I’VE BEEN HELPING my 16-year old fill out part time job application forms. With a chilling thud, I realised: “Oh my gosh! I wouldn’t qualify for half of the jobs here!” I can’t build or fix anything. If someone has watched the TV, I can’t get it to switch over to Netflix again (so usually…
MY LITTLE GIRL broke her foot in the final days of school last year. “Keep her still and quiet” said the doctor. Gosh… I almost laughed in his face. My 11-year old has NEVER been still and quiet. What in the heck was I to do? The long summer holidays loomed large. Sure, we did…
This is quite an in depth and technical paper which looks at the way a change in perception or reappraisal of risk/reward alters the performance of participants. From my perspective the most important part of the paper is the following – During the session you will see the word Loss and the word Gain appear…
Deep work is my term for the activity of focusing without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. It describes, in other words, when you’re really locked into doing something hard with your mind…In order for a session to count as deep work there must be zero distractions. Even a quick glance at your phone or…
Traders use all sorts of metaphors to describe trading unfortunately most of them are inappropriate and not truly reflective of the nature of trading. If you are looking for a game that to my mind replicates a lot of the difficulties of trading it is golf. From the perspective of an amateur observer golf seems…
Canadian crypto exchange QuadrigaCX says it cannot repay most of $262 million in client holdings after its founder Gerald Cotten, the only person who knew the passwords to its “cold storage,” unexpectedly died in India in December 2018, Coindesk reported on Friday. In a sworn affidavit with the Nova Scotia Supreme Court, widow Jennifer Robertson…
I have posted this short piece below many years ago and after a few conversations with traders recently I thought it was time to post it again. I have added my emphasis to the final sentence. But, no matter what you do, it will never be perfectly, 100% risk-free to fly. Or to drive, or…
Peak performance happens as a result of trying really hard, and then not trying at all. It’s a paradox. I’ve never met someone who has described a breakthrough performance as effortful or straining or tight. It’s the opposite: when people are at their best—whether it’s on the playing field, in the workplace, or in the artist’s…
“Motivation is crap. Because once you’re in an extreme situation, motivation goes away. Right now it’s 69 degrees outside, it’s sunny, with a little bit of wind. I’ve got a nice TV in front of me. If you were to watch a motivational video in this environment, boy, you’re going to think you’re a badass. You’re…
I snipped this from the Twitter page of Alex Hutchinson the author of Endure which is an excellent read for those looking for something different. The piece in quote marks – “My training will be the same, but my mind will be different” sounds as if it could have almost been written for a trader.…
I snipped the graphic below from Visual Capitalist who produce some interesting infographics. What has always intrigued me about the interpretation of these performance comparisons is that almost everyone gets them wrong. The financial media looks at the fact that commodities overall had negative performance for the year and then carry on about how bad…
There is an old adage that it is not the tool but rather the person which wields that determines ones effectiveness. Let me give you two examples one historical and extreme and the other trading related. In 1941 and early 1942 Japanese aviators crashed their way through the Pacific – superior aviators in a superior…
LB and I are in the process of going through a series of trading plans and I found the chart below in one of the back and forth bits of communication we have been having with a mentoree. I have always been fascinated by growth curves of various sorts I suppose it comes from a…
If, like many, you are searching for your calling in life – perhaps you are still unsure which profession aligns with what you most care about – here are five recent research findings worth taking into consideration. More here – Big Think
As newborns, we enter the world by inhaling. In leaving, we exhale. (In fact, in many languages the word “exhale” is synonymous with “dying.”) Breathing is so central to life that it is no wonder humankind long ago noted its value not only to survival but to the functioning of the body and mind and…
