Your brain has an alarm system. It just wasn’t built for modern markets. Jennifer Shannon breaks down the “Monkey Mind”—why it overreacts, what it gets wrong, and how awareness can change the way we make decisions.

If you’re interested in learning more, Jennifer’s book “Don’t Feed the Monkey Mind” is an excellent resource, and is available at Amazon.

I'm John.

And I'm Julie.

We're the hosts of the Hartford Fund's human-centric investing podcast.

Every other week, we're talking with inspiring thought leaders to hear their best ideas for how you can transform your relationships with your clients.

Let's go!

Jennifer, welcome to the Human Centric Investing podcast. We're so happy to have you here with us today.

It's great to be here, thanks.

Well, Jennifer, I'm excited about our episode today because it deals with something that, as human beings, all of us deal with. But certainly for financial professionals, dealing with our clients, we go through periods of anxiety, worry, stress, and we observe it in our clients as well. Ever since, Jennifer you and I began talking and Julie as well, I've begun to see the things that you were talking about. Actually in my own life and in the way I think. And so today's episode, we're going to be talking about the monkey mind and how it relates to worry, anxiety, and maybe how it causes faulty decision making. But Jennifer, for our listeners, why don't we start off just talking about what is the monkey mind?

Right. The monkey mind is a, basically it's a metaphor for our kind of anxious chatter that's going on in our minds all the time. Oftentimes we're not even recognizing it. So the reason I use that metaphor is because with anxiety it originates from a part of our brain that is very primitive and instinctual and highly reactive and beyond rational control. And so you can kind of think with anxiety, it can be the anxious mind is like, the monkey mind is swinging from one potential threat to another. And so I use that as a way of thinking about that primitive reactive part of our brain and that part of with anxiety and anxiety isn't inherently bad. The monkey mind can alert us to actual danger and this is a good part of survival but it can be over reactive. And that's where anxiety can trip us up in terms of making bad decisions or just not living the quality of life that we wanna be living.

Jennifer, do you find that when we're thinking about financial decisions, do those tend to be a real trigger for the monkey mind, whether it's being online too much and checking our portfolio to see if those bars are going up or down or replaying a decision? Did I invest in that? Should I have done it sooner or later? Should I've sold that? Is that, do those decisions tend to connect closely with the monkeymind?

Absolutely. So if we think of financial security, that's part of survival. Like we need to be able to have a house and security in order to survive and live well. So with financial investments that can, we can, so there's two parts really of the mind that if I'm going to simplify it. So there's the monkey mind, which is that primitive reactive instinctual survival based part of our brain, which really originates in the amygdala. And then there's a prefrontal cortex, which can really think through more rationally. And if we are in a state where we're hijacked by our monkey mind, which can easily happen around finances, then we're going to be making emotionally based decisions instead of the more rational type decisions. So the monkey mind can get activated if it feels so of volatility in the market or watching our stocks go up or down, then it can activate like, Uh oh. You know, could I lose everything? So it tends to go to kind of catastrophic fears. Could I lose Everything? And then I won't be secure. And so now I have to do something in that reactive decision-making at that point usually isn't guiding us in the direction that it's gonna serve us in a long run.

Jennifer, I remember you telling me that the monkey mind really only sees two potential outcomes. And as I think about that, I observe that happening in my own life. Can you share with our listeners what those two outcomes are and why they often lead to misguided decisions?

Right. I think what you're talking about is what I call core fears So there's primarily two things if we if we go down kind of to look at what's underneath all of our anxiety It comes down to two things and I call them core fears. So one is the loss of life We're afraid of dying and so and that monkey mind is trying to keep us alive Survive. So number one fear’s the fear of death, but this fear of Death It's not always like death. So financial fears often correlate with that. It's like not just death, but losing things to the point where the quality of your life is really threatened. So if you lose your home or you become homeless, financial fears can tie to that, which is a core fear of being destitute, which is along the lines of death. And then the other core fear is that of losing social standing respect. Human beings are We're pack animals. And so we depend on our families, our friends, our community, our work community for survival. And so a big area of fear is around losing social respect or belonging, making a mistake or fool yourself. So the fears tend to come down to those two things.

So especially when we're talking finances, it's not the person is just upset about the numbers on the statement or on the screen. It's just that something to their core, to your point, those core fears, something about them is truly threatened in terms of losing it, or whether it's losing social status, or I guess when you say fear of death, it could be fear of, What if my portfolio becomes worthless? And we've heard those kind of crazy thoughts when somebody's in a real emotional state.

