Saahil Mehta - Redefining Success: The Journey Towards a Zero Regret Life

In 3, 2, 1.

Welcome back to Becoming Preferred, the podcast where we talk to the leaders who aren't just playing the game, they are redefining it.

We all want to reach the summit of our careers, but how many of us lose ourselves on the climb?

Today's guest has mastered the art of scaling mountains, literally and figuratively without losing his peace of mind.

Sahil Mehta is a global citizen, a serial entrepreneur and managing businesses across two continents and a success coach for the world's most ambitious leaders.

He is an author, a keynote speaker and a passionate mountaineer who has taken the lessons learned in the thin air of the Himalayas and applied them to the high stakes world of multi million dollar business.

Through his break free system and his work with stakeholder centered leadership, Sahil helps entrepreneurs unlock their ultimate potential.

His mission is simple, to show you how to lead with total clarity, nurture meaningful relationships and live what he calls a zero regret life.

He's here to show us how to climb faster while staying healthier.

Join me now for my conversation with Sahil Mehta.

Sahil, nice to meet you.

Such a pleasure to be here, Michael.

I'm really looking forward to this interview.

I had a chance to look at your book Break Free, a guide to decluttering your life and I thought, hey, that's something we can all use.

So I'm excited to talk to you about the book and some of the principles and insights that you've learned over the years because we could all declutter and then we'll talk about some of your new projects as well.

But Sahil, you've been doing this for a little while now.

Let's go back to school.

You're in school.

You're going to decide what you want to grow up when you become an adult.

What was that journey like?

What were you in high school, going into college?

What were you going to what mom and dad want you to be?

The funny thing is, mom and dad said be what you want and they never actually tried to sway me in a particular direction, ironically, because a lot of people from my background, parents usually push them towards medicine and engineering.

But by choice, I ended up choosing electronic and electrical engineering.

So it was just something I was fascinated in.

I was a gadget guy.

I just loved all sorts of gadgets and all the crazy things they could do.

And I said I would love to be a part of this and reason for choosing electronic and electrical engineering.

All right, so you're in school, you're in college.

You did you start down that road as a career and Then what led you to the path that you're on now?

Well, I think I got bit by the bug that everyone else is eventually, which is all about, you know, you have to make lots of money.

That's success, right?

So first I wasn't really looking at things from a monetary standpoint.

I was just thinking, hey, this is something that interests me and it sounds like a cool degree to do, let me just go ahead and do it.

But during the course of it and starting to get more well versed with finance and stuff because they didn't teach us any of that in school and kind of learned it the hard way.

When I got my first electricity bill when we were renting an apartment, it was ridiculously high because we just kept all the lights on all the time.

And then I said, hmm, maybe we need to be a little bit more conscious about how we're utilizing electricity.

But anyway, money starts entering the mine and well, you know, I have some friends who are getting into investment banking and then raking it in.

I'm thinking, wow, that could be me, but I'm an engineer, so will they want us?

I don't know because I didn't study economics or management or business and things like that.

But truth be told, I found out that since I was doing a four years master's program, the folks who finished a year earlier with the bachelor's and some of them got hired by these investment banks.

So I started reaching out to them and going, hey, you did engineering, what kind of role are you getting?

Is it research, is it back end?

And they go, no, I'm an investment banker, I'm working in capital markets or equities, etc.

Etc.

I said, hey, this is pretty cool, maybe I should start applying here because that paycheck looks like a lovely thing to have.

So I started applying to investment banks and got rejected in many interviews.

Never been interviewed before.

So it was first just getting familiar with that whole interviewing process, but when I got the knack of it, finally I think I was six interviews with one particular bank.

And then the in, in one of the interviews, the guy who interviewed me said, listen, I like you, I'm going to have you on my team.

So I got excited thinking I've got the job.

But I didn't want to tell anyone in case it ended up changing.

But fortunately for me, I got the offer letter and then I ended up in investment banking and getting a fat paycheck in my first year outside of college.

And well, it's a great foundation no matter what.

And I think with engineering, you probably a recovering engineer, but with, because you've got the linear approach to things, right, but you're also an entrepreneur, so you're probably right in the middle there.

But what a great discipline because I mean we do the same thing.

I look at sales process as engineering, right.

We engineer those types of solutions.

But hey, great financial stuff.

So that what led you on to the personal development.

So 2001, I think you started training, consulting, you were doing retreats, you created what you call the zero regret framework.

Maybe that's a good place to start.

You talk about living a zero regret life.

So for an entrepreneur that's currently, you know, buried in the day to day minutiae of things they're working in their business, that kind of feels like a luxury, taking some time off.

What's the very first step from shifting from survival mode to a zero regret mindset?

Well, look, let me just give you a little background.

So I run three businesses currently and I'm both a first generation entrepreneur as well as a second generation entrepreneur.

One of the businesses I started with a co founder, the other one I took over and then the one which is the working with leaders with business owners, that's the third business which I also started.

Along the way I've also had businesses that have started and failed.

