tony robbins

Karmic cycle

charity, Karma, life

I am a strong believer in God. I also believe that things happen for us , to teach us , rather than to us. The bigger thing though is that whether you believe in an entity called God or not, you do understand that the universe has a way to equalise things. I don’t know about the animal kingdom, but I have always found even in the toughest situations, in unknown locations where people didn’t know my language, I could still get help.

I don’t like the idea of talking about the ordeals I have gone through life, because I believe everyone faces tough situations in their life at some point or another.

On the other hand I do believe that if you keep doing good, even during your tough times, your pain keeps getting reduced. It could be because your brain feels good by helping someone. It could also be that the person whom you helped sends out positive waves in the universe for you.

If you do so much good in the world, there’s so much positivity about you, that tough times don’t seem so painful. The more good you do, there’s a tendency to want to do more. Due to this you feel grateful, you have grace -as Tony Robbins says or you have a feeling of abundance – as Dan Sullivan says.

This makes your mind want to find solutions to the problems that you are facing and take help from others also to figure out ways to solve problems. Most people in this world are good and they like to help. That’s why humanity has been able to last more than 30000 years.

You wouldn’t get that feeling if you were to watch the news. As per the news, the situation has never been worse than what it is right now. Inspite of this there are people working to solve big problems, they are working to help others out. If you will look at videos of Dr. Peter Diamandis or read his books, you will realise that the world has never been a better place in all its history.

Keep doing good. The universe has a way of rewarding you. You can call it by whatever name. I prefer to call it the Karmic Cycle.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Things happen for us – Not to us

Human Brain, life, Worry

Tony Robbins has a saying to the above effect, signifying that instead of feeling like a victim, learn and take something out of it. I have another belief on similar lines, which is God does everything for our own good. Whether you believe in God or not is a separate issue, but things do work out eventually.

Today’s is a prime example. Since I got up today , early morning I was informed of an unscheduled visit for a meeting with some government officials. The original meeting as per my understanding was for the next day.

What was agitating was the fact that I had two meetings scheduled in the afternoon with some other customers. My team had got these meetings after a lot of effort and as a matter of principle, I don’t like the idea of cancelling a meeting with a customer. I was worried and irritated.

Since the meeting with the government officials was critical for our customer, I had to relent. I then started dialling out my colleagues to stand-in on my behalf for the first meeting. Luckily for me the first meeting, which was at 3 PM, the customer himself sent out a request for change of date, since he had to take an unscheduled leave today. I was confident that I will be able to attend the second meeting which was scheduled at 5:15PM

So I told the officials whim I was visiting that I would be out of the meeting by max 4PM since it takes about an hour’s drive. But the discussions continued and I was finally able to leave by 4:25. Now I was again in a quandary. I again dialled out my colleagues to engage the customer till I reached.

Now comes the interesting part. I was able to luckily reach home and join the meeting at exactly 5:15PM and the customer’s team had not arrived. So instead of me apologising for the mess up, I was on the high ground waiting for them.

Moral of the story – sometimes you should let things happen as they are happening without getting to anxious about it. There must be something good for you with you cannot see at the moment. In today’s situation I was able to satisfy one of my largest customer’s inspite of the fact that it was an unscheduled meeting, I could keep my principle of not cancelling meetings unless unavoidable and now tomorrow I have the full day which I can use to finish some other work.

Till next time ….keep the faith – life is happening for us not to us.

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!!!

Asset Allocation – key to balancing your investments

Affirmative action, asset allocation, compounding, Financial Independence

Yesterday I wrote about continuing with your Systematic Investment Plans if you have your job and avoind encashing your investments.

My wife and I were discussing on our own situation given that the market has gone down substantially and she was bothered her own investments would be totally messed up.

That’s when I explained to her the philosophy of Asset Allocation and why she need not be so worried about her investments.

While you will see that most of the articles I write are about investments in some form of equity where you own part of business, especially if don’t have one of your own. However I have mentioned this earlier and I will mention again that the way to financial freedom has to do with an asset allocation based on your risk profile.

In simple terms asset allocation is distribution of your investments in such a way that irrespective of the direction the equity markets take or the interest rates take you have your principal amount protected and growing at a steady state. In the picture above if the lady in the picture happens to see a dog come at her suddenly and drops the basket, all her eggs will break and all her effort in building her dish would get destroyed

So if you have $100 to invest and you have put all the money in equity, while in the long run it may give you around 12% or so, in the short run – like it happened in the last 3 months – it would have gone negative by more than 30%. By putting some of your $100 in term deposits of even 5% you would have ensured that your overall hit was averaged better. Its all about ensuring that “all your eggs are not in the same basket”.

No doubt that equity gives the nest returns in the long run and is also the most tax efficient in most countries, however not everyone has the risk profile to do the roller coaster ride that the equity markets go through. This would be true whether you have invested directly in stock yourself or if you have invested via ETFs or mutual funds. With mutual funds and ETFs the ride down could be less severe while the rise upwards could also be slower.

Its always better to have some amount of allocation of your money in debt like in term deposits or bonds. How much can better be judged by your personal financial advisor but have some portion of your total investments in some kind of debt. Fixed term bonds or deposits will ensure that you get a fixed return on the money invested irrespective of the situation in the equity markets. Even though the returns will be lower, an it may not be so tax efficient, the fact that it is a guaranteed amount makes your portfolio a lot more resilient.

There is a very good explanation on Asset Management in the book Money Master the Game by Tony Robbins. He has interviewed multiple fund managers on how they do the fund management of billions of dollars. Some of them also invest in things like commodities and precious metals and real estate. So its always better to consult a financial advisor before deciding on the type of asset allocation you want to do and the risk profile you have.

Yes bond markets also go through tough times and the bank, in which you had your term deposit, can also shut down, but the probability that all the things will go wrong at the same time is remote. Hence the concept of asset allocation becomes even more critical.

Government owned securities obviously are the most secure but they give the lowest interest, then come the bank term deposits and the highest would be the bonds in terms of interest rates. However as the interest rates climb, the risk also goes up.

Spread your risk by consulting with your financial advisor and move towrds your financial independence.

Till next time.

Carpe Diem!!!