Many money thoughts

I, V, M. I I Yeah, I mean, where the we need to be qualified, it's like, host learn something, the audience is like, you're my challenge. audience learns. there are four people definitely go here than them.

So they feel good. I think that's, that's a big appeal of stuff that's actually a good, that's a good, benefit for proposition, a good before certified, like you'll feel better about yourself by doing Some things that never go out of fashion, the same self-deprecating dokibbutz. Yeah, I'm gonna be in old. And I'm gonna decide to deny it.

I'm gonna be in the same. I'm gonna be in the same. I'm gonna be in the same. I'm gonna be in the same.

Okay, so folks, I finished reading a famous book recently, the Psychology of Money by Morgan Houser. Like, I'll just talk about it since, you know, if you're not in the same. Hey, I'm in the same. It's not, I just got water release Wikipedia but it's psychology of money.

Oh. Oh. Oh. She's in the same.

Psychology of money, which is like, why, why is it like this? Same. Oh. I feel like, so let's start off with a little bit of, what do you say?

Get to know the host better kind of question. What was the first, I don't know, substantial thing that you bought with your own money? Oh, I think that's right. I know.

I've, my, of course, my blazer story is well known. That is, I'll tell you. The TLDR of that blazer is, I bought a blazer and it turned out to be exactly the uniform of the Taj Vittas. Yeah.

But there was another thing I bought a little after that, which also, I haven't told you the story of the other Krishna cement. I don't care if you do this. Oh, the stuff. Yeah.

The stocks are stock. Yeah. So basically I bought a lemon. This was in Harshad Mehta Times and people would tip, right?

People would come and very like, you know, very conspiratorial whisper. They would tell you why this talk and Harshad Mehta's after it. So I was told by the very reliable source of my career who was sitting in the next cubicle that Harshad Mehta was buying, not a Krishna cement. And apparently Harshad Mehta and my friend in the next door cubicle was the only two people who knew about it.

So I went and bought it and long story short, it is a nice long story. I could go on for another 10 minutes. But long story short was actually Harshad Mehta also sort of lost that was one of the few who stocks he probably lost money in. And I have those share certificates.

And we have a financial advisor. He told me very sadly that these shares would be more useful if they were printed on software and more absorbent paper. Yeah. Yeah.

So it's fabulous. Yeah. So lemonade from which you have made, I mean, the lemon of a stop that you have had. The first thing that I ever bought with my, I think was my internship money from Micah.

I got the first month's salary and email or whatever stipend. Right. You work before this. Ah.

You work before you get a B. I used to like, I forgot that's complete. Yeah. I haven't thought of that much.

I'll be just late. Yeah. So yeah, yeah, yeah. That's true.

I was going to say I bought a little guitar from Calcutta with my internship company. Okay. The first substantial thing that I got from my software engineering days was a small creative music player. Yes, I remember you don't want to create it.

You don't want to create it. Usually you could just be here. So I bought a small creative Zen or something. I bought it from, what are the famous, small in Chennai?

Spencer. Spencer, Spencer, Spencer. Oh, man. So much throwback.

Yeah, yeah, mini throwback. I'm pretty sure that the storage was some 32GB or something. And I'm like, yeah, wow. Yeah.

So good on you. Yeah. The first thing I bought with my money, actually, yeah. Chuck, you bought it for me, actually.

I paid you for it, which was nice. And I said, HD 518s, which I bought in 2012 when I started working in, started working. And I'm like, it was like some 7,000 at that time. And I was just looking up on my, I was just going back to my emails and I found them on, you sent me an email about you buying it from eBay from someone and then I paid you for it.

My goodness, eBay. Yeah, eBay. Yeah. So yeah, so that was, that was, that was, I see it.

I see it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Yes.

That was the first thing I bought with my own money, really. But yeah, that too. I bought it. I mean, my regular side was just going into everything else.

This is also, I bought it with money. I did, I did, I feel commenting for C3. Oh my God. Yes.

So that is the source of the money as well. So yeah, I mean, we had some, we had some fantastic times doing that. Initially, now it's time to declassify the fact that I fell asleep while doing commentary during one match and nobody noticed it. Yes.

But yes. So it was, it was a secret. It was a secret. Yeah.

Sifid before you were simplified. We immediately. Yo. Sifid.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So that is, that's our kids, not like slaves. That's our mental like, direct admission to students and brothers. So like, really fancy flashy kids who like, then dropped into an equivalent.

And he had like good phones. But phones had like phones with camera and stuff. And I always wanted to have a phone with the camera. So the first thing that I bought was one of those Nokia, some in something.

So that had a camera in it. So yeah. Very nice investment in solid up. Hey man.

So the science actually lasted me like a solid 78 years. I used them quite, probably for 78 years till the, like, your phone, your, your, your phone got all shitty and then I can talk his life. Yeah, I don't want to throw up a question on the certificate. I don't want to show up.

But take you on the call, my dear. Amazing. So that segues nicely, I think. I'm not sure if we'll be able to take the way lessons from here.

