This chapter covers:
Why trading should be the means to an end, not an end in itself
Why you must focus on what’s most important in your life and always pursue your dreams
Why it’s important to examine your priorities
How good trading teaches valuable lessons you can use in other areas of your life
Principles for living that will bring a Wowsa! to your life every day and also help make you a winning trader
Why are you trading?
That question isn’t as simple as it might seem. The obvious answer, the one you might expect from everyone, is, “Well, duh—for the money, what else?”
But what’s the money for? What’s your ultimate goal? This is a question everyone needs to think about, and one some people never get around to asking themselves.
Let me tell you why I trade, and maybe my reasons will help you think more about your own.
I trade as the means to an end. I don’t do it because it’s what I’ve always wanted to do, and trading still isn’t the only thing I want to do. The reason I started trading stocks in the first place was to pursue my dream, which is to write and direct films. I want to make movies—my own movies, movies that are real and true, movies that will speak to others and offer them something of value. I want to do this without relying on anyone else for funding because, as any screenwriter will tell you, even if someone in Hollywood buys your script, there’s no guarantee that they’ll ever make your film—or, if they do, that they’ll do it right.
I’ve already made a short film that was shown at numerous festivals, written several screenplays that were optioned, and been a finalist three times for the Sundance Institute’s Screenwriting and Filmmaking Laboratories. I’ve also won several playwriting awards, and there have been over twenty productions of my plays. I tell you this only to show how much my dream means to me. Making a film is something that will truly make me go, Wowsa! My hope is that you’re also trading as the means to some greater end in your life, some important goal that’s meaningful, lasting, and real. I believe that your ultimate trading goal should be to get to a place where you feel a bigger Wowsa! and sense of satisfaction about your life than you felt after your most awesome winning trade. Never give up on your dreams. Instead, do whatever you have to do to make them come true.
What are your most cherished dreams? What’s the most important thing in your life?
Never give up on your dreams.
Remember, too, that trading isn’t the only path to achieving your dreams. You may eventually find another path that better suits your situation and who you are. Some will make a fortune trading, and in that way will change their lives. Many already have. Others will not be able to, for whatever reason. Those who don’t may be tempted to blame themselves or others. It’s not their fault or anyone else’s—it just means trading isn’t their road. They have to keep traveling. There are always other roads.
For some people, though, trading isn’t even about the money, much less about a dream. For those people, trading is an end in itself—the activity is the final goal. In fact, I’ve met people whose lives have come to revolve around trading. They’re looking for action, something to focus on, something to care about. Some of them are lonely and isolated from life outside cyberspace. For them, trading has become an escape from life.
What are your real reasons for trading? Do you feel that you need to trade every day? Trading, like just about anything else, can become a form of addiction for some people. If you ever find that trading has replaced other parts of your life or become an end in itself, please stop, step back, and take an honest look at your priorities. What’s really important to you? How can you achieve it? Think hard about these questions from time to time. Trading should never take the place of meaningful goals and relationships in your life. Make sure trading is the means to a worthy end—not an end in itself.
Instead of replacing life, trading should teach you some important lessons that can help you live it well. The rules and discipline of trading aren’t so different from some of the principles that shape successful lives.
What are they?
1. Exercise self-discipline.
People who are successful in any area of life, whether it’s trading, a profession, athletics, or relationships, are able to focus on a goal and do whatever they need to do to reach it. This often means refusing to take the easy approach, resisting impulses, bypassing opportunities for instant gratification, making yourself do things that aren’t necessarily fun, and adhering to a routine or a plan. It’s all about taking responsibility for the direction your pursuits will take.
RULES OF THE GAME You are responsible for everything you do, both in trading and in life. There are no victims, only volunteers!
2. Approach life as a marathon, not a sprint.
Success requires perseverance over a long period of time, not short bursts of effort every now and then. Any large undertaking is best approached this way. You won’t get rich after a week of trading, and if you try, you’ll end up losing your money by taking excessive risks. Instead, bring in profits steadily and watch your success grow week by week, month by month.
RULES OF THE GAME It’s a marathon, not a sprint.
Things keep changing, in the market and everywhere else in the world. You have to keep up. This means never becoming married to one strategy, one stock, or one explanation. It also means keeping an open mind to new ideas and new information when they’re offered to you, and actively seeking them out when they aren’t.
RULES OF THE GAME Be open.
