Ageing and Anti-Ageing - 2 of the most popular words in cosmetics advertising.

I am always striving towards financial wellbeing, emotional wellbeing and physical wellbeing, sometimes I do like to do some charity too. As per my experience and knowledge, these 3 are interrelated things, we have to balance all three so as to live a happy life. We will get to how they are interconnected slowly, or rather if you keep reading this blog, you will come to know. So this blog also revolves around the same things.

Today's topic is related to physical well-being, and trust me physical well-being also brings with it emotional well-being.

Todays post is inspired by a number of things coming together, (yes I am a lazy person and needs this much of inspirations coming together to make me write a post 😏)

No. 1 Just saw a movie named Bajrangi Bhaijaan starring Salman Khan. Well Salman Khan is a Bollywood actor, he is what Arnold Schwarzenegger is to the Hollywood. The film Bajrangi Bhaijaan is making record earnings in India as well as Pakistan. And it is great to watch.

No. 2 Harley Davidson motor cycles companies' Fat Boy recently became 25 years old. The bike is starred in Terminator 2, which is my all time favourite movie, I still have a poster of Arnold Schwarzenegger riding the Fat Boy in my bedroom. The bike is fat in every respect that's why the name.

No. 3 The movie Terminator 2 also became almost 25 years old.

No. 4 They did a photo shoot of Arnold Schwarzenegger with the 2015 Harley Davidson Fat Boy. Which I saw on the internet. Both man and machine looks made for each other. 😊

NO. 5 Fat boy is also starred in latest instalment of Terminator movie which is still in the movie theatres.

And the last one...

No. 6 An advertisement of anti-ageing cream.
(Apply our cream twice daily and look up to 20 years younger in 3 weeks.. Huh!!!!)

We hear these advertisements such as if you are seeing the signs of ageing like wrinkles on your facial skin, dark circles etc. take our anti-ageing medicine or apply our anti-ageing cream so as to reverse the age and look up to 20 years younger.

There is a paradox in first 5 inspirations and the 6th inspiration. On one hand we have these aged actors still having young body and soul, inspiring us to build health and fitness and on the other hand we have poor civilians, who lack health and can easily be made target by such advertisements.

So my brain started working the usual question and answers way..

Why do they make such advertisements?
Because they must be working.

How does these advertisements work?
They make people think that there is an opportunity to look young.

Who doesn't want to look younger??
Well, children may be..

But apart from children majority of adults want to look younger than they are. But to understand why looking younger is so much in demand, we must understand -

What is AGEING?

Let's see first what happens in our body from birth to natural death -

First when we are bourn our body contains fat cells, muscle cells, bones, blood etc. The proportion of fats to bone and muscles changes as per our age. The bones and muscles works together so they are either both strong or both weak. (There are other things too such as cartilages, ligaments, tendons etc. which works along with muscles and bones, but to make the basics easy to understand let's ignore them for a while) That is why both bones and muscles are on one side and fat is on the other side as far as ageing is concerned.

So back to our topic, as we grow towards the age of say 25 to 30, (the values of age I am going to tell are rough averages, they may change as per person to person because of genetic factors, environmental factors, habits etc. the numbers are just for understanding purpose), so as we grow towards the age of 25 to 30, the ratio of fats to muscle ➕ bones remains low. Our body looks lean, more muscular, then as we go past the age of 25 to 30 the ratio of fats starts increasing, we also start gaining weight, our digestive power starts declining our strength and stamina starts declining etc. And after the age of 80 everything including fats starts declining rapidly.

(So being young is perceived as being healthy, full of power and stamina. This may be the reason for want of being or looking young.)

This is what happens as far as biology is concerned.

This mentioned process is the biological ageing process.

Fats are neutral things which do not do any functions of the body unless they are burnt, they do not give strength to the body. Therefore as we age, our skin develops wrinkles as the muscle giving them strength are losing their strength.

Whenever I say muscles, read it muscle ➕ bones, because in most of the cases they are interdependent. Bones act as levers and muscle provide the force, together they make us able to do various movements. So the lever must be as strong as the force which is going to be applied on it. Or the opposite is also true, i.e. the bones can't be stronger than the muscle they work with because our body slowly discards useless things except fats may be.😊 This is because fats are our bodies' reserved energy, which is kept for emergencies, which never happen in todays world, and to the people reading this blog.

The primary sign of ageing is loss of muscles and increase in fat accumulation. Secondary signs are wrinkles.

In todays world because of lack of body movements this process of ageing has become very fast. We don't generally walk, we use vehicles, we don't climb stairways, we simply take the elevator, our jobs generally involve sitting in front of computer for hours. We eat a lot of junk food. (The problem with the junk food is generally that, it is high in fats, oils but low in proteins and other nutrients which are necessary for the maintenance and growth of muscles. Therefore junk food aids in ageing.)

All these activities or rather inactivity result in muscle loss and fat accumulation. The muscle loss is because muscles are not used up to needed degree so body considers it as excess and reduces them to reduce the maintenance requirement.

So now a days many people are biologically much older than there calendar age.

Do you think application of a cream can reduce this process?

If you are still thinking application of a cream can reverse this ageing process then stop reading my blog right now. This blog is not for you.

For those who understand now that application of cream can't reverse the ageing process can read further.

So what can reverse this process of ageing?

