198 : Is Money a Drug? with Nirav Shah

In this episode: Nirav Shah's journey, the impact of money on happiness, daily practices for mindfulness, understanding contentment, the concept of enough, with Guest Nirav Shah.

Episode Summary
Join us for an enlightening conversation with Nirav Shah as he discusses his new book "The Serenity Blueprint," shares insights on finding inner peace regardless of external circumstances, and explores the interplay between mindfulness and financial independence.

Guest Bio
Nirav Shah is a civil engineer turned software executive who has traveled to 84 countries and worked on six continents. After retiring early, he dedicated his life to helping others find inner peace through meditation and writing. His first book, "Shortcut to Serenity," aims to help individuals discover peace within themselves. Nirav's latest work, "The Serenity Blueprint," continues this mission.
Resources & Books Mentioned

• "Shortcut to Serenity" by Nirav Shah
•  "The Serenity Blueprint" by Nirav Shah
• Meditative resources available at meditativeman.org
• Weekly Zoom meditation sessions

Guest Contact Information

• Nirav Shah on LinkedIn

Key Takeaways

• Nirav's journey emphasizes the importance of finding peace within oneself, regardless of external conditions.
• Money does not equate to happiness; true contentment comes from appreciating what we have.
• Daily practices like meditation and taking deep breaths can significantly enhance mindfulness.
• Letting go of rigid expectations allows for a more fluid approach to life and personal goals.
• Recognizing the difference between 'life' and 'lifestyle' can help determine what is truly enough.
• The importance of enjoying the journey rather than focusing solely on end results is key to achieving serenity.

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Transcript

Speaker: 0:05

Welcome to the Mindful Fire Podcast, a show about crafting a life you love and making work optional using the tools of mindfulness, envisioning, and financial independence. I'm your host, Adam Quail, and I'm so glad you're. If you're ready to start your Mindful Fire journey, go to mindful fire.org/start and download my free envisioning guide in just 10 minutes. This guide will help you craft a clear and inspiring vision for your life. Again, you can download it for free@mindfulfire.org slash start. Let's jump into today's. Episode.

Adam Coelho: 0:57

Nirav welcome back to the Mindful Fire Podcast. I'm so thrilled to have you back. Thanks for

Nirav Shah: 1:02

having me. It's been fun. I enjoyed our last meeting, so I'm excited about our new meeting.

Adam Coelho: 1:08

Me too. Yeah, so for the audience, Nirav is actually back on the podcast after a three year hiatus, which we were just talking about, and I cannot believe that it's been three years. But NAAB joined us on episode 64 of the podcast to talk about his first book, and now he has a new book coming out. And I'll let him talk about both of those books. And, but Nirav I'm thrilled to have you back and would love to have you share a little bit about you for anyone who didn't catch that episode, and a little bit about what you've been up to since we last spoke.

Nirav Shah: 1:42

Sure. again, thanks for having me. My name is Nirav Sha and I'm a civil engineer by education. I ended up being a software

1:51

executive. I have

Nirav Shah: 1:53

a travel bug. I've been to 84 countries. I worked in dozens of countries on six continents. And during all of those things, I realized that there is no end to this. It's a red race, and contentment was the key to happiness. So I retired early, said, you know what? Let's just hang the hat and move forward. And once I retired, I joined a couple of nonprofits to help them. And then also found meditation. I got involved in meditation about eight years ago and four years ago, I ended up writing my first book, shortcut to Serenity. That's when you and I talked first and I had this passion, Adam, for helping people. Find that allus you, peace within yourself, right? We all say, yes, there's a peace within you, but we can't find it. And I have this passion to help people find that when I wrote my first book, we talked about it. That goal for that project was to help one person. If we change one person's life, did our job. And I'm happy to say that a lot of people came and say, you know what? This book changed my life. So that kind of inspired me to write the second book. It's, in the same, John, if you will. it's called the Serenity Blueprint, right? How to find peace with, regardless of what happens outside. And that's the key. cause right now we let what happens outside affect our inner peace. We got a flat tire. We get upset. It's okay to have a flat tire. It's not your problem. It's car's problem. You do what it takes to fix it, but let's not disturb our inner peace because of external condition. So that's been my passion.

Adam Coelho: 3:46

It's so great to hear. How about the success of the first book and how I, I love the goal of just helping a single person, right? If we, set these ambitious goals of, you know, want to help a million people, whatever, this and that. But ultimately it's all about just helping yourself and helping one person. Yep. It can make a huge difference and that has been my experience with the podcast. I used to look at all the download numbers and try to get'em to go up all the time. and that's fine, but it was exhausting. And then instead, speaking of letting outside conditions affect my inner peace, completely meaningless numbers, by the way. But when I focused instead on taking in the good, when people reach out and tell me, oh, I love this episode. Or, this workshop you did changed my life. All of those things. That one person means so much more than, a million downloads and things like that. So it's cool that that was your goal and sounds like it helped not only one person, but quite a few people in the process. So that's wonderful to hear.

Nirav Shah: 4:51

And as you mentioned. sometimes people come to you and say, It changed your life, right? in your case, someone attended your workshop and said, Hey, it really changed my life. And all I tell them is that please pay it forward. if it helped you try to help someone in a similar situation, because now you're in a position to say, I've been through it. I can help you. So that's all I ask. Please pay it forward. So

Adam Coelho: 5:15

yeah that's great. And so, yeah, walk us through, you know, the new, the new book and what, what's in it, what are some of the lessons that that brought you to, write it and would love to Yeah. Just to hear more about it.

