Happy new year

So ladies and gentlemen, you must be thinking why am I so late in wishing Happy New Year??

Well, it is because I don't just want to wish you but, contribute in making your new year happy. You must be thinking how am I going to do it? Do I know the situation you are in and have a perfect cure for your problem?

Yes, I do know the situation you are in, I was in the same situation, trust me. Whenever new year came, I would make new year resolutions, decide what I wanted to do and achieve in this year and then making a plan to achieve the goals I set but then out of nowhere problems start arising, like I am too tired to get up early in the morning and practice yoga, so I would decide to start from tomorrow, I would decide to study regularly, but every time it was time to study there was a great movie playing on the TV which I couldn't resist watching, or friends are calling me for an outing and obviously the only choice I made is postpone my plan. This process got repeated so many times that I got used to postponing my plan and then one fine day, without my knowledge my new year resolution was lying in the remote corner of my brain. And this day was hardly a month away from the 1st of January.

Does it sounds familiar with your experience? Have you made such resolutions and couldn't stick to the plan?

If yes then keep reading otherwise you don't need my advice.

For those who are reading, it is very easy to come out of this situation and make your plan work. The remedy to your situation is in three words. Now sit tightly as I am going to tell you those magical 3 words which are going to change your life forever-

The 3 words are-

MAKE IT SIMPLE.

Yes, you read it right, to make your plan work, you just have to MAKE IT SIMPLE.

What do I mean by SIMPLE?

SIMPLE means 3 E..

1) Easy to make
2) Easy to work with
3) Easy to get results

Now we will get in to details of the 3Es.

1) Easy to make-

To make the plan easy to make just cut the crap. Don't think about the things which are not related. If you have doubt about the relation, then simply assume it have no relation if there is no fatal danger. You will get to know about the relation later on, automatically. For example, why to include 1st of January in your plan? Does it really have any relation to your resolution? Mostly it does not have any relation with the plan (what do 1st of January have any effect on starting a fitness workout or practicing yoga?). You can start from just now. Don't wait till your enthusiasm dies.

2) Easy to work with-

Your plan should not change your lifestyle drastically all of a sudden, the change should be gradual. Because there is always resistance to change so make the changes slowly but persistently. For example- I will sleep 15 minutes earlier today and get up 15 minute earlier tomorrow so as to get those 15 minutes of time in the morning to yoga. No drastic change like getting up 1 hour earlier than normal and doing 1 hour yoga. That's not going to work. 15 minutes is enough and do-able.

3) Easy to get results-

Results are very important. Positive results keeps our moral high. Positive results keeps us going. So your plan must be designed in such a way do as to get results easily. If it is really difficult to get results then the plan doesn't work. For example of you practice yoga for 15 minutes in the morning with proper understanding and attention to your body, you will feel much relaxed the whole day. That's a good result.

That's a simple hack you can use to make new resolutions from now, you don't need to wait for a new year to make new year resolution, just start from now, one small step at a time.

Remember ONLY ONE SMALL STEP AT A TIME, MAKE IT SIMPLE is the way towards better health, wealth and happiness.

See you soon.. Till then have a simple life and extraordinary results...

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

Wealth creation- Ratio of spending to income

So until now, you have learnt the simplest definition of what is an asset and what is a liability.

To revise again, ASSET is your belonging which puts money in your pocket, while the LIABILITY is your belonging which takes money out of your pocket.

If you want to be rich you must buy assets, lots and lots of assets. You have to allocate most of your income in purchasing assets, but what's the point of making money if we can't buy liabilities? Because we have longing for all the costliest liabilities, e.g. fancy car, huge flat screen television sets, home theatre systems, automatic home appliances, latest smart phones, fancy gadgets, the list even goes to luxury yatchs, private jets, vacation houses, maids and servants, personal assistant etc.

To understand how to do it, you must imagine you are doing a business, even if you are not a businessman. (what is a businessman? is another important topic to write a post on, you will soon get to read it on samanyabuddhi.blogspot.com , stay tuned.)

