# Derrick Abaitey: You Have the Power to Shape Your Life | The Konnected Minds Story

An episode of [The Peswa Podcast](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1781537541), 20 Jul 2025, 1 h 25 min.

Audio: https://anchor.fm/s/110e1ce70/podcast/play/117753097/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2026-2-31%2F421135818-44100-1-9b55b4c8da5f9bca.mp3

Send a text In this powerful episode of The Peswa Podcast, we sit down with Derrick Abaitey — founder of AKtive Pharmacy and creator/host of Konnected Minds Podcast, Ghana’s biggest podcast channel. Derrick opens up about his early life, the sparks that ignited his business journey, and how he built impactful brands from the ground up. But beyond his story, he also shares his two-piece on what it really takes to chart the path of entrepreneurship in Ghana and beyond. He breaks down the common challenges entrepreneurs face, from funding hurdles to mindset traps — and more importantly, offers practical solutions and mindsets to help you navigate them with clarity and grit. This episode is packed with raw insight, personal stories, and the kind of wisdom every dreamer, doer, and builder needs to hear. 🎧 Whether you’re just starting out or already in the trenches, Derrick’s journey and lessons will leave you inspired — and equipped. 🔔 Subscribe and turn on notifications for more real, relatable, and bold conversations on The Peswa Podcast. 📩 Connect with us: • Follow Bill on Instagram: @billcobbinah • Follow us on all socials: @thepeswa 📢 Subscribe The Peswa on all Platforms: https://linktr.ee/thepeswa Get access to amazing royalty-free music for your projects — sign up for an Uppbeat account using the referral link: https://share.uppbeat.io/cy9fcqqxj4tg Host's outfit by Ethnarch Consilio. Find them on Instagram and TikTok @ethnarchconsilio Contact: 0552172107 Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more conversations like this! #DerrickAbaitey #KonnectedMinds #ThePeswaPodcast #GhanaEntrepreneurs #AKtivePharmacy #AfricanBusiness #EntrepreneurMindset #PodcastAfrica #RealTalk The Fresh Patch Podcast - Where Good Pets Get It. Welcome to the Fresh Patch Podcast where we talk about everything, from dog... Listen on: Apple Podcasts Support the show

## Transcript

[0:00] 15 I went to the UK. 16 I started learning tech scales. 17
[0:05] I already had a computer repair services that I was doing our.
[0:08] Point in this really extensive journey, did you decide I want
[0:12] to do podcasting and I want to do this kind of podcasting?
[0:16] I've said this before, the God factor is the ability to create
[0:21] your life. Create it whichever direction
[0:24] you want. So that's why somebody can pick
[0:27] up a knife and change their life because they stopped, somebody
[0:29] ended up in prison. Somebody can pick up a knife and
[0:31] become an awesome chef. So you create you.
[0:34] You are crafting this every moment of your life.
[0:37] The opportunity is there for you to craft it.
[0:39] Connected minds? Why the name there?
[0:42] If you're a listener and a learner and somebody that
[0:45] studies podcast, no interviewing is great for you because you get
[0:48] to get deep into people's minds and how they've been able to
[0:52] realize the success that they have.
[0:54] It becomes like a blueprint. As a person, if you want to
[0:59] chart the path of entrepreneurship, you will hit a
[1:02] lot of blocks, Problems that will hit you emotionally that
[1:07] sometimes you may even feel like you want to climb something and
[1:10] drop. It's happening to people all the
[1:11] time. You need a support system.
[1:14] You need somebody by your side, somebody you can be free and
[1:18] open with and talk about your problems and they can water it
[1:21] very quickly before it becomes a bigger problem.
[1:24] Without that, life will swallow you.
[1:28] I know people who have who started podcasting around the
[1:31] same time as I did. They don't have the numbers I
[1:34] have. Why?
[1:35] Because you see. Hello friends.
[1:46] So the conversation you're about to listen to, it's between
[1:51] myself and Derek Baiti. Derek Baiti is the host for the
[1:55] Connected Minds podcast. I think it's the biggest
[1:58] podcast. I mean, Ghana at the moment,
[2:02] Really, really impressive portfolio that he's built for
[2:06] himself on the podcast and outside the podcast, the we
[2:11] spoke about his upbringing, his growing up as an immigrant in
[2:16] the UK, starting business, dealt with losses, marriage and
[2:22] generally his posture as an entrepreneur and his mindset and
[2:27] how he thinks regards to living a productive life as a young
[2:33] person. And I think it was a really good
[2:34] conversation. The fine thing is the fine fact
[2:38] is that after the conversation that we ended up talking a
[2:40] couple more minutes because it was that good a conversation.
[2:44] And so I really do hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
[2:48] And the mantra remains, just build something, Eric.
[2:53] Yes, Sir. Thanks for coming.
[2:55] You're welcome. It's it's really exciting
[2:58] because the truth is that you've built something we are looking
[3:04] up to. You know, they're connected by
[3:06] this podcast. Great work, right?
[3:10] Last year, the number one podcast in Ghana and Apple
[3:14] podcast. Yeah, amazing numbers and it's
[3:19] very different, you know, and you set the pace for some of us
[3:21] to actually follow Dick. And Dick said I should tell you
[3:24] that he's coming for a #1 sports.
[3:29] I'll give him the tips. And we'll be glad to take it.
[3:34] I really want to strip the video, you know, and understand
[3:37] the man, the man behind the podcast, you know, and just
[3:42] understand the journey you've taken because I know, like,
[3:43] you're a multifaceted person. I even hear you had like,
[3:47] staining rap, doing rap music and all of that.
[3:50] Hopefully we get to explore all of that to be a conversation.
[3:54] Yeah. So there is this conversation.
[3:58] I saw a post of yours about your grandmother.
[4:00] I think somebody asked about the need for starting a business.
[4:04] I think it's an old post of yours and you're talking about
[4:06] how when you were done with school, like your, your
[4:10] pharmacist by training and you just realize you already came to
[4:15] system realization that doing that was not enough.
[4:19] And there was a case where your grandma was not well and you had
[4:23] to come in to provide the capital to help her out, right?
[4:28] And that's all sort of an, an inflection point for you to
[4:30] consider starting the business and becoming entrepreneurial,
[4:35] right? And I would want you to.
[4:38] Were you raised by your grandmother?
[4:40] She played a huge part of my life.
[4:44] Did she raise me 5050? OK, but she was a huge part of
[4:49] my life. That's an interesting
[4:50] phenomenon. I've like picked up the people
[4:52] who I get to speak to. There's a thing funny
[4:55] correlation between people who end up being business people,
[4:58] entrepreneurs and being raised by their grandparents.
[5:02] I see. Yeah, like most of the like half
[5:04] of the people have been here, people who have being raised by
[5:06] the company. I'm trying to understand what
[5:07] that dynamic is, you know, so walk us back to that point.
[5:12] We come to that point soon. So I know you're you're trained
[5:15] pharmacists, right? Were you raised in Ghana?
[5:18] So I left, I left Ghana when I was 15 years.
[5:22] Oh, OK. Yeah, 15 years.
[5:24] I left Ghana, so I didn't even get to do Senior High in Ghana.
[5:28] So I did call it a bit of, you know, secondary in the UK and
[5:32] then I did college and then went for university.
[5:36] OK. So I became a pharmacist in the
[5:38] UK. OK.
[5:40] Trained, qualified pharmacist, Yeah.
[5:42] OK. But anyway, it's US of Kent.
[5:43] So you have a master's degree in pharmacies?
[5:45] Yes, so I have a master's in. Well, and that's the last three
[5:48] years ago, you think you even did another degree?
[5:52] Yeah, so I did a postgraduate in prescribing.
[5:56] Yeah, independent. Prescribing.
[5:58] Yeah, because in the UK pharmacists are allowed to
[6:00] prescribe. Nurses are allowed to prescribe
[6:03] as well, so. As of 63 you're still like
[6:05] really steep in doing pharmacy. It's, it's just look, it's just
[6:14] the, the type of person you know you're trying to be, right.
[6:18] So you need to keep improving on yourself like CPD continuous
[6:22] improvement. And if you don't then because
[6:26] now what is happening is that in the UK pharmacist are going to
[6:29] come out of the university prescribers.
[6:32] So Can you imagine that somebody you've qualified way before 10
[6:37] years, they come out of school and they already prescribers,
[6:40] they can do more than you can do.
[6:42] So should anything happen to you, you can't demand as much as
[6:47] they can. So it's just a value chain.
[6:49] You know what value you're placing upon yourself.
[6:52] So I just thought, you know, let's go back to school.
[6:54] And I was actually going to go back to school again to do my
[6:57] MBA at Imperia, but then I didn't get in for one or two
[7:00] reasons. So I am still, you know, I like,
[7:02] I like studying. You know, I haven't become this
[7:05] version of Derek if I chose to just stop it there and not
[7:09] reinvent myself. Yeah.
[7:11] Yeah. So growing up, did you always
[7:12] know you're going to be like, do you have the, do you have the
[7:14] typical, what's it called perspective?
[7:18] I want to become a pharmacist when I grew up.
[7:21] Did you have that that locked in?
[7:22] Yeah, so recently I was telling my wife that if I had not become
[7:26] a pharmacist, a doctor, a dentist or anything, I probably
[7:28] would have become a teacher, right, Because my my uncle is a
[7:31] teacher. My father was a teacher at some
[7:34] point. There are a lot of teachers, you
[7:36] know, in my family. And I probably would have become
[7:39] that or I probably ended up on the Galam Seaside, right.
[7:45] But yeah, I always wanted to be. It's just those things, isn't
[7:48] it? You know, become a doctor,
[7:49] become a a dentist, engineer, all those things.
[7:52] Typical, very typical. You're born by the baby boomers.
[7:55] So, you know, those parents, they struggled a lot, you know,
[7:59] to make things happen for us. And the expectations on their
[8:01] children is so high, much more than my expectations on my
[8:05] children. OK, so I picked up those some of
[8:07] those expectations to become who I.
[8:09] Am yeah talking to family and there's a father teacher or
[8:12] something? No.
[8:13] No, no, not currently. So my father lives in the UK.
[8:16] OK, yeah. So he he works in the UK.
[8:18] How many siblings do you? Have I have?
[8:21] How many siblings do I have? Great, SO.
[8:24] He's a big family. He's a big family, Yeah, OK.
[8:27] Yeah. Dad has got kids, Mum has got
[8:28] kids. He's a big family.
