holdyourthoughts

In Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers, a study done by Anders Ericsson on violinists shows that it takes about 10000 (ten thousand) hours of practice to become an expert at something. When I read this for the first time, I was fascinated by the fact that it takes such a long time of dedicated effort to become really good at something. Today, I was reading a book on trading strategies and it mentioned that a traders life is divided into decades. The first decade he makes his mistakes, the second decade he makes his money and the third decade he enjoys the money. That set me calculating and trying to tie Gladwell with the traders cycle. If a person spends 3 hours per day for 5 days a week for 52 weeks a year, he will need about 13 years to be an expert at trading. And that is assuming that he is passionate about it in the first place. So, now we know, why we haev so many people failing as traders. It's just that they have not served their time as yet!!

The game to gather the maximum amount of money before the new SEBI regulation of not allowing any entry loads (and consequent commissions to distributors) kicks off on August 1 has started in earnest. nearly all big fund houses are running after new IPOs with fancy names to gather as much money as possible to rake in the moolah. They are afraid of losing out on business after the new regime starts. Then only funds with "superior" short term performance will be able to get more money from investors and other funds whose performance is lacking will not be able to "bribe" their way into investor portfolios. In the existing system, large distributors promise fund houses large investments in return of hefty commissions (6-7%) and foreign trips etc. All this comes from the entry loads charged by the funds to its investors. Fund Houses choose this route to bring in money as their revenues depend on the assets they manage as fund management charges are a percentage of the t...

Today was my 33rd birthday. I was thinking of making a few resolutions for my year ahead. My so-called "New Year Resolutions". Instead, I thought that I will make only one resolution and then track its status on my blog to see how I am progressing on my commitment. So, I have resolved this year to reduce my weight by another 10 kgs. (I have reduced about 10 kgs in the last year, so its not as improbable as it sounds). My current weight is 77.8 kgs and my July 19, 2010 target is 67-68 kgs. To start off, I created my walking plan using the free online walking planner from the American heart Association's website http://www.startwalkingnow.org My target body weight is around 63kgs, so if I am able to reduce the 10 kgs it would be really great for me. The main trigger is to ensure overall better health and that I do not land up with a heart attack at 50.

I was watching Randy Pausch's lecture on time management on youtube. IF youhaven't already watched it, I suggest you do. Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTugjssqOT0 There are a few of Randy Paush's videos in youtube including his, bu now famous, "The Last Lecture." He is an amazing speaker and I have listened to a couple of his lectures over a dozen times. In the Time Management lecture, Randy refers to doing things you really love. He said make a list of 100 things you want to do before you die. His clarified that the number was not cast in stone but was merely a starting point. I thought about it for a long time. Deeply. And guess what, I was struggling to out even one item on my list!! This came as a rude shock to me. It means all my childhood dreams and passions have somehow left me (or lying dormant deep inside me) in the fast-pace of life. I asked a couple of my friends and most had trivial things to say like "world tour", etc..not...