June 3, 2025 • 52 mins
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.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Tara Khandelwal (00:01):
Foreign Welcome to Books and Beyond. With bound
I'm Tara Khandelwal and I'mVishal d'cota, in this podcast,
we talk to India's finestauthors and uncover the stories
behind the best written book anddissect how these books shape
our lives and worldviews today.
So let's dive in. Have you guysever stopped and thought, what's
(00:23):
not working in my life right nowfor me, nine times out of 10, it
comes out to either health ormoney. I'm either chasing the
next big bound milestone ortrying and failing to stick to a
health routine. So today's guesthas a very interesting take on
this. We are joined by Ankushdata. He is an Associate VP at
the portfolio managementservices division of Philips
(00:44):
capital India, and he is here totalk about his new book, The
health and wealth paradox, whichhe co wrote with Mahir patki.
And what is the book's big idea.
The idea is that health andwealth are just two sides of the
same coin, because this bookshows our health and money
actually work in very similarways. They use the exact same
(01:07):
principles, for example, thepower of compounding, or even
knowing what information to lookfor, the idea that what is on
the surface is not what you see.
And what I really liked aboutthis book, as a writer, a non
fiction editor, it's full ofFirst Person accounts. We have
uncle. She's 62 year old dad whostarts weight training. We have
psychological principles. Wehave research from some of my
(01:28):
favorite authors, like MorganHousel and James clear. So it's,
it's one of those books thatputs a framework around so many
of the things that we arethinking about every single day.
So Hi uncle, so glad to have youhere.
Ankush Datar (01:44):
It's feels awesome to be here as the someone who's
been a previous listener, andbeing on the other side feels
even more
Tara Khandelwal (01:54):
surreal. I'm so happy, and thanks so much for
listening to the podcast. Andyeah, I've I've also been
following you for a while, soit's really good to do this. So
your book, basically, you know,tackles these two massive areas.
And you know what I found reallycool, and what I hadn't thought
about before, is that you showthem managing both isn't that
(02:16):
different. For example, inchapter one, you talk about
allocation. You know whetherit's in investing, you know how
to allocate between stocks,mutual funds, or whether it's in
your diet. You know proteinversus carbs. So I really like
this sort of like tennis matchbetween these two worlds. So
what made you and Mihir decideto write a book like this, which
(02:39):
shows the first principles ofconnecting nutrition and health.
Ankush Datar (02:42):
So this book was actually born out of serendipity
and previous experiences thatboth me and I had. So for the
last 12 years around I've beenfollowing health and fitness,
I've been running, I've beenweightlifting. I've been
following structured nutritionplans. That's something which
(03:05):
I've always taken a very, verykeen interest in. And so after
the first three years of myprofession, I started to see a
lot of patterns in terms of theway we think about our
investment when we talk aboutthe power of compounding, which
you mentioned before, thesimilar principles apply for
fitness. I mean, it's just aboutshowing up every day. The
(03:29):
biggest results that you get arein the fourth or fifth year.
It's not something where someonecan make returns in one two
years, right? If, if peoplecould, professionals like us
would not exist, right? That'sthe whole point. That's how we
kind of teach people what to do.
So how this book came to be is Istarted to see a lot of panels
on a personal level, and it wasa very deep interest of me, like
(03:49):
I said. And it started as apassion project to a blog, which
I started in 2018 there was nointention of this blog. There
was no objective to write a bookis just about find these
interests. How psychology, thepsychology of fitness,
psychology of health, how theytie together? Once you start
writing more, right? Your brainstarts to comprehend better. You
(04:13):
start to draw patterns, whateveris 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 thinkingabout. I started writing for
this publication called thewhole truth, which we all know,
this amazing brand, essentially,I just kind of got a DM from
Shashank, the founder, where hehad just randomly read an
(04:36):
article which had written aboutthe history of caffeine, right?
So very random. There was noobjective of writing that
poster, it's going to one daycover a publication. And that
led me to a different kind ofworld, writing for health and
fitness, through my ownexperience combining with
science, written growth, 1415,article is now for them. Through
this period, I kind. Continuewriting, exploring my passion,
(05:00):
and just very coincidentally, in2021 I saw this tweet by Mihir.
He had put out this workshop onthe parallels between nutrition
and investing. You know, I said,hey, no one else is not seen
anyone else talk about this. Ihave been writing about this for
some time. Looks veryinteresting. Let me just sign up
(05:21):
for the workshop see what is upand what I can learn from it.
It's actually very interestingin terms of a presentation of
creating an allocation plan orcreating a nutrition plan, and
drawing the parallels andunderstanding one from each
other is something which I hadalso written about. So I said,
(05:42):
Hey, let me attend this. Andthen what I did was, actually,
is the reply to his tweet withone of my blog posts right on
long term investing and fitness.
He happened to read it. And thenwe became Twitter friends for
about one year or so. That's howwe met, first on Twitter, and
then we kind of became fromTwitter friends to real friends,
(06:03):
and he just happened to float anidea maybe one and a half months
after we had met. What do youthink about writing a book about
health and wealth? I thought tomyself for five minutes. It took
me only five minutes to say yes.
I said, What happens if I sayno, let me say yes, and then
let's see where it goes. So wemet, and it was like magic. I
(06:24):
mean, the first time we met, 12chapters just appeared. We spoke
about this, that reversecompounding, nutrition label,
financial all that you see. Imean, the names of the chapters
are kind of more catchy now, butthe concepts that just come out
in the one meeting, you
Tara Khandelwal (06:46):
know, you talk about information and
misinformation, and there's somany people talk about these
topics. So I wanted to also ask,how does your book fit into that
context?
Ankush Datar (06:56):
Yeah, so that was the biggest challenge that we
had, and I happened to draft achapter, pitch the chapter, and
the chapter fit perfectly wellwith a second challenge was the
first time authors, how do weget through, you know, writing a
book, and how do we kind of getthe idea, but the idea is
(07:17):
something that is very as yousaid, Is it something that
people around the world strugglewith? It's not just you. It's
not just an India problem. It'sa world problem, right? How do
you balance the two? And one ofthe things that we suffer from
is the curse of too muchinformation on Instagram, which
diet is perfect, whichinvestment plan is perfect? So
(07:40):
kind of bringing everythingtogether, saying, hey, there is
no one true way of, you know,eating or there's no one true
way of investing, once youunderstand what you want out of
your investment goals. So forexample, if I sit with a client,
or, let's say, I sit with you, Isit with myself, I make a plan
(08:00):
first, right as to what is myobjective for 1520, years, and
now to fit my objective, whatare the instruments that I need
to invest into? Very simple,once I've made the plan, once
I've fit the bucket, then itbecomes very difficult for
someone to come and manipulateme, saying, you know, hey, this
is what's going to give youreturns in 112, years or three
(08:22):
years, because my plan is set.
Same thing with the nutritionplan. Once I figure out what my
goal is, try to understand thebasics of calories, protein,
fat, carbs, and try to allocateaccordingly, right? Once
everything has been set, no onecan manipulate me saying, Hey,
you're going to lose weight witha ketogenic diet, a carnivore
diet, this that green tea makesyou lose weight, you know so.
(08:44):
And these are very basicparameters. It sounds like just
because I have studied aboutnutrition on a personal level,
that I'll be able to do it, butas we try to explain the book,
very simple core principles,which we've never been taught in
school or college, and this issomething that is very relevant
for every single human beingunderstanding basics of
(09:07):
nutrition. So
Tara Khandelwal (09:10):
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'sreally sort of you know what
drew me in because every chapteris basically you talk about one
principle. So one of my favoriteparts of the book, you know, is
when you say that things are notwhat they seem on the surface.
(09:31):
You know, you also had thisproblem that you were very much
into fitness, and then you didyour blood work, and then you it
turned out that you were veryhigh cholesterol, right? And I
resonated with that as well,too, because I work out lot and
fairly thin and all of thosethings. And I did my blood work
five years ago, and it turnedout I have predators, you know,
(09:52):
and which you don't see. When Itell people like I have this,
they're shocked. They said, Youdon't look anything like you
have this condition. And, andyou also talk about, you know,
on the surface, how some peoplecome in, like fancy cars and all
of those things. And I know,specially in Delhi, lots of
people take loans out to getthose cars. And the people who
may be have that wealth thatquietly, just compounding it.
(10:15):
And you give that example of,you know, this lady who has
lived a very quiet life andretired with $7 million so I
really love this part of thebook. And especially, you know,
in India, we always told, Okay,forget health. We are
validizing. You know, I used tothink, oh, people who sleep less
(10:35):
are better than me, because Ineed eight, nine hours of sleep.
I I'm doing something wrong withmy 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, ishealth and wealth is invisible
to the naked eye. What you'llsee right now is not the
complete picture. It'sessentially how I got into my
deep health journey was in 2020around when COVID was there, all
(11:11):
of us were kind of stuck in ourhomes. My cousin brother, who
was fairly healthy, you wouldsay, if you if you saw him.
There was no kind of medicalconditions before, no issues
that he had before. If you takeone look at him, it would seem
like all is good, right? He justhappened to have a very sudden
(11:33):
heart attack, and he happened topass away. It was very tragic
moment. It's actually stayedwith me through my last five
years, and I think it will staywith me for life. And that
actually made me introspect asto if he can kind of get this
issue, why can't it happen to meas well? And at that time,
(11:56):
ironically, I was actually inthe best shape of my life,
physical fitness the six packabs, or whatever you would like
to call it. I went into my bloodwork, my cholesterol was through
the roof. It was about 200 myLDL cholesterol was 151 60.
