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Time to Give Up


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Time to Give Up

  #151 (permalink)
 
kronie's Avatar
 kronie 
NYC + NY / USA
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: "I trade, therefore, I AM!"; Theme Song: "Atomic Dog!"
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Cloudy View Post
I saw that video kind of recently. Just nitpicking although I'm sure it's the same idea possibly to many others, but I could never relate to the word "grit" like from that movie and remake "true grit". Preserverance and Willpower are two other words of a similar vein but they imply having to sustain their meanings. And how long can one sustain something difficult to do and call it "grit", "preserverance" or "willpower"?

just off the title alone,


this / these are the things that are taught in the better colleges, and B schools, where you have to scratch together a pile of (sand), plant your flag, and then sell it like it were 105% pure gold...


now that's grit!

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  #152 (permalink)
 olobay 
Montreal
 
Experience: Intermediate
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The Most Important Question You Can Ask Yourself Today | Mark Manson


Quoting 
Everybody wants what feels good. Everyone wants to live a care-free, happy and easy life, to fall in love and have amazing sex and relationships, to look perfect and make money and be popular and well-respected and admired and a total baller to the point that people part like the Red Sea when you walk into the room.

Everybody wants that -- it's easy to want that.

If I ask you, "What do you want out of life?" and you say something like, "I want to be happy and have a great family and a job I like," it's so ubiquitous that it doesn't even mean anything.

Everyone wants that. So what's the point?

What's more interesting to me is what pain do you want? What are you willing to struggle for? Because that seems to be a greater determinant of how our lives end up.

Everybody wants to have an amazing job and financial independence -- but not everyone is willing to suffer through 60-hour work weeks, long commutes, obnoxious paperwork, to navigate arbitrary corporate hierarchies and the blasé confines of an infinite cubicle hell. People want to be rich without the risk, with the delayed gratification necessary to accumulate wealth.

Everybody wants to have great sex and an awesome relationship -- but not everyone is willing to go through the tough communication, the awkward silences, the hurt feelings and the emotional psychodrama to get there. And so they settle. They settle and wonder "What if?" for years and years and until the question morphs from "What if?" into "What for?" And when the lawyers go home and the alimony check is in the mail they say, "What was it all for?" If not for their lowered standards and expectations for themselves 20 years prior, then what for?

Because happiness requires struggle. You can only avoid pain for so long before it comes roaring back to life.

At the core of all human behavior, the good feelings we all want are more or less the same. Therefore what we get out of life is not determined by the good feelings we desire but by what bad feelings we're willing to sustain.

"Nothing good in life comes easy," we've been told that a hundred times before. The good things in life we accomplish are defined by where we enjoy the suffering, where we enjoy the struggle.

People want an amazing physique. But you don't end up with one unless you legitimately love the pain and physical stress that comes with living inside a gym for hour upon hour, unless you love calculating and calibrating the food you eat, planning your life out in tiny plate-sized portions.

People want to start their own business or become financially independent. But you don't end up a successful entrepreneur unless you find a way to love the risk, the uncertainty, the repeated failures, and working insane hours on something you have no idea whether will be successful or not. Some people are wired for that sort of pain, and those are the ones who succeed.

People want a boyfriend or girlfriend. But you don't end up attracting amazing people without loving the emotional turbulence that comes with weathering rejections, building the sexual tension that never gets released, and staring blankly at a phone that never rings. It's part of the game of love. You can't win if you don't play.

What determines your success is "What pain do you want to sustain?"

I wrote in an article last week that I've always loved the idea of being a surfer, yet I've never made consistent effort to surf regularly. Truth is: I don't enjoy the pain that comes with paddling until my arms go numb and having water shot up my nose repeatedly. It's not for me. The cost outweighs the benefit. And that's fine.

On the other hand, I am willing to live out of a suitcase for months on end, to stammer around in a foreign language for hours with people who speak no English to try and buy a cell phone, to get lost in new cities over and over and over again. Because that's the sort of pain and stress I enjoy sustaining. That's where my passion lies, not just in the pleasures, but in the stress and pain.

There's a lot of self development advice out there that says, "You've just got to want it enough!"

That's only partly true. Everybody wants something. And everybody wants something badly enough. They just aren't being honest with themselves about what they actually want that bad.

If you want the benefits of something in life, you have to also want the costs. If you want the six pack, you have to want the sweat, the soreness, the early mornings, and the hunger pangs. If you want the yacht, you have to also want the late nights, the risky business moves, and the possibility of pissing off a person or ten.

If you find yourself wanting something month after month, year after year, yet nothing happens and you never come any closer to it, then maybe what you actually want is a fantasy, an idealization, an image and a false promise. Maybe you don't actually want it at all.

So I ask you, "How are you willing to suffer?"

Because you have to choose something. You can't have a pain-free life. It can't all be roses and unicorns.

Choose how you are willing to suffer.

Because that's the hard question that matters. Pleasure is an easy question. And pretty much all of us have the same answer.

The more interesting question is the pain. What is the pain that you want to sustain?

Because that answer will actually get you somewhere. It's the question that can change your life. It's what makes me me and you you. It's what defines us and separates us and ultimately brings us together.

So what's it going to be?


