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...

The fallacy of knowledge and human understanding is truly remarkable. Our pomp and self-confidence, even as a civilization, can go well beyond the point where it makes sense. A perhaps more relatable example is the situation with Covid-19. Regardless of what discussion is, it's obvious that each side thinks they know the best and many times disregard the facts for emotions. This fallacy of human understanding is exploited by marketing communication, by politicians, hell even by therapists. It's a good thing if we understand it and use it for the better of the world, but also a bad thing when it goes too far. Now I have read a lot of this fMRI mapping research. They said it would spawn a new age of discovery into the way the mind works. Neuromarketing, Neuro this, neuro that. We finally seemed to know how the mind works and can dissect our thoughts minutely and really know what makes people tick. Amazon is full of books from the past decade, from various researchers, pub...

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 ...

Self-efficacy, confidence in one's own ability to create change, undertake behaviors, is essential for optimum mental health. So much so that it is a major marker for depression. In fact, while doing through the literature on psychological fir aid for disaster and trauma survivors, I came across building self-efficacy, of a community or an individual, as an important part of the rehabilitation process. So how does one go about building self-efficacy, especially after one has gone through immense failure and loss? Staying the realm of psychology only, one can go down the route of regular counseling, and even hypnotherapy or EDMR, which has shown great success for trauma victims. However psychological first aid adopts a more behavioral approach. Building self-efficacy in such a case is best developed through a series of practice situations, given to a survivor (or even a community). It could be as simple as collecting water or cooking food. However, these practice sit...

I recently came across the idea of Energizing Meditation (EM) in the "National Council for hypnotherapy Journal SUMMER EDITION". The protocol has been proposed by Howard Baron, a retired management consultant, whom I believe still dabbles in workshops and corporate training. While traditional meditation is about staying mindful and relaxing, Energizing Meditation (EM) aims to converse and boost one's energy. Basically, you are to feel 'energized' after an EM session. Howard has an interest in managing oneself under highly stressful situations, and I can see how he came up with the protocol in order to ensure managers and leadership can function in the best manner when confronted with difficulty (we are talking oil spills and disasters here!). Given Howard's background is in management consultancy, I feel Energizing Meditation (EM) is worth looking into. The protocol has been deliberately keeping very open and flexible because he rightfully believes...

::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...