There is an answer in the science. A simple one-

OUR BODY BUILDS WHAT IS NEEDED AND DISCARDS WHAT IS NOT NEEDED.

This is the basis of exercise.

We have to tell our body in a language it can understand that muscles and bones are needed very much. Then only our body will build more muscles and bones, there by reversing the ageing process. And this language is the language of exercise.

If you yourself do not understand this language of exercise then you can't convey this message to your body. Even if you consult very intelligent dietician or fitness trainer, it won't work for long. As a result you can't achieve the result of reversing the process of ageing. (though I say reversing the process of ageing, it doesn't mean reversing it indefinitely, but up to some extent like you can expect looking a little younger or more younger depending on your understanding and efforts towards the subject).

It's your body and no one can understand it better than you. And trust me it is not that difficult. Just take it easy.

I hope I have contributed something towards your knowledge of the concept of ageing. So that now you are not vulnerable to the advertisements of anti ageing creams or medicines.

In the next post we will learn more about the language of exercise.

Till then have a nice day..


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

The No. 1 easiest way to start a business.

Ever wondered about starting a business?



Or you must have heard or thought that 'to be rich you must be doing a business' haven't you?



Well, the thought is absolutely right if you want to be a rich and retired person you must be in at least one business. I never heard of any person, rich and financially free without a business.

You must be thinking that starting a business need money, space, capital, furniture, sometimes people to work, many types of government clearances, hassles of acquiring all these things, a product idea or a developed product or service ways of marketing it, marketing channels, and on top of that the risk of going the business in to LOSSES, 'what if after doing all this no one buys the product or the service???'

A lot of uncertainty is there, like everything is hanging in the air.

Too little are the things which are under control.

We don't know what we don't know.

There are also friends and colleagues who are telling that business is risky.

How do I know this? Because I was doing the same thing, exactly as I said. I am been there.

All these thoughts makes us uncomfortable. People advise us to do the job, be an employee. And then this idea of going with the heard starts appealing to us, 'there are billions of employed people, doing job for their employer, they are doing good in their life and without the tension of how to manage the business. Just doing one type of work in which they are specialised and getting paid for it. Their salaries increase as they get more experienced. What's wrong with it?'

So people leave the thought of running a business for later, but slowly they get caught in the responsibilities so deep that there is no time for entertaining the thought of starting a business. It just get added to the unfulfilled dream's  list and lie in some remote corner of the brain.

So I am taking this as a starting point and going to show you a way towards business and financial freedom.

Remember the first post in 'The Power of Compounding' series? In which I have given the example. You can read it HERE.

The No. 1 way for employed people to start a business is to NOT START IT AT ALL,

Huh!!!!! 😨

Hold on let me complete,

The No. 1 way for employed people to start a business is to NOT START IT AT ALL, BUT TO OWN A BUSINESS STARTED AND RUN BY SOMEONE ELSE.

It is easy, much better and safer way than to start our own business.

It is as easy as clicking a button on your cell phone. Technology made it easy.

What you want is just have an account with a stock broker. The broker will surely help you to open an account, no big deal about it.

But what to do after opening the account is a tricky thing. Most people fall in to the trap of listening to broker or acting on tips or watching a business channel, searching for stock guru's, which are very very dangerous things to do, these things can and most of the times will rob most of your money.

Instead stick to your goal of owning a business. Don't be in a rush, there are plenty of opportunities, and to get rich you will only need a handful of those. Now just think about which field you are working in, probably you are already having the knowledge of the working of companies of your field, may be some inside knowledge too. These are enough things to start analysing the companies in your fields. Just imagine that if you had a company in your own field of knowledge then how would it be? How will you run it? How will it sustain? How will it grow its profit? Or in simple terms how would you make your company ideal as per your thinking? And try to find out such company.

Almost 99% of the people putting money in the stock market don't  do it, so you already have an edge over them. If you do this thing, you might find a lifetime investment opportunity.

The key is to be cool, patient and confortable with whatever you are doing, if anything is making you nervous just stop doing it. Getting nervous and loosing your piece of mind is not our path to make money.

In this way if you find a wonderful business which earns high return on capital, managed by good and ethical management, have long term growth prospect, and the most importantly you understand how it works, also it should be available at a price lower than the earning of the company expected in the future. Then you can think about buying some shares of that company in the stock market and becoming a part owner.

In this way you own a business, though in part. As you own a business, you become a businessman.

Didn't I told you it is simple!!!

But as a real owner does, you have to keep watch over the operations of your company and make sure that your company is on the track you wanted it to be. Otherwise if it is on the wrong track you have to consider about selling it. But as long as it is on the right track and the company is growing your capital, you can sit back, relax and enjoy the life.

Remember a good businessman does not sells his businesses often, he does it when his business is not doing well and he can't do anything about it or he have some better opportunity and needs money to invest.

Invest very small amount of money that you can afford to lose at first, you are going to make mistakes but as you make mistakes, learn from them, take your lesson and move on, don't keep on lamenting.

Or there is another option for this who don't want to do this stuff.
Just invest in index funds of reputed firms. Index funds invests your money in the companies constituting the index. These are generally big and profitable companies which have very low chances of bankruptcy. So your money is safer than the way suggested above, but if done properly, whole heartedly, the first method gives returns far exceeding this index fund method.

