We all hate to lose. Our fear of loss drives too many decisions when it comes to money, and costs us dearly. Successful investment requires stepping back from deep-seated emotions and survival instincts— and learning to understand the market instead of reacting to its turbulence. A psychiatrist created four simple strategies to train our minds, calm our emotions, and build wealth.
Why It Matters: Super-investors like Warren Buffett know how to stay calm in a financial crisis and come out ahead. But most of us try math and magic to win at investing and wind up behind. We’d be better off learning to keep a cool head — and overcoming our irrational fear of loss. Being afraid to lose makes us sell low, buy high, ignore compounding losses, and sink money into the wrong stocks. In these times, no one can afford to let fear ruin financial well-being.
Key Messages: Everyone can learn these four simple, proven strategies, according to psychiatrist Mark Tobak, MD, author of Anyone Can Be Rich! A Psychiatrist Provides the Mental Tools to Build Your Wealth. Tobak realized many of his own patients fear financial loss most of all, and developed these techniques to help. He drew on lessons from top investors, and used telling examples from movies and pop culture to illustrate. It’s not about numbers, but mindset.
I had a chance to interview him to learn more.
How can the fear of loss paradoxically keep us from making gains?
Our fear of loss goes back to our origins in the African savannah and even earlier. If there's a fire you take what you can and run. It's an emergency response like fighting for air if you can't breathe. But if you're dealing with a stock market crash that response is a terrible mistake. A sober investor needs to bypass the evolved response and just stand back from the blaze. Then, if they're really good they wait until the fire has died down and then step into it like a firefighter. That's hard to do. Firefighters self-select for bravery and are trained. A successful investor must train him or herself not to sell in a crash but wait for it to bottom and then buy, which is even harder!
Why did you decide to write this book?
I decided to write the book because I saw so many patients suffering with financial problems because no one taught them about money and investment. Many were people who once had money and lost it. Others made money but did not invest when they might have. Some had their money taken from them by self-serving and sometimes unscrupulous people, far too many in the financial industry. This advice cannot be offered under the mantle of psychiatry even though the issues are actually cognitive and emotional. But it does fit in a little book, so I thought to write it. That thought came to fruition when a wealthy patient, well-invested, asked me how many of my patients worried about money. The answer was, "All of them." Then I got started.
Why is our mentality so key to our financial success?
Because no matter how much you make or how little you can always put 10% or more aside, invest it in an index fund year in and year out and grow rich over your lifetime!
Mark Tobak, MD, is a general adult psychiatrist in private practice. He is the former chief of inpatient geriatric psychiatry and now an attending physician at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Harrison, NY. He graduated the University at Buffalo School of Medicine and Columbia University School of General Studies. Dr. Tobak also has a law degree from Fordham University School of Law and was admitted to the NY State Bar. His work appears in the American Journal of Psychiatry, Psychiatric Times, and American Journal of Medicine and Pathology. He is the author of Anyone Can Be Rich! A Psychiatrist Provides the Mental Tools to Build Your Wealth, which received high praise from Warren Buffett.
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