Self Care
Feeling somewhat wistful this week, Lauren Foster found herself drawn — yet again — to the opening sentences of a beautiful Pico Iyer essay. Iyer's words are a reminder of why it's important not to lose one's sense of adventure.
"It's very easy for many of us to feel out of control," said mindfulness expert Jeremy Hunter. "We live too much on gas pedal, too much on brake." But there is a way to get back to what Hunter calls our "zone of resilience — a capacity to be calm." The key to doing that is the practice of mindfulness.
Science demonstrates that meditation reduces stress, improves creativity, counteracts behavioral biases, and improves ethical decision making. It can be an incredibly useful tool for investment professionals.
We asked readers about the professional challenges they face. Arguably, a major contributor to investment returns is the ability to understand information. In an age in which the velocity of information is accelerating, not surprisingly, more than 61% of 672 respondents said that "information overwhelm" was their biggest professional challenge.
I don't know about you, but I have a very hard time sitting still and just "being" instead of "doing." My idea of "relaxing" usually involves something physical: running, swimming, cooking, spring cleaning, doing whatever, so long as I'm on the move. It takes a lot of discipline to just "be" instead of "do." Which is why a passage from a recent post on the On Being blog, "The Disease of Being Busy," really struck me.
Stress is an inconvenient truth of professional life. It has many causes, such as a difficult sales target, a tight project deadline, or unreasonable behavior by a client or a colleague. But whatever the cause, the effect of stress is the same: the stiffness in body and mind, the inability to have fun, and the vulnerability to anger.
Cristina Daverio, a senior ESG analyst and research manager at Vigeo, shares her insights into the risk associated with stress at work and what companies can do to help employees manage stress.
The University of Chicago’s Sian Beilock, author of "Choke: What the Secrets of the Brain Reveal about Getting It Right When You Have To," outlines solutions to three kinds of problems often encountered by investment practitioners and other high-stakes decision makers.
For investment professionals, the subject of stress and how to effectively manage it is a perennial topic of interest. Recently, Frank Murtha of MarketPsych explained how to recognize and effectively manage your stressors, with a particular emphasis on self-management and effective client management during times of financial market instabilities.
Is happiness at work important to you? I’m guessing the answer is yes. It probably is very important. After all, we spend so much of our life working. But after a weekend, do you feel excited about going to… READ MORE ›