#Note Counting Machine Importers in Mumbai

[polzkadotz]

Asas reread their fics - ftayc - part 4

And we’re back to rereading this fic!!!! last chapter i reread was the 7k monster of chapter 3, and this one... oh. Oh, this is also 7k?

wowie

if you want a spoiler to interest you, here we go lmao

we begin with this author’s note bc I don’t think I ever really talked about it here on my tumblr???

It was sort of my first time being recommended, really. I had noticed that my hit count had gone up substantially and I couldn’t understand it, but it was nice??? and then i found the post on the library and I was like Oh. I See.

Whoever it was that recommended me, thank you. Seriously.

But enough mushy-wushy, let’s tackle this giant.

We begin with this exchange, which...

I was trying to be funny and this still makes me smile so at least I amuse myself lmao

Neil needs to free himself of the plot device I pulled out of nowhere and he taps into his reserves of power that he has hid away for, basically, forever. One thing that I wish I had made more clear, which was basically the vitriol going through my mind as I wrote this fic, was that Neil had been cutting himself of his powers and how powerful he was for a fucking long time because

1) he bought into his mom’s reasoning that his father was simply Not Someone They Could Face and Win

2) he had made himself fit into a mold that would “make him survive” but, by doing so, he basically chained himself to a fraction of the three-dimensional person he used to be, which made meeting Jean and finding out that he had become a pet god for a human even worse because Neil could see all the ways they were similar but Neil had been doing that shit to himself voluntarily.

Originally, when I thought about making Neil a god in this fic, I did think about modeling him out of an existing god but also, the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to make him be someone who was struggling with letting himself be what he was with his full-potential. Someone who had been cutting himself back for so long he had basically lost whatever sense of personhood he used to have. Someone who had started to get tired of cutting parts of himself and forgetting what he used to be so he would survive for--

What? Survive for what? Neil eventually realized he hadn’t been a person for too long and as long as his father was alive, he would never feel safe to be.

Now that I think about it, Neil was very much me working through my own shit about trying to live as myself at the same time that I had different versions of past me struggling with the person I was becoming. The person I wanted to be.

Anyway, back to the story.

There’s a throwaway paragraph where I sort of tease that Andrew’s dragon is becoming "hungry” and it was basically me trying very hard to foreshadow that the priest thing was going to happen lmao

After battling for two paragraphs against the thought of creating a new priest, Neil gets them back on track to go as far away as its possible for both dragons flying.

Nicky tries to get Neil to talk about the god thing, and I like how I made it clear that even being reminded that he had been a god was something conflicting to Neil.

And then we get to the part where Neil suddenly remembers that he has a lot more money than what he had previously said in the first few chapters, but who cares about plot consistency, am I right? Does it show that this fic was edited hastily? Because I can guarantee that it was :3

They stop in Mumbai, I think (the place is not important for past Asas and honestly... can’t say that’s changed lol). Nicky tries to get Neil to talk more about being immortal and stuff. Neil gives a bit of backstory, as a treat, and Kevin reveals what he knows, as a threat I guess lmao

I kind of imply that Neil only had one priest, which... I remember is not what I put in the sequel.............. so I do recommend you reread your fics before writing a new piece, wink-wink

OH MY GOD I MADE NICKY ASK WHY NEIL’S ENGLISH “WASN’T WEIRD” AND THEN I REPLIED WITH A SENTENCE THAT WAS BASICALLY STRUCTURED WITH PORTUGUESE GRAMMAR AND SOUNDS VERY WRONG IN ENGLISH

Asas... my god, Asas.

Anyway, after a lot of questioning, they eventually go to sleep and, when Neil wakes up from a nightmare, he has his daily fairy tale dose from Andrew, who’s also awake. I gotta be honest, I don’t even remember that fairy tale but it explains the Aaron, Andrew and Tilda.

After everybody wakes up from their naps, they go to their last destination: Tokyo.

Wait lemme check:

when did they leave Mumbai in my story?

when did they reach Tokyo?

yeah, that math totally checks out.

Whatever. As they arrive in Tokyo, Neil splurges even more money on a hotel for the whole crew, even though they had been pretty not nice to him as a whole lmao. But! The boy believed he was going to die, so what was he going to do with all that money?

Nothing, so he programmed an email to be sent to Andrew with the info for some of his bank accounts and fucked off to try and find what his mother had stolen.

Neil gets on a ferry that will take six hours to reach the island where is the volcano that his mother had made him hide his father’s immortality. Neil got nekkid because he wanted to have clothes when he got out of the volcano, you know?

(Also, yes, I’m gonna ignore the other time inconsistency from his travel inside Japan, I was very much pressured by the whole “got recommended on the library” okay, you can judge me through those lenses)

Unfortunately, for him, he wasn’t alone when he finally climbed out of the volcano.

Fortunately for him, this Ichirou Moriyama doesn’t want his father, who is very much interested in becoming immortal, to actually become immortal. Neil explains the whole immortality thingy (I found some typos and honestly? I shan’t fix them. It adds character) and Ichirou subtly kicks Neil’s clothes closer to him, which... I get it, my guy. It’s kind of difficult to have an intimidating conversation when someone’s bits are out and about.

As they are trying to hash out their problem -- as in, Neil’s father told them that Neil’s immortality would be viable to cure Kengo --, Andrew appears blowing his ball of flames onto both of them, and Neil uses his powers to create a pocket that repels the fire, so it doesn’t touch him or Ichirou.

(Why didn’t he use those powers on his clothes, as well? Dunno, don’t poke at my plot too much or it will definitely crumble right into your face, you’re gonna inhale too much dust and die from fandom toxicity, AND THAT’S NO WAY TO REACH A GOOD DEATH)

btw:

Neil, my dude. The dragon thought you were in danger? Chill out???

Neil rages for a few seconds but quickly turns that into a situation to ask Moriyama for his protection against his father, since Neil just technically saved his life.

Oh, and if you think “Uhhh, why would Neil even believe that Ichirou would keep his word?”

Don’t worry, I gotchu:

Ichirou agrees with the deal, for plot reasons. Since he got a deal out of it kind of easily, Neil thinks, “Wait a minute. If I give my father’s immortality to this Moriyama, literally passing the hot potato around, then the Moriyamas won’t be after me for an immortality, my father probably won’t be immortal and come after me as the death machine he used to be and I might be able to use it to free a certain god????”

So Neil uses his father’s immortality to bargain for Jean’s freedom, and he doesn’t wait for Moriyama’s response for that one. He simply hops onto dragon!Andrew’s back and they fly away into the... sunset? Sunrise? Don’t ask me, I clearly can’t keep track of the time passage in my fics.

And this is the end of the chapter!

Let me say something that I hope will be quick: this chapter felt much better written to me then the other three. It’s shaky in places, definitely, and it could’ve gone through a more severe round of editing, but I can certainly feel the positive outcomes of the pressure I felt after my work got a shout-out. This fic had been pretty much geared towards myself, so writing about the world-building wasn’t my focus at all in the other three chapters. In this one, I try to at least explain some concepts I came up with which???? Go me??????

I still wish I had taken the time to work on this entire fic to make it as close to what I had in my head, but in a comprehensive form for the attention that it got, you know? I mean, from the ashes you crawl is still my most everything -- most kudos, hits, comments, bookmarks...  It deserved so much better but also... I like that it feels rough? I like that it can clearly help to contrast the growth of my style or whatever?

It was written after a long, long writer’s block, and it only got edited and posted because I decided to participate in an event for a different fandom and it got me excited about writing again.

Anyway, I’ve talked too much. Here’s to hoping I can contain myself in the next posts lmao

PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3 | PART 4 | PART 5 | PART 6

[writerraj]

Quotients

Our Company President when talks in a meeting, mesmerises the audience with his fluency in English. He impresses all with his super word power & knowledge - Man with a great L(Language) Q(Quotient).

Marathi community seniors who all have had enough of Holy Dnyaneshwari reads, will know how proficient such a young Saint Dnyaneshwar could be in Marathi & et al who are non-Marathi speakers, will be bristling with perplexities for his supreme poetic proficiency – Godly human being with an all-time high LQ & S (Spiritual) Q (Quotient). Stephen Hawking & Albert Einstein had an I (Intelligence) Q(Quotient) of 160, one of the all-time high. Parents of an eleven year old girl Kashmea Wahi in London buzzing with excitement boast: My kid is smarter than Albert Einstein because she clocked IQ of 162, officially. Just do note here the use of word smarter. (*) Owner of a grocery shop in the area where I stay, is a Gujarati baniya. Although he looks insane, he is a Crorepati – know why? His has mastered money management & proliferation techniques and has an inclement business focus. He has three flats in Mumbai & a couple of more in Gujarat. His F (Financial) Q (Quotient) and B(Business) Q (Quotient) are phenomenal. One celebrity, we all know – Amitabh Bachchan. Whatever his attire, anything suits him. Undoubtedly, he has a good F(Fashion) Q (Quotient) and of course a unique personality with a magnetic & obsessive voice. Some may recall Hollywood star Morgan Freeman for such a similitude. Nidhi is very blunt & cannot get along with people, even with her mother, easily. Why? Just because her E(Emotional) Q (Quotient) is very low. Two brothers Viraj & Anuj, both are diametrically opposite in nature. Viraj likes to associate with people & socialise. Not the case with Anuj though. Both have extremes of S (Social) Q (Quotient), Viraj finds himself on the top & Anuj finds himself at the bottom of SQ count. Music is synonymous with Salil. He has such a commendable grasping & ear for Music that just one hearing of a piece of music is enough for him to replicate. Music is in his blood & genes. He has a terrific M(Music) Q(Quotient). Now we all have a new Bravery milestone set up by Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman (great BQ – Bravery Quotient). He is being aptly recommended by Tamil Nadu Government for Param Veer Chakra. All such tête-à-tête and sprinkles of word Quotient for Language, Intelligence, Finance, Fashion, Emotional, Social, Spiritual & Music etc. are a part of routine jargon for all of us. We may as well coin some more such (A to Z) quotients as trait indicators e.g.  Bravery quotient (BQ), Risk quotient (RQ), Common-sense quotient (CQ), Acting quotient (AQ) etc. It is worth mentioning here about one of our Machine Design Professor who always used to ask us some simple (to him) questions during his lecture. On not getting the expected answer from all of us, he used to frown & say, “Do you see how common sense is so very uncommon.” So don’t ever underestimate CQ as it is that rare.

We often use this word, ‘quotient’ seamlessly and seldom condemn all the other people in the race who are low at that. These quotients that we presume indicate completeness of a person, do not necessarily indicate smartness (*) and often misguide to believe that one is not up to the mark. Management thinker Peter Drucker says that “you can’t manage what you can’t measure.” In other words, if anything is to be improved, it must be measured. Measuring quotients will indicate current level of a person in that area & also help to some extent which area he is good at.

