I am addicted to internet, what should I do?

Yesterday when I was browsing on quora.com , I came across a question asked by someone, "I am addicted to internet, what should I do?"

I was in a hurry at that time so didn't respond to him. But as usual my thought process got something to chew. 😊

My response to such a question is, "WOW!!"

First of all, What is addiction?

'Addiction is a state characterised by compulsive engagement in rewarding stimuli, despite adverse consequences.'

- Wikipedia

Rewarding stimuli means the stimuli which is the brain interpret as intrinsically positive or as something to be approached.

- Wikipedia

We have already discussed about addiction in the post titled- Addiction - The story of Narendra.

So let's get to back to the question-

He said he is addicted to internet, what should he do?

So I assume that he want to break the addiction. But his question also implies he at least have a smartphone or a computer and an internet connection. There are millions of human beings out there in the world who do not have access to these necessities of life. So this guy is a lucky one.

The compulsive part of his problem is not a problem if he can take care of the negative effects. I think it is very easy to deal with negative effects. If he keeps the compulsive part intact then there will be an explosion of positive outcomes.

The negative effects can be physical, eye stress, pain in the fingers and wrist, back pain etc. These can easily be prevented if he get's up occasionally and do some stretching exercises and take a small walk.

Then there is a greater problem of waste of time. I loved this part of the problem. Really, this is how I got started using internet. At first I was wasting a lot of time. Then came the moment of realisation. But then it was all easy to convert this wasted time in to the most precious time you have ever spent. And then keep adding such precious time. 😉

The simple trick to convert this waste to precious is just change the things you browse a little bit. And our guy has already started it by visiting quora.com and posting his question. Which means he is already on his way to this change.

So, how to do it?

I thought you will never ask..😉

This is very easy. You can start bringing this change right now. Just search something of your interest. Read information about it. You may find answers to your questions on the internet, just check out the reliability of the knowledge. Do it at least once a day. Automatically if you get answer to one question then second question related to new knowledge will arise. Or the answer to first question will lead to next question. At this point just go on finding answers, it's a never ending but very enjoyable, profitable, respectable way of life.

I will tell you how-

Suppose I have a question, how can an aeroplane fly?
So to answer this question I started searching about aeroplanes, landed on the Wikipedia page about aeroplanes, got to know about how the plane flies and the different parts of the plane which help in to flying. While doing it I got fascinated with the picture of a afterburning jet engine with a glowing exhaust stream with shock diamonds in it.



SR-71 Blackbird in flight with J58 engine on full afterburner, with numerous shock diamonds visible in the exhaust

So a new question came up. What is a jet engine, how does it works? So again landed on a Wikipedia page about jet engines, got to know about jet engines, afterburner or reheat cycle, jet engine is actually a form of gas turbine engine, where are these gas turbine engines used.. Then again while reading the applications of had turbine engine I came across aeroplanes, helicopters, power stations, American main battle tank Abrams M1A1 &M1A2, MTT Turbine superbike (Y2K)...

And then I was like wait a minute, how can a jet engine powers a tank? Or a street superbike? So this goes on and on and suddenly life becomes a very interesting thing to know about.

This is a just an example, but a real one. You can go your way and enjoy the life.

The rest of the people who don't use internet for their benefit can start using it this way. You will find your knowledge compound, you are learning which is making you wiser.

Have a nice day...


Sumit
The POWER is when,
You use ODDS,
To get EVEN.

Expert Career Guidance

Yesterday, I was just browsing free online classifieds website- quickr.com

I found an interesting section - CAREER GUIDANCE.

I kept on browsing and to my amazement I found too many personal advertisements, all looking for expert career guidance advice. My thought process got stimulated as, why so much of these people feel that they need career guidance? I never felt like I need career guidance. It means there is something I must find out. Whether I am missing something or these guys needing expert career guidance are missing something?

So I just started mailing to their email address to know more about what they are looking for?

Though there was difference between their educational qualification, there was strikingly high level of similarity with most of the emails. So most of the time our email correspondence went like as follows-

Hi Vijay,

I saw your advertisement on quickr.com
which said that you need expert career guidance.

To be frank I am not a professional career counsellor. But I am interested to know what are you stumbled at? What is your qualification or present situation?

