Here are some good self-assessment questions:
* How purposeful are you in getting the sleep you need to function at your best?
* How purposeful are you in getting the exercise you need to function with maximum energy?
* How purposeful are you in eating the right foods to sustain your health and well-being?
* How purposeful are you in organizing your time so that you’re spending your highest quality time on your most important priorities?
* How purposeful are you in cultivating the quality of time with the people who matter most in your life?
* How purposeful are you in ensuring that, each day, you are accomplishing something meaningful in your life?
Can we really expect to achieve our life’s purposes if we are not living our days purposefully?
Can we trade with intention and discipline if we don’t live the rest of our lives intentionally?
Everything in life can be approached with intention and purpose or it can be approached mindlessly and routinely. In carrying out daily activities with self-direction, we strengthen our ability to stay mindful and purposeful for life’s greater goals.
Life is one great gymnasium, but we only develop if we recognize the equipment and conduct our workouts.
Archives of “sleep” tag
rssTimeless Trading Wisdom
Trading System – The trading system gives the trader the ability to control his or her emotional states rather than allowing them to control him. A system is a disciplined method for organizing dynamic, ever-changing market phenomena.
Risk Control – If I have positions going against me, I get right out; if they are going for me, I keep them… Risk control is the most important thing in trading. If you have a losing position that is making you uncomfortable, the solution is very simple: Get out, because you can always get back in.
Psychological Makeup – You learn to distinguish the good traders from the bad, the successful techniques from the unsuccessful, and the good habits from the faulty. You also learn to distinguish the lover from the fighter, the winners from the losers, the serious from the frivolous, the cerebral from the superficial, and the friend from the foe. But above all, you learn that the psychological makeup of the trader is the single most critical element of success.
The Easy Middle – The beginning of a price move is usually hard to trade because you are not sure whether you are right about the direction of the trend. The end is hard because people start taking profits and the market gets very choppy. The middle of the move is what I call the easy part.
Cut Back Trading Size When Losing – When you are in a losing streak, your ability to properly assimilate and analyze information starts to become distorted because of the impairment of the confidence factor, which is a by-product of a losing streak. You have to work very hard to restore that confidence, and cutting back trading helps achieve that goal.
Have A Predetermined Stop – Whenever I enter a position, I have a predetermined stop. That is the only way I can sleep. I know where I am getting out before I get in. The position size on a trade is determined by the stop, and the stop is determined on a technical basis.
Accept the Risk – To whatever degree you haven’t accepted the risk, is the same degree to which you will avoid the risk. Trying to avoid something that is unavoidable will have disastrous effects on your ability to trade successfully.
Making Mistakes Is Part of Business – According to Bruce Kovner: Michael Marcus [another top trader] taught me one other thing that is absolutely critical: You have to be willing to make mistakes regularly; there is nothing wrong with it. Michael taught me about making your best judgement, being wrong, making your next best judgement, being wrong, making your third best judgement, and then doubling your money.
Sixty Ways To Make Life Simple Again
- Don’t try to read other people’s minds. Don’t make other people try to read yours. Communicate.
- Be polite, but don’t try to be friends with everyone around you. Instead, spend time nurturing your relationships with the people who matter most to you.
- Your health is your life, keep up with it. Get an annual physical check-up.
- Live below your means. Don’t buy stuff you don’t need. Always sleep on big purchases. Create a budget and savings plan and stick to both of them.
- Get enough sleep every night. An exhausted mind is rarely productive.
- Get up 30 minutes earlier so you don’t have to rush around like a mad man. That 30 minutes will help you avoid speeding tickets, tardiness, and other unnecessary headaches.
- Get off your high horse, talk it out, shake hands or hug, and move on.
- Don’t waste your time on jealously. The only person you’re competing against is yourself.
- Surround yourself with people who fill your gaps. Let them do the stuff they’re better at so you can do the stuff you’re better at.
- Organize your living space and working space. Read David Allen’s bookGetting Things Done
for some practical organizational guidance. - Get rid of stuff you don’t use.
- Ask someone if you aren’t sure.
- Spend a little time now learning a time-saving trick or shortcut that you can use over and over again in the future.
- Don’t try to please everyone. Just do what you know is right.
- Don’t drink alcohol or consume recreational drugs when you’re mad or sad. Take a jog instead. (more…)
for some practical organizational guidance.Damn Algorithms
What more is left to say at this point other than the fact that the hedge fund computers and their damnable algorithms have destroyed the integrity of the US futures markets. The sheer size, extent, ferocity and volatility of the moves that these pestilential computers are creating have rendered these markets basically useless for what they originally came into being for, namely, risk management for commercial entities.
—I am predicting here and now that unless something is done to corral these hedge funds, the futures market is going to become useless as a risk management tool for non-speculative entities.
—Maybe we all should just go the hell to sleep and wake up in a year and see if the chart has actually gone anywhere besides up and down like a stinking yo-yo.
Women
Do you know the relation between two eyes?
