Skip to main content

The Deepest Motivation Fueling Trading Success

Consider the above quote.

Note that it is *not* saying that the future belongs to those who believe in their dreams.  Rather, the future belongs to those who tap into the beauty of their dreams.

When something is beautiful, we are inspired by it; we're raised to a new level of awareness and feeling.  I recall seeing breathtaking icescapes on a boat trip through the Alaskan glacier region; I think of marveling at the beauty of my child as a baby; I love immersing myself in the beauty of music.  Beauty is transformative, taking the normal and making it extraordinary.

Dreams without beauty are tasks.  They lose their power to motivate.  Think of procrastinators:  they may very well have dreams, but there is no beauty.  Adding something to a to-do list is the surest sign that the activity lacks beauty.  No one needs a calendar reminder to ogle their baby, gaze at an icescape, or enjoy a finely crafted work of music.  

A great way to kill the soul is to start the day with chores--the knocking of items off a to-do list.  When we start a day without beauty, we live the day without inspiration.  And then we wonder why we don't generate brilliant ideas or see beneath the surface of market activity.  Perception and reasoning become rote when we no longer tap into the beauty of our dreams.

A wise rabbi pointed out to me that observant Jews recite a prayer called the Shema twice daily: in the morning and evening.  But the prayer is no mere recitation; it is meant to be a deeply felt emotional connection to the divine.  In order to achieve that deeply felt state, there are warm-up prayers, as it were, that evoke inspirational imagery.  The deep appreciation of beauty cannot be turned on and off like a light switch.  It needs to be cultivated, evoked.

So it is in many faiths.  We fast before a major religious event; we hear music and sing at a wedding ceremony.  We evoke beauty, because that is what connects us to the power of our deepest beliefs and aspirations.

We often will start a day with physical exercise, recognizing that energizing the body can help energize our day.  Rarely, however, will we perform emotional exercise and cultivate the states in which we have greatest drive and resilience.  It's great to set goals and organize our day.  Unless we connect to the beauty of our dreams, however, we'll be like cars operating on half its engine cylinders.  There's a world of difference between setting goals in a journal and immersing ourselves in the beauty of our dreams.

Further Reading:  Achieving Our Trading Dreams
.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Women and children overboard

It's the  Catch-22  of clinical trials: to protect pregnant women and children from the risks of untested drugs....we don't test drugs adequately for them. In the last few decades , we've been more concerned about the harms of research than of inadequately tested treatments for everyone, in fact. But for "vulnerable populations,"  like pregnant women and children, the default was to exclude them. And just in case any women might be, or might become, pregnant, it was often easier just to exclude us all from trials. It got so bad, that by the late 1990s, the FDA realized regulations and more for pregnant women - and women generally - had to change. The NIH (National Institutes of Health) took action too. And so few drugs had enough safety and efficacy information for children that, even in official circles, children were being called "therapeutic orphans."  Action began on that, too. There is still a long way to go. But this month there was a sign that ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Benefits Of Healthy eating Turmeric every day for the body

One teaspoon of turmeric a day to prevent inflammation, accumulation of toxins, pain, and the outbreak of cancer.  Yes, turmeric has been known since 2.5 centuries ago in India, as a plant anti-inflammatory / inflammatory, anti-bacterial, and also have a good detox properties, now proven to prevent Alzheimer's disease and cancer. Turmeric prevents inflammation:  For people who
Post a Comment
Read more

Austerity-A Fancy Word for Destitute.

The reason for this post is not for the folks who have been caught in the first wave of personal economic hard reality, but the next wave. Regardless of the optimism espoused by grinning leaders and sycophant press, we are entering the final stage of global economic collapse. It began in 2008 and was forestalled for five years with fudge putty, but the weight of global indebtedness cannot be propped any longer and the final crunch is imminent. Austerity measures herald the final throes.  Indications of coming austerity.   Austerity measures are the final last ditch effort, futile or not! Back in the day many of us old-timers went through periods of "hard-times". In retrospect I realize there is no comparison to yesteryear hard times and today's version. Back then, expectations were never very high for the working class, there were no sophisticated systems or conveniences anyway. In fact the difference between being "set" or not was about having treats or not. Si...
Post a Comment
Read more