Force for thought — 24.01.25
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
A popular fallacy exists about success — many believe its key ingredients are talent or smarts. Yet history has proven otherwise. It has shown that people at the pinnacle of their careers, or at the top of their fields, are driven primarily by their emotions. When push comes to shove, it is their emotions that dictate their outcomes and upon which their failure or success is hinged. So, if we can control for how we feel, we can optimise how we perform — in our lives and our investments. Case in point? A UC Berkeley study, conducted on NBA players during the 2008-9 season, set out to determine the impact of touch on team performance. Researchers predicted that touch — a physical feedback mechanism — would promote enhanced trust, cooperation and validation in players, reducing their sense of threat and boosting the team’s overall performance.
What did they find? With the basketball court as their playground, researchers studied the gestures of players throughout games, monitoring for fist bumps, high fives, hugs and team huddles. Their predictions were correct: these seemingly small and insignificant indicators of positive feedback and validation had a huge impact in determining the success of the teams by the end of the season. Teams that regularly engaged in these kinds of touch won more games, played more efficiently and functioned more cooperatively. What this highlights is that recurring positive feedback is a key lever we can employ to bolster our success. Not only that: receiving habitual positive news can also work as an antidote to other variables that may set us off-course. When we are faced with societal pressures, stressful conditions and opposing strategies — either on the court or in the markets — we can override the impact of these variables on our emotions if we put systems, like Force500’s communication methodology, in place.
To Have on Hand
In her book, Motherhood, Sheila Heti wrestles against her ambivalence about having children as she approaches her forties. Her predicament may be irrelevant to our investment journeys yet her insights on the powers of our emotions to impose on our decision-making are universal. As she says: “… feelings, which fluctuate constantly, cannot be the things that guide us through life, which is designed to make feelings fluctuate so.” The same may be said of the stock market.