How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - Shabaz Ali - ‘I’ll be a diversity quota as long as I get paid’

Episode Date: February 4, 2026

A few years ago, Shabaz Ali was a chemistry teacher in Blackburn. Today, he’s one of the internet’s most beloved creators, best known as Shabaz Says, with millions of fans and a knack for skewering the most outrageous (and often tasteless) displays of online excess. Since quitting the day job, Shabaz has launched a podcast, performed at the Edinburgh Fringe and published his book I’m Rich, You’re Poor. Beneath the humour though, there’s always been something more serious at play: a sharp commentary on the psychological erosion that comes from spending too much of our lives online. In this episode, we talk about Shabaz’s upbringing, being bullied at school, how his taxi-driver Dad didn’t even realise his son was famous until recently and why no-one should ever spend £10,000 on an outfit. ✨ IN THIS EPISODE: 00:00 Introduction 03:03 The Impact of Social Media on Youth 05:14 Navigating Imposter Syndrome and Success 10:53 Embracing Authenticity and Overcoming Criticism 12:46 Growing Up in Blackburn 15:45 Challenges of Intersectional Identity 22:36 Family Perspectives and Cultural Expectations 24:04 Struggles with Poverty 25:20 Empathy 30:15 From Teacher to Social Media Star 31:24 Unexpected Career in the Hospital Morgue 33:38 Finding Viral Success Online 37:16 Representation and Finding Your Voice 💬 QUOTES TO REMEMBER: You can be a man and still speak up for women's rights. You don't have to be a black person to speak up for black people. You don't have to be trans to speak up for trans rights. How you present yourself is always how the world's going to treat you. [Death] definitely gave me an appreciation for life. It gave me appreciation for human beings... I have so much love to give for humanity. I don’t care if I’m palatable for you. 🔗 LINKS + MENTIONS: Shabaz’s book, I'm Rich, You're Poor - is out now Join the How To Fail community: https://howtofail.supportingcast.fm/#content Elizabeth’s Substack: https://theelizabethday.substack.com/ 📚 WANT MORE? John Bishop - on how insecurity, self-doubt and feeling like an outsider shaped both his comedy and his life. Plus: almost getting divorced but then changing his mind swap.fm/l/wRGKwuonJFQoujFlmDHI Celeste Barber - on using humour to challenge impossible beauty standards, early struggles with rejection and how embracing authenticity changed her life swap.fm/l/qLmwfjyeSolWuFeaHGdt 💌 LOVE THIS EPISODE? Subscribe on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts Leave a 5⭐ review – it helps more people discover these stories 👋 Follow How To Fail & Elizabeth: Instagram: @elizabday TikTok: @howtofailpod Podcast Instagram: @howtofailpod Website: www.elizabethday.org Elizabeth and Shabaz answer listener questions in our subscriber series, Failing with Friends. Join our community of subscribers here: https://howtofail.supportingcast.fm/#content Have a failure you’re trying to work through for Elizabeth to discuss? Click here to get in touch: howtofailpod.com Production & Post Production Coordinator: Eric Ryan Engineer: Matias Torres Assistant Producer: Shania Manderson Senior Producer: Hannah Talbot Executive Producer: Alex Lawless How to Fail is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment Production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts To bring your brand to life in this podcast, email [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You can be a man and still speak up for women's rights. You don't have to be a black person to speak up for black people. You don't have to be trans to speak up with trans rights. Because imagine going from being the most unpopular kid to being the most popular person in school or the most feared. It made me a monster. I'm a brown man working class Northern and then on top of it, I'm a creator. Hello and welcome to How to Fail. This is the podcast that believes failure is not the end, just the beginning to a different kind of story.

Before we get started on this conversation, please do remember to follow and subscribe so that you never miss a single episode. Masterclass is the streaming platform that makes it possible for anyone to watch or listen to hundreds of video lessons taught by more than 200 of the world's best. Whether it be in business and leadership, photography, cooking, acting, music, sports and more, Masterclass delivers a world-class online learning experience. The classes that excited me the most were the ones on writing. So there's a session with actual Malcolm Gladwell, author of Blink and The Tipping Point. He's done 24 classes on how to find, research and write stories that capture big ideas. And it's totally inspiring. I love that you can turn your commute or work out into a classroom with audio mode. So you can listen to a

masterclass lesson anytime, anywhere. Right now, our listeners get an additional 15% off any annual membership at Masterclass.com slash fail. That's 15% off at masterclass.com slash fail. Masterclass.com slash fail. A few years ago, Shabazz Ali was working as a chemistry teacher in Blackburn when he started noticing that although his students often came from families who struggled to make ends meet, they were developing a warped sense of reality when they compared their lives with the images of extreme wealth and success projected by celebrities online. He would see kids not being able to have lunch

and then would go home and look at famous people posting TikTok videos of private jets or 25,000 pound handbags. So in response, Ali started posting videos of his own, poking fun at these displays of excess. He soon gained a considerable online phone. following and became known by legions of fans, as Shabazz says. He launched a podcast, went on a comedy tour, performed at the Edinburgh Fringe, and published a book, I'm Rich, Your Paul. Along the way, he quit his day job, and while others called him the Robin Hood of TikTok,

he satirically dubbed himself King of the Povos. Although his red carpet fashion critiques often reduce me to tears of helpless laughter, his humour has always come. with a serious undertone. Ali's work blends compassionate intent with savage shade giving. It has also garnered him that very modern metric of success, some four million followers on TikTok and Instagram. As a person of colour, we're always told that success, whatever that looks like,

could be taken away from us at any moment, he says. There's always a voice in your head that says, you could go right back into poverty, but I try not to let it come to the forefront. Shabazz Ali, welcome to How to Fail. Thank you for having me. I would just say it earlier that this is iconic. I'm on the iconic How to Fail podcast.

