Plan For End-Of-Life Before It’s Too Late

Here is the complete transcript of the podcast

This podcast is all about success. Every day, I’m here talking about either business, career life, relationships, one small little area of each, one of these big areas. Sometimes I get questions from the listeners from a radio show or from this podcast, and I try to answer them here. And sometimes I make up the questions on my own. And I try to answer them hoping that all this helps. So if you are a repeat listener of this podcast, that means you have subscribed to this podcast, and you like what I share here, then do me a favor, that should be placed where you can write your comment and rate this podcast. And if you’re watching this on YouTube, then please there is ample space there to write a review, write a comment, or subscribe to the channel, you can press the bell icon so that every time a new podcast comes out, you will be notified.

If you’re completely new here, and you’re listening to this for the very first time, today’s topic is going to get you in today, I want to take some time and talk about the end of life, as we all have to leave one day, how do we deal with debt, something that I have not done at all on this podcast, very rarely have spoken about this. But something that I have come personally very close to a few times. And I’ve started to respect it. So how to plan your debt, so that your loved ones and people who you leave behind, do not have to suffer. And as I’m recording this podcast, I am suffering. So this whole thing is coming from a very good place in my heart. Now, I have no idea why. But when I talk to people, and I talk to people for a long amount of time, in different setups on various topics, for several different durations each time, I rarely see people bringing up the topic that people talk about investments that carrier that jobs, that children, the grandchildren, but they never talk about that. And they don’t talk about aging either. So for some reason, as a society, we have been camouflaged successfully by the media buy everything that’s happening around us all the time, the glory, for some reason, we missed the basic point, which is this life is a lease. This life is being given to us for a certain amount of time for which we have to pay rent or dues every day. And suddenly, without knowing when this lead is going to be expiring, it expires. So there isn’t anything that we really own, technically speaking. And for some reason, nobody talks about this. And whenever I talk to people that like okay, we are here forever and if we all die, if at all, this discussion of that comes up. They’re like, yeah, I want to come back again. I’ll be reborn. I prefer to be reborn to my children, my grandchildren. And I’m like, really? This is how you think? Yeah, that’s how it is. That’s how I want it to be and my God listens to me. Okay. And I cannot. Because remember, I was telling you the other day, here on this podcast, I said, Don’t try to change people’s beliefs, because people believe what they believe. There is no need to fight them. So I don’t. But the truth is, we all live as if we are not gonna die. And this is one of the biggest cognitive dissonances hurdles the right word, but you get the idea somehow, you know, like, nothing will happen to me, I would outlive myself, whatever, whatever that is. So, that’s not the truth to this. we’re born, we’re going to go, Austin is this while we are preparing to live every day? How can we prepare to go? What are some of the things that need to be in place?

I’ll give you my personal story. My father, night abruptly had a stroke and lost his memory. Here I am trying to figure out things. My mother at first was there next to him, but then I tried to figure out where we have all the papers. Who do we entrust to everything and who should be taking care of things while we the kids are not around? All that came in Luckily, I had the support I have to support all that is good. But then still, there are things that need to be sorted out and need to be closed and I cannot because of several constraints in the process. All this is this happened in one country and I’m in a different country and all that a lot of issues and challenges, which are if you see are a mess Sunday, provided my dad would have prepared and provided that I prepare so that my children don’t, and you prepare so that your children don’t. So that’s the idea of today’s podcast. So what do you need to do? Well, the traditional thinking is this, the traditional thinking is that I’m going to put everything on one document, I want to leave the document to my children, so they know exactly where things are. Well, it turns out that you can’t do that. Most people don’t think that you cannot do it, most people don’t. And my friends tell me that they’re going to do that, and they haven’t done that. And the struggle is there isn’t a structured way of doing this. So let’s talk about what things your children or your loved ones need to know about you.

