168 - Career by Design: No Limits, No Regrets

🤝 Ever wondered what happens when engineering and economics majors from Carnegie Mellon University reunite for a heartful conversation about career design and mindset? 

Well, you’re about to find out! 

🎙️ In this episode of No More Mondays, I take a walk down memory lane with my college friend, Nikhil Agharkar, whose path from law into financial services helped him create a unique career all his own. 

Two unconventional career journeys have taught us each the power of persistence and why mindset is everything when building the life and career you want, and now we're coming together to 2x the impact. 

This is scientific philosophy at its best, folks! 

💪 If you’re looking for a bit of inspiration to take control of your career, tune in—because designing a life you love starts with how you think.

Career by design: no limits, no regrets

 

Episode Transcript

Angie (00:01):
Hello everybody, and Good Monday morning, I am already
smiling, and you are going to betoo as we get into this episode
of no more Mondays, where webelieve you can have a thriving
career business and an amazinglife on your terms. And I bring
you people who have not onlystories of inspiration, but
fantastic advice to help youlive and work more authentically

(00:23):
throughout your professionallife, you have probably heard
somebody say something like, thebest careers are built. They're
not found. There's a very goodchance if you listen to this
podcast record regularly, it wasme or one of my guests, climbing
the career ladder can look a lotdifferent than it used to where
incremental raises and titleincreases eventually moved that

(00:45):
needle over a slow growth path.But today, it's totally
different, and our guest hasleveraged that fact. Vik arkar
started his career as anattorney, only to realize that
the financial world continued tocall and beckon him, and after
operating, and he's found a wayto operate across these two
lines of highly regulated fieldsthat are often hard to cross

(01:08):
over. He met, he met a lot ofchallenges, and came with
perseverance and some creativityto overcome obstacles and create
and design his own career. He'sa wealth advisor at shore Haven
wealth and a tax attorney atCrown Point tax and wealth
Council, and even moreimportantly, he is my friend
from our wonderful days atCarnegie Mellon. Please welcome

(01:30):
Nick to the show. Nick, welcometo no more Mondays.

Unknown (01:33):
Hey, Angie. It's great to see you. And yeah, thanks for
having me. I'm excited. It's

Angie (01:38):
always so fun to it's not like we were out of touch,
right? Good old, social mediahelps you keep in tune, but it's
always so fun for me toreconnect from people that I was
truly friends with and yucked itup with. You know, 25 years ago
in college, and we've come along way since those grandiose
ideas of us being talent scoutstogether.

Unknown (01:59):
I was gonna say that's the funniest story, right? Is
sitting in a bar and gettingapproached by some rando about
being a talent scout and findingmodels. I think that's what we
were actually going to we wereconsidering this. That was
great.

Angie (02:11):
We were actually and here's the best part, Nick and I
chatted a month or two ago andand in the process of kind of
getting the meeting together, heactually, I totally had forgot
about this. And he was like,Yeah, we thought we were going
to be Talent scouts, which, bythe way, I have to let you all
know, is hilarious, because Nickand I are at least three feet
shorter than anyone that wewould be recruiting.

Unknown (02:32):
And also, like, what do we know about models? What are
we doing that would have beeninsane

Angie (02:37):
in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, no less, I know a
hotbed

Unknown (02:41):
for beauty. Sorry for the people

Angie (02:45):
of Pittsburgh, and sorry for everyone out there who's
actually made modeling a career.God bless you. Go eat a piece of
cake. Now we've wised up, butneither of us are doing exactly
what we studied, which I thinkis interesting, and I think
we're better people for it,which is kind of what we're
going to talk about. So, youknow, I mentioned, as we were

(03:05):
kind of getting into this, thatyou you have found a way to work
in two industries that are canbe hard to work in, and I think
it would be good to just kind oflevel set with everybody out
there on why working in law andwealth management is tricky. So
give us a little like 101,lesson on how those two, those
two industries, interact, andwhere restrictions come into
play. Yeah.

Unknown (03:25):
So you know, I am with a registered Independent
advisory shop called shore Havenwealth partners here in New
Jersey. And then I also have myown law firm, Crown Point tax
and wealth Council. And thereason we have to keep them
separate is obviously one isregulated by the SEC, the other
is regulated by the state barsthat I'm a member of. And the
thing is, is that the industry,the financial services industry,

(03:49):
needs the support of both thelegal and the accounting
industry, right? They kind ofhave to work together for to a
for a client, to have a holisticpicture of their entire
financial life. But the problemarises when we have advisors, or
a lawyer who maybe doesn't givethe the complete picture, right?
Because they're, they're alittle afraid. They don't want
to get into the financialservices realm, right? Or the

(04:11):
accountant who I talk to all thetime, accountants are petrified
of the unauthorized practice oflaw, and so they they rarely
give, you know, direct, youknow, direct advice to their
clients, but rather just moregeneral sort of feelings, and
then the client makes thechoice. But that often leaves
people in kind of thisconundrum, because, as we talked
about, right? There isn't a lotof financial education out there

