00:00:00 Nazish: there's a calm you can only earn when life pulls the rug out from under you. Imagine being sixty three, thinking your path is stable, and then suddenly, one moment later, you're out of the job, staring at the future that suddenly feels fragile. Today isn't about money. It is about what happens inside a person when certainty disappears. Welcome

00:00:34 Nazish: to Inner Light, the space where we explore the quietest trends that help us live with more clarity, steadiness, and meaning. I am Nasir and today I'm joined by David Nassif. And we are. And we are talking about a moment that that tested his inner calm in the most real way, being fired at sixty three and nearly going broke. In this conversation, we'll explore what kind of life shock does to your identity, your nervous system, your sense of safety, and how you begin again without losing yourself. Welcome to the show, David.

00:01:14 David Nassief: Thank you. I'm so excited about being here with you.

00:01:19 Nazish: Wonderful. So before we go into what happened, I'm curious, when you think back to that season, what do you remember most vividly? Like what practical fear or the emotional shock of it?

00:01:34 David Nassief: Well, I guess it was. You know, when you don't expect something to happen, it comes out of the blue. It seems like, you know. But then on top of that, you're just completely and utterly unprepared for it. It really shakes you. I mean, right to the core. Um, I was older, I felt vulnerable, and I just actually it was terrifying and it was an experience I wouldn't wish on anyone, honestly.

00:02:02 Nazish: Thank you so much for sharing that with us today. And that distinction makes it so important for us to understand these things in a deeper manner. I believe a lot of people assume that inner calm means you don't feel panic or you stay positive. But when you were fired at sixty three, what did calm actually mean for you in real life?

00:02:26 David Nassief: Well, let me just share the actual experience because then I can explain it better, I think. Um, I was sixty three, as you said, eighteen years with the same company just got fired. Um, when I did the math, it was brutal. If we drained all of our savings and all of our retirement, we would be broke by sixty five. And at this point, I'm thinking, who's going to hire me at my age? But not just here's the worst part of it. It was driving home, I thought to myself, how am I going to tell my wife Mary? We've been married for thirty years and she did not deserve the mess I just threw her life into. So anyways, after a couple months of dead end job searching, I decided to take a huge risk. Okay? And I decided to become an independent sales agent on straight commission. No salary, no safety net. The first months were brutal cold calls, constant rejection, rookie mistakes. I was used to being in a corporate job with a position that was respected, and I was just getting beat up out there. It was just like, what's happening here? But, you know, one thing I discovered is that rejection I was experiencing was the very resistance I needed to build mental muscles, because ten months later, I achieved something that I thought was pretty amazing. I was actually making more money than my good paying corporate salary. And for a very brief moment, I thought we made it. But then reality set in and I realized we'd saved almost nothing. And making money wasn't enough. I had to learn how to invest, but I didn't have time for a bunch of complicated investment theories that, you know, who knows if they're any good or not. So I just dove in myself, did the research, did the studying, and developed a simple one page wealth Cup has put everything on one piece of paper. I said if I can't fit it on a piece of paper, I don't want to. I don't want to hear about it. And I had a simple set it and forget it approach. Six years later, at age sixty nine, I achieved what I thought was impossible from terrified of being broke to a seven figure portfolio in real financial freedom. I now know it is never too late to rewrite your story, because if I can pull that off starting as late as sixty three, anybody can with the right direction.

00:04:45 Nazish: That sounds amazing, I must say. You know, I really appreciate that because it is honest. Calm isn't a personality trait. It is practiced, especially when your mind is screaming worst case scenarios.

00:04:58 David Nassief: Yeah, yeah.

00:05:00 Nazish: So, let's just stay with that for a moment. You know, being fired is an event, but nearly broke something older like scarcity, safety, or self-worth. What did that experience expose in you like that you hadn't fully seen before?

