It’s not an exaggeration to say that we live in a society fixated on results. Almost every aspect of our lives is measured against the observable results of others.
In high school, we envy the top performing student, and wished we had her grades.
At work, we get jealous of the manager who generated the highest sales volume for the past three quarters, and secretly wish we were the ones who got promoted instead.
Even among friends, we wish we had Bob’s salary, car and house.
Everywhere we look, we see how “inadequate” we are, measured by the results we achieved compared to someone else.
This is facilitated by our ‘lizard brain’ that emphasizes what we see, touch, hear and feel, over logical concepts and ideas.
Logically, we know that success is not some magical quality, but is rather the observable result of an unobserved process.
And yet, all we can think about is getting straight A’s, that promotion, or that Porsche. We conveniently ignore the process that generates those results.
Most Retail Traders Only Think About Making Money
Similarly, most traders are fixated on the result: making money by clicking a few buttons.
And they pay no attention to the process that enables that to happen: making mistakes, learning from them, and correcting them. Over and over again.
Everyone thinks about winning, and few ever truly think about the benefits of losing. In my experience, most of my wins can be directly attributed to a losing trade in the past that I learned from.
It’s The Losing Process That Makes A Winning Trader
Making money as a trader is pointless if you don’t understand why you’re winning, because you can’t repeat it.
Likewise, losing money is a valuable experience if you understand why you lost.
Paradoxically, you can’t understand why you’re winning without first understanding how you could have lost in that same situation.
So change the way you think about losses. Because hidden within them are the gems that once uncovered, will point you to the direction of repeatable wins in the future.
{Loving to loose }???
This is not normal, as it is not normal to cry when one is happy. What is normal is to learn from mistakes as well as successes. From mistake can we then turn around & become success & from success can we then have bigger success. Is this not the case ?
Hi Stephen,
You have a point there. What I can say about it is that common sense is often not common practice.
This is a small piece but highly powerful quality. The best way to climb is to follow the footstep of a a person with remarkable achievement in that feat. You are not only a mentor but a GOOD ONE FOR THAT MATTER. May the Godd Lord continue to enrich you with more knowledge for you to be continually impacting you generation in Jesus name – Amen
Hi Wale,
Glad you liked this post.
Hi Chris
I’m struggling to agree with Loving to lose … but I certainly understand that in all things including trading we have to pay a price ( effort/pain/loses etc ) to keep improving
So from where I’m coming from I guess is that we must accept and respond to the inevitable above including trading loses with the Right Attitude and Actions
Great topic just not so sure about the loving loses bit but I get where you are coming from … good stuff