The Channel of Greed & Fear
Greed (or more aptly, excess of desire) and fear, are the two emotions that combine and conflict to create and inflict either change in our lives, or a resistance to that change. They are, in the same breath, both responsible for, and also the biggest barriers to our happiness and progress. The channel of greed and fear is not an imaginary and irrelevant channel. Rather, it is the very essence of our life.
Let us explore how.
Human beings are exposed to a range of emotions – happiness, sadness, anxiety, fear, jealousy, greed etc. etc. But most emotions though can be traced down to being either a precursor to or a derivative of greed or fear. You want something, anxiety sets in. You want something someone else has – jealousy. Get what you want – momentarily happy, before desire takes a leap forward, or fear sets in of losing what you just achieved. In a way, greed and fear are the two most important emotions we must conquer, if we want to master our lives.
A few examples will help.
A child is born fearless and with limited desires. It knows only 3 things – eat, sleep, cry. The only want or desire is food, and its only understanding of the world is its mother, who is the world for him. In a way, the child is naïve to how greed and fear work either alone or in combination. But soon it must learn. And it is us who teach the child the importance of these emotions. We set the boundaries of good and bad, define the carrots and the sticks. Chocolate if you do this, will not talk to you if you do that…and so on. Very soon the child gets used to and itself masters the carrot and stick approach, it tilts the emotions in its favour – no wonder it recognizes the empty threats, counters the meaningful ones with tears or anger of its own, strengthens the desire and makes it a reverse carrot – “mom dad if you give me chocolate or a new gift or toy…only then will I do this or not do that”…have you ever seen an exasperated parent lamenting that the child does not listen to them…? Does the pattern not repeat often enough to bring a smile on your face (except when that parent is you 🙂 )
We sow the seeds for letting our emotions control our destiny, and then we succumb to these emotions without often even understanding what is happening to us.
The pattern plays out over and over again – which is why, when I asked people their opinion on what “The channel of Greed and Fear” means to them, I got every range of answer possible – politics, sports, arts, career, investments, relationships, growth, change and even life itself.
Let us take a few examples, starting with the least obvious – arts.
Have you ever heard the words “scarcity premium”? The best of artists, the so called “brands in themselves”, sell their works for more money than most people will ever see in a lifetime. The finest musicians, the most celebrated writers, once in a generation painters and so on. It is not that their works cannot be reproduced (or at a later stage in life, even bettered). Indeed, to the untrained eye, there may be no difference at all between the original Da Vinci or a carefully produced master copy. Which is why you need experts and techniques to validate the same. Just as how it is difficult to differentiate between the original and “first copy” watch, or to differentiate a fake or less genuine diamond from a real one. The premium we pay, is created out of the desire to own something exclusive, and the fear of losing the opportunity to own it….this is exactly why auctions are so successful…they create the perfect cocktail of fear and greed. On an aside…Maxwell sold for a mind boggling 16 Cr. in latest IPL auctions. 😉
Another place where this cocktail wreaks a havoc? Stock markets. Hand on heart, how many of us have bought a good quality stock at ridiculous prices, afraid that we missed the bus. Even worse, how many of us sold our stocks at the exact bottom in March 2020, only to regret seeing some of our top convictions move up more in the subsequent 6 months than they had done in many, many years. Actually, a variant of greed is also one of the most used terms in markets – it is called Fear of Missing Out, or FOMO, more popularly. FOMO is one of the most common reasons why some stocks trade at absolutely silly multiples for long periods, until the halo bursts, eventually. Or maybe, in some cases, the halo does not burst at all??? The other common mistake people make, is to panic and convert a notional loss into a real loss, which is what happens in most bear markets.
Moving on to habits, work, career – How many of us proudly state that we are striving for excellence. Excellence is not just a habit, but a way of life, as they say…to be good is simply not good enough. We fear mediocrity, even as most of us are doomed to live a life of one. For, under the weight of expectations, and peer pressure, most of us live a life out of our skin, out of our character. Most of us lose our individuality and become a part of the crowd, going through the same set of experiences, the same way of living, doesn’t matter if we are not cut to it. Often discovering our calling in life much later.
Interestingly, I started my career in investing at the age of 31, after almost 8 years of trying to master a very different industry. And I started my stint as a writer only at the tender age of 36. 😉
We are trained to be mediocre, in the garb of excellence. We are trained to follow rules and processes, to conform to the norms of society and the happenings of the time. For every one leader who has broken through the shackles of the status quo, several others have perished trying.
There is a term called “playing to the gallery”. Like politicians do, promising the sun and moon and stars, or maybe just a new freebie, to their core voter segments, all structural reforms buried under the momentary madness of greed. Or else, play out on religious affiliations or societal biases and fears. The same is also true for corporate world – a lot of companies have been guilty of not listening in to the winds of change, not innovating enough and hence becoming redundant. It is not surprising that often the leaders in a particular phase of the industry are the ones that fail spectacularly to move on to the next phase. Nokia, Kodak just being two of the most discussed examples of the same.