Nirav Shah: 5:29

Absolutely. So, again, as you know, we are all learning right as we go along. So we learned few lessons from the first book, and based on that, I put together this second book in different sections. So we thought it would be good to start with a section on foundation of serenity, right? What it means to have positive outlook in life, right? And then we go into how happiness is an inside job. And give you an example. I don't know about you. You probably, you live in East Coast, so you also like pizza, I'm assuming I do, but I love pizza. And you gimme a slice of pizza. I'm in heaven, right? Second slice. I love it. The third slice I eat, I'm usually not too thrilled. Now if I continue eating, if I eat seven, eight slices, I'll throw up, right? So that tells me that if pizza was happiness right, I would be happy with 10th, 11, 12th. 20 it slice, but I'm not. So that means happiness is not outside. And that's just an example, right? Same thing goes for money, right? So happiness is inside job. we talk about, that we need to learn to go inside ourselves. And way to do that is to change our mind, right? Change your mind, change your world, right? I truly believe in that. And then I touch on something called is money a drug? let me kind of set this up. About, year or so ago, I was on a long flight and I'm watching this documentary about these people. The scientists are giving sugar to rats and more sugar. They gave them more, they got used to with it. And, they needed more and more sugar to get stimulus. And that got me thinking that is money a drug? So I started doing research, And if you think about it, right when I first started someone, my first job, they gave me a$2 an hour raise. And I was thrilled, right? I was excited at peak of my career. If somebody gave me$2 an hour raise, I would be insulted, right? So the same two bucks, what changed? Two bucks is two bucks regardless, right? What changes is your value of money, right? So I started doing research on this and I found something very interesting. Adam, in your city of Minnesota did a research in the Chinese campus. I didn't know they had a Chinese campus, but they did a research in this Chinese campus. And there are two groups of people. To one group, they gave a hundred dollars bills to count to other group. They gave just piece of paper to count, just blank Once they were done counting, they put 122 degree Fahrenheit hot water bowl in front of them and asked them to dip their fingers in it. The people who had plain piece of paper, got burned and people who were counting money didn't feel a thing. I was like, wow, that's kind of interesting. So then they did another study and okay, let's help people with their loved ones and then, have them put their fingers in hot water bowl. Same thing. They didn't feel anything, so their conclusion was that people equate money with love. And I was like, wow, something totally different, right? So I was very fascinated by it. I started doing more and more research and if money is a drug, then can it be addictive? And there are obvious signs, right? Gambling and this and that. But I learned something unexpected that excessive saving habits can be a form of money addiction. And that was news to me, Those who save excessively tend to believe that more money will bring more happiness. I was like, wow. and then I started getting deeper into it and found this book coined by a guy named Kabi Segal. And he's found that money has similar effect on your brain as cocaine. So neuroeconomist, they did brain scans who were about to make money, and the results were staggering, right? According to him, those making money showed the same neurological response in their pleasure centers as those high on cocaine. Think about that. That is out of this world, right? did not expect that.

Adam Coelho: 9:55

Pretty interesting.

Nirav Shah: 9:56

So that's kind of how I started. That's the first section of my book. Go ahead.

Adam Coelho: 10:00

No, it's very interesting. I mean, it's, I've never done cocaine, but I have made a little bit of money, but, I can relate to, especially in the entrepreneurial sense, right? Like, if I get my paycheck at my W2 job, that happens automatically. But if I. Earn money through my entrepreneur, I get super pumped. I'm like very excited. Yeah. so could see that makes sense.

Nirav Shah: 10:22

Yeah. Yeah. And, that's the thing, right? When you are making a paycheck and things have changed in a sense that we are in digital world, you don't even see a paycheck anymore, Right. The money just goes in your bank account. So I'm assuming that that probably has reduced some of that, like, you know, as if, as opposed to somebody actually gave you a paycheck, I'm sure it would have a different effect. Right? I just don't know. But, I think that would be an interesting study as well. In fact, they did that study with credit cards, this was 25, 30 years ago, visa did a study and noticed that people who pay cash, and that's why that's one of the reason try to pay cash with everything and not use credit card. As opposed to if you just swipe the credit card where there's a$2 or$200 the same signature. Right? So you don't have effect. I just spent a couple of hundred bucks. Right? So it's quite interesting.

Adam Coelho: 11:14

It doesn't feel as real.

Nirav Shah: 11:16

Exactly.

Adam Coelho: 11:17

Got it. So you said you start the book with this idea that money is a drug. Yeah. And so, kind of what was your, take on that?

Nirav Shah: 11:27

So then I go about how much is enough, right? you and I had that discussion during last podcast how much is enough? Because if you think about it, our expenses keep growing as we, move up in life, if you will. we all want McMansions, right? we all want. 3000 square feet house. do we really need a 3000 square feet house? Especially once, kids are no longer at home, right? When kids are out of house, What do you need? And so go into how much is enough? Because I think that's the key to contentment. wall Street has a number, you and I discussed that. But more importantly, we need to figure out that, do we need to consume as much as we consume? Okay. Do we need that new iPhone sixteen, eighteen, twenty five, whatever the heck it number is now, Mm-hmm. Every year, It's their job to keep pushing on us, but I think we need to realize, I remember, I don't know about you, I remember cell phone lasting four or five years. Right now they're designed that they'll start, slow down in two years, Yeah. we consume so much. I think it's the consumption keeps, wanting us to make more and more and more. And that's what keeps us in the race. So the keeping up with the Joneses is what I'm trying to avoid. Go ahead.