One of my friend’s daughter got admitted to 11 th Grade science stream after a good score at SSCE in Science subjects, much obviously (?) so as thought & insisted by her parents. The girl kept on convincing her parents that she is not interested in science at all & wants to pursue fine arts. But nothing struck the parents right. Post her admission, she had a lot of academic struggle over subjects like Physics, Chemistry, Math etc. Unfortunately, parents thought this to be a recovering period for her due to her vernacular medium till tenth. The result was, she passed at 11 th but miserably failed at 12 th . The girl kept on insisting her earlier argument only. The parents now were furious but eventually gave up & succumbed to her choice of Fine arts. The girl had such a great flare for art that she stood first in the college & completed her B.F.A. with a University rank. A girl struggling to pass at Science stood first at BFA. Why & how did this happen? Did she not find her passion? Rajiv took a learning from this & sent his daughter to a stream of her choice – foreign languages like Japanese & Chinese despite her great score in Science & Math at SSCE. Although this is a perpetual conundrum, as a parent we all need to be assiduous while taking such life impacting decisions for our wards. If you recollect, that’s what the milestone movie “Three Idiots” (one of my all-time favourite) was all about, isn’t it? It’s all about pursuing our passion. Our low LQ, IQ, FQ, EQ, MQ or SQ do not necessarily indicate success in life and vis- e-versa. It only matters whether you like and enjoy your education or work. Success & money will follow, by default as a by-product: if you enjoy your education and work. More so that money plays second fiddle when you enjoy what you do. Money becomes secondary in the pursuit for happiness, enjoyment of our passion. Now passion becomes the target or even the path of pursuit is also a great rewarding experience. It is equally important to enjoy the path towards target as said by Robert Kiyosaki in his famous best seller ‘Rich Dad Poor Dad’.

All our Grocers are excellent at business but no good at academics. Does it really matter? No, neither to them nor to their families and even to the society. I strongly believe that every person is smart (*) in some or the other area. The Almighty has bestowed each one of us with at least one boon - one area in which we score good, for sure. No one in the universe, is dumb. Each one excels in some or the other quotients. All College drop outs like Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Michael Dell, Sachin Tendulkar etc.(the list is endless) are the most successful business tycoons & the most impacting geniuses world knows. What does this indicate? Do we need to contemplate upon the importance given by us to academic excellence criteria and absurdly co-relating them to the future (would be) accomplishments of a person? Absolute zero, absolute positive or absolute negative do not exist – by default: that’s Nature’s law. So do the dumbness, idiocy in absolute terms never ever exist and that’s what needs to be acknowledged by all. Sounds rational? Hence, I feel it would greatly help to measure these quotients for each person just to have a fair idea about his potential strengths, probable area of studies & further career in the same stream. How would a young boy choose a career in defence? Will his BQ or RQ help? Probably, yes. Similarly, anyone good at acting can choose the same post measuring his AQ; so, on & so forth. What we understand from these quotients is not whether a person is brilliant or not. As I mentioned each person is brilliant in his area of choice. The quotients are indeed intended to indicate & guide one to identify potential strengths & choose career path. One may be good at Math while other may be good at finance or language. Quotient is a definitive measure for one’s area of inclination, strength or choice of career. Thus chances of being successful and contributing to the mankind will enhance certainly significantly for one who gets his choice right through the right quotient computation at the right time.

So now let’s use the word quotient in our routine responsibly & not conclude anything negative about anybody for his/her lower quotient scores. Techniques of measuring these quotients may be a little away from us presently but the day is not far when these will be quantified scientifically for each one of us and the generations to follow will supposedly take full advantage of it. They will pursue a rewarding career in the field & mother earth will be full of accomplished people; her own progeny – a planet of Ultimate Evolution.

[designdekko]

Public sanitation: Design interventions lead the change

A 2017 report by the WHO found while 74% of the world’s population used at least a basic sanitation service, approximately 2 billion still did not have access to basic sanitation facilities like toilets and latrines – a rather shocking statistic when weighed against the amount of progress you see in the world today. Another highly disconcerting statistic on the subject is from a UNICEF blog, which noted 673 million people still defecate in the open, for example, in street gutters, behind bushes, or open water bodies.

Most urban millennials are unaware of the actual impact human waste and its incorrect disposal has on life across the planet. But trips around the country highlight the glaring shortcomings of India’s public sanitation system and every successive government’s inability to stick to its pre-electoral promises of improvement on that count. Of course, there has been improvement, but the pace at which we are changing isn’t still satisfactory.

Also Read | Holt Renfrew Ogilvy dazzles as a sustainably forward luxury flagship

In 1999, the Indian government introduced the Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) to accelerate sanitation coverage throughout the country, particularly in rural areas. It focused on information and education to generate public demand for sanitation facilities, particularly in schools. The TSC made some progress, but it suffered from its relatively low priority and ineffective deployment of resources. Renamed Swachh Bharat Abhiyan in 2014, the GOI, armed with a barrage of shocking statistics and a revised mandate, took up the cause with renewed vigour, putting a significant dent in the widespread problem of sanitation.

Where to draw inspiration from?

Japan’s spotless, pop-anime, Kawaii-cute, tech-driven toilets are the stuff of legend, with tourists excitedly using them for that perfect Instagram moment. In fact, the country gained global media attention for its Tokyo Toilet project. Who’d think a public urinal would make for a perfect photo-op?

Switzerland is one of the world’s favourite tourist destinations, has toilets so clean that you can lie down in them. In Paris, the City of Light: a monolithic domed structure stood with a few scattered people standing in a queue in the middle of a Parisian cobble-stoned street. A sliding door whooshed open, revealing a clean albeit soaking wet toilet inside. Pictorial instructions outside the loo read: Post a single use, the entire toilet is sealed and sanitized, and only then access is granted to the next person.

Also Read | Marieville Celebrates Its Past While Building for the Future

All this was planned and executed before the pandemic took over the world. Also, it is free. It is definitely impressive but is this a viable option for a country like India with its large populace and disparate economic structure?

Modern problems need modern solutions. I spoke to Rohan Chavan, principal architect at RC Architects and the mind behind Lightbox, a one-of-kind public urinal for women with space for social gatherings. Rohan engages with projects and issues related to public and community sanitation, urban design, affordable and low-cost housing, single-family houses, space design, and institutions. His signature approach to design created the Lightbox. This public urinal redefines the concept of ‘restroom’, taking it beyond just being a public toilet and creating a unique, visually attractive space that caters to the peri-urban female population living in and around the Thane region in Maharashtra (India).

Also Read | MERAKI: New Adhesive Wall Coverings Designed by Artists From Quebec

Over a short phone interview, Rohan spoke of how, as a designer, he took the initiative to design the Lightbox when Agasti, a social enterprise working in urban sanitation in Mumbai, floated a brief.

Wanting to create something to take to the municipal corporations to add to public sanitation infrastructure, in the hopes that it would be a departure from the largely unappealing ones that already existed, Chavan structured his design around a tree, aware that paucity of space in an urban setting was likely and he would have to work with what he was offered. His design was just as adaptable to smaller or larger spaces and could be tweaked to fit different venues.

Also Read | Bright whites, chrome yellows, and curved geometry put together a space that promotes life

Lightbox is covered under the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals at #5 – Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. Built around a large tree, the 10’ x 30’ restroom features two urinal blocks each at both ends, with a standard washbasin, a nursing room and a toilet for handicapped or senior citizens. The centre of the restroom was a garden measuring 15’ x 10’ that was meant for various activities like a place to rest, a free gallery to display art for amateur artists, a place for lectures and awareness campaigns, celebrating festivals, seasonal activities and events.

The central garden was a metaphor for spaces where people can sit and relax under a tree in the shade and socialize. The restroom with toilet blocks was fitted with a biodigester to reduce freshwater use and improved waste management. It also included a nursing room and amenities like sanitary pads vending machine and incinerator, CCTV cameras, mobile charging points, and a panic alarm system.

Rohan’s efficient use of modern materials resulted in natural light in the restroom, eased the process to keep the toilets clean and ensured high durability and construction within a specific budget. Rohan, however, is quick to point out that the design can be customized to fit a variety of sizes and use different materials, thus making it more sustainable.

Chavan recounted an instance when policemen at the police station across the street from Lightbox were so taken with the concept that they eagerly inquired about why there were no such facilities for men. He was also excited about the amateur artist showcase within the restroom, an unusual venue for an art show but an important one to highlight the accessibility of art and the opportunity to incorporate culture into everyday life.

While Lightbox sees social interaction as the key to the solution, LooCafe wants to hit the root cause of why public sanitation projects fail: Lack of safety, technology, and revenue-generating opportunity.

Also Read | An Ambitious and Thoughtful Vision for Montreal’s Largest Insular Park

With over 450 locations to its name, LooCafe, the brainchild of Abhishek Nath, MD & CEO, Ixora FM, is all set to expand across Kashmir, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Karnataka. The concept is a simple tuck shop with a public urinal attached, sizes ranging from 4x8 ft, 20x8ft and 40x8ft, made of a shipping container or pre-fabricated materials to maintain long-term cost-effectiveness – basically a study in upcycling. And the brand is constantly learning, adjusting its designs and making changes where necessary. A cafe is attached to the front to add a layer of revenue generation opportunity. The attractive facades and cosy, clean interiors are home to thoroughly cleaned and disabled-friendly washrooms which use several sensors and technology to make them sustainable, clean and trustworthy.

With an increase in road trips during the pandemic and transportation of goods and personnel across state lines, initiatives like LooCafe are a viable business model and encourage safe sanitation practices, thereby slowly but surely transforming the nation’s response to public sanitation.

Also Read | Everything's Visual: food photographer Shumaila Chauhan and visual artist Shaun D'sa

The societal impact of projects like Lightbox and initiatives like LooCafe was clearly visible. Such unique design interventions represent a burgeoning design collective bent on creating distinctive architectural and spatial perspectives. Some of these are initiatives that governments and municipal corporations across the country must take advantage of and be utilized by the public.

Yes, there have been concentrated moves to build a network of public urinals, with their glossy tiled facades promising better facilities and clean services to its users. But inside, in barely-lit caverns of fetid water, lie disease and stench and the hopelessness of an impoverished citizenry in desperate need of what others might constitute as a fundamental human right.

Also Read | Public sanitation: Design interventions lead the change

However, hope now lies in the hands of a few thoughtful individuals contributing ideas and government bodies prioritizing public sanitation in their regular mandates and worldwide recognition of an endemic issue deeply rooted in neglect.

The article is part of a series of blogs by the writer on public sanitation and design interventions experienced during her travel around India and the world. Views expressed are of author.

