In this archival episode of Push to be More Matt Edmundson sits down with Zafar Karim for a thrilling conversation. Going from the humble streets of East End London to the prestigious halls of Cambridge University, Zafar exemplifies resilience and success in the tech business world. He has mastered the art of steering fledgling tech IPOs and has a decade long journey in investment banking with titans like Solomon Brothers. Zafar shares his thoughts on self -awareness, the importance of resilience, and how taking responsibility for your circumstances can empower you to make significant changes.

Key Takeaways: 

1. Self-Awareness and Responsibility: Zafar emphasises the importance of self-awareness and taking responsibility for one's circumstances. He believes that understanding and owning one's limitations and decisions can empower significant personal and professional growth. This mindset shift from victimhood to responsibility is crucial for overcoming obstacles and achieving success.
2. Intellectual Awakening and Continuous Learning: Zafar shares his journey of intellectual awakening during his time at Cambridge University, where he realized the value of diverse fields such as philosophy, history, and classics. He stresses the importance of continuous self-improvement and lifelong learning, highlighting how this pursuit has been instrumental in his personal and professional development.
3. Resilience and Adaptability: Resilience is a recurring theme in Zafar's story. He discusses how he navigated challenges from his upbringing in East End London to his career in investment banking and tech entrepreneurship. His attitude towards setbacks, including the financial crisis, is one of perseverance and adaptability, always looking for lessons and opportunities to grow despite difficulties.

If this episode of Push to be More piqued your interest make to subscribe and keep up to date with everything we do here on the Push to be More Podcast.

Learn Your Way to Success

Sadaf Beynon: Welcome to Push To Be More Podcast. We're back with another fascinating episode, this time featuring Zafar Karim from BlockAft. Zaf's journey is nothing short of inspiring. From the humble streets of East End London to the prestigious halls of Cambridge University, Zaf exemplifies resilience and success in the tech business world.

He has mastered the art of steering fledgling tech IPOs and has a decade long journey in investment banking with titans like Salomon Brothers and Rothschilds. Beyond being a seasoned business leader, Zaf is a trailblazing Oxbridge alumnus, being the first in his family and the sole representative from his school to attain this milestone.

So whether you're interested in tech, entrepreneurship, or personal growth, Zaf's wisdom is both insightful and practical. Let's listen in.

Matt Edmundson: Welcome to Push To Be More with me your host Matt Edmundson. Now this is a show that talks about the stuff that makes life work and to help us do just that today I'm chatting with Zafar Karim, also known as Zaf, from Blockapt about where he's had to push through, what he does to recharge his batteries, and what does growth look like, what does more look like.

I mean, beyond a seasoned business leader, Zaf is trailblazing Oxbridge alumni, being the first in his family and the sole representative from his school to attain this milestone. That's a heck of a bio, Zef. I'm not going to lie. It's great to have you on the show. Thanks for joining me. How are we doing?

Zafar Karim: Oh, thank you very much for inviting me. I think you, um, over compliment me, but hey, you know.

Matt Edmundson: I just look, I say this quite often now on the podcast, Zef, that, um, I, I never read a guest bio and until it's live as we're recording, because I just love the way these things have been written, uh, and the production team do such a great job on them.

Uh, so great to have you. Are you Still in the East End of London, where are you now in the world?

Matt Edmundson: Canary Wharf is just a lot more trendy, isn't it, and a lot more, uh, a lot more fashionable.

Zafar Karim: It's nice.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah. I do like Canary Wharf. I like to walk around there late at night whenever I'm down in London. It's quite a nice place to go. But um, wow, so you're in the illustrious Canary Wharf. Now, Zaf, let's start off the podcast the way I like to start off the podcast with the podcast question. And I wonder how many more times I can mention the word podcast.

Zafar Karim: Oh my God, that's um, that's a difficult one. Um, uh, look, I, I, I'm where I am because I stand on the shoulders of giants. Um, and, um, so, um, There's people as far ranging as, say, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Now, you might not associate him with academia or tech or something, but he's probably one of the only people I know of who has come from nothing and been incredibly successful, indeed got to the top of the tree in three highly competitive careers, um, bodybuilding, Hollywood, and been incredibly successful, indeed got to the top of the tree in three highly competitive careers, um, bodybuilding, Hollywood, and, you know, a lot of other things.

