Hello and welcome to And you, How Did You Make It,
the podcast in which we explore each step that
has built the career path of various individuals
through the discovery of the habits, passions,
interests of the last few decades. I'm Yosra,
your host, and today we meet Faz. I'm not going
to tell you too much, but Faz tells you how you
should approach your uni days and what I'm sure
you will take out of this episode is the drive
to build your own path through commitments. and
to build your own community that aligns with
your true self. As a high achiever, he embodies
curiosity, innovation, and drive. Let's learn
from him. Hi, Faz. Welcome to the podcast. I'm
so happy to have you with us today. Well, I'll
let you introduce yourself. Thank you for having
me on the podcast, Yosra. My name is Faz. By
day, I am a humble civil servant. But by night,
I do all sorts of interesting things, hopefully.
Despite my unwillingness to do these, I somehow
end up organizing all sorts of different events
for different clubs, for different organizations,
for different companies even. I like to build
stuff. So whether it's products, apps, things
like that. And I just like to talk with lots
of interesting people. So I go to lots of different
events. one too many socializing activities and
generally a bit of an extrovert, I might say.
So that's me in a nutshell. I do confirm. You
were quite the leader in building communities
in sports during your time in Dublin, and I highly
appreciated that, by the way. I cannot wait to
discuss this further when you start building
communities and become so active outside or within
your main responsibilities as a student and such.
First. Faz, can you tell us your definition of
success? Yeah, it's a very deep question. I think
there's, I love this question because I'm going
to answer it with another question, which is
when I think about success, I don't ask what
I want. I ask myself why I want it. Because in
my mind, it's not just about having flashy things,
you know, lots of money, big mansion, children,
and et cetera, et cetera. It's about asking myself,
what of what things will bring me fulfillment
what things will make make me content and what
things will drive you know high impact and and
make the life make my life better as well as
people around me better as well so if i'm doing
something that enables a new skill it helps the
community or it brings fulfillment and contentment
to me then that is success in my mind did you
hear that you already have takeaways here If
you're not sure what your definition of success
is, what will bring you fulfillment? What would
make you content? What would drive high impact?
Do you think that this reflection, this definition
of success was there when you were still in high
school or did it come at a later stage? Absolutely
later stage. When I was younger, it was all about,
you know, what is the most, like I would go on
Google and I would search, which job pays the
highest amount? That's the kind of searching
I was doing when I was younger. But now in my,
you know, as I've grown older a bit, beginning
to get some white hairs, you know, even in my
20s now, I'm asking myself more difficult questions,
which is, well, why do you want that particular
thing? Why does it matter to you so much? Is
there something else that is more valuable? And
I think when you add different, when you look
for different things, beyond, say, just monetary
or beyond just... you know obvious uh satisfactory
things then the question becomes a lot more interesting
so for me yeah it's definitely a much much more
recent thing where i've asked myself you know
why are you doing what you're doing is this something
that you is this something that your younger
self would be proud of is this something that
your future self would be happy that you're doing
those are the kind of questions i'm asking myself
now so um it's a very much a new thing that i'm
looking into Those are fantastic questions. Is
this something your younger self would be proud
of and that your future self would be happy that
you're doing? I think those questions are very
interesting as well because we change so much
throughout life. Asking yourself those questions
will help you so much when you're lost, unsure
of which choice or decision to make. Well, let's
now talk about your early teenage years, middle
school years, when you were 12, 13, what kind
of students were you? What were your habits,
passions, anything that you can share with us?
So when I was 12 and 13, that would be year eight
and year nine, I believe, in the British education
system. And so when I was in year eight, I was
going to a preparatory school, which is a school
that is designed to essentially prepare you for
life and prepare you for kind of a particular
life path whereas in in when i was 13 i went
to a you know classical state school so for me
those kind of early teenager years were really
interesting to me because the um the first school
that i went to there was it was a very posh it
was very it was based in oxford so it was a very
very posh place and the kinds of things that
they kind of taught you weren't just the subjects
that they were kind of teaching you as they would
but it was also explaining etiquette which is
a very weird and interesting thing when you're
particularly at that age in your formative years
so i'll give it i'll give a fantastic example
here which is you know there was a day where
i forgot to you know put my homework in the edge
of the classroom where we were supposed to you
know place it every single morning and for some
reason i forgot to do that and i was panicking
all of a sudden because oh my god you know my
homework isn't going to be there and so you know
i i rush upstairs again you know during lunchtime
trying to put my my textbook there and i see
the entire entire stack of papers is gone so
i realize that oh my gosh my teacher's taken
it so i i run downstairs at lunchtime and i find
the oh and this class was taught by the headmaster
as well so it wasn't just any typical teacher
so i run downstairs find the headmaster eating
eating lunch and um i approach him and say i'm
really sorry uh you know i completely forgot
to you know place my my my workbook uh on in
the corner of the classroom uh but i have it
with i have it i have it here now i didn't just
do it now i did it last night etc etc and he
looks at me and he says I can give you two responses.
Do you want the polite answer or do you want
the honest answer? And I'm 12 years old here.
I have no idea what this means. And so I say,
can I have the polite answer, please? And he
says, thank you very much. I'll get it marked
for you by the next lesson. And that was it.
And I just ran away. Obviously, now I kind of
know what he would have said if I said honest
answer, obviously. But that was kind of a, although
it wasn't a piece of advice or anything, it was
just an interesting experience to me because.
it explained to me that sometimes giving your
honest opinion isn't always the best thing to
do sometimes you need to be charming and flattering
at times rather than trying to be then the know
-it -all person there or trying to express the
opinion for the sake of it or whatever so i think
that's kind of the vibe that was given to me
when i was in kind of year eight at age 12 13
that kind of uh kind of time period Then you
move on to the state school side of stuff, which
is a very interesting dynamic because now all
of a sudden you're in an area where things are
a lot more effectively rough, shall I say. Things
are a lot more unfiltered and there isn't really
anything that, you know, is unexpected at that
point. Whereas in a more kind of formalized preparatory
school zone, things are a lot more specific,
a lot more tailored, a lot more structured in
comparison. And so That was very interesting
to me because it was a new city. It was a new
school. It was very interesting people there
and interesting characters. So for me, having
that dual experience was, I think, really important
to understand because I understood how a particular
type of person would interact with the world.
You would probably call them partial, middle
class or whatever. But you also had the masses,
essentially. Everyone from, and you had all types
of people from working class, middle class, even
upper class there as well at times. So this was
the... a very diverse experience when it came
to the state school place, essentially. So that's
kind of my experience at that age where you have
these two different worlds and I've kind of been
thrusted into both of them in a very short period
of time. This is very interesting. Thanks, Fez.
I do have a recommendation then for you who are
listening to us is to ask yourself the following
question. Should you be charming version of yourself?
Or is it time for you to share your true opinion
on the subject? Is... Trying to test and understand
your environment. Trying to, as we say, to read
the room. Like, when is it time for you to actually
be persistent, asking questions, being a little
bit bold. And when it's time to just lay back.
In fact, how are you as a student? What about
your favorite classes? All these favorite classes.
As a student, I was very much average, to be
honest. I think a lot of people, you know, if
you were to ask me what set I was in, I would
say middle set or maybe middle upper set or something
like that. So, you know, my maths was a bit stronger.
My science was a bit stronger than my English.
But I think for me, it was, you know, for me,
it was just a matter of, you know, I show up,
I do the homework. I don't get into trouble.
I raise my hand and job done. There you have
it. So. that's my that's kind of the the this
the extent of it i wasn't doing any prodigy work
i wasn't you know leader of the chess club or
anything like that so um my so my schooling was
quite not generic but it was quite predictable
in that sense because there wasn't anything shocking
or anything that was you know out of the ordinary
in that sense what is interesting is as a as
a child i've had to wear glasses and so my eyesight
has always been much weaker and while i can see
things you know fine you know it's not that's
not that bad but historically i've always had
the need to you know rely on the sense of touch
essentially rather than using my eyes so maybe
that's why i preferred science and maths over
english because i don't have to read too much
but that's uh that's probably where that interest
likely stems from um but for me it was always
just numbers building stuff whether it's design
technology or uh whether it was science and and
you know computer science and things like that
And do you think your interest was only due to
personal reasons, the one you just mentioned,
or did you have fascinating teachers or was it
a mix of both? I think it's a bit of both. I
think as a child, you know, I was a big fan of
Lego. And Lego is one of those classical toys
where anybody from any background can pick it
up. It's not supposed to be gendered. It's not
supposed to... uh be specific to any particular
genre i know that things have changed a bit now
but it really you know in my childhood you would
pick up the bricks you would build a set but
then once you build a set you can do whatever
you want with it well you know and i think the
my favorite sets back then was something called
lego mars mission sets so they were all about
you know exploring the world exploring space
exploring aliens and things like that and i think
that has a very direct interest to science and
the stem subjects inherently so there was definitely
that link i can think of So regarding teachers,
I think the main thing there was science, particularly
chemistry, had lots of interesting experiments.
