, right? How do you balance the two? And one of the things that we suffer from is the curse of too much information on Instagram, which diet is perfect, which investment plan is perfect? So kind of bringing everything together, saying, hey, there is no one true way of, you know, eating or there's no one true way of investing, once you understand what you want out of your investment goals. So for example, if I sit with a client, or, let's say, I sit with you, I sit with myself, I make a plan first, right as to what is my objective for 1520, years, and now to fit my objective, what are the instruments that I need to invest into? Very simple, once I've made the plan, once I've fit the bucket, then it becomes very difficult for someone to come and manipulate me, saying, you know, hey, this is what's going to give you returns in 112, years or three years, because my plan is set. Same thing with the nutrition plan. Once I figure out what my goal is, try to understand the basics of calories, protein, fat, carbs, and try to allocate accordingly, right? Once everything has been set, no one can manipulate me saying, Hey, you're going to lose weight with a ketogenic diet, a carnivore diet, this that green tea makes you lose weight, you know so. And these are very basic parameters. It sounds like just because I have studied about nutrition on a personal level, that I'll be able to do it, but as we try to explain the book, very simple core principles, which we've never been taught in school or college, and this is something that is very relevant for every single human being understanding basics of nutrition. So

Tara Khandelwal: 9:10

let's get into the actual, sort of you know, principles that you talk about, because I think that would be super interesting. And that's really sort of you know what drew me in because every chapter is basically you talk about one principle. So one of my favorite parts of the book, you know, is when you say that things are not what they seem on the surface. You know, you also had this problem that you were very much into fitness, and then you did your blood work, and then you it turned out that you were very high cholesterol, right? And I resonated with that as well, too, because I work out lot and fairly thin and all of those things. And I did my blood work five years ago, and it turned out I have predators, you know, and which you don't see. When I tell people like I have this, they're shocked. They said, You don't look anything like you have this condition. And, and you also talk about, you know, on the surface, how some people come in, like fancy cars and all of those things. And I know, specially in Delhi, lots of people take loans out to get those cars. And the people who may be have that wealth that quietly, just compounding it. And you give that example of, you know, this lady who has lived a very quiet life and retired with $7 million so I really love this part of the book. And especially, you know, in India, we always told, Okay, forget health. We are validizing. You know, I used to think, oh, people who sleep less are better than me, because I need eight, nine hours of sleep. I I'm doing something wrong with my life, you know. So can you speak more about this principle, what things are not what they seem on the surface?

Ankush Datar: 10:48

Yeah, so the chapter that you touched upon, the title of the chapter, is health and wealth is invisible to the naked eye. What you'll see right now is not the complete picture. It's essentially how I got into my deep health journey was in 2020 around when COVID was there, all of us were kind of stuck in our homes. My cousin brother, who was fairly healthy, you would say, if you if you saw him. There was no kind of medical conditions before, no issues that he had before. If you take one look at him, it would seem like all is good, right? He just happened to have a very sudden heart attack, and he happened to pass away. It was very tragic moment. It's actually stayed with me through my last five years, and I think it will stay with me for life. And that actually made me introspect as to if he can kind of get this issue, why can't it happen to me as well? And at that time, ironically, I was actually in the best shape of my life, physical fitness the six pack abs, or whatever you would like to call it. I went into my blood work, my cholesterol was through the roof. It was about 200 my LDL cholesterol was 151 60. Despite me being in the best shape of my life, I was facing these issues. So I had to kind of course correct in terms of my entire lifestyle, the processes that I had used before to arrive at that physique or that level of fitness did not necessarily fit with my body. I had to kind of relearn, unlearn everything that I did. And over one year, my blood work improved. And if you saw me the next year, you will not think that I'm the fittest looking boss in very honestly. And if you look at your parents, right, many of our parents, they may not be as lean, or they may not have some muscular physique, but as long as that blood work is in place, right, everything is in line. That's the most important thing, because the end of the day, everything that you're doing, the report card comes in a blood test, right? The report card not doesn't come in what this person thinks I look like, right? Or this person thinks I

Tara Khandelwal: 13:14

hate doing blood tests. I get very scared of the report card, yeah.

