2026 Money Masterclass: The REAL Way to Build Wealth

Everyone is talking about investing, investing, investing. But at what point, you start enjoying that money. Well, and money gives you freedom. You can't live on love and fresh air. What are the three non-negotiables of building wealth today? Start with whatever you have. Invest where it's boring. Invest where no one is looking. I feel like SIP is being disciplined. If as a father, she comes to you and says, please invest my money for me, say no. Three hours ago, no one was even talking about gold. Why do you think so many people are picking the trick returns? What do you mean when you say risk profiles? It's the most boring thing that someone will tell you, but it's the right thing to do. Remember, you will one day have a zero salary life. Even men are big enough. And they think they know everything. I think women are far better investors than men. What is your advice? If someone is really looking to create wealth from real estate, to gold, to equity, to debt, so the best thing you can do. We chase higher salaries, better investments, maybe even side-houses, but few of us learn the real art of building sustainable generational wealth. In a world that glorifies quick success, crypto wins and start-up exists, what does it actually take to create financial stability that lasts? And more importantly, how can you start today regardless of how much you earn? Today's guest is a woman who sits at the intersection of legacy and leadership. Aditi Kotari Desai, chairperson at DSP Mutual Funds. She's not just part of one of India's most respected financial families, but she is redefining what money, investing, and empowerment looks like for the Indian woman today. So whether you're earning your first paycheck or planning your next big investment, this episode is your masterclass on how to build wealth that lasts. Aditi, you've met people who've not just made money, but built wealth. What is the difference between the two presalities? So I think building wealth is building enough money for your retirement so that you're not living sort of a life where you have to cringe because or feel you can't spend or be misaligned anyway because you're not, because you don't have a salary. And this is especially for salaried women who are so used to getting some income in. So if you build wealth, you will never feel insecure. And it's also wealth that you're keeping for the next generation if that is your wish. So there are two things to do with your money when you get them. Of course, you have to invest it. But you have to invest very responsibly for the wealth part of it. And when you just want to make money for fun, is your little casino and you have some fun and you, you know, this one said this and let's try this stock. And this one said that, let's try this stock. You may make money, you may not make money. But 80% to 90% of your salary or the money that you have or inherited or getting because, you know, women either are working or they've inherited money or, you know, sadly, you know, they've had life insurance, you know, someone had sort of made them the beneficiaries, or they get alimony because of a divorce. These are usually the four ways on how women get money. Now all that money, you cannot blow up. You cannot put all your eggs in one kind of basket. You have to build wealth so that you are secure. And that is 80% doing the right responsible thing. I would say go to an advisor, make sure that you're diversified. Of course, I'm in the mutual fund industry. So I know that best. So I'd say put it in mutual funds. And 10 to 20% have some fun with it, you know, for investments, put it in the market, you know, buy a stock because someone said if you want, and if that is your risk profile, firstly, you have to know what your risk profile is. If you like to take a lot of risk. So what do you mean when you say risk profiles? So risk profile is broken into two. One is your ability to take risk, and one is your willingness to take risk. If you are an 80-year-old, even if your willingness to take risk is high, oh, I'm dying to just put all my money in the stock market and pick my stocks on my own and take all the risk possible. The ability is low because you're 80. If you lose the money, you don't have many hours to make up the money, right? Second, especially if you're on a pension. So the money you have is limited anyway. You can't afford to blow it up like this. Even if your willingness is high. Your ability is low. If you're young, your ability is high. Even if you don't want to take the risk, you should take the risk because at 25, you hopefully have another 60 hours to go. So even if the market goes down, you put some money, extra money in the market. You know, it can go back up. Doesn't mean you have to be reckless. I'm just saying that you can take a little more risk at that age. Even if you're willing not to, then you have an advisor there really pushing you too. So that you have enough of a nest egg when you retire. And that's very important when you have the zero salary life. And in that zero salary life, you have to feel secure, which is why we all invest. And the other reason we invest is, of course, for wealth transfer to the next generation. You want to make sure everyone feels good. And obviously, the big reason to make money is to feel happy and secure in this life and do what you want. And it's easy to say that I just, you know, what is money. But you can't live on love and fresh air. There is a practical side to this. So I would say get an advisor, figure out your risk profile, and start investing. So if there's someone who wants to really create wealth, is there an amount that they need to start with? Or is there an amount that they need to own or earn or have saved until now that they can actually look at creating a larger portfolio? I don't think there's any money. I mean, it just depends how much you have, right? So it's never too late to start. Start with an SIP. It's the most boring thing that someone will tell you. But it's the right thing to do. Every month, just have the discipline of putting some money away and do