Standard Deviations with Dr. Daniel Crosby
294 episodes - English - Latest episode: 11 days ago - ★★★★★ - 102 ratingsThe Standard Deviations podcast is a weekly production that looks at money, mind and meaning, all through a psychological lens. Each week, psychologist and New York Times bestselling author Dr. Daniel Crosby interviews a fascinating new guest, experts in everything from finance to literature to wellness. Each guest provides listeners with three concrete ways to apply what was learned that week, ensuring that weekly listening becomes part of a path to a richer life. Episodes are brief, research-based, and designed to fit perfectly within your commute time. So, tune in for practical news that will help you make more, think more and be more.
Learn more by following Dr. Daniel @danielcrosby or visit the website at www.standarddeviationspod.com/
Standard Deviations is presented by Orion.
Homepage Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Episodes
Life on Your Terms with Eric McDermott
September 27, 2018 05:00 - 41 minutes - 37.7 MBIn this episode of Standard Deviations, Eric McDermott, a Managing Partner at Pacific Advisors, Financial Specialist and marketing guru breaks down the steps investors can take to operate from a “risk first” mentality. Learn fascinating facts about the origins of insurance as an industry and how to overcome overconfidence en route to having candid conversations about risk. Eric’s book recommendation: Man’s Search for Meaning Follow up with Eric: http://www.pacificadvisors.com/team/eric-m...
Brian Portnoy - The Geometry of Wealth
September 25, 2018 14:18 - 41 minutes - 38.1 MBThis week on Standard Deviations, Dr. Crosby speaks with Brian Portnoy, Ph.D., CFA, an expert at simplifying the complex world of money. In his two books, The Investor's Paradox and The Geometry of Wealth, he tackles the challenges of not only making better investment decisions but also how money figures in to a joyful life. He is currently the Director of Investment Education at Virtus Investment Partners and has spent the last 25 years as educator, investor, and strategist. He holds a do...
The Six Signs Of A Financial Bubble
September 07, 2018 11:00 - 5 minutes - 4.58 MBIn today's episode we run through the six signs of a financial bubble.
How Acknowledging Mediocrity Is The Key To Greatness
September 03, 2018 12:00 - 9 minutes - 8.9 MBIn this episode, Dr. Crosby asserts that owning our personal mediocrity is paradoxically the key to personal exceptionalism. Huh? Listen in to hear why owning that you're not that great could be the key to greatness.
The Psychology Of Diversification
August 31, 2018 11:30 - 11 minutes - 10.3 MBInvestment diversification is widely-accepted best practice for financial reasons but the psychology of not putting all of your eggs in one basket is at least as powerful. Listen in to understand the psychology of winning by not losing.
If You're Excited About an Investment It's Probably a Bad Idea
August 27, 2018 11:00 - 9 minutes - 8.79 MBA debate rages about the impact of emotion on investment decision-making. Some believe it to be a source of signal where others just see noise. In today's episode, we look at some of the research around investing and emotion and suggest that exciting investing is often bad investing.
How To Watch Financial News
August 24, 2018 10:39 - 8 minutes - 7.63 MBIn most endeavors, staying informed is a positive. So why is it that people who watch less financial news tend to be outperformed than the truly plugged in when considering investing? Listen in to understand how to consume financial media without being consumed by the hype.
Do's And Don't For Volatile Markets
June 29, 2018 14:00 - 14 minutes - 13 MBThe stock market can be extremely volatile, but with a little understanding of market history and dynamics, you can navigate its ups and downs with greater ease.
Ten Questions For Your Financial Advisor
June 15, 2018 14:00 - 15 minutes - 14.4 MBOn this week's episode we review the evidence around whether or not to hire a financial advisor and offer ten questions for separating great advisors from the not so great.
The 12 Laws Of Wealth
June 08, 2018 14:00 - 15 minutes - 14.4 MBInvesting has been described as simple but not easy. By listening to this podcast, you will understand the 12 steps necessary to create lasting wealth. The implementation? That's up to you.
You Need New Friends
June 01, 2018 14:00 - 8 minutes - 7.61 MBIn this episode, we take on the age old questions: "Do birds of a feather flock together?" or "Do opposites attract?" We also make the bold statement that your friends are lame and are keeping you from being as smart and well-rounded as you ought to be.
