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Reflections on Life, Investing, India at 75, and Keeping the Main Thing the Main Thing

One of the best books I have read on living a life of purpose is the one from the world-renowned innovation expert Clayton M. Christensen, who developed the theory of ‘disruptive innovation’, which has been called the most influential business idea of the early 21st century. In fact, Christensen introduced ‘disruption’ in his 1997 book The Innovator’s Dilemma, which was supposedly the only business book that Steve Jobs had on his bookshelf.

Anyways, the book I am talking about today is Christensen’s How Will You Measure Your Life?, the idea for which came up first in a 2010 speech he gave to Harvard Business School’s graduating class.

Drawing upon his business research, he offered a series of guidelines for finding meaning and happiness in life. He used examples from his own experiences to explain how high achievers can all too often fall into traps that lead to unhappiness.

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[Transcript] The One Percent Show: Kuntal Shah

Note: This transcript is part of Prime Membership, but I am sharing it here for the benefit of a larger audience. When you join Prime, you get access to all detailed transcripts of The One Percent Show, plus a lot more. You can check the Membership details and join here if you are interested. I am offering a special inaugural discount on the Membership, which is available only till 15th August or for first 200 members, whatever comes early.

Kuntal Shah is a partner at Oaklane Capital, co-founder at Needle.ai, and a board member at Flame University. An electronics engineer by qualification, Kuntal bhai is a first-generation entrepreneur, a business leader and a prominent value investor with three decades of experience spanning various aspects of the capital market.

I look up to him as a fountain of knowledge and wisdom, especially when it comes to investing, business analysis and the economy. I’ve had the opportunity to learn from him and his experiences, through his various talks and presentations, and I must thank him for all the wisdom he has shared over the years.

Also Access On: YouTube | Apple | Google | Spotify | Amazon

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Announcing: Safal Niveshak Prime Membership

I have been writing content on Safal Niveshak for the past 11 years, and almost all that I have shared here has been and will always remain free.

That work exists completely with support from YOU. You may have bought my investing course, or a book, and I thank you for that.

Today, it brings me great joy to launch a new service for you – The Safal Niveshak Prime Membership – where I plan to share with you the best ideas from my learnings from the world’s greatest teachers in areas ranging from investing, decision making, learning, and life.

As a Prime Member, you will unlock access to exclusive members-only content, transcripts of my podcasts, notes on listed Indian companies (without recommendations), special ebooks, notes from the books and other timeless resources I am reading, curated content that I am consuming and learning from day after day, and special members-only discount on my value investing courses and books.

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My Notes on Howard Marks’s Latest Memo: I Beg to Differ

The Sketchbook of Wisdom: Special Rs 200 Discount till 31st July 2022

Buy your copy of the book Morgan Housel calls “a masterpiece.” It contains 50 timeless ideas – from Lord Krishna to Charlie Munger, Socrates to Warren Buffett, and Steve Jobs to Naval Ravikant – as they apply to our lives today. Click here to buy now and claim Rs 200 discount. Offer valid till 31st July 2022.

Howard Marks yesterday released his latest memo to clients of Oaktree Capital.

It was titled “I Beg to Differ.”

It’s a wonderful take on how investors must think and act differently and independently, if they aim to achieve superior investment results.

I have prepared some notes on the memo. Click here to read my notes.

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Stay safe.

With respect,
– Vishal

Safal Niveshak is 11 Years Old

The Sketchbook of Wisdom: ₹200 Discount till 31st July

This is a story from January 15, 2009. It’s not my story, but an inspiring one.

US Airways Flight 1549 on its way from New York City’s LaGuardia Airport to Charlotte, North Carolina, struck a flock of birds shortly after take-off, losing all engine power.

Unable to reach any airport for an emergency landing due to their low altitude, pilots Chesley ‘Sully’ Sullenberger and Jeffrey Skiles glided the plane in the Hudson River. All 155 people on board were rescued by nearby boats, with only a few serious injuries.

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My Advice to a Young Investor – Part 3

The Sketchbook of Wisdom: Did you get your copy?

This is the third part of this unintended series on my single biggest advice to a 26-year-old investor.

First, she asked – What advice would I offer to a 26-year-old to do well in her career?

I offered this advice – Play games that you can win.

Then, she asked – How do I know which games to play where I can win?

I offered this advice – First, try to answer this question: ‘What do I desire?’ Then, do a few things that you desire to do, maybe 2 or 3, and then gradually you will gravitate towards the number one out of those 2 or 3. Keep learning, keep exploring, and you should find that one game that would become the only that you would like to be in. And once you have found that game you should play, start playing, get better at it over time, and you should win – not against others but along with others who are also playing that game.

Anyways, then she asked – But how do I get over the fear to even start playing the game that I can win?

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My Advice to a Young Investor – Part 2

The Sketchbook of Wisdom: Did you get your copy?

This is in continuation of the previous post on my single biggest advice to a 26-year-old investment analyst on what she should be doing to do well in her career as an analyst and an investor.

My advice to her was this – Play games that you can win.

After reading the post, she came back with a follow-up question – But how do I know which games to play where I can win?

This was another important question. And since I knew this would come, I was better prepared this time.

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My Advice to a Young Investor – Part 1

The Sketchbook of Wisdom: Did you get your copy?

I met a 26-year-old investment analyst yesterday, who sought my single biggest advice to, well, a 26-year-old investment analyst, on what she should be doing to do well in her career as an analyst and an investor.

Despite being involved in this work for the past 11 years of offering advice even when I am not asked for, her question led me to think, and so I sought some time to get back to her with my response.

There are, after all, so many things I can advise to a young investor or analyst, based on what I have learned in the past 17 years, that is, since I was 26 myself –

Invest with an inner scorecard – Don’t change who you are to fit in.
Have courage, even in the face of adversity – and there are a lot of adversities you would face in investing.
Accept whatever outcome you attain, for what’s in your control is how you react to the outcome, and never the outcome itself – you can either rue over a bad outcome or take it as a lesson and move on.
Keep learning, for nothing builds an investor’s career better than continuous learning. Learn from your own experiences and mistakes but more importantly from the experiences and mistakes of others.
Avoid predictions, because you are rarely going to make a correct one. Also work with the intellectual humility that you know nothing, even if you are the smartest person around.
Be patient, like a grasshopper, for that is how wealth is created.

All this is very useful advice. But since I have to offer just one advice as requested by that young investment analyst, it would be something that I learned from Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett many years ago –

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Learn to Pick Great Stocks with My Premium, Online Course in Value Investing – Mastermind

There are no secrets to the art of sensible stock picking that most people don’t know of. The literature has been there since the 1940s, when Ben Graham, the father of value investing, first wrote about it in his landmark book The Intelligent Investor.

Other practitioners of this art, like Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger, Seth Klarman, Walter Schloss, and Howard Marks have been writing about it for years now.

So, you can find hundreds and thousands of resources in print and on the Internet on how you can become a smart, successful investor. However, what I found lacking ever since I started learning this art of sensible stock picking myself, was a structured, step-by-step approach to do it.

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In Investing, Simple Beats Complex

The Sketchbook of Wisdom: A Hand-Crafted Manual on the Pursuit of Wealth and Good Life

In the endnotes of his brilliant book, Winning the Loser’s Game, Charles Ellis wrote about two of his best friends who, at the peak of their distinguished careers in medicine, agreed that the two most important discoveries in medical history were penicillin and washing hands (which stopped the spreading of infection from one mother to another via the midwives who delivered most babies before 1900).

Ellis’s friends also counseled him there was no better advice on how to live longer than to quit smoking and to buckle up when driving.

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