The Masters Mind

7 Rules of Life to become Rich

2012-01-29T22:00:00.000+05:30

Most parents want to teach their children responsibility - how to become self sufficient and succeed in life (after all, no one plans on raising a dead beat). However, very few actually accomplish this task. Why? Because, as parents, we are limited to the experiences our parents passed on to us; the antiquated notion that "responsibility" is simply getting a job, saving a little money, and maybe purchasing a car or some equally important item.

Wealth Building Rule 1: Put Off Marriage

Your biggest obstacle to attaining wealth is YOU. Too often, people live their lives in a manner that is not conducive to creating riches and then get frustrated at "the system" when they only really have themselves to blame. One of the most important financial decisions you will ever make is marriage (more specifically who you marry and when). By putting off the walk down the aisle for a few years, you can save a decade worth of frustration. Your first goal should be to become financially independent, with little or no debt, and have your investments in place. Once you have these three things, your odds of success are drastically improved by beginning your journey on a level playing field (after all, the number-one reason for divorce is financial trouble).

Wealth Building Rule 2: Debt is a Disease

With a few notable exceptions, debt is a form of bondage; a disease that enslaves the borrower. A few years ago, there was a young lady attending college who shot herself because she couldn't pay back $2,300 in credit card debt. Although an extreme example, it is a testament to the power money has over peoples' lives. Imagine your life without owing anyone anything; your car, your house, your education, all paid for in full. Like what you see? When you want it badly enough, you will make extinguishing your debt your number one priority.

Wealth Building Rule 3: If You Don't Like Where your Parents Were at Your Age - Do Things Differently

The old cliché that "insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results," holds just as true today as it did when it was originally written. If you don't like where your parents were at your age, stop what you are doing. During your childhood, they taught you all they knew about money. For many people, these early years established how they feel about their finances today. In order to become financially successful, you must do something different than they did. Otherwise, you will end up exactly as they are.

Wealth Building Rule 4: When you Begin a Job, Look at the Pay of the Highest Employee

Whether you are looking for employment now or are thinking about it sometime in the near future, one of the most important things for you to do is to look at what the top-dog gets at any company for which you are considering working. This will give you an idea of how high you can expect to climb in terms of earnings and promotion. If the CEO is making $30,000 a year, you have no chance to make six figures. Select a job accordingly.

Wealth Building Rule 5: Do Something You Love and Get Paid for It

I remember going into college and being surrounded with people who wanted to be artists, scientists, and businessmen, but instead did what their parents or grandparents told them to do. There is no honor in being a doctor or a lawyer if you wake up every morning and hate your job. Pick a profession you love and you'll never have to work a day in your life.

Wealth Building Rule 6: Understand the Money Myth

Money is nothing more than a piece of paper with the image of a long-dead person on it. When you understand that any power it has over you is derived from your relationship with it, you suddenly become free from the constant pressures and stress of thinking about it. Especially at times such as these, if you are putting money away for ten, fifteen, or twenty years down the road, stop checking your portfolio every day! There is nothing you can gain from it except stress.

Wealth Building Rule 7: Your New Commodity is Not Your Labor, It's Your Ideas

With the advent of the Internet and other technological advances, you are no longer limited to supporting yourself or making a living by your physical labor. The only limit you have on yourself now is your own imagination - your ideas are the most valuable thing you possess. Every man, woman, and child is a salesman for a living; if you don't own a business or investments, then you sell your manual labor to a company in exchange for a paycheck. Change your product. The gap between the rich and poor does indeed grow larger with each passing year, but not because of inequalities or any other such injustices. Instead, it is because the rich understand money and how to use it. Capital is literally a seed; learn how to plant it to produce the best harvest. When you do this, you will rule your finances, not the other way around.

A Darker Dawn book review

2011-12-27T20:18:00.000+05:30

Book review: A Darker Dawn

Author: Rohit Gore

Publisher: Niyogi Books

Pages: 241

Price: Rs 395

A small town infected by cheap politics, the grotesque reality of communism followed by riots, disrespectful relationships, and friendship, A Darker Dawn, attempts to unveil the reality of several Indian towns, whose stories remain unread in the concluding pages of most newspapers.

Having travelled and lived in many towns across India, author Rohit Gore did a smart thing by picking up the darker nuances of each place, those which contribute greatly to his second novel and justifies the title too. A Darker Dawn introduces you to Amrapur; a small town in Maharashtra where four 12-year-old friends grow up embittered by the harsh realties of life. Vindictive teachers, bullying seniors, and bitter families, Dev, Avi, Jeet and Anita together face all that and much more.