So now you are imagining that you are doing a business, you are the CEO and managing director of the business. Your business is managing your family. You and may be other family member of your family have incomes, may be from job or self employment or business or rental etc. That is your income or you can say income from operations, and then you have to pay the utility bills, grocery bills, servants salary if there are any, tuition fees of your kids, hotel expenses, entertainment expenses, purchase of clothes, traveling expenses, loan EMI's, fuel expenses etc.

So these things make income statement or cash flow statement of your business(it tells you from where your money is coming from and where it is going)-

Income statement / cash flow statement-
Income-
1) My salary -
2) Spouse's salary-
3) Interest on deposits-
4) Dividend on investments-
5) Gifts-

Expenses-
1) Grocery bills-
2) Utility bills-
3) Traveling expenses-
4) Maintenance of vehicles-
5) Children's education-
6) Healthcare expenses-
7) Gym memberships-
8) Entertainment-
9) Miscellaneous expenses-
10) Various taxes-

There can be other incomes and expenses too which I have not covered, but you can include them.

If you do it, you will get a clear picture of, from where and how much money is coming and where it is going. The money remaining after the expenses is your free cash or savings. You can use this free cash to buy assets, which will add to your income.

Similarly, you can make list of your assets and liabilities on a sheet, known as balance sheet.

Assets- (which put money in your pocket)
1) your job
2) property(only if it is putting money in your pocket or it's price is increasing more than it's expenses- in short putting money in your pocket)
3) shares of any company you are holding (again if putting money in your pocket)
4) fixed deposits
etc.

Liabilities- (which takes out money from your pocket)
1) your car
2) your smart phone
3) your tech gadgets
4) loans
5) different memberships
6) shares or equity in a loss making company
etc.

So now you get a clear picture of from where your money is coming and where it is going, also which of your belongings are putting money in your pocket and which are taking it out. Once you get the clear picture it is easy to start the reconstruction.

The reconstruction process involves getting rid off the unwanted liabilities and purchasing more of the profitable assets.

But the question is up to what extent we have to do it for the best results?

The answer to this question lies in the financial statements of the successful companies. How these companies spend their earnings. The dividend they give out is expense to them while retaining of earnings to purchase or expand the business is like buying assets for them.

So the first on my list is The company managed by legendary capital allocator Warren Buffett and his business partner Charlie Munger, The Berkshire Hathaway.

Berkshire Hathaway has paid dividend, hold your breath - ' only once' under Warren Buffett's part ownership, but that too because Warren Buffett does not had sufficient percentage holdings to stop the dividend payment. After that Warren Buffett have increased his equity in the company so much as he had virtually total control on the company's decisions. Since then Berkshire Hathaway have not given any dividend. That is the company had used all it's income to fund new investments and expansion of existing profitable operations. Berkshire Hathaway is the extreme case of retained earnings. None can blame Berkshire Hathaway for not paying any dividend because it had used the money for increasing it's income very efficiently.

But if we look at other growing, profitable and debit free companies, we will find that, they are sticking to the 80-20 rule.

It's not a rule it's just an arbitrary value. These growing, profitable and debit free companies reinvest their 80% of the earnings and distribute the rest of the 20% as dividend to the shareholders. In this way the shareholders of the company has money to spend and also have a growing business(growing income).

I always try to stick to this 80-20 rule. It's a no brainer and it works. Now a days most of the average families save less than 10% of their income and buy assets (if they are not paying home EMI's). So it is hard for them to reach that 80% mark, but you can start increasing 1% at a time. You can not convince your family and yourself from directly moving from 10% to 80% but you can certainly convince and achieve the move from 10% to 11% and then from 11% to 12% and so on until you reach your target. Use the proverbial ' Boiling Frog Syndrome ' to your advantage.

That's it for now.

Hope you have got the basic idea about how to look at your financial situation and how to improve it for your betterment.

