“Sam told me that your fitness is not determined by what you do in the gym,” Swami complained.
Jigneshbhai and I were no experts in this area, so we looked up and took notice. Maybe we will catch something we could put to use.
“Then where is it determined?” Jigneshbhai asked, for a change. Even I was eager to know.
“It is determined in the kitchen, he says,” Swami continued sulking. “By how much and what you eat,” he added.
Jigneshbhai and I kept the muffin back into the plate on hearing this. It wasn’t helping both the how much and the what.
“So much for hiring a trainer, who tells me exercise doesn’t matter and your food does,” Swami said. “I should have hired a dietician,” he added. I wasn’t sure that is what Sam said.
“But doesn’t the dietician say you must exercise every day?” Jigneshbhai put a spanner in Swami’s works.
“Yeah, actually. That’s what she tells me during every health check-up,” Swami remembered one of his favourite topics. “I wonder who is right now,” he added.
“Maybe both of them are,” Jigneshbhai said and went silent.
Hmm, I sighed. I sipped on my coffee waiting for my friends to come out of their silence. As usual, it was Swami who spoke.
“But Sam said that was the biggest insight of his career as a trainer,” he said. “That whatever you do in the gym won’t matter if you mess up what you do in the kitchen.”
“Well, that’s a great insight,” Jigneshbhai agreed. “Often the biggest insights come after years of experience,” he added.
Swami took a bite of the muffin.
“Yeah, so we stand no chance of getting fitter,” he said. “If that insight is true. Which it must be, I guess.”
“But why does it take so long for something as simple as that?” Swami wondered aloud.
“Perhaps only because we don’t care to look for them enough, unless experience forces them to stare at us in our face, after trial and error,” Jigneshbhai said. “I am certain the conviction comes out of those experiments.”
Swami and I pondered over what our friend has said.
“What do you mean?” Swami asked. “We don’t care to look for them?”
Jigneshbhai sipped his coffee and gulped a bite of muffin with it before speaking.
“Well, we assume things and keep looking for complex solutions when the simple ones are there for the taking. I have seen that with my investing clients too,” Jigneshbhai said.
“Hmm.. Like?” Swami’s curiosity was piqued.
“Like Sam says the kitchen is most important for fitness, I tell my clients what I have learnt about money and investing. That whatever you invest your money in doesn’t matter if you don’t save enough money to matter,” Jigneshbhai revealed. “But no one seems to get that simple thing. They keep asking me which stocks to buy, when to invest where, and where the markets will go tomorrow or next year,” he lamented.
Swami and I looked at each other. We had been guilty of pestering our wise friend with these questions very often in the past.
“A guy who spends on expensive gadgets can help himself much more by buying one less gadget than wasting his time and energy, and money of course, in searching for the next multi bagger,” he continued.
That seemed to have switched on some light in Swami’s head. He suddenly broke into a smile.
“Sam told me something similar yesterday,” he said with a sheepish grin.
“What?” Jigneshbhai asked in all eagerness.
“You can help your fitness much more by having one slice of pizza lesser than by searching for the best ab exercise and doing endless sets of it,” Swami said. On hearing that, all of us broke into a loud guffaw that reverberated in the cafe.
Jigneshbhai and Swami were happy to have discovered two insights on two topics close to their hearts. But it didn’t stop them from spending on another muffin and cold coffee and enjoying the bites. Insights may be discovered but implementing them was another cup of tea. Or coffee.
That was when I noticed that the wealthy old man walked across to our table from the adjoining one. He had been listening to our conversation as always. I thought he had some insight to offer in his cryptic talk. He came closer to Swami and me and tapped us on the shoulders.
We left us with more food for thought when he said, “Great insights are, very often, in plain sight. Only if we care to look closely enough.”
***