Kushal Lodha

One of the most important skills - Communication! Master this and you will realize the results of it soon.

#communication #LinkedIn

Today, I turn 24 on 24! :)

What better birthday gift can I get when Mr. Deepak Parekh (Chairman, HDFC Limited) has written the Foreword for my new book, ‘Acing CA’?

What better birthday gift can I get when industry stalwarts like Hon’ble Suresh Prabhu, Padma Shri T N Manoharan, Dr. Ajit Ranade, and Mr. Ashwin Damera have endorsed the book through their blurbs?

What better birthday gift can I get when Mr. T N Manoharan and Mr. Dhiraj Khandelwal, the two most famous faces of our CA Fraternity, agreed to share their journeys and advice with all the CA Students and Professionals of India in the last 2 chapters of the book?

What better birthday gift can I get when the most popular faces of India including CA Rachana Phadke Ranade, Sharan Hegde, Anant Ladha, CFA CA CFP LL.B., and Sarthak Ahuja have recommended giving it a read?

Honestly, I had dreamt of writing a book right from my school days but I did not know I will end up doing that at the age of 24.

This book is a very light-hearted 3.5-hour read that will help you navigate through your CA Journey, and will act as a guiding light! I have shared my entire journey, who is CA Really for, how to prepare for all the 3 levels, how you manage your academics with articleship, where you should join your articleship, and what opportunities you can have once you clear your CA Exams.

However, there is one last birthday gift that I want from all of you!

The pre-orders of the same are now open, and if you can do the same, that’ll make the list of birthday gifts complete for me haha!

The first 500 people will get a signed copy of the same!

The link to pre-order the book is in the comments. Let me know once you receive it and how you find it!

Happy that I am now an author :) but sad that I am already turning old :( haha!

Special Thanks to Yashraj Sharma and the entire team for making this dream come true for me! :)

PC: Pranav Shah

#linkedin #linkedinforcreators #birthday #24at24 #book #acingca #author #kushallodha

In simple terms: Love what you do and do what you love! :)

#work #office #passion #safrifice #thoughts

The most dangerous thing in life is to have attachment.

Be it an attachment with a thing, a place, a sport, a person or money.

Why?

Because, if you get too attached to any of the ones mentioned above, and if it breaks after a point of time, you will end up losing on your mental health and tend to get distracted; which makes it difficult for you to move on in life.

Ultimately, you need to keep yourself happy and satisfied. And the only way you can be peaceful is by staying away from all sorts of attachments.

In my religion (Jainism), it is mentioned that Mohaniya karma is the most dangerous, out of all the eight karmas because 'moha' (attachment) is the root cause of all negative emotions. It is also most difficult karma to destroy. If it is destroyed fully, the self becomes free from all the negative emotions and liberation is assured.

Read in between the lines - you will understand that it is the attachment which is a problem and the only way to avoid it is to stop expecting from other people (which is easier to state but extremely difficult to implement).

Well, if you really want to get attached to something, get attached to your ultimate goal in life in order to remove all other attachments :)

#linkedin #linkedinforcreators #attachment #lifelesson #thoughts #trending #explore

Without a CA, he is working in Valuations division at EY!

Without a CFA, he is teaching Advanced Excel at several leading institutes like IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Bangalore, ISB Hyderabad, and many more!

Without an MBA, he has already taught 6,000+ students in the last few years and has become an expert in training people in Microsoft Excel.

This is the perfect example of if you have the hunger to learn a new skill, you will definitely ace it irrespective of your degrees that you have. After all, every company is now focusing on skills before hiring.

He’s none other than the Excel Expert, Chinmaya Amte.

When I met him, I was astonished to know that there is a concept of Machine Learning Algorithm in Excel that can save ton of your time and automate tasks. I had no clue that you can also get to know your hometown’s mayor or the recent stock price of your portfolio stocks using Excel.

Since he is an expert in all these things, we, at KAGR, thought let’s invite him for a full-fledged 2-day ONLINE Course titled ‘Mastering Advanced Excel’ on 24th and 25th June where he will teach you about VBA, Macros, using PowerQuery, using chatGPT and much more. If you are someone who wants to upskill and get a job in finance, I would highly recommend you all to register for this course! Of course, refunds available if you are not satisfied with the content but we bet it won’t be the case :)

Link in comments to register!