See you soon.. Till then happy investing...

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

Understanding financial freedom- Cats

I love cats. Cats are one of the many masterpieces of nature's adaptive engineering skills. Cats are very loving, soft, beautiful animals and also deadly, cruel, capable killers at the same time. The most important thing is they know which role to play at which time. A pet cat sitting on your side, expressing it's love for you with the deep and tender 'grrrrrr grrrrrr' sound can sense it's pray or enemy nearby and starts playing it's deadly killer role within a fraction of a second.

Actually I like all the animals in the CAT family, including Tigers, Lion, Leopard; the bigger siblings of our domestic cats. They are almost similar except size and strength.

But they all have one thing in common- "The Attitude".

They have a very distinct confident but carefree attitude. Big cats are really the king of the jungle. If you look at them, you will know, 'they are the undisputed king of the jungles'.

Our domestic cats have the same attitude, same everything, except the size.

As I like to observe and learn, I quickly learnt to understand when the cats are hungry and immediately give then the required food. So my pet cats don't have to worry about the food when I am there. So their Royal attitude remains intact in my company. But what happens when I am not there to feed them is a very interesting thing.

When I am not at home and my pet cats feel hungry, it has two options, either go out and search for a prey or to ask for food to my parents. The first option had very high uncertainty of getting food, they also have to compete with other animals which are after the same prey. But the second option offers some certainty. They will get food if they can convey the message over and over again. So most of the times the cats choose the second option. That is to ask for food.

(Domestic cats convey this message that they want food by, making that deep grrrrr, grrrrr sound and "myaaw, myaaw", simultaneously rubbing their cheeks, body and tail against our feet. (what a demeaning behaviour !!!) Demeaning because they don't do this the other times, that means they don't like doing it. At other times they are exhibiting their Royal attitude. To show their love they just sit beside us or on our laps or body and make that grrrr, grrrrr sound, or they just sit on your belongings like your quilts, bag, table etc. And look at you lovingly.)

Their whole Royal attitude is ruined when they ask for food. And the Royal attitude goes down and down as this process is repeated. But the process can be reversed if they are provided the food before they need to ask. Again their Royal attitude returns.

Amazing story isn't it!!!!

This story will become more amazing and fascinating once you substitute humans for cats and money for food and what a man does to earn the money. The story is equally true.

As domestic cats have two ways to get food we also have two ways to earn money-

1) Go out and earn money of your own.(similar to hunting, a way full of uncertainty, but full of dignity.)

2) Take a refuge to an employer and be a salaried person.(similar to asking for food to the owner by pleasing him, a way with a lot of certainty, but less dignity.)

(see my post on 'ONE IDIOT')

Similar to the domestic cats most of us also choose the option with a lot of certainty and keep doing the job for the sake of money. Even if we don't like doing that job we still keep doing it for the sake of money. We do it year after year and so on up to an extent where this demeaning kind of behaviour is so much ingrained in our brain that we no longer feel it as a demeaning task. We perform our own brainwashing without ever realising it. We even teach our children the same thing- ' to get good grades in the school and college so that you can land in a good paying job.'

It's like the proverbial 'BOILING FROG SYNDROME' (it is said that if we put a frog in a boiling water, it will immediately jump out of the boiling water, but if we put a frog in water at room temperature and slowly heat the water to boil, the frog will not jump out and die. It is because the frog is unable to notice the small changes in temperature of the water, even though the changes are deadly.) We seldom notice small changes in our life until its too late.

Or then there is a social proof bias preprogramed in our brain which prompts us to do what most others are doing.

All this results in to a kind of entrapment.

But don't worry, you can easily get out, just like my cats have found out their way. They just stay with me as they know, they will get food without having to ask or beg. So how can one get the money without asking or doing any job?

To know how read my posts on 3 MOST IMPORTANT ASPECTS OF LIFE - WEALTH.

Enough for today.

