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The best investors think right-brained
Two Halves of the Brain
Iain McGilchrist's work shows that the brain isn't symmetrical. The left is the language and analytical brain, the part that can focus on one thing and look at it. The right handles creativity and context. Stroke victims show the difference: a left brain stroke leaves a patient unable to talk, while a right brain stroke leaves a person disoriented, with no context for interacting with the world, and it is a much more severe stroke.
A Left-Brain Civilization
Civilization has become more left brain, probably because language activates the left side more. Handedness reflects it, since right-handedness is more left brain and more people are right-handed.
Investors Who Think Whole
Analytical people are drawn to investing because they can build spreadsheets and models. The best investors, such as Bill Miller and Nick Sleep, think very creatively about the whole, and that is a superpower for building a long-term track record. Charlie Munger was a right brain thinker who partnered with the more left-brain Warren Buffett, and the combination was a lollapalooza.
Why do left-brain strokes silence speech?
French physician Paul Broca examined a patient in 1861 who could say only a single syllable, and after the patient's death he found damage in the left frontal lobe. German neurologist Carl Wernicke described a second left-hemisphere region tied to understanding speech in 1874. In about ninety-five percent of right-handed people, language depends mainly on the left hemisphere.
How do the two hemispheres communicate?
The hemispheres are linked by the corpus callosum, a bundle of roughly 200 million nerve fibers. In the 1960s Roger Sperry studied patients whose corpus callosum had been cut to treat severe epilepsy and showed that each hemisphere could handle some tasks separately. He shared the 1981 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the work.
How does handedness relate to the brain?
Roughly ten percent of people are left-handed. Most left-handers still process language mainly in the left hemisphere, at around seventy percent, a lower rate than in right-handers. Twin studies show that handedness is only partly inherited.
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