Mental Gymnastics or a Psychological hack.

🧠 “Booked Half, Free Ride Now”: The Dumbest Smart Thing You’ll Ever Do
By Manish Dhawan

I ran an interesting poll on twitter asking the age old mental gymnastic question.

Let’s set the scene.
You bought a stock at ₹100. It doubled to ₹200. You sold half.
You’re now sitting on your desk, legs up, whispering smugly to yourself,

“I’ve taken my capital out. It’s a free ride now.”

Congratulations, you’ve just enrolled in the Mental Gymnastics Olympics.
And guess what? That delusion you just patted yourself for…
is your ticket to compounding heaven.

Yes, it’s not rational.
Yes, academics scoff at it.
Yes, it makes no sense in Excel.

But if your goal is to ride a 100-bagger, this dumb little psychological hack is your only real weapon.

Let me explain.

🧾 First, Let’s Kill the Math

Let’s make this black and white:

• Buy 10 share @ ₹10
• Price hits ₹20
• Sell 5 shares → You recover your ₹100
• Still hold 5 shares worth ₹100

What does this mean?

• Your capital is safe? ✅
• You have no risk? ❌
• You’re playing with the house’s money? ❌
• You now have “freedom” to ride out volatility? ✅✅✅

You haven’t removed risk.
You’ve just transferred it from your wallet to your mind, and dressed it up as courage.

💡 But Here’s the Wild Twist: That Mind Trick Saves You

Every investor says they want 50x.
They say they’d hold Bajaj Finance from ₹50 to ₹7000.
But go ask them what they’d do at 3x.

They’d sell.
And pat themselves on the back for being “disciplined.”

The market doesn’t reward discipline.
The market rewards time and conviction — two things you magically grow once you believe you’re on a “free ride.”

You’ve hacked your brain into holding.
And that’s the real game.

📈 This Is the VC Game, Baby

You think VCs are sitting around with financial models, debating EV/EBITDA on every investment?

Nope.

They know:

• 80% of the bets go nowhere
• 10% return capital
• 1% becomes the next Flipkart

They play the claim check game.
Sprinkle money across possibilities, and hope one becomes a monster.

Your job, dear investor, is the same.
Make many small asymmetric bets — and when one goes vertical,
don’t kill the goose at 3x just because you’re bored.

Let’s get dirty with some numbers:

• You bet on 10 stocks
• You do the “book half after double” move
• 7 fizzle out or flatline
• 1 dies
• 1 becomes 5x
• 1 becomes 100x

The only way you get that 100x compounding magic is by holding your stake long enough.
And to do that, you need mental illusions.

So you tell yourself:

“It’s a free ride.”
And suddenly, you stop checking prices every morning.
You stop itching to sell.
You become… chill.

That illusion keeps you in the game.
That illusion makes you rich.

🎭 Let’s Talk About the Perpectual Claim checks Now

This is the part no one talks about, but it’s my favorite.

Once you’ve booked your capital, and you’re holding your remaining stake…

You now own a piece of a business.
And that business is run by real people — the CEO, CTO, interns, janitor, HR, even the guy who refills the water cooler.

Guess what?

They’re all working for you.

They wake up, solve problems, build products, sell to customers, manage supply chains — all to increase your equity value.

And you paid NOTHING for it.

Your initial stake is out. Your chips are safe.
And yet, the entire company is still grinding…
for your “free” holding.

It’s pure capitalism porn.
You’ve built perpetual claim checks to the future effort of others.
And it feels illegal. But it isn’t. It’s just smart.

🧠 Why Academics Will Never Understand This

They’ll tell you this is wrong.
They’ll say you’re mispricing risk.
They’ll scream “mental accounting!” like it’s a dirty word.

Because they’ve never ridden a 50-bagger.
They’ve never watched a stock fall 40% on a random Friday and resisted the urge to exit.
They’ve never stared at green for 3 years and done… nothing.

They write books on “The Psychology of Money” but don’t have the scars of the ride.

Real investing isn’t taught in B-schools.
It’s learned sitting on your hands while your mind screams to sell.

🥂 The Irony: What Looks Like Weakness Is Actually Strength

Booking half is often ridiculed by purists:

“If you’re so bullish, why not hold the full position?”
Because I’m human, dear spreadsheet zombie.
And the best way I can stay in the game is by giving my lizard brain a bone to chew.

It’s not weakness. It’s tactical survival.
It’s what allows me to stay long enough for compounding to do its evil genius work.

🎯 So Here’s the Final Word:

• Selling half after a double is not dumb — it’s survival psychology
• It protects your downside while keeping your upside open
• It lets you build claim checks on the future of great businesses
• You only need 2 out of 100 to become monsters for your life to change
• And the way to ride those monsters is to trick your own brain into chill mode

So go ahead.
Book half.
Smile.
Call it a free ride.

And then — do nothing for the next 10 years.

Because that’s where the real money is.

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