Vishal Khandelwal

Est. 1978

Life

The One Percent Show: Monika Halan on Money Mantras, Biggest Financial Regrets, and Handling Life’s Real Wealth Well

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Welcome to the eleventh episode of The One Percent Show with Vishal Khandelwal. This show is an open-ended exploration into the minds of the wisest people around to help us learn to think, invest, and live each day a little, even if as little as one percent, better.

In this episode, I talk to Monika Halan, one of the rare voices of sanity in the Indian personal finance space and author of the best-selling book Let’s Talk Money which provides us a smarter way to live our dream life, rather than stay worried about the ‘right’ investment or ‘perfect’ insurance.

Monika has a Masters in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics and a Masters in Journalism Studies from the University of Wales, United Kingdom. In a career spanning almost three decades, she has worked across several media organizations in India and has run many successful TV series around personal finance advice. She is a regular speaker on financial literacy, regulation, inclusion and consumer issues in retail finance. She has been a member of SEBI’s Mutual Fund Advisory committee for more than a decade and has served four Government of India committees.

While I was reading about Monika, I got to know that she considers Sri Aurobindo as her guru which led me to what he wrote in his book The Mother, and I quote – “Human life would be quite simple if the human mind did not extrapolate in it unnecessary complications.”

I see Monika’s work over the years a testimony to this lesson from Sri Aurobindo, in that she has brought so much simplicity to middle-class India on how we deal with our personal financial lives, without trying to add unnecessary complexity to it. I am sure there is a great deal of work that needs to be done on that front, and Monika is certainly leading the charge there, which makes me hopeful.

In this episode, Monika talks about –

  • Key foundational lessons on money
  • Women and money – what needs to change
  • Kids and money – How to get your young ones to learn about money
  • Key money mantras for a balanced financial life
  • Sanity checks while dealing with financial advisors
  • Simplifying asset allocation
  • Biggest money regret people have
  • Monika’s personal financial mistakes and fears
  • How much money is ‘enough’
  • Handling life’s real wealth well
  • And more.

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Please share with others on WhatsApp, Twitter, LinkedIn, or just email them the link to this post.

With respect,

Vishal

A Story on Kindness

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When we study successful people, we always talk about their work ethic, creativity, leadership. Those things are essential, and we can learn a lot from them. But one thing that gets less attention is whether they were kind to others in their journey.

Consider Warren Buffett, one of the most successful people in the world. Once while giving a lecture to college students, he was asked his definition of success, and this is what he replied, “When you get to my age, you will really measure your success in life by how many of the people you want to have love you actually do love you…That is the ultimate test of how you have lived your life.”

[Read more…] about A Story on Kindness

The One Percent Show: Barry Ritholtz on Survivorship Bias, Thinking Independently, and Creating Meaning in Life

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Welcome to the tenth episode of The One Percent Show with Vishal Khandelwal. This show is an open-ended exploration into the minds of the wisest people around to help us learn to think, invest, and live each day a little, even if as little as one percent, better.

In this episode, I talk to the extra-special Barry Ritholtz, Chairman and Chief Investment Officer of Ritholtz Wealth Management. He is also the creator and host of Masters in Business, the most popular podcast on Bloomberg Radio. Barry has been called the “blogfather” for his long-standing finance blog, The Big Picture. He is also the author of the book Bailout Nation, which is an engaging look at what led to the financial crisis of 2008.

Barry has been named one of the “15 Most Important Economic Journalists” in the United States and has been called one of the 25 Most Dangerous People in Financial Media. He has spent his career helping people spot their own investment errors and to learn how to better manage their own financial behaviors. Barry’s observations on the economy and markets are unique in that they are the result of both quantitative data and behavioral economics, and a function of his unusual career path in finance.

Barry’s blog is perhaps the most well-known oasis of economic straight talk on the web. I have been reading him for almost 15 years now, and he was one of the persons who was really part of the inspiration for my work at Safal Niveshak in the first place. His is one of the very few financial blogs I read consistently.

In this episode, Barry talks about –

  • Using life’s deficits as superpowers
  • His unusual career path in finance
  • Lessons for young people wanting to enter finance
  • Being called one of the most dangerous people in financial media
  • Survivorship bias
  • Importance of being kind to others
  • Most important mantra for investors
  • Thinking independently in a noisy world
  • Creating meaning in life
  • Favourite books
  • And more.

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Please share with others on WhatsApp, Twitter, LinkedIn, or just email them the link to this post.

With respect,

Vishal

The Secret to A Long and Happy Life

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Here’s Charlie Munger’s prescription for a long and happy life.

“The secret, he says, “is easy, because it’s so simple.”

I wish you a long, happy, and healthy life ahead.

