📍 Everybody, Steven here, Steven Ricciardi. Here's breathe bitch.com and today's subject we're talking about Bitch. Real Wealth isn't about cash, and this is part of the IG series that we're doing. And what I do is I take an IG Instagram video. Reel that I do, I take for a minute and a doing a minute and a half on Instagram, and I expand those reels out here on this podcast.

Every time I do one of those reels. I am busting with information. I gotta retake it like five times 'cause there's so much information. I gotta fit in one of those things and this allows me to expand on those things for you guys and kinda give you the real mindset of what's really behind that reel as well too.

So the intention of this podcast is to. Try to shift your mind and your perspective on what it is that you're gunning for in life. And your, I want you to reevaluate your definition of success. And maybe it doesn't align with what I'm saying maybe it doesn't change at all, but I just wanna give you a second perspective, something to think about and how my life has changed by changing my perspective on what true wealth truly is.

So that's my intention in this podcast is to just give you something to think about. And if you would go ahead and take a second. I would like you to set an attention what you'd like to gain from this podcast as well too. And what I'm gonna do, so I'm gonna play a video, my reel off of Instagram, and we're gonna go from there.

We're gonna listen to that and we're gonna go from there. And let's see, let's hear it now. Everybody my walk here this morning, and I tell you what, I feel absolutely amazing today and it's absolutely such a beautiful day out. But here's something I don't talk enough about the success. Success has nothing to do with the amount of money that you have in the bank.

Has nothing to do with your material possessions, has nothing to do with the amount of friends you have. It is directly related to the amount of people that you help out in this lifetime, and all those other things are just byproducts of helping people out. But as I've always said before, you can't help anybody else out until you help yourself out.

You need to be okay so you can help other people out. So with that being said, this weekend, shut that TV off. Don't go out binge drinking. Put that vape down. Go for a walk. Go exercise. Select some healthy foods to eat. Be successful this weekend. It starts with taking care of yourself. That's all I got for you.

Have a great weekend. Have a successful weekend, and be safe, everybody. All right. There we go. So that's it. That's the IG reel. And I strongly do feel that way and I not had, not always felt that way until I did shift my mindset. I used to be chasing that dollar. It was all about mc making that money, MCM making that money.

Making cash money is what it was. And, that was the big thing. That was the big thing. Always chasing a dollar. That is what success was, what you had. Cars, the bling, you name it, and if you look around on social media, that's what they tell you it is. That's what it is. Chicks, cash, cars, champagne, 

And you have to know if that's all on south there on social media, that's what they tell you happiness is. Then you know, it's gotta be crap about that. I hate to say that, but that's not where happiness comes from. Think about this. If that was the case, every millionaire would be ecstatically happy.

Simple as that. And we know that's not the case. Every billionaire would be insanely happy. And we know that's not the case, look at how many overdoses with movie stars and this and that. That's not happiness. You might say they're partying, they're happy now, most of the time that's just self-medication, dealing with depression, whatever the case may be.

So money is not happiness by any means. Again, back in the day, that was my thing. I chased the dollar. That's what it was all about, and I'll tell you, at the point in time when I had the most amount of money that I ever had, I was not the happiest. I'm not gonna sit there and say I was the most miserable I ever was by no means, but I wasn't the happiest that I ever been.

And once I started learning and delving into the teachings, I realized that. Acts of service and helping other people out is where true happiness comes from. And that's true enlightenment and true famili, true fa fulfillment and true wealth comes from, is helping other people out.

And again, as I said in that video that, I. Stuff, money and all that stuff, or just byproducts from helping other people out. Back when I was chasing a dollar I dunno if you guys heard of this guy, Zig Ziglar big business speaker back in the day. He was old school. Old school, and he has a wonderful quote and I don't if I can remember it pro properly, but he said and his quote, but he, a lot of his teachings were religious based too, and that's probably why this makes sense, but it does truly apply to business and personalness. He says, if you can help enough people get what they want, you'll have no problem getting everything that you want. And that's what I'm saying here is that, helping people out doing things for other people, everything else is a byproduct from helping other people out.

And if you look back into ancient texts, and this is one of the things that I, again, I love about doing these videos because I did, I delve in deeper and I researched more into this stuff and I already felt this way and I've learned some stuff. But once I dig in this deeper, I'm like, oh my gosh. The more I dig deep, the more facts that I find that.

Confirm the things that I already believe in. So that's amazing. If I didn't, then I would change my beliefs. So here's a, an interesting study from Harvard Business School back in 2010. They did, they said they studies show that giving acts of service activate the same brain regions as receiving rewards.

