Bojour. I am flying through some nasty turbulence from southern France to Paris to catch my connecting flight back to NYC. I land, drop off our bags and my wife, grab a few hours of sleep and then head back to the airport for a flight to Toronto. I am the chairman and a presenter at Quant Invest Canada 2012 on 10/16. I have spent the past week in Paris and the south of France experiencing and learning. I leave a better trader without making one trade. How is that possible?
My wife and I were invited to a chateau wedding in the south of France this weekend. This was the second marriage for the bride and groom. Not in that they were previously married to different people. They had already married in Big Sur with friends but wanted to celebrate their nuptials with their European friends, family and those who could not attend their first wedding. At first I found this a bit narcissistic but who am I to stand in the way of a trip to Paris and the south of France with my wife. I am so happy we went. I learned a great lesson from the groom that can help our trading. And with my travels I learned more about the world, which I will use as a trader, author and partner.
During the groom’s address he wished the wedding guests a weekend of memories. What a wonderful gift. As traders we fill our days competing for a greater P&L. We smash our keyboards when things go poorly. We lose sleep if underperforming. We stress about making more. Does any of that help your P&L?
Your success as a trader is determined by your skill. Building skill takes screen time and practice. This helps us build intuition, that subconscience voice that steers your trading. When we combine our intuition with our creativity and our talents we become our best trader. But to be creative we must have life experiences that fuel our imaginative innovations. As traders there is more than one way to trade a bullish consolidation pattern. Trading it as well as we can requires that we are hitting on all cylinders with our high level thinking. And to obtain that high level thinking and creativity to build that superior trade that makes the most sense to us, we can tap into knowledge from life experiences.
Our minds are a wondrous gift. Our best thoughts come at times unplanned or from inspiration not understood. I created the SMB PlayBook 1500 miles from our trading floor. Experiencing different cultures and well experiences plants seeds that can grow into your next best trading set up or trading improvement.
(Oh they are passing out the chocolate cookies now on Air France. Brilliant.)
Josh Brown tweeted a famous financier quotation that he didn’t know one successful person who did not read all the time. I would add to that important quote of reading a ton…… living.
You must learn the difference between flying on Air France and Delta.
See how clean the airports and Metro are in Paris as opposed to any of our third world NYC airports.
Be surprised at the delicious combination of duck, potato and cheese casserole. Or a truly French hot croissant with fresh apricot jelly.
Discover a new favorite dessert like chocolate molten cake with raspberry sorbet.
Buy a Lacoste sweatshirt in Paris in Euros, left handed zip, from the Parisian befuddled to match XXL with your European size.
See the shops on Champs-Elysse and compare them with Fifth avenue in NYC.
Get lost in the Louvre with the Mona Lisa and The Winged Victory of Samothrace.
Drink some extra strong local red French wine.
Reading that Paris is the most beautiful city in the world is not the same as visiting and understanding why you view Paris as the most beautiful city in the world. How every bridge is unique. How the lights are perfectly staged under each crossing. These experiences grow your mind from which you can use to build new, creative and higher level thoughts. And yes even in your trading.
Trading is not about just pushing yourself during market hours. Expand that to your life. That learning outside of trading will circle back to make you a better trader. It will manifest new and improved ideas for your trading.
Bella
no relevant positions
