There is a difference between a physician and a surgeon. A physician gets more time to think about a problem, seek counsel, do tests, and then arrive at a conclusion. However for a surgeon once the conclusion is arrived at, he has to implement the process. Both are very difficult jobs. However, the surgeon has to have a great ability to think on his feet. Once he cuts open a patient, he has to complete the operation. Now he does not get the luxury of second opinion.

Similarly in the world of investing. You can spend your time analysing what is to be done. What are the questions that people ask themselves?

• Do I need to invest at all?
• Will compounding work for me?
• Does compounding work when standard deviation is high (or is greater than 1)
• Large cap, mid cap or small cap?
• Mutual funds or direct equities?
• Should I use an adviser?
• How to choose an adviser?
• How should I have withdrawal strategies?
• Should I buy an annuity?

There are no easy answers. The more you read, the more confused you will get. You will find experts tell you that it is easy to do it yourself. You will find experts who tell you that investing is complicated and you should be guided by an expert.

There are experts who will tell you – “it is easy, I did it”. There are some who will tell you “I did it, maybe I got lucky”.

Mr. Market does not mind all this. It asks only one thing – do you have enough money to meet all your goals? In fact the only way you can judge your portfolio, investing process, your knowledge, …is by asking “will I be able to meet all my goals”. If the answer to that is YES. You are home – high and dry. Or should I say you are home, comfortably. And that you are a good surgeon with a good path. Now, some physician can see your journey and criticize it. Or praise parts of the journey. Frankly it does not matter.

The bother is when people far less competent see parts of the journey and copy it. No. It should not bother you as a surgeon. However, you see people copying part of a journey – and you know it will burn them. Or at least hurt them very badly. As a spectator sport Investing is awesome.

As a retired player or observer you use your maturity to decide whether to comment or not. At least you learn that you cannot say things like “It worked for me, so it will work for you”.

As a runner if I do not know how much effort has gone into your running. If I do not know how much you desire to improve. If I don’t know your 5k timing, your 10k timing or your HM timing, I should not venture to guess in how much time you will do your full marathon.

I can come up to you and say “I did my HM in 1.24 and full in 3.12” – and since you are younger than me, I am sure you can match those timings.

We see experts do that.

Beware. Chart your own journey. Go and read. If you find a blog useful, use it. If you find it is stupid, judgmental, or useless, stop reading it.

We are suffering from information over-load and over thinking. You don’t need it.

Just do a sip in an index fund with 70% of your money and put 30% in a Nifty next kinda fund. Have a ppf account. This combo should work. Stop reading blogs. Including www.subramoney.com – if that is what is good for your investing process.

Lucky me, when I was building portfolios there were not theoretical idiots telling us what to do.