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Exploring the intersection of spirituality and business. In this episode I dive into what past limiting beliefs I've held about money and how I let go of them.
Teaching women financial literacy, and helping them be more confident investors, entrepreneurs or go further in their careers.
Hey guys,
I always want to mix up the content on here because there are so many things in this world that fascinate me, that I’ve learned about that I want to share.
I don’t just want to keep it strictly to stock investing because, while I do invest heavily in the markets, that’s not entirely who I am, and I want this podcast to be a full reflection of me.
I love investing, I love real estate, and I genuinely can talk about these things until the end of time. Yea I’m real fun person to have at a dinner party haha. But I’m also a business owner.
And being an entrepreneur put me in a very unique position where I got to see the world from a completely different lens.
Last year I read a book called “The Diamond Cutter” which talks about the intersection of spirituality and business and it sparked a lot of thoughts.
Spirituality and business have always been two separate concepts I’ve explored quite a bit. So learning about where they coincide was tremendously eye opening.
I’ve done a lot of soul searching. I even travelled to Peru, to the depths of the Andes mountains, by myself, completely alone to get a deeper understanding of who I am and what my purpose is in this world. I did a yoga retreat in peru as well, and that inspired me to do a 200 hour yoga teachers training course, so now I’m a certified yoga teacher. I don’t actively teach, I can barely keep up with my own practice if I’m being honest now, but Yoga, and meditation is something I’ve been really curious about.
And exploring this passion has actually helped me a lot in business.
I love those spaces where two ideas concepts or fields of study connect. Like where psychology intersects with business - consumer behaviour. Where technology intersects with art - NFTs.
So today’s episode is about letting go of limiting beliefs. And I want to share some bits from this book that inspired me to explore and reflect on limiting beliefs I have, and how letting go of them has helped shape me in to the person I am now.
And hey, maybe this will help some of you guys as well.
Limiting Beliefs around money.
The first thing I want to get into is the whole idea of money in general. Most ideas that we have about it, how were supposed to interact with it, wether we have enough or can never have enough are ideas that are embedded in us from childhood.
A philosophy or belief that I’ve had to let go of in recent years is the idea that money is not the end goal.
My family immigrated here from the Soviet Union. They risked everything, left their friends, family, jobs behind and moved here with a 3 year old (me) when they were in their twenties. Which is terrifying, because I think about the fact that they were my age when 1) they had a toddler and 2) they picked up and just moved across the country.
But they were doing it in search of a better life. And they found one here. My parents are both software developers, with university educations and well paying jobs.
So when I talk about these limiting beliefs, I recognize that I’m coming from a place of privilege. I hate being inauthentic, so I’m never going to claim that I’m “self-made” or “made it on my own” because my parents had such a big role in my upbringing to make me who I am today. My parents never struggled to put food on the table, they gave me everything they ever could and built a pretty comfortable life for themselves here.
I’m eternally grateful for them.
So many people go through financial stress because they’re worried about putting food on the table. When you’re so focused on whether or not you can feed your children, or provide shelter, it’s hard to focus on anything else.
Getting yourself out of that position, out of a spot where you’re counting every dollar, is so critical for living in tune with your purpose.
When you’re stressed about your financial position it takes up a lot of our mental bandwidth.
A lot of our creative bandwidth, and we’re not able to show up as our truest and best selves in this life.
Once you take care of all your financial obligations, and you’re not living in a pay-check to pay-check way, you can come to a place where you’re working on things that are of “service”.
Our you can start focusing on your purpose and question what kind of value you want to provide this world.
That’s what wealth means to me.
It’s having the ability to meet all my financial obligations and have the time and energy to focus on what I’m passionate about and what service I can provide to the world.
The limiting belief here and I want to ask you to think about how you feel about it - is the idea that money is evil.
Money itself is neither good nor bad. It’s just a tool.
Being wealthy isn’t something that I’m striving for, but more so, money is a tool that you can use to open up yourself to service.
I mentioned the book The Diamond Cutter - this book really helped me break free from limiting beliefs I had in my life around money but specifically helped me understand where I’m limiting myself with my own business.
And a lot of that involves being intentional about my business and my actions and leading with purpose.
The full name of the book is actually The Diamond Cutter: The Buddha on Managing Your Business and Your Life. Written by Michael Roach, Christie McNally
It’s a collection of ancient and contemporary wisdom from the tibetan buddhist tradition.