Adam Coelho: 12:44

Got it. And I guess it's is the thesis that, if money is a drug, you get a little money and you want more money, Because you need more and more money To keep getting the same good feeling or high in the sense of a drug, you get a little bit of drug. your body reacts, you have a great time or whatever, and then you want more. And so is that kind of the thesis that you get a little money, you want more money?

Nirav Shah: 13:10

Yeah. And, and I go into something called life versus lifestyle, Why do you want more money? You want more money because you keep adding to your lifestyle. Instead of living your life, enjoying life, you're trying to enjoy lifestyle and that's something you're never going to end chasing if you keep going, It's keeping up with Jones's syndrome, Mm-hmm. Because if you enjoy your life, you're happy with who you are, then you won't need that next big thing, You won't need the next best car. And if you don't need the next best car, then presumably you won't chase money as much. So I go into life versus lifestyle a little bit, and once I set that up, I go into, how do you adapt to this constant change your life brings? Okay? Because if you think about it all day long, we are trying to fix things, We call it, putting out fires, right? Mm-hmm. And instead of that, I say, let's look at it. Our choices we make in our life, some of the culprits I identify are comparison, right? We compare ourselves with others, right? Why do we do that? And then in general, people are afraid of uncertainty. So I talk about how we should embrace uncertainty, okay? And I give an example. I know this guy quite possibly, he's the single most, successful retail trader in the industry, financial He has had days, he has made more money than Goldman Sachs. I'm not kidding you. Okay? He showed me his numbers, okay? And I asked him, I interviewed him. I said, Mitch, tell me. What it is that makes you successful when 99.99% of the retail people who try to date rate fail, right. They lose money. And he said something very interesting. He said, Nira, I go into a day not expecting anything. I look at what the market brings and that's it. I'm not expecting market to go up. I'm not expecting market to go down. And I thought that was such a profound thing because if you look at everything in, in life, what disappoints us, his expectations.

Adam Coelho: 15:23

Right? Mm-hmm.

Nirav Shah: 15:24

You expected your spouse to, take the trash out and, and he or she didn't, right? Mm-hmm. Now you're upset, but if that expectation wasn't there, life's beautiful.

Adam Coelho: 15:34

That's a really good, point And something I've been thinking a lot about, actually, because. I teach this in my mastermind program, the Fire Starter Mastermind. And in the workshops that I'm doing for companies, my ask what's possible workshop, essentially, in both of those, I'm getting people to think really big about what they want for their life.

Nirav Shah: 15:53

Yeah.

Adam Coelho: 15:54

And to come up with a big vision for their life so that they can live into that next chapter. Right. Whether it's, as a team or as an individual who's looking to, make the jump into early retirement. Yeah. A lot of people don't know what they want, but at the same time, I also try to teach that there's a difference between a vision and expectations or a goal. A goal, right. Yeah. And basically the difference in my mind is that an expectation is very rigid. It's very specific. It looks a certain way. It happens at a certain time. And if it doesn't go exactly like that, you're disappointed. Yeah. And so it's very easy to set yourself up for failure. And it's very subtle as well. Like you don't even know you're setting expectations sometimes. Yeah. I'll give an example, like, well, let me just say first a vision on the other hand, as I teach it, is it's specific in that you want a certain thing, but you can't control how or when that's going to happen. Right? And so if you have set that vision as an expectation, you are setting yourself up to be disappointed. But if you instead just say, that would be awesome if this happened and you stay open to when and how it actually comes about, and you do what I call plant the seeds with envisioning practices. You, you talk about your vision, you visualize it, you journal about it, you take action towards it. If you put, plant those seeds little by little, when the opportunity presents itself, you'll be ready to take action on it and you'll be ready to step into that, that thing you envisioned. But the, if it's an expectation and you're expecting it to, happen in the next three months, you're probably gonna be disappointed. And this has happened to me, even though I literally, this is so meta, the way this is all coming out for me is, I spent all of last month planning a workshop for, executive administrative assistants at Google. Essentially, I had had some success, bringing my workshop to Google since leaving, and I wanted to do more. So I said, okay, let me. Instead of just like trying to sell these administrative business partners by cold emailing them, let me offer them something and invite them to this workshop. And I got like a hundred of them to sign up which was awesome.

Nirav Shah: 18:22

Yeah. That's amazing.

Adam Coelho: 18:23

And then, when it was all said and done, about 70 of them had still RSVP'd. Yes. And about 35 of them showed up and I did the workshop. Everybody loved it. Feedback was great. I had a great time. afterwards I was expecting, without even really knowing it, I mean, I kind of knew it, but I had this expectation that it would be a flood of interest in my workshop and everyone would want to get me booked for their offsite and their things. And that has not materialized yet. I was disappointed. And, it was a little bit overshadowing all the good that happened, right? I very much set this goal or this, my vision for this year is really to plant seeds, right? And in this case, I knew that I was planting seeds with these, administrative business partners, but I also had this under the surface expectation that was distracting me from the fact, like I did what I needed. Essentially, I was expecting the fruit from the seed immediately after I planted it, which is just not how things work. Yeah. And so this is a bit of a long story, but, expectations really are the thing that sets us up for failure.

Nirav Shah: 19:42

absolutely. and that's why I don't like the word goal. Because like you mentioned, right? Goal has a specific date and a specific time and a specific thing, right?

Adam Coelho: 19:50

Mm-hmm.