Hope you got the lesson from my cats as I did.

See you soon. Till then enjoy the life..

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

She loves me...
She loves me not...

3 Most important aspects of life - WEALTH

Until now we have only partially covered the first aspect of life - HEALTH.

You must have read it in the posts-

3 Important Aspects of living - DIET

What do I do when I get ill?

No. 1 Misconception about great health

3 most important aspects of living

You must have also come to know that there are 3 pillars which support our life-

1) HEALTH
2) WEALTH
3) HAPPINESS

If all the 3 are strong then we can live a meaningful life, we will also take the human race a little forward, because if you have all 3 pillars strong then you will be perceived as a leader, an icon, as an inspiration to those who don't possess these strong pillars. Whether you notice or not but people will notice you. So automatically you spread the awareness. You touch many lives.

Until now we have discussed that Health, Wealth and Happiness are the supporting pillars of our life. All three have to be strong equally so as to live a balanced life. Also if one or more pillars are weak then we can't enjoy the benefits of the stronger pillar. (think about it practically.) Together they compound the strengths of each other. Therefore we have to work on all three to live a meaningful life.

Well I have said at the starting that we just partially covered the first aspect of life, yes it is true, just partially, there are so much to learn. But don't worry, learning is the way of life. So enjoy the process. Take it easy and visit samanyabuddhi.blogspot.com often to learn something more. Get yourself thinking. Get answers to your questions. Never keep any question unanswered.

Let's start with the basics of WEALTH-

Definition-
Wealth is the abundance of valuable resources.

Valuable resources can be anything- money, land, buildings, vehicles, machinery, goodwill, skill, knowledge, personal relations etc.

But as far as the blog- samanyabuddhi.blogspot.com is concerned, we will focus on the wealth which will give us financial independence. Financial independence is the basic thing which one should achieve to become a great wealth creator to the society. Financially independent people are the people who perform the best work in the society, simply because they are not doing the work for the sake of doing it, but as a hobby or as a passion. Financially independent people change the course of humanity towards better, they make the marvels of the world. For example as Mr. Warren E Buffett and his business partner Mr. Charles T. Munger have built the Berkshire Hathaway, Similarly in India Mr. Narayan Murthy have created the Tech behemoth Infosys, or Mr. Siddharth Lal is shaping up Eicher Motors (The maker of Royal Enfield motorbikes), or look at the TATA group, there are many many examples all over the world.

Therefore we will discuss about the financial aspect of the wealth for now.

So let's start with the basics-

Our belongings can be divided in to ASSETS and LIABILITIES.

People gets confused in the two, because as per general commerce practice there are many assets which actually act like liabilities.

To cure this problem we will adapt to the definition made by best selling author Mr. Robert Kiyosaki in his best selling book 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad'. These definitions are very practical and easy to understand. I couldn't find anything more simple or more practical.

The ASSETS are the things which put money in your pocket.

And the LIABILITIES are the things which take money out of your pocket.

So the simple thing is you have to accumulate ASSETS and reduce LIABILITIES.
With this definition, most of our beloved possessions becomes liabilities, for example, our car, as there are fuel costs, maintenance costs, depreciation, takes out money from our pocket, even if we don't use it, it's value goes on reducing as time goes by. Our tech gadgets also lose their value very fast, for example your smart phone, After just a couple of months there comes a new model and the price of the old model falls drastically.

But hold on, you don't have to give up your love for automobiles or tech gadgets or beauty treatment or other luxury items to become wealthy. Then how to do it?

A two word answer will be DELAYED GRATIFICATION.

What is DELAYED GRATIFICATION?

First let's understand what is GRATIFICATION- when any act triggers your feeling of pleasure is known as gratification. For example when you feel thirsty, you drink water and experience some pleasure. Whenever we want something and get it, we experience pleasure. Our brain quickly recognises the pattern because of close association of an act with the feeling of pleasure and then tries to repeat this pattern.

