[00:00:00] Okay, today I want to talk about something that I picked up from my Jiu-Jitsu teacher.
[00:00:06] I was taking a private lesson with my wife and he said something kind of off the cuff
[00:00:12] and I thought it was like a really deep concept that I didn't really...I don't know if
[00:00:17] he meant it that way but it kind of filtered into a lot of the things that we do in
[00:00:20] our lives but especially trading.
[00:00:22] He was saying that...so at first in my school when you start doing Jiu-Jitsu you
[00:00:27] have to do like instructional classes so you just learn the techniques and you kind of
[00:00:31] build gentle with each other and you don't actually...you're not actually wrestling
[00:00:33] around just to be safe because it's kind of some weird technical stuff and it takes
[00:00:37] a while.
[00:00:39] And then after you get what's called the stripe, so I don't know, three months,
[00:00:43] six months depending on how often you go, you can start going to the classes
[00:00:47] where you're basically getting your ass kicked by people who know what they're
[00:00:50] doing and figuring out what to do and how to use that instruction and learn that
[00:00:54] way.
[00:00:55] So he made the point that because we have two little kids and don't get to go as
[00:01:01] much as I want and I mentioned in the beginning I was getting so sore when I
[00:01:05] was going because I would only go and do those wrestling classes, the sparring
[00:01:08] classes like once a week.
[00:01:10] I'm doing them a little bit more now and he's like well the thing is when
[00:01:13] you go once a week it's got to be special and I'm like what do you mean?
[00:01:17] He's like well you're only going once a week some people are going four
[00:01:20] so when you go it's special to you which your ego gets involved if
[00:01:24] you want it to or not because you want to do well, you maybe subconsciously don't
[00:01:30] want to lose, you want to get a great workout, all these things are
[00:01:34] happening that are different than focusing on the process of getting
[00:01:36] better and just happy to be there kind of a thing because it's special.
[00:01:41] And he's like if you go a lot more it becomes less special and when it's
[00:01:44] less special you start focusing on the process that's gonna make you
[00:01:48] better and then everything else just doesn't matter it's just like oh
[00:01:50] whatever I lost it's no big deal I gotta go on to the next one on to
[00:01:53] the next one just getting more reps basically and I think you can guess
[00:01:58] where I'm gonna go with this but it's like when you're trading maybe you're
[00:02:01] a swing trader and you have a system and your work you have a side job or
[00:02:04] a full-time job and trading is your side thing and you know if you're
[00:02:09] methodically doing a core system of three days a week from these hours
[00:02:14] you can you can work with that that works but if you all of a sudden can
[00:02:17] just trade every random Friday it's special it's just like he said now
[00:02:21] it's special so maybe I hold the loser maybe I got to make money today maybe
[00:02:26] even it's not necessarily conscious it could be it's just buried in there it's
[00:02:30] the same principle of like oh I'm gonna trade in the morning and then I'm
[00:02:33] gonna meet my friend for lunch or have a dentist deployment what you're
[00:02:35] actually saying is I'm not gonna be patient I'm just gonna make some
[00:02:38] money and leave well that's not what you do when you're doing well you
[00:02:42] wait for things you wait for opportunity and you might just be
[00:02:44] bored and doing nothing and that's that's a good place to be
[00:02:46] opportunity will find you when you're in that ready state of not
[00:02:50] caring if it comes but when you want it to come it doesn't work so well I think
[00:02:54] this goes for everything like business ideas relationships it's just everything
[00:02:58] but so on this whole idea of it being special again think about like if
[00:03:04] you're trading during the day and then maybe you do some swing trades or
[00:03:07] position trades which are special you don't do them that often well we all
[00:03:11] know how that can be if you don't have a system an organized system of
[00:03:14] how to do it and when they're gonna show up and what you're gonna do
[00:03:16] or process around it they become special and when they become special I'm
[00:03:20] not trying to fit everything to this special idea but I think it's a really
[00:03:23] good idea because it changes your mentality it's not it's no longer oh
[00:03:26] I have a thousand reps I'm gonna do something that is gonna work over a
[00:03:29] thousand reps and that's a consistent approach that's gonna make me money
