Right now I am currently buried up to my eyeballs in paperwork. End of the year details, end of the quarter, starting taxes, pay checks, W2's, 3 construction bids and end of the month invoices. I needed a break so decided to put some trading words here in the Rufus journal.
Don't get me wrong I am not a trading guru and never will be. If that ever happens I will have to quit trading, doubt I would be profitable.
“The first thing you have to know is yourself. A man who knows himself can step outside himself and watch his own reactions like an observer.
”Adam Smith... Money Game
“No one is free who has not obtained the empire of himself. No man is free who cannot command himself.”
- Pythagoras
I have become a student of myself. Sound egotistical? I believe that is what it takes to be successful in this business. One of the things that helped to understand the topic of me was a personality test. Now I know some think they are bunk and quibble over the details of it. But that is for them. I found out that I am an INTJ. Introvert, intuitive, thinking, judging. I wish I'd known this when younger, may have helped me out in grade school. I was one of the quiet kids who played often alone or with one friend. Most of the kids like this were picked on by bullies unmercifully. I was always a big strong kid and they left me alone. So self esteem was never an issue. But still had a rough time through 8th grade, my dad convincing the teachers to pass me to the next grade each year. I daydreamed a lot living in my own little world.
What does this have to do with trading.... a lot
As it turns out I was a smart kid just hated the mundane life of grade school. High school was a 4.0 GPA. College 3.90. What would life had been like for me if I was introverted and a small kid that was picked on? What kind of trading issues would have to have been overcome?
When I first started looking at charts my reasoning to become the best was that it only took hard work and determination. Lots of study yielded great grades in the past, why not the same with the Forex market. My size enabled me to get all kinds of work, hauling hay as a teenager, construction as an adult. It came to me with hard work, study, and determination. NOT SO with forex. Study the charts all you want and read all the books you can, know every candlestick pattern, this will do nothing for you until you first know what makes you, you. You can spend years trading demo or back testing getting a system polished. But the day you go live it will be a new education. The psychological side of trading is the most important and least understood. Every trader must find their own path. The chart is a mirror to your soul if you don't understand you, you don't understand the chart in light of trading the hard right edge.
Gotta go. Taking wife out to dinner
To be continued
Personality test link...
http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/jtypes2.asp
Rufus
Illegitimi non carborundum - Noli pati a scelestis opprimi.