117 : Retiring Early, Discovering Enough & Practicing Generosity with Nirav Shah

Nirav welcome to the mindful fire podcast. I'm so glad to have you here.

Thanks for having me. And I'm excited and looking forward to it.

So I'd love to have you start by sharing with our audience a little bit about who you are, your journey and what you're up to these days.

My name is Nirav Shah and I wrote a book called shortcut to certainty. Recently I retired from technology business about four years ago at the age of 49. And contentment was a big thing in my decision to retire as to how much is enough. And then once I retired, I started working with a number of nonprofits locally to make an impact. I'm happy to say that we made a tremendous impact. Right now we are feeding almost 16,000 kids every weekend here in Denver. And then also started meditation practice about four years ago. And during that process, I realized that some of the topics were difficult. So I would give examples to my fellow students and they encouraged me to teach. So about a year ago, I started teaching low zoom meditation says in John Tuesday nights, and this book evolved, from those teachings or last 50 or so weeks.

Very good. Thank you for sharing that. Did you just get into meditation four years ago or did you just get into teaching? So it was new four years ago for you?

Four years ago, I was brand new. I was fortunate enough to found a very good teacher here in Denver. And, started, reading anything and everything. I can get my hands on and practicing. Then I started attending these meditation retreats and then teaching actually started about a year ago. But idea was to, find that peace within and for example, I was one of those type, a personality guy where. I was freaked out by everything in a sense that I needed to control everything. Everything had to go my way, ABC. I plan a through Z everything. And, since starting meditation, about four years ago, I come to a point where none of the extra things bother me. I still, make sure that things get done, but it, they don't does not affect my inner peace. And that's the change I've seen in myself. And that's one of the reason I wrote this book, because If I could find peace, I guarantee you, anyone can find peace.. Because a lot of us who are typi who wants this financial independence who want, Generational wealth, I'll love to talk about that later, as well as to, I'm not sure that's the right way to look at it from society point of view, but we are all chasing that. And then, I was able to step back find that piece. It's I think it's very important that, we can help as many people as we can

got it. And what type of meditation do you practice?

The most simplest one is the breathing meditation. Correct. But then beyond that, I do intentional meditation, meaning, loving kindness, Making sure that you spread your happy and, intentional thoughts towards love to other beings. That's one of the meditation I practice. There are 16 different meditations. I guide, during my, guided meditation on Tuesdays. Not all at once of course, but, all of that combined, they all start with, what's known as simple breathing meditation, and then we go to empty sky meditation. We go do labeling your thoughts. That's another good meditation, Adam is that as people sit in meditation and they label the thoughts, that may come up. Then we understand that, Hey, there are certain negative thoughts we can avoid while not in meditation. I try taking and giving meditation black and white meditation. Eye movement meditations a number of different meditations. I tried all of them. I provide, on my blog, meditativeman.org all in a guided meditation in audio version so that people can follow themselves when they want to follow it.

Very cool. Tell me a little bit more about this decision and process of retiring early, what led you to want to retire early and how did you make it happen?

