Register now for Odoo event: https://www.odoo.com/r/q5K5 Download 1% Club App Now! https://app.onepc.io/?c=fws-yt-karan Most people build a plan to reach financial freedom. Very few plan for what happens after. In this episode, Sharan Hegde spends an entire day with Karan Datta, the former Chief Business Officer of Axis Mutual Fund, who retired at 47 and is now in his eighth year of retirement. Karan was a founding member of the Axis AMC business and brings over 25 years in Indian financial services, with earlier leadership roles at Goldman Sachs Asset Management as National Sales Head and at Franklin Templeton across Singapore and India. This is his third appearance on the podcast, and the first where he opens up his actual life to the camera. Filmed across a golf course in central Delhi and the building he now owns floor by floor, the conversation moves from lifestyle to hard numbers. Karan explains how his wealth was built through stock options during a salaried career rather than entrepreneurship, why he has handed portfolio decisions to a financial advisor, and how he funds his lifestyle through a systematic withdrawal plan built on a conservative long-term return assumption. He talks candidly about cutting his annual household budget by half in 2024 because he believed markets had peaked, and why withdrawing aggressively during flat markets is one of the fastest ways to damage a retirement corpus. For anyone thinking seriously about SIPs, asset allocation, retirement planning and safe withdrawal rates, this is a rare look at how the maths behaves once the accumulation phase ends. The episode also deals with the part of financial independence nobody prepares for: purpose. Karan describes his day as a college student's routine, four hours of play and four hours of study, and explains why he reads geopolitics deeply, how he thinks about global trade chokepoints and tariffs shaping India's position, and why he is training to compete in 100m sprints in the masters age category. He walks through his watch collection and why he treats certain pieces as appreciating assets, and shares the idea that has shaped his approach to money more than any investment thesis: there is no point in living poor and dying rich. It is a practical, unusually honest case study in investor psychology, wealth creation and what a financially free life in India actually looks like. Timeline 00:00 - Trailer 01:25 - Introduction 02:48 - A Morning at the Delhi Golf Course 04:00 - What Golf Actually Costs 05:30 - Owning an Entire Building in Delhi 06:37 - Inside Karan's Home 07:40 - The Watch Collection 09:47 - Are Luxury Watches an Appreciating Asset? 12:14 - How Big Is the House? 13:50 - Why a Retired Man Still Keeps an Office 14:07 - How Stock Options Built His Wealth 15:22 - What the Property Is Worth Today 15:44 - The Terrace and Delhi's Green Lungs 17:06 - Retiring at 47 17:34 - What Do You Do When You Have No Job Title? 18:30 - Living a College Student's Life 19:15 - Tariffs and the India-US Relationship 20:16 - How He Researches Geopolitics 22:18 - Training to Sprint for India at 55 23:44 - How He Funds His Retired Life 24:37 - Liquid Net Worth and Working With an Advisor 25:02 - Annual Expenses and Cutting the Budget by Half 26:05 - Systematic Withdrawal Plans and Return Assumptions 26:33 - Why You Shouldn't Withdraw in Flat Markets 26:52 - Six Vacations a Year 27:17 - Why Live Poor and Die Rich? 27:39 - What Financial Freedom Actually Looks Like Karan Datta: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karan-datta/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/karandatta.official/ Twitter/X: https://x.com/Datta_karan Website: https://karantalks.com/ Subscribe: The 1% Club Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/onepercentclub LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-1-clubfws Sharan Hegde Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/financewithsharan LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharanhegde95 Twitter/X: https://x.com/financewsharan — Sharan Hegde is a personal finance creator & founder of the 1% Club, simplifying money, markets, and mindset for India's next generation of wealth builders. — #financewithsharan #personalfinance