Despite me being in the bestshape of my life, I was facing
(12:20):
these issues. So I had to kindof course correct in terms of my
entire lifestyle, the processesthat I had used before to arrive
at that physique or that levelof fitness did not necessarily
fit with my body. I had to kindof relearn, unlearn everything
that I did. And over one year,my blood work improved. And if
(12:42):
you saw me the next year, youwill not think that I'm the
fittest looking boss in veryhonestly. And if you look at
your parents, right, many of ourparents, they may not be as
lean, or they may not have somemuscular 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,
(13:03):
everything that you're doing,the report card comes in a blood
test, right? The report card notdoesn't come in what this person
thinks I look like, right? Orthis 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 thefirst time I did it, and I
thought I was thinking in myhead, I was overthinking that
even after doing so many yearsof fitness, you know, what, if
there's some issue with me, Ijust the first step is to just
to get past it. All anxiety liesin just thinking about doing it,
(13:42):
and anxiety will compound themore, the more you avoid it, the
more anxious you start getting.
But once you do it, I mean, youryour mind gets clear, and then
you have an idea where youstand, and it automatically kind
of gives you a hit. So health issuch a thing that till you have
a personal incident, you don'tend up making a change. So even
if you look at me story from thebook, he had a very different
(14:04):
journey. He has a differentfamily. He has he has a child
slightly more high pressurerole. But even he did not look
like he had some kind of healthissue. He had a high blood
pressure and to kind of take astat in course correct his
entire his entire process of howwe looked and approached and
(14:27):
held so the idea also wants towrite from my own experience, so
that someone the reader. Youwant to put the reader in your
shoes. You don't want to tellthe reader what to do. The
reader knows what to do. Readerknows they have to sleep eight
hours a night, eat protein.
Everyone knows that you can justgo and chat GPT and also
understand, but the reader needsto empathize with the writer.
(14:50):
And the whole point of doingthat was to say, hey, if this
can happen to me, this canprobably also happen to you, and
if you are also kind of. Areliving a similar life to mine,
right? Maybe it's time tointrospect.
Tara Khandelwal (15:04):
One of the other things I really love in
the book I mentioned it alsoearlier is the research that
you've done. So you've quotedfrom, you know, James clear,
Peter Tia Morgan, Houser. Youuse some amazing psychological
principles to explain theseconcepts. So for example, you
talk about time taken to earnversus time taken to spend
(15:24):
something we all know, andyou've explained it using
something called the optimismbias. And I noticed that in
every chapter you've citedaround 18 to 20 articles and
papers, which is really wild. Imean, it's a lot of research.
You've got everything fromneuroscience to psychology to
sociology. So what was theresearch process for you? And
(15:48):
was there any one study orarticle that you came across
that has really stuck with youout 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 inour decision making, because
neuroscience, it's literally ourbrain functions. And our brain
functions dictates how we makeany kind of decision. If you had
to ask me, and if I had with agun to my head, if I if I had to
(16:17):
answer, what is that one, youknow, source of research or book
that played such a big role in alarge part of my writing of the
book, I've quoted a book calleddopamine nation by Doctor Anna
Lemke. So essentially, we knowwhat dopamine is, but do we know
(16:37):
what types of dopamine thereare? There's cheap and expensive
dopamine, right? So what usuallywe see on Instagram reels or
YouTube shorts is that dopamineis the villain. This releases
dopamine every, literally, everyactivity that we do, this
conversation that I'm having, isreleasing some kind of dopamine.
(16:58):
So cheap dopamine is thedopamine that is easily
accessible and that requires tobe replenished at a much faster
pace. So for example, meordering from a food delivery
app is very easy, right? It'scheap, it's simple. I order the
food I eat in that moment, I amkind of satisfied, but I'm not
(17:19):
satisfied for very long again,at four o'clock. If I'm hungry,
I have access scrolling on myphone. If I'm bored, just take
my phone out, scroll, playing avideo game, scrolling on
Netflix. See, we all enjoy thesethings, but the issue is that
these activities release cheapdopamine, something like trading
(17:40):
also, usually any individual whois very invested in the stock
market, they have the habit ofputting on their phone trading
in buying, selling stocks, youknow. So that is also because of
the release of cheap dopaminewhere so you've done the
activity, the dopamine has beenreleased, and it's coming down
in a 90 degree way that has tobe replenished again at a much
(18:03):
higher rate. So your brainstarts craving more. So imagine
a smoker. Why does a smoker getaddicted to smoking the first
time they smoke? Keep dopamineis released, comes down, and
their brain is demanding morethe next time, and it keeps
demanding more to a certainlevel that now the smoke after
two cigarettes, right? They arenot satisfied anymore. They they
(18:25):
only get satisfied till thatthree so that's how a chain
smoker becomes a chain smoker.
Phone becomes a perennial phone.
Scroll. So cheap dopamine is onepart which is not necessarily
something that we should depriveourselves of, but it should be
under control. Expensivedopamine, as the name suggests,
our activities that take a lotof effort to do. So, for
(18:48):
example, getting up, going tothe gym, it's painful, it's
expensive because it's sopainful 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 competitiveexam. It's horrible. No one
likes to study for an exam, andyou know, through the entire
(19:09):
months and years of logging out.
But once you're done with theactivity, you feel amazing
having the difficultconversation, actually, so
something which you are keepinginside and you've not been able
to talk to someone about it'svery, very difficult. That is
also what releases expensivedopamine. These are the ACT
(19:31):
investing systematically. And wehad spoken about the start of
the conversation regarding powerof compounding, right? Investing
systematically for very longperiods of time and seeing no
returns is also expensive.
Dopamine. You're doing somethingpainful where you're not seeing
the results. But once you seethat result at the end of the
fifth, sixth year, you see themagic that you spend so much
(19:54):
time and it gives you a lot ofsatisfaction. So what are.
Health and Wealth decisions arebasically balanced by the
counter balancing of expensiveand cheap dopamine. The reason
why I'm doing this, it's like aseesaw. So the seesaw has to be
balanced in such a way thatyou're giving more weightage to
expensive dopamine, but notdepriving depriving yourself a
(20:16):
cheap dope.
Tara Khandelwal (20:19):
Yeah, I like that chapter a lot, because you
also not only speak about thisneuroscience, which I think is
so relevant, I think, andespecially in today's society,
we're just all slaves to it,whether it comes to investing or
health, because we just get somuch 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
(20:40):
dietitian on in style will say,Oh, have this juice every day,
you know, and you can't sustainthose things. So it's very easy.
And also, you've talked abouthow over analysis also leads to
paralysis, because when you haveso much coming in, then how do
you know which information is?
You know, that's informationthat you can use and which
(21:00):
information to discard. So thoseare some things that I really
found very interesting in thebook. And also, one thing I
really liked is that you'vecompared books and long form
content to protein and socialmedia 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, whereessentially he Rolf dobelli One
of the most famous writers ofour time, the author of The Art
of thinking clearly. But I thinkthis is his best book. If for
(21:36):
someone listening, definitelygive it a read. It's a small
book, 100 pages, only anyone cankind of pick up and read the
book. I think this book wasahead of its time. It was
written many years ago, and avery ironically, like you said,
you spoke about books and longform content. My dad gifted me
(21:57):
this book 10 years ago. My dad'sattention span is so low he
can't read the book. It's justbecause of scrolling reels. I
mean, it just changes yourentire brain chemistry. And news
is, although New, a certain partof news is essential. In fact, I
work in Finance, so a certainpart, but a certain part of news
(22:20):
is just irrelevant to me. Sopeople may come at me for the
state, but I have stoppedreading Bombay Times midday. I
mean, I'm like, I'm happy. SoI've removed Times of India from
my phone because of the spammynotifications that come. I read
only business and economic timesif I if I read the news. And so
(22:41):
news is to be consumed likecarbohydrates. That was the
analogy. I do, carbohydrateshave a certain purpose. You
cannot just keep eating as muchand as much as in your body. Can
Only they only require a certainamount of energy. So news is
similar to that, but books andlong form, ah, content, just
like protein. Is essential forthe growth of your body, the
(23:06):
development of your bones, yourbrain, your mind, books and long
form content as somethingsimilar to that, you cannot all
do it also during a day. Howmuch, how much of long form
content can you read through theday? 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 bea problem, unlike the news and
(23:27):
like carbohydrates, so there issome 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 tothat, but the first step to be
able to avoid informationoverload is what we discussed in
the start of the conversation,creating a plan. If there is no
plan in place, for example, Ihave a 10 year plan in place. To
achieve my tenure plan, I haveto invest into XYZ mutual funds
(24:01):
for XYZ period, I've kind ofprojected the most modest rate
of return that I can get toachieve that return. Once I've
created that plan, then I havean idea. Keep following this
plan. Is the probability isgoing to be very high. Now
imagine if I'm not made thisplan, then I can just come on
(24:21):
social media and tell you thisis going to give you 3x return
or 4x return, right? And becauseyou've not formalized a plan in
your head, you think that thisis going to be the next big bet,
and 99% of people have not madethis plan. Let me tell you that
I am actually managing financialplans of finance professionals?
(24:41):
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 besurprised to know how less
people do this kind of planning.
So the lesser of the planningyou do, the easier you are to.
Manipulation, same thing as as Ihad mentioned, with nutrition,
(25:03):
also, it's very difficultbecause there's a lot of new
emerging research that comes,which challenges a lot of the
things that you're doing so buttill you created that broad
level understanding, I can tellyou anything. I can tell you
fruits in the morning are badfor you. Ghee is very good for
you. 16 teaspoons of gear aregood for you. I'm referencing
(25:26):
people without taking names.
