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Our parents love to invest in FDs?
Because an assured return is better than the volatility of stocks.

What if the market tanks?

These are several reasons why people invest their hard earned money in safe assets. Unmindful of the costs of inflation and taxes, thereby making their returns almost negligible.

When you are young, you have more time and less responsibilities.
So you can afford what most adults dread: risk.

Because you have little to lose.
And a lot more to gain.

When young, don’t park your time and money in fixed deposits!

A lot of founders write in to me:
“Hi Ankur, please find my pitch deck for your feedback.”

Or, another set of emails I get is:
“Hi Ankur, please find my resume for relevant positions with you.”

Why do they believe I would open the attachment, read the entire document, and think over all the places where I could help them?

What if there was a specific email such as: 

“Hi Ankur, I am a video editor, here is my work. Here is one of your videos that I have actually edited. I feel that I can help you. Do you have an internship for me because I really want to learn from you.”

That is how you have helped the other person by being specific in your ask.

Help people help you by being specific in your ask.

When you are deciding what to do after school, college matters more than the course.
What you learn will have far less impact than the people you spend your time with.

However, when you are building a product and shipping it, your college doesn’t matter at all.

The market decides the fate of the product, and it doesn’t care whether you went to the Ivy League College or the one no one knows about.

Your college matters: while gaining education.
It doesn’t: while shipping out your product.

If we take too much risk, what if you don’t succeed at all?
If we do not take risks at all, did we actually live?

Here’s a risk reward statement that is applicable in almost every aspect of life: 

More risk, more reward. And vice versa. 

Risk and failure is a state of mind.
We create them.
So we can destroy them too.

By 31 December 2024, I’ll have ?X in my bank account.

We’ve all set these kinds of goals at some point of time in our lives, haven’t we?
When we set goals, we commit ourselves to reach a place, which we may or may not reach.

When we build systems or create habits, those routines become a part of our identity. 

These systems make you the person for whom it is possible to achieve those goals in the first place.

There’s nothing wrong in setting goals, except that they make us feel hollow when we get there; whereas habits fulfil us a bit more each day.

Setting habits is the easiest (and perhaps the quickest) way to reach your goals.

When we are in our 20s, we want to achieve our goals fast.

Everyone seems sorted.
Only you seem to be going through this mess called your life.

It’s quite easy to be driven by the race instead of finding joy amidst the journey.
To always be looking at the next step, instead of what the current one is blessing us with.

The best learning happens with ease and slow pace.

You have the time, even if you don’t think so.
You do.

You want to get there eventually. There is little value in getting there fast. 

Elon Musk is a genius.
He has created his own orbit (pun intended).
Not only that, he’s widely successful at that.

But, what is the real reason behind his success?

His unique idea? His leadership style? His tweets?
It’s courage.

Courage to launch the satellite seventh time after failing six times.
Courage to support himself when no one else did.
Courage to take the punch in the face as a gear to move forward.

Failure is inevitable.

But every success in life is a direct function of how courageous we were after failing.

Sir Isaac Newton’s discoveries changed the world.
Forever.

Once inquired about the secret of his success, he said that he stood on the shoulders of giants.

According to Newton, there had been a lot of people to direct him, inspire him, help him – which led to his success.

Imagine being one of the greatest contributors to science and being grateful for the help he received throughout.

Humility is power.
A power that doesn’t get to your head and still keeps you moving forward.

To rise higher, there’s just one golden law: To never get your feet off the ground.

We have all made a big mistake at some point.
A mistake so big, that we couldn’t believe ourselves.

Yet, with time and self-reflection, we forgive ourselves. 

We move on.

Then how is it that we do not forgive someone else when they make a big mistake?

Why are our standards of acceptance very hard for others, while very easy to percolate for us?

What stops us from forgiving others?

Forgiving others must come as easy as it comes to our own selves.

When we meet someone, we talk to them respectfully.
That, however, isn’t true respect.

It is built by choosing how we define the other person, when they are not around.

True respect is respecting someone even when we are not in front of them.