Skip to main content

Why Traders Lack Creativity

So much of creativity is the ability and willingness to look and move in a direction different from the well-worn path.  After I wrote the most recent post on emotional creativity, I had the honor of speaking with Dr. James Averill who pioneered research in the area.  He made a very important point.  Much of the way the business world is structured (and I believe this includes the trading world) does not lend itself to emotional creativity.  If anything, emotions are dampened, not explored:  no one really focuses on identifying and cultivating unique emotional responses to daily challenges.

I recall speaking with a successful trader who told me that he was excited about the opportunity in the marketplace.  I responded by saying that he was the first person I'd spoken with to tell me that.  Everyone else was lamenting the lack of opportunity in markets.  He said, "That's right.  I've always made my money going against the consensus!"  That was shortly before the events of Brexit.  That trader was able to capitalize on opportunity because he not only saw the world differently, but experienced it differently.

Another skilled trader I know claims that his idea generation is aided by yoga exercises.  He believes yoga gets him into states where he sees the world more clearly.  This is in line with research that identifies a physical dimension to creativity.  In accessing different physical states, we create opportunities to see and experience the world differently.  

If I wanted to create an environment in which creativity was to be minimized, I would have people sitting or standing at desks, relatively stationary and rarely shifting their physical activity.  I would encourage little talking and insist that such talk be about the external world, not about internal experience.  I would encourage people to share trades and focus on the same research, rather than generate their own views.  That is the environment that typifies so many trading floors:  there is little in the structure to encourage and cultivate cognitive, emotional, and physical creativity.

A truly creative trader would create a radically different trading environment and a radically different set of routines for approaching the trading process.  Turning creativity into a routine rather than become prisoner to one's routines: that is a promising direction for development as a trader.

Further Reading:  Trading Psychology for the Experienced Trader
.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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

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

Not a word was spoken (but many were learned)

Video is often used in the EFL classroom for listening comprehension activities, facilitating discussions and, of course, language work. But how can you exploit silent films without any language in them? Since developing learners' linguistic resources should be our primary goal (well, at least the blogger behind the blog thinks so), here are four suggestions on how language (grammar and vocabulary) can be generated from silent clips. Split-viewing Split-viewing is an information gap activity where the class is split into groups with one group facing the screen and the other with their back to the screen. The ones facing the screen than report on what they have seen - this can be done WHILE as well as AFTER they watch. Alternatively, students who are not watching (the ones sitting with their backs to the screen) can be send out of the classroom and come up with a list of the questions to ask the 'watching group'. This works particularly well with action or crime scenes with
Post a Comment
Read more