Happy Traders make the Best Traders

Happiness goes a long way.  If you have ever been to Thailand you will see many smiley happy people.  Furthermore people will be generally relaxed in situations that would result in unhappy and angry people in Western culture.

Take driving for example, you are constantly swerving in and out of traffic, have oncoming traffic going the wrong way, people "cut you off", traffic signs are often ignored, and yet there is this calmness.   "cutting someone off" is even the wrong expression here in Thailand.  It's not that you are being cut off or cutting someone off, it's simply traffic.  No negative thought goes into the situation.   Whereas in Western countries one would be angry, shout, signal obscenities, and blood pressure would surely boil.   Here in Thailand it just is not so.  It's not interpreted as a negative, therefor there is not negativity bouncing back.

There is a saying that a man's character is determined in times of adversity.  One goes as far as to say that if you can find humour in a bad situation you have conquered the bad situation.

My dad always said smile and make everyone wonder what you're so happy about.
In Yoga the instructor will tell you to smile in the most difficult positions. 
In Boxing you will actually feel less pain or no pain if you smile.

Happiness is not just your path in life, but it is your path to successful Forex Trading.  If you are unhappy you are likely to react with your emotions.   And fellas, that goes especially for all you men, and less so for the ladies.  The funny thing is that man will have less emotion than a woman, however when it comes to money, men will experience more emotion than women.  And not that we don't have feelings, for example we feel hungry, haha. But seriously now if you are happy you are going to be able to stay cool and make coherent trading decisions opposed to emotional trading decisions.

Coffee is Life

A few years back when I was living in the Netherlands I was consulting for a multi-national Fortune 500 company and responsible for managing a project with parties from England, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, and Italy.

It truly was an enlightening experience.  With all the history in Europe, subsequent long standing rivalries between some of the countries and different cultures & lifestyle, it made for an interesting project.

One evening I mingled with the Italian delegation, the most lively, friendly, and animated characters you could ever meet.   We shared one passion.   Coffee!    As you probably have gathered from my Forex Blog, I am from Vienna Austria where coffee was cultivated and brought to the Western World. 

 

So as we shared that cup of coffee the senior manager said "Coffee is Life" as he poured a tube of sugar in his espresso.   "Don't stir it! Just let it settle at the bottom."    An interesting philosophy.  Life sometimes is best seen as a journey, not a destination.  Stirring the sugar would just give you a consistent taste.  While leaving the sugar at the bottom will give you a little bit of a bitter, a little bit of sweet, and a lot of sweet at the end.  Similar to life.

In any event, the reason I'm writing this post today is to share another interesting perspective.  I was talking to my student Brendan who had some bad trades with the fear & greed factor dampening his ability to make profits.   If you have ever traded Forex or been in one of those situations where your emotions get the better of you, it's similar to having drank too much coffee.  Your heart is beating and you have no control over it.  You have this adrenaline, this want & need to do something.  You are restless.  Not thinking and acting clearly.

So what do you do?  Sometimes you just have to wait it out.  "Abwarten Tee Trinken" is a German expression, that means "Drink Tea and Wait".    That's about all you can do sometimes when life gets your emotions going. When your emotions are getting the better of you when you are trading and you are experiencing trading psychology first hand.