Exactly. And that's so the fear financial, I think it usually comes down to sort of like losing everything house, security, shelter, but it can also be losing social standing. So if you lose your money, then you don't have the things that might gain help you gain respect. And and so that can be correlating to both of those things that those fears.

So if the monkey mind is treating uncertainty as a danger, which it sounds like it is, how would that manifest itself in, you know, say a client behavior when speaking with their financial professional during a volatile market period? Is that the moment when someone says, sell everything, let's go to cash? You know, I'm getting so nervous. I mean, I am sure if the financial professionals listening are Reflecting on many of these types of conversations over the last few months or even the last few years as they've engaged with clients, will you talk through a little bit about, if I'm a financial professional, listening to my client saying this uncertainty, I don't know the outcome, therefore I'm interpreting this as danger and I'm making these proposals about fairly significant decisions. How could they talk Through that in a way that isn't diminishing that fear or danger, but also helping someone maybe try to sort out what's the monkey mind versus what should we do for the logical long run.

You know, one of the things I think is helpful is talk ahead of time before the, you know, when you're beginning to invest to just talk about that there is always a level of uncertainty in everything we do. When we get in the car and drive to the grocery store, there's a level of uncertainty as far as will we arrive safely. So with everything in life, there is uncertainty. So talking about it ahead of the time when somebody is not activated is always a good idea. And the idea that in talking about investments of education. And I do this a lot with my clients is educate them about that we tend to overreact when we see something that is alarming to us. And if we're talking about financial investing that the market does go up and down. That's part of what it does. And that seeing that if you keep in a balanced portfolio and stay the way, stay invested. You're going to have a better outcome. And if you pull out when things get rocky, then that can actually hurt you in the long run. So educating people ahead of time and acknowledging that when the market goes up or down, people feel anxious because that uncertainty gets activated and to really stay the course. So I think talking about it ahead of time is a really helpful thing. Cause when a person's in a hijacked state, you can model calm and say, this is, it's understandable that you're feeling this way. Going back to the conversation you had prior to when they're in this state, all of those things can be helpful to help them ride out what's happening.

Jennifer, what about a financial professional who would see a client in an agitated state and simply say, you know, Jennifer, you just shouldn't watch the news as much. Or Jennifer, you don't you don t need to worry as much about your portfolio, right? We put this thing what is your counsel to financial professionals that see an agitating client just want to tell them, don't worry so much.

Yeah, I wish that would work. Like, if you could just tell somebody to not worry that it's not such a big deal, but that doesn't actually work. So really validating anxiety. I understand that you're really anxious right now. It makes sense. There's volatility. You want financial security, and I want that for you as well. So, you know, acknowledging, validating, saying, hey, look, we both have the same interest in mind. We want financial security. You know, it's about how to get there. And things postpone, a good thing to do is say, I hear what you're saying, what if we wait 24 hours, you know come back and talk about this again, sort of this idea of inserting a pause in the reactivity. So you're not saying we're not going to do it. You don't want to get into don't worry because that's going to be invalidating. And you don't wanna pull too hard because that is going to create resistance. So really validation, maybe if you can create little bit of a pause in there. Those are some things that are helpful, but really again, the financial advisor needs to write it out as well as the client. So, you know, when somebody's in a hijacked state, there's, again, when I talked about the two parts of the brain, the amygdala, which is that reactive part in the prefrontal cortex, you want to get to the pre-frontal cortex, but sometimes that other part of the is going to cloud everything that you're talking about.

Is there ever a moment in time when the monkey mind is helpful as opposed to potentially adding additional complexity or making us go in the wrong direction in terms of decisions? Can it ever be a supportive solution where it's actually helping us in a positive outset in our thinking process?

Absolutely. You know, you can't get rid of this part of the brain and there's a good reason why. And that is because it is alert to potential danger and anxiety can be very motivating. So I use the example of driving to the grocery store. A couple of things, like if you're driving and you see somebody driving erratically, the monkey mind will get activated. It's like, uh-oh, what's happening here? That's good, you need to be on alert and aware. And things happen to our body physiologically when we're anxious, our pupils dilate, so we can take in more information visually, that's good. Our heart rate increases, which helps us be attentive and what do we need to do? It can help our reflexes and be faster in terms of responding to potential threats. So this part of the brain is very good at looking around, keeping us safe and helping us to survive. So we do need it. We just need to, I call it taming of the monkey mind. We don't want it to be overreactive. Or another way to think about it is you want the monkey in the car with you, but not in the driver's seat. You're in the drivers seat. You're gonna make rational decisions, but that part of the brain can alert you to potential threat and we do need that.