Now what is DELAYED GRATIFICATION?
Delayed gratification is when you perform certain acts which gives you pleasure long after the act is performed. At such times our subconscious have difficulty in noticing the pattern, seeing the connection between the act and the pleasure. Because so much time is elapsed after the act. For example, you have the money to purchase a car, but instead of purchasing a car you invest the money in purchasing shares of a good company growing at the rate of 20% per year, and then after 6 years your money get tripled, you sell one third of your shares and buy a car for the same amount, but what you have now is, a car plus double the money which you originally had plus this money is growing at 20% per annum more than enough to pay for the gasoline and maintenance of your car. Only catch is you have to wait for 6 years for the gratification, but you have gained much more. The pleasure is much more.

You may consciously enjoy the process of delayed gratification until it becomes an AUTOPILOT.

Mr. Charles T. Munger, Mr. Warren E. Buffett's business partner at Berkshire Hathaway says that,

I just need to know where I am going to die, so I won't go there.

So how did instant gratification kills your chances of becoming rich and financially independent?

Generally we get instant gratification through the purchase of liabilities.

Think about it, how did you felt when you bought your first phone, car, big flat screen LED TV, professional camera etc. You probably have felt so much pleasure that you might have forgot about maintenance cost or the finance costs, 'just get that thing' was your focus. You made a permanent damage to your future, but still you felt good.

Now if this instant gratification thing is compromising our future then how did it became permanently programmed in to our brains?

The answer lies in the caveman era, when our ancestors were living in jungle. At that time instant gratification was a boon, instant gratification meant better health and future. Sounds controversial right? But it is true, let me tell you how..

In the caveman era, instant gratification was linked to the basic things necessary for survival and reproduction. We felt instant gratification when we hunted for food and got it. We felt instant gratification when we felt thirsty and drank water. Or having sexual intercourse. Now what happened to those cavemen who didn't felt instant gratification? They might have starved to death or died because of dehydration as they wouldn't have consumed water or food because there was no reward (pleasure). So their capacity to hunt for food or water must have been diminished because of malnourished body. So, you must have to thank instant gratification for your existence. 😊

But now our basic needs are easily fulfilled. The task now a days is to achieve higher status. We struggle to achieve wealth. (you are reading this post is the proof). There is nothing bad in it, but this instant gratification acts like a villain as far as wealth creation is concerned.

To increase our wealth we have to concentrate on accumulating assets, increasing our income, spending less.

But again is it contradicting the whole purpose? Spending less?

Absolutely not, you just have to reduce the ratio of spending to income.

Now this is a really big topic. So I think it is enough for now. Digest what you have just read, think about it. We will get to the ratio spending to income in the next post.

Till then have a great time...

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

Auto-pilot

You must have heard this term Autopilot in relation to air travel. Now what does it have to do with our lives as an average person?

Well if you want to stay average then don't bother, but if you want to raise above, it will make a lot of sense. Let's think about it-

What is an Autopilot?

It is an automatic system designed to follow a predetermined set of parameters.

At first when this invention was made auto pilot was consisted of a mechanical arrangement with a gyroscope as a sensor which kept an aircraft in a level flight. Slowly as technology evolved other functions were also added, like automatic engagement or disengagement of autopilot.

Then came the fly by wire system and the electronics (fly by wire system is where the different controls only generate control signals, these signals are then processed by a processing unit and then actuating inputs are provided to the control surfaces. This technology is now coming to cars and bikes too, rather the luxury car makers are already using it.) This system made the programming of the system possible. Therefore now the autopilot of the todays aeroplanes are so advanced that once the flight plan is uploaded in the system very less work remains to be done by the human pilot. The autopilot can even take off or land a plane or even avoid collisions. But human pilots need to be there to deal with any surprises, as human lives are at stake.

So how can we lift our living above average with the knowledge of autopilot?

