MONEY EXPERT: How To Think Like The 1%

1. 0:00 – 0:59

   Intro

   1. NSNischa Shah0:00

      We often think that to reach financial freedom, you need to earn more. Earning money doesn't actually make you better with money. It's about how you manage what you make.

   2. JSJay Shetty0:09

      What does the top 1% understand about money that most of us don't?

   3. NSNischa Shah0:13

      The single easiest way to get rich long term is by...

   4. JSJay Shetty0:18

      Hey, everyone. Welcome back to On Purpose. Today, I'm sitting down with Nischa Shah, former investment banker and accountant who left the traditional path to help millions rethink money, success, and freedom. Nischa breaks down how to stop letting money anxiety run your life. Nischa is a dear friend, and I love welcoming friends to On Purpose. Please welcome Nischa Shah. Nischa, it's great to have you here.

   5. NSNischa Shah0:43

      Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited.

   6. JSJay Shetty0:45

      I wanna talk to you about this transition you went through. We know a lot of the same people. For me, going to a good university, getting a good job was, like, the pinnacle. You did that.

   7. NSNischa Shah0:57

      Yeah.

   8. JSJay Shetty0:57

      You achieved that. Why

2. 0:59 – 2:58

   Questioning the Traditional Path

   1. JSJay Shetty0:59

      would you leave behind a great job with a great salary?

   2. NSNischa Shah1:01

      There's so much more to life than following the traditional path, where you get a job, qualify, keep going, climbing up the corporate ladder. And there was a point in my life where I felt like I had to really look inwards and ask myself, "What am I actually doing?" For a l- good part of it, I was really enjoying the banking lifestyle. There was glitz and glam to it. There was, uh, business trips. There was a status. And for a while, I convinced myself that this is what I want. This is the life I, I wanna live. And then as I went on, I felt like there was a massive disconnect between what I wanted to do and what I was doing. And I felt, as I kept going, that misalignment kept getting louder and louder and louder. I had to go through quite a dark phase to understand that this isn't what I wanted, and it was at that point where I had to look inwards and ask myself the difficult questions. Like, am I living a life that I actually want or one that everyone else expects me to live?

   3. JSJay Shetty1:58

      Mm.

   4. NSNischa Shah1:58

      Am I buying things that I wanna buy for myself or what I wanna show other people that I have? The question that really, really changed everything for me was, would I still be happy if I was living the same life in five years or 10 years' time as I am today? The fear of that was so much greater than the fear of anything that I had to do, and it gave me the confidence to say, "No, I'm walking away. I'm walking away from this job. I'm walking away from this lifestyle. I'm walking from this identity because there's so much more out there for me." And I had a bigger why that overtook anything that that moment had in store for me.

   5. JSJay Shetty2:30

      I feel like there's probably a lot of people listening right now who are thinking the exact same thing. They've got the traditional degree that they were expected to do. They've got the job. Maybe they're five years in, 10 years in, and they're thinking, "I'm not in the right place." But you've got all this sunk cost bias, this idea that I spent all those years studying for that. All my friends thought this is what I was gonna do. Maybe I've even got a partner. Maybe I've got children. This isn't the right time to rock the boat. Like, talk to me

3. 2:58 – 5:30

   The Courage to Walk Away

   1. JSJay Shetty2:58

      about the bias that we have of I've invested so much time and money into this. Everyone in my life understands this. How could I possibly dream about doing anything different?

   2. NSNischa Shah3:08

      I mean, it's the hardest thing to do, living life 'cause of what everyone else has told you to do. But if you don't have the courage to write your own story, someone else will always write it for you. And I think what most people think of as bravery or courage or doing something new and leaving behind what you've created is actually just having a financial cushion in place and having the safety to be able to walk away from situations you might not like or environments that you might not enjoy. But we put a lot of pressure on ourselves today that we have to do all or nothing. We've gotta quit our job and follow our passion. So s- for someone in that situation or that position, I would say, A, get your financial cushion in place 'cause that gives you more peace of mind and sanity than anything else that you could possibly think of. And the second thing I would say is that when I was in banking, it... there was a lot of comfort that came from having a salary, which let me have a lot of tiny experiments on the side. So it was my evenings, my weekends that I just spent trialing and testing and doing loads and loads of different things. And when you do it that way, you actually look at your job and think, "Oh, I'm so grateful that I've got this salary coming in that lets me do all these things on the side without thinking, 'Oh, I've just gotta somehow figure out a way to pay my bills.'" And it makes everything just a lot less enjoyable.

   3. JSJay Shetty4:24

      I fully agree with you. I- that was the same path for me. I was working my day job and then doing this on the evenings and weekends, i.e., at the time making videos. And I don't think I would've been as creative if I had been financially crippled. Now, I wasn't making that much money, but I was making enough to pay my bills and take care of things, and I was having to edit my videos because I couldn't afford to outsource it to someone. I was having a friend do me a favor by shooting my videos because I couldn't afford one. But the idea was I wasn't creatively starved because I wasn't scared that every video had to make money.

   4. NSNischa Shah5:00

      Yeah.

   5. JSJay Shetty5:00

      And I think people put themselves into these positions where you take this big leap, and now the dream has to pay the bills.

   6. NSNischa Shah5:06

      Absolutely.

   7. JSJay Shetty5:07

      And now the dream doesn't feel like a dream anymore. It feels like pressure.

   8. NSNischa Shah5:10

      Absolutely. It turns into a chore when you don't have that money coming in. And so I always like to think of different things that you're doing that serve different purposes, and sometimes your job just serves a purpose of paying your financial life. And then a passion project can be the purpose of your creativity or whatever without, like you said, feeling like, "Oh, how am I gonna..." or going into survival

4. 5:30 – 6:01

   Calculating Your Financial Runway

   1. NSNischa Shah5:30

      mode.

   2. JSJay Shetty5:30

      Is there a good way to calculate what a financial cushion should be for someone?

   3. NSNischa Shah5:34

      Typically, you'd recommend three to six months of your living expenses. So you calculate what it costs to... for your basic living expenses in a month, and you times it by three if you're feeling a bit comfortable with a lower cushion, or six if you're, if you wanna be a bit more safe. I went all the way for the nine months because-

   4. JSJay Shetty5:50

      [laughs]

   5. NSNischa Shah5:50

      ... I'm super, super calculative. But it really comes down to what, what makes you feel comfortable, what makes you feel like you can walk away from this and be like, "I, I've got a good financial runway ahead of me."

   6. JSJay Shetty5:58

      Yeah. Yeah. That's smart. That makes a lot of sense.

5. 6:01 – 7:54

   Separating Your Self-Worth from Your Title

   1. JSJay Shetty6:01

      What was the cost? What were the things that were sacrificed in switching away from the life you thought you'd lead?

   2. NSNischa Shah6:09

      I'd say the biggest thing that I sacrificed at that moment in time was this identity that I'd built around myself. And when you don't spend time to look inwards, you find a way to have external noises define who you are and what you do. And f- without knowing, for the good part of nine years, which is how long my banking career was, my identity was around what I did for a living, knowing that when I walk into this other path, all of that is gonna be stripped away from me. All of what I thought defined my worth had to vanish. So you find a way to get that fulfillment and that validation from within you, or you find something that is so much bigger than what has defined you up until that moment in time.

   3. JSJay Shetty7:00

      That's such a great point, because that is the biggest thing you're giving up, is what you've defined your identity to be.

   4. NSNischa Shah7:06

      I didn't get to the point where it was complete, like breaking point, but I did see that the ladder that I was climbing was leaning up against the wrong wall.

   5. JSJay Shetty7:14

      Mm.

   6. NSNischa Shah7:14

      And that's when I thought, "Okay, I could either keep walking, but it's, it's just not a situation I wanna be." So in that sense, it was, yeah, it was great that it wasn't complete breaking point, but it was very ne-

   7. JSJay Shetty7:24

      I really wanted to understand that, and I wanted our audience to really understand, because I do think that the majority of people are in that position, and I love this few takeaways that we've already had, which is you don't have to quit your job. You can build something on the side. You don't have to go all or nothing.

   8. NSNischa Shah7:38

      Yeah.

   9. JSJay Shetty7:39

      And it is okay. You do deserve to ask the question, do I want more? Do I wanna be more aligned? Do I deserve a better life? Can I leave this behind? Like, I think sometimes people don't feel worthy to ask that question. They feel like they don't deserve it.

   10. NSNischa Shah7:53

       Yeah.

   11. JSJay Shetty7:53

       Talk

6. 7:54 – 10:51

   What is the Ostrich Effect?

   1. JSJay Shetty7:54

      to me about the biggest money mistakes people make in their 20s.

   2. NSNischa Shah7:58

      Avoiding looking at their finances. That is the mo- number-one thing that sets people back. It's very easy to do, to just ignore it, and 'cause it makes you feel a bit uncomfortable sometimes looking at your finances. I mean, there's a psychological bias called the ostrich effect, where we actively avoid information that makes us feel uncomfortable in the hope that if you ignore it, it sometimes disappears. And it's the w- reason why you don't check your bank account after a weekend of spending, don't check your credit card statement because you're scared of the damage and what it will do. But in your 20s, you are creating the habits that will either, over time, compound for you or compound against you. The stakes aren't that high, so you wanna be able to learn and learn the small habits early. Look at your finances, small, all the small gaps that are happening, and solve them or improve them before it compounds against you.

