Traders, You Have to Go There to Come Back
I had an interesting experience recently, I shared my computer screens with a contact during a ‘web ex’ meeting and demonstration. If you’re not familiar with this type of on line demonstration it’s fascinating; you join an online meeting were you share the information displayed on the screen/s and if you give your permission the other party can control your desktop, or alternatively you can lead and control the session.
He was demonstrating a public relations contact database to me as I’d quite simply got bogged down in a part of the programme, the solution proved to be child like in it’s simplicity making me feel a touch silly. Anyhow, his time and mine wasn’t completely wasted as we both learned something new; I learned how to create media prospect lists in a quicker way, how to merge the lists, export them to excel, to then share with others in FXCC etc., what he learned was more by accident than design…
During the demonstration the mechanical set up I constantly use for trading the euro (and the alert connected to it) sounded. The eur/usd chart instantly appeared. Naturally this interrupted our on line meeting which to be fair was nearing the end.
My contact was immediately taken aback, “whoah Paul, what is that?”. I wasn’t sure at first if the sound alert that had spooked him, in fact it was the chart showing eur/usd with all the various: indicators, trend lines etc. on it, together with the flash of data that had intrigued him, suddenly he got a glimpse into the world we operate in.
We spent the next twenty minutes discussing forex trading, in fact the meeting completely turned on it’s head, it now became me demonstrating and explaining; the charts, my indicator set up, how the daily pivot, support, resistance, the 200 MA, the time of day, depth of market and volume leads me to the decision to pull the trigger and enter the market.
My twenty minute demonstration was a filtration of many years of experience condensed into what works for me as a dedicated full time trader, it has taken years of bruising and testing to arrive at a point in time where I’ve discovered my edge and yet having arrived at the unconscious competence stage of trader development I can easily demonstrate it to a contact inside twenty minutes.
That’s not to say a lot of the info. I provided was intelligible to someone with little or no experience in our industry, undoubtedly a lot of my description would have been Greek to him, however, I’m able to demonstrate what works for me inside twenty minutes, perhaps less time to an experienced trader. This led me to a conclusion that perhaps we should all test our edge to see if a complete novice could understand it inside a twenty minute pitch? Surely we should be able to explain the basics of what we ‘do’ inside such a time frame (excuse the pun). If we can’t does the question need to be asked, “is it too complicated?”
My contact became excited by the concept of forex trading and trading in general, particularly as he saw me close a trade in profit and effortlessly swing in the opposite direction to again be in profit fairly quickly, it all looked and sounded so simple, if only every day was like that.
My thoughts also turned back to when I started trading, how daunting it was, how much research I undertook, the thousands of hours conversing on forums, researching articles, devouring information in books, talking to my broker, I wondered if there was a short cut, whether or not my public relations contact could cut out all my experiences (good and bad) and simply arrive where I’m at in a fraction of the time? No, is the answer, yes he could no doubt mechanically shadow my trades, or react to alerts we may send him, but there really are no short cuts in this business, you really do have to go there to come back.
You have to embark on an odyssey, a voyage of discovery in order to return to a safe harbour full of tales of wonder and excitement. You must live the full trader experience in order to condense and reduce your trading to simple components to become that weather beaten match hardened trader, omitting it would mean a vital part of your trader psyche has not had the time to develop. That development insulates you from the further tests the markets will undoubtedly throw at you as your journey continues, for however long you may decide to continue trading.
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06-10-2011, 16:20
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