If you had access to some successful businessmen, great successful entrepreneurs, and you could take their advice, what do you think that advice would sound like, and would it help you?
Say, for example, if you can talk to Travis Kalanick of Uber, the advice may sound like, focus on growth at all costs, do not worry about costs or profits. Just focus on customer acquisition; company culture, work culture be damned. Customer acquisition and higher revenue numbers are the keys. Become the dominant platform and valuation will follow. Profitability? Eventually.
Or you talk to Bill Gates, his advice probably will sound different. He is known to have kept 2-3 years of company expense like an emergency fund. He was profitable from the Go, and also established a monopoly of sorts
Or you talk to Dhirubhai Ambani, his advice could be interesting. Apart from everything that he might say, he might also include one strange piece of advice. He might say, Keep bureaucrats happy. We know what that means and it would have been a bit of sound advice when he conducted business. STILL MIGHT BE.
Or try asking Edison, whether you should quit. He might say, “I tried 9999 times before I invented the electric bulb.”
All successful people and yet vastly different paths to success and as their lives prove, none of them is Wrong.
When we ask for advice, we are generally asking the person who is successful for advice. We do not under normal circumstances ask people who we think have failed. But here is the thing, the person who has become successful will give advice basis on what worked for him. The advice is very personal in nature. It worked for him in those times.
If you lived in Nazi Germany and approached Mahatma Gandhi for advice, he might suggest Civil Disobedience. It worked wonders for the Indian fight for independence. But Nazi Germany would have sent you to a gas chamber before you could utter Civil Disobedience. The point is, advice depends on time and place and is specific to the one giving it out.
Unless somebody gives very generic advice.
“Focus on hard work. It will always pay off”
“Customer is God”
“Consistency is the key”
The above advice’s are solid but also known to everybody. It does not help much.
What makes you successful? is a really terrible question.
Lots of hard work, persistence, competence, passion, and the ability to solve a problem is what makes me successful, could be a reasonable answer to this question. The answer is not helpful.
But is it really the problem with someone giving the advice or the way advice is being sought. Maybe the problem lies in the way we frame our questions:
Unless we know the very specific problem that we are looking to solve, we will never get a helpful answer. And even then the answer might not work for us.
Something which worked for someone at one point might not work for you because you cannot enter the same river twice. The second time, it is not the same river and it is not the same person. Both the river and person have changed, imperceptibly sure but changed nonetheless.
I have made this mistake countless times and continue to do so. But now I ask for specific advice, try and implement and see how the result pans out. There is no better example of this in investing world than Warren Buffett. He changed with the times and continues to do so. Not afraid to make mistakes and to learn from them. Yes still learn from mistakes despite being in the stock market for almost 70 years.
When he started out as a student of Benjamin Graham, value investing was the holy grail. He did very well buying the undervalued companies. Later on, in his career, he moved from buying undervalued companies to buying companies with impeccable management and well-run businesses. See the change in focus, he moved from buying undervalued companies to buying BUSINESSES with deep moats. He then moved on to bail out companies such as Goldman in distress and then invested in APPLE, a tech/consumer durable company. Both Buffet and Munger are on record saying that they will not invest in a tech company. And yet they Did.
And oh! they invested in Airline companies and sold the stake subsequently at a loss. Warren is on record saying multiple times that Airline companies though very important for the modern world, do not make money for investors. I guess, sometimes it becomes difficult to take your own advice too. Not intending it as a snide remark but more a testament to the fact that times change, advice changes. It is not static but a wildly dynamic world that we live in. DOGEcoin which started out as a meme and as a joke has a USD 25 bn market cap. IT IS A DIFFERENT WORLD.
More so in personal finance.
Ask a rich person about how he manages personal finance. Oh, I keep 5 years’ worth of expense in an emergency fund. For most people, that is not a real possibility.
Or ask someone with a high income and he might say, I just save 20% of what I earn, I want to live my life too. And that 20% could be high enough to sustain him but may not be sufficient for most.
Or someone might say, saving is for losers, It is YOLO (You Only Live Once) baby and he might be on the way to inherit a ton of money.
We do not know other people’s journeys. We have to focus on ours. This is why even the best in the business go for personalized coaching. Elite athletes, businessmen work with personal coaches to chart out their specific path. Information is available freely on the internet but at some point, we have to tweak the generic advice and see if that makes sense to you. And then RINSE AND REPEAT.
This is post no 47.
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Some other posts that you might like:
- Do you want to be the richest men in 1900’s or an average man today– A look st how far we have advanced as a species and what we take for granted today.
- From 10K to 500 Cr– A look at what gets peddled more often than not. This is not your everyday happening but a rare tail event.
- Winners and Losers– An allegorical tale of the most commonly occurring mistake in our portfolio. Do not miss this one.
One post that really drives me to write and that gives me massive complex. It is a piece on writing and why this solitary activity is more beneficial for the writer than to the readers. A great piece on story telling.
1. Writing and Wisdom
1. Writing and Wisdom
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Perfect discription… I liked it…
Ur permanent Reader…!
Just amazing
Thank You Navneet. Also, please spread the word:)