LISTEN
“Well Johnny…most people don’t take direction well”.
I almost started to differ with her there, cuz I try to be an opptimist, but we both knew there was truth in what she said.
“People listen for what they want to hear, she continued”.. “not what they don’t want to hear…The more choices a boy or girl has, the more the chance they’ll make the wrong one. And believe me, you young people have too many choices today….no wonder nobody knows how to listen anymore”.
My Mother told me that 30 years ago, and the complexity of our daily decision making process isn’t getting any easier.
While the problem can certainly lie with the choice made, it’s really how we make those choices that we need to be aware of. Let’s look at decision making from the viewpoint of a physical time line and performance, and not from our everday, linear, me-centric viewpoint. A group is faced with two choices for breakfast: Choice 1: A bowl of cereal, fresh fruit and a tea. Or, Choice 2: a cup of coffee and a chocolate donut. Everyone in the group chooses Choice 1, the cereal, fruit, and tea, because they all know that while the chocolate donut and coffee may provide a quick boost, the overload of sugar and caffiene will not lead to the desired, sustained performance they expect from themselves that morning.
But why does it work the opposite in real life!?
Just as in life, in trading we need to make decisions based on performance over time and not instant gratification. I know first hand that people don’t often listen to basic instructions if it isn’t what they previously had in mind. They are however open to watching professional demonstrations, and actually enjoy participating in demonstrations themselves. This self-demonstration is very important, because it builds a big step toward choosing a trading methodology. First show me how/why something works, then teach me how to demonstrate and verfiy this to myself.
Anytime anyone is trying to sell you something on trading, ask them: “How do I demonstrate that what you’re trying to sell will work for me?”.
The key to deciding which directions to take is making sure they fit with your overall goals. You have to analyze whether a choice is being made because that’s what you would like, or want to happen, or because it’s been demonstrated that this is the right long-term choice for you.
While everybody may not always agree with the stories and advertisements on blogs, blogs do us all a great service by making things more transparent; and spreading the word quickly when something isn’t right. That’s important because let’s face it, “most people don’t take direction well”. And in trading you defnitely want to be making the right choices and following proper directions! But before you can get there you are goign to have to learn to LISTEN.
Jay
Jnorris@brewerinvestmentgroup.com
800-971-2154
Jay Norris is the author of Mastering the Currency Market, McGraw-Hill, 2009 and host of “Live Trading Exercise” sponsored by Trading-U.com & BrewerFX in Chicago. To see details of Trading-U’s available course work go to Trading Course To schedule a complimentary, interactive tutorial with Jay on determining market direction and hear more about “Live Market Exercise” go to One on One Tutorial
DISCLAIMER: Forex (off-exchange foreign currency futures and options or FX) trading involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for every investor. Risks include the potential that changing political/economic conditions may substantially affect the price/liquidity of a currency. Investors may lose all or more than their original investments. Any charts shown here represent market conditions at a particular point in time. Such conditions may not be replicated in the future. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
An Excellent summary about Choices we make in life and especially about our Trading methodology.
True, we do not want a quick fix while trading (a chocolate Donut and a double shot of espresso), but we do want to acquire a sustained performance during that day, week, year and decade and Lifetime in fact (stick with the healthy cereal, fruit and Tea or Latte)
We definitely wanna follow sound directions and these blogs certainly help us along.Many Thanks