Every age has a dunce. A society, or set of societies, that just don’t get it. They don’t learn history’s lessons. They don’t progress — they stagnate, and then regress, clinging desperately to failing ideologies, grasping at dead, obsolete ideas like a drowning person grasps at flotsam. But history’s tide is unforgiving. It cares little…
Every organization, whether small or big, early or late stage — and every individual, whether for themselves or others — makes countless decisions every day, under conditions of uncertainty. The question is, are we allowing that uncertainty to bubble to the surface, and if so, how much and when? Where does consensus, transparency, forecasting, backcasting,…
Reporting their findings in The Journal of Social Psychology Robin Kowalski and Annie McCord at Clemson University have done just that in two surveys of hundreds of participants on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk website. Their findings show that people’s advice to their younger selves is overwhelmingly focused on prior relationships, educational opportunities and personal worth, echoing similar results…
Not knowing what’s going to happen next is generally stressful. Uncertainty signals that you’re unsure of your environment, your skills, or both. But uncertainty also signals the brain to kickstart learning, new Yale research published in the journal Neuron has found. That means crazy, unstable situations might be uncomfortable, but they’re also essential if you want to make the most…
….We’d be wise treat ourselves the same way we treat crying babies. When we mess up, fall short, break a good habit, give into a bad one, get caught in a negative thought cycle, or find ourselves stuck in a bad mood state the inclination is to yell back. We berate ourselves for failing and…
“A purely disembodied human emotion is a nonentity,” William James asserted in his revolutionary 1884 theory of how our bodies affect our feelings. Two generations later, Rilke wrote in a beautiful letter of advice to a young woman: “I am not one of those who neglect the body in order to make of it a sacrificial offering for the…
Mubasshir Murshed, fondly known as “Mub” by his friends, is a 17-year-old mathematics genius who has been given the rare honour, for someone of his age, of being published in a national academic journal. His achievement sounds complicated for the uninitiated — he has written an equation that proves “why a parabola is the only…
On September 26, 1983, the planet came terrifyingly close to a nuclear holocaust. The Soviet Union’s missile attack early warning system displayed, in large red letters, the word “LAUNCH”; a computer screen stated to the officer on duty, Soviet Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov, that it could say with “high reliability” that an American intercontinental ballistic missile…
Rick Beato is probably my go to music guy. His breakdown of songs as to what makes them great is a masterclass in understanding the language of your profession. His enthusiasm for all things music as well as his talent makes for a wonderful way to spend some quality time on the internet. The clip…
The chart below is from Institutional Investor and it tracks where family offices which are essentially private wealth management groups are placing their capital. These charts always tend to follow a very generic flow – a lot in liquid assets such as equities, nowhere near as much as you would think in real estate and…
One of the podcasts on my playlist is the Real Science of Sport and in the current episode, they speak to Peter Bills the author of The Jersey which is an insight into why the New Zealand All Blacks are without a doubt the worlds most dominant sporting team. During the conversation Bills mentioned that…
Whilst sitting in the physio this morning I saw an item scroll across the bottom of the TV that was on stating that academics had found that insider trading among Australian company directors was rampant. Whenever academics claim to have found anything to do with markets I have to go and investigate because it is…
Last week I had the pleasure of sitting down and chatting with Steven Goldstein and Mark Randall from AlphaMind. During our chat, we ranged far and wide over all things trading psychology including some reminiscing about the good old days of being on dealing floors. It is well worth subscribing to their podcast if you…
…..I believe in prediction. I think you have to in order to get out of bed in the morning. But prediction is hard. Either you know that or you’re in denial about it. A lot of the reason it’s hard is because the visible stuff that happens in the world is a small fraction of…
