InvestED: The Rule #1 Investing Podcast · Phil Town & Danielle Town

FROM THE VAULT: Dawa Tarchin Phillips on Becoming a Mindful Investor

·52 min·4 clips

Dawa reveals how fear and greed trick investors by pulling them out of the present moment.

Dawa Tarchin Phillips is the founder of Empowerment Holdings, co-founder of the Mindful Leadership Online Training Conference, and acting president of the International Mindfulness Teachers Association. He spent 12 years living in a monastery, including nearly seven years in silent meditation retreat across two consecutive three-and-a-half-year retreats, before transitioning into the business world as an entrepreneur and teacher. In this vault episode of InvestED, he talks with investing podcasters Danielle and Phil Town about the relationship between mindfulness and investing. The conversation opens with both Phil and Dawa sharing their own experiences in monastic or retreat environments — Phil spent six months meditating 12 hours a day and describes not wanting to leave. Dawa explains that he left monastic life because his core motivation is service, and he concluded that business and entrepreneurship are among the most powerful and highly leveraged vehicles through which people can contribute to the world in the current era. He reflects on a quality he traces to his grandfather, an entrepreneur who championed him whenever he took risks that scared others. Phil and Danielle connect mindfulness to their rule-based investing approach inspired by Warren Buffett, Ben Graham, and Charlie Munger, noting that the masters never explicitly talk about mindfulness but demonstrate it through their practice. Dawa argues that the challenge in modern life is not that people need to choose between contemplative depth and worldly engagement but that they need to learn to maintain access to their inner resources while fully participating in career and family. The metaphor Phil shares — being a white sheet dipped in gold cloth that fades when removed from the monastery — is discussed in terms of whether that inner clarity can be cultivated continuously rather than episodically.

As heard by us

A calm reminder that investing works best as a steady practice, not a passing mood.

Danielle and Phil draw a clear line between investing as a habit and investing as a reaction, while Dawa Phillips keeps the focus on fear, presence, and discernment.

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Need a steadier way to sit with market fear and make decisions?

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