The first and foremost is that it’s a financial thing that must be addressed. So, your life insurance, if you have any, the properties that you have, or assets that you have, and assets include physical assets, and also immovable and movable assets, whatever they are like gold, or these days, Bitcoin, all that information has to be at some place clearly communicated. So your insurance policies, your asset documents, your bought movable immovable, then your wills and your trusts, that information, and all other assets listed somewhere. If you have a locker, that locker key, if you want your funeral to be done in a specific way, then all the instructions for the funeral, then your living trust, then you’re will all back like your last will they say. And any testament you have all that information. And because we live in the digital world, now you need the passwords of all the sites, some social media sites, a love you to nominate somebody to take care of closing down your social media accounts upon your exit. So you could do that I have done it. Point is passwords for all different websites. And I have like 1600 websites that I access. So all the passwords for all besides all this have to be centralized, structured and conveyed or communicated to your loved ones. But all this is good if we have a life we know we are planning and running. So what is the time to put all these things together? The truth is any time not before you go take a risk. So you are going today to take some skydiving classes and you decide for me to take the class, I need to have these things in place. So that if something goes wrong, at least my loved ones are safe and secured and informed. Well, the truth is doesn’t matter. But there are flying in the sky, or you’re on the ground in your room right now.

Risk is everywhere. It’s all about how you see risk. So if you have life, then you have risk. Anything could happen to anyone at any point in time. So there isn’t something’s called. Or if somebody is about 90, then only they may fall down. And you know, whatever. Truth is, life is fragile. Anything could happen. So why not we prepare. All this is good. You can Google this information and the list of things that you need to take care of, or they’re available ready for you to act on. But then I want to share something with you, which is very different. But I wanted and in fact, significantly did it for my children. In 2019. I made a choice. And I’ve been doing this for a very very long time which is to go climb a mountain and be on different mountains I hike I run and all that. So at one point, I decided very early on that I’m I will want to go to Mount Everest. That desire came true in 2019 and attempt. Now as a part of that, my goal was to put all these things together this entire list my life insurance, and passwords all back together, but I couldn’t. Those were okay. I got some bits and pieces done. I got them done in bits and pieces. But the thing that I really wanted to do was some messages that I wanted to leave for my children. I wanted to tell them I wanted to record their 16th 17th 18th 19th 20th birthday wishes Just categorized about 70s, or questions about life. And at different stages of my life, I came across these questions. And then I thought I would record my answers to those questions. Because there is a possibility that my children would come across these questions. And they, they would want to know how, as a father, what would I tell them? So I recorded a few videos, it was hard, and I was getting pretty close to leaving to Everest. So I couldn’t complete that project. But the message there is that you need to prepare at the highest possible level for your loved ones. Then on the flight to Kathmandu, and from there on the helicopter to Luke law. I was thinking in my mind that, listen, the questions I had when I was 13, 14,16, and 18, all that there were in those times under those circumstances, and my kids are in these times under these circumstances. So those questions may not apply to them. What questions should I be answering on these videos? And then as I landed in Lukla, I started my trek, I started to kind of, you know, calm myself down by saying, Listen, it’s okay. They will figure it out. There isn’t a way to answer all the questions for them on videos, they said, They’ll figure it out, it’s fine. I want to share this with you. Because this is how, as a parent, you should be thinking if you’re a parent. And as a child, your job is to spend time with your parents and collect all the information about everything they plan to leave for your clear instructions, you have siblings, you have clear instructions on what goes to whom. And so that, so that you preserve your parent’s values, as they transition, it very important that when people see you, they see your parents, and then they truly have left somebody behind. And that probably is their wish anyway. So nothing should be done outside of their wishes. That’s my belief. That’s my belief.