I write a blog- samanyabuddhi.blogspot.com

Your story can be a good material for a new blog post. Also it will be helpful for my blog readers. Don't worry, your privacy will not be compromised.

If you don't feel like replying, it's perfectly fine. I won't bother you again.

Thanks in advance,

Sumit
The POWER is when,
You use ODDS,
To get EVEN.

(Note:- The name Vijay is imaginary, just to give you an idea.)

To this email, most of the time the reply was,

Hi Sumit,

Actually I am just graduated (or graduating or  doing a job at ....... as .......... but I am not satisfied with the current job etc.). I need career guidance.

Vijay

Up on doing some conversation with them, the common pattern was-

1) I tried to know about their education in detail, their background, their likings etc.

2) Asking them what job would he or she like to do. On which the usual answer was, I don't know, that is why I need expert career guidance.

3) Then I tried to ask their goals in life, like where he or she wanted to be day 10, 20, 30 years from now.

4) The common reply was, nicely settled with a decent job with a good monthly pay cheque, a nice home to live in, a happy family, and the common sentence,"Just like everyone else wants.." 😄

I was really amazed with this strikingly common pattern of thoughts.

Anyone can observe-
1) None have given a thought to where they wanted to be in the future.

2) None have even thought about what kind of job they would be happy to do or what kind of job they can do which is of any help to the possible employer.

3) Those who are presently doing a job does not know exactly why they want to change the job or career.

Without the above three points asking for a career guidance is just like asking a ticket to a railway booking counter or getting in to a cab and telling the driver to drive. The ticket booking clerk can't book a ticket for you unless you tell him the destination. Same is the case with cab driver, he won't drive unless you give him the destination.

This condition means only two possibilities, either people don't know how to plan for a career, or they are plain lazy.

This blog (samanyabuddhi.blogspot.com) can't do anything about lazy people, rather lazy people will never read this blog. So we will get to "how can people plan their career?"

There are thousands of career options out there so people get confused. But, truly speaking, it is easy to plan a career. There are just three steps to plan a career-

1) Imagine where you wanted to be 10, 20, 30 years from now.

It is much easy that people think it is. Just imagine doing what you love to do (what you love to do must be of any use for at least a little part of the population or it can be able to earn you money). Doing it as a respected person. With enough time for yourself and for your family.

For example I like investing in companies,I like reading, learning etc. 10 years from now I see myself retired from job. Awaking in the morning when my I feel like it, preparing for yoga, eating the breakfast of my choice, while having breakfast taking a look at any developments in my investments, then planning how to spend the day with full freedom to do anything. After finishing breakfast, going for bath and then for the plan I just decided. I may spend my whole day reading or watching movies or may be at some tourist destination, or may be taking classes on how to retire early or about worldly wisdom, spending time with family, working out at evening, again spending time with family, watching television then sleep.

Your goal can be different from mine. You may want to be a world famous painter 10 years down the line. Or you may want to travel the world. Or you may want to start a NGO. You may want to help the needy. You may want to develop a vaccine against HIV thereby preventing AIDS. May be you have a product idea and aspiring to be an entrepreneur. Your goal can be anything. Just take your time to visualise it in detail. Otherwise you won't be able to go ahead, or choose a path.

In the book "The Psychocybernetics" by "Maxwell Maltz". The writer says that, human mind works like a goal striving mechanism. If you feed your subconscious mind with detailed goal, it will start working to achieve it. Your subconscious mind will automatically prompt you the way towards goal. You must listen to your subconscious mind and start moving. Our subconscious mind has a feedback mechanism which constantly tries to keep us on the route to our goal. But if you are not moving at all then this mechanism can't work. If a person do not feed his subconscious mind with a goal and keep it idle then his whole mind and body will start turning into a useless, lifeless, unhappy condition. So you must feed it one or more goals. It will start working automatically. You just need to listen to the solutions provided by your subconscious mind and act on them.
Well, enough for now about our subconscious mind. We will talk about it in detail later.

2) Start your journey-

Take the first step towards your goal. I am not telling you to take a leap, just a small step. Because leaping involves risk of falling and suffering heavy damage to your ability to take next step. We are not afraid of failure here, just cautious enough to minimise it. If you don't move, your subconscious guidance system doesn't work. So moving ahead is very important. Even if a few steps go in wrong direction, eventually you will learn to correct your direction.

