BOOKS for 20"S

20's  are the actual formation years when you are out of your colleges and  trying to make something of yourself. There are certainly few books that  allow a person to be a realist, an idealist and of all a  fundamentalist. My picks for the 20s would be

• Shantaram  by Gregory David Roberts - a travelogue of an escaped Australian  convict in India. It teaches you everything -love, melancholy and a path  of thought. A realist's favorite.
• Siddhartha  by Herman Hesse - for all those college stoners who think that they  have attained enlightenment, this book is a must. Its explains the very  concepts of enlightenment like no other book I have read till date. A  must for every bookshelf.
• Kim by  Rudyard Kipling- a book about sheer experience of life. It puts forth  success and failure, mistakes and achievement in such a candid way that  you relate every such instance of your life with the book.
• The  Fountainhead by Ayn Rand- of course, I cannot give this a miss. It  teaches you to value your self and your thoughts. Very few books have  been able to deliver meaning with such impact. Its surely not a book you  would want to complete in one read. Give it time and you will see your  ideals coming into place.
• Catch  22 by Joseph Heller- a true taste of sarcasm (yes, 20s can be fun too as  long as there's an underlying meaning). A hefty satire on wars- that's  how I would like to put it. It will make you question the decisions of  the system being taken around you while still allowing you not to flow  into emotional empathy.
• Howl by  Allen Ginsberg - This book just blows your mind right off. No bull-shit  and hardcore to the core. This book was so truthful that it was banned.  It blows the lid of many issues that your elders don't want you to know.  But, it will show you the power of simple truth in a unique way.
• Kite  Runner by Khalid Hosseini - a book that will make you cry. Not a  recommendation for the pedantic individual, this unravels the depths of  friendship, a bond between a father and a son, betrayal and its ultimate  redemption. With one of the most throat-croaking endings ever, this  book should be read, irrespective of age.
• Flower's  for Algeron by Daniel Keyes - Gut-wrenching story and a must for every  person who is into medicine or biotechnology. A poignant story about the  relationship between a man and a mouse, both of which are subjects of a  surgery that is aimed to increase people's intelligence, this book  touches a lot of ethical and moral themes simultaneously.
• Wuthering  Heights- a classic that a lot of teen's postpone. This book is a blow  to the facade of love that is often portrayed in today's world. If you  are in a relationship in which you define the bond as "just going out  with her/him", do give this a read to understand where you are.
• The Book Thief - its not always that a person comes across a book that relates a love to know things in the worst period of history. Mark Zuckus more than bowled me over with this book. It strikes the strings of every book lover by unravelling the notions of a girl about the simple questions 'What am I going to be left with in the end?'. Poignant to the core and mesmerizing until eternity, the book will always have a special place on my shelf.
• The  Outsider by Albert Camus- the best slap on the norms of today's  society; it features a protagonist who adheres to the truth and  dismisses every excessive portrayal of emotion which is demanded by the  society. One of the best starting lines of a book "Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday. I don't know"
• The  Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger - I believe this book should be read  every year, because every time you read it, you discover a new layer to  it. This book personifies the term "timeless writing". It covers almost  every layer of teenage thinking -profanity, sexual craving, teenage  angst, identity, belonging, alienation, etc. I still have a lot more to  discover from this book.
• Go, Kiss  the World by Subroto Bagchi - the tale of an entrepreneur in India. Its  not the usual "get inspired because thats what you bought this book  for" book. Its a story from which you just happen to draw teachings  unconsciously. A must-read for every venture enthusiast.
• The  Diary of a Young Girl - sheer indomitable courage is all this book is  about. I am sure this is also one book you have postponed for long. Do  give it a read, worth every second you give to it.
• The Hitchhiker's Guide to Galaxy - its a book of science fiction that can also be a wholesome treatise on irony. The end of earth, the question of life, the significance of having a sane mind instead of an intelligent mind has never been explained in a book before.
• The  Great Indian Novel by Shashi Tharoor- for all those lazy folks who  think that Mahabharata is too long a read. With a mixture of the plots  of Mahabharata and freedom movement ending with Indira Gandhi's  emergency, this book is the perfect Indian Satire.
• Autobiography  of a Yogi by Swami Parmahansa - this is not a scripture but is valued  more than it. For every atheist who questions a lot, this a book that  might solve a few of your answers. For me, this book was never preachy  but the flow of thought accompanied logic hand-in-hand for every second. 
  ........
  and in the end,
• The  Bhagvad Gita- its a daring task I tell you to even pick this book up.  But this is not just a book when you read it, its a conversation that is  the wholesome of every inquisitive conversation that would have  happened anywhere in the world. Its not about a God, nor is it about the  Devil, but its about the both of them that reside in us; its about Man  -not the ideal one, but the common one. I understood myself and my  temperaments a lot better after reading this book. The Bhagvad Gita is  ultimate motivator of all the books I have ever read. I can say with  every bit of confidence in me that this book will change your life.

Love Marriage

I'm 18. And from my ((365*18)+5+354) days here I know a thing or two about love and marriage. Life is not a formula. Love is not an arrangement. Marriage is not a 'game'.

How do I know this? I know this because I'm the son of my parents. Had my Punjabi mother, daughter of an Indian Navy Admiral picked out a photograph from a dossier of research on 'compatibility, taste and education', would she have ever married a Telugu clerk's unemployed son? Would he have even made it to round-1 of "back-end work and filtering"?

I'm tired of listening to the 'love is a distraction, study first' argument. Love can be such an ever-burning hearth of inspiration that can spur you higher than you'd ever been.

There's this thing about love--it comes knocking at the unlikeliest of times and if you can plan it, then it isn't love. When my parents 'ran away' to escape my mother's impending forced arranged-marriage to an IAS officer, between the both of them they had a couple of M.Coms and a single job. My mother married a jobless, penniless, part-time crossword-setter (cruciverbalist, he will insist) who wrote her off-the-cuff poetry on restaurant napkins with a crazy glint under his tousled hair.

Everyone predicted with the air of a Divination Professor that they had destroyed their once-promising academic lives. Her parents, his parents, their friends, every single person they knew--"objectively" told them this was a bad idea. Everyone seemed to 'know' that, it was certain, they were 'too different'. Everyone other than my parents. They coached each other to clearing the M Phil entrance. She taught him Statistics, he taught her Math. And then came the Ph.D entrace at one of India's top universities. My mum never intended to do a Ph.D ("too much effort for two letters in front of your name"). She sat for the test purely because "I am smarter than him, and he be called Dr? Kabhi nahi". There were two seats in their Department in the Open Category that year. Out of the few thousand unmarried, undistratced, not-in-love applicants who sat for the test , my mother ranked first and my father finished second. (She takes care to remind me her entrance rank every now and then within his hearing, he alleges it was her girly handwriting that made the examiners fall in love with her)

'First study, go to a great college, get a great job and then a girl will automatically want to marry you'

Who is your wife marrying then? Is she marrying you? Or is she marrying the ivy-league degrees and the five-figure job? I'd rather spend my life with a girl who loved me when I had nothing and was a no one, who'd love me for me--the chick-flick loving, Titanic-crying, deep-feeling, crazily adventurous, Physics obsessed, poetry spouting bag of chemicals I am.

