Quote from jcmonger:
Quote from Old School:
I did some NLP stuff a few years ago. I thought it was helpful. It basically boils down to positive thinking and doing away with negative attitudes, thoughts, concepts, and even speech. Just think how negative all of those things combined can become. If you've never though about it, just try to focus on it next time your driving.
Regards,
J.C.
Better yet, just give up unnecessary driving to avoid the frustration.
What many traders and many people in general just forget is that keeping things simple as well as controlling the things that you can control are two of the easiest and most essential ways to become successful in whatever one chooses to do.
In another life I was a successful salesperson and one of the few principles that I learned from all the training that I encountered those 12 or so years were:
1.) 75% of the challenges (many call them problems/difficulties) encountered in life are totally out of my control. Pretty depressing if you dwell upon that........ DON'T! Dwell on controlling and striving to better the 25% that is under your TOTAL CONTROL! In other words don't worry about stuff that you can't ever affect. Needless worrying only causes stress and stress build-up amounts to negative effects (nothing good can come from lots of uncontrolled stress).
2.) Beating your head against a wall only leads to headaches, and ultimately death. In all that sales mambo - jumbo, Zig Ziggler world there is one thing that stuck with me, and a very sage sales/management trainer shared it with me; the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results each time. Mastering point one is essential to overcoming this vicious cycle it is easy to trap the self into.
3.) To thy own self be true! This is one of my personal favorites and probably the most essential. Be honest with others, integrity matters, but most importantly be open, true and honest with yourself. If you have fallen victim to sloth, addiction, dishonesty, etc..... admit it and deal with it. Personal responsibility dovetails right in with this key principle. It is much easier to accept FULL AND UNCONDITIONAL RESPONSIBILITY for one's own actions if you are being honest with yourself first. Critical point! The ability to compete is significantly diminished in those that are crippled by themselves.
4.) Last, but not least, the KISS principle...... KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID! One of the things that I realize more and more the further I progress in life is realization of just how little one person, no matter how intelligent they are, really knows. Keeping things streamlined and simple is a critical concept in mastery of any discipline. Doctors have a saying in the first year of med. school that goes like this, "If you hear hoof beats coming your way, don't go looking for a herd of zebra's!". Research the principle behind Occam's Razor as well.
About 3-4 years ago I had the privlidge to meet Ben Stein. I listened to him speak on a local college's lecture circuit, one of the things I'll never forget him saying is that if you want to make it big you have to go big (the Go Big or Go Home principle). The very next thing he said is to take advantage of opportunity, but with that always uphold the responsibilities to yourself, family and loved ones. Negativity is catchy, don't hang with negative people. I know from my own personal experience that decreasing time with those that tell you things can't be done, or those that are too scared to "do" or "risk" for themselves is not a way to success.
Lastly, Man in the Arena about sums it up.....
"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."
- Theodore Roosevelt
There are no monuments built honoring the critics, just the doers!
I never met the man, but I did have some one on ones with his east coast partner. Bob used to coach many athletes as well. I must admit, I did pick up a few things that helped. Of course along the path to overcoming our demons, we use whatever helps if it helps. Shit, I'd howl at the moon butt naked if it improves my trading.