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You can't educate pork indeed, been a while since I heard that living in the West Country.
Though you can (try) to take their copy of the Sun newspaper away from them and any other News Corporation/Murdock products. The man in question was telling me about Brexit this morning. He lives in California. (edit: and was quoting at me from the Sun online)
He is one of the 'what I feel is true is my truth' eegits. Failing to adapt to change and new evidence is what has him failing mostly. He also thinks in absolute terms however there are huge gaps in that landscape. I have passed the baton back to our mutual friend who plays softball with him.
"Never try to teach a pig to dance. It will frustrate you, and it irritates the pig".
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
Tell him: do not quit! do it harder. if one method does not work, drop it and go for another. get a mentor. a real one. do not consider this as hobby but something which you entire life depends on. you trade you have to improve yourself otherwise youre dead.
show him how to find those areas which needs to be improved ... or of that is the case... the areas in his psycho/skillset which needs to be cut out and burn down. raise the stake for him, to feel the pain.. physically if needed, slap him in the face with vet fish if goes nuts.. shock him with voltage if really cannot change. go extreme.
survival is not a skill it is a feature of us. think rationally in a seemingly irrational environment and adapt to rules and cultivate habits are skills. dissect the issue, make a root cause analysis there must be one or two components of his trading which is rotten. fix it.
its 2016. tradng is not an option. its a must. loosing and winning are options. adapt to your rules are must, but rules are options.
Bind optimism is as destructive as pessimism sometimes.
He wants to make a living out of this, after 5 years he has failed to do so. 3 to 6% succeed in the long term (less maybe) and he is not one of them. Average is average, the trading industry lies it's ass off to vulnerable people with slogans like "tired of being a slave? you can do it" or "just two ES points a day".
Its nonsense. If you not a smart person with a lot of concentration and entrepreneurial spirit, don't try Futures trading. This guy needed to stop digging the hole he is in a long time ago and do something that will progress his life. Its ok to be bad at something, an adult must know when to make a new plan.
I agree. While trading is hard, after five years if you're not making forward progress (i.e. making money and building your account) then you just don't have what it takes and deep down maybe you just don't want to. Think of Seykota's famous remark "Everyone gets what they want out of the markets." Even the losers, for what they want is not to make money but they want the thrill or pity from others. Some people actually like to brag about how much they lost. Makes for a good story over drinks.
Indeed, the guy is a retail sales manager by previous career and nature. Due to his low EQ (tested) he studied all the guru books to "fake it till you made it" with promotions, trading was (too) shiny sidetrack.
He can return to this work with tales of adventure in high finance and actually useful (expensively acquired) excel skills. Business projections are now something he can make like a boss.
"Hacking people" as its said works pretty well for sociopath vendors selling crap to the unwary but is no use whatsoever on the market at retail level. Make a simple someone feel a victim of the system and they will give you far too much.
I think a lot of people who can get in and out of most anything in the real world get a shock when they hit the hard right edge, their poise and swagger stays in the room with them. They become that type of vendor after that. Have infinity pool photo, will travel.
In his case he was a good (hc 1-3) golfer who could gave been pro but buggered his knees playing football. That part is irrelevant, he was just my best coding and golfing mate at the time.
In the case of pork, some folk just won't 'get it', hence @Rory's dilemma with his friend and why we all have to accept that all of us really are so very different. Walking beats talking in many cases.
In the case of what we do, trading shares many attributes with golf - skill levels, psychology, risk/reward of individual shots affecting whether you stay in the game, etcetera. Most important of all you never cheat when you mark your card or discuss your results, otherwise the only person you cheat is yourself.
I was talking with my assistant about this thread (the guy) and as she is American, inquiring about her experience with US style positive thinking.
I'm not a negative person however I've always seen too much positive thinking as like drinking coffee to keep working. You get a short term boost but you nearly always pay for that, hot water would have been a better choice.
I fix problems and broken things. That is how I find a role in life. If there is nothing that warrants my attention, life is good. I don't need hyperbole to be content. Just my millions of dollars, gold house, rocket car and all that.
My assistant referred me to a book. The lady has a video.
I think its well worth a look for anyone who struggles to be quite as positive as their society (and the "self-help" industry) indicates they should be. The "woop" as discussed may well apply well to trading for some.
Curious if anyone has already looked at this "woop", my assistant is not a BS thinker so I thought it would be worth a mention.
My assistant (who taught at Harvard) described a lot of solid research done on the negative effects of positive fantasising in it. I've seen people get stuck on SIM101 and it seemed similar. There has to be some line between a useful life tool and a damaging dependency, someone always goes too far.
As an aside, in the used English bookshop here in Medellin there is an insane number of self-help books and biographies of 'powerful' people. Its mostly these books. The girl said they get lots of them from hotels & hospitals (left behind by American tourists). The bookshop seems a natural concentrator for copies of "talking points" by G W Bush.
I like the notion that there is some midpoint between the saccharin "everything is awesome!" of so many US kids these days (watch for ! at the end of nearly every sentence) and throwing the baby out with the bathwater regarding PT. I backpack a lot and I have noticed when one says something old school realistic, the gringo kids look at you like you spat in a church haha.
At least its not "the secret".. I was forced to watch that and I developed violent urges towards the producers regarding abuse of the work "quantum".