Green tea helps you burn fat,right? But if I knew my first
principles, basics as to howAtlas works, how calorie
allocation works, these claimswill not be able to, kind of
cause any issue to me. But theproblem is that these issues
will continue to compound,because a lot of people, despite
(25:51):
them knowing how important thisis, they don't seem to kind of
learn about the basics offinance or health. And this is,
as you know, this is applicableto every single human being in
every single field. So what Ibelieve that should be done on a
large scale, and which I'veactually been propagating also,
(26:12):
is that students from 10standard to 12 standard should
be taught about the basics ofthis. Then after the 12th right?
It's on them, whether they wantto take it as a full time
profession, or whether they wanthow to apply the basics should
be taught at school and collegelevel. So now, in the next
month, I'm actually going to goto my school and give a lecture
(26:36):
to the students. So that's alsogoing to be a cool initiative,
and we're looking to kind ofspread 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, thenyou can have a more critical
lens to the information, whetherit comes to health and wealth.
And definitely agree this issomething that should be taught
in school. I also really likethe chapter about the financial
(27:08):
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 financialstatement, because so often
things are very misleading,especially for nutrition. You
know, I had done a whole classon how to read a label for
sugar. What is sugar and what isnot? Because when they say no
added sugar, it means it'sactually full of sugar. And my
(27:31):
dad, who is a diabetic,diabetic, is having, you know,
all kinds of treats and sayingIt's sugar free or whatever, and
actually it's no added sugar andit's just full of sugar, you
know, when it whether it comesto ice creams or protein bars or
whatever it is, and I thinklearning how to read those
labels is so important. So canyou speak a little bit more
(27:54):
about that and the basics ofthat? Yes,
Ankush Datar (27:58):
so learning how to read a nutrition label. Is an
activity that even a five yearold child can do. Start by
seeing the front of the label.
Understand the calorie count,protein, fat, carbohydrates.
Once you understood it, turn thelabel, once you see the label,
just ensure that there are atleast 90 to 95% of natural
(28:21):
ingredients in it, right? Justthumb rule can be lower, higher
if you do not understand what'sat the back of the label, try to
avoid that food as much as youcan. This sounds like the most
simple advice, but you will beshocked to know how less people
actually do this. So if I, let'ssay, for example, I give you a
(28:46):
label which has, as youmentioned, no added sugar,
right? No added sugar, peoplewill assume, okay, this is
probably a healthy item. Turn itbehind. There is erythro, there
is xylitol, you know, variousother sugars. There are 97
different kinds of no addedsugars that are allowed to be
classified as no added sugars byfssai, which is something that
(29:11):
no one has an idea about. So noadded sugar, whoever is re
listening to this podcast doesnot mean that it's a healthy
item. Some rules that you shouldbe having. Let's say there are
two labels. Let's say one labelhas 400 calories, right, and
another label has 260 calories.
(29:34):
Example, one would assume that a400 calories is the more
patterning product, right? Let'savoid it. Let's go for the 260
calories. Turn the label of itemthe 400 calorie item probably is
400 calories because it has morenatural ingredients and there
are no preservatives to kind ofcolor reduce the number of
(29:59):
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 thenumber of calories you consume
somewhere else during the day.
These are some of the basicsthat one should learn. Same
(30:20):
thing with the financialstatement. Also in the financial
statement, what comes in thefront of the headline is
marketing. As you go deeperdown, you try to uncover the
hidden meaning. So we have seen,right now, a big fraud that has
happened in the financial mediawithout taking names, there have
(30:41):
been similar names as such,where people look at certain
metrics, like, for example, acompany's revenue increased 30%
a company's profitabilityincreased 50% if someone took
this at face value, they wouldassume, often, this is a good
company, and That's put ourmoney. This is 99.99% of
(31:02):
investors. As you go down andyou kind of understand how this
company has financed therevenue. Have they taken a lot
of debt? Have they borrowed alot of money from various
different sources? Will they beable to pay these forces? These
are the things that show upafter year, three years, and
that's when everyone has losttheir money. Give you a very
(31:24):
simple example which areexplained in the book of a 10
year old kid who set up alemonade store. He sets up the
lemonade store. She borrows themoney from our parents to buy
the lemons, the salt, the sugar,et cetera. That's her cost. Now
she starts to sell that lemonand that lemonade for, let's
(31:44):
say, 10 rupees, 15 rupees,whatever it is, for a cup. The
people from the neighborhoodcome line up, and our lemonade
store is doing really well. Nowshe's trying to expand her
lemonade store. She has to go todifferent she wants to go beyond
her parents. She doesn't want tokeep asking her parents for
money. I have to go to and toorder other neighborhood houses,
(32:06):
other neighborhood houses. Say,show me your financial
statements. She shows ourfinancial statements. Revenue
has been growing from 10 to3040, 50. Profitability has been
going 20, 3040, the first twoinvestors, they put okay.
Everything is going good. Theyput money year four, year five.
(32:26):
Now, slowly, what's happening isthat she is not actually made
cash. What is that? What is thatmean? So the first two years,
she was actually selling herlemonade to potential customers
on credit. Some guy would say,just give me the lemonade. I'll
pay you later. Give me thelemonade. I'll pay you later.
(32:46):
These guys never come back. Soher debt is consistently
increasing. Then after a certainpoint, right? She reaches a
level where she's not actuallymaking cash, and then investors
ask her in the fourth 51 yousoon so much revenue. Now it's
time to return the cash. Where'sthe cash? This he goes and tells
the investor, so there's nocash. This is the revenue that I
(33:08):
have to receive. So this is asimple level, and example can be
used for the most complexinvestment processes. And what
would a layman investor look atjust the top numbers before
actually digging deeper in. Wecan use these simple examples to
kind of understand what not todo, and that helps us to
(33:29):
increase our probability ofsuccess. 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 ancientprinciples of health and well,
books coming out of it, youknow, yoga, Ayurveda. Then
there's these hotly contesteddebates on Twitter about Yoga is
not good for you. And you know,also, like the ancient
(33:53):
principles of like wealth islike, oh, you should gold
prices, you know, gone up a lot.
People want to invest in that.
So what can we learn from ourancient 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 behaving a simple investment
(34:29):
process of putting this much ina mutual fund, putting this much
in a fixed deposit. And he'sbeen doing this system, 1970s
1980s 1990s he never hadtechnology. He never had access
to Twitter saying, buy thisstock. It's going 1,000x buy
this you know, currency is going10,000x the principles that he
followed, and our any of ourgrandparents followed, were very
(34:52):
simple, right? Look at thesimple financial instruments,
save enough money and buildwealth for the longer term. But
me. So I've tried to do the samething, but I put my Twitter app,
and it's very hard for me to seea potential investment
opportunity which is going togive me 1,000x 2,000x to
(35:12):
completely ignore it. I mean, Ihave been able to somehow do it,
but most people are not able todo it, and understandably so me,
he is a grandparents, who Ispoke about in the start of the
chapter, they had a very simplelife, walking up the stairs,
walking down the stairs, walkingto work, making homemade food,
(35:36):
having the food at the sametimes, 9am 12pm 6:30pm today we
have access to technology. Yes,you just click a button. Uber is
there? Is that what takes him tothe workplace? In the workplace,
he has 344, delivery apps wherehe has the option of choosing
(35:57):
multiple options to eat fromvarious kind of cuisines. So
here he has a options, and hisactivity has been minimal. What
did our grandparents were doingsomething very similar. They
didn't have access totechnology, and that was a
blessing. It was also caused forthem, because life was harder,
(36:18):
was a blessing that because theyhad enough movement they were
able to eat as much as theywanted today, we can't do that.
The issue is that we try toreplicate what they did with
that same access to technology,and we are in a environment
which is movement poor butcalorie rich. Unlike our
(36:39):
ancestors, with our ancestors,who are movement rich and
calorie poor, right? Try tolearn from them as to how to
increase your movement. Try toearn your calories. And this is
just our grandparents from ourfrom our ancient principles.
They've spoken about this duringthe times of Mahabharat and
(37:01):
drama, and that the power ofcompounding, how it kind of
builds wealth for the futuregeneration. That reference they
do for next 12 ways to get rich,the book where we today read
about how the power ofcompounding can grow one lakh
into one crore. You know, in3040, 50 years, these people
(37:23):
have been preaching about it.
Since that time, it's just aboutthey have not been using
currency as the way to evaluate,but how to build a seed. The
seed grows. You keep plantingvarious seeds, very big tree
grows after planting a seed, andthe seed actually blooms into a
tree after multiple years,right? But once the tree has
grown, after 910, 15 years, it'sbuilt enough fruit to provide
(37:48):
for everybody around basicallythe same thing that follows for
money and compounding goals. Sopeople have been kind of
communicating the message in thesame way over years and years.
Maybe we can learn from thosetexts and try to apply those
principles, not necessarily thesame process, but just the basic
(38:10):
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 weare living in, but the first
principles, thinking ofcompounding and all of those
things have remained the same.
And I really also it reminds himanother book, same as ever, by
Morgan Housel, where he talksabout those first principles,
saying that always stay the sameno matter where the context
changes. Like for example,storytelling is super important.
