Scaling with Soul: Conscious Entrepreneurship & Venture Growth with Amish Shah

0:01Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire, the only daily show interviewing the world's top entrepreneurs seven days a week. Today, we'll be breaking down scaling with soul, conscious entrepreneurship, and venture growth. To drop these value bombs, I brought Amish Shah into EO Fire Studios. Amish is an entrepreneur, investor, and visionary bridging ancient wisdom with modern innovation. He specializes in media wellness technology and empowers businesses through strategic growth, conscious leadership, and venture investments. And today we'll talk about modern business with ancient wisdom mixed in.

0:39Talk about failures, aha moments, and oh, so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Amish and our sponsors. Fire Nation, are you ready to launch your own sports betting platform? Odds Jam's real-time API is trusted by companies big and small, from lean startups to major players like StatsPerform and SportsBet.io. Visit oddsjam.com slash odds-api to learn more and talk with our team today. Mention promo Fire Nation to receive an exclusive discount. Amish, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with.

1:21Hey, everybody. And Amish here. And your question is an interesting one. It just kind of sprung up in my mind. It's like what most people would disagree with. Now, I know a lot of people say, focus on only one thing. And I believe that we are all very dynamic people. So yes, you can start with one thing, but then figure out how that one thing branches into other things or how there's tangential businesses that can work with that one. And I feel that has been something that has worked really well for me. And I have a holding company and I have different businesses within the holding company, but they all work together in some way, fashion or form.

2:05And so when people say focus on only one thing, I'm like, well, you can try. But with entrepreneurs, the way we are nowadays, we're hardwired to want to do multiple things. I mean, I am kind of infamous for my focus, which is follow one course until success. I do love that. But I have to agree with the reality that once you have achieved that success, once you've followed one course until success and you've kind of kept out all those bright, shiny objects that are going to distract you along the way, then you've got to start branching out a little bit because, man, you never know when that one thing, something's going to shift in the world.

2:42It could be tariffs. It could be AI. It could be robotics. It could be a million things. And having multiple things going on gives you flexibility and agility and kind of keeps you sharp. So we have a lot to talk about today, Fire Nation, around scaling with soul. We're talking conscious entrepreneurship and venture growth. Now, I want to hear, Amish, your entrepreneurial story of transitioning from Wall Street to digital marketing. How did that happen? It was during the dot-com boom, so early 2000. I was working a full-time job at Morgan Stanley, and I just knew there had to be a way out of the rat race.

3:18I was like, this is not going to work for me. So basically what I did was I started, I was good with computers. That's kind of what I did. I was a senior, I'm going to put this in air quotes, senior business analyst at Morgan Stanley. And so from there, I actually started messing around with pay-per-click around the year 2002. And specifically affiliate marketing combined with pay-per-click. Now, granted, it was a million times easier than it is today. and so I put up a couple ads and you know$50 turned to$100 a day turned to$200 a day turned to$500, turned to$1 ,000 eventually I started making$5 ,000 a day and that is when I quit my job I had enough money in the bank for about two years worth of my salary at the time my parents thought I was crazy and that it was a fluke so I had to get their permission to be like I want to quit my job Like I'm ready.

4:15I have, I have more money in the bank than you guys do. Like, let's be real. Um, and so that was kind of my transition. And around 2004, um, was around the time I quit my job and started just entrepreneurship full time and never looked back. You have never looked back brother. And one thing that was pretty interesting for me was how you combined ancient wisdom with modern business to create multiple successful ventures. What did that look like? You know, this is really interesting because even when I first started my online business, when I was working at Wall Street at Morgan Stanley, I was working for the cash trading desk.

4:54And it was always like, you know, buy low, sell high. And that was my first thing that I implemented when I bought pay-per-click. I was like, well, as long as I buy clicks for cheaper and sell them for higher, for more money than I'm making money. And so the same thing applied in this ancient wisdom world. So what led to all of this, and this is a part of burnout, this is a part of the entrepreneur's journey that I think is important, is I had a million dollars in income, in revenue per year, I should say, when I was 24 or 25 years old. That$1 million a year turned into$15 million a year by the time, within five years.

5:36I didn't know what to do with that much money. I got extremely sick. I was partying. I was working hard. I was really, really sick, though. I was depressed. I was suicidal. I was in the worst shape of my life. I had sinus infections and all this weird stuff happening. And A, yes, burnout. But B, also, I found out I have celiac disease. And I realized that, like, I didn't actually want to build the companies I was building. I had a SaaS company. I had a marketing company, a consulting company, an affiliate network at the time. and I wanted nothing to do with them. And all I was looking for was dollar signs.