I had some mentors, Um, while I was at the banks and, and, um, uh, subsequent to that, I didn't like, you know, villain characters like Al Fayed, um, Mohammed Al Fayed, because if you actually read his biography, which is brilliant.

It's quite remarkable what he has achieved, given where he came from. The same with Maxwell, Robert Maxwell. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, um, but again, all of these people don't have to be in academia or in business. Um, you know, if you, if you took, take someone like Mo Farah, Um, you know, the, the sprinter, the, the long distance runner, uh, if you actually look at what he's achieved and what's coming out about him, you know, it takes a particular kind of mindset and the resilience to achieve that much.

Matt Edmundson: That's so true. That's so true. And, um. It's interesting, isn't it, when you still, I finally, like you have done here, Zaf, you know, one of the interesting things that happens, uh, when you think about this question, um, you come up with an answer and you think, Well, this person inspired me because of X, Y, and Z, or this person's had an influence on me because of X, Y, and Z, and it just snowballs.

You can quickly just keep going and keep going and keep going, you know, and, and the whole level of inspiration, uh, is, is fascinating. What does fascinate me about your answer is no one yet has mentioned Arnold Schwarzenegger, um, as a, as a, as a guest on the show, but actually, um, I think you're right. I think he would make a fascinating guest on the show because.

I'm curious though, when you said, um, when you used this phrase, you had an intellectual awakening, I think was the term, the phrase that you used. What was that? What was that all about?

So when I went up to Cambridge, um, I, um, I actually did A levels in physics, chemistry, maths, and Prior to that, as a teenager, I used to program computers, so I was very much in that kind of mold that my parents can hold me up and say, my son's a scientist, kind of thing. I decided to read economics, um, much to the, uh, annoyance of my parents, who thought, economics?

History, because, you know, if you don't study history and if you don't learn from it, you're destined to repeat it. I mean, that's a cliche, but it's actually true.

Yeah.

Zafar Karim: Um, uh, Classics, because the, the text that you study are as applicable today as they were, you know, 3, 000 years ago.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah.

Zafar Karim: And my kind of intellectual, intellectualization of that is simply the following.

And believe it or not, the brain hasn't evolved that much in the last 3, 000 years. So the, so the things that were applicable to how humans think. And the emotions and what drives humans and what doesn't, I, it's applicable now. And, and so, so it was exposure to those ideas and having debates with, um, you know, people who are reading in quotes, lesser subjects, which I realize aren't lesser subjects at all.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah.

Zafar Karim: Um, so, yeah, that's, that's what I'd say intellectual awakening. I wish it had occurred earlier, but hey, you know, um, everybody has different circumstances.

Matt Edmundson: They do, and it's fascinating listening to you talk, Zaf, because I'm, and I'm smiling because, uh, I, as I get older, um, the more I realise, um, Uh, actually some of the things that I like you thought were a bit dull and boring, uh, actually is super interesting all of a sudden. So I remember, you know, again, having that, that, that moment of realization probably in my mid twenties, uh, that actually history is actually quite interesting.

Um, but pre tech, I mean, when I was in my twenties, it was a while ago. Let me, let me just be clear with, you know, um, it's, this is before technology, but I, I do sit here and think, yes, I, I do wonder what it was that. Or I wonder what it is that is an age thing that makes me appreciate these topics, the more I go through life rather than appreciating them when I have the opportunity to learn and absorb a lot more like at school, for example, I don't know.

I don't know if you have any thoughts on this.

30 years ago, I was so clever and everything else, I knew I had nothing to learn. 20 years ago, I was a lot cleverer and realized I had quite a bit to learn. And now, I know nothing. I've still got everything to learn. I make no assumptions anymore.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, it is funny that curve that you go through, isn't it?

We often say that about the teenagers, you know, teenagers know everything in the world, those in their 20s kind of know most things about the world. And then by the time you get to your 40s and 50s, you realize you actually know nothing about the world. That's quite, it's quite a fascinating journey that we all sort of go on with that.

Zafar Karim: Well, look, I, I think,

Matt Edmundson: um,

Zafar Karim: you do ask quite deep questions, which is good. Um, I, I guess the key challenge is becoming aware of yourself. And realizing where you need to grow, uh, realizing it's actually about you. Well, what do I mean by that? It's about pretty much everything that happens, pretty much where you are now, is because of the decisions on the whole that you have made.