Nirav Shah: 19:50

Vision, like you said, on the other hand, is much more fluid. Okay? So that, it allows you to change as the circumstances change. See, goal does not let you make changes, right? It's out there and that's about it. But circumstances change, things around you change. So you gotta make changes. you mentioned expectations and you mentioned something, fruit of your labor. you put the seed. So when in fact on Saturday, I taught a day course on Karma, okay? And somebody asked me, he says, why don't we see results of her karma right away? I do good things. I don't see the good results. I said, it's about planting a seed. Let's say you plant a seed, right? The right things have to happen. You need to have a right fertilizer, right? You need to have, right amount of water. Sun, sunshine. Mm-hmm. Everything has to happen in a certain way for it to grow. that's exactly what it is. You're planting the seed. It may take a long time and you just don't know how long, right? Mm-hmm. Before it materializes. Krishna, you heard of Krishna. He's, he is an Indian, Lord, if you will, right? Yeah. He said in, in the Epic Moha, which was an Indian epic, and there's a Indian textbook called Gita, which is Indian Bible, if you will, and he said in that, that, and I'm gonna say something in San and I'll translate for you, meaning that you do your work without expecting fruits of your labor. Let let the chips fall where they may, if you will,

Adam Coelho: 21:23

right? Mm-hmm.

Nirav Shah: 21:24

He gave that lesson 6,000 years ago. And I think it's still relevant today that we need to make sure that we do our part. if we set up a vision, then we need to make sure that we execute on that vision, of course. But beyond that, it's not in our head. It's tough to change one person, forget, 35 people. So let, best thing you can do is change yourself if something you don't like. And something I talk about that in the book as well, is that, if we move away from self, self-focus, right? Mo freedom from self-consciousness, if you will, right? Because a lot of time people have what I call this victim mindset, right? there are people who always complain, they say, why me? Mm-hmm. And I found that people who ask why me are usually not happy, they tend to be miserable. And we need to move away from this victim mindset of why me and create the abundance mindset of why not me. Right. I had a friend, Adam, about 25 years ago, he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. And when he was diagnosed, I would call him once a week and he said, how are you doing? we'll just talk. And he was a philosophy guy, so we'll talk just nonsense, if you will, for 30 minutes every week. And one day I asked him, I said, do you think your disease has anything to do with where you work? That he used to work in chemical industry? He says, I know where you're trying to go. I said, you're trying to say why me? But he says, I have three beautiful daughters. I have wonderful wife, I have great job, a nice house. And I was having all of that. I never asked the question, why me? What right do I have now that I have this terminal cancer to ask why me? And I thought it was such a beautifully put, right? Mm-hmm. That's the abundance mindset. Mm-hmm. Because then you are doing what needs to be done rather than being miserable about what it is.

Adam Coelho: 23:31

Yeah. Does

Nirav Shah: 23:32

that make sense?

Adam Coelho: 23:33

Yeah. Definitely. I mean, I think just doing the work Because you enjoy doing it. Yeah. And. If you don't enjoy doing it, don't do it. Right. But especially in my situation, right? Like, I'm doing this because I want to. Yeah. Right. So let me plant the seeds, let me show up, create this experience for them. Yeah. And that's, how I approached it. of course I mentioned my workshop during the session, but I wasn't like salesy. I was just giving and I had a great time. Exactly. So I don't need to, have this expectation that those seeds need to bear fruit immediately. Yeah. and so I think that makes a ton of sense. What is your advice to people on how to maybe recognize their. Expectations and let go of them. Right. I was gonna say like, not have expectations, but that's probably very challenging if at all possible. So I guess it would be how do you recognize when you're setting expectations and how do you either hold them lightly or just let go of them altogether?

Nirav Shah: 24:39

Like you said, it's not possible not to her expectations, right? We are human beings. But what I try to do personally is to move those expectations into vision, into fluidity, if you will. So whenever I have expectations, right? Instead of saying, let's take your example. Instead of saying, I want to have 20 workshop in two years, right? Instead of putting that, say, I wanna put seeds that people start calling me to have those workshops, and I wanna try to help more and more people. Now it's fluid. First of all, there's no number to it. It's still expectations, but it's fluid. The second thing is that once it's fluid, the first one you do, the first one shows up. You're excited because that's one more than you had before, right? measuring success always helps, And then it's a domino effect. Somebody told me long time ago, maybe 35 years ago, that especially for entrepreneurs there, there are years when you just plant seeds and there are years when you harvest. and that means that if it's not going your way yet, then you say, it's not my year to harvest yet. So it keeps you in the game. Without being disappointed that, Hey, I didn't meet that 20 workshop, expectation. Does that make sense?

Adam Coelho: 26:03

Yeah, absolutely. So it's kind of like, get away from the specificity and the timeline being so rigid and move into kind of like, it would be great if this happened, right? Like, I would love to see this happen. And, I think also what you said about, recognizing and measuring success, always very helpful, right? There's a book called The Gap in the Gain, which is exactly about this. The gap is essentially the where you are to where you think you should be. That's the gap. And instead, if you measure backwards from where you came from and the progress that you're making, you are going to be happier because absolutely. You're not in this place of scarcity or this place of lack. You are actually in this place of appreciation. Absolutely. yeah, that has been helpful for me and I'm, excuse me, I'm trying to do that.

Nirav Shah: 26:56

Yeah. And one thing, one thing I tell, you mentioned Gap and I ingrained that lesson in my brain for at least close to 20 years now, not to live in the gap, right? Mm-hmm. And see how far I come. So, one thing I tell people a lot of time I find that people are miserable because they compare themselves with somebody else. unless you Elon Musk, last time we talked about this, in a podcast, I said, unless you're Elon Musk, there's always some guy who has more money than you.

