Force for thought — 31.01.25
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
Did you know that more than seven million tonnes of food waste is generated annually in the UK? On closer inspection, it’s been found that the expiry date on food labels is responsible for more than 600,000 tonnes of wasted edible food. What does that tell us? Put otherwise, it may be said that UK households — and households everywhere — are being failed by an inadequate feedback system that is costing us food, time and money. It makes no sense to spend money on food and let it go to waste — and yet we participate in this vicious cycle every day. So, how do you change that kind of behaviour?
Ogilvy, the advertising giant, in collaboration with environmental NGO Wrap, undertook to understand why UK citizens contributed to so much food waste. They found people either forgot to look at the date; wrestled to count the day 10 days from now when their food was overdue; and suffered confusion around the clarity of labels such as Best Before or Use By. So, in a real-life pilot, Ogilvy rolled out a brain-friendly label with the date and the day, making it more intuitive and clear for citizens to maximise their food before it expired. How can something so simple activate change? Vice Chairman Rory Sutherland explains it best: Ogilvy’s interventions are simple, but not easy. The same applies to Force500’s methodology to optimise the investor journey. Inserting oneself into a habitual, recurring, positive feedback loop may, on the surface, appear simple and unnecessary. Moreover, even though it works, most investors will forgo this system and flail without it. But they will find themselves in a similar cycle to the everyman on his weekly grocery shop: well-intentioned but gravely paying for goods and letting them go before their time.
To Have on Hand
Motivational speaker and coach, Tony Robbins, has been changing lives all over the world since he was 17. In this powerful podcast episode, he touches on many of his key insights to living a beautiful life that may also be applied to successful investing. How so? They can all be attributed to the following quote: “Repetition is the mother of mastery”.