That's such a great question. When I was working, I was in this go go go mode and I was traveling all over the world. I've been to 64 countries. I clients in a dozen countries on six continents and I realized more and more that, how much money do we need to comfortably live? There's never enough if you want, new 7 37. But if you think about it, unless you are Jeff Bezos, there's always one guy who has more money than. Okay. So it's a never ending, rat race, if you will, if you continue that way. So I realized that, what I have is enough and my dad nudge me towards this as well. He always used to tell me, and he still tells me that, you know what, you don't have any vice. You are one of those guys who all your expenses are groceries and good thing groceries are not that expensive, right? What you need is a shelter, which you have, your clothing on your body and food, and that's about it. He nudged me a lot. And I realized that contentment was very important to me. I'm happy that I'm in life. Why not use the time I had to do something better for the society, rather than just, trying to chase. The fame or the money or the prestige. So that's when I decided to do full-time volunteer work. I joined a couple of, nonprofits. One of the nonprofits I joined was known as, food for thought Denver, where we take title one kids. That one is the federal government program, which identifies, kids coming from a poverty level or below. Okay. So family of four annual income, less than$30,000, this kids get breakfast and lunch every week, day at school for free, but they have weekend food insecurity. So this organization, give a bag of food every Friday at the time to about maybe 3000 kids, which can make eight meals or the weekend for these kids who kid doesn't have to go hungry. So I joined them and I say, no, let's try to blow this up in Denver Metro area that are 55,000 kids who qualify for this program. That's a lot of kids who go hungry every weekend. So I started using my, experience with government and started writing grants for the organization. So we went from$400,000 a year in two years to two and a half million dollars a year. So what that meant was we went from supporting, 500 kids or a thousand kids or 2000 kids to now 16,000 kids every week. That means that almost 40% of Denver's childhood hunger, this probation is able to reduce. And that is more satisfying than any, money. You made cheese, right? So that was number one thing, which kind of drove me toward that retirement process is contentment. I think you and I talked briefly about this Mexican fishermen's story, and I'll just say this again for audience, sake is that, there's this wall street executive, who went to Mexico in a small town for a vacation and he's sitting there and he notices that every evening, bunch of fishermen get together. They drink, they party all night and then, they go out to fish and repeat the day every day. So he sat down with the chief fishermen and say, you know what? I can make you big. So the guy says household, and there was a guy says, I can get you a loan to get a couple of boats. Then you can catch more fish and sell it to the town next door. So the fisherman says what after that, he said, then, we buy some more boat, sell the fish to the city said, wow, that sounds interesting. What do I do after that? So what's he gonna say, then we get a fleet of a hundred boats and make the biggest fishing operation in Mexico. He says, wow. That is amazing. What happens after that? And there was a guy says, then we do an IPO. You cash out and retire and you will be easily be a multimillionaire. So yeah, what's next? So then you can retire in a small town, wake up when you want go to sea, get some fish, have a beer and party the night away. And the fisherman says I'm already doing it. So the moral of the sometimes what we are chasing is right in front of us and with just a little bit of contentment for what we already, we can get what we want without chasing it. And that's very important. As we chase this financial independence.

I certainly relate to that. And a lot of people probably feel that way, that I need to make a lot of money and then someday I'll be able to enjoy myself and I'll be able to do this, that or the other right. for the fishermen. It's having a beer catching enough fish to feed his family and hanging out with his friends. But if we turn our attention to feeling contentment or gratitude, then we can start to realize that thing that we're chasing is already right here. And I'll give you an example from my own life. I fall into this a lot where I have this whole story of, I need to be an entrepreneur. That's a story that I've had in my head for a long time before I started working at Google, I was an entrepreneur. Didn't make very much money, but I was an entrepreneur and I've always been attracted this startup world and all that that's why I moved out to California. So I have this story that, if only I could be an entrepreneur, then I could, teach mindfulness and get paid for it and do all these workshops and really make a difference and make money doing it. And I'm in that kind of chasing, chasing mindset. But when I really think about it and I turn my attention just a little bit, I realized I already have that.. I literally work for Google and as part of my job, I teach mindfulness, I teach emotional intelligence, I lead and develop workshops that make an impact on people's life. And I get paid for doing it. Exactly. And I probably get paid more than I would otherwise get paid because I'm working for a huge company with a ton of resources and benefits that I wouldn't be getting if I was doing this on my own necessarily. But more importantly, I already have that thing that I think I'm chasing. I think that so many of us get caught in that. And I love to hear, what you think about that.

I think you're absolutely right. In two things helps in my opinion, with, making sure that you don't get into that trap. In your case, you mentioned you already had that, which is exactly right. The way to realize, you already have what you maybe chasing for is to measure your success. Most of us, at least I used to live in what I call this gap where I am in life and where I will be. And there's this always gap between where I am in, where I want to be because of that. We never measure the succeed as to where we actually are, forget where we want to be. But where we are is far further, at least I was a lot further than I ever thought I would be. Quite honestly, when I was in college, my goal in life, Adam was to publish an article in a trade Journal. That was my goal in life. I did 28 of these and I went to countries, I give keynote speeches and whatnot, but there was goal in life and I never appreciated that because I always want to go further. So if we stop living this gap as to where we are and where we want to be, that's when I think we'll start getting that contentment. And I think number one way we can do that is to measure our success. We stopped measuring our success and, like classic saying right then, stop and smell the roses. And that's exactly what it is.

So what you're saying is that one way to avoid this constant if only and chasing, and, turning our attention to realize that we already have what we're chasing one way to do that is to turn our attention to all that we've achieved already and the success and the great things that we have already, and to be grateful for them. Is that what you're saying?

