This week marks my TENTH year writing Subramoney! I have completed 9 years and step into my 10 th year. Unlike one of my favorites Dev Anand, I started blogging pretty late in life.

When I started in November 2008, I never could have imagined where this thing would lead. Now I can’t imagine my life without having done this. I have been able to build a nice community, and I guess I have a bed to sleep in at least 100 cities around the world, if not more. I have been surprised that people from South  -Africa, Germany, Brunei, …read my blog.

No, I did not intend this blog to get me business, and I must say I have been pleasently surprised on that front too. I hav addressed more than 5000 doctors- more an introduction to the need for financial planning than an investment management session, but it has been very popular across the country. My training in the BFSI and this doctor’s training has taken me to all the states of the country, and has allowed me to see the whole country. At each of these places I have met people reading my blog. It has been an enjoyable, enriching and humbling experience. One Mr. Hira had chatted up with me and he asked me to start a blog – and I was already writing for websites like Moneycontrol.com and so writing one page a day did not sound very difficult. So one lazy afternoon, www.subramoney.com was born, and here it is, a 10 year old.

Actually 9. Nine is the age when a kid goes for his ‘Thread Ceremony’ among Hindus, Navjote among Parsis, and Bar Mitzvah among the Jews. This is the coming of age. Now the son is expected to change, and start taking responsibility for himself, for his own body and soul and the world around him.

I have no clue where it came from, but I enjoy thinking, reading, talking, about money. I love saying what I do and how some of you can improve as an investor. It is just a request to join me in this improving journey. I even do long talks for young kids about how they can improve as an investor. I am even trying to formalize that with small group talks and do not know how successful it will be. If it is successful, it will be a V blog for sure.

It cost me a few dollars to buy the domain name and a few minutes to get my wordpress account set up. Even this simple task was done by a young friend who shall remain anonymous. Today he is a big entrepreneur operating in 4 countries in the BFSI space.

I was in the training and wealth management space right from 1990 and making that shift from direct equity to mutual funds for some of my friends was not very difficult. I had by the year 2000 (with a kid on her way!) decided that working to earn money was an optional, pleasurable extra. The bread was in place. The 2003 to 2007 boom made life easier and better, but I had surely not anticipated it.

Until I decided to try something new.

That one fateful decision and thousands of posts later…

It’s led to a career in talking about wealth management, training wealth managers, sales people, fund managers in basics of capital markets, investor behavior, training investors in salesmen behavior, featuring on national television telling people that investing is not just signing a cheque, a few thousand followers on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. Could not have asked for more.

I co-wrote a book on Goal Based Investing. When I invest my time in writing for Subramoney or for my publisher, I must admit I do not have a goal. Once something happens I feel happy as if that was my goal.

Dev Anand made many movies – some of them classics and some of them downright lousy. Beethoven was DEAF and his s Ninth Symphony got standing ovations.

Most of what I do here on the blog is me building on the shoulders of others. Using the learning and experience of better, older, more educated, more academic, more practical people – no I cannot name them. They are just too numerous.

I try to combine the talents of many others to produce my symphony every day.Thiludes my reading, listening, watching,..experts on investing, trading, health, exercise, diet, psychology, investing behavior and observing people in their day to day investing behavior. Both what the say, and their electronic foot prints. Professionals and amateurs, technicians and economists, traders and investors, journalists and researchers; even some senior regulators, all playing a part as they build into my composition, music, tempo, and volume.

The night of Beethoven’s big performance, his colleagues insisted that he not conduct the piece himself. Completely deaf, he had botched a performance of an earlier opera’s dress rehearsal and no one wanted to see that happen again, especially not with such an incredible work of art, on such an important stage. So his co-conductor instructed the musicians to ignore the master as he waved his arms before an orchestra he couldn’t actually hear. By the end of the performance, with Beethoven still gesticulating and turning pages, the lead soprano had to come over, put her arm around him and turn him to face his audience.

Five standing ovations, wild applause and their hands in the air to show him their utter jubilation and approval.

Nobody did this for Dev Anand. He never knew when his performance was over. He made shoddy movies at the end of  his career. No, it is not a blot, but just a feeling that these did not add to his awesome body of work.

I don’t know when someone will put their arm around me to tell me the symphony is over. I like to think that my work here on and in my career is still in its prime. Currently, I have no plans to put down my baton. I still get goosebumps at the thought of doing a training and talking to a bunch of investors, doctors, investment professionals or just a bunch of kids who will start investing soon. To me it does not matter how much I am getting paid. I do not do it for free. I stopped doing free talking or free writing. However, this blog will remain free. I do make some money from Google ads but that is less than my Hdfc bank dividend. I hope that puts things in perspective.

When I address groups of professionals, I expect them to donate the fees to 4 charities that i would like to be associated with. I never negotiate his amount too hard, but it has to make sense for all of us. Please.

Discovering new ways of looking at markets, fresh ideas for investment management, innovations in a game as old as time – this daily endeavor is in my blood now.

The lines between the blogging, the investing and the living of my life were blurring, but now they no longer exist. And for that, my appreciation for you, the audience, knows no bounds. The only way I can express it is to keep going and doing my best to earn your attention, your time and your feedback.

This post is for all the readers, the fans and friends, the peers whose work I liberally borrow from, the detractors who force me to do better and the incredible cast of characters who’ve embraced our way of investing and joined the gang. Thanks for everything over these nine years. I love you all.

PS: even this piece is not very original. It has been heavily borrowed from a more famous blogger.

this was published in November 2017, no clue how to edit it. WordPress is getting painful for me.

Publishing it again…because sometimes it is showing as “page not found” – hence the re-publishing…