September 30, 2025 • 53 mins
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
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
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker (00:05):
Welcome to the Mindful Fire Podcast, a show about
crafting a life you love andmaking work optional using the
tools of mindfulness,envisioning, and financial
independence.
I'm your host, Adam Quail, andI'm so glad you're.
If you're ready to start yourMindful Fire journey, go to
mindful fire.org/start anddownload my free envisioning
(00:28):
guide in just 10 minutes.
This guide will help you craft aclear and inspiring vision for
your life.
Again, you can download it forfree@mindfulfire.org slash
start.
Let's jump into today's.
Episode.
Adam Coelho (00:57):
Nirav welcome back to the Mindful Fire Podcast.
I'm so thrilled to have youback.
Thanks for
Nirav Shah (01:02):
having me.
It's been fun.
I enjoyed our last meeting, soI'm excited about our new
meeting.
Adam Coelho (01:08):
Me too.
Yeah, so for the audience, Niravis actually back on the podcast
after a three year hiatus, whichwe were just talking about, and
I cannot believe that it's beenthree years.
But NAAB joined us on episode 64of the podcast to talk about his
first book, and now he has a newbook coming out.
And I'll let him talk about bothof those books.
(01:30):
And, but Nirav I'm thrilled tohave you back and would love to
have you share a little bitabout you for anyone who didn't
catch that episode, and a littlebit about what you've been up to
since we last spoke.
Nirav Shah (01:42):
Sure.
again, thanks for having me.
My name is Nirav Sha and I'm acivil engineer by education.
I ended up being a software
executive.
I have
a travel bug.
I've been to 84 countries.
I worked in dozens of countrieson six continents.
And during all of those things,I realized that there is no end
(02:06):
to this.
It's a red race, and contentmentwas the key to happiness.
So I retired early, said, youknow what?
Let's just hang the hat and moveforward.
And once I retired, I joined acouple of nonprofits to help
them.
And then also found meditation.
I got involved in meditationabout eight years ago and four
(02:29):
years ago, I ended up writing myfirst book, shortcut to
Serenity.
That's when you and I talkedfirst and I had this passion,
Adam, for helping people.
Find that allus you, peacewithin yourself, right?
We all say, yes, there's a peacewithin you, but we can't find
it.
And I have this passion to helppeople find that when I wrote my
(02:52):
first book, we talked about it.
That goal for that project wasto help one person.
If we change one person's life,did our job.
And I'm happy to say that a lotof people came and say, you know
what?
This book changed my life.
So that kind of inspired me towrite the second book.
(03:12):
It's, in the same, John, if youwill.
it's called the SerenityBlueprint, right?
How to find peace with,regardless of what happens
outside.
And that's the key.
cause right now we let whathappens outside affect our inner
peace.
We got a flat tire.
We get upset.
(03:33):
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 externalcondition.
So that's been my passion.
Adam Coelho (03:46):
It's so great to hear.
How about the success of thefirst book and how I, I love the
goal of just helping a singleperson, right?
If we, set these ambitious goalsof, you know, want to help a
million people, whatever, thisand that.
But ultimately it's all aboutjust helping yourself and
helping one person.
(04:07):
Yep.
It can make a huge differenceand that has been my experience
with the podcast.
I used to look at all thedownload numbers and try to get
'em to go up all the time.
and that's fine, but it wasexhausting.
And then instead, speaking ofletting outside conditions
affect my inner peace,completely meaningless numbers,
by the way.
But when I focused instead ontaking in the good, when people
(04:30):
reach out and tell me, oh, Ilove this episode.
Or, this workshop you didchanged my life.
All of those things.
That one person means so muchmore than, a million downloads
and things like that.
So it's cool that that was yourgoal and sounds like it helped
not only one person, but quite afew people in the process.
So that's wonderful to hear.
Nirav Shah (04:51):
And as you mentioned.
sometimes people come to you andsay, It changed your life,
right?
in your case, someone attendedyour workshop and said, Hey, it
really changed my life.
And all I tell them is thatplease pay it forward.
if it helped you try to helpsomeone in a similar situation,
because now you're in a positionto say, I've been through it.
(05:11):
I can help you.
So that's all I ask.
Please pay it forward.
So
Adam Coelho (05:15):
yeah that's great.
And so, yeah, walk us through,you know, the new, the new book
and what, what's in it, what aresome of the lessons that that
brought you to, write it andwould love to Yeah.
Just to hear more about it.
Nirav Shah (05:29):
Absolutely.
So, again, as you know, we areall learning right as we go
along.
So we learned few lessons fromthe first book, and based on
that, I put together this secondbook in different sections.
So we thought it would be goodto start with a section on
foundation of serenity, right?
What it means to have positiveoutlook in life, right?
(05:52):
And then we go into howhappiness is an inside job.
And give you an example.
I don't know about you.
You probably, you live in EastCoast, so you also like pizza,
I'm assuming I do, but I lovepizza.
And you gimme a slice of pizza.
I'm in heaven, right?
Second slice.
I love it.
The third slice I eat, I'musually not too thrilled.
(06:15):
Now if I continue eating, if Ieat seven, eight slices, I'll
throw up, right?
So that tells me that if pizzawas happiness right, I would be
happy with 10th, 11, 12th.
20 it slice, but I'm not.
So that means happiness is notoutside.
And that's just an example,right?
Same thing goes for money,right?
(06:37):
So happiness is inside job.
we talk about, that we need tolearn to go inside ourselves.
And way to do that is to changeour mind, right?
Change your mind, change yourworld, right?
I truly believe in that.
And then I touch on somethingcalled is money a drug?
let me kind of set this up.
(06:58):
About, year or so ago, I was ona long flight and I'm watching
this documentary about thesepeople.
The scientists are giving sugarto rats and more sugar.
They gave them more, they gotused to with it.
And, they needed more and moresugar to get stimulus.
And that got me thinking that ismoney a drug?
(07:21):
So I started doing research, Andif you think about it, right
when I first started someone, myfirst job, they gave me a$2 an
hour raise.
And I was thrilled, right?
I was excited at peak of mycareer.
If somebody gave me$2 an hourraise, I would be insulted,
right?
So the same two bucks, whatchanged?
(07:44):
Two bucks is two bucksregardless, right?
What changes is your value ofmoney, right?
So I started doing research onthis and I found something very
interesting.
Adam, in your city of Minnesotadid a research in the Chinese
campus.
I didn't know they had a Chinesecampus, but they did a research
in this Chinese campus.
And there are two groups ofpeople.
(08:05):
To one group, they gave ahundred dollars bills to count
to other group.
They gave just piece of paper tocount, just blank Once they were
done counting, they put 122degree Fahrenheit hot water bowl
in front of them and asked themto dip their fingers in it.
The people who had plain pieceof paper, got burned and people
(08:29):
who were counting money didn'tfeel a thing.
I was like, wow, that's kind ofinteresting.
So then they did another studyand okay, let's help people with
their loved ones and then, havethem put their fingers in hot
water bowl.
Same thing.
They didn't feel anything, sotheir conclusion was that people
equate money with love.
(08:50):
And I was like, wow, somethingtotally different, right?
So I was very fascinated by it.
I started doing more and moreresearch 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 somethingunexpected that excessive saving
habits can be a form of moneyaddiction.
(09:12):
And that was news to me, Thosewho save excessively tend to
believe that more money willbring more happiness.
I was like, wow.
and then I started gettingdeeper into it and found this
book coined by a guy named KabiSegal.
And he's found that money hassimilar effect on your brain as
(09:33):
cocaine.
So neuroeconomist, they didbrain scans who were about to
make money, and the results werestaggering, right?
According to him, those makingmoney showed the same
neurological response in theirpleasure centers as those high
on cocaine.
Think about that.
That is out of this world,right?
(09:53):
did not expect that.
Adam Coelho (09:55):
Pretty interesting.
Nirav Shah (09:56):
So that's kind of how I started.
That's the first section of mybook.
Go ahead.
Adam Coelho (10:00):
No, it's very interesting.
I mean, it's, I've never donecocaine, but I have made a
little bit of money, but, I canrelate to, especially in the
entrepreneurial sense, right?
Like, if I get my paycheck at myW2 job, that happens
automatically.
But if I.
Earn money through myentrepreneur, I get super
pumped.
I'm like very excited.
(10:20):
Yeah.
so could see that makes sense.
Nirav Shah (10:22):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And, that's the thing, right?
When you are making a paycheckand things have changed in a
sense that we are in digitalworld, you don't even see a
paycheck anymore, Right.
The money just goes in your bankaccount.
So I'm assuming that thatprobably has reduced some of
that, like, you know, as if, asopposed to somebody actually
gave you a paycheck, I'm sure itwould have a different effect.
(10:44):
Right?
I just don't know.
But, I think that would be aninteresting study as well.
In fact, they did that studywith credit cards, this was 25,
30 years ago, visa did a studyand noticed that people who pay
cash, and that's why that's oneof the reason try to pay cash
with everything and not usecredit card.
As opposed to if you just swipethe credit card where there's a
(11:05):
$2 or$200 the same signature.
Right?
So you don't have effect.
I just spent a couple of hundredbucks.
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 bookwith 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 discussionduring 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 squarefeet house?
Especially once, kids are nolonger at home, right?
(11:51):
When kids are out of house, Whatdo you need?
And so go into how much isenough?
Because I think that's the keyto contentment.
wall Street has a number, youand I discussed that.
But more importantly, we need tofigure out that, do we need to
consume as much as we consume?
Okay.
Do we need that new iPhonesixteen, eighteen, twenty five,
(12:13):
whatever the heck it number isnow, Mm-hmm.
Every year, It's their job tokeep pushing on us, but I think
we need to realize, I remember,I don't know about you, I
remember cell phone lasting fouror five years.