Absolutely. If you think about it, if you are living in, a developed world and if you have a reasonable job, you are more lucky than 99.9% of the rest of the 7 billion people on this planet earth. You don't have to worry about, where's the food's coming from for dinner tonight. That's half the battle, for majority of the world, they don't even know where dinner's coming from tonight You don't have that problem. That's when we have to start looking at it and say, you know what, I'm luckier than most of the people on this planet and be thankful for that. And that's the most important thing is to have the gratitude, because that will bring abundance.

I really liked what you said about your goal in life, when you were in college was to publish one paper and a trade journal, and you had done it 28 times over and never stopped to even realize that you had achieved that thing that you wanted. I relate so much to that. You mentioned this before we started recording, the goalpost keeps moving. And we don't stop to say, wow, I achieved that thing I wanted, for instance, when I was in college, all I wanted to do was work for a company that would allow me to travel internationally for work. I've done that for six months, total two separate times, three months each well, once in Asia and once in Portugal traveling all over Europe with my family. And yeah, I recognize that, but to realize wow, like I've done it. I did that thing that I wanted shifts my focus away from what I don't have to a feeling of gratitude. That seems really powerful.

Exactly. And that's the most important thing is to have that gratitude for what we have. Oprah Winfrey once said this, that if you look at what you have in life, you'll always have more. If you look at what you don't have in life, you'll never have enough. Such a powerful statement, Another thing that helps is this simple statement I have, it goes like I have everything I need at this moment. Universe gives us what we need at the time we need it. So I have everything I need at this moment. If we keep that in mind, then life just works out and we are not chasing things. And that's the most important thing. If we come out with one thing out of this is that we stop chasing doesn't mean we don't work towards financial independence. Absolutely. We do. But have their gratitude for what you already have. Then let things just come, at the right time. I noticed in my life at that right time, things have just worked out, people showed up in my life, technology showed up in my life, teachers showed up in my life. So when student is ready, teacher will appear. If we live that I think it'll go a long way.

Yeah, I totally agree. And I love that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. Phrase, I, try to remember that as well, often in the not being too preachy with meditation realm. Cause I've tried to get my family into it a long time ago. And I had to remind myself that when they're ready, I'm here. One thing I'd love to ask you, I'm curious, letting things come, appreciating where we are. I have everything I need right now. How does that jive with pursuing goals and growing and, trying to build something.

So personal goals doesn't have to be only about making money. Hey, that's the first thing we have to understand is that there's more to life than money. When I retired, I didn't lose my goals. I didn't stop, working. In fact, my wife says this all the time that I'm more busy right now than I was five years ago when I was working right, because now, for example, the two non-profits, I joined one of them. If I may give a quick plug foodforthoughtdenver.org, amazing work, like I said, 16,000 kids every weekend, removing weekend childhood hunger. Seeing them go from 4,000 kids to 16,000 kids in a matter of two years, going from half a million to two and a half million dollars in budget. And by the way, it is a hundred percent volunteer orientation. Not a single person gets paid in this automation 4,000 volunteers. So the goals don't have to be about making money. Success doesn't have to be just measured by how much money you have. The biggest success in my opinion is to how you spend your time with your friends and family, for example. I was lucky enough in my business that when my kids were growing up, I spent lot of time with them. But last week I was talking to friend of mine and he's after this financial independence, if you will. And we started talking and I said, amount of money you have already just look back, why not spend time with your kids? Because he mentioned something. He said, I have two and a half year daughter. And for her, I might not even exist. He says she doesn't know I'm here. She's attached to her mom. I say, how much time do you spend with her? Maybe 10 minutes after dinner, every night. And this guy, he works from home. So I said, how about this? He says, she comes from daycare back home at four o'clock every day. And then his mother-in-law takes care of the daughter from four to six until his wife comes home. I said, why don't you give your mother-in-law break four to six, two hours spent with your daughter every day, If you have more work, you can do it after she goes to sleep. The point is the success can be measured in a lot more different ways than just making money. Does not mean we have to let go of the goals. Does not mean that we just sit around and wait for things to happen. We still make things happen, but in a different arena. And another thing is when you start being generous it opens up a lot more doors than you ever thought possible. I was talking to this other guy two weeks ago. This guy he's a millionaire on his own. And I said, what are you doing for the society at large? And he says, I still want to make some more money. I have this number in my head. And once I reached there, I'm going to start a foundation. And I say, listen, you already are a multimillionaire. Why not start helping today? It doesn't have to be in money if you don't want to, you can, give your talents. And that's the other piece we are missing that with success, come responsibility and one way to show that responsibility is be generous with our time and our resources.

