Hey everybody, it’s Michael Martin. Thanks for being here. Move the camera around a little bit just because I wanted to, needed to get the mic closer, but then it was in the way of the other setup, so I moved the camera over here, see if that works a little bit better cause I want the sound quality if I’m too far from the mic, even though it’s a great mic, the sound quality doesn’t really work out all that great. So it’s going to be a great week. I have some great topics and ganja and I actually have already recorded Wednesday’s episode. So for today I want to kind of talk about a question that can kind of tie into that Wednesday discussion that I have with Ganja Brandon. And it comes from a comment on a video. The video was building higher levels of discipline. And Micah writes, I wanted to know your take on relationships, both friendship and intimate within trading.
It seems to me that most highly successful traders either taking their personal dating life seriously at much later time in life or never even concerned themselves with the thought of a romantic partner during the first few years of development as a trader, is this the price a trader must pay for success. Friendships dwindled down as well when someone wants to get a drink at night. This is a long comment, especially for us folks in la. It seems like a poor choice when we know what lies ahead of us in the morning. Yeah, meaning Coco opens at 5:00 AM in Los Angeles because it trades in New York. There will always be something for us to do. Is this just how it is in the early years or is this just the way things are when you dedicate everything to trading best? Micah? So thank you Micah for writing.
And so I don’t know what the dating habits are for the men and women and non-binary folks in this space. To be honest with you, I do know a lot about relationships because I’ve had a lot of them. I know what makes it work for me. I know what it makes, what work for partners that I’ve had the women in my life. But I think, and this is kind of a truism, it all really comes down to communication. I don’t know that traders who are just starting out are single celibate or whatever, or they let go of certain friends. I think I can share with you this. When folks do the mindset training that we have, they start to see the world in a very different light. They see themselves in a different light and then they get to interpret their own behavior and their behavior in their relationships with a different lens.
And so in that case, they can yes, kind of sift things out and let go of certain things that they had been holding onto or establish newer relationship relationships or deepen the ones that they have. I think communication is key. When you’re in a relationship, what is it that you want out of it? Do you just want the physical part and the sex? Do you want companionship? Do you want someone to validate you? It gets very deep in terms of what are your personal needs? What is it that you want out of the relationship? Just like I say, what do you want out of your trading? People are like, well I don’t know man, I just want to make money. Well, that’s not really why you trade, right? It’s not why you trade. There’s so much more to it. So I think it’s an evolution.
Obviously if there are people, how could you explain it? If I was in a court of law, how could I explain that? Younger male traders, a group of people that I came from because I’m older now, how come they might be single? Well, when you’re studying the how to of trading, that can become all encompass encompassing. I don’t recommend you go that route. Cause I do know for a fact that you can burn out very, very quickly if you don’t take the time to, I don’t want to say decommit, but to put the market on the side for a while and not think about it. It’s a very healthy thing to do even when you’re just starting out and you’re like, I got to look at my charts. I got to read another book, I got to listen to another podcast. I’ve got to go do all this kind of research.
I think that is important. But anything in life, you have to have a balance. And if you don’t or you can’t find a partner that’s going to work for you, it might not be the partner’s fault, it might be the fact that you just communicate poorly. So setting boundaries, what’s your safe word? Mine is banana. What is it that you want your partner to do for you? And what don’t you want from a relationship? Do you want someone who’s in your back pocket? Which is a nice way of saying another expression who’s kind of this way? I don’t want that kind of overbearing type of situation with men or women in my life. So I think if you can communicate clearly, especially if you’re using a dating app because it gives you all the fields. Don’t put stuff like if you voted for Trump, swipe this way or if you’re not, if you voted this way or if you’re not a friend of this or that or whatever. I mean you have 140 characters to kind of say what it is it, what is it about you that makes you shine and you’re going and you’re defining what you don’t want in other people.
So be careful what you communicate, right, because you only have that brief moment in time to express yourself. But again, I do think it’s important to describe what it is that you want and what it is that you don’t want because that’s very, very healthy. You need to know the boundaries for yourself as well. What is it that it’s not like you can tolerate or put up with it? Cause the other people aren’t bad. They’re not bad people. We’re just talking about chemistry and is there a good fit? So what works for you? Because they can all be very, very lovely people. I, and for one, I never don’t do bad breakups. So I’m thinking maybe you communicate early on what it is that you want out of this relationship. Where the boundaries, what kind of time do you have for the relationship? Here’s what you can commit to, here’s what you’d like to see from your partner and then have that conversation.
It’s a very adult-like conversation to have. I think it’s a very healthy one too, because then as they say, expectations have built in disappointments. If you’re meeting people out and this and that happens and you start hooking up and things start to go down the physical path very quickly, that can lead to resentment because if those needs, needs don’t get met after there was a certain type of behavior and all of a sudden you turn on a dime, no one likes surprises like that, right? In life. And it’s just fair. So I think in the onset you might talk yourself out of some business if you don’t know what I’m saying. But unless you want all the drama thereafter, why would you want that? Why would you want all that angst between yourself and a partner? Because things got off to a certain start and then you put the brakes on stuff because you wanted to dedicate time looking at your charts.
I would go out on the date you, but I know when you’re younger and you’re starting out, and again, you want that validation. So you put the work in because you want the winning trades. So you can break down your emotional models. Again, why do you do what you do? If you’re older and more established, then you already have a strong idea of what it is that you’re doing every day to create your alpha. And that there might be certain days, especially if you’re at a place where you say you just trade natural gas and for any one particular day or week, there just might not be a lot of activity in natural gas for the way that you trade it. So you might have some extra time on during that week. Well that would be an interesting conversation to have with your friends or your partners that you know like to be spontaneous because that fits with your type of schedule.