And if you're a 12, 13 year old child, you're
going to say, wow, look at this. I mean, a classic
experiment I can remember is the applying heat
to a strip of magnesium. And when you do that
against a Bunsen burner, it would generate a
very bright light to the point where we were
told not to look directly at it to avoid, you
know, having, you know. temporary blindness or
anything like that and we're 12 13 year old children
i don't know what they were doing to be honest
but you know they're saying you know look to
the side of it just get an understanding of what's
there we'll take a video of it as well so you
can see what it looks like in a safer environment
it's things like that which are far more inspirational
because you get to see some really exciting things
whether it's blowing up whether it's sparkling
away whether it's some popping or things like
that another great example would be you know
the you know the teacher would you know produce
um some kind of hydrogen gas and then she would
get a match lighter and pop boom fire comes out
of it or pops and makes a very large popping
sound that again you know as a child it inspires
inspires you know crazy things like oh my god
this is crazy you know let's let's do that again
do that again and again so um For me, science
was a lot more interesting and exciting in terms
of the experiment, in terms of the content and
understanding, well, why is this the case? It's
all well and good saying, okay, yeah, fire plus
hydrogen equals popping sounds, but why is that
the case? And then you kind of get into the science
behind it. You look at things like your electrons,
your protons. I don't remember. I probably have
some chemists screaming at me right now with
that. That's kind of where that inspiration starts
from. So definitely experiments, definitely some
childhood games and things like that. I think
also, you know, when you, I mean, computers were
just coming around, were getting in popularity.
So I'm not that old, but, you know, I do remember
a time. before i was like i wasn't a child on
the internet all day long or anything like that
um you know i did play a video game but also
went outside at the same time i had a good proportion
of this so i think that'll get that again you
know you know it encourages you to think about
what exists on this virtual plane essentially
so um you've got you know you've got going outside
with your friends and the bikes and everything
but also you've got these these fantasies crazy
big screens and devices that you're looking at
and saying hey you know what can i do with this
and That itself is also really cool because then
you have to do everything from little things
like moving a mouse, keyboard, downloading stuff.
There's huge amounts of downloaded music, of
course, as we all did. Things like that. So all
these different things where you have experiments,
where you have introduction to new technology,
to general toys and interests. All of these linked
together to pushing towards science and STEM
-related subject areas. Teachers were inspirational,
I suppose. I had good teachers. They listened.
They were very, very good. But it really was
the experiments that were the cherry on top.
And were you working hard to study those STEM
classes? What did you do to understand what was
expected from you? Yeah, I think not just with
STEM, with all the learning, I think I'm much
more of a hands -on person. So if you were to...
I rarely learn things from podcasts, whereas
I will learn from... you know writing a blog
a lot more um so that's kind of the way i've
learned about things um it's by actually doing
actually trying it myself and actually attempting
to do it myself i get much better insights into
how how stuff works and i find you know watching
videos or reading books while interesting and
some of it does stick i think the most effective
form for learning at least for myself is just
trying it yourself and trying to get hand get
your hands dirty essentially um I think in terms
of the type of student I was, I mean, you know,
I think there are kind of two parts of this.
So there was a school work, which I was a good
student in the sense of I did all my homework
on time. I'd submitted it. I didn't get into
detention. I was a good boy. I didn't do anything
like that. But, you know, was I coming consistently
top of the class? No. Was I receiving, you know,
accolades and awards and things like that when
I was a school? Also no. I think for me, it was,
put it this way. When I was in year eight and
year seven and year eight. So when you were 12th,
13th. We used to receive report cards every single
term. And there were two columns in these report
cards. There was the attainment column and there
was the effort column. And my dad used to say
to me, as long as your effort column. is top
marks all a's he's satisfied doesn't matter what
the attainment is as long as you tried your best
then he's satisfied with whatever the attainment
is and if there is a really bad score there then
yeah we can look into things like tutoring maybe
some extra homework maybe some you know extra
classes things like that to see why why don't
you get it despite the fact you're trying so
my efforts were consistently high, almost always
A grades with the occasional B. The attainments
were kind of mixed everywhere from kind of A
to kind of B and maybe some Cs as well here and
there. So it was a bit of a mix in that sense.
But I think for me, it was about, you know, are
you trying hard to get things done? And if you're
not, then clearly you don't get it. Or clearly
this learning style isn't working for you specifically.
So that's kind of how things were back then.
What you're highlighting is so important. You
need to figure out what works best for you, for
your own studying approach strategy, if you can
call it like this. Whether it is listening to
podcasts, watching YouTube videos and taking
notes, reading your course again and again and
again, asking questions to your teacher, but
consistently practicing is a non -negotiable.
And this will help you get to the next level
wherever you are right now. Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely. And I think there's something which
is very specific about trying something yourself,
where if you observe somebody else, if you look
at somebody else doing something, then you will
get some insight into what they're doing. But
when you try something yourself, you will have
to do every single small activity. Every single
tiny little thing that has to go into a piece
of work or whether it's homework, whether it's
production of art or whatever, you have to know
every single piece. Everything from knowing where
to stand, how to hold your hands, how many times
you have to screw in a screw and how many times
you have to tighten it, what the material feels
like. All your little things add up. to the overall
experience. And you can't get that from reading
a book. You can't get that from just observing
somebody. You have to do it yourself. And I think
that's why, for me, learning by doing something
was always more effective than observing stuff.
I know there are people out there who are brilliantly
smart, who can just look at something and just
understand it immediately. But for me, it was
really just, if I really want to appreciate the
depth of it, then I have to try it myself. And
I think if somebody is struggling with something,
then you know then try to do it yourself essentially
you know if if you are you know if you're you
know something as simple as saying that's you're
playing a video game and you can't get past a
certain level well okay in that situation you
might go and you know watch a walkthrough and
then and then understand what to do but when
you go back to the game you don't have to do
it yourself you don't have to appreciate all
the little tiny micro movements that somebody
might make on the controller on the keyboard
to get to that result and so you can learn from
visual from reading and things like that. But
to get the full exposure, you have to try it
yourself. I couldn't agree more. And the video
game analogy is a fantastic example for our gamers
out there who are not yet reconciled with practicing
after class hours. So something you mentioned,
which is super important as well to remember,
by doing, you will also realize which area, classes,
you prefer. If it remains challenging, it does
not mean that you won't succeed or you're not
good at it. It could certainly know that it requires
some adjustments and that more practice could
help you get to the level you aspire to, what
is the next level, or a decent one. Faz, I do
have a last question on your early teenage years.
As I know you are being in sports, were you practicing
any other time? Oh, I love sports. I love sports.
I think at the time... not as much so you know
you would you would we have physical education
classes as part of the British curriculum so
I would play rugby football rounders do cross
-country runs things like that um hate cross
-country runs but hey uh you know I enjoyed in
hindsight I enjoyed rugby I suppose football
I enjoyed rounders I enjoyed and all the different
racket sports as well I think I was quite a short
child and i'm taller now but i was quite relatively
speaking i had my growth spurt was a lot later
so for me you know a lot of these sports were
you know obviously physically demanding you're
surrounded by much taller stronger stronger boys
and so you do get a bit ruffled around here and
there which is you know it's part of the game
part of the fun i suppose um but it is uh it
wasn't something that i was that good and too
keen at the time fast forward today love sports
regularly play squash cycle all the time love
badminton um you know i'll i'll you know if someone
you know plays football i'll happily join and
things like that so um definitely a lot more
into sports today than i was back then but that's
probably just because when i have glasses i probably
couldn't see the ball too well um wasn't as big
as the other people there so you know wally wasn't
that good at rugby in that sense although i was
fast enough to get around people and uh yeah
i suppose i found my calling with you know road
racket sports and things like that where it's
much more controlled it's much more specific
and much more uh it's very specific skills very
bespoken that sense and sports teach you so much
from team spirit resilience pushing yourself
trusting yourself believing in yourself and having
fun so to wrap up on your early teenage years
do you have any advice beyond everything you
already shared so far you have to always keep
trying you if you if you stop trying you stop
learning if you stop learning you stop progressing
and the one thing that every single teenager
should know is that you are in your formative
years there is so many years ahead you might
think that high school was the worst thing in
the world you know you hate it etc etc you hate
your teachers you hate your classmates you hate
the homework etc but actually just try and put
a bit of effort into it because when you you
know five years later ten years later It might
seem ages away, but actually now that I'm here
in that situation, it felt like literally decades
ago now. So always try or keep trying and trying
and trying. I think the other thing I'd say here
is if failure is okay, I think people often get
terrified at failure. And I think... when we're
teenagers failure to us is like getting a getting
an f on a paper or getting zero percent or you
know not doing well in a school test and yes
it's important you should study and everything
but actually you learn more from the things that
are wrong and from the things that are right
on your marking sheet and so just because just
just because you do badly in something doesn't
mean that you're incapable it just means that
And in that moment in time, you maybe weren't
there. But now that you know what's wrong, you
can now improve. And maybe the second time you
do it, you'll be much better. I mean, just try
this. Do an exam paper. The first time, you might
do okay on average or whatever. Do the exact
same paper again, and you'll do way better. And
you know how to apply it in a better way now.