How did you know what was enough? How did you decide I'm ready to make this jump to not working?

That's a perfect question, Adam. And it didn't happen overnight. It was a 10 year process in the making, if you will. About 15 years ago, I attended, a coaching program called Strategic Coach. The guy from Toronto, started that and we used to meet four times a year and he taught a number of things. But one thing he taught, which kind of ingrained in me was this process called free days, focus days and buffer days. And what he was preaching is on a free day, 24 hour period. From midnight to midnight, you don't do any work. You don't check your emails, you don't check your voicemail; completely work free. It really ingrained in me. And at a time I used to take 150 free days a year. Now that sounds like a lot. But if you think about it, your 104 weekend days, and you have what, 10 holidays. So you are already at 114, if you truly, honor those free days, problem with technology driven employment, right now is that, people are scheduling meetings routinely on a Saturday. That's just wrong on so many levels, So when we have those free days, it opens up a lot of things in us. It allows us to spend time with our kids. give you an example. My boy was seven years old and someone called on a Saturday and he picks up the phone and he says, what is this about? And the guy started talking something. He says, you know what, my dad doesn't do business on Saturday that he just hung up 7 year old kid. He figured out that, Hey, dad doesn't do work on Saturdays. So it started that and then became a process. Last five, six years before I retired, I started working maybe 10 hours a week, then four hours a week. So it was not flipping the switch overnight. It was over a period of 10 years or so to get there. So it wasn't easy. I guess what I'm trying to tell you.

That's interesting and makes a lot of sense, Especially having a fairly long career, not the traditional, 40 something years of working, but it's still a good long career and probably a lot of your identity tied up in it. So just to switch over night is, tricky, would probably be a different result. Talking more about this idea of pursuing goals. I struggle with this a lot, honestly, kind of the whole, letting go of the outcome and the idea of enough and really the way I summarize it is I often feel like I'm pursuing goals from a place of scarcity rather than a place of sufficiency or abundance. for instance, the podcast, loved doing the podcast. It allows me to connect with awesome people like yourself, but I use the podcast statistics of how many people download as like a measure of self-worth and like needing to grow this to something big. So it's not even about money necessarily, right? This is a hobby. This is ideally at some point maybe will earn some income to cover its own expenses would be nice, but it's more of a, something to do to learn and grow and connect and potentially set me up to, teach mindfulness and do workshops for other organizations down the road. But I often feel like I'm acting from a place of not enough of scarcity. Maybe taking your advice on looking at how much I've achieved already. And just having started this about a year ago and, having already reached, 4,200 downloads and reached a lot of people and gotten a lot of good feedback. I feel like it's easier said than done to operate from a place of sufficiency. What are your thoughts? I struggled with this.

It is easier said than done, and we all struggled with that. One thing which helps is a formal gratitude practice. A guy named Lee Brower he's out of Utah. He used to be my coach. He started, gratitude practice. Gratitude attitude. He called it.And this guy every morning, when he got ready, you put this dirty rock in his pocket, he will rub it. And he think about three things. He's thankful for every evening. when he took the rock out of his pocket, again, he'll think of three things he's thankful for. And every meeting we had, he started with this gratitude practice where everyone in the meeting will start with. Think of one thing you're thankful for that happened in your life in last one week. Then once you identify that, think about why you are thankful and why here is lot more important than what, Because it lets you dig deeper. And he rubbed off on me. And I started doing every meeting with this gratitude attitude about 10 years ago. And that allows you to stay in that abundance mindset. As opposed to the scarcity mindset. So if you develop this gratitude practice, it takes what 21 days to make a habit. So if you, it for 21 days, make sure, and we used to do this on a dinner table Adam, quite frankly. When my kids were young, we'll sit down and we'll say one thing you're thankful for, and why before we had dinner and my kids were young. So they would say, I'm thankful for mama She made dinner for me. It started there. And we will say, okay, let's get it a little bit deeper than that. But that really helps to develop that gratitude practice because then it keeps you in that abundance mindset rather than keeping you in that scarcity mindset.