[8:30] Yeah, it's a big. Family So I I explain why you
[8:32] had to live with your grandma at some point.
[8:34] Yes, OK, yes. So my grandma was like, she was
[8:39] that almost the only person I felt safe with.
[8:47] If, if, if, if I'm to explain because I was a bit stubborn,
[8:53] isn't it? So, right.
[8:55] So I do things and then when they push me away or before the
[8:59] trouble comes, you know, I'm, I'm going to her.
[9:02] And she would always give that room, you know, go cover up for
[9:07] you. So I felt very safe with her.
[9:10] And, you know, she was a farmer and she was also a trader.
[9:13] So I would always be with her. Go to the farm every every
[9:16] weekend in Akimswabe. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[9:19] So there's a village suburb of Akimoda.
[9:22] So we did that a lot. And she gave me my farm, my
[9:25] first farming experience. And you know, when the food at
[9:28] home is not even enough, I'd rush to her quickly to go and
[9:31] eat something. There's there's always a place
[9:33] for Derek. In my grandma's life, there was
[9:35] always a place, right? She wasn't married.
[9:38] So even on her bed, I have a space there so I can go and do
[9:42] all the nonsense. And then at 9:00 PM, you know, I
[9:45] could just knock and be like, goofy, I'm here, you know, and
[9:49] then I can, I can sleep. So it's she was that person.
[9:52] She was that person, Yeah. I mean, I I'm a big believer in
[9:57] understanding like foundations and what people have become
[10:00] Busif of how they are bringing what's the kind of exposure they
[10:03] had growing up. Right.
[10:04] So this young man who reason what Akim Swabe.
[10:08] Yeah. So were you with your mum there
[10:10] or? That was my mum there.
[10:11] Yeah. Your mum and my mum and my
[10:12] stepdad. Yeah.
[10:13] Oh, OK. And they had kids.
[10:16] They had kids, yes. Yes, and then now at some point
[10:19] had to leave to the UK because I'm sure that requested it.
[10:21] That's right, yes. And then you move to the UK, be
[10:24] with the family there. So what would you say that kind
[10:28] of upbringing did to your mind? One, there's a, there's this,
[10:34] this, this, the psychology of having to be in like living with
[10:40] your step dad, running to your grandma, stubborn boy, and then
[10:43] you'd move to the UK, that transition, right?
[10:46] That kind of upbringing. What are the elements you can
[10:49] point into because of these things?
[10:51] I think these things have forced me to be the man I am.
[10:55] Yeah. Yeah, I would say it's
[10:57] responsibility. OK.
[11:00] Responsibility. It has a way of shaping a man
[11:03] and realigning a man to get calling.
[11:07] And I say that because growing up, I've always felt, I don't
[11:11] know where, where that feeling came from, but I've always felt
[11:14] responsible for people around me.
[11:16] And it started my siblings. You know, I was taken into a
[11:20] marriage, right? I was taken into a marriage.
[11:24] So I was very much older than the new siblings that I was
[11:27] about to be born. So I always saw them as my
[11:32] younger ones that I'm supposed to help take care of.
[11:36] So I'd get the water, I'd get this.
[11:38] I'll basically try to, you know, help mom and, and, and, and dad
[11:41] to put things together for them. And then also, you know, you
[11:46] have that and then the family doesn't have so much, right?
[11:49] So that's my early beginnings. The family doesn't have so much.
[11:52] And there's no unique to Africans.
[11:53] I mean, a lot of people go through this, but whether it
[11:56] shapes them to be, that's another story.
[11:58] But why did they shape me to be? Because of the sense of
[12:02] responsibility and accountability towards the
[12:03] people that were around me, I always felt like I can always do
[12:07] better. And you see there's something
[12:09] about gifts and calling and right, you see the purpose, the,
[12:16] the reason why the, the, the fingers are the way they are.
[12:18] For example, look at the thumb, right?
[12:20] So I see myself as a part of this, that without the thumb,
[12:26] the other fingers will struggle. And that's how I saw myself in
[12:29] the family, that if I choose not to be the thumb, the others
[12:33] can't hold. So I have to really build so
[12:37] that I can be the support for them because I've seen that
[12:40] ability that I have the strength of the thumb.
[12:43] Are you with me? But there are certain people who
[12:45] can't see that because if we really deep in life and we look
[12:49] at things properly, right? The divine place in US,
[12:53] abilities and those abilities, it's not for us.
[12:57] It's to blend with other people and to provide either shade,
[13:02] support, finances, whatever, emotional whatever for people
[13:07] and that's has been me from the beginning.
[13:11] Interesting. I, I understand that.
[13:14] And I, I was hoping that was going to be a response because
[13:17] David Rubenstein is, is a lot about how people who are born
[13:22] under certain circumstances have the gifts of hunger, that hunger
[13:28] that comes with them and the company responsibility that he
[13:32] sometimes, you know, he's a billionaire.
[13:33] Sometimes he wish he, he wields or laments about that he thinks
[13:37] his children do not have that kind of gift, the gift of hunger
[13:40] and responsibility. Right.
[13:42] So now that brings us to the point of, and I understand the
[13:44] point of your grammar. When we started the conversation
[13:48] that your grammar was the whale. This is someone you felt safe
[13:53] around, someone who has been a great support system, and now
[13:56] there's a young man who had who has a sense of responsibility.
[14:00] And so you felt like you had to step in and to do that you had
[14:04] to start a business to just come with extra cash to help.
[14:08] What point was this and what was the first business you started?
[14:12] So 15 I went to the UK, 16 I started learning tech skills, 17
[14:18] I already had a computer repair services that I was doing half
[14:24] of. 17 I was already teaching people WordPress, right?
[14:28] Yeah, put it on Gumtree. 18 I was selling on eBay, Backtrack
[14:37] end of 17 I had YouTube accounts.
[14:40] So you see, there has always been that family doesn't have,
[14:47] you can provide the people you are living behind.
[14:51] They're struggling to pay their school fees.
[14:53] And that's my siblings. The grammar is not well, but you
[14:59] know that thing they put on us. You are abroad naturally, you
[15:04] are provider. Naturally whether you're going
[15:07] to go that extra mile to provide beyond what they need, that's
[15:11] another conversation. So the business has always been
[15:15] in the picture. And then boom, 2014 after
[15:20] university, you know, business gets registered.
[15:23] Myself, my business partner starts, you know, active
[15:25] Healthcare Limited. OK.
[15:27] And we are this point today. So the fact that tell me about
[15:32] active health healthcare, you said when I saw when I got that
[15:36] I thought you worked for the organization you know you
[15:39] started. No, no, no, no.
[15:40] It's my business. So I have, I'm a 50% owner of
[15:43] that business. OK.
[15:44] Yes. So what's the business?
[15:45] About we do healthcare services, so provide wholesale services,
[15:50] dispensing services, hub and spoke services, Tele services.
[15:54] It's several healthcare. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[15:58] How old are you at the time? Oh. 2014, yes, I was. 2014 Four.
[16:03] Yeah, yeah. OK.
[16:06] A young man, immigrant in the UK, Yeah, Starting the business
[16:09] at that time, right after university, yeah.
[16:11] How'd you come with the capital for that?
[16:13] Hello friends, so sorry to interrupt you.
[16:16] I know you're enjoying this conversation here and I'm so
[16:18] sorry about rudely interrupting you.
[16:20] But then it's come to attention that about 82% of you guys who
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[16:42] Great, so I did a business plan that thick I'd never done it
[16:47] before, learnt on YouTube at that time there's no ChatGPT so
[16:52] I couldn't do anything. I actually typed a lot of the
[16:54] work. The the entire plan was around
[16:57] 195 to 200 pages and I'd worked out exactly what I would need
[17:02] year one, year 2, year three-year 4.
[17:05] And then I broke it down to 12 months what I need month 12345
[17:10] and I worked it out that for the business to be able to really
[17:13] work, I need 80,000 lbs. So I went for a startup
[17:18] challenge, myself and my business partner Edward, we went
[17:22] somewhere in central London looking for this money, 2 black
[17:26] boys thinking we can change the world.
[17:30] It didn't work out. So on our way back I was very
[17:34] frustrated. But then something went to work.
[17:38] This started going to work. And then I said, you know what,
[17:42] let's use our friendship circle. Let's see how many people within
[17:46] our friendship circle can support our business.
[17:50] So we came up with a friendship circle.
[17:52] How many people at how many people can you get in your
[17:54] circle? I will believe in you.
[17:56] How many people can I get in my circle?
[17:57] I believe in me. We came up with them.
[17:59] Then we approached each one of them, one after the other.
[18:03] So we had two doctors, one pharmacist.
[18:06] So that was a Bimbola Assad and Desmond and then myself and Ed.
[18:12] You have you had trained pharmacists at that time?
[18:14] Was Ed a pharmacist? Ed was a pharmacist, Yeah.
[18:16] So Ed is more senior to me, so. So there were three pharmacists.
[18:20] So myself, Abby, Ed, 3 pharmacists and then two
[18:24] doctors. They bought into the idea, then
[18:27] they started paying into the business.
[18:30] That was how we started our business.
[18:32] At some point we run out of cash, so we had to go to the
[18:35] banks for loan. So I took a personal loan, Ed
[18:39] took a personal loan and we injected it back into the
[18:42] business. Did I think it was going to
[18:45] fail? Yes.
[18:47] You know, I, I knew Philly, I was always, you know, around the
[18:49] corner, but so was success. So what made us more comfortable
[18:56] in taking this path was the fact that Eddie has a big family.
[19:00] So we always knew that if there was trouble, one of the sisters
[19:05] or the brothers could bail us out.
[19:08] Were you able to help your grandma I.
[19:09] Was yes. She's still alive.
[19:12] She's not, no. My grandma passed away from
[19:19] ovarian cancer. Oh, sorry about that.
[19:21] Yeah, yeah, Ovarian cancer, I was.
[19:24] Some medications that had been sent to her, she couldn't even
[19:30] get to the point of taking it before she passed so.
[19:33] Yeah. Did you ever?
[19:34] Do you see her after you? Did you ever?
[19:36] See her after I went to the UK, yes, I only came to see her
[19:38] once. So I saw her once, but her her
[19:43] health deteriorated very quickly that I didn't have the
[19:48] opportunity to come back. As a matter of fact, I didn't
[19:51] even have the finances to come back at that time.