it systematically every month. You're probably tired of hearing this because everyone tells you, but it's the right advice. And in an SIP, you can put as low as 100 rupees. And if you want to put it all at once, then it's called a lump sum. And you have to put-- you can put 5,000 rupees, which is the ask. The thing is that the more you put in, the more it will earn and the more that will compound. Your investment will make a return. That total will make a return on that. So in Hindi, we say viage, pay viage, right? So interest on interest in that sense. So unless you touch it, the model compound. So very important to invest and then be disciplined. Don't touch it till you really, really need it. Don't disturb your compounding. Tax is also something that disturbs compounding. So every time you take it out of the market, you have to pay tax. And that'll disturb the compounding. Even if you want to make a change, you have to pay the tax. So be careful. Put it somewhere that you know will be long term and don't touch it. But what about you saying it? I think we're in this kind of era where everyone is talking about investing, investing, but at what point do you start enjoying that money? Good question. And you had talked about wealth. So wealth I told you about security, long term, feeling good, just being there. Then it becomes about making money and using it. Which is also fine. You start another SIP. And you can actually even name your SIPs. You can have goals, goal-based investing. This money is for the trip I'm going to do in two years. This money is for the house I want to buy. This money is for renovating my home. This money is for my regular spending. Each will have a different kind of fund that'll be associated with it. Depending on how many years you can keep the spending off. So if you say I need to buy a house in 10 years, then accordingly, you have to invest. If I need to pay my house in two years, then according to your invest, so there will be different funds and or a different mix of funds to achieve those goals. What I need for every day, put in a liquid fund. But at every point, your money is working for you. It's not sitting in a current account in a bank or under your pillow and earning either little interest or no interest. Very interesting, and there is, you know, you spoke about, so you spoke about getting an advisor. But there are so many people that I know today who invest on their own. What is your advice if someone is really looking to create wealth? What is your advice? Should they get an advisor? Should they invest themselves? There's more than enough information available on the internet, online, finance, influencers. What do you think is the right route? So there is a lot of information, but that's what makes it confusing. Okay, you need someone to really hold your hand, distill that information. I'm very biased towards getting an advisor. Sure, you can do it on your own. Even DSP, for example, as an app for people who want to do it on their own, but we've realized that people who come through advisors are a little more responsible in the way they invest. 'Cause maybe you have someone really telling you and who's had years of experience seeing this and guiding you to do the right thing, matching your investments with your risk profiles, matching your investments with your goals. Imagine you're doing that all on your own and then people get tempted to buy one-one stock, which is great, it can go up. But is everyone such a great analyst that they've really, really studied, you know, Tata Motors, or they've really, really, really studied Maruti and they've decided they want to do this and then they've decided to own this company forever. No, it's because your friend told you, your father told you someone gave you some tip to invest in it. And then you don't know more about it. So it's better to leave it with the experts. It's so easy to do. That's why you have more people doing it. Click, click, click, click, you're done. But I would say take the advice of someone and an advisor will at least help you with that wealth creation part, your goals part. I told you, fun money, play money, you do that. So almost like what I'm taking from this conversation is that you're saying invest everything. Invest some seriously. Invest some, which could be more long term. Invest some for short term, which meets your short term goals, like buying a house, buying a car, renovations, things like that, or travel. And you also see invest for fun, which is more risk-based investments and kind of just having fun with different types of commodities and investments. Yes, I'm saying that, but I'm saying the fun part for the people who want to have fun, or everyone wants to have the fun always. So you don't have to have the fun. Okay. You want to be fully responsible, good for you, but I'm saying that there are different kinds of investments and different reasons you invest. If you had to break it down, what are the three non-negotiables of building wealth today? So one would be start early, and if you haven't started, start now, but start. Okay, and if you don't know how to do it, start with an SIP in a hybrid fund. Hybrid means it's a little debt, little equity, and all mutual funds actually have that. And you have something called a dynamic asset allocation fund, which just mixes both in the proportion according to how the markets are doing. So if you need to, just start, okay. Second, get an advisor. But interview certain advisors, right? You will have your friends who will have advisors, talk to them, see who resonates with you, who you feel comfortable with. And third, and three, I would say educate yourself. We have, there are now many courses you can take, but there's one, I know that I personally edited. Okay, call dspim.com/lawn or on our website and dspim, you can go to all our tools and you'll find it there. And it is actually just a series of videos. You can say I'm a beginner, you can say I'm intermediate or I'm an advanced investor. And if you do the videos, you really, you feel like a smart investor at the end is what my friends have told me. And they've had their 