Not that I’m imposing that belief here on you. But you get the idea. It’s important that you get all this information. Okay, there are not many things we own. And I want to also draw, I want to also share an incredible resource with you that since 2017, has really taken over my thinking, which is the Swedish, that cleaning, which is more or less like cleaning up everything that you have kind of giving away all your possessions or donating them or getting rid of them to a point where everything is so streamlined that when you leave your loved ones are not struggling anymore. And this concept was put together by Margareta Magnusson, and she wrote this book, The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: How to Free Yourself and Your Family from a Lifetime of Clutter. Incredible book that I read. And I talk about it all the time about this book in my seminars and workshops. And I read this book because I was really crippled through this process. So this book came out long after I went through the suffering events that happen in my life already by the time but I want you to spend some time trying to explore this book. And there are many books that teach the talk about decluttering and structuring your life. And you don’t need to do all that the book says. But then you have to find yourself and this book will allow you to find yourself at some level. So you start making some changes in your life and prepare yourself so that you can exit cleanly, nicely. And when the end comes, then you know that you have left all the information, all the right pointers for your loved ones.

Okay, that’s all for now. And wherever you are, be safe and I will catch up with you tomorrow. Every day, right here on successful trading. Stay tuned.

Divided between Growing Kids & Aging Parents: What Is My Duty?

Here is the complete transcript of the podcast

On the podcast today, I’m answering a question that has come in from a longtime listener of my radio shows, and now a longtime listener of this podcast. And the question is, “As a first-generation immigrant with parents alone in India, there is always a mental tussle and self-judging about them. Due to constraints, my parents are not able to travel to us, at times mind thinks that I am being selfish and not being there for my parents, but practically, for kids, my kids want to be in the US for their future. How does one deal with this?”

Wonderful question. Thank you for trusting me with this question. And I will do my best to answer this and make an attempt. There is no right or wrong answer to this. So I’m going to share the philosophy behind this. And you can apply this philosophy if you think it makes sense. Now, this is a challenge, this is a problem, when you leave your parents and when you are far away, it doesn’t matter whether you are in America, you are in Canada, Singapore, whichever part of the world you are in, doesn’t matter, you are like 100 miles away, away from where your parents are, it’s still an issue. Distance, in general, is an issue. And I’m going to cover that. But then here’s how I see it, because I myself have gone through it, and I’m going through it. So this question is very close to my heart. So each one of our assets, every asset you have in your life today will eventually become your liability. Your parents at one point in time, where your assets and they are now due to age, everything else that’s happening, you know, we all age, and we’ll start losing our functions, we become a liability. So they were assets, to begin with. And now they’re turning into a liability be any position you have, you have a house, you have a car, anything that you have, that you think now is an asset is going to soon turn into a liability, your emotions that you think are your assets will turn into a liability. And whatever you think in your mind is an asset, which by the way, your parents are an asset. And this was a program that was done a long time ago. And this is there in the mind from the beginning, because they gave birth to us and the race does, we want to become as we see them becoming a liability not to us for themselves, they’re not able to do the basic functions, and they’re going down and they don’t have the energy and they’re aging. And we have to do everything. Because it’s an asset in our minds, we will do whatever we can to protect that asset. Every asset becomes a liability, and you will do everything in your capability to protect that asset. And you will expense a lot along the way. So that’s the point.

Hopefully, that point I could convey across every asset. Let’s look into this. Take that principle one more time. And I’ll give you one more analogy on this asset. As you started. As we all started as kids, we were given some skills, some values, and some beliefs by our parents. And we had some talents, they did not have short talent, and there was an investment they made. That’s not the right way to put it. But you get the idea. There was an investment that was made into us, and with time. And as we became older, we started seeing life and we acquired the necessary understanding of this world, our job is to turn that investment into equity for them. So the bad way to say this, but you get the idea to turn this into equity for them. Now, one of the ways we turn this into equity is that we take whatever they have given us and we give that to our children. So we transfer our passions, we transfer the things that we could not do, but our parents wanted us to do. But then we can do. So we want our children to do it so that we can turn children into assets. So I see this is the question you’re asking, right? So that is why you’re going to Bible Bible says, a simple concept. I’m gonna sum it up in one line, leave and cleave. So you leave your parents and you cleave to people who come into your life. So your responsibility is to your children. Clearly, Bible says that now I was talking to a friend of mine who has some deep understanding about Vedas and all and we chat a lot. And I’ve asked him this question. And he said, even with a says that, you know your responsibilities to children. Okay.