(38:37):
Always has been for humanityalways will be. I really like
the part also where you saypaying is hard, because I
resonate with that as a banya, Icouldn't agree more. And today
itself, I have signed up,actually, quote, certainly the
nutritionist I had said that,you know, I know the
(38:57):
fundamentals, I will eatprotein. And then somebody spoke
to me and said, you know, try itout. And I kind of see the value
in paying for an expert, even inthe 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'sexample. Actually, I had read
that article in whole truthfood, where your father is 63
(39:18):
and he's, he's, you know,lifting weights. And I had
actually forwarded that articleto my dad, saying that, you
know, please, you know, startthis. And I have been on a I
have been on this is veryunderrated, to the paying his
heart thing, but I've been on acampaign to basically get him to
start exercising, where I senthim Instagram reels. I have
(39:40):
signed him up to the trainer. Iam getting updates from the
trainer when he is training whenhe is not, and I can tell you,
it is an uphill battle. So canyou please speak about, you
know, this expert ecosystem andhow 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 thedecisions which take basically
the they're the easiestdecisions you can make. So
(40:19):
paying 500 bucks, 5000 bucks ata restaurant, right? Very
painless, immediate. You get theresult immediately. Go have a
nice meal, even though it's 5000rupees, right? Even though it's
10,000 rupees, we can go to avery fancy restaurant, take our
family thing like that 10,000there's, there's no thought
going on. Everything ishappening very, very
(40:39):
effortlessly. You're going,you're having a good time, and
it's essentially becoming anendless loop of spending,
because the easy things to spendon don't require too much
willpower, but the same 10,000rupees, everyone knows that.
(40:59):
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 isthe part of the brain which is
the painful part of thespending, where we think 100
times before we make ourdecision. So paying for a
trainer, paying for anutritionist, but once we pay,
whenever we've seen that, ofcourse, the quality of the
(41:21):
service has to be good. That isthat assumed, if you get subpar
service, you're obviously goingto be disappointed. But these
are the decisions that canreally help us with our lives.
It's not something andironically, we're spending more
time thinking about thatspending, then this, that
decision may be okay. Maybe Ihad a good time with my family
(41:44):
and spent that money and spenthad a journey time with my
children, whatever, wife. Butlet's say I ate burgers, fries,
etc, not necessarily good forme, 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 myhealth, it's going to make me a
(42:05):
better person for my family andmy children, but I still take so
much time to think about it'sactually the similar thing with
financial advice. Also, everyoneknows they require financial
advice, but when the moneyactually goes out of the pocket,
the thought of that is kind ofvery, very antagonizing for
(42:26):
somebody. But a lot ofconvincing a client also to get
on board with you is to makethem pay. But once they paid,
and once you take them to thecycle, that's when they are kind
of comfortable in the first yeara client will be very hesitant
to pay that entire amount whenthey see your service over 2345,
years, it becomes a painlessdecision, because they derive
(42:50):
the value. They know exactlywhat it is coming to my dad. My
dad had actually read that bookdollars and cents by Dan early,
which I opened in that chapteritself. And I thank him for two
reasons, because of him, thischapter has gone. Why this
chapter has gone? Because whenhe had read this book many years
ago, and I happen to be a verylucky person that I walk into my
(43:13):
house and I have this openlibrary where books across
history, money, whatever I mean,he had a he had a bad habit,
also of just ordering books andfilling the entire house and
having fights with my mom toclear the house. That has helped
me, because I can just walkaround, and I literally saw this
book, and the name kind ofcaught me dollars and cents. I
(43:35):
said, let me check it out. Andthis is where I found the
research of the book, and I readthe book, and then I told my
dad, hey, why don't, why don'tyou recommend me this book? He's
he told me he forgot, but hetold me that he applied that
same rule. And when he wastaking his gym training
membership, what he did was evenI went to the same loop, by the
(43:57):
way. So keep persisting. Becausefor four to five years, my
mother and I tried to just pokemy dad into going to the gym,
joining the gym. One point he'sjust got frustrated, saying, Let
me join, but when I join, I'mgoing to pay the entire enough
fee before even going up. Imean, that was there's an
(44:19):
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. Youbecome accountable. And also,
once you pay, you pass theaccountability to somebody if,
for example, you pay me for myservice, right? You felt the
pain now you passed on the painto me. You passed on the
accountability to me. My dad,once he is paid, the
accountability is, of course, onhim. Also the accountability on
(44:50):
him is that money has left thewallet. Now he has to justify
that money, but even the trainerhas to justify giving back the
value to him. So maybe. Ifsomeone is thinking about
starting, just pay and you'llhave no option. Similarly, with
any decision you're looking andyou're thinking too much about
it, I would recommend that ifyou, of course, done enough
(45:12):
research, and you know you haveto do it, just pay for it, it's
going to be worth your timethinking about it so much
because you're just that pain ofspending is what's stopping you.
Tara Khandelwal (45:22):
I should frame this to my clients, also
respective clients. Yes, so Ithink it was very interesting,
and last few questions. So, youknow, it's always a work in
progress, as you mentioned, andthese first principles might
help us have some of theseframeworks in our brain that you
(45:43):
know will help us as we aremaking 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 strugglewith still when it comes to
health or wealth, and are theresomething 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 uponmyself is writing this book. Now
I have to be accountable tomyself so to for someone to
build trust. But when it comesto the investing part, sometimes
I get a little FOMO, where I'vemade the plan, but I find an
(46:23):
interesting stock where I knowI'll be able to kind of give it
that little bit more time ofstudy, and I'll be able to
generate X, Y, maybe 10x return,or a 15x return. And my guilty
pleasure would be somewherediving a little bit dipping a
little bit money into that. Thatis my guilty pleasure. And then
(46:44):
you don't necessarily make moneyout of it. If I do make then
great, right? Most of the time Idon't in this so, but still,
that guilty pleasure pulls mein, in terms of my guilty
pleasure. Actually, I'm verylucky. I don't have a sweet
tooth or any of these things.
I've been blessed in a in acertain way. But my guilty
(47:07):
pleasures, actually, you know,very honestly, I don't have too
many Guilty Pleasures when itcomes to nutrition. I'm pretty
disciplined that way. That's thehonest answer, honest, boring
answer.
Tara Khandelwal (47:24):
But I like what you said in the book, that you
said that, you know, becausethat easy dopamine, what you
said, right? You can't.
Everybody needs indulgences atsome point of time, right? So
you said you can have a plan,and you can have that indulgent
once in a while. And you alsoput across the concept of Mad
Money, you know, this little bitof money that you have aside to
do whatever you want with, whichdoes not mess up with your long
(47:46):
term goals, it does not pinchwith your long term goals. But
it could be that splurging on arestaurant or buying, you know,
a nice piece of clothing orwhatever it is, you know, having
that plan for that, I think thatwas also very powerful, because
it's very relatable. So I thinkoverall, I found the book super
relatable, and it really put allof the things that we already
(48:08):
thinking about on a daily basisinto a great framework. So yeah,
I want to ask you, what are thethree books that you, apart from
yours, that you think everybodyshould read? Because you've
quoted a lot of books in your inyour book, apart from yours.
Ankush Datar (48:26):
Yeah. So three books. This is pretty
straightforward. This is to thebroader audience. One is a book
I spoke about in the middle ofthe conversation, which is
dopamine nation by Doctor AnnaLemke, my profession of
investing tells me not to giveassured assurances, but I assure
(48:48):
you that this book will give yousome form of learning that is
going to change your life.
Change Your Life is usually avery strong statement to make,
but I'm very sure that if youread this book, there will be
some certain aspect of your lifethat you will be able to change.
Second book is, of course,everyone knows it, but in case
you haven't read it, thepsychology of money by Morgan
(49:10):
house. It does not matterwhether you have a background in
finance. It does not matterwhether you know anything about
investing. This can be anawesome book for you to start
and understand how to build avery good personal relationship
with money and how wealth shouldbe perceived, because money and
(49:32):
wealth is not relative, it'sabsolute. It's about your own
goals, how you perceive what areyou making the money for? What
is your definition of wealth tolearn and learn about that? And
the third book which I could bequoting is, okay, I've quoted
these 2/3. Book I have to quoteis another health book. Is Peter
(49:53):
Diaz outcliff. This book can. Aslightly complex view of health
in certain parts, but thefundamental thesis of this book
is that we today live in a worldwhere we have so much access to
easy information on health. Soas patients before. So we
(50:19):
basically transition from aworld of medicine 2.0 where a
medicine could be given for anyissue. Today we live in a world
of medicine 3.0 what does thatmean? That it means the patient
should know exactly what theirhealth partners meet, for
example, their blood sugar, thecholesterol, very basics, try to
(50:41):
understand if they can work tofix their lifestyle issues, and
in the lifestyle issue can fixyour health, then you may not
need that medicine. Medicine 3.0empowers the patient to
understand and learn more beforethey can dive into any
pharmaceutical interventionthat's needed. So I think three
(51:01):
of these books, I could go onquoting various other books.
Each book has its own place. Butsince you mentioned three and
which would be relevant for thebroader 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 thatdoctors will only treat the
symptoms, but these things, likediabetes and all start way
earlier than when you can seeany 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
(51:39):
principle of incremental change.
Because I used to always think,Oh, my God, habit is a huge
thing. Suddenly you have to wakeup at, you know, six in the
morning and go to the gym everyday. But that book kind of
taught me how I can get to mygoals in small steps with the
power of compounding. So thankyou so much. It's been at
really, really fun speaking toyou. These are both topics that
(52:00):
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 lotfrom this conversation and also
from your book. So thank you somuch.
Ankush Datar (52:17):
Thank you so much.
The questions were superb, andhopefully 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 iscreated by bound, a company that
helps you grow through stories.
Find us at bound India on allsocial media platforms. Tune in
every Wednesday as we peek intothe lives and minds of some
brilliant authors from India andSouth Asia. You.
