REAL TALK - with BIJAN DHANANI

If you look up Bijan Dhanani on the internet you'll see he founded Belmont property in 2015, a residential-led development outfit, while also serving as a Director of two other businesses and providing funding to early-stage businesses as an investor. What you might miss is that he's a black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. The black belt was a major checkpoint in his now 14-&-half-year journey and one of the best achievements he's ever had. 

I sat down with Bijan in his London home to discuss things that are a little less documented about this entrepreneurial, benevolent and physically very capable man!

MF: Tell me a bit about your day-to-day?

BD: ...if things go well I'm up by 06:45 or 06:15 if I'm training. I train three times a week before work, focused on lifting and strength training, because I feel I'm my best version in the morning. There's no guarantee in the evening that I'll have that slot, so while nothing's competing for my attention early in the morning, I carve out the time to focus on my training.

I then like to spend the afternoons focused on how we grow the business, our pipeline of deal opportunities and also monitoring our investments - some occupy more of my time than others. Perhaps the one I'm most excited about at the moment is whozoo which is the fastest growing commercial estate agency in the UK.

I try to finish around 6 most days. I work hard and the business works well, but I pride myself having the bandwidth to be able to capture opportunities that come by, do a wide-range of things and ultimately have dinner with my fiancee, as opposed to succumbing to hussle culture and working all hours of the day, which I am not a fan of ...however, haha - if there's a problem of course, I'll be on it until it's fixed. 

MF: What would you love to do more of?

BD: Training. Jiu Jitsu and lifting are my two pillars. 

I've also started to love playing padel for work - it's replaced golf for me, even if I didn't play, haha! What you could achieve by playing golf for business, I'm told you can now do in a quarter of the time playing padel. Twice a month on a Friday, me and a colleague will play padel with two folks who help us find sites for example. 

Even if you've never met before, you can learn more about someone in 10 mins of competing in sport or working on the same team - the way they act under game conditions and conduct themselves within the rules of the game, it's so revealing and helpful to becoming friends with someone. Padel is hot right now and people are excited to play. You can get a really decent game going without much experience. 

I love poker. I've loved it since I was a kid. I don't play often, but it's a great hobby of mine. I love playing the odds mathematically and I love playing the man. Unlike a business decision that may take a couple of years to determine if it was a good decision or not, poker you find out in a couple of minutes! You can do everything right and still lose and you can do everything wrong and still win. I find this such an apt reflection on the vagaries of life and business. 

REAL thought: It's not how you play the game, it's where you place the blame. 

MF: How does movement and exercise help you mentally and physically?

BD: I couldn't imagine a life without it. From a mental clarity perspective - any training untangles my mental knotts. I think particularly in a high-intensity sport like BJJ, my focus is simply on what's in front of me, to the exclusion of all distractions and this is such a source of relief. After an hour of full detachment, no matter how hard my day, everything seems a little more solvable afterwards.

I think that once you've experienced feeling healthy and the positive impact this can have on your day-to-day, it's impossible to ignore - it's so elevating. The hardest thing of any day for me is getting to the gym. But once I've done this, I am always reminded how everything else feels a bit more achievable.

REAL thought: Overcoming resistance to the things we don't want to do, allows us to live the story we want to tell. 

MF: How do you cope with hard things?

BD: I think two things. Firstly I don't subscribe to the idea that life should be easy. There are hard things, easy things, happy things, sad things and in order to experience all of them, you have to accept all of them. 

When something hard happens, I try to break it down. There can of course be some emotional agony at first, but I try to view the problem for what it is and then break the problem into as small a set-of-steps as they need to be to move forward. I am typically quite resourceful and I will lay the problem out to those around me to, to seek their guidance and of course a problem shared is a problem halved as they say. 

Someone taught me once to reduce the problem to the smallest conceivable element. This helps contextualise the issue. Fundamentally, hardship is a reality. We can only enjoy a good day by having the experience of a tough day.

REAL thought: our peak experiences are built on challenges that we've overcome and hardships endured. 

MF: What one thing could you not live without?

BD: I think family, genuinely. My family and of course now my fiancee are whom I derive the most meaningful pleasure from. Now in my 30's I am grateful for the sacrifices that my parents made, which I did not have the understanding of as a teenager.  I'm so pleased that I have come to this realisation and can really cherish the moments I derive from our relationship. 

MF: What's your favourite day of the year?

BD: No specific day. But the weekend is when I live my favourite days - waking up, training, seeing some live sport, time spent with my family and my vice is a cigar.

MF: oooh, d'you have a favourite?

BD: Cuban ...discovered these a couple of years ago. Love the great conversations I have while enjoying these with someone else.

MF: Is there anything you'd like to get off your chest?

BD: Well i'm not ready to torpedo my career haha ...No I really, well I think that in spite of what we are popularly told, we should plug our weaknesses and sharpen our strengths. 

I'm not convinced it's a great use of time trying to turn your weakness into a strength. I suck at some things and I know what these are, which is the important part, but I want to spend my time on sharpening my strengths. There's no point in Mo Salah learning how to be a good defender - it's a team game and we'll all be better off being great at what we're best at.