Lessons to my younger self…
The other way of saying ‘what would have I done differently’….
- Read More books: clearly I would have read more books and on a much wider range of topics. Today I cannot bring myself to read books outside of finance, management, and fiction. ‘Being Mortal’ of course is a book I read, I read Gladwell, etc. but I would have read much more for sure. I would have wanted to read about 100 books a year, currently I average much lesser.
- Learnt to recite the Vedas much much earlier: Maybe at the age of 9 and not at 50.
- Learnt Meditation while still in school or college: even now meditation is not really a habit…and I do not know what to do..
- Traveled to Europe and USA on a shoe string budget – i have no clue why I did not do it, but yes I did not do it.
- Been more systematic in record keeping of my investments so that I could have said what was my CAGR or xirr in the year 1994 or 2004. I did not keep records as well as I should have.
- Would not have judged people as ‘good’ just because they are Tambrahms, they are CAs, they are friendly…I lost maximum amount of money when I got ‘friendly’ with amazingly idiotic, greedy, stupid promoters.
- Built more difficult networks – right now I built easier networks.
- Would have helped more people with their investments, Income tax returns, etc. I was too rude perhaps?
- Would have been far more skeptical of the IIT, IIM varieties. Lesser profile people are far better as human beings.
- Get rid of toxic people from my life faster.
- Had one or 2 mentors – would have sought 5-7 mentors for different parts of my life.
wondering…what more?
shajan
Excellent post. Kindly do more of similar posts where youngsters like us learn and do not regret later in life.
Sanjiv Upadhyay
Dear Subra
Just a humble request and suggestion. Why don’t you write on some of the topics you mentioned in your above blog, like how to make network, how to travel on shoe string budget etc. May be once a week.
Sanjiv
Biju J
Thank you wholeheartedly for being a Virtual mentor to us all, your articles enlighten us to Financial literacy, habits and makes us to Think about lifestyle and being at peace in our financial cycling.
VK
Point 8 can still be addressed?
I think being more thoughtful and pensive might be more important than being a bookworm? I’ve met some mighty impressive people who have read only a few books, but they are so thorough and clear in their their thinking, it’s like they have absorbed lot more from the same books by thinking deeper…
NK
Top 5 I can easily correlate… Always want to do it. Point 11 is something you always want be it for financial life, professional, personal, spiritual and list goes on. The concept of Guru in Indian set up is a great concept but we are losing it as “I” am too busy.
And to add another point, maybe not for you – to keep a contact with old acquaintences.