I’ve been reading a wondeful book by Jerry Stocking titled Laighing with God.In that book the following dilemma is broght up ,and I’m going to rewrite the conversation a little to make it pertinent to trading/investing.

God :Do you want to win without losing ?

Trader :Of course.

God :If you win ,you must lose as well.But you weren’t honest with me.Your saud that you’d like to just win.If that were the case ,you’d win much  more often.

The possibility of failure motivates you much more than the possibility of success.your whole society thrices on failure  or at least the fear of lossing.If there were not the possibility of losing you could not take any credit for success.Making money in the markets would seen meaningless for you.

Think about it.What if you recorded a sporting event and someone told you the final score ?Would you still watch it ?Probably not because it’s the uncertainty of the outcome that keeps your attention.

Your could make money on every trade ,but that wouldn’t be fun.You’d lose the uncertainty you love and yet ptretend to eliminate.

The Last statement may get to some of you.But what if it’s true ?Ed Seykota said in The New Market Wizards that people get what they want out of the market : excitement ,punishment and justification for their emotions.I’ve certainly seen plenty of evidence to suggest that his observation is true.But the conversation gets even more interesting.

God :Your know what will happen in the market because the future is an illusion you invent.Ignoring what you know at the sould level proces how much you love uncertainty.You use the illusion of the future to keep yourself locked in time.

To make this conversation more meaningful ,imagine that you are 100% accurate on every trade.You  know every top and every bottom  on every stock.You  are never wrong about a trade.Suppose you just entered the market and made 1 crore in a year.Would you keep going if it were that easy ?Would 1 crore be enough ?Would you keep trading ?

Perhaps your response is ,”sure I would !I ‘d get all the money in the world.”Would that be intersting ?I tend to doubt.Trading is interesting only because of the possibility of losing.You are now in position where you can buy anything or do anything because you will never lose money on a trade.Would you still trade ?Why or why not ?

Everything in this section may be made up.Nothing may be true ,But I ‘d like you to assume (act as if ) it is true.Just pretend that it’s true.When you do so ,what happens to you insider ?How do you feel about trading ?Would you keep on trading ?If so ,how often ?If no ,why not ?What does that tell you about yourself ?Is it the uncertainty that keeps you in the game ?Would you keep trading if you had all the money in the world ?Why ?What do your answers tell you about yourself ?

I encourage you to do this exercise and notice what comes up for you.How much trades would your take if you had not uncertanty about the outcome ?What do your answers tell you about yourself ?