00:05:18 David Nassief: Well, I've always felt a sacred obligation. I'm not speaking for everybody. I'm just talking for myself to provide for my family. I just I just that was more than just something I should do. I just felt it was I, it was what I needed to do. And so really it shook me because suddenly I felt like I can't provide. I mean, how can I provide? I have no income, no job. I remember waking up in the middle of the night once. I'm thinking money's going out, nothing's coming in. What's going to happen to our family? What's going to happen to, you know, our future? And it was scary. I remember one experience. This maybe explains it well. My wife, she asked me once if I'm. This is right about a couple of weeks after I got fired, and I was just kind of lost trying to look for something, but I didn't know what. Anyway, she asked me, honey, can you go with me to the store? There's a big sale, and I want to get some stuff to kind of stock up. You know, because there aren't good pricing and I had nothing else to do. And I said, sure, let me go and help you. So we get to the store and I look around and the whole thing is full of people, full of ladies and their little children. I felt like the only man. I'm sure there are other men in the store, but I didn't sound like I was the only one, and I was the only one that I felt like I had a poster on me or a sign on me saying The Biggest Loser, because I felt like I should not be standing in this grocery store in the middle of a week, in the middle of a working day. I should be out working, providing for my family, and here I am not doing that. And here's the worst part of it is I felt helpless. I wanted to scream. I wanted to fight, I wanted to get out. But what was I to do? I had no I had no job, I had no income. I just can't snap my fingers and make that happen. And it was the helplessness I felt that was truly piercing within me. I just like this is not this is tough. It was really tough.

00:07:10 Nazish: I couldn't even imagine how tough it must be for you. And you know, it. It's it's it's so much brave of you for sharing that with us today, you know? Was there a story you had to unlearn? Like, I am too old to start again or I should have known better or I failed, which thought was most corrosive?

00:07:31 David Nassief: Well, all of the above of what you just said. But I tell you, I did feel helpless. No question about that. But there was a story I happened to hear around the same time. Um, I don't know exactly when and I'd like to. It's very brief. I'd like to share it with you and your listeners if I could, because I think it explains the whole thing about getting the right direction that I needed. Um, it's a story about it's true. It's a true story. It's the Max Planck Institute did an experiment, and they placed people in the center of a dense German forest, and they told them to walk in a straight line to the edge. These were confident and capable people, but when the clouds covered the sun, the GPS tracking devices were showing they were gradually starting to walk in a circular motion. Some of them were ending up right back where they began, and yet each and every one of them was absolutely convinced they were walking in a perfectly straight line. That is exactly how I was handling money for forty years. Working hard, feeling like I was making the right decisions, but ultimately walking in a circle, ending up right back where I was. And the sad thing is, after forty years and I made some good money in the forty years I knew how to make money, I just didn't know how to invest. I didn't know how to build any wealth. And that was shocking. I mean, to come to that point and realize I've been walking in circles for forty years, that's worse than walking in circles in that forest for like an hour or two. Whatever that was, you know? And so that's when I started, I said, you know, I need to do something different. And so I just started to build this, what I call the one page wealth compass. And before I was even finished, something happened that saved me a tremendous amount of money. And I'd like to just share it because it might help some of your listeners. What happened was I was now forty three at the time. So the clock was really ticking now. I mean, it was like, I'm getting closer and I'm not any further along. And so anyways, but I met with a fiduciary advisor who I was referred to and she recommended something she said was amazing. A lerp, a life insurance retirement plan, long term, um, long term care, um, life insurance, tax free income, the whole package. And she, when she mentioned some members of Congress invest in it, I was really impressed. But then she said something that kind of was interesting, she says. David, if you invest in this with me, I will waive my quarterly fees. Now, one of the things in my unfinished compass was called Follow the Money, and it told me to understand how people are getting paid that are giving you advice and recommendations, especially when it comes to financial. But anything really. And I said to myself, wait a minute, if she's willing to wait for fees, if I invest in this, how much money is she making off this thing? So I went home and did some research and I found out these products pay salespeople and advisors very high commissions. They have sky high fees and very poor returns. This is the exact opposite of what I told her I needed. I had a short runway. I needed steady, stable growth. So I realized this. I have to do something different. That's what I. That's when the compass came about. And so what what it exposed to me was that she was about to make a fortune. Will I be back to walking in financial circles? So what had happened is the compass gave me the the ability to get in the right investments to avoid getting ripped off and accelerate my path to financial freedom. It really protected my money so I could build my wealth and not somebody else's. And I mean, that compass can apply to anything in our life. But in that case, in that moment, it applied to what it was really important to me. And that's how it all came about.

