How To Break Through Limitations - Bobby Seagull On Council Estate To Celebrity Mastermind
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Hey friends, welcome back to the Deep Dive podcast. What you're about to hear is a conversation between me and Bobby Siegel. Now, Bobby is a maths teacher here in London, and he rose to fame and became a bit of a national celebrity after appearing on BBC's University Challenge, which is a quite popular quiz show. And he also recently won BBC's Celebrity Mastermind.

And since then he's managed to publish two books, "The Life-Changing Magic of Numbers" and "The Monkman and Segal Quiz Book." And he's now like one of the go-to guys in the UK, A, for all things maths and numbers related, but more interestingly, I find for listeners of this podcast, his whole spiel is about how we can level up our aspirations and our motivations and how we can kind of get the success that we want in life.

kind of regardless of our background and where we've come from by doing the things that are within our control to kind of level up what we can do in life. And he's really keen on all the growth mindset type stuff. He tries to encourage people that things like being good at maths is not like an intrinsic ability that we either have or don't have. And

almost anything is a thing that we can work on if we really want it enough. Anyway, the conversation kind of centers around this whole question of what is the ultimate linchpin for success? However you define success, is it innate intelligence? Is it privilege? Is it upbringing? Is it what school you went to? Is it what background your parents are from? And to what extent is stuff like willpower and grit and discipline, to what extent is all that kind of stuff involved in this equation for success? So in the conversation, we talk about the idea of privilege and the different types of luck.

We talk about the growth mindset and the fixed mindset. And we talk about things like intelligence versus achievement versus self-esteem. I found the conversation really inspiring. Like Bobby is one of those people who's at the same time, like super inspiring, kind of wants to make you motivated to like kind of work harder and achieve your goals. But at the same time, a very down to earth kind of guy who understands his privileges and where he's come from.

like really does a good job of keeping his feet on the ground while also being like a celebrity and stuff, you know, stuff that stuff that we all aspire to do. Anyway, I'll stop talking now. I really hope you enjoyed this interview with Bobby Segal and links to his books will be in the show notes and in the video description. Enjoy. Bobby, welcome to the podcast. How are you doing? I'm delighted to be here because I religiously listen to your podcast. Oh, no way. Yeah, that means a lot. 85% of them. I love them. So you're in my head when I'm commuting.

Quite literally. You and your guests. The guests, of course. Well, thank you very much for being on. We last spoke on a live stream, I think about a year ago, something like that.

ish when I was kind of dabbling with doing the podcast format. For people that might not know who you are, I wonder if you can just give a little quick intro as to how we got here and how you've ended up publishing these three books. Yeah, what's going on with Bobby? Yeah, so my name is Bobby Seagal. So professionally, I'm actually a part-time school maths teacher in a secondary school.

Although people that follow me on social media might recognize me from the quiz show university challenge, where I was captain of, uh, Emmanuel college, Cambridge, where we both studied. Um, and now I'm a TV presenter, uh, for road trip shows to the BBC, a quiz show host for channel four. Uh,

and an author and also work in personal finance because I used to work before I became a educator. I used to work in banking and chartered accountancy for about seven years. Nice. So what was your what was like your background kind of growing up to get you to the point where you ended up a banker and then switched to becoming a teacher and now became this like TV personality kind of vibe? So maybe we might need to, depends how far we're willing to travel back in time. So my parents live from a place called Kerala.

in southwest india and they moved to britain in the late 70s early 80s and they settled in east london which is why i'm a west ham fan actually i haven't got normally i've got some claret and blues black because you're big on the whole football thing i am but the scarf i wore here was claret and blue so yeah so they settled in east ham right and in fact you know i've born raised live in newham my whole life um so we went to we grew up in a council estate there um

then I went to the local secondary school I got a sixth form scholarship to Eton again that's going from East London Council of State where you wear Reebok Adidas Kappa and suddenly turning up with that gear to Eton like oh this is a again that was an incredible experience going from

I wanted to ask you about that. What was Eton like? Actually, let's rewind back. How did you get the scholarship? You must have been very genius. I hate the word genius, but we can come to that in a sec later on. Actually, so in our school, and actually at home, my dad was very keen on us reading. So he'd get us the Beano comic magazine. We'd get some knowledge-based magazines. We'd get the Times newspaper. And my school, St. Bonaventure, to be honest, it was a good secondary school in Newham. Although Newham at the time was a...

that really struggled in a school of like, I think there's 25 secondary schools in the borough, maybe one or two kids in an entire borough would get into Oxbridge. So clearly the sort of barriers were very weak at the time. But back then, my school used to also get the Times newspaper. And to be honest, I'm a sports fan. I should really read the comment section first. You know, the important business and world politics. But I always head towards the back, read the sports, read about West Ham, probably losing back then.

And then towards the back of the paper,

There was a section that had an ad that said, are you a bright boy? I'm like, yeah, I'm a bright boy. Are you from a state school? Yeah, yeah. Would you like a two-year life-changing experience? It sounds cool. Apply to Eaton College. I'm like, wow, this is cool. So I cut out. Back then, you had to cut things out. You cut it out, put it in a stamp address envelope, got a prospectus, went for the open day, applied for a scholarship, prepared for it, didn't expect to get it, and then got the letter, I got a scholarship. And to be honest, it's for...

You know, there's like sliding doors moments. You know, not just in my life, but in my family's life. That was probably one of those. And that opened up a whole new... How much are the fees at Eton normally? So nowadays, it's about 40 grand, I think. A year? 40 grand, yeah. Damn, okay. Because Eton is sort of like elite of the elite kind of private school and you got a scholarship for it for the final two years? Yes, the sixth form year. So they start, I think, equivalent in the UK, year nine. So kids are 13 to 14, right up to pre-university. Okay.

Interesting. What was that experience like? I've got a few friends who went to Eton, but I haven't really asked them what was it like. And I guess those are the ones who had gone there from a young age. But for you going from state school in East London to Eton, what was that contrast? So again, this is almost applying a...

from after the event, because Harry Potter wasn't quite big then, but it's almost like living in Hogwarts. You live in a boarding house with 50 other boys. There's a housemaster. There's a dame who's sort of the mother of the house. And for me, again, when people think of Eton nowadays, there is a bit of negativity. Think of David Cameron, Boris Johnson, and then they sort of tar everyone from Eton with that. But actually, I think most people at Eton...

have good intentions. In fact, I think the school makes a big effort to raise and train the young boys to be caring, considerate, think about people around them. But obviously you get the odd few that make a negative splash. But going there, I went there as a child without any sort of

even though I was someone that's academically well-read and an intellectual, I think perhaps I was a bit naive in terms of I didn't really think about the other connotations. I just went there thinking, wow, it's an incredible chance to go to this place where I get to live in this environment where there's football fields, there's swimming pools, there's golf courses. In terms, I never learned to play golf, but I learned to be a good caddy for my friend. Oh, excellent. So if you need a caddy, anyone, I've got those skills there. And I think it was just a place where

I think there were no limits on capability or your achievement because although again my secondary school was a very good one in the borough and I would always I'm actually sometimes people when they've achieved they'll often go back and say oh I grew up in a really you know in a terrible counter state and my secondary school was terrible no one achieved actually our school definitely said you can achieve but again but again in an environment where not many people go into the top universities it can still limit your ambitions I remember one of my secondary teachers in fact

I sort of kept in touch with him. He was telling me, Bobby, the maximum you can get is five A stars in the school. Maybe you can be a dentist, but don't aim more than that. And he was a teacher that believed in us in my state school. But when he went to Eton, suddenly they're like, oh, you can run your own business. You can be the prime minister. You can be the best-selling author. You can be a famous Hollywood actor. There was no limit to the sort of achievement that you could achieve. And does that make a difference to your psychology, I guess? I think it's...

I think humans, we can be our own worst enemies. We can set ourselves barriers before society does. Because sometimes people say, oh, it's my friends, it's my family, society. They say I can't achieve X, Y, or Z. But actually, I think we can internalize that.

and say, actually, because of those influences, actually, I shouldn't aim to go to a good university. I shouldn't think about Oxbridge. I shouldn't aim for a career, a conventional career in the city. I shouldn't try and become a doctor. So I think we internalize almost like the success of people around us. And there's like, I don't know who's said this concept, but I almost think that we average the experiences and experiences

of people around us. So if people that you spend your time with are very negative, very moody, have low self-esteem, we naturally average out, let's say, the five closest people and we take on that sort of the same traits. We take on low self-esteem. We take on a low view of ourselves. But if you're around people that think that the sky's the limit, that

actually then, okay, maybe you're not gonna end up reaching the sky, but you will raise your aspiration. - We're gonna take a very quick break to introduce our sponsor for this episode, who is Brilliant. I've been using Brilliant for the last few years, and they're a fantastic interactive platform with online courses in maths, science, and computer science. My personal favorites are the computer science courses. I think they're absolutely fantastic. And when I was initially applying to med school, I was actually torn between applying to medicine and applying to computer science. And I ended up going with medicine in the end, which I really don't regret,

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If any of that stands up your street, then do head over to brilliant.org forward slash deep dive. And the first 200 people to hit that link, which is also going to be in the video description and in the show notes, will get 20% off the annual premium subscription. So thank you so much to Brilliant for sponsoring this episode. So yeah, I fully agree with this. And there's a lot of stuff that people like Gary Vaynerchuk talk about as well, where...

You know, one thing I strongly feel is that, like, even if you can't change the environment around you or the people around you, you can, for example, change what you watch on YouTube or what podcast you listen to or what books you read or whatever. And...

For someone for example, you know just to use a very trivial example like for most people the idea of Starting a youtube channel or going on university challenge or writing a book These are pretty weird things to do But if you're listening to podcasts where which is interviewing the top 500 people who ever went on university challenge suddenly It's like oh actually this is this is fairly doable if you listen to podcasts where everyone being interviewed as an entrepreneur or a creator suddenly it kind of expands your box

And it kind of makes, oh, actually, that thing seems more doable. I remember this happened for me when there's a guy called Rolf Potts who's got a podcast where he talks about long-term travel with various people, people who have traveled around the world with just a backpack, people who have traveled around the world with nothing at all, men, women, all walks of life. And in my head, I always thought, oh, travel equals dangerous equals hard equals bad. But just hearing all these interviews made me think, oh, actually, this is quite doable.

So I'm a very strong believer in the idea that, like, if you change the stuff that you're being fed, like, informationally, whether it's with the people around you or the stuff that you consume, it does have the power to just change the way that you see things. But one thing that I really wanted to talk to you about, so your whole, like, a big part of your kind of inspirational spiel is kind of this vibe of...

you can do it too type thing. And, you know, Molly May recently came under a lot of criticism for basically saying the same stuff that, hey, if you set your mind to it and you work hard, you can do it too. And got a torrent of criticism

abuse, you know, justified or unjustified from various people saying that, well, you're privileged, you were born lucky, you're white, you went on Love Island, you had all these lucky breaks associated with you, you're part of this company that exploits people. All of this other stuff often I find gets in the way of the you can do it too kind of vibes. And I don't really know how I feel about this. Yeah, I wanted to discuss that with you. What's your take on the

and stuff versus the, yeah, we can all lift ourselves up by our own bootstraps. Actually, the Molly Mae, I remember it trending on Twitter. I'm trying to learn actually now not to constantly be on social media because it is, again, we talk a lot about Cal Newport and deep work and it can be quite distracting to have your socials ticking. Even though you think, oh, I sometimes think, oh, it's good. I need it for my profession. As part of my public brand, I need to be on social, but actually not all the time. But my students in school, we're doing a lesson in my year 11s

And one of my students suddenly said, oh, sir, you heard about Molly May. And I was like, I know what it is. Am I going to get distracted? I said, hold on. Towards the last five minutes of the lesson, we'll come back to that. I did come back and we had a discussion about Molly May Haig and what she said. And one of my students said, oh, how dare she say that, you know, all of us can achieve all the same 24 hours. She doesn't understand our conditions. And I think it's a case of Molly May Haig.

I think just got a bit confused because her underlying of like, we all have the same 24 hours mathematically. That's true. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and we can all achieve what we want if we put our minds to it. I don't disagree with that, but I think she just needed to be, you

You need to nuance it by saying there are privileges. For example, I have a privilege that I'm born and raised in the UK. My dad always reminds us, like he always has these stories where he tells, oh, when I was growing up, we had one TV in the whole village or we had one Cadbury's chocolate bar that we shared for Christmas and we all took a tiny bit. It was almost like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, you know, in the film version where you see them all like grandpa, like they got one chocolate bar. So my dad, as in fact, I think,

Acknowledging privilege is not something that comes instinctively to humans. It comes if people around you help to keep you humble, keep you grounded. And in our family, our father and mother, dad in particular, he's always not like intentionally, but always told us actually how hard his upbringing was financially, economically, but how he used his mind, his reading to develop himself. So in that sense,

It's always like check your privilege, acknowledge. Like for example, when I totally acknowledge I've had lucky breaks, I've had privileges of being raised in London. Again, I might have grown up in a council estate in East London, but I grew up with an earshot of seeing Canary Wharf. So having that as an inspiration. So I think it's a combination of

I definitely believe that all of us can achieve a lot more than we're capable of. And the concept of linking that to talent, sometimes people can say, oh, but Bobby, you know, yeah, maybe you had this disadvantage. You grew up in East London, maybe you're family immigrants, but you're clearly really gifted. And of course, I do probably possess above average intellect, but it's not that that's helped me succeed. What's helped me succeed is effort,

over a long period of time coupled with lucky breaks at the right moments. Again,

finding the ethan scholarship um applying for university challenge at that particular moment so absolutely you have to acknowledge the role that luck can play and luck has been important i think all of us have again your youtube channel it's incredible what you produce but you probably had those moments where you had this video that went viral like you can expect what was the video that for you that like suddenly yeah there was a video about how to study for exams okay and and that was the that was the one like suddenly things started blowing yeah no but like i guess so many lucky breaks along the way there was a collab i did with uh

Ibsmo in the early days where his channel was like 20 times bigger than mine. It's like, that was a huge, huge boost at the start combined with this video that went viral. Another video a few months later that went viral for no reason at all. I'm yeah, there's the, there's all this, like so many, so many lucky breaks that happen along the way. There is that thing of like the quote, the harder you work, the luckier you get. And, and there is a, there is a sense in which yes, there are, there are lucky breaks. There was this good blog post I was reading about how there's like different

different types of luck. I can't remember exactly what it said, but it was like type one luck, you know, is for example, sheer dumb luck, like the luck of winning the lottery or stumbling across a winning lottery ticket on the floor while you're walking. And like, no one can legislate for that kind of luck. But then there's another type of luck, which is the sort of luck that you get when you're, let's say, talking to 20 people a day. If you talk to 20 strangers a day, chances are something interesting will happen to your life.