Into what I thought we'd talk about, which is this book has been doing the rounds called Psychology of Money, Time to Give It. It's full Christian name. Time to Listen, Sunwell, Read and Happiness, by an author called Morgan House of the Walking House. I believe it is a partner in some way, the firm or something like that.

And while one would have expected a book like this to be all technical and about fully about stocks and tea ratios and all that, whatever. Go call it a question index, right? What sort of things? All those sort of things.

It's nothing but it's a very light, easy read. It's just good or common sense. And I would actually go to the extent of saying that this is one of those things I say should be required reading when you are in your early 20s. Also, it's really about how to approach money, your relationship with, you know, you're building a healthy relationship with money and having a positive attitude towards savings and not being very enamored by show of wealth and stuff like that.

So I just thought we'd talk about that since that's the kind of stuff that we do on this new grownup version of Sintified, is the post 300 show you that. Wow. Wow. I mean, I feel like it's more drones.

I don't need to go to the gym any longer, because I've got this huge weight on my shoulders all the time. There is blazer just tastes 10 more years. So I think out of the four of us just Tony and I have read it. Tony, I mean, what do you think of it?

Yeah. And I ask you because you are usually the one with slightly contrarian views. Yeah. No, no, no.

This is, yeah, like I said, it is mandatory required reading. And one of the things was that I went from the complete toxic spectrum of money in wealth and stuff like that. I think this book also refers to it in terms of how everyone's sort of what they value in terms of investment, some money is shaped by where they grow up and what their influence is there. So my grandfather very famously, I've heard about him.

He never cared about money. So he had a sort of saying in Malayalam, which went like, panantra, man, as money is like grass. Even if you try to put it on my head, I will do a headstand and make sure it leaves you, because it's a pointless kind of thing. So from there, mine sort of invested and started way later compared to when I started down.

At least I think probably eight, 10 years later than it should have. And then I think now I've reached the stage where at least I know what is what. And like you said, it should be mandatory reading for us to be going up because you think that there is nothing to wait and stuff like that. And compounding is obviously one thing that is vastly underestimated when you start up.

But I think my single thing that I remember from this book, which I've taken away, I'm not even sure if it's from this book, is that the only way to remain wealthy is to make sure that your tastes are expensive. Needs are always below what you want. And that is as much of a philosophical lesson as it is a investment lesson to say, it doesn't matter what you do. You will remain wealthy as long as your tastes are below what you want.

And I found it very fascinating because I always have a very objective view about a car or the drink that you have or anything like that. It's a mistake if I'm pointing to me. Recently, comfortably, but don't do it for the brand where you want to think that. Or I'm perfectly happy even now drinking gold month because what other prices it by any way.

So I think it is from this book. But that basically took me a lot to say. The only way to remain wealthy is to sort of face it, not as expensive as you would be. Yeah.

Actually, let me start with the second thing that you said. The exact quote is a brilliant one. And you are absolutely right. This book is as much a philosophical book as it is how to, I would say how to get rich, but rather how to be wealthy over the long term, I suppose, and the sums are not boring.

The exact line is saving money is the gap between your ego and your income, which I think is such a beautifully phrased line. And everything that you said actually fits in quite nicely. He goes on to give several examples of people from his personal life and other people who were the best examples. He was an Indian origin person who grew up in the slums of Calcutta, went on to become very big, I think it was, he went on to become a fabulous identity and then he kind of went to a very big graduate group.

And he became super greedy and then he lost everything and was not spending time in jail. So his point over there was, hey, listen, you've already gone. That's why he risked everything for what is moderate evil. So he has a way of phrasing these very nicely and conveying them in very deep lines that stay in your head.

The first thing actually that you said is really about compounding. I suppose that's one of the things that I definitely want to speak about, especially with Mary, who has a few more years compared to us on this matter. And one of the quotes that he's put over here, is a well-known stat about Warren Buffett, but it's just both reiterating it. Just to show the crazy wonder that is compounding.

As I write this, Warren Buffett's net worth is 84.5 billion. Out of that 84.2 billion was accumulated after his 50th birthday. 81.5 billion came after he qualified for social security in his mid 60s. And the point he made over here was that Warren started investing when he was 10 or 11 or something like that.

The money he made from a lemonade stall or something and this investment thing really started from there. So pointy's making no matter how it started early because that $1 back then they do a lot more right now. So yeah, compounding, let's talk about the magic of compounding with respect to money, I suppose, or even relationships. We were talking about this on the show many times before, but Mary and I just specifically won't try to mean over here.

So the problem or the thing about compounding is this, right? It happens even when you are not doing anything. And most of us, we have a bias for action. We have to be doing something.

We have this inbuilt understanding that you cannot make money unless you work for it. And the thing is that actually you can. And that is why you need to take advantage of things like compounding. You know, like, I mean, everywhere in the world, including in India, the stock market has outperformed every other investment class by miles, every other asset class by miles.

I mean, just gold, real estate, nothing compares. And people can't get over that. I actually even in real estate, it's compounding that world. So you buy a piece of real estate and you expect to grow.

