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SIX Life Lessons From 'The Wolf Of Wall Street'

  
  Education
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Beyond being a fun movie, there are some lessons we can learn that can be important in our lives.

1. Sex matters.

When we’re talking about males and females (whether they are male and female monkeys, zebras, or human beings) sex matters. There’s a lot of sex in the movie, most of it raw, addictive, and not very pretty. But there is a primal vitality to desire for sex and more sex.

But sex matters in another way. Most of the young stock brokers, and hence the players, in this movie are males. In the “fun and games” that play out repeatedly these are clearly male fun and games. We all know that males and females are different (as well as similar in many ways), but the difference goes right down to our DNA.

According to David Page, M.D., one of the world’s leading experts on male and female genetic differences and professor of biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT):

“There are 10 trillion cells in human body and every one of them is sex specific. We need to build a better tool kit that is XX and XY informed rather than our current gender neutral stance. We need a tool kit that recognizes the fundamental difference on a cellular, organ, system, and person level between XY and XX.”

In Marianne Legato’s book, Eve’s Rib: The New Science of Gender-Specific Medicine, she says,

“Everywhere we look, the two sexes are startlingly and unexpectedly different not only in their internal function but in the way they experience illness.”

In all aspects of our lives, it’s good to ask, “what does sex have to do with it?”

2. Sex can be as addicting as cocaine. (more…)

Unavoidable Disappointment

  
  Education
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If you’re trading for emotional satisfaction, you’re bound to have lots of problems and continue to struggle, for two reasons. First, often that what feels good is often the wrong thing to do. Second, the game of trading, and it is a game in many respects, involves being disappointed fairly often.

Even for profitable traders a certain number of trades will lose money, and even the winners don’t always work perfectly or match your exact expectations.

As a trader, it’s impossible to avoid disappointment, not every trade is going to work. You get stopped out and then see the trade go on to work without you, or you hesitate and miss the move, or you exit early to book profits and watch the move continue without you.  When you think about it, trading involves a lot of disappointment. I cannot think of any other job that involves disappointment on such a regular basis. Even the most successful traders experience this. No way to escape it.

When you experience a lot of disappointment you’re going to experience a high degree of stress. And when stress overwhelms you…and by the way, stress can masquerade as performance anxiety or pressure to succeed, the emotional part of your brain will run right over the logical analytical part of your brain.  You’ll know when that happens because that’s when your rules go out the window or you veer from your plan and you take a revenge trade or an impulse trade or you freeze up and hesitate. (more…)

What did the ancient Hindus ever do for us?

  
Analysis, Education
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Narendra Modi, Indian prime minister, has relaunched his country’s controversial claims to some of the world’s greatest scientific achievements with his suggestion that ancient India was adept at genetics and plastic surgery, including the grafting of the elephant’s head onto the god Ganesh.

His remarks – ironically made at the opening of a high-tech hospital in Mumbai – have revived a political debate about the growing influence of the right-wing Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (the Organisation of National Volunteers) over the governing Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party.

Hindu fundamentalists are delighted by Mr Modi’s words, left-wingers are appalled or mocking and many foreigners are simply bemused that India’s real cultural, scientific and medical achievements are being overshadowed by simplistic references to the mythological past. (more…)

Stuck in line at airport? The humble ant can help you

  
Analysis, Education
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Some scientists are trying to find answers to human problems by unlocking the secrets of fish schools and insect swarms, applying their behavioral patterns to ease congestion at airports or perfect self-driving technology. 

Bottom-up communication 

“The way this job is being done now is worse than how ants would do it,” Katsuhiro Nishinari, a professor at the University of Tokyo, often tells executives.

Nishinari has worked with 10 companies in areas such as manufacturing and logistics to research how to improve business practices. He took note of ant behavior while studying the mechanisms behind gridlock and now tests ways to apply it to how humans work.

Lines of ants do not need to slow down even when the insects gather en masse to move a big piece of food. “Ants use pheromones laid on the ground to communicate information like in a game of telephone,” Nishinari explained. This bottom-up method lets them “respond flexibly based on conditions,” he said.

The lesson has been applied in the customs area at Narita Airport near Tokyo, where the number of immigration counters had not kept up with the surge in foreign visitors, leading to long wait times. Nishinari helped develop a solution that involves sharing detailed information among airlines, the airport operator and the Ministry of Justice. (more…)

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