And you might just happen to meet the person that offers you that next job, that offers you that big break, that is in charge of the scholarships at Eton, whatever. But the fact that you were speaking to 20 people a day where someone else wasn't means that you're far more exposed to that sort of luck. There's another sort of luck that you get by putting yourself out there. The fact that you've written books, the fact that you're on TV, you probably get a bunch of opportunities coming your way. One of those might be really lucky, but if you weren't in that public position, you might not have gotten that opportunity. And so I think there's a lot of like, you know, when people, I, I, I,

I don't know. I think there's a balance between acknowledging when luck played a role, but also that we actually can control luck to an extent and there are things that we can do about it. Yes, I think it's the case of when you talk about the harder I work, the luckier I get. I think there's definitely some truth to that in the sense of

If you increase your surface area, almost like, you know, like our lungs, the alveoli, if you expand it all out, it's what, the size of a tennis court? Yeah, something like that. Yeah. And so the lungs look small. But again, same with our luck. There's a surface area that we contact and engage with. If we sort of stay very instilla, okay, I could sit in a room for three years and come up with the greatest ideas on how to improve mindset and then publish the book and then hope,

Yes, people pick it up. But, or I could write and then constantly blog about it and produce YouTube videos and meet people and go to cafes. And each of these experiences and encounters exposes you to other people. And each of those engagements increases the chance of something lucky happening. Again, statistically, as a mathematician, if the chance of an amazing event happening is 1%, let's say, per day,

you need more days, more events, more experiences, more people. The more you increase the number of exposures, the luckier you'll get. So statistically speaking, actually, luck is something that is almost a factor of how much you're willing to put yourself out there. Yeah, I like that. That's good. So it kind of...

Coming back to you, so Eton scholarship, two years at Eton, and then you applied to university to study accounting, was it? So maths initially. So actually, this is where my story has a lot of interesting detour. So people often look at me now and they'll imagine a straight line success. Bobby has this perfect trajectory, constantly exponential growth, Y equals A to the X.

So in my gap year, actually, before I went to university, I spent nine months working for KPMG in the city. My dad's actually a chartered accountant. Actually, back then, I always thought...

I'll do something at university but end up working in finance. So I worked for KPMG for nine months and then did actually a couple of months of youth work in Edinburgh. So if anyone's ever seen the film or heard of the film Train Spotting, I think it's what gave Ewan McGregor his lucky break before he went into things like Star Wars. But Muir House is a very difficult, disadvantaged area in Scotland, in Edinburgh. And I spent two months doing youth work there.

And actually, I started my degree actually initially at Oxford doing maths. And people say, but Bobby, you're not a graduate of Oxford. And it's true, I'm not. So I loved Oxford, but I loved it too much. I think it's the case of till 18, 19, I'd always worked hard, been very diligent, very focused on my work.

And then suddenly I'm now 19 at university and all these societies, there's clubs, there's parties, there's the geological side, there's a debating society, there's sports. I think it's the case of at an early stage of my life at 19, I almost got overexposed too quickly. And in the end, I left Oxford and started my second year because I wasn't on track to get a 2.1. And back then my ambition was I wanted to go into investment banking. And investment banking is...

is quite cruel in terms if you're not getting a very high 2-1 or a first even for some Oxford or Cambridge you're not going to get into banking so I remember the conversation my parents at the time they're like Bobby you've worked so hard to get into Oxford and you're going to leave at the start of your second year are you mad and again a sliding doors moment I could have gone back to Oxford I might have ended up getting a 2-1 but I made a decision quite big for like a 19-20 year old say actually I'm going to leave Oxford because I don't think at this particular moment I'm going to get my 2-1 and I

And I changed, and again, I remember, literally, the term had already started at different universities. And I was like, where can I go to? And I was looking at Imperial. They're available, but Imperial said it's too late. You've got to come next year. And I was like, no, no, you can't take another gap year. We're going to blame the gap year for you losing focus. Math is one of the subjects where when you're young, your mind is at its most fruitful. If you leave even a year away from mathematics,

can sort of distract. If you're studying pure maths, which is what I did, and you distract yourself with the real world for a year, when you're looking at things like analysis and maths and you're looking at really pure, pure maths, you can look and go, why am I doing pure, pure maths? Yeah. So to start my second year, I made the big decision to leave Oxford and go to Royal Holloway. So maths and economics are sort of transitioning me further towards maths.

a Korean city one day. And so the reason you decided to drop out of Oxford was because you thought you wouldn't get a 2:1. Yeah, I wasn't on track. And with maths, okay, so if I, let's say, did history, and funnily enough, at Eton, I won the prize for being top of the year in history. So history was my story. Although maths, I came in at top five or six. Maths or history was my strongest subject. I've always loved the idea of looking at the past. Again, I think I heard V in your podcast talk about you can, you know, history enables us, if you're trying to understand the future,

whilst the past, as a good financial advisor will say, can't be a predictor of the future, can help you understand the reasons, the circumstances behind things. But being from an Asian family, history was not at the time. My dad, in fact, funny enough, in our family, my elder brother did maths at Cambridge. I did maths and economics and the next brother did

economics at Cambridge and the youngest one did politics, philosophy and economics at Oxford. So you can see slowly we transitioned from pure maths to almost liberal arts by the end. So had I been born younger by the younger siblings, my dad would have said, yeah, do history, fine. But being the first or second, no, no, maths was a thing, not history. But it was almost like quite a utilitarian, cold decision thinking,

I don't think at this stage with a maths degree, the history degree let's say you've not done so well in your first year and you didn't really quite understand 18th century European history

Second year is going to be about 19th century politics. Actually, that interests me more. Maths is a very foundational, pyramidal subject. As a teacher, I know that if students don't do well in year 7, 8, 9, GCSE, they're going to struggle. If they struggle at GCSE, A-levels will be difficult, even if you think, I'm going to start working really hard. And the same with university. If you've not really given...

due attention for whatever reason you have the second year is going to be very challenging so I actually it's maybe better to make the decision very difficult one especially with an Asian family to explain to your your parents your uncles the aunties Bobby's leaving Oxford why why has he got my mom was convinced I was bullied or something happened I know mom I absolutely loved Oxford but just it's almost like a an economic decision yeah because if I wanted to go into banking if

To get an internship, you need to be getting a 2.1, predicted 2.1. So it was a utilitarian decision. So with a family of ridiculously high achievements, surely it's very easy to levy the accusation against you with the whole, you can do it too. Well, you're just lucky you had a high IQ from birth or things like that.

Do you get that objection at all? A lot. Again, I try to tell people whilst talent, you have to acknowledge the existence of talent, other factors play a part. Environment, sort of the traditional nature versus nurture debate. Of course, we inherit genes from our parents and the genes will play a role, but our environment shapes us. Again, our parents, our siblings, our teachers, our friends,

Your own internal attitude your mindset, so I think it's a combination of the two but with me, of course I do acknowledge. Yeah, my if all four of us have gone to Oxbridge some there must be some sort of genes But all of us in our family have struggled at various times academically and there are times that we make the decision actually I'm gonna back away from this subject because knowing when to give up is a really key part of success of people because

a part of like a growth mindset that Carol Dweck, I love Carol Dweck's work, a professor at Stanford, she talks about the concept of, you know, we can have a fixed mindset where we limit ourselves or a growth mindset where we think actually failure is an opportunity to learn. But combined with that, you need to know when to give up, when to say, actually, this is not for me. In my family, we've always had that nuanced approach where we will work hard. Yeah, we can do it. But

there'll be times like actually maybe at this stage, yeah, I can do it. I've got an Oxford and start my second year. Actually, maybe at this stage, maybe I can't do it right now. So maybe I take a little sidetrack D route. So the growth mindset versus fixed mindset stuff is interesting because, and I don't know if this is just a function of the Kool-Aid that I've been drinking for decades or the people I hang out with, but I don't know a lot of people that are actually quite like fixed mindset-y. Yeah.

But like, do you come across that? Like, do you see that in your students that there is this demarcation between people who have a growth mindset and people who have a fixed mindset? And like, if so, what does that look like when you're a teacher? I think being a maths teacher or math for American international, I think it's annoyingly now.

I'm a maths teacher, but because I'm trying to develop an international audience, I call myself a math high school teacher. And I've had people on English Twitter like, Bobby, where's the S gone? It's maths. You're not a high school teacher, you're a secondary teacher. You're a sellout. Yeah, I'm a math high school teacher, but when I teach my high school secondary students, maths is one of the subjects where you absolutely see a differential of mindsets. Because with maths in particular...

There are so many students and teachers and parents that will say, ah, you either can or can't do it. A binary approach. Yeah. In fact, I've got an object for you. Oh, hello. So people often, I'll tell you what this is in a second. There's actually a 3D printed version of my brain. Wait, of your brain? Of my actual brain. It's quite small. Is it? Have a look, Kevin. May I hold it? Yes, you may. It doesn't look very good on YouTube. It sort of, it shimmers. On real life, it's more impressive.

Okay. So you have a 3D model of your brain. I'll explain this in context to mindsets. So the BBC has a science documentary called Horizons, and they do lots of things like looking at the benefit of certain types of diet and health and lifestyle. And they did a documentary on intelligence. Oh.

Oh, one of my favorite topics. Controversial topic. Yeah, very controversial. And they did IQ tests with lots of people and tried to find out what makes someone intelligent. And as part of it, they won a little five-minute section where they interviewed someone publicly known for their intelligence and knowledge. So they're like, who do we know? Oh, Bobby Seagull from University Challenge. And they said, Bobby's the archetypal intelligent person. You know, his television shows even call Monkman and Seagulls genius guides. So we're going to interview, I'm going to hit,

we'll come back to it. I hate the word genius. We'll come back to that. Again, if you're a listener on a podcast, I'm doing my inverted commas. So Bobby Siegel's an inverted commas genius. So we're going to find out, is there something physically different about his brain, about his connections? So I went to

Edinburgh University where they scan my brain where I've got this wonderful, again if you're listening, what's he got? He's got a 3D printed model of his brain and they try to understand is there something intrinsically different about my brain? And actually what they found was A, the connections are no longer

better, the sparks as it were were no quicker than anyone else's and B physically is actually a smaller brain than the average person's so clearly physically there's nothing going on there but again they said it's a normal healthy working brain, nothing exceptional nothing sort of deficient either, no, so just a very normal healthy working brain and this comes

to me in terms of when I think of the maths brain people often say oh Mr. Segal I have a maths I have a maths brain or more more importantly they say I don't have a maths brain maths is not my thing and I think the way I was trying to dispel this is when we're when we're born you know uh we're at a hospital uh

You know, there'll be a nurse coming around with a clipboard and saying, oh, let's check Ali. So Ali's got two legs, two knees, two eyes. Very good, good. But Ali, oh, I don't think Ali has a maths brain. Sorry, sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Abdel. He's not going to be a mathematician. He could be a medic, though. I think, oh, actually, maybe he could be a YouTuber. It doesn't exist yet, but there'll be this thing called YouTube. He could be a YouTuber. We're not born with a set of prescriptions that say we are able to do maths. We're able to write maths.

Of course, we've got physical variations. If someone's born where they might be six foot five, yeah, they could be a basketballer. But for things to do with the mind, I think it's very much our experience. Of course, our genes mean some people, there are some people who,

that inherit minds that give them photographic memories. But they're very small minutia. Most people in the bell curve are in the middle. And I think it's our nurture, our environment that changes us. And with maths in particular, I think it's our experience at a young age

And there's a sort of a cycle of virtuosity or a cycle of negativity. So imagine you're the good student, someone like a Bobby or an Ali at school where we get given a worksheet and times tables on a 506 and we get them all right. And the teacher says, Ali, well done. You got them all correct. And Ali's smiling. And then they talk to your parents that parents even say, oh, Ali's very good at maths. And then Ali for the next test will work hard because he knows he's said he's done well. And the teacher will say the next time, Ali, you've done

really well you've got 100% again and Ali's very happy and then that cycle continues Ali now will work harder and then the teacher will praise him more he'll get good reports and then he'll do really well so he'll work hard so this cycle of virtuosity yeah yeah

Whereas imagine someone else on that first test, just the night before the test, their parents, they had to take their grandparents to hospital. So for that week, he couldn't study or he or she couldn't study. So when they do the test, they underperform. They get four out of 10 in the timestable test. Not because they're intrinsically indifferent, but they start a tough week. And the teacher says, oh, Bobby, you've done really badly today in your test. And what happened? And they obviously don't want to talk about their family situation. They all just say, oh, it doesn't do well.

