Trade off, happy medium, middle ground – all these terms all sound like a compromise, like you are grudgingly giving up on something to get to something else. “Why should I compromise? I deserve the very best I can get” – sounds good in poetry and in theory, in real life this is exactly what…
You cannot outperform your belief systems. Belief systems are so deeply ingrained into us that they influence our behavior at a sub conscious level. Which is why they are so difficult to change, if you do not even consciously know where your deep-rooted preferences come from, how can you change them? We can see many…
We are educated but we aren’t necessarily numerate. Innumeracy plagues many of our decisions and renders many of them sub optimal; not necessarily bad but sub optimal. We tend to ignore base rates and believe that statistics do not apply to our lives. Our hind brains constantly tell us that our specific situation is unique,…
“How does that make you feel?” We live in strange times, a time when society bombards us with the “feels over everything else” narrative almost every day. At no other point of time have we been so explicitly bothered about feelings and emotions as we are today. When someone gets taunted for being out of…
Most are aware of what the best investing books are, but not many know where to start when it comes to building a variety of mental models and connecting the dots. In no particular order, these are some of the books that have helped me build a world view that cuts across economies, history, psychology,…
We have all been bombarded with advice on setting goals and working towards them. This isn’t bad advice for those who meander aimlessly, but can potentially be bad advice for some. There is no shortage of people who set themselves the goal of losing 12 Kgs over the next year. This is a so-called…
Caution: This will be a long one Time and effort are of limited supply, these are essential ingredients in any constructive endeavor. Throughout the course of life, demands on our time and effort will be made by employers, employees, customers, colleagues, relationships and many other components that make up the sum total of our experience.…
If you look hard enough, you will find life lessons almost everywhere. Especially in the heavy metal genre of music. And it feels right this time On this crash course we’re in the big time Pay no mind to the distant thunder Beauty fills his head with wonder, boy Says it feels right this time…
You are as good as the options you have. One can have a high level of competence but unless one has options, it is difficult to be confident and assertive. When is your ability to negotiate the terms of your employment higher? When you are still interviewing or after you are already an employee? When…
Investors are rational beings who behave in a manner as to maximize their utility. Investors have access to information and take into account all relevant information before making a decision It is not difficult to see why portfolio theory goes for a toss once in a while, these harmless and logical assumptions about people and…