We humans really do not like change. I mean that in a collective sense. Companies, organisations, relationships, etc…don’t easily embrace change. “We have something that works” they say. Its almost like “walking the plank” when we suggest something different.
Seth Godin said it best (his version of an old saying). “Change isn’t made by asking permission, change is made by asking forgiveness, later.”
I could give you many reasons and examples, but today I will show you a picture which describes the collective behaviour of humans very well.
Weekly Gold ChartDouble click on the picture to see it full scale.
Old faithful, the gold chart. Gold is easily one of the most traded and liquid markets and is good to show you what I want you to see about collective human action. Markets show the depth of human behaviour (and the shallowness too). Literally millions of people partake in trading across the world. So the current price that is stipulated by the market at any given time is the collective consensus, of all those millions of people, of what the price of gold per ounce is. Right?
Okay, with that in mind. Look at the chart, you will see 1000$ was a huge level to breach. Gold previously had live under 1000$ for decades. Soon after it broke that level what do you notice?
It quickly jumps back under 1000$ and stays there for roughly 75 weeks (this is a weekly chart). Next we see gold break the 1200$ level and we see the same pattern more or less. Breaks to new highs and jumps below that and lives there for a number of weeks.
The chart tells the rest of the story. What I am trying to get at there is that overall we see the upward movement, and Gold breaks new ground regularly, but what we see almost as soon as completely new price levels are broken into, the market jumps back to places it has been previously.
And that is what I want to focus on. We do that in life. We do not like unfamiliar territory and as soon as we sense we are in unknown environments, we revert to what we know. We revert to the familiar when we find ourselves in the unfamiliar.
Fortunately the chart shows us something different as well. As we go higher (and break new ground in the price) the pullbacks and time spent under the new highs become less deep and shorter as we become accustomed to the statements “record new highs”.
Which only goes to show that when we step out and do something different, it might take some time, but it enables others to do the same. And soon its not so difficult to imagine doing the thing yourself.
So my challenge for today is try new things, or even better, do the thing that you have been pondering about…… You never know who you might be paving the way for…..
Before I end today, below this is a link to a really wow picture. I just thought I would share that with you.
Click here to see the Cool Pic and some funny comments
thehonestone
theHonestOne 