Winning the Race

• Posted by Greg Harmon
• on November 29th, 2013

One month left. Like the last lap of the race. The ‘rabbit’ who set the early pace has fallen off the lead. The horse that bolted out of the gate has run out of gas for the stretch run and you are left with a shot at the prize. The finish line is in sight.

 

That is how the world looks at the annual process of turning the page to a new year. But you know that is not what it is about. Trading and investing are not the short defined races that the world would lead you to believe. Performance numbers at the end of every year, 3 years, 5 years, 10 years. They matter because we have been conditioned to believe that they matter. Did you ever think about why it is important to know your performance from January 1st until December 31st and not May 15th through to the next May 14th? This is not a race that starts new every year. It is a process that is constant, continual. To you it does not matter if it is January 5th, June 16th or November 30th. It is another day. Another opportunity to be better at what you do. Think about the last time you closed out December 31st and said ‘That was awesome! Now we can take some time off and coast.’ Has it ever been for more than a day or two?

This game of the stock market and investing is a marathon. Not a sprint and the winners of the marathon are those that trained the hardest and kept trying to improve. They persisted. Some look back on their lives and say that it was a combination of being lucky and hard work. But you know that it is more about the work. I believe that. You need to work to get better every day.

‘Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.
—Seneca

How did Seneca, nearly 2,000 years ago, have the key to success in
nearly every endeavor in the world? We have heard it a thousand times:
be prepared and work hard. This is how you give yourself the opportunity
to succeed. So often we seek to shortcut this process and get to the prize
more quickly. Why do we think this approach can be successful? Malcolm
Gladwell has the rule of 10,000 hours. He states that it takes 10,000 hours
of preparation to be great at something. So why do you…..’*

And 10,000 hours is not enough.  You cannot just rest after that.  Thanksgiving has just passed and hopefully you have spent quality time with family and away from the process.  December is now upon us and it is time to get back to getting better.  Not because the year is coming to a close but because you are one day older and one day further into your process.  Keep growing, keep improving, keep building.  That is how you win.

* excerpt is the first 100 words from my upcoming book Trading Options: Using Technical Analysis to Design Winning Options Trades

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