As I can speak for myself: At the point I started to be honest to myself in every aspect of life - that was when I started to really like myself. In my opinion this goes way beyond trading - it's life and the search for happines. I see that most people around me have unrealistic believes in what happiness is. Surprisingly many people connect their goal in happiness with materialistic elements. Look at the eyes some guys make when a Porsche or a Ferarri drives by... I never understood that. Right now I privately train some people in trading and the first hour we sat together and I started to explain them the markets the first question they asked is how and how much one could win in what period of time. I questioned them what they expect from trading and they answered they want to become rich.. very rich. To become rich as a goal is ok. After a while talking I found quickly out that they connect happiness in life to materialistic posession - money. What I have done in the first time which I spend with them was helping them to adjust their believes in what happiness really is. happiness: every person has to define it for themselfes. But to figure out what really makes you happy you must be honest to yourself and you must have people around you, that you can be honest with. For me happiness consists out of wonderful people I can spend time together... Give love to someone and beloved in return. To do things that are fascinationg! in my case trading (and every aspect of trading) and martial arts. And the final element for me is modesty. As far my experience is in trading to be able to handle profit and loss on the emotional side is much easier if you can be honest with yourself and know what you "REALLY" want. When I started out trading this was my biggest hurddle to pass.. and sometimes it still is hard but I have developed methologies that help me handle my ego in difficult situations. wow.. I just wanted to give a short reply.. now I have written little more
Well, perhaps this will show how people pretend to be all that on ET for purely psychological reasons. It's kind of amazing to me how one would deliberately build a facade on this virtual message board just to satisfy his ego. Very perverted. But anyhow, you've hit the bottom lundy. The bottom of the alcoholic or drug addict is very similar. You're getting out of the denial. I'm just starting to get a little respect back for you, prolly just as you are. It's hard to lose your money, but it absolutely kills you to lose other people's money. It kills you emotionally and psycholigcally in every way. Especially when the people whose money you lost are/were close to you. Unfortunately, I've had an experience with that first hand, so I know. Lundy if you were an insitutional trader, you'd end up in prison like Leeson, or recently that guy from Irish Alliance Bank or whatever.
Good thread Lundy! great posts. Mentioned this sometime ago, it may apply here too: Most of the good traders understand that their self worth is not identified or defined by their net worth. Pride should not be a part of the trading equation. For most of us we live in a country that is the symbol of capitalism, material possessions take high priority from a very young age. As a society we seem to value quantity over quality. Consumerism, marketing, the more the better etc, is being programmed into population from early age. We seem to equate who we are by what and how many cars we drive, how many vacation houses we have, how many digits our asset statement shows at the bottom. On top of it, trading attracts many people who are driven, go getters, ppl who want to control their destiny generally type A individuals. And yet with trading, some of the exact opposite beliefs and qualities seem more necessary in order for one to successful at it. The market doesn't know who we are and doesn't care. Just streams of numbers. How we interpret them and act on them is only a reflection of how well centered we are. It's simple but not as easy at it seems. Josh
Caught your journal in passing tonight, Lundy. I must say that you've got me thinking about old nightmares. I started in the first part of 2000, felt like I was 10' tall and bullet proof. Everything I traded just seemed to be a winner. I was going around giving stock tips to everybody, why I even had people calling me on the phone and I gave 'em tips. Said I'd missed my calling-- should've been a broker. Needless to say, I got cut down to size, and I finally realized I sucked after I lost 60K. (duh) I went around moping all the time. I couldn't sleep, and my wife would gauge me all the time and remind me how it was my fault--oh the guilt. And I know some people got burnt on my tips-- that's a given 'cus nobody calls or asks for tips anymore. Didn't mean to spill that much. Anyway, thanks for being honest. Can't wait for part two.
alain wrote: I've heard it said a couple of times that happiness can be defined as: having someone to love having something to do having something to look forward to This pretty much sums up what you wrote above, except for the aspect of modesty which I'm glad to see you have added. Richard
So here I am, 23 years old, and I just lost 25k of a friends money. This is by the way, alot more money than I had ever dealt with in my life. I was scared, and I didn't want to accept failure. But above all, I was concerned with what other people would think of me as a failure. I thought that however people thought of me, that was who I was. (grammar?) So I made a big mistake, I entered another partnership with another friend without letting either partner know that I just lost 25k. The second partnership was formed based on lies. Of course the whole time, I was feeling more and more confident, because I was getting more experience, coming up with new and better techniques, and I was getting more money to gamble with. This was like a high. So my new partner gave me some money, and I told him I'd give him back 100% a month. (WHAT WAS I THINKING?) I had been studying the emini futures, and I figured I could make 5% a day and compound it. Needless to say, I lost the money. But I didn't tell him. And he kept giving me more and more money, up to 1 million dollars. Then when the profit projections started getting outrageous, he wanted some. He wanted his money and all the profit it had accumulated. I tried to buy time, but it only worked for so long, then came the first breakdown. I admitted I lost the money, but I didn't tell him the truth about being a loser before we started. I led him to think it was bad luck. Based on this misinformation, he decided to give it another go. Again, I lost the money. To make a long story short, I eventually owned up to him and the first partner, as I am to you, and find myself 2 million dollars in debt, unsure of who I am and what I want out of life, and questioning everything I have ever done in the past to find answers, so that I may make changes to be who I want to be, and not a shadow of what others think I am. That was a long sentence. But thats how life feels. I have misused trust, and used others for my own ends. Now that the whole story is out, I find myself in a reality I never faced in the past. "Who am I?" I also find myself in the unique position of being open to change. Changes that I never even thought about. Hell, I thought I was mister perfect. Or actually, I thought I had everyone fooled into thinking I was Mister perfect. My whole life I tried to pretend. Even though I knew I was a stinkin liar, a weakling, a cheater, a selfish guy - I didn't care. As long as I had respect from others, i was ok with my rotten self. Then one day, I was unable to prove myself. Unable to make money in the markets. Thats when I found out that when money is involved, lies turn black. Now that the real me has been exposed, I know it's time to stop pretending, time to change and be a real person.
With all that said, I'm still looking at a vocation centered around trading. Either developing software or actual trading is what I plan on doing.