Poke the Box: Believe in Yourself…and Please Like Me

We want to be liked and accepted. We believe, trust and agree with people we know and like. We do things for people we like. We like the people who like us (check your Facebook now! :-)) And if we feel that a person likes us, we tend to like them back.

Now, likability comes in many forms – people might be similar or familiar to us, they might give us compliments, or we may just simply trust them.

Companies that use sales agents from within the community employ this principle with huge success. People are more likely to buy from people like themselves, from friends, and from people they know and respect.

Also, we like those who are physically attractive, popular, or those we have positive associations with. We also like and trust anything familiar.

Aristotle said – “Personal beauty is a greater recommendation than any letter of introduction.”

Studies show that we believe that physically attractive people have a more desirable personality than average-looking or unattractive people. Experiments show that attractive criminals are seen as less aggressive and get a milder punishment than ugly criminals.

But like the 6th Century Greek writer Aesop wrote, “Appearances often are deceiving.”

The best con artists always behave as though they are not acting in their best interest. The 16th Century Italian political philosopher Niccolo Machiavelli said in The Prince – “Princes who have achieved great things have been those who have given their word lightly, who have known how to trick men with their cunning, and who, in the end, have overcome those abiding by honest principles.”

Look at stock market investing. Most often, we like a stock after it has run up sharply (Titan, Asian Paints, Page), while we hate things that have dropped in price.

We are attracted to fast-growing companies and fast-rising CEOs, as we see our own aspirations in them, want to become like them, and want to associate with them. All this without worrying what that fast growth may lead to, which is often a rapid decline!

Now, while the “liking” tendency is deeply ingrained in our minds, to avoid falling deep into it, it’s important to…

• Concentrate on the issue and what you want to achieve, not on appearances.
• Not depend on the encouragement of others.
• Not automatically mistake people’s appearance for reality. It may be a social mask!
• Not automatically mistake fast-growing companies or fast-rising investments with great returns. They may turn out to be WMDs for your portfolio.

Better, seek an enemy or devil’s advocate who may dislike what you are doing and tell you exactly why he/she things so.

As Benjamin Franklin wrote, “Love your enemies, for they tell you your faults.”

Anyways, despite often reading nonsense on Safal Niveshak, I hope you would continue to like me! 🙂

At least, I wish you continue to like me on Facebook! 🙂

Remember that voice you often hear in your head?

The voice that says – “You can’t do it! You’ll never be good enough! You’re going to fail!”

This voice scoffs at you whenever you set out to achieve something. It criticizes you when life gets difficult and you are down in the dumps. It holds you down when you struggle to get up after a fall.

You see, self-doubt not only bothers you when you have it, often it slips past your barriers and gets over you. And when you let it loose, it destroys your confidence, strips logic and reason from your mind, and steals happiness from your heart.

In return, it leaves you with only fear and insecurity.

I have faced such situations several times in the past, and continue to face them day in and day out. The more I fight my self-doubt, the more it fights back.

However, I have also realized that with self-knowledge and understanding, I can use self-doubt for my benefit…and I am learning to do just that.

Most often, in life, what should concern us is not the way things are, but rather the way we think things are.

If I think I can’t do a thing, I will act in such a way that I will never be able to do that thing.

It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy: As I think, so I am.

You must have found yourself in similar situations in the past when you realized that you were not able to achieve some things because you believed from the very start that those things were unachievable.

When it comes to investing, despite the fact that Benjamin Graham and Warren Buffett’s amazing ideas have been with us for decades, the reason most people don’t invest sensibly is because they think they can’t.

So we will remain in the comfort of the crowd, buy what others are buying, look for signals on forums, blindly trust others with their money, and rarely get down to do the independent homework of finding great investments.

Again the reason is that we would believe the world but ourselves, negating what Graham said years ago – “You are neither right nor wrong because the crowd disagrees with you. You are right because your data and reasoning are right.”

The critic in your head or outside of you won’t let you believe yourself…but you have no option but to believe in yourself if you really wish to live a life on your own terms.

Watch this video and you will know that anything is possible if you believe in yourself…