Foreign Welcome to Books and Beyond. With bound
I'm Tara Khandelwal and I'mVishal d'cota, in this podcast,
we talk to India's finestauthors and uncover the stories
behind the best written book anddissect how these books shape
our lives and worldviews today.
So let's dive in. Have you guysever stopped and thought, what's
(00:23):
not working in my life right nowfor me, nine times out of 10, it
comes out to either health ormoney. I'm either chasing the
next big bound milestone ortrying and failing to stick to a
health routine. So today's guesthas a very interesting take on
this. We are joined by Ankushdata. He is an Associate VP at
the portfolio managementservices division of Philips
(00:44):
capital India, and he is here totalk about his new book, The
health and wealth paradox, whichhe co wrote with Mahir patki.
And what is the book's big idea.
The idea is that health andwealth are just two sides of the
same coin, because this bookshows our health and money
actually work in very similarways. They use the exact same
(01:07):
principles, for example, thepower of compounding, or even
knowing what information to lookfor, the idea that what is on
the surface is not what you see.
And what I really liked aboutthis book, as a writer, a non
fiction editor, it's full ofFirst Person accounts. We have
uncle. She's 62 year old dad whostarts weight training. We have
psychological principles. Wehave research from some of my
(01:28):
favorite authors, like MorganHousel and James clear. So it's,
it's one of those books thatputs a framework around so many
of the things that we arethinking about every single day.
So Hi uncle, so glad to have youhere.
Ankush Datar (01:44):
It's feels awesome to be here as the someone who's
been a previous listener, andbeing on the other side feels
even more
Tara Khandelwal (01:54):
surreal. I'm so happy, and thanks so much for
listening to the podcast. Andyeah, I've I've also been
following you for a while, soit's really good to do this. So
your book, basically, you know,tackles these two massive areas.
And you know what I found reallycool, and what I hadn't thought
about before, is that you showthem managing both isn't that
(02:16):
different. For example, inchapter one, you talk about
allocation. You know whetherit's in investing, you know how
to allocate between stocks,mutual funds, or whether it's in
your diet. You know proteinversus carbs. So I really like
this sort of like tennis matchbetween these two worlds. So
what made you and Mihir decideto write a book like this, which
(02:39):
shows the first principles ofconnecting nutrition and health.
Ankush Datar (02:42):
So this book was actually born out of serendipity
and previous experiences thatboth me and I had. So for the
last 12 years around I've beenfollowing health and fitness,
I've been running, I've beenweightlifting. I've been
following structured nutritionplans. That's something which
(03:05):
I've always taken a very, verykeen interest in. And so after
the first three years of myprofession, I started to see a
lot of patterns in terms of theway we think about our
investment when we talk aboutthe power of compounding, which
you mentioned before, thesimilar principles apply for
fitness. I mean, it's just aboutshowing up every day. The
(03:29):
biggest results that you get arein the fourth or fifth year.
It's not something where someonecan make returns in one two
years, right? If, if peoplecould, professionals like us
would not exist, right? That'sthe whole point. That's how we
kind of teach people what to do.
So how this book came to be is Istarted to see a lot of panels
on a personal level, and it wasa very deep interest of me, like
(03:49):
I said. And it started as apassion project to a blog, which
I started in 2018 there was nointention of this blog. There
was no objective to write a bookis just about find these
interests. How psychology, thepsychology of fitness,
psychology of health, how theytie together? Once you start
writing more, right? Your brainstarts to comprehend better. You
(04:13):
start to draw patterns, whateveris 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 thinkingabout. I started writing for
this publication called thewhole truth, which we all know,
this amazing brand, essentially,I just kind of got a DM from
Shashank, the founder, where hehad just randomly read an
(04:36):
article which had written aboutthe history of caffeine, right?
So very random. There was noobjective of writing that
poster, it's going to one daycover a publication. And that
led me to a different kind ofworld, writing for health and
fitness, through my ownexperience combining with
science, written growth, 1415,article is now for them. Through
this period, I kind. Continuewriting, exploring my passion,
(05:00):
and just very coincidentally, in2021 I saw this tweet by Mihir.
He had put out this workshop onthe parallels between nutrition
and investing. You know, I said,hey, no one else is not seen
anyone else talk about this. Ihave been writing about this for
some time. Looks veryinteresting. Let me just sign up
(05:21):
for the workshop see what is upand what I can learn from it.
It's actually very interestingin terms of a presentation of
creating an allocation plan orcreating a nutrition plan, and
drawing the parallels andunderstanding one from each
other is something which I hadalso written about. So I said,
(05:42):
Hey, let me attend this. Andthen what I did was, actually,
is the reply to his tweet withone of my blog posts right on
long term investing and fitness.
He happened to read it. And thenwe became Twitter friends for
about one year or so. That's howwe met, first on Twitter, and
then we kind of became fromTwitter friends to real friends,
(06:03):
and he just happened to float anidea maybe one and a half months
after we had met. What do youthink about writing a book about
health and wealth? I thought tomyself for five minutes. It took
me only five minutes to say yes.
I said, What happens if I sayno, let me say yes, and then
let's see where it goes. So wemet, and it was like magic. I
(06:24):
mean, the first time we met, 12chapters just appeared. We spoke
about this, that reversecompounding, nutrition label,
financial all that you see. Imean, the names of the chapters
are kind of more catchy now, butthe concepts that just come out
in the one meeting, you
Tara Khandelwal (06:46):
know, you talk about information and
misinformation, and there's somany people talk about these
topics. So I wanted to also ask,how does your book fit into that
context?
Ankush Datar (06:56):
Yeah, so that was the biggest challenge that we
had, and I happened to draft achapter, pitch the chapter, and
the chapter fit perfectly wellwith a second challenge was the
first time authors, how do weget through, you know, writing a
book, and how do we kind of getthe idea, but the idea is
(07:17):
something that is very as yousaid, Is it something that
people around the world strugglewith? It's not just you. It's
not just an India problem. It'sa world problem, right? How do
you balance the two? And one ofthe things that we suffer from
is the curse of too muchinformation on Instagram, which
diet is perfect, whichinvestment plan is perfect? So
(07:40):
kind of bringing everythingtogether, saying, hey, there is
no one true way of, you know,eating or there's no one true
way of investing, once youunderstand what you want out of
your investment goals. So forexample, if I sit with a client,
or, let's say, I sit with you, Isit with myself, I make a plan
(08:00):
first, right as to what is myobjective for 1520, years, and
now to fit my objective, whatare the instruments that I need
to invest into? Very simple,once I've made the plan, once
I've fit the bucket, then itbecomes very difficult for
someone to come and manipulateme, saying, you know, hey, this
is what's going to give youreturns in 112, years or three
(08:22):
years, because my plan is set.
Same thing with the nutritionplan. Once I figure out what my
goal is, try to understand thebasics of calories, protein,
fat, carbs, and try to allocateaccordingly, right? Once
everything has been set, no onecan manipulate me saying, Hey,
you're going to lose weight witha ketogenic diet, a carnivore
diet, this that green tea makesyou lose weight, you know so.
(08:44):
And these are very basicparameters. It sounds like just
because I have studied aboutnutrition on a personal level,
that I'll be able to do it, butas we try to explain the book,
very simple core principles,which we've never been taught in
school or college, and this issomething that is very relevant
for every single human beingunderstanding basics of
(09:07):
nutrition. So
Tara Khandelwal (09:10):
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'sreally sort of you know what
drew me in because every chapteris basically you talk about one
principle. So one of my favoriteparts of the book, you know, is
when you say that things are notwhat they seem on the surface.
(09:31):
You know, you also had thisproblem that you were very much
into fitness, and then you didyour blood work, and then you it
turned out that you were veryhigh cholesterol, right? And I
resonated with that as well,too, because I work out lot and
fairly thin and all of thosethings. And I did my blood work
five years ago, and it turnedout I have predators, you know,
(09:52):
and which you don't see. When Itell people like I have this,
they're shocked. They said, Youdon't look anything like you
have this condition. And, andyou also talk about, you know,
on the surface, how some peoplecome in, like fancy cars and all
of those things. And I know,specially in Delhi, lots of
people take loans out to getthose cars. And the people who
may be have that wealth thatquietly, just compounding it.
(10:15):
And you give that example of,you know, this lady who has
lived a very quiet life andretired with $7 million so I
really love this part of thebook. And especially, you know,
in India, we always told, Okay,forget health. We are
validizing. You know, I used tothink, oh, people who sleep less
(10:35):
are better than me, because Ineed eight, nine hours of sleep.
I I'm doing something wrong withmy 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, ishealth and wealth is invisible
to the naked eye. What you'llsee right now is not the
complete picture. It'sessentially how I got into my
deep health journey was in 2020around when COVID was there, all
(11:11):
of us were kind of stuck in ourhomes. My cousin brother, who
was fairly healthy, you wouldsay, if you if you saw him.
There was no kind of medicalconditions before, no issues
that he had before. If you takeone look at him, it would seem
like all is good, right? He justhappened to have a very sudden
(11:33):
heart attack, and he happened topass away. It was very tragic
moment. It's actually stayedwith me through my last five
years, and I think it will staywith me for life. And that
actually made me introspect asto if he can kind of get this
issue, why can't it happen to meas well? And at that time,
(11:56):
ironically, I was actually inthe best shape of my life,
physical fitness the six packabs, or whatever you would like
to call it. I went into my bloodwork, my cholesterol was through
the roof. It was about 200 myLDL cholesterol was 151 60.