(04:33):
that's really trustworthy,right? A lot of people don't
know what their reading iscorrect, and so there's a lot of
questions that go unanswered.And so by marrying my
understanding of the law, thetax code, estate planning, with
financial management as well,and my understanding of
economics and the markets, it'sreally a way to give a client a
holistic picture of theirfinancial life. And the biggest

(04:54):
thing I do is education. Thefirst several meetings with any
client is about educating themon what they have. How the laws
work, how the markets work, whatrisk tolerance they really are
at and versus, you know, maybethey're taking too much risk. So
it's a lot of these educationalconversations up front. And I
really try and CO create aportfolio, or a sort of, even an

(05:16):
asset protection plan with theclients, so that they feel like
they've got an input right? Theyunderstand what they're doing,
what they're getting,

Angie (05:23):
well. And I love the education piece, because there
is fiscal education even justdown to how to balance a
checkbook, which no one doesanymore because of online
banking is never taught to us atan age where we should learn it.
We kind of learn it on the flywhen we have to. But I also
think from a wealth managementperspective, and you and I have
talked about this offlinebefore, offline before. There's
almost like this, this mysterycurtain that there's that is

(05:48):
there, like on purpose to keepus a little bit kind of like in
the dark about what's happeningwith our own money. And so I
appreciate the education and thetransparency and just even very
practically. You know, Iactually am. I've been working
with a new financial manager.Side note before this whole
conversation started to pick upagain. And I was like, Darn. But
anyway, the amount of back andforth I've had to do between,

(06:11):
hey, go ask your attorney how toset up this in your solo 401, K
and I'm like, I don't care. Justdo it right. The amount of this
going on, it has probably madethis take two months longer than
it would have if I could havejust said, hey, hey, tax guy and
wealth guy. How do I do this? SoI love that you were able to
like blend to things that cancomplement each other, even

(06:31):
though getting into it had somestickiness, which is the career
by design stuff I really, reallywant to get into. So finance and
law, both highly regulatedfield, people would also guess
pretty rigid, and that don'tleave a lot of room for
creativity. And you found a wayto kind of do this, but it
wasn't met without resistance.So how, like, how did this
actually come together?

Unknown (06:53):
Yeah, and this starts, I mean, with graduating from
from CMU. So I have a degree ineconomics from Carnegie Mellon,
and a lot of my friends weregoing to Wall Street right after
school. But I looked at whatthey were going to be doing, and
they were going to be making,and this is, you know, 2003
they're making maybe $40,000 ayear, and most of them were from
the New York, New Jersey area,so they'd be living at home for

(07:13):
a couple of years to save money.So I thought, You know what that
sounds like, a sucker's path.I'm going to go to law school,
and then I'm going to be rich,and so

Angie (07:22):
do one of the other five traditional careers that existed
for us in 2003

Unknown (07:28):
and also, like, there wasn't, like, all of this
information on YouTube. Like,it's funny, I tell my kids I'm
older than Google, and theydon't believe me. So actually,
my we

Angie (07:39):
were the people who got the like, you have to be invited
for a Gmail account. We're thatolder than you,

Unknown (07:45):
yeah, or an edu account for Facebook. Oh, yeah. So I
mean, like we were at the dawnof the internet, right? No, my
son actually asked me if I wasborn in the 1900s the other day.
I was

Angie (07:56):
like, you're like, you have to, you had to pause for a
second go. Oh yeah, I was,

Unknown (08:04):
but at any rate, so I saw what they were doing, and I
said, you know, I'm gonna go tolaw school. I'm gonna be super
wealthy. So I moved out to theWest Coast, Southern California.
I thought I was gonna be atalent agent, right? So still on
the talent tip, and

Angie (08:17):
he lasted a little while,

Unknown (08:20):
you think, right? That really, kind of really planted a
seed. So I I thought, you know,that's my career coming out of
law school. Though law schoolreally changed me. I had a
professor that my federal courtsprofessor actually had us assist
with the Supreme Court case thathe had. So he went to Supreme
Court. It was about equaljustice, and so I sort of took a

(08:41):
litigation approach. Then to mycareer, I started with binder
and binder, if we anyoneremembers that defunct law firm
right out of law school, and Imoved back to the East Coast
after law school about two yearsafter law school, and now my
friends were about five yearsinto their Wall Street careers,
living it up in New York, and Iwas making $48,000 a year. So,

(09:05):
yeah, yeah, that went backwards.That really bad. So I moved back
to the city in 2008 which we allknow was a great time for
finance. And I actually tried.So I tried to just get straight
up into Wall Street firms, WallStreet, law firms, Wall Street,
big banks, anywhere. I sent out,and this is a, you know, again,

(09:25):
we're dating ourselves. Iliterally sent out hard copy
mail, cover letters withenvelopes, everything the
resume, right? I sent probablyabout 500 out, right? I got
absolutely no responses. Andthroughout my career, I
continued to try and network myway to, you know, get
interviews. I got an interviewat Bridgewater that I absolutely
tanked. Was terrible, you know,I kept trying different things,

