emotional behavior

On Not Hulking Out
photo shows a ripple on a lake at sunrise

Forget willpower, forget control. What if the big secret in life was just letting things be?

We were reminded the other day of the classic Marvel character the Hulk. There have been too many versions of this giant green guy to count, but his whole deal comes down to losing his composure. “Hulking out” has come to mean flying off the handle, usually in a rage.

When new acquaintances learn what we do for a living, they wonder how much of our time we spend just sitting with upset or aggravated clients: does every new headline set people off? How do we handle all the turmoil?

Clients, you can imagine how I just smile through these conversations! You know that you’ve come to be the best clients in the world by the way we navigate things together. We know how to put short-term downturns in perspective, how to ride the highs and lows with our eyes on the big picture.

Of course there’s turmoil: so much of life is that way! Why would it shake us?

The Hulk reveals his big secret, how he has harnessed his anger to put it to his own uses (in his case, to fight villains of all sizes). It’s not about taming his anger; it’s about living with it.

“I’m always angry,” he says.

Clients, that’s the ticket right there: things are always a little uncomfortable. And we can choose to accept it as part of the deal.

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Play the audio version of this post below:

On Not Hulking Out – 228Main.com Presents: The Best of Leibman Financial Services

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

Investment Success and EQ

© Can Stock Photo / Mark2121

We write about productive investment attitudes and habits because we have seen first-hand their power to improve one’s position. Knowledge improves behavior, effective behavior increases account balances, growing balances raise our revenues. Everybody wins.

Behavioral economists have identified ways in which humans seem wired to make poor financial decisions based on emotions. We know from our work with you that this neither dooms our investment performance nor requires us to settle for mediocre results.

Communicating ideas and perspectives is therefore at the very heart of our enterprise. So we were excited to find the work of author Justin Bariso. He wrote the following concise wisdom about his field of expertise:

“Emotional intelligence is the ability to make emotions work for you, instead of against you.”

Some propose that emotional intelligence and its measurement, EQ, is more vital to success in business and life than one’s intelligence quotient, or IQ. This makes a great deal of sense to us, generally, although brains are wonderfully useful in our work, too.

We think Bariso’s statement has special meaning in the world of investing. Many people let emotions work against them; behavioral economics demonstrates this. Our approach, which explicitly seeks to avoid stampedes and embraces unpopular viewpoints, absolutely seeks to let emotions work for us. Emotions create anomalies in market prices, and that is where our opportunities live.

Legendary investor Warren Buffett once said, “Be greedy when others are fearful, and fearful when others are greedy.” Isn’t this just another way to say ‘make emotions work for you instead of against you?’

Clients, if you would like to talk about this or any other pertinent topic, 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.

Investing involves risk, including possible loss of principal.