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[kavinstarindia]

Note Counting Machine Price in Mumbai

Note Counting Machine Price in Mumbai

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[analyticsindiam]

10 Leading Courses & Training Programmes For Cloud Computing In India: 2019

Cloud computing is the future of every organisation. The technology offers a solution which helps organisations in managing data, without the problem of a mandatory physical presence. It provides a combination of hardware and software hosted on the internet to store, manage, and process our data. Few of the industry tech giants involved in the cloud computing industry are — Amazon, Google, IBM, and Microsoft, however, there are now several startups who are providing seamless cloud computing services.  To make oneself acquainted with this advanced technology and its trends, one must learn this sector through various online or offline cloud computing courses and training. Surviving in this cloud era demands special skills that businesses are struggling to fulfil in existing or new job roles. This article discusses the top 10 cloud computing certification courses for IT professionals. Please note that this is not a ranking. Jigsaw Academy in association with Manipal Academy of Higher Education Jigsaw Academy is a professional learning platform, which empowers individuals to master new skills and achieve their career goals by pursuing industry-relevant courses. It operates as a part of Manipal Education which has been a global provider of top-quality higher education for the last six decades. This professional certification course aims at redefining the learning experience for both students and professionals. MaGE has also partnered with several banks and IT sector companies to train and up-skill their workforce. The self-assessment quizzes at the end of each course are designed to help in gauging the readiness of the subject before taking the final exam to clear the certification. Flagship Cloud Computing program: PG Certificate Program in Cloud Computing Duration of The Program: 6 months Cost of the program: ₹ 88,500 Cities of Operation: Bangalore Course content and USP of the program: The PG Certificate Program in Cloud Computing is an innovative program which is designed to provide all the requisite skills to help one seek a relevant career in cloud computing. This is a 6-month online course. Currently, this is the only program in the industry to give a lab experience for every task performed on cloud platforms.  The program aims at becoming the industry's most comprehensive cloud certification program and comprises of 300+ hours of online learning including 70+ hours of live online lectures on weekends by industry experts. Taught using the official courseware of AWS Educate, this course help learners build a strong foundation on Cloud Essentials, Cloud Foundry, Google Cloud, OpenStack, and specialise on AWS. It also helps students to gain in the confidence to qualify multiple certifications such as AWS Solution Architect, Associate/AWS Developer, Associate/AWS Certified Sysops Administrator. Great Learning Great Learning is an ed-tech company which offers programs in the career of critical competencies such as analytics, data science, big data, machine learning, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, DevOps, and full-stack development. These programs are fairly popular among professionals who aim to build competencies in these emerging areas to secure and grow their careers. The company focuses on creating industry-relevant programs and crafting learning experiences that help candidates in learning, applying and demonstrating capabilities in areas that are driving the future. Flagship Cloud Computing program: Post Graduate Program in Cloud Computing Duration of The Program: 6 months Cost of The Program: ₹ 1,25,000 + GST Cities of Operation: Online Course Content And USP Of The Program: PGP CC (Post Graduate Program in Cloud Computing) is designed to provide the candidates with a hands-on experience of the industry. The course covers all the core cloud technologies like containers, microservices, cloud security, DevOps, cloud architecture, migration, deployment etc. which are taught on AWS, Azure and Google Cloud platforms. This approach helps amateur IT professionals gain a solid foundation and those with some experience to get a more structured and nuanced understanding of Cloud.  The candidates also get an opportunity to learn from and engage with veteran industry professionals working in the domain with giants like Dell, Microsoft, Adobe etc. The learnings are not just limited to the course work but they also provide mentorship and career guidance to the students to help prepare them for things like interviews. The course is further enhanced during group projects and classroom interactions with experienced peers having 8+ years of work experience on average. Simplilearn Established in 2010, Simplilearn enables professionals and enterprises to succeed in the fast-changing digital economy. The company provides outcome-based online training across digital technologies and applications such as big data, machine learning, AI, cloud computing, cybersecurity, digital marketing, and other emerging technologies. Operating from San Francisco, California and Bangalore, India, this training provider has helped more than one million professionals and 1,000 companies across 150 countries in their trained, acquiring certifications to reaching their businesses and career goals.  Flagship Cloud Computing program: Cloud Architect  Duration of The Program: 352 hours (Live virtual classes with self-paced learning) Cost of the program: ₹ 44,999 Cities of Operation: Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune, Mumbai, Gurgaon, Noida, 1 in Singapore, and 2 in the US. Course content and USP of the program: The Cloud Architect program is designed to turn learners into an expert in cloud applications and architecture. This course will enable the candidates to master the core skill sets required for designing and deploying dynamically scalable, highly available, fault-tolerant, and reliable applications on two of the top Cloud platform providers — Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure. The program will also give an in-depth understanding of cloud services such as AWS Cloud formation, Azure resource manager, EC2, S3, Route53, VPC, Azure App Services and more. Overall, the learner will acquire the knowledge and skills for passing cloud architect and developer certifications and will be able to apply for any of the widely recognised cloud-related roles, whether be it, cloud architect, cloud developer or cloud engineer. Coursera Founded in 2012 by two Stanford computer science professors, Coursera has the vision to provide anyone, anywhere with access to the world’s best education. Professors Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng have put their courses online for anyone to take. It has taught more learners in a few months than they could over an entire lifetime in the classroom. Currently, Coursera has expanded to reach more than 40 million people and 1,900 businesses around the world. On Coursera you can find online courses, specialisations, certificates and degrees from 190+ world-class universities and companies, including Yale, University of Pennsylvania, Google, IBM, and more. Flagship Cloud Computing Program: Google Cloud Platform Fundamentals: Core Infrastructure Cost of the program: Free enrolment Cities of operation: Online Course content and USP of the program: This course introduces IT professionals to important concepts and terminology required to work for the Google Cloud Platform (GCP). It teaches about several computing and storage services available in Google Cloud Platform — including Google App Engine, Google Compute Engine, Google Kubernetes Engine, Google Cloud Storage, Google Cloud SQL, and BigQuery, and also talks about the comparison between them. Students can also learn about important resources and policy management tools, such as the Google Cloud Resource Manager hierarchy and Google Cloud Identity and Access Management. It also offers hands-on experience in labs, which provides foundational skills for working with GCP. This course can be applied to multiple specialisations or professional certificates programs. Completing this course will count towards the learning in any of the following programs: Developing Applications with Google Cloud Platform SpecialisationArchitecting with Google Kubernetes Engine SpecialisationCloud Engineering with GCP Professional CertificateArchitecting with Google Compute Engine SpecialisationCloud Architecture with GCP Professional CertificateNetworking in Google Cloud Platform SpecialisationSecurity in Google Cloud Platform Specialisation Udacity Began as an experiment in online learning, Udacity is formed by Stanford instructors Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig. Their course — “Introduction to Artificial Intelligence” course is available online to anyone, for free, with over 160,000 students already enrolled in more than 190 countries. With a mission to democratise education, the company aims at providing education on a global scale. Udacity believes that it would take several years of intensive iteration and experimentation to clarify the real focus on career advancement through mastery of in-demand skills, and that’s why it offers aspiring learners across the globe the opportunity to participate in, and contribute to, some of the most exciting and innovative fields in the world. Flagship Cloud Computing Program: Nanodegree program to become a Cloud Developer Cost of the program: ₹ 22,299 per month Cities of operation: Online Course content and USP of the program: The course starts by teaching the fundamentals of cloud development and the process of deploying AWS. It also includes building different apps, leveraging microservices, Kubernetes clusters, and serverless application technology. The key ingredients of the course are: Cloud FoundationsFull Stack Apps on AWSMonolith to Microservices ScaleDevelopment and deployment of a serverless app Spring People Founded in 2009 by IIT alumni, SpringPeople is an enterprise IT training provider with 500+ courses and 750+ clients. The company provides training programs in emerging and niche technologies like machine learning, AI, DevOps and big data, aiming at helping IT enterprises with their most challenging training needs. The training programs offered by SpringPeople, are powered by LnDCloud, an enterprise training platform, providing enterprise reporting, detailed analytics, customisable workflows, and a fully automated end-to-end training orchestration. The strong growth of the company is being driven by the leadership team with several years of delivery management experience clubbed with a highly-experienced, process-driven, dedicated team focused on customer success and trainer engagement. Flagship Cloud Computing program: Google Cloud Platform (GCP) for Developers Training Duration of The Program: Classroom - 3 days and Live Online Training - 18 hours Cost of the program: ₹ 19,995 Cities of Operation: Bangalore, Delhi NCR, Gurgaon and UK Course content and USP of the program: The GCP training course covers the fundamentals of Google Cloud Platform and its specialisations. This course introduces professionals to important concepts and terminology for working with the platform. The course further makes the professional learn and compare, many of the computing and storage services available in Google Cloud Platform, including Google App Engine, Google Compute Engine, and Google Container Engine, which prepares you for the Google Cloud Certification. The course comprises of several topics, which includes: Best practices for application development, Google Cloud client libraries, Google Cloud SDK, Google Firebase SDK, and an overview of data storage optionsBest practices for using google cloud datastore and performing operations on Buckets and Objects; best practices for using Google Cloud storage, handling authentication and authorisationUsing Google Cloud pub/sub to integrate components of the application, adding intelligence to the applicationUsing Google Cloud Functions for event-driven Processing, managing APIs with Google Cloud endpoints, and deploying an application by using Google Cloud Cloud Build, Google Cloud Container RegistryExecution environments for the application and debugging, monitoring, and tuning performance by using Google Stackdriver The program is taught by industry veterans with years of experience in the field. With hands-on training using Cloudlabs, participants master the application development through Google Cloud Platform and also learn how to use GCP services and pre-trained machine learning APIs to build secure, scalable, and intelligent cloud-native applications. Real-time code analysis and feedback is also a distinguishing feature of this program.  Edureka A global e-learning platform, Edureka provides live instructor-led training in trending technologies such as AI, data science, big data, cloud computing, blockchain, and cybersecurity. The company offers short term courses, which are supported by online resources, along with 24x7 lifetime support. Edureka has an unwavering commitment to helping working professionals keep up with evolving technologies.  Flagship Cloud Computing program: AWS Architect Certification Training Duration of The Program: 15 days for the weekday batch and 5 weeks for the weekend batch Cost of the program: ₹ 19,995 Cities of Operation: Online Course content and USP of the program: AWS Certification Training from Edureka is specifically designed to provide in-depth knowledge about the AWS architectural principles and its services. The program will be conducted by industry practitioners, who will train the students to leverage AWS services to make the AWS infrastructure scalable, reliable, and highly available. This training is completely aligned to the AWS Certified Solutions Architect (CSA) Exam.  With Edureka's instructor-led sessions, one will be able to effectively deploy secure and robust applications on AWS. The course will help you identify the appropriate AWS service based on data, computation, or security requirements, and provides hands-on experience in signing-up for AWS free-tier account, creating an S3 bucket through Console and AWS CLI, and launch an EC2 instance. This certification training is designed for IT professionals who want to pursue a career in cloud computing and become an AWS Certified Solutions Architect.  edX edX is a non-profit e-learning platform founded by MIT and Harvard, which collates thousands of online courses across the globe for in-demand skills and technologies such as AI, ML, data science, digital marketing, business and management, project management, cybersecurity, and cloud computing from 140+ top ranking institutes of the world — Oxford, Columbia, Berkeley. The platform also offers a free audit option, and low cost affordable online certifications.  So far, approximately 21 million students and working professionals have been able to advance their career with these online courses. As a global nonprofit organisation, edX is transforming traditional education, removing all barriers of cost, location and accessibility. Fulfilling the demand for people to learn on their own terms, it is also reimagining the possibilities of education, providing stackable learning experiences including the groundbreaking MicroMasters programs. edX delivers courses for curious minds on topics ranging from data and computer science to leadership and communications. Flagship Cloud Computing program: Computer Science for Business Professionals Duration of The Program: 6 weeks Cost of the program: Audit for free; Certificate for ₹ 6500 Cities of Operation: Global Course content and USP of the program: This Computer Science course is designed by the Harvard University for business professionals. The course is designed for managers, product managers, founders, and decision-makers more generally. Whereas CS50 itself takes a bottom-up approach, it critically emphasises in mastering low-level concepts and implementation details, whereas, this course takes a top-down approach, emphasising mastery of high-level concepts and design decisions. Through lectures on computational thinking, programming languages, internet technologies, web development, technology stacks, and cloud computing, this course empowers the professionals to make technological decisions. People emerging out of this course always holds a first-hand appreciation of all the workings. The key ingredients of the course are: Computational thinkingProgramming languagesInternet technologiesWeb developmentTechnology stacksCloud computing Inventateq Inventateq is a software training company engaged in the business of providing job training for all types of IT courses, which are used in the real world industry environment. The company partner with companies and individuals to address their unique needs by providing training and coaching, which will help the working professionals to achieve their career goals. It also offers training in disciplines such as cloud computing, DevOps, AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, digital marketing, RPA tools, web development, big data Hadoop, and data science, where technologies and best practices are changing rapidly and the demand for qualified candidates are significantly increasing. Flagship Cloud Computing program: Introduction to Cloud Computing Duration of the program: 2 months Cost of the program: ₹ 15,000 Cities of Operation: Bangalore and Chennai Course content and USP of the program: With the course — Cloud Computing Training, IT professionals will learn the concept behind Cloud Computing and the different models of cloud computing, along with the key differentiators of different models. The course also introduces the students to the virtual world of AWS, along with AWS key vocabulary, services and concepts. Alongside, the biggest USP of this cloud computing course is providing the ability to quickly respond to demand spikes and teaching the way of hosting new business application faster without the need for an internal IT department. The mind share of the IT world is towards separating applications and services from the underlying infrastructure so that IT departments can be more flexible in supporting the business A unique and stand-out USP of Inventateq is the offer of a 100% guarantee of job placement. The company has got a collaboration with 500+ IT companies from the industry, that helps the trainees during their placement. Trainees at Inventateq are also provided with unlimited interview calls, till the time they are placed. Practical oriented domain-specific training is also provided to the enrollees, to suit the needs of the industry. CloudThat Established in 2012, CloudThat provides cloud training and consulting services for mid-market and enterprise clients across the globe. The company holds expertise in major cloud platforms including AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform. It is uniquely positioned to be a technology source for organisations looking to utilise the flexibility and power cloud computing provides. Additionally, it focuses on empowering IT professionals and organisations with leveraging cloud, big data and IoT. The company aims at delivering high-quality training and consulting services with best practices.  Flagship Cloud Computing program: All Access Learning Pass Duration of The Program: 1 year Cost of the program: ₹99,000 Cities of Operation: Bengaluru, Mumbai, USA, and the UK Course content and USP of the program: With the aim of achieving mastery in the field of cloud computing, All Access Learning Pass (AALP) is a way for IT professionals to master in cloud platforms and offerings. AALP is a pass to attend any of our courses for 1 year, and during this period, the student will have the freedom to choose courses from different technologies like AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, IoT, DevOps, blockchain, machine learning, big data, etc.  The course also flourishes people with multiple cloud skills, and skills on DevOps, big data, data science, etc. are needed. It also provides dedicated training coordinators for clearing any doubts and helping the students with their resume building and job placement assistance. Read the full article

[faizrashis1995]

Kubernetes Opportunities, Challenges Escalated in 2019

If 2018 was the year that Kubernetes broke into the mainstream, then 2019 was the year that reality set in. And that reality is that while Kubernetes is awesome, it’s also hard.

 The Kubernetes ecosystem did its usual part in feeding the market by staying on track in rolling out quarterly updates to the platform. And that feeding has helped Kubernetes continue to steamroll the cloud market. However, ongoing security and commercialization challenges showed that growth is not coming without challenges.

 Kubernetes 2019: Ecosystem Explosion

Kubernetes continued to draw interest from just about any company associated with the cloud space. This was evident by the most recent KubeCon + CloudNativeCon event in San Diego that drew more than 12,000 attendees. That was a 50% increase from the previous event held in North America.

 The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), which houses the open source project, found in its first Project Journey report that Kubernetes had 315 companies contributing to the project with “several thousand having committed over the life of the project.” That was a significant increase from the 15 that were contributing prior to CNCF adopting the project in early 2016.

 Including individual contributors, Kubernetes counted about 24,000 total contributors since being adopted by CNCF, 148,000 code commits, 83,000 pull requests, and 1.1 million total contributions. “It is the second- or third-highest velocity open source project depending on how you count it — up there with Linux and React,” explained CNCF Executive Director Dan Kohn in an interview.

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 Security Surprises

Along with that growth has come an increased focus on platform security. This feeds into what remains one of the biggest concerns for enterprises that want to drive Kubernetes deeper into their operations.

 Hindering that drive were the discovering over the past year of a number of high-profile security lapses that tested the overall confidence in the platform.

 Perhaps the most troubling flaw found was one in the Kubernetes kubectl command-line tool, which is the tool that allows running commands against a Kubernetes cluster to deploy applications, inspect and manage cluster resources, and view logs. If breached, the exploit could allow an attacker to use an infected container to replace or create new files on a user’s workstation.

 The biggest challenge with this particular bug was that the vulnerability was discovered earlier in the year and that it continued to exist even after a patch had been sent out to remediate the issue. “The original fix for that issue was incomplete and a new exploit method was discovered,” wrote Joel Smith, who works with the Kubernetes Product Security Committee, in a message post.

 More recently, an API vulnerability was discovered that if exploited would allow an attacker to launch a denial-of-service (DoS) hack amusingly dubbed “billion laughs” attack.

 The CNCF has moved aggressively to head off security concerns. This year it released a security audit that found dozens of security vulnerabilities in the container orchestration platform. These included five high-severity issues and 17 medium-severity issues. Fixes for those issues have been deployed.

 The overall size and operational complexity of Kubernetes was cited as being a key reason for these security holes.

 “The assessment team found configuration and deployment of Kubernetes to be non-trivial, with certain components having confusing default settings, missing operational controls, and implicitly defined security controls,” the audit explained.

 It also found that the extensive Kubernetes codebase lacks detailed documentation to guide administrators and developers in setting up a robust security posture.

 “The codebase is large and complex, with large sections of code containing minimal documentation and numerous dependencies, including systems external to Kubernetes,” the audit noted. “There are many cases of logic re-implementation within the codebase, which could be centralized into supporting libraries to reduce complexity, facilitate easier patching, and reduce the burden of documentation across disparate areas of the codebase.”

 Despite those concerns, the audit did find that Kubernetes does streamline “difficult tasks related to maintaining and operating cluster workloads such as deployments, replication, and storage management.” The use of role-based access controls (RBAC) also allows users an avenue to increase security.

 Go-to-Market

Shoring up the security component is an important task for the Kubernetes ecosystem, but not the only one that continues to hinder broader deployments. While seemingly everyone wants to adopt Kubernetes, it remains a complex challenge for many.

 This particular problem has been good for some vendors that have been able to use that complexity to drive their business. Kubernetes in 2019 witnessed billions of dollars thrown at established brands and startups through mergers and acquisitions or venture capital funding.

 Highlights of this growth include the $34 billion IBM forked over to buy Red Hat, which closed this year, and the several billion dollars VMware spent to bolster its Kubernetes assets.

 While some have managed to strike gold with Kubernetes, others have floundered under its shadow.

 Docker Inc., which developed the open source container platform that instigated the Kubernetes revolution, was recently forced to sell its Kubernetes-focused enterprise management business because it could not make a go of it in an increasingly crowded market.

 Analysts noted that Docker Inc.’s push to make container adoption easier was also part of its downfall. “In a sense, Docker is almost a victim of its own success,” Jay Lyman, research analyst at 451 Research, recently told SDxCentral. “It democratized containers and made them easier to use.”

 Others felt the same pressure.

 Mesosphere, which was one of the first vendors to release a container orchestration platform with its Marathon product that ran inside of DC/OS, changed its name to D2IQ. That move came under the auspice of changing its focus from helping companies set up their cloud-native infrastructure to “day two” (D2) challenges of running that infrastructure in a production environment (IQ).

 Smaller startup Containership also succumbed, announcing that it was closing up shop after being unable to monetize its operations in light of Kubernetes’ rise. This included a failed attempt to pivot its Containership Cloud operations toward a more Kubernetes-focused platform.

 Edging Toward the Edge

Kubernetes might have made it difficult for some to compete, but that does not mean there is not still more room for growth. One Kubernetes area that gained momentum in 2019 was around edge.

 This opportunity is being driven by the growing need to extend the reach of networks toward the end user. This is necessary to support potentially lucrative low-latency use cases.

 A recent report from Mobile Experts predicts the edge computing market will grow 10-fold by 2024. It notes that the edge computing trend expands from centralized hyperscale data centers to distributed edge cloud nodes, with capex spend on near edge data centers representing the largest segment of the market.

 A number of vendors repackaged Kubernetes’ core in a way that allows the platform to operate in resource-constrained environments. That slimness is important because edge locations are more resource constrained compared with data center or network core locations.

 Vendors like Rancher Labs, CDNetworks, and Edgeworx all rolled out platforms built on variations of Kubernetes that can live in these environments.

 Other vendors have been plugging the full Kubernetes platform into their efforts.

 Mirantis last year plugged Kubernetes into its Cloud Platform Edge product to allows operators to deploy a combination of containers, virtual machines (VMs), and bare metal points of presence (PoPs) that are connected by a unified management plane.

 Similarly, IoTium last year updated its edge-cloud infrastructure that is built on remotely-managed Kubernetes. The platform places Kubernetes at an edge location where it can be inside a node. The company uses a full version of Kubernetes running on IoTium’s SD-WAN platform.

Basic & Advanced Kubernetes Training using cloud computing, AWS, Docker etc. in Mumbai. Advanced Containers Domain is used for 25 hours Kubernetes Training.

 There is also the KubeEdge open source project that supports edge nodes, applications, devices, and cluster management consistent with the Kuberenetes interface. This can help an edge cloud act exactly like a cloud cluster.

 And of course … 5G

And the full Kubernetes stack is also being angled toward 5G deployments.

 The Linux Foundation’s LF Networking group conducted a live demo of a Kubernetes-powered end-to-end 5G cloud native network at the KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America event that showed significant progress toward what future open source telecom deployments could look like.