14 year old kids do it. - Hmm, wow. - So, you know, and the kids could do it. So I'm presuming it's not so tough. So why not start there? Learn to ask some educated questions. Don't just leave it. And if you're a woman, I'm going beyond three. Definitely manage your own money. Don't leave it to your brother and husband or father. Remember what I said about risk profiles? There's will be very different than yours. So why should they be managing our money in the way they would manage their own? Because yours is different. So I would say discuss it, talk about it. You know, there's no hiding this stuff. But do it to yourself, get your own advisor, assess your own risk profile and manage your money accordingly. - Interesting, for sure. I agree with all of them truly. What is the right way that someone should think about asset allocation when it comes to building wealth? From real estate to gold to equity to debt. - So again, it depends on me to say about your risk profile. The more risky you are, the more you'll take equity in your portfolio, the more sort of risk-prone you are, which means your ability to take risk is very high. Your willingness to take risk is very high and they both match. Then you can take a higher risk, which would be more equity. Why is equity considered risky? Because it goes up and down a lot, for example. Right, so in our world, anything that fluctuates a lot is called volatility. Someone is asking, what's the wall, what's the wall? Even I learnt all this, it means the volatility. When anything is very volatile, it means a risk is very high. Right, that's one measurement of risk. The other measurement of risk is in fixed income. Even if you're gonna get regular income, if there's a chance of default or this person is shaky and you're giving money to that person or that company, even if it's not volatile, it could become volatile if they default and if the probability of default is high means there is a risk is high. Yeah, absolutely. So similarly, if it's a bad company, even in real estate, if you invest too soon in a building that is not yet fully developed, there is a higher risk, then putting it in a building that is fully developed. But your returns are always higher when the risk is higher. By a building, when the developer is just starting, he'll probably give you a better rate than when it's done. Absolutely. Absolutely. If you put money in equity markets because it's volatile, it has to pay you for that risk you've taken. So the returns better be better than sitting in a bank. If you're gonna give money to a corporate who is right now a bit shaky on its feet, the risk is high. So the return of the interest that guy's giving you better be very high. So I would say, know your risk profile and balance your equity, fixed income, real estate and you're gold in that way. Now, please remember another thing in real estate or today it's very fancy to have private equity investments. All those are illiquid. So what would you say are illiquid investments? Illiquid means you can't just go tomorrow and cash in and get your money. That was in our parlance what illiquid means. Liquid means tomorrow you can go in or in a few days you'll get your money back. So give me some example of illiquid assets. Illiquid would be real estate. You can't tomorrow decide I want to sell my flat and in three days you get your money. That's not gonna happen. So if there's an emergency, you have a problem. So you can't put all your money in illiquid assets. So please balance your liquid and illiquid. If you plan to have any illiquid assets and you can only have illiquid assets when your risk profile is high which and your risk-taking ability is high. Right. So for example, if I'm not as wealthy, I don't have enough money. I salary is low. I have four people to support my and risk-taking ability is low. I can't occupy a house because I'll tie up my money. Tying up means illiquid. So you need to balance those. But in India and I've seen this across the board and it's even something that I've personally done, the first chunk of money that I saved I invested in real estate. But you can't call it invested. Why? Because you wanna buy a house, right? That's for yourself, that's your consumption. No, I didn't buy a house. I bought an apartment as an investment. Oh, okay. And then you rented it. No, the building isn't ready yet. Okay, but you will live in it eventually. No, I'm gonna rent it out eventually. Okay, so here I want to tell you, so I wanna talk to you about that. So if you're gonna buy something as an investment like that, just remember A, first you took a risk. The building isn't ready. Yes. If it gets ready, great. Yes. So on paper, your building, your now flat will have value. Okay. If you don't sell it, you'll rent it out. You have fees for the lawyers. You'll have fees for the broker. You have to add all that in. Of course. In your cost. In your lower cost, you keep adding that in your cost. Then you will forget renovation or all you do, whether you own the flat or not, you would have to do that. Then you have to trust the tenant that comes, you have to find a tenant. What if the tenant, you can't find a tenant that matches what you want. So you'll go empty for so long. Okay, after that, all the rental income comes, you pay full tax on it. Because it depends on which jurisdiction you are in because it's very different. And if you're an NRI, it's a good thing because then you can repatriate the money and things. So those are different reasons. But I'm saying it just for the regular person who would want to invest for to get a flat. And are you ready for all that? So suddenly the tenant leaves midway. Then what do you do? Then you need to again find a new tenant. Then what if someone squats? Doesn't want to leave. Then you need another lawsuit and more and just more tension, you know, more just going zity and stress. Then you need to pay in the house. Then the geezer breaks. Then he has a big party and trashes your house. I'm just saying that there are a lot of things that you will have to think of. So today people have something called REITS where you have someone else