II am plain bloody lucky, and I did not need Nassim Taleb to tell me that. Too much of my life has happened by luck. My father choosing to stay in Ghatkopar (a Gujju suburb) instead of Matunga (a Tambrahm suburb in the 1960s, now no longer), to choice of friends in equity markets, doing CA (well I could have done medicine, right?), to making a career in equities – and loving every minute of it.

I choose equity as a career (could have chosen banking/audit/taxation/law)…but the equity choice was after I got involved in some complicated legal/accounting cases (for my clients). That training in law, and accounting (apart from the education in accounting, costing, legal processes, etc) was extremely useful as a research analyst. Friends giving work in research (somebody had to pay for the software, computer, office expenses) was all a matter which can now be made to look like strategy, but I guess it was more luck than strategy.

Call it Mission, Vision, or whatever, equities was a passion. Spent enough time in the trenches – sub broker, operations, in the ring, near the ring, main broker, analyst, equity sales – an awesome variety of work in that time. Of course everything gets to be described as “broker”. Complete passion – I have spent 12/14 hours talking equity and felt fresh at night.

I have been talking, reading, writing, talking equity for 10,000 hours at least. I better get good at it!! This obviously included things like asset allocation, Goal setting (I wrote a book on that) and Retirement (the book I wrote is a run away best seller). I have done more than 100 workshops on retirement – for people in service, army, IFA, general public, doctors…..

I also had to do something that there was a market for. In 2001 introduction of ‘compulsory’ training to pass the ‘Amfi’ exam (now called Nism exam) to sell mutual funds opened huge market related training. I am sure if the ‘compulsion’ was not there I would not have entered training – people pay ONLY for compulsory needs. However, the launch of ULIP in 2002-4 got me all the Ulip launchers as clients  – Hdfc slic, Icici prudential, Kotak, Birla,….to start off with and then Max New York Life (now Max Life). It is always nice to get paid for doing something you love doing. One of my Gurus felt it was tad unfair that I got paid for talking – that too about money – creation, preservation, and growth! And to be able to give examples from eating, and cricket. Completely unfair, but hey I said I was lucky, did I not?

Now I am doing things which the world needs at large – lectures on Retirement planning – at least 4 mutual funds have engaged or are about to engage with me on ‘Retirement’ lectures. Wow.

Time to launch the second edition of the book…look out it could be in December/ Jan….

I also like the fact that I am part of 2/3 big running/ cycling groups. That ensures that I know how I will be spending the next 10/20 years of my life….or whatever is left of it.

Yesterday I heard the word ‘Ikigai’. Go and read it. I can assure you that I did not know the word till day before yesterday. I did not know that doing all these things will make sure that I will live long. No, it is not about the length of one’s life, it is about how usefully one can transmit all the 40 year’s learning to some of the kids of the next gen.

I tried doing a FREE lecture for kids who I thought would be interested in equity. No. It did not fructify for whatever reasons. I do think Equity can only be ‘caught’ in a ‘gurukul’ it cannot be taught in a class-room.

I learnt equity in the Gurukul of life. Learning about accountancy (theory) was very useful, being taught by my ‘Principals’ about usage of Ratio Analysis and cash flow (Sharp and Tannan) was useful while doing equity analysis. Going to the Supreme Court in 5/6 matters (meeting really brilliant lawyers is far more useful than attending the 3 year law school) helped in understanding promoters, filing 3000 Income tax returns helped in understanding promoters, meeting ‘Institutions’ like Ifci, idbi, icici helped learn about promoters….I cannot be thankful enough for the grounding for doing “equity research”.

So I got ‘Ikigai’ by luck.

Sure, I can stand in front of kids and say “It was all strategy”. Aw, bull. One man up there likes me.