#linkedin #linkedinforcreators #excel #course #kagr #kushallodha

For 4 straight consecutive months from July to Nov 2019, I used to wake up at 5 AM sharp and sleep at 10 PM sharp!

I don’t remember a single day where I would have slept at 10.05 PM or woke up at 5.05 AM honestly.

Here’s how my schedule was looking like!

Practically speaking, even after studying for 12 hours and sleeping for 7 hours, I had 5 hours in hand to spend time on leisure activities!

Well, I am not asking you to sleep at 10 PM every night or wake up at 5 AM every single day – all I am trying to tell here is that if you have a consistent routine with disciplined habits, you will be less prone to distractions and will be able to manage everything very efficiently.

I think these 4 months have taught me the importance of self-discipline, importance of following a routine, and most importantly, significance of staying consistent in whatever you are doing.

Today, because of this sheer habit, I am able to focus on the most productive things in my life and that has really helped me in order to allocate my time efficiently to the things I want to do in my life.

This routine is not toxic at all! In fact, this routine is rejuvenating if you wait till the results, this routine is refreshing if you think about the benefits, and this routine is peaceful if you think about the harmony it brings!

Follow a disciplined routine in life! It will change your life completely!

In fact, I have made a detailed video on this topic yesterday. Link in comments to watch the entire video – 25k people have viewed it already. What are you waiting for? :)

#linkedin #linkedinforcreators #routine #discipline #consistency #kushallodha

Microsoft teams at its best 😅 !

Also, some of the most common sentences heard:

1. Am I audible?
2. You’re on mute!
3. Is my screen visible?
4. Thanks everyone!

Keep continuing the list in the comments section! :p

Networking is TOXIC!

Of course, if you network with the right intent and approach in a proper manner, it is easier to start conversations even with strangers. Often, at times, there are some people who generally wouldn’t prefer to network either because of bandwidth issues or they don’t feel they will get value from those conversations!

It is better to accept this and not get disheartened just because someone did not respond. Of course, a follow up or two is what you should ideally do in case of no response. In fact, I still remember that when I had written 2 follow up emails to Suresh Prabhu Sir for coming on my podcast, he had politely responded apologizing for having missed the previous emails and immediately agreed for the interview.

However, if you don’t get any response even after a couple of follow-ups, it’s better to accept the fact and not try to keep bothering the person.

The more desperate you are, lesser are the chances of you getting a response!

I have one fixed rule of networking:

Approach only those people who are humble, grounded, willing to learn from juniors and most importantly, are not coming with a mind-set of getting something from the conversation / relationship!

I really enjoy light hearted conversations as well. Not that I have many friends, but I cherish my relationships with my closed ones!

I remember an amazing quote which Ankur Warikoo had mentioned in my podcast:

“Don’t network when you need to network. Network when you really feel you want to make relation with someone!”

#linkedin #linkedinforcreators #networking #toxic #kushallodha

7th January, 2009 – the day when the Indian economy was stunned by one of the largest corporate frauds when Ramalinga Raju confessed in an email about the Satyam Scam.

Today, it’s been exactly 14 years but the lessons learned from the entire revival story need to be inculcated in everyone’s mind.

Going back to the past, the situation was so terrible back in 2009 that employees of Satyam in Frankfurt were getting calls from their hotel rooms where the receptionist was requesting them to vacate the room or make alternative payment arrangements.

3 Lessons that we can learn from the entire anecdote:

1. In life’s books of accounts, you don’t have contra entries. One credit doesn’t compensate for a debit. A negative multiplied by a positive is still negative! A zero multiplied by any significant number is always zero. Just as a drop of poison spoils the purity of an entire pot of milk, a single misdeed is enough to destroy goodwill built over a lifetime. This is what happened with Ramalinga Raju in the Satyam Scandal.

2. Always expect the unexpected. Some people succeed because they are destined to succeed. But many succeed because they are determined to succeed. The former, destiny, is not in our hands, but the latter, determination, is very much in our control.

3. Ability takes you to the top, but you need integrity to stay there! Who would have imagined that a 33-year-old Raju could promote, nurture and grow a company with world-class infrastructure, manned by 51,000 employees spread across 66 countries? He could reach to the top only due to his vision and sheer dedication. However, he compromised on his ethics and principles which did not allow people to remember his good deeds.

