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Hi,
Recently there have been some complaints about spam.
We will look at what all the fuss is about and how this strongly relates
to trading behaviours and success in trading.
What is the problem with spam?
I get lots of junk snail mail in the post.
About 25 years ago I used to get upset with Readers Digest sending me
about 6 to 8 letters a month spread between my parents house, my
apartment, my girlfriends place and my office.
Eventually I returned one of the letters from each address in a parcel
containing a building brick and placed no postage stamps on the
parcels.
It worked, for about a year, when the letters recommenced to my office
address.
Now I do not get angry or even upset with junk snail mail.
I accept that junk mail is normal, and occasionally useful, and I can
suppress most of it if I want to or turn most off individually.
Some I throw away based on the source identified on the envelope such
as:
- unknown
(to me) credit card companies,
- certain
magazine offers.
So I occasionally discard without opening, some I read and enjoy, a few I
find interesting and even rarely I might become a customer but mostly I
discard after a quick browse at the contents.
This is not a problem for me.
How is spam any different?
The answer is it is a new medium, and the cultures response to spam has
not matured, or the cultures response is not commonly understood, or a
bit of both perhaps.
In this context, some peoples emotional reactions to spam are felt to be
validated when others (apparently the majority) seem to be of like
mind. I do not know what the majority opinion is - and do not
really care. Anyway the majority opinion is constantly
developing.
As in many such situations of group emotional reinforcement processes
(often called crowd behaviour) we feel justified by not being alone in
our feelings. When this happens, we can get righteous
in our indignation and can express ourselves with anger.
Often our expression has a paradoxical element - a simultaneous complex
of requiring strokes that we are right about this terrible spam, and
strong assumption that we are obviously right about this terrible
spam.
Spam is just spam - it is not evil nor is it the very essence of God - it
is just spam and the internet equivalent of junk snail mail.
So what is the real problem - if any - and what is the relevance for
trading?
Perhaps it is mostly in the nature of some peoples reaction to
spam.
The problem is not the spam, but an angry or frustrated or upset reaction
to it.
We influence how we perceive events in the environment.
We can, to some degree control, our reactions to perceived events in the
environment.
As traders, to be successful, we need to perceive one (of many) realities
of the market without taking what the market does personally.
When we take the markets behaviour personally, we give ourselves
permission to see the market as upsetting or frustrating or angering
us. And so, to varying degrees, we lose, in the fog of
emotion, our reasoning powers.
This is as a good a recipe for losing (or giving back winnings) when
trading as I know of.
The market just is.
Spam just is.
Getting upset at the market or spam does not help unless exercise of
emotions is the game we are playing to win - in which case getting upset
makes a lot of sense.
Forget about spam outside and look inside for your source of joy - your
choice of perception and considered response rather than emotional
reaction is yours to choose.
Let spam get on with its job.
It will settle down whether you are angered or not.
But meanwhile enjoy life - do not look for things to get upset with -
especially when you cannot realistically influence
them.
I recommend selecting happiness not anger.
What do you think is better?
Unconditional regards, Ric.
www.traderscalm.com
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