Life

The Tale of Two Fathers

First, please ignore the “father” in the headline because this is a story about “parents”. But I couldn’t find a better headline, and thus this one.

Anyways, over the past four days, I’ve read two contrasting stories on the relationship between parents and children.

The first came from Aninda Baruah, who wrote about Google’s new CEO Sundar Pichai, who was born and bred in India. Aninda wrote about how Sundar’s parents sacrificed a lot to ensure that he got all the facilities for education. Almost all the money that his parents had saved was used to buy tickets for Sundar to fly to the US for his scholarship Master’s degree. [1]

He concluded his story thus…

…Sundar Pichai (or for that matter Satya Nadella, Indra Nooyi, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen), does not just owe his success to his IIT engineering degree, or Stanford University or Google. He owes it to that entire generation, including his parents, that created the culture of extreme personal sacrifice in favour of educating us.

Reading Sundar’s story, I’m sure his parents not only used their money to help their son, but also sacrificed their time to be with him through the most important times of his upbringing.

Anyways, the second story I read was from Devdutt Pattanaik, who wrote about Samba, the son of Lord Krishna and Jambavati. [2]

Dear Jealousy

Dear Jealousy,

I ask for an apology in advance because you may not like what you will read in this letter below.

You see, we have lived together in peace for years now. But, off late, I have started feeling dizzy having you on my side. Please don’t feel bad because I will soon explain my reasons for what I’m feeling now with respect to our relationship.

I remember you as early as the age of five, when you clouded my mind as soon as I saw my richer cousins with remote-controlled cars, nicer clothes, and bigger houses.

You stayed with me even as I was passing through high school. Those years, you made me jealous of my friends who scored higher marks then me and thus got a greater appreciation from the girls in the class. Then, when I was in college, you held my hand tight as I saw other classmates who arrived in their own cars while I took rickety buses. When I saw them also having cell phones, I felt your hug even tighter.

There were also times I found myself jealous of people who had no conscience and were famous for that. You made me think that I should become just like them. Thank God I didn’t!

[Read more…] about Dear Jealousy

36 Lessons from 36 Years of My Life

I completed 36 years in my present state of existence yesterday (7th December). That’s 13,150 days, or around 55% of the average life expectancy of an Indian male.

While spiritualists would want me to believe that I have existed from anadi (before the beginning of cosmos) and will exist till ananta (infinity), I see thirty-six years as a good enough time to find some meaning in one’s life. At least, my greying hair help me realize that.

Now, while it amazes me that I’ve been around that long — I feel like I’ve barely begun.

I’m not usually one to make a big deal about my birthday, but as always, it has given me an opportunity to reflect.

I thought I’d share a handful of lessons I’ve learned — lessons on life, work, family, health, and money – which may serve as a helpful guide for those just starting out.

These are just a few of the many lessons that I have learned in my life, and you may find no wisdom in them. Even I realize that wisdom doesn’t necessarily come with age. Sometimes age just shows up all by itself.

Also, as you get older, three things happen. The first is your memory goes, and I can’t remember the other two. 😉

So before I forget the lessons I learned in thirty-six years of my life, let me start right away.

The Happiest Man I’ve Ever Met

I was recently in Nagpur for my True Wealth Workshop. I had a few free hours prior to the Workshop and decided to spend it touring the Orange City.

It turned out to be a wise decision not only because I loved what I saw of Nagpur, but also because I came to know about Ramesh Shet, an auto-rickshaw driver who took me around the best places in the city. Why meeting Ramesh was a great thing, you’ll come to know in a bit.

“You’ve come here for the first time, Sir?” Ramesh started the conversation as we started on the journey.

“Yeah,” I answered.

“It’s a very nice city. I’m sure you’ll love it,” he said.

I asked him about his family, his work, and income. “So how much do you earn daily?”

“Rs 300 on an average per day,” he replied.

“Is Rs 300 good enough for you and your family?” I asked.

When I Had Plenty of Money, But Not Much Wealth

Most of what we think we know about people with a lot of money – the enviable lifestyle of the rich and famous – comes from television, movies and novels. A lot of it is inaccurate.

Apart from the happiness that is showcased, financially well-to-do people have their own set of concerns – uncertainty over their relationships, anxiety about their children, fear of isolation and, of course, fear of losing their financial wealth.

