Yep, EXACTLY. Right attitude comes from right action comes from right understanding, which is born of knowledge and hard won experience. That is a great little book. p.s. in terms of following your rules, maybe this snippet of thought might help: i visualize ALL my rules as helping the cause of profitability, especially the risk control ones. offense and defense are one and the same because defense enables offense. some traders may view pulling the plug on a losing trade as an admission of defeat or a setback, when in reality following a loss cutting rule actually moves you forward by reducing your costs. if the path doglegs back momentarily, then you must take a few steps backwards in order to move forwards. a penny saved is a penny earned, and so forth. as far as being patient and not taking boredom or garbage trades, I really like what Larry Phillips says about seeing patience as a club that you beat your opponents over the head with. let them waste their energy boxing in the slop, then step in fresh and ready at the perfect moment with all your reserves at hand.
You are right. Realists are not naysayers by default. It has been my experience that in the "real world" more people equate a negative outlook with being "realistic", and a positive one, with being a "dreamer". (not saying that YOU do, btw) The way things "really" are is, unfortunately, quite a subjective matter. I have found very few things that can be stated with absolute certainty and very many that are a matter of opinion (however well argued). Therefore, I think that focusing on the positive feedback is more important than focusing on the negative feedback. Of course, the intellect plays a role in deciding how much weight to place on each item of feedback, and, thefore, even the most positive of people is likely to fuck everything up. Having a positive attitude doesn't mean you smile dumbly while the world passes you by. In fact, given that no matter what your attitude you're likely to fuck everything up many times (in trading and in life), a positive attitude becomes even more important, because it gets you back on your feet to try again. I'd still like to hear your take on "determination". Is it or is it not simply an attitude of mind?
Once I got to the point where I could trade and consistently make more than I lost, the problem became to stick with what worked only and not be upset if a train left without me. No other book worked as well in helping me master the mental aspect of the game and stop the self sabotage.
Good question. Guts, moxie, willpower, sticktoitiveness, toughness...I think these are all different names for essentially the same thing, with determination being as good a name for it as any. I think that determination is a form of natural skill that people possess to varying degrees, like charisma or empathy. It is partly mental, partly emotional, partly intuitive, partly a product of your genes and partly a product of your environment. Like all natural skills, it can be developed if you work at it. Most anyone can lift decent weight if they go to the gym regularly. But only a minority will ever be able to bench 300 pounds. So I guess I would class it with most other human skillsets that have potential for development but also have a natural 'ceiling' based on the individual.
Dark, Out of curiosity, if you found something of value in 'Zen in the Art of Poker' then what was that rant all about on my thread??? PEACE and good trading, Publias
I think eastern thought makes some cool contributions bro, I do. I just think that those contributions need to be kept within their context. Like the blind men and the elephant- the elephant's leg is like a tree stump, but the WHOLE elephant is more than that. The elephant's ear is like a palm frond, but the WHOLE elephant is more than that. And so on. So when we take a small corner of reality and try to expand it too much, we have stumbled. Any good thing or uplifting idea can become incorrect if blown out of its proper orientation or expanded upon too much. Eastern thought can make valuable contributions to our understanding of what life is really like, but just as logic ultimately has its boundaries so do all other things. Buddhism is a perfect example of this. Just as the founding fathers would be horrified if they could see the current state of our government, Siddhartha Gautama would be horrified if he could see all the wacky places people took his simple observations. Trying to maintain a proper ratio of perspective is what I am about.
Dark, I don't really understand??? Are you saying that these concepts cannot be applied to the game of trading??? PEACE Publias
That's bullshit. I can imagine it kills you to admit it, but determination, guts, toughness, are all simply mental states of mind; attitudes. A "natural skill"? Like charisma or empathy? What a joke. You are betraying your total lack of understanding on matters of the mind. Charisma a product of my genes. Sheesh, where do you get this crap from?? Darkhorse, honestly dude, I won't pretend I like or anything, but I'm not saying this to be mean, you truly do not know what you are talking about. Environment plays a role, but to say that it is deterministic of how much of a certain attribute (like charisma, toughness, recklessness) one has is pure bullshit. There is mountains of research that has been done on this stuff, and continues to be done, yet you are painfully ignorant of all of it. As such, it's not worth my time to discuss this any further. My goal was never to convince YOU of anything, but to offer a different point of view on the matter so that someone reading can form a better judgement.
No that's not what he's trying to say. Dark just likes to open up room to sneak his all-powerful gawd in...
Yeah but since Dark is so well versed in Taoism, Buddhism, and Zen/Buddhism surely he understands that they do not affirm or deny the existance of his 'conception' God... Publias