A Classroom of Billionaires !!!
A Classroom of Billionaires !!!
Now, that’s a Network of Friends to build upon…
“It is better to be an average guy on a star team than a star on an average team. The former will be better for you in the long term; the latter is just an ego trip.” — From Gautam Baid’s Book, The Joys of Compounding
Before I address the question on Twitter, let me first address a more fundamental question — “Can you succeed alone?” or “Can you make your goals come true alone?” or “Can you make good decisions based on your thinking alone?”
If you answered YES to any of the questions above, then this blog post isn’t relevant or applicable to you. If you answered NO to even one of these questions, then read on.
Irrespective of your state of affairs currently, you will admit to the fact that you learnt so many things from people in your formative years. You learnt English from your school teacher, Maths from your tutor, Cricket from your dad, Principles of Marketing from your MBA Professor, Sales from your Line Manager, etc.
And you were able to pick these up due to proximity to these people you were learning from and the frequency of interactions with them. In earlier days, the proximity was high and so was the frequency, unlike today where so much of learning has moved online.
Just to share a few examples from my formative years —
I have repeated Standard IV due to very low marks in Marathi and I still remember vividly that I didn’t want to enter the school on day 1 of Std IV while all my friends had moved to Std V. I barely scraped through my school till Std VII 1st Unit Test, where I stood 45th or so from a batch of 50. I was slow, meek, and lacking confidence big time.
This is when I met Deshmukh Sir (my tutor from Std VII 1st Term till Std IX) and he changed my studying style, instilled discipline in me, and made me a person who would aim at being amongst the best in a class full of bright students. I always stood amongst the Top 5 in my class till Std X, gained a scholarship in my Graduation days in MMK College, and did very well at my MBA Post Graduation at KJ Somaiya, Mumbai.
If not for Deshmukh Sir, I might have remained the meek student, languishing in my academic years and may have ended as a Nobody, working for a pittance in a company somewhere in Mumbai with no self-belief. But just 3 years with him, changed me foundationally and I owe him a lot for bringing about this transformation in me.
“No one can whistle a symphony. It takes a whole orchestra to play it.” — H.E. Luccock
Now to my favorite ad and why I would have watched it 100s of times to date…
This is a beautiful ad — the execution, the music in the background, the commitment showed by the kid in the ad, the emotions expressed throughout, and the end; these may just move you in a way that very few ads can, at least it moves and inspires me even today. And there is a reason for it.
I have had a tough childhood with lots of struggles that my mom and dad had to go through and that is a story for another day. But in spite of all the struggles we had to endure, the one person that inspired me to really make it Big and make my Life count was my Jiju (my cousin sister’s husband).
He never directly gave me a pep talk but just to see him on the move was inspiring enough. He would start his work at 5 am and go non stop till he dropped, he supported so many people financially and emotionally, he gave respect to all, stayed away from vices of all kind, and just went about his life with a deep desire to make it work and he did, handsomely.
Today, he chairs a multi-million dollar business with Sales coming from all across India, Middle East & Europe. The surprising thing about this story is that he has inspired me to aim for being the Best at what I do instead of just exist as an Average Joe, and he has impacted me without saying a word about this to me, ever.
So now you know who my Tiger Woods is — my Jiju and I was blessed to have him around, see him at close quarters and learn from him. I wouldn’t have the zest and zeal for living my life fully if I was surrounded by mortal souls aiming just to survive. I wanted to thrive and it’s been an incredible journey to date.
“It takes two flints to make a fire.” — Louisa May Alcott
And now to the last story that I wanted to share, this one being from my MBA days —
As I said earlier, we were struggling financially and hence I had to take a loan from my cousins to pay my fees for my MBA. Since I was studying for my MBA with borrowed money, I didn’t have any money to chill out with friends I made there, or to go to Barista Coffee Shop, or to go for weekend trips or late-night parties. Hence I would always avoid these invitations with a random excuse.
But I had lots of time and I used that by being in the library and reading all the time. During these days, I made friends with Devang Shah and he was a very well-read student, with lots of grace in his demeanor and with deep knowledge about Finance, Investments, and Economics.
I started hanging out with him since he too was in the library most of the time and that association deepened my interest in the Financial World and it’s been almost 19 years and I still feel like I am just getting started. I have dabbled in many things in these 19 years but my love for Investments has always kept me connected to the industry and blessed me with handsome financial rewards too.