Right now what I can tell you is because this really relates to my definition of success.

Initially I told you it was all about the money.

Yeah, got to get rich.

And what I didn't understand is rich has many definitions, but I only focused on the wealth rich, right?

It's let's make as much money as possible and with all the ups and downs because it's never, you know, an easy ride up, which is straight.

It's you've got the peaks and valleys as you're climbing your metaphorical mountains.

I eventually hit what I would call the definition of success that I had in mind from my twenties or my late teens, which was you have to be worth seven figures net worth in dollars, specifically US dollars, right?

Not some other random currency where it might buy you a pack of chewing gum or something.

You know, have a family, kids, live in a nice home, drive a fancy car.

So I've got all that.

I'm in a six bedroom villa, married with kids, I'm driving a Porsche, I've got the seven figure net value and I'm just thinking, why am I not jumping up and down with joy?

Like I thought this is it.

Like I, I've been waiting for this day to come and I'm here and I'm just not feeling it.

And I realized, Michael, that I wasn't living my definition of success.

I was living one that was inherited by family, society, media, the educational system, my friends, etc, and so even though from the outside, someone looking in goes, oh, look, he's doing well, he's got a good life.

I'm not feeling that.

And so that kind of initiated or sparked the journey to discover who I am by asking myself questions, who am I?

Why am I here?

What is my purpose?

Because prior to that, I was just running on the treadmill, just running as fast as I could.

And every time something got tough or I needed more, I would just run faster.

But I didn't realize I was just running faster towards.

I was just digging my own grave, basically.

And then I came across this.

After I started asking these questions, I came across this book by Hal Elrod, the Miracle Morning, if I'm not mistaken.

And it was great because it said something along the lines of how you start your day is going to be the rudder for the rest of the day.

Right?

So it's going to make the difference between having a great day and just hoping things work out.

And the previous version of me, Michael, would just wake up quickly, get ready, get the kids ready, drop into school, work out, get ready, go to the office, work, work, work, lunch, work, work, work, come back just in time to put the kids to bed, have dinner, and then have a little bit of energy to spend with family, and then go to bed, next day, repeat, where was there any time to invest in myself?

Where was there any time to really think, what is it that I want?

Am I going in the right direction?

What's working?

What's not working?

And so just setting aside that little bit of time on a daily basis to invest in me, my favorite person, me.

I. I mean, if I want to have a good life, I need to invest in myself.

I started to do that.

And first I followed the regimen outlined in the book.

But eventually I found my own rhythm that worked for me.

And now, thanks to that, and setting aside time throughout the year, various moments, whether it's in the mountains, in nature, et cetera, just asking myself some questions and just tracking month by month, am I moving in the direction of life that I would like to move in?

Because ultimately you the owner of your life.

I used to point outwards and say I'm the victim, but now I'm saying I have the choice and power to live the life that I want.

Yeah.

Not anyone else, me.

No I think that's a real healthy insight and it's something we all face.

I think when we're young, we want those, what we would call, you know, the, the medals of success.

We want the nice car.

We want.

That's how we identify.

You know, we talked about ego and most of the things were ego.

Like, so for me, as speaker, one thing was like, first we got to write the books, then you're writing the books.

It was constant doing.

Then it was like I was.

I've been a pilot for almost 50 years, flying since I was in my teens.

And then it was having my own airplanes.

And then it was like having the nice cars.

And each time the overhead kept going higher and you had to earn seven figures order to pay for all the toys.

So it was planes, trains and automobiles, right?

And vacations and trips.

And to your point, it's empty if it's not really coming from the right place.

And I don't care whether it's seven figures, six figure, whatever, if you're happy doing what.

And how do we measure wealth?

And someone asked me recently about wealth.

They will like how.

With what's.

How much is enough.

And so I said, what are we measuring?

And that's what you said, Are we measuring the currency?

Like, I have enough.

So currency wise, mind you, I have enough.

But hey, well, at the end of the day, none of it's coming with me, but I measure my wealth with my family.

My wife and I have.

We raised seven.

We have eight grandchildren so far.

We had three this summer.

You know, I'm surrounded by these lovely little people that I get to spend time with.

I've reclaimed my Fridays to spend my day with grandchildren.

So there's times I'd like to be working because I enjoy what I do.

And every day we're doing something work related.

But there's that more of that balance now, right?

So four days a week, can I make what I need to do in four days?

And the answer is yes, and support my lifestyle.

So now can I do it in three days and keep focusing on that?

And this is the point of this whole conversation, really.

It's how do we break free from those what we call norms or standards of what we call success?

How do we define it for ourselves?

And it's really about getting rid of.

It's about eliminating.

And I'm curious, what's the best framework to do that?

So I can't wait to kind of unpack that.

You call it decluttering.

Let's talk about it.

So when you Talk about leaders and entrepreneurs.

You're talking about carrying mental backpacks, and they're full of all these unnecessary obligations, maybe past failures.

So by identifying what's truly essential for their own personal summit, our listeners are going to hear a lot of mountain climbing metaphors, because we didn't touch on that, but we definitely are.