Ankush Datar: 13:18

Actually, even I the first time I took it. I was very scared, because it was the first time I did it, and I thought I was thinking in my head, I was overthinking that even after doing so many years of fitness, you know, what, if there's some issue with me, I just the first step is to just to get past it. All anxiety lies in just thinking about doing it, and anxiety will compound the more, the more you avoid it, the more anxious you start getting. But once you do it, I mean, your your mind gets clear, and then you have an idea where you stand, and it automatically kind of gives you a hit. So health is such a thing that till you have a personal incident, you don't end up making a change. So even if you look at me story from the book, he had a very different journey. He has a different family. He has he has a child slightly more high pressure role. But even he did not look like he had some kind of health issue. He had a high blood pressure and to kind of take a stat in course correct his entire his entire process of how we looked and approached and held so the idea also wants to write from my own experience, so that someone the reader. You want to put the reader in your shoes. You don't want to tell the reader what to do. The reader knows what to do. Reader knows they have to sleep eight hours a night, eat protein. Everyone knows that you can just go and chat GPT and also understand, but the reader needs to empathize with the writer. And the whole point of doing that was to say, hey, if this can happen to me, this can probably also happen to you, and if you are also kind of. Are living a similar life to mine, right? Maybe it's time to introspect.

Tara Khandelwal: 15:04

One of the other things I really love in the book I mentioned it also earlier is the research that you've done. So you've quoted from, you know, James clear, Peter Tia Morgan, Houser. You use some amazing psychological principles to explain these concepts. So for example, you talk about time taken to earn versus time taken to spend something we all know, and you've explained it using something called the optimism bias. And I noticed that in every chapter you've cited around 18 to 20 articles and papers, which is really wild. I mean, it's a lot of research. You've got everything from neuroscience to psychology to sociology. So what was the research process for you? And was there any one study or article that you came across that has really stuck with you out of everything that you sort of, you know, read? Yeah,

Ankush Datar: 15:56

so of course, there's no one study. So people underestimate neuroscience in our decision making, because neuroscience, it's literally our brain functions. And our brain functions dictates how we make any kind of decision. If you had to ask me, and if I had with a gun to my head, if I if I had to answer, what is that one, you know, source of research or book that played such a big role in a large part of my writing of the book, I've quoted a book called dopamine nation by Doctor Anna Lemke. So essentially, we know what dopamine is, but do we know what types of dopamine there are? There's cheap and expensive dopamine, right? So what usually we see on Instagram reels or YouTube shorts is that dopamine is the villain. This releases dopamine every, literally, every activity that we do, this conversation that I'm having, is releasing some kind of dopamine. So cheap dopamine is the dopamine that is easily accessible and that requires to be replenished at a much faster pace. So for example, me ordering from a food delivery app is very easy, right? It's cheap, it's simple. I order the food I eat in that moment, I am kind of satisfied, but I'm not satisfied for very long again, at four o'clock. If I'm hungry, I have access scrolling on my phone. If I'm bored, just take my phone out, scroll, playing a video game, scrolling on Netflix. See, we all enjoy these things, but the issue is that these activities release cheap dopamine, something like trading also, usually any individual who is very invested in the stock market, they have the habit of putting on their phone trading in buying, selling stocks, you know. So that is also because of the release of cheap dopamine where so you've done the activity, the dopamine has been released, and it's coming down in a 90 degree way that has to be replenished again at a much higher rate. So your brain starts craving more. So imagine a smoker. Why does a smoker get addicted to smoking the first time they smoke? Keep dopamine is released, comes down, and their brain is demanding more the next time, and it keeps demanding more to a certain level that now the smoke after two cigarettes, right? They are not satisfied anymore. They they only get satisfied till that three so that's how a chain smoker becomes a chain smoker. Phone becomes a perennial phone. Scroll. So cheap dopamine is one part which is not necessarily something that we should deprive ourselves of, but it should be under control. Expensive dopamine, as the name suggests, our activities that take a lot of effort to do. So, for example, getting up, going to the gym, it's painful, it's expensive because it's so painful to do. But no one has ever regretted a workout, right? You go to the gym, you're done, you're feeling amazing for long time taking up a competitive exam. It's horrible. No one likes to study for an exam, and you know, through the entire months and years of logging out. But once you're done with the activity, you feel amazing having the difficult conversation, actually, so something which you are keeping inside and you've not been able to talk to someone about it's very, very difficult. That is also what releases expensive dopamine. These are the ACT investing systematically. And we had spoken about the start of the conversation regarding power of compounding, right? Investing systematically for very long periods of time and seeing no returns is also expensive. Dopamine. You're doing something painful where you're not seeing the results. But once you see that result at the end of the fifth, sixth year, you see the magic that you spend so much time and it gives you a lot of satisfaction. So what are. Health and Wealth decisions are basically balanced by the counter balancing of expensive and cheap dopamine. The reason why I'm doing this, it's like a seesaw. So the seesaw has to be balanced in such a way that you're giving more weightage to expensive dopamine, but not depriving depriving yourself a cheap dope.