But in both the cases you should only invest very small portion of your money to get the feel of the market, the markets are generally cyclical and may take a sharp dip occasionally, so when it takes a dip you should have your head cool and be there to buy your favourite businesses or the units of index funds.

Those who invests in the dips gets the most returns, but no one knows when the market is going to plunge, so better to start investing systematically.

Hope you got some useful knowledge from this post.

Do write any questions arising in your mind in the comments section. Or tell me whether you liked it..

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

Addiction - The story of Narendra

Today a friend of mine (we will call him Narendra) borrowed some money from me to clear his MINIMUM AMOUNT OF SETTLEMENT FOR HIS UNPAID LOAN EMI's. That amount was required to postpone the foreclosure procedure for one month. The minimum amount was approximately equal to my 3 months total income, and no one knows Narendra's income.

In 30 days or less, Narendra must sell his parents house (a one bedroom hall and kitchen i.e. 1BHK Apartment) or his bank will seal it after that period and auction it to recover their loan plus interest plus processing fees for the whole process.

How did Narendra get in to this financial state?

A one word answer would be ADDICTION.

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

The rewarding stimuli for Narendra was not that of alcohol or any drugs or cigarette or any other form of nicotine or any other substance abuse but, the attention from his friends and the members of the opposite sex whenever he bought a luxury sedan car or fancy expensive branded clothing, or fancy fashion accessories. The list even included living in a rented flat which was no less than a five star hotel villas, hosting parties to friends, using his car for everything and anything (like Narendra passed 90,000km on odometer in less than 2 yrs.). Usually the cars are made to last around 100,000 to 150,000km depending on the manufacturer. So you can guess the depreciation in the value of this car.

You must be thinking Narendra must be having ridiculously high income to support his lifestyle. But you are wrong, Narendra doesn't have much income. Rather he spent all the savings of his parents, And now on the verge of bankruptcy.

This is a real story, though the name is changed and I don't know some part of it.

But how did Narendra reached this far? Was Narendra gone mad?

This scenario perfectly fit in the definition of addiction mentioned above. Narendra first got in to some marketing company, probably MLM kind of company where they taught him that show off of the high status attracts recruits. Narendra wasn't successful in that venture so he soon quit but the teaching and his experience that show off of high status catches the attention of people including that of the opposite sex, a rewarding mechanism started giving him sense of pleasure whenever he got that attention. The feeling got reinforced as he did more of such things, and then there was no turning back. Narendra wasn't that wise to earn money with it. Soon his reserves of money diminished then someone suggests him the option of loans. Whenever one loan was defaulted he opted for another larger loan from other source to clear the previous one and fund the increased demand for purchasing still higher cost fancy items, do custom modifications to his car etc. Narendra was hoping that he will get a big business opportunity and will clear everything.

So Narendra is in compulsive engagement in rewarding stimuli, despite adverse consequences.

Narendra is blindly hoping for something which is not possible. He is not that smart or educated and financially powerful enough. Rather he have lost most of his financial power because of this spending addiction. After going through all this Narendra is still living in a costly rented house which is still draining a lot of his money.

Well this is an extreme case of addiction. The case shows that even a normal person like Narendra can convert in to an addict. He doesn't know it neither his parents or wife. No one knows what kind of addiction we are catching.

I guess women are more prone to spending addiction, cause women just love shopping.

Many times in the marketing world some addictive techniques are used. For example lacing the packaged food with Mono Sodium Glutamate or MSG. This MSG is like a clone of proteins and we have a system in our body which prompts us to eat the food containing the needed nutrients, we automatically start liking the foods containing the essential nutrients. For example ever ate any hated food after doing a lot of excursion? If you do it you will start liking that food. Our body need proteins everyday, proteins are like building blocks of our body. They are needed to repair any damage or wear or growth in the body. So when food is laced with MSG our body is tricked in to considering it as protein rich food. That is why we start liking the food laced with MSG. There are adverse effects of MSG too, but it is not the topic of discussion here. MSG is banned in many countries because of the adverse effects.

Other addictive things used for marketing include - lucky draw schemes, different competitions like slogan writing etc. Basically they make the consumer do the things associated with the product which are rewarding. So be careful when indulging in it.

Do you want to know about my compulsive engagements in rewarding stimuli?

I am fond of reading... I love cats.. I love doing exercise.. I enjoy writing this blog..

I am compulsively engaged in these acts but hey to call it an addiction, it doesn't fit in the later part of the definition i.e. despite adverse effects. My compulsive engagements don't have any adverse effects. Rather they give me happiness, piece of mind and money too. (reading financial literature helps a lot in earning money through investing). Loving cats gives me piece of mind and happiness. Exercise gives me good health. And writing this blogs gives me a sense of social service, resulting in to more happiness.( do join me and help me make this blog better, more useful and do spread the word, thank you.)

Do you know about your compulsive engagements?? Are you catching any addictions??

Think over it and write your thoughts in the comments section..
I will be glad to read it.. I want to make this blog useful to you.. Help me helping you..


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

Searching for happiness??? Just take it easy...

Today is the luckiest day of my life... Or
Today is the worst day of my life...

Ever said these sentences aloud or in the mind??

Of course yes, everyone does it in one or other way. I used to do it when I was a kid. But no longer now.

Do you want to know why?

Well as you know I like doing logical thinking, you must be expecting an answer from me, so here it goes.

