In 2017, I read a book about monk mindset named A monk who sold his Ferrari by Robin Sharma. Where the character Julian, a seven-figure-making lawyer sold his Ferrari. Now you may think How crazy Julian was that he sold his Ferrari where We don’t have at least one. Listen dear, this is not insanity — after he collapsed from all the strain with a heart attack, he sold everything and ventured into the Himalayan mountains. It turns out that he sold his Ferrari because he needed wisdom, and wisdom doesn’t come from owning a Ferrari or BMW but from monk mindset. So why I, confidently, said that It comes from a monk mindset. Let’s get back to the idea of wisdom to have a hint of monk mindset —What is wisdom? It is comprised of inner peace, the purpose of life and true intention. And you can only achieve these wisdom by making a monk mindset. With curiosity, you might have been wondering how you can achieve the monk mindset. To shed light on your how, Jay Shetty, a former monk and motivational speaker, wrote a book named Think Like A Monk. 

Why the book name is Think Like a Monk and not Be a monk or something else. The story behind the name lies in some traditional customs what we use to believe(and I’m not the exception). I always thought that to become a monk, one needs to leave his family, be unmarried, abandon his religion —in summary, one needs to be ascetic. And most importantly, as I’m a Muslim, I used to believe that I shouldn’t follow a monk because we don’t support asceticism (In fact, I, personally, don’t support asceticism. I’m a kind of comfort seeker😁). Surprisingly, I came to know that It’s not like what we used to think, you don’t need to be ascetic. To become a monk doesn’t mean that “you need to be bald, wear robes”, abandon your family and be unmarried (In fact Jay Shetty is married too and his wife is more Monk than he). Besides “[y]ou don’t need to light candles in your home, walk around barefoot, or post photos of yourself doing tree pose on a mountaintop”, rather “[b]ecoming a monk is a mindset that anyone can adopt”. And Jay Shetty “know[s] monks who were in finance and in rock bands. They grow up in schools, towns, and cities just like you”. In fact, you can have a monk mindset by maintaining your religion properly (as I know every religion believes in peace and calm). In sum, you need to think like a monk. 

Now You may wonder Why we need to read the book and “think like a monk”. Here Jay Shetty says: 

If you wanted to know how to dominate the basketball court, you might turn to Michael Jordan; if you wanted to innovate, you might investigate Elon Musk; you might study Beyoncé to learn how to perform. If you want to train your mind to find peace, calm, and purpose? Monks are the expert. 

To me whether you want “to find peace, calm and purpose” or not, “adopting the monk mindset is necessary”, because “we have no other choice. We need to find calm, stillness, and peace”. And what the author did is to write the book to help and direct you in achieving your peace, calm and purpose. 

The book is split into three parts with four chapters in each part. The most appealing part, to me, is Let Go. That part is divided into four chapters, namely Identity, Negativity, Fear and Intention. In describing identity, Jay Shetty quoted from his teacher Gauranga Das that “identity is a mirror covered with dust. When you first look in the mirror, the truth of who you are and what you value is obscured. Clearing it may not be pleasant, but only when that dust is gone you can see your true reflection”. In daily lives, our everything is shaped by others’ view and “[o]ur identity is wrapped up in what others think of us—or, more accurately, what we think others think of us”. Unlike The Monk Who Sold his Ferrari , Jay Shetty gave some tasks — which are the distinct features of the book — at the end of each Chapter by which you can train your mind to find your true identity and to abandon negativity and fear what can hinder you achieving your true purpose.

So why “letting go” is important?  Because It “is a big part of the rhythm of nature, as is rebirth- leaves sprout, transform, and drop. Reptiles, birds, and mammals shed their skins, feathers, fur”. 

If It comes about the writing style, then I would say the book is written in a pellucid writing-style so that mass people can understand, though sometimes you may encounter some jargon from the Sanskrit language. But you don’t need to be worried, because every Sanskrit terms are written with its English meaning. 

In a nutshell, I would say the book is a masterpiece for everyone. If I had the ability, I would give it as a gift to everyone. Before putting an end to my long, boring review ride, I would like to quote from Jay Shetty: 

When you are not alone, surround yourself with people who fit well with your values. It helps to find a community that reflects who you want to be.

Happy Journey towards training your mind and achieving your true values.

 

Rating: 4.5/5

October 16, 2020

Sitting in a chair with a mug of coffee, like everyday, I was reading the editorial section of the newspaper, Prothom Alo. I, abruptly, wondered an article named “Mr. Finance Minister, balance the sum please” written by Dr. Mainul Islam, former UGC Professor of Economics, University of Chittagong, Bangladesh. It was a write-up describing ongoing controversy about GDP growth(5.28)—which is provided by Bangladesh Bueuro of Statistics(BBS). The controversy began when IMF and World Bank provided a Growth rate of 2.28 and 1.2 respectively. In accusing the BBS Dr. Mainul quoted from  Mark Twain: 

There are three kinds of lies- lies, damned lies and Statistics. 

Now you may wonder why Mark Twain regarded Statistics as more than damned lies. Here the book How to lie with Statistics can shed light on the argument made by Twain. Besides, what Darrell Huff did is to write the book to enlighten your mind in understanding the chicanery of Statistics. Let's come to the main part of the book with an example.

Suppose, Yale University, in their advertising, published that average monthly income of their alumni is $3000. Now what does it mean to you? Does it mean whoever get admitted to Yale will earn a salary of $3000? Wait! Wait! If you think the way they force you to think, then you are gullible. Now you may think why I said so. Patience dear! Here are a lot of deceptions and one of them is what the author depicted as The built-in Sample Bias(One of the chapters of the book).

