A Guide to Whole-Brained Investing

Book (1984) by Bennett W. Goodspeed, Review by Denice Moffat

I’m a reader. I read all the time, especially before retiring for the night. It’s a form of relaxation.

My book review this month is on The Tao Jones Averages—A Guide to Whole-Brained Investing, by Bennett W. Goodspeed. I thought it was a book on investing and I try to read a minimum of two money books a year.

I was quite surprised to read about right and left-brained thinking and how it influences our choice in how we invest in the stock market. One thing I learned was that many people who drink alcohol and become addicted to it are doing so because it calms the analytical side of the brain and opens up the intuitive side (the right brain).

That got me thinking about all the alcoholics I have known in my life. Hmm. Maybe that theory is right. Most of them were really left-brained analytical and never let themselves relax and have fun. Being child-like was not in their repertoire.

The book continued by explaining that those who did not hold their liquor well and got totally out of control were already fairly right-brained and when they had too much to drink it got further out of balance and the left-brain was even more imbalanced.

Examples of left-brained professions are: Planners, lawyers, editors, technologists, writers, bookkeepers, critics, management scientists, administrators, doctors, authors, tax experts, researchers and publishers. These are the data collectors of our society. The left sides of their brains are working all the time to evaluate the data. (No wonder I wasn’t at the top of my class in vet school! I didn’t fit the mold.)

It’s pretty amazing what you can learn from books by reading different subject areas, eh?