August 9th

True warriors know that every person they meet comes to them with fresh minds and new prejudices, upon which the true warrior can work their magic. Keep this in mind!

This introduces today’s topic—Gains and Losses—with an excerpt from Daniel Kahneman’s book, Thinking, Fast and Slow:

“The psychologist Paul Rozin, an expert on disgust, observed that a single roach will completely wreck the appeal of a bowl of cherries, but a cherry will do nothing at all for a bowl of cockroaches. As he points out, the negative trumps the positive in many ways, and loss aversion is one of many manifestations of a broad negativity dominance. Other scholars, in a paper titled “Bad is Stronger Than Good,” summarized the evidence as follows: “Bad emotions, bad parents, and bad feedback have more impact than good ones, and bad information is processed more thoroughly than good. The self is more motivated to avoid bad self-definitions than to pursue good ones. Bad impressions and bad stereotypes are quicker to form and more resistant to disconfirmation that good ones.”

The true warrior has discovered that, to even maintain the status quo, one must have a minimum of five positive experiences to offset every single negative experience in a relationship—assuming events of equal or near-equal magnitude. It also appears that this is hardwired into us as a survival mechanism. We have a function that allows our brain to transmit negative impressions to our brain much faster and far more thoroughly than positive impressions. Our brains know that negatives, like danger, or pain, more often require immediate action.

We will fight to avoid loss far more vigorously than we will struggle for gain. An extensive study was conducted on professional golfers, relating to motivation and putting. What it discovered was interesting. For professional golfers, failing to make a par putt is considered a loss, whereas making a birdie putt is considered a win. Pro golfers work far harder at avoiding a loss than they do at achieving a win. What became evident was that, if they could re-frame their view of the birdie putt as a loss to be avoided, rather than as a win to be achieved, they could improve their game by one stroke per game. To put it into a larger perspective, if Tiger Woods (who was in this study) could do this, he could earn an additional million dollars in prize money every year! This is not trivial.

The true warrior knows that there are two significant motivators in life: the desire for gain and the fear of loss. This applies to everyone, and studies show that “fear of loss” is the greater motivator—by what factor is dependant on one’s reference point and the severity of the potential loss. This is another reason why change is so hard to accomplish.

Change is usually motivated by the desire for gain, and is often ineffective, but change that is truly motivated by fear of loss is usually very effective! Threatened with having a heart attack, you change or you die.

The true warrior knows that if you want to effect change in your life, re-frame propositions as loss avoidance. Truly believe that perspective and you will succeed in changing. This works with money issues as well. Let’s see … give up my daily latte in order to save money and be better off in my golden years? Never going to happen!

The true warrior would re-frame the idea as a loss to be avoided: “Unless I do something different, I am going to die penniless. With my selfish, self-centred behaviour, and total disregard for my future financial security, I will become a horrible burden on my children in my old age, and ruin the lives of my grandchildren. This is unacceptable. I will do everything in my power to save money for my golden years, and will monitor my progress and performance to make sure I avoid these terrible losses!”

Might something like that be more effective?

The true warrior knows that a message of gain is not as powerful as a message of loss avoidance.

You are warriors, so do not forget to use that most powerful weapon at your disposal. Frame any desired potential change in terms of avoiding loss! You will be far more effective as a result. So it has been written.