I'd love to dive into this idea of enough, a little bit more Nirav. many people in the financial independent space use the 4% rule to figure out how much they need to accumulate and invest to be able to live for the rest of their life and cover their annual expenses. If you're hearing about this for the first time, the 4% rule basically says, take your annual expenses, multiply by 25, and then you can live off 4% of your money and assumes that your investments will grow at greater than 4% per year. And will replenish the money that you're living off of with that said, my question to you, Nirav is let's say that you are getting close to, or have reached this amount of money, but still don't feel like you have enough or for other reasons are deciding I'm not ready yet. How did you think about that as you were deciding to retire?

So that's very good question. The 4% rule the financial, industry has come up with, I'm not a fan of quite frankly the 4% rule, but let's go with that for now and say that, okay, you have reached that 4% goal. Hey, I have 25 times my expenses covered in my bank. I'm ready to retire, but I feel uneasy if you will. If that's the case, one thing you could do is cut back your time. So I reached it, but I'm not ready to leave it a hundred percent. Why not go down 50%, right? Nothing says that retirement has to be an on and off switch, If we can have, phase in the retirement. Is similar to when you invest in some stock sometimes you lag in, right? You buy a third of your position today. Third, maybe a month from today, third, maybe another month from today. Similarly, if we lag in our retirement and say, okay, I'm going to cut down. Instead of working 40 hours a week, I'm going to stop to 20 hours a week because I have what I think I need, but I'm just not sure. That also gives us time to, figure out what to do in retirement. Because if you're going to just sit around in retirement, you might as well not retire. There's only so much golf you can play. There's only so much travel you can do. So you must find a purpose in your retirement. That's one thing people are missing because when they are going after this financial independence, they have not thought through, what's the purpose once you reach the retirement. So if you leg in, maybe it gives you time to develop that purpose.

Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. And that's really what this podcast is all about for me. It's figure out what do I want to do after I retire early. Talking to people who teach meditation, is that something I want to do? Podcasting is that something I want to do? And so I really love the idea of starting now. Starting to figure out and build that purpose ideally into your day to day job. But also on the side, if what you're doing for a living, isn't your purpose, you can still build it on the side. Now I'm curious, what are your thoughts on the 4% rule?

See 4% rule works. If someone has. So the amount of money and the right advice and whatnot. But it also depends on your risk profile. For example, I'm a risk averse guy. I don't do stock market. So 4% rule works. If you are in a stock market, if you're a certain risk profile. But if you are a conservative person, then you may need 5%. If you are someone who actually may need lot lists, let's say you own a couple of apartments, which you rent out and that income is sufficient, maybe it's only 1%, but it still works. Because that income is sufficient. So you don't need always twenty-five times your experience 10 times maybe okay, if the income is coming from a source, which you think is valid and reasonable.

Yeah, that makes sense. If you have real estate properties that are producing income, or you have, a side hustle that is producing income or other investments that are producing income, then yeah you don't necessarily need to have the full 4% or you don't necessarily need to have 25 times in hard assets. Okay. I think that's great advice. What I'm really hearing with all of this is it's a practice. Just like meditation as a practice, practicing gratitude, or measuring your successes as you called it, really taking in the good of what you've achieved, doing that more and more we'll train you to see the good. We all have a negativity bias, We've evolved to scan our environment for threats to notice the bad things more easily than the good things, because that's what kept our ancestors alive. But we can train ourselves to spot the good. And it sounds like those are some really good ways to do that.

Absolutely. And another thing is you mentioned back practice. So some of them will ask me this. He says, what's the point of meditation practice? Is it to find that five minutes of peace? And you can extend it to any practice. What's the point of gratitude practice? Is it to be thankful for that moment? And my answer always has been that the focus of the practice is not the practice itself. We don't practice just to practice. For example, if you want to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, you want to go to Tanzania and climb that you'll start practicing, right? You will start running. Then you will maybe come to Colorado or Utah, go up the mountains, make sure you can handle the elevation. You can walk five, 10 miles uphill every day, but all that practice is not to practice all that practice so that you can one day go to Mount Kilimanjaro, actually climb it. So practice of the practice is never the practice. I know it sounds a little bit insane, but, point is that five minutes of meditation practice we do, or 15 minutes or 30 minutes every day, so that it prepares us so that we are mindful during that remaining 23 and a half hours, and try to remove that negativity bias that you so eloquently put, And to same thing about everything, all those practices, hopefully it makes us better. Human beings helps us make better decisions and stay mindful throughout the day. As opposed to just during that five minute of gratitude practice or 30 minutes of meditation, Pepys or whatnot.

