In this episode I discuss the topic of finding success in our careers and even life. And how that ties up to our overall being.

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Welcome back, episode six, season two of The Freelancer’s Guide To Survival with your host, Amrit Sandhu AKA thebritishvoiceartist.com That’s what I do. This is one of the things I do. One of the main things I do. I am a full time voice artist and that’s one of the things that people, I’ve been having some success with recently, I’ve been sharing that success through social media. And people have been, noticing it. And It’s really nice. I mean, there’s so many things to talk about. It’s like one of the off topics of this is, How do we measure success? How do we define success? Is it just with money? How do we define success? You know, we’re all striving for it. We all want it. And it’s like, Oh, success. It’s like the big aim. Oh, don’t look up. Don’t look, don’t be, you know, we’re always told, don’t be on your deathbed and have regrets. And those regrets are usually related to, Oh, I could have been more successful. I could have been, you know, but how do we measure success? It’s subjective. What you find. Success is not a success to another person, really it comes down to, are you achieving what you want in your heart. You are going to have regret that you, you could have done something you could have lived your life away, that, that you wanted. And you didn’t and it’s, there’s so many schools of thought here. You know, there’s a part of me that believes everything we do helps us grow. You can’t really be unsuccessful. In this human experience, because that’s what we’re here to do to have a human experience.

But there’s pressure from society, it’s expectations. I was raised as a kid, my dad has really driven. He was the eldest. And I was the only son. I had two elder sisters and being of an Asian family, it was like the pressures were on the boy. And it was very much like the girls will leave the house and be with their own husbands and let’s see how well you do son. I’ve achieved X amount, no pressure. When I started off on my search for business, I’ve always felt like I’m not successful. And there’s been a benefit to that. It’s helped me strive for success. It’s got me off the sofa and want to experience more. Achieve more. Do better because you know, we’re so influenced by our parents. And one of the things that my dad used to say is “I did better”. He did better than his dad and he wants me to do better than him. Comes back to the same topic? How do you define better? Well, it’s quite simple from an immigrant’s point of view, it’s financial wealth. It’s things, It’s not just the finance, it’s also the marriage. This whole expectation of getting married at a young age, which I don’t regret. I mean, God knows my wife drives me potty sometimes. But, but you know, I’m the good one here. I’ve never done a bad thing in my life. Yeah. Right. She, yeah, I won’t go into my marriage. It’s you know, it is, it is what it is. But success was about being able to, you married, then you have your kids, then you have a mortgage and you buy a house and you do it that way. So as a kid, I remember when I was at university, I was obsessed with one book and I was raving about it to my friends. And I was like, Hey, have you read this? Have you read this? Have you read this book? It was called. You’ve probably heard of it. It’s called rich dad, poor dad by Robert Kiyosaki. Interesting book, basically to cut a long story. Short, Robert Kiyosaki tells a story of his, he was an American Chinese, I think guy. Robert Kiyosaki might be Japanese, Japanese. yeah, Kiyosaki is pretty sure it’s Japanese. It’s a Japanese name. Anyway, he was raised in America, he had one dad and one uncle and, the dad was, I think, a college or university lecturer or something intelligent. But so the dad didn’t have much money, but the uncle was like a business person. He was the rich dad and he’s written that he refers to and he taught him how to invest. I mean, it’s really simple stuff. Roberts made a whole life out of this, but it’s just like basic stuff. Right. Put your money into something that will increase in value. There’s no rocket science to that. There’s no big secret, you know, and Robert was very much like that. Then he went off on this tangent, whereas he started telling people to trade shares and do this and do that. And all he kept doing was becoming this predictor of the property. This market’s going to crash. It’s going to crash, pull all your money out. Now it’s going to crash. You know what it hasn’t crashed. It never crashed. I’ve heard that so many times it’s gonna crash waiting for this massive crash where everything’s going to be much cheaper, but when, when a crash happens, then the banks aren’t willing to lend anyway, as much. So, you know, it’s all relative. 

