Shivam's Blog

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40 Minutes Changed His Life

Rohit sat at his home desk, grinning. He placed his cup of black coffee carefully on his right, aligned the coaster to sit flush with his brown desk mat. That’s a little bit OCD, he said in his own breath but that’s how he liked having his coffee, plain black with his coaster aligned to the tee with his desk. He looked at the clock and said, “Hmm, I’ve got a good 40 minutes. Let’s get this…

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It's okay to be indisciplined

“I am unspeakably tired, unspeakably sad, unspeakably lonely…In the camp, you really believed you had reached the low point of life — and then, when you came back, you were forced to see that the things had not lasted, everything that had sustained you had been destroyed, that at the time when you become human again, you could sink into an even more bottomless suffering.” — Viktor Frankl I…

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The pendulum of life

For 70 years Queen Elizabeth attended countless ceremonies and parades spending thousands of hours standing straight, with balance. She said: One must plant their feet like this. Always keep them in parallel. Make sure your weight is evenly distributed. That’s all there is to it. Shivam, but what does that have to do with work-life balance? Well, everything. Here is a popular myth about work…

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Read. Reflect. Repeat: The Career Edge of a Thoughtful Mind

There’s a quiet weapon in the careers of people who seem to always be two steps ahead. It doesn’t post about itself on LinkedIn thrice a week. It doesn’t show up in KPIs. But it’s there, tucked between the margins of books and the pages of old notebooks: a personal system for reading and reflection. Warren Buffett reads six hours a day. Bill Gates famously takes reading vacations. Barack Obama…

Read. Reflect. Repeat: The Career Edge of a Thoughtful Mind

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You just got tricked into buying a new iPhone

“Shivam, you wanted a hand blender for your soup recipes, right? This one from Braun is available for ₹1500 on Amazon Sale” My wife exclaimed in a louder than usual voice, with a sparkle in her eyes. By the time I turned towards her from watching reels on Instagram, she had realized her mistake. “Oh wait, iska price to ₹9000 hai, ye inhone EMI upar dikhai hai yaar” she uttered. Yes, the ₹1500…

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Are you overcomplicating your own life?

Imagine your phone is running quite slow all of a sudden. You open Instagram and it takes 5 seconds for it to open, 7 seconds for Whatsapp and god forbid 8-10 seconds for Gmail app to open. What are your first thoughts as to why this might be happening? Virus? Hackers? Webcam compromised, financial details leaked? What will you do now? Will they empty all your savings that you took 5 years…

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Old People Know the Secret to Happiness in Life

Across different cultures in the world there is a notion that old people tend to live slower, are usually happier and also savor the small positives in life. Some say it is because they don’t spend a lot of time on Twitter or social media in general but in truth there is a deeper reason to this. It turns out that old people have subconsciously trained their brains to be “happier” I was going…

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How To Find A Mentor

How To Find A Mentor

This is an email from my daily morning Stoic Wealth emails, you can sign up on https://sendfox.com/shivam I got a few DMs on Instagram as well as Twitter of people asking me to mentor them. Here is something I can tell you about mentors and how I had cracked my chance to work with someone like Grant Cardone. I had dived in value first. So rather than saying “hi, whatsup, would you be my…

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Doing Less Is What Helps Us Succeed

Doing Less Is What Helps Us Succeed

“Remember that very little is needed to make a happy life.” – Marcus Aurelius Marcus Aurelius points the importance of a minimalistic lifestyle. Excess of anything is harmful. Even excess of water can kill a human being. In the age of social media, we are bombarded with an excess of information. It often happens that people just collect information and in the act of doing so start believing…

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The 0 Competition Path To Success

The 0 Competition Path To Success

So, I published a 50 minute in depth YouTube video today on Grow With Shivam channel. The aim was to go deep and talk about my journey as a YouTuber, lessons learnt, making money and everything else that a beginner will need to start on YouTube. The average watch time is 2 minutes. Usually people run videos at 1.5x speed but when the video itself is 50 minutes long even a 1.5x speed is not…

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The Goal Is Not Important

The Goal Is Not Important

Let’s say I plan to setup an emergency fund for me and my wife. If our monthly expenses are INR 75,000 then technically our emergency fund should have INR 2,25,000 – INR 4,50,000. Now if I take our usual savings and investing rate of 15% each with an approximate salary of INR 1,20,000 then I must at any costs save at least INR 36,000 per month, taking us about 6-12 months to reach the emergency…

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Be Financially FREE By Doing Nothing Special

Be Financially FREE By Doing Nothing Special

Nobody wants to be wealthy when they are 90 years old, have health problems and cannot really enjoy the wealth itself that they might have taken decades to build. We all want to get rich and live a great life when we are young. We do not want to look at the price when ordering food, we might want to order from a great restaurant, sponsor drinks for our friends at the bar or maybe even randomly…

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Viktor E. Frankl On Human Suffering In Concentration Camps: Man's Search For Meaning

Viktor E. Frankl On Human Suffering In Concentration Camps: Man’s Search For Meaning

Earlier this year I picked up this book I have had for about a year now. The title, Man’s Search For Meaning, written by Viktor E Frankl. I had no idea about what is in this book.

I was having a low time in my life and maybe thought that this book might give me some motivation or a nudge towards the right direction. 2020 has been a weird year for me. I was looking for some guidance…

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The 3 Hour "Magical" Business Seminar To Jumpstart Your Career

The 3 Hour "Magical" #Business Seminar To Jumpstart Your #Career

Do not think that what is hard for you to master is humanly impossible; and if it is humanly possible, consider it to be within your reach.

Marcus Aurelius

The word “Career” is defined as an occupation taken up for a significant portion of someone’s life.

Yet the ironic situation is that our schools, colleges and our society promote instant gratification.

These institutions promote…

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Know A Thousand Things: Miyamoto Musashi On Strategy In His "The Book Of Five Rings In 1645"

Know A Thousand Things: Miyamoto Musashi On Strategy In His “The Book Of Five Rings In 1645”

He knew his end was near, he wanted to share everything he had learnt through countless duels, battles with enemies and with himself throughout his life.

This was around the year 1643. There was a cave in the mountains north of Kumamoto, Japan. It was the perfect spot for this 60 year old man to retire into.

He was getting frail, his hair unkempt as usual. His receding hairline had…

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29 May 1453: The Bloody Fall Of Constantinople

29 May 1453: The Bloody Fall Of Constantinople

It was a Tuesday like none other. All you could see was destruction, the two armies shooting at each other, huge cannons were being used to blow up enemy soldiers and walls. The water in the gutters had turned insidiously red. Dead bodies upon dead bodies of Ottomans and Byzantines were floating in the sea.

This was day 53 of a bloody siege laid on this beautiful, one of the riches cities in…

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Lost Letters From 1679 - Travels To Spain

Lost Letters From 1679 – Travels To Spain

I have learnt, since this little Adventure, that ’tis the Custom in Spain, when any thing is presented to one, if he likes it, and kisses your Hand, he may take it with him.

Madame d’Aulnoy

A guy took her expensive mechanical watch to have a look(Tompion’s) and then took her hand in his and kissed it. As soon as he did it, he put the watch in his pocket, which she describes would have been…

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