Kim Kardashian, McKinsey, The Age of ‘Multi’ Bagger Stocks, Sun Tzu, Chanakya, the philosophy of investing, recession, and the 80 hours Rule?

Kim Kardashian, McKinsey, The Age of ‘Multi’ Bagger Stocks, Sun Tzu, Chanakya, the philosophy of investing, recession, and the 80 hours Rule?

Hello Heisters - A mini-update : 

1. My YouTube is back. I’m shooting 5 Episodes of Money Heist on YouTube. So subscribe (Link in Comments).
2. In August, I took up an offer to do some advisory work for Governments in Eastern Europe. And it rekindled my love for international affairs and public policy: So good news - I am relaunching a new series Policy Shots on YouTube - yes, a series that got discontinued - and here I’d talk about my unfiltered views on History, Foreign Policy, and mix it with the world of Business and Philosophy. So another reason to subscribe (Link in Comments).
3. But for now on YouTube (10 days to be precise) - I will CONTINUE with the Fireside chats with Naman - so keep your questions pouring in. Most of the videos (for the next 10 days) will be on Government Jobs, UPSC.  I know, the same old stuff - but look at the base. Over a million people prepare for the IAS exams in India. Unacademy and Roman Saini made UPSC preparation into a Billion Dollar Industry.

Look forward to meeting some of you on YouTube as well. So, show some love, subscriber, and comment on how you got to my YouTube Channel - so that I know that you are one of the 'Hiester' I met on LinkedIn.

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Enough of sponsoring my YouTube Channel. (YouTube, indeed is a flywheel business model).

Now off to today’s newsletter :

We are dealing with inflation, war, and an impending recession.

Companies are laying off employees in the thousands, nations around the world are dealing with energy crunches, and it’s obvious that things are only going to get worse. 

So the ‘Money Heist’ in our case will NOT be an Actual Bank robbery - in the age of Neo Banks - banks and in some cases even countries do NOT have the cash anyway. 

I’m not going to give you advice on ‘individual stocks’, or ‘multi-bagger stocks. Heck, in some cases - I will dissuade you from investing in Public Markets. 

When you are young - you don’t have much money anyway.  So if you invest 30k from a small paycheck - you compromise on new experiences and learning.

My approach to life is contrarian, and controversial, I don’t see the point of sacrificing experiences at the expense of ‘investing’ in your future money. Money in hand will always be more valuable to me. Save-hustle-invest culture is toxic - at least when your base is less.

Think about it, the poorest person is the one with the richest bank account but no time for living experiences. You will NEVER get your youth back. And therefore, in the last newsletter, I talked about investing in experiences.

But when you have low-paying jobs, or no money - investing in experiences is a catch-22 situation.

Therefore, in this newsletter - my request to all of you is simple - invest the next 80 hours in yourself, and you will see the difference: Let’s get a job, and if you have one already - let’s work on increasing the base salary. 

The Origins of 80 hours -

One question that I get asked very often is Naman - how can I get my dream job, and all other questions are some kind of a variant to that question - it could be how to get into McKinsey, or how to get into the United Nations, or how to launch your own start-up, or how to get promotions at Job.

In true honesty, it is NOT EASY.

Had it been easy, everyone would be flying business class for their client meetings, would be raising series A from Sequoia, working with top echelons at United Nations, governments, and so on and so forth. 

But if you have a diligent plan of action, it is achievable - I achieved it, my Co-Founder who worked with BCG achieved it, and many of the fellows at Global Governance Initiative have achieved it.

Getting your dream job, or launching your own start-up doesn’t take years and years of persistence. All it takes is diligence for the initial 80 hours to get started.

It is often said that the hardest part of any important task is getting started on it in the first place. And once you actually begin work on valuable tasks, you seem to be naturally motivated to continue.

If you can remove all distractions from your life for the next 80 hours - could be spanned across 3 months, 6 months, or 1 year - there’s no force on this earth that can dissuade you from cracking job interviews, or getting your much-needed promotion.

Do NOT fret if you are unproductive in life. Now let’s get you back on track. 

Here’s the 80-hour rule. 

1. Step 1: Learn Core Business Concepts: This step will not take more than 20 hours. You don’t have to pay 1 Crore in MBA fees to do this. Ashton Kutcher and Kim Kardashians didn’t go to Harvard, nor did they spend their formative years at Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, or any other incubator for masters of the universe. But their IRR returns are better than many General Partners and leading LPs. Just for your information - Ashton Kutcher was an early-stage investor in Airbnb, Spotify, Skype, Uber, and Robinhood. He made millions when Microsoft bought Skype for more than $8 billion a few years ago. Follow the Pareto rule - and learn the core concepts of Marketing, Finance, Operations, Strategy, and Accounting. We try to cover this all in approximately 20 hours in our Live Interactive Masterclasses at Global Governance Initiative. But if you are a self-learner - you don’t need Harvard or GGI for it. You can do this on YOUR own. I will share the booklist - just let me know in the comments.
2. Step 2: Refine your Public Policy Concepts: Most of you will give interviews in life - be it #MBA schools, McKinsey, or Impact Investing. It doesn’t matter how ‘amazing’ you are at problem-solving and structuring, and the core of the business- but if you can not tie those frameworks with the world of sustainability, market failures, ethics, philosophy, and psychology - you will perform poorly in your job interviews. At GGI, it takes us 20 hours. If you are struggling with time, and GGI isn't working out for you. I will share some of my favorite books in the comments - just let me know.
3. Step 3: Master the Art of Communication: I always tend to think of Chanakya, Sun Tzu, and Machiavelli as modern-day Management Consultants. They advised the kings, and queens in the same way - as management consultants advise the modern-day Kings and Queens (Political Leaders and CEOs). And like Mckinsey Consultants, they were paid well for their advice. No matter how honest or sincere you are in your communication but if you are not effective - you will be denied promotion, jobs, and even dates. There are various styles of communication - Pyramid, STAR, Tactical Empathy, and negotiation rules - you need to master them all. It won’t take more than 10 hours. We teach this at GGI in 20 hours. There are a great many books were written on the same topic. Happy to share my list of readings and Podcasts as well.
4. Step 4: Network, and make friends for life: When I was doing my Masters's degree in the United States - my goal was simple. Make 1 new friend every day. It truly transformed my life. Believe it or not, from getting internships to eventual interview invites to even getting a job - all of this was made possible because of the networks I built along the journey. This doesn’t take more than 15 mins a day. For all the GGIians we allocate around 10 hours - via various breakout rooms, buddy sessions, networking nights, in-person networking events, etc. And thankfully, in the world we live in - it is so much easy to make bonds and connections across the globe.
5. Step 5: Focus on Mental Health: I can never overstate the importance of this. A healthy man wants to accomplish a million things. But an unhealthy man wants just 1 thing - to be healthy. It doesn’t matter how comfortable you are in your dream job - if you are anxious all the time - you will ruin every aspect of your life. Create your own advisory board of 5 people - who keeps you sane. Meditate, go on trips. In an ideal world, these should be your parents, your partner, and some of your closest friends - who are as different from you as possible.

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I wish you all a very happy and prosperous Diwali! Also, there's a mathematical error in counting - please enlighten me with comments - if you catch it.

I will be visiting India this month during Diwali - and look forward to meeting some of you, as I travel across various parts of the country. ❤️