yeah, I totally resonate with that. We don't practice meditation to become better meditators. We practice meditation to be better at life. And so that certainly can apply to any practice that we do. It sounds to me like what you are focused on in your retirement is really giving back to others and sharing your gifts with others to improve people's lives. And you mentioned earlier the idea of not waiting to be generous with your money, your time, your talents. Tell me a little bit more about how you think about that and the power of starting that process of being more generous now, rather than waiting, say, till you reach financial independence or you hit that dollar amount, whatever that may be to, quote unquote retire early. Cause I think a lot of people do feel that way. They're like hyper-focused on trying to reach that financial independence number. And even if the goalpost isn't constantly moving, like we've been talking about, I think that a lot of us might be missing out on some of the benefits of helping others and being generous with our resources now.

That's such a good question, Adam, because have you ever noticed that when you do a good deal, something good happens to you, right? So why wait for something good happen to us? We already are a generous nation. But if you think about it, forget about money. For example, let's say you have a goal in mind, you have that number you need to reach and whatever that number may be for you, I'm sure you are closer than where you were before. I may not be as fast as you want to, but it's still moving in the right direction. And as long as moving in the right direction, you are making progress. While you're doing that. If we look at society around us, there are people who are a lot less fortunate than you and I are, and we must try to figure out how to help them. If you're not ready to help them with money. That's okay. You have time you have talent every week. Just give one hour of your time to an organization of your choice. That's it. One hour of your time, I'm sure you can carve out one hour to help someone who needs this lot more than you do. And that's a start, That's a huge start because then, you are trying to be generous. I think I mentioned this. We are the most giving nation on planet Earth. According to the giving Institute, we give away$500 billion a year. That's a lot of money, But when you start the generosity, when you start giving back a few things happen. Number one, it diminishes your ego. When you give ego goes down, which is a huge thing in terms of being mindful and having intentional results. The other thing is that in 2013, Simon Fraser University, they did a study on generosity. Interesting. They found that people who are tend to have lower blood pressure and other health benefits. So if it's not for anything else, just do it for your health. John Templeton Foundation did another research and they found that generous people tend to be happier and the happier people tend to be generous. So it's clear as his own echo chamber, if you will. And that's why it's important not to wait, until someday, but go ahead and do what you can. Like I said, if you're not ready to part with your money perfectly, okay. Just start giving back one hour a week to an organization of your choice because of your choice, it will make a tremendous difference.

That's really got me thinking. It really does. And thinking about, the work that I do, within Google the most meaningful and purposeful stuff that I do is the mindfulness work Teaching people about mindfulness, teaching people, emotional intelligence, and it's giving back in a way, Like I don't have to do that. I don't get paid extra to do that, but it feels good. It stretches me. It is me giving my time and talents to make people around me better. And extending that feeling by doing more outside of Google and making an impact in those ways. Even financially. I had a guy named JG Larochette on the podcast on episode 35. He teaches mindfulness to, kids, in schools, in the east bay, in California, in the bay area. And I think now they're doing like 33 schools and 13,000 kids. I was so moved by the work that they were doing, that I have been raising money. I was going to be matching up to$500, and having Google match as well. Yeah, and it was one of those things where it's like, ah, I got to talk to my wife. I don't know. I never made a commitment like that or given away that much money, honestly. And I still haven't as of this recording, I have not given the money yet, but I know we've raised a couple hundred dollars and hopefully people will donate more so we can hit that goal. But I think there's just a lot to what you're saying about being generous now. You mentioned that being generous leads to more opportunity. Can you tell me more about that?

I always noticed Adam that when I'm doing good things, first of all, my mood is good. I'm in a good mode when I'm helping people. And that tends to attract positive vibes, if you will, and things just happen, things fall in place because I'm in a good mood. Maybe I'm just not thinking about that negativity bias, you mentioned maybe that's what it is, but, maybe creates a positivity bias and allows us to look at things which are happening in our life. But when I'm generous, I tend to notice that things are moving in a positive direction. I don't have any research to back that up. It's just a personal anecdotal information.

Yeah. Maybe you're in a mindset where you're more likely to notice the good, because you're already doing good and feeling good. And then what we were talking about earlier, you're taking in the good, which just brings more good. I like it. I like it.

