#more of a love story between charlie and ferrari Personally

[twslug]

mentor and mentee

Pluto Projector Rex Orange County / the origin of "il predestinato" Carlo Vanzini / Infinite Jest David Foster Wallace / Interview with Charles Leclerc La Stampa / The Secret History Donna Tartt / Vettel offers Leclerc sympathy over Paul Ricard crash RaceFans / "To Charles, you are the most talented driver I came across in 15 years of F1. Don't waste it. But be sure whatever you do to be happy and smile. Thanks for everything!" Sebastian Vettel

[gguk-n]

Rewritten Headlines (Charles Leclerc X Model!Reader)

Fake dating mixed SMAU and imagine. All the pictures are from pinterest. Random girls from Pinterest no specific person

{Reader's POV}

My manager mailed me the tickets to Monaco. I was flying in on the Sunday morning and then I was to meet some guy who was gonna be my fake boyfriend apparently. I reached Monaco around afternoon and rested in the hotel until the meeting time. She sent the guys's profile and number so that I could contact him, if I needed to. When I opened the profile, the name read Charles Leclerc. I'd heard about him; he was a driver for Ferrari and if you base your work out of Italy it's kinda hard to miss Charles or Ferrari. I got dressed and headed to the restaurant we decided to meet at. He was already waiting for me when I got there. He waved at me as soon as we saw each other. I walked towards him and raised my hand to greet him "Hi, I'm Y/N Y/L/N, your fake girlfriend." I said. He laughed then replied, "Hi, I'm Charles Leclerc, your fake boyfriend."

We sat together and talked for a while, going through the profile our teams had sent and made a few changes that we would be letting them know off. Charles was easy to be around and fun to talk to. We had dinner together and he dropped me back to my hotel. He even offered to drive me to the airport tomorrow but I denied his request since I didn't want to ruin the plan our teams had come up with.

We were supposed to date for a year till it would clear up our names. Our meeting was supposed to happen at a race, I was flying out in 2 weeks for. I would be Ferrari's guest and then Charles and I would hit it off, immediately. We would do a few public appearances and be 'caught by paps' make it believable, a few interviews and Instagram posts and then break up with a post or story. Simple as that.

y/n.y/l/n

Liked by scuderiaferrari, charles_leclerc, 1,256,976 others

y/n.y/l/n Thank you to Ferrari for having me as a guest at todays race. I had so much fun. I would love to be back for more races.

user1 You look so pretty!!😘😘 user2 guys, everyone at the gp said that Y/N and Charles were inseparable, new couple?!🥹🥹 user3 After the whole scandal and the first post back is her at a race, who ever said she was irrelevant is actually irrelevant😭😭 user4 How are you so pretty???😍😍 user5 we love you, don't listen to the haters❤️❤️ scuderiaferrari please come back soonn. You look great in red. ti amo❤️❤️

f1gossip

Liked by 1,789 others tagged y/n.y/l/n and charles_leclerc

f1gossip Rumor has it Model Y/N Y/L/N and Scuderia Ferrari's driver Charles Leclerc are romantically involved. They were spotted in various cities across Europe in between race weeks. People say Y/N was at Charles home race too. But there were no pictures so we cannot confirm.

user6 damn you tagged them🤣🤣 user7 I can confirm she was at Charles's home race. I saw her. Both of them looked so cute tbh🥹🥹 user8 I'm happy if they are happy😭😭 user2 Idk why Charles is dating that problematic abusive woman🙅‍♀️🙅‍♀️

y/n.y/l/n

Liked by charles_leclerc, arthur_leclerc and 1,279,356 others tagged charles_leclerc

y/n.y/l/n I don't think I've been this happy in a really long time. Thank you baby for loving me. Can't wait to spend all my time with you and support you in all your races!! Je t'aime, mon ange

charles_leclerc I love you too mon cherie. Can't wait to support you in all your runways either user1 my goodness, I can't breathe😭 user3 they are so cute!! the hand in his hair❤️❤️ user4 the way Charles holds her, fuck I want a man like him🥹🥹 user5 love is real it seems😪😪 bestie/user Congratulations you two!!😘😘 scuderiaferrari pretty people make prettiest couple😌😌

charles_leclerc

Liked by y/n.y/l/n, scuderiaferrari and 1,267,202 others tagged y/n.y/l/n

charles_leclerc Can't believe I get to call the prettiest girl my own!! Thank you for having me. Je t'aime cherie

y/n.y/l/n You're making me blush. I love you more Charlie. 😘😘 user6 when will it be??😭 user7 he takes the best pictures😏😏 user8 if a man don't love me like this, I don't want it😤😤 user1 I think it's time to switch social media off, couples are annoying😩 carlossainz55 Congratulations mate! So happy for you👍 scuderaferrari so pretty!! Congratulations❤️

{Reader's POV}

Going to all these places to be spotted by paparazzi or to his races meant we spent a lot of time together. It felt so nice to have someone going through a similar situation. He was so nice to me, I had so much fun just hanging out with him. He made me laugh at his stupid jokes. He got me flowers even though the dates were fake. He bought us matching watches to make it believable. Even my actual boyfriend never put this much effort.

After a race, both of us got to the hotel together. He walked me to my room; "do you wanna chill and get room service?" I asked while I unlocked my door. "sure" Charles replied with a big smile. I let him in. We sat and ordered room service and watched a movie together. I got tired mid way through the movie and ended up laying my head on his shoulder. We ended up cuddling eventually. I don't remember when I slept but I slept like a baby in Charles's arms.

After a 'date' in Milan, we were walking back to my place. I had offered him a spare room since it would be weird if he stayed at a hotel when his girlfriend had a house. We walked back holding each others hands in silence. The comfort was warm and inviting. I may have been cuddling myself to sleep in Charles's arms the whole weekend he was there but no one has to know. I didn't sleep as well alone as I did with him. So whenever we were together, he offered to be my cuddle buddy. I think I'm starting to like him; this could be bad.

When Charles won the race, he walked towards me cupping my cheeks; "can I kiss you?" he asked softly barely above a whisper. I nodded my head and then he kissed me. It wasn't in the contract, we weren't supposed to kiss but we did. It was magical and warm and sweaty. The kiss ended to quickly for my liking but the cheers were deafening. I think I'm in trouble, I think I love him.

{Reader's POV}

Our contract was up in a couple days. We haven't be seen together for a few weeks now. It's breaking me not being with him. But this was a contracted relationship to help us both. I just never felt like this with any other guy.

{Charles's POV}

Mine and Y/N's relationship was a contractual obligation. But I never realised how close we got. That kiss we shared after my race win was everything. I felt electric shock through out my body as her lips moved against mine. It was then I knew that I loved her but it probably wouldn't work out since she didn't feel the same.

f1gossip

Liked by 1,702,827 others

f1gossip Paddock's favourite couple has broken up after only 1 year. It was year ago around this time that rumours were floating that they were dating and yesterday both of them posted a story saying that they decided to break up because of work and their schedule. They said that they will continue to remain good friends.

user2 tell me this is lie😭 user3 I'm crying😭😭 user4 please get back together😤😤 user5 both of them made each other such better people🥺🥺 user6 she really deserved everything Charles gave her after her shitty ex🤧 user7 I hate life!!😓

A couple nights after the sleep over at Y/N's place with her friend; Charles showed up at her door with a big bouquet of tulips and roses. He had a huge chocolate in hand too. He was scared; his palms were sweaty and he really contemplated ringing her door bell. As if the universe was trying to get these two oblivious love birds together, Y/N opened the door with a packet of trash in her hand. "Charles" she whispered scared that he'll disappear if she said it out loud. "Hi" he greeted. "come in" she said while opening the door for him to enter. "I'll be right back" she said while walking out of the door. She disposed of the trash and came back to sit where Charles was sat in her living room. The chocolates and flowers still in hand. He stood up as soon as she entered. "For you" he said while thrusting them in her hands. She took the flowers and sniffed them, a small smile on her lips. "What are you doing here, so late?" she asked. "Ilikeyoulikealotandican'tlivewithoutyou" he blurted out. "Charlie, you're gonna have to say it slowly for me to understand" she said while placing the flowers and chocolate down to stand in front of him. He huffed out before speaking, "I think I like you. After we stopped seeing each other I couldn't imagine my life without you. I don't know when you became so important to me but I need you in my life" he said. She had tears in her eyes, she leapt forward and wrapped her arms around him; "I think I like you too Charlie, I couldn't sleep without, i couldn't eat. I knew I loved you when I was able to fall asleep in your arms. I'm so happy you feel the same" she whispered into his neck. Charles wrapped his arms around her in a tight hug. "I love you too mon cherie." he said while pulling away to look at her, "Will you be my girlfriend for real this time?" he asked looking into her eyes. "Yes" she nodded while pressing her lips against his.

f1gossip

Liked by 258,972 others

f1gossip Charles's ex Y/N was spotted at the launch of his new ice cream Lec with his brother Arthur. They were seen holding hands and kissing each other. I think it's safe to say that the paddock couple is back together.

user8 my prayers have been answered🙏 user1 I can sleep peacefully knowing that they are together again🤧 user2 Mom and Dad are back!!!😌 user3 I love that for them!! They deserve each other🥹 user4 they deserve all the happiness❤️❤️ user5 I hope they never break up😭

[aesthetic-uwus]

Movies/tvshow recommendations

1. Scott pilgrim (2010)

As bass guitarist for a garage‑rock band, Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) has never had trouble getting a girlfriend; usually, the problem is getting rid of them. As Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) skates into his heart

2. Growing op (2008)

A teenager tries to live a normal life while his parents run an operation growing weed out of their home

3. 10 things I hate about you (1999)

Kat Stratford (Julia Stiles) is beautiful, smart and quite abrasive to most of her fellow teens, meaning that she doesn't attract many boys. Unfortunately for her younger sister, Bianca (Larisa Oleynik), house rules say that she can't date until Kat has a boyfriend

4. Juno (2007)

When precocious teen Juno MacGuff (Ellen Page) becomes pregnant, she chooses a failed rock star and his wife (Jennifer Garner) to adopt her unborn child. Complications occur

5. Easy A (2010)

Prompted by her popular best friend to spill details of her boring weekend, Olive (Emma Stone), a clean‑cut teen, decides to spice things up by telling a little lie about losing her virginity. When the high‑school busybody (Amanda Bynes) overhears the conversation...

6. Warehouse 13 (2009-2014)

Plot. The series follows U.S. Secret Service Agents Myka Bering (Joanne Kelly) and Pete Lattimer (Eddie McClintock) when they are assigned to the secretive Warehouse 13 for supernatural artifacts. It is located in a barren landscape in South Dakota, and they initially regard the assignment as punishment.

7. ferris buellers day off (1986)

Ferris Bueller (Matthew Broderick) has an uncanny skill at cutting classes and getting away with it. Intending to make one last duck‑out before graduation, Ferris calls in sick, "borrows" a Ferrari, and embarks on a one‑day journey through the streets of Chicago.

8. Perks of being a wallflower (2012)

Socially awkward teen Charlie (Logan Lerman) is a wallflower, always watching life from the sidelines, until two charismatic students become his mentors. Free‑spirited Sam (Emma Watson) and her stepbrother Patrick (Ezra Miller) while overcoming the problem from his past

9. Sex education (2019-?)

Socially awkward high school student Otis may not have much experience in the lovemaking department, but he gets good guidance on the topic in his personal sex ed course -- living with mom Jean, who is a sex therapist. Being surrounded by manuals, videos and tediously open conversations about sex

10. Anne with an E (2017-?)

In the late 19th century, brother and sister Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert, both past their prime, decide to take on an orphan boy to help out around their ancestral farm of Green Gables, on the outskirts of the town of Avonlea, on Prince Edward Island.

11. Santa Clarita diet (2017-2019)

Joel and Sheila Hammond are everyday suburban real estate agents in Santa Clarita, California. The couple face a series of obstacles when Sheila undergoes a metamorphosis, becomes undead and starts craving human flesh.

12. Atypical (2017-?)

This heartfelt comedy follows Sam, a teenager on the autism spectrum, who has decided he is ready for romance. In order to start dating -- and hopefully find love -- Sam will need to be more independent, which also sends his mother (Jennifer Jason Leigh) on her own life-changing path.

13. That 70s show (1998-2006)

A comedy revolving around a group of teenage friends, their mishaps, and their coming of age, set in 1970s Wisconsin. Eric Forman is a typical high school student growing up in Wisconsin in 1976 with his family and his friends. ... The head of the group is Eric Forman who lives under the authority of parents Red and Kitty.

14. Tuca and Bertie (2019)

Premise. Tuca & Bertie follows "the friendship between two 30-year-old bird-women who live in the same apartment building, Tuca, a cocky, care-free toucan, and Bertie, an anxious, daydreaming songbird."

15. The end of the fucking world (2017-2019?)

James (Alex Lawther), a 17-year-old who believes himself to be a psychopath, and Alyssa (Jessica Barden), a rebellious classmate who sees in James a chance to escape from her tumultuous home life. ... 

16 Derry girls (2018-?)

Derry Girls is a Northern Irish sitcom created by Lisa McGee. Set in 1990s Derry, Northern Ireland the show follows five teens as they live through political conflict while going through the challenges of being teenagers.

17. Grease (1978)

Plot. In the summer of 1958, local boy Danny Zuko and vacationing Sandy Olsson meet at the beach and fall in love. When the summer comes to an end, Sandy—who is going back to Australia—frets that they may never meet again, but Danny tells her that their love is "only the beginning"

18. Love simon (2018)

Everyone deserves a great love story, but for 17‑year‑old Simon Spier, it's a little more complicated. He hasn't told his family or friends that he's gay, and he doesn't know the identity of the anonymous classmate that he's fallen for online. Resolving both issues proves hilarious, terrifying

19. Legally blond (2001)

Elle Woods (Reese Witherspoon) has it all. She wants nothing more than to be Mrs. Warner Huntington III. But there is one thing stopping him (Matthew Davis) from proposing: She is too blond. Elle rallies all of her resources and gets into Harvard, determined to win

20. Legally blonde 2 (2003)

Elle Woods (Reese Witherspoon) journeys to Washington, D.C., to have her say about animal rights, but is ignored by every politician she encounters and quickly learns that the White House can be even tougher to navigate than the Ivy League

21. shameless us (2011-?)

Shameless is the story of a family of six kids and their drunk and selfish father. The eldest daughter Fiona has to raise the rest of the family on her own. They need to steal food and steal money to live while their father takes everything and offers nothing. Meet the fabulously dysfunctional Gallagher family.

22. Dead like me (2003)

Georgia Lass is aloof and emotionally distant from her family and shies away from her life. After dropping out of college, she takes a temp job through Happy Time Temporary Services. During her lunch break on her first day, she is hit and killed by a toilet seat falling from the deorbiting Mir space station.

23. Daria (1997-2002)

A smart and cynical girl goes through teenage life as a proud outsider in a world of mainly idiotic adolescents and condescending adults. Daria Morgendorffer is an intelligent, unpopular, and quite sarcastic teenager tolerating life among the idiots at Lawndale High.

24. IT (2017)

Seven young outcasts in Derry, Maine, are about to face their worst nightmare ‑‑ an ancient, shape‑shifting evil that emerges from the sewer every 27 years to prey on the town's children. Banding together over the course of one horrifying summer

25. IT chapter 2 (2019)

Defeated by members of the Losers' Club, the evil clown Pennywise returns 27 years later to terrorize the town of Derry, Maine, once again. Now adults, the childhood friends have long since gone their separate ways. But then people start disappearing....

26. Stranger things (2016-?)

A young boy, Will Byers, goes missing near a top-secret government laboratory. On the same night, a strange young girl appears at a diner in the town. ... A love letter to the '80s classics that captivated a generation, 'Stranger things' is set in 1983 Indiana, where a young boy vanishes into thin air.

27. Ginger snaps (2000)

The story of two outcast sisters, Ginger (Katharine Isabelle) and Brigitte (Emily Perkins), in the mindless suburban town of Bailey Downs. On the night of Ginger's first period, she is savagely attacked by a wild creature. Ginger's wounds miraculously heal 

28. Arrietty (2010)

Arrietty, a tiny teenager, lives with her parents in the recesses of a suburban home, unbeknown to the homeowner and housekeeper. Like others of her kind, Arrietty remains hidden from her human hosts, but occasionally ventures forth 

29. F is for family (2015-?)

Set in the 1970s, this animated raunchy comedy is inspired by the life of stand-up comic Bill Burr, who is a co-creator and executive producer of the series. Burr also voices the character of Frank Murphy, a short-tempered veteran who lives in the suburbs with his wife, Sue (Laura Dern) and their three children

[youreamonocoque]

Okay I’m like several months late with my Hot Takes re Drive to Survive but I wrote out about 50 million pages in my notebook about S2 so you’re getting them anyways! (I’m sorry that this is so long I had a lot of thoughts) - Warning for spoilers! 

First of all, I like DTS I think it’s a very good addition to F1 and captures the drama (albeit amplified drama for effect in places but we’ll get to that) and brings across the personal side of F1 very well. It’s catered towards the casual fan rather than the fanatic which I think is great and it can be entertaining still for the avid viewer because of the focus on the personal aspect. I liked that we got more people this series like Rupert, Michael, Paddy etc. It was nice to see more of the people around the drivers and how they all make the F1 World tick. The only addition I didn’t like was the whole Rich Energy stuff I don’t think it added anything other than unnecessary air time for Rich Energy At first I wasn’t sure about the episode per team ‘narrative’ but it grew on me as I watched more not totally as I still have some issues with it. 

Will Buxton....There’s certain bits I liked about his inclusion such as the added context to things that might not have made sense to the casual viewer. I think my main problem came in the Ferrari episode where he overemphasised the rivalry beyond the racetrack. I get Netflix wanted to push the rivalry but it was undermined by the clips of the drivers interacting. I don’t really like Will as a journalist that much but I do feel that an outside context to provide an element of narration is needed just maybe not by him. 

My main issue with DTS is the narrative structure of it but I understand that Netflix wanted to push the narrative that they want. For example the portrayal of Max in season 1 and then this supposed Daniel Vs Carlos rivalry (maybe it exists I don’t know but if I looked at f1 2019 I wouldn’t say that there was this whole massive rivalry between them). I think it would’ve worked had they gone for the more Mclaren vs Renault rivalry instead of going ‘these two drivers’ and focused on the whole team instead. I’m not a huge fan of the team by team episodes (especially as three teams were basically omitted from the series (Toro Rosso were there for like a second but no real focus on them)) and would’ve preferred a more linear structure of 2 races per episode say but that’s just my opinion. I think there was no real progression through the season you knew Australia was first and Brazil was towards the end but you had no real reference as to the order of the races. I was about to say that you know it was getting later in the year as episodes went on but then I remembered ep 9 catapults you back to Silvo and then suddenly you go to Brazil and then Abu Dhabi and it’s the end of the season. 

I also feel that a double hit of the Red Bull saga was nice but I think more inclusion of Toro Rosso would’ve been good at this point (a mention of Dany would’ve been brilliant) but I understand a lot was happening around the driver switch which was more interesting than another story line they could’ve explored. 

I think there was too much Renault or at least too much for mu liking. They got half the first ep and half the second and then another later on. It was a lot for a team that had a pretty uninteresting year. Idk if they had some sort of deal or whatever but it was a lot. 

No Racing Point or Alfa Romeo was interesting. I think Kimi’s contribution at the end was great and in some ways I love that, that’s all we get but I would’ve liked more of him and I think Netflix could’ve made some sort of ‘cult hero’ out of him but there we go. (Is cult hero the right term? Idk but you get what I mean hopefully).

Mclaren got half an episode basically. I liked what we got but it wasn’t enough in my view and it didn’t cover their whole resurgence from the years before. More could’ve been made of the fact that they were so bad previous and that 2019 was a real turning point and such a good season for them. I know Netflix is all about the drama but I think they really missed out on not including Lando at all except for 1 or 2 seconds of screen time that he got. Comedic relief would’ve worked nicely. Especially with how likeable he is as a person and how marketable he can be (I hate that phrase, sorry Lando). He was one of the three rookies. 2nd in F2, given the hype at the end of Season 1 and then nothing in Season 2. If they hadn’t gone team by team then a rookies episode would’ve been really interesting. And we know how much Netflix followed him because of Instagram, Twitch etc. It baffles me really that he wasn’t included more. 

Some races were pretty much glossed over completely (no mention of the 1000th Race in China, fine it was boring but surely the 1000th race deserves a mention). Some missed the drama. Canada - Switching of the signs. Japan - Quali and race on the same day. No mention of P20 to P2 in Germany for Seb at his home race (fine they were following Mercedes there but). Bahrain? Was Bahrain mentioned at all? I just think there was a lot missed out. Also Renault- Disqualified from Japan? Surely that’s drama enough for you Netflix. 

No tribute to Charlie was also a strange move considering how big a part he was of the sport. Even a mention would’ve been nice. A tribute. Anything really. It was disappointing. 

I didn’t really like the Haas episode but this is mainly the beef I have with Gunther rather than anything else.

The Mercedes episode was really nicely done, I really liked it. The addition of the timer for the pitstop was a great move. The Wiliams episode was prossibly my favourite - Not enough Robert though I have to say, if you need a story there’s one! Of all the episodes I think this one flowed the best and I enjoyed Claire’s interview with the Netflix lady when she didn’t ask the final question and Claire asked her too and gave a great answer. But that’s probably because I am a long suffering Williams fan so there we go. 

I did like DTS, I know this post comes across as me going ‘this is wrong, this is bad’ but it’s mostly just small irritations that I have with it and I do understand that they can’t include absolutely fucking everything into it. It’s a nice addition to the sport and I hope it brings more fans in (Pretty sure it has been doing so which is always nice). I liked all the episodes except the Haas one and the majority of the Carlos vs Dan ep but I do feel it is an improvement on season 1 and that as time progresses the series will get better and better. So yeah, overall I liked it I just personally had a few issues with some bits but I’m excited for whatever they’re gonna make with Season 3. 

(Sorry this is so long, If you’ve read all of it, thank you and fucking well done) 

[justanothercinemaniac]

Epic Movie (Re)Watch #228 - Tower Heist

Spoilers Below

Have I seen it before: Yes

Did I like it then: Yes.

Do I remember it: Yes.

Did I see it in theaters: Yes.

Was it a movie I saw since August 22nd, 2009: Yes, #129.

Format: DVD

Disclaimer: As this is an analysis/recap/review/weird musings post about Tower Heist, I’m not really going to get into the claims against Brett Ratner or Casey Affleck. I will say though I think it’s horrible what they did and I hope they face consequences for their actions.

1) I very much like Christophe Beck’s score for this film. It really fits the heist theme. It’s cool, slick, and a gets stuck in your head quite nicely. Since we get to hear Beck’s score before we even see any visuals for the film, I thought I’d mention it here.

2) The chess scene between Josh and Shaw speaks to how the heart of their relationship is conflict ridden. Even when they’re friendly at the beginning, even when they’re civil, there is a conflict there that is very interesting.

3) Ben Stiller as Josh Kovacs.

Josh is a very strong main character. You understand that he’s not only good at his job but incredibly dedicated and focused as well. He cares, but the one thing he cares more about is people. Josh is shown to be very empathetic not only to his staff but to a number of residents in the tower. He gives Fitzhugh extra time to leave, he chases down Shaw when he thinks he’s been kidnapped, and he knows all his staff like the back of his hand. Stiller’s reserved, human (albeit very Stiller-y) performance supports this and makes Josh a nice guy to follow along through the story.

4) Going behind the scenes of the Tower at the beginning gives you a sense of not only how this place is run but also gets you invested in its employees. They’re developed in small ways to be more than stereotypes, to be people you like and care for. This is important, as the fact that they are the ones who get screwed is the main plot.

5) Michael Peña as Enrique Dev’Reaux.

Peña is in competition as the film’s ultimate scene stealer (in competition with Gabourey Sidibe). Not only does he fit will the rest of the ensemble cast, but he’s remarkably funny on his own. Peña plays the role as sweet and endearing when he could have easily come off as annoying. But there’s a sincerity and uniqueness in the performance which makes it interesting.

6) This line always stuck with me, probably because of the film’s themes.

Josh: “You’re committing a crime.”

Fitzhugh: “I understand that.”

7) Alan Alda as Arthur Shaw.

You can definitely see why people would defend, trust, and believe show in the beginning of the film. He’s friendly and polite, but it’s obviously a facade. Alda is able to switch between Shaw’s “friendliness” and his rottenness very well, making it feel like a united character instead of two foreign elements. He’s wonderfully skeezy.

8) Téa Leoni as Agent Denham.

The writing for Claire Denham doesn’t make her more than a plot device Josh likes, I think. BUT Leoni is able to breathe such personality and life into the character that you almost forget how she is on the page. There is one scene in particular which represents this well: Denham feels actually human when she gets drunk at a bar with Josh, but she’s still the sexy drunk girl trope. So it’s a mixed bag: Leoni’s strong performance but weak writing. At least Brett Ratner didn’t dress her up in stupid “sexy” costumes.

9) TW: Suicide

Lester’s suicide attempt isn’t only powerful from a storytelling standpoint, but edited very well. Particularly, the scene ends perfectly. You don’t know if he was successful or not right away, it’s 50/50.

10) I love this line.

Lester: “Truth is, people can open their own doors.”

11) Josh going off on Shaw.

It is so wonderfully cathartic to see Josh go after Shaw. It perfectly paints that Josh cares more about people than his job (something which was a little in doubt before now). It also perfectly sets up his motivations moving forward AND means there is no more question of if Shaw did it or not.