6:19And that actually led me to be unhappy, unfulfilled, and not loving what I do. And so I sold off a bunch of the companies, shut a few down that we were working on at the time, and I said, what do I really love more than anything else, and how do I get healthy? And my mind always was around ancient wisdom. I don't know. When all the other kids were reading Tom Sawyer, I was reading about how the pyramids were made. And I was just really interested in ancient wisdom. So I shot my first documentary about a lost civilization back in 2013. And it went viral on YouTube. Then I created a course on the law of attraction or manifestation around ancient wisdom.

7:06More recently, I released a documentary called The Natural Law about two years ago. and has won nine film festivals since. And that is now a business. And what we're doing in that business is we're taking ancient wisdom of healing and natural wellness through herbs, medicine, and specifically a science called Ayurveda, which is an ancient science from India, which thousands of years ago cataloged like 9 ,000 different plants and has 25 ,000 different recipes from everything for high blood pressure to cancer to diabetes to the common cold, basically. And as I started investigating this, and we've heard all the buzzwords of ashwagandha and neem and shilajit, you know, we've all heard these terms.

7:46That all comes from Ayurveda. And so I really brought that to life. I brought reality to it. I brought some information to it and awareness to it. And so now we're taking some of that ancient wisdom and we're combining it onto a digital platform through movies, through media. We're building a technology with a wearable company right now to be able to measure your pulse data and convert it to Ayurveda. So that's kind of what we're doing and what we're up to in that world. There's so much there. And for number one, I just think a lot of people listening might be like, how is it possible to be making$15 million a year and not be the happiest person in the world?

8:25And I know a lot of people are listening and thinking that, but there's a great quote by Adam Sandler that I love, which is where he says, I wish everybody could become famous and rich for 15 minutes so that they could realize that's not it. And man, I'll tell you, because listen, when you've figured out the financial side of things, like other problems crop up and look what cropped up for a niche. So many cropped up. I mean, stress, celiac disease, unhappiness, depression, anxiety, stress. I was like, where did this come from? Lawsuits. I mean, listen, more money, more problems. I mean, come on, was Biggie right?

9:00Was Biggie flipping right? Goodness, more money, more problems. So we have a lot to talk about Fire Nation around this topic when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Fire Nation, are you ready to launch your own sports betting platform? We're not talking about some far-off dream. This is real and it's growing fast. The sports betting industry is exploding and OddsJam gives you the data power to jump in and win. OddsJam's mission is simple. deliver the fastest, most accurate sports betting data on the planet. Their real-time API is trusted by companies big and small, from lean startups to major players like StatsPerform and SportsBet.io.

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11:35I mean, or a year. I mean, we've talked about this meteoric rise financially and the struggles you encounter because of it. We've talked probably about this in part, but I want to dive deeper because I love the aha moments. Like when the light bulb just went off and you said, okay, this is it. Because that's something that's replicable for my listeners. My listeners can replicate aha moments in their life because they can smell it. They can see it. They can apply it to what they're doing. So what was a game-changing insight that transformed your business, your success? I think the biggest thing for me and my business, and I believe that we're all extensions of our business or the businesses are extensions of us to some extent, is taking the wisdom of the entrepreneur.

12:25Because an entrepreneur is the truest creator. We can manifest anything. We can create something out of nothing. It's an idea in your head. Then all of a sudden, it's real, and you're making money with it. It's a very rare quality to be able to do that. Entrepreneurs are that special breed. I had the muscle memory of building this company, or these many companies that reached$15 million, but I was completely unfulfilled. One of the things that changed my life since then, and this is about 13 years, about 13-ish years ago is when I sold my last company off, is only do what you love. And that has changed my life.

13:13Now, as I started focusing on only do what you love, another thing changed my life, which is a little bit more technical, and that is EOF. It's an entrepreneurial operating system by Gino Wickman. Those two things of only do what you love, And then also using EOS in my organization and my company to run the company has radically transformed the way I show up, how fulfilled I am, how happy I am, and how well I can actually just rely on the team to just get done. Can you kind of give us a taste of EOS? Yeah. So EOS is called, it's short for Entrepreneurial Operating System. There's two books written by it, by an author called Gino Wickman.