It's brilliant. Well, we are so happy to greet you, Icon, yourself. Oh, thank you. And I wanted to make the point that so much of your humour comes with this intention, which is to highlight the discrepancy between the cost of living crisis that so many people are living through and enduring

and this sort of celebrity private jet existence. So tell me more about that and tell me more about why that was important to you. I think the thing is it always frustrated me, but it's really difficult to, we've had the internet for such a long time. And I think you talk about it in your book, see, I've read it.

When I grew up, I grew up with magazines and stuff like that. And you always saw that as like, oh yeah, that's celebrities. celebrities have that because they've worked for it. You know what I mean? They've got the money. They make films. They make music.

What's changed and what's shifted is you've got everyday people, everyday people that you are seeing on your phone, who you think are everyday walk up like this, in their big mansions, with their big cars, and their luxury lifestyles and their handbags and, you know, private jets and all of the luxury that is online. But because you're seeing them as you, you're comparing your life to them.

Whereas celebrities, we knew we opened a magazine. We're like, oh, yeah, it's been Photoshopped, it's been glossed over, it's had editing and all that. When it comes to social media, we don't think that. We think, oh yeah, they just woke up looking beautiful. No, they've done a make-up, they've had a full glam squad. They've had editors and, you know, like cameras and all of that happening, but we don't see it like that. So our brain naturally compares ourselves to these people. And it happens so much, and I was a victim of it myself.

And it was only when I thought I saw it in a younger generation, especially post-COVID, we really started to see a lot more. Like post-COVID, you sort of really saw how much impact it had on young people and there, and I say young people, but it wasn't really even just young people. It's everybody, every aspect of your life, there is someone out there telling you, I'm Rich or Poor, I'm better than you. You've put that so brilliantly and you've described it as a kind of psychological erosion. I think you wrote about that in your book, that that constant comparison. And it's why I was so keen to have you on this podcast, because so much of what I try to do is to flip that narrative, albeit in a less hilarious way from the way that you do it.

But it's so important because so often we're comparing our messy insides with everyone else's curated outsides. Yeah, absolutely. But that idea that I ended the introduction on, where you said you live still with the wrong, realization that could all be taken away from you. Yeah. Would you describe that as a kind of imposter syndrome?

Absolutely. Absolutely. Pover mindset. I say that will probably never go away. I am now three years into doing this full time or two years, I guess, full time. And every single time I'm somewhere, I'm constantly, my brain is going 100 miles per hour because I'm always thinking work hard, work hard, this could go away, this could go away. my brain is always on all the time.

I just can't turn it off. And the imposter syndrome is still near. Like, I was on tour with, you know, thousands of people coming out to see me, and I'm still stood up on stage. I'm still walking off stage. And I filmed it, so I had a camera crew follow me around. And when I watched that footage back, I am still, after selling out a tour, I'm still walking off the stage going, was it all right?

Was that good? I don't know if it was good. Did the people like it? I don't know if people, there weren't a lot of laughs. And my friends are going to be. going, at what point are you going to shake yourself and be like, you've got to wake up and smell the coffee and go, you are good at what you do. There's people that love what you do and you are successful. Why do you still live in that mindset? But in a way, that mindset is your

superpower. Absolutely. It's the thing that enables you still to do these videos because you're speaking directly to an audience that you can understand. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll never let that. I think there's a difference. I think having that voice is always going to humble me. So it's always going to keep me in a place of working hard because it could all go. but not letting it be a detriment, not letting it define who I am and define my every waking moment and my movements. There's a difference. I think having the voice is good, but just not letting it sabotage whatever you're trying to build is a difference. So, and I mean, I've come from working class background. That's never going to go away. Everything I do, but that's why I think

it's always great because if I make money, I've always said, if I made a million or became a billionaire or whatever, I don't think that mindset would ever go away, which means that I'll always be thinking of those people and thinking of people with less than I am. I think people that are born into wealth, born a generation of wealth, they don't have that thought. And it's not their fault always, because they just never had to think about that. They never had to think about choosing between getting on the bus or having lunch that day. They've not had to choose between paying rent or feeding your kids. They've never thought about that. I've always said it. I've said if I I've won the lottery tomorrow and won, you know, 213 million on the lottery or whatever it was,

I still think I would still have that mindset of like, that's too much money to spend on an outfit. You know, that 10 grand on an outfit is ridiculous. 5,000 pounds shoes are ridiculous. Why? Like, people can see that I get to do all these glamorous, lovely things, but the core of who I am hasn't changed and it never will change. You can be a man and still speak up for women's rights. You don't have to be a black person to speak up for black people. You don't have to be trans to speak up with trans rights. Yeah, I don't have to be, you know, I don't have to be still poor and still speak up for people who don't have the same amount of money that I do.