Despite me being in the bestshape of my life, I was facing
(12:20):
these issues. So I had to kindof course correct in terms of my
entire lifestyle, the processesthat I had used before to arrive
at that physique or that levelof fitness did not necessarily
fit with my body. I had to kindof relearn, unlearn everything
that I did. And over one year,my blood work improved. And if
(12:42):
you saw me the next year, youwill not think that I'm the
fittest looking boss in veryhonestly. And if you look at
your parents, right, many of ourparents, they may not be as
lean, or they may not have somemuscular 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,
(13:03):
everything that you're doing,the report card comes in a blood
test, right? The report card notdoesn't come in what this person
thinks I look like, right? Orthis 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 thefirst time I did it, and I
thought I was thinking in myhead, I was overthinking that
even after doing so many yearsof fitness, you know, what, if
there's some issue with me, Ijust the first step is to just
to get past it. All anxiety liesin just thinking about doing it,
(13:42):
and anxiety will compound themore, the more you avoid it, the
more anxious you start getting.
But once you do it, I mean, youryour mind gets clear, and then
you have an idea where youstand, and it automatically kind
of gives you a hit. So health issuch a thing that till you have
a personal incident, you don'tend up making a change. So even
if you look at me story from thebook, he had a very different
(14:04):
journey. He has a differentfamily. He has he has a child
slightly more high pressurerole. But even he did not look
like he had some kind of healthissue. He had a high blood
pressure and to kind of take astat in course correct his
entire his entire process of howwe looked and approached and
(14:27):
held so the idea also wants towrite from my own experience, so
that someone the reader. Youwant to put the reader in your
shoes. You don't want to tellthe reader what to do. The
reader knows what to do. Readerknows they have to sleep eight
hours a night, eat protein.
Everyone knows that you can justgo and chat GPT and also
understand, but the reader needsto empathize with the writer.
(14:50):
And the whole point of doingthat was to say, hey, if this
can happen to me, this canprobably also happen to you, and
if you are also kind of. Areliving a similar life to mine,
right? Maybe it's time tointrospect.
Tara Khandelwal (15:04):
One of the other things I really love in
the book I mentioned it alsoearlier is the research that
you've done. So you've quotedfrom, you know, James clear,
Peter Tia Morgan, Houser. Youuse some amazing psychological
principles to explain theseconcepts. So for example, you
talk about time taken to earnversus time taken to spend
(15:24):
something we all know, andyou've explained it using
something called the optimismbias. And I noticed that in
every chapter you've citedaround 18 to 20 articles and
papers, which is really wild. Imean, it's a lot of research.
You've got everything fromneuroscience to psychology to
sociology. So what was theresearch process for you? And
(15:48):
was there any one study orarticle that you came across
that has really stuck with youout 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 inour decision making, because
neuroscience, it's literally ourbrain functions. And our brain
functions dictates how we makeany kind of decision. If you had
to ask me, and if I had with agun to my head, if I if I had to
(16:17):
answer, what is that one, youknow, source of research or book
that played such a big role in alarge part of my writing of the
book, I've quoted a book calleddopamine nation by Doctor Anna
Lemke. So essentially, we knowwhat dopamine is, but do we know
(16:37):
what types of dopamine thereare? There's cheap and expensive
dopamine, right? So what usuallywe see on Instagram reels or
YouTube shorts is that dopamineis the villain. This releases
dopamine every, literally, everyactivity that we do, this
conversation that I'm having, isreleasing some kind of dopamine.
(16:58):
So cheap dopamine is thedopamine that is easily
accessible and that requires tobe replenished at a much faster
pace. So for example, meordering from a food delivery
app is very easy, right? It'scheap, it's simple. I order the
food I eat in that moment, I amkind of satisfied, but I'm not
(17:19):
satisfied for very long again,at four o'clock. If I'm hungry,
I have access scrolling on myphone. If I'm bored, just take
my phone out, scroll, playing avideo game, scrolling on
Netflix. See, we all enjoy thesethings, but the issue is that
these activities release cheapdopamine, something like trading
(17:40):
also, usually any individual whois very invested in the stock
market, they have the habit ofputting on their phone trading
in buying, selling stocks, youknow. So that is also because of
the release of cheap dopaminewhere so you've done the
activity, the dopamine has beenreleased, and it's coming down
in a 90 degree way that has tobe replenished again at a much
(18:03):
higher rate. So your brainstarts craving more. So imagine
a smoker. Why does a smoker getaddicted to smoking the first
time they smoke? Keep dopamineis released, comes down, and
their brain is demanding morethe next time, and it keeps
demanding more to a certainlevel that now the smoke after
two cigarettes, right? They arenot satisfied anymore. They they
(18:25):
only get satisfied till thatthree so that's how a chain
smoker becomes a chain smoker.
Phone becomes a perennial phone.
Scroll. So cheap dopamine is onepart which is not necessarily
something that we should depriveourselves of, but it should be
under control. Expensivedopamine, as the name suggests,
our activities that take a lotof effort to do. So, for
(18:48):
example, getting up, going tothe gym, it's painful, it's
expensive because it's sopainful 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 competitiveexam. It's horrible. No one
likes to study for an exam, andyou know, through the entire
(19:09):
months and years of logging out.
But once you're done with theactivity, you feel amazing
having the difficultconversation, actually, so
something which you are keepinginside and you've not been able
to talk to someone about it'svery, very difficult. That is
also what releases expensivedopamine. These are the ACT
(19:31):
investing systematically. And wehad spoken about the start of
the conversation regarding powerof compounding, right? Investing
systematically for very longperiods of time and seeing no
returns is also expensive.
Dopamine. You're doing somethingpainful where you're not seeing
the results. But once you seethat result at the end of the
fifth, sixth year, you see themagic that you spend so much
(19:54):
time and it gives you a lot ofsatisfaction. So what are.
Health and Wealth decisions arebasically balanced by the
counter balancing of expensiveand cheap dopamine. The reason
why I'm doing this, it's like aseesaw. So the seesaw has to be
balanced in such a way thatyou're giving more weightage to
expensive dopamine, but notdepriving depriving yourself a
(20:16):
cheap dope.
Tara Khandelwal (20:19):
Yeah, I like that chapter a lot, because you
also not only speak about thisneuroscience, which I think is
so relevant, I think, andespecially in today's society,
we're just all slaves to it,whether it comes to investing or
health, because we just get somuch 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
(20:40):
dietitian on in style will say,Oh, have this juice every day,
you know, and you can't sustainthose things. So it's very easy.
And also, you've talked abouthow over analysis also leads to
paralysis, because when you haveso much coming in, then how do
you know which information is?
You know, that's informationthat you can use and which
(21:00):
information to discard. So thoseare some things that I really
found very interesting in thebook. And also, one thing I
really liked is that you'vecompared books and long form
content to protein and socialmedia 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, whereessentially he Rolf dobelli One
of the most famous writers ofour time, the author of The Art
of thinking clearly. But I thinkthis is his best book. If for
(21:36):
someone listening, definitelygive it a read. It's a small
book, 100 pages, only anyone cankind of pick up and read the
book. I think this book wasahead of its time. It was
written many years ago, and avery ironically, like you said,
you spoke about books and longform content. My dad gifted me
(21:57):
this book 10 years ago. My dad'sattention span is so low he
can't read the book. It's justbecause of scrolling reels. I
mean, it just changes yourentire brain chemistry. And news
is, although New, a certain partof news is essential. In fact, I
work in Finance, so a certainpart, but a certain part of news
(22:20):
is just irrelevant to me. Sopeople may come at me for the
state, but I have stoppedreading Bombay Times midday. I
mean, I'm like, I'm happy. SoI've removed Times of India from
my phone because of the spammynotifications that come. I read
only business and economic timesif I if I read the news. And so
(22:41):
news is to be consumed likecarbohydrates. That was the
analogy. I do, carbohydrateshave a certain purpose. You
cannot just keep eating as muchand as much as in your body. Can
Only they only require a certainamount of energy. So news is
similar to that, but books andlong form, ah, content, just
like protein. Is essential forthe growth of your body, the
(23:06):
development of your bones, yourbrain, your mind, books and long
form content as somethingsimilar to that, you cannot all
do it also during a day. Howmuch, how much of long form
content can you read through theday? 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 bea problem, unlike the news and
(23:27):
like carbohydrates, so there issome 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 tothat, but the first step to be
able to avoid informationoverload is what we discussed in
the start of the conversation,creating a plan. If there is no
plan in place, for example, Ihave a 10 year plan in place. To
achieve my tenure plan, I haveto invest into XYZ mutual funds
(24:01):
for XYZ period, I've kind ofprojected the most modest rate
of return that I can get toachieve that return. Once I've
created that plan, then I havean idea. Keep following this
plan. Is the probability isgoing to be very high. Now
imagine if I'm not made thisplan, then I can just come on
(24:21):
social media and tell you thisis going to give you 3x return
or 4x return, right? And becauseyou've not formalized a plan in
your head, you think that thisis going to be the next big bet,
and 99% of people have not madethis plan. Let me tell you that
I am actually managing financialplans of finance professionals?
(24:41):
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 besurprised to know how less
people do this kind of planning.
So the lesser of the planningyou do, the easier you are to.
Manipulation, same thing as as Ihad mentioned, with nutrition,
(25:03):
also, it's very difficultbecause there's a lot of new
emerging research that comes,which challenges a lot of the
things that you're doing so buttill you created that broad
level understanding, I can tellyou anything. I can tell you
fruits in the morning are badfor you. Ghee is very good for
you. 16 teaspoons of gear aregood for you. I'm referencing
(25:26):
people without taking names.