[00:03:32] it's like no I'm I might only have eight or nine reps of this so you
[00:03:36] know it's unique pardon me I think I'm at this easier thanks for
[00:03:42] sitting through this very professional podcast where I have shitty sound
[00:03:46] quality and sneezing and cars coming by but back to the the special thing it's
[00:03:52] just it hit me at so many different levels where I can see this
[00:03:57] happening in my life and I'm just thinking about all the time now my
[00:04:00] car well this is you know where's my ego gonna get out of control
[00:04:04] where am I at risk to lose more money where where are these things
[00:04:07] gonna creep up because they're kind of one-offs whenever it's a one-off
[00:04:09] now you can have good one-offs too but it's just understanding that you're in
[00:04:14] that risk area of something maybe not going the way that you would like it
[00:04:18] to go because you're not consistently working on it and I love that so now
[00:04:23] when I'm going and I don't get to go enough I remember what he said and
[00:04:26] I'm really thinking about it but maybe reflect on that a little bit in
[00:04:30] your trading and whatever else you're doing and see if that kind of
[00:04:33] hits home because it definitely did for me the other thing is just update
[00:04:38] what I'm doing mostly what I'm doing is still continuing to use the just to get
[00:04:45] into these AI tools every day I have a bunch of newsletters coming in of
[00:04:48] looking at the new tools that come out and at this point it's getting like
[00:04:52] it's repeats of things and it's exhaustive of there's a new tool
[00:04:56] every day for something to automate or make easier and the cat's out of
[00:05:01] the bag a little bit where normal people can code and things like that
[00:05:04] but it all goes back to if you have somewhere to target that intelligence
[00:05:09] then you're in business if you don't then it's like oh this is cool but I
[00:05:13] don't know what the hell to do with it which is oftentimes what I think
[00:05:16] and a lot of people think but I think when you're working on something
[00:05:20] specific there's a lot of idea generation you can get and a lot of
[00:05:24] things you can break through so right now I'm one of them is I have a
[00:05:28] short-term feature system I'm working on and I'm having it code
[00:05:31] things and fix little tweaks in the code and I keep trying different
[00:05:35] timeframes different ideas of that system and then the other thing I'm
[00:05:39] doing is more of a bigger picture I do a lot of discretionary trades not a
[00:05:44] lot but you know I do some discretionary trades where I look at
[00:05:48] sentiment and you know weekly charts when I'm aware of kind of when things
[00:05:53] are very beat up and I like to know when people have been interested maybe
[00:05:59] they become less interested as it gets exhausted and then maybe the new trend
[00:06:02] starts again so right now some examples would be China stocks solar stocks and
[00:06:07] I'm not in any of them right now because I don't everyone's talking about
[00:06:10] China stocks being cheap for a while so I like it when people get negative
[00:06:14] or they they don't want to talk about it anymore and then the rally
[00:06:17] starts and no one wants to pay attention to the rally and then it's
[00:06:19] probably time to join the rally but I like to look at that stuff and
[00:06:24] that is a I'm thinking of where else I'm looking right now solar China names
[00:06:30] done anything you neither one of them commodities I mean everyone knows what
[00:06:34] gold's been doing and I'm watching commodities for longer larger breakout
[00:06:39] over a bigger period so that's another one I'm looking at which might
[00:06:42] be a little closer but with these trades it's weeks to months for the
[00:06:46] holding periods and I like to get in with longer like when the price
[00:06:50] action of the whole group starts getting better but then maybe the the news and
[00:06:55] the sentiment is not that good and people are ignoring the price action so
[00:06:59] I'm trying to build some tools to kind of track the sentiment on a lot of
[00:07:03] different levels comments on message boards looking at reddit and looking
[00:07:09] at because reddits been just picking up over the years with good material
[00:07:13] for this stuff seeking alpha is hard because you don't get a lot of you
[00:07:16] can't really do much with that stuff or just read it manually but Yahoo stock
[00:07:21] boards used to be good I'm just digging around trying to find like the
[00:07:23] right mix of how to do this but and then I'm making a little dashboard of