And so you've got to realize So, I think it's important to recognize your limitations and see how you can address them. Um, I, I, I think that's the key challenge. So, let me put this in, into perspective. So, people say to me, oh my God, you know, you're brought up in the East End and, uh, you know, the West End Football Ground was the center for the National Front and everything else.

I just thought, okay, that's, that's, that's, that's a given. I can blame everything on that, or I can just get on and try and do what I'm going to try and do. So, there are obstacles, but I don't see those as challenges. Now when I look back, I realize that at that time, the schooling in my area was very bad.

But at, if you asked, go back 40 years and asked me, I'd have said, no, it's great school, you know, whatever. Yeah. When I go back, uh, say 20 years and I, uh, 30 years and I look back and I think, you know, when I started my professional career, career, there was a lot of ways of behaving and norms and the rest of it, which I just wasn't aware of because I'd never been exposed to this and I, I'd never known anyone in my circle of family, friends, anything that exposed to this, but I didn't see that as, Oh, that's a challenge.

And then maybe five years later, you're like, my God, everybody else that's done this didn't have that problem to overcome. But I didn't see it as a challenge at the time. It's just, I just got to get on with it. I think resilience, resilience is really important. In the credit crunch, I suffered very badly.

And I basically had to get up and start again. And you know, I wasn't a 20 year old, I was a 40 year old. But I think it's important to get on with it. So, so what's the alternative? You're going to sit there and mope until your friend, you had a bad time and everything else, and then 20 years look back and say, Well, I spent the last 20 years of my life pitying myself.

Or you can say, well, you know, stuff happens. It probably happened for a reason to teach me a lesson. I don't know. I don't know what the lesson is, but I'm going to bloody well find out.

By Kenya, I think it was. Um, very similar mindset. It's like, we have all of these problems, we can't control them, but what can we do? Let's get on and do something. And it's, it's, it's, it's fascinating listening to you talk. And I don't know, is this something that, um, you learned yourself? Is this something that came through your parents, this attitude?

I'm kind of curious where it came from. It's, it's.

When I was growing up, I was cognizant of the fact that, you know, we were in the East End. Yeah, East End people do this. Yeah, I was cognizant of the fact that, you know, there was never much money around. And, you know, there wasn't the internet and stuff, but you know, you had TV and things. And I just knew I wanted better.

I wanted, this is not what I wanted for my life.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah.

Zafar Karim: And so that gave me a massive drive. Now, let's take the same Zaf Karim. Let's say I'd Being born, um, in much more fortunate, fortunate circumstances with much more, uh, well endowed parents and a better school and everything else and the rest of it. I may not have had that drive.

Yeah.

Zafar Karim: And, and staying there may still have taken effort, but it might not have taken as much effort. Um, once you've got that drive, it kind of stays short, mellows out over time. So, is that nature, or is it nurture? I think it's a mixture.

So, I've got four siblings, and we have a wide variation in the degrees of success we've had in our lives. I don't just mean career wise, but otherwise. Yet, we were brought up by the same parents in the same circumstances. So, yes, there must be some element of, uh, nature, but there must be some element of nurture as well.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, it's an interesting

Zafar Karim: one, isn't

Matt Edmundson: it? And I like, I like, um, how you talk about that, you know, and how it's a mixture of two things. And if you were born into different circumstances, would you still have the drive? I'm kind of curious, though, for you, um, you know, the, the whole resilience. Which I think is a great word.

It's not a word we hear a lot of these days, if I'm honest with you.

Zafar Karim: I had to look it up before I used it.

But I'm kind of I'm kind of curious, for you, Zef, um, You had this drive, you wanted to develop, you wanted to get out, you wanted to have more. Do you feel like you've done that? Do you feel like you've achieved that? Or is it still a quest that you're on?

Zafar Karim: Look, I think for me, you know, my life in various fields, personal, professional, Intellectual, whatever.

It's basically, um, kind of been fairly volatile, you know, gone up and then suddenly crashed down and gone up and crashed down. And, um, um, I was talking to one of my very good friends over Christmas, um, uh, and, uh, funnily enough about the podcast that we listen to, you know, while we're out jogging or whatever we're doing.