Anyway, so why am I telling you this? Well success? My game plan was, I wanted to have financial independence and I wanted to be outside of the rat race. I knew that I’ve got a window of opportunity. I had maybe 15, 20 years. In 20 years, I knew that I could pay off a mortgage. Mortgages were about 20, 25 years. So my game plan was, buy a house rented out and that was it. Save up money. Live with your parents, save scrimp as much as you can then invest in a property. Right. It doesn’t matter if it’s not a very good area. What you  looked at was the rental yield. Was it an area which you know, where people were willing to live? Of course. So I had to go out slightly, I’m in a suburb out of London. And, I’ve purchased my first home. And interestingly, it was a home that I had another uncle who was a bit of a wheeler and dealer and he helped me buy this. He basically took about five or six grand at the time. It was a lot of money, but he got me the deal and I bought this property and rented it out. Didn’t take anything out of it. I invested in it, rented it out, tidied it up, gave it to a family who were on benefits. And that was my way of getting some money back from the tax man, because the way I saw it was I’m paying all this tax and they’re giving other people benefits. Right. And then I thought, well, rent it out to other people. And then I’m getting some money back and I’m getting them to pay my mortgage off. That’s what happened. And then eventually, I got planning permission, remortgaged it, converted it into two flats, one, three bedroom, one, four bedroom. And, did that. And I did that so suddenly I had two properties and my end goal was actually five. Right. I was like, I want to have five. If I have five properties, then, by the time I’m and I was about 23 at the time. I was like in 20 years time, which is where I am now, I will have those mortgages, those properties paid off, and then I can live off them. I’ll have an income, right. Which is a very long term game plan and talking to 20 year olds now with 22 year olds, you know, people don’t think like that anymore. Why don’t kids think like that. They’re just, maybe property prices are too high, but they can go to different areas. They don’t have to stay there, which is what I did. I just kind of copied what my dad was doing. I knew the property rental market, and I knew I needed some things under my own name because, being an immigrant, what immigrant families do is they, you have to chip in, you have to work for free. For you, for your parents. It’s the one household and I remember, like I used to have, I mean, things were tough. We were nearly, you know, we had to sell our own house and live with cousins for about six months to nine months because we didn’t have enough money to buy our own house.

But one thing we didn’t do was take, go on benefits. We were too proud of that. So we just saved up and I remember my mom used to have two jobs at the time. She, you know, everybody had two jobs, even I had two jobs. My dad did the shop. Well, we all did the shop. Me and my mum, my dad. There were only three of us. My two sisters had gone by then. They, they, one was at uni, the other one was married. And, so we ended up, I was a student at the time. And in order to have enough money to spend at the student bar, I would have to have a job, but of course I wasn’t getting paid for my dad. We just didn’t have enough money. So, I ended up working, in Oxford street, selling tableware. You know, started off at, I think, was it called home basis? I can’t remember the store, Texas home care. That’s what it was called. I used to get like one pound 25 an hour. So, then I realized in the summers I, all I needed to do was work for, building work, construction, physical labor, and that was good money back then, you know, we used to get like 250 quid a week, which was, if I, you know, if I worked a month, then that was enough money to do. That was like a grand I would save up. And, that would cover my university social stuff. And that was it.

So we had two jobs each, mama used to also work as a cleaner in the cleaning, the toilets in hospitals. And she hated it because she used to have these mean, Oh my gosh, mean, supervisors. And they would literally just throw things on the floor in front of her. And you know, what. She never complained. She used to tell me about it, but she said, you know, let them keep throwing it. I’ll keep picking it up. That’s okay. They’re doing what they need to do. I’m doing what I need to do because I can’t afford to lose this job. And dad was, you know, he had two jobs cause he was doing the, the shop as well as managing his properties in the evening with his brother. So wealth, people may think that, Oh, these guys have so much money, blah, blah, blah,but they don’t see, they may look at you or you may look at somebody else and say, Oh yeah, you’re so, you know, you’re doing so well, blah, blah, blah. But you don’t see the sacrifices they’ve made. You don’t realize how long it’s taken for them to get there. And I’m telling you this because when it comes down to it money, other than your basic needs, which is food, which you’re going to get, shelter, which you’re going to get, health. Those are basic needs. And luckily where we live in the UK you’re given those, you know, if you can’t afford it yourself, the government will help. And quite rightly so. I know some countries like the US don’t do that. And that’s why, you know, they end up having such a big homeless issue. We went to California, we were staying at the Hilton for a night and two nights, one or two nights. And as soon as you walk out, it’s like all these homeless people and people deprecating this human poop on the floor. There’s thousands of homeless people on drugs. You know, it’s, it’s a real issue and they don’t have the basic needs. They need a place to stay. If America is the greatest country in the world, Mr. Trump, and do something about your homeless problem. Stop spending trillions on so-called defense. Help your own people. Why were they on the street with trolleys? Able bodied people? Why are you milking your own people? I’m proud that in the UK, we don’t do this. Even China doesn’t do that. In China, people have better, at least they don’t need to worry about food and, you know, there’s. Yes, they’ve got human rights issues, but really are we any different in the West?

Anyway, total sidetrack, success. Success is the topic. How do we measure it? I would say, do you feel like you are successful? Ask that question to yourself? Would you say you’re a success? And it’s okay if you say no. It’s okay if you say yes, it’s, it’s subjective. It’s you know what. What I’ve realized is there’s only one opinion that counts, it’s yours. Nothing else counts, nothing else matters. What difference does it make? If you are perceived as a success by some asshole on social media, who trolls you and gives you odd comments. I haven’t had that. Thank God. But if I do, I just block people, but I spoke to a guy recently  and I was like, if somebody was leaving an odd comment on him, on it, you know who you are. I wouldn’t mention the name, and he was like, well, I spent an hour speaking, like kind of coaching this guy, coaching. I’m not a coach. I was advising him. I don’t do one too. I’m not, I’m not, I don’t want to be a coach. I can’t help helping people either. But yeah, he was being trolled and it’s like, you know, that’s not very nice when people do that. Really sad. It’s a sign, if you’re trolling other people, then you are not satisfied in your own life. So you need to ask yourself, do you feel successful? Are you satisfied? And those two things satisfaction and success go hand in hand. Would you call yourself a success?