[00:07:27] the things I'm interested in and then when things kind of take my attention
[00:07:31] I zoom in so it's a little bit of a process I'm developing for that so I
[00:07:35] have two different things and I'm using the AI stuff to kind of augment
[00:07:38] what I'm doing so that's kind of how I'm doing it right now and it
[00:07:41] could change depending on I'm always changing I was thinking about how what
[00:07:46] I do now is very different than what I've done five years ago and ten years
[00:07:49] ago it's just totally changed but still like having market knowledge and going
[00:07:53] through drawdowns and cycles I mean I remember when I first learned crypto
[00:07:58] and I was multiple exchanges and you're arbitraging and no one knew
[00:08:02] what to do how to move it around and you're hoping you're waiting 10
[00:08:05] minutes for your Bitcoin to move and you're hoping it doesn't disappear on
[00:08:07] you and all that kind of stuff so I mean it's it's always like that
[00:08:11] where things things change and they stay the same all at once but as I kind of
[00:08:17] get older and do this longer and I have made money a lot of money doing it and
[00:08:21] relative to what I had when I was 20 now that in my early 40s I have to
[00:08:25] figure out how to manage that money so some of it I index and just do
[00:08:30] boring stuff and some of it I I'm trying to trade and develop systems
[00:08:33] and strategies for kind of the job that I didn't pick but I gave myself
[00:08:37] by having success in the shorter-term stuff because the shorter-term stuff now
[00:08:42] is not as it's a lot harder than it was when I was doing it it's there's
[00:08:45] days where it's good but there's more it's become so automated that you have
[00:08:49] to look at it I believe you have to take more of a structured approach and
[00:08:52] kind of have rules and things that you're consistent with as opposed to
[00:08:55] just like all right let's go in there today and see what's gonna
[00:08:57] happen if it's busy maybe I'll find something to do and that's that
[00:09:02] worked in the past more the shooting from the hip it doesn't work quite
[00:09:05] as much and it may be on a Fed day or something or unemployment but that pat
[00:09:12] maybe during kovat that could be useful it's always going to be useful at some
[00:09:15] point but not as much as it used to be everything is tightening up and
[00:09:18] becoming and everyone knows this it's not a surprise but so the other thing
[00:09:22] is you know when you have a bigger time frame you do well when
[00:09:24] your trades last longer if you're in the direction of bigger trends they do
[00:09:27] well so there's a bias for markets to go up over time because they're
[00:09:31] printing money and and so you just this is simple things that everyone
[00:09:34] knows but developing systems and strategies in accordance with these
[00:09:37] things is makes it easier so I've I mean this is so shockingly simple but for a
[00:09:44] long time I had I had a lot of success in some of the big bear market
[00:09:48] years in 2008 2011 I believe it was 2016 and 2012 maybe I can't remember
[00:09:55] but 2018 at the end of the year was a good period for me and a lot of
[00:10:01] that was that condition my brain in my personal mind to like down moves and to
[00:10:07] look for that more but it doesn't mean that's the smartest way to be all the
[00:10:10] time it just happened to be that I had some success in it so I kind of have
[00:10:13] to know that and catch a guard against that when I'm doing things and
[00:10:17] we haven't had a lot of that lately and we had some of it in 2022
[00:10:20] but usually it's not like that it's just like that in short little bursts
[00:10:24] and they usually happen fast and then they're over so it's it's a
[00:10:28] game but I think when you learn something you you never lose it so the
[00:10:34] mentor I had who was the owner of the company that I traded with in Chicago
[00:10:37] had always said you know when you learn to get really good at determining
[00:10:40] what to break out to buy and which ones give you a failure or you learn
[00:10:43] to figure out like if you're in a bear market or you're kind of a
[00:10:47] momentum trader for a while and then you learn to handle chappy markets
[00:10:50] aren't as conducive to that when you learn one of those skill sets
[00:10:55] you don't lose it you just have to learn when to apply it so it's kind of like
[00:10:58] you're an athlete who has to play an opponent in whatever sport and you have
[00:11:01] to adapt the opponent so you never you're never wasting your time when
[00:11:05] you learn these new skills but I think I'm I think getting really good at
[00:11:11] something is very important and that carries back over to the jiu-jitsu
