A New Beginning

I just finished reading Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom by Van Tharp and it helped to rekindle my interest in the trading game. Tharp proposes that the biggest determinant to success in speculation is the individual psychological makeup of the trader himself. While this is clearly quite obvious, the very plain nature of this fact causes me to overlook the task of figuring out just what my own psychology is and how to adapt it to trading. I think I've gone through so many fits and starts when it comes to trading because I didn't spend the time examining my own mental state, strengths, hang-ups, etc. I spent more time on trying to create a system, a "Holy Grail" to make profits. Tharp talks about a Holy Grail too, but not as some construct that is external to the trader, not as a system just to find trades and enter/exit positions. The Holy Grail Tharp speaks of is an integration of the trader and whatever means he uses to trade, an acknowledgement that everyone has their own Holy Grail and that the way to find it is to truly search the depths of one's own psyche and use the findings as a guide to trade.

There are several reasons why I'm drawn to trading, but one of the biggest is the idea that it can be a means by which to come to truly know myself. It involves so many of the emotions that drive us like fear, greed, hubris, exultation, and disappointment. For me its almost a romantic notion, one of matching wits with this nameless and faceless entity called simply "The Market", knowing that odds are overwhelmingly against me. But then I think about those few who are successful and I wonder if I can be successful, too. Do I have the "right stuff" to be a successful trader? Can I learn to be a successful trader?

So that's why I can't seem to shake the trading bug. I read about it, I talk about it, sometimes I even dream about it. I want to experience self-discovery through speculation in financial assets. I want a window into my true inner-being, not who I think I am, or who others tell me I am. I think trading is the way to get there.