For example, if you want to be an owner of a resort and you don't have any money to set up one, or don't even know what is needed, how to handle everything. The first thing you have to do is get a job in a resort, at any level possible. Slowly keep an open mind. Keep learning how the resort works, how the supplies comes, how it was constructed, how the land was procured, how the capital was raised, how the recruitment was done etc. Even if you don't know what to learn and what questions should you ask yourself, you will come to know when you get in. Excel in what you do and start climbing the career ladder. You will slowly amass money as well as experience. You will understand the business model. And then you can set up your own. This process is not as easy as it sounds here, it requires a lot of patience, determination, integrity,

but the most important thing is,

"IT CAN BE DONE".

3) Keep on improving-

It's not all done once you achieve your goal. There is intense competition out there so you need to keep on improving to stay in the game. Follow a lean and agile system so that you can change as per changing environment, may it be business, social or nature etc.

Set new goals and repeat. 😉

Real life story-

A childhood friend of mine Atul was from a very poor financial background. His family used to live in one room. His family was always struggling in the financial front due to poor income and lack of education.

As Atul grew, he constructed a goal for himself, to live in a decent owned flat. For this goal to materialise, he needed money, which was a lot for his background. So he thought on it searched for ways of getting cheap but niche education, the field doesn't matters for him. Atul was only focused on his goal, a decent flat with 100% equity. So he chose to to get a diploma in surface coating technology. The course was available at very meagre fees, it was a niche field, so there was job surety and a good career prospect. He got support from his family, completed the course and landed in to a job. It was in a low paying company. As the payment was low, there was high attrition rate. But he persisted, he never lost sight of his goal. The job was very tough. Job involved solving customer complaints, which was never ending. You solve one complaint and the other arises before the first is solved. But he persisted. Atul's motto was just somehow tackle today. Do what you can to solve the customer complaints and pass the day. As days were passing, his corpus was building. As there many recruits came and left he became the most experienced employee, claiming pay raise and promotions.

On one fine day, he had sufficient corpus at his hand, he bought a decent flat with some help of mortgage funding. His goal was achieved. Later on he decided a new goal of clearing the mortgage loan. So then he changed the job with a better paying one, the work at job is now eased. And he is close to clear the mortgage or may have cleared it as I haven't had a word with Atul for long.

May be he is after a new goal.

I hope you got the idea, how easy it is to plan a career. Also how personal it is to plan a career? Can you imagine any career counsellor doing it better than you? Can she get your perspective, your wishes, your wants? It is so personal that none except you can do it.

So, what are you waiting for? Your mommy is not gonna help you here, start working on it.

Have a nice day.

Sumit
The POWER is when,
You use ODDS,
To get EVEN.

Creative destruction

I got attracted to the idea of creative destruction because both the words appear opposite in meaning yet they match perfectly to describe a wonderful phenomenon.

The definition of creative destruction is written on quora.com which is widely endorsed, is as follows-

Definition
'Creative Destruction' is a
paradoxical term introduced to
economic theory in 1942 by the
Austrian economist Joseph
Schumpeter (1883–1950). He used
the term to describe the special
form of economic growth that
entrepreneurs particularly bring to
the capitalist system. Schumpeter
argued that it was the
entrepreneur's introduction of
radical innovation into the capitalist
system that was the real force that
sustained long-term economic
growth, even as it destroyed the
economic value of established
enterprises who may have
previously enjoyed a degree of
monopolistic power. (1)

Creative destruction is seen everywhere, from nature to man made things. Creative distruction is actually a very similar to the process of evolution, or it is the same as the "survival of the fittest".

We are going to discuss about creative distruction with respect to capitalism.

Creative distruction is seen in the capitalist system as innovative ventures making some other ventures obsolete, so that stealing the profit from them and forcing them to shut down. For example audio tapes closed down the gramophone industry, cds closed down audio tape industry, iPod closed down CD player industry. The usefulness to the customer went on increasing. In the age of gramophones, the gramophone was a stationary and bulky thing. Then came audio tapes which was smaller than gramophone but still bulky. Then came Sony Walkman. It was handy, one can carry it anywhere but still needed to carry those tapes and batteries as the batteries couldn't last long enough. Then came CDs, but again the cd players were bulky, then again Sony came to rescue by launching Sony Discman. But again one needed to carry those CDs and batteries. And then finally Apple launched iPod which gave us capacity to carry hundreds of songs with us in a tiny device and battery lasting more than a day on a single charge. It was a major breakthrough. During this evolution many gramophone factories went in to losses, then many audio tape industries, then cd industries are now finding it difficult to survive. Such obsolete industries can't survive for a long time.

