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...it is simply transferred, from one perception to another!
I got this line from the Wall Street movie (part 1, it's a Gordon Gekko line)!
It's a wonderful line that I fell in love with because it represent so much of the reality out there. It is not about greed, it is not about learn how to lose. It is not about losing your account 10 times, in order to make it in the markets. It is not about discipline. It is not about helping others. It is not about following your plan. It is not about having a system. It is not about indicators.
IT IS SIMPLY ABOUT THE TRUTH ON WALL STREET!!!
I started this journey on this forum by telling Mike about the Camel analogy. That one was about survival!
I went in the role as a moderator, in order to leave an impact on my fellow traders by telling them about my discoveries! I didn't manage to live up to the expectations by being a less than expected moderator, and by posting controversial posts.
I promised myself to stop posting because I felt that I have not being honoured for my efforts.
But, I've got a couple of emails from people that have told me that they really liked my posts, and that what I've done for them has been more than every trading book out there has done for them.
This is my attempt to honour back those people !
First of all!
Mike, believes that in order to help yourself you should help other! This is a very honourable line, that has given birth to this forum. I agreed with that line before, and I acted very much upon it's trust.
Today I've learned that we project out there exactly our entire subjective expectation, and that the whole entire reality is pretty much based on our own personal perception! If we feel the need to help other, we do that because we need help ourselves! This line has nothing to do with Mike. This is entirely my own ego! I guess I'm struggling with what I need help with and why I should keep on posting or not!
Anyhow. What I lack at least, in my former psycho section, is the lack of SUCCESS! We have concentrated way to much on the why of things, and not so much on the how of things!I keep reading posts that are amplifying those old "facts" saying that 95% of all traders lose money.
You have to learn how to loose in order to make it out there. You have to have discipline. You have to keep on fighting, and you have to keep on struggling.
Why the hell isn't anyone talking about how to win?!
Why isn't anyone talking about having the right expectations? Why isn't anyone talking about the perception of a winner?
I'll tell you why! Because trading it's an industry based on commission, sold books, sold systems, and ....
If the whole consensus would have been based on how to make people win, then we wouldn't have had any game left. It is somehow built that way.
One of my biggest teachers has been (ironically enough, after ten years of trading) TRO. What did we do to him? We threw him out of the forum!
Why? Because we're so damn keen on keep on hearing what we're used to hear! The only way to gain money is by fighting and struggling. We have to have discipline!
That guy told us that we can make money by drawing a line on a chart! So we threw him out!
My series of how the mind works in conjunction to trading has been a very passive reading. People are interested in how to feed them, and if that isn't enough they want it served, chewed and even swallowed. People spend more time copying other than looking for things that are provoking them, and that are shaking the hell out of their foundation!
Why?!
Because we're programmed that way! We change our bosses with indicators. We hate thinking for ourselves. We want systems, that other people tells us works! We read books that are so nicely touched by psychologists, and we give them credit for that by letting them infect our perception to that point we recognize everything in their books, and attribute it to our own characters.
This whole damn business is exactly about that line above!
Money itself isn't lost or made, it is simply transferred from one perception to another!
Remember this! Learning is easier than unlearning, so learn right!
...transferred from one perception to another means simply that, if you have the right perception The money is yours.
Now, you tell me how the hell are you going to get the right perception by learning how to lose!?
I don't get it! Do you?
Oh, sure, it is a very different approach we're facing if we put the losing part in a box that's inevitable, that tells us that looses are A PART OF THE GAME!
But for God's sake stop telling me that I have to learn how to lose in order to learn how to win!
WIN! WIN! WIN!
We need to learn how to win! We need to learn how to have 9 out of 10 profits in a row!
We need to learn that based on the 2 following concepts:
1. Find a system that works for you!; that you know how to trust. Imagine it this way. You're standing on a shore, and you have to get over to the other side. What you have in front of you are a lot of obstacles. That doesn't matter. Why?
Because you trust your boat. You know that no matter what, your boat is going to take you over to the other side! and...
2. Managing the boat correctly! Even if you trust your boat, it is not enough why? Because without the proper management of the boat it doesn't matter how good your boat is! It is still you that have to manage it the right way!
If you now manage to combine the two points above, you're still going to face the irony of this thread's title! Why?
Because no matter what, there are going to be side effects and nothing else! Why? Because life is about perceptions and expectations!
We all struggle to make tomorrow look like yesterday!