Josh [after Shaw says he cares about Lester after his suicide attempt]: “Then why haven’t you asked me if he’s alive or dead?”

I dig it.

12) The sadness we see among the staff shows how much Josh means to them and how good a boss he was.

13) Matthew Broderick as Mr. Fitzhugh.

Broderick has some of the most surprisingly memorable lines in the film, playing Fitzhugh as wonderfully timid and out of place. Broderick is hysterical in the part, supporting the cast neatly.

14) Eddie Murphy as Slide.

This is probably Murphy’s best film of the decade, but that isn’t really saying much. The part feels like a classic for him, very much in line with some of his 80s roles, and there’s a charm/appeal to that. I’ve said this about a number of other characters but he fits remarkably well with the ensemble cast, with a particularly strong chemistry with Stiller (who’s involvement lurred Murphy back to the part after years in development hell).

15) So some of these jokes you just know are not in good taste. And they’re not funny enough to make up for that. They’re not like Blazing Saddles which is bad taste but really good bad taste. Moments like the extended seizure joke just makes you uncomfortable. I think we have Brett Ratner to thank for that.

16) This film is at its best/funniest when the assembled crew is just doing shit. The tangent humor is ESPECIALLY strong. The next ten minutes (the mall scene through the heist prep) is almost exclusively this and features the best humor of the film. Some jokes (like the “gauntlet of lesbians” joke) can veer into bad taste territory, but largely they’re just funny.

17) Josh “apologizing” to Shaw really makes Shaw an even more despicable villain (the worse he is, the better). It also shows how Josh is able to work with people underestimating him to his advantage. Shaw doesn’t even blink when Josh says he’ll get, “Exactly what you deserve.”

18) Gabourey Sidibe as Odessa.

Sidibe is absolutely incredible in the part. There’s a chance her character might be a Jamaican stereotype, but she somehow steals scenes from comedy veteran EDDIE MURPHY. She’s hysterical, strong, and really interesting. If this movie had just been about Odessa, I would’ve been as interested if not more in the film.

19) So, why does Charlie get a promotion? He was at constant risk at being fired and terrible at his job. Is it because he’s a straight cis white dude? Actually, yeah. That’s probably it.

20) There’s a reason I watch this film around Thanksgiving: the entire heist takes place ON Thanksgiving! There aren’t enough Thanksgiving movies in the world so I DEFINITELY include this on the list.

21) The final act of the film, the reason the heist works as well it does is because everything that can go wrong DOES go wrong. Slide betrays them, the money isn’t there, Charlie is working at the tower, etc. It’s these constant monkey wrenches throw into the operation which makes it incredibly interesting.

22) This bugs the shit out of me, but when Slide is pointing his gun at Josh every time they cut back to Slide the painting behind him is in a different place. It bugs the hell out of me.

23) I LOVE that the Ferrari is where the money is. That it’s what they have to steal. It’s a nice surprise which completely changes the circumstances of the heist, forcing the characters to think on their feet. I love that.

24)

Slide: “I’m gonna call Ralph. [Throws up out the hanging car.]”

My brother and I saw this in theaters together. That joke had us dying the first time.

25) I will admit if you don’t find the final heist interesting you might not like the movie as much because it’s like the last half hour of the movie. So I can see how you might be bored by it. I’m not but I can understand if some might be.

26) I never got how the FBI knows EXACTLY who was in on the heist in less than a few hours, not to mention where they are os they can be picked up.

27) Hey, that’s talented character actor Zeljko Ivanek! Just randomly showing up! Sure, why not.

(That’s him. Not from this movie, but still.)

28) Josh giving himself up to save the others on his crew is a really nice ending for a number of ways. For one, it gets everyone the happy ending they deserve (except Shaw, who deserves what he gets). Also, it totally fits everything we know about Josh. Of course he doesn’t care about what happens to him. It’s about everyone else.

I like Tower Heist mainly because it’s a Thanksgiving movie and my mom really likes it, so it’s fun watching it with her. But beyond that it’s actually pretty funny. Yes, some of it is markedly insensitive (the seizure joke), but it’s supported by nice performances and solid comedy. There aren’t enough Thanksgiving movies in the world, so maybe Tower Heist is worth your time.

[chicagoindiecritics]

New from Every Movie Has a Lesson by Don Shanahan: CHECKLIST: 21 films to watch for the 2021 Oscars

(Image: goldderby.com)

In what has become an annual Monday morning Oscar hangover, this website looks down the calendar and into the crystal ball to prognosticate which 2020 films could be contenders for the 93rd Academy Awards in 2021. Who could possible top the history that was Parasite? Many will try and they may very well come from this scouting report. Last year, 11 films from the 20-film list (and six others from the honorable mention section) ended up with Oscar nominations this past month, including wins for Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood, Judy, Ford v Ferrari, 1917, Rocketman, and Little Women.  No sooner than the sun rises and coffee pots turn on, the next Oscar season starts now!  Here’s your eighth year of advance scouting courtesy of Every Movie Has a Lesson. Release dates are listed if known.

1. West Side Story

Everything Steven Spielberg touches gets automatic attention.  He’s become very selective in his projects, so many were surprised he chose a musical, let alone a remake of a legendary classic.  Baby Driver’s Ansel Elgort and newcomer Rachel Zegler are your new Tony and Maria in front of all the usual Spielberg powerhouse collaborators (cinematographer Janusz Kaminski, editor Michael Kahn, screenwriter/playwright Tony Kushner).  Its Christmas release will prime it for peak Oscar attention. (December 18)

2. In the Heights

You heard this movie and its creator Lin-Manuel Miranda name-dropped last night. Its emerging star Anthony Ramos was given the mic time. They weren’t kidding about hearing it in the same place next year.  Between this and West Side Story, you may have a toe-tapping 93rd Academy Awards. Be ready for the performances and inescapable summer soundtrack from Miranda. (June 26)

3. Tenet

Christopher Nolan is also on the “everything he touches” list for Oscar attention. The John David Washington and Robert Pattinson thriller may be an ominous summer blockbuster instead of small-scale prestige, but that has not stopped Nolan films before. Expect technical attention given to cinematographer Hoyte van Hotema, production designer Nathan Crowley, and composer Ludwig Goransson.  (July 17)

4. Dune

Someone emerging to become equal in clout in the technical prowess department to Nolan is Denis Villeneuve.  His massive undertaking of Dune may be the film that surpasses Nolan for that elusive Oscar prize.  Hopping headfirst into the fantasy realms of Frank Hebert’s source is a cast of zillions including Rebecca Ferguson, Timothee Chalamat, Jason Momoa, Zendaya, Charlotte Rampling, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgard, Oscar Isaac, and Dave Bautista.  Someone get a bucket for the eyes popping out for this one come December. (December 18)

5. Mank

(Image: movieweb.com)

It’s been too long since we’ve had a David Fincher feature in theaters.  Gone Girl, The Social Network, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button amassed 22 Oscar nominations and 6 wins.  This behind-the-scenes look at the creation of Citizen Kane through the eyes of Oscar winner Gary Oldman’s screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz could be the Hollywood-celebrating-Hollywood epic that finally wins Fincher an overdue Oscar.  This may be #5 for list purposes, but this is my prohibitive most-anticipated awards season favorite for this coming year. (TBA)

6. The Trial of the Chicago 7

(Image: dailymail.co.uk)

Speaking of David Fincher, one of his former collaborators is screenwriter-turned-filmmaker Aaron Sorkin.  He’s following Molly’s Game flying solo with this legal drama about the charges leveled on a group of protestors from the 1968 Democratic Convention riots in Chicago.  Enjoy on-point rapid-fire dialogue and the big screen return of Joseph Gordon-Levitt next to Kelvin Harrison, Jr., Michael Keaton, Eddie Redmayne, Jeremy Strong, J.C. MacKenzie, Sasha Baron Cohen, and Frank Langella. (October 2)

7. The French Dispatch

Speaking of another filmmaker looking for that next big picture that wins the highest honors, Wes Anderson has steadily and strongly become one of the best filmmakers of this generation.  He too makes the “everything” list and The French Dispatch brings the prerequisite monster cast of Saoirse Ronan, Timothee Chalamat, Elisabeth Moss, Lea Seydoux, Willem Dafoe, Christoph Waltz, Benecio del Toro, Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, and, of course, Bill Murray.  Called a “love letter to journalists,” this could speak to auteurs and regular folks alike. Besides, like the embedded videos, there’s his usual mise en scene to marvel at in the meantime. (July 24)

8. Respect

Between Bohemian Rhapsody and Rocketman, it wouldn’t be the 21st century Oscars without a musical biopic. The brightest and best contender of that genre for 2020 is the story of Aretha Franklin with Jennifer Hudson’s presence and pipes in the lead alongside Oscar winner Forest Whitaker and a renewed Marlon Wayans for director Liesl Tommy.  (October 9)

9. The Last Duel

Ridley Scott hasn’t had Oscar attention since The Martian, yet he is a veteran of pedigree where his movies garner serious consideration for praise.  Scott re-teams with Matt Damon who reunites with Ben Affleck and joins the fresh pairing of the red-hot Adam Driver for a showdown of knights, noblemen, and squires.  Period detail and Ridley Scott are a match made in Oscar heaven. (TBA)

10. Stillwater

(Image: ktul.com)

Spotlight director Tom McCarthy returns to the poignant legal realm after a cute Disney spin with Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made.  Matt Damon stars as a father looking to clear murder charges subjected to his estranged daughter (Abigail Breslin). Wrought family drama and powerful themes come out strong with McCarthy.  Let’s see if this can also be an acting breakthrough for Damon to seek the top trophy that has eluded him. (November 6)

11. Charm City Kings

Moonlight and If Beale Street Could Talk director Barry Jenkins is the story credit on this spring drama about the gangs of the Baltimore streets.  While it might not be mainline Jenkins, one has to think the potential for quality is there. Meek Mill, Teyonah Parris, and Jahi D’Allo Winston star. (April 10)

12. Those Who Wish Me Dead

(Image: metro.co.uk)

Ever since Hell or High Water, the respect for Taylor Sheridan as a writer and filmmaker has grown.  His latest neo-western is a Montana-set survival thriller set against a wildfire starring Angelina Jolie, Nicholas Hoult, Tyler Perry, and Jon Bernthal.  If it can find and bring an edge, the acting and screenwriting categories could be in play. (TBA)

13. The Personal History of David Copperfield

Armando Iannucci’s The Death of Stalin might not have risen to Oscar love, but his follow-up raises the class up a notch by taking on Charles Dickens with Dev Patel leading Hugh Laurie and Tilda Swinton.  Advance buzz overseas is very positive as this comedy stands to drop as summer counterprogramming. (May 8)

14. News of the World 

(Image: abqjournal.com)

Let’s start the Tom Hanks train.  Revitalized with his first Oscar nomination in over a decade for A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, the Hollywood icon stars in three 2020 films.  The first is the best Oscar hopeful of the trio. He re-teams with his Captain Phillips director Paul Greengrass for a western adapted by Lion filmmaker Luke Davies about a travelling reporter helping out his customers with a kidnapping matter.  Expect raw tension as only Greengrass can deliver. (December 25)

15. Greyhound 

(Image: youtube.com)

The second Hanks movie of the three comes from a World War II screenplay written by his own hand and directed by up-and-coming Aaron Schneider of Get Low.  The story surrounds a Navy captain trying to safely traverse a pack of approaching German U-boats.  Get your Captain Phillips and Saving Private Ryan tingles to have Hanks back on a boat and in WWII for a summer adventure.  (May 8)

16. BIOS

The third offering from Tom dives into science fiction mixed with a little love for dogs.  In a post-apocalyptic landscape, a robot is tasked with protecting a dying man’s dog, one of the few living survivors of the world.  Game of Thrones TV director Miguel Sapochnik leads his second feature film and first in a decade.  Let’s see if Hanks brings the golden touch. (October 2)

17. I’m Thinking of Ending Things

Every now and then, the Oscars notice quirky head-turners.  No one fits that description better than Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind writing Academy Award winner Charlie Kaufman.  His first directorial effort since Anamolisa and first with live-action actors in 12 years since Synecdoche, New York is a dramatic thriller about a woman at a relationship crossroads after an odd traveling detour.  Wild Rose breakout Jessie Buckley works with Toni Collette and Jesse Plemons for this future indie gem from Netflix.  (TBA)

18. Deep Water

(Image: journalposts.com)

It has been a long 18 years since noted master of eroticism Adrian Lyne brought Unfaithful to the masses with a Oscar-nominated Diane Lane.  Let’s how Lyne has become an aging fine wine to the tune of Terrence Malick and other filmmakers who have taken decade-plus breaks.  His newest film adapts mystery maven Patricia Highsmith with ingenue-of-the-moment Ana de Armas entangled in a murder and disappearance crime when one of her allowed affairs turns up missing and her open-relationship husband, played by Ben Affleck, becomes the prime suspect. (November 13)  

19. Mulan

The annual parade of Disney re-imaginings always find their way to Oscar nominations in the artistic categories.  With trailers promising more straight epic adventure and way less Eddie Murphy sidekick chicanery, Mulan might just be one of the rare cases where these remakes improve on the originals.  The Mouse House is betting strongly on female director Niki Caro (Whale Rider, North Country) to elevate this material into something special.  The trailers look phenomenal where future nominations look very viable.  (March 7)

20.  Soul

Pixar has two 2020 films awaiting release and both are in the first half of the year.  Onward feels like silly genre thrills, while Soul looks more like the assured Best Animated Feature contender of the two.  Colorfully bringing symbolism and emotion to out of out-of-body experiences, star Jamie Foxx and double Oscar winner Pete Docter (Up and Inside Out) look to squeeze hearts and tear ducts.  (June 19)

21. The Woman in the Window

The last entry on this list is a carryover from last year.  Director Joe Wright has been more hit (Atonement, Darkest Hour, Anna Karenina, Pride and Prejudice) than miss (The Soloist, Hanna) with Oscar voters.  So has his lead, namely 6-time Oscar nominee Amy Adams.  This long-delayed 20th Century Fox thriller in the vein of Rear Window finally sees the light of theater screens in the early summer.  (May 18) 

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[weekendwarriorblog]

WHAT TO WATCH THIS WEEKEND November 15, 2019 – Ford Vs. Ferrari, Charlie’s Angels, The Good Liar, The Report and More!

Another week where I found myself falling behind on writing just because I have so much else going on. Sorry for the tardiness of this column… again.

In case you hadn’t heard, I’ve returned to my role as house manager at David Kwong’s Off-Broadway show “The Enigmatist” so that’s taking up some of the weekend I use for writing. It’s also awards season, which means I’m being invited to a ton more events that I don’t necessarily want to turn down. Plus there’s a little something called “Disney+” which I haven’t actually had much of a chance to get into.

That be as it may, the last few weekends have been so pitiful at the box office that things can only get better, right?

My favorite movie of the weekend, as well as the year, is James Mangold’s FORD V FERRARI (20thCentury Fox), starring Christian Bale as British racecar driver Ken Miles, who is hired by Matt Damon’s racecar designer Caroll Shelby to help him create a sportscar for the Ford company to race at Le Mans in 1963 with the sole intention of defeating regular winner Ferrari. It’s an amazing film – you can read my review below – which includes a fantastic cast that includes Caitrioni Balfe from Outlander, Noah Jupe (also in Honey Boy, currently in theaters), Jon Bernthal, Tracy Letts, Josh Lucas and more. I probably don’t have to say too much more about this because you can read my review below, but since it will be in my Top 5 for the year, it’s highly recommended and a movie that you will not want to miss in theaters.

My Review of Ford v Ferrari

I wish I was as bullish on Elizabeth Banks’ remake of CHARLIE’S ANGELS (Sony), co-starring Kristen Stewart, newcomer Ella Balinska and Naomi Scott from Aladdin, as well as Patrick Stewart, Djimon Hounsou, Sam Claflin (staying in asshole mode after co-starring in The Nightingale) and more. It’s a female-friendly version of the action-comedy that McG made in 2000 with a sequel called Charlie’s Angels: Fully Loaded in 2003. The latter is one of my personal guilty pleasures, even though it’s probably not a very good movie. As far as Elizabeth Banks’ movie?

Mini-Review: I really wanted to like this movie, mainly since I’ve been a fan of Elizabeth Banks for so long.  I really want her to shine as a filmmaker, especially in this case where she’s both written and directed this attempt to relaunch the popular ‘70s television show that often focused more on its stars T ‘n’ A than their brains and abiliites.

We meet two of the new Angels, Sabina (Kristen Stewart) and Jane (Ella Balinska), as they’re dealing with a horny millionaire in Brazil, played by Chris Pang from Crazy Rich Asians. Sabina is in the midst of pulling a big-time seduction on the sleezeball before Jane comes in with other ninja women to deal with his bodyguards.  That opening scene gives you a pretty good idea of what to expect from the movie, but then the needlessly overt and deliberate “girl power” opening credits is a bit worrying of the direction where things might be going.

We then meet Naomi Scott’s Elena Houghlin, a trod-upon programmer at a big corporation getting ready to release an Amazon Echo-like device that can do anything from powering an entire building to being weaponized in dangerous ways. She tries to tell her obnoxious and sexist supervisor, played by Nat Faxon, but he refuses to tell the big boss Alexander Brock (Sam Claflin). Elena turns to the Townsend Agency and its Angels to help her blow the whistle on how dangerous the device can be in the wrong hands, so her, Sabina and Jane proceed to break into the Brock Corporation to steal one of the devices.

That’s the basic and quite derivative premise, and frankly, it’s rarely enough to keep the viewer entertained, especially once you realize that the entire movie is just a means to introduce Naomi Scott’s character as an Angel.  This Townsend Agency isn’t just one small agency with a few women and one Bosley, as it has expanded worldwide with many, many Bosleys, including one retiring one played by Patrick Stewart.  You see, like the Kingsmen, Bosley is just a rank of handler in between “Charlie,” who apparently is a woman, and her Angels. Stewart’s Bosley is being replaced by a former Angel, played by Banks, but first, they go on a mission with another Bosley, played by Djimon Hounsou, whom has a close relationship with Jane. (Don’t get too used to him as he’s barely in the movie.)

There’s a lot to take in as all this information is thrown at you, including a number of homages to earlier Charlie’s Angels incarnations, but the biggest problem with the movie is the fact that Kristen Stewart just doesn’t have a lot of on-screen charm. Watching her spending an entire movie trying to be funny and sexy and failing at both – well, that’s one-third of the movie that just doesn’t work at all. Fortunately, the other actors are generally better. I was really impressed by newcomer Ella Balinska, who handles a lot of the best action scenes, and I also enjoyed seeing Scott playing a character so different from Princess Jasmine in Aladdin. Even so, the attempts at comedy in Charlie’s Angels frequently falls flat, except a few moments later on.

This leaves Banks in a position where she’s forced to lean quite heavily on her soundtrack and locations to keep things interesting. While Bryan Tyler’s soundtrack is pretty good overall, I really had no interest in the pop songs written specifically for the movie.

The overall issue is that Charlie’s Angels just doesn’t offer much beyond the very basics. The fact it essentially uses the same general idea that didn’t work in Men in Black International as its basis just makes the movie derivative of another Sony movie that fell flat.

Sure, mileage is going to vary with those who see Charlie’s Angels based on how much they’ll put up with from the lackluster Stewart as the lead, but this just seemed like an idea that was destined to fail from the beginning, regardless of who was directing it.

Rating: 6/10

Last as far as the wide releases go is THE GOOD LIAR (Warner Bros.), directed by Bill Condon (Beauty and the Beast) and starring Dame Helen Mirren and Sir Ian McKellen, a psychological thriller about a man who isn’t what he says he is, who makes the mistake of getting on Helen Mirren’s bad side.

Mini-Review: Sometimes, it’s nice going into a movie thinking you know what to expect and then be continually surprised as it pulls the rug from under you, not once or twice, but many, many times.

At first, Bill Condon’s psychological thriller seems like a nice movie about the relationship between an older couple who meet online – Helen Mirren’s Betty, a kindly widow with an overprotective grandson, who goes on a date with Ian McKellen’s Roy Courtnay, who is a lot more than meets the eye. We quickly learn that Roy is involved in a number of grifts in trying to steal mucho bucks from some very rough Russian sorts, but we also see that Roy can be just as tough and cruel. This is all going on as Betty and Roy are getting closer, her offering Roy a place to stay in the house she shares with her grandson Steve.  We know quite quickly that not everything is what it seems as far as Roy is concerned, but it’s the way we’ll learn the truth behind him and his relationship with Betty that keeps you on the edge while watching The Good Liar.

Obviously, the big draw for Bill Condon’s psychological thriller are his two fantastic actors, and neither of them disappoint, particularly Mirren, who is absolutely on fire with her performance. Since we already know that not everything about Roy is on the level, you would think that you have this film sussed, but that just isn’t the case. Even after a major revelation about Roy’s past, the relationship between him and Betty and her grandson Steven (a decently laid-back performance by Russell Tovey) just gets more interesting.

Unfortunately, I can’t say too much more about the third act where things really turn on their ear, and there’s some extremely disturbing revelations that might make the difference for some between liking or loving the movie. Me, I thought it was quite good, definitely better than similar thrillers like the recent Greta, which starts out with a suitably twisty premise but then fell flat. I was also surprised by how violent and even bloody The Good Liar gets, really earning its R-rating and not from language.  

The Good Liar is a movie full of surprises that, like its characters, is never what it seems. It may not be as good as some of Condon’s influences – Hitchcock the most obvious one – but few will be disappointed by the two hours they spend in the company of Mirren and McKellen.

Rating: 7/10

You can read more about the above movies and how I think they will fare over at The Beat.

LIMITED RELEASES

One limited release opening today I highly recommend is Scott Z. Burns’ THE REPORT(Amazon Studios) aka “The Torture Report,” an in-depth political thriller based on Daniel T Jones’ investigations into the CIA’s use of extreme torture to get torture from detainees in the name of national security.  Jones is beautifully played by Adam Driver in another one of his performances that really has made this a great year for the young actor as Jones is assigned by his boss, Senator Diane Feinstein (an equally brilliant performance by Annette Bening) to investigate the CIA’s use of torture techniques to get information from detainees.  This is an intensely brilliant bit of filmmaking from Burns, only directing his second feature after writing some great films for Steven Soderbergh, such as Contagion and Side Effects. (I wasn’t a big a fan of The Informant! Or the recent The Landromat.) But Burns clearly did his research to tell a story that has a lot of talking and exposition but also great filming and editing to keep things moving at a fast pace, which also can be attributed to the dramatic fireworks he gets out of a cast that’s an abundance of riches, including the likes of Moira Tierney, Corey Stoll, Tim Blake Nelson and other wonderful surprises. The Report offers another of the year’s most impressive ensembles, but it’s always kept centered on Driver’s Jones and his long journey to get the report he’s writing out to the public. Burns uses some great techniques to create tension without going overboard on the thriller aspects of this story, but this is a fantastic bit of investigative exposé work for a movie that isn’t a doc. If you miss it in theaters when it’s playing in two weeks, you can catch on Amazon Prime in a couple weeks, but I do recommend giving this a look when it’s in theaters if possible since it does require the type of concentration few have while watching movies at home.

I’ll have an interview with Burns over at Next Best Picture next week.

Sadly, I wasn’t able to catch It Comes at Night director Trey Edward Shults’ WAVES (A24) before opening, but it involves the journey of a suburban African-American family led by a domineering father (Sterling K. Brown) as they “navigate love, forgiveness and coming together in the aftermath of a loss.” (Sorry, that’s the best I can do without having seen the movie.) It stars Kelvin Harrison from Luce, Lucas Hedges, Taylor Russell and more.

I also seemed to have missed Swati Mhise’s THE WARRIOR QUEEN OF JHANSI (Roadside Attractions) – this is the running theme of this week’s column, by the way – but it looks like a cool biopic about the legendary Rani (or Queen) of Jhansi, a freedom fighter in 19thcentury India, who led her people into battle against the British Empire at the age of 24. It led to the shift of power that took down the notorious British East India Company and Queen Victoria’s reign over India. It’s opening moderately wide this week, possibly in as many as 300 theaters.

I also haven’t seen Mark Landsman’s doc SCANDALOUS (Magnolia), which explores the 60 years of the National Enquirerand it’s salacious and shocking stories.

A couple Netflix movies will get limited releases before their debut on Netflix. Jeremy Clapin’s French animated film I Lost My Body, based on the novel “Happy Hand” by Guillaume Laurant. It follows a hand as it explores the romance between a pizza delivery boy and his lady love, a librarian named Gabrielle. It seems to be opening at the Cinema Village in New York, and I assume somewhere in L.A. as well.

There’s also the French film Atlantics by Mati DIop, which won the Cannes Grand Jury prize, which is quite an achievement. Somehow, I managed to miss this at the New York Film Festival and haven’t had a single chance to see it since. Odd. It’s set in a suburb of Dakar where a 17-year-old girl named Ada is in love with a construction worker named Souleimayne, although she’s been promised to another man in a fixed marriage. After he disappears at sea, Souleimane and other workers return to get revenge on the people building the tower that has cast a shadow on the city. That will open at Film at Lincoln Center

I also didn’t get a chance to see Amp Wong and Ji Zhao’s Chinese animated film White Snake (GKIDS), which will open in L.A. at the Landmark NuartFriday and then in New York City on November 29. It’s a classic fable about a young woman named Blanca who is saved by a snake catcher named Xuan, the two of them going on a journey to discover her true identity, as she’s lost her memory. According to its PR, it offers “a sumptuous tale of trickster demons, deadly mythical beasts, assassins, wuxia action, and the promise of eternal love.” So basically, everything that I look for in a movie and life.