 I’ve spoken to so many people who describe themselves as failures and when they think about themselves, they’re like, Oh, I failed. But you know, there’s no failing. The whole purpose is human experience. You’re here to experience something in this life and grow and evolve on a soul level, which is spread across many lifetimes. It’s the evolution of the soul. So I would say., it is important that you either shift your way of thinking of what success is, because if it’s a measure of what somebody else says, like my dad was like, Oh, let’s see how I remember one of the first things when my GCCS came out, okay so GCCS, I don’t know what the equivalents are, there’s some exams we have in the UK, which when you’re 15 or 16, you do them and there’s like 10 subjects and you get marked and it’s like, you study for them for two years and then there’s one exam. And I remember I got four B’s and three C’s and one D. D  was in geography. I was not a straight A student. We come from a generation of farmers. My parents didn’t know how to, they didn’t go to school, so we’re not educated. So I didn’t have the extra support. I mean, English, wasn’t their first language. And it’s cool, but they didn’t know what it was like. They were just like study hard, study hard, study hard. I remember looking at my book, reading intensely, thinking hard, look at it. What does this mean? Studying hard? How do you study hard? I just didn’t get it. And the words used to just go through my, I would read the words and they’d make no sense. Anyway, somehow I managed to get four B’s and three C’s and one D and I rang my dad cause that all the kids were bringing their parents on the school phone. No mobiles back then I was like, dad, dad, I got my results. He said “Is that right? What did you get?” He said “Acha what did you get?” I said four B’s and three C’s. And you know what he said? He said, “You didn’t get any A’s?” And I thought, wow, I’ve just shared something with him. I was so happy to share and he knocked me.

And I thought you’re not even educated. You don’t know what it’s like going to school, sitting in a desk drawer, you know, trying your hardest to study. And you’ve just said, Oh, you haven’t got any A’s like you’re some kind of vending machine where you choose the chocolate bar marked A, you know. I didn’t get studying. I just didn’t get it. When it came down to my A levels, which were done two years later at the age of 18, my dad asked me the same question. So at that point I did not feel successful when the results came out for the GCCS after speaking to my dad. When I did the GCCS I was happy when I got them. But having spoken to my dad, I was like, “What the heck?” I do not feel good now. So two years down the line, actually it was three years down the line cause I, I wasted a year, flunked a whole year. First year grade levels, I was weak. I was in college and I just got in with the wrong crowd. And then in the end I got in a little fight. I got slapped up by a friend of mine. He knocked me over a wall, knocked my glasses off, knocked me over a wall and started punching me in the face and I just took it. I was like, “Hey, what are you doing?” But I was more afraid of standing up and crushing my glasses cause I had to drive home, I had a little car then. And anyway, I knew that I deserved that. Like I deserved a slap not from him, but it was life giving me a knock. You know, sometimes life gives you a knock and it tries to wake you up and we blame others and we’re like, Hey, why are you doing that? But for me, it was like, it was an important lesson. It was like, no, I had that coming. Not from him. I didn’t warrant getting beaten up by anyone but wasting, I mean, my mistake was hanging around with people like that. And, it taught me a valuable lesson and, you know, I changed college. I got up humiliated, you know, I mean, I was so scared. I pissed my pants. I’ve not admitted that to anyone. I was just so scared. I mean, this is the reaction. I think that happens when you just, somebody knocks you out, out of the blue and you feel frozen, you can’t move, you end up and, anyway, I was humiliated. It was pretty much probably the lowest part of my life up to that point. 

And, I got myself up. I decided, instead of getting revenge, I had other friends who wanted to get back at him and all this stuff, I thought I’m not going to do that. Jesus, I’ve created a wall. I don’t want to hit anyone. I don’t want to hurt anyone, let that calm and be on his neck, on his head. But I left that college. I started another one because I’d flunked anyway that year they said you have to repeat it. You’re useless. And, ended up going to another college and I put my head down on it just studied and I made no friends. Well, you do naturally make friends. You make classmates, but I didn’t go out anywhere. No socializing, nothing. I was like, nope, I’m not going to mess around, this is what I’m going to do. Study. Otherwise I’m going to end up with my dad’s shop. I knew what I needed to do. I needed to get into a good blue-chip university. And then that was my way of getting a job.

So for me, success was not working in my dad’s shop. Cause For me, I saw my other family friends end up like that. My cousins, if you didn’t study. You would have ended up with a shop. And to me that was a nightmare having a shop. So even though I was crap at studying, somehow I put my head down and I focused. And, after that I ended up getting into the university, UCL, doing Physical Sciences, which is 50% physics and 50% anything else. And a lot of the stuff I did was like Philosophy of Science, Computer Science, Maths, Economics. It’s great. Something shifted then. Cause I actually enjoyed the topics that I was doing, databases. That was probably the most valuable thing I did databases, access, Microsoft access, learning, normalization, learning, all this stuff that helped me get a job later on and out of all the topics, that was the one that actually helped me get a career, go contracting eventually.

