Stream

Here is some stuff I am reading and thinking about this weekend…

Book I’m Reading – The Daily Stoic
For anyone that is not familiar, Stoicism is an ancient Greek philosophy that focuses on living life with virtue, tolerance and self-control. It also deals with one of our biggest worries: our own mortality. It sets out to remind us of how unpredictable the world can be. How brief our moment of life is. How to be steadfast, and strong, and in control of yourself. And finally, that the source of our dissatisfaction lies in our impulsive dependency on our reflexive senses rather than logic.

The Daily Stoic is one of my favourite books about Stoicism and includes 366 meditations for each day of the year on wisdom, perseverance and as the author Ryan Holiday calls it, ‘The Art of Living’. The best part about the book is that, instead of long winding chapters, it provides a less-than-2-minute read for each day of the year that helps you to reassess your perspectives, see your thoughts and actions in new light and find new ideas about living a better, almost worriless, life.

[Read more…] about Becoming An Investing Buddha

Every Saturday, I send out this special post with a few ideas I am reading and thinking about. Plus, a question I am meditating on.

If you wish to receive this post – apart from others I write regularly on investing, decision making, behavioral finance – please sign up below.

Anyways, here is some stuff I am reading and thinking about this weekend…

Book I’m Reading – With the End in Mind
I never saw Papa reading a book. Yes, he read a lot of magazines and stuff online, but I don’t remember when I saw him with a book to read the last time. So I was surprised when I found out about this book he started reading some time back, recommended by my doctor friend who was treating him.

[Read more…] about With the End in Mind

Every Saturday, I send out this special post with a few ideas I am reading and thinking about. Plus, a question I am meditating on.

If you wish to receive this post – apart from others I write regularly on investing, decision making, behavioral finance – please sign up below.

Anyways, here is some stuff I am reading and thinking about this weekend…

Book I’m Reading – One Small Step Can Change Your Life
“Go big or go home,” is a glorified adage. To change a habit, most people believe that they must take drastic steps. Like an austere lifestyle to get out of personal debt, quitting an addiction “cold turkey,” removing all their favorite foods from a diet. In most such cases, either the task is finished or they are. (often, it’s the latter.)

[Read more…] about Small Steps to Change Your Life, Simplicity, and Living with Acceptance

Every Saturday, I send out this special post with a few ideas I am reading and thinking about. Plus, a question I am meditating on.

If you wish to receive this post – apart from others I write regularly on investing, decision making, behavioral finance – please sign up below.

Anyways, here is some stuff I am reading and thinking about this weekend…

Book I’m Reading – Mindset
Tolstoy and Darwin were considered as ordinary as children. Iconic photographer Cindy Sherman failed her first photography course. Amitabh Bachchan got rejected by All India Radio. What differentiates them from other people who encountered similar setbacks was their mindset.

[Read more…] about Forces Shaping Our World, Fixed Vs Growth Mindset, And Handling Failure

Every Saturday, I plan to send out this special post with a few ideas I am reading and thinking about. Plus, a question I am meditating on.

If you wish to receive this post – apart from others I write regularly on investing, decision making, behavioral finance – please sign up below.

Anyways, here is some stuff I am reading and thinking about this weekend…

Book I’m Reading – A More Beautiful Question
Since early childhood, most of us learned that our parents did not like us asking many questions and that only authority figures – most grown-ups – had the right to ask them. The result was that we stopped questioning things and accepted what we saw, heard, and were told with meek acceptance.

Sadly, this approach worked well in the industrial era, but proves futile in the knowledge era, because it compromises our ability to think and understand deeply.

[Read more…] about Recipe for Successful Long-Term Investing, Biggest Financial Regrets, and Applying Stop Loss in Life

Here’s something new I have initiated to share with you stuff I am reading and thinking about in recent times.

Click here to download the document, or click on the image below.

Let me know your thoughts on the initiative, and what else you would like to see here.

Enjoy your weekend,
— Vishal

Here’s something new I have initiated to share with you stuff I am reading and thinking about in recent times.

Click here to download the document.

Let me know your thoughts on the initiative, and what else you would like to see here.

Here’s some stuff I am reading and thinking about this weekend…

Book I’m Reading – Siddhartha
Siddhartha is a beautiful novel by Hermann Hesse, first published in 1922 in Germany, that deals with the spiritual journey of self-discovery of a man named Siddhartha during the time of the Gautama Buddha.

The book follows this young man named Siddhartha on his journey to find the true meaning of life and peace. One passage that is particularly enlightening for me is when a ferryman, Vasudeva, the spiritual guide of Siddhartha, consoles him after the latter’s son (also Siddhartha) from a courtesan woman (Kamala) doesn’t seem to be interested in reciprocating well to his father’s love and advice, and seems like running away to a path of his own that looks dangerous to his father –

[Read more…] about Siddhartha’s Dilemma, Marcus Aurelius On Honest Men, And Bezos on Amazon

Here’s some stuff I am reading, watching, and thinking about this weekend…

Book I’m Reading – The Art of Learning
One of the best books on the art of learning I’ve read is, well, The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin. I picked it up again this week, and it was as refreshing as the original read.

Josh is a champion in two distinct sports – chess and martial arts. He is an eight-time US national chess champion, thirteen-time Tai Chi Chuan push hands national champion, and two-time Tai Chi Chuan push hands world champion. In his book, Josh recounts his experiences and shares his insights and approaches on how you can learn and excel in your own life’s passion, using examples from his personal life. Through stories of martial arts wars and tense chess face-offs, Josh reveals the inner workings of his everyday methods, cultivating the most powerful techniques in any field, and mastering the psychology of peak performance.

[Read more…] about In Praise of Mediocrity, Being Happy, And Learning How to Learn

Here’s some stuff I am reading, watching, and thinking about this weekend…

Book I’m Reading – Thinking in Bets
In this book, Poker champion turned business consultant Annie Duke shares insights on how we can get comfortable with uncertainty and make better decisions as a result. It’s a lively read that presents a useful and novel framework for analyzing decisions when we are faced with less than perfect information: that is, the situation we likely find ourselves in daily. Annie writes –

Life, like poker, is one long game, and there are going to be a lot of losses, even after making the best possible bets. We are going to do better, and be happier, if we start by recognizing that we’ll never be sure of the future. That changes our task from trying to right every time, and impossible job, to navigating our way through the uncertainty by calibrating our beliefs to move toward, little by little, a more accurate and objective representation of the world.

The most charming parts of the book are where the principles presented can be applied in much of my daily life, from those facing me as a father of two kids to better considering possible outcomes when making investment decisions.

It’s a nice, practical book – Thinking in Bets.

[Read more…] about Thinking in Bets, Lessons from Howard Marks, and Few Insights on D-Mart