When I was a kid I got in touch with the idea of luck because of friends and other people. Me too accepted the idea of luck as there was nothing to counter the idea, it was a dead end, like everything on earth was ending in to luck, but..

When in the maths I read about the concept of probability slowly my thinking started building roads beyond the concept of luck.

What is luck? Simply an occurrence of a favourable event, and what is bad luck? It is occurrence of unfavourable event.
How often they happen? Thy seems almost equally often happening. Then why do we think about luck?

The whole concept of probability and reversion to mean comes in to play when you start thinking about luck. (I got in touch with the concept of reversion to mean much later in life, but as a highschool kid I did observed that there is a mean, I am not luckier or unluckier neither are most of the other people.)

The concept reversion to mean states that if we take a large enough sample of random seeming events then they tend to be around a mean, sometimes they are away from the mean in one direction and sometime in the other direction, but together they all point towards the mean.

That is one may get luckier sometime and unluckier other time but on an average he is neither luckier nor unluckier.

To understand this let us consider a box filled with 100 numbers of white balls and 100 numbers of black coloured balls, all the balls are exactly the same except their colour.

Suppose white balls represent good luck and black balls represent bad luck. So here the mean of good luck and bad luck is one. That is there are equal chances of good luck as well as bad luck. The balls are mixed together and one is asked to draw 10 balls randomly from the box.

So what will you expect? Does our guy draws 5 white and 5 black balls every time?

Of course not, sometime he may draw 5 white and 5 black but other times he may get 4 white and 6 black or 1 white and 9 black or all 10 black (What a bad luck!!! Isn't it??) or 10 white (what a good luck!!!) or sometime even get 10 blacks 10 times in a row if we keep on repeating this experiment.

Now comes the probability in to play,

If there are 100 white and 100 black balls in the box and you are drawing 10 black balls again and again then what are the chances of getting out white balls??

The chances of finding white balls will definitely increase as the number of black balls drawn increases, simply because there are more white balls remaining in the box. That is if more black balls are drawn first then probability of drawing white balls increases.

In other words if you are facing bad luck consistently then your probability of finding good luck increases.

Therefore some wise person have said that, AFTER EVERY DARK NIGHT COMES THE DAWN.

Just recall your own life how much good and bad opportunities were there and which ones you used. You will find that you were presented with equal opportunities but according to the choices made by you, you are currently in the state you are.

The sooner you will accept it the better will be the results.

People get overwhelmed by a stream of bad events and get depressed and or do dumb things, instead just stand your ground, every tornado will pass eventually, just take it easy, new opportunities will be presented, just make proper choice or wait for a good opportunity if there is a possibility of one.

Our policy is, Take it Easy..

Whether the time is good or bad, take it easy, don't feel bad because of bad events or get in to air because of good events, keep your cool, stay grounded.

It works.

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

The power of compounding - Knowledge

The third instalment in The power of compounding series is devoted to knowledge.

I frequently recall some thoughts out of which one is-

'The human brain is the only thing which makes us the dominant species on earth.'

Therefore we must use our super brain to our benefit to get the most.

Ever read the law of 80/20??

The law states that 80% of the work is done by our 20% efforts and to get the remaining 20% work done we have to put the remaining 80% efforts.

This means that to perform efficiently you must have to concentrate on those 20% efforts which gives the 80% results. And in todays world, knowledge is the power. Knowledge is that crucial 20% which gives the 80% result. There is a huge ocean of knowledge which is expanding everyday. To do our day to day activities, we need knowledge to make them easier. For example, you can stand in a queue to pay your bills or you can simply activate auto debit facility. This is the difference the knowledge makes in our life. A lot of time spent is saved which we can use for other important activities.

Let's come back to our power of compounding, how does it apply to the knowledge?

Simply speaking the power of compounding works with almost any sort of interdependent things. If you have read my previous POST on how to use power of compounding to increase the miles per gallon of a motorbike, you will understand it quickly.

In the above example of auto pay, you are saving time, but if you have knowledge of what to do in the saved time then your efficiency will be much higher. Suppose along with the knowledge of auto debit facility, you have the knowledge of analysing businesses listed on the stock exchanges, then you may use your saved time in finding a good investment opportunity and who knows you may find an investment opportunity for a lifetime, which can further help you retire early from your job, which will further free up a lot of your precious time.

So the amount of time saved is compounded when two ways of saving time are combined.

Here in the same case knowledge also got compounded, now you also have knowledge that these two things when combined can make you financially free much early in your life. Also now you know that you have an investment opportunity and to benefit from it you must save money and the necessity of spending time in researching the stocks, the necessity of saving time etc. So the knowledge also got compounded.

First you knew A & B and from that you derived B, C & E, who knows you might find more things than I did.

This is how knowledge is compounded.

But to compound you first need to start accumulating knowledge.

This is not a difficult thing to do. Start observing things. Stop promoting yourself or proving your greatness to others, (I found most of the people doing it all the time), but I am fortunate enough to understand it in the childhood itself. Actually it was an accident. When I was 10, one day after coming home from school I was so bored and there was nothing to do, the last class of science was lingering in my mind, so I just thought to dig in to it. So I took out the textbook and read the lesson again, I found it interesting, so I read the next one too. The next day, during the science class I was answering all the questions asked by teacher and everyone was impressed by me.