[19:53] So you may come and just see grandma.
[19:55] Active. At the very early stages, yes,
[19:58] very early stages. Where is it now?
[19:59] How, how? What's the what's, what's the
[20:01] skill now? Is it?
[20:02] Amazing. OK, amazing.
[20:05] But Active is doing pretty well for us still.
[20:07] Based in the UK. Still, still based in the UK, We
[20:09] still have active in Ghana, remember.
[20:11] So we have active plus in Ghana. We have active healthcare in the
[20:13] UK. Oh, OK.
[20:14] Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you're behind the active plus
[20:17] here. In Ghana, yes, yes.
[20:18] So here we have two pharmacies is.
[20:20] It the your the the the brand colors?
[20:23] Is it green or tea whites? Green, yes, Yeah, it's green,
[20:27] yes. So the pharmacies are in
[20:28] Lakeside? Oh, yes, yes, yes.
[20:31] I live on Lakeside. I see.
[20:32] Yeah, so interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[20:36] Wow. How many branches in Ghana?
[20:37] We have two. We are getting into our third
[20:39] branch now, which is going to be encounterment all right.
[20:42] I know you are involved in real estate, yes, right.
[20:46] Was that the next thing you did right after active?
[20:50] All right, so real estate was like this with healthcare, we
[20:58] always understood, you know, when you read Reach Dad, poor
[21:00] dad, you become a real estate investor at some point.
[21:03] Everybody has to interface with that book.
[21:05] At some point, so when I started getting paid, you know, we
[21:09] started getting paid from our business in the UK, we started
[21:14] investing in real estate in the UK.
[21:18] So me transitioning to do business in Ghana, I was always
[21:20] right that we do very similar things to what we're doing.
[21:23] We know works. We do similar things here.
[21:26] While Eddie takes care of business in the UK, I take care
[21:29] of business in Ghana. So we have Crocs homes here in
[21:32] Ghana and then we have active plus in Ghana.
[21:36] The real estate side is pretty new.
[21:38] We're first. We're just on our first project
[21:39] is called the Alchemistry. It's gonna be nicely gone.
[21:42] We have our second project where I put, I'm put in the studio as
[21:44] well. The ground floor is gonna be
[21:46] Airbnb. OK, so we yeah and we have a few
[21:49] plans. We have a few JVS in in the
[21:51] plan, but crux is is I think in the next 5 years is going to be
[21:55] amazing. It's going to.
[21:56] Be really What, what, what what gave the nudge?
[21:57] Like, why did you decide to do this?
[22:02] You know what I mean? You have active, active plans
[22:05] and it's going fine. What beckoned you to that call?
[22:11] Of real estate, yes, you know, it's, there's some, there's one
[22:16] Jewish, you know, wealth principle that says if you can't
[22:19] see it and touch it, you, you can't build it for the long
[22:22] term, right. So tangible enough real estate,
[22:27] farming lands, those things are old money.
[22:32] And that's the stage we are trying to move towards, a place
[22:35] where you don't necessarily need to have too many systems, yet
[22:43] it's working and they can live beyond yourself.
[22:47] That's why we need to real estate.
[22:48] OK. We also think that definitely,
[22:51] you know, especially for the Ghana market, real estate is
[22:54] just we are just scratching the surface.
[22:55] Yeah, as a as a whole country, yeah, it's big numbers, yeah,
[23:03] you know, so there's. There's a huge opportunity,
[23:05] namely there, but what's it called?
[23:08] The housing deficit in Ghana is like about 2 million.
[23:11] Yep. And for some reason, I don't
[23:15] understand it. I, I understand the numbers in
[23:18] the economics, why people are doing these supposed high, high
[23:22] echelon luxury apartments, you know, but it's a little
[23:26] inflated. But the, the, the bulk of the
[23:28] market doesn't need that for some reason, as you know, some
[23:31] of the principal can actually crack the code of affordable
[23:36] housing. I think he even shared something
[23:38] like that to. Me.
[23:39] Yeah, yeah, yeah. One of my friends is actually
[23:40] working on it. He's working on a project for
[23:42] Affordable. Look, there is a market for the
[23:50] top, there's a market for the mid and there's a market for the
[23:53] bottom. So in business, as you know, you
[23:56] pick where you want to play the game, identify your market and
[24:00] then go in there smooth and then take what you want, save them
[24:04] properly and then you are out. I definitely think that
[24:08] especially the younger ones and the people coming out of, you
[24:10] know, the standard, the nurse, the the regular teacher need a
[24:13] place to stay that is not going to cost an arm and a lake,
[24:16] something they can afford over time, which is why, you know,
[24:19] the conversation about affordable homes is brilliant.
[24:21] But I do, I think for my company, that's not our plan.
[24:25] OK, Our company's upscale, upscale affordable ish on the
[24:30] mid side like. Upper middle class.
[24:33] Yeah. Sounds good.
[24:35] Your bio. Your bio, unlike most of it girl
[24:38] on the platforms these are youth interfere like doing e-commerce
[24:42] somehow at some point. Yeah, what?
[24:45] Yeah. What was what happened there?
[24:47] Right. So I was like.
[24:48] Active became like an e-commerce you built.
[24:50] Like a yes platform, I mean active active started off as an
[24:53] E com platform, you know, selling healthcare products,
[24:56] right, But I myself have done a lot of ecom.
[25:00] So we had we had a company with my mentor at a time called
[25:03] hotswear where we're doing drop shipping and using print 4 to
[25:06] sell a lot of you know items. I have had a company called
[25:10] bumpy 9. Bumpy 9 came out when I first I
[25:13] I had my first child I'm Kendrick.
[25:16] So we set up a company with my wife, Bumpy 9, and we did
[25:19] marvelous in the day. We're getting about 50 orders a
[25:21] day and it was simply doing Ali Ali express drop shipping,
[25:25] simply doing that. I don't even know why we let
[25:27] that business go, but we got so busy with other things and there
[25:30] was more money coming from other areas.
[25:31] We just shut it down. We've had cute cuddle as well.
[25:35] Again, that came from my same son.
[25:38] So at at that time we had two businesses going going around.
[25:41] So E com have done E com for for for for a long time, and I
[25:45] understand the game it it and it was pretty simple.
[25:48] Create a website, a shop fire website or a WordPress website
[25:52] with ecommerce, put the products in the user plugin, Ali drop
[25:56] ship and then import the products from Aliexpress quality
[26:00] products and then when a customer buys it, you buy from
[26:03] Aliexpress and then they ship it to them.
[26:04] At the time we were doing it, the shipping arrangement from
[26:06] China to the UK and the US. We're a bit scattered now is is
[26:10] much better, but what makes it really work?
[26:13] Do you know what it is? Word is Facebook and Instagram
[26:15] ads. That is the bread and butter for
[26:17] a lot of ecom platforms. If you understand the Meta
[26:20] blueprint and understand how to advertise it properly and you
[26:24] you make a lot of money from that.
[26:26] Interesting. You can actually be in Ghana and
[26:28] do it. You can be in Ghana, have auk
[26:30] address, a Canadian address, AUS address, set up a shop fire
[26:34] account with amazing domain name with products ads.
[26:37] Nobody will know that you're in Ghana.
[26:40] You can actually buy AUS phone number from Zoom and use that.
[26:46] So you see, that's why I say that if people want to go legit,
[26:48] they can go legit. Yeah, it's the same systems,
[26:51] same systems, but they create legitimate businesses that can
[26:55] stand the test of time and they don't have to keep looking at
[26:58] their backs, you know? Yeah, you're a real hustler.
[27:02] Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can't come from a village
[27:05] with so much pain and not be a hustler.
[27:07] It has to be one way or the other.
[27:09] But for me, it's, it's not hassle the, the word hassle in
[27:13] Ghana. It's used negatively.
[27:15] Yeah. So it's the, the, the, the the
[27:18] young ones have really got to be careful.
[27:20] Yeah, yeah, really got to be careful.
[27:22] At some point and so I I was watching your episode with Ice
[27:26] Pains. Yes.
[27:27] And with a friend of mine, I was like, friends, please, watching
[27:29] it. And he's like, oh, you know,
[27:31] say, this guy didn't hear up at some point.
[27:36] Tell me about that story. Yeah.
[27:37] How are you a rapper? Yeah, so it started in Ghana
[27:40] though, where when I was in, when I was in GSS with three
[27:44] guys, we had a group. So we used to perform, you know,
[27:47] Kim Swedrow and you know, the suburbs, you know, I came over
[27:51] there. We just loved music.
[27:53] I love to dance, you know, I I like music.
[27:55] Music is my first love, you know.
[27:58] So going into the Uki went into the UK with a group name, Vibe
[28:01] Squad. OK, I put together, my brother
[28:04] came on board. You know, I was doing music
[28:06] production, he was doing music production.
[28:09] I had studio in the house and then in college brought a few
[28:12] people together. So I was, I was learning from
[28:16] Sunny Ballet of blazed memory, Sunny Ballet, Yogi Dogi, Batman
[28:21] at the time, you know, Samini. Now I was learning from a lot of
[28:25] these, these these guys. And then when the the rise of
[28:28] Afrobe came, when Whisked came at the time with Halacha Boy, we
[28:32] had already released a song called Weddi Musica in the UK
[28:34] through Vibes Squad. It did bits like a lot of work
[28:37] for us. We're we're on stage with
[28:40] several people. You know, I opened up for two
[28:43] Phase D band. I was still a student.
[28:47] Yeah, I was still a student. Yeah, I was still a student.
[28:49] You called it a hassle. Well, I was still a student.
[28:53] Yeah. So I was still doing all those
[28:54] other things. The the the what I didn't do for
[28:56] long as a student was take a job.
[29:00] I I probably did it for like a month, you know, while I was a
[29:03] student. It was always one hustle after
[29:06] the other, either a an ecom platform, a YouTube account, an
[29:10] affiliate marketing platform, music.
[29:12] It just, it was always something.
[29:14] But go and work for somebody because I hated it, right?
[29:21] The mindset of hitting to wait for somebody.
[29:25] Where did it come from? Is it because you read
[29:27] Kiyosaki's book? No, no, no, no.
[29:30] Or you had like a bad experience?
[29:31] No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
[29:33] No. I I very look.
[29:35] I've always known my father was, was an entrepreneur.
[29:40] He was a gold diamond dealer in those days.
[29:43] And my stepfather was as an entrepreneur.
[29:46] My grandma never worked for anybody.