(09:47):
and it just never reallyclicked. And so I just continued
on this path of litigation, andI built and then I sold my own
law firm, and that's when Ireally came close again to
being, you know, what? Two. I'vegot a little bit of money. How
about I just day trade, right? Iwas coming up with crazy ideas
like, Oh, I'll trade and all youknow, I know how to markets
work, so I'm going to do that,right? And I kept trying to

(10:09):
build it myself, but nothingreally stuck until I was
actually out of law entirely. SoI sold my law practice, and I
was in management consulting.And during that time in
management consulting, thoseclients sort of off to the side.
Would say, but you're, you'restill an attorney, right?
Because I have this side hustle.And these are people at, you
know, fortune, 50 companies. Sothey have a w2 job, they're,

(10:31):
they're executives, but they'vealso started this side business,
or they have questions about,hey, you know what, I'm getting
taxed on these restricted stockunits. I don't understand why,
right? And so I would explainthese things to them, and that's
when the light bulb went offthat, hey, you know what? I
think this is it. This is how Ican sort of bridge that gap and
get to a place where I've nowsort of created my own career,

(10:52):
right? Where I'm a tax attorney.I do to people's taxes, I do tax
strategy, and then I also helppeople manage their money,
right, and to protect theirwealth and grow their legacies.
So it was something that sort ofagain happened, but it wasn't
without kind of a belief that Icould still do it. Oh, I want

Angie (11:10):
to lean into the belief system for a minute, because
what I think is also sointeresting about I have this.
You spoiler alert, we alreadyknow we're on the same page
about this, everyone. So this isgoing somewhere. But I feel like
everything you just said is soentrepreneurial, right? Like, I
could do this, I could do this.Let's throw some stuff at the
wall and kind of see whatsticks. But in a way, some of

(11:32):
that ended up working outbecause it was the it was the
learning and the with theweeding in and out, that once
you arrived at the point, that'swhat I think is so incredible
about this. Like theentrepreneurial journey, or
career by design, is a lot oftimes you arrive at it, you
really, actually don't evenfind. Like, if careers are built
not found, you tend to arrive atthe point of it, of it being

(11:53):
building, which sounds like thiskind of happened for you. All of
these various things and trialscame together at a time and
place that was finally right,you had manifested it,

Unknown (12:03):
right, right? You know, nothing happens until you're
ready for it, right? And I hadto go through some pretty tough
times. Right of, you know, atpoints I had just given up.
Right of, you know, look, it'sjust never going to happen for
me. No one's ever going to lookat me that way and really being
down on myself, right? And I'vetried so many different things.
I lost a lot of money along theway, right? And so it's, it's,
it's, can be reallydiscouraging, but it's just that

(12:26):
the constant and consistentbelief that I can do this, I
know that I can do this, I justit's not it just isn't
presenting itself right now well

Angie (12:34):
and mentally it when you're in that moment or that
long moment of this isn'tworking. I'm close to giving up,
but I believe tell me more aboutI almost want to ask, like, how
does that look and feel in inreality, I know how it looks and
feels for me, but I've never hadsomebody else, like, explain
that, their, their, theirfeelings of, like, why am I keep

(12:55):
getting beat up? But I stillbelieve I have this thing talk
to me more about that. Yeah. So,

Unknown (13:00):
you know, it's interesting. You have to set an
intention deeply withinyourself, right? And this is
something I learned in therapy,to be quite honest, right? So,
you know, the way that this sortof breakthrough happened, you
know, wasn't magical. Ithappened because I finally put

(13:21):
in the inner work. So mymarriage was on the rocks, and
we went to counseling, and wedid these sort of family of
origin stuff, and I talked aboutmy upbringing. My parents are
immigrants from India, so anyonethat has immigrant parents know
it's a pretty strict household.But then in addition, you know,
the the therapist came up somesome things to look at in terms

(13:42):
of my mother, perhaps havingsome narcissistic tendencies.
And I looked up kind of whatthat means for me as a child of
a narcissistic parent. And itcame out that, you know, look,
these folks have trouble withinterpersonal connections.
They're quite angry all thetime, difficulty feeling, wow.
That explained a lot of my lifestruggles. And so I went deep
within myself and really sort ofrepaired some of those, those

(14:04):
traumas and those wounds, andreally came out with a
meditation practice, journalingand every day sort of believing.
And actually, there's a greatbook by this coach, Lou Tice,
that I read initially, and it'scalled Smart talk, right? And
it's about changing first thatinner dialog, right? And that's
where it started for me, was,instead of saying things like,
God, I'm so stupid. Like, that'sjust awful, saying things like,

(14:28):
you know what? That's not likeme. Usually I don't do that.
That's strange that thathappened, right? How can I fix
it? Rather than being so downand negative all the time, it's
changing that mindset. And thatset me on this path of, okay,
yeah, maybe you know what? Ishouldn't be a litigator. I
should be doing something inbusiness, right? Let's try, you
know, creating businesses. So Icreated a bunch of failed
businesses. I tried a marketingfirm, I tried to create an

(14:51):
Amazon store. I tried all kindsof different things, right? I
believe, like I can believe Ican do it, right? But in doing
those things. Things. And I tellpeople this all the time, you
know, the learning curve that I,that I sort of subscribe to, is
one that's not linear, right? Soit goes all the way up. I think
that, you know, if you look atthe graph, right, it goes up

(15:13):
quite quickly, right?