You're an accomplished mountain climber.

You've climbed, what, four peaks?

Quite a few peaks, some high and some lower, but yeah, it's 10 plus peaks.

Yeah, yeah, fantastic.

But it's a great metaphor for climbing the mountain.

So let's maybe start there.

And what's the one thing that you see in working with entrepreneurs, working with top business leaders?

How does that decluttering process start?

Well, I want to start with a story.

You know, when we were climbing Kilimanjaro, which is the tallest mountain in Africa, I was with a group of people that I had taken up.

And it was over dinner one evening in.

In our tent.

I asked all of them.

And so it was specifically was five women who had come on this trip, one of them being my wife.

And I asked all of them, what do you miss the most?

And all of them without hesitation said, kids.

Now, I know my wife would have given my name if I wasn't there, but, you know, since I was there, she mentioned the kids, obviously.

But jokes aside, I said, no, listen, no people, no people.

What do you miss the most?

And the three most common answers were a bed, running water, and a warm room.

And that's when it struck me.

I keep saying I need this, I need that.

I actually don't need any of those things.

I have everything that I need.

Because when I say I need subconsciously, I think the mind desires it more because it feels it's required for survival.

But here I. I realize I have shelter.

I have enough clothing.

I've got.

I mean, I've got more than I can ask for.

I work with NGOs where every day they're making a decision between these families.

These poor families are making decisions between healthcare, education, and food every single day.

I've got this much money, a small amount.

How am I going to allocate these funds between myself, my spouse, and my many children?

I've never had to make that choice, not once.

No, I have all three.

I've got shelter.

I've got all these things.

There's no needs.

So I started replacing need with want.

Because it's actually a desire.

That's right.

And so the moment I realized that many of the things that I needed were Actually wants and were desires.

There was a shift that happened in my mind because now the mind is thinking, okay, you don't need it now.

Now how badly do you really want it?

And so many times I would just put it on pause because I don't want it to be an emotional decision.

And I would say, let me just put it on pause for about 24 hours.

Let me come back to it tomorrow and see if that desire is still as strong.

And Michael, many times that desire would not be as strong because I go, well, actually, I don't really need it.

What's another T shirt or another pair of shoes or another piece of furniture in the house?

Another car?

Sometimes it could be a big expense as well.

Is it really going to make a difference in my life?

Nah.

Okay, let's forget it.

And so I realized that, you know, words have energy.

So just by changing the verbiage in your head can have an impact on what you deem as clutter.

Because now you're calling it what it is rather than what it's not.

It's not a need, it's a want.

And I'm pretty sure all the listeners on this podcast have everything they need.

No, I think it's true.

I saw one stat that said in the United States, 98% of households have flat screen TVs and people have cell phones.

And you took Rockefeller.

We were just talking about this with the previous guest on another episode, Rockefeller in Cleveland.

He had barely had running water and had an outhouse.

And he was one of our first millionaires, right?

Couldn't buy anything.

There was nothing to spend your money on.

But when you start to look at do I want this or need this?

Now, I think it goes generationally like when we're young and we're young men, we want these things because we want, you know, girls to think we're successful.

We want boys to think we're successful, we're competitive.

And then my dad always taught me, he said, hey, the first 50 years of your life you're going to spend accumulating.

He said, then you're going to spend the next, whatever's left, getting rid of and eliminate.

And in the elimination.

And we talked about this prior to coming on live on the episode is it's freeing.

It's freeing the more you declutter because when it's cluttered, your life becomes cluttered.

There's more to look after when you start to remove.

Those things are all fun.

I'm not saying they're not fun and enjoyable, but most people can go to a restaurant, most people can watch a program, most people can read a book, most people.

The best things in life are still free.

You can listen to music, go out, walk in nature, be with your family.

But those are the things that really, really matter.

And like you said, you know, if the ship's going down, that's what you're thinking of.

You're not thinking about your toys, your baubles, the jewelry, the things that are just extra things.

Is there a good first step for when it comes to decluttering?

What should we look at first?

So as entrepreneurs or executives, where's a place to start from a decluttering perspective?

There's a lovely exercise I can share, which perhaps will take a couple of minutes each day.

It's very short.

And at the end of each day, what you can do is, and I try to avoid this on the phone, keep a little notepad and just write down what drained my energy levels today.

Good question.

Just a simple question.

Just write it down.

There's no judgment here.

There's no.

Just whatever comes to mind, write it down.

And the next question you want to ask yourself, just so you can end on a high before you go to bed, is, what elevated my energy levels today?

And they just repeat that day after day after day.

At some point you will start to notice patterns.

Yes, there'll be one offs, let's just ignore those for now.

But you'll notice that every time a particular situation or a certain you go through a certain experience in your life during the day, your energy is either elevated or it's drained.

And so when your energy is being drained by something that's happening on a regular basis, that is clutter.

That is something that if you get rid of it, your energy is not going to be drained anymore in that aspect.

