Keeping Perspectives

Success Begins with Humility, Failure Begins with Greed

When one sets out to become a trader, the goal is most often to GET RICH! This is the appeal made sales organizations: You can become a millionaire; You can be wealthy; I can make you rich. What is pathetic is that this line of thinking can get to us and our greed. This is the primary weakness of a STOCK TRADER and it is what will ruin his judgment and any profits he hopes to make.

The scenario is often like this: Man gets inheritance; man sees advertisement that you can become a millionaire by investing into penny stocks; man pays big money to go through stock trading course; man continues to pay monthly for services provided to the man by the stock trading course; man is ready to make millions; man loses large sum of money because he thinks trading is easy; to regain his losses, man takes larger risks, and he loses even more money; man thinks he has had a stream of bad luck and he is just about ready to have a "turn-a-round", so man LEVERAGES (borrows money from brokerage) his stock picks because his "ship is going to come-in"; man loses his inheritance and owes thousands to debtors, he blames wall street, the banks, and the politicians, when the real problem was the GREED deep in his character.

I have heard this many times: When I didn't need money each month, I did well in the stock market; but when I retired and needed money each month, my trading fell to pieces.

The key factor to being a successful trader is not the market, it is the man.

PRIDE

There is something novel about being independent, of not having anyone to tell you what to do, of choosing when to come to work, or of not having someone who is looking over your shoulder. The idea that you can get up late in the morning, make two or three casual trades, and spend the remainder of the week living off the thousands you made, seems to be the pinnacle of success to many. Yet, all these ideas are child-like, naive, and unrealistic. Your PRIDE drives you to think that this possible, and when pride is coupled with greed, it will devastate your finances.

SEEKING THE HOLY GRAIL

Only a knight with a pure heart could touch the Holy Grail, all others would be destroyed by it. Jesse Livermore, perhaps one of the greatest traders who ever lived, committed suicide, while over 5 million dollars remained in his trusts. (a lot of money in 1940)

The game of speculation is the most uniformly fascinating game in the world. But it is not a game for the stupid, the mentally lazy, the person of inferior emotional balance, or the get-rich-quick adventurer. They will die poor.
—Jesse Livermore, How To Trade In Stocks

You can find the Holy Grail, but something very fundamental must first change in you. Without a change in your character, you will consistently sabotage your investments. So I want to give to you some key ideas that may help you.

FIRST

All laws are built upon HIGHER LAWS. For instance, obeying the speed limit is built upon the higher law of protecting your fellowman. HIGHER LAWS are not what men declare as law because as King, you could make a law that everyone give you all their wealth. Because of your greed, you will have been the richest man in your kingdom, but everyone will hate you. You law permits you to remain incredibly wealthy, but at the suffering of your people. One day, they will say, "Down with the King and his law." and they will rush into the palace killing the King and taking back all they originally possessed. The King's law, then, is not HIGHER LAW.

Here is HIGHER LAW. "Love your neighbor as yourself." or "Do to others, what you would want done to yourself." Who benefits from these higher laws? Who is the recipient of the blessing from these HIGHER LAWS?

The LAW OF ME FIRST, must be replaced by HIGHER LAW. It matters not that you think HIGHER LAW encroaches on your LAW OF ME FIRST.  The LAW OF ME FIRST will always result in the killing of the King and the taking back of possessions, whereas; the HIGHER LAW will always endure and prosper because the object of the law is universal.

I believe that the BIBLE contains God's HIGHER LAW and that Christ is the fulfilment of that Law. By understanding God's HIGHER LAW, I can develop character that will keep me safe as I trade and as I live my life.

SECOND

People are more important than money. Your wife, children, even friends, are more important than anything you will ever possess or gain monetarily.

Though considered one of the world's best traders, Jesse Livermore consumed millions (billions in today's money) and went through three wives. After losing his first stake in the stock market, he asked his first wife to pawn her substantial jewelry collection, in order to give him a new stake to trade in stock market; she refused, he divorced her. His second wife, a Ziegfield Follies dancer who was 18 years of age, while he a 41 year old, also ended in divorce. (remember what I said about HIGHER LAW) Jesse finally married a woman, whose previous four husbands had committed suicide. Jesse later escaped this marriage by suicide and most tragic, his son, Jesse Jr, committed suicide in 1976 and his grandson, Jesse III, committed suicide in 2006. (not confirmed)

Wealth can bring great misery to relationships, especially where you are exerting the LAW OF ME FIRST. By giving less value to money and more value to people, you exert God's HIGHER LAW of loving others and putting others before yourself. This teaches you patience, sensitivity, and the discipline of your own emotions and urges, that directly express themselves when you begin trading stocks.

THIRD

The purpose of trading is not to amass great wealth.The purpose is simply to meet your needs. There is a falseness in human perception and by manipulating a few factors, we can appear to be something we are not.

If I visited your office in a $2,000 suit, a Rolex watch, an alligator brief case, exiting from my Mercedes, I could give you the perception that I am smart, wealthy, and someone you'd want to work with. Listen, these are just perceptions and are not based on any real facts.

If I visited your office in casual pants and a knit shirt, wearing a Timex watch and driving a Chevy Spark, you'd say, "Who is this? He doesn't know anything! Find me a real professional!" Your perception could be wrong.

Sales people use these tricks to rob you of your wealth. Only after they have taken your wealth do you realize why they are wearing the Rolex and driving the Mercedes.

It is FALSEHOOD and LIES that steal your admiration. In the end, FALSEHOOD and LIES will steal your money. In the Bible, Proverbs 30:8-9 says: "Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread.  Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, 'Who is the LORD?' Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God."

We are susceptible to FALSEHOOD and LIES because we are false and lie. When we cultivate honesty, realness, and truth in our life, we become less susceptible to falsehood and lies. So when someone takes on the appearance of wealth, then tells you for a FEE he will make you wealthy like him, you will not be fooled. You will recognize the falsehood and lies in others, when you finally develop the skill to recognize falsehood and lies in yourself.

Be satisfied with a REASONABLE RETURN and don't take UNREASONABLE RISKS. If you are in a hurry for wealth, your unreasonable risks will rob you. If you are PATIENT and wait for a REASONABLE RETURN, you will get the reasonable return and more.

The moral of Aladin's Lamp or Ali Baba's Cave of  Treasure is one of greed. Rubbing the lamp too much or saying: "Open sesame!" too often will leave you the victim instead of the victor. Enjoy increases in your portfolio, but never let the increase in your portfolio become your obsession.

Be satisfied with what you have, the pursuit of more and more will leave you with less and less.