How to Build a Body and Mind for a Banking Career

1/ Resilience = Optimum Stress + Resting Phase :I found the article entitled how banking can ruin your body and mind interesting. Having worked on a trading floor in the City for 12 years, there is a component that I have noticed with remarkable consistency among my peers. It is the stress level in the city. Stress in itself is not actually a bad thing. As shown in the graph below, (initially created by Robert Yerkes and John Dodson in 1908), there is a level of optimum stress.

Stress starts to be damaging to your health when it is a continuous state and the body does not have a chance to recover. Many of us spend so much time in a stressed state that we have forgotten what it feels like to be fully alert AND relaxed. At some point, you might burn out or, without proper advice, it might end up more dramatically. You might lose the big picture altogether. The first step to regain your health and increase your performance level is to acknowledge the situation.

2/ Time Scarcity: Manage your Energy :To allow this healing process, you need time. This is where the second challenge arises. Time is a precious component in a banking environment. Unfortunately, the tendency when stressed out is to engage more, instead of allowing your body and mind a resting phase. The solution, initially presented by Tony Schwartz and Catherine Mc Carthy in Harvard Business Review, is to manage your energy and not your time, which is a finite resource. Individuals need to recognise the cost of energy depleting behaviours and then take responsibility, they wrote. The preponderance of alpha male personality in banking makes it even more complicated. A common mistake is to see the working environment as a competitive sports field. The main difference: Elite athletes are fully aware the most important phase is the resting phase, where they body can recover. There is no such phase in the workplace.

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3/ Take control of your Mind and Body :It is a necessity to manage your long term health. If someone makes this decision for you, the breaking point has probably been reached. Before this stage, I would recommend following some basic steps that are powerful techniques. One should not underestimate the bodys healing capacity. But, you need to allow it and repair it with the correct tools. We all know the benefits of exercising and a proper diet for the body. For the mind, the tools exist from cognitive behavioural therapy to meditation. For more on this, I suggest you listen to Matthieu Ricard, the Buddhist Monk mentioned in the resource section. Strangely, I actually notice only two categories of people apply these techniques and respect their long term health and well-being: the medically treated patients, for obvious reasons, and the (one perceived as) best of the class. As an example, R. Dalio, CEO of Bridgewater Capital, AUM $120bn stated recently: I notice a difference from the moment I meditate. I can be stressed, or tired, and I can go into a meditation and it all just flows off of me. Ill come out of it refreshed and centred. Goldman has been organising a Resilience week for the last two years, next one in March. My objective is to share these powerful but easy to apply techniques. Remember there are only 3 things in life you can only control: what you think, what you visualise and what you do. Everything else is out of your control. Do you want to change your behaviour for the better? Jean-Philippe Perraud has been working in the City for the last 12 years. Inspired by the progress made by psychology, meditation, nutrition, relaxation therapy, fitness, yoga, western and eastern human body approach and life coaching, he designed a programme that offers tools to improve general energy and well-being levels. It includes among other things a step by step digital guide of techniques, guided meditations and music designed around the following themes: Concentration, Healing, Sleep Inducement, Stress relief and Relaxation. The Kit The Life Re-Energiser launches March 6th 2013. www.DetoxTheCity.com Resources Mentioned :http://www.ted.com/talks/matthieu_ricard_on_the_habits_of_happiness.html - On the benefits of Meditation. Defined as the "happiest person in the world" by popular media, Matthieu Ricard, Buddhist monk, was a volunteer subject in a study on happiness, performed at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, scoring significantly beyond the average obtained after testing hundreds of other volunteers. http://hbr.org/product/manage-your-energy-not-your-time/an/R0710B-PDF-ENG -

Manage your energy, not your time, Harvard Business Review October 2007, by Tony Schwartz and Catherine McCarthy. Using the example of Steve Wanner, 37 year old partner at www.detoxthecity.com

Ernst & Young, they demonstrate how energy can be systematically expanded and regularly renewed by establishing specific rituals. By :- Jean-Philippe Perraud at http://www.detoxthecity.com/

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