What I learnt from this experience is that learning is fun and good for you, also real hard work or understanding or knowledge doesn't need any promotional efforts. You don't have to prove your greatness. Just become great and everyone will know. You don't need to be great in what others perceive to be great. You just do what you enjoy to do, but do it with full effort and whole heartedly. Others will recognise it automatically once your greatness achieves a critical mass.

Pretty big lesson for a 10 year old kid. But I understood it and started reading first my science book, (science was my favourite subject) then the next years book, then next then next, and in between when bored, some other subjects too.

That's how my knowledge building process started. Because of which I never have to study separately for the exams (pretty amazing, isn't it!!!��). During exams also I never quit my routine of watching Disney hour for 2 hours in the morning, I just loved the Duck tales, Tale spin, Quack pack etc. And later in the college too, though not cartoons, I used to watch a lot of discovery or national geographic channel. They are great source of audio visual knowledge. We can understand better when we see it or hear it or both. Just be selective about what are you reading or watching or hearing, the world is full of noise, so you have to sift the useful knowledge from it.

I just received a joke on WhatsApp related to our topic. Here it is-

During a robbery, the bank robber shouted to everyone in the bank:
"Don't move. The money belongs to the Government. Your life belongs to you."

Everyone in the bank laid down quietly.

This is called "Mind Changing Concept" Changing the conventional way of thinking.

When a lady lay on the table provocatively, the robber shouted at her:
"Please be civilised! This is a robbery and not a rape!"

This is called "Being Professional"
Focus only on what you are trained to do!

When the bank robbers returned home, the younger robber (MBA trained) told the older robber (who has only completed Year 6 in primary school):
"Big brother, let's count how much we got."

The older robber rebutted and said:
"You are very stupid. There is so much money it will take us a long time to count. Tonight, the TV news will tell us how much we robbed from the bank!"

This is called "Experience"
Nowadays, experience is more important than paper qualifications!

After the robbers had left, the bank manager told the bank supervisor to call the police quickly. But the supervisor said to him:
"Wait! Let us take out $10 million from the bank for ourselves and add it to the $70 million that we have previously embezzled from the bank".

This is called "Swim with the tide"
Converting an unfavourable situation to your advantage!

The supervisor says: "It will be good if there is a robbery every month."

This is called "Changing priority"
Personal Happiness is more important than your job".

The next day, the TV news reported that $100 million was taken from the bank. The robbers counted and counted and counted, but they could only count $20 million.

The robbers were very angry and complained:
"We risked our lives and only took $20 million. The bank manager took $80 million with a snap of his fingers. It looks like it is better to be educated than to be a thief!"

This is called "Knowledge is worth as much as gold!"

Well you do not need to do any illegal things to earn money, there are enough legal ways, trust me.

I am sure that you are also on the same journey for knowledge and wisdom like me. The proof is you are reading this post and that too this far.

Well welcome aboard. Our ships journey starts with reading any small informative article of your interest or use, or even watching a show on discovery channel or national geographic channel but not the news channel(I will tell you why not in later posts). But we just have to be sure to check the validity of knowledge by finding rational proofs or trying to disprove it just like we did in the maths theorems in the college. Don't do it by force, just read or learn what you like, slowly you will start liking the process and it will become a habit.

The pieces of information will slowly sink into your subconscious mind and will start interlinking and compounding.

The interlinking is very important to develop wisdom.

Now a days almost everyone has smartphones, so if any questions come to your mind then draw the smartphone and google it. Don't keep any doubt or question unanswered. Challenge your conceptions, get rid of your misconceptions.

You will find limitless possibilities, every barrier in your path will collapse when you start accumulating, compounding and spreading knowledge. Your view of looking towards the world and yourself will change for the good, you will get familiar with the abundance in the world, abundance of what you want.

Knowledge is one of the few things which grows and multiplies when used or shared.

So let our ship catch some wind, read at least one article of your liking, let's be a little wiser every day, let's find out how deep the rabbit hole goes, you are not alone in this journey, there are countless others on different corners of the world going on the same path, And I am here with you too.

Let's be a little wiser every day.

Have a nice day..

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

The power of compounding- 10 ways to improve your bikes mileage -

Using the power of compounding to improve motorbike's fuel economy.

The most popular question in India to ask about an automobile is, what's the mileage of the vehicle? Even if it's a luxury vehicle where the cost of fuel consumption is a tiny fraction of the cost of vehicle itself. We are so obsessed with the mileage figures.

While thinking about the power of compounding a thought came to my mind whether this can be employed to improve my motorbikes fuel economy?

There was very less chance of any breakdown but a high chance of reward. That is, the risk reward ratio was favourable. So I instantly started working on it.

There were 10 areas where I worked, each giving the fuel economy rise of roughly 2 to 5%, Well I  estimated the figures roughly with experiments.
Though the experiments were rough for these small parameters the total outcome was solid.

Starting point-

Commuter motor bike-

Engine specification-
110cc single cylinder,
4 stroke,
natural air cooled,
long stroke,
8.1hp,
4 speed gear box,
Carburetted,
Chain drive

Starting mileage (average fuel economy)-
60kmpl (kilometres per litre of petrol (gasoline))

Mileage improving measures taken along with the reasoning-

1) Reduced braking-

This is the first thing that comes to mind when I think about increasing the mileage of the motorbike because we burn fuel to increase our kinetic energy, but when we apply brakes this kinetic energy is converted to heat energy and wasted to the atmosphere. (Ever touched the brake drums or brake discs after stopping? If not, then try it but cautiously to avoid burn injuries. That is why there ventilated discs, to dissipate waste heat quickly to the atmosphere.)   So to reduce braking is the obvious first thing to do.