In fact, I have known plenty of such “poor rich” people over the last few years, who have lots of money and assets…but not much else.

They are financially wealthy but emotionally, physically, spiritually, mentally and even socially, bankrupt.

Imagine your own life. If you own one big house (or even five) but you live in an unhealthy, stressed, over-worked, sleep-deprived, over-medicated body that’s going to die twenty or thirty years too soon (as many do), are you really wealthy?

So maybe health equals wealth.

Or if you’re a millionaire but you live in an unhealthy marriage with a spouse you haven’t spoken (heartily) to for a year and kids who never see you invest time into their lives, are you really rich or do you just have lots of money?

The Best Investment for Your Child (Hint: You Can’t Buy It)

If you opened this post with the hope that I will provide you the best investment tip for your child, I’m sorry to disappoint you as it is not about that.

But then, you may want to still read it till the end, because the ‘best investment’ that I’m talking about today is one that your money can’t buy.

Yes, that’s true!

The idea to write this post came from a disturbing article I read in a newspaper some time back.

It was about how parents these days are too busy to talk to their kids. The article laid bare some worrying results from a study, which indeed are reflections of today’s fast-paced, consumption-driven society of ours.

An Experiment of a Reluctant Walker

An Experiment of a Reluctant Walker Today’s post isn’t about investing but about health, and one of my experiments towards the same. So you may close this window if you are not interested in reading anything here except investing. 🙂

I recently bumped into a college friend at the supermarket who told me how frustrated he was with his “fat body”.

My interest was sparked when he told me how he has “tried everything” over the years but nothing worked.

Curious, I wanted to know what “everything” was. Here’s the list as I remember it: several gym memberships, expensive personal trainers, exercise bike for home, tennis lessons, health retreats, and big weight loss targets.

How I’m Planning My Life After Retirement

I am not an expert on retirement and planning for life after sixty (if that is what defines the term ‘retirement’).

I am also willing to bet that anyone who has never retired can never be an expert on this subject (you can only be an expert in things you do), however sagely an advice he/she can offer on how to plan a life after retiring from active work.

But in planning and working towards my own retirement, here is one big mistake I see most retirees (and to-be-retirees) make and how it can be a such a dangerous mistake.

I’ve never heard it mentioned by retirement experts. Nor have I read a word about it in retirement books.

Everyone talks about saving money and allocating it well so that you accumulate enough to spend through the 20-30 years of your post-retirement life.

This is a good advice, but one that misses a big point.

13 Lessons from 13 Years of My Life

I celebrate three anniversaries today –

Thirteenth anniversary of landing in Mumbai for the first time on 4th April 2001 to do my MBA
Eleventh anniversary of joining my first and last job on 4th April 2003
Third anniversary of quitting my first and last job on 4th April 2011

Life has come a long way from that time when I came to this unknown city in 2001…

…from early 2003 when I had lost hope of getting a job after being rejected by the very few employers who attended my MBA college’s placement season, and from the time I had almost rejected my only job because the salary was almost as much as what I would have earned in the role of a peon. So much for an MBA degree, huh!

Anyways, good sense prevailed, and I took on that job. Apart from the fear of becoming an “educated unemployed”, I was also helped by a promise I had made to my ‘would-be wife’ before joining my MBA that we would get married as soon as I got my job so that her family didn’t get her married off somewhere else. 🙂

So, the saying that there is a woman behind every man’s success has been true in my case. In fact, the woman in my life has not really been ‘behind’ me, but has walked besides me, holding my hand through the thick and thin that life has brought.

Well, I am not going to bore you today with my life story (let me keep it for some other day :-)), but would like to share with you a few life lessons these past 13 years have taught me – both in terms of my life, and my financial life.

Announcing: The Safal Niveshak Education Scholarship

Charlie Munger, in a speech at USC Law School commencement in May 2007, said –

I constantly see people rise in life who are not the smartest, sometimes not even the most diligent, but they are learning machines. They go to bed every night a little wiser than they were when they got up and boy does that help, particularly when you have a long run ahead of you.

I have personally known a few such people who, by the sheer dint of their hard work and diligence, and despite various challenges they faced at each step of their way, have achieved great heights.

Sadly, I have also known a few who got stuck on the way.

One big reason that has kept most of these latter people from realizing their dreams has been the lack of sufficient money to provide for their education.