Iâm probably wrong, but somehow I feel like we have all been here before. Darn, I just canât quite put my finger on it... Let me see if I have this correct, you and your wife, both having MBAâs, moved out of the big house into a three-bedroom apartment with your two teenage girls. How am I doing so far? And this is the point in the story where I just run into a dead end. On top of that, I have an overwhelming desire for a manly cry, and a Subway sandwich...hmmm I just canât quite put my finger on it â maybe someone else can fill in the rest...
Lundy, I have to ask: didn't you know something was wrong before you got in so deep. I mean, I've lost a bundle, but I knew that I needed to stop and rethink when I was down 25000, (which I did) and it really hit me hard at 50,000 (that's when I stopped and paper trade for about four months till I got something working again). I just can't imagine losing as much as you say you lost. I'm not rubbing it in by no means, but there just seems to be something majorly wrong with what you're saying.
Lundy, You mean to tell me someone lent you $2M to trade and you blew it in very short time and it "wasnt a business, just word of honor". Huh???? What am I missing? This just doesn't seem plausible. Are you a rich kid with lots of rich friends who'll give you $2M to blow? pk3147
so funny it had to be re-posted. (apologies) LOL: "Night of self doubt Went to bed early. Woke up wide awake at 1am. Had lots of thoughts running through my head. How did I get here? Could I have done anything to avoid being laid off? About the old job....why didn't I notice there were no 50 year old guys that weren't execs working there? How can a guy be unemployable in the corporate world at 40? Will I be living in a cardboard box at 70? How could I have been a nice guy for so many years? If I had saved more and invested in the early 90's, I could've been retired by now. Replayed some moments in my life. Like the week after I was laid off and my mother-in-law came to visit. Overheard her whispering to my wife in the kitchen, "...see? I told you he'd never make it in business...". Nevermind the calls to my 80 something year old mom, "you're lazy...go sell cars or something". Yeah, working on a car company strategy to increase market share 1% has alot to do with "Mrs. Jones, how about this nice white car with this synthetic leather interior? We'll throw in the fuzzy dice for your son, Clyde". Also replayed times when I helped others like my older sister when her and her husbands farm was in trouble. Paid her monthly bills for over a year and put her oldest kid through college. Now? She's afraid I'll ask for money, so she screens my calls and sends them to her answering machine. Haven't spoken to her in over a year. Or about the time I helped my other sister during her ugly divorce. Took a week off from work to stay with her while her locks were changed and a security system was installed. Payed off all her credit card bills and sent her checks monthly to help her out. After the settlement and her house was sold she went out and built a new house and furnished it with new stuff. Never repaid me for anything. Now? I call for moral support and she tells me I'm bringing her down. "Please don't call anymore".... and she's a Psychologist! Also had the feeling that I'm missing something in my trading approach. "It can't be this easy, because if it was, everybody would be doing it". Can't help but think I must be curvefitting the data to my needs and fooling myself. The data is probably completely random and all the work I've done will fall apart any day now. Somehow, I've been mining fools gold (paperprofits). The real stuff will never end up in my pocket. Also realized that all my preparation was really a way of putting off doing the real thing. If I never trade with REAL money I'll always be a winner....nothing put on the line....no feelings of stupidity to confont if I lose. After a few hours of this, I went in the bathroom and covered my face with a towel. Had a non-manly cry. I know this is all psychological. When I'm fully awake I don't give these thoughts any time to take root. Hopefully, after I'm trading live...they'll subside or go away completely. I wish I could just flip the "off" switch in my brain. Sometimes I think way too much. Thanks for listening....I guess this is just part of the journey...."
Wow, I could not imagine what that kind of stress would be like .. and in the toughest psychological game of all - trading .. where any flaws in your self esteem will doom you before you start. You need to clear your conscious first, perhaps by coming out and telling your friend straight up and seriously what the trading situation. With luck, that will relieve the burden on your mind to some degree where you can actually focus on making proper trading decisions. Don't even think about trading money until you have manually papertraded and proven to yourself and your friend that you have a working system. Quite simply, if you are unable to have the discipline to paper/simulate trade a very steady profit .. you have no business trading.
maybe you should honor yourself enough to pay the money back to the person you "stole" (deceive is such a polite word) it from first? or at least get on a payment plan. i'd imagine it is going to be very hard to go forward dragging all that self-loathing with you.
you need to get the piss beat out of you from the guy who gave you 25k.....the guy who gave you 2m probably cant......but either way, I say you go and spend a year working at a car wash and get back to earth, because your somwhere else now.