During market down-turns, sleepless nights and workaholic styles are common. And with the exception of those few days when the market is closed, money managers and individual investors tend to experience a low grade anxiety which orbits around thoughts of failure, money loss, job loss, and client loss. In other words, because of the competitive nature of the profession, there is little emphasis placed on understanding another's experience and responding to it with a positive and warm tone. Individual investors often find other investors are competitive and more interested in their losses than their successes. They also report that family members often act competitively with them-comparing the investor's gains and losses with what the press is reporting about significant gains that others have made in Internet stocks.
Managers experience others as searching for their mistakes.
Competitive aggression in itself is not unhealthy. On the contrary, it's a normal and healthy reaction to obstacles that hinder the attainment of our aims in the world. Much of the energy with which we make money and achieve other goals is derived from competitive aggression. Thus competition is often a constructive force in the work world and in human relationships. But where the adversarial atmosphere of competitive aggression does not occur in the context of benignly opposing forces that continue to be supportive and responsive, there is an insidious fear of helplessness and powerlessness.