Right now they're designed thatthey'll start, slow down in two
years, Yeah.
we consume so much.
I think it's the consumptionkeeps, wanting us to make more
(12:37):
and more and more.
And that's what keeps us in therace.
So the keeping up with theJoneses is what I'm trying to
avoid.
Go ahead.
Adam Coelho (12:44):
Got it.
And I guess it's is the thesisthat, if money is a drug, you
get a little money and you wantmore money, Because you need
more and more money To keepgetting the same good feeling or
high in the sense of a drug, youget a little bit of drug.
your body reacts, you have agreat time or whatever, and then
(13:05):
you want more.
And so is that kind of thethesis that you get a little
money, you want more money?
Nirav Shah (13:10):
Yeah.
And, and I go into somethingcalled life versus lifestyle,
Why do you want more money?
You want more money because youkeep adding to your lifestyle.
Instead of living your life,enjoying life, you're trying to
enjoy lifestyle and that'ssomething you're never going to
end chasing if you keep going,It's keeping up with Jones's
(13:31):
syndrome, Mm-hmm.
Because if you enjoy your life,you're happy with who you are,
then you won't need that nextbig thing, You won't need the
next best car.
And if you don't need the nextbest car, then presumably you
won't chase money as much.
So I go into life versuslifestyle a little bit, and once
(13:52):
I set that up, I go into, how doyou adapt to this constant
change your life brings?
Okay?
Because if you think about itall day long, we are trying to
fix things, We call it, puttingout fires, right?
Mm-hmm.
And instead of that, I say,let's look at it.
(14:12):
Our choices we make in our life,some of the culprits I identify
are comparison, right?
We compare ourselves withothers, right?
Why do we do that?
And then in general, people areafraid of uncertainty.
So I talk about how we shouldembrace uncertainty, okay?
And I give an example.
(14:33):
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 GoldmanSachs.
I'm not kidding you.
Okay?
He showed me his numbers, okay?
And I asked him, I interviewedhim.
I said, Mitch, tell me.
(14:54):
What it is that makes yousuccessful when 99.99% of the
retail people who try to daterate fail, right.
They lose money.
And he said something veryinteresting.
He said, Nira, I go into a daynot expecting anything.
I look at what the market bringsand that's it.
I'm not expecting market to goup.
I'm not expecting market to godown.
(15:16):
And I thought that was such aprofound 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 thatexpectation 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 mastermindprogram, the Fire Starter
Mastermind.
And in the workshops that I'mdoing for companies, my ask
what's possible workshop,essentially, in both of those,
I'm getting people to thinkreally 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 thatnext chapter.
Right.
Whether it's, as a team or as anindividual who's looking to,
make the jump into earlyretirement.
Yeah.
A lot of people don't know whatthey want, but at the same time,
I also try to teach that there'sa difference between a vision
(16:16):
and expectations or a goal.
A goal, right.
Yeah.
And basically the difference inmy 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 exactlylike that, you're disappointed.
Yeah.
And so it's very easy to setyourself up for failure.
(16:39):
And it's very subtle as well.
Like you don't even know you'resetting expectations sometimes.
Yeah.
I'll give an example, like,well, let me just say first a
vision on the other hand, as Iteach 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.
(17:00):
Right?
And so if you have set thatvision as an expectation, you
are setting yourself up to bedisappointed.
But if you instead just say,that would be awesome if this
happened and you stay open towhen and how it actually comes
about, and you do what I callplant the seeds with envisioning
practices.
You, you talk about your vision,you visualize it, you journal
(17:23):
about it, you take actiontowards it.
If you put, plant those seedslittle by little, when the
opportunity presents itself,you'll be ready to take action
on it and you'll be ready tostep into that, that thing you
envisioned.
But the, if it's an expectationand you're expecting it to,
happen in the next three months,you're probably gonna be
(17:44):
disappointed.
And this has happened to me,even though I literally, this is
so meta, the way this is allcoming out for me is, I spent
all of last month planning aworkshop for, executive
administrative assistants atGoogle.
Essentially, I had had somesuccess, bringing my workshop to
Google since leaving, and Iwanted to do more.
(18:07):
So I said, okay, let me.
Instead of just like trying tosell these administrative
business partners by coldemailing them, let me offer them
something and invite them tothis workshop.
And I got like a hundred of themto 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 upand 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 Ihad this expectation that it
(18:47):
would be a flood of interest inmy workshop and everyone would
want to get me booked for theiroffsite and their things.
And that has not materializedyet.
I was disappointed.
And, it was a little bitovershadowing all the good that
happened, right?
I very much set this goal orthis, my vision for this year is
(19:09):
really to plant seeds, right?
And in this case, I knew that Iwas planting seeds with these,
administrative businesspartners, but I also had this
under the surface expectationthat was distracting me from the
fact, like I did what I needed.
Essentially, I was expecting thefruit from the seed immediately
(19:30):
after I planted it, which isjust not how things work.
Yeah.
And so this is a bit of a longstory, but, expectations really
are the thing that sets us upfor failure.
Nirav Shah (19:42):
absolutely.
and that's why I don't like theword goal.
Because like you mentioned,right?
Goal has a specific date and aspecific 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 changeas the circumstances change.
See, goal does not let you makechanges, right?
It's out there and that's aboutit.
But circumstances change, thingsaround you change.
So you gotta make changes.
you mentioned expectations andyou mentioned something, fruit
of your labor.
you put the seed.
(20:11):
So when in fact on Saturday, Itaught 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 aseed.
Let's say you plant a seed,right?
The right things have to happen.
(20:32):
You need to have a rightfertilizer, right?
You need to have, right amountof water.
Sun, sunshine.
Mm-hmm.
Everything has to happen in acertain way for it to grow.
that's exactly what it is.
You're planting the seed.
It may take a long time and youjust don't know how long, right?
Mm-hmm.
Before it materializes.
(20:52):
Krishna, you heard of Krishna.
He's, he is an Indian, Lord, ifyou will, right?
Yeah.
He said in, in the Epic Moha,which was an Indian epic, and
there's a Indian textbook calledGita, which is Indian Bible, if
you will, and he said in that,that, and I'm gonna say
something in San and I'lltranslate for you, meaning that
(21:15):
you do your work withoutexpecting fruits of your labor.
Let let the chips fall wherethey 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 relevanttoday that we need to make sure
that we do our part.
if we set up a vision, then weneed to make sure that we
execute on that vision, ofcourse.
But beyond that, it's not in ourhead.
It's tough to change one person,forget, 35 people.
(21:45):
So let, best thing you can do ischange yourself if something you
don't like.
And something I talk about thatin the book as well, is that, if
we move away from self,self-focus, right?
Mo freedom fromself-consciousness, if you will,
right?
Because a lot of time peoplehave what I call this victim
mindset, right?
(22:07):
there are people who alwayscomplain, they say, why me?
Mm-hmm.
And I found that people who askwhy me are usually not happy,
they tend to be miserable.
And we need to move away fromthis victim mindset of why me
and create the abundance mindsetof why not me.
Right.
(22:27):
I had a friend, Adam, about 25years ago, he was diagnosed with
terminal cancer.
And when he was diagnosed, Iwould call him once a week and
he said, how are you doing?
we'll just talk.
And he was a philosophy guy, sowe'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
(22:51):
anything to do with where youwork?
That he used to work in chemicalindustry?
He says, I know where you'retrying to go.
I said, you're trying to say whyme?
But he says, I have threebeautiful daughters.
I have wonderful wife, I havegreat job, a nice house.
And I was having all of that.
(23:11):
I never asked the question, whyme?
What right do I have now that Ihave this terminal cancer to ask
why me?
And I thought it was such abeautifully put, right?
Mm-hmm.
That's the abundance mindset.
Mm-hmm.
Because then you are doing whatneeds to be done rather than
being miserable about what itis.
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 thework 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 Iwant to.
Yeah.
Right.
So let me plant the seeds, letme show up, create this
experience for them.
(23:54):
Yeah.
And that's, how I approached it.
of course I mentioned myworkshop during the session, but
I wasn't like salesy.
I was just giving and I had agreat time.
Exactly.
So I don't need to, have thisexpectation that those seeds
need to bear fruit immediately.
Yeah.
and so I think that makes a tonof sense.
(24:15):
What is your advice to people onhow to maybe recognize their.
Expectations and let go of them.
Right.
I was gonna say like, not haveexpectations, but that's
probably very challenging if atall possible.
So I guess it would be how doyou recognize when you're
setting expectations and how doyou either hold them lightly or
(24:37):
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 personallyis to move those expectations
into vision, into fluidity, ifyou will.
So whenever I have expectations,right?
Instead of saying, let's takeyour example.
Instead of saying, I want tohave 20 workshop in two years,
(25:02):
right?
Instead of putting that, say, Iwanna put seeds that people
start calling me to have thoseworkshops, and I wanna try to
help more and more people.
Now it's fluid.
First of all, there's no numberto it.
It's still expectations, butit's fluid.
The second thing is that onceit's fluid, the first one you
(25:23):
do, the first one shows up.
You're excited because that'sone 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 entrepreneursthere, there are years when you
just plant seeds and there areyears when you harvest.
(25:48):
and that means that if it's notgoing your way yet, then you
say, it's not my year to harvestyet.
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 awayfrom the specificity and the
timeline being so rigid and moveinto kind of like, it would be
great if this happened, right?
Like, I would love to see thishappen.
And, I think also what you saidabout, recognizing and measuring
success, always very helpful,right?
(26:25):
There's a book called The Gap inthe Gain, which is exactly about
this.
The gap is essentially the whereyou are to where you think you
should be.
That's the gap.
