Happiness in Wealth Or Wealth In Happiness

Happiness in Wealth Or Wealth In Happiness??

Here is the complete transcript of the podcast

Welcome back, happy Tuesday morning to you on the podcast. Today we are talking money. If you have conflicting thoughts, ideas, beliefs, and values when it comes to money, then I want you to stay with me. We are talking about something serious here. today’s podcast episode is not a question from anyone. By the way, I’m getting a lot of questions. And I’m finding and pacing myself to answer your questions. Thank you for trusting me. Thank you for believing in me. And I will get to those questions. If your question has not been answered yet, then I’m promising. I will get to it. It’s in my queue. I get to it. Sometimes I do record some questions. In fact, I recently recorded a few episodes. But as things happen, as events are happening in my life, I defer those podcast episodes. And I record the most important event that just recently happened that I experienced so that the podcast stays contextual. So today’s podcast episode is an event that happened yesterday. And this is the backstory.


So I was with a friend of mine, we were at a tea place having tea. But we were talking about money, income investments, carrier carriers, and children, all a variety of topics. And the owner of the restaurant walks up to us. And we get into a three-way conversation with him. And at some point, this owner of this restaurant, he says he’s a young man, he says two things, he says I’m starting a new restaurant, a bigger better place. So that I can cook things that I cannot cook here because this kitchen is restricted. And then he says I will run both the places. And my friend was advising him he was telling him what he should do, how he should negotiate the deal, how to structure how he should pursue the lease, and all that. And I was sitting there silently observing a young man trying to figure this, I have been there myself and have gone through this process where I kept quitting one after the other business says Now, multiple businesses, I started multiple times I quit, only to find myself back to the first one, which I still do, which is interesting that you go around the world looking for whatever you want to have only to find it in your backyard. It’s interesting. So I was sitting there watching my friend and owner of this place interact. And at the end, after we were done, I kind of provided a synopsis I kind of give my read of the situation I said, here’s the problem. Any time somebody is unhappy with what they’re doing. And every one of us, we want to improve our situation, we want to get out of the pain, whatever we are in right now, whatever suffering we have, we want to all of us. And that is why we have advanced as a civilization we have come this far because we’re always looking for ways and means to get out and get into something that helps us. So I appreciate this young man’s courage to go start something new. So I’ll give it to him. What I said, explained, I said I see two problems.


One is that he somehow believes in his mind that he can improve the second opportunity in a much better way in a much bigger way he can do something bigger. And this in itself this opportunity, which by the way is also new, does that inherently have what he thinks it should have? And he’s limited. He can’t create a bigger kitchen he can’t serve. Or he cannot cook a bigger menu and all that which is good, which I understand. But there are so many revenue models and I sit in the restaurant and look at what they’re doing. I see an additional 10 or 15 different revenue streams that can be added to what they already are doing that any business has multiple sleeping revenue streams. And as an owner, as an entrepreneur, your job is to identify what are the different revenue streams that are hidden in this opportunity, which no more is an opportunity because it’s a job you know, you run a restaurant for 368 months it becomes a job. It’s not an opportunity, but very rare. early. That’s why you need an entrepreneurial mindset to see opportunities in the stuff that you do on a daily basis. And that’s what separates a business owner from an entrepreneur, entrepreneurs are always thinking they’re creative, and they’re constantly engaged in possibilities, for business owners. Yes, you know, they are, I need to open the business, I need to run the business, I need to generate the income at the end of the day. And I’ll just follow the least path of resistance, which is, everything is working. Let me work the cash register.