An intriguing doc I saw at the Tribeca Film Festival was Matt Wolff’s Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project (Zeitgeist/Kino Lorber), opening at the MetrographFriday with LOTS of QnAs planned. It documents the thirty-year efforts of African-American left wing activist Marion Stokes on recording television 24 hours a day, and that includes almost every channel, becoming one of the most impressive television archivists with over 70,000 VHS tapes at the time of her death. Wolff edits the footage together to tell an amazing story.

Opening Wednesday at Film Forumis Annabelle Atanou’s debut feature MICKEY AND THE BEAR (Utopia), which takes place in the mining community of Anaconda, Montana with newcomer Camila Morrone playing a teenager who must care for her father Hank (played by James Badge Dale), who is afflicted by PTSD from serving in the Iraq war and in grief from the death of his wife.s

BAMhas the exclusive New York run on Brett Story’s documentary The Hottest August, which deals with the future of New York City following Hurricane Sandy and a particularly hot summer in 2017, and how climate change affects the city’s many denizens. It played at this years’s BAMCinemaFest and will include a repertory series called “In This Climate: Brett Story Selects” which unfortunately ends tonight.

A few other movies out this weekend in various combinations of theatrical and On Demand and digital that I just won’t have time to right about:

Feast of the Seven Fishes (Shout! Studios) The Shed (RLJE Films) Bluebird (Cleopatra Entertainment) Line of Duty (Saban Films/Lionsgate) A Reindeer’s Journey (Screen Media) To Kid or Not to Kid  (Helpman Productions)

LOCAL/REGIONL FESTIVALS

Not too many festivals of note, although Doc-NYC ends tomorrow with a few last films. If you’re in Atlanta, you can check out the Buried Alive Film Fest, a straight-up horror film festival that opened last night with the 4thAnnual Sinema Challenge for horror shorts. It will include a wide variety of features and shorts running through the weekend.

STREAMING AND CABLE

Lots of stuff hitting Netflix this week, including the animated Klaus, which had a short theatrical release last week. Also Earthquake Bird, the movie I haven’t seen and missed in the column a couple weeks back hits the streaming service after a short theatrical run. It’s a romantic drama that stars Alicia Vikander and Riley Keough, but that’s pretty much all I know.Another thing that I haven’t watched, and it’s a great shame considering what a bit Peter Morgan stan I am, but The Crown will begin its 3rdseason on Netflix with the wonderful Olivia Colman in the role of Queen Elizabeth, and man, do I need to catch up on this show.

REPERTORY

METROGRAPH (NYC):

The Metrograph begins an intriguing new series this weekend called “On the Process,” a collection of docs and narratives about famous painters and their process, including Raul Ruiz’s 2007 film Klimt, Derek Jarman’s 1986 film Caravaggio, and more to come as it runs through November 20. Metrograph is also continuing its “Noah Baumbach in Residence” series with screenings of Baumbach’s 1997 debut Mr. Jealousy on Sunday, followed by a screening of Peter Bogdonavich’s Saint Jack (1979). On Saturday, the Metrograph is also screening The Complete Works of Edward Owens, a collection of the queer Black artist’s short films from 1966 to 1967, and then on Sunday is a 30thanniversary screening of Isaac Julien’s Looking for Langstonwith Julien in person. Welcome To Metrograph: Redux continues this weekend with Peter Cohen’s 1989 doc The Architecture of Doom and Cinda Firestone’s 1974 film Attica. Late Nites at Metrograph  will show Bong Joon-Ho’s The Host (2006) a couple more times and also show Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man (1995), starring Johnny Depp. This weekend’s Playtime: Family Matinees  is Joe Dante’s Gremlinsfrom 1984. Downtown 81 continues, probably forever?

THE NEW BEVERLY (L.A.):

Glad to see Tarantino’s rep theater get back on track, and you can catch a double feature of Medium Cool (1969) and The Don is Dead (1973) tonight. Friday’s Cronenberg matinee is Videodrome, a supremely weird movie starring Debbie Harry, while the weekend’s Kiddee Matinee is Jason and the Argonauts (1963), featuring amazing stop motion visual FX from the late Ray Harryhausen. Saturday night’s midnight movie is Kevin Tenney’s 1990 movie Peacemaker, starring the late Robert Forster, with Tenney in person. Monday’s 2pm matinee of David Lynch’s Lost Highway is already sold out. Monday night’s double feature is The Stalking Moon (1968) and 1970’s Pieces of Dreams, both starring Forster.

FILM FORUM (NYC):

Thursday will be your last chance to see the new DCP’s of Yasujiro Ozu’sTokyo Story and Toyko Twilight, but that’s mainly because the Film Forum is starting a new series calledThe Romanians: 30 Years of Cinema Revolution, a 12-day series showing some of the best from that country, some which have been seen in the States like Cristi Puiu’s The Death of Mr. Lazarescu from 2005 and Corneliu Porumboiu’s 12:08 East of Bucharest from 2006 and many others that have not. My knowledge of Romanian cinema is not good enough to recommend anything specifically but there should be some good stuff in there. Another series beginning this weekend is a longer-running series called Lee Grant: Actor. Filmmaker. Running through February and this weekend screening Sidney Poitier: One Bright Light and Norman Jewison’s 1967 film In the Heat of the Night. This weekend’s Film Forum Jr. is George Roy Hill’s 1967 movie Thoroughly Modern Millie starring Julie Andrews, Mary Tyler Moore and Carol Channing.

EGYPTIAN THEATRE (LA):

Well, at least the Egyptian finishes its run of Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman(not repertory!) to begin a series called “Nitrate Nights 2019,” which as it sounds is about showing rare nitrate 35mm prints of film like Powell and Pressburger’s Disney film Gone to Earth from 1950 on Friday, Hitchcock’s Spellbound (1945) on Saturday, and then the master’s 1940 film Rebecca with special guests Christopher Nolan and Jared Case of the George Eastman Museum, that provided the print for the series. Otto Preminger’s 1940 film Laura screens Sunday, also with guests, and then Sunday night, Alexander Payne presents Edmund Goulding’s 1948 thriller Nightmare Alley, which Guillermo del Toro is in the process of remaking. Eddie Murphy will be in person at the Aero on Tuesday to show his new movie My Name is Dolemite in a double feature with Frank Oz’s 1999 film Bowfinger, both in 35mm.

AERO  (LA):

Aero is mostly doing awards-campaigning screenings of movies like Her Smell (with Elisabeth Moss in person!) and a FREE 70mm screening of Joker with Todd Phillips, but let’s get to the repertory stuff. At midnight Friday, the AERO will screen the sci-fi “classic” Zardoz (1974) starring Sean Connery. Saturday night is a double feature of David Finch’s Wild at Heart and Blue Velvet as part of “Laura Dern: A Life on Screen” with Dern appearing in person! That series continues Sunday with a double feature of Rambling Rose (1991) and Small Talk (1985), that one with Rambling Rose director Martha Coolidge in person. On Tuesday, there’s a matinee screening of Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven as part of “The Hidden Lives of Terrence Malick,” which makes reference to Malick’s upcoming film A Hidden Life.

MOMA  (NYC):

MOMA is beginning its annual “The Contenders” series showing a number of smaller movies you may have missed, as well as continuing Vision Statement: Early Directorial Workswith a number of first films by foreign filmmakers, on Sunday showing Mira Nair’s 1988 film Salaam Bombay! MOMA also has a number of weekly series but since I don’t think this column will be up by Weds next week, we’ll have to explore them later. One cool thing they’re starting is Open Door Fridays, and this week they will be showing the Maysles Brothers’ concert movie classic Gimme Shelter all day long, which is free with a ticket to the museum.

Modern Matinees: Iris Barry’s History of Film also continues with more silent films from the 20s with piano accompaniment every weekday afternoon at 1:30pm.

FILM AT LINCOLN CENTER (NYC):

FilmLinc’s new series this weekend is Rebel Spirit: The Films of Patricia Mazuy, whose work I’m sadly not familiar with, so you can check out what’s playing here. Next week is the big series that I’ve been waiting for!

QUAD CINEMA (NYC):

Sadly, the Quad has been slowing down on its series, but this weekend, it will be bringing out a 4k restoration of Buster Keaton’s 1926 film Battling Butler, as well as a 2k restoration of his 1924 film The Navigator. Both films are preceded by shorts.

IFC CENTER (NYC)

Weekend Classics: May All Your Christmases be Noir shows the late Harold Ramis’ 2005 The Ice Harvest, starring John Cusack ad Billy Bob Thornton, while  Waverly Midnights: Spy Games will screen the original 1962 The Manchurian Candidate, starring Frank Sinatra. Late Night Favorites: Autumn 2019will show Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fictionand Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange this weekend.

MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE (NYC):

MOMI in Astoria begins a new series called Moments of Grace: The Collected Terrence MalickFriday, which runs through December 8 and is pretty self-explanatory. Friday, it’s showing Badlands (1973), Saturday is Days of Heaven (1978)and Stuart Rosenberg’s 1972 film Pocket Money (written by Malick), plus the first two will be shown on Sunday as well. (If you miss this series or don’t feel like going to Astoria, four of Malick’s first movies will be shown at Metrograph in December.) On Saturday, MOMI is also screening the 2017 animated The Big Bad Fox and Other Tales for its Family Matinee, plus it’s also showing Ildikó Enyedi’s My Twentieth Century (1989) in a new restoration.

ROXY CINEMA (NYC)

Tonight, the Roxy is showing Francis Ford Coppola’s 1986 film Peggy Sue Got Married, starring Nicolas Cage and Cathleen Turner, plus tomorrow, it will show Coppola’s The Cotton Club Encoreone more time.

ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE BROOKLYN (NYC)

Next week’s Terror Tuesday is the 1986 film The Wraith while the Weird Wednesday is Ralph Bakshi’s half-animated 1992 film Cool World.

LANDMARK THEATRES NUART  (LA):

This Friday’s midnight movie is Akira.

Next week, hopefully I’ll get back on track in terms of timing re: posting this column (fingers crossed!) The big movie is Disney’s Frozen 2, which I won’t have seen.  Great.

[evodex]

Scratching The Map One Place At A Time: My Travel Map

Did you know?

An average Britisher has visited seven countries outside of the UK in his or her life.

And 86% of Indian households never take a trip.

And by that standard, I am considered a globetrotter in my circle and by my readers. However, when I started putting down my travel stories in Tripadvisor and rating places I was visiting, I realized that I had travelled only 10% of the world.

Like any typical Indian tourist, my travel journey started by covering Asia first and only then did I think of going beyond.

Somewhere in between my thirst for travel grew larger, the exposure became better and I became a traveller who looked beyond destination travelling, marking selfies at tourist spots and started digging for experiences.

In this post, I have jotted down bits of my travel journey. These are the places where I have created many memories which I am going to cherish for life. Two things I would like to reiterate here is; always be on guard if travelling solo, research and pick up safe places for women and always buy overseas travel insurance. You never know when you might need it. Travel to explore and if these things are sorted most stress is left behind.

  NEPAL

I travelled to Nepal last year to trek to the Everest Base Camp which had been on my bucket list forever. I trekked for fourteen days and most of my beautiful memories are of the stunning landscapes of Labouche and Gorakshep (small settlements that you cross on the trip) and, of course, of the sister mountains Everest, Nuptse, and Lhotse. I did a little bit of sightseeing in Kathmandu also but, unsurprisingly, the trek was the more stunning part of my trip. You can read here to know all about the trek and my experience.

  JAPAN

Japan is one of the best places I have ever visited and is closest to my heart. Some of the experiences which one can have in Japan are soaking in the healing waters at an Onsen, learn about their Japanese culture during the tea ceremony dressed in a Kimono, fill your taste buds by having matcha flavoured ice creams, cakes, noodles and so much more. You can try the Ramen bowls there and visit their maid cafes! Who says Japan can be expensive? Live at the pod hotels, also known as capsule hotels, to handle your budget. How can we forget Mt. Fuji, it is just too beautiful! Just make sure you plan your trip to Japan during the Cherry Blossom Season. There are many other places to visit when in Japan, so ensure you plan well and make your trip a memorable one because Japan is beautiful!

  CAPE TOWN

                                                   At the southernmost tip of the continent

Capetown is a place full of scenic beauty, beautiful atmosphere and good people. When at Capetown you can look for sightseeing at the following places among others: Aquila Safari, The Table mountain, Cape of Good Hope, Robben Island, and Stellenbosch. You can also take a visit to the Simonstown and greet the Penguins and the Seals there. You can also opt for some water sports activities so as to get closer to them (Keynote: Penguins are cute from far and dangerous from nearby).  It’s a beautiful place to explore with the sea, mountain, wineries and city life all enrolled in one.  This place will leave you content with a bunch of memories.

EUROPE

Paris: Ever since I was a little girl, I always wanted to visit the fashion capital of the world. When I did get to Paris last year with my family, Paris turned out to be way more than the stories of romance, Eiffel tower, and fashion make it. It is a modern city that has history embedded in every corner and, trust me, it’s nothing short of a paradise!

                                                            This one needs no Introduction

  Amsterdam: Can be rated as one of the friendliest cities in Europe. There is a certain vibe in the city that is very infectious. Visiting Anne Frank’s house in the city, and just walking around the city square was one of my favourite experiences. I found the Red light area walking tour also very interesting. The kids enjoyed Ripley’s Believe It or Not A Museum, Keukenhoff, Microbes museum and evening cruise in the canal soaking in the Amsterdam lights and views.

                                 The Famous Amsterdam Redlight Area

  Berlin: I was very impressed with the city and the food. Berlin is one of the most reasonably priced cities in Europe. Unlike what I had heard, the Germans were friendly and helpful folks. You walk through history while walking past any street in Berlin and the pages turn back. You go through the city experiencing the reign and terror of Hitler. It’s odd seeing his Chancellory quarters and his bunker site, which is not even marked as Germans want to forget him. There are memorials of millions who died because of him all over the city. Jewish Synagogue, the post office, memorials, Holocaust all give you goosebumps. You can also enter a real bunker which was built to be used in case of a nuclear attack and still stands intact, unused.

                               At the Hello Charlie point

  SINGAPORE

Singapore makes for a perfect family getaway. Places to visit when in Singapore include the Singapore Zoo, Sentosa Island, Universal Studios, Gardens by the bay and many more. This city is a complete package deal as it is close to India, has adventurous spots along with a buzzing city life!

                                                                                The Universal Studios, Singapore

  HONG KONG

The city of seven lakes surrounded by picturesque mountains, Hong Kong is also a bustling cosmopolitan. Laden with many theme parks and Disneyland, it makes for a perfect family outing. You can take the Historical tram to the top from where you can glance at the whole Hong Kong. Then there is Macau, which is known for gaming and its casinos, but there are some other things as well which you can opt for at Macau like House of Dancing waters, Dream works experience, Macau Towers and so much more.

Disneyland at HongKong

  MALAYSIA

When in Malaysia, the places you can visit there are Langkawi, Genting Highlands, Batu Caves, Legolands etc! Malaysia is all about beautiful beaches, water sports, and scenic beauty so just go there and relax!

                                                                         The Berjaya Resort, Langkawi

MAURITIUS

It is an island full of tropical plants and beautiful beaches. I also celebrated my last birthday there. If you love beaches and water sports, then this place is absolutely perfect for you.

Enjoying the water sports at Mauritius

  ICELAND

I have always been a beach person but after visiting Iceland I have turned into a mountain person as well. When in Iceland, you can opt for trekking the way I did, or else you can go for exploring this beautiful place through the amazing experiences like getting into a glacier, Whale watching, watch Natural Geysers, Experience Geothermal spa, visit the Black Sand Beach etc. Do visit Iceland once in your life, it is worth it!

Trekking in Iceland

LAS VEGAS AND GRAND CANYON

A paradise for all the ones who love clubbing, drinking and gambling at the casinos. But No, that’s not the only thing Vegas is meant for. You should also visit the Grand Canyon, The ‘O’ Show, one can book any speed cars and Limo’s if you wish to. You could get this within 100$!  There are many other spots to visit when in Vegas, wishing to go back there soon someday so as to take those places off my bucket list!

                                                                              Grand Canyon Trip from Las Vegas

SAN FRANCISO

I visited SF in 2016 and I can’t get the sight of the Golden Gate Bridge out of my memories. While it’s red and not Golden, it is magnanimous and just stunning. Most people with families choose to stay in the suburbs due to the affordability of larger housing. I loved shopping in SF as it’s full of deals and since this was my first visit to the US, I had no idea that the stuff  you can buy in the US is cheaper than any part of the world that I have been too. Especially loved the outlet malls for branded clothing, bags and sunglasses.

                                                                  In a tram near the Golden Gate Bridge

  NEW YORK

New York feels like my home city as it is just like Mumbai! Well, this was a very short trip but I almost covered all the places which were on my list: the Brooklyn Bridge, the Empire State building, the Central Park, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the Statue of liberty and the Times Square. I hope to go back someday and spend some more time there.

                                                                                      The Times Square

  DUBAI and ABU DHABI:

The sand dunes and tall buildings with the luxurious lifestyle are the best parts of Dubai. It has some really good spots to visit like The Palms and the Jumeirah road where you can find five to seven-star hotels and the best collection of cars. Then there is the Dubai Mall, Emirates Mall, Gold Souk, breathtaking monuments like Burj Khalifa, Skyscrapers, and even beaches. The desert safari that you experience in Dubai made even my parents jump in their seats in excitement!

Abu Dhabi is a place which will give you a breathtaking as well as a soothing experience. Soothing because of the Sheikh Zayed Mosque, a visit there will let you attain serenity and its architecture will win your heart! The Ferrari World at Abu Dhabi is one of the best-themed parks in the world which will make your hearts go Vroom! There are many other spots to visit when at Abu Dhabi so do visit and make your trip a fabulous one! I personally found a lot more character in Abu Dhabi than Dubai.

                           Dubai Mall

THAILAND – BANGKOK

We visited Bangkok when my younger one was just 1.5 years old and Bangkok is like any other Indian city in its looks, the shopping is amazing. Their food is definitely something I look for wherever I travel. Even though we had such a small kid with us, we never felt tired or drained out because the people there just love kids. They offer to play with them while you get a massage or even babysit them while you are having food at a restaurant. So yes, found the city very kid friendly.

THERE IS ANOTHER PAGE WITH MORE OF MY TRAVEL STORIES. YOU DIDN’T THINK I TRAVELLED ONLY HERE DID YOU? CLICK ON THE ARROW TO READ MORE!!

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[sunshineweb]

Safal Niveshak’s 2017 Annual Letter to Tribe Members

Dear Tribe Member,

Trust 2017 treated you well. It certainly was great for Safal Niveshak.

Here is a brief update on what transpired during the year. The tribe crossed 40,000 members (readers of our free newsletter, Safal Niveshak Post). We conducted nine value investing workshops during the year, meeting 430+ tribe members in the process.

The Mastermind Value Investing Course student count increased by 25%. Our premium newsletter – Value Investing Almanack – which is about to complete three years, gained 20% new members. It continues to receive inspiring reviews from its subscribers.

We also relaunched our free online value investing course – Value Investing Masterclass – in a new avatar. It now consists of updated and more lessons than the previous version. The subscription to this course jumped from 7,500 to 15,000 in less than a year after the relaunch, much better than our expectations.

Apart from this usual stuff, we launched a special e-book titled Two Wise Men, which contained forty stories for children inspired by the wit and wisdom of Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger (Click here to buy your copy). The book received a great response and a lot of wonderful testimonials from kids. This one stole our hearts…

Another initiative this year was the launch of Camp Millionaire money workshop for kids. This is a game and activity-based financial education program for children of age group 8 to 14 years. Kids learn how to make, manage, multiply and donate their money wisely first hand in this day-long program and they have fun doing it. The main objective of this program is to provide a stimulating, fun-filled, learning environment where kids can feel safe exploring and learning the various principles, ideas, and skills needed to create a financially successful and responsible life. During 2017, we conducted four sessions of the camp, meeting and teaching around 120+ lovely kids.

Another first for us in 2017 was a classroom course titled Value Investing Blueprint (VIB) we conducted at FLAME University Pune. This was under the aegis of its FLAME Investment Lab, which is an initiative that strives to deliver the concepts and decipher the art of value investing to interested students.

The first batch of VIB was a seven-lecture course spread over seven Sundays. A total of 47 participants attended the course (against the initial capacity of 40), including a few students who travelled from Mumbai, Gurgaon, and Goa each Sunday. The second batch of this course starts in February 2018 (Click here for registration details).

Best Posts of 2017 Here is a list of our best posts from 2017, based on the number of reads and comments –

Want to Become a Full-Time Investor? Here’s Your Checklist

My Interview with Jason Zweig

Notes from Howard Marks’ Lecture: 48 Most Important Things I Learned on Investing

My Stock Selection Framework

A Short Guide to Reading and Learning for Investors

Lecture Presentation and Notes: Seeking Wisdom in the Age of Information

Goals for 2018 This is the easiest part of this letter because, given our consistency in failing to work as per plans, all we have done below is copy and paste our 2018 plan from the 2017 plan we had outlined a year ago – We entered 2017 with the following three goals –

Improving the quality of content on Safal Niveshak – both free posts and premium ones (Mastermind and VIA) – This is always work-in-progress. But as seen from user feedback, we managed to slightly improve the quality of our content in 2017. Of course, a lot more is desired in 2018.

Increasing the breadth of content by getting deeper into annual report analysis, financial statement analysis, and industry analysis – Honestly, not much improvement on this front, so aim in 2018 is to focus more here.

Improving the breadth of content delivery by adding audio and video content – Started with videos on our mental models series. Work is in progress on converting the free value investing course into videos and audios too. Watch out for much action on this front in 2018.

Apart from working more and better on the above-mentioned goals, one incremental thing we wish to focus on in 2018 is to develop more content for youngsters, in areas of investing, thinking, behaviour, and learning. The Two Wise Men e-book and Camp Millionaire initiatives in 2017 were steps in this direction. But, without doubt, given the wide disparity in the level of financial education desired and provided by our education system, we see a great opportunity to serve a purpose here.

As we get into 2018, we welcome your suggestions in the Comments section of this post on what you would like us to do as far as content or a new initiative from Safal Niveshak is concerned.

Best Books We Read in 2017 Here is a list of few good books we read/re-read in 2017 –

Made In America (Sam Walton) – The story of the undisputed merchant king of the late twentieth century. Sam Walton rolled up his sleeves in 1946 and didn’t stop until 1992. What he ended up creating was world’s largest private employer and the biggest company by revenue. In his autobiography, he pours his heart out, chronicling his strategies, successes, and mistakes.

What I Learned Losing a Million Dollars (Jim Paul) – There are as many ways to make money in the markets as there are people participating in the markets, but there are relatively few ways to lose money in the markets. For a majority of the people, all the losses come from the same few sources. Jim Paul’s cautionary tale is a testimony to the importance of studying the patterns of failure than the ways of success.

Delivering Happiness (Tony Hsieh) – This book offers an intensely personal and practical framework to think about the culture of a company. Tony Hsieh’s book is filled with great stories, insights, and tips you can put to use in your business and in your life.

Principles: Life and Work (Ray Dalio) – Ray Dalio, who runs the world’s biggest hedge fund with assets totaling to $160 billion, explains the core principles that he has followed in his life and business.

Seven Brief Lessons on Physics (Carlo Rovelli) – Elon Musk solves problems by using first principles, i.e., understanding the basic ideas of any discipline. Physics is the fundamental study of the workings of material world. In this book, Carlo Rovelli distills the most important principles of Physics into seven lessons.

The Lessons of History (Will Durant) – The best way to learn from history is to notice what didn’t happen and imagine what else could have happened. This book reveals a multidimensional view of history while exploring the possibilities as well as limitations of humanity.

A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy (William Irvine) – Stoic philosophy was the most popular and successful schools of thought in ancient Rome. The principles of stoicism are timeless and immensely useful for living a contended and joyful life. This book does a great job in showing how the stoic advice can be applied in modern times.

No Shortcuts to the Top: Climbing the World’s 14 Highest Peaks (Ed Viesturs) – “Reaching the summit is optional. Getting down is mandatory,” says Viesturs. That’s an unconventional advice. But when you know that the dispenser of this advice is a man who climbed not one, not two but all fourteen of the world’s top summits, you know there’s wisdom in those words. Read the book.

The Undoing Project (Michael Lewis) – For five years, Michael Lewis, one of the best narrator of present times, spent many of his evenings taking a walk with Daniel Kahneman, the most remarkable mind of this century. The outcome was a book which chronicles the journey of how two Israeli scientists, Kahneman and Tversky, created something which upended every single theory of conventional wisdom in the field of finance.

‘Happy’ Investing in 2018 As we end 2017, I want to discuss a bit about happiness, the pursuit of which has become a phenomenon, and something that we wish the most to others welcoming a ‘happy’ new year.

Happiness is a funny thing. We spend forever chasing the idea of it without perhaps knowing what we’re chasing. The concept of happiness usually means “feeling good,” a fleeting notion driven by instant gratification and equated with material factors, such as health, diet and wealth.

It seems obvious that if people are richer and healthier, then they must also be happier. But is that really so obvious? It does not seem so.

One of the best things I came across in 2017 on happiness was Naval Ravikant’s thoughts that he shared in a podcast with Shane Parrish of Farnam Street. Naval said –

(Happiness) is what’s there when you remove the sense that something is missing in your life.

