Convincing Ourselves

  Investing is not an overly complicated process if you have the basics right. Everyone wants to be like a techie, sitting in front of the computer, clicking or typing away, and making money. But the reality, as many have already said, is quite boring. It requires research, grit, and also knowing one’s own preferred style of investing which can be based on the ability to take the risk, family background, available resources, aims, and so on. I myself have always been interested in seeing opportunities arise through reading macroeconomics and wider trends in the economy. Without a doubt, I read a lot and my intuition (the ability to see patterns) plays a role as well. This doesn’t mean I am Nostradamus, or that I can actually make money in the markets. However, I can write about what I feel are good opportunities. In 2012, it was quite obvious to me that the US is a great market for real estate investment. At the same time I predicted that by the end of the decade, Pakistan’s water ...

It is well understood in psychology that our beliefs, especially those formed in childhood can have a great impact on our behaviour and choices later on in life. Even though Cognitive Behavioral Therapist may not deal with issues from the past, and in certain cases you may not need to, it is well acknowledged that it does occur in traditional psychotherapy as well as literature. With my experience with individuals, I have also come across individuals who are struggling with certain behaviors and choices presently, that stem from beliefs and experiences in early life. Below I will give a fictional account of what that may look like in order to help readers understand how such beliefs can be formed, and how they may be invisible to the individual themselves. Fictional Account: Laura, 35, is a middle manager at a local chain of retail stores. She comes from an upper-middle-class background, and both her parents were immigrants and doctors. Laura had two more siblings. A...

The idea of having healthy levels of self-esteem, self-worth, and confidence is well recognized in psychology literature. In fact, since at least the 70s there has been a lot of work done on this and for a few decades raising self-esteem and self-worth was considered pivotal in treating clients with psychological disorders, bringing up healthy children, and even success in general. The idea of 'ego strengthening', as it came to be known in hypnosis literature, was ubiquitous in almost all kinds of therapy and change. However, while going through some videos of Jordan Peterson discussing the idea of social hierarchies and going through some literature on related ideas, I begun to wonder if ego strengthening alone is enough, or perhaps have we defined it well enough. Success in a society means being on top of the social hierarchy. You are the CEO, the Politician, or were born in or married into money and power. Whatever shame or form it takes, success is being on to...

The markets last night took a dive globally. Everywhere from New York to Karachi, we saw sudden selling and almost panic in the past 24 hours. All of this on the back of coronavirus. Coronavirus? Coronavirus or nCOVID-19, is a new coronavirus that has been identified. It spreads as easily as the common flu and is about 10x more fatal. That may sound like a lot, however, considered the low mortality rate of flu, cCOVID-19 is only slightly more dangerous than pneumonia and far less dangerous than the recent Ebola or SARS, although it spreads more easily. Impact? The main reason why nCOVID-19 has become such a big deal is that in the beginning of the outbreak, no one was really sure how high the mortality rate would be. China was vigilant and the media reports were haunting, to say the least. Wuhan remains the city with the highest mortality rate and it set the stage for how coronavirus would be portrayed throughout the world. According to worldmeters.info there have been 11...

Introduction Influencing the general public is a hotly debated topic in the policy. In any form of government reforms and agendas have to be 'sold' to the public. The government has traditionally been done through information dissemination through the media and done so quite effectively. An example can be of course selling wars or military interventions to the public. When the intent, however, is misinformation on a large scale, it becomes 'propaganda'. Despite its negative connotations, it is surely been present in democracies, as much as in dictatorships. A few years ago we have seen a move towards 'Nudging' individuals also called the Nudge Theory. This was popularized by Book by Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler in their book ' Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness '. An example of this could be the wording on a referendum to discourage a certain outcome or perhaps limiting choices for the consumers on the type o...

It seems that popular topics find their way into academic circles more often these days. I came across a great example of Harvard Business Review by Reiken et al called “ How Mindfulness Can Help Engineers Solve Problems”. The article has been re-posted several times across a variety of academic sites and it is surely worth a review. To begin with, mindfulness is essentially about living in the moment and paying attention to simply what is. The authors compare linear, or convergent thinking with divergent thinking, where several options are explored on top of the starting point, to generate a number of ideas and hence favours creativity and innovation. The article makes the claim that most engineers are trained to be liner, convergent thinkers and even though it's important, for the best solutions one requires both convergent and divergent thinking. The authors performed two studies to look at the impact of mindfulness meditation, which is an exercise known to...

Is there such a thing as too little food? Well, there is surely is. Eating too little, going on a crash diet or leaving out a food group for no obvious reason are all examples of a haphazard, rash approach to managing health and weight. The main reason why we tend to go for these crash diets are  1. Impatience. 2. We want to look good rather than be healthy. The above two points usually manifests themselves in a ‘deadline’ usually around a wedding, a holiday or some other social event. As important as it might be for our egos to look for other people, the reality is that that we only look as good as we feel, and nothing good comes quick. One of the most extreme ways in which such black and white thinking becomes reality is anorexia and bulimia. Anorexia is, of course, something I myself have struggled with. I have had loved ones who have struggled with Bulimia. Anorexia is essentially a killer, as it has the highest mortality rate of any mental heal...

Back in Pakistan now. As you know, one of the hazards of business travel is delicious food. Warm coffee shops, exotic treats, late-night dinners. How can you say no....however I meditated with a positive statement that I kept on using days before my travel ...... and kept it going as much as I can during my travel. Helping me balance healthy foods with indulgences, important dinners with some time for my self. It was not always easy, but it was not excruciating either. It has taken me a lot of time to reach this spot but I do not believe THIS IS WHERE I SHOULD BE. I believe there is no point we should EVER BE, just a journey to improve ourselves, our habits, our lives... May you all live the best life possible, may your journey to the top never stop Umair Usman is a Rapid Transformational Therapy practitioner, a businessperson, and a blogger. You can know more about him at https://buff.ly/2zmc9rj . To book a free consultancy session, please f...