An Antidote to Keeping up With The Joneses

From spending time on the trading floor you will learn a lot about the market but you can learn a lot about life too ( Or am I milking the trading too much?). This was something I picked up last year…

Every quarter Wall Street and City trading desks receive data from Coalition on several key metrics about their business and their competitors but the one we all focus on is PnL (i.e how much money the desk made). As a trader, you want to see your desk’s PnL increase year on year and you want to be the number one ranked team. The most obvious reason why someone would care is compensation. In Sales and Trading, your performance is a major factor that determines your pay, so as you generate more revenue for the bank, the more you can expect to be paid. The second reason that doesn’t get enough attention is that as a trader you are effectively running your own business. You want to see your franchise grow and develop as any entrepreneur would, it just feels natural to aim to be better.

Now the data hits your inbox, you rush to check how did your desk rank. Number 1? 2? 3? Please tell me we’re not last… Okay great, we did really well, we ranked well and we grew our revenues, fantastic result. Then you start looking at how everyone else did. Inevitably a few other banks are doing well and then there will be a few having a tough year. The problem is you start comparing yourself to everyone else, “we made money but XYZ made even more money.” Even if your team knocks it to out of the park that comparison can leave you feeling a bit flat.

I was still very new to this world but I heard someone say he was happy to see other banks were making money. I thought - no, how can we be happy if our competition is doing well, it just didn’t make sense to me. He explained that he was happy because it showed our industry was thriving and the pie was growing so there was more money being made. That meant there were more opportunities for us to go after and we could grow our business even more now. He wasn’t deterred by the achievement of others, it was the opposite, it gave him more drive to go out there and do even more and he was right.

How does this relate to life?

The phrase “Keeping up with The Joneses” stems from the idea that you see your neighbour (or your friend or that person on Instagram you follow but don’t quite know) have some success in their life so you feel the need to keep up with them in fear that you might be left behind. That means they buy a new car, you need to buy an even bigger car. They went on holiday to Dubai, you need to go to the Maldives. They renovated their house, you need to buy a new house. And so on and on the game continues. Part of the reason why we do this is that we think life is a zero-sum game i.e. the only way someone else can have more is if I have less but that is seldom true.

This isn’t to say you shouldn’t want nicer things or you shouldn’t compete, far from it, I love competition and always have. But to compete out of spite, jealousy or envy doesn’t seem healthy, and nor do I think it’s productive. Go pursue what you want but don’t let how someone else is doing bother you. It’s easier said than done, it takes mental toughness and resilience, and for what it's worth I still need a reminder every time I fall into that trap.

So the antidote is pretty simple- a shift in perspective that when someone else succeeds, all it means is that there is a lot more opportunity out there for you so go after it.