   3. JSJay Shetty8:51

      Why do people avoid looking at their bank account?

   4. NSNischa Shah8:53

      'Cause it almost shows them sometimes what their priorities are and what their, what their focus is.

   5. JSJay Shetty9:00

      Mm.

   6. NSNischa Shah9:00

      And that might be completely out of alignment of what their core values actually are. And they might impulse purchase, or they might buy things that they didn't actually think of at the time, and then looking at it and seeing, actually, these are all the things that I've bought, but all of the things that I wanted to do for myself, for my future self, have taken the backseat. So I think that's a big part of it.

   7. JSJay Shetty9:22

      Yeah. I even... I saw this study years ago which talked about how money has changed. So for example, before when you paid for something, you took cash out of your purse or wallet and gave it to someone, so you actually had to count how many dollars, how many cents, how many pounds, wherever you live, right? And you had to count, and you'd be like, "Oh my gosh, this is a lot of money."

   8. NSNischa Shah9:41

      Yeah.

   9. JSJay Shetty9:41

      "It's $100. It's $50," whatever it is. Then we had cards, and so now you can't see money anymore.

   10. NSNischa Shah9:47

       No.

   11. JSJay Shetty9:47

       And so it's so much easier to tap your card and put your card into a machine than it is to actually count the dollars. And now you just do an online transaction, so you don't have to give anything. You literally just type in a code or press buy-

   12. NSNischa Shah10:00

       Yeah

   13. JSJay Shetty10:01

       ... and you click or whatever it may be, and the next thing you know, it's already there. And so spending money has become so much more easier, and so I get why people are scared because it's like you've gone from having to count to having to give to having to click.

   14. NSNischa Shah10:14

       Absolutely.

   15. JSJay Shetty10:14

       And now you don't even have to think about it.

   16. NSNischa Shah10:16

       Yeah, you can literally buy a car from your phone at 2:00 AM in the morning. [laughs]

   17. JSJay Shetty10:20

       [laughs]

   18. NSNischa Shah10:21

       And not speak to anyone in the process. And so it requires effort. It's friction. And so the uncomfortable thing to do is create friction between you and a purchase, but that's, that's the hard thing. That's... It's hard to wait 48 hours before you make an impulse purchase and then decide if you actually want that thing or not.

   19. JSJay Shetty10:37

       Yeah.

   20. NSNischa Shah10:38

       It's hard to say no to an Instagram ad that pops up multiple times and decide you don't wanna buy that thing. This is the hard, hard things to do that more, more, it, it's more important now than ever, like you said, because everything is so frictionless. Yeah.

   21. JSJay Shetty10:50

       And would you

7. 10:51 – 11:34

   Fighting Instant Gratification

   1. JSJay Shetty10:51

      argue that is it a willpower issue, or do you believe if we looked at our finances, we'd make better decisions automatically?

   2. NSNischa Shah10:58

      I definitely think it's in a combination. But one of it comes down to willpower and s- being able to say no to things at the time. The world at the moment, it's built in a way to take your money, for you to spend. That's how the economy runs. So a lot of it is, requires you to have the willpower, but a good way to stop that is actually looking at your finances, spending 20 minutes at the end of the month, looking through what you spent and saying, "Okay, do these purchases line up with what I wanted? Do they bring me happiness? Do they actually improve my life in any way, shape, or form?" And then deciding, do you wanna continue that habit in the next month and the next month, or are you gonna s- start making some changes?

   3. JSJay Shetty11:32

      If someone listens to this podcast

8. 11:34 – 15:13

   Ask Yourself These Three Questions Before Buying Anything

   1. JSJay Shetty11:34

      and they go, "Okay, Nischa, I'm gonna start looking at my finances for 20 minutes at the end of the month," is that the right time to do it?

   2. NSNischa Shah11:40

      Yeah.

   3. JSJay Shetty11:41

      What is the plan? Talk to me through a really simple 20-minute plan-

   4. NSNischa Shah11:44

      Yeah

   5. JSJay Shetty11:44

      ... of what someone should look at when they're checking their finances.

   6. NSNischa Shah11:46

      I would say there's probably two types of people, and some, one type is they absolutely do not wanna look at their finances. The idea of budgeting or looking at the numbers just makes their skin crawl. They've tried to romanticize it. They've tried to do it with a, a glass of wine. They've tried to do it with their girlfriends, and it just hasn't worked. For them, I would actually recommend taking a step back, zooming out, and thinking about, what's the objective of looking at your finances? Why do you wanna budget or look at your finances? And the main objective is so that you save a portion every single month.I would recommend if you fall into this bucket, the back of a napkin approach, take your take-home pay minus an amount that you wanna save every single month. Start with whatever you feel comfortable with, whether it's $50, we're in the States, $50, $100, whatever it is, that's your saving. Put that away, don't touch that. The rest you could spend. Important thing to do here is with that amount, as soon as your money comes in on payday, set up an automatic transfer so it's out of the amount, out of your bank account into a separate bank account that you cannot even touch. If you hate numbers, if you hate looking at your finances, if you don't wanna look at your bank statement, do that, and then as the months go on, you could try and tweak that saving amount. If you are someone who's like, "You know what? I wanna look at my bank statements. I wanna look at my numbers. I wanna, I wanna understand this a bit better," then I would recommend a less restrictive way of looking at your finances that makes you feel like taking control is a way to say yes rather than saying no to buying stuff. And so I would recommend if you fall into the bucket where you're like, "Okay, I wanna optimize my finances," looking at your take-home pay, once again, this is the number on your payslip, not on your job description, and splitting that take-home pay into three buckets. These are three numbers that everyone should know. The first would be your fundamentals. These are your must-haves in life, the things that you need for day-to-day living, mortgage or rent, groceries, car payments. That's your first bucket. The second bucket is your fun bucket, so these are leisure, travel, manicure, pedicure, spa, massages, all of that. That falls into the fun bucket. And then the final bucket is the future you bucket, so this is anything for you tomorrow, savings, investments, uh, even extra debt payments. When it comes to your spending, allocate a percentage of your spending to each of those three buckets. One that I recommend is around 65% for your fundamentals, 25% for your fun, and then 10% for your future you. So that's what you wanna look at when you look at your bank statements. The first thing is are you saving enough? That's the first category, and then you wanna look for patterns in your other spending. What am I consistently spending on? Uh, what can I cut out? And if you're looking at your items line item by litem- line item, ask yourself three questions. Do I need it? If I do need it, can I live with less of it, or can I get the same thing for cheaper?

   7. JSJay Shetty14:30

      Hmm. Say those three again.

   8. NSNischa Shah14:32

      Do I need it? Can I live with less of it, or can I get the same thing for cheaper?

   9. JSJay Shetty14:37

      Those are great questions. That's that perfect break between about to click and buy and actually creating some space in your mind.

   10. NSNischa Shah14:44

       Yeah.

   11. JSJay Shetty14:44

       'Cause as soon as you say those three, I'm like, "Eh."

   12. NSNischa Shah14:47

       Yeah.

   13. JSJay Shetty14:47

       Yeah.

   14. NSNischa Shah14:47

       It makes you question whether you wanna buy that thing or not.

   15. JSJay Shetty14:49

       Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And I love your breakdown because one of my favorite quotes is from Warren Buffett where he said, "Don't save what is left after spending. Spend what is left after saving."

   16. NSNischa Shah15:01

       Yeah, I love that.

   17. JSJay Shetty15:01

       And that's exactly what you've just shared with us, which is you have to put aside your saving first. And I think most of us just spend and then see what we have left at the end of the month and then put it away, and of course, that never grows

9. 15:13 – 19:37

   Micro-Habits That Build Real Wealth

   1. JSJay Shetty15:13

      up. I think one of the biggest things, Nischa, is when it comes to finances, and I know I was like this. H- honestly, I used to feel like you had to wait for a big payday to make money-

   2. NSNischa Shah15:23

      Yeah

   3. JSJay Shetty15:24

      ... and save money and invest money, and until you got that, it didn't really matter.

   4. NSNischa Shah15:28

      Yeah.

   5. JSJay Shetty15:29

      Like, you're not really gonna do... You're not really gonna save that much, and little amounts, what are they gonna do anyway? What are the micro-habits that actually make us rich?

   6. NSNischa Shah15:38

      Mm.

   7. JSJay Shetty15:38

      Because I think we think it's these big things that happen, like getting a promotion, somehow selling an amazing company, or like, you know, all these things that you see online that you think are gonna make you rich, but what are actually the micro-habits that make people rich?

   8. NSNischa Shah15:52

      A couple of weeks ago, I was at a... in a hotel lobby, and this lady came up to me. She was super sweet. She said, "I watch your videos, and I've been wanting to invest, but I need to know a little bit more. I have... I just want to s- learn more about it." And as we got spoke- speaking, I realized that she knew what she wanted to invest in. She was following the recommendations that everyone says online, the S&P 500. She knew how much she wanted to invest. She even had the... an investment app downloaded on her phone, and she hadn't turned that knowledge into action yet for whatever reason. And we were standing there. We were both waiting for our taxis, and so I just said, "Okay, why don't, why don't you just do it right now? Why don't you just invest right now? You know what you want. You know what you wanna do. We can do it together." So she did it. She got her phone out. She, she bought what she wanted to buy, and within three minutes, she had invested. And it was like this thing that she built up in her head for so long, this analysis paralysis, this fear, it just collapsed the moment she actually took action, and that is one of the micro-habits that actually put people so far ahead, taking what you've learned and turning it into action.