4. Maintain a winning attitude.
People who expect to lose rarely win. They don’t believe there’s any use in trying, so they don’t put forth the effort necessary to succeed. People who expect to win believe in themselves enough to do whatever they need to do to win. If you’re going to play at all, play to win!
RULES OF THE GAME Play to win.
Just as the lessons of trading can help you in the rest of your life, the way you live your life can improve your trading tremendously. Here are the things that bring the Wowsa! to my life every day and help make me a successful trader and a successful person. They really boil down to two things, which are intimately related: being good to others and being good to yourself.
1. Be good to others.
For me, there’s no joy in a selfish existence that tries to take more than it gives. I want to be good to others because it makes me feel good, not because I think I have to or because I’m trying to get something from them. Try it yourself. Be kind and generous with no strings attached. It will make you feel very good and very free.
One of the most important things I’ve been able to do by becoming a successful trader is to give money to charity, and to encourage others to do the same.
When I was a kid, I was so angry that I was constantly getting into fights. The kids I fought with were usually much older than me. I lost a lot of fights, but since I was always the underdog, I made it a point never to pick on anyone smaller than I was. I wanted a fight to be fair, or else for me to have to reach up to win.
That’s the way I feel about trading, too. I swore to myself long ago that one day, when I was making enough money to live my dreams, I’d help every underdog I possibly could.
That’s why giving to charity is so important to me.
Besides my dream of making films, my motivation in trading and teaching others to trade well is simply to level the playing field. I want to make sure that everyone has an equal shot at winning—that in the end, no matter what each of us has gone through, we can all reach our goals.
I believe in the paradox that you can’t keep your wealth unless you give it back. It’s a spiritual axiom that you’ll get back twelve times as much as you give to others. Please keep that in mind. In a sense, being charitable is actually selfish, because in the end you’ll get back much more than you’ve given. But charity is a spiritually healthy kind of selfishness.
RULES OF THE GAME Remember to give something back.
3. Live a physically healthy life.
One important way to be good to yourself is to stay healthy. Not taking care of yourself is a subtle form of self-punishment. If you’re pursuing your dreams, you’ve got a lot to live for. You should feel good while you’re doing it!
I try to eat right (if you love sushi as much as I do, how could you go wrong?) and to seek out things that are good for me. I drink my green juice and my carrot-beet juice every day and take the vitamins I need. I exercise to keep myself strong, because a ninja can’t become weak. Exercise is also a great way to relieve stress, and being relaxed makes me a better trader. I sleep as much as I can, though that’s something I’m still working on. I stay away from things that will hurt me, and I try not to stress out over little things.
Feeling good makes you feel like a winner, and if you feel like a winner, you’re much more likely to be one—both in trading and in life.
4. Live a spiritually healthy life.
What is spiritual health? I believe that it means being conscious—aware—of yourself and how you affect other people, of reality and what’s going on in the world. It’s being aware of what it is that we’re all striving for, everyone in his or her own way. Everyone is striving for happiness, in whatever form it might take in their personal vision. They’re trying to achieve harmony. To me, achieving happiness means getting back to the place of innocence and love we were born into, before the world started to hurt us and make us angry and cynical and afraid. For me, happiness means being free and able to accomplish what I want to accomplish without anyone saying I can’t because I’m not good enough.
My life’s been neither easy nor simple, and I still struggle with many things. You don’t have experiences like the ones I’ve had without needing to battle some old demons later on. But I’ve gotten a lot of guidance, and I’ve learned the value of spiritual health. I know that if I accept my life’s challenges head-on, stay aware, and accept responsibility for my actions, I can choose my destiny.
This one is really important to me. There were lots of times earlier in my life when I went hungry because I didn’t have enough money. At some point, I promised myself that I would never go hungry again, and that no matter what else I lacked, I would always eat well.
So now I do. I treat myself to sushi at least twice a week, and I eat other food I like that’s healthful and nutritious. I don’t eat red meat, and I don’t eat anything else I don’t want to eat.
Eating well is all part of feeling good and being in top form for whatever you’ve set out to do. It’s all part of playing to win.
6. Have fun.
If there’s no joy in what you’re doing, there’s no point in doing it. You won’t do it well, and life’s too short to spend doing something you hate. Do what you can to make trading fun. I put on my black ninja underwear, crank up some stellar tunes, and shout out loud when I make a good trade. If the trade’s really good, I’ll even do the Waxie jig. Now, that’s having fun, baby!
