This week, Josh Brown on his blog at The Reformed Broker came out with two posts that I really liked and think are really important messages. Both themes are two that I myself live by:
Both themes or practices are applicable in many a…
This week, Josh Brown on his blog at The Reformed Broker came out with two posts that I really liked and think are really important messages. Both themes are two that I myself live by:
Both themes or practices are applicable in many areas of life. In our professions, athletics, the arts, writing blogs, taking trades and making investment decisions.
All of us have been faced in life with trials and tribulations where someone thought they were better than us. We have all experienced initial failure of some kind. What Josh wrote really solidified something I have tried to do all my life…
“Rather than respond, go back to the lab. Make progress, a little bit every day. Chip away. Do your work in the background, off to the side, in the dark where no one else can see how slow and incremental that progress is.
Build things, arrange things, put things together, make things happen, set things up, acquire resources and allies. Long-term, strategic progress. Dig a moat around what you’re doing so it can’t be repeated. And when you know you have a lead, that’s when you really start pushing.
Outlast the sonofabitch. Do the things they won’t. For a length of time that they wouldn’t.”
I underlined my favorite part of that piece. I read it over and over. My willingness to outwork people or to “show them” I am every bit as good at them has gotten me opportunities I wouldn’t have had if I had given up. Think about that the next time something seems too difficult, or someone seems so much better than you.
This week a Twitter follower contacted me due to a large trading loss his account took recently. He commented that he messed up big and lost a big portion of his trading capital. He wasn’t sure if he should continue to pursue trading because of this “failure.”
I set him straight. I’m here for that kind of thing. For free, at least for now while I have the time to do it. I pointed him toward a chapter in one of the Market Wizards books that interviews some of the best traders who ever lived. That chapter details how each one of them lost big in the beginning. Early failure is in no way indicative of future successes. In fact, in trading I would argue it HAS to happen. Maybe more than once. It wasn’t until I felt the pressure of losing two accounts myself (one that was gifted to me by a former floor trader who had been there) that I learned proper risk management.
Then I pointed him to Josh’s Get The Reps In piece. Hundreds and then thousands of trading reps got me to where I am. I didn’t consistently turn trading profits until I failed. Over and over I failed. Why? Cause this shit is really fucking hard, that’s why.
Any one who really trades will tell you how hard it is. Except maybe those Instagram traders who have beach side condos and gold Rolexes and $400 haircuts. It’s easy for them apparently. 🙂
Point is, don’t let any one tell you what you can’t do.
Outlast the sonsabitches.
OC