13:57One book is called Traction, and the other one is called Rocket Fuel. Maybe many of your listeners have already heard of these two books, and I'm sure you have as well. And he's very popular amongst the EO entrepreneur organization circle. And that's where I first discovered it. An entrepreneur organization is like a local mastermind for entrepreneurs. Most major cities and regions have them around the world. And so I first found out at doing my San Diego chapter. and I was like, wow, this is a really interesting system. So the system focuses on, it's a system where it's made up of many other systems that you put into your organization.

14:40So there's like a visionary in a company and there's an integrator and then you have your staff. And we all want to be visionaries at some point. As entrepreneurs, like I don't want to do everything. You start off literally doing everything in the beginning. And at some point you're like, man, I just want to, lead the organization. And that's where I wanted to get to personally in my life, where I could just have the company run with me just leading and visioning what I want the company to do instead of getting involved in all the weeds, basically. Now, granted, I have to get involved every now and then.

15:14But more specifically, it is a set of documents that you fill out with your leadership team on how to rate employees, how to lead meetings. They call it L10 meetings, level 10 meetings, how to have a VTO, which is a vision traction organizer. And basically, it takes your vision and turns it into traction in your company. So you can actually see your vision becoming alive. And I've never seen it so elegantly expressed and working so well for many different companies that I've come across in my experience and in my own companies. You have a lot of things going on right now. What would you say is the most exciting project that you're working on?

16:01The most exciting project I have going on for sure is it's this wearable project. So our movie that our documentary that we produced went viral about two years ago and our email list swelled and we did great revenue and we know that we're bringing this ancient wisdom back to the world. Ayurveda is the sister science of yoga. And so we're building this technology where we'll be able to measure your pulse according to Ayurveda and then prescribe, quote unquote, a very specific diet regimen, supplement regimen, yoga asanas if you're into it, or exercise, and even breathwork that you can do that will help balance your emotional, physical state and mental state so that you're in optimal performance.

17:00And that's just been super exciting. I am so stoked about that. And we have our second documentary coming out on the franchise, which I can't really reveal yet. But this is what leads me. And this is what drives me. I love media. I love entertainment. And I love technology and marketing. Well, if your track record is anything to show, it's going to be another viral sensation. And Amish, give us a parting piece of guidance. If you could just kind of sum up everything we talked about here today. and you would want our listeners to walk away with one key takeaway, what would that be? Entrepreneurial journey, it's wild.

17:41There's ups, there's downs, there's lefts, there's rights, ebbs, flows. I mean, not being able to pay staff certain months. It's crazy. And I think we've all kind of been there at some point, maybe a few of us not, but for majority of entrepreneurs, We've all been there at some point. And I just have to say, like, patience without mental anguish is a skill to master. And I wish I had that in my younger days of being an entrepreneur. Because when something went wrong, I would go nuts. I wouldn't sleep. I'd freak out. And actually, that would mess up the company more. instead of just staying course and not being emotional.

18:31Learning to take the emotion out of running an organization is by far the best advice I can give to anybody and having patience with it. Amisha, Fire Nation wants to connect with you, wants to learn more about what you have going on. What is your call to action for our listeners today? I would love to share with you my journey as an entrepreneur of everything I just talked about. and my journey to actually healing my body and getting back into what I would say like my dharma or my purpose and really just living a life of just beauty and manifestation and just I love it is check out the documentary it's for free uh on our website it's the natural law.com or you can go on amazon prime we're on amazon prime and we're on gaia tv so you can rent it there um we also have a whole summit that's attached to it so the natural law.com and then my personal website, if you just want to know more about me and some of the other projects we got going on, you can go to amish-shah.com.

19:35So thenaturallaw.com and amish-shah.com. Fire Nation, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with AS and JLD today, so keep up the heat. For links to everything we talked about, visit eofire.com. Just type Amish, A-M-I-S-H in the search bar and the show notes page will pop right up. And Amish, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation. For that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. All right. Thank you, everybody. And thank you, JLD. Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Amish for sponsoring today's episode.

20:12And Fire Nation, are you ready to rock your very own podcast? Check out our free podcasting course where I will teach you how to create and launch your podcast for free, freepodcastcourse.com. I'll catch you there or on the flip side. Fire Nation, are you ready to launch your own sports betting platform? Odds Jam's real-time API is trusted by companies big and small from lean startups to major players like StatsPerform and SportsBet.io. Visit oddsjam.com slash odds-api to learn more and talk with their team today. Mention promo Fire Nation to receive an exclusive discount.