The year 2010 was more laid back, less stress but it was all an important year from the creative point of view. That year, the stock market had just started to recover from the 2008 financial crisis while I was still figuring out how to solve my personal emotion barriers when taking a trade. It's not a simple 1 + 1 = 2 but it's a forever ongoing thing that I would need to find a perfect solution. To aggravate matters, I just bought my condominium at the year 2009 where most of my deposit was stuck there and I don't have enough funds for trading. I knew my last $5000 for trading shall be a make it or break it thingy. In my view, the key to becoming a successful is not how big or how much I trade. It's learning how to control your emotion and keep your mind focus on my goals, how to overcome a string of losses if any, how to be consistent in my trades than to take a leap bound, how to stay cool under pressure and maintain my equanimity after crushing losses or ecstatic wins.
So I went on to read psychology and philosophy books in search for answers. I read the stories of the past greats regardless whether they were traders or speculators. I need to find a solution to break free from my mechanical conditioning and learn to live with the moment, letting situations develop and happen naturally without altering anything. Basically learn to unwind fixated thoughts, be present and accept each moment as it comes. Later stage of my career, this shall become a major overhaul in my trading, skills, thoughts and my personal success. Marred by my past failures, I was very determined to succeed with this new school of thoughts. This could be what I was searching for, the subtle integration between Zen and Buddhism teachings which could not only solve my emotion problems but give me a new ray of hope to solve the puzzling mystery in the stock market. Forget mistakes, forget failures, forget everything, except what you're going to do now and do it.
During the dreary experimental process, there were trails and errors in the fusion of thoughts. I wasn't interested in tactical trading but more on discovering the truth and real meaning of life. How can I create my own method based on human emotions? How can I spot the tops and bottoms with just the bars itself without the price or other indicators. How do I take advantage of such situations and capitalized on it for a win? As time passed by, the year was almost ending and finally, I wouldn't say I broke it all, but at least with my own research and hard work, I managed to unearth a simple yet powerful strategy based on my observations. The amount of time and effort I had posit in had all finally paid off. I was reveled and was ready to put my straw of effort and turn it to brilliance of gold. The only thing I needed was time and actual results. Research and studying were just 20% of the game. The real combat will then test your patience, endurance and emotional skills to see if everything gels. I knew I had a long way to go before I could make any claims that my method works. I had yet to experience the cold truth of my research in my bones without producing convincing results. Soon that would being to change.
During December 2010, I was ready to launch StockMarketMindGames but the process of selecting a name and the direction of the blog was not yet defined. Since my younger days as a kid, I was creative in my thoughts and would normally try out things that others would not. I would have crazy thoughts like building a scalable second house using piano materials inside my current house. I knew I would never accomplish it but the thoughts and idea itself was sufficient itself to kick off my creative juices. As I grew older, I always wanted to start something on my own and if I were to ever start something, it would not be the usual common names or business. I must always use art as a form of honest expression, create and blend the unthinkable. I had almost forgotten how I ended up choosing StockMarketMindGames as my blog name, but I think it's has got to do with the motto of fighting the mind games of the stock operators. If one is able to decipher what the stock operators are thinking, he/she had the advantage of beating and winning the game. Look at the attached pictures of a peace logo in an american flag, it was truly ingenious and creative illustration which spark more thoughts in my thinking process. I am usually dressed in my Visvim gear. Why? It's because of the direction and creative flow of names that they used to generate more "art" flow of their clothing directions and vision. My success today has got to do with fashion's creative Visvim and Mastermind Japan. They were the ones that create pave for Ronald K's thought process. No matter how expensive their items are, I would never question the designer why they raised the price, but more like I love their effort, philosophy, materials, design and hard work which so I pay the price for the products. I envisaged a vision from there on. One day, if I would ever conduct any courses, I would look into quality than quantity. The last thing that I needed to do was to set the ultimate direction of my blog, what I want to show and what I want people to know.
December 15th 2010, 1.58 am, StockMarketMindGames was born. I remembered it was my wife who asked me to launch it. She said, it was time to show people something new and unique that not many can't do. It was time for a revolution and revelation from the traditional, it's time to break out of inertia! I made a concerted effort to write and finally pen my philosophy and ideas on a digital diary. Initially I was still unable to break free from traditional trendlines but subsequently as my thoughts grew more matured, the painful experiences and emotional roller coaster I got from trading the markets and the perfect intersection between Zen and Buddhism, I slowly and gradually drifted away from tradition to create my own Mind Analysis. I finally achieved it all by my own and inspired many who wanted to learn from me. It was total unbelievable, I never expected that something I practiced in the past would allow me to achieve germination and consistency. The greatest achievement arrived subconsciously when I could virtually perform analysis on stocks within half a second. I was dumbfound myself because I always thought that was impossible. I conquered the impossible and turned the art into my slave instead of allowing the art to be my master!
http://stockmarketmindgames.blogspot.sg/2010/12/market-breath-and-human-psychology.html
Trading takes you on an emotional roller coaster ride that's hard to stop, even when you've diligently practiced letting go of your desire for things to be different than they actually are. There always seems to be just a bit more to let go of. Zen teacher Jakusho Kwong suggests becoming "an active participant in loss." We're conditioned to seek only gain, to be happy, and try to satisfy all our desires, he explains. But even though we may understand on some level that loss is a catalyst for growth, most people still believe it to be the opposite of gain and to be avoided at all costs. If I've learned anything in my years of practicing Zen and trading, it's that what we resist persists. Sometimes the letting go happens quickly; other times it may take several sleepless night. Or weeks.
If you find 2010 interesting and inspirational, please share it with your friends in Facebook or any other social media. The blog in 2010 was just non eye catching and they weren't many readers. I wouldn't call it a flop but a sluggish start. 2011 was violent, like a dormant volcano erupted suddenly with lava oozing out profusely. I couldn't help and control it as the entire trading world in Singapore witnessed me catching the tops/bottoms during a very volatile market with the readership increased exponentially! The negative and violent reactions surfaced as per predicted in the 2010 blog post! Stay tune.
http://stockmarketmindgames.blogspot.sg/2013/11/2009-2010-germinate-of.html
Ronald K - Market Psychologist - The Big Speculator