I'm not the money in the vault or the degrees on my wall. I'm the lilt of my heart and the song of my soul. 

The Indian family system that a lot many wax about is the grave of the Roark-ian hero. The killing-ground of individuality and a cesspool of collectivism. If you live in a sandbox created by your family, build castles according to their whims and finally let them decide who your sand-castle princess should be, then who are YOU? Where is the YOU in all of this? I don't see you. I see THEM. Where are you? How is it your story if they're writing it?

Dating isn't for the weak. It takes courage to go down a knee, it takes bravery to face rejection. It takes character to be someone more than the colleges you attend and spirit to be someone who isn't only breathing but is also alive. While their European and American peers are risking heartbreak and growing emotionally, Indian men are cosseted in their parent-regulated cocoons waiting for their wives on a platter. The low divorce rates stem from this very cocooned upbringing. Divorce is a big big decision and if you've never had the guts to date do you think you can find the strength to fight a divorce, that too when your parents and everyone you know will disapprove of it?

I've been in love. It is a wonderful wonderful feeling. It cannot be simulated or faked or arranged. An arranged marriage is a feeble shot at some watered down version of love. You simply cannot throw two supposedly "compatible" individuals together and tell them to fall in love. Love is a spontaneous reaction. And some basic chemistry will tell you that chaos-creating spontaneous reactions tend to be exothermic ;)

I'm sure love is possible in an arranged marriage. But why take a chance when you can start off a marriage from scratch being in love? Why take a chance to live a loveless life? You risk to lose more than you will ever gain.

When you marry someone, you forge that ONE relationship that you get a say in. You get a choice. I couldn't choose who gets to be my parents, who gets to be my brother. It was all a 'default' setting. But when it comes to my wife, that choice is all me. The very nature of the choice puts that relationship on a different level--it exists because it is ALL me, I initiated it, I worked on it, I willed it into being. And this one girl destined to be my wife is too special to be picked out in a cattle-fair.

People aren't sheep to be traded based on set factors like the color of their fleece, the family they were born, the meadows they've been made to graze on--things that they had no control whatsoever of. Most arranged marriages stand on fickle earth. Caste. Religion. Family-background. Nationality. Occupation. Labels. You're marrying labels. Stop marrying labels, start marrying people.

If you've never loved or seen love, the romantic, earth-shattering kind, how will you know what you're missing out on? You who have slept under ceilings painted by others, know not the grandeur of the starry skies. What do you know of a soul kissed by a will o' wisp and a heart that pumps fire?

I have seen first hand what my parents have and I can't settle for anything less. I want those random dreamy-loved-up looks across the room, I want to not hang-up on the phone 20+ years into marriage, I want framed restaurant napkins with poetry, I want 'I'll-carry-you-up-the-stairs', I want Saturday-night movie-watching/cuddling and I want mock super-competitive Scrabble. I refuse to believe that this zing, this spark, this twinning of souls can be "gamed" or "matched".

I know how beautiful marriage can be. I want all this. I want more. There is no one who knows me better than me. And the one great decision--of whose face every morning's sun-rays will bounce off to meet mine--will be mine and mine alone.

Arrange Marriage

I can see a clear line between those who have never gone through the Marriage process and those who have gone through the process. Marriage is one of the scariest things for anyone. Your whole life will be in for a change and if you end up with the wrong guy/gal your life will be ruined. Thus, I can see why people are nervous about arranged marriage. A rational person should be nervous about any kind of marriage.

I have seen a couple of negative instances in the extended family when I was a child. Then I got quite determined to marry the girl my own way. Since that time I have been researching on various ideas on this topic. I crossed through my nervous teens and reached the US. In the US, my view on this topic completely went 180-degree. Here are some reasons my volte-face:

1. A few of my friends started getting married. Most of these guys were attractive in every sense - athletic, well educated, well earning guys who had patience. They could have gotten the best of the pick without an arranged system. However, they went arranged.
2. I worked a bit doing research for a law office in Florida. I wrote about 50 articles on Divorce for them. At the end of it, I got really sick. There were far too many issues in any kind of marriage.
3. I dated a couple of women when I first came to the US and found the experience overall quite superficial. A few of my Caucasian friends at the lab agreed with me. I found the dating process was no more scientific and rational than the arranged marriages I was used to.
4. Finally, I got to travel around the US and stayed with a number of American families. I got to learn a bit more about how they marry and why the marriages fail.

Thus, when I went back to India in 2010, I told my parents that I will change my earlier decision and now it is time to find my girl through the arranged marriage route. However, I decided to keep the overall thing quite rational and that was quite useful. After two months of conversations with different girls, finally found my girl. My best decision.

In 2011, I married the girl whom I love the most in my life. But, like most Indians, my love started after our engagement. Same is the case of my cousins, close friends and most of my extended network. Here is the condensed experience from my observations on modern arranged marriages in metropolitan India. The reality in rural India is little less ideal, but the wings of change are appearing there too.

Arranged marriage is especially predominant among those of us who have moved to the US (for work/study) who have seen how both systems work. I used to be a proponent of "love" until I moved to the US a few years ago. Also, some of us have graduate degrees and have both professional & financial freedom to pursue our life. So, it is not like we are getting into arranged marriage because somebody put a knife in our necks, nor are we taking this due to irrational reasons. We are willingly entering the game and reaping the rewards from the system.

Positive aspects of arranged marriage:
1. In urban India, arranged family is becoming more of a "family arranged date". It is not too different from finding a girl/guy yourself through other dating means. The family goes through an extensive profile matching process (including education backgrounds, interests/hobbies, height, weight, earning capacities, food habits etc) that also involves the bride & the groom. Before the "date" happens an enormous amount of filtering & back end work has been done to make sure things stick.

[Sidetrack: I was really apprehensive of arranged marriages and during my teens I swore to get married only through love. But, as soon as I met my future wife in an arranged setting, I knew why the process works. Now, the only scary thing in our marriage is the scary faces we put to each other ;-). I have observed about 30 odd marriages -- in my friends & family -- 95% of them arranged and they have similar experiences]

2. The process overall is more objective given that a group of people try to figure out the various things that goes into making a marriage work. On the other hand, a guy meeting a girl on a date with no background information has to make a subjective decision on the fly. In any human interaction, typically the first few minutes influence the dynamics of the whole relationship. Also, given that humans are not so rational when it comes to love and you decide very early in your life, the decision variables could be something that might not align with your long term interests. 