managing it and you just take a share of it. So you don't have all of this to worry about and you just keep getting the cash flows from it and they keep paying dividends. So you can even invest in real estate through that. But remember again, dividend income and tax and the income you get from rentals are all taxed at your own tax rate, which is whatever, 20%, 30%, 40%, whatever it is in India. However, if you invested a mutual fund, it will compound. You don't have to worry about any of this stuff, right? It'll keep compounding and only the amount you need to spend on something you take only that much out and you pay tax only on that much. So your money is compounding without any tax coming in the middle of that. So these are reasons I tell people, please buy a house where you want to for yourself. Because we all are women. My husband actually was so into finance and my father, why do you need to buy a house, just rent it. And they didn't realize I want the kitchen, the way I want the kitchen. I wanted to look a certain way. I don't want someone else to have done my house. So then it's tougher for men to realize but women obviously want their own house. So I have my own house. But it's important that one realize is when to buy, when to rent, why to rent. And the benefits, the benefits of renting was just putting it in the market or buying a reed. So my question is why do Indians use their first chunk of money to invest in real estate? Whether they're renting it, living in it, reselling it. Where is that mindset coming from? I think it's coming from an old mindset of security. I have an asset I can touch. Can barely touch a share these days. It's all digital now, right? And also you feel you have some control over it. Okay. Which is actually not true because anything can happen. I just told you how you cannot have control over it. Whereas in the market, someone else has control over that company. So I think these are certain old beliefs in our system carried on through our genes and generations and parents. And I feel like in our company, because you're so breathing markets and breathing mutual funds every day, I don't think many people do that. They'll buy a house to live in. But fewer people are biased to investment. Fewer, I'm not saying no one does it. Like Dubai has seen some phenomenal returns on real estate. You know, people have really doubled and tripled their money in this span of very few years. Yes. And I don't know if that opportunity was there in the markets. What do you feel about that? Well, that is an exception. Okay. It's not the rule. And it's great if you make money like that. You flip it and you get money. Remember you have to be tax on it. But here in Dubai, obviously, the rules are better. So in India though, I don't know where people have had that kind of crazy run up. And also, is it easy to sell baby in Dubai? Is it that easy to flip and sell and rebuy in everything in India? So it's important to know where you are. And like, you can take a, I know the London real estate market shows a New York real estate market hasn't moved much. And some of it has even gone down. So I'm over 10 years I'm talking about. And so it's different for different jurisdictions and different for different geographies, even within India. No, absolutely that's true. So when we talk about sort of investing your money in real estate versus investing in the markets, do you see any sort of benefits? I mean, I do have any real estate investments. So of course, I have real estate in my name, but I don't look at it really as an investment. So you look at it as a security. I, I have it. I mean, we own the house, we live in. Okay. I have a family home that I've just had for a while. And then we have land and other, I would say holiday homes, but we use them. That I've just been given through the generations. In fact, there's one house that I went to. We don't visit often enough, but went in. There was a music and it's at 1889. So we some ancestor bought it in 1889, passed it down and my grandfather was so attached to it that he told my father on his deathbed. I only have one wish. My father said, you never sell the house and your children can never sell the house. So imagine that's the sort of thing, you know. So there's emotion, sentiment, value, reason you're attached to things. But we have issues. We'll have squatters. We have to constantly look out for land that no one is coming in. So you have a lot of those sort of issues. But just having real estate to rent and collect, you know, rental income from, not really. OK, interesting. What about you and your portfolio? Are you risk covers? Is your risk profile high? As Gajendra, I know, as a rental income and, you know, done that for you? Where do you stand? I, so my first investment was real estate, like I mentioned. And ever since that I've been investing heavily in the markets. Recently made another real estate investment in Dubai, which is actually our home for our family. So that's something that we're going to be living in. But sorry, so my first investment was real estate. Then I actually started investing in the markets in India. And I actually love the discipline that brought into my life. So that is something that I really double down on, which is investing in the Indian markets. Around that time, a few years ago, I also bought another apartment here in Dubai, which then I was able to sell and now buy another one, which is going to be the home for the family. So I've kind of seen, like I've also, I wrote the wave of the Dubai real estate boom in a fairly small, small way. But I did. So I actually did see that. But at the same time, I feel like markets bring discipline. SIPs bring discipline. They bring consistency. And I am a sucker for consistency. The very foundation of my life is based on the fundamental of consistency. So it's something that I really swear by. And I know the benefits that consistency can reap. So I'm very, very, very committed to my SIPs, come here, come storm. That is something that I am just so, so committed to. And which is why I love doing these episodes on the topic of well, because I would love for