Adam Coelho: 27:25

Mm-hmm.

Nirav Shah: 27:27

So comparing with somebody else doesn't help. And that's when I say, if you have to compare, compare yourself with a previous version of you. Mm-hmm. See where you were and see how far you come in life. You'll be amazed, I think I mentioned this last time when I was in grad school, my goal in life was to write one article in a trade journal. That was my goal in life. I say if once I'm, published, I'm happy I did 28 times over and didn't even realize and didn't even look back. I was like, what am I doing

Adam Coelho: 28:00

Mm-hmm. This

Nirav Shah: 28:01

is great. Where, how far you come. So if you must compare yourself, president Roosevelt said this, he says, comparison is a thi of joy. And most people they end up comparing themselves to, their neighbor, their friend, whoever. And it's a downward spiral in my opinion.

Adam Coelho: 28:19

Absolutely. Yeah, I think that that makes a ton of sense. And like in my case, I can measure and compare myself to myself and just measure the progress that I'm making. Like, I planted 35 seeds with those people where they experienced my workshop. Yeah. I helped those 35 people. The feedback was amazing. Like they loved it. And that in itself is great. Yeah. I planted, a hundred or more seeds, A hundred people signed up, but I sent emails to probably 500 people. Yeah. So those are all seeds that are planted. I'm getting clearer on what I'm offering. I'm getting like, there's so much progress, that it's important to take in because I, that's the thing that I'm, the biggest, tomorrow I'm actually recording an update on what has happened in the last, I guess, 10 months since I retired early from Google. Yeah. And the big struggle is. Me basically feeling like I'm not far enough along in my business. And the reality of the situation is I've been planting seeds, I've been learning, I've been growing, it's all good. And my intention was to plant seeds. So I don't need to do anything beyond that. Everything else is gravy.

Nirav Shah: 29:35

Yeah. I mean, think about 10 months ago you probably didn't do a workshop, right?

Adam Coelho: 29:40

No. Not, not outside of Google, that's for sure. Like

Nirav Shah: 29:43

now you're doing workshops, right? Yeah. So that, that's a progress, right? Mm-hmm. If you look at it, podcast you did when you first started, right? Mm-hmm. Your episode three or episode four, right? And you look at your episode 180, right? Mm-hmm. There's a huge improvement there.

Adam Coelho: 29:58

Absolutely.

Nirav Shah: 29:59

That's a progress. Yeah. So we, we start looking back at our own success, our own and most importantly and Adam, you must appreciate this, that you are home to spend time with your kids. Mm-hmm. Which is a luxury for most people, okay? Mm-hmm. Your 6-year-old is thrilled to see you when he comes home from, school, right? Mm-hmm. Most people don't see them until like six at night.

Adam Coelho: 30:24

Yeah. I pick him up every day. Yeah, exactly Right? How cool

Nirav Shah: 30:28

is

Adam Coelho: 30:28

that? It's fantastic. I think, yeah. I mean, the whole thing is just coming back to appreciation, right? Like, I literally am living the life that I envisioned for years, right? And it's. Easy to get caught in. Well, I'm not there yet, even though like the goal is arbitrary and meaningless anyways, but it's like, no, I am literally like, every couple days I'm like, wait, this is it. This is literally what I wanted. Yeah. And I'm living it, so appreciate that. And it's just, yeah, so I'd love to explore more like this idea of enough, we talked about it last time. Yeah. I still haven't fully, still haven't fully come to terms with what is enough, on the money side, on the achievement side, on the whatever. Like for me, I'm, I'm like in that skills finder test or whatever. I'm a, I'm a maximizer, so I'm always pushing. I always want more. And that has been helpful in my life, but also at some point is not helpful. And so. It's like, what advice do you have for peop in the book in, in your life for how do you, what is enough? Absolutely. How do you answer that question?

