Force for thought — 23.08.24
To Have and To Hold
How do you hold onto a good thing and not let it go before it has time to work its magic? By mobilising a method that works. No one is insulated from the challenges of sticking with something promising — not a diet, nor an exercise regimen, or even a first date — the moment it becomes uncomfortable and hard. Why should investing be any different?
We’ve collected more than four million data points that demonstrate how a particular methodological communication enables investors to hold on for the ride. The proof stretches beyond investing: our ability to hold on when we least want to — in order to withstand things that can cause our undoing — has application everywhere. Each week, we’ll show how and why a mechanism for holding on, in investing and in life, is so powerful.
Zooming in
In 2012, Hajo Adam and Adam Galinsky, two professors and psychologists from England and New York, coined the term ‘enclothed cognition’ — used to describe the impact our clothes have on our behaviour. In a study they conducted, people were dressed in lab coats under the impression that they were in either doctor’s garb or painter’s uniforms. What did they find? With the simple variable of a lab coat, seismic behavioural shifts ensued. Those under the impression they were dressed as doctors exhibited a natural aptitude — commensurate with their supposed identities — for the task at hand, pointing to the impact our clothes have on us physically and to the symbolism they represent.
What does this tell us? It is analogous to how we approach investing and how that approach informs our outcomes. If we choose to adopt a tentative mindset, weathering the volatility of the stock market alone, we will generate results that reflect that mindset. However, if we adopt a lens that boosts us — like Force500’s feedback system, focused on positive news — our behaviour is likely to shift in accordance with that lens. What we fixate on — the regular receipt of dividends, for example, versus fluctuations in share price — is ours to choose.
To Have on Hand
In her world-famous podcast, The Mel Robbins Podcast, Robbins offers guidance to optimise our lives, relationships and mental health, navigating experiences that are universal in life — and investing. In this episode, she identifies that how we think is far from trivial and highlights the life-changing potential of training your brain to work for you.