You know what I mean? I totally know what you mean. And it's why, because sometimes one of the, I think, quite stupid criticisms that is leveled at how to fail is like, well, what would Elizabeth know about failure? Because I am a deeply privileged white middle class woman. And that's true to a certain extent. I would countenance that anyone experiences failure and certain privileges mean that you have a safety net, undoubtedly,

and certain people in the society are given multiple chances to fail upwards. Having said that, I'm not saying that I'm here as a failure. We can still talk about something because we've had experience of it and learn along the way. So do you think that you feel in your flow when you are lying in your bed because this is where you do most of your videos, it's iconic, covered in a blanket. and you are handing down sort of savage roasting of people's reds government.

Deserved. Is that your flow? Is that your happy place? Absolutely. I love doing it. And I think if I ever feel like I'm being malicious, that video just won't ever go out. I think I know I'm old enough and smart enough to know when it sounds, when it's being malicious or when it's coming from a place of Vim, don't get me wrong. Sometimes it is deserved to come from a place of Vim. Like there is no need for you to tell us the, the millions of pounds that you spent and the gifts that you got at Christmas, Becker Bloom, there is no need for you to ever tell us about the types of honeymoons you could have had, but you didn't, which is not obtainable in anyone's lifestyle.

Who's your target demographic? That does come from place of him because I genuinely detest it. So I think there's a difference. But when it's tongue-in-cheek and it's poking fun, at just the absurdity of it, I'm not saying that it's bad to have money. I'm just not saying that. I'm not saying that from a working class background, you can't aspire to be a millionaire,

you can't aspire. What I'm saying is you don't have to tell everybody exactly where it came from and what it is. Has anyone taken each task? No, no. No one's actually, creators have. Creators have because I think, like in the creator world, I think some creators have like an ego, don't they?

Like, I've got millions of followers, so why are you poking fun at me? Like, whereas a celebrity who's got, you know, millions of pounds in their account and, you know, A-list celebrity, they don't care. If anything, the opposite, I've had like celebrities message me going,

well, why did I feature on it? I was like, because your outfit was nice. Like, I don't know what you want me to say. It was a good outfit. Did you want to be on it? Wear a bad outfit. Final question before we get on to your failures. You were a chemistry teacher.

What's your favourite element from the periodic table? I'd say oxygen because without it, where would we be? And that's such a cliche. Yes, that's a boring. The second favourite. Carbon. Carbon, okay. Carbon because, firstly,

Carbon is diamond and I love a diamond. I love a shiny diamond. But I will also say it's very underrated. It's a very underrated element. What a geek in it. What a geeky answer. Because everyone would say gold, silver, platinum. You'd say those ones.

But I think like, I think carbon is such an underrated element. I like the ones that are unexpected. Like the initials are unexpected. Right, yeah. Oh, they use gold. An NM. Is there one which is N? N.

N.C. Might be. Yeah, might be. I did single science. Yeah. Don't ask me. There we go. Anyway, onto your failures. Your first failure is, as you put it to me, my failure in allowing other people's opinions to dictate my personality or trying to be palatable for everyone. I did that so much. And I, it has probably been four years only since this social media gig, I think, where I just don't care if I'm palatable for you. It was growing up, I spent my entire 20s trying to be a version of some, for someone else. So do I be, I'm not too loud for this group. I'm too Asian for my white friends. I'm too white for my Asian friends. And I, because I was told growing up that I was so loud. Like, they're sort of pre-teen shabazz and the now shabazz are too, the same person.

Obviously, with age comes wisdom. But like, there's the same person in terms of their personality. their zest for life, they're wanting to make people laugh. The teenage Shabazz and the 20s Shabazz are very different people, very angry people, very confused at the world and what I'm supposed to be because my shine got dulled so much by people because they were like, you're so loud, you're so flamboyant, you're so this, you're so that, that I allowed it to be who I was.

And who was telling you that? Just everyone I was surrounded by, like whether it was, the friends I had, family members. I got told you talk so much. And now millions of people are celebrating the fact that I talk too much. My friend, I found it really hard to make friends because everyone would be like, oh, he talks too much, or he's too loud, he commands the room. And I constantly thought, don't command the room.

So I'd go into a room and I'd be the complete opposite, which meant that I wouldn't make friends because people would be like, he doesn't talk to anyone, he stuck up. So which one was it? I couldn't be everything until I decided, I don't need to be every. I just need to be me. Did you grow up in Blackburn? Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So talk to me a little bit about your family and what your parents did. So working class parents, working class background, Blackburn is a very small knit community. It is everybody's seat pretty much knows everyone. But for me, growing up, I couldn't wait to escape my town. As soon as I turned 18, I was out there. I was straight to London, university.

My dreams are too big for my town. But ultimately, I'm right back there because what's so funny is the town that I thought was stunt my success was the town that led to my success. Because it was only, I'm very mind, I've been doing social media since like 2014. I put my first video up in 2014. I explored London, did all the London lifestyle. It's only when I get back to Blackburn in my bedroom, in my small, tiny little town that the success came. What was school like for you? I was awful.

but high school was awful. Like I had such a tough time in high school. I went from being such a popular primary school kid to such an unpopular. Basically, they had boys and girls separate in year 7, 8 and 9. And boys just went nice. Like, you know, I wasn't, we weren't exactly rich. We weren't as, I was kind of a geek.