Though these companies are shutting down, the new ones are flourishing, they are giving more value to the society than the obsolete one's. So the total value of the society is increasing though some industries are dyeing. The new ones are better ones, economic ones. We can see the process in action as Mr. Eion Musk is building the Gigafactory to bring down the lithium ion battery cost lower. This on turn will bring down the cost of the electric cars produced by Tesla motors. This in turn reducing the carbon emissions from gasoline or diesel powered cars and trucks. Tesla motors is also building a network of solar cell powered free charging points for it's customers all across the America.

Well, This blog is for practical things only, which are beneficial to everyone, and that too from the moment the person understands the point, so how this creative distruction is related to us or beneficial to us?

I am discussing this topic because I see people all around the world opposing this process of creative distruction. People resisting the closure of obsolete companies or the companies with faulty manufacturing processes or faulty or less useful products. Many financial institutions are also using bad processes because of which they are facing problems. People are getting emotional regarding the companies at the verge of closure. Governments all around the world are also sensing the public opinions and supporting the distressed companies for the sake of votes.

In my own country too government is providing monetary help to farmers. I am of the opinion that if government wish to do anything for the farmers, it should educate them. Because most of the Indian farmers are poor and illiterate. On the other hand I have seen educated farmers progressing a lot. They are accumulating wealth whereas the illiterate ones are opting for suicide.

Well let's come back to our topic- how we can use this creative distruction in our favour?

So we have seen that people generally get emotional and resist the process of creative distruction. Much amount of valuable resources like money, time, intelligence is wasted on resisting this process. We can benefit by not participating in the resistance, rather we should be on the side of creative distruction. Because creative distruction is the way of nature. Creative distruction is the way in which capitalist system evolves.

Try to bring about creative distruction by thinking about ways of doing things. Like replacing your shoes with lace with without lace so as saving your time. Now you may say how much difference would it make if you save one minute per day? But think again, one minute per day translates to 365 minutes per year, that is 6 hours per year. If suppose wear shoes for approximately 50 years of our life then the time spent in tying shoe lace is 300 hours, or 12.5 days. So one can easily save 12.5 days of his life just by changing the shoes.

There are many such ways. Use your brain to get your own ways formulated perfectly for you.

CONCLUSION-

How can we use creative destruction in our investments?

I hope you have understood how the creative distruction works in a capitalism. Innovative companies go ahead, while others are left behind. Innovative companies enjoy growing market share, growing efficiencies, growing customer base, high capacity utilisation, high return on capital etc. The non-innovative companies just fall behind with losing market share, declining profit, reducing efficiencies, low return on capital employed, less capacity utilisation etc.

So it is common sense to guess that the future belongs to the innovative companies. Conversely one can say that non innovative companies have no future. Up on using our common sense further we can say that in investing, the investor investing in the innovative companies will get benefited. While the investor investing in the non innovative companies will lose his money.

But there is a catch- any company can turn in to innovative company or it can even buy inventions if the management wishes so. Again, conversely any innovative company can turn in to non innovative or a dud.

So it is up to the investor to see if he is holding innovative or agile companies? Are his holding companies can adapt to the changing business scenario? Or changing markets? Or changing customer taste's? Or are they improving? Are they learning from their mistakes?

If the answer to any of this question is NO then it is a bad sign. There are more chances that the company will go in to losses and the investor will lose money.

Then what to do?

The answer is simple, instead of holding such dud companies, simply sell them even if at loss, recover the remaining capital and find good innovative companies which can grow your capital for extended time period.

There are many such companies out there, listed on stock exchanges. One just need to be curious enough to find them, buy them at reasonable price and hold them until they are innovative and agile. Just relax and let your compounding machines compound your wealth.

This is the practical use of creative destruction. There are many more you can think of, just share them in comments section.

