Why do I trade? The focus for me is the grander vision, not attempting to attain all the world's money. THIS is what allows me to run a simple and successful trading strategy year after year after year. I have not changed one thing about how I trade in many years. The income from trading allows me to feed my grander vision. I have played hockey all my life and still play in the most competitive leagues around. I also coach kid's hockey and that has been great for me. Many of these kids can't afford to do certain things that will benefit them. Trading allows me to dive into these kids' lives and expose them to things most of them could not afford to do on their own. For example, I don't have an i-Pod but could afford one. Instead, I felt much better buying these kids one year family memberships to the fantastic museums in Chicago. Hmm, loud music in my ears or exposing a child to some of the best science, art, and history museums in the world? If I wanted the i-Pod, I would also want the i-Phone, and the i-Car, and the i-life… You see, "IT" never ends and in the trading world, this thought process will drain your account. Instead of buying the latest power computer, my grander vision had me buy the Dr. Seuss series of books for a local school in the area that didn't have a budget for new books. My grander vision is making a difference in the life of children, which will end up making a positive difference in the world. That is what I spend most of my free time doing. This just so happens to also allow a successful trading strategy to run, there is no pressure of better numbers and more dollars.
The next time you have a few minutes and you are about to tweak that trading strategy because your strategy, while profitable, may not be allowing you to really make "IT", understand that "IT" is never "IT". You are likely chasing something that does not exist. You're walking east and west trying to find the North Pole. Instead, open your mind to the possibility of a much grander vision which has nothing to do with trading. In doing this, you may just find that the grander vision is what will finally allow you to execute your successful strategy with disciplined precision for the rest of your life. More importantly, this grander vision is likely where you will find "IT".
What if you are not a consistently profitable market speculator yet? Don't give up! Remember, most of your failures could have been converted into success if you had continued on for a short time longer or made a little more effort. With a positive attitude, you are ready for all the adversity and short-term defeat that leads to success. You see, adversity is really a stepping-stone requirement along the path to success. Without the positive attitude, adversity more often than not leads to failure. When you eliminate failure as an option and remove all escape routes, you will be surprised how fast you figure out how to succeed. What about Thomas Edison? He attempted to create the electric light bulb only to fail 10,000 times. How did he press on with so much failure? That all depends on how you define failure. He viewed each failure as a very positive step in his quest because with each failed attempt, he was eliminating a way NOT to produce the light bulb. The more times he failed, the closer he was to achieving his goal. The same goes for trading. So often, people give up just as they are about to become consistently profitable. The next time you get discouraged because of a few trades that didn't work out, think of Edison's 10,000 bad trades and the success that came from that failure. Next, once you invent your light bulb, make sure you spend your life using it to feed your grander vision, not trying to improve "it".
For those who find "it", please let me know.
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