And instead, if you measurebackwards from where you came
from and the progress thatyou're making, you are going to
be happier because absolutely.
You're not in this place ofscarcity or this place of lack.
(26:47):
You are actually in this placeof appreciation.
Absolutely.
yeah, that has been helpful forme 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 mybrain for at least close to 20
years now, not to live in thegap, right?
Mm-hmm.
And see how far I come.
So, one thing I tell people alot of time I find that people
are miserable because theycompare themselves with somebody
else.
(27:16):
unless you Elon Musk, last timewe talked about this, in a
podcast, I said, unless you'reElon 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 youhave to compare, compare
yourself with a previous versionof you.
Mm-hmm.
See where you were and see howfar you come in life.
You'll be amazed, I think Imentioned this last time when I
was in grad school, my goal inlife was to write one article in
(27:49):
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 anddidn'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 ofjoy.
And most people they end upcomparing themselves to, their
neighbor, their friend, whoever.
And it's a downward spiral in myopinion.
Adam Coelho (28:19):
Absolutely.
Yeah, I think that that makes aton of sense.
And like in my case, I canmeasure and compare myself to
myself and just measure theprogress that I'm making.
Like, I planted 35 seeds withthose people where they
experienced my workshop.
Yeah.
I helped those 35 people.
The feedback was amazing.
(28:39):
Like they loved it.
And that in itself is great.
Yeah.
I planted, a hundred or moreseeds, A hundred people signed
up, but I sent emails toprobably 500 people.
Yeah.
So those are all seeds that areplanted.
I'm getting clearer on what I'moffering.
I'm getting like, there's somuch progress, that it's
(29:01):
important to take in because I,that's the thing that I'm, the
biggest, tomorrow I'm actuallyrecording 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'mnot far enough along in my
business.
And the reality of the situationis I've been planting seeds,
(29:25):
I've been learning, I've beengrowing, it's all good.
And my intention was to plantseeds.
So I don't need to do anythingbeyond that.
Everything else is gravy.
Nirav Shah (29:35):
Yeah.
I mean, think about 10 monthsago 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 youdid when you first started,
right?
Mm-hmm.
Your episode three or episodefour, right?
And you look at your episode180, right?
Mm-hmm.
There's a huge improvementthere.
Adam Coelho (29:58):
Absolutely.
Nirav Shah (29:59):
That's a progress.
Yeah.
So we, we start looking back atour own success, our own and
most importantly and Adam, youmust appreciate this, that you
are home to spend time with yourkids.
Mm-hmm.
Which is a luxury for mostpeople, okay?
Mm-hmm.
Your 6-year-old is thrilled tosee you when he comes home from,
(30:20):
school, right?
Mm-hmm.
Most people don't see them untillike 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 justcoming back to appreciation,
right?
Like, I literally am living thelife that I envisioned for
years, right?
And it's.
Easy to get caught in.
Well, I'm not there yet, eventhough like the goal is
(30:50):
arbitrary and meaninglessanyways, but it's like, no, I am
literally like, every coupledays I'm like, wait, this is it.
This is literally what I wanted.
Yeah.
And I'm living it, so appreciatethat.
And it's just, yeah, so I'd loveto explore more like this idea
of enough, we talked about itlast time.
(31:12):
Yeah.
I still haven't fully, stillhaven't fully come to terms with
what is enough, on the moneyside, on the achievement side,
on the whatever.
Like for me, I'm, I'm like inthat skills finder test or
whatever.
I'm a, I'm a maximizer, so I'malways pushing.
I always want more.
(31:32):
And that has been helpful in mylife, but also at some point is
not helpful.
And so.
It's like, what advice do youhave for peop in the book in, in
your life for how do you, whatis 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 noend to it.
I look at where you are sittingright now, it's a beautiful
background.
I mean, look at where you areright now, right?
It's an amazing place, right?
You've got two kids, right?
Like you said, you have time tospend with your kids, right?
(32:11):
As long as you have food on thetable, right?
A shelter, you are ahead of99.9% of the rest of the world.
Warren Buffet calls this ovarianlottery.
He says, you are successfulbecause you're born here, or
you're born somewhere.
Compared to if you were born insome remote place in Africa, you
(32:31):
wouldn't be where you areregardless of how smart you are,
right?
Mm-hmm.
For the most part.
If we take, notes of that andsay, you know what, I'm happy
where I am in life because whatdo I need to leave?
Let's start there.
If you first thing, now I'mgetting into financial, stuff,
but first thing that's okay isto pay off your house, right?
(32:52):
That's the first thing.
In my opinion.
Most people disagree with me.
A lot of people disagree withme.
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, Idon't believe in that.
I think if you have a shelter,which is paid for and a car
which is paid for now, yourexpense are minuscule If you
(33:12):
think about it.
Unless you have some gamblingaddiction or something like
that, that would be different.
That's a different thing.
Other than that, groceries arenot expensive, Adam.
Okay.
Relatively speaking.
So you take a toll on yourexpenses.
Once these two are paid for, youdon't need that much money.
Okay.
(33:33):
And you and I had the discussionbefore that I'm not a big fan of
4% rule.
But even at 4% rule, 25 pertimes your expenses, once you're
more, you don't have a mortgage,your expenses are not that much.
Lot of people want to leavemoney for their kids.
They say, well, yes, I haveenough to leave for myself, but
what about my kid?
(33:55):
And I tell them, listen, yourkids came with their own karma.
Okay?
You turned out fine.
Your kids will turn out fine.
And let's say you give them amillion bucks each.
If it's not in their karma tohave that million bucks each,
you could lose a million bucksin Vegas in five minutes, right?
Mm-hmm.
(34:15):
it's just not, if it's not meantto be, it won't be there.
So why worry about, yes, youtake care of your kids, you give
them the best education, moneycan buy, but beyond that, let's
not, work like a dog so thatyour kids may have something
someday, which they may or maynot be able to keep, right?
So this having enough startswith the mindset that, I'm happy
(34:39):
where I'm in life.
Universe gives me what I needwhen I need it, right?
And then let's just leave it atthat.
And that's not only the moneypart, 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?
(35:00):
Because you want achieve moreand more and more, and that
takes you away from goal inlife.
Goal in life, in my opinion, isto be peaceful, joyful,
blissful, all the time.
Okay?
How many times have you had asingle day, 24 hours, where you
haven't had a single negativethought in your head, Never.
(35:22):
Never, I only had eight.
I could count on one hand,That's scary.
And in this bigger life, We havehad handful of days, and that's
about it.
That means we are not living thelife the way it meant to be.
Because every one of us have theability.
To be happy all the time, We, Imean you, you are married.
(35:44):
When you married it, you are atpeace with yourself, So you know
that it's in there.
Why can't we expand it for 24hours, Because it's already
there, Because we are puttingdirt around it.
Why call this golden nuggets?
Not, I budha call it goldennugget, but it's a golden nugget
which allows you to access thispiece within you.
(36:05):
But we put this dirt around thisgolden nugget all day long,
which creates stress, anxiety,jealousy, hatred, attachment,
and all that good stuff, right?
So if we try to move away fromthat, then how much is enough
solve itself?
Because now you realize that Ireally don't need that much,
right?
'cause let's not chase for thisIUs you goal.
(36:29):
Right, because again, did youread, Elon Musk biography by
Walter Isaac?
Adam Coelho (36:34):
I read one of them.
Okay.
an Elon Musk biography, but itmight 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 atthe end of that book, what I
came away with was this guyneeds 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 theinternet find his personal
(37:02):
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 onit.
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 helpyou.
But he obviously, didn't take meup.
But the point is that if youkeep 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 ushappiness.
Sure.
Yeah.
And he himself will tell youthat he's not happy.
Adam Coelho (37:38):
Yeah.
Nirav Shah (37:39):
Right.
So coming back to this, how muchis enough context, right?
Yeah.
We need to realize that, moneyis not going to buy us happiness
no matter what we end upchasing, right?
So let's enjoy with what we havehere and now.
Life's fragile.
That's the other thing we needto understand.
You know, we all, know that weare gonna die, but we don't
(38:01):
think about we are gonna dietoday, right?
There's no guarantee, right?
I don't know.
You heard, I'm sure you heardabout 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 whereit crashed.
One of my good friend, he washead of the department at a
medical, facility, which wasjust a mile from there.
Okay.
Now his students die becausepain crashed on a dorm.
A medical dorm.
Mm-hmm.
(38:31):
Okay.
Think about that.
I was reading, a Facebook postof 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 orsomething.
And he's no more, right?
So life's fragile.
So why wait to spend time withour loved ones, right?
(38:55):
Why say, you know what, I'lltake you to vacation, Tommy.
Next, we'll go fishing.
You know, next month or nextyear.
This year, dairy is really busyor whatever, right?
Mm-hmm.
Why do that?
Why not spend, because Tommy'sgonna remember, my dad and I
went fishing.
Tommy's not gonna remember mydad had a million bucks.
Okay.
And that's very important point.
(39:15):
I think we need to realize that.
one real quick thing, I saw thisthing my LinkedIn page.
It showed up, where a kid asks,there, how much money do you
make an hour?
And there says a hundred bucksor something.
So he goes, finds this piggybank.
He says, I don't know how muchit is, but can you spend an hour
(39:36):
with me?
Right.
Think about that.
Mm-hmm.
and I'm sure that that's a jokeor whatever, but that's how it's
become for the most part.
Adam Coelho (39:43):
Yeah.
No, I, I resonate a lot with allof that.
And, yeah.
It's, with me pursuing thisbusiness and all of this and,
you know, I've gotten into agood rhythm with it and good
balance, but I still, my son ishere, my younger son is here,
like hanging out with our nannywho's great, and allows us to
do, things that we need to do.
