Mar

27

Self-importance really does weaken humans.

Got a call from 2 (mediocre), young traders. Asked them how they do. They are really in their heads 90pc of their time as their thoughts go in circles (missing out on nuances in markets / changing patterns now.)

Inner dialogue
"How I am doing?"
"Whether am up or down with someone else"
"My career path"
"My degree from this or that famous school" who cares I thought!
"My P/L" or "L"…
etc etc etc

Complete self absorption. Recipe for disaster.

Sushil Kedia responds:

The purpose of all work is to annihilate and subsume the sense of self by focusing as deeply as one can on the task at hand.

Financial Markets have the fastest feedback mechanism and thus any trader is constantly suffering feedback he is right, he is wrong, he is right, he is right, he is wrong, he is wrong, he is wrong.

The speed with which financial markets will make saints out any man is unparalleled as compared to any other work. Those who will realize and learn sooner, will know that no one can hope to be paid at all, forget about getting paid consistently without adding value. To add value one has to be other-centric. When markets are panicking absorb that panic with your cash. When markets are euphoric to the extreme absorb that euphoria by giving away your securities. That's just one example of adding value. When bid-ask has gotten significantly wider than usual, fill up the void. That's just another example of adding value.

All amateurs, with or without articulating to themselves these basic tenets that in no economic activity anyone can get paid without adding value, do grow up.

The whole idea of data reigns supreme amongst all sensorial inputs and that testing matters more than anything is the opposite of self absorbed judgemental behaviour.

Let baptism happen by the fire. No one burns, but just gets baptised.


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