It's frustratingly zero growth for many, many years. And all of a sudden it grows a lot. So that's compounding. Yeah, I strongly agree.

But I do know and I've been in my life, I've had many, many occasions where I've chosen to put money into my business instead of into passive investments. Because I had this bias for action. And I don't think I have underperformed the market by a lot. And I invested that amount of money in the market.

I would probably have made a lot more money. But it would have required me to just sit tight. So that is something that people can't get you. So I'm talking about talking from the point of view of an entrepreneur.

If you're working somewhere, I guess it's a lot. I've never really had a serious job other than the first two or three years that I've worked for the Tatas. And so I don't know what it's like to be the recipient of a monthly salary. But yeah, this is the right.

That's an important point. Because I think if I'm not mistaken, it's a first book of a chapter that says nobody's in India. Nobody is making a irrational decision at least in their own mind. Somebody might be buying a stock or an instrument which you think is stupid.

But it makes complete sense in that person's head. Coming to your point of action that you took might be completely rational for you. But it might be completely irrational from the point of view of say, a hardcore day trader for instance, saying that why you're letting this grow or something. So I think one of the takeaways from that was like everybody's situation.

You don't really know what they're going through and all that. And hence, Tony's point. It's a very much not a topical book that I guess. I think his raising is reasonable is more important than rational.

Yeah. Yeah. I think this is nice. It's especially one sort of just to put in.

Yeah. So one point I just wanted to draw on what Narayan said. And I think it's a very important takeaway from that in the compounding angle is that is the action fallacy, your action bias, so to speak. Like I think that is a very important, I mean, it's a very important point as far as the psychology of money or any of the other things that are concerned because there is, I mean, in human life itself, there is a bias that if you are working hard, then you are, if you are doing something, if you are working hard, then it will be dividends in some way or the other.

But that's not how money works. Right. It doesn't work when you work hard behind it. You can potentially earn just as much if you like let it be and in fact more if you let it be.

Because that's why, in fact, if you look at some of the people instruments also that come with finance, like for example, the derivatives instruments, right. The derivatives instruments, which are like, for example, you're basically betting that a stock will go to X point or Y point. That's why majority of the money goes. Like saying that we'll get a stock will go X or Y.

But the majority of money is made when you say the stock will not go anywhere and say here. Right. So that's why, so 80% of the options that are created about stock movement actually expire worthless because of the fact that the stock doesn't go anywhere. So actually, the bias is always towards the money towards the stock price and the distinct staying relatively still or sideways rather than actually going like making extreme leaps anywhere.

So everything moves a little slower than human thought and human action does. So actually having like very, really certain actions and taking like certain decisions. While if I make a feel good, we are doing heavy actions, it is actually counterproductive to our money works. Yeah, 100%.

And I think he does a lot of analysis of stocks itself. Like one thing is he just zoom out over a point of time. I mean, the graphs, all of them do go up. I remember one of the pages he had just a stock market graph of the Nasdaq or Dow Jones or whatever.

It was from the 1930s all the way up to 2020 to whenever he wrote it over. Obviously completely up. And he said, would you believe that in this time there were two world wars? So many people died.

This happened. This happened. I mean, basically this time. All the seismic events that happened.

And he says, despite all of this over a long period of time, things do go up. So he literally litters the book with a lot of anecdotes, like this, and a lot of quotes of wisdom. So I gave you the Warren Buffett one, another one that he quotes related to compound interest, with Charlie Munger, who inspired Warren Buffett or was Warren Buffett, which of the two? He got lemonade from Warren.

Oh, he said, compounding is magical. Don't interrupt it. Or the worst thing about compounding is interrupting. Or something else.

I had to do a good job, that kind of thing. And one final thing I remember, again, on the power of compounding. He writes a story of this man called Ronald Reed. And he was an unremarkable man.

He was a janitor in local school. And beloved by all, et cetera. And he worked there for decades. And then he died at the age of 92.

His family was surprised to find out that his bank balance was $8 million. And that was purely because he accumulated money slowly. He didn't have too many flash. He's supposed to point to making a seat.

He doesn't need a fancy job or outside return. So he wants the investment strategy. And he just needs to be consistent, trust compounding. And you know, leave it alone more often than you do anything.

Sorry? Leave it alone more often. Yeah, leave it alone. Yeah, that's pretty much it.

Just put it somewhere and forget about it. Yeah. Another thing that I took out from there, which I kind of really liked was what seems rational. Might not necessarily always be the best thing to do.

And I see a lot of this, especially with respect to debates on housing. In fact, our Deepak Shevai today had posted a nice long heat on this. He's like, this rent versus buy business has been going on for a really long time. And I think he just broke it.

He just put it very simply. Listen, if it's a fiscal decision for you, it's a no-brainer. But if it's an emotional decision, many people who buy a house don't do it because it's, unless of course they're buying house for real, for investment purposes completely different. It's not the most financially sound decision.