A Teacher’s Lessons on Living, Dying, and the Real Source of Happiness

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One of the most beautiful books I have read on the lifelong relationship between a teacher and student is Mitch Albom’s Tuesdays with Morrie. The book covers the lessons a teacher, Morrie Schwartz, dispels to his old student, Mitch, during the final months of his life being brought down by a terminal disease.

Knowing he was dying of ALS – or motor neuron disease – Mitch visits Morrie in his study every Tuesday, just as they used to back in college. Their rekindled relationship turns into one final ‘class’ – in how to live.

Among the many lessons I have learned from the book, here are the best eight that I share with you today on the occasion of Teacher’s Day. Each lesson you read below is verbatim from the book.

Over to Morrie.

1. On living a meaningful life

“So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they’re busy doing things they think are important. This is because they’re chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.”

2. On kindness

“The problem is that we don’t believe we are as much alike as we are. Whites and blacks, Catholics and Protestants, men and women. If we saw each other as more alike, we might be very eager to join in one big human family in this world, and to care about that family the way we care about our own.

“But believe me, when you are dying, you see it is true. We all have the same beginning — birth — and we all have the same end — death. So how different can we be?

“Invest in the human family. Invest in people. Build a little community of those you love and who love you.

“In the beginning of life, when we are infants, we need others to survive, right? And at the end of life, when you get like me, you need others to survive, right?

“But here’s the secret: in between, we need others as well.”

3. On what survives after death

“Last night … I had a terrible spell. It went on for hours. And I really wasn’t sure I was going to make it. No breath. No end to the choking. At one point, I started to get dizzy … and then I felt a certain peace, I felt that I was ready to go.

“It was a most incredible feeling. The sensation of accepting what was happening, being at peace. I was thinking about a dream I had last week, where I was crossing a bridge into something unknown. Being ready to move on to whatever is next.

“That’s what we’re all looking for. A certain peace with the idea of dying. If we know, in the end, that we can ultimately have that peace with dying, then we can finally do the really hard thing.

“[Which is] make peace with living.

“It’s natural to die. The fact that we make such a big hullabaloo over it is all because we don’t see ourselves as part of nature. We think because we’re human we’re something above nature.

“We’re not. Everything that gets born, dies.  [But] as long as we can love each other, and remember the feeling of love we had, we can die without ever really going away. All the love you created is still there. All the memories are still there. You live on—in the hearts of everyone you have touched and nurtured while you were here.

“Death ends a life, not a relationship.”

4. On forgiveness

“It’s not just other people we need to forgive…We also need to forgive ourselves…for all the things we didn’t do. All the things we should have done. You can’t get stuck on the regrets of what should have happened. That doesn’t help you when you get to where I am.

“I always wished I had done more with my work; I wished I had written more books. I used to beat myself up over it. Now I see that never did any good. Make peace. You need to make peace with yourself and everyone around you.

“Forgive yourself. Forgive others. Don’t wait. Not everyone gets the time I’m getting. Not everyone is as lucky.”

5. On love

“In business, people negotiate to win. They negotiate to get what they want. Maybe you’re too used to that. Love is different. Love is when you are as concerned about someone else’s situation as you are about your own.”

6. On the real source of happiness

“If you’re trying to show off for people at the top, forget it. They will look down at you anyhow. And if you’re trying to show off for people at the bottom, forget it. They will only envy you. Status will get you nowhere. Only an open heart will allow you to float equally between everyone.

“…giving to other people is what makes me feel alive. Not my car or my house. Not what I look like in the mirror. When I give my time, when I can make someone smile after they were feeling sad, it’s as close to healthy as I ever feel.

“Do the kinds of things that come from the heart. When you do, you won’t be dissatisfied, you won’t be envious, you won’t be longing for somebody else’s things. On the contrary, you’ll be overwhelmed with what comes back.”

7. On the most important thing in life

“The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in. Let it come in. We think we don’t deserve love, we think if we let it in we’ll become too soft. But a wise man … said it right. He said, ‘Love is the only rational act.’”

8. We’re part of the ocean

“I heard a nice little story the other day,” Morrie says. He closes his eyes for a moment and I wait.

“Okay. The story is about a little wave, bobbing along in the ocean, having a grand old time. He’s enjoying the wind and the fresh air — until he notices the other waves in front of him, crashing against the shore.

“‘My God, this is terrible,’ the wave says. ‘Look what’s going to happen to me!’

“Then along comes another wave. It sees the first wave, looking grim, and it says to him, ‘Why do you look so sad?’

“The first wave says, ‘You don’t understand! We’re all going to crash! All of us waves are going to be nothing! Isn’t it terrible?’

“The second wave says, ‘No, you don’t understand. You’re not a wave, you’re part of the ocean.’ ”

I smile. Morrie closes his eyes again.

“Part of the ocean,” he says, “part of the ocean.” I watch him breathe, in and out, in and out.

Please read Tuesdays with Morrie if you haven’t already. If you have, it’s time to re-read it.

Happy Teacher’s Day!