Angie (15:16):
70 degree angle.

Unknown (15:18):
But the thing is, is that when you get to this point,
right? You think, because youlearn so much so quickly, you
you're on top of what I callmount stupid, because you
believe that, oh my God, I knowall this. And then you get
punched in the face, and you goall the way back down, realizing
that, oh God, there's so muchmore I don't even know. I have
no idea. And then you build backup slower to understand, okay,

(15:40):
here, don't know, so you're alittle more cautious, right? A
little more humble, and there'sthat, yes, it's

Angie (15:46):
like infinite false summits. And the the parallels
between these are you and I.This is apparently we have just
been like walking adjacent forthe last 25 years without even
knowing it. But here we are. Wecame back together at the right
times. I love what you said thatabout, like you have to be
ready, and it required the thework on yourself in order to be

(16:09):
ready, which I'm guessing thenmade the, well, the climb got
probably a lot less steep,because it started to become
clearer what you should be doingversus the I'm going to try, I'm
going to try, I'm going to try,right, right?

Unknown (16:22):
And again, it's, it's figuring out, you know, always
trying to force the how, right?So I talk about, you know, you
can't, you just kind of have toleave that unknown, right? And a
lot of people come to me andthey say, Well, wait a minute,
so I can just think, I just haveto sit here. No, that's not it,
right? So I talk a lot aboutthe, the RAS, the reticular
activation system in our brains,right? Sits right above the

(16:43):
spinal cord, and it's the thing,when you want a new car, right?
And you're really thinking aboutthis new car, you see it
everywhere, right? You see thosethings all over the place. It's
similar if you just think aboutwhat you want and what what your
life would look like if, ifthese things that you wanted
happened, those opportunitieswill present themselves, but
then it's up to you to pounce onit, right? Like it's that old

(17:05):
joke where the man is drowning,and he's a devout Christian, so
he's praying to God thatsomeone, someone's going to save
him, right? He's in the middleof an ocean, and a boat comes by
and he says, no, no, God isgoing to save me. Then a larger
boat comes by, no, no, God isgoing to save me. A freaking
yacht comes by. No, no. God isgonna save me. Finally, he
drowns. He goes, he's gonna seeGod. And God says, wait. He

(17:26):
goes, You didn't save me. AndGod said, I sent you three
boats. You can't just sit there.Take action, right? It's the Yes
to do is, once you see thoseopportunities, right?
Absolutely, go after them, ifthey feel like they're in
alignment with what you'retrying to get.

Angie (17:43):
I love this so much because I have to point out that
a Carnegie Mellon engineer andeconomist have just walked into
a yoga studio, right? Yeah, butit's this is so and I'm
wondering if it's because youand I have similarly, like, left
and right brains, rightanalytical, but like, strategic
and creative with that thread ofentrepreneurship,
entrepreneurial spirit, thatreally makes you look at things

(18:04):
differently. Because I havefound that exact same thing
where you get put in the righttime, in the right place. This
is not luck you arrive, but youhave done the work to get
yourself there. And I believethat any any success in
business. I also love the factthat you started to flip the
script right instead of lookingat of looking at this has, how
do I get into law or finance?I'm going to take, I'm going to

(18:26):
take it as a business angle,which started to become the
right action. And I tell peopleall the time, entrepreneurship
especially, and I would evenventure to say success in in
most career tracks, is 80%mindset, because you can, you
can choose whether to bemiserable or happy or or at
least content in a situation.And you can also choose to

(18:48):
change it and do the work onyourself and the exploration to
actually get to something yousaid that I I'm going to put two
and two together, and I lovethis is the woo, woo of two
Carnegie Mellon technical grads,here is, you keep hammering the
how, but the answers in the why,

Unknown (19:08):
yeah, and honestly, the How will take care of itself.
You have to have thatintentional why, right? Of, why
am I doing this? And honestly,it has to be of service, right?
It has to be of service tosomething or some greater good
for it to really actualize,right? Because if you just want
money, just for money's sake, itwill almost likely never come,

(19:31):
right? Because you're constantlywanting it just for its own
sake, what will you do with it?What will it feel like? What
things will you do next? Right?I talk to them about this with
my clients all the time. Youknow, they say, oh, I want to
retire at 67 then what? Well,then I'll be retired. Okay, but
what will you do off day, right?What? What are the things that
are actually going to happen,right? So you can't just be the

(19:53):
dog that catches the car and hasno plan. You've got to think
through, okay, what is it that Iwant? Why do I want it? Why is.
Important to me, and how can Ithen create this, this space for
my myself to see theopportunities around me? Because
if you're constantly negativeand you're constantly saying,
Oh, it's just never going tohappen, it's just never going to
happen, well then you're nevergoing to see any of the

(20:13):
opportunities that are right infront of me right you're going
to miss the boats that aresailing right past you, because
you're in a you're in a mindsetwhere you feel like it's just
never going to happen for you.