But let's face it, the fact that you're buying a house, it means a lot psychologically, which you can't really quantify to money. And you might have some quirks or some wants like that, which for which you might be willing to pay a price. You might be willing to pay over what the market is demanding, as long as you get a lease of mine for something. I used to do one thing.

I still do one thing, which a lot of my friends who are envious and finance sneered me for. Which is I try to maintain a zero credit card balance, no matter which time of the month it is. The conventional business is no, you should max it out on the end of the month and then accumulate. I don't give a shit.

I get anxious if the outstanding amount is more than $5,000. So I try to clear it up as much as possible, as soon as possible, possibly using some credit or whatever, whatever points or whatever shit that might be. But that is my little thing. And I completely resonated with doing something irrational and medium expensive.

Because what the tables and what the graphs say is rational might not be the best or right thing. What do you guys think about that? So just on the, actually, when I said Facebook, it was a rationale. I was about to bring up the whole Bible's length.

And just to tie it back to the other thing that he says, which is I think that depending on when you were born and what the market was like at that time, you're the rest of your business and decisions all over it. So my only current with the whole Bible's rent argument is that one, money is fungible, the house is not. I think the fractional I compare to a car, which is not the greatest example. Because the car you drive today is not the real car you drive four years from the top or five years from the top.

The house you buy unfortunately is stuck with it unless you're very fond of dealing in a lot of people working doing this and that and the other. And the bigger reason, I'm sort of, again, people say, why is it anybody missing? But it's really not. It's that we've grown up in an era where parents have forced us into a lot of things.

Like we are probably not engineers by design, whatever. I mean, no offense to them. They do have a completely different era from where we are doing up now. And at their sort of time, housing was very cheap and was like a rational place to put money into it.

And they sort of forced this decision upon you. Like after you're done next number of things in your 30 or 35, the next thing they'll do is buy a house because that's what they did. And that is what a problem is to say, have you evaluated it for yourself? Because being stuck with an EMI for 30 years is unfortunately not a reversible sort of thing that you can do.

And therefore, in my own experience, I spent 10 years in Mumbai and I moved at least six flats. Two or three times with the owner's sole of flat. But mostly because I sort of felt that as my family grew, our needs changed that we needed a bigger place, et cetera. So it depends on a lot of things.

But what I'm fundamentally against is the idea that there is sort of one fool proof investment strategy for 100 years, like that's never the case. And being like the person giving you advice is not the person who will be stuck with the decision for the rest of their life, therefore probably evaluated for yourself. So that's what I sort of net out on the buy was the rent thing, but I'm sure it's like a very sort of emotionally charged decision for the longest time. You know, Charlie Munger said, never to interrupt compounding, but we must interrupt this episode because it's time for a little break and we need to catch our bets.

So just a little bit and catch you on the other side. It feels like everyone's talking about two things right now, pickleball and podcast. So what happens when someone who's lived her whole life on the court decides to bring those two girls together? I'm Sanya Mizam and I'm bringing you a brand new podcast, serving it up with Sanya.

I've had some incredible conversations with friends, fellow athletes, artists and entrepreneurs. Each episode starts with a game of pickleball and once the rallies are done, the real talk begins. Serving it up with Sanya, watch and listen on YouTube and wherever you get your favorite podcast. Namaste, sashir kal, bhut marning evening afternoon.

My podcast is Sanya Says, where no guest, no topic and no filter say from Father Brochar. That's me, Monday to Friday, Saturday Sunday night. Without kicks. We chat with celebs, you'll never meet traffic jams on streets and people from all professions.

Every one day I go live with the show, ask me anything, you tell the questions, I know I'm better than a Mumbai rich at rival. I even host a panel discussion called Cocking Bull, where we dive into current affairs and wonder why anyone even cares at all. And Friday releases all the surprise episodes for you all. So tune into Sanya Says on YouTube and all of your streaming platforms.

And now back to the conversation on money with the Certified Gang. And not just emotionally charged, I think I was kind of confronted with a similar decision recently for my parents, really because my parents moved down and they moved to the thing. And from there, I mean, all the conventional, I mean, I would say conventional is in all the modern, is conventional, not the modern, but modernism would suggest that they would be better for renting for like the next sociable future as I mean considering their life stage and all that stuff. And that made a lot of sense to me.

In fact, I probably put down all those points and me to the arguments to them and all that stuff. But then I evaluated from the perspective of like, what is the cultural and the life stage, psychology at that particular point of time. I just realized this, I just recall this recently when we were doing, my parents do this donation which I every year, right? And in that they have this old recording of this content like since they've digitized it and put it on a picture and now that guy like does a movie or whatever, we put it in the same.

And there's one part where he says that the question is asked by the Puja, Puja is asking questions to the people who are doing it. And he's like, is this your own house? Because then I'll do like this additional Puja and all that stuff. And then we do the whole Puja, recording here and all that stuff.

