Émile Coué's Monument in Park Sainte-Marie, Nancy, France
The Investor Takeaway
Most investors are slaves to their imaginations.
When the market is going up, they imagine getting rich quick. FOMO floods their brain, and they jump in, fearful of missing the opportunity.
When the market is going down, FOMO turns to FUD, and they fear losing it all. They obsessively check prices then sell their holdings, usually at a loss.
Coué believed the will is always a slave to the imagination. This is a universal law. No matter how strong-willed most investors think they are, they're actually ruled by their imaginations.
The good news is the imagination can be trained.
Coué’s method (repeating your statement 20 times in the morning and 20 times before bed) is a good one (there is research showing that writing it down each day can be even more powerful).
The trick is to find the belief holding you back. In modern terms, we might call this “hacking your constraint program.” Often, the belief is tucked away so deeply, we may not even be consciously aware of it.
What are your imagination limitations?
“Everything I do ends in failure.”
“I’m too old/dumb/unfocused.”
“My ADHD makes me unable to follow through.”
“People like me aren’t good with money.”
“I don’t have enough capital to do what I want.”
Our imagination can be our worst enemy, but as Coué would say, it could also be our best friend. We can easily turn these statements around like so:
“Each day I am growing more financially prosperous.”
“I absorb new information quickly and easily.”
“My mind is quick, agile, and able to see in HD.”
“Everything I do creates value.”
“My body’s filled with health. My life is filled with wealth.”
Plenty of self-help literature implies this is all you have to do. Just hack your brain with these sayings and the money will come rolling in. Of course, you then have to actually do the work.
But the work (i.e., the will) is subject to the imagination. Put another way, the imagination is the cause, and the work is the effect. Change your imagination, and you'll change the direction and the results of your work.
According to Coué, your imagination (your self-created beliefs) can be self-adjusted.
Every day in every way, you can grow better and better.
The more you repeat it, the more you believe it.
The more you believe it, the more you will see it.