And whatever raises your energy levels, that's happening on a frequent basis, Think about how you could do more of that in your days.

So that's a great starting point.

Yeah, no, that is an excellent starting point.

And it's like, well, if I come into the office and my wife's really big on decluttering, so if there is clutter, I get anxious.

If I clutter, I don't feel settled, I don't feel organized.

I always like to organize everything before starting my day and ending my day.

And then it's.

For me, it's always been the challenge as an entrepreneur to declutter my week.

And so what I do as a personal exercise is I look at my week, usually on a Sunday, and I Go, what's the perfect week?

And I usually address that once a month in a heavy duty way is instead of waiting a whole year for a New Year's resolution, I'm going to do it this year.

What's a perfect week?

What would be absolutely perfect?

And so I have most of that laid down and there's decluttering the things that don't bring me the joy.

All right.

Or are really adding value to me or to.

Because there's a lot of things we do.

And with AI, which is really, really nice in my mind, it's been very helpful at the decluttering process because there's a lot of tasks that I do that I've now assigned to our AI and our team that looks after that that has sped up our process.

And I'm talking about the repetitive, mundane things that we do, not the creative things or the innovative things.

But that's exciting to me.

Or a new book project or whatever the case is to going.

Cause I'm at the age where I could retire if I wanted to.

But why would I like I with then what am I doing?

I can still climb mountains.

Why wouldn't I want to keep climbing versus just.

And what I love about what you're saying is you realize there's also different areas of decluttering.

It's not just physical.

So in the book, I really talk about four different areas.

One is it's all eventually linked to the mind.

But I talk about decluttering the mind, decluttering the body, decluttering people and decluttering the physical environment.

So you can even split it into different categories and work on depending on which one is causing the most pain or constant pain, which then you can target that and go, yes, this is what I need to work on.

Let's get the right tools that are required to start to reduce or eliminate.

Yeah, I think you call it holistic success, you know, versus the hustle.

Holistic success versus the hustle.

I read somewhere on there and it's, you have to look at the body, you have to look at the mind.

You have.

Like, I'll give you an example.

I was a news junkie.

I used to always like watching, listening to the news and you get caught up in the stories.

Well, one of the first thing I started doing just before the New Year, so in December, is just cutting off the news.

I'll watch it once or twice a week, the evening news, but I'll read it instead of watching it.

So I'll look at the headlines because I'm an investor.

I'm looking at how that might impact our portfolios or do.

So I do that for a few minutes.

But Wall Street Journal, whatever it's going to be.

And I'm just reading just to get a flavor of the day.

Is the world coming to an end today or not?

Are we going to still be here and then move on and quit watch?

And I found I put music on instead, and I usually have a little more bounce in my step and definitely feel happier.

So I'm not caught up because the stories just go on and on and on all day long.

Breaking news is like, I can't even stand it any longer.

It's always breaking.

So every time it comes back from a commercial bake, we're in breaking news.

I just want to pause you there, Michael, because I love what you said.

You talked about how you've done certain things that gave you time back.

Yeah, right.

There's so many things when people tell me, oh, I don't have this.

There's not enough time.

And I said, look, there's all these wonderful, great people that many regard as their heroes, men and women from history, who have done amazing things.

They had the same 24 hours that we do, and they were able to do a lot more because they were focused.

They took away the stuff that did not matter.

You know, I quickly realized that if I'm supporting a sports team, for example, if they win or lose, they don't care how I think.

You know, does it really make a big difference in my life?

Do I have to watch every single game that the team plays?

Do I have to watch the news all the time and know what the breaking news is?

Is it really going to impact my life?

No.

I can choose, however, to read the headlines and then go deeper into the stories that actually interest me, like you mentioned.

And I also want to share another story.

You know, I met this great guy once, and he was a speaker, and he talked about how he didn't buy anything for a year.

I said, wow, this sounds interesting.

I'm going to try this.

And I heard about it in the summer.

So I said, when I get back home, from September till December end, so for four months, I'm not going to buy anything.

The only thing I'm allowed to buy are consumables like food and stuff.

I play tennis, so if my strings break, I can replace my strings.

If I break the racket out of anger, can't replace it.

And I can buy a gift for people.

So I can buy, if it's my son or daughter's birthday, I can buy them a gift, but I can't buy for myself anything.

Right.

During those four months, something really amazing.

I mean, something shifted in me.

I realized that so much time is consumed in either buying something because of the physical movement of getting somewhere, picking it up, thinking about it, doing the research on it.

Should I get this model of that model?

Which brand is better?

Which one has better reviews?

If you add all that up, it's taking up a lot of time.

Yeah.

It's not just going to the shop and buying it and coming back.

There's a lot of time that's invested in the decision making process.

All that freed up.

All that freed up.

And I was like, wow.

Actually I can take time from so many of these places where I felt I was wasting it, which didn't really add much value in my life.

And I can now use that time on things that actually matter for me.

Yeah, that's interesting.

No, I like how you're doing that inventory and you're looking at what do we need?

Or do we need this or we want this.