3. In a typical non-arranged marriage, you are generally on your own. That means when the relationship experiences rough weather, you might make spot decisions that you could regret later. In arranged marriages you have a support network that you could utilize if needed. It is like having a mentor & adviser in a start up. This ensures that marriages don't end due to short-term stupidities.

4. In non-arranged marriages, you are likely to have incomplete (or worse misleading) information to decide. Let us say you are going out with a classmate and you like her. But, at that stage you might not have a lot of information about the family background and the surroundings that influence the other person's subconscious. By the time you have all the information, your relationship might have gone too advanced to back out easily.


Thus your decisions could be based on surface characteristics such as beauty, hobbies and outer personality. In arranged marriages more effort is made to take the factors that make up your character -- by putting more emphasis on the family and cultural setup. This is better for the long term - when beauty and other surface characteristics adapt or disappear.

5. Arranged marriages lets Indian geeks be geeks. In the US and elsewhere, many geeks have to force themselves to somebody else to woo the opposite sex. In Indian arranged marriages, geeks are generously rewarded -- the bigger your accomplishments are (not necessarily wealth) the better your chances are in getting the bride/groom of your choice. That means a greater motivation to succeed. Also at a point of time in life when American & European students are busy in either setting up or agonizing over their relationships --- Indian geeks have their lifeline in mind and proceed to fill up the Phd & MBA admissions in the universities without getting their lives interfered by the courtship process.

6. The "love" system places too much stress on the teens & tweenies in looking for their future spouse. Not having girlfriend/boyfriend adds undue distress at a time when you have to use your energies to climb up the education & career ladder. In an arranged marriage, we agonize a lot less and focus on building our career in early 20s that will come handy during the bride/groom selection process.

7. In India, marriages are about the joining of 2 families. Unlike the West, our family forms a huge support system in India. Our parents take a greater part in raising their grandchildren, helping us out with our first house & car, and in general a big source of joy during the festivals. My father-in-law doubles as my business mentor and mother-in-law & other in-laws help us in various ways. In fact, when we moved back to the US - they packed the whole stuff up while also doing a bulk of the shopping. Though these are not always the case for a few others, it is better to have a strong family base rather than just focus on the chemistry between the couples. Of course the chemistry is important, but arranged marriage can do a better job in also ensuring a stronger bond between the families.
Great report by CNN on this subject: http://cnn.com/video/?/video/wor...

8. Finally, the question assumes that in a non-arranged marriage you really know the person whom you are ending up with. The reality is that we don't. Most of us are often irrational in decision making, adapt with changes in environment and very poor judges of people. The person you loved in high school might be  a totally different person in late 20s. It is better to honestly realize the non-deterministic aspect of human nature and learn with work with the complexities.

Negative Aspects of Arranged Marriage
A Couple of you guys pointed out that sometimes arranged marriages do not work. Absolutely.

1. In some instances, families might put their priorities in front of yours. That is something you have to guard yourself against. Show them that you are good in your decision making and stand firm on your top priorities.
2. Even in some arranged modern arranged marriages, prospects don't take an active part in decision making and understanding the variables involved. Either they are too shy or too bored. It requires more active role of the people involve. This is something that is fast changing though.
3. In many India villages and in some urban locations, there is outright force to get married to a certain person with no choice. However, I would argue blaming arranged marriage for this would be akin to blaming the bullet for the murder. When there is a coercion you have a bigger problem to worry than debating about arranged vs. love.
4. Arranged marriage perpetuates the institution of caste. Since arrange marriages predominantly happen within one's religion, caste and language, it doesn't allow easy crossbreeding in the society. However, it could be argued that even in the US and Europe where there are very few arranged marriages, interracial/inter-cultural marriages are an exception rather than a rule. Also, many of the "love" marriages in India follow the same caste/religious boundaries too.

I'm assuming that both sides have a choice (to love or to go for arranged) and if there is a choice, I'm saying arranged marriages are no worse than the alternatives. And if there is no choice, you have a problem bigger than the institution of marriage and requires the intervention of law enforcement.

Tips to reduce risk in an arranged marriage setting
Marriages of all stripes are risky and requires a leap of faith. Arranged marriages are no different. Here are some tips to reduce the risk:

1. Be proactive in the spouse search process. Don't let your parents autopilot. Remember, arranged marriage works best when it is a family arranged date and not when it is a family mandated marriage.
2. Before saying yes, get all the data points. Use social media search and find all possible connections. If you don't have a lot of common links and the spouse' family are total strangers, you could use the private services to do the background check that have specialized services for this. Also, request a medical report before the final go. These are becoming common practices in metropolitan India.
3. Try to get a few month gap between the engagement and the wedding. That is the period when you can really get together and see if there are any major surprises. I know of a couple of relatives and friends who pulled out in this period. It is a little painful but not as bad as a breakup or divorce.

Best Practices
3 Tips to get arranged marriages to work better:

1. Always get your expectations to a realistic level. If you don't look as good as Brad Pitt, don't expect an Angelina Jolie either.
2. Take enough time to understand the girl and her background before a proposal. Get a lot of data before you even meet the girl.
3. Keep your mind open and be flexible.

Conclusion:
Arranged marriages are not a panacea and cannot cure the society of its ills. I can only compare it to its alternatives. In a philosophical sense, we don't choose most of the stuff that really matter to us. We neither choose our parents & siblings nor our race & country of birth. We still manage to love them for the most part. If the couple involved in a partnership are open minded and are prepared to love the other person regardless of the minor chinks in their personalities, marriages - arranged or otherwise, work.

The economics of Indian dating

Supply & Demand:
For every 100 guys there are only 90 girls. So, by design 1 out of every 10 guys will stay single in a 1:1 marriage structure. Since this process is random, almost every guy is desperate to get their girl. Desperation is never a good thing for dating.

Information asymmetry
Guys want attractive girls, girls want stable/strong guys. This is the human nature that we evolved over 1000s of years. In modern context, the strong guy is one who can run the family well for decades and able to look after the family, both financially & psychologically. This is the type of guy women historically want.

At 20, girls could show their attractive ability, but there is no way for the boy to show their financial/mental stability. This means that while guys chase girls in the college, the girls have very few data points to validate whether you will turn out to be the stable, family guy who can take her through the tough times of her life.

Monopolistic Markets:
In many work environments, attractive, single girls are an endangered species. This occurs due to

• Many geeky places are not female friendly, leading to lower women recruiting and there is a strong feedback loop here.
• Most girls get married/engaged within 2-3 years after graduation.
• Divorce and remarriage is uncommon in India..