But what I learned was how to learn. That was the biggest thing at university. I know that, you know, sometimes they say, Hey university, Oh, waste of money unless you’re doing, waste of time, unless you’re doing Law or Medicine or Dentistry or something specific. But I would say it does teach you life skills. It teaches you, you’re in a safe environment with other students. And it will teach you how to balance, work and play, which is what real life is like, work and play. So I had turned a bad situation around and ended up in the university of my first choice, which was UCL. Ended up getting a two, one from there. And then from there, I went into banking, investment banking, and from the investment bank, I ended up, on their It graduate scheme, working with many, many smart people who, people who had done PhDs in physics, I was like, I was on the same graduate scheme as them. And I was like, wow, I’ve really liked it. I’ve lucked out here. And, do you know, I love the social side, but I did not like the job. The people working in the bank were horrible. They saw me as a threat. They’re all IT contractors. And to have a graduate, they would like, they were quite racist as well, actually, not all of them, but there were, it was like, one of them would say some racist remarks and then, you know, the whole, you people curry munchers, all that kind of stuff. And you know what you’re just like, yeah. Okay. Well, You’re, you know, you’re one of them. Okay. Get it. 

So up to that point, I was told I was, yeah, he’s very successful working in a bank, but hated it. To me that wasn’t success. So I reassessed and I said, how did the contractors, because I remember these guys were doing a Unix contracting and they were earning 500 pounds a day back then in 1999, because they’re all working on this year, 2000 bug, which was going to, which is the latest thing back then, that was going to help the whole world and grind it to a halt, ended up. These guys were asleep with our desks, and I was like, yeah, that’s what I want to do on it. 500 pounds to sleep at my desk a day, 500 a day. Anyway, you know, 20 years ago it was decent money. So I followed their footsteps and joined a small company and I did it that way. And even after doing all this, like learning how to program her, learning how to do all this working in other companies I’d been made redundant by the time I was 24, I’d been made redundant twice because the .com boom had come and everything had gone then, and I ended up out of work. And I remember speaking to a friend I’d made who was a successful contractor. And I said, I’ve lost. I’ve just been made redundant. And he said, I remember all the other guys in the company, they were in the pub opposite. And I was thinking, well, you guys go to the pub, I’m going to be on the call with the, with a recruitment agent. I’m not going to waste time. We need a job. I’m going home. I was straight on the call. Anyway, my friend, the contractor, said to me, he gave me one piece of life advice, which was probably one of the most valuable pieces of advice. One of the most valuable pieces of advice, which I’ve heard and he said, you’ve got an opportunity now to reinvent yourself. He said, why didn’t you do something you really want? What is it that you want? And that’s where I’m coming with this, this whole topic about doing what you want. 

Most of us don’t know, all we think about is the money. Believe me, the money will come. How much money do you need? What are you going to do with millions in the bank? What do you really need? You need food, shelter, safety, health, right? Those are the things that we need. Anything else is like a surplus. So when you shift your expectations, unfortunately, property prices in London are just stupid now. But when we, when we shift our expectations, then we, we can make things work. You know, sure property prices are expensive in London, but you can move out of London. You don’t even need to live in London. Now you can work remotely and travel and commute in one day a week or whatever they are. But, my point is all those times I was doing stuff that I felt I had to be doing, and I was in a job that was, yeah, it was nice you know, it ticked a few boxes, I had money coming in. I was more afraid of losing the money than I was, changing the circumstance. Because it’s hard. How do you reinvent yourself?

I’ll tell you how you start on the side. Here’s the key question, would you do what you’re doing now if you didn’t get paid anything, and if you didn’t need the money? Would you do what you need to do now if you didn’t need the money? Put the money thing on the side. Just think about, would you do it for now? Would you do it for free even?

 It’s a Sunday, three o’clock and I’m sharing some of my deepest journeys with people I’ve never met and probably will never see. And it’s you know, I’m not afraid to share stuff. I’m not afraid of the light. I’m not afraid of the light. I’ve got nothing to hide. What you see is what you get with me. Are you, are you doing what you want to do? 

The way I started the whole voice over stuff I realized, in fact, I was doing it for free. I still do it for free for an audio book guy I know ,he’s a teacher. He’d raised some funds to help record it. I said, listen, I’ll just work on the royalties. I don’t need the money up front. We’ll work on the royalties. Don’t worry. It is possible to do what you wished and love. It is possible. The quickest way of doing it is looking at other people who have done it in that field, whether you’re a photographer and you love taking pictures or a videographer, or I don’t know, maybe you love knitting. Maybe you love cooking. Maybe you love, I mean, I don’t know. What do you love? What do you love doing? Maybe you love vegging in front of Netflix. I’m sure people get paid for that, but it’s, you know, you could review, if that’s what you love, you could make a YouTube channel and just review Netflix shows. If that’s what you really love and you can get residual income from it. There you go. There’s an idea. 