You know, I have one of my sons, he loves the toys.

He likes to fish, he likes to golf.

He's.

He spends a lot of time doing that and has no problem spending money.

He could spend a fortune on it because he enjoys it.

For me, I had my years of doing it with flying airplanes.

It was toys, motorcycle.

There's a couple of things I still love.

I like to ride my motorcycle, get out in nature and go out in the highway with my wife on the back.

And we enjoy that.

Right.

Smell the air and have those elements hitting you in the face.

It feels great.

Love that you feel like you're alive, but it's that.

It's that time.

And I'm at the age where I've got more time behind me than I do ahead of me.

So I'm very cautious about that and how to spend it.

It's what do we declutter?

And like you say, if it's not adding value or.

And do you really need it?

Do I need this or I want this?

And if I want it, why do I want it?

It's like I used to upgrade my iPhone every year, you know, oh, got to have the latest model.

Got to have the latest model.

Well, I quit doing that about three models ago.

Right.

So now I go every couple of years.

I still want it.

So the desire is still there.

Right.

I still want to go out and go get the new iPhone 17.

I still want to go get the Latest airplane and go do that.

I still have that.

Oh, that would be nice.

And I have those moments.

But then I do the process and so.

But do I want the overhead that goes with that?

Do I want to work more now?

Do I want to take time away from my grandkids when hanging out with them or going to a Starbucks with somebody or just reading a book or just having time to visit with my wife or go for a walk or hit the gym?

And.

No.

And so to me, that's that check.

But it's what you said.

It's taking a day and thinking about it.

And if we look at what's been marketing to us, like it's the American way, you live overseas, you live in Dubai, and I don't know what the culture is like there.

From there, it's a very opulent city, people.

It's a playground for the rich and famous.

Everybody comes there.

And it's a great, great place to raise your family.

They've got good systems there.

So you're probably inundated by all the nice cars and all the different things.

So that's probably.

How do you balance that?

How do you find the balance there where you live in an environment like that?

And then I'd be curious, what is a day like, since you've gone through this process yourself?

Sahil.

What's a day or a week like in the life of Sahil?

In a typical week, yeah.

So it's funny, a lot of people ask me, out of all the places to embark on your decluttering journey, how did you do it while living in Dubai, where, in fact, a lot of people do the opposite, and it was just about getting comfortable in my own skin.

Am I doing something so I can show others?

Is it something I can do to brag to others or talk about or be part of a club where people are enjoying the same things?

Now, I love cars.

I used to take my car to the racetrack, so that's my passion.

However, when I saw that I drove my car 800km in one year, and I'm paying the insurance and maintenance and just all the headache that came with it, I said, it just doesn't justify it.

It's.

I mean, it's.

Yes, it's great, but I could probably just rent a car and go to the racetrack every time I get that urge to do so.

Um, do I really need to own my GT3?

No, I don't.

It's okay.

And so in the end, I detached from it before I decluttered.

And that's Very important.

Because if you don't detach before you declutter, you will have regret.

You're like, I shouldn't have.

And then you may go out and buy another one.

But it's really getting comfortable in my own skin that what matters to me.

Like you said when you said, if you would have said yes to buying a new aircraft, you would have said no to spending time with your kids, no to some spending time with your wife and other things that matter to you.

So it's very important to understand that when you say yes to something, what are you saying no to?

Yeah.

Because there's always the opposite end of the spectrum that needs to be considered.

And so when I started saying no to these things, it's because the yeses on the other side were far more important for me.

So it's not just decluttering.

It's something.

It's reprioritizing as well.

It's, what does this success look like for me?

What is important for me?

And rather than getting caught up with the Joneses, I started to just become myself.

And here's the funny thing, Michael.

My relationships have actually improved because now I'm so authentic, because I'm just being real, that whoever is still my friend.

And I say that because, you know, some people chose that, okay, he's not one of us anymore, and.

Right.

So be it.

But whoever's still my friend.

We have deep, real, deep relationships.

And it's just wonderful, the conversations and the time we have together.

And I came to the quick realization that I'd rather someone hate the real me than love the fake me.

Interesting.

That's a good way to say it.

Yeah.

Well.

And it's a nice, natural filter, because your friends are your friends or your family, but your friends are the people you can call in the middle of the night and say, I need help bearing a body.

Can you help me?

I hope I never have to call a friend for that.

That's.

That's a true friend.

If you have a true friend like that, and they don't want to know, but they'll help you, you know, or bail you out of jail, either way.

And I think that's important.

And I think it probably comes with maturity, too, when you've had enough life and you realize how empty it is.

Like, I remember, like I say, buying nice cars, whether it was a Range Rover or a Beamer.

I was a BMW guy, so I always had the nice, like, M5.

All the goodies, right?

But you know what?

They lose so much value.

And I'VE wasted so much money and effort and income and time just on stuff that other people would think, well, isn't he cool?

He's got a cool car or a cool airplane or cool this, that it's at the point where I'm the opposite side of it.

