Let’s Start with Safal Niveshak
Just in case you missed any of this on Safal Niveshak over the last few days and weeks…
- Are you right because your stock moved up 200%? Answer here.
- Is the Sensex heading towards 30,000…40,000…100,000? Find out here.
- Follow these 5 simple rules of investing successfully in a Modi-fied India
Book Worm
“The Little Book that Builds Wealth” from Pat Dorsey is a wonderful book if you want to understand the concept of economic moats and how companies and their shareholders benefit from them. Here is an important excerpt from the book on the various ways to make money in stocks, and why moat investing stands out…
There are lot of ways to make money in the stock market. You can play the Wall Street game, keep a sharp eye on trends, and try to guess which companies will beat earnings estimates each quarter, but you’ll face quite a lot of competition.
You can buy strong stocks with bullish chart patterns or superfast growth, but you’ll run the risk that no buyers will emerge to take the shares off your hands at a higher price.
You can buy dirt-cheap stocks with little regard for the quality of the underlying business, but you’ll have to balance the outsize returns in the stocks that bounce back with the losses in those that fade from existence.
Or you can simply buy wonderful companies at reasonable prices, and let those companies compound cash over long periods of time. Surprisingly, there aren’t all that many money managers who follow this strategy, even though it’s the one used by some of the world’s most successful investors. (Warren Buffett is the best-known.)
Stimulate Your Mind
Here’s some amazing content I read during the week gone by…
- Akash Prakash of Amansa Capital answers if we have moved into a secular bull market.
- A ready-made nine-point checklist for value investors.
- Learn these four timeless lessons from the young Warren Buffett.
- The wonderful Jason Zweig answers if you set out deliberately and systematically to remake yourself into a great investor, how would you go about it.
- Before you ask what moat a company has, ask what is your moat.
- Learn how to apply Charlie Munger’s Human Psychology Checklist.
Now, during this process, often our challenge is not that we don’t have a solution to our problem but rather that the solution is one that makes us uncomfortable. And given that we have an aversion to discomfort (who wants to move out of the comfort zone?), we tend to avoid that uncomfortable but the most effective solution, and keep looking for a painless and comfortable, but ineffective, answers.
Deep down we know what we need to do but due to fear-based reasons, we keep ourselves trapped in a kind of physical, mental and emotional holding pattern. This way we end up wasting more and more of our time, potential and energy.
Does this sound familiar?
You see, some of us have been circumnavigating change, growth and success for years. We talk, we plan, we intend, and we hope. Day after day.
We read such articles, nod in agreement, see ourselves in the words…but still fail to take action.
If this sounds familiar to a life you have been living, here is what Steve Jobs said in his remarkable address at Stanford University in 2005…
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.
Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
So the idea is to be fearful, then be courageous, and then apply that uncomfortable (but the most effective) solution to your problem which you have been avoiding all these years.
Like, when you are starting out as an investor, or looking to make your next decision in life, don’t get paralysed by fear. Remember, fear will keep you out of harm’s way. All you need to have is the courage to manage it.
Now, nobody can give you the courage. Even if Buddha were sitting right here next to you, he couldn’t give it to you.
You have to practice it and realize it yourself. You have to make a habit of mindfulness practice to get over your fears and take uncomfortable routes in life.
Then, when fear strikes you, you will already know what to do.
So, if you’ve been avoiding a decision or a certain course of action (but deep down you know it’s the best solution), maybe today is the day.
What do you say?
Keep poking.
Face your fears head on.
Stop wasting more of your time, potential and energy (you may run out of these!)
Be kind to others, and to yourself.
With respect,
Vishal Khandelwal
Chief Poker – Poke the Box
Absolutely loved the piece on “Uncomfortable Solution”. Exactly facing a similar dilemma in life today. Hopefully today should be the day to take action.