00:11:14 Nazish: And, you know, that's such a human place to land because the same narrative often hurts more than the circumstances. And once the shame enters, people stop making clear decisions.

00:11:27 David Nassief: Yeah they do. And I've always believed this. If you don't have your own plan, you're part of somebody else's. And for forty years, I was part of somebody else's plan. And look what that got me. Look where that got me. It got me nowhere. And in six years, with my own plan, it totally changed my life to real financial freedom.

00:11:49 Nazish: And I'm so proud of this thing. You know, um, when your life is shaken like that, it doesn't just stay in your bank account. It shows up in your sleep. Relationship, appetite, patience. So what changed for you in the day to day life after you lost your job?

00:12:08 David Nassief: Well, like I mentioned earlier, and it's so true. I mean, I remember waking up in the middle of the night thinking, you know, what is happening here? I have no money coming in and we have money. We have bills. Our bills. Didn't, you know, go away magically when I lost my job? They kept on coming, just like they were when I had my job. But it's scary when you say money's going out and we have nothing coming in. And the clock was ticking, we would have really been broke if we had. If I had done something at sixty five, when most people sit back and say, okay, now it's in time to enjoy all my life's work and retire and play golf or whatever the heck they want to do. You know? And I would have been like, what? The exact opposite. You know, in sixty five, I'd have been like in the deepest trouble I've ever been in. And so I knew I had to do something. And so the pressure of just not knowing what to do those those first couple months before I realized, you know, a plan, it was really, it was really trying emotionally and in other ways socially and relationships. And fortunately, my wife and I, my wife is a great supporter. She never lost faith. And she, she truly supported me in every way possible. And my faith never wavered in terms of, you know, what I know and I believe is true, but still, it's scary when it's practical situation that you're like, I was on the edge of a financial cliff, you know, getting ready to get pushed over. I felt like.

00:13:36 Nazish: You know, this is such an important lesson for all of us tonight. Yeah. So, uh, you know, uh, you went into what you call deep research dive and built a system. Your one page wealth compass. But I'm curious about inner side first, what helped you regain clarity when everything felt unstable?