   9. JSJay Shetty16:55

      Mm.

   10. NSNischa Shah16:55

       'Cause so often we just learn for the sake of learning, and we don't actually do anything with it. So that is one of the main things. Every time you learn something new about personal finance, action it that day and then refine it as you're going. It might not be the thing that works for you, but it might. But as long as you keep moving and keep implementing in your own life, that's what makes someone who's sitting in the back seat and doing nothing from someone who's actually taking the driver's seat and carving the way for their life. And another habit I would say is they create goals but have concrete plans to follow up with those goals. So how often do we say, "I wanna save more," or, "I wanna invest more"?

   11. JSJay Shetty17:31

       All the time.

   12. NSNischa Shah17:32

       Or, "I, I wanna reach financial freedom," right?

   13. JSJay Shetty17:34

       Yeah.

   14. NSNischa Shah17:35

       We say it all the time, but one of the habits that people could get into the mindset of is following that up with really, really concrete steps. So instead of saying, "I wanna save more," it'll be, "I wanna save 5,000 over the next 12 months. That's just over 400 a month. And to do that, I'm going to do X, Y, Z. I'm gonna cut my subscription stack, I'm gonna negotiate this bill, and I'm gonna automate my savings." That's a completely different situation now.

   15. JSJay Shetty18:00

       Absolutely, yeah. That's huge.

   16. NSNischa Shah18:01

       Huge. You've now got a clear goal and a path to get there. And the people who are good with money and not good with money or bad with money, it's not about different goals. It's just the follow-through plan of those goals.

   17. JSJay Shetty18:12

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   18. NSNischa Shah19:29

       No

   19. JSJay Shetty19:30

       ... what it looks like. And like you said, it could be as simple as the automa- automatic savings, cutting your subscriptions.

10. 19:37 – 21:32

    Spending With Intention

    1. NSNischa Shah19:37

       Yeah.

    2. JSJay Shetty19:37

       Talk to me about how much does having a coffee every day-

    3. NSNischa Shah19:41

       Yeah

    4. JSJay Shetty19:41

       ... actually negatively impact your bank account?

    5. NSNischa Shah19:45

       If you're really, really, really feeling like you're living paycheck to paycheck, and you actually have cut everything out except for coffee, then maybe you wanna look at the coffee bill. But actually, it's a, a lot more about alignment when it comes to spending and intentional spending. Because what you wanna do is you wanna look at the things that bring you joy or bring you happiness, and then deciding for yourself whether that's worth keeping or worth cutting out on. So I wouldn't say, oh, take out those coffees and instead invest that money. It's just looking, looking at every single decision or every single pound or dollar that comes into your life and asking yourself, "What do I want the purpose of this pound or dollar to be?" 'Cause if you def- don't define its purpose, it will end up defining yours.

    6. JSJay Shetty20:30

       Yeah.

    7. NSNischa Shah20:30

       So just be more conscious and more intentional with how you're spending rather than cutting things because that's what everyone else online is telling you to do.

    8. JSJay Shetty20:36

       What happens to someone who says, "I'm gonna save up one month, three months for a bag"? How do we improve our willpower towards the expensive things that make us happy?

    9. NSNischa Shah20:46

       Yeah.

    10. JSJay Shetty20:46

        So for someone who's like, "I do want that pair of shoes. I do want that bag. I do," whatever it may be for anyone, you can afford it, but can you really... Like, is it really creating a better life for you? Are you more financially safe? How do you control your willpower when it feels so addictive?

    11. NSNischa Shah21:01

        It's a lot easier to spend on things when you know that the future you is being taken care of.

    12. JSJay Shetty21:07

        Mm.

    13. NSNischa Shah21:07

        And when you know that, okay, the first thing I'm doing is saving a portion, and that money is compounding for the future me, you feel a lot more happier to spend on whatever it is in that moment in time that will make you happy. And I do encourage everyone to have a look at their life, their goals, and decide, "Is this bringing me closer towards my life goals or taking me further away from them?"

    14. JSJay Shetty21:30

        Do you need a six-figure salary

11. 21:32 – 26:58

    Why More Money Doesn’t Always Fix Money Problems

    1. JSJay Shetty21:32

       to achieve financial freedom?

    2. NSNischa Shah21:33

       This is a such a common misconception. We often think that to be better with money, to reach financial freedom, you need to earn more. Whilst that is great, earning money doesn't actually make you better with money, and it's not actually-

    3. JSJay Shetty21:47

       Mm

    4. NSNischa Shah21:47

       ... about how much you make. It's about how you manage what you make. So someone on 100,000 who is spending 100,000 is actually worse off than someone who's on 50,000 and saving 10% of it.

    5. JSJay Shetty21:56

       Mm.

    6. NSNischa Shah21:57

       So if you wanna reach financial freedom, you gotta be saving and investing a portion every single month. And then really what the market rewards is time and consistency. So even small contributions today, leaving it for the future, leaving it for 10, 20 years, can massively compound over time, and it's such an unfair advantage that people don't make the most of, um, using the money that you have right now and using leverage to let it multiply in a way that doesn't require you to keep working and trading your time for money.

    7. JSJay Shetty22:27

       Yeah. I love what you said about the habits, because it feels like that's what it really comes down to, where just because you earn more money doesn't mean you're better with money.

    8. NSNischa Shah22:36

       No.

    9. JSJay Shetty22:36

       And I think that's what happens, is that you can go from making 50K, and even if you went to make 250K, if you are used to spending everything you had at 50, you'd do the same.

    10. NSNischa Shah22:45

        Yeah.

    11. JSJay Shetty22:45

        And that's so fascinating that we ultimately just have more to do the same thing with, and so we've got to sort these habits out early, it feels like.

    12. NSNischa Shah22:53

        Yeah.

    13. JSJay Shetty22:54

        And, and it's hard, right? Because I feel like money mindset's built from families. It's built through trauma. It's built through our relationship with money over the years.

    14. NSNischa Shah23:03

        Yeah.

    15. JSJay Shetty23:03

        Like, it's not easy. Like, I grew up in a house where we always had just enough.

    16. NSNischa Shah23:07

        Mm.

    17. JSJay Shetty23:07

        And so I grew up with zero in my bank balance often growing up, and I started working when I was 14. I delivered newspapers. I then worked at Morrison's, which is a grocery store in the area. I then worked in retail. Like, I, I basically worked every year since I was 14 years old. But even when I was working, I was paying for my phone bill and my own, paying for my car insurance and all the rest of it. I would end up with zero in my bank balance a lot because that's what I was always trained to have.

    18. NSNischa Shah23:33

        Yeah.

    19. JSJay Shetty23:34

        And so it took me years of, like, changing my relationship with money to actually understand what to do with it, and it was almost like an emotional relationship more than even a... It was definitely a tactical, practical relationship, but there was also an emotional relationship I needed to work on. Do, do you touch on that in your work at all?

    20. NSNischa Shah23:51

        Yeah, I do, and you know what? It's so much easy- No matter where you are in your financial journey, it is actually so much easier to feel behind financially than it is to feel ahead financially. And a big part of that is because we compare how we're doing, not based on how much we have, but how much we have compared to those around us. And there's research on this. There's research that shows that two people could earn the exact same income and report different levels of satisfaction purely based on whether the people around them are earning more than them or less than them. So you could be on f- 50,000, and you would feelAnd could feel happy about your finances if everyone around you is earning 45,000, or feel less happy about it if everyone around you is earning 55,000.

    21. JSJay Shetty24:36

        That's wild, yeah.

    22. NSNischa Shah24:36

        We measure our success based on, we're h- humans, we're social creatures, we measure our success based on what's happening around us. And previously, this wasn't such a bad thing when our social circle didn't extend beyond our local town or our local neighborhood. You could be a baller, blissfully unaware of-

    23. JSJay Shetty24:52

        [laughs]

    24. NSNischa Shah24:52

        ... the bigger fish down the road.

    25. JSJay Shetty24:53

        Yeah, yeah.

    26. NSNischa Shah24:54

        Right? But now, with the internet, it exposes us to everyone, and the most successful outliers, the most successful anom- anomalies are there for everyone to see. So yeah, it's really... It's, the emotions are a big part of my work, but I want people to understand that there are things that drive their emotions that are outside of their control, and to always remember, like, the checkpoints that matter, and come back to the finance part of it to understand if you're doing better or, um, you're doing okay financially.

    27. JSJay Shetty25:22

        Yeah. I'm really glad you raised that too, because I also think that it shows a kind of flaw in human training, in that you'd hope that if everyone around you is making more than you, you could study them and learn from them and also grow.

    28. NSNischa Shah25:37

        Yeah.

    29. JSJay Shetty25:37

        But we just end up envying them or being jealous or being upset at ourselves. Even if we're not jealous or envious of, of others, we kind of become harsh on ourselves. Like, "Oh, you should be doing better," and, "You're behind and everyone's ahead of you." And it's almost like if we could learn to study people instead of envy them, criticize them, or be upset at ourselves-

    30. NSNischa Shah25:56

        Yeah
12. 26:58 – 29:11

    Financial Success vs. Financial Happiness

    1. JSJay Shetty26:58

       What, what does the top 1% understand about money that most of us don't?

