Hello Traders.
I hope you've all had a great trading week.
T-Model Trader is back with his 7th blog post in our beginner trader series. As always, I hope you enjoy it and can take something from it that will help you on your own journey.
For me, I enjoyed this one simply for its reference to a WW2 experience. Sometimes we really do forget how lucky we are.
James Orr
DT Blog 7
I was out having
a walk, watching the sunset on a cloudless clear evening when Bill came to
mind. What followed was rather intriguing I thought. So, I would like to tell
you all about him and the thought.
He was my neighbor
some years ago and would have been in his early 80’s when I got to know him.
Before the war, Bill was a tea blender, to which he continued once it was all
over. So visits to his place were always accompanied by the most extraordinary
pots of tea, flavors of which I can’t even begin to describe.
He was one of the
kindest and most compassionate persons I have ever met. There was something so
lovely and gentle about him. He also happened to be one of England’s most decorated
and successful WW2 spies. If you spend time with him, this fact seems
incredulous. It just doesn’t fit. Interestingly, it is one of those perception
things again.
As I love reading
true life stories and watching movies depicting actual events, I couldn’t
contain my enthusiasm to want to know what he actually did as a spy (wouldn’t
anyone want too)? The great thing was that he had no problem about telling me
his experiences.
Some of stories
were just mind boggling and so hard to put it into a schema of reality. I was really
interested to understand what makes a person want to be a spy and also to what
personality types would be drawn to doing that sort of work. Then one day he
explained about being recruited as a spy.
He told me that
they didn’t really want the “alpha” male type persona. In fact they wanted the
opposite. He said that they recruited him because when asked what he enjoyed
doing, he flippantly replied “watching the clouds drift by”. Perfect and he got
the job.
The thing about
being a spy he explained was that you spend a truly large amount of time just
waiting. The “alpha” types tend to blow their cover because they can’t sit
still long enough. Being a spy is 90% boredom and 10% sheer terror he said.
As Bill explained
to me, that they recruited people who could simply just dream away the day.
Given that you may be in a coffin size room under the floor boards for long
periods of time, being self -contained whilst staying mentally and emotionally
calm was of prime importance.
One of Bill’s
passions was poetry and he could recite long passages at will. He said he could
just go into this inner world and recall verse when having to bunker down for long
periods of time as the means to keep him occupied.
Considering he
survived for nearly 3 years off and on behind enemy lines, then his
self-management skills must have been excellent. He would tell me that after a
while he just developed this ability to wait and wait till the right moment
upon which to fulfill the orders.
I got thinking
about Bill and all that he told me. I have often wondered about Bill’s life as
a spy and to how I would have coped in those situations. He would have his
orders, to which he has to follow. There was no question of doing otherwise.
There was thou, his own discernment and judgment that he could apply. I thought
that this sounded just like a trading plan, but taken to the max. It also
occurred to me given Bill’s general disposition and great patience that he may
have made a damn excellent trader.
One of the things
that truly amazed me over this first year of trading is how intense the emotions
can be regarding losses. Rationally, when I have entered a trade, I know that
it is a probabilities game. This is pretty basic to comprehend. However, when
losses occur, that notion of probability somehow gets swamped by the onset of
feeling.
Bill would often
say that carrying out his duties was a game of probabilities. What I found
extraordinary is that from all that I told me, it appeared that he had accepted
that there was every possibility of being caught and executed. The point here
is that he didn’t just rationally “know” this to be the case, but had somehow
fully accepted this reality at a much deeper level as a possible outcome. It
also appeared to me that this acceptance allowed him to remain relatively calm
and hence safe. By fully accepting the probabilities game, he then allowed
himself the space (or freedom) to then survive.
With this in
mind, he then stated it was his task to be as astute as possible to lessen
those chances. As he kept saying, “It
was a very black and white world and somehow I traversed thru that by staying in
the middle”.
I remember once
saying to him in response to a particular engagement that he had undertaken (it
was more like picking my jaw up off the floor)…. “How did you not just freak
out”? He said that there was no place for the emotions to gain control. Absolutely
none. That was just what you did. That is how you had to be. Allowing oneself
to be emotional from what I had gathered seemed to equate to wanting to choose
death in those situations.
Whilst pondering
Bill’s wartime life, the thought occurred to me that maybe I’m not taking
trading as seriously as I had led myself to believe. If “not” following the
rules was a life and death situation, then I would surely do so. If becoming
emotional was going to get me killed then surely those emotions would be
jettisoned.
The thought that
entered my head was that those who become truly successful at trading have in
their own way crossed over into the zone, that place where commitment to
achieving isn’t a question anymore. It is simply something that you have become,
that has been fully embodied without question or deviation. It is as though it
isn’t even thought about, as it is so much a part of the fabric of who you are.
And like Bill, they will survive (trading) because of this engrained process.
This is what he
was illustrating regarding the “alpha” types who seek to impose upon that
reality. I feel that this is just another way of expressing what I was
referring to in an earlier blog, about having spent the year “trying to not be
a failure’ as opposed to “working to be a success”. In Bill’s case, he just
waited calmly for the right set –up to fall into place. As for the “trying to
not be a failure”, it would be correct to say that my more “alpha” side wants
to make itself known through imposing that willfulness upon the chart, in order
to prove something…to make a statement so to say.
In the “working
to be a success” scenario, it is just the commitment to keep on doing what is
necessary in order to achieve, beyond some sort of arbitrary timeframe. I see
this in Bill’s past work of just waiting and waiting for that right moment. It
was this skill of his that kept him alive for all those years. If I use Bill as
a benchmark, then I have to admit that I have some way to go in my self-
discipline regarding trading. I think I am only now beginning to see how immense
and far ranging this truly is.
Just some
thoughts…….
Till next time…
T-model.
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