But the point is you can learn if you change the way you look at things, the things that you look at will change. I mean, that’s what Wayne Dyer said. And you know, this is an example of that. You can shift your thinking about the fact that you have to work for one company or stay where you are in order to pay your bills. That’s, that’s not living, that’s surviving. You know what I’m saying is you can, you can live and you can thrive. And so the way I did it was I made a residual income. I was in a long term game and my biggest problem was not about the properties. My biggest problem was what am I going to do with the time I have, because the property side I can do with my eyes shut and I don’t just manage my own property,I manage other people’s, so I can do that with my eyes shut. So it was like, what do I do with my access time? All my friends are working nine to five. Well, it’s not nine to five anymore. They’re working nine to fricking nine, nine to midnight. They’re scared of losing their jobs. They’re working for those bonuses and they’re trying to outdo the competition, outwork the competition. Cause the only thing they can do is put in more time and that’s a sad way of ’em, if you don’t love what you’re doing, that’s toxic. And, you know, they’ve got a noose around their necks. They got kids in private school, they got kids and like living in expensive houses. It’s like, why do you want to do that? Why do you want that noose around your neck or have to do it? They say we have to do it, but they don’t ask why. Where are they headed?

I see this so much in the Asian community, in the Indian community, in the Punjabi C community, going around in circles, working themselves to the ground, desperate to prove a point that we’re successful, that we’ve made it and the working, from a place of fear. There’s a better way. I did the whole residual income thing. And there’s several ways that you don’t have to have a 20 year game plan. Maybe you’re not there. 

But in order to survive as a freelancer, you can’t just depend on one income because if the work dries up, you’ve got all your eggs in one basket, you have to have your fingers in a few pies. You have to have more than one income stream. You have to be able to have a stream of income, which you’ll get, regardless of whether you wake up, whether you’re sick, whether you’re on holiday,  you know that income is going to come. For me it’s property and rent. And sure that doesn’t, that’s a limited amount to how much I can take out because you also have to pay taxes. You have to pay for maintenance of the property and reinvest. But, the other way is like you can do, you can generate, you can create a YouTube channel and talk about whatever you love, whatever your topic of interest is and you can make money from that. You can start your own podcast. I hear that people monetize these things. You can start reading audio books like I did and having royalties come from them.  You need to read quite a few. So it really, it comes down to, you need to work out how much money do you need each month to survive on so that you’ve got your basic needs met, which is your housing, your food, your bills and some for your health, if you need a safety net and you need savings. I mean that, that contractor friend, he said, he must always have six months worth of survival as a contractor, as a freelancer, you need, you only have yourself to fall back upon. So you need six months worth of, you know, you could be out of work for six months. Look, what’s happened with COVID. People are dipping into their savings, where they need to. So you need to change that mindset and become a saver, which means you save more than you spend. And if you’re into credit cards, you need to pay those off and cut those cards up. Why are you spending money that you don’t have. Cut those cards.

So really this topic is about success. It’s about finding what you enjoy and at the end of your life, you’re not going to think about how much money you’ve got in your bank. You might not even think about what you’ve done, because you might have dementia and forget everything you’ve done. You know, realistically we’re all ended at the same place. All that matters is what do you do? Do you enjoy today? Are you satisfied? Are you ecstatic? 

I’ve always loved what I’ve done on the side. And I’ve always been a believer that you can put your time and energy into something and then get some kind of reward. There’s a big reward in doing, you don’t need to solve the world’s problems. I don’t believe that. You just gotta do what’s right for you. If you want to do that, do it. If that inspires you, stop telling other people to do that, do it yourself. Jeez, you’re responsible for your own life. Right? I see, I saw this guy stalking another person. He’s like, how would you solve the world’s problems? So, well, what you, you can answer that post, in a message, that’s the world’s problems. Where do you want to start? Global warming? Human trafficking? The fact that we’re taxed to death? Corruption? Where do you want to go? You can’t. It’s just crazy. When I saw that post, I was like, just kind of block of this guy. I don’t, I don’t tolerate people like that. And it comes back to my topic last week about clearing out the crappy people in your life.

If something’s not serving you, if a relationship is not serving, get rid of it. You do not have to tolerate anything that you do not want in your life, whether it’s your partner, whether it’s your kids, whether it’s, you know, you can, you can stand up to these people and say, Hey, no, no, I’m not. I’m not having that.  You know, find something you connect with. I spoke to a friend of mine today who’s pretty successful. She’s got a PhD in Nutrition. She’s a homeopath. She’s a brilliant person. She’s actually started a college. Believe it or not. I mean, how many people could start a college and she said, she’s an Amorite. And she said, you connect with what you do. You always have.

