Hello Traders.
We have T-Model trader back with his 19th blog post for Decisive Trading. A great way to sign off the week.
I hope you all have a great weekend.
James Orr
Silly what?
I was 11 years
old at the time and playing in a school cricket final. I can’t remember the
technical cricket term for the position that I was fielding in when the
following took place, however I believe that it begins with the word “silly”,
which really explain lots.
The kid batting
at the time was smacking us all over the field and in later years he went on to
become an elite cricket player at national level. At that age it was obvious to
all that he played at an entirely different level to everyone else.
What I do recall
is that I would be the bunny in the cross hairs to the batters natural swing
and strength from an anatomical perspective of hitting the ball. In my usual
dreamy state, I was captivated more by the magnificently beautiful trees
gracefully bending to the forces of the wind, than to what I was there to do.
To this day, so
many years later, I could have well proven that divine intervention exists
given that at the last half second before the need for extensive facial reconstruction
was about to begin, I turned my focus back to the game to see a cricket ball moving
at supersonic speed honing in on my nose.
I threw my hands
up in what only could be called pure survival reactions, caught the ball and
the competition champ was back in the sheds. I was mobbed by my fellow team
mates (they were all sooooooooo competitive) and we went on to win the final due
to that one catch. I was given the player of the game award….yes…for that one
significant and game changing catch.
As I was handed
my award medal in front of the school at the morning assembly later that week,
all I could think about was that I was so close to being hospitalized and
breathing through a tube in my neck as I no longer possessed a functional face.
I do recall our
team coach rabbiting on about my extraordinary reflexes and what an amazing
catch it was. How could I say to them that it was only ever about not dying
then and there on a cricket field and nothing to do with winning the game.
The above story
popped into mind whilst out and about on one of the several “Traders walks”
that I have been having of recent times. Given that I hadn’t thought about that
day for what is decades, I was intrigued as to why it was now stuck in my mind.
I was thinking
about this story as I began to set up the charts last Friday afternoon for the
trading evening ahead. Given my major trading whoopee the previous Friday, I
was feeling a heightened sense of alertness to any “I have already switched off
for the weekend” sort of mind set. Even so, I was still nervous about just
dreaming off like in that game and short circuiting the needed discipline.
As I sat there
self-monitoring my trading thoughts, I got wondering as to why this impromptu
trading dysfunction had seemingly reemerged again. I thought about the Friday
evening “I am having a party in my head” notion and consider it an aspect
worthy of note, but certainly not the whole picture. Although my impatience
does add to it, I don’t believe that that is the root of this issue either.
So on yet another
long ponderous walk I just kept asking the question over and over…. “What
triggers this”?
In what feels
like a “Six degrees of separation” plot, I believe another part of this riddle has
shown up.
On so many
occasions now, I have watched a review video the following morning to find that
I had just missed out on a trade only moments after I had switched off the
computer the previous evening. I try to have a least an hour away from the
computer before heading off to bed, otherwise my brain is so wired from the
screen concentration and I can’t get to sleep. So depending how I am feeling in
the evening, I may only get the first few hours of the market.
It was while
watching a review video last week and seeing that I missed a really nice entry
by only 10 minutes the previous evening, that I caught a glimpse of my
emotional response in action. I felt this really strong sense of “I had missed
again”. This is what was most interesting in this respect. It wasn’t an “Oh
that was a nice set up”….or the likes….but one of feeling like the ship had
sailed without me…..again….and felt like the only kid in the class having not
been invited to the party.
It was at this
point I realized that in all the time watching the review videos, I have seen
repeatedly so many trades that I wasn’t there for. In that quietly tricky way
that the unconscious works, I have been stuffing those so called missed trades
into my “I will never make it as a trader” cupboard to fester along with the
multitude of other reasons that “I will never make it as a trader” that are also
in need of dismantling.
However, over the
last month I missed out on a few trades due to that annoying biological need
called sleep, which in turn it appears is when those haphazard trading gremlins
get grumpy and restless.
Yes there is
impatience. Yes there is a need to be careful on Friday evenings. There is
though, one more potent factor in all this which is that emotional quality of
being “left out”.
So I took this
new thought out onto the foreshore pathway to give it a good going over within
me. Without going into endless detail and leaving you all a sobbing mess with
overly emotional tales of woe, this is what I have come to understand in a
condensed version.
I was never good
at sports with absolutely no hand eye coordination at all, which makes that
catch in more amazing. I always felt “left out” in this regard, often watching
the game from the sidelines. It isn’t that I wanted to be a sporting star,
however at that age, simply just being a part of the whole shebang was
important.
This is why that
story has popped up. Beyond saving my face, that catch allowed me to be a part
of something for a brief moment or so. And it felt good.
So when I see
these missed trades, it is that same sense of not being a part of those who are
getting them and just reinforces that outsider aspect again. To overcome this
sense, then the unconscious patterning will do what it needs to do in order to
not feel that way. This patterning will grasp at anything in order to avoid that
feeling within. Given that I am trading, then the obvious thing to be doing…..
is to be in a trade. The subconscious doesn’t really care about trading
plans….it has other priorities to fill.
It just appears
that trading is the perfect medium in which to challenge this pattern for me.
Don’t you just
love being human….hahahahaha
T-model
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