And I've seen that every time like that question is asked and my parents are always on the Puja in their own house always like when they were in the bar, then now they're buying all those like there's almost like a sparkle in there because having your own house from the culture that they come from, their background they come from, it's a huge thing, right? It's like a one in life, right? Like you've got your own house, this is your own place, like you own this place and all that stuff. So while a lot of things being made sense, like financially, growth wise, flexibility wise, a lot of things didn't make sense.

I was like, especially with the life stage. And then I re-valued in my own like life stage psychology questions. I was like, and there life stage the satisfaction of being able to be in your own house, actually it sounds everything else. So all the financial and practice decisions can go to one side, especially when it comes to India.

And saying this applies across multiple life stages, right? Like the whole thing about going out there and answering the question of whether you're in your own house or someone else's house or you're renting all the time, because you're not so-to-speak settled in India until you've got your own house, right? So yeah, so I mean, I'm quoting Roan Jhoshin, that is like, what are you meant to settle? But yeah, so yeah, but yeah, that's exactly how a lot of Indians are like, what's the other side?

I think it is, I mean, while we are used to stuff about it and feel like, oh, people need to be more pragmatic, I feel like there is, I think we need, I mean, I've softened the age in some way and I felt like, I think we need to account for these things because it is, I mean, money is a tool for life, right? And if your life itself, you're saying, I'm going to suspend all those things I like for making more pragmatic decisions, I don't think it makes sense there. You have to make non- pragmatic decisions to continue in your life, otherwise like, I mean, pragmatic, we should all be dead. Yeah.

This is where you go to the planet, that's the rule of it. That's changed, it's not functional, but it's three more something. It's a very much, that's a brilliant observation. That's a brilliant observation.

Now, by the way, I hope it makes it three, it makes it three into summary, realistic, brief, for the other sparkly in your parents. I went to the point to G, asked this is your house, what a brilliant observation. Everyone who's not on the advertising world, there are insights and observations like that are what end up being epic. That's not such a large, that's not such a big thing.

Yeah, it's not a big thing. You've been sitting silently, but possibly these questions have been migrating in your head for being the most primary other state of all of us. No, I mean, my dad built this house, so I had little to do with it, you know, I'm just out of the beneficiary. What I wanted to talk about is what Tony mentioned, about, you know, your needs or your wants, being modest or keeping your needs or want modest, being the best way to do any kind of financial planning.

Because, so there is this, also I think we've discussed this on the podcast before, this mimetic desire thing, right? So a lot of our desires come from the fact that we feel obliged to compete with our fellow, you know, fellow people in our social network, right? So a lot of it is also unnecessary. Cars are the cars and houses are stellar examples.

So people like to have statement cars. Actually, these two have, we had one guy from our, you know, NBA batch, who had this big thing about, and so he came to one of these alumni needs, back in the day wearing a Rolex. And everyone obviously noticed, and everyone had a tacit arrangement, not to notice the Rolex, I'm not to talk about it. And I kept going, not slide, he kept slooping and watch, he kept talking about the time.

And finally, my hand is failing, he was. Yeah, and eventually, and I know people are very heartless, including me. So we finally forced him to tell everybody that boss I got a Rolex. Somebody said, oh, I thought it was a Casio.

And I was like, I'm kidding, I'm kidding. So you can imagine the pain, this guy spent a lot of money. He was earning more or less what anyone else was earning. He's crowned, he saved up his money, and instead of putting it to any other possible user, he was able to buy a Rolex.

So that his friends could go wow. And his friends being his friends, refused to do, given him even that pleasure. So you need to identify those pleasures and not invest in them. So by the way, there are at least four characters like your friend as a character in the book, like a full of anecdotes of people.

So like, obviously, everyone's like different levels of pragmatic and have different vices. Like, thanks for you. One of mine is not like the greed for money per se. But my vices are, yeah, I'm not gonna tell you this question.

You have to write it in sometimes. Have you heard of this? Why is of the vice-aprural? Have you heard about it?

I'm gonna do it. So there's a naval joke. So what are the vices of the vice-aprural? The rear of the rear-aprural.

That's fine. Oh, you. Yeah. Super.

Yeah. No, so I'm saying like, I'm pragmatic to a different degree. I can't irritate any time I go to my parents' house or any any house that's like that. They would never have taken off a sticker that came along with the TV.

Oh, God. That's a plastic cover and all that. And I see it immediately a bit of like, I get so annoyed because like you bought this thing to you. You say, you know, why do you keep it like, it's supposed to be a real value.

Yeah. No, no, no, no. But no, this is actually really funny in that way. That, you know, like, there's actually a lesson about money which I kind of like learnt and internalized through funnily through poker.

Where in poker, there's a concept of saying that you need to look at the chips on your table, not as representing money, but they are the tools which you pay the game. Right. And so you have to like, you have to use those tools unless you use the tools properly and you use, I mean, you use the tools effectively and unless you use them, you're not going to get ahead. And if you hold tools, it's not use having a tool box full of like a shed full of like unnecessary excess tools, which you're not going to do anything with.

Right. So the point is you have to keep them always in use and you have to kind of keep moving them. And if you lose them, that's the game, that's part of the bet is how it works. But unless you bet something, you're not going to get anything.

