Money mind games

In the latest episode of the New Money Review podcast, I interview an old friend and former colleague, Paul Craven. After working for nearly thirty years as an asset manager, Paul is now a consultant, public speaker, coach and author. He works with a range of clients, from investors to doctors to lawyers and entrepreneurs. His specialist topic is behavioural economics, which Paul describes as “how real people make real decisions in the real world”. His insights in this area don’t just come from a successful career in finance: Paul is also a trained magician. As you’ll hear him talk about on the podcast, we all make mental short-cuts and, sometimes, our minds play tricks on us as a result. Those short-cuts are exploited by magicians in their performances. But they can also cause us to make big mistakes when investing. The tendency for our unconscious mind to take over in certain situations can hamper us in our general lives. So to help ourselves, we need to be aware as much of our own potential weaknesses as of our own strengths. In the podcast, we cover the following topics: What links money and magic? The power of the unconscious mind The evolutionary origins of behavioural biases Countering biases when investing The herd instinct and financial markets Intuitive versus logical thinking Why process beats outcome Why diversity works Money relationships versus monetary transactions The importance of reading and creativity