Apr 20
Pride is the devil
Think it got a hold on me (and my coins)📉
Now I know I can’t relate to J Cole when he said that he charges “$2000 every word” but I can relate to him being a victim to pride in his work. Pride really is the devil that will rid you of success in your workplace and I can shamefully say that I have been caught lacking by this mouse trap at least a hundred times.
Trading
Trading is a TOUGH job and is extremely taxing on one’s emotions. It’s not a game of numbers or money or indicators on charts but a game of mental mastery and psychology. One needs to control their emotions through success and failure to maintain consistency and a logical approach to their work. It almost takes a robot-like approach to being consistent in the game because the slightest detachment from logic and reasoning will have you getting rekt and adding “just another $1000” to your trading pool until you’re eventually broke.
Traders create hypotheses based on their analysis and pair them against the market. Wins and losses in trading are huge events for most traders since they signify whether your hypotheses against the market were accurate or inaccurate. Most experienced or semi-experienced traders grow to a point of not (financially) needing to chase the “small” trade because it’s often not worth their time. However, mastering this very emotion of neglecting the pocket change can help you achieve consistency- a rare art in the world of trading.
Good traders make millions 💸
No, good traders make percentages.
I was once advising one of my peers with his trading strategy who was shocked to hear that I made 30% profit every month from trading at the time. 30% doesn’t sound like a whole lot now but it was consistent enough for 20 year old me to stack coins in my cold storage, re-invest into my trading pool and also pay myself a piece of the pie and do it all over again the next month… and the next… and the next…
Here’s a screenshot of a very old conversation I had with him back in 2015:
It’s so simple… you’ve most definitely heard of the 1% strategy but often as experienced traders, we ignore the small fish. What does that lead to?
That leads to a bunch of traders thinking they would all rather only catch a mammoth and have something to boast about than regularly catch buckets of dinks and still have fresh fish to take home every night. Does that make sense?
You see, pride comes into play when traders feel like they’re too good to open a trade that will yield a “mere” $10 or $100 or $1000 profit for themselves and as a result, end up missing out on thousands of dollars that could have been bagged if they weren't too proud to do the dirty work. Don’t get me wrong, it’s dumb to chase a negative ROI on your time and energy — I’m just talking about the times we can very easily make the trades but choose not to.
Guilty
I’ll be the first person to admit that I have often (and still do) let pride get in the way of me opening more trades and bagging those 0.5% or 1% profits on the daily. I often chase a big bag like a 20% profit per day strategy but that is not a sustainable way to trade in any market- even with leverage (at least not for me). A lot of my peers in the world of web3 also struggle with this same sense of feeling entitled to a big shot profit or not wanting to open an obvious and easy trade where they can make an almost guaranteed 1–2 percent profit… why? Idk, you decide-
I don’t know why we let pride get in the way of us and our gains… I guess that’s what separates me from a great trader- knowing when to bite. You see, as a trader you’re not rewarded for the time you spend in the market but the quality of decisions you make — because one good decision can be enough to run you 3 months of income but 3 months of time guarantees zero. Surprisingly for me, some of my best and most consistent gains came from a strategy I developed with some algorithmic bots that operated solely on the basis of taking 10% of my capital and spinning it 10–15 times a day making 1% per trade. So that left you with a 1%+ profit per day on 100% of your capital with you only ever risking 10% of your money at a time… Yeah I know I’m basically Einstein.
Playing the consistent and small-fish game protects your capital and helps you safely sweat your assets and move more money than you otherwise would if you were chasing a 20% pump. It also allows you to often use a small amount of capital and “flip” it around more frequently while the bulk of your capital stays safe on the side. Pride stays out the window because just like Jordan Belford, you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel and chasing “penny stocks” but in reality, those gains compound harder than anything you can “plan” to achieve. That way you create your own pumps.
Off the charts
I’m a big student of the works of the famous Canadian clinical psychologist- Dr. Jordan B. Peterson — who has been a regular host behind the play button on my podcast and Youtube apps. JBP comments on the importance of incremental improvement in a suite of his works throughout his career.
“Each improvement produces an increment in the probability of the next improvement”
JBP goes on to explaining how a small incremental improvement in your life on a daily basis seems insignificant but the compound effect that it has in 10 years is quite “mind-boggling”. You see, no matter how big a tree is, with enough swings of an axe in the right place, it will fall. But the challenge is to keep swinging and keep hitting the same spot as yesterday — or perhaps a different tree if you wanna take down an entire forest.
Consistency is the key to guaranteed success in life. If you can learn to show up to the field every day, chances of you becoming part of the starting squad exponentially increase. Why do you think Finance bros love compound interest so much? Coz it’s a silent killer. Compound interest doesn’t seem like it can do all that much damage but the entire medical insurance system, personal insurance companies, retirement funds, car repayments, mortgages and all other financing-related business models are all centred around the concept of compound growth. They give you a pie then charge you for the flour and salt and meat in ten fold on regular intervals until you end up paying an equivalent of 4.7 pies in 2 years.
Crypto is no different. You can apply the incremental improvement theory in every aspect of your life (and you should) because it will yield a result that you cannot achieve out of luck or chance. University, physical fitness, building a house, climbing a mountain — it all requires a brick-by-brick approach because the only short-cut to success is hard work. 1% a day is not a pump and dump but rather made up of very small 0.2%s a day… or 0.005%s an hour or… you get the idea.
You gotta play the humble game and do the dirty work — because what seems like “clean” work is not actually better but only better looking. There is similar effort required in the big leagues as well. You won’t know the difference till you make it to the other side (I’m not there yet but have been told).
I’m actively working on deleting all pride from my work and I guess that comes with experience and learning to master your emotions. If a seasoned ball player like J Cole can be a victim to pride with the infinite wisdom that he possesses, then it’s clear that Cryptoshamsi still has a veeerrryyyy long way to go. Luckily unlike trading, there’s never been pride involved when I’m learning so I’ll see you when I get to the other side soon.
In the interim, stack that 1%.
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