But if not for Devang as a role model/someone I looked up to, I may have passed with an MBA degree and survived as an Average Joe in my career. But today, my deep understanding of Investments and my commitment to be good at my field is an asset that helps in building a certain reputation and also opens up doors for exciting opportunities and collaborations.
“None of us is as smart as all of us.” — Ken Blanchard
So what does this have to do with Twitter?
🤔 A Lot and let me share why…
You are being influenced all the time, consciously and unconsciously. If you have healthy friends, chances are high that you will resort to healthy choices too. If your colleagues network over drinks or smoke, chances are you might get sucked into these vices too. If your peer group is vocal about politics in the office, chances are you will start sharing their opinion too.
The good thing about childhood was that we, almost always, were in a room of people which had many students smarter than us or the teacher was someone you had something to learn from or really look upto.
My Finance Professor during my MBA days was blind, but prolific in Finance. He was managing a key role in IDBI, teaching students and living a normal life, in spite of his special needs. This in itself was inspiring for me to see him in action, and what I learnt was icing on the cake.
But as you enter adulthood, and achieve milestones you were chasing, you happen to settle around the peer group that you get along with and see eye to eye on many things. But rarely are you surrounded by people smarter than you, whose work, whose very being leaves you in awe of what is possible if one was to put his full potential to use.
An absence of reference points of excellence, ambition, boldness, vision and many other virtues has a side effect on you, which you are oblivious to. These are —
1. You don't learn anything new.
2. Your ego takes over, making you feel superior.
3. Memetic behavior leads to all thinking in the same way.
4. You tend to get lazy since your so good, while being effortless in your actions when compared to the peers whose opinion you seek/crave.
5. You get sucked into the game ‘I am Better Than You’ and this game may consume your energy and resources.
How else would you describe really successful people doing dumb things or kings losing their kingdom due to jealousy or envy. You see people at the top who still feel like they are less than others and want to prove otherwise. You see people in powerful positions compromising their reputation for small financial gains. You see wealthy investors lose their sleep over leverage they have used in business or investing. How do you explain this phenomenon…
Following video is the trailer for the movie — All The Money in the World based on John Pearson’s 1995 book Painfully Rich: The Outrageous Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Heirs of J. Paul Getty. The film depicts the events surrounding the actual 1973 kidnapping of John Paul Getty III in Italy and the refusal of his grandfather, the multi-billionaire oil tycoon J. Paul Getty, to cooperate with the extortion demands of the organized crime Mafia group.
The dialogue on the 54th second of the trailer describes the human fallacy at its worst. Watch it to understand what I am hinting at.
It’s simple, we are human beings and we are messy, malleable, easily influenced, seduced, charmed, stirred, moved, inspired and sucked in to stories and emotions. This is what brings the downfall of many.
“The time we spend comparing our progress to others is time we could be spending making progress.” — Jack Butcher
We, are a messy species but there is a silverline to all of this. We are shapeless and formless, just like Bruce Lee states in the video. And the one’s we keep close to us are the ones that give us the form and shape we exist in. You cannot escape being influenced; you are a social animal and it will happen, whether you like it or not.
And since a lot of influence upon us is unconscious, it makes sense to be surrounded by people smarter, bolder and better than you in many regards. Their magic will rub off on you in ways you cannot fathom.
As for the “Progress” you seek, it requires you to be pulled into the direction of your goals, minimizing the distractions and noise along the way while your upping your skills and craft to reach there. And this is where Twitter comes in.
It provides you the network of people that will keep reminding you of the most fundamental things, while your mind is busy trying to play games with you to procastinate, to judge, to laze around, to do nothing. Your mind isn’t designed for hard work and hence the resistance to do what needs to be done or should be done.
Going to Harvard/MIT/IIM/Caltech provided the students a very important secret sauce for massive success in times to come and that was and is, the Alumni Network. Being surrounded by the brightest rubs off on people and they each tend to propel the other, unconsciously, to strive to do things that could change the world.
Just ask yourself, how would have you shaped up if you had Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Kunal Shah (CRED), Ramesh Damani, Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, Jack Ma, Vishal Shekhar Sharma (Paytm) and other visionaries in your class, asking the most intellectual questions, working on the most interesting projects, attempting the craziest experiments ?
Would you have turned out better, bolder, wiser ? I would say, the chances are way high for that to happen.
But all of us ain't blessed with this kind of a network and to create one from ground zero takes a lifetime or a stroke of genius or massive luck. And if you are like me, you don’t want to depend on luck and hope as a strategy.