[29:47] My mom never would look. I never saw people that were
[29:50] working for people. My father was a teacher, but he
[29:53] stopped very quickly. My uncle teacher, he still does
[29:56] it. He's not being great.
[29:57] The people I knew in my circle that were working, they didn't
[30:00] have money that could go beyond what they want.
[30:03] Huh. Yeah.
[30:03] It. It was very so I always knew
[30:07] that Derek is not going to do this.
[30:10] It is going to have to be if I want freedom of time, I need to
[30:15] start my own business and that if I'm working for people whose
[30:18] only to learn, it's not to stay there.
[30:22] Sounds interesting. I get it.
[30:25] Makes a lot of sense. OK, Connected.
[30:28] My Yes, Sir. Our point in this really
[30:32] extensive journey, did you decide that I want to do
[30:35] podcasting and I want to do this kind of podcasting?
[30:38] Yeah. Right in 2017 I keep getting the
[30:46] dates wrong. 2017 yes. I had a podcast on Anchor FM at
[30:52] the time. It was Anchor FM before it was
[30:54] bought by Spotify and it was basically.
[30:59] The episodes are still live you. Know really.
[31:02] Yes, those old ones, yes. Oh my God.
[31:04] OK, so, so I had a podcast very old and I was just using that to
[31:10] tell my story, just my journey, you know what's happening, you
[31:13] know what I'm doing. And then I stopped because my
[31:16] business took a dip and you know, it's it affected me
[31:20] emotionally. I needed, I needed a lot to come
[31:23] out of and then really to think about the direction for my
[31:26] business. So I stopped it coming back to
[31:29] Ghana. I just, you know, I, I've been
[31:31] in Ghana for like 6 years. So I was here for about 3 or 4
[31:35] years before I decided to do the podcasting again.
[31:37] OK. You know, observing what is
[31:39] happening on the screens. There are a lot of things that
[31:41] don't excite me about what I see on the screens.
[31:45] So in my house, we don't watch Ghana TV.
[31:47] Basically, we don't watch TV. We don't watch because there's a
[31:51] lot of nonsense on our screen. If you check my Instagram, it's
[31:55] filtered. My tick to everything is
[31:58] filtered to what I want in my headspace.
[32:01] So I was just thinking to myself, well, hold on.
[32:03] If this is a generation that we are going to be proud of, they
[32:07] must be soaking different level of knowledge, different how?
[32:13] What better way can I take this message to them?
[32:16] Apart from the experience that I've gone through, the business
[32:19] acumen that I've built over the years, the processes that I
[32:23] have, I want to use that to educate the young ones and then
[32:25] try to see whether we can change certain things about them.
[32:29] Thank God is is working a little bit now.
[32:32] That was the point I decided, let's do.
[32:36] Podcasting OK and do connected minds.
[32:40] Connected minds at this scale. Put an opinion that back to 2017
[32:45] when you started the podcasting on Anchor FM.
[32:48] Why did you want to do that? I just had the the proclivity to
[32:52] document your life or. No So at the time, Eddie had
[32:55] come up with a youth seminar through his company Alpha Youth.
[32:59] He does it through his stretch where every year they organize
[33:01] programs. And because I was very much
[33:05] involved in the startup of our businesses, every business we've
[33:08] done very much involved in the startup.
[33:09] So it's very, very much, I do a lot of The Dirty work and then
[33:12] I'm like, you know me, I don't want to work, right.
[33:15] I want to move on to something else.
[33:16] I'm getting a bit bored. Then he will come and put the
[33:18] systems in place to keep it running.
[33:20] So he just thought, Derek, there's a lot of knowledge
[33:22] you've acquired. You know, why don't you speak to
[33:25] the youth? So I was doing a seminar from at
[33:28] his church and business seminar. So I was teaching principles of
[33:32] the 8020, the rich Dad, poor dad thinking grow rich, all of that.
[33:37] But then I decided, well, hold on, I'm going to lose my voice.
[33:41] Let me record this so that people can play it over and over
[33:44] and over and over again. Then I discovered Anchor FM, so
[33:48] it was actually recorded on my phone.
[33:49] I just downloaded the app on my phone and then I did it.
[33:51] I didn't really plan it properly.
[33:53] OK. But then people kept sending me
[33:55] messages and say, oh, you know, I learnt a lot of things and I'm
[33:57] like, learnt what? It wasn't something I was really
[34:00] doing, it was just. For fun.
[34:05] Nice. Yeah.
[34:07] So Fast forward to the timeline in Ghana.
[34:10] Yeah, you've decided that you there are airwaves and I agree
[34:14] needed a page and people had to consume a different kind of
[34:18] content and to connected minds. Why'd I name them?
[34:23] Yeah, I'm a big believer of the mind and the power it has.
[34:28] And because of that, mind had to be involved.
[34:32] That's the first step. But that name, we went through
[34:34] several names. So I sat down with my wife, as
[34:36] we usually do. You married at this time.
[34:38] Yeah, yeah, yeah, maybe married or I've been married for nearly
[34:42] eight years. Oh, wow.
[34:43] Yeah, right. So so we go through names and
[34:49] like, can you come up with like 20 names?
[34:51] She came up with names initially was mind step, so mind was not
[34:55] going to be taken out. And then, you know, one reason
[34:58] or the other, we started going through other names.
[35:00] He said, Nah, I don't like it. I even created a logo for my
[35:02] Insta and put it in the studio. So I started doing the studio
[35:06] without the name. Then I thought of the name and I
[35:08] printed and I dropped in there and I said why?
[35:10] Went to sleep and I said, Nah, this doesn't work.
[35:13] You know, I listened to a lot of, you know, philosophical
[35:16] stuff, so it needs to be a little bit deeper.
[35:20] We woke up the next morning and we started writing and then I
[35:23] sent her connected minds and she goes, that's the one.
[35:27] That's how the name came up. Interesting, So it's been how
[35:31] long now? A year and a half.
[35:34] A year and a half, yeah. And as of last year, you were
[35:38] the number one podcast on Apple Podcasting Ghana on YouTube.
[35:44] You have 90 something classic. You have the biggest numbers
[35:46] locally when it comes to podcasting, Yeah.
[35:50] How has the journey been for you coming in?
[35:55] Did you start with speaking to guests or it was like your
[35:57] regular sharing your thoughts idea stuff from the jump?
[36:02] Did you start with guests or it was just you sharing your
[36:04] thoughts on things? So we started with guests.
[36:06] So the podcast will I recorded three months worth of content
[36:08] content before we launched. OK.
[36:12] So it started three months before the launch date, you see.
[36:14] But actually this is what happened on that YouTube
[36:16] channel, and I recommend this for everybody.
[36:19] The niche. I understand the Internet pretty
[36:22] well. So I started off with almost
[36:27] like a headless YouTube kind of thing where I had a motivational
[36:31] channel. that Channel you see, was a motivational channel and I
[36:34] was putting a lot of Jim Rohn stuff, Alan Watts stuff.
[36:37] So that was yeah, yeah, yeah. That was giving us a lot of
[36:40] content and a lot of. So I had editors in place.
[36:43] So I'll create the content and then they will use whatever
[36:46] method they did and then put the video together and that gave us
[36:50] about 3000 subscribers from just that.
[36:54] And then I decided that's this is the right time to launch the
[36:57] podcast. Then I took all the videos down
[37:00] and then we uploaded 3 months worth of content, contacted
[37:03] people I knew, friends, that's where I started, uploaded the
[37:06] content. Then January came and I said
[37:09] yes, this is the first one released it.
[37:13] But when that was released, I was searching for new people and
[37:16] the direction was still coming in.
[37:17] The team I was working with is different from these guys
[37:19] because at the time they even didn't understand what this
[37:21] guy's trying to do. They're like, OK, just do
[37:23] entertainment, you know, just do entertainment.
[37:25] And I said, look, that's not the plan.
[37:26] This is not why I came. My chief editor at the time was
[37:29] gone in and he was very much entertainment oriented.
[37:33] Our boss. Can you just ask who
[37:34] entertainment. I said, look, just wait.
[37:37] Because it wasn't working the first three months.
[37:38] It just wasn't working. As a matter of fact, my unknown
[37:45] YouTube account was doing better than the podcast was.
[37:48] And I said, look, stick with it. And I went to tell the team that
[37:54] of every business that I've done, which has been well over
[37:56] 16 businesses, I've I've started many of them that failed.
[37:59] This is the only business that I can guarantee you it will be
[38:03] successful. Even my wife was like, what do
[38:07] you mean? And I said, yeah.
[38:09] And I tell you the reason why it's going to be successful.
[38:11] It's not true. It's me, it's my experience.
[38:16] And to top it all is not around me.
[38:21] It's around a guest. So if I pick the right guest and
[38:24] have the right conversations, this is going to work.
[38:26] So watch this work. Six months down the line, things
[38:29] started picking up. Then you know, sometimes it's,
[38:34] it's a conviction, right? But remember, I have a huge
[38:37] marketing skill, digital marketing.
[38:38] I'm I'm pretty good at that. I'm not going to lie.
[38:41] So I've put a lot of marketing in in, in, in the podcast.
[38:43] You've seen it so and it's it's been directed towards the
[38:47] success of the podcast. And that's only only about 10%
[38:51] of what I can unleash on it. So if I unleash everything I I,
[38:56] I definitely think the podcast is gonna is gonna be bigger than
[38:58] what it is. Wow, so.
[39:01] How many guests are we speaking to you?
[39:02] I'm not sure you have. It including the ones we didn't
[39:05] release and the ones we deleted, probably, probably about 100 and
[39:10] 2000 and 30 guests. Wow, yeah.
[39:13] Speaking of 130 people you think are grateful to have
[39:16] conversations with on their podcasts before you started
[39:22] connected mites, I'm sure you had a certain frame of mind and
[39:24] you had a that was a Derek before the connected mites, The
[39:28] 120 plus conversations in 'cause even me, right?
[39:32] We're just about 16 conversations in or 17
[39:35] conversations in and something has happened to me mentally,
[39:40] right? Like you're you're constantly
[39:43] meeting these quote UN quote, great people doing great work.
[39:47] It just does something to you as a person, right.
[39:51] What is your tail on that front? How did something plus yeah,
[39:56] what has happened to you? Yeah.
[39:57] So you put it to words. Yeah, yeah, I'll try.