We are highly judgmental, survival, and replication machines. We are constantly walking around thinking I need this, I need that, trapped in the web of desires. Happiness is that state when nothing is missing. When nothing is missing, your mind shuts down and your mind stops running into the future or running into the past to regret something or to plan something. In that absence for a moment, you have internal silence. When you have internal silence, then you are content and you are happy.

One of the most important scientific findings on happiness is that it does not really depend on objective conditions of either wealth, health or even community. Rather, it depends on the correlation between objective conditions and subjective expectations.

Yuval Harari writes in his brilliant book Sapiens (emphasis mine) –

If you want a bullock-cart and get a bullock-cart, you are content. If you want a brand-new Ferrari and get only a second-hand Fiat you feel deprived. This is why winning the lottery has, over time, the same impact on people’s happiness as a debilitating car accident. When things improve, expectations balloon, and consequently even dramatic improvements in objective conditions can leave us dissatisfied. When things deteriorate, expectations shrink, and consequently even a severe illness might leave you pretty much as happy as you were before.

…being satisfied with what you already have is far more important than getting more of what you want.

Consider investing. Most of what makes us happy (or unhappy) as investors aren’t the objective conditions (how our portfolios are performing) but subjective expectations (how our portfolios are performing relative to our expectations).

Added to this, our happiness (or unhappiness) is magnified not by our absolute performances (how our portfolios are performing) but through relative comparisons (how our performance stacks up against the performance of other investors we know of).

Subsequently, we are always working under pressure of the fear of missing out, or FOMO. Knowing that some other investor you know of is having more fun than you by making a lot of money (more than you), is painful. Amidst this, social media that profits not just from connecting us, but mostly from magnifying emotions we don’t want in the long run, often turns this pain into a tragedy of sorts. Remember when you were having a great day recently, someone posted on Twitter how a stock he had bought three years back had turned into a 30-bagger?

This goes against our intrinsic need to be happy, which subsequently lays the ground for us to be, well, unhappy and dissatisfied with our present state of being, including our present portfolio of stocks. We are always searching for something newer, brighter, exciting, and more profitable…something that’s outside of what we own, and others are making money on.

You see, it’s sometimes good to be dissatisfied (which causes you unhappiness) as an investor when it comes to working hard in search of finding ideas. That way, your dissatisfaction is a product of your inner scorecard. However, when this dissatisfaction is caused by measuring yourself against the instant updates on what others are doing, buying, and shouting about, that’s what causes you much pain and leads you to poor decision making.

This is a thought I would like to leave you with as we enter a brand-new year. Especially given the way stock prices have behaved in 2017, and given how high returns in the recent past have caused bloated egos all around, it’s important that you clearly define what causes your real happiness as an investor.

Is it being content – that will cause you to be happy – with an adequate performance that will enable you to achieve your financial goals in time? Or is it constantly chasing extravagant performance that aims to better everyone around, and that you think would make you happy?

You see, the forces of modern life urge us to achieve and acquire more, pushing us outward in our quest for happiness. Why can’t we turn inward, to a deep understanding of true, lasting contentment, which ultimately leads to the happiness we are seeking outside?

Instead of relegating joy and satisfaction to another time, a different place, a better circumstance, or higher return, why can’t we negotiate and embrace “what is.”

This is exactly what we wish for you as we enter 2018. In investing and in life, we wish that you do your work and then be content in embracing “what is” than “what could have been.” This is the only way you could gift yourself happiness that would be with you for a lifetime.

We are lucky to have you as a tribe member.

Thank you!

With respect, Vishal & Anshul

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[personaldevelopmentnow]

The 67 Steps – SUMMARIES OF STEPS and FULL Tai Lopez Review

Here is my long awaited Tai Lopez review on his popular 67 steps course.  If you don’t know Tai Lopez by now, then you haven’t been on YouTube, or you live underneath a rock.  He is YouTube’s most popular channel.   The 67 steps is an awesome collection of wisdom that Tai has accumulated over the years from his reading and listening to his mentors.  This wisdom (knowledge in action) is from the best and most successful people in history.  This course is not a get rich scam.  This course is geared on giving you the tools to reprogram the way you think, change your mindset, and beliefs.

This Tai Lopez review took me a lot of time and effort to create so I hope you get a lot out of it.

If you find this article helpful or enjoy it, please consider sharing and liking this with the icons above. Your action really helps me out a lot in growing this website.

The post is pretty long so make sure that you bookmark it (CTRL + D) and come back later!

Do I think Tai Lopez is a Scammer? 

Visit my in-depth article on my own Tai Lopez Scam Investigation. 

The 67 Steps Review

Below is my 67 Steps Review. I discuss the program structure, the negatives and positives, and whether or not I’d recommend the program to anyone.

If you are looking for my LONG summaries, keep scrolling past the review.

  Program Structure

Web based: Members are given a username and password to login where you have access to Tai’s video training steps

Video Lessons: 67 Steps are Video Lessons lasting 30 min to 1 hr long.

Online Community: Interactive community where you post and journal about the questions inside the 67 steps.  Users can comment and encourage one another.

Phone Calls: Monthly phone calls with Tai’s team to consult your questions, progress and ideas.

Bonus 1: Book of the Day summaries emailed to you.

Bonus 2: How Tai Lopez Reads a book in 10 minutes.

Cancelling: When you cancel you lose access to the video lessons and monthly phone calls.

Payment:  This is a monthly payment through clickbank, however, you can just cancel after one month.

  Pros

Collection of Wisdom: A collection of wisdom from the most successful people in history. With Tai’s insights, you’ll gain the most important from all around

Lots of Examples: He provides extensive examples to help you understand the certain foundational ideas that may seem difficult.

Detailed Explanations: He really provides detailed explanations and comprehensive logic to his concepts and explanations.

Guarantees / Refund: Tai offers a money back guarantee through clickbank.

CLICKBANK:  If you don’t know what clickbank is, it’s a highly reputable service that is the middle man between the buyer and seller of a product.  They are awesome at refunds so this subsided my worries when I ordered.

  Cons

Not as Transparent about pricing:  The pricing on the website makes it look like you’re just going to pay $67 for one time – HOWEVER if you read the fine print, you are paying $67 a month.  This is easily solved by canceling the next month’s payment.

Cancelling: Some people have had trouble cancelling the 67 steps, this was prior to clickbank though as I’ve had no problems whatsoever.

Production Value:  There is no editing of the videos – this is minor though since I only care about content.

Videos are long:  Some videos are long and drawn out and I feel like they could have been summarized in half the time.  You still get good content.  But, everybody has their own way of teaching.  YOU WON’T COMPLAIN about steps being too short.

Sale Tactics:  His ads are everywhere! It gets a little annoying sometimes. He teaches you about something called “cognitive biases” and I find it ironic that he’s used the very cognitive biases that he warns you about to sell you the “67 steps”. Haha! But, what else does a salesman do? And in reality we all use cognitive biases when we try to influence people. At the end of the day, everyone has their selling tactics…  I just think the selling tactics behind the Ferrari and big mansions aren’t really necessary ( a bit tacky IMO) but who knows maybe those ads tested well for him. This is a minor complaint  because what matters to me is if it’s a good product or not.

  Neutral

Reiterates: If you’ve heard his YouTube videos, then his delivery is very much the same. He reiterates his points a lot and may rehash a story 3-4 times. This may seem annoying and inefficient for some people to have someone repeat the same things over as they feel like it wastes time, however, for me it helps hammer the idea home so that you actually remember it.  Repetition is one method to remember things.  I actually find reassurance in the reiterations because it reaffirms the idea, however, it might not be for you.

Check out his website for The 67 Steps program.

Feel free to use my summaries. However, if you decide to buy his program through my link, I’ll give you my convenient 16 page study guide for FREE. It summarizes THE WHOLE 67 steps in a clear and concise way.

The 67 Steps Review Score

Content

Presentation

Supporting Material: i.e. Website

Support: Ordering & Canceling

Summary

You could probably buy 3-5 books and spend a month or two sifting through them to pick up all the info that Tai is giving you in his 67 Steps. I don't like the monthly recurring charges (It's easy to cancel though), his videos are long and he bounces around off topic, but offers a lot of personal anecdotes and experiences. Despite those complaints, this is a solid buy, and it was definitely worth the $67 for me. If you can't swing the $67, just use my summaries below, as for me, I learn better when someone is talking to me.

4.4

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 Bottom Line: Do I Recommend it?

So if you’re here, you’re probably on the fence on whether or not to buy Tai’s program.  So the question is, would I recommend it? Well, it depends.  If you’re like me and you like to improve yourself and look at things differently then I��definitely recommend this to you, and it is definitely worth more than the $67 in my opinion.

There is SO much information out in the world today and it’s hard to decipher what’s good information and what’s bad information. Tai devours information, and he becomes the filter for you saving you time. Instead of searching, buying, and reading 67 books, Tai has aggregated the best of the best. Also, Tai has real world experience and has witnessed the principles he talks about, he’s walked the walk, so he’s just not a talking head that is just regurgitating information.

Click the link below to get Tai Lopez’s Program now:

LEARN MORE

  Remember: if you do decide to buy Tai’s course from the link above, I’ll give you my complete study guide that will help you learn all of the steps in an easier / digestible way!

Tai Lopez Books that He recommends:

Here are the top books that Tai Lopez recommends in the 67 Steps program:

Managing oneself by Peter Drucker

How to Win Friends And Influence People by Dale Carnegie

The selfish gene by Richard Dawkins

Civilization and Its Discontents by Sigmund Freud

The One Thing by Gary Keller

Poor Charlie’s Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger by Peter Kaufman

Disrupt you! Master Personal Transformation, Seize Opportunity, and Thrive In the Era of Endless Innovation by Jay Samit

Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas J. Stanley

The Essential Drucker by Peter F. Drucker

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B. Cialdini

Awaken the Giant Within by Tony Robbins

Check my post on Tai Lopez Books & Recommendations.

Can’t find the time to read? Want to learn more in less time?

TIP #1: To learn more in less time, I use a service called Blinkist and give it my highest recommendation. See my Blinkist review here to find out what it is and how I use it.

TIP #2: If you want to read more, you have to learn how to read faster. Another great tool I love using to increase my reading speed is 7 Speed Reading. It’s software teaches how to read the right way with the correct techniques and exercises. Definitely worth it if you want to drastically improve in this area.

  The 67 Steps Summaries & Chapters

Be Worth a Damn and Deserve it

Tai Lopez’s first lesson is that we need “to be worth a damn” and to “deserve it”.  This chapter contains a variety of information that will be discussed more in depth at later times in the 67 steps, it serves as a overall summary and driving force for the 67 steps.

Be Worth a Damn Factor:  People who are “worth a damn” do certain things that other people don’t.  They invest in themselves, their health, their minds, their relationships, and their finances.  They respect themselves and place value into themselves.

To increase your “Worth a Damn”: Add wisdom, remove ignorance. Ignorances are things that you’ve been taught such as “people who don’t go to college are not smart”.   See, degrees can be worth something or they can be worth nothing. Wisdom could be learning anything.

Deserve it Factor: To get what you want, you have to deserve what you want. If you want success, you will need to be worth a damn and you need to deserve it.

To increase your “Deserve it” Factor: This is a bit more challenging. You have to push yourself, challenge yourself, force yourself out of your comfort zone.

Invest in Yourself

Tai Lopez suggests that you need to take yourself seriously and invest in yourself. Become a better version of you and improve in the areas that you need to improve upon.  Are you adding any value to your life and others, or are you becoming wiser and wiser every day?  Are you improving yourself and GROWING every day? If the answer is no, or you “don’t know”, then you need to start. Two ways of developing yourself is reading BOOKS and practicing what you’ve learned from others.

READ – Input knowledge into your head

You can learn anything and everything from books. It is incredible that we can learn from other people’s lives and mistakes and download all their information into our brain via reading it.  That is the power of reading.

If you are a slow reader, you’re going to have more difficulties succeeding and reading the books you want to read, especially with the mountains of information we’re expected to know these days.  It’s crucial to learn how to read faster. You can start by looking up Youtube videos on the subject however I have found that the best way to drastically increase your reading speed is taking the program/software 7Speedreading.  I’ve been through a lot of books and programs and they have the best course on the market that I personally use. They teach you the best techniques from world renowned experts in reading and productivity.  The software trains you step by step to develop new reading habits and discard bad reading habits.  If you’re reading around 200 wpm (the rate at which you speak) then this is a no brainer.  I don’t care what you do or buy, just TAKE ACTION to try and increase your reading speed.

If you can’t find the time to read, then let I would HIGHLY recommend investing in a book summary service called Blinkist.  The amount of time it will save you is totally worth it, and it’s really not that much, like $4/month.  It cuts out all the fluff and allows me to see which books are worthwhile to buy later.  I have the upgraded account that has the audio summaries.  I love this feature, because I’m constantly on the go listening to the best ideas and important information of new books and making the most out of my time when I’m commuting to work.  You can also invest in audible books, however, I like variety and I tend to get bored with my attention span.  Definitely check our their free trial here.

PRACTICE – Put your knowledge into ACTION

Practicing often increases your odds.  Later you can refine your practicing to practice smarter. But you MUST put your knowledge to use.  If you don’t, it remains useless and you’ll probably end up forgetting it.

Here are two examples of people practicing non stop:

Michael Jackson practiced his simple spin 8 hours a day in the mirror video taping himself.

Michael Jordan, told his coaches at the end of the basketball year at UNC and told them he was burned out and needed the summer off, they understood. The next morning the coaches entered the gym and there was Michael Jordan on the court practicing.

“When you are not practicing, remember, someone somewhere is practicing, and when you meet him he will win”

-Ed Macauley

These two examples of Michael Jackson and Michael Jordan demonstrate not only practicing hard, but learning how to “love the grind” that is one of the keys to success.  What are you doing to “deserve it” more than the next person that comes along or who is practicing more than you?

Why name it 67 Steps?

This PDF from the Univserity of London Study – How Habits are Formed  found that the average amount of time to create a habit and rewire the brain is 66 days.  And of course, some people associate 66 with negative connotations, so one more step was added on for good measure.

The whole 21 days to build a habit is really a myth based on a popular book in the 1960’s, Psycho-Cybernetics – (Free Text).

Read more about the habit study in the huffingtonpost.com

Reverse Engineer Success & Problems

In my engineering job, a lot of the times you have to think backwards to deconstruct something down.  You can apply this to a lot of problems in life, reverse engineering any sort of desirable outcome that you want to achieve is a pretty good strategy to have.  Like a hard math problem, look for models and proven solutions and then work backwards to see what you need to do to make it work.

(Benjamin Graham) Warren Buffet’s Thought Experiment (YOUTUBE)

Warren Buffet’s thought experiment is taking success and reverse engineering it.  

Warren gives you a hypothetical question.  If you could go back in time to your high school and earn 10% of any classmate and his future career, who would you choose?  Is it the smartest person or most talented person that ultimately succeeds the best?  Maybe, but not all the time.  There are always talented people out in the world and they come dime a dozen. Think of it this way, ask this question: “Out of your High School class, who would you bet money on in having the greatest success?” I bet you’re not going to pick the kid with a perfect 4.0 or most talented person.  You should bet on the kid with a set of intangible traits like energy, focus, determination, passion, drive, wisdom.  On paper he might not look the best, but by looking at him, you know that kid is going somewhere.

Now, take these qualities and find ways to implement them in your own life. Go ahead and flip the question on it’s head and ask “What student/ classmate would you bet against?”. You’ll probably find their characteristics to be, Lazy, disrespectful, undisciplined, non communicative, no drive, no integrity.  Do you have any of these qualities? If yes, then focus on changing them. Maybe you’re shy, then you need to force yourself into more social situations.

Would you be the person that people would bet on? Learn and train yourself to become better and improve your intangible qualities.

Tai goes highly recommends two books:

Learned Optimism – Dr Martin Seligmen’s book which says that “we can train the brain” to do extraordinary things. This also plays into NLP – Neural  Linguistic Programming which is a set of tools in psychology that allows people to change their behavorial patterns, develop better skills, communication, etc.

Poor Charlie’s Almanac  –  This book is for additional wit and wisdom by none other Charles T. Munger, the individual who came up with the 25 cognitive biases. As one of my friend’s said, “think of it as a gift to humanity from a higher more intelligent species”. A bit expensive, I’d look for an online version somewhere for cheaper. 

So I need to ask myself if I am really spending each day getting wiser? Am I improving everyday a little bit?

Use your overall happiness as a gauge.  If you’re not happy, then that’s just a feedback system telling you that you need to change something.

Questions to Answer:

What are my strengths?

Weaknesses?

What are my Goals?

ADAPT

The Chameleon adapts to it’s surroundings and so should you

Tai Lopez quotes LSU Business professor, Leon C. Megginson.

Yes, change is the basic law of nature. But the changes wrought by the passage of time affects individuals and institutions in different ways. According to Darwin’s Origin of Species, it is not the most intellectual of the species that survives; it is not the strongest that survives; but the species that survives is the one that is able best to adapt and adjust to the changing environment in which it finds itself. Applying this theoretical concept to us as individuals, we can state that the civilization that is able to survive is the one that is able to adapt to the changing physical, social, political, moral, and spiritual environment in which it finds itself.

It’s not strongest and smartest species that survives, but the species that is the best able to adapt.

You can take this simple statement and apply it to virtually every thing in your life.  YOU MUST BE ABLE TO ADAPT.  If you don’t, you die in business, marriage, investments, your life etc.  It doesn’t matter how strong you are or how smart you are.

In Order to Adapt You Must Understand that…

Everything is NOT Black and White… but rather shades of grey.

Older generations have been caught up in the black and white mentality such as:

Racism – “Blacks are substandard species of Human”

“the world is flat”

“Earth is the center of the universe”

Even common thoughts we think today, we think in black and white, good and bad, but they really aren’t.

“Failure is a bad thing”

“Only straight A’s equates that I’m smart”

“You need to go to college for anyone to take you seriously and to get a good job”

Transitioning into another important area when talking about black and white thinking is failure.  You might think of it as a black and white situation – “Failure is bad. Failure is painful and avoid failure at all cost”. However…

Try to look at Failure Differently.  I personally try to look at Failure as my friend. 

I’ve collected a whole bunch of fear of failure quotes that will show you that you’re in good company.

Tai talks about truth seeking but doesn’t tie this in right here into failure (at least that I remember when I was taking notes). I’ve noticed that in order to look at failure differently, you must be a truth seeker.   If you are, then why should you be afraid of being rejected by that girl or boy that you’re so afraid of talking to, or the dream job that you’ve always wanted? Whatever outcome it is, that’s what it is.  A lot of us, including me, have a trouble with accepting truth.  If we learn to embrace it, we’ll allow ourselves to get more repetitions in and we’ll be a lot better off.

Now don’t get me wrong, fear serves a purpose, and so does fear of failing.  Fear motivates us to prepare for important things. What I’m trying to say is that don’t let fear immobilize you.

Here are some famous people that learned to adapt and not be afraid of fear.

Sam Walton – He was a man that was never afraid to fail

Jeff Bezo – Failure was not black and white

Michael Jordan

Wayne Gretzky

Think of your life and goals as experiments.  You can’t really fail at an experiment.  Think about it, you usually think of goals as a pass or fail based on what you want, HOWEVER, in an EXPERIMENT it isn’t a pass or fail. It is a reiterative process that refines in closer and closer to a desired outcome.   Science doesn’t look at pass/fail, it observes OBJECTIVELY and concludes its findings.  The experiment was either close to your hypothesis or it wasn’t, you observe the results and you compare it with your hypothesis, tweak the experiment and variables, and run the experiment again.  When you think of goals and trying new things this way just like how Thomas Edison did then YOU CANNOT FAIL.

One of your mantras in life should be “Try, Observe, Tweak”:

Try, observe, tweak. Did you get your desired result? If no, go to step 2.

Try, observe, tweak. Did you get your desired result? If no, go to step 3.

Try, observe, tweak… on and on and on

On a side note: Some people change too often and it seems like they are changing just to change which is what I call “hyper adapt”.  So yes, you can adapt too much sometimes.

Look for Evolutionary Stable Strategies

Evolution Stable Strategy – (ESS) – This is a difficult concept but in a nut shell it means that you have two or more groups in an ecosystem and their choices and interaction becomes stable at some point.

Evolutionary Stable Strategy Examples: 

When cows eat grass, their saliva helps the grass grow back healthier … the cows “make a deal” with the grass and the situation becomes stable.

Have Humility

You’re probably thinking to yourself, “Sure, sure, sure, I am humble”.  Tai challenges you in this section by saying that most everyone says that they’re humble, but very few actually are humble.

Let me explain. There are different types of humility, inward humility and outward humility.  Most everyone has outward humility which outwardly shows others that they are humble – For Example: “I’m ok, but I’m not that great”. Now inward humility is what you really want to strive for.  People who have inward humility admit that they don’t know everything and that there are lessons to be learned from almost everyone AND most importantly, they take action and strive to improve.   If you’re really humble, you will go out of your way to seek the right information to help you in your situation.  Most of us get the “I don’t know” part right, BUT very few of us get the “I’m going to do something about it” – the action part.  This is usually because our egos don’t want to be hurt.

My personal example for me in this case is:

“I’m not a very good public speaker”… I have not chosen to improve as I need to in this area because subconsiously I’m trying to protect my ego and in a way, I’m not very humble in that area.

Here are two examples of being humble:

Michael Jordan – Michael Jordan’s best asset was his listening and being coach-able.  The best basketball player in the world was still looking for ways to get better from all sorts of different people, mentors and coaches.  Yes, don’t get me wrong, outwardly, he is extremely cocky.  But his actions show that he is humble and that he doesn’t know everything.

” My greatest skill was being teachable. Even if I thought my coaches were wrong, I still tried to listen and learn something.”

” – Michael Jordan

Sam Walton – Embarrassing to some people, Sam would go to competitors stores all across the globe trying to find out new ways to run his store.  He was found measuring distances of aisle ways and was arrested.  Imagine billionaire Sam Walton, on his hands and knees measuring the floow and then getting arrested.- Sam Walton didn’t let his ego get in the way of searching for the truth.

Sam Walton tried learning from everyone by asking and prying and listening to other businesses and customers and he always looked for a couple of valuable things that you can learn from that person

Humble People do the following:

Know that they don’t have it all figured out

Listen more than others

Sacrifice their egos for information and truth

Take action

Tracking down mentors

Reading as many books as you could on the subject (I use Blinkist)

Copying and studying competitors

Going to Seminars and Trainings

If you do these things on a regular basis, being mentored, reading books, etc then the more humble you are because these our ACTIONS that show that you don’t know everything and are willing and hungry to learn.  In other words, don’t tell me that you’re humble, show that you’re humble.

This is a strange way of looking at being humble, but it makes sense to me.

EVERYONE IMPORTANT HAD A MENTOR

Michael Jordan, Tesla, Warren Buffet, Einstein, Sam Walton, etc

How humble have you been in action? Not lip service saying that you’re humble.

Questions:

How much money have you been spending on info/seminars etc?

What are your distractions from doing this?

You need a Mentor. Law of 33 Percent.

“Good artists copy, Great artists steal”

– Pablo Picasso.

When Pablo Picasso said this, he wasn’t promoting copying or stealing, but rather making a point that anything great that has happened in the world – inventions, ideas, movements, etc is because they’ve been built on the past ideas of other people.  For example, computers today, are a summation of all the different developments and innovation. Without the past building blocks of computer, such as the microchip and processor, are technology wouldn’t be what it is today.  In a way, anything we create is because we are “standing on the shoulders of giants” as Sir Issac Newton quoted.

“If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants”

-Sir Issac Newton

Looking at this again at a philosophical level, there really is no “original idea” out there because all ideas are comprised of older thoughts and ideas. Also, we need to stop trying to reinvent the wheel, and copy/ imitate other people more and “stand on their shoulders” and wisdom.  This nicely leads into the next point – the law of 33%.

The Law of 33%

The law dictates how and who you should spend your time in order to grow and improve best as a person. You can’t just spend all your time with mentors, it’s unrealistic.  You’ll become really strong in certain points however other areas in your life will be lacking.  Much like exercising, you need to work out all areas of yourself.  You don’t just exercise one muscle and expect great physical results –  you have to exercise all muscles. The Law of 33% is broken down the following.

People below your level (Apprentices): You need to spend 33% of your waking hours with people that are “below” or “behind” you.  These friends will be the ones that you’re mentoring, it will provide you a way to boost your confidence and hone your teaching skills while helping your friends out.

People on your level (Partners):  You need to spend 33% of your time with people on the same level as you.  These will be your closest friends.

People above your level (Mentors): You need to spend 33% of your time with people above your level that will help you with your goals, aspirations, etc.  These people are your MENTORS.

This spectrum of different people will provide you a spectrum of people that are necessary to grow in all areas.

Look for Patterns in People

Connecting dots and looking for patterns in other people and situations will provide you great insights

So here’s the fifth step of this Tai Lopez review of The 67 Steps summary. This step, is all about using your judgment and observation skills on people.  You need to tune in and be aware of who you talk to and what information you pick up from people.  You’d be surprised how many crappy thoughts you are exposed to.  Some people are rich in certain different areas of their lives and others are poor in those areas.

If you can decipher what areas are good and bad with certain people, you can hone in to the good elements of that person – dissect them, reverse engineer it, and imitate their behavior.

So how can you tell if someone is good or bad in a certain area in his/her life?  The question is easily answered with a verse from the bible (not meaning to get churchy with people, as I’ll also pull quotes from other religious books that have good wisdom).