(40:03):
But, like at some point it'slike I could just turn off the
computer.
I don't need to sit at thecomputer or writing emails or
whatever I'm doing.
When my son is.
Wanting to play.
Right?
Yeah.
Like, it just, I don't need themoney.
Right.
Exactly.
So it's finding a balance andkind of staying in check with
the expectations versus thevision.
(40:23):
Right.
It doesn't need to happen superquick.
I just, and what's happeningsuper 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 keeptelling my friends that, I'm not
saying don't do it, but I'msaying don't put stress on
yourself.
Right.
Enjoy the journey.
Enjoy the process.
Because if you say, okay, I'mgonna 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
(41:02):
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 enjoyit.
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 ofhouse.
you're not gonna get that timeback.
Enjoy as much as you can rightnow.
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 bookand talk a little bit about, a
little bit more on, I guessfirst like, define serenity and
then like what are the, dailypractices or, or methods that
you recommend to actuallyoperationalize this.
Right.
Because as I said, I understandall of this.
Yeah.
I'm aware of it.
(41:44):
I've taught some of it, and yetit's hard to do In practice.
So tell me a little bit aboutkind of how you counsel people
in the book on, on making this adaily practice.
Nirav Shah (41:54):
Absolutely.
So the serenity to me meansinner peace.
Okay.
To be peaceful, joyful, blissfulat 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 Igo and break it down in the book
as to what are different issuesthat may show up, which disturbs
our serenity.
We talked about comparison isone thing people do all the
time.
Victim mindset.
Right.
How do we get away from that?
(42:27):
Right?
We talk about that.
Then I talk about, equanimity inrelationships, because that's
the big piece in Serenity if youthink about it, right?
If we keep our ego in check,right?
And we talk about how to dothat, right?
It goes a long way in having agood relationship with everyone
else, right?
There's a disharmony amongst us,right?
(42:49):
How to approve that disharmony,right?
We have people who disagree witheach other all the time, how to
be compassionate whiledisagreeing.
And I'll give you an example inthe book, my attorney from day
one, right?
When I started my business, himand I retired about the same
time, and we became very goodfriends.
So we meet once a quarternowadays, and once we're sitting
(43:13):
down and he says, Nera, I love.
Our quarterly meeting, and I'lltell you why.
I said, why?
And he says, well, everyone Iknow, my family, my friends, my
social media feed, everything isan echo chamber.
We all think the same way.
We all believe in the samephilosophy.
(43:33):
Our political, religious,everything is the same.
And when I sit down with you, Iget a different perspective.
And I like to understand, howeveryone else thinks, right?
And we lost that in our society,right?
We used to be able to talk topeople.
Now, families don't talk to eachother just because their
political, perspective isdifferent, right?
(43:55):
So I talk about, how to becompassionate while disagreeing,
right?
We talk about forgive andforget.
forgiveness is a big thing inserenity business, right?
Because if you hold grudges, youare not gonna have mind.
it's tough to be peaceful whileholding grudges.
then we talk about how wereplace negatives with positive,
right?
(44:15):
So greed, how do you handlegreed?
How do you handle hatred?
I also have a chaplain in thebook, Adam, on War and stress.
And reason I wrote that is whenthe Ukraine war first started,
when Russia invaded, Ukraine, Ihad a lot of anxiety.
And at first I didn't realizewhere that anxiety was coming
(44:37):
from.
I meditate twice a day, and Ijust couldn't let it go.
It stayed within me.
And then.
I realized that it was comingfrom this war related news.
So I stopped consuming news andwithin about one day, my anxiety
went away.
So I did more research on howwar, which again, we are not an
(44:57):
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 beingfearful to being courageous.
all of these things people gothrough on a daily basis.
So I said best way to teachSerenity is to figure out what
(45:18):
is an obstacle to serenity, andthen how to remove that on your
daily practice, right?
So we talk about all that, butmain thing I talk about in terms
of daily practice is, if youcan.
Spend 15 minutes a daymeditating.
And I have guided meditations,on my website, meditative
men.org.
(45:39):
We have audio meditationsabsolutely free.
We have about 16 or someditations there, 13 to 15
minutes each where you listenand follow.
If you can't do that, or even ifyou 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 meditationcushion and everything's great.
(46:04):
We feel peaceful, and then westart working.
We got into a meeting, somebodysaid something, and all of a
sudden it disturbs our peace,right?
If we get into these 10 deepbreaths 10 times a day, then it
brings us back to our centerand.
keeps us mindful so that allthat negativity around us, which
(46:24):
happened, goes away andhopefully keeps us, in peaceful
mode for at least next hour orso until we do another 10 deep
breaths.
So if you do 10 deep breaths 10times 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 watchnowadays, right?
So if you just put an alarm onyour Apple watch, it reminds
you.
And my son, he is a young kid.
He's in Silicon Valley and he'snot a meditator.
He's like, he is young, he isnot, bought into this concept
yet, but for last six months orso.
(47:04):
He at least says, it helps metake deep breaths.
So he puts on his Apple watchand 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'sprogress.
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 exactlywhat your answers were, but if,
if they're the same, they'regood ones.
If they're new ones, they'regood ones.
so the first question, Nirav isabout your vision.
(47:43):
You know, we talk a lot aboutenvisioning here and, and kind
of thinking up, up a big visionfor your life.
I'm curious, you're in this newchapter.
I mean, you've been in thisretirement chapter for a while.
You're teaching meditation,you're writing books.
What is your big vision for thenext, say five years of your
life?
Nirav Shah (48:00):
So when I wrote the first book, right?
shortcut to Serenity, like Imentioned, my vision was to have
one person same goal is we wannahelp as many people as possible
find that elusive piece within.
Good thing is this book went onthe chart very fast in two days.
We were number one new releaseon Amazon.
nice.
Congratulations.
Yeah.
Thank you.
it's awesome that people areresponding to it, but most
(48:24):
importantly, I'm hoping thatpeople will actually, read one
chapter a day and then, meditateon it and find peace within
themselves long term.
I have two goals in mind.
One's meditation related, andone non-meditation related.
non-meditation.
I have this travel bug.
I mentioned that to you, Adam.
I wanna, cover a hundredcountries before I die, and I've
(48:46):
been to 84, so I'm makingprogress, 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 nutritionand I want you.
Awesome.
Adam Coelho (48:59):
Okay.
Wonderful.
Nirav Shah (49:00):
Yeah.
And then the second vision is tobe 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 workshoprecently.
I would like to go from city tocity presenting a karma
workshop.
I think that would be awesome.
If someday it happens, great.
(49:21):
If it doesn't, that's okay too.
Adam Coelho (49:23):
Very cool.
Where's, where's next on thetravel list?
Nirav Shah (49:26):
this year it's been slow because my dad, was,
diagnosed with stage fourcancer.
Mm-hmm.
So, I'm actually to India and,he's 85.
He's lived full life, so we areall, we just wanna make sure he
doesn't suffer.
That's our only goal.
Mm-hmm.
so I'm gonna spend a couple ofmonths with him in India, I'm
leaving in a month or so.
And then after that, may I go toSri Lanka and Nepal are the two
(49:49):
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 theirpath 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 firststarting, as we make money, we
tend to spend money, on a muchrapid rate.
And as you know, right, this isa compounding business, right?
(50:28):
More you save early more, it'sgonna show up later in the life.
So that's one advice I give isthat, you know, keep an eye on
your expenses.
I'm not saying don't spendmoney, I'm just saying keep an
eye on it.
Because saving early, more youcompound 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 startedwith meditation and or
mindfulness?
Nirav Shah (50:53):
That's an excellent question.
Make a daily practice.
I use the word practice becauseit is practice.
Don't get discouraged becauseyou think you're not focusing.
Every time you realize that youlost your focus is progress.
That means that you are beingmindful.
Okay?
So try to make a daily practiceand then to be mindful
(51:15):
throughout the day.
Take 10 deep breaths, 10 times aday.
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 inthroughout the day would be
very, very powerful for me.
Narab, the last question is, howcan people find you online?
I think you mentioned yourwebsite, but say it again.
(51:41):
and how can people find yourbooks?
Nirav Shah (51:43):
Sure.
So, both of my books are onAmazon, shortcut to Serenity and
the Serenity Blueprint.
They are in both ebook as wellas the paper book format.
If you want guided meditation,go to my, blog meditative
man.org.
I also have recorded, meditationsessions on YouTube, on a
(52:04):
channel Meditative Man.
And then I'm on LinkedIn nearDenver.
Is my handle on LinkedIn.
If you want to reach out to me,meditate denver@gmail.com.
I'm happy to answer anyquestions you may have.
I have, every Tuesday I do Zoommeditations, so if you want to
attend live meditation sessions,again, no cost, meditate
(52:26):
denver@gmail.com.
I'm happy to put you on thelist.
Adam Coelho (52:29):
Wonderful.
Well, I thank you so much forbeing here again, Nirav it was
another great conversation andsome real specific things I can
put into practice and it washelpful just to talk through
kind of what's been going on inmy own life related to this.
so thank you for, the space totalk about that.
Nirav Shah (52:48):
Thanks Adam for having me.
I greatly appreciate you.
and like you mentioned, youknow, intellectually we all know
this thing right.
It's matter of putting it inpractice.
Adam Coelho (52:57):
Absolutely.
Alright, well, we'll see you onthe 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 tothis.
This just lets the platformsknow you're getting value from
the episodes and you want to behere when I release additional
content.
If you're ready to start yourMindful Fire journey, go to
mindful fire.org/start anddownload my free envisioning
(53:26):
guide in just 10 minutes.
This guide will help you craft aclear and inspiring vision for
your life.
Again, you can download it forfree@mindfulfire.org slash
start.
Thanks again and I'll catch younext time on the Mindful Fire
Podcast.
