Life

The Best Investment for Your Child (Hint: You Can’t Buy It)

If you opened this post with the hope that I will provide you the best investment tip for your child, I’m sorry to disappoint you as it is not about that.

But then, you may want to still read it till the end, because the ‘best investment’ that I’m talking about today is one that your money can’t buy.

Yes, that’s true!

The idea to write this post came from a disturbing article I read in a newspaper some time back.

It was about how parents these days are too busy to talk to their kids. The article laid bare some worrying results from a study, which indeed are reflections of today’s fast-paced, consumption-driven society of ours.

An Experiment of a Reluctant Walker

An Experiment of a Reluctant Walker Today’s post isn’t about investing but about health, and one of my experiments towards the same. So you may close this window if you are not interested in reading anything here except investing. 🙂

I recently bumped into a college friend at the supermarket who told me how frustrated he was with his “fat body”.

My interest was sparked when he told me how he has “tried everything” over the years but nothing worked.

Curious, I wanted to know what “everything” was. Here’s the list as I remember it: several gym memberships, expensive personal trainers, exercise bike for home, tennis lessons, health retreats, and big weight loss targets.

How I’m Planning My Life After Retirement

I am not an expert on retirement and planning for life after sixty (if that is what defines the term ‘retirement’).

I am also willing to bet that anyone who has never retired can never be an expert on this subject (you can only be an expert in things you do), however sagely an advice he/she can offer on how to plan a life after retiring from active work.

But in planning and working towards my own retirement, here is one big mistake I see most retirees (and to-be-retirees) make and how it can be a such a dangerous mistake.

I’ve never heard it mentioned by retirement experts. Nor have I read a word about it in retirement books.

Everyone talks about saving money and allocating it well so that you accumulate enough to spend through the 20-30 years of your post-retirement life.

This is a good advice, but one that misses a big point.

13 Lessons from 13 Years of My Life

I celebrate three anniversaries today –

Thirteenth anniversary of landing in Mumbai for the first time on 4th April 2001 to do my MBA
Eleventh anniversary of joining my first and last job on 4th April 2003
Third anniversary of quitting my first and last job on 4th April 2011

Life has come a long way from that time when I came to this unknown city in 2001…

…from early 2003 when I had lost hope of getting a job after being rejected by the very few employers who attended my MBA college’s placement season, and from the time I had almost rejected my only job because the salary was almost as much as what I would have earned in the role of a peon. So much for an MBA degree, huh!

Anyways, good sense prevailed, and I took on that job. Apart from the fear of becoming an “educated unemployed”, I was also helped by a promise I had made to my ‘would-be wife’ before joining my MBA that we would get married as soon as I got my job so that her family didn’t get her married off somewhere else. 🙂

So, the saying that there is a woman behind every man’s success has been true in my case. In fact, the woman in my life has not really been ‘behind’ me, but has walked besides me, holding my hand through the thick and thin that life has brought.

Well, I am not going to bore you today with my life story (let me keep it for some other day :-)), but would like to share with you a few life lessons these past 13 years have taught me – both in terms of my life, and my financial life.

Announcing: The Safal Niveshak Education Scholarship

Charlie Munger, in a speech at USC Law School commencement in May 2007, said –

I constantly see people rise in life who are not the smartest, sometimes not even the most diligent, but they are learning machines. They go to bed every night a little wiser than they were when they got up and boy does that help, particularly when you have a long run ahead of you.

I have personally known a few such people who, by the sheer dint of their hard work and diligence, and despite various challenges they faced at each step of their way, have achieved great heights.

Sadly, I have also known a few who got stuck on the way.

One big reason that has kept most of these latter people from realizing their dreams has been the lack of sufficient money to provide for their education.

How I Multiplied My Income 2.5x, Savings 5x, and Happiness 20x (After Quitting My Job)

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. ~ Mark Twain

On 1st January 2011, when most people around me were making resolutions to lose weight and eat better, I was making up my mind to do something else.

I finally did it on 4th January. I told my boss – “I quit!”

Quitting my job was a tough decision to come by, as I was surrounded by mixed views from all around, including from within me.

“You’re sure you want to quit your job?” asked my concerned father.

“How could you quit when we have spent so many years training you?” asked my boss, forgetting that I had also spent so many years serving the company.

“Hey, please don’t quit!” said my colleagues.

“Yes, you can do it!” said my wife.

“Yes, Papa will be at home to play with me at all times!” exclaimed my seven year old daughter.

Now, here is how my mind was playing tricks with me.

An Excel to Save Your Life

While India is ranked amongst the skinniest nations in the world (as a large percentage of people cannot afford food), there is no doubt we are getting fatter and unhealthier.

This is especially true of an average adult in urban India, who combines the stress of work with junk food and with sedentary lifestyle, all of which makes for a lethal combination.

Now, many people erroneously suggest that education is the answer to achieving good health. Really?

In 2014, we have more education, information, awareness, policies, programs and getting-in-shape resolutions, than any other time in history. But the fact is that in 2014, more people reading this would get weightier, and unhealthier.

The simple reason you see more young people visiting doctors and hospitals is – we have created a lifestyle that is unsustainable.

My 2014 Wish for You – Be Miserable

“Why are you in such a sad mood, Ravi?” I asked my friend as he visited us with his family this Christmas.

“You should see my stock portfolio Vishal!”

“Why, what happened?”

“Oh, it’s up just 30% this year!”

“30%! And you are still sad?”

“Yeah, because this could have been more than 30% had I not missed a few amazing stocks like…”

“Like?”

“Like Mindtree that is up 120% in the last one year, Cera Sanitaryware that is up 90%, Eicher that is up 80%, Aurobindo Pharma that is up 105%…and then there are the ones like Relaxo and Ashiana Housing, that are up 100% since April.

My Ode to A Great Teacher

“Okay, so despite all my requests to stay over for some more time, you have finally decided to call it quits?”

“What do I do, my dear Vishal, I was longing to live a life much more peaceful than I had done all these years, and thus I had to go.”

“Yes, yes, I understand that…but you see, I can’t say how easy or difficult it would be for me to live with the thought that you are not anymore by my side.

“But you see, I’ve come to terms with the fact that I will never see you again. You have been an inspiration for me, one of the greatest teachers I ever had, and now it would be incredibly difficult to reconcile my desire to see you again, living and speaking, hale and hearty.”

“I do not feel happy leaving this place as well, but you see dear Vishal, there’s no other path I could have chosen.

“And by the way, I am already leaving with you a lot of my memories and thoughts that would stand by your side whenever you need them.”

“Yeah, I know that. I know how you have inspired me to make a difference in others’ lives, and stand up to the challenges.

10 Simple Rules that Brought Me Financial Nirvana

I was in Ahmedabad last week for my Art of Investing Workshop (here’s the proof), and met a few young executives – in their mid 30s – who had questions about how I have managed my own financial life so well so far.

A couple of them were, in fact, amazed to hear my story and told me that I have been an exception.

“That’s not true!” I told them. “I have not done anything special in my financial life that anyone else cannot do.”

In fact, whatever I have done to bring myself to a stage of financial nirvana – if I may use that term – I have done with the help of some simple rules on how I treated my money over the years.

Now, while I am too young to dispel any life-changing advice on “how to be a financial rockstar” or “how to remove all financial worries from you life”, I am happy to share below 10 rules that have changed my life for the better over the past few years, and how these can also benefit anyone who practices them with discipline and integrity.

Here are those 10 rules.