
April 25, 2021
LifeMathMoney talks about Friendship, Critical Thinking, College with CA & Much More | Born to Grow Podcast with Pooja Sharma
Check out on The Born to Grow Podcast Youtube Channel
Key Takeaways
- “Everybody will have to learn about crypto” Harsh Strongman
- If you feel that your English is not good, that’s the number one thing you should work on
- “No matter how smart you are, if you speak broken English people tend to assume you’re an idiot” Harsh Strongman
- Losing weight is easier than you’d think
- Don’t let “Great” be the enemy of “Good”
- Even if you can’t meditate for 15 minutes today, you can still meditate for 5 minutes
- Use your willpower wisely
- Make healthy behaviors habits
- You don’t need to use your limited willpower to do them every day
- Design your environment to not require willpower
- “The fight to be healthy and fit is not in the kitchen, it is in the grocery store” Harsh Strongman
- Make healthy behaviors habits
- Your family doesn’t want you to be successful
- They will guide you to safe and predictable paths
- To become successful you need to take a lot of risks
- “If something is true and you get offended by it, the problem is you” Harsh Strongman
Key Books Mentioned
- On entrepreneurship
- Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller by Ron Chernow
- The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss
- Other books
- Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- Gorilla Mindset by Mike Cernovich is a good book on self-development
- The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene
- On philosophy
- Striking Thoughts by Bruce Lee
- Chanakya Neeti and Arthashastra (more on politics) by Acharya Chanakya
- Currently Harsh is reading Mastering Ethereum
Intro
- Harsh Strongman (@LifeMathMoney) is a financial consultant and writer on self-improvement, personal finance, health, and social skills. He is also the creator of the 90 Day Self-Improvement Program Live Intentionally: Discipline, Mindset, Direction
- Check out Harsh’s website and his online course The Art of Twitter: Build a Business That Makes You $100/Day
- Host: Pooja Sharma (@ipoojasharma)
- In this chat Harsh and Pooja cover a wide variety of topics around self-improvement and business, from crypto and education to willpower and entrepreneurship, and much more
Why Learn about Crypto
- “Everybody will have to learn about crypto” Harsh Strongman
- The sooner you learn about it the more you can gain out of it
- The key to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is that they are decentralized
- They are not controlled by a central authority
- It can’t be endlessly printed as it happens with fiat currencies
- In many ways, crypto is more sound than the US dollar
- Harsh launched a free course called Teach Yourself Crypto
Improving Your Presentation and Communication Skills
- A lot of people in India would benefit immensely from taking an English speaking course
- “No matter how smart you are, if you speak broken English people tend to assume you’re an idiot” Harsh Strongman
- If you feel that your English is not good, that’s the number one thing you should work on
- Improving your English speaking skills has an extremely high Return on Investment (ROI)
- It will make you look smarter and more sophisticated
- It increases the chances of getting jobs paid in foreign currencies
- Improving your English speaking skills has an extremely high Return on Investment (ROI)
- Best ways to improve your English
- Listen to podcasts
- Read more books, particularly novels
- Practice speaking English with other people
- No matter how much you read or listen to English, your pronunciation won’t improve unless you practice speaking
- Speaking slowly and making pauses at the right time gives a sense of confidence
How to Lose Weight
- With COVID and lockdowns, more people are becoming obese
- Paradoxically, obese people are also more vulnerable to COVID
- “The easiest way to improve your life, or at least the way you feel, is to lose weight” Harsh Strongman
- Losing weight is easier than you’d think
- Most people struggle with harsh diets that they can’t maintain
- Then reward themselves, making up for all the progress they made
- What to do if you want to lose weight
- Skip breakfast
- Stop eating sugar and vegetable oils
- Increase your protein intake
Resolutions , Not Seeking Perfection and Willpower
- You’re not going to change your life in one day
- Resolutions create the expectation of perfection (e.g. I will eat healthy from today)
- If you break it once, you lose the motivation to maintain it
- It creates a vicious cycle
- Once you can’t be perfect, you lose all your discipline
- Don’t let “Great” be the enemy of “Good”
- Even if you can’t eat the perfect diet today, you can still avoid eating that last dessert
- Even if you can’t meditate for 15 minutes today, you can still meditate for 5 minutes
- Willpower is limited, use it wisely
- If you use up your willpower for every little task, you’ll quickly be exhausted
- It’s best to use your willpower to complete the hardest tasks in your day
- How to preserve your willpower
- Make healthy behaviors habits
- You don’t need to use your limited willpower to do them every day
- Design your environment to not require willpower
- Do not buy tempting cookies and desserts
- “The fight to be healthy and fit is not in the kitchen, it is in the grocery store” Harsh Strongman
- Make healthy behaviors habits
Friendship and Business Partnerships
- Harsh defines a friend as someone he can trust and rely on, even in times of crisis
- Trustworthiness and integrity are key
- People’s integrity doesn’t change based on who they are dealing with
- If you know a person cheated on other people in the past, it’s only a matter of time before they cheat on you
- Trustworthiness and integrity are key
- Friendships based on business relationships tend to be stronger
- Working with someone you get to know them more deeply
- You tend to have similar goals
- Starting a company with someone is like getting married
- It’s essential that you have known the person for a long time and that you can trust them
- Even better if you worked together and your skills are complementary
- You become like the people you surround yourself with
- If you’re ambitious and a high-achiever, you should pick friends who inspire you
- Stay away from people with unhealthy habits
- Eventually, they’ll influence you too
- For most relationships, you need a reason to stay around people
- In school, proximity is usually the reason
- Once you lose proximity, if you have no reason to maintain the friendship, it will usually weaken
- In school, proximity is usually the reason
- Aristotle’s three types of friendship
- Friendship of utility
- Gym buddies, classmates, colleagues
- You help each other in some specific domain
- Friendship of pleasure
- People you like to have fun with
- Not the friends you discuss serious matters with
- Friendship of the good (the highest form of friendship)
- Friends who love you for who you are
- High trust
- Friendship of utility
Your Family Doesn’t Want you to be Successful
- If you always listen to your family, it’s unlikely that you’ll become successful
- Family members usually don’t want you to take any risk
- They will guide you to safe and predictable paths
- A stable job stifles your potential and your dreams
- To become successful you need to take a lot of risks
- Listen to your family’s advice seriously, but discern whether they’re just trying to be protective
Owning a (Scalable) Business vs Self-Employment
- When you own a business, you make money when you sleep
- You can outsource the tasks that need to be done
- You can sell your business if you want to
- If you are self-employed, you’re selling yourself
- A doctor is self-employed
- He needs to be there and do the work
- Even if he owns his own clinic, he can’t sell it, because it’s attached to his personal reputation
- A doctor is self-employed
- Having employees or not doesn’t make a difference
- There’s software that allows you to automate so many tasks
- You can outsource work to freelancers
- When starting a business think about scalability
- “You want to start a business with no glass ceiling” Harsh Strongman
- When you’re starting a non-scalable business you’re thinking small
- Technology makes scaling so more easily and cheaper than it was in the past
Should You Bootstrap or Look for Funding?
