I’ve been building my technical analysis skill set. I’ve been changing my relationship with money and making money. I’m decoupling the making of money from the spending of time. I’m decoupling creativity from money making.
I’ve been supremely impressed with Sarah Potter and her book How You Can Trade Like a Pro
The concepts for taking in data points and building the analysis are straight forward and helpful. These same ideas can be helpful in so many arenas, not just options or futures trading. I’m not planning to get into a ton of specifics here because the book is great at that.
My topic for today is to think about how helpful it is to decouple the idea of making money from both doing a job and spending finite amounts of time.
A similar concept has worked wonders for me in managing my weight and physical health. I decoupled exercise and weight. Once I was able to separate the two ideas, it gave me space to manage my weight without the excuse of no time for exercise.
In short, the idea gave me control over the outcome. Options trading has given me a similar control over outcome when it comes to making money. It’s given me the space to allow myself to be creative in other areas without feeling like I have to make money from my creativity.
The thing I like a lot about options trading is how the skillset really can be applied to so many of lives arenas. One good example of this is patience. I’ve heard it recently said that for traders, patience pays. It saves you money when you are patient and avoid getting into a bad position because the setup does not actually develop. It also pays when you get into the right position at the right time and patiently wait for the correct exit. Patience puts money in a traders pocket.
Patience also pays in many areas of life. When we push too hard, we often end up in over our head or out of position for all the good things that are coming our way. I know some folks don’t ascribe to the concept that the things they want are coming their way, but perhaps not in the time frame they expect.
As a rebel, I’m intimately familiar with the power and challenge of expectations. Not all rebels are as aware of the impact of expectation on themselves and others, but I am acutely aware. Expectations are like quicksand for me and they are for many others as well. When we expect things from existance and that expectation is time sensitive, it creates a lot of internal friction that manifests in negative outward behaviors. We often push away the things we want because of our reaction to these unmet expectations.
The patience of a trader can be a tremendous benefit when unmet expectations boil up. First, I seek to understand, what has transpired that the expectation is unmet and why was I expecting it in the first place. Second, I seek to recognize the opportunity and meaning behind the unmet expectation. Finally, I move forward patiently and continue to seek to be the person who does the things that the person I see myself as would do.
Stay Safe Out There!
~Zach