And then the next time they do the test, they feel a bit demotivated because the teacher said, "You're clearly not very good." And then they actually do underperform and the teacher's like, "Oh, what's wrong with you? You couldn't do well on the maths test." Then they get three out of ten. And then now they start developing this mindset where they think they can't do maths. Actually, the two, the brains of Ali and this other person, there's nothing really different between them, but one person's had a positive experience, been reinforced by external positive experiences.

And the other persons had a negative experience being reinforced by further negative experiences And then you come back 10 years later One student is 15, 16, thinking about doing maths and further maths and thinking about the top universities Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial, Harvard And the other student is thinking about leaving school at 16 But actually these two children, if you scan their brains

They both have, you know, the student that's thinking about Oxford doesn't have a genius brain. And neither does the child that's thinking of leaving school. Do they have a deficient brain? It's experiences, I genuinely think. Of course, you get the odd genius and you get the odd person that, again, for maths, the equivalent is of dyslexia. It's called dyscalculia, where numbers can be challenging. But that's like 2 to 5% of the population. So for the vast majority of us, 95 to 97% of us, we can all do maths perfectly.

We can all do most things, but we seem to have experiences that seem to limit our thinking. Yeah, in doing research for my book a few weeks ago, I came across this study where I think they got a bunch of primary school students. And for some of them, they told the teachers that, oh, we flagged this person as having potential. And for some of them, they told the teacher, we flagged this person as having special needs or something like that.

And they just made this up. Like, there was no difference between the students. And they looked at how the teacher's attitudes towards those students changed. And the ones that were, that the teacher had the subconscious bias that, oh, this is a student to watch. They're going to be good. The student ended up doing well and feeling much more motivated and enjoying school. And the ones where the teacher had been told that, oh, the student is, like, maybe struggling a bit, ended up doing worse, despite there being a completely random selection. Yeah.

Yeah, I guess you've heard a bunch of things like that and seen that in your experience as well. In fact, I've heard a phrase recently to do with that. It's called the bigotry of low expectation. Ooh, what is that? So it's where teachers sometimes...

Because of a student's background, or maybe if their parents have been, in fact, I taught a school in Cambridge called Chesterton. And Chesterton is a great school because there are some children there whose parents have won literally like Nobel Prizes because they're professors at the Cambridge University. And then some parents there from a local council state, like a gypsy Romani community.

And if you're a teacher that comes in thinking, okay, the child whose parent is like the head of maths at Cambridge, okay, that child's going to do well. So you have this expectation that, ah, if that child's not understanding something, it's fine. They'll get there eventually. Because I think because their child is a parent that's a mathematician, they will be fine. And they'll also do well in history and science and geography.

And if you have, if you use that sort of mindset of that almost like the bigotry of low expectations, you think, okay, this other child, they're from a really difficult family background. You know, they've got, you know, maybe one parent household, maybe some domestic abuse situations. Okay, so I'm not going to go hard on that student. I'm going to let, okay, they've not done their homework. Okay, I'll,

I'll make allowances for them. Okay, they already got 30% of the test, but that's fine. I'm not going to push them. And that teacher might think, and Cheston, to be honest, it didn't really happen. Cheston's actually a brilliant school, so I'm not going to denigrate their school. But in schools across the country, there'll be teachers that think they're being nice, that think they're actually being supportive by not pushing that student. That's from a background where they wouldn't traditionally be expected to succeed. But actually, by doing that, you are disadvantaging the child.

So actually, our expectations can actually influence the way our students actually achieve. Because if I tell the student whose parents are middle class, oh, you know, you should apply to the top universities, whereas a student that's parents, you know, okay, I'm not going to mock builders, but if your parents are from manual building background, you might not expect that child to go to university. If that mindset filters to the way in which you treat the student, of course, it's going to change the way that student experiences school.

Okay, so you went to Royal Holloway, you did math and economics, and then you ended up working. What did you do in the world of work? Yeah, so back then, again, the reason behind leaving Oxford was I was adamant I needed to work in the city. You need to become an investment banker. Yeah, absolutely. Or a chartered accountant. I was like, if that's the bank of first choice, then chartered accountant. So I got an internship and then a job as a trader at Lehman Brothers.

And back then, so even though Goldman Sachs have been the number one leader, Lehman were the ones that were like, literally every year they were catching up in every single field, whether it's in the private equity, in their corporate banking, in their equities, fixed income, every single field. FX, they were rising. They were going from 10th to 7th to 6th to 5th to 4th. So they were, and in fact, people have described Lehman Brothers as almost like being at a university, that collegiate atmosphere. And 3%.

30% of their firm's stock were owned by employees. So there was an alignment between staff success and the success of the company. So Lehman for me felt the right choice. I joined them as a trader. Initially, I worked in fixed income, so collateralized debt obligations for a while, but that wasn't a great area. So when I joined full-time, I worked in the equities division, again, as a trader. And to be honest, at the time, I was 23, and I thought,

I'm set for life. I was telling my dad, I got my job. I'm going to be a millionaire by the time I'm 30, 40. I'm going to be like a senior managing director. I'm going to be CEO by 45, by 50 I'll retire. Like with my, not millions, I was going to say like billions, a billion dollars. That's a realistic achievement. If you're a banker, you can earn hundreds of millions, including stock options. I was going to say, I'm going to earn lots of money. And to be honest, I don't think there's anything shameful in saying that you want to earn money.

Because now that I've got into a more sort of altruistic sort of career, I've got my media career, but I'm a part-time teacher and I was a full-time teacher before. I think there's no shame in saying wanting to make money. And you don't have to even justify yourself. You can come from money and want to have money, or you can come from a background like myself where money was very scarce and tight. And you think actually then money is a way of lifting myself out of relative poverty. And again, I always say relative because growing up in London, even though I grew up in a council state, I had a meal a day at least.

It was three usually. Whereas people in India or Africa, again, I don't want to disparage, but people in lesser economic circumstances, they can't guarantee where their meal is going to come from. So in that sense, my poverty is, even though in the UK, we're quite low down the spectrum, globally, we're very privileged. So again, it's acknowledging your privilege of being raised in a council state in the UK. Yeah.

So when I joined banking at Lehman, I thought yes, I'm set for lots of money. But then about 15 months later, September the 15th, 2008 happened. If anyone's like an economist there, they'll remember that this is when Lehman Brothers collapsed. In fact, the last, in the 2010s, we've had all the austerity. It can be sort of rooted back to, although Lehman wasn't the cause of it, Lehman was the manifestation of it. Lehman collapsed, led to a sort of global financial crisis.

Another time I saw a little detail, I worked at Nomura as a trader still. I was still a trader for a while, but my dad was like saying, Bobby, you can see that banking is a very risky area. You haven't got a qualification. It's true. Most bankers, there's no professional qualification. And my dad says, actually go and become a chartered accountant like me. Then you can work, you know, you can be a CEO or run a private equity business. Actually, at the time I went to PwC and

qualified as a chartered accountant. Actually, part of my job at one stage involved valuing toxic assets of banks because I'd helped work on them during my time at Levenson. But at the time, my ambition was either become a partner at PwC and become the global partner. Whenever I joined a field, I never set myself, I'm always ambitious. Even if you never get there, I always said, I want to become the top of that organization. And if I leave PwC, my ambition is to work in private equity, become like a titan of industry or a CEO of a conventional company

at FTSE 100 business and become the CEO of like a Sainsbury's or a WH Smith, but using my sort of financial acumen. But the sort of, again, there are turning points in your life. So when I qualified at PwC, often people take it as an opportunity to take a sabbatical. And usually the sort of sexy sabbaticals are where you go to South Africa or New York or Australia. And I was tempted by that, like a three to two month, three to two year, three months to two, three months to two year sabbatical.

But actually, let's do something educational because I've always been drawn towards education. Again, when I was at Eton, I spent every Wednesday volunteering with young people. In fact, even in my state school at Sunwater Ventures, at break times, I used to go to... I play a bit of football, but I used to go to the homework club. I used to help other students doing their homework. They're the ones that hadn't done their homework. And I've always loved the idea of... It's weird because helping people, there is this sort of... I want to say you've...

Are you being altruistic? Or I always think by helping people in a weird way, you're being selfish because I feel good about myself. Hmm.

Of course, to them, it comes across as altruism. Bobby's sitting down, giving me half an hour's time. And of course, the output is, the outcome is, I'm helping someone achieve when I didn't need to necessarily support them. But actually, for myself, I feel good. I feel good about that. So in a weird way, it's almost selfish to want to be altruistic. That's not my view. I feel great about myself. I get dopamines running through my head when I help someone. So I've always had this urge to support people because I feel good about using my skills and talents to help other people. So at PWC, I'm...

I, at the same time, so this is, I'm going to explain the context of why I worked in education. So I supported also in 2007, I set up a social enterprise called Oxfiz that supports sixth formers applying to universities. Oh, I've heard of it. Yeah. It's still going, isn't it? Well, the, the,

So it was running for 14 years. We donated like a million to different charities, but lockdown did for us. Oh, interesting. We were not a charity. We were a social enterprise. So we generate income from supporting students that are able to afford paid for sixth form services. So people applying to universities, med school, et cetera. But we use the income to support students that aren't able to afford. So social enterprise. So circulating the...

the profits and income towards. I never drew a single penny from the organization, even though we donated like a million to different charitable causes and supported thousands and thousands of students. So I've always had that educational drive. So at PwC, so it's five years after my social enterprise, I took a sabbatical to teach new graduates joining the firm. And that's how people do that because often they think it's giving back to the firm. But I just thought I love teaching. I'd love to spend some time

And honestly, like, I love my trading job. I love working in banking. I enjoy my corporate work. I often get people saying to me nowadays, Bobby, what's the city soulless? I didn't find it. I really enjoyed the work. I love the idea of making money just to show, like, can you beat other people in this game? Can you make more money than the person in the desk next to you, in the bank next to you? But when I taught people at PwC, even though these weren't children, these were 21, 22, 23-year-old graduates, I loved the teaching more than anything I'd done in my career. And this wasn't like...

Often a lot of my projects were like spending a day or a weekend or like a few hours, but this teaching was for weeks.

And because of that, I found actually, almost like, I know these words can be maligned, I almost found like a combination of a bit of my passion, my purpose. Actually, this is the true Bobby Segal. I feel like all of my life I've developed many skills and talents. But being an educator is where I found I came to life. Like I could explain tricky concepts in, you know, discounted cash flow to young people, but make it exciting and engaging.

And then because of that, that sort of transitioned me towards, actually, I don't think the corporate world is where I'm meant to be. I think education. So slowly over the next 12 to 18 months, I spent more time with my social enterprise. In fact, I tried running an educational business for a while. And then I made the decision, actually, if I want to become a proper educator, I need to go back to university, train to become a teacher and actually become a full-time state school teacher. Wow.

So it sounds like you kind of realized that that was the thing that you were really passionate about more so than the trading itself. I think it's a similar realization to what I had because...

I've been doing the whole helping people with their maths homework since the age of 12. I worked at one of the Kumon Study Centers in Southend back in the day. Thank you on behalf of the students. And then at university as well, I found that teaching medicine stuff to people younger than me was just really fun. And I realized after a while that I enjoy teaching medicine more so than I enjoy practicing medicine. And so that also made me think, huh, maybe this teaching thing is the way to go.

But it sounds like you had that realization around a similar time and decided, you know what, maybe this is the thing that I'm passionate about. This is where I should like move my trajectory. Yes. And again, it's one of those decisions that the sort of, if you're an external person looking in, you're thinking Bobby's on, you know, he's on a six figure career, going to earn seven figures at some stage, and you're giving that up to become an educator. And I think this is where privilege comes to play. I had a family that's very supportive and,

I'm coming from, not necessarily because I'm an Indian family, but my parents, because they're Indian. Indian parents are just, and Asian parents, where they, you can always live with them almost till you're married. So they're like, oh, Bobby, if you want to become a teacher, educator, you can stay with us. You can live with us. And obviously they don't expect any rent. Obviously I'd pay for things like shopping and stuff, but they never expected you to pay anything. So I knew that I could take the significant financial hit to go back to university, to become a teacher, whatever.

And when I did the training, I found actually this is where, because I'd spent time running a social enterprise, I'd worked in the city, again, I'd worked in disadvantaged communities, actually being a teacher, found I've almost like utilized most of my skill sets. Again, I love communicating ideas. And being a teacher, there's an element of,

again, I've never realized again until the last few years, I love the idea of being a performer. And being a teacher, you are an edutainer. You're educating, of course, the kids need to learn about Pythagoras' theorem, but also you're entertaining them. Again, when you talk about Pythagoras' theorem, you can talk about the School of Athens painting where they have, they've got Pythagoras there, but they've also got Raphael, Michelangelo, Donatello, and these are some of the names of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. So you can put up

Literally, I've had lessons where I put up a picture of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. And even though my kids don't know them, they're like, so why have you got a picture of some random green turtles? I'm like, well, these turtles are connected to Pythagoras' theorem. And let me explain the steps how. Because these turtles are named after classical painters from the Renaissance. And there's a painting called The School of Athens. And in this painting by Raphael, you can find Pythagoras sitting there in the corner. And Pythagoras is our lesson today. And so I find actually being a teacher, I can almost like be an entertainer.