So that’s where I’m going to wrap this up a thought, do you connect with what you’re doing? You know, do you, she said, you’re going to be successful. Whatever you do because you connect with it. Right. So do you connect with what you’re doing? Is it ticking your boxes? Do you get so excited that you’re thinking about it all the time and I’ll be honest. Yeah, sure. I’m not going to generate any money from this podcast. This for me is therapy,right. But at some point somebody is going to see this and they get like, who’s this guy. Oh, he’s a voice artist. Oh, right. All right. Let’s listen to him. And something might be passed onto someone. And also my clients get an idea of who I am, what I am. And you know what I’ll attract the people who are like minded. You know, if they don’t like the way I am, then this podcast is serving me because it means we’re not right fit.

Find what you connect with if you could. And what does that mean? It’s what you’re excited about. YWhat you’re willing to master and put the time in. For me, I was everything that I’ve turned my head to. I’ve loved it. Don’t do something you don’t love because you won’t grow in it. All the jobs I’ve had, I’ve seen people go to their desks and it’s a struggle. They don’t want to be there. And you know what? The companies don’t want you there because you don’t want to be there. So just do yourself a favor, do the companies a favor and find what tickles your fancy. Find what you love and you’ll thrive in it. You’ll thrive in that field because you’re willing to put time into it and master it. And there’s so much fun in that. That’s where the adventure is. That’s where the journey is. That’s where everything comes to life. And suddenly you’ll be walking with a bounce in your step. You’ll be satisfied. Then you’ll know what it is and feels like to be successful, not numbers in the bank, it’s about when you’re doing the thing that you love every day, and you’re willing to do it for free, but you’re getting paid for it , Jesus, That’s such a great feeling. It’s such a privilege to live every minute like that. And for me, that’s how I feel about the voiceover stuff. I’m helping all kinds of people. I’m doing voiceovers for students who don’t have many budgets. I cut my price for them. I shouldn’t have told you that, but they have to prove that their students. And then I’m doing it for big companies or mediocre stuff, and, you know, bringing things to life. I’m getting compliments. This is the thing that will happen when you’re good at what you’re doing. A sign of success is when people are saying, Hey, I love what you’re doing. It’s really inspiring. I love it. I want to use you for my work and, you know, I had a message like that today. And it’s like, it’s a wonderful place. I was like I’m so thank you. I’m so happy that you’ve reached out. It’s a wonderful compliment that you’ve given and I’m so grateful and you can have that.

The only person in your way is you, it’s your mentality, it’s your mindset. And unless you change that and take steps to do that and call to the universe, call to your guidance, call to whatever you want, whatever you believe in, whatever you call it, call for help. Whatever sustains you right now. What is the intelligence that makes you heartbeat? What is the intelligence behind evolution? Whatever that intelligence is, because I didn’t create it, whatever that is cool to that, because if it’s keeping you alive, it can help you thrive. So tap into that. Tap into that, and watch. And I’m not saying you need to take a leap of faith. I’m not saying, well, you do a little, you just need to take a step. In the right direction, but not jump into a whole new field where you don’t have any experience because you will fail, then you won’t work because you don’t know what you’re doing. 

The whole point is to discover and find out what you’re interested in, what you like doing and try that on the side at the same time as you’re working for someone else. And then what you do, if you enjoy it, then you see, Hey, how can I monetize this? How can I make money from this? And then my friend, then you’ll feel the sweet success, the flavors of the deliciousness of life, where you’re like trading your time into something that you love and somebody else is valuing it. That’s what money represents. Somebody else values it. That’s the only value in that. Not what you can treat it for, not the piece of paper or the digits in the bank account. But the value is in the fact that you’re valued enough for somebody to depart with money, that they’ve worked hard to earn. And they’ve given you that in exchange for what you’re offering and you’ll feel so good. And that was what my first month was like in January. It was like, wow. I’ve come a long way since that £500. I don’t want to use the money as a motivator. Each person’s journey is relevant to themselves. It’s like, I belong to a group where we use voice artists and we share at the end of the month, how much we’ve turned over. I always feel bad about doing that, but then I feel bad about not sharing it when I’m reading everyone else’s shares. So what I do is I’ve put my stuff up there and then I delete it after a few days, because I don’t want a record of me on the internet on some social media site somewhere. So I let people who are in the know know, and then I delete and I’ll do that with some podcasts or I’ll do that with some, if I overshare and I think, you know what, I shouldn’t have shared that thing. I will delete it if I think it’s detrimental, or a bad move. We’ve got to do that. Life’s not black and white. Life is full of color. It’s full of grays. It’s full of values, as artists call it gradations. Each color has a certain amount of darkness and lightness in it and life’s complex. So you’ve, you’ve got to do what you feel is right. What you believe is right in each moment. 