Now the question becomes is what happens to the parents and the assets and they thought that we are, they’re turning, they got an asset. They gave birth to us and instilled the talent and skills into us and then they thought that they were going with time We are going to become equity. Right? Now that means we’ll take that equity, whatever, when we see the world and then turn that equity into assets, and that asset will be our children. But then along the way, right along the way, they did not realize that they will become a liability. They didn’t want to, seriously they didn’t want to, but they start to see, hey, I’m slowing down, I’m aging, I’m sick. And I think I’m troubling my child, I think I’m, I don’t want to tell anything that’s happening with me. But the way the nature is, they can’t hide it from you, it’s a matter of a day or two before you come to know, you know, you can, they could delay this, but then each and every emotion that is causing pain to them sooner or later will come to you. So this becomes a game that you have to play, in your mind. What is the time that you would like to spend with your parents? And how can you tell yourself that whatever time you spent with them is enough?

Now, there are two parts to this question also. One is your desire to go spend time with them. Okay, that is completely controlled by you. But they are fine, they’re able to take care of themselves. They had a good life, that living a good life, it’s fine, but they’re sick, and they need, they’re losing their abilities, and you don’t have anybody to help you and support you, then it becomes your responsibility. Bible talks about this, every other scripture, every other philosophy that I have studied, at least in my understanding talks about taking care of parents, let’s look into this from a different angle. Back in the day, while I was growing up, children were supposed to grow up and take care of their parents. So parents necessarily did not have a 401 K or retirement or social structure and I live in America now. So there is some social structure to this some social security coming in some other things, you know, there are programs built-in to take care of older parents and all those things. But in the structure that I was raised in the times that I was born and raised, the only structure that was there is that parents will transition and live with their children, and they will transition out from there. So there was no concept of care homes, old age homes, and all that, that dynamic has shifted, and the dynamic has changed. And because of the way the world operates, now, it probably makes sense to look into those options. But then if they are demanding that they want you and they want to be with you, and there is nobody else who can serve, and you yourself want to serve, then that’s a different equation altogether.

So you have to somehow create the balance, I want to point out one thing, every time you do something, it comes at an expense. So every time you see something is amplified or something is having an incredible amount of visibility or success is a function of life that is looking good. That means it has drawn the energy from somewhere else. And the chances are whatever it has drawn the energy from is now weak. So if you focus on parents, your children will be compromised, given no doubt about it. If you focus on your children, to a large extent, your parents could also be compromised. But it’s a balance that you have to create. It’s a mindset. Now, one, angle, one core philosophy, I want to share with you that I have used multiple times. Every interaction I have with anyone in my last interaction, every conversation of the last conversation. That’s my mindset. So every time I see my relatives, my parents, my friends, even you, if I meet you, as I’ve spoken to you, I think in my mind, that was the last conversation. That is how I approach every interaction, every discussion, even every consultation, that gives me a perspective, whatever I have to say I said whatever I had to do I did in that space. I usually never say I’m going to deal with this three months from now four months from now.

My personal mindset is that I want to live you know, 400 years, but then I’m okay if Tomorrow’s my last day or today is my last day I’m okay with it. So I work out as if and I go to the gym I work out and do all the things I didn’t want to live for 100 years I want to be strong, healthy, and all that. But then I’m okay if life ends. That’s perfectly fine because those are the things we do not control. I’m going to talk about this tomorrow on the podcast but you get the idea. See with time every relationship reverses. You’re your parents become your children. You are the child who will have to become a parent. So as a child, there comes a point where you have to become a parent and say, This is what I can do, this is what I cannot do. That’s the level of understanding you have to bring in. And there are multiple different approvals that you have to take to do certain things. And sometimes you have to force some approvals from your side. So all that is nothing but balance, and all that is your ability to handle yourself, not anybody else. So can you turn your parents who are declining in age, from a liability into the equity? That could be a question you may have? The chances are no, mostly no, it’s very rarely I have seen that a caregiver who has given a tremendous amount of care, was expecting that the old man will become young, on the old woman will become young, that means the parents would become young, and they’ll overcome all the challenges, it doesn’t work that way. And that’s how life is the most unfortunate thing about caregiving is that no matter what you do, they will go. So this feeling that I am not able to see my parents will will eventually end up in a situation where my parents are no more around. I hate to say this, but this is the truth, this is how life works. So you have to do what you have to do, you have to create this balance. And this is the mindset I would use.