Get rid of your past and let the future unfold from the now. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
/George
Hi George, thanks for posting and please keep pushing us in every directions that's why i am hanging around here. If everybody was thinking the same way it would be dull and i would probably not learn anything new. But i agree that we only trade our perceptions and expectations. If for example, you believe Market Profile gives a better view about the structure of the market then you'll form expectations in regard to this model. If you are a trend trader then there is a good chance moving averages will play a big part in your frame of reference, a pullback to a rising moving average will probably influence your perception and instinctively push you to form a new expectation that price will bounce there. If you are a price action aficionado then you'll look at a series of HH HL to get a sense of direction and probably form new expectations in regard to this suite of symbols. Samething for Fibonacci aficionados etc. We trade our opinions about the markets but no matter the system it's my belief that we can only win if price moves or if volatility is there. Trading is one of the easiest thing i have done technically speaking. Of course, you need a bit of coordination and know how to click the mouse quickly at times but apart from that, drawing a line here or there, finding levels of support or resistance is not the biggest challenge i have had to solve in my professional life. Most persons will think their perception or understanding is better than yours in most cases and that becomes very apparent when we discuss/share our perceptions about indicators.
Thank you for posting this, I couldn't agree more. It has never made sense to me about some of the threads in this forum and I decide not to voice my opinion because I can at times become controversial and prefer to stay out of the topic, but why would anyone need to learn how to lose?
Anyway, thanks again for posting and hope you continue to share your thoughts and input.
Ryan. You should post when you have strong feelings about something. That is what creates thoughtful discussion.
Now I am going to exercise this right myself...
Yeesh! This thread makes absolutely no sense to me! I want to bang my head against a wall, poke my eyes with ice picks after reading it (ok, i'm exaggerating a bit)
I don't know the history here, who TRO is, nor do I care. But who advocates that you need to lose in order to win?? Are you confusing this with what in reality is: "you are likely to lose in trading"? Facts are facts. No hiding or hoping your way around it. But what you can do is understand WHY does this happen, and not repeat those same mistakes, as most traders do to the detriment.
I don't think who TRO is of any importance or relevant. I believe the point is that there are other threads that discuss learning to lose, other than what I think what is being portrayed is the fact that we all will take losing trades which is a fact. As long as the losing trades we take were not on account of breaking rules or psychologically.
Most importantly, there needs to be more discussions on how to win and to decrease losing habits, thoughts and more optimistic and positive motives to get that winning attitude,discourse and more importantly, the winning edge.
I have always been an optimistic person an overachiever, with perseverance and there's no way that I'm going to ever give up or fail. It's just not in my DNA. And I agree 100% with George and that there is no indicator that is ever going to help you become a winner, its all between our own two ears.
Money itself isn't lost or made,..... ...it is simply transferred, from one perception to another!
Your post made me think about my efforts at learning to trade properly over the last couple of years- at different times I have have had perceptions that I decided were worth trading and in fact I currently have perceptions that I have decided are worth trading. With the exception of the last 6 months it has been people with other perceptions that have generally recieved a % of the money that I traded with. Is this what is meant by this line?
One thing I have noticed is that at a certain point each new 'tradable perception' comes with less anticipation, less excitement, less hope, less anticipation of the changed lifestyle, less urgency but at the same time comes with more pragmatism and realism based on previous attempts and what I have 'learned'. Have I had my perceptions and expectations stunted by all the pessimistic adages? Will this limit my prospects as a trader into the future? Have I become too conservative and influenced by fear of loss? Could be - but my passion is intact and I have managed over the last 6 months or so to avoid repeating many of the mistakes I made earlier and to display some ability to have my average win exceed my average loss and maintain a profit factor of about 2. I percieve that my 'boats' are more seaworthy than before and importantly that I am an improved 'manager'.
Is there a better and faster way to get to a point of realistic confidence? Is a stronger focus on 'winning' and 'success' and a reduced focus on 'losing' early in the learning curve a part of that? I dont know. The successful traders mindset can probably be achieved different ways - I want the fastest route ( I always have) - so will be interested to see how this thread goes.
It is my perception that thoughts become words and words become reality. The more I think about winning (or losing) the more I talk about winning and the more I win.
I am so done with all the hype about losing right.....the first loss is the best loss and all that crap. I want to win and I want to win consistently. I want my thought patterns, my behaviors and my speech to be about winning and not losing.
Yes, losing is part of the game....but I think we should redefine losing.
So from now on the definition of losing is as follows: Any pre-defined period of time in which the result is a net negative loss. This could be a minute, hour, day, week, month or year. The choice is yours. However, the longer the time frame, the more likely you are to keep things in perspective.
For example; how can a losing minute affect the yearly time frame and produce the feelings of being a loser? In the short run it can't. Only if you string MANY of those losing minutes together over the entire year will it affect your perspective on the year. Otherwise the trade you just took that stopped out in a couple of minutes no longer affects you either way.
Your objective becomes one of keeping the longer term in view while you focus on making the next minute, hour, day, week or month a winner.
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, Leonardo da Vinci
Most people chose unhappiness over uncertainty, Tim Ferris
