A tale of Father's Advice to Fly High !

This Fathers Day, I would like to share one of the vivid memories I have of me and my father together. I belong to Gujarat, and one of the most important festivals is Sankrant.

As I was watching my father flying a kite, I said, “Pappa aa manjho patang ne unchi udwa nathi detho”

“Dad, Because of the string the kite is not able to go any further higher”

Hearing this, my father smiled and broke the string. The kite went higher after breaking of the thread and then shortly after that it came flying down to the ground. A bunch of kids came fleeting to catch hold of the kite. Amongst all the pitter patter of kids, my father told me to sit down and said “Beta aa manjo j che je patang ne udwa de che”

“Son, it is because of this String that the kite is able to fly”

He further continued,

“Son, in life we reach a certain level of prosperity and then we feel that there are certain things in our life that are not letting us grow any further like Home, Family, Friendship etc. We feel we want to be free from those strings which we believe are stopping us from going higher. But, remember son. Going higher is easier than staying at the higher level. And friends, family and culture etc are the things that will help us stay stable at the high heights that we have achieved. If we try to break away from those strings our condition will be similar to the kite.”

Today when I am grown up, I believe that this is the best piece of advice I have got in my Life. It equally applies to my profession.

We have life goals (responsibilities) and due to which we have financial goals. In our financial journey, we sometimes feel that someone else is flying higher than us, achieving more than us and we always try to look at others kites than ours.

We all want a maximum return on investments say 20 to 30%. We all invest in Equity for outstanding returns. While the story of Equity seems rosy, we should not forget the Risk involved. When I as a financial advisor ask clients to diversify the portfolio among various asset classes, they fear that the returns of the portfolio will average out to be lesser compared to an only equity portfolio. But, as seen above, Going higher is easier than staying at the higher level. 

The strings (perceived as restrictions) of asset allocation will help us to achieve our life goals. Our ultimate aim is not only to get a higher corpus but to achieve our financial goals with assurance and safety.

If we break these strings, then we may achieve higher results, higher corpus than expected but it may not be consistent and sometimes, the corpus may wash out completely, and a few of our goals may not be achieved at all. Do we want our loved ones to suffer because we were greedy for a higher Corpus? NEVER!

So, friends, all strings attached, Fly High.

Happy Fathers Day!

By: CA Nitesh Buddhadev and CA Mitsu Buddhadev
The authors can also be reached at info@nimitwealthmanagement.com