iBlog: Nishit Shah

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Got this from Amit Ranjan’s Blog

Had some issues with my wordpress …I had screwed it up royally while playing with it hence no posts all these days.. Finally I was able to upgrade to the latest version and publish a post. The latest version is supercool ! Will publish all my pending posts at one go with back dates ..of course

You don’t hear it much any more, but for a long time, If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich was a pretty effective line for the average Joe when dealing with somebody who was smarter than him. The expression has kind of fallen out of fashion lately. Nowadays, there are too many rich smart people.

The line worked because, for most of history, being smart wasn’t really a big advantage in becoming rich. Aside from things like inheriting/marrying wealth, or winning the lottery, there are basically two paths to wealth:

Option #1 is the “millionaire next door” way to wealth: live below your means, save and invest, and let compound interest and the natural growth in the markets work its magic. If you do this–and you live long enough–you’ll eventually be wealthy.

Option #2 is to be an entrepreneur: find some need, and then create a product or service that can satisfy it at a profit. Unlike living frugally and saving, this is not a sure way to wealth. Many new businesses go broke. Many of the rest muddle along making less money than the owner could have made working a regular job. But lots of entrepreneurs make good profits and a few become wealthy.

The downside to option #1 has always been that it took too long. Unless you lived very frugally indeed, it could take 30 or 40 years to turn an ordinary salary into real wealth. (Even then, success depends on living long enough–and if bad luck or bad choices pushed your income down, your expenses up, or weighed on your investment returns, “long enough” could turn out to be longer than you’ve got.)

So, for most of history, option #2 has always been the way to go if you wanted to be wealthy. But being an entrepreneur took a certain set of personality traits–a set that notably doesn’t include being smart, but includes things like a tolerance for risk, a burning desire for wealth, a thick skin, and a willingness to put running the business ahead of other interests (like hobbies, friends, and family).

Over the past generation, the “knowledge economy” has made intelligence a bigger advantage than it used to be. Besides the dotcom boom (which made it possible for people with only a modest entrepreneurial bent to get rich following option #2), it’s been possible over the past couple of decades to accelerate option #1 as well: an ordinary smart person, working at an ordinary good-paying job, has been able to support a family at an ordinary middle-class standard of living, and have enough of a surplus for saving and investing to become modestly wealthy in a decade or two. (Of course, lots of smart people failed to do so, but that’s just because smart people are as prone as dumb people to suffer from the natural human inclination to let the cost of living rise to whatever one’s income will support.)

Smart people of the world: This is your shining hour. There’s no telling how long just being smart will translate into the kind of income advantage smart people have enjoyed these past couple of decades. This is very much a “get while the getting is good” kind of situation. Don’t miss it.

Did a CTRL-C + CLRL+V from here.

Check the Wiki link of Schrödinger’s cat. Very Interesting !

WTF !!!

Its again that time of the year when one sits and pens down the things that he wants to achieve, get rid of some old habits and start with new good ones. 2007 has been a fantastic year and I am looking forward for 2008 to be a great one too. I have listed down a few things that I want to work on this year and do my best to get them. I have categorized them accordingly.

Work Advanced BASH, Perl, Python, PHP programming. Storage devices, Security, IPv6, Anti-Spam solutions.

Health Exercise atleast 5 times a week. Join the 5 O’clock Club, Jog 5km everyday. (Thanks to the Mumbai Marathon, I reach this target everyday. But, the real challenge lies in continuing for the rest of the year)

Money I have a list of things in my mind to splurge on but these are some of the things that I want to buy this year are A Hyundai i10, Nintendo Wii and ofcourse a Firefox Bike. Also, I want to start a passive source for income.

Knowledge Read atleast a book every week on various topics. I have always believed in Know something about everything and everything about something. Being an avid reader I want to try and manage my time more effecitvely so that I can gain more knowledge this year.

Hobbies Travel to many different places this year with friends and family. Will try and make sure that I take atleast a trip out of Bombay every month. Wanna travel abroad this year may be for business or pleasure.

As Robin Sharma puts it in his “The Greatness Guide”, get into world class physical, mental and social wellbeing.

PS. This list is not exhaustive. I will keep modifying as and when I find new goals to achieve.

Annus mirabilis noun. latin meaning a remarkable/wonderful year. What a great year 2007 has been. Have enjoyed every moment of it. Of course there were many highs and lows for me but overall it was a great year by taking material, physical, spiritual and social prosperity. Enjoyed my work throughout the year and had fun doing it. Also, got promoted at work on the way Took timely breaks from work and had some some of the best time of the year while hanging out with family and friends. Got an opportunity to read some really good books, saw some great movies and met many interesting people. Didn’t stop learning and learned a bit of shell scripting, loads of Linux commands, better system administering skills, speed reading, very little French, couple of cords in Guitar…. Looking forward to complete what I have started with Also, its been little more than a year of blogging for me. I am happy that my blog has survived for a year now with 75 posts after couple of failed attempts. (I just want my grand children to know about me after reading my blog what I was upto .. few decades down the line )

Looking forward for a great year ahead…am working on my wishlist and new year resolutions.

ps. Named the title from the new latin word that I learned today from Anu Garg’s book A Word a Day - A Romp Through Some of the Most Unusual and Intriguing Words in English.