The extraordinary thing about us humans is that we were built for long distance running. Not me, you understand, but humans more generally.
The latest research into human history shows that humans are slower than most animals we hunted and so adapted to be faster over long distance.
We could pursue prey over several days and eventually wear them out.
Four legged animals are mostly sprinters, their running motion acts like a concertina on their lungs. Humans being bipedal can regulate our breathing more evenly and control oxygen flow. We also sweat profusely (sorry dear reader) and can therefore control our body temperature over longer periods of time. In fact, as we have blogged about before, humans have also adapted a running style which is perfect for covering large distances, slowly with very efficient energy consumption.
We learned to play the long game.
Unfortunately, our brains haven’t adapted in the same way our bodies have. Our brains were wired (at the same time we were chasing prey) to be alert for risks. Our ‘fight or flight’ response is not helpful in a world where for most of us we don’t face imminent threat from hungry lions. Instead the endorphins in our brain make us think short-term and in terms of rewards and risks.
This is antithetical to good investing and financial planning.
Both require very unnatural feeling human behaviour; they require us to put money away and leave it alone. Some of the worse things you can do is follow the natural prompting of the brain to constantly login and take a look, to tinker, to make changes and come up with new ideas. The absolute worse thing is to pay attention to the hourly/daily news cycle and decide that something needs to change due to some new risk or opportunity.
Providing for our futures is much better handled by the body not the brain. Slowly following your objective, grinding away at it mile by mile. Watching from a distance and running it to ground.
Half of the Altor team are dedicated long distance runners and the other half are happy with not being. They are helping clients every day to focus on what is important. Get in touch via our Hook office, if you want a coaching relationship where you are guided to focus on the important and not the immediate, where the hard work is done for you and you can enjoy the rewards.