How to reduce braking?

Just think that your vehicle does not have any brakes.

Not even the engine braking is possible. No excuses except absolute emergency. You will automatically find the ways to reduce braking.

(Engine braking is when we use engine friction to reduce speed of the vehicle e.g. closing the throttle, or downshifting the gears. This kind of braking also wastes energy.)

Common sense tells to plan the journey in advance and slowly reduce the throttle before the planned stop, so as to automatically reduce the speed to zero without applying brakes.

Reduced braking alone has the most impact on the fuel economy. Simple thing to keep in mind is braking wastes fuel.

2) More use of higher gears-

The sole purpose of gears is to increase the efficiency of the vehicle in different operating conditions and performance requirement.

So make the best use of it, try maintaining that speed where your vehicle is in the top gear and engine is feeling comfortable, that is producing maximum torque. This speed varies as per the characteristics of the vehicle. So you have to use your own judgement.

Keep it in mind, the higher the gear along with comfortable engine RPM, the better is the fuel economy.

3) Slow and steady acceleration coupled with constant speed-

Opening throttle slowly as the vehicle picks up the speed is the right way to use the fuel. Most people do the opposite, that is they open the throttle much more at start and start closing it once the vehicle gains speed quickly. But this is a bad thing if you want better fuel economy. Instead do the opposite. Open the throttle as minimum as possible.

The throttle is the fuel tap at your hand, you will burn fuel as much as you open it. So if you want to burn less fuel then open the tap as minimum as possible.

Maintaining constant speed-

This is a very crucial point. Most people find it very difficult to do in city traffic where constant stream of obstacles like speed breakers, cross roads, traffic signals, pedestrians, rash driving of people, mistakes of drivers etc are there.

On the highways it is easy to maintain a constant speed.

If you want to maintain a constant speed then you will have to use your brains logical thinking a little more.

Do you know, it is possible to avoid traffic signals?
You must be thinking yes, by taking alternate rout. But what if the alternate rout is a very long one? Sometimes a little longer with less obstacles may conserve your fuel.

But there is another way- An information of the traffic signal system.

Do you know that traffic signals are programmed to work in unison? They are programmed by keeping in mind an average speed of the traffic on roads. They are programmed in such a way that they permit the smooth non stop flow of traffic. We just have to know that speed, and the easiest way is to look at the roadside sign boards. The speed they tell us to maintain is the speed you should go. If you start driving with that speed you will see all the signal magically turning green when you arrive.
This phenomenon indeed looks magical to most people, who sit pillion with me. But now you know the secret.

But what if there are no signals or no sign boards? Simply just estimate the average speed of the traffic roughly and drive with that speed. If you do it then there will be minimum vehicles overtaking you, also you will be overtaking the minimum number of vehicles. So you can maintain a constant speed.

Keep the throttle as steady as possible.

4) Maintaining the good quality of engine oil-

Engine oil is a very important part of the fuel economy equation.

A good quality engine oil minimizes friction, dampen vibrations, keeps the engine cooler by spreading the heat and reduced friction also results in the lower heat generation.

All these things increase the life of engine, reduce the breakdowns or the repairs needed and lower the fuel consumption.

Though good quality engine oils are costlier, they are worth the cost. They save much more in the fuel saved and they save a lot when break down headache is concerned.

In my case using a different engine oil was a breach in the insurance contract, so I let the service centre guys fill company recommended fuel, but on taking my bike home I pour some wear resistant engine oil additive.

After filling good quality engine oil or a wear resistant additive to the engine oil you will quickly feel the change in the smoothness of engine in carburetted bikes.

5) Keeping the drive chain clean and lubricated-

The drive chain is the link between engine and rear wheel, through which power is transmitted. The drive chain is made of small links, these are always in the motion, friction and under tension, exposed to atmosphere.

They encounter centrifugal force when motorbike is moving therefore any lubricant applied to them have tendency to get removed because of centrifugal force as the speed of the motorbike increases. On top of that, because of the sticky nature of the lubricant and exposure to atmosphere, dust and dirt easily cling to the chain, increasing the friction, damaging the chain. So if you are a daily user of a motorbike, you should lubricated the drive chain weekly, inspect for any dust or dirt accumulation and clean whenever necessary.

6) Keeping proper air pressure in the tyres-

The tyres bear all the weight of the vehicle plus the rider plus any luggage. The whole weight is spread on only a few square inches of the tyre surface. There has to be enough air pressure in tyre so that only the required amount of area comes in contact of the road.

Lesser this area, lesser will be the friction.

But that does not mean you can put a bicycle tyre on a motorbike to improve fuel economy. The manufacturers have generally estimated the most efficient size of tyres, because the tyre has to sustain the weight of the loaded vehicle plus the power of the engine and braking forces.

So the only thing which remains in our hands is to keep the tyre pressure recommended so as to keep a minimum area of tyre in contact of the road.

It also prevents the overheating of the tyres.