 Heather Kirksey, VP of community and ecosystem development at the Linux Foundation, said the demo was important due to the growing amount of work around networking issues and Kubernetes. The container orchestration platform is being tasked with managing the container-based infrastructure that will be needed to support the promise of 5G networks.

 “We are embracing cloud native and new applications and we want to let the folks here know why we want to partner with the cloud native developer community,” Kirksey said. “It has been a bit of a challenge to get that community excited about telecom and to get excited about working with us to advance networking.”

 That Kubernetes focus on 5G telecom was echoed at the event by Craig McLuckie, VP of product and development at VMware, during an interview with SDxCentral. McLuckie, who was formerly at Google where he worked on its Compute Engine and the platform that eventually became the Kubernetes project, said that 5G will “be a fantastic and interesting challenge for the Kubernetes community and the community’s codebase in how they might solve this.”

 The past year did indeed show that while Kubernetes has gained a certain stature, it remains a strong center of development and opportunity. The big challenge now will be in how the ecosystem deals with that success and opportunities in 2020.[Source]- https://www.sdxcentral.com/articles/news/kubernetes-opportunities-challenges-escalated-in-2019/2019/12/

[sunshineweb]

Safal Niveshak’s 2017 Annual Letter to Tribe Members

Dear Tribe Member,

Trust 2017 treated you well. It certainly was great for Safal Niveshak.

Here is a brief update on what transpired during the year. The tribe crossed 40,000 members (readers of our free newsletter, Safal Niveshak Post). We conducted nine value investing workshops during the year, meeting 430+ tribe members in the process.

The Mastermind Value Investing Course student count increased by 25%. Our premium newsletter – Value Investing Almanack – which is about to complete three years, gained 20% new members. It continues to receive inspiring reviews from its subscribers.

We also relaunched our free online value investing course – Value Investing Masterclass – in a new avatar. It now consists of updated and more lessons than the previous version. The subscription to this course jumped from 7,500 to 15,000 in less than a year after the relaunch, much better than our expectations.

Apart from this usual stuff, we launched a special e-book titled Two Wise Men, which contained forty stories for children inspired by the wit and wisdom of Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger (Click here to buy your copy). The book received a great response and a lot of wonderful testimonials from kids. This one stole our hearts…

Another initiative this year was the launch of Camp Millionaire money workshop for kids. This is a game and activity-based financial education program for children of age group 8 to 14 years. Kids learn how to make, manage, multiply and donate their money wisely first hand in this day-long program and they have fun doing it. The main objective of this program is to provide a stimulating, fun-filled, learning environment where kids can feel safe exploring and learning the various principles, ideas, and skills needed to create a financially successful and responsible life. During 2017, we conducted four sessions of the camp, meeting and teaching around 120+ lovely kids.

Another first for us in 2017 was a classroom course titled Value Investing Blueprint (VIB) we conducted at FLAME University Pune. This was under the aegis of its FLAME Investment Lab, which is an initiative that strives to deliver the concepts and decipher the art of value investing to interested students.

The first batch of VIB was a seven-lecture course spread over seven Sundays. A total of 47 participants attended the course (against the initial capacity of 40), including a few students who travelled from Mumbai, Gurgaon, and Goa each Sunday. The second batch of this course starts in February 2018 (Click here for registration details).

Best Posts of 2017 Here is a list of our best posts from 2017, based on the number of reads and comments –

Want to Become a Full-Time Investor? Here’s Your Checklist

My Interview with Jason Zweig

Notes from Howard Marks’ Lecture: 48 Most Important Things I Learned on Investing

My Stock Selection Framework

A Short Guide to Reading and Learning for Investors

Lecture Presentation and Notes: Seeking Wisdom in the Age of Information

Goals for 2018 This is the easiest part of this letter because, given our consistency in failing to work as per plans, all we have done below is copy and paste our 2018 plan from the 2017 plan we had outlined a year ago – We entered 2017 with the following three goals –

Improving the quality of content on Safal Niveshak – both free posts and premium ones (Mastermind and VIA) – This is always work-in-progress. But as seen from user feedback, we managed to slightly improve the quality of our content in 2017. Of course, a lot more is desired in 2018.

Increasing the breadth of content by getting deeper into annual report analysis, financial statement analysis, and industry analysis – Honestly, not much improvement on this front, so aim in 2018 is to focus more here.

Improving the breadth of content delivery by adding audio and video content – Started with videos on our mental models series. Work is in progress on converting the free value investing course into videos and audios too. Watch out for much action on this front in 2018.

Apart from working more and better on the above-mentioned goals, one incremental thing we wish to focus on in 2018 is to develop more content for youngsters, in areas of investing, thinking, behaviour, and learning. The Two Wise Men e-book and Camp Millionaire initiatives in 2017 were steps in this direction. But, without doubt, given the wide disparity in the level of financial education desired and provided by our education system, we see a great opportunity to serve a purpose here.

As we get into 2018, we welcome your suggestions in the Comments section of this post on what you would like us to do as far as content or a new initiative from Safal Niveshak is concerned.

Best Books We Read in 2017 Here is a list of few good books we read/re-read in 2017 –

Made In America (Sam Walton) – The story of the undisputed merchant king of the late twentieth century. Sam Walton rolled up his sleeves in 1946 and didn’t stop until 1992. What he ended up creating was world’s largest private employer and the biggest company by revenue. In his autobiography, he pours his heart out, chronicling his strategies, successes, and mistakes.

What I Learned Losing a Million Dollars (Jim Paul) – There are as many ways to make money in the markets as there are people participating in the markets, but there are relatively few ways to lose money in the markets. For a majority of the people, all the losses come from the same few sources. Jim Paul’s cautionary tale is a testimony to the importance of studying the patterns of failure than the ways of success.

Delivering Happiness (Tony Hsieh) – This book offers an intensely personal and practical framework to think about the culture of a company. Tony Hsieh’s book is filled with great stories, insights, and tips you can put to use in your business and in your life.

Principles: Life and Work (Ray Dalio) – Ray Dalio, who runs the world’s biggest hedge fund with assets totaling to $160 billion, explains the core principles that he has followed in his life and business.

Seven Brief Lessons on Physics (Carlo Rovelli) – Elon Musk solves problems by using first principles, i.e., understanding the basic ideas of any discipline. Physics is the fundamental study of the workings of material world. In this book, Carlo Rovelli distills the most important principles of Physics into seven lessons.

The Lessons of History (Will Durant) – The best way to learn from history is to notice what didn’t happen and imagine what else could have happened. This book reveals a multidimensional view of history while exploring the possibilities as well as limitations of humanity.

A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy (William Irvine) – Stoic philosophy was the most popular and successful schools of thought in ancient Rome. The principles of stoicism are timeless and immensely useful for living a contended and joyful life. This book does a great job in showing how the stoic advice can be applied in modern times.

No Shortcuts to the Top: Climbing the World’s 14 Highest Peaks (Ed Viesturs) – “Reaching the summit is optional. Getting down is mandatory,” says Viesturs. That’s an unconventional advice. But when you know that the dispenser of this advice is a man who climbed not one, not two but all fourteen of the world’s top summits, you know there’s wisdom in those words. Read the book.

The Undoing Project (Michael Lewis) – For five years, Michael Lewis, one of the best narrator of present times, spent many of his evenings taking a walk with Daniel Kahneman, the most remarkable mind of this century. The outcome was a book which chronicles the journey of how two Israeli scientists, Kahneman and Tversky, created something which upended every single theory of conventional wisdom in the field of finance.

‘Happy’ Investing in 2018 As we end 2017, I want to discuss a bit about happiness, the pursuit of which has become a phenomenon, and something that we wish the most to others welcoming a ‘happy’ new year.

Happiness is a funny thing. We spend forever chasing the idea of it without perhaps knowing what we’re chasing. The concept of happiness usually means “feeling good,” a fleeting notion driven by instant gratification and equated with material factors, such as health, diet and wealth.

It seems obvious that if people are richer and healthier, then they must also be happier. But is that really so obvious? It does not seem so.

One of the best things I came across in 2017 on happiness was Naval Ravikant’s thoughts that he shared in a podcast with Shane Parrish of Farnam Street. Naval said –

(Happiness) is what’s there when you remove the sense that something is missing in your life.

We are highly judgmental, survival, and replication machines. We are constantly walking around thinking I need this, I need that, trapped in the web of desires. Happiness is that state when nothing is missing. When nothing is missing, your mind shuts down and your mind stops running into the future or running into the past to regret something or to plan something. In that absence for a moment, you have internal silence. When you have internal silence, then you are content and you are happy.

One of the most important scientific findings on happiness is that it does not really depend on objective conditions of either wealth, health or even community. Rather, it depends on the correlation between objective conditions and subjective expectations.

Yuval Harari writes in his brilliant book Sapiens (emphasis mine) –

If you want a bullock-cart and get a bullock-cart, you are content. If you want a brand-new Ferrari and get only a second-hand Fiat you feel deprived. This is why winning the lottery has, over time, the same impact on people’s happiness as a debilitating car accident. When things improve, expectations balloon, and consequently even dramatic improvements in objective conditions can leave us dissatisfied. When things deteriorate, expectations shrink, and consequently even a severe illness might leave you pretty much as happy as you were before.

…being satisfied with what you already have is far more important than getting more of what you want.

Consider investing. Most of what makes us happy (or unhappy) as investors aren’t the objective conditions (how our portfolios are performing) but subjective expectations (how our portfolios are performing relative to our expectations).

Added to this, our happiness (or unhappiness) is magnified not by our absolute performances (how our portfolios are performing) but through relative comparisons (how our performance stacks up against the performance of other investors we know of).

Subsequently, we are always working under pressure of the fear of missing out, or FOMO. Knowing that some other investor you know of is having more fun than you by making a lot of money (more than you), is painful. Amidst this, social media that profits not just from connecting us, but mostly from magnifying emotions we don’t want in the long run, often turns this pain into a tragedy of sorts. Remember when you were having a great day recently, someone posted on Twitter how a stock he had bought three years back had turned into a 30-bagger?

This goes against our intrinsic need to be happy, which subsequently lays the ground for us to be, well, unhappy and dissatisfied with our present state of being, including our present portfolio of stocks. We are always searching for something newer, brighter, exciting, and more profitable…something that’s outside of what we own, and others are making money on.

You see, it’s sometimes good to be dissatisfied (which causes you unhappiness) as an investor when it comes to working hard in search of finding ideas. That way, your dissatisfaction is a product of your inner scorecard. However, when this dissatisfaction is caused by measuring yourself against the instant updates on what others are doing, buying, and shouting about, that’s what causes you much pain and leads you to poor decision making.

This is a thought I would like to leave you with as we enter a brand-new year. Especially given the way stock prices have behaved in 2017, and given how high returns in the recent past have caused bloated egos all around, it’s important that you clearly define what causes your real happiness as an investor.

Is it being content – that will cause you to be happy – with an adequate performance that will enable you to achieve your financial goals in time? Or is it constantly chasing extravagant performance that aims to better everyone around, and that you think would make you happy?

