Part 2: Perspective or How to think about investing in a way that ensures success?

2.4 Having an ‘alter ego’ can give you super powers to invest successfully

We all have a fear of losing money, being wrong, feeling that we don’t the stuff required to succeed at investing. For many this prevents them from even attempting to invest. Or doing it half-heartedly. But there are and have been times in our lives that we have overcome such fears and doubts and achieved success, even breakthroughs. How do we reproduce this?

What do you do when you are faced with a big challenge in an area where you do not have adequate knowledge, skills, experience and confidence? Do you Flight or Fight? But what if a flight reaction is not appropriate and you know you shouldn’t resort to it. How do you then fight, respond to the challenge? Who fights?

This situation is common in investing. And many, far too many choose the flight option and stay away from the market. Others come into the market in an unresourceful state of mind- with all their doubts, lack of knowledge, skills and confidence and try to invest. This attempt at investing done from an unresourceful state of mind is bound to fail. It has failed even before they started.

Remember the Decision-making Self who hears the Thinking and Feeling Selves present their arguments and then makes the decision. I am talking about how you think about this entity. If you think about it as someone who lacks the stuff required to invest successfully, you will definitely fail. You need this Decision Maker to be something different.

That’s where you can benefit from creating and using your Investing alter ego. An alter ego is a secondary personality or self, often used to distinguish one's behavior in certain situations and deal with it more effectively. In short, if you think your current self by itself is not best suited to handle your investing, you refer to your alter ego when investing.

You choose which traits to impart to the alter ego. Say, someone who is sharp,...........Read More

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