Tara Khandelwal: 20:19

Yeah, I like that chapter a lot, because you also not only speak about this neuroscience, which I think is so relevant, I think, and especially in today's society, we're just all slaves to it, whether it comes to investing or health, because we just get so much information, and it's so easy for us to push the trigger. You know, a friend will say, Oh, buy this stock. I want to listen. You know, you won't, sort of do the research. Some dietitian on in style will say, Oh, have this juice every day, you know, and you can't sustain those things. So it's very easy. And also, you've talked about how over analysis also leads to paralysis, because when you have so much coming in, then how do you know which information is? You know, that's information that you can use and which information to discard. So those are some things that I really found very interesting in the book. And also, one thing I really liked is that you've compared books and long form content to protein and social media to carbs. As a book lover, I really like that. Another

Ankush Datar: 21:15

book recommendation coming your way, where I got the reference from, is this book called Stop reading the news by Rolf dobelli, where essentially he Rolf dobelli One of the most famous writers of our time, the author of The Art of thinking clearly. But I think this is his best book. If for someone listening, definitely give it a read. It's a small book, 100 pages, only anyone can kind of pick up and read the book. I think this book was ahead of its time. It was written many years ago, and a very ironically, like you said, you spoke about books and long form content. My dad gifted me this book 10 years ago. My dad's attention span is so low he can't read the book. It's just because of scrolling reels. I mean, it just changes your entire brain chemistry. And news is, although New, a certain part of news is essential. In fact, I work in Finance, so a certain part, but a certain part of news is just irrelevant to me. So people may come at me for the state, but I have stopped reading Bombay Times midday. I mean, I'm like, I'm happy. So I've removed Times of India from my phone because of the spammy notifications that come. I read only business and economic times if I if I read the news. And so news is to be consumed like carbohydrates. That was the analogy. I do, carbohydrates have a certain purpose. You cannot just keep eating as much and as much as in your body. Can Only they only require a certain amount of energy. So news is similar to that, but books and long form, ah, content, just like protein. Is essential for the growth of your body, the development of your bones, your brain, your mind, books and long form content as something similar to that, you cannot all do it also during a day. How much, how much of long form content can you read through the day? How much of a book can you read through the day, but still, it gives you nourishment. If you overdo it, it's not going to be a problem, unlike the news and like carbohydrates, so there is some energy that's and

Tara Khandelwal: 23:30

how do you sort of like in this information overload? How do you decide, okay, you know, this is information that I want to keep, and this is information I want to discard,