I actually started following the story Stoics and I love philosophy and the stoics kind of changed my thinking in my life around that.

So Marcus Aurelius, all of them.

And just the wisdom of those ages.

And then when you, when you don't have the wants, all of a sudden life becomes a little easier, the burden's easier and you don't need so much.

So I think it's a, it's tough because our society and our culture doesn't work that we, we measure success that way.

Not by your family or your health or wherever it's going.

I just had a guest I was interviewing for another episode and he's a billionaire.

He made a bit for in 20 years.

He took his company and made over a billion dollars with it and he's donating millions to cancer.

They've created some cures for things, do whatever.

And he was a math teacher, was a school teacher, math, making 40,000 a year.

Started a business, built it, you know, just over 20, 23, 24 years or so.

And then he gets cancer about eight years ago.

And so he's been under therapy and doing.

They would give away all the money, all the way the money to have the health and have their health back.

Right.

Just overnight.

So kind of like the people you were saying when you're on Kilimanjaro on that trek, people start to look at what they really value.

You're not thinking when the plane's going down.

You're not, you're thinking about your family, your kids, not thinking about should I have bought that other car or something.

So I like the idea of that, of maybe going on a diet or restricted diet like we do in January.

And maybe we're not drinking for 30 days.

Maybe we don't buy something for.

Just don't buy anything for three, four months or a year.

That's a commitment.

So I like that.

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And now back to my conversation with Sahil Mehta.

Hey, let's transition this to talk about the exponential success blueprint.

You've got a webinar that you're going to be offering.

Let's talk about that.

Why the webinar?

What's the webinar about?

And who should be attending?

So the webinar is really for anyone who wants to start the journey of defining what success means for themselves, not the one that's been inherited.

Again, we all have a unique fingerprint which is ours and ours only.

Yet how many of us share the same definition of success?

It just makes no sense to me.

So if you really want to start defining what success means to you so you can design the life you wish to live, this is a great starting point.

It doesn't cost anything except your time and your energy.

And it's really in three parts.

So the first part is the foundation of how do you start thinking about success?

You know, we talk about the seven summits in the mountaineering world.

If you conquer them, you've conquered the world.

These are the tallest mountains on each continent.

But what about your internal seven summits?

And people often ask me, well, why seven?

You know, why didn't you have fewer numbers?

I said, well, if I ask for three things that are important, everyone's going to say health, wealth, and relationships.

That's, that's 95% of the audience got my first three.

Yeah, exactly right.

But there's a lot more to success beyond those three.

Like when I did this exercise for myself, I realized that fun and recreation is very important for me.

And the beauty is once you start defining your seven summits, you don't have blinders on.

Like I did when I had my blinders on before I saw money.

And that was the decision I took because I'm like, yes, more money, but what Did I say no to?

I never even considered any of that.

Now when I'm making a decision, I'm asking myself, what's the net effect on the seven summits?

Am I going overall up the mountains or am I going net down?

And if I'm going down, I then ask myself, is it temporary or is it permanent?

Because if it's temporary, I might take that, you know, hit.

Because if I have to let go of fun and recreation for a month, that's okay.

But if it overall goes down for a long period of time, no, that's not okay for me.

So it helps with decision making because you have a lot more clarity of what's important for you.

The second part really focuses on what are you carrying in your backpack as you go up these mountains?

We're all climbing metaphorical mountains, and if you're carrying excess weight, it's slowing you down.

So apart from some of the things we've already discussed on this podcast, they will get some tools that they can start to identify with to declutter and lighten their load so that when they're climbing up, they can go up faster and it will require less energy.

And the third part is really focused on momentum.

And I always tell people when I take them up these high altitude mountains where we're going up to anywhere from 18 to 21,000ft, don't focus on the summit.

First of all, when we all arrive at the destination before we even climb the mountain, I say, listen, you've already succeeded.

You're here.

You showed up.

You put in the training, you put in the effort.

You've planned out your home, your office, everything in a way that you can disconnect for a week, 10 days, whatever the time is.

I said, you've already succeeded.

Anything from here is cherry on the top, as I said.

First of all, get that in your mind.

You've already succeeded.

Now, when we're on the mountain, the summit climb is often one of the hardest climbs.

You haven't slept properly for days.

Your food intake is not as it normally is.

It's harder to breathe.

You're usually starting at midnight, 1, 2 in the morning so that you catch the better weather, because afternoon weather is unpredictable.

It's cold, sometimes really windy.

I mean, sometimes you're asking, why am I here?

But anyway, you're there.

Now, you know, you're walking at a slow pace.

And rather than thinking about the summit, all I think about is Sahil, put your right foot in front of your left foot.

And once I've done that I say put your left foot in front of your right foot and then repeat.

And slowly but surely, as long as Mother Earth permits and we have enough energy, we make it to the summit.

So I tell people, let's make sure that once you've discovered what success means to you, once you know what weight you're carrying, that you need to declutter.

The third step is really momentum.

How do you just keep taking a foot forward every day?

