This post is part of the đź“– The Psychology of Money series.


Today, I am reading When You’ll Believe Anything chapter from the book The Psychology of Money: Timeless lessons on wealth, greed, and happiness written by Author, Morgan Housel.

TL;DR! đź’¬

Doing well with money isn’t necessarily about what you know. It’s about how you behave. And behavior is hard to teach, even to really smart people.

In The Psychology of Money, award-winning author Morgan Housel shares 19 short stories exploring the strange ways people think about money and teaches you how to make better sense of one of life’s most important topics.


Yesterday, I finished reading the 17th short story The Seduction of Pessimism from the book The Psychology of Money.

When You’ll Believe Anything

Appealing fictions and why stories are more powerful than statistics.

When we think about the growth of economies, businesses, investments and careers, we tend to think about tangible things—how much stuff do we have, and what are we capable of?

But stories are, by far, the most powerful force in the economy. They are the fuel that can let the tangible parts of the economy work or the brake that holds our capabilities back.

There are two things to keep in mind about a story-driven world at the personal level when managing your money.

  1. The more you want something to be true, the more likely you are to believe a story that overestimates the odds of it being true.

    There are many things in life that we think are true because we desperately want them to be true. I call these things “appealing fictions.”

    They have a big impact on how we think about money—particularly investments and the economy.

    An appealing fiction happens when you are smart, you want to find solutions, but face a combination of limited control and high stakes.

    They are extremely powerful. They can make you believe just about anything.

  2. Everyone has an incomplete view of the world. But we form a complete narrative to fill in the gaps.

“Risk is what’s leftover when you think you’ve thought of everything.” — Carl Richards

Summary

  • The illusion of control is more persuasive than the reality of uncertainty. So we cling to stories about outcomes being in our control.

That’s it for today. Tomorrow, we will read the next chapter All Together Now, where we see what we have learned about the psychology of your own money.

What we learnerd so far
  1. No One’s Crazy

    Every decision people make with money is justified by taking the information they have at the moment and plugging it into their unique mental model of how the world works.

  2. Luck & Risk

    Nothing is as good or as bad as it seems. More important is that as much as we recognize the role of luck in success, the role of risk means we should forgive ourselves and leave room for understanding when judging failures.

  3. Never Enough

    There are many things never worth risking, no matter the potential gain. Knowing when you have “enough” is an invaluable skill. Building a sense for “enough” is remarkably simple: Stop taking risks that might harm your reputation, family, freedom and independence.

    Don’t forget that being loved by those “whom you want to love” is invaluable than risking everything for money.

  4. Confounding Compounding

    Good investing isn’t necessarily about earning the highest returns. It’s about earning pretty good returns that you can stick with and which can be repeated for the longest period of time.

  5. Getting Wealthy vs Staying Wealthy

    Good investing is not necessarily about making good decisions. It’s about consistently not screwing up. There are a million ways to get wealthy and plenty of books on how to do so. But there’s only one way to stay wealthy: some combination of frugality and paranoia.

    Getting money is one thing. Keeping it is another. If you have to summarize money success in a single word, it would be “survival”.

  6. Tails, You Win

    Gains come from a small per cent of your actions called “Long Tail Events”. You can be wrong half the time and still make a fortune. Remember, tails drive everything. Just do the average thing when all those around you are going crazy.

  7. Freedom

    Controlling your time is the highest dividend money pays. The ability to do what you want, when you want, with who you want, for as long as you want, is priceless. It is the highest dividend money pays.

  8. Man in the Car Paradox

    If respect and admiration are your goals, be careful how you seek them. Humility, kindness, and empathy will bring you more respect than horsepower ever will.

  9. Wealth is What You Don’t See

    Wealth is hidden. It’s income not spent. Wealth is an option not yet taken to buy something later. Its value lies in offering you choices, flexibility, and growth to one day purchase more stuff than you could right now.

  10. Save Money

    Savings can be created by spending less. You can spend less if you desire less. And you will desire less if you care less about what others think of you.

  11. Reasonable > Rational

    You’re not a spreadsheet. You’re a person. A screwed up, emotional person. When it comes to investing, try to be reasonable rather than rational.

  12. Surprise!

    Don’t rely solely on history when predicting the future of the economy and stock market.

  13. Room for Error

    People underestimate the need for room for error in almost everything they do that involves money. The solution is simple: Use “room for error” when estimating your future returns.

  14. You’ll Change

    Long-term financial planning is essential. But things change—both the world around you and your own goals and desires. The trick is to accept the reality of change and move on as soon as possible. The quicker it’s done, the sooner you can get back to compounding.

  15. Nothing’s Free

    Stock market volatility is a fee, not a fine. Find the price and pay it. Convincing yourself that “market volatility is a fee, not fine” is an important part of developing the kind of mindset that lets you stick around long enough for investment gains to work in your favour.

  16. You & Me

    Investors often innocently take cues from other investors who are playing a different game than they are.

    Understand your own time horizon, identity what game you’re playing and play within those rules and not be persuaded by people’s actions and behaviours playing different games than you are.

  17. The Seduction of Pessimism

    Pessimism prevails while the powerful pull of optimism goes unnoticed. In investing, you must identify the price of success — volatility and loss amid the long backdrop of growth — and be willing to pay it.

  18. When You’ll Believe Anything

    Everyone has an incomplete view of the world. But we form a complete narrative to fill in the gaps. The more you want something to be true, the more likely you are to believe a story that overestimates the odds of it being true.

    The illusion of control is more persuasive than the reality of uncertainty. So we cling to stories about outcomes being in our control.

Buy or not to buy

If you want to be wealthy and then stay at the totem pole forever, you must immediately read this book. I bought several copies of this book to gift friends and family. It’s an easy read with a lot of anecdotes and real-life lessons. I already implemented several hacks in my life whistle taking investment decisions.

The Psychology of Money

Author(s): Morgan Housel

Short Blurb: Doing well with money isn’t necessarily about what you know. It’s about how you behave. And behavior … Read more
Buy from Amazon

Part 20 of 23 in the đź“– The Psychology of Money book series.

Series Start | The Psychology of Money: Timeless lessons on wealth, greed, and happiness - Day 19 | The Psychology of Money: Timeless lessons on wealth, greed, and happiness - Day 21



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