You see, the forces of modern life urge us to achieve and acquire more, pushing us outward in our quest for happiness. Why can’t we turn inward, to a deep understanding of true, lasting contentment, which ultimately leads to the happiness we are seeking outside?

Instead of relegating joy and satisfaction to another time, a different place, a better circumstance, or higher return, why can’t we negotiate and embrace “what is.”

This is exactly what we wish for you as we enter 2018. In investing and in life, we wish that you do your work and then be content in embracing “what is” than “what could have been.” This is the only way you could gift yourself happiness that would be with you for a lifetime.

We are lucky to have you as a tribe member.

Thank you!

With respect, Vishal & Anshul

The post Safal Niveshak’s 2017 Annual Letter to Tribe Members appeared first on Safal Niveshak.

Safal Niveshak’s 2017 Annual Letter to Tribe Members published first on https://mbploans.tumblr.com/

[sunshineweb]

Safal Niveshak’s 2017 Annual Letter to Tribe Members

Dear Tribe Member,

Trust 2017 treated you well. It certainly was great for Safal Niveshak.

Here is a brief update on what transpired during the year. The tribe crossed 40,000 members (readers of our free newsletter, Safal Niveshak Post). We conducted nine value investing workshops during the year, meeting 430+ tribe members in the process.

The Mastermind Value Investing Course student count increased by 25%. Our premium newsletter – Value Investing Almanack – which is about to complete three years, gained 20% new members. It continues to receive inspiring reviews from its subscribers.

We also relaunched our free online value investing course – Value Investing Masterclass – in a new avatar. It now consists of updated and more lessons than the previous version. The subscription to this course jumped from 7,500 to 15,000 in less than a year after the relaunch, much better than our expectations.

Apart from this usual stuff, we launched a special e-book titled Two Wise Men, which contained forty stories for children inspired by the wit and wisdom of Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger (Click here to buy your copy). The book received a great response and a lot of wonderful testimonials from kids. This one stole our hearts…

Another initiative this year was the launch of Camp Millionaire money workshop for kids. This is a game and activity-based financial education program for children of age group 8 to 14 years. Kids learn how to make, manage, multiply and donate their money wisely first hand in this day-long program and they have fun doing it. The main objective of this program is to provide a stimulating, fun-filled, learning environment where kids can feel safe exploring and learning the various principles, ideas, and skills needed to create a financially successful and responsible life. During 2017, we conducted four sessions of the camp, meeting and teaching around 120+ lovely kids.

Another first for us in 2017 was a classroom course titled Value Investing Blueprint (VIB) we conducted at FLAME University Pune. This was under the aegis of its FLAME Investment Lab, which is an initiative that strives to deliver the concepts and decipher the art of value investing to interested students.

The first batch of VIB was a seven-lecture course spread over seven Sundays. A total of 47 participants attended the course (against the initial capacity of 40), including a few students who travelled from Mumbai, Gurgaon, and Goa each Sunday. The second batch of this course starts in February 2018 (Click here for registration details).

Best Posts of 2017 Here is a list of our best posts from 2017, based on the number of reads and comments –

Want to Become a Full-Time Investor? Here’s Your Checklist

My Interview with Jason Zweig

Notes from Howard Marks’ Lecture: 48 Most Important Things I Learned on Investing

My Stock Selection Framework

A Short Guide to Reading and Learning for Investors

Lecture Presentation and Notes: Seeking Wisdom in the Age of Information

Goals for 2018 This is the easiest part of this letter because, given our consistency in failing to work as per plans, all we have done below is copy and paste our 2018 plan from the 2017 plan we had outlined a year ago – We entered 2017 with the following three goals –

Improving the quality of content on Safal Niveshak – both free posts and premium ones (Mastermind and VIA) – This is always work-in-progress. But as seen from user feedback, we managed to slightly improve the quality of our content in 2017. Of course, a lot more is desired in 2018.

Increasing the breadth of content by getting deeper into annual report analysis, financial statement analysis, and industry analysis – Honestly, not much improvement on this front, so aim in 2018 is to focus more here.

Improving the breadth of content delivery by adding audio and video content – Started with videos on our mental models series. Work is in progress on converting the free value investing course into videos and audios too. Watch out for much action on this front in 2018.

Apart from working more and better on the above-mentioned goals, one incremental thing we wish to focus on in 2018 is to develop more content for youngsters, in areas of investing, thinking, behaviour, and learning. The Two Wise Men e-book and Camp Millionaire initiatives in 2017 were steps in this direction. But, without doubt, given the wide disparity in the level of financial education desired and provided by our education system, we see a great opportunity to serve a purpose here.

As we get into 2018, we welcome your suggestions in the Comments section of this post on what you would like us to do as far as content or a new initiative from Safal Niveshak is concerned.

Best Books We Read in 2017 Here is a list of few good books we read/re-read in 2017 –

Made In America (Sam Walton) – The story of the undisputed merchant king of the late twentieth century. Sam Walton rolled up his sleeves in 1946 and didn’t stop until 1992. What he ended up creating was world’s largest private employer and the biggest company by revenue. In his autobiography, he pours his heart out, chronicling his strategies, successes, and mistakes.

What I Learned Losing a Million Dollars (Jim Paul) – There are as many ways to make money in the markets as there are people participating in the markets, but there are relatively few ways to lose money in the markets. For a majority of the people, all the losses come from the same few sources. Jim Paul’s cautionary tale is a testimony to the importance of studying the patterns of failure than the ways of success.

Delivering Happiness (Tony Hsieh) – This book offers an intensely personal and practical framework to think about the culture of a company. Tony Hsieh’s book is filled with great stories, insights, and tips you can put to use in your business and in your life.

Principles: Life and Work (Ray Dalio) – Ray Dalio, who runs the world’s biggest hedge fund with assets totaling to $160 billion, explains the core principles that he has followed in his life and business.

Seven Brief Lessons on Physics (Carlo Rovelli) – Elon Musk solves problems by using first principles, i.e., understanding the basic ideas of any discipline. Physics is the fundamental study of the workings of material world. In this book, Carlo Rovelli distills the most important principles of Physics into seven lessons.

The Lessons of History (Will Durant) – The best way to learn from history is to notice what didn’t happen and imagine what else could have happened. This book reveals a multidimensional view of history while exploring the possibilities as well as limitations of humanity.

A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy (William Irvine) – Stoic philosophy was the most popular and successful schools of thought in ancient Rome. The principles of stoicism are timeless and immensely useful for living a contended and joyful life. This book does a great job in showing how the stoic advice can be applied in modern times.

No Shortcuts to the Top: Climbing the World’s 14 Highest Peaks (Ed Viesturs) – “Reaching the summit is optional. Getting down is mandatory,” says Viesturs. That’s an unconventional advice. But when you know that the dispenser of this advice is a man who climbed not one, not two but all fourteen of the world’s top summits, you know there’s wisdom in those words. Read the book.

The Undoing Project (Michael Lewis) – For five years, Michael Lewis, one of the best narrator of present times, spent many of his evenings taking a walk with Daniel Kahneman, the most remarkable mind of this century. The outcome was a book which chronicles the journey of how two Israeli scientists, Kahneman and Tversky, created something which upended every single theory of conventional wisdom in the field of finance.

‘Happy’ Investing in 2018 As we end 2017, I want to discuss a bit about happiness, the pursuit of which has become a phenomenon, and something that we wish the most to others welcoming a ‘happy’ new year.

Happiness is a funny thing. We spend forever chasing the idea of it without perhaps knowing what we’re chasing. The concept of happiness usually means “feeling good,” a fleeting notion driven by instant gratification and equated with material factors, such as health, diet and wealth.

It seems obvious that if people are richer and healthier, then they must also be happier. But is that really so obvious? It does not seem so.

One of the best things I came across in 2017 on happiness was Naval Ravikant’s thoughts that he shared in a podcast with Shane Parrish of Farnam Street. Naval said –

(Happiness) is what’s there when you remove the sense that something is missing in your life.

We are highly judgmental, survival, and replication machines. We are constantly walking around thinking I need this, I need that, trapped in the web of desires. Happiness is that state when nothing is missing. When nothing is missing, your mind shuts down and your mind stops running into the future or running into the past to regret something or to plan something. In that absence for a moment, you have internal silence. When you have internal silence, then you are content and you are happy.

One of the most important scientific findings on happiness is that it does not really depend on objective conditions of either wealth, health or even community. Rather, it depends on the correlation between objective conditions and subjective expectations.

Yuval Harari writes in his brilliant book Sapiens (emphasis mine) –

If you want a bullock-cart and get a bullock-cart, you are content. If you want a brand-new Ferrari and get only a second-hand Fiat you feel deprived. This is why winning the lottery has, over time, the same impact on people’s happiness as a debilitating car accident. When things improve, expectations balloon, and consequently even dramatic improvements in objective conditions can leave us dissatisfied. When things deteriorate, expectations shrink, and consequently even a severe illness might leave you pretty much as happy as you were before.

…being satisfied with what you already have is far more important than getting more of what you want.

Consider investing. Most of what makes us happy (or unhappy) as investors aren’t the objective conditions (how our portfolios are performing) but subjective expectations (how our portfolios are performing relative to our expectations).

Added to this, our happiness (or unhappiness) is magnified not by our absolute performances (how our portfolios are performing) but through relative comparisons (how our performance stacks up against the performance of other investors we know of).

Subsequently, we are always working under pressure of the fear of missing out, or FOMO. Knowing that some other investor you know of is having more fun than you by making a lot of money (more than you), is painful. Amidst this, social media that profits not just from connecting us, but mostly from magnifying emotions we don’t want in the long run, often turns this pain into a tragedy of sorts. Remember when you were having a great day recently, someone posted on Twitter how a stock he had bought three years back had turned into a 30-bagger?

This goes against our intrinsic need to be happy, which subsequently lays the ground for us to be, well, unhappy and dissatisfied with our present state of being, including our present portfolio of stocks. We are always searching for something newer, brighter, exciting, and more profitable…something that’s outside of what we own, and others are making money on.

You see, it’s sometimes good to be dissatisfied (which causes you unhappiness) as an investor when it comes to working hard in search of finding ideas. That way, your dissatisfaction is a product of your inner scorecard. However, when this dissatisfaction is caused by measuring yourself against the instant updates on what others are doing, buying, and shouting about, that’s what causes you much pain and leads you to poor decision making.

This is a thought I would like to leave you with as we enter a brand-new year. Especially given the way stock prices have behaved in 2017, and given how high returns in the recent past have caused bloated egos all around, it’s important that you clearly define what causes your real happiness as an investor.

Is it being content – that will cause you to be happy – with an adequate performance that will enable you to achieve your financial goals in time? Or is it constantly chasing extravagant performance that aims to better everyone around, and that you think would make you happy?

You see, the forces of modern life urge us to achieve and acquire more, pushing us outward in our quest for happiness. Why can’t we turn inward, to a deep understanding of true, lasting contentment, which ultimately leads to the happiness we are seeking outside?

