On Friday, I wrote about continuing to educate oneself in the art and craft of trading. Today, my topic is similar, but the education I write about is directed toward one’s self ….
Long, long ago, when I was in second grade, my friend and I had a competition about who could read the “Freddy The Pig” series of books quicker. I can’t remember how many there were, but there were enough to keep us busy reading for awhile. In any case, the completion was fun, if for no other reason than the books were quite exciting for a second grader. Once one book was done, off I would go to the library to get the next book in the series, and he would do the same. Now I can’t remember who actually won the competition, and it really does not matter (just as it did not matter back then). After we started the competition, the focus moved from competing to reading and talking about the books. We would excitedly chat about the adventures of Freddy the Pig, and we enjoyed it immensely, so much so that I still remember our reading adventure to this day.
That little competition set in motion an intellectual journey for me. I took to heart that reading could be fun, but more importantly, the idea of the competition and reading together fired up a neuron in my brain that has been firing ever since. I still, to this day, always want to know what happens next in so many things, and to get that answer requires learning about the world in general, and, as well, specifically learning about the things that interest me. Trading interests me so I continually want to know “what happens next,” so I am always learning what I can learn. Now here is the twist that takes us back to the point of today’s writing – learning about trading has forced me to educate me about me.
You see, my mind has always pursued things outside of me. Even though I thought I was looking inward, truly, I was only theoretically applying knowledge to myself. Actualization of that knowledge needed to happen, and it wasn’t. Events in my life always forced me back into familiar patterns of behavior that were no different, even though I could talk about this or that relating to changing who I was or how I was behaving. Then along came my foray into trading, and let me tell you, education is two fold in this arena. First, one has to learn the craft, but second, one HAS to learn about who one is, and how one behaves.
Maybe it is a function of age, wisdom and all that, but I am inclined to think it is more basic, perhaps more primal. I believe one has to educate him or her self about who he or she is and how he or she behaves in trading because it is about monetary survival. Yes, one can learn about how to trade, what to trade, when to trade, and on and on, but the figurative trading floor is littered with bodies of folks who knew plenty about trading, but knew little about themselves. When trading, they behaved in ways that were antithetical to what they knew and detrimental to what they wanted to achieve. This is my point today – I have now spent years educating myself about me, and, thus, actualizing changes in my behavior that make me a more solid and consistent trader. My advice to you is that you do the same, because if you don’t, you will spend more time than is necessary cleaning up mistakes you otherwise would not make.
Trade in the day; invest in your life …