[40:00] So usually what happens when you in in the industry you're in as
[40:04] a podcaster or as an interviewer, The first thing is
[40:07] you form. Quality friendship, that's
[40:09] number one. You get to know people beyond
[40:12] forget. The conversation we have in the
[40:13] podcast is deeper outside. Like you sit with people for the
[40:19] minimum time it takes. Usually people ask you how long
[40:21] is going to take for the podcast.
[40:22] You see one hour, 30 minutes. But actually the minimum time it
[40:25] takes for people to spend time with me is about 3 1/2 to 4
[40:28] hours. And the audience only get to see
[40:31] an hour and 20 minutes maximum. So the rest has been for me and
[40:35] building quality relationship. The other thing as well is what
[40:37] it does to your mental space. It helps you build capacity and
[40:41] to see things from different lenses.
[40:43] And, and which is why if you're a listener and a learner and
[40:47] somebody that studies podcast, no interviewing is great for you
[40:50] because you get to get deep into people's minds and how they've
[40:54] been able to realize the success that they have.
[40:57] It becomes like a blueprint that you can then say, oh, this
[41:00] person did that. It worked.
[41:02] Look, I can tell you conversations I've had with
[41:04] people and the businesses they do and the success they've had
[41:07] and they be black and white. They will just tell you this.
[41:09] This worked for me. They may not say it on the
[41:12] podcast, but just in the conversation that we haven't.
[41:14] You see, look, this is what I do and this works.
[41:17] I had a woman that told me that one of our biggest seller is
[41:22] mattresses. She import mattresses, biggest
[41:25] seller. Now I have this information.
[41:29] If I didn't have any business to do and have enough capital, I
[41:33] can import mattresses and put a team together to sell, right?
[41:36] Forget that. The other thing as well is the
[41:38] way people do things. You see, I always say that we
[41:41] are interdependent as human beings.
[41:43] It is not possible to survive here by yourself and everything.
[41:49] This conversation we're having, we're having is come through
[41:51] experimentation. This mic has come through
[41:54] experimentation to get here. But how do we get to experiment
[41:57] is by challenging the mind, speaking to people and trying
[42:00] several things. Then you get to see what really
[42:04] works, right? And then you horn in on that and
[42:07] say, OK, this is what works. So really we must harness that
[42:12] power that everybody has and and we walk together.
[42:22] Like I said in the beginning, you are someone we look up to,
[42:25] even though Dick said actually told you that you're coming for
[42:27] a #1. Oh, shall I come and take it?
[42:32] What would you see has wait for you to build the kind of
[42:38] capacity you built with your podcasts doing the numbers
[42:41] you're doing? I mean, before we started
[42:43] recording, we're talking about consistency.
[42:46] So I'm asking this question for myself, the team, Yeah, who want
[42:54] to do something like what you're doing, right?
[42:58] What would you tell me? You probably heard this several
[43:02] times. What makes anything, anything
[43:07] works is consistency. But some people just take it on
[43:11] the surface level. Yeah, be consistent.
[43:14] I know people who have who started podcasting around the
[43:18] same time as I did. They don't have the numbers I
[43:20] have. Why?
[43:21] Because you see, at a deeper level, consistency is about
[43:25] experimentation and learning at a deeper level.
[43:28] And this is what I mean. If you sit in that position all
[43:33] day long looking at me the way you are, you become very myopic,
[43:39] right? Your judgement is based on what
[43:40] you see. But if you tilt yourself a
[43:42] little bit, after some time you see a different vision, and
[43:46] that's where the experimentation comes in.
[43:47] At every level, there's a new learning.
[43:50] So today you release a video on YouTube or an audio on Spotify,
[43:55] and then you see it's going in a certain trajectory that you
[43:59] don't like. Look at what you did.
[44:02] What did you do wrong? What did you do right?
[44:05] How can you prove that conversation, your level of
[44:07] question, how the guest is giving the answers?
[44:10] Should you really plan the conversation?
[44:12] Should you not plan the conversation, the family or the
[44:15] title, the description, the tags?
[44:18] Should you do AB testing? Should you test the family was
[44:20] before you actually put them on there?
[44:22] So there are a lot of questions you need to.
[44:24] So it's not really just about I've I've recorded an episode
[44:26] they edited. This is amazing.
[44:27] Let's release it. If you check everything we've
[44:29] done on the podcast, there's been several experiments we've
[44:32] done. We've had V OS at some point,
[44:36] right? Miss Drude has done fantastic
[44:37] for our views and we take care of at some point and he will
[44:40] break her back on. It's all experimenting and
[44:42] trying to understand what is what, what what the audience are
[44:44] playing with. Sometimes you know, it's
[44:47] changing the thumbnails over time.
[44:49] Sometimes we change title as my, I've said it with Reagan, change
[44:52] the title as many times as you want to change it.
[44:55] As long as it's still in line with the conversation.
[44:58] You know the box. The boxed mindset doesn't work
[45:02] with consistency, so it's not about, yeah, I'm hitting the
[45:05] same place over and over again. You only get deep, you don't get
[45:09] wide. Interesting.
[45:14] Yeah, I mean, if you probably interfere with our podcasts a
[45:20] little, this is me asking for a little audits, right?
[45:27] If you could tell me, right, a few things you've noticed about
[45:32] our podcast that you like. Yeah.
[45:34] And then some things you think we can improve on.
[45:36] Yeah, right here now. I think 1, your titles need to
[45:40] be a bit more intriguing, and somebody must read a title and
[45:43] want to watch the video, the thumbnail as well.
[45:47] You know, there's this whole thing about style and branding
[45:51] where people pick a style of branding and then they stick
[45:55] with it or they copy somebody else's branding and then they
[45:57] stick with it. But what we don't understand is
[46:01] on YouTube. YouTube is a very difficult
[46:03] platform. Test several thumbnails until
[46:07] you find what works. So don't just start off with
[46:11] this is my style because that style may not resonate with the
[46:14] audience. And.
[46:16] And that's what we do. Yeah.
[46:17] OK. I'm doing a podcast about self
[46:20] improvement, Steve, that's the same thing.
[46:22] OK, let me do Steve's style of thumbnails.
[46:25] Oh, let me do J Shetty's style of the thumbnails.
[46:28] But that may not work for you. So if you check what I've done,
[46:34] I had, I've done 2 stages of our thumbnails.
[46:38] I did it then I had a lady do another stage.
[46:41] Then now I've got my Iranian guys doing the other parts.
[46:47] But I've got somebody else from the Philippines who's also going
[46:49] to do other style. And we're going to keep changing
[46:51] until we see what works. Because at this level you may
[46:54] say, Oh yeah, it's working. Now we're looking at a million
[46:56] subscribers. So we still need to keep
[46:59] experimenting and keep trying. So I think that's the part of
[47:03] you know, the hook is amazing. Listen on YouTube, most people
[47:08] log off the 1st 30 seconds. Most people 1st 30 seconds.
[47:14] A lot of people binge watch. If you have an hour episode,
[47:17] people will just watch 20 minutes.
[47:18] Then they'll come back another time, maybe watch a movie.
[47:20] They're not going to watch yours.
[47:21] Maybe in about 2-3 days they will come back and then watch
[47:23] yours again because YouTube is going to keep putting it in your
[47:25] face. So your hook within the 1st 30
[47:29] seconds must be amazing. This is why we started the
[47:32] whole, you know, trailer style introduction, the whole VO
[47:39] style. And but even that we keep
[47:42] shrinking it. We keep shrinking it.
[47:44] We started off with 90 seconds. We keep shrinking it.
[47:47] We keep shrinking it, bringing it down to hook the people.
[47:51] And sometimes we have conversations where we pause and
[47:53] we are like to the audience, if you had $50,000, what would you
[47:59] do with it? Leave it in a comment.
[48:01] That gives us engagement. So we engage with the people the
[48:05] entire podcast. You know, people see their
[48:07] YouTube success, but actually I think we've done incredibly well
[48:11] with even the audio modern YouTube because at this, as it
[48:14] stands now, we have about 450,000 downloads a year and a
[48:17] half since we started. That's 450,000 phones, laptops,
[48:22] iPads that have my voice on their phones.
[48:27] That is, to me, it's impeccable. Yeah.
[48:35] And you know, when you start this podcasting thing, a lot of
[48:38] people are going to message you. Yeah, I can help boost your
[48:40] page. I can help.
[48:41] Don't do all of that because we didn't do anything of that sort.
[48:45] It's been purely organic. The the where we spent money was
[48:51] the visibility for the brand Connected Minds.
[48:54] So the billboards came in, the Instagram ads came in because,
[49:00] you know, because I understand it that we need to get the name,
[49:06] the brand in the minds or people so that when they think of
[49:09] quality informative podcast in Africa, they need to think about
[49:13] connected minds. So we don't just advertise in
[49:17] Ghana, We don't just South Africa, Lagos, yeah.
[49:26] So title, time, experimenting, and all of that.
[49:32] Any other? I can do a proper audit for you
[49:37] so I can take my time and then look at your page properly and
[49:41] then recommend a few things for me.
[49:42] I think your quality, you've done amazing.
[49:46] It's you guys are doing an incredible.
[49:48] Job. Thank you.
[49:49] Yeah, All right. Talking about influences on like
[49:53] style and brand, have have you ever been to, I'm sure you've
[49:57] heard it like that's there's a someone can tell the Stephen
[50:02] Bartlett's influence on your podcasting.
[50:05] Have you been told that before? So when we started, we've had
[50:08] some comments, yeah. But what I always ask people is
[50:14] what exactly is that thing? What is it?
[50:18] Because I watch Reagan's podcast.
[50:19] I think Reagan's podcast is more Steven Butler's style crowd than
[50:22] mind podcast. But why do people see the whole?
[50:26] But you see, I, I tell you what, there's this investor, I think
[50:28] he's Indian who says this. And I'm not saying by all means
[50:31] people should. All he does is copy Warren
[50:34] Buffett's style. He's a multi millionaire.
[50:38] There is something about the waves and the way he moves and
[50:41] that when you stay with the tides, you don't get drowned
[50:45] against it. There's a lot of turbulence.
[50:48] The whole thing about experimentation, Steve has done
[50:50] a lot of experiments, a lot, and it works.
[50:57] So when you go down the street, you see Toyota, you see Nissan,
[51:01] you see BMW, you see a lot of cars.
[51:04] The majority of these cars, they have the same shape.
[51:07] Why? Because it works.
[51:11] A lot of aeroplanes have got the same shape.
