Why Smart Investors Still Make Costly Mistakes

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**Evan Marks** (1:30)
You can't make a decision without emotion. Understand your impulsivities first before you trust your intuition. Performance equals potential minus interferences. This is really what mental performance training is.
And that's why the best stay the best.

**Maggie Lake** (1:51)
So you are a performance coach for traders and money managers, but also a lot of just high level performers, right? Executives, athletes, everyone is going to operate at that, I would say super stressful level, but maybe not, at least a very high level.
So it's going to be great to get your insight across decision-making. But what are some of the common mistakes that you see investors repeatedly make?

**Evan Marks** (2:21)
So I live in the world of high decision-making under pressure. So whether that's athletes, global CEO, C-suite and obviously Wall Street professionals, or anybody who deals with high pressure situations, where decisions are essential.
So at M1, we merged psychological theory and neuroscience. So basically marrying the why and the how. Why do we do what we do and how do we get better?
So when we think about decision-making, it's you can't make a decision without emotion. But unfortunately, for many people, emotions are tied to past behaviors. And so what happens, that usually comes in a form of reacting. So how do I get the people I serve out of the reactionary stance into responding? And the interesting about this, Maggie and Richard, is that we know we can't make decisions without emotions. However, usually our emotions get onto the field and they start making decisions for us based on past experiences. That's the psychoanalytical part of that. From past, you know, from how we program as children, what our beliefs are, and so on and so on. So it's my job as a coach is to, in the face of any emotion, how do we create space to pick conscious behavior, which in turn, and this is a real cool part, it starts to build new experiences in the brain, which then causes a change in your neural circuitry, which is very important, right? That's neuroplasticity. So for me as a coach and dealing with people who I say live in the left lane, who are just running and gunning, how do I slow down things without touching the gas in order to speed them up on a decision basis? And that's what I do all day long.

**Maggie Lake** (4:10)
I think that's so interesting. First of all, change is possible, which is super, I think, interesting and wonderful to hear because I think sometimes we think we're locked into patterns and we can't get out. So it's amazing to hear that the brain can kind of rewire. And you said something really interesting, reacting versus responding.
And I have a feeling that's really important in this process. So it's worth noting, so you know of what you speak because you managed money for years. And so you were in that left lane, fast lane, having to react really quickly. What did you discover through your own experience when it came to the connection between psychology and trading? Like what was the sort of aha moment for you that led you down this path?

**Evan Marks** (5:00)
Well, the aha moment was when I thought I had a heart attack at 46 and I ended my career and it was a massive panic attack. And they realized the gray man in my brain was significantly impaired. Through, I was a D1 athlete through many concussions and chronic stress and actually past trauma.