It might be about sales. It might be about, uh, kind of, you know, Moral philosophy. Um, I don't want to plug others, but I listened to the Moral Maze, for example, right? And she, because she's known me for too long. She said, I, Zaf, you're still on that quest for self improvement. And you know, but you have you, you haven't changed a, you know, a dot since I met you kind of thing, like you're still pure, immature, but she's a friend of mine.

Now, I wasn't masking them intentionally. I just didn't know I had all those deficiencies.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah.

Zafar Karim: But over time, I became more and more self aware, and I've been able to Plug those deficiencies, and as a result, across the board, aspects of my life have got better. So I think this is a continuous, continuous thing.

Um, It's a continual process.

Yeah, it's a continual process.

Matt Edmundson: No, it is. I think that's why they call it growth, right? It's, it's one of those. And I, but I'm, I guess the reason I'm asking this question is, you know, when you when you go back to being a lad growing up in the East End, or, you know, you're doing your A Levels or you're at Cambridge, and, you know, you're, you're envisioning your life in the future.

which is more than what it was in the past, you know, whether it was the circumstances, the money, whatever it was, um, I, I wonder what that What that sort of younger version of Zaf would think about the way you are now, if that makes sense? Did you did the younger version anticipate kind of where you are?

Matt Edmundson: Mm-Hmm. .

Zafar Karim: Um, and um, when I went up to university, I. I decided I wanted to do something that was more real world.

So, you know, when you're talking to people, they don't talk about, if I drop a stone from a hundred meter building, how long is it going to take to hit the ground? They talk about, bloody hell, when is inflation going to come down? Yeah. There's this subject called economics. Let's, let's have a crack.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah.

Zafar Karim: Um, and so, so when I went up to university, I, I, I read economics and, um, Cambridge was a different world.

Um, but then. Everything was so new. It wasn't until the first term of my third year that I actually started thinking, Oh, what am I going to do? Um, you know, because economics, you can do lots of things. And, um, at the time, the most glamorous and highest paying jobs were investment banking, strategic consultancy.

So I thought, you know what, give it a go. And I managed to get into Stoltenberg's, which at the time was probably the best investment bank in the world. So, you know, if you look at it from that honest perspective,

Matt Edmundson: I

Zafar Karim: can't then say, Oh, in my first year, I'd planned to be prime minister by the time I was 25 years old.

I was far more of a maverick, I was far more wanted to do my own kind of thing, and I left to start doing what I do, which is identify businesses, particularly in tech, get involved. And hopefully make a massive difference, turn them around, grow them, etc, etc. But the kind of planning stage, even I know some of my friends who literally had plans, you know, they'd be married by the time they were 30 and the rest of it.

And they were, and in some ways, their lives, on some measures gone far better than mine, because they actually had a plan, they knew where they were going. But I didn't, because, you know, from the East End to Cambridge and then investment banking, where you didn't even know Investment banking was at the interview, you just kind of liked it.

So I kind of have a plan that, you know, there's certain things I want to get done in a certain space of time, because I've seen. I'm standing on sufficient number of shoulders that I can look down and say, you know, this is where I am and this is where I want to be. Because when I was in the East End, I was standing on no shoulders.

And so I didn't know what existed. So if I don't know what exists there, how can I decide if I want to be there or there or there? Yeah. Does that make

Matt Edmundson: sense? No, it does. Totally. It's a very similar story to mine, although I didn't do the investment banking thing, but a very, very, very similar story. So I'm curious then, Zeph.

Zafar Karim: Absolutely. So because I've experienced so much more, I kind of, you know, I know people, I don't mean know of, I know people who are billionaires.

I know people who are working at charities or in need of charity. So I have a much wider scope. So I think, uh, there's, you know, I'm working on a particular business block out. I want to grow that. I want to make it as valuable as possible and then, uh, pass it on to the next person who can take it to the next level.

Um, that seems to be going fairly well, but, you know, In this arena, startup arena, early stage, it's high risk, very high risk. So there's that. Then post that, I need to think about what I'm going to do after that. Maybe start up a fund, maybe. So I have a much clearer idea, but that's from a career standpoint.

Matt Edmundson: yeah,

Zafar Karim: disastrous.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah.

Zafar Karim: Um, if I achieve, you know, Uh, the latter, which is, you know, the hundred or billion or whatever. I have a very clear ideal of, um, what I would want to do with that money and past a certain amount, the rest I would basically, um, uh, uh, uh, give to charity. And I know precisely what the charity is and indeed what I'd like them to do with it and every, you know, because I have this wider scope now.

