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.
