Category: money

Saw this short but brilliant clip of a boy maybe 5-6 years old being interviewed on a TV channel.

The news reporter asks him, “What do you wanna be when you grow up?”

He replies, “I wanna be a doctor.”

The reporter follows up with, “What will you make?”, clearly trying to see what amount of money would make the kid happy.

The child replies beautifully, “I will make… everyone feel good again.”

Isn’t that truly what doctors are supposed “to make”? And likewise every profession is supposed “to make”? Money is necessary, but is also polluting at times…

Here’s a simple question.

If you go from having 1$ to $1 million, would you be happy? Ecstatic, I’m guessing.

If you go from having $10 million to $1 million, would you be happy? Devastated, in guessing.

But the end result in both are the same. Still a cool million dollars!

Then why are we letting our minds trick us?

Much of spirituality is about answering the question “Who am I?”

The Self, the Atman, the Soul, the Brahman, the Superconsciousness etc.

I got a whatsapp message last evening from my MD & CEO. The message asked me to do a task for him, urgently, because he could not speak at the time as he was on another call.

“Sure, of course”, I thought, and replied as such.

The next message asked me to buy 5000 gift cards and send it to his email.

Clearly I was in the early stages of getting scammed. Realized it in time luckily, phew. This wasn’t about “who am I” anymore, but “who are you”.

Everyone wants to do the right thing. But nobody knows what’s right. Because everyone’s definition of right is different. At least in life.

But what if ‘right’ is pre-defined. Would it help in doing the right thing? It should, in theory, right (pun unintended)?

Let’s take investing as an example. How does one make money from investing? Simple, buy low, sell high. Couldn’t be an easier formula.

But then why isn’t everyone around us rich?

Because while the formula is ‘right’, we aren’t. When the price is 10, isn’t that nice and low? It’s low, but what if it goes to 9 or 8 tomorrow? Or 5? Wow, wouldn’t I like to invest 50% cheaper? And so the buy never happens. Similar story for the “sell high”, as our minds conjure up utopian futures that seem all too obvious to get.

So, is it easy to do the right thing, even if it’s pre-defined?

As of today, there’s no world’s rich person’s list that has a trillionaire in it. But revisit this blog post in a few decades, and surely someone will feature.

For me personally? I think a milion dollars is more than enough.

But those with a million? They want a few million.

Those who are multi millionaires? They want a billion.

The billionaires? They want to be multi-billionaires.

And the multi-billionaires? They want to get into the world’s richest list.

And those on this list already? They want to get to the top of the list.

And those on top of the list? They want to ensure they remain there on top.

How much money you reckon is enough?

Family office advisors and wealth managers around the world are seeing an incredible boom in their businesses. Why? Because more and more rich and well to do families are setting up their inheritance and wealth transfer processes.

They want the transfer to be as smooth as possible, and rightly so. It is estimated that the boomer generation is currently transferring $68 trillion dollars of wealth to their spouses and children. What an incredibly large number. Insane almost.

But you know what happens when people who haven’t worked hard to earn money end up with ridiculously large sums of inheritance money? Surely you do.

Here’s a nice quote I came across:

The 4 Purusharthas as they are called, are DAKM = Dharma + Artha + Kama + Moksha.

One wonders if these are supposed to be separate or they go hand-in-hand?

Here’s a few lines I came across written by Mata Amritandamayi:

Dharma and moksha are interdependent. One who lives according to the principle of Dharma will attain Moksha and one who has a desire to attain moksha will lead a Dharmik life. If they are used incorrectly and unwisely, money and riches can become big obstacles. They are obstructions to those who wish to evolve spiritually. The more money you have the more obsessed you are likely to become with your body. The more you identify with your body the more egoistic you become. Money is not a problem but unintelligent attachment to it is. 

Money is awesome. But is too much money too awesome?

One of the world’s richest men and owners of one of the world’s most premium fashion brands, recently disposed off his private jet.

Wow. Everyone who thinks of being super rich someday surely dreams of owning their very own private jet. And here’s someone who’s giving it away?

No, it’s not an act of charity. But one of personal and corporate safety.

There are apps nowadays that can track all airline information, live and in real-time. And that’s what people had been doing of this gentlemen’s flights across the globe. They knew which country he went to for dinner, for a business meeting, for a personal meeting even. And so tata-byebye private jet.

So much money, yet no privacy. Is too much money too awesome?

Here’s what I saw in the newspaper recently. Someone moderately famous had bought a house. A fairly big house.

Now for most people, that should be a private, intimate transaction. But the newspaper got wind of it. How? By looking through the property-tax papers that get filed alongside. Yes, apparently it’s a paparazzi thing-to-do now!

As if mention of this wasn’t enough, the article also proceeded to state that they were the first to break this news.

Still not enough? They also wrote that they tried reaching out to various members of that family, “but repeated texts and calls remained unanswered at the time of going to press”.

Is this what we are all chasing after? With great power comes great responsibility. But with great money comes great liability. Ironic isn’t it?

The winner of one of the regional versions of Who Wants to be a Millionaire went from pussycat to lion to starving dog.

After winning the grand prize, our man was hounded by the media. Not for a few days, but for a few years. More like 5. Interview after interview, and ad after ad. He began spending out of pocket too. Plenty of fake stories were published about him. His education took a back seat. He made large donations, and was often taken for a ride on philanthropic reasons. At the end, he was pretty much back on the road. Did I mention his wife left him?

Money money money. We want to have it in the billions. But are we confident we can handle all that comes with it?

You know those garbage bags, the black ones that are used to collect trash, and then handed off for disposal the next day when the garbage truck comes around?

Yes, yes, what about it? A blog post on that? Really?

Well imagine carrying a similar looking garbage bag, but slung around your shoulder.

No there won’t be garbage in it (hopefully, because many handbags do look like garbage inside!), but this is no ordinary garbage bag.

It is a designer handbag, costing nothing less than 10,000 dollars, but for some inexplicable reason, designed to look exactly like a garbage bag.

And you know what? It’s apparently selling like hot cakes! Phew, if it’s not enough that such designs even get approved in the first place, there are hundreds or thousands of people queueing up to throw their hard earned money at these things. No wonder it’s so difficult to give up attachments and desires.