Thus, by the time they get to your workplace, they are no longer single.
In programming, finance or research, where Indian guys frequent, girls are rare. Thus, a single & attractive girl in such a market can display monopolistic tendency. This can substantially affect the pricing structures of interpersonal relationships. Just like how Apple fanboys wait in lines for their newest iPhone, Indian guys are desperate to court this rare breed of girls.

Incentive Structures & Illiquid Markets:
In Western societies, if you don't date you stay single. There is a pressing need to date. In India, dating is an option. If you don't date, you can still get the girl with the same probability of "with dating". Thus, there is not enough incentive for many people to date. Without enough liquidity in the market, the market can get crazy.

Market Psychology & Regulatory Framework:
Indian mainstream society is very much against dating. The laws are designed to capture those into love affairs in public places. Sometimes these can be draconian.

Marginal Utility:
When you are given 10 chocolates, the 10th one might not taste as nice as the first one. Because by that time you are already well stuffed and things start tasting bitter. This is the case for Indian girls. Many of them receive so many "proposals" that it no longer gives them enough happiness. For them, the joy of courtship is usually gone due to the flooding of proposals.

Commoditization
Continuing from previous point, your proposal might look sweet for you, but not for them as they are stuffed with sweets already. Thus, as a guy you should stop being a chocolate and maybe provide enough product differentiation, like say Namkeen or Chips? Think different.

Finally, it is about making products that your customers love. Ok, we are the product here. We spend years making us worthy for IITs and Googles. However, we don't spend even a few weeks in making us attractive to the opposite sex. With little effort we might be able to understand them better, learn to care for them, share some of their work and help them ease into our families (after marriage).

Computer Programming

1. A computer program is a sequence of instructions to the machine to perform one or more tasks. The task could be as simple as printing your name in the screen and could be as complex as rendering a 3-dimensional model in a airline simulator.
   
   
2. A programming activity typically works like this. First the client gives a bunch of requirements, then the team works out things internally and comes back with a functional specification document, called the spec. Once the client approves this, the software architects start developing the design blueprint that is analogous to an construction architect's blueprint. Then the developers start working on implementing the blueprint, followed by integrating their individual modules. Finally the software is maintained and eventually retired. Each step in this flow is thoroughly tested. (Note: not all programming teams carry out all these steps in the modern times).
3. Although majority of the development in computing happened during the second world war, the field of computing was much older than that. The first computer is the Charles Babbage machine -and the English man is generally termed as the father of computing.
   
   
4. Programs are related to computer software in the same way nuts/bolts are related to a machine. In short, computer software is a collection of programs that are stored locally in your computer. Software can be subdivided into system software (one that works under the wraps) such as your Operating System, and application software (shortened as app) that interacts directly with the user.
5. Although programming is currently overpopulated by males, the first programmer was in fact a woman coding for the Babbage machine. Lady Ada Lovelace created the first program in 1843 to calculate Bernoulli numbers. Celebrating Ada Lovelace: the 'world's first programmer'
   
   
6. Before a programmer sits to write the "code" (synonym of program), he/she writes down a series of logical steps written down in simple English and Math (and not in a programming language). This is known as an algorithm.
7. To visually see an algorithm in working, some create a mental map called a flowchart. This is just map of how control passes through different parts of the program.
   
   
   
   
8. Most computer programs have two forms - the source code written in a form that a human could understand and the executable written in a form that only a computer (and some extremely weird persons) can understand. At Microsoft Windows, our source code could well range in the order of 100 million+ lines of code.
9. A compiler is  a program that converts the (usually) human written source code into a  computer readable form. Depending on how big the source code is, the  process could take minutes, hours or even days. A programmer's typical day consists of a lot of coding along while constantly compiling your programs, along with the rest of the code.
   
   
10. In the dark ages, humans used to write down code that can directly be understood by the computer (called machine language). However, soon it was found to be unproductive. The first languages that were written in English were Fortran, Cobol and Lisp all developed in mid 1950s. But the biggest revolution in programming came with the 1972 relase of C - one of the all time favorite languages.
11. As a tradition, programmers start with printing hello world

    main() {        printf("hello, world"); }

    whenever they  are learning a new language or even starting a new project. This is a  convention that was first set in 1974 by Brian Kernighan of Bell Labs.
12. Just as humans have developed a multitude of languages to communicate with one another, computer scientists have created 100s of programming languages that can do the task of communicating between the programmer and the computer. Each language has its own set of strengths and weaknesses. Some are complex and powerful, while others are small & simple. For instance, many industry applications use Java/Python, while PHP is used by many older web applications, Ruby is used by smaller startups and C/C++ is used for environments requiring a very high level of running efficiency.
    
    
13. Programming languages are primarily classified into two main paradigms - imperative and declarative. Imperative languages are written as a sequence of steps that the machine has to perform. Most major languages including C/C++, Java fall in this category. Declarative languages are those that does not specify how to control the machine, but specify primarily what to accomplish, leaving the language to figure out the "how" part. These tend to be very high languages such as Erlang, Haskell, Scala and Lisp, and are getting more used in advanced industrial applications.
14. For  real programmers, programming is one of the most joyful things as you  are in a perfect world where you can change almost anything. Within your  code you can be the masters of the universe.Although this is not entirely true in industry-grade applications, it is still a joyous experience.
15. Real programmers love xkcd: - here is what a programming student does, if given the assignment to write something 500 times.
    
    

STOCK MARKET

TL;DR: "In the short term, the market is a voting machine. But, in the long term, the market is a weighing machine".  -- Ben Graham[1]
Part 1: How the stock market works
Part 2: How does one evaluate Stocks

Part 1: Basics of a Stock Market
History: A long  time ago, humans ran businesses with just their money. The businesses  they ran were small and they grew the businesses only with their own  profits. However, not all businesses can be built with your own money.  What if you wanted to build a new factory that costs more than a million dollars? Banks won't lend money for young companies and your friends won't have that much.

In the 15th-16th century as the Europeans started exploring Asia and Americas, the big explorers felt they needed a lot of money and their kings were not providing them anymore. The wealthy guys demanded a lot of interest. Thus, they felt they need to raise money from a bunch of common people. Thus, in 1602, the Dutch East Indian company became the first company to issue shares of its company in the Amsterdam Stock Exchange and get traded on a continuous basis.

What is a Stock? Stocks  in a company provide you a share of the company's future profits in  return for the capital invested. For instance, if you buy 1 stock of  Apple now, you will be assured one-billionth of  Apple's profits in the  future (as there are almost a billion such stocks that Apple has issued  now).

Listing: In  a stock market, 1000s of companies are listed and these companies  (called public companies - as they have given out their shares to common  public) pay a fee to the exchanges, along with a promise to provide all  important info to the markets. In return they get an opportunity to put  their company in the stock market's board & have the ability to get  money from people visiting the market. The first time a company's stock  appears on the stock market's board is called an IPO (Initial Public Offer).