Have integrity! No one gets lost on a straight road! :)

Click on the link in the comments to watch the summarised version of the 100 days revival story! :)

#linkedin #linkedinforcreators #satyamscandal #fraud #corporatefraud #kushallodha

SRCC is a dream college of every finance aspirant – obviously was my dream college too!

However, I had scored 88% in 12th standard, and this was not even close to the cut off rate that the college usually has (which is ~97%).

The quality of talent that comes out from this campus is exceptional, thanks to the involvement in all the college societies that these students are a part of (I have myself hired / worked with a few interns and can vouch for the superb quality of the talent).

Fast forward to 2023, who thought that the same kid who dreamt of getting into SRCC as a student will go to the same college as a guest speaker, and guide them about the future careers in finance.

It was such an absolute privilege for me to be a part of their recent event, Careers Confluencer, organized by the Wings of Fire, SRCC.

Was just astonished by the huge 16 acres’ campus in New Delhi and the way students are groomed and so much passionate about their careers in the future.

If there has to be one regret of my life, it has to be doing BCom via a correspondence route and not from a regular college, esp. after looking at so much enthusiasm and the exposure that you get when you attend a full time college. Everything has a right time in life – do what you feel will give you the best exposure.

If you want to find some smart folks in a separate Universe,
Then do give a visit at the Shri Ram College of Commerce :)

#linkedin #linkedinforcreators #srcc #event #grateful #kushallodha

My mom called me yesterday and said, “From seeing you in shorts and three-fourth trousers to seeing you in blazers and a tie, I feel extremely proud of you!”

I could feel that she was literally in tears when I heard her saying this on the phone! Well, small instances like these really motivate me in order to always strive for more and try to hop on to bigger milestones in life!

It’s all about perception: while some may say that I don’t have a job right now and some people wouldn’t like the fact that I am not working in a Multi-National Company, others might state that he is on a mission to inspire thousands of individuals in the country! While I don’t know what my ultimate objective is, all I know is I will surely figure it out and get some clarity after some point in time; if not now! If you have clarity about your future, then I think you are going in the wrong direction because you won’t try for other things in life :)

Remember one thing: try to live for your own self and not for anyone else! If you are living for someone else, probably someone else is controlling your life – which is not a good thing, to be honest!

As far as my parents and I are happy with what I am doing in my life, I really do not care what society thinks or what the naysayers state!

After all, just ensure that you should do what you feel is right for you!

I remember several people advised me not to quit my full-time job and said that if I leave the job, I might end up coming back and doing a job sometime in the future. Everyone has some opinion for you irrespective of whether you ask or not! Your task is to listen to some of them while ignoring the others without letting them know!

Live your life the way you want! Not the way someone else wants you to live! :)

#linkedin #linkedinforcreators #life #satisfaction #parents #kushallodha

When I was giving my interview in Corporate Finance Role at Aditya Birla Group, these were the resources I had used in order to prepare for Finance interviews:

1. Wall Street Prep – go on this website and click on the ‘Free Content’ tab – you will find a glossary of words and their definition including examples. For instance, you will get the meanings of words ranging from NPV to IRR to Leveraged Buyout to Mezzanine Financing.

2. The Forage – I had also done a free course from this website on Investment Banking (JP Morgan) and had got a good gist of how does it look like to work in an Investment Bank. There are real time assignments that are given to you and you will get an experience of how does it look like to work in an Investment Bank.

3. Investment Banking Interview Questions Guide – Just go on google and type ‘Investment Banking Interview Questions PDF’ and download the first one. You will get a list of ample amount of questions with suggested answers as well. This is extremely helpful to brush up your concepts.

4. Valuations Lectures of Aswath Damodaran – just go on YouTube and type Aswath Damodaran – you will get a lot of lectures on topics like cost of capital, intrinsic valuation, betas etc. will teach you the basics of Valuation. This is a gold mine available on YouTube.

If you want to know more about Investment Banking, we, at KAGR, have organized a 2-hour online masterclass on ‘How to get into Investment Banking?’, where the faculty, working at Goldman Sachs and is an IIM Ahmedabad graduate, will teach you everything about the basics, role in an investment bank, how to prepare for interviews and a mock interview with a candidate towards the end. It is happening on 15th July from 4 to 6 PM – link in comments to register.

