Blended Living

• rain rain go away!
• should have taken that walk when the sun came out earlier
• 4x is humming along, albeit at a muted amount
• still best to work out the kinks with smaller amounts
• and I’m still learning things about this craft after having made so many trades in the last decade
• or should I say I am learning things about me?
• that good cup of coffee today is keeping me up now
• rolling along like its was early evening right now
• good thing (or maybe bad) that the 4x markets don’t sleep at all
• more time to practice, and its good to do while I’m not at my best
• to sort of stress test myself and my trading skills
• some days I would hesitate to call these skills
• but I’ve proven to myself that they are skills
• just that I’m sometimes not in the right frame of mind to pay attention
• to the little subtle signals
• and the competing voices that habitate my mind
• oh that Kindle DX is tempting
• just when I thought I owned everything I want
• along comes a device that could be the answer to 3 needs
• a platform for me to read more on (especially fiction and current stuff)
• a way to ease some clutter
• a prize for trading well, or perhaps hitting my fitness goals
• I’m getting that feeling…
• that sweet nexus of ideas, practice, and technology
• the sticker price is steep
• but the probably 2 year costs come out to under 2 bucks a day
• and I will likely use it enough to justify that
• besides if my solution seeking engine (my mind) fixates on that prize
• it helps to focus me sufficiently to not do the little stupid things
• that can sabotage a good trade setup- like fear and greed and impatience
• just exited that trade with 2 Kindle DX days worth of profit
• hitting my marks, should be time to up the ante.

If you know me well, you know that I will likely be reading several books at once.  In fact if you have had more than a casual conversation with me, I will likely be engaged in several simultaneous conversations.  What’s nice about that (besides the aggravating confusion, and occasional humorous misunderstanding) is that it allows for some original insights.

I’m currently reading “Predictably Irrational”,  “The Forex Trading Course”, “Leading with Kindness”,  “The Little SAS Book”, “The Blended Learning Book”, “Time Shifting”, a couple books on mental discipline, an aikido book, and a couple python programming books.

This current mix brought me back to a moment years ago – exactly about this time of year during the last recession.  I decided to make a living trading stocks.  There is nothing like learning to trade and trying to pay your bills to focus you.  But that was 6 years ago- and another story.

What lesson that came out of that period was how I could be trading or preparing to trade for hours and I mean hours and hours and yet come out even or worse down for my efforts.  Other days i was so in tune with the process, the markets, and the psychology(both mine and other traders) that I could place one trade in the morning and justify my decision of not looking for a “job”.  On those days I might go into the park with a good book and walk or read in the sunlight.  That life went on for a while – what I and another friend later termed “The Year of Sundays”.

I yearned for an existence that balanced my efforts and growth.  To be profitable enough, and not sacrifice myself to the churning markets.  That “market” can and will take the naive or greedy and spit you out.  I didn’t know what to call this calling- but blended living seems a good name now.  To take the pieces of our lives – the mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical parts and give each its due each and every day.  The right mix.

I tried to fine tune the process.  A rather enjoyable personal version of my own “Ground Hog’s Day” – except I didn’t want to ever escape.  Wake, get the mundane out of the way, anchor, assess myself, target goals, protect against risks, take a break, compile trading ideas, watch the market and CNBC, listen to Bloomberg radio, zone in on a trade, wait it out, and exit.  Then I’d work out, or take a walk, or do the other daily rituals that prepare our days.  I was done by noon most days.  

It sounds enviable, yet it was very intense.  Early on, I would have to take a nap some days.  I wish I was a runner back then.  The lessons learned from “Run less, run faster” would have paid off handsomely.  I wish “Enhancing Trader Performance” was written earlier.  Still the 40 or so trading, finance, psychology books I read prepared me enough to let me trade for almost 2 years.  My account size is what forced me back into the 9 to 5 employment life.  You can’t make 5 or 6% and spend 8-12% and expect to keep that going for long.

But I’m still looking for the right mix.