So the more you try something, the better you
get at it. And the better you get at it, the
more confident you'll feel about these things.
You should never, ever stop trying. You should
never, ever stop learning about these things.
That's my advice. Keep trying, keep trying, keep
trying. And failure is more than okay. And I
think if you keep both of them in your head,
you will be able to reach your potential, what
you're actually able to do. Thanks, Faz. That's
incredibly helpful. Can you now tell us a little
bit more about your high school years or late...
teenage years, 15 to 18, I would say. What did
those years teach you? What kind of student were
you? Did you know what you wanted to do after
those years? Were you still interested in STEM?
So moved more towards humanities, which covers
more literature, history, philosophy, and arts.
So when I was younger, the ambition was to become
a nuclear physicist. i don't know i don't really
remember why there was such an obsession with
this but i suppose you know that i did enjoy
history as well that's one of the few humanities
that i did actually enjoy quite a lot alongside
stem so maybe it was just this fascinating fascination
of like stem in in you know war and history and
big big events like that so i think for whatever
reason i was quite obsessed with becoming a nuclear
physicist of some kind um obviously that didn't
turn out to be the case. Can't read that. I don't
know physics particularly well. Math is fine,
but physics is not so great. So that plan obviously
was crap. But I think STEM was kind of my go
-to from throughout primary and then early secondary
school and then towards the kind of middle part
of secondary school and towards the later stage,
it kind of moved more towards humanities and
social sciences. mostly because the maths got
more difficult mostly because the things I just
didn't understand it as well and humanities just
made a bit more sense in terms of it was more
practical to me as well so obviously physics
and maths I have a passion for very interested
in it but I'm more of a amateur enthusiast of
it rather than being an academic or being very
deep and studying it properly in a conventional
sense the obviously over time I kind of moved
towards more business and economic related stuff
over time. So I think the key difference here
is that, you know, STEM tends to have this characterization
of being right or wrong. You know, one plus one
equals two. It can't be anything else. You know,
this particle does this. And, you know, that's
how the world works. So, you know, accept it
or don't accept it, but that's what happens.
So there's very, very hard specific lines around
what is and isn't true, what is and isn't right
in STEM. Whereas in humanities, things are far
more subjective. And so the, and typically the
subjectivity comes from people. because you're
because humanities are talking about you know
people interacting with other people essentially
so you know you take something like history or
what is history well history is just people interacting
with other people and then doing stupid things
and then leading to all sorts of weird events
take it take business or economics again this
is just people interacting with each other one
is for you know trade one is for uh you know
starting a business or something like that and
so this movement from trying to know what is
right and wrong in definitive terms like in maths
and science moving over to humanities where you
actually have this people component to it and
so you actually know actually what should what's
the price of xp well who knows who knows it can
be five pounds five euros it could be ten it
could be two you know pick whichever one you
want and that becomes a lot more interesting
so for me there was always this link towards
at least particularly maths but it became more
of a people -oriented thing. So why are we using
maths? How are we using maths? People use maths,
not maths isn't there for the sake of it. We're
using maths to do things with it. So what is
that? And how can I learn more about it? People
use math and you are trying to understand the
dynamics around it. It's so interesting. And
it explains also your higher degree orientation
after high school. But how did you make the shift
from wanting to become a nuclear physicist? And
I'm curious to understand. what other elements
outside of school or within school impacted your
choice? Yeah, I'll be honest. I think this comes
from video games. So I was a massive Minecraft
fanatic. I loved the game so much. I played it
every single day. I remember when it came out
in alpha mode. So I had it really early on. And
Minecraft is an interesting game because it is
very... mathsy in the sense of you have 64 stacks
of blocks you've got um you know you have certain
number of steps every single block is one meter
by one meter or whatever so there's a lot of
numbers involved but it is fundamentally a social
game you are building a world you are you may
be playing in multiplayer with other players
and things like that and that's where you kind
of have this transition from being a purely oh
i must get x number of or 64 number of blocks
or whatever to you know i'm gonna i'm gonna build
something and build a house and a base with my
friends now so you have this link between numbers
and stem and and kind of moving towards a more
social element of these sorts of things so i
think that's definitely probably how i kind of
moved over just from a social element i think
on top of that i watched a lot of youtube as
well when i was back then and uh a lot of kind
of mini documentaries and a lot of um uh kind
of interesting um channels were out there not
new channels but infographic new channels that
are quite abundant nowadays um you know the classic
ones like wendover productions box i think they
weren't there at the time but there were similar
types of channels back back then um those were
really interesting to me because they promoted
themselves as being these very objective scientific
uh videos when actually they were very subjective
in terms of what the what the topic was so you
know topic would be something like you know how
do you build the biggest uh plane or something
like that well, okay, you know, that's, that's
interesting. It's an engineering video or whatever,
but you know, there's a lot of subjectivity around
that because you can always put the bigger plane
or, you know, maybe it's the biggest plane by
this company or by this, uh, or this type. And
so, you know, it became a lot more, I think the
storytelling aspect of it became a lot more interesting
to me. So that's how that, that's how that transition
went from kind of core STEM. and kind of going,
you know, numbers, science, things like that,
moving into that kind of social element of it
behind the scenes saying, you know, well, why,
you know, how does this stuff even come out to
be? Who discovered this? Why did they discover
this? Why were they looking into this, et cetera?
And then you kind of muse that and to move on
into more social science -y stuff down the line.
So the numbers and the social aspect of the game,
whose parents could have guessed the impact on
your major thanks to video games? From what you're
saying, you have been highly curious since your
early teenage years. Do you know how come? You
are questioning yourself. I'm sure most kids
are just playing Minecraft. They did not connect
the dots at the time. How does someone become
curious? How did you? Honestly, I think it's
probably the Lego. It's probably the Lego. I
mean, it's one of those toys where, you know...
your imagination is really what drives it so
you can build anything and the thing is you can
have a bunch of lego as a child you can build
something really really ugly but it doesn't matter
because what the imagination is of the child
so if i build like if i use three blocks to build
a plane that's a plane in my mind It might look
like three blocks to you, but it's a plane to
me. It's got all the details of the plane, in
my mind at least, where it's got the engines,
it's got the rudder, it's got the wings, it's
got the cockpit, all the different things. So
I think that as an essence, you know, in a physical
world, Lego is probably the most imaginative
tool out there. So, you know, maybe they could
sponsor the podcast or something like that. But
that's kind of how I see it. And then you have...
other kind of sandbox games so these are things
like minecraft um and other games where you have
to just express yourself in whatever way you
want so yeah you have some specific things that
you have some specific missions you have to do
here and there but really it really is your world
that you can do whatever you want in and that
is a it's both terrifying and it's completely
freeing at the same time because now all of a
sudden you have to you can build whatever you
want you can do whatever you want And there's
no restriction, no time restriction, no resource
restriction, nothing that can stop you from doing
whatever you want. So I think in those kinds
of games and those kinds of activities is I think
what is probably the root of the curiosity and
inspiration of that. So that's where it probably
starts. I think the other part of it is, I think
my, you know, my upbringing was also very positive
in that sense where, you know, we were always
taught to think, always taught to understand,
not just. we weren't told to do things we also
asked to think about why we're doing this as
well so though that again is is a part of the
curiosity aspect because it's not just a matter
of well you should you should be good well why
should i be good well you know you because it's
nice because it's kind to people you want to
see you want to promote good good things across
the community you want to uh you know be respectful
you want to build a community around that is
more positive and and it feels good to yourself
as well you know all you do all these things
and so many more so Those are the kind of places
where I think you get curiosity coming from.