Nirav Shah: 31:48

So it's, it's state of mind. Let's start there. Okay. Because otherwise there is no end to it. I look at where you are sitting right now, it's a beautiful background. I mean, look at where you are right now, right? It's an amazing place, right? You've got two kids, right? Like you said, you have time to spend with your kids, right? As long as you have food on the table, right? A shelter, you are ahead of 99.9% of the rest of the world. Warren Buffet calls this ovarian lottery. He says, you are successful because you're born here, or you're born somewhere. Compared to if you were born in some remote place in Africa, you wouldn't be where you are regardless of how smart you are, right? Mm-hmm. For the most part. If we take, notes of that and say, you know what, I'm happy where I am in life because what do I need to leave? Let's start there. If you first thing, now I'm getting into financial, stuff, but first thing that's okay is to pay off your house, right? That's the first thing. In my opinion. Most people disagree with me. A lot of people disagree with me. They're saying, you know what, instead, invest that money. Borrow it money for cheap. You know, you can get for three, 4%. Now you can't. But in those days, you could, I don't believe in that. I think if you have a shelter, which is paid for and a car which is paid for now, your expense are minuscule If you think about it. Unless you have some gambling addiction or something like that, that would be different. That's a different thing. Other than that, groceries are not expensive, Adam. Okay. Relatively speaking. So you take a toll on your expenses. Once these two are paid for, you don't need that much money. Okay. And you and I had the discussion before that I'm not a big fan of 4% rule. But even at 4% rule, 25 per times your expenses, once you're more, you don't have a mortgage, your expenses are not that much. Lot of people want to leave money for their kids. They say, well, yes, I have enough to leave for myself, but what about my kid? And I tell them, listen, your kids came with their own karma. Okay? You turned out fine. Your kids will turn out fine. And let's say you give them a million bucks each. If it's not in their karma to have that million bucks each, you could lose a million bucks in Vegas in five minutes, right? Mm-hmm. it's just not, if it's not meant to be, it won't be there. So why worry about, yes, you take care of your kids, you give them the best education, money can buy, but beyond that, let's not, work like a dog so that your kids may have something someday, which they may or may not be able to keep, right? So this having enough starts with the mindset that, I'm happy where I'm in life. Universe gives me what I need when I need it, right? And then let's just leave it at that. And that's not only the money part, but also the fame part, because what I'm trying to. Going after fame. When we are going after money, there's inherent anxiety which builds up, right? Because you want achieve more and more and more, and that takes you away from goal in life. Goal in life, in my opinion, is to be peaceful, joyful, blissful, all the time. Okay? How many times have you had a single day, 24 hours, where you haven't had a single negative thought in your head, Never. Never, I only had eight. I could count on one hand, That's scary. And in this bigger life, We have had handful of days, and that's about it. That means we are not living the life the way it meant to be. Because every one of us have the ability. To be happy all the time, We, I mean you, you are married. When you married it, you are at peace with yourself, So you know that it's in there. Why can't we expand it for 24 hours, Because it's already there, Because we are putting dirt around it. Why call this golden nuggets? Not, I budha call it golden nugget, but it's a golden nugget which allows you to access this piece within you. But we put this dirt around this golden nugget all day long, which creates stress, anxiety, jealousy, hatred, attachment, and all that good stuff, right? So if we try to move away from that, then how much is enough solve itself? Because now you realize that I really don't need that much, right?'cause let's not chase for this IUs you goal. Right, because again, did you read, Elon Musk biography by Walter Isaac?

Adam Coelho: 36:34

I read one of them. Okay. an Elon Musk biography, but it might not have been that one.

Nirav Shah: 36:39

Okay. So I, it might have been the

Adam Coelho: 36:39

previous one.

Nirav Shah: 36:40

I read the Isaac, biography, 600 pages or whatever it was. I read the whole thing, and at the end of that book, what I came away with was this guy needs help. Okay? That was my conclusion. Okay? I read this book and I said, man, this guy is just not happy. So I spent two hours on the internet find his personal email, and I emailed him. I said, Elon, let me help you.

Adam Coelho: 37:05

Did he take you up on it? He didn't take me up on it. based on his current behavior. I don't think he took you up on it. Yeah.

Nirav Shah: 37:12

I said 15 minutes, you know, three times a week and I can find you peace. Right. And I said, I don't need money. This is just, I just wanna help you. But he obviously, didn't take me up. But the point is that if you keep chasing, I mean, look at it, right?

Adam Coelho: 37:26

Mm-hmm.

Nirav Shah: 37:27

in the history of the world, nobody had more money than Elon Musk, right? And he's not happy. So we know money can't buy us happiness. Sure. Yeah. And he himself will tell you that he's not happy.

Adam Coelho: 37:38

Yeah.

Nirav Shah: 37:39

Right. So coming back to this, how much is enough context, right? Yeah. We need to realize that, money is not going to buy us happiness no matter what we end up chasing, right? So let's enjoy with what we have here and now. Life's fragile. That's the other thing we need to understand. You know, we all, know that we are gonna die, but we don't think about we are gonna die today, right? There's no guarantee, right? I don't know. You heard, I'm sure you heard about this plane crashed last week.

Adam Coelho: 38:10

Yeah.

Nirav Shah: 38:11

It crashed in my home state. Okay. In India. I know people in that city where it crashed. One of my good friend, he was head of the department at a medical, facility, which was just a mile from there. Okay. Now his students die because pain crashed on a dorm. A medical dorm. Mm-hmm. Okay. Think about that. I was reading, a Facebook post of one of the person on the plane died. They were so excited. him and his wife and two kids, they were going to London for the first time and they're like, here, I feel we come London, right? And he put this on Instagram or something. And he's no more, right? So life's fragile. So why wait to spend time with our loved ones, right? Why say, you know what, I'll take you to vacation, Tommy. Next, we'll go fishing. You know, next month or next year. This year, dairy is really busy or whatever, right? Mm-hmm. Why do that? Why not spend, because Tommy's gonna remember, my dad and I went fishing. Tommy's not gonna remember my dad had a million bucks. Okay. And that's very important point. I think we need to realize that. one real quick thing, I saw this thing my LinkedIn page. It showed up, where a kid asks, there, how much money do you make an hour? And there says a hundred bucks or something. So he goes, finds this piggy bank. He says, I don't know how much it is, but can you spend an hour with me? Right. Think about that. Mm-hmm. and I'm sure that that's a joke or whatever, but that's how it's become for the most part.

Adam Coelho: 39:43

Yeah. No, I, I resonate a lot with all of that. And, yeah. It's, with me pursuing this business and all of this and, you know, I've gotten into a good rhythm with it and good balance, but I still, my son is here, my younger son is here, like hanging out with our nanny who's great, and allows us to do, things that we need to do. But, like at some point it's like I could just turn off the computer. I don't need to sit at the computer or writing emails or whatever I'm doing. When my son is. Wanting to play. Right? Yeah. Like, it just, I don't need the money. Right. Exactly. So it's finding a balance and kind of staying in check with the expectations versus the vision. Right. It doesn't need to happen super quick. I just, and what's happening super quick is my sons are growing up. That is happening super quick. And so it doesn't have to be, sacrificing that for some goal.