Brokers: Conceptually,  a stock exchange is similar to eBay. These guys allow companies to  be listed and connect the buyers & sellers. Since millions of people  trade in the market and it is practically impossible for these  exchanges to deal with all the individuals, they have assigned brokers who act between the exchanges and the individuals.


Part 2: How does one value a stock
Basic Terminology:
We will use a term EPS (Earnings per share) that is exactly as it sounds. It is the profits of the company divided by number of shares. For instance, Apple has $41 billion in profits and about 950 million shares, giving an EPS of about 41000/950 = $44/share. Thus, if you own a share of Apple, you are entitled to 44 bucks of Apple's profits this year.

Calculating Share price:
To evaluate how much you need to pay for that 1 Apple stock you need to do a simple addition of all the earnings you will get

         Stock Price = EPS in Year 1 + EPS in Year 2 +...

Now, you know that a dollar earned 10 years from now is not the same as a dollar earned now. Because, there is an interest rate i involved and money you get in 10 years is less worthy than the money you have now. Thus, you need to adjust that formulae.

        Stock Price = ((EPS in Year 1)/(1+i))+ (EPS in Year 2/(1+i)^2) +...

Now, there is a whole bunch of math involved (starting from the compound interest formula) and for the sake of simplicity, I will get you to the final results and reduce the stock price to two cases:

1. In case of a mature company that doesn't grow:
          Stock price = EPS/Interest rate

The expected Interest rate is relatively easy to calculate and depends on how risky the company is, how risky the market is and the current long term interest rate of government bonds. For many mature utility companies this interest rate comes to about 10%. Thus, utility companies that doesn't grow much is generally traded at about 10-15 times the EPS. (insert in the formula above).

The stock prices of these companies are very smooth and change only when there is a change in long term interest rates, the risk profile of the company (can change when hurricanes such as Sandy hits) or when market risk changes (for instance 2008 financial crisis). But on a regular day, not much action here. Let us move to the second category of shares:

2. For a growing company:
           Stock price = EPS of next year / (interest rate - expected growth rate of the company)

Let us use a simple example. If you assume Apple's next year EPS will be $48, the expected interest rate for such a risky company at 15% and an expected annual growth rate at 5%, you will get:

$48/(15%-5%) or $48/10% or $480 as the ideal stock price for the company. Where did I get this magical 5% number?

Getting the growth inputs:
Now, we need to find the growth rate of the company and figure out what the company will earn in the next year, the following year and so on. This is not an exact science and no one has a perfect answer to this question. This is why we need stock markets. Collectively, we all pool our intelligence to figure out the future growth of the company and thereby its current price.

To do this collective prediction, we constantly get new inputs and project that to future. For instance, if the company management gets hotshot new engineers, then we predict the future will be bright. What are the other news that investors typically use:

1. Periodic financial results of the company that gives us a view into the company;s workings and its financial position
2. Periodic results of similar companies that helps us guess this company;s results. Thus, when Apple sneezes everyone else catches a cold.
3. Changes in the sector. If a new report comes that people are more inclined to using mobile phones, we predict growth of these companies will be high.
4. Changes in the broader market.
5. Changes in the international economy

Market Estimation:
In short, we try to use every possible information to guess the future growth of the company, plug that into our formula and find out the stock price. For instance, if Apple comes out a report saying people are buying less of iPads, we might ding Samsung too as we believe their Galaxy Tabs will sell less too.

Estimating growth rate is an art rather than a science, and is collectively done by millions of humans in a place called the stock market. Since, we need to constantly adjust the growth rate based on new information, stock prices constantly fluctuate.

Main advantages of a stock market:
1.  Starting/building a business: The market lets companies get money from a large number of people. That means there are more options to get money to build a business.

2.  Spreading risk: It lets you spread the risk of a business into a large  number of people. Since, each person is investing only a small portion  of their income in the stock of a particular company, the risk of a single company collapsing doesn't significantly affect investors.

3. Collective estimation of value.

Summary: Modern corporations require a lot of capital, which is beyond the reaches of a few individuals. Markets help companies raise money from a large number of  people and together these investors value their company. The theory is  that when a large number of people do their independent valuation, the  company's price comes more closer to its ideal worth.

 "In the short term, the market is a voting machine. But, in the long term, the market is a weighing machine".  -- Buffett

Magic of Compounding

Magic of Compounding: In 1626, Peter Minuit of Netherlands bought the island of Manhattan from the Lenape people for a basket of clothes, beads and other stuff that would have been worth just $24 then. Now, you might think that the native Americans were robbed. Actually, if they were able to invest that $24 in a 8% bond, that account would be worth $26 trillion in 2012 - enough to buy entire America. That is the magic of compounding. Your money keeps multiplying the longer you save. If compound interest is the only thing you remember from your highschool math, you will survive. 

Economics

1. Economics has two main streams - Microeconomics and Macroeconomics. Micro deals with customer behavior, incentives, pricing, margins, etc. Macro deals with broad economies and larger things such as interest rates, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and other  stuff you see in the business column of a newspaper. Micro is more useful for the managers and macro is more used by investors. Except for points 2 & 3, I will cover macroeconomics in other points.
2. Law of Supply & Demand: This is the founding block of economics. Whenever supply of something increases its price decreases and whenever demand increases price increases. Thus, when you have excess production of corn, food prices decrease and vice versa. Think of this intuitively. You will find its applications in 1000s of places. 
3. Marginal Utility: Whenever you have more of something its use for you diminishes. Thus, a $100 would be more valuable when you earn $1000/month than when you earn $1 million/month. This is widely used in setting up prices.
   
   
4. Gross Domestic Product (GDP): This is the fundamental measure of the size of an economy. This is conceptually equal to the sum of incomes of all people in the country or sum of the market value of all goods & services produced in that country. Right now US is the biggest economy in terms of GDP at around $14 trillion. That means, $14 trillion of value is produced in the US every year.
5. Growth rate: The growth of an economy is commonly measured in terms of GDP growth rate. Since GDP is a measure of national income, this growth rate is a rough proxy for how an average person's income grows every year.
6. Inflation: You already know that the price of most products now are higher than in your grandfather's time. Inflation (measured in percent) is measure of how much a bunch of products have increased in price from last year. In mature economies, annual inflation is around 2% - that means on an average the prices of stuff goes up by 2% every year. The fundamental role of central banks is to manage this rate and keep it to a low positive number. Here are  the 100 year inflation numbers in the US.
   