Ankush Datar: 23:40

very difficult. There's no one tech answer to that, but the first step to be able to avoid information overload is what we discussed in the start of the conversation, creating a plan. If there is no plan in place, for example, I have a 10 year plan in place. To achieve my tenure plan, I have to invest into XYZ mutual funds for XYZ period, I've kind of projected the most modest rate of return that I can get to achieve that return. Once I've created that plan, then I have an idea. Keep following this plan. Is the probability is going to be very high. Now imagine if I'm not made this plan, then I can just come on social media and tell you this is going to give you 3x return or 4x return, right? And because you've not formalized a plan in your head, you think that this is going to be the next big bet, and 99% of people have not made this plan. Let me tell you that I am actually managing financial plans of finance professionals? There's a certain CFO also, whose financial plan are we managing? Because, of course, they don't have the time to manage it. But you'd be surprised to know how less people do this kind of planning. So the lesser of the planning you do, the easier you are to. Manipulation, same thing as as I had mentioned, with nutrition, also, it's very difficult because there's a lot of new emerging research that comes, which challenges a lot of the things that you're doing so but till you created that broad level understanding, I can tell you anything. I can tell you fruits in the morning are bad for you. Ghee is very good for you. 16 teaspoons of gear are good for you. I'm referencing people without taking names. Green tea helps you burn fat, right? But if I knew my first principles, basics as to how Atlas works, how calorie allocation works, these claims will not be able to, kind of cause any issue to me. But the problem is that these issues will continue to compound, because a lot of people, despite them knowing how important this is, they don't seem to kind of learn about the basics of finance or health. And this is, as you know, this is applicable to every single human being in every single field. So what I believe that should be done on a large scale, and which I've actually been propagating also, is that students from 10 standard to 12 standard should be taught about the basics of this. Then after the 12th right? It's on them, whether they want to take it as a full time profession, or whether they want how to apply the basics should be taught at school and college level. So now, in the next month, I'm actually going to go to my school and give a lecture to the students. So that's also going to be a cool initiative, and we're looking to kind of spread the message across schools and colleges. So no,

Tara Khandelwal: 26:47

I absolutely agree. I think definitely learning those first principles, basics helps you filter information out, you know, then you can have a more critical lens to the information, whether it comes to health and wealth. And definitely agree this is something that should be taught in school. I also really like the chapter about the financial statements and nutrition labels, and you actually picked on how to read sort of, you know, nutrition labels and what to look for in the financial statement, because so often things are very misleading, especially for nutrition. You know, I had done a whole class on how to read a label for sugar. What is sugar and what is not? Because when they say no added sugar, it means it's actually full of sugar. And my dad, who is a diabetic, diabetic, is having, you know, all kinds of treats and saying It's sugar free or whatever, and actually it's no added sugar and it's just full of sugar, you know, when it whether it comes to ice creams or protein bars or whatever it is, and I think learning how to read those labels is so important. So can you speak a little bit more about that and the basics of that? Yes,