Welcome to the Mindful Fire Podcast, a show about
crafting a life you love andmaking work optional using the
tools of mindfulness,envisioning, and financial
independence.
I'm your host, Adam Quail, andI'm so glad you're.
If you're ready to start yourMindful Fire journey, go to
mindful fire.org/start anddownload my free envisioning
(00:28):
guide in just 10 minutes.
This guide will help you craft aclear and inspiring vision for
your life.
Again, you can download it forfree@mindfulfire.org slash
start.
Let's jump into today's.
Episode.
Adam Coelho (00:57):
Nirav welcome back to the Mindful Fire Podcast.
I'm so thrilled to have youback.
Thanks for
Nirav Shah (01:02):
having me.
It's been fun.
I enjoyed our last meeting, soI'm excited about our new
meeting.
Adam Coelho (01:08):
Me too.
Yeah, so for the audience, Niravis actually back on the podcast
after a three year hiatus, whichwe were just talking about, and
I cannot believe that it's beenthree years.
But NAAB joined us on episode 64of the podcast to talk about his
first book, and now he has a newbook coming out.
And I'll let him talk about bothof those books.
(01:30):
And, but Nirav I'm thrilled tohave you back and would love to
have you share a little bitabout you for anyone who didn't
catch that episode, and a littlebit about what you've been up to
since we last spoke.
Nirav Shah (01:42):
Sure.
again, thanks for having me.
My name is Nirav Sha and I'm acivil engineer by education.
I ended up being a software
executive.
I have
a travel bug.
I've been to 84 countries.
I worked in dozens of countrieson six continents.
And during all of those things,I realized that there is no end
(02:06):
to this.
It's a red race, and contentmentwas the key to happiness.
So I retired early, said, youknow what?
Let's just hang the hat and moveforward.
And once I retired, I joined acouple of nonprofits to help
them.
And then also found meditation.
I got involved in meditationabout eight years ago and four
(02:29):
years ago, I ended up writing myfirst book, shortcut to
Serenity.
That's when you and I talkedfirst and I had this passion,
Adam, for helping people.
Find that allus you, peacewithin yourself, right?
We all say, yes, there's a peacewithin you, but we can't find
it.
And I have this passion to helppeople find that when I wrote my
(02:52):
first book, we talked about it.
That goal for that project wasto help one person.
If we change one person's life,did our job.
And I'm happy to say that a lotof people came and say, you know
what?
This book changed my life.
So that kind of inspired me towrite the second book.
(03:12):
It's, in the same, John, if youwill.
it's called the SerenityBlueprint, right?
How to find peace with,regardless of what happens
outside.
And that's the key.
cause right now we let whathappens outside affect our inner
peace.
We got a flat tire.
We get upset.
(03:33):
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 externalcondition.
So that's been my passion.
Adam Coelho (03:46):
It's so great to hear.
How about the success of thefirst book and how I, I love the
goal of just helping a singleperson, right?
If we, set these ambitious goalsof, you know, want to help a
million people, whatever, thisand that.
But ultimately it's all aboutjust helping yourself and
helping one person.
(04:07):
Yep.
It can make a huge differenceand that has been my experience
with the podcast.
I used to look at all thedownload numbers and try to get
'em to go up all the time.
and that's fine, but it wasexhausting.
And then instead, speaking ofletting outside conditions
affect my inner peace,completely meaningless numbers,
by the way.
But when I focused instead ontaking in the good, when people
(04:30):
reach out and tell me, oh, Ilove this episode.
Or, this workshop you didchanged my life.
All of those things.
That one person means so muchmore than, a million downloads
and things like that.
So it's cool that that was yourgoal and sounds like it helped
not only one person, but quite afew people in the process.
So that's wonderful to hear.
Nirav Shah (04:51):
And as you mentioned.
sometimes people come to you andsay, It changed your life,
right?
in your case, someone attendedyour workshop and said, Hey, it
really changed my life.
And all I tell them is thatplease pay it forward.
if it helped you try to helpsomeone in a similar situation,
because now you're in a positionto say, I've been through it.
(05:11):
I can help you.
So that's all I ask.
Please pay it forward.
So
Adam Coelho (05:15):
yeah that's great.
And so, yeah, walk us through,you know, the new, the new book
and what, what's in it, what aresome of the lessons that that
brought you to, write it andwould love to Yeah.
Just to hear more about it.
Nirav Shah (05:29):
Absolutely.
So, again, as you know, we areall learning right as we go
along.
So we learned few lessons fromthe first book, and based on
that, I put together this secondbook in different sections.
So we thought it would be goodto start with a section on
foundation of serenity, right?
What it means to have positiveoutlook in life, right?
(05:52):
And then we go into howhappiness is an inside job.
And give you an example.
I don't know about you.
You probably, you live in EastCoast, so you also like pizza,
I'm assuming I do, but I lovepizza.
And you gimme a slice of pizza.
I'm in heaven, right?
Second slice.
I love it.
The third slice I eat, I'musually not too thrilled.
(06:15):
Now if I continue eating, if Ieat seven, eight slices, I'll
throw up, right?
So that tells me that if pizzawas happiness right, I would be
happy with 10th, 11, 12th.
20 it slice, but I'm not.
So that means happiness is notoutside.
And that's just an example,right?
Same thing goes for money,right?
(06:37):
So happiness is inside job.
we talk about, that we need tolearn to go inside ourselves.
And way to do that is to changeour mind, right?
Change your mind, change yourworld, right?
I truly believe in that.
And then I touch on somethingcalled is money a drug?
let me kind of set this up.
(06:58):
About, year or so ago, I was ona long flight and I'm watching
this documentary about thesepeople.
The scientists are giving sugarto rats and more sugar.
They gave them more, they gotused to with it.
And, they needed more and moresugar to get stimulus.
And that got me thinking that ismoney a drug?
(07:21):
So I started doing research, Andif you think about it, right
when I first started someone, myfirst job, they gave me a$2 an
hour raise.
And I was thrilled, right?
I was excited at peak of mycareer.
If somebody gave me$2 an hourraise, I would be insulted,
right?
So the same two bucks, whatchanged?
(07:44):
Two bucks is two bucksregardless, right?
What changes is your value ofmoney, right?
So I started doing research onthis and I found something very
interesting.
Adam, in your city of Minnesotadid a research in the Chinese
campus.
I didn't know they had a Chinesecampus, but they did a research
in this Chinese campus.
And there are two groups ofpeople.
(08:05):
To one group, they gave ahundred dollars bills to count
to other group.
They gave just piece of paper tocount, just blank Once they were
done counting, they put 122degree Fahrenheit hot water bowl
in front of them and asked themto dip their fingers in it.
The people who had plain pieceof paper, got burned and people
(08:29):
who were counting money didn'tfeel a thing.
I was like, wow, that's kind ofinteresting.
So then they did another studyand okay, let's help people with
their loved ones and then, havethem put their fingers in hot
water bowl.
Same thing.
They didn't feel anything, sotheir conclusion was that people
equate money with love.
(08:50):
And I was like, wow, somethingtotally different, right?
So I was very fascinated by it.
I started doing more and moreresearch 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 somethingunexpected that excessive saving
habits can be a form of moneyaddiction.
(09:12):
And that was news to me, Thosewho save excessively tend to
believe that more money willbring more happiness.
I was like, wow.
and then I started gettingdeeper into it and found this
book coined by a guy named KabiSegal.
And he's found that money hassimilar effect on your brain as
(09:33):
cocaine.
So neuroeconomist, they didbrain scans who were about to
make money, and the results werestaggering, right?
According to him, those makingmoney showed the same
neurological response in theirpleasure centers as those high
on cocaine.
Think about that.
That is out of this world,right?
(09:53):
did not expect that.
Adam Coelho (09:55):
Pretty interesting.
Nirav Shah (09:56):
So that's kind of how I started.
That's the first section of mybook.
Go ahead.
Adam Coelho (10:00):
No, it's very interesting.
I mean, it's, I've never donecocaine, but I have made a
little bit of money, but, I canrelate to, especially in the
entrepreneurial sense, right?
Like, if I get my paycheck at myW2 job, that happens
automatically.
But if I.
Earn money through myentrepreneur, I get super
pumped.
I'm like very excited.
(10:20):
Yeah.
so could see that makes sense.
Nirav Shah (10:22):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And, that's the thing, right?
When you are making a paycheckand things have changed in a
sense that we are in digitalworld, you don't even see a
paycheck anymore, Right.
The money just goes in your bankaccount.
So I'm assuming that thatprobably has reduced some of
that, like, you know, as if, asopposed to somebody actually
gave you a paycheck, I'm sure itwould have a different effect.
(10:44):
Right?
I just don't know.
But, I think that would be aninteresting study as well.
In fact, they did that studywith credit cards, this was 25,
30 years ago, visa did a studyand noticed that people who pay
cash, and that's why that's oneof the reason try to pay cash
with everything and not usecredit card.
As opposed to if you just swipethe credit card where there's a
(11:05):
$2 or$200 the same signature.
Right?
So you don't have effect.
I just spent a couple of hundredbucks.
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 bookwith 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 discussionduring 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 squarefeet house?
Especially once, kids are nolonger at home, right?
(11:51):
When kids are out of house, Whatdo you need?
And so go into how much isenough?
Because I think that's the keyto contentment.
wall Street has a number, youand I discussed that.
But more importantly, we need tofigure out that, do we need to
consume as much as we consume?
Okay.
Do we need that new iPhonesixteen, eighteen, twenty five,
(12:13):
whatever the heck it number isnow, Mm-hmm.
Every year, It's their job tokeep pushing on us, but I think
we need to realize, I remember,I don't know about you, I
remember cell phone lasting fouror five years.
