PieterSteidelmayer
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If you trade just to make money, or because you think you can make money by trading, the chances are you will not. If you intend to make enough to buy the yacht and the private tropical island and then retire there, the chances are almost zero that you will do any of these things.
I’ve know a lot of hugely successful traders who made many multiples of their nearest contemporary in a given year, and then they disappear. Some in a blinding flash of losses shortly thereafter or more generally through a gradual regression to mediocrity and finally shameful exit from the arena. I also know a few, far fewer than the hotshot of the year brigade, who have been trading for many years and are rather wealthy and have become so from grinding out steady profits year in, year out with the occasional home run and always, always small losses. The former bunch of bright young things tend to do it for ego, glory, fame, wealth, kudos, hubris. The latter are a quieter bunch. If they do have the yacht and the private tropical island, they don’t use them very much as even if they can trade from them, there’s too much down time getting there and back – to where the action really is. And being away from the action for any length of time feels like living death.
There’s much discussion around whether traders are born or made, or both. But this misses the point. It’s like saying do runners run because they are born to it or learn it. Or why you do Yoga or play golf. Those things we choose to do. People don’t normally do Yoga or play golf with any intent other than to do Yoga or play golf – because they enjoy it, are even passionate about it. That’s the driver – passion. If you get up in the morning and there’s one thing you’d rather be doing than anything else, your passion in life, that’s really what you should be spending your days doing if you have any hope of happiness and possibly even fame and wealth too.
When you’re not involved in doing something you are passionate about there is anger, tension, aggression, misery and failure. There’s a lot of that evident on these boards. I’m sure there’s a lot of that evident in every industry – I’m not singling out trading as the nadir of lost souls, it’s just the one in which most of us are most interested. When you’re engaged in your purpose, your passion in life, there is no effort, no obstacle, no amount of time and effort you don’t willingly spend on the craft. Late nights, weekends, skip holidays forget to eat or sleep. All done without thought or regret. If you’re not feeling that about trading then get out now and find something else to do with your time, and money.
When I am presented with the opportunity to acquire for my team either this year’s hotshot or the less well performing, but steady trader, whom I note has been in the office as late as me most nights or in at weekends or routinely skips lunch – because they love the job, my decision is already made.
So if you’re in it just for the money, save yourself the hassle. If you’re trading because you love it, rather than for what you hope it will give you, then it doesn’t matter what methods, techniques, systems, markets, asset classes and individual instruments you trade or how you trade them, you will eventually find your way- providing you can protect your capital en route.
Nobody could accuse me of being mystical yet there is a passage from Kahlil Gibran’s “The Prophet” which I have committed to memory such is the resonance it has in relation to trading and traders and I have placed it at the end of this post. But for those of challenged attention spans it basically says; If you don’t like what you’re doing as your labor in life, find something else and preferably something you love doing.
You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth.
For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons,
and to step out of life's procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite.
When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music.
Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent, when all else sings together in unison?
Always you have been told that work is a curse and labour a misfortune.
But I say to you that when you work you fulfil a part of earth's furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born,
And in keeping yourself with labour you are in truth loving life,
And to love life through labour is to be intimate with life's inmost secret.
But if you in your pain call birth an affliction and the support of the flesh a curse written upon your brow, then I answer that naught but the sweat of your brow shall wash away that which is written.
You have been told also that life is darkness, and in your weariness you echo what was said by the weary.
And I say that life is indeed darkness save when there is urge,
And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge,
And all knowledge is vain save when there is work,
And all work is empty save when there is love;
And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God.
And what is it to work with love?
It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart,
even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth.
It is to build a house with affection,
even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house.
It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy,
even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit.
It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit,
And to know that all the blessed dead
are standing about you and watching.
Often have I heard you say, as if speaking in sleep, "He who works in marble, and finds the shape of his own soul in the stone, is nobler than he who ploughs the soil.
And he who seizes the rainbow to lay it on a cloth in the likeness of man, is more than he who makes the sandals for our feet."
But I say, not in sleep but in the overwakefulness of noontide, that the wind speaks not more sweetly to the giant oaks than to the least of all the blades of grass;
And he alone is great who turns the voice of the wind into a song made sweeter by his own loving.
