We all have goals in life.
The top goal usually people have is to be happy.
The top goal in the markets is to make money.
Unfortunately the happiest people I know are really bad traders.
The grumpiest people I know already blew up their capital three times over and called markets a scam and gave up on trading.
What is the ideal state to be a good trader then?
The answer according to me is to be slightly dissatisfied with life.
It could be described as having a piece of ribeye stuck between your teeth after a nice dinner at a steakhouse. You are generally content but something seems off.
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Could slight dissatisfaction be the difference between someone who takes 40pts on a Nasdaq trade or someone who takes 200 pts.
Again, I’m not saying you should be unhappy. Far from it. But if you are too happy (just fell in love, your aunt died leaving you a prime waterfront villa) you wouldn’t push your winners more or cut your losses ruthlessly.
How to engineer slight dissatisfaction in your life anon?
My favorite ways to do so is to check realtor websites and look at houses beyond 20m or check vintage porsche sales data.
Spurring yourself into the slightly dissatisfied zone without making yourself unhappy or fucking up your serotonin balance is an art. And you get better at it as time passes.
And as always huge thanks to all of you for reading this substack.
I have tapered to around 3000 of you who have stuck around to read this newsletter every week. Genuinely love all the support I get but I would love to get 10,000 subscribers making me slightly dissatisfied *ties it up nicely in a bow*
Further reading:
This link
”People who are just slightly dissatisfied at baseline might have an advantage over others in getting themselves out of negative situations such as unemployment, suggests Annabelle Krause of the Institute for the Study of Labor, in Germany. For example, she found that highly happy and unhappy people were about 40% and 17% (respectively) less likely than their average-happiness peers to have found new positions one year after losing their jobs, possibly because these personality extremes can lead to loss of resilience and motivation in adversity. A slight dissatisfaction, by contrast, can serve as a motivator to achieve more and earn more money.”
-Fin
Brother how can you be a terrible trader and happy? I like the idea otherwise, interesting post. It reminds me when I was asking myself if a smoker could be a winning trader. If you have urges to smoke, how can you wait patiently for your setup at all times.
Great post, never thought of it this way