Is Investing Luck Or Skill Based?
May 26, 2018 14:00 - 15 minutes - 14.2 MBIs investing a game of luck or skill? In this episode, we examine the three criteria needed to distinguish a game of luck from skill and find that financial markets land somewhere in the middle. We then discuss the implications of this finding for selecting appropriate investment vehicles.
You Worry About The Wrong Things
May 18, 2018 03:06 - 10 minutes - 9.88 MBIt's human nature to worry about low probability/high salience things and ignore threats that are far more immediate and pervasive. Tune in to learn why and what to do about it.
Behavioral Feedback Loops In Financial Markets
May 15, 2018 11:49 - 14 minutes - 13.7 MBFeedback loops exist in relationships, nature and especially in financial markets. In today's episode, we examine how capital markets operate in boom and bust cycles due to our subjective perceptions.
The Two Conditions For Trusting Your Gut
May 14, 2018 11:11 - 12 minutes - 11 MBCan you trust your gut? Well...sometimes. Today on the podcast we look at the two conditions that must be met in order for intuition to be useful. Even the best-informed intuition is only as good as the milieu in which it finds itself and environmental cues remain the best predictor of whether or not intuition can be trusted. In the absence of a certain level of predictability and rapid feedback, neither of which are present in financial markets, intuition lacks soil fertile enough to take ...
Why Positivity Beats Negativity In Bringing About Behavior Change
May 07, 2018 12:14 - 17 minutes - 15.9 MBListen in this week to learn: Why positivity brings about more lasting change than negativity How making lists of "not to do" can have a paradoxical effect Why labeling ourselves and others can blind us to the true state of things
More Info, More Problems
April 29, 2018 22:37 - 20 minutes - 19 MBIt is often assumed that there is a positive, linear relationship between information and market efficiency. It stands to reason, at least to a point, that the more publicly available information we have about a security, the greater our ability to accurately price that security. But is it possible that too much information can be as bad for efficiency as too little? As reported in Scientific American, the amount of data that we produce doubles each year. To put it more concretely, in 2016,...
You Will Never Have Enough Money
April 23, 2018 12:42 - 16 minutes - 14.9 MBWe’re all familiar with the term “keeping up with the Joneses” but it’s doubtful that we understand just how deeply ingrained this is in our concept of wealth and success. Each year, a Gallup poll asks Americans to determine “What is the smallest amount of money a family of four needs to get along in this community?” Gallup finds that the answers to this question moves up in line with average incomes of the respondents. A recent Princeton study set out to answer the age-old question, “Can m...
The Psychology Of Investment Momentum
April 16, 2018 12:25 - 13 minutes - 12.3 MBMomentum has existed for hundreds of years and has persisted for two decades post discovery. This sort of staying power in capital markets full of hungry arbitrageurs is always the mark of human psychology. Many experts consider momentum to not just be a factor but THE factor. Fama and French don’t mince words, “The premier market anomaly is momentum. Stocks with low returns over the past year tend to have low returns for the next few months, and stocks with high past returns tend to have ...
The Shape Of Financial Bubbles
April 09, 2018 13:01 - 15 minutes - 14.5 MBIn this episode we look answer: How do financial bubbles form? How likely is a bubble to burst? How can I know a bubble when I see one?
The Most Powerful, Least Uttered Phrase
April 03, 2018 16:49 - 12 minutes - 11.2 MBWhat seldom-uttered phrase can make you wealthier and more likeable? Why did a bank robber use lemonade to commit crimes? Why don't dumb people know how dumb they are?
Your Money And Your Brain
March 26, 2018 11:28 - 12 minutes - 11.6 MBYour brain is a miracle unrivaled by even the most sophisticated technology, but it is a miracle equipped for a different time and place. After millennia of fighting famine, war and pestilence, we now live in a society of greater and greater ease that is increasingly left to fight psychological battles. Obesity will kill more people this year than hunger. Suicide claims more lives annually than war, terrorism and violent crime combined. Your brain is still fighting a war won eons ago and you...
