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When it comes to investing, being left brained might be your key to success. However, it helps to let in the creative light sometimes from the right side as well. Here are some key points to look at about being left brained and right brained when you’re making financial decisions about the future of your money.
“The right brain is important, because there is no such thing as a future fact.” -Jason Voss, CFA
#1) Right Brain Focuses On Winning
People who operate more from their right brain might be more inclined to take risks that sound like they could improve their finances without being aware of every single detail in an opportunity. To a left brained person this can sound like financial suicide. However, this type of outlook can be utilized as optimism as long as there is enough of the left brain kicking in to keep things reasonable. For example, it’s the right side of the brain that considers the riches that could come from winning the lottery, but the left side that rationalizes the odds and suggests that you don’t blow your entire savings on lottery tickets.
Aiming for the right brain is how stockbrokers sell the dream so to say. When people feel pressed for time or impulsed by a potentially great opportunity they are more likely to take big risks. The right brain investor is more likely to take risks that are spurred by emotional responses. Keep this is mind during your decision making processes.
While it sounds like the right brain can be a bit dangerous when it comes to investing and money decisions, keep in mind that some of the most successful people have to take pretty big risks to get to that success. Any entrepreneur staring a business might encounter a risky choice that they just believe in. Consider the odds of any creative or artistic profession paying out, but every Oscar winning actor had to take huge risks in order to follow their dreams, while shutting out the portions of their own brain (and everyone else’s) who suggested that it just wasn’t likely.
#2) Left Brain Focuses On Reason
Those with a more active left side of the brain are going to be more likely to take time and carefully consider all of the information at hand before they make a decision. Less impulsiveness, more reasoning to consider if it’s worth it. Consider it the analytical side that is going to think about all the pros and cons involved, and think more from the perspective of seeing where the odds for loss are high and not be drawn by the potential for random bonuses and payouts.
Using the left brain might mean putting money into safer investments and not betting away money on flashy stocks. The upside of course to using this side of the brain is that you’re more likely to make sound decisions that will make sense over the long term as opposed to sounding fun in the current moment.
But keep in mind that operating from a completely conservative place all of the time can prevent you from following your instinct, because the truth is that sometimes those random investments taken on whim, really do payout in huge amounts of money. The market after all, is not always rational itself!
#3) Finding a Balance
The key to making this work out favorably is to find a balance between the two very different sides of the brain. If you operate entirely from the left side of the brain, perhaps it’s helpful for you to read success stories about investors who took big risks or get in touch with what your gut is trying to communicate with you on a regular basis. If you are mostly a right brain thinker, maybe it’s good for you to work alongside a trusted accountant who can suggest where you should be spending your money and where it would be unwise to do so.
This is of course one of the reasons why so many lottery winners and creative types accidentally blow all of their money. The ideal situation is to take enough risk to make big money, but make sound investments and live fairly conservatively. Now if we just had the magic to create that situation overnight!
Do you feel like you operate more from one side of the brain than the other? Has it paid off for you in investing and making money or do you feel like you need to explore the other side of your brain as well? Let us know!
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