Ankush Datar: 27:58

so learning how to read a nutrition label. Is an activity that even a five year old child can do. Start by seeing the front of the label. Understand the calorie count, protein, fat, carbohydrates. Once you understood it, turn the label, once you see the label, just ensure that there are at least 90 to 95% of natural ingredients in it, right? Just thumb rule can be lower, higher if you do not understand what's at the back of the label, try to avoid that food as much as you can. This sounds like the most simple advice, but you will be shocked to know how less people actually do this. So if I, let's say, for example, I give you a label which has, as you mentioned, no added sugar, right? No added sugar, people will assume, okay, this is probably a healthy item. Turn it behind. There is erythro, there is xylitol, you know, various other sugars. There are 97 different kinds of no added sugars that are allowed to be classified as no added sugars by fssai, which is something that no one has an idea about. So no added sugar, whoever is re listening to this podcast does not mean that it's a healthy item. Some rules that you should be having. Let's say there are two labels. Let's say one label has 400 calories, right, and another label has 260 calories. Example, one would assume that a 400 calories is the more patterning product, right? Let's avoid it. Let's go for the 260 calories. Turn the label of item the 400 calorie item probably is 400 calories because it has more natural ingredients and there are no preservatives to kind of color reduce the number of calories. The 260 calorie level, you can maybe have a scroll of the additives and preservatives. So just for that 140 calories, you know, for killing your head, you can kind of reduce the number of calories you consume somewhere else during the day. These are some of the basics that one should learn. Same thing with the financial statement. Also in the financial statement, what comes in the front of the headline is marketing. As you go deeper down, you try to uncover the hidden meaning. So we have seen, right now, a big fraud that has happened in the financial media without taking names, there have been similar names as such, where people look at certain metrics, like, for example, a company's revenue increased 30% a company's profitability increased 50% if someone took this at face value, they would assume, often, this is a good company, and That's put our money. This is 99.99% of investors. As you go down and you kind of understand how this company has financed the revenue. Have they taken a lot of debt? Have they borrowed a lot of money from various different sources? Will they be able to pay these forces? These are the things that show up after year, three years, and that's when everyone has lost their money. Give you a very simple example which are explained in the book of a 10 year old kid who set up a lemonade store. He sets up the lemonade store. She borrows the money from our parents to buy the lemons, the salt, the sugar, et cetera. That's her cost. Now she starts to sell that lemon and that lemonade for, let's say, 10 rupees, 15 rupees, whatever it is, for a cup. The people from the neighborhood come line up, and our lemonade store is doing really well. Now she's trying to expand her lemonade store. She has to go to different she wants to go beyond her parents. She doesn't want to keep asking her parents for money. I have to go to and to order other neighborhood houses, other neighborhood houses. Say, show me your financial statements. She shows our financial statements. Revenue has been growing from 10 to 3040, 50. Profitability has been going 20, 3040, the first two investors, they put okay. Everything is going good. They put money year four, year five. Now, slowly, what's happening is that she is not actually made cash. What is that? What is that mean? So the first two years, she was actually selling her lemonade to potential customers on credit. Some guy would say, just give me the lemonade. I'll pay you later. Give me the lemonade. I'll pay you later. These guys never come back. So her debt is consistently increasing. Then after a certain point, right? She reaches a level where she's not actually making cash, and then investors ask her in the fourth 51 you soon so much revenue. Now it's time to return the cash. Where's the cash? This he goes and tells the investor, so there's no cash. This is the revenue that I have to receive. So this is a simple level, and example can be used for the most complex investment processes. And what would a layman investor look at just the top numbers before actually digging deeper in. We can use these simple examples to kind of understand what not to do, and that helps us to increase our probability of success. Brilliant,

Tara Khandelwal: 33:32

brilliant, I love that example. It was so simple and easy to understand. Yeah. So I also wanted to ask, you know, because there's lot of talk about these ancient principles of health and well, books coming out of it, you know, yoga, Ayurveda. Then there's these hotly contested debates on Twitter about Yoga is not good for you. And you know, also, like the ancient principles of like wealth is like, oh, you should gold prices, you know, gone up a lot. People want to invest in that. So what can we learn from our ancient principles of health and wealth?