That makes sense. Do you think a financial professional could or should potentially even acknowledge that? Something like, I'm really glad that you're involved in your finances and you're watching this. It's so important. I want you to be knowledgeable about your financial life and your future. However, could I help you focus on some of the pieces that we've talked about before? But do you think the acknowledgement of this is healthy and I understand this makes sense in some of those conversations, especially where people are becoming emotional or making potentially difficult decisions or the wrong decisions for the long run.

Yeah, Julie, I like what you just talked about in terms of there's a validation that you just did. Like I, I'm, I appreciate that you're concerned about that. And it's healthy to be concerned about finances and we're working together work. You know, I am concerned too. So I like how you're involved. That's validation and it's acknowledging that part of the brain. Hey, look, we're not trying to get like, don't worry. That's like saying, you know. No, it's not helpful. So this is saying, Hey, I understand validating the concern and the concern is good. It's important to be concerned about this. And I appreciate how you're involved in this decision making. Let's see if we can do this in a way that really is going to serve us in the long run best and help them with those decisions. So that can all be calming so that again, the person is showing up in the driver's seat and sort of with a monkey mind driving the financial decisions.

Jennifer, we've talked a lot about volatility and market concerns, so on and so forth, but the monkey mind is really active in all areas of life, right? So it's something we also need to be aware of if a client is going through some kind of a transition or there's a sudden loss or a surprise, upsize, downsize, aren't Are those things all triggers for the monkey mind in different kind of formats?

Yeah, you don't even need triggers for the monkey mind. It's operating most of the time. So it's always there. And triggers or transitions can certainly activate it where a person, while they were having some kind of, you know, living life well, then all of a sudden, a trigger like a loss can create disruption or disequilibrium and then that monkey mind can get more, even more activated. But it is always in operation.

I know you say primarily there are three root causes. I know when we talk market volatility, uncertainty certainly has to creep into it. But what are those three types, if you will, of or three reasons for anxiety?

Yeah, so the first one is it's I call it intolerance of uncertainty and it's so it What we really want to do and certainty is part of life. if We work against and say oh, no I have to be certain we're working against life and we're not really being able to be present and You know have peace of mind because we're work against it So tolerating uncertainty helps people to feel more relaxed and live make better decisions and live in a more fulfilling way. So that's one of them, uncertainty, how they're responding to uncertainty. Market volatility is a great example, but it happens in other things. Uncertainty around our health, what could happen or health of our loved ones, or it comes up in all sorts of areas. The other is what I call perfectionism. And perfectionism is a fear of making mistakes. So we talked about those two core fears. Well, perfectionism often is related to the core fear of social respect, losing social standing. And it's this idea like if I make a mistake or make a fool of myself, I have failed or I will be rejected. So. Perfectionism is a definite underlying cause of a lot of people's anxiety and social anxiety in particular. And then the third is what I call over-responsibility. So it's this idea that I need to make sure that my loved ones are safe or else I can't relax. And it's just this idea that as if you could control other people's lives to make sure that everything happens Well for them, that they make good decisions. It's hard enough for us to make our own good decisions, let alone trying to get other people. And that sense of burdened, of feeling overwhelmed or burned out because you tend to do too much for other people, that causes- a lot of anxiety.

So it's interesting as you are, because you're right, we have spoken a lot about the client financial professional relationship, but I'm thinking about the financial professional that has a team, people that he or she is working with every single day, and how this concept of the monkey mind could potentially be coming to light in those daily interactions in the office working with their team members. For example, you mentioned perfectionism. We have a lot of details in our industry. If that is something that could be a trigger point for someone on the team, and then how could that interaction change? Will you talk a little bit about how you see this concept manifesting itself in team environments and how maybe a leader of a team could help people become more aware of this, or maybe talk through people that become agitated, you know, based on certain team-based situations?

Jennifer: Julie, can you give me an example in terms of thinking about the team and where it might come up?