#linkedin #linkedinforcreators #investmentbanking #finance #kagr #kushallodha

Let’s have a look at the average salaries of the following professionals:

1. CA – Rs. 12 LPA
2. CFA (L1 cleared) – Rs. 9-10 LPA
3. CFA (L2 cleared) – Rs. 12-14 LPA
4. CFA (L3 cleared) – Rs. 18-20 LPA
5. ACCA – Rs. 7-8 LPA
6. US CPA – Rs. 7 LPA
7. CFP – Rs. 6 LPA
8. US CMA – Rs. 8 LPA

The salary range might differ from person to person, but these are the general estimates after talking to various students who just got placed and from several reports.

Well, if you are in 12th and you are looking to pursue a career in finance, Rishihood University has organized an amazing Finance Olympiad for all of you across India where the winner will get a cash prize of Rs. 5,000.

You will become smarter, and will have to answer questions related to finance that will be super practical in nature.

Link to register for the competition: https://lnkd.in/dUJYxgHt

#linkedin #linkedinforcreators #rishihood #finance #kushallodha

This podcast has to be the closest to my heart!

My dad mentions that the lessons he learnt while doing CA Articleship has always helped him in his day to day business. Although he couldn’t clear his CA Exams, he is happy because of the practical lessons learnt during articleship!

He did not have sufficient money to go for CA classes, and thus, he used to invest in stocks, earn some money, and pay his tuition fees.

He studied even at 102 temperature fever, and even without electricity with a small torch – this was the dedication towards education!

My mom is a very spiritual person, and always believes in meditation as well as positive affirmations. In fact, she is the one who has made everyone in my family extremely positive towards life.

She learnt how to use Zoom just to take classes on healing and meditation during CoVID. As it is rightly said, once a person’s learning attitude ends, their old age starts to begin. I think with this definition, my parents will never become old :)

Check out the link in comments to watch the entire podcast – it’s an honest conversation between parents and a child talking about various things related to life in general.

#linkedin #linkedinforcreators #parents #podcast #kushallodha

Hello LinkedIn Family,

Two lessons which I wanted to bring out through this post:

1. I had to record the interview with Hon'ble Suresh Prabhu sir on 8th June whereas these exams were scheduled on 9th & 11th June. Since the interview was a one-time opportunity, I decided on taking that with giving exams in the next 3 days. Thus, I attempted to manage time accordingly and kept a day off before the exam so that I could concentrate fully on the interview (regarding research about the guest, asking what type of questions etc.)

Lesson: If you plan things well in advance, you can very well achieve what you have in your mind.

2. I texted a person named Dhruv Bhatt, who was in the same whatsapp group which was created for our exams, to seek help as I was stuck in solving few sums. Without even knowing each other, he explained and solved all my doubts in a 1 hour long call that I can never forget. Would like to take this moment and thank him for his selfless help because of whom I could clear the AFM exam. Some people are always willing to lend their hand no matter what happens.

Lesson: No matter how people behave, you ought to be nice to them and the best will come to you!

Happy to share that I have cleared 2 levels (Advanced Performance Management and Advanced Financial Management) of ACCA :)

Discipline is the key to succeed in anything.

If you are able to delete all the social media apps before your exams to focus on studying, that is discipline!

If you are able to study with a fixed routine for 12 hours a day without any distraction, that is discipline!

If you are able to control the urge of having junk food especially when you are on diet, that is discipline!

If you are able to wake up at a fixed time every single day without snoozing your alarm, that is discipline!

If you are able to go to the gym every day and lift an extra kg of the weight without complaining, that is discipline!

If you are able to sleep at a fixed time and not keep scrolling through your mobile phone unnecessarily, that is discipline!

If you are able to wake up early morning and go for your yoga class, that is discipline!

And most importantly, if you are able to focus on one thing at a time and keep doing that for a good amount of time, that is discipline!

Well, the point of this post is not to ask you to always study for 12 hours a day or delete the social media apps while studying, but it is to let you understand the importance of priorities at different points in time!

Once you become addicted to staying disciplined, I think no one will stop you from becoming successful.

Discipline is boring! Discipline is successful.

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On a separate note, I am hiring a content strategist and social media manager intern – if you are passionate about the creator economy and can help me scale my social media presence, do fill in the google form (link in comments).

