Bagklog

LESSONS LEARNED

When I was a child and a teenager, I didn’t understand much about myself. I would assume that if a psychologist had observed my behaviour closely, she could have given me some good guidance for how to live my life, but since I was mostly functioning fine, no one did. Then I moved away from home and out in life, where I ran into many situations, which I didn’t quite understand at the time – as all people do. Sometimes I tackled them well, and at other times, I fumbled.

Of course, gradually overtime, I reflected over what I had experienced and tried to learn. Sometimes this thought process was moved forward since I picked up a book which inspired me. For instance, I had a long period, where I read countless biographies of what I perceived to be very successful people. I also came across people in my private and professional life, who inspired me a lot by their behaviour. Plus, of course, some people who showed me what not to do.

In 1986 I started writing the book the Psychology of Finance. The primary purpose of the book was not to understand psychology, but to understand the behaviour of financial markets. However, the process of writing this book compelled me to read tons of books and articles about psychology. I just found the subject absolutely fascinating.

Since then, the way I’ve reflected about what I experienced in my life became far more structured, since I had now been taught a psychological vocabulary and some reference models to relate it all to. This set off a much more efficient process of continuous introspection, which eventually gave me at the desire to write down the essence of what I had really learned. In 2016, I made a rough draught of a book about this, but before I could take it any further, I decided to cofound a venture capital fund, which would take up all my time in the subsequent four years. The experience with running a venture fund in turn make me desire to start the company supertrends, which predict the future. And then I cofounded a hedge front. So, for all these years, my idea to write a book about how to navigate life made no progress except the fact that I kept reflecting a word over it.

However, life is full of coincidences, and some of them are happy. In 2022, I randomly ran into a girl call Lærke Trærup Knudsen, who was exceptionally thoughtful, and randomly at some point, she told me that she had a long-held desire to write the exact same book. Furthermore, she showed me a list of 200 books about positive psychology and life hacks, that she had either read or was planning to read soon. We thus made the agreement, but she should take the lead on finalising the project as a joint book. The book came out in Danish in early 2023 and became the national best-seller even before it had been published and thus entirely based on massive pre-orders.

Our hope and desire with this book are, that it gets picked up primarily by young people, say, 16-25 of age, who needs an easy-to-read introduction to how to navigate life. As a part of that, we wish to give the readers what I began to primarily to achieve personally in 1986, which is a model framework and a vocabulary that enable them to see what is happening within themselves and around them in a constructive perspective.

One major theme in the book is that whilst you cannot change your personality much, you can really develop your mindset in ways that make huge differences.

Some of the key terms that are used in the book are listed below to give you a sense of what it’s all about.