Julie: Sure. So when I think of team dynamics, it's all about great communication. If someone, maybe it's perceived that they're having a bad day or they're short with others and we're assuming that it's because maybe they had a bad night at home, which maybe they did. But maybe they made a mistake in their work, and there then... Sort of inflaming that and saying, you know, I didn't get that form, it filled in correctly, or I missed the deadline. And then they're sort of beating themselves up over it. And it's sort of escalating and then it's maybe manifesting and they're snapping at a coworker. And so all of a sudden I'm leading that team and I have this person that it seems like they're just not a good team player, but really, if we are able to get to the root cause, it's because they did something earlier in the day that they're kicking themselves over. Sort of replaying that in their mind and their monkey mind is sort of, you know, really taking the front seat. I'm just thinking about how this could play out, you know, in a team harmony or team dynamic scenario, not just in conversations that we have with our clients about, you know, their stocks and bonds and portfolios, etc.

Yeah. Well, definitely, it always shows up in teams, in families, and it shows up in relationships, absolutely. So one would be, yes. And part of this, like if you're a team leader is how you deal with making mistakes. That the idea that mistakes are part of being human, and so we will make them. And what we really wanna do is learn from our mistakes. And that's really setting an environment of mistakes are acceptable, as long as we can look at them and learn from them. So this isn't about not making mistakes, because if there's that kind of expectation, there's gonna be more stress and beating oneself up and bad moods and being shut off. And we don't learn when we're shaming ourselves or being shamed, we don't learn. So it's really important to see mistakes as part of growth and as part being human. And also, you know, creativity. So if you're in a team, you want your members to be thinking creatively and outside the box. And that means you have to have a tolerance to make risk and make mistakes. Because if you’re gonna think outside the block, some of those ideas are not gonna work. But if you don't think outside of the box, you're not gonna think of amazing ideas that could really change things for the better. So that's one way. You know, another way I'm thinking about if we tie it to the mindsets is tolerance of uncertainty. So Sometimes if you're overly planning things and being too rigid in terms of agendas or meetings or where it's not allowing for as much spontaneity or flexibility that could help the team be more creative, that's another way I think in terms of uncertainty or over planning which shows up. And over responsibility. If we're feeling, one of the things I just remember when in college, every time I would be assigned to a team to be doing something, I didn't like it because I'm a perfectionist. And I felt like, wait a minute, people aren't gonna pull their own weight. I'm gonna have to be the one who's gonna be doing all the work. And when I would approach it that way, sure enough, I would end up doing all of the work, so this sense of picking up balls that might land on the ground too quickly. So it can be over-responsibility and taking too much of what should be shared responsibility could show up in group dynamics.

And Jennifer, just hearing you talk about over-responsibility reminded me of a scenario that I was called in for help with once where there was a client who was a mother of a child that just could not stop making financial requests of mom. And mom knew it was wrong, but just felt obligated that if she didn't answer the financial requests, even to her own detriment, something bad would happen to her child. And I remember working with the financial professionals. In that case, it was a father and daughter team to work with that client to establish some boundaries. But as you said, not at the moment of crisis, right? Like at a time when cooler heads are prevailing and we can take a rational look at things and then being able to remind the client of the plan that we had put in place, that we'd already discussed. I thought the point you made about educating your client prior to that moment of crisis, prior to the market volatility or prior to the requests coming from son or daughter that's kind of outlandish. I think that pre-work is so important in kind of taming that monkey mind, if you will.

Yeah, absolutely and and that over responsibility certainly can show up like I think you just gave that example of When the fear that their child is not gonna make it. So that again, kind of survival fear that they won't make it unless I keep supporting them, which creates a dependency and then they might not be able to actually do the things they need to do because they keep getting this support. So that codependency can, again, in the short term, it looks, it might relieve the anxiety, but in the long term, it's actually creating more of a problem both for the parent and ultimately for the child. Not often, again, I think like you said, having the talk ahead of time or saying, hey, I've come across a lot of parents who have the same fear. I appreciate that you're concerned. Of course, concern about our kids is so important. And then how can we do that in a way that we're accessing more of the rational thinking mind?

Jennifer, for our listeners who now are aware of this, right? And although maybe they have sensed this, they didn't necessarily have the framework and the terminology to put around it. So now that they're aware of the monkey mind and have probably thought as they're listening to this podcast of different examples, whether it's in their own life, their home life, their team life, or their client engagements, what would one small change be or a habit that could be introduced in one's life If someone said, I really want to start to change not only my relationship with anxiety and ultimately my monkey mind, but maybe try to be a positive beacon in the life of others, what would that be? Because we're all obviously busy and there are a lot of things that we're juggling. Is there one place to start so we don't feel like we're trying to tackle this huge, overwhelming topic at once?