You have the games from childhood, you have types
of things you're doing with, and I think most
importantly, just talking with people as well.
You know, every single person has a fascinating
story behind them. And the more you interact
with people, the more curious you become because
you learn more about different experiences, you
learn more about different people, and that goes
on and on and on and on. Call to action here
to parents and to the younger generation. First.
play video games like Minecraft, you will not
only develop a strategic and creative mind, you'll
also develop your curiosity. And the second thing
is to be supportive and stimulate that curious
mind. Surroundings and upbringings can play a
big role. Yeah, it's a combination of all the
little things that have combined together to
become more curious as a person, I suppose. And
do you remember an advice you received at the
time? Do you have an advice yourself looking
back? It's a good question. You live in reality.
You don't live online. As much as they may not
see a separation between the two, there is separation.
And we need to understand this. And so, you know,
the internet is a beautiful thing if you use
it properly. But I feel that they haven't been
taught the proper etiquettes and proper ways
of using it in a way that's most effective to
them. So my advice to any high school student
is... find some find a project or interest and
just go all in on it and just see what see what
happens um doesn't have to be anything overly
complex but if you just do a series of small
interesting projects that can be really really
good because you can use your time one of the
reasons why i like lego so much is the fact that
you have to build something then you complete
it and then you start again you build something
else and in a way thinking back they're kind
of mini projects on their own right just on your
own terms really but you are building something
tangible out of it and so find something that
is bothering you and try to come up with something
that would fix it i mean a good example of this
could be something like you know you might have
um if you're into computers or computer science
you know you could for example get um uh you
know lights fairy lights or whatever around your
room and try to create a program that the lights
change based on the weather outside. So if it's
raining, they change to blue. If it's sunny,
it changes to yellow. Something like that. And
there's loads of existing code out there that
can support that development. It's not a brand
new thing. But it's just the fact that we were
able to write the code, write the program, install
the lights and everything, all the little tasks,
they add up and they generate a valuable skill.
And the younger you do this, the better. So that's
an example of a nice, fun little project that
makes your room look nicer. You gain a few skills
in terms of coding. And if you like it enough,
you might do more of this kind of stuff. And
if you hate it, fine. That's okay. At least you
know now. I think, I think doing more physical
things as well, you know, and not just like sports,
but also arts and crafts, you know, um, not finger
painting, obviously, but, you know, painting
itself, uh, you know, um, writing with a bit
of pen and paper specifically, not just, not
just, uh, typing on the keyboard. These, these
might seem quite old fashioned traditional things,
but actually they develop little things like
motor neuron skills when you're in your hands.
So you become much, much better at using your
hands properly. Um, there's something about.
you know touching paper when you're painting
something which is something much more spiritual
much more impactful than say um you know just
drawing something on an ipad in my at least in
my in my view at least so start to connect more
with the physical world rather than being obsessed
with things online because this is actually i
think part of the problem that a lot a lot of
a lot of young people are facing and to no fault
of their own by the way i think they just pushed
onto this so i'm not having a dig at the young
people themselves i think you know i would probably
do the same if i had a phone at 11 or 12 i'd
probably do the same to be honest so um yeah
you know go outside you know experience the world
for what it is and and um breathe in breathe
out those are brilliant advice files and there
are so many takeaways i'll just highlight two
now and to quote you first Try to find something
that is bothering you and go fix it. And I think
it's a brilliant call to action and fantastic
mindset to have from as early as you can, basically,
and from as early as you can. Using the tools
and countless access we have, find what sparks
interest, passion, and move on being at the mercy
of scrolling and trying to leverage those tools
to make your life more interesting. more exciting
and the second point is doing more physical things
writing sports painting develop and create that
constant balance between working on different
projects as well as developing your physical
and mental strengths and capabilities the combination
of both and i will repeat that in every single
episode that i'm doing is it will give you a
chance to learn to try to fail and grow And at
the end of the day, it will also allow you to
understand what works for you, how capable you
are, and what meets you. I've got a couple other
things as well there, actually. So there are
little things that you can do, just probably
in your local community. So volunteering at a
local charity shop. is a really interesting experience
i wouldn't do it i wouldn't do it as a job necessarily
i mean you can do it as a job and get some get
some money for as well but you know if you're
just volunteering you might have to do things
which are completely that suck a lot to be honest
but i actually think those that's actually where
you grow the most so you know are you stacking
shelves for example are you manning the till
are you You're making furniture and helping customers
buy and trade things. Are you in the stock room
checking things and ticking things off? These
are boring tasks. I fully accept this. But when
you do them yourself, you appreciate the world
around you a bit more and you understand what
responsibility means. And you can't really fake
it as much. Whereas if you were to try and do
your thing entirely by your own. you're doing
it in an unstructured fashion and i think it's
quite difficult for young people to get into
because you're in school day long you have you
know 8 a .m starts 9 a .m start you finish at
3 p .m 4 p .m or whatever and so you have this
very very big structure attached to you and so
trying to do something independently entirely
on your own can be quite difficult at times so
maybe look at you know getting a doing some volunteering
on the side can be a pay job as well you know
um could be helping you know if your parents
are out of other business maybe help out there
as well if you know already um Or even something
as simple as, you know, going around to your
neighbors and offering them tea, you know, making
them tea or, you know, or doing a charity run
or something like that. I think these are little
things that you can do just to separate, again,
get out of the house, do something that's actually
impactful for the community and just add a bit
of variety into your life. This is a brilliant
addition and advice. You learn so much from those
experiences and we're still talking about the
early teenage years. In most countries, you're
not allowed to actually properly work. So getting
this volunteering experience will not only allow
you to be exposed to new skill set, knowledge,
understanding of the world, of the expectation
of a working environment, even if it's fully
volunteering. And giving back is one of the best
experiences you can have. Learning how to help
your own community, your local community or wider
communities, I think, is absolutely life -changing.
I think it also allows you to interact with another
generation, so people from outside as well, from
your close circle, so you will learn from them.
It will be very enriching. And also, you mentioned
it earlier, it will allow you to become more
curious, trying to understand more of what's
happening around you and outside of the school
doors and your home. Let's now discuss your undergrad.
You explained to us why business and economics
were of interest to you. Were your teachers inspiring?
Did you ever think about changing your major,
your path? What did you like the most about that
curriculum? And tell us a little bit more about
that experience. So when I was in year 10 and
year 11, so doing my GCSEs, it was a requirement
at my school that every single student would
do business GCSE. And the reason... a little
bit more what it is so so business gcse this
is just looking at um this is a general certificate
for secondary education and this is the first
major exam that a student in the UK will do and
my school and normally schools in the in the
UK they will have a specific type of subject
area that they specialize in so you might have
a language school and so they'll force every
single student to do at least one language as
part of their GCSEs whereas my school that I
went to forced every single student to do business
and that was probably the first formal time I
understood what business actually was. And I
enjoyed it quite a lot. The other part of it
was there was a competition that I took part
in called the Stock Market Young Investor Challenge.
And this was run by the Institute for Fiscal
Studies, which is a... you know a large um economic
slash finance think tank in the uk but the point
being is that this this was the first time that
i got any kind of insight into economics into
financial markets and into that sort of world
that existed i liked it so much i was good at
it to the point where i used to get a's and did
really well in the competition etc Then I then
did economics in my A -levels, which is the highest
tier of education before you do a degree in the
UK. Did economics, did really well there. Did
some maths alongside it as well. Got a lot more
stuck into it. And I found things clicked a lot
more for me because it explained how the world
worked around me as well, for better or for worse,
for that matter. And then I decided, hey, I wasn't
good enough for physics. I tried A -level physics,
couldn't do it, dropped it as a subject, decided
to do double down on maths and economics instead.
And so in my mind, it was, you know, do what
you're good at, which is, you know, economics.
So that's why I pursued that a lot more. I often
like to give economics this interesting announcement,
which is that it's the, at least in retrospect,
I think it's the highest respect degree for the
least amount of effort. It's got a perfect ratio
there. Whereas if you were to say, do law, medicine,
any STEM subject, or even any kind of other social
science, like history, there's a lot of essay
writing in history, for example, you know, that's
high effort, high respect. I'm picking, I'm being
quite lazy. I'm picking, you know, high respect,
low effort. So it was a bit of a, it's a bit
of a cheeky one, I suppose, in that sense. But
I think economics for me, it explains why things
are the way they are. oh, the world works like
this, this is a good thing. It's like, no, the
world works in this way because our incentives
are this way, because society has decided to
set itself off in this way. Oh, and because we
need capitalism because we need to eat and we
need to make money and all that kind of stuff
as well. So it explains in lots of detail why
things are the way they are and why it's so difficult
to change them as well. and what drives a value
inherently drives value i mean if you have five
of something that's quite rare if you have a
million of something that's not rare at all and
so the value of the thing that is only you have
five of is obviously a lot more than the one
that you have a million of so um you know it's
the classic phrase if money if money grew on
trees it would be as worth as leaves so they
um you had this very nice kind of scene of transition
from you know doing business and doing competitions
in GCSEs, doing A -level economics more formally,
then moving properly into an undergraduate degree
in that subject area, which combined a lot of
these different things around business, around
maths, and general curiosity around how people
worked. And that's what economics is in a nutshell.