I loved reading. I was probably a bit flamboyant for them. And I went to a school, which was predominantly South Asian. I just didn't fit. the norm, you know, I spoke differently, I acted differently, I dressed differently. I don't know what it was. They just didn't. I mean, high school's high school. And I had a horrible time. And then year 10, I became super popular when the girls mixed. So I ended up becoming friends with some of the most popular girls in school. That then led to the guys wanting to obviously get with these girls or

either the one that they were afraid of or one that they wanted to get with. And that led my popularity or don't say anything to him because obviously he's our way in. Like the girls. love him and that led to a power struggle in my mind because imagine going from being the most unpopular kid to being the most popular person in school or the most feared it made me a monster I think that led me to be a bit bitchy and a bit a bit I guess a bit nasty year 10 really awful then year 11 I kind of scaled it back and thought actually that's not who I am and then I spent my entire teenage years and trying to discover the trying to solve the trauma of the high school and I think it's taken such a long time.

But becoming a teacher was because I didn't want anyone to go through what I went through. Genuinely was like the first sign of bullying, the first sign of anyone treating somebody like a victim, I would snap it down. I would literally bring their parents in. I would do what I could do to make sure that that never happens again. Oh, Shabazz. Thank you so much for talking about that. I appreciate you asking. No, it's so traumatic being bullied at a particular time in your life when you're.

are trying to work out your own identity. Yeah, absolutely. You are someone who occupies many intersections. Yeah. And I wonder, this is such an inelegant way of asking it, but is there one of those intersections that has been more difficult for you to deal with than others, whether it's being working class, whether it's racism, whether it's being northern.

Yeah. I'd say the bottom of the barrel is definitely got to be being a man because that ain't odd, is it, right? Ain't odd being a guy in this world, is it? Right, let's be honest, right? And I think I always, I think sometimes when I, I'm really bad for it because I, I'm such an empath. So I find it really difficult to be the victim always. So like, regardless of what I do, I always think, you haven't got it that bad. So I've spent my entire life going, you haven't got it that bad.

So yes, you're a South Asian man, but you're not a South Asian woman, are you? Imagine how hard it would be if you're a South Asian woman. So yes, you're working class. But you also had it, you have got more. than other people. You know what I mean? So I find it really difficult to actually quantify my,

what's worse. But I'd say in the life I've lived in my experience, being working class probably is not as bad as being South Asian or brown working class. Yes.

Because people just don't want to have that conversation with you about being brown. I think people shut it down so quickly because they're like, oh, well, and I could probably,

you're probably some of your listeners, will roll their eyes that like, it's another person complaining about being brown, like the struggle. Like, you know, when we were talking about traitors and I don't know if you watch it, but... Unconscious racism in voting patterns, yeah. Massive thing.

When you say, when you bring it up, there's collective eye rolls from a certain subsection because they're like, and what they don't understand is unconscious bias exists for all of us, including people of colour, because we can be unconsciously biased because we have grown up with white is right.

And it's not us and us them thing. It's not saying it's a black and brown thing against white people. That's not what you say. Unconscious bias affects us. Within the Asian community, Asian people will move out of Asian areas to whiter areas because that makes them more successful because they appear to be more successful if they live with white people than them living in an Asian area. Is that not unconscious bias? Is that not a brown person being unconsciously biased towards their own? And I tell you, growing up, I never thought I was brown. Sounds really dumb. Never thought me any different to my white friends. loved them, grew up with them, went around to the houses, you know, called them mum's aunties,

never thought of myself differently until I became an adult and I realised that society treated me differently. It wasn't that people, it's just the way the system is built to treat me differently. What was the first realisation that you had as an adult? That was brown. Yeah. Not looking in the mirror, I'll tell you. It was, I think the first job I ever got, I got a job at Apple. It wasn't the first job I got, but the first time I'd experienced that. I got a job at Apple and loved it. I was like, I was like Apple geek and I thought, this is amazing. It's so hard to get into this job. And I was sat in the staff room and a girl turned around and said, well, you know why you hired, didn't it? You hired because the diversity thing. Like, you know, they've hired a lot of

white people and they've hired you for because you're brown. And I thought, oh, wow. And at that moment, I was like, oh, that's the first time somebody had said that, that would, because of the colour of my skin, you know what I mean, or differentiated something. Don't get me wrong. I use that now to my advantage. I'm like, if that's what you need to do, then hire me. Pay the checks. If you need to, if there's a company out there, it's like, we need to fill a diversity quarter. Hire me. I'll be a quarter, a diversity quarter as long as I'm paid. You know what I mean? But I think that was the first time. And I think my path is very hard compared to someone who's, well, white equivalent. And I've said this before and I know it makes people uncomfortable. I don't know

my manager probably squames because she's like, don't say it. You should say it. Yes. I think it's one of those where like, because I will tell you, I have to work so much harder than someone who has it just given to them on a plate because of the color of their skin, because of the fact that they're the natural default, because of, and it's not even that the companies are being racist, they just know what their demographic is going to want. If you think about, we were talking about TV shows, I'm a Celebrity has only in 25 years has had one black winner. It's shocking.

