14 Years of Safal Niveshak: The One Query That Modified The whole lot

Just a few fast updates from Safal Niveshak HQ:

Particular Anniversary Reductions:
🎁 The Sketchbook of Knowledge & Boundless: Now out there at discounted costs for a restricted time:

🎁 Mastermind Worth Investing membership: ₹3000 off for brand new members. Click on right here to affix now.

🎁 Worth Investing Almanack e-newsletter: ₹3000 off on the annual plan. Click on right here to affix now.

Offline Workshops:
Be a part of me in-person (in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, or Mumbai) for a day of deep studying, reflection, and conversations round worth investing and life. Click on right here for particulars and registration.

New On-line Masterclass – The Artwork of Valuation:
A 3-hour dwell session on decoding intrinsic worth and studying how nice buyers take into consideration value vs. price. Click on right here for particulars and registration.

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Fourteen years in the past, after I began Safal Niveshak, I didn’t actually know what I used to be doing. Actually, it was extra of a coronary heart choice than a head one. I didn’t have a enterprise mannequin or monetary projections. I simply knew I wished to jot down, educate, and determine issues out by myself phrases.

However even with out a plan, I used to be nonetheless wired like most individuals. And so, I stored questioning: “What’s going to this get me?” What number of readers? How a lot revenue? What kind of recognition? The reality is, I’ve spent a few years chasing that query. Typically quietly, and generally desperately.

And that’s the place I stored tripping. That one query, “What will this get me?” sounds innocent on the floor. Nevertheless it creeps in and begins shaping each selection you make.

Ought to I write about this? Provided that it goes viral. Ought to I launch this course? Provided that the numbers look good. Ought to I work on this e book? Provided that there’s a transparent, tangible payoff. And slowly, your work begins to lose its soul. You begin doing issues not since you really feel pulled to them, however since you’re calculating what they’ll herald return. You cease asking what feels true and begin asking what seems worthwhile. And also you begin treating your personal life like a steadiness sheet.

You see, the price of solely asking “What Will This Get Me?” is that this by no means stops asking for extra.

You get the elevate. Then you definitely need the promotion. You get the promotion. Then you definitely need the fairness. You get the next. Then you definitely need the affect. You get the affect. Then you definitely need the celebrity.

It’s a treadmill. Besides the treadmill isn’t damaged. It’s completely designed to exhaust you.

And the true hazard is refined. When each undertaking turns into a way to an finish, you neglect the enjoyment of doing one thing for its personal sake. You neglect what it means to create with out performing.

I’ve made this error greater than I care to confess. And each time I’ve labored from that ROI (return on funding) mindset, one thing inside me has felt just a little off. I’ve felt rushed, hole, and transactional.

The humorous factor is, a few of the finest issues I’ve executed, those that truly introduced that means, connection, and even some success, got here to me from asking a really totally different query. And it was, “Who will this make me?”

That shift modified every little thing for me.

Once I ask that second query, my lens adjustments. I cease enthusiastic about outcomes, and I begin enthusiastic about progress. And I’m not speaking about progress in numbers. However progress in character, in in consciousness.

So, my questions now develop into: Am I changing into extra affected person? Am I changing into extra curious? Extra grounded? Extra beneficiant with my time and a spotlight?

Now, these are actually more durable questions. They don’t have simple solutions. However they lead you someplace deeper. Someplace quieter.

The world pushes us to ask “what’s going to this get me?” on a regular basis. It’s in all places. However these are momentary issues. Sure, they’re addictive. However they don’t fill you in an enduring method. What fills you is the inside information that you simply’re residing in alignment with who you need to be. That you simply’re working in a method that builds you, not breaks you.

I’ve seen this lesson come up in different areas too. Parenting, for instance. Once I consider my kids, I don’t simply need to educate them how to achieve success. I need them to ask, “Who am I changing into by way of the alternatives I’m making?” That’s the query that builds character. That’s the query that invitations knowledge.

Or take cash itself. All of us need monetary independence. However I’ve realized that actual freedom isn’t nearly cash, however about changing into the sort of one who is aware of what to do with that freedom. Somebody who doesn’t lose themselves chasing extra. Somebody who has sufficient inside quiet to know what issues.

This previous yr particularly, ever since I began work on Boundless, I’ve been asking this query increasingly more. Earlier than beginning something new, earlier than saying sure to a collaboration, and even earlier than writing a publish, I pause and ask: If I do that, who will I develop into? And if the reply is somebody extra anxious, extra distracted, extra pretend, then irrespective of how good the chance sounds, I attempt to stroll away.

As a result of right here’s what I do know now. Life is brief. Too brief to optimise each hour and to show each undertaking right into a KPI.

We don’t want extra environment friendly outputs. We’d like richer inputs. We’d like extra moments that, as Kurt Vonnegut had stated, make our soul develop, not simply feed our carefully-drawn spreadsheets.

So right here I’m, 14 years in with Safal Niveshak, nonetheless figuring issues out. But when there’s one guiding star I need to comply with going ahead, it’s this:

Don’t simply ask what this work will get me. Ask who this work will make me.

Will it make me the sort of individual I’d need to develop into, even when nobody’s watching? Will it form my character, my voice, and my soul? And can it assist me dwell a life that feels true, not simply spectacular?

As a result of if the work is altering me for the higher, that’s already the largest return on funding there’s.

And that, my pal, is greater than sufficient.

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Safal Niveshak has been virtually a one-person, self-funded initiative, and I anticipate to maintain it this fashion. For me, true freedom has by no means lied within the liberty to do no matter I need, however within the liberty to not do what I don’t want. Trying again at these 14 years, I’m pleased with holding on robust to that concept.

I have to thanks, expensive reader, for studying, for commenting, on your curiosity and assist, for serving to this whole motion of making wiser buyers develop into higher and unfold wider. You’re magnificent, and I’m supremely grateful on your time and a spotlight.

Simply in case Safal Niveshak has touched your life, I might be completely happy and honoured to learn your ideas within the Feedback part of this publish.

Thanks once more for being right here and supplying the gasoline of motivation to assist me proceed my stroll. I appear to have come a good distance, and I take inspiration from Dr. Seuss who wrote in Oh, the Locations You’ll Go! –

You’re off to Nice Locations!
At this time is your day!
Your mountain is ready,
So… get in your method!

– Vishal

P.S. Lots has occurred in these 14 fast years. I’ve revealed greater than 1,900 posts on the positioning. After adjusting for inactive readers, the Safal Niveshak tribe stays robust at 75,000 subscribers to the free e-newsletter – The Journal of Investing Knowledge.

Aside from that, over these years, greater than 15,000 individuals have subscribed for programs like Mastermind, and different worth investing masterclasses. I additionally restarted the Worth Investing Almanack e-newsletter this yr.

Additionally, my e book – The Sketchbook of Knowledge – which I self-published in 2021, offered its 6500^th copy this yr (get your copy right here). This yr, I revealed my second e book, Boundless, that has additionally acquired an exquisite reception.

The One % Present, which I launched in June 2021, has benefited from some wonderful friends like Manish Chokhani, Prof. Sanjay Bakshi, Arnold Van Den Berg, Man Spier, Mohnish Pabrai, Morgan Housel, William Inexperienced, and Leander Paes, amongst many others.

The Inside Sport podcast that I launched final yr, is on a run of its personal. I simply revealed my 102nd episode.