Green tea helps you burn fat,right? But if I knew my first
principles, basics as to howAtlas works, how calorie
allocation works, these claimswill not be able to, kind of
cause any issue to me. But theproblem is that these issues
will continue to compound,because a lot of people, despite
(25:51):
them knowing how important thisis, they don't seem to kind of
learn about the basics offinance or health. And this is,
as you know, this is applicableto every single human being in
every single field. So what Ibelieve that should be done on a
large scale, and which I'veactually been propagating also,
(26:12):
is that students from 10standard to 12 standard should
be taught about the basics ofthis. Then after the 12th right?
It's on them, whether they wantto take it as a full time
profession, or whether they wanthow to apply the basics should
be taught at school and collegelevel. So now, in the next
month, I'm actually going to goto my school and give a lecture
(26:36):
to the students. So that's alsogoing to be a cool initiative,
and we're looking to kind ofspread 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, thenyou can have a more critical
lens to the information, whetherit comes to health and wealth.
And definitely agree this issomething that should be taught
in school. I also really likethe chapter about the financial
(27:08):
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 financialstatement, because so often
things are very misleading,especially for nutrition. You
know, I had done a whole classon how to read a label for
sugar. What is sugar and what isnot? Because when they say no
added sugar, it means it'sactually full of sugar. And my
(27:31):
dad, who is a diabetic,diabetic, is having, you know,
all kinds of treats and sayingIt's sugar free or whatever, and
actually it's no added sugar andit's just full of sugar, you
know, when it whether it comesto ice creams or protein bars or
whatever it is, and I thinklearning how to read those
labels is so important. So canyou speak a little bit more
(27:54):
about that and the basics ofthat? Yes,
Ankush Datar (27:58):
so learning how to read a nutrition label. Is an
activity that even a five yearold child can do. Start by
seeing the front of the label.
Understand the calorie count,protein, fat, carbohydrates.
Once you understood it, turn thelabel, once you see the label,
just ensure that there are atleast 90 to 95% of natural
(28:21):
ingredients in it, right? Justthumb rule can be lower, higher
if you do not understand what'sat the back of the label, try to
avoid that food as much as youcan. This sounds like the most
simple advice, but you will beshocked to know how less people
actually do this. So if I, let'ssay, for example, I give you a
(28:46):
label which has, as youmentioned, no added sugar,
right? No added sugar, peoplewill assume, okay, this is
probably a healthy item. Turn itbehind. There is erythro, there
is xylitol, you know, variousother sugars. There are 97
different kinds of no addedsugars that are allowed to be
classified as no added sugars byfssai, which is something that
(29:11):
no one has an idea about. So noadded sugar, whoever is re
listening to this podcast doesnot mean that it's a healthy
item. Some rules that you shouldbe having. Let's say there are
two labels. Let's say one labelhas 400 calories, right, and
another label has 260 calories.
(29:34):
Example, one would assume that a400 calories is the more
patterning product, right? Let'savoid it. Let's go for the 260
calories. Turn the label of itemthe 400 calorie item probably is
400 calories because it has morenatural ingredients and there
are no preservatives to kind ofcolor reduce the number of
(29:59):
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 thenumber of calories you consume
somewhere else during the day.
These are some of the basicsthat one should learn. Same
(30:20):
thing with the financialstatement. Also in the financial
statement, what comes in thefront of the headline is
marketing. As you go deeperdown, you try to uncover the
hidden meaning. So we have seen,right now, a big fraud that has
happened in the financial mediawithout taking names, there have
(30:41):
been similar names as such,where people look at certain
metrics, like, for example, acompany's revenue increased 30%
a company's profitabilityincreased 50% if someone took
this at face value, they wouldassume, often, this is a good
company, and That's put ourmoney. This is 99.99% of
(31:02):
investors. As you go down andyou kind of understand how this
company has financed therevenue. Have they taken a lot
of debt? Have they borrowed alot of money from various
different sources? Will they beable to pay these forces? These
are the things that show upafter year, three years, and
that's when everyone has losttheir money. Give you a very
(31:24):
simple example which areexplained in the book of a 10
year old kid who set up alemonade store. He sets up the
lemonade store. She borrows themoney from our parents to buy
the lemons, the salt, the sugar,et cetera. That's her cost. Now
she starts to sell that lemonand that lemonade for, let's
(31:44):
say, 10 rupees, 15 rupees,whatever it is, for a cup. The
people from the neighborhoodcome line up, and our lemonade
store is doing really well. Nowshe's trying to expand her
lemonade store. She has to go todifferent she wants to go beyond
her parents. She doesn't want tokeep asking her parents for
money. I have to go to and toorder other neighborhood houses,
(32:06):
other neighborhood houses. Say,show me your financial
statements. She shows ourfinancial statements. Revenue
has been growing from 10 to3040, 50. Profitability has been
going 20, 3040, the first twoinvestors, they put okay.
Everything is going good. Theyput money year four, year five.
(32:26):
Now, slowly, what's happening isthat she is not actually made
cash. What is that? What is thatmean? So the first two years,
she was actually selling herlemonade to potential customers
on credit. Some guy would say,just give me the lemonade. I'll
pay you later. Give me thelemonade. I'll pay you later.
(32:46):
These guys never come back. Soher debt is consistently
increasing. Then after a certainpoint, right? She reaches a
level where she's not actuallymaking cash, and then investors
ask her in the fourth 51 yousoon so much revenue. Now it's
time to return the cash. Where'sthe cash? This he goes and tells
the investor, so there's nocash. This is the revenue that I
(33:08):
have to receive. So this is asimple level, and example can be
used for the most complexinvestment processes. And what
would a layman investor look atjust the top numbers before
actually digging deeper in. Wecan use these simple examples to
kind of understand what not todo, and that helps us to
(33:29):
increase our probability ofsuccess. 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 ancientprinciples of health and well,
books coming out of it, youknow, yoga, Ayurveda. Then
there's these hotly contesteddebates on Twitter about Yoga is
not good for you. And you know,also, like the ancient
(33:53):
principles of like wealth islike, oh, you should gold
prices, you know, gone up a lot.
People want to invest in that.
So what can we learn from ourancient 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 behaving a simple investment
(34:29):
process of putting this much ina mutual fund, putting this much
in a fixed deposit. And he'sbeen doing this system, 1970s
1980s 1990s he never hadtechnology. He never had access
to Twitter saying, buy thisstock. It's going 1,000x buy
this you know, currency is going10,000x the principles that he
followed, and our any of ourgrandparents followed, were very
(34:52):
simple, right? Look at thesimple financial instruments,
save enough money and buildwealth for the longer term. But
me. So I've tried to do the samething, but I put my Twitter app,
and it's very hard for me to seea potential investment
opportunity which is going togive me 1,000x 2,000x to
(35:12):
completely ignore it. I mean, Ihave been able to somehow do it,
but most people are not able todo it, and understandably so me,
he is a grandparents, who Ispoke about in the start of the
chapter, they had a very simplelife, walking up the stairs,
walking down the stairs, walkingto work, making homemade food,
(35:36):
having the food at the sametimes, 9am 12pm 6:30pm today we
have access to technology. Yes,you just click a button. Uber is
there? Is that what takes him tothe workplace? In the workplace,
he has 344, delivery apps wherehe has the option of choosing
(35:57):
multiple options to eat fromvarious kind of cuisines. So
here he has a options, and hisactivity has been minimal. What
did our grandparents were doingsomething very similar. They
didn't have access totechnology, and that was a
blessing. It was also caused forthem, because life was harder,
(36:18):
was a blessing that because theyhad enough movement they were
able to eat as much as theywanted today, we can't do that.
The issue is that we try toreplicate what they did with
that same access to technology,and we are in a environment
which is movement poor butcalorie rich. Unlike our
(36:39):
ancestors, with our ancestors,who are movement rich and
calorie poor, right? Try tolearn from them as to how to
increase your movement. Try toearn your calories. And this is
just our grandparents from ourfrom our ancient principles.
They've spoken about this duringthe times of Mahabharat and
(37:01):
drama, and that the power ofcompounding, how it kind of
builds wealth for the futuregeneration. That reference they
do for next 12 ways to get rich,the book where we today read
about how the power ofcompounding can grow one lakh
into one crore. You know, in3040, 50 years, these people
(37:23):
have been preaching about it.
Since that time, it's just aboutthey have not been using
currency as the way to evaluate,but how to build a seed. The
seed grows. You keep plantingvarious seeds, very big tree
grows after planting a seed, andthe seed actually blooms into a
tree after multiple years,right? But once the tree has
grown, after 910, 15 years, it'sbuilt enough fruit to provide
(37:48):
for everybody around basicallythe same thing that follows for
money and compounding goals. Sopeople have been kind of
communicating the message in thesame way over years and years.
Maybe we can learn from thosetexts and try to apply those
principles, not necessarily thesame process, but just the basic
(38:10):
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 weare living in, but the first
principles, thinking ofcompounding and all of those
things have remained the same.
And I really also it reminds himanother book, same as ever, by
Morgan Housel, where he talksabout those first principles,
saying that always stay the sameno matter where the context
changes. Like for example,storytelling is super important.