Right now they're designed thatthey'll start, slow down in two
years, Yeah.
we consume so much.
I think it's the consumptionkeeps, wanting us to make more
(12:37):
and more and more.
And that's what keeps us in therace.
So the keeping up with theJoneses is what I'm trying to
avoid.
Go ahead.
Adam Coelho (12:44):
Got it.
And I guess it's is the thesisthat, if money is a drug, you
get a little money and you wantmore money, Because you need
more and more money To keepgetting the same good feeling or
high in the sense of a drug, youget a little bit of drug.
your body reacts, you have agreat time or whatever, and then
(13:05):
you want more.
And so is that kind of thethesis that you get a little
money, you want more money?
Nirav Shah (13:10):
Yeah.
And, and I go into somethingcalled life versus lifestyle,
Why do you want more money?
You want more money because youkeep adding to your lifestyle.
Instead of living your life,enjoying life, you're trying to
enjoy lifestyle and that'ssomething you're never going to
end chasing if you keep going,It's keeping up with Jones's
(13:31):
syndrome, Mm-hmm.
Because if you enjoy your life,you're happy with who you are,
then you won't need that nextbig thing, You won't need the
next best car.
And if you don't need the nextbest car, then presumably you
won't chase money as much.
So I go into life versuslifestyle a little bit, and once
(13:52):
I set that up, I go into, how doyou adapt to this constant
change your life brings?
Okay?
Because if you think about itall day long, we are trying to
fix things, We call it, puttingout fires, right?
Mm-hmm.
And instead of that, I say,let's look at it.
(14:12):
Our choices we make in our life,some of the culprits I identify
are comparison, right?
We compare ourselves withothers, right?
Why do we do that?
And then in general, people areafraid of uncertainty.
So I talk about how we shouldembrace uncertainty, okay?
And I give an example.
(14:33):
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 GoldmanSachs.
I'm not kidding you.
Okay?
He showed me his numbers, okay?
And I asked him, I interviewedhim.
I said, Mitch, tell me.
(14:54):
What it is that makes yousuccessful when 99.99% of the
retail people who try to daterate fail, right.
They lose money.
And he said something veryinteresting.
He said, Nira, I go into a daynot expecting anything.
I look at what the market bringsand that's it.
I'm not expecting market to goup.
I'm not expecting market to godown.
(15:16):
And I thought that was such aprofound 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 thatexpectation 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 mastermindprogram, the Fire Starter
Mastermind.
And in the workshops that I'mdoing for companies, my ask
what's possible workshop,essentially, in both of those,
I'm getting people to thinkreally 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 thatnext chapter.
Right.
Whether it's, as a team or as anindividual who's looking to,
make the jump into earlyretirement.
Yeah.
A lot of people don't know whatthey want, but at the same time,
I also try to teach that there'sa difference between a vision
(16:16):
and expectations or a goal.
A goal, right.
Yeah.
And basically the difference inmy 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 exactlylike that, you're disappointed.
Yeah.
And so it's very easy to setyourself up for failure.
(16:39):
And it's very subtle as well.
Like you don't even know you'resetting expectations sometimes.
Yeah.
I'll give an example, like,well, let me just say first a
vision on the other hand, as Iteach 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.
(17:00):
Right?
And so if you have set thatvision as an expectation, you
are setting yourself up to bedisappointed.
But if you instead just say,that would be awesome if this
happened and you stay open towhen and how it actually comes
about, and you do what I callplant the seeds with envisioning
practices.
You, you talk about your vision,you visualize it, you journal
(17:23):
about it, you take actiontowards it.
If you put, plant those seedslittle by little, when the
opportunity presents itself,you'll be ready to take action
on it and you'll be ready tostep into that, that thing you
envisioned.
But the, if it's an expectationand you're expecting it to,
happen in the next three months,you're probably gonna be
(17:44):
disappointed.
And this has happened to me,even though I literally, this is
so meta, the way this is allcoming out for me is, I spent
all of last month planning aworkshop for, executive
administrative assistants atGoogle.
Essentially, I had had somesuccess, bringing my workshop to
Google since leaving, and Iwanted to do more.
(18:07):
So I said, okay, let me.
Instead of just like trying tosell these administrative
business partners by coldemailing them, let me offer them
something and invite them tothis workshop.
And I got like a hundred of themto 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 upand 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 Ihad this expectation that it
(18:47):
would be a flood of interest inmy workshop and everyone would
want to get me booked for theiroffsite and their things.
And that has not materializedyet.
I was disappointed.
And, it was a little bitovershadowing all the good that
happened, right?
I very much set this goal orthis, my vision for this year is
(19:09):
really to plant seeds, right?
And in this case, I knew that Iwas planting seeds with these,
administrative businesspartners, but I also had this
under the surface expectationthat was distracting me from the
fact, like I did what I needed.
Essentially, I was expecting thefruit from the seed immediately
(19:30):
after I planted it, which isjust not how things work.
Yeah.
And so this is a bit of a longstory, but, expectations really
are the thing that sets us upfor failure.
Nirav Shah (19:42):
absolutely.
and that's why I don't like theword goal.
Because like you mentioned,right?
Goal has a specific date and aspecific 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 changeas the circumstances change.
See, goal does not let you makechanges, right?
It's out there and that's aboutit.
But circumstances change, thingsaround you change.
So you gotta make changes.
you mentioned expectations andyou mentioned something, fruit
of your labor.
you put the seed.
(20:11):
So when in fact on Saturday, Itaught 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 aseed.
Let's say you plant a seed,right?
The right things have to happen.
(20:32):
You need to have a rightfertilizer, right?
You need to have, right amountof water.
Sun, sunshine.
Mm-hmm.
Everything has to happen in acertain way for it to grow.
that's exactly what it is.
You're planting the seed.
It may take a long time and youjust don't know how long, right?
Mm-hmm.
Before it materializes.
(20:52):
Krishna, you heard of Krishna.
He's, he is an Indian, Lord, ifyou will, right?
Yeah.
He said in, in the Epic Moha,which was an Indian epic, and
there's a Indian textbook calledGita, which is Indian Bible, if
you will, and he said in that,that, and I'm gonna say
something in San and I'lltranslate for you, meaning that
(21:15):
you do your work withoutexpecting fruits of your labor.
Let let the chips fall wherethey 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 relevanttoday that we need to make sure
that we do our part.
if we set up a vision, then weneed to make sure that we
execute on that vision, ofcourse.
But beyond that, it's not in ourhead.
It's tough to change one person,forget, 35 people.
(21:45):
So let, best thing you can do ischange yourself if something you
don't like.
And something I talk about thatin the book as well, is that, if
we move away from self,self-focus, right?
Mo freedom fromself-consciousness, if you will,
right?
Because a lot of time peoplehave what I call this victim
mindset, right?
(22:07):
there are people who alwayscomplain, they say, why me?
Mm-hmm.
And I found that people who askwhy me are usually not happy,
they tend to be miserable.
And we need to move away fromthis victim mindset of why me
and create the abundance mindsetof why not me.
Right.
(22:27):
I had a friend, Adam, about 25years ago, he was diagnosed with
terminal cancer.
And when he was diagnosed, Iwould call him once a week and
he said, how are you doing?
we'll just talk.
And he was a philosophy guy, sowe'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
(22:51):
anything to do with where youwork?
That he used to work in chemicalindustry?
He says, I know where you'retrying to go.
I said, you're trying to say whyme?
But he says, I have threebeautiful daughters.
I have wonderful wife, I havegreat job, a nice house.
And I was having all of that.
(23:11):
I never asked the question, whyme?
What right do I have now that Ihave this terminal cancer to ask
why me?
And I thought it was such abeautifully put, right?
Mm-hmm.
That's the abundance mindset.
Mm-hmm.
Because then you are doing whatneeds to be done rather than
being miserable about what itis.
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 thework 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 Iwant to.
Yeah.
Right.
So let me plant the seeds, letme show up, create this
experience for them.
(23:54):
Yeah.
And that's, how I approached it.
of course I mentioned myworkshop during the session, but
I wasn't like salesy.
I was just giving and I had agreat time.
Exactly.
So I don't need to, have thisexpectation that those seeds
need to bear fruit immediately.
Yeah.
and so I think that makes a tonof sense.
(24:15):
What is your advice to people onhow to maybe recognize their.
Expectations and let go of them.
Right.
I was gonna say like, not haveexpectations, but that's
probably very challenging if atall possible.
So I guess it would be how doyou recognize when you're
setting expectations and how doyou either hold them lightly or
(24:37):
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 personallyis to move those expectations
into vision, into fluidity, ifyou will.
So whenever I have expectations,right?
Instead of saying, let's takeyour example.
Instead of saying, I want tohave 20 workshop in two years,
(25:02):
right?
Instead of putting that, say, Iwanna put seeds that people
start calling me to have thoseworkshops, and I wanna try to
help more and more people.
Now it's fluid.
First of all, there's no numberto it.
It's still expectations, butit's fluid.
The second thing is that onceit's fluid, the first one you
(25:23):
do, the first one shows up.
You're excited because that'sone 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 entrepreneursthere, there are years when you
just plant seeds and there areyears when you harvest.
(25:48):
and that means that if it's notgoing your way yet, then you
say, it's not my year to harvestyet.
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 awayfrom the specificity and the
timeline being so rigid and moveinto kind of like, it would be
great if this happened, right?
Like, I would love to see thishappen.
And, I think also what you saidabout, recognizing and measuring
success, always very helpful,right?
(26:25):
There's a book called The Gap inthe Gain, which is exactly about
this.
The gap is essentially the whereyou are to where you think you
should be.
That's the gap.
And instead, if you measurebackwards from where you came
from and the progress thatyou're making, you are going to
be happier because absolutely.