And even the recent series, the first two contestants who were voted out were black. Yeah. And the thing is, creators, we're not even allowed to be on national TV because we're seeing us like the of the others. And then the only, and we've had creators. We had Nella Rose last year, who's probably one of the most popular creators and what did they do?

It's sacrificed her to make Nigel Farage look good and then what have they done like this year the only the creator Angry Ginge. Why? Because he's a ginger northern working class lad. So it does. So I get why the companies do it because companies are also trying to pay their bills.

They also want to do that. So they don't want to step outside the box of going, you know, we can't hire a round person because think about it or there's been people complaining about the fact that all adverts have brown people on them at the this moment in time. So I think that's been the biggest, the hardest bit is,

I guess being Browns always been the struggle, but also Northern in the, I'm in the film and TV community, and I think being Northern is awful, because if you notice what Northern people look like in films and TV, and any adaptation, I said it recently,

I was like, where are the, I read a lot of crime thriller books, right? Where are the, why are Northern people not in these shows? Why is it always a posh white person are going through a crime thriller. Like, if you look at every adaptation, the big fat mansion, the big fat house,

they are, and then the only other working class person will be the, but-dum, bra-dum, working class person. Like, hello, me, my mum's from work. Like, it'll be a character who's hiding their Pover roots

and their mum is from working class, council estate. And the northern element is sort of seen as a characteristic. That's like a shorthand for your character. Yeah. Yeah. So it's the accent,

and then the accent, automatically means poor. So now I've gone from, I'm a brown man working class northern and then on top of it, I'm a creator. So like sometimes the bottom of the barrel, because even creators in movie and film, creators are always ever seen as, hi everyone, it's me. If any time you see a creator, they'll have their phone out and they'll be like the selfie taking creator, which is not what we are. So yeah, there's it. But again, I can complain about it, but there's people out there with Yeah, and you're also not complaining about it. I asked you. You've given me a really long answer.

No, a brilliant and enlightened and interesting answer that I think it is necessary for people to engage with. Yeah, absolutely. Who do have a set of privileges. Reggie, I just sold my car online. Let's go, grandpa. Wait, you did? Yep, on Carvana. Just put in the license plate, answered a few questions, got an offer in minutes.

Easier than setting up that new digital picture, Fran. You don't say. Yeah, they're even picking it up tomorrow. Talk about fast. Wow, way to go. So about that picture frame. Forget about it. Until Carvana makes one, I'm not interested.

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Sign up for your £1 per month trial today at shopify.com.org slash fail. That's shopify.com.com.com.uk slash fail. I wanted to ask about how your parents see what you do because you mentioned earlier that idea amongst certain South Asian families that to be successful means moving to the aspirational home and not necessarily calling out the quote unquote povo nature of it and the sort of gap between the house and have-nots.

What do your parents think of what you do? So I find my mum struggled a lot with me speaking about poverty. Because in her mind, I did the best I could and I'm not saying you didn't do the best you could. but we didn't have the money to go to Disneyland we didn't have that money we just didn't have the things that other people had and that's also okay

I'm not saying that you didn't provide the best you did you made the best of what you had you came from another country you were immigrants you worked hard you did what you needed to do that's I'm not saying you were bad people I'm just saying that we didn't have anything so my mom really struggles with me talking about poverty

online or talking about my story or my journey my dad is very my dad's just chilling he doesn't key he only found out I was famous last month because his mate told him like his mate said to him that I think it was on a it was we have a local magazine in Blackbin and I was on the cover of that and that's when my dad found out that I was he was like he are you famous aren't you because his taxi mates were saying he's a taxi driver yeah yeah they were saying oh you know your son's on her magazine you know he's big in it my mom really struggled with that I think my mum struggled with like You never talk about poverty.

You never speak about it because why would you put that shame on us? But I think she's gotten over it. She's gotten over it because she's like, it's part of who you are. And it's part of your identity. Also, I think she has to get over it because she doesn't have a choice. I've already made the videos now. So what are you going to do about it? I'm on Elizabeth's podcast talking about poverty.

Yes. Like, it's out in it. So what you're going to do with you. And I want to pay tribute to your mother and your dad because they have created you. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Amazing.

And what a resource for so many of the rest of us who feel lost or overlooked or like we're not enough. So thank you to your mom and dad. And like I said, they're great. And like they, they love it now. Like my dad's like pie a house, buy a house. And I couldn't care less about buying a house. By a house, get married, have kids. And that's what their aspiration. I can't die. If you don't get married and have a kid, that's like, my mom's like, I just want to die, but I can't until you all have a kid. And I was like, mom, you've been saying you're going to die for the last 10 years. Still here with us. Thank God. But you are, you'll be okay. How old are you? I am 33.

Okay. You have incredible skin. Oh, thank you. Yeah. It takes a lot of work. I can also tell like it's beautiful. So I keep doing it. Okay. Your second failure is not recognizing your own strengths and abilities earlier in life. Yeah. So tell us what you think your strengths and abilities are. Empathy is such a strength. It can be a strength and it can also be a detriment because like I was doing the Edinburgh Fringe.

but after I finished my show I'd sit and just have a minute of reflection and whatever and I'm sat eating a sandwich or whatever and I'm looking at people who are walking past handing their flyers out and asking people to come to their shows and no one's coming to their shows and they've been doing it for 10 years

and that really hurt and it really made me feel sad and I kept walking away super depressed from the whole thing and I said I'll never do fringe again because of that because I'm such an empath so I was like oh, this is just awful.