So giving and helping somebody out. Actually activates the same brain areas as receiving gifts, so we basically, and I know this is such a hard concept for people to understand in this day and age in this world, but it's not about me. It's about them, you helping them out. And that's why I do what I do here.

I'm not trying to sound, hold myself outta some sort of saying or anything like that, but that's what I do. I do this to help people out because nothing lights me up more than hearing from somebody. That, this morning I woke up to a message from a woman saying, I listened to your videos and they really helped me out.

I was going through something and that was an amazing feeling. That was an amazing feeling. That's why, and it just lights me up. Here's a another study. In 2015, a study found that people who engage in regular volunteer work are 22% more likely to feel satisfied with their lives.

Again, more giving quotes here about Oprah Winfrey and Bill Gates, their after shoots for helping people out their success. Here's the thing too that I totally agree with. Helping other people out leads to bigger opportunities, networking, you find other people who are helping other people out as well, and those are people you can network with.

And you find people like-minded people, and that's the important thing too. Is engaging and finding like-minded people. That's one of the things too, I used to always say, with business conferences or even mindful events, whatever the case may be, it's super important to go to these events and these things like maybe you go to a big breath work event or a big yoga event.

You get to network with these people and vibrate with these people and have that same vibration and you realize, sometimes you might walk around and feel like I'm a little crazy thinking this way. But when you find your people, your tribe and you vibrate with them, you say, okay, I'm not crazy.

The rest of the world is crazy. And that, that's why it's so important too. So when you volunteer, you get to hang out with people that same mindset and you get to help out and you, again, it lights your brain up when it comes to that. So let's talk about, where my mind shift came from and how did I change this? 'cause again, I said I was and I was, I truly was money hungry. That was my thing, that was my goal. It was all about chasing that dollar. And once I started studying more into Buddhism and I got deep into Buddhism that I learned that the path to.

True happiness, which lies within and the path of enlightenment was filled with helping other people out. It's about helping other people out and it's not about me. It's about helping somebody else out and how to, change other people's lives. And that's why I do what I do right here. Again, I know I do this to hope I can change somebody's life, make their life a little bit better, make them happy, or make their at least their day happy, their hour.

Happy that lights me up. If I can change your entire life, amazing. Even better. But I'll settle for just even an hour, five minutes. I don't care. Long as it changes somebody's life and they can see the, the difference in some things and. Relieve some stress of theirs. But so what happened with me is, again, so I started studying the Buddhism and I delved a little deeper into it and I found that, on the path of enlightenment, it's filled with helping other people out.

And when I first started doing these videos, I started doing these videos and they were called the Mindful Minutes. And some of 'em will pop up when I'm doing this series here, because somehow I still at the beginning say, this is the mindful minute. And when I started doing these videos, I was sitting on a ton of cash.

I will tell you, I was sitting on a very large chunk of cash where I didn't have to work for many years. And I, my lifestyle would not have changed. And I'm not talking about, I would've had to skimm for many years, but could've made it. No, I could've lived quite well, gone out to eat four or five times a week, kinda like I do now.

Even though I'm not well off, but I still go out to eat a lot. I could have lived very well. I could have bought a Ferrari cash. Everything paid quite some time. Quite some time, many years at least. At least a minimum of five years, if not longer. And and that's living really well. I. I felt guilty making these videos and I said, man, geez, here I'm making these videos about, not being stressed and this and that.

I have an unfair advantage than, and a lot of people have because, I did acquire all this and that, even though I made it all, and but I still felt man, here I am talking about it. Sure. It's easy to find peace when you don't have to work. Lo and beholds. As I was going into starting this whole breathe bitch thing up quite some time back, everything I had got ripped away from me ripped.

I made some bad business choices, some bad investments, and I literally lost everything. Everything except down to 5,000 bucks. And that, that's, with the, what I had going on, 5,000 bucks was nothing. And I came to a point like, okay, what do I do? Do I go back to nursing?

Do I concentrate on some of the stuff that I got going on to make the money be, breathe, bitch is probably going out the window because, I just need to start focusing on money. And that's when it dawned on me. I'm like, maybe the universe, I don't know, in some crazy way granted me this wish of mine to.

To be in the shoes of a lot of people where I do have to make money today to pay for the things next month and now I'm in that position. The crazy thing is that once and all that came pretty much within like over two months period span, where I lost everything. So it hit really fast.