others to be inspired and feel the kind of security and freedom I feel, because of actually just activating sort of my financial independence. So I think it's also just discipline. Yeah. It's huge discipline. And I'm really happy to hear this. And I have other girlfriends too. The reason I've started something called WinVestor back in 2010. Because I had and was the wise woman in Vestor. I had a lot of my friends that came to me single. Oh, my bank is telling me now to invest in your top 100 fund. Now, my bank is telling me this. How my bank is telling me to invest in this HDFC fund. What do I do? What do I do? I said, listen, you know, you need to get a financial advisor. I helped with my closest friend. I helped her get the advisor. And she said it changed her life. And now she's, you know, in the art world. But she's amazing, because you talk to her. She talks about liquid funds, arbitrage funds. This, that, of course, why we do leave anything in the bank. And she still tells me, I don't know, I think, about investing. My advisor does everything. But she obviously knows. But that's a sign of our good advisor. Yes, my friend really benefited from her advisor. And then I had another cousin, you know, who'd gotten divorced. And then she didn't know what to do with her alumnus. I had tore out. And then I realized that, yeah, I need to help my women out. But I need to do this at scale. So I said, we need to talk about it. So for the last 15 years, I've been doing podcasts, talking to people, interview, to spread the word on why women need to manage their own investments. They should not take, you know, the, you know, depend rather on their husbands and fathers and brothers, which is what is happening. I completely agree because I actually think I think women are far better in rest than men. And I can actually say this, but I genuinely feel that because I think when women make up their mind about something, nothing can shake them. And if you're anyways making up your mind about the million opinions that women have, you might as well activate it in an industry like this in which you can kind of get so much out of. Absolutely. And it's so important that I felt that we need to start a movement. You know, 15 years ago, everyone came to me about, let's do an interview on Next J. I said, what's that? And they would be like, no, no, on your journey. I said, and I was much younger. I said, what journey have I had? So I said, you all should start talking about why women should invest, and I'll talk about that. But I don't want to talk about me. I was young. What have I done? And you know, talked to my father, because he's the guy you should be interviewing, because he's done a lot. But so then they started sort of pivoting. And now this women in investing has become a big deal, which I'm really, really happy about, because I want everyone to talk about it. It's not mine. I don't own it. But the idea is to inspire everyone to talk about it. And to get journalists to start talking about it. Yes. So that was important. And then we started going to corporates. So in 2015, we started going corporate to corporate. And we started first, we're talking to HR. Number HR first asked me, so how much will you charge? And I'm like, we don't charge anything, because sebi mandates us through investor education. We took up women as investor education. And I said, we'll go to corporates, because they actually earn the money. We started going to large tech companies, because they employed the largest number of people and obviously women. And we started going one by one campus by campus. And HR was first reluctant. But they saw the number of people that were just flocked to these meetings and sessions we had. And then the men started knocking on the door. And I thought this would happen. But it happened in the very first session. Why aren't we invited? That's not fair. So we started doing courts sessions as well. And I started training girls in my organization to go out and do this. And we were very particular on the content being very good, on the delivery being very good. They had to be trained. They had to go through major training before they went in front. And we just started it. And now it's on for over 10 years. We've gone to over 300 corporations. And they keep inviting us back and back. And back because you have new and new recruits. Absolutely. And it's squared. And I can tell you another thing. Is that we think it's only women. Women feel, oh, I don't know anything. Men know everything. Then why would men be coming to my session? Everyone can be a beginner. That's why we had those three things in that learning videos of mine where you say you're a beginner, intermediate or you're advanced. Even men are beginners. But they also need education. So we are the same. We are no less. Interest is not there. I'm urging everyone to get interested because you should be and you have to be because you don't want to be helpless when you're old and eventually you have to manage your own money. Fidelity said, there's a 90% probability at some point in life you will be managing your money on your own. Because women outlive men just statistically. And that is so true. And don't give the reins to someone else. Control them. You'll feel more secure. So I tell people, what is the boldest financial truth that you think everyone needs to hear today? That inflation will eat your money. Every year we've had a history of 45% inflation recently. All yours, it was even higher. And if you don't invest in something that beats inflation, your money is it being eaten up? Right, so if inflation is 4% and your current account is giving you three, you're losing money. So you have to always be in something that's beating inflation. And if you travel a lot, the rupee also gets devalued by 3, 3 1/2% dollar-wise a year. So you better be in inflation and that depreciation. So that in dollar terms also, you are gaining money. So that is something I think we all need to think about. We need note off. So my favorite feature when it comes to investing is compounding. And it's the most beautiful thing to ever exist. But why do people still pick quick returns over compounding? Because if you ask me, I feel like compounding is your-- it's not a short cut, but it's the long cut to building wealth. It's compounding. But why do you say-- because you think you're in the industry-- why do you think so many people are picking the quick returns? You know why? Because I'm mind things linearly, not exponentially. And I mind things very short term. I read double my money. I read triple my money. I read double my money now. I bought that flat. And I sold it for double. How many hours you bought the flat? How many hours ago you bought the flat? You know, 15, 20 hours ago I bought a double my money, double. That's rubbish because have you heard of the rule of 72? And I'm going to tell everyone the rule of 72. 