Michael gives fresh insight into ancient wisdom by using examples from his own experience as one of the founders of the Andin International Diamond Corporation, which was started with capital of fifty thousand dollars and which today has annual sales in excess of one hundred million dollars. Much of the success of Andin has come from applying the business strategies presented in The Diamond Cutter
Michael Roach is a fully ordained Buddhist monk who received his geshe (master of Buddhism) degree from Sera Mey Tibetan Monastery after 22 years of study. For many years, he was ordered by his spiritual teacher to work in New York City for a diamond firm. Roach applied the teachings and principles of the Diamond Sutra to his everyday labors without letting anyone know of his path: "I was to be a Buddhist sage on the inside and a normal American businessman on the outside." Under his leadership sales of the company soared to $100 million per year.
Roach begins with an explanation of the Buddhist view of "emptiness."
People, situations, and objects are not "good" or "bad" in and of themselves. Whatever we view them as is a based on the judgment that we apply to it.
Roach spends the rest of the book explaining this in detail.
The author presents 46 business problems and shows the best ways to deal with them.
The first big theme I took a way from this is the relationships we have with money. Weather it’s as an entrepreneur and you’re looking at the cash position of your business, or if you’re looking through the lens of an individual.
Avoid a Stingy state of mind.
I talked about abundance vs. growth mindset before - there’s a whole episode on this and I’ll dive deaper into this in the next season, but the main lesson here is when you think cheap - this is the exact wording Roach uses -
You lose creativity. You lose a truly generous outlook and you create a limitation to the financial situation.
I can give you so many examples of how this was limiting to me, but a great example of this. I don’t know if I told you this. I hired movers on Facebook marketplace. Big mistake. We hired the cheapest ones we could find, and to sum up a horrible story in 5 words or less. Do not. Skimp out, on movers.
They came late, we were moving things late into the night. They asked for payment half way through the move. RED FLAG. I obliged (I shouldn’t have). They ended up damaging my furniture. And then at 2 AM , yes literally 2 am. I was stuck outside with my bare mattress and boxspring on the driveway. And boxes upon boxes of things that they just refused to move because they didn’t know how many stairs there would be in the place. So the fuckers just left.
As a business owner you definitely want to be scrappy, and having cost limitations is part of the nature of the job - especially when you’re starting out, so the main lesson that I took away here is let go of CHEAPNESS because it impacts creativity.
And don’t be afraid to spend a bit more where you need, where its necessary.
Same applies for people. You can have financial restraints, but never allow that cause you to be cheap.
The next limiting belief that I want to get into is the idea that someone else should and will do this for me.
It’s so much easier to ask someone else - future husband, prince charming, to have their things figured out.
When you’re a kid its the idea of “my mom will just take care of it for me”, - then when you move out, if you’re looking for your partner, you might be waiting for someone to take responsibility for your actions, for your debt.
That’s symptomatic of us feeling like we’re not enough to do it. We’re not smart enough. We wait. We never turn on our full potential because we’re waiting for someone else to swoop in and save us.
You’ve got to let go of that. You are enough. You are smart enough. Only you can save you.
Belief #3 - I’m not good with money
Have you ever seen a baby be born and be able to talk and walk. We’ve all learned the skills we have. To think you’re just not good with money just means you haven’t learned the skills yet.
Our beliefs become our actions because we act in accordance with our beliefs.
When you think I’m not good with money - you avoid taking financial steps.
Instead, you can take really small actions to build your confidence.
Paying attention pays off.
The things that we tell ourselves matter.
Let go of negative inner dialog. Stop putting yourself down.
The power of the human mind is incredible. If you look around and see what humans have been able to accomplish it’s incredible.
The complex financial systems we’ve built, the infrastructure, the technology. Sure there’s a lot that needs to be fixed, but in general.
The mind is the most important tool we have.
Thoughts are like seeds that we plant. You water them by focusing on them more, and letting them flourish.
You can choose which thoughts you focus on.
Nobody has a gun to your head telling you what to think.
At any point, you can switch what you focus on. The whole purpose of meditation, as I dwell further and further into this intersection of spirituality is to be able to view your thoughts like a projector.
What this means is you’re not trying to STOP your thoughts. That’s actually a really common misconception.
You’re trying to observe. You are the observer of thought. And as the observer, you can guide your thinking in one way or another.
So I like to think of thoughts as seeds.
In this book, the author calls thoughts imprints. The key limiting belief here, is to let go of any imprints that are negative. That block you from achieving what you want.
Going back to the first limiting belief - money is evil. If you think it’s evil and you judge people who have it, subconsciously you will never get to a state of financial abundance because why would you yourself want the thing that you look upon so negatively. You’re going to work against yourself here.
Stop working against yourself.
Those who succeed see themselves making money only because, at some point in the past, they planted in their minds an imprint to see themselves making money.
The author explains that the imprint (or seed) is only actually planted when you watch yourself giving all you can to others. It doesn’t have to be financial. It can be with your energy. But essentially the concept here is do good, genuinely and you’ll be rewarded.
As we’ve seen, this giving begins and should begin in a limited way: Small kindnesses done to people in your own department, or your own family, based on watching them closely to see what they want and need.
