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I don't know if I really become "fearful", that may be the wrong word. I become protective, guarded, on high alert. I'll think about it for a few days and appreciate the perspective.
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
I have all of these stories I discovered in my teens and twenties, while practicing holistic living and integrating some of eastern religion and philosophy into that. I mostly remember bits and pieces, and probably do the original author no justice. But one just came to mind;
There was a temple that was said to contain all of the answers to all of the questions in life. It was forbidden for anyone on the outside to enter, and was heavily guarded 24/7. One night, late when the guards were probably just a little foggy, a stray dog happened to wander right through the front doors into the temple. The dog obviously had no idea where he was headed, and no preconceived idea of what he might find inside.
The dog turns a corner, and sees another dog in there. He stops, hesitates, then wags his tail. The other dog wagged it's tail back at him. he starts to move towards the other dog, when he notices yet another dog inside. His tail is still wagging, and so is this new dog's tail, so he's starting to feel somewhat comfortable.
As he makes his way to meet up with his new buddies, the closer he gets, more dogs start to appear. Apparently there is a whole pack. The stray stops in his tracks again. The other dogs stop wagging their tails. The dog looks all around and realizes, he is surround by nearly a thousand other dogs.
He becomes afraid and growls to show his discomfort. A thousand dogs growled back at him.
The dog quickly was pushed into fight or flight mode, and seing as he was completely surrounded, he had really only one option. The fight was on.
The next morning as the guards were making their inspections, they discovered the outcome of the night's battle; one dead dog. Where had all of the others gone?
The temple was full of nothing but mirrors.
The world becomes what we project upon it. And I agree, so does trading.
Yes indeed...I made the occassional post on that perspective that we aren't what we believe or think..
So I shan't labour that perspective, at the possible relief to some...
Suffice it to say, that I agree with you in that eveything is energy in one form or another,
and all be it that "comfort zones" or "thresholds" or "pushing the envelope" or "plateaus" are all expressions of the same or similar in giving a lable or name to a process of internal growth and that not until we are taken to see this, even via a small momentory glimps, or full on experience, can and will we begin to understand that things are not as we led ourleves to believe.
After all believes middle name is lie !
We are everything we care to imagine.
Getting to a place where we can manifest that imagination is really what this is all about on what ever level
but I tried to not go beyond a hint of the esoteric and avoided the realms of the existensial.
It probably resinates with what you posted about the future/past and present all being, in a sense, one of the same and how science, if you will, is learning this to be so perhaps.
Time itself may well be an illusion there for....but I digress.
This is GaryD's Journal after all.
Someone who has "performed" at what ever level financially and is trying to to attain a level of performance
in trading, a realm that is abscent our "normal" basis of opperations and conditions, for many reasons that have been touched on.
Because of this alone, we see how this trading realm is actually the realm of the individual and
abscent the "norms" we require a different (and for some a new) perspective with which to function and move forward.
At the end of the day it amounts to the same sense of the realization of our imagination via the realization of oursleves..
Im presently not a profesional trader but my future self trades for other people, He gets 30% of what He makes for all of His clients, their all very happy w/ us sorta speak. Im patient, that future will become present & past and a new future will be created.
I cant get it to pull up? Wants to save it to a file. Order to give u a feed back. Let me tell u, You are ahead of me by leaps & bounds. Well, the present day me that is
Regards to ENERGY rather then FEAR, its a pretty helpfull concept to behold. I really love trading, and I know I can be good at it. Its all I do, even on week ends Im on sim feed now going back & forth writting & so forth. Im doing it w/ a splitting headache, wife made decaf this morning!! GODCrzybll
Well said well said, I appreciate everything, & where all you are coming from. It was a pleasure talking w/ you gentlemen today. Enjoy the rest of the week end.
It should be safe to save to your desktop and then open with Adobe Acrobat, but my computer allows me to just choose the "open" option. I am fanatical about virus software and computer maintenance.
Regarding your "future clients", 2% of AUM and 20% of profits over a benchmark and/or "high-water mark" seemed to be the standard when I looked into it. You must be planning to be one helluva trader!. Me too. lol!
2012. This will be a very interesting year for my trading. I have been at a point where I come out ahead more often than not for over 1 year now. My confidence comes in waves, cresting then subsiding, but each time setting a new highwater mark in my subconscious. While my account is not growing at any exponential rate yet, my beliefs as a trader seem to be solidifying at that pace.
The pieces I selected above from an earlier post were just left by quickly scanning through. It was too lengthy to want it re-written across this journal. I have a lot of issues to get still through when it comes to trading at a higher level of leverage.
Meanwhile, my long term plan that I posted weeks back is set up to require that my leverage remains somewhat constant. It does not need to be much bigger than where I am today, not this year. But I have set a goal for myself to have at least some leverage increase in the near future. My obssession with finding the best indicators and settings, the best support and resistance calculation, the best entries and exits...that obsession has locked onto a new target this year; To move to full time trading, and to begin to execute a plan that has been the foundation of my relentless pursuit of successful trading since day one.
I do not want incredible wealth today, or next year. I'm not really sure incredible wealth is a part of my goal. But I wanted to become good enough to make trading my new career, providing my required income and my retirement down the road.