You know, almost like being a really bad stand-up comedian. But, you know, they can't leave the class. To be honest, I have dabbled in trying to do comedy, like geeky comedy. But in comedy, people are not happy. They can walk out or jeer you. My students, if they jeer me, they're going on the warning board. Jeer me twice, they're getting a detention. So I found actually being an educator. And again, I think it's always, I'm always very good at acknowledging people.

things like ego. When you're an educator, when you're standing in front of a class, there is an element of you're the center of attention. I like the idea of everyone, I've got 30 guys all waiting. Enraptured. Enraptured about how A squared plus B squared equals C squared. But they're listening to me on my every word and they have to listen. They have no alternative. But again...

fair enough your ego might be getting a bit scratched and massaged but at the same time the output is i'm doing something that's helping students to learn a mathematical process that can develop their mathematical thinking that can get them a qualification so they can think about a levels in university so it's a case of it's a win-win for everyone i feel good about myself but the same to my students are getting a really engaging lesson that makes them think actually math isn't so bad yeah

Yeah, this is something I've been thinking. I used to think a lot about a few months ago when I had-- around the time I had this realization that maybe the thing that I want to do is teaching.

I also kind of really vibed with the performer aspect of being a teacher. I feel like I'm an attention seeker at heart and I got into close-up magic and stuff to be a performer. And then this teaching thing is basically a performing art. And I always think it's a real shame when teachers view teaching as being an exercise in delivering information rather than an exercise in performance. But part of me was thinking, especially after I read a book, The Elephant in the Brain, which we have like around

I ran here somewhere around, you know, the the selfish motives behind the things that we do. And to what extent me wanting to be a teacher and feeling that as like a calling or a passion is related to my desire for attention or my desire to be seen as an absolute legend by these by these people. And I kind of realized that, I mean, every everything we do has some level of status seeking and prestige seeking and signaling potential.

somewhere in the mix. And it doesn't really matter at the end of the day if my motives are completely pure. I don't think any of us have completely pure motives for anything that we do. And as long as the net effect is that I'm doing stuff that's fun, I'm doing stuff that makes money, I'm doing stuff that helps people, like that trifecta, I think, regardless of what the motivations are behind it, that's a reasonable way to approach life. Yeah, I think so. Like,

Even when you think about like the most pure motive in our sort of society is meant to be the mother, selfless mother caring for the child and they'll do anything. They'll put their life at risk to make sure their child is fed and looked after. But then if you think about it in a sort of cynical perspective, it could be pre-programmed. The mother might be, again, she's not thinking this consciously, even subconsciously, but...

Humans have been programmed, we've got to preserve our genes. I've got this offspring now and that's my future. That's me surviving into the future. So I need to do everything I can, even at the expense of myself, to help my child survive. So I think...

is there such a thing as a pure motive? I mean, again, there'll be listeners probably saying, of course there's pure motives. But I think there's nothing wrong with acknowledging that even though you may have, like, again, I like being a teacher because I genuinely want to support my students. But at the same time, I love the idea of performing. I love the idea of students coming up and saying, oh, Mr. Seagull, that was a great lesson. Thank you so much. There's nothing wrong with acknowledging the fact that you gain something from, you know, something, you know,

little perk little ego massage absolutely nothing wrong with that but the output is you are helping someone succeed so i think it's more think about the output rather than the internal justification because your internal motives aren't there for everyone to see we can't see unless you're on a podcast and explaining what your motivations are if you're listening by the way my motivations are mostly good yeah of course there's something like self like i like feeling good but a

The reality is it's our output that can be judged by society. And if your output is good, helping others, then whatever your motive is, I don't need it. Yeah, so like a consequentialist approach. Exactly, yeah. This touches on something that I did want to talk to you about. So when we were doing all the research for this interview,

It strongly came-- like, the vibe that you give across in media and interviews and writing these books and stuff is that you really want to kind of-- so you're big on the math thing, that math is not something that is innate, and anyone can get better at math if they want to.

And also just the general thing of your, in a way, it almost sounds as if your mission in life is to help people kind of break free of their limitations. Or what's that effect? And so kind of two questions. Number one, is that an accurate representation of your mission? And two, to what extent does that mission suffer from the selfish motives bias as well? Yeah, it's a great question. So yes, I think the mission is,

Showing people that maths is for everyone and that's to be honest and the reality is in the media people are we got Bobby the maths I hate the word celebrity get a lot of words celebrity at the word genius. Yeah, I use You hate the word but you keep using it In terms of monologue going yeah but

I'm known as a maths communicator, maths educator, but I try to draw the lessons from maths about mindset to a wider perspective. Again, I'm a UK libraries champion. It's a role I've taken on from Mary Beard, the classicist, and Stephen Fry, the general polymath, because UK libraries heard about my story. It's in fact a little side anecdote.

When people ask me, oh, Bobby, you're really smart. You're really knowledgeable. You must just like, you must be a genius. And I'll say, actually, I'm not a genius, but my experience have led me to knowing lots of things. And growing up, I was privileged enough that my dad used to take myself and my brothers to East Ham Library every single Saturday afternoon. So mom would make a really delicious South Indian biryani at lunchtime. We'd eat that, feel full, bellies full. Bellies need to be full before you're there. Then he trudges down, uh,

with a shopping trolley, ostensibly to do shopping, but we'd go to East Ham Library, sit there for hours in the library reading all sorts of books on Aztec civilization, the engineering marvels of the Victorians, and the fiction of Tolkien, fantasy fiction. And it's actually these Saturday hours, Saturdays,

Saturday after Saturday that we would spend reading that developed a love for learning and knowledge. And had I not had that opportunity, had I not had a dad that has prepared to take us every Saturday, had I not had a library that was within 10 minutes walking distance, these are privileges, I wouldn't have had the upbringing that knowledge became so central. So now when people see me, they're like, Bobby's this curious person that has such a breadth of knowledge. Again, I would say breadth...

maybe not incredible depth in a few areas, but mostly it's like a breath, sometimes a bit superficial, but that's the nature. You're trying to cover a vast expanse. And because of that, people say, oh, Bobby's got this incredible, you know, he's just got this giftedness. He just learns things. But I just think it's because the more things you know, the easiest to learn new things. And the same thing I'd like to apply to

your general approach to mindset because with maths again I'm going to draw in Angela Duckworth so Angela Duckworth she's a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and she's come up with this concept called grit and her book is called Power of Passion and Perseverance

And passion is, you know, I've got this drive to do one thing. And perseverance is where you have got the stickability. And she's got this wonderful formula that I'm going to go through. So I'm a mathematician. So if you're listening in a podcast, you've got a pen and a pencil, write this down. If you're watching, you can, you know, look it up. So she says that we all have talents.

And talent is what we're born with through our genes, their hereditary. And if you multiply that by effort, so you put an effort into something, you develop a skill. So talent times by effort equals a skill. And then we'll use an example to draw this out in a second. And then you've got your skill. Now you've got a skill. With that skill, we put in effort. So skill times effort, that leads to an achievement. And achievements are what society judges us on.

So let me use the example of Emma Raducanu, the IT girl. Now she's just Emma, Emma, the US Open tennis champion. When people look at her, they'll say, Emma, the 18-year-old, the first British person to win a Grand Slam in the female arena for 40 years. And she's the first person to enter the US Open as a wildcard and win every match without dropping a single set. That's an incredible achievement.

And it can be easy for us to say she's incredibly gifted, it's rare, she's got a rare ability that's not seen in a generation. But let's look back at using Angela Duckworth's formula.

So the achievement that we see, the tip of the iceberg is this achievement. An 18-year-old, clearly incredible, winning the US Open 18. But let's go back. The formula, talent times effort is skill. So she clearly, as a young person, had a talent. She's quite tall. She probably had some good hand-eye coordination, maybe had some speed. So there's a natural talent there, but by itself, it doesn't lead to anything. So...

for various reasons her family decided let's play some tennis I think it was her father who's Romanian so she's half Romanian half Chinese born in Canada but raised in south of the river Bromley so she's a Bromley girl I'm East London so technically she's a rival but we'll accept south London yeah we'll accept that for sure

Yeah. So she put effort into playing tennis. And that led to a skill that now she became a competent young tennis player. So she has this talent, you know, being able to move around the court, good, reasonable hand-eye coordination, putting in the effort, skill. She's a tennis player. But no one's going to get, okay, in primary school, you get a certificate that says can play tennis level one. But that's not, you know, you're not going to brag about those achievements. So now is she's got the skill that she can play tennis. But that in itself doesn't lead to anything.

So with this skill of playing tennis, she put effort over many years of hard work, I'm sure, blood, sweat and tears. And eventually that leads to an achievement that we see, winning the US Open at 18. So again, if you look at the formula, there's talent absolutely, you've got to acknowledge that talent exists.

But the thing that's made the difference is the effort talent times effort gives us the skill then skill times effort is achievement So actually it's effort squared and here effort is the key. So we can't control our talent We're all born with a set of talents Although we'll come back to that there's some people at Matthew it depends on your definitions Matthew side of dispute that say actually talent is a different thing and actually later I do want to discuss actually different definitions of talent and

But if you just assume it's the innate thing, it's the effort that counts. And of course, if she had a smaller talent, then her achievements would be not as great. But I think if we can acknowledge that effort is something that we can put into anything, whether it's maths or learning to dance, learning to sing, learning to develop our YouTube videos, our public speaking, we can all get... Our achievements are a lot higher than we think we're capable of actually achieving. What do you think of the...

The link between achievements and self-esteem. I think it's one of those things where there's a cycle. Yeah. Because is self-esteem innate? I don't necessarily think so. There's like, what was it, Immanuel Kant has this tabula rasa.

We're all born blank slates. Of course, some people, I was never going to be at 5'4 and a half. I'm never going to... No, never. There was actually... There's a guy called... I can't remember his name. Is it Bugsy? Not Bugsy Malone. A short, really short 5'2 NBA basketballer. Oh. Yeah. It's not Steph Curry, is it? Oh, it's someone... Yeah.

If you're there, tweet back to us. There's a 5'2 NBA basketball. Realistically though, NBA basketball is 6'3, 4'5. I'm probably not going to be an NBA basketballer. But with the blank slate,

it's your experiences your nurture around you so my parents my father mother they would praise us if we did good things like we draw a picture my dad could clearly see that i i'm actually my brother actually elder brother davey's brilliant art and both of us used to draw growing up but our first attempts at drawing pictures were probably terrible but my dad probably didn't say in fact i'm sure he didn't say bobby that's a terrible piece of art bin it then my self-esteem would have been

crushed. You probably would say, oh, that's quite good, Bobby. Why don't you try drawing again? Maybe spend more time on drawing the head of the person. You know, they probably do need two eyes, not one eye. But it's the way that the conversations that people around you... In fact, there's a concept of self-confidence and

Last year, there's an author called Charles Pepin. So it's quite a new, not unusual author, born in the mid 70s, but he wrote a book called Self-Confidence. And he said self-confidence is formed by three things. One is, it's the confidence from people around you.

from and in people around you. So let's say your parents, your family, your friends, your siblings. Then secondly, it comes from your own confidence in your ability to do the right thing at the right time. And then thirdly, it comes from a joy in doing the things that you do. So if you look at that, let's say for an example of riding a bicycle.

for the first time. So firstly, it comes from the confidence in people around you. So when I was learning to ride a bike when I was five or six, my dad would sit behind me, hold the bicycle. I think I'm cycling, but my dad's holding it. I always check behind. All of us had the experience. I'm like, oh, dad, you still there? Actually, I'd call him papa. So let's call him dad. Papa, you still there? Yeah, yeah, papa's there. So eventually, I'd have the confidence that papa would be behind me. And over time, papa would let go for a couple of seconds at a time.

And actually in those moments, I'd be developing my own self-esteem. So I'm thinking, oh, I'm learning to ride by myself. But my dad's actually pretty much, he's holding it for most of the time. It's only a couple of seconds, he would release me. And then over time, I would get that, what Charles Papon would say, the confidence in my ability to do the right thing. And in this particular example, I would know that as long as I keep pedaling, I would keep moving.

And then over time, so initially the cycling is a bit of a pain because I'm, you know, I'd fall occasionally, cry, tell my dad, I don't want to cycle, I can't do, cycling's not my thing. Fixed mindset. Imagine someone thinks just because they fall the first time, I wasn't born to be a cycler. You're not born to be cyclers.

But eventually over time, your dad lets go of the cycle. Then you start moving by yourself around the park. Maybe you fall a few times. Then you start believing in yourself. You've got the self-confidence in yourself to do the right thing, i.e. one foot after the other. And eventually you start loving the cycling. And then eventually you're like bugging your dad. Say, dad, I was going off to the park. And dad's like, stop, stop. Don't go by yourself. And so you develop the self-confidence. So there's this...

the cycle between achievement, the more you achieve and the more people around you facilitate that. Because obviously the first time I was cycling, I would have been horrendous. And my dad would have known that. But he's not going to say, Bobby, you are absolutely horrendous at cycling. Just sit at home and do some long division. You seem to be quite good at long division things. No, but my dad...

he fostered that confidence. And then because of that, I had achievements so I could cycle a bit more. And then that leads to more self-esteem. So I think there's a virtuous cycle where achievements lead to you having more self-esteem. And that's why sometimes you can see people, especially in the media, in various fields, the top sports people or the top athletes

top singers, top musicians, top YouTubers, anyone, they almost forget that they've had to go through that cycle. They can go like, yes, I'm an incredible sports person because I've had this like God-given set of talents and I've worked incredibly hard, but they forget to acknowledge roles of like having the privilege of parents that supported them, a really good training club, luck at the right moments.