You're not in this place ofscarcity or this place of lack.
(26:47):
You are actually in this placeof appreciation.
Absolutely.
yeah, that has been helpful forme 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 mybrain for at least close to 20
years now, not to live in thegap, right?
Mm-hmm.
And see how far I come.
So, one thing I tell people alot of time I find that people
are miserable because theycompare themselves with somebody
else.
(27:16):
unless you Elon Musk, last timewe talked about this, in a
podcast, I said, unless you'reElon 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 youhave to compare, compare
yourself with a previous versionof you.
Mm-hmm.
See where you were and see howfar you come in life.
You'll be amazed, I think Imentioned this last time when I
was in grad school, my goal inlife was to write one article in
(27:49):
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 anddidn'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 ofjoy.
And most people they end upcomparing themselves to, their
neighbor, their friend, whoever.
And it's a downward spiral in myopinion.
Adam Coelho (28:19):
Absolutely.
Yeah, I think that that makes aton of sense.
And like in my case, I canmeasure and compare myself to
myself and just measure theprogress that I'm making.
Like, I planted 35 seeds withthose people where they
experienced my workshop.
Yeah.
I helped those 35 people.
The feedback was amazing.
(28:39):
Like they loved it.
And that in itself is great.
Yeah.
I planted, a hundred or moreseeds, A hundred people signed
up, but I sent emails toprobably 500 people.
Yeah.
So those are all seeds that areplanted.
I'm getting clearer on what I'moffering.
I'm getting like, there's somuch progress, that it's
(29:01):
important to take in because I,that's the thing that I'm, the
biggest, tomorrow I'm actuallyrecording 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'mnot far enough along in my
business.
And the reality of the situationis I've been planting seeds,
(29:25):
I've been learning, I've beengrowing, it's all good.
And my intention was to plantseeds.
So I don't need to do anythingbeyond that.
Everything else is gravy.
Nirav Shah (29:35):
Yeah.
I mean, think about 10 monthsago 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 youdid when you first started,
right?
Mm-hmm.
Your episode three or episodefour, right?
And you look at your episode180, right?
Mm-hmm.
There's a huge improvementthere.
Adam Coelho (29:58):
Absolutely.
Nirav Shah (29:59):
That's a progress.
Yeah.
So we, we start looking back atour own success, our own and
most importantly and Adam, youmust appreciate this, that you
are home to spend time with yourkids.
Mm-hmm.
Which is a luxury for mostpeople, okay?
Mm-hmm.
Your 6-year-old is thrilled tosee you when he comes home from,
(30:20):
school, right?
Mm-hmm.
Most people don't see them untillike 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 justcoming back to appreciation,
right?
Like, I literally am living thelife that I envisioned for
years, right?
And it's.
Easy to get caught in.
Well, I'm not there yet, eventhough like the goal is
(30:50):
arbitrary and meaninglessanyways, but it's like, no, I am
literally like, every coupledays I'm like, wait, this is it.
This is literally what I wanted.
Yeah.
And I'm living it, so appreciatethat.
And it's just, yeah, so I'd loveto explore more like this idea
of enough, we talked about itlast time.
(31:12):
Yeah.
I still haven't fully, stillhaven't fully come to terms with
what is enough, on the moneyside, on the achievement side,
on the whatever.
Like for me, I'm, I'm like inthat skills finder test or
whatever.
I'm a, I'm a maximizer, so I'malways pushing.
I always want more.
(31:32):
And that has been helpful in mylife, but also at some point is
not helpful.
And so.
It's like, what advice do youhave for peop in the book in, in
your life for how do you, whatis 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 noend to it.
I look at where you are sittingright now, it's a beautiful
background.
I mean, look at where you areright now, right?
It's an amazing place, right?
You've got two kids, right?
Like you said, you have time tospend with your kids, right?
(32:11):
As long as you have food on thetable, right?
A shelter, you are ahead of99.9% of the rest of the world.
Warren Buffet calls this ovarianlottery.
He says, you are successfulbecause you're born here, or
you're born somewhere.
Compared to if you were born insome remote place in Africa, you
(32:31):
wouldn't be where you areregardless of how smart you are,
right?
Mm-hmm.
For the most part.
If we take, notes of that andsay, you know what, I'm happy
where I am in life because whatdo I need to leave?
Let's start there.
If you first thing, now I'mgetting into financial, stuff,
but first thing that's okay isto pay off your house, right?
(32:52):
That's the first thing.
In my opinion.
Most people disagree with me.
A lot of people disagree withme.
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, Idon't believe in that.
I think if you have a shelter,which is paid for and a car
which is paid for now, yourexpense are minuscule If you
(33:12):
think about it.
Unless you have some gamblingaddiction or something like
that, that would be different.
That's a different thing.
Other than that, groceries arenot expensive, Adam.
Okay.
Relatively speaking.
So you take a toll on yourexpenses.
Once these two are paid for, youdon't need that much money.
Okay.
(33:33):
And you and I had the discussionbefore that I'm not a big fan of
4% rule.
But even at 4% rule, 25 pertimes your expenses, once you're
more, you don't have a mortgage,your expenses are not that much.
Lot of people want to leavemoney for their kids.
They say, well, yes, I haveenough to leave for myself, but
what about my kid?
(33:55):
And I tell them, listen, yourkids came with their own karma.
Okay?
You turned out fine.
Your kids will turn out fine.
And let's say you give them amillion bucks each.
If it's not in their karma tohave that million bucks each,
you could lose a million bucksin Vegas in five minutes, right?
Mm-hmm.
(34:15):
it's just not, if it's not meantto be, it won't be there.
So why worry about, yes, youtake care of your kids, you give
them the best education, moneycan buy, but beyond that, let's
not, work like a dog so thatyour kids may have something
someday, which they may or maynot be able to keep, right?
So this having enough startswith the mindset that, I'm happy
(34:39):
where I'm in life.
Universe gives me what I needwhen I need it, right?
And then let's just leave it atthat.
And that's not only the moneypart, 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?
(35:00):
Because you want achieve moreand more and more, and that
takes you away from goal inlife.
Goal in life, in my opinion, isto be peaceful, joyful,
blissful, all the time.
Okay?
How many times have you had asingle day, 24 hours, where you
haven't had a single negativethought in your head, Never.
(35:22):
Never, I only had eight.
I could count on one hand,That's scary.
And in this bigger life, We havehad handful of days, and that's
about it.
That means we are not living thelife the way it meant to be.
Because every one of us have theability.
To be happy all the time, We, Imean you, you are married.
(35:44):
When you married it, you are atpeace with yourself, So you know
that it's in there.
Why can't we expand it for 24hours, Because it's already
there, Because we are puttingdirt around it.
Why call this golden nuggets?
Not, I budha call it goldennugget, but it's a golden nugget
which allows you to access thispiece within you.
(36:05):
But we put this dirt around thisgolden nugget all day long,
which creates stress, anxiety,jealousy, hatred, attachment,
and all that good stuff, right?
So if we try to move away fromthat, then how much is enough
solve itself?
Because now you realize that Ireally don't need that much,
right?
'cause let's not chase for thisIUs you goal.
(36:29):
Right, because again, did youread, Elon Musk biography by
Walter Isaac?
Adam Coelho (36:34):
I read one of them.
Okay.
an Elon Musk biography, but itmight 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 atthe end of that book, what I
came away with was this guyneeds 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 theinternet find his personal
(37:02):
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 onit.
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 helpyou.
But he obviously, didn't take meup.
But the point is that if youkeep 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 ushappiness.
Sure.
Yeah.
And he himself will tell youthat he's not happy.
Adam Coelho (37:38):
Yeah.
Nirav Shah (37:39):
Right.
So coming back to this, how muchis enough context, right?
Yeah.
We need to realize that, moneyis not going to buy us happiness
no matter what we end upchasing, right?
So let's enjoy with what we havehere and now.
Life's fragile.
That's the other thing we needto understand.
You know, we all, know that weare gonna die, but we don't
(38:01):
think about we are gonna dietoday, right?
There's no guarantee, right?
I don't know.
You heard, I'm sure you heardabout 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 whereit crashed.
One of my good friend, he washead of the department at a
medical, facility, which wasjust a mile from there.
Okay.
Now his students die becausepain crashed on a dorm.
A medical dorm.
Mm-hmm.
(38:31):
Okay.
Think about that.
I was reading, a Facebook postof 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 orsomething.
And he's no more, right?
So life's fragile.
So why wait to spend time withour loved ones, right?
(38:55):
Why say, you know what, I'lltake you to vacation, Tommy.
Next, we'll go fishing.
You know, next month or nextyear.
This year, dairy is really busyor whatever, right?
Mm-hmm.
Why do that?
Why not spend, because Tommy'sgonna remember, my dad and I
went fishing.
Tommy's not gonna remember mydad had a million bucks.
Okay.
And that's very important point.
(39:15):
I think we need to realize that.
one real quick thing, I saw thisthing my LinkedIn page.
It showed up, where a kid asks,there, how much money do you
make an hour?
And there says a hundred bucksor something.
So he goes, finds this piggybank.
He says, I don't know how muchit is, but can you spend an hour
(39:36):
with me?
Right.
Think about that.
Mm-hmm.
and I'm sure that that's a jokeor whatever, but that's how it's
become for the most part.
Adam Coelho (39:43):
Yeah.
No, I, I resonate a lot with allof that.
And, yeah.
It's, with me pursuing thisbusiness and all of this and,
you know, I've gotten into agood rhythm with it and good
balance, but I still, my son ishere, my younger son is here,
like hanging out with our nannywho's great, and allows us to
do, things that we need to do.
(40:03):
But, like at some point it'slike I could just turn off the
computer.