Angie (20:24):
I'm a huge fan of that book.

Unknown (20:26):
Oh yeah, yeah,

Angie (20:28):
there is actual scientific proof. Because, you
know, I kind of make fun of Woo,but also I'm Woo, not Woo, woo,
right? There's a little,there's, there's a difference in
a fine line, but there ismindset and and perspective and
abundance versus scarcity areall actually scientifically
proven, and there is a power ofpositivity that I think a lot of

(20:53):
people discount, that you can'tmanifest something now. You're
not gonna You're not just likeyou said, Pray for God when
three boats are going by, therewere your there's there were
your actions, right? And it's,but I feel like so many people
don't allow themselves to dothat, or don't even see the
boats,

Unknown (21:13):
yeah. And I think it's because, again, they, they don't
believe in any of this, woo,woo, right? And for me, it's
saying, right? I mean, you thinkabout Neil deGrasse heights, one
about the eminent physicist. Heobviously a man of science,
right? It one of my favoritequotes from is that we are all
connected to each other,biologically, to the earth,
chemically and to the rest ofthe universe. Atomically, we are
made of star stuff, right? Soeverything in the universe is

(21:36):
matter, right? We know. We knewseveral things about matter. It
can't it can't be destroyed,right? No matter can actually be
anti matter. It doesn't go away.It just changes its state,
right? Well, how did it becomeinto creation? How did it
happen, right? Well, I mean,think about anything literally,
this, this microphone, thiscomputer, all of it started as
an idea. Someone had an idea,and then they thought about it,
and then they manifested it,they made it, right? So it's not

(21:59):
as if this isn't in front of us,right? Everything that we have
is a thought. And again, there'sthat great Shakespeare quote,
There is no good or bad thinkingmakes it so. It's the truth,
it's your perspective. There'sno such thing as a good thing or
a bad thing. There's justthings. How you engender them is
what gives them and imbues thatpower over you. But if you can

(22:20):
just accept that this thing is athing, and it happened, and this
is hard. I'm not saying this iseasy, because we're we're
people, right, but if you canjust accept things that happen
to you as okay, that happenedit, it is what it is, right, I
need to then figure out what'snext, right, instead of
constantly trying to assignmeaning to these things, right?
Yes, maybe there doesn't need tobe a meaning to it. Maybe we can

(22:43):
just say, Okay, now what? Right?Now? What do I do to continue
on? And one of the things thatI've been thinking about lately,
it's, it's the this sort of theswitch from determinism to
technology, right? So if youthink about cause and effect,
right? So, well, you know,you've got a friend who is a
horribly abused as a child, andso now he's a shut in, right? So
the cause was the trauma fromthe child. And now the effect is

(23:05):
that he, you know, is a shut in,but if we look at it in terms of
goals, right? And what, what?What's his aim, then, right? So
your friend is a shut in. Sowhat must he want? Well, he must
want to be a shut in, right?Because if his goal was to get
over it and to actually getbetter, he would do something
else. But if we look at youractions and then think, Okay,
what's his goal? Right? Why ishe doing that? If you start

(23:28):
thinking that way about yourdaily life and the things that
you do every day, and you say,if someone was watching me right
now, what would they think I'maiming at? What am I trying to
achieve? And if it's not thething that you have, change the
activities right then, alignyour activities with what you
actually want out of life. Andyou'll find that things just
open up for you in a really bigway.

Angie (23:48):
Well. And it goes back to y'all probably are sitting out
there going, man, Angie talks alot about these three letters.
If you know where the why, youcan't align those things. If you
don't know the why, or you don'tknow the general, you know,
compass direction you're aimingfor, you can't determine the
what aligns, what doesn't, andif you're just doing random

(24:09):
stuff, or if it's actually goingto be, you know, productive
moving along some path. Itdoesn't have to be, it can be a
winding path, but it's at leastlike, Okay, I'm heading, you
know, north northeast. Okay,cool. But if you don't even know
that, you get in the car, you'regonna drive around in circles,
yeah. And,

Unknown (24:28):
I mean, look, the other thing is that life isn't linear
like that, right? Life is just aseries of moments, and so in
each moment you have options andchoices to make, but those are
those moments will pass you byif you are constantly focusing
on just this linear thought of,oh, I need, I needed to keep
going this way, right? Yeah, butit take the moment and see what

(24:48):
happens, right? Because that'shonestly where magic is. But we
are all so involved in our ownselves, and here's what I need
to do today, and sorting outwhat I should and shouldn't be
doing rather than actually. Justliving now because it's in front
of us, right? I mean, we'rewaiting to retire at 67 Exactly,
right? I mean, you know, why notnow? Right? What do we do? Why

