Kioria's 2Cents

Happy New year everyone . I hope you are all well in these tough times. The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel is the first book of 2022! A great way to start the year by analyzing and understanding the mindset that comes with investing. Often we hear about the strategies to invest money but not the psyche behind it. Below are what I have gathered while reading the book. Save Save Save! "Saving money is the gap between your ego and your income, and wealth is what you don’t see. So wealth is created by suppressing what you could buy today in order to have more stuff or more options in the future. No matter how much you earn, you will never build wealth unless you can put a lid on how much fun you can have with your money right now, today."  - Morgan .H, pg 167 The more efficient you are with your money, the less you will need. The less you will need, you more you can save and invest. It boils down to psychology. If you desire less, you will spend less. However, that is e...

  I recently read the book Ikigai by Hector Garcia and Fransec Miralles . It was an interesting take on what it means to live a happy and fulfilled with insights coming from the Japanese people specifically, the Okinawans. Below are some of the insights I got while reading the book. What is ikigai? From Wikipedia, it means is a Japanese concept that means "a reason for being". The word refers to having a direction or purpose in life, that which makes one's life worthwhile, and towards which an individual takes spontaneous and willing actions giving them satisfaction and a sense of meaning to life. Never Retire The people in Japan never retire and work till they die. Japan is notorious for having the most overworked people in the world something they call  Karoshi.   The people of Okinawa have the highest population in the world of centenarians i.e people who live above 100 years old. They were found to be very happy and active in their old age. They still got ve...

  I recently read The 5AM Club by Robin Sharma. I found the title corny and sure enough I was proven right. There are some parts of the books that irrelevant and one can do away with them. Especially the story he tells. I find it to be drawn out and you skip and just read Chapter 10, Chapter 12 and Chapter 15 where the meat of the book is. Moreover, some of the dialogue is just bad and doesn't resemble how human beings actually talk. Nevertheless, there were some good nuggets I picked up from the book and here they are "But neither a bull nor a noble spirited man comes to be what he is all at once. He must undertake hard winter training and prepare himself and not propel himself rashly into what isn't appropriate for him " - Epicectus  Keystone Habit What is a keystone habit? This a habit that when executed right, multiplies all your other habits or behaviors. This reminds me of  The Power of Habit  by Charles Duhigg where he goes in depth regarding this. In th...

  I recently read the book Stillness is the Key by Ryan Holiday . It is a great book by the author who continues writing about stoic philosophy.  In this fast paced world, where technology changes by the minute, we find ourselves hoping from one distraction to the next. Ryan Holiday advocates for moments of quiet or stillness, where you can step back, reflect , analyze before moving forward. You can grab the book by clicking this link Buy Stillness is the Key . Otherwise, below are some of the insights I gathered while reading the book. Summum Bonum The stoics believe virtue is the highest good i.e the summum bonum.  Summum bonum is a Latin expression meaning the highest or ultimate good, which was introduced by the Roman philosopher Cicero to denote the fundamental principle on which some system of ethics is based — that is, the aim of actions, which, if consistently pursued, will lead to the best possible life. We must hold ourselves accountable and have a strong mor...

  Ego is the enemy by Ryan Holiday is short but fantastic book about an often overlooked aspect of our being..our ego. When I was reading this book, I came to realize how vain I was in certain aspects of my life. I felt as if Ryan was speaking directly to me. I had let my ego unchecked and this left me being unappreciative of the opportunities that God has given me. The author divides the book into three themes namely; Aspiration This is when we are aiming to achieve something great in our lifetime. Aspiration without action is nothing. You need to stop telling people you're going to do something and just do it. Telling without doing is merely feeding the ego to feel good about yourself. Success This is when you are at the top of the mountain in your career. You have persevered through difficult times and put in the work to get here. At this point, it is very easy to drink from the cup of our success and get drunk on our past achievements. We tend to forget how we got there a...

  Each of us holds the potential to become great in whatever we want to achieve. However, this is easier said than done and the sad reality most of us won't achieve this high level...to achieve Mastery . In his book, Mastery by Robert Greene , the author explains in detail the steps to follow to gain mastery in your field. Mastery is a stage where very people get let alone stay at. It is the result of dedicated practice in your field. Below are some of the insights that I gathered while reading the book. Find Your True Calling “Everyone holds his fortune in his own hands, like a sculptor the raw material he will fashion into a figure. But it’s the same with that type of artistic activity as with all others: We are merely born with the capability to do it. The skill to mold the material into what we want must be learned and attentively cultivated.”  -Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe This echoes back to  Ikigai and having a purpose to live. Robert Greene says we all have a vo...

I often thought that to be successful required a significant amount of will power to go after your goals no matter what. However, after doing thorough research and experiment, I realized will power is finite and you can only do so much with it. Habits, on the other hand, are long term and when you set the right habits, excellence will always be in our grasp. Will Durant  was right when he said "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.". Below are the insights I got from the book. Your cravings are key to good habits The process in which the brain converts a sequence of actions into an automatic routine is known as  chunking.  The fundamental principal of forming a good habit is cue, routine, reward.  Craving is what makes cues and rewards work. That craving is what powers the habit loop. Figuring out how to spark a craving makes creating a new habit easy. In the book, we see Claude Hopkins used this to his advantage and used si...

Is early specialization the key to success like how Tiger Woods started playing golf early or is late specialization better for the modern world where we sample a variety of interests and hobbies before honing in on one area that suits our abilities? This question is clearly answered in the book, Range by David Epstein who draws from a lot of scientific data and examples to argue that generalist or late specializes stand a higher chance of succeeding in rapidly changing world than early specializers. Below are some of the insights I gathered while reading this book. Core Message “Rather than obsessively focusing on a narrow topic, creative achievers tend to have broad interests. This breadth often supports insights that cannot be attributed to domain-specific expertise alone.”  - Dean Keith Sampling a variety of interests and experimenting with ideas early on in life is one of the keys to success in life. This will enable one to draw from a large pool of information, enabling o...

  The Startup Quick Start Guide This is a continuation from part 1 and I will go over the some of the things I picked from the startup quick start guide in the book. Hopefully, you can follow the steps in order to start your business. 1.) The Why We all have a higher self and a lower self, and the best way to align your motivations fully is if there’s something in it for you for your ‘lower self’ (trying to live a certain lifestyle, getting the recognition, the money, the status, the freedom), and for your ‘higher self’, which is hopefully much bigger in scope (helping others, spreading opportunity, pulling people out of poverty, saving lives, saving the environment, giving people access to a good education). - Ash , pg 142 You must have a great reason to start your business because it is hard and it will reach a point you will feel like giving up. However, if the reason you are starting the business is strong enough, you can pull through.  2.) The Type of Startup Lifestyle St...

  Why are some people more successful than other when it comes to startups or their career? What things are they using to pull ahead? This is what Ash Ali and Hasan Kubba explain in their book, The Unfair Advantage . An u nfair Advantage is a condition, asset or circumstance that puts you in a favorable business position. Below are some of the insights I got while reading the book. Core Message Success in the startup world is not simply awarded to the hardest workers. It is awarded to those who develop and use their Unfair Advantages . The better you can use your unfair advantages, the higher the chances of your startup succeeding.  Life is Unfair We have often heard that hard work is the key to success. However, that is a very simple and ignorant way to look at the cause of success. We often don't want to admit certain factors like genetics, great social connections, money, family support and luck often contribute to success. We have to work smarter and not harder. What...