The Joys And Pains Of Comparing Yourself To Others
March 19, 2018 17:00 - 9 minutes - 8.91 MBLet me ask you a question, “Do you like laugh tracks?” Didn’t think so. If laugh tracks are so universally disliked, why do Hollywood executives continue to include them? These executives understand something that we may not; however irksome canned laughter may be, it provides valuable social cues to viewers. Research has repeatedly shown that laugh tracks cause viewers to laugh longer and harder and to rate the viewing experience as more enjoyable. In fact, laugh tracks have been shown to...
Why Is Change So Hard?
March 12, 2018 13:39 - 13 minutes - 12.3 MBHow many decisions would you guess that you make in a given day? Take a second, mentally walk through your day and hazard a guess. Most people I ask this question land somewhere around 100, which is way off – try 35,000. That’s right, you make 35,000 decisions per day. Canonical models of decision-making deal with two types of decisions – certain (i.e., with a known set of alternatives with certain outcomes) and uncertain (just the opposite). In theory, decisions made under conditions of c...
Humankind's Greatest GIft Is Also Its Greatest Liability
March 06, 2018 06:09 - 13 minutes - 12.3 MBIf bees organize by innate mandate and chimps through tight-knit social interactions, the miracle of human ascendance in the animal kingdom owes to a penchant for behaving in accordance with social narratives. To put it bluntly, we act as if the stories we make up are real. As Harari writes in the magisterial Sapiens, “As far as we know, only Sapiens can talk about entire kinds of entities that they have never seen, touched or smelled.” A monkey can say, “There is a caribou by the river” bu...
Why That Thing You Want Won't Be Satisfying Once You Actually Get It
February 28, 2018 16:28 - 13 minutes - 12.2 MBWe’re all familiar with the term “keeping up with the Joneses” but it’s doubtful that we understand just how deeply ingrained this is in our concept of success and how the neurological processes we’ve touched on here contribute. Each year, a Gallup poll asks Americans to determine “What is the smallest amount of money a family of four needs to get along in this community?” Gallup finds that the answers to this question moves up in line with average incomes of the respondents. “Enough”, it se...
How To Avoid Financial Scams
February 20, 2018 12:41 - 9 minutes - 8.54 MBHow to Avoid Financial Scams Stephen Greenspan is a psychologist and author of the Annals of Gullibility: Why We Get Duped and How to Avoid It. Greenspan’s book outlines notable instances of gullibility including the Trojan Horse, the failure to locate weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the bad science surrounding cold fusion. Most of the book focuses on anecdotes, but the final chapter sets forth the anatomy of being fooled and attributes it to some combination of the following factor...
Market Corrections Are As Regular As Your Birthday
February 17, 2018 20:56 - 5 minutes - 4.78 MBThere are three things that intelligent investors must understand if they are to truly inoculate themselves against the fear peddled by the profiteers of peril: corrections and bear markets are a common part of any investment lifetime, they represent a long-term buying opportunity and a systematic process is required to take advantage of them. A “correction” is defined as a 10% drop in stock prices, whereas a “bear market” is defined as a 20% drop. Both definitions are entirely arbitrary, b...
Bear Markets Are As Regular As Your Birthday
February 17, 2018 20:56 - 5 minutes - 8.33 MBThere are three things that intelligent investors must understand if they are to truly inoculate themselves against the fear peddled by the profiteers of peril: corrections and bear markets are a common part of any investment lifetime, they represent a long-term buying opportunity and a systematic process is required to take advantage of them. A “correction” is defined as a 10% drop in stock prices, whereas a “bear market” is defined as a 20% drop. Both definitions are entirely arbitrary, bu...
Crowd Wisdom And The Anatomy Of A Good Decision
October 13, 2017 15:31 - 11 minutes - 10.5 MBWe rely on the crowd to do everything from run our governments to help us select a place to eat, but does the wisdom of the crowd apply to the stock market? By examining the anatomy of a good decision set forth by Richard Thaler we arrive at the conclusion that crowds are wise in some respects but can lead us astray in others.
The Three Tests Of An Investable Idea
August 28, 2017 12:33 - 13 minutes - 12.5 MBIt has been said that "this time is different" is the most expensive phrase in investing but what can be said to be the most profitable words in investing? In this episode, we look at the three tests of an investable idea, providing a tri-part test for discovering enduring alpha.
