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Kinda! Emotions often get in the way tho! If I was able to lose money as dispassionately as I look at a 500 error it would be a lot easier!!

by _benj 2y ago

wallflower 2y ago
Congrats on your trading venture! Not sure you will see this but one of my all-time favorite HN comments is by a trader named fiaz about trading and failing. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=121413 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=121413 fiaz on Feb 22, 2008 | parent | context | favorite | on: Ask News.YC: How to re-motivate yourself? APOLOGIES for making this post so annoyingly long, but I really hope you find value in the words below. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- I'm going to first share a personal experience from my early trading days to illustrate where I'm coming from. I used to wake up at 4:30 am everyday in the Chicago suburbs to beat rush hour traffic and make it into downtown Chicago at 6:30 am. In order to wake up so early, I fell into a habit of sleeping at 9:00 pm and like a robot waking up at 4:30 am. This simple routine was indirectly helpful when things seemed darkest. For the first six months, I lost money and was ridiculed constantly by other traders who were more successful than me (which was about 20 other guys CONSTANTLY using me as a punching/whipping bag). The only thing that kept me going was the fact that some of the very same traders that would be making wise cracks at me for losing money were some of the most successful people I knew at the time. For better or worse, if I needed a trader to model myself after, it was the same people that were telling me how bad a trader I was - and although I was not open to really hear what they were saying, they were right about my skills in every way (but their feedback was always packaged in some sort of insult) ...
- _benj 2y ago
  Wow, thanks for sharing this!! I have experience a bit of the same, although I don't have a group of traders making fun of me, the challenge sometimes comes from having to believe in myself, and also from how family sees it, i.e. going from a high salary "secure" tech job to attempting to accomplish something by myself... I also find curious the human part of wishing to be believed. The numbers in trading are completely ridiculous given that the ceiling is very high for a skilled trader, and thus most people bundle it together with Vegas the hundreds of thousands of dollars in a gambling game or horse race. I keep forgetting my own complete unbelief until I experienced a trade with triple digit returns... that makes no sense but I did it (the trick is to not return that to the market and to know that those are exceptions and slow and steady wins the race!). The irony is that many people here in HN (this is y combinator after all) attempting entrepreneurial pursuits with the hope of making a living and a big payout on acquisition and whatnot... in spite of knowing the statistics of how rare it is for that to happen. At any rate, thanks a ton for sharing that, it is very encouraging! I've seen people do it, that post is one example, and I have the wild believe that I can do it too! I'm expecting nothing but blood, sweat, and tears, but it's worth it for me :-)
  - wallflower 2y ago
    I’m glad you read it! Maybe print it out and post it somewhere you see regularly. Good luck!

Kinda! Emotions often get in the way tho! If I was able to lose money as dispassionately as I look at a 500 error it would be a lot easier!!

by _benj 2y ago

Kinda! Emotions often get in the way tho! If I was able to lose money as dispassionately as I look at a 500 error it would be a lot easier!!

wallflower 2y ago

Congrats on your trading venture! Not sure you will see this but one of my all-time favorite HN comments is by a trader named fiaz about trading and failing. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=121413 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=121413 fiaz on Feb 22, 2008 | parent | context | favorite | on: Ask News.YC: How to re-motivate yourself? APOLOGIES for making this post so annoyingly long, but I really hope you find value in the words below. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- I'm going to first share a personal experience from my early trading days to illustrate where I'm coming from. I used to wake up at 4:30 am everyday in the Chicago suburbs to beat rush hour traffic and make it into downtown Chicago at 6:30 am. In order to wake up so early, I fell into a habit of sleeping at 9:00 pm and like a robot waking up at 4:30 am. This simple routine was indirectly helpful when things seemed darkest. For the first six months, I lost money and was ridiculed constantly by other traders who were more successful than me (which was about 20 other guys CONSTANTLY using me as a punching/whipping bag). The only thing that kept me going was the fact that some of the very same traders that would be making wise cracks at me for losing money were some of the most successful people I knew at the time. For better or worse, if I needed a trader to model myself after, it was the same people that were telling me how bad a trader I was - and although I was not open to really hear what they were saying, they were right about my skills in every way (but their feedback was always packaged in some sort of insult) ...

_benj 2y ago
Wow, thanks for sharing this!! I have experience a bit of the same, although I don't have a group of traders making fun of me, the challenge sometimes comes from having to believe in myself, and also from how family sees it, i.e. going from a high salary "secure" tech job to attempting to accomplish something by myself... I also find curious the human part of wishing to be believed. The numbers in trading are completely ridiculous given that the ceiling is very high for a skilled trader, and thus most people bundle it together with Vegas the hundreds of thousands of dollars in a gambling game or horse race. I keep forgetting my own complete unbelief until I experienced a trade with triple digit returns... that makes no sense but I did it (the trick is to not return that to the market and to know that those are exceptions and slow and steady wins the race!). The irony is that many people here in HN (this is y combinator after all) attempting entrepreneurial pursuits with the hope of making a living and a big payout on acquisition and whatnot... in spite of knowing the statistics of how rare it is for that to happen. At any rate, thanks a ton for sharing that, it is very encouraging! I've seen people do it, that post is one example, and I have the wild believe that I can do it too! I'm expecting nothing but blood, sweat, and tears, but it's worth it for me :-)
- wallflower 2y ago
  I’m glad you read it! Maybe print it out and post it somewhere you see regularly. Good luck!