“You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles?”

– NKJV Matthew 7:16

Here are 4 examples of Patterns:

One example of a pattern that Tai’s observed was that his rich friend Joel Salatin said a lot of quotes.  When you say quotes, you’re not just saying, “listen to me” you’re also referring that someone else said it to.  This plays into using the Authority bias to your favor.

His rich friends are good at Math.

Another example of a pattern that Tai noticed is that a very successful coach always asked questions

Poor friends are usually mad when they get criticism

Rich friends are always asking for criticism

Here are 3 things that you need to do:

You must BUILD a habit of observing people. Get a level of awareness.

“Mirror cat” and “parrot” the people you want to be like.

Identify People and ask for Knowledge

What I typically do when asking for wisdom is tell the person your observations you’ve had about them and deliver it in a complimentary form (avoid excessive smoke), comment with a brief sentence about your goals and then ask them their input and how you can achieve the same.  You’d be surprised by how many people open up.  If you want to get more detailed.

Questions:

What are the patterns in your friends?

Focus on the Sculpture & Beware the Media Bias

The media sells you this grand picture of becoming rich, getting fit, without giving you the full story of the actual process and they do this by design to usual sell you something.  They also always make it sound easier than what it is.  If you don’t understand all the details and implications of a well rounded, happy life then you’re setting yourself up for failure.

There is no such thing as instant success (the type that lasts at least).  Success is a slow process that takes persistent work. Think of life as a stone sculpture chiseled by hand.  A stone sculpture isn’t made overnight.  You have to chisel away at that stone day by day.  You know the saying “Rome wasn’t built in a day” – don’t expect yourself to have success right away.  This mentality makes you compare yourself with others when you don’t know the exact details they’ve had to go through. Be patient with yourself. Start today and slowly chip away at the sculpture you envision.  Maybe it’s something small like starting a speed reading program or getting a gym membership and working out.

You’ve gotta learn to love the grind. Because life IS the grind. 

–  John Calipari

Take a look at these old adages that have been around for a long time:

Easy come, easy go.

A tree that grows slow, bares the best fruit.

This program is all about building better habits (planting the seeds)

Off Topic Mentions:

Rule of 72 – A shortcut that people use when figuring out a rough estimate to interest rates.

Tai recommends Evernote

Learned Helplessness

Martin Seligman’s book Learned Optimism and Helplessness discusses the psychology and  a state of mind that humans get trapped into.  Being trapped in a state of helplessness

The Dog Experiment

To explain this topic further, experiments were performed on two dogs ( And no, I do not condone violence to dogs). The first dog was placed in a box small enough where it could escape when it was shocked.  The second dog was placed in a much larger box where it could not escape when it was shocked repeatedly.  Later, the took the second dog and placed it in the same box as the first dog so it could escape when it was shocked.  What they found was that the dog’s mind can be rewired to learn helplessness.

This awesome YouTube video explains the book pretty well – Learned Optimism.

The Elephant Tied to a Rope

Most of us have heard the story of the elehpant tied to a stake with rope.  An elephant was tied to a rope for a long time.  When the elephant was untied from the stake, the elephant did not move from its radius.

The Salary Slave

A common example that you might not have identified as learned helplessness is someone who works as a salaried employee.  Since they are conditioned to wait for their paycheck, they don’t take any action to obtain more money, they become dependent on waiting for the paycheck.  This is known as a Salary Slave.

People are looking for a quick fix or an instant pill and they aren’t looking for a life style because they want to escape the pain of changing their habits.

Some people get stuck in this habit of waiting for the newest diet to try or the newest self help book to read and they don’t apply any action to what they have learned. They have become spectators, they read the books out of enjoyment.  They have the mentality of a dog in the box who can’t escape.

 “You can innovate out of any problem.” – Jeff Bezos Amazon CEO

The United States is a truly unique place to live. The beauty of it is that we have support systems in place so we can take risks and fail.

You’re never going to get anywhere in your life unless you take some sort of risk.

Laziness will kill you out in the jungle.  The habits that you have will determine whether or not you die or survive in the jungle.

Just get out there and start doing things, take risks. If you stay the same, you’re going to keep on getting the same things so don’t expect different results.  What’s the worse that can happen?

Be quick, but never hurry.

– John wooden UCLA Basketball coach.

A book about Amazon – The Everything Store – Talks about an employee who said something couldn’t be solved and Jeff Bezos said that they will innovate out of their problems.

So, the antithesis of helplessness is creativity.  This reminds me of a great quote by Albert Einstein.

 “You can’t solve today’s problems with yesterday’s thinking”

– Einstein

Questions

What’s an area that you’ve been helpless in your past? It could be health, relationships, wealth, career.

And, what can you do now to fix it?

Integrating your Life – Your Four Pillars

This is step 8 of the Tai Lopez Review of the 67 steps, titled  “The Integrated Good Life & The Four Pillars Of Eudaimonia”.

This lesson is about integrating your life together. A lot of us have been sold a habit of breaking things down and compartmentalizing items in our lives when we shouldn’t break them down.  Now don’t get me wrong, I break complicated things down most times and I believe it’s a good habit to have because it usually makes things easier.  However, some items aren’t meant to be broken down and segregated.  Sometimes, there are certain things that work much better when they are integrated and not segregated.

Some Items that I Need to Integrate:

Friends: I have a lot of friends and I tend to spend a lot of time with individual friends. One on one time is important, however, I need to include inviting more friends together so I don’t feel like I’m spreading myself too thin among friends.

Location:  I just recently moved so that I could be closer to everything including:

Work– If you have an extremely long commute, try to move closer to decrease your time.

Gym – Pick a gym that is close to you and your general commute direction

Church – Church is typically 1 time a week, so I feel like the integration doesn’t need to be

Grocery Store – minimize your commute

Friend’s Houses – minimize your commute

Exercise at Home

Instead of finding a gym, invest on your own gym equipment, save money, and save time from commuting and worrying about if you look cool enough to enter the gym.

The idea here is to make it easy on yourself in the things you do ever day.  Sometimes it’s a struggle when you have to commute 2 hours to work everyday.  Integrating saves you time while increasing your productivity flow.

There is something called Edge Biological Theory which supports this idea of integrating your life.  The principle behind the theory is that in nature and ecosystems you will find the most life on the fringes where multiple ecosystems merge.  For example, there is a forest and lake and on the edge where they connect, you will find the most animals living around that area. We as species on this Earth are wired the same way where we want to be on the edge where resources merge.

Reshape your external surroundings to tailor your lifestyle.

Tai Lopez had an idea of integrating his office with his home gym and creating an office gym.

Did you know that 8 hours of sitting down at your office job is extremely unhealthy for you?  Studies have shown that prolonged sitting is dangerous to your health and decreases your life by many years.

More Examples of Integration:

Integrate Work and Health

Standing desks

Exercise and Stretch during work:

Integrate Work and Tasks

While on a break, save a trip going to the store later by shopping on Amazon

On lunch, use Task Rabbit to hire other people to do whatever tasks you need.

Integrate Work and Social

It’s not a crime to socialize during work, it’s usually encouraged as long as you don’t abuse the privilege.  Socializing increases team unity.  Find and make friends at work and don’t feel guilty about it.

Integrate Work with Learning

While commuting to work, don’t waste that time doing nothing. Put on an audio book and learn something.

Integrate Fulfillment and Social

Participate in a charity event in your town and invite your friends.

True Happiness and Fulfillment

We are after the goal of Eudaimonia which is this concept from the classic philosophers of a fulfilled life. Health, Wealth, Love (friends, family, romance), fulfillment or a bigger purpose.

Martin Seligman says that the more you integrate your life, the happier you’ll be.

A lot of people are trying to be happy by getting something.  True happiness is built around giving to others and bettering other people and meaningful relationships

Learn Faster by Learning from other’s Experiences – Books

Tai Lopez reads a book a day – (skims a book a day) this is how he does it.

Step 9 – Warren Buffett’s Book-A-Day Diet & Making War With A Multitude Of Counselors – Book a Day Diet.

Some Examples of How Important Books are to Successful people:

Buffet and Gates were asked what superpower…. they both said that they would have the ability to read super fast.

In the book Screw it, lets do it by Richard Branson – he explains how important books are and how he came over his dyslexia.

Alexander the Great had books sent to him thousands of miles away to him while traveling or in battle.

When most people hit road blocks, they create reasons why they can’t do it. “They got lucky” “People stole all my money from me – I got ripped off”.

The book – The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins is a great book that Tai also recommends and it explains why the human mind is wired the way it is.

The Selfish Gene – Explained Further

In Chapter 4 ” Survival machines that can simulate the future, are one step ahead of survival machines that only learn by overt trial and error.”

Overt trail and Overt error it takes time and energy and fatal.

Simulation is both safer and faster.

It’s a heck of a lot easier to learn from other peoples mistakes.  We all make mistakes, but it’s easier to learn from other people’s mistakes.

Books are the easiest way to simulate the outcomes and gain the hard experience from others.

The better that you can accurately simulate outcomes, the faster and better you are.

Simulate successes, mistakes, and the future by reading books.  It could be anything from Michael Jordan to Warren Buffet or Elon Musk.  You will cut the learning curve exponentially.

The people that operate alone are… usually poor in all aspects of life. You won’t be able to be a jack of all trades and specialist in everything without simulation

“Make War with a multitude of counselors” – means that you choose your battles in your life with the smartest people on your side.  With their wisdom, you will be in good company.

Over 100 million books exist… Read the tried and true classics, and authors who have credibility.

How Tai Lopez Reads a Book a Day

NOTE: Now I don’t really disagree with this approach but I disagree in calling it reading a book, it really is skimming instead of reading. To call it reading a book a day is a bit deceptive and intimidating for most people.

1st Pass – Previewing the book (5 min) – He reads the Front, Back, the inside jacket, about the author, table of contents – This allows him to anticipate what the main point is.

2nd Pass – Browse through the chapters (30 min) – Try to find one chapter that looks interesting to read.

3rd Pass – Read One or Two Chapters ( 1 hour) – Read the entire chapter.

Break the Rules of Reading

Don’t focus on reading fast but focus on mining for gold nuggets of knowledge.

You might say that “But I’m going to miss something?”  Sure, you’re going to miss some information and details but that’s assuming that all the words

Come over your fear of reading every word.

I feel bad that I’m being rude

I also feel like I need to complete every thing

Questions

What’s your excuse for not reading and what’s your plan to start reading?

Toughen Yourself – Stoics vs Epicurean

Step 10 of the 67 Steps by Tai Lopez – Title: Stoic vs. Epicurean Arnold’s 1000 Reps, Apache Cold Showers and the Spartan Whipping Post

Stoics believe in toughening and sweating it out and sacrificing to get what they want, sucking it up and just doing it.  They believe in preparing and sacrificing early to later reap the rewards later.

Epicureans believe in the YOLO mindset of “you only live once” and live for instant gratifications.  They live for convenience which creates a soft person.

Why become Tough?  When hard times come through your life and if you’re not tough enough or prepared, then you’re not going to survive.

Money comes to people who don’t need money, and the stronger the person is, the more attractive that person is.

If you’re only stoic, then you would be like a robot and would be unbalanced.  So you need to have a balance of the two.  However, I believe our generation of people tend to be more lazy and pleasure seeking, so I would error on the side of being more stoic, because it’s easier to change from being more stoic to being epicurean.

It’s the wealthy capital that preys on our basic instincts to find the easy way out.

“Adversity makes men.  Prosperity makes monsters.”

– Victor Hugo

Examples of Stoic people:

Apache who take cold showers

Arnold Schwarzenegger who performs 1000 lb calf raises

Spartans would start extensive training when they were young boys.

Small Suggestions to become more tough:

Taking the stairs vs elevator

Eat that vegetable that you absolutely hate

Shower with cold water

Sleep on the floor

Do something outside your comfort zone

Get rejected by someone

Tony Robbins teaches you to get excited when you fail!  When you succeed, you celebrate, and when you fail you begin to ponder.  When you ponder, you’re one step closer to finding the solution.

Questions:

IN what area have you become the weakest in health, wealth, love, and happiness?

What can you do to rewire the brain to strengthen yourself?

Whispers of 10,000 Generations

Step 11 – Whispers of 10,000 generations

When can we trust our instincts and when can we not?

The Whispers of 10,000 generations is a term that describes the impulses we have everyday due to our genetics, human hard-wiring, and learned habits from ancestors and how they influence our life.

For example, 10,000 years ago, food was scarce back then and they ate as much as they could.  Nowadays, the survival mindset is still built in us.

Food companies design our food to prey upon us. They know that our genetics desire the fat, sugar, and salt.

A lot of our problems begin because of evolutionary mismatches:

We now have complete silence when we sleep – Sleeping in complete silence isn’t natural or beneficial

We now have artificial Light – Artificial Light keeps us up during hours when we are designed to sleep.

We need to fight our DNA impulses (whispers of 10,000 years) and develop a investors mindset.

Go to bed early

Get a noise generator to sleep

Set up auto payments to help you save, that way you don’t

Don’t place yourself in to situations where you know your DNA impulses will overpower your decision making.

Questions:

What area is the worst area where your DNA impulses are strongest?

Find Your Eulerian Destiny

Step 12 – Mike’s Stack Of Resumes, My 96 Year-old Grandma, & Your Eulerian Destiny

This step is all about matching up your unique signature strength with what you should really be doing.

To do this, you need to find out your strengths and a One Sentence Destiny Plan, like a mission statement.  If you can’t crystalise what you want to do in one sentence then you don’t know what you want to do.

Peter Drucker has a fantastic book, Managing Oneself, that I recommend and that Tai also recommends. This book is really short, easy to read, cheap, and has invaluable information in there – i absolutely love it because it’s straight to the point how most books should be.

Inside his book, he states that “Most people think they know what they are good at, they are usually wrong”.  (Think American Idol)

How do I know what I should be doing with my life?

In the past you didn’t need to know what you wanted to be because you were born into your family’s occupation.

What’s your mission statement or plan in life? Crystallize what you want to do in one sentence and make sure everyone can understand it – including your grandma.

Tai’s Example:  Tai says what he wants to do is “Spreading good ideas through mass media.”

Some Questions and Items to think about:

What makes you think that you have a lot of options?

Most people are delusional in thinking that they can do whatever they want.

What are your real skills?

Do You have American Idol syndrome?

The Law of 5%

This law states that in order to really excel at what you want to do, you have to be within the top 5% of your niche.

When this law is put into the context of your life, it makes you think twice about what you spend your time on and makes you focus on what you’re good at and where you can grow too.

Kill the myth that you can be good at so many things. Do not have American Idol Syndrome where you think that you’re good but you’re not that good. You might be the best singer in your town, but on the global stage, there is so much competition.

Don’t get me wrong, you want to have big goals but you need to BUILD them around your real skills or your “signature strengths”.

General Electric – This company focused on making everything. Later it slowly phased out some of it’s markets to focus on their “signature strengths” – GE’s plan was a huge success.  We can apply this mentality to our own lives – focus on the things you’re good at and double down.

If you chase after two rabbits, you catch none. – Chinese Proverb

“Don’t live other people’s dreams for you”

“Know thyself”

How to create your One Sentence Destiny Plan

Draw a ven diagram with 4 circles.

Think about the 4 pillars of life when answering the questions below(health, wealth, love, and fulfillment).

1. What did you grow up around?  What you grow up around deeply influences you and imprints upon your mind of who you’ll become.

2. Get feedback from strangers.  What have strangers said that you’re good at?

3. What have you been doing for the last 10 years?

4. What do you love talking about?

Personal relationship Problems

Religion

On your ven Diagram, where do they all meet in the middle? Where they meet, that is what you should be doing.

Recommended Books:

The Paradox of Choice – Barry

Signature Strength?

Managing oneself – Peter Drucker

Questions:

What’s your one sentence destiny plan?

Do What You Like, Not What You Love

Step 13 – Tai actually got some production value in this track with some inspirational intro music!

This lesson is about wisely picking a career path based on what you like and not what you “love” or are lustful after. How to set up your life, so your work is your vacation.

Don’t get stuck in a dichotomy of hating your job and escaping.

Never permit a dichotomy to rule your life, a dichotomy in which you hate what you do so you can have pleasure in your spare time. Look for a situation in which your work will give you as much happiness as your spare time. – Picasso

Don’t base you’re life around vacation.  Living in a state of dreading day to day and looking forward to your escape / vacation is not a quality way to live.

Don’t do what you love, Do what you like.

A lot of people now a day say they love something, but people get really confused between love and lust.  Most of the time it’s really lust.  Lust eventually burns out.

Work at something that continually excites you.

Don’t worry about missed opportunities that are not right for you. A lot of people have general fear of missing out (FOMO).  FOMO is a dangerous time waster that will take you down rabbit holes you don’t want to go!  This is an quality that I have and I’m working on it.  Always think if the opportunity makes sense to you and your direction.

Amish – The Amish have life not built around anticipation but built around rituals, hard work, no anticipation and they are statistically happier than most people.

Don’t follow your lust, follow your like.

This is something that Tai doesn’t talk about, but I believe you could have a miserable job and still be happy at that job.  It’s all based on your mindset and making it enjoyable – In other words, your attitude.

Questions:

Do you have your mindset based around vacation?

When you woke up early, were you excited to start it?

Are you going after something that you’re lusting after?

Prepare for Everything Because Everything is Your Fault

Step 14 – The Shaolin Monk & Touching An Electric Fence

Everything is your fault is a mindset that puts you in control to prepare.

Growing up as a kid, I was heavily involved in the Boyscouts and all you fellow scouts out there, you know that the Scout motto is, “Be Prepared”.

Ask Yourself These Questions:

Could you anticipate this happening?

Could you have prepared for it?

“How full is your tool belt”?

Removal of procrastination and laziness, winning friends, charisma, influencing people, determination, perseverance, hard work.

Usually poor friends are good at one thing, and they don’t have enough tools in their toolbelt.

I liked this quote that Tai said: “positive words are only effective when they come in the context of massive preparation.”

A lot of people spew out “think positive and that’s all you need” – I agree with thinking positive, however, I believe that people get stuck in the illusion of avoiding anything negative with that sort of thinking.  You need to be optimistic, however, realistic with your head grounded.

“The answer is stuck in the balance”

– Aristotle

You need to find the balance of KNOWING the right time to be optimistic and to be pessimistic.  You can’t be 100% positive all the time.

Who else are you going to blame?

How can I better prepare myself for the next day?  I don’t look at it as preparing because a lot of people think “I don’t want to be preparing for my whole life”, I look at it as improving.  When you look at it this way, it’s not as difficult.

Hey guess what? Reading is learning, and is also preparation.

What can you do this week to prepare yourself financially, relationship wise, and health wise?

If you have health issues, start addressing those now.  If you have relationship issues, start addressing those now and stop procrastinating.

“Do not put off tomorrow, what you can do today” – Ben Franklin

Claim Responsibility HOWEVER Don’t Fixate or beat yourself or freak out. Claim that it was your fault for not preparing, make a mental note that you will prepare next time, and then forget about messing up – give yourself a break because no one is perfect.

Questions:

In your 4 areas, where have you been lacking in preparation?

What’s a specific time where you should have been prepared but weren’t?

Calculate Big Decisions

Removing beliefs about things that aren’t 100% true.

You’ll have to make complicated decisions in life. Most of the Billionaire’s are investors (not surprising) and they have to make big decisions all the time.  They just don’t decide with their gut, but they take very calculated risks and look at all aspects in their mind.

Switching a job for a higher paying salary might not be as easy as you think.  Sure you’ll get more money, however, there are a lot of other factors that play into whether or not if it’s a good move.

In order to make good decisions, it is a good idea to break down the decision and quantify it while taking account the risks.

For my important decisions, I make a pros and cons list in excel (This is my own system for making choices), I think of every possible pro and con, then I weight it by assigning it a number (1-10). Then tally up the points.  Let’s take our job example above.

Pros:

Make 15% more money

Commute is extra 30 min

Larger, Stable Company

Change of Pace

Lower Stress

Cons:

Commute is extra 30 min

Parallel Move in Position

Low career opportunities to move up

Not sure if the job will make you grow as an individual

This was a recent job switch that I had, and it was obvious that I was going to take the job. If it was more difficult, I would weight each point as I described above and total them.

The only thing that’s left true is math and numbers.  From an engineering perspective… amen

The Renaissance Man

Step 16 – Rousseau, The Renaissance Man, & Iron Sharpening Iron

Touching on this topic again of learning and reading.  Learning History (just like other books) is extremely important because we can learn from it.  It’s also important because history always repeats itself and it allows us to prepare for it.

Become a Renaissance person

Don’t get this confused with being a jack of all trades (trying to be everything). Here, you’re just learning about background information so you’ll want to read a wide range of books even outside your niche.

Why should you read broadly?

Reading broadly will give you a wider view of how things work in general. This is absolutely key when managing people or systems.

You might be able to apply principles you’ve learned in one area to your work related area.

You’ll become a more interesting, well rounded person.

Increases your ability to communicate to other people.

Be able to understand both sides of an argument.

Iron sharpens iron, as a friend sharpens a friend.

Questions:

What area are you weakest in? Art? Geography? Politics? Religion?

Put Your Time in

Step 17 – Elon Musk‘s 14-Hour Workday vs. The 4-Hour Workweek

Today on the internet there’s a big illusion that you can get rich quick and you can work 4 hours a week.  It takes a lot of work to become wealthy.  There is no end.  It is the grind. That is where you’re motivation and excitement is.

Now the popular 4 Hour Work Week is a good book.  However, a lot of people get caught up on the title and think that they can only work 4 hours a week.  It’s bologna.  Do you think that the author, Tim Ferris works 4 hours a week? Now I understand that the title was chosen because it converts better.  The book isn’t about trying to work as minimal as possible.  It’s about trying to work as efficiently as possible.

If you don’t like going through the steps to take to success, then maybe you’re doing the wrong thing?

What are you doing in your spare time?

Name important people that only work 4 hours a day.  You won’t find any.  And if you do, it won’t last long term. If you want to have an impact on the world, then you have to put in your hours.  You can’t just chuck up 4 hours and expect to be a millionaire.

Questions:

Compile a list of people who have impacted the world

In what part have you sabotaged yourself with incorrect efficiency?

How to Contrast & How to Keep Things Easy

Step 18 – 18. Man-On-The-Moon Contrast Keeping Easy Things Easy

This step is all about using a mental framework to simplify anything so it doesn’t seem as daunting. To do this we will use contrast bias.

What is Contrast Bias?

Contrast bias is comparing your task / situation to a much more difficult task.  This is a useful mind hack because it puts things into perspective. Play a mind game with yourself by using contrast bias.

Contrast your problems with REAL, larger problems.

For example: The feat of getting a man to the moon took NASA 10 years, trillions of dollars, and an exponential amount of hours and engineering effort.  It was an ENORMOUS effort.

Watch a documentary on going to the moon.  There were so many different issues and problems that they had to solve.

After I think about the difficulty of getting a man on the moon, I ask myself, “Is what I am doing now really that difficult?” and it really helps me put things into perspective and motivates me.

The key here is to take your problem and mix it with a larger problem.  The bigger the problem the better.  In engineering terms, I think of  spring back which is a term used in metal forming – to shape the metal correctly you must force the metal beyond where you want it to be formed because the metal springs back a little bit to it’s original position.

Keep simple things simple.  There are a ton of things that I overthink when I don’t need to.  It’s a horrible habit.

People spend their time on useless things – like spending so much time getting dressed, traveling to work, researching the best TV to buy, deciding on what color or car you want to buy, writing long emails instead of just calling the person.  These might be important in their own aspect, but in comparison to the MAJOR things in life – they simply are not.

I spend a ridiculous amount of time researching the best products.  Sometimes it’s as simple as toothpaste.  Maybe it’s a little OCD, but you have to force yourself to think, is it really worth it to spend two hours researching toothpaste or should you just go out and buy some toothpaste?  If you have this same problem, to solve this type of thinking, I give myself 5 minutes max to make a decision.

For example, some people spend an hour or two commuting to work. That’s 1/12 of your day.  Why don’t you keep it simple and move closer to work?

Reduce your research time on trivial things and the time you write pointless emails.  Get out of that habit, stop making things harder than what they are.

What is something that you have fear of?  Now contrast it with something similar.

Public Speaking

Talking to Girls

Having my ideas, dreams, and endeavors fail

Questions:

What is super simple, that you should spend less time on?

What’s something that you’ve over simplified?

Reinvest in your Learning

Step 19 –  Amazon.com & The $32,000 Brain Budget

Reinvest in your learning and in yourself.  In order to do this, you must get control over your finances. Know what you’re making and what you’re spending on.

I use – www.mint.com: it links all your accounts, credit cards, loans,  into one and provides a nice overview of everything.  Love this thing.

How to Spend your Left over Income

Spend 33% on Education and investing in yourself.

Spend 33% on Entertainment and however you want.

Save 33% into a Savings account

Here are some ways to be frugal when investing:

Instead of buying new books, buy used books, or go to the library.

Don’t get caught up in having the newest things.  Billionaire Warren Buffet drives an old minivan.  He’s realized that cars are a waste of time and money that only serve the ego.

Use Torrents to download free information.

Go to Ross or TJ Max for discounted clothes that still look great.

Questions:

What’s the discretionary income you have?

How are you currently spending it?

What are you going to reinvest in?

ReEngineer your Life

Step 20 – Richard Branson’s Hurricane & The Imaginary World Of Kanye West

This lesson is about making the world in your own image.

