Love, Joy, and Peace: What do these three have to do with your investment decisions?

Wednesday: The Independent Investor FROM THE DESK OF MILES EVERSON: I believe investing is an important activity that we must learn regardless of the career path or industry we are in. This is one of the vehicles that will help us grow our monetary wealth and build our financial future. However, investing is not always as simple as you might think. It requires careful and strategic planning to yield great results. This is one thing I’ve noticed in the disciplines of some of the world’s investing giants. Do you know there’s a type of meditation that can help us make better investment decisions? To be specific, it’s what we call, “Mindfulness.” Continue reading to know more about the benefits of mindfulness in the context of investing and how it helps us manage our financial resources more effectively. CEO, MBO Partners Chairman of the Advisory Board, The I Institute

Love, Joy, and Peace: What do these three have to do with your investment decisions? Professor Joel Litman, President and CEO of Valens Research, has an impactful message he always mentions at the end of his coaching comments in company-wide weekly “All-Hands” calls―meetings where each team gives updates on a task or project they’re working on. He signs off from every call saying: “I wish that you all find love, joy, and peace in your day.” While he wishes the best for all Valens teams across the US, Philippines, and Turkey, he believes the concept of love, joy, and peace is also self-serving to the business. Why? If you want an organization of high achievers, then your team needs the right attitude for peak performance. Professor Litman said that mindfulness, one of the best paths towards peak performance, applies to any type of task―whether that’s analyzing a spreadsheet, building a PowerPoint presentation, writing a report, coding a database, or sending an email. Regardless of any task that you work on, doing it more mindfully a.k.a. more lovingly, more joyfully, and more peacefully will always lead to a better result. … and the more mindful you are of whether or not you’re doing your job for the purpose of love, joy, and peace in your life, the more you’ll make better, wiser decisions that will positively impact your day-to-day personal life, work life, and financial life. How can mindfulness help you become a better investor? Mindfulness helps you deal with stressful situations. According to the Mindful.org website in its review of this type of meditation, the benefits include: Improved attention Increased emotional resilience Greater compassion Meanwhile, a study from biomedical imaging hub Martinos Center shows that mindfulness facilitates emotional well-being not only by increasing relaxation and reducing stress but also by building interoception, or awareness of your body. This awareness breaks cycles of repetitive thoughts and gives you greater control over your fears, worries, and negativities. Additionally, Psychology Professor Amishi Jha states mindfulness is effective because it enhances attention and memory, enabling you to have greater control of the information you select and deselect. Let’s apply these values in the context of investing… An article from the Trading Composure website explains that many investors use mindfulness to program their minds to avoid fear, greed, and cognitive biases in making trading decisions. In other words, it’s in mastering mindfulness that these investors cut off noise, increase their moments of reflection, and instill gratitude in their lives. Here’s what the article said: “The chief benefit of meditation for traders may be to ground us in the here-and-now, allowing us to make decisions based upon present-centered awareness, rather than past and future concerns over profits and losses. The goal is not to become emotion-free, but to become fully aware of our emotional responses in the moment, so that we can utilize them as information rather than distractions.” The keywords? Present-centered awareness! This will enable you to make wise investment decisions in the moment, be in control of your emotional responses, and use various information to your advantage. — Going back to Professor Litman’s mindfulness strategy… One simple task he requests of his team members is to answer one of the questions below before or during a given project: How can I do this more lovingly, caringly, and compassionately, and how will this impact my co-workers and clients? How can I go about this with more joy, seeing the benefits this will have to others and myself? How do I perform this, just being at peace with my doing it to the best of my ability? According to Professor Litman, contemplating on any of these questions before starting a task or while working on it leads to some of the best work. This attitude also contributes to better relationships with colleagues, better achievements in innovating, branding, and delivering to customers, and better investment decisions. If your ultimate goal in life is to achieve love, joy, and peace, then all you have to do is go through your entire day by choosing to do things more lovingly, joyfully, and peacefully. Simply said… Be mindful AND enjoy what you do! This mindset will help you do your best in your work, investments, and more. We hope you find this helpful! The next time you’re about to make a major investment decision, practice this mindfulness tip and choose to do things for the purpose of love, joy, and peace in your life. Hope you’ve found this week’s insights interesting and helpful. Follow us on LinkedIn. Stay tuned for next Wednesday’s The Independent Investor! Generating wealth underpins almost everyone’s dream. Learn more about the third step towards achieving financial freedom in next week’s article!