Just a few fast updates from Safal Niveshak HQ:
Particular Anniversary Reductions:
🎁 The Sketchbook of Knowledge & Boundless: Now accessible at discounted costs for a restricted time:
🎁 Mastermind Worth Investing membership: ₹3000 off for brand new members. Click on right here to hitch now.
🎁 Worth Investing Almanack publication: ₹3000 off on the annual plan. Click on right here to hitch now.
Offline Workshops:
Be part of me in-person (in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, or Mumbai) for a day of deep studying, reflection, and conversations round worth investing and life. Click on right here for particulars and registration.
New On-line Masterclass – The Artwork of Valuation:
A 3-hour stay session on decoding intrinsic worth and studying how nice buyers take into consideration worth vs. price. Click on right here for particulars and registration.
Fourteen years in the past, after I began Safal Niveshak, I didn’t actually know what I used to be doing. Truthfully, it was extra of a coronary heart determination than a head one. I didn’t have a enterprise mannequin or monetary projections. I simply knew I wished to jot down, educate, and determine issues out alone phrases.
However even and not using a plan, I used to be nonetheless wired like most individuals. And so, I stored questioning: “What’s going to this get me?” What number of readers? How a lot earnings? What kind of recognition? The reality is, I’ve spent a few years chasing that query. Generally quietly, and typically desperately.
And that’s the place I stored tripping. That one query, “What will this get me?” sounds innocent on the floor. Nevertheless it creeps in and begins shaping each alternative you make.
Ought to I write about this? Provided that it goes viral. Ought to I launch this course? Provided that the numbers look good. Ought to I work on this e book? Provided that there’s a transparent, tangible payoff. And slowly, your work begins to lose its soul. You begin doing issues not since you really feel pulled to them, however since you’re calculating what they’ll usher in return. You cease asking what feels true and begin asking what seems to be worthwhile. And also you begin treating your personal life like a steadiness sheet.
You see, the price of solely asking “What Will This Get Me?” is that this by no means stops asking for extra.
You get the increase. Then you definately need the promotion. You get the promotion. Then you definately need the fairness. You get the next. Then you definately need the affect. You get the affect. Then you definately need the celebrity.
It’s a treadmill. Besides the treadmill isn’t damaged. It’s completely designed to exhaust you.
And the true hazard is delicate. When each challenge turns into a method to an finish, you overlook the enjoyment of doing one thing for its personal sake. You overlook what it means to create with out performing.
I’ve made this error greater than I care to confess. And each time I’ve labored from that ROI (return on funding) mindset, one thing inside me has felt a bit off. I’ve felt rushed, hole, and transactional.
The humorous factor is, a few of the finest issues I’ve accomplished, those that really introduced which means, connection, and even some success, got here to me from asking a really completely different query. And it was, “Who will this make me?”
That shift modified the whole lot for me.
Once I ask that second query, my lens modifications. I cease excited about outcomes, and I begin excited about development. And I’m not speaking about development in numbers. However development in character, in in consciousness.
So, my questions now grow to be: Am I changing into extra affected person? Am I changing into extra curious? Extra grounded? Extra beneficiant with my time and a spotlight?
Now, these are definitely more durable questions. They don’t have simple solutions. However they lead you someplace deeper. Someplace quieter.
The world pushes us to ask “what’s going to this get me?” on a regular basis. It’s in every single place. However these are momentary issues. Sure, they’re addictive. However they don’t fill you in an enduring means. What fills you is the internal data that you simply’re dwelling in alignment with who you need to be. That you simply’re working in a means that builds you, not breaks you.
I’ve seen this lesson come up in different areas too. Parenting, for instance. Once I consider my kids, I don’t simply need to educate them how to achieve success. I would like them to ask, “Who am I changing into by the alternatives I’m making?” That’s the query that builds character. That’s the query that invitations knowledge.
Or take cash itself. All of us need monetary independence. However I’ve realized that actual freedom isn’t nearly cash, however about changing into the type of one who is aware of what to do with that freedom. Somebody who doesn’t lose themselves chasing extra. Somebody who has sufficient internal quiet to know what issues.
This previous 12 months particularly, ever since I began work on Boundless, I’ve been asking this query increasingly. Earlier than beginning something new, earlier than saying sure to a collaboration, and even earlier than writing a put up, I pause and ask: If I do that, who will I grow to be? And if the reply is somebody extra anxious, extra distracted, extra pretend, then regardless of how good the chance sounds, I attempt to stroll away.
As a result of right here’s what I do know now. Life is brief. Too brief to optimise each hour and to show each challenge right into a KPI.
We don’t want extra environment friendly outputs. We want richer inputs. We want extra moments that, as Kurt Vonnegut had stated, make our soul develop, not simply feed our carefully-drawn spreadsheets.
So right here I’m, 14 years in with Safal Niveshak, nonetheless figuring issues out. But when there’s one guiding star I need to comply with going ahead, it’s this:
Don’t simply ask what this work will get me. Ask who this work will make me.
Will it make me the type of particular person I’d need to grow to be, even when nobody’s watching? Will it form my character, my voice, and my soul? And can it assist me stay a life that feels truenot simply spectacular?
As a result of if the work is altering me for the higher, that’s already the largest return on funding there may be.
And that, my pal, is greater than sufficient.
Safal Niveshak has been nearly a one-person, self-funded initiative, and I anticipate to maintain it this fashion. For me, true freedom has by no means lied within the liberty to do no matter I would like, however within the liberty to not do what I don’t want. Wanting again at these 14 years, I’m pleased with holding on sturdy to that concept.
I have to thanks, pricey reader, for studying, for commenting, to your curiosity and assist, for serving to this complete motion of making wiser buyers grow to be better and unfold wider. You’re magnificent, and I’m supremely grateful to your time and a spotlight.
Simply in case Safal Niveshak has touched your life, I’d be completely satisfied and honoured to learn your ideas within the Feedback part of this put up.
Thanks once more for being right here and supplying the gas of motivation to assist me proceed my stroll. I appear to have come a good distance, and I take inspiration from Dr. Seuss who wrote in Oh, the Locations You’ll Go! –
You’re off to Nice Locations!
At present is your day!
Your mountain is ready,
So… get in your means!
– Vishal
P.S. Loads has occurred in these 14 fast years. I’ve revealed greater than 1,900 posts on the positioning. After adjusting for inactive readers, the Safal Niveshak tribe stays sturdy at 75,000 subscribers to the free publication – The Journal of Investing Knowledge.
Aside from that, over these years, greater than 15,000 individuals have subscribed for programs like Mastermind, and different worth investing masterclasses. I additionally restarted the Worth Investing Almanack publication this 12 months.
Additionally, my e book – The Sketchbook of Knowledge – which I self-published in 2021, offered its 6500th copy this 12 months (get your copy right here). This 12 months, I revealed my second e book, Boundless, that has additionally acquired an exquisite reception.
The One % Present, which I launched in June 2021, has benefited from some wonderful friends like Manish Chokhani, Prof. Sanjay Bakshi, Arnold Van Den Berg, Man Spier, Mohnish Pabrai, Morgan Housel, William Inexperienced, and Leander Paes, amongst many others.
The Inside Sport podcast that I launched final 12 months, is on a run of its personal. I simply revealed my 102nd episode.