#linkedin #linkedinforcreators #trending #discipline #motivation #kushallodha

I rarely go to attend any family function unless super important.

I don’t like to wait for anyone for more than 5-10 minutes, and if there is a delay because of the other person, I reschedule the meeting.

I used to study even 10 minutes before my exam while going to the examination center, until I sit on the desk.

I rarely meet someone twice if I know there is no point in meeting the person for the second time.

I say no to several event invites and outings because I know it’s not worth my time. I have said no to several friends too because of shoots scheduled the same day.

What’s the point of this?

If you read in between the lines, one thing that I value the most is my time. And I am very concerned about it being wasted, or not utilized in a productive manner.

Start valuing your time, start assigning an opportunity cost to each and every second, start being a little commercial as far as your time is concerned, and most importantly, start saying no to anything and everything that is causing a hindrance in your life!

Once you start valuing your own time, people will start valuing you!

#linkedin #linkedinforcreators #time #selfish #focus #kushallodha

He never saw scores beyond 70% before his 10th Class.

He could not get into an engineering college because he missed the cut-off by 1%.

He then started preparing for CA after his 12th exams and cleared CA Inter with dot 300 marks.

Finally, he secured AIR 42 in his CA Finals exam.

He is none other than CA Shirish Vyas, a direct tax teacher with 25+ years of experience. He’s guided over 1.5 lakh students on their journey.

In the latest episode of Konversation with Kushal, we explore how an “average” student can become unstoppable.

From his learnings through the CA course to teaching concepts in the most unique way, the podcast has everything covered.

If you're a CA student, you can’t afford to miss this episode.

Catch this episode on my YouTube channel today at 7:57 PM, link in comments!

 #linkedin #linkedinforcreators #ca #coaching #motivation #kushallodha

“If you don’t know how to take care of your money, money will stay away from you”.

~ Robert Kiyosaki

In different words, take care of your money and money will automatically take care of you.

June 2020 – I had bought a penny stock which was trading at Rs. 3.5 at that point of time. I had started investing in the stock markets back then after receiving my first salary.

Since this stock was going upper circuit every day, I thought let’s buy it and make some money out of the movement. I used to place ‘After Market Order’ every day and one (un)lucky day, I was able to buy these shares. However, it went lower circuit from the day I bought the stock and I ended up losing good chunk of money due to this.

The lesson which I learnt was that you have to do your fundamental analysis thoroughly before investing in any stock.

I realized that if I put all the eggs in one basket, I might end up losing all my money. Thus, I started to invest in diversified asset classes. 

It is equally important to keep your portfolio diversified by investing certain amount of money in fixed income asset classes in order to generate good returns.

In fact, Micheal Larson, money manager of Bill Gates, had initially allocated majority of the funds into government bonds and corporate bonds, which proved a great success. 

That’s when I thought that I should start investing in bonds as well. However, the problem was that I was not able to find any platform where I could invest in corporate bonds seamlessly and today, I found a solution: Altifi.

Altifi is a new-age wealth management platform that offers retail investors to invest in high graded high return fixed income products. You can invest as low as Rs. 1,000.

These securities help investors diversify their portfolios, earn better returns on their investments and reduce exposure to market volatility.

You can now seamlessly invest in debt issuances of financial institutions, high quality corporates and even new age startups that are backed by reputed Private Equity investors.

Click on the link in the comments section to start investing in bonds using Altifi.

#linkedin #linkedinforcreators #finance #moneymanagement #bonds #diversification

Today’s generation is extremely impatient. So am I.

We can’t even wait for 3 minutes if we are talking to someone on WhatsApp and we expect immediate replies.

We can’t even wait for 30 minutes if we order some food from Zomato.

We can’t even wait for 3 days for an Amazon parcel to be delivered.

We can’t even wait for 30 days for a stock to give some returns and will sell if we see it going down.

We can’t even wait for 3 years for a startup to become successful and want quick success right from the 1st year itself.

The point being pretty simple - we become impatient when we don’t get what we want. That leads to frustration, and can cause temper issues.

Good things take time!

Don’t become impatient - else no one will be patient enough to listen to you :)

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On a separate note, I am hiring a content head for my social media who will be working daily with me from the office - if you are interested, pls do apply via the form: https://lnkd.in/di2t-K8k

#linkedin #linkedinforcreators #writing #patience #kushallodha