Oh, you did mention that you're enrolling in
a competition. How do you build the confidence
to do so? Well, you get confidence by trying.
It goes back to what I said before. If you do
something for the first time, you will suck at
it. That's just how it is. It's very, very unlikely
that you will be good at something the first
time. And that's not because you're bad at it.
It's because you haven't trained for it. In fact,
ask yourself, you know, the first time that,
say, you know, a football player kicks a ball,
will they score a fantastic goal? No, they won't.
It'll be terrible. But by doing it again and
again and again, you get better and better and
better. And if you train it enough, then you
will become excellent at it. Now, yes, there's
a bit of talent involved and things like that.
But I really do believe that if you put your
mind to something for a long enough period of
time, you're guaranteed to get to a very good
standard at this. And only the last 5 -10 % is
raw talent, I suppose. But beyond that, you can
get really good at lots of different things just
by sheer practicing it. And in some things, you'll
be really quick and really natural to it. Other
things might take a bit of extra time, but you
just have to try and see what works. It really
is a trial and error thing. So to get confidence,
you need to just put yourself in there and see
how it goes. And don't fear failure. competitions
yeah they're competitive that's what competitions
are but you know are you going to win every single
competition well no you're not so it's okay so
so you know go go into these competitions not
not just with a kind of i want to win mindset
and that's fine to have but also go into it and
say well have i learned anything new from here
will i gain anything valuable from this experience
and am i pushing myself to learn more have those
other things as well you know, because if you
win, but you didn't, you know, I could, I could
win. Anyone here could win a competition for,
you know, primary school students, you know,
but what's the point of that? Um, it's not, there's
no fun. It's no competition. It's too easy, but
we do want to get, we do want to win this tough
competitions because that's where the, that's
where the more excited things are. So, um, that's
kind of a big thing. I think the other thing
with confidence is believe in yourself that you
can do it. And that might sound very cliche and
very obvious, but I think a lot of people think
to themselves, oh, I can't do that. Oh, I'm not
good enough. When actually your mindset should
really be around, your mindset should really
be, of course I can do that. Of course I can
do that. You know, so I will do it just to prove
a point. I think that's a much more effective
way of thinking about things rather than trying
to discount yourself and say, no, actually I
can be amazing. I will be amazing. Let me try
this and prove it to the world. that gets better
results in my opinion and when i've had that
mindset and different things it might go horribly
wrong but at least i tried at least i learned
something interesting from it and when it is
when it does go well amazing i just proved myself
right i proved myself proved the world i'm right
as well so um so yeah so it just comes down to
just you know just pushing yourself in there
a lot of competitions also have teams as well
so if you're not you know pair with your friends
do that as well you know no no shame in fact
it can be a good thing as well because you'll
learn from each other you'll bounce ideas off
as well so you know you don't have to do everything
alone you can do it in teams you can do it in
you can do it on your own as well um or you can
do do kind of easy competition and build yourself
up from that from that side as well so you know
pick a competition that you know you're more
likely to win or do well in and then build up
from there so but you just have to start you
just have to get stuck in I couldn't have said
better, Faz. Thank you. And I would love to just
quote you and repeat what you just said. You
said two things first. It's not that you're bad
at it, it's that you haven't trained for it.
The second thing you said is, will you win each
competition? No, you're not. And to understand
better what Faz just said, think about the reality
of athletes. They are competing, but they are
not winning all the time. And we saw it clearly
during the Olympics. So if you don't understand
what Fass meant through this, watch again your
country's involvement in the Olympics. Look at
how hard they were working and willing to compete
and knowing that they could potentially win as
much as they could potentially lose. But they
just went with this mindset. Again, going back
to what Fass just said. just i can do that i
can try and will i learn something new what will
i gain in terms of experience again to go fast
there's so much to gain from that going back
to your undergrad fast how are your marks what
did you learn from those years i was a better
student at university uh did very well in first
year and did okay average in in second year and
then did pretty well in my final year as well
um i think the I think the key thing for me at
university is that university has two aspects
to it. You have the degree aspect. So why are
you there? You're studying to get a degree out
of it. And then you have the other part, which
is the experience part. You are there to develop
as a person because university is the last place
where you will have a controlled environment.
It is the last place where you will have an environment
where you can fail with the safety net. that's
that's that's what university offers you because
if you mess up you know yes your parents aren't
there yes your family isn't there your friends
aren't maybe your friends are in different places
but your university is designed as a organization
and as an institution should i say to support
you so that's from every aspect that's from housing
from financing from um from taking risks and
all these different things you know that's what
university's job is it is to cultivate youth
and make it not just productive members of society,
but critical thinkers as well. That's the purpose
of education. And so, yes, you have your degree.
Yes, you should become an expert in that by getting
your degree. But you need to explore. everything
that you can, that a university has to offer.
And I think that's what my university experience
was like. So yeah, I did the assignments. Yeah,
I missed a few lectures here and there. You know,
yeah, maybe you could have studied a bit harder,
got a bit of a higher mark or whatever. But I
did enough. I did my part there to get the grades
that I needed. And then I, but I also prioritized
a lot of extracurriculars as well on the side
as well. So you have these two aspects to university
that you need to consider. University is designed
to support you. Do remember this as you start
this new year. Go all in and embrace learnings,
failures, whatever you want to call it, and embrace
growth. Fast, tell us a little bit more about
your own experience. You won awards, you built
projects, joined societies, and built even more
from the ground up. And you went all in yourself.
What did those years teach you? It taught me
I have a lot more time than I think. 24 hours
is actually quite a lot of time. And if you know
how to use it effectively, you can do a lot of
stuff, a lot of stuff. So that's the first thing.
So the way in which I think about my university
time is that there were kind of four different
categories. So you have things that I would do
with my department itself. So every single university
has a department that will teach you the subject.
And so I did a lot of work directly. with my
department. This included things like volunteering
for various experiments. So there were some game
theory experiments which I volunteered for. This
was helping out with becoming a course representative,
which means that I'm a student, but I will represent
the entire student class in front of the faculty
and in front of the lecturers and professors
to get their voices heard. There are module representatives
as well. For a particular module, you might be
the representative just for that module to make
sure that the professor hears the guidance and
hears the feedback from the students for that
particular class. So I did that as well. Then
you have kind of supporting the university at
various other things, like you can become a student
ambassador. So you can do tours of the university
for parents and younger students who may be interested
in joining that university. So that's kind of
the first part, things that are directly with
the university itself. Then you've got societies.
And this is the most fun part where you, societies
are fantastic because a good university will
have virtually any society of any kind. And if
it doesn't exist, you can create your own. And
that's the best part about it. So you are using
them to find like -minded individuals and people
with the same interests as you do to make friends,
to make connections. People I know have got married.
They found people, they got married with a society.
So it's really, really great stuff that happens
in these places. You meet lifelong friends. I
have loads of friends that I've met from, I talked
to today from these societies as well. And you
really understand and really hone in on a particular
interest that you have in a lot more detail than
you might think. Because some of the people in
these societies will just be obsessed with something.
And I remember, you know, I went to a blockchain
society event once. I knew nothing about blockchain
at the time, but the level of detail these guys
had was just ridiculous. And it was very interesting
to me. I was like, that's actually quite interesting
stuff you're looking at. Don't necessarily believe
in it, but that's a separate question, I suppose.
So that's kind of a really big, really big thing
about it. The third part of it is kind of other
things like internships, inside days. spring
week summer internships winter internships things
like that so anything that can give you a real
world experience around what life will look like
in a traditional white collar job that is i think
essential and it is best done when you're at
university because you're not going to work in
a particular place for the next 40 years or whatever
and you can get a quick insight into what types
of jobs and what types of careers exist out there
and so you know you should be looking at things
across industries across different companies
across different departments inside of companies
so you know i i did an experience at accountancy
firms i had experiences at an oil and gas company
i had experiences um you know also different
insight days at various banks technology companies
and a bunch of other places as well. And the
way in which they do things is very, very different,
even in the same industry as well. But also,
you know, you might think of, you know, let's
say you do a role such as, you know, let's say
you become an IT professional. Well, an IT professional
in an oil and gas company will be very different
from an IT professional in a bank, which is very
different to an IT professional in a healthcare
company or a pharmaceutical company. It's the
same role, but there's a very different experience
and different type of there. And you have to
talk to people in these industries to understand
how things work. There are loads of insight days
out there where you can get a one or two day
or even up to a four day experience in these
different industries as well. I think in the
UK they're called spring weeks most frequently.
