Book Worm

📚 On Filters And Rules – Part 3

March 31, 2021

Prof. Sanjay Bakshi once observed —

People in the investment community are often too judgmental about developments. They forget the Pari-mutuel nature of markets where the behaviour of others changes the odds. They indulge in first level thinking and don’t pause, reflect and ask questions like “and then what?” If the development is unfavourable, the pain avoidance mechanisms in their brains make them run away from a situation which is getting even more attractive because others are running away.

And Then What?

“And then what?” is a very important filter for robust decision making.

Every action has consequences: intended and unintended. No matter how carefully we plan, we can’t anticipate everything. We live in a universe governed by multi-variate cause-effect network. Focusing on one variable can almost always distract you from the unexpected side effects.

📚 On Filters And Rules – Part 2

February 28, 2021

We don’t really bother memorizing the facts and figures with google at fingertips, and we don’t need to. But when our misconceptions about truth are rooted in strong intuitions and the ubiquitous expert opinion, then we expose ourselves to a risk that’s hard to see.

Filters are like a defence mechanism. Defence against so called experts who are increasingly becoming dominant in our world. Anywhere you look, you find some expert dispensing his advice for us novices.

📚 On Filters And Rules – Part 1

January 20, 2021

Peter Bevelin’s book, All I Want to Know Is Where I’m Going to Die So I’ll Never Go There, is a compendium of life-changing wisdom. A must-have book for anyone who wants to avoid living a regretful life. Bevelin’s volume is based on the teachings of Charlie Munger.

On 1st January 2021, Charlie Munger turned 97 years old. Being a nonagenarian is a rarity, especially when the subject is a billionaire too. But Charlie Munger isn’t just a very-old-rich-guy, he’s also mentally the sharpest. Even at this age, in just a few seconds he can cut through the noisy balderdash and arrive at decisive insights that most other smart people would miss.

When I (Almost) Dumped Ben Graham’s Intelligent Investor

November 30, 2020

It was sometime in 2005 when a close friend of mine gifted me Ben Graham’s The Intelligent Investor, knowing that I was working as a stock analyst and aspired to become a sensible investor (aspirations are always sensible, you see).

“Is this a good book?” I asked him.

“Seek for yourself,” he told me.

I read through the first few pages of the book, and it didn’t seem to catch hold of my attention, forget captivating me to any extent.

I realized Graham was the teacher of Warren Buffett, whom I’d first read about during my MBA in 2003 (not in the class, but in the library). But the book still did not interest me.

BookWorm: The 10 Commandments for Business Failure

October 15, 2020

It’s quite common to find business leaders dispensing advice about what it takes to be successful. But it takes a genius to recognize that, in business and life, what needs to be investigated is not what works, but what fails. Don’s lifetime experience in business made him realize the same and he shares the lessons in this book.

They say you should never judge a book by its cover. It’s a good rule of thumb about what not to do.

So how do you judge if a book is worth reading or not? I agree, it’s a difficult question to answer but if you find a book, which starts with a foreword from Warren Buffett, there is no question about whether to read it or not. Don Keough’s The 10 Commandments of Business Failure is one such book. This is what Buffett says about the author –

It has been an article of faith for me that I should always try to hang out with people who are better than I. When I am with Don Keough, I can feel myself on the up escalator…He’s an incredible business leader…Don talks such sense and offers such inspiration…he is one of the very few guys I feel I can hand the keys over to.

Keough worked in The Coca Cola Company for close to 40 years and retired from the post of president and CEO. So even if Buffett hadn’t endorsed him, it would still be a huge mistake to miss a book written by a person who ran one of the most iconic companies of the last century.

It’s quite common to find business leaders dispensing advice about what it takes to be successful, expounding on the secret sauce of success. But it takes a genius to recognize that, in business and life, what needs to be investigated is not what works, but what fails. Don’s lifetime experience in business made him realize the same.

So instead of developing a step-by-step formula for success, he came up with commandments for failure. Don writes in the introduction of his book –

…I give you these ten commandments and with them comes the assurance that if you carefully follow one or more you will fail, or at least have a head start on the downward path to ultimate failure…view this little book as a cautionary tale. If you find yourself a disciple of one or more of these commandments, watch out. You are on your way to failure and taking your company with you.

These commandments are especially useful at the time when the going is good. It’s at the times of success that people lower their guards, develop vulnerability and make way for the seeds of failure.
[Read more…] about BookWorm: The 10 Commandments for Business Failure