    2. NSNischa Shah27:03

       There's the 1% of financial success, and then there's the 1% of financial happiness.

    3. JSJay Shetty27:07

       Mm.

    4. NSNischa Shah27:07

       And they're two different things. Financial success is society's definition of happiness. Financial happiness is your intrinsic definition of happiness. And the people who are in the 1% of financial happiness, they get, A, really, really clear on what they want out of life, what a good life means for them. And going back to my banking experience, this is a lot easier said than done, because if you don't take your time to look inwards, then you're just gonna follow what is outlined for you and the path ahead of you. So that's the first thing that people do who are in the 1% financial happiness. And the second thing is they s- understand that every money decision they make, every pound or dollar that they spend, is either working for them to get closer towards that level of happiness or further away from that. And that's the thing. If you, if you don't know what you're doing or why you're doing it, you're gonna be spending money carelessly, not realizing if it's bringing you closer to your life goals. But you can't have number two without having number one. You've got to get clear on, on your why first and then spend in alignment with that why.

    5. JSJay Shetty28:08

       I love that redefinition. I think that's so important because I think social media's also made us more focused on the top 1%, and here's the billionaire list and here's the millionaire list. And, and the reality is that living an aligned life and living a life based on your values and what you care about is far more within your reach and grasp and is gonna make you happier. And I love that reframe from financial success to financial happiness, because I think that's what we're all actually looking for, and it comes back to your same point of just it's not just about making more, it's about knowing what you're doing with what you have and then allowing that to expand. And I, I'm so glad that you're kind of pushing that conversation out there as, as a money expert, because I think it's easy to get excitable and just talk about, like, how to make, like, $100 million or $1 million or $10 million, whatever, and it's like, well, A, there may... that may be a long road. And, you know, this comes back to all the get rich qu- quick schemes. It comes back to, like, people promising you you can make a million dollars in a week. Like, all that kind- what's your take on

13. 29:11 – 32:12

    Is there Such a Thing as Passive Income?

    1. JSJay Shetty29:11

       passive income? Is it even possible?

    2. NSNischa Shah29:13

       There is no such thing as pass- completely passive income. There are different forms of income, but none of them are completely 100% passive without requiring a lot of upfront work. So-

    3. JSJay Shetty29:26

       So glad you said it. [laughs]

    4. NSNischa Shah29:27

       It's just not. And the most passive way of actually making money with the least amount of work is investing. It is the easiest to get into, the easiest to understand, and you can make extraordinary amount of wealth through small amounts of income. So passive income in the way that it's marketed online or through what we see on the internet, it's, take it with a pinch of salt and understand who's saying it, why they're saying it, and nothing is passive without a lot of work. The easiest way, and the single easiest way to get rich long term, is by investing in the stock market.

    5. JSJay Shetty30:01

       Yeah. And that's... And I feel like that's, again, if you were exposed to that as a kid-

    6. NSNischa Shah30:05

       Yeah

    7. JSJay Shetty30:06

       ... and you knew about it, then you know. Otherwise, it feels like this wild, wild west.

    8. NSNischa Shah30:09

       Oh, yeah.

    9. JSJay Shetty30:09

       Like, it feels so scary and you're like, "Well, how do I know what that means?" Like, where, where do people start, to give them a 60-second masterclass on investing, wh- where do people start?

    10. NSNischa Shah30:18

        So we believe that to start in investing, we need to pick individual stocks.We need to find the next Tesla, the next Nvidia, the next Amazon. But the truth is, that could work, but it's very, very hard to do, and it requires a lot of time and a lot of energy to do it even semi-safely, and you could still get it wrong. Even experts get it wrong. Actually, an example of this, a great example of this is in the 2008 with Lehman Brothers, just before the financial crisis, just before they collapsed, which triggered the entire financial global crisis, analysts at one of the largest investment banks in the world gave Lehman a buy rating, a buy. A couple of months later, it collapsed. These are some of the smartest people in finance, and they have access to information, to data. They have experience that most of us don't have, and they still got it catastrophically wrong. That's to say it is very, very hard to do. It's almost impossible to consistently get it right. If they can't get it right, it's very hard for normal people with less information, less time to be able to do it consistently and reliably. So the way that I recommend for people to start when it comes to investing is through index funds. Index funds is just instead of buying individual companies, you're buying tens if not thousands of companies all at once. So for instance, an S&P 500, it's 500 of the largest companies. You're buying a small slice of 500 of the largest companies, Coca-Cola, Amazon, Tesla, Johnson & Johnson, all in one go, and is the safest and most reliable way to build long-term wealth. Even Buffett, he-- Warren Buffett, he's, he's instructed for 90% of his wife's inheritance to go towards low-cost diversified funds. For the majority of people, that is the way to go. Once you have that foundation set up, once you've got that set up, then sure, you can have your fun money and play around with some stocks that you might think are high growth. But you can't do that without having a solid foundation in place. It's just not worth that level of risk that comes with individual

14. 32:12 – 33:24

    Mastering Long-Term Investing

    1. NSNischa Shah32:12

       stock picking.

    2. JSJay Shetty32:13

       And is that money that you're planning on leaving there for, like, a decade, two decades? Like, this is money you're not touching, and how much do you need to get started?

    3. NSNischa Shah32:21

       Yeah. So I recommend not investing anything that you're going to need in the next five years because historically, the stock market has averaged eight to ten percent over the long run. That's the average annual return of the stock market, but that is over the long run. If you look at any given year, the stock market could go up thirty percent, it could be down forty percent. So if you need that money in the next five years, say you're saving for a home, you're saving for a car payment, you're saving for your kid's education, if you need that in the next five years, you don't wanna put it in the stock market because the last thing you want is to save money and then need it in the next couple of years, and actually at that time, the stock market is at a dip, and you have to pull out at a loss. You wanna avoid that. So any money that you wanna invest, you wanna make sure you don't need that money in the next five years, and you wanna keep it there for ten years, twenty years. The longer you keep it there for, the closer you get to the average stock market returns.

    4. JSJay Shetty33:11

       Yeah, great advice.

    5. NSNischa Shah33:12

       You could start with a dollar. You could start with the price of a loaf of bread. The hurdles that we had to invest back in the day just don't exist anymore. You could do it within a second on your phone with as little as a dollar.

15. 33:24 – 35:49

    Should You Buy a Home?

    1. JSJay Shetty33:24

       You just brought this up. Should people even plan on buying a home?

    2. NSNischa Shah33:28

       You do not wanna look at a home as an investment opportunity. There was a time when I thought buying a home was a really, really good decision, and when I bought my home, I thought that was a great financial decision, and it gave me a lot of comfort and peace of mind knowing that no matter what happened, I will always have this roof over my head. That psychological comfort is hard to put a number on. Now, I rent, and that gives me a huge amount of psychological comfort because knowing that I could pick up and leave if an opportunity comes up, that I'm not tied to a certain place, that gives me a lot of freedom. So there's two ways to look about the buy and rent situation. First is actually when it comes to your home, it is a psychological part of it. That plays a big, big role. And then the second part then comes the numbers. You wanna figure out, okay, does it make sense to be-- for me to be putting this money towards buying a home? Also taking into account the cost that most people forget, which is stamp duty, buying all the furnishing, legal fees, surveyor fees, all of that comes into the co-

    3. JSJay Shetty34:25

       Maintenance too.

    4. NSNischa Shah34:25

       Maintenance, yeah. Or does it make sense for me to rent and invest that difference? So those are the ways you wanna look about the buy and the rent situation. It's not a what we used to think, which was just buying is the way to go, and if you're paying someone-- if you're paying rent, you're just paying someone else's mortgage. There's so much more that comes into the emotions and the psychology of making something like a house purchase, which is one of the biggest purchases you're going to make in your entire life.

    5. JSJay Shetty34:50

       A few decades ago, it felt like that's what you had to do. Why has it suddenly become a debate over the last five to ten years, maybe?

    6. NSNischa Shah34:56

       A decade ago, even for our pre-- for our parents' generation, it was a lot easier to get onto the property ladder, and if you compare the way house prices have gone up since then, the way-

    7. JSJay Shetty35:07

       Insane

    8. NSNischa Shah35:07

       ... everything has gone up since then and compare that to wages, it's not the same anymore. And for the majority of people, it's not as easy to do as it was for previous generations. And actually, with the way the stock market is going, it might make a lot more sense saving that money, but you have to be disciplined enough to save the money that you would've otherwise put in towards a mortgage or the difference between a rent and a mortgage and saving that money and then putting towards the stock market. So it's a very, very different economy that we're in, and whilst having or buying a home, if you-- if that's your goal, that's a great goal to have, but I don't think it's the be-all and end-all if you don't get onto the property ladder. There's other ways to make a lot of wealth that doesn't require you to buy a home.