Like imagine, like, they've been, they imagine that struggle for 10 years. You've been working hard and you just can't catch your break. But why me? Why did I get my break? What did I do? What did, why me? So I think, like, being empath is great,

but it's sometimes such a detriment because I constantly look at, like, I want to donate all my money. I want to, I see somebody in the street and I just want to pull out of tenor and give it to them. I'm so consumed by the world and its issues that my story would be filled with all the issues about the world constantly. And, you know, every single problem in the world, I want to say something. Somebody messaging me in my inbox, which is probably, I should probably say out loud, but somebody messaging my inbox saying, this person has got cancer, would you be able to donate?

And I'll be like, yeah, I'll donate. I'll put it on my story. And it's great, but there's only so much one person can do with the world. And for me, the struggle of the weight of the world is always, I think, probably a bad thing. How did that empathy manage? manifest itself when you were a teacher. You mentioned the bullying and like so stepping in there, but that must have been really difficult at points seeing your student struggle. Yeah, really hard. And I think I love young people. I think they are so brilliant. And I think a lot of young people get such a bad rap. I've seen some young people who are going to change this world. And I think it was so tough to see some of their struggles and see how hard they, some of them had it.

Being an adult, there's only so much you can do. I couldn't give money to a, kid who couldn't afford his lunch because that would mean that people think I'm favorite like there's some sort of favouritism. I can't donate all my money to the school meals because there's hundreds of kids every single day that need to eat. I can't go on buy shoes for one kid whose parents can't afford it. See what I mean? So it's really hard to be empathetic and but then it still works because you can still do what you can do. What were you like as a teacher other than being really caring. You're a cool teacher.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. I followed the behaviour policy. There's no false modesty. I'm not even going to lie. I was a cool teacher. I loved it.

And the kids loved me. I was strict because I met somebody recently and she was like, you were strict, but I grew up with very, not strict parents, but very, they had standards.

You know, cleanliness is godliness. Like my mom was like very like, uniformed to be correct. How you present yourself is always how the world's going to treat you. So my classroom was pristine. My boyfriend was pristine. My boyfriend.

books were all in order. My life is nothing like that, but my classroom represented that because I was teaching them. So I was late. I'd climb through a window to get into the classroom because I didn't want to clock in because they'd find out I was late to school. So climbing through my classroom window. And like, so I was late, but they would never know that. The kids would always see a presented front of like perfection because that's the, that's what we're trying to instill on them is values. Because I had a parent once saying, oh, you know, so what all the kids in the streets are doing that. And I said to this parent, I'm not, after making your kid a street smart child, I'm making them presentable for the professional world. So then they can go out there

and do anything and the world will not treat them as a northern working class person. They will treat them as a respectable member of society, regardless of their upbringing and their background. That's what my job was. So the kids thought I was strict. Absolutely. Like he's always commenting about why my tie's not correct or why my uniforms dirty or why dates and titles are underlined, which I know a lot of kids are like, oh, what's it going to change? But it's just setting a standard and setting some rules in place. And the kids loved it because some of them came from such chaotic backgrounds that I was the only order and stability they had in their entire week and an entire year. So yeah, so I was, I was strict, cool teacher. With me was kind

of like, I never followed like the consequence system because you have like a you've answered back C1, answered, you know, C2. I'd just be like, you annoy me enough. I'll kick you out in my classroom. It's simple. Okay. That was going to be my next question. How do you deal with someone who is recalcitrant and making trouble and aggressive and sort of like, and what do you do? I found it. I never really had it. So then being the social media teacher was sort of like the sort of cool thing. Like you don't want to annoy the social media teacher. Like they grow up on that. They live, eat and breed social media. So for them, it's kind of like this is, you know, God. But you know what I mean? Like for them is like,

this is, this is, you know, we can't be doing that to this person. But I found that behavior for me, I would, I just, it wasn't patronizing. I think there's a difference. Like, and you can be patronizing and be like, you shouldn't be doing this. And it's just, see, I'd be like, what's your problem? Literally, what's your problem? Yes. Why are you throwing a pen across the room? Like, you, I'll put it on you. Why is it that you're throwing a pen across the room? And do you think it's good enough? Do you think it's right behavior? And if you, because it's accountability, isn't it? Everyone wants to be held accountable. What you don't want to do is, be, think, why have I been wronged? Like, you have now been given enough chances to fully know

that I am being, I'm loving the teacher off now. And you've been given agency and respect as an individual rather than just being confronted with a one-size-fits-all system. That's it, yeah. And then one-size does not fit all for teenagers. But you have had quite a lot of random jobs. Yes. Hundreds. Is it right that you used to work in a hospital mall? Yes. Okay, tell me everything. So, I don't actually talk about it, you know. So I've worked in, I worked, I've worked in a lot of jobs. And I think the morgue happened by accident because I was working in a lab, actually labelling like poo and pee and blood.

