![[Review] The Hour Between Dog and Wolf (John Coates) Summarized](https://episodes.castos.com/660078c6833215-59505987/images/2319770/c1a-085k3-kpjdp0zrf7v-zc0pw7.jpg)
Show Notes
The Hour Between Dog and Wolf (John Coates)
- Amazon USA Store: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B006KWAJP8?tag=9natree-20
- Amazon Worldwide Store: https://global.buys.trade/The-Hour-Between-Dog-and-Wolf-John-Coates.html
- Apple Books: https://books.apple.com/us/audiobook/between-dog-and-wolf-a-tale-of-beauty/id1579399785?itsct=books_box_link&itscg=30200&ls=1&at=1001l3bAw&ct=9natree
- eBay: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=The+Hour+Between+Dog+and+Wolf+John+Coates+&mkcid=1&mkrid=711-53200-19255-0&siteid=0&campid=5339060787&customid=9natree&toolid=10001&mkevt=1
- Read more: https://mybook.top/read/B006KWAJP8/
#behavioralfinance #risktaking #stressphysiology #testosterone #cortisol #TheHourBetweenDogandWolf
These are takeaways from this book.
Firstly, Risk and the body: How physiology drives decisions, A central idea in the book is that risk-taking is not only a matter of character or calculation but also a bodily state. Coates describes decision-making as tightly coupled to signals from the nervous system and the endocrine system. When uncertainty rises, the body prepares for action by shifting attention, energy use, and threat detection. These shifts can be helpful, sharpening focus and speed, but they can also distort judgment by narrowing perception and pushing behavior toward fight, flight, or overcommitment. The book frames gut feelings as real informational outputs from the body, formed by pattern recognition plus physiological arousal. In fast markets or competitive settings, people often rely on these sensations because explicit reasoning is too slow. Coates emphasizes that the same biology that helps a person perform in the moment can lead to systematic errors when conditions persist. Sustained arousal changes what feels normal, which changes what feels safe, and that alters risk preference. Understanding risk therefore requires paying attention to sleep, recovery, nutrition, and stress exposure, not just spreadsheets and forecasts. The practical takeaway is that better decisions can come from managing internal states as deliberately as external information.
Secondly, Testosterone and the chemistry of winning streaks, The book highlights testosterone as one of the biological forces that can turn success into destabilizing overconfidence. Coates discusses research and observations suggesting that winning can elevate testosterone, which may increase drive, competitiveness, and appetite for risk. In moderation, that boost can support performance by energizing action and reinforcing effective strategies. The problem emerges when elevated confidence persists and the environment becomes more uncertain. As success compounds, traders and other high performers may begin to interpret random gains as skill, and the hormonal reinforcement can make risk feel more acceptable than it truly is. Coates links this dynamic to the formation of bubbles, where many individuals experience positive feedback at the same time and collectively bid prices away from fundamentals. He also explores how social comparison and dominance hierarchies can amplify these effects in competitive workplaces. The implication is not that testosterone is bad, but that it can act like an accelerator without a matching brake. Coates suggests that institutions should recognize the biological component of momentum and build in counterweights, such as position limits, enforced recovery, and decision review processes that slow escalation before confidence becomes a liability.
Thirdly, Cortisol, chronic stress, and the slide into fear, If testosterone can push behavior toward exuberance, cortisol can push it toward caution and even paralysis. Coates examines cortisol as a key stress hormone that rises during uncertainty, loss, and sustained pressure. Short-term stress responses can improve vigilance and help people react quickly. However, when stress becomes chronic, cortisol can impair memory, disrupt sleep, and shift attention toward threats at the expense of opportunity. In markets, this can translate into forced selling, risk aversion, and the reluctance to act even when conditions improve. Coates ties these physiological changes to the texture of bear markets and crashes, where the same crowd that once chased gains becomes highly sensitive to downside signals. The book also considers how chronic stress can degrade health and performance over time, making professionals less resilient precisely when they need resilience most. A notable theme is that fear is not only an emotion but also a biological state that changes the probability of certain choices. The practical lesson is that managing uncertainty and recovery matters. Better scheduling, clearer risk frameworks, and stress-aware leadership can reduce the chance that cortisol-driven behavior turns volatility into collapse.
