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28 April 2018

Book Review: The Chosen One: Sam Bourne

This is the review of the book 'The Chosen One' by Sam Bourne. I will give it a rating of 3 / 5. 
Maggie Costello is an idealistic journalist who dreams of contributing to make the world a better place. She is a part of a core campaign committee that helped elect Stephen Baker to be the President of the United State. Baker is also an idealist who shares Maggie's interest in using the bully pulpit of US in making the world a better place. One of his project is to have an oversight over Darfur, Sudan where sectarian killings had become a norm rather than an exception. Maggie is tasked with driving this initiative which she is very happy to do. 

26 April 2018

Book Review: Deep Work: Cal Newport

Deep work refers to concentrated, distraction free work for a long period of time. That is a kind of work that can add value and let us achieve our full potential.

Buy the book 'Deep Work' @Amazon

As we enter the changing world of technology the need for deep work becomes all the more important . However, this is the age of social media and email that causes distraction and hence people are losing their ability to do deep work.
Author contrasts the deep work with shallow work, where the work is interspersed with too many distractions. Scarily, as we indulge more and more in shallow work, we lose our ability to do deep work.
The book is divided into two parts. Part 1 explores the idea of deep work and

09 April 2018

Lessons from Great Minds of Value Investing.

One of the benefits of reading and learning about investing and investors is that you can learn a lot about life. You get more life wisdom rather than investment wisdom, I would even go as far to say that the latter is a bonus. Most of the great investors have tasted great success, experienced great failure, resisted temptations, handled bare borne emotions like greed and fear, shown exemplary courage and exemplary humility, separated what is important from what is urgent and unimportant and finally, helped a large number of people to become successful and lead their life with calm and peace. 

For his book 'Great minds of investing', William Green and team interviewed 22 of the greatest minds of investing

08 April 2018

The education of a Value Investor: Guy Spier

There are some ideas that, while relating to investing and belong to 'Penny Wise' blog, are so full of Life Lessons, and hence by default belong to this blog on personal growth. This post is one such.

I had heard about Guy Spier while reviewing the book 'Dhandho Investor' (Buy the book at Amazon) written by him and Mohnish Pabrai. You can read my review of the book here

This is a part of the 'Author Talks' series of Google Talks. Guy Spier is a Value Investor and has written the book 'The education of a value investor'. (Buy the book at Amazon)


This is a unique talk. If I expected full on maths, analytics, number crunching and investing strategies and PE Ratios, I was in for a surprise.

06 April 2018

Yoshi and the bird....

Once upon time, there was a rich man in Japan. His name was Yoshi. He was a very rich man. But he always wanted to be more rich, more money.
One day Yoshi was walking in his garden. He saw a strange bird on a small tree. It was very small. But it had very beautiful and colorful features. Its voice was also very lovely. Yoshi had never seen such a bird in his life. He slowly went near the tree unseen. He caught the bird. Now the bird began to speak.
“Why have you caught me?” the bird asked.