So mundane. Like just printing a label, I was sticking a label on it, printing a label on it. Then opening came up in the morgue and I was like, okay, this might be fun. Why don't I just go do that? Like, see, it was only like, I was a lab assistant. I wasn't doing much. And then it just was incredible.

and then I worked there for years I was meant to do medicine and become a forensic pathologist but I quit and became a teacher instead so didn't actually pursue that which brought my mum's heart because I can't believe you are a lowly paid teacher and you could have been a doctor

but yeah I loved it it was a great job what did it teach you? What did the job? Hospital morgue yeah I guess it taught me resilience you've got to be told you if you're surrounded by dead all the time death all the time

it definitely gave me an appreciation for life. It gave me appreciation for human beings because the person, the friends of pathologists I worked with was incredible. The way he treated human beings and the way he treated death was just so beautiful. Like he saw death as a journey and it was just so,

like there's something really oddly satisfying by watching a man like treat other people's loved ones with such respect. considering they're dead, he never treated them as a specimen. He treated them as loved ones of someone. He doesn't know them. He's never going to meet the loved ones. He doesn't know the person. And he's never going to, he's not treating a patient, whereas a doctor has to treat a live living patient. But he was so, he was just so respectful that that taught me the love of human beings. Like, I love humans. It's so weird. Like, I have so much love to give for humanity.

And I think that's definitely where, like, it was in my 20s and it's definitely where I learned, to love myself but also to love others and like love and also not fear death I guess that's the big one isn't it yeah that's pretty big what was the first video that went viral for you that you thought oh this is going to work 22 so I started like really pursuing it did like my trending topics and videos and rants and whatever that everyone was doing and then I went traveling came back from travelling and I was just in bed and it was like I'm like I'm just going to

I saw a video and I thought let me just react to it and it was the ice cubes the I'm Richie O'Poor that was the first time I said I'm Richie O'Pour Tell, for anyone who hasn't seen it the ice cubes Right so it's a bit it's basically a woman who has an entire fridge

dedicated to frozen blocks of different shapes and sizes and colours and flavours of ice and she basically makes them up with all these juices and glitters and whatever then puts them into the freezer, then takes them out the freezer to then put them back into the freezer in different containers. To me, that is not a person that has a job, right? That is an unemployed, rich person because let's be honest, no one with a job would be doing that as a hobby on the internet. So I was jokingly going on today's episode of I'm Rich or Poor, because clearly

I was voicing it over for her. So I muted her sound and I voiced it overgoing. Today's episode of I'm rich or poor. Here's me baking my ice cubes while all you put. people have your fish and fish fingers in the freezer and my, I've got a freezer dedicated to ice. And it just went berserk. Like it went mad. People were just like, this is hilarious. This is so funny. And I must have dropped the word pavo in there, which is a word that we grew up with up north.

And it's such an normal word, such an insulting word to say. I just said it because I was being that person. I was being that rich person, which rich people would say like, oh, you're pavo, you poor person. and it just went super viral and then it just led to being tagged in those kind of videos and I thought oh wow like this is what I saw I knew that was happening like I knew these videos anyway

I had I started making those videos anyway talking about them and then I thought this is what I was this is what I was supposed to be doing yes basically I found my voice in their videos so I could mute them say what I need to say and have a social commentary in there you can't pay your bills why because the governments put the prices up and I could say those things.

But do you know what's so interesting is the northern working class voice and the mannerisms are what are so celebrated online. I definitely will say I am pit up when I'm annoyed or when I'm like in my moment, the northern accent gets ramped up. But I find that when people meet me a person, they're like, you're not as northern as you are online. I'm like, yeah, because online I'm like 100% full going full balls to the wall. and people love that.

But it's so funny because that's one thing I hated the most. Well, that's so powerful, isn't it? It's this amazing act of reclamation. Everything you've just said there,

the empathy, the northernness, your South Asian heritage, like everything that gave you a tough time. Like even the flamboyancy, like the person I am, like the outfits I wear and the the flamboyanness of me

is so celebrated. People are like, you're so funny. It's just so incredible that you, and I think, my God, God, and like going back to the failure, like, it's a strength. It's a strength that I took so long to realize that that is my strength. Why did it take me? And I'm sorry, I don't regret it,

but sometimes I do because I'm like, I wish I'd unlocked that earlier. But then a part of me is like, was I ready for it earlier? Yeah, you wouldn't be able to. And also, you're still only 33, love. Yeah. You're still very, very young. You're way ahead of the rest of us. Okay. Your final failure, which sort of ties into everything we've been talking about, is waiting for representation to give you permission. I love the way you put that. Growing up, I'm guessing you didn't feel that you had that representation. You didn't see anyone who was like you in your cultural influences.

Do you think you do now? More so, more than it used to be. I think the thing was growing up, I never saw anybody that looked like me, but it didn't bother me. And I think the thing is, I've said this for, like we talk about unconscious bias. As a South Asian person, I grew up with people not looking like me, but I still found relatable. I could watch Sabrina the Teenage Witch and think, I don't want to be a teenage witch, right? I could watch someone, Lizzie McGuire. I could watch, you know, Keenan and Kel, I could watch any person that was not who I was.

It wasn't from a South Asian background. Wasn't even British. I was watching American shows. But you could still relate with them. It feels like if I focused so heavily on my Asian heritage in my social media, I know that outside community wouldn't be like, unless you're from an immigrant background, like a white community wouldn't be,

they'd be like, oh, I can't relate with that. I can't relate with that, but you can relate with that. And I've shown now you can relate with me because poverty is universal. And I'm working, Northern class working a brown man, but you are laughing along with me, you are relating with me. So you can find common ground regardless of the color of skin.

