New Delhi, Sept. 28 -- If your portfolio fell 20%, would you: (a) sell everything, (b) do nothing, (c) invest more? Sitting on your sofa after Sunday lunch, tea in hand, you tick (c).

The questionnaire marks you as an aggressive investor. It has only recorded what you think of yourself on a calm day.

There is a better question, and it is almost never on the form: What did you actually do the last time money scared you? Not what would you do. What did you do?

Your money life already holds the answer, and transactions do not flatter anyone.

Alok, 38, from Vadodara, was an aggressive investor on paper. In March 2020, when his portfolio fell 20% in three weeks, he did not buy more. He could not sleep for two nights, stopped his SIPs and r...