[51:13] Why it? Works.
[51:15] The lift the airflow. So you see in every market there
[51:20] is what works stick with it that's it Don't try to reinvent
[51:26] the wheel but in what you're doing experiments, that's all
[51:32] because yeah, somebody was like why do you always wear why?
[51:37] Why? You know, it's just for me, it's
[51:41] Steve has given us the blueprint to the new age way of podcasting
[51:46] and he's shown us that it works. The guy's a multi millionaire.
[51:52] If you are doing a podcast today, who is a better example
[51:57] today than Joe Rogan, J Shetty or Steve, He told me or Mel or
[52:06] Chris Williamson or if you're in Ghana connected minds, you see
[52:12] what I'm trying to say. How many iPads do you see that
[52:15] look like this tablets that look like this?
[52:18] Why don't people do this like that?
[52:19] Mobile phones, Samsung, listen, I want to tell you something.
[52:22] Samsung decided to stay in the game with Apple today.
[52:26] They are still in the game. Nokia and BlackBerry, Where are
[52:30] they now? So sometimes you can you, you
[52:34] need to be very tactical with how you operate and watch your
[52:37] competitive, your competition because that's would help.
[52:41] It will help you stay right behind or shoulder to shoulder
[52:45] with them. Instead of saying, yeah, I want
[52:49] to stay very far away from this guy, very far.
[52:52] You might drop yourself in the ocean.
[52:58] And if I see Steve any day, I would approach him and say,
[53:02] look, you've inspired me a lot. But how you do you do your
[53:05] podcasting? Yes, I do my introduction the
[53:07] way I do it because of Steve. I think he does an incredible,
[53:11] beautiful introduction. Can I ever get to the skill he's
[53:16] getting it? I I don't know.
[53:19] But the truth is, luckily for me, I have the resources.
[53:22] So if I have to hire 20 people to make it happen, I can make it
[53:25] happen. Nice.
[53:29] Yeah. With connected miners come
[53:33] Connected Academy. Yes.
[53:36] What's that about? What's that about?
[53:37] South Connected Academy, it's my mentorship and my coaching
[53:40] program. It's a community of the die hard
[53:43] funds of self improvement, business concepts, mindset
[53:48] change, complete transformation. That's what Birth Connected
[53:51] Academy we have. We have a community on WhatsApp,
[53:56] we have a community on school. We're building our own systems
[54:00] that will keep people together. It's gonna come with funding
[54:03] businesses within the community after they've gone through my
[54:05] mentorship. So that's where Connected
[54:08] Academy comes from. It's, you know, we have events
[54:11] as well, you know, Yes. Yep. 29th of August at the
[54:15] British Council. It's a paid event.
[54:18] You have to pay for the attention.
[54:20] You know, it's, it's, it's very important.
[54:24] Nice. I saw a comment or like
[54:28] something in your story on Instagram about a young man who
[54:33] is tied to this whole mentorship thing who said initially he
[54:36] didn't like you and but over time he's come to realise you
[54:40] are the mentor he needed something like that and that's
[54:43] very interesting. What do you think?
[54:46] People don't misunderstand about you when they don't know you.
[54:49] I'm very unapproachable. I understand that I it's look,
[54:56] it comes from years of work, trauma, pain.
[55:03] It's, it's so you have to get to know me.
[55:07] My first approach is not a hug and a kiss and that that's not
[55:14] my first approach and a smile. My first approach is who the
[55:18] hell is this person inside to try to decipher?
[55:22] I'm very analytical so that that's my first stage.
[55:26] And then once we crack that, OK, we can have a drink, we can have
[55:29] a chat, We can it's, it's, it's in phases.
[55:32] Most people see the whole brand as a very serious brand.
[55:35] But look, I'm talking about business and I'm talking about
[55:37] mindset and improvement. I study stoicism a lot.
[55:43] There you go. So I'm not going to be in your
[55:46] face with all smiles all the time.
[55:48] You we have to get a bit deeper before that stage happens.
[55:53] Why that person didn't like me that I posted, I, I don't know.
[55:57] But the truth is that a lot of people shoot the messenger so
[56:03] they don't even get to hear the message.
[56:05] I'm telling you, any young person that listens to me that
[56:09] do as I say, ready to change their lives, their lives will
[56:15] change because I'm a testimony of everything that I teach.
[56:20] There was nothing like Derek take $100,000 and run a
[56:24] business. It's been 1 learning after the
[56:28] other. So I know that people can change
[56:32] their lives if they want to change their lives.
[56:34] But you can also be like, yeah, no, I don't like that guy.
[56:38] You know, I don't want to associate with him, but who's
[56:41] going to who's failing? You know I say that if the
[56:47] decision you make towards any information makes you happy,
[56:51] makes you feel fulfilled, carry on.
[56:54] But if you're broke, miserable, and struggling to make it in
[56:59] life, and there's quality information that can change your
[57:02] life and you're still throwing stones at it, well, guess who
[57:05] loses in the end? Before I what's it called on the
[57:12] surface level interact with your content to a certain degree, I
[57:17] realized I was telling my friend that you and but now I
[57:20] understand what you said when you mention Alan Watts, you have
[57:23] this thing where there's a certain Mystic posture.
[57:27] We're talking about codes and secrets.
[57:30] And so now I get where that is coming from.
[57:32] I think there's a heavy Easting philosophy influence.
[57:36] Oh, you call. You could call.
[57:37] It Easting, but I think metaphysics, esoterism and
[57:41] alchemy and all these things it's it's more ancient African
[57:44] than it is Eastern. It's it's yeah, yeah.
[57:50] There's a lot of, you know, mystica and esoterism stuff that
[57:53] I usually talk about, but that's, that's come out of the
[57:56] studies that I do and the, the, the, the path that I'm on, you
[58:01] know, because, because, and it makes, it makes people think,
[58:09] you know, you're a bit mysterious and stuff.
[58:11] You know, somebody said, oh, why do I hold my, my hand like this?
[58:13] Why do I, there's a lot of that's people read into things,
[58:20] right? It's, it's, but that's just the
[58:23] way human beings are. What we don't understand, we
[58:26] question it negatively. But if you take the time to
[58:29] understand and know that the highest path you can be on is
[58:34] the path to enlightenment, that's the highest path.
[58:40] Yeah, so you're not, there's a lot of clients because I like
[58:42] Alan Watts a lot. I think two years ago he was
[58:46] probably the voice I needed and a couple of things, right.
[58:50] He has a very interesting take on God, the reality of God, and
[58:55] he has a little broad in your mind.
[58:56] So I, I, I really now appreciate some of the things that I, I,
[59:00] I've spotted in your, like, what's your building now talking
[59:03] about mentorship and lessons and the things you've gathered over
[59:05] the period when you turn 35, you shared 8 lessons you've learnt,
[59:11] you've gathered at 35. Actually 10.
[59:13] Ten OK top top ten lessons you've learnt so far right so I
[59:17] wanted to go through them one by one and mostly to understand the
[59:21] background how you came to those realizations right if that's OK
[59:25] with you of. Course, of course.
[59:26] So the first lesson here is you need a support system, someone
[59:31] who can truly be there when you need someone to talk to and
[59:34] there's a picture of you and your wife.
[59:35] Yeah, you know, I'm 35, but I always say that for the people
[59:44] that believe in reincarnation, they will probably say that I've
[59:48] been here several times. I I thought deep about these
[59:55] things before I wrote them. Life is hard by itself.
[1:00:03] And if you remember when we spoke before I told you about
[1:00:06] the fingers and why it's all different levels and God in his
[1:00:10] own wisdom did not make it at one level because it wouldn't
[1:00:13] work. Is that support that you need?
[1:00:17] A thumb can't do anything without a rest as a person.
[1:00:25] If you want to chart the path of entrepreneurship, you will hit a
[1:00:29] lot of blocks. Forget entrepreneurship, life
[1:00:33] itself will give you a lot of mental problems, problems that
[1:00:37] will hit you emotionally, that sometimes you may even feel like
[1:00:41] you want to climb something and drop.
[1:00:43] It's happening to people all the time.
[1:00:46] You need a support system. You need somebody by your side,
[1:00:49] somebody you can be free and open with and talk about your
[1:00:52] problems and they can water it very quickly before it becomes a
[1:00:56] bigger problem. My wife provides that for me, NS
[1:01:00] provides that for me. Eddie provides that for me.
[1:01:02] Pasteli provides that for me. General Bedema provides that for
[1:01:07] me. Doctor Tutu, I've got several
[1:01:09] people. That's if the road gets tough
[1:01:14] and I'm not talking I need $100,000, I'm talking.
[1:01:17] I'm faced with this challenge, the challenge of being a boy dad
[1:01:21] and the way they are behaving towards me.
[1:01:24] I don't know how to navigate the path.
[1:01:28] How did you do it? You need a support system.
[1:01:32] Without that, life will swallow you.
[1:01:38] Yeah, 2 The people you care about the most will hurt you the
[1:01:43] deepest. Every pain I felt came because I
[1:01:46] cared. Yep, family, friends, by mere
[1:01:50] fact that you know, I meet you today and you tell me your
[1:01:54] problems and then I will let you in, support you with some money,
[1:01:59] give you a place to stay, support you throughout the time
[1:02:02] you think that I'm giving in. So now, naturally, because of
[1:02:09] where my emotions have gotten towards, whatever you do on the
[1:02:14] other side would affect me because I now care about you.
[1:02:18] So I expect you to give me the same care.
[1:02:20] It's that expectation that disappoints us.
[1:02:24] There's been several times where I've helped people, friends, you
[1:02:26] know, childhood friends, where you bring them in, support them.
[1:02:29] Then they disappoint you. Family that you've cared so much
[1:02:33] about that you think, oh, you know, let me help you too.
[1:02:38] Then you get disappointed and it hurts.
[1:02:42] We're human. Yeah.
[1:02:44] You know it hurts, it doesn't stop us from doing good, but
[1:02:47] it's just a reminder to myself that the only reason why I felt
[1:02:50] that pain was because I chose to care anyway.
[1:02:53] Yeah. What does that mean?
[1:02:54] I shouldn't care anymore? Well, I'm going to care yet with
[1:02:57] wisdom. So that was the realization I
[1:03:01] came to you. And this particular one, I would
[1:03:05] I would really like to hear the back story if there are multiple
[1:03:09] of them. Life really hits you when you
[1:03:12] lose a loved one. Yes, it certainly does.