So then they almost like they forget they've got the pinnacle of achievement in their field. But actually it's taken to get that self-esteem has taken iterations of many years, many people around you to get to that process. Yeah. Yeah. This is one of the reasons why, like one of the words that I don't like is success or successful or things like that. You're a successful YouTuber. Let me now use that adjective. Immensely successful. That's the one.

Like, there was this really good talk that I attended at university where the guy basically said something like, everything you have was basically given to you by God, and therefore you have nothing to be arrogant about. And I was like, that's such a nice way of approaching achievement and success and all this kind of stuff.

Going back to this point about self-esteem, to what extent do you think self-esteem is domain general or is it domain specific? Oh, great question. Domain general versus domain specific. Oh, you also give me flashbacks to maths. You've got maths first year, first year uni domain. I think I'm using the word domain in the wrong context. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But in this context, I think...

Obviously, people develop an expertise in a particular field and hence the sort of confidence is specific to a domain. So I am good at maths, so therefore I feel as if you give me most types of math problems, even if I don't get it first time, I feel as if I can back myself because I have a track record of being competent and confident in that field.

But I think then you start stretching that out. So, okay, I can do math. So how about physics then? In physics, when I did physics A-level, there were a couple of concepts that were tricky. But eventually, because I knew that I had confidence in the specific domain of maths, I thought, okay, a domain close to that is physics. And then what happens is,

Over time, again, with physics, then I might then look at chemistry. Then chemistry, I might look at science. Then I'm at science, I'm going to look at psychology. And then slowly over time, almost like you're tiptoeing, your self-confidence, you tiptoe from a lily pad of maths to the lily pad of... Almost like you're the gecko lizard that skates on water. So you're skating on the self-confidence of maths. That's your home pad, home base. That's the strongest one. But eventually you can skip onto other bits. So I think over time...

Self-conference in a specific domain can lead to self-conference in more fields. That's why sometimes you find that people that are polymathic. So a polymath is someone who...

Actually, the technical definition is someone that has expertise in two or more unrelated fields. And to be honest, I personally think no one in the modern world is a true polymath because Da Vinci was a polymath. You know, he was someone that was at the forefront of art, at the forefront of understanding human biology, at the forefront of understanding technologies in his development of like the helicopter or sketches for them or tanks. But to be at the forefront of any field, you've got to devote...

Years and years of effort back in the 1600s no disrespect to da Vinci, but technology wasn't that bad Wasn't as about etc. So it's easy to become a world leader with nowadays the seven eight billion people We've been you know, we've had two thousand years since AD of development. It's gonna be hard It's gonna be it's almost impossible to become the best in one field let alone two fields So true polymaths don't really exist But when people say polymath II all they mean is general real high confidence in a field and that is

There are many people. I would consider you like a polymath. You're someone that's had medical training and now you're obviously a world-class YouTuber. So you got polymathy. And again, myself, I'm someone that's very confident in maths, but I can apply that in my media field. So polymathy. So in that sense, I think people can...

apply a domain-specific confidence and use that as a springboard, as a lily pad to jump onto developing general self-confidence. Interesting. Yeah, I like that model. That's nice. It's like, I think when I started my first business that was successful, it was a sufficiently different domain from the other things I'd done, like medicine and school and stuff, that all of a sudden it kind of sprouted this sort of new thing

And like, yeah, when I was younger as well, it was like, maths was my thing. But then because maths was my thing, science by definition became my thing. And then I was gonna say that Ali Abdaal, maths was his thing. His first love, your true love. The true love, exactly. And then in secondary school, there was like ICT, which was again, somewhat related to maths, but starting a business was sufficiently outside the scope of that. Doing the close up magic stuff, again, outside the scope, doing the teaching stuff kind of related to public speaking and, you know, I was like, I'm gonna do this.

Like this sort of it what I'm imagining my head is that at the as these little like? Lily pads sprouts you end up actually covering a bunch of you know things like dancing right now is way outside that experience because I haven't had much experience in Getting really good at like a physical thing that requires physical coordination beyond racket sports Being able to cook is something that I have low confidence in because it Hasn't yet overlapped with any of the stuff but I think the more of the stuff you do the more you have a general sense of

if i set my mind to this thing i can probably figure it out uh and this is what like i think this is just a useful attitude to have in general that i found in this again if i think if i think back to my youtuber academy people uh generally it tends to be the older ones that have got have adopted this mindset of you can't teach an old dog new tricks where i've never had formal training in editing therefore i can't do video editing it's like well you know

the internet. It's not that hard to learn video editing, come on. Or, oh, I've never had formal experience in public speaking, therefore it will be hard for me to learn. It's like, I mean, it's a skill like anything else. And I think there, I wonder if there is a general, a general trait of

ability to learn stuff, which I don't think is innate, but it's certainly something that we believe in ourselves through repeated instances of trying something new, being able to learn it, which is why I think actually when you're younger or actually at any age, optimizing for just trying out lots of new things and getting good at a bunch of different things and becoming like a generalist almost in multiple things does lead to this trait of

Everything is figureoutable. I can figure it out if I put my mind to it. Which then theoretically gives you many more opportunities in life because I remember one of the stories you told when we chatted first was you were invited on this television interview. You had no idea what they were going to ask you. You'd never done it before, but you were like, screw it. Why not? I'll figure it out. Live TV and BBC, yeah. And that's like so scary for normal people. But I think because I suspect because you had all these like examples of success with the supportive environment. Yeah.

You've got this general trait of, I'm sure I can wing it.

it and that ability to wing it gives you a lot of opportunities to say yes to stuff. Yeah, I think as you relate to that, I'm going to bring up the word imposter syndrome. Oh, yeah. Because I think there's so many people, even like, even in my family, all high achievers, myself, sometimes we think, do I really belong here? Like sometimes when I'm teaching in front of a class, why are these children listening to me? Or my brother's putting an exhibition, why are people coming to see my art?

Or my youngest brother's training to become a barrister. Is the judge really going to listen to him? Or when I'm on television, are people really going to watch my program? Sometimes I feel like an imposter and all of us have had moments. And I think when you realize that everyone's actually just winging it, sort of. There is no textbook or model template on how you should follow life. Every single life is unique, but everyone's sort of...

What you've done again if you make a mistake if you're feeling bad about your first ever TV interview writing a book your first ever YouTube channel I guarantee you there's been tens scores thousands millions of people that have been through the same process and and people have succeeded so what you're feeling of inadequacy is not unique and I think You have to I've heard lots of people say this you've got to learn to feel comfortable about being uncomfortable and

And I've learned to do that. There are so many times in my life where I've felt uncomfortable. Even this morning, I think, oh, Ali Abdaal's interview, you know, it's amazing because it's a great platform. Lots of people listen to it.

But I just remind myself, Bobby, you do this all the time. Just, yeah, I feel uncomfortable. Actually, I'm just comfortable with the problem. My family are like, Bobby, how do you just go and do these? Like yesterday, I got invited to a TV interview, literally the night before, talking about maths research from Cambridge about should maths be taught as a playful activity compared to direct instruction? And to be honest, I don't know a great deal about that field, but I just suddenly said, yeah, I'll do the interview. And I did the interview and it went really well. My family are like, Bobby, how do you do that? And to be honest, I do feel uncomfortable sometimes.

But I've learned to accept that feeling so it doesn't cripple or damage my ability to perform.

It's almost like if you're like a basketballer, like Michael Jordan. I love Michael Jordan. In fact, one of my second show and tell. I was going to bring the 23, or not the 23, Scottie Pippen, I think. The Michael Jordan shirt, but I thought this was easier to hold. My family got this for me. So during lockdown one, I think we mentioned this in our YouTube chat. I watched the last dance. So lockdown one was a bit intense for everyone. And I...

The Last Dance is a Netflix documentary charting the rise of the Chicago Bulls basketball team. And to be honest, I never really followed basketball. I was obviously aware of Michael Jordan. But watching this documentary, you come to hear of the incredible success and achievements of this basketballer. And he's achieved the three-peat twice, won the 91-93 NBA championship.

and won it again from 96 to 98. And that's not been done since he's won every single NBA final he's been in. It's an incredible achievement. And of course, he has the privilege of being a 6'5 person, getting scholarships, having the self-belief. But even with him...

When he first started out, he came as this incredible college junior from University of North Carolina and he won the Rookie of the Year. But for a few years, they didn't win an NBA championship. So everyone was saying, what's happening to Michael Jordan? Why is he not winning?

And then he had Phil Jackson who joined as the coach of the Chicago Bulls And what Phil Jackson bought was an additional facet He had a sort of philosophical mindset He appreciated Native American philosophy, Zen Buddhism And in fact I'm going to talk about this one principle there That probably helped Michael Jordan to realize his potential

So Zen Buddhism, there are lots of aspects to it, but the one that Phil Jackson focused on in particular was being able to be in the moment. Because Michael Jordan, before Phil Jackson, I think will acknowledge that there are many times that his teammates would mess up or he would mess up. And then during the game, he'd be a bit frustrated thinking about, oh God, I can't believe I missed that three pointer. And then he'd start thinking about the next game or the next games against, you know,

another big rival, the New York Knicks, and we can't afford to make that same sort of mistake. So he forgets that actually, if you deal with the present...

then the past will get taken care of and the future is just a collection of lots of moments in the present. So he adopted the Zen Buddhist mentality where you deal with things in the moment and you let the future take care of itself. And in the same sort of mentality, I try and deal with my life like that. Of course, I had lots of, and again, I'm sure someone in your podcast mentioned this, our worries, our anxieties are often about things in the future that many of them don't even manifest to be true.

But as humans we worry about those things But if you deal with, obviously you still need a strategy You still need your goals, your objectives, your odyssey as it were It's good to have it there But if you deal with the current moment, being quite zen And deal with it, as long as I deal with this interview now, this question here So I'm okay, even now I'm thinking about this evening I've got to write a blog piece, I've got to pitch my next Financial Times article I've got these other worries in my head, I've got to plan for lessons for next week Okay, they're worries in my head but actually

They'll get dealt with. A Zen Buddhist approach is like Michael Jordan did, is just think about this interview. In fact, not even think about the interview, just think about this particular question. If I deal with this question well, then the other questions would flow. And I think with my TV interviews, my media work, I always think of that. Just deal with the moment now. Nice.

With again, at the back of your mind, you definitely got the longer term picture there, but deal with the moment now and the future will take care of itself. Oh, I love that. That's great. One thing I wanted to come back to you. So we've talked a lot about the privilege of a supportive upbringing as being like a thing and how if you're that kid that gets told they're good at maths, then that turns into a virtuous cycle. If you're that kid that has a bad day because something happened and suddenly you're taught with a brush or being told you're bad at maths and then that affects your own internal, etc.,

15 years later, you've got this 21 year old who, you know, where one is in this kind of virtuous cycle position of having their strengths celebrated. And the other one is in this position of like, you know, and you can maybe kind of trace that back to early days upbringing for those 21 year old or 15 year old or 65 year old, like whatever, who is listening or watching to this now who can't do anything about their past. Do you have any tips that help us like,

What if we were that guy that didn't get told they were good at maths? What do we do about it? - Yeah, so a couple of things on that. Firstly, what I would say is, is that we can always change our story because the past has been written

And that's done. That is history or herstory. It's her story and his story. But the future is unwritten and we can still write that. Of course, your hand may be more worn. Your fingernails may be clipped and your pen may not be as good as someone else's. But you still have the opportunity to write your future story. And again, one thing that we, again, in 2021...

have this privilege of we live in an era of technology privilege. 20, 30, 5, 10 years ago, they didn't have this opportunity to go on YouTube, look up tutorials on how to learn, how to do calculus or how to edit a video. People 10 years ago, they didn't have the opportunity. If your teacher in 2000 or 2010 wasn't great at math, at teaching you,

You were stuck with that. You could not do anything. Whereas now, going to Khan Academy, going to Skillshare, going to anything. I think you mentioned Skillshare so many times, it's now in my head. Sponsoring this episode. Yeah, I know. I think, who knows. But you have the opportunity, you have that technology privilege. So you can use the internet, podcasts,

to inspire you. Again, listen to people that are successful, the best in their field, the best mathematicians, the best YouTubers, the best entrepreneurs. And you can use that as, okay, maybe your upbringing didn't put you in close proximity or contact or service area with those people that would have inspired you. But now with technology,

You can be just a couple of steps away from an Ali Abdaal. You can interact with him, listen to him, learn and be inspired. So I think one is you have the opportunity to learn from people in a way which we've never had because of technology. But secondly, I think it's also maybe growing up, you didn't have people praising you and saying you're good. So your self-esteem isn't great. But I'm going to draw upon a concept from Matthew Syed. So, you know, we talked about talent.

Is it innate? Is it not? And again, I think the reality is the answer is a bit grey. Of course, there's a nurture element, but you can absolutely, nature element, but you can absolutely nurture your talent. Because what Matthew Syed says is that there's a myth of talent.

