Here is the complete transcript of the podcast
Welcome, or welcome back to Success with Srini, a daily podcast on human design, human engineering, human excellence, happy Friday morning to you.
I have so many thoughts on my mind as I’m doing this podcast today. But there is something that happened yesterday was with a friend of mine. And we were talking about some investments and how to invest how to approach the landscape the way it is right now. And the discussion went from huge investments into some basic principles of investing. I found it interesting. So I thought I should make a podcast out of it. So here I am, today, trying to share some of my thoughts on how to earn, how to save how to invest in how to grow.
Again, these are some things that I learned. These are not mine. I have been incredibly blessed with so many teachers, so many mentors, so many books. I love what has happened to me in the last 25 years incredible life. And the reason why I feel comfortable sharing this is because I learned, I applied, I got results. This became my own. And that is why I’m here sharing it with you.
I have talked about self improvement, starting businesses, doing several different things, buying businesses, investing in businesses, all kinds of stuff. But I never, ever did a podcast talking about money principles. I have done this in one on one coaching sessions with my clients, but nothing on this podcast, I don’t remember I did. Let me know if I did. Because there are so many episodes here already, maybe very early on maybe in 2016, 2017. But I don’t have a recent memory of me ever talking about money principles. So here I am doing this.
Invest in yourself.
You got to be engaged in a continuous and constant pursuit for education. That means you’re training you’re growing, you’re investing money to acquiring the knowledge. The single biggest investment that never ever fails to pay an investment that you do into yourself.
Now, while you’re acquiring knowledge, while you’re acquiring professional skills, I want you to also be careful with your physical and your spiritual growth. Those two are also important. See, you acquire skills in the process, you acquire money. But then if you don’t grow, spiritually and physically are not intact, then what’s the form of all that money, no use for it. Now, as you are studying more, as you are acquiring skills, and you are making money, you will accumulate assets. But as you start accumulating assets, you also need to study the principles of managing money. principles of managing money is as important as your career skills. So money skills are important. As important as career skills. Most people ignore this principle. So invest in yourself. At the same time, please acquire the skills to manage money.
Protect your loved ones.
And you do that by obviously saving and investing and all that but protect your loved ones by getting a life insurance. This is a big one. Most people don’t and my suggestion is get a term life insurance. Something that’s cheap, something that you can pay monthly. And you can get it for a very nominal amount. So term life insurance, protect yourself, maybe for 10 or 15 or 20 years. If you are a multimillionaire you have a lot of money now maybe two or $3 million. Your kids are already in college. Or maybe they’re already done. The call is the earning and all that, then that you probably don’t need insurance because you’re self insurable. At that point, we have that kind of network. But again, if you don’t have that kind of network, I highly suggest the first and foremost thing you have to do is to get a life insurance. Because in the event, God forbid something happens to you that at least the insurance will come in handy.
Credit.
Let’s talk about credit. I see people using credit cards and doing crazy things. And they tell me because I’m with them in consultations and talking to them on radio, exchanging emails with them. They tell me the crazy things they do with credit cards. Credit, usually under two circumstances one is if you’re buying a house, two is if you’re investing into education. Those are the only two times use credit cards. I don’t have credit cards. In fact, I don’t have a credit score. I’ve never felt there was a need for that. I never invested my time in trying to figure out how can I get an 800 credit score and all those things, even though, when I was young, when I was ill informed, I used to make those decisions, moving money across credit cards and all that. But now, those are the only two things I would like to have credit for. But everything else like any, any other asset, which otherwise disguises itself as an asset, the only two assets that I know offers real estate and education outside of these two assets. Everything else is innovate and expense. And if you charge your credit cards for that, then there is an issue. Now if you’re investing, I see people investing people buying Bitcoin and NFT’s using credit cards. Big NO NO. You’re borrowing money. So it’s not a good idea. It’s not a good financial planning.
You got to pay yourself first.
Go to any financial guru, any expert will tell you, you got to pay yourself first. So you’re getting a paycheck. Right? You’re getting a paycheck in the pre tax money, there’s has to be some pre tax that has to go into your 401k. Some post tax has to go into Roth, if you qualify, then some money from the paycheck goes into your CDs and savings accounts and other things. Why? Because most of the times, when you make money, the first thing that happens is that money goes to paying bills, you got to pay yourself first and then use the rest of the money to pay the bills. Now if you can’t pay the bills with the money that is left, it means you got to cut your expenses. Principle here is you got to pay yourself first.
If you are looking to hit homeruns, chances are you lose out.
I see people who want to hit homeruns with their investments. Like if I go buy 10 bitcoins today, at $40,000. Maybe in a year from now everybody’s saying it’s going to become $500,000, something like that. So I wouldn’t make a lot of money. I have no idea how the decentralized finance works and how the cryptos work. I don’t understand any of the stuff just because people are talking about it. There’s a lot of reviews and there’s a lot of buzz around it. I want to go and invest. That’s a big no no doesn’t matter whether it’s crypto or stock or whatever it is, if you are looking to hit homeruns, chances are you lose out. Why? Because someone who invests $10 or $20 every paycheck into some kind of an investment over a long period of time we’ll out beat you with your strategy of taking a bunch of money and putting into one thing that you think is going to be the biggest thing, you’re going to undo the hole that that has ever happened to you. I don’t think that works that way.
It discipline of putting in small amounts of money over a long period of time. And averaging that investment out. Dollar cost averaging out whatever that investment is, is a better strategy than a homerun strategy. And I see that people do So invest carefully.
Find quality assets.
And the last one is there are stocks that are bonds, there is real estate, there is crypto, the NFT. There are collectibles in all kinds of investments there are question of becomes says how do you decide where you have to go? And my answer is find quality assets. And the quality is something that you have enough information about there is enough acceptance, there is value that the market has associated, you have associated you understand it, you are aware, you have knowledge and then invest in those assets. Any asset that you don’t understand, according to me, is not a quality asset to you, because you don’t understand.
Now, is it possible that you can spend some time and afford and learn that asset? Yes, should you maybe that’s your call, but invest in quality assets and the quality is defined by you. Because you have understanding it should proceed with an understanding. You have some knowledge, some experience some insight into that asset. These are some principles.
I want to come back on Saturday and talk a little bit more about some investment philosophies and how you should invest and kind of take this discussion a little bit forward for a Friday. These are some of my thoughts that are currently dominant on my mind. And I want to leave you here at this point. You have a wonderful Friday. Wherever you are, be safe, keep your surroundings safe, keep yourself safe. And I will talk to you tomorrow. Take care bye now.