We all have an inner critic. Its impact varies for each of us, depending on its volume and assertiveness. Having awareness of negative thought patterns during any high-performance endeavour enables us to build strategies to mitigate their effects. That you are susceptible to negative thoughts simply means you’re human; it’s how you manage them that…
In my self-CARE program, one of the exercises embedded in the self-awareness module relates to feedback. Feedback provides a mechanism to gauge how we perceive ourselves relative to how we are perceived by others. For most of us, the narrower this perception gap, the more in tune we feel with the people around us. Having…
Recently I sat with a client during one of his live trading sessions and invited him to think out loud while he traded. Verbalising his decisions in real time at different points during the session, highlighted moments where he was confronted with indecision. Sometimes he would move on productively without dwelling on his moment of…
I have a noisy internal critic. When I make a mistake, it blurts all sorts of expletives at me. When I look to try something new, it tells me not to be a fool. When I do something that leads to another person’s upset, it tells me it’s all my fault and encourages me back…
Some years ago while running my hedge fund, I went through a period of indecision. I would line up my decision rules for my entry signals and then at the moment of execution, would hesitate. I was struggling to make the simple decision of buy, sell or the default, do nothing. Too often the default…
Looking out the window toward the almost silent port of Hong Kong, I was waiting for my appointment to pitch to a multi-family office. My hedge fund had a solid three-year track record, having been short markets during the global financial crisis (GFC). It was April 2009. I had squared up my short positions in…
