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

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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With respect,

Vishal