Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Tuesday AM Notes - Silver or Gold?

2:05am Just awoke from a nap ... not to trade, but to try to get my head into Tuesday's potential trade. Somehow, I need to start the day feeling real pain. Pain to awake and motivate this trading soul to reach beyond what I feel has been complacent August performance. Pain to mentally translate two days of treading water into two days from hell. Pain to make that fictitious draw which has worked so well for eight months feel real again without actually experiencing it.

Two days of treading water is typically a huge warning sign for me. And while I have every legitimate excuse in the book to look back at the last two days with equity-protecting "satisfaction", I can't even think of using that "s" word -- never mind feeling its emotion -- until this 2008 experiment/race/paradigm shift is over.

Perhaps said another way, I've been riding the wave of the French swimmer ahead of me in the next lane for the last 1/2 lap. What I need to do now is feel the pain of being behind and make the push when the time is right. I could coast for the rest of the month and year and easily finish with the Silver ... 99.9% of people would be extremely "satisfied". I can't go there. It's no where close to time yet and I want Gold.

This year isn't about greed ... rather it's about unparalleled excellence and stretching one's self beyond what he previously believed was possible ... period. If it takes corny Olympics analogies to help make that happen, so be it. No one else is going to motivate me, and I care about one result and one result only. Perhaps the greatest test of this blog experiment will be to see if it helps me stay the course and remain motivated for the next four months ... for I felt mid-year that I might lose the personal drive to make it to the finish line, especially as the summer trading season began, which is one reason I chose to share this year's approach "live" as it was occurring and evolving ... versus recapping it in an often-requested book after the final results were in.

Yes, we're in pre-Labor Day week which is often when many traders take time off for the fall performance push. Yet while coasting may be fine for a few strokes -- and perhaps necessary to rejuvenate me for the next required sequence of pushes -- all I know is right now is there's one swimmer ahead of me, the world-record green line is gaining on me, and my inner coach is screaming at me to time the next push right.

My coach is tough and I hate him at times. He's also right.

1 comment:

aapl said...

morning don...

great post about pushing yourself to be the best you can be, even when the opportunities presents bit...

i have a scaled down version of this talk with my 11 year old daughter regularly...

i always reminder her that it only takes her doing just a SMALL amount more than everyone else to achieve greatness in her chosen endeavors...

god bless,

Duane