There are internships that you typically do in
your second or third year. There are placement
years where you can spend a full year in a particular
company or doing a very interesting role. And
most of the time these are paid as well, so you'll
get money for it as well, which is obviously
great to have. Some pocket money for summer and
everything. And all of these things are there
to provide you with a perspective of how things
work in the real world. You're not there to change
things. You're not there to... disrupt things
you're there just to learn and see how the world
works and these are fantastic experience you
have to do and the fourth one and the final one
is personal projects so you've got your university
stuff you've got your society stuff you've got
your corporate stuff and those three are very
structured because you have a defined uh society
structure you have defined university structure
you have defined companies that do specific things
the personal projects is where you really shine
because these are things that you yourself are
passionate about that you want to do alone um
typically alone it can be with a few friends
these are things that you have complete control
over from start to finish so if it gets done
it's on you if it doesn't get done it's on you
as well nobody's there to check it nobody's there
to tell you off either you do or you don't and
i think that's where you really generate the
most amount of experience the most amount of
maturity when it comes to your university time
so I spent a lot of time doing things like I
created a conference company to kind of run events
for different things. It's called the York Science
Conference. There was a, I won a few awards for
something called the Proof of Concept Award,
which I, where I developed a student incubator
for students who are entrepreneurial ideas. you
know there were other things as well so you know
i i developed there was a student investment
club which i was part of as well which was a
lot of good fun uh you know we were investing
about 10 000 pounds of university money real
real money that we could just pay around in the
stock market had to get a lot of fun there as
well um it was things like that which pushed
me way further than any any degree could teach
me or any kind of society could teach me because
i had to do everything myself and so try so try
and do all of these different things because
when you leave university you want to look back
and say i had i used that time those three or
four years to its absolute fullest i got the
degree yes i got the marks i wanted But I also
made great friends. I've got lifelong contacts
with the university. I've based societies and
I created a nice culture and a nice community
inside the university. I got some work experience,
got a bit of money as well. I learned how the
real world works. And I have my own personal
project as well that I'm doing side on too. So
try and do as much as you can as possible. You
can do it. I think a lot of people think you
can do it. And just try to use your time there
to become a more formative person overall. That's
the big takeaway from that. You do have a lot
of time and absolutely agree, use it wisely.
Parallel engagements will teach you more than
classes would. And societies are a goldmine.
They're such an interesting opportunity. Use
them, the funds offered by the university, to
find like -minded people to make friends. Build
the society that you need if you don't find one
that aligns with your interests, values, passions,
anything. Thanks, Fass, for sharing. And looking
back at everything you did and shared, what are
the things that you would not do again and the
things that you would do again for sure? There's
nothing that I wouldn't do again. I'm genuinely
serious about that because there is... There
are so many interesting things that you can do
at university that I think, even if you don't
necessarily like it that much, that I still think
the experience is worthwhile just to have and
have it for your own eyes. I mean, a good example
of this is I attended a debate society event
once and I thought it was really interesting.
I wouldn't go back again, personally, but I thought
it was a good experience. The people were very
nice, despite being... in the actual debate itself,
which was good humor and everything. But I think
it was, so no, I wouldn't change anything. I
would do everything again, to be honest. I think
what was interesting for me was, is there enough
variety in what I'm doing? So, you know, there's
a society that's typically called Model United
Nations. I would strongly recommend anyone of
any subject do that. Not because you don't have
to have a particular interest in politics or
diplomacy or international relations, but they
have a very specific way of doing things, which
is that you will be given a brief on a particular
country and topic area. And then on the big screen
of the projector, they'll give you 30 seconds
to say your piece. And if you don't finish in
that 30 seconds, they literally take the mic
away from you or they start smacking the gavel
on the thing saying. no no no you can't do that
whatsoever shut up sit down it forces you to
think on your feet and to be very precise in
what you're saying because you only have 30 seconds
maybe a minute if we're really lucky maybe a
minute and a half or two minutes even but you
have to be very precise in what you're saying
and you have to be very clear about what what
types of things and types of points you want
to raise that is probably the best thing you
can do for your public speaking and for your
personal confidence because although everyone
stares at you you get that fear out of you the
more and more you do it and you will get picked
on so you might as well go there and you might
as well enjoy enjoy it while you're at it because
at the end of the day no one cares that much
they really don't after the after the event closes
so just try it see what happens and go on from
that side um i think so so that's kind of the
so for me it was getting back getting a variety
of experiences that matched the most and i think
for me society's were really enjoyable because
you were meeting people who you knew were already
interested in that area. So you didn't have to
second guess yourself. You're like, oh, why are
you here? Let's say you like Pokemon. Why are
you here? I like Pokemon as well. Great. It's
an easy conversation starter, just like that.
And if you go to the LEGO site, I was like, oh,
I like LEGO, you like LEGO. Okay, great. Now
let's have a final conversation about LEGO pieces.
Whatever, just nerd out. It's great. That might
not be your choice, but there will definitely
be something there. And that's the beauty of
societies. And I love the point that you mentioned.
If you don't see a society that exists, make
it yourself. Because I honestly guarantee you
there will be at least five other people around
who will join you and have fun with it. We had
a Taylor Swift society. I don't listen to Taylor
Swift, but that society was very popular, naturally,
and good for them. Great, you know, all the Swifties
are over there having a lot of fun. You know,
we had the Hat Society. People wore different
hats. Why not? Little things like that. They
can be silly. They can be fun. They can be whatever
you want. It's just about finding people of interest,
finding people that you can get along with and
just getting as many new experiences as possible
by talking to people, by doing interesting things
and by doing it in a safe and reliable format.
That's why it was all so good. I think for me,
the corporate experiences, they are very structured.
But the purpose of the corporate experiences
is to give you... a realistic view on what's
going to happen so you you need to have honestly
you need to have both so you have your side is
where you're a free spirit you can do whatever
you want have all the fun you will have all the
fun you like you have your and you have internships
and things where you're supposed to wear your
suit and tie supposed to do the job properly
it's assigned to you and you have these two different
worlds entirely and you need to find where you
fit in that balance some people i know love the
structure they like they want a corporate job
because they love they like the stability they
like the money they like the fact that it's very
predictable and that brings ease to that that's
absolutely fine other people like to go absolutely
crazy they want to go full society mode so they'll
become artists musicians these are kind of real
creative types and for them it's all about expressing
themselves producing fascinating interesting
culture literature music art etc that's great
for them as well you might be somewhere in the
middle between those two extremes and that's
also good as well so you have to get both experiences
so you can find which part of it which way you
lean more i probably when i was younger probably
lead a bit more to the corporate side of stuff
but as time has gone on i probably lead a bit
more over to the more creative side over time
so you know you have to do both and they're both
complementary and i wouldn't say that they're
not mutually exclusive you have to do both to
get a bigger picture and a wider picture of how
the world works Oh, that's so interesting. And
Model UN is an absolute fantastic experience.
You need to be precise, clear on what you're
saying, and such a great exercise for public
speaking, even if you have the fear of speaking
in front of hundreds of people or just five people
or two people. I think you just get to understand
that everybody's scared, everybody's confused,
no one has the confidence, but as... Faz said,
and other guests have said, you gain the confidence
from doing, so go for it. Maturity, consistency,
commitment. You do need so much to start building
your own thing. But where do you start to build
it? You mentioned the conference projects you
had. What advice would you give someone who thinks
about moving forward with their own projects?
So at my university, I went to the University
of York. And in my first year, there were a variety
of student -run conferences in different areas.
So there was the York Finance Conference, the
York Consulting Conference, even a York Law Conference.
And all of these conferences were student -run.