Right. So, so I mean, using that philosophy, I mean, and I spent some time examining like how Western cultures, how money works in Western cultures versus Indian cultures in some way or other. Like in India, culturally, we're terrified of debt. Right.

Like we are so terrified of debt as a concept that everybody's like, oh, if I mean, he kind of like, almost, I mean, I don't know exactly the psychology way to do maybe OCD, but just to some extent, like the credit card will have you like wanting to pay it off, like once it hits like a certain level, it comes from, yes, they might be able to do it, but it also comes from a historical angle of I don't want to accumulate this debt when I have liquidity to pay it off. Right. So there is a lot of like that attitude is very strong there. But conversely, like investment culture is debt is just like a part of life.

Like you live with debt. People can like have good sound nights or sleep with like being extraordinary amounts of debt. Right. So I think there's a good balance between, I mean, understanding both these cultures and like having the background of not humiliating unnecessary debt, but also understanding that debt is a tool which can help you like go get ahead and life.

It's a great like balance that you require, but we can't, that's why knowing how money works in different cultures is a really big, it's a big advantage because then you get to like understand and use the best of both cultures because in India, again, the thing with, like, I still remember this, I was having a conversation with my father about something and like when the pandemic happened and a bunch of like stocks crashed and all that, he was, I mean, if he was left to his devices, he would have literally like withdrawn all his money and put it inside a shoe box and put it under his bed. Right. Like that was where the psychology, when he's like, oh my God, this market is one thing, I, all my harden money will go away like a scenario versus like the other people are like, oh, this is the full opportunity to just form all the money in here and put it all like a lot of people did with Bitcoin. Right.

And so there needs to be a balance between those ideologies and like the more you learn about money works in different cultures, the more like culture your overall understanding of how money can work. I actually slightly, I hardly disagree with that. Because like, one of the things is that like Warren Buffett has 85 billion dollars. So what?

Like we'd be any happier if he had like one billion dollars. Right. So a lot of people, he's like, I'm happy I've lost 84 billion dollars. But anyway, I mean, I didn't have it to start up, but it would be like, I'm losing.

I think I have it to be with my industry. Yeah. So so my sort of thing is that like, you need to understand that there are also forces that play that want you to, you know, stainless work because they will get you a winning initially so that you sit the whole night and lose everything in you. Right.

So I always think that, I mean, again, personal advice here is that you should only invest that amount of wealth that is disposable. Like if you want to get something now and you feel good about it, don't put it off. Because like, I think again, sort of another sort of learning from my parents has been, they invested a lot in real estate. It was a great thing to do at that time.

Right. But my dad was still struggling to sell off the land that he bought way back in like 18, nine or something like that. And I'm like, you know, like there is no need for you to sort of have gone to this for your future generations because the opportunities that you present us with are much more tremendous. I rather you enjoy this money where you were like, so there's both of the aspects.

One is that never is, you know, invest more than disposable income. Like I think like taking net to invest like the worst thing that I have to do. And also like sort of realize, you know, what do you really need at the end of the day? Among you are best in control of the needs that you are evolving or will have and stuff like that.

Yeah, but I mean, I mean, I just express myself completely wrongly or whatever. But I think we're completely in alignment. That's exactly what I'm trying to say. But anyway, go on.

Yeah. But nothing goes. You're saying something? Yeah.

So I just wanted to chipping with an anecdote which also what I can do it what Tony was saying about investing experiences rather than material things because there is a lot to be set for experiences. The time that you have today is not going to come back. And sometimes you look at your money from the utilitarian angle, right? So money is useful in many ways.

So you have to put it to use. One of my friends told me he he bought a BMW. He bought a BMW second what I was secondhand a BMW seven series thing. And he told me that he had a choice.

He could either buy the BMW or take his family on a world tour. He chose to buy the BMW. And he says the guy who sold in the BMW, he took his family on a world tour. That puts it into perspective.

Yeah. Yeah. But there's another sort of thing, right? Which is that apparently the behavioral economics I think the other kind of one of these people are suddenly investing and they found that there is no difference in your level of happiness depending on what you want.

Except in one case, there is always one set of people who are perpetually unhappy. It is lottery winners. When you get like a one time big payoff and then you sort of change your life sale completely and then like it's not a money that you keep coming to it. So they change their life sale.

Same with like someone who buys a BMW or a Benz or something like that, like so many like running expenses and stuff like that. And that's a easy problem. Yeah. And there's also something called a hedonic treadmill.

Have you heard about hedonic? Hedonic. Hedonic. Hedonic adaptation.

Yeah. Yeah. So basically if something really good happens to you, you get really happy for a certain amount of time and then it goes back to your base level of happiness regarding how awesome that event was. Somebody could buy your company out for a billion dollars and it will be back next year roughly at that level.

Yeah. This is like what? Yeah. This is something that I was going to make the exact point is what you all are already described as the luxury to have.