[00:11:14] at the lower levels especially you get really good at something and you
[00:11:18] win and you win tournaments because you're very strong and tennis was the
[00:11:21] same way when I play a lot of tennis someone with a really good
[00:11:23] forehand was hard to beat at the lower levels even at medium levels then when
[00:11:28] you get up to like college and pro it's very hard to win with one weapon but
[00:11:32] still like strengths are strengths I think maximizing a system and a
[00:11:36] strength of your personality is super valuable so with all this AI stuff in
[00:11:40] the changing markets it's like okay well what's what's Brad gonna do some
[00:11:45] of the things that he was good at maybe didn't don't work as well
[00:11:47] anymore so but one thing I have done well is stay curious and quickly
[00:11:52] learn new things and that's kind of the approach that I'm taking where a lot of
[00:11:56] my biggest runs I've said this before have come out of dark periods when I
[00:11:59] didn't know what I was gonna do or had a big drawdown and I kind of felt
[00:12:02] lost how am I gonna how am I gonna figure this out and it's just staying
[00:12:08] curious when in getting up and sometimes doing nothing for a while
[00:12:11] right clearing your head but then what's going on and you know crypto
[00:12:15] started and then AI started and it's like okay get in the middle of it
[00:12:18] and figure it out start playing with things and start making
[00:12:21] observations about markets like how are they moving differently are they moving
[00:12:25] you know times of day or dates or percentages off the high all these
[00:12:28] different things you can look at now that machines can look at right so it's
[00:12:32] how does a machine think and how can you think like a machine and then what
[00:12:35] happens when machines think the same way that I don't work altogether is
[00:12:38] that a thing and there's a lot of stuff I mean there's we have more
[00:12:43] options flows than ever before right now so that changes the market
[00:12:46] structure we have more people trading I think that ever before from some of
[00:12:51] the stats I've seen so it's an exciting time but sometimes it's when you don't
[00:12:57] know how to find your way in the excitement it can be kind of difficult
[00:13:00] but I just keep keep thinking that this is it's happening faster than it
[00:13:05] ever happened before so that skill of being able to just stick with it and
[00:13:09] keep trying things has never been more important than it is now and when
[00:13:14] I started it didn't change as fast it maybe took years I don't know a
[00:13:18] couple years usually two three years maybe six months sometimes but things now
[00:13:23] change so quickly and the market is rarely the same from one year to the
[00:13:27] next and that's what technology like the structure of the market even I'm
[00:13:31] talking about where things are quickly moving around and changing because
[00:13:35] people are adapting their studying data and they have tools to study
[00:13:38] things and they couldn't study before so but sometimes rising above
[00:13:42] that with simplicity is a very valuable tool just thinking a little
[00:13:44] bit bigger picture so I think a lot of people are probably I'm doing some
[00:13:48] of that too are moving to a little bigger picture type thought process
[00:13:51] because getting in the weeds is very dangerous now it's expensive
[00:13:54] commission wise and you know he had to be co-located and stops get run and
[00:14:00] you have to really think about you have to really be smart about if you
[00:14:03] want to get in where's everyone else getting in and where are they
[00:14:05] going to be wrong maybe that's where I buy and I just think structure
[00:14:10] repeating myself because I think it's important but just structures and
[00:14:13] systems of doing things like and then you can you can address when things
[00:14:18] don't work and but when you're waiting it you can't and the reason I'm talking
[00:14:22] to myself is because I spent a lot of my success was based on being good at
[00:14:28] winging it when I needed to it's like oh it's busy today there's a lot
[00:14:31] going on that no one expected and I was able to do well like jumping
[00:14:34] into that that that chaos but a lot of times now it's not like that so
[00:14:39] Peter that skill is there but I mean you want to be a lion hunter or
[00:14:45] you know whatever you're hunting and everyone's going to the grocery store
[00:14:49] you don't need to do it anymore so it's it's it's changing with the times
[00:14:52] and adapting so anyways a lot of rambling in here sorry about that but
[00:14:57] that's kind of where I'm at right now