@Tuhorangi I am glad that you found my post comforting during the "dark times". I think most of us felt, when the share price was in it's 20's, that the world was chaotic and overwhelming. Feeling comforted allows us to regain a sense of control and gives us a sense, that the world is a safe place. When we feel safe our nervous system switches from the cortisol, nor-adrenaline and adrenaline stimulating symphaticus (signaling to the brain that there is some danger) to the parasymphaticus, which is responsible for "rest and digest" and signals to the brain, that we are safe.
In November 2023 I listened to a podcast from Dr. Andrew Huberman (Professor and neuroscientist from Standfordand his guest David Goggins). They discussed the function of the anterior midcingulate cortex (aMCC) in our brain.The aMCC is the only part in our brain, which you can grow or shrink and is responsible for a host of cognitive functions. They include attention allocation, reward anticipation, decision-making, impulse control (e.g. performance monitoring and error detection), emotion expression, attention allocation and mood regulation. Is is also considered the center of our will-power or true grit
Post #: 61851029. I consider all these functions essential to a good and healthy life and equally important in our context, to successful investing. Your very best skills in technical analysis, biomedical science, FDA processes etc. are of no use, when your decision-making processes are impeded or you lack impulse control.
In the time, when the share price was sub 0.30 cents I became aware again, that investing is more often then not, a marathon and not a 100 meter sprint. So I was intrigued of how to grow my aMCC. Well in essence the aMCC is pretty simple to grow: we just have take on challenging activities, which we are not used to and don't particularly enjoy. They can include physical exercise, ice-baths, learning a new instrument, language etc. Anything that challenges us and we find inherently unpleasant will strengthen and grow our aMCC. The real crux is, that as soon as we start enjoying the demanding work-out, that ice bath, learning mandarin etc. the aMCC will start to shrink again.
I started to run, something I had not done previously. Truth be told, it was more of a Cliff Young shuffle. It was hard and unpleasant. The muscles were aching, the breath was laboring, the weather miserable and cold. For every run I needed to force myself and still mostly do. Whenever I feel comfortable I add an extra challenge. Be that longer distances, high-intervall training or hill-training. I bought myself a Garmin watch to monitor my progress and to continuously challenge myself. The results are nothing less then staggering. Mentally and physically I haven't felt this good for literally decades. I also regained my clarity and focus in regard to my investment and was able to add to my holding. I was able to control my impulse to sell and instead walked away and trust my investment thesis.
Just like in a marathon, runners often hit a wall at around 30 kilometers. I believe a lot of people who invested in Mesoblast hit that pain threshold and sold at near the all time lows (which I perfectly understand). The last kilometers of a marathon are often the hardest (not that I would know, as I have never ran one) and I believe they are still ahead of us. Jesse Owens (Olympic gold-medalist) put it nicely, when he said, "
we all have dreams and in order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline and effort". Even though I believe the hardest part is still in front of us, I also believe the worst part is behind us.
(20min delay)