I don't need to sit at thecomputer or writing emails or
whatever I'm doing.
When my son is.
Wanting to play.
Right?
Yeah.
Like, it just, I don't need themoney.
Right.
Exactly.
So it's finding a balance andkind of staying in check with
the expectations versus thevision.
(40:23):
Right.
It doesn't need to happen superquick.
I just, and what's happeningsuper 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 keeptelling my friends that, I'm not
saying don't do it, but I'msaying don't put stress on
yourself.
Right.
Enjoy the journey.
Enjoy the process.
Because if you say, okay, I'mgonna 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
(41:02):
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 enjoyit.
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 ofhouse.
you're not gonna get that timeback.
Enjoy as much as you can rightnow.
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 bookand talk a little bit about, a
little bit more on, I guessfirst like, define serenity and
then like what are the, dailypractices or, or methods that
you recommend to actuallyoperationalize this.
Right.
Because as I said, I understandall of this.
Yeah.
I'm aware of it.
(41:44):
I've taught some of it, and yetit's hard to do In practice.
So tell me a little bit aboutkind of how you counsel people
in the book on, on making this adaily practice.
Nirav Shah (41:54):
Absolutely.
So the serenity to me meansinner peace.
Okay.
To be peaceful, joyful, blissfulat 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 Igo and break it down in the book
as to what are different issuesthat may show up, which disturbs
our serenity.
We talked about comparison isone thing people do all the
time.
Victim mindset.
Right.
How do we get away from that?
(42:27):
Right?
We talk about that.
Then I talk about, equanimity inrelationships, because that's
the big piece in Serenity if youthink about it, right?
If we keep our ego in check,right?
And we talk about how to dothat, right?
It goes a long way in having agood relationship with everyone
else, right?
There's a disharmony amongst us,right?
(42:49):
How to approve that disharmony,right?
We have people who disagree witheach other all the time, how to
be compassionate whiledisagreeing.
And I'll give you an example inthe book, my attorney from day
one, right?
When I started my business, himand I retired about the same
time, and we became very goodfriends.
So we meet once a quarternowadays, and once we're sitting
(43:13):
down and he says, Nera, I love.
Our quarterly meeting, and I'lltell you why.
I said, why?
And he says, well, everyone Iknow, my family, my friends, my
social media feed, everything isan echo chamber.
We all think the same way.
We all believe in the samephilosophy.
(43:33):
Our political, religious,everything is the same.
And when I sit down with you, Iget a different perspective.
And I like to understand, howeveryone else thinks, right?
And we lost that in our society,right?
We used to be able to talk topeople.
Now, families don't talk to eachother just because their
political, perspective isdifferent, right?
(43:55):
So I talk about, how to becompassionate while disagreeing,
right?
We talk about forgive andforget.
forgiveness is a big thing inserenity business, right?
Because if you hold grudges, youare not gonna have mind.
it's tough to be peaceful whileholding grudges.
then we talk about how wereplace negatives with positive,
right?
(44:15):
So greed, how do you handlegreed?
How do you handle hatred?
I also have a chaplain in thebook, Adam, on War and stress.
And reason I wrote that is whenthe Ukraine war first started,
when Russia invaded, Ukraine, Ihad a lot of anxiety.
And at first I didn't realizewhere that anxiety was coming
(44:37):
from.
I meditate twice a day, and Ijust couldn't let it go.
It stayed within me.
And then.
I realized that it was comingfrom this war related news.
So I stopped consuming news andwithin about one day, my anxiety
went away.
So I did more research on howwar, which again, we are not an
(44:57):
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 beingfearful to being courageous.
all of these things people gothrough on a daily basis.
So I said best way to teachSerenity is to figure out what
(45:18):
is an obstacle to serenity, andthen how to remove that on your
daily practice, right?
So we talk about all that, butmain thing I talk about in terms
of daily practice is, if youcan.
Spend 15 minutes a daymeditating.
And I have guided meditations,on my website, meditative
men.org.
(45:39):
We have audio meditationsabsolutely free.
We have about 16 or someditations there, 13 to 15
minutes each where you listenand follow.
If you can't do that, or even ifyou 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 meditationcushion and everything's great.
(46:04):
We feel peaceful, and then westart working.
We got into a meeting, somebodysaid something, and all of a
sudden it disturbs our peace,right?
If we get into these 10 deepbreaths 10 times a day, then it
brings us back to our centerand.
keeps us mindful so that allthat negativity around us, which
(46:24):
happened, goes away andhopefully keeps us, in peaceful
mode for at least next hour orso until we do another 10 deep
breaths.
So if you do 10 deep breaths 10times 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 watchnowadays, right?
So if you just put an alarm onyour Apple watch, it reminds
you.
And my son, he is a young kid.
He's in Silicon Valley and he'snot a meditator.
He's like, he is young, he isnot, bought into this concept
yet, but for last six months orso.
(47:04):
He at least says, it helps metake deep breaths.
So he puts on his Apple watchand 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'sprogress.
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 exactlywhat your answers were, but if,
if they're the same, they'regood ones.
If they're new ones, they'regood ones.
so the first question, Nirav isabout your vision.
(47:43):
You know, we talk a lot aboutenvisioning here and, and kind
of thinking up, up a big visionfor your life.
I'm curious, you're in this newchapter.
I mean, you've been in thisretirement chapter for a while.
You're teaching meditation,you're writing books.
What is your big vision for thenext, say five years of your
life?
Nirav Shah (48:00):
So when I wrote the first book, right?
shortcut to Serenity, like Imentioned, my vision was to have
one person same goal is we wannahelp as many people as possible
find that elusive piece within.
Good thing is this book went onthe chart very fast in two days.
We were number one new releaseon Amazon.
nice.
Congratulations.
Yeah.
Thank you.
it's awesome that people areresponding to it, but most
(48:24):
importantly, I'm hoping thatpeople will actually, read one
chapter a day and then, meditateon it and find peace within
themselves long term.
I have two goals in mind.
One's meditation related, andone non-meditation related.
non-meditation.
I have this travel bug.
I mentioned that to you, Adam.
I wanna, cover a hundredcountries before I die, and I've
(48:46):
been to 84, so I'm makingprogress, 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 nutritionand I want you.
Awesome.
Adam Coelho (48:59):
Okay.
Wonderful.
Nirav Shah (49:00):
Yeah.
And then the second vision is tobe 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 workshoprecently.
I would like to go from city tocity presenting a karma
workshop.
I think that would be awesome.
If someday it happens, great.
(49:21):
If it doesn't, that's okay too.
Adam Coelho (49:23):
Very cool.
Where's, where's next on thetravel list?
Nirav Shah (49:26):
this year it's been slow because my dad, was,
diagnosed with stage fourcancer.
Mm-hmm.
So, I'm actually to India and,he's 85.
He's lived full life, so we areall, we just wanna make sure he
doesn't suffer.
That's our only goal.
Mm-hmm.
so I'm gonna spend a couple ofmonths with him in India, I'm
leaving in a month or so.
And then after that, may I go toSri Lanka and Nepal are the two
(49:49):
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 theirpath 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 firststarting, as we make money, we
tend to spend money, on a muchrapid rate.
And as you know, right, this isa compounding business, right?
(50:28):
More you save early more, it'sgonna show up later in the life.
So that's one advice I give isthat, you know, keep an eye on
your expenses.
I'm not saying don't spendmoney, I'm just saying keep an
eye on it.
Because saving early, more youcompound 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 startedwith meditation and or
mindfulness?
Nirav Shah (50:53):
That's an excellent question.
Make a daily practice.
I use the word practice becauseit is practice.
Don't get discouraged becauseyou think you're not focusing.
Every time you realize that youlost your focus is progress.
That means that you are beingmindful.
Okay?
So try to make a daily practiceand then to be mindful
(51:15):
throughout the day.
Take 10 deep breaths, 10 times aday.
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 inthroughout the day would be
very, very powerful for me.
Narab, the last question is, howcan people find you online?
I think you mentioned yourwebsite, but say it again.
(51:41):
and how can people find yourbooks?
Nirav Shah (51:43):
Sure.
So, both of my books are onAmazon, shortcut to Serenity and
the Serenity Blueprint.
They are in both ebook as wellas the paper book format.
If you want guided meditation,go to my, blog meditative
man.org.
I also have recorded, meditationsessions on YouTube, on a
(52:04):
channel Meditative Man.
And then I'm on LinkedIn nearDenver.
Is my handle on LinkedIn.
If you want to reach out to me,meditate denver@gmail.com.
I'm happy to answer anyquestions you may have.
I have, every Tuesday I do Zoommeditations, so if you want to
attend live meditation sessions,again, no cost, meditate
(52:26):
denver@gmail.com.
I'm happy to put you on thelist.
Adam Coelho (52:29):
Wonderful.
Well, I thank you so much forbeing here again, Nirav it was
another great conversation andsome real specific things I can
put into practice and it washelpful just to talk through
kind of what's been going on inmy own life related to this.
so thank you for, the space totalk about that.
Nirav Shah (52:48):
Thanks Adam for having me.
I greatly appreciate you.
and like you mentioned, youknow, intellectually we all know
this thing right.
It's matter of putting it inpractice.
Adam Coelho (52:57):
Absolutely.
Alright, well, we'll see you onthe 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 tothis.
This just lets the platformsknow you're getting value from
the episodes and you want to behere when I release additional
content.
If you're ready to start yourMindful Fire journey, go to
mindful fire.org/start anddownload my free envisioning
(53:26):
guide in just 10 minutes.
This guide will help you craft aclear and inspiring vision for
your life.
Again, you can download it forfree@mindfulfire.org slash
start.
Thanks again and I'll catch younext time on the Mindful Fire
Podcast.
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