16. 35:49 – 40:11

    Breaking the Scarcity Mindset

    1. JSJay Shetty35:49

       I think you've acknowledged something really important there. Like, the reality is it feels like the cost of everything is going up, like the cost of fuel, the cost of rent, the cost of a mortgage, the cost of living, like everything's on the rise. No wonder everyone's stressed. Like, everyone is so stressed, and so no wonder we're getting more scared or insecure about our finances, and we don't wanna look at them because everything's just fear-based, right? So it's like the cost of living is going up. The cost of raising kids is going up. Uh, you're not getting paid more necessarily-

    2. NSNischa Shah36:20

       Yeah

    3. JSJay Shetty36:21

       ... to catch up with that rate.

    4. NSNischa Shah36:22

       Exactly.

    5. JSJay Shetty36:23

       So then, of course, we're like, "What do I do?" And I can empathize, and I understand that. It just leads to this, like-Uh, freeze, right? It's like that fight or flight, and we're just like we're- we're kinda stuck in freeze 'cause we're like, "Well, nothing I do makes a difference." If someone wants to completely transform their finances in the next six months, what's the plan?

    6. NSNischa Shah36:42

       There's a specific order of steps that I'd recommend people take, and especially in the first bit, I think a lot of that fear comes from the first thing, which is not having an emergency cushion in place, so saving your expenses. The first one that I recommend, or the first step that I recommend anyone saving is $2,000. And Vanguard research shows that just by saving that $2,000, that increases your financial wellbeing by up to 21%.

    7. JSJay Shetty37:06

       Wow.

    8. NSNischa Shah37:06

       From saving $2,000. And then if you up that amount to three to six months, that's a further 13% on financial wellbeing. We don't realize the extent of having that cushion has... To not operate from a pa- place of scarcity.

    9. JSJay Shetty37:19

       Just 2,000 to start.

    10. NSNischa Shah37:20

        Yeah.

    11. JSJay Shetty37:20

        That's amazing.

    12. NSNischa Shah37:21

        Just 2,000 to start. Yeah. After that, you wanna make sure that h- your high interest debt has been paid off, and by high interest I mean anything above 8%. This is credit card debt. This is consumer debt. And I say 8% because historically, the average stock market return has been 8 to 10%, so if you have debt that is more than 8%, you're actually worse off financially by keeping that debt than by paying it off, so that's the first thing that you wanna do. And then for interest or for debt that is less than 8%, again, this is where the mathematically smart choice is to invest instead of paying off the debt below 8%. But again, we're not robots. We're not AI. We're humans with emotions. And one of my... We have a, a WhatsApp chat with some of the girls that I've known for like 13 years, and in that, in that WhatsApp chat we talk about our investments and what we've been investing, give each other ideas. And one of the girls, she has invested far, a far little amount. She's just dipped her toes into it, but she spent her whole time paying off her student loan and has nearly paid off her mortgage. For her, sure, the mathematically right choice would've been to invest her money, and we look at finances in terms of optimizing revenue, expected value, expected rate of return, but peace of mind has value, too.

    13. JSJay Shetty38:38

        Yeah.

    14. NSNischa Shah38:38

        And if you've got debt that keeps you up at night and that stresses you out and that adds to the way you're feeling, then who's to say that you should be investing first?

    15. JSJay Shetty38:49

        Absolutely, yeah.

    16. NSNischa Shah38:49

        You wanna be doing the things and making sure that your finances are set up in a way that helps you sleep at night. And then once you're comfortable in that debt position, then you wanna start investing and going on towards your long-term wealth journey, but that's what I recommend.

    17. JSJay Shetty39:02

        I love that plan.

    18. NSNischa Shah39:03

        Yeah.

    19. JSJay Shetty39:03

        That's such a great plan. It feels so achievable in the beginning. It gives you a step-by-step process. Because I think sometimes people are debating, "Do I save money first or do I pay off my debt first?" And you're like, "Well, actually you'll feel much better if you just have that cushion."

    20. NSNischa Shah39:17

        Yeah.

    21. JSJay Shetty39:17

        That's important. You need that. Next thing, start paying off that debt. And now once you've done that, now further down the line we can start thinking about investing and everything else. And I think you're so right that often we do it the opposite way. We think, "Oh, if I invest first, then hopefully one of these things will make me a bit of money." Obviously, it doesn't, or it takes five to 10 years or even longer.

    22. NSNischa Shah39:33

        Yeah.

    23. JSJay Shetty39:34

        And so the fear doesn't go away. The insecurity doesn't go away, and now you're not saving right either.

    24. NSNischa Shah39:38

        Exactly.

    25. JSJay Shetty39:39

        So I really like that reframe because I'm really hoping everyone who's listening and watching right now, like Nischa's just laid out an absolute masterclass of what to do with your money right now if you're in that tight position, and I couldn't agree with you more. Sorting out your financial wellbeing and your peace first is a much stronger foundation to build from.

    26. NSNischa Shah39:57

        Sure, people need to get better with their finances, but I want them to use their finances to build a life that's more aligned for them, more bigger, more bolder.

    27. JSJay Shetty40:05

        Yeah.

    28. NSNischa Shah40:05

        And that comes with deciding what peace of mind means for you and then doing what works for that.

17. 40:11 – 43:26

    Stop Spending to Impress People

    1. JSJay Shetty40:11

       Yeah. What are the three things we should stop wasting money on that most of us don't even realize?

    2. NSNischa Shah40:16

       The first thing people need to stop wasting money on is anything that they think increases their value by showcasing to others what they have.

    3. JSJay Shetty40:23

       Oh, good answer.

    4. NSNischa Shah40:24

       I mean, it's one of the quickest ways to save money by saying, "I'm not gonna buy this thing to show other people that I've got it." And actually, with every purchase that you buy, ask yourself, "Am I buying this for me or am I buying it 'cause I want other people to know that I have it?" So that's the first overall thing-

    5. JSJay Shetty40:41

       [laughs]

    6. NSNischa Shah40:41

       ... that I'd say for, for people to do.

    7. JSJay Shetty40:43

       I'm remembering a purchase I made early days. Like, it was this like this early days, um, watch that I bought that I thought everyone would notice, and everyone hated it. Like i- pe- first of all, no one noticed it.

    8. NSNischa Shah40:54

       Yeah.

    9. JSJay Shetty40:55

       And so then I'd, I'd, I'd try and like be like, you know, like just trying to like just hope that it would-

    10. NSNischa Shah40:59

        Uh, yeah [laughs] .

    11. JSJay Shetty40:59

        Yeah, exactly, yeah. And, and then when people saw it, they just, they weren't impressed by it whatsoever.

    12. NSNischa Shah41:05

        No.

    13. JSJay Shetty41:05

        And I was like, "Wow," like and that was like it wasn't even that expensive. Um, you know, even at the time it wasn't, and I was just like, "Oh, wow," like that did nothing for me.

    14. NSNischa Shah41:14

        Yeah.

    15. JSJay Shetty41:15

        Because I didn't even like it myself. I bought it 'cause everyone think it would be cool, and now it's, w- you know, I don't even know where it is anymore. And it's like, no, like let me buy things that I think are cool and I know the value of, and yeah.

    16. NSNischa Shah41:25

        I think that's the difference.

    17. JSJay Shetty41:26

        It's a great one.

    18. NSNischa Shah41:26

        If you do it, if you buy it for yourself and it makes you feel good or it makes you enjoy it-

    19. JSJay Shetty41:30

        Yeah

    20. NSNischa Shah41:30

        ... then go for it. But if you're purely doing it thinking it's gonna bring you happiness based on other people's expectations or opinions, don't bother. It's not... And I, I've made a similar mistake. My first three months of my paycheck when I started at the first investment bank that I worked at went straight on a new car, and it was the most ridiculous purchase I could make, but I didn't have that introspection at the time to know whether this is what I wanted or if it was in line with my goals or not.

    21. JSJay Shetty41:54

        Yeah.

    22. NSNischa Shah41:54

        The second thing that people shouldn't waste their money on is upgrades. I actually believe that when you buy something for the first time, your level of happiness increases massively, but then for every marginal upgrade that you have after that, there's this diminishing law of return where the amount that you spend j- in proportion just doesn't match up to the extra happiness that you get.

    23. JSJay Shetty42:15

        Mm-hmm.

    24. NSNischa Shah42:15

        So actually rather than spending that money on a new thing every single time, spending it on experiences or memories has a way bigger impact on your happiness and overall sat- life satisfaction than buying, spending it on the next big thing.

    25. JSJay Shetty42:30

        Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. The new iPhone, for example, like it's gonna be the same for the next four years [laughs] anyway.

    26. NSNischa Shah42:36

        Yeah, yeah, and every time-

    27. JSJay Shetty42:37

        Yeah

    28. NSNischa Shah42:37

        ... you've bought the upgrade, it ha- you really can barely tell the difference between the first one.

    29. JSJay Shetty42:40

        Totally.I really appreciate that you're thinking about this advice because the quality of insight you're giving is allowing us all to reflect. It would be so easy for you to just say, "Cancel your subscriptions, cut out the coffee," like, and those are basic things that, sure, people can look at, but the questions you're making us ask are actually the drivers of how and why we spend money.

