Everybody, Michael Martin. So I got a great email from somebody who wanted clarification on something and it was on a line that I use a lot, and that is the feelings that you don’t want to feel have as much control over you as the ones that you do. Now, I didn’t come up with that line. I’m certain it was probably Ed Seko or somebody along those lines, but it struck me as something that makes a lot of sense. And the question was like, can you explain it a little bit more? See how does it manifest in someone’s day? Well, I know somebody who likes the action of the markets, has a good feel, but doesn’t like doing all the front end work, which to me is really the trading part. The trading part is more about preparation. The execution can be automated or delegated. So to me, trading happens when you’re doing your research and you’re getting prepared for the next day.
That to me is where the money is, and he doesn’t like that part of it as much. So he constantly finds ways to kind of say, well, I’m going to allocate from five to 8:00 PM or six to 9:00 PM every night and look at my charts, look at my setups, look at whatever, and there’s always a ballgame on or something to distract him. There’s phone calls coming in, he’s getting pings. And so what ends up happening is the quality of his work is low because he is not focused. So then what happens is how does that play out? Well, the feeling of the feeling that you don’t want to feel has a big impact on you. He doesn’t like the feeling of missing out on the game. He wants to see the action. He wants to be able to talk with his friends about the game, doesn’t want to miss any very important text messages or dms or pings that you get.
And so he lets that into his world. So the quality of his analysis is lower than it could be if he had put his full focus in. So then what happens is the next day, and it doesn’t happen day after day, but there’s oftentimes days that’ll go by where there’s a lot of stuff that’s right in his wheelhouse that he missed out on. So then what happens? He gets frustrated. So now you have a situation where because of the reluctance to do the work on the front end isn’t getting done that the payoff, the emotional payoff for that is frustration. Now for other people it might be anger, aggravation, who knows? Doesn’t matter to me what it is, but it could be anything that evokes you, a strong feeling that you think you don’t want to feel. So I went back and I said, I think if maybe you did, you’re in California markets close at right around, well now it’s about one o’clock when I’m recording this. So the markets close locally at one. A lot of time between the close for equity markets, some of
The futures markets are already closed, but you have so much time, you could go grab a bite, go for a walk, take a quick power nap, come back here at two o’clock, come back to the desk, and then still have a couple of hours to do the preparation for the next day long before it kind of gets to that five to six so that he can have the best of all the worlds. But the way it’s set up right now is to frustrate the guy to miss opportunities. So I’ve missed plenty of opportunities. It’s not the end of the world. What you don’t want to do is make it a habit of missing out on these opportunities when you know had the time to put the work in to put the names on your screen and to have your wishlist set up for the next day.
Now, whether you do that the night before or the morning of if you’re a shorter term player, again, doesn’t matter to me. But the idea is, is that the analysis the work has to get done, and you have to be in tune with that work because that’s also what starts getting you in the mood over the feeling tone of being in that trade and then being able to execute it, right? Because that’s the whole key. We could sit, excuse me, and analyze this stuff forever, but ultimately we get paid to execute. So that’s where the money’s at. And to me, it starts with the preparation. And if you don’t like the preparation, then you got to farm it out or find somebody else to do it, because that to me is where you harvest your ideas, some of which end up becoming very profitable trades. So that’s one example.
Another example real quick is super simple. You don’t like the feeling of doing all this analysis. You finally put on the trade, you’re in the trade. Maybe it’s up slightly, but not enough because now you have all this judgment of how the trade should have performed once you put it on and you don’t want to get knocked out of the trade. So you forsake putting in a definitive protective stop on your capital and you’re going to use a mental stop. So then that just opens up the door for so many other feelings. So ultimately the feeling that you don’t want to feel controls your behavior, but it also tends to invite other feelings that you also know that you don’t want to feel. So you have to kind of judge them, be the judge and the jury and say to yourself, well, which ones do you want to feel?
Because if you don’t want to put the work in ahead of time, then for me it’s like I don’t want to entertain you being frustrated because that’s an easy fix. You can put the work in, and if you don’t want to do the work, that’s cool, but then don’t bitch about it because now you’re playing a victim and you set yourself up for that. Same thing with stops. It’s like you don’t get to choose how the thing is going to move once you’re in it long or short, it’s life on life’s terms. So if it moves in your favor, great, but you still have to put your stop in. And if it moves enough in your favor, you can keep adjusting it up. But saying to yourself, I don’t want to do that because I don’t want to get stopped, and worse, I don’t want to get stopped and have it rebound and go back up, so therefore I’m not going to put the stop in again.
So your unwillingness to feel that feeling of say, frustration or aggravation or whatever it is for you, or that you’ve wasted your time on all the front end analysis only to put a trade on and have it lose money and knock you out in 15 minutes, I understand all of that. But again, we talked about it a million times. Your frustration or your aggravation can turn into Deon, right? So just be aware of that. Yes, the feelings that you don’t want to feel have as much control of you as the ones that you do, but in my experience, until you’re willing to feel all of your feelings, the ones that you don’t want to feel and you want to avoid, they end up putting you in a spot where you have to invite other feelings that I don’t think you’re going to want to feel either. So that’s why it’s important to just put your orders in, do the work, and try to figure out what are these feelings trying to tell you? If you don’t want to do your preparation for several hours, then change the time of the day that you do it or break it up, do a little, and then do another half at another time.
But either way, it’s something to look at because I think it’s true in life, not just in trading. But at any rate, that’s all I have for you today. Please like and subscribe to show. If you leave a comment. I see everything. I’ll reply if you want to suggest a topic for the show. I’m happy to investigate new topics that I’m not thinking of myself. But otherwise, thank you very much for being here, folks. I will see you tomorrow.
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