One thing I would also like to mention, Adam, if you don't mind, is this phrase I hear a lot lately about generational wealth. Lot of people I meet who are trying to be financially independent more often than not want to talk about generational wealth. And I'd say what my dad told us kids when we were growing up. He always told us that, you know what I'll pay for the best education money can buy. But once you are done with your schooling, you're on your own. Don't expect a penny from me. I'm going to give everything away. And that's exactly what he did in his life. And that's the thing we told our kids all along that we'll get you the education you need. Beyond that you must learn to stand on your own and not expect anything from your parents. And that is important because when we start talking about this generational wealth, we lose that. I have a friend who says that he has 18 grand kids and he has enough money is only$1 million for each grandkids. Some of them are two months old or six months old. That is a lot of money for a young kid. And I worry that when those young kids know that they have that kind of money, what kind of work ethic they may develop, or they may not develop. Financial independence is very important, but we must try to remove this generational wealth discussion away from financial independence. I think that's very important as a society.

Yeah. There's a lot that I want to dive into what you just shared. But talking about this generational wealth, I think, often in the financial independence retire early community, and it's referred to a second generation fi, which is essentially accumulating enough money, so that the next generation doesn't have to worry about working for a living or it becomes optional. agree with you completely. You need to be able to stand on your own two feet and have the work ethic and the vision and desire and purpose to go out and create value in the world on your own. We've all seen what happens when, mega, rich people get everything handed to them on a silver platter. Either they don't do anything or they waste all the money, There's exceptions to that, of course. But I think, the interesting part about this second generation FI thing is the idea of passing down the concepts of financial independence to the next generation. Not necessarily the money, but I also the how to earn money, how to save money, how to invest money, the skills like you were able to retire early, I'm hoping to do the same, Those skills that allow us to do that, passing those concepts and skills to the next generation, rather than just the ability to have that without actually earning it.

Absolutely and that's the key, right? Is the knowledge, we transfer to the next generation, which is very important. And that also leads to this discussion about financial literacy. We, as a society have not put enough emphasis on the topic of financial literacy as to we are not teaching kids. we are making a society of, paycheck to paycheck. We are showing them how to work and how to spend. And beyond that, we are not going too far. Now, one good thing COVID did, was it increased the savings rate in America. We are saving a lot more money than we used to. And hopefully we can keep those skills because those skills is what's going to take them to financial independence. Living paycheck to paycheck does not lead you to financial independence, no matter how much money you make. My local banker, he used to talk about 15, 20 years ago that he used to know this contractor who made million dollars a year and always looking for a loan from the bank for personal reasons, not for his business, because he would fly on a private charter to Vegas every month, take 50 of his best friends with him and give him$1,000 to spend. When you do that, a million dollars doesn't last, right? So the point is we need to teach, Financial literacy because that's, what's going to take us to financial independence, and hopefully know, with COVID the savings that is increased. Hopefully that stays that way. I know there are some foundations, I think the Robert Wood Johnson foundation has a big financial literacy program going on, but it's very important.

Yeah, I totally agree. One expression that I like to keep in mind when I think about pursuing financial independence is it's not about how much money you make, it's about how much money you keep. Because just like you said, you could be making a million dollars a year, but if you're spending a million dollars a year, you have nothing to show for it at the end and you're constantly living in this very precarious, very insecure place of paycheck to paycheck where any emergency comes up. You either have to go into debt or you're in trouble. That's not a very good way to live, and hopefully more financial literacy will help more people avoid being in that situation. Certainly there are, difficult situations like you were describing with, people living in poverty. I think there's a lot that we need to do to address that. But teaching kids these skills early on will help them immensely throughout their life. And yeah, I know that this big podcast in the financial independence space Choose FI, wonderful podcast. And I know they have an international foundation that has put together a free, K through 12 financial literacy curriculum with a bunch of teachers.

Yeah, absolutely. You mentioned something very interesting. You said it's not how much money we make. It's how much money we keep. And that is so important. But unfortunately our culture, especially the wall street culture, where we are putting focus on a top line versus bottom line. Give you an example. When I had my own business, I always measured my success by my net income. My competition always worried about increasing revenue, but I focused on increasing my net income. My net income was 10 times higher than some of my competition. Their revenue was double mine, because they didn't focus on bottom line. And that's what happens in wall street. We put so much emphasis on growth on the top line that companies are losing billions are worth, hundred billion dollars. It makes zero sense to me, but that's the culture we have developed.

