Learnings on Investing Pt3

Impatient with actions, patient with results:

When I read the book on Naval Ravikant, I realize the importance of actions. We tend to underestimate the importance of actions and over expect the time by which we will get the results of the actions. When combining my other learning* about doing so many things that we become right in one of them. Now, I have started to believe that, trying all the ideas (even the most bizarre ones, considering that we won't take any risk which we can't handle) out is one of the most important skill to adapt. And when I talk about actions, this learning helps me a lot. It keeps reminding me that I have to be impatient with actions. Now, I try to implement all the ideas that come in my head, recently I painted for the first time on canvas because I had an idea. And I am not good at painting.

I have made a diary naming Ideas, I write all of them down in it or on my phone and whenever I get free, I open the diary up and pick one of the ideas to work on.

Started enjoying the process of action instead of reaching results. Still, sometimes I fall into the expectations of results.

I have realized that taking actions asap is very important. The more actions we take, the more ideas we implement and there are more chances of reaching somewhere we want.

Right now, it won't feel like it is going to make me reach somewhere, but I will never know how dots get connected. So, trusting the process.

The more desire I have for something to work out a certain way, the less likely I am to see the truth:

It is called self-serving bias. I first got to know about this from one of the videos of Mr Vallabh Bhansali. We believe in something and we tend to find all the necessary proof to prove that it's true. It's in our human nature to be right and justify our righteousness with proofs. But the problem is that we find proof that suits our conclusion.

We don't see the whole truth, we don't counter-question it, we don't find proofs that prove them otherwise. We get blindsided by our ego of being right.

I remember when I believed that being on social media is a complete waste of time, I had all the proofs - interviews, books and quotes gathered saying how social media is waste of time and there is no use of it. I was not at all open to considering otherwise, no matter how hard someone tried to explain. After a couple of years, I got one book and that book shared the idea of how social media can be useful, by that time, my grip on my truth was loose, so I could question my belief and eventually change it. But it took me two years because I was only looking at the things which justify what I am doing. And I can see that if I had questioned everything early, I would have used social media for my growth and I would have reached somewhere else today.

Now, I am realizing that the real truth will only come up when I have a genuine curiosity to find the truth and when I don't settle for an answer.

But still, it is difficult to identify these self-serving bias and question it, it requires less ego and more curiosity. I have found one practice to help me identify my blind spots is finding what is one thing that I firmly believe in right now, let me find the exact opposite of that and read more about it, you might find something more eye-opening or your belief on your existing thoughts will get stronger. It's a win-win both ways.

Less ego, more wealth:

This was eye-opening for me, I first read about this in the book The Psychology of Money, and it made me question things inside me. Most of the expenses are to fulfil our ego. No one cares more about my expensive car than myself. Our 'want' to buy expensive materialistic things has a lot to do with what we think that thing will bring in our life. Psychology says that we buy expensive stuff because we think that it will help us earn respect from people. That's why most of us buy expensive things. Sometimes we are not even aware that this is the reason underneath the desire to have expensive materialistic things.

Naval gave a wonderful example: when we see a Lamborghini Car, our thought doesn't go to the driver, we don't start respecting him/her. Our thoughts go in the direction that one day I will have this car or what if I was the one driving it, etc. In the same way, whenever someone sees our expensive purchases, it only makes them desire that more, nothing else.

Because of how owning expensive things are portrayed in our society through movies, we have started believing that it brings respect. It looks like that it will bring respect but spending wealth on materialistic things will just bring more expenses.

Things like humility, kindness, love and empathy will bring us more respect than horsepower ever will.

If I am speculating then it's nothing different than betting:

I have nothing to explain in the above sentence, it is self-explanatory.

Think about it.

Compounding of good people is the greatest compounding:

Mr Vallabhji explained this very beautifully by saying that a good guy will do well in long term. Without any exceptions. And it was great learning for me.

Now, I see this learning from two sides:

A. I just have to be a good person and I will automatically do well in life

B. I should be around good people, I should invest my time & money in good people

The definition of a good person is very vague, I haven't found the exact definition yet, but I think someone working with good values, integrity, authenticity, love, groundedness, humility, the intention of giving, intention of solving problems etc. seems a major part of someone good. There so many examples of good people doing great in the long term from Mahatma Gandhi to Nelson Mandela.

I am working on it. Work in progress.

Credit: Naval Ravikant, Eric Johanson, Vallabh Bhansali, Morgan Housel, Sanjay Bakshi and Vishal Khandelwal.

*Learning from the same series pt1, named: In best case scenario I will be right 50% of the time