(25:08):
not now? Exactly. And I mean, Itell people this story all the
time. My dad retired for oneyear. He went right back to
consulting because, you know,it's what else? What do they
know you to do, right? Yeah. Andso it's often, it's building
that muscle of, okay, well, whatdo I want? What do I want out of
life? What do I want frommyself? What do I want from
others? And I mean, really, thebiggest thing is, is also

(25:30):
dropping those expectations ofothers. You can't put those on
other people. You can onlyexpect from yourself. And so I
unfortunately run into peoplethat just get very angry with
other people, right? And theycan't, they can't seem to be
okay with being disliked. Andthat's a big thing. A big thing
that I had to learn was justbeing okay that you know, not

(25:51):
everyone's gonna like me, noteveryone's gonna want to work
with me, and that's fine, that'sokay, and if you don't like me,
cool, be angry about it. But I'mnot going to right? Because it's
a waste of my time and a waste awaste of you. Yeah, it's a waste
of my brain power, my energy tobe concerned about whether you
like me or not. And that took along time for me to internalize

(26:12):
that and just be okay with Hey,you know what if, if you don't
want to hang out with me, cool?You know, I can move on,

Angie (26:19):
because she's listening. I have to say, Hi mom, because
she's sitting here going, Iknow, I know what you're talking
about, because my mom is apeople pleaser who doesn't like
confrontation. So guess what isvery, very hard for her, and
therefore was very, very hardfor me, which is the people
don't like me and it in. Thething is, I find and you're
you're probably the same wayfrom a person because of your

(26:40):
personality. It doesn't happenvery often, but when it does,
it's a very it. There's athere's a lot of rub there with
the dislike. And what I finallyrealized, through a lot of
challenges that brought onanimosity and the critics, was
that the the anger towards us isactually more about them and not

(27:00):
us. And if you can put your wrapyour head around that, it
becomes a little easier to nottake it so personally, and then
you condition yourself with athicker skin, and each time it
happens, it's less and less andless. But ultimately, I decided
that those people weren't goingto get to take my joy,

Unknown (27:15):
right? And you look, you can't control them right
now. Again, we've talked aboutthis, the only thing that you
can control is your reaction toit, right? So if you believe
that you know what this personis has done is bad, and you you
want to harbor some resentmentand anger towards it that only
eats at you, that doesn't, thatdoesn't go towards them, that
they aren't feeling what you'refeeling, you have to let it go,

(27:37):
right? And that's so hard. It'svery difficult. It's, I'm not
saying these things. It

Angie (27:41):
takes it. That doesn't happen overnight. It takes a
long time. I also would like towelcome you to what I believe is
a new career by design betweenAngie and Nick, and that is
scientific philosophy. Pleasewelcome to the show. We

Unknown (27:53):
could philosophize all day

Angie (27:55):
about how all day and shout into the void together.
And I also think it's veryimportant right now, and we
won't go any further than that,to focus on what you can
control. You can control how youreact, you can control what you
do. You can control how you talkto you and who and how you treat
people. And that will, you know,that will bring about what it

(28:15):
brings about. And I think thisis a good time to start. Maybe
there's, there's little bits ofpractical advice in here,
whether you all out thererealize it or not, but we're
going to go a little bit evenmore straightforward. So let's
say there's somebody out theresitting that's that's sitting in
inaction, but, but they've gotthe inkling that it's not right.
Maybe there's somebody on atraditional path like

(28:37):
engineering or law or evenfinance, and they they're
thinking, I want to do somethingunconventional. What advice
would you give them? What advicewould you have get? Would you
give yourself if you could 20years ago?

Unknown (28:49):
Yeah, I think first and foremost, it's checking your
inner monolog, right? So what isyour inner critic saying? And
how are they saying it? Right?Because there's, there's
constructive criticism, and thenthere's this bashing yourself,
which I feel like too manypeople get into that trap of
just calling themselves stupidand they're just never going to
be able to learn this stuff. AndI've had to even coach my

(29:11):
daughter through this, right?She's eight years old, and
sometimes she'll be strugglingwith math, and she'll say things
like, I'm just bad at math. AndI have to stop her and say, no,
no, that's not the mindset. It'sjust that this is a hard
problem, so let's break it downand let's figure this out.
Because you are good at math, soit's changing that, that inner
monolog and saying, okay, thesearen't bad things. I just need

(29:34):
to figure this out. I need tofigure out, why am I being
frustrated by this? What'sblocking me here? And honestly,
it sounds so cliche, but itreally, it started for me with
gratitude. It's looking aroundand saying, Okay, what is
working right? What am Igrateful for? What? What's
really happening that I'mactually, I'm really grateful
that these things are happening.And just listening that out

(29:56):
right, and starting a gratitudejournal, it really does make a
difference. It really does makea difference, really

Angie (30:01):
does, and it is scientifically proven. And my
addition to that is, do it inthe morning in the evening,
right? A lot of times I'll tellpeople, wake up and affirmation
E but like, three things you'regrateful for about yourself and
that you're good at. And Iusually say, in three days,
it'll be hard because I havenice hair, is not allowed to be
repeated every day. And then atnight, you three things you were
grateful for that day, and it isscientifically proven. Again,

(30:22):
you're from your scientificphilosophers over here, it is
scientifically proven that thatdoes change your brain chemistry
overnight while you sleep, whenyou end and start the day with a
positive thought,

Unknown (30:32):
Yeah. And it's also, it keeps your energy up all day,
right? I mean, and also, youstart looking out for things to
be grateful for right throughoutthe day, because, again, it's
that particular activatingsystem. It's the thing that will
show you what you're thinkingabout. So if you're thinking
about, hey, you know what? Atthe end of this day, I got to
come up with three things thatI'm grateful for. Guess what?

