Deep Thoughts: Insightful Nuggets from the movie ‘The Big Short’

My boss says ‘think’ a lot. It’s a mantra he pontificates every time, that I hear his voice in my head when I am stuck on a problem. It is quite weird sometimes because recently, I  found myself whispering the word intermittently before coming up with this write-up. Thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiink. That’s me whispering in your ear as you read.

Okay! Let’s stop with the poor attempt at ghost stories. Back to my boss; in his bid to get us (my colleagues and I) to think, he took us to watch a movie at a cinema. My first thought was yaaaaay me! Free popcorn! Then I had to snip those thoughts away quickly as I realized that it was no pleasure trip, I had to put my brain to work throughout the movie and pick up the exact lessons we were meant to learn.

The movie “The Big Short” is an adaptation of a book; “The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine.” by Michael Lewis. It is about how the great recession of 2008 came about in America and how some few people made money from it. It shows how three hedge funds made the right trade at the right time resulting in massive profits as the mortgage bond market collapsed. There were tons of Investment lessons for all those interested in finance and trading.

Amidst the constant use of expletives which almost ate my ears off and the myriad financial/investments jargon, I picked up three important thoughts to dwell on for the rest of the week.

Don’t shut down what you hear immediately even if it sounds like a bag of poop: This was something I took note of as I watched one of the protagonists listen in to something that evidently was ridiculous yet held on and decided to research and verify it. At the end, he made millions from that act. This is something I want to do because you never know when all that poop might be a covering for a gold mine. I remember when one of my students asked a question that got the whole class reeling in laughter. I had to make sense out of the question in other to encourage questions in my class and while explaining the answer, I found myself viewing the answer from a new dimension which made all of us learn something new that day. Case in point, don’t just wave away things as irrelevant or stupid or ridiculous, try and dig into it first. You might just find out something worthwhile.

Crack the surface and dig down: I guess this is what my boss wanted us to learn. The act of thinking, not just looking at the face value of things but digging, breaking it down to the barest minimum in other to properly understand it before making decisions or coming up with a result. The surface of things might look rosy enough to jump in but a simple digging could just reveal how big a mistake, it all is.

Be suspicious of the banks: Okay! This is my personal take home – a bonus point – and actually me just being a bit paranoid as the movie reinforced my suspicions of financial institutions. I am not saying they are all bad and fraudulent. But most people including the old me would just take the words of marketers trying to sink in millions as they artfully snare us into opening accounts that suck up our money or buying securities that are very very risky. Now I have learned to read up on any account I am opening (digging) to ensure that it meets my needs and when I don’t understand the mumbo jumbo they use to confuse the public, I go to forums. (God bless Quora)

So go on and watch the movie and let me know your thoughts on it.

Jaa Mata!