To check the frictional losses you can spot any slope in your daily rout and ride it with the engine OFF, in neutral, and check out the max speed it gains and the distance it travels without the aid of the engine. You will quickly come to know when there is need for chain lubrication and tyre air pressure checking or if there is anything else wrong.

7) Filling the petrol (gasoline) from best fuel station-

Though the type of fuel is same i.e. petrol (gasoline), the chemical composition of the fuel changes with the refiner. This is because of a number of factors like, different crude oil sources(the composition of crude oil is itself different in different parts of the world), then there is different refining machineries, layouts, parameters used etc. Therefore the vehicle's mileage changes with the manufactures. Then comes the fuel stations, their machinery for fuel dispensing also changes, then the maintenance of that machinery is also different. Therefore the mileage also changes with different fuel stations, even if the refiner is the same. But be careful

8) Keeping the air fuel ratio at optimal i.e. tuning the carburettor for optimal ratio of air and fuel-

Some carburettors  don't have this manual setting, they are tuned in the factory itself but in my case, I had to manually tune it for optimum efficiency.

Tuning the carburettor is very simple and needs only 5 to 10 minutes and a screw driver. You just need to know which screw is for idling adjustment and which one is for the ratio adjustment. You can refer your motorbike's manual or ask a knowledgeable person.

First start the engine, warm it up if starts from the cold, keep it in the idling condition, if it stalls then raise the idling speed by rotating the idling screw of carburettor clockwise. Then start working on the ratio adjustment screw. First start rotating it on the clockwise direction so as to tighten it till engine is just about to stall, then slowly start rotating it anticlockwise, and observe the rpm rising, then it increases to a maximum value and then begins to fall on further loosening. Again tight it a little bit till that maximum RPM. This maximum RPM is where the ratio is optimum. Then go to the next point.

9) Reducing the idle RPM to lowest possible-

After completing the above step again go to the idling screw. Loosen this screw till the engine just remains in the running condition. Any more speed wastes our precious fuel and money.

10) Keeping the spark plug clean-

Spark plug does the job of igniting the air fuel mixture. It gets dirty because of deposition of carbon. As it goes dirty it can not produce the sparks efficiently. As a result the fuel doesn't burn properly. Again as a result more carbon is deposited on the spark plug. And this build up goes on till we get fed up of the starting problem and clean the spark plug.

Now you must be thinking what is the role of the power of compounding in here??

You can observe here that each parameter itself is acting like a simple interest. For example, if good quality engine oil can give you a rise in mileage of 5% then you will get that 5% rise on all the fuel burnt. In the same way, if you only keep the drive chain lubricated and don't do anything else then the same thing will happen. Suppose in both the cases the mileage rise is 5%. But when you combine these 2 things together their effective rise in mileage is not just 10% but it is more than 10%, this happens because-
When the first effort(good quality engine oil) increases the starting mileage say A to increased mileage say B, the second effort(drive chain lubrication) increases the B further to C. Now again the same thing happens in reverse too. That is the first effort also increases the increase in the mileage because of the second effort. This way they help each other increasing their output.

And this my friends is the power of compounding.

Now imagine such 10 interdependent systems in action. Their combined output will do wonders.

In my case friends, these 10 efforts increased my bike's mileage from 60 km per litre to,


Hold your breath,

An astounding figure of 90 km per litre.

That's the magic of power of compounding.

A massive increase of 50% in the mileage.

Do it and check it yourself.


Sumit
The POWER is when,
you use ODDS
to get EVEN..

The Power of Compounding- The four most powerfull words in the field of investment

Compound interest is the Eighth wonder of the world.
-Albert Einstein

The most charismatic scientist ever existed in the world said that. So it must be of some value. Does it really??

Let's do some thinking-

What is compound interest?
If you have ever put fixed deposits (FD) in the banks then the banks give some amount of money at predetermined rates extra at the end of the FD tenure, that extra money is called interest. But when the bank gives interest on interest in certain FDs it is called as compound interest.

For example we book an FD for 10k at 10% interest rate for 2 yrs then at the end of two years as per simple interest rate we will get 1k interest for first year and 1k on second year, that is total 12k. But with compound interest we will get 1k as first years interest, plus 1k as second years interest, plus 0.1k interest on the interest of first year(i.e.1k). So we will get 0.1k more in the case of compound interest.

So this means compound interest is a profitable deal. The compounding magnifies as the time goes by as we get interest on interest on interest on and on...

So indeed it is the Powerfull thing.

In real life how can we benefit from the power of compounding?
Let's think about money first.
Now a days banks does not give meaningfull interest rates. They do not provide interest rates greater than inflation rates by wide margine. Which is necessary for financial freedom.
(For those who do not know what inflation is- inflation is the reduction of value of the currency, that is if you can buy a burger now with 10 bucks, you will definitely need more than 10 bucks to buy the same burger 1 or 2 or 3 years from now. That is the inflation)

So who provides such interest rates and that too laced with the power of compounding?
Possession of real estate is one source. Generally the prices of real estate grow more than the inflation but with a small difference. But let me tell you one thing, a small difference in inflation and compounding rates can do wonders if given sufficient time. One can do the research for purchasing property on local websites, one can also get average real estate price growth rates for their region from local government data or government surveys. Also known as Compounded Annual Growth Rate(CAGR).