When you realize that you are capable of love and kidneness, you begin to offer love and kindness to yourself, and that’s when the true magic happens. Because most people are NOT kind to themselves.
Observe your inner dialogue with yourself. What kind of words do you use to talk to you when things aren’t going your way. Do you get angry, do you call yourself names. How do you speak to you?
In Practice - How do you offer this kindness, good energy, or giving - start small Then the gradually bring it to a broader level, say to every department in your company, with the gift taking on more substantial proportions- financial yes, but also in terms of giving your own time, and your emotional and professional support, and helping people with ideas.
TLDR -- your thoughts are seeds. They don’t get planted until you give to others around you, and then offer kindness to yourself.
Limiting Beliefs about making money.
In Buddhism, it is not the money which is in itself wrong; in fact, a person with greater resources can do much more good in the world than one without.
The question rather is how we make the money; whether we understand where it comes from and how to make it continue to come; and whether we keep a healthy attitude about the money.
The whole point then is to make money in a clean and honest way, to understand clearly where it comes from so it doesn’t stop, and to maintain a healthy view toward it where we have it. As long as we do these things, making money is completely consistent with a spiritual way of life; in fact, it becomes part of a spiritual way of life.
I have friends from all walks of life. I tend to surround myself with a lot of business oriented people, because naturally I gravitate towards that. But I also have a lot of creative friends, artists, yoga teachers, people who think differently from me.
And a question I get asked all the time is, Nika if you’re so business oriented, such a capitalist how and why are you also spiritual. These two fields don’t intersect.
But they do. I hate when people say “Money is political” this isn’t a conversation about Politics, because as many people as there are in the world, that’s how many opinions you’ll have. But I do want to shed some light on the fact that as long as you are ethically channeling your effort, money can do a lot of good in the world.
Second Principle about Money is it should be enjoyed.
The second principle is that we should enjoy the money; that is, we should learn how to keep our minds and bodies in good health while we make the money. The activity of creating wealth should not exhaust us so much physically or mentally that we cannot enjoy the wealth. A business person who ruins his health doing business is defeating the very purpose of business.
This is a hard lesson I had to learn. I’ve burnt myself out way to many times. Way to many. That’s why I’ve started to focus on eating healthy foods that nourish me, working with a personal trainer and prioritizing movement. Even though these things cost a substantial amount, I prioritize that over spending money on cocktails or shopping.
I don’t buy a lot of things, but I will spend majority of my income on helping me stay physically and mentally sharp.
The limiting beleif I’ve let go of, is a personal trainer is expensive - because injiuryies are expensive. Poor joint function is expensive.
I had a really hard time deciding on whether I was going to get one for a long time, because I couldn’t grapple with the cost. I’ve been working out for years, I always thought I had proper form, but I could use the extra support.
And I recognize I’m speaking from a position of privilege. I worked really fucking hard to get to where I am now, and I have no shame in enjoying the fruit of my labour. This is how I’ve let go of that belief.
So while that may not be feasible for you, prioritize your health in a way that fits your budget. There’s always space.
Third Principle of Money - what ever you’re doing to earn it, it should have had some meaning
The way you earn money has to be done with integrity. When you don’t do it with integrity, even if you have no empathy (which fun fact, the range of empathy you feel is actually encoded into your DNA, there’s a gene that allows people to feel empathetic and some people feel more empathy than others)
When you don’t operate with integrity, even if you pretend you do, deep down it will eat away at you and cause you to feel sorrow. It will manifest itself negatively in your life in one way or another.
What I don’t agree with is that every business venture has to have some deep meaning and has to be the project of you pursuing your purpose. What stops a lot of people from starting businesses is this idea that what they’re working on has to be something they’re deeply passionate about.
I don’t agree with that. You can be passionate about making money. You can be passionate about investing. It’s what you do with that money that is going to have meaning.
So if you use it to enrich the lives of others around you. If you are going to develop real estate and create housing for people, while profiiting yourself, you are pursing a greater purpose that has meaning.
The limiting belief that the author is alluding to here is the idea that profit is negative. People are motivated by profit, that’s how our society works, and that profit can be used to enrich the lives of others.
The end of every business enterprise we engage in, and in fact the end of our lives, must come to every person who ever does business. And at the most important part of the business - at the end, when we are looking back on all we have achieved - we should see that we have conducted ourselves and our business in a way that had some lasting meaning, that left some good mark in the world.
To summarize, the goal of a business, and of ancient Tibetan wisdom, and in fact of all human endeavor, is to enrich ourselves - to achieve prosperity, both outer and inner. We can enjoy this prosperity only if we maintain a high degree of physical and mental health. And over the length of our lives we must seek ways to make this prosperity meaningful in a larger sense.