So I hope that even one of you is inspired. I’ve been looking for something for a business for the last at least five years, I was desperate to do something on the side. Cause I knew one day I would have to give up my job and do the property side full time. Because that was my journey. That was a whole thing. It was like, son, you’re going to have to run it. You won’t own it. Oh no, no. We’re not want to, you’re not going to own anything, but you’re going to run it and we’re going to pay you the minimum we can pay you because the business can’t afford anymore. So for me, it was like I had to give up my job. I had to find something on the side. Not only to keep me sane, but also to top up my salary. For me it was like, you’re going to find this funny right, but I live in an area where there’s loads of Japanese restaurants in West London, and I really love Japanese food, so blessed deliberation. I mean, I love Japanese people as well. But the food’s expensive if you eat out. And I used to feel guilty about eating out, but when I was working as a contractor, I used to eat out all the time when I was working for another company, but now suddenly I’m self employed and all this stuff, and I feel guilty about eating our sandwiches and stuff. And you do feel guilty and that, you know, it’s like, you’ve got no other way of topping up your salary. So it’s just like, Oh, I can’t spend that much money on food outside. So you need a way to be self sustaining. 

So for me, it was like literally having a business on the side meant where I would eat. You know what I would eat, which is kind of normal for everyone, I guess everyone’s like not in the same boat. But these weren’t fancy restaurants, you know, these are regular restaurants, but it’s, it’s like, you know how often, you know, you have to budget it. How often can I afford to eat out? And now with the voiceover I have made a life for myself where I can afford to eat out every day if I want to. And I’m like, hang on. I’ve, I’ve earned that money. I’ve worked. I’ve made like 10 times that or maybe more. so it’s like, it takes a lot of boxes. And I spoke to a gentleman yesterday who is 60, and you know, his motivation was I need to make money, but he did say he loves it. He loves voices. Sure, he needs a bit of guidance. He needs some work. And if you work at it, he’ll do fine.

You know, but the point is whether it’s voiceover, whatever you feel you’re into you need to love it because if you don’t you’re going to be putting all this time and effort in and you’re just going to be miserable. You’re not going to be happy. So, you know, you might tell yourself I’m happy. Yeah. But you know, you won’t, you won’t thrive in that field because you know, it’s not for you. It won’t make you feel alive. That’s why it’s critical to do what you love and find it. 

I’m going to give you a challenge for one week. See, the problem is the reason most people don’t find what they love doing is because they don’t give themselves the time. So the challenge I’m going to give you, let’s be honest. Where are you spending most of your time? And don’t tell me television. Most of your time is being spent on a four and a half inch screen in your pocket. Two pieces of homework I’m going to give you. One go Netflix, watch the social media dilemma. Well, I think it’s called it’s just come out. Watch it. That’ll teach you how addictive those things are. How we’ve been trained and conditioned to look for each time there’s a notification, whatever noise it makes. And then we reached for the phone and they’re like roulette machines. They’re like slot machines because we literally scroll down on the screen to refresh it. And we’re waiting for that dopamine hit. Have we got a message? Yes, we have. There’s a one there next to the app means I need to click on it all. What is it? So we’ve been conditioned. These tools that we’ve given you can give an art and tools. The bicycle is a tool. You’re not addicted to a bike, a bike. Won’t call you these phones will, it will, it will change your behavior.

So what I’m challenging you to do, watch the social media dilemma or social network dynamic. It’s on Netflix and number two, I want you to put your phone, take it out of your pocket and put it in the hallway. That’s it. If you say, Hey, Amrit I work on my phone. Do you work on your phone? Don’t you work on your laptop? Don’t you work on a computer? You don’t need your phone, keep away from you and try that for a week. You’re going to be bored initially. You’re going to be an addict. And one of the things they said in that film, the social media dilemma, is there are only two industries that use the word uses. One is software and the other one is drugs. There’s a reason guys. We hooked to dopamine. So we need to detox. It’s one of the reasons I’m here recording this. I’m doing something creative. I’m releasing my mind and stuff and probably sharing things that I shouldn’t be sharing, but you know, what, what have I got to lose? I’m going to be dead in a hundred years. So what is my life so precious that I can’t share a few hiccups that have happened? No, you know what? If somebody can learn from them, then that time I’m satisfied. I’m happy to be shamed. I’m happy to take the hit. If you are learning from my mistake, that’s great. That’s the result. That’s me giving back.

All right, been a long episode. I think each time I’m doing a longer and longer. And I’m going to have to pay for more hours from Buzzsprout, which is great. I don’t mind, I’ll keep making the content this week. Well, the last episode I did was only on Thursday, so, and today’s Sunday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. So what’s happened this week in the world of voiceover. I can remember. I mean, most of the time we don’t remember. Okay, we’d read the script and we read so many, I don’t remember what I’ve read. Interesting thing happened. So, on LinkedIn, a friend of mine shared a video that they had seen through a contact they had, and they recognized my voice. And she said, “Hey Amrit this is one of yours. I recognize that voice.” And I was like, geez, I don’t even remember recording that. And the guys are like, “Hey, Amrit, you’re fantastic.” And I had another nice couple of events, somebody else is saying, “Amrit is fantastic.” We’re so ashamed of self promoting ourselves, but it’s not a self promotion. It’s like if somebody publicly goes out on their own whim, it’s a real privilege. It’s an identifier of success that you’re doing something which is really passionate to somebody else and helpful. So they shared a video that I recorded for them. Maybe they do all the hard work. They write the scripts, I just read them and yeah, there’s a task to bring them to life, but, you know, I just focus on that one thing and I try and do it the best that I can. And, yeah, he shared that, which was, which is really nice. So it was like two points of recognition, which is really nice. 