Alan Nation once said that entrepreneurs remakes the world in their own image.  They imagine a world and make it like that.

If you had enough money, how would you change your life? In your imaginary world, what would you want to be doing? Realistically.

Maybe you love singing and playing the guitar – Realistically, you wouldn’t be a superstar but maybe you would be an agent or start up your own record label.  What I am saying is, don’t be so rigid in what you want to do.  There are so many ways to live out what you like.

What’s all the stuff you don’t want to do and find a way how you can get rid of it by outsourcing it to someone else.

What’s your social life like?  Are you building a life around what you want?

What do you want in life, financially, socially, and health wise? and what do you have to do to tweak it?

Tai recommends the book again: Screw It, Let’s Do it.

Questions:

How would you stay healthy in an ideal world?

What Job would you have in an ideal world?

How would you be social in an ideal world?

What cause / charity would you be involved in?

Anticipate and Type people with the P.A.S.E. System

Step 21  – Mastering The Four P.A.S.E. Energies & Casanovas Chameleon

How to interact with people will probably be the most important skill you will ever have in life.  Networking and creating allies is essential. It’s important to read people correctly and anticipate what they are all about.

Tai Lopez has developed the P.A.S.E. system that allows you to stereotype people to try to understand them.  What are your core energies?

    Practical – Aren’t very flexible. They are very planned.  They like numbers, money, things on schedule.  A little more slower to act.

Action – Spontaneous, Enlightened, high energy, self-starters, hardly ever finishers. Not very patient.  Aggressive.

Social – Go with the flow with things, relaxed, hippie like, they like being around people,  a little flaky, Spontaneous, don’t stand up for themselves often.

Emotional – Decipher people, intuitive, analyze people, driven by fear and are often offended by others easily.  Afraid to change.

Be more sensitive, open yourself up.

If you can understand what type a person is, you can play to that person’s type to influence them better.

For Example: If you identify someone as being emotional as their primary letter, then you might want to start by opening yourself up to them on a personal level and be more sensitive.

Remember that when you’re trying to influence people, the old saying “like attracts like” holds very true.  Think of yourself. Don’t you hang around people who share your similar interests?

“birds of a feather, flock together”

Tai’s system is a bit like the Brigg Meyer’s Personality Typing Test.

Believe it or not, surprisingly it is very similar to the 4 areas of astrology however he has put it into modern langauge.  Instead of Practical, Action, Social, Emotional you have Earth (Taurus, Capricorn, Virgo) , Fire (Leo, Sagitarius, Aries, Air (Libra, Aquarius, Gemini), Water Signs (Pisces, Scorpio, Cancer).

Casanova was great at meshing with all people.  He was an expert at changing how he interacted with people.  Just like Casanova, we need to learn how to play the part of the chameleon. Casanova knew that he needed to bring out different parts of his personality to convince different people.

What are the PASE energies of your family and friends?

My Family PASE Signs

Me – SEAP

Dad – PASE  “Blow and Go” “Get it done”

Mom – ESAP

Brother – ASEP

Sister – EASP

Sister – ESAP

Tai is:  APES, Action, Practical, Emotional, Social

Tai’s Brother is: SAPE

Questions / Actions:

Focus on working each side of the P.A.S.E. to help you relate better to these types of people.

Do something that makes you more practical.

Do something that makes you more emotional.

Do something that makes your more Action based.

Do something that makes you more social.

Set Up Life Experiments with the Scientific Method

Step 22 – The Seven-fold Path To The Obvious Signs

This lesson is about assessing yourself.  Because in order to change something you need to identify the problem correctly and understand the cause of it.  Read the obvious signs of yourself.

Is your body the way you want it to be? Yes or no?

Is your bank account the way you want it to be? Yes or no?

If the answer is no, then what do you want it to look like, and decide on the best plan to get you to that goal.

People want to make changes out of emotions or anger.  This is the WRONG way to do things.  Anger and emotions always subside.  You want to base your changes on something more foundational that won’t waver or change from time to time.  You want to build your decisions on beliefs by the truth.

Become a truth seeker. A truth seeker will not be afraid of assessing himself and they will sacrifice everything for the truth.  Ask yourself a questions to kick start your thinking. A lot of people embrace the truth but don’t make their decisions based around the truth.

BEWARE the black and white mind. Avoid extreme ideologies. The black and white mind is biased and very stubborn in keeping it’s ways.  This type of mind doesn’t try to look for truth because it can’t change even if the truth appeared in front of it.

Read the obvious signs of your health, wealth, and happiness.

For Example: You’re on a new diet, you try it out for 60 days, however, whenever you eat a certain food, you get diarrhea.  The overall diet doesn’t make you feel any better either and you haven’t achieved any results.  You would observe these, make a conclusion to stop eating the food that gave you diarrhea and change the diet.

It’s hard to know when to change, what to change, and the difference between the two.  Here is a FANTASTIC quote that i love.

Serenity Prayer Quote:

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. ”

Set a goal, decide which system moves you towards that goal, monitor it, adjust accordingly, and then continue on with the system.

Effective 7 Step Method

Ask yourself a question

Research the answer

Hypothesis

Test

Observe

Analysis

Conclude / Get Other’s opinions

  REMEMBER: A mistake is an experiment that was ran too long.  Don’t run your experiments too long or too short.

Percentage of Quiting after Failure

50% of people quit after 1 failure

80% people quit after 2 failures

95% people quit after 3 failures

Your goal is to get past 3 failures.  Don’t look at it as failing, just look at it as experimenting and finding ways that don’t work for you.  The more you can fail and be accepting of it, the better off you’ll be.

Examples of Famous People Failing:

Thomas Edison made tons of mistakes from his experiments.

Walt Disney failed as a cartoonist early in his career

Abraham Lincoln failed an enormous amounts of times

Michael Jordan missed the game winning shot 26 times

There are plenty of self made millionaires who have failed or went bankrupt.

Just remember when you fail, you are in the same process that all these geniuses have utilized.  Visit my article on how to fail your way to success for some more insights.

Questions

What are the things you’ve been stuck in black and white mode and what experiments are you going to run to change it?

For Finance

For Relationships & Romance

For Physical Health

Build Faith and Weather Out the Storms

Step 23 – Landing Your Plane On The Great Wall

How to bypass the obstacles and storms in your life.

Plan to generate faith: Envision but also FEEL yourself making it THROUGH the obstacle. You have to believe that you’ll make it through and survive.

You can apply this faith to life in general, to

Face it, eventually you’re going to have a life altering obstacle come into your life. Anticipate things to happen.  Expect to get problems. Put things in perspective.  What I like to do is imagine certain things happening in my life and placing myself in hypothetical situations.  This gears your mind into preparing for the worst.

When you hit an obstacle in life, you’ll have to innovate a solution to make it around the obstacle. Learn to love to figure out how to get around the obstacles.

To be able to innovate you’ll have to read a lot and experience different things.

  Start embracing the obstacles, make it yours, and make it beautiful.

Questions:

Do you have a plan that can support and generate faith?

Scale from 1-10, what’s your ability to generate faith?

What have you lost perspective on?

What books are you going to be reading today to give you better perspective.

The Funeral Test & Determining Your End Game

Step 24 – Gandhi’s Funeral, Stephen Covey’s Wars, & Flurries Of Activity

This step is about putting your life in perspective to know whether or not you’re on the right path.

Funeral Test

This is a reverse engineering exercise. Imagine your own funeral, how many people are there? How many lives have you affected for good?  What do you want these people to say at your funeral?  What type of person were you? What did you accomplish? Were you a good friend or good business partner?  Do you want you’re funeral to look like someone’s like Gandhi?

What’s the end goal in mind – Steven Covey.  You need to think of your main purpose, your war, not the tiny battles in between.  If you forget the reason why you’re fighting and can’t see you’re end goal in mind then you will lose your drive and motivation. Stick with things that win wars.

Most times we get lost in the details and minutia in life, forgetting the overall end goal. Society has taught us to perform busy work – a flurry of activities. Don’t perform pointless forms of activities.  These are the people who say they are too busy, give excuses that they are so busy, and are always running around with their heads cut off.

There’s a cool song by Jason Mraz called “Details in the Fabric” that talks about people who get lost and overwhelmed in life with all these details that we really should be paying attention to.

“The biggest tragedy in life, is being good at the wrong thing.” – Joel Salatin

Run everything through this mindset.  There are four wars in your life. Health, Wealth, Love, and Fulfillment (happiness).  It’s ok to not be happy all the time, but you can be fulfilled.  It’s normal to be depressed.  It serves a purpose.  Depression  is a feedback loop that is telling you need to change something (not talking about people who’s brain’s are wired to be depressed).

You have to step back and see the bigger picture of your life and how you fit in to things and how you want to fit into things.

Questions

Who is the epitome of how you want your funeral to look like (effect you want on people)

Do you have a clear end game?

What does your war look like?

What area have you been just creating excuses and busy work or what tai says “flurry of activities”?

Remember that Nature Laughs Last

Step 25 – The natural cycles that dictate your life

This step/ lesson is all about realizing that there is something way bigger outside of you.  There will always be outside forces and not everything is about you. However, a lot of people are stuck inside an egocentric mindset where they forget about outside forces much larger than themselves like nature. Snap yourself out of the ego centric mindset.

Progress is the ability to increase our control of our environment.

Be Patient, things take time. Allow yourself to have time. You can’t rush nature or physics. A lot of people become frustrated because their business isn’t performing as well, or they aren’t seeing results right away from a new diet they are trying out.

We need to lower our expectations in understanding that some things take more time than others.

We always think the grass is greener on the other side or that the other guy has it so figured out.

Be aware of the forces of nature and that there are different seasons of your life. There are dark times, happy times, challenging times.  Sometimes you have to let the season run its course.

Questions:

What have been some of the seasons of your life? Spring, summer, fall, winter?

What did you do wrong and right in those seasons?

What Season are you in now?

Minimize Mistakes by Building Backup Systems

This is one of my favorite sections because I’m an engineer ( yes I’m a nerd) and we have to think of all the things that can go wrong when designing anything.  Our design has to prepare for those moments if the system fails.

This planning can be applied to all aspects of our lives.  There is an EXCELLENT quote.

“Do what is difficult when it is easy.” – Lao Tsu

Tai’s mentor, Joel Salatin, used a belt AND suspenders to keep his pants on while working on the farm and Tai uses this belt and suspenders analogy to advocate the importance of backup systems in our lives and that they are there so we don’t have to spend twice the amount of time fixing things and being “retroactive”.

I get the analogy, but it doesn’t make much sense to me because I’ve never seen a belt break before.  I could see how suspenders could break, but there’s no need to wear both.  I’m not from a farm, so maybe they’re extra rough on their belts.  I don’t know.

Here are some examples of Backup Systems or secondary systems in life:

Parachutes:  Parachutes come packaged with an emergency backup chute

Cars: Most of all new cars have air bags as a secondary

Hospital Backup Generators

Relief Valves on Oil and Process Plants:

Secondary Motors

Emergency Elevator Break

Emergency Break

Spare Tires

So you can see from the above list that usually anything important has a secondary backup system. This makes complete sense. Now, most of us don’t integrate backup systems in our own lives. Why aren’t we doing this?  We either say that we’re too busy or don’t have enough money.  Well, sorry to say it’s more expensive in time and money to be retroactive than proactive in building backup systems.  Now FYI, a backup system in your life could be anything, a plan, a person, money, that extra tampon that you put in your purse (if you’re a woman).

“FAILING TO PLAN IS PLANNING TO FAIL”

What is the point of a backup system? Think of it as an insurance policy, the system is there to catch you when you fall.  It saves time and money.  Not only does it save you time and money, but most important of all it also adds a confidence to your life & lowers stress. You really don’t need  to worry about things failing and you can focus on the more important things in life like your family and friends and personal endeavors. For example, I have a lot of websites and they weren’t being backed up regularly. This was a huge stress for me, because in the back of my head I always asked, “What if my websites get hacked, or is somehow fails due to automatic updates?”.  This happens to a lot to most websites. I decided to get automatic backups on all my sites and once I did, I felt a HUGE weight lifted off of my shoulders.  Now IMAGINE all those other worries and stresses in your life that you have that can be taken care of with a backup system or a backup plan?

Now of course, there’s a balance to building backup systems in your life.  The art of it, is knowing what’s important to safe guard.  You don’t want to waste time building extensive backup plans in case your toothbrush goes missing.

Here are some of my backup systems that I have integrated in my life:

A Savings Account: For surprises along the way  such as medical expenses, job layoff, etc

Emergency Road Kit: I recently purchased a little emergency road kit that is placed in the back in my trunk

Backups for Websites:

How to Minimize Mistakes and Failure

1. Build Redundancy in everything. Expect things to go wrong. 

2. Preplan & Anticipate Possible Scenarios

Anticipate what could happen.  You can anticipate about anything for example a road trip.  You could get a flat, do you have a spare and jack?

BEST CASE SCENARIO

WORST CASE SCENARIO

MOST LIKELY SCENARIO

3. Minimize Mistakes by using 6-sigma

Is a quality control to eliminate defects that drives towards “six standard deviations between the average and neatest spec limit.

Levels of 6 sigma

Level 1 – 691,000 mistakes out of 1,000,000

Level 2 – 300,000 mistakes out of 1,000,000

Level 3 – 66,000 mistakes out of 1,000,000

Level 4 – 6,000 mistakes out of 1,000,000 (3.4%)

4. Planning and Executing

Have an Idea

Make a Plan – (harder)

Execute the Plan

5. Simulate more

The philosophers Seneca once said to “Make philosphers and historians your friend”.  As Tai puts it, ” Make war with a multitude of counselors.”  Richard Dawkins “Selfish Genes” has said that one of the reasons that humans have large brains is that

Questions

What level of sigma are you?

I feel like don’t make many mistakes, because I’m very cautious about everything that I do.  In turn I feel like there is a price for this I pay because I’m always thinking twice before I do something.  I feel like this wastes time, however, when I think about it, I’ve done pretty well and the times when I rush something or don’t think about it, I make more mistakes and work for myself.  So I feel like this has paid off.

What’s the reason why you’re at this level?

Which of the Tools do you need to work on?

I need to work on the execution of the planning stage.  I think too much about things sometimes where I don’t finish executing the plan.  I feel that I’m afraid that I’m going to miss something if I don’t research it to death.

Where do you want to be? and what’s the most likely?

Well, I want to be married, a couple of kids, a successful business online that brings in close to $100k while still working as a mechanical engineer.  I’d focus on whatever is most scalable.

5. What’s a practical thing you can do?

Well, I just installed an automatic backup system for my websites, so now I don’t have to worry about websites failing and work being lost.

Create a Support Group and Become Allies

Step 27 – The Frontman & The Two Ways To Pick Your Trench Mate

You are personally and professionally going to go through a lot of battles in life.  To make it through these battles, you need to surround yourself with allies.  You can’t do it by yourself. You can’t run a business by yourself, you can’t go through life by yourself.  Anything great that was ever built, took a team.

When building your allies and coalitions, you need to look for:

Integrity: It’s important to have people who are honest and will do the right things. You want good people along your side.

Loyalty: You want people who are loyal, who will fight for you and help you out when you need it.

Complimentary: Look for people who compliment you because no one is well rounded, but there are well rounded teams.  If you’re an introvert, then look for friends who are extroverts that will draw you out of your shell.

References: This is an indirect approach – Testimonials and References – Charles Munger – Forget the job interview. because you might just be hiring people who are good at interviews.

Questions:

Where have you failed in choosing your allies?

Business:

Friends

Romantic

Do What is Difficult When it’s Easy

Step 28 – Lao-Tzu’s and John Wooden’s Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day

Don’t let things build up in your mind. Do things before the become urgent.

It’s easier to save money when you have the most money

It’s easier to get into shape when you haven’t let yourself completely go

You can’t request insurance for a sickness when you’re already sick

Procrastination

“Do what is difficult when it’s easy” – Lao Tsu

Learn to jump into things.  People procrastinate because they are avoiding the pain of doing the activity.  There is usually a false understanding of how much pain it the activity actually is.  You need to build a habit of just jumping into things.  Not everything needs to be thought out and double checked.

  The Amish have a saying – When you don’t know what to do, and you have something hard to do, just jump in to take action and you’re half way there.

I think that this quote is a good one however, you’ll need to use you’re judgement.  You’re not going to just jump into something dangerous that you don’t know about.

Questions:

What’s something that you’ve procrastinated on?

What’s a bad habit you have with procrastination?

What can you do today to help your procrastination?

Fight Entropy

Step 29 – Stephen Hawking, Entropy, & Remembering The Future

This lesson is about fighting against entropy and learning not to waste your time.

Heed the words of Seneca!

On the Shortness of Life by the Philosopher Seneca- Life is long if you know how to use it.

It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested. But when it is wasted in heedless luxury and spent on no good activity, we are forced at last by death’s final constraint to realize that it has passed away before we knew it was passing. So it is: we are not given a short life but we make it short, and we are not ill-supplied but wasteful of it… Life is long if you know how to use it.

Source: Brain Pickings

People are frugal in guarding their personal property; but as soon as it comes to squandering time they are most wasteful of the one thing in which it is right to be stingy.

-Source: Brain Pickings

We are wasteful of time by using it on luxury things like playing too many video games, watching too many movies, or being busy just for the sake of being too busy.

IF we expect endless time, then we will frivolously spend time.  So remember, that if you have a lot of free time, you need to protect it by setting up time limits for yourself.  Right now, I’m writing this LONG article that will most likely be well over 20,000 words and there have been a lot of times where I’m researching things when I don’t need to be researching them.  I’m just wasting time from what I want to accomplish – this INSANELY long article!

The most important thing is not money, it’s time.

What is Entropy?

Entropy is a state of disorder or degradation. In a simple metaphor: When you clean and organize your room, you are fighting entropy.  Entropy is wanting to make your room disorganized and messy.

IF YOU DON’T PUT ENERGY INTO THINGS, THEY WILL DECAY.  This goes for everything in life, your relationships, finances, health.

Sometimes, you have to get away from the fray.  You have to step away from the rat race.  You have to inject knowledge into yourself.   If you don’t do this, you’re overall health will decay.

Mike Tyson made 200-400 million dollars over his career.  He’s now down to 15 k. He is an example of entropy. His finances are degrading.

Below is a 70 year old body builder on YouTube.  I have to admit, after seeing this guy, I don’t have any excuses hitting my lifting goals.

You’ll never be able to conquer entropy, because nature will always laugh last

To get motivation to fight entropy, you need to remember the future. always make it a habit by looking into the future and seeing yourself and talking to yourself in what you should be doing today.

What do you invest in? You double down on yourself, by investing in yourself.

WHY do we spend all our time benefiting other people, working for their end goals, mindlessly floating down the river of life or racing all the other rats.

You can travel through time

Seneca said that when you take an interest in knowledge and psychology, you’ll begin to learn how to transcend time.

Quote: “we can choose whose children we want to be. You won’t just inherit their name, but their property.”

The enemy of Greatness is expectancy.  Planning for things that aren’t guaranteed.

“today is the youngest you’ll ever be.”

You will be losing out on the hopes and dreams you had… because you didn’t know how to use your time, you wasted it when you should have been investing it elsewhere.

Questions

How have you been squandering your time?

Who have you been procrastinating to learn from? Managing oneself

What are you going to do to slow down time?

  I’ve taken a break on my long summaries for now and stopped at 29.

If you found these summaries helpful and insightful, you should share them with a friend!  It also helps this website and encourages me to write more.

Final thoughts on the 67 Steps and my Tai Lopez Review

The summaries are great, However, if you want in depth and detailed examples and explanations from Tai and you can afford the $67, then I highly recommend his course.  When he explains it in video format, he hammers home the ideas into your head, a little redundant sometimes, but he’s extremely clear.  And if you won’t like it, you can always get a refund.

THE 67 STEPS

  The post The 67 Steps – SUMMARIES OF STEPS and FULL Tai Lopez Review appeared first on Flex Your Brain.

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New from Jeff York on The Establishing Shot: JEFF YORK’S PICKS FOR THE 10 BEST FILMS OF 2019

Original caricature by Jeff York of the cast of PARASITE (copyright 2019)

The latter half of this year was so chock full of excellent films, I knew I’d have a difficult time narrowing my best of the year to a mere ten choices. Among the movies I loved that just missed the top were FORD V. FERRARI, THE TWO POPES, GWEN, DOLEMITE IS MY NAME, THE FURNACE, OPHELIA, TOY STORY 4, HAIL SATAN, THE REPORT, and LITTLE WOMEN. If I did a top 20, they’d be on it.

So, what did make my top 10? Here are my picks for the best films this year:

1.) PARASITE Directed by Bong Joon Ho Written by Bong Joon Ho and Jin Won Han It’s great to see this Korean movie getting all the accolades it’s racking up. Rare is a foreign film that gets so much buzz. PARASITE is practically a shoo-in for Best Foreign Film and might just give plenty of American films this year a run for their money as Best Picture at the Oscars. (I’m talking to you, Quentin and Marty!) Bong’s masterpiece works best if you know little going into the cineplex to see it. I’ll simply say that the plot concerns a Korean family of four conning their way into working for a rich family of four and the film’s title comes from how both groups feed off the hospitality of each other. This dark comedy skewers caste systems and economic injustice, yet remains a fiendishly witty entertainment with some of the best camerawork, production design, and ensemble acting of the last decade. I’ve seen it three times and want to see it again. It’s that incredible.

2.) PAIN AND GLORY Written and directed by Pedro Almodovar Pedro Almodovar has been making classic films about the human condition for over four decades, and PAIN AND GLORY represents all that has gone before while hinting at a mellower filmmaker looking to the future. Almodovar has always been emotional and big, with colorful sets, twisty plots, and outrageous characters. Much of that is still here, but it’s a mellower work. The aging movie director at the center of the story (Antonio Banderas, never better), representing Almodovar undoubtedly, feels less anger about the past and more hope for the future. It’s a moving meditation on aging, one that made me tear up in sadness, but also in joy.

3.) BOOKSMART Directed by Olivia Wilde Written by Emily Halperin, Sarah Haskins, Susanna Fogel, and Katie Silberman For me, the biggest surprise of the year was BOOKSMART, an incredible coming-of-age film that eschews several teen movie clichés in favor of smarter truths and more genuine laughs. Molly (Beanie Feldstein) and Amy (Kaitlyn Dever) are two seniors about to graduate who’ve been responsible, stay-in-their-lane types the whole time. On graduation eve, they decide to act out of character and attend a raucous party. Of course, craziness follows them throughout the evening, but while the set-pieces are hilarious, it’s the bonding between the girls that sticks with you. And how nice to see a teen comedy where the female leads didn’t need boyfriends or get punished severely for their mishaps. They’re too smart to let that happen, and so is this movie.

4.) MARRIAGE STORY Written and directed by Noah Baumbach If anything, Baumbach’s stunning character study should’ve been entitled DIVORCE STORY. That’s the crux of the film as two good people find that they’re no longer good together and must start anew. Charlie (Adam Driver, incredible) and Nicole (Scarlett Johansson, almost as good) are an experimental theater director and his star. How fitting that the arcs that each will go through in this drama will require constant improvisation. The New Yorker Charlie, used to being in control, must learn to let others run the show. Nicole relishes being out from under her ex, but he’ll always be in her life nonetheless as the father of her son. Even with vicious divorce lawyers doing their best to make things ugly, the film manages to stay positive, finding sympathy for both parties and hoping they each find a better path.

5.) KNIVES OUT Written and directed by Rian Johnson Rian Johnson is a filmmaker who likes to usurp genre and formula. He set his detective noir BRICK in a high school and twisted the STAR WARS formula into the unpredictable THE LAST JEDI. In KNIVES OUT, Johnson riffs on Agatha Christie’s style of drawing-room whodunnits, all-star casts, and an eccentric detective solving the puzzle. It’s a clever mystery, but also a hilarious satire of one. Daniel Craig was loose as a goose playing southerner PI Benoit Blanc while big names played the vicious offspring of their rich, dead patriarch (Christopher Plummer, unmatched in playing salty, yet sophisticated seniors.) It’s no small feat making a movie like this work and Johnson’s crowd-pleaser may have just been the most satisfying studio film of the year.

6.) PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE French filmmaker Celine Sciamma’s love story is as much about art as it is about a painter and subject becoming lovers. Marianne (Noemi Merlant) is tasked with painting the mercurial Heloise (Adele Haenel) for her wedding portrait in an arranged marriage. Their wariness of each other turns into bonding over art, free-thinking, and zigging when the world would have you zag. It also portrays the difficulty of truly seeing what’s standing in front of you, whether it’s a subject to paint or a person to understand. Sciammna takes her time, letting the pot slowly boil, but when it does, look out! She also does amazingly clever things with the camera, escalating its movement as the women become more and more passionate together.

7.) 1917 Directed by Sam Mendes Written by Sam Mendes and Krysty Wilson-Cairns War films are inherently dramatic with the stakes being life and death. This film dials up that trope by having two men tasked with having to save thousands. British forces during WWI get intel that warns them of a regimen about to walk into a German trap. Two young lance corporals (George MacKay and Dean-Charles Chapman) are given the horrible task of running on foot across enemy lines to get the new orders to the 1600 troops. The race begins, with the camera accompanying them every step of the journey, shot to be perceived as one, uninterrupted shot. (All the more to make it seem scarily real, natch.) It’s a nail-biter, to say the least, as we are right next to them through bushes, streams and cannon fire. War is hell, sure, as this film proves, but it can also make for one incredibly exhilarating and unique experience in the cinema.