So there's a lot of pressure there. Um, and then, um, and then there's, um, uh, Yeah, you know, I've been very lucky in my life in terms of I've learned a lot. I don't just mean intellectually. I mean, in many other ways as well. I'd love to be able to pass that knowledge on. Yeah. You know, again, not taking anything away from my background or the rest of it.

I don't know. But you need to keep doing things you can't, you know, you're either dying, or you're growing. Yeah, there is actually no standing still. That's the way I look at it. And it's up to you what or how you do that. It's not what happens to you. It's, it's, um, it's what you do about it. Now, one of one of one of the people I admire, Warren Buffett, right?

Brilliant. Brilliant. Because, because no matter what you do in life. Yeah. Yeah. If you happen to be born in certain particular rooms, you're set for life under normal measures. But, you know, that may mean that you're aimless, you don't have any challenges, you don't lead a fulfilled life because of that. But it's brilliant.

Yeah, do you see my point? Yeah, so you gotta, you gotta, you just gotta keep, keep at it, keep growing. Yeah, you can, ups and downs and the rest of it, you just push through. Or you can sit there and pity yourself and blame it on everything else. One of my Mentors, um, who I consider a mentor, very successful, uh, individual, uh, massively successful, one of the first successful Asian people in, in the country.

You're so bloody successful and everything else. And he said, look, if, uh, tomorrow, um, you know, one of my, my son, I, I'm trying not to give away who he is. My son is walking down the road to come and visit me and he gets hit by a car or something. That's my fault. And I said, how is it your fault? And he said, because I have a chauffeur that could go and pick him up.

So it's disempowering, but if you are actually strong enough to say, you know what, it actually comes down to me, doesn't it, no matter what my circumstance is, then you have the ability. That's the first step in psychologically realizing that you have the ability to do something about it. Yeah, that's great.

Matt Edmundson: Super powerful, Sadaf. Listen, uh, you, uh, you reminded me of a book I read called Extreme Ownership, uh, by Jocko Wilkinson. Yeah, a great book, uh, written by a Navy SEAL. Um, and you'll love it. Uh, it's that kind of mentality all over. Um, listen, I'm aware of time, uh, which has rapidly got away from us. I realize I've got a thousand more questions.

Zafar Karim: Um, probably on LinkedIn, uh, but I get lots of LinkedIn requests, so if on the LinkedIn, they, you know, use the headline that, relates to this podcast, then I know it will have come through this.

So I'm far more likely to, uh, respond to it.

Matt Edmundson: Fantastic.

Zafar Karim: I mean, I read them all, but, you know, responding different thing.

Yeah, the same way. I mean, exactly the same way. Yeah, no, I'm

Zafar Karim: on LinkedIn under Zafar Karim, Z A F A R K A R I M. There might be some other Zafar Karim's there, but if you look for Zafar Karim that's at Blockapka at the moment, then you'll get me.

And there's a picture there which should look like me, but Yeah.

Matt Edmundson: You never know. You never know. We will of course link to Zaf's info in the show notes as well, which you can get along for free, uh, with the transcript, um, at pushtobemore. com. Zaf, listen, uh, really appreciate you taking the time and coming and sharing your wisdom with us.

Zafar Karim: Thank you so much. And thank you for being very generous in your compliments. Maybe one day I'll be deserving of them. Thanks, Matt.

Matt Edmundson: No problem. Thanks. Huge thanks again to Zaf for joining me today. Also a big shout out to today's show sponsor, Aurion Media. If you're wondering if podcasting is a good marketing strategy for your business, and I think it probably is, do connect with them at www.

Yes, you are. It's just a burden you have to bear. Create it awesome. Zeph has to bear it. I have to bear it. You've got to bear it as well. Now, Push To Be More is produced by Aurion Media. You can find our entire archive of episodes on your favorite podcast app. The team that makes this show possible is Sadaf Beynon, Estella Robin, and Tanya Hutzalek.

Our theme music was written by Josh Edmundson, and as I mentioned, if you would like to read the transcript or show notes, you can find them on the website. Push. That's it from me, that's it from Zafar, I appreciate you being with us, have a fantastic week, wherever you are in the world, I'll see you next time, bye for now.