ON PHILANTHROPHY AND GRATITUDE.
I recently met a lot of old VP friends and was extremely happy to see all of them doing very well on financial and personal front, and some of them nearing financial freedom, and some having taken investing as a full time profession.
That started me wondering about the root cause of all this happy ocurrences. And for most of us, Valuepickr has been the big backbone of learning and success. And for that folks like Donald, Ayush, Pratyush and others involved in setting up and running this wonderful forum deserve a bow. All those who came in contact with each other during valuepickr events, or through forum managed to learn from each other and helped in their growth.
The forum has been a university of sorts for retail investors, where right from hand holding to ideas sharing has been of the highest calibre. This has given rise to an army of VP bred investors, who keep contributing to the forum by their guidance and ideas.
I think the biggest form of PHILANTHROPHY is spreading knowledge. Conventional philanthrophy which is usually given front page importance is the donation of wealth. But how about something that creates hundreds and thousands of rich investors, who in turn do their own kind of philanthrophy helping the needy first hand. This creates a circle of philanthropists like no other.
A big shout out to folks who originated blockbuster ideas. These were initiated when they were fully actionable. When ideas like Laurus, Usha Martin, HBL ( those that I benefitted the most, and for that I have to thank @Anant primarily) were first discussed, stock prices were range bound for a long period of time, and that offered a lot of time for many of us to study the company in details, and take an informed decision. Rest is history. But this happened because of willingness of these folks to share their ideas at an appropriate time. The techno funda threads are the ones I often turn to when I try to check out ideas. From among those I know well, @phreakv6 deserves a special mention. To all these wonderful guys, keep up the good work.
How this works is that someone who gets convinced about the idea, knowingly or unknowingly shares it with a lot of people in and around his circle, and a lot of these people end up owning these companies and making multibagger returns. I remember one of the advices my dad gave me when I started studying medicine. ( He was a much admired and loved mathematics teacher.) In his cryptic way he told me âtumse agar galti se kisika bhala ho jaye to bura mat man lenaâ I understood the meaning of this sentence after a very long time. But the kind of love and adulation lot of us valuepickr guys get from a lot of people reminded me of this sentence. With or without design, if we have managed to touch a few lives positively, we should feel blessed.
Sharing your knowledge and wisdom can be one of the biggest form of philanthropies. If someone can share great investment ideas as mentioned earlier, it ranks at the forefront. But for those who have regulatory constraints, discussing generalised aspects, even discussing stocks which they do not buy but find attractive, or discussing investment strategy in general, or their personal investment journey, or their growth as an investor over the years, can prove to be a beacon of light for a lot of other wannabe investors. It takes only a few minutes of time and some mental effort to share this kind of stuff.
These days after the first few crores, rest are just numbers and zeroes. Whereas a few lives touched positively will live on for ever, because these folks will in turn take your good work forward by helping others financially or otherwise, or spreading knowledge, and so on.
PS. Please do not post thanks or other kind of messages on this thread. We will continue with our usual stuff as before. I just hope that this post helps nudge a few more people into contributing more to the forum which gave all of us so much.
I am yet to read the books so not much idea which one is the best.