   
7. Interest Rates: When you loan money to somebody, you expect something extra in return. This excess is called the interest. Interest rate is a positive number that measures how much excess you will get. There are bunch of rates here. In the short term, this rate is usually set by the Central Banks. Right now it is close to zero. In the long term, this is set by the market and is dependent on inflation and the long term prospects of the economy. The mechanisms in which the central banks control the short term rates is called monetary policy.
8. Interest Rates vs. Inflation vs. growth: There exists almost an inverse relationship between interest rates & growth and interest rates also can affect inflation directly. Thus, when you increase interest rates inflation tend to come down, along with growth. One is good and other is bad. Thus, the constant tension on setting the interest rates. In the US, Federal Reserve sets the short term rates and one of the most watched economic news.
9. Fiscal Policy: Government can control the economy in a big way by adjusting its expenditure. The group of mechanisms using expenditure form the fiscal policy. When government spends more it can lead to more demand and that means more price increase. This means both high growth and high inflation. And it works in the reverse too. Thus, governments try to spend more during periods of low growth & low inflation and cut spending during periods of high growth & high inflation.
10. Business cycle: Economies have their periods of booms and bust in cycles of approximately 7 years long. At the start of the cycle it is a boom, then it gets to the top, then there is a contraction leading to a recession (period of negative growth and/or increasing unemployment) and finally followed up with an expansion.
    
    

Bonus:
1. Opportunity Cost: When you do an activity, you tend to equate how good the activity is when compared to the alternatives. For instance, when you are working hard a Friday night on a project, you might be thinking "man, I should be doing something else." The alternative (in this case, partying with friends) has a high value, and thus your present project better be attractive. This value of the alternative is termed as an "opportunity cost" - value of what you give up. Thus, if you quit a $120K/year paying job to do a startup, your opportunity cost of doing startup is $120K/year. Your payoff should be higher than what you give up. Hat tip: Charles Phan

2. Comparative Advantage:  You are running your tech startup and one day a client asks you whether you can build a website for them. Should you offer to build the website for them, or should you pass up the opportunity to a friend? How do you decide? A rational person might calculate how much time they will take to build the website, and whether they can use that time to earn more building their current startup product. Then, he/she might calculate whether the friend might be able to build the site more efficiently.

If the friend can build it more efficiently and you have a lot in your plate, you will pass up the opportunity. This is called the theory of comparative advantage. Your friend has an advantage here and it makes no sense for you to take up that business. Nations, businesses and people should do only those things they are better at and leave the rest to others. Hat tip: Aaron Klemm

communism

communism is a form of social organization where all property and the means of production are owned by the community and where private property rights are extinguished. Classes are non-existent. It is intended to produce an economic egalitarian social order and is often ruled by a single party that makes decisions for the entire community. Advise and consent of the community members may or may not be present.

The Power Of Creating Good Habits

When I was 22 years old, I spent time going out with my friends, talking to my girlfriend all the time, spending time smoking-up, and generally being an a$$.

10 years later I discovered a secret that helped me achieve and learn more in 1 year than I had in all the previous 10 years.

Here's the secret for you to apply this in your life and get results and success that you've never even dreamed possible.

Invest your time in the following activities and you will gain more power, money, friends, love and affection.

Your friends will look up to you for your courage to do the things that they've only just dreamed about, your family will look up to you and be proud of your many achievements.

 Your colleagues will become jealous of your stratospheric success. They will look towards you for advice on how to become successful like you.

If you don't do these things, 10 years down the line you will wonder where all your time went, what you did wrong to become such a failure.

Your friends will forget you as a has-been, and your family will treat you like that 'bum-sibling' they have.

Here are 5 things you should invest your time in everyday to become a success.

But a WORD OF WARNING...

If you try doing these things at the same time you will fail. So pick one of the things mentioned below.

Learn how to do it. Figure it out. Then spend 1 month to learn how to do this better. Practice it every day for 1 month before taking on anything else.

After the 1 month is over this will have become your habit and you will be able to do it unconsciously. Then when you add another thing from the list below it won't seem very hard.

Within the year you'll be doing each of these things unconsciously and will have developed an arsenal of habits that will support you for the rest of your life.

The Power Of Creating Good Habits

The biggest secret that man has discovered over the last few decades is the power of habit. Once a habit is established it lasts for a life time.

Developing a habit in the beginning seems hard, but once you master something and include it in your habits, this will be forgotten and you'll just do it easily.

Think about tying your shoelaces. How do you do that? Do you loop each lace and then knot them, or do you loop one and then knot the other lace through the loop.

Each of us ties our shoelaces differently. But once we get this, we'll tie them each time the same way, without even thinking about it.

This is the power of habit. This is the first thing you should invest your time in.

A habit is usually formed when you repeat something in the exact same manner everyday for at least 21 days. Some habits take longer, some shorter.

So to average it out - invest 30 days to establish each habit.

The 5 Most Powerful Habits That Anyone Can Learn

These 5 habits will support you throughout your life

Whether you decide to become an academic and do multiple Ph.Ds, or are an athlete looking to become professional.

Whether you are a mother looking to give your kids a better life, or a high powered business woman seeking venture capital investment.

The habits are universal.

1. Take Care Of Your Body

No matter what you do in your life, you will do it in your body. You cannot replace it, get a new one, or trade it in. This is your body and your will live in it.

It might not be the perfect body that you want, but this is the one you have. If you take care of it now - it will take care of you when you 60, 70 or 80 years old.

The way to take care of your body is simple. Eat less & Exercise more.

Spend 30 - 60 Minutes Each Day Exercising.

This does not mean that you join a gym and start pumping weights. It means that you work every muscle in your body.

Spend conscious time to move the muscles in your arms, back and legs. Take the time to join a gym and workout and use your muscles. Do this because most of us now spend more time sitting on couches than moving around.

The human body was made to move around to do things. That's the first thing to take care of the body. Learn this habit first.

Spend 30 - 60 minutes each day exercising.

Eat Food That Is Fresh & Healthy

The next step to take care of your body is to eat well. Treat your body like a home. This is the home where you live.

If you bring good things to this home the home will become nicer and you'll enjoy living in it. If you bring rotten stuff into this home the home will decay and you'll hate living there.

So eat good stuff. Eat as much fresh fruits & vegetables as you can everyday. Include a fruit and vegetables in your diet. This will give you the energy that you need.

Play A Sport That You Like Everyday

This is something that will help you relax your mind. That can get you moving physically and get you out of your head and present in the moment.

Something that you do physically, like Tennis or Basketball. The benefit of these sports (or other sports) is that you get out of your head and get in the moment.

The rush of the moment will help your mind relax for a minute and focus on the right now instead of being stuck on analyzing the past or estimating the future.

Additionally the competition will rejuvenate you. Competition in life is how we grow. The more competition we have the sharper, faster, better we become.

Unfortunately in the current job environment that we work in - we can't get immediate feedback on competition. Most of the time at work we are working in teams where we need the team to succeed. But our personal success is often based on the failure of other members on the team.