- It depends on what kind of business you’re looking to start
- It’s getting cheaper and cheaper to start a business
- You can host a website for $3 a month
- Funding is not the issue, it is that people don’t try
- Lack of funding is often an excuse for not trying
- Start with what you have
- Even if you can’t start the business of your dreams today because you don’t have the money, you can surely start an internet-based business
Starting an Online Business
- Observe what businesses other people started online, and learn from them
- Learn copywriting, it is one of the most important skills to have as online entrepreneurs
- Build an audience on social media
- You don’t have to quit your job to start an online business
- You can find gaps in your day to work on it
- Most people waste a lot of time at work
- That extra time can be used to start your business
- Harsh doesn’t recommend quitting your job until your business has replaced your income
- You can find gaps in your day to work on it
Harsh’s Book Recommendations
- On entrepreneurship
- Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller by Ron Chernow
- The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss
- Other books
- Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- Gorilla Mindset by Mike Cernovich is a good book on self-development
- The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene
- On philosophy
- Striking Thoughts by Bruce Lee
- Chanakya Neeti and Arthashastra (more on politics) by Acharya Chanakya
- Currently Harsh is reading Mastering Ethereum
- Harsh is reluctant to recommend books that are too difficult
- The internet and social media has been decreasing our attention span significantly
Is College Worth It?
- The education system is set to go at the pace of the least capable kids
- The consequence is that the most capable kids aren’t pushed or intellectually challenged
- Homeschooling would allow kids to pursue their own interests and go at their own pace
- Most of the value of going to college today is
- Building a network
- Improving your communication skills
- Most of those things can also be done outside of college, and in a shorter time frame
- College doesn’t teach marketable skills that can be applied in the world
- A recent statistic says that over 80% of engineers in India are unemployable
- Perverse incentives created by college
- People who earned a college degree will be reluctant to accept many jobs and will prefer to sit at home
- Most people don’t know of any alternatives to going to college
- India should develop a more entrepreneurial culture
Ancient Wisdom and Uncomfortable Truths
- A lot of practical knowledge is stored in old books and scriptures
- People think that new is better
- But wisdom is eternal
- Acharya Chanakya’s philosophy can be very eye-opening for many people
- It is politically incorrect and some people may feel offended by reading him
- “If something is true and you get offended by it, the problem is you” Harsh Strongman
Thought on COVID, Lockdowns and Real Estate
- Harsh is more concerned about COVID’s impact on the economy than on his own health
- As a young, healthy guy he isn’t afraid of the virus
- Continuing to lock people down, in the long term can create social instability
- Many people lost their job and have no chance to find a new one right now
- Why investing in real estate doesn’t make sense now
- Most people can’t afford to buy a house in the city
- The need for owning a house in the city is decreasing
- Mobility is much more valued today
- It is possible that we will see a rise in property taxes, as governments need to raise money
- Property is the easiest thing to tax
- Partial and weekend lockdowns don’t make sense
- The same number of people go out in a smaller window of time
- It increases the chance of contact
- It looks like a way for governments to feel like they are doing something
- Most of these lockdowns aren’t working in any country, yet they’re still blindly implemented
- The same number of people go out in a smaller window of time
- Some reports showed that the numbers of cases have been inflated in the US
- While it is likely that India is underreporting cases to make the situation appear less severe
- How Harsh made his lockdown more productive
- He bought gym equipment to exercise at home
- He has been studying, working on his businesses and launched his new crypto course
Additional Notes
- The education system often discourages questioning what is being taught
- This leads to children not having critical thinking skills
- There’s an important difference between encouraging critical thinking and simply straw-manning arguments
- Straw-manning doesn’t address the point of the original argument
- When people start their counterargument with “so you are saying that”, they are often distorting your ideas
- Harsh recommends “The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin” to develop critical thinking and debate skills
- Harsh wants to learn Sanskrit to be able to read the original Ramayana instead of its translations
- Much depth and meaning are lost in translation
- If you want to find the truth, post your hypothesis on the internet, someone will correct you
- Taking L-theanine with coffee will reduce the jitters and anxiety that some people feel with coffee
- L-theanine is a natural amino acid found in green tea