So it wasn't like it was a really slow, trickling thing. It hit fast. And I sat there and I'm like, I'm okay. Like I'm okay. Like this should be a super depressing moment in life. Having everything ripped away from me, but I'm not gonna, I'm okay. And I made the decision to move forward with Breathe Bitch, because if I feel like that under that situation, more people need to learn how to feel like this and be like this.

And I said, you know what? I'm just gonna move forward. I'm gonna help as many people out. To find inner peace, to live to that higher version of themself. And I got faith in the universe that everything's gonna work out okay. Simple as that. And that's where I'm at right now, i. I wanna help as many people out.

I feel healthier. I feel richer than I ever have at this point in time with the people that I've helped out. And I'm super happy. I'm super happy. I'm not just saying that because I got other option I do have other options. I could shut this down, go back to the grindstone like I did before and hump and make that money and that's not what I wanna do.

I want to help people out. And again, I feel amazing about this. How's it gonna turn out? I don't know, but I, my gut feeling says it's gonna turn out okay because again, I do believe in that tomorrow's not promised. If I die tomorrow, I'll tell you this. If I die tomorrow, I will die. So happy that I help the people out, that I did help out while I was alive, as opposed to saying, man, I worked three shifts and I made that investment and this and that came up and I died.

How would I rather die? Would I'd rather die tomorrow with those few different things on my last mind, the mindset that, okay, I helped some people out and this is how you know I'm gonna go. Or, oh man, I worked that last shift. Oh, one of that check got cashed, or this, or hit the bank before I die.

That's, so think about that. That's something to think about. So let's take a look at some ancient, writings about this and were they, because this has been, this isn't something that, just some new age thing that just popped up, all this cash and champagne and.

Exotic cars and all that stuff. That that's all new stuff. Okay. This right here, this mindset that I'm talking about has been in existence for quite some time. Let's talk about it. And Hinduism, here's one of the quotes from Hinduism. The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.

That's a Hindu Hinduism quote. And they teach that selfless acts is the path to true fulfillment, serving others without attachment results to spiritual success and personal growth. The Bible, Christianity, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant. Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant.

Jesus emphasizes true greatness comes from serving others not seeking status or power. Give it and I will be. Give and it will be given to you. That's all Christianity quotes. Daoism, the wise leader, does not accumulate riches but gives to others. The more he helps, the more he gains. And that's Daoism right there.

Daoism is wisdom teaches that true success is about harmony. Humility and helping others. Buddhist teachings, and this is, some of the teachers I listen to if you light a lamp for someone else, it will also brighten your path. The concept of selfless giving is the core. Teaching and Buddhism help others lead to inner peace and enlightenment.

Islam, the best among you are those who bring the most benefit to others. Islam teaches that true success is not in the material wealth, but in generosity and service to humanity. Some this is some African philosophy. I am because we are, and this is a philosophy, I cannot pronounce their name. Deeply rooted in African tradition, emphasizes c.

Interconnection is, and the idea that our success is tied to how we uplift others. So this, the concept is not something new. It's been around forever. And these ancient teachings talk about it. And who would I to come along and say, Hey, they're all wrong. Because I could see what, what's going on in this world.

It doesn't look right to me. Some of that ancient stuff looks way better to me than this new stuff that's going on. And think about this, the acts of kindness and helping somebody out, how rewarding you feel about that. It's not taxed, you're not getting taxed on it, you don't have to do all kinds of crazy shelters or anything like that from helping other people out.

I. And I believe that when you give, the universe will give back to you. It doesn't have to be monetarily, it could be spiritually, it could be it could be monetarily, it could be however the universe deems to, to send it back to you. And I'm a firm believer in karma as well too. And karma isn't like a lot of people think.

That, oh, you know that karma's gonna get you one day. Karma has no emotions. Carmen is nothing different. No different than throwing a rock in the water. And the bigger the rock you throw, the bigger the waves are gonna be. And it has no emotions. It's just a cause and effect. Because you throw goodness, then hopefully goodness is gonna come back to you.

And then that's, I do, I believe that. So that's my kind of take on it. And, and I truly do believe that. And that's why I live the life that I do live, that I help people out. I don't even, again if I die broke, as long as I die happy and with peace, then I'm okay with that. And I know some of you say I don't want that.

I don't wanna die. Die broke. But what's it matter if you die happy? That's the thing. And. If you're saying that, oh, I don't wanna die broke, then you're tying your happiness to money. And money is not happiness by any means. And I said yeah, money. We've got a lot of ways to justify it.

