Black Box Thinking - Matthew Syed

Over the last couple of years i have spent some time with psychologist’s because psychology is a massive part of trading and i believe psychology separates the top top traders from the average. I think psychology plays a massive part in many professions from sportsmen and women to surgeons or pilots. I have spent some time over the last couple of weeks reading a book called Black Box Thinking by an author called Matthew Syed. The book often refers to the data recorders on all aircraft which provide information in the event of an accident. The authors point here is that planes have become the safest form of travel purely because of lessons learnt from the many crashes in the past.

An example of someone who has succeeded immensely through learning from errors is British inventor Sir James Dyson. It is reported that he created 5,127 prototypes of his vacuum cleaner before he got it right and this is the basis that his $4.8 billion dollar fortune is built on. His persistence and his ability to admit one prototype wasn't quite good enough has enabled him to adapt the technology, creating one of the most popular vacuum cleaners on the market and enabling Dyson to expand his product range further. Sir James Dyson said “the most important quality i look for in people coming to Dyson is the willingness to try, fail and learn. I love that spirit, it is all too rare in the world today.”

The secret to success, on any scale, relies on the development of a “growth mindset” which sees failures as an opportunity for improvement rather than a “fixed mindset” which feels threatened by challenges and is deterred by failures. As is instantly apparent, the benefits of a growth mindset lead not only to psychological and individual success but to cultural change, a kinder society and industrial advancement.

I think not only in my job but in life it is very important to analyse mistakes and learn from them, mistakes can be very costly in many different ways, wether that be financially or otherwise. Now you cannot learn without mistakes, every human being makes mistakes but the ones who are successful in their field are those who realise and admit to making mistakes and then go on to act on those errors. There will be many many lessons for me learn on steam it over the coming months.