[1:03:15] I, I that was my number three. It was actually supposed to be
[1:03:18] my number one. Unless you've been through loss,
[1:03:22] you will never you will never understand loss of a loved 1.
[1:03:25] You will never understand. The first one for me was my
[1:03:29] grandma. The second one was my
[1:03:31] mother-in-law. Very painful in both cases.
[1:03:37] But you know, we're going through it.
[1:03:42] You know, it's, it's, there are certain parts of the puzzle that
[1:03:50] human beings, our loved ones occupy, that when they are no
[1:03:56] more, it becomes a void. And nobody can fill that void.
[1:04:03] Yes, it may get smaller, but nobody can fill it.
[1:04:08] So you right now, your life encompasses several people that
[1:04:12] play a part to make things happen for you, maybe not
[1:04:16] directly. There are people that they're
[1:04:18] just even praying for you, whatever it is.
[1:04:21] And once you lose those people, it creates a huge void, huge
[1:04:28] void. And I think that was with my my
[1:04:32] majorly mother-in-law. And then, yeah.
[1:04:41] This particular 1 I loved when I saw it because I'll tell you why
[1:04:46] don't marry just for Lukes. Everyone needs a piece for their
[1:04:49] intentional spouse. That's what truly makes marriage
[1:04:51] work. Yes, and like this man has a
[1:04:53] very beautiful wife and he's telling me not to marry for
[1:04:56] Lukes. But anyway, you have a very
[1:05:01] beautiful wife. Yeah.
[1:05:02] Yeah, yeah, telling me not to marry for lukes.
[1:05:04] Yes, yes, but I get. It yes so some people
[1:05:07] misconstrued the whole thing if you read a sentence properly, it
[1:05:11] says don't marry just so they just is there to say that if you
[1:05:16] see somebody that is beautiful and you want to marry her
[1:05:18] consider other things right. So if looks is the only thing
[1:05:22] you're going for good luck. Intentional.
[1:05:27] Why? Why intentional?
[1:05:29] Be married for nearly eight years and I can tell you that
[1:05:34] I've got 3-3 boys and I told you that even with me sitting here
[1:05:40] right now and you without being intentional, we can offend each
[1:05:45] other. Yes, that's why when you bring
[1:05:49] somebody into your home, whether man or woman, and your plan is
[1:05:54] to stay with them until death do the two of you part, you must be
[1:05:58] very intentional. As a matter of fact, the skill
[1:06:01] needs to be higher than with any friend or any family member that
[1:06:05] you have. You will come out into the house
[1:06:12] cooked food will be made for you.
[1:06:14] Is be made with love and you don't finish that plate, it can
[1:06:18] cause trouble, maybe because you have some stress outside so you
[1:06:25] are not prepared to come and eat, but somebody has made with
[1:06:27] love. You go upstairs and take your
[1:06:31] clothes and drop it anywhere you like.
[1:06:36] There are things that happen that make for me that make
[1:06:40] couple gel together. And it's very simply knowing,
[1:06:45] having what we call tact, the ability to know how somebody
[1:06:49] will fail before you say what you want to say or do what you
[1:06:51] want to do. That is the high level
[1:06:55] intentionality. OK, this one for me, I think it
[1:07:00] was Strike Home and said money becomes more important in your
[1:07:04] 30s. If you waste your 20s, you pay
[1:07:07] for it. Chase the back.
[1:07:09] So you're in the 30s. I'm in my 20s.
[1:07:12] Talk to me on. This So you see me, I started in
[1:07:14] my teens, I started this positive obsession about money
[1:07:18] in my teens, manifested a whole lot of things.
[1:07:24] I don't know, maybe somebody was advising me saying that if I
[1:07:27] waste my teens and my 20s, my 30s is going to be miserable.
[1:07:32] I have seen the reason I see that is that if I look at my
[1:07:35] life today and I look at the lives of a several 30 year olds
[1:07:38] that I know that I in my life, it's a huge struggle for them.
[1:07:43] For many of them that I knew they wasted their teens and they
[1:07:46] wasted their 20s. So they're paying for it.
[1:07:48] So I'm just telling the young people that look, chase that bag
[1:07:54] make money, somebody say, hey, you make money is so important.
[1:07:57] They say say is not important. Just just tell me that money is
[1:08:00] not important to you. That's why.
[1:08:02] But for the people that listen to me, that follow me, that like
[1:08:05] my teachings, I'm telling them to go, go and make some money.
[1:08:08] That's it. Yeah, yeah, for the certain.
[1:08:11] I think we've clarified that's about this conversation.
[1:08:14] Your intentions will never fully, will never fully be
[1:08:16] known. Haters will hate, lovers will
[1:08:18] love because that's who they are inside.
[1:08:20] It's not about you to if sort of touched on that.
[1:08:24] Yeah. As you grow, you lose many
[1:08:28] friends and even family. There's a 7th one, often due to
[1:08:31] silence. Rivalries mend what you can, let
[1:08:35] go of what you can't. Don't force it.
[1:08:37] Yeah. Relationships are not meant to
[1:08:40] be forced, OK? Relationships are are, are
[1:08:43] natural and growing up. If you if you come from a big
[1:08:46] family or even a small family, what you realize is that if you
[1:08:49] don't keep activities together as a family, you grow apart.
[1:08:56] So the reason why we sit here and chatted is because you're a
[1:08:58] podcaster and I'm a podcaster. So we can take this conversation
[1:09:01] beyond here. And then the next minute, if you
[1:09:03] love golf, we can play golf at Achimoto, play golf at book.
[1:09:07] Relations were built on mutual interests.
[1:09:11] So friends, family. Sometimes what happens is we
[1:09:13] just think of it as what we are family.
[1:09:15] So we don't do anything to try to keep that bond and to keep us
[1:09:18] together. We have no activities, we have
[1:09:22] nothing that is happening. So then what happens is that
[1:09:24] Derek is growing pretty fast and other people are here because of
[1:09:28] rivalries. People just start hating.
[1:09:31] Why? So I usually say that when you
[1:09:33] see somebody, you need to be very attentive and you need to
[1:09:36] be very aware. When people are growing in your
[1:09:40] circle, tag along with them. Because trust me, if you don't
[1:09:44] grow with them, at some point a gap becomes too wide and it
[1:09:48] becomes very difficult to fail. You can't jump up.
[1:09:51] They can't come down because if they come, they lose.
[1:09:53] They have too much to lose, Hence why people tend to lose a
[1:10:00] lot of, you know, family and friends.
[1:10:05] Your intuition is a superpower. Superpower.
[1:10:07] Listen to it, follow it, no matter what, no matter the
[1:10:10] advice you receive. And I want examples on this.
[1:10:13] I've paid dearly for ignoring minor times.
[1:10:15] Yes, there was a time I was supposed to.
[1:10:18] As a matter of fact, I had a childhood friend.
[1:10:20] I'm right here in Ghana, loved the guy to bet he used to do a
[1:10:24] lot of things for me. I used to do a lot of things for
[1:10:27] him. And then came the time where,
[1:10:31] you know, people were trying to, you know, basically force it on
[1:10:33] me. And these were people I respect
[1:10:34] so much to employ him and bring him into the business.
[1:10:39] You know, I literally told these people that if this guy comes to
[1:10:45] work for me, we will say goodbye to that friendship because
[1:10:49] that's the that's the gut feeling that I go.
[1:10:52] But out of respect, they kept, they kept telling me over 2
[1:10:56] years, help him help him. And I said OK, because I knew
[1:11:02] what my gut had already told me. I organized a meeting with the
[1:11:05] family of my friend and said, look, I know this is what is
[1:11:08] going to happen, but I'm only saying this in front of you so
[1:11:11] that when it happens, you don't paint me bad.
[1:11:13] And guess what? I've lost a friend for not
[1:11:15] listening to my intuition. There was a guy we employed in
[1:11:18] the UK when the dude was coming in grey, but somebody else was
[1:11:22] coming in and I felt it really bad that don't let her come in.
[1:11:26] My business partner was like, hey Charlie, and it's OK, we
[1:11:31] paid dearly. This has happened.
[1:11:35] I can give you 50,000 examples of the time that I didn't listen
[1:11:41] to your intuition to that you know, and everything went bad.
[1:11:46] So, and I tell you something about intuition.
[1:11:51] If you don't listen today, you don't listen tomorrow, you don't
[1:11:56] listen again. It gets smaller.
[1:11:58] So your, your, your power to hear diminishes.
[1:12:04] It knocks at the door and then you don't hear.
[1:12:07] You don't act on it. Even if it's going to go bad,
[1:12:10] act on it because you've heard over time it becomes more
[1:12:14] powerful. Then it becomes more positive
[1:12:17] and good for you because you begin to trust that God in you.
[1:12:23] As a matter of fact, you begin to exhibit that God traits when
[1:12:28] you start listening and following your.
[1:12:29] Intuition. I'm going to skip the 9th 1:00
[1:12:32] because it seems obvious. The last one is tied into a
[1:12:37] couple of questions I just asked, but then if you explain
[1:12:39] this, it's going to help me a lot.
[1:12:41] Marriage and kids will change you in whichever direction
[1:12:44] you're drawn to. What?
[1:12:45] What are you trying to say? Yeah.
[1:12:47] So there are certain fathers, certain mothers who naturally
[1:12:51] are drawn to the carefree life that they naturally don't want
[1:12:56] to be responsible, don't want to be to be a part of the the, the
[1:13:01] children's life, their spouses life.
[1:13:04] And there are people who are very much involved.
[1:13:07] They want to be involved. That's who they are naturally,
[1:13:10] to be involved in the growth of their spouse, the growth of
[1:13:13] their children. They want to be present.
[1:13:15] That's what I mean by whichever direction you are drawn to, OK,
[1:13:18] So whatever you are drawn to, when you start having family,
[1:13:21] you start having children, that's where you're gonna go
[1:13:24] naturally. OK.
[1:13:29] But that change will happen for me.
[1:13:33] Like I said, I've always been responsible for my siblings.
[1:13:35] I've always had that sense of accountability towards myself.
[1:13:39] So I'm drawn to that. So that's taking a lot of my
[1:13:43] time, very much involved in my kids life, very much involved in
[1:13:47] the growth of my spouse, very much involved in the the family
[1:13:50] is a community for us. OK.
[1:13:53] Three boys, you said? Yeah.