Instead of relegating joy and satisfaction to another time, a different place, a better circumstance, or higher return, why can’t we negotiate and embrace “what is.”

This is exactly what we wish for you as we enter 2018. In investing and in life, we wish that you do your work and then be content in embracing “what is” than “what could have been.” This is the only way you could gift yourself happiness that would be with you for a lifetime.

We are lucky to have you as a tribe member.

Thank you!

With respect, Vishal & Anshul

The post Safal Niveshak’s 2017 Annual Letter to Tribe Members appeared first on Safal Niveshak.

Safal Niveshak’s 2017 Annual Letter to Tribe Members published first on https://mbploans.tumblr.com/

[sunshineweb]

Safal Niveshak’s 2017 Annual Letter to Tribe Members

Dear Tribe Member,

Trust 2017 treated you well. It certainly was great for Safal Niveshak.

Here is a brief update on what transpired during the year. The tribe crossed 40,000 members (readers of our free newsletter, Safal Niveshak Post). We conducted nine value investing workshops during the year, meeting 430+ tribe members in the process.

The Mastermind Value Investing Course student count increased by 25%. Our premium newsletter – Value Investing Almanack – which is about to complete three years, gained 20% new members. It continues to receive inspiring reviews from its subscribers.

We also relaunched our free online value investing course – Value Investing Masterclass – in a new avatar. It now consists of updated and more lessons than the previous version. The subscription to this course jumped from 7,500 to 15,000 in less than a year after the relaunch, much better than our expectations.

Apart from this usual stuff, we launched a special e-book titled Two Wise Men, which contained forty stories for children inspired by the wit and wisdom of Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger (Click here to buy your copy). The book received a great response and a lot of wonderful testimonials from kids. This one stole our hearts…

Another initiative this year was the launch of Camp Millionaire money workshop for kids. This is a game and activity-based financial education program for children of age group 8 to 14 years. Kids learn how to make, manage, multiply and donate their money wisely first hand in this day-long program and they have fun doing it. The main objective of this program is to provide a stimulating, fun-filled, learning environment where kids can feel safe exploring and learning the various principles, ideas, and skills needed to create a financially successful and responsible life. During 2017, we conducted four sessions of the camp, meeting and teaching around 120+ lovely kids.

Another first for us in 2017 was a classroom course titled Value Investing Blueprint (VIB) we conducted at FLAME University Pune. This was under the aegis of its FLAME Investment Lab, which is an initiative that strives to deliver the concepts and decipher the art of value investing to interested students.

The first batch of VIB was a seven-lecture course spread over seven Sundays. A total of 47 participants attended the course (against the initial capacity of 40), including a few students who travelled from Mumbai, Gurgaon, and Goa each Sunday. The second batch of this course starts in February 2018 (Click here for registration details).

Best Posts of 2017 Here is a list of our best posts from 2017, based on the number of reads and comments –

Want to Become a Full-Time Investor? Here’s Your Checklist

My Interview with Jason Zweig

Notes from Howard Marks’ Lecture: 48 Most Important Things I Learned on Investing

My Stock Selection Framework

A Short Guide to Reading and Learning for Investors

Lecture Presentation and Notes: Seeking Wisdom in the Age of Information

Goals for 2018 This is the easiest part of this letter because, given our consistency in failing to work as per plans, all we have done below is copy and paste our 2018 plan from the 2017 plan we had outlined a year ago – We entered 2017 with the following three goals –

Improving the quality of content on Safal Niveshak – both free posts and premium ones (Mastermind and VIA) – This is always work-in-progress. But as seen from user feedback, we managed to slightly improve the quality of our content in 2017. Of course, a lot more is desired in 2018.

Increasing the breadth of content by getting deeper into annual report analysis, financial statement analysis, and industry analysis – Honestly, not much improvement on this front, so aim in 2018 is to focus more here.

Improving the breadth of content delivery by adding audio and video content – Started with videos on our mental models series. Work is in progress on converting the free value investing course into videos and audios too. Watch out for much action on this front in 2018.

Apart from working more and better on the above-mentioned goals, one incremental thing we wish to focus on in 2018 is to develop more content for youngsters, in areas of investing, thinking, behaviour, and learning. The Two Wise Men e-book and Camp Millionaire initiatives in 2017 were steps in this direction. But, without doubt, given the wide disparity in the level of financial education desired and provided by our education system, we see a great opportunity to serve a purpose here.

As we get into 2018, we welcome your suggestions in the Comments section of this post on what you would like us to do as far as content or a new initiative from Safal Niveshak is concerned.

Best Books We Read in 2017 Here is a list of few good books we read/re-read in 2017 –

Made In America (Sam Walton) – The story of the undisputed merchant king of the late twentieth century. Sam Walton rolled up his sleeves in 1946 and didn’t stop until 1992. What he ended up creating was world’s largest private employer and the biggest company by revenue. In his autobiography, he pours his heart out, chronicling his strategies, successes, and mistakes.

What I Learned Losing a Million Dollars (Jim Paul) – There are as many ways to make money in the markets as there are people participating in the markets, but there are relatively few ways to lose money in the markets. For a majority of the people, all the losses come from the same few sources. Jim Paul’s cautionary tale is a testimony to the importance of studying the patterns of failure than the ways of success.

Delivering Happiness (Tony Hsieh) – This book offers an intensely personal and practical framework to think about the culture of a company. Tony Hsieh’s book is filled with great stories, insights, and tips you can put to use in your business and in your life.

Principles: Life and Work (Ray Dalio) – Ray Dalio, who runs the world’s biggest hedge fund with assets totaling to $160 billion, explains the core principles that he has followed in his life and business.

Seven Brief Lessons on Physics (Carlo Rovelli) – Elon Musk solves problems by using first principles, i.e., understanding the basic ideas of any discipline. Physics is the fundamental study of the workings of material world. In this book, Carlo Rovelli distills the most important principles of Physics into seven lessons.

The Lessons of History (Will Durant) – The best way to learn from history is to notice what didn’t happen and imagine what else could have happened. This book reveals a multidimensional view of history while exploring the possibilities as well as limitations of humanity.

A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy (William Irvine) – Stoic philosophy was the most popular and successful schools of thought in ancient Rome. The principles of stoicism are timeless and immensely useful for living a contended and joyful life. This book does a great job in showing how the stoic advice can be applied in modern times.

No Shortcuts to the Top: Climbing the World’s 14 Highest Peaks (Ed Viesturs) – “Reaching the summit is optional. Getting down is mandatory,” says Viesturs. That’s an unconventional advice. But when you know that the dispenser of this advice is a man who climbed not one, not two but all fourteen of the world’s top summits, you know there’s wisdom in those words. Read the book.

The Undoing Project (Michael Lewis) – For five years, Michael Lewis, one of the best narrator of present times, spent many of his evenings taking a walk with Daniel Kahneman, the most remarkable mind of this century. The outcome was a book which chronicles the journey of how two Israeli scientists, Kahneman and Tversky, created something which upended every single theory of conventional wisdom in the field of finance.

‘Happy’ Investing in 2018 As we end 2017, I want to discuss a bit about happiness, the pursuit of which has become a phenomenon, and something that we wish the most to others welcoming a ‘happy’ new year.

Happiness is a funny thing. We spend forever chasing the idea of it without perhaps knowing what we’re chasing. The concept of happiness usually means “feeling good,” a fleeting notion driven by instant gratification and equated with material factors, such as health, diet and wealth.

It seems obvious that if people are richer and healthier, then they must also be happier. But is that really so obvious? It does not seem so.

One of the best things I came across in 2017 on happiness was Naval Ravikant’s thoughts that he shared in a podcast with Shane Parrish of Farnam Street. Naval said –

(Happiness) is what’s there when you remove the sense that something is missing in your life.

We are highly judgmental, survival, and replication machines. We are constantly walking around thinking I need this, I need that, trapped in the web of desires. Happiness is that state when nothing is missing. When nothing is missing, your mind shuts down and your mind stops running into the future or running into the past to regret something or to plan something. In that absence for a moment, you have internal silence. When you have internal silence, then you are content and you are happy.

One of the most important scientific findings on happiness is that it does not really depend on objective conditions of either wealth, health or even community. Rather, it depends on the correlation between objective conditions and subjective expectations.

Yuval Harari writes in his brilliant book Sapiens (emphasis mine) –

If you want a bullock-cart and get a bullock-cart, you are content. If you want a brand-new Ferrari and get only a second-hand Fiat you feel deprived. This is why winning the lottery has, over time, the same impact on people’s happiness as a debilitating car accident. When things improve, expectations balloon, and consequently even dramatic improvements in objective conditions can leave us dissatisfied. When things deteriorate, expectations shrink, and consequently even a severe illness might leave you pretty much as happy as you were before.

…being satisfied with what you already have is far more important than getting more of what you want.

Consider investing. Most of what makes us happy (or unhappy) as investors aren’t the objective conditions (how our portfolios are performing) but subjective expectations (how our portfolios are performing relative to our expectations).

Added to this, our happiness (or unhappiness) is magnified not by our absolute performances (how our portfolios are performing) but through relative comparisons (how our performance stacks up against the performance of other investors we know of).

Subsequently, we are always working under pressure of the fear of missing out, or FOMO. Knowing that some other investor you know of is having more fun than you by making a lot of money (more than you), is painful. Amidst this, social media that profits not just from connecting us, but mostly from magnifying emotions we don’t want in the long run, often turns this pain into a tragedy of sorts. Remember when you were having a great day recently, someone posted on Twitter how a stock he had bought three years back had turned into a 30-bagger?

This goes against our intrinsic need to be happy, which subsequently lays the ground for us to be, well, unhappy and dissatisfied with our present state of being, including our present portfolio of stocks. We are always searching for something newer, brighter, exciting, and more profitable…something that’s outside of what we own, and others are making money on.

You see, it’s sometimes good to be dissatisfied (which causes you unhappiness) as an investor when it comes to working hard in search of finding ideas. That way, your dissatisfaction is a product of your inner scorecard. However, when this dissatisfaction is caused by measuring yourself against the instant updates on what others are doing, buying, and shouting about, that’s what causes you much pain and leads you to poor decision making.

This is a thought I would like to leave you with as we enter a brand-new year. Especially given the way stock prices have behaved in 2017, and given how high returns in the recent past have caused bloated egos all around, it’s important that you clearly define what causes your real happiness as an investor.

Is it being content – that will cause you to be happy – with an adequate performance that will enable you to achieve your financial goals in time? Or is it constantly chasing extravagant performance that aims to better everyone around, and that you think would make you happy?

You see, the forces of modern life urge us to achieve and acquire more, pushing us outward in our quest for happiness. Why can’t we turn inward, to a deep understanding of true, lasting contentment, which ultimately leads to the happiness we are seeking outside?

Instead of relegating joy and satisfaction to another time, a different place, a better circumstance, or higher return, why can’t we negotiate and embrace “what is.”