Did You Choose To Listen To This Podcast?
August 22, 2017 14:15 - 20 minutes - 18.7 MBDid you choose to listen to this podcast? The question seems so simple as to be laughable, but new research paints an increasingly complicated picture with respect to the limits of willpower and free will. In this episode, we tackle such questions as: Why do Audi drivers cheat on their spouses? and Would you have hidden Anne Frank in the attic?
The One Phrase That's True in Every Situation
August 15, 2017 12:21 - 11 minutes - 10.3 MBLet's face it, life is complicated. That being the case, it tends to defy easy description and silly platitudes. But one phrase proves to be applicable to every market and life circumstance. Listen in to learn the phrase that can humble you in times of prosperity and give you solace in times of struggle.
Should You Trust Your Gut?
August 07, 2017 11:21 - 18 minutes - 16.6 MBWe are a nation in love with the idea of trusting intuition, but does it actually help us to make effective decisions? In today's episode we examine some of the research in favor of - and against - this notion of trusting your gut. What emerges is a complex picture that shows intuition to have some real, almost metaphysical power, that is domain specific in the usefulness of its application.
5 Practical Tips For Overcoming Overconfidence Bias
August 01, 2017 15:36 - 13 minutes - 12.6 MBExcessive ego is the enemy of both good living and good investing and yet it is simultaneously a big part of what gets us out of bed in the morning. In this podcast, you'll learn 5 practical ways to make better decisions by beginning to see the world more clearly.
You Will Never Change Anyone's Mind On Facebook
July 25, 2017 20:58 - 14 minutes - 13.4 MBMany of us have had the experience of bickering with friends and loved ones on social media about political, religious or ethical differences of opinion. But does any of it do any good? In this episode, we examine the persistence of belief, the difficulty in changing minds and the reasons why challenging someone with cold, hard facts may only make them MORE wed to their existing bad ideas.
Investing Is (Physically) Painful
July 17, 2017 18:35 - 8 minutes - 7.54 MBWe commonly speak of how "stressed out" we are today but as recently as a century ago, the idea of stress was viewed as unscientific. In this episode, we talk about the physical psychological impact of stress on investment decision-making and risk appetites. The takeaway? Good investing is so difficult partially because it is physically painful.
The Power Of Stories In Investing
July 10, 2017 18:56 - 9 minutes - 8.44 MBStories are powerful means of transmitting information and making sense of our own lives, but do they serve us well as investors? In this episode, we will answer these and other questions by looking at the price of a sequined glove, the performance of initial public offerings and how stories can hijack our brain on the way to our hearts.
Value Investing And Why You Hate Cheap Things
June 29, 2017 14:49 - 10 minutes - 9.45 MBIt's counterintuitive, but a growing body of research suggests that you just don't like cheap things. In this episode, we discuss how price as a proxy for quality can be in dangerous in investing and give clues as to how behavioral investors can sever this spurious connection.
Ten Best Ways To Ruin Your Financial Future
June 23, 2017 11:01 - 8 minutes - 7.52 MBToday's episode is a tongue-in-cheek examination of the ten best ways to ruin your investment future.
Why Do We Hate To Talk About Money?
June 15, 2017 13:27 - 14 minutes - 13 MBWe love to fantasize about winning the lottery or buying a yacht, but have difficulty having sensible conversations about money with those we love. Dr. Crosby examines some of the religious, social and behavioral impediments to having conversations about money and issues a challenge to do better.
The Time Will Never Be Right
June 06, 2017 20:32 - 8 minutes - 7.66 MBOur brains are designed to privilege safety and certainty over happiness and growth. Understanding this simple truth, we begin to realize that the time will never be perfect to do the thing we've always dreamed of and learn to press forward in spite of our fears.
Bernie Madoff And The Myth Of Self Esteem
June 02, 2017 11:53 - 10 minutes - 9.22 MBDoes everyone deserve a trophy? In today's episode we look at the research around self-esteem and examine how the need to feel special may have played in to the biggest Ponzi scheme in history.
The Top Five Regrets Of The Dying
May 23, 2017 14:08 - 7 minutes - 7.2 MBWhat are the top 5 regrets of the terminally ill and how can they help you live a more fulfilled life?