I do have another career that is capable of that without question. At one time I had more than enough of a nest egg to live off dividends, if I chose. But I decided to go heavily into defining myself as a true real estate developer. I had the experience, the track record, the investors, the financing, the connections...and the market seemed ripe. I netted around $1M my last profitable year as a developer, took $400k and put it in as the first round of a staggered downpayment on a new retail ground-up, paid off the $440k equity line on my house to have as a cash cushion, put $325k into a 5%+/- CD to cross-collateralize a new ground-up beach front residential development, renovated the house I used to live in in downtown with about $200k cash and listed it at $1.1M... Had more than enough coming in to not worry about my $7k a month house payment and $1k a month utillity bills.
When the fall started, I was underway with several new projects, had a few hunderd thousand in the bank, plus my equity line, no credit card debt...by the end of 2010 I was upside down roughly $1M.
I am back into the same business again, much wiser, and starting to pick up speed. I know the things to do, know what it feels like, have no doubt as to whether I would be successful again. But the spark is gone. The passion is not there this time around. I found myself trapped in a quagmire of pride and ethics versus value implosion and non-existent liquidity. I saw first hand the other side of the lenders that previously were so eager to be on my team. I was lied to, stolen from, cut off. I was current on payments and told they were not interested, felt they were well protected with the amount of equity I had, end of conversation. I saw that real estate developing from scratch has a very long time horizon, and that with greater time comes greater uncertainty.
As my world imploded, I turned harder and harder to trading. It became my sanctuary. As my equity took a nosedive in my world outside trading, I believed in the value I was creating in my new direction. It was value in skills and training and mental conditioning, not in money. I saw the potential to work in an environment that held a similar promise to what I had been accustomed to, but had nothing to do with it.
Almost from day one, before I even lost my first trade, I was a revenge trader. I felt angry to be in search of a new career. I felt desparate to find one. And so my biggest problem from the start has been learning to have fear. What was there to be afraid of, losing money? "Ha! Done that and then some, is that all you got?"
Tenacity is a funny beast. It can be asset and liability, for eternity.
So now, as I am seeing that I am getting closer and closer to the realization of a goal that I have sweat blood for, I find myself in a state of confusion. I am so ready to take the next step, the anticipation, the longing...but I need to be certain that I have tamed myself enough to not lose sight of all the lessons learned over the past several years.
The pig has become my countdown. This month I started a new physical health regimen, including more biking, more cardio, more supplements. Yesterday I started a whole body cleanse with detox teas, herbs, gallons of distilled water. I am eliminating alcohol entirely for my cleanse, no dairy, no fried foods. Carrot sticks, hummus, and flax milk was last night's dinner.
My training has turned the crosshairs on psychology. I find myself getting up to type something here more and more. I took the spreadsheets I exported for March and made another page where there is a variable of "standard contracts" at the top, and the performance dollars re-create themselves as if I traded any other version of first and second entry. This play on numbers is something I had not considered before this morning, but it is similar to backtesting. I am looking at what the month would have been had I traded 2 and 2, or 5 and 5. I went through every day, every drawdown, every win, and tried to "feel" what that was like. I am going to continue that study, and add other similar visualization techniques this month, to start a repetition in my subconscious before the reality begins.
ZT, your perspective throughout this journal has been a welcome addition. Your posts typically set the wheels turning in my head. I appreciate your support.
GaryD.
I am pleased anything I might have said has been of any use. Thx.
Crazy Bill reminded us that life is energy.
Something that never dies but just gets transformed !
There is life in this thread, this Journal is an expression (to what ever degree) of your life.
I was drawn to initially post in your Journal, by a sense of sincerity, and I used that very word.
I didn't fully understand why I sensed that at the time. I could have been wrong.
There is an energy now to these posts, I feel it, but again I might be wrong.
I might be way off base as to what I think I understand of and from you, some one I have never met and can't assume to know.
But haven't we all watched those sole crossings of an ocean or the climbing of a mountain or some such "doing" by another that we ourselves "feel" ?
One way or another we are all reflections of each others journeys.
However, here, it is about your "doing".
I am reminded of some quotes from a Constance Brown book:
"Our visions are the blueprints of our reality"
"If I ever stop to think about what the ball will do after it hits my hand, I might srew up the whole process"
" Try not.
Do.
Or not do.
There is no try"
If I may, from what you wrote above:
"So now, as I am seeing that I am getting closer and closer to the realization of a goal that I have sweat blood for, I find myself in a state of confusion. I am so ready to take the next step, the anticipation, the longing...but I need to be certain that I have tamed myself enough to not lose sight of all the lessons learned over the past several years."
and at the risk of appearing to be blunt or intrusive (or sounding like your mother lol), none of which I intend,
I would like to merely pose a question for you :-
What, specifically, are you confused about and what is it within you that is wild, that you need certainty has been tamed ?
It is the experience of so many other traders being continually added to my journal, the side discussions that occur by PM or email or Skype where the journal topics sometimes continue, or take new directions. The sharing and caring, the thought provoking that occurs. There are so many traders who have taught me at least something, even if by accident, just by participating in what would otherwise be a solo conversation. The list is long, but here are a few who come to mind as being influential recently;