So go spend time with your parents as much as you can understand that they had their life. If they are demanding that you serve them, then you have to, you know, you have to, there’s no way out and nobody else you don’t trust anybody else. You have to. If they are okay, if you can get it, if they can be helped to some enlisting the services of other people around, then that’s fine. But what I’ve seen consistently happen is after a long time living alone on their own, most parents would love to spend the last time with their kids. And that is something that you may choose to accommodate. And that is going to come at a cost. And that cost is very difficult for many people to be here. So that’s why they, you know, become sometimes emotionless dealing with those situations.

Hopefully, my analogies and my answer are helpful. If it is let me know. That’s all for now. I’ll catch up with you tomorrow. Stay tuned. Bye now.

3-Steps To Reboot & Revitalize Yourself In 2022

Here is the complete transcript of the podcast

This is an audio podcast but recently, a few weeks ago, we turned this audio podcast into a video podcast. podcasts were always designed to be audio. But then, because there is a lot going on on YouTube, you know, I decided why not I take all the podcast episodes I’m doing and turn them into video. So we attach a bunch of videos to the audio and release them on YouTube. And because I’m spending a lot of time on YouTube. Lately, I have been watching a lot of videos on YouTube. Also, I came across a video talking about the economy and the stock market and job market, and all that. And I was watching the video. And the top comment on that video was from someone saying, I was having three jobs, I just got laid off from two. And this puts me in a paycheck-to-paycheck situation. I have more expenses now. And then I need to catch up on my bills. And this is not me. I’m a hard-working individual. I don’t know what’s happening with me. I read the comment, on that question. And I wanted to respond to it. And I wanted to provide a recovery plan for this individual. But then I decided why not record a podcast? Because this question might be coming up among many people. And this could be of help. Maybe that was my thought. So here I am recording today’s podcast. And this is going to be turned into a video, and I’ll post it on my YouTube channel. And then I’m going to respond to this individual with the link to the video. Okay, that’s the idea. So let’s get into this. If you are encountering a problem, or you’re in a situation where your money is going away, or maybe your job is going away, or maybe you are kind of moving from one situation to the other. And there are challenges that you are experiencing, what can you do? And how will you redefine yourself? That’s the message on today’s podcast.

There are three specific things based on my understanding and my experience, there are three things that need to happen for any individual to turn their life around, specifically within the context of money. First and foremost, there are three things that have to happen for any individual to turn their life around. And this has nothing to do with the money discussion here. It applies to any aspect of life. The first one is a logical choice you have to make. The second one is a physical choice you have to make are mental, physical, mental, or both. And the last one is a spiritual choice. And I’m going to walk you through all these three things step by step. So let’s get into this. The first part, which is the logical part is you need to decide to be renewed, you need to decide that I want a new version of me, I want to renew myself, that’s the decision you have to make. And that is the logical part logically, you have to arrive there. And as a part of that, once you decide that you want to renew yourself, there are two questions you have to ask. The first and foremost question is, who is the hero? Who is that individual I want to emulate? Who has the values and beliefs that I think can turn my life around? There are many take any field in any area, there are hundreds and 1000s of experts and gurus and people who have succeeded. They don’t call themselves gurus or experts. These are people who had probably a bad story or a story that was very hard and miserable, and they completely turned it around. And they now have a life that is remarkable and that you would like to emulate. Because success always leaves traces. It’s easy to trace success. Of course, behind every success is hardship and heartburn and losses all back but you get the idea.