Ankush Datar: 34:07

Technology has been a big blessing for all of us, because of easier access, making things, making information more accessible, making processes much smoother, but it's also been a course, right? Because if, for example, my grandfather, he would be having a simple investment process of putting this much in a mutual fund, putting this much in a fixed deposit. And he's been doing this system, 1970s 1980s 1990s he never had technology. He never had access to Twitter saying, buy this stock. It's going 1,000x buy this you know, currency is going 10,000x the principles that he followed, and our any of our grandparents followed, were very simple, right? Look at the simple financial instruments, save enough money and build wealth for the longer term. But me. So I've tried to do the same thing, but I put my Twitter app, and it's very hard for me to see a potential investment opportunity which is going to give me 1,000x 2,000x to completely ignore it. I mean, I have been able to somehow do it, but most people are not able to do it, and understandably so me, he is a grandparents, who I spoke about in the start of the chapter, they had a very simple life, walking up the stairs, walking down the stairs, walking to work, making homemade food, having the food at the same times, 9am 12pm 6:30pm today we have access to technology. Yes, you just click a button. Uber is there? Is that what takes him to the workplace? In the workplace, he has 344, delivery apps where he has the option of choosing multiple options to eat from various kind of cuisines. So here he has a options, and his activity has been minimal. What did our grandparents were doing something very similar. They didn't have access to technology, and that was a blessing. It was also caused for them, because life was harder, was a blessing that because they had enough movement they were able to eat as much as they wanted today, we can't do that. The issue is that we try to replicate what they did with that same access to technology, and we are in a environment which is movement poor but calorie rich. Unlike our ancestors, with our ancestors, who are movement rich and calorie poor, right? Try to learn from them as to how to increase your movement. Try to earn your calories. And this is just our grandparents from our from our ancient principles. They've spoken about this during the times of Mahabharat and drama, and that the power of compounding, how it kind of builds wealth for the future generation. That reference they do for next 12 ways to get rich, the book where we today read about how the power of compounding can grow one lakh into one crore. You know, in 3040, 50 years, these people have been preaching about it. Since that time, it's just about they have not been using currency as the way to evaluate, but how to build a seed. The seed grows. You keep planting various seeds, very big tree grows after planting a seed, and the seed actually blooms into a tree after multiple years, right? But once the tree has grown, after 910, 15 years, it's built enough fruit to provide for everybody around basically the same thing that follows for money and compounding goals. So people have been kind of communicating the message in the same way over years and years. Maybe we can learn from those texts and try to apply those principles, not necessarily the same process, but just the basic understanding and fundamentals. So

Tara Khandelwal: 38:14

again, you're going back to that first principle thing. So you know, the technicalities might change because of the context that we are living in, but the first principles, thinking of compounding and all of those things have remained the same. And I really also it reminds him another book, same as ever, by Morgan Housel, where he talks about those first principles, saying that always stay the same no matter where the context changes. Like for example, storytelling is super important. Always has been for humanity always will be. I really like the part also where you say paying is hard, because I resonate with that as a banya, I couldn't agree more. And today itself, I have signed up, actually, quote, certainly the nutritionist I had said that, you know, I know the fundamentals, I will eat protein. And then somebody spoke to me and said, you know, try it out. And I kind of see the value in paying for an expert, even in the gym and all of that, because they know, sort of, you know, what they're doing, and they can guide you better for your plan. And I like your father's example. Actually, I had read that article in whole truth food, where your father is 63 and he's, he's, you know, lifting weights. And I had actually forwarded that article to my dad, saying that, you know, please, you know, start this. And I have been on a I have been on this is very underrated, to the paying his heart thing, but I've been on a campaign to basically get him to start exercising, where I sent him Instagram reels. I have signed him up to the trainer. I am getting updates from the trainer when he is training when he is not, and I can tell you, it is an uphill battle. So can you please speak about, you know, this expert ecosystem and how we should utilize them better. Yeah,