(Always remember that samanyabuddhi.blogspot.com is made to stimulate your mind to think, to use your common sense (common sense is the literal meaning of Samanya Buddhi) for the betterment of you Health, Wealth and Happiness.)

Or why I am telling you about autopilot in the first place? What is the relation of this autopilot and our life?

The working of the autopilot is similar to some extent to the working of our brain.

Our brain had two levels of thinking, conscious thinking & subconscious thinking. The autopilot works in the subconscious thinking. For example, when we are learning to ride a bicycle, it's our conscious mind at work. Our conscious mind is gathering the data when we are trying to ride a bike. It is recording everything, it literally gathers terabytes of data from every motor organ & every sensor our body has. (motor organs are our muscles, sensors include eyes, ears, skin, pressure sensing neurons in our muscles, the neurons which are sensing the movement of the liquid in the sacs behind our ears which is responsible for balancing(like an accelerometer).) Then our conscious mind works on finding out the correlation in different data parameters for example, when we press right paddle down with x amount of pressure, what happens to our balance, how much do we move forward or if we move at all. Similarly if turn the handle while moving forward what happens to our direction and balance etc. When this process of correlating is complete, our learning is complete.

(This process of correlating takes time and involves our subconscious mind, the process is fast when we are asleep, therefore whenever learning something new, take it easy, make sure you sleep in between your learning sessions, this way you will learn faster and easily, with less effort.)

Whenever learning something new, we make the effort with the conscious mind. We make the conscious effort to try (data gathering), then subconscious mind processes the data, and this is how we learn. Once the processing of data is complete it becomes autopilot. We can now do the thing without any conscious intervention. We can now think about something else while riding a bicycle.

But the problem with this autopilot is, it is very hard to switch it off completely if the need arises.

It is very hard to 'UNLEARN'.

Some creative guys made an experiment regarding this process of learning and unlearning. They built a reverse bicycle. The reverse bicycle has everything same as the normal bicycle except it has a special arrangement with the handle, so that when you turn the handle right, the front wheel turns left and vice versa.

To know what happens when a normal person who have already learned to ride a bicycle tries to ride the reverse bicycle see the video below-


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MFzDaBzBlL0

You can see it is very hard for him to ride this bicycle, because he is constantly fighting with the autopilot which is there in his subconscious. He has to 'UNLEARN' what he have already learnt about riding a bicycle. And then after few months of acquiring the new skill of riding a reverse bicycle it is again hard for him to ride the normal bicycle, but he is able to engage that old autopilot for riding normal bicycle again. Now there is another autopilot in his brain to recognise which bicycle he is riding and engage the required autopilot. Complex, isn't it?

If you doubt the video and want to try it yourself then you don't need to go finding the reverse bicycle. There are other options, like I have tried riding old Royal Enfield motorcycle. Unlike latest motorcycles the old models of Royal Enfield used to have the break at the left foot and gear shifter at the right foot. So if you are used to riding latest our modern motorcycles then you will find it hard and dangerous riding the old Royal Enfield motor bikes. You can find other vintage motorcycle models if you don't find a Royal Enfield with opposite controls.

So, what does it have to do with betterment of our life? Or our goal of improving health, wealth and happiness?

There are many things like bicycle riding, car driving etc. that we learn and then start doing it on autopilot mode. But things keep on changing, as you can see the old models of motorcycles had reverse controls. So we have to adapt to the changes and here the problem starts arising.

But if there are problems with the autopilot then why we had an autopilot in the first place?

We have developed this mechanism of autopilot over thousands of years of evolution. This autopilot mechanism are also found in insects. It is such a basic thing of life. It actually makes our life easy. It frees up our brains processing capacity for more important things. Like learning new things or decision making or thinking. Otherwise we won't be able to think anything while driving a car.

