Are you the kind of person who is constantly looking for the optimal solution to things? Whether it’s about what to eat or where to live? Chances are you are less happy than those who are “satisficying”. To satisfice doesn’t mean always choosing the not-so-good thing. There can be certain criteria to be met for that too. Satisficers have time to enjoy themselves whereas optimizers are just never, or at least not very often, content.

See this post: http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.com/2006/07/happiness-data.html

I’m thinking was thinking about this in a business perspective. Too much optimization and you’ll just never get anything done. Others will outrun you big time. Satisficers on the other hand should be able to do a good job. They are moving fast and finding solutions that are good enough. But if attention to detail is important to what they do, then they might not be that well off.

Michael Covel is author of the book Trend Following and The Complete Turtle Trader. I have read his book Trend Following and I’m also subscribing to his podcast where he talks about markets, psychology, trading strategy and about what makes a winner. There are always two sides, the winning side and the losing side. There always has to be a loser on the other side in a zero sum game.

In this podcast episode from July 21, 2008 he talks about how people tend to complain when the market is not going up. It’s an interesting perspective. Check it out:

http://www.turtletrader.com/mp3/complainers.mp3