The housing bubble. The dot-com stock craze. The Florida land rush. The Dutch tulip mania. Throughout history, men have jumped at the opportunity to get rich quick, even when the opportunity was clearly too good to be true. Why do we fall for it every time?
Blame the reward centers in your brain. The nucleus accumbens and ventral tegmentum. Both areas flood with the neurotransmitter dopamine when you have a chance to make money from a gamble, says Russell Poldrack, Ph.D., an associate professor at UCLA’s Brain Institute. As potential riches increase, so does the dopamine flow. “Dopamine is the target for cocaine and amphetamines,” says Poldrack. “It’s what really drives people regardless of the consequences.”
Perhaps worse, success begets even riskier behavior. In other words, successfully flipping one house makes your desire to flip another even more intense, says Poldrack.
How can you rein in your reward centers? It’s not easy. Humor and sex are great distractions, because they trigger the same midbrain response, says Poldrack. But the best advice is to retain your objectivity and historical perspective. “It’s fun to swing for the fences,” says Robert Strong, Ph.D., a professor of investment education at the University of Maine. “But before you do, remind yourself of all the things that can go wrong.”
Then go have sex.
REBECCA SHILLENN
A Flip Too Far
The writer at the W Hotel: “It had become my family’s Hotel California. We could check out any time we liked. But we could never leave.”
By Mark Millhone Photos by MacKenzie Stroh
A SOLUTION?
Back at the W, Rose had an idea: “All you need to do is sign a book deal.” As if writing the great American novel was as easy as going to the ATM.
“Honey, for me to sell a book, I would have to write a book. Or at least a lengthy proposal. It’d take months, and trying to write under this much pressure would be like trying to build a house of cards with a sledgehammer.”
“If you love me, you’ll find a way.”
Pow! Jewish guilt, the way my wife rolls, is a bare-knuckle blood sport. Rose followed this uppercut with her sucker punch, another extended coughing fit. Whammo!
I staggered to my corner, slumping down at my laptop. This was a no-win situation. If I didn’t pull this rabbit out of my hat, we would lose the apartment. But if I did, well, I shuddered at the thought of continuing to live by Rose Math. It’s like having Nietzsche as your financial advisor: That which does not bankrupt you makes you richer.
That night, as I stared at the ceiling, I wondered how we’d gotten here. How could Rose and I, after 10 years together, disagree on something as fundamental as home? For Rose, home is where the doorman is. I could only theorize that, for a second-generation American, coming home to a fancy address provided vital reassurance that she had truly “arrived” in America.
But my first American ancestor came over on the second crossing of the Mayflower. What I know about my thrifty Scots ancestors suggests that he probably was originally booked on the first crossing but volunteered to go standby on the second for a free ticket. My fore-fathers pioneered the Midwest, withstanding flood, famine, drought, pestilence—all for the privilege of being pig farmers in Iowa. Perhaps because of my humble origins, I believe that a place has to be humble to be no place like home.
I spent the next week at my laptop, trying to do research but mostly wasting time. And never had I come up with such creative scenarios to avoid working. One night I even had myself convinced that our hotel room was under attack from mutant mold spores. A dank smell had been permeating the room for the previous week; this, I theorized, was causing Rose’s cough. The next morning, with Spike at my side, I made my case to Boris (not his real name), a W Hotel building engineer. Boris smiled and nodded politely, the way you do with crazy people, and said, “Or maybe it’s just zee little dog.” He pointed at Spike, peeing on the rug at our feet.
Somehow, he got to my witness.
I made Boris give us a new room anyway, thinking a change of scenery would help, or at least give me different walls to climb. But the new room was exactly like our old one—except it looked directly into Abe’s office.
Having your accountant peering over your shoulder while you try to work is like having your mother watch you pee. I sat at my computer, frozen. For days.
BREAK POINT
After 40 nights at the W, life there had become a four-star hell: You could pick up the phone and order up whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted it—except the feeling that you were home. In a piece of urban-dweller behavior worthy of a graduate thesis in anthropology, our boys’ nesting instinct became so strong that they built their own bedrooms out of sofa cushions, luggage, and blankets.
I began to think we couldn’t afford not to make the new place work. Rose, in particular, was banking on a fresh start. The beautiful thing about my wife is that she’s all in, all the time: mentally, emotionally, physically, and financially. All the stress finally caught up with her, though, putting her in the hospital for 2 weeks with pneumonia—the real source of her cough. We celebrated the sixth birthday of our older son, Sam, at her bedside. She missed his first Little League game.
One night, when visiting hours were ending, Sam turned to me. “Daddy, let’s all stay in Mommy’s room tonight! The beds are so cool, the way they move up and down.”
“There’s nothing wrong with your bed at the hotel.”
He drew quieter. “But if we all stay here, we could be home.”
“Sam, this is a hospital.”
“But if we stay here with Mommy, then we’ll all be home, because we’ll all be together again.”
Rose and I looked at each other. Somehow, as our fighting for a better life had turned into fighting with each other, we’d lost our way home. At moments like this, it’s terrifically handy to have a 6-year-old around to remind you that the most important things in life aren’t really that complicated.
SURRENDER
Man, I hate it when Rose is right.
Not only did I land the book deal, but it brought in what our accountant said we needed—almost to the penny. Then, the developer felt so bad about what we went through that he picked up our $20,000 hotel bill. And, of course, we all love the new place.
Now, I’m not saying that Rose Math works. Just that it worked for us.
Again.