    30. NSNischa Shah42:59

        Mm.
18. 43:26 – 44:26

    The Problem With Constantly Upgrading

    1. JSJay Shetty43:26

       Yeah. I've, I've had so many friends I remember who've bought sunglasses or wallets that they thought looked cool, but then they never wear them or use them-

    2. NSNischa Shah43:32

       Yeah

    3. JSJay Shetty43:32

       ... because they don't actually like it the way it looks on their face. But you made the purchase that day, you, you exchanged, and now you can't give it back and all the rest of it, and you're, you're stuck with it. No, those, those, those are absolutely great, and I feel like it's so true that so much of the money we spend is either things that we're unaware of or because we're doing it based on some subconscious need that we're trying to figure out. And, and even if you do that, it's good to just know. Say, even if you're spending based on some subconscious need, it's like it's good to just be aware of it and, and accept that that's what it is. What I wanna do with you, Nischa-

    4. NSNischa Shah44:07

       Okay

    5. JSJay Shetty44:07

       ... is I wanna talk about saving that actually works. And so this is a little bit of a, uh, quick fire session on saving specifically-

    6. NSNischa Shah44:14

       Okay

    7. JSJay Shetty44:14

       ... because I feel like so much of your work is based on helping us save better. Okay, what habit do successful savers do-

    8. NSNischa Shah44:21

       Wait, hold on, hold on.

    9. JSJay Shetty44:22

       Yeah.

    10. NSNischa Shah44:23

        But I also wanna say that, uh-

    11. JSJay Shetty44:24

        Okay, go, go on

    12. NSNischa Shah44:25

        ... that you'd only save

19. 44:26 – 47:26

    How Can You Be of Value To Others?

    1. NSNischa Shah44:26

       so much in your life.

    2. JSJay Shetty44:27

       Okay, go on, go on. You're flipping the script. I like this.

    3. NSNischa Shah44:29

       And you, yeah, you say that you... And I, I, one thing I want people to understand and to know is that saving is only gonna get you so far. You could only cut so many coupon codes. You could only find so many offers. After a while, you realize that you cannot cut your costs beyond a certain level. Whereas the other side, the earning income side, that side is infinite, and there is unlimited potential. And I actually feel like a lot of people miss the earning income side, and that has far more scope to change your finances than saving money does. If you just think about when you're saving, if you think about saving literally, what, what is it? If you think about it more broadly, it is the difference between your income and your spending, and one way to increase your saving is, sure, by cutting your spending. The other way is by increasing the amount you're making.

    4. JSJay Shetty45:19

       Mm-hmm.

    5. NSNischa Shah45:20

       The easiest way to increase your income is by creating more value. Money is just an exchange of value.

    6. JSJay Shetty45:28

       Mm-hmm.

    7. NSNischa Shah45:28

       And the amount of value you could create, as a byproduct, money will come from that. So with that in mind, how can you increase your income? Firstly, how can you think about increasing your value? If you work in a day job, what can you do to make you more indispensable to your corporation if you work for a company? Can you take on projects that no one else wants to take on? Can you increase the revenue for your team? Can you cut the stress for your boss? What are these things that can warrant a pay rise or a promotion? And if you're working in a place or a situation or an organization where you're almost capped with your increases in your income, and you can't get pay rises or promotions, um, as you can in other industries, then the same still applies. It's how can you increase your value? But you wanna look for ways to do this outside of your day job.

    8. JSJay Shetty46:17

       Mm-hmm.

    9. NSNischa Shah46:17

       Look at your friends, your families, your colleagues, and ask yourself, "What do they need, and what do I have that can solve what they need? What skills can I charge for?" If you think of your saving as the difference between your earning and your spending, if over time you keep earning more, you get those pay rises, you get those promotions, and your earning's increasing, and you keep your spending somewhat the same, sure, enjoy, upgrade. If you get a, a small bonus, spend a little bit to make yourself happy. I, I don't believe in the notion of just completely cutting out and just making your life consistent. But if the gap and the difference between your earning and your spending keeps increasing and getting wider, and you keep banking that difference and saving it away, that is rocket fuel for your finances.

    10. JSJay Shetty47:03

        Yeah.

    11. NSNischa Shah47:04

        That is gonna way, make a way bigger difference than just focusing on cutting back and finding ways to save because you could only save as much as you earn, but you could always earn more.

    12. JSJay Shetty47:15

        Yeah. I'm, I'm glad you did that reframe, and I'm glad you went there after talking about the habits for saving because, like you said, the habits will expand into wherever we are. But I couldn't agree with you more. I r- I remember

20. 47:26 – 53:02

    Focus on Earning More, Not Just Cutting Costs

    1. JSJay Shetty47:26

       in my family it was always about, like, making sure we saved every penny-

    2. NSNischa Shah47:30

       Yeah

    3. JSJay Shetty47:30

       ... that we could, and that was really important to us. But what I found was that the amount of time dedicated to saving, so for example, if, if you'd bought something from the supermarket, whatever, and it, you had to return it, or it wasn't perfect, or there was some... It was past its sell by date or whatever, and I remember, like, sometimes my family would, like, sit on the phone for, like, an hour or two hours trying to save, like, 30 pence, a pound, whatever it was.

    4. NSNischa Shah47:54

       Yeah.

    5. JSJay Shetty47:55

       And as I grew older, I started to realize, well, if you put that two hours towards making money-

    6. NSNischa Shah47:59

       Yeah

    7. JSJay Shetty48:00

       ... it would just... And I, I'm, I'm not saying this is easy. I'm not saying that you're stupid if you're doing the opposite. That's not the point. The point is time is money. We've heard that for years. And you can either put two hou- Once you've done everything Nischa said, you're either spending two hours trying to save an extra X amount, which like you said is limited, or you have the ability to use that two hours to use your creativity, to use your passion-

    8. NSNischa Shah48:23

       Yeah

    9. JSJay Shetty48:23

       ... to use your energy, to use your skills, to use your whatever it may be to actually create value in the world, which has no limit. And I love the way you put that, that saving has a limit, earning has no limit. But I think that's where it comes back to what we talked about earlier, where it's like if you don't believe-

    10. NSNischa Shah48:40

        Mm-mm

    11. JSJay Shetty48:40

        ... that you can make more, you h- you listen to this conversation right now, and you go, "Yeah, easy for you to say." You know? And it's like, and, and I remember being that person, and that's why I'm raising it in a vulnerable way, is I grew up in a town where the most, the wealthiest person I knew made 100,000 a year.And I believe that if you were anywhere close to that, then you had made it in life, and that was the pinnacle. And I know that that's, for some places, that's a high amount, for some places, that's a very low amount, but that was the amount where I grew up.

    12. NSNischa Shah49:09

        Yeah.

    13. JSJay Shetty49:09

        And I knew one person that made that. Everyone else was making 50K or, or thereabouts. I knew one person who made 100K, and, and everyone just thought he'd made it. And then as time went on, I met people who made 100K, not in a year, but in a month.

    14. NSNischa Shah49:22

        Mm.

    15. JSJay Shetty49:23

        And I was like, "What?" Like, I never knew someone could do that. I didn't even know an entrepreneur growing up. Like, everyone I knew pretty much worked at companies. So I was like, "Oh, you can be an entrepreneur. Oh, you can run your own business?" Like, fascinating. Then I met someone who could make 100K in a week.

    16. NSNischa Shah49:38

        Yeah.

    17. JSJay Shetty49:38

        And then I met somebody who made 100K in a day, and then an hour, and whatever else it was, and I was like, oh my gosh, my... I have been living on this tiny little island, well, even though it wasn't, not knowing what was possible. And I say that with empathy and love and compassion-

    18. NSNischa Shah49:52

        Yeah

    19. JSJay Shetty49:52

        ... to tell you that no one who's making that much money is that much smarter than you, or better than you, or knows more than you. They have just found a skill and figured out a way to use that skill to add value to other people.

    20. NSNischa Shah50:04

        Yeah.

    21. JSJay Shetty50:05

        And school didn't teach us that.

    22. NSNischa Shah50:06

        Yeah.

    23. JSJay Shetty50:06

        Chances are our parents didn't teach us that, not as a dig, just as they didn't have the skills either, and they weren't given that training. And so don't limit yourself by that voice in your head that just goes, "You can't do that. You don't deserve it," right?

    24. NSNischa Shah50:19

        Yeah, and sometimes you have this voice is that telling you, "If you want more money, you're a bad person," or that you're looking for to earn more, you're... There's something about you that's not right. That is also completely wrong. That quote that is, "Money is the root of all evil," which is not money is the root of all evil. It's the love for money is the root of all evil. But trying to earn more isn't actually about the money necessarily, it's just about... Even it just, for a lot of people, having more money just exasperates who you are at your core. And if you could do more with the money that you have, then actually there's no harm in also wanting more for yourself. And a lot of people say, "Oh, I don't know if I can earn more," or, "I don't know if this is for me." I would recommend even setting yourself an hourly rate in your head, putting an hourly rate for yourself, and anything that you can outsource for less than that hourly rate, outsource it. So even, for instance-

    25. JSJay Shetty51:13

        Mm. That's smart

    26. NSNischa Shah51:13

        ... if you're spending three hours trying to save $10, what is your hourly rate? 'Cause you just spent three hours trying to save $10, whereas if you spend that three hours trying to earn more, that will change your finances. That would-

    27. JSJay Shetty51:24

        Yeah

    28. NSNischa Shah51:24

        ... that would have a way bigger impact.

    29. JSJay Shetty51:25

        That's a great way of thinking about it. I like the hourly rate breakdown because you basically just said your, your hours are worth $3 each.