Right? So it's the whole thing about being that the moment you, everything is a luxury till it's unattainable and the moment that luxury is attained, it becomes a these necessity and like something that's mundane almost like the moment. I mean, if you are, I mean, you dream of riding around in a private jet, the moment you get your private jet is just like it's another vehicle. It's not different from the cycle that you want.

Right? So, I mean. Yeah. You add to the, the hedonic treadmill that you were talking about in this other fantastic point, a fantastic concept that I came across on some part of the type of the most likely that inference was.

Have you heard of the dopamine baseline? I don't know if I was talking about this on the show before. Yeah. I have heard.

Yeah. So basically what happens is when this explains the lottery phenomenon quite well, this is the higher your dopamine spikes up because of an outside activity like the father down it will crash. So your baseline actually reduces. Right?

So when you have that outside, think of it almost like glucose. Right? You have had a lot of sugar to get it. Yeah.

It feels amazing. Yeah. All right. And then it crashes back.

So in effect, you are actually left saddled than you were when you started. And the broader point that he was making was regulate that dopamine so that your overall satisfaction becomes higher rather than the peaks of happiness that's coming. But I think that's another show for another. But I mean, what happens when you do hypothers, one goes and one goes and one goes down.

Yeah. And goes down even both. But I think this is one big, what you're talking about right now, I think it's one huge point that comes out in not just this book, but several others as well. And definitely something I've been thinking about as I go older and myself, which is the end of the week.

That's not necessarily what the money gets you. It is, I think Shri K. Both you and I are very, very aware of the fact that you can have a decent amount of fun on a salary which is not all that much. And I actually think that I think the period that shaped my approach to money was actually when I just started working in Bombay.

It wasn't a very great time because I graduated back in the middle of the recession and we had to take much lower salaries than our seniors were getting and whatever juniors ended up getting as well. And with all the, with Bombay rent and the, what you call the thing, education, don't hang over. And it meant that I had a grand total of around $5,000 a month as discretionary income that we tried to do for enjoying and all the other. And I stretched that $5,000.

I was very proud of the fact that for about a year and a half I was able to stretch that go for gigs and go for a trek. So whatever with that little amount of money. And I think that point of time, I was like, hey, you know what? $5,000 is how it takes really for me to be happy in the city.

I think that time was very important for me because I was also like, oh no, I need to have a salary of whatever 80, 90 lakhs site out of these who if I have to enjoy the life that was promised to me. And you know, those few months actually, those two years rather, but I mean, you know, not really, that's not the case. And I still feel that way even though things have changed drastically from that. But yeah, I think that half point of time is a temporary lifestyle.

I think it's important. So I'm not right. Have I told the story of Joseph Heller and Kurt Vonnegut? Yeah.

I think you have a number of days. Yeah. And it's been this book also by the exact anecdote. I was like, oh, boy, if you talk about something quite nice, you're probably going to talk about it.

Okay. So then I will tell you, I will talk about a poem written by Ogden. I like Jack GPT for Eric Kurtz. I know.

I mean, I have to read it out. I remember parts of it, but not fully. So I just read it out. It goes like this.

In far away to it, the loser, he got no papa. He got no mama. He got no wife. He got no chillin.

He got no use of penicillin. He got no soap. He got no opera. He don't know, he got no songs.

He got no banter. He don't know hope. He don't know. He got no teeth.

He got no gums. Don't eat no spam. Don't eat no tums. He love to nick him when he shave.

He also got no hair to save. Got no discussion. No, no, no distinction. No clear head.

Don't call for Calvert drink milk instead. He use no lotions for allurens. He got no car, no insurance, no alsop warning, no piers and rumor for this self-centered, non-consumer. Indeed, the ignorant have not.

Don't even know what he don't got. If you will mind the box stops, I think I'll go and join that llama. So, I'm not a real natural, more serious poem. Yeah, that's it.

But he also has another one, right? I need to sort of bring up. But I'll give you the llama. You know what?

I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure.

I'm not sure. You know, I'm not sure. I'm not sure. But I'll give you the llama.

You know what? Why? Yeah. Why, why?

Why? Why? Why? Why?

Why? Why? Why? Why?

Why? Why? Why? Why?

Why? Why? Why? Why?

Why? Why? Oh, yes. Why?

Why? It's like, it's a very good one. But I think another aspect of this book talks about a lot is luck versus risk rate. And I think that's also sort of what I'm talking about.

I think there's a story of this day who shorted the market when it was as it was about to crash and you meet like 100 million, some crazy amount like that. And he assumed that he was the most brilliant trader on it. Yeah, this was just the last for the greater pressure if I remember. Yeah.

And then kept making like better of a bit and losing money versus I mean, versus the, I mean, this is the one great depression guy. This is the story of all those middle class retail investors who are bought during the COVID results. Right, because like for a year, anything you put money in was growing by 20%, right? And at that point, and that's the bulk of the retail investors who are now stuck with terrible IPOs and building a whole bunch of stock of like certain wallets and all that stuff, which are completely worthless.

