Obviously everyone manages these things in their own way but these don't have to be stressful tasks. With emergency medical services (EMS) the thing to remember is that it is their emergency and your job. The last thing you want in an emergency is an EMS worker who is somehow emotionally caught up in the moment. EMS workers get a lot of training and the best thing they can do for their patients is exactly what they are trained to do.
As far as managing money (including your own) it can be stressful but again it is all in how you manage it. As covered here many times before the market goes down occasionally. During a bull market everyone will say they know it can go down and frequently they will overestimate their ability to tolerate volatility. A few years ago someone hired us and when things were going well he was a real gunslinger who then panicked and fired us in some brief downturn (this was before the financial crisis) that is probably too small to see on a chart and probably no one remembers.
For the rest of our lives there will be periods that come along where the stock market scares the hell out of a lot of people. If you really understand that then you should be less inclined to panic--having a defensive strategy would help too.
The other point that should reduce stress is the understanding that you will be wrong about a few things in your portfolio. Everyone gets some wrong, this is guaranteed to happen, it is a certainty. We can have less fear of something we know to be certain and being wrong occasionally is definitely a certainty.
Walker had its annual meeting yesterday and it looks like I am still the fire chief which I am happy about.
4 comments:
Lack of emotion, particularly in stressful situations, is a singular and notable characteristic of psychopathy. For everyone else the trick is to ride emotion into intense focus rather than fragmentation: that's how a hitter can literally see the stitches on an 80 mph fastball before stroking it out of the park and an EMT can pull a dying man back into the world of the living; that's how a job under the gun gets done.
Semi-OT but speaking of jobs: Just added another article to my "learn something about the laws of countries you invest in" file:
In this case, New Zealand has nothing like the US "savings and loan" statutes but there sure are a lot of NZ companies that use that name ...mostly to promote sales of their shares in the US it would appear; http://tinyurl.com/7c6v24w
I think what Roger is saying is that it is not stressful for a pro to give CPR to some one or for a pro to manage other people's money. It is most likely quite stressful to give yourself CPR or manage your own money. At least, if the situations are understood, it should be most stressful.
If there is any stress involved for the individual, it should be experienced only when picking the pro, be it a medical pro or an investment pro. Picking these people with a clear totally focused realistic expectation is what it is all about.
I'm a believer in professional management and I'm not one myself.
The question was intended to ask whether or not conflicting priorities causes stress. Let's say you have a time consuming life or death emergency call and at the same time some unforeseen portfolio matter arises that requires immediate attention.
I know I would be stressed.
The only unforeseen portfolio matters we have ever encountered have been sales. If the decision is to sell all shares it can easily be conveyed to my colleagues and executed. Similar if the decision would be to sell 50% of a position. It is simple spreadsheet work. If the name trades like water like GLD when we sold last August then we can sell it right away without moving the market.
If the name is very thin then we give it to one of our brokers and let them work it.
The call on friday; we were dispatched at 8:28 am, we got to the scene provided treatment at the scene and enroute to the hospital and handed the patient off by 9:15 and i wa checking email by 9:20--telling my assistant to submit the RRGR test trades.
If anything it was an invigorating experience and provided a great test for RRGR.
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