Work is love made visible.
And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.
For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man's hunger.
And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distils a poison in the wine.
And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle man's ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.
I’ve know a lot of hugely successful traders who made many multiples of their nearest contemporary in a given year, and then they disappear. Some in a blinding flash of losses shortly thereafter or more generally through a gradual regression to mediocrity and finally shameful exit from the arena. I also know a few, far fewer than the hotshot of the year brigade, who have been trading for many years and are rather wealthy and have become so from grinding out steady profits year in, year out with the occasional home run and always, always small losses. The former bunch of bright young things tend to do it for ego, glory, fame, wealth, kudos, hubris. The latter are a quieter bunch. If they do have the yacht and the private tropical island, they don’t use them very much as even if they can trade from them, there’s too much down time getting there and back – to where the action really is. And being away from the action for any length of time feels like living death.
There’s much discussion around whether traders are born or made, or both. But this misses the point. It’s like saying do runners run because they are born to it or learn it. Or why you do Yoga or play golf. Those things we choose to do. People don’t normally do Yoga or play golf with any intent other than to do Yoga or play golf – because they enjoy it, are even passionate about it. That’s the driver – passion. If you get up in the morning and there’s one thing you’d rather be doing than anything else, your passion in life, that’s really what you should be spending your days doing if you have any hope of happiness and possibly even fame and wealth too.
When you’re not involved in doing something you are passionate about there is anger, tension, aggression, misery and failure. There’s a lot of that evident on these boards. I’m sure there’s a lot of that evident in every industry – I’m not singling out trading as the nadir of lost souls, it’s just the one in which most of us are most interested. When you’re engaged in your purpose, your passion in life, there is no effort, no obstacle, no amount of time and effort you don’t willingly spend on the craft. Late nights, weekends, skip holidays forget to eat or sleep. All done without thought or regret. If you’re not feeling that about trading then get out now and find something else to do with your time, and money.
When I am presented with the opportunity to acquire for my team either this year’s hotshot or the less well performing, but steady trader, whom I note has been in the office as late as me most nights or in at weekends or routinely skips lunch – because they love the job, my decision is already made.
So if you’re in it just for the money, save yourself the hassle. If you’re trading because you love it, rather than for what you hope it will give you, then it doesn’t matter what methods, techniques, systems, markets, asset classes and individual instruments you trade or how you trade them, you will eventually find your way- providing you can protect your capital en route.
Nobody could accuse me of being mystical yet there is a passage from Kahlil Gibran’s “The Prophet” which I have committed to memory such is the resonance it has in relation to trading and traders and I have placed it at the end of this post. But for those of challenged attention spans it basically says; If you don’t like what you’re doing as your labor in life, find something else and preferably something you love doing.
You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth.
For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons,
and to step out of life's procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite.
When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music.
Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent, when all else sings together in unison?
Always you have been told that work is a curse and labour a misfortune.
But I say to you that when you work you fulfil a part of earth's furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born,
And in keeping yourself with labour you are in truth loving life,
And to love life through labour is to be intimate with life's inmost secret.
But if you in your pain call birth an affliction and the support of the flesh a curse written upon your brow, then I answer that naught but the sweat of your brow shall wash away that which is written.
You have been told also that life is darkness, and in your weariness you echo what was said by the weary.
And I say that life is indeed darkness save when there is urge,
And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge,
And all knowledge is vain save when there is work,
And all work is empty save when there is love;
And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God.
And what is it to work with love?
It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart,
even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth.
It is to build a house with affection,
even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house.
It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy,
even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit.
It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit,
And to know that all the blessed dead
are standing about you and watching.
Often have I heard you say, as if speaking in sleep, "He who works in marble, and finds the shape of his own soul in the stone, is nobler than he who ploughs the soil.
And he who seizes the rainbow to lay it on a cloth in the likeness of man, is more than he who makes the sandals for our feet."
But I say, not in sleep but in the overwakefulness of noontide, that the wind speaks not more sweetly to the giant oaks than to the least of all the blades of grass;
And he alone is great who turns the voice of the wind into a song made sweeter by his own loving.
Work is love made visible.
And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.
For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man's hunger.
And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distils a poison in the wine.
And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle man's ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.