If we had this one, they had effectively stuck with their money in the market because for a year they had that thing that, oh, because I'm such a great investor, I'm growing everywhere, but didn't realize that it was just like the market was on its way up. So I mean, they're entire resurgence of what they call the Indian investor resurgence. Basically, it's just a market of phenomenon where everyone was getting money no matter what. No, I think like here's some great quotes, because it's psychology for anything.

I'll read one out. Basically, some people are born into families that encourage education, others are against it. Some are born into flourishing economies, encouraging of entrepreneurship, others are born into war and destitution. I want you to be successful and I want you to earn it, but realize that not all success is due to hard work and not all poverty is due to racism.

Keep this in mind when judging people, including yourselves. And you also, as I said, be careful who you've raised and admire, be careful who you looked down upon and wish to avoid becoming. But just be careful when assuming that 100% of outcomes can be attributed to effort and decisions. And I think that is probably a very valuable thing.

Everything in life has been on. No, and that's also something which, I mean, I know it can be criticized as overly woke and just like a world of service, but the one thing that's happening a lot, which I've noticed around here, like there's a lot of like homelessness in the city in Toronto where I am right now, there's a lot of people who live either on sub-mations and stuff like that, right? And the important thing is that, I mean, the one thing that's become a huge movement right now is just not called people homeless, because when you call someone homeless, that's like, this is who they are, it's part of their identity. So it's actually shifted to saying these people are experiencing homelessness, right?

So these people experiencing homelessness, I know it's just seeing different terminologies like just lip service, but I think it's an important fact to kind of highlight that aspect because there are people who experience homelessness from time to time, like we saw, I mean, if you've seen the movie, the post-op happiness, right? So there are people who can experience homelessness from time to time, but they don't become homeless. They are not like, that's not part of their identity. Yeah, this is homelessness, especially in America is very beautiful.

It is just you miss one rent, you lose your job and firing Americans companies, it's a way of life in America. It's a way of life in America. You can't really get your, yeah. And for people who haven't had the, you know, where with all to plan for the future, it means instant destitution.

So, there are some people who just can't like it. They're giving paycheck to each other. That's exactly the same thing. That's the industry.

It goes back to what Tony said, right? I mean, a lot of life is really dependent on that. And I would append that quote that he just gave it. Of course, I mean, I'd have to do my one Scott the Aloey quote to the episodes thing over here.

That's not your failure, it's your fault. Yeah. That was another very nice way to say, kind of like a scene, kind of like a scene. Yeah.

And other quote that I want, and possibly we should wind down the episode with the big insight and think that we'd be talking about this for an hour. Is I think the biggest takeaway from, I mean, if I were to distill down this entire book into one line, it's this very nice quote, money's greatest interestic value, and this can't be overstated. It's ability to give you control over time. And ultimately, I think that's really what matters.

I have seen, I have felt this as a free answer a lot, although I didn't think of it from a money point of view, necessarily, when I made a transition from being employed to doing this, for me, what I realized I ended up valuing the most was actually the fact that I have complete control over my time. Complete control, actually. Control over time, control over who I work with, control over the kind of vote I take up. And the ability to just say, screw this, I have enough money in the bank, to go away for two months or something like that.

No, I mean, but additionally, also, just to add to that, and having feelings for a bit myself, it's also the ability to control your work environment. Like the way you treat it, the way the people you work with, the way you set the terms of how your employment will be, and how you conduct your business. I think that's a huge, there's a huge freedom, which is quite underrated, especially among Indians. So at least three people.

So no, no, that's about it. I think that's the last point I really wanted to make. If I say anything more, it's just like you're going to be, I think people just bite the book and read this really easily. It's just about, I think it'll take like four hours or something, that's really about it.

And it's very entertaining. It's actually quite light as well. Only any other final closing thoughts since you're the core leader from the story. I think we've covered a lot of it.

I think at the end of the day, earlier we were having a discussion around how people appreciate food and what is best and what is best and what is best. And basically, I think it's similar, right? Like I've grown up eating, like Pala Puma chicken curry, kappa and fish curry fruit breakfast. So far, I mean to appreciate it, which is really a lot of effort.

So give me a voice a little bit of food. And it's exactly the same for money as well. What gives you joy or happiness may or may not cost money. And what sort of, how you invest it such as intrinsically personal.

So I mean, I think that's about it. We have known older advisor and better. I, before I let Tarin do his usual thing, the first time I came across the bike, I don't want to tell you guys about it. The first time I came across his book was actually on a Twitter thread about your back.

Where one guy had uploaded the pirate PDF version of this. I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. I don't know, I don't remember. I just put it up inside.

This is a best-selling book psychology of money. If you want, you can get it from here. I'm going to be in the money pack, Morgan Housel. And Morgan Housel replied to that saying, why did you think that tagging me would be a good idea?

And then the poster replied saying, listen, do you want the book for free or not? LAUGHTER It's just that I was like, I don't know who this guy is, but I'm going to bite this book. Just try to get back to the point. I'm glad I did that.