Now, whoever this hero is, and whatever their values are, once you subscribe to that, the next question is who has the life that I want? That’s also a question who has the life that I want? And what can I do to get it? So this question also is modeling. When you look at somebody’s life, you see what they have. They have the right values, they have the right beliefs. They may not be the heroes, the heroes a different example altogether. But these are the people that you have in In your close proximity already, they have the life. They have the happiness, they have the joy, they have the fulfillment, they have the excitement, they may not be rich, that’s a whole different discussion, but you get the idea. So they have a life that you would like to have, why not mortal them? So these two questions you have to ask, this is a logical part, then comes the physical slash, mental part, mostly mental, okay. And this is called the work ethic. Inside work ethic, there are a few things. The first and the foremost thing is that you got to become positive.

There is a lot of negativity, it’s natural. It’s hard. When you are in a situation like this, where you’re living paycheck to paycheck, money is going away, there is nothing left and you don’t have a direction you don’t know what’s going on. It’s natural for negativity to set in. But you got you’re decided logically that you want to renew yourself as the step number one. So step number two, as a part of your work ethic is that you’ve got to become positive, you have to think positive, you have to get rid of procrastination, and you got to bring back focus and discipline. And you need to set daily goals. I have done numerous podcasts, if you’re watching this on YouTube, numerous podcasts here, and also on my podcast, also my audio podcast, numerous episodes, talking about goals, goal setting daily goals, all that focus, concentration, determination, all that. So those things have to come in. But then there is something else as a part of work ethic, which is called the setup mindset. Every time you do something new, you’re going to encounter failures, you’re going to encounter setbacks, you’re going to encounter someone who knows your job, every time you encounter that. Your job is to tell yourself that this is set up. This is set up, I’m setting it up, it’s okay, I’m setting it up every time I encounter a difficulty, it’s set up for me. today’s podcast is a second take, by the way, the first time I recorded this podcast, my computer stopped in the middle, I was speaking without looking at my screen. And it was I thought it was recording it did not. So the way I came back into it is by telling myself that this is a setup. So as part of the setup, things could go wrong. So you have to go back and erase everything and start from scratch. That’s what I would do as a part of the architecture and I do that relentlessly.

And then the third part is the spiritual side. I don’t know anybody can achieve anything. I mean, people do set money goals. People set different goals. But they achieve. But then I have seen this I don’t know. And I was talking with my friend the other day, he also mentioned this to me, when you don’t set spiritual goals and achieve them, then for some reason, the other goals seem like there is some gap somewhere there’s some vacuum, there is some disconnect somewhere the other goals really do not come true to true fulfillment. I don’t know. That’s what I feel. That’s what I’ve seen my friend tell me also. So we were debating discussing this. But there has to be a spiritual angle to this. So as a part of your spiritual angle, you kind of bring in a certain level of enthusiasm into everything that you will be doing as a part of your renewed you are a new version of you. Two things here also, the first and foremost is an attitude of gratitude. That you wake up in the morning saying that I’m given this day, what can I do that I woke up this morning in this body, with this identity with these emotions, these feelings that they were there yesterday? So you are today than you were yesterday, so it is a blessing. So an attitude of gratitude is how you start and then the second part of the spiritual element is that you want to be putting yourself in a position where you’re going to be inspiring others.

Now, let’s go back to this question for a second. This individual said I live now I live paycheck to paycheck, I have debt that needs to catch up with and this is not me, and why did this happens to me who have I become all that when I said you gotta inspire others. What I mean by that is this individual has to become something so that others get inspired. I hope you get the point. So that is the level of responsibility this individual has to bring in. If you are doing this that’s how you know that everything before that whatever you did was right. Sometimes you do the right thing but you don’t know It was right or wrong. It only becomes right when others, right get influenced by the deeds, your deeds, and your work. That’s when you know that yes, whatever you did you indeed do it the right way. So these are the three things that I would focus on doing. If I have to renew myself from a situation like this. Hopefully, for you. You’re listening to this on the podcast and watching this on YouTube. Hopefully, I’m hoping that this is helpful. If it is, let me know. Wherever you are, be safe, stay positive, and I will catch up with you tomorrow. And now more to produce this podcast and turn it into video and post it and reply to that comment. Thank you.