For e.g. You can't become the manager of your team - if everyone in your team also becomes the manager of your team.

So taking up a sport will give you the immediate rush of competition, the instant feedback of success or failure and you will grow.

Avoid Junk Food

Junk food as the name suggests is junk. It's useless, worthless for the body. It doesn't provide the nutrition that your body needs.

If you feed your body with junk food, you will become lethargic, you will lose energy and over a period of time you will gain weight and lose health.

Eat food that is free of preservatives, sugar, corn, syrup and overly loaded with salt and carbs.

These sugar and carbs have an addictive effect on the body and will cause you to crave them more and more causing your body to become dependent on these foods.

Good foods will make your body strong and healthy. Addictive foods will make your body lethargic and rotten.

2. Take Care of Your Mind

We are living in a time when we do most of our work using our minds. We sit on desks and computers creating for people using our minds.

Even if this isn't true for you, it is. If you are a construction worker who lays bricks, or a day care assistant who helps kids, this is true for you.

Your mind is the one thing that controls your thoughts everyday and the thoughts that you think create the reality that you see around you.

So take care of your mind.

But how do you take care of your mind?

The mind like anything else is has the characteristics of a muscle. You use it, or lose it. And as long as you are using it, it will remain fit and healthy. The minutes you stop using it, it will decay and rust.

So you keep this muscle active by doing the following.

Read Every Day

There is no difference between the person who does not read the one who cannot read. Spend 30 minutes each morning and night reading.

Read motivational books. Books about philosophy, economics, politics, literature. Read fiction. Read self-help books. Read about parenting, read about health. Read about science and technology.

But read a book not a blog.

A book has a very permanent nature. It is written with a lot of thought and research. It is the gist of an author's life experiences. So read a book everyday.

This will keep your mind stimulated and open to ideas. You will get a number of ideas for each author that you can implement in your life. You will also get opinions from across the globe.

Ideas that would not have reached you if you only spoke to the people you met everday. So read a book. Spend 30 minutes morning and night reading a book.

Write Every Day

The only way to bring your thoughts to reality is to write them down. If you don't write them down they will be lost to the electric impulses inside your brain.

So write your thoughts down, write ideas that come to you, write your philosophy about life.

Write ever day. This will help you clear your thought and formulate complete ideas.

If you have a problem. Write it down. You will be able to come up with a solution better, once you've written down the problem.

If you have a crush on someone. Write it down. Write down the things that you like about that person, how it makes you feel, what you would do for them.

All these things when written down will help clarify your thoughts about love and life, about right and wrong.

Writing will help identify truths about your thoughts and define how you think. As you progress in your writing, read about writing better. Then write better.

The better you write, the better you will think.

Develop Your Mind In Other Ways

The more neural connections your mind has the better it is. The faster it can do things. The better it can fight against disease in old age, like Alzheimers.

You can create new neural connections in your mind by doing new things. The more 'new' things you try the more your brain will become developed.

Even if you suck at something - the experience of doing it, learning the rule, trying it out will develop your mind.

Listen to and watch things that will develop you mind. Instead of watching TV, watch TED Talks.

Instead of listening to 'distressing' music, listen to sweet, kind music. Listen to Mozart, listen to Beethoven.

Plan to learn a new skill every year. Pick up playing an instrument one year. Spend time learning this instrument like this will be something that you will play all your life.

The next year learn to play a new sport. Something that you've never tried before. This will both help your muscles improve and improve your mind.

Avoid Junk In You Mind

Just like your body needs good food to run, your mind needs good fuel to run.

If you feed your mind with junk 'input' like mindless television, excessive drama, or constant news coverage whether TV or newspapers, your mind will become lethargic and fatigued.

You will lose the will to do things, since your mind will associate doing things with depressing sad news.

So avoid all news, whether TV or newspaper. Avoid junk TV like dramas on TV. Avoid excessive emotional drama on TV. This will give you space in your head to do things that will help build up your mind.

So avoid junk food for your mind and give it the resources to build itself.

3. Take Care Of Your Relationships

How do you get a friend, by being a friend.

In life you are born with a very few people in your life. Your parents. Your siblings. Your grandparents if they are still alive. Your cousins if you are close to them.

Every other relationship in your life you have to go out and create. You make friends along the way. Some of the good, some of them not so good.

These friends that you make in your journey through life will become your support system. the people you meet everyday, from the grocer, to the kid working at Best Buy.

Sure, at 24 you're probably thinking, 'who gives a f*&K about these people...' but down the line it is these people, these relationships that will matter most to you in your life.

The way to take care of your relationships is as follows

Remember Birthdays & Anniversaries

Even if your friends tell you they don't celebrate birthdays. Even if your family become sullen when you call them for anniversaries. Remember them.

Even though people say they don't care, everyone cares about their own special days. When you remember their birthday & anniversaries, they will remember your kindness.

But it doesn't end there. Remember the special moments in their lives. If they had a kid, remember the date and call them, or write them a card on that occasion.

Yes, even in the day of email, and text. A phonecall or a card have a HUGE impact than a Facebook message or text. Over the years your kindness for others in the form of remembering their special days will snowball and you will become a powerhouse.

It good to know that some one cares about you - both for them and for you, when you are in trouble, or they are.

Remember when they had hard times in their lives. If they were close to their grandparents and they recently passed away. Remember them on that day. Help your friends get over these moments.

When you need them, when your loved ones leave you, your friends will be there to catch you before you fall.

Forgive Them Before They Ask For Forgiveness

In the long scheme of life small things don't matter. It doesn't matter if your friend forgot to tell you first about their new job. Or they didn't tell you about the girl they were proposing to.

Be a gentleman and forgive them in your heart even before they ask for forgiveness. Then let the incident go. They will realize you are a big hearted person and treat you like that.

But when you do this - don't resent them after. Really forget the incident and forgive them.

This is more for you, then for them. If you keep holding onto every single hurt that any one has done for you then your baggage will become so heavy you won't be able to go through the door.

You'll be stuck inside your own head and no one will want to be around you. No one will want to trip on your baggage.

But if you do forgive them and forget the incidents you will be free. Your carefree nature will be reflective in everything that you do and everyone will want to be around you.

Avoid Emotional Vampires

No matter how good you are to people, occasionally there will be some who are vampires. They suck all the time and energy out of you.

Sometimes you will encounter them at your workplace. Some of them will be your childhood friends, or even a member of your family.

No matter what you do, you can't change them, you can't help them improve, you cannot guide them.

So the best thing to do with people like this is to avoid them. Though it might hurt you in the beginning, but the best thing for you and them is to avoid them.

You can be kind and make an excuse for not meeting them, but that will only last so long. So take the bigger step and let them know that they are an emotional strain on you - and you'd much rather hang out with more positive people.