Nirav Shah: 40:40

And if you enjoy the journey, right. Yeah. Don't push on yourself. That's the other thing I keep telling my friends that, I'm not saying don't do it, but I'm saying don't put stress on yourself. Right. Enjoy the journey. Enjoy the process. Because if you say, okay, I'm gonna enjoy it when I'm retired, and in your case, you're lucky, but a lot of people who are chasing this financial freedom, they are working, 8, 10, 12, 15 hour days, right?

Adam Coelho: 41:03

Mm-hmm.

Nirav Shah: 41:03

Because they are saying, let me work this, lemme put this effort right now. And then in 10 years, I'll enjoy it.

Adam Coelho: 41:09

10

Nirav Shah: 41:10

years, they may not have health to enjoy that. Right. Kids grown up, kids are out of house. you're not gonna get that time back. Enjoy as much as you can right now. Don't put stress on yourself. Keep doing what you're doing, but let's not put stress on ourselves. That's what I'm saying.

Adam Coelho: 41:23

Yeah, no, I agree. So, let's get back to the book and talk a little bit about, a little bit more on, I guess first like, define serenity and then like what are the, daily practices or, or methods that you recommend to actually operationalize this. Right. Because as I said, I understand all of this. Yeah. I'm aware of it. I've taught some of it, and yet it's hard to do In practice. So tell me a little bit about kind of how you counsel people in the book on, on making this a daily practice.

Nirav Shah: 41:54

Absolutely. So the serenity to me means inner peace. Okay. To be peaceful, joyful, blissful at any given moment to me is serenity.

Adam Coelho: 42:05

regardless

Nirav Shah: 42:06

of what's going on outside. Right. Somebody must be screaming, doesn't matter. we just need to take, and then I go and break it down in the book as to what are different issues that may show up, which disturbs our serenity. We talked about comparison is one thing people do all the time. Victim mindset. Right. How do we get away from that? Right? We talk about that. Then I talk about, equanimity in relationships, because that's the big piece in Serenity if you think about it, right? If we keep our ego in check, right? And we talk about how to do that, right? It goes a long way in having a good relationship with everyone else, right? There's a disharmony amongst us, right? How to approve that disharmony, right? We have people who disagree with each other all the time, how to be compassionate while disagreeing. And I'll give you an example in the book, my attorney from day one, right? When I started my business, him and I retired about the same time, and we became very good friends. So we meet once a quarter nowadays, and once we're sitting down and he says, Nera, I love. Our quarterly meeting, and I'll tell you why. I said, why? And he says, well, everyone I know, my family, my friends, my social media feed, everything is an echo chamber. We all think the same way. We all believe in the same philosophy. Our political, religious, everything is the same. And when I sit down with you, I get a different perspective. And I like to understand, how everyone else thinks, right? And we lost that in our society, right? We used to be able to talk to people. Now, families don't talk to each other just because their political, perspective is different, right? So I talk about, how to be compassionate while disagreeing, right? We talk about forgive and forget. forgiveness is a big thing in serenity business, right? Because if you hold grudges, you are not gonna have mind. it's tough to be peaceful while holding grudges. then we talk about how we replace negatives with positive, right? So greed, how do you handle greed? How do you handle hatred? I also have a chaplain in the book, Adam, on War and stress. And reason I wrote that is when the Ukraine war first started, when Russia invaded, Ukraine, I had a lot of anxiety. And at first I didn't realize where that anxiety was coming from. I meditate twice a day, and I just couldn't let it go. It stayed within me. And then. I realized that it was coming from this war related news. So I stopped consuming news and within about one day, my anxiety went away. So I did more research on how war, which again, we are not an immediate war region, Even then, it brings anxiety to us. So how to avoid that. We talk about that in the book. Then how we go from being fearful to being courageous. all of these things people go through on a daily basis. So I said best way to teach Serenity is to figure out what is an obstacle to serenity, and then how to remove that on your daily practice, right? So we talk about all that, but main thing I talk about in terms of daily practice is, if you can. Spend 15 minutes a day meditating. And I have guided meditations, on my website, meditative men.org. We have audio meditations absolutely free. We have about 16 or so meditations there, 13 to 15 minutes each where you listen and follow. If you can't do that, or even if you can do that, what I recommend is 10 times a day, take 10 deep breaths. And here's why that's important. Let's say we sat on a meditation cushion and everything's great. We feel peaceful, and then we start working. We got into a meeting, somebody said something, and all of a sudden it disturbs our peace, right? If we get into these 10 deep breaths 10 times a day, then it brings us back to our center and. keeps us mindful so that all that negativity around us, which happened, goes away and hopefully keeps us, in peaceful mode for at least next hour or so until we do another 10 deep breaths. So if you do 10 deep breaths 10 times a day, makes you centered and it keeps you mindful.

Adam Coelho: 46:39

And how do you build that in? Do you like set an alarm? That's the

Nirav Shah: 46:43

best way. Everybody has Apple watch nowadays, right? So if you just put an alarm on your Apple watch, it reminds you. And my son, he is a young kid. He's in Silicon Valley and he's not a meditator. He's like, he is young, he is not, bought into this concept yet, but for last six months or so. He at least says, it helps me take deep breaths. So he puts on his Apple watch and he start taking two or three deep breaths every few hours. So that's a progress, right?

Adam Coelho: 47:13

Yeah.

Nirav Shah: 47:13

And I strongly believe progress, not perfection, because if that, calms him down from all the hub of the work, and that's progress.