Don’t get so serious about trading that you can’t enjoy it. Chat and joke around with other traders, amuse yourself, and never take yourself too seriously. All this has definitely worked for me!
RULES OF THE GAME Make trading fun.
7. Feel comfortable about making money.
It’s funny: You’d think that after growing up without any money, successful people would be so happy and relieved that they’d just put the past behind them, forget being poor, and enjoy the gifts they were given. I can tell you from experience that that’s hard to do. The memories are always part of you.
That can be okay, though. My memories keep me grateful, honest, and diligent about making the playing field level, and they keep me trying to help others find the good things I’ve found.
Memories may be okay, but guilt isn’t. Some people find that winning makes them feel guilty, as though they don’t deserve success or are taking something from someone else.
This guilt is misplaced and harmful. Don’t let guilt ruin your success. It’s okay to succeed! Winning is a good, good thing. You’ll have worked hard for it, and you deserve it. It’s yours and is meant to be yours. If you use your success wisely, remember to give something back, and help others achieve their own success, there’s nothing to feel guilty about. Your success is a gift you can pass on to other people. If you use it for good, what is there to feel bad about?
8. Have a life outside trading.
Remember,trading is only a means to an end. The end is somewhere else in your life. Trading is supposed to make your life better, not take it over. Hang out with friends, take vacations, do things you enjoy, and care for your significant other and your loved ones. If you don’t have a significant other, maybe it’s time to get one!
RULES OF THE GAME Have a life outside trading.
I’ve been able to transform my life from a state of unhappiness and want into a completely different existence—as though I passed through a long, dark, horrific tunnel and finally came out into the daylight on the other side. Maybe you’ll relate to some of the things I’ve been through, and maybe the fact that I’ve managed to come out on the other side—and end up where I have—will inspire you to keep following your dreams. I hope so.
I was born in New York City. When I was four years old, right after my brother was born, my father left us. I haven’t seen him since, and he never gave my mother a cent in child support. My mother worked three jobs, received food stamps and welfare, and couldn’t afford day care, so at four I was in charge of looking after my baby brother while my mother worked and struggled to make ends meet. Things got so bad that one day my mother came home and found me covered with roaches. They were crawling over every part of my body. My mother, hysterical, rushed me to the hospital, and the doctor told her that if she hadn’t made it home right when she did, I would have suffocated and died. As it was, I had a rash for a month.
I grew up poor, and for a long time I had a massive chip on my shoulder. When I was a teenager, it seemed that my true destiny was to die on the streets. I came close many, many times. I had guns held to my head and was close to starvation more than once. I’ve also been lucky, though. I’m truly blessed to be alive, since that was none of my doing. I saw many less fortunate friends die along that old road.
I’m still kind of hard and tough, but it’s nothing compared to the way I was when I was younger. I’ve stopped feeling so angry about my upbringing now. I’ve been through uglier stuff than most people would go through in ten lifetimes and I wouldn’t wish any of it on anyone, but in spite of that, I don’t assume that my life has been worse than anyone else’s. That’s because I know that, whatever our color or background, we all have our demons and all suffer at times. We each travel a different road, but all of them have dark tunnels we have to pass through.
Except for my memories, my hard past is behind me now. I’ve emerged from my tunnel to sit in the sunshine, and the next tunnel I’m facing isn’t nearly as long or as terrible. It’s all about writing scripts and making movies, and believe me, I’ve got the material ready and waiting.
I’ll bet right now you’re working your way through a dark tunnel on your own road. You can’t wait to emerge into the light on the other side, and you’re looking for a way to move forward toward it. If you keep going, you’ll find the place where I am now, whether you do it by becoming a successful trader or by succeeding in another way. In the end, you’ll meet me on the other side.
I hope to see you there.
I sincerely wish you the best possible success in the market—and, even more importantly, in life! I hope my story and the knowledge I’ve gained during my education in trading will inspire you to follow your dreams and eventually achieve them, whether through trading—making your ka-chingos for keeps!—or by taking another path. There’s no single right way to find the Wowsa! in life; the only thing that matters is that you don’t give up on the quest. I hope that, no matter what the means (as long as they don’t involve using or hurting others), you will succeed in changing your life into whatever you want it to be.
WAXIE’S STREET SMARTS
Always follow your dreams. Don’t ever give up on them!
Best wishes, and the best of success in making your dreams come true!