Because when we see the greatest people in every field, YouTube, in sports, in music, in maths, in politics, we all think these are talented people that were destined to reach the top. And of course, there is the element of survivorship bias. If you reach the top, then you tell your story

There are hundreds of people out there. I could be an example of someone that tried YouTube for a while, didn't quite work out, and I decided to reinvest my efforts elsewhere. Although I am going to be trying TikTok very soon. Oh, hello. Yeah, because I realize my young students, they're very much... Yeah, they're on TikTok. They're not on YouTube really. Let's see if we'll come back in six months, but TikTok is something I'm trying to get into. Solid. We'll see if it happens. But Matthew Syed said, talent is something that can be developed. And the way it can be developed... Okay, so he says this example of...

thousands of hours, it doesn't have to be thousands, but thousands of hours of purposeful practice can lead to you developing your talent. Okay, thousands of hours can be extreme, but again, hundreds, tens of hours. So if there's a field, let's say you want to improve in your tennis or your singing or your baking or your dancing or your YouTube editing,

If you put in hours of purposeful practice, it can't just be make the same video again and again and again and you're learning from mistakes and people tell you, oh God, you should subtitle it, you should speak slower and you're like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You don't take in that advice. You're not going to get better. So purposeful means you take on guidance from people. You take on feedback.

you ask people for support, you critically self-evaluate, you're not embarrassed at looking at yourself and going, oh God, you're cringing at your first attempts at making a YouTube video. It's got to be purposeful because if you're just doing meaningless practice, and some of my students, sometimes they'll ask me this question, what should I revise for my exams? And often, honestly,

A lot of my students will do the things that they're good at. Oh, yeah. And like they do this. The first couple of things, fine. Just to get your self-confidence. But you need to do things at the frontiers of your, between your knowledge and lack of knowledge. The final frontier, that area there. It's almost like, what is it? The zone of proximal development. Yeah. Yeah. Where if you just constantly do things that you're very comfortable at. Yeah.

Fine, you'll stay there, you'll have a nice, happy, comfortable life. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with doing that. If you want to feel comfortable, that's a nice, lovely feeling. But if you want to stretch and develop yourself, if you go for something that's truly unattainable, imagine the first time I'm playing tennis, I go and play Emma Raducanu. Yep. Okay, to get a single point, tennis is not my field. Not a good idea. But go to your local club. So you go to the zone of proximal development, it's where you are...

In this zone where you're not in your comfort area, but you're not like ridiculously outstretched, but you're definitely feeling a little bit uncomfortable. Learning to feel comfortable with being uncomfortable. Has your dating experience been sort of shaped by the fact that you are a celebrity? Okay, so the worst ones are the ones where it comes up very quickly. To be honest, I also acknowledge the privilege of dating.

because I've got a television personality and that enables me to I hate this phrase but punch above my weight I can I can date people that perhaps if I was just a class if I was I guess I'll never say just a class teacher if I was a class teacher who didn't have a public profile they probably wouldn't be interested in the first instance whereas if they got to meet me but they just wouldn't look at me whereas with my TV personality profile I get to date people that perhaps wouldn't

Initially, the swiping... They wouldn't have given you the time of day initially. So it enables me to...

You know, rather than being in the featherweight division, I can be in the welterweight. You're not going to jump from featherweight to super heavyweight, but you can jump a couple of divisions. I think in dating, your career and your work can help you jump a couple of divisions. Yeah, naturally. It's like there's lots of data from these dating apps that show that bachelor's degree versus master's degree on your dating profile increases your success rate by 25% or something like that. So is your profile picture the university challenge one? Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, it's... So let me have a look. So it's changed. It's weird. I've gone through phases where I've become a bit self-conscious. I've had some bad dates. I take off all the public stuff. Other times, I put the public stuff back up. Like, I've got one there. Before, it says... So I've done stuff on the massive dating. I've done talks. I did a talk with a new scientist. In fact...

at some stage, I want to write a book on, when I get married, how I use maths to find Mrs. Seagull. Oh, yes. That would be good. In fact, one person, though, I've dated, I'll call her Cypriot now, even though she was Greek. She told me, she's very smart, but she said, if you ever publish a book, you must not mention me in your book. So I won't. I'll just change a profession. Of course.

She won't be a dentist. She'll become a doctor. She won't be Greek. She'll be Cypriot. And no one's going to watch this figure out. Yeah, yeah. You're going to have to change that as well. I'm going to have to change that. But the main picture was...

On the BBC, I was there saying, as on BBC World News, how a mathematician using maths to find love. So I put that as my... And I got a lot of attention. People were like, oh, tell me, what is your formula? So I actually got a lot of attention. But then people found some people just intrigued about the TV background. But then sometimes I put the university challenge picture because if some people, what the hell is that? They're not my kind of person. Yeah, your kind of person will understand and be like, whoa, okay. But then even with those people, you've got to sort of be careful because some people...

they then are attracted to Bobby the personality rather than Bobby the... Okay, but surely that's at first glance because realistically we're all attracted to certain things about people at first glance. It doesn't even need to be stated. And that's why I found Ali. The best dates have been blind dates. And I always, in fact,

lockdown's been really tough for me because I've gone on dates with people on Hinge and to be honest, I go on lots of dates. I got to the point where, you know, you've got a dating threshold. I passed my threshold. I've done enough now. I'm actually ready to... You passed your 37%. Well, I'm ready to meet someone, settle down. The next person that's reasonably good, I will like... They're going to get the ring. Jump on that. They're going to get the ring. Metaphorically. Yeah. Maybe physically too. But...

I found the best dates are when I go to friends parties and I ask people if you know someone that you think might be interested in a geek like me. There's a song, isn't it like Freak Like Me?

By Atomic Kitten? Yeah, something like that. But Geek Like Me is my version. Geek like me, mouth like me. I vaguely remember the song. Have you thought about... There was this article that went viral a couple of days ago. This guy who put up a billboard saying like... The Asian guy. Asian guy, yeah. Have you thought of... Given that you have a public profile, have you thought about doing something like...

I don't know, just putting a call out for applicants. Although, funnily enough, I do sometimes use my Twitter and Instagram. Sort of like partly self-pity, partly actually real request. I'll say Friday night, I'll describe genuinely, like every once in every couple of months on a Friday, I'll say, this is my sad Friday night routine. Reading The Economist, listening to any questions, putting some jazz on. What do other singletons do? And it's sort of like, partially I do, I'm interested in what people are doing. But also I get a couple of DMs from people saying, ah, shall we go for, you know, I've got a friend,

So I do, but I don't think I'd be shameless enough. Again, my threshold of... Threshold of cringe. Is not at the level where I would put an ad saying, although...

Funnily enough, I remember at some stage I had a chat with BBC about a program on using maths to create like a dating algorithm, dating agency. And then the subject would be me. So it would be partly comedy, partly maths, partly commentary on how online dating is. To be honest, at some stage, if I'm still single, I do want to create a television program that looks at the dating world and how...

things have changed, evolved, maybe using me as a test sample. Yeah, because the numbers and the data behind that is just so interesting. It would be really cool to make a program out of that. And I think, again, this is what, again, almost like switching back to maths. Maths, to most people, they're not really going to get excited by about prime numbers or geometries of different shapes or protonic solids.

But if we engage them on things they are interested, football, Premier League stats, weight transfers, the economies of that, or bake-off and looking at the ingredients, the recipes, ratios, or talking about the dating market, the odds of meeting the right person, or YouTube. And again, my students are talking about how much you might earn if you have a million subs, two million subs, 10 million subs. When you engage people on things that

are their home territory, their zone of proximal development. And then find the maths and stats and numbers and that, then you can win them over. So I always believe with maths...

in an ideal world, I'd like to be in my ivory tower and tell people, come everyone, let's talk about the Riemann hypothesis and finding the distribution in prime numbers. There's genuine amazing beauty in that. But I'll draw some people. They'll come to my BBC program, my YouTube. For the most part, no one can. No, no. But if I jump down into the reality dance show, and in fact, there's one scene where we do a bungee jump. Yeah.

And obviously, I've never done a bungee jump. My partner's never done a bungee jump. But I talk about, she's panicking, and I say, don't worry. All it is is we're converting kinetic energy into potential energy, and it's being dissipated through oscillations of zero. So our mass times gravity times height gives us our overall energy. But don't worry, my mass is smaller than yours. And again, it's a funny way of...

The people watching that, they're watching because it's comedy, it's a bit of laugh, but also they're being re-engaged with a bit of maths and science. So I think it's like, I could have just been in my tower and said, who wants to learn about potential energy and kinetic energy being dissipated through oscillations? I guess some people say, cool, but most people are like, nah, that's not my thing, it's not my shtick. But if I do it like in a funny thing with a bungee jump on a dance reality show, people are like, Bobby seems a bit crazy, a bit cool, let's go and learn about his science. So I think...

Finding out their grounds, where they're comfortable, their zone of proximal development. I say proximal, like approximate. Their zone of proximal development and engaging them there. And dating, in fact, that's my excuse to my mum about being single. As soon as I'm not single, I can't talk about my failure in dating and one over E and the different ways of dating. You can actually model...

How people argue in a relationship using the same modeling for a nuclear arms race. Oh, yeah the same sort of iterative process So there's so many fascinating like a series Yeah, like a little serious because one person argues the next person argues even more and the same model literally can be applied to a nuclear arms race nice be an expert

the maths behind love. That's, I think it's, I do want to write that, but I want to write it with the view of how I found Mrs. Segal, because I want it to have a positive ending. And then, yeah, the ending will say, yeah, I want it to not just be like, I'm a bitter old man. Yeah. I failed. Maths failed me. I don't think I'd ever be bitter about it. Actually, no, I am being a little bit bitter. I am now like, you know, like on Facebook and Instagram, you see all your friends with like, enjoying the weekends. Do you want to like, I'm,

We talk about, you know, the book, what is it? The Art of Being Lonely. What's it called? How to Not Die Lonely. Yeah, because I'll be honest. Generally, I've always been, I've always found silver linings. I'm always, I find the positivity. Of course, I feel sadness, but I don't let it, I think things like depression happen when you, when you, the sadness, you make it part of your being and you're like, I am a sad person. Therefore, I feel, obviously there's chemical imbalance and stuff. Of course, things like that. But for most people, I'm not sad.

sadness, you don't, I don't allow the sadness, like for me, the sadness in my life is I'm single, single, but I make humor out of it by saying, oh, I can use it to engage people, maths, it's a funny little liner, even today. So you find humor in it. Um,

But I think for me, in my life, my life that's really exciting and fun and my threshold of, I keep forgetting it, the threshold of- - Cringe. - Cringe is growing, which I'm really happy. I want that threshold to grow massively and become enormous.

I hope it's not correlated to ego, though. Oh. Is it correlated to ego? No, I think it's inversely correlated with ego. I think threshold, I think the more, the lower our cringe threshold, the more fragile the ego is. Yes. Because if you're afraid of how you come across, that's like an ego fragility type thing. If you don't care how you come across, it's like, whatever. That's a good point. Yeah, so I think... So I think you're good. Yes, I'm good. Yeah, thank you. I give you comfortable. I'm feeling comfortable at being uncomfortable about the lack of being...

in a relationship nice i like that yeah that's good um one thing i was gonna ask you uh just out of pure curiosity so you've now published these two books well hardback paperback monkman and seagull quiz book life-changing magic of numbers you're this big like celebrity guy you've got all these appearances and shows and stuff what and and and feel free to be as coy about this as you like but like what are the economics of being a public intellectual like you so what i would say is

Firstly, if I was not on television, I never would have been a published author in terms of practicality and in terms of interest. So before I... Okay, so when I went on University Challenge, I harbored no ambitions of ever doing media work. I thought...

So I was acting head of a math department. I was ambitious. I changed careers. So again, I was thinking within five years, I want to be a head teacher. I was again, anything I've gone into, I've always gone in with drive and ambition. I've never joined a profession or a field thinking, oh, let's just be content at being content. I want to like,

Being content is good on Friday, 10 o'clock by yourself, but the drive... You've got the drive. I've got the drive, yeah. But I never thought I want to be a writer for the Financial Times. I want to write my own books. I want to have my own TV show. I want to have my own BBC. I had a podcast. It's not there anymore, but maybe it'll come back in the future. But with television profile, I think it's a little bit unfair because I find nowadays...

If people have a television profile, they're celebrities, they can almost do anything. They get given podcasts, they get given TV shows, they get given the right to write books, kids' books. And in fact, you find people that are real craftsmen, real kids' books writers, real people that write fiction books, real people that...

present documentaries they're getting crowded out and rightly frustrated by celebrities that come in and do those things celebrities that become a kid's author celebrities that present documentaries on the Middle East celebrities that produce a podcast and the reason this happens is broadcasters

and funders know that there is an audience. People, again, we live in an age where we've got, that's why I love YouTubers. They're fighting back against the mainstream. And in fact, long-term, YouTubers and stuff will win and BBC will have to like,

go it. YouTube sponsored, no, BBC, YouTube, I don't know, how would it work? Sponsored by the BBC. Yeah, it's going to be that. Although BBC, I want to be director general one day, so I'm not. Oh, so you want to be Paxman and also director? Well, yeah, I think like you could do all things in your career. You could be the person that's the face at some stage. I want to set my own production company. So right now when I'm young-ish,

and camera worthy and look young. I want to be the person behind the cameras. But at some stage, I want to own the production company, create the shows that go viral, then become the director of...

a BBC or a Netflix. So that's a longer term, but I'm a bit greyer. And then there's going to be some kind of like salary scandal, like why is the director of the BBC being paid so much? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That can be you. That can be me, that can be me. That's a dream. That's a dream, that's a dream. Bobby Segal is finding a high to my villa in Bahamas. Yeah, that'll be good. But with, we'll come back to about my own experience. Yeah. But I genuinely think it is sad that celebrity cultures got to such a stage where I think people

People that are publishers, broadcasters, they feel such a pressure to give instant results, instant success, instant sales, instant viewership, that they find it harder to take risks on untested authors, untested broadcasters, untested podcasters. And clearly, if you believe that talent is distributed everywhere, there are clearly brilliant young and not so young podcasters, writers out there that just haven't been discovered yet.