So can you find a partner who can get up and go, Hey, market’s week, I’m looking to be long gas sold off 15 cents Wednesday of last week and you know, were looking to get long at two 50 basis to Junes and it didn’t work out. And so now you think the chart’s going to need several days if not more, to repair itself. So you take a three, four day weekend. So can you find a partner who can get up and go right now as far as platonic friendships, same sex stuff, especially if you’re a guy, you know have to remember as guys are coming up, there is a PAC mentality to guide behavior and there’s a lot of peacocking going on. There’s a lot of, I don’t want to say lies, so I’ll use the fancy term pre verification where folks want to cast a bigger shadow when they’re younger because they don’t have anything to show for their experience or for their education at that point.
And I think that’s kind of natural and they’re really insecure, they mean well. It’s certainly those are feelings that I have felt. It’s like, man, I went to this great school, these teachers, some of them had Nobel prizes and what do I have to show for all my hard work? At the beginning it wasn’t much. It was all promised. It was highly projectable as a draft pick so to speak. So I think with those types of friends, there’s nothing wrong with watching people peacock. I think it would get under my skin very quickly though. Now given my temperament now when I was younger, I just kind of shrugged it off because I knew those people were kind of blow hards and the folks who were talking about all their conquests really weren’t having all their conquests. You probably know the type. So you should find people who support you when you’re endeavors.
Obviously not talk about your behind your back, not try to cut you at the knees every time you’re in a group of people. Those types of folks are usually just jealous, insecure, they might not have a clear vision for themselves and they’re on their own path, nothing wrong with it, but that type of negativity isn’t going to help you be a better version of yourself. So those types of things, if you really care about the person and you’ve known them a long time and they’re acting out of character, you might want to have a one-on-one and just say, Hey, I noticed when we’re together you take these pot shots at me. Why is that? You know what I’m saying? Because I find it hurtful and you talk about your feelings, you can’t be wrong as soon as you call the guy a loser or whatever, you’re going to look to escalate stuff. And if that’s what you want, then by all means escalate and don’t even wait, just cock the guy in the face and let him figure out where the new boundary is.
But I would definitely take the time to communicate those things and then realize you’re going to do better if you kind of congregate with folks who are on a similar type of mindset or trajectory because then you could support one another. And so your peer group can become your tribe or your own little mastermind. So that might be something to consider. But I do believe that when I think about relationships and trading intentions equal results pretty much in everything in life. So if you’re not in a relationship, it’s probably because you don’t want to be. Because I think if you want to have a healthy relationship and be a traitor and do it from say California, when the markets are largely New York and Chicago hours, you can do that. But you just have to build out the boundaries and what you’re willing to do and what you can’t do and then effectively communicate that.
The good news is when you do that, I think you build trust with people because now you’re being open and honest and saying, here’s what I can do. Monday through Thursday might be a little challenging in terms of doing stuff, but as long as we go out and I can get home and I don’t know, get to bed by 10 o’clock on any particular night, there’s no real reason why we couldn’t go out and see a movie or grab some dinner or do something during the week or if there’s sleepovers, just understand I got to get up at five and get out the door. It’s nothing personal, but we’re not going to be any adult activity that next morning because I got to get up and get to work. And it’s important to me that you understand that this is something that’s hard even for the best of people.
I’m just starting out. But this is important to me. I want to have a good relationship. I like you as a partner. I always want to have an open line of communication. If whatever I’m doing is making you feel a certain way, then please let me know and communicate it with, cause I’m figuring this out as we go along too. Those times of those kinds of conversations are good for bonding. And so you can communicate, it might always go the way you want it and the person might say, I need someone who’s a little bit more available. I need someone who’s a little bit less intense, but that’s okay. It’s better to figure that out early on than to go put 3, 4, 5 months into something and find out that your tab A doesn’t fit into her his slot B, if you know what I’m saying.
So I think if it’s important to you, then you can find a way to make it work. And it all starts with really, really good communications. So anyway, folks, as Brandon likes to say, on Wednesday’s episodes, please like and subscribe. And then there’s a bell thing you could click on too. Apparently it gives you notifications. It also gives us really good data on the stuff that we’re publishing and how well it’s resonating with the audience. I’ve been given away the audiobook version of my book, the Inner Voice of Trading. So there’s a link below in the description. You can get it for free. It’s a free download. It’s probably four or 500 megabytes, but it’s really good people. It talks about my journey, kind of how I failed my way to success is the cliche way of saying it, but with a lot of candor.
I speak about what I thought I knew at the time and what I endeavored to do and what the results were. It’s basically about a book of failure. I had millions of winning trades. I didn’t mention any of ’em in the book just because I don’t think the community needs another book that gloats with the secrets of trend following or the little known things that day traders do because they don’t exist. There’s not little known things. It’s the age of the internet, everything is known, right? Anything that you want to know is already on the internet somewhere so you can go find it. So there’s no such things as secrets. There’s no little known X, Y, Z because everything data’s proliferating.
But anyway, that’s all I got on this subject about relationships. There’s probably a lot more to say, but I ultimately think intentions equal results. If you’re a clear communicator, you’ll attract the right person and that person will appreciate who you are, everything that you are and everything that you’re not. But anyway, thank you for the comment. Michael, I Micah, I appreciate you writing in everyone else. Please keep the comments and the emails coming cause they give us good data. And I’ll see you tomorrow.
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