They were very successful. And I was looking
around at this and thinking, is there a science
or technology conference? And the answer was
no. And so I was like, okay, let me just do it
myself because clearly there's no interest in
this. let's see what happens so that was the
first point of inspiration where and i thought
i saw that there was a gap in the market and
i thought hey i don't study a stem subject i
study economics but you know i do have a genuine
interest in science and technology so why not
you know you know create one and it was a very
simple start it didn't cost me anything i created
a facebook page And I put a couple of job ads
on that. I created a nice job description saying
I need people to help me on marketing, finance,
operations, speakers, etc. If you're interested,
fill in this Google form and I'll get back to
you. And I put that across all the different
society Facebook groups that existed. I don't
know if Facebook is still used as much nowadays,
but that's how I worked back then at least. And
I just spammed it everywhere. on departments
i even went to departments i said hey i am creating
a science conference i would like students to
help me on this please can you put it into your
weekly news data so people can read it and come
come to me can i can i go into a lecture hall
well i would email professors and say hey can
i go to your lecture for the first literally
30 seconds Just make a quick announcement and
asking if anybody wants to be part of my team,
then scan this QR code that I have on the front
desk and reach out to me on my email. That was
very successful to the point where I got about
10 or so people to respond to those ads to build
out of my first team. And that first team was
very, very good. They knew exactly what they
were doing. The point I'm making here is that
it didn't cost me anything to put those Facebook
ads up or posts up. It didn't cost anything to
go to the various departments and ask them to
put it into a student newsletter. It didn't cost
anything to go up to a lecturer and say, hey,
can I do a lecture shout out or something? It
just took a bit of grit and a bit of time. That's
all it was. And a bit of creativity. But it didn't
cost me anything financially. And that's kind
of how it started. once i got the team sorted
then it became very easy to actually do what
a conference is which is all the classical things
such as you know you need to find speakers a
venue get some catering and all the things that
go alongside of it right and i think the thing
for me is that the interesting thing about it
was that there was a bit a level of naivety that
i had which is that i didn't even know what i
didn't know and so you know i i had this level
of confidence than I just did things without
actually thinking about the consequences. And
I got very good results from it. Whereas if I
had a bit more information about how the university
worked, I probably would have thought a second
time. But the fact is, I think what that taught
me is that you need to ask for forgiveness, not
permission at times, because you get much better
results. Whereas, you know, if you always ask
for permission, you have people always, put it
this way, people always have an excuse to shut
you down. It will always have very, it's very
easy to critique. It's very difficult to do.
And so, you know, in my mind, it was just, I
am a non -STEM student going up to a STEM department
and saying, hey, I want to build an event. Can
you help me? And they're looking at me and says,
eh, why not? is this health map i mean some some
departments said oh go away just go away silly
child you know i don't want to interact with
you but most of the departments that were very
supportive and we had some really nice uh interactions
with different different lecturers professors
who were genuinely really supportive for our
for our cause which was great to see um So that's
kind of how it kind of got started. And then
bit by bit, month by month, we kind of worked
as a team together. We found the speakers, we
found the venue, we found sponsors, we developed
a website, we developed all the kind of things
that you expect to do. And a lot of this stuff
is already out there on Google. You can quickly
search for it and stuff. It's just a matter of
doing the actual work. There is no shortage of
advice out there. But the biggest problem people
have is no one actually applies the advice that
gets given to them. If you actually apply advice
that's given to you, the outcomes you get are
so much better. I would go and check Google and
say, hey, you know, I want to make money from
this. How do I do this? And they said, okay,
well, you need to find sponsors. Okay, well,
how do I find sponsors? Okay, well, you need
to create a sponsorship deck. Okay, well, how
do you do that? Here's a template. Fill it out
with your own information. Okay, well, I did
that as well. And I kind of went every single
step of the way. I kind of asked myself again
and again, what things do I need to do to get
these things done? And when I did that, and when
I did all the action, and then I got a good result.
So I had a sponsorship pack. I had some good
marketing, good socials out there. A couple of
companies even reached out to me. and said, hey,
we want a sponsor. Great. Happily, I'm happy
to take your money from you. So yeah, we got
about £500 plus from one sponsor. The university
itself sponsored us with another £500. We had
a few departments sponsored us as well with a
couple of hundred pounds here and there. We had
a whole host of companies arrive and it was honestly
magical. It was honestly impressive for the first
event to get that many companies of one single
place of that variety as well, where you had
everyone from aerospace companies to... governmental
bodies such as the Royal Society of Chemistry,
Institute of Physics, things like that. You had
government departments themselves like Ferro
Science and others. You had private corporations.
So we had a sticker from Amazon Web Services
arrive from California, which was great to see.
It was a truly crazy time. My grades suffered
a bit of it. In fact, to the point where my grades
actually quite suffered quite a bit of it. I
probably could have got a far much higher mark.
If I didn't have the confidence, I would have
got a first in my second year, but I didn't because,
you know, there wasn't enough time to study,
basically. But I don't regret it at any point
because there were so many... things I learned
so many mistakes made and I had to do everything
from interviewing candidates for the roles to
putting the adverts up to doing the social media
to doing to finding a venue for free to managing
sponsors and relationships all these little things
that all that have are still serving me today
you know almost five plus years later so that's
why it was such a fantastic experience and it
all started from just seeing a very obvious problem
which was oh there's a finance and law conference
why isn't there a science one And I started from
there. Don't ask for permission, ask for forgiveness.
It's something I absolutely live by for professional
projects. And so just go for it. Because if you
wait for advice, feedback before starting, it
might prevent you from moving forward because
people will have a very limited understanding
of what you mean, your idea, your ambitions,
and it can be... due to so many different reasons.
So the idea is that just go, don't ask for permission,
ask for forgiveness, and you'll see what happens.
And thank you for your transparency on your grades,
Faz. If you want to do a lot, if you have to
do a lot, because you have to work part -time
to finance your study or any other activity,
you will have to make concessions, and it might
impact your grades. If you make everything happen,
that's absolutely amazing. But my advice to you
is to ask people who have graduated from your
program or are in a position you're aiming for
or surrounding you what you should prioritize
and where you should invest more of your time.
I just want you to know that it's incredibly
challenging to find the first job you're interested
in. without having a minimum of experience, whether
it's internship or a part -time job in a professionalizing
space. And to almost wrap up on your university
years, Faz, what advice do you have for first
-year students or someone going through their
undergrad as we speak? Ooh, so my advice does
change depending on... at what stage of university
you're at. So if you're about to start or you're
in your first year, do everything you can, genuinely.
There's no shortcut to this. You have to participate
in as many activities as possible, especially
if you're in your first year, because that's
when you have the most amount of time. I mean,
most people in my year, we got first class degrees
in our first year. with very little ease you
know it was it was it was very easy to get those
to get those high marks because a lot of the
information that we had was studying were just
from my a -level exams and so for us we had loads
of spare time to uh not study but spend time
on societies and other things and that's the
best time to do it because at lots of universities
first year doesn't count at all to your overall
degree or it counts to a very small portion of
it like 10 20 20 max and so that's the time to
do it so if you're in if you're about to start
university or you're in your first year do absolutely
everything you can to to maximize uh the time
you're spending on campus and getting involved
in as many activities as possible if you're in
second year or third or like a middle year penultimate
year something like that um you know it is you
can still do a lot of different things i think
at that point you need to be a little bit more
targeted so you can't just do anything you want
you need to be a bit more specific in terms of
going for committee roles specifically so in
first year i would just do kind of a general
explorative mode in uh second year you need to
be on committee positions because that's where
you get actual experience and you need to do
a good job at it as well So you need to be on
the committee that grew your society membership
by 100 people, that you got money, you got over
£100 of sponsorship by the department or by various
companies of interest or things like that. You
need to be doing really well in that regard.
growth in social media and and and you know really
fancy events people are going to etc etc like
that's what your job needs to be done you should
be facilitating this and being and being the
uh the hands -on people doing this work so you
go from being an attendee to the events to all
to being a supporting organizer in final year
you should really be president of at least one
society or at least vice president at bare minimum
you know you have to uh you need to be in a leadership
position um you can do it as first you can do
it first second year as well but um you know
if third year is almost essential to have this
and so if you're going into if you're going into
the final year then find a leadership position
that you can take on in existing society and
and try your best in that world and show leadership
qualities in that sense um It's a bit too late
to start a society in the final year, in my opinion.
I tried that with one thing. COVID didn't help,
but it was very difficult. So by the time we
started, although we started it in September,
we didn't actually get it off the ground until
January, after our winter exams. And at that
point... COVID hit. And so we kind of, and then
after that exams have come around. And so you
don't actually get that much time. Most of the
society work happens over the summer during the
breaks. Well, that's where the most amount of
impact comes through because you're able to get
new students involved, able to do a lot of the
groundwork that will set you up for success the
following academic year. So that's kind of on
the society side. I think the other part of it
is your job as a student. is to demonstrate credibility
in your skill set. So you might be a programming
genius, but if you don't have any proof of this,
nobody cares, respectfully. So if you are doing
lots of interesting things, or if you have a
very good skill set, you need to have a portfolio
of some kind where you are doing interesting
projects, where you have outputs of this. The
easiest way to start this is by taking your dissertation
and making it into blog posts. That's actually
the easiest way to do this because all of a sudden
you become, because you should be an expert in
your particular area when you have a degree.
