The tide will turn – once again

I had written a post similar to this about 8-9 months At that time we did not have the Covid vaccine. This time we have but still these are crazy times. When you hear thousands of people dying everyday, in the news, it’s natural to feel dreadful about your personal future. You can be fearful or you can be hopeful its a choice that you make everyday.

However history has had various events and the human race has adapted and come back stronger always. Whether these have been related to hurricanes or the plague the human spirit has always ensured that we survive. Eventhough across the world millions are getting vaccinated everyday, the virus is also become smarter and is mutating even more viciously. Let’s ensure that we maintain social distancing and bring down the compounded daily growth rate of the virus.

The tide will turn – Always

So during this time you could see all the problems, you could binge on watching movies and serials on TV and feel even more depressed.

Or you could think of what else you can do to brighten your future. This is not about just positive attitude. Its about affirmative action. The surfer takes advantage of the tide to get his momentum, the airplane takes advantage of the air resistance to fly.

Get prepared while you are locked down so that you can be stronger to face the future. Get trained – there are so many universities offering free courses. Or get trained on products – so many consultants, OEMs are offering free training.

We have a bright future ahead, let this “reset” time that nature has given us, not go waste.

Carpe Diem !!!

Peaks and Valleys

Affirmative action, Karma, Turn around

As I have got older, I have become increasingly circumspect that nothing is permanent.

Today you identify a winning campaign and tomorrow your very next campaign fails. This is life. When something is going very good suddenly you get hit by a curve ball.

I have realized there’s no point in fighting and thinking “why does this happen to me”.

When you put your ego aside and think how you can utilize that time to improve …..I have seen maximum success after I took the downtime to improve myself . There was a time when I came to a new city and for various reasons my career got into a jam. I took the time to learn IT networking and suddenly within a few months my career took a new trajectory.

Whenever I have seen a valley, its always an indication that I had something to learn which I was missing. The other thing that I have noticed is if I have not learnt something new from that valley then I keep falling back into it.

Some people blame their stars, some people on external things. I also used to feel like that when I was younger.

Today with age I have started feeling a little differently. Today I believe differently, I have started thinking more like what Tony Robbins says”…. its happening for me not to me”. So if its happening for me then there must be something which I need to find and till I find that I won’t be able to climb the next peak.

But its a fact that Peaks don’t last, because we have to learn to go to the next stage. If we put our ego in between and don’t learn the lessons, then we stay in the valley.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

How to be a billionaire

Affirmative action, compounding, Financial Independence

I DON’T KNOW

Now with that out of the way, let me tell you what I do know.

I do know that compounding does work and INR 2000 put into an investment in 1995 today gave me a dividend of INR8500 this year and the value of my investment today is more than INR150000/-.

You will get a lot of sites both serious ones and satirical ones who talk about showing you a path to becoming a billionaire. But when you look at where you are starting from and what you need to invest to achieve that kind of number, the amount is so huge that you never get started.

This was a case with me also for a long time. I always got around to starting my investment journey, but never did till 2013. Each time I had to let my brain take a decision on making an investment, I always procrastinated, so I put in automatic systematic investment plans, which deducted money from my bank account.

The issue is never about whether you will become a billionaire, the question is always about whether you will take action to get there. If you will take action consistently and let the magic of compounding work then you will at least reach the skies, if not the stars.

My suggestion and advice to all the young folks is always start with just a small amount which is not more than 10% of your income, but let it get deducted out of your bank account directly before you can touch it. Once you do that and not think about it, you will be surprised at what you will see after 25 – 50 years. As an example the average return on the S&P 500 has been more than 10%. Suppose you have $500 invested for 50 years in an ETF which only works on the S&P500 the number you could potential be looking at is close to $58K. So if you can avoid about 100 coffees & a doughtnut at your local coffee shop, you could be at more than 50K in 50 years. If you were to avoid it for only one year( $5*365) and invest that for 50 years you would be at about $214K. Can you save $25 in a day. Most people can. You could potentially be a millionaire, and that too just investing for 1 year.

The key point here is that you are investing – not saving. For the difference between the 2 please see my earlier blog posts.

The earlier you start out on your investment journey, the higher will your corpus become. If you notice even Warren Buffet’s meteoric rise in becoming the richest man has been in the making for more than 60 years. Its the last 15 odd years where the compounding has created such an explosive growth in his wealth.

Start somewhere, start at the earliest, start with the smallest and let it compound.

Till next time.

Carpe Diem!!!

Eradicating the Writer’s block

Affirmative action, confidence, Evolution, Habits, Human Brain

For all of you who have been reading my blog posts over the last two – three years, you would have noticed that I used to disappear from writing for months on end.

I would keep contemplating forever for the perfect piece, for the perfect English, for the perfect graphs.

Which ended up me not writing anything. And I used to feel lousy also because I was not writing.

Today again I was feeling the same situation. I had a very long day in office and I was exhausted.

But then 2 things came to my mind which I have been following over the last 2-3 months.

These are 2 pieces of advice.

One is from Joe Polish who says being prolific is more important than being proficient. If you will practice enough you will automatically become more proficient- something in line with the 10000 hour rule for mastering any skill.

The second piece of advice came from Russell Brunson in his book Traffic Secrets. He quotes Gary Vaynerchuk in the book, on how he’s built such a huge following. What struck me as critical was his comment about “thinking like a reporter” who has to put just one news report everyday.

I have taken this to heart and started writing these quick posts which you can read while standing in a line at Starbucks or while your sandwich is getting ready at Subway.

How this has helped me is that it has eliminated the pressure on me to write the perfect piece. Instead now I write about whatever is going on with me during the day or on whatever I am working. Also because I am writing consistently, it has improved my confidence, my brain now resists less, and it is on the way to forming a habit.

I would suggest the same for any activity, be relentless, be prolific, do the small things continuously and they will become a habit.

Till next time

Carpe Diem!!!