Dev is a student-hero and the one all three friends look up to. It is he who challenges Bokade in school, the vindictive teacher whose sole interest is to teach the children a lesson (pun intended). His favourite prop, a thick wooden stick lashes out mercilessly on the kids at the slightest pretext. His callous and cruel conduct towards the children is translated into arty scars, fresh and old, that he bestows upon them as punishment. Dev, defiant by nature, is the cynosure of his prop. An outright rebel, he stands up against injustice in the classroom such as saving the new fat boy from getting browbeaten by the class bully, Jagan. His loyalty remains steady outside the school too, especially for his best friend Avi, the class-topper. Jeet, who gets rescued by Dev in class, is the collector's son and he soon joins the gang, which besides Dev and Avi, has the dimpled, blue-eyed beauty, Anita.

The four friends share everything together - the joy of discovering their little private river bank, the rutted path of which no one knows, the excitement of building a beautiful sand castle, committing an unintentional crime there and vowing to keep that guilty secret hidden in their hearts forever.

A communal riot rages through the streets, a curfew breaks out and the town weeps blood. The four friends hide in Sharif Miyan's tea stall, barely safe from the massacre and witness the murder of their saviour, by his own nephew. Shaken by the events, they meet at their riverside hideout only to be greeted by the bully-turned-goon Bappa, son of the most powerful man in town and Jagan's elder brother. The expected brawl goes out of hand when Bappa, the strongest of all, tries to drown Avi. In an attempt to save their friend, Dev and Jeet use their united strength to outdo Bappa. Avi joins in and the fight ends up stifling Bappa under water. They vow together to never talk about it and leave the town with their respective families.

One can never truly escape the past. The ghosts of their crime visit the four friends twenty years later, beckoning them to visit Amrapur again. An eye-witness suddenly rouses and reminds them of the sin they tried to brush under the carpet. Dev is now an active member and leader of the Naxalites, fighting devotedly for the rights of the poor. Jeet has managed to translate his silence into beautiful paintings and lives in London with his fiancee, Maggie. Avi has broken away from his money-minded family and set up his own company in Bangalore. And Anita has immersed herself into her rhythmic distraction, dance.

Unable to suppress and carry the blame, all four friends return to repent. This time, the vices are twice as big. A murderer-turned politician rules the town, a vengeful teacher waits with a new prop for punishment, a madman hungry to destroy his brother's murderers and a cynical creep who keeps the secret for twenty long years - Dev, Avi, Jeet and Anita are summoned to confront their childhood-past once again.

The narrative is smooth and vivid. Regular readers will be able to finish reading it in one sitting, thanks to the gripping plot. The end is a little melodramatic, almost like an action-packed Bollywood flick, but does justice to the otherwise animated middle and beginning.

The Moghul book review

2011-12-27T20:15:00.000+05:30

Book: The Moghul

Author: Thomas Hoover

Publisher: Fireship Press

Pages: 608

Price: Rs 1,308 (for the Imported Edition)

The small naval Battle of Swally that took place on November 29-30 in 1612, off the coast of Suvali, a village near Surat in Gujarat, is the little-known event that turned the course of Indian history. The victory of four English East India Company galleons (multi-decked sailing ships) over four Portuguese ships and 26 barks (unarmed rowing vessels) paved the way for British dominance over South Asian trade and gradually the colonisation of India.

By drawing from the diaries of the early English tradesmen who came to India aboard ships, braving such Portuguese attacks, Thomas Hoover has crafted an intriguing tale of an envoy of the English East India Company whose goal is to get a permit for trade from the Mughal Emperor in India and wrench the control of the trade in the Indian Ocean from the Portuguese. The protagonist of the story is Captain Brian Hawksworth, whose experiences in this mystical land are based on the true accounts of William Hawkins, the first envoy of the English East India Company who sailed to the port of Surat in 1608 and of Thomas Roe, who, as ambassador of King James I to Emperor Jehangir's court, obtained permission for the company to set up factories in Surat and get their toe-hold into India.

As Hawkworth makes his way from Surat to the Moghul's court in Agra, he discovers a country of contrasts, where the sword is revered and so is the pen, where men of valour wear jewels and perfumes and build monuments dedicated to love, where delicate noblewomen plot against powerful heirs to the throne, where caste and religious prejudices run deeper than bonds of love and friendship and where passion is nurtured and repressed. As he absorbs the customs and manners of India, the rough English seaman veers away from his commercial interests and begins a new quest for sensuality in music and the love of his life.

The fictional characters of the opium-addicted Arangbar, the wronged heir, Jadar, the great Akman, the scheming Jahanara and the clever prime minister Nadir Shah in The Moghul are loosely based on Jehangir, Shah Jahan, Akbar and Nur Jahan and her brother Asaf Khan. Travellers and writers from the West are often intrigued by Indian politics. Hoover is no different. He layers the text with multiple sub-plots, adding new characters to the ensemble cast, much like a rich and colourful tiered cake. You have to cut it, bit by bit, layer by layer, so that you can finish it off. And that requires patience. But if you love historical fiction, this tale of blood and lust, love and war, music and poetry and commerce and politics is a must-read