    30. NSNischa Shah51:31

        Yeah.
21. 53:02 – 54:56

    The Entrepreneurship vs. Employment Trap

    1. JSJay Shetty53:02

       I also think there's so, so much of an idealization around being an entrepreneur today.

    2. NSNischa Shah53:06

       Yeah.

    3. JSJay Shetty53:07

       Like, we're living in that era where it's like, "Quit your job, do what you love," and whatever else it is. And I think about this two ways. One is I worked inside organizations with people who are really smart and sharp and are still at those organizations doing really well for themselves.

    4. NSNischa Shah53:20

       Yeah.

    5. JSJay Shetty53:20

       And I have an amazing team-

    6. NSNischa Shah53:22

       Yeah

    7. JSJay Shetty53:22

       ... that I couldn't do what I do without, and they're incredible, and I'm very lucky to work with them every day.

    8. NSNischa Shah53:27

       Exactly.

    9. JSJay Shetty53:28

       And I look at that and I go, this pressure that's on people today for everyone to figure out what their own path looks like, I'm like, I don't think it's fair to put that on everyone. I don't think everyone's meant for it, and I don't think it's better than someone who succeeds inside an organization. Like, you know, uh, Steve Ballmer was inside Microsoft. He didn't invent Microsoft.

    10. NSNischa Shah53:48

        Yeah.

    11. JSJay Shetty53:49

        He's one of the wealthiest people on the planet. And Bill Gates invented Microsoft, and he's one of the wealthiest people on the planet, and I'm like, who's done it better? Who's done it worse? It's like, well, no, maybe they were just playing to their strengths, right?

    12. NSNischa Shah53:59

        Yeah, exactly, and survivorship bias is real. We always see the wins and the people who have made it online and the people who have made entrepreneurship a thing, but you don't hear about all the losses and the failures that happened. And even if you look at content creation, like, the amount of people that actually make money through creating content, which is what we usually see on social media, is such a small, small percent. And even that, most of them don't earn more than paycheck to paycheck. So I think there, uh, there's a lot of, a lot to say by having that regular paycheck coming in, that security coming in, that knowing that you don't have to put a huge amount of capital at risk and that there is very little downside-

    13. JSJay Shetty54:37

        Mm-hmm

    14. NSNischa Shah54:37

        ... at least in the short term. So yeah, I don't think that this whole message about doing your own thing and being an entrepreneur is the way to go at all, at all.

    15. JSJay Shetty54:46

        What's the best investment you ever made?

    16. NSNischa Shah54:47

        The best investment I've ever made is in myself, and when I had to change what I do, what I did from banking to

22. 54:56 – 56:56

    Investing in Your Own Skills

    1. NSNischa Shah54:56

       what I do now, I mean, I spent my days on spreadsheets and doing presentations and speaking to clients. I didn't know how to use the camera. I didn't know how to edit. I didn't know how to do any of the things that comes with content creation, and I spent a lot of money behind it. I spent a lot of money learning itI spent money on how to edit, 'cause the first five months I was editing myself. I le- I spent money on, like, everything you could think of, a, a new camera, a new mic. That's... And that was all to fulfill this creativity for me. And so it was, even though I didn't know if I was gonna make money from it, I... It took me 11 months for me to actually start making money through social media. I didn't care, because for me, it was such an escape from my day-to-day job. I would go to work, and I'd be doing my job, and I'd be crushing it there, but I know deep inside that part of me wanted more. And for me, s- going home in the evening and spending my weekends working on this creative passion project just gave me life. It was kind of like this escape from my day-to-day, and actually, I spent money on this project not knowing if it was gonna bring me anything in return, but it increased my happiness massively.

    2. JSJay Shetty56:04

       Mm.

    3. NSNischa Shah56:04

       And then over time, I've... It's, yeah, it's completely changed my life. But that investment was in myself, and just to keep improving in my skills and knowledge. And we really are so afraid to spend on our skills and knowledge, and we really, sometimes we, we look at courses and online programs as, like, this scam, but really, someone's condensing so much of their information-

    4. JSJay Shetty56:26

       Mm-hmm

    5. NSNischa Shah56:27

       ... into a short space, and I've bought so many, and if I didn't, my trajectory and where I would've got to would've been a lot slower.

    6. JSJay Shetty56:34

       Yeah.

    7. NSNischa Shah56:34

       I'm just learning other people's knowledge. And so that's one thing, investing in your skills and your knowledge, that's one thing that no one can take away from you.

    8. JSJay Shetty56:41

       Mm-hmm.

    9. NSNischa Shah56:41

       You could go bankrupt, you could lose everything, but as long as you have those two, you can start and build yourself up.

    10. JSJay Shetty56:46

        Yeah.

    11. NSNischa Shah56:47

        With everything else, it can be taken away, it can be stolen, it can be robbed, but you own those things for life, and I think that is hands down the best investment I've made.

    12. JSJay Shetty56:55

        Yeah.

    13. NSNischa Shah56:55

        Yeah.

    14. JSJay Shetty56:55

        Great

23. 56:56 – 58:47

    Defining Your Personal Freedom

    1. JSJay Shetty56:56

       answer. I feel like it's, that's, like, a critical pattern-

    2. NSNischa Shah57:00

       Yeah

    3. JSJay Shetty57:00

       ... in all high performers, is that they'd all say the best investment they made is investing in themselves. Like, it's not a tech investment-

    4. NSNischa Shah57:08

       No

    5. JSJay Shetty57:08

       ... or something that made them a billion dollars or a million dollars, whatever. It's always this investment they made in themselves, because they know that that's all they have.

    6. NSNischa Shah57:14

       Yeah.

    7. JSJay Shetty57:14

       And everything came from that. And I think we're so quick to, again, this isn't a criticism, it's, it's a reflection point of, it's really easy to spend a lot of money on a vacation. Vacations are important. Rest is important.

    8. NSNischa Shah57:26

       Yeah.

    9. JSJay Shetty57:27

       I'm a, I am completely a proponent of avoiding burnout, but at the same time, there may be a period of your life where that investment in yourself may pay off for better future vacations. And I think there's this challenge we have today of this short-term long-term thinking. Like-

    10. NSNischa Shah57:42

        Yeah

    11. JSJay Shetty57:43

        ... I think maybe for our parents and those generations, they thought too long term, and they didn't have any fun in the short term, and they didn't really create those memories. And then for our generation, I think the pressure's the opposite. It's like, "Have fun now. Do everything now, because you're not gonna be around forever." And the reality is, chances are you probably have a few more decades left-

    12. NSNischa Shah57:59

        Yeah

    13. JSJay Shetty57:59

        ... and that's gonna be really stressful. So I feel like we've gotta find this middle ground-

    14. NSNischa Shah58:04

        Yeah

    15. JSJay Shetty58:04

        ... as always is the balance, and I don't mean work/life balance, but I mean the balance of, like, short-term and long-term thinking. Like, I know I wanna be happy today-

    16. NSNischa Shah58:13

        Yeah

    17. JSJay Shetty58:13

        ... but I wanna be happy tomorrow-

    18. NSNischa Shah58:15

        Next day

    19. JSJay Shetty58:15

        ... and in 10 years' time.

    20. NSNischa Shah58:17

        Yeah, and you can't take your money to the grave with you. Like, you've, you've gotta be spending it in your lifetime at some point. And there's that Bronnie Ware, who's written that book, The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, and for those of... Uh, anyone listening that doesn't know, she wrote this book, F- Top Five Regrets of the Dying, where she, based on her experience, where she was a nurse, and spent time with people who were in the last weeks of, um, their life, and what she found was that the main regret for people was that they didn't have the courage to live a life true to them. No one spoke about

24. 58:47 – 59:42

    Short-Term Joy vs. Long-Term Security

    1. NSNischa Shah58:47

       earning more or making more money or wishing they beat the S&P 500 or any of that. It was just living a life true to them. And so always using money in a way to live a life that's-

    2. JSJay Shetty58:58

       Mm-hmm

    3. NSNischa Shah58:58

       ... that's true to you.

    4. JSJay Shetty58:59

       Yeah.

    5. NSNischa Shah58:59

       Yeah.

    6. JSJay Shetty59:00

       What's the worst thing you've ever spent money on? Or the worst money you've ever spent?

    7. NSNischa Shah59:04

       The worst money I've ever spent was on a, on a, my first couple of months of paycheck going towards a new car.

    8. JSJay Shetty59:11

       Okay.

    9. NSNischa Shah59:12

       I mean, at the time, it was the best thing ever. I mean... And I think there is a time and a place when you can do that, but at that point in my life, it wasn't necessary, and I could've spent it in so many other ways, where sometimes I look back and I say to myself, "Oh, I wish I took some risks earlier on in my life," but I wasn't able to because I didn't have my finances set up in a way that enabled me to do it. And if I was a bit more conscious earlier on, I might have been able to play a little bit, um, less safe-

    10. JSJay Shetty59:40

        Yeah

    11. NSNischa Shah59:40

        ... earlier on.

    12. JSJay Shetty59:41

        I think there is a feeling

25. 59:42 – 1:01:04

    We All Make Financial Mistakes!

    1. JSJay Shetty59:42

       of being behind.

    2. NSNischa Shah59:43

       Yeah.

