Author: animeshjmathur

Fear – our brain could be playing games – 3

Fear, Human Brain, Risks, Worry

I have written multiple posts on this topic, the last being on 14th September, because there was I time I used to be scared of so many things. Its taken me a lot of effort to reach this stage where I do take considerable amount of calculated risks.

As I have read more about the functioning of the human brain, more I have started to believe that all fear is actually created because of our brain.

Now I will like to clarify one thing being fearless and being reckless are two different things. So I am trying to become fearless day – by – day. I am not becoming reckless.

What’s the difference. An example of being reckless – If I am driving and I see a truck coming right in front of me, I won’t think its my brain playing games and go straight for the truck . Thats what deer do in the night when they see headlights. I will take evasive measures to move out of the direction of the truck.

As Seth Godin talks about in his book “Linchpin ” Trying to become fearless is not about not having fear but more about being unafraid of things that one shouldn’t be afraid of.

Our brain plays games in making us fear things, which in general we should not be fearful of. Doing a client presentation or making a phone call. Nobody is going to come and shoot you. But in case you are in front of a person who’s pointing a gun at you, then you need to be afraid, real scared. Trying to pull the gun away from her – that will be reckless.

Till next time then don’t have fear but don’t be reckless either.

Carpe Diem!!!

Time – Money – Ideal state

assets, Financial Independence, passive income

Most of us end up selling time for money at a broad level. Except for people like authors, actors and people with some kind of intellectual property or investors, most of us, are generally selling time for money. Some might be selling it at a higher value than the others.

I was analysing various phases in my life and what my situation was. There was a time when I was overworked and with less income. We were always in an anxious state of mind. The ideal state where you have the freedom of time and freedom of money is the upper right corner in the picture.

Now I have not reached that situation of the blue box but I have at least moved from the bottom right hand corner box to the upper left. One of the reasons that could happen is because I started doing investments which started working for me in parallel to me selling time for money.

The earlier you can get involved in making investments – not savings (if you don’t know the difference, please see my my posts on financial freedom written in the earlier years) – the earlier you will reach this stage where you will not have to work at the same ratio. Obviously during this time as your experience grows your per hour rate at which you sell time could also grow.

The ideal situation is when you work once and you get paid multiple times over as in the case of movie actors and authors whose royalties keep coming. But for most of us who do not have any intellectual property to our credit – making investments in different types of assets is the only way to create a non linear relationship to time and money, such that your money works for you as hard as you work for the money.

Once your passive income grows to such a level where you don’t have to sell time for money that’s when you would reach the blue box area and have the freedom to do things of your choice. That’s the ideal place where I would like to eventually be, but lets see how it goes.

Every education has a price to be paid

coaching, education, training

In ancient times in India there was a concept of paying fees (dakshina) to the teacher (guru) after the education was over. It could be in terms of whatever the teacher wanted. Money as medium of exchange was not so prevalent in my opinion hence it was generally in kind and typically what the “guru” wanted. The teachers were reverred more than God because it was thought that the route to reach God would not be feasible without a good teacher.

Yesterday while I was listening to a show on ETNow a finance TV channel in India, there was one a very mature fund manager Samir Arora who was getting interviewed.

Through the interview he made a statement which suddenly caught my attention. While he was talking in terms of the financial markets in India, the statement is true for every field. Every education that you get has a price to be paid. In the financial markets, while I have read a lot of books and heard a lot of lectures, what you learn when you start playing the “game” is invaluable. I for example have learnt that I don’t have the psychology to trade even though I know most of the rules.

While there’s nothing better than getting a real life education, it can take a lot of time even though you may not be paying money but you will end up paying with your time.

That’s where experienced coaches can help, if they are in the field you’re wanting to take. That’s why I pay to join programs from Joe Polish and Jay Abraham and others. These kind of coaches can help speed up your learning process, so you save on time.

If you want to save time to get the experience faster, pay the fees to a coach, because you will have to pay for the education either in terms of money or in terms of time.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Prioritising 80/20 and ferocity together

Affirmative action, prioritizing, problem solving

This is the latest brain wave which I have had. I had written a post on ferocity which was a word I learned from Steven Kotler in his book “The Art of Impossible…”. His thesis is that if you go out at problems with a ferocity, take affirmative action and the more problems you solve, the better you become at solving problems which helps you become even better to achieve your impossible dreams.

I have been working on the 80/20 principle as suggested by Richard Koch on prioritising my day and then also use the Prioritisation Matrix to work further and plan my day based on impact of what I do and where I want to go.

Now comes the brain wave portion. 80/20 and the prioritisation matrix are all about doing less work but more focussed work. While the ferocity logic is about gaining proficiency by solving more. So there’s a slight dichotomy in my opinion.

Except if you can create enough focussed problems and then try to solve them at a go. so instead of planning a prioritisation matrix for a day everyday, we were to build it for a week in advance. Then we try to achieve the most critical parts of these in a day rather than a week.

I don’t know how practical this would be, how much time will I have and whether I will be able to delegate enough, but I will figure out and let you know how effective it was.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!