Hope, I have contributed something through this post to your understanding and wisdom. A step towards our goal of health, wealth and happiness.

Thanks for reading..

Have a nice day..


Sumit
The POWER is when,
You use ODDS,
To get EVEN.

Sources-
(1) https://www.quora.com/What-is-creative-destruction

7 ways of saving money

Today's thought on saving money is inspired by those people around me who says and believes, it is difficult to save money, the expenses are increasing, prices are skyrocketing. But, these statements are only one part of the story.

The other part is, people are also getting pay hikes. Everyone is searching for how to get a pay hike???

Though people are saying saving money is becoming more and more difficult, I see this condition as blessing in disguise. You must be asking how? Well read on..

Rising prices and rising expenses means rise in total money at stake. Which means you can get more money saving in little efforts. Just like in one case a small turn of a steering wheel can change the direction of a 1 ton car but in other case changes the direction of a giant 100,000 ton container ship. The effort is the same in both the cases but the difference in the outcomes is dramatically different.

So lets dwell over usual household expenses and saving money ideas or or in other words money saving tips for dummies- 😊

1) Save money on gas-
Most of the people reading this blog are using gasoline powered vehicles for transportation purpose. And it is a big consumer of money. On an average more than 10% of monthly spending's of a middle class family are consumed by traveling expenses. Therefore saving on these spendings can have a big impact on the total money saved.

In my case I used to spend more than 30% of my monthly spendings on commuting. Also used to spend 3 hours a day in commuting. Then I shifted to a location close to my office and now I spend only about 5% of my monthly spendings on gasoline. Most of which is because of leisure travelling.

Using a bicycle or bike is also another way of saving money both on gasoline and medical bills too.

Even if you must need to use gasoline or diesel powered vehicle then you can save on fuel costs by properly maintaining the vehicle and using proper driving techniques.

You can read about it HERE - The power of compounding- 10 ways to improve your bikes mileage

2) Disease prevention money saved-
Diseases are like ghosts which catch us in wrong timings and drain much of our hard earned money. Disease prevention is a very easy think than what it sounds. You just need to understand your body and make it strong. Even if you catch any infection, you can help your immune system fight that infection, in the process also making it stronger. Disease causes loss of time, loss of earning, loss of money, loss of mental peace and suffering.

It can be easily prevented or cured. Just read the posts
A) Ageing and Anti-Ageing - 2 of the most popular words in cosmetics advertising.

B) 3 most important aspects of living

C) The Language of Exercise - Our way towards being Healthy

D) 3 Important Aspects of Living - DIET

E) What do I do when I get ill??

F) No. 1 Misconception about great health

3) Save money life insurance policy-
You must be thinking this heading is weird but, Save money on life insurance policy is for those people who are obsessed with life insurance policies or who are victims of life insurance policy mis-selling or those who are financially illiterate. Most of the people opting for the life insurance policy see it as an investment option.

The purpose of life insurance policy is to support your dependents after accidental death or disablement of insured person. Generally these insurance policies invest the policy money in some fixed return money market instruments. These instruments give low rate of return, then again there are administrative expenses and marketing expenses, the commission of the insurance advisor etc. After subtracting all these expenses, the policy holder gets very meagre returns which are not even up to the inflation rate, do if you are seeing it as an investment instrument then you are probably wrong.

This money could have been invested somewhere else where returns are high, and you could have earned a lot more than in life insurance policy. That means you lost the opportunity to earn more returns, which can be treated as expenses. That is why inclusion of this heading in this post.

This loss of money or purchase of a life insurance policy can be avoided by investing the money in higher return options like investing in share market or if you don't have ability to search for good companies at good price then you can simply follow a systematic investment plan developed by you, investing in to index funds. (invest more when market is down and invest less when market is making highs) You will definitely build a great amount of wealth in this way. And just teach this way to your dependents so that they don't need to take any outside help when any unfortunate event happens. You will save much more money this way, rather you will build wealth and be a great example for your dependents and friends.

But sometimes it is absolutely necessary to purchase a life insurance policy like when you take a big loan from bank or financial institutions. They make it compulsory to keep an insurance policy as a collateral. At such times opt for pure insurance and not the insurance come investment product.


Do remember one thing- insurance and investments are totally different things, do not mix them together.