You know, when people think about taking big leaps and bounds, it might sound scary, but how do you make it bite size so it's chewable?

Right?

We've heard that statement before.

Now it's interesting, you know, and how we define success.

And you know, I've been studying over, I've got a new book coming out and it's about staying relevant in, in the world that we live in.

And how do we stay relevant?

And I go back in history and I talk about the fourth disruption, great disruption, which in my mind is AI We Industrial revolution, technological, just our involvement there.

And what's funny is we talked about, you know, millionaires from way back when had nothing.

You couldn't buy anything because they had all the money in the world, but they didn't.

Nothing you could buy.

Today you can pretty much have everything.

And if we look at what's available to us, just information, like your great great grandmother, we talked about India earlier on.

My grandmother was born in Bombay, Mumbai, 1902.

Well, the poverty even at that level at that time.

And so just having food and shelter and meal, that.

That was the big win for the day, right?

And look what we have today.

We have access.

We have all the wisdom of the world at our fingertips.

And yet how many spend time squandering it scrolling, you know, binging, watching their shows instead of learning something new.

And yet they've got flat screen TVs, got cell phones, most people have cars, transportation.

If not, we have good public transportation, we have good life, like it's in a good time.

Your great great grandmother would be going, what are you complaining about?

You know, there's just.

And yet we complain.

And yet we've got what we need to be successful.

Well, there's a disease that, you know, many of us have, Michael.

And my mentor, my co author, Dr. Marshall Goldsmith, who's writing the next book with me, he often tells me, he goes, the disease that people are suffering from today is when I get dot, dot, dot, fill in the blanks.

I will be happy when I get that promotion, when I sell my company, when I buy that airplane, when I, you know, get married, whatever that is, I will be happy.

What happened to be happy now?

Be like you said, if our great grandmother or grandmother looked at the life we have today, they'd be going, oh, my goodness, you have everything and more.

You should be.

You should be elated.

You should be jumping up and down with joy.

And yet we are seeing mental health issues rising like there's no tomorrow.

I mean, what is going on?

Well, I think we're comparing ourselves.

It's like Facebook and we compare ourselves.

We compare our lives to this.

Or, hey, I can do that.

It's like what you said earlier.

You saw the guys in finance.

Hey, I can do that.

I'm an engineer.

I'm smart.

I know how to put things together.

I want a nice income.

I want.

That's what drives it.

I want what they don't have versus what do I really want.

So I think that's an important question that you encourage the people who follow your programs to ask is what really does it for me, not what I think does it for me.

Because a lot of it's just empty.

Like, the more you buy something, you're happy for a moment or two, because it is fun to buy things, but it kind of sucks when you own a lot of things, because now you have to look after all of those things, and then something breaks and the frustration, and it's.

I sat on a bus one time with this young lady, and she was probably about 18, I was in my early 30s.

And she had on her little Rastafarian hat and stuff.

And she was telling me about a lyric in a song, Bob Marley song.

Wani, Wani no Getty.

Getty.

Getty no Wani.

And it goes to what you were talking about with Dr. Marshall.

It's what we want.

When we don't have it, we want it.

No, get it.

When we finally get it, we don't really want it.

It's just.

It's another thing, right?

And I remember reading somewhere, someone talking to a billionaire, and they were going back and forth, and this person said to the billionaire, you know, I have something that you can never have.

And the billionaire goes, what?

I can buy anything I want.

She says, I have enough.

And I thought, oh, that's good.

So defining success for ourself and defining what is enough, I think is where the name of the game is, and that's what helps us break free.

So I really love the.

Where you're headed with that.

I think when people get clarity about where they're going how to get rid of the things in their life that are cluttering up their lives.

And it's an ongoing process, isn't it?

It is.

And look, I do want to point out, because we've talked about a lot of things that are hunky dory when you start making this shift.

Some things are easy, right?

They're not gonna have an impact.

But like I told you, when I started making a shift, I started to lose people.

Now, it didn't matter if those people weren't very important in my life, but it started to even affect relationships that did matter because they were used to me being a certain Persona.

For example, I.

By default, I was a people pleaser.

And I always tell people, there's nothing wrong in pleasing others, but not at the expense of your own health.

That's right.

Which is what was happening with me.

So all these people who mattered in, you know, specifically my father, my wife, who were just used to me saying yes all the time, now had to hear a no.

And it started to affect the relationship.

And it wasn't just that.

Like in the case of my wife, I stopped going out in the evenings because I love my mornings.

Except on the weekends or if there's a special occasion.

We used to watch TV together.

I pretty much stopped watching tv.

I watch very little now.

We used to eat, share a lot of things together.

I changed my diet.

So there were things that we used to share that we couldn't share any longer.

So there were a lot of changes that were going on, and they were happening one after the other.

Because in my mind, I'm just thinking, oh, my God, I'm decluttering this.

And I feel better.

And then the momentum grows and let's, okay, what's next?

What's next?

What's next?

But I'm changing at a very fast pace.

And all of a sudden, she's looking at me and going, who are you?

Because you're not the person that I recognize anymore.