Ankush Datar: 39:57

so this also ties in. With neuroscience, which we've quoted a lot in the book. So what is the neuros hands on, our brain finds it very easy to make painless decisions. Painless decisions are the decisions which take basically the they're the easiest decisions you can make. So paying 500 bucks, 5000 bucks at a restaurant, right? Very painless, immediate. You get the result immediately. Go have a nice meal, even though it's 5000 rupees, right? Even though it's 10,000 rupees, we can go to a very fancy restaurant, take our family thing like that 10,000 there's, there's no thought going on. Everything is happening very, very effortlessly. You're going, you're having a good time, and it's essentially becoming an endless loop of spending, because the easy things to spend on don't require too much willpower, but the same 10,000 rupees, everyone knows that. 10,000 rupees for the trainer. It will last for 12 months, right? But still, we don't make that decision. Why it's this is the part of the brain which is the painful part of the spending, where we think 100 times before we make our decision. So paying for a trainer, paying for a nutritionist, but once we pay, whenever we've seen that, of course, the quality of the service has to be good. That is that assumed, if you get subpar service, you're obviously going to be disappointed. But these are the decisions that can really help us with our lives. It's not something and ironically, we're spending more time thinking about that spending, then this, that decision may be okay. Maybe I had a good time with my family and spent that money and spent had a journey time with my children, whatever, wife. But let's say I ate burgers, fries, etc, not necessarily good for me, this 10,000 which I spend on a fitness trainer. Ironically, I'm thinking so much, but it's going to be so useful for my health, it's going to make me a better person for my family and my children, but I still take so much time to think about it's actually the similar thing with financial advice. Also, everyone knows they require financial advice, but when the money actually goes out of the pocket, the thought of that is kind of very, very antagonizing for somebody. But a lot of convincing a client also to get on board with you is to make them pay. But once they paid, and once you take them to the cycle, that's when they are kind of comfortable in the first year a client will be very hesitant to pay that entire amount when they see your service over 2345, years, it becomes a painless decision, because they derive the value. They know exactly what it is coming to my dad. My dad had actually read that book dollars and cents by Dan early, which I opened in that chapter itself. And I thank him for two reasons, because of him, this chapter has gone. Why this chapter has gone? Because when he had read this book many years ago, and I happen to be a very lucky person that I walk into my house and I have this open library where books across history, money, whatever I mean, he had a he had a bad habit, also of just ordering books and filling the entire house and having fights with my mom to clear the house. That has helped me, because I can just walk around, and I literally saw this book, and the name kind of caught me dollars and cents. I said, let me check it out. And this is where I found the research of the book, and I read the book, and then I told my dad, hey, why don't, why don't you recommend me this book? He's he told me he forgot, but he told me that he applied that same rule. And when he was taking his gym training membership, what he did was even I went to the same loop, by the way. So keep persisting. Because for four to five years, my mother and I tried to just poke my dad into going to the gym, joining the gym. One point he's just got frustrated, saying, Let me join, but when I join, I'm going to pay the entire enough fee before even going up. I mean, that was there's an extreme decision.

Tara Khandelwal: 44:21

I might do this, yeah, because I pay the trainer after the classes, paying before my dad pay

Ankush Datar: 44:28

before feel the pinch. When you feel the pinch, you become accountable. You become accountable. And also, once you pay, you pass the accountability to somebody if, for example, you pay me for my service, right? You felt the pain now you passed on the pain to me. You passed on the accountability to me. My dad, once he is paid, the accountability is, of course, on him. Also the accountability on him is that money has left the wallet. Now he has to justify that money, but even the trainer has to justify giving back the value to him. So maybe. If someone is thinking about starting, just pay and you'll have no option. Similarly, with any decision you're looking and you're thinking too much about it, I would recommend that if you, of course, done enough research, and you know you have to do it, just pay for it, it's going to be worth your time thinking about it so much because you're just that pain of spending is what's stopping you.

Tara Khandelwal: 45:22

I should frame this to my clients, also respective clients. Yes, so I think it was very interesting, and last few questions. So, you know, it's always a work in progress, as you mentioned, and these first principles might help us have some of these frameworks in our brain that you know will help us as we are making all of these decisions and working towards that goal. But I want to ask you, personally, you know, what is that one thing that you struggle with still when it comes to health or wealth, and are there something that just very hard for you to stick

Ankush Datar: 45:59

to, not hard for me to stick to, because one issue that I've brought upon myself is writing this book. Now I have to be accountable to myself so to for someone to build trust. But when it comes to the investing part, sometimes I get a little FOMO, where I've made the plan, but I find an interesting stock where I know I'll be able to kind of give it that little bit more time of study, and I'll be able to generate X, Y, maybe 10x return, or a 15x return. And my guilty pleasure would be somewhere diving a little bit dipping a little bit money into that. That is my guilty pleasure. And then you don't necessarily make money out of it. If I do make then great, right? Most of the time I don't in this so, but still, that guilty pleasure pulls me in, in terms of my guilty pleasure. Actually, I'm very lucky. I don't have a sweet tooth or any of these things. I've been blessed in a in a certain way. But my guilty pleasures, actually, you know, very honestly, I don't have too many Guilty Pleasures when it comes to nutrition. I'm pretty disciplined that way. That's the honest answer, honest, boring answer.