And then I had a friend of a friend who reached out, who needed some help on voices and wanted to get into this field. So I was like, Hey, I’m sure he was like, Hey, I don’t want to disturb it because I’m careful about who I give my time to. Because you can get like strange people sometimes. This guy, I spent an hour with him and he recorded the zoom session, recorded the whole thing. And then, you know, I just told him, give him some pointers on what you can do. I gave him a strategy. I’m going to have to do another catch up with him  to make sure that he’s on the right mark, but that was great. I really do enjoy helping others. I mean, that’s the whole point of these so that people can, you know, grow and learn and become self-sufficient and have their own businesses on the side and do what they love and not, not have to worry about where they get their next meal or where they’re eating from, to be able to thrive, to be able to live abundantly and that to me is worth gold, absolute gold.

When I do these episodes, I line up music and in this episode, I actually put 1 hour 24 minutes worth of music. I’ve been talking already for one hour, 16, one hour, 15 and a half. And I hope it’s valuable. When I started podcasts before I used to do the whole, I don’t know what I’m talking about. Do you know what I know? I have to do it, blah, blah, blah. When you find what you’re, what you’re passionate about, then the subject will flow. And I had another friend saying to me, “Hey Amrit let’s do, you know, you can have a guest on your podcast.” I don’t think this is that kind of show. I don’t think  this is the kind of show where I’m going to have guests, unless it’s going to help others. You never know. I might, I know enough people who are quite interesting. I would only invite the most interesting people. People who have done well. But it’s not that kind of show. One of the things is you end up with different varying sound qualities and stuff and I’m happy keeping it the way it is. Honestly It’s the Amrit show. It’s the Amrit show! So we don’t want anyone else here. I just remembered that same friend who accused me once of having the Amrit show. Now he wants to be on the Amrit show. Yeah I’m not going to have guests. My whole thing is if you want a podcast, make it yourself. 

I’m going to talk about only the stuff from my experience. You want to talk about your stuff, that’s great. Talk about your stuff, but for me, it’s just my stuff. I’m not going to promote others and I don’t need anyone to promote me. I’ve done kind of partnerships before and it’s okay. Partnerships don’t really end well in my experience. They become messy and sticky. I think people are finding it harder to work together. You get to an age where you just don’t tolerate fools gladly, and it’s like, well, no, this is the way I am, take it or leave it. So I would never recommend anyone to do a partnership. Anyway, I spoke about this. I think in the last episode, maybe I should start doing two a week, if I have enough content.

I’ve spoken about success in this episode and how you can find your own and how you measure it and you might not be measuring it correctly. But the real success is when you are doing what you love and getting paid for it. That’s at the heart. That’s the core of this message. And that theme will be at the heart of probably all my podcasts. So at some level  it’s the same message. Right? Do what you love. Don’t be afraid to get started. Most people are, most people are scared and I was, but you don’t need to be. Just do it as mr. Nike says. Just go ahead and do it. Just get started, record it on your phone. Just go to a quiet place in a corner, face of the corner of the wall. You’ll get better sound and just sit down with your recording device. Which is probably a phone, turn off all notifications and start talking about the topic that you like. You can think about who you’re talking to, or you can just talk to nobody. It’s going out there and it’s being listened to or maybe it’s not who cares. What you’ll be doing is learning a bunch of skills on how to talk. You’ll be self healing, self meditating, self therapizing, if that’s a word.

I’m going to keep pushing you guys. I’m going to keep encouraging you guys, that you can do it. I’ve done it. I mean, Season two, episode six, and I, so look forward to this. It’s like already, I want to record the next one. I don’t even know what I’m going to say. I really love this. So it’s great, right? It’s like I’m at the promised land and of course I want to share with everyone and say, Hey, you guys can do it and I can listen to your stuff just talking about what, whatever tickles your fancy. I might not listen to it all, but that’s okay. I don’t expect everybody to listen to this. I mean, one hour 24, geez. That’s long. 

Running out of time. Need to wrap this up and it will be beautiful. I’m just going to wait for the music to slowly drift off which it is. I wonder what I can talk about in the next topic. I’ve got notes on my phone, but my phone is in my hallway. See, I’m practicing what I preach. But yeah, it’s so many things to talk about. Oh, final update. Somebody else reached out to me this week to do their calm equivalent app. And they said out of 700 voices, they came down to eight and I was one of those eight and I was like, Hey privilege, if it’s meant to be great, if it’s not with no problem. And they’re like no, we like your voice. I was like, yeah. Great. Really appreciate it. Thank you. Let’s see. Let’s see what happens. Until next time guys. Bye.