They never see each other………. BUT
They blink together
They move together
They cry together
They see things together
They sleep together
They share a very deep bonded relationship
However, when they see a woman, one will blink and another will not.
Moral of the story: Woman can break any kind of relationship!!!
To Be Happy
If you are after specific investment advice, stop reading now. We seek to explore one of Adam Smith’s obsessions: what it means to be happy. We also discuss why that’s important to investors, and how we can seek to improve our own levels of happiness. The list below shows our top ten suggestions for improving happiness.
- Don’t equate happiness with money. People adapt to income shifts relatively quickly, the long lasting benefits are essentially zero.
- Exercise regularly. Taking regular exercise generates further energy, and stimulates the mind and the body.
- Have sex (preferably with someone you love). Sex is consistently rated as amongst the highest generators of happiness. So what are you waiting for?
- Devote time and effort to close relationships. Close relationships require work and effort, but pay vast rewards in terms of happiness.
- Pause for reflection, meditate on the good things in life. Simple reflection on the good aspects of life helps prevent hedonic adaptation.
- Seek work that engages your skills, look to enjoy your job. It makes sense to do something you enjoy. This in turn is likely to allow you to flourish at your job, creating a pleasant feedback loop.
- Give your body the sleep it needs.
- Don’t pursue happiness for its own sake, enjoy the moment. Faulty perceptions of what makes you happy, may lead to the wrong pursuits. Additionally, activities may become a means to an end, rather than something to be enjoyed, defeating the purpose in the first place.
- Take control of your life, set yourself achievable goals.
- Remember to follow all the rules.
Trading Wisdom
There’s an old joke about the investor who never used any stop losses. His friend knew his big positions were getting crushed.
Out of concern, the friend asked, “How are you sleeping?”
“Like a baby” he answered.
“Really? You aren’t nervous or upset?”
“I sleep like a baby” he repeated.
“That’s amazing. I’d never be able to sleep through the night with those types of losses.”
“Who said anything about sleeping through the night? I said I slept like a baby: I wake up every two hours, wet myself and cry for 30 minutes before falling back to sleep.”
That’s why risk management is so critical: to save you from sleeping like a baby, and in the long run to save you a lot of money.
—There’s a reason flight attendants show you where the emergency exits are before takeoff. The same thinking should apply to investors. Prudent investors have a sell strategy in place beforethey get involved with a stock. Using any of these stop strategies helps keep your emotions out of the process when an investing emergency arises.
Best advice ever given
A young man who worked for the great J.P. Morgan approached Mr. Morgan. Said the young man, “Mr. Morgan, may I have your advice. I own a portfolio of stocks and it’s not doing well, I can’t think, I can’t eat, I can’t sleep. I worry day and night. What do you think I should do?” Morgan with his fierce demeanor eyed the young man and growled, “SELL TO THE SLEEPING POINT.” That may be the best advice ever given regarding investing. The truth — I’ve often used it.
Common Characteristics between Successful Gamblers and Successful Speculators
Just Listen :
On a warm summer’s evenin’ on a train bound for nowhere,
I met up with the gambler; we were both too tired to sleep.
So we took turns a starin’ out the window at the darkness
‘Til boredom overtook us, and he began to speak.
He said, “Son, I’ve made my life out of readin’ people’s faces,
And knowin’ what their cards were by the way they held their eyes.
So if you don’t mind my sayin’, I can see you’re out of aces.
For a taste of your whiskey I’ll give you some advice.” (more…)
Byron Wien’s 20 Rules of Investing & Life
Outstanding list from a man who has accumulated much wisdom over the years:
Lessons Learned in His First 80 Years
1. Concentrate on finding a big idea that will make an impact on the people you want to influence. The Ten Surprises, which I started doing in 1986, has been a defining product. People all over the world are aware of it and identify me with it. What they seem to like about it is that I put myself at risk by going on record with these events which I believe are probable and hold myself accountable at year-end. If you want to be successful and live a long, stimulating life, keep yourself at risk intellectually all the time.
2. Network intensely. Luck plays a big role in life, and there is no better way to increase your luck than by knowing as many people as possible. Nurture your network by sending articles, books and emails to people to show you’re thinking about them. Write op-eds and thought pieces for major publications. Organize discussion groups to bring your thoughtful friends together.
3. When you meet someone new, treat that person as a friend. Assume he or she is a winner and will become a positive force in your life. Most people wait for others to prove their value. Give them the benefit of the doubt from the start. Occasionally you will be disappointed, but your network will broaden rapidly if you follow this path.
4. Read all the time. Don’t just do it because you’re curious about something, read actively. Have a point of view before you start a book or article and see if what you think is confirmed or refuted by the author. If you do that, you will read faster and comprehend more.
5. Get enough sleep. Seven hours will do until you’re sixty, eight from sixty to seventy, nine thereafter, which might include eight hours at night and a one-hour afternoon nap.
6. Evolve. Try to think of your life in phases so you can avoid a burn-out. Do the numbers crunching in the early phase of your career. Try developing concepts later on. Stay at risk throughout the process. (more…)