Zen Actuary 23: Moving Beyond Doubt
By Richard Lauria
The Stepping Stone, May 2025
Author’s note: This is the continuation of a series[1] adapted from the book Awake at Work by Michael Carroll, covering the application of Buddhist teachings to situations encountered in a modern corporate workplace setting. This series addresses challenges frequently encountered by practicing actuaries.
A Pleasant Yoga Surprise
It was another Tuesday morning as I rolled out my mat, feeling no different than many other mornings over the past several years. I felt the usual stiffness in my lower back and hamstrings, telling me to give them some love before I got into the “serious poses” I planned to work on that day. Given that it was Tuesday and my obsession with having a predictable routine, the most serious pose would be pincha mayurasana, also known as forearm stand. I have been focusing on this pose religiously on Tuesdays for a few years, and almost always with the support of a solid wall to avoid flipping over and doing God knows what to myself.
On this Tuesday for no reason, I decided to just do a few pincha hops in the middle of my yoga/meditation room away from the wall. I had not tried this for a few weeks, but I did not want to break the flow I was doing by stopping to go over to a wall. I just hopped and instead of immediately coming back down to where I started, I floated up to a forearm stand that I held for a handful of breaths. No falling over. Just a controlled float up, hold, and controlled release.
I could not believe what just happened. Pressing my luck, I decided to try it again but hopping off the other leg. Same result, albeit with a little more work to refine and hold the pose. All I could think was the gamer motto, “Let’s go!” I thought I would try my luck at levitation at that point (alas to no avail).
As I contemplated this yoga milestone, I could hear a former instructor’s voice from years ago reminding me, “You’re stronger than you know.” And over the years, on and off the mat, I have found this to be true. Things that I thought were beyond my capability turned out not to be, whether it was overcoming my fear of the water and learning to swim, standing on my head, building an enterprise risk model for a Fortune 300 insurance conglomerate or co-authoring a textbook on cognitive biases in ERM. The lesson that periodically gets reinforced is that I have been the one stopping myself in life due to underestimating my strength and abilities.
I have also observed this with former colleagues, yogis and students. Whether it is a shy colleague filled with nerves before giving that first board presentation, a fellow aspiring yogi learning to bear weight on his head, or an international student searching for that first job in the U.S., the individual involved always must work through those two dreaded words: I can’t. The two questions this raises are a) why do these words keep cropping up and b) what can be done to move forward through the doubts?
Understanding the Mind
When a person’s mind says that he cannot do something, this is not an act of self-sabotage. The prime directive for both mind and body is the survival of the organism. Therefore, the messaging most likely comes from a desire to survive and prosper. Evolution of the human mind has resulted in the retention of many heuristics (i.e., mental shortcuts) to help achieve the prime directive.
One of the most commonly used heuristics is availability, which means that decisions are made based on information that can be readily retrieved. If I am pondering performing a handstand and I’ve never successfully done one, it would be understandable to assume that I will never perform one because the available experience supports that assessment. In addition, making the effort to achieve one takes many hours of practice and requires a considerable expenditure of energy, both mental and physical. The mind quite logically concludes that my limited time and energy should be spent on other endeavors where I am more likely to find success.
This is not unlike what actuaries face when seeking to make improvements to existing actuarial processes. If the changes require significant new learning, such as installing a completely new business projection system from a third-party vendor, the first reaction is to question whether such efforts will materially improve the quality of business projections and cash flow testing output. This is especially true if the existing process is perceived to be functioning, albeit at a level that could be improved upon due to the inclusion of manual processes and output adjustments that add model risk and complexity. Our brains loathe uncertainty, and the new projection system remains in that realm until the actuary can “prove” that he has learned and mastered it sufficiently so that it can be successfully used during the fire of the plan process and year-end financial reporting. Until then, the temptation will be to gravitate to the status quo to ensure process success and job survival.
Note that the voice of self-doubt creeps in during other activities of an actuary’s journey. I went through a phase when I did not believe I could pass a fellowship exam. The exams required mastery of significant amounts of verbal material, and I struggled to process it effectively in an exam setting. It was only after revamping my exam preparation approach and finding success with it that my confidence increased.
Even seasoned executives who have achieved considerable career success still face doubts. One of the great challenges I faced later in my career was learning how to properly interpret and use output from third party natural catastrophe models in decision making, such as how to set risk limits to the exposure. Much doubt arose from my limited educational background and experience in property insurance, given that the bulk of my career to that point had been on the life, health, and annuity lines of business.
Embrace the Stumbles and Wobbles
One of the great benefits of my yoga practice is that it is a continual reminder that what my “best” is on any given day will likely not be what it was yesterday or last month or five years ago or five years into the future. Like the stock market, it fluctuates from day to day.