This is exactly what we wish for you as we enter 2018. In investing and in life, we wish that you do your work and then be content in embracing “what is” than “what could have been.” This is the only way you could gift yourself happiness that would be with you for a lifetime.

We are lucky to have you as a tribe member.

Thank you!

With respect, Vishal & Anshul

The post Safal Niveshak’s 2017 Annual Letter to Tribe Members appeared first on Safal Niveshak.

Safal Niveshak’s 2017 Annual Letter to Tribe Members published first on https://mbploans.tumblr.com/

[sunshineweb]

Safal Niveshak’s 2017 Annual Letter to Tribe Members

Dear Tribe Member,

Trust 2017 treated you well. It certainly was great for Safal Niveshak.

Here is a brief update on what transpired during the year. The tribe crossed 40,000 members (readers of our free newsletter, Safal Niveshak Post). We conducted nine value investing workshops during the year, meeting 430+ tribe members in the process.

The Mastermind Value Investing Course student count increased by 25%. Our premium newsletter – Value Investing Almanack – which is about to complete three years, gained 20% new members. It continues to receive inspiring reviews from its subscribers.

We also relaunched our free online value investing course – Value Investing Masterclass – in a new avatar. It now consists of updated and more lessons than the previous version. The subscription to this course jumped from 7,500 to 15,000 in less than a year after the relaunch, much better than our expectations.

Apart from this usual stuff, we launched a special e-book titled Two Wise Men, which contained forty stories for children inspired by the wit and wisdom of Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger (Click here to buy your copy). The book received a great response and a lot of wonderful testimonials from kids. This one stole our hearts…

Another initiative this year was the launch of Camp Millionaire money workshop for kids. This is a game and activity-based financial education program for children of age group 8 to 14 years. Kids learn how to make, manage, multiply and donate their money wisely first hand in this day-long program and they have fun doing it. The main objective of this program is to provide a stimulating, fun-filled, learning environment where kids can feel safe exploring and learning the various principles, ideas, and skills needed to create a financially successful and responsible life. During 2017, we conducted four sessions of the camp, meeting and teaching around 120+ lovely kids.

Another first for us in 2017 was a classroom course titled Value Investing Blueprint (VIB) we conducted at FLAME University Pune. This was under the aegis of its FLAME Investment Lab, which is an initiative that strives to deliver the concepts and decipher the art of value investing to interested students.

The first batch of VIB was a seven-lecture course spread over seven Sundays. A total of 47 participants attended the course (against the initial capacity of 40), including a few students who travelled from Mumbai, Gurgaon, and Goa each Sunday. The second batch of this course starts in February 2018 (Click here for registration details).

Best Posts of 2017 Here is a list of our best posts from 2017, based on the number of reads and comments –

Want to Become a Full-Time Investor? Here’s Your Checklist

My Interview with Jason Zweig

Notes from Howard Marks’ Lecture: 48 Most Important Things I Learned on Investing

My Stock Selection Framework

A Short Guide to Reading and Learning for Investors

Lecture Presentation and Notes: Seeking Wisdom in the Age of Information

Goals for 2018 This is the easiest part of this letter because, given our consistency in failing to work as per plans, all we have done below is copy and paste our 2018 plan from the 2017 plan we had outlined a year ago – We entered 2017 with the following three goals –

Improving the quality of content on Safal Niveshak – both free posts and premium ones (Mastermind and VIA) – This is always work-in-progress. But as seen from user feedback, we managed to slightly improve the quality of our content in 2017. Of course, a lot more is desired in 2018.

Increasing the breadth of content by getting deeper into annual report analysis, financial statement analysis, and industry analysis – Honestly, not much improvement on this front, so aim in 2018 is to focus more here.

Improving the breadth of content delivery by adding audio and video content – Started with videos on our mental models series. Work is in progress on converting the free value investing course into videos and audios too. Watch out for much action on this front in 2018.

Apart from working more and better on the above-mentioned goals, one incremental thing we wish to focus on in 2018 is to develop more content for youngsters, in areas of investing, thinking, behaviour, and learning. The Two Wise Men e-book and Camp Millionaire initiatives in 2017 were steps in this direction. But, without doubt, given the wide disparity in the level of financial education desired and provided by our education system, we see a great opportunity to serve a purpose here.

As we get into 2018, we welcome your suggestions in the Comments section of this post on what you would like us to do as far as content or a new initiative from Safal Niveshak is concerned.

Best Books We Read in 2017 Here is a list of few good books we read/re-read in 2017 –

Made In America (Sam Walton) – The story of the undisputed merchant king of the late twentieth century. Sam Walton rolled up his sleeves in 1946 and didn’t stop until 1992. What he ended up creating was world’s largest private employer and the biggest company by revenue. In his autobiography, he pours his heart out, chronicling his strategies, successes, and mistakes.

What I Learned Losing a Million Dollars (Jim Paul) – There are as many ways to make money in the markets as there are people participating in the markets, but there are relatively few ways to lose money in the markets. For a majority of the people, all the losses come from the same few sources. Jim Paul’s cautionary tale is a testimony to the importance of studying the patterns of failure than the ways of success.

Delivering Happiness (Tony Hsieh) – This book offers an intensely personal and practical framework to think about the culture of a company. Tony Hsieh’s book is filled with great stories, insights, and tips you can put to use in your business and in your life.

Principles: Life and Work (Ray Dalio) – Ray Dalio, who runs the world’s biggest hedge fund with assets totaling to $160 billion, explains the core principles that he has followed in his life and business.

Seven Brief Lessons on Physics (Carlo Rovelli) – Elon Musk solves problems by using first principles, i.e., understanding the basic ideas of any discipline. Physics is the fundamental study of the workings of material world. In this book, Carlo Rovelli distills the most important principles of Physics into seven lessons.

The Lessons of History (Will Durant) – The best way to learn from history is to notice what didn’t happen and imagine what else could have happened. This book reveals a multidimensional view of history while exploring the possibilities as well as limitations of humanity.

A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy (William Irvine) – Stoic philosophy was the most popular and successful schools of thought in ancient Rome. The principles of stoicism are timeless and immensely useful for living a contended and joyful life. This book does a great job in showing how the stoic advice can be applied in modern times.

No Shortcuts to the Top: Climbing the World’s 14 Highest Peaks (Ed Viesturs) – “Reaching the summit is optional. Getting down is mandatory,” says Viesturs. That’s an unconventional advice. But when you know that the dispenser of this advice is a man who climbed not one, not two but all fourteen of the world’s top summits, you know there’s wisdom in those words. Read the book.

The Undoing Project (Michael Lewis) – For five years, Michael Lewis, one of the best narrator of present times, spent many of his evenings taking a walk with Daniel Kahneman, the most remarkable mind of this century. The outcome was a book which chronicles the journey of how two Israeli scientists, Kahneman and Tversky, created something which upended every single theory of conventional wisdom in the field of finance.

‘Happy’ Investing in 2018 As we end 2017, I want to discuss a bit about happiness, the pursuit of which has become a phenomenon, and something that we wish the most to others welcoming a ‘happy’ new year.

Happiness is a funny thing. We spend forever chasing the idea of it without perhaps knowing what we’re chasing. The concept of happiness usually means “feeling good,” a fleeting notion driven by instant gratification and equated with material factors, such as health, diet and wealth.

It seems obvious that if people are richer and healthier, then they must also be happier. But is that really so obvious? It does not seem so.

One of the best things I came across in 2017 on happiness was Naval Ravikant’s thoughts that he shared in a podcast with Shane Parrish of Farnam Street. Naval said –

(Happiness) is what’s there when you remove the sense that something is missing in your life.

We are highly judgmental, survival, and replication machines. We are constantly walking around thinking I need this, I need that, trapped in the web of desires. Happiness is that state when nothing is missing. When nothing is missing, your mind shuts down and your mind stops running into the future or running into the past to regret something or to plan something. In that absence for a moment, you have internal silence. When you have internal silence, then you are content and you are happy.

One of the most important scientific findings on happiness is that it does not really depend on objective conditions of either wealth, health or even community. Rather, it depends on the correlation between objective conditions and subjective expectations.

Yuval Harari writes in his brilliant book Sapiens (emphasis mine) –

If you want a bullock-cart and get a bullock-cart, you are content. If you want a brand-new Ferrari and get only a second-hand Fiat you feel deprived. This is why winning the lottery has, over time, the same impact on people’s happiness as a debilitating car accident. When things improve, expectations balloon, and consequently even dramatic improvements in objective conditions can leave us dissatisfied. When things deteriorate, expectations shrink, and consequently even a severe illness might leave you pretty much as happy as you were before.

…being satisfied with what you already have is far more important than getting more of what you want.

Consider investing. Most of what makes us happy (or unhappy) as investors aren’t the objective conditions (how our portfolios are performing) but subjective expectations (how our portfolios are performing relative to our expectations).

Added to this, our happiness (or unhappiness) is magnified not by our absolute performances (how our portfolios are performing) but through relative comparisons (how our performance stacks up against the performance of other investors we know of).

Subsequently, we are always working under pressure of the fear of missing out, or FOMO. Knowing that some other investor you know of is having more fun than you by making a lot of money (more than you), is painful. Amidst this, social media that profits not just from connecting us, but mostly from magnifying emotions we don’t want in the long run, often turns this pain into a tragedy of sorts. Remember when you were having a great day recently, someone posted on Twitter how a stock he had bought three years back had turned into a 30-bagger?

This goes against our intrinsic need to be happy, which subsequently lays the ground for us to be, well, unhappy and dissatisfied with our present state of being, including our present portfolio of stocks. We are always searching for something newer, brighter, exciting, and more profitable…something that’s outside of what we own, and others are making money on.

You see, it’s sometimes good to be dissatisfied (which causes you unhappiness) as an investor when it comes to working hard in search of finding ideas. That way, your dissatisfaction is a product of your inner scorecard. However, when this dissatisfaction is caused by measuring yourself against the instant updates on what others are doing, buying, and shouting about, that’s what causes you much pain and leads you to poor decision making.

This is a thought I would like to leave you with as we enter a brand-new year. Especially given the way stock prices have behaved in 2017, and given how high returns in the recent past have caused bloated egos all around, it’s important that you clearly define what causes your real happiness as an investor.

Is it being content – that will cause you to be happy – with an adequate performance that will enable you to achieve your financial goals in time? Or is it constantly chasing extravagant performance that aims to better everyone around, and that you think would make you happy?

You see, the forces of modern life urge us to achieve and acquire more, pushing us outward in our quest for happiness. Why can’t we turn inward, to a deep understanding of true, lasting contentment, which ultimately leads to the happiness we are seeking outside?

Instead of relegating joy and satisfaction to another time, a different place, a better circumstance, or higher return, why can’t we negotiate and embrace “what is.”

This is exactly what we wish for you as we enter 2018. In investing and in life, we wish that you do your work and then be content in embracing “what is” than “what could have been.” This is the only way you could gift yourself happiness that would be with you for a lifetime.

We are lucky to have you as a tribe member.

Thank you!

With respect, Vishal & Anshul

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