MONTHLY MULLING 💡
Zen Concept of Mujo, James Clear on Working Harder vs. Smarter, and Lessons on Dhandho From Mohnish Pabrai
Hi👋,
Tapan here.
Monthly Mulling is a newsletter sending the best ideas from the web to your inbox for free. High signal. Low noise.
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Happy Sunday y’all!
I want to start today’s newsletter with a question for y’all. Do you think the length of the newsletter is long, short, or just perfect? Respond here (it will take 10 seconds).
I want to do this “Goldilocks” analysis to figure out if I need to be succinct in the way I share information. It will help me improve!
Moving on🚀
💭MULLING
💰 LESSONS ON INVESTING (AND LIFE) FROM MOHNISH PABRAI (Article - 13 mins)
✨New article! I have been consuming content on and by Mohnish Pabrai for the past couple of months. I wanted to compile a list of important lessons learned in one post. And this is it!
Mohnish Pabrai is a Mumbai-born American investor who currently manages the $600M Pabrai Investment Fund. Before starting the fund, he incorporated an Inc. 500 fastest growing company called TransTech which he sold for $20M in 2000.
He also started the Dakshana Foundation which prepares brilliant impoverished kids in India for success in life by helping them study for the IIT entrance. If you’re a Bollywood fan, you know this is the plot of Super 30. True story: he approached Anand Kumar and got his blessing before starting the foundation!
Mr. Pabrai also wrote the Dhandho Investor which lays out a framework to invest in good dhandhas (businesses).
If I had to summarise the lessons in a few sentences, I would say.
Buy existing businesses which are simple and inside your circle of competence. Wait patiently for the big salmon to swim by, when it does, strike. And strike hard. Place big bets, infrequent bets. Only place bets when you have an advantage. You should get a dollar’s worth of assets for less than a dollar. And never forget – heads, I win; tails, I don’t lose much!
To read the full article, click the below link👇🏼
If you have read the full article, I will love to hear your thoughts!👇🏼
🥇 Play Better Games, Win Better by Prizes by James Clear (Newsletter - 2 mins)
“If you want a significant change in your results, then you probably need a significant change to your strategy. Working harder on your current strategy is unlikely to move the needle.
Before you work harder, work on the right thing.
Play better games. Win better prizes.”
💭 Philosophy of Change
As I was reading Richer, Wiser, Happier by William Green this month, I realized a lot of investors have made peace with the uncertainty in the market by accepting impermanence.
Change is inevitable.
Here’s an excerpt from one of the interviews with Howard Marks from Oaktree Capital Management
Marks explains how this ancient idea [of impermanence] has shaped his philosophy of investing and life. “Change is inevitable. The only constant is impermanence,” he says. “We have to accommodate to the fact that the environment changes.… We cannot expect to control our environment. We have to accommodate to our environment. We have to expect and go with the change.”
Impermanence is part of a lot of philosophies. It’s called mujo in Japanese or anitya in Sanskrit. Mujo has been pondered upon by a lot of philosophers, including the monk, Shunryu Suzuki.
That everything changes is the basic truth for each existence. No one can deny this truth, and all the teaching of Buddhism is condensed within it.
And, so has the Stoic emperor-philosopher, Marcus Aurelius.
Everything’s destiny is to change, to be transformed, to perish. So that new things can be born.
And how do you deal with impermanence? Lao Tzu, the ancient Taoist philosopher has the answer.
To be strong, you have to be like water: if there are no obstacles, it flows; if there is an obstacle, it stops; if a dam is broken, then it flows further; if a vessel is square, then it has a square form; if a vessel is round, then it has a round form. Because it is so soft and flexible, it is the most necessary and the strongest thing.
Howard Marks says that “If Buddha had been a hedge fund manager, he might have pointed out that change itself is not ultimately the problem. Rather, we doom ourselves to suffer—both in investing and life—when we expect or yearn for things to stay the same. The real problem is this habit of clinging to or relying on what cannot last.”
He recalls his Japanese studies professor explaining Buddhist teaching that “you have to break the chain of getting and wanting”—an aimless cycle of craving that leads inevitably to suffering.
📚TREAT YO’ SHELVES
You can find my favorite books on my site and add me on GoodReads.
✍🏼 Everybody Writes by Ann Handley
About the book: It’s a guide to writing well. Ann says that we all write daily - emails, captions, articles, tweets, and so on. So, it makes sense to understand the basic principles to become a good writer. Writing is a lot more than grammar (I agree!). It can help you think clearly. In all honesty, I enjoyed the first few chapters but after a point, it just becomes boring. The book could have been multiple blog posts or maybe it was multiple blog posts, compiled into a book (*insert mic drop here*).
Important Lessons:
Writing with a narrative structure rather than relying on messaging by numbers or bullet points also pushes people to think through problems within a fuller context
Write to one person. Imagine the one person you're helping with this piece of writing. And then write directly to that person
Produce The Ugly First Draft. Producing The Ugly First Draft is basically where you show up and throw up. Write badly. Write as if no one will ever read it
Favorite Quotes:
There is no one way to write—just as there is no one way to parent a child or roast a turkey. But there are terrible ways to do all three.
When you have to write your ideas out in complete sentences and complete paragraphs, it forces a deeper clarity of thinking.
Any fool can make something complicated. It takes a genius to make it simple. —Woody Guthrie
🛵 Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig
About the book: I will be honest and say, I couldn’t finish the book. I dozed to sleep every time I read it and after a point, I shelved it. I wasn’t in the right mindset to read it. However, from what I did read, I enjoyed it. The book questions how to live using the author’s memoir during a summer motorcycle trip. It gets philosophical and explains a lot of ideas using the Socratic Method of thinking. I have seen this book recommended by multiple people including some top investors. If you enjoy memoirs and philosophy, definitely pick it up.
Favorite Quotes:
But to tear down a factory or to revolt against a government or to avoid repair of a motorcycle because it is a system is to attack effects rather than causes; and as long as the attack is upon effects only, no change is possible
It’s so hard when contemplated in advance, and so easy when you do it.
You had the feeling they had just wandered in there themselves and somebody had handed them a wrench. There was no identification with the job. No saying, “I am a mechanic.” At 5 P.M. or whenever their eight hours were in, you knew they would cut it off and not have another thought about their work. They were already trying not to have any thoughts about their work on the job. They had something to do with it, but their own selves were outside of it, detached, removed. They were involved in it but not in such a way as to care.
🎙PODCASTS
💰 COLD BREW MONEY
If you’re a listener, thank you so much! Can I ask you to share the podcast with one friend/family this weekend? It will really help us grow the podcast.
We are now on YouTube too (if that’s your thing)! You can subscribe here.
🤑 #57 – Big Tech Earnings: we go through the quarterly earnings of the FAANG (minus Netflix) stocks | Episode Page
😇 #58 – Best Investment Advice Ever Ft. Warren Buffett: we react to the first interview Warren Buffett ever gave on television. The advice still holds true! | Episode Page
You can see our ugly faces as we react to the Warren Buffett interview.
As I go, here’s some Monday motivation.
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I share your feelings about Everybody Writes. It isn't very well written book about writing well. I am currently reading On Writing Well by William Zinsser, which is the best book on writing I have read so far.