(30:53):
You're going to find a lot ofgratitude. There are things to
be grateful for during your day,right? A lot of things happen to
you suddenly that wow, I'mreally glad I had that
conversation. I'm really happy Iwas at that meeting. Right?
These are the you're going tostart noticing again, the
moments of your life thatperhaps you should start paying
attention to. So and it's again,it look it also takes a lot of

(31:15):
getting out of your own way,right? I think we spend a lot of
time buried in our phones, headsdown, just sort of scrolling
mindlessly and letting our mindsjust wander and be on autopilot,
because we can't stand beingalone with ourselves. But why is
that? It's because we don't knowtreat ourselves well, right?
Because

Angie (31:31):
we have no grace for ourselves, right? That is very,
very, very good. I want tohighlight that what, what Nick
just said, is part of the reasonwe Doom scroll and and lean into
all the distractions availableto us is because we don't like
being alone with ourselves. Whenwas the last time you ever sat
in a room with absolutelynothing on? Or I'm a big fan of

(31:52):
get outside because it forcesyou to do this. When was the
last time you just spent timewith yourself? Yeah,

Unknown (31:57):
and I mean, that's the thing. Is, I talk to people and
I'm like, meditation has helpedme greatly. And they say, Oh, I
can't meditate, or they say, I'mbad at meditating. It's
impossible. It's impossible thatyou can't and it's impossible to
be bad at it because it'ssitting, it's just sitting
quietly and not thinking,

Angie (32:13):
which we do for hours and hours and hours a day,

Unknown (32:17):
quietly and don't just sit. That's all you have to do.
Just

Angie (32:21):
do anything else. So again, change the perspective.
It isn't meditation. It's justdisconnection, right? Sit with
nothing else for five minutes,right? These are all really
small things, and this is thekind of stuff, by the way. I
gotta tell you, I have afeeling, you know, we've got
competing bookshelves here. Ihave a feeling some of the same
covers are in them, because thisis the stuff I have really

(32:44):
appreciated and found. Found hasmade a difference of like these,
just like very small buthabitual things that you can
lean into that aren't a biglift, right? Sit and be with
yourself for five minutes, spendthree minutes in the morning and
at the end of the day beinggrateful and recognizing what
you have to be thankful for.These are small things that I

(33:05):
actually would challenge you allto do. Nick and I are going to
challenge you to spend one monthdoing. Let's add a third, right?
So we've got meditation,journaling. What's a third?
Small thing we can challengepeople to do for the next month,
and then they can tell us whatit did for them. Yeah,

Unknown (33:20):
I read, read for 20 minutes a day. Read, read any
book. It doesn't matter. Read abook. But I would also urge you
to get a physical book right andactually sit and read, hold the
book, and really be present withthe action of just reading,
right? It gives your mindsomething to do, and again,
you'll learn something, right?And you'll look, I tell people
this. So I met my wife onmatch.com and I attribute that

(33:43):
success to, actually, to TinaFey, because just before I redid
my match.com profile, I readBossy Pants, and she is so funny
in that book. And that book isso well written that I wrote in
that style for my match.com itinfluenced your profile, and it
worked, right? And so, I mean,look, I think that this is, this
is part that's a cheeky littlestory, but, I mean, this is part

(34:05):
of it, right? This is just sortof what you never know, what
you're going to take away from abook. And you know, I look, I'm
going through this with my kidsright now. They're, they're
still my the little one is stilllearning to read. But, you know,
I tell them, Look, once you getpast this learning to read, you
read to learn, and that's whenwhole new worlds open up, right?
Is because you're able to thinkthrough these, these, you know,

(34:26):
things that you're readingabout, and you this, this sort
of gets your brain going. Sothat's kind of my devotional
practice in the morning. Ismeditation, journaling, and then
I read for 20 minutes,

Angie (34:36):
read, write, be, still, just be I love that. I'm a huge
fan of because also, there'ssomething about the tactile of
the pages of the book. Yeah, andI am starting to run out of
room, but I've had

Unknown (34:49):
to do some e reader. I know I do both, but yeah, I
think we both have the sameproblem with collecting books
that we there's a,

Angie (34:55):
I can't remember the name of, there's actually Japanese
word for it, right? I. And the Tthe teen of faith thing is a
fun, a fun little like, justkind of like, as we, as we take
this from this big, meaty, like,it's not actually that. It's
this isn't that hard, but it canfeel heavy if you just don't
know yourself, right? But theteen of faith thing is such a
light and fun way to just put astamp on this that that how