People who support your goals, your dreams, your aspiration. People who share your ambitions and values. These are the people who will really help you grow.

The vampires will get hurt - but there is no better way to deal with them. The sooner you take care of them the better.

Really dig deep and find out the people who bother you in your life like that and then stop meeting them and hanging out with them.

CAUTION: If it turns out that everyone in your life seems to be a vampire you either need to change them all, or look inside yourself and change yourself.

Most likely, the conclusion will be to change yourself and your attitude towards them.

4. Take Care Of Your Finances

No matter how you grew up, in abundance or poverty, it is your duty to take care of your own finances.

Even if you parents have taken care of them for you, even if you have a trust fund, even if you have an empty bank account. You are responsible for it. It is your responsibility to take care of your finances.

If you take care of your finances starting today they will take care of you when you most need them. When you are old, or sick, or sending your kids to school, or helping a parent through sickness. Your finances will help you.

If you don't take care of your finances you will end up in debt. Your shoulders will droop and your mind will be gripped by thoughts of money. You will end up living the life of an indebted servant, where you have to work to pay of your debts.

But how do you take care of your finances

Get Positive Cashflow

To begin taking care of your finances you need to have more income than you spend. You need to have more money coming in to your bank account than you are spending.

Most people don't learn this until after they get their 1st job or after they've maxed out their first credit card.

As long as you have a positive cashflow you can get other things in your life a lot easier. If you don't have positive cashflow in your life spend the next year or two getting positive cashflow.

Spend the next 15 minutes figuring out how much money you spend, include rent for the house you live in (or your contribution if you're living with parents), utilities, groceries, car, internet, other monthly expenses, insurance, and monthly spending on shopping & entertainment.

Once you have your expenses take them out of your income. If you have no income - then you have a negative cashflow. Do whatever you can, teach other people, pick up a 2nd job, mow lawns. Whatever you have to do to get this to positive cash flow.

What do you do after you have positive cashflows?

Pay Yourself First

Every cent you earn will be spent by other people for you. The government will want its cut in the form of taxes. The bank will ask for the mortgage payment, insurance, car payments... and so on. Until you don't have anything left in your account.

So before this happens, pay yourself first.

Get into a retirement scheme where they take 5 - 10% from your salary and put it into a gratuity and provident fund. Then when you get your salary, take another 5 - 10% and put them into another account.

This account is your retirement account - also known as F*&K You money.  This is the money that will give you the balls to say F*&K you to anyone you want to.

Because you have this money sitting in your account - you won't become a slave to anyone, no one will control you.

But a word of warning... You can't just get a small amount and then stop. This is a lifetime practice. You have to keep adding to this account. Until it become big enough that you can invest this into assets that make money for you.

This is money that you only spend on assets that make money. Like a house you put up for rent, or government bonds, or dividend funds, or buying a profitable business etc.

Financial Sinkholes To Avoid

If anything sounds too good to be true - it probably is.

A few things to avoid when you're taking care of your finances.

The Stock Market - Most people will tell you to invest in it - but don't. Only invest in a S&P Index Fund at best if you really want to. Even though some friend of yours will tell you they have a big 'tip' on a stock that could make you millions - don't invest.

Business Opportunity - If someone tells you that you can make a million dollars in 3 years by investing a small amount of money, or any other such scheme - don't listen to them. Shut the door, bang the phone, kick them out. If it's a friend - stop meeting him again.

Lottery Schemes - If you ever hear that you've just won a cruise, or are tempted to buy a lottery ticket, or that you will earn X number of points. Run away - don't walk, run away.

Credit Cards - Yes, even the lovely credit cards. These are probably the worst things invented since the dawn of time. Credit cards don't increase your spending power - they just make it seem that your spending power has increased. You still have to pay for what you bought, plus interest.

A better alternative is to save for what you want - then when you have the cash then go buy the thing that you wanted to buy.

This has 3 benefits

1) The thing will in all likelihood be cheaper by the time you've saved for it

2) There will be a newer shinier model that you can now buy based on the money you saved.

3) You will realize that you didn't want it in the first place anyway and were buying it on an impulse.

These sinkholes mentioned are all just ways to get a single $1 out of you. Don't give them the dollar. It represents a part of you, of your life. You might think what's the big deal about a dollar, but a dollar properly invested can become the greatest fortune in the world.

Read the story about how the Native Americans sold Manhattan for a $1, and how much that dollar would be worth today invested properly. Hint: It is worth more than the value of all the buildings, land, and businesses in those buildings on Manhattan - put together.

5. Take Care Of Your Communication

The biggest problems in the world arise because of mis-communication. People mis-understand each other.

Spouses fight because they don't understand what was being said.

Employees get fired because of a communication error.

Friends fight because of something that was mis-understood.

Communication errors cause major problems in relationships between friends, employees, board members and even countries.

So take care of your communication. Become a communication master. Become some one who can communicate clearly and effectively. Not just in your speaking, but in your writing, in your thoughts.

But how do you improve your communication?

Communicate At The 6th Grade Level

Yes, at the 6th grade level. This is one of the most important thing you can do for your communication. If you can explain things to a 10 year old you can explain them to anyone.

You might think that most 'educated' people will get turned off by this. But the truth is even most educated people think at the 6th grade level. When they are reading research papers, or grading Ph.D thesis will they get into the 'educated' mind and think this is stupid.

Just by communicating at this level, your communication will be understood every time. Your kids will understand you, your parents will listen to you, your employers will 'get' you.

In fact by communicating at this level every one around you will think you are wise that you are able to explain complex ideas in the simplest of manner.

Learn The Vocabulary Of Whatever You Are Doing

By learning the vocabulary of what you are doing you will learn faster. You will be understood quicker. Your responses will be on point.

Every profession, sport, online forum, clique, had a different vocabulary. The faster you learn this vocabulary and use it in your conversations the quicker you will rise.

If you play tennis, learn every thing that the pros are saying. Learn their meaning and then when you talk to your friends at tennis using the vocabulary will enhance your game.

The same applies to your profession. The sooner you learn the vocabulary of the profession the faster you will progress. But this isn't a technique, use it to enhance your overall vocabulary.

Putting It All To Work For You

These habits when put in to action will enhance your life profoundly.

You won't feel it when you turn 23, or even when you are 24. But as you progress as you spend more and more time in this, your results will multiply and compound.

Each day that you spend doing these activities your results will increase ten fold.

By the time you turn 30 you will have more friends who love you, more employers who want to hire you, and more energy than you can imagine possible.

But on top of that because your life is built around a number of activities, not just your job, you will be more fulfilled and happier in life.

I know even starting at 27 yrs old and implementing these in my life - by the time I turned 33 the results I was getting was more than I'd ever imagined.

It still amazes me the way my life keeps changing every 6 months to a year.

Every year. The results will speak for themselves when you apply these.