Note:- This CAGR (Compounded Annual Growth Rate) is a very important term if you are dealing with financial freedom or want to be rich.

There is another way too- Investing in companies which earn decent amount of profit and are able to reinvest it in to their business earning more profit. Some companies can earn incremental returns on reinvested capital.

You must be thinking investing in stocks is like gambling.

Well, I strongly disagree. If done RIGHT, it can compound your money like nothing else.

RIGHT means thinking like an owner while purchasing the shares. Thinking you are buying the company instead of just a piece of paper.

If you do not understand the balance sheets or the cash flows, you can invest in the index funds as a systematic investment plan, that is invest an amount of your monthly income which you do not need for next 5-6 years. You can easily see how much your index fund have given returns in the past for extended amount of time and get an idea about the ups and downs and average returns and what to expect.

To understand how some companies or businesses are able to compound money, let us consider a simple example-
Suppose I have a general store in which I sell soaps, every week I purchase 10 soaps from a soap manufacturer at 10 bucks each that 100 bucks total. I sell those soaps at my store at 11 bucks each. I sell all the 10 soaps in a week and get 110 bucks, profit of 10 bucks.

I keep the profit aside and repeat the same process for 10 weeks. So at the end of 10 weeks I have 100 bucks of my origional capital plus 100 bucks profit (10 bucks profit every week for 10 weeks).

So I go to the soap manufacturer and make a bargain with him that I am your regular customer for 10 weeks buying 10 soaps every week, if you can give me some discount I will buy the double quantity. So the manufacturer does his calculation and considers me a valuable and growing customer and it is also economic for him to make bigger batches of soap doing the same bargaining with his raw material suppliers, as I am doing with him.

So now he agrees a price of 9 bucks per soap.

I purchse 20 soaps now and reduce the price of soaps to 10 bucks per soap in my store. My customers now become happy with the reduced price and quickly they finish up my stock of 20 soaps in a week.

So I first started with 100 bucks of capital earning 10 bucks a week and at the end of 11th week I was employing the capital of 180 bucks and earning the profit of 20 bucks.

For earning 10 bucks initially I have to use capital of 100 bucks but to earn 10 bucks more I have to employ only 80 bucks of incremental capital.

This is how good companies can earn better returns on their incremental capital investments, and the better one get that capital from their own profit.

Such companies are the best money compounding machines.

So I hope you have understood the power of compounding works in the case of money.

Money is not the only thing where the power of compounding works. It works wherever we have multiple interdependent systems. In the above case we only thought about money to make the example easy to understand, that is money interacting with money. But in reality money also interacts with other things. Just keep it in mind. You will understand it after you read the next post.

Stay tuned. Till then have a great time..

Sumit
The POWER is when,
you use ODDS
to get EVEN..

Traffic jams - A random thought...

Today I was going through a narrow and crowded road on my motorbike. All my attention was on other vehicles on the road and large number of pedestrians. I have to keep constant watch on their paths, are their paths crossing my path? My brain, eyes and ears were racing to point out any possibility of collision (there were literally thousands of possibilities) and possibilities to avoid them, choosing the best possible path to preserve momentum, reduce braking.

And then there comes a nasty 'Speed Breaker', all I can do is to apply brakes.

I was furious, why did the government installed this speed breaker in the middle of this busy road? There was absolutely no need. Because of the crowd it was almost impossible for an average motorbike rider to go beyond 20km/hr max. Everyone including me was already moving very cautiously.

So as usual my mind got stimulated.

Questions started popping up.

Why do roads get crowded?
Simply because there are more people or vehicles on the road at once.

Why are they on the road?
Because majority of them want to reach some destination.

How can the crowd can be reduced?
By making sure people reach their destinations faster, there would be fewer people on the roads at any time, As their time spent on road will be reduced.

How will they reach their destination faster?
By moving faster or driving faster.

But what do people do in reality?
People slow down when they go through a crowded area. Thereby increasing their time spent on road and also making others to go slow, Like a Choked pipeline. But the people commencing their journey keep adding to the traffic. The situation starts worsening, till the influx of people reduces than the outflux of people(i.e. people reaching their destination).

Our brains are wired to do such crazy things, may be such kind of behaviour was necessary in the ancient days, may be people subconciously like staying in the crowd or subconciously feel safe in the crowd. I do not know the reason, what I do know is this behaviour is causing problems in todays world. We, the Homo-Sepians, the dominant species on earth, have to evolve our thinking as we do not live in the jungle anymore.

But there is a twist.

Have you ever saw how the ants gather their food?
They move in the form of pathways, the pathways are the shortest routs avoidng any obstacles, they move like their are lanes in the pathways, they do not move randomly, where the pathways are broad they move slowly and when the pathway is narrow they move fast.

I do not know whether they know how to act in the traffic in a logical way or not. But their traffic looks definitelt better than ours.

Have you observed it?

The human tendency I observed tells us we are not as logical as we think we are. So watch out from such illogical things we do. And in todays world such human mind's weaknesses are quickly used by marketing people. For example, Their are cute sales girls at the front desks of many showrooms. They know most of the men have weakness, they want to show power and strength whenever a cute girl is watching. So they are going to show it by purchasing what the cute girl is gonna pitch.

So watch out from cute girls.. 'Ouch' it hurts... ;-)

Sumit
The POWER is when,
you use ODDS
to get EVEN..