Convincing Ourselves

While going through a wonderful book written by H.E Stanton about the psychology of trading, I came across a simple concept. Dr H.E Stanton himself has had considerable experience as a performance coach and is a clinical psychologist himself. In short, he knows how to apply theory to practice, something that I am very interested in. In one of the chapters, Dr Stanton goes on to discuss the psychology of change, and rather than going full-on theoretical, he discusses a very simple to understand, practical, and from the viewpoint of an academic, unconventional idea. He discusses the model of change as described by Tony Robbins. His choice to use Tony Robbin's ideas, someone who has no academic background of psychology is intriguing. It speaks to Dr. Stanton's pragmatism if anything. The model is simple a) decide what you want b) identify what is stopping you c) associate pain to not changing and pleasure to enable change, d) interrupt the existing pattern e) create a ...

Resilience is a concept almost synonymous with positive psychology and I feel it is important to discuss resilience, given the Covid-19 environment we are in right now. Resilience is of course the ability to bounce back from adversity. Putting yourself together and rising up, after one has fallen down. Resilience is considered an essential quality for soldiers on the battlefield, sports teams, individuals as well as businesses. The reason for this is simple, adversity is inevitable. It is inevitable that a business, organization, individual entrepreneur, or even a non-profit, will through a period of adversity. This adversity can take many forms. It could be due to legislation that changes the industry completely, it could be due to intense competition, a natural disaster perhaps or a macroeconomic situation. It can also be internal, eg a PR error by the CEO, an accounting scandal, and on. Whatever industry one is in, no matter how big or small the business, adversity and h...

Ray Dalio is the founder of Bridgewater Associates, the largest hedge fund in the world. His work in the investment arena has changed the landscape of the industry. He is so confident in his firm's ability to generate returns that he now gives life lessons and principles on how to manage a fund, investments, and life. He is so confident that no one can replicate his success that he has made the basic principles of his flagship fund public. Ray Dalio is now a sort of grandfatherly figure, considering he has been in the investment industry for over 30 years now. His advice, his comments, about macroeconomics (his forte), and various asset classes in a particular, matter. Basically, when he speaks, the press listens. Therefore it was quite peculiar when a few years ago he revealed that he has been practicing Transcendental Meditation for decades! When, Why, How? Apparently, Ray Dalio picked up this habit when Transcendental Meditation became quite the rage in the US a ...

::SPOILERS::: I just finished watching the first and only season of the German/Austrian Netflix Orignal 'Freud'. A reimaging of the early life of Sigmund Freud, before he became famous for his work in psychoanalysis. The show starts off as an autobiography. It shows a young Freud who has just encountered hypnosis and is trying to convince his peer of its powers. The show gives the impression that Freud was a big believer in hypnosis early on and among his peers was the only one who believed that neurosis was due to 'thoughts and beliefs' rather than physiology. This is not entirely accurate, but the show does a good job of portraying him as a genius waiting to be discovered. The show quickly turns into a crime thriller with Freud coming into contact with a group of Hungarian rebels. These Hungarian rebels at first glance seem like trickers playing around with the feelings of people and letting them talk to their dead loved ones through Fleur, the medium. Howeve...

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...

This post is based on a thought I had after listening to Bilal Hafeez on his last appearance on Bloomberg, talking about the impact of the coronavirus on the markets. I am not an expert in finance by any means and Bilal is essentially a veteran of the industry. He discussed what many others before him have spoken about as well. Algorithmic trading is now a massive part of global financial markets and trading. The thinking goes that because machines are doing a lot of trading, it is possible that they will make irrational mistakes and make the market crash eg during the recent Coronavirus incident. Modern Algos: Algorithmic trading is essentially now mainstream. The biggest and most successful of fund of them all is the legendary Madallion fund run by Renaissance Technologies. The fund uses leverage but is capped and not open to outside investors. It is arguably the most successful fund of its size. However, RenTech and its many funds are not the only players. Citadel is als...

Below is an abstract of the paper I wrote for " Telling the story of business: story-driven research in entrepreneurship, business, and marketing",  held at the University of South Wales in January 2020.  ================================================================= A Narrative Inquiry into the role of psychological factors in helping a Pakistani Family Business owner-manager, navigate turbulent market conditions   By Umair Usman, Usman Carpet House, Lahore, Pakistan Abstract This is an ethnographic narrative inquiry to identify the psychological factors that helped my father, a Pakistan family business owner-manager, through the great recession of 2006/2007. The study is retrospective in nature where I discuss my time, as a part of the family business during this period we experienced. I recall what I observed, and experienced, were psychological and mental factors that were inherent in my father and supported him through this...

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...

Business travel brings with it many instances where one has to be out of their comfort zone. Being away from home, one is at the mercy of their surroundings, which at times can be very limiting. As someone who takes a lot of care in eating right and eating well, it often becomes difficult for me to find a balanced meal. This is an issue not only while in the plane or in an airport or train station, but also during business meetings and dinners. Unlike at home, or in one's daily routine, there is little control over the situation. During my previous trip I Took inspiration from Self Hypnosis and related CBT techniques to self regulate what I eat and how much I eat, while keeping my energy levels relatively high. This included several sessions of self hypnosis before I left for the trip which seemingly had little result. However, one on the trip, some positive statements stuck with me in my mind which kept me in check. The results were actually very good. Much better ...