But for some reason, people that are celebrities, whether you've come through a reality show or whether you come from a news show or whatever show you've come through, you've now gained a celebrity. And because that celebrity, you are being offered books, podcasts, television shows. And again, that is the reality for me. I've had to be honest, I have had to hustle. I work really hard because the reality is,

Normally people that come from television shows that make a TV career come from the more mainstream They'll come from Love Island produces loads of celebrities Bake Off does Strictly, but they've obviously they've obviously had a platform before but most reality show people They have that platform and then there's a there's a constant conveyor belt that they produce celebrities but the reality is

University Challenge doesn't have a conveyor belt. There have been people from University Challenge that have gone on to become famous, but not because of it, but they've done like, Stephen Fry was on University Challenge. Oh, yeah. John Simpson, the broadcaster, but University Challenge was incidental. It happened and, oh,

oh, you were on University Challenge. Whereas for me, it's a fundamental part of my early story. But since 1962, no one's managed to use University Challenge and build it to have a media career. So what I'm trying to do is almost unique. No one's unique, I think, but it's almost unique in the sense of I'm trying to, so it is hard. So many times I'm trying to do things, get onto programs. And then often they're like, oh, we don't really, you're kind of person, you're too smart for a show.

And again, it annoys me because I am smart, but I'm trying to bring my, often people forget my mission is trying to bring knowledge in a relatable way.

Again, part of me could have gone to stay at Cambridge, Oxford, become an academic in maths. Again, if I was an academic, it probably would have been in financial economics, financial maths, because that's my expertise. I could have been like someone that looks at black shoals and adapts it to the black shoals seagull model. Something that prevents financial crashes. But yeah, that would have been my field. If I was an academic in mathematics rather than pure, I would have been applied maths.

But I don't want to necessarily create new material I want to be the preacher for preachers because I think it's more fun, you engage more people

And with my books, the same thing. Again, Monkman and Seagull, the BBC approached us saying, we'd love you to produce a television. First a radio show first, then a book, then the television show. So with the books, we had publishers approach us. So we had Penguin approach Monkman and Seagull. We'd want to publish a book with you. We went for a smaller independent publisher that was based in Cambridge. Again, it's like doing things you're comfortable with. At the time, Penguin approaching us were like,

Penguin, why would they want to approach us? We don't know anything about publishing. So we went for someone that was, he was an academic in Cambridge that lived there. So therefore we felt like, ah, this is a nice gentle step. You know, it's like rejecting celebrity big brother at the time. Okay, I can go on a BBC panel show, but I'm not going to go on celebrity big brother. I'm not going to accept Penguin, but I will take this small independent indie publisher.

But again, they would not have approached us were it not for us having a television profile. And the same thing for my second book. I knew that I wanted to write a book about how maths changed my life. So my book is called The Life-Changing Magic of Numbers. To be honest, I wanted to call it The Life-Changing Magic of Maths. But apparently you can't put maths on the front cover of a book without sales dropping off significantly. So it was a subtitle. Can you see in the second book? I was like, put it on the second version. Yeah.

Is it there? University Challenge star and BBC maths guru is on there. It just says the life-changing magic of numbers. But in the second book, the subtitle says... Oh, how maths shapes everyday life. They felt more confident in my brand that they could put the word maths in. It's sort of partially autobiographical, looks at my life, tracing it from being a child to being an adult and shows how maths has changed my life in different parts. So how collecting football stickers got me into stats.

and got me into maths how I've applied maths in my cooking or my dancing or listening to music or lack of dating so every part of my life

or my approach to personal finance, or even approach like friends, how you can develop friendships in terms of, you know, there's, I forget the name of the psychologist, but there's a way in terms of we have five close friends, and you have three times, you've got 15 friends in a wider region. The Dunbar number? Dunbar number, yeah. Then about 150. So even like a mathematical approach can be used to take into approaching your friendships. So I talk about how I've applied math throughout my life.

So almost like using my engaging life story, but the maths underneath that. So I did want to publish that. And to be honest, longer term, I want to publish a more powerful book on my family and our story of...

How four boys from a council estate in East London all went to Oxbridge, three got Eton scholarships, all conventionally successful. And actually, it's not necessarily the talent, but it's the hard work over a long period of time, lucky breaks, parents that supported us, a local library, good teachers, all those factors. Almost like it's a story of success.

how to succeed in modern Britain. And that's like a book I want to write when I've got a bigger, bigger platform. So I feel like that's my Sunday Times, New York Times, you've heard about it. That's my Sunday Times, New York Times bestseller. How a family in Britain ended up becoming like my brother's the biggest barrister, one of the world famous artists. Why do you care about that? Like Sunday Times, New York Times bestseller type thing?

Why do I care? Partially ego. I like the idea of having a book that makes... But also, I think the message, I genuinely believe the message of success, like how is my family successful? And I think all of us are going to be successful and are successful, conventionally as it were. But that's not because we've got this innate genius gift. Of course, we've got talents. But against that concept of like Matthew Said of...

of thousands of hours of application. Again, quizzing, I'm good at it, but I haven't got a photographic memory. Although I've got this weird one little interlude. When I was about 12, 13, I had this phase where

I would, when I would dream, I would dream of the lessons in school. So I genuinely wake up the next morning, I've revised French vocab. Nice. And I had this phase for six, nine months. I did not need to study. And I don't know how this happened. Was it lucid dreaming? But the books weren't there, but in my dreams. So it wasn't photographic. I had a six month phase, six and nine month phase. And I was 12, but I think about adolescence.

where my brain was rewiring, where I genuinely did not need to study. And I honestly wish I could have had my brain scanned then because there was something weird going on. I've never had that since. I'm now a normal person. I've got to study. I've got the Ebbinghaus curve like anyone else. So I've got to study.

and do things but I genuinely think with my family our story of resilience, working hard, seeking counsel, having family that really loves and supports you, seeking opportunities, exposing yourself to, again growing up we played musical instruments, we tried to draw, we wrote stories in English, we did lots of clubs, we were almost like polymathic, our dad encouraged trying out, you know almost like being a generous to many domains and then finding niches that we become experts, again

In the media, I'm generally in any field. You can get me talking about personal finance. You can get me talking about politics, business, gossip, reality shows, anything you put me in front of, I can very quickly and confidently have a conversation. And that's partly my upbringing. So I think I almost want to use our family story to show people that

Yes, there are privileges that exist in my family. We were born to a dad that really wanted to educate his children. We were born in the 21st century. We were born, or 20th actually, we were raised in the 21st century. We were born in Britain, so that clearly, but again, there's disadvantages. Maybe some people would say growing up in an immigrant, ethnic minority community is an advantage. Some people say it's an advantage.

going up on a council estate, going up in the East End of London, going up with being short, being tall is a privilege, being a five foot five guy. If I was six foot, there'd be other, you know, my dating app. I'd probably meet more. Yeah, yeah. So again, I want to acknowledge that

That even though people have disadvantages Like as a family we have disadvantages You can still find advantages And make that into a privilege That helps you succeed So I generally think Because our family is successful But there's nothing like magical about that What is magical is Like finding opportunity And taking advantage of any little like Oh something there Yeah

So we talked about kind of the economics of this business model and it's kind of this thing of the rich get richer, i.e. the more famous just get more famous because they are the ones afforded the publishing deals and the TV contracts and stuff. From my perspective, or okay, so if we use YouTube as an example, there are people out there who would have the view that let's say, well, once you hit a million subscribers, you've just made it like by default, you're absolutely complete baller, like you don't have to worry about money ever again, all that kind of stuff.

And then you would see YouTubers at millions of subscribers very concerned, like, oh crap, what if my profile goes down? What if this, what if that? People would, you know, I'm very transparent about how much money the YouTube channel makes. People will look at that and be like, oh my God, you've made it. You never have to work a day in your life, all that kind of stuff. But at the same time, I'm still like, oh crap, like, you know, this feels like a house of cards. Like it just takes, I don't know, one instance of getting canceled or even just over time, people stop caring about my stuff. What's going to happen? Like, am I going to end up broken, homeless? And, you know, all of those kind of anxieties come into it.

So what's that? What is that feeling like for you being a fairly like mainstream celebrity in the UK for this math stuff and having written two, three books about this? What are the kind of the pros, the cons, the struggles of the economics? Okay, so firstly, what I'll say is economics wise, I would earn a lot more had I stayed in banking. In terms of guaranteed minimum level. So the reality is celebrities probably like...

Most middle-level celebrities, maybe like a hundred, couple hundred grand, 300 grand, they're not earning millions because they get paid per TV appearance. Maybe they'll do some public talks, publish a book, 20, 30 grand advance plus some more, like 10, 20, 30 grand. So you're comfortable. You can earn a few hundred grand

But it's not like Goldman Sachs, Bankers, Senior Profit Levels. So if I wanted to earn a guaranteed million, two million, three million a year, I would stay in banking. So I've got siblings in banking that will earn more than I ever do. But I think it's like trying to find the balance, the pinch point between I do something that I find really fulfilling. But I will be comfortable. And I do want, again, there's nothing...

Wrong and saying I want to be wealthy. I really saw so that why why don't we wealthy like you can enjoy holidays? To be honest is so I can holidays. I don't take enough holidays. I took my This year. I like a holiday on a friend's narrowboat bar just my first holiday for three years I'm a bit of a workaholic move. I'm single as long as you having fun. Yeah, I'm having lots of fun Maybe with someone else they could be like even more. Yeah but

The media world... So if you're the front of face camera, you can earn a good living. And you can even earn like a million if you're presenting the mainstream. Like Ant & Dec will earn five million a year. And then sponsorships will get them more. So you can still earn a good whack. But to be... To earn the big money... And this is why I talk about my longer ambitions. You need to be the... Not just the talent. I hate that word again. So many words I hate. I hate talent. But I keep using it. I hate celebrity. But...

The talent on screen, you are still an employee. Someone is paying you to bring in the audience. I'll get rich as an employee. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But if you are the person creating the format, creating the who wants to be a millionaire, the chase, creating this podcast format that gets licensed and commissioned around the world, that is where the real money is. That's where you can make the tens of millions. If you want that. And again, I do want to do that. Do I want to do it for the tens of millions? Not necessarily. I want to do it because I think it's a cool thing to do. And then obviously with the money you can do, you've got more privilege to other things. I like the idea now.

When I'm young, and again, with television, it's quite a brutal industry. You've got, there's like element of,

if you've got a certain element of being telegenic whether it's being quirky or something about you yeah whatever it is i've got that some quirky quirkiness about me that people like on camera my personality my energy but it won't always be there yeah you're kind of like an and it's it's similar to being a youtuber where it's it's sort of like the business model being an athlete where you've got a few years in the limelight to really make hay while the sun is shining yes and try and set yourself up for the longevity of your future career whereas it's

at least in YouTube, it's very easy to be big and then have your 15 minutes of fame and then it dies. Yeah. This is the thing that keeps me up at night. Is that scary for you? Yeah, hell yeah. Do you have anxieties like, okay, you're a big YouTuber now, but in five years, in your Odyssey plan, is it one of the... I haven't explored the simulation to that degree, but it's more of a sense of, it's always a fear of like, what if five years from now, I'm just irrelevant?

What would you... I think I've heard people ask that before. So, okay. So imagine in five years, YouTube gets...

there's a new government force that says no more youtube and you can't even set up so i know what you might say is pre-empting you might say i'll start again from scratch imagine you're not allowed to sure what would what would you do oh i'd be a writer writer okay like my thing i or rather a teacher but i think you are an educator that's what i think and you are that's like my you're an educator that's my hustle so i think a life where i'm spending my time reading writing and teaching is great and this is why i'm i'm writing a book because

because I think being a writer affords you a level of longevity that being a YouTuber does not. Spot on. That's what the celebrity, in fact, people that are celebrities that have a TV career and TV career, you have a limited, I think mine is going to be a bit of a longer life. Yeah, you're kind of intellectual. Intellectual, you can be grey and not as good looking and bags under your eyes. Whereas if you're just like, I love island personality. Yeah, you're there because you look beautiful and beauty fades. Intellect,

Does save, but not the diminishing factor. But not the same, yeah. Yeah, unless you get early onset dementia, in which case it's going to be difficult. But the celebrities that are smart do exactly what you're doing. They try to diversify their income, develop a portfolio. You can't just rely on television income, even if it gives you a few hundred grand a year. Yeah.

you need to think of what is the best long-term income and people have realised writing is. And if you look at like, again, this year's Strictly Come Dancing, there's a guy called Tom Fletcher. So Tom Fletcher was in... Tom Fletcher, the McCly guy. Oh yeah, he's very good. Yeah, he's great songs, pop star. But then he started writing children's books. Yes, and he's the best-selling...

he makes, I bet he makes more money from writing his books than anything else now. Yeah. David Walliams, famous, like, little Britain, judge, Britain's Got Talent, but he makes his money from being a best-selling author. Wait, he's written a book? Loads of kids' books. No way, all kids' books, okay. Kids, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like,

That was like Roald Dahl, but for the modern era. Some people critique it by saying it's not as funny. Probably not because Roald Dahl was a genius. He's doing well. Yeah, yeah. But he's making millions. So the way to make money as a celebrity and having longevity of that money is by going into writing. And to be honest, to be cynical, the best way is either two ways are...