Adam Coelho: 47:23

Absolutely. Yeah. I love that. Very cool. Well, let's switch gears now, Nirav into the mindful fire final four. You did this last time. So, I don't remember exactly what your answers were, but if, if they're the same, they're good ones. If they're new ones, they're good ones. so the first question, Nirav is about your vision. You know, we talk a lot about envisioning here and, and kind of thinking up, up a big vision for your life. I'm curious, you're in this new chapter. I mean, you've been in this retirement chapter for a while. You're teaching meditation, you're writing books. What is your big vision for the next, say five years of your life?

Nirav Shah: 48:00

So when I wrote the first book, right? shortcut to Serenity, like I mentioned, my vision was to have one person same goal is we wanna help as many people as possible find that elusive piece within. Good thing is this book went on the chart very fast in two days. We were number one new release on Amazon. nice. Congratulations. Yeah. Thank you. it's awesome that people are responding to it, but most importantly, I'm hoping that people will actually, read one chapter a day and then, meditate on it and find peace within themselves long term. I have two goals in mind. One's meditation related, and one non-meditation related. non-meditation. I have this travel bug. I mentioned that to you, Adam. I wanna, cover a hundred countries before I die, and I've been to 84, so I'm making progress, hopefully in, next two, three years. I think we'll reach there and, we are gonna throw a party in the hundredth country. I attend. I'm gonna send you a nutrition and I want you. Awesome.

Adam Coelho: 48:59

Okay. Wonderful.

Nirav Shah: 49:00

Yeah. And then the second vision is to be a traveling monk, if you will. I'm using that phrase, monk in, in a very, loose way, but I love teaching about karma. I just did a karma workshop recently. I would like to go from city to city presenting a karma workshop. I think that would be awesome. If someday it happens, great. If it doesn't, that's okay too.

Adam Coelho: 49:23

Very cool. Where's, where's next on the travel list?

Nirav Shah: 49:26

this year it's been slow because my dad, was, diagnosed with stage four cancer. Mm-hmm. So, I'm actually to India and, he's 85. He's lived full life, so we are all, we just wanna make sure he doesn't suffer. That's our only goal. Mm-hmm. so I'm gonna spend a couple of months with him in India, I'm leaving in a month or so. And then after that, may I go to Sri Lanka and Nepal are the two on the list. I haven't been there. And we'll see if I end up there, but, you'll be closer. Yeah. Yeah. It's a lot. I'm already there, right? Yeah. Not as well. We'll see. Yeah, we'll see.

Adam Coelho: 49:59

Very good. Well, that's great. Alright, the second question is, what piece of advice would you give to someone early on their path to financial independence? I,

Nirav Shah: 50:07

one thing I tell people is that, look at your expenses more than your income. Okay. Because when we are first starting, as we make money, we tend to spend money, on a much rapid rate. And as you know, right, this is a compounding business, right? More you save early more, it's gonna show up later in the life. So that's one advice I give is that, you know, keep an eye on your expenses. I'm not saying don't spend money, I'm just saying keep an eye on it. Because saving early, more you compound faster, you can retire.

Adam Coelho: 50:43

Got it. Very good. Yeah, that's great advice. Alright, the third question is, what piece of advice would you give to someone getting started with meditation and or mindfulness?

Nirav Shah: 50:53

That's an excellent question. Make a daily practice. I use the word practice because it is practice. Don't get discouraged because you think you're not focusing. Every time you realize that you lost your focus is progress. That means that you are being mindful. Okay? So try to make a daily practice and then to be mindful throughout the day. Take 10 deep breaths, 10 times a day. That's all.

Adam Coelho: 51:19

Yeah, I love that one. I'm gonna try to build that in'cause my daily practice is pretty good. Yeah. Not as good as it was before. I had two kids, but pretty good. But also just building it in throughout the day would be very, very powerful for me. Narab, the last question is, how can people find you online? I think you mentioned your website, but say it again. and how can people find your books?

Nirav Shah: 51:43

Sure. So, both of my books are on Amazon, shortcut to Serenity and the Serenity Blueprint. They are in both ebook as well as the paper book format. If you want guided meditation, go to my, blog meditative man.org. I also have recorded, meditation sessions on YouTube, on a channel Meditative Man. And then I'm on LinkedIn near Denver. Is my handle on LinkedIn. If you want to reach out to me, meditate denver@gmail.com. I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. I have, every Tuesday I do Zoom meditations, so if you want to attend live meditation sessions, again, no cost, meditate denver@gmail.com. I'm happy to put you on the list.

Adam Coelho: 52:29

Wonderful. Well, I thank you so much for being here again, Nirav it was another great conversation and some real specific things I can put into practice and it was helpful just to talk through kind of what's been going on in my own life related to this. so thank you for, the space to talk about that.

Nirav Shah: 52:48

Thanks Adam for having me. I greatly appreciate you. and like you mentioned, you know, intellectually we all know this thing right. It's matter of putting it in practice.

Adam Coelho: 52:57

Absolutely. Alright, well, we'll see you on the next one for the third book maybe, sir. thanks a lot. Bye.

Speaker 2: 53:04

Thanks for joining me on today's episode of the Mindful Fire Podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, I invite you to hit subscribe wherever you're listening to this. This just lets the platforms know you're getting value from the episodes and you want to be here when I release additional content. If you're ready to start your Mindful Fire journey, go to mindful fire.org/start and download my free envisioning guide in just 10 minutes. This guide will help you craft a clear and inspiring vision for your life. Again, you can download it for free@mindfulfire.org slash start. Thanks again and I'll catch you next time on the Mindful Fire Podcast.