The startup ecosystem was a refreshing change to traditional ways of doing business. For one, it encouraged long term thinking rather than profits on day one. Cause investing (whether in business or in stocks or in life) should always be rewarding in the long term. Thereby, startups encouraged people to think beyond greed (short term profits) and fear (not making money initially / losses) and create a business of enduring value. These companies attracted rich talent, including at senior levels, since people valued the entrepreneurial experience one gained irrespective of the outcome, and since the right ideas also got patient capital backing. When the mind is not worried about failure, and the body not striving for daily bread, when passion and perseverance meet, miracles often do happen. And unicorns are born!
Pretty soon though, the startup ecosystem began to be abused. The very virtues that made it so successful, sowed in themselves the seeds of mediocrity. As more money flowed into the system, it started chasing the next best ideas, and then the downright mediocre ones. Startups became templatized – promoted by a battery of IITians or IIM grads (btw I am one ;-D), identify a half decent idea, or better still copy a successful one, highlight a starting USP (which would vanish soon as you raised funding), burn lots of cash to chase growth, and then hope to play on the “greater fool” theory – some investor would come and buy that growth for a crazy multiple, or some other startup will buy you out to “acquire scale” and “eliminate competition”. Meanwhile, the wait for a highly successful (profit wise) startup continues…
Greed and fear have left no phase of our life untouched. Most of our relationships have become transactional, good only until they continue to be profitable for us in some way. And the ones which are not transactional, the ones that truly matter, are mired with fear and jealousy. When something or someone becomes too important for us, the fear of losing them overpowers and clouds our thinking, often to the extent that it makes the most important relationships in our lives also at times the most unbearable.
Interestingly, in cricket, there is a term called “the channel”, which is also the inspiration for my post. It is what commentators refer to as the area just outside off stump, perfect line and length, where the batsmen is neither drawn completely forward, nor completely back, forcing him to take a risk, in order to score a little more brisk. This channel is the perfect example of greed (wanting to score heavily) and fear (of losing your wicket, not knowing where your off stump is and hence having to play at the delivery).
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There are no easy answers to the question of overcoming greed and fear. But there must be a sincere attempt to recognize the various forces at play in our life, and to control the ones that we can, and moderate the ones we can’t. If you do not control atleast one of the above two emotions and make it subservient to you, then you are doomed to a life of restlessness forever, even if you do not recognize the obvious signs of the same. This restlessness will come in various forms – career anxiety, peer pressure, material desires, fault in relationships and so on.
It is important to strike the right balance between relationships, such that we have fewer but more meaningful ones. Everyone of us will get transactional at times, but it is important to recognize the truly important people in our lives, and we must do everything to bring happiness on their face, without worrying about our own happiness. We must trust, without the fear of losing them, without the thought of letting go. And we must live up to their trust, even if we falter we must return to the true path before it is too late. Most importantly, we must cherish and celebrate these relationships, knowing, in all humility, that a tomorrow may come when some of them will no longer be a part of our lives. Celebrate the present….there’s a reason it is called “the present”.
Discovering your passion means often walking in a different direction to where the crowd is. Not until you seek your passion, will your life reward you with the real happiness and contentment that you deserve. Until then, you are only putting your body, heart and mind on the line to fulfill someone else’s destiny.
Identify a career option that does not feel like a 9-to-5 job to you. Such that you are not working but following your passion. Or, if you cannot escape normality at work, then create a differentiation elsewhere – find a hobby or a passion that motivates you and enriches your life, makes you feel happy and sort of “recharges your battery”. Find a purpose strong enough that can carry through an otherwise routine and monotonous life. Identify something that “people can identify you with”.
Recognize the obvious traps of life, choices that look short term alluring but can kill you in the long run. Life is not a sprint, neither a combination of sprints. Running too fast at any stage will burn you out before you run too far. Endurance and patience, rather than hubris and hustling about…
Desire fuels change, desire brings about progress. But extreme, uncontrolled desire is also what brings about our downfall. Likewise, fear, while stops us from being reckless, also stops us from truly achieving greater heights in our lives.
I bring end to this long and rambling post with another metaphor…consider greed and fear as the accelerator and brake in your lives. You cannot drive the car without either. If you only apply acceleration, without having any brakes to control the car, you are bound to end up in a mess sooner rather than later. Applying the brakes at every moment of hesitation helps you to be cautious, but if you only put the foot on the brake pedal continuously, you will never be able to drive at all. The truly pleasurable drive is when accelerator (greed, desire) and brakes (fear, caution, restraint) are applied in combination, each complementing the other’s strengths.