    3. JSJay Shetty59:43

       And you raised this earlier, but, like, just going back to it, like, there's this feeling of like, "Oh, I wish I started saving when I was 25."

    4. NSNischa Shah59:49

       Yeah.

    5. JSJay Shetty59:50

       "I wish I started saving when I was 35." What would you say to that person who's saying, "I'm listening to you, Nischa. I wish, I wish you were in my life 20 years ago"?

    6. NSNischa Shah59:57

       The best time to plant a tree was 10 years ago. The second-best time is today. You can't turn back time, but if you're sitting there watching this in your, like, 30s and 40s, you have so many other things that are going for you. You probably have a higher income than when you did when you were in your 20s or 30s, so you can, might be able to afford a bigger portion of your paycheck. And secondly, you have likely a more clearer definition of what you're aiming for and what you're aiming towards, and that can be very, very powerful in the long run, because a lot of saving comes down to having something that you're saving towards and knowing why you're doing it. And when you have a very strong reason why you're doing it, you're a lot more likely to keep it up-

    7. JSJay Shetty1:00:41

       Mm

    8. NSNischa Shah1:00:41

       ... or keep with it. So for anyone listen- listening who says, "I wish I'd started this 20 years ago," you're in a, in a place where you can, you have a lot of unfair advantages with the place of the life you're in right at the moment-

    9. JSJay Shetty1:00:52

       Mm

    10. NSNischa Shah1:00:53

        ... and use that to help yourself with where you are.

    11. JSJay Shetty1:00:55

        Great. All right, we're gonna play a game that me and the team came up with called This or That: Money Edition. So we're gonna give you a choice, and you have to decide.

26. 1:01:04 – 1:04:44

    This or That: Money Edition

    1. JSJay Shetty1:01:04

       So Nischa, This or That: Money Edition. Financial discipline or financial flexibility?

    2. NSNischa Shah1:01:10

       Financial flexibility.

    3. JSJay Shetty1:01:12

       Explain.

    4. NSNischa Shah1:01:13

       You've gotta live life in seasons.There are different parts of your life where spending on different things will have outsized benefits than spending on it later on in your life. And when you're so stuck in discipline and structure, you forget the whole serendipity of life. You sometimes aren't so spontaneous, you miss things. You don't take on opportunities. When you're flexible with your spending, you're flexible financially, you wanna take a broader view on life. You wanna zoom out, and at times in your life when it's times to save, you save. On times in your life when it's times to spend and make the most of life, you make the most of it.

    5. JSJay Shetty1:01:48

       Well said. You get a $500 bonus, invest it or use it to pay off debt?

    6. NSNischa Shah1:01:53

       Me personally?

    7. JSJay Shetty1:01:54

       Uh, no, anyone.

    8. NSNischa Shah1:01:55

       Anyone.

    9. JSJay Shetty1:01:55

       Yeah.

    10. NSNischa Shah1:01:55

        Depends. I mean, this is the boring answer, but it depends what debt you have.

    11. JSJay Shetty1:01:59

        Mm-hmm.

    12. NSNischa Shah1:01:59

        If you have debt over 8%, pay that debt off. If it's less than 8%, I mean, I'm a mathematical person, I always go for the financially optimal decision when it comes to debt and invest- investing, so invest it.

    13. JSJay Shetty1:02:11

        Expensive wedding or save for the future?

    14. NSNischa Shah1:02:13

        Save for the future.

    15. JSJay Shetty1:02:14

        Talk to us about that.

    16. NSNischa Shah1:02:16

        I do love the id- I do... I'm not against weddings at all. I love the idea of having everyone in your life on both sides together in one room, and it's probably the only time where both of your partners will have, or you and your partner will have all your f- friends and family in one room. And that doesn't come around again. But I don't think you need to spend a lot of money to be able to do that, and there is a lot more that comes from a return on a relationship when you spend towards the life that you're trying to create with someone-

    17. JSJay Shetty1:02:44

        Yeah

    18. NSNischa Shah1:02:44

        ... than just hosting a big wedding.

    19. JSJay Shetty1:02:46

        I think about it all the time-

    20. NSNischa Shah1:02:47

        Yeah

    21. JSJay Shetty1:02:47

        ... like, just how much is spent on weddings, and even compared to how much we at the time, we, me and Radhi had at the time when we got married, and how much we spent on our wedding. I'm like-

    22. NSNischa Shah1:02:55

        Yeah

    23. JSJay Shetty1:02:55

        ... I look back and I go, "That was so irresponsible."

    24. NSNischa Shah1:02:57

        Yeah.

    25. JSJay Shetty1:02:58

        And I look back and I think, "Oh my gosh," like, "I can't believe no one just talked some sense into us." And we didn't even spend that much, but we spent a lot for what we had, is what I'm saying.

    26. NSNischa Shah1:03:07

        Yeah. No, same, and same here.

    27. JSJay Shetty1:03:09

        Yeah, yeah.

    28. NSNischa Shah1:03:09

        And it's because that's what everyone around you is doing.

    29. JSJay Shetty1:03:11

        Totally. Yeah, yeah.

    30. NSNischa Shah1:03:11

        And so when you're not doing it, you feel like you're behind or something's-
27. 1:04:44 – 1:08:16

    Nischa on Final Five

    1. JSJay Shetty1:04:44

       Uh, we end every episode of On Purpose with a Final Five.

    2. NSNischa Shah1:04:47

       Okay.

    3. JSJay Shetty1:04:47

       These questions have to be answered in one word to one sentence maximum.

    4. NSNischa Shah1:04:51

       All right.

    5. JSJay Shetty1:04:51

       Nischa Shah, these are your Final Five. Uh, question number one: what is the best financial advice you've ever heard or received?

    6. NSNischa Shah1:04:58

       Best financial advice I've ever heard or received is you can't take money to the grave with you. You gotta spend it in your lifetime.

    7. JSJay Shetty1:05:05

       Second question: what is the worst financial advice you've ever heard or received?

    8. NSNischa Shah1:05:09

       The worst financial advice I've ever received is save your way for retirement. You cannot save your way to retirement. In this day and age, it is just not possible. With the way things are going, with the way cost of living is going, you have to be investing your money.

    9. JSJay Shetty1:05:21

       Mm-hmm. Uh, question number three: what would you do differently now looking back on your financial journey?

    10. NSNischa Shah1:05:28

        I mean, there was a period in my life where I spent a lot of money on material items and design items and looking the part. Since then, I've made a, quite a lot of good money decisions, I'd like to say, and I use it in a way that really, really does bring me happiness today. But if I could go back in time, I would've spent more money on things that drive me intrinsic happiness, which, uh, I didn't at the time, and it would've changed those years for me.

    11. JSJay Shetty1:05:52

        Question number four: if you could give your younger self a piece of advice, what would you say, little Nischa?

    12. NSNischa Shah1:05:59

        Little Nischa.

    13. JSJay Shetty1:06:00

        [laughs]

    14. NSNischa Shah1:06:00

        If I could give you a piece of advice, I would say, and it's that quote which is, "Leap and the net will appear."

    15. JSJay Shetty1:06:06

        Nice.

    16. NSNischa Shah1:06:06

        There have been so many times, um, where I've feel like I'm standing at the edge of a cliff, and I don't know if I can take the leap and have it in me to do whatever the thing is. And as I've got older, I've just found that as long as you're in motion, you will find a way to make it work. You will find a way in motion to make that net for yourself.

    17. JSJay Shetty1:06:26

        And fifth and final question, we ask this to every guest who's ever been on the show: if you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be?

    18. NSNischa Shah1:06:34

        I'm gonna make this a financial one.

    19. JSJay Shetty1:06:35

        Yeah, please.

    20. NSNischa Shah1:06:36

        And I'm gonna say not to treat other people with the amount of money that you, they show that they have or that you think that they have. I think so often we assign a value to someone based on the dollar number in front of them. But actually, there's so much more that comes with a person, so much more characteristics that define a person. So... And I also think it will solve so many issues about not having to spend money for external validation.

    21. JSJay Shetty1:07:01

        Yeah.

    22. NSNischa Shah1:07:02

        That would probably be a law that I would love to create.

    23. JSJay Shetty1:07:05

        Well said.

    24. NSNischa Shah1:07:05

        Yeah.

    25. JSJay Shetty1:07:06

        Nischa Shah, thank you so much-

    26. NSNischa Shah1:07:08

        Thank you so much

    27. JSJay Shetty1:07:08

        ... for being on On Purpose. Everyone who's listening and watching, make sure you subscribe to Nischa's YouTube channel. You can follow her across social media, and of course, check out her programs all about financial training, financial savviness, and creating a better future for yourself. Nischa, thank you so much for being so open, thoughtful, insightful. This, I felt like I learned so much, uh, and I'm so grateful we got to spend this time together.

    28. NSNischa Shah1:07:30

        No, thank you so much. And even for you, Jay, you're exactly the same person as you are online and offline. Like, you could tell that your whole why online is trying to serve as many people as possible and to give back as much as, as you can. And even offline, you do that in your day-to-day, and everything you do is about helping other people, and I'm so grateful to be, to see both sides of you. So thank you.

    29. JSJay Shetty1:07:51

        Oh. Well, I appreciate that, and congratulations to you. I can't wait for so much more to come.

    30. NSNischa Shah1:07:54

        Thank you.

Episode duration: 1:08:16