Yeah. You're absolutely right. So Nirav, let's switch gears now into what I call the mindful fire final four. And the first question is you have this book coming out Shortcuts To Serenity. Tell me what inspired you to write this book and what impact you're hoping to make with it.

Thank you for asking that Adam. As I talked to more and more people, and I talked to a lot of people who want to be financially independent, and I noticed that in that drive towards financial independence, a lot of them have lost that inner peace. They're constantly anxious. The things go their way. They are anxious things don't go their way. They are anxious, So this book is an attempt to help everyone, find that elusive inner peace if you will. As I mentioned in the beginning, I was that guy. I was always on a go go, type-A personality. And if I can find inner peace, I feel like anyone can find inner peace. So one major goal for this book is to change or touch one life. That's it. If by this project we can help one person find that inner peace. I think we've done our part.

Very good. And if people want to check out the book, how can they find it?

Books, website is shortcut to serenity.com. They can also go on Amazon and search for shortcut to serenity it's available in ebook as well as a paperback. If you have an iPad, then you can order this through apple books. If you have a nook, essentially, any e-reader, you may have, we have the book available in its native format. Just look for Shortcut To Serenity.

Very good. And I will post a link to the book in the show notes for this episode as well.

Thank you.

The second question, Nirav, is what piece of advice would you give to people early on their path to financial independence?

That is such a great question. Looking back, if I knew certain things ahead of time, I may have done a little bit differently, may have accelerated the process, maybe by a couple of years, and those are the things or I call investing yourself. And similar to what you mentioned is not what you make is what you keep. When people are just starting out. They're not focused on that, right? We all want that newest iPhone every year. That thousand dollars, if you put it in invest somewhere, right? By the time you retire, that may be worth 25,$50,000. So the point is that, what you keep is more important. That lesson, usually people get after five years in their career, if they get from day one, that makes a huge difference. That's one thing I have definitely.

Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. it was about five or so years into my career that I was like, I should probably learn what I should do with this money. Like I'm making this money. Luckily I wasn't spending it too quickly and I was saving it, but knowing what to invest it in, and how to manage it. And it all seemed too scary. But, I've mentioned this a million times on the podcast, but read the book, The Simple Path to Wealth, that book is incredible and will help you get us a strong start. No matter where you are in your earning career. The third question is what piece of advice would you give to someone getting started with meditation and or mindfulness?

The mindfulness become this jargon, if you will, where people are just throwing it out. One thing I would say is if you're interested in inner peace, just start with simple breathing meditation. We don't have to do anything fancy, take a deep breath. And as you breathe in, just focus on the sensation of your breath as your nostrils. And when you breathe out again, focus on the sensation at your nostrils and just keep your focus there for five minutes. Don't do anything. Start there, Because that would find that small amount of peace. And then once you start there, then you start looking as to what may be right for you in terms of, if you are just interested in meditations on our meditation blog, meditativeman.org we have guided meditations available, no cost, you can just, help the audio run while you're doing a meditation just 13 minutes per meditation. Do it twice a day, give yourself 26 minutes to find that peace.

Very good. Yeah. Thank you for that advice. And if you're interested Nirav, I'd love to share one of your meditations with the audience. If you are interested there's one that you want to pick out and we can release it. I've been thinking about doing this for a while, actually is if a guest is also a meditation teacher to have the episode come out and then maybe the next week we'll have meditation by you, released on the podcast as well. If you're interested.

I like it. I think it's awesome. That way, people can get used to what it means. I think it would be interesting. Okay,

cool. We'll figure out how to make that happen. So if you're listening to this next week, you will, be able to meditate with Nirav and we'll release it through the podcast. Just like we do every other week with the meditation for me. So check that out. And the final question thereof is how can people connect with you online and learn more about your work, your book, and what you're up to

Wonderful question. I'm on LinkedIn. at Nirav Shah Denver handle. I'm also available on my YouTube channel, youtube.com/c/meditativeman. Where all of my weekly meditation sessions are uploaded every week. If someone is interested in joining a live zoom session, please email me. It's free. I'll send a zoom link out, at meditate denver@gmail.com. and I'll be happy to, share the zoom link with them.

Very good. I will make sure to include all of that in the show notes. Thank you. Thank you so much. Nirav for joining me on the show today. I learned a lot. You gave me a lot to think about, and I'm sure the audience feels the same way. So thank you for sharing your time and your wisdom with us.

Thank you so very much. And I look forward to getting to know you more,

Yeah, likewise.