That’s Gary Vaynerchuk — Founder of Vayner Media, Vayner X, Empathy Wines, Sasha Group, Vayner Productions, Vayner Talent and many more. He too was deeply impacted when he surrounded himself with people in Silicon Valley who were hungry and attempting to do things that shift the trajectory of the world’s progress.
“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” — George Bernard Shaw
And if creating a better version of yourself matters to you, then you could use the secret sauce that Twitter provides — a brilliant network of gifted minds, visionary leaders, daring entrepreneurs, multi billionaires, seasoned investors and more. And the best part is, these people share their thoughts, what they are reading, what they learnt, which podcast they heard this weekend or were interviewed on, which newsletters they subscribe to, which Youtube videos they recommend and so much more.
If you were to follow few of the best minds in domains of your interest, and if you just stuck to following them for next 12 months, it would be impossible to remain the same. For eg. if you were an aspiring actor and could be with Amitabh Bachan for 12 months, learning from him, reading what he reads, exchanging thoughts with him — wouldn’t these 12 months shape you in a certain way for your acting career ? Wouldn’t these 12 months with Mr. Bachan give you an edge over many others ?
I bet it would. The same happens on Twitter, day in day out.
And hence, I invite you to consider start looking at Twitter not as a Social Media nuisance/nonsense where people flaunt their fancy lifestyles. Rather look at it as a resource where knowledge is shared 24/7 from the minds you respect or from those who have achieved phenomenal success in their respective fields.
Twitter has been a game changer for me. I made new friends, learnt skills that have helped me in many ways, inspired me to do more & be more, to give more than what I take, to think big. It makes me a better person, bit by bit and hence couldn’t help writing a post on this platform.
I take the liberty to share with you “few” of my favorite ones and each of them are categorized in a manner that would give an idea of their backgrounds (detailed backgrounds available on their Twitter Profiles). These are people whose views, perspectives, opinions have guided me in making wiser, better, wholesome choices and whose recommendations have opened up a rabbit hole of wisdom and big picture in the process.
I can’t say that they would do the same for you, but I surely can state that you can start this Twitter experiment with these people and see where the rabbit hole takes you.
Enjoy 🤠
Billionaire Visionaries #
https://twitter.com/chamath?s=21
https://twitter.com/naval?s=21
https://twitter.com/elonmusk?s=21
https://twitter.com/vijayshekhar?s=21
https://twitter.com/hvgoenka?s=20
Almost Billionaires and may be there in 2021 #
https://twitter.com/Nithin0dha?s=20
https://twitter.com/kunalb11?s=21
https://twitter.com/awilkinson?s=21
Investments #
https://twitter.com/gautam__baid?s=21
https://twitter.com/clarksquarecap?s=21
https://twitter.com/mohnishpabrai?s=21
https://twitter.com/mjmauboussin?s=21
https://twitter.com/trengriffin?s=21
https://twitter.com/iancassel?s=21
https://twitter.com/jesse_livermore?s=21
Technology #
https://twitter.com/saxena_puru?s=21
https://twitter.com/balajis?s=21
https://twitter.com/beth_kindig?s=21
Private Equity / VC #
https://twitter.com/brentbeshore?s=21
https://twitter.com/jason?s=21
https://twitter.com/gaganbiyani?s=21
Entrepreneurship #
https://twitter.com/jackbutcher?s=21
https://twitter.com/rahul_j_mathur?s=21
https://twitter.com/dvassallo?s=21
Indian Markets #
https://twitter.com/dmuthuk?s=21
https://twitter.com/aditya_kondawar?s=21
Blogging/Writing #
https://twitter.com/dollarsanddata?s=21
https://twitter.com/david_perell?s=21
Quotes #
https://twitter.com/wealth_theory?s=21
Just in case you thought that friendships on Twitter will remain online, let me warn you — you will be disappointed. If you understand this medium of communication, learn to receive the information there and if you are willing to give back/contribute/share your knowledge and experiences — then you will be surprised with the friendships you will make in time to come.
“Figure out what you’re good at, and start helping other people with it. Give it away. Pay it forward. Karma works because people are consistent. On a long enough timescale, you will attract what you project. But don’t measure — your patience will run out if you count.” — @navalmanack on Twitter
Looking forward to your first tweet 😉
Wishing You Loads of Love & Luck
Manish