Fourthly, From individual brains to market storms: The biology of boom and bust, Coates argues that large-scale financial cycles can be understood partly as emergent biology. Individual bodies respond to wins and losses, those responses shape behavior, and the aggregation of many similar responses can move prices and volatility. In a boom, rising confidence and increasing risk capacity can lead to larger positions, tighter spreads, and more leverage, which then feeds further gains. In a bust, the reversal can be rapid as fear and stress spread through networks of traders, investors, and institutions. The book encourages readers to see markets not as perfectly rational machines but as ecosystems of human nervous systems interacting with incentives and information. It also addresses why standard models may miss these dynamics: they often assume stable preferences and consistent risk tolerance, while biology implies that risk preferences shift with internal chemistry and environmental stress. Coates suggests that regulation and risk management could incorporate a more realistic view of human limits, including the ways prolonged arousal affects judgment. This topic broadens the book beyond finance. Any domain where groups respond to uncertainty, such as entrepreneurship, sports, or emergency services, can experience similar cycles of collective boldness and collective retreat driven by shared physiological pressures.
Lastly, Practical implications: Designing performance and risk management around human limits, The book moves from explanation to implication by asking what individuals and institutions can do with a biological understanding of risk. Coates points to the importance of recovery, because sustained stress and sustained excitement both erode decision quality. Habits that stabilize sleep, training, and nutrition can help keep the body within a zone where intuition is informative rather than distorted. At the organizational level, he implies that risk systems should account for time, not just exposure. A team that has been winning for months may not be the same team psychologically or biologically as it was at the start, and limits may need to tighten as confidence rises. Likewise, during prolonged drawdowns, leaders may need to reduce pressure, add support, and introduce structured decision processes to prevent fear-driven errors. The book also suggests reconsidering personnel selection and training. Instead of rewarding only bravado or only caution, firms can cultivate adaptive risk-takers who can recognize internal signals and step back when arousal is driving the wheel. The wider lesson is that performance is a whole-body phenomenon. Better outcomes come from aligning incentives, schedules, and feedback loops with human physiology, rather than assuming endless rationality and stamina.
- Amazon USA Store: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B006KWAJP8?tag=9natree-20
- Amazon Worldwide Store: https://global.buys.trade/The-Hour-Between-Dog-and-Wolf-John-Coates.html
- Apple Books: https://books.apple.com/us/audiobook/between-dog-and-wolf-a-tale-of-beauty/id1579399785?itsct=books_box_link&itscg=30200&ls=1&at=1001l3bAw&ct=9natree
- eBay: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=The+Hour+Between+Dog+and+Wolf+John+Coates+&mkcid=1&mkrid=711-53200-19255-0&siteid=0&campid=5339060787&customid=9natree&toolid=10001&mkevt=1
- Read more: https://mybook.top/read/B006KWAJP8/
#behavioralfinance #risktaking #stressphysiology #testosterone #cortisol #TheHourBetweenDogandWolf
These are takeaways from this book.
Firstly, Risk and the body: How physiology drives decisions, A central idea in the book is that risk-taking is not only a matter of character or calculation but also a bodily state. Coates describes decision-making as tightly coupled to signals from the nervous system and the endocrine system. When uncertainty rises, the body prepares for action by shifting attention, energy use, and threat detection. These shifts can be helpful, sharpening focus and speed, but they can also distort judgment by narrowing perception and pushing behavior toward fight, flight, or overcommitment. The book frames gut feelings as real informational outputs from the body, formed by pattern recognition plus physiological arousal. In fast markets or competitive settings, people often rely on these sensations because explicit reasoning is too slow. Coates emphasizes that the same biology that helps a person perform in the moment can lead to systematic errors when conditions persist. Sustained arousal changes what feels normal, which changes what feels safe, and that alters risk preference. Understanding risk therefore requires paying attention to sleep, recovery, nutrition, and stress exposure, not just spreadsheets and forecasts. The practical takeaway is that better decisions can come from managing internal states as deliberately as external information.