00:14:02 David Nassief: Well, like I say, once I once my business that I started. By the way, let me tell you, before I started my business, I had failed twice in businesses in the past when I was in my forties. And so there were some emotional scars there. It wasn't easy to just say, okay, this is a start of business. Everything will work out. No, every that was not an easy decision there. That was a very difficult one. I said I failed twice, so I really want to fail a third time after I lost my job, and I'm just a couple of years away from being broke. But I just felt like it was the thing to do. I learned a lot. This is important. I learned a lot from the two failures of my previous businesses. And so I felt like I had a better advantage because I now knew what not to do in this new business I was going to start and what to do better for my past successes and failures, mainly failures in the businesses. So that was a big part of it. I just felt like, okay, I'm going to try this. And then once I started my business, I just started working and I just started diving in and just doing everything I could. And like I say, the first few months were absolutely brutal on me. But I mean, the rejection, it was like a flywheel, though in the beginning, it's really slow to get started. But then once things start picking up, they really start picking up speed. Like I say, by my tenth month, I was making more than my corporate good paying corporate salary. That relieved me somewhat, but I knew I couldn't just keep making money because I did that in the past. I had to learn how to invest. And so that's when I developed this compass. And let me give you, let me tell you what's so different about it compared to everything else that so many other people do and talk about when it comes to personal finance. And I'll give you an example of a brief true story. Um, in the nineteen eighties, there was an airline called People Express Airlines. It was at the time the fastest growing airline in aviation history, and I worked for them when I was twenty nine for about a year and a half. And it was amazing. They were exciting. They were in the press all the time. They were the, you know, just the success story of the of the decade almost. And they had something they called guiding principles, guiding precepts that guided them, principles that they felt were true and they followed them. But they also had some winning tactics too, that got them in the trenches what to do. And in the beginning, it was amazing with their tactics and their precepts, but then they started to stray from their tactics. One of their tactics was they went to smaller markets where people weren't airlines weren't there, so they didn't have much competition. And the people were grateful to have an airline flying to their local, smaller market. And they did really good there, and they were really good on cost control and low fares and everything people loved and everything like that. And their precepts, they, they held them sacred. I mean, they were like, oh my gosh, it was they had these precepts that guided them and be good to the employees and all that kind of thing. There's a lot of good precepts, okay. But when they started straying from their tactics, things started getting really, really bad for them. And within a matter of a year and a half after they hit their high, they were bankrupt. They were sold for pennies on the dollar. And they were it was just, it was just a disaster. And so I learned a lot from that experience because, um, you know, one of their precepts was maximize profits. Well, they went bankrupt. I mean, that's like the opposite of maximizing profits. Another one was be a role model for other airlines and companies. Well, they went from the darling of the industry to the joke of the industry. And so it's like they just strayed from the things that work for them and their tactics, and it destroyed everything for them. Now, how does this apply to what I'm talking about? Many financial gurus, they have a list of static tactics you should do. Do this first, that second, that third, whatever it is. And there's subtle problems with that. They get very expensive. Let me give you an example. The order of things most financial gurus say save three to six months of an emergency fund. And then after you get that, then start investing. Okay, well, that sounds good. It sounds safe. It sounds stable. Everyone's been doing it for years. But when I did my compass, I questioned everything, even the, you know, the principles that were around for centuries. And I did the math, and here's what I found out. If you do that, if you first get an emergency fund, then you start investing. You're. But when you're sixty five, you're going to have about a almost a half million dollars less than you would have had if you would have invested and done your emergency fund at the same time. Do them together. Okay. And so that's the real thing. The difference is, for example, my compass, I learned do them together. Don't don't do one first, then the other one. Okay. It's not it's not hard to do them together. And so the wealth compass is not a static checklist. It's more of a dynamic tool. And it's really simple. It's just two parts. One piece part of it is nine trial trail markers like steps, and the other one is five North Star principles, which is more like the guiding principles. And together they give you real balance. But there's a power in having them on one piece of paper, because when you do a two minute review every week, which is what I recommend, you just stay the course. You just don't vary. You don't get off track and lose your way like I did for forty years. And that was a really game changer for me, you know? Now, have you ever read a book and then and you read some really good thing in the book? He says, man, that's a great principle. I'm going to use it. It's going to change my life. Then a year or two later, you stumble on that principle again and you say, oh yeah, I forgot about that. Yeah, I was really excited about that. I was going to use it, but I didn't use it. You know, that happens too much to people, okay? They read all these good things, but when you have it on one piece of paper and you're taking a look at it once a week for two minutes, you don't stray off like that. You don't forget about it. It's right there. And so that's why I believe that clear direction beats misdirected speed every time. And that's what the compass gives you. It gave me anyways. And that it changed my life from forty years of going in circles to just six years of getting financially free. That's the power of clear focus.

00:19:52 Nazish: Absolutely. And the way you said it, like, you know, those messages and those writings that you read in books coming back to you, it's something really true. It happens to the best of us.

