comparison

Compare and Despair?

By Caitie Leibman, Director of Communications

It’s said that comparison is the thief of joy. The grass is always greener, the Joneses are doing better, and no one else seems to have blemishes in their highlight reel.

This might feel like a modern problem, with how easy it is to fall into a cycle of “compare and despair” in this age of social media. But comparing ourselves to others is a very human tendency. Any strong group may feature some healthy competitiveness, for example.

But comparison becomes a problem when we forget to add some context back in. On LinkedIn, for example, we aren’t just seeing what our peers are up to on an average Tuesday: we’re also being fed content from the champions of every industry, as they chalk up lifetime achievements in real time!

What’s the antidote to the cycle of compare and despair? I sometimes daydream about deleting all my accounts, finding a nice quiet cave to hide in for a few months. (It’s not gonna happen, and it wouldn’t help anyway.)

Instead, we can just keep at it. That is, our version of “it.” Our work, our mission, bringing our attention back to whatever is happening in our lane. And research backs this approach.

“Keep your eyes on your own work,” psychologist Susan David reminds us in her book Emotional Agility. Maybe we heard this line a time or two in our school days, when teachers were on the lookout for cheating. While life is not a test, and there are no grades, this mantra might still do us some good.

Keeping our eyes on our own work might mean keeping ourselves at the center of our choices. When people give advice, it’s often in the form of, “Well, if I were you…” But they’re not you! You don’t need to know what others would do. They’re not in your shoes. You’re trying to find a way to figure out what you might do.

Comparison can spread doubt and add unhelpful pressure. We’re not trying to become that shiny person we saw on LinkedIn or even to become the friend with advice who is just trying to be helpful. That approach would be miserable. Susan David says this would lead us to become a “striving, lesser version of someone else.”

Instead, we can lean in to becoming even more of ourselves. This journey is not a race you can lose—because it’s not a race. Just keep your eyes on your own work. We’ll try to do the same.

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Play the audio version of this post below:

Compare and Despair? – 228Main.com Presents: The Best of Leibman Financial Services

This text is available at https://www.228Main.com/.

When the Wisdom of the Crowd Becomes Herd Mentality

Sometimes it takes a big splashy effort to swim upstream! Our friends may be making different choices than us, but it doesn’t mean we’re wrong. What the crowd seems to want is not always right for us. So how do we decide?

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Rough Markets: When the Wisdom of the Crowd Becomes Herd Mentality
photo shows a mountain stream

Clients, some of you have reported that some people around you are finding it inexplicable that you haven’t yet sold out of the stock market, given its rough times. One of you even heard the prediction, “You’re going to lose it all!” These conversations are happening at coffee time, out to dinner in a group, at every kind of casual gathering.  

We often think of peer pressure in connection with children. But there are strong forces at work among not only children: it’s also retirees and everyone in between! 

In ambiguous situations, humans tend to copy what other people seem to be doing. If we don’t know what to do, we may assume that others do. So we emulate them. This type of behavior is sometimes referred to as “social proof”: we take our cues from others when we feel unsure what to do. 

In some social groups, people react to rough markets by selling out; in other groups, people cling to the long-held belief that investing is too dangerous for anyone. If everybody in your “group” seemed to be doing the same thing, you’d have lots of social proof to reassure you that, surely, you must be on the right path. 

But this social influence can hold more weight in our choices than it deserves. Yes, someone marching to a different drummer can seen as a rebuke. The contrary behavior—going against the crowd—is full of resistance. Sometimes it takes a big splashy effort to swim upstream! Hence the hectoring and lecturing. 

But we choose our own course, and it does not start or end with what others think about us. 

You can see the core principle at work: “avoid stampedes.” We believe this has kept us out of fads—and pointed us to bargains. We think going against the crowd may be profitable, though no guarantees of course. 

If your friends hassle you about your investing, be kind to them. You can always change the subject if you need to. Maybe in their mind, fear is in the driver’s seat right now. Or maybe they’re in the grips of peer pressure. 

Either way, we know what we’re about. And that’s enough. 

Clients, if you would like to talk about this or anything else, please email us or call. You are among the best clients in the world, a group where you may find all the proof you need that being contrary may be a great thing.

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Play the audio version of this post below:

Rough Markets: When the Wisdom of the Crowd Becomes Herd Mentality – 228Main.com Presents: The Best of Leibman Financial Services

This text is available at https://www.228Main.com/.

Keeping Up with the Joneses’ Retirement Plan
photo shows person looking at watch and holding coffee

Half our staff here at 228Main.com is under 40 years of age, and as you may realize, I’m… not 40.  

And I plan to work to 92.  

Suffice to say, my “retirement” plan won’t be the right model for everyone. But that doesn’t mean these younger staffers—and many clients their age—aren’t working on their own plans and planning. 

A client’s age or generation matter to a certain extent in our line of work. What we’ve noticed, however, is that the most important part is how each person relates to their age.

Think about my goals again. Of course my age is a factor in my planning, but my intention to continue working changes things more. If I were only working for 2 more years, my strategy would require a totally different gear than my plan to earn an income for 20 more years! 

Clients, I don’t mean to suggest you need to know your retirement date now—or even have an exact vision of your retirement lifestyle. In fact, what I want to suggest is that it’s okay if it feels like you’re saving for a fuzzy future self. 

“But how do I know whether I’m track? I should’ve started years ago, right?” We’ve heard this before.  

No guarantees, but if you’ve made it into a conversation where you’re asking someone you trust this question, you’re on your way. From here, it’s about working toward your goals. How your parents retired, how the plan goes in a chart in a pamphlet that gets stuffed into your hand… if you compare your plan to those examples, they can add more anxiety than applicability. 

Reframe. Retirement planning is about your goals, your timeline, your lifestyle. No external marker. 

Feeling behind? Arianna Huffington calls this sense of a ticking clock being in a “time famine,” a state where “your feeling is that it must be later than you think it is.” Feeling starved for time to do what you need to do is no foundation for a strong plan. 

“Yeah but how will I…” 

Ooh, good question! That’s where we come in, and we’d be honored to help you shape this vision. Reach out when you’re ready. 

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The Happiness Assassins

© Can Stock Photo / Feverpitched

A professor at the Harvard Business School studies the connections between happiness and wealth. Since our immediate business here at 228 Main is wealth, and our primary object as human beings is happiness, we are paying attention.

Michael Norton’s research says there are two main questions people with money ask themselves when thinking about their level of satisfaction or happiness. “Am I doing better than before?” and “Am I doing better than other people?”

We recognize the comparison to others as ‘keeping up with the Joneses,’ don’t we? And always doing better than before implies a treadmill of constant improvement, ignoring the natural ebb and flow of markets, business and the economy. These are high hurdles to happiness.

Somebody somewhere is always doing better than us. And we can never have enough, if we always want more. Perhaps this is why researchers have found that people feel if only they had two or three times as much money as they had, then they would be perfectly happy.

Being the best clients in the world, you as a group are a little different. You possess a certain kind of common sense, a groundedness, that has you considering your happiness in connection with what you need and with your natural aspirations for the future. You understand the “two steps forward, one step back” nature of the markets and economy. (You don’t always like it, but you do understand it.)

One friend quotes her granny on this point: “I have enough, and enough is as good as a feast.” This is sheer genius.

Clients, it is unimaginably more satisfying for us to work with you, instead of the kind of people these researchers talk to. If you would like to talk about this or anything else, please email us or call.

The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual.