Holi is the last big festival in India at the end of financial year. The mythological aspect of this festival suggest that gigantic efforts of Prahlad when he defeated his evil aunt Holika, which suggests good always prevails over evil.
Many festivals in India like Dusshera or Diwali are symbol of defeating evil. However Holi is special in its own nature because it is celebrated with lots of colors. The whole country is smeared with different colours. Every place becomes colorful and joyful, where no boredom, anger, lust, or jealousy has place to occupy.
On a similar note, imagine a colorful, joyful and stress-free wealth being created without thinking too much. This Holi, make your wealth creation as joyful as possible by adding various colours and remove all the evils damaging the same.
Wealth creation is a long-term process and if we want to create the perfect portrait, it needs vast yet vibrant colours. Colorus give a new meaning to life. However, merely adding random colours will not help.
So, you must follow these steps for making your life and portfolio truly wealthy:
Invest with care: You can play Holi, but it should be with care, dignity and fun-filled. Internet, television advertisement, marketing agencies and lot more will flood your head with different investment options. If you went to a departmental store without knowing what you want, you will end up buying majority of unwanted stuff. This scenario is no different to that, hence you must educate yourself before choosing any investment opportunity. Your long term objectives are your first friend to help you identify your instruments, hence you must stand true to them. With tons of investment opportunity available in the market, it may create chaos in your mind in choosing it, thus understanding your need and then studying each instrument will help you in achieving ease of investment.
Lesser debt, better the life: In Holi, a bonfire is organized to cleanse your body and mind and burn away all the evil. Similarly your investment also needs cleansing by reshuffling your poor investment and burning the evil of debt. Debt attracts constant repayment of interest and borrowed amount and hampers the opportunity to save. In addition to that correction might be required to correct the wrong of the past. So this Holi, get rid of the evil debt and make amends to the wrong done in the past.
Mix all the colours: Holi is never played with one or two colors, it is played with multiple colors. On similar context, your portfolio cannot have only one or two colors. Because each color has its own importance and benefits. Over concentration on one color might make your portfolio one sided and prone to free fall, whereas under concentration might make it weak and insufficient. Therefore an optimum concentration must be targeted by mixing high risk instrument with low risk and higher return instrument with stable ones.
Patience is the key to wealth: Holi is celebrated on account of good prevailing over evil, wherein Pralhad’s persistence and faith in god prevailed over evil powers of Holika. This win is the result of consistent faith and tenacity of the little child, which even called god to present itself and protect him from the evil. Investment is a long term process of wealth creation, which requires similar consistency and persistence. Rome wasn’t built in one night and neither will your wealth, it requires faith and consistent investing efforts. Therefore this Holi let follow Pralhad’s path of consistency and persistence and lead yourself to wealth.
Be adaptable: Hiranyakashyap was a spoiled king, who was adamant that there was no such thing as God and he loathed his own son to core for believing in God. It was his adamancy that let to his downfall. In financial planning, if you are adamant in your decision, it can also result into your downfall. It is essential to be flexible in your planning and make changes to avoid poor decision making. Hiranyakashyap lost his life due to adamancy, as far as financial planning are concerned savings may be treated much more than life.
Holi is an auspicious occasion and teaches us many financial lessons. H is for happiness, which means invest today to be happy in future. O for being organised, not just in relation to financial planning but also with regards to health of you and your family, by having sufficient term plan and medical policies. L indicates a liability-free life, wherein stopping hasty and unwanted purchase and using cash than credit will create a stree free environment. Lastly, I stands for individualistic, which means, plan your finance in accordance to your objective, income, lifestyle and family, since copying anyone else’s plan may not be fruitful to you.
So, let us ensure this Holi, we start a new era — the era of wealth creation.
(The writer is founder, Money Mantra. Views expressed are personal)