One is to either do like a lot of self-help stuff. I know it's on Instagram, like Stacey Solomon. She talks about like she was from X Factor, then on Loose Women. And she writes books on like cleaning your house, tidying up and clean mindset and stuff like that. Or I think the best way is children's writing. Interesting. Because often reality of book writing, so you get the people that buy books are either people that are trying to better themselves. So teens, 20s, 40s, people think, oh, I want to learn to write.

be a healthier person. I want to learn to overcome my depression. I want to learn to be a happier person. So you buy, there'll be people like self-help

Then you've got the fiction market, loads of fiction for adult fiction. 80% of fiction, I think 80-70% of readers are female. So if you're writing books, I'm thinking longer term of adult and children's fiction, I'm going to write books for female fiction. Yeah, I'd really love to do it, to write like a romance novel. That would be interesting. There's a big market there. Most readers of physical books, podcasts are different, audiobooks, but most readers of books are female. So that's the market.

But children's market is a great way because if you think about it, who makes the purchase? It's parents. And parents have disposable income. And we're talking about like parents, they want to pass on their genes and for them to survive, they will pass away at some stage. And their investment in the world is their children. So Sony parents are happy to spend money on children, on their holidays and their schooling and their books. So if you write books,

If you, Ali, in fact, if you write books for children, on your same mindset stuff, on your productivity, but how, like, you know Cal Newport? Before he became a writer, we haven't come across it today, but his concept of deep work, how to be a student. I love that. My family is our Bible. If I went on a desert island, I'd take, what use would it be on a desert island? I'm not sure, but my Bible, deep work is one of my Bibles. I have a constant battle between, I'm

I don't think I have ADHD. I've not been diagnosed, but I think the reason I'm successful is I'm able to like do lots of things. But also it means that when you're trying to write books, write essays, do PhDs, my self-diagnosed ADHD is probably not, but it doesn't help. But yeah,

Writing books for children and writing books like Matthew Syed does it. He's got a book called You Are Awesome on mindset for children. So all the things that you write for adults, if you repurposed and repackaged it for children, more friendly in terms of like pictures, bits they can fill in, I bet you,

- You would be a... - That's what Adam Kay did really well. He got big off of "This is Gonna Hurt" and now he's got the... - My book agent is Adam Kay's book agent. - Oh, nice. So they're trying to get me to think of like, how can you use your background? So, for example, I'm into personal finance.

I write again for the FT. I'm like almost like a, I'm literally a pound shop version of Martin Luther. We're both ambassadors for national numeracy, but he's like in the UK, the god of personal finance. Like everyone knows him in the UK. Exactly. And to be honest, one of my, this is, I'm not sure, one of my possible ambitions is thinking about can I try and become like the future version? Yeah. Like in 5, 10, 15 years. Like maybe the TikTok version of Money Saving Expert rather than the blog. Exactly. Yeah. I don't think I've the...

the dedication to create a website like he will create the team I mean you can hire a I could yeah I could do that I'm sure he doesn't write his no not anymore yeah so it's a possibility for another Bobby but my agent was saying there's a and for once I went to them with this idea saying I could create a Martin Lewis but for children yeah

Because parents want to educate their kids about the world. And one of the things parents often are worried about, my child will enter the world of work without understanding money, taxes. What about writing a book? So there's a market to be a Martin Luther children. Have you come across Mark Tilbury? No, I haven't. He's this like guy in his 50s or 60s or something who's huge on TikTok, like million plus followers, million plus on YouTube as well. And he does personal finance and investing advice for kids.

And he's got a podcast that I'm going to be on in a couple of months. He's coming on this as well. Like Father Like Son, where it's basically a finance podcast where him and his son talk to guests about money and things. That's why I need to get married. Yeah. So you can do podcasts with your kids. But his stuff is really good on TikTok. It's a bit...

cringe threshold is also fairly high. But it's perfect for the audience, like young people explaining mindset, financial success, financial literacy. It's really good. So we're talking about book writing. There's a big market. Children's book. And in fact, again, if you...

the print market is is struggling a bit generally because people are now not reading I think I was listening to a was it your podcast I think is I listen to so much of yours I get confused I don't I don't say anything original so it's always so maybe maybe it was a Cal Newport podcast but he was talking about how he doesn't use social media at all oh yeah that's the

Because he's all about deep work. And again, he reads the Washington Post in the morning, maybe watches the news in the evening, that's it. But during the day, he's focused on his work. But still, he's, in fact, he probably has a better nuanced understanding of the world than the people that are constantly on their social, checking Twitter. Because the reality of things like social media, it's just trying to grab your attention. It's news with a short shelf life. Things within a couple of days are irrelevant. Yeah.

Whereas reading long form pieces, they take time, they take investment reading books, but they're the things that help develop us. Like again, if we talk about our zone of proximal development, almost like the Twitter and stuff are almost like little splashes of water. If you imagine like zone of proximal development is a living, breathing thing. Twitter, Instagram, little hits are like throwing splashes of water. Of course, it's good.

And you're constantly getting that source. But reading a book is almost like going elsewhere, finding a well. So you're not getting any water for a bit.

But once you pipe it up, connect it to your 3D sphere of zone of proximal development, you're feeding it water. So it takes effort to find it, it takes effort to make the right connection and stuff. But I think so books, so I think over time, society, there'll be a backlash against this consumerist short term, wanting to know everything at every single moment. Yeah.

And parents in particular, ones that are not enlightened, but ones that help their kids, they will almost tell their kids, you can't use TikTok constantly. Get a book, read. So I think over the next five, 10 years, we're going to see the market for books for children, especially books that help children find their place in the world will succeed. So we have some quickfire questions. Number one, what advice would you give to your younger self? Ooh, younger self. Keep trying out lots of things. Nice. Who's had the biggest influence on your career?

my father my father's the biggest influence because he's the one that's helped me transition between all the different and i think whenever i've fallen down he's been there to support me also my mother as well she brings she does the same but my father in a different way in case you're listening i love you too mom what's what's one tip for someone looking for success um

progress, not perfection. I first heard it in Denzel Washington's The Equalizer. Oh, okay. But there's a version by Voltaire and Confucius. Confucius talks about a diamond with flaws is better than a pebble with none. But essentially, just try and do something. Like, for example, if you're trying to write a book, don't... Just write the page. Just write the...

write a bloody page write a paragraph maybe I'm committing today this weekend if my agents listen to this they're going to be so nervous I'm sending them through they're like send through the first chapter three chapters maybe the first chapter maybe a plot synopsis I'll write the first page this weekend first page this weekend it just needs to be a crappy first draft first page okay I'll what's happening on the weekend please do yeah yeah yeah what does the first and last hour of your day look like first hour

First thing I do is I go and get a pint of hot water. Oh, nice. Always. I'll put the radio on, listen to the news, Radio 4 usually. Although nowadays, because of you, I'm starting to listen to more podcasts. Because of you, BBC has lost a subscriber. I used to always be Today Program, but now I'm like, that's ephemeral news. That's just the noise, the little bits and drips, whereas listening to content like yours...

And I'm genuinely not trying to flatter you, it's stuff that enriches, it's like the piping the well to you. So in the morning that, and I'm normally getting ready to go and do a workout. So the night before, so this relates to the night before. So the night, in the evening,

It'll be related to our plan the next day. Like what my objects are, a little whiteboard, what the next thing's going to do. I'll verbally or mentally think about things I'm grateful for. I used to, in fact, my family, this shows you how ahead of our time, I used to have a gratitude journal when I was like 12, 13. That's way before it was cool. Yeah, 12, 13, every day write down things I was happy about, things that it wasn't. So we used to have a gratitude journal, but once I had an argument with myself and it stopped. Yeah.

Weird. I have a weird monologue about the Gratitude Journal. I think I feel as if the Gratitude Journal, there were a few things that weren't being progressed in terms of my objectives. I was like, what's the point of you, Gratitude Journal? I was like, if I'm not making progress, see you later. Bye. I've done that a couple of times. I had to stop myself. Toxic productivity. Yeah, yeah. Oh, that's another thing. What's the point of gratitude if it's not to advance my goals? Yeah, yeah.

What about the last hour you said you... Yeah, it's like winding down, listening to some music, having a nice cup of chamomile tea, speaking to my parents. One day I might be in Varna, but yeah. What material item under £100 or so has added large amounts of value to your life? Ooh, that's a good question. What material item? I would say my trainers. Like shoes? Yeah, I'll tell you why. Because for me, I have lots of energy. Mm-hmm.

Some of it gets dissipated, the kinetic energy of my voice, through communication, talking, my subject, maths, my love for education. But the other part is doing exercise and sport. Without my trainer, anywhere I go, if I'm going for an overnight stay, I'll take my trainers with me. So I'll go to the gym, go for a run, find someone to play tennis with. So if, one of the things is,

So obviously long term I want to find a partner but if I ever lost my ability to do sports I generally think I'd be depressed like properly depressed. Which trainers do you use? I like these I've got these Nike black discreet I always like discreet stuff but I also got these funky red looks like Air Jordans but they're fake Air Jordans. Oh nice one. But they remind me of the time when I couldn't afford fancy shoes I would always keep them they're like when I couldn't afford them. Apart from yours what books or what book would you recommend to anyone? Oh

I would say, it's probably one of the authors I mentioned today. I think I'm going to mention the Matthew Syed one. I think it's Bounce, The Talent of Myth. And it's, so Matthew Syed was a, um,

Commonwealth table tennis player won the Commonwealth Championship three times and he's all about dispelling the myth of talent. In fact, I think my whole mission in life is sort of that book because people talk about the maths brain. I can dance or I can sing. I'm not meant to be a dancer. I'm not meant to be a singer. I think all of us can develop our skills in anything we want. We might not become a gold medalist or world champion. We can become a lot better

then we are capable of, that we think we're capable. And that is that. There's no such thing as talent. I think that book helps dispel a lot of the myths. Nice. If you lost everything, so fame, accolades, book deals, all that kind of stuff, how would you start again? I would, let's have a look. I'd probably just go back to being a teacher for now. For now, for now. I would go back to being a full-time classroom teacher five days a week, which I'm not anymore. I'm part-time now. But then I'd be plotting again. I'd be thinking, how can I...

I think I'd end up veering back towards this career of edutainment because I think in this Bobby Seagull, again, I genuinely sometimes believe in the multiverse. There are other Bobby Seagulls. I'm a big fan. I studied quantum mechanics and physics. I'm a big fan of all that sort of stuff.

But I generally think in most of these quantum universes, Bobby is drawn towards edutainment because I love learning. Learning is something that's part of my core being. And I love the idea of spreading that knowledge of learning is cool. What quote or mantra do you live by? Be the best version of yourself. And finally, journey or destination? Oh, it's got to be. I think it's one of the things that I could say the wrong thing. Has to be the journey. Could be the journey. Could be the journey. Although in the climb like Miley Cyrus, you get, I think...

you'll get to intermediate destinations that you can sit and enjoy and go, oh my God, this is cool. This is cool. I'm doing this. I've got a book. I've got a podcast. I've got a multimillion YouTube channel. So they're- They'll be grateful for the intermediate destination. But it's all about the journey. It's all about the journey. Nice.

Bobby, thank you so much. This has been great. I wish we could continue chatting for longer, but we have a hard stop in about six minutes time. If anyone is listening to this and they want to be your assistant or your intern or to help you with, to join this team that you will assemble because it's a no brainer, where can they contact you? So I think generally social media is the best place. So at Bobby underscore Seagull on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok. Chat with me there. YouTube is Bobby Seagull TV. Funnily enough, just a quick thing is

People say, why is it not at Bobby Seagull? So at Bobby Seagull on YouTube and Twitter, some annoying people who put no content. Like one person on Twitter has done like 20 tweets. And one person on Instagram or YouTube has done like one video, like Minecraft. So maybe when I get like really rich, I'm going to get lawyers to get them to take it. You don't even need to. Like if you just email Twitter customer support, they'll probably give it to you. Because it's annoying to have the...

Yeah, the underscore is a bit annoying. Maybe my autobiography title is going to be the bloody underscore. Oh, hello. The bloody underscore. Because I hate Bobby. I'm Bobby underscore Seagull. Oh, no. That's really sad. Anyway, thank you so much for coming on. Any final message you'd like to impart? Anything you'd like to plug? Or, of course, put links to your books and stuff in the show notes. Yeah, so if people want to find out my books, The Life-Changing Magic of Numbers, The Quiz Book, people can always reach out to me on social media if they want to chat. But I think my biggest message from today is,

don't set limits on yourself because society, people, friends, family, who knows, even yourself sometimes can do that, but set yourself the maximum possible goals and see what life takes you. If you can't, you know, you're not going to become an Olympic champion, a gold medalist, a TV presenter, fine, but don't limit yourself. Nice. Love it. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Thank you. It's a pleasure. Thanks for listening. Please leave us a review on the iTunes store or something like that. And we'll catch you later. All right. So that's it for this week's episode of Deep Dive. Thank you so much for watching or listening. All the links and resources that we mentioned in the podcast are going to be linked down in the video description or in the show notes, depending on where you're watching or listening to this. If you're listening to this on a podcast platform, then do please leave us a review on the iTunes store. It really helps other people discover the podcast.

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