(38:37):
Always has been for humanityalways will be. I really like
the part also where you saypaying is hard, because I
resonate with that as a banya, Icouldn't agree more. And today
itself, I have signed up,actually, quote, certainly the
nutritionist I had said that,you know, I know the
(38:57):
fundamentals, I will eatprotein. And then somebody spoke
to me and said, you know, try itout. And I kind of see the value
in paying for an expert, even inthe 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'sexample. Actually, I had read
that article in whole truthfood, where your father is 63
(39:18):
and he's, he's, you know,lifting weights. And I had
actually forwarded that articleto my dad, saying that, you
know, please, you know, startthis. And I have been on a I
have been on this is veryunderrated, to the paying his
heart thing, but I've been on acampaign to basically get him to
start exercising, where I senthim Instagram reels. I have
(39:40):
signed him up to the trainer. Iam getting updates from the
trainer when he is training whenhe is not, and I can tell you,
it is an uphill battle. So canyou please speak about, you
know, this expert ecosystem andhow 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 thedecisions which take basically
the they're the easiestdecisions you can make. So
(40:19):
paying 500 bucks, 5000 bucks ata restaurant, right? Very
painless, immediate. You get theresult immediately. Go have a
nice meal, even though it's 5000rupees, right? Even though it's
10,000 rupees, we can go to avery fancy restaurant, take our
family thing like that 10,000there's, there's no thought
going on. Everything ishappening very, very
(40:39):
effortlessly. You're going,you're having a good time, and
it's essentially becoming anendless loop of spending,
because the easy things to spendon don't require too much
willpower, but the same 10,000rupees, everyone knows that.
(40:59):
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 isthe part of the brain which is
the painful part of thespending, where we think 100
times before we make ourdecision. So paying for a
trainer, paying for anutritionist, but once we pay,
whenever we've seen that, ofcourse, the quality of the
(41:21):
service has to be good. That isthat assumed, if you get subpar
service, you're obviously goingto be disappointed. But these
are the decisions that canreally help us with our lives.
It's not something andironically, we're spending more
time thinking about thatspending, then this, that
decision may be okay. Maybe Ihad a good time with my family
(41:44):
and spent that money and spenthad a journey time with my
children, whatever, wife. Butlet's say I ate burgers, fries,
etc, not necessarily good forme, 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 myhealth, it's going to make me a
(42:05):
better person for my family andmy children, but I still take so
much time to think about it'sactually the similar thing with
financial advice. Also, everyoneknows they require financial
advice, but when the moneyactually goes out of the pocket,
the thought of that is kind ofvery, very antagonizing for
(42:26):
somebody. But a lot ofconvincing a client also to get
on board with you is to makethem pay. But once they paid,
and once you take them to thecycle, that's when they are kind
of comfortable in the first yeara client will be very hesitant
to pay that entire amount whenthey see your service over 2345,
years, it becomes a painlessdecision, because they derive
(42:50):
the value. They know exactlywhat it is coming to my dad. My
dad had actually read that bookdollars and cents by Dan early,
which I opened in that chapteritself. And I thank him for two
reasons, because of him, thischapter has gone. Why this
chapter has gone? Because whenhe had read this book many years
ago, and I happen to be a verylucky person that I walk into my
(43:13):
house and I have this openlibrary where books across
history, money, whatever I mean,he had a he had a bad habit,
also of just ordering books andfilling the entire house and
having fights with my mom toclear the house. That has helped
me, because I can just walkaround, and I literally saw this
book, and the name kind ofcaught me dollars and cents. I
(43:35):
said, let me check it out. Andthis is where I found the
research of the book, and I readthe book, and then I told my
dad, hey, why don't, why don'tyou recommend me this book? He's
he told me he forgot, but hetold me that he applied that
same rule. And when he wastaking his gym training
membership, what he did was evenI went to the same loop, by the
(43:57):
way. So keep persisting. Becausefor four to five years, my
mother and I tried to just pokemy dad into going to the gym,
joining the gym. One point he'sjust got frustrated, saying, Let
me join, but when I join, I'mgoing to pay the entire enough
fee before even going up. Imean, that was there's an
(44:19):
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. Youbecome accountable. And also,
once you pay, you pass theaccountability to somebody if,
for example, you pay me for myservice, right? You felt the
pain now you passed on the painto me. You passed on the
accountability to me. My dad,once he is paid, the
accountability is, of course, onhim. Also the accountability on
(44:50):
him is that money has left thewallet. Now he has to justify
that money, but even the trainerhas to justify giving back the
value to him. So maybe. Ifsomeone is thinking about
starting, just pay and you'llhave no option. Similarly, with
any decision you're looking andyou're thinking too much about
it, I would recommend that ifyou, of course, done enough
(45:12):
research, and you know you haveto do it, just pay for it, it's
going to be worth your timethinking about it so much
because you're just that pain ofspending is what's stopping you.
Tara Khandelwal (45:22):
I should frame this to my clients, also
respective clients. Yes, so Ithink it was very interesting,
and last few questions. So, youknow, it's always a work in
progress, as you mentioned, andthese first principles might
help us have some of theseframeworks in our brain that you
(45:43):
know will help us as we aremaking 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 strugglewith still when it comes to
health or wealth, and are theresomething 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 uponmyself is writing this book. Now
I have to be accountable tomyself so to for someone to
build trust. But when it comesto the investing part, sometimes
I get a little FOMO, where I'vemade the plan, but I find an
(46:23):
interesting stock where I knowI'll be able to kind of give it
that little bit more time ofstudy, and I'll be able to
generate X, Y, maybe 10x return,or a 15x return. And my guilty
pleasure would be somewherediving a little bit dipping a
little bit money into that. Thatis my guilty pleasure. And then
(46:44):
you don't necessarily make moneyout of it. If I do make then
great, right? Most of the time Idon't in this so, but still,
that guilty pleasure pulls mein, in terms of my guilty
pleasure. Actually, I'm verylucky. I don't have a sweet
tooth or any of these things.
I've been blessed in a in acertain way. But my guilty
(47:07):
pleasures, actually, you know,very honestly, I don't have too
many Guilty Pleasures when itcomes to nutrition. I'm pretty
disciplined that way. That's thehonest answer, honest, boring
answer.
Tara Khandelwal (47:24):
But I like what you said in the book, that you
said that, you know, becausethat easy dopamine, what you
said, right? You can't.
Everybody needs indulgences atsome point of time, right? So
you said you can have a plan,and you can have that indulgent
once in a while. And you alsoput across the concept of Mad
Money, you know, this little bitof money that you have aside to
do whatever you want with, whichdoes not mess up with your long
(47:46):
term goals, it does not pinchwith your long term goals. But
it could be that splurging on arestaurant or buying, you know,
a nice piece of clothing orwhatever it is, you know, having
that plan for that, I think thatwas also very powerful, because
it's very relatable. So I thinkoverall, I found the book super
relatable, and it really put allof the things that we already
(48:08):
thinking about on a daily basisinto a great framework. So yeah,
I want to ask you, what are thethree books that you, apart from
yours, that you think everybodyshould read? Because you've
quoted a lot of books in your inyour book, apart from yours.
Ankush Datar (48:26):
Yeah. So three books. This is pretty
straightforward. This is to thebroader audience. One is a book
I spoke about in the middle ofthe conversation, which is
dopamine nation by Doctor AnnaLemke, my profession of
investing tells me not to giveassured assurances, but I assure
(48:48):
you that this book will give yousome form of learning that is
going to change your life.
Change Your Life is usually avery strong statement to make,
but I'm very sure that if youread this book, there will be
some certain aspect of your lifethat you will be able to change.
Second book is, of course,everyone knows it, but in case
you haven't read it, thepsychology of money by Morgan
(49:10):
house. It does not matterwhether you have a background in
finance. It does not matterwhether you know anything about
investing. This can be anawesome book for you to start
and understand how to build avery good personal relationship
with money and how wealth shouldbe perceived, because money and
(49:32):
wealth is not relative, it'sabsolute. It's about your own
goals, how you perceive what areyou making the money for? What
is your definition of wealth tolearn and learn about that? And
the third book which I could bequoting is, okay, I've quoted
these 2/3. Book I have to quoteis another health book. Is Peter
(49:53):
Diaz outcliff. This book can. Aslightly complex view of health
in certain parts, but thefundamental thesis of this book
is that we today live in a worldwhere we have so much access to
easy information on health. Soas patients before. So we
(50:19):
basically transition from aworld of medicine 2.0 where a
medicine could be given for anyissue. Today we live in a world
of medicine 3.0 what does thatmean? That it means the patient
should know exactly what theirhealth partners meet, for
example, their blood sugar, thecholesterol, very basics, try to
(50:41):
understand if they can work tofix their lifestyle issues, and
in the lifestyle issue can fixyour health, then you may not
need that medicine. Medicine 3.0empowers the patient to
understand and learn more beforethey can dive into any
pharmaceutical interventionthat's needed. So I think three
(51:01):
of these books, I could go onquoting various other books.
Each book has its own place. Butsince you mentioned three and
which would be relevant for thebroader 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 thatdoctors will only treat the
symptoms, but these things, likediabetes and all start way
earlier than when you can seeany 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
(51:39):
principle of incremental change.
Because I used to always think,Oh, my God, habit is a huge
thing. Suddenly you have to wakeup at, you know, six in the
morning and go to the gym everyday. But that book kind of
taught me how I can get to mygoals in small steps with the
power of compounding. So thankyou so much. It's been at
really, really fun speaking toyou. These are both topics that
(52:00):
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 lotfrom this conversation and also
from your book. So thank you somuch.
Ankush Datar (52:17):
Thank you so much.
The questions were superb, andhopefully 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 iscreated by bound, a company that
helps you grow through stories.
Find us at bound India on allsocial media platforms. Tune in
every Wednesday as we peek intothe lives and minds of some
brilliant authors from India andSouth Asia. You.
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