Let's look at it this way. Money is freedom. Okay? Yeah, it is freedom. But so is not being tied up in a job, working, 80 hours a week, 60 hours a week, 70 hours a week doing overtime, missing family events. With the fact that you could die tomorrow. My granddad, all he ever wanted to do one of my granddads is all he ever wanted do was retire.

And he got to that retirement age and he died a week later. That was it. That's what he wanted. His goal was to retire. And then he ended up dying right afterwards. It might not have been way, I think it was like a month later, I take it back. But he didn't get to enjoy his retirement, and I do I go for walks every day.

I live like I'm retired. I really do. I do this, I hustle at this because that's just how, I want to help people out. But I, again, I live like I'm rich. Again, it's all perspective. The ancient texts are there that this is how you're supposed to live.

Don't chase a dollar, help people out. It reciprocated back to you through the universe. Through God, through whatever it is that you believe, karma, whatever the case may be, but. It's there. It's there. So that's my take on things. This is where we typically take, I'm gonna wind things down. This is where we typically take a question from a viewer and or a yeah, a question from a viewer.

We go through it and we answer it with mindful tips and through a mindful a lens and give them a perspective on it and hopefully give this some helpful advice. But again, this is early on. We don't have any questions in yet. To submit your questions, go to breathe bitch.com. Go down to the podcast page, hit the button to the podcast page.

There's gonna be a spot down there where you can fill out your information. First name, last name, what state you're from. We will not say your last name on air and put in your message if you need some sort of a mindful advice. And again, I'm not some sort of licensed clinician or anything like that. I just do a lot of studying about mindfulness and do a lot of mindful practices and.

So we'll give you the best advice we possibly can. Make sure you do your practices. That's a very important key component to life itself. Your breath work, your yoga, your meditation. And definitely your meditation and your breath work. Yoga is up to you, whether it be yoga, whether it be you're going to the garden to plan something, you're reading that book, make sure you take that time for yourself.

I do the yoga because it is a physical activity. Whether may, maybe it's you go do Tai chi. Maybe it's the Pilates, I don't know. Whatever it is you go do that thing for yourself, but do it mindfully and think about it and take that moment for yourself. 

All right. This is be a good little spot to throw in a little breath work session right here. We're gonna make a quick little breath work session right here, and it's something I want you to think about too, is while we're doing it, so first thing I want you to do again, you're gonna follow my words, follow what I say here.

So take a deep breath in. Take a deep breath in. Biggest breath you've taken all day. Take it in, get to the top, hold it. Take another sip of breath air. Hold it.

 📍 All right. I want you to exhale nice and gently. Don't force it out. Nice and gently. And once you get to the bottom, I want you to inhale through your nose for six seconds and then once you get to the top of that six seconds, I want you to hold for six seconds. And then once you hold for six seconds, I want you to exhale through your nose again for six seconds and then hold at the bottom.

And this is what's called box breathing. This is six second box breathing, and all four sides of this box is gonna be for six seconds. And I want you to continue to do that till I tell you otherwise. Nice and gently through the nose, nice and gently.

And then when I count down from three to one, I want you to take the deepest breath you've taken all day. 3, 2, 1, take another deep breath in all the way up.

Let it out. Nice and calm, nice and relaxed, and I want you to go into a seven second breath right now. So seven seconds in. Seven seconds out, no holding on either side. And I want you to just relax seven seconds in and out. And here's something I want you to think about. I want you to visualize. A world that does not judge you on things, stuff junk.

Not how big your house is, not how shiny your car is, how much you have in a bank, the clothes you wear. I want you to visualize a world that judged you on your merit, on your credibility, your honesty, how you carry yourself, your integrity, your health. And here's something I want you to think about. Warren Buffett is worth $163 billion, and I guarantee you Warren Buffett would trade shoes with you any day anyway, because he's 94 years old.

Imagine that a billionaire would trade shoes with you and okay, let's say he wouldn't. Would you trade shoes with him? Would you give up everything you have to be his wealth level and his age? Probably not. So there you go. What you have right now is worth more than $163 billion in being at 94. So walk around like you're wealthy bitch.

'cause you are now resume your normal breathing. Good job.

Nice.

Make sure you follow us Also on Instagram. Breathe Bitch. And Facebook Steven Rii. That wouldn't let us say bitch on Facebook. So Steven Rii and TikTok. I was a breeze bitch on TikTok as well too. That's all I got this one. We'll see you on the next episode. Thank you for listening. I'm blessed that you were here and have a great day.