That's what a degree is for. And so that's, if
you literally are struggling for nothing, try
that as your first protocol. Make blog posts
out of your dissertation or your thesis. I think
other than that, there isn't really much else
you can do. um you can apply for jobs you can
you know do some internships here and there but
it really comes down to skill learning and skill
development and credibility and these both go
hand in hand and if you can't get one or both
then my hot take on this is you probably didn't
use your time effectively at university and so
there's not much you can do behind that unless
you were to do a bunch of personal projects that
were that would support this down the line or
you were to do a master's or do another degree
essentially so that's kind of the the reality
I think many people need to hear when it comes
to university life and experiences the only thing
I'd add to this is at least in the UK I am I
think I'm very well aware that you know you have
things like cost of living crisis and you have
things where these opportunities are not as readily
available because you just can't afford to do
it. So you have to then work a part -time job,
for example. Or you might have other responsibilities,
like caring responsibilities, that you have to
go back home to take care of people. There are
realities of life that can get in the way of
these things. That said, these things you can
change into a strength. They don't have to be
weaknesses. So if you are working part -time
in a retail job, That itself can be used as a
strength because you have punctuality, timekeeping.
You need to be working in a team. Sometimes working
in St. McDonald's is a very stressful environment,
actually. People make it a joke, but actually
it's a very demanding job at times. So I do have
a lot of respect for people who are in those
environments, particularly young people and students
who don't really have any other choice at times.
If you have caring responsibilities, again, it's
a very noble thing to do that, and you can make
it into a strength. don't make excuses because
even if you're in a situation where things are
not that great for you, you can still demonstrate
those skills and provide a rational story for
why you got that point. And if you can just do
one thing, one society really well, that can
be enough to tip you over the edge and give you
that extra boost that you need. So while it's
great to do as many things as possible, and at
least maybe when I was in university, it was
a lot easier to do a lot more things. Even if
you can't do all 10 different things, if you
can just do one or two, that goes a long way
over doing literally nothing. So the takeaway
here is whether you're doing your part -time
job because you have to pay your rent, your utilities
and feed yourself, or you have plenty of time
but you have not yet started to do something
in parallel to your studies, try to do something.
Do something and if you're doing something, try
to identify what kind of skills you're developing
and what... You will be able to present to a
job interview. Or what are you going to bring
to the table if you need to build your own thing?
So wrapping up those very important years. So
Faz, what did you do after uni? So my first job
at Strixfellow University was in Dublin, in Ireland.
So I moved abroad from the UK to Ireland. But
for me, it was just great to leave the country
and just particularly when I was that young,
you know, I'm 21, I'm in a new place. Why not
just experience, you know, the world in a different
place and just get, you know, there's no support
network, completely brand new place to me. I
can't run to my parents. There's no, my sisters
aren't around, you know, there's no cousins or
extended family I can look to. And, you know,
the closest way to get there is by plane. or
like a ferry on a very long train journey so
okay um you have to push yourself to a new limit
so i think that's kind of what happened there
so um my expectation was to join the finance
sector after i graduated um but that didn't happen
um for for for various reasons i graduated in
covid etc things like that so i was like hey
why not try something different I've created
a science conference. I have always been interested
in STEM and computer science, things like that.
So why not look at the tech sector as well? And
so I found a job at then Facebook, now Meta.
That was in their risk management and intelligence
team where you were analyzing social media trends
and you were coming up with solutions to very
difficult problems. And what did you learn during
your time there? Did you have any... mentors
sponsors someone who coached you yeah loads loads
i think it was i don't think i could have asked
for a better first job um mostly because it structured
my thinking in a much better way i'll give an
example so meta's whole thing is impact there
is an obsession with doing impactful things um
And that is the most important thing to the company.
And it's the most important thing, I think, for
any company to really have. A lot of companies
might focus on the hours you're working. They
might focus on how many days you're in the office.
They might focus on, you know, very trivial,
tiny little things like this. And that or how
many emails you're sending, how many messages
you're sending. These are not impactful things
inherently. What is impactful is, did you do
a particular task that led to... that help the
company achieve a particular aim. So if you're
in sales, are you making more money for the company?
If you're in operations, are you making things
more efficient and smoother for everybody? If
you're in a leadership position, are you inspiring
your team and motivating them and hiring the
best people around? These are the things that
drive impact. And Meadow is very good at explaining
this to its people, in my opinion. And it's very
good at... driving this into your head that it's
impact that matters not these tiny things you
know oh how many hours have you worked oh i worked
two hours but if that's two hours i made a company
a billion dollars great who cares because that's
what matters the most it's about the impact and
the metrics behind it rather than the uh than
the vanity stuff that exists so that was the
biggest thing that i learned from from my time
there In terms of kind of mentors and sponsored
things like that, I think the key thing about
this first job is that because it's your first
job, you have a clean slate. So although it internships
and things like that, I think I was looking at
it from a very corporate lens. from the banking
side, the currency world, things like that, where
I'm looking at it and telling it, oh, you know,
your logos need to be at exactly this, this dimension
in this particular corner of a, of a sly or whatever,
or, you know, you need to, you cannot use Excel
without a mouse. This is, this is a, you know,
a cardinal sin or whatever. So I'm looking at
it from that perspective and I kind of see, oh,
okay, actually the world is not that stuffy and
not that specific, you know, crazy. Um, you can
do things, you can, you can use a mouse with
Excel if you want to, um, you know, you can.
leave the office at 3 p .m if you have if as
long as you do your work and get everything done
and this is this is okay you can have a life
so i think that was kind of the the good thing
that i experienced which is it changed my perspective
in terms of what really matters here um i kind
of expand on that as well so a lot of students
will have particular ambition they might say
oh i want to become famous i want to become an
entrepreneur and on the surface i understand
where these things come from but you're looking
at it the wrong way. The aim shouldn't be to
get the label, to become an entrepreneur, to
become famous. The aim should be to do something
so interesting that people look at you enough
to make you famous. The thing should be you produce
a good or service that's so useful and so valuable
that people make you an entrepreneur because
of that. That's what... is that's what Mela taught
me around. Don't focus on the hours you work.
Don't focus on the number of times you're in
the office. Focus on what you're actually doing
behind the scenes and what's the actual impact
behind it. So ask yourself whenever you're doing
a task, what is the impact of this particular
activity? Have I helped people? Have I got money
for my society? Have I... grown my social media
accounts? Have I, you know, got more events?
Have I inspired a generation of children and
students to do some particular thing? Have I
improved the prestige of the university that
I'm at via the events I'm hosting? These are
the things that drive impact and what you should
be focusing on. And to wrap up on this episode,
Fez, do you have any last advice? I know you
shared so many throughout, but do you have any
last advice for our listeners? And to wrap up
on this episode, Faz, do you have any last advice?
I know you shared so many throughout, but do
you have any last advice for our listeners? Oh,
such a hard question. I'll go back to what I
said initially when I talked about success. So
I said at the beginning, don't ask what you want,
ask why you want it. to kind of expand upon that
a bit more you know ask yourself you know what
generates the most impact what generates the
the most amount of fulfillment contentment because
that's what all this matters that's where this
matters it's fine to have those accolades it's
fine to you know do crazy things and and have
fun and yeah and you should and you should have
fun you should enjoy your things are doing it
but you should be asking yourself you know you
should be doing this because you want to live
an interesting and fulfilling life and that's
where all this comes down to um there's so much
knowledge in the world there's so many things
to see and do and you are only barely scratching
the surface and you'll never have enough time
to see everything so you might as well just try
your best and see as much as you can talk to
people learn from people try things try as many
things as possible because something will stick
something will stick and When it does, you'll
find a true, something you're good at. And when
you're good at something, you'll actually enjoy
doing it and you'll become better at it. And
then, yeah, you can make money from it. You can
create a business from it or whatever. But I
think just constantly ask yourself, is this useful?
Is this impactful? And is this helping my community?
Is this helping? you know, my soul? And do I
feel more fulfilled from doing this work? And
this is not just monetary. This is in every aspect
of life. So don't just ask what you want, ask
why you want it. Amazing. Thank you so much,
Faz, for everything that you shared so far with
us and for your brilliant advice to close this
conversation. So thank you again for coming on
the podcast. Thank you for having me.