Why I put that as a failure was because I spent so much time, waiting for someone else to be the blueprint until I realized that for some people I am the blueprint and I hadn't realized I was a blueprint until a woman came up to me and said very recently

she came up to me and she said my son wanted to be a YouTuber, I'll be able to create a going to content and he showed me your videos as the blueprint of a successful person who's doing it because growing up we didn't have that even to the likes of like Harry Potter

as as as jokingly as this is I wanted to go to Hogwarts I've loved Harry Potter and I said I can't I said to my mom I want to go Hogwarts my mum said where is the brown person in Hogwarts and I was like

oh yeah until Padman Privity came along but there was two of them we didn't have one did we so and I used that as an example because it was me growing up thinking oh well I don't have it so then there's no you can't say to your parents

mom I'm quitting education going in a gap year because I want to go discover myself well, who else has done it that is successful? Yes. Who else has done that that is a successful? Tell me. And if they haven't, you've got nowhere to go.

Riz Ahmed is one of very few actors that is doing it successfully. But even then, the struggle that that man has, like he is such a talented man. He has done huge movies. But is he as famous as Timothy Shalame or one of these other people? He's not. Why? Because his brownness stops him from achieving that.

that doesn't it but he was a blueprint for us so for every South Asian boy or girl like especially from a Pakistani or a Muslim background you'll ask them you'll say who you want to be an actor

who's your blueprint they'll say resamed but there's not enough of us doing it but now what we're doing is I'm hoping that I'm opening the door up in this world to be like I could be the blueprint

I didn't realize that I was waiting for the next person to do it I can't write a book because who are successful Asian, South Asian, Northern writers. Where are they? There's very few of them that are successful. Like how many adaptations have you seen on Netflix, Prime, whatever, that have come from a South Asian writer? Yeah. Very few. The publishing world just in general to me

feels like a middle class white person thing. Yes. I mean, the only person I can think of off the top of my head is Satnam Sangira. It's a good friend of mine. But you're right, there's like hardly, very few. They are and they're talented. very few. That will get given the same level of praise. But it's a great point that you're making, which is at the same time as you're worrying about that, you are becoming that for so many others. What are your ultimate ambitions now? Like, where do you want to take this?

Writing a book was always one. I think writing a book came just, it happened because I had loads of notes and I thought, oh, let me put this down into a tangible form. but also I really want to get my South Asian community reading. So the book's really an easy read. It's not, you know, it's not a great novel. My book is an easy read. It's in my voice.

It's just a one of those books where it's not, it's not a story. It's just a journey. It's just a bit of a memoir and a slash fun comedic book, which I was like, at least it could be a starting point. I'm constantly chasing a dream to open the door for other people. But I think my ultimate ambition is I want to, I guess, crime thriller, I really want to write. one. But you'd be so good at that because of the hospital morgue experience. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's

it. And like, I really want to write one because I think, especially from, I really want to write one from a different perspective than what we've seen. I think it, like, it's always, like I said, too, it's always like middle class people that are always going to middle class problems, not all of them, because there's some really good, like, even Scottish ones, but them really good, like working class background ones, but I thought, they're often written by middle class people though. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's always like, yeah, it's always a middle class person going, do you know what, poverty, great, can you be really super poor? You've got a shopping like Aldi.

They're really like cliched. But I think it's just, I think, I don't know, I have that. It's on the bucket list. I want to write my own comedy show, very fleabag-esque. And then work a bit more in opening doors. I guess that's what it. So trying to open as many doors as possible and not chop as much as I can on the CV. And remember to settle down and have kids before your mom dies.

Yeah, that's very true. God forbid. Yeah. Shabazz, I've loved this conversation. I'm so happy you came on how to fail. Now, given you are a former teacher, I would like you to grade this conversation. How is it? It's so brilliant.

You're so good at this. And the reason why you are so successful at this podcast, which very few people can do is because you make it so easy to speak to. I think you've done, I think in all the Stephen Bartlett's up, you can probably cut this out, produces because you probably will because you don't want to leave it, leave it. Clip it. Yeah, yeah. On all the male podcasts where you know that you've got, I think. There's very few podcasts that I've listened to where the conversations are genuine. And I think you come from a genuine place.

And if anyone hasn't read the book, at this point read the book, it's brilliant. Like, your book is so on par with everything I believe. Yeah. I'm so happy. I thought you were going to give me a savage roasting and it would be hilarious. But actually, you were so genuine and complimentary. And that's really moved me. If you asked me at the beginning, you've obviously like you've set the tone as this really

lovely tone. I don't think I could be nasty now, but it's great though. You've, you know, it's a good podcast. And I think, you know, like I said, in all the podcasts out there, this is one that genuinely speaks from a place of reality. And I think we need more of that. Thank you so much. And keep doing what you do. Thank you. Thank you so much coming on How to Fail. I appreciate it. Please do follow How to Fail to Get New Episodes as they land on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Amazon music or wherever you get your podcasts, please tell all your friends. This is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment original podcast. Thank you so much for listening.