So again coming to the betterment of our life-

There are few drawbacks of this autopilot system-

A) Because of mental inertia or laziness our brain tries to stick to the previously learnt autopilot. For example the person possessing the old model of Royal Enfield would like to stick to the old model only because though the new model of Royal Enfield motorcycle is better in all respects he can't use the old autopilot, he had to construct a new one to ride the latest models. The person may rationalise his decision to stick to the old model by inventing some other reasons. But all others except him knows that he is at loss.

B) Because of the autopilot we are unable to notice new developments. For example if we are used to take a particular rout for commuting to our workplace, we have a tendency to never change it because that rout is fixed in the autopilot. The autopilot knows when to slow down, when to speed up, the timing of traffic signals, probable obstacles coming in the rout etc. So in short it's easy for the autopilot to follow the same rout. But what if there is something useful happening on some other rout or if the other rout is time saving or fuel saving?
You would never know until to try it consciously.

C) The most important drawback of this autopilot, or rather we can day a DEADLY FLAW of this autopilot system is that-
If we don't think about the dangers or if we don't experience dangers during the learning phase of the autopilot, then the autopilot simply doesn't have any data to counter these dangers. And this flawed autopilot keeps on working until accident happened or the odds manifest themselves.

For example, if you have learnt to carry your cellphone always in ON condition without thinking about possible dangers, then without your recognising it you will enter a gas station (petrol pump) with the cellphone on, or even attend or make calls while at the gas station, without realizing it, how much you have put yourself and others in danger.(the radio emission from cellphone can cause build up of static electricity up to such an extent so as to cause minute sparking which is enough to ignite air fuel mixture readily available at gas station).

Similarly if you have learnt driving a car without wearing a seatbelt then you will be fine until you have an accident. Also if you are not aware of the hazards of sleep deprivation and driving a car then there are very high chances of accident.

Your autopilot simply does not have data about such rarely happening bad incidences because they happen very rarely, but the most important thing is they do happen and your autopilot does not know the same.

So how to overcome these problems?

First to eliminate the problems we have to detect the presence of an autopilot, because we are so used to the autopilot that we seldom recognise that we are on autopilot mode.

How to recognise the autopilot?

It is easy, our brain is not made to be a multitasking machine, therefore our brain resorts to this autopilot mechanism to do one or more things automatically (subconsciously) and then concentrate on doing or thinking something new. So whenever you find yourself doing one thing and thinking something else you can be sure that you are on autopilot.

Now as we have learnt to recognise this autopilot inside us it is time to eliminate it's drawbacks-

It is again easy to eliminate the drawbacks-
You have to visit each autopilot and study it if it is missing something, are there any dangers? If there is any change in the operating environment like development of new technology or any changes in the surroundings, if there are any better alternatives etc. and do the changes necessary, try to learn new things. In this way you also work up your brain muscle.

This autopilot system also works in money matters for example some people are just used to take loans for buying things, some just like to save, some just like to make fixed deposits, some just like to buy a particular stocks etc. The bottom line is, learn new things, know where the dangers lie.

Hope I have contributed something to your knowledge about yourself.

See you soon.

Have a nice day...

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

Ability to suffer

Few days back I was reading a blog-  fundooprofessor.com

That is when I came across the concept of "ABILITY TO SUFFER".

This was the missing link in my thinking framework. Rather I had a framework for thinking about businesses but the exact thing to call it was missing. Well, the framework for thinking is another topic of discussion. For now let's concentrate on Ability to Suffer.

You must be thinking that what does the Ability to Suffer has to do on the blog related to Health, Wealth and Happiness? Aren't we looking to avoid suffering?

Well, if you ask me, my answer to the first question would be, A Lot.

The basic or the foundation of enduring health, wealth and happiness lies in your Ability to Suffer.

Let's think about the relation of Ability to Suffer with all the pillars of life-

1) Health:-

If you have read my posts on-
Ageing and Anti-Ageing - 2 of the most popular words in cosmetics advertising.