00:20:03 David Nassief: Yeah, it does. It really does.

00:20:05 Nazish: Yeah. So, uh, you know, six years is a long time to rebuild. What were the moments you almost lost hope and doubted your plan? And how did you keep yourself from spiraling?

00:20:20 David Nassief: Well, what really did it was once I got the compass down and I started doing it. Like I say, it is like a flywheel where in the beginning it starts kind of slow, but then it starts picking up and picking up and picking up, and all of a sudden you see some real serious progress that you don't see very often. Let me tell you what I'm talking about here. Let me just give you an example. Okay. Um. I doubled my portfolio three times in the six year period, but I wasn't day trading or chasing crypto or trying to hide the market. I was doing the exact opposite of that. I was doing something so boring it would put you to sleep. I was actually found a simple investment approach. And the crazy thing is, when the market was down, I was thrilled when other people were panicking and selling. I was buying more shares at discount prices. It was a math. There's a thing called the rule of seventy two, and it says if you're making, say, a ten percent return on your money, you're able to roughly every eighty six months. My first double after my compass was developed occurred in just thirty months. Second one thirteen months. Third one twenty nine months for an average of twenty four months. Way less than half the thirty six month expected time. But the secret wasn't returns. I was doing some things that most people don't figure out. One, I was saving a good percent of my income every month. Two, I was investing in the right kind of investments that didn't get me ripped off. Like too many people end up happening. And three, I was using market volatility to work for me instead of against me. I ended the cycle of buying high and selling low. Too many people do the opposite. They get into high risk stuff when they get behind, or they get so conservative that they're actually going behind every you're not getting ahead. I was able to build my wealth twice as fast with half the risk compared to so many people do it, but more importantly, safely and quickly. So to answer your question kept me going is And though my portfolio started doubling in a safe, consistent, fairly quick way, I just I got thrilled. I mean, I just, I just want to keep on going. I didn't want to stop once, once I got the system down and I got my compass developed. Does that make sense?

00:22:40 Nazish: So, David, from this conversation, I believe a lot of my listeners would want to connect with you. So how can they do so? Like, how can they learn more about your work and the one page wealth compass? Where can they find you?

00:22:54 David Nassief: Yes. I'd like to actually give a gift to all of your listeners who are listening to us today is if they go to my website, it's called one page wealth compass dot com page. Get a free download of the actual one page compass. It's on a PDF that I use. That got me from when I was sixty three to sixty nine to get me financially free in just six years that I still use today. By the way, it's not something I don't use anymore. I still use it today to keep me on track and all that kind of thing. And there's no cost or obligation, nothing to buy. Just go on the site. The first thing you see when you get there will be, um, sign up for the newsletter. It's free, by the way. And the first thing you get immediately is the download of the one page wealth corpus. And so they can, your listeners can see for themselves how it works. They can get the secret sauce and not pay a penny for it. And I just like to do it as a gift for you. Having me on your show and I want to thank you for that. And, and if they want to send me a message, they can go on the site. There's a place to send me a message too, if they have any questions or whatever.

00:23:52 Nazish: Absolutely. Thank you so much for sharing that with us. And I will make sure to include all these details into the show notes so that a lot of people can connect with you. And thank you so much for joining us on Inner Light today. You bought such amazing insights and calm and, you know, such bravery to this conversation that a lot of people are going to feel strong after listening to you.

00:24:14 David Nassief: Well thank you. It's been an honor to be here with you and I've enjoyed every minute of it, I appreciate it.

00:24:18 Nazish: Wonderful. And dear listeners, if today's episode met you in a tender place, starting over, carrying fear, questioning your future. Please hear this. You are not behind. You are not broken. You are in the moment of reorientation. And sometimes the most courageous thing to do is simply take the next step. This is a light. And if you want more conversations like this real grounding in human. Follow the show and share this episode with someone who needs steadiness today. I'm Nazish and I'll be with you again soon.