8.) THE FAREWELL Written and directed by Lulu Wang In a year of so many superb films put forth by female directors, Wang’s autobiographical one is a clear standout. In her story, a Chinese-American family learns their grandmother only has a short time left to live. They decide not to tell her the bad news. Instead, they concoct a fake family wedding to gather everyone together for one big celebration – – before she dies. What could go wrong? Their well-intentioned scheme generates daft shenanigans, some of the funniest farce on film this year. As the family can barely keep track of their lies, and blunder through awful toasts at the wedding, Grandmother starts to put two and two together. Few films can juxtapose laughs against tears so successfully, but Wang’s did, and her triumph ended up being the feel-good film of 2019.

9.) I LOST MY BODY Directed by Jeremy Clapin Written by Jeremy Clapin and Guillaume Laurant How’s this for a weird animated movie pitch? A disembodied hand searches for its former owner, and in turn, discovers the complicated and tragic life of the man it was attached to. Indeed, that’s the premise of this adult-themed gem from French filmmaker Clapin. The stark illustration style, the haunting music, the expressive voices of Dev Patel and Ala Shawkat for the American translation – it all made for an eerie ride through a TWILIGHT ZONE-ish tale of painful memories. Available right now on Netflix, it’s absurdist, violent, scary, romantic, and never less than mesmerizing.

10.) AD ASTRA What is it with space exploration and family issues? GRAVITY and INTERSTELLAR both had astronaut protagonists tortured by losing family members. So does AD ASTRA as its astronaut (Brad Pitt) is sent out to retrieve a renegade father (Tommy Lee Jones) gone AWOL on the outskirts of the galaxy. As he journeys, Pitt’s military man discovers a great deal about the dad he never knew and gains insights into his own failures back on Earth. Most surprisingly, he learns how readily duty can get compromised by politics and corruption, even NASA. It’s a haunting tale, writ large on the big screen where the scale was ginormous, as were the regrets of the main character.

If you want to read the original reviews of my selections, just look for them here in the archives of The Establishing Shot, or at Creative Screenwriting magazine online where I’m the film critic.

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Scratching The Map One Place At A Time: My Travel Map

Did you know?

An average Britisher has visited seven countries outside of the UK in his or her life.

And 86% of Indian households never take a trip.

And by that standard, I am considered a globetrotter in my circle and by my readers. However, when I started putting down my travel stories in Tripadvisor and rating places I was visiting, I realized that I had travelled only 10% of the world.

Like any typical Indian tourist, my travel journey started by covering Asia first and only then did I think of going beyond.

Somewhere in between my thirst for travel grew larger, the exposure became better and I became a traveller who looked beyond destination travelling, marking selfies at tourist spots and started digging for experiences.

In this post, I have jotted down bits of my travel journey. These are the places where I have created many memories which I am going to cherish for life. Two things I would like to reiterate here is; always be on guard if travelling solo, research and pick up safe places for women and always buy overseas travel insurance. You never know when you might need it. Travel to explore and if these things are sorted most stress is left behind.

  NEPAL

I travelled to Nepal last year to trek to the Everest Base Camp which had been on my bucket list forever. I trekked for fourteen days and most of my beautiful memories are of the stunning landscapes of Labouche and Gorakshep (small settlements that you cross on the trip) and, of course, of the sister mountains Everest, Nuptse, and Lhotse. I did a little bit of sightseeing in Kathmandu also but, unsurprisingly, the trek was the more stunning part of my trip. You can read here to know all about the trek and my experience.

  JAPAN

Japan is one of the best places I have ever visited and is closest to my heart. Some of the experiences which one can have in Japan are soaking in the healing waters at an Onsen, learn about their Japanese culture during the tea ceremony dressed in a Kimono, fill your taste buds by having matcha flavoured ice creams, cakes, noodles and so much more. You can try the Ramen bowls there and visit their maid cafes! Who says Japan can be expensive? Live at the pod hotels, also known as capsule hotels, to handle your budget. How can we forget Mt. Fuji, it is just too beautiful! Just make sure you plan your trip to Japan during the Cherry Blossom Season. There are many other places to visit when in Japan, so ensure you plan well and make your trip a memorable one because Japan is beautiful!

  CAPE TOWN

                                                   At the southernmost tip of the continent

Capetown is a place full of scenic beauty, beautiful atmosphere and good people. When at Capetown you can look for sightseeing at the following places among others: Aquila Safari, The Table mountain, Cape of Good Hope, Robben Island, and Stellenbosch. You can also take a visit to the Simonstown and greet the Penguins and the Seals there. You can also opt for some water sports activities so as to get closer to them (Keynote: Penguins are cute from far and dangerous from nearby).  It’s a beautiful place to explore with the sea, mountain, wineries and city life all enrolled in one.  This place will leave you content with a bunch of memories.

EUROPE

Paris: Ever since I was a little girl, I always wanted to visit the fashion capital of the world. When I did get to Paris last year with my family, Paris turned out to be way more than the stories of romance, Eiffel tower, and fashion make it. It is a modern city that has history embedded in every corner and, trust me, it’s nothing short of a paradise!

                                                            This one needs no Introduction

  Amsterdam: Can be rated as one of the friendliest cities in Europe. There is a certain vibe in the city that is very infectious. Visiting Anne Frank’s house in the city, and just walking around the city square was one of my favourite experiences. I found the Red light area walking tour also very interesting. The kids enjoyed Ripley’s Believe It or Not A Museum, Keukenhoff, Microbes museum and evening cruise in the canal soaking in the Amsterdam lights and views.

                                 The Famous Amsterdam Redlight Area

  Berlin: I was very impressed with the city and the food. Berlin is one of the most reasonably priced cities in Europe. Unlike what I had heard, the Germans were friendly and helpful folks. You walk through history while walking past any street in Berlin and the pages turn back. You go through the city experiencing the reign and terror of Hitler. It’s odd seeing his Chancellory quarters and his bunker site, which is not even marked as Germans want to forget him. There are memorials of millions who died because of him all over the city. Jewish Synagogue, the post office, memorials, Holocaust all give you goosebumps. You can also enter a real bunker which was built to be used in case of a nuclear attack and still stands intact, unused.

                               At the Hello Charlie point

  SINGAPORE

Singapore makes for a perfect family getaway. Places to visit when in Singapore include the Singapore Zoo, Sentosa Island, Universal Studios, Gardens by the bay and many more. This city is a complete package deal as it is close to India, has adventurous spots along with a buzzing city life!

                                                                                The Universal Studios, Singapore

  HONG KONG

The city of seven lakes surrounded by picturesque mountains, Hong Kong is also a bustling cosmopolitan. Laden with many theme parks and Disneyland, it makes for a perfect family outing. You can take the Historical tram to the top from where you can glance at the whole Hong Kong. Then there is Macau, which is known for gaming and its casinos, but there are some other things as well which you can opt for at Macau like House of Dancing waters, Dream works experience, Macau Towers and so much more.

Disneyland at HongKong

  MALAYSIA

When in Malaysia, the places you can visit there are Langkawi, Genting Highlands, Batu Caves, Legolands etc! Malaysia is all about beautiful beaches, water sports, and scenic beauty so just go there and relax!

                                                                         The Berjaya Resort, Langkawi

MAURITIUS

It is an island full of tropical plants and beautiful beaches. I also celebrated my last birthday there. If you love beaches and water sports, then this place is absolutely perfect for you.

Enjoying the water sports at Mauritius

  ICELAND

I have always been a beach person but after visiting Iceland I have turned into a mountain person as well. When in Iceland, you can opt for trekking the way I did, or else you can go for exploring this beautiful place through the amazing experiences like getting into a glacier, Whale watching, watch Natural Geysers, Experience Geothermal spa, visit the Black Sand Beach etc. Do visit Iceland once in your life, it is worth it!

Trekking in Iceland

LAS VEGAS AND GRAND CANYON

A paradise for all the ones who love clubbing, drinking and gambling at the casinos. But No, that’s not the only thing Vegas is meant for. You should also visit the Grand Canyon, The ‘O’ Show, one can book any speed cars and Limo’s if you wish to. You could get this within 100$!  There are many other spots to visit when in Vegas, wishing to go back there soon someday so as to take those places off my bucket list!

                                                                              Grand Canyon Trip from Las Vegas

SAN FRANCISO

I visited SF in 2016 and I can’t get the sight of the Golden Gate Bridge out of my memories. While it’s red and not Golden, it is magnanimous and just stunning. Most people with families choose to stay in the suburbs due to the affordability of larger housing. I loved shopping in SF as it’s full of deals and since this was my first visit to the US, I had no idea that the stuff  you can buy in the US is cheaper than any part of the world that I have been too. Especially loved the outlet malls for branded clothing, bags and sunglasses.

                                                                  In a tram near the Golden Gate Bridge

  NEW YORK

New York feels like my home city as it is just like Mumbai! Well, this was a very short trip but I almost covered all the places which were on my list: the Brooklyn Bridge, the Empire State building, the Central Park, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the Statue of liberty and the Times Square. I hope to go back someday and spend some more time there.

                                                                                      The Times Square

  DUBAI and ABU DHABI:

The sand dunes and tall buildings with the luxurious lifestyle are the best parts of Dubai. It has some really good spots to visit like The Palms and the Jumeirah road where you can find five to seven-star hotels and the best collection of cars. Then there is the Dubai Mall, Emirates Mall, Gold Souk, breathtaking monuments like Burj Khalifa, Skyscrapers, and even beaches. The desert safari that you experience in Dubai made even my parents jump in their seats in excitement!

Abu Dhabi is a place which will give you a breathtaking as well as a soothing experience. Soothing because of the Sheikh Zayed Mosque, a visit there will let you attain serenity and its architecture will win your heart! The Ferrari World at Abu Dhabi is one of the best-themed parks in the world which will make your hearts go Vroom! There are many other spots to visit when at Abu Dhabi so do visit and make your trip a fabulous one! I personally found a lot more character in Abu Dhabi than Dubai.

                           Dubai Mall

THAILAND – BANGKOK

We visited Bangkok when my younger one was just 1.5 years old and Bangkok is like any other Indian city in its looks, the shopping is amazing. Their food is definitely something I look for wherever I travel. Even though we had such a small kid with us, we never felt tired or drained out because the people there just love kids. They offer to play with them while you get a massage or even babysit them while you are having food at a restaurant. So yes, found the city very kid friendly.

THERE IS ANOTHER PAGE WITH MORE OF MY TRAVEL STORIES. YOU DIDN’T THINK I TRAVELLED ONLY HERE DID YOU? CLICK ON THE ARROW TO READ MORE!!

The post Scratching The Map One Place At A Time: My Travel Map appeared first on Maa of All Blogs.

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[evodex]

Scratching The Map One Place At A Time: My Travel Map

Did you know?

An average Britisher has visited seven countries outside of the UK in his or her life.

And 86% of Indian households never take a trip.

And by that standard, I am considered a globetrotter in my circle and by my readers. However, when I started putting down my travel stories in Tripadvisor and rating places I was visiting, I realized that I had travelled only 10% of the world.

Like any typical Indian tourist, my travel journey started by covering Asia first and only then did I think of going beyond.

Somewhere in between my thirst for travel grew larger, the exposure became better and I became a traveller who looked beyond destination travelling, marking selfies at tourist spots and started digging for experiences.

In this post, I have jotted down bits of my travel journey. These are the places where I have created many memories which I am going to cherish for life. Two things I would like to reiterate here is; always be on guard if travelling solo, research and pick up safe places for women and always buy overseas travel insurance. You never know when you might need it. Travel to explore and if these things are sorted most stress is left behind.

  NEPAL

I travelled to Nepal last year to trek to the Everest Base Camp which had been on my bucket list forever. I trekked for fourteen days and most of my beautiful memories are of the stunning landscapes of Labouche and Gorakshep (small settlements that you cross on the trip) and, of course, of the sister mountains Everest, Nuptse, and Lhotse. I did a little bit of sightseeing in Kathmandu also but, unsurprisingly, the trek was the more stunning part of my trip. You can read here to know all about the trek and my experience.

  JAPAN

Japan is one of the best places I have ever visited and is closest to my heart. Some of the experiences which one can have in Japan are soaking in the healing waters at an Onsen, learn about their Japanese culture during the tea ceremony dressed in a Kimono, fill your taste buds by having matcha flavoured ice creams, cakes, noodles and so much more. You can try the Ramen bowls there and visit their maid cafes! Who says Japan can be expensive? Live at the pod hotels, also known as capsule hotels, to handle your budget. How can we forget Mt. Fuji, it is just too beautiful! Just make sure you plan your trip to Japan during the Cherry Blossom Season. There are many other places to visit when in Japan, so ensure you plan well and make your trip a memorable one because Japan is beautiful!

  CAPE TOWN

                                                   At the southernmost tip of the continent

Capetown is a place full of scenic beauty, beautiful atmosphere and good people. When at Capetown you can look for sightseeing at the following places among others: Aquila Safari, The Table mountain, Cape of Good Hope, Robben Island, and Stellenbosch. You can also take a visit to the Simonstown and greet the Penguins and the Seals there. You can also opt for some water sports activities so as to get closer to them (Keynote: Penguins are cute from far and dangerous from nearby).  It’s a beautiful place to explore with the sea, mountain, wineries and city life all enrolled in one.  This place will leave you content with a bunch of memories.

EUROPE

Paris: Ever since I was a little girl, I always wanted to visit the fashion capital of the world. When I did get to Paris last year with my family, Paris turned out to be way more than the stories of romance, Eiffel tower, and fashion make it. It is a modern city that has history embedded in every corner and, trust me, it’s nothing short of a paradise!

                                                            This one needs no Introduction

  Amsterdam: Can be rated as one of the friendliest cities in Europe. There is a certain vibe in the city that is very infectious. Visiting Anne Frank’s house in the city, and just walking around the city square was one of my favourite experiences. I found the Red light area walking tour also very interesting. The kids enjoyed Ripley’s Believe It or Not A Museum, Keukenhoff, Microbes museum and evening cruise in the canal soaking in the Amsterdam lights and views.

                                 The Famous Amsterdam Redlight Area

  Berlin: I was very impressed with the city and the food. Berlin is one of the most reasonably priced cities in Europe. Unlike what I had heard, the Germans were friendly and helpful folks. You walk through history while walking past any street in Berlin and the pages turn back. You go through the city experiencing the reign and terror of Hitler. It’s odd seeing his Chancellory quarters and his bunker site, which is not even marked as Germans want to forget him. There are memorials of millions who died because of him all over the city. Jewish Synagogue, the post office, memorials, Holocaust all give you goosebumps. You can also enter a real bunker which was built to be used in case of a nuclear attack and still stands intact, unused.

                               At the Hello Charlie point

  SINGAPORE

Singapore makes for a perfect family getaway. Places to visit when in Singapore include the Singapore Zoo, Sentosa Island, Universal Studios, Gardens by the bay and many more. This city is a complete package deal as it is close to India, has adventurous spots along with a buzzing city life!

                                                                                The Universal Studios, Singapore

  HONG KONG

The city of seven lakes surrounded by picturesque mountains, Hong Kong is also a bustling cosmopolitan. Laden with many theme parks and Disneyland, it makes for a perfect family outing. You can take the Historical tram to the top from where you can glance at the whole Hong Kong. Then there is Macau, which is known for gaming and its casinos, but there are some other things as well which you can opt for at Macau like House of Dancing waters, Dream works experience, Macau Towers and so much more.

Disneyland at HongKong

  MALAYSIA

When in Malaysia, the places you can visit there are Langkawi, Genting Highlands, Batu Caves, Legolands etc! Malaysia is all about beautiful beaches, water sports, and scenic beauty so just go there and relax!

                                                                         The Berjaya Resort, Langkawi

MAURITIUS

It is an island full of tropical plants and beautiful beaches. I also celebrated my last birthday there. If you love beaches and water sports, then this place is absolutely perfect for you.

Enjoying the water sports at Mauritius

  ICELAND

I have always been a beach person but after visiting Iceland I have turned into a mountain person as well. When in Iceland, you can opt for trekking the way I did, or else you can go for exploring this beautiful place through the amazing experiences like getting into a glacier, Whale watching, watch Natural Geysers, Experience Geothermal spa, visit the Black Sand Beach etc. Do visit Iceland once in your life, it is worth it!

Trekking in Iceland

LAS VEGAS AND GRAND CANYON

A paradise for all the ones who love clubbing, drinking and gambling at the casinos. But No, that’s not the only thing Vegas is meant for. You should also visit the Grand Canyon, The ‘O’ Show, one can book any speed cars and Limo’s if you wish to. You could get this within 100$!  There are many other spots to visit when in Vegas, wishing to go back there soon someday so as to take those places off my bucket list!

                                                                              Grand Canyon Trip from Las Vegas

SAN FRANCISO

I visited SF in 2016 and I can’t get the sight of the Golden Gate Bridge out of my memories. While it’s red and not Golden, it is magnanimous and just stunning. Most people with families choose to stay in the suburbs due to the affordability of larger housing. I loved shopping in SF as it’s full of deals and since this was my first visit to the US, I had no idea that the stuff  you can buy in the US is cheaper than any part of the world that I have been too. Especially loved the outlet malls for branded clothing, bags and sunglasses.

                                                                  In a tram near the Golden Gate Bridge

  NEW YORK

New York feels like my home city as it is just like Mumbai! Well, this was a very short trip but I almost covered all the places which were on my list: the Brooklyn Bridge, the Empire State building, the Central Park, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the Statue of liberty and the Times Square. I hope to go back someday and spend some more time there.

                                                                                      The Times Square

  DUBAI and ABU DHABI:

The sand dunes and tall buildings with the luxurious lifestyle are the best parts of Dubai. It has some really good spots to visit like The Palms and the Jumeirah road where you can find five to seven-star hotels and the best collection of cars. Then there is the Dubai Mall, Emirates Mall, Gold Souk, breathtaking monuments like Burj Khalifa, Skyscrapers, and even beaches. The desert safari that you experience in Dubai made even my parents jump in their seats in excitement!

Abu Dhabi is a place which will give you a breathtaking as well as a soothing experience. Soothing because of the Sheikh Zayed Mosque, a visit there will let you attain serenity and its architecture will win your heart! The Ferrari World at Abu Dhabi is one of the best-themed parks in the world which will make your hearts go Vroom! There are many other spots to visit when at Abu Dhabi so do visit and make your trip a fabulous one! I personally found a lot more character in Abu Dhabi than Dubai.

                           Dubai Mall

THAILAND – BANGKOK

We visited Bangkok when my younger one was just 1.5 years old and Bangkok is like any other Indian city in its looks, the shopping is amazing. Their food is definitely something I look for wherever I travel. Even though we had such a small kid with us, we never felt tired or drained out because the people there just love kids. They offer to play with them while you get a massage or even babysit them while you are having food at a restaurant. So yes, found the city very kid friendly.

THERE IS ANOTHER PAGE WITH MORE OF MY TRAVEL STORIES. YOU DIDN’T THINK I TRAVELLED ONLY HERE DID YOU? CLICK ON THE ARROW TO READ MORE!!

The post Scratching The Map One Place At A Time: My Travel Map appeared first on Maa of All Blogs.

Scratching The Map One Place At A Time: My Travel Map published first on https://bestbabyinc.tumblr.com

[sunshineweb]

Safal Niveshak’s 2017 Annual Letter to Tribe Members

Dear Tribe Member,

Trust 2017 treated you well. It certainly was great for Safal Niveshak.

Here is a brief update on what transpired during the year. The tribe crossed 40,000 members (readers of our free newsletter, Safal Niveshak Post). We conducted nine value investing workshops during the year, meeting 430+ tribe members in the process.

The Mastermind Value Investing Course student count increased by 25%. Our premium newsletter – Value Investing Almanack – which is about to complete three years, gained 20% new members. It continues to receive inspiring reviews from its subscribers.

We also relaunched our free online value investing course – Value Investing Masterclass – in a new avatar. It now consists of updated and more lessons than the previous version. The subscription to this course jumped from 7,500 to 15,000 in less than a year after the relaunch, much better than our expectations.

Apart from this usual stuff, we launched a special e-book titled Two Wise Men, which contained forty stories for children inspired by the wit and wisdom of Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger (Click here to buy your copy). The book received a great response and a lot of wonderful testimonials from kids. This one stole our hearts…

Another initiative this year was the launch of Camp Millionaire money workshop for kids. This is a game and activity-based financial education program for children of age group 8 to 14 years. Kids learn how to make, manage, multiply and donate their money wisely first hand in this day-long program and they have fun doing it. The main objective of this program is to provide a stimulating, fun-filled, learning environment where kids can feel safe exploring and learning the various principles, ideas, and skills needed to create a financially successful and responsible life. During 2017, we conducted four sessions of the camp, meeting and teaching around 120+ lovely kids.

Another first for us in 2017 was a classroom course titled Value Investing Blueprint (VIB) we conducted at FLAME University Pune. This was under the aegis of its FLAME Investment Lab, which is an initiative that strives to deliver the concepts and decipher the art of value investing to interested students.

The first batch of VIB was a seven-lecture course spread over seven Sundays. A total of 47 participants attended the course (against the initial capacity of 40), including a few students who travelled from Mumbai, Gurgaon, and Goa each Sunday. The second batch of this course starts in February 2018 (Click here for registration details).

Best Posts of 2017 Here is a list of our best posts from 2017, based on the number of reads and comments –

Want to Become a Full-Time Investor? Here’s Your Checklist

My Interview with Jason Zweig

Notes from Howard Marks’ Lecture: 48 Most Important Things I Learned on Investing

My Stock Selection Framework

A Short Guide to Reading and Learning for Investors

Lecture Presentation and Notes: Seeking Wisdom in the Age of Information

Goals for 2018 This is the easiest part of this letter because, given our consistency in failing to work as per plans, all we have done below is copy and paste our 2018 plan from the 2017 plan we had outlined a year ago – We entered 2017 with the following three goals –

Improving the quality of content on Safal Niveshak – both free posts and premium ones (Mastermind and VIA) – This is always work-in-progress. But as seen from user feedback, we managed to slightly improve the quality of our content in 2017. Of course, a lot more is desired in 2018.

Increasing the breadth of content by getting deeper into annual report analysis, financial statement analysis, and industry analysis – Honestly, not much improvement on this front, so aim in 2018 is to focus more here.

Improving the breadth of content delivery by adding audio and video content – Started with videos on our mental models series. Work is in progress on converting the free value investing course into videos and audios too. Watch out for much action on this front in 2018.

Apart from working more and better on the above-mentioned goals, one incremental thing we wish to focus on in 2018 is to develop more content for youngsters, in areas of investing, thinking, behaviour, and learning. The Two Wise Men e-book and Camp Millionaire initiatives in 2017 were steps in this direction. But, without doubt, given the wide disparity in the level of financial education desired and provided by our education system, we see a great opportunity to serve a purpose here.

As we get into 2018, we welcome your suggestions in the Comments section of this post on what you would like us to do as far as content or a new initiative from Safal Niveshak is concerned.

Best Books We Read in 2017 Here is a list of few good books we read/re-read in 2017 –

Made In America (Sam Walton) – The story of the undisputed merchant king of the late twentieth century. Sam Walton rolled up his sleeves in 1946 and didn’t stop until 1992. What he ended up creating was world’s largest private employer and the biggest company by revenue. In his autobiography, he pours his heart out, chronicling his strategies, successes, and mistakes.

What I Learned Losing a Million Dollars (Jim Paul) – There are as many ways to make money in the markets as there are people participating in the markets, but there are relatively few ways to lose money in the markets. For a majority of the people, all the losses come from the same few sources. Jim Paul’s cautionary tale is a testimony to the importance of studying the patterns of failure than the ways of success.

Delivering Happiness (Tony Hsieh) – This book offers an intensely personal and practical framework to think about the culture of a company. Tony Hsieh’s book is filled with great stories, insights, and tips you can put to use in your business and in your life.

Principles: Life and Work (Ray Dalio) – Ray Dalio, who runs the world’s biggest hedge fund with assets totaling to $160 billion, explains the core principles that he has followed in his life and business.

Seven Brief Lessons on Physics (Carlo Rovelli) – Elon Musk solves problems by using first principles, i.e., understanding the basic ideas of any discipline. Physics is the fundamental study of the workings of material world. In this book, Carlo Rovelli distills the most important principles of Physics into seven lessons.

The Lessons of History (Will Durant) – The best way to learn from history is to notice what didn’t happen and imagine what else could have happened. This book reveals a multidimensional view of history while exploring the possibilities as well as limitations of humanity.

A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy (William Irvine) – Stoic philosophy was the most popular and successful schools of thought in ancient Rome. The principles of stoicism are timeless and immensely useful for living a contended and joyful life. This book does a great job in showing how the stoic advice can be applied in modern times.

No Shortcuts to the Top: Climbing the World’s 14 Highest Peaks (Ed Viesturs) – “Reaching the summit is optional. Getting down is mandatory,” says Viesturs. That’s an unconventional advice. But when you know that the dispenser of this advice is a man who climbed not one, not two but all fourteen of the world’s top summits, you know there’s wisdom in those words. Read the book.

The Undoing Project (Michael Lewis) – For five years, Michael Lewis, one of the best narrator of present times, spent many of his evenings taking a walk with Daniel Kahneman, the most remarkable mind of this century. The outcome was a book which chronicles the journey of how two Israeli scientists, Kahneman and Tversky, created something which upended every single theory of conventional wisdom in the field of finance.

‘Happy’ Investing in 2018 As we end 2017, I want to discuss a bit about happiness, the pursuit of which has become a phenomenon, and something that we wish the most to others welcoming a ‘happy’ new year.