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  #153 (permalink)
Jvvv
Chicago
 
Posts: 7 since Jan 2014
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From BigMike: "willpower alone is not enough to make you profitable."

No truer words have been said.......

Trading is like poker, the cards read. It's pretty easy to keep score.

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  #154 (permalink)
jaytrades
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Posts: 80 since Jun 2011
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pain and suffering to achieve a goal is a lot easier when you're too young to realize that you are in pain and suffering. And the brain plasticity helps as well as the fact that there is less pressure to be an adult and pay bills. Approaching the goals and the learning as play also takes off the edge of suffering for a new goal. How hard must it be for an adult to learn to read and write. I'm assuming just as hard as it was for me as an adult to try to read music, takes years, and I still barely can.

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  #155 (permalink)
wiztrader
Los Angeles, CA USA
 
Posts: 3 since Jan 2014
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I was ready to give up at one point (about six month ago), but than I got the tutorial "why traders lose" by market geeks, it really helped me to put my reaction to trading losses in perspective.
So many things that I was doing wrong were exactly as he (market geeks guy) said in his tutorial, its like he was talking about me!
I took a while to digest it but afterwards I tried to change some of my negative feelings about my losses and had the guts to try again.
It is working, at least for now!

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  #156 (permalink)
kriedd
spokane, wa
 
Posts: 38 since Jan 2014
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I've struggled for many years and have considered quitting. I have now decided to stick with the simulator until I can at least be consistent for a few months.

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  #157 (permalink)
 
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 COTtrader 
JACKSON, MICHIGAN
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If one makes the same mistake(s) and simply redoubles their effort, they will only dig themselves deeper into the pit of despair. Hard work is useless if your game plan is hardly working.

The first time I wrote a set of rules for my trading plan was 12 years ago when I traded FX. I wrote and wrote and wrote. Endless were the plans but never satisfied I continued to write. When I thought I found a plan that would work, it would only last for a couple of days when I realized I had misjudged my rule-based trading plan.

Having spent good money on having my junk coded over the years, I actually began to learn what worked and what did not work FOR ME. Systems abound and probably would work given time and discipline. But I could not and would not be satisfied until I understood myself as a trader - my style of trading, defined risk, preferred market, chart-style(s) and time frames, platform and IB. Indicators, no indicators. Blackbox, greybox or discretionary trading.

Time spent writing all those apparently useless trading plans were not useless after all. I wrote my own book, produced my own lab reports and learned why I now trade the way I do.

I am always interested in a checking out a "new" indicator but alas, I only trade with one. After all those years, a lot of of "educational expense" I discovered what finally works FOR ME.

Numerous, too many to count, were those times I felt like quitting and not writing another trade scenario then endless hours attempting to perfect it only to be disappointed, again. Yet, I did not quit because I love trading. However, getting away from the game for a day or two helps balance my thinking and presents new trade ideas as the mind cogitates.

Is this an addiction? I suppose anything you really enjoy can become that. Gambling can become an addiction or anything for that matter if you allow yourself to fantasize to the point of always needing it as an escape from reality. Trading is that for some. A sober mind does not allow a trader to fantasize about what has not yet happened. On the other hand, the thought of being financially independent can reignite one out of despondency and doubt.

I can report that my trading plan to date has been in development over the last 3 years as I have stuck with it. It is profitable and increasing with profitability as I have stuck with it. In fact, I am continually amazed at how much trading information I can get from one indicator. No, I can not share that indicator because it has taken 3 years to develop it.

In those early years, thoughts of giving up were common, especially when I lost money and accounts. During those times, I would just re-determine and recommit to the task at hand. It truly was do or die, at least it felt that way at times. Strange to hear someone talk that way but not if you have walked the way of most traders.

Begrudge quitting if you must!

Ken

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  #158 (permalink)
 mabr0408 
Minneapolis, MN
 
Experience: Advanced
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Ken,

Question for you: did the shoes Micheal Jordan wore truly make him jump higher? Did Tiger win all his majors because of the equipment he played with? talk about how indicators hold some type of "secret" is laughable.

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  #159 (permalink)
 
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 matevisky 
Nelson, New Zealand
 
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mabr0408 View Post
Ken,

Question for you: did the shoes Micheal Jordan wore truly make him jump higher? Did Tiger win all his majors because of the equipment he played with? talk about how indicators hold some type of "secret" is laughable.

I do not agree with the example. MJ shoes helps him to make better performance, with shity equipment Tiger would not won major games, that is for sure. Ofc you have to be responsible for selecting indicators, putting trades on the table, and you have to agree on this, and believing some "secret" about that the indicators going to win your trades without your supervisoring is make no sense...

Máté
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  #160 (permalink)
 mabr0408 
Minneapolis, MN
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: Market Delta, Think or Swim
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matevisky View Post
I do not agree with the example. MJ shoes helps him to make better performance, with shity equipment Tiger would not won major games, that is for sure. Ofc you have to be responsible for selecting indicators, putting trades on the table, and you have to agree on this, and believing some "secret" about that the indicators going to win your trades without your supervisoring is make no sense...

what differentiates MJ's shoes vs his defenders shoes? little to nothing. same thing with indicators. you should be able to trade without them. understanding of context *knowing which participants control the market* is everything.

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