Secondly, Testosterone and the chemistry of winning streaks, The book highlights testosterone as one of the biological forces that can turn success into destabilizing overconfidence. Coates discusses research and observations suggesting that winning can elevate testosterone, which may increase drive, competitiveness, and appetite for risk. In moderation, that boost can support performance by energizing action and reinforcing effective strategies. The problem emerges when elevated confidence persists and the environment becomes more uncertain. As success compounds, traders and other high performers may begin to interpret random gains as skill, and the hormonal reinforcement can make risk feel more acceptable than it truly is. Coates links this dynamic to the formation of bubbles, where many individuals experience positive feedback at the same time and collectively bid prices away from fundamentals. He also explores how social comparison and dominance hierarchies can amplify these effects in competitive workplaces. The implication is not that testosterone is bad, but that it can act like an accelerator without a matching brake. Coates suggests that institutions should recognize the biological component of momentum and build in counterweights, such as position limits, enforced recovery, and decision review processes that slow escalation before confidence becomes a liability.
Thirdly, Cortisol, chronic stress, and the slide into fear, If testosterone can push behavior toward exuberance, cortisol can push it toward caution and even paralysis. Coates examines cortisol as a key stress hormone that rises during uncertainty, loss, and sustained pressure. Short-term stress responses can improve vigilance and help people react quickly. However, when stress becomes chronic, cortisol can impair memory, disrupt sleep, and shift attention toward threats at the expense of opportunity. In markets, this can translate into forced selling, risk aversion, and the reluctance to act even when conditions improve. Coates ties these physiological changes to the texture of bear markets and crashes, where the same crowd that once chased gains becomes highly sensitive to downside signals. The book also considers how chronic stress can degrade health and performance over time, making professionals less resilient precisely when they need resilience most. A notable theme is that fear is not only an emotion but also a biological state that changes the probability of certain choices. The practical lesson is that managing uncertainty and recovery matters. Better scheduling, clearer risk frameworks, and stress-aware leadership can reduce the chance that cortisol-driven behavior turns volatility into collapse.
Fourthly, From individual brains to market storms: The biology of boom and bust, Coates argues that large-scale financial cycles can be understood partly as emergent biology. Individual bodies respond to wins and losses, those responses shape behavior, and the aggregation of many similar responses can move prices and volatility. In a boom, rising confidence and increasing risk capacity can lead to larger positions, tighter spreads, and more leverage, which then feeds further gains. In a bust, the reversal can be rapid as fear and stress spread through networks of traders, investors, and institutions. The book encourages readers to see markets not as perfectly rational machines but as ecosystems of human nervous systems interacting with incentives and information. It also addresses why standard models may miss these dynamics: they often assume stable preferences and consistent risk tolerance, while biology implies that risk preferences shift with internal chemistry and environmental stress. Coates suggests that regulation and risk management could incorporate a more realistic view of human limits, including the ways prolonged arousal affects judgment. This topic broadens the book beyond finance. Any domain where groups respond to uncertainty, such as entrepreneurship, sports, or emergency services, can experience similar cycles of collective boldness and collective retreat driven by shared physiological pressures.
Lastly, Practical implications: Designing performance and risk management around human limits, The book moves from explanation to implication by asking what individuals and institutions can do with a biological understanding of risk. Coates points to the importance of recovery, because sustained stress and sustained excitement both erode decision quality. Habits that stabilize sleep, training, and nutrition can help keep the body within a zone where intuition is informative rather than distorted. At the organizational level, he implies that risk systems should account for time, not just exposure. A team that has been winning for months may not be the same team psychologically or biologically as it was at the start, and limits may need to tighten as confidence rises. Likewise, during prolonged drawdowns, leaders may need to reduce pressure, add support, and introduce structured decision processes to prevent fear-driven errors. The book also suggests reconsidering personnel selection and training. Instead of rewarding only bravado or only caution, firms can cultivate adaptive risk-takers who can recognize internal signals and step back when arousal is driving the wheel. The wider lesson is that performance is a whole-body phenomenon. Better outcomes come from aligning incentives, schedules, and feedback loops with human physiology, rather than assuming endless rationality and stamina.