Since achieving the pincha mayurasana experience described earlier, I have been unable to reproduce it. However, every time I work on the pose, I learn something about my mind and body during the process. It has been another reminder to let go of expectation and enjoy the process of doing the pose and being in my body. One time recently I flipped over not once, but twice. And the good news is that nothing bad happened other than a bruised ego. That I am learning how to fall out of the pose is perhaps more important than doing the pose like it looks on the cover of Yoga Journal.
The same is true of our experiences as actuaries. My efforts to learn the nuances of natural catastrophe models went through many trials and tribulations. Just when I thought I understood what was driving the results, either the model or the in-force characteristics would change significantly, and I would be back to square one. Attempts to craft a risk limit definition for natural catastrophe risk went through numerous revisions before being presented to the board.
Unsuccessful attempts at mastering a new coding language, building an in-house reserve system, or designing a new retirement savings product are still attempts. And all attempts offer the opportunity for learning and incorporating lessons into future attempts. Real growth comes from working through doubt, not denying it or fighting it. The doubt is telling each of us that there is work to do and that one needs to be fully present to justify removing it. The key is not to let doubt result in discouragement that leads to giving up altogether.
Risk Manage Your Growth
In the yoga world, I frequently speak of risk managing certain intimidating asanas. There is nothing wrong with using a block, blanket, bolster, strap, or wall for assistance and support. They can be a bridge to exploring a pose and understanding what the body needs to do. They can reduce and even remove fear in attempting to go upside down, which can be a scary proposition for even seasoned yogis.
Similarly, one’s actuarial practice can grow with the use of a variety of aids. I find myself frequently searching online for solutions to things I’m unsure how to do in Excel or how to automate using Visual Basic. And there is no shortage of in-person seminars and online webinars on specific practice areas, whether it is incorporating artificial intelligence into actuarial processes, improving one’s understanding of the risks of climate change on different aspects of an insurer’s operations, or getting a refresher on professional ethics with interesting and timely examples.
As mentioned previously, knowing how to fall, both literally and figuratively, is highly important. One of the differences between professional golfers and Sunday hackers like me is that the pros know where to miss. They accept the reality that they are not machines who are going to put the ball exactly where they want every time. Therefore, they set up so that if they miss, it will result in the least damage to their score.
Actuarial practitioners can do this as well by sensitivity testing assumptions and determining which ones are most critical to success, understanding which side of inaccuracy is not fatal. This can extend beyond assumptions to new processes themselves, by running old and new in parallel for a period.
For challenging organizational change initiatives such as model risk management, it may be worth the expense to utilize consultants for the initial phase to get the project off the ground and gain learnings on what can go wrong. And practitioners are always encouraged to consult the appropriate Actuarial Standards of Practice (ASOPs) as well as the Code of Professional Conduct when in doubt about what needs to be considered in an actuarial engagement.
Weaning Away from the Support
One of the most difficult judgments to make is when and how to reduce the level of support. In yoga, this can be done by removing or lowering the setting of a prop or moving gradually further away from a wall. This can reintroduce all the fears and doubts that led to their use in the first place. The more gradually support can be removed, the more likely the doubts will not overwhelm the mind. But at some point, there has to be faith in one’s capabilities and acceptance that perfection is not the point of the exercise.
For actuaries, that parallel process or consulting team will need to move on for professional and organizational growth to continue. There will be an adjustment period where the mindset needs to be one of patience and grace that allows for unexpected issues and mistakes to occur and be worked through. Over time, the new process will become more seamless and organizational confidence in it will grow, reducing the temptation to re-engage with the support. Previous dependence on guidance from a particular ASOP will become internalized.
Reflect on Past Achievements
The pain of past failure and disappointment can drive future success if used to provide valuable lessons in going forward. Loss aversion and fear of missing out are powerful behavioral forces that can drive positive actions. However, when taken to extremes, they can also be psychologically paralyzing and debilitating. They need to be balanced with positive messaging of one’s previous growth and achievements, which serve as a useful reminder of what can be as opposed to what cannot.
Actuaries can focus on past exams passed, skills learned on the job, or past successful projects completed. Positive feedback from past supervisors can be recalled and reflected upon to further expand the narrative of one’s capabilities and strengths. An important caveat is to be candid and not exaggerate one’s abilities.
Meditating on the strength that one already has can therefore be used as a springboard for taking on future challenges. By remembering how much one has already accomplished, the seeds of doubt can be managed and worked through while acknowledging the challenge of doing something new. Knowing that one also has the capability to properly assess and manage the risks and the wisdom to work with the proper level of support further burnishes the belief necessary to move forward.
We are all stronger and more capable than we know.
Statements of fact and opinions expressed herein are those of the individual authors and are not necessarily those of the Society of Actuaries, the editors, or the respective authors’ employers.
Rich Lauria, FSA, CFA, is associate director and lecturer in the Enterprise Risk Management program at Columbia University in New York City. He can be reached at rl2764@columbia.edu or via LinkedIn.
Endnotes
[1] The first 22 installments in the Zen Actuary series were published in the November 2013 through November 2024 issues of The Stepping Stone, available online at www.SOA.org/ld.