[1:13:54] I saw a video of you. You went shopping with them and
[1:13:57] they were in the carts. Yeah.
[1:13:58] Yeah. Nice chilling.
[1:14:04] I know your spare time. You, you play golf.
[1:14:06] Yeah, what else do you do when you're not building?
[1:14:13] Quiet time when I'm not building, I'm meditating, I'm
[1:14:17] inside, I'm going to a higher place, I'm receiving and I'm
[1:14:24] pondering. I'm contemplating using both
[1:14:28] minds, the right and the left, you know, the move brains, the
[1:14:32] right and the left hemisphere, bringing it all together, trying
[1:14:35] to expand my intuition or trying to be more analytical or dance
[1:14:43] with the kids, play music with the kids.
[1:14:45] So yeah, I've got a set of electric drums at home.
[1:14:51] Just just jam. I'm very much Derek conscious.
[1:14:58] OK. Derek and and then and you know,
[1:15:02] I'm very I'm not very let's go out and chill type of person.
[1:15:07] I'm I'm very. Cool.
[1:15:11] You know, yeah. The 15 year old boy who was
[1:15:14] leaving Akem Swabe to the United Kingdom.
[1:15:20] If that boy walks into the Remainer and sees you and sees
[1:15:22] what he become, what would you think he would?
[1:15:25] Say he would say I knew it. Yeah, yeah.
[1:15:28] If it's at any age, even my 10 year old self would say I knew
[1:15:33] you were going to be like this because I've spoken about
[1:15:39] intuition, right? There's a place you can stay and
[1:15:45] you stay in that place mentally. You, Martin, you manifest at a
[1:15:49] higher level. At a deeper level is it's called
[1:15:53] a place of faith and knowing. Yeah, so even the, the, the 10
[1:16:05] year old self of Derek, we say I knew it.
[1:16:08] I mean, people that are around me, they always know that I talk
[1:16:10] big. I hope you know I'm going to
[1:16:13] live here. I'm it's, it's, it's inside.
[1:16:18] And it's not just the talk. I ponder upon it.
[1:16:21] I plan it. I I it comes to reality, yo.
[1:16:28] Yeah, because, because that's the God factor.
[1:16:30] I've said this before. The God factor is the ability to
[1:16:33] create your life, create it whichever direction you want.
[1:16:40] So that's why somebody can pick up a knife and change their life
[1:16:43] because they stopped. Somebody ended up in prison.
[1:16:45] Somebody can pick up a knife and become an awesome chef,
[1:16:49] beautiful meal. So you create you, you are
[1:16:52] crafting this every moment of your life.
[1:16:54] The opportunity is there for you to craft it.
[1:16:58] So I'm not just seated here speaking in a how I, it's, look,
[1:17:03] the one that is intentional, the one that is on the path, the one
[1:17:06] that is on the journey of growth would always come out the other
[1:17:10] side baked, fully baked. So I, I, I, I know I'm going to
[1:17:18] be great. I will say I knew I was going to
[1:17:21] be great. I know I'm going to be great.
[1:17:24] The only way I'm not going to be great is if I choose to stop.
[1:17:29] But for as long as you know Christ gives us the breath and
[1:17:35] the the power, we will follow the dreams and.
[1:17:39] At 60, they can buy 3. Three things that you don't have
[1:17:46] at 60. I don't want to have, I want to
[1:17:49] have. I want to have at. 60 at the
[1:17:51] 60th birthday. Beautiful health, still married
[1:17:55] to my wife and my children. Respecting and honouring me.
[1:18:03] Interesting. You see these things I said
[1:18:05] where? Yeah.
[1:18:09] Yeah. Because look what becomes of a
[1:18:11] man if he can't manage the affairs of his own.
[1:18:17] You know, when we were talking, giving the things I've gathered
[1:18:22] listen to you interface with your contents, the socials,
[1:18:25] having this conversation with you, me, and early at the early
[1:18:27] of this conversation, I was asking myself, at what point
[1:18:31] does it go beyond money for this man?
[1:18:33] You know, I feel like there's a heavy focus on money.
[1:18:36] I mean, like you said, money's important, but I felt like
[1:18:38] there's a very heavy focus on money.
[1:18:40] But now it's clear that beyond money, it's family for you.
[1:18:45] Even your bit narrative, what made you have a sense of
[1:18:48] responsibility is yeah, your family and your grandma, You
[1:18:52] know, it's become. I mean, of course there are
[1:18:54] friends and people in the community, but with what you
[1:18:56] said, there were things you want to have ultimately at the time
[1:18:58] when you were 65 and some something like that is your
[1:19:01] wife, your health, your children.
[1:19:04] And that's interesting, too. I've answered my.
[1:19:06] OK, so you thought it was always just money, money, money?
[1:19:09] I felt like I think not exactly. I was thinking beyond money.
[1:19:14] What what's what's beyond the school of benefit is my.
[1:19:18] You thought I was going to say I want a private jail.
[1:19:20] I want I'm not, I'm not that. If if I was that type of person,
[1:19:24] you probably seen a lot of things on social media that I'll
[1:19:27] post. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[1:19:30] I just like the idea of having the freedom of time and the
[1:19:33] freedom to choose, yeah, the things that you want.
[1:19:38] And because I've been able to do that for myself, I want other
[1:19:40] people to be able to do that for themselves too.
[1:19:43] But if it was let's flex and let's show what we have.
[1:19:46] That's that's not what that that's that's, that's lower
[1:19:50] level of money. Yeah, so Derek, final words for
[1:19:58] me, your younger brother and junior and podcast you and I'm
[1:20:02] coming from #1 sports. I'm telling you that happens.
[1:20:05] Well, I mean, and I'm also on your podcast as well, so I gave
[1:20:08] myself away. Yes.
[1:20:12] What would you tell me Anything. Be truthful to your word.
[1:20:21] If you say you're going to do something, do it.
[1:20:24] If you give yourself a promise, follow it.
[1:20:27] If you tell somebody you're going to do something for them,
[1:20:30] take it as if you told yourself you're going to do it and do it
[1:20:32] for yourself. Don't get taken away by this
[1:20:40] quick money, quick money life. And you know, let's push this.
[1:20:44] There things that a lot of young Gunians are used to try to be
[1:20:50] different because your differentiation is your niche.
[1:20:53] And it's look in a system where a lot of people are liars, they
[1:20:56] don't even trust themselves. You can't trust them.
[1:20:59] They they don't show up. The person that decides to do
[1:21:02] the opposite of these, that's your age.
[1:21:05] People see it and think of it this way.
[1:21:07] In a completely dark room, if one candle goes up, we cannot
[1:21:12] see it. The world cannot help but to
[1:21:15] help, and that's the type of person you should become.
[1:21:22] I haven't been able to, you know, do what I have been able
[1:21:25] to do now without the help of other people.
[1:21:27] These people have been of huge help to me, but that people only
[1:21:33] help you if they see you helping yourself and they can see that
[1:21:37] you're staying true to your word.
[1:21:39] People borrow people's money. They don't pay back on time.
[1:21:42] I posted this on Twitter the other time.
[1:21:43] You take somebody's money, pay. Even if it's your friend, you
[1:21:46] pay. If you can't pay, have the
[1:21:47] conversation, pretend as if you know you are, you haven't taken
[1:21:52] the pay. Look, all these things, because
[1:21:55] if you put 20 people in a room that know me and then you ask
[1:22:00] them the question, can we give Derek this 20 million, It will
[1:22:03] shock you what they will say because I haven't taken
[1:22:06] anybody's money that I haven't paid.
[1:22:10] Do you understand? And you think of it, if you
[1:22:12] backtrack, is my friends that invested in my business.
[1:22:16] Why integrity? Most young people after fast
[1:22:22] money. This money, boss, you pay for
[1:22:24] it. The universe operates with
[1:22:26] balance. I tell you what it is from the
[1:22:29] middle ground. You have your seven, the PH-7.
[1:22:33] If you go on the other side sick, go on the other side sick.
[1:22:38] If today you do something really bad to somebody, you're off
[1:22:46] balance. Expect something bad to happen
[1:22:49] to you, expect it. That's just the way the world
[1:22:54] is, expect it. And if you do something good to
[1:22:58] somebody, expect it. That's just the way the world
[1:23:02] is, Balance. So whenever you're going off the
[1:23:04] balance, that off must be good. Otherwise it the US will bring
[1:23:08] you back. You come and pay.
[1:23:12] Now at a deeper level, even your mental accusations, your mental
[1:23:16] self talk must be positive. It must really remain in
[1:23:20] balance. So you can't pick up a gun and
[1:23:23] shoot somebody mentally and go Scott free.
[1:23:28] Because if you understand how creation was done, thought,
[1:23:32] utterance, action, even in the mental space, if I think really
[1:23:38] ill of you, I'll get the ill. So be your best self, you know,
[1:23:47] enjoy as much as you can because, you know, enjoy
[1:23:50] yourself. And the difference is never
[1:23:52] going to be known once you pass the one that enjoyed and the one
[1:23:57] that didn't enjoy. Nobody knows the difference.
[1:24:00] So just be a good human being, that's all.
[1:24:03] Be a good human being and understand these fingers.
[1:24:08] We are here to support everybody else so we can all move.
[1:24:15] Thank you very much, Eric. You're welcome.
[1:24:18] It's been a very heavy conversation.
[1:24:20] Thanks for choosing to come and be with us and spend this time
[1:24:23] with me. I'm hoping that like you said,
[1:24:27] we there's a relationship that is home from here so that I know
[1:24:31] I can learn from you and what you're doing.
[1:24:33] Very inspiring really and thank you for all you do.
[1:24:37] No, you're welcome. I've seen your work and I think
[1:24:39] you're doing fantastic. The reason I chose, you know,
[1:24:42] there are a few podcasts that I've chosen to go on, and the
[1:24:44] reason I chose to come here is because you're doing an
[1:24:46] incredible job. Thank you.
[1:24:48] Is there room for improvement? Yes, for all of us, for
[1:24:50] everybody. If you say there's no room, then
[1:24:53] that means you've arrived, and that's a big problem.
[1:24:55] Yes, because if you've arrived, then you can only return.
[1:25:00] OOP. I thank you so much.
[1:25:01] Yeah, thank you. So community friends in Acquire
[1:25:06] and they're all beyond lots of words, but that was a great
[1:25:11] conversation with Derek Abaite. And the mantra remains.
[1:25:15] Just build something you are.

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