72 divided by the return you get. Say you get a 7% return. 72 divided by 7 equals 10, roughly. 10 is the number of years you will need to double your money. At just 7%, your money will be doubled. So just at 7%, which is what you get now in government securities, what you're getting in an FD, is what you need to just double your money. So don't think that in 20 years, if your money doubled, in a flat, you did really well, didn't. For a double what, your principle? How will I work in the sense of SIP? Because I think people are mostly doing SIPs today, especially kind of the young audience that we're speaking to, because we're still kind of building that money, right? So that you have to do per principle, right? For SIP, you put it in as per principle. So the math is a little more complicated, there is a math to decide what your return is. It's when you put in money and the time value of money. It's a little more complicated, but you have a lot of SIP calculators telling you what you're on is. I love these SIP calculators and I tell you what your return is, yeah, and it's really fun. The whole idea is that if you're making 7%, means your money has to double in 10 years, but 7% has to be for SIP instalment, right? So when doubling comes, I mean the 10 year starts from that SIP instalment, if you know what I mean. It's a little more complicated, but in terms of easiness is principle, double. How would you say and what would you recommend a balanced world strategy to be for someone who's earning 1 to 2 lakhs in a city in India? So 1 to 2 lakhs a month, right? So what I would say is first, you know, the 50/30/20 rule, 50 is your necessarily expenses, right? Groceries and rent and all your necessary expenses. 30% is your fun, what a movie, you know, have some fun, go out, did not drink all that. 20% is what you should say, that's just a cum rule. Of course, as your income grows, you may not need 50%, but at the 1 to 2 lakhs, possibly that's what you need. And the 20% do first. So just at first put away your savings, so you don't get tempted from that 30% of fun to depend on that 20%, which is your discipline in investing. So do an SIP for 20% of that money, the rest you do with the 50/30. I think what gets very overwhelming for someone who's kind of starting their investment journey or isn't that beginning phase of it is things like contingency fund, life insurance, right? So I think when you kind of start doing your SIPs and you feel like, okay, this is great, then all these other kind of terms start trickling in which tends to get overwhelming. A, that's why you need an advisor again, and to take a life insurance policy, only if you have dependence, I had a friend who's single, not married, no one depending on her, her mother was earning her own money and someone had sold her three or four insurance policies. Now that's misscelling because it's not meant for her, okay, and also insurance policies, you have something that is linked to investments, oh, if you don't die, you'll get so much money back. But when you do the math, the return they never tell you is not the best, right? So it's better just to get something that if you do pass on early, that you have the right beneficiaries to give it to, and that's just the term insurance, a life term insurance. If you need investment amount, then you put it in mutual funds or other investments. Don't mix it to, it's my advice, and I'm sure that a responsible advisor will be able to give that advice to you. What is the best way for anyone to think about building a portfolio in 2025? To build a portfolio today, again, depending on your risk profile, your age, it's never too late to start. If there's only one fund you want, say, I don't want to go to a fund manager, I'm insistent, I'm not going to a fund manager. I want to do it on my own, just you can buy multi asset allocation funds, all mutual fund houses have it. They put money into Indian equities, international equities, Indian fixed income, and they put some money in gold on silver. So then you get a portfolio which they are managing for you, and they will decide on the percentages of all four, depending on the market conditions, right? And so you have to just trust them, leave it to them, take two, three of these. And that should be your portfolio. But diversify your portfolio, don't put everything in equities, don't put everything in fixed income, put everything in real estate, don't put everything in gold. Okay. And as someone who is obviously heavily invested in the markets and mutual funds, of course, being the core of it all, what are your thoughts on cryptocurrency? It's not my thing. Okay. Not yet, I'm not ready for it. And also India is, it's a great area in India, and it's, I would advise to stay away from it. It's too volatile. Okay. Okay. And, but if you're studying global trends, where do you think that's kind of going into? I mean, they say it's rare so it can only go up, but the more regulations they are, so for example, in India, you can't use it, you can't touch it, you can't really trade in it. Maybe through LRS, you can do something. So my point is that I would just stay away from anything that's grey and volatile if I'm speaking to Indian women. Internationally, also, I tell someone, if you sold your house tomorrow and I gave you Bitcoin, would you take it? I'm not going to give you any cash. You sell your