(35:17):
these very small things can, itcan, can impact you. You know, I
have a I have a business growthmastermind. And a couple weeks
ago, one of the guys in it looksat me, and he goes and, do you
think everything can be solvedby a book? And I'm like, it
can't. There's really not thatmuch original thought out there.
You can usually find it. It'sjust which, which perspective
appeals to you. And so to goback

Unknown (35:37):
to the career issue, right? People ask, like, oh, how
do you know all this stuff?Right? And literally, one guy
challenged me that said, there'sno way you can know all of these
things and be wearing these twohats unless you're the smartest
person in the world. It's I readit in a book, man. Look, this is
all written down, right? If youtake the time to actually read
it in the book and study, youwill learn and you will be you

(35:58):
create your own expertise,because you're going to take
your own spin off of what youread and learn and develop your
own systems, right? But again,it's out there. You just have to
be willing to sit down and dothe work and read, because
there's so much information outthere that, honestly, I'm
reading a book now by a Frenchphilosopher the maddening of the

(36:19):
crowd, right? And it's talkingabout the up the upturning of
the markets in the 1600s and1700s and how it's the same,
right? It's just these madcrowds, the same issues that
we're dealing with, AI now,right? Everyone's rushing into
these unknowns, and it's just afrenzy. And is it, I have no I
can't comment at all about theefficacy of it, but it's, that's

(36:41):
human nature and psychology,right? Of, oh man, I see one
person doing it. I better do ittoo. Otherwise I'm gonna miss
out. Bandwagon

Angie (36:49):
Effect is real, and history repeating itself also
real.

Unknown (36:54):
Yeah. I mean, unfortunately, unfortunately.

Angie (36:57):
But I think it's, this is a it's, it's so true in that
these are the moments when youfind yourself and where and when
you also find what you reallyenjoy and can sink your teeth
into. You know, scientificphilosophers here, I believe,
share a similar brain that is asponge that cannot release any
sort of information, even if youwanted to. Because people will
say to me too, like, how do youknow that? And I just once it

(37:18):
goes in, it kind of doesn't comeout, which we use to our
advantages in how we havedesigned our careers. But I
learned that by consuming anddoing it and figuring out what
various perspectives that Igravitated towards, and I I feel
like the the big, big messagehere is lean into yourself and
know yourself and allow, allowthe exploration and allow the

(37:42):
doing that can help you discoveryour career by design.

Unknown (37:47):
Yeah, and it's going to feel horribly scary at the
beginning, right? Because it'shard. It's hard to sit there and
have your thoughts right be theonly thing with you, but to sort
of get over that, you just kindof have to give yourself grace,
right? And anytime thoughts,intrusive thoughts, come in.
Just say, You know what? I'mgonna let that one go and just
go back to that quiet space andcenter yourself. Yeah,

Angie (38:09):
and you're, you're gonna, even if you just continue doing
the same job with this type ofawareness and knowing everything
becomes has a lot less toilbehind it. Grace is a is a
pretty there is an amazing thingabout grace. And so I think
that's a good little reminder toleave you all with. As we how do
we find you and what's next foryou? What are you up to over
there? Yeah,

Unknown (38:30):
no, listen, it's, it's the we're getting into tax
season. So a lot of tax returnsto do, but I also prepare tax
strategies for folks. Obviously,we manage money. You can find me
either at Crownpoint tax.com orshore Haven wealth partners com,
you can anywhere on theinternet, LinkedIn, I'm on
Facebook. I think it's notprivate anymore, just because I

(38:52):
barely go on Facebook anymore.So you guys can find me in a
number of places. But also youcan email me right at Nick at
shorehaven wealth or Nick atCrownpoint tax.com I guess we
can put those in the show notes,but yeah, that's where I'm
around. Follow

Angie (39:07):
along with Nikki makes tax and finance is actually kind
of fun and accessible, which Ithink is awesome. And even some
some greater wisdom around howyou can live and work more
authentically. I love how thatall weaves into this. And you
know, who knew a drinking buddyfrom 25 years ago would end up
being a share share in the samescientific philosophy about life

(39:30):
and career? I love it. Thank youso much. Gotta

Unknown (39:32):
stop saying 25 years ago, I know there's no way I'm
that old. I know. I know, no,

Angie (39:39):
there's no way I'm that age. That's a better way to put
it right. Yeah, I'm gonna haveto sit with myself on that one.
Dick, my old friend, this isamazing to catch up, and I
appreciate you being willing torecord it so we can give
everybody out there some amazingwisdom you've had. You've had an
awesome journey that that hashelped you find yourself, more
importantly than what. Uh, eventhe work you're doing to impact

(40:01):
people, and no matter howstructured your career, your
your professional trajectory is,you have the power to change it,
and you have the power to createit. The best careers are built
not found and Nick and Iencourage you to dig in and seek
out what's right for you. Thankyou so much for joining me for
this edition of no more Mondays.I'll see you next week for
another episode. Thanks.