School prize distribution speech 16.02.22

Dear achievers, students, teachers, parents- Good Afternoon to you all.

Congratulations to all the prize winners today.

I remember being in your place not very long ago; even though it has been 16-17 years now. And I always thought: why can't we just get our medals, prizes, certificates and go home? Why do we have to sit through and listen to some uncle or aunty's advice?

Because you are at that age, where pretty much everyone you meet is always trying to give you advice; let me rephrase that: pretty much everyone you meet is trying to shove advice down your throats- it does get exhausting.

Don't worry, I am here to do exactly the same thing! You may consider it to be a lesson in patience- having to hear the same cliched advices and speeches over and over. While it is true that some of the advice you get might be life changing or path breaking or whatever fancy words you may like, but most of them are cliched and it can get frustrating at times. You might feel like yelling “enough” at that person. But let me tell you, it is not worth doing so. As Chartered Accountants we always do a cost benefit analysis- if you yell at that person, the immediate benefit will be that he will stop talking, but then he will tell your parents, and then they will yell at you- so believe me the cost is higher! I always found the easier way to deal with this is to be polite, nod and agree and just say- Thank you for the advice, uncle. I will definitely take it into consideration!

Speaking of frustrations, it is very important to find someone to whom you can just vent- especially in these past two years. It could be anyone- your parents, friends, someone in your building- I even know people who vent to their dog or cat! But find someone- don't keep things bottled up. Keeping things inside won't kill you, but it will surely have long term damage.

Also, when in school, you might find things in your curriculum that make you think- what use is learning this to me? When am I going to use this? One such underrated part or skill is letter writing. I am in a profession where we represent our clients to tax authorities. Being able to put forth what you want to say becomes of great importance- it doesn't matter if you agree with the person you are writing to. It is okay to disagree with people, but make sure you do it respectfully. Disagreeing with someone does not mean that you have to insult them. So, cultivate this skill.

Another skill worth cultivating is public speaking. There maybe some of you thinking about how my classmates will laugh at me if I go on stage- but believe me, 10-15 years later no one is going to remember any of it. Getting rid of stage fright at an early stage is important, irrespective of the field you may choose later on- if you get into business, you have to present yourself in front of your clients, if its a job, you may have to give a presentation to your colleagues. So, get on stage, whatever happens.

And lastly, since this is my field, I will speak about finance. Another one of the cliched advices you will hear is that money is not everything, money does not buy you happiness and so on. It is absolutely true. Earning money has less importance. Believe me, it does not take any intelligence to make money. But you need intelligence to keep money, to invest and grow your money. I don't know how many of you have a bank account. I have had a bank account since I was 9 years old. I would definitely suggest you to open and actually operate a bank account- go to the bank, deposit cheques, cash, withdraw cash- and when I say all of that, I mean physically go to the bank and do these things- not Google pay and net banking. Study what FD, RD are. In the news, people read “Stock market down today by 300 points” but do you know what that actually means? During summer vacations, ofcourse you can climb mountains or jump off mountains or whatever adventure you like- but also find time to learn managing money. Otherwise when you grow up, we have seen people who have a salary of 50000, but they run out of money by the 15th or 16th- so what use is the huge salary?

I hope that I was able to impart some wisdom to you and I also hope that you won't flip my own words on me and say Thank you for your advice, Uncle. We will definitely take it into consideration!

I also thank Bani ma'am for inviting me here today. It is always a pleasure to come back to school. There is something about this place that makes me feel calm and centered. So, thank you once again.