house. I'll exchange it for Bitcoin. Most people would say no, because it's too volatile today, is this rate tomorrow is another rate. If I told you, I, you sell your house and I'll give you gold. The chances are, people will take it. It's the same thing. It's also rare. It's a commodity. You know what I'm saying? So people say if you can take gold, you can take Bitcoin, but actually, it's not happening. So till people are really, really, really comfortable with it. And governments are really, really, really comfortable with it. I would be nervous. Do you think there's a lot of financial formal, especially in sort of the young adults? And you know, just even people in their thirties, about things like influencer stocks, IPOs, crypto, Bitcoin, and how do you feel about that? Yes, it is because in the last 10 years, the markets have only gone up. Last 15 years in America, it's up and up and up and up and up, but I've been through the technology bust. When the bubble burst in 2000, when the dot com era and the internet was new and everyone got so euphoric about it. I've seen how Amazon stock went down to $6. How Microsoft didn't move for 14 years, the stock didn't move. So we have had all those scenarios that people haven't seen of this generation, of this cohort of investors. And I would tell people, be careful, diversify again, don't get into too many volatile things. Don't get into a fad. And I'll tell you, nothing but Bitcoin. I remember Warren Buffett saying, and Charlie Munger, who's his partner, they say they do not like Bitcoin. Right? He's like the God of investing. And he says, I don't like it, and Charlie Munger says, I like it even less. And why? Because he said, it helps when it's a currency like this, not blessed by governments. The only people that's helping is kidnappers and drug dealers, because it's not monitored. And he says, I don't want to help those guys. So you have to be careful, don't get carried away by trends. I know it's easy to make the quick buck but then go to Vegas, you know, this sort of stuff. Or keep that play money, you know, that little bit of play money that I said to play with, but don't depend to your responsible money for the forewars stuff. Interesting. What is one really underrated financial advice that you think people just overlook? Or even an underrated investment vehicle? I mean, the big one is stay invested, I know it's damn boring. No, it's okay. Sorry. Stay invested. Okay. So I said that, you know, it's, I think it's, people don't want to take it seriously. When the market's fall, don't shut your sips. The maximum calculations I see is when the market falls. But when the market falls, you put it more. Either you put it more or your SIPs will be automatically buying at the low. There's a sale in the market. So you're getting more for your buck, more bang for your buck, more units of the mutual fund. So why would you cancel when the markets are low? Because of your anxiety, you have to check your anxiety, you have to be disciplined. So I don't think that even when people commit, and they say they commit, especially, and you know where we see the most cancellations in this, do it yourself platforms, this DIY's. Let me tell you, your advisor will tell you, don't do it. And you will listen. Have someone to hold your hand at that time? Yeah. Whereas the DIY platforms in one second, you can, you can put it off, sell it, whatever. Again, another reason I'm more biased to advisor is, where are you using the Indian markets are heading? You know, India, I mean, I'm very positive always, of course, and I'm biased. But India has only 50 million investors, who've ever invested in mutual funds. And about 9 to 10, who put money in a stock market, which is a bit scary because there are more people have played in stocks than invested more responsibly. But I would say that there is a long way to go. So more money to come in, more support for the market, because we have 1.5 billion people. So 50 million feels like gentle. And there is a lot of growth still in India. We have a stable government. So I'll always be an optimist, that said, of course, valuations at certain areas are looking pretty high. To me, there are pockets when something falls a lot. So for example, I'll tell you, we launched our silver fund three years ago. No one was interested in a silver market. So boring. Now, everyone's talking about silver after it's gone up. Three years ago, no one was even talking about gold. It's so boring. But put the money where things are boring. Last one, BITD returns are about 5.6% in the nifty. What is this? 5.6% what is BITD? Sorry. You are to date. You are to date. So that means from January to now, calendar year, it's nothing, it's 5.6% return or something. Whereas your gold has made over 50% silver, it's made 70%. So invest in what is boring and not looking so fantastic. So when stocks really fall, a sector really falls, something that's not looking as hot right now, healthcare IT right now is falling. Start an SIP in those things. Well, let it keep falling and you keep buying low. You keep buying low. You keep buying low. And when it starts rocketing, in fact, you should stop up, your SIP. Let's just ride the wave up. And it's called margin of safety. When things are very high and you're doing this form of buying, your margin of safety is less and less because things can crash. But if you buy low and things go up and then they come down again, your margin of safety is high because you've already bought at low, but there is and that is called value investing in a way. But you can, if it's in a single stock, I'm talking about a sector, I'm talking about a mutual firm, I'm talking about a group of stocks. I would not say that in a single stock because in a single stock, it could be because that company is failing. You try to catch a falling sword at that time, again, go to an expert. So the margin of safety, let the firm manager decide if this is a stock of margin of safety, it's called a value stock versus a value trap, which is actually stock is falling because it's a bad company and it should fall versus it's just falling because of more sentiment