4) Saving money at grocery store-
A big and necessary part of our spending goes in the grocery shopping. Therefore saving money at grocery store is a very effective thing if you want to save a lot of money.

Saving money at grocery store is actually very easy. Jus some little tweaks and you will save a lot of money.

You need to understand the sources that cause you to lose money and steer clear of them.

Two of the biggest sources of losing money or wasting money while grocery shopping are, falling victim to different marketing techniques and falling victim to our own psychological biases while shopping.

A very effective technique to avoid the marketing techniques and our own psychological biases is to pre-plan our trip to the grocery store in the following steps-

➡ Just plan the trip to the grocery store at the comfort of your home. When you are at your home, you are free from any marketing tactics or even your own psychological biases.

➡ Plan your trip at the time when there is little rush at the grocery store, so that you will have less effect of many biases caused by being in a herd.

➡ Make a list of items you want to purchase. Write it down in your smart phone or on a piece of paper like old fashioned way. Include all items in a sufficient quantity so that you won't have to go for grocery shopping for at least a month again. Wholesale purchases will also save you money.

➡ Go to the grocery store at the planned time, collect the items in your list as early as possible. (do it fast so that you will be exposed for the marketing tactics and your own psychological biases for a little amount of time)

➡ Avoid impulse buying. Don't buy the things other than your list, this is not the last time you are going for grocery shopping. So you can add the thing you thought about purchasing the next time(if you think it is needed even after days of your visit to grocery store).

➡ Ask for a discount or go to wholesale grocery stores in your are.

Falling victim to marketing tactics or your own psychological biases can cost you up to 30% of your grocery spendings at the grocery shop itself, and then there are side effects like your home will be crowded with useless fancy items and a small bank balance.

So if you follow the above steps carefully, you will save up to 30% of your grocery bills.

5) Save money online-
Online stores have the advantage of less fixed costs, less cost of real estate, ease of purchase. Therefore they can operate on low margins and high volumes, can serve a large geographical area. That is why there are more chances of you finding a great deal online, at the comfort of your home itself.

But there is a catch, don't just browse etailers if you don't need to buy anything, because again there marketing tactics will creat needs in your mind for the things they sell.

So if you need to buy something, for example a cellphone, then decide what are your needs first then, visit different sites, check the specs and prices, decide which models are fulfilling your needs in your budget and then search for the least price for that model. This is the way to shop online to get most value out of your hard earned money.

6) Money saving vouchers -
You will get money saving vouchers in emails, sms, news paper, fliers etc. These vouchers are designed to creat need for the product in your mind plus striking deficiency bias (limited period offer, or offer till the stock lasts etc) increasing the perceived value of the product much higher.

So my take is just don't pay attention to these vouchers. Mostly these vouchers are for products which cannot be sold normally because the product is not that useful or it is very costly.

Sometimes you may get a bargain deal but for that you must maintain a cool head and can be able to filter out useless vouchers without affecting your thinking.

7) Save money on weddings or other social functions -
It may sound weird but I have seen many people or generations of many families just accumulating the money for weddings of their children or other family functions.

They want it to make it grand. They think it is a once in a lifetime event so it must be celebrated in a grandest possible way. It is a show off kind of mentality. People boast about the money figure they have spent on their kids birthday or wedding etc. Their is a race to spend more and more money on such functions. They intend to show their higher status by spending money on such functions.

I do agree that they are once in a lifetime functions but then there are many such once in a lifetime functions. People should see it as a form of get together only and not the media to show their status. Status can be seen in day to day life itself, there is no need to show it off. And the most important thing is the inner satisfaction. If you are able to show off higher status but lack mutual understanding in the family, or there is a lack of family values then what is the use of the status then?

If people are only going to the high status people for the money then it is a sign that such people are not useful in the time of need. Such people can't be trusted. And trust me if you just skip such people and go ahead then you will find good people, though they are just handful, they will always be there for you.

I suggest to spend only a minimum amount of money on such functions depending on your financial condition.

Don't ever spend all your savings on it. Get the financial freedom before getting in to such expenses.

That's it for now.

Please share your views in the comments section.

See you soon.

Till then have a nice day..

Sumit
The POWER is when,
You use ODDS,
To get EVEN.