Emotion: Is winning worse than losing?
The dangers of over-reacting to success and failure
I was reading an old web article the other day…
And this was the headline…
“When losing hurts worse than winning feels good”
Odd, you might think. Because we all bet to win, and when we do back profitable horseracing tips or make money at football betting, then surely we should be able to bask in a little bit of glory. To enjoy the moment. To savour our success.
But the argument went… when you lose (and sadly we all back the odd loser from time to time) that sinking feeling, some might call it pain, is bigger, lasts longer, and is more impactful than the high you experience had you back a winner.
Do your losses stay with you?
The syndicated article, which I read in USA Today, was actually about golf, and more specifically the Ryder Cup. It used examples of Jim Furyk both making, and missing, crucial putts which effectively won, and lost, the prestigious bi-annual golfing equivalent of the America’s Cup, or Tri-Nations, or European Championships.
So it’s a big deal. In the world of golf anyway.
And Furyk himself was quoted as saying these words…
“losing hurts worse than winning feels good”
And on reading further, it was a sentiment echoed by another US golfer, Hunter Mahan, who also commented…
“The high of winning comes and goes… you win, it’s great, you move on. But you remember your losses… when you lose, it’s hard to stop and move on to the next thing”
Now I can recall a good few losers that I’ve backed myself over the years. One just the other day had me commenting to a member that “I’d take that one to the grave”. Maybe a tad over dramatic, but it was a 100/1 shot that fell at the last fence… when clear!!
Still, as a bettor, is your mind pre-disposed to focus more on failure, than it is to stick on success?
And that could be a costly way of thinking. As Robert Kiyosaki put it…
“Don’t let the fear of losing be greater than the excitement of winning”
Half-empty or half-full…
Often the way in which people react to success or failure, a losing dip into the Stock Market or a successful run of football betting tips, is down to their own personality. What’s rooted in their own personal DNA.
Are they the kind to get despondent after a single loser? Never mind two or three. And do they, like Hunter Mahan, fail to register any positive emotion from their wins – as they should.
That’s the nature of some. Those who prefer to see their glass half-empty, as opposed to half-full.
But thinking about it…
Perhaps the point should be, it all depends upon whether the glass was full to begin with (and so half of it has gone), or if it was empty (in which case you’ve been given 50%).
It’s all about context.
And as someone who probably won more than he lost (Walt Disney) put it…
“The difference in winning and losing is most often not quitting. If you never quit, you’ll never truly lose”
And this mindset, when applied to betting, is something I instil into put into every member of every service I operate, be it the Golf Insider or Racing Intelligence. And it’s something which I’d stress to you, the reader, right now.
To succeed at anything in life demands a degree of application. The ability to stick at it, and all the more so when it seems easier to quit than to carry on. Sticking to a diet, plugging on with guitar lessons, not cashing-in those shares which have done nothing but drop since you invested in them.
Quitting in this sense, or rather not quitting, is used to illustrate the fact that if you’re not careful, emotion can be a force for bad. One which actually stops you achieving your goal. It makes you miss out on the future rewards that your current endeavours promise, or would eventually guarantee.
And in terms of betting, it costs you the opportunity to make money. Not what we want!
Better to be a robot
Well, that might be one conclusion you could draw from this approach to golf betting or trying to make money from horseracing tips.
Take out all the emotion and bet like a robot.
But reading another online article, this time on the BBC website, about why people gamble, it was clearly stated in research undertaken by Nottingham Trent University that aside from winning money, there was a clear enjoyment factor associated with betting… win or lose!
And as we’re all human beings, to banish all sense of emotion from this activity is either wholly undesirable or, more importantly, totally impossible. Surely.
Put a heart monitor on any punter when their horse is heading for the last fence, or entering the final furlong, and there’s a winner-of-a-lifetime on the line… don’t tell me their ticker isn’t going like a hamster on a wheel.
Or when a golfer is standing over a putt to win the US Masters, or a player is lining up a last minute penalty to win the Champions League.
No. Emotion is part and parcel of betting and it can never been eliminated 100%.
Maybe it’s more a case of a loss being experienced in the moment – however painful that might be – but then rationalised afterwards. Processed, robotically if you like, in the cold light of day.
So from a personal point of view, yes, I was gutted when that horse [Hollow Quest] fell at Thurles. But I’ve since thought about the race, and considered the bet we had, and thought “Actually… we were ‘this close’ to a mammoth payout, on a 100/1 outsider, that was totally unfancied… and that can only mean one thing… the information on Racing Intelligence must be good.”
And if we missed the target this time, next time the bookies won’t be quite so lucky!
Of course theory and practice are two different things. And to get any level of closure on missing out on a 100/1 winner, when having one hand on the payout counter, takes some doing! Especially for someone who doesn’t normally take a Zen-like approach to their betting.
But it comes back to context and perspective.
If the bet you’ve backed, or the service you joined, has the key elements of value, professionalism and underlying profitability… then any one loser, or even a series of bad results, can be, and should be, endured.
Don’t get me wrong, you still don’t enjoy it. You’d rather it didn’t happen. You’d much rather you won. But in terms of the bigger picture, you should handle that loss.
It’s very much a case of lose the battle, win the war. See the bigger picture, and realise that if, like Walt Disney, you do not quit, then YOU WILL WIN.
Similarly, it’s not wise to react to a big winner by wildly backing a load of other (ill-judged) bets, and blowing your pot. Or hugely upping your stakes to play-up this windfall. Or maybe even massively decrease them to try and save what you’ve got.
You should carry on broadly the same path. Both mentally as well as financially.
So when it comes to success or failure, winning or losing, making a killing or losing your shirt… in order to stay on that white line that runs down the middle of the road leading to a money-making destination, as Rudyard Kipling put it in his famous poem “If”…
“If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster… And treat those two impostors just the same”
And whilst you won’t necessarily “be a man my son”, you will be well on your way to financial success.
OPINION: They say you learn more by losing, than by winning. I would argue there’s lessons to be taken from both – and they’re broadly the same. Namely an understanding that in a sustained period of betting, or during a lifetime of a financial investment, results will go for an against you, fortunes will ebb and flow. But to be a hostage to your emotions during such highs and lows can be very dangerous to your long-term financial well-being. Keep calm, stay strong and have faith in what you’re doing because emotionally driven decisions made on-the-fly, often as a knee-jerk reaction, and especially after a loss, rarely prove the right thing to do… and can end up costing you money