Happiness is a funny thing. We spend forever chasing the idea of it without perhaps knowing what we’re chasing. The concept of happiness usually means “feeling good,” a fleeting notion driven by instant gratification and equated with material factors, such as health, diet and wealth.

It seems obvious that if people are richer and healthier, then they must also be happier. But is that really so obvious? It does not seem so.

One of the best things I came across in 2017 on happiness was Naval Ravikant’s thoughts that he shared in a podcast with Shane Parrish of Farnam Street. Naval said –

(Happiness) is what’s there when you remove the sense that something is missing in your life.

We are highly judgmental, survival, and replication machines. We are constantly walking around thinking I need this, I need that, trapped in the web of desires. Happiness is that state when nothing is missing. When nothing is missing, your mind shuts down and your mind stops running into the future or running into the past to regret something or to plan something. In that absence for a moment, you have internal silence. When you have internal silence, then you are content and you are happy.

One of the most important scientific findings on happiness is that it does not really depend on objective conditions of either wealth, health or even community. Rather, it depends on the correlation between objective conditions and subjective expectations.

Yuval Harari writes in his brilliant book Sapiens (emphasis mine) –

If you want a bullock-cart and get a bullock-cart, you are content. If you want a brand-new Ferrari and get only a second-hand Fiat you feel deprived. This is why winning the lottery has, over time, the same impact on people’s happiness as a debilitating car accident. When things improve, expectations balloon, and consequently even dramatic improvements in objective conditions can leave us dissatisfied. When things deteriorate, expectations shrink, and consequently even a severe illness might leave you pretty much as happy as you were before.

…being satisfied with what you already have is far more important than getting more of what you want.

Consider investing. Most of what makes us happy (or unhappy) as investors aren’t the objective conditions (how our portfolios are performing) but subjective expectations (how our portfolios are performing relative to our expectations).

Added to this, our happiness (or unhappiness) is magnified not by our absolute performances (how our portfolios are performing) but through relative comparisons (how our performance stacks up against the performance of other investors we know of).

Subsequently, we are always working under pressure of the fear of missing out, or FOMO. Knowing that some other investor you know of is having more fun than you by making a lot of money (more than you), is painful. Amidst this, social media that profits not just from connecting us, but mostly from magnifying emotions we don’t want in the long run, often turns this pain into a tragedy of sorts. Remember when you were having a great day recently, someone posted on Twitter how a stock he had bought three years back had turned into a 30-bagger?

This goes against our intrinsic need to be happy, which subsequently lays the ground for us to be, well, unhappy and dissatisfied with our present state of being, including our present portfolio of stocks. We are always searching for something newer, brighter, exciting, and more profitable…something that’s outside of what we own, and others are making money on.

You see, it’s sometimes good to be dissatisfied (which causes you unhappiness) as an investor when it comes to working hard in search of finding ideas. That way, your dissatisfaction is a product of your inner scorecard. However, when this dissatisfaction is caused by measuring yourself against the instant updates on what others are doing, buying, and shouting about, that’s what causes you much pain and leads you to poor decision making.

This is a thought I would like to leave you with as we enter a brand-new year. Especially given the way stock prices have behaved in 2017, and given how high returns in the recent past have caused bloated egos all around, it’s important that you clearly define what causes your real happiness as an investor.

Is it being content – that will cause you to be happy – with an adequate performance that will enable you to achieve your financial goals in time? Or is it constantly chasing extravagant performance that aims to better everyone around, and that you think would make you happy?

You see, the forces of modern life urge us to achieve and acquire more, pushing us outward in our quest for happiness. Why can’t we turn inward, to a deep understanding of true, lasting contentment, which ultimately leads to the happiness we are seeking outside?

Instead of relegating joy and satisfaction to another time, a different place, a better circumstance, or higher return, why can’t we negotiate and embrace “what is.”

This is exactly what we wish for you as we enter 2018. In investing and in life, we wish that you do your work and then be content in embracing “what is” than “what could have been.” This is the only way you could gift yourself happiness that would be with you for a lifetime.

We are lucky to have you as a tribe member.

Thank you!

With respect, Vishal & Anshul

The post Safal Niveshak’s 2017 Annual Letter to Tribe Members appeared first on Safal Niveshak.

Safal Niveshak’s 2017 Annual Letter to Tribe Members published first on https://mbploans.tumblr.com/

[sunshineweb]

Safal Niveshak’s 2017 Annual Letter to Tribe Members

Dear Tribe Member,

Trust 2017 treated you well. It certainly was great for Safal Niveshak.

Here is a brief update on what transpired during the year. The tribe crossed 40,000 members (readers of our free newsletter, Safal Niveshak Post). We conducted nine value investing workshops during the year, meeting 430+ tribe members in the process.

The Mastermind Value Investing Course student count increased by 25%. Our premium newsletter – Value Investing Almanack – which is about to complete three years, gained 20% new members. It continues to receive inspiring reviews from its subscribers.

We also relaunched our free online value investing course – Value Investing Masterclass – in a new avatar. It now consists of updated and more lessons than the previous version. The subscription to this course jumped from 7,500 to 15,000 in less than a year after the relaunch, much better than our expectations.

Apart from this usual stuff, we launched a special e-book titled Two Wise Men, which contained forty stories for children inspired by the wit and wisdom of Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger (Click here to buy your copy). The book received a great response and a lot of wonderful testimonials from kids. This one stole our hearts…

Another initiative this year was the launch of Camp Millionaire money workshop for kids. This is a game and activity-based financial education program for children of age group 8 to 14 years. Kids learn how to make, manage, multiply and donate their money wisely first hand in this day-long program and they have fun doing it. The main objective of this program is to provide a stimulating, fun-filled, learning environment where kids can feel safe exploring and learning the various principles, ideas, and skills needed to create a financially successful and responsible life. During 2017, we conducted four sessions of the camp, meeting and teaching around 120+ lovely kids.

Another first for us in 2017 was a classroom course titled Value Investing Blueprint (VIB) we conducted at FLAME University Pune. This was under the aegis of its FLAME Investment Lab, which is an initiative that strives to deliver the concepts and decipher the art of value investing to interested students.

The first batch of VIB was a seven-lecture course spread over seven Sundays. A total of 47 participants attended the course (against the initial capacity of 40), including a few students who travelled from Mumbai, Gurgaon, and Goa each Sunday. The second batch of this course starts in February 2018 (Click here for registration details).

Best Posts of 2017 Here is a list of our best posts from 2017, based on the number of reads and comments –

Want to Become a Full-Time Investor? Here’s Your Checklist

My Interview with Jason Zweig

Notes from Howard Marks’ Lecture: 48 Most Important Things I Learned on Investing

My Stock Selection Framework

A Short Guide to Reading and Learning for Investors

Lecture Presentation and Notes: Seeking Wisdom in the Age of Information

Goals for 2018 This is the easiest part of this letter because, given our consistency in failing to work as per plans, all we have done below is copy and paste our 2018 plan from the 2017 plan we had outlined a year ago – We entered 2017 with the following three goals –

Improving the quality of content on Safal Niveshak – both free posts and premium ones (Mastermind and VIA) – This is always work-in-progress. But as seen from user feedback, we managed to slightly improve the quality of our content in 2017. Of course, a lot more is desired in 2018.

Increasing the breadth of content by getting deeper into annual report analysis, financial statement analysis, and industry analysis – Honestly, not much improvement on this front, so aim in 2018 is to focus more here.

Improving the breadth of content delivery by adding audio and video content – Started with videos on our mental models series. Work is in progress on converting the free value investing course into videos and audios too. Watch out for much action on this front in 2018.

Apart from working more and better on the above-mentioned goals, one incremental thing we wish to focus on in 2018 is to develop more content for youngsters, in areas of investing, thinking, behaviour, and learning. The Two Wise Men e-book and Camp Millionaire initiatives in 2017 were steps in this direction. But, without doubt, given the wide disparity in the level of financial education desired and provided by our education system, we see a great opportunity to serve a purpose here.

As we get into 2018, we welcome your suggestions in the Comments section of this post on what you would like us to do as far as content or a new initiative from Safal Niveshak is concerned.

Best Books We Read in 2017 Here is a list of few good books we read/re-read in 2017 –

Made In America (Sam Walton) – The story of the undisputed merchant king of the late twentieth century. Sam Walton rolled up his sleeves in 1946 and didn’t stop until 1992. What he ended up creating was world’s largest private employer and the biggest company by revenue. In his autobiography, he pours his heart out, chronicling his strategies, successes, and mistakes.

What I Learned Losing a Million Dollars (Jim Paul) – There are as many ways to make money in the markets as there are people participating in the markets, but there are relatively few ways to lose money in the markets. For a majority of the people, all the losses come from the same few sources. Jim Paul’s cautionary tale is a testimony to the importance of studying the patterns of failure than the ways of success.

Delivering Happiness (Tony Hsieh) – This book offers an intensely personal and practical framework to think about the culture of a company. Tony Hsieh’s book is filled with great stories, insights, and tips you can put to use in your business and in your life.

Principles: Life and Work (Ray Dalio) – Ray Dalio, who runs the world’s biggest hedge fund with assets totaling to $160 billion, explains the core principles that he has followed in his life and business.

Seven Brief Lessons on Physics (Carlo Rovelli) – Elon Musk solves problems by using first principles, i.e., understanding the basic ideas of any discipline. Physics is the fundamental study of the workings of material world. In this book, Carlo Rovelli distills the most important principles of Physics into seven lessons.

The Lessons of History (Will Durant) – The best way to learn from history is to notice what didn’t happen and imagine what else could have happened. This book reveals a multidimensional view of history while exploring the possibilities as well as limitations of humanity.

A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy (William Irvine) – Stoic philosophy was the most popular and successful schools of thought in ancient Rome. The principles of stoicism are timeless and immensely useful for living a contended and joyful life. This book does a great job in showing how the stoic advice can be applied in modern times.

No Shortcuts to the Top: Climbing the World’s 14 Highest Peaks (Ed Viesturs) – “Reaching the summit is optional. Getting down is mandatory,” says Viesturs. That’s an unconventional advice. But when you know that the dispenser of this advice is a man who climbed not one, not two but all fourteen of the world’s top summits, you know there’s wisdom in those words. Read the book.

The Undoing Project (Michael Lewis) – For five years, Michael Lewis, one of the best narrator of present times, spent many of his evenings taking a walk with Daniel Kahneman, the most remarkable mind of this century. The outcome was a book which chronicles the journey of how two Israeli scientists, Kahneman and Tversky, created something which upended every single theory of conventional wisdom in the field of finance.

‘Happy’ Investing in 2018 As we end 2017, I want to discuss a bit about happiness, the pursuit of which has become a phenomenon, and something that we wish the most to others welcoming a ‘happy’ new year.

Happiness is a funny thing. We spend forever chasing the idea of it without perhaps knowing what we’re chasing. The concept of happiness usually means “feeling good,” a fleeting notion driven by instant gratification and equated with material factors, such as health, diet and wealth.

It seems obvious that if people are richer and healthier, then they must also be happier. But is that really so obvious? It does not seem so.

One of the best things I came across in 2017 on happiness was Naval Ravikant’s thoughts that he shared in a podcast with Shane Parrish of Farnam Street. Naval said –

(Happiness) is what’s there when you remove the sense that something is missing in your life.

We are highly judgmental, survival, and replication machines. We are constantly walking around thinking I need this, I need that, trapped in the web of desires. Happiness is that state when nothing is missing. When nothing is missing, your mind shuts down and your mind stops running into the future or running into the past to regret something or to plan something. In that absence for a moment, you have internal silence. When you have internal silence, then you are content and you are happy.

One of the most important scientific findings on happiness is that it does not really depend on objective conditions of either wealth, health or even community. Rather, it depends on the correlation between objective conditions and subjective expectations.

Yuval Harari writes in his brilliant book Sapiens (emphasis mine) –

If you want a bullock-cart and get a bullock-cart, you are content. If you want a brand-new Ferrari and get only a second-hand Fiat you feel deprived. This is why winning the lottery has, over time, the same impact on people’s happiness as a debilitating car accident. When things improve, expectations balloon, and consequently even dramatic improvements in objective conditions can leave us dissatisfied. When things deteriorate, expectations shrink, and consequently even a severe illness might leave you pretty much as happy as you were before.

…being satisfied with what you already have is far more important than getting more of what you want.

Consider investing. Most of what makes us happy (or unhappy) as investors aren’t the objective conditions (how our portfolios are performing) but subjective expectations (how our portfolios are performing relative to our expectations).

Added to this, our happiness (or unhappiness) is magnified not by our absolute performances (how our portfolios are performing) but through relative comparisons (how our performance stacks up against the performance of other investors we know of).

Subsequently, we are always working under pressure of the fear of missing out, or FOMO. Knowing that some other investor you know of is having more fun than you by making a lot of money (more than you), is painful. Amidst this, social media that profits not just from connecting us, but mostly from magnifying emotions we don’t want in the long run, often turns this pain into a tragedy of sorts. Remember when you were having a great day recently, someone posted on Twitter how a stock he had bought three years back had turned into a 30-bagger?

This goes against our intrinsic need to be happy, which subsequently lays the ground for us to be, well, unhappy and dissatisfied with our present state of being, including our present portfolio of stocks. We are always searching for something newer, brighter, exciting, and more profitable…something that’s outside of what we own, and others are making money on.

You see, it’s sometimes good to be dissatisfied (which causes you unhappiness) as an investor when it comes to working hard in search of finding ideas. That way, your dissatisfaction is a product of your inner scorecard. However, when this dissatisfaction is caused by measuring yourself against the instant updates on what others are doing, buying, and shouting about, that’s what causes you much pain and leads you to poor decision making.

This is a thought I would like to leave you with as we enter a brand-new year. Especially given the way stock prices have behaved in 2017, and given how high returns in the recent past have caused bloated egos all around, it’s important that you clearly define what causes your real happiness as an investor.

Is it being content – that will cause you to be happy – with an adequate performance that will enable you to achieve your financial goals in time? Or is it constantly chasing extravagant performance that aims to better everyone around, and that you think would make you happy?

You see, the forces of modern life urge us to achieve and acquire more, pushing us outward in our quest for happiness. Why can’t we turn inward, to a deep understanding of true, lasting contentment, which ultimately leads to the happiness we are seeking outside?

Instead of relegating joy and satisfaction to another time, a different place, a better circumstance, or higher return, why can’t we negotiate and embrace “what is.”

This is exactly what we wish for you as we enter 2018. In investing and in life, we wish that you do your work and then be content in embracing “what is” than “what could have been.” This is the only way you could gift yourself happiness that would be with you for a lifetime.

We are lucky to have you as a tribe member.

Thank you!

With respect, Vishal & Anshul

The post Safal Niveshak’s 2017 Annual Letter to Tribe Members appeared first on Safal Niveshak.

Safal Niveshak’s 2017 Annual Letter to Tribe Members published first on https://mbploans.tumblr.com/

[sunshineweb]

Safal Niveshak’s 2017 Annual Letter to Tribe Members

Dear Tribe Member,

Trust 2017 treated you well. It certainly was great for Safal Niveshak.

Here is a brief update on what transpired during the year. The tribe crossed 40,000 members (readers of our free newsletter, Safal Niveshak Post). We conducted nine value investing workshops during the year, meeting 430+ tribe members in the process.

The Mastermind Value Investing Course student count increased by 25%. Our premium newsletter – Value Investing Almanack – which is about to complete three years, gained 20% new members. It continues to receive inspiring reviews from its subscribers.

We also relaunched our free online value investing course – Value Investing Masterclass – in a new avatar. It now consists of updated and more lessons than the previous version. The subscription to this course jumped from 7,500 to 15,000 in less than a year after the relaunch, much better than our expectations.

Apart from this usual stuff, we launched a special e-book titled Two Wise Men, which contained forty stories for children inspired by the wit and wisdom of Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger (Click here to buy your copy). The book received a great response and a lot of wonderful testimonials from kids. This one stole our hearts…

Another initiative this year was the launch of Camp Millionaire money workshop for kids. This is a game and activity-based financial education program for children of age group 8 to 14 years. Kids learn how to make, manage, multiply and donate their money wisely first hand in this day-long program and they have fun doing it. The main objective of this program is to provide a stimulating, fun-filled, learning environment where kids can feel safe exploring and learning the various principles, ideas, and skills needed to create a financially successful and responsible life. During 2017, we conducted four sessions of the camp, meeting and teaching around 120+ lovely kids.

Another first for us in 2017 was a classroom course titled Value Investing Blueprint (VIB) we conducted at FLAME University Pune. This was under the aegis of its FLAME Investment Lab, which is an initiative that strives to deliver the concepts and decipher the art of value investing to interested students.

The first batch of VIB was a seven-lecture course spread over seven Sundays. A total of 47 participants attended the course (against the initial capacity of 40), including a few students who travelled from Mumbai, Gurgaon, and Goa each Sunday. The second batch of this course starts in February 2018 (Click here for registration details).

Best Posts of 2017 Here is a list of our best posts from 2017, based on the number of reads and comments –

Want to Become a Full-Time Investor? Here’s Your Checklist

My Interview with Jason Zweig

Notes from Howard Marks’ Lecture: 48 Most Important Things I Learned on Investing

My Stock Selection Framework

A Short Guide to Reading and Learning for Investors

Lecture Presentation and Notes: Seeking Wisdom in the Age of Information

Goals for 2018 This is the easiest part of this letter because, given our consistency in failing to work as per plans, all we have done below is copy and paste our 2018 plan from the 2017 plan we had outlined a year ago – We entered 2017 with the following three goals –

Improving the quality of content on Safal Niveshak – both free posts and premium ones (Mastermind and VIA) – This is always work-in-progress. But as seen from user feedback, we managed to slightly improve the quality of our content in 2017. Of course, a lot more is desired in 2018.

Increasing the breadth of content by getting deeper into annual report analysis, financial statement analysis, and industry analysis – Honestly, not much improvement on this front, so aim in 2018 is to focus more here.

Improving the breadth of content delivery by adding audio and video content – Started with videos on our mental models series. Work is in progress on converting the free value investing course into videos and audios too. Watch out for much action on this front in 2018.

Apart from working more and better on the above-mentioned goals, one incremental thing we wish to focus on in 2018 is to develop more content for youngsters, in areas of investing, thinking, behaviour, and learning. The Two Wise Men e-book and Camp Millionaire initiatives in 2017 were steps in this direction. But, without doubt, given the wide disparity in the level of financial education desired and provided by our education system, we see a great opportunity to serve a purpose here.

As we get into 2018, we welcome your suggestions in the Comments section of this post on what you would like us to do as far as content or a new initiative from Safal Niveshak is concerned.

Best Books We Read in 2017 Here is a list of few good books we read/re-read in 2017 –

Made In America (Sam Walton) – The story of the undisputed merchant king of the late twentieth century. Sam Walton rolled up his sleeves in 1946 and didn’t stop until 1992. What he ended up creating was world’s largest private employer and the biggest company by revenue. In his autobiography, he pours his heart out, chronicling his strategies, successes, and mistakes.

What I Learned Losing a Million Dollars (Jim Paul) – There are as many ways to make money in the markets as there are people participating in the markets, but there are relatively few ways to lose money in the markets. For a majority of the people, all the losses come from the same few sources. Jim Paul’s cautionary tale is a testimony to the importance of studying the patterns of failure than the ways of success.

Delivering Happiness (Tony Hsieh) – This book offers an intensely personal and practical framework to think about the culture of a company. Tony Hsieh’s book is filled with great stories, insights, and tips you can put to use in your business and in your life.

Principles: Life and Work (Ray Dalio) – Ray Dalio, who runs the world’s biggest hedge fund with assets totaling to $160 billion, explains the core principles that he has followed in his life and business.

Seven Brief Lessons on Physics (Carlo Rovelli) – Elon Musk solves problems by using first principles, i.e., understanding the basic ideas of any discipline. Physics is the fundamental study of the workings of material world. In this book, Carlo Rovelli distills the most important principles of Physics into seven lessons.

The Lessons of History (Will Durant) – The best way to learn from history is to notice what didn’t happen and imagine what else could have happened. This book reveals a multidimensional view of history while exploring the possibilities as well as limitations of humanity.

A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy (William Irvine) – Stoic philosophy was the most popular and successful schools of thought in ancient Rome. The principles of stoicism are timeless and immensely useful for living a contended and joyful life. This book does a great job in showing how the stoic advice can be applied in modern times.

No Shortcuts to the Top: Climbing the World’s 14 Highest Peaks (Ed Viesturs) – “Reaching the summit is optional. Getting down is mandatory,” says Viesturs. That’s an unconventional advice. But when you know that the dispenser of this advice is a man who climbed not one, not two but all fourteen of the world’s top summits, you know there’s wisdom in those words. Read the book.

The Undoing Project (Michael Lewis) – For five years, Michael Lewis, one of the best narrator of present times, spent many of his evenings taking a walk with Daniel Kahneman, the most remarkable mind of this century. The outcome was a book which chronicles the journey of how two Israeli scientists, Kahneman and Tversky, created something which upended every single theory of conventional wisdom in the field of finance.

‘Happy’ Investing in 2018 As we end 2017, I want to discuss a bit about happiness, the pursuit of which has become a phenomenon, and something that we wish the most to others welcoming a ‘happy’ new year.

Happiness is a funny thing. We spend forever chasing the idea of it without perhaps knowing what we’re chasing. The concept of happiness usually means “feeling good,” a fleeting notion driven by instant gratification and equated with material factors, such as health, diet and wealth.

It seems obvious that if people are richer and healthier, then they must also be happier. But is that really so obvious? It does not seem so.

One of the best things I came across in 2017 on happiness was Naval Ravikant’s thoughts that he shared in a podcast with Shane Parrish of Farnam Street. Naval said –

(Happiness) is what’s there when you remove the sense that something is missing in your life.

We are highly judgmental, survival, and replication machines. We are constantly walking around thinking I need this, I need that, trapped in the web of desires. Happiness is that state when nothing is missing. When nothing is missing, your mind shuts down and your mind stops running into the future or running into the past to regret something or to plan something. In that absence for a moment, you have internal silence. When you have internal silence, then you are content and you are happy.

One of the most important scientific findings on happiness is that it does not really depend on objective conditions of either wealth, health or even community. Rather, it depends on the correlation between objective conditions and subjective expectations.

Yuval Harari writes in his brilliant book Sapiens (emphasis mine) –

If you want a bullock-cart and get a bullock-cart, you are content. If you want a brand-new Ferrari and get only a second-hand Fiat you feel deprived. This is why winning the lottery has, over time, the same impact on people’s happiness as a debilitating car accident. When things improve, expectations balloon, and consequently even dramatic improvements in objective conditions can leave us dissatisfied. When things deteriorate, expectations shrink, and consequently even a severe illness might leave you pretty much as happy as you were before.

…being satisfied with what you already have is far more important than getting more of what you want.

Consider investing. Most of what makes us happy (or unhappy) as investors aren’t the objective conditions (how our portfolios are performing) but subjective expectations (how our portfolios are performing relative to our expectations).

Added to this, our happiness (or unhappiness) is magnified not by our absolute performances (how our portfolios are performing) but through relative comparisons (how our performance stacks up against the performance of other investors we know of).

Subsequently, we are always working under pressure of the fear of missing out, or FOMO. Knowing that some other investor you know of is having more fun than you by making a lot of money (more than you), is painful. Amidst this, social media that profits not just from connecting us, but mostly from magnifying emotions we don’t want in the long run, often turns this pain into a tragedy of sorts. Remember when you were having a great day recently, someone posted on Twitter how a stock he had bought three years back had turned into a 30-bagger?

This goes against our intrinsic need to be happy, which subsequently lays the ground for us to be, well, unhappy and dissatisfied with our present state of being, including our present portfolio of stocks. We are always searching for something newer, brighter, exciting, and more profitable…something that’s outside of what we own, and others are making money on.

You see, it’s sometimes good to be dissatisfied (which causes you unhappiness) as an investor when it comes to working hard in search of finding ideas. That way, your dissatisfaction is a product of your inner scorecard. However, when this dissatisfaction is caused by measuring yourself against the instant updates on what others are doing, buying, and shouting about, that’s what causes you much pain and leads you to poor decision making.

This is a thought I would like to leave you with as we enter a brand-new year. Especially given the way stock prices have behaved in 2017, and given how high returns in the recent past have caused bloated egos all around, it’s important that you clearly define what causes your real happiness as an investor.

Is it being content – that will cause you to be happy – with an adequate performance that will enable you to achieve your financial goals in time? Or is it constantly chasing extravagant performance that aims to better everyone around, and that you think would make you happy?

You see, the forces of modern life urge us to achieve and acquire more, pushing us outward in our quest for happiness. Why can’t we turn inward, to a deep understanding of true, lasting contentment, which ultimately leads to the happiness we are seeking outside?

Instead of relegating joy and satisfaction to another time, a different place, a better circumstance, or higher return, why can’t we negotiate and embrace “what is.”

This is exactly what we wish for you as we enter 2018. In investing and in life, we wish that you do your work and then be content in embracing “what is” than “what could have been.” This is the only way you could gift yourself happiness that would be with you for a lifetime.

We are lucky to have you as a tribe member.

Thank you!

With respect, Vishal & Anshul

The post Safal Niveshak’s 2017 Annual Letter to Tribe Members appeared first on Safal Niveshak.

Safal Niveshak’s 2017 Annual Letter to Tribe Members published first on https://mbploans.tumblr.com/