reasons. So what do you think is boring right now? I told you some Indian IT stocks, and even actually banks in India a little bit. So I would say the top 10 stocks of India by market cap have not done so well. So the top 10 index stocks of the Nifty for example, which will include IT and will include banks mostly, those have not done as well as we would think they would. And there is some margin of safety there. What has done really well are those small and mid cap stocks, there was some correction there but now they've gone back up. So go where things have not done well and then stick to it. So I know what I'm doing right after this episode. Tell Gajendra for the DSP top 10, we have a top, just 10 stocks, it's a index fund. But into SIP and IT, I wouldn't do everything altogether, because you never know if it falls more than you keep buying when it's done, STP or SIP. So but in the next sort of, in the short term, over the next year or so, are you seeing any sort of crash coming? I mean everyone says the AI in America is very, very hyped and it's looking like the days of 2000, where the internet boom was really hyped and I just told someone today I was talking to them. Look at the stocks, look at who the heroes were in 2000, where are they today? How is their stock price done in the last 25 years? Have the heroes remained heroes, they may still be alive, but they were heroes back then. Okay. And they haven't. Not everyone, I told you Microsoft. For 14 years, gave zero returns, zero. If you bought the stock in 2000, till 2014, it didn't move. So you have to, we have to figure out who the heroes are and who the zero's are and who is not going to exist, Yahoo, whether hero back then. But how are you feeling about this kind of, how are you feeling about these rumors of AI crash? What has your guts say? So I think a lot of money has gone into AI infrastructure and everyone says the kind of revenue you need to make up for their infrastructure money looks impossible today. There will be some people that will die, there will be some people who will stay. Let's see. AI is your to stay. AI is a fantastic technology, it's how much you pay for it and who pays what? So let's see and it can have a trickling effect. So let's see, let's hope it doesn't happen, but people are saying that. What is the smartest financial decision you've ever made for yourself? I think I started investing in hybrid funds, and I wish I'd even done more because then you don't have to think it's debt and equity mix. There is someone who does the mixing for you, there's someone who does the rebalancing for you without tax implications because the rebalancing can be done within the fund. It doesn't pay tax. If there's too much, equity is gone up, then they sell down the equity they buy debt, debt is gone up, they sell down the debt they buy equity and I don't have to worry about it. Anywhere I'd be doing that if I bought equity and debt, but I can't keep balancing it. Because I'll have to keep paying tax when I balance it, but if it's someone else, does it for me? Yes. Okay. And I'm really happy I did that. It's given you good returns. Yes. It has. I mean, and I'm happy. I mean, it's more than good returns, stable returns. And not very volatile returns, which is what I like. So as our final question to this episode, if you're to leave our community today with one actionable advice for really building long-lasting wealth, what would it be? Rescapitate. And she's kidding. And to build long-lasting wealth, start early. If you have children, start now. I think that could be a good one. I think you can start early quite a bit. So maybe talk about the children. I think that I think a lot of people, like I do this for my kids, where every birthday I kind of just transfer into their mutual funds. But a lot of people don't really know this hack. So my best friend, for my baby's birth gift, she made the transfer to my mutual funds. Oh, great. Now you can actually give to units of mutual funds. Yes. Yeah, allow that. Well, she transferred it to my bank account, but she said you need to put it there. And I think that is such a phenomenal gift to be giving. I don't think enough people talk about actually investing for their kids. Maybe that could be your last bit. That could be nice. The one thing is the minute your child is born, invest for them, invest for their long-term future, but also keep a goal-based investing for them from the days they're born for their education. So you feel secure. They feel secure. They know that they can choose the school of their choice, the college of their choice. And you know that you've done the right thing as a parent. The other thing I would do is teach your children about investing. Talk to them about investing and don't only talk to your sons. We did a survey and we found that the men talked to their sons about investing, but the moms are not talking. The mothers also talked to their sons, not to their daughters. Wow. And even the fathers, they talked to the daughter about investing. On why it's important, A, talk to the daughter about earning her own money. So she feels financially independent. And B, talk to her about investing that money on her own. And if as a father she comes to you and says, please invest my money for me, say no. I will teach you, but you will take your own decisions. As opposed to feeling controlled by wanting to invest it on her behalf. So the best thing you can do is learn it yourself and teach your children and do it for your children till they get to 18 and they earn their own money and let them do it on their own. That's wonderful advice. Thank you so much. I would love to see for being here with us was absolutely amazing conversation today. And I'm pretty sure the community is going to have so much to take from it. Thank you for your time and your valuable insights. Thanks. I really had fun. We've been wanting to do this and I'm happy we had it happen. Yes. Yes, it's been a while. Thank you. Thank you so much for watching or listening all the way through. I'd love for you to hit that subscribe button. 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