You and I are not sure about how they collected the sample, who got the questionnaire and who answered the questionnaire. In general, higher income earning people are easily reachable and the people who have lower income tend to hide his income,  implying that they are unreachable.  That means most of the people from the sample have higher income and they are not the exact representatives of the population. 

Another trickery is The well chosen average(another chapter of the book). The term average has a loose meaning as maintained by Darrell huff. It can mean arithmetic mean, median, mode. Now the question is what type of average Yale authority used here? If it is median(middle number of the sample), then 50% of the alumni have an income lower than $3000 and 50% have higher than that. And if It is mode(most frequent number of the sample), then most of the alumni earn $3000. See, Yale authority didn’t mention the type of average.     

The author also explain how, by cutting the graph from below and by one dimensional picture illustrated below, Statistician can delude you. These things are described in Chapter The Gee-whiz curve and The one-dimensional picture respectively.  

If it comes about writing style, then I would say It is as simple as water. Readers might not encounter any esoteric statistical term what could make their time unworthy.   

At the end of the book, the author “explain how to look a phony statistic in the eye and face it down; and no less important, how to recognize sound and usable data in that wilderness of fraud to which the previous chapters have been largely devoted”.

Before sum up, I would like to mention a quote from Aaron Levenstein, former business professor, Baruch College: 

Statistics are like a bikini. What they reveal is interesting. But what they hide is vital. 

Now If you think statistics as a bikini and are interested about what It conceals😜, you must read the book. 

Happy Reading… 🙂

Rating: 4.5/5 

September 07, 2020

As majority of the people often think about one side of the coin, so the other side eludes them. The world has been encountering the severe effect of Covid-19 since the last phase of 2019. Everything has been halted and most importantly the global economy has gone  downturn. There, amid the situation, may be a recession coming; one side of the coin what we are thinking right now, but there is, as I mentioned earlier, always the other side of the coin which I would call “Economic Mismatch”— my main concern of that article. Let’s examine the nuances between upcoming recession and Economic Mismatch. 

A recession is a situation where inflation-adjusted per capita GDP declines and downturn of the economy is backed up by the impuissance in industrial production, trade, capital flows, oil consumption and unemployment; where all of these macroeconomic indicators are influenced by economic shocks. 

The economic shocks may happen by the effect of Covid-19. On account of Covid-19, people are quarantined in their house and keep up “social distancing”. Social distancing —the aftermath of Covid-19— affects economic activities, the activities which involve physical interactions among people, such as tourism, retail trade, restaurants, office work etc. As an evidence WTO said, “The dollar value of world merchandise exports fell by 3% to $18.89 trillion”. Also, there is a presage that the aggregate supply will fall precipitously as the global supply chain is severely affected and consumption, backed by income, will fall, hence there will be a drop-off in aggregate demand(AD), which further escalates unemployment. In a nutshell, the economy will be foundered into a great chaos.

But what’s happening on the other side of the coin?

I have mentioned earlier, economic activities, which involves physical interactions, are affected and those, which don't require physical interactions, are unaffected. That is why the business of Netflix, Amazon, which doesn’t require physical involvements, is booming and that of restaurants, hotels, retailers and tourism is slumping. Consequently, the aforementioned problem causes “Economic mismatch”; an Economic mismatch takes place when one side of the economy is booming and the other is slumping. Here, the problem induced by Covid-19 is not a general drop in Aggregate demand, rather It is a problem of Economic mismatch.  

Let’s observe the figure portrayed below to further beep up my aforesaid argument and to see how market valuation/market capitalization of Netflix, one of the online economic agents, increases within March 2020.

Data source: macrotrends

As the evidence shows, there was a nadir in December 2018 with a market valuation of $107 billion, though in September 2019 It stepped-up to $115 billion, and surprisingly within March 2020 It went up to $162 billion. The fact illustrated above is backed up by “Social distancing”; the more people are quarantined, the higher the rate of time they spend online. Hence, the revenue of these economic agents increased at a higher rate as a consequence of the Covid-19. But the scenario, depicted above, is not plausible in our country, Bangladesh. The reason behind it is the number of users of these online economic agents.

Let’s examine the graph below to look into the apparent paradox. 

Data source: comparitech

We, from the graph above, observe that most of the users of Netflix are from Australia, UK, Brasil, Canada, Germany, France, Spain, Japan, Netherlands, Mexico and USA(which is not shown in graph). Evidently, It is seen that Netflix is often being used by the citizens of developed countries; the aftermath of Economic mismatch is severe therein. As the users in Bangladesh are comparatively low, the Economic mismatch is uncertain.

In a nutshell, the effect of Covid-19, in spite of apparent paradox, will cause a severe recession with Economic mismatch—which I mentioned as the other side of the coin.

So what measures should a government take to overcome the Economic mismatch? 

Governments in many countries have taken fiscal measures to palliate the pandemic's economic impact. For example, the government in our country has already pledged to provide $90 million—6.9% for apparel manufacturers. But such initiatives will not help address the problem of Economic mismatch. Indeed, the government, in order to take on the underlying problem and find a solution, should devise a schism of economic activity in two sides; one side which involves physical interactions and the other side which doesn’t involve physical interactions. After the schism, the government should finance the adjustments needed to get over the Economic mismatch and provide appropriate goods and services to support the people who involve in physical interactions’s activity, such as restaurants, hotel, tourism, apparel manufacture etc.

References:

1. https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/covid19-great-economic-mismatch-by-dennis-j-snower-2020-04?barrier=accesspaylog

2. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/recession.asp

April 09, 2020