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Some people go through life on autopilot, reflexively. Reacting to whatever comes their way without awareness of the bigger picture, the grander scheme.
Awareness is a conscious choice that grounds us in our actions. And sometimes having to face those choices is worse than not having the ability to choose at all.
As painful as facing a choice may be, it is what forces growth after all.
There is no form of feedback more rapid and more raw than seeing your decisions presented back to you in a quantifiable way, showing you immediately if you are right or if you are wrong, and exactly how right or wrong you are. A real time measurement of where a particular choice brought you.
Even better is if you get to choose prior how much that choice means to you. Then it's not just a measure of how right or wrong you are, but of how much conviction you have in this choice.
Such responsibility is overwhelming. We were not trained to handle the cognitive and emotional load of making these kinds of decisions when we were brought up. Education gave us a set of parameters to work within, prescriptive and safe.
Where the orthodox is the average.
What lies beyond is a frightening world. You must have the fortitude to accept full responsibility for your decisions. The ability to admit when you are wrong—immediately—yet the conviction to hold on for the long run when you are right.
A nimbleness to adapt to slight changes in sentiment on the fly, yet self-control to avoid being whipsawed around hopelessly.
But above all, enough self-awareness to execute on your decisions without hesitation, without letting emotions get in your way. An instinct you can trust and act upon when it flashes you that signal.
These are life lessons that scale across all verticals. We all have to face them sooner or later.
To what intensity you want to face them is the real question. Life lessons the hard and fast way, or the slow and gentle way.
And that is what brings me to trading.
Trading is either glorified or misrepresented in the media, as reckless, thrill-seeking, adrenaline junkie pursuits.
In reality it is a careful dance of emotions, self-awareness and risk management. A delicate balance of time, value and size. Of recognizing patterns, of knowing when to act, and when to stay still.
Something that you can never learn through imitation, only through careful practice and self-reflection. With many signals, but only one true marker.
An act that requires doing exactly the opposite of what you think you should do. That looks easy on the outside but is a monumental struggle on the inside.
With a real time measurement of rightness, directly in front of you.
For money is, after all, just another quantifiable force of human existence.