The Goal of Trading : Money or Skill

As a trader, if all you want to do is make money, then you probably won't make money. You'll fail. How, then, do you make money? What should your goal be? I will answer based on my own experience.

I was channel-flipping one day and found a TV documentary on a French free solo climber. He had been free climbing for decades. He was an "old" guy at the time the scenes were shot. I think he was in his late forties, early fifties. He climbed in a part of France known for its spectacular, bizarre cliff formations. What struck me were his skill, focus...age ...and unique outlook on "winning".

According to Wikipedia, free solo climbing is an extreme sport that involves ascending a cliff face without ropes or gear, other than your hands, feet, chalk and special shoes. As I understand this passion, it evolved as a mental challenge over a physical one. Your body needs to be in good shape. Your mind needs to be in better shape. The challenge is about skill, focus and achievement within the context of extreme risk: If you fail, you can die.

You climb familiar routes rather than unfamiliar routes. You are exploring your own internal mental world rather than the external physical world. Your skill and a route’s familiarity are safety factors. Risk factors are represented well enough. The documentary’s storyline showed how this veteran upset the younger climbers.

The younger climbers would scamper up a cliff face, vault over the uppermost edge and celebrate. The "old" climber would get within inches of the uppermost edge, then climb back down. For him, his skill and focus were his achievement: His goal. So, here he was, as "old" as he was, still climbing. The younger ones seemed shaken, wondering when the cliffs would become too hard, mentally or otherwise, for them to climb.

I know what it is to win as a trader. The climb feels good and, yet, can feel hollow. Celebrating can set me up to lose. I can become overconfident and lazy. I can get sloppy and hit a wall. Result: My worst trading days have repeatedly followed my best.

I acknowledge that solo climber, in part, for showing me how to win without feeling hollow. That solo climber faced his wall. Long distance runners talk about the same wall: A mental and physical barrier that can block them from going farther. A trader can talk about a wall: A dollar level that he or she somehow cannot move past.

As a trader, maybe the "trick" is not to think about the money. Do not celebrate a "win". Think about your skill. Just think about trading well. Trade to achieve the goal of trading well. The money will come.

///// Translate from : What Is the Goal of Trading? By Richard L. Muehlberg////
Posted : February 15, 2008. Richard L. Muehlberg (richardmue@yahoo.com) is full-time trader and online publisher. His famous site : www.DayTradingWithLinesInTheSky.com