Yeah, I think it helps. I mean, that's partly why I call it the monkey mind is just as sort of recognizing that this is part of our mind and it's going to be active and recognize that. The other thing that I think is helpful is to recognize as well, that I talk about how the monkey mine makes two mistakes. And it, it makes one mistake is overestimates the threat. And the second is it underestimates our ability to cope. With when bad outcomes occur. And so being able to think of it in that way that we actually have way more capacity to cope with challenging things in life than we give ourselves credit for. And when we accept that bad things will happen, that can help calm us down. And when it, when we cope, that helps with our flexibility and resilience. So realizing that those are the mistakes that this part of the brain makes and that we are way more capable than we think we are.

Well, Jennifer, excuse me. Thank you for the conversation today. Before we let you go, though, Julie and I would like to maybe mess with your monkey mind a little bit. In that, we like to invite guests to participate in what we call a lightning round of questions. And just like that monkey that jumps from one topic to another to another to another, if you're game, Julie and I would love to fire some questions at you. Just to help our audience understand a little bit apart from what we talked about today, a little more about you Jennifer Shannon and kind of what you're all about. Is that okay?

It sounds like fun. I like it.

Well, Julie, why don't you get us started?

What's one thing you always pack when you travel?

Well, toothbrush is the first. The kingdom mind, but I think most people would. Okay, this goes to another thing. And my mind is just free associating here. Okay, so this is actually something that happened to me. And this goes with a little bit what we were talking about. I live in Northern California. And so we have fires here, but one of the first big fires that we had was in 2017. And my house actually burned down to the ground. And we had to leave in the middle of the night, running out of the house with nothing. And And so one of the things that I missed the most was my underwear. That was just it was like one of those basic things. And so since and then comfy clothes, you know, so since then, I've always been OK. I go for comfort. So unpacking, of course, the toothbrush. But like I always want just a few little comfort items there. And yeah, so that.

That makes sense. I love that.

Yeah.

Jennifer, what's your favorite way to spend a Sunday morning?

Oh, so I love nature. And if I check my weather app and it looks like it's going to be nice weather. I will usually plan a hike. I use All Trails, which is an app that you can look at different hikes. And so I'll plan a a hike and one that's dog friendly. I have an adorable little dog and me and my husband and my dog will go take a hike, that's a very fun Sunday morning activity.

Julie: What's your favorite holiday?

Jennifer: I would say Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving, I love the change of seasons that starts to happen where it's kind of going there's still that fall in the air, but we're going towards winter. And I like family. So I like being able to get together with family and cooks things that people love. So that's probably the one that means the most to me is Thanksgiving.

My last question for you, Jennifer. Do you use a paper to-do list, a digital to- do list, or no to-Do list at all?

Oh my gosh, okay, well, this, this I might go into, you might hear a little more detail around this one, but I actually do not make to-do lists. It is something I used to do and it was paper at that time, but I don't do them. The only list I make is a grocery list. And the reason is I realized that I need to recognize that I can cope even if I forget something and lists were actually feeding my monkey mind because I wasn't overly. Compelling list maker. In the past. I don't make lists.

I understand.

Jennifer, what's one thing that our listeners would be surprised to learn about you?

Hmm, something that they would be surprised to learn about me. Um, I don't know about surprise, but I really love like, kind of cheesy magazines. I like people magazine, I like us, I like I love reading about I love picture books. It's sort of like like as a kid comic books. And now it's sort of like a comic book, there's a lot of pictures and, and it's not something that's particularly intellectually stimulating, but it's just a fun kind of relaxing thing that I enjoy doing is. Those kind of jazzy magazines. You used to always have to buy them and now you can get them on your Kindle. So it's.

Yes, it's so handy. Yeah.

Well, Jennifer, we can't thank you enough for joining us here today on the Human Centric Investing Podcast. And for our listeners, if you're interested in learning more or want to go deeper into some of the strategies that Jennifer educated us on today, feel free to purchase her book. It's called Don't Feed the Monkey Mind. It's a great resource and it's available at Amazon. Thank you again, Jennifer.

It's been a pleasure. Thank you.

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