Now, again, this is not a proper definition of a business owner. But in this context, somebody who owns a restaurant runs the restaurant. Makes sense. Now this example applies. So the second point this individual makes this owner makes is I will run both places. And this is where I was shocked. See, you’re starting something, you’re just new to something. Somehow you’re facing some resistance, some intellectual differences in the way that you think you should run the place, and you should create the place and there are restrictions on the ground on the field. So you feel challenged, you feel constrained, and you want to exit the situation. But you’re not truly excited, you want to have whatever you created on the side. And you also want to go and create something big on the other side. That’s where I had a problem. See, most of the time we underestimate what we can do. And this weekend, in fact, I underestimated what I was doing. Somehow, I made up my mind that I should be able to move an entire house. So I moved this weekend and ended up moving my entire house. And I did not hire any movers. And I did not hire any packers, I packed everything. And I rented a U haul. And I moved. I’ll tell you why I did that maybe in a different podcast episode, I’ll tell you why. What was the mindset behind it, my mindset was I was trying to sci-fi still have that which I had nearly 25 years ago within me, it was a self-discovery exercise, it was my me kind of competing with my previous version, my previous self? So I was trying to see if I can pack my stuff, can move, get it rock, move everything to a new location, and completely clean the old location, and I did everything. Of course, my son helped and all that, but he’s a small kid. So not a lot of help just means that set, and wife also to bend here and there, but just say, nobody else from outside. And the majority of me doing that. So I was thinking, you know, I underestimated the effort, and also overestimated my capacity and my skill. And I was really, really past time I was like gone. I mean moving all the stuff to a new location, cleaning your location, it was just a mess. People do this all the time. And I’m, I’m telling you, as much as I know this, I somehow sometimes misunderstand myself, I can’t read myself, what I read in others.


See, when you asked me a question, I can see your situation, because I’m emotionally detached from you, I looking into my own situation and am emotionally attached. So I have difficulty processing this. And likewise, and that is the reason why the majority of the successful people who you see coaches, mentors, whoever, whichever field you know, super performance in every field, they have coaches and mentors guiding them, they can’t see we all of us humans by default, we have our own dark spots. We are myopic, we are blindsided by our own things events. So this individual is overestimating himself. And a long time ago, many, many months ago on this podcast, I made a point. In one of the episodes I said, every time you try to replicate success, you unknowingly will also replicate the failures. Very rarely, you can replicate success. Very rarely you can undo or not do the same mistakes. The second time around, very rarely it happens. And now you have to travel commute, and you’re effectively dividing your capabilities into half goes into the new venture. Half goes into the old one. It just comes applicated I would never, this is my thing, I would I see business opportunities every day. I guide entrepreneurs, in meetings, and I’ll tell you, my suggestion has been, and will continue to be, start one thing, stay with it. And learn everything humanly possible systemize it, try to replicate yourself with the system, hire the people who will operate inside the system, and you check out. If you want to see you can minimize your engagement and your time with what you’re doing. But the responsibility is still with you.


Going back to a quick note on this, this individual, you see, in your 20s and 30s, even in 40s, there is a sense of urgency to make money, which I highly suggest you are a teenager listening to this right now, go figure out a way to make money. I’m very vocal about this, I think every kid should learn how to make money. And money values are important. And they need to be instilled very, very early by the parents and should be applied very early by the children. Some people are raised without understanding money values, and I am one such individual because that was not a dominant value. In the house, the house struggled, we struggled. But it was not something about never having a discussion about investing never a discussion about growing money. None. Everything on money is an acquired value for me. And because it’s an acquired value, it comes at a cost. And that cost. Sometimes you have to pay over a long period of time. And because it is an acquired value, it could be challenged and it could be shifted very easily by your core values, it’s very difficult to take an acquired value and turn that into a core value, it involves a tremendous amount of effort and takes time it takes a lot of diligence doesn’t happen. You just can’t wake up in the morning and say I’m going to start a business and I’m going to become successful doesn’t happen. Your employee mindset, your past, lack of money, mindset, your struggles, all those things will override any thought. Any positive thought you are trying to create for yourself when it comes to money happens every day. That’s why people go bankrupt. That’s why people lose money. That’s why people can never get ahead. Say I don’t know who you listen to or what you’re listening to. Very rarely do people succeed. It’s hard, it’s really, really hard. It needs a lot to succeed. And that’s also true in your job too. So whatever you have taken up, it takes a lot of effort to succeed, and not easy.


