Jul

25

I just finished The Mighty Atom. It was a delightful read as well as educational on several levels.

Chris Tucker adds: 

This reminds me of a passage in The Psychology of Risk: Mastering Market Uncertainty, by Ari Kiev, M.D., (John Wiley & Sons, 2002) pp. 39, 40: 

Commitment is an example of what Joe Greenstein, a circus strongman in the early years of the twentieth century, believed was necessary to overcome what he called "impossibility thinking." He believed in a Life Force that we all have but fail to activate because we are constantly thinking, "I can't do that. I'll hurt myself."

According to Greenstein, the little voice in you - that instinct for preservation - does not give us an accurate picture of our capabilities. We all have mental and physical abilities beyond our own estimation, but to realize them the mind must be deconditioned from impossibility thinking. Only after this deconditioning does it become possible to do what you will.Greenstein believed you could do almost anything if you applied your mind and body to the task with enough diligence. The critical step to take is to overcome the instinct for self-preservation, which inhibits action. To do this, he believed, it is only necessary to become totally focused on the event at hand, with no reservations and fears of anything untoward happening. In traders, this instinct shows up in the form of such things as mental accounting and loss aversion.

Nothing could more vividly illustrate the importance of belief in a favorable outcome without reservations or fear than the large number of people who were able to run sub-four-minute miles *after *Roger Bannister broke the magic four-minute mile barrier on May 6, 1954. Until that time, the four-minute mile was no longer a vain, exaggerated dream but an attainable goal that could be reached by any runner who was capable of overcoming the pain, adversity, and anxiety involved in reaching it. Once the barrier had been broken by Bannister, the event itself suddenly became relatively easy. By the end of 1978, as many as 274 runners had broken through the "magic, impenetrable barrier."

Kiev then progresses into an interesting discussion about the nature of commitment. Highly recommended book along with his Trading to Win: The Psychology of Mastering the Markets, John Wiley & Sons, 1998


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4 Comments so far

  1. arthur on July 25, 2011 4:10 pm

    Thanks for this. I am constantly looking for good books to read. It would be good if there was a section on this site with a book list.

  2. david on July 26, 2011 12:17 am

    Author Elmer Kelton. This one with the likes of Lamour, though.

  3. Andre Wallin on July 26, 2011 7:33 am

    I don’t understand why great books go out of print.

  4. Sam on July 29, 2011 12:47 pm

    Because publishing houses aren’t eleemosynary ventures.

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