And so we started to drift.

And as we started to drift, at one point she tells me, sahil, I just.

I don't know who you are.

Like, I don't recognize you.

And our marriage was very.

It was.

The foundation was shaky, right?

And I often ask myself, maybe I should just go back to how I was before.

But then I asked myself, am I doing anything wrong?

You know, there's no substance abuse, there's no womanizing, there's no gambling that.

I'm not doing anything that's wrong.

I'm actually a better person than I was before and still I'm having these issues in my marriage.

And I realized that as I was moving forward.

It's like a railway track.

You have, you and your wife, or in my case, my.

My wife and I wear each of those lines, but you had the connectors in between and there was no connection happening.

I wasn't keeping her up to speed with what was going on in my life.

We had young kids, so a lot of the focus was there.

And so we just started to move in different directions.

And then it was a lot of communication because I realized I didn't do anything wrong in terms of bad habits.

But what I did do was I didn't keep her aligned with the direction I was going in.

And so we had to work very hard and communicate.

And over time, fortunately, the marriage started to really blossom because the communication increased so much that we had a real lovely understanding of each other and we started to accept each other for who we were becoming.

Now, I shared that story because a lot of people think you declutter and life is going to be great.

And yes, in the long term it will definitely be great, but you have to go cross the valleys before you get to the peaks.

And some of those are shallow and it's not going to be that painful.

It'll just be tiny.

And you're like, yeah, I can handle that.

But there will be some dark moments that will have to be faced.

But you have to be confident again with yourself and with your definition of success.

That this is the direction I want to go.

It's not anything I'm doing that's wrong.

How do I carry the people that I care about most with me on this journey so that those relationships at least don't end up severed?

Because I did lose people along the way.

But fortunately for me, they weren't people that.

I mean, I guess they made decluttering people easy because they weren't that important in my life.

And then you attract new ones that are of the light mindedness, but absolutely decluttering.

I know when I declutter my office or the studio, I put everything in the middle.

There's a mess.

It's just a mess.

And then I look back and I go, have I used this in the last six months?

Will I use it in the next?

If not, it's gone.

And it's hard.

Sometimes letting go of things is tough.

Like photo albums were, you know, taking pictures of the photo albums, putting them in the cloud so the kids can access them and then getting rid of the photo albums.

And you go, how can you get rid of those pictures?

They're going to go rotten anyway.

They go brow.

They fade over time.

And our kids don't put them in the cloud.

Everything's digital, it's protected.

They all have access to it.

But it's just a metaphor for that.

It's like.

Yeah, and the funny thing, Michael, is that most people find utility in something when it's about to be thrown away.

No, I still can use that.

I still can use.

Yeah, exactly right.

Hey, how do we get into.

How do we get information about the webinar?

The best place to start is on my website.

So you can just go to www.sahil meta.com/success.

And that's spelled S double A H I L M E H T A dot com success.

And that's a great place to start your journey, to discover what success truly means to you.

And then start designing your life in a way that you move towards it because ultimately that takes you more towards fulfillment, which is opposite of regret.

And that's what we're trying to do.

If you want to move towards a zero regret lifestyle and not wake up one day and go, should have, could have, you know, especially when it comes to health and family, this will help you to prevent that occurring.

Oh, no, that's.

I will have all that information in the show Notes.

So, you know, it reminds me of a good friend of mine who I grew up in the speaking industry with, Robin Sharma, and he wrote the forward for my book.

And I know you're familiar with Robin, and he's got a great book, who Will Cry when youn Die.

And well, if they're gonna.

If you're gonna read your tombstone, what's the opening line?

Are you missed?

And because no one's gonna sit there and go, he had this much money in the bank.

He drove a nice Porsche Targa.

You know, those are all just the fun things in life to enjoy, but they can be gone just like that.

So, hey, Sahil, this was truly a pleasure.

You want to Break Free is the book.

You can get it online where you get your favorite books.

Stores Amazon.

Yeah, there you go.

And we'll have all that information in the show notes.

We'll look forward to seeing your new projects coming out as well.

And we'll have everything on the show notes for our listeners so they can go sign up and you can download and you offer complimentary chapters of the book.

You can find out more information about you and the work that you're doing and some of your retreats that's another whole conversation.

So thanks so much for being our guest today.

Thank you Michael, and thank you all for listening.

As you are listening to this podcast, what is one idea that you've heard that has caught your attention and why does it matter so much to you?

And who is one person who you can share that with, either sharing this episode or just sharing that insight that occurred to you while you were listening?

Perhaps it is replacing need with want to recognize that you already possess what is required for survival, allowing you to detach from desires that create mental clutter.

Or maybe it was the mention of auditing your daily energy levels to identify which tasks or people drain you so you can consciously eliminate the things that hinder your personal definition of success.

Thank you for listening, for learning, and for investing in yourself so that you can become the best version of you.

If you found value in this episode, please write a review on Apple Podcasts.

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Until next time.

This podcast is created and associated with Summit Media.

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Goodbye.