The Language of Exercise - Our way towards being Healthy

3 most important aspects of living

No. 1 Misconception about great health

You must have understood that, to get good health you must inflict a little catabolism on your body. Our body is a Complex Adaptive System so it reacts to this catabolism by unleashing it's anabolic response. This anabolic response makes our body stronger. Therefore, the next time when you will be trying to inflict catabolism on your body through exercises, you have to take more efforts because your body is now stronger than before.

In short, you make your body strong by making it suffer. And why do you need a strong body? To make it able to withstand any microbial attacks or any rigorous work. In short you make your body resistant to suffering. In other words with exercise and diet, you increase your body's ability to suffer.

2) Wealth:-

Wealth can be grown only in businesses or investments. But both these ways are not easy. The world's greatest investor who is now second richest man in earth on Forbs list, a billionaire- Mr. Warren Buffett says, "Investing is not supposed to be easy, whoever things it is easy is a fool." The way to wealth contains a lots of traps, mistakes, losses, various risks, the process of decision making etc.

Now the process of building wealth is different for every person. Just like every person on earth is different in some way, each person who have accumulated wealth have accumulated it in a different way. The corollary to this thought is if you are trying to copy someone else's way to wealth, it is the recipe for disaster. Because you don't know actually what was the real thought process behind the accumulation of wealth with that particular person. It may be the case that, he may just have got lucky.😉 (but we can't just depend on luck to accumulate wealth. If you are relying on luck then stop reading samanyabuddhi.blogspot.com , this blog is not for you.)

Therefore to make your own way to wealth you have to try different things and spot those which works for you and then stick to them. But until you find the way that works for you, you are going to suffer losses. You may minimise the losses (and you should minimise your losses) by making the experiments on very small scale. But it is just a plane hard fact that, there are more chances that you are going to suffer losses to you find the best way to make wealth.

There is another fact to keep in mind that,

WE LIVE IN A CONSTANTLY CHANGING ENVIRONMENT.

Therefore once you find a way to make money, it is not going to work infinitely.

"Everything that begins have an end."

So after sometime the profits you were earning from your way week start diminishing our you may get in to losses. At such times, you must be having enough diversification to protect you from total bankruptcy. Even if you suffer losses you must be having enough strength left to be there to play the game the next day. And trust me this can happen for days in a row. I hope you got the point.

3) Happiness:-

Now you must be thinking what does suffering has to do with happiness? I used to think lack of suffering must be the state of happiness.

But just think about it, what are the common sources of unhappiness for the rich and the poor??

Poor relations in family members, lack of understanding, lack of mental peace, lack of love, lack of trust, unachieved dreams, failed partnerships, failed investments etc. Poor health is also a source of unhappiness but we just covered it above.

How these sources of unhappiness can be minimized? I am saying minimised because some amount of unhappiness is necessary to drive is forward. (NEED IS THE SOURCE OF INVENTION)

Lack of love and trust can be cured by being trustful and loving in nature, but in both the cases it is not necessary that if you trust or love someone then he or she should also do the same. Many times the trust is broken, love is not returned or sometimes some people also take disadvantage of love.

There are two ways you can find love and trust in your life-
⬜ wait for it to find you (passive way)
⬜ you start searching (active way)

Both ways work. You can wait for a person to come to you and love you, trust you, or you can go out, love, trust and see who returns the same to you. If you go out and search for it then your odds of finding love and trust multiplies. In this active process you will suffer a lot of heartbreaks, you will come across people who will not return love or trust, or some may even misuse your nature. This way of finding love and trust is full of suffering, but the prize is worth much more.

Failed investments, failed partnerships are also the same. Unless you do it, you won't find good partnerships or investments. You learn your lessons from your suffering. The more your ability to suffer, the more are your chances of finding more good investments and good partnerships.

Unachieved dreams can be achieved by trying incessantly and learning from failure.

If you are ready to suffer and learn from it then anything is achievable to you.

My take is the "lean technique" -

Perform small experiments, or better learn from others failure, get the data, refine your strategy, charge ahead.

See you soon and have a nice day.

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

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.