Tara Khandelwal: 47:24

But I like what you said in the book, that you said that, you know, because that easy dopamine, what you said, right? You can't. Everybody needs indulgences at some point of time, right? So you said you can have a plan, and you can have that indulgent once in a while. And you also put across the concept of Mad Money, you know, this little bit of money that you have aside to do whatever you want with, which does not mess up with your long term goals, it does not pinch with your long term goals. But it could be that splurging on a restaurant or buying, you know, a nice piece of clothing or whatever it is, you know, having that plan for that, I think that was also very powerful, because it's very relatable. So I think overall, I found the book super relatable, and it really put all of the things that we already thinking about on a daily basis into a great framework. So yeah, I want to ask you, what are the three books that you, apart from yours, that you think everybody should read? Because you've quoted a lot of books in your in your book, apart from yours.

Ankush Datar: 48:26

Yeah. So three books. This is pretty straightforward. This is to the broader audience. One is a book I spoke about in the middle of the conversation, which is dopamine nation by Doctor Anna Lemke, my profession of investing tells me not to give assured assurances, but I assure you that this book will give you some form of learning that is going to change your life. Change Your Life is usually a very strong statement to make, but I'm very sure that if you read this book, there will be some certain aspect of your life that you will be able to change. Second book is, of course, everyone knows it, but in case you haven't read it, the psychology of money by Morgan house. It does not matter whether you have a background in finance. It does not matter whether you know anything about investing. This can be an awesome book for you to start and understand how to build a very good personal relationship with money and how wealth should be perceived, because money and wealth is not relative, it's absolute. It's about your own goals, how you perceive what are you making the money for? What is your definition of wealth to learn and learn about that? And the third book which I could be quoting is, okay, I've quoted these 2/3. Book I have to quote is another health book. Is Peter Diaz outcliff. This book can. A slightly complex view of health in certain parts, but the fundamental thesis of this book is that we today live in a world where we have so much access to easy information on health. So as patients before. So we basically transition from a world of medicine 2.0 where a medicine could be given for any issue. Today we live in a world of medicine 3.0 what does that mean? That it means the patient should know exactly what their health partners meet, for example, their blood sugar, the cholesterol, very basics, try to understand if they can work to fix their lifestyle issues, and in the lifestyle issue can fix your health, then you may not need that medicine. Medicine 3.0 empowers the patient to understand and learn more before they can dive into any pharmaceutical intervention that's needed. So I think three of these books, I could go on quoting various other books. Each book has its own place. But since you mentioned three and which would be relevant for the broader audience, that was the reasoning for my recommendation. I

Tara Khandelwal: 51:15

love all those three books. I read all of them. And I really like the pita book, because it's sort of, you know, I like that. He says that doctors will only treat the symptoms, but these things, like diabetes and all start way earlier than when you can see any symptoms. So and one book for my end, for the listeners, that I think changed my life was James clears atomic habits, because that brought forth the principle of incremental change. Because I used to always think, Oh, my God, habit is a huge thing. Suddenly you have to wake up at, you know, six in the morning and go to the gym every day. But that book kind of taught me how I can get to my goals in small steps with the power of compounding. So thank you so much. It's been at really, really fun speaking to you. These are both topics that I really love to get deep into, and I think we have a shared passion for books and learning. So I think I've learned a lot from this conversation and also from your book. So thank you so much.

Ankush Datar: 52:17

Thank you so much. The questions were superb, and hopefully the viewers can get some kind of value.

Tara Khandelwal: 52:25

Hope you enjoy this episode of Books and Beyond with bound. This podcast is created by bound, a company that helps you grow through stories. Find us at bound India on all social media platforms. Tune in every Wednesday as we peek into the lives and minds of some brilliant authors from India and South Asia. You.