So this young man’s desire to make money is something as I said, everybody should, and he’s also trying to do it. But then he’s trying to do it too quickly and too fast. It may work, it may not work, and oftentimes it doesn’t work takes time. Coming back to my discussion about happiness. When it comes to money. At the end of the day, you’re trying to make money because you want to become happy. And that’s all the discussion I was having with my friend early on before. Before this happened. See, I have friends on both sides, I have friends who tell me that money is nothing. And I have people telling me I have money is something that you need to give your, your time attention and effort to. In my understanding in my observation money, for me is a tool. It has utility value. But then beyond that, you know, in some context, it plays its role. And it’s in some places it doesn’t. I’ll give you an example. This debate has been on for many, many, many years, hundreds of years. If you go back 500,000 years, and you start readings, or you try to pull some information about how previous generations used to treat money, and what were the money values. One of the values that you can see, all through history is you know happiness, wealth, and happiness. Not happiness in wealth. But I see people who are on both sides even today and 500 years from now, people will be on both sides. So some people will continue to make money hoping that making a lot of money will make them happy. And there will be people who will constantly pursue other things so that other things are wealthy for them because they’re fine. Think wealth and happiness that those things make them happy. So this, these two are always going to be there, these two categories. So, one saying money is a thing, the other thing, is money is not a thing. Jay, Paul Getty was once asked, you know, you have all these billions of dollars? And he said, Yeah, you know, I have all this money, but I don’t think I am happy. You know, with this money, I cannot buy help with this money. I cannot buy good times.


So what’s the value of this? So, I have known personally, and I see I read people who pursue money as if that’s the only thing. And if that person oxygen, so which, by the way, we all do all of us, we need oxygen to survive. So these people somehow read money is much higher than oxygen itself. So they do. But then little do they know that they have lost their prime, they’ve lost their time. And by the time they have it all out, they’re starting to fall apart from a health perspective. You know, I’m telling you right now, my mindset, and it has been for the last few years, you know, what is my neurological life? Just running and diet doesn’t help. I need to start focusing as, as I’m growing, I need to start focusing on, you know, what can I do to keep my brain active, what can I do to make sure that I’m stretching, you know, my, everything, when it comes to the neurons, and everything that comes to the nervous system, everything is in intact. Those are the changing things. And I’m starting to see that. And once you are in your 50s, you start to think along those lines, you’re not thinking about, in I want to go buy a bigger house or a better car. It’s just It comes with that age. So money is overrated, it’s inflated, and I made a podcast on this many, many months ago. As I said, money for me has utility value, which means it is a form, it’s, it’s a mechanism, it’s a means to do whatever you want to do. So money gives me freedom, money gives you autonomy. So these are the things that that money can do. But just making it the most important thing is one of the, you know, surefire ways or short ways, whatever you want to say, do not have in good time. Jay, Paul Getty said it. So the pursuit of money is important. Not money in itself, money in itself will do nothing. Many years ago, I went into started promoting a concept called a lifestyle business, which is not unique to me, and many other people also do it and talk about it. And in the lifestyle business, what you’re doing is you’re making just enough amount of money so that you have a decent lifestyle. And lifestyle includes health, relationships, finances, investments, every other aspect of life, spirituality, everything comes in, in a lifestyle.


So you make just enough amount of money so that you can just have every other aspect of your life in sync. Because if you start focusing and giving more money to one area of life, then success in that area is coming at the cost of other areas. Simple, okay? So pretty simple. Take your hourly rate or whatever. And, you multiply that by eight. So you work eight hours a day, that’s all just eight hours a day. And that will give you over a period of 22 days in a month, that should give you the amount of money to make. For example, let’s say you take your hourly rate is $100. And you work eight hours a day 800. And let’s say that are only 20 days, in a month, you work Saturdays, Sundays you don’t. So if you go by that number, that means you need $16,000. Now, if you keep all your expenses under 16,000, including some investment in savings, all of that and taxes and all that, then you have a good life. And it isn’t life going as long as you keep making those numbers. And I’ve known many people I’ve lived that life. I know many of the people that I coach and train and I tell them to do it. And that’s it. That’s how it works. Now occasionally you have a situation like COVID or inflation and all that the stock market collapses. So, it may shift some numbers here and there. But over a long period of time, you also should because you have energy and you have Help and all that you’re smart. So, as things change on the money front, you also modify other things to make sure that you, your money, numbers, or whatever it is, don’t go down and you will pull the numbers back to the same level so that you continue to have a balanced lifestyle. Simple. Okay, I’m going to stop here. This podcast has gone too far. Longest I think ever since. Great. Go. Have an incredible Tuesday, and I will catch up with you tomorrow, depending upon what else I have to say maybe I’ll continue this, or maybe I’m going to go to a question depends. Okay. That’s all for now. Take care of yourself. We’ll talk soon.

Share this post

Share on facebook
Share on google
Share on twitter
Share on linkedin
Share on pinterest
Share on print
Share on email

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published.